Two tipping points for officially becoming a dictatorship could occur this week
robertreich.substack.com
robertreich.substack.com
Personally, I don't see a sharp dividing line between illiberal "democracy" and dictatorships and surely both labels could apply.
The danger of conflating the two is that you're setting people up for false expectations. If you go around telling people that Hungary is a dictatorship just like North Korea, and then they visit Hungary, they might away with the notion that Orban is not so bad. Nobody is starving, and they won't happen to notice the reporters in prison. You run the danger of undermining your own credibility.
A dictatorship is when you have a leader or group of leaders with almost no limitations on their power. That would seem to apply to both Hungary and North Korea (and also the U.S. if the courts are powerless to enforce law abidance by the leader).
I suppose that I consider illiberal "democracies" to be a flavour of dictatorships.
> Elections in an illiberal democracy are often manipulated or rigged, being used to legitimize and consolidate the incumbent rather than to choose the country's leaders and policies
When the regime can abduct and deport anyone without respect for legitimate independent judicial review where they can present evidence, democracy is absolutely gone. The only rule is the Dear Leader's whim.
If they can do it to any individual, they can do it to anyone, and "anyone" includes their opponents.
Yes, we have lived for many generations without these threats, but do not let Normalcy Bias blind us to the real and present danger. Democracies are often tipped into autocracy, and as with crossing the event horizon into a supermassive black hole, the particular moment of crossing may be barely noticeable, but the impending spaghettification is no less inevitable. If the balance of power in the three co-equal branches of government are replaced by one regime who ignores the others, the regime also ignores the people, by definition. The people will need to be become ungovernable to regain their sovereignty, or remain subjects of the regime and its whims.
[edit: typos]
There is indeed always a way back, but that phrase is doing a LOT of heavy lifting!
Yes, people have overcome far worse authoritarian regimes.
But, remember: the cost to overcome authoritarians always goes up as a regime consolidates power.
An unconsolidated authoritarian regime can sometimes be voted out.
With some consolidation, toppling a regime may require "merely" weeks of protest by 5% of the entire population and general strikes that make the country ungovernable.
As the regime escalates, it may take full-on violent revolution with blood in the streets and govt buildings to restore the sovereignty of the citizens.
Sound and fury, indeed. This is not what any sane person wants. There is always a way back, but are you and everyone you know and love prepared to do whatever it takes to get it back? Or do you feel it is OK to trivialize the effort required because you think you have so much privilege you expect others to do the fighting?
I did just see a news alert that the judge in the "deportation" (kidnapping) case is considering contempt of court for the Trump administration - will that work?
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/16/trump-deport...