Excerpt: “Populists claim that they are the voice of the real people. They believe that any resistance to their rule is illegitimate. And so they, all too often, give in to the temptation to silence the opposition and destroy rival power centers. It is impossible to understand their nature without acknowledging the democratic energy that is driving them–and yet it is also impossible to understand what damage they are likely to wreak without recognizing how quickly that energy can turn against the people. Unless the defenders of liberal democracy manage to stand up to the populists, illiberal democracy will always be in danger of descending into outright dictatorship” (p. 52).

Mounk, Yascha. (2018). The People vs. Democracy: Why Our Freedom is in Danger and How to Save It. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.