The outdated thinking confusing our talk about autocracy

Autocrats.
(Image credit: Illustrated | Getty Images, iStock)

This week's best long read is undeniably Anne Applebaum's cover story from the December issue of The Atlantic, "The Bad Guys Are Winning." Applebaum is an accomplished historian of Soviet totalitarianism, and she lives in Poland, so her frequent writings on the subject of threats to democracy carry weight. Unlike many U.S.-based journalists on this beat, she knows the languages and political cultures of Central and Eastern Europe, where democratic backsliding has been concentrated in recent years.

Though putting it that way is somewhat misleading. While Applebaum begins her essay by focusing on Alexander Lukashenko, the Belarusian dictator who defied election results and massive protests to keep himself in power in 2020, she moves far beyond her own neighborhood to examine parallel and mutually reinforcing trends in China, Turkey, Venezuela, and many other countries around the world, including within the countries of the democratic West.

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Damon Linker

Damon Linker is a senior correspondent at TheWeek.com. He is also a former contributing editor at The New Republic and the author of The Theocons and The Religious Test.