Essays about why “populists are on the rise” and how “democracies are dying” are proliferating. At least a dozen new autocrats around the globe have succeeded in drawing all attention to themselves with petty talk, surprising coups and unspeakable threats.
Trump und Co. on all channels: Even critics follow their moves, spellbound, as though watching the next season of a TV series. Or, depressed, they shut (it) down. This book is about something completely different: opposition, protest and resistance. It aims to make two things clear: that the loss of freedom in Russia, Turkey and the United States, as well as in Poland and Hungary, is also destroying our freedom, and that similar developments in Germany are anything but out of the question – in fact, they may already be underway.
Yet the rise of the autocrats can be stopped. The book shows how protest, opposition and resistance are stirring in parliaments and on the streets, in courtrooms and communes, in religious communities and unions, in science, the media and the arts. And it sums up how refusal works and how, if all else fails, we can fight governmental despotism.
