We aren't an authoritarian country, but after the Trump presidency, the 2020 elections, and ongoing attacks on fair voting, it seems that our democracy is pretty low-quality. Across the world, we've seen that presidents can gradually weaken a democracy, undermining the legitimacy of elections, opponents, and checks on their power.

In this episode, I discuss four dangerous attitudes and trends, and how they enable the subversion of democracy: political polarization, nationalism, white (majority) identity politics, and cynicism. I use examples from the Trump presidency to illustrate these effects, and provide some thoughts on how we can watch out for the health of our institutions going forward.