R.Reich: Putin and Trump have convinced me: I was wrong about the 21st century

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BidenPresident

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I used to believe several things about the 21st century that Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and Donald Trump’s election in 2016 have shown me are false. I assumed:

Nationalism is disappearing.

I expected globalization would blur borders, create economic interdependence among nations and regions and extend a modern consumer and artistic culture worldwide.

I was wrong. Both Putin and Trump have exploited xenophobic nationalism to build their power. (Putin’s aggression has also ignited an inspiring patriotism in Ukraine.)

https://www.theguardian.com/comment...rump-ukraine-russia-invasion-war-21st-century
 
Nations can no longer control what their citizens know.

I assumed that emerging digital technologies, including the internet, would make it impossible to control worldwide flows of information and knowledge. Tyrants could no longer keep their people in the dark or hoodwink them with propaganda.

Wrong again. Trump filled the media with lies, as has Putin. Putin has also cut off Russian citizens from the truth about what’s occurring in Ukraine.
 
BidenPresident said:
I used to believe several things about the 21st century that Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and Donald Trump’s election in 2016 have shown me are false. I assumed:

Nationalism is disappearing.

I expected globalization would blur borders, create economic interdependence among nations and regions and extend a modern consumer and artistic culture worldwide.

I was wrong. Both Putin and Trump have exploited xenophobic nationalism to build their power. (Putin’s aggression has also ignited an inspiring patriotism in Ukraine.)

https://www.theguardian.com/comment...rump-ukraine-russia-invasion-war-21st-century
Click to expand...

Does Wretch plan to repay the $MILLIONS he defrauded Americans out of as ENRON'S point man at CITIBANK?
 
Democracy is inevitable.

I formed this belief in the early 1990s, when the Soviet Union had imploded and China was still poor. It seemed to me that totalitarian regimes didn’t stand a chance in the new technologically driven, globalized world. Sure, petty dictatorships would remain in some retrograde regions of the world. But modernity came with democracy, and democracy with modernity.

Both Trump and Putin have shown how wrong I was on this, too.

https://www.theguardian.com/comment...rump-ukraine-russia-invasion-war-21st-century
 
Robert Reich is honest in admitting his past misjudgments.

Democracy needs conscious efforts to sustain it. Democracy does not work like a machine.
 
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