The Munk Debates Podcast - Munk Members-Only Pod: Episode 44

Episode Date: November 5, 2021

This is a sample of the Munk Members-Only Podcast. The program provides listeners with a focused, half-hour masterclass on the big issues, events and trends driving news and current events. The show features Janice Gross Stein, the founding director of the Munk School of Global Affairs and bestselling author, in conversation with Rudyard Griffiths, Chair and moderator of the Munk Debates. This week's Munk Members podcast digs into three stories in the news. First, what does Republican win in the Virginia's gubernatorial race say about the state and future of Joe Biden's presidency? Second, COP26 is wrapping up with some meaningful pledges, but why is the conference coming up short in terms of instilling its sense of urgency about the threat climate change among the broader public? And finally, we discuss Canada's big pledge at COP26 or capping oil sands emissions by 2025. Is it fair Western Canada bears the brunt of the country's climate mitigation efforts? To access the full length episode consider becoming a Munk Member. Membership is free. Simply log on to www.munkdebates.com/membership to register. Under your membership profile page you will find a link to listen to the full length editions of Munk Members Podcast. If you like what the Munk Debates is all about consider becoming a Supporting Member. For as little as $9.99 monthly you receive unlimited access to our 10+ year library of great debates in HD video, a free Munk Debates book, monthly newsletter, ticketing privileges at our live and online events and a charitable tax receipt (for Canadian residents). To explore you Munk Membership options visit www.munkdebates.com/membership. This podcast is a project of the Munk Debates, a Canadian charitable organization dedicated to fostering civil and substantive public dialogue. More information at www.munkdebates.com.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.

Hi, Monk Podcast listeners. The following is a sample of the Monk members-only podcast. To access the full-length edition of this episode and all of our regular Monk members-only podcasts, go to our website, www.W.Munkdebates.com and register for membership. Membership is free, and it's available for you right now at www.munkdebates.com. Hope you enjoy the program. Hello, Monk members. Rudyard Griffiths here, your host and moderator of the debates. Welcome to this, our regular monk members-only podcast. This is our weekly program where we dig into the big issues and ideas, making news, hopefully leaving you with some new

analysis and insights to do this each week. We are extremely fortunate to have as our guest, as our guide to the week that was Janice Gross Stein. She's the founding director, the Monk School of Global Affairs, an internationally renowned scholar and author, She's all ours for the next 30 minutes. Janice, great to be in dialogue with you again this week. Great to be with you, Rudyard, and a big week in the United States. They won in Glasgow, so lots to talk about. Yeah, let's start with the U.S., because it's kind of the freshest news.

You know, a series of gubernatorial elections in kind of northeast states, Virginia, New Jersey, two that we're making headlines. And a seemingly a seeming surprise here, at least a momentum for the Red team, the Republicans, coming back here,

taking Virginia really the first time in, wow, almost half a generation that you have a Republican governor, surprising, I think, pundits and the Beltway class with a fairly strong, convincing when. And then New Jersey, of all places, a very near miss there on the part of the

Republicans in seizing the governorship of New Jersey. What do you make of this? Is this kind of, I don't know, Trump 2.0, a simmering populist revolt that's beneath the surface here in the United States that's not going away? Or is this an own goal? Is this something that the Democrats did to themselves by this squabbling, this incessant squabbling between their progressive and moderate wings over the legislative agenda of Joe Biden's presidency? You know, it's both, Richard. This is probably the, these results are the most complicated to interpret that one could imagine because we have everything going on here at the same time.

Let's just say, first of all, that these off-year elections, and this is double off, right? It's not the midterm elections, which are 2022, and it's not a presidential election. People tend to vote against the party in power, because it's a freebie. You vote to express your annoyance. And so what you do in an off-off year like this doesn't tell us a whole lot about what people are really going to do in 2024. So we have to be careful not to inflate. But I think the second big point here, this is electoral politics in the U.S. post-pandemic.

So you got annoyed voters from all ends in the spectrum here, and that explains these confusing results that you talked about. Voters are annoyed because they want their schools open, they want their businesses open, they are fed up. And so in Virginia, the killing comment, and it was by a centrist, Democratic candidate, McColliffe, was parents cannot tell schools what to teach. Well, hold on a minute. Parents have been teaching their kids, as you well know, on and off for the last 18 months.

And that just was the kiss of death for him. And it was a kiss of death not only because of the content, because it really said, out of touch with what we've lived for the last two years. And that just finished them off, frankly. But that's a warning. That's a warning for it doesn't matter if you're a Republican or Democrat. If you're not listening to the frustration and the anger and frankly, just the exhaustion that voters are feeling coming out of this pandemic, you're going to, you will have a tinier. You're going to get this really wrong. That's a great point. Janice, and just to interject there, you know, it's interesting that, just as an aside, you know,

ERs in the United States continue to be swamped. Even as COVID cases has gone down and people are now postulating, this is possible that a number of people who had pre-existing conditions who've been naturally or otherwise infected are now dealing with, you know, the knock-on effects of vascular and other cardiopulmonary kind of damage. And I just bring that up as just one data point to understand the kind of level of suffering that is still out there. Let's hope it's not as acute in Canada, but it certainly is in the United States. And it seems that we have a political class, especially within the Democratic Party,

I urge people to read David Brooks's column of Thursday this week, a political class that represents a bi-coastal kind of progressive party, the Democratic Party, which David Brooks points out is really economically dominant in the United States. The counties within which Biden won represent something like 72 percent of America's GDP. And they are in a sense acting with a with a theory of the case that is developed by their own lived experience, which is bicostal, which is elite universities, which is, you know, elite liberal media. And the way that they are talking or failing to talk to a larger American populace and public, Brooks would argue, you know, they really need to invoke the language of unity.

And instead of invoking the language of unity, what are they doing? Janice, they're, you know, fair or not, critical race theory is now a major determinant in Virginia and other states in terms of voters' angst and anger and willingness to kind of throw the bums out. And they're amping up the culture wars. They're amping up the divisions because they've assumed this position, this rare position of controlling the entire U.S. government. and they're using that to pursue somewhat, let's face it, a somewhat ideologically narrow agenda, which is just, I think, fundamentally turning voters off. I think it is a big risk for the midterms. I think it's more, it's an existential risk for the Biden presidency.

I think there's no doubt at all that voters, in virtually every case number, a lot of local election results here, which moneyed this picture, by the way, that the Reds were losing to the Blues because at the merit level, in fact, we saw the opposite results. We saw very middle of the role Democrats defeat progressive candidates in every big city election except in Boston. And Michelle won. But in every other mayoralty election,

main, you know, centrist Democrats did better than progressive Democrats. So there's a second big, take away here for the Democratic Party. They have to get this legislation passed. They have to feel a sense of urgency because if they don't deliver, for those people you were talking about, Roger, for voters in the suburbs and the exurbs

who have struggled, you know, their struggles are different, but they've struggled just as much in some way, just differently than inner-city people. They will lose. They will lose. There's no question. but one one other big point that's worth making is the winning candidate in Virginia did the most delicate dance I've ever seen.

He was endorsed by Trump and then never mentioned Trump's name throughout the race. So if you're this flag-waving pro-Trump element in the Republican Party, you have to ask yourself too, did a Republican take this governorship because he kept a Republican? distance from Trump. So, you know, that's what I said. The message is here. Yeah, it's complicated. There's a lot of noise to cut to tune out. But, you know, I also think, though, what's happening now, Nancy Pelosi is still struggling to get a vote on her package as we record this on Friday. Because the moderates now are completely freaked out. The moderates are saying to themselves, whoa, we are running many of us as Democrats in red states. Look what just happened in Virginia.

Look what almost happened in New Jersey. We have a. president who has at this stage in his administration, one of the lowest approval ratings of any recent U.S. leader in, you know, post-war history. And, you know, that's not entirely Biden's fault. High inflation. You know, some remarkable statistics out I saw recently that, you know, a gallon of milk. Now, we don't think about gallons of milk in Canada. We think about leaders. It's impossible for me to imagine what a gallon of milk is. But a gallon of of milk six months ago in the United States was $1.75. It's now $2.50. Gasoline, we know this, everywhere has soared. I think that, you know, yes, they've got to pass their legislation,

but boy, politically, I don't know what the lift that is that really gives you, because you have to have the time to implement the legislation for people to feel the consequences. Instead, you have inflation burning a hole in the pocketbooks of these so-called middle class and ex-urban rural voters, you know, combined with a Democratic Party that seems as enthusiastic in certain segments of that party to fight the culture war as the Trump, you know, the worst factions within, you know, the Republican Party. I don't know. I think Biden is going to have to come back from this trip and really think about, you know, know, a reset here, a hard reset because what's happening now, what's outside of his control, but also what's in some ways, not in his control, but definitely something he can influence. What's happening in his party has just eroded his authority as president, his ability to pursue this supposedly unifying agenda that he articulated in his inauguration speech.

Yeah, there's no question. and it's really interesting when you look at Biden's support, which there's always a tale from the presidency. Even in an off year, there's all, you know, the president's hotels always either help or hurt. What starts the Biden slide, interestingly, Roger, the shambolic exit from Afghanistan, right? Now, voters do not care about Afghanistan.

I am sorry, they do not care about Afghanistan. I care about Afghan refugees that are sitting. and safe houses that we didn't get out. But most people do not care. But what did they get from that experience? And we talked about at the time, competence. What you have is a group, frankly, across the spectrum. You have a group of exhausted, shaken up voters

who've been through a terrible experience, unlike anything we've been through since World War II, frankly. And what they want is competence from leaders. They don't know what's in there. that legislation. And the legislation doesn't, that's before Congress right now. Frankly, doesn't have a lot to do with culture wars. It has a lot to do with free kindergarten and better supports in the health care system and better roads. That's what it has to do with. But what they know is it's not passed. And there is a sense on both in the middle and just to the right of the

middle and to the left of the middle. Where's the competence? What's wrong that our government can't seem to deliver and either we're fighting either were their issues about what we teach in schools when schools have not been open on and off for two years or is how close you are to trump or how far you are away that speaks to very few people at this point okay well we're going to take a break here and come back after this short intermission with our second topic no surprise it's got to be cop 26 what's happening in Glasgow? What is the mood around this conference? We're going to get into that with Janice Gross Stein right after this break.

You've been listening to a sample of the Monk Members Only podcast. To access the rest of the episode, consider becoming a member. Membership is free and available at www.w monk debates.com. Once you've joined as a member, go to your membership profile to access the rest of this episode and all of our Monk members podcast. Thanks for listening.