I'd rather not know.

Sometimes it's bad to be a historian, you know things.

At risk of censure from my esteemed colleagues I shall make a grand historical observation: the natural political state of mankind has been and is authoritarian. I’ll support this with observations that prior to the twentieth century democracies were few, barely democratic, and short lived. As I explain to my classes, the concept of a citizen has traditionally been limited to an exclusive few propertied, free males (or in later times and places to white males who often must be followers of a particular faith).

One might say that now is different, and one would be right. In many countries women are citizens, as are racial and religious minorities. The number of democracies rose dramatically as the twentieth century wore on. Yet, let’s take a deeper look. We’ll focus on the West. Most countries in central and eastern Europe have virtually no democratic tradition. Most have only been so since around 1989 after the fall of the Soviet Union. In western Europe democracy arrived, in stages, earlier, but has always had a conservative counter movement to content with. The U.S.A. has always had the issues of slavery, Jim Crow, and general anti-immigration as ongoing anti-democratic forces. The most recent “great awakening“ is a new and very powerful threat to democracy.

In most of Europe and North America the authoritarian forces are re-merging as a dominant force. We are all familiar with Putin’s regime in Russia, but similar developments are to be seen elsewhere. In recent years the new regimes in Hungary and Poland have both enacted strict anti civil rights laws, eliminated the independence of their high courts, and changed their constitutions to help keep themselves in power. Other countries are following different routes. Britain for example is disassembling its health care and education systems, while heavily restricting the right to gather and protest. This is backed up by assembling the most intrusive surveillance state in modern history. Finally, Germany, while fairly democratic at home, is flexing its authoritarian muscle around the EU. Through domination of the Euro they are forcing austerity on other countries while expanding their own economy. Germany’s reach is so strong that it was able to force both Greece and Italy to accept unelected caretaker governments to enact German policies.

These are all very popular measures, which is something we don’t consider. Many people prefer authoritarian governments if they bring a measure of economic security and a feeling of safety and stability, then people will happily support such governments. The correlation between recessions, depressions and the rise of authoritarianism has been well observed. While the latter, the feeling of safety and stability, is often strongly linked to immigration. The more different the immigrants the more threatened the natives. Provide a large enough quantity of immigrants and the fear rises geometrically. We can see clearly in Europe a perfect storm of severe economic recession alongside mass migration of Muslims. The outcome we are witnessing is virtually guaranteed.

Democracy only works in a relatively homogeneous and economically egalitarian society.

Which brings us to the United States. We know economic uncertainty and inequality has been rising for a generation, and we know the problem has accelerated during the Great Recession. We have considerable immigration of Spanish speaking non-European looking peoples from south of the border, not to mentioned the continued legacy of racism against African Americans. Add in the extra element of religious fundamentalism, and we have a perfect storm in North America. The rise of Trump and the authoritarian right should be, under the circumstances, absolutely no surprise.

I won’t go so far as to predict the future, but if I were a betting man I would bet based on the historical trend that authoritarianism will become the dominant form of politics as the twenty-first century develops.

Democracy only works in a relatively homogeneous and economically egalitarian society.

This is why it’s bad to be a historian. I think ignorance really is bliss