I totally agree with you that the aftermath of the financial crisis has been appaling. Before the crisis both the right and the left had achieved their main po

I totally agree with you that the aftermath of the financial crisis has been appaling. Before the crisis both the right and the left had achieved their main political goal (capitalism and the welfare state, respectively), and both accepted the status quo. It is astonishing that after a crisis that was caused by capitalist greed, it was the welfare state that was compromised. This has damaged the establishment left, which is being replaced by populists that, although often branded as far-right, are big defenders of the welfare state and "the people". The western liberal capitalist elites, which control the media, are struggling to contain these populists. So, although, in particular, the US media is under their control, they couldn't stop Trump, whose supporters in the fringe media had no trouble spreading their opinions. Although a westerner, I have first-hand experience of life in an authoritarian country. Of course, I will never claim that this makes me an expert, but an interesting observation that I have made is that educated people in dictatorships seem not to believe anything from their country's media. So far so good. The interesting bit is that they seem to give enormous credibility to rumours and conspiracy theories, no matter how outlandish. I have the suspicion that often these rumours originate from the opposition in the diaspora, who I believe are just as biased and self-serving as the officials. I find this side-effect of censorship quite fascinating. In fact, China recently cracked down on those spreading rumours. [1] [1] https://www.scmp.com/news/china/poliitics/article/2162036/china-launches-piyao-platform-crack-down-online-rumours https://www.scmp.com/news/china/poliitics/article/2162036/ch...