[stahorn]

I also think about this. With the amount of history I've read, I'm not surprised that suddenly there's autocrats that take power. I just wonder, is there some good example from history of what did turn the tide towards democrazy, liberalism, and humanism?

I think a lot of it has to do with inertia; people have made such a great job in the past in the wester world, with infrastructure, education, law, medicine, and so on, that even when real proper idiots take power, most things just continue being good enough. It takes a lot of time for idiots and autocrats to make their impact, which when (hopefully) voters will switch and get good people back in power.