The rise of the autocrat

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This article was published 28/09/2024 (345 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

‘Nobody’s democracy is safe.” There are forces intent on destroying the world — and they begin with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Such is the chilling message from Pulitzer Prize winner and Atlantic writer Anne Applebaum in her latest work, Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators who Want to Run the World.

The notion of a democratic society — and democracy is indeed a notion or an idea — lends itself to a certain taken-for-grantedness in Canadian society and the west. The proof is in our voter turnout, F-Trudeau stickers and hot tubs at freedom rallies.

For Applebaum (author of Gulag: A History), the precariousness and the novelty of our democracies moves beyond voter turnout or independent newspaper subscriptions. For her, “No democratic government should ever assume that arguments for democracy or the rule of law are somehow obvious or self-evident.” Democracies are new and shaky and we need to be hyper-vigilant in their defense.

In Autocracy, Inc., Applebaum systematically takes the reader through the historical uniqueness of the autocrats of our time, outlining key strategies and networks they employ.

Putin, China’s Xi Jinping, Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro, Syria’s Bashir al-Assad, Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and other dictators and oligarchs around the world not only rely on each other, but collude to create a world order that makes them richer and destroys democratic and liberal societies. These dictators lean on each other to counter sanctions and prop up illiberal governments throughout the world.

Applebaum argues that our overdependence on China and Russia, and the normalization of their human rights violations, coupled with the spread of their misinformation networks, represent a dark spectre that shadows our world. In Canada, we have normalized the interaction between MPs and neofascists at “freedom” rallies, and we no longer push back against violent and vitriolic attacks on political leaders.

The illegal funneling of money and resources, the creation of misinformation networks such as Russia Today and the political rhetoric based on lies, division and misinformation are all characteristics of autocracies and the states Applebaum refers to as “illiberal” — states that are adjacent to dictatorships.

For Applebaum the threat is now, not a danger in the distance. “A world in which autocracies work together to stay in power, work together to promote their system, and work together to damage democracies is not some distant dystopia. The world is the one we are living in right now,” she writes.

The U.S. presidential debate reinforced Donald Trump’s allegiance to Putin, Orbán and other such strongmen. The lies Trump peddles are not spewed to counter facts, but more simply to create confusion, despair and apathy in the electorate.

In Canada, when you hear political leaders refer to their opponents as corrupt and make grand accusations without evidence, the autocratic playbook has been borrowed. When political leaders in this country have few ideas of their own and rely solely on othering and simplistic messaging that is meme-able, shadows of illberialism begin to creep into our society.

So how does a society counter the trend to authoritarianism and global resource theft? The elixir, says Applebaum, is to wake up and “build an international anti-corruption alliance, organized around the idea of transparency, accountability, and fairness, enhanced by the creative thinking found in the autocratic diasporas as well as the democracies themselves.”

Strong democracies have strong public education systems. Autocracies and illiberal countries have two-tiered education founded on charter and private schools, creating conditions where there are “good” and “bad” schools. Ensuring democracy is protected and nurtured requires investing in a public education system where every child can think and create while caring for their fellow citizens and the planet. To do otherwise will lead to our collective peril.

Applebaum eloquently draws a line in the sand: we can either cave into the dictators and oligarchs, burying our heads in the sand (or mobile phones), or we can protect our fragile democracies. Liberal society isn’t perfect, but Applebaum suggests the imperfections and the struggle to right them is paramount. “Those (democracies) that exist have deep flaws, profound divisions, and terrible historical scars,” she writes. “But that’s all the more reason to defend and protect them.”

Doing the right thing can be hard; but we owe it to children to protect democracy with all our collective might.

Matt Henderson is superintendent of Winnipeg School Division.