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Democracy is the default mode

Two heritages: the autocratic and the egalitarian. We have them both, and we can switch between them, but the default mode is probably egalitarian (i.e. democratic), because that’s the way we spent most of our human past.

Leaving actual killers aside, the ‘alpha male’ model of leadership is still successful in many countries that are formally democratic: Vladimir Putin in Russia, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Turkey, and Viktor Orban in Hungary. Indeed even genuine democracies of long standing can be seduced by a ‘great’ leader, like De Gaulle in France. No, I don’t know where Donald Trump fits in this Pantheon, writes Gwynne Dyer. Photographs courtesy of Commons Wikimedia and Flickr

Opinion
BY GWYNNE DYER
July 28, 2021

Opinion | BY GWYNNE DYER | July 28, 2021

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CBC Radio host Elamin Abdelmahmoud, top left, is the editor of a forthcoming book, Elbows Up!, featuring essays by novelist Ann-Marie MacDonald, academic Niigaan Sinclair, author Margaret Atwood, former CBC correspondent Peter Mansbridge, bottom left, filmmaker Atom Egoyan, former broadcaster Carol Off, and ex-Liberal minister Ken Dryden. The Hill Times photographs by Andrew Meade, Jake Wright and Stuart Benson, and courtesy of McClelland and Stewart

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‘If you live here, this concerns you’: Elbows Up! book of essays out this fall

FeatureBY CHRISTINA LEADLAY

Plus: condolences for former Conservative MP Guy Lauzon who died on June 22, former Liberal minister Catherine McKenna has a memoir coming out this fall, and a Canadian-made social media platform is migrating to screen near you.