Fascism: A Warning

by Madeleine K. Albright

Even before the 2016 balloting, I had decided to write about the toils and snares confronting democracies around the world. My idea was to make support for free governments a foreign policy priority in Hillary Clinton’s first term. The political upheaval following the election added urgency to the task, and partially shifted the focus to include Trump’s take-no-prisoners approach to governing. Where in the past I could assume that the U.S. government would put its foot down on the side of democratic institutions and values, Trump’s foot has been fully engaged in kicking America’s allies, the independent press, federal prosecutors, immigrant families, and the notion—stressed to most children at an early age—that facts matter. The resulting book was published originally in hardcover in April 2018. I dared hope then that the fears I express in its pages would quickly prove exaggerated. Alas, that has not been the case. During the interval between then and now, heads of government with an autocratic bent have won reelection in Russia, Hungary, Egypt, Venezuela, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Cambodia. In each case, the field of competition was tilted heavily in favor of the incumbent. These were not fair elections.