For 2,300 years, at least since Plato’s Republic, philosophers have known how demagogues and aspiring tyrants win democratic elections. As Jean-Jacques Rousseau argued, democracy is at its most vulnerable when inequality in a society has become entrenched and grown too glaring. However, it is precisely those material conditions for a healthy, stable democracy that the US lacks today. With 2,300 years of democratic political philosophy suggesting that democracy is not sustainable under such conditions, no one should be surprised by the outcome of the 2024 election. Democratic political philosophy, then, has been correct in its analysis of the Trump phenomenon.
