#illiberalism

« Pourquoi notre époque a-t-elle dégénéré à ce point ? Pourquoi la jeunesse, l’ambition et la simplicité se sont-elles flétries, et le monde est-il devenu si répréhensible ? ́

By: Helen Pluckrosse

Published: Jul 7, 2026

There is a growing consensus that the peak of what became known as “wokeness” has passed. At its height in 2020, following the Black Lives Matter protests, support for Critical Social Justice beliefs surged across mainstream media, social media, corporations, universities, charities and public institutions. Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives proliferated, ‘anti-racist’ reading lists became ubiquitous, and organisations rushed to signal their commitment. Six years later, media attention has diminished, major corporations have rolled back DEI commitments, resistance to the movement has generated its own institutions, networks and intellectual spaces and the public mood is both fatigued and resentful. Donald Trump has returned to the White House, right-wing populist movements have gained ground internationally, and many commentators now speak confidently of the death of wokeness.

For those of us who have criticised the movement from principles concerned with truth, free inquiry and individual liberty, however, the situation requires closer analysis and is contested. Three questions produce particular disagreement. First, is ‘woke’ actually dead? Second, if it is in decline, what caused that decline? Third, given the rise of increasingly illiberal tendencies on the political right, should liberals continue to criticise it at all?

Much of this disagreement arises because people are not talking about the same thing when they talk about “wokeness.” Some mean a political movement, others a set of institutional practices, a cultural moment, or a broader tendency towards ideological thinking. People can therefore observe the same phenomenon yet reach very different conclusions about its condition, causes and significance.

The term “woke” is most commonly used to describe the Critical Social Justice (CSJ) movement. Its beliefs are rooted in critical theories such as postcolonial theory, queer theory and critical race theory, which themselves draw upon postmodern concepts of knowledge, power and language. According to this framework, knowledge is socially constructed in the service of identity-based power rather than objectively discovered. Dominant groups, particularly white, Western, heterosexual, ‘cisgender’ and able-bodied men, determine which forms of knowledge are regarded as legitimate. These dominant discourses shape how society understands the world and thereby create and perpetuate systems of oppression such as racism, patriarchy and transphobia.

Because people are socialised into these discourses, they are held to be largely unaware of their own participation in oppressive systems. Those who have adopted CSJ theories, especially members of marginalised groups, are regarded as uniquely able to perceive and expose these invisible structures (hence, ‘woke.’) Disagreement, criticism or questions about any of this are understood as evidence of ignorance or resistance to recognising one’s own complicity and desire to preserve one’s own privilege. Allowing dissenting views to be believed or spoken is to enable the discourses to continue to construct the oppressive systems and is akin to violence against marginalised groups. Dissenting beliefs must be corrected with education in CSJ theories and unconscious bias training, all must admit their complicity in oppressive systems, dissenting speech must be silenced or punished, and dissenters must be removed from positions of authority and visibility.

It is this specific manifestation of wokeness that appears to be in decline. What is less clear is whether the epistemological and ethical assumptions that underpinned it have declined as well. The prioritisation of ideological narratives over evidence, the tendency to divide society into competing identity groups, the attraction of conspiracy-like explanations of social problems, and the desire to enforce ideological conformity have by no means disappeared. In fact, they appear to have migrated into new political contexts. Those committed to truth as correspondence with reality, together with freedom of belief, freedom of speech and viewpoint diversity, therefore have work still to do. Liberals on the left must continue to oppose illiberalism on the left, while liberal conservatives must do the same on the right.

The bigger issue is not whether one particular ideological movement has won or lost, but whether liberal societies remain capable of defending the values of truth-seeking, free inquiry and individual liberty against recurring forms of authoritarianism and resistance to reality, however they may manifest.

–

Is Woke Dead?

When discussing the demise of ‘woke,’ the fundamental question is, “Is wokeness actually dying?” Sociologists and other empirical researchers have provided evidence of wokeness having been in decline since 2021. Large corporations have backed out of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives, DEI roles have been cut, support for the Black Lives Matter movement has fallen, and language associated with the movement has become markedly less common across corporate communications, mainstream media and social media. These broad trends, however, sit alongside continued reports from within institutions, particularly those concerned with knowledge production, of DEI policies and ideological enforcement remaining firmly in place. In the past month alone, I have advised people working in universities, schools, libraries, charities, social work and clinical psychology. Meanwhile, surveys of students and academics suggest that ideologically biased and censorious attitudes within institutions of knowledge production have, if anything, continued to increase.

Cultural critics have been widely diverse in their analyses of the demise of woke. Some, like Piers Morgan, have argued that wokeness is over, defeated by a resurgence of common sense resistance and demonstrated by the election of Donald Trump. For Nellie Bowles, wokeness has not died and the reason its activism is less prominent now is because it has won and been institutionalised. To Musa al-Gharbi, we have never been woke and, far from being a progressive movement, the phenomenon was yet another iteration of neoliberal elitism benefitting the knowledge production classes. James Marriot’s argument is that it was only ever a fad which few people were ever genuinely committed to and we should now worry about what the next fad will be. Daniël Eloff and Tyler Cowen are concerned that wokeness merely laid the groundwork for radical left-wing economic (rather than identitarian) activism. Eloff is also concerned about mirroring illiberal views arising on the right, as is Michelle Goldburg. The phenomenon of a rising ‘woke right’ informed and emboldened by the woke left and using much of the same postmodern/post-truth framework has been argued to negate any complacency about the death of woke by critics including Neil Shenvi, James Lindsay, Andrew Doyle, Konstantin Kisin, and Jonathan Rauch.

To understand how such disparate and conflicting views could all be held by people looking at the same phenomenon, we need to consider the variety of lenses through which ‘wokeness’ can be perceived. Morgan’s confidence that it has been defeated relies upon looking at it as a cultural/electoral phenomenon and the role this arguably played in the shift to the political right. Bowles is looking at it as an institutional phenomenon when she argues that woke ideas have been normalised. Al-Gharbi is thinking in terms of an ongoing class phenomenon in which the economically privileged continue to exploit the working class. Marriot, Eloff, Cowen and Goldburg are considering it as a cultural phenomenon rooted in ideas, discourses, tribes and factions and the potential for escalation and backlash. Those who consider ‘wokeness’ as a phenomenon manifesting on both left and right are considering it primarily as an epistemic and ethical phenomenon and, in this reading, there is little light to be seen between the postmodern left and the post-truth right.

Some of the confusion in broader public discourse also stems from treating “woke” as synonymous with “left-wing” or “progressive.” If that is what we mean, then asking whether wokeness is dying becomes almost meaningless. A healthy democracy depends upon the productive push and pull between principled left-wing and right-wing economic and social policy and between the drive to conserve (conservatism) and the drive to progress (progressivism). The important issue, I would argue, is whether these ‘sides’ are, in fact, principled and healthy.

I would argue that “woke” is best understood not as a synonym for progressivism but as an epistemological and ethical framework. It favours ideological narratives over objective truth, interprets society primarily through systems of identity-based oppression, divides people into moral categories of oppressors and oppressed, seeks to tie everybody into its own concept of a common good via censorship, shaming and cancellation and is ultimately fundamentally opposed to the Enlightenment evidence and reason and individual liberty ethos of the West.

Wokeness, in the form of the Critical Social Justice movement is, indeed, past its peak. It continues to influence many institutions, but it has lost much of its prestige and now faces sustained opposition. The epistemological and ethical assumptions that underpinned it, however, have shown no comparable decline. We have not seen a renewed confidence in objective knowledge reached through evidence and reason, a reduction in identity-based grievance or conspiratorial thinking, or a stronger commitment to pluralism, viewpoint diversity and individual liberty. Many factions across the political spectrum continue to see themselves as uniquely able to perceive hidden systems of power and to regard it as their duty to awaken everyone else to them.

Critical Social Justice is one manifestation of a much older and broader human tendency to privilege ideological narratives over evidence, and while that manifestation has weakened, the tendency itself remains vigorous. If wokeness is understood as a broader tendency to privilege conspiratorial, identity-based ideological narratives over evidence and liberal principles, its obituary has been written far too soon.

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If we accept that left-wing wokeness (CSJ) is in demise, who is responsible for that and how did it happen?

If Critical Social Justice is only one manifestation of a broader tendency, the next question becomes why and how this particular manifestation lost its dominance.

Arguments about who killed wokeness are typically highly dependent on the position of the accuser/celebrator and whether or not they believe its demise to be a good thing. For those who believe it to be a positive development, the argument is typically that the woke killed wokeness. They were so unreasonable and authoritarian that the normal, reasonable and principled people (generally their own tribe) said “enough” and reacted against it. The backlash was straightforwardly a reaction to excess.

For those who regard the decline of wokeness as regrettable or believe it has enabled the rise of an illiberal right, the woke themselves are often held to bear little responsibility for their own unpopularity. Instead, culpability is placed elsewhere. The culprits might be fascistic discourses on the right demonizing a fundamentally well-intentioned movement for social justice. It could be the conservative anti-woke (MAGA or otherwise), appealing to the uninformed masses by making evidenced-based arguments about illiberal things they were doing when they should have been more worried about Trump. They might be non-woke economic leftists and socialists objecting to the woke focus on identity politics dividing the working class rather than maintaining solidarity against the right. They might be apathetic white boomers who never fully embraced racial equality, sexual equality or acceptance of homosexuality, and for whom only a relatively small increase in activist demands was enough to provoke renewed resistance. A particularly common refrain is that it was the fault of defenders of free speech who thereby enabled ‘anti-woke’ critique to thrive and emboldened an illiberal right.

The downfall of wokeness was indeed brought about, in significant part, by the excesses of the Critical Social Justice movement itself. At the same time, opposition to wokeness emerged from across the political spectrum. These two facts are not contradictory. Rather, they are connected. The irrationalism, authoritarianism, and purity politics of the movement alienated almost everyone who did not already subscribe to it.

“Almost everyone” necessarily included a remarkably diverse coalition: the extreme right, traditional conservatives, the MAGA right, socialists and economic leftists, weary centrists, and liberals committed to individual liberty, viewpoint diversity, and freedom of speech. This fact is significant because it reminds us that the category “anti-woke” is not a coherent political movement. It is simply a term for people opposed to one thing. As with any coalition defined primarily by what it opposes, its members differ profoundly in what they endorse and want to put in its place.

The extreme right—those who openly embrace racism, sexism, homophobia, Christian nationalism and other forms of authoritarian identitarianism—naturally oppose left-wing wokeness while rejecting the foundations of secular liberal democracy as well. Their authoritarianism, conspiratorial thinking and obsession with oppressive systems of power closely mirror those of the woke left, which is why they are often described as the “woke right.” They cannot be said in any meaningful way to be an antidote to wokeness. Even among less extreme anti-woke factions on the right, alternatives can seem to offer more of the same. Some figures on the MAGA right, such as Chris Rufo, have openly advocated using critical theory to gain institutional power and narrative control. Others have simply embraced forms of post-truth populism that elevate politically useful narratives above objective truth and consistent principle. Meanwhile, the revolutionary socialist left often rejects wokeness as a neoliberal distraction from class politics, yet its preferred alternative is frequently no less hostile to liberal values. These movements differ from one another in significant ways and are often bitter enemies. What they have in common is not a shared vision of society but a common hostility to liberalism. They are competing authoritarianisms.

This is why the most important fault line is not between woke and anti-woke. It is between liberalism and authoritarianism.

The strongest and potentially most durable component of the anti-woke coalition is therefore the liberal one. It includes people on the left, right, and centre, as well as many who feel politically homeless. They may disagree profoundly about economics, culture, religion, or the role of government, but they share a commitment to freedom of expression, viewpoint diversity, due process, equal treatment under the law, individual rights, and the pursuit of truth through open inquiry. Authoritarian movements cannot form stable alliances because each seeks to impose its own vision of truth and power. Liberalism, by contrast, provides a framework within which people with fundamentally different visions of the good life can coexist, compete, and cooperate without coercion.

The decline of wokeness remains incomplete and its demise is by no means assured. The movement lost legitimacy primarily because of its own excesses, yet excesses on the illiberal right could generate a counter-backlash that restores some of its appeal. More importantly, the surge of conspiratorial thinking, tribalism and post-truth politics on the right demonstrates that the decline of one manifestation of these tendencies does not resolve the larger problem.

The appropriate response is therefore neither a reflexive defence of wokeness nor an uncritical embrace of the anti-woke. It is a consistent commitment to the empirical, rational and liberal underpinnings of Western modernity wherever truth is devalued and individual liberty is denied.

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Should we stop kicking wokeness while it is down?

The final question is, if the Critical Social Justice movement is dead, dying or has at least been neutralised, shouldn’t we now focus exclusively on the illiberalism emerging on the right? This is a question I am frequently asked by liberals on the left who believe my critiques of the woke left were both valid and necessary but worry that continuing to focus on it now that it is in decline diverts attention from the populist and woke right. Some also fear that continued criticism of wokeness risks legitimising or providing ammunition for right-wing illiberalism.

This concern deserves to be taken seriously and relates to the concept of “both-sidesism.” I understand the criticism. “Both-sidesism” describes the tendency to maintain an appearance of balance by criticising both sides of a conflict even when one side presents a substantially greater threat. At best, this represents a failure to triage effectively. At worst, it creates a false equivalence that normalises genuinely dangerous illiberalism by treating it as morally comparable to less serious or less immediate concerns.

Liberals are particularly vulnerable to being accused of both-sidesism because our primary concern is consistent opposition to authoritarianism. We are liable to being condemned by illiberal factions on the right for not supporting authoritarian approaches to eradicating wokeness, while illiberal factions on the left accuse us of enabling the rise of the right by not giving the left’s authoritarianism a free pass.

I would like to defend a version of what is often dismissed as “both-sidesism” by reframing it. I agree that adopting a simple “you’re just as bad as each other” position is rarely helpful. In a political environment defined by two broad camps, however, there is a need for people within each camp to criticise both sides. It is not enough merely to criticise the illiberalism that makes the other side bad. We must also confront the illiberalism that prevents our own side from being good. I have always approached political criticism in this spirit. As someone on the left, I am therefore naturally more inclined to focus on those illiberal tendencies within the left that prevent it from fulfilling its traditional purpose and from inspiring the confidence it needs to earn public support.

The importance of internal critique in making one’s own side as principled, persuasive and worthy of support as possible is frequently underappreciated by political partisans. This has certainly been the case with recent left-wing critiques of liberal anti-woke voices. Jan-Werner Muller made the argument that the left should not trust the liberal anti-woke because their drive to find fault with both sides creates a false equivalence which enabled the rise of Trump. Similarly, Jason Stanley blamed the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) for fostering a moral panic about wokeness on university campuses and enabling Trump’s crackdown on academic freedom. Meanwhile, David Klion insisted that the signatories of the Harper’s Letter in defence of free speech should all “examine their role in helping to build a broad elite consensus that has functioned mainly to legitimize Trump’s actions.” [xxix]

All of these arguments depend upon the assumption that, had liberals on the left refrained from criticising illiberalism on the left, support for illiberal anti-woke movements would not have emerged. This is both implausible and psychologically naive. It effectively removes agency from the woke themselves and assumes that the public would simply not have noticed the excesses that generated the backlash. Does denial of a problem within a group ever work to convince anyone outside it? Are those on the left currently convinced by those on the right shutting down criticism of MAGA with accusations that perceiving any is Trump Derangement Syndrome and everything is just fine or does this make the problem seem more intractable? Has anybody concerned by Islamic extremism ever been convinced by being told they are mistaken and Islam is actually a religion of peace or does this just convince them that those who could address the problem are not going to and solutions will need to be external and radical? In each case, refusing to acknowledge genuine problems within one’s own political or ideological community does not reassure sceptics. It persuades them that reform from within is impossible.

Would it really have been better if criticism of left-wing illiberalism had been left entirely to the illiberal right? Would that criticism have been more accurate, more principled, or less likely to produce a reactionary backlash? Is it not more plausible that, had more liberals on the left been willing to challenge authoritarian tendencies within their own institutions and movements, they might have helped marginalise them before they became politically explosive? Far from causing the anti-woke backlash, liberal criticism may have represented the best chance of preventing it.

This, I would argue, remains the best course of action for those on the left. British liberals on the left should continue criticising illiberalism on the left and trying to marginalise it in left-wing political discourse. This is much more likely to increase public confidence in the left than simply pointing out the illiberalism within parties like Reform and Restore while denying that shutting down criticism of immigration policies and silencing gender critical feminists on the grounds of racism, Islamophobia and transphobia contributed to their rise.

Likewise, American liberals on the left would do well not to spend the period before the next election exclusively highlighting illiberalism on the right but also engage in the internal critique that can decentre it from their own political discourse and rebuild a genuinely liberal left. That is what has the potential to create a party that Americans committed to truth and liberty can support not merely as the lesser of two evils, but as a positive good.

The failure of enough liberals on the left to confront authoritarian tendencies within the woke movement—instead minimising or excusing them in the name of solidarity against the right—backfired spectacularly. That experience should serve as a warning to liberals on the right not to make the same mistake. Too many already respond to evidence of right-wing illiberalism—threats to constitutional freedoms and democratic processes, censorship, public shaming, demands for dismissals and an enthusiasm for cancellation—by deflecting to the authoritarianism of the left and its continued influence within institutions as a reason not to address problems on their own side. They would do better to confront those tendencies now than allow them to grow unchecked, further undermine truth and freedom, and ultimately provoke another powerful backlash that could restore some future variation of wokeness.

The priority for liberals on both the left and the right should not be simply to react to the illiberalism of the other side. That is certainly important, but we cannot build a more truth-centred, liberal society merely by pointing out what makes our opponents bad. We must also confront what prevents our own side from being as principled, persuasive and worthy of support as it could be. A healthy society is one in which both sides strive not only to expose the failings of their opponents but to make themselves more liberal, more trustworthy and more deserving of public confidence.

–

The answers to all three questions are more complicated than much of the current discourse allows.

Critical Social Justice is clearly in decline, but the epistemological and ethical habits that sustained it are not. Nor was its decline simply a story of anti-woke victory. The coalition that opposed it contains liberals and authoritarians alike, making the most important political divide not between woke and anti-woke, but between liberalism and authoritarianism.

The lesson is therefore larger than the rise and fall of any single movement. Liberal societies cannot rely on one authoritarianism to defeat another. They depend instead upon people across the political spectrum being willing to defend truth, free inquiry and individual liberty consistently, including by confronting illiberalism within their own political tribes.

Gábor Scheiring for Politico Magazine:

Many believed that after his first term as president, Donald Trump would end up in the dustbin of history. Now Trump is back, and the United States is about to be ruled for the second time by a right-wing populist. Trump’s goal this time is to remake the American government to enhance his power. He isn’t the first modern right-wing populist to attempt this — he is following a playbook pioneered by Hungary’s Viktor Orbán. I lived through Orbán’s power grab as a member of Hungary’s parliament and have been researching populism since. I’ve learned a few things along the way that might help Trump’s opponents understand how he won and how they can fight back. First off, it’s important to understand that America isn’t the first country to face this kind of threat to its democracy, and it also isn’t something external. Autocratic populism is not a virus the U.S. caught from the exotic East, from Russia or Hungary. Modern-day autocracies come to power through elections, leading to electoral autocracies. These regimes are built from within the democratic system.

This is what Orbán did so successfully, which is why he has inspired other autocrats. America’s radical conservatives have been paying attention. Steve Bannon has called Orbán “Trump before Trump.” Vice President-elect JD Vance has cited Orbán as an inspiration, who “we could learn from in the United States.” Orbán’s power grab program runs on two components that you can think of as hardware and software. The populist hardware consists of hijacked institutions. The software is made up of populist discourses and narratives that are used to create and enlist the consent of the ruled. Dismantling the hardware of the Orbán-Trump project requires first defeating its software, so let’s start there.

The Software

Liberals often struggle against these populist narratives because the polar opposite of populism is elitism, which carries much less appeal. Here are some of the narratives that work to create the software of autocracy.

— The Folksy Outsider. Pushing against the boundaries of written and unwritten norms is a standard performative element in the populist toolbox, establishing the populist leader as a folksy outsider disrespected by liberal elites. We can expect Trump to continue using outsider mannerisms, from ordering burgers in the White House to posing as a McDonalds employee, as a symbolic nod to devalued working-class lifestyles.

— Anti-Elitism. We can also expect the culture war to escalate. Orbán passed legislation cracking down on universities in an effort to reduce the influence of liberal ideas. Vance has also declared universities “the enemy” and advised that “the closest that conservatives have ever gotten to successfully dealing with left-wing domination of universities is Viktor Orbán’s approach in Hungary.”

— Anti-Immigrant. It is also clear that Trump will continue his anti-immigrant tirades and attempt to deport millions of illegal immigrants. While in Eastern Europe, radical right populist leaders showed up before Europe’s migrant crisis, hostility toward immigration is nevertheless a favorite far-right topic. Populists create intricate narratives about the self-inflicted decline of the West, weakened by a “liberal virus” and losing out in the global competition of civilizations. These narratives are particularly potent because they also activate racial stereotypes and fears concerning historical minorities, not just new immigrants.

— Economic Nationalism. From climate-change policies to free trade agreements, liberal and centrist economic policies have also become frequent punching bags. Trump’s love affair with tariffs and his trade war with China mirrors Orbán’s fight against economic globalization. While the practical impact of Orbán’s economic nationalism is limited in Hungary, it is crucial for maintaining support among working-class Hungarians, who are otherwise relative losers of Orbán’s policies.

Economic nationalism is a vital component of the populist software but is often neglected by opponents of the far right, so let’s take a deeper look at how it works.

Before Eastern Europe became a laboratory for illiberalism in the 2010s, Western economists used it as a laboratory for neoliberalism in the 1990s. This shock therapy experiment alienated masses of lower-middle- and working-class citizens from the parties of the center-left, who often championed these policies. Similar tectonic shifts have undermined the Democrats’ support among working-class Americans. Economic nationalist narratives used by right-wing populists glorify “makers” over “takers,” resonating with working-class voters who value hard work. This narrative also serves to cement an alliance between plutocrats, billionaires and workers, which might seem paradoxical, but it isn’t: They are all portrayed as hard-working value creators as opposed to “lazy bureaucrats” and “benefit scroungers.” At their core, some of these narratives are centered on racist or nativist ideas, but they are cushioned in several outer layers that are primarily economic — and it’s the economic messages that many who hear them react to.

That’s why labeling Trump and Orbán and their supporters as moral degenerates, or even Nazis, is tactically dysfunctional. Some of their voters are hardcore racists, but many aren’t. In fact, one of the often-neglected powers of successful radical right populists is their capacity to bring together a broad group of disillusioned voters. Conservatives and nationalists with cultural grievances respond to the anti-migrant and anti-identity political messages. Economic nationalist messages resonate with those harboring economic frustrations over increased social insecurities and stagnating living standards. Symbolic class politics allows populist leaders to glue together those components of the populist narrative. When economic grievances and cultural resentments combine, they create a potent force, generating consent for the autocrat to do what it takes to change the hardware.

The Hardware

Once the narratives have taken hold, the autocratic leader can change the hardware that runs the country. Most of these steps are incremental and might even be defensible on their own. But together, they build a formidable institutional power base that can keep the leader and his party in power permanently. Here are some of those steps.

— Strengthen Executive Power. After serving one term as prime minister, Orbán lost office in 2002. He resolved that next time, he is going to be much more aggressive in strengthening his hold on power. Trump and his team have prepared for their second term in a similar way. Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation behind the infamous Project 2025, portrayed Hungary as “the model for conservative statecraft.” Project 2025 echoes Orbán’s playbook, pushing to dismantle liberal influence in the “administrative state” and strengthen executive power. As Trump’s initial nominees also show, we can expect systematic efforts to sweep out officials deemed disloyal to the president. Trump also plans to centralize control over institutions, ranging from the Federal Reserve Board to the Federal Communications Commission.

— Discipline the judiciary. Efforts at reining in the Justice Department and exerting more influence over the judiciary will be crucial. With Republicans already controlling the Supreme Court, any new appointments during Trump’s term would cement a conservative majority for decades. Trump was also open about his plan to fire attorneys who refuse to follow his orders. Vance even mentioned the option of simply disobeying judicial authorities.

— Change Election Processes. Manipulating electoral rules and district boundaries to benefit the ruling party is a strategy that Orbán imported from the U.S. The state of Georgia is a case in point, where Republicans have increased their power to change electoral results they deem fraudulent. In Congress, Republicans have proposed far-reaching legislation that could allow Republicans to twist the electoral process to their advantage in future election cycles.

— Control the media. Orbán consolidated media control through centralized propaganda, market pressure and loyal billionaires. In the U.S., in addition to the already powerful empire of Rupert Murdoch, several recent examples show the power of friendly tycoons over the media. Elon Musk is a good case study; he used Twitter-turned-X to bolster right-wing populists and now stands to gain much from his relationship with Trump. This mirrors Orbán’s strategy to forge a strong alliance with the country’s billionaires for mutual protection and support. Trump also plans to move fast on a business-friendly agenda of tax cuts, deregulation and expanded energy production.

— Secure Control over Party. A final critical step is securing full control over the party. Just as Orbán replaced mainstream leaders with loyal outsiders, Trump co-opted much of the Tea Party in his takeover of the Republican Party. Trump’s team has positioned key allies as candidates and RNC leaders, placing his daughter-in-law as co-chair and pushing out numerous establishment staffers. And his current moves to name uber-loyalists to administration jobs regardless of their qualifications is also an effort to make Republicans in Congress bend to his will.

The Antidote

First, let’s take a breath because there’s a silver lining. Trump’s presidency will be painful for many, but democratic erosion is unlikely to reach Hungarian levels soon. That’s because the U.S. has a more robust political system, and Democrats and pro-democracy activists have a window to act before lasting institutional damage occurs. That’s the good news. The bad news is that there’s no consensus among democracy advocates on the best way to fight illiberal, right-wing populism. However, the story of Europe’s populists offers insights into what works and what doesn’t. There are three main points of resistance.

— The courts. If there are any brazen attacks on constitutional principles, the justice system should be the first line of defense. However, illiberal regimes often operate within legal boundaries, making them harder to challenge. Courts in Europe have so far had little power against Orbán. Litigation or legal restrictions on populists also tend to backfire, boosting their image as outsiders fighting against an unjust, technocratic system, as Trump has already demonstrated in his efforts to discredit the legal cases against him. What this means is that the fight against right-wing populism is primarily political.

— The media. Fighting for media pluralism and independence is vital. Investigative journalism helps, but it tends to preach to the converted. There need to be news channels and media outlets for getting messages across to non-metropolitan areas dominated by far-right news sources. Liberal-minded billionaires should not sit idly by as they did in Hungary, watching the right take over the media. The New Right is also significantly more embedded in social media than liberals are. Those of us who favor democracy cannot let Elon Musks and Andrew Tates control the public discourse. Progressive influencers: Time to log in and post away — there’s a narrative battle to win.

— States and cities. Democrats cannot win without a powerful social base embedded throughout the country. Fighting for every seat and institution in states and cities is one of the most important things opponents of autocracy need to do. Even in hard illiberal regimes like Turkey or Hungary, free cities are channels for interaction with citizens, provide organizational resources and can be used to present alternative visions of governance.

Countering populist power structures requires first defeating populist narratives — a battle the anti-populist center is losing. The demise of Hungary’s once-strong left-liberal elites, now completely overpowered by the right, should serve as a stark warning, which leads us to the most important battleground: the Democratic Party. To win the fight against autocracy, above all, the Democratic Party must reconnect with the working class to preserve liberal institutions. There are simply not enough educated moderate suburbanites for an electoral majority.

[...] Hungary’s key lesson is you don’t protect democracy by talking about democracy — you protect democracy by protecting people. Only a democracy that works for the people is sustainable.

The sofa sodomizer and his TechBro money suppliers don't just want to sodomize sofas...

Nierman and Sachs continued to describe the rise of illiberalism in USA in chapter 3 of their book Cancel Culture: from rage to redemption in a world gone mad.

Restrictions of freedom

Restrictions of freedom can be imposed by citizens and governments, whether they are from the left or right sides of the political spectrums: the communists; the ethnic-nationalists; the blackshirts ( squadristi); the skinhead; a theocratic government or a secular government.

In fact, these seemingly contracdictory ideologies share one common value: they are all authoritarianists or populists who believe that so long as the majority agree to revere a certain ideology, even that is individualism and the freedom to define and shape individualism, then the WHOLE of the society should obey the will of the majority.

Authoritarian populism from both sides of the political spectrum are very similar but such ideologies are contradictory to the concept of individual freedom as understood by the Founding Fathers and classical liberalism philosophisers who inspired them.

Populism is not far from authoritarianism

Thomas Hobbes, John Locke and other Founding Fathers were correct in warning that citizens would feel fear and angry in a society that had lost philosophical and moral anchorage.

They are eager to react in close authoritarian populistic behaviours in respond to different views and opinions. The situations will get worse. Regardless of whether the cancel intentions come from the left or right side of the politics, it will erode our much treasured democratic principles.

For centuries, USA had been proud of being the world's leading example in the championship of the rule of the laws, compliance with proper procedures and maintainance of liberal thoughts. Unfortunately, this world is slowly being twisted to a dystopian Orwellian world. There are a lot of similarities between 17th century and 21st century.

The ways people are witch hunted (for whatever reasons) in today's society are very similar to the fundamentalistic belief held by the Puritans during the colonial period within an intolerant society.

In our era, the red "A" in the Scarlet Letter is ironed on the hunted preys' reputation and goodwill via internets, especially social media, executed as mobilised mass trials over the cyberspace.

The icons of such apexes can be seen throughout Trump's election campaigns and his past and soon to be another term of governments. Trump consistently uses derogative, denouncing and vulgar languages to diminish his opponents by molding them into some sort of despicable figures. He started a political norm to ridicule and insult his opponents and election contestants. He wiped out the remains of civil discourse. He subverted what SHOULD BE appropriate decent speeches and manners. USA suffers from the bad consequences.

A more radical imbalanced society

The two parties system in USA has been producing more and more authoritarian/populistic election contestants to fit the tastes of their loudest and most active voters in the initial elections. These people demand more ruthless and less civilised behaviours from their politicians.

A thick layer of stratosphere is created by the rapid increase in the numbers of radical politicians from both sides of politics with the aid of their respective media platforms to fit the tastes of their own electorates. The environment is flavourable to cradle more political organisations that embrace extreme and radical behaviours.

Politics from both sides see each other as enemies. Even they don't compete to death, they will exhaust every mean to hit each other badly. There are too many people from both sides of the politics believe that it is inevitable to sacrifice freedom in order to win. Both sides consider that restriction of the freedom of the other side has instrumental value to achieve what they think of as 'the best interests' for the future of their country.

BOTH sides of the politics have misintepreted what was the freedom envisioned and laid down by the Founding Fathers.

Consequence: Their ignorance of such freedom have created a radical imbalance society where people live with fear and fill with rages.