VOLUME XX, NUMBER 4, FALL 2020 A Journal of Political Thought and Statesmanship CHOOSE, AMERICA! William Voegeli: Joe Biden . Angelo M. Codevilla: Michael Anton’s e Stakes Victor Davis Hanson & Douglas A. Jerey: e Never Trumpers Michael Barone: Trump’s Democrats . Mark Helprin: Say No to the 2020 Revolution Matthew B. Crawford: omas Sowell: Christopher Caldwell: Manliness Today e Unheavenly City Revisited e Pilgrims at 400 Steven F. Hayward: John O’Sullivan: Harvey C. Manseld: Charles Moore’s atcher Anne Applebaum’s Ex-Friends e Extraordinary Machiavelli Sally C. Pipes: Robert Royal: Oren Cass: Health Care Is Not a Right Discovering Columbus When Market Economists Fail A Publication of the Claremont Institute PRICE: $6.95 IN CANADA: $9.50 mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm Book Review by John O’Sullivan Ex-Friends Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism, by Anne Applebaum. Doubleday, 224 pages, $25 n 1960 jacques soustelle, a long- an oblique way by examining how some of those at the second had been present at the standing Gaullist disillusioned by his Applebaum’s friends have contributed to this first. She has switched milieux. Ihero’s crabwise moves toward granting process of democratic change and decay, and Telling the story of democracy in the post- independence to Algeria, told the general how this process has in turn affected them Cold War world through the making and that all of Soustelle’s friends were opposed to and their friendships with her. breaking of friendships has advantages. It this policy. “Changez vos amis,” responded de makes for a lively narrative and it allows for Gaulle briskly. “Change your friends.” adly” is the simplest answer. amusing anecdotes and clever pen-portraits. Soustelle didn’t follow this advice (and Her account opens with a party on There are both here. Its serious disadvantage spent years in exile as a result), but Anne Ap-“Bthe last day of the 20th century at is that unless your close friends are people plebaum does in this readable and passionate the provincial Polish home she shares with like Angela Merkel, Donald Trump, or Boris curiosity of a book. A Pulitzer Prize-winning her husband, Radek Sikorski, then a junior Johnson (Applebaum scores 33% on that test), historian and staff writer for theAtlantic minister in the first Law and Justice coalition there is likely to be a large disproportion be- who has written extensively on Soviet Com- government, and ends with a summer party tween the historical facts being told and your munism, Applebaum invokes the grand ab- almost exactly 20 years later in the same method of telling them. Thereductio ad absur- stractions of democracy and authoritarianism house. Much else has changed, however. Hav- dum of this approach is the title of comedian with her title, which suggests an exploration ing switched parties in 2007, Sikorski was the Spike Milligan’s autobiography—Adolf Hit- of how Europe and America have gradually senior foreign affairs minister for seven years ler: My Part in his Downfall (1971). moved from the triumph of democracy after in a Civic Platform government. And that’s Contrast this approach with the vastness 1989 to its allegedly weakened and (in some only one reason why, as Applebaum herself of the topic—namely, the evolution of democ- cases) even suicidal state today. That is indeed observes, few of her friends at the first party racy, or the large number of parties that have the theme of the book. But it is explored in are guests at the second, and almost none of risen, fallen, disappeared, and sometimes re- Claremont Review of Books w Fall 2020 Page 31 mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm appeared in Western democracies since 1989. shrank to 7% in 2017 but will probably recov- ranean Europe and caused a still-recurring To over-simplify, Europe’s mainstream social er by 2022 as others fail. series of banking and financial crises; barely democratic parties have declined precipitous- controlled mass migration, dramatized by ly; its mainstream center-Right parties have ne might reasonably argue that the refugee crisis of 2015, resulting from the been weakened; “populist” and Green parties these trends signify the high noon of failure to control Europe’s borders; and the have risen on Right and Left; and in order to Odemocracy insofar as older parties alienation of voters from an opaque governing keep power and resist them, center-Left and that neglected their constituencies lost ground, system that transfers powers from national center-Right have increasingly been forming new parties arose to champion their griev- governments to Brussels and thereafter pur- centrist “grand coalitions.” Italy, Spain, Ger- ances, and the “Overton window” of issues sues policies European Union elites favor but many, France, Denmark, Holland, the Irish it was legitimate to debate expanded. Aren’t electorates detest, and deep-sixes the opposite Republic, Sweden, and the European Parlia- such things usually seen as the marks of a vi- policies as quietly as it can. ment (where last year the centrist grand co- brant democracy? But Applebaum sees these alition fell to 43% of memberships, and re- trends as the “twilight of democracy” in part pplebaum considers the possibil- cruited the liberal bloc in order to retain its because she concentrates mainly on countries ity that these crises had caused the governing majority) all represent variations where right-wing populists have won elec- Aupheavals of European politics above, on this theme. tions—on Poland, Hungary, and the United but rejects it: Look at France’s Fifth Republic more Kingdom, which all have stable majorities of closely: an original Left-Right division has the Right—on populism generally, on Brexit, The recession of 2008–2009 was deep, splintered into a multi-party system that in- and on Donald Trump. Whatever name we but—at least until the coronavirus cludes Gaullist conservatives, Emmanuel Ma- give these changes, however, they are certainly pandemic—growth had returned. The cron’s new centrist liberals, the neo-Jacobins big and significant. What caused them? refugee crisis of 2015–2016 was a shock, of the Right in Marine Le Pen’s Rassemble- Causes and effects are not always easy to but it has abated. By 2018, refugees ment National, and the radical Left’s La France identify in politics because some very dra- from North Africa and the Middle East Insoumise under Jean-Luc Mélenchon. In the matic effects, including some revolutions, had mostly stopped coming to Europe, first round of the 2017 presidential elections, have long-germinating causes. But here some thanks to deals done with Turkey by these four parties split the vote so evenly that causes push themselves on our attention: the the E.U. and its mainstream politicians. it was almost accidental that Macron and Le 2008 financial crash and its long recessionary Pen went into the final round. Nor should we aftermath; the long-running Euro crisis that But why were the changes in electoral forget the once-mighty Socialist Party that has devastated the economies of Mediter- politics unrelated to the major crises that had Get the Latest Releases on Voting and Elections September 2020, 171pp, 6 1/8x9 1/4 TWO VOLUMES October 2020, 225pp, 6 1/8x9 1/4 Hardcover: 978-1-4408-6689-0, $39.00 February 2020, 774pp, 7x10 Hardcover: 978-1-4408-7328-7, $65.00 Hardcover: 978-1-4408-6084-3, $204.00 Save 20% through December 31, 2020, with promo code Q32020.* * Discount applies to above titles only. Offer is valid on U.S. direct purchases made via abc-clio.com for print products only, and purchases are non-returnable. Standard shipping charges apply. This offer is not available through distributors. Cannot be combined with any other discount offers. ABC-CLIO, LLC | 147 Castilian Dr. Santa Barbara, CA 93117 | 800-368-6868 | abc-clio.com Claremont Review of Books w Fall 2020 Page 32 mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm occurred in the previous decade? Is Apple- many of whom were also active supporters of part of unscrupulous demagogues. Lies there baum arguing that they couldn’t have done Brexit. They are an exceptionally distinguished undoubtedly were, but they were told by both so because the voters are too short-termist to bunch, as it happens, including Boris John- sides. Those told by official sources in the form connect dots separated by a year or two? If so, son, Simon Heffer, Roger Scruton, and, ahem, of economic predictions (a.k.a., Project Fear) she’s unwisely condescending to them. Or is me. I can’t really complain about the portrait have proved astoundingly wide of the mark; she reproving the voters for not being short- of me which suggests a combination of boule- those told (allegedly) by Leave campaigners termist enough and moving on contentedly vardier (jovial, witty, fond of champagne) and were standard election exaggerations. (I have when their betters have solved the crises? In James Bond villain who emerges from behind to write “allegedly” because recent court cases which case she underrates the good sense and the scenes occasionally to cast Scotland aside have ruled both that Leave campaigners were seriousness of ordinary people about public unsentimentally or to move Viktor Orbán falsely accused by the official U.K. elections matters that touch their lives deeply. around on the international chessboard. But agency of misusing campaign funds, and that Whichever it is, the more important point the glaring difficulty about my assistants, John- Leave’s most famous “lie”—the cost to Britain is that the voters have proved wiser than the son, Heffer, and Scruton, is that there doesn’t of E.U. funding—would have been completely E.U. leaders and Ms. Applebaum.