Geremie R. Barmé is a Sinologist, historian, filmmaker, translator, and author of a shelf of books on China.

In 1974, in the dying days of the Cultural Revolution, he went to China as a student and occasional farm laborer. He has studied both the ancient and modern history of the country, and observed firsthand momentous changes from the death of Mao to the rise of Xi Jinping.

In this podcast, we discuss the echoes, parallels, and rhymes he sees happening now in Musk and Trump’s America with power grabs and self-coups in recent Chinese history, when the ruler carries out a self-authored coup against the system he is running.

Links

* China Heritage: Contra Trump — American Tedium by Geremie Barmé

* New York Times: Welcome to America’s Fourth Great Constitutional Rupture by Noah Millman

The Rhyming Chaos podcast is produced by Jeremy Goldkorn and edited by Cadre Scripts. The theme music is Erik Satie’s Gymnopédie No. 1, arranged and performed by Wu Fei. Our cover art is by Li Yunfei.

Get full access to Rhyming Chaos at www.rhymingchaos.com/subscribe