POLITICS AND POETICS

BEYOND THE HEADLINES: REDISCOVERING POLITICAL THOUGHT IN A CHANGING WORLD

March 20, 2025

Rather than simply critiquing the current US presidential administration, Sélavy here takes a historically broader and more thought-provoking approach. Four distinguished scholars—Johanna Keller (Germany), Giovanni Moretti (Italy), Mateusz Kowalski (Poland), and Lucie Perrin (France)—each contribute an essay examining the state of democracy through the lens of a largely overlooked political philosopher from their respective country: Norbert Elias, Antonio Gramsci, Ryszard Legutko, and Claude Lefort. This comparative analysis promises to shed new light on contemporary democratic challenges by drawing on forgotten intellectual traditions.

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THE POLITENESS TRAP: NORBERT ELIAS AND THE SLOW RESPONSE TO AUTHORITARIANISM

JOHANNA KELLER

In 1928, Norbert Elias, then aged thirty-one, walked the streets of Breslau, observing a society that, by all appearances, had refined itself to a high level of civilization. People moved through the city with restraint, their interactions guided by elaborate norms of politeness and self-discipline. It was a world in which political conflicts were expected to be resolved through parliamentary debate, not violence. And yet, within five years, Adolf Hitler would become chancellor of Germany, and the very foundations of that civilization would begin to crumble.

Elias spent much of the rest of his life trying to understand how this collapse had been possible. His magnum opus, The Civilizing Process (1939), argued that over centuries, societies had trained individuals to regulate their emotions, moderate their behavior, and internalize norms of manners and etiquette such that large-scale social cooperation was possible. But Elias also recognized a disturbing truth: the civilizing process was not irreversible. Under the right conditions—economic despair, political instability, and the rise of figures willing to break the norms of self-restraint—societies could undergo what he called decivilizing spurts, and the state would no longer enjoy a monopoly on violence.

The rise of Donald Trump in the United States, and the slow institutional response to his repeated transgressions of democratic norms, can be understood through Elias’s framework. Just as Weimar Germany’s political class failed to grasp the existential threat posed by Hitler until it was too late, the US establishment underestimated Trump, assuming that a highly developed democratic society would naturally correct for his excesses. The reluctance to respond forcefully, to abandon procedural civility in the face of an uncivil threat, reflects a deeper problem within advanced democracies: they are conditioned by their own norms of restraint, making them slow to recognize and react to those who have abandoned such norms.

Über den Prozess der Zivilisation, first edition. Bern: Francke Verlag, 1939

Elias argued that modern societies develop deep-seated habits of self-control, where people learn to suppress aggressive instincts and instead rely on bureaucratic and legal mechanisms to resolve disputes. This refinement of behavior is not merely an individual trait but is embedded within political institutions. Democratic governance, by its nature, assumes that opponents are still participants in a shared system, and abide by common rules of engagement.

But what happens when one side rejects those rules? In Weimar Germany, Hitler’s opponents largely miscalculated the threat he posed, believing that his extremism would be self-defeating, that his vulgarity and disregard for institutional norms would alienate the public. The social democratic and conservative elites continued to operate within the procedural framework of democracy, even as the Nazis exploited its vulnerabilities.

In the United States, Trump’s rise followed a similar trajectory. His critics dismissed him as a spectacle, assuming that the very institutions and norms he derided would constrain him. His inflammatory rhetoric, his open disdain for the press, and his willingness to flout legal conventions were treated not as existential threats to democracy but as unfortunate breaches of decorum. Even after he won the presidency, many continued to assume that the system’s checks and balances would neutralize his worst impulses.

This is precisely the mistake Elias would have warned against. A civilization so accustomed to its own stability often finds it difficult to imagine that stability collapsing. Institutions assume that their authority is self-sustaining, when in reality, it depends on the continued adherence of all participants to shared norms. Trump understood this weakness instinctively: by disregarding convention, he forced his opponents into a perpetual state of reaction, always a step behind, always expecting that the next breach of decorum would be the one that finally disqualified him.

One of the defining features of civilized societies, according to Elias, is the preference for mediated conflict resolution over direct confrontation. In authoritarian regimes, disputes are settled by force; in democratic ones, they are channeled through courts, elections, and legislative processes. This shift away from open violence is a hallmark of progress, but it also introduces a critical vulnerability: when faced with a figure who disregards democratic norms, institutions often respond with slow, incremental measures, clinging to procedural correctness long after it has ceased to be effective.

Weimar Germany was a case study in this paralysis. The Reichstag, the courts, and the political establishment continued to treat Hitler as a conventional politician, even as he made it clear that he intended to dismantle the very system that enabled his rise. The reluctance to use extraordinary measures—to outlaw the Nazi Party, to prevent its access to state power—stemmed from a belief that democracy could only be defended through democratic means. By the time emergency measures were taken, Hitler had already consolidated control.

A similar dynamic unfolded in the United States. Trump’s opponents repeatedly hesitated to use the full extent of their powers to check him. The first impeachment proceedings were narrow and hesitant; even after he attempted to overturn the 2020 election, many in Congress resisted impeachment on the grounds that it would be too divisive. The justice system, operating on the assumption that no president would brazenly disregard the law, was slow to act. Even as Trump called for mass demonstrations that culminated in the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021, there remained a pervasive reluctance to treat him as anything other than a normal political figure.

Elias would not have been surprised by this inertia. Civilized societies, he argued, develop such a deep reliance on procedure that they struggle to recognize when procedural responses are inadequate. They assume that bad actors will eventually self-correct or be corrected by the system. But history suggests that authoritarianism does not self-correct; it must be actively confronted.

One of the most unsettling implications of Elias’s theory is that civilization is not a permanent state. The process of refinement, of developing norms of self-restraint and bureaucratic governance, is always susceptible to reversal. Economic crises, cultural anxieties, and political instability can create openings for leaders who promise a return to a more primal, more confrontational form of politics.

Trump, in many ways, represents such a reversal. His political persona is built on the rejection of the norms Elias described—restraint, dignity, and the slow, deliberative processes of democracy. He thrives on provocation, on the destruction of etiquette. His rallies, filled with chants and violent rhetoric, resemble the mass spectacles of earlier authoritarian movements. And crucially, his appeal lies precisely in his rejection of the “civilized” political class, whom he paints as weak, effeminate, and out of touch with the raw, unfiltered will of the people.

The lesson from Elias is not that civilization is doomed to fail, but that it must be actively defended. The Weimar Republic did not collapse because Germany was “too civilized,” but because its institutions and elites failed to recognize that civility alone is not enough to stop a movement intent on dismantling democracy from within. The United States faces a similar test.

The question, then, is whether the United States will learn from history or repeat its mistakes. Elias’s work suggests that civilization is not a static achievement but an ongoing process, one that requires vigilance, adaptability, and a willingness to abandon politeness when the moment demands it. In the face of authoritarianism, the ultimate lesson may be that civility cannot be preserved by remaining civil. Sometimes, it must be fought for.

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THE HEGEMON’S GAMBIT: ANTONIO GRAMSCI AND THE CULTURAL WAR OF TRUMPISM

GIOVANNI MORETTI

Antonio Gramsci sat for eleven years in an Italian prison cell—from 1926, when he was thirty-five, until shortly before his death in 1937—thinking about why revolutions fail. The Bolsheviks had taken power in Russia through an outright overthrow, but in Western Europe, where democracy was more entrenched and civil society more developed, attempts at communist uprisings had collapsed. The answer, he realized, was that power was not only about controlling the state. It was about controlling the culture.

Gramsci’s theory of cultural hegemony argued that ruling classes maintain their dominance not just through laws and coercion, but by shaping public consciousness—by controlling what people see as common sense. Politics, in this view, is not just about votes and policies; it is a war over ideas, a slow and subtle struggle over what is considered natural and legitimate. The most powerful regimes do not need brute force; they win by embedding their worldview so deeply in the fabric of society that alternatives seem unthinkable.

Students look at a mural of Antonio Gramsci in Orgosolo, Italy, 1975

Gramsci was pondering capitalism and the struggles of the Italian left. But nearly a century later, his ideas offer a strikingly useful framework for understanding the rise of Donald Trump, a man who, like the Italian strongmen of the past, understood instinctively that politics is a battle over perception. Trump did not seek to win arguments within the existing ideological framework—he sought to rewrite the framework itself. His political movement was not just about policy, but about a cultural transformation, an attempt to replace the dominant liberal consensus with a new hegemonic order rooted in nationalism, resentment, and distrust of institutions. Trumpism, in this light, is not merely a reactionary movement. It is a counter-hegemony, a revolt against the elite-dominated cultural order that has defined US politics for decades.

Gramsci understood that power operates through ideological institutions—the media, the educational system, the arts, religion—what he called the “superstructure” of society. The real struggle for dominance happens not in elections but in these institutions, which shape how people think, what they believe, and ultimately how they vote.

The US liberal establishment, from the late twentieth century onward, largely controlled this superstructure. Universities, major newspapers, Hollywood, and even corporate America increasingly reflected progressive values—multiculturalism, diversity, globalization. Trump’s genius, whether conscious or not, was to recognize that many Americans felt alienated by this cultural hegemony. He framed his entire political project as a counter-hegemonic war, railing against the mainstream media, the “deep state,” the “political correctness” of universities, and the elites who dictated how ordinary people should think.

This was not a traditional conservative argument about taxes or small government. It was a cultural revolt, a direct assault on the dominant Gramscian structures of power. Trump’s movement thrived on its ability to challenge and ridicule the language, norms, and moral assumptions of the liberal elite. It is no coincidence that so much of his rhetoric was aimed not at policy but at identity and perception—who is allowed to speak, who is allowed to define truth, who is allowed to belong.

Gramsci would have recognized this maneuver as a textbook case of a passive revolution, a process in which a ruling class maintains control by absorbing and redirecting social unrest rather than suppressing it outright. Trump did not seek to dismantle the state; instead, he reframed the state’s legitimacy in a way that served his movement. He made government function not as an impartial bureaucracy, but as an instrument of the people—so long as “the people” were defined as his supporters. This is why Trump’s base was largely untroubled by his attacks on the media, his purging of government agencies, or his insistence that elections were fraudulent. In their eyes, he was not breaking the system; he was taking it back from those who had manipulated it in their own interests for decades.

For Gramsci, the battle for hegemony is never just about individuals—it is about movements. Leaders may come and go, but the structures of thought they create can persist. This is perhaps Trump’s most significant legacy: even if he never holds office again, he has shifted the boundaries of what is politically possible. He has transformed the Republican Party into a party defined not by Reagan-era conservatism but by cultural warfare. He has rewritten the right-wing playbook to be about identity, grievance, and media manipulation.

This is why Trump’s influence did not fade after his electoral defeat in 2020. His movement, like any successful counter-hegemony, did not rely on a single election or a single leader. It built an alternative ideological infrastructure—Fox News, Breitbart, talk radio, and an entire digital ecosystem of right-wing influencers who continue to shape conservative thought. This is Gramsci’s theory in action: to create lasting political change, one must create a parallel cultural universe in which alternative truths, alternative facts, and alternative values dominate.

This is also why traditional Democratic responses to Trumpism have fallen flat. Gramsci warned that dominant powers, when faced with a rising counter-hegemony, tend to underestimate the seriousness of the threat. They believe that their institutions—academia, the courts, the media—are too strong to be undermined. They assume that facts will win out, that decency will prevail. They fail to see that they are engaged in a war of perception, not just policy.

This is exactly what happened with Trump. His critics assumed that his vulgarity, his dishonesty, and his disregard for norms would automatically disqualify him. They assumed that the institutions of democracy would constrain him, that his scandals would catch up with him, that voters would reject him once they saw his true character. But they misunderstood the nature of the fight. Trump was not trying to operate within their framework; he was trying to burn it down. And for millions of Americans who felt alienated by the liberal cultural hegemony, that was exactly what they wanted.

Gramsci’s theory is not only a tool for understanding Trump—it is also a guide for those who seek to counter him. If Trumpism is a counter-hegemonic movement, then defeating it requires more than fact-checking, moral outrage, or legal action. It requires a new cultural vision that can reassert dominance in the ideological battlefield. The American left, so far, has largely relied on institutional power—winning elections, passing legislation, fighting legal battles. These are necessary, but they are not sufficient. As Gramsci warned, no political movement can sustain itself purely on bureaucratic victories. It must also win the war of ideas. It must craft a vision of America that feels as visceral, as emotionally compelling, as the narrative Trump offers his followers.

This is what the New Deal did in the 1930s. It was not just a policy agenda—it was a new hegemonic order, one that reshaped how Americans understood government and society. It is what Reaganism did in the 1980s, shifting the ideological balance toward free markets and deregulation. And it is what Trumpism is doing now: not just winning elections, but reshaping minds.

The battle is not over. Trump himself may fade, but the war for hegemony continues. The question is whether those who oppose him understand the fight they are in—or whether they will continue to assume that facts, logic, and institutions alone can hold back a movement built on something far more powerful: the ability to define reality itself.

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THE LIBERAL ILLUSION: RYSZARD LEGUTKO AND THE TRUMPIAN REVOLT

MATEUSZ KOWALSKI

In the summer of 1989, as communism collapsed across Eastern Europe, the thirty-year-old Polish philosopher Ryszard Legutko watched with unease. He had lived under the authoritarian grip of the Polish People’s Republic, where ideology controlled every aspect of life. But as Poland transitioned to democracy, he came to believe that a new orthodoxy was taking shape—one just as rigid as the system it replaced. In his 2016 book The Demon in Democracy, Legutko argued that liberal democracy was not the ideological opposite of communism, as many had assumed, but its modern counterpart: a system that enforces ideological conformity under the guise of openness.

Legutko’s critique resonates deeply in the age of Trump. Though written before Trump’s rise, his argument offers a compelling explanation for why millions of Americans rejected the liberal order in favor of a leader who, to the political establishment, seemed like a walking contradiction—a billionaire populist, a nationalist with no ideological consistency, an agent of chaos rather than governance. To Legutko, Trump’s ascent was not paradoxical; it was predictable. It was the inevitable consequence of a system that, for decades, had suppressed alternative viewpoints in the name of progress, thereby forcing dissent into more radical and reactionary forms.

The dominant narrative in Western political thought is that liberal democracy is a neutral system—a framework for debate, a space where different political ideologies can compete freely. But Legutko argued that this is a convenient illusion. Liberal democracy, he wrote, is not a passive system that allows multiple viewpoints to flourish. It is itself an ideology, one that demands adherence to specific progressive doctrines: globalism, multiculturalism, technocratic governance, and the secularization of public life. Like communism, it presents itself as the final stage of history, an arrangement so self-evidently superior that to question it is to reveal oneself as backward, ignorant, or dangerous.

In this context, Trump’s rise can be understood not as an aberration but as a rebellion against this ideological monolith. His supporters, particularly working-class conservatives, had long felt that their concerns—over immigration, national sovereignty, religious values, and economic dislocation—were dismissed as illegitimate by the liberal establishment. When they voiced opposition to globalization, they were told they were “on the wrong side of history.” When they resisted cultural progressivism, they were branded as bigots. For decades, they were outvoted, outmaneuvered, and, increasingly, silenced.

Trump’s greatest political skill was recognizing this grievance and weaponizing it. He rejected the polite language of the political class, the academic theories of economists, and the careful diplomacy of previous Republican leaders. His very crudeness was a signal to his supporters that he was not playing by the establishment’s rules. He did not argue within the confines of the liberal democratic consensus—he attacked the consensus itself.

One of Legutko’s most provocative claims is that liberal democracy, despite its rhetoric of pluralism, is profoundly intolerant of dissent. It treats disagreement not as a legitimate part of public life but as something to be eradicated. Its defenders speak of diversity but enforce uniformity. Institutions—academia, the media, big tech—work not as neutral arbiters but as enforcers of ideological discipline. Political correctness, cancel culture, and speech regulations all serve to narrow the range of acceptable thought.

This perceived intolerance fueled the rise of Trump’s brand of populism. His supporters did not just feel ignored by the system; they felt policed by it. Their beliefs about gender, religion, and national identity were increasingly framed as beyond the pale. Trump’s defiance of these boundaries, his willingness to say what was not supposed to be said, was not just appealing; it was exhilarating. It felt like a liberation from the quiet tyranny of elite opinion.

Legutko’s critique helps explain why traditional Republican politicians—figures like Jeb Bush or Mitt Romney—failed to capture this moment. They accepted the premise of the liberal order, and just wanted to govern within it. But Trump rejected the premise entirely. He did not seek the approval of The New York Times or Harvard professors. He did not measure his words against the standards of the think tanks in Washington. He played by a different set of rules, one that did not require validation from the very institutions his base had come to despise.

If Trump’s rise can be understood as a revolt against the liberal democratic order, his presidency can be seen as a test of that order’s resilience. The institutions of US democracy—Congress, the courts, the press—spent four years attempting to constrain him. Some succeeded; others failed. But at every turn, Trump treated these constraints not as inherent features of democracy but as obstacles imposed by an illegitimate ruling class.

His greatest challenge to the system came in 2020, when he refused to accept the election results. His claims of fraud, baseless as they were, reflected a deeper truth for his supporters: they had come to regard democracy not as a neutral system but as an ideological weapon wielded against them. When their candidate lost, they did not see it as a legitimate electoral outcome; they saw it as proof that the system had been rigged all along.

Legutko would likely argue that this crisis was baked into the system from the beginning. A democracy that does not allow genuine ideological competition—one that ridicules, shames, and marginalizes certain viewpoints—will eventually breed a form of radicalized opposition. If dissent is driven underground, it will not disappear; it will explode.

January 6, 2021, was that explosion. The storming of the Capitol was a grotesque spectacle, but it was also a symbolic moment: a mass rejection of institutional legitimacy. The rioters did not see themselves as revolutionaries. They saw themselves as restoring democracy in the only way they believed was left to them. If the courts, the media, and Congress had all conspired against them, what recourse remained but direct action?

Legutko’s analysis does not provide easy solutions. If he is right, then the crisis of democracy is deeper than most mainstream commentators assume. It is not merely about misinformation, social media, or polarization. It is about a structural failure of liberalism itself—a refusal to accommodate meaningful dissent, a tendency to enforce ideological conformity while pretending to be neutral.

The liberal order can continue as it has, doubling down on censorship, increasing its control over public discourse, branding every challenge as a form of extremism. But this will only deepen the divide, ensuring that the next iteration of Trumpism will be even more radical, even more willing to burn the system down entirely.

The alternative is to take the grievances of the populist right seriously. This does not mean appeasing racism or excusing conspiracy theories. It means recognizing that millions of people do not feel represented by the current political and cultural elites, and that dismissing those people as ignorant or evil will not make them disappear. It means opening up space for true ideological competition, where conservative, religious, nationalist, and working-class perspectives are not treated as dangerous relics but as legitimate parts of the public debate.

Legutko’s warning is clear: A society that claims to be democratic but does not allow real pluralism will eventually face a reckoning. The only question is how painful that reckoning will be.

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THE EMPTY THRONE: CLAUDE LEFORT AND THE FRAGILITY OF DEMOCRACY IN THE AGE OF TRUMP

LUCIE PERRIN

Claude Lefort, a protégé of the renowned phenomenological philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty, characterized democracy as a political order defined by the void at the heart of power. Unlike monarchies, where the king physically embodies the state, or authoritarian regimes, where a dictator’s image dominates public space, democracies operate around an empty center. Power is contested, transitory, always open to debate. This openness, Lefort argued, is democracy’s greatest strength, but also its greatest weakness. Because power is never fixed, democracy is inherently fragile, always at risk of being seized by those who promise to fill the void.

Donald Trump understood this intuitively. Unlike traditional US politicians, who presented themselves as custodians of democratic institutions, Trump positioned himself as the embodiment of the people’s will. His political project was not about governance but about occupying the empty throne, closing the democratic gap Lefort saw as essential to maintaining pluralism. Trump’s America is not a system of competing interests, shifting alliances, and ongoing deliberation—it is a personal fiefdom. His insistence that the 2020 election had been stolen, his attempts to overturn the results, and his refusal to acknowledge the legitimacy of his successor all stemmed from the same impulse: the belief that democracy is not a process but a possession, one that had been unfairly taken from him.

Lefort, were he alive today, would likely see Trump not as an anomaly but as a predictable symptom of a democracy in crisis. Trumpism is not just a rejection of liberal norms; it is an assault on the very idea of democratic indeterminacy—the notion that no leader, no party, no ideology can ever claim final authority. His movement is an attempt to impose certainty where none should exist, to make democracy’s perpetual instability feel more like the ordered, hierarchical world it replaced.

Lefort’s understanding of democracy was shaped by his early studies of totalitarianism, particularly in Soviet Russia. He observed that in regimes like Stalin’s, power was not simply centralized—it was made visible, absolute, incontestable. There were no debates, no real elections, no competing centers of authority. The leader’s presence was everywhere: in portraits, in mass rallies, in official doctrine. This was the opposite of democracy, where power remains elusive, never fully captured by any single figure or faction.

Inventing democracy’s “empty space”

Trump’s appeal rested on his ability to present himself in precisely the way Lefort warned against: as the singular force who could resolve democracy’s tensions, who could cut through its uncertainties, who could “Make America Great Again” by eliminating the messiness of pluralism. His supporters did not see him as just another politician; they saw him as the rightful occupant of democracy’s empty center, the only legitimate voice in a system that had been corrupted by elites, bureaucrats, and the “deep state.”

This explains why Trump’s most ardent followers refused to accept his defeat. In their view, his loss was not just a political event—it was an existential rupture. Democracy, in its traditional form, had always been unstable, defined by negotiation and compromise. But Trumpism rejected that instability. It sought to install a singular vision of political truth, one in which the will of the people—defined exclusively as the will of Trump’s supporters—was the only legitimate force in the nation.

One of Lefort’s key insights was that totalitarian regimes always define themselves in opposition to an enemy—a force that must be defeated to ensure the unity of the people. In Soviet Russia, it was the bourgeoisie and counterrevolutionaries; in Nazi Germany, it was Jews and communists. These enemies were not just political opponents; they were portrayed as existential threats, figures whose very presence made true national unity impossible.

Trump, in his own way, replicates this logic. His political universe is not structured around the negotiation of competing interests, as in traditional democratic politics. It is structured around a war between the people and their enemies. The enemies are everywhere: immigrants, the media, the Democrats, even members of his own party who fail to show absolute loyalty. This logic is central to Trumpism’s endurance. The more the media criticized him, the more investigations he faced, the more he was condemned by traditional institutions, the stronger his hold solidified over his base. Every attack was proof of the conspiracy against him, reinforcing the belief that he was not just a president but a savior besieged by enemies.

Lefort would have recognized this as a dangerous development—not just for the United States but for democracy itself. The moment democracy begins to frame its opponents as illegitimate, as enemies rather than adversaries, it begins to drift toward authoritarianism. Trump’s rhetoric, especially after losing the election, reflected precisely this shift. When he told his supporters that the election had been stolen, when he encouraged them to “fight like hell” to overturn the results, he was not just making false claims—he was redefining democracy itself. In his version of events, democracy was not about a system of rules, institutions, and competing perspectives. It was about the will of a singular people, with Trump as its voice.

On January 6, 2021, thousands of Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol, attempting to block the certification of the election. It was an event without precedent in modern US history, an outright rejection of democratic transition. But perhaps the most striking aspect of that day was how symbolic the attack was. The rioters did not seize strategic government buildings; they did not take hostages or demand negotiations. Instead, they posed for photos in the Senate chamber, carried flags through the halls, and vandalized offices. This was not a coup in the traditional sense. It was a performance—a demonstration that the sacred space of democracy had been reclaimed.

In Lefortian terms, January 6 was an attempt to erase the democratic void, to close the gap that democracy requires. It was not just about stopping Biden from taking office; it was about reaffirming that Trump—and Trump alone—was the rightful occupant of power. The fact that the rioters seemed directionless, that they had no clear plan beyond physical occupation, only reinforces this interpretation. They were not there to seize democracy, but to restore it, to install a certainty that democracy itself had denied them.

Lefort warned that democracy, by its very nature, would always be susceptible to authoritarian challenges. Its openness, its refusal to fix power in a permanent place, makes it vulnerable to those who promise clarity, order, and finality. Trumpism, like other authoritarian movements, thrives on precisely this promise. It presents democracy not as an ongoing process, but as a prize to be won—and, if necessary, taken by force.

But Lefort also argued that democracy contains within it the tools for its own survival. The very indeterminacy that makes it fragile also makes it adaptable. Unlike in authoritarian regimes, where power is permanently fixed, American democracy remains contested, and that contestation is its greatest strength.

Yet the danger has not passed. The desire for certainty, for a leader who can erase the complications of democratic life, has not disappeared. Trump may run again for an unprecedented third term. Or another figure—more disciplined, more strategic—may emerge in his place. The question Lefort would pose is not whether democracy can withstand authoritarian threats, but whether it can learn from them. Can it recognize its own fragility? Can it reassert the value of its openness, even in the face of movements that demand closure?

Johanna Keller is a historian of political culture, specializing in the intersection of social etiquette and power structures, proving that democracy, like good manners, is often just a performance—an insight drawn from Norbert Elias.

Giovanni Moretti is a radical political theorist and Antonio Gramsci expert who writes extensively on hegemony, media control, and the modern struggle for cultural dominance—because if you’re not shaping the narrative, someone else is doing it for you.

Mateusz Kowalski is a controversial and conservative intellectual, critiquing liberal democracy with the sharp skepticism of Ryszard Legutko, arguing that modern political institutions promise freedom but deliver bureaucracy.

Lucie Perrin is a philosopher of democracy and its discontents, exploring Claude Lefort’s theories on power, political voids, and the fragile nature of representation—because in politics, the real struggle isn’t just who rules, but how absence itself governs.

Cover image: Democracy unrealized