The League of Women Voters will hold its first book club discussion on the book Tyranny of the Minority at our First Tuesday Talk on September 3, 2024 at 11:45 a.m. 

Come join us Tuesday at the Blacksburg Public Library for a stimulating discussion about our democracy and its challenges. Fred Carlisle, former provost at Virginia Tech, and Beth Obenshain, League program director, will lead the discussion.

Bring your brownbag lunch and come analyze how politicians who refuse to denounce violence and anti-democratic speech undermine our democracy – as laid out in this important book by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt. We want to hear YOUR ideas on the state of our democracy.

League members selected this book in February from three options. A review summarized it in these words: America is moving toward a multiracial democracy, something few societies have ever done. But the prospect of change has sparked an authoritarian backlash that threatens the very foundations of our political system. Why is democracy under assault here, and not in other wealthy, diversifying nations? And what can we do to save it? 

Tyranny of the Minority: Why American Democracy Reached the Breaking Point, Steven Levitsky & Daniel Ziblatt, 2023.