Mussolini is said to have advised that those seeking power ought to do so as one ought to pluck a... more Mussolini is said to have advised that those seeking power ought to do so as one ought to pluck a chicken, "feather by feather, so each squawk is heard apart from every other and the whole process is kept as muted as possible." Appealing to Mussolini's metaphor, I argue that in order to establish a bulwark against autocracy, democracies ought to identify what I call unpluckable feathers of democracy. Unpluckable feathers of democracy are specific and nonpartisan core aspects of democracy that are treated as inviolable because of their importance in preserving democracy. An unpluckable feather's power comes from the citizenry's refusal to allow it to be violated. In this paper, I outline the characteristics of an ideal unpluckable feather, and then apply the theory of unpluckable feathers to presidential term limits, concluding that strict abidance of presidential term limits is a paradigmatic example of an ideal unpluckable feather.
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Drafts by Mark Satta