Some thoughts: how democracy ends
Democracy does not end immediately. It also ends from within.
“I think we have to worry when one of our major political parties is willing to embrace a way of thinking about our democracy that would be unrecognizable and unacceptable even five years ago or a decade ago. (…) All of us, as citizens, have to recognize that the path towards an undemocratic America is not going to happen in just one bang. It happens in a series of steps. And when you look at what's happened in places like Hungary and in Poland, that obviously did not have the same traditions, democratic traditions, that we did, they weren't as deeply rooted, and yet, as recently as 10 years ago, were functioning democracies, and now, essentially, have become authoritarian.”
I have, fairly recently, written about the global decline in democracy. It has two parts: a autocracies gaining in power and wealth (primarily China), and more established democracies declining in freedom. While the two are almost certainly intertwined to a degree that can’t really be separated, I would like to focus on the latter phenomenon.
The main reason to focus on “local” backsliding of various established democracies isn’t that the rise of global autocracies is not serious, far from it, but that concerns seem to mostly be focused on it (especially on China) even if Chinese influence isn’t as relevant for each country’s domestic democratic trayectory than its own internal policies.
Let me elaborate. China and Russia have, to some extent or another, influenced the democratic processes of other countries to nudge them in blatantly authoritarian directions. However, most countries with ascending authoritarians aren’t being installed to be CCP puppets, and even frequently oppose Beijing. Democracy in the United States, or Israel, or Brazil isn’t under threat because of communist mouthpieces coming to office undemocratically, but rather because of domestic tensions leading organically to authoritarianism.
The form of authoritarianism that is most relevant to the present isn’t really traditional “tanks in the street, forced labor camps for dissidents” type of autocracy, but rather, an autocracy that preserves most of the mechanisms of a democracy but simply twists them around to such an extent that a certain group's power is permanently entrenched. Now, “traditional” autocracies like Cuba, Syria, or North Korea do hold sham elections with only one candidate and predetermined outcomes. But it’s not that. Rather, the fundamental trappings of democracy are so broken that even a united opposition could simply never win an election.
The poster child for this kind of process is Hungary, current lovechild of the American right. In 2010, it was a democracy; now, it’s basically an autocracy, albeit one that holds elections (that are basically non-competitive). The process towards illiberalism began in 2010 proper, when Viktor Orban’s Fidesz party swept the parliamentary elections and won two thirds of all seats, enough to modify the country’s constitution with zero input from other parties.
Fidesz didn’t waste that power to entrench itself in power, Orban's goal since his 2002 ouster from power. Judges and the civil service were stacked with Orban cronies, especially in key areas like constitutional law or electoral management. Parliamentary districts were gerrymandered to maximize the number of Fidesz legislators and minimize those of the opposition. State-owned media conglomerates became Fidesz mouthpieces, and private media was steered into a friendlier direction, to the point that 90% of all Hungarian media was aligned with Fidesz by 2017. Citizenship was expanded to “diaspora Hungarians” who supported Orban by 90 point margins, and who made up a tenth of the electorate. Businesses have been strong-armed into the hands of key allies of Orban, or bled dry by endless bureaucratic harassment.
Additionally, Orban has turned the state into a machine for enriching his personal friends and allies, or to prosecute his enemies. Plus, his “civil society" policies are increasingly vicious towards NGOs, universities, and philanthropists - particularly those aligned with Hungarian-American billionaire (and Holocaust survivor) George Soros. Finally, Orban is an extremely socially illiberal leader as well, promoting a variety of racist and draconian laws against migrants and refugees, building a basically useless border fence with Serbia planned to extend all the way to Romania, and persistent attacks on LGBT people, all shrouded in antisemitic rhetoric about a “Great Replacement” and other equally conspiratorial nonsense.
Fidesz rule over Hungary has been secured to such an extent that, in the 2018 election, Orban’s party received 49% of the vote… and kept two thirds of seats. Experts think that the opposition would have never won, no matter how big of a popular vote majority it got. Now, Orban didn’t do anything illegal per se (well, except setting up fake parties to crowd out the opposition candidates), and his far right brand of politics seems to actually be popular among Hungarians. For example, the second most popular party was Jobbik, which is basically a neo-nazi party, or at least much further to the right than the blood-and-soil government.
Orban himself does actually believe in his own undemocratic, antisemitic, anti-migrant policies. And he actually believes that liberal democracy doesn’t serve his project, the ominously titled “Christian democracy”. From a speech Orban made in July 2018 (found here):
“Christian democracy is, by definition, not liberal: it is, if you like, illiberal. And we can specifically say this in connection with a few important issues — say, three great issues. Liberal democracy is in favor of multiculturalism, while Christian democracy gives priority to Christian culture; this is an illiberal concept. Liberal democracy is pro-immigration, while Christian democracy is anti-immigration; this is again a genuinely illiberal concept. And liberal democracy sides with adaptable family models, while Christian democracy rests on the foundations of the Christian family model; once more, this is an illiberal concept.”
The Hungarian case is interesting not because Hungary is a singularly important nation, but rather, because it provides a clear path towards how an enterprising autocrat (say, one Tronald Dump) would subvert an established democracy into an autocracy in a relatively short amount of time. Democracy wouldn’t end by one instantaneous proclamation of dictatorship (Hungary actually did that last year), but rather, through a series of partial measures all with a single purpose: extending the party’s control over the state and perpetually enshrining it in power.