Impact elections in the u. S. And abroad. This is 90 minutes. Well, thank you, brad, for the kind introduction and let me start by thanking my friend Robbie George and his James Madison program on american ideals and institutions and bringing me to princeton its my first time here at this beautiful campus. I want to start with a personal story about my birthday. I happen to have been born on february 1st, 1985. But the february 1st is the point of interest here because on the persian calendar, i was born and raised in tehran, iran, on the persian calendar its the date on the Ayatollah Khomeini returned to tehran from his exile to herald the Islamic Revolution and founded the republic that took over after the shah was toppled. All of our relatives and friends would ask me, remind me what was your birthday and i would say february 1st. And they would always say because you brought the stench of the imam, which is terrible but its true. Why do i say that . None of my relatives were opposition figures. They were just average, middle to upper middle class tehran residents. So the surprising fact is that most of them supported the revolution when it happened but including some of them who were civil serve servants in the shahs regime that was always a warning for the hazards of political frenzies that can take over because you had an imperfect state that was socially permissive and progressive in many ways. It was definitely not a democracy but in a fit of national i would say political madness, many of the people who carried out the revolution came to regret they toppled that and replaced it with a profoundly liberal and quasi totalitarianism regime. It will anchor the story. We are not at a threat of seeing an islamist revolt take over the west not in that way, the way that it did in iran but it just to be careful about rocking a boat that might be not perfect but replacing it with what . So when professor george invited me to give this talk it was last summer. I just publiced a cover essay titled liberalism the worldwide crisis. And we were in the heat of the president ial campaign in the u. S. And i tried to set our election in the context of what i saw as a Global Development which is the rise of liberal movements of the far left and the far right across much of the developed and new world and the decline of liberalism as a governing philosophy. As liberalism fades and i went on to argue that what we now call trumpism and sanders in ism by the way represent the american stregss of this wider crisis of liberal order and of the liberal intellectual tradition. Now the time most journalists me very much included were convinced that donald trump was headed for a thumping in november. I made a bet with a friend from boston who was an early trump supporter that if hillary lost the election i would eat one of my shoes. Here we are now, i still havent made good on that bet. And im not sure if i ever will. Ill have to make it up to him some other way. But the essay itself has held up pretty well. If anything i think the events have since then confirmed my basic claims. To whit i think something has gone awry with liberalism. You can see the signs from the philippines to south africa, from vermont should note that y probably notice that it is unnecessary, but still when i say liberalism i dont mean that as a shorthand for people who vote for the Democratic Party in the u. S. Or as a sort of shorthand for the center left, but in the broader philosophical sense. I will define it very loosely. Im sure you will dispute my definition. We all think Different Things of liberalism, but broadly individual rights, democratic, pluralism and relatively free market. What used to be called the open society. Now, that liberal idea hasnt appeared to my mind as vulnerable as it is now since perhaps the period between the two world wars. Only now days the opposition to liberalism doesnt come from systematic ideologies like communism or fascism, but instead it tends to come from movements that are geographically disparate, often instinctive, and often theyre in combat with each other. Meaning the very liberalisms are contending with each other. Theyre more likely, again, to be local in focus and internally divided among themselves, which is why i use the somewhat catchall term illiberalism to describe this. I would like to use the first half of my talk laying out the diagnosis i had done in commentary magazine as well, why has liberalism gone awry and what are the defining characterisin characterisices of this ill liberalism. I will try to offer more scriptive claims, you know, what is to be done. How can liberals again i dont mean it as the left but as anyone who adheres to that broad philosophy of individual rights and pluralism, restore the promise of the open society in this age of illiberalism. I will draw a lot on my work as an editorial writer for the wall street journal, and ill probably make more sweeping claims than is appropriate in an academic setting. But if you again, if you think but i think theyre rigorous and factually sound, but if you im happy to dispute them and discuss them further in the question and answer. So how global is this new illiberalism ferment . Lets start with europe, and give you a map. Lets start with france. Right now the likelihood is that the fillon campaign, the center right campaign in france, is imploding, which means the real two contenders are emmanuel macron, the centrist liberal candidate, and of course Marine Le Pen of the far right national front, which has gained adherence and is truly growing. I wont make any predictions. After 2016 i have just i have learned my lesson. Im not going to make any predictions. But i would say that i think macron is weaker than a lot of people assume. I dont think he has organizational structure and i think he put himself forward as an obamalike candidate for an age of pitchforks and insecurity and anxiety. So i think not a prediction but a warning that i think macron is weak. Lets turn to austria where the austrian freedom party, which has genuinely nazi origin, almost won the presidency in austria last year. It is, again, a party thats finding outside of vienna, it is finding a new strength and more adherence. In germany, the alternative for deutsche land party, which you know is increasingly challenging chancellor Angela Merkel from the right. We will see what happens in that election this year. In the netherlands they have another politician who is illiberal and has crazy hair, who, again, in this years election could turn out to be the largest votegetter. In finland you have the fin party, which is entered government for the first time as an explicitly antiatlantic agenda, in opposition to nato and the liberal order. In central and eastern europe, Prime Minister in hungary used to be the exception to the region where he was putting forward a quasi authoritarian conservative nationalism. He was hollowing out a lot of the Democratic Institutions in hungary. Again, everyone thought it was the exception, but increasingly across the region you are seeing similar parties taking support, which suggests that it might be the trend and not the exception. More depressingly, in hungary itself the main opposition to Prime Minister comes not from a centrist party or a center right party or anything like that. It comes from yobick, which is inexplicitly neonazi. Some of the other parties i wouldnt describe that way, think theyre far right or whatever, but not genuinely fascist, but i think yobick is and i have interviewed their Senior Leadership and theyre genuinely terrifying. In grease the government is headed by the left, but it grew out of the 1990s antiglobalism movement. We have gotten used to them being a presence on the national stage, but given those origins it is part of the wave that happens to be coming from the left. To under line the conditions in greece, in the 2013 election the party that came third was golden dawn, which has a swastika for its logo. In britain he wishes he was Prime Minister, but the leader of the party, jeremy corbyn, has fast broken the partys peace with the third way marketfriendly liberal model that was champion by tony blair, and he is making he is staking the party increasingly on opposition to markets, on hostility to nato. Also in britain obviously you had brexit, which by the way i dont necessarily suggest that every brexit voter and the leadership of the movement fits in with all of this. Think it is a more complicated case, but at least one strand of brexit drew on this kind of p populism and illiberalism. Across europe various movements are energized. In Northern Ire Land there are movements watching. On the left the e. U. Is seen as a neoliberal vehicle for imposing austerity and tearing back workers rights in favor of corporations including foreign corporations, but on the right brussels is blamed for blurring National Borders and boundaries, flooding europe with immigrants, an substituting a bloodless multiculturism for the continents authentic natural cultures. Lets turn to turkey on the bridge between europe and asia. The country has transitioned to authoritarianism and a new sultanate is under way, especially since the attempted coup of this summer. More than 100 Media Outlets have been shuttered. Tens of thousands have been detained or pushed out of their jobs, and obviously president erdogan is attempting to transform the countrys system from the parliamentary system they have in place into a strong president ial one, of course with himself at the helm. Then, of course, there is russia. Russia is in many ways the standard bearer and the supporter of a lot of these illiberal movements across europe. It funds them sometimes. It certainly helps them deliver their message through its broadcasting networks. So having transformed his own country into an authoritarian, president putin has now set his sights toward dismantling the liberal order and consensus in europe. Lets turn to iran and the arab world. You might be surprised to even mention these because obviously theyve never been liberal places. Theyve always been repressive and theocratic and so forth. Even there, there are signs of the liberal slogans and ideals that drove the 2009 up rising in iran and the subsequent arab spring being replaced with nationalism in many ways. There have been recent surveys of arab youth that suggest that the increasingly want stability, that freedom as a slogan, as an aspiration is no longer interesting to them. In iran that generation of Young Students and middle class types who rose up in the 2009 after the disputed election, theyre now demoralized 30, 40 somethings who want to get on and more or less have made their peace with the system. I could go on, but in kenya, in south africa, in the philippines you are seeing similar ideas and movements rise. So it is worth asking, what is going on here. I think the typical answers, although theyre plausible and interesting, are flawed because i think they eschew ideas and ideology. So voters are reacting to sustained slow growth and dizzying technological change. Okay. But these illiberal attitudes are growing in countries that are growing rapidly. Poland, for example. The economy is chugging along, but voters are turning again for liberal order. Or it is said that the protective class of corporate and political elite have been uninterested in the pain of the unprotected many and now theyre having a long overdue reckoning. Okay, but when have elites really ever been in touch with the unprotected many . So all of these explanations are plausible. I think theres something to all of them, and some are more persuasive than others, but none is ideological account of ideological phenomenon. To think about illiberalism this way is one of the symptoms of liberalism in that it reduces all enemity and ideology to legal and economic issues. It is one of liberalisms blind spots. But i think the liberal ascendance we are seeing now and that i suspect will be a defining feature of the 21st century is what happens when that capacity of liberalism dissolves ideology and again win enemity and social conflict in a stream of commerce and law, it reaches its limits when it can no longer do that. And when liberals dont give politics, ideology and enemity, frankly, theyre due. And taking perhaps a little too seriously their own claim of standing above and beyond ideology and politics. So to see this global explosion of trumpism as merely a reaction to social, economic and legal developments is to reproduce the same common error. I think some of the people who are the sharpest critics but also the most more sympathetic observers of these illiberal movements are making the same mistake. I think it is more important to go to the set of feelings and ideas that are the work of any real ideology to get behind what is driving it. To look at the policy mix that typically is offered by thinks illiberal parties and movement isnt that interesting but lets list them. They tend to prefer trade protectionism and social protection more broadly and to alleviate the anxieties of workers who feel left behind by globalization. They tend to prefer immigration restri restrictionism and they tend to be structures that since the end of world war ii govern what we call the west and produced the liberal order we are accustomed to. I think what matters more, again, are those deeper ideological impulse also and sensibility also. So what are those . I identify three as being the defining feelings and sensibilities behind these movements. One, the restoration of a prouder, more wholesome, morocco her more coherent things. Make america great, the slogan itself recalls a time when industrial relations were fairer, the 1950s manufacturing was king and we could return to that. Two, to talk about yobick in hungary. Their leaders talk about restoring hungarys proper national boundaries, and they do have these feelings about returning communities that were lost in the postworld war i settlement to hungary, and they look with fondness to that era. Theres a strand of brexit that i think shows has this similar sense of returning to a past in its most romantic framing again, not all brexiteers think this way, but in its most romantic framing it imagines the open sea and not the continent of europe with its petty bureaucrats as britains future destiny. Obviously Vladimir Putin inweisingly presen increasingly presents himself as a bull war of christianity as against the west which blurs national boundaries. I will point out i interviewed Marine Le Pen in 2015 and she said something that was interesting. He asked her about the trans atlantic trade packet between the u. S. And europe and said what is your objection to it . She said, it would mean we would introduce unhygieneic products into europe. Trailed by definition means shifting cultures and this anxiety about unhygieneic American Products is very telling. It says something. Thats the first point. I think the second psychological plank or the sensibility plank of this new liberalism is a feeling of collective grievance and a desire for national recognition. So trumpism obviously is defined by a set of grievances against bankers, mexicans, muslims, the chinese and so on. Ironically, in europe it is the u. S. Who is only the bogey for these types of movements. Tpip folks, people who oppose the trans atlantic trade packet will say American Products uneven hygieneic or were going to have genetically modified American Food and similar phobias. Take alexander dugene, who is often called putins philosopher but more accurately scribbled as his philosopher because i dont think he has as many direct ties to the kremlin as he suggests. For him liberalism is another form of invasivure verseallism that threatens russia, and america is at its head. So he describes america as a kingdom of the antichrist that should be destroyed and at one point will be destroyed. When i interviewed him in the wake of trumps election, he didnt sound quite so apocalyptic but he told me, quote, liberalism is totalitarianism. With trump in the white house he said that all who reject, have an opening. That is a shift that we underestimate. In hungary Prime Minister orban and yobick are seeking to renegotiate the countrys war time capability. In an interview last year i asked about hungarys role in the holocaust. He readily conceded, yes, hungarian government had the responsibility but he quickly added, quote, this is a very complex issue because hungary suffered a lot of harm during the first world war, a lot of hungary populated territories were taken away from hungary and transferred to neighboring countries. I will never question anybodys right to commemorate the events of the past, but identity cannot be bit on tragedies as it will inevitably lead to more and more confrontation. You have this sense that to only sensor a sense of nation hood in europe and a sense of identity on europe on never again and what happened in the holocaust is somehow an affront and theres a hunger for something more. I also think that theres a desire and this is the third plank and the final one is a desire that politics reflects the dark realities of the present time. I happen to think that this is the area where the illiberals, if you will, have a point. The problem is the solutions they have are either issue rational or well, illiberal. It is where i think liberals, again, defined as broadly as possible, have a role to play to think, how do we rejigger the liberal program so it addresses these genuine concerns. Its desire that politics reflect the realities of the present, what do i mean by that . It means a recognition, for example, that enemity can be permanent, that bad actors cant be transformed into good ones and a sovereign nation needs sovereign options for dealing with timeless features for life in a fallen world. The moment i saw donald trump would win the republican nomination was when that was in november 2015 paris massacre where president obama came on and said more or less everything is fine. Again, he refused to say radical islam. And our strategy against isis is working. I thought that was a sense that theres a carpet pulled from under you because you think, what has just happened in paris, hundreds of People Killed and the certainty with which the president dismissed it as, well, it is okay, well work on it and everything is fine. It is