00:00Now, my next guest says the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence comes at a
00:05worrying moment in American history with fundamental liberal principles under attack
00:10from illiberal forces on both the right and the left. His new book, Centrists of the World Unite,
00:15argues that America should renew its faith in its founding liberal principles to tackle
00:20the challenges ahead. Well, Bloomberg opinion columnist Adrian Woolridge joins us now. Adrian,
00:25I'm so happy to speak to you because this is a fantastic book. I know a lot of people have
00:29been waiting for this book to come out. And basically you argue that liberalism needs to
00:33rediscover its lost genius. Like what specific ideas from maybe earlier liberal thinkers do
00:39you think we could do with now? We could do with the notion that power needs to be restrained,
00:44constrained by constitutions. We could do with the notion that truth can only be achieved through
00:49vigorous debate. And we could do with the idea that individualism should be the test of everything.
00:55But that doesn't mean just the individualism, doesn't just mean the freedom to go shopping.
01:00It means self-development, the ability to make good, sensible decisions.
01:06I guess, Adrian, the problem is that many voters feel that, you know, the centrists represent the
01:11status quo. And a lot of people want change.
01:13Absolutely. I think there is a huge problem there. Liberals have become the establishment
01:17and they've become the establishment that has made certain really important mistakes. So you might
01:21be inclined to go to the left, to left-wing populism, Greens and things like that. Also
01:26the right to right-wing populism. I think the answer is that that's wrong. Those people will
01:30betray you. But we need a new and better liberalism.
01:34But is the rise of populism because of the failure of liberalism?
01:38Absolutely. Absolutely. Partly because they've become the establishment and they've got all the
01:43deformations of establishment, self-dealing, being cut off from ordinary people. But also they have made
01:48certain big mistakes. The Iraq war was a mistake. The financial crisis was a mistake. I think the
01:54pace of immigration has upset people. So liberalism has got out of sync with itself, with its best
02:01instincts. But is it an idea problem or is it a communication problem because it's just not that
02:06appetizing on social media? It's an idea problem fundamentally. I think liberalism is always a mixture
02:11of freedom and control. And that mixture has got out of sync. We need to recalibrate the mixture. The
02:17mixture was always about doing your own thing morally and doing your own thing economically.
02:22And we did a bit more emphasis on social solidarity. And the communication problems and the political
02:27problems all stem from the fact that that message has failed to deal with the problems that we
02:33have now. You go to the streets of San Francisco. This is a liberal. This is a belief that's failing
02:37to deal with terrible problems. I mean, when you look at, again, one of the things you suggest
02:43is that liberals should be more critical of big business. Does that help again with this
02:47with the psyche of voters? I think we've always been as liberal since about the 1980s. Our assumption
02:52has been that big business is a good thing, that the state needs to be rode back. And I think
02:57that
02:58that's got out of control in some ways. Certain forms of big business, the gambling industry, the big food
03:03industry and the tech industry have become dissolving of good social habits and self-discipline, self-control.
03:14There's the boom in sports betting in the United States at the moment is completely out of control.
03:19It's quite extraordinary, let alone the X and all these other social platforms that thrive on deceiving
03:27their audience or on selling hot emotions to people who are already a bit troubled.
03:33But is there a space then for less hot emotion? Because actually it does feel like, you know,
03:37the, the, a lot of countries are divided here, especially in the UK. Is there really space for,
03:42for the liberals to come back? Absolutely. After the Second World War,
03:45we put all sorts of deliberate constraints on the expression of hot emotions in the political sphere,
03:51you know, because we'd seen what happened in the 1930s. And those constraints have been eroded and we have
03:55the rise of a new sort of politician, Trump being the leading member of that group, who specialize
04:00in stirring up antagonism. So what I struggle with is that there are real concerns that people have,
04:07which is either cultural tensions or divisions or immigration. So you need to tackle those.
04:11Yes. And so how do you do that as a liberal if you don't want to become a populist or
04:16make sense?
04:17Actually, it's not a worry that we should have. One of the things that liberals tend to do now over
04:21the immigration problem, which is at heart of a lot of things is either to say it doesn't exist.
04:26There's no problem there. And anybody who says there is a problem is a racist or use exactly the
04:32same arguments and language as reform, as the populist. And what we need is a liberal solution
04:38to what is a real problem. And the problem is about the pace of immigration. It's about the education
04:44level of the immigrants we're bringing in. Education is a proxy for social adaptive adaptability.
04:49And it's about an emphasis on assimilation. And in the worst cases,
04:53we haven't assimilated large numbers of people who just create parallel societies.
04:58Who in the real world is a liberal and has a chance of getting in?
05:03Well, that is an extremely vexing question. I can't really answer that question,
05:07because I think what's happened is that we have a liberal establishment, which is discredited
05:12and a bit confused. So we need to have a revolution within liberalism from younger liberals. I would
05:20say that the new mayor of San Francisco is an interesting example of somebody who says,
05:23look, things have got to be out of control. We must have more attention to social solidarity,
05:30the state of the streets and things like that. So you are getting people coming up,
05:35mostly not politicians, when it comes to the issue of phones in classrooms. The campaign has
05:40generally been led by ordinary, engaged, worried parents, rather than particular politicians.
05:46And the politicians have followed on. We wait for Bill Clinton to come along. The new Bill Clinton.
05:52The new. Thank you so much. Bloomberg Opinions, Adrian Wilridge, of course,
05:55author of Centrists of the World Unite. It's a good book. It's an easy read. It's written with clarity
06:01and also a lot of historical reference.
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