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Freedom House Conclusion Authoritarianism Comes Calling Until very recently, the spread of the methods and strategies described in this report has largely been greeted with complacency and indifference in the democratic world. Even as it became clear that the rejection of liberal values by Russia, China, and other authoritarian states was a permanent fixture of global politics, democracies convinced themselves that although modern authoritarianism posed a challenge to the spread of freedom beyond its current reach, their own freedoms were in no jeopardy. In the aftermath of the stunning events of 2016, it is apparent that the post-Cold War democratic order is in fact facing an unprecedented threat. Britain’s vote to leave the European Union (EU), the election of Don- ald Trump as president of the United States, and the emergence of populist demagogues across Europe have all raised questions about the future of democra- cy in its traditional bastions. It can no longer be assumed that Russia's challenge to democracy is limited to its policies of internal repression and aggression toward neighbors like Ukraine and Georgia. The Kremlin's development of parallel institutions—government-controlled civil society, a propaganda machine based on the latest media technologies, realistic but purely decorative elections—was once regarded as a project intended for Russia alone. When Angela Merkel, in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, exclaimed that Vladimir Putin lives in a different world, she meant a specif- ically Russian universe where facts are irrelevant, international treaties are obsolete, and sovereignty is a matter of power rather than law. Now, however, the Kremlin has attempted to project this version of reality onto the democratic world. In the United States, Russia brazenly interfered in the electoral process through hacking efforts sponsored by its intelligence agencies. Whether this interference actually affected the outcome of the election is sub- ject to debate. But there is strong evidence, endorsed by the entirety of the U.S. intelligence establishment and numerous independent analyses, that the inter- ference did occur. Just as worrying is the suggestion that the United States, much like Russia itself, has entered a “post-truth era,” in which lies and distortions carry as much weight as facts. Clearly, at least some of this hand-wring- ing was a partisan reaction to Trumps victory. But it followed an election in which the winning candidate falsely claimed, among other things, that the balloting was rigged against him, that violent crime had reached record levels, and that undocumented immigrants were responsible for a large share of the violence. Meanwhile, as of early 2017, populist parties with Rus- sian-friendly platforms and histories of nativism and other forms of bigotry were expected to gain ground in upcoming elections in countries like the Netherlands, France, and Germany. As it became more obvious that the democracies were poorly equipped to contend with resurgent authoritarianism, the leading autocracies were exper- imenting with more frightening methods of assuring domestic political control. China in particular seemed to take an Orwellian turn with the planned introduction of a social credit www.freedomhouse.org 57 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_019291