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Why This Century's Autocrats Are More Likely To Succeed

Putin, Erdogan and other leaders last year in Istanbul.
Putin, Erdogan and other leaders last year in Istanbul.
João Pereira Coutinho

-OpEd-

SAO PAULO — One of the biggest lies in modern politics is the belief that freedom is a universally-shared passion. It isn't. Freedom implies a burden of responsibility not everyone is willing to bear. In this school of thought, I believe Thomas Hobbes was right: People fear violence, scarcity and death. The majority, therefore, wishes for security, not freedom.

Totalitarian experiments of the 20th century proved this. It is worth remembering that fascism and Nazism both enjoyed support from the masses. Was that because they defended individual liberties? Of course not. After the ruins of World War I, and the devastating consequences of the Great Depression, there was a tragic longing for security among Europeans even if that meant, as indeed it did, the suspension of liberal democracy.

The same goes for Communism or, to be more precise, the end of Communism. The thirst for freedom only became pressing once the illusion of security disappeared. The utopia of a world without hunger, without exploitation, without fear, was nowhere to be found. To put it in absurd terms, if Communism had guaranteed the material comfort it had promised its followers, the issues of liberties would never have become a priority.

That's why I praise Holly Case's essay "The New Authoritarians' on the always brilliant aeon.com. In it, the history professor from Brown University tries to understand the new authoritarianism embodied by Putin, Erdogan and Órban.

What about freedom, I hear you ask.

Case makes a brilliant observation: Old authoritarianism wanted to achieve a "new man," a brutal effort that, due to its idealistic nature, led to equally brutal cruelties that eventually condemned these utopias to self-destruction.

The 20th century was made up of "labor camps," mass propaganda, cults of personality and other bloody fantasies aimed at elevating the proletariat to truly Homeric heights.

New authoritarianism, on the other hand, isn't interested in creating "new men." It's happy with both the state and people abiding by the "social contract" with their respective cynicism: The state guaranteeing the essentials in life, and with individuals staying away from the sordid world of politics. What about freedom, I hear you ask. Dear reader, did you not read what I wrote at the beginning?

Holly Case's diagnosis is spot on. But it's missing a conclusion. The new authoritarianism is more likely to succeed than the old one. And that's precisely because of the absence of totalitarian vocations such as the creation of a "new man."

Having abandoned this utopian ambition, authoritarianism in the 21st century is already on its way to working.

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FOCUS: Russia-Ukraine War

That Man In Mariupol: Is Putin Using A Body Double To Avoid Public Appearances?

Putin really is meeting with Xi in Moscow — we know that. But there are credible experts saying that the person who showed up in Mariupol the day before was someone else — the latest report that the Russian president uses a doppelganger for meetings and appearances.

screen grab of Putin in a dark down jacket

During the visit to Mariupol, the Presidential office only released screen grabs of a video

Russian President Press Office/TASS via ZUMA
Anna Akage

Have no doubt, the Vladimir Putin we’re seeing alongside Xi Jinping this week is the real Vladimir Putin. But it’s a question that is being asked after a range of credible experts have accused the Russian president of sending a body double for a high-profile visit this past weekend in the occupied Ukrainian city of Mariupol.

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Reports and conspiracy theories have circulated in the past about the Russian leader using a stand-in because of health or security issues. But the reaction to the Kremlin leader's trip to Mariupol is the first time that multiple credible sources — including those who’ve spent time with him in the past — have cast doubt on the identity of the man who showed up in the southeastern Ukrainian city that Russia took over last spring after a months-long siege.

Russian opposition politician Gennady Gudkov is among those who confidently claim that a Putin look-alike, or rather one of his look-alikes, was in the Ukrainian city.

"Now that there is a war going on, I don't rule out the possibility that someone strongly resembling or disguised as Putin is playing his role," Gudkov said.

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