Thinking more about this, and you see that the success of the “competitive” approach to authoritarianism comes from how it takes features of a normal democratic system, and just stretches them beyond recognition. But that process allows things to feel “normal” along the way.
Favoring friends and disfavoring who supports the opposition? “Well, it’s always like that, right?”Gerrymandering to make it hard for the opposition to win? “Oldest trick in the book!” Interfering about independent agencies? “Do you remember that presidents X and Y complained about them too?”
And a “savvy” political press plays a big role in this obscurantist process.
It feels like the political press has laid groundwork for this for years by separating the game of politics from its policy consequences. Much harder to make this shift smoothly if journalism is responsible for connecting decisions to their effects on institutions and people.
