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What does it matter? With authoritarian populist leaders, what they "actually believe" isn't even a meaningful concept. A defining characteristic of authoritari
by Analemma_ 8y ago
What does it matter? With authoritarian populist leaders, what they "actually believe" isn't even a meaningful concept. A defining characteristic of authoritarianism is that truth gets fuzzy in order to serve the interests of the state, and the defining characteristic of populism is to just go with whatever pleases the mob. So when you combine the two, you get policy made up on the spot but enforced with religious fervor, which is what's happening here.
I mean, take Trump: he's a raging ball of id who just yells whatever pops into his head at random and agrees with whoever spoke to him last. What he "actually believes" is probably, to use programming jargon, undefined.
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago> What does it matter? My assumption was that he's keeping rates low to avoid raising interest costs for his government and cronies. But it might be that he actually just misunderstands economics and everyone is too scared to tell him so.
- whatok 8y agoMy personal belief is that he is well-aware but would rather scapegoat external "forces". The problem is that you can't really keep that ball in the air long enough to fix the underlying problem.