What Populist Dictators Have Taught Us
U. S. Foreign and Domestic Issues
More than a hundred years ago, Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler seized power in Italy and Germany, leading to what scholars have described as the “first reverse wave” of authoritarianism, in which “two-thirds of the world’s democracies came under the bootheels of dictators and occupying armies.” The Second World War that liberated some of these countries lasted six years and resulted in the death of more than seventy million people, in a conflict that ended with the world’s first explosion of atomic weapons. The first reverse wave loomed as a dire testament to the ability of willful leaders to threaten freedom and peace: “The specter of democratic collapse now haunts a new century.” (“Why Democracies Survive,” Journal of Democracy (October 2022).
What is new in our time is the emergence of a group of power-seekers who are convinced that traditional democratic leaders have seen their power decline and who are determined to seize untapped opportunities for their advantage. They are emerging all over the world, from the richest to the poorest countries, and this has dramatically changed the challenges facing America’s newly elected president, Donald Trump, and his advisors, many of whom have little experience as leaders of the country’s national security agencies.
A quick look at a map of the world will make it clear about the threats that now face democratic countries. Moises Naim, a syndicated columnist at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, describes “the peril” that threatens our freedom, our prosperity, and our democracies, as power “in a malignant new form.” In our context, this new form of power “mimics democracy while undermining all of democracy’s limits.” These new autocrats include the following: Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, Hungary’s Viktor Orban, the Philippines’s Rodrigo Duterte, India’s Narendra Modi, Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro, Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan, El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele, and numerous others.
These autocrats have developed new ways of securing unlimited power with the goal of keeping it for life. What scholars have found is that these dictators have “playbooks” that are very similar. Moises Naim identified their formula for success in three words: populism, polarization, and post-truth – he calls them the 3Ps. In his study of this phenomena, Naim characterizes these autocrats as leaders who reach power through reasonably democratic elections and then set out to dismantle the checks on executive power through use of the 3Ps.
Populism is not a coherent governing philosophy or an ideology. The way to describe it is “a strategy for gaining and wielding power.” Populists worldwide divide politics into two camps: greedy elite vs the people – noble, pure and betrayed by their leaders. It is the same story all over the world: politics is a struggle between wealthy elites and regular people who are being exploited. Here is a brief list compiled by Moises Naim of how populists justify their bids for power:
Catastrophism: Populists are pessimists – the world around them is corrupt, dysfunctional, and not working to their benefit.
The criminalization of political rivals: Political rivals belong in prison and charges of corruption, sedition, treason, terrorism and other crimes are usually the charges made against them.
Using external threats: Populists claim their country is threatened by foreign enemies, which can be nations, immigrants, and foreign companies.
Attacking the media: Journalists and their publishing houses unveil government corruption and incompetence.
Undermining checks and balances: Eliminated as untrustworthy and against the will of the people.
Denigrating experts: Populists inhabit a world of belief and gut feelings, rather than facts and science.
Militarization: Populists glorify military imagery and use their armed forces to intimidate dissidents.
Messianic delivery: Empowering a strong leader who is charismatic and can led the fight against the corrupt elite.
Once the populist framework is established, the next step is polarization, which eliminates the possibility of a middle ground and forces every person and organization to take sides. Eventually, polarization leads to the denial of the basic legitimacy of opponents.
The newest tool of the populists is post-truth, a more recent tactic of autocrats. This goes beyond lying and involves denying the existence of verifiable reality. Most of the propaganda teams for autocrats don’t offer their citizens a vision of utopia, and they don’t inspire them to build a better world. Anne Applebaum points out that these populists teach people to mind their own business, stay out of politics, and never hope for a democratic alternative. In earlier times, leaders lied to their people but then tried to cover up their falsehoods. Now they play a different game. They lie constantly, blatantly, obviously. This tactic – the so-called “firehose of falsehoods” – doesn’t encourage outrage but nihilism.
These “Reflections” were written for two reasons. First, most Americans know very little about the explosion of “populist dictators” in the last two decades. Newspaper reports are sketchy at best and rarely give the reader insight into the uniqueness of this rapid expansion of one-man regimes. But second, and more importantly, the list of warning signs that have grown out of the seizure of power of these “populist dictators” should serve to indicate that political leaders in the States, on the local, state, and national level have to be watched and constrained if they start using these tactics in our country. We need to stay awake and be vigilant to protect our democracy, especially from our own leaders on all levels of governance, especially on the highest levels.
Helpful Resources:
Moises Naim, The Revenge of Power: How Autocrats Are Re-Inventing Politics for the 21st Century (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2022).
Anne Applebaum, Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism (New York: Anchor Books, 2021).
Dr. John A. Bernbaum
Writer and Educator
Co-Author:
What Went Wrong?: Russia's Lost Opportunity and the Path to Ukraine
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