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@ solobalbo
2025-02-22 09:31:41
Anne Applebaum's Autocracy, Inc. does not frame Western European or U.S. regimes as inherently autocratic. Instead, her analysis focuses on how external authoritarian regimes (e.g., Russia, China) collaborate to undermine democracies through disinformation, financial networks, and exploitation of democratic vulnerabilities. She critiques Western missteps, such as over-reliance on economic ties with autocrats or naiveté about their intentions, but does not conflate democracies with autocracies.
While it may be true that Russia and China are autocratic, that doesn't make your Western countries any better. You have groupthink, mass surveillance, legal and judicial overreach of which journalists are often victims ( a better honor than a Pulitzer ), persecution of whistleblowers, media consolidation, deplatforming and algorithmic bias, support for authoritarian allies ( Israel, for example ), lobbying and campaign finance, policing of protests, forced neo-colonialism on other countries, and so on.
I'm an African living in Africa who thinks for himself. I hate to read or listen to people who try to give lessons to others while living in a glass house. Others have autocracies, you have cabals.