Democracy’s tug-of-war

Around the world, citizens are watching their leaders act in ways that often feel erratic, theatrical, or even dangerous. Fiery speeches delegitimize critics. Legal maneuvers weaken courts. Bulldozers are sent against the poor while oligarchs reap favors. The spectacle can appear irrational, but in reality it often follows a cold political logic. What we are witnessing is less the sudden collapse of democracy and more a tug-of-war, where leaders stretch rules to consolidate power and societies respond with resistance that is uneven but persistent.

A defining tactic of leaders intent on concentrating power is collapsing the distinction between themselves and the nation. Donald Trump routinely equated criticism of him with criticism of America, presenting loyalty to himself as loyalty to the republic. In Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu increasingly frames his own political survival as synonymous with the state’s security. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has long portrayed himself as the embodiment of Turkey’s destiny. By personalizing power in this way, leaders create a narrative in which opposing them is cast as betraying the homeland itself.

Another recurring strategy is to strip opponents of legitimacy. Viktor Orbán in Hungary has frequently depicted nongovernmental organizations as foreign-controlled, often invoking George Soros as a shadowy influence. Trump repeatedly branded journalists as “enemies of the people.” In Israel, Netanyahu and his allies have dismissed critics as anarchists or threats to national security. Such rhetoric shrinks the acceptable space for dissent, painting political rivals, civil society groups, or journalists not as democratic participants but as internal enemies.

Once dissent is weakened in public perception, attention turns to institutions. Checks and balances—independent courts, the press, watchdog agencies—are vital to functioning democracies, but they are also vulnerable. Poland’s Law and Justice Party reshaped its judiciary to tighten government control, drawing repeated censure from the European Union and the European Court of Justice. Orbán has used legal changes and ownership shifts to transform Hungary’s media landscape, ensuring that pro-government voices dominate the public sphere. Netanyahu’s proposed judicial overhaul in 2023, which sparked Israel’s largest protests in decades, was widely perceived as an attempt to neuter the Supreme Court. When institutions are bent or captured, leaders can stretch rules with fewer consequences.

These escalations are not always signs of confidence. More often they emerge from insecurity. Netanyahu, indicted on corruption charges in 2019, has strong personal incentives to cling to office. Jair Bolsonaro, after losing Brazil’s 2022 presidential election, encouraged supporters to question results and even attack state institutions in January 2023 rather than accept defeat. What may appear deranged is frequently strategic, an act of survival in the face of legal or electoral vulnerability.

Yet escalation is not uncontested. Resistance also shapes the tug-of-war. Israel’s mass demonstrations in 2023–24 delayed and diluted Netanyahu’s judicial plans, showing how civil society can mobilize at scale. In Chile, protests in 2019 over inequality forced political leaders to embark on a constitutional rewrite, even if its first draft was later rejected by voters. In Belarus, huge protests against Alexander Lukashenko in 2020 revealed deep societal opposition, though repression eventually crushed them. Even under pressure, people find ways to push back.

Elections themselves remain the most fundamental tool of accountability. Trump was defeated in 2020, Bolsonaro in 2022, and Poland’s Law and Justice Party lost power in 2023. Even where institutions are strained, voters can still deliver change provided elections remain at least partly free and fair. In South Africa, the judiciary has repeatedly ruled against powerful figures, including former president Jacob Zuma, showing how courts can retain independence under stress. In the United States, local officials, judges, and even parts of the military resisted efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Such examples demonstrate how much depends on individuals within institutions choosing integrity over partisanship.

Global actors sometimes play a supporting role. The European Union has linked funding to rule-of-law compliance, limiting the room for maneuver of governments in Hungary and Poland. International human rights organizations, though lacking enforcement powers, spotlight abuses and raise reputational costs. This external dimension rarely substitutes for domestic resistance, but it can add pressure that strengthens it.

Because so many prominent cases involve right-wing figures such as Trump, Netanyahu, Orbán, Erdoğan, or Bolsonaro, it is tempting to see democratic backsliding as primarily a right-wing phenomenon. Certainly, nationalist rhetoric, law-and-order appeals, and identity politics often make right-wing populists prone to delegitimizing dissent. Yet the pattern is not exclusive. In Venezuela, Hugo Chávez and his successor Nicolás Maduro concentrated power, sidelined opponents, and weakened institutions, while framing their rule in terms of revolutionary struggle and anti-imperialism. In Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega used similar tactics to hollow out democracy. The rhetoric differs from the right, but the logic is the same: leaders under pressure escalate to maintain dominance.

A striking feature of this process, as the Israeli journalist Iris Leal observed in Haaretz, is that leaders often grow more extreme as opposition weakens. The weakening of resistance takes several forms. Fragmentation makes it hard for opposition parties to unite behind a common platform, allowing incumbents to exploit divisions. Exhaustion sets in as civil society tires of constant escalation and dwindling resources. Narrative capture enables leaders to frame themselves as protectors of the nation, leaving dissenters painted as disloyal. Fear of backlash, whether through legal reprisals or reputational damage, discourages individuals from standing up. While none of these outcomes are inevitable, together they often create the space for leaders to escalate further.

Democracy is not static. It is a contested space in which leaders test boundaries and societies respond. What looks reckless or absurd is often a deliberate attempt to stretch institutions and publics toward the breaking point. The outcome depends on whether societies are willing and able to push back.

The story of our time is less one of sudden democratic collapse than of stress-testing. Institutions are bent, dissent is delegitimized, but resistance persists—in the streets, in the courts, and at the ballot box. The tug-of-war metaphor captures this ongoing struggle. There is no guaranteed outcome: democracies may erode if escalation goes unchecked, but they may also renew themselves if societies refuse to yield.

The question facing citizens everywhere is not only how dangerous their leaders’ behavior appears, but how resilient their own resistance can be. Democracy’s survival, in the end, is not the gift of leaders but the determination of societies to hold the rope and not let go.