It's All About The Money...
2008: Global economic meltdown occurs in spite of the best interests of the intellectual global economists pushing their weight behind globalization and the buzzwords since the 90s and earlier. And, capitalism creating a global political and financial elite class that only wedged the wealth gap further. It's not surprising then that strong man leaders in the East choose to project themselves as journeymen who traversed their way to the top from humble beginnings. Everyone loves a rags-to-riches story anyways. Populism, strong man politics, anti-intellectualism, and identity politics has to emerge from some place and they probably did in 2008. And then there are the strong men in the west who promise the safeguarding of neo-colonist interests of their homeland, while the strong men in the east proclaim a soft rejection of globalization and promise a push back against western interests in the name of evangelizing indigenous soft power in its various forms. Both; bei...