That portrait of totalitarianism more or less describes Panem in Collins’s world, and certainly wouldn’t be unfamiliar in Nazi Germany or contemporary North Korea. It’s just not a picture of how authoritarianism would come to the United States, and Pepinsky—who titled his essay, “Everyday Authoritarianism Is Boring and Tolerable”—worries media portrayals prevent Americans from being prepared for the way it might actually arrive.

“If you think of authoritarianism as only being The Hunger Games and Star Wars, you’re likely to focus on the wrong types of threats to democracy,” he said in an interview. “You’re out there looking for something unlikely to happen and you’re missing the things much more likely to happen.” Such as legal gerrymandering, he said. “One way to not lose elections that’s very common and essential to Malaysia is the construction of so many safe legislative seats that the party doesn’t need to get most of the voters to get most of the seats.”

Another expert on authoritarianism, though, argues that The Hunger Games is particularly instructive for this moment in America.



“The Hunger Games is actually a very important book to read in terms of understanding Donald Trump, because he’s part of an entertainment complex,” journalist and academic Sarah Kendzior said in an interview. “That’s essential to how he got to power, his use of spectacle and media.”