I will be the moderator. It is tough. I like to talk a lot, but i will hold back. We have a distinguished panel which i will introduce in a bit. Very quickly, we just came from and all morning session with experts in the private sector, academica, and the public sector, talking about the issues of populism in global politics. The objective there was to do some, basically, conceptual gardening or we didnt or weeding. What is populism . What are we seeing in the world . Is what we are seeing similar or different . And what are the applications for policy, business, and outcomes were generally . This afternoon, we are going to look at the same things, but with a reduced crew. Before we do that, what i want to do, what were going to do in two parts ben smith will be introduced in a second and give a quick keynote. And then he will sit down as one of the panelists and will go in, and i will throw up a couple of softballs that everyone is prepared for initially. We will have a back and forth. We will list a bit. I like living. Bit, and thenf a open up to a general discussion. Hopefully, it will be rich this afternoon. Very quickly, my name is cliff young. I wear two hats right now. On the one hand, i am an adjunct professor here. I teach a course that is going on the fifth year around Public Opinion and Decision Makers. On the other san other hand, i am a professional pollster and president of ipsos public affairs, the thirdlargest polling outfit in the world. We have boots on the ground in 90 countries and we are pulling everywhere here, u. K. , brexit, in europe, very interesting. I will be the moderator. Our keynote talk will be ben smith, editor in chief of buzz feed. He has a long bio, but a quick note. He is one of the most talented mongers in the game. I do not think i have to go into too much detail. Buzz feed is in the thick of it in the politics of the u. S. And abroad, because they are reporting on things outside the u. S. Now as they expand globally. He will kick it off by talking about journalism, the role of journalism, politics, and populism, which i believe he has entitled journalistic populism. Without much more introduction, ben smith. [applause] ben thanks, cliff. , but you did not give me a heads up on the softball questions. Ask for having me. If i wanted to talk broadly about populism, and i thought that was a dangerous they before i know what are talking about in that regard. I am just a reporter. I know a little bit about a lot. But the things that i do i have been spending a lot of time thinking about how you do reporting in this moment, and the thing that prompted this, my thoughts on this buzz feed was recently accused of practicing journalistic populism. It came up after we published a dossier of unverified claims about donald trump in russia, which we presented as unverified, with clear errors, and what we knew about its source. And a column in the post took us to task for this and described it as journalistic populism, the notion that the beltwaymanhattan cocktail set should not keep information away from the american people. Which i think actually echoes some of the antielitism that people find disturbing and populism, globally, the sense of the people versus this shadowy elite. But it is also, i think, what we certainly believe. And in this moment, when there is this real crisis of trust in theory of this, which i think is not the same as a lot of others, is that the way you get that trust back is to think about how you get closer to your audience, how you can persuade accurately persuade your audience that you are on their side of whatever perceived divide this is, rather than sort of standing above them as gatekeepers. Simplest level, that means we do know a lot more about our audience, and what they are interested in, and what they want him and then we ever did all this data people are probably tired of hearing about. Think the kind of transparency the post is talking about is really crucial to that, to winning back that trust, the promise that we are not keeping secrets from you, that we do not pretend to be part of a journalistic priesthood or , and we do not fundamentally see our role as gatekeepers. I thought i would talk for a couple of minutes on what we in this populist moment see as journalistic populism, and what it is. I will not go on for too long, so people will be, why will this panel just shut up. Facingly, the media is the same crisis of institutional competence i know you have all talked about at length, and. Tudied the numbers in gallup are at an alltime low interest in the media. And the question of what the media is is very confusing. President obama and trump, certainly trump, the list a lot directly themselves on video, on twitter. And audiences have segregated themselves into these filter bubbles, where they read what they want to read, which feeds their biases. I think the reaction for a lot of legacy media has been too kind of retreat and look backward, to say, to look back to an era when they were the gatekeepers, to say, we have these trusted brands. Trust us. Go back to these brands. We are going to put these dark slogans on our brands. And trust us because you trust our brand. There is an argument to this. It makes sense in this chaos for readers and viewers to turn to things they are familiar with and names they trust, which are largely serving them behind payrolls paywalls. I think that has been broadly great for journalism, the revival of the Washington Post, be great story of the last few years in media. It is something everybody is excited about. Their Israel Energy at cnn that is broadly incredibly exciting. Think it fully addresses the vast majority of the country who are not watching cable news and subscribing to publications behind payrolls. Feed news, we do not have the luxury of saying, trust brand. Old read the buzz feed news your parents and grandparents read. We feel like the path toward winning Peoples Trust in this chaotic environment, this fromted environment, comes transparency and fighting for our audience on issues they care about. The first thing is that transparency has been a disaster for media in many ways. In the old days, when there was a crime or breaking news stories, if you were in a newsroom, as i was, it would be a total mess. You would be sending reporters to the wrong house, have the wrong name, have the details of the crime wrong, but once you went to publication a few hours later, you would mostly have straightened it out. Now, all that happens in public. The audience says, these people are under idiots. Of course, we were always idiots. It is that now it is more evident. But that theyre seeing that mess in real time, i think, has made it harder to maintain this idea that journalists are this separate class, with this specialized set of skills that allow them to detect the truth in a means you do not have. Newso i think a lot of organizations are wrestling with the idea, what do you do in that situation . Andou try to help navigate engage this chaotic, messy information coming out of a breaking news story, or do you stay silent and wait until you have got it nailed down . I think different organizations take different approaches to that. For us, we know our audience is living in this social media space, where there is constant as soon as something explodes, there is things we know that are true, things we know that are false, stories kicking around that we do not know which are which. And the thing we find useful is to do our best to help them navigate that space, to say to them, we know this thing is false. We know this thing is true. This is a widely repeated claim. Here is what we know about where it comes from. And we will guide you through this story. And i think that is true on nonbreaking stories. Spending time on twitter and facebook, there is an enormous amount of garbage and false stories. In 2016, it was a lot about Hillary Clinton. Now, a lot of you are seeing nonsense about donald trump and russia in your feeds, along with carefully reported true stories. And i think we have always thought that the way to engage and win the trust of our readers is to help them navigate the stuff they are seeing, not to try to keep our hands clean. Thisled us to stories like group of macedonian teenagers who are filling the internet with false stories about Hillary Clinton last year. It was a crazy story. And i do think that when we think about journalistic populism, it is about that you do not have a special knowledge that sets you apart from your audience. And then the other thing, when we think about what kind of populist journalism wins Peoples Trust i think it will not ultimately be about politics. There is no more poisoned and partisan space. The stuff where we feel like we have the deepest connection with our audience are things like a big investigation of a Mental Hospital chain with hundreds of thousands of people. Thoseen they connect with stories, when they see something exposed that touches their lives and feels real and apart from the social media screaming match that is where we sort of find trust. I think there are two other things that this populism is not. In thisthat also, moment when journalism is changing as much as politics one is telling people what they want to hear, regardless of the truth. It is obviously a huge opportunity, and a kind of sugar high. We are hopeful by holding back from those, by deep by debunking things people want to be true, that you win longterm credibility and they feel like you are serving them. The other is really abandoning the idea of professionalism entirely. The criticism of us in publishing the russia dossier was that we would publish any tip, any piece of information that came. A document, that was affecting Decision Makers at the highest level of power, and the subject of a real debate. Note, onne final editor i admire who runs a major global news organization, said he expects journalists to suspend their citizenship to be journalists, because they need to pull back from whatever country they happen to be from in order to follow an abstract set of journalistic values. And i feel like that is, particularly in this moment, but probably always, sort of a trap. American journalism is always basically very patriotic as a business. And we think the audience , and expects reporting as a factor of improving on imperfect country. I think reporters should not be afraid to say that. Ask for letting me share those thoughts. I look forward to having them debunked by experts. [applause] cliff thank you, ben. And by the way, we are being livestream to. And we are being taped by cspan, which will be on tape delay. We will take some of those frames later on. I think we are going to debate the role of the media in todays world. Low levels of trust in media we just showed a global poll that on average in 25 countries, 27 of global Citizens Trust the media. That is even lower right now then donald trump. He has Higher Credibility ratings than the media does. Ultimately, can we think of institutions, in this case journalism or media, as having a populist strategy to attract readers and users . We talked about that a lot this morning. Introduce a panel. I will ask a couple questions. We are going to riff on that. Ben smith, already introduced. Isting next to been gonzales, professor of latin american studies at john hopkins. He is an expert on latin america and will bring that sort of perspective. We have some people from the private sector, some experts from academia, different regions of the world. We can kind of mix it up to have a good and interesting perspective on the issue of populism. Sitting next to francisco is sh professor of Political Science at columbia university. Her expertise is europe. She has written a lot on issues of populism and politics there. She will bring us that sort of perspective. All of them had wonderful comments this morning. Hopefully, we will glean that out this afternoon. Finally, our last panelist is christopher garman, managing director at Eurasia Group. It is country analysis, emerging markets. He is an elite analyst on brazil. He works with sector clients. He is a practitioner, as is ben. Interestingg emergingmarket and practitioner perspective as it comes to the issues of populism. Let me do the following. Let me kind of initially throw out i do not know if they are softballs. I thought they were. I will throw out some general questions, and we will go from there. Listen we were surprised by the u. S. Election. Im a professional pollster. We thought there was a probability of trump winning, but it surprised us. The question is, is what we are seeing in the u. S. , in europe, brexit, Continental Europe perhaps with france is this new . Is this Something Different . Are we entering a new era of politics and drivers of politics . Or is this just more of the same . It is more of an empirical question. Im a pollster. I want people to comment on that. New. Ink it is something it walks like a duck. It like a duck. Maybe it is a duck. Maybe it is Something Different. Thecept of populism term populism has been thrown out a lot by journalists to explain what is going on. We think it is a duck. It walks like a duck. It talks like a duck. But we are not quite sure what it is. If we are really seeing emerging different, drivers in terms of politics, is that populism . More specifically, what is populism . I would like to try this afternoon to nail down those points. What is populism on the one hand . And is what we are seeing new and different . We will kind of work backward. We will start with chris. We will let everyone talk first, and then we will go from there and see where we are. Chris . Chris thank you, cliff. First of all, i want to thank the opportunity to be on this panel. It is great to participate with such a prescient and highly relevant discussion, given what is going on in the world. Cliff highlighted, i work at Eurasia Group. We are a advisory firm. In the interface between speaking with policymakers on the one hand, and business, and elites, and Fund Managers on the other. I have been at Eurasia Group for this deal. Avigating i will say at the get go that i have never, in my 12 years at the firm, had a sense in which the political establishments are so uneasy on the terrain at which they are stepping on. We see this on multiple levels. Obviously, we had one moment, which was we had a very favorable Global Economic environment, leading up to the Global Financial crisis in 2008, 2009. We had tremendous uncertainty over the sanctity of the eurozone project, and a lot of our clients were asking us, and towere on the hook anticipate whether or not we were headed toward a breakup of the eurozone. Our view at the time was markets underestimated the appreciation of political elites, and political elites were running the game. But what we are seeing here today is something entirely different. I would say, to answer your softball question are we seeing something new, Something Different in terms of underlying Voter Sentiment . I think the answer is unequivocally yes. We have very good Public Opinion data. We have got fantastic data. We did not coordinate that before the event. Discontent toward the political establishment, distrust one Political Institutions, distrust with international institutions, be it the European Union or the imf , distrust with big business has never been running as high as it is today. Look at some of the global and cliphas done, already highlighted some of the data points on the media. 20 of those surveys in Something Like 35 countries said they actually trust the media. But you will range from issues do you believe that traditional parties and politicians do not care about people like me . 64 agree with that statement, that the economy is rigged to the advantage of rich people. 68 agree with that statement. A strong leader to take it back from the rich and powerful, 64 . The demand and distrust with established institutions, demand for antiestablishment candidates, is running inordinately high. Fodder for creating political entrepreneurs to tap into that discontent. What we at the Eurasia Group spend a lot of time is, to think, what are the repercussions of this . The repercussions are profound. There is a debate in the beltway over whether the Trump Administration will represent a radical shift with traditional republican parties, and the constraints you can have in pushing through legislation at congress and there are large constraints. There is a withdrawal from multilateral commitments. We are seeing a breakdown of the institutions that emerge after the Second World War on the multilateral security frameworks , multilateral economic frameworks, the European Union slowly chipping away. We are having a realignment of Political Parties across the board. I think an important debate that we only to tackle is, understand the nature of that discontent. What is driving it . Is it economic applications . Something about Technological Advancements in globalization that is driving discontent . Is that discontent going to continue to grow or not . I think it is transformative. I shoe to drop may be the emerging markets and if you look at the level of discontent we have a big elections calendar coming up. In a lot of emerging markets, including latin america, next year. I think latin america will be part of the debate in this time in about a year from now. Let me see if i can briefly address some of your questions and recap some of the stuff we discussed this morning about the question of populism actually is. We spend a lot of time discussing it this morning. The group i was part of basically emphasized two characteristics of populism that we felt needed to be stressed. That first most obvious one is inherent in the term of the idea of the people and that there are a certain people that have been disadvantaged and disenfranchised along with the sense that they have enemies whether they are internal or , external, and politics has become a zerosum game. And this kind of rhetoric and appeal is what frederick moves from other kinds of movements. Differentiates populist parties and movements from other kinds of movements. Second is it is a manifestation and symptom of democratic systems to say they are having a problem that feels it is no longer working for them so it is also a manifestation of problems that arises to revitalize and make it more responsible to people so they feel like they are being left out and it criticizes very heavily existing institutions. Political parties, most notably, and the elites that run that system as out of touch and unresponsive, so often they circumvent those traditional institutions in order to say that they are going to revitalize by working against those parts that have made it unresponsive to the people that have been left behind or are disadvantaged. Thats with regards to your first question. Because this is a panel and its our job to create some debate i will disagree on the second question, about how new this is. If i had a nice powerpoint, which i do not, on the part of the world i know best and i was to show you a chart of the populist parties in europe, you wouldnt see any dramatic acceleration in the last years that support these parties. They were all more or less at the same time and that is the 1970s, why because it is the 1970s we begin to see the breakdown of what we have come to refer to as the post war order. A time when the institutions and practices and procedures that were put in place after 1945 begin to run out of steam. And most scientists recognize the 70s as the time when it began to run out of steam. And we saw the rise in the systems that is to save them on the authoritarian systems where you can have only two parties. You begin to see the rise of the party is very much against existing orders and the traditional dominance of centerright and centerleft parties. What youve seen is they begin to take over the points theyve now become viable contenders for political power, but there is no dramatic acceleration in to support for them over the last 10 years. Its been a secular rise since the and i would argue that its 1970s. Probably also what we have seen with a critical juncture being the financial crisis and obama presidency, which crystallized a loss and accelerated the discontent that has been building. And this is true in europe where you can see that reflected in the dealignment of Party Systems that began in the 70s and has now tipped over to the point some of viable contenders power, but not because they have come out of nowhere or because theyve gotten dramatically higher vote shares, but because the growth has continued as existing traditional Political Parties, institutions, and elites have proven ineffective in dealing with problems that have arisen since the 1970s. So both perspectives are right that it would be wrong to see this entirely as a creation of the refugee crisis, immigration crisis. These are trends that have been there and i think have been catalyzed and mobilized over the last 10 years or so that but they have deep roots in the breakdown in the postwar order that began much earlier. Thats great. Thank you for their present death. On the first one of what is populism, i think on average we agree it is a political strategy and it has at least two components. One from the top down is for an individual and his or her group to gain and maintain power but theres also a bottomup element which is those whove told disenfranchised and why do things have to be done on their behalf to improve, so that if you want in some cases is something, a happy marriage but allows the populist be born and grow. It is definitely an issue that has to do with the idea of democracy has majority rule, and against liberalism, where liberalism is individual rights, checks and balances. Here, the dynamic is the majority rule does not have the patience to go through the motions of the process of liberal democracy to create structure in socioeconomic processes to try to reach consensus, to reassure negotiation. , usually with the successful populist will either do is try to reshape the rules of the game, to strengthen the idea of democracy is majority rule, to try to get delightfully close to the people. Popular initiatives at the expense of the traditional constitution frameworks that talk about. , different branches of government are supposed to check and balance one another. On the second one, i think there in certainly new elements the outbreak of populism. The mean of defusing of the then alluded to this in the group sessions. Time and again to see how much stronger, how much more intensely some of these frustrations and disenfranchisement can be felt, given within the profusion of diffusion of information and it can be alternative facts and posttruth. And if people feel it speaks to them, they might easily jump into this bandwagon and much more effectively, in a shorter period of time that used to be the case. Have becomeentry lower at its easier to create collective action in the direction of populism. Someone mentioned pace and visibility of change, which is related to the first point. Lower barriers to entry, easier to gain Public Appeal for a populist message. The real orback to perceived status dissatisfaction is taken over by a voice that says it will represent these people. Pompeii, julius caesar, they were all members of the populist group as opposed to the oligarchy. That continues to be there. That Public Appeal. And the interaction between these two groups need not be two is the but usually champions of the popular spirit of the disenfranchised. Its framed in an antagonistic manner, in which theres little room for compromise or negotiation. Its either or. Its you or me. The possibility that i can implement my plan that requires me to eliminate you, to silence you if necessary, to water down the rules that youve created, to create a selfserving system where the elite establishment benefits. I would highlight those aspects of a constant that can be seen, at least in the west and in latin america. I was going to shoot off another question unless you want to respond. Im happy to skip the definitional question. I want to throw out another question. I understand were talking about political entrepreneurs, is a political strategy redressing and it, edit hand can be functional in democracy isnt responding to the basic needs of individuals. There are other concepts, but thats what were getting at. It can be antiinstitutional or antielite. It takes on different flavors in different places. Respond toing to share his comments. s comments. Lost is your moderator. Go ahead. Debate,e spirit of the its good that we can contrast some of our views. I disagree with your point. When we look at the levels of discontent we are seeing in the european continent and the United States this has been a discontent that has been slowly growing for a long time. This is not something that changed overnight. I think there are deep underlying structural reasons for that discontent. Whats different is we reached a certain Tipping Point in a lot of these different countries. Thats really what different, it starts to translate into a realignment of person issues and translates to a bridge ability of elections. That swell of discontent that was accelerated with the repercussions of the post Global Financial crisis and the adjustment, and then you throw immigration into the mix, thats when the alignment of the stars that becomes a political solution, and guitar about we can talk about is the European Union in trouble . So what is the potential for some of these candidates, which we havent been anticipating coming to power. I agree fully with your point. This isnt something that is driven by shortterm factors. Its another reason for us to be cautious that when we look at Election Results in europe this year, that we dont over impute negative trends. You look at builders and holland populistlooks like a right lost that election, so maybe the tide is turning in the other direction or if Marine Le Pen doesnt win in france, is a blowback against the popular sentiment that we saw in the u. S. No. The electoral discontent is as deep. We cant over impute a binary effects Election Results and say that the tide is turning. What we have to understand is whats driving the swell of discontent. Thats the real question is going to dictate politics over the next five to seven years. My concern is announcing a reason to believe is i am not seeing a reason to believe thats going to happen anytime soon. I want to focus on grievances and the political entrepreneur in his or her own behavior and strategy. I want to bring it down to practicality starting with ben. Talk about on the u. S. Elections. We will talk about trump afterwards and his strategies relative to some of his predecessors for pushing forward his agenda. What were those grievances in the u. S. That really drove him to power . Point and whatge you understand, i kind of want to hear that a bit. I am little hesitant to give a simple analysis of this election, has he lost the popular vote by such a wide margin and people who had represented issues have lost the popular vote. Its not an easy election to interpret. It wasnt a landslide, there were so many factors. Obvious ones that have been discussed and apply its thete parents of current voters and experienced that. The white racial resentment, its all part of it. From mywhat self new perspective is politics has always been a Media Business. Degreeians to increasing only exists that they are televised and written about and seen. And a Political Campaign is a Media Business that produces speeches and images and videos and text. There has been a sort of merger between politics and media that really was consummated the cycle with trump and he was entirely a media character. That in a way pushed all the rest of the Political Institutions. In a way, i allowed it to be about these grievances, real or imagined. I want to get out and stay at thetional antiinstitutional aspects. The polling we have done in theses scenarios, theres a high degree of belief that the system is broken. But also, the need for a leader to break the rules. You cited a data point what was the level . A majority belief in that across the globe. I want to come back to this antiinstitutional sort of aspect of things. Maybe i will just start with sherri. I think its very important point about the antiinstitutional aspects of what we are seeing. Certainly in europe, the political trend that has gone a long most closely with the rise of the populist right has been the decline of the center or social democratic left. I think those are not just corollaries, i think they are positive. They are causative on a superficial level, in the sense that a lot of voters of social democratic or centerleft moved over to the populist right. This is very clear, more clear in europe than in the United States. A lot of talk about white workingclass voters going over to trump, that trend has been even more pronounced in europe, where workingclass voters historically wouldve voted for the left are now overwhelmingly in some countries voting for the right. The trend is not just a voting trend where that is a causative relationship. Postwarhe course of the period, the centerleft was kind of the movement that you customized the solution to europes postwar problems. It said we are going to offer you a positive some version of democracy. Everybody wins. Were going to have growth and more equality. We are going to have better redistribution. Were going to have national solidarity. Everybody is going to be in this together and were all going to take care of each other. And when that starts to fall apart in the 1970s as the centerleft lax solutions to these new problems of economic decline and the changing demographics of european societies, and the social issues that began to drive a wedge in european policies after the mobilization of the 1960s, the centerleft just absolutely falls down. It does not have good responses to those questions, and its political decline really begins then. Its not linear. There are always cycles within elections, but you can see a secular decline in support for that is absolutely said fed into the rise of the populist right. We see this in a more diffused way in the west because we are stuck in a twoparty system. But we have to see these trends together, because they also speak to the question of solutions to problems. If traditional institutions, Political Parties, he leads, government institutions are not responding or not providing convincing solutions to voters, they are going to look elsewhere. A lot of the voters are looking elsewhere for the 30 years after 1945 would traditionally look to the left. We see a version of this in the u. S. , where its the constituencies voting for the republican and Democratic Party have gradually potentially realigned. Thats probably not a word. It is now. They have begun to switch. Theres talk of the Republican Party being the party of a significant sector of the working class. Thats not a new trend, but is now become something we can talk about as a possible part of the republican coalition. This is a really it is an important change, but its one its been kind of building for a long time. Response to the original institutions not being able to respond to these constituencies or these problems. What about the latin american case . Whats your experience with grievances and antiinstitutionalism . Several people mentioned that, the classic episodes. They start in the 1920s and 30s. They are whats known as resourcebased nationalism. Classpeal of the middle to the elite leaders would be political entrepreneurs is to paint usually captains of industry and therefore analyze, brits, as the french, the enemy. And the idea has very strong nationalist undertones. Public ownership of natural resources, to build institutions that work for the improvements of argentina is, mexicans, as opposed to mr. And the surname with three or four names tightly connected to groups in europe or the United States. In terms of the antiinstitution, i think it is not certainly hold haveptually speaking to a leadership that is is ainstitutionalist universal autocratic system, where everything depends on the wheel and wins of an individual. And whims of an individual. In most reallife cases of the 20th century and early 21st century, the populist will change some institutions, but will build others. The populist experiments of the late 90s and 2000 throughout latin america, one of the key things that populist leaders stand when they had a lot of Political Capital and a strong wave of Popular Support behind them was to say we are going to remake the constitution. Were going to create a constituent assembly to redraw the rules of the game, because they have been rigged in favor of the leads and their foreign partners. This rebuilding and recrafting of institutions usually follows a very similar blueprint. They want to weaken legislatures and courts or pack them with yesmen individuals. They want to strengthen the executive, but in particular, they want to strengthen the direct connection between the chief executive and the people. They do this by including and popular consultations, which can be triggered by different thresholds. 250,000, 300,000 signatures. You can table is in congress and the system is going to be more helping to in fact, address the stasis, the swamp that is the previous system, which has checks and balances, which have individual rights. And obviously, very unequal language like social america. Theres a strong impetus for shortterm redress. And the institutions are not allowing you to do it. To these people banked on strengthening the relationship between the executive and the people by incorporating into constitutions these elements, they call this a new type of democracy. Its not liberal democracy. Liberal democracy is for cosmopolitan elitists. This is participatory democracy, where the people or the majority , or those who feel unrepresented can have a direct channel to the president , who is listening, is very keen to offer some of this redress on behalf of the self perceived as franchised disaffected masses. I want to ask a quick question about antielitism. Its coming up a lot. Case, we in the u. S. Have an administration basically saying that the media was the opposition party, very antimedia, antielites as well. We saw the same sort of dynamic with brexit, the same sort of thing in Continental Europe. Can we talk about that in the antielitism . Is not a characteristic of what we are seeing . We will start with chris in your reaction. Think this is the antielitist undertones that we are seeing, we are seeing this in europe, in a very strong fashion, we are seeing this in the u. S. As well. Public Opinion Research really demonstrates that the trust in Political Parties is an alltime low. The same Global Survey says that constant confidence is at 14 surveyed in 35 countries. Thisnk part of this is Tipping Point phenomenon thats driven probably by the nature of economic transformations that weve seen over the past 15 years. And a growing gap that we have seen between uppermiddleclass and lower middle class segments. The interesting phenomenal i think is that you have this demand and this antielite sentiments, and evidently, its not clear where the political actors are going to best channel that anger and that sentiments. Gut is that over the next two or three years, how this plays itself out in terms of the political actors that channel that anger will also be intertwined with the economic cycle. Are all talking about how politics is driving economics. But i think it will also have a feedback loop again, lets talk concretely. What is the ability of the trump robust andion to be hold a base of support not only from a public advantage Public Opinion point of view, but also the will hold into the republican establishment and congress in line. Much will depend on the resoluteness of the space of support which is now hovering around 40 something percent. Is the u. S. Economy going to be in a cyclical economic recovery or not . If we are not in a cyclical recovery and we are in lagging growth, a lot of these things that the new parties are proposing undermine the components of growth. You can also start to cave the basis for that support. He stood up you set up for another change cycle. The same thing could happen if Marine Le Pen wins in france. You have a crisis that feedback in to undermining the base of support. I think that many times we underappreciated the extent to which political movements that are antiestablishment and antielite either get lucky or unlucky, given economic conditions. I would say a lot of the populist leaders in latin america over the past 15 years and were elected around the early 2000, whether it be the pt or shop or the , they have the opportunity to feed their population on support. It may clifford does anyone else want to respond to that . I want to get to q a sheri to the question of antielitism . I think it is an inherent part of populism. Populism is based on the idea that people are getting screwed by insisting elites and institutions. Existing elites and institutions. I would say the distrust of little parties and the media is part of a larger phenomenon, of a breakdown of trust in the traditional institutions to have governed democratic societies in the west for several generations now. What we have seen in europe and the United States is a parallel incess in the social field, the economic field, and in the political field of what you might think of generally as a polarization. Polarization politically. People are more at the extreme polarization economically. Even is growing inequality as overall the economy has not done poorly. And incredible social segregation. We used to think of that in only ethnic terms, but we have begun to see it in political terms as well. As you discussed this morning, i live in brooklyn nobody voted for trump there. Incredibly undiverse in some ways. In the United States, people are kind of just living in communities where their social values, their sources of information, have become increasingly narrow. This is all part of this larger coalescing of trends that have really created a wide variety of problems in western society. Clifford this brings me to the next question. In mye always had, adult life, we have had a certain degree of tribalism. On ideological grounds, the between republicans and democrats, there is some ideology that does not put much of a factor. We have a red media. Blue media. And a so how do you feel that this environment is different than in the recent past . Think about your career and compared to where youre at now. As actually an actor in the middle of this. I want to hear how is it different . How is a political entrepreneur trump different than his predecessors . Is is anything new or is it more of the same . Red versus blue . Ben i think the u. S. Has always had this strange centrist media. In a lot of places, you have something more like a red and blue media. Here, there is sort of a centerleft media that has really dominated for decades. To me, what is surprising is not so much the rise of an alternative conservative media, but there that have been a bunch of attempts to build a conservative answer to the Mainstream Media. What is new is the rise of this kind of alternate universe media, with real reach, whether that is alex jones, we have been describing this like the upside down of stranger things. Lookssthetics of this, it exactly like the Mainstream Media. I do not know if you saw scott kellys interview the other night, but they are good at speaking the language, mirroring the language, but they are not at all concerned about truth and getting things right. They do not see that as their job, but are really trying to tear down the legitimate media by parity and parody and trolling. I think the Mainstream Media is unfair for that. If you watch that interview, kelly thinks he is winning and scoring points, but they are playing totally different games. One is more about calling into question the basic premises of trust of these institutions and conventions rather than trying to advance a particular agenda. Clifford let me ask another question. Basically, alternative facts, fake news, those are new concepts in our lexicon that we are using quite a lot. This is to the other panelists. When we think about other cases of populism, whether it he in europe or latin america, do we have similar things going on . Wherefacts are relative, information is relative . I would like you to comment on that. Is this something new or reheated populism, just with new terms . I will start off with chris. I will give you the hard question. You start first. Chris there is an element of this that is not new. We have a plethora of examples of populist media leaders who distort the truth, bully pulpit. You look at latin america and published statistics you cannot trust them. Data tina, inflation most economist new it was high, but they try to say it was low. That there is an politics, posttruth for someonely who has been covering emerging markets and in latin america for so many years, it is something in developedals markets like the United States is not used to. This is something we have seen many times. Phenomena ofs the fragmented Media Channels and a diminished barrier to entry to have a voice in the conversation. That is new. That is something about social media, the web, and the Business Model of traditional Media Outlets starting to crack. Of a crackingt Media Business model, and lower barriers to entry, the terrain for populist politicians who are bending the truth and various different sources by which this emerge, it becomes less centralized and more diffuse. That, i think, is probably the new element to it. But the fact that the truth is spent, that is part and parcel of populism that we have seen in many other countries frequently. Francisco first, a qualification on the distrust in the media and on the antielitism. Probably like western europe and the United States, in latin america, we do not have as many databases going that far back, three. Re are at least the have had data since 1990s. 0s and consistently in latin america, the antielitism is broken down into subcategories. Last 20 years,he on average, institutions that retain the highest trust amongst thise who are asked about series of institutions the church, the military, the media. From mexico to argentina on average. Highest chart, church, military, media. These additions with the lowest level of trust systematically Political Parties, judiciaries, and law enforcement. The last three are the core of liberal democracy. So that is a problem. The media tends to be connecting with the clifford in the latin american case . Francisco yes. And connecting to the alternative factposttruth world, we have not baptized this style of reporting thought in latin america, but we have known since mastications, newspaper and radio, started circulating in the 20s in the 1920s and 1930s. A medium educated person, some with secondary education, will tend to be cynical. To know where news is coming from. A lot of news is packaged in a tabloid medical news. People laugh at themselves. Maybe it is a sign of desperation. Look at us we are in the thick of it. [laughter] we are about to be obliterated, they have accounts in switzerland, isnt it so funny . People know about it. Some of this may be true. Some are not. Others are in the alternative facts realm. We just have not had ties to the thought. But the mass consumer of information in latin america has been bombarded by this type of reporting on both sides for decades. I essentially agree clifford in the european case maybe . Sheri in the european case, what then said is correct. There have been more overtly political what you may term Mainstream Media for a long time. It is true in the british and german case. Where newspapers had very clear political lines or bases of support. But these were, in many cases, though not all the british case in particular still Mainstream Media, with some sense that they were part of a abal thattic cobol c had standards and expectations. The democratization of the media has been a very significant trend. Into this has set polarization that has enabled people to pick and choose their sources of information more. It has enabled people with likeminded views to find each other much more easily. So while i do not think the level of facts out there is different, i remember as a person in college thinking about how the vast majority of parent of people about that floods were punishments from god. I think people have been misinformed or interested in alternative facts for a long time. What has changed is the ability likehem to find other minded people. That has been a politically salient trend. Perhaps last 10 years, 20 years. Clifford do you want to come in more generally on that . Ben the other thing that has happened in the rise of this is the transparency of the media. It is so much harder now to maintain this kind of unquestioned authority, when it is much easier to examine the errors and biases the media has always had. But i not easy to document and catch. A lot of institutions are uncomfortable when they make mistakes and do not really know nateo i think you, and air of infallibility 20 years ago, but now, the mass sets you up for parody. Clifford already, we have questions. I was going to ask the last question, but it was not that important. So why do we not open it up to questions . And because we are taping this and we are Live Streaming it, we want to use a microphone. So why not come down here, and this gentleman we will open it up to questions. Thank you. This is a really wonderful conversation. I considered taking staying in my desk and working through lunch, and i am glad i did not. Clifford who are you . I am a local attorney and i will be a student in the Program Later this year. The conversation has largely been bereft of discussions of racism and xenophobia. It seems to me a distant of aspect of trumpism and a centerpiece in his announcement and a fairly consistent theme in the campaign and since. My understanding of the National Front and issues in europe stem from the refugee crisis and issues of integration in turkey and so on. Is how closely intertwined are those forces with the rise of populism . Are the causes or a fax or both effects or causes or both . Sheri great question. I think most people see the rise of popular than in the west, in particular perhaps less so in latin america, as drawn in these two trends. One is Economic Disaster action, the other a sense of social or identity question. I think most of the Research Shows that that latter category has two components. One derives from the 1960s. The decline of the attack on traditional values that begins in the 1960s, making a lot of what you may consider to be traditional voters uncomfortable. Then the changing demographics of society. This is more pronounced in europe than in the United States , which is to say these are increasingly diverse societies, many without a history of dealing with the need to assimilate people from different backgrounds, different religions, different languages, etc. These longterm trends immigration in europe is a postwar phenomenon, but these are exaggerated or accelerated by more recent things. In europe, the refugee crisis. In the United States, the decline of concern of the p. C. Stuff, which draws on backlash of the 1950s and also because disenfranchised groups are now hiring this powerful political voice. This is very much what is going on. It varies country to country in its manifestation and in precisely what kind of identity issues are activated, but you may say that economics versus the social and cultural, these are much a part of what is feeding discontent and the rise of new movements and parties today. Thanks for the question. Two points. They are different ones. On the one hand picking up on saying, what you see in europe in particular but to less extent in the u. S. , is xenophobia are strong enablers for the populist voice to rise and to start garnering Public Appeal. This has been conflated and made worse and potentially more as much as it is connected with ideas of physical insecurity. The issue of terrorism, and the fact that the terrorists do not look like us. There are lots of people coming from destroyed countries, and among them, there must be some wolves hiding and coming, trying to cause harm to us something along those lines. We discussed several iterations beforehand. , nationale Economic Security populism. Becoming popular by offering this per journalistic or toriarchal robe of Security Society which feels exposed, and where, in fact, few but high visibility impact episodes confirm in the minds of many corewe are insecure and a driver has to do with these different people. The second issue is that in ,atin america, classic populism in fact, was predicated on the rejoicing redressing the vast injustice that was done on the original inhabitants of the americas by europeans. Classic 1920s to 1940s latin american popular the contains a significant dimension of racism against whites, europeans. The idea was to engage in nationbuilding of the mixed polity, those of us who are mixed, who have some european inheritance, some indoamerican inheritance, some african inheritance. We have to create a sense of longing because we have been exploited by the whites for 400, 500 years. Populism in latin america is not synonymous with xenophobia some xenophobia, but it had an easy target and an easy way to win points with many. I will take the profit of an answer as well. I am the moderator. I am begrudgingly a moderator, because i would rather be a panelist. But i will talk as a poster. We do a disservice to ourselves to call it xenophobia or racism. What we actually do is delegi timate real grievances that real people have. We understand it and have measured it here in the United States and in europe, that it is really the key driver. There are two key drivers. On the one hand, a broad sense that the system is rogue, that the system is not working. The u. S. Erstand in case, Bernie Sanders and trump being two sides of the same coin. But when it comes to trump voters, it is actually nativism. It is about identity. About the United States is not my same america as grandparents. I no longer identify identify with the place i live. I often say nativism is a pejorative term. Ivist think everyone is nat everyone can agree that at foreigners should have some of these is. They should be some control of the border. Theres a continuum of people who are less or more nativist, but there is a continuum. So understanding that it has to do with a sense of identity and loss and grievance allows us to better understand it been doing exactly what we did during the election, both in brexit and here, brushing it off and saying, yeah, the reason this ecause weing is b have a bunch of racists and zero votes. Xenophobes. That is doing a disservice. There is certainly a core of racist voters, but there are a much larger group, and the data supports this, of people who are really just concerned about what they see as the loss of traditional values and identity. In the european case, there are interesting and revealing examples. The most powerful populist party in europe is the National Front in france. Le pen has done a remarkable job of changing that party from the party of her father. She commonly figures african and muslim figures in her party to make clear that what she resents or dislikes his people who come to france and do not want to be french. It is not this is what she says. Color of their skin or where they worship, but it is that they do not want to be french. There is a dog whistle going on. No doubt about it. But there is a clear shift in her party from the party of her father that has made her much more popular but made the people who call her supporters racist very much part of the problem. Because they do not see themselves as racist. They feel themselves protective of the french identity rather than negative towards foreigners, per se. Youalling them racist, open up that divide. Clifford long answer to a great question. Next question. Thank you. I am with american university. The phrase that you started, mr. Young, that you said you were surprised about trump winning was a catalyst for me to ask this question to mr. Smith. Agreeournalist, do you that mr. Trump was not the only one who lived in his own reality . Also the Mainstream Media and polls did that, too. And there was a lack of indepth that left a space for people like mr. Trump and likeists on the ground, Steven Crowder and a lot of just in thethem, people and speaking their minds, and saying, you are great, america is great, our problem is globalization, feminism, you had that if realization in the Mainstream Media, what has changed in your coverage . Ben there are a lot of Different Things in there. I think the media got some things wrong. So i think it is understated media and polls got wrong. Trump did lose the popular vote. I think people were right to be surprised. Dooley lowgan probability things happen and kind of byprepared definition. I guess i think there is now a storyline that the media did not cover. Unhappy white people in the upper midwest in general, those who showed up to trump rallies in particular. It just is not true. If you want to go back and read Washington Post articles in the midwest, it will take you days to get through them. People do not really read them. In the media on broadly, this sense that Something Like trump could not win in the United States, nothing like that has happened before. And the kind of complacency to it. I guess i do not necessarily see a Straight Line from that to social media provocateurs like the one you mentioned. I think it is related to something we were talking about. I guess you can get into arguments about definitions of racism and nativism, but trump, in a very traditional way im used to covering direct groupbased appeals, but trump shared to people who shared his ethnicity, that he would represent them. I think the change of the sense of a white majority gave him and give other people a kind of cover or excuse, whatever you want, to make a direct racial appeal to white people, to say i will be your candidate against them that felt nativist. Clifford anyone else want to respond . Other questions . A question over here. We will go orange, and then in the back. Edmund. I know edmund. I am admin. I am a student at sais. We talked about the factors that give rise to populism. I was wondering if we could discuss more states that have bucked the trend or will do so, either democratic or nondemocratic. Clifford awesome question. You got your a. [laughter] i will handed over to the panel. Chris that is a good question. I would look at some of these resentmentsolitical that we are seeing against Political Institutions and elites as really a spectrum of his content that ranges from more to less. Thehink that this is analytic challenge is how do you translate trends, which really are on a spectrum basis, to really focus on anticipating binary results on election day . I often think that we confuse the two. The analogy alike to make is even in sporting events, there was me on this analogy you have a tight basketball game. Two teams are down to the wire. Lets say that at the very end of the game it is tied. Kevin durant for the warriors shoots. It goes in and they win. Inevitably, pundits after the game will start to describe the factors that led that team to win. Its because they had a good defensive game plan, good strategy. Then they say structural factors as to why the team lost lost. Clearly, the coach had a wrong approach. When in fact, it was a coin flip. So the way that i would, in terms of now, we can probably look at the spectrum of discontent on the european continent and look at Global Surveys, and you will see that certain homogenous countries that do not face as acute issues of immigration or who have larger social safety nets if you look at the level of discontent, it is much lower in japan and sweden and canada. There are interesting reasons why that is the case. German elections are probably not going to have the same set of fervor that we have in france, right . Say what is important is what is driving that discontent across that spectrum, not on whether a couple of these countries are going to not elect these populist type candidates. Because if, in fact, drivers continue to exacerbate, that will feed the political process more. I think that is an absolutely correct question to make. I have no doubts that the headlines we will get in europe the next for five months, and in our estimation, we do not think Marine Le Pen will likely win, though she may well give but she turnedt, that tide is in europe that is the wrong conclusion to make. Clifford other people responding . Sheri there are some interesting cases, but fewer than you think. We discussed the canadian case, which is an outlier, because it is a Diverse Society and one without much backlash. The german case i find almost less interesting, because while there is less rightwing populism, the Historical Context there is so unique, the historical biases against mobilization around those issues still so strong, that it is not clear to me that the german case is comparable. I think even in cases like sweden, where you have a relatively strong rightwing party, that these cases are still unusual. Given the degree and rapidity of change, the degree of backlash, i think, is still surprisingly small. Youre getting relatively good polling for Something Like of the Sweden Democrats in sweden, but if you look at the numbers, the democratic changes that have on on in that country they have a higher part of foreignborn or citizens with at least one foreignborn parent than any other place in europe in a society that, a generation ago, was so homogenous that unusual, iseen as was still argue that is the case where the backlash is, despite being problematic, so much less than what you would expect that there is still something going on that we can learn from. The only real outlier i can think of is canada. If youre looking for a place where you have high degrees of diversity and low degrees of the satisfaction with existing institutions. Francisco the classic political economy response it does not mean this because it is classic and in textbooks it is the right 1 but it provides a framework to address the question. Conditions and you find places with lower levels of levelsity tend to lower or have less strident levels of ress need for shortterm reder given how dramatically Different Things are. Japan, sweden, germany is there. You also need the institutional settings. Here, these are responsive institutions of governments to 40citizens have 35 percent plus distrust, yet the place works relatively well. More often than not, i feel like a stakeholder. Japan, sweden, canada, germany, would also fit the bill. Systems very important. In latin america, this is crucial. This is what manages to distinguish countries which, for many purposes, are relatively years ofin terms of industrialization, percentage of the population living in european areas. But you contrast argentina with e, the three had similar early 20th century history. They are the earliest industrialize is. Life expectancy, education attainment starts growing earlier and faster than in other places. Chile two of these cases, and uruguay, you have strongly grounded and strongly rooted Party Systems where, in fact, the party advocates are socializing people from school onwards. Not primary or elementary school, but high school and university are crucial socializing agents in these places. They would channel people into a hardty of options, from economists to modern economists to social christians, christian democrats, to far right nationalists. Start,ntina, you sadly 1912 reform in which enfranchised males with something that undermined parties, which did derives benefits from the leader to constituents. We end up with is is a very unbalanced system, whereby it pays more handsomely for a majority of people to take their grievance directly to whoever is in power, particularly if they are winning. He she has tailwinds behind them, and things begin to improve for the majority, they will take their grievances and aspirations to them, bypassing the element of representation. So Party Systems that respond, where you see alternation, and were resourced into end up in negotiated solutions. Horsetrading. Those places are in no way immune but are less likely to experience bouts of populism. In latin america, there are 45 countries with incidents are significantly higher. These Party Systems and the issue of responsiveness is crucial to understand the difference. Clifford we are near the Witching Hour beWitching Hour. Probs are you giving to a nonle pen outcome . Chris 60 . Stanley. Could we see a european spring . Clifford who wants to start with that . Sheri by european spring, what do you mean . Meaning a revitalization of democracy in europe . Or the counterpoint. Sheri i am not sure of the question. Social uprising. Sheri what do we think the chances of that are . By social uprising, you mean lots of protests in the streets . I think we have already seen that. I do not expect europe to be violent, at least the western portion. The french will have to protest all the time. They will do that anytime. If the french were protesting, i do not necessarily see that as something new. Neither do i see that as surprising in eastern europe, where democracy is still relatively young. If i started seeing violent protests in places like germany and sweden, i would begin to get nervous. I would put the probability of that being relatively low. Peaceful protests, we have seen that. That is not unhealthy. See democracy being destabilized in any significant way anytime soon. Chris i will refrain re frame the question. What we saw in the arab spring was Political Institutions that have long been held. And there is an upslope of swell of social discontent that led to the demise of that social this social order. I do not think we have that same demise, because there are channels or discontent. The more interesting question is can the European Union face a theion of the arab spring next five to six years, is that something we are underestimating . We think when i headed there, pathway. T there is a if Marine Le Pen wins, if this leads to politics in germany changing and how to keep the eurozone together. And the antieuro sentiment starts to grow. Maybe we cannot have an air of spring in the coming years for the European Union. That is anly important debate that will probably grow. We teach in the latin american department, so one more. Last question. It has to be the last question. Thank you very much. From germany. Imf visiting scholar at johns hopkins. While i have been in the u. S. Several times, i am a little surprised about this pessimism. Maybe this is linked to donald trump. Are farhe europeans more optimistic than you are. I would say the chance for Marine Le Pen to win is less than 10 . That is not because of polling, because of analysis. Her electorate does not exceed more than 30 at best. Lose in thesurely runoff elections. And that is not forget that populists populist party in europe have not reached the majority. In germany, they will get less than 10 in the elections in september. Even in hungary or poland, where they are governing, they did not have majorities, just because of the electorate system. So they are far away from having the majority. The European Union is far more stable than you would think of here in the United States. That, soet money on that was not really a question. You should think why are you so pessimist currently . [laughter] clifford and those last words, thank you so much. [applause] internal americans optimists eternal optimists . We used to be. Thank you so much. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2017] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] this is a live picture of the Senate Judiciary Committee Meeting as members are making final statements. And preparing to vote on the nomination of neil gorsuch to the supreme court