Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism

Summary: An extended essay considering the shift to authoritarian leaders in Europe and the United States, analyzing both why such leaders are attractive, and the strategies they used to gain power.

Anne Applebaum's book might be subtitled, "The Tale of Two Parties." It is bookended with a party in 1999, and one in 2019. Many on the guest list of the first would not be on the second, or even on speaking terms with the author. Applebaum is a center-right neo-conservative, married to Radek Sikorski, a Polish politician. For much of her career she has written award-winning books documenting Soviet-style totalitarianism. The time of 1999 was a heady one, with former eastern bloc countries embracing Western style liberal democratic ideals (at show more least to some degree).

The book begins with Applebaum describing the fate of three of those on the list, one who had drawn close to Poland's Law and Justice party leader and would no longer speak to her, another who had become an internet troll, amplifying American alt-right proponents, while a third had become engrossed in conspiracy theories. Throughout the book, Applebaum moves between trying to understand what has happened to her friends, and what is happening in a number of European countries, from Poland and Hungary, to England and the United States, where shifts have occurred to authoritarian ideas and leaders.

She explores how contemporary movements differ from fascism and Communism. Instead of the "Big Lie," these leaders use the Medium-Size Lie designed to play on fears and offer simple explanations for complex realities--immigration explains economic woes and crime, for example. Sometimes it is a conspiracy, for example "the deep state," when in fact the real conspiracy lies with the networks of people fomenting these ideas. She describes how this works for example in Viktor Orban's Hungary, where all of Hungary's woes can be attributed to non-existent Syrian refugees (to whom Hungary never opened their borders) and George Soros, whose conspiratorially funded the immigrant hordes. All of this buttresses a corrupt, self-serving government where power is increasingly concentrated in the hands of its leader. Chillingly, Applebaum observes that studies show roughly one-third of the people in most societies to be susceptible to authoritarian leaders, particularly in times of upheaval.

She discusses the appeal of nostalgia, the longing for some idealized past when those appealed to dominated the culture as an alternative to the pluralistic, multi-ethnic cultural landscapes that increasingly characterize both Europe and the United States. She describes how Boris Johnson leveraged this nostalgia in the run-up to Brexit, even though the English had led the initiative forming the European Union. Particularly dangerous, she believes, are the "restorative nostalgics" whose "memory" of the past is often selective, and whose vision for restoration reflects those gaps in an idealized version of the past.

She portrays the manipulation of digital media streams to promote the narrative, including the characterization of established media as "fake" and part of the "conspiracy." She writes:

"This new information world also provides a new set of tools and tactics that another generation of clercs can use to reach people who want simple language, powerful symbols, clear identities. There is no need, nowadays, to form a street movement in order to appeal to those of an authoritarian predisposition. You can construct one in an office building, sitting in front of a computer. You can test messages and gauge the response. You can set up targeted advertising campaigns. You can build groups of fans on WhatsApp or Telegram. You can cherry-pick the themes of the past that suit the present and tailor them to particular audiences. You can invent memes, create videos, conjure up slogans designed to appeal precisely to the fear and anger caused by this massive international wave of cacophony. You can even start the cacophony and create the chaos yourself, knowing full well that some people will be frightened by it." (117-118)

She describes the shift she saw in once-friend Laura Ingraham. I think one of the most important insights she offers here is the increasing concern Ingraham, and others like Pat Buchanan have over the evidence of American moral decline, of various forms of extremism from "cancel culture" to overreach into religious communities breaching First Amendment protections that have led her and others to conclude that these cannot be fought by "politics as usual" but require more extreme measures and justify "undemocratic" means.

I wish Applebaum would have done more with what I thought a perceptive observation. I know people like those Applebaum describes, and one thing that is overlooked is that most of these feel that figures like our current President are the first to take them seriously. Many of these people live in America's heartland. They probably are more religious. Most work hard and pay their taxes. And they feel patronized by many politicians, overlooked, treated as part of "flyover" country. Like Laura Ingraham, they also feel they are witnessing a "twilight of democracy."

While I am deeply sympathetic to Applebaum's concerns about authoritarianism, all her talks about toney parties with fellow refugees from the neo-con movement don't really address the concerns of the time adequately. She concludes by addressing some vague hope in the cycles of history to right things, which seems to me a hope that, after a time, the "right" people will regain power. My observation is that we are in the midst of more and more violent pendulum swings, with winners and losers becoming increasingly energized against one another. What I do agree on with Applebaum is that democracies are not indestructible. Might it be that recognizing our common care about the future of democracy may be a starting point for a different kind of political conversation? Might it be that this common, and urgent concern could bring people together from across the political spectrum who all perceive the abyss toward which we are hurtling? I cannot help but think that this next decade may be decisive in many ways for our country--and for humankind. Will the twilight we are in give way to night--or a new dawn? show less

I was probably looking for something a bit more scholarly when I picked this one up, but I can still recommend this brief, readable, and well-timed book. Anne Applebaum seems to have been in exactly the right time and in exactly the right place to tell the story of how conservatives in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States lost the plot after the Cold War ended, resorting to populist strategies and giving into latent xenophobic urges. Although she doesn't name every participant she mentions here, the author is to be commended for at least naming a few names. As one of this book's alternate subtitles suggests, publishing this one probably cost Applebaum a few friends, though, despite that, she also writes that she has show more expanded her network in ways that would have once surprised her and feels at least some hope for the future.

As for the ideas that I found interesting on a personal level, Applebaum convincingly argues that the illiberal Right is more of a coordinated movement than a lot of people would assume. I was one of those people that considered David Frum's "Axis of Evil" speech a bit of a reach, to put it mildly; "Twilight of Democracy" makes it seem somewhat more plausible. She also usefully defines nostalgia that is merely personal or aesthetic -- which is generally harmless -- and what she calls "restorative nostalgia," which seems actively seeks to bring back political situations that have already been consigned to history. Her analysis of how this phenomenon connects with the British drive for Brexit is especially interesting. So although this book wasn't what I was expecting, I'll recommend it: it's bracing, intelligent, and, deeply felt. I don't think many books that I've read about politics have been worthy of those three particular adjectives. show less

"The Authoritarian predisposition ... is not exactly the same thing as closed-mindedness. It is better described as simple-mindedness. People are often attracted to authoritarian ideas because they are bothered by complexity. They dislike divisiveness. They prefer unity. A sudden onslaught of diversity—diversity of opinions, diversity of experiences—therefore makes them angry. They seek solutions in new political language that makes them feel safer and more secure."

- from an interview with political scientist Karen Stenner (Ch. 4)

This whole book is an extraordinary analysis of what's happening politically across the globe for the first two decades of the 21st century. As I describe it to others, and as it's extrapolated within this show more book, the international trend towards authoritarianism is the result of globalization and the internet, with a special asterisk next to **social media**.

Our caveman brains might not be evolutionarily ready for the onslaught of informational noise coming at us from all around the world 24/7. As the quote above demonstrates, the masses seek shelter wherever they feel safe. And increasingly it's the cult-like political leaders who are promising safety to all those who will put them in power. It's a dangerous feedback loop.

Twilight of Democracy is one of those books I hope turns out to be a baseless worry 10-20 years down the line. I want freedom and human rights to prevail, but I fear the cost will be too high for the masses to continue to fight for it. We shall see. show less

Applebaum was one of the first to write about the corrosive effect on democracy of Facebook and I felt she was prescient. It was in 2015. I bookmarked her Washington Post column about Facebook because I recognized some of the patterns she called out that hardly any others were writing or talking about. It resonated. Years later, as Facebook's perverse incentives to spread hate and falsehood were beginning to see the light of day, this book came out - about the allure of authoritarianism. One historian Applebaum cites says a third of any country's population at any given time has an authoritarian "predisposition." Authoritarianism sidesteps societal complexity and meritocracy, rewards obedience and seems to provide opportunities for show more those who are not part of the elite class.
I'm not judging this book on whether it is the final word on the subject or the author's likelihood of turning out to be right. It is well written and it is adequately sourced. Could it be better in both categories? Yes. But it does a good job of taking a sweeping topic that spans the arc of human civilization -- the lure of authoritarianism -- and putting it in context with our own times without running on for a thousand pages. It is admittedly one person's perspective. Accept or reject some or all of the comparisons between European 20th-century fascism and today's U.S., but some of the parallels are compelling. Some I'd describe as haunting, and certainly plausible. People who are not doing well under the present system resent those who seem to be benefitting more than them. There are politicians who are willing to exploit that for power. These things are not so hard to understand. Applebaum provides the richness of her own background to paint the picture. Some reviewers here have rejected it wholesale and there is nothing I can say about that except that they merely disagree with Applebaum's thesis. They give the book one star because it doesn't support their current beliefs. show less

I am a big admirer of Anne Applebaum's writings, both her long articles on current affairs in magazines such as The Atlantic and her books such as Iron Curtain, Gulag and Red Famine. Her writing shows extensive research work in the historical archives of the countries that appear in her books, and is often brilliantly incisive in cutting to the nub of her subject. Her 2020 article in the Atlantic, History Will Judge The Complicit, was a tour de force, relating current collaboration between journalists, bureaucrats and academics and autocratic authoritarians in Hungary, Poland and the US with historical parallels in East Germany and Poland during the period of Soviet domination.

With this background, and having listened to a couple of show more entertaining interviews with Ms Applebaum about the book, I began the book with high hopes. I found it good, a worthwhile read, but not up to her usual standards of academic rigour and meticulous research. I also thought it was a bit shorter than her usual works, and lacking in substance. Her examples of the decline in liberal democratic values in places like Hungary, Poland and the US are well-chosen, but somehow it doesn't hold together as a unified whole the way her earlier books did.

My takeaway message is that this is a good book, worth reading, and with an important and apt message, but not up to the extremely high standard of her other work. show less

This book traces the uprising of authoritarianism throughout the western world, concentrating on Poland, a Hungary, Britain and the United States. It’s a terrifying read for many reasons and the two options she presents at the end for our future...well, I’m not an optimist.

I didn’t always agree with her politics (I’m clearly far to the left of her) but she made some good points and the book is horrifying and I fear prescient.

I wish she’d said more about Trump...she seemed to kind of skip over a lot of the things he’d done and how dangerous he is although she also clearly wasn’t a fan.

Applebaum's book adjusted my thinking on a few things, probably the most important being a much deeper understanding that the impulse towards authoritarianism comprises about one-third of all people and is distributed across the political spectrum. At any given point in the history of a country, it might coalesce on the left or on the right, but it is not inherently more a thing on the right than the left though, at this point in the history of our country and in Europe, it is a force on the right.

She explains the mechanism for how authoritarian regimes rise creating ill-liberal democracies and how quickly this has happened in a bunch of nations around the world. The play book is pretty standard and all centers around one key component: show more loyalty to the leader and the party. Competent government workers are fired and cronies and loyalists are put in their place. Incompetence is irrelevant. Loyalty is the key to success. Take over state media. Squash opposition parties just enough so that they cannot win elections thus creating the appearance of democracy. Change constitutions as required to maintain power.

Applebaum spends a lot of time talking about how this has effected people she has known over the years all around the world, suddenly yanking people from one part of the political spectrum to another. She tries to nail down the nature of the those infected with this predilection, people who do not like cacophony of viewpoints. They want unity and clear guidelines for behavior and belief.

Her chapter The Future of Nostalgia is excellent and explains the phenomenon of people longing for the glory, certainty, heroes, and uniformity in their country's past (usually highly romanticized). It is what leads to raw nationalism, anti-immigrant sentiment, isolationism....basically everything that is right before our eyes in the party of Trump. It provides clear guidelines for those who feel slighted or under appreciated to have their due, to rise to the top. Merit no longer plays a role. But a whole new system for determining the haves and the have nots is brought into being and it is generally the world stood on its head.

In her chapter, Cascades of Falsehoods, she talks about the importance of being willing to lie outright and then the digital mechanisms for amplifying the lies. Her descriptions are dead on and leave one feeling at a loss how to even begin to tackle the problem of misinformation and the advantage that those who are willing to say anything have.

Finally, Applebaum historicizes what she has described. Authoritarianism will come and go. It is contingent. We should not expect that the future will resemble the past. People who want to fight this darkness must not become apathetic or hopeless. They must form coalitions and stand in the way and fight. She believes these coalitions can bring together urban and rural, and people from different nations since authoritarianism is a predisposition in certain people in all populations, but two thirds of the people (regardless of where they are) do not have this impulses to 'keep it simple.' She holds out hope that resistance can matter but does not offer assurance about how things must turn out. She ends saying we must place one foot down in the patch of light at our feet and make our way through the darkness.

I read one reviewer of the book who took her to task for her past conservatism and her current leanings toward the right. The reviewer calls out some certain missteps but, to my mind, misses the forrest for the trees. Applebaum is the right we liberals can only dream of at this point in time. She is not us, but she is one of us if, by that, one means, those on the parts of the political spectrum who are interested in building rather than tearing down, fellow citizens to haggle with as all move into a more democratic future. All those who are anti-authoritarian in this moment have way more in common than what divides them. Let's save the institutions and then we can once again resume the fight that is democracy in action. show less