In the global clash between democracy and oligarchy, the US is switching sides

‘The new poles are coming to be global democracies versus a global oligarchy.’ Photograph: Maxim Shipenkov/EPA

Since the end of the second world war, liberal democracies have stuck together – led by the US. On the opposite side have been authoritarian states, led mainly by the Soviet Union, followed, after the demise of the Soviet Union, by Russia and China.

But all this is rapidly changing. Russia and China have morphed into oligarchies, run by small groups of extraordinarily wealthy people.