Authoritarians do not teleport fully formed into national leadership. They first must learn how to rule anti-democratically, usually at the local level. Stopping authoritarianism globally requires all of us to identify our hometown autocrats, and make sure that local governments are as democratic as possible.
Detecting would-be authoritarians isn't always easy. Some spend too little time in local government -- like Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, who had two quiet years on Rio's city council -- but many local authoritarians make their tyrannical ambitions explicit.
"If I make it to the presidential palace, I will do just what I did as mayor," then-Davao mayor Rodrigo Duterte said while campaigning for the Philippine presidency. "All of you who are into drugs, you sons of bitches, I will really kill you. I have no middle ground, either you kill me or I will kill you idiots."
