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Letters – November 2025
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Royalty Over Republics
Dear Editors,
It is surprising at this time to read Anthony Barnett’s opinion that only republics secure people from tyrannical power (Notes on Now, September 2025). All the worst tyrants in the world today are presidents of republics. Of course, there are good presidents and good republics, and there have been plenty of bad kings and queens in the past, but for the last 100 years, monarchies – on balance – have a better record.
In the 1920s and 1930s, they proved to be, with the sorry exception of Italy, more resistant to the allure of totalitarianism – whether fascist, Nazi, or Communist – than republics. And would anyone claim that the change to a republic has increased freedom or justice for people in Afghanistan, Syria, Iran, or Iraq?
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