{"id":12551,"date":"2022-07-29T15:15:05","date_gmt":"2022-07-29T15:15:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nftandcrypto-news.com\/art\/a-new-nft-project-celebrates-autocrats-with-poison-cakes\/"},"modified":"2022-07-29T15:15:07","modified_gmt":"2022-07-29T15:15:07","slug":"a-new-nft-project-celebrates-autocrats-with-poison-cakes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nftandcrypto-news.com\/art\/a-new-nft-project-celebrates-autocrats-with-poison-cakes\/","title":{"rendered":"A New NFT Project Celebrates Autocrats With Poison Cakes"},"content":{"rendered":"
There are many ways to interpret the decline of democratic institutions and the subsequent rise of authoritarian leaders around the globe in the last 30 years.<\/p>\n
But any explanation, according to Ben Rhodes, the former Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications and Speechwriting under President Barack Obama, must include the following:<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first was the excess of globalization, the excess of capitalism, and the creation of exploding inequality happening at the same time that globalization is [\u2026] encroaching on people\u2019s national identity or tribal identity. [\u2026] Coming on the heels of people already thinking, \u2018Is this working for us? Or is it just working for some rich people? Because I feel like I\u2019m losing ground underneath my feet.\u2019 [These leaders] tapped in[to] that yearning for belonging and that anger at elites in systems that seem rigged.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rhodes, who offered this perspective while speaking on Stanford University\u2019s \u201cWorld Class\u201d podcast with former U.S. ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, explained eloquently what to many feels like a perplexing worldwide trend.<\/p>\n
How did we get from the so-called \u201cend of history\u201d in the post-Cold War era to a historical period populated with personality cults that celebrate and entrench the governments of figures like Vladimir Putin, Viktor Orb\u00e1n, Alexander Lukashenko, Recep Tayyip Erdo\u011fan, Donald Trump, and more? Less than one-fifth of the world\u2019s population now lives in entirely free countries, according to a 2021 Freedom House report. How do we pull ourselves back from the autocratic brink?<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s greater fragility inside of these systems [\u2026] than is appreciated,\u201d Rhodes concluded, offering a sense of optimism to listeners. The brittle nature of the systems these tyrants and would-be dictators put in place often mirrors the very frailty of these leaders\u2019 personalities.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s precisely this fragility that fuels the core concept of Walid Raad\u2019s first NFT project, a high-concept satire on toxic leadership presented in the form of NFT birthday cakes.<\/p>\n