Author: Robert Reich

I am going to go out on a limb and suggest something that would have seemed utter nonsense as late as a month ago: I’m seeing the stirrings in Washington of a new era of … I am not sure what to call it. “Unity” is way too strong. “Bipartisanship” is premature. “De-partisanship” is too clunky. But something new seems to be happening, and Vladimir Putin is responsible. Don’t get me wrong. Democrats and Republicans won’t join hands and sing Kumbaya anytime soon. Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy will continue to ambush Democrats every chance they get. Expect bitter...

In a speech delivered on March 25 from his office in the Kremlin, Putin criticized the West’s “cancel culture.” He charged that it was “canceling” Russia, “an entire thousand-year-old country, our people.” It was the third time in recent months Putin has blasted the so-called “cancel culture.” Which is exactly what Trump, Tucker Carlson, and the Republican party have blasted for several years. “The goal of cancel culture is to make decent Americans live in fear of being fired, expelled, shamed, humiliated and driven from society as we know it,” Trump said as he accepted his party’s nomination at...

Nationalism is disappearing, democracy is inevitable, and nuclear war cannot happen. Then came the invasion of Ukraine and all those certainties were proven wrong. I used to believe several things about the 21st century that Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and Donald Trump’s election in 2016 have shown me are false. I assumed: Nationalism is disappearing. I expected globalization would blur borders, create economic interdependence among nations and regions and extend a modern consumer and artistic culture worldwide. I was wrong. Both Putin and Trump have exploited xenophobic nationalism to build their power. Putin’s aggression has also ignited an...

The world is frighteningly locked in a battle to the death between democracy and authoritarianism. When Vladimir Putin issued a new threat to the West, telling his defense minister and his top military commander to place Russia’s nuclear forces on alert, it officially ushered in a new Cold War. The biggest difference between the old Cold War and the new one is that authoritarian neo-fascism is no longer just an external threat to America and Europe. A version of it is also growing inside western Europe and the United States. It has even taken over one of America’s major...