Aryeh Neier and Amrit Singh
Guatemala: Democracy Imperiled

Bernardo Arévalo’s inauguration last year as president of Guatemala symbolized the revival of democracy in a notoriously corrupt country. A concerted effort by obstructionist elites now threatens to oust him on specious grounds—and bring repression back.

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Guatemala: Democracia en Peligro

Nawal Arjini
Tinker Tailor Soldier Sigh

Where we might have expected a show about the state of the nation, the spy series Slow Horses instead examines the state of the office.

Dan Kaufman
What Labor Could Lose

After four years under Jennifer Abruzzo, who fought to revitalize its mission, the National Labor Relations Board finds itself more threatened than ever.

The Return of Trump

On the occasion of Donald Trump’s reelection, reflections, lamentations, warnings, consternation, and other loin-girding by Ben Tarnoff, Zephyr Teachout, Bill McKibben, Michael Hofmann, Linda Greenhouse, Garry Wills, Rozina Ali, Christopher Benfey, Quinn Slobodian, Walter M. Shaub Jr., Bridget Read, Jon Allsop, Christine Henneberg, John Washington, Suzanne Schneider, Aryeh Neier, E. Tammy Kim, Andrew O’Hagan, Paisley Currah, Trevor Jackson, Kim Phillips-Fein, Ian Frazier, Adam Gaffney, Madeleine Schwartz, Astra Taylor, Michael Greenberg, Coco Fusco, Verlyn Klinkenborg, Thomas Powers, Anne Enright, Yuri Slezkine, Wesley Lowery, Carolina A. Miranda, Nitin K. Ahuja, Susan Neiman, Dahlia Krutkovich, Omer Bartov, Catherine Coleman Flowers, and Joshua Craze.

Free from the Archives

Two days after Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election, Masha Gessen took to the Review’s website to offer advice on how to live under the rule of an autocrat, especially when the feckless opposition party was more inclined to be “conciliatory” in the name of preserving some airy sense of “normality” than it was in providing an opposition.

I have lived in autocracies most of my life, and have spent much of my career writing about Vladimir Putin’s Russia. I have learned a few rules for surviving in an autocracy and salvaging your sanity and self-respect. It might be worth considering them now:

Masha Gessen
Autocracy: Rules for Survival

“Rule #1: Believe the autocrat. He means what he says. Whenever you find yourself thinking, or hear others claiming, that he is exaggerating, that is our innate tendency to reach for a rationalization….

Trump has made his plans clear, and he has made a compact with his voters to carry them out. These plans include not only dismantling legislation such as Obamacare but also doing away with judicial restraint—and, yes, punishing opponents.”

Study Aeschylus with Daniel Mendelsohn

Join Daniel Mendelsohn as he continues his “Tragic Meaning” series of webinars. Four one-hour sessions, starting March 5.

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