- 2 years ago
As Europe waits on France to form a government, as the world waits on the US to pick a president, who drives the agenda?In the wake of the January 6th 2021 storming of the US Capitol, the rest of the world thought there is no way Americans would ever again elect Donald Trump.
So why – despite all the initial excitement around Kamala Harris, despite charges that include trying to overturn an election – is he still ahead in the polls going into Tuesday’s night’s debate against the vice president?The Democrats have scored points on issues like women’s rights – all the while shifting towards Trump’s views on trade and immigration. How much of a shift? To what degree are self-styled illiberals driving policy in 2024?Here in France, where the president has tapped a Gaullist conservative to try and form a government that’s palatable to a divided new parliament, Trump admirer Marine Le Pen insists that she in no way had a hand in Emmanuel Macron’s pick of Michel Barnier even though the far-right leader has clearly emerged as kingmaker from an inconclusive snap election. Are the illiberals winning the battle of ideas? Produced by Andrew Hilliar, Rebecca Gnignati, Ilayda Habip and Juliette Brown.
Visit our website:
http://www.france24.com
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So why – despite all the initial excitement around Kamala Harris, despite charges that include trying to overturn an election – is he still ahead in the polls going into Tuesday’s night’s debate against the vice president?The Democrats have scored points on issues like women’s rights – all the while shifting towards Trump’s views on trade and immigration. How much of a shift? To what degree are self-styled illiberals driving policy in 2024?Here in France, where the president has tapped a Gaullist conservative to try and form a government that’s palatable to a divided new parliament, Trump admirer Marine Le Pen insists that she in no way had a hand in Emmanuel Macron’s pick of Michel Barnier even though the far-right leader has clearly emerged as kingmaker from an inconclusive snap election. Are the illiberals winning the battle of ideas? Produced by Andrew Hilliar, Rebecca Gnignati, Ilayda Habip and Juliette Brown.
Visit our website:
http://www.france24.com
Like us on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/FRANCE24.English
Follow us on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/France24_en
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NewsTranscript
00:00As Europe waits on France to form a government, as the world waits on the U.S. to pick a president,
00:07who drives the agenda?
00:08In the wake of the January 6, 2021 storming of the U.S. Capitol, the rest of the world
00:13thought there's no way Americans would ever again elect Donald Trump.
00:16So why, despite the court cases and all the initial excitement around Kamala Harris, is
00:22he still even or sometimes even ahead in the polls going into Tuesday night's debate against
00:26the vice president?
00:28The Democrats have scored points on issues like women's rights, all the while shifting
00:32towards Trump's views on trade, immigration, how much of a shift, to what degree are self-styled
00:39illiberals driving policy in 2024?
00:43Here in France, where the president tapped a Gaullist conservative to try and form a
00:47government that's palatable to a divided parliament, Trump admirer Marine Le Pen insists she in
00:53no way had a hand in Emmanuel Macron's pick of Michel Barnier, even though the far-right
00:57leader has clearly emerged as kingmaker from an inconclusive snap election.
01:03Are the illiberals winning the battle of ideas?
01:07Today in the France 24 debate, we're asking just how much does populism drive policy?
01:11Joining us from Washington, Dalibor Roak, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute
01:17think tank.
01:18Thank you for being with us.
01:20Thank you for having me.
01:21Also in the U.S. Capitol, political strategist Christian Hanley.
01:25Good to see you.
01:27Thank you for having me.
01:28Elisa Schell is political scientist who teaches at Nanterre University here in Paris.
01:33How are you?
01:34Good to be back.
01:35And good to see Gérald Olivier, author in French of Cover Up, The Biden Clan, America
01:43and the Deep State.
01:44How are you?
01:45Fine.
01:46Good evening.
01:47You can listen.
01:48That's right.
01:49Listen, like and subscribe to the France 24 debate on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and other
01:52fine streaming services.
01:55Before we talk about the U.S. and France, let's begin with the latest.
01:58It's out of Germany, where the social democrat led government is coming off a drubbing at
02:03the hands of the far right in two regional elections.
02:06And the interior minister this Monday announcing six months of temporary border controls that
02:13had existed at its southern and eastern borders extended for all the other land borders.
02:20This says the interior minister to tackle irregular migration and, quote, Islamist extremism.
02:27Dalibor Roach, this is coming from, again, an interior minister and a government that
02:33is led by the social democrats in Germany.
02:37What does that tell you?
02:38I think it's, first of all, useful to think about this challenge in comparative terms,
02:46because very often we use the term populist to label very different, very disparate political
02:52groups and movements across Europe and indeed in the broader Atlantic space.
02:58Populism, I think, has to some extent outlived its usefulness.
03:03You have political parties that are very staunchly Atlanticist and political parties that are
03:11leaning towards Russia and China.
03:13You have political parties that are pro-Ukrainian, political parties that would like to end the
03:17war by having Ukraine surrender.
03:20You have political parties that present a direct challenge to constitutional orders
03:24of their countries or have entrenched themselves in power.
03:27You have political parties that are far less benign.
03:29All of them lumped together under the populist label.
03:34I think what has been happening throughout the West is something that is significant
03:39and common to all these countries, namely that you have an underserved portion of the
03:43electorate that might be suspicious of large-scale migration, that are more conservative on social
03:49and cultural issues, that might be perhaps less tolerant towards sexual and other minorities
03:53than we thought.
03:55And this fraction of the electorate is now being served by these wide-spectrum political
04:01parties that we lump under the label of populist.
04:03To me, the real question is how we can make populism safe for democracy, to make sure
04:10that it does not represent a challenge to constitutional order the way it does in places
04:15like Hungary or indeed the United States, and also to make sure that it does not represent
04:21a mortal threat to the health of our alliances.
04:25Open borders, though, central to the whole principle of the European Union at this point.
04:32These are open borders within, I'm talking about, the EU.
04:36Germany has got no fewer than nine of those land borders.
04:41And again, this is coming from a center-left-led government.
04:46So I ask the question, Dalibor, does that mean that there's this shift towards the anti-immigrant
04:55ideas of the far right?
04:58I mean, you've seen this shift in a number of other European countries, not least in
05:02Denmark, where you had the social democratic government responding to the refugee crisis
05:07in pretty sort of stern and hawkish terms.
05:12And I think the policy mix that we are going to get as a result of this, if you will, populist
05:17upsurge across Europe and beyond is a much stricter immigration policy, perhaps a tightening
05:23of asylum law that would not be to the liking of humanitarian lawyers and international
05:28organizations.
05:30But the question is whether this is a price worth paying for the preservation of, say,
05:35the European project and of Western alliances.
05:38And my inclination is to think that, yes, we probably have to live in a world of immigration
05:45restrictions, protectionism, and perhaps less tolerant sort of social attitudes than we
05:52might want to wish for, but that might not be in itself the end of democracy or the end
05:57of the liberal constitutional order.
06:00Not necessarily the end of the liberal constitutional order.
06:04We're going to pick up on that point.
06:05The whole world is watching what's going on in the U.S. where the argument of those who
06:10dislike Donald Trump is that democracy is on the ballot.
06:16You've had quite a summer in the U.S. an incumbent shock withdrawal, an assassination attempt,
06:21two conventions.
06:23Next, the upcoming chapter is Tuesday's debate in Pittsburgh.
06:29Matthew-Mary Karouche has that story.
06:34On one side, there's Donald Trump with his standard pomp and grandstanding before crowds
06:39of fans.
06:40On the other, there's Kamala Harris and her face-to-face interactions with emotional supporters.
06:46They have two diametrically opposed strategies, but both candidates are preoccupied with the
06:51same thing, Tuesday's debate.
06:54The debate with Joe, how did that work out?
06:56And we're going to find that out again on Tuesday night.
06:59Is anybody going to be watching?
07:00Finally got all of the debate prep to look at these slices.
07:05Best part of debate prep so far.
07:08Harris has had years of experience with televised debate since she was elected district attorney
07:13of San Francisco in 2002.
07:16She was able to put Vice President Mike Pence back in his place in 2020.
07:20Mr. Vice President, I'm speaking.
07:21I have to weigh in.
07:22I'm speaking.
07:23Nonetheless, Trump is a strong adversary.
07:27Harris has hired Philippe Reines to play the role of the billionaire for debate simulations.
07:32He worked with Hillary Clinton in 2016, which allowed her to dominate the debates, but not
07:38to win the election.
07:40Trump has also recruited a stand-in for his opponent.
07:43Tulsi Gabbard, former Trump rival, has rallied to his cause.
07:47She is known for having presented a challenge for Harris in a primary debate five years
07:51ago.
07:52She put over 1,500 people in jail for marijuana violations and then laughed about it when
07:56she was asked if she ever smoked marijuana.
08:00Trump has to master his nerves and retain composure.
08:04Harris has to seem reassuring and presidential.
08:07Those impressions are still pretty shallow.
08:09So in many ways, this is as much a job interview for her with this big, broad audience that
08:14she's going to have as it is a debate and encounter with the former president.
08:18The debate will take place in Philadelphia, cradle of American democracy.
08:22The candidates have just over one more day to be ready.
08:27Christian Handley, is it going to be about image, how they look during that debate, or
08:33is it going to be about substance and how they respond to key issues?
08:38Well, I think for better or for worse, it's going to be more about image than about substance.
08:43Like the report just said, though, Donald Trump really is going to have to maintain
08:46his calm and be able to focus on what's the task at hand.
08:52Right now, we've seen so far as a candidate who seems to be pretty scared, I would say,
08:56of facing Kamala Harris on stage.
08:58She was very able to defeat Joe Biden in the last debate, and he felt very confident after
09:05that.
09:06But now, with the ticket switched up, that he's become increasingly nervous and jittery
09:10and even has kind of stepped away from the campaign trail in large part, doing pressers
09:15and different events that are in very safe places for him, not in swing states where
09:19he needs to be seen.
09:21And it's true, for Kamala Harris, the big challenge will be really reintroducing herself
09:24to the country.
09:25She's been vice president for years now.
09:27But in our system, that's a very amorphous sort of role to play and very often is not
09:32forward facing.
09:33So there are a lot of voters, especially in the swing states, who are not very engaged
09:37and involved and don't regularly follow American politics, who are going to be meeting Kamala
09:42Harris for the first time tomorrow evening.
09:44Yeah, there's a lot of criticism saying that she's been dodging questions from reporters
09:50and questions from ordinary citizens, that there hasn't been, you haven't had a chance
09:56much to hear on these substance issues that we're talking about.
10:02I hear that criticism, but also I've been around long enough to know that when Democrats
10:06do focus on policy, American press then faults Democrats for that, saying that they're being
10:10too wonkish and talking too much to an inside-the-beltway policy audience rather than to the American
10:15people.
10:16What we're seeing right now on the campaign trail is that Kamala Harris really is talking
10:20to people, to ordinary people and connecting with them on a visceral level.
10:24And honestly, I think a lot of these policy issues are going to be, for better or worse,
10:29like I said before, sort of secondary to the vibes, if you will, of this campaign.
10:34Right now, we have this really stark dichotomy.
10:36On the one hand, you have Donald Trump, who is talking about crisis at the border in America
10:41and disarray.
10:42And look, the United States has issues, like any country does, but it's a very dark image
10:46he's portraying of the United States.
10:48Meanwhile, we saw at the DNC a jubilant crowd.
10:51And even Adam Kinzinger, a former Republican congressman, was saying how Democrats really
10:55are picking up that torch from the age of Reagan of being the optimist and being the
11:00forward-thinking party.
11:02And she needs to really underline that contrast there, because people are, frankly, fatigued
11:05of this sort of doom and gloom that's coming from the Trump campaign.
11:10Yeah.
11:11Kamala Harris, though, her post-convention surge has now stalled, according to a New
11:17York Times' Siena College poll.
11:19The poll finds voters trust the vice president more on things like preserving democracy,
11:25reproductive rights, less, as you can see in this graph, on the economy and on immigration.
11:34And that kind of brings us back to what we were saying at the outset, Gérald Dolivier.
11:40On this side of the Atlantic, on the one hand, we're puzzled.
11:44There was this attempted coup, basically, in 2021, and yet the guy is running neck and
11:49neck and seen as a safer pair of hands on things like the economy and immigration, according
11:55to the polls.
11:56Yes, because Kamala Harris is a problem.
11:59She's already in charge.
12:01She's running for president, but she's vice president.
12:04So she is the co-author of whatever has happened in the U.S. for the past three and a half
12:08years.
12:09And on the questions of immigration or inflation and the economy in general, Americans are
12:16not quite happy with the situation as it is.
12:20And the problem with Kamala Harris is...
12:22But why do they think Trump can do better?
12:24Because it wasn't so bad when he was president.
12:26And that's actually what he was going to tell Americans tomorrow at the debate.
12:30That's what he tells in every single one of his meetings.
12:34There was no war in Gaza when he was president.
12:38Immigration had not been invaded by Russia when he was president.
12:41Gas was not at $7 a gallon in California when he was president.
12:46Immigration was not 10 million people over three years when he was president.
12:49On all those issues that are the one that Americans are concerned about, he has a record
12:54to run on because he was president.
12:56She has a record to run on too, but she's running away from it.
13:00And what she's been trying to do is introduce herself as someone new because she's not Biden
13:05and she's been quite successful.
13:07As long as the Democrats were running the show, which they were doing in July and during
13:12the convention, she would go up in the polls and that was quite logical.
13:17And I think she peaked.
13:18She peaked at the end of the convention and now she has to convince voters.
13:22We're in the heart of the campaign and tomorrow's debate is extremely important for her.
13:28And the more she has to focus on the issues, the less she's going to be attractive to voters
13:33because they're going to connect her to the situation as it is, for which she is partly
13:37responsible.
13:38Elisa Schell?
13:39Well, yeah, Trump was president, is not the incumbent now, but is sort of an incumbent
13:48because he was president.
13:52And it's an unusual situation where a former president loses an election and runs again.
14:02So who's the incumbent in that election?
14:04It's not pretty clear.
14:05I agree that Kamala Harris campaigned to appear as the new person in this race and she is
14:15in charge indeed.
14:19So yeah.
14:20But on these issues, the economy, immigration, how come she's not winning the argument?
14:26Well, COVID.
14:27Or at least not yet.
14:29Well, COVID happened.
14:30So the inflation is real and hurts many middle class Americans.
14:39And as powerful as they are, U.S. presidents cannot govern the whole economy and decide
14:49when inflation happens or not.
14:51So they have some leverage, of course, but they cannot decide everything.
14:55So yeah, prices are higher, that's for sure.
15:00And immigration.
15:01There was a crisis a few years ago when COVID restrictions ended and there was no way to
15:11organize a coordinated solution.
15:15So the Democrats were not keen on restricting access to the United States and then it was
15:24not possible to find middle ground or a compromise in Congress.
15:31So nothing happened.
15:32And that's true that on immigration and on the economy and inflation, the record is not
15:39so good for Democrats.
15:41And that's why Kamala Harris and Democrats are running on values, like my values have
15:46no change, but they're trying to hide the fact that they have some responsibility.
15:53All right.
15:54Donald Trump, when he was president, allies expressed anxiety over threats to things like
16:01quitting NATO.
16:03They also saw a confrontational approach to trade ties with China, most notably.
16:08They've now become standard U.S. policy, as has a more protectionist view of global trade.
16:13Here is candidate Kamala Harris last week alongside Joe Biden at a rally in front of
16:18union members in Pennsylvania, where she rejected the prospective sale of U.S. steel to the
16:24Japanese.
16:25U.S. steel is an historic American company and it is vital for our nation to maintain
16:34strong American steel companies.
16:37And I couldn't agree more with President Biden.
16:40U.S. steel should remain American owned and American operated.
16:44And I will always have the back of America's steel workers.
16:52Danny Borowicz, is this standard fair for any presidential candidate in the United States
16:59to say that they're going to defend a large company like this one with strategic interests
17:06from falling under foreign ownership?
17:08Or is there a whiff of something that's changed?
17:12Well, first of all, there is no credible national security argument for preventing the sale
17:20of U.S. steel to a Japanese company.
17:22I mean, if anything, American steel industry has been falling behind in productivity.
17:27Japanese steel promises to restructure the company and bring it up to international standards,
17:33make it competitive.
17:35So this is really just rank demagoguery, whether it's coming from Republicans or, in this case,
17:42Democrats.
17:43And I am worried that there is an emerging consensus on both sides of the political aisle
17:49for all the polarization that you see in the United States around questions of protectionism
17:54and kind of distrust of trade and economic interlinkages, especially with allies.
18:01I understand the argument for decoupling, for being wary of Chinese investment or forced
18:06technology transfers.
18:08But the best way to deal with the challenge of China and its economic practices, the best
18:12way to deal with the challenge posed by Russia and a leaky sanctions regime imposed on Russia
18:19is to work with allies, to work with countries like Japan.
18:22And so if this is the new normal, I think, you know, everybody should take note and be
18:28more than a little concerned about what lies ahead.
18:30Mr. Hanley, do you share that concern?
18:35Most popular take on this, but this is something that I don't believe is actually coming from
18:39Donald Trump or from Kamala Harris per se.
18:42They are riding a wave of public opinion that's been shifting in this country for years now.
18:48Especially in 2016, we saw Donald Trump at the 11th hour on economic issues only, sort
18:53of running to the traditional left of Hillary Clinton going into the general election.
18:58Obviously those ideas of being more in favor of trade unions and protectionist economic
19:02policies belongs to the left in this country and not to the right, which is much more in
19:05favor of free trade.
19:07But we've seen, to that point about consensus, we've seen both parties kind of moving a little
19:12more in that sort of protectionist direction.
19:14I would say, though, that at least on the domestic front, how that would be achieved,
19:18it could not be more different between the two current candidates.
19:21You have on the one hand Kamala Harris talking about reinvesting in American manufacturing
19:25and protecting companies from foreign takeovers, which is in some regards protectionist, but
19:31it's still a stark difference from Donald Trump, who's talking about ideas from a hundred
19:36years ago, like putting tariffs on imported products from other countries that just simply
19:42don't work.
19:43And the history bears that out.
19:44So there is definitely a similarity in terms of the tone, but there's still a difference
19:48on a policy level.
19:50What I find interesting here is how both candidates are running for the union vote.
19:57And if you look at history, recent history since FDR, the Democrat Party has been the
20:04party supported by union.
20:05It's been the party of the working class.
20:08And the UAW went for Kamala Harris.
20:12Trump has been courting the Teamsters union.
20:16And there has been a move by the Republican Party for union voters.
20:21And back in August, when RFK Jr. withdrew from the race or suspended his campaign and
20:28endorsed Donald Trump, one of his point, why he was disappointed with today's Democratic
20:34Party is how, in his view, the Democratic Party had turned its back on people, workers
20:41and unions.
20:42And then you had with the so-called blue-collar Reagan Democrats, blue-collar workers in the
20:491980s who supported the Republicans.
20:51And there, at the time, was a very free market view of the world.
20:58But the unions have always been a standard support of the Democratic Party.
21:04And they're trying to maintain it.
21:05They have it for the teachers.
21:08They have it for the auto industry.
21:10Although the union does not necessarily represent all of the workers in that sectors.
21:16And a lot of them are extremely disappointed with the democratic policy regarding electric
21:20vehicle mandate, for example.
21:22So there is obviously today one of the issues in the campaign is the union and the working
21:27class vote.
21:28We heard at the beginning of this conversation Dalibor Roach tell us how we have to be careful
21:33when we use the word populism, because there is this shift.
21:40And what we've seen in both sides of the Atlantic is after COVID, you mentioned COVID earlier,
21:46citizens want more protection.
21:48Right.
21:49Well, Harris and Trump are going for what voters want to hear.
21:56So yeah, populism is a very stretchy notion.
22:02And they're trying to appeal to voters with tax cuts, for instance.
22:08So Donald Trump promised huge tax cuts on many levels.
22:16And Kamala Harris promised the same.
22:18So they are going for arguments that can lure the voters to the polls, to the voting polls.
22:28So yeah, populism now is diffused in lots of discourses, because nobody wants to hear
22:38the truth about debt, for instance, about more taxes to solve the debt crisis.
22:46I mean, this is true in France and in the U.S.
22:49So they have to say what voters want to hear.
22:54Right.
22:55That brings us back to a point that you made earlier, Christian Handley, about Americans
23:02wanting to have a positive attitude.
23:06Americans are aspirational.
23:08They believe in a better future for themselves and their country.
23:12But according, Christian Handley, to a Wall Street Journal poll, less and less, we're
23:17looking at a graph, this was a poll recently done, that the American dream, people don't
23:26believe in it as much as they used to.
23:29So there is this sort of field, this fear of decline, that's not yet a majority, but
23:39it is growing.
23:40Yeah.
23:41And it breaks down in large extent along generational lines.
23:46People who were earning money before the so-called Reagan revolution are not going to have that
23:50same sort of dim view as those of us who came after, who have had a much, much more difficult
23:55time being able to get ahead in life, especially economically, since the 1980s.
24:01We've seen more and more wealth go to the wealthiest individuals in the country and
24:05a tax system that really disfavors working people, people who actually earn their livings
24:09every single day.
24:11And so we do see that both candidates are talking about these issues, but also in very
24:14different ways.
24:15When you talk about that feel of decline, from the Donald Trump camp, we're hearing
24:20about decline on a demographic level, in terms of makeup of the country on a racial
24:26level, and just discussing the country in terms of doom and gloom all around on a social
24:31and demographic front.
24:33On the Harris campaign side, though, it really is much more about practical solutions to
24:38a decline that's purely economic in nature.
24:40It's not that the country is flailing, it's that bad economic policy has disfavored working
24:45and middle class people.
24:47But with that being said and that being diagnosed, there are then solutions for those problems.
24:51So again, there's that idea of decline, that vein of that in American politics and public
24:56perception, but I think there are two different answers to that question from the two different
24:59camps.
25:00Danny Borowicz, is the decline a perception or is it a reality?
25:04Well, there certainly has been a slowdown in economic growth and productivity growth
25:09in the United States and elsewhere in the Western world, going back to the 1970s.
25:14The reality, though, is that the United States remains, in comparative perspective, an unparalleled
25:22engine of generating mass prosperity.
25:25If you look at the comparison between the European Union as an aggregate and the United
25:30States, you'll see that per capita real incomes in the United States are more than 25 percent
25:36higher than in Europe.
25:37If you were to rank US states and EU countries, you will see that France would be at par
25:44with a place like Arkansas, which is the 48th wealthiest state of the Union.
25:51Germany would be at par with a place like Oklahoma.
25:55So really, the gap between the US and Europe is a marked one.
26:00If I may, I would like to just challenge a claim that Christian made earlier about a
26:05sharp distinction to be made between the Trumpian view of trade policy and the one pursued by
26:12Democrats.
26:13And that distinction is very often less obvious and less sharp as he depicted it.
26:20First of all, many of President Biden's signature policies were passed with bipartisan support
26:24through Congress, be it the CHIPS Act or the infrastructure spending.
26:29But on trade specifically, I think it is telling that you have the Biden administration maintain
26:34steel and aluminum tariffs against the EU for months and months on that the Biden administration,
26:41unlike the Trump administration, I think is complicit in the demise of the multilateral
26:45trading system by refusing to appoint judges to the WTO appellate body.
26:50And I think there is, when you listen to the US trade representative, a real sense of bipartisan
26:57agreement on trade.
26:58And Dalibor, is that just, is that just a, like Elisa was saying, a pandering to voters?
27:09Or is it just the reality of how you have to organize globalism?
27:14I don't think it's a, it's a feature of this electoral cycle because this really predates
27:19this, this, this current, current contest between Kamala Harris and former President
27:25Trump.
27:26It's, you know, you have to look at how Senate events with Senator Warren in, in, in the
27:32Senate of major pieces of legislation.
27:34So, so there is somewhat of a bipartisan consensus, I'm afraid to say, and I think it's one that
27:39Europeans in particular should be very wary of, because I think the, many of the assumptions
27:44that the European Union as a sort of open trading bloc is based on, I think revolve
27:50around the role that the United States would continue to play in the world.
27:53And we saw no later than this Monday, Geraldo Ligier, the former president of the European
27:59Central Bank, former Italian prime minister, coming out with a report stating that the
28:03EU has to develop an industrial policy to counter the US and to counter China.
28:09Yes.
28:10And everybody, they're, they're, they're all trying to, to, that, that's kind of the, the
28:13irony of the campaign.
28:15Will it be fortress US, fortress Europe, fortress China?
28:18It is.
28:19It's, it's, it's a domination China, and I'm not sure that Europe or the US are, are, are
28:26still a fortress, but both Kamala, as far as the US is concerned, both Kamala Harris
28:31and Donald Trump are talking about rebuilding Fortress America.
28:35What I find striking, it's always been Trump's discourse, he's always been America first.
28:40The word was there and the name was there.
28:43And in what you showed of Kamala Harris speaking at, about that Union steel, she used the word
28:49American owned, American built, and she was insisting on that word American, because being
28:57patriotic is also part of that populist wave.
29:00And that's what she was trying to write.
29:03As far as reality is concerned, everybody knows that it's going to be very, very hard
29:07on simply economic terms and industrial terms to compete with the cost of doing business
29:14in Asia as the cost of doing business in the US or the cost of doing business in Europe.
29:19The share of the US economy globally has risen the last five years.
29:24It's share of the global economy from what, from 24 to 25?
29:29No, from 2020 to 2024.
29:33It may have risen a little bit.
29:35But if you look at the longer term, back in 1950, the US accounted for over half of global
29:42output.
29:43Today, it's less than a quarter.
29:45So the decline in real terms is undeniable.
29:51That decline doesn't imply that the standards of living are going down, because they are
29:57going up.
29:58And the relative strength of the US as compared to the rest of the world has never ceased
30:03declining ever since the end of World War II.
30:05Right.
30:06This feeling about decline we talked about at the outset.
30:12The German interior minister wanting to put in measures to stop criminals from entering
30:21the country, border checks.
30:24We talked about the United States and this notion of decline.
30:28When he took the mantle from his predecessor last Thursday, the new French prime minister,
30:32Michel Barnier, began by listing priorities that included public services, public schooling,
30:39security, labor spending and labor spending power and controlling immigration.
30:51We will have to respond as much as we can to the challenges, to the anger.
30:57You mentioned them, to the suffering, to the feelings of abandonment, of injustice
31:02that run through our cities, our neighborhoods and our countryside far too much.
31:13The feelings of abandonment, Elisa Schell, your thoughts on that?
31:17Well, it's one of the reasons why populism grew, I mean, in Western Europe, because of
31:27globalization and the recess of the industrial sector in the economy.
31:34The growth of a service economy left a number of workers unemployed and with difficulty
31:43to find a new job.
31:46So yes, it's one of the reasons, and it happened in such a context that leaders from the traditional
31:57left or traditional right were not able to solve the people's problems.
32:04So we are at the heart of the reason of the roots of populism in Western Europe.
32:10And now the moderate leaders know that they have to tap into that discourse and policy
32:19if they don't want to lose votes to the extreme right.
32:23Christian Handley, what was your reaction listening to Michel Barnier?
32:27It sounded almost as if that had been translated from English to French and then back into
32:31English for the purposes of this broadcast, frankly.
32:34It sounded like it could have been a speech given by an American politician today, right
32:38now, especially Donald Trump, but not particularly him, not just him, because that's really the
32:43sentiment that we have in the United States right now, where you have vast regions of
32:47the country that do feel as if they've been left behind in this economy.
32:52And bringing this full circle to the talk about this sort of economic political consensus
32:57across the two different parties, they have slightly different approaches.
33:00I still maintain that, but there is still this attempt right now by both camps to speak
33:04to those concerns by people, by voters in places like Pennsylvania, outside of the urban
33:10cores that do feel as if they've been left behind by a transition over the course of
33:14several decades from a more manufacturing center to a more service-based economy.
33:19Dalibor Roach, you agree?
33:22I think that's basically right.
33:24The challenge facing Western European countries and beyond is, broadly speaking, a shared
33:33one.
33:34The challenge is how the populist response can be brought into the fold of democratic
33:39politics without, A, presenting a threat to the constitutional order, and B, safeguarding
33:46Western alliances.
33:47You see in a place like Hungary that you have a populist leader who basically entrenched
33:52himself in power in a way that would be very difficult to undo through a democratic election.
34:00Let me get your reaction on that point.
34:02Hungary named after the president sounded out the far-right Marine Le Pen.
34:06And even though the exchanges were amply reported in the press, the far-right leader this weekend
34:11denying playing kingmaker.
34:13Let's listen.
34:18I haven't chosen a prime minister.
34:20I'm not Emmanuel Macron's head of human resources.
34:23And furthermore, I think only a prime minister from the National Rally can implement the
34:27National Rally's project.
34:32Nalibor Roach, Marine Le Pen, who's gone to lengths to say she's not an extremist.
34:36She is a mainstream political player.
34:39What were your thoughts when you listened to that clip?
34:41Well, what is also striking is that she insists that she wants no responsibility, and she
34:47does not want to be a stakeholder in the political system, right, and be blamed for any possible
34:53failures going forward.
34:54That's what populists like to do, typically.
34:57And I think the best way to neutralize them is to, in a way, make them stakeholders, ideally
35:02minority stakeholders in the political system.
35:05Very few people would be worried about the challenge posed to the Swedish democracy by
35:12the presence, although implicit, of Sweden Democrats in the governing coalition, or by
35:17the fact that Giorgia Meloni is in charge of the Italian government.
35:21Neither of those are fundamental threats to democracy.
35:24I would venture to argue that the prospect of Donald Trump's returning to the office
35:30is very much a threat to the U.S. political system.
35:33And I think going forward, the best way to neutralize the appeal of Marine Le Pen and
35:39National Rally is to kind of take the wind off of their sails and make them kind of co-responsible
35:47for what is happening in the country.
35:49Gérald Olivier, a U.S. president who can name Supreme Court justices, is not the same,
35:56Dalibor is saying, as, for instance, a Dutch far-right leader who, even when he finishes
36:02first, has to govern in a coalition.
36:05Yeah.
36:06France has put itself in a very uncomfortable situation.
36:12And Emmanuel Macron is largely responsible for what we've been through those past couple
36:17of months since the European election.
36:20But if we look at the longer picture, at the bigger picture, it seems to me that what France
36:25is going through right now is the result of having blamed the messenger far too long instead
36:35of having looked at the message, especially on the issue of immigration, maybe on the
36:40issue of social decline and of economic decline for far too long, going back to Francois Mitterrand
36:47in the 1980s, anyone who denounced the threat of immigration to cultural cohesion or economic
36:55power was denounced as a far-right extremist, and the issue of immigration was put under
37:00the table under the guise of that extremism, even though the issue was actually real.
37:07And we reach the moment now when the issue has been ignored for so long, and so many
37:13people have felt ignored that you have this wave of populism that gave over 11 million
37:19votes to the Rassemblement National a couple of weeks ago.
37:23Thanks to the system, it did not turn into a majority at the National Assembly, but the
37:28number one party in France today is the Rassemblement National.
37:32And it's only logical that they should have a say in the policy that's going to be run,
37:38whichever way it's going to be run, by Michel Barnier.
37:40Elisa Shev.
37:42What Marine Le Pen said in that clip is very much in line with her platform, what we call
37:48in French the normalization of the Rassemblement National.
37:54So she has had that line for years now, and what's interesting in the present configuration
38:03is that the left part of the Assembly refused to access power.
38:10So they voted against Bernard Cazeneuve.
38:14And she is in position to compromise, to negotiate, to be in a so-called governing party position,
38:22and not in a protesting party position like the Front National used to be, and like the
38:28left, the left coalition.
38:30So like Dalibor was saying, does this mean she's going to have to get her hands dirty
38:33and therefore take some responsibility for whatever happens next?
38:39Well, she will have to give a sort of green light or not a red light to Michel Barnier.
38:47So that's their role now, so that France is in a good position with the European Union
38:55when the notation of France will be announced later in September.
39:02So France needs to be in a good position towards the European Union regarding the debt
39:11crisis we have right now in France.
39:13So our role is to let Michel Barnier form his government.
39:19Yeah, I agree.
39:21And if I may, very briefly, part of populism, of the one we're observing right now, or we've
39:27observed over the past couple of decades, is a rise of anti-elitism.
39:33And if you look at France, and especially what happened after the elections of June
39:37and July, the legislative election, there was a fight for power among a group of leftists
39:44who had not really won the election, but together came in as the first party, but not-
39:50As a coalition.
39:51As a coalition, being the one with the largest amount of seats, but far from an absolute
39:57majority.
39:58And they fought over the prime minister, who was going to be prime minister.
40:02They were sharing the cake before he was even there.
40:05And I thought that was almost undignified.
40:09And I think many voters looked at it with great disdain, if not disgust and surprise,
40:16and a typical behavior from the elite, who are not, after what the people are living
40:22through, their sufferings, their requests, their hopes, their aspirations.
40:27But rather, let's get to power and just be who we are.
40:31Christian Handley, it was 2016 when Hillary Clinton, at a fundraiser, talked about the
40:39basket of deplorables, of people from a hardscrabble background who supported her opponent.
40:49Is that still haunting the Democrats?
40:52I don't think it's still haunting the Democrats directly.
40:54You know, the quote, as it was originally said, was, of course, immediately taken out
40:59of context.
41:00It was not that everybody who came from a hardscrabble background was deplorable.
41:04It was the people who were the most venomous, who supported Donald Trump the most fervently
41:08in his anti-immigrant, anti-basically everybody agenda that he had in 2016, and still has
41:13to this day.
41:15But you saw ever since then, for the past eight or so years, an entire right-wing media
41:20ecosystem spring up on the internet in the United States.
41:23They're really cashed in on that, you know, casting this dividing line between people
41:29who then sort of took on that moniker as the deplorables versus everybody else who was
41:33Democrats or elites or whomever the perceived enemy was.
41:37But what we're seeing ever since really Biden came into office, but then now with the continued
41:42campaign of Kamala Harris, is a much more renewed focus on working in middle-class
41:47issues, courting the union vote, and by many measures, with Biden being the most pro-union
41:53president since FDR, that bodes well for Kamala Harris on that front.
41:58And you know, Hillary Clinton did speak at the DNC this past go-around, but there's a
42:03palpable difference in the feeling around Kamala Harris in this current campaign versus
42:07Hillary Clinton in 2016.
42:09And we shall see what happens on Tuesday in Pittsburgh with that showdown between Donald
42:15Trump and Kamala Harris.
42:17Christian Handley, many thanks for being with us from Washington.
42:19Dalibor Rohach, also in the U.S. Capitol.
42:22Gérald Dolivier, Elisa Schell, thank you for being with us here in the France 24 debate.
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