Comment

Oct 13, 2018EricTheMailman rated this title 4 out of 5 stars
The sobering takeaway from this book is: democracies are actually very fragile. It can take only one person, with dictatorial qualities, to unravel decades, even centuries of democratic governance. What I kept coming away with is the fragility of our democratic systems. They only work if we believe, trust and respect them. Supreme courts can be packed with politically aligned justices. Filibusters can be abused to the point of making governments impotent. Respect for the executive, the house and judiciary have been eroded. In order to keep democracy working politicians must respect the rules and customs that have been observed over the decades and centuries. Once the unwritten rules of decorum and respect are broken democracy itself can unravel. It was a chilling subject.