Elitists vs. populists. Sound familiar?

Don Surber is fascinated by the possibility that

Chairman Xi may fear his daughter's life. That's the problem with being president for life: impeachment includes execution.

She graduated from Harvard several years ago, but is now returning for graduate studies. Or, does Xi face a coup?

The South China Morning Post reported, "China may have a one-party system, but claims of President Xi Jinping’s rise to absolute power ignore the influence of the tuanpai," on April 6, 2017, when Xi met with President Donald John Trump at Mar-a-Lago.

The newspaper reported, "In Beijing’s system, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) holds a monopoly on power. But the party leadership is not a monolithic group. CCP leaders span a range of political associations, socioeconomic backgrounds, professional credentials, geographic associations and policy preferences. Two broad camps in the leadership vigorously vie for influence and control in post-Deng China: the elitist coalition, with its core faction of princelings (leaders who come from veteran revolutionary families), and the populist coalition, which primarily consists of so-called tuanpai (leaders who advanced their careers through the Chinese Communist Youth League)."

Elitists vs. populists. Sound familiar?

Chairman Xi is part of the former. Red China may not be immune from the worldwide rise in populism because populism is a reaction to the failure of elitists to protect the people. Factory closings in the rust belt in the 1970s led to the Reagan Revolution.

But Jimmy Carter is still alive and well, and liked. He had the advantage of not being a president for life.

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