
Twilight of Democracy The Failure of Politics and the Parting of Friends
Reviews

It definitely had some truth to it, and valid judgement packed with detailed history and factual evidence, but it got draggy and boring. Not a waste of time, however, but it couldāve been 75 pages shorter.

I found that this book was more anectodal than a proper political analysis of the decline of democracy. Full of personal notes on how the author interacts with her colleagues, this gave me the impression it was more a rant towards her friends, discussing the gossip that is always present in the high echelons of society. She does touch upon some important points but the arguments were extremely shallow and I wouldn't trust this as a reliable source to be used in serious political arguments. I was expecting some thorough political analysis from a pulitzer prize winner journalist. In any case, two stars because some points were ok. What I got from this book: Some people cannot handle complexity and thus go for simpler political ideas, usually embraced by new comer parties such as Law and Order, Vox, Viktor Orban and Donald Trump. One thing that struck me from the her comments is how many of these parties openly oppose democratic processes and once they're in power the openly change the rules to suppress dissidents (Poland, Hungary right now). Aside from that, the book offers shallow political arguments.















Highlights

The āauthoritarian predispositionā [i]s not exactly the same as closed-mindedness. It is better described as simple-mindedness: people are often attracted to authoritarian ideas because they are bothered by complexity. They dislike divisiveness. They prefer unity.