News about attempts to subvert democracy have become a staple of our time. The phenomenon is dispiriting, to say the least. But amid this deeply worrisome trend, it’s easy to miss one encouraging development: Those attempts appear to be failing with some regularity. And they have been failing because those who support democracy are getting better at defending it.
Consider the Americas, where in three countries voters saw a concerted push by incumbent presidents and their backers to overturn the result of a legitimate election. In the United States, Brazil and most recently Guatemala, where democracy was hanging by a thread, clean elections were disparaged as fraudulent amid wide-ranging campaigns to deprive voters of their choice for president.
In all these cases, those muscular, even violent efforts ended in failure.