Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism

by Anne Applebaum

But all these changes—from the fragmentation of the public sphere to the absence of a center ground, from the rise of partisanship to the waning influence of respected neutral institutions—do seem to bother people who have difficulty with complexity and cacophony. Even if we weren’t living through a period of rapid demographic change, even if the economy were not in turmoil, even if there were no health crisis, it is still the case that the splintering of the center right and the center left, the rise in some countries of separatist movements, the growth in angry rhetoric, the proliferation of extremist and racist voices that had been marginalized for half a century would persuade a chunk of voters to vote for someone who promises a new and more orderly order.