Tag Archive for: Rodrigo Duterte

Manila’s defence split with Washington will be Duterte’s lasting legacy

On 11 February 2020, President Rodrigo Duterte gave 180 days’ notice of the termination of the 20-plus-year-old US–Philippines Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA). The agreement provides the legal framework for US forces to be stationed on rotation in the Philippines. Duterte’s termination of the VFA, which significantly weakens the US–Philippines alliance, will be his lasting legacy.

The cancellation of the VFA is the most significant downgrading of the US–Philippines alliance since the US military was asked to vacate the Subic Bay naval base in the early 1990s.

Duterte’s move, which has no support from his foreign and defence ministers, appeared to be a direct response to the US’s revocation of a visa for former police chief Ronald dela Rosa, who was the architect of Duterte’s ‘war on drugs’.

Since assuming the presidency, Duterte has been advocating for a more independent foreign policy, which means ‘less America, more China’. A couple of weeks after he took office, the Permanent Court of Arbitration ruled in favour of Manila in the South China Sea dispute, but he opted to not pursue the matter, effectively nullifying the ruling. His criticism of the US was clear from early on,  when he insulted President Barack Obama for condemning the extra-judicial killings in the war on drugs, and his prejudice against America didn’t abate after Donald Trump took over.

The abrogation of the VFA will complicate the US military’s access to and presence in the region. Since Washington is now in open competition with China, and Southeast Asia is in the centre of what the Pentagon calls the primary theatre of the Indo-Pacific region, this is certainly a blow. Moreover, because of the Philippines’ strategic value, it may also affect American logistics in potential crises in the South China Sea, Taiwan and the East China Sea. On the other hand, it appears to be in line with Trump’s desire for allies to take care of their own security. His immediate reaction to Duterte’s decision was to tell reporters, ‘I don’t really mind if they would like to do that. It will save a lot of money.’

The VFA termination is a turning point in the military history of a country that has outsourced its defence since World War II. Without the VFA, the 1951 US–Philippines Mutual Defence Treaty and the 2014 Enhanced Defence Cooperation Agreement could become empty shells. It’s no wonder his ministers disapprove.

The VFA termination will damage the Philippines on multiple levels. There’s nothing wrong with pursuing a more self-reliant defence policy, but Duterte is simply putting all his eggs into China’s basket. In the light of Beijing’s aggressive posture, its military activities around the facilities it has built in the South China Sea, and its frequent incursions into other claimants’ exclusive economic zones, cancelling the VFA will leave the Philippines vulnerable and exposed. It will also make Brunei, Malaysia and especially Vietnam—none of which have similar defence arrangements with the US—more nervous. So, on the strategic level, the termination of the VFA will seriously weaken the US’s deterrence capacity in the region.

Despite Duterte’s controversial personality and policies, he remains massively popular in his country, And while he may be unconventional in the way he handles relations with the US, he is tapping into a vein of anti-American sentiment among Filipinos. Many remember the 2012 Scarborough Shoal incident, when the Obama administration said that the US wouldn’t ‘go to war over some rocks’.

Since taking office in 2016, Duterte has made five visits to Beijing—more than any of his predecessors. He’s been a strong proponent of engaging with China and benefiting economically from those ties. Abrogating the VFA is a manifestation of his acceptance of and submission to Beijing’s dominance in the region.

Unsurprisingly, Beijing hailed the announcement, which gave it another opportunity to underscore the narrative  that the US is no longer welcome in Southeast Asia. It has been pushing to block any external actors’ involvement in the South China Sea disputes and to limit the issue only to the claimant states.

Armed Forces of the Philippines’ leaders haven’t welcomed the termination. It will interfere with military training, including special forces training, slow down humanitarian assistance and disaster relief missions, and complicate the future of US counterterrorism efforts, such as stabilising the situation after Islamic State operations in Marawi.

Australia is the only other country to have a VFA (signed in 2007 and ratified in 2012) with the Philippines. Duterte’s announcement doesn’t affect that deal, but a reduced US presence will weaken deterrence against terrorist and insurgent groups, leaving Australia and other regional neighbours less secure.

The questions that now need to be answered are:

  • What will happen after the notice period of 180 days is over?
  • What will the working arrangements be for US troops in Mindanao?
  • Will Washington and Manila continue to cooperate on intelligence gathering?

The biggest casualty in the VFA termination is trust, which is the absolutely fundamental requirement in any alliance. The US government may hope to work out a new arrangement with Duterte, but trust is something that takes a long time to build and a rash decision to ruin.

National security in the Philippines under Duterte: pragmatic partnerships beyond the noise

In May 2016, Rodrigo Duterte, the long-term mayor of Davao City, won a resounding victory in the Philippines national presidential election. He has since set in train a highly populist agenda that has seen internal security and stability as the main priority of his tenure.

My new report for ASPI—National security in the Philippines under Duterte: Shooting from the hip or pragmatic partnerships beyond the noise?—released today, looks at how Duterte has gone about securing his internal objectives and diversifying and rebalancing the country’s external alignments.

On assuming the presidency, Duterte ordered the army to prioritise the neutralisation of the Islamic State–affiliated Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) within a year, reiterating that mandate in the wake of the protracted 2017 Marawi crisis. He flooded the south with thousands of troops, requested the deployment of an additional 20,000 soldiers to safeguard areas where there were continuing threats, and declared an extended state of martial law across Mindanao.

These measures have been relatively successful. More than 350 militants were eliminated in 2017, and their ability to operate out of traditional strongholds in the south has been effectively degraded.

Duterte also sought to capitalise on ties he’d made with the left when he was mayor to bring an end to the protracted insurgency of the New People’s Army (NPA). His approach was conciliatory, and he quickly entered into four rounds of peace talks with the rebel movement.

Despite that promising start, little progress has been made in concluding a final deal. In November 2017, Duterte formally terminated all talks with the NPA. That was seen as an ominous development, possibly presaging the wholesale abandonment of the peace process. However, in April 2018, the president directed his cabinet to resume negotiations with the communist movement. How this will play out in terms of sealing a lasting settlement remains to be seen.

In March 2016, a surge of high-profile hijackings hit the tri-border area (TBA) between the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia in the Sulu and Celebes seas. Although no party has explicitly taken responsibility for the attacks, most commentators believe criminal elements within the ASG were the main culprits. Duterte mobilised specialist units from the army to destroy the group’s strongholds in Sulu and deployed the coast guard to intercept suspected pirate vessels. He also moved to collaborate with Indonesia and Malaysia in instituting a trilateral regime of maritime domain awareness in the TBA.

This combined unilateral and collective approach has resulted in a significant drop in attacks in the TBA. That said, there’s little room for complacency. The resilience of the ASG, combined with the size and archipelagic nature of the area to be monitored, means that the TBA will remain a potential maritime crime hotspot for the foreseeable future.

On the domestic front, one of Duterte’s main election pledges was to initiate an aggressive response to the Philippines’ growing drug problem. Not only did he promise that 100,000 dealers, addicts and traffickers would be eliminated, he also offered bonuses to the police for every criminal body they delivered. By the end of 2017, 4,000 had died at the hands of law enforcement and another 8,000 had been murdered by unknown assailants.

The global community has reacted with alarm at these figures and the apparent impunity with which the drug war is being conducted in the Philippines. In February 2018, the International Criminal Court  opened a preliminary judicial inquiry into whether Manila’s policies warranted a full investigation of known human rights abuses.

Certainly, there are grounds to question the morality and utility of Duterte’s drug war. However, it’s important to note that his administration’s counter-narcotics strategy includes more nuanced strands of demand reduction and rehabilitation support. These underreported initiatives reflect a somewhat more coherent approach to dealing with the illicit drug trade and are more in line with the policies of governments in the West.

Duterte’s foreign policy has focused on configuring the Philippines’ external relations to maximise the time and space he has to pursue his domestic security priorities. To that end, he has embarked on two parallel courses of action. The first is resolving outstanding disputes with Beijing in the South China Sea in an effort to remove what was a key source of international distraction during the Aquino presidency. The second is adopting an ‘independent’ foreign policy that lessens the Philippines’ dependence on the United States while improving relations with China and other non-traditional partners such as Russia.

Despite this seemingly revolutionary stance on foreign affairs, it’s clear that his administration continues to view Washington—rather than Beijing or Moscow—as the ultimate security guarantor in Southeast Asia. Nearly two years into the Duterte presidency, there’s considerable continuity in American–Filipino relations. All the treaty foundations of the bilateral alliance remain intact. The two countries continue to conduct regular joint training exercises. And while some military engagements have been cancelled, new ones have been initiated in their place.

Rather than adopting an independent foreign policy, Manila appears to be moving more towards an ‘interdependent’ stance in its external relations, maintaining relationships with traditional partners (the US) while seeking to diversify ties with new powers (China and Russia). Although that may not have been Duterte’s original intent, it’s largely consistent with the postures of past presidents and is certainly the approach that would seem best for the Philippines’ national security today.

The Trump–Duterte drug war tango

President Donald Trump, who is in the Philippines on the last stop of his marathon trip to Asia, has paid his respects to President Rodrigo Duterte. Since Duterte’s inauguration last year, police and affiliated death squads have summarily executed more than 8,000 suspected drug users. Duterte himself has bragged of his role in launching and overseeing these extrajudicial killings.

Trump has already boasted of his close ties to Duterte, and the two men are expected to develop a fast affinity when they formally meet today. What they are not expected to do is talk seriously about human rights. On Wednesday, Duterte told reporters what he would say if Trump broached the topic: ‘Lay off.’

The major question, then, is how explicitly Trump will endorse Duterte’s policy and practice of mass murder. Regardless of whether Trump directly praises Duterte’s program, or says nothing about it at all, his mere presence will be interpreted as a signal to law enforcement there, in the United States, and elsewhere that corruption and criminal violence in the service of a policy goal is acceptable.

Duterte and Trump have much in common. Both take pride in denigrating political opponents and international figures, such as former President Barack Obama and Pope Francis. Both enjoy using crude language in public statements. Both boast of their prowess as womanisers. Both express warm feelings for Russian President Vladimir Putin. And both repeatedly claim widespread popular support, contrary to data (although Duterte does seem to have the edge in actual popular backing).

Of course, Trump has not embarked on a campaign of murder in the US. He has never even hinted at having any intention of doing so, and he could not do it even if he wanted to, given checks and balances on the power of any US government official. Nonetheless, that has not stopped Trump from expressing disdain for his own Justice Department, or from seeking to use the judicial process as a means of retaliating against political opponents. Duterte’s apparent contempt for legal formalities seems to elicit Trump’s admiration. But if Trump expresses support for Duterte’s campaign of mass murder—either directly or by omission—he will also be condoning police corruption.

One reason officials in the Philippines have cooperated so readily in carrying out Duterte’s policy is that doing so includes financial incentives that go far beyond the payments police have reportedly received for executing the president’s ‘war on drugs’. Sheila Coronel, a distinguished investigative journalist and the academic dean of the Columbia Journalism School, has found that the list of illicit rewards includes profits from extortion, property commandeered from victims, ransom for kidnapped suspects, and even commissions from funeral parlors.

These and other motives are fuelling the Philippines’ cycle of corruption, and undermining any attempt to reestablish effective policing. Citizen awareness of police corruption is an important part of restoring credibility, which is essential for effective law enforcement. But as Coronel notes, ‘Filipinos have consistently judged the police the most corrupt of all government agencies.’ By promoting policies that contribute to police misconduct, Duterte is actually encouraging the very criminality that his campaign to wipe out illegal drug use was ostensibly meant to curb.

The mounting death toll from the US opioid epidemic suggests that America’s drug problem is no less serious—and possibly more so—than that of the Philippines. Though the Trump administration has yet to propose an adequate response to its crisis—declaring a national emergency and failing to put any new spending behind the order is clearly insufficient—at least it recognises that using the police to kill dealers and users is not a solution.

If Trump were to think through how Duterte is perpetuating a drug crisis he seeks to end, perhaps he would refrain from expressing enthusiasm for the approach. Maybe he would even go further, ignoring Duterte’s directive to ‘lay off’. But, given Trump’s affection for strongman leaders, Duterte will most likely receive a free pass on murdering his own citizens.

Rodrigo Duterte: a genuine political outsider

President Rodrigo Duterte’s may have rowed back from his shock decision to ‘separate’ from the United States announced during his recent visit to China, but the bizarre episode reinforces the picture of a very different Philippine leader who proudly calls himself a socialist and has had long-standing linkages to the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP).

Leaving aside the 71-year-old leader’s foul mouth and crude and often erratic behaviour, his early political education helps explain his anti-US stance, slamming President Barrack Obama as the ‘son of a whore’ and, to the bemusement of the Chinese, now distancing himself from Washington ‘in military and in economics’.

Duterte’s envoy to China, former president Fidel Ramos—a West Point graduate with a strong military following—refused to join his Beijing delegation and recently issued a stinging critique of the president’s first 100 days in office.

Up until then much of the criticism had centred on Duterte’s draconian, though internally-popular, law and order policy. But that’s now been overshadowed by his outreach to China, which has alarmed the country’s military and political elite to a degree that may prove destabilising if it continues.

Outside of the Philippines, core ASEAN members have been left wondering whether a rough-edged former city mayor fully understands the strategic significance of turning his back on a treaty partner and the only power that can keep China in check in the contested South China Sea.

Of course, what has always made Duterte different is that while he was born into a political dynasty, the first president from Mindanao doesn’t consider himself part of the Philippine ruling class or the feudal system cemented in place by paternalism, private armies and decades of largesse.

Most of the Philippines’ 16 presidents have come from those powerful families. The only previous leaders without elitist credentials were Ramos, who could have transformed the Philippines if he had been allowed a second term, and actor Joseph Estrada, who was an unmitigated disaster.

The son of a Davao provincial governor, Duterte grew up with strong nationalistic sentiments that  became more pronounced during his university years when he studied political science under Jose Maria Sison, the long-exiled founder of the country’s communist movement.

Sison was to plant the seeds of resentment against perceived US imperialism, similar to that shared by many left-leaning activists and politicians who, although in a minority, were the driving force behind the enforced closure of Subic and Clark bases in the early 1990s.

The CPP has praised Duterte for his anti-American stand, saying in a recent statement that ‘the situation now exists for the forging of a patriotic alliance between his anti-US regime and the revolutionary and patriotic forces.’ While Sison has often criticised Duterte for being arrogant and having a ‘loose mouth’, he also calls him a friend and says he is the one person who offers the best chance of ending the 47-year communist insurgency, one of three left in the world.

As a young lawyer, Duterte was a strong opponent of former dictator Ferdinand Marcos and  reportedly arranged meetings between foreign journalists and local communist leaders in the early 1980s when the CPP was in full flower.

When he was elected mayor of Davao city in early 1988, Duterte was quick to embrace the Alsa Masa, a rag-tag vigilante force formed to end a campaign of terror unleashed on the country’s third largest city by elements of the New People’s Army (NPA), the CPP’s armed wing. The Alsa Masa’s ‘godfather’ was Davao city police chief Franco Calida, whose younger brother, Jose, is the solicitor-general in Duterte’s Cabinet and a strong supporter of the President’s controversial anti-drug campaign.

By the time Duterte took office, roving bands of vigilantes, mostly criminals and NPA turn-coats, had killed hundreds of suspected NPA operatives, but if the mayor’s open backing of the Alsa Masa seemed to be paradoxical, his motives may have been very different from Calida’s. Former NDF members suspect he was actually supporting the CPP central committee in its ongoing purge of urban revolutionaries, who had deviated from the party’s Maoist line and were bringing the CPP into disrepute.

Law and order was always a Duterte priority, however. When he was reappointed mayor in 2001, after a two-year stint in Congress, the now-moribund Alsa Masa was replaced by the mysterious Davao Death Squad (DDS). In the years that followed, the DDS was implicated in 1,400 vigilante-style executions of mostly petty criminals, which led to a vast improvement in public security in a city that was once known as the murder capital of the Philippines.

Duterte’s distaste for the US was further fuelled in May 2002 when US federal agents allegedly aided in the escape of American ‘treasure hunter’ Michael Meiring after he accidentally triggered an explosive device in his Davao hotel room.

The president-to-be was later denied a US visa and has since adamantly opposed joint US–Philippine  military exercises and operations in Mindanao, including—apparently—an American effort in 2013 to station drones at Davao airport.

While the US has criticised Duterte’s latest killing spree, it has wisely avoided being drawn into a more serious confrontation. The president has modified his position since returning to Manila, saying he didn’t intend to sever relations.

But it hardly matches what Washington likes to call an ‘iron-clad’ relationship. The question now is whether military and vested political and business interests will allow such an uncertain situation to continue in a country that, as Duterte well knows, generally idolises its former colonial master.

Duterte plays poker

Image courtesy of Flickr user Aaron Brown.

The Philippines under President Rodrigo Duterte’s erratic foreign and defence policy is lurching from one foreign policy crisis to the next. There’s deepening concern about extrajudicial killings that are piling bodies up and tarnishing the Philippines’ human rights reputation. And Duterte (who likes to be known as ‘The Punisher’ and ‘Duterte Harry’) is now courting China and Russia while apparently turning his back on the Philippines’ most important ally, the United States. In recent days he’s announced a decision to purchase arms from China and Russia, called for the removal of US Special Forces confronting Islamist rebel groups in Mindanao and declared that joint Philippines Navy patrols with the United States in the South China Sea will cease. That’s just a week in the life of Duterte.

Duterte’s bizarre statements and behaviour suggest a leader well out of his depth. Duterte seems to understand leadership as simply ‘acting tough’, which translates to knee-jerk policies with little thought for the consequences. His desire for an independent foreign policy might be driven by the prospect of immediate economic inducements and, with a visit to Beijing planned for 2016, a window of opportunity is opening for China to exploit that desire.

If Duterte’s playing poker and putting chips down with his most recent announcements, the problem’s that China will be willing to raise his bet. They hold all the cards in terms of potential economic assistance to buy the Philippines’ government acquiescence over the Spratly Islands and, more broadly, to induce Manila to sacrifice its relationship with the US.

In contrast, the American hand is weak. It’s inwardly focused as a tight US presidential election nears. Even though the US has sent strong signals with military deployments around the periphery of the South China Sea, a lame-duck President Obama and a lame-duck Congress may be unwilling or unable to act strongly in the event of a challenge, particularly as the presidential election looms.

There’s also uncertainty over the next administration. China may face Hillary Clinton, with a firm ‘lead from the front’ foreign policy likely to be stymied by a hostile Congress and lukewarm popular support for military intervention. Or it could face a completely unpredictable Donald Trump, who’s regularly threatening trade wars against Beijing. Both candidates look set to back down from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), and so weaken US economic influence in Asia. China’s alternative Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) would likely fill the void. In this environment China may perceive Washington’s ‘weak hand’ as suggesting Washington will fold rather than seeing or raising Beijing.

From Beijing’s perspective, exploiting Duterte’s vanity and ego may get him to ‘go all in’ on the promise of substantial economic largesse that can bring the Philippines greater prosperity, and immediate political benefit for himself. China can win by convincing Duterte to move towards an ‘independent’ foreign policy which in reality would mean greater Chinese influence over Manila. Effectively losing the Philippines would weaken the US Rebalance to Asia and strengthen China’s rise towards regional hegemon, by weakening or even eliminating a key ‘spoke’ in the US-led ‘hub and spokes’ Asia–Pacific security arrangements .

Duterte may feel there’s little the Philippines can do anyhow to protect its interests in the South China Sea, given the Philippines Defence Forces lack the means to respond if China decides to simply take territory. Focusing on internal problems—pervasive corruption, endemic drug-related crime, and terrorism and insurgency fuelled by Islamist radicalism in the Philippines southern islands—may deliver more immediate political benefits and reinforce his strong-man image.

Duterte might think that he can play China off against the US to gain concessions from Washington by holding out the prospect of band wagoning with Beijing. By getting the US and Chinese players to sweeten the pot by betting against each other, he waits to reap the benefits. That tactic could work if Duterte had a strong hand. The reality is the Philippines desperately needs greater US assistance now, not just to fight internal threats, but also to counter a rising and assertive China that seems poised to directly act against key Philippines interests in Scarborough Shoal and potentially Second Thomas Shoal. Duterte needs to maintain popular support, and that may be dented if he’s too willing to acquiesce to Beijing, bringing into play the potential opposition from the powerful Philippines’ Senate. The US will also likely pressure him to back down from a reckless course. There are clear off ramps before Duterte runs the Philippines off a cliff. The question is will he take them?

By seeking to open the door to Beijing, Duterte may be backing a bad play, hoping a bluff will deliver a win. But the chances are that Beijing is a better poker player, and that Duterte is setting himself up for a bust.

Springtime for fascism?

Image courtesy of Wikipedia

Are we seeing a new dawn of fascism? Many people are beginning to think so. Donald Trump has been compared to a fascist, as has Vladimir Putin and a variety of demagogues and right-wing loudmouths in Europe. The recent tide of authoritarian bluster has reached as far as the Philippines, whose president-elect, Rodrigo (‘The Punisher’) Duterte, has vowed to toss suspected criminals into Manila Bay.

The problem with terms like ‘fascism’ or ‘Nazi’ is that so many ignorant people have used them so often, in so many situations, that they have long ago lost any real significance. Few still know firsthand what fascism actually meant. It has become a catch-all phrase for people or ideas we don’t like.

Loose rhetoric has coarsened not only political debate, but historical memory, too. When a Republican politician compares US property taxes with the Holocaust, as one Senate candidate did in 2014, the mass murder of Jews is trivialized to the extent of becoming meaningless. The same is roughly true when Trump is compared to Hitler or Mussolini.

As a result, we are too easily distracted from the real dangers of modern demagoguery. After all, it is not hard for Trump—or the Netherlands’ Geert Wilders, or Putin, or Duterte—to refute accusations of being fascists or Nazis. They may be repulsive, but they are not organizing uniformed storm troopers, building concentration camps, or calling for the corporate state. Putin comes closest, but even he is not Hitler.

Of course, forgetfulness or ignorance about the past goes both ways. When a young Dutch writer, sympathetic to the new populist wave, expressed antipathy to his country’s ‘cultural elite,’ for promoting ‘atonal music’ and other arrogant forms of ugliness, instead of the wholesome beauty embraced by the common man, I wondered whether he knew about the Nazis’ attack on ‘degenerate art’? Atonal music, hardly the cutting edge today, was precisely the kind of thing that Hitler’s minions loathed—and ultimately banned.

There are other echoes of our darkest history in contemporary political bombast, which a few decades ago would still have cast any politician who used it to the margins. Stoking hatred of minorities, fulminating against the press, stirring up the mob against intellectuals, financiers, or anyone who speaks more than one language, were not part of mainstream politics, because enough people still understood the dangers of such talk.

It is clear that today’s demagogues don’t much care about what they derisively call ‘political correctness.’ It is less clear whether they have enough historical sense to know that they are poking a monster that post-World War II generations hoped was dead but that we now know only lay dormant, until obliviousness to the past could enable it to be reawakened.

This is not to say that everything the populists say is untrue. Hitler, too, was right to grasp that mass unemployment was a problem in Germany. Many of the agitators’ bugbears are indeed worthy of criticism: the European Union’s opacity, the duplicitousness and greed of Wall Street bankers, the reluctance to tackle problems caused by mass immigration, the lack of concern for those hurt by economic globalization.

These are all problems that mainstream political parties have been unwilling or unable to solve. But when today’s populists start blaming ‘the elites,’ whoever they may be, and unpopular ethnic or religious minorities, for these difficulties, they sound uncomfortably close to the enemies of liberal democracy in the 1930s.

The true mark of the illiberal demagogue is talk of ‘betrayal.’ The cosmopolitan elites have stabbed ‘us’ in the back; we are facing an abyss; our culture is being undermined by aliens; our nation can become great again once we eliminate the traitors, shut down their voices in the media, and unite the ‘silent majority’ to revive the healthy national organism. Politicians and their boosters who express themselves in this manner may not be fascists; but they certainly talk like them.

The fascists and Nazis of the 1930s did not come from nowhere. Their ideas were hardly original. For many years, intellectuals, activists, journalists, and clerics had articulated hateful ideas that laid the groundwork for Mussolini, Hitler, and their imitators in other countries. Some were Catholic reactionaries who detested secularism and individual rights. Some were obsessed with the supposed global domination of Jews. Some were romantics in search of an essential racial or national spirit.

Most modern demagogues may be only vaguely aware of these precedents, if they know of them at all. In Central European countries like Hungary, or indeed in France, they may actually understand the links quite well, and some of today’s far-right politicians are not shy about being openly anti-Semitic. In most West European countries, however, such agitators use their professed admiration for Israel as a kind of alibi, and direct their racism at Muslims.

Words and ideas have consequences. Today’s populist leaders should not yet be compared to murderous dictators of the fairly recent past. But, by exploiting the same popular sentiments, they are contributing to a poisonous climate, which could bring political violence into the mainstream once again.