Authoritarianism

Sen. Bernie Sanders said in a speech on Wednesday that President Donald Trump’s wealth was built on “racial discrimination.”

WASHINGTON, DC — The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is using its financial clout over Hollywood to exert influence and deepen its authoritarianism by censoring alternative ideas, an expert warned a House panel on Thursday.

The referendum to approve constitutional amendments that extended Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s term, granted permission for him to run for another six years in 2024, and increased the powers of his office has passed with over 88% of votes cast in favor, according to the Egyptian election commission.

Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen held a teleconference on Tuesday evening with several American think tanks at which she questioned the post-Cold War belief that the world is moving inexorably toward limited representative government.

Australia’s parliament on Wednesday passed a strict new social media law that could fine tech companies, or even jail their executives, if they allow violent material to be posted on their sites or fail to remove it quickly enough after complaints are filed. An op-ed at Sky News on Thursday conceded that China might have had the right idea all along about censoring and controlling the Internet.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has long been accused of using his seven-year “anti-corruption” crusade as an excuse to purge officials who are rivals to his power or critics of his ideology. This critique will find new energy thanks to Tuesday’s announcement that China’s chief corruption-fighting agency will also begin targeting “political deviation” as well as graft.

The Chinese Communist People’s Daily Online spoke up on Tuesday for an overlooked class of victims from the U.S. government shutdown: panda enthusiasts deprived of the Smithsonian National Zoo’s Giant Panda Cam.

The topic of press freedom is much on the media’s mind as 2018 draws to a close. Much of the U.S. media believes it is suffering through uniquely dark times because President Donald Trump has been fiercely, often hyperbolically, critical of its work.

China’s state-run Global Times on Tuesday defended a massive crackdown on social media users and triumphantly claimed the world is beginning to see things China’s way when it comes to speech controls on the Internet.

The enormous popularity of a rap song criticizing the Thai military junta suggests the public is growing exasperated with the military takeover. Thailand’s rulers are contemplating a crackdown that could get ugly fast.

On Wednesday’s broadcast of CNN’s “Situation Room,” Representative Don Beyer (D-VA) stated that the revocation of former CIA Director John Brennan’s security clearance is “a striking move towards authoritarianism.” Beyer said, “[T]his is a striking move towards authoritarianism. You know,

On Thursday’s edition of CNN’s “Wolf,” journalist, author, and CNN Political Analyst Carl Bernstein stated, “what we are watching in the Trump presidency is worse than Watergate.” He later added that President Trump “is a demonstrable authoritarian in terms of

Former President Barack Obama told an audience at a Nelson Mandela Foundation event in South Africa Tuesday marking the 100th anniversary of Mandela’s birth that income inequality and other disruptions caused by a “backlash” against globalization and liberalization were factors in the 9/11 attacks, the resurgence of populism, Chinese aggression, and the rise of President Vladimir Putin in Russia.

Stung by criticism of China’s disturbing new “social credit system,” the state-run Global Times responded on Wednesday that such a system is necessary to fight corruption among its huge population.

CBS News on Tuesday reported on China’s plan to assign citizens a “social credit score,” a system that has already restricted the travel privileges of millions of people who were rated poor citizens due to undesirable speech and behavior. The system begins expanding nationwide next week after a limited trial run.

On Tuesday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “All In,” Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) argued President Trump has “a strong authoritarian personality” and shows a “disrespect for democracy” in the US. Sanders said, “Look, it is — should be clear to everybody that we

China’s state-run Global Times newspaper defended the crackdown on foreign businesses perceived to be challenging Chinese territorial claims, no matter how inadvertently, by explaining that Western notions of free speech end at China’s border.

China’s efforts to exert political and cultural influence in Australia produced a major scandal with the fall of Senator Sam Dastyari, who took money from a billionaire linked to the Chinese government and ended up parroting Beijing’s propaganda line on the South China Sea. The United States Senate recent convened a bipartisan commission to study Chinese influence efforts, which include meddling in Western higher education as well as politics. Now The Economist warns that China’s “sharp power” is cutting into Europe as well.

China seeks to establish Communist Party branches to both spread its authoritarian ideology and keep its workers and students free of contamination by liberal ideals.

China’s challenge to the United States over the coming decades will not only be a contest of economic and military might. It will be a clash of ideologies, as President Xi Jinping made quite clear in his marathon address to the 19th Communist Party Congress. China is betting that its brand of authoritarianism will go viral and infect not only Eastern nations it hopes to bring under its hegemonic sway, but the Western world as well.

On Friday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “All In,” host Chris Hayes stated that the lack of widespread calls for President Trump’s impeachment is due to his “disregard for the rule of law, for democratic norms, his authoritarian impulses” being mostly “baked

China’s 19th Communist Party Congress, an event held every five years, is expected to consolidate President Xi Jinping’s power for years to come. Xi’s allies will be promoted, his adversaries will be chastised, and “Xi Jinping Thought” will be impressed upon China’s future.

On Monday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “MTP Daily,” host Chuck Todd argued that if another country’s leader treated the press the way President Trump does, the State Department would say that country is creeping towards authoritarianism. Todd began by saying, “[O]n

Exiled imam Fethullah Gulen, blamed by the Turkish government for masterminding last July’s coup attempt against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, penned an op-ed for the Washington Post on the eve of Erdogan’s visit to the Trump White House in which he described his nemesis as an aspiring dictator.

Franklin Foer writes at Slate about GOP nominee Donald Trump’s “authoritarian” and “un-American” acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention on Thursday.

Liberals have been working overtime trying to re-define commonsense border security as a cruel mix of racism, ‘nativism,’ and even fascism, or a set of devil words to scare voters during the 2016 election.

Emmett Rensin at Vox has posted a remarkably introspective piece about “The Smug Style in American Liberalism,” which is perhaps the most self-critical writing to emerge from a left-wing media organ this year.

People who support rolling back the state and leaving the EU have been labelled “authoritarian populists” by a group of left wing researchers, cheered on by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) who warned readers of its website that half of the

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan blasted President Barack Obama’s foreign policy at a VIP dinner in Washington and charged him with supporting terrorism by backing the Kurds.

The latest brainstorm from the Chinese Communist Party is a system for monitoring the Internet activity and financial transactions of its citizens, computing a “social credit” score on the acceptability of each person’s behavior, similar to the credit ratings compiled by financial institutions.