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Is the tide turning on strongman politics? · The Morning Edition

0:07
S1: Strongman. Populism has been growing so much over the years
0:10
S1: that many analysts have expressed despair about whether democracy could
0:14
S1: have a future. Even former American President Barack Obama, a
0:18
S1: famously hopeful politician, resorted to trolling Donald Trump at a
0:22
S1: rally in Ohio the other day. Rather than relying on
0:25
S1: his usual elegant oration in a bid to call out
0:28
S1: the American president's alleged corruption.
0:31
S2: What's up with the goal? I mean, he's got the
0:37
S2: white House looking like Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory.
0:42
S1: And yet, events of this week suggest we could be
0:45
S1: about to witness a new political trend. I'm Samantha Salinger Morris,
0:50
S1: and you're listening to The Morning Edition from The Age
0:52
S1: and The Sydney Morning Herald. Today, international and political editor
0:57
S1: Peter Hartcher on the burst of Democratic support around the world,
1:02
S1: and advice from the world's most famous political scientists on
1:06
S1: how our politicians can counter rising populist anger here. Welcome, Peter,
1:16
S1: back to the podcast.
1:18
S3: Pleasure to be here, Samantha.
1:20
S1: Okay, Peter, you and I discussed geopolitical happenings every week.
1:23
S1: We have done so for about three years now. And
1:26
S1: usually more often than not, we're talking about various threats
1:29
S1: to democracy. Right. But now my question for you is,
1:33
S1: could the tide be turning? Tell us about what's been
1:36
S1: happening in Israel, in Serbia and Venezuela that maybe suggests
1:40
S1: a renewed democratic spirit?
1:43
S3: And not to forget the important result in Brazil in
1:46
S3: the last few days. And of course, casting ahead to
1:49
S3: next week's elections in the US. But look, this does
1:53
S3: seem to be a moment where the pendulum is swinging
1:56
S3: or the tide is turning, if you prefer that metaphor
1:59
S3: And the context here, Samantha, is that since about 2007,
2:04
S3: the time of the global financial crisis, the Great Recession,
2:08
S3: democracy has been on the retreat around the world. And
2:12
S3: according to The Economist magazine, out of 200 nations on earth,
2:15
S3: only 25 full democracies remain. So it's been looking pretty slender.
2:22
S3: And a lot of countries, even though they've retained their
2:24
S3: electoral systems by regimes that want to continue to appear
2:29
S3: to have the legitimacy of an election and the people's
2:32
S3: will behind them. Autocratic regimes, while they might have kept
2:36
S3: electoral processes, have been cutting back on the reality of
2:40
S3: the rights and liberties of their people, including the real
2:43
S3: effectiveness of elections and democratic institutions. But it's it is
2:47
S3: striking that even the most oppressive regime in the world,
2:51
S3: North Korea, Kim Jong un, even there, they go through
2:54
S3: the motions of an election so that he can claim
2:57
S3: to have the mandate of the people. So this this
3:00
S3: is the trick. But in the meantime, as that measure
3:03
S3: from the Economist magazine attests, those autocratic regimes are winning
3:07
S3: more power and winnowing away, carving away the rights, the
3:13
S3: liberal democratic rights of their peoples. And this week looks
3:16
S3: like it could be the beginning of a trend in
3:21
S3: the other direction. There have been a lot of right wing, populist,
3:24
S3: strongman autocrat types winning power in recent years. But now,
3:29
S3: as you said, we see in the early results, it's
3:32
S3: still too early to know the ultimate outcome. But we
3:36
S3: do know that the opposition bloc in Israel appears to
3:40
S3: have won more seats than the Netanyahu led coalition. So
3:45
S3: that's one of the authoritarian right wing Trump allies that
3:51
S3: who seems to have taken a hit in the last
3:55
S3: just in the last 24 hours as we record this.
3:58
S3: And that's the other point here. I just the extra
4:01
S3: layer here, Samantha, all of these right wing, authoritarian inclined,
4:07
S3: populist leaders and parties who've who are now losing are
4:11
S3: have all been enthusiastic allies of Donald Trump.
4:16
S1: Absolutely. And it's quite the timing for this really is
4:19
S1: quite incredible because you've just interviewed Francis Fukuyama. He is
4:23
S1: arguably the world's most famous political scientist. And I mean,
4:28
S1: dare I say, he predicted this moment of a trend
4:30
S1: in the direction of liberal democracy because tell us what
4:33
S1: he stated 34 years ago in his famous book, much
4:38
S1: maligned book The End of History and The Last Man,
4:41
S1: how much Francis Fukuyama was mocked for the prediction he
4:44
S1: made in the book. And I guess if this moment
4:46
S1: that we're seeing proves that he was right after all.
4:50
S3: Yes, it's been called the most misunderstood and derided book
4:56
S3: in the post-war era. Uh, and in Fukuyama's words, partly
5:02
S3: that's largely that's got to do with the fact that
5:04
S3: everybody has read the title of the book, but very
5:07
S3: few people have actually read the book. So the title
5:10
S3: of the book, as you say, is The End of
5:12
S3: History and The Last Man. They see the phrase the
5:15
S3: end of history and simply assume that he's meant that
5:19
S3: historical events have ceased, that there will be no more events.
5:23
S3: History has ended. And his overarching point is that liberal
5:28
S3: democracy has triumphed. And he wrote this around the time
5:32
S3: of the demise of the Soviet Union. So that was
5:36
S3: the context. But he was making the actual point. The
5:40
S3: underlying point was larger than that and quite different. And
5:43
S3: his real point he was trying to make, Samantha, is
5:47
S3: not that events have stopped. That's a ridiculous thing to
5:50
S3: say or that history has ended. That's equally ridiculous. His
5:52
S3: point was to say that in arriving at the triumph
5:56
S3: of liberal democracy over communism, over that long struggle and
6:00
S3: the Cold War. That liberal democracy had emerged as the
6:05
S3: best available model for the organization of human societies. Not
6:11
S3: that it was perfect, not that it wouldn't be challenged,
6:14
S3: not that there wouldn't be revolutions and changes and all
6:17
S3: sorts of things, but that it was the best coherent
6:21
S3: vision remaining as a competitor in the world. And the
6:25
S3: only caveat he puts on that or that other people
6:28
S3: have raised is, hang on, what about what's happening with
6:31
S3: China and their model of autocratic quasi capitalism? To which
6:37
S3: Fukuyama says, well, let's give it another generation. And we
6:39
S3: might see then.
6:41
S1: That's right. And he also, I don't want to say
6:43
S1: he predicted the rise of someone like Trump, but he
6:45
S1: did sort of foreshadow. And actually he even mentioned Trump
6:48
S1: as a possibility. And this is with regards to what
6:51
S1: he's talking about, the last man. So tell us about
6:53
S1: his concept of the last man and how does it
6:55
S1: relate to Donald Trump.
6:57
S3: Well, even before The Simpsons cartoon famously seized on Trump
7:02
S3: as a potential president of the US, Fukuyama had him
7:07
S3: in in his book The End of History and The
7:09
S3: Last Man. He didn't see him as president, but what
7:12
S3: he did see him as was exactly the sort of
7:16
S3: character he has become, the last man. I'll just briefly
7:20
S3: touch on that. That's not an original phrase of Fukuyama's.
7:25
S3: It actually comes from the philosopher Nietzsche, who famously said
7:30
S3: that God is dead, meaning with Western societies having abandoned
7:34
S3: religion and no longer having faith in God, they were
7:37
S3: left in a pretty shallow, meaningless, materialistic existence without pride,
7:44
S3: without great struggles or causes to die for. And this
7:48
S3: would be the the seeking of petty pleasures in a
7:52
S3: in a modern materialistic economy and people chasing celebrities and
7:58
S3: petty pleasures. So that's the world of the Last Man,
8:02
S3: Fukuyama said. In this world, which we've now achieved and
8:04
S3: we've and we've achieved it not only because, you know,
8:07
S3: we've abandoned faith in religion, by and large, in Western societies,
8:11
S3: but also liberal democracy has been so successful, says Fukuyama,
8:15
S3: in delivering peace and prosperity that it's left no great struggles,
8:21
S3: truly gigantic struggles which are worth giving your life for
8:25
S3: in the world. And he predicted in his book 34
8:28
S3: years ago that in this world, the theory is that
8:32
S3: everybody gets equal recognition and equal rights through voting and citizenship,
8:37
S3: that not everybody would be satisfied with equal rights, and
8:40
S3: you'd still have people wanting mega doses of recognition and self-gratification.
8:46
S3: And the ancient Greeks called the craving for human recognition
8:50
S3: thymos they described as the inner craving of the human
8:54
S3: being for respect and recognition and dignity, and Fukuyama said
9:00
S3: there will be some people who won't be content to
9:03
S3: have their fair share of recognition of equal thymos, but
9:07
S3: you'll have megathymus, and one of these people will be
9:10
S3: Donald Trump, is what he predicted, and he certainly got
9:13
S3: that right.
9:15
S1: After the break.
9:16
S3: He's been playing as if devil may care, as if
9:20
S3: this election's already lost. So I'm just going to do
9:22
S3: as I please and say as I think.
9:35
S1: Which is absolutely incredible. And I guess it brings us
9:38
S1: in a way, to the midterm elections next week. Now, obviously,
9:41
S1: these are monumental in importance because they will determine who
9:45
S1: has control of Congress. So just tell us, I guess,
9:48
S1: perhaps briefly, what you're expecting to happen there or what
9:51
S1: it looks like according to the polls, which we know
9:53
S1: can change dramatically even within a few days, because you
9:56
S1: did tell me before recording that what we've been seeing
9:58
S1: in the lead up to these important elections shows that
10:01
S1: the Trump model is thoroughly busted. So what did you
10:04
S1: mean by that? And how busted are we talking about, Peter?
10:10
S3: Uh, well, it looked, uh, all powerful and all consuming
10:14
S3: just a couple of years ago, but it's now turned
10:18
S3: on its head. So, uh, each of those leaders who
10:22
S3: have lost power, the Trump allies, the so-called strongman types,
10:27
S3: they've all been Trump allies and boldly and proudly so.
10:31
S3: So that's a that's a series of canaries in the
10:35
S3: coal mine. You know, Bolsonaro lost in Brazil. Vucic lost
10:41
S3: in Serbia. Obviously, we've talked about Netanyahu, who has whose
10:47
S3: coalition has lost majority control. And going back a little bit,
10:51
S3: there was Viktor Orban in in Hungary. he lost power
10:55
S3: to Peter Magyar. So that's a series of indications that
11:00
S3: that starts to look like a bit of a trend.
11:01
S3: If you put those those together now with the US, well,
11:05
S3: there are plenty of indications, not just the polling, which
11:08
S3: is obviously polls are never predictive. They're only ever snapshots.
11:11
S3: And yet they can tell you a trend of opinion.
11:14
S3: And they've all been steadily against the Republican Party, although
11:19
S3: Trump has made has sought to make the election about
11:21
S3: himself by repeatedly telling electors, pretend it's me on the ballot,
11:26
S3: even though he's not on the ballot. It's a midterm election,
11:29
S3: and he and his party are being rejected in the polling.
11:35
S3: And there are other straws in the wind, too. So
11:38
S3: with the polling, he's now got a record low approval
11:41
S3: rating in the US for any president since Herbert Hoover. Hoover,
11:45
S3: of course, was president during the Great Depression. So it's
11:48
S3: hardly a contest. He had really a comparator. You'd really
11:52
S3: want to have another story. In the wind is the
11:56
S3: prominence of Donald Trump in the advertising materials, the slogans,
12:00
S3: the campaigns, the ads that Democrats and Republicans are broadcasting, airing,
12:06
S3: posting in the run up to next week's US election.
12:10
S3: And whereas at the beginning of this year, most Republican
12:13
S3: campaigns were using Trump as an asset in their campaigns.
12:18
S3: The last count I saw for September was that Republican
12:21
S3: ads are only featuring Donald Trump in 1% of cases. Now,
12:25
S3: it's mainly the Democrats who are using Trump because he's
12:27
S3: become their asset, not the Republican's asset anymore. And the
12:31
S3: dominant reason, of course, and we've talked about this many times, Samantha,
12:36
S3: is the feckless and pointless war he launched in Iran
12:38
S3: together with Netanyahu, which has although Trump promised his electors
12:43
S3: no new foreign wars, falling interest rates and falling prices,
12:47
S3: he's delivered precisely the opposite. He's delivered a new foreign war,
12:51
S3: which he can't finish and seems stuck in and can't win.
12:55
S3: He's delivered higher interest rates and higher inflation and consumer
12:59
S3: prices and petrol prices. So that's the main driver of
13:03
S3: his unpopularity. And that's the trend that now appears to
13:07
S3: be about to crest next week in those elections.
13:11
S1: And so that's of course all in line with this
13:13
S1: trend that you're seeing that Francis Fukuyama is seeing. And
13:17
S1: yet Francis Fukuyama, who was a very sober political analyst,
13:21
S1: he says he fears that more violence could follow the U.S.
13:24
S1: midterm elections next week. Why?
13:27
S3: Well, Fukuyama fears that if the rebuke delivered by the
13:34
S3: American people next week deprives the Republicans of control of Congress,
13:38
S3: and it looks likely that they will lose the lower
13:41
S3: House and quite possibly the upper as well. To use
13:45
S3: Fukuyama's words, Donald Trump isn't likely to just step back,
13:49
S3: become more moderate, centrist, and reasonable that he's more likely
13:54
S3: to go crazy. And in fact, he has been cutting
13:57
S3: loose these last couple of weeks, some of his decisions
14:00
S3: on Ukraine and Russia. Some of his rhetoric where people
14:03
S3: are hurting with high petrol prices. And Trump has just said,
14:06
S3: you know, I don't give a damn. I'm just going
14:08
S3: to say it. We're we're making a freaking fortune talking
14:11
S3: about the oil companies because they're making big profits, even
14:13
S3: though consumers are hurting. He's been playing as if devil
14:18
S3: may care, as if this election's already lost. So I'm
14:21
S3: just going to do as I please and say as
14:22
S3: I think. And so Fukuyama's concern is that Trump just
14:26
S3: becomes crazier in his revenge threats against his enemies whipping
14:32
S3: up crowds. We all remember January 6th. Is there going
14:36
S3: to be more of that? And Fukuyama fears that there
14:38
S3: will be.
14:38
S1: Wow. Okay. Which brings us to what's, I guess, going
14:41
S1: on here in our own backyard. Because you've written after
14:45
S1: a ten year lag, Australia seems to be approaching American
14:47
S1: levels of populist anger. So are there particular examples, I
14:51
S1: guess that were you most. And then tell us what
14:54
S1: Francis Fukuyama has offered as advice for how we can
14:58
S1: counter this populist anger that we're experiencing?
15:01
S3: Well, the obvious recent evidence of this is the dreadful
15:07
S3: attack on Helen Haines by a man driving a car
15:11
S3: into her repeatedly in the street. We don't have any
15:15
S3: recent precedent for that, but it is an extension of
15:19
S3: the the vitriol, the bile, the hatred and the unchecked
15:23
S3: anger which has been opened up and given licence, especially
15:28
S3: under anonymous names by so-called social media, which is an
15:34
S3: Orwellian name for the most anti-social force in modern history.
15:39
S3: It has not only enabled but encouraged the intensification through
15:44
S3: algorithm of hatred, extremism, violence, incitements to violence. The Helen
15:51
S3: Haines attack personified exemplified what security agents here have been
15:57
S3: warning against for years now. And it's finally taken shape.
16:01
S3: And the country has been shocked by that. Around the world, though,
16:05
S3: it's not the populist right that has a monopoly. The
16:08
S3: left also is increasingly crowds use violence. We see that
16:13
S3: in France, in Italy. So it's um a sort of
16:16
S3: an atomized violence or the opening of Pandora's box, where
16:20
S3: all the vices escape. Once the box is opened, they've
16:23
S3: been set loose in the world, and political parties everywhere
16:27
S3: seek to marshal that, uh, of course, with the exception
16:30
S3: of responsible mainstream parties of government. But left and right
16:33
S3: on the extreme, they're competing for the extremities of, uh,
16:37
S3: passion and anger. And with that goes a lot of violence, unfortunately.
16:43
S1: And so what advice did Francis Fukuyama offer you for
16:46
S1: how we can counter this populist anger that we're seeing here?
16:50
S3: His advice to Australia to deal with One Nation and
16:53
S3: Pauline Hanson was this, he said I'd suggest that the
16:57
S3: mainstream parties think about forming a coalition with One Nation. Well, why?
17:02
S3: And his point was that in other countries he named Austria,
17:06
S3: Denmark and the Netherlands, the mainstream parties there have created
17:12
S3: coalitions with their far right parties that have blunted the edge. De-fanged,
17:16
S3: as he put it, as Fukuyama put it, defanged some
17:20
S3: of the extremes of those right wing populist parties. This
17:24
S3: is this is interesting because the world is still figuring
17:27
S3: out where this is going, how to deal with it,
17:30
S3: what are the consequences? It's the exact opposite of what
17:33
S3: all the mainstream German political parties have done in the
17:35
S3: last few years, which is to create what they call
17:38
S3: a firewall against their right wing populist party, the AfD
17:42
S3: alternative for Deutschland, where they've all refused coalition with the
17:47
S3: AfD as a way of trying to block them out
17:50
S3: of participation in real power in Germany. But it's worked
17:56
S3: only up to a point. It's not worked in that
17:58
S3: the polling support for AfD continues to rise and it
18:03
S3: has not succeeded in Germany. That policy of taking the
18:06
S3: edge off. So this is an interesting question now about
18:10
S3: how mainstream parties in traditional democracies should and can deal
18:15
S3: with these new right wing, extremist, far right populist challengers.
18:21
S1: So I guess, Peter, to wrap up, I mean, the
18:23
S1: logical next question is what are the chance that our
18:25
S1: mainstream politicians will take up Fukuyama's strategy and actually think
18:29
S1: about alliances with One Nation?
18:32
S3: Well, the Liberal Party has been flirting with the concept
18:35
S3: of a coalition with One Nation, not committing one way
18:38
S3: or another, but keeping the option open. So that's pretty interesting.
18:41
S3: So that suggests that the liberals, at least the traditional
18:46
S3: conservative party of Australian politics, for those who aren't familiar
18:49
S3: with the naming of the parties, which could be a
18:52
S3: little baffling to the uninitiated. The Liberal Party is the
18:55
S3: Conservative Party. The Liberal Party, at least, is open to
18:58
S3: the idea of a possible coalition with One Nation. But
19:03
S3: Pauline Hanson might have pre-empted Fukuyama's advice by saying she
19:09
S3: would refuse to form a coalition with the Liberal Party
19:11
S3: or any other party because it would blunt her power.
19:14
S1: Interesting point, Peter. Thank you so much as always for
19:17
S1: your time.
19:18
S3: Always a pleasure, Samantha.
19:25
S1: In other news, today, a surge in petrol prices has
19:28
S1: in part pushed inflation up to 4.3%. In Australia, the
19:33
S1: latest monthly figures from the Bureau of Statistics have all
19:36
S1: but guaranteed that the reserve Bank of Australia will inflict
19:39
S1: a fifth interest rate rise of the year next week.
19:43
S1: New Zealand actor Melanie Lynskey will play convicted killer Aaron
19:47
S1: Patterson in Mushroom Murders, the first scripted television series about
19:51
S1: the case that's set to air next year, and a
19:56
S1: luxury residential cruise ship has asked hundreds of passengers to
19:59
S1: disembark in Cambodia after running out of fuel. Cruise company
20:03
S1: Villa V residences has suspended operations, citing extraordinary fuel costs
20:08
S1: from the US Israel war on Iran. It's unclear where passengers,
20:13
S1: many of whom are permanent residents of the luxury ship Odyssey,
20:17
S1: will go. You can read more at the age.com.au or smh.com.au.
20:25
S1: Today's episode was produced by Kai Wong. Our executive producer
20:29
S1: is Tammy Mills, and our podcasts are overseen by Lisa
20:32
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