... That’s how scholars say fascism happens, too—first slowly and then all at once—and that’s what has been keeping us up at night.

But the more I think about it, the more I think maybe democracy happens the same way, too: slowly, and then all at once.

At this country’s most important revolutionary moments, it has seemed as if the country turned on a dime.

In 1763, just after the end of the French and Indian War, American colonists loved that they were part of the British empire. And yet, by 1776, just a little more than a decade later, they had declared independence from that empire and set down the principles that everyone has a right to be treated equally before the law and to have a say in their government.