How Democracies Die

Co-Facilitators: Sidna Rachid, (970) 215-9343, sidnarachid@hotmail.com and Bill Nalitz, (970) 893-2801, billnalitz@gmail.com Dates: Mondays, February 2 — February 23, 2026 (4 weeks) Time: 1:30 PM - 3:30 PM Text: How Democracies Die by Steven Livitsky & Daniel Ziblatt Presentations: Voluntary Location: Foxtail 2, Senior Center, Class Limit 20

Since Donald Trump was reelected President of the United States there’s been a lot of hand-wringing in the liberal part of the country surrounding fears that America is sliding into authoritarianism. Is this a valid concern?

Join the class and find out.

The book we recommend is - How Democracies Die - which looks at democracies in Latin America and Europe that slid into authoritarianism. Some of them slid back out but others didn’t. The book was published in 2018 after Trump was elected for the first time.

In the first hour of class, we’ll summarize the book’s chapters and in the second hour we’ll focus on discussing what’s happening in the United States now. We’ll have debates on key issues like – Is authoritarianism really bad? Why?

We hope that members holding conservative as well as liberal points of view will join the class. If we don’t try to understand both sides of an issue, our country will remain polarized. We promise that the discussions will be respectful and wide-ranging.

We hope to see you in class in February.