In a series of tweets on Friday morning, Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman said the rise of Donald Trump's "cult of personality" has its roots dating back to former President Ronald Reagan and he sees no evidence that it won't continue long after the current president leaves office on January 20th.
According to the New York Times columnist, that makes him frightened about what the future of the country holds.
As he wrote in his first tweet -- one of eight which can be seen below -- "The GOP spent most of 2020 rejecting science in the face of a deadly pandemic; now it's rejecting democracy in the face of a clear election loss. How did we get to this point? One step at a time, of course. But I'd argue that the wrong turn began under Reagan."
Using charts he explained, "For one thing it was the beginning of the great mortality divergence. America used to have about the same life expectancy as other rich countries; since 1980, however, we've fallen far behind," which he attributes to the growing disparity between the wealthy and the poor.
Add to that, the Republican Party's war on science along with the war on the poor, he suggested paved the way for Trump.
" ...while the practice of equating patriotism with political support for the current president (as long as he's a Republican) didn't start with Reagan — Nixon did it too — it got much more intense, paving the way for the Trump cult of personality," he tweeted before adding, "As Adam Smith said, there is a great deal of ruin in a nation. America had and still has many strengths as a society. But given time and persistence, a malign political movement can undo those strengths. I'm very frightened about the future."
You can see the tweets below: