Democracy, they say, is in crisis. The Washington Post ran a Super Bowl advertisement to warn us that “Democracy Dies in Darkness.” Political scientists Daniel Ziblatt and Steven Levitsky have just published a book titled “How Democracies Die.” And Larry Diamond, éminence grise of the field, has diagnosed a global democratic recession.

The Left, too, can find much in recent history to fret about. The past few years have thrown up some odious figures, from Trump to Modi, Orbán to Duterte. Yet we should be wary of parroting the liberal case. Because liberals work with a potted history of democratic transformation, they are destined to fail in its defense.

If the Left is to succeed where liberals will fail, it must instead take its lessons from the long history of democracy’s origins. This history suggests that modern democracy grew out of the capacity of the poor to credibly disrupt the routines of the rich. It is not a story about new ideas, well-designed institutions, or visionary leaders. In a sentence, it is the story of the rise of the industrial working class and the eclipse of the landed elite.