Transcripts For CSPAN2 Douglas Murray The Madness Of Crowds 20240712

Coming to you shortly. In the interim i am so pleased to welcome my guest Douglas Murray to our event this afternoon. Douglas is a journalist, and im sure many of you, if not all, have read his work on the pages of the wall street journal or National Review or of course in the spectator but hes an associate editor. Douglas is also an author most recently his 2019 book, the madness of crowds, and he was with us in person at the Manhattan Institute i think in early 2018 and that was just after the publication of this book, the strange death of europe. Douglas is a Formidable Political critic, and while he is an observer of all things uk and i think u. S. , im not sure that he knew the subject of both his most recent book and this one would come into play so much during this particular moment in time, but they have and its for that reason and many others that it is my pleasure to welcome you, douglas, to our event this afternoon. Thank you very much. Its a great pleasure to be with you and with all your members. Thank you. The way thisll work, douglas and i will talk for the next 20 minutes or so at which point we will turn over the q a to you, the audience. If you look at the right hand side of your screen theres a little widget and a little triangle with the word question. You can type in questions anytime you like. You can do it while we are speaking, and when we turn over to the q a portion of the event, i will be looking at that list and pulling your questions for douglas at that time. So with that were going to jump right in. Obviously weve all been through an opportunity to go through a rather serious moment in history and we will all be doing a lot of selfevaluation on how our or government set handle this moment. We will be looking comparatively across nations to see if theres something we can learn to handle the moment better than we are, and its in part for the reason were so happy to get a little check in with our friends over in england. Douglas, id like to start though with this sort of political moment that uk finds itself. On january 31th, i dont need to tell you, but the uk let European Union and started a transition period, which is only a think about 11 months, so short anyway and emote in time with the future relationship between the uk and the eu would be determined. My question for you is, whats going to happen now . In theory your political leaders are a little bit distracted for the kind of negotiation that would normally happen. Its got to be competent in this moment. Are we going to have an agreement by the 31st of december . Yes. Whether we get an agreement on i dont know but the government wants to get an agreement by then, absolutely. A question came up in the house of commons earlier today from aa member of the liberal Democratic Party questioning michael goads and he was very playing once again there will be no delay, even a minor delay in this process. I think by the way thats right whatever attitude one takes to brexit and britains exit from the eu, important for the British Public who did vote by majority, small majority but the majority nonetheless to leave the European Union, that after three and half years of parliamentary shenanigans and other factors that were going on there appeared to be trying to delay or indeed reverse the decision to leave the eu, its absolutely crucial particularly i government led by this Prime Minister and with this cabinet that there seem not to be reneging on that promise. Even something as major as the current Coronavirus Crisis is going to make them persuaded that they should in any way move that timeline. But if no agreement is reached and we enter a moment in time where there is even more uncertainty, is that going to be good for the british economy in this particular situation . Its that good for anyones economy and in the situation wn at the moment. We barely had economies at the moment in some countries. This is totally uncharted territory. I just repeat this point that the crucial thing is, firstly, we never are in certain times. These may be especially Uncertain Times with a factor just thrown in that had not been expected by very many people, but the Brexit Process has to be separate from that. A commitment of the British Government and id be very surprised if it wasnt fall through on. I gather just this weekend the formal trade talks between uk and america started up, so theres a lot going on, although obviously the main preoccupation is the virus. So that coronavirus at this stage has not in your mind derailed this transition process. Has there been any other fundamental changes that you see coming to the uk as a result of the coronavirus . None other than the challenges that every country is going through. Obviously all of our countries as you well know from the use, all of our countries are looking around the globe for potential best practice, and much more. The figures just came in about an hour ago suggesting that uk has now got the highest death toll in europe of deaths of people who died with the virus so far, and there will be lots of going over why that come about. Theres been a lot of postmortem sort of but it is sort of premature. How are the british people thinking about issues like globalization . I know in the u. S. Theres the question around supply chains come where are we getting our masks, our drugs, all of those type of things. Is there a stronger argument or now antiglobalization happening in the uk . I think that argument is happening everywhere, isnt it . Its happening in every single country. Not least because in the earliest stages of this crisis we all saw some things that were extremely alarming. The example that somebody has written an awful lot on European Affairs in recent years and has traveled a lot in europe and across europe, seeing, for instance, in the early days the crisis when italy was suffering worse, seeing the german and french governments going protectionist uncertain products, i mean, masks, oxyg, this sort of thing. The italian public has seen an enormous swing, rather unsurprising in recent weeks against the eu. I think was rightly enraged by the countries that have lectured people most on protectionism in recent years, actually when the crisis hit, doing something that was completely against everything fit said before. So think theres a lot of looking around and a lot of lessons already being taken but it will be sometime before see the effects of that in polls, in the voting. Lets talk for a second about general public sentiment in the uk right now. Here in the u. S. Is a pretty strong divide of people believe this moment in time is for the evidence of massive government incompetence, and then there those are taking this as an opportunity to say government requires more people and more intervention to be able to handle the situation better. Doesnt matter which camp youre in, trust is at an alltime low in the u. S. , which has quite a number of problems for us. Is that the same thing over in england . Are you experiencing the same sort of divide . No, not actually. I think thats particularly an american thing going on, that is fairly unique to america, sadly, at the moment. In the uk weve seen a rise in trust of almost every institution. That includes parliament, the government, the monarchy, the nhs, scientists, scientific experts, academics and so on. As someone who spends a lot of my time and press when not writing books i dont exactly pleased me to say but not surprised to say that the institution that is fall in the public the most has been the press, the media, which has collapsed in public trust and theres lots of very interesting reasons for that. That aside, one of the most interesting things about the uk example is been that although we have been said to have been a divided country in recent years, much like america has been, in fact, when the scientists got together at the chief scientific advisers were brought in in front of the nations with the Prime Minister and advice was given at the locket was instituted, that was acted upon and there was not, there was not this ongoing divide that is certainly going on in america where even a Global Pandemic is inevitably seen through the proor antitrump prism and that is a particular challenge for your country because if Something Like this cannot bring a sort of common cause or show people the commonwealth springs to drop on, then one wonders what it would take. Everywhere else i think not as extreme as the u. S. , that divide. Amazing to see, walking your streets, how nicely all of your neighbors have participated in trying to keep everyone safe. So from a human to human interaction, theres been a very quick changeover into whats fasting for everyone, but when it comes to the political divide everything continues to be seen right through that antiallpro trump linz. Your Prime Minister was a certain part of the country controversial. I hear he put on unity. Im wondering if right now people are really standing behind him, not only because of his leadership in this moment but also because hes one of the few Global Leaders who had a personal interaction with the virus. How is everybody thinking about him these days . And the most serious. The country didnt know quite aa series it was intels announced hed gone into intensive care, but im told over those few days there were moments when expected to lose him, which would have been catastrophic i think for the uk, not least because Boris Johnson is important, not just at this point but in this period a british life. So it was very close, and it was i think the way he came out of hospital and he had very, very moving message about this and he said doctors who saved his life, as he said, that was something which the public could relate to. Of course theres a followon from that which is, politically this means that its exceptionally hard for the labour party, the labour party, the left, to claim in future that the conservatives do not care about the nhs. Every election in my lifetime the labour party has run on three weeks to say the nhs, 48 hours to save nhs. The nhs is still there as it has since is created since the second world war. Its striking the idea you could pretend after this the nhs is something that not everybody supports, it would seem preposterous but i think its undoubtedly something thats going to be a certain weight on the conservatives with the debt that Boris Johnson himself as pursley said he owes to the nhs, you know, this will either be good years for the health service. The names his new baby right after his doctor who gave him the care. Thats right. Very moving. For sure. Lets talk for just a second about the monarchy because here in the u. S. The American Public follows very closely the relationship of the royals. I think theres a whole generation of americans who have forgotten the monarchy has a leadership role to play, and a big role in public unity, and it seems like this is a real moment. Most people i know watched the queens address here in the u. S. And felt comforted by it. Its at the same reaction youre having . Very much so. It was interesting, again, in recent years we but every institution being claimed to be losing public trust and so on. It was profoundly moving that at the worst period of this in uk, the one person we really want to hear from was her majesty, the queen. Our address was remarkable. Not least because she is one of the only people i think probably the best placed person on earth to draw on the historical aspect of this. And to say we have been through at times before. We have been through worse times before and we have come through them. Somebody who gave her first broadcast to the nation as a young girl in 1940 when with her late sister princess margaret, the young princesses address the children of Great Britain and the empire. It was a very moving thing to see her able to draw on this historical memory, and to give this reassurance. The media much more inevitably likes to see things in afghanistan as catastrophic terms as possible. Many of the people do theres always a risk of increasing fear in in a public, but its crucial at a time like this yet some public figure, and in the uk we have at least this one who could draw on our feelings, draw on her own historical experience, and to say she did, we will act now in a way that makes people look back at us and say they were equal to the forebears. The problem is the corona lockdown consist most people sitting around in the pajamas watching netflix is not quite stormed the beaches of normandy. If this generation is challenge the deed to set this up and expose at least they would need encouragement to do so and the queen provides that. When we think about some of the challenges that our generation now would be facing, they are certainly not remotely the same, the one she just described, but you did name some of the challenges in your most recent book the madness of crowds. And a big part of that book was talking about the rise of the social justice against the Politics Movement into mainstream politics, into the media, the workplace. I dont know how things look for you folks, but here it took, id say about two minutes once the coronavirus had really sort of ascended, took about two minutes for all the various advocates and political organizations that exist to use the crisis to unleash a torrent of commentary and content that reverse engineers the pandemic through their own ideology. They accused covid19 as evidence for the need at least in our country of singlepayer health care, family leave, the green new deal. I mean, they have been fast and sophisticated, and is going to be problematic for us in so many ways. Are you seeing that same massive resurgence very quickly in the uk . I think this is part of the phenomena that relates to the question you asked earlier about the globalization critique. My only expectation with this virus is that makes people double down on what they already thought. That doesnt mean that we get much reach with it, but just as, for instance, there been certain figures in the eu will all want to pull sovereignty more, who said the coronavirus is evidence for what we need to pull sovereignty more. Similarly, politicians like in italy advocate tighter borders have said this is an explanation, justification for tighter border policy. Everyone can do the same every angle in a way, and the identity, just the identity movements in the social justice movements, and no exception to that, extent. It took slightly longer here and it did there for people to Start Playing the sort of social justice identity warrior game, but they started inevitably, the people who started sitting there by saying women suffer more than men from the virus, and then when the statistics show actually males are disproportionately likely to die of the virus, a double down and say the men might be doing the dying but its the women who are doing the suffering. And the endless debates about which ethnic minorities may or may not be something more from it, and the presentation of those questions instead of being questions about why might that be . Simply the presentation of the been yet more evidence of the racism of the society we live in, so we cant even get a virus from china without it justifying the view that america is actually racist society of britain and so on. All of that has been going on. My prediction of it is that what will happen is that people double down as the old have simply because thats the only game they know how to play. They dont want to look at the world unless through the spectacles. An intelligent person or a more subtle person might work out at a time like this, if something comes along that you have never thought about before, its possible that all of your preexisting views may not be justified and vindicated by the arrival of this virus. You might think you might need to think of Something Else but those people will not because this is the one lands to which they see everything. What i would expect and would predict there would be less wider public sympathy for the claims that are being made because of as a vote of the week in the spectator, when off a lot of people in the country have livingston when off a lot of people have seen unemployment come through their families, their own homes, when off a lot of people have got real grievances, its fairly unlikely to my mind that people want to spend very much time listening to people with made up grievances. So you think maybe the scripture overplaying their hand right now . Very much so. I cant see the celebrities who sit back in the house complaining about the awfulness of time to spend all this time cocooned in their mansions. That stuff doesnt play well in the moment anyway. The people have been saying look at me, in recent years. Its interesting though the world draws different from that. In the uk the process the most public affection who would not have recently isnt somebody has been doing to look at me, what a victim i am there to come on now a 100yearold exservicemen who raised tens of millions of pounds for the nhs by doing these sponsored walks. My impression is that people will want narratives of resilience ride the narratives of suffering in victimhood, and at her own lifetimes that narrative emerged. It wasnt the case even in the 1990s that if you proved you were a victim you sort of won the game of life. That happened very recently, and so i can change back and it wouldnt be at all surprised if the crisis which will come up, a crisis to which this may only be the prelude, wouldnt do something to bring about the death of that movement. Im just letting our audience know in just a minute were going to turn to your questions, so feel free to type them in the little widget on the right hand side. One more thing before return to these questions, china. Over the weekend secretary, our secretary of state mike pompeo said that there is enormous evidence indicating that the pandemic began in a lab in wuhan. And President Trump have accused china of misleading the world about the virus. I saw the uk defense secretary commented on it over the weekend and is demanding china respond to these allegations. Tell me, how do you think abot china from this point out and what you can participate at least which seems the direction of the United States in Holding China accountable is these allegations turn out to be true . Very interesting. I would expect to so. Until this crisis came along, the main debates between china and uk was between huawei contracts, over huawei providing part of the uks 5g, and i thought entirely wrongly. I thought the sole major misstep of this discovered so far in tk was in granting that contract. I would hope that that very least would change now but well see. But, yes, i would anticipate being strengthening of attitudes about this everywhere. To me the most interesting thing about this is how the five eyes respond and whether we can stick together on this which i very much hope we can. One thing thats noticeable about this, ive just been writing my column for this weeks spectator which is partly about this, is that in recent years there have been things like the enormous, 2012 between you can then Prime Ministers David Cameron meeting with the dalai lama. There were very rock relations between the uk and china. China canceled meetings with trade envoys and much more, and the government was released rea barrel on it and decided to bend towards beijings will announce they would never meet again with the dalai lama. This to my mind was a very worrying thing. Heres a very important thing for the five eyes. This chilean government that last week called for quite rightly called for an independent International Inquiry into the source of the virus. This i think is crucial. We should not expect and will not get very great cooperation from beijing, but even the sight of that noncooperation will be very important internationally and far public. The point i wanted to make was this. The backlash, the war of words apart from anything else from the communist party of chinas main organs, the journal, the papers that it runs and indeed the comments from among others the Chinese Ambassador to australia have been exceptionally virulent in the last few days. The description of australia being a piece of chewing gum on the bottom of the shoe of china, that china should just pick off. Its really extraordinary language that the using. But heres of the thing. Australia is of course in a different position from the uk. Whereas we have trade deficit with china, they the surplus. We have 20 billion i think deficit and they of 30 billion surplus. This puts australia in a much better position now. What will be interesting in the days and weeks and months ahead is the extent to which chinas leverage is not still there, depending on a nations reliance on it economically. I would hope that the five eyes in particular stick together on this, demand accountability of china, and then have a unified response whatever we find. When you think about the italian, you mentioned earlier on, when you think about the italian reaction, its anger with the eu and its seeming sort of friendly posture towards china for so many of the obvious reasons, its clear that this could be a very complicated time, and everyone was sort of lineup in that Balance Sheet and just the way you described and were already starting to see that. And by the way, the one that shocked the most was the the president of serbia earlier in this crisis with serbia apply for eu membership but gave this speech think eu was never our friend, and it turns out they havent come to eight. Who was come to our aid . The chinese. China is our friend. For america and Strategic Partners around the world, this is a very important game thats going on at the moment. To see country like serbia, a small country with but a significant country in europe being plucked off like that by the chinese, nevermind what theyre doing in italy, so far more significant country in global terms, is something we should really be thinking about. Im going to switch over to questions from the 80 audience from the audience. Do you think uk will be the first of many dominoes that eventually brings the European Union to an end . This is a very tricky question. I should preface it by saying although i voted for brexit and advocate for brexit and always believed witness role in the world was not to remain in the eu, nevertheless, i do think we have said everything went just as a country by leaving the eu, by voting to leave it and then leaving it. And after youve left the club, its not for you to say what you think the club should or should not do. Theres always a risk, talk about the eu of the sort of willing it to do something wrong in order to vindicate our decision to brexit. I just say but with preface, because if the eu does fall apart, and is going to bring an absolute havoc to the continent of europe and a habit i suddenly want to see, i do think the country that is most important look to hear is italy. I have refer to twice already that it is one of the founding members. De gaulle and others always want to keep britain out of what became the eu, whereas italy is a founding member, absolutely crucial to the project. If it goes, then its just a Franco German alliance of some kind. So it is italy the one to watch and, of course, i dont think im breaking a conference, i wont say it was but a couple of years ago i was in italy on another occasion. I have been there a lot in recent years and was speaking to members telling government who said to me that British Government is doing horrible job under theresa may and this italian politicians and we look at you with horror. We think of you and the uk being organized and capable, and if its this difficult for you to leave, he said, we dont have to leave the eu. We have to leave the eurozone. We dont think of ourselves as organize are capable in any way, but if its this hard for you what would it be like for us . That was a very common view in italy in recent years. The people that a a critique of the eu said look, look whats happening to britain. This is not as easy to do as you claim. So eu skepticism in italy significant decline as a bit partial in france, but its definitely on the rise now. So yes, it is possible but i just dont say i will it anyway because i say just extraordinary turbulence which will come about, not least if countries have to return to other currencies. Im going to go to our next question, with so many questions, so thank you to the audience. Im trying to sift through them the best i can. This question is from timothy, and the question is, whether crescendo of antimedia sentiment translate into any change in the composition of media or communication of ideas . Im so glad he asked because you were just early on about to Say Something more about why and how the turn in uk in the media was so swift. Can you tell us more about that . It was quite specific when enough december twisp and happen to the White House Press briefings and questions. Essentially what it is, is the media didnt know what to do thinking of this crisis. As i say to myself, most of the people who work in the media are humanities graduates, people who studied Hard Sciences and did not tend to end up in the media. So there was a serious knowledge gap at the very beginning of this crisis, which athena took a long time to catch up to. What happened was, particularly in uk but i think its the same in the u. S. , everyone continue to play in the media games different languages because it was only games thing play and those include gotcha games, you said this, now weve got this evidence to show this. But you turn game which is one of the ones i least fond of myself. The you turn game is use government said this on march 29, at on april april 3 you then said this. Of course the you turn game is, ive written recently, anyone who drives a car knows this, you turn is quite a useful little maneuver. You often need it if youre driving into a wall, that upon of a uturn will come in handy. I uturn is a morally neutral thing in itself. The media has turned into this exemplar failure or contradiction is another part of the game. Whats striking about this once again is the fact that the public is more nuanced and capable of nuanced than the median that purports to speak to it, to the public. And indeed ask for some kind of intermediary. I think the fact that those games went on to a certain extent they diminished, was the main reason why that the client in trust the most, the journalists just didnt know what questions to ask. Ive had a few rounds with colleagues about this. If you havent written about pandemics or thought about virology anything in the past, you of course have insights, but you are stuck if you have to present yourself as abandonment expert in 48 hours. Yeah. Now that everyone has become so accustomed to having a platform anywhere where they can talk about anything in that sort of moment of excitement, not positive, but excitement nevertheless, seems like everybody just got pulled in and perhaps the upside of this is somewhat of a return to respect and interest in experts. Which wouldnt be a bad thing to get back to. As long as the experts have got this right. I do, as im sure, i do have a worry about this, which is, you know, as of this starts to pass the peak in this country and elsewhere, there will be this growing chorus of people saying maybe it was never going to be as bad as that, and maybe you took the worst projections. Quite strong arguments in that direction. So in this country having famously being saved, heard enough of experts committed that we could knew enough of them. They better have got this right. Which is, gregory asks a similar question and just wants to have a sense im going to paraphrase are a little bit, but whether or not the experts or socalled experts who came up very early on, whether they will come out of this unscathed or whether there will be something to pay at the end of all this as we start to really know whats happening. Will they adopt a more selfcritical or humble tone, or do you think anyone will continue to double down and the environment we will live in from here on out . Obviously were in an interesting collection point it seems to me in the public debate at the moment. So far in terms of britain we have done what we were told to do, and it seems to have paid off to some extent. For instance, the nightingale hospital, was very swiftly erected in east london to taken thousands of patients, has just in put on standby. Theres no one to go into it. Of course people divide into two camps. The one that says thats because we did what we were told to do and thus afforded the worse. And those who say you see, it was exaggerated from the outset. I think one can now see the origins of this concern that kevin has espresso at times, the scientists have expressed the concern about what would happen if you got a second peak and the country had he ordered into lockdown for a second time. I do think now for those of us who have not been studying pandemics, now we know why that fear was there, because the origins of the counter narrative, right or wrong, are clearly brewing at the moment and there are very serious questions to ask about this, seems to me. And then this other one which is on all of our minds, which is that the virologists cannot be the only people determining the destiny and the future major democracies like the u. S. Or uk, and the simple economic demands at this stage are so overwhelming that i can see why this could break but i can see also why the site is our worried about the implications of that. We are just a few minutes before conclusion. Ill take one more question from our audience, and a question i have myself. You had a pretty spectacular election leading to your current Prime Minister, both in terms of what the actual results but how significant they were. Is Jeremy Corbyn in the movement around him, especially given the situation were in right now and expecting to be in for some time ahead of us, has it been really defeated or will it bounced back and something that we all need to continue to be concerned about . I can tell you for sure here in u. S. None of us, were also very concerned. I think you should be. I like to think that the movement in which Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders and others are a part of disappeared or will disappear into history, but i think most of us have thought many times in our life that it was high time that happened, and he comes back again like some horrible zombie narrative. Every time you think your skillet, back it springs. Jeremy corbyn himself and his version, his iteration of the labour party, was completely destroyed at the ballot box last december and there were lots of reasons for that, not least by the way Jeremy Corbyn is not just a socialist, and extraordinarily radical leftist but also profoundly antibritish, antipatriotic, never saw anyone of any group who wants to kill and blow up in maine british people who didnt support them in some way, whether its irish republican terrorists, he was always on the side of the people who are against us, and the British Public knew that and the labor party voted voted conservative for the first time in the lives, a different situation in the states it seems to me. I also think that would be a a different situation after this, and again this all depends on economic recovery on this catastrophe. I would say that again, going to the thing of everything doubling down, the thing that most concerns me is the set of things which those of us probably speak of the liquid might have said were impossible and unimaginable have been happening in recent weeks. Im thinking of things like its not ubi, but its like a test for ubi that occurred in u. S. In recent weeks. Its now possible to see what a British Government who said that theres no spare money can find not just some spare money but billions and billions the ballot every company. After this it would seem to be that when the radical leftists say we would like to do this in the future, we can no longer say that is unimaginable because we have not just imagined it but done it, albeit to a small extent compared to what they would like to do. But once something has been seemed to be possible implausible, then it can be easier to vote for. Right. Thats why at this moment it seems very scary for so many reasons. I want to thank you, douglas, for taking the time to be with us. Really appreciate all the work that youve done. I highly recommend both of your most recent books, this one especially like and for all of you, thank you so much for taking the time to be with us this afternoon pick as a set hope we can all see each other in person sometime soon, if not, this streaming left to do. Thank you, douglas. They could come everyone. Goodbye. Thank you, vanessa. Having lived through a loss of confidence and institutions of ways of cynicism does is unable to trust what we told by anyone who calls himself an expert, it becomes very difficult for us to rise to challenge like this. Our first reaction is to say no, and fine tooth comb their only for themselves, and a lot of our National Institution have got to take on the challenge of persuading people again that they exist for us, that the hip of the country. Today at noon eastern on in depth a lot conversation with author and American Enterprise Institute Scholar yuval levin, his most recent book is a time to build. Other titles include the great debate, and the fractured republic. Join the conversation with your phone calls, tweets, text and facebook messages. Watch in depth with yuval levin on booktv on cspan2. Heres a look at some books that are being published this week. Looking for titles in book stores this week and watch me of the authors in the near future on booktv on cspan2. You are watching booktv on cspan2. Cspan2. Next, New York Times economics reporter Eduardo Porter looks at racism in america. Welcome come everyone. My name is maureen conway, im a Vice President at the Aspen Institute and executive director of the Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities program. It is my pleasure to welcome you to todays talk with Eduardo Porter discussing his book american poison how racial hostility destroyed our promise. The important evocations of that book for our current context. This conversation is part of the Economic Opportunities Program Ongoing opportunity in america discussion series for which we explore the changing landscape of Economic Opportunity and the implications for individuals, families and kinard is all across the United States