The Future of American Democracy: Jamelle Bouie (Goldman Memorial Lectures, Part II)

“The Future of American Democracy”: Part II of the Joanna Jackson Goldman Memorial Lectures.
The common fear is that our democracy is on the road to autocracy. Many Americans are afraid that we will eventually find ourselves with a Viktor Orbán or a Vladimir Putin, a singular autocrat who closes the curtain on our democratic experiment. But what if the danger to American democracy - what if the future of American democracy - isn’t from above? What if it’s horizontal, that is, what if the real threat is the extent to which our counter-majoritarian institutions can be used to shield tyrannical state governments from federal oversight and intervention? How does that relate to our history, and what does it mean for our future?