The new book by the US historian Anne Applebaum, "The Lure of the Authoritarian", is personal; it concerns her life, her experiences, her friendships and political contacts in Poland, Hungary, Great Britain and America, the countries in which rebellious, System-breaking, even reactionary processes endanger post-war democracy.
What is happening now is tantamount to betraying the values of liberal democracy by a conservative elite. And this in the midst of relative prosperity, not comparable to the 1930s. The unpredictability of migration was also insufficient as an explanation. So where does this igniting without need, this almost childish refusal to face the unreasonable demands of reality, come from?