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Usually, however, they fail. Weyland contends that the many instances where populists hold power and liberal democracy emerges intact, such as Silvio Berlusconi’s Italy and Carlos Menem’s Argentina, are given short shrift by scholars. Comparing those cases of democratic resilience with the minority of cases where democracy fell under populist rule, Weyland detects several patterns that should temper fears of a Trumpian autocracy in the United States.

First, democracies with a strong separation of powers between different institutions and branches of government were especially difficult to overthrow. But rickety institutions can also be a major obstacle, Weyland argues. A would-be authoritarian must achieve overwhelming popularity to set them aside. That’s possible only if one or more crises hit and the populist successfully resolves them, or — in the case of left-wing populists in Latin America — a resource bonanza enables massive expansion in government largesse.

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For all the complaints about “counter-majoritarian” features of the U.S. Constitution, such as the Senate and the Supreme Court, it’s precisely this division of authority that stands in the way of the democratic backsliding highlighted in other countries. Raw majoritarianism makes it easier for populists in power to rewrite the rules to suppress their opposition. As Weyland notes, Hungary — the most prominent example of revived authoritarianism in the West — “constituted Eastern Europe’s ‘most majoritarian’ democracy” before Orban won office.

Trump, by contrast, was frequently blocked by Congress from 2017 to 2021. And as Weyland observes, he “did not push his ostentatious penchant for transgression so far as to disrespect court orders as populists elsewhere, ranging from [Hugo] Chávez in Venezuela to [Vladimir] Meciar in Slovakia, have frequently done.”

That’s partly because Trump, with an average approval rating in the low 40s during his time in office, never had an overwhelming democratic mandate. The less popular the executive, the less likely his power grabs are to succeed. When Fujimori shut down the Peruvian Congress in 1992, ending the country’s democracy less than two years after his election, Weyland notes, he commanded over 80 percent approval. That popularity wasn’t manufactured; it was earned through Fujimori’s phenomenal success in repressing a bloody domestic insurgency and taming hyperinflation.

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Supermajority support was possible for presidents in earlier eras of U.S. history — and may still be possible under extraordinary conditions — but could a figure as deliberately polarizing as Trump ever marshal it? As Weyland puts it: “Even a bold feat of charisma may no longer overcome the profound fault line cleaving contemporary American politics.” The precise features of Trumpian........

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