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Geoff Russ: Putin and Xi were always the real threat to democracy, not Trump-style populists

For the last two decades, we in the democratic world have sought to identify mad-dog, would-be dictators in the form of frothing demagogues. This methodology is doubtlessly informed by the memory of men like Adolf Hitler and Idi Amin, both rabble-rousing populists who shouted their way to the top, and committed sickening acts of butchery once there. It is very likely why every populist of the 2010s like Donald Trump, Rodrigo Duterte, and even Boris Johnson were condemned as dictatorial or fascistic.

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