This is k.q.e.d. San Francisco and North Highlands Sacramento it's midnight. It's 8 hours g.m.t. This is weekend I'm Paul Henley coming up the authorities in Uganda pale fair elections in the face of accusations of fraud main by the main opposition candidate Bobby wind we'll hear from one of his supporters on the likely prospect of another 5 year term for the current president also we'll examine a spat between the United States and Mexico over drugs charges against a former Mexican minister. Police officers at every level and basically Shirish huge amounts of corruption so it's not actually surprising to most they've been Mexico there for but if it's what it is a big years ago trafficking all that plus our guest Christine O'Donnell a head of the Family Policy Unit of the Center for Social Justice and Remi adequate who's a Polish Nigerian writer and lecturer in politics at the University of York well to come after this news. B.b.c. News I'm Jerome Sherry the Indian prime minister Narendra Modi has launched a huge coronavirus vaccination program which aims to reach 300000000 people by August the 1st jobs were administered to health care workers in front of a scrum of reporters and television camera crews our South Asia correspondent Jonathan reports this mammoth exercise begins by immunizing 30000000 health care and frontline workers the Oxford Astra Zeneca vaccine which is being manufactured in India is one of 2 being rolled out the 2nd developed by Indian company Barrett biotech in conjunction with the government has caused some concern as it was approved the full passing phase 3 efficacy trials officials have assured people it's safe and will be administered under strict supervision but some health experts say it's still unclear how effective it will be. The u.s. President elect Joe Biden has announced further details of his plans to speed up coronavirus vaccinations across the country Mr Biden has promised to inoculate 100000000 Americans during his 1st 100 days as president he said he'd hire more public health workers and set up mass vaccination centers vaccines offer so much oh we're grateful for the scientists and researchers and everyone will participate in the clinical trials are grateful for the integrity of the process the rigors of you integrity as well as the millions of people around the world already be actually safe but the vaccine role of the United States has been a dismal failure of. The Ugandan electoral law Thora these are expected to announce the winner of Thursday's presidential election in the coming hours nearly with nearly 2 thirds of votes counted president you Arima 70 has a commanding lead over the main opposition candidate but the wine Catherine reports from come polar election officials in Campana have steadily released results from the presidential vote we are getting a better sense of how Bubby winds in new political party is fairing the national unity platform has won in mainly opposition strongholds taking a few parliamentary seats to form the ruling party bus performing mostly as anticipated in an unexpected twist almost half of the cabinet lost their seats according to the government's run new vision newspaper this included the 77 year old vice president Eduard 2nd. In Germany colleagues of Chancellor Angela Merkel are due to choose a replacement to succeed her leader of the Christian Democrats the winner could also take over as chancellor when she steps down in September after nearly 16 years in office the 3 contenders are arming Lasher to state prime minister Norbert Redgum the chair of Germany's Foreign Affairs Committee and the millionaire businessman Friedrich matts Well news from the b.b.c. . Rescue teams in Indonesia are continuing to search the rubble of buildings brought down by an earthquake and Friday that is now known to have killed at least $45.00 people most of those who died were in the area of west so the ways it to her tells on the hospital were among the badly damaged structures an activist group based in Washington says 5 pro-democracy protesters who escaped Hong Kong last year by boat have arrived in the United States the Hong Kong democracy Council said the demonstrations journey had been arduous and perilous they are reported to have initially fled to Taiwan before making their way to the u.s. . At least 3000 migrants have crossed into Guatemala from Honduras in the hope of eventually reaching the United States some carried children on their shoulders the migrants who say they're fleeing violence and poverty in Honduras hope that the incoming Biden administration will ease u.s. Border controls everything in Washington we pray that he and it be filled with mercy because will touch his homeless and that there be a way through we just want to chance to work we defeated we're left on the streets here in the caravan most of us have nothing not even a blanket to talking to prosecutors in Brazil have recommended criminal charges over a fire that killed 10 youth players from the country's most successful football team Flamengo in 2019 The boys aged between 14 and 16 died when they converted shipping containers where they lived caught fire in the middle of the night. Preparations for the Australian Open tennis tournament have suffered a blow after 2 people on a charter flight carrying players and their supporters who tested positive for coverage 19 those on board the flight from Los Angeles will now be confined to their hotel rooms for 2 weeks I think Luke the 2 time Grand Slam champion Victoria Azarenka and the former u.s. Open champion Sloane Stephens they've Easynews. It's 8 o 6 g.m.t. This is weekend from the b.b.c. World Service My name's Paul Henley and with me until the end of the program in about 25 minutes of my guests Cristina Odone a the head of the Family Policy Unit at the Center for Social Justice which is based in London she's also a journalist and novelist and Remi at a choir who's a Polish Nigerian writer and lecturer in politics at the University of York in the north of England more from them both shortly now 1st it's looking very likely that the Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni will win another 5 year term in office to extend a period of power that began in 1986 with more than half the votes of Thursday's elections counted president with 70 has a commanding lead of more than 60 percent of the vote compared with about 30 percent for his main challenger the rock musician turned politician Bobby wine Mr wine described the election as a sham alleging fraud and voter rigging the B.B.C.'s Catherine b.r. a Hunger went to his house to speak to him and he said this is an expected reaction from permanent the next one we have telling him to provide for you you have not a single iota of evidence to that effect we have had the most transparent fair election. Well we're doing 101 and the results have been reflected where the n.r.a. Party presented last we have lost hundreds of us that are selected how can you think the election. When his party as it is. One of those $54.00 that majority. That was in fact the spokesman for the president whose name is Dan Wanyama telling the b.b.c. That Bobby wines claim a voter rigging was not acceptable and had no truth to its now patients a Kumu is a lawyer and journalist in the capital Kampala who supported Bobby wine in this election I asked if the opposition to President 70 was now becoming resigned to the prospect of him winning yet another term in office and physically it looks very much like there is no chance right now that Bobby lie is going to be the president of Uganda and Uganda is this because looking and it's in that 535 years going going for Tia's of President with 70 and the more does that of defeats a sense of loss a chance for a young man who came from poverty into can self out of poverty to do the same for the country to tend to around and was given mid seventies that he say the rules so we are resigned to the fact that the state is very very powerful it's had everything at its disposal we are having an election in decades into needs his old . Says should meet the next says Siebold there is a little of military presence in the streets and infected but the wind plays and it's it's very much a done deal as the people I have been intimidated they've been cut so from the rest of the love and we have no choice but to accept that it's going to be in that the 5 years of with having of course it should ring alarm bells that Bobby one's house is surrounded by a military God Well God is open for discussion but he can't present evidence can hear the election fraud he says it's because the Internet is down what is his evidence well we need to understand that in Uganda raging election is a tradition it does not just happen on the day of the election. And it happened right before elections when you have the Sistine being many people it takes to support the incumbent we are talking about intimidation of what says that a very thoughtful refrain of maintain peace peace is a good thing but it's come to the silence to grateful if you do not vote for me you have going to go back to the old or the you're going to go back to the bush it's very difficult to talk of a free and fair election in this day and age when you do not have eaten a we question how you are transmitting results from all over the country to your people at the time when nobody else can access the same transmission systems with what's with the people whole at tallying the results in just the telling results and they've been accused of illegally telling because it since nobody else is allowed to question the figures that given to all to do their own cultural ation of what the elections should be so incites that Constance says considering the fact that in the past elections have been reached and court has held that elections have been ridged every single election backed with 70 has been cast holds has been held to be ridged only that the courts have said the rigging is not substantial enough to warrant and then elements it's is not divisive will add that this election was let's say of the Filled with no clear votes with presented to have been timed that way from polling stations you people cannot society today every preventatives because the mobo my name it was times of it's not been transparent at all and the evidence is there for us all to see and it's not just propaganda from the opposition it is a fact it's an extension of assistance of repression and of making sure that right from the very from the very beginning of its time of President the Civic. That rigging machine I mean it's to run so that the next election and in his favor again patience a Kumu lawyer journalist and office supporter in Uganda today marks the start of one of the world's most extensive coronavirus vaccination programs in India the government hopes to inoculate 3000000 people in the coming months starting with frontline health workers I've been speaking to our South Asia correspondent nothing who's outside a hospital in the capital New Delhi she began by telling me about the actual vaccines on offer. Of the vaccines and a big rolled out today all being produced here in India there are things that seem which are being rolled out one is the food after Zeneca vaccine which millions of doses have already been for Jason in Kunar in Maharashtra the 2nd one is an Indian developed vaccine from a company called current supply tank now that has caused some control to see the rollout to back because it's being rolled out before it's actually play in place 3 because try to save some experts are concerned that is vaccine is very good minister from people don't know how effective it will face the government stress to be vaccine is safe and that they will be giving it to people on the very strict supervision and clinical trial by $300000000.00 people that's an ambitious targets for the 1st few months of the campaign what infrastructure is there one of the chances of meeting the target well let's just break this down so I'm the one in That was Ragini Vijay nothin reporting from New Delhi Remy at a clinic in the grip of this Northern Hemisphere covert depressing winter it's easy to be blind to the good news of vaccines and it's pretty good news isn't it you know I definitely say so and I you know going into this yeah I met very optimistic and I think the program has so far been rolled alter relatively quickly or relative Lee efficiently let's say in the u.k. For talking about what concerns us directly here and so I'm pretty optimistic things are going to work on 2021 is going to be a better yet I'm trying to trying to guess how you're trying to turn She was good now you have to mystic as well Christina Like many I am but I'm also really interesting the way that the pandemic has overturned some of the assumptions we have about countries you know look at India doing so. And then from France where almost half the people are refusing to have a vaccination because they're such so I think the pandemic has been very interesting from from many perspectives What's your view of vaccine skeptics or any . I think it's just one of the money physicians of madness which we haven't a 21st century you know problems that we social media essentially unfortunately encourages I mean anybody kind of go up down talk all sorts of rubbish and if your money if you money is to be persuasive enough then you can have millions of people believing all sorts of nonsense so honestly speaking on the worst thing what if it comes to vaccines skeptic's is that you know they're not because it's not just about their health it's not just a personal decision because it actually affects other people in society because if you see us skeptical and don't want to take a vaccination then you cut school that then you could spread it to somebody else you know so but unfortunately these are the kinds of things we're going to have to learn how to deal with moving forward and yet there's so much misinformation out there you know so much nonsense being spotted out there you know and people believe all sorts of stuff it's healthy isn't it. Stina too to want medical evaluation and reassurance that a brand new drug is safe. I think this is going to become the big new social fault line we're going to be divided between those who accept their actions and take them and protect themselves and others and those who refuse to take things and become pariahs in their own nation thank you it's 18 minutes past 8 g.m.t. Mexico has argued there isn't enough evidence to charge a former defense minister in a rout over his prosecution for alleged drug trafficking general Salvador Goss was arrested in the u.s. In October but he was returned to Mexico to face charges those charges are now being dropped you know and Grillo is author of a book on the Latin American Gangster trade gangster warlords It's called he's been telling me more you had the charges made in the United States which for Wired and came from some of the agent of Las Vegas they would come stumbled on this case. There was a cild indictment made and the general say inflate also had been the defense minister of Mexico one of the highest ranking members of Mexican military flew to Los Angeles and suddenly found this arrest warrant sprung on him so huge deal and then the United States saying well 'd will drop the charges against him and give him to Mexico with the lot of kind of back hand bill being made on the idea that Mexico would press charges on the drug trafficking charges against him for a cause and then Mexico 2 months later saying no we're not going to make any charges against him and then saying here's the evidence they didn't have any evidence on him it was all rubbish it was all very speculative So a completely crazy surreal case of all angles hard to figure out exactly what happened and have you got to take on whether there is evidence against General c. And for a cause. Well I've looked at some of the documents that the Mexican government today posted online and they said this was the evidence that the Americans had and there isn't that much there from what I could see hundreds of pages of documents to look through it and if I'm missing something but it does seem there is not really the smoking gun now to get an indictment it is not the same level of evidence you need for an indictment as you need to convict so maybe people say well they're not there you see this kind of text of phone conversations or conversations with there was this corruption implied that the Mexican general was working with this drug trafficker so you can indict a fairly low bar so if that's all they had you could say was reasonable for the Mexican government to drop the charges however there's still this big suspicion so there are precedents other for corruption at that high a level way back when I 1st arrived in Mexico in 2002 I covered the court martial of 2 generals who convicted for drug trafficking so this is not something wildly new There are accusations of former presidents working with drug traffickers there was a case of the Swiss authorities finding a president's brother having $500000000.00 in Swiss bank accounts which they said was from drug money there's governors police officers every level and basically huge huge amounts of corruption so it's not actually surprising to most people in Mexico that a former defense minister can be accuser drug trafficking and how important is it for the u.s. To have the Mexican government's cooperation on drug issues or is that just a fantastical thought you know one side you've got the drug cartels who have carried out in men's level of violence in Mexico. Who are trafficking enormous amounts of drugs to the United States heroin crystal meth cocaine fed to nil and we're seeing record levels of drug overdoses in the United States so from that point of youth it's you can say the struggle is very very important and they need to work together to keep on bringing down drug traffickers like hell chop on their political protection the generals the politicians the place of his who work with them on the flip side this drug war is being fought for decades it's going to be 50 years this year since Richard Nixon declared a war on drugs and it's been a failure overall I mean we have to say that Americans are school still spending $150000000000.00 a year legal drugs according to a White House study so if the whole strategy is failing we need to rethink the strategy Ewen Grillo in Mexico author of gangster warlords drug dollars killing fields and the New Politics of Latin America. Now the crypto currency Bitcoin has more than doubled in value over the last 5 months one Bitcoin is currently worth around $35000.00 that's great news you might think for someone like Stefan Thomas who was paid $7002.00 Bit Coin almost 10 years ago as payment for a job he hung on to it and now it's worth more than $200000000.00 except Mr Thomas can't remember the password to the digital wallet that holds the currency and he's only got 2 goes left to guess it to go it correctly or he'll be locked out forever he told the b.b.c. He was trying to be philosophical about his predicament it was an interesting experience to say the least I think when I 1st discovered that I'd lost access to his wallet I was very depressed for several weeks as I couldn't sleep I couldn't question myself worth you really have to imagine like losing something that important what does that say about you you write and so after a couple of weeks of that this is back in 2012 when the cost wasn't as valuable as it is now but still for me it was a big amount of money and so after a couple weeks of being just completely desperate and the press sort of took a step back and I said you know I got that money for work that I did I earned money and there's so much more work that I can do it so much more I've got to give the world and so why should I be depressed of about what I lost when I just look forward so is there anything until that Stephan Thomas can do to get his password and his bitcoins back let's hear now from Diogo Monica who's an information and cryptocurrency security expert and also co-founder and president of Anchorage or company that specializes in i.t. Infrastructure welcome Diogo got I gather you think you can crack this pass code not that you intend to I think 200000000 dollars is a very large bounty and I know a lot of security experts are definitely welling to take a percentage cut for crack and yes what would need to happen. I think there's 3 primary ways to go about it one of us one of them involves capping the piece of hardware in which Stephan actually has this crypto and that means you buy a set of other iron keys which is a device that he bought in which you store it is is because in you this actively attempt to process until you get really good at it at opening the hardware in extracting private keys from inside of it so that's one that the 2nd one would be the site channel attacks which is a specific a method of analysis that's trying to see if there's any kind of behavior of these devices that you get to extract information from and so you try to effectively take a key trip from the site channel so to speak and there's also something there there's no backup route if you forget you'll password with your bank key you just ring them in and ask for another one there's no equivalent online for this is that . There's no equivalent online for this for a big question because part of the primary purpose of the of a decentralized crypto currency is to be your own bank however a lot of these personal keys in which you have your Because I do take you through a step process in which you write a set of words say a seat that is a back up recovery key so that you could store in a safety deposit box in your home close to a possible or some other safe documents and if you ever lose the key you get to recover all of you because in this case it doesn't seem like that happened does this happen a lot and this happens quite a lot and in fact that's part of the reason why Anchorage exists private key management is really heart and so we're regulated digital OS a platform that helps institutions build products in crypto and part of private key custody being so hard is one of the primary reasons why this is so hard for us as humans to build on it seems to be a lesson in don't touch big coin but then again maybe not when it's with such colossal amounts that's right how can it be a lesson in don't touch with Quinn when Steffanie $200000000.00. He's not getting it back though he doesn't look like it might he might be able to again $200000000.00 It's quite a bit and there's quite a few security engineers out there willing to take a crack at it for 4 percent go go Monica Many thanks for coming on the program I like your take on this Romney ad a call ad that this proves that money like race is a purely social construct that's true Exactly it's all of it's all in the mind of it's all what it's worth only what we decide it's worth and sold but you know Bill still attempt to order a $1000000.00 Jesus Yeah I don't think I'd sleep for a yeah if. If I lost that you know just a social construct then is that what your take on the Christina Well I was you thinking you know bitcoins encrypted terms or such modern sounding things but this is Stephan story is the most ancient compelling story of a fortune made in loft and the hard graft and the the horror of the accident throwing it all away I just love that it's a story of gambling sort of isn't it he was paid this random amounts many years ago and he sort of discarded it because he didn't get placed a bet was so much. I don't think it's a story of gambling as much as a story is the story of our time you know you can make things happen so quickly you can gain a fortune so quickly but heck spin of a wheel or at the last over a key you can you can lose it all and you're not tempted rémy to be paid your next month's salary increase in big coin. Not at all you know. I mean Jesus not writing that postulate down somebody else though is that what she just brought up that my haunt him for the rest of his life I think many thanks for being our guests on this edition of Weekend Randi have a coil and Cristina Odone a hope you can join us again before long and we hope that you can join us listening to this program again before long another edition tomorrow at the same time for now from the whole team enjoy the rest of your weekend goodbye for now. Distribution of the b.b.c. World Service in the u.s. Was supported by Drexel University Drexel University as academic model prepares visionary leaders to address the challenges of a changing world Drexel dog edu slash ambition can't wait and indeed committed to delivering quality candidates are businesses can focus on interviewing people with the skills they need to learn more it indeed dot com slash credit. The California Report magazine is up next here on k.q.e.d. Public Radio and then at 1 o'clock this morning it's Science Friday this week Ken folklore help us understand conspiracy theories as they spread on social media plus how artificial intelligence might help us diffuse the dangerous ones that's coming up at 1 o'clock this morning here on 88.5 f.m. K.q.e.d. San Francisco and 89.3 f.m. In North Highlands Sacramento it's 1230. Support for the California report comes from Stanford medicine protecting your health and providing dependable care with safe in person appointments and video visits Stanford health care dot org slash adapting care Erik and Wendy Schmidt whose philanthropies includes Schmidt futures focused on finding exceptional people and helping them do more for others together on the web at Schmidt futures dot org And a law firm Perkins Couey a trusted legal advisor to innovative companies and industry leaders throughout California and the world are more at Perkins c o i e dot com. This week on The California Report magazine with our eyes on the inauguration we bring you the story of one man who said Pamela Harris superfan too literally saved my life no exaggeration my life was Breaking Bad which showed to us and the challenges of distance learning during a pandemic 1st students who speak mom and indigenous language from Juan Amala plus a tribute to 3 pioneers in the food world whose loss comes as a big blow to California farming and the trees talk to the point of Thank You actually taking care of them you know I've been alone there's a spirit in those plants I'm Sasha Koka and this is The California Report magazine your state your stories. Many of us are still rocked by the seeds of the Capitol some of us are anxious about the upcoming inauguration but a lot of Californians are getting ready to celebrate our state is about to send the 1st woman and woman of color to the White House the whole world will be watching as Kummel Harris is sworn in as our next vice president but there's one guy who will be tuning in who says he owes his life to her his story is like something out of a movie here's the California reports health correspondent. Growing up in the dust oh in the seventy's Billy Lennon was popular and he was kind of a jock. But he says all that was a cover up. I really wanted to be you know a backup dancer for of course line I didn't want you to know that and so. At home by myself my parents and my sisters were gone. To hide all that stuff all the time is exhausting it's exhausting his reckoning came when he was 27 he was still in college studying abroad in Europe and got an invitation to see mass at the Vatican on Christmas Day and I was like row number 12 with Pope John Paul who had been the pope my entire life I was close to what I had been raised to believe was God as I would ever get and I said I you know. I put it out there I know that. That was the moment the next week I was wearing a fake ostrich feather Co and I was listening to Madonna. When they came back to California he headed straight for San Francisco he was 30 but he says it was like he was 16 discovering his sexuality for the 1st time and it was like. It was the very big dance clubs here every night you know you're in a dance with. Basically. Good majority of them are high. Off the wall crazy. Really got into crystal meth. And it gave him the sex drive of a 60. It was fun until it wasn't after the Twin Towers came down on $911.00 he lost his bartending job hospitality here in the city came to a screeching halt restaurants all over the place closed down it's kind of like now to a lesser degree and that's when I started selling at 1st it was just to support his own habit but eventually he was shipping pounds of math across the country you know our bodies' is over on the on Fisherman's Wharf I would get bread bowls and I would hollow them out I would line the inside of the sourdough with meth and then cover it back up and shrink wrap the bread and then said and loaves of bread with some a coup Tramon from Fisherman's Wharf so it looked like a care package to people in Boston. And then they would literally send me $1516000.00 in twenty's or hundreds the Fed Ex. If you've ever had your receipt Breaking Bad every episode Ok so my life in no exaggeration my life was Breaking Bad which show to me and that sounds sounds fun and funny but it was and it was it was that bad there were guns and there was people getting robbed there were stolen cars people getting beat up and it was it was bad. Over the years Billy was arrested 3 times raids all the time the 1st 2 times he served a month or so in jail and absconded from probation had their time or got caught with half a pound of math half a pound of dough and was facing a mandatory sentence for state prison without question the day he was scheduled to go before the judge he sat in his jail cell desperately bargaining with himself with God with the universe and I said please just anything please just pick is there any way that you can get me out of this bill he was escorted to the court room he stood before the judge in an orange jumpsuit and shackles and the judge dismissed his case I was released that day these P.C.'s. Hundreds of narcotics cases are in jeopardy hundreds of cases have been thrown out more than a 1000 criminal drug cases may have to be dropped as a 60 year old lab technician accused of stealing drugs evidence to spectate of stealing cocaine evidence stole cocaine evidence. All these cases had to get thrown out I was the lucky beneficiary of one of those cases I mean it was like a it was like Christmas for drug addicts everybody was getting released this was the decision of then San Francisco district attorney Carla Harris she didn't want to drop a 1000 cases but faced with tainted drug. Evidence and under fire for failing to disclose the scandal to defense teams she did reluctantly to Billy it was the answer to his prayer a sign that the universe wanted something different for him so I committed that day to stop selling drugs and I did that he made his way to rehab through years of therapy Billy unpacked all the shame and trauma underlying his addiction internalized homophobia he's been sober for 8 years and now runs the Castro Country Club helping other gay men get off drugs Billie says it's all because of karma she saved my life she literally saved my life like she has no idea where she saved my life but she saved my life. She gave me my 2nd chance Billie continued to draw inspiration from Camila Harris as her political career advanced from d.a. To Attorney General to Sen It's as though each of her successes was an affirmation of his own small triumphs when she announced her run for president Billy's friend told him it was time to take the next step and he texted me immediately he's like girl you got to work on her you have paid x. Amount of hours to kind of like payback the fact that she kept you out of prison and doesn't even know it and I was like oh yeah I'm already making sure Billy canvassed and raised money for Harris's campaign he says she's a fighter for folks who struggle and that smile I don't know I love her I think she's fantastic really I really do I think she's fantastic. Of course other people have mixed reviews about Harris and her record is da in San Francisco she had to walk the line between being the top cop and living up to her more progressive promises either way she was not in the business of handing out get out of jail free cards she initially fought hard to keep all those drug cases alive Billy knows this but he sets it aside he's got his narrative about her role in his life and he's sticking with it it was easy for me to put her on a pedestal and since putting her on that pedestal she's only got bigger deal this kind of like weird fairy godmother connection to her. The gay community has had a steady run of celebrity fairy godmothers over the years Garland Madonna beyond say especially for men of lemons generation who have been rejected by their families or the church may Valek to these women to fill the role of nurture are an advocate a lot of us as gay men that grew up in kind of. Strict religious dogma the idea of God is just kind of gross and so the idea of a goddess actually sounds really kind of awesome so for Billy it's fully in line with his experience and his politics to deify couple of heris especially now that she will be the tie breaking vote in the Senate responsible for some of the biggest decisions in the country it's really kind of rather like a super rod the 1st like 5050 votes they have and they get the zoom in on her gavel a man the vote is kind of bad ass whether it was intentional or not Billy says he turned his life around because of a decision she made her ascension to power is just another sign that he made the right decision to believe in her even if she is just the human symbol of a massive lucky break. For the California report I mean April Dombrowski. We'd love to hear what you think about the inauguration as a California what are you most looking forward to as a new era begins in Washington you can leave us a message at 415-636-9809 or send us a note at how to report. Dot org That's 415-636-9801 or cow report at k.q.e.d. Dot org We'd love to include your voice on next week's show. And now we're going to turn to a story about how the pandemic has been making things more challenging for schools that serve some of the newest Californians watermelon immigrants who speak a Mayan language called mom thanks to her. That mighty Aggie lad grew up speaking it but she says back in one Amala in the 1980 s. Her teachers would punish her and other students for talking in mom sometimes the teacher got angry or frustrated as still a Tuck is fine it might. Never had an interpreter to help bridge the language divide but today that's exactly what she's doing in Oakland which is home to one of the biggest mom communities in the nation and until recently media was the only full time mom interpreter for the school district which serves some 1300 students who speak the language at home key committees education reporter Vanessa tells us media's job has only gotten more demanding money as calendar is a solid block of phone calls and video conferences one hour she's helping a teenage student who recently came here from Guatemala communicate with her immigration attorney another She's walking a parent through an unemployment application Well no there's not a way. And one morning Madea is interpreting for a 6th grader knew just got to go the nets and his mom Fransisco they came here from Guatemala 4 years ago they're meeting over soon with Emily Rogers She's a social worker who supports newcomer students like your Scott so we can get to know you better can you share something positive or something that you know are like that they're not. They're not getting very far. Ok every couple minutes the good news is connection cuts out and they have to reconnect and they come Ok but it keeps dropping think we might have to change to a 3 way home or area. For us God it's only the latest technological hurdle since classes moved on line his mom doesn't know how to use a computer and we just got had never used one at home before this year but I missed on the day after and just what are the sleaziness along Maracle more eyes keeping their I am going to settle this with our lives he had trouble with the laptop he borrowed from his school he missed 2 weeks of classes before he got help across the district barriers like. These Me and other moms speakers are much less likely to show up for online classes than Spanish and English speakers so administrators asked me if she could help make a video tutorial coaching families through setting up wife I hot spots going to fatten hot spots. The video has some 160 Interview miss but money and knows the need is much deeper many of these families grew up like her without internet or computer some without electricity or without learning to read or write somebody has found herself building tech literacy from the ground up how to wake with I didn't see who can't read it's not easy she spends hours on video calls trying to walk them through navigating the Internet for the 1st time even where to position their cursors over the icons on the screen this one this one is one. Sometimes I. Like bacon. As much as it sounds like my ideas winging it here Oakland Unified actually stands out as a model for its work to support recent immigrant students especially at the high school level but language barriers can prevent Mom kids from fully benefiting from those services and with one of the highest concentrations of mom speakers in the nation the district is relying on interpreters like more than ever Maria has a very high demand and she's working regularly at more than 40 schools Dunston is Madea's boss and runs the district's refugee and newcomer program he says teaching through computer screens makes it much harder to get around language barriers teachers can't rely on visual cues as much or use other students to help interpret like they used to so they call Madea and even when mom parents speak some Spanish Dunston says it can be hard to earn their trust by phone and then you're. Starts talking about a moment and everything is all of a sudden sort of fluid and familiar and clearly just much more comfortable the job has become so important the district recently hired another full time interpreter but with just 2 of them for 1300 students and their families some schools are finding creative solutions one elementary school enlisted trilingual Mayan mom parents to interpret and at one high school teachers are training multi-lingual mom students to sit in on Zoom classes and interpret for their classmates that's not making money as job any easier just yet and does this not for. A 6th grader just get what Diaz says he's starting to forget his mom these days he feels most comfortable speaking Spanish and less time at school means his English is slipping and with that of course I've been learning less he's embarrassed to speak English in front of his classmates but as an Iran Witchell who are able to govern the song and Carphone are what are in Roll Call he panics and feels like his heart is jumping out of his chest he worries about saying things wrong the entertainer circle Marlon Blair. None of this came up during his recent conference with the social worker but yes got got at least one thing out of that meeting. Made an impression on him. Manfully to let you know as well as he likes that she speaks mom English and Spanish he brings at the time he interpreted for his mother during the family's asylum process he explains how important it was and how his mom thanked him he seems proud my I interpreted for her parents as a child too though she didn't think of it as that at the time I know where they'd like to be on it up the chain but I'm c.l. So so happy and proud of my self I am able to help make people because I have experienced how they see it. Not you see as for us God wants him to know he doesn't have to choose between holding on to his native language and embracing a new one for the California report I'm the Knesset Rankine you're in Oakland. If you're a regular listener to our show you've probably heard our series California foodways with intrepid reporter Lisa Morehouse who's been visiting every one of California's $58.00 counties to take us into orchards tiny family run cafes and into the woods to forage for wild mushrooms she's also introduced us to some incredible Californians who harvest and prepare the food we eat and is 2020 came to a close she learned that some of those people passed away we wanted to invite her on to the show to help memorialize some of those food pioneers and remind us of their legacies Hey there Lisa Hi Sasha let's start with somebody who many consider to be the godfather of organic farming in California the names of Qantas on the last name. Of a that waits were so most people knew him as amigo Bob or amigo that's a nickname he got in high school amigo as a 9th generation California and and at an Earth Day rally back in 1970 he found some is for ration for the rest of his life that's when he learned about pesticides and he began farming and modeling how to farm without pesticides you did a story about him back in 2016 in Nevada County and you talked about how he's a kind of treasure hunter. These treasures that he was looking for were trees and the fruit and nut and ornamental trees that had been planted at homesteads and Stagecoach stops and little orchards in gold country in the late 1900. 98 with conscious I know at his house outside Nevada City he straps a ladder on his car tosses tags in his trunk and takes me on a tour. Of our favorite Wallace you're right there and this pear tree standing between a community hall and a gas station it's probably 120 years old. It is absolutely just the most hurt he treated his thrown huge crops every year in the drought. It doesn't get diseases doesn't get in sex nobody proves it nobody waters it nobody fertilize it just prolific it's hacked I've picked over $500.00 pounds of pears off. Of that one tree Yeah he and 2 partners run a nonprofit the Felix Institute named for the French Nevada City nurserymen who imported and introduced hundreds of plants to the region over a century ago they find and propagate these resilient heirloom trees which come to Sun a Says have lessons for growers in California today where highly tended crops face drought pests and disease we can figure out how to take those characteristics and mold them into modern agriculture we can have a more sustainable culture with a name like amigo dreadlocks down to his waist and a year round outfit of shorts and tie dye conscious Sano has had plenty of people write him off over the years I'm happy but it was also a very serious and influential figure in the farming movement Oh yeah he spent a lot of time advising big agricultural companies on how they could go argon AK and I may go started California's 1st natural food distribution company and its 1st organic farm supply company so amigo died in late December after a long fight with cancer and since then the tributes have really been pouring in from people who bought trees and it's nursery to fellow farmers and to folks like Michael Pollan and Alice Waters who say he was really influential in changing food and farming in our state I love that part in your interview with him Lisa where he talks about how we as human beings and plants kind of have an intertwined history he told me that he felt that every time he stopped and looked at a tree I often times just stop and try and feel the vibe of the person that planted it you know I know the sounds a lot of trees talk to me going a thank you here actually. Taking care of me again and you know I've been alone there's a spoon that's plaids. We thought to talk about another big loss for California the death of Marshall McCain He died of Covina just before New Year's at the age of 68 tell us about him well when I met him Marshall Mackay was the chairman of the you know today he went to nation and the Cape a valley which is about an hour west of Sacramento. And at that time he told me about how before European contact the k.b. Valley was a kind of thoroughfare connecting indigenous people from the Bay Area and the Central Valley with Clear Lake and the Mendocino County when people outsiders came into the valley of gold rush prospectors cattle ranchers and soldiers McKay says his ancestors fled to the hills but many were still massacred we were in the way and so we were moved it was a genocide it just hasn't been it hasn't been talked about in history those who survived were relocated to barren land and it was a way of slowly killing the tribe. But Marshall McKay's life's work was really to preserve an revive his tribe he told me then that the tribe had almost been decimated but they were brought back to life through gaming and the lucrative Cache Creek casino that they built and then really what they did with those earnings Well part of it was in agriculture Right right the tribe was able to actually buy pieces of land in their ancestral territories and they planted all of trees and started producing olive oil under the brand sake of Hell's Marshall McKay also worked for Indigenous causes more broadly here in California he served on California's Native American Heritage Commission right and he also fought against the use of indigenous symbols as mascots and sports but in our interview in our time together. Really emphasized the importance economic independence for his tribe of owning and working the land there and he told me that doing that work really ease the tensions between tribal members and their farmer neighbors in the Cape a valley who had been pretty resentful of the tribes casino after they got into agriculture they were all in the same line of work. That wasn't like that a few years ago people were not looking at us and they we were looking at them and they are you know now it's changed the tribes membership is up to about 70 people and Mackay says to keep them grounded and engaged despite their newfound wealth they receive higher incomes if they've graduated from high school or work or attend college full time and are you doing something for yourself instead of sitting down and and just waiting for the handout all members belong to committees to learn about tribal governance and casino operations and farming land management so they can make thoughtful decisions about their future I think our main objective these days is to acquire pieces of land that are significant to us and that have meaning and he says all of this valley has meaning to his tribe. Finally we think he learned in another family you profiled from Sattar County also passed away last year yeah and that Mohinder single sex festival and you have a city called not art your time and it's a multi day festival and a parade which centers around the sick temple there is more recognition that we had a community doing it here and then since then it's been going on bigger and bigger every year 80000 people a lot of them are 6 for sure but plenty of other Californians come to you the city every year for the celebration you got to spend some time on Mohinder so far let's play a clip from that part of your story. At 86 he still farms on his property in Live Oak just outside Yuba City today he's overseeing the Kiwi harvest but for most of his life here group peaches knights and. Here's where I tell you that in addition to being a farmer Mohinder gods a bit of a poet with a number of books published in jobby it might please provide the fluffy. Forgot. He talked about being one of the few men in the area wearing a turban when he came to the us in the 1960 s. It helped me a whole lot there but it is really remember that I did a double take when he said this just knowing about all of the hate crimes that set community have endured in California I asked him a bunch of questions about isolation and discrimination but Mohinder just insisted that his turban opened doors and he was a man who really don't go into civic life and connecting with the community and he was even a delegate to the Democratic Party and tragically he died after a tractor accident on his farm last October you know that's right his grandson wrote me soon after and told me that at age 89 he was still farming every day until the accident and here's something else that he wrote he said amid our own fears about everything happening in this country my grandfather always reassured us that our home gives us back all the love we put into it very appropriate words to come from a farmer know. Lisa Morehouse produces a series called California foodways she brought us remembrances of 3 Californians She's profiled on our show who are passed away toward the end of 2020. And that's it for our show this week the California Report magazine it's a production of k.q.e.d. Public Radio in San Francisco our senior editor is Victoria. Amanda finds a star director. Enter engineers are Brendan Willard and seal Muller our team also includes Julia McAvoy and welcome to our new intern. Who got his start in journalism at the newspaper called. At Humboldt State I'm Sasha coca and this is The California Report magazine your state your stories. Support for the California report comes from Stanford medicine protecting your health and providing dependable care with safe in person appointments and video visits Stanford health care dot org slash adapting care the James Irvine foundation committed to a California were all low income workers have the power to advance economically learn more at Irvine dot org And Eric and Wendy Schmidt whose philanthropies includes Schmidt futures focused on finding exceptional people and helping them do more for others together on the web at Schmidt futures dot com support for k.q.e.d. Comes from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and European sleep works offering mattresses and bedding made from natural materials and free of harmful chemicals its cotton latex and wool components are fully certified by one of the world's leading ecological testing facilities details online at sleep Works dot com Good morning I'm Jeanne Marie Stay with us Science Friday is coming up next and then later this morning at 5 o'clock it's Weekend Edition Donald Trump the 1st president in the history of this country to be impeached twice what does this mean for country and party also a look at preparations in Washington d.c. For Joe Biden's inauguration and sea shanties become popular in these cooped up times. The land tons of boom. From one 3rd to join us Saturday and Weekend Edition from n.p.r. News predicts some bad puns This is 88 played by then San Francisco and 89.3 North Highlands Sacramento it's 1 o'clock. President elect Biden is pulling together a comprehensive climate strategy what should it include I'm Ira Flatow and this is Science Friday. Biden campaigned on climate issues and now it's time to put those words into action climate scientist Michael Mann shares his advice on moving forward then can folklore help us under. Stand conspiracy theories as they proliferate on social media one of the things that conspiracy theory does is it links together wants of different stories that we're familiar with as a way of explaining what's going on in the world what can storytelling plus artificial intelligence teach us about conspiracy theories and how to combat that plus a check in on patients and communities dealing with chronic Valley Fever their added challenges during the pandemic coming up after this. Live from n.p.r. News I'm Tamara Rahm President elect Joe Biden outlined his plans yesterday to speed up vaccinations in the u.s. By increasing supplies and setting up community vaccination centers across the country he says he wants to provide 100000000 shots in 100 days in the meantime Biden says people should continue to wear masks I know it's become a part. But what a stupid stupid thing for to happen. This is the Patriotic Act. Asking you we're in a war with this virus. And experts say that showing that we're even mass from now until April will save as many as $50000.00 lives born things will get worse before they get better the National Park Service says it's shut down the National Mall and other landmarks until after the inauguration of by 9 Wednesday security is always tight and inauguration day but it's increased this year after the attack on the u.s. Capitol last week by Trump supporters trying to disrupt Congress's certification that Biden one law enforcement officials also warn of threats by armed groups in all 50 states federal state and local law enforcement officials are preparing for demonstrations around the New York State Capitol in the run up to inauguration day from member station w a a m c a and because reports the f.b.i. Albany field office is setting up a command post to coordinate and share information with New York State Police and Albany County and City Law Enforcement Special Agent in Charge Thomas roll for it says there is no specific threat to the Capitol between now and January 20th inauguration day we will be maintaining a heightened posture to monitor any threats that may come into our region Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan urged people to stay away from downtown Sunday if possible for n.p.r. News I'm in Albany civil rights officials at the Department of Health and Human Services issued a series of actions yesterday to protect people with disabilities from health care rationing and other discrimination by medical providers N.P.R.'s Joseph Shapiro reports the proposal would be a significant expansion of disability civil rights hall but the outgoing trouble officials have run out of the. Time to write a formal rule they've outlined one in hopes that the Biden administration will pick it up the president elect's campaign platform included some more ideas the Trump administration's Office for Civil Rights of h.h.s. Would explicitly ban a wide range of disability discrimination in medical settings from denying organ transplants to holding back scarce care like drug treatments or ventilators and that's been an issue during the coronavirus pandemic Joseph Shapiro n.p.r. News this is n.p.r. . The Trump administration carried out its 13th and final federal execution early this morning Dustin Higgs was the 3rd inmate to receive a lethal injection this week President had resumed the use of capital punishment for federal offenses in July after a 17 year hiatus President elect Biden opposes the federal death penalty. The Dutch government is resigning over a scandal it which families receiving child care benefits were mistakenly accused of fraud Teri Schultz reports Prime Minister Mark Ruta and his cabinet will remain temporarily in the caretaker position the Dutch government's downfall comes after some $20000.00 working families were wrongly accused of cheating the system and forced to repay thousands of euros in benefits the Dutch tax office said had been mistakenly paid many thousands were put in severe financial distress for what was later found to be largely a result of administrative errors in a press conference announcing his resignation prime minister to acknowledge quote innocent people have been criminalized and their lives have been destroyed he says the country's parliament was not correctly informed about the tax office is procedures targeting the parents 20 of them have launched a lawsuit against current and former officials for n.p.r. News I'm Terry Shields a search continues on and a nation is still away Sea Island for people trapped in rubble after yesterday's 6.2 magnitude earthquake at least 45 people were killed and hundreds were injured hundreds of homes were damaged displacing thousands of people I'm nor rom n.p.r. News support for n.p.r. Comes from the little market offering artisan made goods and home decor with the commitments of Fairtrade a nonprofit founded by women to empower female artisans in marginalized communities around the world more at the little market. And the ne ek c. Foundation. The National Weather Service has issued a high surf advisory for the San Francisco and North Coast shoreline until 7 o'clock this evening otherwise it will be partly cloudy overnight with lows in the upper forty's later today partly cloudy in the morning then becoming sunny with highs in the mid to upper sixty's forecast hyper San Francisco today is 64 Oakland should reach 67 and San Jose is forecast to reach 70 degrees today it's 106. This is Science Friday I'm Ira Flatow as you know for the past year the covered 1000 crisis has taken up much of our attention the u.s. Is still setting record numbers of infections but code that can come with complications in some states a nonce lot of preexisting diseases and that's what's happening in the West where doctors and scientists are continuing to battle Valley Fever a disease caused not by a virus but by a fungus last year so if I reduce the Lauren Young reported on the patients and communities struggling with valley fever you can read her original story up on our website Science Friday dot com slash Valley Fever and Lauren is back with an update the new challenges faced by valley fever patients and doctors during the pandemic Welcome back Lauren thanks so much for having me back Ira before we begin remind us what is Valley Fever sure so Valley Fever is caused by breathing in a soil fungus called Cox city id's or Cox e. For short so this fungus is commonly found in dry regions of the southwest Arizona and California are major hotspots for this disease in these areas valley fever has been around for decades and anyone can get it just by breathing it in a dust storm or a construction can kick up the fungus even an earthquake can trigger a valley fever outbreak so most of the time symptoms are pretty similar to the cold or the flu people can even clear this disease without knowing they had it all but sometimes Valley Fever can be even more severe the fungus can spread out of the lungs to the rest of the body and certain groups are at higher risk of getting a severe case so you know compromised people Native Americans and African-Americans are some of the groups that are more at risk of valley fever and Ira You might remember from my original story I talked to our Charles he's one of those high risk patients and he told me about his battle with valley fever you know I just felt. Take. I didn't have a drop of energy at all it was the 1st time I've ever felt like I can do anything I just felt helpless I've never felt so weak so b. In my life our lives in Bakersfield California and he was diagnosed with valley fever in 2070 and his immune system hasn't been able to clear it so he's still taking anti-fungal medications in rare cases the fungus can even cause death that's what happened to Art's older sister Deborah she died of Valley Fever when Art was only in the 6th grade you know Lauren this is all sounding so familiar these Valley Fever stories remind me of what some covert 19 patients are describing Yeah right well you know since reporting the story last year I couldn't help but notice some similar themes between Valley Fever and Co The 19 so hearing all this I you know I really wanted to check back in with our and see how he was doing during the pandemic. RINGBACK And the law and how you it's really great to hear your voice all thank you thank you appreciate. Art 1st told me about his story back in December of 21000 when neither of us could even imagine the devastation of Coppa 19 are is still dealing with his valley fever and the pandemic hasn't made it any easier he still has to go to the hospital occasionally to check in on his lungs but a doctor's visit that used to take an hour now has a 4 hour wait and he is concerned about getting the 19 had a small scare when one of his sons got Cove it earlier last year my wife was going to the Amazing. Miss some of the Hollywood Kwara with my so I can see make sure that the clear of all you can let me warn you about the valley fever is cold it might seem you know. Lauren how are art and his son doing now thankfully Art hasn't gotten Kovan 1000 and his son has recovered in fact Art told me that his son is expecting to have a piece in but if you live out west valley fever and Co 1000 are both a concern there haven't been many cases of people catching both thankfully but it has happened in the Antonia which is a nurse practitioner in Northern California and she caught both diseases in the summer of 2019 she got a pretty bad case of valley fever you know bad shakes persistent fever short of breath she recovered but a few months later she got Kovan 1002. Realize on day 2 of my sore throat that this wasn't cold something else was going on she got treated for 1000 and she thought she was in the clear but she got those symptoms again and at this point she and her doctors weren't sure what she had and I'm thinking oh my God And so my doctor is like Ok this be valley fever her lungs cannot catch a break so it is pulmonologist was trying to sort out her symptoms was it due to valley fever or was this still Kovan 1000 and her test came back positive and it was cold in 1000 she's feeling better now and no longer has Cove it but some of those side effects are still there and this is a problem when it comes to valley fever it is already a commonly misdiagnosed disease and the pandemic and the flu season are colliding to make a perfect storm in Valley Fever hotspots doctors are calling this a triple threat people everywhere else they have been dealing with influenza of a school but for us here is the things that have to that's Russia Qur'an she's a doctor at her medicals Valley Fever Institute in Bakersfield California and Dr Qur'an says this triple threat is making it trickier to diagnose patients and I've been very different in terms of people being a fungal infection an influenza and thus proving to his. Section are viruses they do please as I said in and someone coming in before you do the test they feel sometimes impossible to tell apart at the beginning so it really is a challenge over 19 in valley fever or both respiratory diseases and have similar symptoms so how can doctors distinguish the diseases one from another right well as you said they're both respiratory illnesses but there are key differences the 1000 is contagious Valley Fever is and you only get Valley Fever by breathing it in from the soil or dust and one is a virus and the other is a fungus and they attack the body very differently a fungus has kind of 2 different life cycles that's Katrina where she's an immunologist and professor at u.c. Mossad who studies valley fever so it has a really small form the spores that then when they get bigger because they're bigger that makes it harder for the immune cells to deal with them it's like trying to take too big of a bite where the virus particles are very very tiny they're in some ways they're a little bit easier to deal with but in other ways they can hide a little bit better because they're smaller so there's different immune cells that are important for each of these types of infections but there's also a lot of overlap in what those responses look like and the trick is trying to figure out what are those differences so that you can help the clinician diagnose So there are many types of the mune cells that protect us but their immune response sometimes can result in the same types of symptoms doctors have found a few symptoms that are unique red flags for $1000.00 you know the sore throat the loss the smell and taste but as we know there's still a lot that doctors are trying to figure out we've been hearing about many diseases slipping under the radar during the pandemic is this true with valley fever also right now everyone is on the lookout for Kovan 1000 especially when you talk about respiratory illnesses and the pandemic could be causing Valley Fever to be somewhere under. Diagnosed a Russian Dari is another doctor at current medical Valley Fever Institute and he and his team say Co infection is rare the odds of getting both are low but he is trying to make sure that valley fever isn't getting overlooked in communities where the fungus is still present you've got to make sure you know a community of any other kind of might have followed the damage infections of ours they need to be tested for that and then example infections include Valley Fever which another doctor Hadari wants to be sure that valley fever patients are being treated for the right disease he says Valley Fever numbers are actually predicted to be lower in general compared to previous years and all of this mask wearing and staying indoors to stop the spread of coated may be helping decrease Valley Fever infections too but again the doctors say those lower numbers could be because people are going on diagnosed all of a sudden gives you a significant drop almost a half might be probably a collection of. People probably not but you need to go on the test. You might get a maybe higher over cases next year and people come up with complications after the fact and Katrina Hoyer you seem or said has similar concerns her research has slowed down she had just received funding for a valley fever study on t. Cells when everything came to a standstill I basically just wrote my progress report to the end I had to explain why we have no data for them over a year I stayed up for valley fever but this is true for pretty much everything that's not covered related we're not making progress on other other diseases right now and and I'm concerned about what that's going to do for the other health problems that we have to deal with when we get through covet right really one can hope that they will get the resources they need and can get back to their research yeah so researchers are really eager to fully go back to the lab but they are using this time to ask questions that they can explore from home so Katrina's team for instance is currently looking at existing data on wildfires and valley fever. And after the pandemic she says that the research will still be waiting for them and when I talk to are it was interesting hearing how valley fever had in some ways prepared him for today's health crisis people used to laugh at him for wearing face masks on a dusty day now it's an everyday reality it's the kind of money and never thought I'd see that they were everyone is wearing that art stopped working at his recreation center job these days he's keeping busy scouting baseball players for the Tampa Bay Rays with full health safety precautions of course and he's having fun being a grandfather I did want to ask him if he felt like having Valley Fever made him think differently about coke at 19 you know what I see people dying left people dying the next The Real Thing to be so I think people look at me like you're just like that because you think it's serious to me you know it's serious grandchild you know I get to him almost any of them suffer or or have to deal with any of this ever. Rakova 19 and valley fever you hear the numbers of infections and the deaths and about how stretched out our health care system is and for me art is a reminder of the actual people who are bearing the brunt of all of this and finding a path forward great story Laura thrift story thanks so much Ira I want to thank my guests are Charles is a ballet theater patient in Bakersfield California and Antonio which is a nurse practitioner in Northern California who had valley fever and hope in 1000 Katrina where is an associate professor of immunology at u.c. Mossad and doctors are assured arre and in Russia Qur'an infectious disease positions at current Medical Center and associate medical directors of the Bally fever Institute and you can read a lot more of Lauren Young stories her original report she later interviewed a number of valley fever patients you can read the full report and listen to those stories up on our website Science Friday dot com slash valley fever coming up after the break when we train artificial intelligence to detect conspiracy theories We'll talk to a researcher who's been working on just that. This is Science Friday from w. N.y.c. Studios. Explores the future of education by showing you how innovative teachers help kids succeed. In the space of the search for mind shift where ever you get your podcast on the Next Radio Lab big fat middle finger to the hockey hockey fans take. The vote but really drop a stink bomb in the room vote somebody in who just does not belong giving the league's most hated player this guy his credit I'm going to put my fist through your face objectively bad hockey the Cinderella moment everything else goes away and you just start playing hockey that someone next Radiolab and this afternoon at 2 o'clock you're on k.q.e.d. Public radio support for k.q.e.d. Comes from European sleep works offering mattresses and bedding made from natural materials and free of harmful chemicals it's cotton latex and wool components are fully certified by one of the world's leading ecological testing facilities details online at sleep Works dot com. This is Science Friday I'm Ira Flatow you know it's hard to give a simple description of conspiracy theories like pizza gate and Q anon the baseless claims involve political figures child sex trafficking and Secret Codes and despite the fact that they've been disproven these theories are still popular enough to drive people to take violent actions like bringing a rifle to a pizza parlor war storming the capitol of the us but at the end of the day a conspiracy theory is a story and my next guest is part of a team of researchers that has wondered can machine learning Tell us something about these stories how they're structured how they break from reality while in the aim of disrupting conspiracy theories in the future Dr Tim Tangherlini is a professor of folklore at the University of California Berkeley welcome to him thank you for having me on Iran I would be remiss if I also didn't mention my colleague funny right chattery who I did all of this work with the narrative modeling group credit where credit is there if you know I couldn't help but notice your academic affiliation as I introduce you you're a folklorist How are conspiracy theories folklore that's a great question Iran remember that folklore is cultural expressive form circulating informally on an across social networks and. And one of the things that conspiracy theory does is it links together lots of different stories that we're familiar with as a way of explaining what's going on in the world so it's a total izing approach to explain all of the things often threats or worries that we have in the world you know in the past I know my image of conspiracy theorist was the lone guy in the garage with a bulletin board and all those newspaper clippings but that's very much changed hasn't it right so the original image that we have is the person in their garage or basement with the wall of crazy taking little red thread and connecting all the parts of this narrative world that they're pulling together all of the beliefs and narratives which are more or less accepted on faith and kind of are linking them together what the social media platforms have allowed us more people to be part of the process so then it becomes kind of a crowdsourcing of these otherwise disparate parts these little stories or story parts that are circulating and people poll them together and they try some out and they discard others so all of the norms all of the beliefs all of the values that we have are negotiated often through the process of storytelling and negotiation of the parts of those stories when you say negotiating you mean everybody's bringing a little bit of what they want the story to be like and then you negotiate with the final story is yeah it's a little bit like the noisy bar problem so I walk into the bar and people are sitting around and they're talking and I can hear little bits and pieces of those conversations and what people are doing in conversation is they're often telling parts of stories or complete stories and people are interrupting say well that's not how that's not how it went or a me didn't say that or Ira didn't go to the lake like that org. Somebody comes to the conversation you are going to believe what I just heard about our good friend Bob and then that becomes part of the conversation and that process is like I say negotiated some people say no that's not what happened other you know people try to emphasize one part of the story or another and in this context most importantly we're talking about narratives that often are structured as threat narratives or disruption narratives can folklore theory tell us why people latch on to conspiracy theories in the 1st place well conspiracy theories are attractive because they help explain things in these low information environments one with either got poor access to information or low trust in the information that we have access to or a combination of the both instead of turning to information sources that may be coming from or perceived as coming from outside our community we turn to our community members they're the ones who have raised us they're the ones who have protected us and they're the ones who can give us information about what's going on and conspiracy theory is we want to call it attractive because it helps explain all parts of the world interesting Ok but your work isn't just analyzing stories but doing it with help from computers from machine learning how do you apply computation to something as subjective as human storytelling that's a great question and one that we've struggled with I think it wasn't until I met one Iraq chattery that we were able to come up with a strategy for working computationally with all of the conversations that were taking place on social media social media in some ways became the world's largest self archiving folklore collection and so we had all of this data and the challenge was how could we find in these conversations the underlying generative. Narrative framework that was allowing people to contribute to this group storytelling of how the world is really put together I mentioned pizza gate earlier and in the research we're talking about today I understand that you ply this methodology to 2 different stories a pizza gate conspiracy theory and bridge gate which was an actual conspiracy Can you refresh our memories about these please bridge gate was a political payback operation launched by Chris Christie's advisers and people in the port authority to shut down several lanes of the George Washington Bridge as as a way to create traffic chaos in Fort Lee New Jersey because the mayor of Fort Lee Mark Sokolich ship refused to endorse Chris Christie's bid for reelection as governor of New Jersey like all conspiracies actual conspiracies are factual events comprised of balun actors who work covertly often in an extra legal manner to effect some sort of outcome beneficial to those actors so it's a very small group and they don't want their story to come out right they're deliberately keeping that hidden and so that story came out through the work of investigative journalists on the other hand we have pizza gate which actually has in subsequent years fed into a much larger much more totalizing q. And on conspiracy theory that was centered on a pizza parlor in northwest Washington d.c. It also involved the pedestrians and Hillary Clinton and allegations of them all being in cahoots to run a pedophile like satanic child trafficking ring in tunnels underground in northwest Washington so when you run your artificial intelligence about the difference between the conspiracy theory and the real conspiracy what does the artificial intelligence say so it's a little bit more complex. I don't like so many things with artificial intelligence and machine learning are so we run a pipeline to try and extract the main act dance that is to say the people the characters the places the things and the relationships between those that are imbedded in the conversations themselves to figure out the underlying what we call narrative framework the connections and the relationships between all of these different actors as a graph the conspiracy theory graph this is the pizza gate graph came together very quickly seem to have a large number of characters and places and was connected in such a way that when we deleted the links that were coming from Wiki Leaks each of those communities that we had discovered in the graph Democratic politics the protest as Satanism and casual dining fell neatly apart so that they were no longer connected in bridge gate the graph was had certain features that would not allow us to do that we could delete in fact all of the actors coming from bridge gate and their relationships and the graph would stay as one single what's called a giant connected component and so we could even delete bridge day from the entire graph and New Jersey politics would continue for better or worse. Does this seem to hold true for other conspiracy theories Q anon for example are those surrounding the pandemic this year yeah so that's a great question and one that the Wanni chattery brought to our group and as a recall as the virus in the pandemic took hold in March we had less information than probably all of us wanted and there was have been several years of erosion of trust in the information sources that we had so this was a perfect opportunity for people to collectively start to come up with explanations for what was going on so we did a lot of work in this narrative modeling group and what we found was that there were multiple belief narratives emerging and a lot of those were sort of linking up to form larger cycles of belief narratives which is the precursor to a fully formed conspiracy theory a lot of these stories are what we would call threat narratives right there's some sort of threat and then people in the storytelling figure out strategies to deal with that threat this is the classic Ghostbusters question when ghosts appear in the neighborhood who are you going to call and the answer to that question is always it illogical So here we have a threat the pandemic and we have different ways of dealing with that narratively some people say well it's a hoax so that's a way of saying it's not a threat at all other people see it as a threat and then one of the strategies for dealing with that threat Ok so what do we do now that we know this I'm asking how do we apply knowing the structured for dismantling or disrupting conspiracy theories before people take actions and then when they injure others I think there are 2 ways that that we can work now that we have a tool that allows us to from any large set of conversations on the Internet through. As process of we find the act Ensign all of them mentions and all of the context in which they're mentioned and we aggregate that and then we find all the relationships between these actors and we aggregate them so that it's not a hairball we can now find this underlying narrative framework graph so that would allow me to make a selection of actors and their relationships and generate a story so that I could be part of the conversation so that's a powerful tool it's a generative model of storytelling and it rests on this underlying idea that within any conversation there's a limit on who you can mention and the relationships between them well just can't can you give me an example of how how can you can you destruct a forum an internet forum by using the techniques are talking about so in some ways what we did was reversed engineered what was going on already we wanted to figure out how these conversations are generated once you have that then you can generate stories to introduce into that conversation of if that's what you want to do I think ethically one has to start to be very cautious as a researcher that's that's not my my position but we do recognize that it can be used to if not disrupt at least contribute to a conversation perhaps we have. An understanding of the underlying narrative framework and then we also have an understanding of the strategies that people are proposing to deal with the threat so one can introduce strategies that are perhaps not disruptive or not violent or not lead to chaos but rather strategies that are much more conciliatory and perhaps those would get some uptake in various communities I'm Ira Flatow this is Science Friday from w. N.y.c. Studios so in case you're just joining us we're talking with Dr Tim Tangherlini a professor of folklore at the University of California in Berkeley so are you saying that if I wanted to be a counter intelligence officer for example or I wanted to disrupt a potentially dangerous forum I could introduce a strategy that is a little bit less dangerous to other people so that the standard belief narrative structure is I set up the story the who the what the where the when and that basically creates a sense of community between me and you know where we're basically telling stories about us or people like us and then there's some sort of disruption or threat and then we come up with a strategy right what are you going to do about it in the case of most belief narrative it's retrospective they did this and this is what happened right and so that's how we come up with a sense of of norms and values and beliefs right if you do this this is what's going to happen but in room or in these periods of intense lack of. Access to or lack of trust in information sources the narrative stops at says Here's the threat here's the disruption this is what are you going to do about it and that's what pushes people into taking real world action and so if we can find those moments where a threat is being either over charged right and diminish that sense of threat or if other community members can suggest strategies that are less disruptive less violent less harmful than that would be where you would feel that you had done something quite successful on the other hand of course this could this could be used in a very different. It's very different than negative ends to what do you mean by that well I mean what we're talking about here is is what somebody quite jokingly referred to as weaponized folklore and I think storytelling has always had the chance to be weaponized we see this in a lot of peroxide thems of violence through history genocide actual witch hunts where people are are killed and entire communities are destroyed on the basis of story telling they pose a threat what are we going to do about it here's our choice isn't that what we just saw in Washington the attack on the Capitol Indeed it is we saw that there was a narrative that the election had been stolen then that the actual elected officials of our government were the threat to democracy and and so what are we going to do about it and the group decided that with certain encouragement that they were going to march on the capital in your Ai research would there be or could there be any way to come back that we would certainly be able to find that these were strategies or certain things were being represented as threats and then it would be up to public safety officials to. Work with that information that that we could provide them that this is where the story is going or these are the story parts that we we see and then. Other people would make a decision based on that it sounds like because we have some money. Folkloric type of conspiracy theories now that possibly the f.b.i. Or other investigative bodies might want to employ a folklorist as part of their strategy. Well I'm always in favor of people employing computational folklorists folklore really is one of the the 1st big data fields in the humanities where we're dealing with hundreds of thousands of versions of stories told by thousands of people and so to really get a sense of what is going on in those stories and how they're changing and how they influence the norms beliefs and values everything that we live by everything that we've grown up with I think it's important that we look at the informal cultural processes and we can do it now because a lot of these are circulating on an across these social media networks Thank you Dr thank you Leni thank to Tim Tiger Lanie professor of folklore at the University of California at Berkeley thank you Ira Thanks for having me on this morning we're going to take a break and when we come back President elect Biden has a new opportunity to fight climate change and climate scientist Michael Mann joins us to discuss where and how to move forward. We'll be right back after this break I'm Ira Flatow this is Science Friday from w. N.y.c. Studios Science Friday as supported by indeed committed to helping businesses hire when managers upgrade their job posts they instantly get a list of candidates whose resumes on indeed match their job criteria more and indeed dot com slash credit Science Friday is also supported by Progressive Insurance offering snapshot a program designed to reward safe drivers learn more at progressive dot com or 1800 progressive Now that's progressive support also comes from new a personalized weight loss program designed to give people knowledge to set. New goals and the tools to stick to them for good learn more at noon and dot com Science Friday is produced by the Science Friday initiative dedicated to increasing the public's access to scientific information learn more about their work at Science Friday dot com. Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer said that January 6th 2021 will live in infamy but Donald Trump's incitement of violence on the u.s. Capital is just another sign of authoritarianism during his presidency Hello I'm Philip yon on this we said in a sort of world affairs we talk about political strongmen from miscellany to Putin to Trump. World affairs this coming up next that starts at 2 o'clock this morning here on k.q.e.d. Public radio then later this morning at 430 it's Washington Week this week President Donald Trump became the 1st president to be impeached twice one week to the day after a mob of his supporters attacked the u.s. Capitol now all eyes turn to the Senate as the nation awaits another impeachment trial here that story coming up at 430 here on k.q.e.d. Public radio followed at 5 o'clock by Weekend Edition Donald Trump the 1st president in the history of this country to be impeached twice what does this mean for country and party also a look at preparations in Washington d.c. For Joe Biden's inauguration and sea shanties become popular in these cooped up times. He. Joined us Saturday and Weekend Edition from n.p.r. News. He had not. This is Science Friday I'm Ira Flatow back in the early 1970 s. When the environmental movement was just beginning very prominent and caught the eye of t.v. Viewers it showed littered being tossed carelessly onto the roadside crashing at the foot of a Native American who was weeping at the sight the punchline of the. Start. The ad was intended to distract you from casting your gaze at industrial polluters missing were pictures of rivers so clogged with industrial wastes they actually caught fire air so thick with smoke insert headlights were turned on during the day Michael Mann devotes a chapter in his book the new climate war and to the parallels between this Madison Avenue figure the crying American Indian and what the fossil fuel industry is doing today distracting us from holding drivers of climate change from accountability the fossil fuel industry but man writes There's room for hopeful optimism President elect Biden campaigned aggressively on climate issues so what can President Biden do in his 1st $100.00 days to show us he's serious about an acting climate policy Michael Mann is here with some advice he is professor of atmospheric science director of the Penn State Earth System Science Center at Penn State University author of the new climate war the fight to take back our planet Welcome to Science Friday if Thanks so much Ira always a pleasure to talk with you you know it's interesting it seems that that crying Indian is gone but 51 years later the message is still the same you dedicate a whole chapter in your book as I say to the image of the crying Indian What does that image have to do with the fossil fuel industry today yes it's a classic example of deflection campaigning it's the defining. Example perhaps of a deflection campaign which is aimed at distracting us and and deflecting attention from the needed systemic changes policy changes to individual behavior as if individual behavior in us being better people is you know how we solve these problems and you know it was extremely effective and so the fossil fuel industry has sort of taken that same playbook and run with that in their effort to deflect attention from the need for carbon pricing and incentives for renewable energy and leveling the playing field in the energy industry so renewables can compete fairly they don't want anything that so they'd rather make it about individual behavior our diets whether we fly and hey if they can get us pointing fingers at each other and behavior shaming each other it's a twofer because then they divide and conquer the climate advocacy community and we no longer speak with a unified voice demanding change so if the Biden administration came to you and I don't know if they have or not and said Michael we need your help tell us what we can do in our 1st year in office that would be the fastest What would be the most effective for combating climate change what advice would you give them yeah I would say in part continue doing what you guys are doing I think they've got not too great start on climate the 1st and most important thing was to communicate to the world community that we're serious about this that the u.s. Is willing to to not only support global efforts the Paris Agreement and going beyond the Paris agreement but to once again be a leader on this issue as we were under President Barack Obama and has signaled that to the world community by for example appointing John Kerry as the special envoy on climate the so-called climate czar John Kerry. Negotiate the Paris. Summits the bilateral agreement between the u.s. And China he has really different diplomatic bone a feed A's in the world community but he also helped shepherd one climate bill about 10 years ago to alternately pass Congress but he's advanced legislation as well so we've got a very serious actor in place to help convince the world that we're back and we're willing to do our part and we're willing to lead and meanwhile Biden has also integrated climate policy in every single cabinet in every single appointment that he's made which is sort of a revolutionary idea in the past climate action has sort of been confined within the executive branch to the e.p.a. And then the Department of Energy but here it's really spread out across all of the various cabinets and agencies and it's a recognition that this is now a problem that permeates every sector of modern life and to solve it we need to advance policy measures in every sector but give me an idea of what had Vance in policy what kind of legislation how do we hold the fossil fuel industry responsible and what do we do to get past that yeah exactly and you know that's sort of the the carrot that we need to stick to we need to disincentive vice polluters carbon polluters and there are various ways to do that one can certainly do that by no longer providing subsidies for additional fossil fuel infrastructure and Biden has indicated that that he won't do that and won't promote the building of new pipelines like the Keystone x.l. Pipeline that was green lighted again under Trump. But you know we also need a price on carbon polluters have to pay for the fact that they're doing damage to the planet and we need to level the playing field in the energy marketplace a renewable energy can truly compete fairly against. Fossil fuel energy and so I think that there are ways to do carbon pricing such that it is progressive in fact and that's the way it's been implemented in places like Canada and Australia were on lower income individuals and families are actually benefited so it's it's essential that we make sure that any of these mechanisms are done in a way that's just and that doesn't put on due burden on those who have the least resources of at least responsibility creating the problem and I hope that there might be room now for some sort of bipartisan compromise climate legislation look we probably won't get a green new deal an expansive new climate ring New Deal through a 5050 Senate but I think we can get some meaningful legislation accomplished in the next 2 years speaking of the green new deal do you think Progressive's are going to be against things that fall short of the terrific expansion of the economy and the kind of things they want to see happen in the green new deal so I am a little worried about the perfect becoming the enemy of the good here with and there are some enclaves in the environmental community there is this notion that for example carbon pricing which I think is one of the essential tools in the tool box it's not a magic bullet and none of these things are but it's one of the tools we need to use every tool were available that's available to us if we're going to conquer this problem so I think we have to make it clear that carbon pricing can be done in a way that's just that that doesn't hurt lower income and frontline communities and it's not again because of her bullet one of the criticisms against carbon pricing is well you know the price won't be high enough to make a real difference to to get us the emissions reductions we need on well that depends on the price that set in of course there's going to be a political battle over that the fossil fuel industry doesn't want to see a high carbon price but that is part of a negotiation and it is just one of the tools in the tool box carbon pricing along with subsidies for renewable energy and. These executive actions that are moving forward under Biden and are engaged with the global community all of those things collectively together can lead us down the path where we avert catastrophic warming are more than 2 degrees Celsius 3 degrees Fahrenheit some of these targets we talk about that we don't want to go beyond there's still a path forward and I'm optimistic given the shift in the political winds that we can do it speaking of optimism I sort of detect. When we talk about the public in general that there has been a paradigm shift in accepting climate change is a real thing and that seems to be you know pretend well for the future do you get that also Yeah I do and that is certainly one of the favorable developments I would say that have come together to put us really and uniquely favorable position to see meaningful climate action there's the fact that climate change has become so obvious to the person on the street we're seeing the impacts play out in real time now this isn't just about polar bears up in the Arctic decades from now it's about unprecedented superstorm wildfires heat waves floods that we see play out now real time on our television screens now that's part of what has led to this new climate or the fact that the forces of inaction the inactive nests as I call them are a fossil fuel interests and those doing their bidding recognize that they can no longer credibly deny that climate change is real or even that is caused by us and so instead what they've done is to engage in this multi chronons campaign this new climate war that I described consisting of various tactics including the deflection that we talked about but also the promotion of false solutions like geo engineering or hey we can just capture the carbon and Barea it and and continue to burn fossil fuels and we really have to look out for do mongering there has been an effort for them to sort of fan the flames of doom as and if you really Bill. It's too late to do anything enough potentially leads you down the same path of inaction as outright denial and luck could be an activist the fossil fuel interests you Highness they don't care about the path you take They just care about their destination they want you not to be out there demanding action on climate so you sound optimistic I mean you end your book on an optimistic note that things can really turn Yeah well you know there are a number of developments that come together in to refer to give the expression a perfect storm of circumstances that really and placed us in a position where we finally may see that tipping point in public consciousness a recognition that now is our time and we have to act now there is greater urgency but there is also agency we can solve this problem we started our conversation by talking about. What individuals can do and what individuals have been told to do what advice would you give to people who say I'm inspired to do something want to read your book and then go out and take action on the climate crisis what can I do what do you say to those people. Yeah it's sort of a 2 pronged response I say do all those things that you can do in your everyday life that reduce your environmental footprint I mean look they save you money they make you healthier that makes feel better on the set a great example for other people why shouldn't we do these things and of course we need to do those things but we can't allow that to be viewed as a substitute for the needed systemic changes we need subsidies for renewable energy we need to accelerate the green energy transition we do need some sort of carbon pricing in my view and look as individuals we can't implement those things so we need politicians we need policy makers who are reeling when to do our bidding bidding of the people they're supposed to represent rather than the bidding of fossil fuel interests which is too often been the case and look at who we took the 1st step in this last election voting is one of most important ways that we can sort of express ourselves politically and we came out we turned out and we elected a Democratic president and a Democratic Congress now that are willing to act but we can't stop there we have to continue to put pressure on our policy makers on our politicians because we know there's huge amounts of pressure being placed on them by the fossil fuel interests and it's the squeaky wheel if we don't push back against that pressure and demand accountability then Unfortunately even those with us our political allies may not do what's necessary to be done so be out there using your voice talking about this issue writing to your local politicians speaking out writing letters to the editor and just making sure that this is at the forefront of our conversation in the next 100 days as we move forward and we have a real opportunity for meaningful action talking with Michael Mann author of the new book The new climate War on Science Friday from w. N.y.c. Studios. As you say in your book that there's urgency by we also have agency Yeah absolutely and I think it's critical to communicate and it's critical to recognize that the science actually supports that most of the doom isn't and that we see these days is predicated on a distortion of the science and in some cases the you know the misrepresentations by do lists are almost as egregious if not as egregious as the misrepresentations by outright climate change deniers for example the idea that we're already in a position where runaway warming is inevitable there's nothing we can do to prevent massive escape methane that all warm the planet beyond literal conditions the science doesn't support that at all in fact the best available science now indicates that if we stopped burning carbon if we were to go cold turkey right now on burning carbon and carbon emissions went to 0 the surface temperature of the planet would stabilize in a few years and that's an important revision of sort of the understanding we used to have where we thought that the planet would still warm up for decades because of what we call the thermal inertia of the oceans but only warming up in response to the greenhouse gases that are there that is true but as we do more realistic modeling experiments that incorporate the full Earth system the the role of the oceans and the biosphere in absorbing carbon we've learned that if we stop burning carbon the oceans as they continue to take carbon out of the atmosphere we're actually draw down atmospheric carbon it will come down in that effect offsets this sort of committed warming thermal inertia effect and in the end you get Syria flatlined if we stop burning carbon now surface temperatures stabilize almost immediately that is extremely important because our actions do indeed have agency that means that there's an immediate and direct response to our reductions in carbon emissions. Didn't we see an example of that during coven 19 when people were hunkered down at home and not driving in industries were shut was in there a tremendous decrease in greenhouse gas emissions Yeah absolutely what we saw was that our actions can make an immediate difference with our greenhouse gas emissions and for the year 2020 it looks like you're going to come down about 7 percent will be down 7 percent which is the biggest drop we've seen in modern history in carbon emissions that's the good news the bad news is we've got to do that every year for the next 10 years at least to remain on that path for stabilizing warming below catastrophic levels are one and have to sell says 3 Fahrenheit that means an additional 7 percent this year and then an additional 7 percent the following year and so on and it quickly becomes obvious that sort of the sorts of changes that we've made the social distancing the lockdowns the largely behavioral changes the reduction in transportation that got us that 7 percent reduction on. That saturates pretty quickly to go beyond that and get additional similar reductions in in subsequent years we really need to decarbonize our economy we need to stop burning fossil fuels for transportation for power generation for industry etc and that requires major structural changes so there is sort of a mixed message yes our actions make an immediate difference and we see that in the drop in carbon emissions this year but it also drives home the point that there's only so much that we can do based on sort of behavioral changes to go beyond that we need to decarbonize or civilization and that means a lot of work over the next few years. Thank you Michael Michael Mann professor of atmospheric science and director of the Penn State Earth System Science Center at Penn State University author of a really terrific new book The new climate war the fight to take back our planet thank you for taking time to be with us today good luck with the book thanks so much Ira Like I said Always a pleasure to talk with you. And you can check out an excerpt of his new book The new climate war up on our website at Science Friday dot com slash climate. And that's about all the time we have if you missed any part of the program or you would like to hear it again yeah subscribe to our podcast rescue smart speaker to play Science Friday and of course we're on social media Facebook Twitter Instagram all week you can get in touch with us at our e-mail address so I fry it Science Friday dot com Send your feedback tell us which would like us to cover Wellsian x. Week I'm Ira Flatow. Science Friday is supported by Progressive Insurance with a name here price tool providing information on a range of insurance coverage and price options more at progressive dot com or 1800 progressive Now that's progressive support for Science Friday comes from the Alfred p. Sloan Foundation working to enhance public understanding of science technology and economics in the modern world support also comes from Schmidt futures a philanthropic initiative founded by Eric and Wendy Schmidt and from the Winston foundation Science Friday is produced by a Science Friday Initiative a nonprofit organization dedicated to increasing the public's access to science and scientific information learn more about their work at Science Friday dot com. Mr supports the n.y.c. Studios and this is listener supported k.q.e.d. Public Radio Good morning and Jean-Marie world affairs is up next with historian Ruth then. Then at 3 o'clock it's inside Europe on this week's program in Italy the biggest mafia trial in decades got underway this week in the southern region of Calabria Megan Williams has more from Rome that story and the other news from the continent this morning at 3 here on k.q.e.d. Public Radio your National Weather Service forecast for this Saturday January 16th partly cloudy overnight Currently we've got temperatures in the fifty's around the bay 54 degrees in sand. Francisco and 50 degrees right now in Sacramento and Santa Cruz later today partly cloudy in the morning and then becoming sunny with highs in the upper sixty's there is a high surf advisory in effect until 7 pm this evening for the San Francisco Bay shoreline in the Sacramento Valley there is a high wind watch from Sunday evening through Tuesday evening high temperatures and high winds bring the potential of fire so we'll be on the lookout for that otherwise around Sacramento partly cloudy overnight and then later today partly cloudy in the morning and then clearing the forecast high for Sacramento today is 69 degrees Oakland is expected to reach 67 and in San Jose today the high will be there might be 70 degrees you're listening to 88.5 f.m. San Francisco and 89.3 f.m. North Highlands Sacramento it's 2 o'clock your listening tour old affairs I'm Filipino on the announcement of the state of the vote by the president of the Senate and the u.s. Will soon be have a new president and a new political party in charge but what a brutal and to mulch was process it's been we will never give up we will never concede it doesn't happen I don't see that it. Was John Kerry was here he was here it was here it was right here are we as we are we must charge more intimate but nothing quite was the when President Trump incited his followers to storm the u.s. Capitol on January 6th puncture the 220 year old tradition in the United States of America it was gut wrenching to watch this marks the 1st time since the Civil War that the transfer of power from one president to the next. Cannot be called peaceful and yet the peaceful transfer of power is what is at the heart of our democracy one that countries around the world have tried to emulate. As the world watches the core of American civic values are threatened by our own president to many this happening in the United States was something unimaginable but to others the mob attack in Washington was straight from a familiar playbook used instinctively by many authoritarian leaders past and present Ray Suarez takes it from here. This century of both oratory and straw men and she says what's happening in the United States right now is very familiar there's no doubt that Donald Trump is an authoritarian leader he's followed the authoritarian playbook with propaganda with corruption within segments to leader called since he was running for office so he's had 4 years to utilize this authoritarian mode of governance wearies domesticated the g.o.p. Everything becomes personal all of this background helped him to get to where he she was January 6th she says the Trumps actions and words over the past 5 years have led to this moment from the beginning of this presidential campaign he was cultivating the far right and extremist groups and gun groups and then you know when someone becomes president the United States it sends a huge message of legitimation so he took existing if Stream is an anti democratic tendencies of the nation and gave a presidential in premature so this empowered to a degree they've never had before and so that's one background to. What we see today where he tried everything else to stay in power and then he had already cultivated these people and the other thing is this cult of victimhood that all authoritarians have that he also encouraged as part of his cult personality and so the 2 things come together you know when the leader is in danger so these authoritarian follow a leader follow relationships it's all about saving the leader and his moment in distress and so he called on them to come and do what they get. A professor of history and Italian studies at New York University she just published a timely book straw man Mussolini to the present she follows the multiple through lines the stories that link Mussolini and Hitler and Franco and Marcos and Pinochet and Mobutu and Donald Trump she says Trump fits the mold of a new generation of authoritarian rulers not to be confused with past or aggressions Trump is no Hitler Khadafi in that authoritarianism works differently today we don't have one party dictatorships outside of some communist places like China and North Korea but the key is that they come in through elections and they must manipulated elections to stay there or get enough power as Putin in Oregon have done to have Parliament passed measures so they could stay in power indefinitely so Donald Trump is trying a different tack because the Americans take something extremely rare they interrupt it with the November election a process of authoritarian capture and this led Trump to rely on the authoritarian playbook he tried to 1st manipulate elections he explored a military option which was shut down by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and then when all else failed he tried to rely on these non-state actors these kind of unofficial paramilitary. So Donald Trump more closely fits the mold of a modern day straw man but how do you explain the enduring appeal the persistent habit of straw men over the past century while at the same time more people live under elected governments than ever people are better clothes better housed than they were 100 years ago I think that when you look back over 100 years of this history which I thought was a really good exercise to do at this point in time you you see certain patterns of times when these kinds of figures have appeal and one of them is when societies have just completed or are in the process of big social transformation is such as more rights for workers more gender emancipation racial emancipation just all kinds of changes that make some people feel very happy and empowered and make other people very anxious and angry so it's over and over again if you think Italy in Germany and Spain in the early thirty's and we can certainly include America after 8 years of Barack Obama who have you know many people never thought should have been allowed to be president as an African-American the conditions can be right for these figures who are always around but the key is in what is what makes them successful what conjunction of conditions have to be there to make people support them and listen to their messages of fear and this is one of them and they present themselves as the guys who and I use guys because they are all guys the guys who are going to slam on the brakes stop the instability stop the scary stuff bring the nation in effect back to its essence to its true self fair Yeah so that's half of that and miscellany who would have been a journalist. And was very good with slogans he defined fascism as a revolution of reaction and this kind of sums up most of these rulers because on the one hand they're there as a big red stop signs like we're going to stop this emancipation we're going to make women know their place again people of color won't be you know trying to get more rights or be mobile because this also happened in the d. Colonization age trait these are recurring patterns but on the other hand they appear on the scene and some of them come from outside of politics and they're going to throw everything up for grabs so they communicate in new ways they say shocking things they rejigger Alliance says many of them create their own movements and lot of them didn't want them to be parties at 1st they had to be movement so that's more dynamic so they're a blend of chaos and reaction and so I find this formulation mostly made 100 years ago actually in 1920 he's 2020 when he said that ism is a revolution of reaction it really captures this mix of contradictory impulses that gives these figures their dynamism commonality you identified in a lot of these men is a kind of performative virility showing off your children behaving almost as the father of the nation and in fact some of them even call themselves that like the Turkmenistan leader the Turkmenbashi who's the head man of all the Turkmen Yeah this this is a very important part of their appeal and one of the I think original things of this strawman but because I elevate the realty to be a tool of rule alongside propaganda corruption the myth of national greatness and violence because I want to take this hyper masculinity seriously we can see to laugh at you know miscellany stripping. Sure enough he and Putin are the bookends for this and Putin uses his half naked body not as much anymore but for many years used it as a symbol of Russia's strength and the cult of force and all of this so it's easy to kind of just ridicule it but it's deadly serious because not only are they the father of the nation they're also the protectors and they they they are very different then democratic with a small d leaders who represent the nation in authoritarian politics the leader in bodies the nation and this is also connected to the victim cult because they are the force of the nation but it means they also take the hits by the nation's enemies so it's a very different relationship of the leader and the nation which is also why they don't these men don't recognize public versus private so they have a proprietary conception of power it's was the way they're corrupt but I wanted to show that there is a link between these you know pictures of half naked leaders who are blessed ringleaders and social policy some of the mobilized women and promote women but as a whole women have to it's pro-family fear of demographic change so they want the right people to have more babies. Be teach you people are persecuted and that's a through line for 100 years because they're not see they're seen as degenerate or they're not contributing to pro-family politics so there's links between all of these things and virility was a very good way to get at all these different issues again and again along with the writ large fraud ling of women's ambition society wide these men as you profile them are also pretty bad to the women in their lives I decided So these are not biographies. I I talk about the leader's character and actions insofar as they connect to their policies and their governing styles but I did think it was very relevant to talk about the sex addictions that several of them have from miscellany to Khadafi and likely badly Scania as well because it's an example of what happens when one person gets power and this can happen even in a democracy like Berlusconi who who really. Weakened democracy a lot invented around his personal needs but didn't destroy it but when one person has all the resources and is able to kind of hijack them to fulfill their personal desires we hear more about corruption where they claim that wealth of the nation for their own but they also claim bodies and in a way the straw men are kind of horrid years you know they're they need our attention 247 and they also need a pipeline of women Khadafi also had male sexual slaves but so I talk about how the sex life of the strong men isn't just you know sensationalist to write about it but it actually connects to this proprietary vision of power and this kind of a institutionalization of sexual abuse a culture of male for us that has real consequences to give some examples I mean I guess Italy was an example of that where Mosul Ynys own noted and widely known dalliances seemed to be a kind of license for other men he wasn't the only guy who was allowed to play around it was it sort of authorized Blackshirts to be Ruiz like their their boss yeah because the leader is the emblem of manhood and it's really interesting these these men and many. Have them come to power with some background in communications or entertainment so they know how to be the kind of man the culture wants them to be and this is very important they're their con men but they're also showmen and I'm taking this very seriously so in Leslie's case he he used his secret police and his personal secretary it to vet women if you went to . Went to a rally and he saw a woman who seemed pretty or someone wrote him a letter with a picture he would have them tracked and invited to his office such as where he did everything and then violate them we have no idea if it's consensual or not and after that they would be persons of interest to his entire secret police network and Khadafi went one step further and actually had sexual captives in in the basement of this compound and the University of Tripoli had a dungeon built because he would go and visit universities and select his latest captives but this set the tone for a kind of widespread culture of sexual abuse and and just domination and so the leader's example is followed by other men and then it translates into social policy where sometimes women's obviously women's rights are taken away and dictatorships but even in democracy massage any can be generalized and normalized which has also happened when someone like Trump comes to power who who boasted about you know grabbing women's private parts and so the book takes on the consequences of this certain fetish we've had or toleration of male glamour the glamour of male lawlessness and the glamour of male force and it's arguing that it's showing historic. Up to today that this has disastrous consequences and perhaps we need something else one of the most fascinating things about that this whole set of interlock syndromes that you describe is that these leaders often come to power up promising or assuring the country that they are the answer they are the antidote to the instability and lawlessness and corruption of a previous regime I will sweep all that away yet they also expect or do they expect a kind of tolerance as there's a growing understanding of their own corruption where they don't expect it to tarnish them they don't expect wider knowledge of the fact that they're getting rich sometimes unbelievably wealthy to detract from their power or detract from their credibility you know that's a very interesting syndrome that you describe and it's been repeated over and over for century. These men again many of them have criminal records when they come to power or they're under investigation like Putin and Trump and various county all under investigation when they when they were coming running for office and they claim to be purists who are going to quote drain the swamp switches by the way a slogan that was leaning 1st used and he meant it literally his going to drain the swamp south of Rome that have malaria and he did it but it also quickly became kind of term used for his cleaning up society. You know and of course the targets of who was unclean and who was degenerate and who was immoral why didn't from the left to choose to the bush why and that's always what happens in authoritarian rulers that's no. Ever just one target them that they widen the group of people that get persecuted but this could combination of Law and Order rhetoric and lawlessness is at the very heart of authoritarian rule and another contemporary example is boss a narrow who like their lives County came to power on the heels of a corruption scandal. And was able to say I'm going to be a reformer I'm going to clean everything up and then you know and use the law in order rhetoric in his case connecting to the Brazilian military dictatorship so one of the clues we have is this if we see a politician on the rise and we see is this person a strong man they start talking about violence they start talking about their own purity law in order and then when they get into office they do the opposite and soon enough they specially if they don't ruin democracy were able to see how they institutionalize corruption in their governments is this an aspect of the way they try to control reality this sort of chasm between who they say they are and what they want to accomplish and what they actually do it's just the now growth of the kind of things they do to the press or the fabulous stories they spin in their speeches that have no connection to reality but are expected to be believed you know that's a very interesting thing they they all have to start off by destroying the notion of truth but it it's interlocked with the other tools because for example we can take Trump as an example because it but the syndrome is the same when he was on the campaign trail he immediately started demonizing the Press and one of the things now he's leaving we can you know think about whatever is legacies this kind of making the press a political enemy to an extent it never was before that they should be locked up right this is new. But the reason they do that it's like an insurance policy because they're corrupt they know that secrets could come out and they need people to already believe that the press is against them that they are the victims of plots of prosecutors of the press and they need people to feel that whatever the press is going to say is biased that these are partisan hacks the other part of the dynamic is that they bond people to them and so Trump used loyalty oaths and she spoke and they speak in very direct ways and they channel they use negative emotions but they also can. They also have positive connections on an emotional basis they make people feel included at the right people usually white Christian people and so people start to believe in them and once they believe in the believe anything they say and and then there's the final part which is some of them know that in the trunk case he was lying but they didn't care because Trump posed as a maverick who was going to throw everything up for grabs he was going to give a jolt to the system and they saw his lying as a kind of rule breaking and here we go back to the outlaw the lalas news so all of this becomes real a difficult thing to combat and and over and over they've been very successful in attacking the truth and establishing their own version of reality which keeps them in office you know that's one thing in a. Illiterate society a pretty literate society but I don't Hitler came to power in the most literate most educated society in the world at that time so it's it's not it doesn't necessarily follow does it that. That the sophistication of the populace itself is really an important variable here it could happen anywhere Yes And one of the lessons of the book is it can happen anywhere. And that the mechanisms are of the same the outcome is very different I mean historian so the book really respects the differences and outcome of the fascist year away you had these genocidal dictatorships military coups and then what happens today so the outcome can be different but the dynamics are the same kind of an incredible poster in the book from the Nazi Party in the 1920 some Hitler you know miscellany got to parent age $22.00 and Hitler It took a it took him a whole decade after that to get to power and he idolized Miscellany and was trying to do a march on Berlin that was like Muslims march from Rome so I paid very close attention to what mostly he was doing and he was banned from speaking publicly in the mid 1920 s. Because of his hate speech so and this was done to the states level not the national level so that the Nazi Party put out a poster of Hitler with his mouth taped shut and so today we talk about cancel culture so she posed as a truth teller who had been silenced by these stablished media by liberal democracy which was tyranny right this is the fascist line that still around with orbán and and the American right today and this was a highly effective she was this maverick who was risking everything even going to prison when it's put failed in 1023 and there were several editions of this poster of of Hitler with his mouth taped shut and then he got the band rescinded because he said he would abide by the law he would have paid the Constitution and of course the rest is history you know about 5 years after that he was in power. So the truth teller who comes from outside and is risking for the nation this is very powerful for people and time and again even if they're in a highly educated nation whatever the specifics are it works to solidify the bond around the leader on one hand people can find out more things about more things than ever in the history of the world and it seems like almost a paradox that at a time when you can be more informed about everything. That's same set of tools can also be put to work making you ignorant or just as easily as the truth can be found a fantastic flights of fancy can be found that help you believe or swallow all kinds of things how of modern communications played into the latest iteration of straw man that's a really interesting question and I want to say that every chapter goes over 100 years so I have a propaganda chapter and it goes from the 1920 s. To today so the reader can see exactly what's changed and what state the saying so one of the things that stays the same is that these leaders establish direct communications with the people now that type of media changes miscellany had news reels and Trump has Twitter's have his balsa narrow but it's very important that they have that direct line of unmediated contact with their people so social media has accelerated certain tendencies of propaganda because propaganda requires repetition but it also requires saturation the same message has to be hammered home through different you know and the 4 it was radio news reels and print Now we also have social media and the way that information circulates so quickly today allows misinformation disapprobation to do its impact much much faster so you could say as I do in the Burke what modern 21st century authoritarians and I'm not speaking of the remaining one party states like North Korea and China talking about whether some semblance of open media still they lose this ability to control everything like there's no one state media in Brazil or bunts can pretty close but there's always some opposition voices so they lose that that. Little synchronization but they gain in saturation and they gain in repetition and so that that is very destructive so I have a lot about social media in the book also in the resistance chapter to show how people today use social media to engage in digital storytelling that that creates communities around a cent so I have an example of a classic scene from resistance where the police are breaking down your door and you have to hide your documents with your contacts names before we would never be able to see this because we would read about it in memoirs some people go into exile things like that we didn't we didn't have a real time record now critics and dissidents and Putin's Russia are are some live streaming when the police knock on their door so I have an example of a guy life streamed on Twitter his drone flying his hard drive out his window of his apartment to a friend so we see were privy to these moments and this actually creates a lot more empathy and solidarity with dissidents today so that's an example where social media harms our crafts social media also encourages and enforces conformism I mean when you go in the process of a few weeks from Election Day to north of 70 percent of the members of a political party believing that a vote was totally fraudulent that an election was rigged and controlled that's a kind of power the ability to get that message out into people's your drums and eyeballs day after day after day well. You know Hitler or Mussolini would have been jealous I guess it's because it's it's pretty powerful stuff it is and you know it's very common for people to say that Trump is incompetent he's lazy and I think this is not a useful thing to say to understand what the magnitude of what has happened to us in these years because I truly believe you know Trump did not have the same goals as Democratic presidents with a small d. He had 0 interest in public welfare it's white couldn't care less about coronaviruses Americans live or die he just doesn't care and in that unfortunately saying he shares the exact psychology of all these other leaders I write about but his goals were to make money for Trump organization and that's why he's been golfing and visiting so many Trump properties one out of every 3 days in office but his other goal was to build his personality cult to keep people loyal to him and to hammer home his messages so that would help him to you know keep people's affection and keep the hatred of enemies because he needs people to be polarized so the magnitude of what he has done since that his 2016 campaign we've hardly begun to analyze and we have been subjected by Trump and his allies in the media and government to barrage of psychological warfare and messaging that is unprecedented in American history and in peace time for sure so he's been highly successful at the things he cared about and propaganda was one of them. One of the biggest dangers we face now is that Trump has left a blueprint for everyone to see of where our institutions are weak they they work he was you know his electoral manipulations were pushed back at the local level we managed to vote in numbers sufficient despite voter repression and pandemic to vote him out but the g.o.p. Is likely to double down on its all the things it's learned from Trump to diligent a mate the Biden Harrison ministration because they've seen that it works fear works scaremongering works and I also think that a lot of people were highly invested to the very end in consolidating what they started to have 0 doubt that William Barr all the things he was trying to do he asked Congress to if you could to detain people without trial that's like what who untested and so there was a blueprint there to have a definitely kind of an authoritarian exercise of power so someone else could now come along and they see the potential for people to accept this that's the real danger you're listening to the weekly broadcast of world affairs is produced in partnership with k.q.e.d. I'm Philip yon we're talking about strongman rulers from Mussolini to tromp And now let's return to Ray Suarez his conversation with the story and Ruud van. For all the norm busting through all the limits testing it turned out there weren't norms that mattered limits that mattered. Is the way that we gauge the effectiveness of strongman the eventual ability they have to erode all norms push past all limits and do they only succeed to the extent that they're able to do that yes I mean it's it's. Here we have to look at the effect of violence and when you have and it classically happens when you know you have full control of the state and then you have secret police and law enforcement who who kill people and thoughts everyone else is so terrified they comply. In 21st century it works differently or a ban is an example he hasn't used much trial and said it all. And he's been able to domesticate society and he now has rules by decree so he's been able to get compliance. Very craftily that way but you know to push back. On that our institutions how but sometimes it came down to a few people doing the right thing like these election officials or judges or General Milley who you know was used as a prop in Lafayette Square and that whole summer the response to black lives that a protest the mobilization of all these troops this was a rehearsal for the election era and after this was very clear to me at the time and General Milley was used as a prop he didn't like it so few weeks ago he came out and said well the armed forces is only going to be the constitution not an individual but the reason he said that is that Trump was clearly probing about if he could use the military in a repressive way because the electoral thing wasn't going so well for him so you know way we we are institutions held but it also depended on a few prominent people to set the time and that has to be celebrated just like the election results but it also means that you know where we're up against this authoritarian political culture that the g.o.p. Has normalized now under. Troops lead and we're going to have to have a very vigorous pushback so that that doesn't spread further there's still some time to go before January 20th he has reportedly asked again and again for instance whether he can pardon himself and on one level you think oh well that's reassuring pardons actually still matter because. In some of the societies that you describe in the book. You know who did Pinochet need to pardon him who would muzzle leaning need to pardon him nobody they were the law so there is still. Are a recognition that these kinds of things still matter can I pardon my kids what can I pardon them for and on and on and on so I'm not going to prejudge what happens between now there may still be some some pretty. Eye opening pardon Still to come but just the fact that there was that kind of thing him finding out what the limits were him being told what they were and then trying to think about how he might circumvent door or wiggle past that. That's still a kind of recognition that the law kind of still matters yeah it's a reluctant recognition on his part because he's never had any limits in his life he's managed to come back from bankruptcies and get more and more banks to lend him money he's been a law listened vidual he's been rewarded for that but so on the individual level yes this this chief bully in chief has learned finally that there are some limits and but I we are still waiting for a full accounting of the total disaster that has happened to our federal bureaucracy I write about this in strong and the State Department the e.p.a. The Centers for Disease Control this has been an authoritarian style. Purge Shino again 20 century the Purge would mean you go to prison here you get fired or you're forced out with a hostile workplace but tens of thousands of people have left and he said situated them with loyalists and so in the book I explore in the corruption chapter it's not just financial corruption it's creating a climate because corruption is contagious if other people are doing it and you get away with it it encourages more people to do it but you have to have people who set the terms so from things that could seem small like violating the Hatch Act They never were small before but dozens of his employees violated it because now it's Ok so there's lessons for example from the barely scholarly era and Italy where various countries highly corrupt. And and wrapped the law around his little finger and over his today who's $2.00 and $2.00 governments of the early 2000 he really normal less corruption and there are polls of citizens where their appetite for. Corruption you know was was greater because they got used to it and they expected less of government they became more cynical and this fueled the far right populism in that country so I really think we haven't begun to digest what he what he has done the Decimation and devastation he has caused to governmental ethics so he might learn limits but a lot of those employees are still there that he put them there to change the culture and that's something we have to reckon with as you note in the book the act doesn't last forever people become more and more dissatisfied as the ideal and the real move further and further apart one response many of the menu portrays share is to depict everything that happened before them as terrible and everything that's happened since them as great a kind of golden age for the country are there similarities in the way it begins to unravel I got a chuckle out of it when you noted for several of them that 11 metric is when people stop asking for their or threat for their picture you know you know something's up and. Yeah that was the most interesting chapter to write the endings chapter because. It it is concentrates on you know how they have it each of these people who I feature How do they how they're ending goes but also it's the unraveling of a style of rollbacks built around loyalty to their person and what happens when conditions change and the bad news is that it takes an awful lot and this is true when there's really been a one party state and state media and you don't have other you know messages getting in easily so for Hillary mostly it really took their countries being bombed by the Allies so you know. Total devastation that's when in for my chief 42 or so people started to insult the leader publicly and so people that's a very good example like the autographs you mention to people who are afraid you couldn't insult the leader you'd go to jail you could go to jail for 10 years for one you know errant word in public and there were so many informers that this was this was a big deal but then the people started the sash huge uptick in people insulting the leader publicly because they began to lose their fear they didn't care anymore because they realized what he was and even whistlin his own daughter started to realize that he had you know wrecked the country and so she writes him an angry letter because she sees all this poverty in Sicily so that process of unraveling is very very interesting and but it takes a lot to get people to give up their leader it also. Creates an incentive for the leader to not tolerate even the most marginal even the most petty forms of dissent. Making jokes funny cartoons you can't there's almost this feeling like it's a slippery slope that if you allow any of it you have to allow it all so this network that you mention of informants and secret police and block monitors and all that. Criminalize even the smallest attempts to hold on to a little bit of yourself that isn't in for all to the leader it's scary yeah it is because authoritarianism thrives when there's mistrust and abject fear and one of the. Subthemes of the book is exile how I really want to take on this idea that authoritarianism is good government and it's efficient and it's good for business and I really want to show the destruction it causes that to the economy but also to family life and the texture of society so so many people you know all this talented people they're either in prison or they have to go into exile and like journalists for example mostly Zilly if you were a dissident journalist if you were lucky you fled the country but then they would go after your family you still there so this mistrust and fear just reigns and it's very effective now today you know that's a bit less because the penalties are less if you don't have a one party state but that the creation the kinds attempt to destroy the horizontal bonds of community by and by spreading hatred still is the same that's why Donald Trump started with creating enemies he weaponized old enemy. Like you know people against African-Americans against Muslims and to those and migrants and then to those older enemies he added new or enemies the press and then anybody who didn't agree with him became at his governmental level they became disloyal and they were booted out of government and then at the social level they became political enemies people to threaten from his Twitter feed so it's been to see how people became afraid to speak out. Quite quickly even here where we retained an open society shows that the power of these. The that these leaders have and their threats that they thrive on but do we have to be careful I mean at long last Trump is not most only we don't have a network of prisons scattered around the country feel to the brim with political prisoners we don't have black shirted secret police. You know enforcing even the slightest deviation of norms with the year or or but the orbán is not Hitler. Deter it is not Stalin It all seems to be calibrated on a whole different charge using the tools of the modern state and using some of the tools of modern communication but. I feel almost like we have to be a little cautious with some of these parallels or would you would you disagree with me there now I agree in one reason you know I've been studying fascism for years and so everyone asks me if Trump is a fascist and I won't call him a fascist because it's doesn't work the same way today and the conditions that created these one party dictatorships are are there still around in the communist world but it really does work differently today there's less. Genocidal violence there's less mass public violence there's more mass detention so everybody has their migrants in detention camps an area once a good example he's arrested hundreds of thousands of people who are critics of him . He hasn't used the tools that 20th century he doesn't use all of those tools they detained people on mass as well but they also killed more people and that's become more difficult to do in the social media age and that's also why they warehouse their enemies and do things inside camps often but it's very important to to respect the differences between 21st sent 28th century which is why I used the word authoritarian for all of these leaders and then I divide them into different h.s. And but the book shows has all the some of the tools they use are exactly the same the personality calls the threats but the outcomes are different but other things that remain the same are also how we misjudge them and that's that's one of the most interesting things in the book Time after time when these people appear on the scene they are misjudged for example elites think they can bring them into the system and use them just like Italians and Germans did in the early 20th the g.o.p. Did and you know 2016 and they thought that they could control Trump power that he would become presidential and this is the pivot delusion he's going to become something else he's going to become normal and this is a profound misreading of who these extremists are and this is happened over and over again so I think that one of the lessons of the book is that although things work differently today and outcomes are different the psychological and social impulses that produced these men success haven't actually changed all that much I'm glad you brought up Iran because he's. An interesting case he starts out as a leader with a number of champions in the West the e.u. Is moving ahead with possible Turkish entrance into the Union as a as a member state everyone is barred by some legal technicality from running for prime minister or president former admired successful mayor of East Dumbo said to have brought the city back from the brink he prevails in a legal sense he wins in a democratic sense he starts out his 1st couple of victory laps he's looking pretty good and then something changes and you start to see the a whore marks of a Thera Tarion rule you start to see the targeting of critics and the harsh punishment of dissent that early on well you might not have imagined that it was going to go that way Turkey will now never be in the e.u. In an era one ist structure it is throttling. The Argent points of dissent it is trying to keep opposition politicians out of power it's not going people off of ballots it's doing all kinds of stuff that would have made it impossible even to be in the polite company of Western nations now some observers have said well once it was clear that the e.u. Was going to keep. Messing them around that relationship curdled and he went his own way or he was willing to play the democratic game as long as it advantaged him and then once again he had all the tools he needed in his hands to be who he really was then he came roaring out of his out of his shell and became the guy he is today it's hard to. Figure I've interviewed him a couple of times he was somebody who was looked to as a modernizer as someone who was going to drag Turkey into the 21st century with the force of his personality but also with the support of his people and now it looks entirely different and he's in the book in most chapters He's an excellent example and he poses as he said is this modernize or a new infrastructure a new airports and highways and a lot of them paid for by mountains of foreign debt but he's also interesting because one of the hallmarks of these leaders in their personality cults is that they pose as people making the nation great in the future so they're future oriented that's the modernizer but they also play on the stack because it's never make America great it's always make America great again so in error once case you know whistling he had the like the Roman Empire heir to one talks about the Ottoman Empire and there are some very chilling quotes that you know I've gathered from him where he says that Turkey's borders and going to extend you know into Greece into other you know countries that are not currently his territory so they're able to be a mix of of answering desires for their country to have more prestige and that Christie's might be midair Nuti but it's also some vague decide where to return to when things were great again you know in some cases in the countries that you touch on in the book the experience of life under a man like this is so. Frightening so traumatizing that when you rebuild your politics after he's gone you make it really hard to have a guy like that again so Italy has 45 different cabinets after the fall of muscling e and the end of the monarchy you have a Germany that goes so far in repenting of Hitlerism that it it totally remakes itself in its own memory about its history but then on the other hand you have a Russia which after decades and decades of really harsh one man rule and cults of personality with just a brief but crazy and unstable interregnum goes back to Putinism. Almost like the reflex of a muscle you're not that far away from Brezhnev and suddenly there's Putin Yeah and that's that and Putin is in the book as an example I thought I don't deal with 20th century Communists because I met historian of fascism and I mostly stuck to right wing authoritarians and I also wanted to look at people who wrecked a democracy and didn't inherit this close system like the Soviets but Putin's very interesting because he draws so much on the legacy of the Soviet Union in ways that don't get talked about perhaps enough not just that he was in the k.g.b. And all of his methods that retain something of Soviet political violence but he uses you know some of the penal colonies where he ships many more people than were made aware of are the same you know Soviet era penal colonies one of the reasons I wrote the book is that we're in this period of intense historical revisionism by authoritarians himself so Putin's been very busy in that regard and you know it's illegal to mention the Nazi Soviet pact and I always tell my students when she 12 or 2 if I wouldn't be able to mention this if I were in Russia I would go to jail and there are several historian sitting in his gulags for working on the wrong things so he's putting up statues of Stalin but he's punishing anybody who looks too closely into parts of the gulags that weren't known about before so I think that the that one of the things the book wants to show is the recurrences and the kind of through lines of this century of authoritarianism and both the right and from communists to post communist and you have or been to who was a dissident and then turned into an authoritarian So that's a different trajectory Well here we are. A 5th of the way through a new century and you've God Victor orbán with fantasies of uniting Hungary and speaking people who are scattered through not only hungry but in countries elsewhere in Europe of greater Hungary lamenting the World War One era treaties that created Hungary's modern borders you have Modi in India with the remembrance of something that never was or hasn't been in anybody's memory a Hindu only India not in centuries and centuries but sort of building fantasies of the future around something that never was a you've got Putin. Trying to reintroduce his people about a greater Russia. It seems like this is a contagion we never quite develop the antibodies to resist as we look forward. Men going to try this rather than fewer Yes it's been it's been very consistently something that brings popularity that you so you know you say that you tell people that the current the president is you know full of threats. Look how Trump said you know that America's a rusted out landscape it's a terrible place and then you. Package to them and market to them this ideal nation so I actually added this chapter called a greater nation because I had so many elements of you know the exile nation then appeals to the Diaspora and I was trying to fit them in different chapters and I thought you know what this is there's so many recurrences over a century I'm going to give it its own chapter so that's what the greater nation is and miscellany was the 1st to appeal to the Diaspora all of Little Italy's all over the world were called into service and there were many Italian anti fascists living abroad but there were also a lot of fascists and they felt great pride in mostly me that finally people were taking Italy seriously so this formula is used look at Modi who is very interesting his use of communications to go back to the propaganda theme where he appears at rallies by Hola Graham so that he can be everywhere at once which is part of the personality Cup And so people want to treat him and these leaders are expert communicators and they're able to make people dream that the dreams are highly destructive in the end but it in the meantime they make people feel hope and they make people feel proud of their nation and you know you see many trump supporters say he's he's with us and he's making America. Great transfer very smart about giving them red hats and letting them feel like to try a tribe that takes pride in the nation so we haven't seen the last of this because it works and it works around the world in many many different historical eras and they all learn from each other. In some way they admired each other and they look at what works and what doesn't. Don't Trump is not done yet he waited a very long time on January 6th to tell them to stand down and he said it's time to go home but it's very important that he added that this election was stolen from us so it was a kind of standing down but not giving up and in fact both in terms of his personality and he's like all the other cracks I've studied Defeat is not an option because losing power in is a kind of psychological and I a way Sion for leaders like Trump they can't imagine not having control and adulation it's like a death for them and the other thing is if they concede they'll lose the respect of their followers and don't Trump's been extremely successful in keeping the 70000000 plus people who voted for more people than in 2016 despite the criminal mismanagement of the pandemic he's keeping them in their fiction that he is the winner and that's very important so he's not giving up he's not going to go quietly and he will have to be removed or there will be more on stability in the weeks to come as we look ahead in the United States where offered those 2 models of either totally being so scared off by what we just experienced that we don't risk it again or. Dabbling with it you know not being scared off by it what do you make of our. Temper Now as as Joe Biden prepares to take the oath of office I think on the one hand we have learned that things are much more fragile than we thought and in particular many white people who had perhaps not thought of this state as a hostile force to them now see that things can turn very quickly and they can become political enemies I think we're in for a turbulent time I think that the strategy of the g.o.p. Is going to be to paint the Biden administration as a kind of socialist apocalypse and make things as difficult to govern as possible with the aim of recapturing the White House so we haven't seen the last of tropism and I can only hope as someone not a fan of authoritarian political culture is that democracy protection is something you have to work in to your every day life and you can't take your rights for granted. Is the author of strong men miscellany to the president she teaches history and Italian studies at New York University great to have you with us thanks a lot thank you. You've been listening to world affairs a program is co-produced with k.q.e.d. World affairs a nonprofit organization please consider making a donation to support the programming you value just go to our website at world affairs dot org slash donate and while you're at it we want to hear from you what did you think about for supper so what topics would you like us to cover in 2021 Our e-mail address is feedback at world affairs dot org world affairs is produced by Joanne Jennings Jared sport and Teresa Kok surrealists our technical supervisor is Jim Bennett our digital producer is Tatum center back and are in turn is tempered Daniels a music is from Blue Dot sessions. I'm Filipino thank you for listening one minute before 3 o'clock inside Europe is up next and then at 4 o'clock it's k.q.e.d. Newsroom this week Democratic California congressional representatives Barbara Lee and Eric Swalwell talk with us about their votes for a 2nd impeachment of President Trump and a troubling rise in white nationalism that's this morning at 4 here on k.q.e.d. Public Radio and then join us at 14 it's been a minute. Last week's mob on the capital put America's political divisions in stark relief how exactly do we come together after that I would say that the way to deal with the crisis we're in right now is to understand that the only way. To unity is through the vision divided we heal maybe next time on it's been a minute from n.p.r. . This is 88.5 kids San Francisco and 89 point.
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