JUSTICE - No. 66

52 No. 66 JUSTICE symptom of democratic failure, rather than its cause. Hitler could not take power in 1923 and Mussolini could not take power in 1919. If either had been born in the United States, they both would have been nothing but historical footnotes. This is because those seeking to overthrow democracy can only succeed when enough people have become dissatisfied with democracy to consider supporting anti-democratic politicians and parties, or even engage in anti-democratic, insurrectionary behavior themselves. In other words, democrats have to lose the game before extremists can win it. Put differently, if we want to prevent the rise of extremism, we need to figure out how to avoid the contexts within which it flourishes. That is, we need to revitalize democracy. Given the COVID-19 pandemic that erupted in 2020, perhaps a good way to phrase it is to say that we need to strengthen democracy’s immune system so that when extremists do appear, they are unable to gain the support they would require to become a truly serious threat to the long-term health of the system itself. n Sheri Berman, Professor, Department of Political Science, Barnard College, Columbia University. She is the author of “Democracy and Dictatorship in Europe: From the Ancien Régime to the Present Day” (N.Y.: Oxford University Press, 2020).