The Boiling Frog: Gradual Authoritarianism Explored

President Donald Trump’s countless executive orders and mounting deportations are testing America’s democratic institutions. On this week’s On the Media, what we can learn from Hungary’s recent backslide into autocracy. Plus, why resistance movements throughout history have succeeded with 3.5 percent of the population, or less, behind them.

[01:36] Host Micah Loewinger speaks with Andrew Marantz, a staff writer at The New Yorker, about his recent piece, “Is the U.S. Becoming an Autocracy?” and what we can learn from Hungary’s recent backsliding into authoritarianism.

[16:17] Micah speaks with Márton Gulyás, founder of Partizán, Hungary’s leading independent news show, about what lessons journalists in the US might take away from his experience.

[37:53] Micah sits down with Maria J. Stephan, political scientist and co-author of Why Civil Resistance Works, to dissect the 3.5% rule, a statistic that’s been making its rounds on social media, which is a measurement of the power of collective action. Stephan and her co-researcher Erica Chenoweth first coined the term in 2010. 

Further reading:

• “Is the U.S. Becoming an Autocracy?” by Andrew Marantz
• “Big Tents and Collective Action Can Defeat Authoritarianism,” by Maria J. Stephan
• Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict, by Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan

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