The anti-communist crusade

  A central feature of the Cold War racket was the anti-communist crusade. At the behest of the U.S. national-security establishment, the entire nation became obsessed with the commies, both foreign and domestic. The Reds were coming to get us. They were everywhere. They were in Korea, Vietnam, Cuba, Russia, China, Guatemala, Chile, Indonesia, Brazil, and most everywhere else. They were in Congress, the military, the executive branch, the political system, the universities, and  Hollywood. In the 1950s, people were even being exhorted to look under their beds for communists. 

  In the foreign realm, the anti-communist crusade led the U.S. national-security establishment to sacrifice almost 100,000 U.S. soldiers in U.S. interventions in civil wars in Korea and Vietnam. More than 250,000 U.S. soldiers were wounded in those conflicts.

Rise of far-right populism threatens global democracy and security

  Brazil’s recent election of soon-to-be President Jair Bolsonaro demonstrated that far-right populism and authoritarian promises to restore law and order remain a potent and growing force in global politics. Bolsonaro’s campaign drew from a familiar playbook, placing at its heart an authoritarian and xenophobic vision of Brazilian society. He declared that he would not accept election results if he lost; defended Brazil’s decades-long brutal military dictatorship; threatened to shoot supporters of the opposing Workers’ Party; and vowed to pack the country’s supreme court with sympathetic jurists and persecute media critical of him. Like many right-wing populists around the world, Bolsonaro embraced racist, homophobic, and misogynist rhetoric, achieving a level of provocation so incendiary that the country’s attorney general charged then-candidate Bolsonaro “with inciting hatred and discrimination against blacks, indigenous communities, women and gays.”