Back in 2017 I was listening to the BBC World Service. It was an interview with the Russian ambassador to the UK. After telling some enormous lies, he paused and the BBC interviewer mildly interjected that some of the statements might have been inaccurate. The ambassador chuckled and said, “We are now in the post-truth world. The truth is whatever we want it to be.”

It’s a salutary lesson on the complete unsuitability of representative democracy that it has been so effortless for Putin to undermine so many nations so rapidly. Brexit was Russian-financed using the middle-man Aaron Banks; Trump was Russian-financed using Facebook (yielding a superb ROI). In France the Russians bankrolled Marine Le Pen to the tune of $7 million and narrowly missed getting her elected; next time they may be more fortunate. Likewise AfD is a beneficiary of Kremlin aid, as is Orban in Hungary and Babis in the Czech Republic. It’s all so blatant but the kinds of people who voted for Brexit and for Trump simply don’t care because they lack the intellectual capacity to (i) grasp the situation, and (ii) understand its consequences.

All these people want to do is to howl and drool enthusiastically for a “strong leader.” As Plato pointed out 2,500 years ago, this is how democracy must always end: in de facto tyranny under a blustering demagogue.