Nostalgia has its place, but not as economic doctrine. This is a lesson lost on Donald Trump, who is hellbent on dragging America back to the 1980s, a supposedly Golden Age for the U.S. economy.
An unhealthy fondness for the past is also showing up in Asia and nowhere more than in the Philippines. President Rodrigo Duterte's bloody war on drugs, martial law threats, and paranoia about coups echo the bad old 1980s days of then-president Ferdinand Marcos. Duterte is even determined to install Marcos' son Ferdinand Jr. as vice president.