Ever since Plato’s Republic 2,300 years ago, philosophers have understood the process by which demagogues rise to power in free and fair elections, only to overthrow democracy and establish tyrannical rule. The process is simple and I just saw it unfold.

NEW YORK – Like others, since late Tuesday night my phone has been flying with text messages asking how this could have happened (as some of my friends, colleagues and acquaintances know, I was fully convinced that Donald Trump will win this election easily). Instead of answering each message in detail, I’ll give my explanation here.

For 2,300 years, at least since Plato Republicphilosophers have known how demagogues and would-be tyrants win democratic elections. The process is simple and I just saw it unfold.

In a democracy, anyone is free to run for office, including people who are completely unfit to lead or preside over government institutions. A telltale sign of misfit is a willingness to lie with abandon, especially by portraying oneself as a defender against the people’s perceived enemies, both external and internal. Plato regarded ordinary people as easily controlled by their emotions and therefore susceptible to such messages – an argument that forms the very foundation of democratic political philosophy (as I have previously argued WORK).

Also, philosophers have always known that this kind of politics is not necessarily destined to succeed. As Jean-Jacques Rousseau argued, democracy is at its best vulnerable when inequality in a society has become entrenched and too blatant. Deep social and economic disparities create the conditions for demagogues to prey on people’s resentments and for democracy to eventually collapse in the manner described by Plato. Rousseau thus concluded that democracy requires widespread equality; only then people’s resentments cannot be so easily exploited.

In my own work I have tried to describe, in detail, why and how people who feel slighted (materially or socially) come to accept pathologies – racism, homophobia, misogyny, ethnic nationalism and religious bigotry – which, on equal terms higher, they would reject.

And it is precisely those material conditions for a healthy and stable democracy that the United States lacks today. In any case, America has come to be singularly defined by its massiveness wealth inequalitya phenomenon that can only undermine social cohesion and generate resentment. 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.

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But why, one might ask, hasn’t this already happened in the US? The main reason is that there was an unwritten agreement among politicians not to engage in such an extraordinarily divisive and violent form of politics. Remember the 2008 election. John McCain, the Republican, could have appealed to racist stereotypes or conspiracy theories about Barack Obama’s birth, but he famously refused to go that route correcting one of his supporters when he suggested the Democratic nominee was a foreign-born “Arab.” McCain lost, but he is remembered as an American statesman of impeccable integrity.

Of course, American politicians regularly make more subtle appeals to racism and homophobia to win elections; it is, after all, a successful strategy. But tacit agreement not to conduct such policy explicitly—what political theorist Tali Mendelberg calls the norm of equality – ruled out resorting too openly to racism. Instead, it had to be done through hidden messages, dog whistles and stereotypes (such as talking about “inner city laziness and crime”).

But under conditions of deep inequality, this codified policy eventually becomes less effective than the explicit type. What Trump has done since 2016 is abandon the old tacit agreement by labeling immigrants as parasite and his political opponents as “the enemies within.” Such explicit us versus them politics, as philosophers have always known, can be very effective.

Democratic political philosophy was therefore correct in its analysis of the Trump phenomenon. Tragically, it also provides a clear prediction of what is to come. According to Plato, the kind of person who campaigns in this way will rule as a tyrant.

From everything Trump has said and done in this campaign and his first term, we can expect Plato to be vindicated again. Republican Party dominance of all branches of government would make the US a one-party state. The future may provide occasional opportunities for others to compete for power, but any political competition that occurs will most likely not qualify as free and fair elections.