Leaders Who Act Like Outsiders Invite Trouble
Japan started World War II after its top brass gave in to low-level military agitators. There’s a lesson there.
Not victory, but disaster.
Photographer: Hulton Archive/Hulton ArchiveSenator and presidential candidate Bernie Sanders recently declared himself to be an anti-establishmentarian:
Populism seems to be the order of the day. President Donald Trump, the ideological diametric opposite of Sanders, was elected over the protests of his party’s elder statesmen and media kingmakers. Meanwhile, political movements arise from the groundswell of popular energy coursing through society. Google employees staged a walkout in 2018 to protest the company’s handling of sexual misconduct cases. Other tech companies are feeling the heat from workers angry over political and cultural issues. Rebellions from the ranks have torn apart organizations in the worlds of romance writing, knitting, young adult novels, science fiction and many more. Within media organizations, employees challenge executives. In the economics profession, Twitter users have brought broad public attention to issues of racism and sexism, and right-wing economists have targeted professors they don’t like.