By Dalibor Rohac

Slovak Prime Minister Vladimir Meciar, center, greets supporters at a rally in Bratislava in 1998. (Jano Sebik/CTK via Associated Press)

Dalibor Rohac is a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

To any fair-minded observer, President Trump’s authoritarian instincts, Twitter outbursts and divisive rhetoric should be greatly concerning. Americans might take comfort in the fact that the United States is not the first country to elect and live under such a leader. I would know.

Two and a half years after the fall of communism in 1989, the ruthless and charismatic Vladimir Meciar was elected as prime minister in my home country of Slovakia after a brief previous stint in the office. His larger-than-life personality and bombastic rhetoric filled much of the media space, often with lies and conspiracies. His opponents, many of them former dissidents from the old era, lacked the rhetorical skills, charisma and political…