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Bibi, the prime minister of Israel, and AMLO, the president of Mexico, couldn’t be more different. At the moment, however, their political strategies could not be more similar. Both are trying to change the politics of their respective countries in profound ways, and both are doing so using profoundly undemocratic means.

Moisés Naím / El País

The world’s governments are currently dedicating enormous resources to containing Covid-19 and its mutations. Fortunately, they are succeeding. What is less fortunate is that they are neglecting another pandemic that has been claiming millions of lives each year, as well as disabling thousands more – mental illness.

Moisés Naím / El País

Just mentioning certain years in history like 1789 (the French Revolution), 1945 (the end of World War II) or 1989 (the fall of the Berlin Wall) is enough to bring to mind profound transformations. So it’s worth asking, what will we eventually look back on as the first iconic year of the 21st century?

Moisés Naím / El País

At the end of each year since 2003, Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary announced its selection of the English word of the year. According to the respected dictionary founded in 1831, “gaslighting” was the most searched-for word on the internet in 2022. Peter Sokolowski, the dictionary’s editor, told the Associated Press that this year searches for the word increased by 1,742%. The editor also noted that it was in the top 50 most searched-for words every day.

Moisés Naím / El País

Why do societies and their governments passively tolerate bad ideas? Why are so many obviously failed public policies impossible to reform? The list of countries whose governments cannot or dare not confront their policy taboos is long and varied. Take drug policy, as an example.

Moisés Naím / El País

Mohamed bin Salmán, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia; Xi Jinping, the president of China; and Tsar Vladimir Putin have plenty of things in common. Add this one to the list: all three have championed anti-corruption drives. Dictators all over the world have. Not surprisingly, they found plenty of corruption. Some of the accused were sentenced to death, and most others received long prison sentences.

Moisés Naím / El País

Which economy will grow fastest in the next few years? Try to guess. Perhaps you are thinking of Vietnam, which has been steadily taking market share from China, which has hamstrung itself through its Draconian zero-Covid policy. Or the African champion of growth, Rwanda, whose economy has quintupled since 1995. Or Bangladesh, whose export sector is the catalyst for Asia’s biggest boom.

Moisés Naím / El País

They say that we have reached the end of globalization. Just look around. Trump’s protectionism, Brexit, supply chain problems created by Covid-19 and Putin’s criminal aggression in Ukraine have all helped derail the wave of global integration that was triggered by the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Surely, with the stock market crashing, interest rates on the rise and a looming global economic slowdown, we have arrived at globalization’s funeral and the bells are tolling.

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In Italy, an old video has been making the rounds. It shows a beautiful young woman saying things that are not so beautiful. Donning 1990s fashion, her body turned to the back from the front seat of a car, she answers questions for a French television reporter in good if accented French. “For me, Mussolini was a good politician,” she says. “Everything he did, he did for Italy, and that is something that is not found in the politicians we have had in the last fifty years.”

Moisés Naím / El País

Colombia has just elected its next president, Gustavo Petro. Despite his long political career, the president-elect presents himself as an outsider who is out to dislodge the long-ruling elites from power. That’s the same promise made by Andrés Manuel López Obrador of Mexico, Gabriel Boric of Chile, Pedro Castillo of Peru, Alberto Fernández of Argentina, and several other Latin American presidents. On October 2, Brazil will hold elections and it is almost certain that the current President Jair Bolsonaro will face off against former president Lula da Silva.

Moisés Naím / El País

Much has been said about the failure of the Summit of the Americas. It was the worst organized meeting of presidents since Bill Clinton convened his peers from around the hemisphere in 1994 to agree on initiatives on economic integration and the strengthening of democracy. In fact, it’s difficult to imagine a blander or more mediocre Summit of the Americas than those we’ve seen over the past 28 years. But – somehow – Biden and his team did it. And to be fair, they had help from Latin America’s short-sighted leaders. The Summit was a shameful display of hypocrisy, mendacity, political necrophilia and boundless bureaucratic mediocrity. The opportunity to shore up the region’s fractured democracies or launch ambitious initiatives to bolster their anemic economies was wasted.

Moisés Naím / El País

This past decade has been rich in world-changing events. Some were impossible to ignore, but others were more gradual and went almost unnoticed. Among the most important of these is the global crisis of democracy.

Moisés Naím / El País

They can’t be more different. Putin is a genocidal dictator, and Musk is a brilliant inventor.

The Russian leader is responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent people. Elon Musk is responsible for the world’s best-selling electric cars, for pioneering innovations in battery technology and for technological advances such as Paypal that allow for digital payments. He’s also behind SpaceX, which builds rockets that can be launched into space, recovered and quickly reused. Then there is the hyperloop – a pneumatic mass transit system that will be able to carry people and goods very fast over long distances. And don’t forget Neuralink, a company whose mission is to develop technologies that will allow the brain to communicate wirelessly with a computer.

Moisés Naím / El País

Would he actually do it? Is Vladimir Putin really such a nihilistic sociopath with so little regard for human life that he would use nuclear weapons against his enemies? Or is he, rather, a clever negotiator who uses the nuclear threat to extract concessions from his rivals? These are the questions that are keeping America’s diplomats, generals, and spies – as well as America’s allies – up late at night.