Tyranny of the Minority: Why American Democracy Reached the Breaking Point

This is a review I posted about 2 years ago on Goodreads and it seems relevant to current events,

It is by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt whose earlier book “How Democracies Die” I had reviewed about 4 years ago. They are professors of government at Harvard University. They like many other Americans were shocked by the violent insurrection of January 6, 2020.

Coups and violent insurrections happen in some democracies but most of us thought they would not happen here. This book is an attempt to figure out why and how it happened. And, of course, how we can prevented it from happening again.

The answer is complicated and so the authors discuss many things. I think the information was presented well and explained in a way that was easy to follow.

For example, the United States democracy can be usefully compared to other democracies to see how other have address similar problems. To prevent majorities in large states from imposing rules that benefit them at the expense of small states, the founders decided to give all states an equal number of Senators in the Constitution.

This apparent equality leads to situation where California with 39 million residents and Wyoming with less than 600 thousand residents are equally represented in the Senate. To make matters worse the Senate has a filibuster rule where a minority of 41 of 100 Senators can block a bill. So the minority of Senators, often representing a very small percentage of the population can defeat a bill favored by a majority of Senators and a much larger majority of citizens.

The authors call such situations tyranny of the minority or anti-majoritarian institutions.

The Electoral College is another problematic institution. In recent years, it has often resulted in the candidate with fewer votes of the citizens winning the Presidency by winning the most electors.

The authors closed “How Democracies Die” like this:
“Democracy is a shared enterprise. Its fate depends on all of us.”

The authors closed their introduction to “Tyranny of the Minority” like this:
“Our institutions will not save our democracy. We will have to save it ourselves.”

I highly recommend this book. It was interesting, thought provoking, and well written. Importantly, it leads to a better understanding of our government. This understanding is an important step in saving the democratic institutions of our government and attempting to reform those less democratic parts.

Benedict Arnold

I am reading a book by Jack Kelley now and his name sounded familiar so I looked through my old book reviews, found this and thought I would add it here.

Benedict Arnold was a hero and General in the American Revolution before he became a traitor late in the war. Why did he do this? Most of us may know little but his treason. This book fills in all those details of what came before the treason and discusses possible reasons why he became a traitor. The full title is God Save Benedict Arnold: The True Story of America’s Most Hated Man.

Jack Kelly (https://www.amazon.com/stores/Jack-Kelly/author/B001HP8MGQ) has written a wonderful book that will educate and thrill us as we learn about this complicated American hero and traitor.

I thank both Netgalley (https://www.netgalley.com) and St. Martin’s Press (https://us.macmillan.com/stmartinspress/) for the chance to read this before publication. I highly recommend God Save Benedict Arnold to anyone with an interest in the American Revolution.

Science Under Siege by Michael E. Mann and Peter J. Hotez

I am a retired scientist and in my retirement I am spending a good bit of time on my family history. So I thought it a least somewhat relevant to combine these 2 interests into my review of “Science Under Siege: How to Fight the Five Most Powerful Forces that Threaten Our World”.

Between 1885 and 1895, my great grandparents had 8 children. Two made it to adulthood. Perhaps a bit worse than many families but the death a child was not uncommon then. It is rare now.

Another way to look at progress in this area is the change in average life expectancy. It was around 47 in 1900, 68 in 1950 and 77 in 2000.

Much of the improvement in both examples is due to science. Science is also important in many way but I thought child mortality and life expectancy might be of interest.

For those with an economic interest. The consulting firm McKinsey estimates that recent advances in biology could have a “direct economic impact of up to $4 trillion a year”. (https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/life-sciences/our-insights/the-bio-revolution-innovations-transforming-economies-societies-and-our-lives)

Michael Mann and Peter Hotez are well qualified to write this book. Both are distinguished scientists and both have been targets of those attacking science. These attacks take many forms distortion and fabrication concerning their work and motivations, death threats, and physical confrontations.

Both are also leaders in very important fields – Dr. Mann in the understating of climate change; Dr Hotez is a vaccine scientist concerned with disease prevention and public health. Both are very important field for the future of humanity. Yet there is significant opposition to scientific research in these and other areas.

The authors write about their experiences and that of other scientists. In addition they write extensively about the causes of this anti-science siege. Its causes and potential solutions. The book is important reading for our time.