Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism

“I remembered reading a famous journal kept by the Romanian writer Mihail Sebastian from 1935 to 1944. In it, he chronicled an even more extreme shift in his own country. Like me, Sebastian was Jewish, though not religious; like me, most of his friends were on the political right. In the journal, he described how, one by one, they were drawn to fascist ideology, like a flock of moths to an inescapable flame. He recounted the arrogance and confidence his friends acquired as they moved away from identifying themselves as Europeans—admirers of Proust, travelers to Paris—and instead began to call themselves blood-and-soil Romanians. He listened as they veered into conspiratorial thinking or became casually cruel.”

As a historian, Applebaum often draws on events and writers from the past, even though Twilight of Democracy is a book about current events. Even though there are significant differences, past experiences like those of Sebastian do help us understand why these trends are happening. They also provide reason to hope that no negative social and political situation is “permanent” (186).

“Given the right conditions, any society can turn against democracy. Indeed, if history is anything to go by, all of our societies eventually will.”

Applebaum often compares her own experiences and trends in modern society to past events and individuals. This is just one example of her claim that these trends repeat themselves in history.

“An authoritarian sensibility is unquestionably present in a generation of far-left campus agitators who seek to dictate how professors can teach and what students can say. It is present in the instigators of Twitter mobs who seek to take down public figures as well as ordinary people for violating unwritten speech codes.”

Applebaum is also critical of those she characterizes as far left. Even though Twilight of Democracy focuses on authoritarian groups and individuals on the right, Applebaum views the far left as acting under similar influences to the right-wing movements and parties she describes.

“British Tories, American Republicans, East European anti-Communists, German Christian Democrats, and French Gaullists all come from different traditions, but as a group they were, at least until recently, dedicated not just to representative democracy, but to religious tolerance, independent judiciaries, free press and speech, economic integration, international institutions, the transatlantic alliance, and the political idea of ‘the West.’”

Here, Applebaum is clear about her own beliefs and where she would position herself. She views herself as center-right and firmly within the tradition of classical liberalism. In particular, this means she values pluralism, free markets, democracy with strong political institutions like independent courts, and international free trade and alliances. 

“The Bolshevik one-party state was not merely undemocratic; it was also anticompetitive and antidemocratic.”

This statement suggests that in Applebaum’s view politics and economics are closely intertwined. Not only does an authoritarian state disallow rival political parties, but it also heavily regulates, if not outright prevents, economic competition.

“You can call this sort of thing by many names: nepotism, state capture, corruption. But if you so choose, you can also describe it in positive terms: it represents the end of the hateful notions of meritocracy, political competition, and the free market, principles that, by definition, have never benefited the less successful. A rigged and uncompetitive system sounds bad if you want to live in a society run by the talented. But if that isn’t your primary interest, what’s wrong with it?” 

Applebaum views people being left behind by capitalism and democracy as something that is inevitable. Later, she also characterizes supporters of authoritarianism as clinging to “the belief that the ‘system’ is unfair” (29). However, it could be argued that, rather than something necessary to democracies, these systems may actually be unfair and do not have to be.

“From Orwell to Koestler, the European writers of the twentieth century were obsessed with the idea of the Big Lie, the vast ideological constructs that were Communism and fascism. The posters demanding fealty to the Party or the Leader, the Brownshirts and Blackshirts marching in formation, the torch-lit parades, the terror police—these forced demonstrations of support for Big Lies were so absurd and inhuman that they required prolonged violence to impose and the threat of violence to maintain. They required forced education, total control of all culture, the politicization of journalism, sports, literature, and the arts.

By contrast, the polarizing political movements of twenty-first-century Europe demand much less of their followers. […] They want their clercs to defend them, but they do not force them to proclaim that black is white, that war is peace, and that state farms have achieved 1,000 percent of their planned production. Most of them don’t deploy propaganda that conflicts with everyday reality. And yet all of them depend, if not on a Big Lie, then on what the historian Timothy Snyder once told me should be called the Medium-Size Lie. To put it differently, all of them encourage their followers to engage, at least part of the time, with an alternative reality.” 

One major difference between authoritarian movements from the past and today is the distinction Applebaum draws between the Big Lie and the Medium-Size Lie. This is one way social media, as Applebaum argues, has changed the way authoritarian movements operate. Instead of relying on outright force, the authoritarian movements of today have to resort to marketing and manipulation.

“When, some weeks after the election, European institutions and human-rights groups began responding to the actions of the Law and Justice government, they focused on the undermining of the courts and public media. They didn’t focus on the institutionalization of the Smolensk conspiracy theory, which was, frankly, just too weird for outsiders to understand. And yet the decision to put a fantasy at the heart of government policy really inspired much of what followed.”

Applebaum writes here that conspiracy theories simplify complex issues. Later, she suggests this is why they appeal to people with the authoritarian predisposition and why they are useful for authoritarian movements. 

“The emotional appeal of a conspiracy theory is in its simplicity. It explains away complex phenomena, accounts for chance and accidents, offers the believer the satisfying sense of having special, privileged access to the truth. For those who become the one-party state’s gatekeepers, the repetition of these conspiracy theories also brings another reward: power.”

It is unclear if Applebaum believes that authoritarians deliberately spread conspiracy theories to attract support. In a way, it does not matter. The important fact for Applebaum is that conspiracy theories are a powerful and useful way to gain supporters and to encourage distrust of existing institutions.

“The other irony is how much [Mária Schmidt], far more so than Orbán, perfectly embodies the ethos of the Bolsheviks she genuinely hates. Her cynicism is profound.”

Cynicism is an important characteristic of authoritarians and their clercs for Appelbaum. Later, she discusses how cynicism toward American exceptionalism is a key characteristic of Trump supporter Laura Ingraham, who exhibits a “sense of doom” (166).

“Unity is an anomaly. Polarization is normal. Skepticism about liberal democracy is also normal. And the appeal of authoritarianism is eternal.”

This passage fits into Applebaum’s view of politics and history. Events do not usually, if ever, play out the same way. Still, there are cycles in history with similar trends and reactions unfolding. For Applebaum, this is cause for optimism.

“When people have rejected aristocracy, no longer believe that leadership is inherited at birth, no longer assume that the ruling class is endorsed by God, the argument about who gets to rule—who is the elite—is never over. For a long time, some people in Europe and North America settled on the idea that various forms of democratic, meritocratic, and economic competition are the fairest alternative to inherited or ordained power. But […] democracy and free markets can produce unsatisfying outcomes, especially when badly regulated, or when nobody trusts the regulators, or when people are entering the contest from very different starting points.”

This goes back to Applebaum’s point that the competitiveness of democratic societies can cause people to be left behind (27). However, she does argue as well that these “unsatisfactory outcomes” can result from flaws in regulation and from biases built into the system.

“Restorative nostalgics don’t just look at old photographs and piece together family stories. They are mythmakers and architects, builders of monuments and founders of nationalist political projects. They do not merely want to contemplate or learn from the past. […] Many of them don’t recognize their fictions about the past for what they are […]. They are not interested in a nuanced past, in a world in which great leaders were flawed men, in which famous military victories had lethal side effects. They don’t acknowledge that the past might have had drawbacks. They want the cartoon version of history, and more importantly, they want to live in it, right now. They don’t want to act out roles from the past because it amuses them: they want to behave as they think their ancestors did, without irony.”

Appelbaum lays out several characteristics of authoritarians that are interrelated. For example, restorative nostalgia can be linked to cultural despair (75, 150). While restorative nostalgia means yearning for an ideal past, cultural despair is the rejection of a degenerate present. 

“It is not by accident that restorative nostalgia often goes hand in hand with conspiracy theories and the medium-size lies. […] At a minimum, they can offer an explanation: The nation is no longer great because someone has attacked us, undermined us, sapped our strength.”

Likewise, restorative nostalgia is tied to the concept of the Medium-Size Lie. As Appelbaum writes, such lies can provide an explanation as to why the great past was lost.

“[Supporters of Brexit] believe that the British political system is too corrupt to reform itself, the country has been so transformed as to be unrecognizable, the very essence of the nation is disappearing. But if all of that is true, then only a profound revolution, even a revolution that might alter the very nature of the state—its borders, its traditions, maybe even its democratic institutions—can stop the rot. If Brexit could be that revolution, then anything that led to Brexit, from false spending claims to data manipulation to attacks on the judiciary to Russian money, was acceptable.”

Here, Appelbaum explains in part how Brexit is about more than the European Union. Brexit also carries the implication that Britain has to be restored. If Britain is to be restored through authoritarianism, then so be it. 

“In the Western world, the vast majority of people are not starving. They have food and shelter. They are literate. If we describe them as ‘poor’ or ‘deprived,’ it is sometimes because they lack things that human beings couldn’t dream of a century ago, like air-conditioning or Wi-Fi. In this new world, it may be that big, ideological changes are not caused by bread shortages but by new kinds of disruptions. These new revolutions may not even look like the old revolutions at all. In a world where most political debate takes place online or on television, you don’t need to go out on the street and wave a banner to assert your allegiance. In order to manifest a sharp change in political affiliation, all you have to do is switch channels, turn to a different website every morning, or start following a different group of people on social media.”

This is part of Appelbaum’s case against why the trends she details in her book are not caused by income inequality. She does not dismiss the impact of income inequality entirely, but she emphasizes technology as a central cause for the reemergence of authoritarianism.

“Over a crackly video link between Australia and Poland, [Karen Stenner] reminded me that the ‘authoritarian predisposition’ she has identified is not exactly the same thing as closed-mindedness. It is better described as simple-mindedness: people are often attracted to authoritarian ideas because they are bothered by complexity. They dislike divisiveness. They prefer unity. A sudden onslaught of diversity—diversity of opinions, diversity of experiences—therefore makes them angry. They seek solutions in new political language that makes them feel safer and more secure.”

The idea of “authoritarian predisposition” further backs two of Appelbaum’s arguments. First, it helps explain why authoritarianism is “eternal” (56). Second, it is part of the reason why Appelbaum denies that authoritarianism is exclusively a right-wing or left-wing phenomenon. If it is a tendency some individuals have, then authoritarianism lies with individuals’ reactions to the society around them, rather than something encouraged by certain belief systems.

“When people say they are angry about ‘immigration’ […] they are not always talking about something they have lived and experienced. They are talking about something imaginary, something they fear.”

Just as she denied that economic inequality is the root cause under authoritarianism, Applebaum also argues that immigration is not a sole explanation. Anxieties over both economic inequality and immigration may contribute, but she believes the problem is mainly one of technology and psychology.

“Economics alone cannot explain why countries in different business cycles, with different political histories and different class structures—not just Europe and the United States, but also India, the Philippines, Brazil—simultaneously developed a similar form of angry politics in 2015 to 2018. […] That is not to say that immigration and economic pain are irrelevant to the current crisis: clearly they are genuine sources of anger, distress, discomfort, and division. But as a complete explanation for political change—as an explanation for the emergence of whole new classes of political actors—they are insufficient.” 

Here, Appelbaum continues her argument about why economic inequality is not the only reason behind the resurgence of authoritarianism. However, she does concede that economic inequality is important. At the same time, she instead suggests changes in communication technology are the decisive factor (111-13).

“We now are living through a rapid shift in the way people transmit and receive political information—exactly the sort of communication revolution that has had profound political consequences in the past.”

Appelbaum claims she does not have an explanation for the rise of authoritarianism (14). However, along with the idea of an authoritarian predisposition, this passage does provide a theory behind the trend Appelbaum is exploring.

“The amusement to be had from offending the ‘establishment’—a classic Breitbartian or Brexiteer sentiment—is the same in Madrid as it is in the United States.”

An important characteristic of authoritarians that Appelbaum lays out is that they are more defined by what they oppose than what they represent. According to Appelbaum, they seek to undermine or dismantle institutions without a clear plan of what can replace them (19-20).

“This is the argument that anti-American extremists, the groups on the far-left and far-right fringes of society, have always made. American ideals are false, American institutions are fraudulent, American behavior abroad is evil, and the language of the American project—equality, opportunity, justice—is nothing but empty slogans.”

Appelbaum defends American exceptionalism, the concept that the United States is a unique promoter of democracy. She sees this as another point where her democratic, liberal values diverge from the far left and the far right. Further, the rejection of American exceptionalism is another characteristic of authoritarianism, which views all nations as self-interested and corrupt. 

“All of these debates, whether in 1890s France or 1990s Poland, have at their core the questions that lie at the center of this book: How is a nation defined? Who gets to define it? Who are we? For a long time, we have imagined that such questions were settled—but why should they ever be?”

A crucial theme throughout the book is Appelbaum’s view of the importance of broad, complex identities, like how the young guests at her 2019 party see themselves as both Polish and European (181). While authoritarians have an exclusionary view of their identity that is limited to their ethnicity and nationalism, democracy encourages a more open, international sense of identity.