The failure of authoritarian nationalism: Trump, Putin, Bolsinaro et al and the Pandemic

[DonaldsRump]

I've posted this elsewhere on DU, but I wanted to make this singular point about the pandemic and nationalism. One of Trump's monumental failures is INTERNATIONALLY. The lack of international cooperation to stem the pandemic is another catastrophic failure of nationalistic authoritarians like Trump, Putin, Bolsinaro, etc.

If there is any silver lining, the pandemic, along with a strong US leader like Joe Biden, will greatly help contain this other virus of fascism that we are dealing with.

The pandemic proves that a "go-it-alone" strategy does not work in a global economy. All countries need to cooperate at so many different levels to make things work. These buffoons shattered the world in just 4-6 years (starting with the annexation of Crimea by the Russians in 2014, to Brexit, to Trump: there is a clearly logical progression of how the world descended into madness). There was no strong US to stop any of this from January 2017, and that is a principal reason how the mess became even more widespread.

With Joe in the White House, I am confident that the US will reassert its role as leader of the free world and that tyrants like Putin et al will no longer have the complete freedom to run amok. I think we will see a great reduction in the power of authoritarianism in the coming years.

[Klaralven]

1. In deaths/million, Russia is 51st, while Brazil is 6th and the US is 10th.

It mostly depends on whether the authoritarian nationalist is an effective authoritarian or an idiot.

Denmark is 75th, while Turkey is 76th.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries

[DonaldsRump]

2. I am talking about the failure internationally, not domestically

Like Trump's pulling out CDC folks in China, like his dissing of WHO etc. This is what was the first catastrophic failure: to stop or at least greatly slow down the spread of the disease at a global level. Had there been better cooperation, I do not think this would have spread as rapidly from one country to another.

The failures at the DOMESTIC level is a completely different issue, but one that goes hand in hand with the international one.