The penchant for many Americans to virtually worship a would-be strong-man leader, Donald J. Trump, and for much of the Republican Party to defer to him, has taken our nation to the precipice of a constitutional crisis that could mean an end to liberal democracy. And the upcoming mid-term elections could send us over the cliff.

"We are big two centimeters from the precipice," warns political scientist Daniel Drache on the Lean to the Left podcast.

Here's why:

Many Republican candidates are election deniers and "maybe half...believe that Biden is not the legitimate president.

Hate speech has increased enormously since 2016 when it played a major role in Trump's election, and studies show that five times more Republicans are using hate speech than Democrats.

Large numbers of Independents have moved into the Republican column.

The Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade abortion ruling will fail to turn the tide for Democrats.

"I think the Republicans have an edge and that we're going to see a fundamental change in both the House and the Senate," he says. "That's why I think it's on the precipice. And then, of course, what is the Republican agenda?

"Impeachment. Change fundamentally the civil service, loyalty oaths; there's a whole variety of things that the Republicans, vengeful seeking, could believe that it is their term to swing the wrecking ball on the Democratis. So I don't think this is a panic or an overstatement. We're just entering into a very different world Where the hard right really will be in charge of both houses and the conservatives own the judiciary."

Drache and fellow political scientist Marc D. Froese have written a riveting book, “Has Populism Won? The War on Liberal Democracy”. It’s a brilliant account of the global upsurge of right-wing populism, what’s behind it, how Donald Trump tapped into the latent anger of voters, and what might lie ahead.

Their book examines exactly how populist leaders like Trump reach into peoples’ fear of being left behind, using it as a lever to power by promising to look out for the little person and to return to national greatness. Has Populism Won? is written as a warning about the toxic impact of hate speech and the big lie on liberal democracy.

Drache has documented and mapped hyper-globalization and its consequential impacts on communities and peoples for more than two decades. He has published over 20 books on the global political economy, Canada-US relations, NAFTA, social movements, defiant publics, trade governance, and social media.

A professor emeritus and Department of Politics and Research fellow at the Robert Centre for Canadian Studies at Toronto’s York University, Drache has also taught in France, India, Argentina, South Korea, Australia, Brazil and China.

Here are questions we asked Drache:

First, let’s define what we mean by populism, and how that differs from authoritarianism, nationalism, and even nativism.

How is it that people like Trump are able to tap into the anger and fears of so many people?

Does Trump pattern himself after other authoritarian leaders, like Putin, for example?
In your book, you point out that Trump loves to use “dog whistles” to rally his troops. What were some examples? Does that continue to this day?

You also write that Trump was willing to endanger the national rule of law if the system did not deliver an electoral victory. Do you believe he will pay the price for these actions?

You also note the rise of conspiracy theories that continue to this day, even to the point of the Q-Anon craziness. How does this play into populism and its growth?

Donald Trump loves to call the media “the enemy of the people.” He attacks immigrants warning of rapes and murders, in fact, virtually anyone who is outside the mainstream of white, male...

Show Notes

We’re living in a time when much of America continues to support, indeed, virtually worship a would-be strong man leader, Donald J. Trump – despite his many personal flaws, legal troubles, and the fact that he tried to overthrow the results of the 2020 election. Why does this continue? What’s behind it? We’ll explore all of that in today’s podcast.

But first, some housekeeping. Don’t forget to follow Lean to the Left at podcast.leantotheleft.net, and you can reach me at bob@leantotheleft.net. You can also follow us on social media…Facebook at The Lean to the Left Podcast. Twitter at LeantotheLeft1. YouTube at Lean to the Left, Instagram at BobGatty_leantotheleft, and TikTok at Lean to the Left.

If you would take a minute to give us a review, that would be great. There are lots of podcast links on our webpage, podcast.leantotheleft.net, where you’ll also find our upcoming interview schedule and links to all of our podcasts.

Meanwhile, special thanks to The Ramminger Group for sponsoring this episode and for providing the music track. The Ramminger Group provides content and marketing consulting services to responsible businesses and nonprofits. Let them help tell your story. Visit rammingergroup.com.

 

Show Transcript

Daniel, thanks for being with us today on the Lean to the Left Podcast. You're a pretty accomplished guy. I'm honored to have you with us. 

[00:01:47] Daniel Drache: I'm very pleased to be here. Very pleased. Looking forward to a lively conversation.

[00:01:54] Bob Gatty: Yeah. Thank you very much. Now you know what I really did, I found your book to be fascinating, and I think before we really get into it, I think we ought to define what we mean by populism and how that differs. Differs from other isms like authoritarianism and nationalism, and even nativism. 

[00:02:16] Daniel Drache: I think modern, we're talking about modern populism.

[00:02:19] Modern populism is a frame which puts at the center people's anger and rage. , and they see themselves as the true people against evil elite. So if we looked at the more than 35 countries which have elected populous governments , we would see that this kind of moral outrage, this deep anxiety of the people who feel they have been betrayed and left behind by the elites is a dominant feature.

[00:02:50] So you could see it in India and Modi. The feeling is that hundreds of millions of Indians have been betrayed by the previous administration, or we look in England the imperative behind England the UK leaving the EU that was the same thing, right? The belief by people who had not benefited or not felt part of the European project that had been betrayed, that they had lost England in the presence in the, in, in the process or in the United States where Trump's victory in 2016 that base in the flyover states in Republican strongholds across the west and throughout the country. These are people who had a grievance.

[00:03:40] And grievance has become the core of populism everywhere in the world. And anger, not cooperation, not a common project with for a common end. So it's a very different political idea than socialism or liberalism or humanism, et. 

[00:04:00] Bob Gatty: How is it that people like Trump are able to tap into this anger and these fears that so many people have?

[00:04:08] How is that? 

[00:04:09] Daniel Drache: Experts are really quite divided about this, and of course you would expect that some say it's hyper globalization. That led to the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs in the United States as business moved offshore and people had good paying jobs, lost them, and were pushed from being blue collar to the precarious in in the service industries without unions, without a living wage, whether a good wage.

[00:04:39] Enough to raise a family and to ensure their kids had a good education and access to medical services. So part of the hyper globalization created a lot of losers, right? Real losers. It wasn't simply hypothetical rebalancing. Cuz when we look at occupational and labor income in the United States, we have seen a, not a shrinking of the middle class, which is very dramatic. And as these people lost their jobs, they lost their income. So that's one explanation. But there are other explanation. The, an explanation is a psychological explanation, which is much it's a it's a very powerful when people internalize anger and rage. It becomes a very different political culture. The idea is not to take power, but to actually destroy your opposition. So there is something much more deeply rooted going on here that is psychological, economic. There's a political dimension to populism, which says the elites are betrayers and that they have to be brought down.

[00:05:57] So experts are divided and the evidence is conflicting. 

[00:06:03] Bob Gatty: Now, Daniel, as you were talking, it occurred to me that Yeah the effort by Democrats, let's say and progressives and liberals in this country to fight the problems of climate change, for example Trump was able to harness opposition to that. And I think that was based largely on the economic fears that you addressed. Would you say that's true? 

[00:06:30] Daniel Drache: I think there other issues that made Trump possible. I think that this focus on family, faith and freedom. A kind of Christian nationalism and Evangelical base, which is a very significant vote bank for Trump and the Republicans, I think that had a major impact on the House elections on the Senate, and even if Trump lost the election the woke voters on the right, radicalized voters on the right are our powerful constituency. And we saw this in the the way Trump's three appointments to the Supreme Court has changed American history profoundly.

[00:07:15] Bob Gatty: True. I also think that racism has a lot to do with this playing into it. Do you agree? 

[00:07:22] Daniel Drache: One of the, one of the parts of the populist project is nativism. Now nativism grows out of this populist rage and this enmity towards others. Who is the target of populous rage? And in many ways it is the immigrant , the Afro-American communities particularly in the United States. And this nativism is a belief that immigration has undercut fundamental values and poses a threat to this false, nostalgic, toxic view of many of the people who hold these ideas dear. So this idea that there is defending white privilege against what is perceived to be a threat from Afro-Americans, among others or other Mexicans.

[00:08:18] This is also part of the story. Now, these themes have always existed in the United States, or rivalry between different groups, between Catholics and Protestant, between Jews and Protestants. But these tensions. Nativist assumptions have moved from the shadows in the United States to the mainstream.

[00:08:40] So this is very different than what exists that 10 years ago. The world has changed so dramatically. 

[00:08:46] Bob Gatty: Weren't they cynically brought out of the shadows. Deliberately by Trump?

[00:08:52] Daniel Drache: Of course there you've had many people on your program, which have talked about these profound changes, structural changes.

[00:08:59] Well, a lot of experts write about American politics. Go back to Goldwater's defeat by Johnson in the '60s. And that the shellacking that the conservative movement experienced forced a reorganization, reappraisal, and the idea that Reagan pioneered the idea of the southern Democrats winning them to the Republicans has played a very important part. And as the Civil Rights Movement grew and expanded and flexed its muscles to throw off the vestiges of Jim Crow and in American life this has also had impact on the conservative movement, who saw this was a threat to their position and in politics and in different parts of life, so that there has been these fundamental changes.

[00:09:58] Race is always at the center of American politics. , 

[00:10:01] Bob Gatty: That's true. Now what is it? Makes people so attracted to authoritarianism when it comes to these kinds of fears, and you would think it would be the opposite,

[00:10:19] Daniel Drache: S ociologists have a like to tell us in. The big studies that have been done in the last decade, there has been a decline of deference towards authority. Father knows best father does not know best to in the way that a previous generation where the father's word was the he was the decider in the family.

[00:10:42] So there has been a decline of difference in the family, a decline of deference in in different parts of our everyday life and, People who feel powerless or passed over or left behind, they also look to the big man, to the alpha male, to they look to them to protect, to give them protection, to re give them voice, a sense of power that they have lost in their everyday life.

[00:11:15] They blame institutions for many changes, complex changes, which the authoritarians offer very simple solutions. So when you're dealing with such a massive amount of new technology throughout society, I think the. The alpha male leader becomes a reassuring symbol during these times of crisis and change.

[00:11:43] And we can see historically this is also the case in the twenties and thirties during the depression, the rise of the fascist rights that. People were attracted to the big men for this idea of security. It's like the noble, the Duke in the castle. People want to be inside the walls of the castle when there's a great deal of chaos and d turmoil socially and economically and culturally.

[00:12:11] Bob Gatty: Yeah, I understand that. It seems, however to me, a little bit in conflict when you see Donald Trump coming off as I get you, I understand you, I'm your guy. He talks in simplistic terms to them makes it easy for them to understand his dog whistles. But here's a guy who is a fake aristocrat.

[00:12:37] He announced coming down a golden escalator. His toilets have what gold handles or whatever. He's got a private airplane that's embossed with gold fixtures and whatnot. Come on. I don't understand how people can look at that and go, Oh yeah, he's one of us. I get him. Oh yeah, sure.

[00:13:00] I'll just jump right on his bandwagon. 

[00:13:02] Daniel Drache: It, for people who are inhabit other parts of the political spectrum the idea that politics would be be based on fear and anger. Rather than cooperation collective achievement real policies to deal with complex problems. For many people.

[00:13:24] And of course when we look at the movements, we can see that in among populous in United States or in France or England. These are often people who have very limited educational achievement, maybe finished high school, maybe a diploma who watch, I guess you could say their news is defined by the, by Fox or in France, by the equivalent of Fox saw that as in an information age, if people rely.

[00:13:56] Very limited or source for their information. It's easy to see how they live in an echo chamber, you might not feel that, but for people who feel cheated and duped by the political class the, these remember the populous leaders, they have skills, they have communication skills, they have social media skills.

[00:14:19] Bob Gatty: They do.

[00:14:20] Daniel Drache: Most importantly, they have money, they have access to very wealthy economic elite who fund their organization and activities. And they all, when we looked at these 35 governments, they all had links to, to the mass media. Radio and television and print. So it's not that they're just that everyone is a sponge, but there is a echo environment that's created by the populist, which is very powerful.

[00:14:51] You I don't know, maybe when you were younger you thought, you know, you would see something, you'd say God damnit, that's that, that they, this is a conspiracy. They're like the mafia, right? It's, that's a conspiracy organization or, Oh, that that's just like a conspiracy, right? These rich people making deals behind in secret buying, closed store.

[00:15:16] So there's always this part of American history or Canadian history. Or French history where wealth is people acquire wealth, they're seen as robber Barrons. So if you jump forward 50, 60 years, we now are in a era where people look to the Robert Barron as a Robin Hood. Even though it's incredulous and you say that this is part of the big lie that you can win elections on the big lie.

[00:15:49] We see that part of every culture is the has a place for the conspiracy to explain that, which cannot be explained by more rational and traditional forms of. Weighing pros and cons, thinking about complex issues, perhaps it's complexity itself, which is, has a numbing effect on what, how people think about complex issues.

[00:16:14] They want simple solutions. So the authoritarian leader gives them simple solutions. 

[00:16:21] Bob Gatty: Yeah. Do you feel like Trump patterns himself after other authoritarian leaders do you think he's got heroes in that cult? 

[00:16:30] Daniel Drache: It's a very interesting question. We know that he has a kind of love hate relationship with Putin. And he likes the strong, it's male toxic masculinity. Admiring other strong men like him. But if you follow Brazilian politics, Bolsonaro looks to Trump, it goes the other way. The Trump becomes the hero for these guys.

[00:16:54] Orban looks to Trump and. Steve Bannon has spent quite a bit of time in Italy and in, in Hungary, in Brazil and other countries as a proselytizer and organizational person saying how do you grow and deepen the populous movement? Trump, I think admires the tough guy. It's.

[00:17:21] Someone from the six, it is like a film noir character. Like a mobster, right? He's gonna talk tough and put everyone in their place. I think that's who he is, right? Even in his business dealings, he was he patterned himself after this tough guy.

[00:17:38] And when he has, it's a pattern where which puzzles I think a lot of people, he spends millions and millions of dollars in legal fees and he has understood that if you fight the legal system with endless number of appeals, you wear down people you can win in the courts simply through staying power, not the quality of the argument or some social justice criteria. 

[00:18:07] Bob Gatty: Yeah, I noticed in the front part of your book, you used an example Sylvio Berlusconi from Italy. From between 1994 and 2011. Three time Italian Prime Minister. He was often ridiculed for his vanity, corruption, sex scandals, and blatantly style of leadership with his larger than life personality.

[00:18:29] He dominated Italian politics even when he was not Prime Minister. Now, if you took out the word Italian and put in American, that's Trump. 

[00:18:38] Daniel Drache: When we were writing the book, actually this came out that we kept thinking about other precursors to Donald Trump. Yeah. And of course, Burlesconi fits the bill.

[00:18:49] A billionaire run owned radio and television. A powerful individual, very a chauvinistic had all these these sex parties. And, it had no effect on Italians. They elected him three times. A very litigious person as well, 

[00:19:06] Bob Gatty: So with respect to Trump, that kills me because he's had the same accusations we all know and yet the religious right they love the guy. And I don't understand. 

[00:19:18] Daniel Drache: This is about the nature of authoritarian personality that you we can see this even with Boris Johnson Bojo in the uk when Trots was for ced to resign . Johnson is a very popular figure among both among Mepi and members of Parliament.

[00:19:37] Not all, but very popular. And also among the membership. Despite all the scandal and the lying, and the cheating, and the his outrageous behavior and misleading parliament and breaking many legal rules around politics in the uk. He smells good and not for everyone, but for enough. So even in this, even though he did not put his name forward to be to run for Prime ministership recently, you can see that there is a fascination for the authoritarian who, Why are people. So fascinated. Not you, Maybe not other people, but because he's a winner, because the big lie and hate speech. We, when we look at this is one of their achievements. They can win elections by hate speech and using the big lie and sell it to people and people buy into it. Second thing, populists are not ordinary politicians. I'm not saying any, anyone here thinks that, but they become machine politicians, so they're not just the big man sitting in the chair handing down advice and dictate from above. But the, they have, they're backed by enormous amounts of money and organization and talent experts who help sell their message and craft their program. So they have capacity not of the kind of big vision but they're able to use these their skills to upend the existing political spectrum. For the last 80 years, we've had a left right spectrum differently in, in every country.. And one of the impacts of the populous is identity politics has broken this continuum.

[00:21:34] So now politics is fragmented. Into the center has shrunk that people operate in silos and it has really changed the nature of political discourse at this time. And it's like humpty dumpty.. How do you put the pieces together again? It's not clear.

[00:21:57] And that's a good that's a good analogy. You mentioned a minute ago a little bit about conspiracy theories, and that continues to this day, even to the point of the QAnon on craziness about, Democrats doing nasty things to babies and whatever they say. How does that though play into populism and 

[00:22:18] its.

[00:22:18] First of course there's always been going back to when I was a young man in the sixties growing up. There was a lot of attention in the United States and in Canada and in Britain about the John Birch Society about. Para paralegals, paramilitary organizations in the United States growing up around the right to bear arms, very unique phenomena.

[00:22:48] So the idea of elites seizing using power for toxic ends for as a weapon. That's the response by a true believer, right? Because we're dealing with true believers who see the world in rigid ideological terms. Yeah. They see themselves threatened by elites who have usurped power from the ordinary Joe and Jill.

[00:23:22] So the belief is you had against the state, you have to use, you have to meet force with force, right? The enemy is the, is what Trump and Bannon called the deep state. But of course it's the state with its monopoly over the use of armed force. And this fits into these wild conspiracy theories and they're very prevalent in society.

[00:23:49] But usually when you look back over the last 30, 40 years, I mentioned earlier, the John Birch Society, the see it seemed at the time extreme. Of course, it's morphed into something else. It's growing by leaps and bounds. It is people now because of the internet and the role of influencers are able to construct far reaching theories and conspiracies which are inventions, right?

[00:24:20] Which are lies, which are passed off as reality and. It plays into people's fears. When you have a mindset, right? You say, oh this is a result of a pedeophile ring. This is this is that. When you think back into the thirties you can see in the fascist movement, they also had enemies, The Jews, the foreigner, the foreign born, the gypsies, the gays.

[00:24:48] So this in some ways, Is not just an extension because there was of this, of these earlier movements, but Umberto Echo believes that and is I think there's a lot in this, that within every society there are, there is this, these eternal grievances that can be triggered under the right conditions with the right leaders.

[00:25:12] So when you ask people how do people believe this? It's not part of liberal politics. It's not part of social democratic politics. It's not part of socialist politics, but it's something atavistic, maybe primoral that is that lies deep within the individual in society and they can be triggered under the right circumstances with catastrophic results.

[00:25:36] And we are now two centimeters from the precipice. After the, of the, after the American midterms and the elections in Brazil at the end of the month between Bolsonaro and Lula. So there are these moments of great import and they don't come often, but I think we are approaching a precipice ,a turning point.

[00:26:01] Bob Gatty: So you're saying that the American midterms, which are coming up in just a couple of about three weeks one of those precipices. 

[00:26:09] Daniel Drache: I think it's likely to be a precipice. I think for three reasons. First, that such a large part of the Republican Party, the members are running for office, are election deniers.

[00:26:24] When you looked at the last Congress, there were a kind of hardcore handful. But now of course according to the recent empirical work, we've seen that a very large number, but maybe half of the Republicans believe that Biden is not the legitimate president.

[00:26:40] So that is, I think without parallel. Secondly, there are also other studies which show that hate speech has increased enormously since 2016. And what is interesting here, Bob is that the Republicans, when you actually map and try track as the New York Times did in this recent study, they found that in 2016 that roughly five to one, five times more Republicans using hate speech than Democrats. But because hate speech was so important in winning the election in 2016 by today 2022 , we see more and more Democrats using extreme speech in response to the Republicans extreme speech.

[00:27:31] So there's a reciprocity when you move in this direction that it changes the entire discourse and narrative, political narrative in the United States. So that I think is a very different, And one third reason, I think for the precipice argument, at least one should take it seriously, is that the independents have moved into the Republican column.

[00:27:58] And I think that the Supreme Court, it was felt four months ago that abortion might be the framing issue in the election. I don't think it has turned out that way. If we look at the empirical findings what we see is the framing issue in this election is inflation and the high price of gasoline.

[00:28:17] And if that is the decider, For many voters for hundreds of thousand, millions of voters. I think the Republicans have an edge and that we're going to see a fundamental change in both the House and the Senate. That's why I think it's on the precipice. And then of course. What's the Republican agenda?

[00:28:39] Impeachment. Change fundamentally, the civil service, loyalty oaths, there's a whole variety of things that the republicans vengeful seeking could believe that it is their term to swing the wrecking ball on the Democratis. So I don't think this is a panic or an overstatement. We're just entering into a very different world Where the hard right really will be in charge of both houses and the conservatives own the judiciary.

[00:29:14] So this is a world with much fewer checks and balances. And of course almost anything could happen. 

[00:29:23] Bob Gatty: Man, you're painting a really dismal picture. . 

[00:29:26] Daniel Drache: I don't know if it's unfair picture, but if you're a social scientist, 

[00:29:31] Bob Gatty: But it sure as hell is dismal . 

[00:29:32] Daniel Drache: I'd like to be singing in the rain. We can't be singing in the rain all the time. We can't also be having a romcom. I think there is a changes of circumstances. Particularly in the midterms, and we should try to look realistically at what is likely to happen. There's not, one can always hope for the best. That's true. But when you start looking at the options, you say where is the countervailing forces coming from? What's the defining narrative for this campaign? How do we think it will affect Republicans running for office versus Democrats? And you're a long time observer, right? Experience, but do you feel particularly optimistic about when you look at November the eighth?

[00:30:22] Bob Gatty: I do not.. There's, I do not feel optimistic at all. As a matter of fact, Daniel I felt like when January 6th occurred when the mob attacked the capital at the behest of Donald Trump, that was the opening shot in what could become another civil war in this country.

[00:30:42] That's how I feel. 

[00:30:43] Daniel Drache: I don't think it's a question of optimism or pessimism. It's tried to be clear eyed and balanced. I think this is, you have to always say where, what are the options? Who are the countervailing forces? Who are the adults in the room to use an overworked cliche? And and even though Biden won by 7 million votes in 2020. We know that this is not the whole story. We know that it's a more complex set of steps the election process with the electoral college. So all I am really saying here today is that many journalists like to hedge their bet. Everyone wants to hedge their bet.

[00:31:22] Everyone would like to say We want someone positive, we want to turn the page in Reagan's phrase Morning Becomes America. Yeah, of course everyone would like to go back to, to that idea. But there's also this second idea that is, that lies behind the populist insurgency, what I call an insurgency.

[00:31:44] And that is the role of the silent majority in Canadian politics or American politics. So maybe I should talk a bit about Canadian politics. We're seen as more peaceful and good government people like their government here in Canada. You do not have the right to bear arms.

[00:32:03] We have socialized medicine. Everyone has access to Medicare. Doctors are very, are hugely reimbursed. We have a system that is very efficient because you have a single payer system where the go. This reduces the cost in the healthcare system, and we are, we have a country which prides itself on diversity difference that this is our signature.

[00:32:30] So recently we had this probably you know, about this, your listeners, about the truckers occupation of Ottawa for three weeks. Three weeks paralyzing the capital of the country with thousands of truckers and their supporters. I think Canadians were shocked because, people like to feel self righteous or were better than the republic because we don't have Donald Trump, but lo and behold, we have the truckers and this convoy from across Canada, the occupation of the capital. And many people thought maybe it's just happened. It was unavoidable. It was, we, we're part of the mainstream. But then through a series of events the conservative Party of Canada, one of the major political parties, replaced its leader and with a populist. So you can see that when he ran for office Paul he signed up 600,000. The. The, in this leadership battle, they signed up 600,000. He alone signed up his group, 350,000 new members.

[00:33:47] So populism is spreading across the globe. It's not just an American pop issue challenge, it's in England, it's in France, it's in Germany, it's in India. It's in Nicaragua. Brazil.. Israel. So we see that as a defining narrative of our time. It has many buy-ins and there's at a deeper level in the ecosystem forces that are, have created the true believer and the true believer has seen, has been able to back the big man, the authoritarian leaders, and take high office. So we are at the precipice and in to a certain degree and it's a different world and we're not going back to what it was. This is too Blake. Too bleak? 

[00:34:41] Bob Gatty: It's Blake. But it's just how it is.

[00:34:43] You write in your book the following of, and this is the book folks, you write the following, How can we maintain democracy when it caters to the basest impulses of society? It I think that, we've talked about all of that. But what's the answer to the question, Daniel?

[00:35:03] We're talking about a really sad state of affairs going forward, especially in the United States. If what you're talking about actually comes to pass with the Republicans and the conservatives taking over the reigns of power in every aspect of the government, including the judiciary.

[00:35:23] Daniel Drache: When you look at different options of course one option is that this political crisis creates new spaces where people reassess the political direction and decide to build broad coalitions to oppose to, to dislodge the, in our book, we call it throwing the populist out to sea.

[00:35:51] You have to have large enough groups of people who electorally. Can drag the populace out to sea. So that is the strategic question. So if you looked electorally, you would say there's this 70 million Americans, Democrats. There are also the independence. Voter turnout is always critical if different groups turned out to vote, they would be a powerful, a more powerful force to the populace out to sea, because the populists would not win these, win the election based on low voter turned out and disaffected minority groups who are not have a voice but do not use it. So you have to look at things strategically.

[00:36:39] So one group clearly is to rebuild, to, to look to the independents in the middle. To say, should, will they look to the Democrats or some other, to the Democrats as part of a broader coalition to rescue liberal democracy from the hands of the insurgents. So I guess that's one question to think about is what is the strategy to organize and mobilize this broad coalition of people and could it could it be effective. Today it doesn't look very effective, but we don't know what it would look like in five years. People are fighters. People don't give up because the commentariat comes up with an analysis which says, it as Lancon used to sing some of the songs darker and darker. We don't want darker and darker.

[00:37:33] That's not the object. The object is to demonstrate that there's try to, trying to understand where we are and what are the forces that are turning off the lights for millions of Americans. This is such a big problem because it's in France, in Germany in Italy, in Sweden, the home of social democracy where the conservatives have come into power in these coalition governments.

[00:38:00] We know that in Hungary Orban is a four-time elected that many of these populous are elected time and time again.. So it's true that this looks like Leonard goes darker and to stay with the metaphor or stay with the reverence point. He would in some of his songs, he says, democracy comes through the cracks in the wall.

[00:38:26] So we have to look at, we have to look at making. Social movement, social justice movements links with voters more viable, more sustainable, stronger, better resourced, and eventually, and I think that there we have to, there's a sense in which the populous and the insurgency has found a way to speak to people in a way that gets inside their heads. So you have to, this internalization of anger and rage is of course a very dangerous force, which turns the true believer against society and the rule of law and sees no value. in little value in collective endeavor and broader social purpose.

[00:39:21] So if you follow my line of reasoning. We have to find these cracks in the wall and the ways to build broader coalitions and to find a different language we may be through setback and defeat. It may force society to acquire a different language to address these problems and address the populist, but there is a way in which identity politics has to be turned around for other purposes than for nativism and authoritarianism.

[00:39:56] Bob Gatty: Okay. What is the main point of the, of your book Has populism won the war on liberal democracy, what is the message that you would like to leave with our listeners about your book? 

[00:40:10] Daniel Drache: We wrote it as as a warning, not as a, not as a screed. We wrote it saying, Don't underestimate people you don't understand. And I think that's the first point. We should never underestimate that. There's a continue to think that, oh, the populous came to power because they were lucky. Second time they was a fluke.

[00:40:36] But when you have a lot of populists, when you have a lot of victories, you have a pattern. So we're trying to explain maybe in an old fashioned way, maybe a new fashioned way to think about, to really be informed about the populist systems smashers, and they're the threat they pose to liberal democracy and that they have been successful.

[00:41:01] So people who want to see an end to it, I think they would find the book very useful because it would give them a strategic guide to rethinking the populous challenge to Society to individuals who believe in liberal democracy and want to see it stronger and repurposed. 

[00:41:25] Bob Gatty: And where can people find your book?

[00:41:27] Daniel Drache: Everywhere. I expect to sell millions of copies. . Now you can get it from the publisher ecw.ca, or you can get it from Amazon which is a place a lot of people buy the books. 

[00:41:40] Bob Gatty: Excellent book. And I enjoyed and appreciated having you on with us today on Lean to the Left, Daniel, thank you so much for being with us.

[00:41:49] Daniel Drache: Thanks for having me. 

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