Beware the Illusion of the Linear Authoritarian Timeline: On Ruptures, Breakups, and Detours
Photo by Logan Voss on Unsplash
Never before have as many countries simultaneously been in the midst of the systematic undermining of institutions and rights, what scholars call “democratic backsliding.” Last year marked 25 years of democratic decline globally. Wherever anti-democracy or illiberal movements have captured state power and set about transforming government, it has become normal to ask: Where are we on the authoritarian timeline? The timeline refers to the expanse between now and a point in the future when the new system is locked in. Many experts call this authoritarian consolidation. For those speaking of timelines or “the clock,” it is sometimes ominously referred to as “midnight.”
There are many good reasons that not only political analysts, but a whole range of concerned people, ask where they are in the timeline. For pro-democracy activists and strategists, such assessments help with setting priorities and goals—where must movements put concerted attention, what must they achieve (or prevent), and by when. For groups vulnerable to abuse or persecution, thinking about where one is in an authoritarian timeline can be necessary for evaluating personal safety and risk, and making important life choices.
We can look across contexts and historical periods for insight on the authoritarian playbook and how timelines unfold. However, history does not simply repeat itself. Authoritarian movements are also studying each other, interacting, and adapting those playbooks based on what they learn. In this essay, we ask: To what extent can grand arcs capture the status of today’s far-right authoritarian movements? And what, if anything, can we say about the direction of democratic or authoritarian travel in our current moment?
Consider recent events in Hungary. The defeat of Viktor Orbán in the Hungarian parliamentary elections brought a sigh of relief to many pro-democracy forces, and people concerned about the arc of authoritarian consolidation. Within Hungary, Orbán had concentrated power, packed the courts, monopolized the media, and built a system of patronage. On the global scene, Orbán embraced the role of leader and paragon of a new illiberal model, ready for replication elsewhere. This model is a so-called “hybrid” competitive authoritarian regime, mixing elements of electoralism with authoritarian repression and populist us-and-them politics.
Orbán’s defeat is highly symbolic, given his place in the loosely coordinated but collaborative “illiberal international,” forces that learn from each other, mimic each others’ narratives and policies, and share strategies and tactics. Does it teach us something new about an authoritarian timeline? What does it mean for such a timeline to know that this illiberal international network exists, and continues to swerve and adjust through its shared learning?
Hungary in Perspective
Orbán’s loss is certainly worth celebrating. First and foremost, it opens up the possibility of change within Hungary after years of authoritarian capture. It also (slightly) changes the balance of power at the EU level, where it may be possible to take action without Orbán’s veto powers and his alignment with Putin and Trump.
The news from Hungary also offers many reminders: It is possible to defeat incumbents even in systems captured by authoritarian populists; change does not begin nor end at the ballot box; and even an internationally networked set of far-right authoritarian national movements can vary widely in their fortunes and trajectory.
Orbán is defeated, but so was Trump in 2020, only to come back stronger four years later. In Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro lost his second election and was ruled ineligible to run again after his involvement in an attempted coup d’état. But his son Flávio Bolsonaro is a real contender in Brazil’s 2026 presidential election. In Poland, a large coalition managed to defeat the far-right Law and Justice (PiS), which had been in power for eight years, in the 2023 parliamentary elections. Yet in 2025, PiS won Poland’s presidential election. In Slovakia, Russia-aligned and illiberal politician Robert Fico was forced to step down in 2018, and the first female president was elected in 2019 on an anti-corruption and progressive platform, only for Fico to come back again, perhaps stronger.
Hungary is similar and different in some respects. Hungary’s authoritarian consolidation within an electoral system—what many call a competitive authoritarian regime—was probably far more advanced than anywhere else in the Global North. Orbán’s attacks against the opposition have been far more wide-ranging and vicious (for example, we recently learnt that opposition leader Péter Magyar’s girlfriend turned out to be an agent for Orbán’s ruling party, made secret sex tapes, and leaked them to the prime minister’s campaign).
Similarly to other contexts, Orbán’s defeat was possible thanks to a big tent coalition, many efforts to bridge differences, and the energy of social movements that channeled their energies to toppling the incumbent and supporting the opposition Tisza leader, Péter Magyar, despite very significant political differences.
At the same time, as György Hámori of the Dr. Angéla Kóczé told us in a recent conversation with the Democracy & Belonging Forum network, the real organizing story isn’t Magyar the candidate; it’s the informal local grassroots groups that prepared the ground. People gathered around causes rather than joining existing NGOs. The opposition Tisza party itself has few formal members, and instead rode civic energy that institutional civil society had stopped seeing.
Ultimately, Hungarians’ dissatisfaction with the country’s economic performance was central to Orbán’s defeat. Large-scale corruption is characteristic of authoritarian populist leaders, who exploit anti-elite sentiment and position themselves on the side of “the people” while engineering large transfers of wealth to themselves, their families, and allies. Ostentatious displays of largesse (which in Orbán’s case included a private zoo and collections of exotic pets like zebras at his estates) coupled with ordinary people’s economic struggles resulted in the authoritarian populist illusion rupturing. Not even the control of the country’s media and a large propaganda infrastructure could convince Hungarians that Orbán should remain in power. While Orbán focused on us-vs-them rhetoric (against the EU, against Ukraine, against migrants and the LGBTQ community) and foreign policy, Péter Magyar focused on Hungarians’ concrete everyday dissatisfactions.
What “Time” in the US?
While Orbán’s consolidated authoritarianism rose on the force of having once enjoyed supermajority support, the same has never been true for the illiberal, authoritarian project in the United States. Now just 15 months into the second Trump administration, opinion polls show approval for the president’s performance reaching its lowest point yet. Moreover, confidence in Trump’s handling of inflation, tariffs, and immigration—arguably his signature issues—have done nothing but fall as the public has seen his approach implemented. On March 28, 2026, thousands of coordinated “No Kings” protest events brought between eight and nine million participants to the streets nationwide, in what is believed to be the largest single-day nonviolent demonstrations in US history.
Trump’s party is preparing for a battering midterm election in November. Some are retiring from Congress, including 21 Republicans who serve as the chairs of House committees or subcommittees. Such retirements usually signal the expectation that one’s party will not hold the majority. All of the signs suggest as much. Democratic candidates in special elections and off-cycle races of 2025 and 2026 have overperformed the 2024 Harris-Walz ticket nearly everywhere. They have flipped 30 state legislature seats previously held by Republicans, whereas Republicans have won zero seats from Democrats.
At face value, the above would suggest that the United States is not in the 15th month of an 18- or 24-month countdown to consolidated authoritarian midnight. But of course, Republicans are not taking their foreseen 2026 electoral walloping lying down. Myriad efforts are underway to make voting more administratively burdensome, to intimidate certain voter groups, and to undermine trust in the electoral system itself, and thereby its outcomes. With the US Supreme Court’s decision in the Callais case now released, Republicans are also pulling out every stop to make Congressional district lines even more biased in their favor across the US South.
There are other reasons for dissonance about the US “timeline” too. The disorienting reality is a blend of often irreparable harm and violence on one hand, and theatrics and farce on the other.
Just over two weeks ago, a gunman attempted to breach security at the White House Correspondents Dinner, apparently intent on attacking administration officials. Within 24 hours, Trump’s appointees and Republicans in congress all followed Trump’s lead in using this serious incident to tout the need for Trump’s proposed $400 million gilded White House ballroom. The U.S. war on Iran has now killed more than 3,400 Iranians, half of them civilians. It has no concrete end in sight. Yet Trump and his officials routinely make unsubstantiated claims about peace talks and “victory” that are credulously reported in mass media, with real-world effects like stock market rallies. The US Secretary of Defense, who has re-christened himself with the fanciful title “Secretary of War,” has ramped up illegal, lethal strikes on boats in the Caribbean Sea. Meanwhile, he pulls service members into photo ops and speaking engagements with MAGA entertainer Robert Ritchie, a.k.a. Kid Rock.
So we can’t talk of the authoritarian project in the US as being at its least popular and its most absurd without also recognizing that it is at its most deadly (so far). There is no standard arc that captures this condition.
Where Else the Far Right is Advancing
The trajectory of countries where far-right authoritarians achieve power is one of ups and downs, curves and loops. What about the status of far right parties across Europe, where they are currently out of power, not the national incumbent?
In France’s 2026 local elections, the far right had mixed results, but its prospects look promising for the general election next year. In the United Kingdom, the center-left Labour government is in full disarray – marred with scandals and disillusionment from its voters. In the recent UK local elections, the extremists of Reform UK won the highest number of seats in England, almost doubling Labour. In Germany, it seems that the neo-nazi Alternative fur Deutschland may win the elections in the state of Saxony-Anhalt.
One of us (Míriam), who is in Spain, is also experiencing a slight dissonance living in a country which currently has a progressive government advancing pro-migration reforms. (It must be noted that these reforms are pushed by a civil society initiative, not simply the government’s own volition.) The regularization efforts are gathering significant attention internally and abroad, and are met with hope amongst those committed to belonging. Yet this is happening at the same time as the far-right party Vox is making inroads in regional elections and pulling the conservatives with whom they form government into an extreme anti-migrant position. Their coalition’s governing agreements have included the principle of “national priority,” an illegal position that overrules the prohibition on discrimination and paves the way to undoing the universal public system. The agreements also contemplate crackdowns on civil society organizations that provide help to migrants, agreements which the conservatives and Vox do not interpret in the same way, and have resulted in clashes with the Catholic church (which broadly supports migrants and the regularization project). If comparative and historical perspective teaches us anything, it may be that anti-migrant measures—as well as so-called anti-gender ones—are the Trojan horses which open the door to normalizing discrimination and wider attacks on democracy.
It may be obvious, but it’s still worth remembering that the road to power does not simply take place in national (or regional and local) elections. In Europe, the far right’s biggest success has been to shape the agenda of most other parties, not its electoral victories (including of supposedly center-left parties, as in Denmark). Much as EU leaders decried Orbán and used EU-mechanisms to counterbalance his authoritarian actions, EU countries are also pushing to set up “deportation hubs” for rejected asylum-seekers by the end of the year (we’d prefer to call them what they are: concentration camps). Through cultural strategies, authoritarian populist forces are influencing culture, intellectual, and public discourse to make extremist ideas mainstream and acceptable, paving the way for political and social revolution.
Ruptures, Breakups, and Detours
The tides may turn but there is no single direction of travel. Clocks tick both forward and back, and some may loop. In the confrontation between democracy and authoritarianism, neither triumphalism nor despair is warranted at this time.
A comparative and historical perspective is instructive, not only for its lessons, but also because it demands that we keep learning. Pro-democracy actors must continue to interpret dynamics across national contexts, adapt and make the most of defections and breakups among the base of authoritarian support, and engage the complexity of emergent moral and strategic dilemmas. You can bet that far-right movements internationally will continue to do the same.
Orbán did not contest the elections in the way that Bolsonaro and Trump did years earlier. Why? Given the extent of his party’s loss, perhaps he did not have the option. But we don’t interpret his response as chastened nor defeatist. Orbán is nothing if not strategic. As political scientist Ivan Krastev notes, Orbán had built an impressive intellectual infrastructure, “The fact that he conceded so gracefully may itself be a strategy—to retain a presence in European political life, to stay relevant, to keep the infrastructure alive. Much of this intellectual ecosystem was not directly funded by the state, but rather through a network of private and semi-public companies that Orbán nurtured. So Magyar cannot simply turn off a tap.” Orbán will likely continue to use the millions he’s stolen and the allies he’s placed in the judiciary and other key institutions in his favor. Maybe he even imagines a return to power, á la Trump. So where some hope to see Hungary’s election as rupture—smashing the timeline into bits—Orbán may be betting it is only a detour.
How do political leaders and civil society proceed, confronted with this reality? One of the dilemmas is how to proceed with the authoritarian legacy and institutional holdovers that are left behind. As Bianchi and colleagues noted after studying democratic u-turns, “Democrats seeking to ‘make good’ after an authoritarian episode face a number of profound challenges. Transforming authoritarian institutions into democratic ones will take time if the new leaders observe the democratic rules of the game, including following due process to remove authoritarian holdovers. In the meantime, efforts to promote democratic reforms may flounder given the number of potential authoritarian veto players.” The alternative is for pro-democracy forces to act more decisively, perhaps breaking rules and borrowing the authoritarians’ own tricks to reinstate democracy more quickly. But of course, this route can deepen the view that norms and rule of law are optional, while essentially legitimizing—and paving the way for the return of—the party or movement that originally transgressed them.
On this point, the case of Poland may be instructive as we see these strategic dilemmas, and electoral twists and turns, play out in real time. Many celebrated when social movements and diverse political parties joined forces in 2023 to defeat Law and Justice (PiS) party in parliamentary elections. But the resulting coalition government is proving unable to deliver on promised reforms, perhaps lacking the political fortitude, but certainly also facing steep institutional obstacles. This has disenchanted key civic forces, and meanwhile, PiS has been able to hold onto the presidency, exercising the veto power to an unprecedented degree, and constantly clashing with the opposition prime minister. Even as PiS’s power is at a standstill (rather than gaining ground), the opposition coalition is fragile, experiencing key breakups and fractures.
From this example of Poland to Trump’s 2024 electoral return, Orbán’s defeat, and far-right mainstreaming, we can conclude that electoral defeats are clearly not sending authoritarians, nor their ideas, into the political wilderness. Part of what seems to be missing from opposition political leaders and civil society is the articulation of clear, resonant, and visionary projects. Perhaps this could shift electoral contests to actual battles over ideas, and not cyclical referenda on the incumbent party or coalition. Whether looking at MAGA or Magyar, the evidence suggests that a decisive dynamic for voters was retrospective discontent: They were fed up with the incumbent. If this continues to be what drives “marginal voters,” i.e. those that make up the margin of victory, in places where the viable contenders for power are an authoritarian and an anti-authoritarian, the best we can hope for is to be stuck in a cycle, always in between periods of ever-escalating democratic degradation.
A visionary project would need to point somewhere else. Undoing the institutional changes of authoritarians is essential, while laden with the dilemmas noted above; but it is also insufficient. The path to democratic innovation requires an alternative vision of a shared project that is deeper and broader than the politics of the “anti.” In some ways, this vision may be more important even than short-term policy wins or material deliverables. The question is which can best carry a democratic drive that diverse partners can get behind through multiple election cycles, to truly put to rest the timeline of authoritarian detours and returns, even if authoritarianism will be a permanent temptation.
And for the soul…
I have been trying to read a page of How to Live an Artful Life: A year of Creativity every day. In this book, the author shares the work of great women artists, one per day. It’s a fantastic way of discovering art–new and old–that speaks to our social and political world. I’ve been drawn to the work of Luchita Hurtado.
Connecting the Dots: Musings on Bridging and Belonging is a monthly column by Míriam Juan-Torres. In it, Míriam reflects on current events, connecting the trends and considering the specificities across countries, applying a bridging and belonging lens and translating concepts from academia for a wider audience. Join our mailing list to stay up to date on the latest of the Democracy & Belonging Forum's curated analysis from Miriam and more.
Editor's note: The ideas expressed in this blog are not necessarily those of the Othering & Belonging Institute or UC Berkeley, but belong to the authors.