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Fading Foundations
A Cautionary Tale About How Democracies Crumble
At its best, democracy stands as a beacon of hope, promising freedom, equality, and representation. Yet history has shown us time and again that this system of human governance is far more fragile than we often realize. The transition from democracy to authoritarianism is not a sudden plunge but a gradual descent, marked by subtle shifts that can easily go unnoticed until it’s too late.
It’s not as if democracy is a light switch that suddenly flips from freedom to oppression. It is a delicate ecosystem of institutions, norms, and shared civic values that can be gradually dismantled, often so incrementally that citizens hardly notice until the fundamental character of their government has fundamentally transformed.
The Illusion of Stability
Democracy, in its ideal form, is a robust system of checks and balances, designed to prevent the concentration of power in any single entity. However, as political scientist Juan Linz astutely observed, democratic backsliding is rarely a dramatic, overnight coup. Instead, it’s a slow, almost imperceptible process where democratic institutions are systematically weakened from within.
“Modern authoritarians do not need to look like dictators of old…
