In the beginning, the drift to authoritarianism is a push-me pull-you exercise.

The push side comes in two forms: fear and grooming. Fear doesn’t necessarily mean the fear of physical harm, certainly not initially. Fear comes from being seen as not part of the in-group. It’s like the child who watches another child bullied and humiliated. For many, it’s better to be a bystander than an outsider.

Then there’s fear of being shouted down. If loud, powerful voices are saying "black is white", then it can be difficult for ordinary citizens to speak out and say simply "that’s not true". The little boy in the fable of the Emperor’s New Clothes is exceptionally brave.

Eventually those two forces – the need to belong, and the fear of being silenced – achieve runaway momentum. You fall in line. That helps convince your friends, neighbours and family to fall in line. Soon everybody falls in line; soon it’s really not safe to step out of line. Your friends and family might shun you; you might lose your job. The snowball grows.

Read more by Neil Mackay

Now to the grooming, the breaching of boundaries. It goes hand in hand with fear obviously, and the desire to belong. Those in power overstep the line just a little at first. Maybe they humiliate some minority, threaten some out-group, use language that other public figures wouldn’t dare use as its flavoured with hate and threat.

Such boundary-crossing is ably assisted by the authoritarian’s own media system – the party newspapers, for example, of the fascists and communists in the 1920s and 30s. Or the dedicated online networks of the 2020s. The authoritarians make such a noise and cause such offence initially that the mainstream media must........

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