Transcription
Aristotle, you see no difference between American democracy and the Chinese surveillance state. I think it's absolutely important to understand something about my philosophy, and please reread the Politics. It's I will, I will, I promise. It's a wonderful book, and it says something.
There are three basic forms of government: by the one, by the few, and by the many. But they each have a good side, and they each have a bad side. The good side of the one is monarchy. The bad side of the one is tyranny. The good side of the few is aristocracy. The bad side of the few is oligarchy. The good side of the many is republic. The bad side is, uh, is he called it democracy, by the way. But just so you know, it, it is mob rule.
So we shouldn't—you're saying the United States today is, is a state of mob rule. Did I understand you correctly? I—we have mob rule in the United States to a large extent. You should be very clear. We had a mob attack our capital, led by the president of the United States. That's mob rule. That's pure populism. That worried Aristotle a lot when he wrote in 330 BC that we would have populists like Donald Trump or Boris Johnson or many others. But the attempt at mob rule was reposted.