The Munk Debates Podcast - Munk Members-Only Pod: Season 2, Episode 25

Episode Date: June 10, 2022

This 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 focuses on two stories in the news. First, what should we take away from the public debut of the findings of the U.S. congressional committee looking into the January 6, 2021 attack on the capitol buildings? Is this the end of Trump's political ambitions to launch a second bid for the presidency in 2024? How close was America in January 2021 in irreparably breaking its democratic institutions? Second, Shanghai is set to go back into lockdown this weekend for another round of testing of its 24 million plus inhabitants. What is driving Beijing's relentless COVID zero strategy as China's economy falters and public unrest over seemingly endless restrictions grow? Are we in fact witnessing a new phase of authoritarian government emerging in China that could well outlast the pandemic? 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 the 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 your 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 listeners. Roger Griffiths here, your hosted moderator. Welcome to this, the Monk members only podcast. This is our weekly program where we dig into the big issues and ideas and the news,

hopefully leaving you with some new analysis and insights. We do this each and every week with Janice Gross Stein, founding director of the Monk School of Global Affairs, an internationally acclaimed author. And of course, my dear, dear friend, always Janice, enjoyed these Friday conversations with you. Well, what a lovely way to start off a Friday. morning, especially

Rudyard, after the film we watched last night. I don't think you and I were alone in watching that. Yeah, and it wasn't the latest Tom Cruise blockbuster, was it yet? No, we want to start this week's program talking about

the kickoff, basically this January 6th committee of the U.S. Congress that is investigating the riots, the invasion of Capitol Hill that occurred over a year ago. And Janice, I want to talk about form and substance.

So let's start with substance, because I want to bring people kind of up to speed. How important do you think the events are in the last 24 hours in terms of some of the key points that this committee is now raising around the reality of these riots, which are starting to look anything, but spontaneous. And their potential fallout, their implications for U.S. politics over this election cycle that we're in right now, the midterms coming up this fall. And then, of course, the 2024 presidential race, a pivotal race, possibly in American democracy.

Richard, that is so hard to answer largely because the form has changed so much. So just to put this in a little context, CNN is running a special on Watergate narrated by John Dean. And they're doing this over two weeks, and it is no coincidence that it is bookending these evenings on January 6th. But that was live TV.

John Dean testified. Millions of people were riveted and could not move and believed what they were here. did not challenge the integrity of the process. If we were back then, what we watched last night would be an earthquake, frankly. Because what we saw, and I thought the most gripping parts of what we saw were, frankly, the conversations the president was having with his close advisors, you know, speculating whether it was a good idea, whether or not to hang Mike Pence. Well, that would, yeah, what do you do with that?

I mean, that would disqualify somebody from ever coming anywhere close to getting a party's nomination, frankly. The big question is, and we don't know the answer, how politicized? How polarized is the United States? So can people discredit this because it's the January 6th committee and it's Liz Cheney on the Republican side who's leading charge? what's the capacity of people to simply discount totally because they don't like the people who are on the committee my guess quite high among the general public not as high among Republican Party machinery my gosh if I were they and watching that I'd have to get up and go for a double scotch on the rocks in order to get through this.

Yeah, you have to wonder how Mitch McConnell, the majority of the Senate, who, you know, to his credit, after, you know, playing footsy with Trump for a long time while he was president has kind of not outright join Liz Cheney in the anti-Trump camp in the Republican Party. But I have to wonder if this isn't, if it isn't significant, and I agree with you that the polarization is real, many Americans will just symbol. disbelieve this committee, just like they disbelieve the election results, and the numbers are shockingly high in terms of really tens of billions of Americans that do think the election was stolen,

despite all the evidence. But I think it peels Republicans away from Trump. And you would hope that at a certain point, and not for all of them, because we know some of them are irredeemable in their political avarice and opportunism. But there are other Republicans. that I think are going to be shamed into standing up against Trump as this testimony goes on and on and on. Because this was only the first night, Janice, of what, yes, of eight plus days. And I guess the bigger question we won't know now is, you know, why isn't the Attorney General of the United States referring, you know, criminal charges vis-a-vis the Justice Department

to the various players involved. Because it goes beyond, this conspiracy goes beyond Trump. I mean, it is a kind of cabal, you know, a list of the ugly in U.S. politics from, you know, the sycophants and the dead enders that clung to the Trump administration on one of the real low points. My follow of question to you, Janice, is to what extent do you think this could be a bit of an escape valve, a kind of clearing of the decks in terms of U.S. public opinion as it relates to the peaceful transition of power, you're a political scientist, you know how important that single convention is. And it's the cornerstone of many of our democracies. And it looks like from January 6th of last year that it really was shaken. a way that we didn't fully appreciate at the time. You know, I certainly walked away from last night thinking, oh my God, we came much closer.

And frankly, we knew this kind of, but I didn't know it in the same way after, as they did after watching last night's testimony. You know, this all hung on Mike Pence on one man who defied. who defied the president and got his own legal counsel and was just convinced that he did not have the power legally to overturn the electors and the results of the electors. But wow, is that a thin thread for democracy like the United States to hang on? Just imagine if it had not been Mike Pence but somebody else. There would have been a very different outcome. And this is you're absolutely right.

this is the critical element in democracy. If you don't have a peaceful transition of power, you don't fight again because one of the reasons it matters so much of you and I compete in an election running and UN, I'll walk away peacefully because I know I can come back. I challenge you again four years later. Once you start to tamper with that stuff, that is the glue. That is the absolute core of democracy. So when I'm hoping, not only at the level of Mitch McConnell or people like that in the Senate,

but let's go to the Republican National Committee, the party staffers, administrative state of the Republican Party Party, it doesn't matter what they're saying in public. Inside, they have to be pretty shocked and pretty upset above what they saw nearly happen, because they all have a best interest in this system. And if the machinery, the party machinery swings as a result of this series, that alone would be a significant gain. You know, with public opinion, you know better, but is anything on TV today going to have an impact on public opinion, anything? Well, let's talk about form. We just had a great recap there, I think, on the implications of the substance of this committee. it was striking jazz to,

and I urge our listeners to check out the film. Really, I don't say a motion picture that was released and played by the committee. I think a fascinating, I don't know, moment to try to understand how government, how a group like this, which knows about the polarization and knows about the rampant, conspiracy that is in a sense embedded in January 6. So they're trying to break through that with this highly cinematic, most Hollywood style presentation of what should be the driest of dry

findings of a congressional committee. What do you think about that? And frankly, are there some risks involved? I mean, if you, if government starts speaking and talking like Hollywood, Does that, in fact, maybe feed the very forces that they're trying to address or undo? I found that film both gripping to watch and fascinating much because what this really says is the people on the committee understand that televised hearings are not going to get them back. That a photo of a witness with their hand raised, no matter what that witness says is not going to. get it there. So Hollywood is won, but we knew that from Instagram. We didn't need the committee to tell us. So I think the committee, we are done. We are done with kind of dry oral and print text as the principal medium of communication. Despite this podcast, we are in the age of

visuals. And these people put together a glossy, gripping. riveting thing. And that's frankly what I walked away from the evening with, right? So they were right. And I think this is their best shot at it. This was their best shot at getting

viewers' attention in that rapid Twitter-like universe in which we live. This was the only way to really to make people stop for a minute and watch this film. And I suspect that's what everybody will be talking about. So listen,

If you miss out last night, go to YouTube, find the film and watch it today because it really is, it really is gripping. But it tells us something about our politics, doesn't it? That this is where we are now. And politics change, the social conventions change. You can't be on your phone tweeting all day, as many of our politically active friends are, and then switch back to a John Dean moment. where he, you know, he says there was a cancer on the presidency in live testimony and the whole world literally comes to stop when those words. So we're in a different age and good on the committee,

good on the committee that they recognized it and used the best tools they had because this is a political moment, Reggie. Well, I think the other thing to realize about the film is that it's, and I'm sure it was designed this way when you watch it, it's infinitely clippable. So basically what they're thinking about is 30-second app clips that are going to be amplified by news organizations and by user-generated content through the various platforms. I agree it's effective. There's something sad about that, though. There's some kind, to me, a capitulation here that the medium is the message.

It always was. But we are now, in a sense, fully in the, the age of reformed democracy and it is, you know, going to drive our electoral politics as we slice and dice issues to microcast them to different demographics. And it's now going to really get into the machinery and the mechanics of our legislatures in terms of how they communicate with the public in a very overt and explicit way. Everything will be reduced to the 30-second clip to a clip that, you know, will then be amplified and maybe weaponized. I mean, it's great that this is the January 6th committee doing this, I think, in the public

service of the critical concept of a peaceful transition of power. But, you know, demagogues can also use these same technologies and these same approaches to manipulate public opinion. We're going to take a quick break and then come back and talk about what the heck is happening in Shanghai. It looks like the entire city of 26 million people is going to be locked down. yet again this weekend for mass testing, how can China possibly deal with the twin threats of COVID-19 and an economy that seems to be sputtering?

Okay, back 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. 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.