The 2020 election proves the remarkable resilience of U.S. institutions to populist takeover

Kurt Weyland, “Why US Democracy Trumps Populism: Comparative Lessons Reconsidered,” Political Science & Politics, vol. 55, no. 3, July 2022, https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/ps-political-science-and-politics/article/why-us-democracy-trumps-populism-comparative-lessons-reconsidered/D6EFD45DC709C4D27742C99992FF9417.

In López and Luna’s scenarios, one condition that could create risks of a “democratic breakdown” in the United States is “the possibility of economic and security crises occurring in the US,” which “some scholars might claim…is already” the case “due to the repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic and the insurrection by Trump loyalists” (López and Luna Reference López and Luna2021, 424–25). However, these crisis claims are questionable. The January 6 takeover of the US Capitol was far from involving 5,000+ insurgents fighting the state, as I defined a security crisis (see my Reference Weyland2020 online appendix, p. 4). The massive guerrilla insurrections in Colombia and Peru qualified but not the much more limited, less lethal violence of the—undeniably disturbing—US militias. Contrary to the Andean fighters, the heterogeneous, fragmented US groupings lacked any plan for an armed seizure of the government; after invading the building, they soon withdrew.

Regarding the economy, crises do not tend to become very severe in advanced countries such as the United States, which, moreover, dispose of ample resources for compensatory spending (Wibbels Reference Wibbels2006). Even after the dramatic economic collapse caused by COVID-19, a powerful recovery—fueled in part by compensatory spending—quickly erased most damage. Consequently, real GDP in 2020 fell by only 3.5% (US Bureau of Economic Analysis 2021), less than my -5% threshold for an economic crisis. Thus, even under the exceptional circumstances of 2020–2021, the United States did not suffer an economic or security crisis, which limits the persuasiveness of López and Luna’s scenarios.

Moreover, in my theory and coding, COVID-19 did not constitute a crisis-as-opportunity for Trump but rather a vexing, not easily solvable problem that defied his charismatic claim of salvation. After all, the pandemic did not precede Trump’s election (cf. my Reference Weyland2020 online appendix, p. 4) but irrupted during his term, and there was no quick fix that could have boosted his support (cf. Weyland Reference Weyland2022). COVID-19 provided an opportunity for only his—nonpopulist—successor.

The resilience of US democracy, which withstood the unusual turbulence of 2020–2021, corroborated my emphasis on the long-standing solidity of US institutions as reliable safeguards against populist suffocation. This fundamental institutional strength is anchored in an age-old, rarely amended constitution, which has survived all socioeconomic, demographic, ethno-racial, and cultural transformations and which therefore is immune to López and Luna’s endogeneity concerns. This institutional solidity—in my terms, the absence of “paralegal change” and “high instability,” which enabled some Latin American populists to strangle democracy (Weyland Reference Weyland2020, 394–99)—cannot be simply disregarded, as López and Luna do in their scenarios.

This institutional strength played a crucial role in foiling Trump’s typically populist attempts at self-perpetuation. Trump’s sustained pressures put judicial, administrative, and political institutions to a distressingly serious test—yet, overall, they passed. The US populist achieved nothing with dozens of court challenges against election results across the country. Furthermore, even Republican election officials stood firm and properly counted all votes. Famously, Brad Raffensperger refused to “find” the 11,780 votes that the incumbent was so desperately seeking. Moreover, Trump’s own vice president faithfully oversaw the Senate’s certification of the election results. Similarly, despite widespread Republican sympathies, the military—which power-hungry Latin American populists use as a decisive support base—complied with professional rules and avoided participating in Trump’s machinations (Brooks Reference Brooks2021).

Thus, the US institutional framework held and sealed the populist’s defeat. These institutions are not “easily changeable” because of resilient checks and balances and a firm constitution; neither are they vulnerable to significant “paralegal change” or do they suffer from “high instability.” Thus, US institutions are immune from the three types of institutional weakness that—in specific combinations with conjunctural opportunities—are required for the populist asphyxiation of democracy (Weyland Reference Weyland2020, 392–99).