Reading Twilight of Democracy by @anneapplebaum. Seems relevant these days.

The worst kind of one-party state “invariably replaces all first-rate talents, regardless of their sympathies with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty”.
Hannah Arendt, 1940, quoted by @anneapplebaum

“A rigged and uncompetitive system [as found in illiberal one-party states] sounds bad if you want to live in a society run by the talented. But if that isn’t your primary interest, what’s wrong with it?”
@anneapplebaum, Twilight of Democracy

"Whatever equilibrium your nation reaches, there is always someone, at home or abroad, who has reasons to upset it."

"People are [now] often attracted to authoritarian ideas because they are bothered by complexity."
"A sudden onslaught of diversity - of opinions, of experiences - makes them angry."
@karen_stenner via @anneapplebaum

"The old newspapers and broadcasters created the possibility of a single national conversation. In many advanced democracies there is now no common debate, let alone a common narrative. People have always had different opinions. Now they have different facts."

[I saw that happen here when satellite dishes gave Dutch people with a Moroccan background access to Arab news stations. That must have given them a different perspective on what happened in Gaza than those of us watching Dutch TV news.]