David Frum writing in 2017:
> The transition [in Hungary] has been nonviolent, often not even very dramatic. Opponents of the regime are not murdered or imprisoned, although many are harassed with building inspections and tax audits. […] The courts are packed, and forgiving of the regime’s allies. Friends of the government win state contracts at high prices and borrow on easy terms from the central bank. Those on the inside grow rich by favoritism; those on the outside suffer from the general deterioration of the economy. As one shrewd observer told me on a recent visit, “The benefit of controlling a modern state is less the power to persecute the innocent, more the power to protect the guilty.”
* https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/03/how-to-...
Do not let how autocracies worked in the 20th Century distract you from how they now work in the 21st. (Though no doubt there are still places where people are disappeared.)