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Why the US Chose Authoritarianism & What Trump’s Return Means for Global Order

11 min readMar 21, 2025

With President-Elect Donald Trump’s inauguration as US President, it is fair to say that we are now seeing a new era of authoritarianism, where democracies consistently reject the previous attractions of democracy.

But we should be clear: This is not a vote for authoritarianism. Instead, the evidence points to the election primarily being a vote against inflation and the Democratic Party they associate it with.

Trump’s victory was a vote for an alternative to the lived experience of the economy (rather than the macro perspective of the US’ GDP performance), even if it incorrectly assumed that Trump would be able to do something the Democrats couldn’t. Indeed, most economists point to Trump making things much worse for the average American.

Let me explain.

“The outcome of this election is not what we wanted, not what we fought for, but hear me when I say: the light of America’s promise will always burn bright.”

— Kamala Harris

Photo by Rod Long on Unsplash

The End of Liberalism

As mentioned briefly in the introduction, since the results have been made known, some…

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Jakub Ferencik
Jakub Ferencik

Written by Jakub Ferencik

Journalist living in Prague | Author of “Up in the Air” and “Beyond Reason” on AMAZON | MA McGill Uni | 750+ articles with 1+ mil. views

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