'1984' turned 70 years old today, but it doesn't feel outdated. In fact, it's constantly coming back to dominate the news. Just a few days ago, CNN's Jake Tapper tweeted a quote from the book that went viral.
In this second part of our exploration into how much of the Orwellian dystopia has come true, we look at the three giants in our world today: China, the US, and Russia.
June 4 marked the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests in China, which saw the Communist Party there affirm power at all costs as other socialist regimes were starting to crumble. In those 30 years, China has used technology to enforce a total surveillance state. We talk to the New York Times' Paul Mozer about how far China has been able to emulate the Orwellian totalitarian state.
We then move on to America, where the Trump presidency has totally upended democracy as the only game in town and has started to slowly chip away at deeply ingrained American values. We talk to Media Matters for America's Matthew Gertz about the complex and intertwined relationship between Donald Trump and Fox News.
Lastly, we talk to the London School of Economics' Peter Pomerantsev about what happened to an authoritarian state that failed – the Soviet Union – and how in the years that followed Russia seemed to get really rather good at anticipating the legitimacy crises democracies are facing today.
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