How To Stand Up to a Dictator

 How To Stand Up to a Dictator by Maria Ressa, 309 pages.

In this book, Nobel peace prize winner and journalist Maria Ressa examines the forces that are giving power to authoritarianism and taking it away from journalists. Ressa traces her life from the Philippines, to growing up in America, then moving back to the Philippines to work as a journalist where she helped establish CNN in South East Asia and eventually founded her own online news organization, Rappler. Rappler was hugely successful, but drew fire from the government when they refused to stop covering the crimes of the Duterte regime, leading to Ressa being charged in enough criminal cases to go to jail for life if she is convicted. Ressa also shines a spotlight on the ways that social media actively aids the creep of authoritarianism and the misinformation and polarization of populations. 

This is a book that feels very relevant to the current moment. As Maria Ressa points out in her book, problems the Philippines experiences are often seen in other parts of the world a few years later. Ressa draws on a wide variety of experiences to issue a warning that is very easy to understand. It is just a little unfortunate that a lot of the book reminds me quite a bit of an extended college admissions essay. I do still think it is an important book, and it would be absolutely indispensable to anyone interested in the effect of social media on politics. 

Tyranny of the Minority

Tyranny of the Minority by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, © 2023, 368 pgs. 

On February 6, 1934, far-right leaning groups stormed the French National Assembly building. The tension in France had been building since the end of World War I, but with the Great Depression, political instability and general unrest, a dam finally broke. Fascist groups organized and stormed the facility, throwing rocks, setting buses on fire, breaking windows, firing guns, slashing the legs of police horses, crying "Hang the deputies!" Some were killed and hundreds were injured. 

Though France was able to beat back the rioters, there was an investigation that wasn't taken seriously by all of parliament. "Mainstream conservatives' sympathy for the anti-democratic extremists was a major factor in the attack." They downplayed and justified the rioters. As a result, French democracy was hobbled and their democracy would be dead within a few years. Sound familiar? 

In their previous book, How Democracies Die, Levitsky and Ziblatt, two Harvard professors of government, highlight how democracies backslide and how elected leaders subvert the constitution to enable more power for their party. Here, the authors take a different spin on tyranny, focusing on "counter-majoritarian" mechanisms and institutions that thwart progressive, majority-backed legislation and work to undermine democracy itself from within. 

Lots of illuminating information to be had here. The electoral college was originally conceived to undermine poorer classes of people deciding who would run the country--America is the only country that continues to use this system--every other major democratic country has removed it. Know who the most democratic country is? Not us by a long shot. America is very much like a ship; you can't turn it on a dime. It takes decades and generations and social movements to make the kinds of change a majority of us all agree on. But counter-majority institutions and the people elected who promote them threaten to derail our democracy into something we can't even imagine. There's kind of an eerie sense of history repeating itself in this book, but highly recommended for understanding where we are now and where we might end up by next year. 

Surviving Autocracy

 

Surviving Autocracy / Masha Gessen, 295 pgs.

I wish I hadn't felt compelled to read this but given the precarious state of democracy, it is a good book to study.  Gessen was early to sound the warning of the significance of the 2016 election and the road ahead.  Here is 22 solid chapters full of examples of why we need to worry and the march up to each hill that we went over without stopping to see the obvious.  It is not uplifting, but it does show that we can't be too careful when we start looking at actually SEEING what is going on right in front of us.