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“And the only way to fight the bastards off in the end is through intelligence.” — Enoch Root
“In human life it's also true/ The strong will try to conquer you/ And that is what you must expect/ Unless you use your intellect” — Merlin
Five years ago, I wrote a post about the wave of authoritarianism sweeping the world:
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That unhappy trend has continued. Freedom House’s 2026 report is subtitled “The Growing Shadow of Autocracy”, and finds that freedom continues to decline across the globe:
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V-DEM’s 2026 report, subtitled “Unraveling the Democratic Era?”, delivers the same message:
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Both organizations note the rapid deterioration in freedom under Donald Trump’s second administration, including attacks on free and fair elections, persecution of critics in the press, and the rise of a violent and unaccountable security state. In the 20th century, the U.S. was the Arsenal of Democracy — as the world’s most powerful country, and one of its most free, it often used its industrial might to support liberal democracy around the world. In the 21st century, America is increasingly incapable and unwilling to play this role.
Instead, the industrial powerhouse of this century is China. In addition to its own rapidly growing military power and technological supremacy, it supports various autocratic satellite powers to keep potential rivals off-balance — Russia, Iran, North Korea, and so on. This geopolitical grouping has been given various names — I called it the “New Axis”, and others have called it things like the “Axis of Autocracy”. But Trump has shown that Cold War 2 will not be a clean contest of liberal democracy versus totalitarianism; instead, it’ll be a hodgepodge of amoral competing power blocs, more reminiscent of the time before World War 1.
Liberal democracy hasn’t been defeated, but it’s definitely the underdog again. The hope that regular fo