Is American Democracy At Risk? Philly Scholars See Creeping Fascism And Historic Parallels

Anne Berg, a history professor at the University of Pennsylvania, was born and raised in Germany, and while her parents are basically hippies, she said, her grandparents were Nazis.

That close connection led Berg to a vocation as a scholar of Nazi Germany, exploring the role played by people, she said, “who rocked me to sleep.” Now, Berg is among many academics and others watching what she calls a “rapid descent toward fascism,” in the United States, right from her home in Fishtown.

Back in 2017, she was already drawing parallels with prewar Germany but warned her students against “catastrophizing.” No longer.

“To expect that things are going to return to normal is irresponsible,” Berg said. “People need to be aware of the risks we are facing right now.”

Is American Democracy at risk? After Tuesday’s volatile debate, with a belligerent President Donald Trump signaling paramilitary white supremacist groups to “stand by,” repeatedly calling the voting process into question, and raising the specter of postelection violence, lots of Americans may have joined a growing chorus of academics and others who have sounded the alarm for, in some cases, years.

“We have to understand, we are not immune from what has happened in other parts of the world and other time periods,” said Nikol Alexander-Floyd, a Rutgers University political science professor. “This is what a potential coup looks like.”

Post-debate, on a scale of 0 to 100, with 100 being a total democratic breakdown, a survey of independent experts by the Protect Democracy Project scored the current level of threat to American democracy at 56, indicating “substantial erosion.”

Uncertainty compounded by week’s end with the president and first lady testing positive for COVID-19.

“We’re on a knife’s edge,” said Eddie S. Glaude Jr., chair of the department of African American studies at Princeton University. “The Republic is in serious jeopardy.”