It's a worldwide phenomenon. Did anybody notice that a Marcos just easily won in the Philippines? The dynasty's back! Duterte was fully onboard the Marcos change.

Did anyone notice that Orban won again in Hungary? By a lot?

If Putin ran in a LEGIT election, he'd win again handily.

Xi is an autocrat. If he ran in a fair election, he'd win in a landslide.

India's Modi has autocratic tendencies and hasn't met a Muslim he wouldn't like to see in prison.

Turkey's president is an autocrat, and he is getting a big-time assist by the guy behind the Bayraktar that is killing so many Russians in Ukraine.

Speaking of Ukraine, after they finish off Putin, does anybody not think the Azov Battalion won't take full credit for the victory and run someone against Zelensky in the next election? And probably win?

LePen made a lot of noise in France, and France is lucky to have a right-leaning corporate capitalist as its President.

The UK has Boris Johnson. Still. Yikes.

Iran is a totalitarian theological hellhole.

Brazil's president is a corrupt right-winger who is eating the Amazon.

There's more. Shall I go on?

The United States has always been an empire built on oppression, though. Without ethnic cleansing and slavery, would it even exist today? Or would it be a bunch of smaller countries?

The United States has always been an idea. An experiment. But the people with the most money still always win, and right now they want a "stable" economy where just enough people are addicted to their various opiates, be they actual opiates or booze or phones, to keep things quiet.

None of this is any different than it was when I was growing up in the 1970s, except that Ronald Reagan entered the scene and thwacked the hell out of what little there was of a progressive movement.