[diego_moita]

There is a reason why we're seeing the rise of the autocrats (Erdogan, Putin, Jiping, Orban, Bolsonaro, Trump, Duterte, Kaczyński, ...): it is because openness and democracy triumphed before. And it won because previous autocrats failed.

Edit: my point is: starting in the late 70's, authoritarian regimes failed miserably before all over the world, therefore there's no reason to believe they'll succeed thist time. Remember Marx explaining Charles Bonaparte: history happens twice, first as a tragedy, second as a farce.

The fundamental fact is that, in the long run, autocrats are very incompetent and make a lot of mistakes, mostly by hubris and because they're surrounded by yes-men that hide them the truth. They become detached from facts, they think they can control facts until facts control them.

Erdogan's strong rule is a drug that Turkey will have to pay very dearly to get rid off.

[noworriesnate]

> it is because openness and democracy triumphed before

How do you think openness and democracy triumphing cause the rise of autocrats? Are you referring to Plato's five regimes theory, where each type of government degenerates into a different government, in a cycle?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plato%27s_five_regimes

[diego_moita]

> How do you think openness and democracy triumphing cause the rise of autocrats?

Sorry, I expressed myself badly. It doesn't "cause" it just provides a contrast that makes this look as different of what was there before.

If Latin America, Eastern Europe, Middle East and East Asia were still under the authoritarian rulers of the Cold War era, these new autocrats wouldn't be a novelty.

My point is that autocrats failed before and all those places tried democracy. It succeeded in most of them, but a few want to go back to something that is not viable anymore.

[FpUser]

The guy (Plato) does have a point