Among other things, “How Democracies Die” has one of the best covers of any 2018 book. In the substantive parts of the short, compelling book, Harvard Government Professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt have sketched an important jeremiad against anti-democratic, authoritarian tendencies – risks to the American democracy that they say are all too real. But, as this blog will show, they have committed some real howlers by failing to assess the way the presidential selection system contributes to the risks they warn about.