Are We All Authoritarians at Heart?

A core appeal of populist leaders is past-oriented politics promising return to a 'glorious past' where more people had jobs, spoke the same language, looked the same, and the economy was growing, combined with a cult of personality framing ('I alone can solve this') that exploits deep disappointment with modern life.

“what a lot of these leaders are promising is a kind of past oriented politics it's both a a sort of cult of personality that like I alone can solve this problem and also that I am going to take us back to when things were good you know obviously I alone is a trump line and make America great again as a trump line and that that notion of there was this glorious past in which more people had jobs more people spoke the same language as you more people looked like you the economy was growing um that I think is to me what's at the core of this appeal is the sense of deep disappointment with with modern life and where we are right now”

What unites diverse strongman leaders is not a shared ideological program but a common set of conditions where existing governments and ruling elites have failed to deliver on economic growth and stability, creating voter willingness to tolerate or embrace disruptive figures and anti-democratic impulses.

“there have to be a set of conditions that enable this kind of politics to not just exist but to thrive so you can look at outcomes and you can look at ideas the outcomes in recent years have not been great right like look at Russia where Putin does combine the like stylistic take my shirt off you know ride horses and fight Judo you know um Style with the with the policy substance right look at Russia right you know declining life expectancy and growing poverty during the the sort of post-soviet experiment kind of made people think back to to an Era where someone strong was in charge the financial crisis in not just in the United States but in Europe starting in 2008 you know broke the assumption that standard liberal democratic practices would make things work”

Liberal and democratic systems became conflated as inseparable, with the assumption that liberalism (protection of individual rights, rule of law, market rationality) naturally accompanies democracy, but illiberal democracies have existed historically and will exist in the future; this conflation occurred partly because liberal democracy seemed like 'the only game in town' after the Cold War.

“I'm interested in sort of like how the consensus came to be that liberal and democracy are like conjoined words that go together like peas and carrots like you can have illiberal democracies and we've had them in the past and we'll have them in the future but I don't know like how did we get to a place where we thought that it was inevitable that liberalism and democracy would go together... I mean I think that part of it is that it seemed like the only game in town for a while and therefore it seems inevitable when it's all you have it seems like it's all there should be”

Democracy is 'what partisans settle for' when they cannot achieve dominance, not something that parties inherently want; it is a fragile bargain sustained not by shared values but by mutual recognition that neither side can win permanently.

“democracy is this like very very fragile bargain and it's not always based on a consensus over shared values but a recognition by the various sides that like they can't achieve dominance democracy is not what partisans want it's it's what they settle for”

The historical episode of US lawmakers in the 1930s giving speeches written by Nazi propagandists, mailed to constituents on taxpayers' dime, is a forgotten but revealing chapter showing how conducive America was to fascist sympathies during the Depression; modern conditions do not remotely approximate this state.

“you know Rachel mat did this podcast last year called Ultra and it was all about kind of the 1930s and uh the rise of anti-Semitism and Fascism and uh lawmakers who were making speeches that were written written by Nazi propagandists and then mailing them out to their constituents on uh the taxpayers dime and it's sort of this like forgotten episode”

The 2008 financial crisis in the United States and Europe broke the assumption that standard liberal democratic practices would deliver economic results, causing publics to tie financial struggles to both the substantive policies and the stylistic anti-establishment rhetoric of populist leaders.

“the financial crisis in not just in the United States but in Europe starting in 2008 you know broke the assumption that standard liberal democratic practices would make things work and so you end up tying those those struggles to the kind of style of politics and the substance of politics of the quote unquote strongman um which is often you know fears of national decline fears of immigrants”

Liberal elites in Europe have attempted to place immigration outside normal democratic contestation by framing it as a human right, while also making practical arguments that immigration is economically necessary in societies with declining birth rates, but populist parties have emerged specifically as critics of this elite consensus, with their 'illiberalism' defined largely as opposition to open immigration.

“liberalism as a system takes certain issues off the table it says look no matter what public opinion says you cannot persecute people for being Baptists you know you cannot discriminate between races you know you cannot whatever the specifics are there's a certain set of basic rights that liberalism protects and places outside the Pol itical system to some degree and what's happened especially I think since the you know the end of the Cold War political liberals have wanted to place more issues somewhat outside normal Democratic contestation and in Europe that's particularly meant immigration there's been this sense that like in some form migration is a human right and you know there's sort of a practical argument immigration is necessary in societies with declining birth rates for economic dynamism and Europe European Elites from the perspective of a lot of their own voters have sort of conspired to make it impossible to criticize immigration and the populist parties have emerged as critics of immigration whose illiberalism is just sort of defined as like oh well you know they're illiberal because they're against immigration but that's there was never you know a sort of formal agreement right that open immigration was somehow actually fundamental to liberalism it was just sort of became assumed by Elites”

Democratic backsliding historically follows an electoral pattern where voters elect leaders who then gradually reduce competitive elections and opponents by using lawfare and constitutional mechanisms; examples include Viktor Orbán and Vladimir Putin, who were both initially elected.

“democracies turn by electing people right you vote in people who then take away your democracy like this is a thing that happens over and over and over again you know Victor Orban is an elected leader Vladimir Putin for that matter is an elected leader right like but slowly over time the people who are allowed to compete in elections against you become fewer and fewer you find ways using lawfare to limit who your opponents can be”

Russian example of Putin combining stylistic elements (riding horses shirtless, judo fighting) with substantive authoritarian policies shows that style and substance can converge in dangerous ways, with outcomes including declining life expectancy and growing poverty during post-Soviet period making strongman appeals appear effective.

“look at Russia where Putin does combine the like stylistic take my shirt off you know ride horses and fight Judo you know um Style with the with the policy substance right look at Russia right you know declining life expectancy and growing poverty during the the sort of post-soviet experiment kind of made people think back to to an Era where someone strong was in charge”

Liberal democracy as a procedural system is judged by voters not on its processes (fairness, rule of law) but on its outcomes (economic growth, social stability), creating vulnerability: when liberal governments fail to deliver growth or stability, voters may turn against either the party in power (non-systemic) or the system itself (systemic threat).

“a democratic government doesn't have to be virtuous or successful or non-corrupt to still count as a democracy but when democracy fails to deliver say sustained economic growth or social stability people may sour on like the party in power which is a non systemic issue or they may start to sour on the system itself if we think about the risks to Liberal democracy that's where it is”

Political systems are not structurally designed to produce moderate choices; centrist candidates are systematically disadvantaged by institutional incentives (primary election dynamics, polarized media ecosystem), creating vacuum for disruptive outsiders.

“I mean it's interesting right because I think that like our political systems are not designed to necessarily produce like moderate choices”

Human nature tends toward idealization and demonization of past and future while neglecting the present; we overlearn from history (seeing past as either glorious or catastrophic) and over-anticipate the future (as promised land or road to ruin), when the actual challenge is dealing with what's happening right now.

“human nature is that like we tend to either like idealize or demonize over time right and so we're very good at sort of idealizing the past or seeing the past as being incredibly bad and we're also always looking to the Future as either sort of the promised land or the road to hell that things are going to get so much worse so there is something in this kind of like human tendency to always always be caught in this Nether world between memory and fantasy and none of those things help us deal with the present we're overlearning the the histories of the past or we're over idealizing or over terrified of what's going to happen in the future and I think insufficiently attentive to like what's happening right now in the present”

January 6 Capitol riot participants believed they were saving democracy, not undermining it, and their sincere conviction in this does not change the fact that their actions were undermining the system; everyone throughout US history who has acted to secede or overturn the union has claimed to be upholding its greatest principles.

“you raise a really good point Ross when you say that you know the people who stormed the capital on January 6 you know think that they're saving democracy they don't think that they're to to undermine it and that's the way it is in the United States always people whose actions one can look at and think are undermining the system almost always couch those actions in a perhaps sincere belief that they are in fact rescuing it people who want to secede from the union say that they're doing so to uphold its greatest principles it's the fundamental Battle of America and you have different sides who who look at that battle and think that the other side is destroying the nation they're they're striving to preserve”

Javier Milei, Argentina's president, is a libertarian ideologically, not a typical authoritarian strongman, having been cultivated by Reason magazine and the Ludwig von Mises Foundation, and his Us vs. Them rhetoric targets the federal government rather than immigrants.

“Malay is a kind of hyper libertarian you know grown in a laboratory by reasen magazine and the L ludvig Von mes Foundation right in Alabama of in right in order to um you know libertarian eyesee Argentina which itself has been governed by a kind of populist peronist formation for a long period of time”

People who have Trump-supportive parents or grew up in Trump-supporting communities often experienced significant social cost and embarrassment for their family's political difference in school environments, suggesting that Trump support involves not just policy preference but deeper identity and community belonging.

“I was eight years old in third grade um sitting in the circle around the class and we were talking about the election and it was in that moment when I realized that my parents were the only ones in the classroom who had voted for President Barack Obama wow and it was something I was proud of but also embarrassed by because in Rural South Carolina where I grew up um that was definitely a reason to the outcasted”

The claim that Trump represents a fascist or Nazi-like threat to America is substantively different from the claim that he has authoritarian impulses, and the first claim depends on drawing questionable historical parallels to the 1930s that do not hold.

“the reality of all of these figures is that they are further in well not every case but in many cases further to the right than right-wing politicians were 15 or 20 years ago this is not true on economic policy but it's true let's say on issues related to immigration especially and I agree on issues related to like what a powerful president can and should do issues related to sort of norms of government but that's just really different than Benito musolini and Adolf Hitler being literal dictators of their country”

Trump's primary campaign strategy after 2020 was based on convincing supporters that he won the election and that Joe Biden's victory was illegitimate due to impossible vote margins compared to Hillary Clinton's performance, which represents an assault on the minimal definition of democracy—fair and competitive elections.

“the whole success of trump sort of basically his plan to sort of hold on to power within the Republican party after losing re-election in 2020 was based on the idea that he could convince his supporters that he actually won the election that it there was no possible way that Joe Biden could have gotten so many more votes than Hillary Clinton therefore the election was stolen”

Large numbers of American survey respondents increasingly express willingness to tolerate anti-democratic impulses in leaders, stating either that 'the country is in so much trouble we'll need a leader willing to bend the rules' or that 'the country will eventually need people to take matters into their own hands,' reflecting underlying apocalyptic anxiety.

“a lot of surveys and research has been done showing that there are a not insignificant number of Americans who increasingly say things like the country's in so much trouble we're going to need a leader who is willing to bend the rules in order to save us or at some point the country is going to need people to take matters into their own hands there is a sense of apocalyptic change that underlies a lot of what you see with the willingness to tolerate anti-democratic impulses in American leaders”

Trump did not merely use rhetoric to convince supporters; he used tools of government including attempts to replace Justice Department officials to construct an alternative reality about the 2020 election result, constituting abuse of power distinct from mere persuasion.

“he didn't just say it he used the tools of government he was trying to replace people in the Justice Department what Trump did was really bad I agree really bad it's not just rhetoric he used the tools of government which is classic classic abuse of power to try and put forward an alternative reality”