1/This article carries a powerful message with a STRONG suggestion that we not let Donald Trump/the GOP encroach on another millimeter of our freedom. The midterms alone have shown us how hard we have to fight to gain BACK that which we've already lost. #SundayMotivation
2/"The evisceration of the media and fact-based discourse alters politics permanently — and is different from what happens in truly authoritarian states that move toward democracy. In outright authoritarian nations, citizens often know that state media and populists are lying to
3/"them. So when a true autocracy falls and independent media emerges, citizens often have faith in the newly free media and are enthused about voting. In bastions of autocratic populism, on the other hand, there’s less hope for recovered trust.
4/"This is especially true where voting is demonized. “When electoral procedures lose popular legitimacy, it is nearly impossible to get that legitimacy back,” Pepinsky writes..." ~J. Kurlantzick, WaPo
5/"...autocratic populists erode faith in democracy itself — a faith already damaged in many countries by the failures of democratic politicians to deal with issues like inequality, migration and weak worker protections. In a recent poll from Axios and Survey Monkey, for instance
6/"only half of American respondents said they had confidence in democracy as a political system. Similar declines in faith in democracy can be seen in several hotbeds of autocratic populism. In the Philippines, although public support for democracy is still moderately strong,
7/"half the population now has a favorable impression of “rule by a strong leader” — someone who does not really care about democratic niceties. As autocratic populists win power in more and more countries, this erosion of support for democracy is the future."
