Autocrats too many

I’m going to quote a few lines and passages from a book I’m currently reading. See if you can guess which political leader is being described. All the quotes refer to one and the same person and the country that is being governed by him. I have replaced the name of the leader with X.

·      [The country’s] freedom of the press was seriously undermined … not by state censorship but by X’s very effective hacking of the media; he has proved to be both a master manipulator and a very effective demagogue in the digital era.

·      [X uses propaganda] to foster controversies that divide the country and enhance mutual distrust and hatred among fellow citizens. It seeks to convert politics into a particularly brutal opposition between virtuous friends and evil enemies who must be stopped at all costs and by any means necessary.

·      X is a demagogue. We might even say that he is straight out of central casting for demagogues: unruly, uncouth, mendacious, dishonest, and cunning. His rise is a symptom of constitutional rot and constitutional dysfunction.

·      Although X ran as a populist who promised to protect the working class from the depredations of globalization, as soon as he [got power], he reversed course. His cabinet is full of wealthy individuals, and many of his top advisors are from the very financial class that he excoriated in his campaign.

All the quotes are from the second chapter of the book, Can It Happen Here? Authoritarianism in America, edited by Cass R Sunstein. All the chapters, written by various experts, are about America. The leader referred to in all the quotes is Donald Trump. And Not Narendra Modi, though they apply to any of our present autocrats of whom there is no dearth.

I mentioned in my previous post that I bought a pack of seven books from a Book Fair. The first was Michelle Obama’s autobiography and I wrote about it yesterday, giving rather undue attention to Donald Trump who makes his entry only towards the end of the book. I did it on purpose. This book Can It Happen Here? is all about Trump and it’s going to dominate my posts in the coming few days.

I bought this book with much hesitation. First of all, it was published in 2018, when Trump had just completed one year of his first term as President. Wasn’t it a bit too soon to assess him in a book like this which appeared highly judgmental? But then I was reminded of many of my friends turning against my critique of Narendra Modi in the very first year of his Prime-Ministership. Though Modi became PM only in 2014, I was following him closely from 2002 when, as Chief Minister of Gujarat, he had committed inhuman atrocities on a section of his own people. I realised that the writers in this book knew Trump with similar familiarity. And so the book stayed in my purchase.

The blurb whispered to me with some witchy mischief that I was going to find too many parallels in those 17 essays – parallels between Trump’s America and Modi’s India. “With the election of Donald J. Trump,” the blurb read, “many people on both the left and right feared that America’s 240-year-old grand experiment in democracy was coming to an end…”

A few weeks before Modi ensconced himself on the PM’s throne in 2014, I wrote in this very same space: “Mr Modi displays the characteristics of an autocrat, of a Fascist leader.  He cannot tolerate dissidence, he does not respect anyone who disagrees with him, and he can use the metaphorical chaiwala’s language to shoot at his opponents.” 

My posts were never generous to Modi – even before he became PM. Was I biased as too many of my friends suggested? I lost quite a few readers because of this perceived bias.  Time proved me right, however. What does time say about this book now? I was curious. I’ve just started reading it. If you’re tickled, stay with me. There’s quite a lot of interesting stuff to come in the coming days.

Tomorrow: Democracy with a King who wins every election