Jason Furman's Reviews > Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism

Although ostensibly about the Twilight of Democracy, the strength of Anne Applebaum's book is that it focuses on one slice of this question and develops it in a compelling and personal way: why do "clercs" (intellectuals or others who should know better) drift over to the becoming propagandists for authoritarian/populist/ultranationalist parties? The book begins with a party Anne hosted in Poland for the turn of the millennium and how twenty years later half of the guests are not speaking to the other half of the guests. The estrangement is over those who became propagandists for the Law and Justice party, becoming homophobic, anti-Semitic and getting lost in dishonest and vile conspiracy theories in the service of subverting democracy itself. This same parting of the ways happens over and over again to Applebaum--her scene in conservative British publishing where some go over to Brexit and some support the Orban in Hungary, her scene in conservative US publishing where some (e.g., Laura Ingrahm) go from mainstream-ish supporters of Reagan's vision to angry ranters.

Some of the conventional explanations for the rise of populism don't work in Eastern Europe, the heart of Applebaum's book, which was doing well economically and had very little immigration. She also argues against the idea that it is a revolt of the common people against the elites because all of the people she chronicles and is concerned with are and were elites. Instead she argues there is a "seductive lure" to authoritarianism (as in her subtitle) that appeals to people because it gives them simple, clear answers, good guys and bad guys, and gets rid of nuance and complexity. This combines with a nostalgia, which Applebaum argues can take the form of "restorative nostalgia," a pernicious notion of trying to recreate an imagined past. All of this is unleashed by social media, just like radio before it unleashed fascism.

The book moves between different countries. I learned a lot about Poland and Hungary, both because I only pay intermittent attention and because Applebaum knows so much. The Trump section (a lot of which focused on Laura Ingraham) mostly covered familiar territory. And the Brexit chapter was somewhere in between, and suffered a bit because however bad Brexit is it does not really mean the end of Democracy in anything resembling what is happening in Poland and Hungary.

The book does leaves me with a few questions:

1. Applebaum's story is asymmetric. David Frum and Laura Ingraham were at the same party and ended up in different universes, as did many others in the Polish right, the British right, etc. I can think of nothing comparable on the left (to be clear, I'm sure there are isolated examples, but not a party of leftists in 2000 where half of them are so extreme that they are not speaking to the other half). Does this mean that the polarization we are seeing is asymmetric? Is there something more about the right that leads to this mindset and authoritarianism? Needless to say, much horror in the twentieth century was perpetuated by people that came from the left (and chronicled in Applebaum's previous books), is it now the right that is slipping and if so why?

2. Relatedly, to what extent does the conservativism that Applebaum supports, that of Reagan and Thatcher, bear responsibility for what many of its successors morphed into? Was this an evolution or a repudiation?

3. Is Applebaum herself falling for the nostalgia and overly paranoid overstatements that she is so concerned about in others? I think probably not but one needs to worry when depicting a vision of past politics in which everything was (comparatively) wonderful.

4. Applebaum in some ways is a strange messenger because she lives in the US, UK and Poland and is a highly international elite. I mostly agree with her argument that populism is not a rebellion against elites (e.g., Donald Trump and Boris Johnson are not exactly men of the people), but I have a nagging worry that it does thrive on some concern about elites and their behaviors. Relatedly, Applebaum waxes nostalgic for what were essentially media controls forcing relatively conformity of the media, a narrow difference between political parties and the like, but doesn't this also have a downside?

5. What are they thinking? Applebaum tries to reach many of her former friends to understand why they are advancing crazy, patently false, conspiracy theories, that go against much of what they themselves used to believe. Almost none of them get back to her. One who does records it and publishes an edited version to show her defiance of Applebaum. Never do we learn what anyone was thinking beyond speculation by Applebaum or others close to those people (e.g., a pair of Polish brothers that go in different directions). I am not faulting Applebaum but this leaves me wanting more.

Overall, really well written, thought provoking, a learned a lot of specifics from her reporting, and also very thought provoking. My list of questions are not in the spirit of rebuttal, on many of them I think there is a good chance that Applebaum is right, but I am not certain and still want to learn more. Because after all, as she says, the world is a complex place and does not lend itself to overly simple explanations.