As Donald Trump begins calling for the prosecution of journalists and “political enemies,” appointing loyalists to key cabinet positions and making plans to strip government agencies of experts and policymakers, Ali Velshi recognizes the strongman playbook that other dictators have used. His guest, Filipina journalist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Ressa, is the author of a very important book we should all be reading now, How to Stand Up to a Dictator: The Fight for Our Future.
“We’re seeing the ‘Philippinization’ of America,” Ressa observes. The Philippines was only second behind the United States when the Cambridge Analytica scandal revealed compromised social media accounts spreading lies, hate, and fear in order to interfere with elections. The global rise in illiberal leaders being elected democratically is the direct result of the corruption of our information ecosystem.
It took six months to crumble the institutions of democracy in the Philippines when Rodrigo Duterte took over in 2016. Ressa has important advice for Americans who want to preserve democracy through and following Trump’s presidency: “Collaborate, collaborate, collaborate. Reach across, stand by your values, hold the line.”
LISTEN: VELSHI AND RESSA ON SIMILARITIES BETWEEN THE PHILIPPINES AND THE U.S.
WATCH: STANDING UP TO DICTATORS
