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What makes people who were once supporters of liberal democracy become henchmen of authoritarian forces? This is the question that American journalist and author Anne Applebaum wrestles with in her new book, “The Twilight of Democracy.”
American journalist and author Anne Applebaum warns against authoritarian forces. Stock Photography.
A New Year’s party at the turn of the millennium. Location of a semi renovated house in the Polish countryside. The host couple is Deputy Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski of the center-right Polish Government and his wife Anne Applebaum.
The guests are fellow journalists, diplomats and politicians from the political right, the winner, who were in full swing to seriously connect Poland with democratic and market liberal Europe. The wall, communism and the Soviet Union are gone.
Membership in NATO had arrived the same year and membership in the EU was waiting around the corner. The mood at the party that lasted until the following afternoon was euphorically upbeat, despite the rough food and cassette music. A new time dawned.
“Two decades later, I was now crossing the street to avoid some of the people who were at my New Years party and they in turn were not only refusing to enter my house, but were ashamed to admit that they had ever been there”. writes Anne Applebaum.
Something had happened. It was not so expected at the New Years party. Instead, Poland, like Hungary, took the right-wing authoritarian and populist direction with open disregard for the fundamental principles of liberal democracy in the balance of power, free media, and independent courts.
And several of the people at the party, and others of his friends and colleagues, contributed greatly to this, betrayed his ideals and became tools for authoritarian social development, according to Applebaum.
It is these people that you try to understand both personally and politically in your book.
– First of all, it is not only about Poland and Hungary, it is also happening in many other places. These are intellectuals and educated people, political strategists, journalists, bloggers, speechwriters and people who produce memes that are spread on the Internet. These types of people are important in political change, especially radical change and extremism, because they can prepare people to see reality and the future differently. They create conspiracy theories that make people doubt their institutions, says Anne Applebaum by phone from London.
Without these people, it is not possible to transform a society in an authoritarian direction, he believes.
– No, it is not possible. They are people who have helped authoritarian parties to seize and retain power. They are key figures in that system.
– Some are very cynical, but some are very sincere. They really think that democracy has failed and has not created the society in which they want to live. They are angry and pessimistic about the society they live in and want it to be radically different. And in some cases, these changes have given them personal success and new career opportunities. It can be very difficult to distinguish between personal and political motives.
The same kind of people are everywhere. It describes some of them, including friends and acquaintances, in America and Britain, including Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
Authoritarian development presupposes a breeding ground among ordinary people. But it is not only found in social, demographic and economic changes, he emphasizes.
New information technology that floods us with “information,” fake news, and conspiracy theories divides and undermines the chances of consensus. People no longer just have different perceptions, they have different facts and realities in their own bubbles.
Along with the allure of authoritarianism, of avoiding the complexity and disruptive diversity of democracy, it increases fragmentation and ultimately threatens democracy as we know it, Applebaum warns.
– This is a really important intellectual stage change that is happening in practically all modern democracies, including Sweden, he says.
She describes right-wing governments, but is by no means a left-to-right issue, emphasizes Applebaum, himself a Republican until 2008, when John McCain chose Sarah Palin as a pair of horses in the presidential election.
– Of course not. I have written three books on leftist dictatorships and, just before the pandemic, I visited Venezuela. I am not unaware of the great problems of the left. But right now I’m more concerned with the right, because now it has a chance to change government, says Anne Applebaum.
Anne Applebaum.
American-Polish writer and journalist.
He has written three acclaimed books on the Soviet Union. “Gulag” which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, “Iron Curtain” and “Red Hunger”.
Former Washington Post columnist and contributor to the conservative British magazine The Spectator. He is now an employee of American The Atlantic.
Polish citizen and married to Radek Sikorski, former Minister of Defense and Foreign Affairs of the Polish governments.
Current with the book “The twilight of democracy” (Bonniers).
