John Oliver looks at authoritarian leaders on Last Week Tonight

With the rise of populists like Putin and Rodrigo Duterte, what does Trump mean for the U.S.? John Oliver explores on the season finale of Last Week Tonight

For the season finale of Last Week Tonight, we’re going to keep it light and talk about authoritarianism. See? Nice and relaxing, just like the rest of 2018 has been so far.

It’s a subject certainly worth discussion, given the rise of hardline, hard-right leaders like Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Turkey’s Recep Erdoğan, and Brazil’s newly elected president, Jair Bolsonaro.

Why are all of these far-right, strong-arm leaders rising to office in recent years? Why can’t things like Bolsonaro’s approval of torture and love of dictatorship automatically kick him out of the running? What about these people makes them so attractive to their citizens and even people outside of their own nations?

Before we get to anything else, it’s worth pinning down what host John Oliver says are the three defining traits of authoritarian leaders. First, there’s projecting strength, a need to show power and control through spectacles like military parades. It’s like a mid-life crisis on a national scale. Look at Putin’s glamour shot calendar or President of Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow forcing his cabinet to applaud while he lifts what appears to be a gold rod.

Berdimuhamedow, by the way, is one of the flashiest dictators in recent times, and that’s accounting for Putin’s endless photoshoots. Berdimuhamedow has built a golden statue of himself in Turkmenistan’s capital, insists that everyone refer to him as “Arkadag” (“the patron”) and somehow survived the embarrassment of starring in a rap video with his grandson.

That’s only the first step to becoming an authoritarian dictator, however. Next, the leader in question must demonize their enemies. This is an especially powerful tool when you want to take control of a country and its people. Who needs the rule of the law or fair elections when you have a scary boogeyman to frighten people into supporting you. Never mind if the boogeymen are real or not.

Discipline

Look at Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s absolutely bone-chilling Christmas message to criminals in his country, as shown on Last Week Tonight. His supporters often cite gangs and violent drug addicts in their support to Duterte, who brings “discipline” to the Philippines via death squads. Or Russia, where gay people are apparently raging across the country, committing heinous crimes against children and zoo animals (they…. they aren’t, just to be clear) — unless the Russian government steps in and saves the “good” citizens.

In this way, authoritarian leaders condense a tricky world. “One of their greatest appeals is making a complicated world simple,” said Oliver. And it seems to work, at least most of the time. Scaring people makes them vulnerable and prone to following along with an authoritarian leader’s compelling, if flawed, rhetoric.

Then, a fledgling authoritarian needs to dismantle a nation’s institutions. Journalism is frequently a target here, as when members of the Russian media seem to meet a lot of terrible accidents. Judges and courts can also fall or at least be made so toothless that they can’t put up any resistance. Meanwhile, opposition parties may as well be invisible for all the good they do in a system like this.

So, why would someone support a leader like this? People in these systems seem to share a common distrust of the media or opposition leaders. They may want increased “discipline” for others (not themselves, of course) and more protection than they believe they have gotten thus far.

Close to home

Hey, Americans, is this starting to sound drearily familiar? Yes, inevitably, we have to talk about Donald Trump once again. Remember that time he wanted a military parade? And all the times he got mad about immigrants, Canada, journalists, the USPS, Robert De Niro, Chicago, Chrissy Teigen, and anyone else who looked at him crossways or was mean to him on Twitter?

Trump has also praised Duterte for “cleaning up crime” in the Philippines. He’s been overly defensive, it seems, of Putin’s reign in Russia, not to mention touchy about any alleged ties between his 2016 presidential campaign and any, say, Russian funders or intelligence. Trump has also used plenty of violent language and macho posturing in his speeches and other media appearances.

Naturally, anyone outside of his supporters has to ask: why do people like Trump? What about his hackles-raised, fists-up, poorly informed way of governing compels to don their MAGA caps and head to the rally?

Trump supporters quoted on this episode sound, well, a lot like the Filipino people quoted earlier talking about their support for Duterte. “Trump just shows toughness,” said one, which another stated that “I feel safer in our country with him as our president.”

A ray of hope

This can all sound pretty grim to anyone not of the deeply conservative persuasion. There’s still some hope to consider, though. Right now, at least, we are not currently in an authoritarian state. As of now, the rest of the government has been able to check the Executive Branch. Mueller’s Russia investigation is still going, Jim Acosta is back in the White House press corps thanks to a judicial order (from a Trump-appointed judge, no less), and the House of Representatives will be controlled by the Democrats in a couple of years.

Don’t take this as cause for an easy celebration – not now or ever. This sort of thing requires vigilance, even in what seems like the best of times. After all, the only way Trump’s power is going to be majorly checked in 2019 and 2020 is because so many people voted in the 2018 midterms.

Authoritarianism can still happen in the United States, just as much as it can happen anywhere else. Democracy requires the participation and thoughtfulness of its citizens to truly survive. For it to be healthy, to operate to the best benefit of all people, more people in a democracy have to embrace the complexity of living in this world than those who won’t.