Trump Isn't Sure If Democracy Is Better Than Autocracy

What a difference a couple of decades make. Back in the early to mid-1990s, Americans (and some others) were pretty much convinced that U.S.-style liberal democracy was the wave of the future worldwide. The Warsaw Pact had crumbled, Latin American dictatorships were turning to the ballot box, human rights were spreading, and liberal institutions were all the rage. Francis Fukuyama famously described mankind as having reached the "end of history," and Tom Friedman was telling us everyone had to don the "Golden Straightjacket" and embrace DOSCapitalism 6.0. The main exemplar of this system, of course, was the mighty and successful U.S. of A.

Predictably, the next three presidents all embraced and extolled these ideals....