United States of America eSeries: On Fareed Zakaria GPS

On Fareed Zakaria GPS

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Insights, analysis and must reads from CNN's Fareed Zakaria and the Global Public Square team, compiled by Global Briefing editor Chris Good

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May 9, 2021

On Today's Show

On GPS, at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. ET:

First, Fareed argues that as terrible as Covid-19 has been, it has also brought innovations that should leave us optimistic about the future.

The swift emergence of high-quality vaccines was "truly breathtaking," Fareed says, as previous consensus held that vaccines took 10-15 years to develop. In the US, fading case numbers and sizable government stimulus figure to produce an economic boom. Meanwhile, remote work and education stand to introduce lasting efficiencies.

"I'm trying to look at the bright side of a terrible situation," Fareed says. "But there are real grounds to be optimistic that, grim as the pandemic has been, it could open up the possibility of progress across the world."

Next: The Economist has called Taiwan "the most dangerous place on earth," as China sets the island firmly in its sights. Would Beijing cross the strait and invade? Fareed asks former US Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

Then: The US has boasted stellar first-quarter growth numbers, but will the rest of the world follow suit? Fareed asks economic historian Niall Ferguson if a global boom is on the horizon.

After that: As India suffers through a horrific wave of Covid-19, Fareed asks University of Edinburgh global public-health chair Devi Sridhar how bad things will get, how India reached this point, and if any other countries will become similar viral hotspots.

Fareed then talks with Jake Tapper, CNN's chief Washington correspondent and anchor of "The Lead," about President Joe Biden's early going in the White House, the intra-party war unfolding in the GOP, and Tapper's new novel, "The Devil May Dance."

Finally, Fareed examines a disturbing rise of far-right extremism in Germany.

How Will the Pandemic Change Tourism?

Adding another possible reason for post-pandemic optimism, Daniel Dombey and Alice Hancock write for the Financial Times that Europe is preparing for a tourism boom. Some aspects of vacationing are likely to change, various experts tell Dombey and Hancock. On the downside, a tourism resurgence could be unequal, as Covid-19 testing requirements and social-distancing practices add costs that will likely benefit the higher end of the market; on the upside, tourists are expected to slow down and prize more time spent in less-crowded locations.

"While no one is suggesting the imminent death of the beach holiday," they write, "the industry is increasingly clear that post-Covid growth is likely to come from elsewhere." Tourism could get more "experiential," and one hotel CEO predicts the arrival of a long-called-for "model based more on quality than quantity," as luxury hotels figure to see more growth than others. "The industry," Dombey and Hancock write, "is likely to be more fragmented, more aware of health and environmental concerns, and in many cases more expensive. It is a change, [the hotel CEO] says, 'towards a more digital and sustainable model of tourism, that the pandemic has unleashed.'"

Digital Currency's Central-Bank Future

Will government-issued digital coins become the next big thing? "Over 50 monetary authorities, representing the bulk of global GDP, are exploring digital currencies," The Economist writes in its latest cover story. "The Bahamas has issued digital money. China has rolled out its e-yuan pilot to over 500,000 people. The EU wants a virtual euro by 2025, Britain has launched a task-force, and America, the world's financial hegemon, is building a hypothetical e-dollar." As the magazine details further in a special report, holding these coins would be similar to holding an account with a central bank itself, circumventing commercial banks entirely. (For Americans, this would be like doing business directly with the Fed.)

That innovation could lead to big changes. "Unconstrained, govcoins could fast become a dominant force in finance," the magazine writes. "They could destabilise banks, because if most people and firms stashed their cash at the central banks, lenders would have to find other sources of funding with which to back their loans." Privacy and state power could become an issue: "Once ascendant, govcoins could become panopticons for the state to control citizens: think of instant e-fines for bad behaviour." Given these potential disruptions, the magazine writes, "[g]overnments and financial firms need to prepare for a long-term shift in how money works" by enhancing privacy laws and imagining a future in which commercial banks play a "peripheral" role.

Sizing Up the Strongmen

At The New York Review of Books, Ariel Dorfman writes that Ruth Ben-Ghiat's recent book "Strongmen" seeks a through-line in three waves of autocratic rulers that emerged in the 20th century. "The era of fascist takeovers runs from 1919 and the ascent of Mussolini until Hitler's defeat in 1945, with Franco as the third member," Dorfman writes. For the next, "the age of military coups (1950–1990)," its "main representatives here are Pinochet, Muammar Qaddafi, and Mobutu Sese Seko, along with minor figures like Idi Amin, Saddam Hussein, and Mohamed Siad Barre … Finally, starting in 1990, we reach the current cycle of new authoritarians, who win elections and proceed to degrade the democracy that brought them to power." Among these, as Ben-Ghiat counts them, "Silvio Berlusconi, Vladimir Putin, and Donald Trump" get most of Ben-Ghiat's attention, with "Viktor Orbán, Jair Bolsonaro, Rodrigo Duterte, Narendra Modi, and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan given perfunctory assessments."

The attempt to find common characteristics is at once a weak point of Ben-Ghiat's analysis and what makes the book compelling, in Dorfman's view. The book misses some nuance, but its "unremitting juxtaposition of macho grifters is frequently stimulating, always chilling, never boring, and illuminating when Ben-Ghiat insists on pointing out how her villains turn masculinity into 'a tool of political legitimacy.'"

As for Trump—who looms over much of Ben-Ghiat's analysis—Dorfman argues that in seeking to understand his future trajectory, we're better served looking at a strongman left out of Ben-Ghiat's account: Argentina's Juan Perón. "Valuable as such insights about the past and present are, they pale in comparison to what Perón reveals about Trump's possible future," Dorfman writes. "After being ousted as president, Perón sought refuge in Madrid" and "kept determining from afar the destiny of his native land by keeping a hypnotic hold on millions of his working-class followers, before triumphantly returning to govern Argentina at the age of seventy-eight. He is a chilling model for Trump to emulate as he ponders his next moves in his Florida exile or even from abroad."