Freedom House to economic mismanagement and political dishones- es remain fragile: It is widely assumed that whoever ty. It was devastated by the 2010 election results, and controls the parliament will also come to dominate the has failed to reemerge as a viable opposition entity. In judiciary and the security services, and the media are Poland, the center-right Civic Platform had been the vulnerable to intimidation or partisan capture. dominant force until the 2015 PiS victory. It achieved economic success and gained respect in Brussels, liberalism seems less likely to gain traction in the but lost the support of the working class, the provinc- United States because the courts, for example, are es, and all those who felt bypassed by globalization. proudly independent, and freedom of the press is firm- Similarly, the elitist secular parties that had ruled ly protected by statute and constitutional jurispru- Turkey for most of the 20th century were swept aside dence. But if illiberal forces have sufficient political by Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development will and the defenders of democratic institutions lack Party, which appealed to a rising Islamist middle class. conviction and public support, anything is possible. And in Venezuela, it took only a few years in power Polls have shown that popular faith in Congress and for Hugo Chavez to win over the country’s poor and the Supreme Court are at historic lows. A growing marginalize the conservative mainstream parties that number of Americans question the effectiveness of had led the country for decades. representative democracy and ask whether it would be better to let the president make decisions unen- A second precondition for the emergence of illiberal re- cumbered by the legislative branch. An astonishing gimes is a fundamental weakness in democratic institu- one in six Americans believe it would be acceptable tions beyond the political sphere, including the media, to have the army rule.