Last month, I took George Orwell's advice and visited Thailand. A driving principle of the late, great "Nineteen Eighty-Four" scribe was that journalists not waste time covering huge conferences, but instead visit places most affected by what those summits aim to accomplish.
In that spirit, I forwent the Group of 20 confab in Hangzhou, China and kicked Bangkok's tires to gauge the populist backlash sweeping the globe. In the space of four months, those currents put Britain outside the European Union, strongman Rodrigo Duterte in charge of the Philippines and bullyboy Donald Trump within striking distance of the White House.
Thailand got there first, in many ways. Beginning with the 2001-2006 prime-ministership of Thaksin Shinawatra, a brash billionaire-turned-politician and culminating in a 2014 coup, Thai angst front-ran the anti-elite backlashes shaking up governments from Manila to Washington. Now, as revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej Adulyadej leaves the scene, the question is where Thais take this most unpredictable of political and economic phenomena.