In light of the public clashes happening in Hong Kong, on Monday, WGBH news analyst and CEO of the GroundTruth Project Charlie Sennott spoke to Boston Public Radio about growing discord around the globe.
Sennott referenced remarks from a colleague at the Associated Press, saying "there’s a danger in making everything one big theme, because you undercut details of what’s happening in each country.”
"But there is a broad theme,” Sennott continued, "which could be crystallized down to the idea we heard in this country when people voted for Trump, which is that people do not feel heard.”
People “feel threatened under all the forces of globalization and the digital age. ... They feel threatened by these enormous powers that be, like China,” Sennott said. "And they feel like they’re just not being heard by the elites, and they’re taking to the streets. And that is something, when you really drill down on Hong Kong, Bolivia, Chile, Spain … each is really really different in its own specific context, but maybe there is a theme that we should be really watching."
At least one factor at play in the rise of global discord, Sennott argued, is the growing influence of populist nationalism, which galvanizes countries around strongman leaders and anti-immigrant rhetoric. The GroundTruth Project is currently producing an ongoing podcast series tracking the rise of populist nationalism, called “Democracy Undone: The Authoritarian’s Playbook."
"These themes are real, they’re resonant … they’re connected, and we’ve got to think about them," Sennott said.
