The Weekly Screed (#920)

The Big Orange: 

Number 7 with a bullet

By David Benjamin

MADISON, Wis. — A new index is effectively making more coherent the wave of repressive and reactionary “populism” that has emerged in the last decade on every continent. Compiled by the International Council on Political and Ideological Measurement (ICPIM), based in Bern, Switzerland, this metric — updated on a monthly basis since summer 2018 — is called the Global Autocracy Scale (GAS). Although it has won little notice from mainstream media, ICPIM’s GAS monitor has become a reliable measure of the widespread threat to liberal democracy posed by the leadership of nations that range from Hungary and Brazil to, surprisingly, the United States.

Indeed, in the last week, with Boris Johnson’s elevation to prime minister in the United Kingdom, previously unranked Great Britain almost instantly cracked the GAS Top Twenty.

 

Among the criteria for GAS recognition is the so-called “Q Factor” of a national leader. If a particular autocrat, would-be despot or tinpot dictator has gone largely unknown to the world outside his own miserable country, he doesn’t qualify for  GAS status. For example, the greedy iron fist of Turkmenistan’s self-anointed prime minister and commander-in-chief Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov has turned his impoverished and isolated country into what Reporters Without Borders has called a “black hole.” However, Turkmenistan’s obscurity and its non-existent effect on world affairs renders it ineligible for a GAS rating. It’s a place both awful and irrelevant.

Besides considering the relative fame of each dear and glorious leader, the International Council on Political and Ideological Measurement applies fourteen other criteria to its GAS billboard. The Council uses a 1-10 scale in each judging category to gauge an autocrat’s impact on his (there are no women in the current ratings) nation:

 

Economic instability, insecurity and inequality

Poverty, famine and disease

Erosion or outright suppression of democratic institutions

Control or marginalizing of elected legislative bodies

Control of the military

Control, intimidation or elimination of the courts and legal system

Impunity from legal restraints, contempt for the rule of law

Election interference by vote-rigging, vote suppression or cancellation

Racism, xenophobia, hostility toward ethnic, religious, gender, LGBT or immigrant minorities

Self-dealing, graft and corruption

Cronyism and nepotism

Suppression of media and attacks on the free press

Lying to the public, encouraging violence and other types of appalling, despicable or ludicrous behavior

Sheer political and social chaos

The sample of nations subject to GAS consideration are, in alphabetical order, Australia, Brazil, Britain, Canada, China, Egypt, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Iran, Israel, Italy, Japan, Mexico, North Korea, Pakistan, the Philippines, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Syria, Turkey, the USA and Venezuela. Notably absent from this list are, for example, nations like Afghanistan and Malaysia. This is because, although these nations are important and deeply troubled,  few people elsewhere on earth have any idea who the hell’s in charge there.

Of course, Number One on the GAS billboard, ever since the index was created, has been North Korean sociopath Kim Jong Un. Curiously, just before the GAS listings were inaugurated, ICPIM leaders were unsure whether to include North Korea at all, because Kim’s Q Factor was close to zilch. However, when U.S. president Donald Trump “fell in love” with Kim, hugged him and virtually kissed his ass on international TV, North Korea’s fat little feuhrer soared to the top of the charts. His Number One spot has not been eclipsed since.

 

North Korea scores a dazzling 145 in GAS ratings. Ironically, had Donald Trump not personally rescued Kim from Q-Factor purgatory, North Korea might have slipped into the Number Two spot behind Bashar al-Assad’s contemptible regime in Syria. This month’s GAS Top Ten, posted yesterday, is as follows:

1) Kim Jong Un of North Korea (145 points)

2) Bashar al-Assad of Syria (144)

3) Vladimir Putin of Russia (136)

4) Xi Jinping of China (132)

5) Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia (127)

6) Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela (124)

7) Donald Trump of the USA (120)

8) Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil (118)

9) Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey (117)

10) Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines (116)

Falling just short of the Top Ten was Egypt’s military dictator Abdel Fattah el-Sisi with 109 points. Ironically, Viktor Orban, the Hungarian strongman who has most ardently fostered the concept of “illiberal democracy,” scored only 102, claiming the 12th spot on the GAS billboard. However, the beauty of an amoral, paranoid and impetuous national leader, like Orban, Kim, Xi, Putin or Trump is that one fresh outrage — for example, Trump’s internment camps for children in Texas and Arizona — can send a petty tyrant flying like a bullet up the GAS ranks.

 

Orban is only one extralegal execution or imprisoned political foe from cracking the Top Ten, where — his countrymen would agree — he belongs. One more racist tweet or another sexual predator installed on the Supreme Court could vault Trump all the way past Saudi Arabian ax murderer MBS and just behind his love/hate tariff-partner, Xi Jinping.

What a moment for America.

The Council does not reveal deliberations on how points are awarded to each of the bullies, bosses and capricious despots honored by GAS rankings. However, ICPIM spokesperson Olga Fess-Holschenbauer said that a panel of more than a dozen prestigious historians and political scientists contribute to the Council’s monthly billboard.

She added, “Right now, we’re all watching Great Britain, which only scored 49 points this month. But with BoJo now in charge, that number could double overnight. A no-deal Brexit could turn the UK into a — hm, what’s the popular term? Ah, ‘shithole country.’”

At the tail end of the GAS list, the three countries with the lowest tyranny index are Germany and Australia, with 17 points out of a possible 150. And finally, at rock bottom, the genial, no-drama prime minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, scored only twelve.

As Trump would say: “Sad.”