🗽 Liberals and authoritarians

Hi everyone,

Nailbiter doesn’t begin to describe the US election.

I wanted to draw attention to three interesting analyses, two previously featured in Exponential View.

These provide some helpful lenses to reflect on the American election and what this electorate may be telling us. They may also provide a respite from reloading Twitter or flicking between cable TV channels.

• Karen Stenner, best known for predicting the rise of authoritarianism and far-right attitudes across liberal democracies, on “the authoritarian dynamic”. This note is from our private 2019 discussion with her. Her key idea is that “normative threat”, which may emerge for social, economic or technological change, and catalyse authoritarian predispositions in large parts of the population.

• Ray Dalio’s assessment of “Populism: The Phenomenon” from 2017 is still worth reading.

• Michael Sandel: “The populist backlash has been a revolt against the tyranny of merit.” Sandel is a moral philosopher, renowned for a recent critiq…