Is the autocracy fever breaking?

FOR people across the globe who cherish the flawed but still irreplaceable tenets of democracy, last June was a time for real depression. Endless worries, a sinking feeling and sleepless nights. The world that used to take for granted concepts and practices such as tolerance, openness, free markets, basic societal fairness and the spirited political and economic debates among various ideological factions because of the sense there were no other alternatives woke up from its naiveté. And found out there was, indeed, a challenge to its dominance. Its name: autocracy.

The oldest democracy in the world, which is scheduled to hold a presidential election in November, was all decided to vote for former president Donald Trump, who in June was the presumptive Republican Party candidate. Poll after poll said that in the so-called seven "battleground states" that usually decide the outcome of the US Electoral College vote, Trump would be the clear winner. Or the runaway winner.