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Listen!
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In one of the radio broadcasts that Thomas Mann recorded on the BBC between 1940 and 1945, which he always opened with a call to “Listen, Germany!”, he asked: “How was it possible that National Socialism could adopt the name of a ‘German liberation movement,’ when, according to the common sense of mankind, such an abomination cannot possibly have anything to do with liberty?”
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One doesn’t need historical comparisons after Donald Trump took office for a second time this Monday to be reasonably sure that our era will also leave behind warnings, imploring different nations to “listen.”
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The significance of Trump’s first 100 executive orders, what the policy of his first 100 days in office will be directed towards, journalistic placations insisting that American democracy is enormously resilient and will not be so easily damaged – you can read these kinds of things elsewhere. At the Diasporist, you can read about the role models for and imitators of Trump’s policies. Yelizaveta Landenberger examines the case of Slovakia, a recent example of a reversal of democratic checks and balances, to demonstrate the extent to which Trump’s program is based on a tried and tested script. The blueprint of the country’s authoritarian shift under the government of Robert Fico inspired the authors of Project 2025. The formula for opposition? As always, an informed warning of what is to come is (only) a first step.
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Thomas Mann illustrated this 80 years ago: “To warn you, Germany, means to confirm you in your own dark premonitions. I can do no more.”
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Contributing Editor, the Diasporist
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Yelizaveta Landenberger
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Henrique Alvim Corrêa, Illustration for “The War of the Worlds” (1906)
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How Slovak democracy is transforming into autocracy
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On May 15 last year, a little-known 71-year-old poet attempted to assassinate the Slovak Prime Minister, Robert Fico. Slovakia, a small nation located in the EU’s central east, was left shaken. How could it have come to this? The attack was preceded by half a year of severe social tensions after Fico assumed his fourth term of office on October 25, 2023. Since then, he — and his governing coalition of two populist parties and one rightwing party — have been pressing ahead with the gradual dismantling of democracy in the country. As a result, Slovakia now finds itself joining the ranks of countries where nationalist authoritarianism has found success in the 21st century: Poland under PiS, Trump’s USA of past and future, Hungary, Georgia, the UK during its Brexit frenzy, and Italy under Meloni’s “Fratelli D’Italia.”
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International authoritarianism
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What unites the authoritarian parties in these very different countries is the way they clearly position themselves against plurality while offering supposedly simple answers to the complexity of today’s world. They also pursue their objectives with similar means, often deploying the same narratives to this end. In her 2020 book Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism, Anne Applebaum offers a detailed analysis of these parties’ strategies: “Given the right conditions, any society can turn against democracy,” she observes. Authoritarianism is also on the march in Austria, France, and Germany. How the transition from democracy to authoritarianism actually functions can currently be witnessed “live” in the case of Slovakia.
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