Autoritære regimer tilsmiler de korrupte og udygtige

The Anglo-Saxon world is not so different from Poland and Hungary. Britain has handled Covid-19 so disastrously because only servile nobodies, willing to pretend that a no-deal Brexit would not harm the country, could gain admittance to Boris Johnson’s cabinet.

Rather than grab at standard explanations, Applebaum understands that a society based on merit may sound fine if you want to live in a country run by talented people. But what if you are not yourself talented? Since the 1950s, criticisms of meritocracy have become so commonplace they have passed into cliche. Not one I have read or indeed written stops to consider how one-party states represent the anti-meritocratic society in its purest form. Among her friends who became the servants of authoritarian movements, Applebaum sees the consequences of the lust for status among resentful men and women, who believe the old world never gave them their due.

Ny bog af Anne Applebaum. ⟲

Anne Applebaum: how my old friends paved the way for Trump and Brexit

In a powerful new book, the journalist and historian reveals how her former friends and colleagues became agents of populism