Brazil’s Coalition Against Democracy
Jair Bolsonaro’s electorate—a loose coalition brought together by the candidate’s appeal to “bullets, bibles, and bulls”—stands perilously close to dragging Brazil back into authoritarianism.
Spring 2025
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Dic Lit
In his survey of the writing of dictators, Daniel Kalder is so dismissive of the tyrants’ actual ideas that it becomes difficult to understand why they had any power in the first place.
Normcore
Channeling the anti-Trump #Resistance, a slew of recent books seeks to reduce democracy to a defense of political “norms.” But overcoming today’s crisis will take more political imagination.
Age of Emancipation
One of France’s most influential contemporary thinkers, Marcel Gauchet manages to craft a compelling historical account of half a millennium, exploring how we arrived at today’s crisis—and how we might get out.
Standing Up to a 171-Year Prison Sentence—For Facebook Posts
Prawais Praphanukul, a longtime human rights lawyer in Thailand, faces life in prison for a series of Facebook posts allegedly insulting the king. His decision to fight the charges is testing the limits of repression under the country’s increasingly authoritarian regime.
Against the Technocrats
Pundits fretting about a “tyranny of the majority” would do well to remember that democracy has always been a precondition of liberalism—not the other way around.
Does Putin’s Russia Have a Death Drive? A Q&A with Masha Gessen
“There’s been so much damage done to Russian society, both from seventy years of totalitarianism and now by Putinism, that there’s no roadmap for recovery.”
The Trumpian Personality 
One of the crowning works of the Frankfurt School, The Authoritarian Personality has much to teach us about the age of Trump.
Christmas for Xi
Recent international accolades for Xi Jinping’s China mask an alarming turn in the country’s politics.
What Lenin’s Critics Got Right
No regime identifying with Bolshevism has led to anything that can be called “liberation,” as early left-wing critics like Julius Martov and Rosa Luxemburg foresaw.
Did Turkey’s Democracy Devour Itself?
Voters worldwide have been making some alarming decisions lately, but none have gone so far as to vote democracy itself out of existence. On Sunday, Turkey seems to have done just that.
How to Bring Down a Dictator: Reading Gene Sharp in Trump’s America
The Trump administration poses a serious threat to liberal democracy, and we need to respond accordingly. Gene Sharp, the “Machiavelli of nonviolence,” offers valuable insights into how.
We’ve Been Fighting Authoritarianism Since 1954. Are You With Us?
Dissent was founded in a moment that must have felt as bleak as today, with two principal aims: to “defend democratic, humanist and radical values” and to attack all forms of authoritarianism. For 63 years, we’ve done just that, and we’re not going to stop now.
Authoritarian Democracy: A Playbook
From India to Turkey to the Philippines, authoritarian-leaning leaders of major world democracies have refined a set of strategies to make their countries less democratic. Here are five common tactics to watch out for.
Prepare For Regime Change, Not Policy Change
Lessons from the autocrats’ toolkit.
