People who slept through history classes, are now relearning history the expensive way, and dragging us along for the lessons.

Not sure. There are so many potential factors that could be playing a part:

1. Rising inequality leading to more discontent from the masses and an broader appeal to populist leaders wanting to consolidate power under them "to fix the system."
2. Weakening global standards for journalism as social media has made everyone a journalist and traditional print media has been forced to cut jobs, increase the speed at which they pump out news and cut quality to compete in a world where few if any are paying subscribers for their news.
3. Civil/nonviolent resistance has been a potent weapon in the 20th century for democracies to oppose choices that are very unpopular from their leadership. But dictators and wannabe dictators have become more experienced with putting it down and outlasting the 🔥 of revolution.
4. It might be easier to monitor your population for discontent and snuff out the leadership. For instance China, with wechat has been very successful in monitoring and enforcing greater control over their people during the pandemic. Russia has also shown that you don't even need to take control over the media like you used to when it is so cheap and effective to run a disinformation campaign.
5. The Pax Americana fear of a American (or under the table CIA) intervention may have declined with (a) American failures at taking over nations in Afganistan and Iraq, and (b) increasing American preference for Isolationism.

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