Putin and Trump have convinced me I was wrong about the 21st century
By Robert Reich
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.)
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.
Advanced nations will no longer war
over geographic territory. I
thought that in the “new economy” land was becoming less valuable than
technological knowhow and innovation. Competition among nations would therefore
be over the development of cutting-edge inventions.
I was only partly right. While
skills and innovation are critical, land still provides access to critical raw
materials and buffers against potential foreign aggressors.
Major nuclear powers will never risk war against each other because of the certainty of “mutually assured destruction.” I bought the conventional wisdom that nuclear war was unthinkable.
I fear I was wrong. Putin is now
resorting to dangerous nuclear brinksmanship.
Civilization will never again be
held hostage by crazy isolated men with the power to wreak havoc. I assumed this was a phenomenon of the twentieth
century, and that twenty-first century governments, even totalitarian ones,
would constrain tyrants.
Trump and Putin have convinced me I
was mistaken. Thankfully, America booted Trump out of office — but his threat
to democracy remains.
Advances in warfare, such as
cyber-warfare and precision weapons, will minimize civilian casualties. I was persuaded by specialists in defense strategy
that it no longer made sense for sophisticated powers to target civilians.
Utterly wrong. Civilian casualties
in Ukraine are mounting.
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. But modernity came with democracy, and democracy with modernity.
Both Trump and Putin have shown how
wrong I was on this, too.
Meanwhile, Ukrainians are showing
that Trump’s and Putin’s efforts to turn back the clock on the twenty-first
century can only be addressed with a democracy powerful enough to counteract
autocrats like them.
They are also displaying with
inspiring clarity that democracy cannot be taken for granted. Democracy is not
a spectator sport. It’s not what governments do. Democracy is what people do.
Ukrainians are reminding us that
democracy survives only if people are willing to sacrifice for it. Some
sacrifices are smaller than others. You may have to stand in line for hours to
vote, as did tens of thousands of Black people in America’s 2020 election. You
may have to march and protest and even risk your life so others may vote, as
did iconic civil rights leaders like the late John Lewis and Martin Luther
King, Jr.
You may have to knock on hundreds of
doors to get out the vote. Or organize thousands to make your voices heard. And
stand up against the powerful who don’t want your voices heard.
You may have to fight a war to
protect democracy from those who would destroy it.
The people of Ukraine are also
reminding us that democracy is the single most important legacy we have
inherited from previous generations who strengthened it and who risked their
lives to preserve it. It will be the most significant legacy we leave to future
generations — unless we allow it to be suppressed by those who fear it, or we
become too complacent to care.
Putin and Trump have convinced me I
was wrong about how far we had come in the twenty-first century. Technology,
globalization, and modern systems of governance haven’t altered the ways of
tyranny. But I, like millions of others around the world, have been inspired by
the Ukrainian people — who are reteaching us lessons we once knew.
Robert
Reich's writes at robertreich.substack.com. His latest book is "THE
SYSTEM: Who Rigged It, How To Fix It." He is Chancellor's Professor of
Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley and Senior Fellow at
the Blum Center. He served as Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration,
for which Time Magazine named him one of the 10 most effective cabinet
secretaries of the twentieth century. He has written 17 other books, including
the best sellers "Aftershock," "The Work of Nations,"
"Beyond Outrage," and "The Common Good." He is a founding
editor of the American Prospect magazine, founder of Inequality Media, a member
of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and co-creator of the
award-winning documentaries "Inequality For All," streaming on YouTube,
and "Saving Capitalism," now streaming on Netflix.
