'Trump thought I was a secretary': Fiona Hill on the president, Putin and populism

[JonLP24]

(snip)

When we talked in May, Hill was back in seclusion but so was the rest of Washington. She was speaking from home, where she had an array of books spread around her feet. She had laid them out to try to piece together an explanation of why the three countries with which she was intimately familiar – the UK, where she was born; Russia, the country she had spent her life studying; and the US, where she has lived since 1989 and risen to the highest level of government – had all failed so spectacularly in handling the health crisis.

She is one of a handful of people to have stood at the nexus of these three disastrous governments, to have been in the room to witness Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Boris Johnson operate.

“It’s a story really about how the US, UK and Russia have all ended up in the same spot weirdly, not just in terms of Covid-19 but also populist politics and many of the same out-of-control inequalities,” Hill said.

(snip)

What interests Hill is how the three such different countries end up in the same boat, run by populists and significantly less able to cope with a pandemic than their neighbours. She believes the critical common factor is the heady rise, and then the catastrophic collapse, of heavy industry and the failure of their governments to manage the fall and cushion the impact on their people.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/12/fiona-hill-trump-putin-populism-interview

Well worth reading in full,

[Blue Owl]

1. In Little Donny's pea brain, a woman knows her place

n/t

[H2O Man]

2. Recommended.

[malaise]

3. Get thee to the greatest page - MUST READ n/t

[Jeebo]

4. President Biden's Secretary of State?

She would be a great one.

-- Ron

[quaint]

5. She is outstanding.

From the OP's link:

In her view populist governments are useless at handling complex problems of governance, almost by definition. If leaders are fit to govern, they generally don’t need populism to get elected.

“It’s all about style and swagger and atmospherics, with superficial solutions to things, with lots of sloganeering, and obviously dealing with a pandemic is pretty methodical and boring. It requires an awful lot of planning and logistical organization and you can’t just sort of do it on the fly with an ad hoc coalition.”

[Hortensis]

7. Yes, this is a good clip. Populist leaders gather power by

drumming up anger and resentment because they can't get broad support from people who want stable government and positive change. There's virtually always something significantly wrong with people who go that way.

"populist governments are useless at handling complex problems of governance, almost by definition. If leaders are fit to govern, they generally don’t need populism to get elected."

[Swede]

6. Hill was Very impressive at the impeachment trial.

k and r

[Hortensis]

8. Yes! If Trump mistook her for a secretary, it could only be

because she hadn't opened her mouth yet.

[Mike 03]

9. Full of insights

“Populism provides a narrative for people who have lost their identities that were tied to meaningful work,” she said. “When people lose that then they’re looking for something. There’s a feeling they’ve been robbed and deprived of a golden age, and they want that back and populist politics feeds upon that, and provides scapegoats for losing it.”

Thank you for posting!

(I wonder if she's working on a book)

[Niagara]

10. Clearly a must read.

K&R

[smirkymonkey]

11. K&R

[Yavin4]

12. BOOM!!!

In her view populist governments are useless at handling complex problems of governance, almost by definition. If leaders are fit to govern, they generally don’t need populism to get elected.

[niyad]

13. Thank you for posting this. Bokmarking for later.

[TheFourthMind]

14. TrumpThink: If a woman's not a prostitute, stripper or porn star, she must be a secretary. n/t