WEBVTT - Steven Levitsky & Michael Roth 0:00:00.640 --> 0:00:04.160 Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics, 0:00:04.360 --> 0:00:07.120 where we discussed the top political headlines with some of 0:00:07.160 --> 0:00:10.680 today's best minds. We're on vacation, but that doesn't mean 0:00:10.760 --> 0:00:12.920 we don't have a great show for you today. Wesleyan 0:00:13.080 --> 0:00:16.600 University's own Michael Roth stops by to talk about how 0:00:16.720 --> 0:00:20.159 universities can push back against Donald Trump. But first we 0:00:20.239 --> 0:00:25.200 have Harvard professor and How Democracies Die author Steven Levitsky 0:00:25.440 --> 0:00:27.920 here to talk about why he's a little more optimistic 0:00:27.920 --> 0:00:32.200 about Trump failing after a year into his presidency. 0:00:32.520 --> 0:00:34.840 Welcome back to Fast Politics. 0:00:34.840 --> 0:00:36.480 Steven, thanks for having me back. 0:00:36.600 --> 0:00:37.360 Before we were. 0:00:37.240 --> 0:00:39.240 Talking and you were talking about how you're more optimistic 0:00:39.280 --> 0:00:41.680 now than you were say in March. I think we 0:00:41.680 --> 0:00:44.840 were all pretty freaked out by the Trump two point zero. 0:00:45.040 --> 0:00:47.240 Talk to me about why you're more optimistic now. 0:00:47.600 --> 0:00:50.760 Well, first of all, it's Trump has done a tremendous 0:00:50.800 --> 0:00:52.960 amount of damage, and we were seeing the beginning of 0:00:53.000 --> 0:00:57.680 it March and that continued almost done, abated and unchecked 0:00:57.920 --> 0:01:01.320 for nine months. And it's done damage to our society, 0:01:01.360 --> 0:01:04.240 to our culture, to our institutions, to the US State, 0:01:04.480 --> 0:01:06.600 to the world, particularly the US standing in them. So 0:01:06.800 --> 0:01:09.959 twenty twenty five was a terrible year. It was worse 0:01:10.360 --> 0:01:12.839 than I anticipated, and I've been a pessimist for years. 0:01:13.480 --> 0:01:17.279 What makes me less pessimistic is the fact that Trump 0:01:17.319 --> 0:01:22.440 is weakening politically. For he began to he has suffered defeats, 0:01:22.760 --> 0:01:26.119 some defeats in the courts, He's suffered some defeats at 0:01:26.120 --> 0:01:31.160 the ballot box. Public opinion is gradually but importantly shifting 0:01:31.200 --> 0:01:35.039 against him, and he's suffered defeats within the Republican Party, 0:01:35.040 --> 0:01:37.840 which is a bad side for him. And the principal 0:01:37.880 --> 0:01:40.640 reason why Trump was able to do as much damage 0:01:40.840 --> 0:01:43.959 as he did in twenty twenty five is he had 0:01:44.240 --> 0:01:47.720 ironclad Republican support. He could not have done even a 0:01:47.720 --> 0:01:51.080 fraction of what he did had he not had ironclad 0:01:51.080 --> 0:01:54.520 support in the Republican Party. Basically, the willingness of the 0:01:54.640 --> 0:01:58.240 entire Republican Party leadership to abdicate their oversight role in 0:01:58.320 --> 0:02:01.320 Congress and to just let him, in many cases, just 0:02:01.360 --> 0:02:04.000 flat outbreak the law or violent the constitution. There are 0:02:04.080 --> 0:02:06.920 signs that that is beginning to change, but in particular, 0:02:07.160 --> 0:02:10.320 it's clear that he's overreached, he's made mistakes, and that 0:02:10.360 --> 0:02:13.360 he is beginning to really count in terms of public opinion. 0:02:13.440 --> 0:02:15.720 And one thing we know about autocrats is they do 0:02:15.800 --> 0:02:19.160 a lot more damage when they have majority support than 0:02:19.200 --> 0:02:22.280 when they don't. And so somebody like Bukele and Alsalvador 0:02:22.480 --> 0:02:25.160 with eighty eighty five percent support can do much much 0:02:25.160 --> 0:02:28.480 more damage than a president who's at forty one or 0:02:28.520 --> 0:02:31.679 thirty nine. And Trump is entering a territory where he 0:02:32.280 --> 0:02:35.040 could still do a lot of damage, but his ability 0:02:35.080 --> 0:02:40.040 to impose his will without contestation political contestation, media contestation, 0:02:40.200 --> 0:02:42.639 societal contestation that's being reduced. 0:02:42.880 --> 0:02:46.640 Right after Trump got reelected, my brother called me. He said, 0:02:46.680 --> 0:02:50.160 you know, even Hitler had to be popular, like do 0:02:50.240 --> 0:02:54.280 you can't just do unpopular stuff. Obviously, I'm not comparing 0:02:54.320 --> 0:02:57.399 Trump to Hitler because they're wildly different. But there has 0:02:57.480 --> 0:03:01.160 not been a ton of like care in Trump two 0:03:01.200 --> 0:03:01.639 point zero. 0:03:02.000 --> 0:03:02.160 No. 0:03:02.280 --> 0:03:05.440 I think that they overestimated their support. I think they 0:03:05.440 --> 0:03:09.080 were overconfident and they overreached. Trump had not faced any 0:03:09.120 --> 0:03:12.560 serious contestation in the Republican Party for years, not for 0:03:12.600 --> 0:03:16.120 several years, and I think they've taken all of that forget. 0:03:16.200 --> 0:03:19.399 I think they over all of us kind of overblew 0:03:19.520 --> 0:03:21.480 the fact that he won the popular vote, which he 0:03:21.480 --> 0:03:24.320 had never done before, and they took that as a 0:03:24.360 --> 0:03:28.240 mandate which never existed. You're right, they've done a series. 0:03:28.760 --> 0:03:31.760 Almost all of their major policies are things that the 0:03:31.800 --> 0:03:35.280 public either is indifferent to or as opposed to, and 0:03:35.920 --> 0:03:38.760 that's that's hurting them. It's not hurting them the way 0:03:38.800 --> 0:03:40.880 that it would have hurted a politician in the old days. 0:03:40.880 --> 0:03:44.320 Because Trump has a thirty five percent base that's very 0:03:44.360 --> 0:03:47.040 hard to chip away at. But at this pace he's 0:03:47.200 --> 0:03:49.520 he's going to continue to decline towards that thirty five 0:03:49.520 --> 0:03:50.320 percent floor. 0:03:50.880 --> 0:03:52.560 They're sort of intractable. 0:03:52.680 --> 0:03:52.880 Right. 0:03:53.200 --> 0:03:55.120 It's bad politics, so you can get away with it 0:03:55.400 --> 0:03:58.240 if you control the security forces. You can be like 0:03:58.400 --> 0:04:02.240 Nicola Baduro in Venezuela and have an eighteen percent approval 0:04:02.360 --> 0:04:05.440 rating and fail and fail and fail and fail, and 0:04:05.480 --> 0:04:08.400 still still stay in power if you control the security forces. 0:04:08.520 --> 0:04:11.400 And you know, Trump has taken some initial steps towards 0:04:11.400 --> 0:04:16.200 politicizing our security forces in really really dangerous directions, but 0:04:16.480 --> 0:04:18.479 he's not at the point where he can just do 0:04:18.560 --> 0:04:20.400 whatever the hell he wants and rely on repression. 0:04:20.760 --> 0:04:23.200 Part of it was that it's just not that easy 0:04:23.240 --> 0:04:26.480 to go from democracy to authoritarianism, right, I mean, there's 0:04:26.640 --> 0:04:28.440 just there's sand in the gears. 0:04:28.839 --> 0:04:32.760 Democracy is particularly hard to kill one because the nature 0:04:32.800 --> 0:04:35.279 and the strength of our institutions. We have a constitution 0:04:35.520 --> 0:04:37.839 that's not easy to push over. We have a very 0:04:37.880 --> 0:04:41.280 independent and judiciary. We have federalism, which, as we've seen, 0:04:41.360 --> 0:04:45.800 matters a lot, and we have a highly professionalized armed forces, which, 0:04:45.960 --> 0:04:49.239 despite Trump's attempts, is not easy to policis. We also 0:04:49.279 --> 0:04:53.479 have a much much more vibrant society, a much wealthier, 0:04:53.560 --> 0:04:57.920 better organized society than say elsalvad or Russia or other 0:04:57.960 --> 0:05:01.480 places where democracy has been has been crushed. So Trump 0:05:01.560 --> 0:05:06.240 has undermined democracy. I would argue he's sort of pushed 0:05:06.320 --> 0:05:08.920 us mildly over the line into what I would call 0:05:08.960 --> 0:05:12.960 competitive authoritarianism. But because of the strength of our institutions, 0:05:12.960 --> 0:05:15.400 in the strength of our society, every step of the way, 0:05:15.400 --> 0:05:18.960 he is going to be pretty contested, and actually consolidating 0:05:19.120 --> 0:05:22.120 something like Putin style rule is going to be really difficult. 0:05:22.240 --> 0:05:23.040 I'm curious when. 0:05:22.880 --> 0:05:26.040 You could talk about the importance of that Jimmy Kimmel 0:05:26.160 --> 0:05:29.120 moment Trump wanted to cancel Kimmel. I mean, what are 0:05:29.160 --> 0:05:31.480 the moments when you look back at twenty twenty five, 0:05:31.600 --> 0:05:35.240 where you feel like the critical mass was able to 0:05:35.279 --> 0:05:36.760 sort of push back against him. 0:05:37.120 --> 0:05:40.640 Very very difficult to isolate the turning point. We still 0:05:40.760 --> 0:05:43.600 know for sure that it's going to be a turning point. Ultimately, 0:05:43.680 --> 0:05:46.599 I think the election outcome is going to be very 0:05:46.680 --> 0:05:51.000 very important. The response to the initial Libration Day tariff 0:05:51.040 --> 0:05:53.400 move was also that was sort of the first blow. 0:05:53.640 --> 0:05:57.480 He never really recovered politically from our public opinion, from that. 0:05:57.640 --> 0:06:00.599 But you're right, you know, other than Harvard and a 0:06:00.640 --> 0:06:05.799 couple of other cases, very few elite actors in American 0:06:05.800 --> 0:06:09.480 society pushed back on Trump in the first nine months, 0:06:09.520 --> 0:06:12.200 and that's one of the reasons why we're in this mess. 0:06:12.360 --> 0:06:16.640 The level of elite abdication, from Supreme Court justices to senators, 0:06:16.680 --> 0:06:18.919 to business people to media owners, to law firms, the 0:06:19.000 --> 0:06:23.640 university presidents has been really, really consequential. And initially, initially 0:06:23.640 --> 0:06:26.920 obviously Disney was also giving in, but I haven't seen 0:06:27.120 --> 0:06:30.440 the definitive account of why that was reversed. But the 0:06:30.480 --> 0:06:33.839 public outcry and the public mobilization in response to that, 0:06:33.920 --> 0:06:37.520 I think was significant, and Disney's decision, whatever the basis 0:06:37.520 --> 0:06:40.400 of his calculation, to kind of reverse course. Yeah, pretty 0:06:40.400 --> 0:06:40.960 important move. 0:06:41.200 --> 0:06:43.919 I want you to say more about that the elites, 0:06:44.000 --> 0:06:48.560 because from that moment when you had those billionaires at 0:06:48.600 --> 0:06:55.200 the inauguration, to Sherry Redstone canceling Colbert to just at 0:06:55.279 --> 0:07:00.960 every point we saw billionaires, millionaires, senators. I mean, we 0:07:01.080 --> 0:07:04.360 just saw such a level of craven I was kind 0:07:04.360 --> 0:07:05.240 of shocked. 0:07:05.680 --> 0:07:07.560 It was shocking. I was shocked as well. In fact, 0:07:07.600 --> 0:07:10.720 one of the reasons why, even though I've obviously been 0:07:10.760 --> 0:07:14.360 writing for years about Trump's authoritarianism, one reason why I 0:07:14.480 --> 0:07:18.800 was always relatively confident in US democracy was again that 0:07:18.840 --> 0:07:23.760 we have such a wealthy, well organized, well connected society 0:07:23.800 --> 0:07:26.840 that's not dependent on the government the way they say 0:07:27.240 --> 0:07:30.760 Russian oligarchs are, and that have the resource, We have 0:07:30.800 --> 0:07:35.040 the muscle in our society to push back easily against Trump, 0:07:35.280 --> 0:07:37.800 and we didn't do it. We didn't do it at 0:07:38.080 --> 0:07:40.560 the top. So had you asked me prior to Trump's 0:07:40.560 --> 0:07:43.640 selection whether it's a positive or negative that We've got 0:07:43.800 --> 0:07:46.960 eight nine hundred billionaires and more than twenty million millionaires 0:07:46.960 --> 0:07:48.880 in this country, I would say that's a good thing, 0:07:48.920 --> 0:07:51.560 because Trump cannot buy all these folks off, and they're 0:07:51.560 --> 0:07:55.040 going to provide resources for the opposition, and the signal 0:07:55.320 --> 0:07:59.400 that Jeff Bezos and Zuckerberg and Tim Cook and all 0:07:59.480 --> 0:08:02.880 these guys is said, from the moment Trump got elected 0:08:03.400 --> 0:08:07.520 was really really powerful because people looked at many many 0:08:07.520 --> 0:08:10.320 men of your citizens looked out and said, And Columbia 0:08:10.400 --> 0:08:12.880 University is another case. If the most powerful law firm, 0:08:13.000 --> 0:08:16.120 the most powerful media comme, the most powerful CEOs, the 0:08:16.120 --> 0:08:19.680 most powerful Ivy League universities, if they can't push back 0:08:19.720 --> 0:08:21.680 on Trump, what chance do the rest of us have. 0:08:22.000 --> 0:08:25.760 It was a very very demobilizing signal from the very 0:08:25.840 --> 0:08:29.280 very beginning, and hugely consequential. I think we're still trying 0:08:29.280 --> 0:08:32.640 to figure out exactly why that happened. It doesn't always happen. 0:08:32.800 --> 0:08:35.360 We can point to countries and even the United States 0:08:35.400 --> 0:08:38.719 in the first Trump administration where elites have been a 0:08:38.720 --> 0:08:42.079 little more responsible and put some money and some and 0:08:42.520 --> 0:08:45.520 some Kurds on the line and took on Trump. I'm 0:08:45.559 --> 0:08:48.000 still trying to explain why that didn't happen this time, 0:08:48.000 --> 0:08:50.640 but it was hugely consequental. We would not be in 0:08:50.679 --> 0:08:52.800 the mess we're in today had it not been for 0:08:52.840 --> 0:08:56.480 the behavior of our elite people who knew better, people 0:08:56.480 --> 0:08:59.920 who had private speak very differently, but who were unwilling 0:09:00.080 --> 0:09:01.000 to stand up. 0:09:01.240 --> 0:09:04.800 Yeah, I mean it just seemed like the most craven 0:09:05.320 --> 0:09:08.720 calculus largely. I mean there were other things, but you know, 0:09:09.280 --> 0:09:10.360 we want to do business. 0:09:10.640 --> 0:09:13.319 Really, the whole project of twenty of Project twenty twenty 0:09:13.320 --> 0:09:16.920 five man very clear to business owners that if you want, 0:09:16.960 --> 0:09:19.600 if they wanted to continue making money over the next 0:09:19.640 --> 0:09:21.880 four years, they had to be on good term for Trump. 0:09:21.920 --> 0:09:22.520 And they did it. 0:09:22.800 --> 0:09:24.800 Yeah, it was sort of equal parts. 0:09:25.160 --> 0:09:29.960 They understood Trump, these organizations like the Heritage Foundation, so 0:09:30.280 --> 0:09:32.440 they were able to sort of put in place a 0:09:32.559 --> 0:09:35.800 kind of intellectual not intellectual, but a kind of structure 0:09:35.880 --> 0:09:37.839 behind his basest instincts. 0:09:37.960 --> 0:09:41.800 Right. Yeah, every government and in every political regime is 0:09:41.960 --> 0:09:45.480 a coalition and a confluence of different forces. But two 0:09:45.559 --> 0:09:48.560 of the major players in this government are on the 0:09:48.559 --> 0:09:53.120 one hand, Trump and his loyalists, his appointees, who are 0:09:53.160 --> 0:09:56.960 just simply hacks who depend entirely on him and do 0:09:57.120 --> 0:10:01.880 his bidding. Trump has no ideology, his very authoritarian instincts, 0:10:01.960 --> 0:10:05.120 but it's hyper pragmatic. People can sort of figure out 0:10:05.160 --> 0:10:08.800 how to please him pretty easily and then aligned with him. 0:10:09.000 --> 0:10:11.959 I mean, Heritage is somewhat different and people like Stephen 0:10:12.000 --> 0:10:15.120 Miller and Russ Vaught are much more ideological. There are 0:10:15.440 --> 0:10:19.800 ideological authoritarians in this government who do have a project 0:10:20.040 --> 0:10:22.880 which is pretty similar to draws quite a bit on 0:10:23.000 --> 0:10:27.120 Victor Orbon in Hungary and others, which is not to 0:10:27.400 --> 0:10:30.240 politicize the state just to get rich and to make 0:10:30.280 --> 0:10:34.200 sure nobody questions you when you pursue your goals like Trump. 0:10:34.360 --> 0:10:37.800 I mean, these guys really do see this country's public 0:10:37.920 --> 0:10:42.400 and private institutions as being corroded by choose your term, 0:10:42.600 --> 0:10:46.040 cultural Marxists or leftists or socialists, and they have a 0:10:46.080 --> 0:10:50.839 project of packing this country's institutions with basically ethno nationalists 0:10:51.200 --> 0:10:54.600 and purging left liberal ideas from this country and kind 0:10:54.600 --> 0:10:57.280 of rolling back the steps that this country's taken towards 0:10:57.360 --> 0:11:02.079 multiracial democracy over our lifetimes. It's a radical authoritarian agenda, 0:11:02.200 --> 0:11:05.120 but it's coherent, and Trump doesn't live and die with that. 0:11:05.200 --> 0:11:07.360 It's an alliance talk us through sort of. 0:11:07.440 --> 0:11:10.079 If you look at the broad sweep of American history, 0:11:10.320 --> 0:11:11.360 what do you think it is? 0:11:11.640 --> 0:11:14.400 Multiracial democracy is a really hard thing to pull off. 0:11:14.440 --> 0:11:18.640 I'm talking about a democracy in a diverse society in 0:11:18.679 --> 0:11:21.320 which the rights of individuals of all ethnic groups are 0:11:21.360 --> 0:11:25.640 protected equally. We've had that on paper since nineteen sixty 0:11:25.640 --> 0:11:28.080 four or sixty five. We tried it in the aftermath 0:11:28.160 --> 0:11:31.240 of the Civil War. It triggered a very, very violent, 0:11:31.600 --> 0:11:35.040 very authoritarian reaction that resulted in nearly a century of 0:11:35.040 --> 0:11:38.440 authoritarianism in the US South. So our first experiment with 0:11:38.520 --> 0:11:42.280 multiracial democracy in the late eighteen sixties was violently and 0:11:42.320 --> 0:11:45.800 thoroughly derailed. We attempted it again with the Civil Rights 0:11:45.840 --> 0:11:48.760 Revolution in the fifties and sixties. On paper, we got 0:11:48.760 --> 0:11:51.959 there in nineteen sixty four sixty five, and that began, 0:11:52.440 --> 0:11:56.560 along with the massive wave of immigration that we experienced 0:11:56.600 --> 0:11:59.880 also since the mid nineteen sixties, began a long, slow 0:12:00.080 --> 0:12:03.640 march to a country that was much more diverse and 0:12:03.760 --> 0:12:07.079 much more egalitarian than ever before in history. And that 0:12:07.280 --> 0:12:10.880 was a pretty radical experiment. I don't think any country 0:12:10.920 --> 0:12:15.120 has ever achieved a truly multi racial democracy. Yet what 0:12:15.320 --> 0:12:18.720 certainly never happened is you've never had a democracy in 0:12:18.840 --> 0:12:24.160 history in which the long dominant ethnic majority loses that 0:12:24.200 --> 0:12:27.840 dominance and loses that majority. And that's what the United 0:12:27.880 --> 0:12:30.920 States is experiencing in the twenty first century. That's a 0:12:30.960 --> 0:12:33.880 big deal, and it turns out it's a bigger deal, 0:12:34.480 --> 0:12:37.320 I think than most of us expected, certainly including me. 0:12:37.679 --> 0:12:40.040 I think fundamentally there are a lot of things going on. 0:12:40.280 --> 0:12:42.959 There's never one cause of a political crisis or a 0:12:43.000 --> 0:12:46.200 political conflict. It would be ridiculous to suggest that there was. 0:12:46.280 --> 0:12:49.640 But I think the principal source of our conflict in 0:12:49.679 --> 0:12:53.200 the twenty teens in twenty twenties is a reaction to 0:12:53.440 --> 0:12:57.920 the pretty significant steps that we've taken towards multi racial 0:12:57.920 --> 0:13:03.280 democracy over our lifetimes, to the challenges, the unprecedented challenges 0:13:03.840 --> 0:13:07.520 to racial and gender and social hierarchies that we've experienced 0:13:07.720 --> 0:13:09.440 just in our adult lifetimes. 0:13:09.720 --> 0:13:12.000 And that's why they're so obsessed with South Africa. 0:13:12.240 --> 0:13:14.800 Right, What else explains that? Right? These guys are I 0:13:14.800 --> 0:13:17.240 guess ethno nationalists is a polite way of putting it. 0:13:17.280 --> 0:13:20.679 There are other ways of putting it. They're pretty white supremacist. 0:13:20.600 --> 0:13:23.680 Right, because the South Africa stuff never made any sense 0:13:23.760 --> 0:13:25.960 to me really. I mean, I know that a lot 0:13:26.040 --> 0:13:29.080 of billionaires in Trump's orbit are from South Africa, but 0:13:29.160 --> 0:13:31.760 that makes more sense if you think about it in 0:13:31.800 --> 0:13:35.160 the way of white people worried that their stuff is 0:13:35.160 --> 0:13:36.000 being taken away. 0:13:36.240 --> 0:13:39.280 Their status is being taken away. They're dominant status. I mean, 0:13:39.640 --> 0:13:41.760 white coasts are doing fine in this country. But the 0:13:41.920 --> 0:13:45.440 days in which all of this country's political leaders, all 0:13:45.480 --> 0:13:48.080 of the top CEOs, all of the judges, all the 0:13:48.080 --> 0:13:51.920 football coaches, all the university presidents, all the TV talking heads, 0:13:52.120 --> 0:13:55.199 all the people you watch on television commercials, if anyone 0:13:55.240 --> 0:13:57.840 watches televit commercials anymore, all of those people when we 0:13:57.840 --> 0:14:00.320 were kids were white. Those days are gone, and that's 0:14:00.320 --> 0:14:01.200 what's being reacted to. 0:14:01.559 --> 0:14:06.120 That's why there's so much talk about the fifties and nostalgia, 0:14:06.200 --> 0:14:07.920 and those are sort of code words. 0:14:08.080 --> 0:14:10.240 I think so. And of course it's not just race. Gender. 0:14:10.320 --> 0:14:13.600 Hierarchies have also been seriously challenged. Hierarchies that were in 0:14:13.600 --> 0:14:17.400 place for two centuries, for generation after generation after generation 0:14:17.480 --> 0:14:22.440 after generation after generation suddenly in one generation having seriously challenge. 0:14:22.600 --> 0:14:25.800 So you think it's just a sort of like overturning row. 0:14:26.080 --> 0:14:31.400 These are the kind of pushbacks to the arc of progress. 0:14:31.640 --> 0:14:33.680 I think that's a big part of what's going on. 0:14:33.880 --> 0:14:37.320 Sometimes we don't appreciate, I think how much progress we've 0:14:37.360 --> 0:14:39.680 made since the middle of the twentieth century. If you 0:14:39.720 --> 0:14:43.480 care about things like racial, social, and generar equality. But yeah, again, 0:14:43.520 --> 0:14:46.680 there are other things going on, the underlying economic issues, 0:14:46.680 --> 0:14:50.920 growing inequality, declining social mobility, all those things matter a lot. 0:14:51.080 --> 0:14:54.280 But fundamentally, I think this is a reaction towards towards 0:14:54.560 --> 0:14:55.640 our steps towards equality. 0:14:55.720 --> 0:14:55.960 Yeah. 0:14:56.160 --> 0:14:59.200 I talked to someone who's like a straight journalist who 0:14:59.280 --> 0:15:05.760 was in Europe covering the disastrous Trump witkof negotiation with 0:15:05.880 --> 0:15:09.040 Russia and Ukraine, which has completely gone off the rails 0:15:09.080 --> 0:15:11.400 if it ever was on the rails, And this person 0:15:11.480 --> 0:15:15.320 told me there was so much anxiety in Europe about 0:15:15.760 --> 0:15:19.840 creeping authoritarianism. And my friend said, but I told them 0:15:19.880 --> 0:15:23.680 Trump is not popular here, but the Europeans it does 0:15:23.800 --> 0:15:27.400 feel like they have a whole other level of anxiety 0:15:27.600 --> 0:15:31.880 about us, which I feel like after the twenty five elections, 0:15:31.920 --> 0:15:33.280 we see a way out of this. 0:15:33.640 --> 0:15:34.880 What do you think, Well. 0:15:34.720 --> 0:15:36.960 First of all, there's always going to be a bit 0:15:37.000 --> 0:15:40.480 of a lag between public perceptions elsewhere in the world 0:15:40.760 --> 0:15:42.520 and sort of how we're seeing things in the day 0:15:42.560 --> 0:15:46.000 to day here. But this is obviously a very big deal. 0:15:46.080 --> 0:15:49.560 The United States, for better or worse, probably better and worse. 0:15:50.040 --> 0:15:53.480 Was the leader of the Liberal world it has been 0:15:53.600 --> 0:15:56.680 since World War Two, and it really sort of picked 0:15:56.760 --> 0:15:59.640 up that role again after the fall of Blin Wall. 0:16:00.000 --> 0:16:04.640 The US was in an increasingly multipolar world. I mean, 0:16:04.680 --> 0:16:06.880 for the nineteen nineties, we had it easy because the 0:16:07.000 --> 0:16:10.280 liberal West was hegemonic in the world. But that wasn't 0:16:10.280 --> 0:16:13.160 gonna last forever. And with the emerges, the slow rise 0:16:13.160 --> 0:16:15.600 of China and the resurgence of Russia as an aggressive 0:16:15.960 --> 0:16:19.760 anti liberal power, this became a more difficult, scarier world. 0:16:19.920 --> 0:16:23.760 And the United States was the military, economic, and ideological 0:16:23.840 --> 0:16:27.600 leader of the liberal West. And Donald Trump threatened to 0:16:27.800 --> 0:16:32.840 switch sides, to leave the liberal team and join forces 0:16:32.840 --> 0:16:37.080 with the bad guys. And if you are anybody, including America, 0:16:37.280 --> 0:16:39.479 the liberals in the United States, and I mean liberalism 0:16:39.640 --> 0:16:42.160 in a classical sense to include a large number of 0:16:42.200 --> 0:16:45.360 even Reagan Conservatives, if you're a liberal and you see 0:16:45.360 --> 0:16:47.600 the leader of the liberal West switching side to the 0:16:47.640 --> 0:16:51.080 other team, that's really scary. What Europeans have had to 0:16:51.120 --> 0:16:54.040 conclude is even in the best case, even if twenty 0:16:54.040 --> 0:16:56.600 five elections portend, you know, relatively good news of the 0:16:56.680 --> 0:16:59.800 United States second time around, after we brought back Trump, 0:17:00.080 --> 0:17:02.880 after everything, the Europeans know that they can't rely on 0:17:03.000 --> 0:17:06.960 us in the best case scenario where we're vulnerable to 0:17:07.000 --> 0:17:11.679 the flip flop between reasonable governments and unreasonable governments. So 0:17:11.720 --> 0:17:14.480 the days of being able to rely on the United 0:17:14.480 --> 0:17:16.560 States as a leader of the liberal West. 0:17:16.680 --> 0:17:20.280 I think we're over so interesting. Will you please come back? 0:17:20.640 --> 0:17:20.800 Oh? 0:17:20.840 --> 0:17:21.639 Sure, happy to. 0:17:26.000 --> 0:17:29.320 We have exciting news over on our YouTube channel. This 0:17:29.440 --> 0:17:33.080 second episode from our Project twenty twenty nine. 0:17:32.920 --> 0:17:34.280 Series is out now. 0:17:34.480 --> 0:17:37.600 It's a reimagining where we examine what went wrong with 0:17:37.680 --> 0:17:40.800 democrats approach to politics and how we can correct it 0:17:40.840 --> 0:17:44.560 and deliver changes to help people's lives. The first episode 0:17:44.680 --> 0:17:49.160 dove into the very sexy topic of campaign finance reform, 0:17:49.359 --> 0:17:52.919 and our second episode deals with an even sexier topic, 0:17:53.119 --> 0:17:59.240 antitrust and regulation. We look at how antitrust and regulation 0:17:59.440 --> 0:18:04.680 can protect American citizens and make America thrive in an 0:18:04.720 --> 0:18:09.600 era of rampant corruption and predatory crony capitalism. We talk 0:18:09.960 --> 0:18:13.160 to the smartest names in the field like Lena Kahn, 0:18:13.480 --> 0:18:16.680 Elvero Bedoya, Elizabeth. 0:18:16.040 --> 0:18:18.119 Wilkins, and Doha Mecki. 0:18:18.359 --> 0:18:22.159 Republicans were prepared for when they got the levers of power. 0:18:22.440 --> 0:18:25.720 We need Democrats to be too, so please head over 0:18:25.760 --> 0:18:29.640 to YouTube and search Mollie John Fast Project twenty twenty nine, 0:18:29.960 --> 0:18:34.399 or go to the Fast Politics YouTube channel and find 0:18:34.400 --> 0:18:39.280 it there and help us spread the word. Michael Roth 0:18:39.400 --> 0:18:43.440 is a president of Wesleyan University. Welcome to Fast Politics. 0:18:43.600 --> 0:18:46.280 Michael Roth, Thank you for having me. Glad to be here. 0:18:46.440 --> 0:18:48.520 You are a president of the closest thing I have 0:18:48.640 --> 0:18:53.359 ever come to college, Wesleyan University. I wanted you to 0:18:53.400 --> 0:18:56.840 come on for any number of reasons, but what I 0:18:57.000 --> 0:18:59.560 really wanted to talk to you about first was you 0:18:59.760 --> 0:19:03.240 have been one of the very very very few brave 0:19:03.680 --> 0:19:08.879 college presidents who has talked about how important education is 0:19:09.280 --> 0:19:12.080 and democracy. So I would love you to start by 0:19:12.119 --> 0:19:15.520 talking about what it took to be brave like that, 0:19:16.240 --> 0:19:20.200 and why you decided to make that calculus and how 0:19:20.240 --> 0:19:20.840 it's gone. 0:19:21.200 --> 0:19:23.760 Well, you know, I had no idea it was brave, 0:19:23.840 --> 0:19:27.000 frankly right. If I had, I probably would have kept 0:19:27.040 --> 0:19:29.840 my mouth shut. I thought, everybody knows if you're in 0:19:29.880 --> 0:19:32.399 the college and world, and if you're in education, that 0:19:32.920 --> 0:19:37.280 education depends on freedom. If you interfere with you believe 0:19:37.320 --> 0:19:40.280 people to think for themselves, express themselves. I mean, of 0:19:40.280 --> 0:19:43.720 course there's always some pressure listener or that. But you know, basically, 0:19:44.040 --> 0:19:46.880 if you're going to experiment and discover things about yourself 0:19:46.880 --> 0:19:49.719 in the world, you have to have freedom. Everybody knows that. 0:19:49.800 --> 0:19:51.560 I mean, it's not like college presidents didn't know that. 0:19:51.600 --> 0:19:54.680 Professors know, their teachers know that. But when the current 0:19:54.720 --> 0:19:58.400 president got elected, suddenly people said, I can't say that, 0:19:58.720 --> 0:20:01.320 And everybody knows. We've been saying this for so long. 0:20:01.400 --> 0:20:04.240 Everybody knows that you learn more when there are people 0:20:04.280 --> 0:20:06.439 in the room who don't share your opinion and it 0:20:06.480 --> 0:20:08.720 don't come from the same background as you. And we 0:20:08.760 --> 0:20:11.200 all know that you learn more in a diverse environment, 0:20:11.400 --> 0:20:14.199 and that you learn more when people feel they belong 0:20:14.680 --> 0:20:16.880 to the same endeavor, they're on the same team. I've 0:20:16.880 --> 0:20:19.280 been saying this stuff for a long time, but everybody 0:20:19.320 --> 0:20:22.720 else stopped talking. It seems so almost everyone. And it's 0:20:22.800 --> 0:20:26.040 like those old If Hutton commercials where somebody whispers and 0:20:26.240 --> 0:20:29.280 it seems very loud because everyone has stopped talking about 0:20:29.359 --> 0:20:32.119 that case the stock market, in this case democracy. You know, 0:20:32.200 --> 0:20:35.200 many of my fellow presidents, certainly my students, that they're 0:20:35.200 --> 0:20:38.960 to the left of me. My progressive credentials are, let's say, uneven. 0:20:40.080 --> 0:20:42.679 It seems so obvious that if we don't stand up 0:20:42.720 --> 0:20:47.200 for democracy and education, our educational values and our political 0:20:47.400 --> 0:20:51.320 possibilities will be vastly diminished. So I've been saying that 0:20:51.400 --> 0:20:53.840 as often as I can, because I really do believe 0:20:54.080 --> 0:20:56.040 the threat is profound right now. 0:20:56.320 --> 0:21:00.760 I think it's very interesting that the Trump administration has 0:21:00.960 --> 0:21:06.080 in this second term really focused on education, and I 0:21:06.200 --> 0:21:08.480 wonder if you could explain to us why you think 0:21:08.520 --> 0:21:08.879 that is. 0:21:09.320 --> 0:21:12.320 It's been the case for a long time that people 0:21:12.400 --> 0:21:16.480 who want to centralize power, people who are prone to 0:21:16.960 --> 0:21:19.760 tyrannical rule, whether they're in this country or anywhere else 0:21:19.800 --> 0:21:22.440 in the world, they feel, and rightly so, they need 0:21:22.480 --> 0:21:26.199 to control educational institutions and cultural institutions. Fascists knew this, 0:21:26.520 --> 0:21:30.200 but even people who take over like monarchies know that 0:21:30.280 --> 0:21:36.200 if they don't coordinate their power into civil society, into 0:21:36.240 --> 0:21:40.440 places like education and entertainment, even things like the law 0:21:40.480 --> 0:21:43.840 firms and certainly journalists, that if they don't get those 0:21:43.880 --> 0:21:48.040 things in line, the chances of centralizing power is greatly reduced. 0:21:48.280 --> 0:21:51.879 For the current administration, they also thought well, colleges and 0:21:52.000 --> 0:21:56.439 universities have tilted so far to the left over the 0:21:56.520 --> 0:21:59.360