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Democrats, lower case “d,” struggle a bit when the problem is actually us. It is an uncomfortable truth that humans sadly do gravitate toward the strongman. In the US., plenty of ink has been spilled trying to dissect the psyche of the Trump voter. It is globalization and decline in manufacturing. It is cultural grievance and feeling of loss. It is changing demographics. All of this is probably true. But, looking at research, by Pew and the University of Massachusetts (MacWilliams, 2016), it is actually authoritarian inclination that predicts votes for Trump. I have conducted polls myself overseas, measuring people’s opinions about difference, parenting, conformity, and, importantly, fear. In a poll I conducted in the country Georgia, those who viewed government-citizen relations as parent-child, disapproved of their son getting an earring, or would be angry if their child married outside their religion, were more likely to approve of strong leaders with authoritarian tendencies and be willing to sacrifice their rights.

Fear is at the heart of strongman appeal. John Hibbing from the University of Nebraska studies neurological differences between liberals and conservatives. He can identify partisan preference by asking a few simple questions about music, food, and poetry. Liberals are more comfortable with chaos, spices, uncertainty. Conservatives like blander, familiar food, music with a clear melody, and poems that rhyme. But most important are differences in fear. He could identify conservatives and liberals from brain scans. Conservatives are far more alarmed by images of home invaders, drug cartels, and terrorism. Threats are everywhere – immigrants, gangs, terrorism – and scans show heightened fear activity in conservatives’ brains. With liberals, areas of pain or empathy are activated, not so much fear, but in response to unpleasant imagery. (It is indeed ironic that liberals are called “snowflakes”.)

Trump knows how to tap into this. Once fear is activated, people gravitate toward authoritarianism. Trump’s rhetoric about Mexicans, building a wall, Black Lives Matter, a Muslim ban, was effective. It’s an age-old tactic of dictators. But new authoritarians – Hungary´s Orban, Turkey´s Erdogan, and the Philippine´s  Duterte – have employed this more effectively, because they have maintained democratic credentials.

Our world today is filled with threats – the pandemic, climate change, migration, and economic inequality – makes the fear card is easy to play. The elixir of simple solutions to complex problems and flexed muscle to stand up to the multitude of enemies have been hard to resist. All these anxieties are amplified by disinformation, aiding and abetting fear-mongering leaders.

The problem with “democratically elected” strongmen is that they cannot maintain democracy for long. Illiberal democracy is, in the end, an oxymoron. To keep power, illiberal leaders chip away at institutions, undermine checks and balances, and clamp down on constitutionalism, which protects minorities, freedom of speech, and a free press. How can a country hold democratic elections without media freedom for example? Is the election free and fair, with an informed electorate, if the opposition receives no airtime? Even in an old democracy like the U.S., strongman Trump was amazingly effective at undermining democratic norms – firing holders of important oversight positions , calling journalists “enemies of the state,” and failing to follow transparency traditions like declaring taxes.

So what do we do when the majority follows the siren calls of disinformation, conspiracies, and xenophobia to – democratically – elect the strongman who ultimately undermines democracy? We must build resilience, the backbone to not unravel at every threat, the resistance to disinformation and conspiracy theories, and the community durability to embrace difference and progress. Some argue that this is likely generational, and older folks are lost causes. We should focus on the schools, building courses on civic education and media literacy. But we must not forget that older generations remember life under autocracies. Having lived in the former Soviet Union, I can tell you that those over 50 certainly do not believe everything they read, as they are quite familiar with propaganda and the work involved to uncover the truth. Community engagement, empirically-based discourse and debate, and learning outside classrooms should be multi-generational, building on different perspectives and life experiences to develop that more discerning nature and comfort with diversity.

In the end, if we are strong, there will be no strongmen.

Laura Thornton is director for Global Programme at International IDEA, a Stockholm based intergovernmental organization working to support and strengthen democratic political institutions and processes around the world.  Laura leads and manages a portfolio of programmes that supports democracy world-wide and has monitored elections in more than 15 countries. Her opinion pieces have been published all over the world, and she is a regular contributor to media such as Newsweek, Bloomberg, Detroit Free Press and many others.

The views expressed in the above article are those of the author alone, and do not reflect any opinions on the part of EU Reporter.