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Power from demonizing the “other”: the FT's Gideon Rachman on “strongmen”

June 14, 2022
GZERO Staff
Why Strongmen Hate Minorities | GZERO World

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Autocrats know resentment against minorities is always a good pitch to fire up the base.

Gideon Rachman, chief foreign affairs columnist for the Financial Times, explains this common tactic taken by strongmen leaders around the world, in a discussion with Ian Bremmer on GZERO World.

For example, India's Narendra Modi, China's Xi Jinping, and the European far right have all built domestic support using negative sentiment against Muslim minorities.

But the European strongmen have not behaved the same way with Ukrainian migrants. Why?

"It's pointless to deny that people are more likely to feel compassion for people who maybe look a bit like them," Rachman tells Bremmer.

Watch the GZERO World episode: The politics of resentment & how authoritarian strongmen gain power.

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