
Project Syndicate
Since 1994, Project Syndicate has provided readers with original, engaging, and thought-provoking commentaries by those who are shaping the world's economics, politics, science, and culture. Our mission is to render complicated ideas in a language that educated readers everywhere can use to make informed choices, while providing a platform for the world's foremost statesmen, policymakers, intellectuals, and activists to reach a global audience without public relations and political hype.
Project Syndicate's members include more than 500 newspapers and other publications in 154 countries, and our commentaries reach 300 million readers. Our unique non-profit content-distribution model enables us to reach newspapers and other media in the developing world that commercial syndication services ignore or neglect. We offer outlets throughout developing Africa, Asia, and Latin America free or subsidized rights to our commentaries, ensuring equal access to ideas and debates that help people everywhere understand and respond to the forces – and risks – shaping their lives.
Would a second Donald Trump presidency really imperil American democracy? Influential commentators suggest that the former president is too “weak,” too desperate to be popular, or simply not “smart” enough to be a dictator. But American history lacks any real precedent, and other countries’ recent experiences suggest that a political movement with autocratic tendencies will become more ruthless and effective a second time around – especially after an electoral defeat.
Here’s how it tends to play out: A first-time leader or a new party gains national power, only to suffer a bitter electoral defeat after a single term. This experience has a radicalizing effect, and the party or leader becomes determined never to lose again. When the party does win a second time, it quickly moves to destroy the institutions and rules that could threaten its hold on power.