Transcription
Actually, what will come after Trump? [music] Because there will be an after Trump. He's mortal. Will be more radical still, either via, uh, JD Vance, who is more radical, more consistent, and less easily flattered. Unlike Trump, he believes in it. [music] Trump is a real estate operator who's moved into politics by reading the American unconscious correctly. But now, a lot of his policies are proving not as popular as they expected. Disillusionment will will set in. And then the question is, what does he do? Looking at the situation now, we have in the world, looking at, um, Trump's second presidency and the populist attack on on liberalism in in the US, um, what are the partial remedies that you would look to now? And maybe talking a little bit about, um, a thinker that's influenced your last book, *New Leviathans*, Thomas Hobbes. What can he contribute to that conversation?
Well, I begin by saying we can't expect to improve or even the present situation, or even to prevent it becoming worse, unless we understand something of why it came about. And I think I learned an enormous amount from an extraordinarily and characteristically stupid observation by David Cameron when he was, when he was, when he was asked, you know, what about this? He, oh, that's populism. As if it had absolutely nothing to do with anything he'd ever done or failed to do. It's just a completely inexplicable upheaval of wickedness, demagoguery, ignorance, etc. That's populism. Well, populism, as I understand it, is a word liberals use to describe the political backlash against the social disruption produced by their own policies. They don't un— They don't understand. I genuinely don't understand that what they have done or failed to do has produced or helped to produce these morbid phenomena that we now see. It's nothing to do with them. The only thing they ever admit to, I mean, when I talk to them, is that they weren't liberal enough. Uh, well, we were tremendously liberal, of course, and rational. No one would deny that. I would, but anyway. Uh, um, but maybe we should have gone further on that. Maybe we should have— I suggest I say, you mean when, when Hillary Clinton described 40% of the nation as the American nation as deplorables, what she should have really done is kept on saying it louder and louder. That would have converted them. Telling them that they're deplorables, that their, that their feelings are atavistic, that they're invariably racist, that the reduction in their life, life, their income and their wealth, which had been going on in America, or at least stagnation in their income, wells for 30 years, it's irrelevant. What they should do is shut up and be— I think she actually went to a mining town and told them that they should all, um, mining era, that they should all be glad that that we're going to become unemployed. Now, it might be that coal is a bad thing, and it might be that fossil fuel should be phased out, but you don't go to— and if they resist, they're deplorables.
So, uh, the first is to understand why this has come out. I believed in, in a, uh, talk I gave on the radio, I said in August of, uh, 2016, that that I thought Trump would win, and that the main reason, or one of the main reasons he would win, was actually wasn't doing very well up to that point, uh, was, uh, um, um, this description of voters, or 40% of American voters, by Hillary Clinton as, um, deplorables. I thought he would win again, as he did win again. And I think he's now going to use the power that he does have to produce an irreversible change in American government. Uh, uh, he's basically neutered the courts, either by putting his own people in on in them in the Supreme Court, or, um, um, ignoring them. He's got the National Guard at his disposal. I can't tell you what will happen, but I can tell you what to look for. The next thing to look for is, how does he respond when he loses the midterms? Does he say, "Well, fair doses"? I don't think so. I don't think so. What he will say is, "It's a hoax." This is what I expect. I can't. Now, if he does that, if he really tries to resist the democratic pushback against some of his policies, then we're in a different ball game. We're really in a different world because then we're in a, uh, uh, people call it fascist, but in a way, it's worse than that because fascism was time-bound. Fashion was primarily into war. It came about as a result largely of the disruption of life because of after the First World War and after, uh, Nazism was defeated. Fascism went on in some European countries, Portugal, Spain. But after Nazism was defeated, basically, it could, you could take out the fascist elites, you could inflict military defeat. Uh, um, and then what had survived, even to some extent in Nazi Germany, over civil society, could kind of reemerge. What's happening in America now is different. First of all, America is much more polarized. And this is very relevant to ideas of progress. People say progress is always possible. Not when there's no agreement on what progress means. If society, uh, we are less polarized, I think, in this country, uh, than America is, but there can't now be, I think, a reversion to the pre-Trump, pre-C Charlie, pre-can't. You've gone beyond that. Whatever happens will be different. If you want me to speculate about what will happen, my speculation will be that Trump will be the godfather of populisms, if I can call them that, more radical, um, uh, and more, uh, uh, disruptive than any he either intended or, um, uh, uh, imagined. He'll be actually what will come after Trump because there will be an after Trump. He's mortal. Um, um, will be more radical still, either via, uh, JD Vance, who is more radical, more consistent, and less easily flattered. He'll not be, um, he'll not be swayed by, um, being driven around Windsor Castle. Um, he'll do what he wants to do. And that's for another reason, which is, unlike Trump, he believes in it. Trump is a real estate operator and a reality TV showman who's moved into politics by reading the American unconscious correctly on a lot of issues. But now, a lot of his policies are proving not as popular as they expected. There's a danger of a crisis of the dollar. The, there's inflation. The cost of living is getting worse. Disillusionment will will set in. And then the question is, what does he do? You've only got a year to wait. You'll find out if he backs off. Wouldn't be characteristic, would it? Because he still says the, the, the last election, the one before the one he won, was hope. Was a hoax. He didn't. I mean, he even said, as you know, that he never met Peter Mandelson. He'll simply deny it. And then what will he do? What would he do with his—
>> And that maybe gives us the chance to widen the lens as well. You mentioned Peter Mansston and Windsor Castle.
>> What are the, what are the partial remedies from a UK point of view, if that is the America that is going to develop over the next couple years or so?
>> Uh, what it means here. Um, well, I think the, I think the difficulty is that the underlying disenchantment with mainstream politics has reached a point where it can't really be expressed without some sort of crisis. And if you ask what was the trigger of the crisis, I would say, and this sounds a little dull because it's not in the realm of ideas but of economic realities. I think a kind of super Liz Truss crisis on this, on the, uh, foreign exchanges might do it. What would happen if, um, that's why I don't believe I'm, I mean, I'm confident in saying this. There's practically zero chance of the present government led by Karma going into an election in 2029. You won't be there that long. The government won't be there that long. It's too systemically weak. Uh, and basically, um, no one has any ideas, hardly, about what to do. And I think connected with this, um, is that the live players in British politics are, so to speak, outside, most of them, of the, uh, the major parties. And so they adopt non-standard positions. If you've been watching, don't say you should, but if you've been watching Farage, what you might have noticed lately is a, a left turn in his economic policies, partial nationalization of the, uh, of utilities, water to to start with, and so on. Um, nobody ever thought he would do it. I was sure he would do it. People were saying he's just a thrite. It's a, that tribute act. No, he's more like Georgia Maloney, one of the most successful European politicians. He's got a tremendous sense of what, what the, there's a problem, of course, about Faraj's, uh, switch, which is that it's not deliverable. The problem is that if he does come to power, he won't be able to do it, not because the civil servants stop him, though they might try, because, but because it's extremely difficult to impose massive cuts on fiscal spending when they become a norm. Even, I mean, you heard of MLE in Argentina. He, uh, with a chainsaw. He says he takes his economic policies by consulting a medium who is in touch with his one of his dogs. Uh, but actually, up till now, he's been moderately successful, but now there's rebellion going on because there've been an enormous amount of sudden suffering for lots of people who are don't have access to hospitals and other public services and so on. So it's very, very difficult. So I think what this means is, um, a period of, um, sometime, some, somewhere over the next year, two years, whatever, maybe sooner, um, there'll be some sort of economic shock which will, uh, um, destabilize politics and may ultimately then result in an early general election. And you can't be absolutely certain about what will happen then. I mean, I remember when the Social Democratic Party in the 1980s, they emerged as challengers to the two main parties, and at one point they were commanding over 25% of the vote. Some people now say it'll be the same with Reform. I don't think so. I don't think so. Um, the depth of disillusionment now is much more profound. And the problem is now, we got used to getting poorer because it was slow, um, uh, as long as we could borrow more and have services, however difficult they might be, national health, long waiting lists, so on and so forth, trains that don't work very well. We got used to that. And perhaps if it could go on like that forever, just bumping along, we could remain used to it. But unfortunately, a lot of the money from that is comes from global markets, comes from, um, global bond market. If that's pulled out suddenly, then there's then there's a big shock. So that sort of connects with what, what the one thing I can sort of say with reasonable confidence is that the political world in this country and other countries will be very different by 2030.
>> So I'm just going to ask, uh, one more question to you, John, and also don't want to end on a complete downer. So on— [clears throat] you, you have, um, been accused of being a, a, a political pessimist. Um, sometimes even nihilist. >> Um, but I, I find much that's hopeful in your work as well. I wondered if you could just, um, explain the subtle difference between optimism and hope.
>> Well, optimism is, um, the belief that if you apply certain types of thinking, >> To continue watching this video, click the link in the top left or in the description below. >> With a free trial, you can enjoy the full talk and thousands more. Thank you for being part of the conversation.