Globalization and its Discontents

Trump, Brexit, and the worldwide populist revolution are not causes, but symptoms. Symptoms of a wider systemic plague of fear of change, anxiety, and a feeling by people of being part of a world they no longer can control or even understand.

Technology today, rather than being a cause, is merely the host that carries the fear. Not unlike the Industrial Revolution a century ago, disruptive change takes its toll. The difference now is that it all happens at hyper speed, and in full view 24/7. How we deal with it, whether we put those that have been left behind in Hillary Clinton’s basket of deplorables, or find leadership that will lift up entire countries may very well determine the fate of the world.

Ian Bremmer, the president and founder of Eurasia Group is more on point than most in understanding all this is going on. He explains a big part of it in Us vs. Them: The Failure of Globalism.

My WhoWhatWhy.org conversation with Ian Bremmer: