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‘Trumpian obfuscation at its finest’
DAN GLAZEBROOK takes issue with the false premises in a book on the rise of authoritarianism in the US

The New Authoritarianism: Trump, Populism and the Tyranny of Experts
by Salvatore Babones
(Polity Press, £9.99)

SALVATORE BABONES'S basic argument in this book is that liberalism’s focus on extending rights has transferred political power in Western countries from the people and their representatives to an “expert class” who identify and define those rights.

In his view, this apparently constitutes a new form of anti-democratic authoritarianism to which right-wing populism is a necessary corrective, the latest incarnation of a venerable US tradition of resisting such moves.

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