Odd Lots · Thursday, September 17, 2026
Francis Fukuyama suggests that younger generations, who have grown up after the fall of the Berlin Wall, take liberal democracy's benefits like peace and prosperity for granted. They lack the firsthand experience of living under oppressive regimes that made the post-Cold War era's embrace of democracy so potent. This lack of contrast, he argues, makes them more susceptible to rejecting liberal ideals.
“But now we've come full circle where a lot of people that actually lived through or in those countries now want to reverse that outcome as in the Sachsen-Anhalt election. And I think that it indicates that liberal democracy actually is something that is easily taken for granted.”
“You know, you have a couple generations since the fall of the Berlin Wall that have grown up without any knowledge of what communism really was. And I think that one of the biggest things that makes people like liberal democracy is the opposite, is living under a dictatorship.”
“If you live in a communist dictatorship, You know, I mean, the joy that Eastern Europeans felt when communism fell was really tangible because they didn't like, you know, being surveyed and imprisoned, you know, for speaking out.”