Tag: Paul Krugman

Why It Can Happen Here

The following commentary by Paul Krugman was posted on the New York Times website August 27, 2018:

We’re very close to becoming another Poland or Hungary.

Soon after the fall of the Berlin Wall, a friend of mine — an expert on international relations — made a joke: “Now that Eastern Europe is free from the alien ideology of Communism, it can return to its true historical path — fascism.” Even at the time, his quip had a real edge.

And as of 2018 it hardly seems like a joke at all. What Freedom House calls illiberalism is on the rise across Eastern Europe. This includes Poland and Hungary, both still members of the European Union, in which democracy as we normally understand it is already dead.

In both countries the ruling parties — Law and Justice in Poland, Fidesz in Hungary — have established regimes that maintain the forms of popular elections, but have destroyed the independence of the judiciary, suppressed freedom of the press, institutionalized large-scale corruption and effectively delegitimized dissent. The result seems likely to be one-party rule for the foreseeable future.

View the complete article here.

Paul Krugman Just Said What We’re All Thinking About Trump’s Mental Health

The following article by Natalie Dickinson was posted on the Occupy Democrats website January 24, 2017:

Since taking office, President Trump’s behavior has become increasingly unhinged. Since ascending to the Oval Office, he has thrown a tantrum over the size of the Women’s March following his inauguration because it dwarfed his pitiful turnout and insisted to multiple audiences that his inauguration was massive despite the obvious photographic evidence to the contrary. Aides reporthe grows furiously angry over angry Twitter messages and grows bored with his work, instead preferring to watch television. 

The erratic temper of an old man? Or a sign of something else? New York Times columnist Paul Krugman is fed up with Trump’s rage-and-pony show and told us all how he really feels in one sledgehammer of a tweet: Continue reading “Paul Krugman Just Said What We’re All Thinking About Trump’s Mental Health”