The Munk Debates Podcast - Be it resolved: We should embrace, not fear, populist politics

Starting point is 00:00:01 I think it's time for this toxic binary zero-sum madness to stop. We're not an imperial power. We're a revolutionary power. We are no longer in a world where you can plot out moves statesmen to statesmen like a chessboard. You don't know anything about my background to where I came from. It doesn't matter to you because fundamentally I'm a mean white man. We can't do this to the next generation because America will cease to exist. Welcome to the Montever. Every episode we provide you with a civil and substantive debate on the big issues of the day. Free of spin, focused on the facts and animated by smart conversation.

Starting point is 00:00:47 To arm you, the listener, with enough information to make up your own mind. Today's debate, be it resolved, we should embrace, not fear populist politics. Fight for what we want, and we want Trump in the White House. Let's not let them take away your power. Do not let them take away your democracy. This administration has shown it will tear our democracy down if that's what it takes for them to win. Hello, I'm your moderator, Rudyard Griffith.

Starting point is 00:01:35 While some proponents of liberal democracy are interpreting the U.S. election results and Donald Trump's near win as a warning sign that the pulse of populist politics still beat strong in the American body politic, and ill tiding for other liberal democracies currently trying to fend off populist insurgencies. Critics of populism say that it is not inconceivable that if action isn't taken to strengthen liberal democratic institutions and values, the politics of Spain, France, the UK and the U.S. could end up looking a lot like those in Hungary, Turkey, Russia, and Brazil today. I think what's important is that we all stand united, those of us that are interested in democracy

Starting point is 00:02:18 and supporters of Western democracy in particular, this is the biggest democracy in the West. And to have the sitting president saying that the result isn't valid is very damaging indeed. Defenders of populist politics say the recent U.S. election is proof that the rough and tumble spirit of democracy is alive and well. They credit populism with turning out historic numbers of voters and giving them the opportunity to articulate their and,

Starting point is 00:02:45 anxieties and needs during a period of massive demographic and social upheaval. I came to vote. It's my first time voting. Super excited. No one seems to even care if we live or die. So I just want to know that some kind of changes that someone cares about our community. Proponents of populism argue that populist politics, both the right-wing and left-wing variants, are key to renewing democracy and giving its values and institutions a new lease on life in the 21st century. People are tracking politics in the United States and all around the world in unprecedented ways and now in unprecedented numbers. So to already have 93 million people having cast ballots in the U.S., a country that's not famous for its turnout during elections, gives you some testament, I think, to just the degree of engagement and enthusiasm.

Starting point is 00:03:47 On this installment of the Monk Debates podcast, we challenge the essence of these arguments by debating the resolution. Be it resolved, we should embrace, not fear, populist politics. Arguing for the motion, we have Don Critchlow, Katzen Family Professor at Arizona State University's Faculty of History. His new book is In Defense of Populism. Arguing against the motion is Timothy Garden Ash, professor of European Studies at Oxford University in the UK. He's the author of a number of international bestsellers.

Starting point is 00:04:20 His most recent book is The Magic Lantern, The Revolution of 89, witnessed in Warsaw, Budapest, Berlin, and Prague. Don, Timothy, welcome to the Monk Debates. Great pleasure to be with you. Thank you very much for being here. Well, I'm really looking forward to today's conversation to have the opportunity to address with you. I think many of the big issues and ideas

Starting point is 00:04:44 that have been surfaced by the U.S. election, by a series of populist protests across Europe in reaction to new measures, to control the spread of the virus. This is a moment where I think we're all trying to understand what is the trajectory of populist politics, what is its impact, its effect on our democracy, and to have your considered opinions,

Starting point is 00:05:06 your experience and engagement with this topic in service of our audience is a privilege indeed. The motion that we're debating today, it's simple, concise, to the point, be a resolve we should embrace, not fear populist politics. Donald, you're going to be arguing in favor of the motion, so I'm going to put two minutes on the clock now and turn the program over to you. Well, thank you. I believe that the populist tradition in America is different than populace in Europe. The populist tradition in the United States reflects an especially vibrant democracy, just as popular protests has in Great Britain. Today, however, populist movements in Europe vary dependent on the country.

Starting point is 00:05:53 American populism, historically and today, is an expression of intense anti-leaguism. It's in an articulation that established political and economic interest have failed, to represent the people's interest. Usually when populist upheaval emerges, was he intellectuals and pundits, often coming from privileged positions of their own, characterizing populism as mass hysteria and misplaced status, anxiety,

Starting point is 00:06:26 an expression of vile passion, bigotry, religious prejudice, and misplaced nationalism. And these pundings inevitably warned, it seems of fascism and the threats of a new Mussolini or Hitler. While warning of fascism, they usually neglect to mention Lenin, Mao, Castro, Hugo Chavez, all whom took advantage of popular discontent to establish dictatorships. Yet, those who support and welcome popular protest as essential to a vibrant democracy and necessary for reform should not have to defend the

Starting point is 00:07:04 defend themselves as naive apologists for xenophobia or illiberalism. My book speaks on behalf of those who felt and feel this system has betrayed them. It speaks on behalf of angry citizens historically and today who saw and see business financial and political elites motivated by greed in the pursuit of power. My book in defense of populism sees popular mobilization and social protest as essential to reform within an historical democratic tradition. In 2016, many on the right found a voice in Donald Trump, and those on the left saw on Bernie Sanders such a voice. Both men had their personal flaws in the case of Sanders, a dreamer with a wild and unenforable economic agenda, at least in my opinion.

Starting point is 00:08:00 Yet, what the past has shown, and the past is never a predictor of the future. future, but only an analogy. Out of this equilibrium comes stabilization. This comes when the established self-serving elites bow to the voice of the people and accept reform. Still, we should be worried about authoritarianism today, but it's not coming from the populist, but from the political and corporate elites. It's seeing in today's cancel culture, social media censorship, and multiple other ways. It has self-imposed authoritarian impulse within the elites. Authoritarianism is staring us in the face. Meanwhile, it looks to be populism. Thank you. Thank you, Donald. So I'm going to turn our microphone over to Timothy for his opening statement. He's arguing against our motion today,

Starting point is 00:08:57 be it resolved. We should embrace not fear populist politics. Timothy, let's have your opening remarks. Thank you very much, Rudyard. It's a pleasure to debate with Professor Donald Critchlow. I'm all in favour of popular protest as part of a democracy, but that's not populism. If it were, then Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King would have been populist. Populist politics, which comes in our resolution, is a style of politics that we have seen from Donald Trump, Ja Bolsonaro in Brazil, Narendra Modi in India, Boris Johnson in Britain, Yaroslav Kaczynski in Poland, Viktor Orban in Hungary. And the remarkable thing is that different though these people and countries are,

Starting point is 00:09:48 in the last five years, they've had a style of politics which has distinct features in common. First of all, they all counterpose as supposedly pure the people to allegedly corrupt liberal, metropolitan, cosmopolitan elites. Although, by the way, the leaders of these movements are seldom actually men or women of the people. Donald Trump is a millionaire, son of a millionaire. And Boris Johnson is hardly an horny-handed son of toil. Secondly, when you look more closely, the people they talk about in the abstract, rather revolutionary style, turn out to be only a part of the people. There's always an us and them. The us is very often defined in ethnic terms.

Starting point is 00:10:40 It's often nativist. It's a native population. The them immigrants, be it Hispanics in the US or East Europeans in the UK during the Brexit debate, Muslims, people black and so on. Thirdly, populist politics abhors pluralism. All these politicians go after all the pluralist anti-majorityitarian institutions that define a liberal democracy. Independent law courts, for example, have been emasculated in Poland and Hungary and even British judges were denounced. as enemies of the people, a phrase that descends from Robsb, Bauer, Var Stalin and Hitler to the Daily Mail. They go after independent media, they go after independent civil society. Fourthly, their definition of democracy is a purely majoritarian,

Starting point is 00:11:44 winner-takes-all definition. It gets very close to Tochville's tyranny of the majority. So, for example, in the case of the Brexit debate, it was 52%, 48%, but in the rhetoric of the populace, the 52% are the people in tar. And the rest of us who voted for Remain don't count. Finally, final common feature of populist politics is a contempt for facts, evidence and experts, often expressed by these people. and the ultimate expression of populist politics is what Donald Trump is doing with the U.S. election, simply denying the fact that he has lost the election. No, what matters is the idealized people and the idealized, imagined people have in this mendacious, imagined world of populist politics,

Starting point is 00:12:51 won the election that they've clearly lost. So that is a huge danger to democracy. We should fear and fight these populist politics. Where I agree with the proposal of the motion is that populist politics reveal many things that have gone wrong in broadly speaking liberal political systems and societies. But you know, the COVID-19 virus reveals many things that were wrong in our health care systems. We should no more embrace populist politics than we should embrace the COVID-19 virus. Thank you, Timothy. Okay, we're going to turn this over to both of you now for a chance to rebut each other's opening statements, pull out any key arguments that you want to take exception with. So Donald,

Starting point is 00:13:45 your opportunity first to react to what you've just heard from Timothy. Well, thank you for your remarks. And you said a lot in your opening statement that I have to take exception with. I would begin with

Starting point is 00:14:00 separating as you did not do populist rhetoric with populist social movements. And I would define populism as a social movement that anti-elitist. And so politicians often use populist rhetoric, even though they may not be populist. It's often us against them. At the same time, you tend to want to distinguish what you

Starting point is 00:14:32 think are good popular protest movements, Martin Luther King and Muhammad Gandhi, from bad politicians such as Boris Johnson and Donald Trump. I would suggest that populist protest was seeing in the Martin Luther King's civil rights movement. They were challenging elites, and Martin Luther King was quite bold in his rhetoric, although he wasn't calling for violence. Secondly, I think that when you talk about the evils of,

Starting point is 00:15:11 of populism, you'd lump European leaders in Hungary and Poland, whom you clearly dislike in which you've denounced with people who were supporting Donald Trump. The fact of the matter is that Trump supporters are willing to accept a pluralistic democracy. They haven't been violent. They haven't been part of the cancel culture. They haven't been bringing cities or coming up with cockamamie hoaxes like the Russian hoax. In fact, I would suggest to you, Timothy, that the left is much more given to kind of the wild imagination and conspiracy theories today than the Riga is, at least in America. Thank you, Donald.

Starting point is 00:16:07 Now, Timothy, your chance to rebut both Don's opening remarks, but also what he's just said in response to how you've characterized your arguments at the outset of this debate. With pleasure, the danger with the word populism is that it becomes so broad and vague that it means everything and nothing. I want to be quite clear. Ten years ago, I would have thought the term populism was fairly useless because it was so vague. I think the similarities between the kind of politics pursued by these very different politicians, Trump, Modi, Bolsonaro, Kaczynski, Johnson, etc., in different parts of the world, gives a utility to my definition of populist politics. We now have as strong a border as we've ever had.

Starting point is 00:17:01 We're over 400 miles of brand new wall. You see the numbers. Indian government is also building. its first massive detention camp, where it plans to hold undocumented immigrants, many of them most likely Muslim. We were nationalist, we are nationalist, and we will nationalists. Our mission is to deliver Brexit for the purpose of uniting and re-energizing our great United Kingdom and making this country the greatest place on earth.

Starting point is 00:17:34 But in that definition, to be quite clear, there is no such thing as a good populist. And in that definition, Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi and Václav Havel, all of whom I greatly admire, were not populists. So I think we need to focus on the particular style of doing politics rather than the broader phenomenon of popular social movements, which I spend my life writing about and greatly admire. To go to the particular point about the US, and again, we don't want this to be just a ding-dong about Trump pro or contra, but let me make just a couple of points on that. Number one, it is actually Trump supporters led by Donald Trump,

Starting point is 00:18:23 who are still with extraordinary conspiracy theories about lost or stolen or forged ballot papers denying claiming victory in an election which Donald Trump clearly lost. So I think the fact-denying side of this is clearly pleasant in spades with Donald Trump and his supporters. What is more, I've done a lot of actually empirical work with my colleagues at Stanford on disinformation, fake news, hyper-polarization online. And I'm afraid the empirical fact is that fake news, truly factually incorrect stories, not to mention wilder conspiracy theories, do come much more from the right, from the popular side than they come broadly speaking from the left or in the left, or in the world.

Starting point is 00:19:27 the US case from the Democrat side. Third point, I think a good way to take this conversation forward rather than thus going to and fro is to look at what populist politics reveal about the things that have gone wrong in our societies over the last 30 years. And one of them is indeed a contemptuous attitude by many people with high education living in big cities to the other half of their own societies. Polish populace talk about the need for a redistribution of respect. It's a really striking phrase, and I think they're right.

Starting point is 00:20:15 I think we do need a redistribution of respect. Thank you, Timothy. That's a wonderful thing for us to reflect on. Let's get into some of these issues as we now have a three-way conversation. and my role really as moderator here is to try to channel, I think, the ideas and issues that are top of mind for our listeners. And maybe Donald, to come to you first in that regard, centering us really on the wording of our resolution, we should embrace, not fear, populist politics. I think I'd like to hear a little bit more from you as to why you think what we're witnessing

Starting point is 00:20:49 after this U.S. election, this, again, groundswell on the part of Trump's populace. base around discrediting the very democratic process on which the legitimacy of your government rests is in any way something that should be embraced. And how can you, in effect, separate the behavior of these populist movements and there are seemingly corrosive effects in our democracy with the better motives that you associate with populist movements generally, which is that challenge function against traditional. elites. It seems that the costs of populist movements would outweigh their benefits, at least in the United States. We seem to have a proof point after this contentious election in November.

Starting point is 00:21:38 Let's have your thoughts on that. Yes, well, we can spend the whole next 40 minutes or so talking about this election and Trump's request for recounting and so forth. But let me return to two points that Timothy made. First of all, he wants to define populism and kind of a narrow way of lumping people or in a broad way lumping people together. I would suggest that populism is anti-eligist movement that takes social form.

Starting point is 00:22:09 And the power of populist movements is this, that they're essential to reform. The elites often will not bow to reform. and the question of reform which Timothy raised is more than just people, the other half, feeling disrespected from the elites living in cities. It's something much more serious than this. And it's in fact seeing in social economic inequalities, policies that have taken jobs away from people who've destroyed. families and attack people as being racist and xenophobic, lumping them all together, especially accusations that the conservatives are racist.

Starting point is 00:23:04 And furthermore, it should be said, two last points that the Trump coalition and the last election shows that it's actually a fairly broad and broadening movement that's including Hispanics and some African Americans. But secondly, and this is the most important point, and I've studied this as a historian, that for all of the flaws of the various populist movements, as I've defined them, and with all of the cranks and conspiracy theorists and ill things with populist movements, they prove necessary for reform. That is, when you get popular anti-elitis movements that become broad-based and they gestate sometimes decades, it finally forces the established powers, political elites and economic elites, and particularly political parties,

Starting point is 00:24:03 to undertake reform. In other words, populism is essential to reform. Eliques cannot reform themselves as seen throughout much of American history. Don, that's a really interesting key point. Let me bring that to Timothy for his thoughts on that. I mean, Timothy can liberal democracy reform itself without populism? Before we go to that, Rudyard, could I ask Donald just quickly to answer your question about the other Donald? Because it does seem to me pretty crucial. Donald, do you actually think that what Donald Trump is doing at the moment in denying that he lost this presidential election? is good for democracy.

Starting point is 00:24:50 As I said earlier, Timothy, we can spend the next 40 minutes talking about. Well, it takes 40 seconds to answer that. Or 40 seconds. I think a brief answer is, yes, I think a party has a right to demand recounts. That's part of the legitimate democratic process. Do I agree with some of the conspiracy theories? that are appearing on social media, no. But they're being treated by Donald Trump, by the president of the United States.

Starting point is 00:25:26 And we need to talk about populism in a larger sense. But, I mean, that seems to be very worrying, because clearly what Donald Trump is doing at the moment is deeply corrosive of the shared foundations of democracy. He's not merely demanding a recount here or there that happens all the time, or mounting a legal challenge. He's saying and said repeatedly these elections were stolen, it was a fraud, I won. I mean, he is absolutely peddling what is clearly misinformation about the elections.

Starting point is 00:25:59 I'm very surprised that you don't want to condemn that clearly because it seems to me absolutely to undermine your own argument that populism is good for democracy, because Donald Trump clearly is a populist. I mean, I gave a five-part definition of populist politics. He ticks all the boxes in that definition. I mean, would you suggest Donald that the other Donald is not a populist? I think he used populist rhetoric, and I think there's a movement that's a social movement that's taking force. I do think, but again, I implore you to get back to the question of how you think, liberal democracies reform without popular social movements. I mean, I know you would like to talk about the current election. It's on everybody's mind here in America, but let's talk about

Starting point is 00:26:58 populist and the necessary role populist politics play in a vibrant democracy. So if I may, the reason I've asked you that question, because I wanted to get beyond that and not spent the whole time talking about Trump. So we've had our passenger about Trump. So let's go to the broader point about, so to speak, the reformability of liberal democracies. Since we're both historians, I would say that faced with revolutionary challenges or popular protests, democracies have repeatedly managed to reform. Think of the great reform bill in early 19th century Britain as a response to popular protest. But also, if you look at the history, of European, West European democracy since 1945, it is a constant story of reform,

Starting point is 00:27:52 the creation of the welfare state, for example. Then when problems emerged with the welfare state, the what might be called neoliberal turn, the turn to more free market economics with Margaret Thatcher and others, all of which happened without massive social mobilization or anti-elitist mobilization, where I hope we can find some common ground is that the kind of one-dimensional liberalism, let's call it neoliberalism, which by the way was strongly favored by Republicans and by conservatives in the UK, by the right, which in my view is a one-dimensional liberalism, the free market and nothing else, has created so much inextriced. equality and something like a sort of, I would say, a plutocratic corporate stranglehold on the state,

Starting point is 00:28:52 that it needs a major upheaval to disrupt that and get the necessary reform. But the answer to that is not to have another plutocrat, namely Donald Trump, leading a pseudo-popular movement in the name of a part of the people. The answer to that is to get a serious and quite radical reform addressing what has gone wrong in our societies. So once again, I think populism is a symptom that we should take seriously, but as a cure, it's worse than the disease. I not only think it's a symptom, because I argue in my book in defense of populism, which is a historical account, popular movements, beginning with the agrarian protest movement in the late 19th century and labor organization, it forced eventually political parties, both the two parties we have in the United States, Republican and Democratic,

Starting point is 00:29:58 to undertake reform. In the early 20th century, up through World War II, it basically created a large, vast, what would be called called administrative state. And what I further argue is that in the post-war period, the right reacting against this large, distant bureaucratic state and began to demand smaller government, it took various forms, and eventually led to the election of Ronald Reagan. Many Americans today, just as they did 200 years ago,

Starting point is 00:30:37 feel burdened, stifled, and sometimes even, oppressed by government that has grown too large, too bureaucratic, too wasteful, too unresponsive, too uncaring about people and their problems. I believe we can embark on a new age of reform in this country and an era of national renewal. The two points should be emphasized. Populist movements are often messy. They're often disturbing. They often create deep anxiety, both among the elites and the general electorate, but they're necessary for reform in the end. And we do see, as you suggested, where established parties undertake reform. But serious reform often necessitates the mobilization of people.

Starting point is 00:31:32 And we see leaders of these populist movements using fiery rhetoric, activists sometimes projecting a conspiracy and using rhetoric that's illiberal. But all of that's necessary in this kind of messy business, we call democratic politics. So in the end, we should welcome it and not denounce it as you want to do. You say you want reform, but how does it occur? Hi there, Rudyard-Griffis, the moderator of the Monk Debates. Look, this we know, our society is becoming dangerously polarized. We don't listen to each other.

Starting point is 00:32:15 We don't search out opposing views. Instead, too many of us live in tribes, convinced that we are right and they are wrong. It's time to put a stop to polarization before it wrecks our democracy. This is what the monk debates charity is all about, ending polarization, searching for common ground. We do this by producing the world's only weekly debate radio program through our monk dialogue series, and through mainstage debates on the big topics of the day. Support civil and substantive public debate by becoming a monk member. As a member, you get access to our 10-plus-year online library of great debates

Starting point is 00:32:51 in streaming high-definition video, a free monk debate book of your choice, ticketing privileges, and so much more. 30% off until December 1st when you use the promotional code, Monk, 2021, at our website, monkdebates.com. Again, that promotional code, monk, I am UNK 2021 at monkdebates.com. Join now and help fight the polarization of our democracy. Now back to our program.

Starting point is 00:33:27 Timothy, maybe we could talk a little bit about your views as to how the political world, the climate that we as citizens operate in today, is fundamentally different than in decades past. Why do you think that something has happened to, our shared democratic culture that should make us all a little bit more cautious about populism today than possibly we might have felt in decades past. Let me start my answer by picking up on something Donald said, because I think it's really important. I think we're in danger of confusing challenge and response. You can interpret much of what was done in building

Starting point is 00:34:11 liberal democracy in Western Europe after 1945 as a response to the twin challenges of fascism and communism. In that sense, those challenges were helpful. The ancient historian Heraclitus said war is the father of all things. That does not mean that we should embrace fascism, communism, and war. Populism is therefore a good thing so long as populists don't come to power. When they come to power, they start practicing populist politics, which is the wording, I might remind you, in our motion, so that we can understand as historians, the value of such challenges, while very much looking for a completely different response. To your question, Rudyard, two points. First of all, if you ask what happened to our democratic culture, which I think is how you put it,

Starting point is 00:35:17 I think you have to also ask, and this Donald did touch upon what's happened to our societies more broadly. And there's no question that in countries like, certainly like Britain and the United States, but also in other countries, there's been a dramatic growth in multi-dimensional inequality, not just income and wealth, it's also geographical, it's intergenerational, it's cultural, the cities against smaller towns and the countryside and so on. And while many people, particularly in countries like China and India, have done very well out of what I might call a global liberal revolution over the last 30 years, an awful lot of people, particularly less well-off people, in our own societies in the West, have done very badly indeed.

Starting point is 00:36:10 And there is so much accumulated anger that they are even prepared to go on supporting Donald Trump or other mini-Trumps. You asked me why I'm going for Trump. When he came in the politics, he started, what he said, drain the swamp. He started taking out all the politicians, not just politicians, the evil, corrupt politicians, fired him, took him out, made him go away. You know what? I did not vote for him to be my pastor. I did not vote for him to date my daughter. I voted for him to write this sinking ship, which is exactly what he's done.

Starting point is 00:36:50 Point number two, from the very beginnings of democracy in ancient Athens, It was essential that you had a shared public square in which people could come together as we are doing at the moment virtually and hear all the facts and hear all the arguments and debate them and then come to a common view. And the problem with the absolute multiplicity of platforms and outlets of the digital revolution, has given us is that we are losing that shared public sphere. And I'm afraid the United States is a classic example of this because the person who watches Fox News and listens only to talk radio has not only a different set of views from the person who listens only to NPR and watches MSNBC.

Starting point is 00:37:48 They have a different set of facts. So preserving that shared public sphere, which also means preserving media like the BBC or the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, which a large part of the society watch, is an important part of preserving something that is essential to democracy itself, the shared public square. So I think our audience might like to hear from you, Don, as to why you don't think there's been some step change in our political culture in the last decade or so that would cause us to reevaluate populism today

Starting point is 00:38:23 because we are operating as a democracy, as citizens, in such a different environment than our parents and grandparents in previous generations. What's your argument to the continuity of populism's positive impacts on our democracy? Yes. May I agree with Timothy that we need to have a common public square, but I would actually go a step further. We need to have a common culture, and the culture has splintered at this point

Starting point is 00:38:56 for a number of reasons. But let me also, to address your question, which I think is a quite good one, I would take issue with the premise itself that we're actually in a different, completely different environment. I would suggest to you that our politics is very similar today to what it was in the 19th century.

Starting point is 00:39:23 We saw mob action, we saw considerable violence, we saw depolarization between the various parties. I think civil war suggests that there was deep polarization. As for availability of facts, most newspapers in the United States were part of the party papers who imparted their own partisan facts to their voters. So there was deep polarization throughout the late 19th century. And what's different today, it appears much different is because of social media, which is kind of reinforcing polarization. So we're in a period of disequilibrium and it creates great anxiety.

Starting point is 00:40:13 But when local parties finally respond to popular demands, and you get new leadership merging within both parties and established party leaders adjusting to these demands, then you get kind of a change in partisan politics, a reordering, a restoration of the two-party system as we have in America, and eventually you'll get stability and at least temporarily a restoration in confidence in the political order. So it's a messy process, but I see that's what's happening right now. So I think eventually we'll see stabilization, but we're going to be in for a really raucous period in American politics. Thanks, Don. Timothy, do you want to come back on that?

Starting point is 00:41:06 Well, as always, in history, there's some continuity and some change, but I think the changes are quite big, I must say, you know, the digital revolution clearly has blown out of the water the traditional business model of most newspapers. So for 200 years, we got the public good of news by private means through a profitable newspaper or two or three. And so I think this whole media, social media side of the question is very important. Can I just say one other thing, which is that Donald has been repeatedly talking about these movements, populist movements, as if they were sort of authentic bottom-up social expressions of popular demands. And I spent much of my life writing about such movements in Central and Eastern Europe, for example, the Velvet Revolutions of 1989. and elsewhere. But populist politics is not like that. Populists are political entrepreneurs who identify a large set of discontents in a wide part of society and then aggregate those

Starting point is 00:42:21 discontents by uniting people around simple, emotionally appealing nationalist slogans like make America great again or On Eche, Nou, Marine Le Pen in France, or take back control. It's almost a political technique, what the Russians call political technology,

Starting point is 00:42:42 which aggregates these diffuse popular discontents, mobilizes them behind simplistic nationalist emotionally appealing slogans, and that way gets to 50 plus 1% of the vote. And then,

Starting point is 00:42:58 once you've got 50 plus 1% of the vote, you try and change the rules of the game, so you remain in power. So I don't think it should be confused with genuine bottom-up social movements. Thank you, Timothy. Look, I'm sensitive over our time, so I want to go to closing statements and give you both two minutes to sum up your key arguments, to underline any of the real points of contention that you've had with each other, that you'd like to leave with our audience. Timothy, we agreed the closing statements would be in the opposite order of the opening. So we're going to get your closing remarks first, please. So we absolutely agree that the massive vote for populist politicians

Starting point is 00:43:43 articulates widespread discontents in our societies. But the motion is about populist politics. And I have argued clearly that there's a set of common characteristic of populist politics, which includes a false dichotomy between the pure people and corrupt elites, an aggressive anti-pluralism, for example, undermining independent law courts and other checks and balances, a absolute disrespect for shared facts, in fact, massive lies and alternative realities.

Starting point is 00:44:24 And not least, we haven't talked about this enough. an absolutely poisonous and dangerous scapegoating of other groups in our own societies, be it Mexicans in the U.S. debate or Muslims in Narendra Modi, India, or immigrants in the Brexit debate, or in the case of Poland, I'm afraid, Jews. And that package of populist politics is itself profoundly corrosive. of the foundations of democracy, as we see in Donald Trump's refusing to conceive the U.S. presidential election, which, by the way, is why Vladimir Putin is so keen on supporting the populace. So populism is a symptom of some things that have gone wrong, but populist politics is a cure which is

Starting point is 00:45:22 even worse than the disease. Thank you, Timothy. Well, Don, we're going to give you the last word in this debate. Two minutes on the clock, your opportunity to sum up. I have hoped at the outset of the debate that we might have a larger discussion and a more probing discussion of nationalism, actually, because that was intrinsic to Donald Trump's message and populism today. Nationalism seems to be a bad word, but a dictionary definition. This is Webster's not Oxford's, by the way.

Starting point is 00:46:01 It defines nationalism identification with one's own country and support for its interests, especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations. So in this period of populist rhetoric and mobilization, we're seeing a call for nationalism. And I would leave our listeners thinking about this, that while we deplore the nationalist, vile nationalism of Nazi, Churchill actually rallied his nation through a patriotic call for nationalism in the same way that earlier Abraham Lincoln, when he spoke of Union was a call for nationalism as well. So nationalism could be a two-edge sword in the same way that populist politics could be both used by demagogues and those who seek dictatorship, but it could also be a force for democratic renewal, I would argue, that it's not only should be welcomed. It's essential to democracy, if I were a democracy, party. reform and eventual stabilization in our political order. So thank you very much and thank you

Starting point is 00:47:24 to Timothy and thank you for the nice inauguration of this debate. Well, and I want to thank you both on behalf of our audience. You know, this is just such a polarized contested moment in our political culture. I think all of us feel a certain anxiety about the quality, the tenor of much of our public discourse. So the opportunity to have this type of civil and substantive conversation on one of the big issues of our time, the rise of populism, its effect on our democracy and on our democratic values is a privilege indeed. And it goes to both of you and your commitment to these types of public discussions. So on behalf of the Monk Debates community, thank you, gentlemen, for being part of today's Monk debate. It was a pleasure as always. Yeah, thank you very much.

Starting point is 00:48:21 that wraps up today's debate. I want to thank Don and Timothy for coming on the program. You can find detailed show notes on today's debate on our website at www. monkdebates.com. That same website will take you to a universe of great debates on all kinds of topics, from refugees and immigration to climate change to the future of U.S.-China relations, all at www.munkdebates.com. Thank you for being part of our community, in helping us restore the art of public debate one conversation at a time. I'm your moderator, Rudyard Griffith. The Monk Debates are produced by Antica Productions and supported by the Monk Foundation.

Starting point is 00:49:07 Rudyard Griffiths, Maryland, Missouri, and Christina Campbell are the producers. Abbey Rehagea is the associate producer. The Monk Debates podcast is mixed by Kieran Lynch. The president of Antica Productions is Stuart. Cox. Be sure to download and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And if you like us, feel free to give us a five-star rating. Thanks again for listening.

The Munk Debates Podcast - Be it resolved: We should embrace, not fear, populist politics

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.