Surviving Autocracy

by Masha Gessen

Contempt for the government and its work is a component of the disdain for elites, and a rhetorical trope shared by the current crop of the world’s antipolitical leaders, from Vladimir Putin to Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro. They campaign on voters’ resentment of elites for ruining their lives, and they continue to traffic in this resentment even after they take office—as though someone else, someone sinister and apparently all-powerful, were still in charge, as though they were still insurgents.

A close cousin of contempt for government is disdain for excellence, also shared by a number of contemporary leaders—whose antipolitical politics are also distinctly anti-intellectual.

A study of modern autocrats may show us that a Reichstag Fire is never quite the singular and signal event that changes the course of history, but it will also expose a truth behind the single-event narrative: autocrats declare their intentions early on. We disbelieve or ignore them at our peril.

This corruption is integral to the system. The system cannot exist without corruption because corruption is its fuel, its social glue, and its instrument of control.