The Age of the Strong Man by Gideon Rachman
Rachman is a respected foreign affairs journalist who has witnessed the rise of Trump, Xi, Putin, Erdogan, Orban and all the other autocratic populists who have paraded on the global stage this century. After the rise in countries embracing liberal democracy post world war two and the establishment of a rules based international community dominated by the USA, the last few years have seen a retreat from those principles. And this retreat has manifested itself in a glut of men who simply do not accept the end of history and the triumph of western liberal values and freedoms after the end of the cold war. In the mid 1990s there was a touching belief that Putin would continue perestroika as a more sober, competent version of Yeltzin and that China’s leaders would gradually and steadily embrace freedoms as the country interacted with the global economy. How wrong they, the international community, and we were.
Rachman’s analysis of how this happened is thorough and informative. He spends less time, however, analysing why we have all these men - and they are all men – who have no patience with the rule of law, democratic institutions, individual and cultural freedoms, and why they have all seemed to emerge at the same time. He really only offers the well-trodden reasoning: the financial crisis, the less positive aspects of globalisation for indigenous populations, and the weakness of America and its closest allies manifest in the failed middle eastern interventions.
His main interest is to identify the recurring patterns in the background and psychology of the strong men as well as the methods they use to gain power and embed themselves. People like Trump, Putin, Erdogan, Bolsinaro begin by convincing themselves, or are born convinced, of the special personal relationship they have with the people, the ordinary, hard-working, patriotic citizens, whatever that means. They convince themselves that they have a hot line to the people’s concerns which are, usually, always the same: fear of the other or, in other words, control of immigration; and reinforcement of conservative social policies that promote restrictive traditions – old-fashioned views on sexuality, the role of women, and so on.
In order to establish themselves as the people’s spokesman, the strong man has to create enemies, usually characterised as the liberal elites – which is ironic considering that most of the strong men come from privileged backgrounds. Entwined with those liberal elites is the media which is derided for fake news and then gradually shackled. The judges and constitutional protections follow the same route. So, that’s the game plan and none of these methods is unique to this generation of populists. Nor is the approach much different if the strong men are from opposite political backgrounds: Marxists, KGB and party officials on one side and right wing, free market libertarians on the other. They all have one thing in common: they want to grab all the levers of power and hold on to them for as long as they please; and, surprisingly often, try to then pass them on to family dynasties. The Marcos’ son is emerging as Duterte’s chosen successor in The Phillipines and we know that Trump has positioned Ivanka and Jarrod as key political figures in his past and, as looks frighteningly more likely, next administration.
This is a depressing but fascinating read. The Trump section is familiar and, as a result of Ukraine, we are now well-informed about Putin’s long game establishing himself as a modern Tsar. However, we also get gruesomely fascinating accounts of the wily Orban and Erdogan. Both were initially hailed by the EU and western democracies as dynamic, reforming politicians, men with whom we could do business. Okay, they were a bit rough around the edges and sometimes rode roughshod over democratic processes but, eh, as we drew them closer, we were confident that democracy would eventually flourish. That’s why Hungary is in the EU, despite Orban’s rampant anti-semitism and control of the media; and it’s why at the beginning of the 21st century Turkey began the early stages of negotiations to join the EU.
As ever in this sort of book, Johnson is the outlier. In Anne Applebaum’s excellent book around the same issue, ‘Twilight of Democracy’, she is ambivalent about Johnson’s potential danger as a populist. Perhaps she imagined the liberal and optimistic London mayor would re-emerge when he had secured No. 10, whilst Brexit and Red Wall voters believed he was on the side of the disadvantaged and disenfranchised. Rachman has none of this and with good reason. When you consider Johnson’s willingness to break international law based on partial legal interpretations, as well as the floating of proposals around electoral reform that will make it harder for certain people (ie. probable Labour supporters) to vote, then you can see the strong man methodology in action. No amount of dishevelled boosterism and willingness to move on, can hide the way he has set his attack dog, Nadine Dorries, to intimidate the BBC. Nor should his Rwandan plan be seen as a realistic proposal to tackle the vile people smuggling gangs – it is simply dog whistle politics to demonise victims and a cynical attempt to stoke up culture wars. Rachman makes the obvious comparison with Trump’s wall, Putin’s anti-gay legislation and Xi’s view that all Muslims are potential terrorists who need re-educating.
Rachman offers little hope at the end of this survey of the strong men. He talks about thirty year cycles but there is also a sense that Churchill’s famous statement about democracy being the least bad way of running a country is going out of fashion. And remember, of the two hundred plus nations around the globe, only about forty can claim to be democracies and this number has fallen in the last few years.
If there is some hope, Rachman points to the way that the democrat constitutional processes kicked in when Trump’s supporters stormed the senate. It is now fairly clear that this was a blatant attempt by Trump to bypass the people’s presidential choice by a populist coup. Politicians across the parties, and most significantly Pence, as well as the police and other arms of the state stood firm. We have to keep our fingers crossed that remains the case as the next US Presidential race draws closer.