Trumps actions don’t explain China’s actions that we’re talking about here. If anything, assuming someone smart was in charge in China, Trumps behavior would be cause to show more restraint for now in places like HK to play it very cool and not give your opponents ammunition to accelerate trade wars, etc.

Trump allegedly offered silence on Hong Kong: https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/04/politics/trump-xi-hong-kong-p...

It's a reasonably valid point. During his administration, right-wing autocrats the world over have been emboldened, and he hasn't spoken against them. See, for instance, Khashoggi, the Kurds, or the Skripal poisoning incidents in recent memory, or, more to the point, the promise that Trump would say nothing of the protests in Hong Kong if he got his trade deal [0].

You're being downvoted, but while it's not a direct cause and effect, he has supported and encouraged authoritarianism the world over.

[0] https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-china-promise-hong-kon...

Would you say that Trump's trade war has also forced Xi's hand? China could afford to ignore these issues when its economy was still growing. But a shrinking economy has forced China to consolidate power and clamp down any dissent

Trumps trade war has been an effective policy. It may not have been the most elegant or the only option. But all things considered not terrible. It may backfire into a recession. Taking some action was both overdue and likely to happen regardless of who was in charge.

I am otherwise aggressively anti trump.

I think you're attributing too much to Trump here. Trump is part of the same movement of rising authoritarianism and strong man politics. He may be the poster boy, but Putin has been there for decades.

My opinion, which I can't support, is that the dream of information technology automatically progressing democratic and liberal ideals has failed. Information technology is no different than chemistry. It can be weaponized effectively. Right-wing parties around the world learned how to powerfully engage with the masses. It really was a meme war. Propaganda is undoubtedly effective even when it's standing right next to the truth.

If you only read the news you would think it's only national leaders taking over and oppressing the populations. I don't think so. I think this is a trend towards grassroots nationalism and fascism. The people want this.

Was there ever a dream of the internet promoting specifically left wing democracies? I don't remember any of that in the early days. Surely the opposite - a lot of early hacker culture was libertarian in nature. You seem to simply describe anything not left wing as "grassroots nationalism and fascism" but that's not a reasonable view.

This is a conversation I'm really interested in but upon rereading my original comment I think it was low quality. I didn't mean some of things that I implied.

No I don't think the dream was for left wing ideology. I meant classic liberalism and democracy which aligns well with libertarianism. So regardless of political leaning the dream was that information will free the people. What we're seeing is that information is being used to entrench the establishment. It is the opposite of libertarian today.

Fascism and nationalism were in a time in history attached to left wing ideology rather than right wing. I don't want to imply that those movements are inherently left or right. But I do see that today they are attached to the right, who are using information very effectively to achieve their goals.