'This can kill a democracy': Politics professor says Republicans are enabling Flynn's 'coup' talk with their silence

Former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn has tried to walk back and deny his endorsement of a military coup to overthrow the U.S. government at a QAnon convention in Dallas, Texas.

But, said political science professor Daniel Ziblatt on CNN Tuesday, the damage by his speech has already been done — and not just by Flynn himself, but by the Republicans who have not come out forcefully against his words.

"Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney tweeted, 'No American should advocate or support the violent overthrow of the United States' in direct criticism of what Michael Flynn said, which we all heard," said anchor Jake Tapper. "We should note that we have not heard a similar criticism for what Flynn said in his call for a coup from any House or Senate Republican leaders. What do you make of this all?"

"You know, in our book How Democracies Die, one of the points that we make is that one of the key actors who can kill a democracy are the 'semi-loyal opposition,' people who played both sides of these issues," said Ziblatt. "So whether you are silent in the face of violence, like a violent insurrection on January 6th, or in the face of a threat of violence like this, this can kill a democracy because if those who are in power are silent, this normalizes it."

"The great senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan described this as 'defining deviance down,'" added Ziblatt. "People like Kevin McCarthy and Mitch McConnell, people who are not calling for a coup, but not criticizing it the way Liz Cheney and others have, in our view, they are trying to straddle both the pro-coup and the anti-coup worlds, which is dangerous, in our view."

Watch below:

Daniel Ziblatt says GOP silence on Flynn's coup endorsement empowers authoritarianismwww.youtube.com