It’s for these reasons that I have described Xi’s worldview as “Marxist-Nationalist,” because while his appeal to the party remains ideological (not least because ideology is the backbone of Leninist discipline), his appeal to the people is assiduously nationalist. That is why Xi Jinping Thought is not, as Xi would have us believe, a new theoretical revision of the deepest precepts of Marxism-Leninism. Rather, it is a skillfully constructed primer that brings together an emotionally appealing, focus group–tested set of precepts, axioms, and anecdotes. It is an amalgam of simplified ideology
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