Transcripts For CSPAN3 Nationalism Liberalism And Democracy 20170426

Impact elections in the u. S. And abroad. This is 90 minutes. Well, thank you, brad, for the kind introduction and let me start by thanking my friend Robbie George and his James Madison program on american ideals and institutions and bringing me to princeton its my first time here at this beautiful campus. I want to start with a personal story about my birthday. I happen to have been born on february 1st, 1985. But the february 1st is the point of interest here because on the persian calendar, i was born and raised in tehran, iran, on the persian calendar its the date on the Ayatollah Khomeini returned to tehran from his exile to herald the Islamic Revolution and founded the republic that took over after the shah was toppled. All of our relatives and friends would ask me, remind me what was your birthday and i would say february 1st. And they would always say because you brought the stench of the imam, which is terrible but its true. Why do i say that . None of my relatives were opposition figures. They were just average, middle to upper middle class tehran residents. So the surprising fact is that most of them supported the revolution when it happened but including some of them who were civil serve servants in the shahs regime that was always a warning for the hazards of political frenzies that can take over because you had an imperfect state that was socially permissive and progressive in many ways. It was definitely not a democracy but in a fit of national i would say political madness, many of the people who carried out the revolution came to regret they toppled that and replaced it with a profoundly liberal and quasi totalitarianism regime. It will anchor the story. We are not at a threat of seeing an islamist revolt take over the west not in that way, the way that it did in iran but it just to be careful about rocking a boat that might be not perfect but replacing it with what . So when professor george invited me to give this talk it was last summer. I just publiced a cover essay titled liberalism the worldwide crisis. And we were in the heat of the president ial campaign in the u. S. And i tried to set our election in the context of what i saw as a Global Development which is the rise of liberal movements of the far left and the far right across much of the developed and new world and the decline of liberalism as a governing philosophy. As liberalism fades and i went on to argue that what we now call trumpism and sanders in ism by the way represent the american stregss of this wider crisis of liberal order and of the liberal intellectual tradition. Now the time most journalists me very much included were convinced that donald trump was headed for a thumping in november. I made a bet with a friend from boston who was an early trump supporter that if hillary lost the election i would eat one of my shoes. Here we are now, i still havent made good on that bet. And im not sure if i ever will. Ill have to make it up to him some other way. But the essay itself has held up pretty well. If anything i think the events have since then confirmed my basic claims. To whit i think something has gone awry with liberalism. You can see the signs from the philippines to south africa, from vermont should note that y probably notice that it is unnecessary, but still when i say liberalism i dont mean that as a shorthand for people who vote for the Democratic Party in the u. S. Or as a sort of shorthand for the center left, but in the broader philosophical sense. I will define it very loosely. Im sure you will dispute my definition. We all think Different Things of liberalism, but broadly individual rights, democratic, pluralism and relatively free market. What used to be called the open society. Now, that liberal idea hasnt appeared to my mind as vulnerable as it is now since perhaps the period between the two world wars. Only now days the opposition to liberalism doesnt come from systematic ideologies like communism or fascism, but instead it tends to come from movements that are geographically disparate, often instinctive, and often theyre in combat with each other. Meaning the very liberalisms are contending with each other. Theyre more likely, again, to be local in focus and internally divided among themselves, which is why i use the somewhat catchall term illiberalism to describe this. I would like to use the first half of my talk laying out the diagnosis i had done in commentary magazine as well, why has liberalism gone awry and what are the defining characterisin characterisices of this ill liberalism. I will try to offer more scriptive claims, you know, what is to be done. How can liberals again i dont mean it as the left but as anyone who adheres to that broad philosophy of individual rights and pluralism, restore the promise of the open society in this age of illiberalism. I will draw a lot on my work as an editorial writer for the wall street journal, and ill probably make more sweeping claims than is appropriate in an academic setting. But if you again, if you think but i think theyre rigorous and factually sound, but if you im happy to dispute them and discuss them further in the question and answer. So how global is this new illiberalism ferment . Lets start with europe, and give you a map. Lets start with france. Right now the likelihood is that the fillon campaign, the center right campaign in france, is imploding, which means the real two contenders are emmanuel macron, the centrist liberal candidate, and of course Marine Le Pen of the far right national front, which has gained adherence and is truly growing. I wont make any predictions. After 2016 i have just i have learned my lesson. Im not going to make any predictions. But i would say that i think macron is weaker than a lot of people assume. I dont think he has organizational structure and i think he put himself forward as an obamalike candidate for an age of pitchforks and insecurity and anxiety. So i think not a prediction but a warning that i think macron is weak. Lets turn to austria where the austrian freedom party, which has genuinely nazi origin, almost won the presidency in austria last year. It is, again, a party thats finding outside of vienna, it is finding a new strength and more adherence. In germany, the alternative for deutsche land party, which you know is increasingly challenging chancellor Angela Merkel from the right. We will see what happens in that election this year. In the netherlands they have another politician who is illiberal and has crazy hair, who, again, in this years election could turn out to be the largest votegetter. In finland you have the fin party, which is entered government for the first time as an explicitly antiatlantic agenda, in opposition to nato and the liberal order. In central and eastern europe, Prime Minister in hungary used to be the exception to the region where he was putting forward a quasi authoritarian conservative nationalism. He was hollowing out a lot of the Democratic Institutions in hungary. Again, everyone thought it was the exception, but increasingly across the region you are seeing similar parties taking support, which suggests that it might be the trend and not the exception. More depressingly, in hungary itself the main opposition to Prime Minister comes not from a centrist party or a center right party or anything like that. It comes from yobick, which is inexplicitly neonazi. Some of the other parties i wouldnt describe that way, think theyre far right or whatever, but not genuinely fascist, but i think yobick is and i have interviewed their Senior Leadership and theyre genuinely terrifying. In grease the government is headed by the left, but it grew out of the 1990s antiglobalism movement. We have gotten used to them being a presence on the national stage, but given those origins it is part of the wave that happens to be coming from the left. To under line the conditions in greece, in the 2013 election the party that came third was golden dawn, which has a swastika for its logo. In britain he wishes he was Prime Minister, but the leader of the party, jeremy corbyn, has fast broken the partys peace with the third way marketfriendly liberal model that was champion by tony blair, and he is making he is staking the party increasingly on opposition to markets, on hostility to nato. Also in britain obviously you had brexit, which by the way i dont necessarily suggest that every brexit voter and the leadership of the movement fits in with all of this. Think it is a more complicated case, but at least one strand of brexit drew on this kind of p populism and illiberalism. Across europe various movements are energized. In Northern Ire Land there are movements watching. On the left the e. U. Is seen as a neoliberal vehicle for imposing austerity and tearing back workers rights in favor of corporations including foreign corporations, but on the right brussels is blamed for blurring National Borders and boundaries, flooding europe with immigrants, an substituting a bloodless multiculturism for the continents authentic natural cultures. Lets turn to turkey on the bridge between europe and asia. The country has transitioned to authoritarianism and a new sultanate is under way, especially since the attempted coup of this summer. More than 100 Media Outlets have been shuttered. Tens of thousands have been detained or pushed out of their jobs, and obviously president erdogan is attempting to transform the countrys system from the parliamentary system they have in place into a strong president ial one, of course with himself at the helm. Then, of course, there is russia. Russia is in many ways the standard bearer and the supporter of a lot of these illiberal movements across europe. It funds them sometimes. It certainly helps them deliver their message through its broadcasting networks. So having transformed his own country into an authoritarian, president putin has now set his sights toward dismantling the liberal order and consensus in europe. Lets turn to iran and the arab world. You might be surprised to even mention these because obviously theyve never been liberal places. Theyve always been repressive and theocratic and so forth. Even there, there are signs of the liberal slogans and ideals that drove the 2009 up rising in iran and the subsequent arab spring being replaced with nationalism in many ways. There have been recent surveys of arab youth that suggest that the increasingly want stability, that freedom as a slogan, as an aspiration is no longer interesting to them. In iran that generation of Young Students and middle class types who rose up in the 2009 after the disputed election, theyre now demoralized 30, 40 somethings who want to get on and more or less have made their peace with the system. I could go on, but in kenya, in south africa, in the philippines you are seeing similar ideas and movements rise. So it is worth asking, what is going on here. I think the typical answers, although theyre plausible and interesting, are flawed because i think they eschew ideas and ideology. So voters are reacting to sustained slow growth and dizzying technological change. Okay. But these illiberal attitudes are growing in countries that are growing rapidly. Poland, for example. The economy is chugging along, but voters are turning again for liberal order. Or it is said that the protective class of corporate and political elite have been uninterested in the pain of the unprotected many and now theyre having a long overdue reckoning. Okay, but when have elites really ever been in touch with the unprotected many . So all of these explanations are plausible. I think theres something to all of them, and some are more persuasive than others, but none is ideological account of ideological phenomenon. To think about illiberalism this way is one of the symptoms of liberalism in that it reduces all enemity and ideology to legal and economic issues. It is one of liberalisms blind spots. But i think the liberal ascendance we are seeing now and that i suspect will be a defining feature of the 21st century is what happens when that capacity of liberalism dissolves ideology and again win enemity and social conflict in a stream of commerce and law, it reaches its limits when it can no longer do that. And when liberals dont give politics, ideology and enemity, frankly, theyre due. And taking perhaps a little too seriously their own claim of standing above and beyond ideology and politics. So to see this global explosion of trumpism as merely a reaction to social, economic and legal developments is to reproduce the same common error. I think some of the people who are the sharpest critics but also the most more sympathetic observers of these illiberal movements are making the same mistake. I think it is more important to go to the set of feelings and ideas that are the work of any real ideology to get behind what is driving it. To look at the policy mix that typically is offered by thinks illiberal parties and movement isnt that interesting but lets list them. They tend to prefer trade protectionism and social protection more broadly and to alleviate the anxieties of workers who feel left behind by globalization. They tend to prefer immigration restri restrictionism and they tend to be structures that since the end of world war ii govern what we call the west and produced the liberal order we are accustomed to. I think what matters more, again, are those deeper ideological impulse also and sensibility also. So what are those . I identify three as being the defining feelings and sensibilities behind these movements. One, the restoration of a prouder, more wholesome, morocco her more coherent things. Make america great, the slogan itself recalls a time when industrial relations were fairer, the 1950s manufacturing was king and we could return to that. Two, to talk about yobick in hungary. Their leaders talk about restoring hungarys proper national boundaries, and they do have these feelings about returning communities that were lost in the postworld war i settlement to hungary, and they look with fondness to that era. Theres a strand of brexit that i think shows has this similar sense of returning to a past in its most romantic framing again, not all brexiteers think this way, but in its most romantic framing it imagines the open sea and not the continent of europe with its petty bureaucrats as britains future destiny. Obviously Vladimir Putin inweisingly presen increasingly presents himself as a bull war of christianity as against the west which blurs national boundaries. I will point out i interviewed Marine Le Pen in 2015 and she said something that was interesting. He asked her about the trans atlantic trade packet between the u. S. And europe and said what is your objection to it . She said, it would mean we would introduce unhygieneic products into europe. Trailed by definition means shifting cultures and this anxiety about unhygieneic American Products is very telling. It says something. Thats the first point. I think the second psychological plank or the sensibility plank of this new liberalism is a feeling of collective grievance and a desire for national recognition. So trumpism obviously is defined by a set of grievances against bankers, mexicans, muslims, the chinese and so on. Ironically, in europe it is the u. S. Who is only the bogey for these types of movements. Tpip folks, people who oppose the trans atlantic trade packet will say American Products uneven hygieneic or were going to have genetically modified American Food and similar phobias. Take alexander dugene, who is often called putins philosopher but more accurately scribbled as his philosopher because i dont think he has as many direct ties to the kremlin as he suggests. For him liberalism is another form of invasivure verseallism that threatens russia, and america is at its head. So he describes america as a kingdom of the antichrist that should be destroyed and at one point will be destroyed. When i interviewed him in the wake of trumps election, he didnt sound quite so apocalyptic but he told me, quote, liberalism is totalitarianism. With trump in the white house he said that all who reject, have an opening. That is a shift that we underestimate. In hungary Prime Minister orban and yobick are seeking to renegotiate the countrys war time capability. In an interview last year i asked about hungarys role in the holocaust. He readily conceded, yes, hungarian government had the responsibility but he quickly added, quote, this is a very complex issue because hungary suffered a lot of harm during the first world war, a lot of hungary populated territories were taken away from hungary and transferred to neighboring countries. I will never question anybodys right to commemorate the events of the past, but identity cannot be bit on tragedies as it will inevitably lead to more and more confrontation. You have this sense that to only sensor a sense of nation hood in europe and a sense of identity on europe on never again and what happened in the holocaust is somehow an affront and theres a hunger for something more. I also think that theres a desire and this is the third plank and the final one is a desire that politics reflects the dark realities of the present time. I happen to think that this is the area where the illiberals, if you will, have a point. The problem is the solutions they have are either issue rational or well, illiberal. It is where i think liberals, again, defined as broadly as possible, have a role to play to think, how do we rejigger the liberal program so it addresses these genuine concerns. Its desire that politics reflect the realities of the present, what do i mean by that . It means a recognition, for example, that enemity can be permanent, that bad actors cant be transformed into good ones and a sovereign nation needs sovereign options for dealing with timeless features for life in a fallen world. The moment i saw donald trump would win the republican nomination was when that was in november 2015 paris massacre where president obama came on and said more or less everything is fine. Again, he refused to say radical islam. And our strategy against isis is working. I thought that was a sense that theres a carpet pulled from under you because you think, what has just happened in paris, hundreds of People Killed and the certainty with which the president dismissed it as, well, it is okay, well work on it and everything is fine. It is not only bigots and reactionaries and phobic characters who want to see order amid chaos. So when you have al qaeda across these ungoverned spaces across the world, you have the rise of isis, you have a refugee crisis, theyre not the only ones who are concerned about this. By the lame and haphazard responses in brussels, ber hin and washington, people everywhere want to see order, clarity amid danger and chaos. That brings us to the second half of the talk, which is, if thats the case what is to be done. Ill go back to my opening story which is i come from iran. My basic Life Experience tells me that liberal order is good. It is what people i mean i dont have it is almost difficult for me to have to argue for that, but liberal order is good. Illiberal orders arent as good. But i think too many thinkers in the u. S. And europe have begun to concede a way to basic soundness of the open society. On the left and right you see a disturb inklingness to say maybe liberalism as we know it has out lived its usefulness or maybe now were seeing the hidden flaws sewn into the fabric of liberalism at its founding, are now coming the light and perhaps good rid dance. I also think theres a lot of romanticism into what can flourish. I see too many conservative friends who i otherwise admire apologize for putin, or wax poeting defending nation hood against liberal globalism and christianization. I hear rhetoric from quarters i used to hear from the far left. Yes, putin is no angel, but no are we. To hear the u. S. President say similar things is astonishing, nightmarish. For personal reason i have a loathing for this mixture of romanticism and cynicism because im a product of the iranian revolution. The mistakes my parents generation made taught me the attempt to resurrect wholesome path provides worse than what exists now. As i said, liberal order is good. Human freedom is good. A society that gives people the opportunity to follow the dictates of their own conscience is good. Trade is attractive. But it is equally clear to me that liberals and, again, i think it is important to underscore i dont mean the left or progressive. But the broad liberal family need to rejig some aspects of the liberal program to make sure it survives the 21st century. I began hinting at some in the first half. I will put seven broad proposals for how to rejig the liberal program. First, i think liberal has to stop. Im on a college campus. I am thinking of course of last weeks incident at middlebury, this inability to name things by their name. So in europe often the sanctioning and sensoring of the wrong kinds of speech on islam, and integration turns the illiberals into folk heroes and martyrs who voice forbidden truths. So suppressing debate about moroccan immigrants in the netherlands wont make the underlying issue go away. It is not just the wielder who says the crime rate of moroccan immigrants in the netherlands are alarmingly higher than native born dutch, and thats something liberals need to talk about honestly. So dont give the illiberals a sense of occult power or name radical islam. Why . I dont mean it as a Strategic Point although theres the larger Strategic Point how you defeat it. First you have to say what it is you are fighting. Lets set it aside. A Prime Minister told me in 2015, if you only say islam has nothing to do with it, people wont believe you. This refusal to not associate ideology with the extremism that it produces results in the fact that the only people who are willing to tell the truth about it are the illiberals, you know, and theyre not selective enough to say, well, theres islamism as a radical movement that is dangerous and 1. 4 billion adherents of islam who want to get along. Two, i have already said this but liberalism needs to stop looking so feeble in the face of terrorism and the threat posed by regimes like putins. It is rich to me, frankly, that now in the u. S. The democrats are sounding so hawkish on russia when for eight years they more or less acquiesced as the president made one concession after another to moscow. It cannot be that every terror attack that happens we just say things are fine. Theres something going on in these where people feel insecure. I feel insecure sometimes. Three, i think liberalism must return to the center. Here is what i mean by that. The obsession with sexual minorities as these sort of pronoun games at a time when you have isis and refugee crisis, the rise of putin, the economic anxiety so many people have, liberalism for a lot of people has been reduced to talking about bathrooms and whether or not to use the pro noun ze or zer. To most people it makes no sense. They look at it and they say, these people arent addressing the problems of our time. So the new identitydriven liberalism thats obsessed again with language games is tire some and wont win elections. Liberals need to win elections. Four, i think liberals need to start trying to shortcircuit democratic processes when they dont produce the desired liberal out comes. I will name a few. The immigration executive order that president obama passed down to essentially stop enforcing u. S. Law rather than going through the congress to present immigration reform. The imposition of gay marriage by judicial fiat everywhere across the west. All of these things build up frustration because people are used to their parliaments and people are used to their congress, and thats where that Business Needs to be done and not through unelected judges or bureaucracies. Five, i think liberalism must aggressively promote assimilation, especially in europe. Multicultural anxiety is not all irrational. I live in london. I happen to have been born in a Muslim Country and to a shiite family and i feel a certain degree of multicultural anxiety in london where the sense is, is there a common identity to britain. It need not be blood and soil identity, but there needs to be a greater thing that defines us. So that i think, the assimilation question is key because when you have assimilation it eases the anxieties about immigration. Six, i think liberalism needs to become more comfortable with nationalism. Nation hood, belonging, disclosed from the previous point, but nationhood and belongi belonging shouldnt just be the domain of the far right. I think in europe a lot of times you will see this crisis of anxiety playing out among both the nativeborn population and the immigrants. Because there isnt a sense of what does it mean to be german beyond just a set of procedural norms that are very nice and that are liberal and good, but there has to be some other sense of identity. Among some people, it drives them to the far right in a search for identity. Among muslim immigrants the search for identity drives them to islamism sometimes. So proceduralism is not enough. I think liberals need to be able to talk about nationhood in a comfortable way. Again, we have to be more complicated than the far right. But that doesnt mean we shouldnt attempt it. Seven, this is probably the more philosophical point but i think liberalism needs a sense of purpose and moral authority. Some account of evil and fallenness. Increasingly the reactions to world events, to the terror, to economic anxiety, when you talk to liberals there is not a deeper thing there. Theres not a there there. I cant think of cohesiveness, and for having a place in which our conversations about evil, about the irrational, someplace where those are contained that in the west judeochristian heritage. If you think of others im happy to discuss them, but i dont see any other. I recently the austrian cardinal and he made a similar point. When the west rediscovers its judeochristian heritage, it will discover the truths about itself. You know, the things that are good about the European Union or things that are good about liberal democratic societies ha harken back to the judeochristian heritage that weve inherited. So those are my seven points. So to conclude, i do think that liberal civilization has proved far more resilient when threatened by antiliberal forces in the past. Its institutions have a remarkable capacity to adapt. As a set of legal norms and economic principles and, more important, as a cultural force i think liberalism still remains overwhelmingly dominant. Chrisically liberal ideas about the limited power of the state and inherent right of citizens have expanded into every corner of the globe since 1776 and liberalism has advantage wished every rival that stood against it sense. The success of liberal powers to this day presided over the liberal order. The liberal idea need not die out this century and i bet that it wont. But in order to thrive in the 21st century, liberalism needs tougher liberals. I will stop there and thank you. [ applause ] let me just say a word about q a here. Thank you. That was very interesting, very thoughtful, very bold. Must have stimulated some thoughts and questions out there. So well move into the q a. The Madison Program has a little tradition, had it for many years, which is to invite any students in the audience, whatever level youre at in your studies, to ask the first questions. So let me invite students to raise your hands. There are microphones, if you will just hold off until somebody puts one in your hand. Right down front here. Thank you. Why dont you identify yourself. Hello. My name is i am a sophomore in the Chemical Engineering department. I would like to ask a question. I know you focused most of your talk on the western civilization, but regimes of liberal democracy spanning the far east, mostly in south korea theres been a person who wants to see better relations with north korea. Were seeing kind of this illiberalism creep up again in china and the philippines as you mentioned. Are the set of solutions that you presented the same for those countries or do we have to apply a different approach in those areas . Thats a very good question. My solutions are geared towards the developed world and the western democracies. I think my diagnosis tends to apply in places like the philippines with the rise and duerte. What it looks like in that context it will be different. There is not a liberal tradition in some of those places, though there is in japan and south korea and the like, but elsewhere there isnt one. I think the answer is to work at a ground up, but it is the same frankly, i think were in some sense in the same space as everyone because theyre now more than ever, there are questions about fresh principles and i think it is healthy. People are asking everywhere what should society be like, how should we organize society in a way. In the west theres doubt and in certainly in the areas that you pointed out theres doubt. So theres this pedagoguic for liberals to make the case about what the free society is about all over again. I hope that helps. Other student question . Way in the back corner there. Would you identify yourself, please. Thank you for this talk. My name is jonathan, im a senior in the Woodrow Wilson school here. It seems that modern illiberalism seems to thrive off the increasing problems, especially compared to the 90s where there was ideological end of history. My question is to what extent do you think modern illiberalism is identified by a ideology and to which do you think it would acquire one with opposition to liberalism . Thats a very good question as well. I think that they actually are far more coocc more coherent th give them credit for. Nels are ideas that have been developing for a long time. They have a sense of opportunity now because they think that liberalism is under question like never before. There was youre right. In the 90s there was not a challenge. I think the only other alternative ideology after communism was making some headway, was islamism. I think no one in their right mind i think would say lets impose an islamist society. Now theyre offering a real alternative, and theyve thought it through. For example, le pen draws on the work of this the french philosophers associated with what is called the new right in france, allen benoit and others. It is thought through and based on some degree of communica communitariansm where they say liberalism is not real freedom, we are unhappy, we feel economically insecure, we feel displaced geographically. The people who are among us who are newcomers, meaning the immigrants, theyre not happy for them. Theres a natural place for them and it is over there. They thought through these questions. So i think theres mo more coheerns. With trumpism i think it is different. I think it is a lot more shoot from the hip and instinct, and not all of his instincts are illibrary rachlt when i illiberal. When i say that i set aside trumpism. In europe it is coherent, philosophical. Is that a student back there, while were back in the corner. Then we will come over this way. Thank you. My name is sukrid, a senior in the economics department. So think you had mentioned that we are in a pitchforks and flames era, and you specifically said that, you know, so macron has been an unviable candidate in this kind of pitchforks era. Also you said in poland the economy is chugging along and yet theyre turning illiberal. You know, i sort of seal that we are we show we are unequivocally at a time that is better than any other time in our history. I am wondering what is the cause for this change in perception to believe we are in this pitchforks era. Do you think it is a Grassroots Movement or is it a movement that is led, inspired, sparked and fuel by maybe not establishment, but people vying for political power like Marine Le Pen on the far right or donald trump here in the u. S. . Ill start by challenging your premise. I dont think everything is good. I think that there is real insecurity in europe, on the streets where you think that at any point something could go kaboom. There is a strand of liberal triumphantism if you see it on fox or wherever they layout data. Just judging by x, y, z indicators everything is good, but thats not all people think about and live by. So, therefore, it is both. In other words there is real anxiety, but there are also people who thought through how to address those anxieties with a political program, and the two are commingling and interacting together to create the current illiberal ascendance. Other student questions . Yes, maam, back here. Thanks for the talk. So i heard you Say Something about elites, a good little joke in there. One of those things that i was asking myself during your talk is the role of your audience in the concerns that you raise. Were here at the university. What is the role of the academy in addressing the seven points that you have laid out, or has academic voices just been kind of discredited by the concerns you raise . An amazing question. All of the questions are amazing. I want to be a good guest. [ laughter ] man, theres a lot of nonsense in the academy. So to start with, this should be a place where now this university, academia should be a place where we can talk about the islamist issue, the integration issue, and yet increasingly the conversation isnt even being had. So let me pick another University Rather than this one. Brandeise we see the really disgraceful disinvitation to ian percellie. They invited her, students protested and they withdrew the invitation. They said, oh, you can come back but it would have to be a dialogue. All sorts of other speakers come. To sing it her out, in so many ways she is all that is good about the promise of immigration and of liberalism because she stands for, frankly, a form of feminism you would think in academia it would be embraced, and yet to treat her that way. The conversations are not being had. I see the university from the outside, and all i see is like the new bathroom thing. You know, it is like theres so much going on in the world. So, anyway, thats basically i dont think it is contributing unfortunately. Although there are bright spots and exceptions, this program being one of them. Yes, there in the blue shirt. If youll introduce yourself, please. Hi. Im hunter. I am a freshman planning to major in politics. My question is in the very beginning you mentioned trumpism. I think that we look at Bernie Sanders and his platform. He is more moderate than in finland, denmark, norway, iceland, germany, in europe he is more modern than a lot of their politicians. So i was wondering, do you think it is fair to compare sanderism to trumpism . It is a false equivalent maybe. Those politicians in europe are having trouble winning elections. They cannot pay for their welfare program. Theyre in trouble. So i mean i guess as a socialist in the u. S. , obviously the program he can put forward, there are political limits on it that there arent in europe. But thats it doesnt real really the sign is when he said, do people need 21 brands of deodorant. You know, thats the sort of 1930s socialism where, you know, why cant we just have one brand and there isnt so much competition, what are we doing with all of this deodorant. Theres a profound point there, which my colleague david feiss wrote a great piece. He was yet sins visit to texas supermarket and his sense of astonishment at what Consumer Society achieved. This was either in the early 90s or the late 80s. I think by suggesting that our dynamic capitalist system is producing too many different kinds of deodorant, i just picked on that one example, theres so much more suggests that hes a kind of illiberal. He is a kind of a certain strand of american socialism blended with a kind of crunchy, granoly, gentryless that plays in places like vermont, but it doesnt make it any less illiberal. I spent a year in moscow about 25 years ago and there was no deodorant. [ laughter ] other student questions . Patrick brown. Thanks. Patrick brown. Im a masters student at the Woodrow Wilson school. I was wondering if you would talk about the role that religion plays in this discussion. Obviously on the one hand pope francis might be one of the most leading figures of liberalism in some ways, but then in france people are saying that traditional catholicism is experiencing resurgence with some of the populace movement. I was wondering if you see religion as playing a role advancing or helping the advance of illiberalism . I think religion is the best defense against illiberalism. Again, i go back to the judeochristian tradition. Why . Because it allows you to see the other person as specially endowed with rights. You can empathize with them in the sense that if you share a brotherhood across various identity boundaries, it is because of your shared heritage, where you come from. Unfortunately, what i would say is that especially catholicism in europe has been pushed in so many places into an alliance with the far right because of a very strident secularism. Catholicism and christianity more generally meet ideologically over there. The same, i made the point that there are some conservatives who i profoundly respect, but who see the stridentness and, frankly, the bullying out of religion out of the democratic Public Square in the west, and they say, well, look at putin. He stands up for russian orthodoxy. I think we need not drive those people and those thinkers over there because thats who they know, that putin is a thug. You know, it doesnt take much to realize his opponents keep kind of bringing their head near guns somehow or keep having accidents and eating dangerous tea or drinking dangerous tea. So they know that, but theres a sense that the liberalism has gotten so aggressive, again, on issues that are so foundational to what christians believe, and people of faith generally, about gender, about relations between sexes and other things, and theyve been totally delegitamized. Who is left that speaks to them . It need not be the far right. In fillons case in france, it is unfortunate because he was beginning to meld a responsible, still within the Center Program with his catholicism. It just so turns out he had some ethic issues that collapse. Other student questions . Have we exhausted them . Lets open it up. Back here. Yes, you. Wait for the microphone. Im nick curry, a ph. D. Student at cambridge in international relations. I was wondering about russian active measures and how much of these trends do you attribute the fact that might be related to the fact that the west is engaged in a hybrid war and isnt fully aware of it . And when you study the doctrine of hybrid warfare, a lot of the things that are happening in terms of influence operations and other things are exactly consistent with their play book, and there have been incidents at cambridge and at oxford and other places where revelations have recently been come up that that theres more activity than expected. What my question is, how much do you think this is a matter of the russians exploiting preexisting trends or how much do you think theyre actually driving those trends . Another excellent question. So, Vladimir Putin spends about 300 million a year on rt. We spend about 700 million on voice of america. But rt is incredibly relevant in our conversations here in a way that i dont think the oa is that effective anymore, it hasnt been for a while, since the cold war. So absolutely there are things that the russians are doing with the funding of rt, with sputnik, with loans allegedly to some far right european parties and other influence operations. But i think it is dangerous to think that the illiberal ferment we are seeing now is just a russian conspiracy. Actually, the democrats in the u. S. Are going in that direction rather than asking, what are we doing, what program are we offering, should we rethink some things, of saying it was just russia. And it is the same in europe. Yes, hes doing all of that, but im convinced that with other things that are going on, most notably the refugee crisis in europe and the wider terrorism thats spinning out of these ungoverned spaces in europe, on europes periphery, even if russia werent there that these anxieties would boost far right parties. So, again, liberal also need to get better at governing, at winning elections, at persuading people, and, of course, the west should combat russias influencepeddling operation. But that wont answer this deeper question. Other questions . Down front here. Im david forte with the Madison Program. Most of the organized illiberal groups tend to be on the right, and you have characterized the response of liberals as being silly or irrelevant such as what happened on campus. But maybe what has been happening is that we have had generations of illiberal leftists who have actually gained control of the leaders of power within the bureaucracy, within independent agencies, and what you are seeing is the end game of their illiberalism as they began to isolate and cast gacasti gate people with whom they disagree. I think i tend to agree with you. I think i did touch on that in the main talk when i said that the liberal censorianist, i was categorizing that as well. Theres a sense in the nordic countries they call the opinion corridor on any number of issues, especially the most hot button ones of immigration, assimilation and islam in nordic countries. Theres a narrow range of opinions that acceptable opinion, and if you theres a social punishing mechanism if you bring up all teternative viewpoints. Certainly within the mainstream media, within the opinion corridor is where you will see the point of view and the range of opinion. So all of that, yes, i agree. I think that it is a bit of the illiberal left getting a bit of a comeuppance. Lets go over here. Thank you. Thank you very much for an excellent talk. My name is dennis farley, im a retired pharmaceutical scientist. My background is biochemistry, so please excuse if this is a very naive question. I would like to return to a question that was asked before by the gentleman in the corner. That is that from my understanding we actually are living in just about the most peaceful time in World History t we tend to forget that three generations ago europe, the United States and japan were involved in a terrible, terrible, horrific atrocities. I was here at a Panel Discussion last year on the danger that isis might present to the west. It was i believe it was a James Madison program. The speakers did not agree on everything, but they did agree on the fact that isis does not and cannot present an existentialist threat to the west, they present a terrorist threat. In your response to the previous questioner, you said that there is a real feeling of anxiety, and that i believe is absolutely true. But canquantitatively we are lig in just about the most peaceful time in World History, and theres a lot of fearmongering thats being done in order to drive that anxiety. What can we do to effectively counter that fearmongering . So lets talk about isis and lets talk about jihadism. Lets draw a map of places that have become completely destabilized. So iraq and syria no longer exist as coherent nation states. Across swaths of africa there are ungoverned areas, some of them constantly being reclaim by more legitimate forces, others not. These places also we should mention nigeria which has this boca haram insurgency, mention afghanistan which has a genuine both a taliban resurgence and an introduction of isis, it is afghan expression. So i think if youre living in those zones, certainly the threat is youre not looking at the data and thinking, well, my life is pretty good, i should no, fair enough. But i think that the danger from jihadism in its various forms isnt that they could obtain maybe a weapon of mass destruction and really be an existential threat to a western nation state, although it is not something we should rule out and i hope security agencies everywhere are alert to it. But the danger is that the very the danger comes from the fact that by making people feel insecure, if you are in large urban areas in europe, you are constantly worried about the next ak47 thats going to go off. That itself is a danger in the sense that it drives people to embrace harsher and harsher politics and turn to illiberalism. So it is not the scale like, okay, if we were to quantify the threat now compared to two decades ago what would it be. It is about the fact that people feel insecure, and thats sure, i mean i think the way to do it is not to combat peoples perception. It is to combat terrorism and to bring order to ungoverned spaces in the middle east and north africa, and also to limit the flow of refugees. A Million People is hard to absorb for any part of the world, especially people who come from a very different culture and from very unfree societies. I say this as an immigrant from a society like that. To absorb a million is too much. And, again, i think quantifying it is not the answer or thinking of it as people are just misperceiving things. I think it is a reality. Zblo other questions . Down front here. Then we will go over there. Steven napier from new york city. A longtime fan and friend of James Madison program. If you look back at Barack Obamas election, it was george bushs collective performance over eight years that brought him into office. Fast forward to the last election. It was Barack Obamas performance and Hillary Clintons message that were rejected, and donald trump was elected. I think it is a bit simplistic to say it is simply a tradeoff from republicans to democrats and back and forth. I think it is also a bit simplistic to say we are moving literally in a linear fashion left to right. Just imagine for a moment that donald trump is in office for eight years. How large a Seismic Shift could we have in the next presidency, and which direction could it go . Because the three that ive just mentioned could not be anymore different from one another. Ill just refrain from answering that. I think that prognostication eight years, man, i dont even know what is going to happen in a month especially because this presidency is so dynamic and intense, and driven partly by his tweets and personality, drir driven partly yes, he tends to thrive on a certain kind of chaos. I cannot imagine what eight years later. What i worry is that you will get a very sort of sandersesque left. So identity driven, hostile to markets, and i think whats happening in the dnc right now, as, again, i watched this from the outside because i dont cover domestic politics, but it is cause for concern that a certain kind of democratic centristism, the Democratic Party is sort of disappearing, near extinction species. I just cant imagine what it would Henry Jackson would be, like where he would be in todays Democratic Party or even under the obama administration. I mean it is just so it has gone so far to the left. Those trends to my mind maybe you disagree, but those trends are on the left are also accelerating. Down here. Im ben story. Im visiting fellow with the Madison Program. You sort of just answered my first question which was about the trajectory of the opposition to the Trump Administration in this country. And because you were describing the disturbing trend if it moves left. If thats the case, i think you made a really good case for a kind of centrist liberalism. Whats the political vehicle for that at this point . And the second question is that im surprised to be noticing about the comments on our Current Situation from a wall street journal reporter, your remedy included almost nothing about economics. You know, i think the discontent that fuelled both the trump phenomena and the sanders phenomena cant be disconnected from the collapse of the industrial economy, joblessness in large parts of the United States and so on. I think you make a fair point. I think i probably did not put enough emphasis on the economy, but the fact is that we have had the weakest im not going to talk about the u. S. Now. The weakest recovery since world war ii. It is not normal for the u. S. To average growth at 2 a year. Theres also i mean people point, for example, to the unemployment rate. It is quite low, but thats just because vast numbers of people have exited the workforce. Youre right. By the way, when the i do agree with this point, and this may sound like economic reduction, but theres something to it. When the growth pie is growing so to speak, anxieties about immigration and welfare competition are alleviated. Theyre not solved, but theyre alleviated. So i think you make a fair point. I dont know if i answered your first question though . The first question, where do you think [ inaudible ]. I am seeing it elsewhere. In the u. S. I dont know. I think paul ryan represents Something Like that, and the house leadership which i hope will shape the administrations agenda more than the other way around. But in europe you do see some World Leaders are standing up. So tony blair is one example ill name, where he clearly doesnt want to come back into politics as such, although maybe, but he has just started to say and you see it in the op eds and other places where these people are saying, we need to restore the liberal center, something has gone wrong. I will note that blair also makes the point that when liberalism gets reduced to bathroom and pro noun obsessions, it doesnt win. So i look at more i dont look at parties so much as what are some establishment figures starting to do and to rethink. But i think theres much more to be done, sure. Lets see. With his hand up right there. Thank you for a stimulating talk. Would it be fair to say that a major factor in the ascend yancy of illiberalism is due to the tremendous influx of muslims . I dont think thats the case in the u. S. I think the u. S. Has had historically fantastic ability to make people assimilate. I think, by the way, it is partly because our welfare net is so loose that of europe. I think that the refugee crisis in particular was probably the biggest boo biggest boon to these parties. When Angela Merkel threw open europes doors and started taking them in in vast numbers you know, ill tell you what. I traveled with the refugees and did a feature series, and i was very sympathetic. Again, as an immigrant i can never be anything but sympathetic towards other immigrants. But eventually, especially when i followed some of the refugees in turkey before they arrived on some of the islands in greece, this was a route called the western balance can corridor. They start in the middle east, iraq, iran, afghanistan, go to turkey, take a bus down to izmir and from there the boats take them to the greek isles. I lived actually for five, six days with in a refugee safe house. What i will say is that it dramatically changed my view, where i thought sympathetic to refugees. I think a lot of them are escaping genuine hardship, but that assimilating these people, unless the western receiving countries have a very strong assimilation program, language acquisition, job training for economies that dont need that many service laborers, and these folks arent qualified for much else, and a vikind of values driven that says this is where we are, this is how we behave, you have to adapt to western norms of conduct, i thought this is really difficult. This is really difficult. Especially as you say, in europe you have europes native muslim communities where theres a lot of unassimilation. A lot of the cases, the parents and grandparents were assimilated but, a, out of a desire for identity, b, islams rising strength as a real force in the muslim world, the younger generation, the ones who are the first generation, the second generation, are being drawn to radicalism. It is very tragic, but i think theres no doubt, no doubt that thats been a factor. Theres a crisis more than anything. So we can get everybodys question in in the next 15 minutes, i would be grateful if you would follow judge millers example of brevity, if not bluntness, but brevity for sure. [ inaudible ]. [ inaudible ] area. My background is consulting. My concern is the tendency to put things in boxes and call them things, liberalism, illiberalism. When i am looking at what is going on first of all in the United States, there are similarities that are going on in europe. But i would see it in a little bit different light. I would see it that a significant number of our citizens have lost a perceived control of their lives. For example, i think professor angus deacon has done a tremendous job in terms of showing what is the plight of the lesser educated, the High School Graduate and undergraduate, whose parents thrived in our society. I wont go through all you mean with their mortality rates and the working class but that is a symptom of something. Sure. It is not a cause. I wont go into the details here. In the european situation and what happened with brexit, it has some of the same characteristics. One of them is you have in the European Union, you have a governmental system that is extremely remote from the people who are living it within those areas. You also have a situation that, that extremely remote system decided to let all of the muslims come in. So i see it as an issue that is very much, were living in very turbulent times. Technology is changing. And im going to shut up, but from the standpoint of whats going on there may be some basic issues that were missing. The democratic deficit of europe. I will join you any time in saying that the European Union governs too much. Theres too much of it. Every time i deal with one aspect of it, im amazed theres an entire building devoted to whatever. I favor the remain side in the brexit debate, and the reason was that the basic idea of free trade and the Free Movement of goods, services and people is good. Europe is in many ways thriving thanks to this interconnection, so i didnt think it was worth severing britains economy and all of the supply chains that are there and the institution ties and so forth, especially when britain couldnt be anymore at the council of europe, advise them to say, please govern less, make less rules, because they have more angloamerican tradition as opposed to the European Union overregulation. If something new comes about, the european instinct is to immediately create a law about it, in contrast to our system where we say, lets see what happens and the law will kind of develop. So i agree with all of that. I think that the European Union, if it is to survive, needs to shrink. It has become it has become this remote, permanent, undemocratic institution. It can do a lot of good, but it just there needs to be a lot less of it. And there shouldnt be this tendency, for example, if poland elects a conservative nationalist government, lets sanction it from a european level. Why . These people are allowed, and National Parliaments are more attuned to the people, you know. Stay out of their way in some ways and just do the things, just facilitating free trade should be European Unions role and not this larger, super national, Trans National effort which i think youre right, people are rejecting. Sure. Down here. Hi, im jenna story. With the Madison Program. So some people say that liberalism and democracy naturally pull in different directions. I guess in a direction where liberalism is kind of a limitation on political power, protection of a private sphere, and democracy would be a political form in which political power is not necessarily limited. Is this the way you see the problem . If so, are we looking for a kind of balancing moment where we may be acknowledge the liberal side of things too much in recent times and need for liberals to acknowledge their dependence on the democratic side of things in our world . Or do you see things in a different way . At the end of your talk you suggested liberalism needs to articulate, and i wasnt sure if that fits with that prior conception of a kind of balance between liberalism and democracy or if it is a different suggestion