Thank you for this article. I read it last night and noted some especially insightful and affirmative parts for myself.

Demagoguery is ventriloquism. Millions of disgruntled voters find the demagogue’s promises attractive.

But it’s important to understand that rule by demagogues is not based solely on repression. Demagogues have a penchant for seduction. They treat the whole world as a stage on which they play the role of heroic central characters in blustering performances designed to win over the hearts and heads of their audiences.

Meanwhile, in India, Modi has turned voting citizens into government beneficiaries (labharthis). In a country where 80 percent of the population is either rural or poor, his governments have actually spent less on education, health care, job creation schemes, and other long-term social investments—but won re-election in June, 2024, with the help of prime minister-branded deliveries of sacks of free rice and wheat, the setting-up of millions of personal bank accounts, “direct benefit transfers” of money, and promises of toilets and piped drinking water in every home.

As the transition away from democracy in the name of democracy gathers pace, something more startling happens. In the hands of the ruling party and its despot leader, the razzamatazz about “the People” has a more sinister effect: It aims to redefine who “the People” are. Desperate to tighten their grip on state power, with eyes on another election in the not-too-distant future, the demagogue and the governing party hands bread and roses to loyal followers and undecided waverers. But it also hits hard against its targeted so-called “enemies.” The government spreads uncivil language, picks political fights with its opponents, tightens border controls and builds barbed-wire fences against foreigners and so-called “foreign influences.

But democracy now resembles a fancy mask worn by wealthy political predators.