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I had hoped from the headline that @Yascha_Mounk would persuade me that the new autocrats are weaker than they look. But the headline doesn't reflect his argument, which is subtler and gloomier. xhttps://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/world/2019-08-12/dictators-last-stand
It's unreasonably pessimistic, he argues, to think populist authoritarians can sustain themselves in power forever. Their legitimation stories are ideologically unsuited to sustaining autocratic regimes.
Because populists are lousy at governing, therefore, they inevitably face a crisis of legitimacy. The people will sooner or later badly want them gone.
That's the good news.
That's the good news.
The bad news is that by that point, they're no longer populist regimes. They're just autocracies.
And "the long and brutal history of autocracy leaves little doubt about how difficult and dangerous it will be for [the people] to succeed" in getting rid of them.
And "the long and brutal history of autocracy leaves little doubt about how difficult and dangerous it will be for [the people] to succeed" in getting rid of them.
That is, unfortunately, what I already knew.
The best solution, he concludes, is to "defeat them at the ballot box before they ever step foot in the halls of power."
The best solution, he concludes, is to "defeat them at the ballot box before they ever step foot in the halls of power."
In other words, they're every bit as strong as they look.
foreignaffairs.com/articles/world…
(That's the right link.)
(That's the right link.)
