Chinese whistleblower Ai Weiwei has warned Americans that they are now under the control of a tyrannical authoritarian state which uses “woke” political correctness to censor free speech.
Weiwei said the wave of Democratic political correctness sweeping the U.S. has more similarities to Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution than Donald Trump.
PBS reporter Margaret Hoover asked Weiwei to discuss an excerpt from his book where he compared Trump’s “late-night tweets” with Mao Zedong’s communication strategies
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“They served a function similar to Donald Trump’s late-night tweets while in office,” Weiwei declared.
“They were the direct communication of a leader’s thoughts to his devoted followers, enhancing the sanctity of his authority.”
But Weiwei stunned Hoover when answering whether he thinks Trump is an authoritarian.
“If you are authoritarian, you have to have a system supporting you,” Weiwei said.
“You cannot just be an authoritarian by yourself.”
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“But certainly, in the United States, with today’s condition, you can easily have an authoritarian,” he went on.
“In many ways, you’re already in an authoritarian state. You just don’t know it.”
“How so?” asked a stunned Hoover.
Weiwei highlighted “political correctness” when comparing what is going on in America to Mao’s Cultural Revolution.
“Like people trying to be unified in a certain political correctness. That is very dangerous. You want to go deeper?” he said.
Weiwei warned woke identity politics and political correctness comes from people believing they are “purified by certain ideas.”
“You just think you’re purified by certain ideas that you agree with it. That is posing dangers to society, to an extreme divided society,” he stated.
“Why do you think that’s happened here?”
“I think, for a long time, the West’s material. We have much more than we needed,” he added.
“And we are not caring about global situation.”
“But, eventually, all the policies and the politics we play has to be examined under the global situation, such as China become a very powerful state.“
“And how the West should deal with it.”
Weiwei warned the West needed to grow a pair of balls to take on China.
“In China, we have a wisdom — to deal with anything, you have to be strong yourself.”
“I don’t think West is strong themself enough to deal with China,” he concluded.
