The storming of the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, came to shock the entire world. An angry mob of Trump supporters had, after months of encouragement from President Trump, attacked the heart of American democracy in an attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. The attempt failed, when a new president, Joe Biden, was inaugurated on January 20, 2021. The aim of this case study is to create an understanding of how President Donald Trump, his administration and allied Republicans tried to overthrow American democracy in connection with the 2020 presidential election, and why they didn’t succeed. Using Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt's 2018 book “How Democracies Die” as the theoretical framework of the thesis, an ideal-type definition of “how to overthrow a democracy” was formed. Based on this ideal-type definition, the source material, consisting of documents, social media posts, newspaper reports and transcribed speeches, was examined. The results indicate that President Trump largely fulfilled almost all signs and variables of the ideal-type definition, by spreading disinformation to systematically undermine election results, interfering with and pressuring institutions, such as the DOJ, to accept conspiracy theories of election fraud, inciting large-scale protests, refusing to condemn threats against government officials and refusing to stop the attack of the Capitol on January 6, 2021. The results also indicate that democracy survived mostly because of the brave civil servants and politicians who, even under threat, secured the election result and protected the democratic institutions during the 2020 presidential election and on January 6, 2021. But even though it's been a year since Trump's attempt to overturn the election results, democracy is still under attack. Trump´s strong hold on the Republican Party has resulted in, for example, the exclusion of Republicans who stood against Trump´s attempt to overthrow American democracy and the introduction of new election laws that make it harder for people to vote.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:su-201045 |
| Date | January 2022 |
| Creators | Anklev, Max |
| Publisher | Stockholms universitet, Statsvetenskapliga institutionen |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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