Putinism is breeding in the heart of the Republican party | Robert Reich

Make no mistake: Putin's authoritarian neo-fascism has rooted itself in America. The cold war has already come home

The world is frighteningly locked in a battle to the death between democracy and authoritarianism. On Sunday Vladimir Putin issued a new threat to the west - telling his defense minister and his top military commander to place Russia's nuclear forces on alert.

It is a new cold war.

Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com