Moisés Naím / The Washington Post

Americans will not follow politicians who fit the caricature that Donald Trump and Fox News use to depict opponents of the incumbent president.

America-hating, illegal-immigrant-loving, soft-on-crime radical socialists will not do well with voters. Fortunately, these radical socialists are scarce and not very influential. Unfortunately, they are omnipresent in Trump’s speeches and tweets.

Moisés Naím / The Washington Post

U.S. Department of Education secretary Betsy Devos has reorganized the unit charged with investigating fraud at for-profit colleges. Ending these investigations have left students to bare the burden of these problematic behaviors.

Moisés Naím / The Washington Post

The Internet makes apathetic voters especially vulnerable to the manipulations of demagogues, particular interests, or even foreign powers.

Andrew Weiss and Moisés Naím / The Washington Post

For all its bellicose talk and new sanctions against Nicolás Maduro’s government, the Trump administration has been oddly silent about Russia’s role, perhaps preferring not to draw attention to the fact that Moscow is now the bankrupt nation’s lender of last resort.

Moisés Naím / The Washington Post

Flags serve as a powerful symbol of a nation, its ideals, and its people.

Moisés Naím and Francisco Toro / The Washington Post

As Venezuela sinks deeper into the Western Hemisphere’s most intractable political and economic crisis, the time has come to ask some hard questions about how the Chávez regime could have conned so many international observers for so long.

Moisés Naím / The Washington Post

People blame Goldman Sachs for many things. I blame the investment bank mainly for popularizing the acronym BRIC — Brazil, Russia, India and China — in a 2001 report by economist Jim O’Neill arguing that long-term growth in these emerging markets would surpass that of the world’s richer nations.

Moisés Naím / The Washington Post

In 2009, during his first address before a joint session of Congress, President Obama championed a budget that would serve as a blueprint for the country’s future through ambitious investments in energy, health care and education. “This is America,” the new president proclaimed. “We don’t do what’s easy.”

Moisés Naím and Uri Dadush / The Washington Post

The scandal over the repellent way the World Bank president is appointed has obscured an equally scandalous situation: the appointment process of the rest of the senior managers at the bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). They too are selected through opaque, quota-driven negotiations that are a far cry from the meritocracy these two institutions claim to value and preach to others.

Moisés Naím / The Washington Post

Half of Venezuela’s population is under age 25 — meaning half the country can barely remember or imagine a leader other than Hugo Chavez.

Moisés Naím / The Washington Post

A stench of colonialism is wafting around 19th and H streets in Northwest Washington, site of the headquarters of the International Monetary Fund. These foul fumes do not originate in the fact that the powerful, wealthy 62-year-old Frenchman who until this week ran that institution stands accused of sexually assaulting a young and poor African maid in a posh New York hotel. They’re emanating instead from the strong colonial legacy that is already tainting the selection of Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s successor.

Moisés Naím / The Washington Post

Cherry blossoms and anti-globalization marches. For many years, these were inevitable rites of spring in Washington. But today, while the cherry trees are still blooming, the street demonstrations have wilted.

Moisés Naím / The Washington Post

Every year, thousands of the world's most influential people descend upon Switzerland in late January for five days of debating, networking, fine eating and a little skiing, too. The gathering, called the World Economic Forum, has grown enormously popular over the decades - and has gained a steady chorus of detractors as well. In truth, the meeting is neither as exclusive or conspiratorial as its critics claim, nor as world-transforming as its boosters imagine. The following myths are just a few of the misconceptions that have sprung up around the singular institution known the world over simply as "Davos."

Moisés Naím / Washington Post

At the start, they came for the iPods. Then they came for condos in Manhattan and Miami. Now they're coming for the companies.

Moisés Naím / The Washington Post

The world wants America back.

For the next several years, world politics will be reshaped by a strong yearning for American leadership. This trend will be as unexpected as it is inevitable: unexpected given the powerful anti-American sentiments around the globe, and inevitable given the vacuums that only the United States can fill.

Moisés Naím / The Washington Post

It's an odd situation: Free-trade negotiations are crashing, one after another, but at the same time, free trade itself is booming.

Moisés Naím / The Washington Post

For more than 60 years, Mexico's most important political practice was known as the dedazo. It was a moment near the end of the president's term when he would metaphorically point his finger (dedo) at a crony, thereby anointing his successor. An election campaign would ensue, but everyone knew who the winner would be.

Moisés Naím / The Washington Post

The Myanmar Women's Affairs Federation is a gongo. So is Nashi, a Russian youth group, and the Sudanese Human Rights Organization. Kyrgyzstan's Association of Non-commercial and Nongovernmental Organizations is also a gongo, as is Chongryon, the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan. Gongos are sprouting everywhere; they're in China, Cuba, France, Tunisia and even the United States.

Moisés Naím / The Washington Post

A country's borders should not be confused with those familiar dotted lines drawn on some musty old map of nation-states. In an era of mass migration, globalization and instant communication, a map reflecting the world's true boundaries would be a crosscutting, high-tech and multidimensional affair.