weaknesses at the core of seemingly strong authoritarian states

• key weaknesses at the core of seemingly strong authoritarian states
• Russia and China both have argued that liberal democracy is in long-term decline, and that their brand of muscular authoritarian government is able to act decisively and get things done while their democratic rivals debate, dither, and fail to deliver on their promises
• Politicians such as Marine Le Pen and Éric Zemmour in France, Viktor Orbán in Hungary, Matteo Salvini in Italy, and of course Trump in the U.S. have all expressed sympathy for putin
• the concentration of power in the hands of a single leader at the top all but guarantees low-quality decision making, and over time will produce truly catastrophic consequences; the absence of ... accountability, means that the leader’s support is shallow, and can erode
• millions of people voting with their feet—leaving poor, corrupt, or violent countries for life not in Russia, China, or Iran but in the liberal, democratic West
• confused dictatorships of prosperous liberal democracies
• authoritarian regimes engineer desires
• the right to dominate
• the end of history