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For many non-Americans, the continuing public support in the United States of convicted felon Donald Trump is a deeply disturbing mystery — but populism and populist leaders like Trump are gaining traction around the world.
Who’s to blame? Look to the world’s billionaires.
Today in The Conversation Canada, Daniel Drache of York University and Burman University’s Marc D. Froese explain how billionaires are fuelling populism around the globe with their demands for lower taxes, preferential treatment for their corporations and the influence to shape public policy in ways that benefit them. They add that extremism has now become indispensable to cut through the bedlam of our current media environment where "alternative facts" and confirmation bias are par for the course.
“Even in places where democracy has not yet fallen off a cliff, all-powerful billionaires, broken political parties and angry voters are moving into destructive alignment,” they write.
Also today:
All the best,
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Donald Trump watches a UFC welterweight bout on June 1, 2024, in Newark, N.J.
(AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)
Daniel Drache, York University, Canada; Marc D. Froese, Burman University
Even in places where democracy has not yet fallen off a cliff, all-powerful billionaires, broken political parties and angry voters are moving into destructive alignment.
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Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre delivers a speech at the Canada Building Trades Union conference in April 2024 in Gatineau, Québec.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld
Patrick Leblond, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of Ottawa
Requiring businesses to lobby through the people, not government, as Pierre Poilievre recently suggested, may sound like a better way to make policy. It’s not.
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A March 1593 letter from England’s Queen Elizabeth I to King James VI of Scotland, where she acknowledges his “cumber [i.e., trouble] to read such scribbed lines.”
(Folger Shakespeare Library)
Misha Teramura, University of Toronto
While the rise of smartphones and typing impacts handwriting, bad penmanship is far from a new phenomenon. People have struggled to read each other’s handwriting for centuries.
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Economic development is a primary factor contributing to rising obesity rates in developing countries.
(Shutterstock)
Sylvanus Kwaku Afesorgbor, University of Guelph; Edward Martey, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Justice Moses K. Aheto, University of Ghana
Sub-Saharan Africa is no longer a continent just grappling with hunger and starvation — it is now also dealing with obesity and overweight.
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Des gens font la file devant un refuge pour sans-abri à Montréal, en mars 2020. Les problèmes sociaux sont de plus en plus complexes et pour les résoudre, il est nécessaire d’avoir recours à des solutions innovantes qui peuvent s’échelonner sur de très longues périodes.
La Presse canadienne/Ryan Remiorz
Sandra Lapointe, McMaster University; Marie Claude Lagacé, Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM)
L’innovation sociale s’impose de plus en plus comme solution aux problèmes sociétaux complexes et aux grands défis humanitaires, de même que comme moteur du développement social.
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Culture + Society
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Simon Trafford, School of Advanced Study, University of London
King Cnut has the dubious honour of being the first person recorded in English history to have been disturbed by something frustratingly urgent just as he was about to enjoy a bath.
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Health
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Zineb Moubtahij, Leiden University
Findings from a new study challenge the traditional view that a heavy reliance on plant-based diets started only with the advent of agriculture.
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Science + Tech
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Matt Qvortrup, Coventry University
People are generally more prone to activating the parts of their brain associated with fear than those linked to rational decision making.
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