Down the Democratic Drain: Justin Gest on How Migration Is Unintentionally Strengthening Authoritarianism Around the World

“You cannot expect a society to open its doors if there is no way to close them. You cannot expect a society to open its gates if there is no gate to open.” — Justin Gest

It’s a counterintuitive and deliberately provocative argument. Rather than bolstering open societies, migration actually benefits authoritarianism. And it’s the argument that Justin Gest makes in his new book, Democratic Drain: Global Migration and the Struggle for Democracy. Drawing on data from 149 countries, Gest shows that global migration has been inadvertently strengthening authoritarianism by stealing liberal democrats from the places that need them most.

When liberals emigrate from authoritarian countries, Gest argues, they take their democratic values with them. As a consequence, fewer people dare to vote against the autocrat, fewer people protest, fewer people cling to liberal norms. The argument turns the normal discourse about migration on its head. Immigration is usually framed as a question about the countries experiencing migration. But Gest reframes it from the perspective of the countries losing people. So, for example, when Hungary’s young liberal professionals move to Berlin or London, Orbán’s job got easier. Or when Venezuela’s middle class emigrated to Miami, Maduro’s grip tightened.

And, of course, when people leave America, it benefits Trump. That’s the real bite in his polemic. Be patriotic, Justin Gest is telling American liberals. Stay home. Don’t go down the democratic drain.

Five Takeaways

•       The Democratic Drain: Migration Is Strengthening Authoritarianism: Gest’s central argument: when people emigrate from authoritarian countries, they are disproportionately people who hold liberal democratic values — people who would vote against the autocrat, protest in the streets, or organise civil society. He calls them “demmigrants.” When they leave, they leave behind a population that is, on average, more sympathetic to authoritarian governance. The result: Orbán’s Hungary is easier to govern after Hungary’s young liberals move to Berlin; Maduro’s Venezuela tightens its grip as the middle class departs for Miami. Across 149 countries, the correlation is striking.

•       White Working Class as Protest Voters, Not Authoritarians: Gest, whose earlier book The New Minority anticipated the Trump and Brexit era, pushes back on the characterisation of working-class voters as simply authoritarian. Many are protest voters: they want to see the system shaken, they see populists as the only candidates willing to speak truth about the system’s failures, and they are willing to tolerate short-run damage to democratic institutions in the hope of building something better from the ashes. Immigration is the sine qua non of far-right populism: when immigrants are framed as an existential threat, voters make transactional short-run compromises to democratic integrity. They are not irrational. They are strategic.

•       The Left Must Embrace Nationalism to Win the Immigration Argument: Gest’s most provocative political prescription: the left has ceded nationalism to the right as if there is no nationalist case for immigration, no nationalist case for climate policy, no nationalist case for progressive values. This is, he says, inexcusable. The national interest served by carefully selected immigration is plain: immigrants make countries younger, fill labour shortages, innovate, create jobs. If the left can frame the immigration debate in terms of the national interest rather than moral obligation, the debate changes. He wrote a piece for the Washin