There is this kind of idea that "the end of democracy" means the end of elections. When it fact what it means is, the institutions of the state being used to reward political loyalty and punish opposition, so that people have to support "the regime" in elections or their careers die

that’s why all national political reporters should be hired out of chicago (jk the machine’s not what it was)

I remember meeting a guy from Belarus years back who explained to me very matter of factly that if someone ever voiced any opinion critical of Lukashenka their kids just wouldn’t get into school/university or they would quietly lose their job. No letter. No notification. Everybody just knew.

It's genuinely a hard thing to get your head around if you're used to covering elections through the prism of median-voter theory and liberalism. It took me several years of covering African elections to "get it" and afterwards I felt like I'd discovered some wild new way of thinking