The Munk Debates Podcast - Carney's Palestinian statehood recognition comes without conditions and the powerful companies benefiting from Trump's authoritarianism

Episode Date: September 24, 2025

What should we make of Canada's formal recognition of Palestinian statehood at the UN? What happened to the conditions the government had originally tied to this recognition? Andrew believes the Carney administration is both trying to send a signal to the ascending Israeli right and join a broader coalition with the other countries - Britain, the UK, and Australia - who lead the way on this initiative. But given the fact that Mahmoud Abbas has presided over a corrupt PA for over 20 years, without elections, is this recognition of statehood simply kabuki theatre? And how is Canada's statement on this issue affecting how activists protest here in Canada? In the second half of the show Rudyard and Andrew turn to the ongoing saga that is the Trump presidency and his public threat this week to go after political enemies. But America's descent into authoritarianism cannot be blamed solely on the US President; there are a number of incredibly powerful companies, individuals, and advisors whose support of Trump has been rewarded with a concentration of wealth and political power that is handicapping the country's ability to function as a healthy democracy.     Click here to purchase Andrew's new bestselling book, The Crisis of Canadian Democracy.Become a Munk Donor ($50 annually) to get 72-hour advanced access to the full length editions of Friday Focus and Munk Dialogues. Go to www.munkdebates.com to sign up. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Germany was flat on its back in the 20s and 30s. It suffered a humiliation and war. They'd gone through hyperinflation. It doesn't excuse it for one second, but you could sort of see how that would be a seeding ground for fascist ideology. The United States is in the top of the world. The hottest economy in the world, the most advanced democracy in many ways, the most advanced technology.

And for them to go down this path, I don't think there's been an example like it in history. Rudyard Griffiths here, Chair of the Monk Debates. Welcome to our latest monk dialogue with Andrew Coyne, columnist at the Global and Mail, and bestselling author of... The Crisis of Canadian Democracy. Thank you very much. Thank you, sir. We will be available and better bookstores everywhere.

We will put a link in today's show notes. So much to catch up with you on Andrew from our last call. The events just happen and happen and happen. I think the big one of the last 48 hours or so has been Canada's formal. recognition of a Palestinian state in the context of these meetings that are now ongoing at the United Nations. Let's start with the prime minister's statement. How do you feel that this recognition was framed? Did we set the right tones, are the right parameters around it? Then we can get into the substance and what it means. Yeah. Well, of course, it's not just us.

It's the UK, it's France, it's Australia, I think there's some other countries. These are the democracy is joining a lot of other countries that have long recognized this for good or real. Obviously, I don't think you can divorce any of this from what's going on in Gaza now and the state of elite opinion, if I can put that way, government opinion in Israel. So how do I connect all these dots? When they first started talking about, they, the Canadian government started talking about recognizing Palestine as a state, or the Palestinians state, I should say, there were a lot of conditions supposedly attached to it.

You know, end of support for terrorism, Hamas can play no role, democratic reforms, making permanent peace with Israel. Those conditions don't seem to be quite as prominent in this announcement. The government still insists we're not, that Hamas could not be part of any state, but nevertheless they've gone ahead and said they're going, going to recognize it. People, I think, are right to ask what happened to those conditions. They're right to ask these practical questions about where are the borders of this state,

what is the capital of this state. I do think, so I think there are some fair criticisms that can be made of this is, is this the most helpful thing in the long run for peace? And I think there are real questions one can ask about it. I do think it behooves all of us to try to keep the discussion within certain bounds. People have, spent the last few months, I think, going to extraordinary overstatements about what Israel is doing. And I have become increasingly critical myself, as many have, of Israel's conduct of the war, I do not believe they're engaged in genocide. Similarly, when I see people saying what the government has just done is, quote-unquote, evil, or that it wants...

This is the Canadian government. The Canadian government, yeah. When I see them categorizing this decision, which may be right or may be wrong, I think maybe a bit of both, categorizing as evil or saying that the government of Canada wants a Hamas state, I really think that is out of bounds, and people need to reflect on this. This is a really complicated situation. There are rights and wrongs, all the best case I can make for the government's decision, I have to assume this is a large part of what motivates it is,

they are trying to send a signal to the Israeli right, which is in the ascendant right now, and it is basically saying, we want no part, we're not making any bones about it anymore, we want no part of a two-state solution. And we're going to pursue the course of war in Gaza to the bitter end. There are many critics in Israel who say the military value of pursuing the war at present is minimal compared to the destruction it is causing. It is time to find some accommodation, et cetera. So I think you can be a critic of where the Israeli conduct of the war has gone without being anti-Israel, anti-Semitic, et cetera.

And I think similarly one can be concerned about trying to put the case for a two-state solution back on track and back into the discussion and to try to, as I say, disabuse the Israeli right of what I think are fantasies of total victory. Now, is this the way to do it? Is this the time to do it? Should they have been more insistent on the conditions? I think so, yes. I think you could still send that signal and not go quite where they've gone. I think another factor that must be weighing on the government is trying to stay in step with these other countries that are making the move at the same time, trying to be part of a broader coalition rather than doing it on their own.

So to me, I'm really leery of flat endorsements or flat critiques that certainly where, where people are implying that they're pro-Hamas or anything. Anyway, that's my complicated answer to that question. No, no, it's a complicated issue. Mahmoud Abbas, the head of the Palestinian Authority, has governed now without elections since 2006, so almost 20 years. There's a prerequisite in Prime Minister Carney's statement

that there would need to be elections in some hypothetical Palestinian state to legitimize a government. We've seen from recent polling that in the West Bank, Hamas is outpolling the PA, outpolling Abbas's party. And even in Gaza itself, which has been subject to so much destruction in no small part because of Hamas's unwillingness to give up the hostages and meet what is now a demand, not just by Israel, but the United States and most of the countries in the Middle East that those hostages be released, and that be the first and formal step, hopefully, towards

some kind of ceasefire, and then a permanent resolution of the crisis, a bare majority of Gaza. Again, this is very imprecise polling in a war zone, but nonetheless, it would suggest that there still remains significant levels of support for Hamas in the West Bank and in Gaza. So, Andrew, I guess the question is, you know, was this Kabuki Theater? I mean, the slip between cup and lip here between the reality of this aspiration of a legitimate, democratic Palestinian state versus where we find ourselves now, not only in the context of the war, but in the context of the Palestinian people. And their feelings about this conflict, their feelings about the Palestinian authority, which is known for not only its authoritarianism, but it's deep corruption. it just seems, Andrew, that we're kind of counting angels on a head of a pin,

and I'll stop there because I'm running out of metaphors. I entirely agree if you think, do we think we're solving the situation? And I would absolutely say Israel has an absolutely right to say who is going to be our interlocutor, first of all, in these discussions that has decency and we can have any kind of discussion with that's not trying to kill us. That's a perfectly fair thing. It's perfectly fair thing to say, whatever this state eventually comes to be, cannot be a terrorist state, cannot be militarized, cannot be simply a launching pad for attacks in Israel.

So it has to be part of a broader peace understanding. I entirely share your criticisms of Palestinian Authority, let alone Hamas. So if one views this as, oh, this is going to lead to, you know, next week there will be some solution. Of course not. And as I say, I would have preferred that this kind of recognition was remained in principle subject to a bunch of conditions that aren't likely to be met anytime soon. So we are a long way away from the two-state solution. At the same time, I don't think that I think a signal had to be sent of some kind, in my opinion,

that said that still has to be the ultimate goal, that there has to be a state for the Palestinians at some point down the road. Maybe we're gonna be a long way getting there. Maybe the Palestinians themselves have to come to some pretty stark realizations at some point. But right now what's happening, as I say, to my eyes anyway, is the Israeli right has got itself into a position where it's in a triumphalist phase,

where it thinks we can achieve total victory here. And we will not have to make any concessions and we don't have to, we can ignore the claims of the Palestinians for statehood. And some sort of brushback it seems to me, had to be instituted to get them to shake them out of that. Whether this will do that, I don't know. But they must see how they are increasingly isolating Israel.

The countries that have not been historically hostile to Israel are tilting in this direction now, and they're down now to part of the United States, basically, as their support base. That's not a good situation to be in. So all of your criticism are absolutely correct. But, you know, I just have those reservations that something had to be shaken sense into the Israeli right because it is the Israeli moderates and Israeli left that are shouting these things at them as well. Yeah. I just indulge my cynicism for a little bit, a little bit longer.

When you look at the statement itself, the language was. was at times a bit intemperate, I would say. It did not have the kind of formalism often of regular bureaucraties. There was a line in there that really stood out for me, which was a very confidence, bald-faced assertion that there, in fact, is a famine going on in Gaza right now that is the responsibility and the result of the policies. of the government of Israel.

What were your thoughts about that? I mean, it's a horrible thing in 2025 to have to be even debating as to whether there is a famine or not. But that does seem to be an issue of contention. Is there food insecurity? Absolutely. Are people going without enough food? Yes, quite possibly.

But is there a large-scale famine happening right now in Gaza? That is something that I think probably is outside our ability to reason through. It's outside the ability of the prime minister's office and the prime minister himself to reason through. And it itself is a very kind of heated debate of this moment. What do you think about the statement's tone and then the inclusion of that fact, which could be quite incendiary for some people, who then feel very passionately about this conflict, who are understandably very opposed to Israel, and then read from our own government, from the pen of our own prime minister, that Israel is causing a man-made famine in Gaza,

and this is the view, the official view of the government of Canada. This is a kind of a problem that one often runs into as a citizen, where it involves a complicated set of facts that we're not expert in, that we nevertheless have to form at least tentative judgments about. So, for example, climate change. Am I a climate change scientist? No. But I'm somebody who has, as a citizen, first of all, as a journalist, has to, in this sort of thing, weigh the credibility of sources, the likelihood of, you know, one result or another.

And when I look at it, I go, you know, would the body of science that's been built up around it, how likely is that it would be all wrong and certainly wrong with a certainty that would, would mean we don't need to take any action, whatever, or is there at least a plausible probability that they're right? These are the kinds of judgment I think you need to form. In this case, you know, there's a degree of skepticism that should always be brought to bear about criticisms of Israel because so much of it's been politicized, particularly the UN, so much of it is driven by people who don't want Israel to exist.

And it's entirely fair game to start by saying, okay, I don't necessarily have to take this on the level. The more the data accumulates about the state of affairs in Gaza, and again, these are judgments that Israelis themselves are coming to, the more the data accumulates about things like the famine. So, for example, I'm not going to be able to summon up the name of the organization, but there was an organization a week or two ago that is the body that is responsible for making these kinds of calls. They have specialized expertise, admittedly, in a politicized atmosphere. When I recall reading the news reports of that report, it sounded pretty definitive to me. It sounded pretty authoritative. It didn't sound like there was a lot of spin involved on it.

Certainly when one sees the heart wrenching pictures coming out of there, it's hard-to-belied, or that all of its fate or that all of it's exaggerated or that there's nothing there. As I say, I think that's a different – and I think similarly, it would be surprising to me if no war crimes had been committed in there. And not to excuse war crimes for one second, but it's a unique challenge that Israel is facing in dealing with an adversary like Hamas that is so embedded in the civilian population

that takes delight in seeing civilian losses for the propaganda value. That's a unique challenge for any. And I am inclined to say that one should cut slack, but look deeply at the measures that the Israeli army takes, by and large to try to avoid civilian losses, but it would not surprise it at the same time

that there would have been cases that would have crossed the line into war crimes. That's a far cry, it seems to me, I would say to this point, from saying, oh, there's a genocide going on. There's just so many other hurdles you have to get over to make that kind of call. So these are all separable questions.

They all require us as citizens, as non-experts, trying to puzzle up, trying to be fair to all sides. That's fair, I don't mean sympathetic to all sides, but trying to understand the facts as clearly as we can. I'm not as troubled, I suppose, as you are by the government's statement on that. I think that's a defensible claim. I agree with you that some of the language was a bit intemperate.

There's a lot of intemperance going on right now. And to return to your skeptical thing, one always has to bear in mind internal domestic politics as well and very cynical issues that might be raised there about who has numbers in what proportion in which ridings. I'm not saying that's what conditioned or determined the statement. I don't think so, but it might well have impact in terms of the language you would choose, a particular coloring of the rhetoric. Yeah.

Well, that's kind of where I wanted to go last, unfortunately, Andrew, was that I, I, I worried that the tone of the statement, and again, you can oppose this war and believe that it should end for all kinds of reasons before you get to a discussion as to whether there's a famine happening. And I do think there is both a qualitative and a quantitative difference, let's say, between the certainty around climate change with 98% of all scientists believing that anthropogenic climate change is real versus the United Nations primarily leading an argument that there is a famine going on in Gaza versus a variety of other groups, including groups, on the ground that, you know, our international NGOs and others would say, is there food insecurity, is there horrific civilian casualties? Are there all kinds of other reasons why this war should end? Yes, I guess what worries me about the famine argument is that it abuts up against the genocide argument, that if you want to make an argument that a genocide is happening in Gaza, then the contention that there is a kind of key building block towards that argument.

It can be, I don't think it necessarily is. So I think you could say, look, Israel needs to do a better job of getting, letting the food get in there. And there may be complicating reasons why it's very hard for Israel to do that. Again, when you're dealing with an adversary like Hamas, not doing enough or not taking enough risks militarily or otherwise to make sure food gets to civilian population is a different thing, it seems to me, me than the deliberate slaughter or starvation of that population. And so I think you can, you can say Israel bears some responsibility for this, not all the responsibility, but some responsibility. You can certainly point out that it's happening without being tantamount to accusing

Israel of genocide. Yeah, no, look, I mean, there's so many ways to go out and I don't want to re-litigrate the Iraq war, but, you know, upwards of possibly 200,000 civilians died, died in Iraq during the U.S. occupation, and we, we never leveled charges of genocide against the U.S. government for what were, civil war, wasn't the U.S. Army. Well, no, no, no. I mean, these, these were, these were civilian deaths that, that have been attributed to the American occupation of Iraq, the indiscriminate bombing and shelling of cities like Fulia, not once, but twice, you know, wholesale civilian deaths, many of which which we know from the WikiLeaks, the horrible footage released,

Black Hawk helicopters firing on vans of innocent civilians. There were war crimes that were committed. So there were all those components, but there was never a charge of genocide against. But in this case, there are charges of genocide circling. And I do think the inclusion of that word famine in the statement gives some impetus, some energy to those here in Canada who feel very passionate. about this war and have surmised, based on their own understanding that a genocide is underway, which then in turn, Andrew, this is why I want to end this portion of discussion with you,

it leads to what we're seeing on our streets. It leads to a conflict here in Canada between different groups and communities that has taken on this existential flavor, precisely because there is a contention that there is a genocide under a way. And I just wonder if you feel that won the recognition and two, the statement was helpful or should it be thinking about the impact of this conflict here in Canada and how different groups are going to read that statement, how they're going to react to it, not just in terms of how they might vote in the next election, I won't be that cynical quite yet, but in terms of how they're going to react against their other cohabitants here in Canada, those other communities, religious, cultural, and otherwise that are in

in the public square with them and where temperatures are hot, where there are actions of violence, especially towards the Jewish community now for well over the last two years, does this statement help or hurt the after effects, the knock-on effects of this war in Canada, and it's real consequences for communities here in our borders? I think that, I mean, it's a legitimate concern. I think the first criteria of any statement is, is it true, first of all,

is it fair? is it true. Secondly, I think if it's a diplomatic statement directed towards a war zone and resolving that war, I think that's probably the primary assessment in terms of the reverberation, how is this going to be received? I agree with it. It's a concern about, it will always be a concern about what is the state of dialogue and worse than that in Canada. But I wouldn't, if the statement is otherwise fair and true, which we can debate, and if it's part of this larger international discussion, I think that has to take a back seat of how will this reverberate at home,

although I think you can round the edges of that, discuss about how the language is received. If you think there's genuinely a famine happening, I don't think you want to refrain from mentioning that because it might cause you some trouble at home. Let's put it this way. The people who are anti-Israel would be in the streets attacking Israel, whether there was a famine

or a genocide or not. They entered the streets the day that Israel launched its attack. It's a counterattack for having been attacked on October 7th. So these people would be there anyway. That would be an issue that the country would be having to resolve anyway. And

people are right to cry that and there have been some terrible demonstrations et cetera, or worse than demonstrations, terrible attacks. I'm a little Little plummocks by, no one ever seems to suggest exactly what they want to happen,

what the federal government in particular should be doing about it. Everyone says the fed should do something about this. Most of them look at, that seems to me that, these are local policing matters. And I'm not sure that the feds can or should be involved in that. So yes, people at the federal level have an obligation not to unnecessarily inflame tensions around this, but there may sometimes be necessary information. Yeah, and again, I'll just repeat, that's an obligation on the government. It's also an obligation on the opposition. And when I see the opposition saying that the government is doing evil, literally in Parliament saying that they're doing evil, or when I see them accused of wanting a Hamas state, I think people need to rein in a bit. Yeah. I mean, my just final contribution that would be that a statement like the prime minister's statement matters to local policing.

Because if you're saying as the prime minister of Canada, there is a famine underway. In effect, you're abutting right up to the genocide claim. it becomes more difficult for local authorities to step in when people are behaving lawlessly in the public square where they are impeding traffic, where they are shutting down businesses, where it takes some of the moral force and legitimacy of the state in Canada to act against people that aren't acting well and aren't modeling the type of behavior we hope in this conflict. Andrew, I know your time is precious, so let's pivot in the back half of the show to a topic that our audience enjoys hearing your comments on, and that is the ongoing saga of the Trump presidency, which week after week seems to treat us to a kind of diorama of cruelties and spectacle. This week, that culminated with this funeral of Charlie Kirk or memorial or observance. It was a spectacle. It had a whole cast of characters, a bunch of messages, and I guess ultimately a statement by the president that had maybe would make Nixon blush in terms of this idea of my enemies, our enemies, and the need for, in a sense, vengeance.

Yeah, I mean, funeral isn't really the word. You know, this was a political rally. Some of the speeches were, it's hard to put into words. Tucker Carlson, for example, viewed this as the appropriate moment to basically accuse the Jews of killing Christ and by implication of having killed Charlie Kirk. Just extraordinary. Just, he always seems to top him.

by how odious and hateful his remarks are. Stephen Miller's just inflammatory speech vowing, you know, there's a, we are the storm, and you are nothing, and, you know, you don't need to make overdrawn comparisons, but it sure sounded like some rhetoric we've seen in the past from propagandists. It is very clear that the Trump administration,

I mean, they're not hiding their intentions, that they want to use this horrible murder as a launching pad to advance their agenda of shutting down dissent and in so many words. You had some people around in the MAGA movement trying to say, well, we're just concerned about hate speech and there was an interesting debate in the United States because I think rightly the United States does not ban hate speech.

I don't think we need hate speech laws in our country. Incitement to violence is sufficient. Hate speech gets into all kinds of really difficult areas where you're touching on political speech, and I don't think we ever really needed to go there. But the debate was kind of cut short in the United States because it became very clear, and he said as much, that Donald Trump interprets hate speech to mean speech

that encourages criticism of him, or as he would say, hatred of him. him. And that got him into a long discussion. Again, you know, every time his handlers try to say the president didn't mean this, he very clearly says all these networks that are published, that are broadcasting criticism of me, it shouldn't be allowed. It should, it is illegal, he claimed. It became very clear that he was thinking heavily about withdrawing their licenses, which shouldn't be part of his powers. But when you see what his FCC chairman, the guy who wears a, Trump

you know head on his pin on his lapel when you see what he has done which was in the very narrow sense taking Jimmy Kimmel

the comedian off the air but obviously sending a very strong signal that they will make no bones about suppressing criticism of the president as appears on the airwaves now at the same time he's got

this happening you've got there's the overt state control the media that they are increasingly pushing towards. But there's also the business of sort of placing Trump-friendly oligarchs at the command of various media organizations. TikTok is another. We now have Elon Musk controlling X. We have TikTok now been delivered in the hands of a coterie of Trump supporters. CBS News is now controlled by Larry Ellison and is tilting pro-Trump. The Washington Post is owned by Jeff Bezos, who is making sure that he's on the

right side of Trump. They're all these oligarchs who if they're not pro-Trump want to make sure that they're not seen as anti-Trump, which means you've got to be pro-Trump. So Facebook, you know, Mark Zuckerberg made a major contribution to Trump's campaign. So increasingly, all these different media organizations, the newspapers, the television networks, are either under assault by Trump, So this $15 billion lawsuit at the New York Times. You have to read the fact a minute. It reads like Trump wrote it. It's all about how glorious he is.

He's amazing. He's wonderful. And why is the New York Times such a bunch of meanings? That's the legal content of that factor. So, you know, what you increasingly see is the points of vulnerability in the American system are not at the level of the journalist. I mean, every journalist will henceforth having to be thinking. of, you know, do I want to be offside, either with the Trump regime or with their fanatical

followers and what they may be capable of doing, including violence. But the real point of vulnerability are the owners, are these vast conglomerates. Somebody made the point, and I thought was a good one, that thank heavens the New York Times is a standalone organization. It's not part of some vast conglomerate, and so its interests lie in its integrity in defending the integrity of its journalism. Whereas, you know, these other organizations that are just part of some huge conglomerate that wants to do a deal that needs government approval. Well, the first thing to do is to say, sorry, journalistic integrity. It's out the window.

Yeah. Fascinating answer, Andrew, is kind of what I was thinking about, too, is we've seen, you know, the law firms capitulate. We've seen the universities, with the exception, really, just of Harvard and who knows what kind of deal will ultimately be cooked up there. They've largely rolled over and capitulated. I believe Columbia University, even. did something around the Charlie Kirk assassination

as almost like a kind of obsequious kind of nod. Maybe you want to weigh on that. It was quite striking. But not to sound that, but the line of outrage for the MAGA movement has moved from making fun of or celebrating his murder, which is obviously hugely objectionable,

to being critical of him in life. That became the bar. Lately, it's being insufficiently mournful And they're pushing forward things, and we saw an echo of this in Canada, but in the states in particular, there were, if you put something into the Congress, then if you don't vote for it, it means you're anti-Charlie Kirk or you're glad that he's dead. There was a motion or a law put forward in Oklahoma, I believe it was, that would require every university in the state to have a Charlie Kirk Plaza with a statue. Wow. And if you didn't do it, you'd be subject to fines. There's discussion about making it a national holiday in his name.

So they're moving the goalposts in a very aggressive way to corner people in, to classify as intolerable statements. Anything short of, you know. Yeah, hegeography. Charlie Kirk is the second coming of St. Paul, which the, what is that Catholic? I forget what title he was, but Bishop was claiming he was. Yeah, so if the law firms in a sense are now on the side, a lot of the universities on the side, you're so right to point out, you know, the media companies, there were already large U.S. media companies like the St. Clair Group who were actively kind of in the Trump

bag prior to this, and now we've seen these major networks settle these lawsuits, these previously just egregious lawsuits, which were, in a sense, pay-to-play schemes with the White House around mergers. And I think the last point you bring up is really critical in one I've been thinking about, which is the role of big tech, that in a sense, what we have, Andrew, isn't it, we have a new kind of oligopoly, and we have a new set of oligarchs. These are not the oil barons of a century or more ago. These are the tech barons. You just name them. and they control, you know, not only some of them, a lot of social media networks, they control AI. They control, in a sense, the commanding heights of a lot of the technology that our society is running on.

To what extent maybe, Andrew, is that the real crisis, that Trump in some ways is a sideshow to something that you would know well as a student of, democracy that the real threat, kind of in the 20th century, in the 30s in Germany, is when corporate interests become not simply authoritarian curious, they actually see their interests better reflected in a non-democratic future. And I'm just wondering if we are now at that point, beyond that point, and it's time for us to realize that this is where we are. Yeah, and it's some kind of mixture of authoritarianism, anti-democratic authoritarianism, and what I think Victor Orban approvingly called illiberal democracy. So you've got a bit of both going on.

You've got, as I was saying earlier, you've got the instruments of old-fashioned state control being deployed in ways that I never thought to see in the United States of America, and it's only going to get worse. You also have this kind of mixture of very powerful people at one end and the populist grassroots at the other end and forming a very curious alliance. You see this, for example, with post Citizens United, the Supreme Court agreement that allowed for basically unlimited money in American politics. So you have a mosque with trillions of dollars to spend, theoretically, spent, I think by one accounting $250 million. unheard of amounts. And how does he use it?

He says, I'm going to primary you if you oppose me. In other words, I'm going to use my money to marshal large numbers of people to take you out politically. So that's a very strange and similarly you've got with big tech. You've got an Elon Musk

owning it at one hand. And then you've got thousands and millions of either fanatics and or bots, Russian bots, that can be mobilized to not just mob the person, but issue death threats, et cetera. This is not something we've seen before. It used to be Big Brothers watching you, and increasingly, even before this,

it was Little Brothers watching you in the early days of Twitter when it was the left-wing mobs, right? And we were all got used to, unfortunately, what that meant, of enforcing a particular kind of political orthodoxy. Now we see it happening on the right with a vengeance. and using exactly the same language. You know, hate speech isn't speech, or this isn't canceled culture, it's consequence culture.

They've appropriated all of the same bogus arguments that the left wing was using before in an even more overt thing, because now it's not even in the pursuit of a cause, it's in the pursuit of the exaltation of a particular leader. So it's remarkable in that way. So yes, it's it's, Democracy is in many ways on the line in the United States.

Remember, of course, that we're now in the run-up to the midterm elections in November 2026, which may or may not take place and may or may not be free and fair. And at this point... May or may not be certified. That's right. And there's all kinds... Every time I think about the fact that Trump tried to overturn an election in 2021, January in 2021 and they put him back into power again.

It's just so extraordinary how that could not have been a disqualifying event. And lo and behold, he is allaying the groundwork to do something far worse and far more extensive in 2026 and or 2028. But enabled and actively supported by, in a sense, the establishment. And establishment, you know. But a very, I mean, I mean, the magnitude. seven, as they're called. The seven biggest tech stocks now represent 40% of the entire S&P in the United States. Like, we've never seen such a concentration of wealth in so few companies. All those individuals, you know, hurried to Trump's inauguration. They've deeply inveigled themselves

into the administration. And I just wonder, Andrew, if you look back through history, you look at your ancient Roman history, for example, the moments where democracy is often in the most danger is when the oligarchs understand that it's ripe for the plucking because they see their economic interests align with that and they see an unbridled plateau of power for them stretching out to the horizon. And some of them have... And they're open about it now.

That's right. The veil has dropped. There's not even the patina of any language about the institutions, about the importance of... And in some cases, they have acquired an ideology of, you know, monarchicalism. Fascism, monarchism, feudalism. I mean, mosque very clearly doesn't believe in democracy. Some of the stuff coming out of Mark Andreessen makes you wonder. Peter Thiel.

Peter Thiel, for sure. The Antichrist. You know, so the malignant ideology that has taken hold, and part of this is, I think we may have discussed this before, this is an accumulation of wealth quite unlike any that did happen before. If you wanted to become a billionaire 100 years ago, or the equivalent thereof, you had to marshal large numbers of people to perform complicated tasks together, building factories, et cetera.

You had to find ways to distribute that to the population. It required you to be really grounded in planet Earth. You had to get along with you. You still went to people's heads. They still, Henry Ford was an awful person. He was. But nevertheless, you had to have some grounding in reality. Now you get a smart idea for an app, and a year later, you're a billionaire.

And I have to tell you, until fairly recently, I would have said, you make a billion dollars, good for you. You sold a product that people. are willing to buy that's useful to them have at it. When you get this sort of absurd concentration, it really becomes clear it is not just about a concentration of wealth anymore. It's about concentration of political power. And I do think this is something the Americans are going to have to look at if they ever manage to extract themselves from this emerging dictatorship

is how to prevent this from happening again. and I think looking at the concentration of wealth and or power is going to be part of it. And that is not something I would have said until fairly recently. No, I'm so glad you brought this up because I feel at times we're kind of losing the forest through the trees. There's such a understandably a relentless focus on Trump and his latest absurdity. But around Trump, to me, is something much more sinister that has gathered, which are these incredibly powerful companies and individuals that, again, seem very unconstrained. And advisors.

Yes. There are people around Trump, ideologues, who have very clearly no longer believe in democracy if they ever did. But they make no bones about it in some cases. They regard, they have persuaded themselves. It's a weakness. That's right. But also they persuaded themselves. It is an existential threat to them and people like them. And you can define how people like them in different terms. You know, Christian nationalists, white nationalists. White men. Exactly. And they have, so they have. They have persuaded themselves that they and their way of life are under such threat that they are not only entitled but obliged to take whatever means necessary to prevent it, including overthrowing democracy. And in some cases, like this nutbar Curtis Yarbin, they will make extensive arguments about the superiority of absolute monarchy. This is limited-tuned stuff, but it's there. It's real. It exists. and you know I think I may have said before I can sort of wrap my mind around Trump you know what he is

I can sort of understand the base and why they would go from I can certainly understand why a Republican official cynical as they are would go along to get along and stay out of the way or in some cases to you know

see their chances for advancement the fascist ideologues around Trump are just it's just hard to hard to comprehend you know Germany was flat on its back in the 20s and 30s They'd suffered a humiliation in war.

They'd gone through hyperinflation. It doesn't excuse it for one second. But you could sort of see how that would be a seating ground for fascist ideology. The United States is in the top of the world. The hottest economy in the world, the most advanced democracy in many ways, the most advanced technology. And for them to go down this path, I don't think there's been an example like it in history. Yeah. Andrew, always great to catch up with you on these issues and talk some big picture stuff.

I really appreciate it. Ladies and gentlemen, that was Andrew Coyne, columnist with the Globe and Mail and regular commentator here on Monk Dialogues. You can catch my conversations with Andrew each week on our YouTube channel and over on our podcast feed. Over a quarter of a million viewers and listeners tuning in every month. Join the smart pack, the smart crowd, and tune in on your, again, your favorite podcast app or on YouTube. Until next time, I'm Roger Griffith. Bye-bye. The Monk debates are a project of the Aurea and Peter and Melanie Monk Charitable Foundations.

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