Dictators like Putin surround themselves with liars and propaganda. That leads to very bad decisions | Robert Reich

Dictators like Putin are particularly vulnerable to inaccurate feedback. Instead of independent truth-tellers, they are often surrounded by truth-deniers.

Rather than experts and investigative journalists, their world is filled with pseudo-scientists and propaganda. In place of a free press, they have agitprop and disinformation.

The higher you rise in any hierarchy, the harder it is to get accurate feedback about your decisions because people are afraid to tell you the truth.

Trump could have accomplished any number of goals far more easily had he not kept digging himself into ever-deeper holes. He was his own worst enemy.

The inverse relation between how high people rise in a hierarchy and the accuracy of the feedback they receive can be overcome if a leader aggressively seeks out dissenting views.

After all, American democracy stopped Trump from doing even more damage than he did.

Yet when people like Trump, Putin, and Xi make terrible decisions, the world suffers. The world could even be annihilated.