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one hand tied behind their back. Dictators can jail opposition leaders or
order soldiers to ¿re into a crowd o peaceful protesters; democratic
leaders can, at best, appeal to reason and shared values.
This imbalance raises the prospect o a dark future in which digital
technology allows extremist networks to vanquish moderate hierar-
chies. Once in power, these extremist movements may succeed in trans-
forming themselves into highly hierarchical governments—and in
using brute force to keep their opponents at bay. Technology, in this
account, fuels the dissemination o the populists’ stories o legitimation
when they ¿rst storm the political stage, but it fails to rival the power
o their guns once their stories o legitimation have lost their hold.
It is too early to conclude that the populist dictatorships that have
arisen in many parts o the world in recent years will be able to sustain
themselves in power forever. In the end, those who are subject to
these oppressive regimes will likely grow determined to win back
their freedom. But the long and brutal history o autocracy leaves
little doubt about how dicult and dangerous it will be for them to
succeed. And so the best way to ¿ght demagogues with authoritarian
ambitions remains what it has always been: to defeat them at the bal-
lot box before they ever step foot in the halls o power.∂