Dace ჯ’s Reviews > Autocracy, Inc. > Status Update

We are fighting for democracy everywhere, even in the West." All of them wanted to make an impact not only in their own countries but in the democratic world as well. Already, they understood that one nation's freedom can often depend on the strength of freedom in others.

If he ever succeeds in directing federal courts and law enforcement at his enemies, in combination with a mass trolling campaign, then the blending of the autocratic and democratic worlds will be complete.
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He - Trump. And it is complete.

An illiberal Georgian government tried to pass a very similar law in 2023, dropped the proposal following widespread street demonstrations, and then defied mass opposition to take it up again in 2024.
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Georgia also gets a whole sentence.

Modern dictators have learned that the mass violence of the twentieth century is no longer necessary: targeted violence is often enough to keep ordinary people away from politics altogether, convincing them that it's a contest they can never win.

But, you know, the struggle for freedom and democracy is not like that. It draws you in. And then it just ... it just... it remakes you; it reshapes your whole world."

"The same social media that built us up," Mawarire told me, "they took us down."

Only the purpose never changes: Autocracy, Inc., hopes to rewrite the rules of the international system itself.

The goal is to spread the same narratives that autocrats use at home, to connect democracy with degeneracy and chaos, to undermine democratic institutions, to smear not just activists who promote democracy but the system itself.

If people are naturally drawn to the image of human rights, to the language of democracy, to the dream of freedom, then those ideas have to be poisoned. That requires not just surveillance, and not merely a political system that defends against liberal ideas. It also requires an offensive plan, a narrative that damages the idea of democracy, wherever it is being used, anywhere in the world.