Category Archives: Populism

Crises of Democracy are not Unprecedented

American Fascism, Authoritarianism, Fascism, Liberalism, Populism, Tyranny and Fascism

 

People should not be surprised when there is a crisis in democracy. People should be surprised when there is none. As the American political philosopher Robert Kagan said:

 

“The American Revolution did not just produce a new system of government dedicated to the protection of the rights of all individuals against government and community, the first of its kind in history. It also produced a reaction against those very liberal principles by slaveholders and their white supporters, by religious movements, by those many Americans who have sought to preserve ancient, traditional hierarchies of peoples and beliefs against the leveling force of liberalism.”

 

Many Canadians and Americans want to deny that this is part of their history. They do so at the peril of democracy, which cannot survive without constant support. As Robert Kagan showed, this tension between liberalism and illiberalism has dominated America, and it has likewise dominated Canada, and looking away from that reality is dangerously foolish. Democratic crises are part of our lifeblood. They are in our DNA.

 

Kagan called the notion that all Americans share a commitment to the founding principles of the country “a pleasant myth, or perhaps a noble lie.”

 

As he could have said equally about Canadians, he pointed out that,

 

“We prefer to believe we all share the same fundamental goals and only disagree on the means of achieving them. But, in fact, large numbers of Americans have always rejected the founders’ claim that all men are created equal, with ‘unalienable’ rights to liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and they have persistently struggled against the imposition of those liberal values on their lives. Great numbers of Americans, from the time of the Revolution onward, have wished to see America in ethnoreligious terms, as fundamentally a white, Protestant nation whose character is an outgrowth of white, Christian, European civilization. Their goal has been to preserve a white, Christian supremacy, contrary to the founders’ vision, and they have tolerated founders’ liberalism and the workings of the democratic system, only when it has not undermined that cause. When it has, they have repeatedly rebelled against it.”

 

That is why he called his book Rebellion. The rebellion he described and saw repeatedly, was an illiberal rebellion. It was a rebellion repeated over and over again by men—usually men—who wanted to preserve their privileges over those perceived as being “beneath” them. They never believed in equality. They believed in hierarchies with themselves and their kin and their fellow travelers at the top, in natural positions of dominance and privilege. This rebellion has repeatedly expressed itself as backlash. Over and over again every liberal step forward was followed by backlash, even when there was no over reach in the first place. These backlashes were not always corrections. That was always just a myth of the favoured minorities. And these myths must always be guarded against for they can hide the truth. And the truth must always be faced, no matter how uncomfortable.

 

The truth is that a lot of Americans, and Canadians, like their hierarchies, no matter how much they claim otherwise.

Liberal Myths

Authoritarianism, Death of Democracy, Fascism, Liberalism, Populism, Tyranny and Fascism

 

 

There are some American and Canadian political leaders who fail to understand that illiberalism is part of the American and Canadian traditions every bit as much the liberal tradition. We are not all sweetness and light to use the illuminating terms of Matthew Arnold.  If we don’t recognize this fact we will cease to be on the lookout for slippage into the darker sides of our nature.

 

That great American political thinker Robert Kagan got it right. We are both liberal and illiberal. He made the case clearly in his wonderful book, Rebellion: Donald Trump and the Anti-liberal Tradition in America. In fact, he opened that book with a quote from Patrick Henry who understand this fact back in June of 1778 when Virginia had its Convention ratifying the magnificent new American Constitution. That Constitution was magnificent, and Americans were right to be proud of it, but too many of them  have forgotten it was not perfect nor are they.  Canadians, also proud of their much later Constitution and Charter are subject to the same hubris and must always guard against it.  This is what Patrick Henry so wisely said: “Virtue will slumber. The wicked will be continually watching. Consequently you will be undone.” If we want to preserve the liberal institutions that protect our liberty we must be constantly on guard. Even if we constitutions. People can get around them if we let them.

 

Robert Kagan understood that “The institutions America’s founders created to safeguard liberal democratic government cannot survive when half the country does not believe in the core principles that undergird the American system of government.” And we know what happened in the presidential election of 2024.  More than half the Americans who voted, marked their ballots for a man, Donald Trump, who had clear autocratic tendencies, because they thought that was what America needed to avoid oppression by the liberals, and rejoiced at his efforts to curtail the liberal movement. In effect, they made clear at that time that they did not want the liberal democracy that was born out of the Revolution to continue. They voted no to liberal democracy and those Americans are every bit as real Americans as those who support liberal democracy. All who cherish liberal democracy, like me, whether Canadian or American, must realize that many of our fellow countryman do not share that love.

 

In fact, when you look at obviously undemocratic measures such as gerrymandering, where people decide it is acceptable for the political leaders to choose their electors rather than have the people choose their leaders, it also obvious that many Americans don’t really love democracy at all. That includes people who support both Republicans and liberals for both parties do it all the time.

 

Illiberalism is real and it is dangerous. If we don’t understand that, we don’t understand much. Before that 2024 presidential election Kagan said this: If he [Trump] wins, they will support whatever he does, including violating the Constitution to go after his enemies and political opponents, which he has promised to do.” And of course, he was right. That is exactly what Trump did after that election. And many Americans loved it. And still do.

 

Kagan predicted that democracy would fracture as a result. It did. It did not collapse, but it surely weakened, and as Kagan ominously added, “perhaps irrecoverably.” Joe Biden was seriously wrong when he said, “this is not who we are.” That is exactly who we are. And I refer to both Americans and Canadians when I say that.

 

We must always remember that the rule of autocracies is common. In fact, they are much more common than democracies. We must never assume democracy will prevail. Usually, it does not. If we love democracy, we always have to treasure it and protect it from harm. Or we will lose it.

 

The Definition of a Narcissist

Authoritarianism, Populism, Trump, Trumpism

 

Here is a short definition of “narcissistic personality disorder” based on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edition (DSM-5), the official psychological diagnosis manual:

 

Has a pervasive pattern of grandiosity. Needs and requires excessive admiration. Has a grandiose sense of self-importance. Exaggerates achievement and talents. Expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements. Is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success. Has a sense of entitlement. Lacks empathy. Takes advantage of others to achieve his or her ends.

 

Does this not describe Donald Trump perfectly? What does it say about America that millions and millions of people think he should be the president of their country?

Why do Countries that Know Fascism Slip Back into Fascism?

2025 Cruise up the Danube River, Authoritarianism, Death of Democracy, Fascism, Hungary, Populism, The Sleep of Reason, Tyranny and Fascism

 

 

During the entire time I was cruising through the Balkans along the Danube River I kept coming back to a question that was haunting me:  Why do so many countries that experienced fascism and know how awful it is, slip back into it?  You would think they know better and would avoid it, but so often they don’t.  Perhaps the best example of this is Hungary.  It was a long-time vassal state of the Soviet Union. Then for a very short time it was a genuine democracy. Yet it seems to be sliding back into fascism and some even suggest it has already gone all the way back. What happened and why?

 

After I got back to Canada without solving the problem on the trip, I heard an interview by Fareed Zakaria with a very interesting Bulgarian born political scientist, Ivan Krastev. Zakaria was interested in the same question as I was.  He put the question this way: “One of the biggest threats to liberal democracy these days comes from a region that was once considered its brightest horizon, Eastern Europe.” He, like me, was particularly interested in Hungary because of its sharp turn towards autocracy after Viktor Orbán was re-elected after losing his Parliamentary majority after the first election.

 

Krastev started said this:

 

“This is very interesting about the liberal revolutions. After every revolution, people were leaving the country. But normally this is the defeated party. This is the white Russians who left after the Bolshevik Revolution. After the liberal revolution of 1989, the first to leave with the liberals because they went immediately to study, to work, to live abroad. And suddenly the idea was that what they should do is to imitate the West.”

 

Every expected them to follow the west. The people who were left in Poland after Communism collapsed, just as in Hungary as well, were resentful that they were told by the political elites that were left, that they ought to copy the west. They were left out, just like non-college educated people in the United States, have felt left out by the liberal elites. And, as Friedrich Nietzsche knew, resentment is a very powerful emotion. Resentment is dynamite.

 

If they were expected to be like Germany, for example, then why not rather just go to Germany. No one likes to slavish follow someone else. They felt like losers. And as the American Democrats have learned the hard way, no one likes that.

 

Added to that, if the west won the war so conclusively, as it seemed, why did the “winners,” from the west leave the country? That is highly unusual, yet in so many of the former satellite countries, the liberals left the country, leaving a mess behind.

 

According to Krastev, after the fall of communism when the liberals were gone, the people were expected to imitate the west who won the cold war, but none of them wanted to do that. As Krastev said,

“But you know what? Imitation is not a fun business. If I’m imitating you, it means that I recognize that you are better than me. And then, if I’m imitating you, what about me? So, this resentment against imitation, in my view, was the reason why in eastern Europe, much earlier than in other parts, you have this kind of populist resentment saying, OK, you are not better than us.”

 

The pride of the people left out was hurt. Many of the people felt like they were looked down upon by the west and very much resented that.

Added to that, as Krastev  Orbán was a “very gifted politician”  who  could manipulate the system in Hungary so that the rules of the game would be rigged to ensure his election. For example, he made sure all of the media supported him. If they didn’t’ they lost their licences.  Trump has been threatening the same thing in the US and the threats have worked. As a result of all of this, the former Russian satellites became  more like Russia and eastern Europe than America, even though Russia lost the Cold War. And they are transforming the west to be more like Russia! And as if that is not weird enough, the American right-wing is making America more like Russia too. The world is topsy-turvy. Led in part—a large part—by Donald Trump.

 

Orbán could cleverly navigate that world so his victory would be ensured. That was more important to him than democracy. Trump was pretty good at that too

 

+2 + 2 = 5

American Fascism, Authoritarianism, Death of Truth, Fascism, Populism, Tyranny and Fascism

 

I had a surreal experience yesterday. First, I went for a walk in our new Events Centre in Steinbach. While I walked on the track, I listened to a podcast  on the topic of George Orwell and a film made about him by Raol Peck. who was interviewed on the podcast.

The podcast was very interesting, because George Orwell was very interesting. Orwell was a brilliant thinker and critic of totalitarianisms of both the left and the right. Peck had recently made a film about George Orwell and he called it 2 + 2 = 5. The title of the podcast is based on a scene where Winston was asked questions by his interrogator.  He was asked ‘what is 2 + 2 equal to?”  Winston replied, ‘4.”  The interrogator then asked what if the Big Boss says 2 + 2 =5? What would say? I would say ‘2 +2=4.’ Then he was promptly zapped with an electric shock. He was zapped often enough that he begged to say, 2 + 2 = 5.  That is how totalitarianism works. You believe what you are told to believe. At least, you profess to believe. The more absurd the belief you are persuaded to believe, the better. The Bigger the lie the better, as Adolf Hitler pointed out.

 

When I got home after my walk, I sat down and watched CNN news on TV  about a male  nurse being shot and killed in Minneapolis.  I was pooped and thought I was not hearing things right. I was hearing things right.

 

I.C.E. officers in Minneapolis in search presumably of dangerous illegal immigrants,  shot and killed a young man who was an American citizen and not an illegal immigrant. He was not the worst of the worst as Trump said they were after. He was a nurse in a Vet’s hospital.

 

The  male nurse had watched as I.C.E. officers were assaulting a woman and he, unwisely, but bravely, stepped in to help the woman. There were a large number of witnesses watching what happened. Many taped in on their phones. The I.C.E. agents repeatedly pushed the woman  and man back and then down to the ground. Presumably they were interfering with the officers arresting someone. Perhaps they just did not like being taped at work.

When the nurse, by the name of Pretti, stepped in the I.C.E. officers immediately transferred their attention to Pretti. Pretti was repeatedly shoved to the ground. The officers were extremely rough and belligerent. The men piled on top of Pretti. Really there was nothing that he could do. The agents were on top of him and he was pinned down. One of the agents then could be seen leaving the edge of the melee with what was clearly a gun in his hand. They had relieved Pretti of his gun.

 

Later I.C.E. officials claimed he had walked towards the agents with a gun. technically, that was true. He did have a loaded gun in his back pocket or pants but he never pulled it out. The only thing he waved around was his phone/camera.  Later we learned Pretti had a permit for the gun so was carrying it legally, and, as members of the American right-wing constantly remind us it is lawful for citizens to do so, even to protect themselves from government law enforcement official such as the I.C.E agents.

 

There was no sign of belligerence on the part of Pretti; only on the part of the officers.  About  one second later, after the gun was removed by the agent, a shot could be heard. It turned out one of the agents  shot Pretti while he was unarmed and pinned to the ground surrounded by burly masked I.C.E. agents. Pretti was already disarmed of his lawful weapon, when someone shot him.

As if that was not enough, within seconds there was a barrage of more shots by I.C.E. agents. CNN counted 9 further shots. All 10 shots were fired  after I.C.E. agents  had removed Pretti’s gun and there was no risk of harm to them. There was no need to shoot him once. Let alone 10 times. He was already totally disarmed.

 

All of this was highly disconcerting, but what happened next was even more disconcerting. Within hours Kristi Noem, the Secretary of  Homeland Security, the top position in the department, made a rushed statement saying Pretti had walked up to the agents aggressively with a gun.  In no time at all she figured out it was all his fault. Shortly after that, a few other senior members of the department quickly made other statements assuring us that Pretti was a “domestic terrorist” who intended to harm the I.C.E. agents. No evidence of this was offered. We were told by department officials that he was a terrorist and the I.C.E agents who shot Pretti did so as a “defensive shooting.”

 

In other words, just as George Orwell had predicted 75 years ago, we were being told that “2 + 2 = 5”.

 

Here is what people learn when they are not allowed to believe that 2 + 2 =4: “War is Peace.”  “Freedom is slavery.” “Ignorance is strength.”

 

Orwell taught us about it 75 years ago and we did not listen. We did not think it was possible. Well now we know. It is not just possible. It is here and now.

As Orwell also said,

 

“Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful. And murder respectable ”

We don’t have to fear it. It is here staring us in the face Right now. From the TV set you and I have been watching. Here and Now. 2 + 2 = 5.

Autocratic Leaders take advantage of our weaknesses

2025 Cruise up the Danube River, American Fascism, Authoritarianism, Critical thinking, Death of Democracy, Death of Truth, Fascism, Populism, The Sleep of Reason, Tyranny and Fascism

 

Populist, Machiavellian, and autocratic leaders have learned to take advantage of our natural (evolved) biases against us.  Goodman used the example of Andrew Tate in England to illustrate his point. I would use leaders with autocratic tendencies instead, like Donald Trump and Viktor Orbán. And of course, it seems to me, that the young people, being even more impressionable than the older people, seem to be most attracted to such strong man leaders.  Perhaps they are more impressionable, or perhaps, even more likely, they are the most unhappy with themselves.  In modern society, young people are starting to realize that their parent’s generation has screwed them by rigging the rules of society against them. It is no accident that this current generation, for the first time in history, is likely to live less well off than financially than their parents.

 

Strongmen, like Trump, are masters at using deceit and manipulation to create absurd trust in their abilities, against all evidence to the contrary, and then use that ability to propel themselves into positions of authority where they can use that authority to improve their own financial position at the expense of those who supported them. It’s a nasty trick if you can get away with it, and none is better at it than Donald Trump. Trump has done it many times and continues to do it as his supporters don’t seem to notice or don’t seem to care.

 

One of the techniques that strongmen in the past have used to gain influence over the populace include attacking science and knowledge. Hitler did it. Stalin did. And now Trump is doing it. When the Bolsheviks took power in Russia they quickly attacked the scientific community with claims that they were merely, “bourgeois” scientists who were acting on behalf of their financial supporters and then replaced them with more compliant and ideologically pure scientists. This is precisely what Trump has done by attacking woke scientists.

 

We must be careful to avoid allowing this to happen. As Jonathan Goodman said in his Guardian article,

 

“Where we see brute power combined with ignorance, we can throw our support behind knowledge, peaceful protest and education.

 

And finally, when reigns of terror end – and eventually, they always do – it is critical to learn and absorb the lessons. That way, we inoculate ourselves afresh against our natural tendency to trust the untrustworthy, carrying that wisdom forward into the future so that we’re better able to stymie the autocrats who seek to close our minds.

 

The best tool we can muster to defend ourselves from such attacks is our ability to think critically. We must cherish and protect that skill, as it is our most powerful weapon of self-defence. This is always our most powerful tool. When we give it up we submit to arbitrary and ruthless authority. That is why autocrats are so quick to attack it because that makes us defenceless to their attacks.

 

How did Hungary fall into Authoritarianism?

2025 Cruise up the Danube River, American Fascism, Death of Democracy, Fascism, Hungary, Populism, The Sleep of Reason, Tyranny and Fascism

 

Retuning to my question of how was it possible for a country such as Hungary to move from democracy to autocracy, I want to look at Hungary as a prime example.

 

Guardian writer Danielle Renwick wrote about how people learn to live with a dictator. To look at this issue from the perspective of Hungary she interviewed  Stefania Kapronczay the former head of Hungarian Civil Liberties Union.

 

In comparing the United States to Hungary she made one very important point that surprised me. Kapronczay said what is happening in the US does in fact echo what happened in Hungary but with one big difference:

 

“It’s happening much faster, and it’s surprising for me that so many private companies and institutions just complied with the perceived or expressed will of president Trump. I didn’t expect so many people would be so risk-averse.”

 

 

Viktor Orbán was first elected to power in Hungary as a capitalistic liberal in 1998 when the people in Hungary were very unhappy with post-cold war politics. That was actually a common reaction among countries that were from the Communist bloc and then felt lost when that bloc collapsed after 1989. This is not entirely different than the recent collapse of support for democracy among large segments of American and Canadian societies. That is why Hungry is so important.

 

A lot of people in Hungary thought Democracy did not deliver what people expected after the fall of communism. They hated communism but thought they would do better with democracy than they got.  In 2002 Orbán’s party lost power as people were dissatisfied and voted out his party.

 

Then later Orbán returned to power as the head of government after the Hungarian democratic elections in 2010 and then he was a different leader. He was no longer the liberal, so he changed the rules in his own favor. First, he changed the voting rules so it would be easier to get his party elected the next time. Trump did this too and is doing it now. I know Democrats have done that too but during this time Republicans in the US controlled more states. I often think very few people in the US actually want democracy.  Each time one party is in power they change rules for their own benefit.

 

Orbán, again like Trump, also stacked the judicial system with people who supported him. He also attacked the liberal universities, like the one run by Canada’s former leader of the Liberal party, Michael Ignatieff. Trump has done the same thing in the US. Orbán also went after the press to toe the party line, just as Trump has been doing with vigor. Orbán also attack unfriendly NGOs and again Trump has followed suit.  Also, Orbán made some changes that that helped the poor in Hungary.  Trump has done a little of this, but much less.

 

The key here is gradual steps of dismantling democracy.  It does not happen with a bang. It usually happens by small steps. innocuous, but ominous small steps.

 

Kapronczay warned us in the west that opposition parties must understand that it is not good enough to run on platforms defending democracy.  That is too esoteric for many electors. Opposition parties in the west must not fail to address basic pocket book issues or they will be turfed out of office or never get back in.

 

Kapronczay also pointed out one more important thing opponents of autocracy should do is to avoid extremism. Tas she said,: “Autocrats really want to polarize the society, so any kind of initiative that goes against it is really important.”  Politicians like Trump thrive on the extremes. The more the liberals rant and scream at him and his supporters the more Trump likes it and the more his supporters think he must be doing a great job.

Polarization and autocracy go together like love and marriage.

 

So how does a country slip into autocracy from a democracy? By small steps. No steps are more dangerous than baby steps.

 

Is Hungary a Fascist State?

2025 Cruise up the Danube River, American Fascism, Death of Democracy, Fascism, Populism, The Sleep of Reason

 

 

Andrew Marantz is a writer from the New Yorker and in the last couple of years has been paying a lot of attention to Hungary. He has visited it a number of times and he is very concerned about it. Besides writing about it, he has appeared in a number of podcasts together with Tyler Foggatt as part of The New Yorker Political Scene Podcasts.

 

Like me Marantz and Foggatt wanted to know: How bad have things got? How close to an authoritarian state has the United Statement become? And they started by looking at Hungary.

 

First, Marantz said when you go to Hungary, “it’s not a police state. It’s not like Russia.” This made me feel a little better. I was at the time travelling there. I have now been there again. When I was there I worried a bit about whether or not I had to be careful of what I looked at or read or wrote about. To the extent that fear was justified, Hungary is no longer a democracy, but an authoritarian state.

 

I wondered when I was there whether or not I should worry about what I wrote on my computer? Could I criticize Hungary? Could I criticize their leader Orbán? I really didn’t  want to go to jail. But I also didn’t want to shut up either.

 

Marantz also said this about Hungary on the podcast:

 

“It’s not like, you know, North Korea.  It’s a beautiful European capital where you walk around and it’s nice and you sit by the river and sip an espresso. And I interviewed all kinds of dissidents, academics, journalists who are opposed to the regime. And they didn’t say okay, you know, we can’t talk here. We have to go somewhere where we’re not going to be, you know hauled off into a van or something. Like that’s not the vibe.”

 

That sounded pretty good. I know Christiane and I visited Budapest in 2004 and I never once, not once, felt uneasy about being in a former Soviet satellite country.  But that was then. This is now.  And thanks to Viktor Orbán things now in 2025 are very different. And Hungary is a very good example for the rest of us about what can happen to a functioning democracy. Democratic countries can slide into autocracy or illiberal democracy or even fascism and many believe Hungary has done so under the second presidency of Viktor Orbán. He changed.

 

I know this time I felt a little different. I don’t want to exaggerate the feeling, but I don’t want to deny it either. So, what happened in Hungary between our last visit in 2004 2025.

 

First, what happened in Hungary has happened in many places in varying degrees.  A lot of countries around the world have been flirting with autocracy?  I visited some of them on this trip? Romania. Bulgaria. Serbia. And above all, Hungary. Why did this happen? That is the question I would really like to answer.

 

Some have suggested that we have a natural inclination to autocracy and not democracy. Disturbing research has shown that in many countries the popularity of democracy as a political system is in serious decline. And most disturbing of all is that the decline is pronounced in the United States, the country long known as the leader of the free world. It often claims to be the first constitutional democracy. Is it possible that democracy is declining even there? There is actually a lot of evidence, particular in the reign of Trump 2.0 that it has moved sharply in that direction.  Can America and Canada learn something from what happened in Hungary? Those are things that interest me.