Demonization

• According to the Watson Institute at Brown University, the conflicts connected to the war on terror have killed about 4.6 million people since 2001.
• That conflict defines 21st century world politics, far more than the war in Ukraine.
• It was driven by former U.S. president George W. Bush’s messianic impulses and neoconservative ideologues who aspired to reshape the Middle East in the American image using military force.
• The war in Iraq, an unprovoked and illegal invasion of a sovereign state, demonstrated the danger of unchecked American power and hubris.

Ignoring international law

• The Watson Institute report explains why states targeted by the U.S. have reasons to fear American violence and interference.
• International law doesn’t necessarily constrain the U.S. — it’s often willing to abuse its power and privileges for political, economic and strategic advantage.
• This reality partly explains Russia’s reaction to the expansion of NATO and its invasion of Ukraine.
• American leaders apparently believe a country four times the population of the U.S. must remain forever subordinate to American power.
• Instead, many countries are pursuing “non-alignment” — choosing to avoid getting caught in the middle of any future battles between the U.S. and China.

Rallying allies

• Nonetheless, the U.S. has rallied its established allies against China.
• Canada has become an American vassal, meaning it’s essentially dominated by the U.S. Japan has increased its military spending.
• Why do American allies refuse to discuss U.S. global violence, despite its horrific consequences and the fact that it clearly affects the world view of America’s rivals and the non-western world?
• It’s likely because American allies have benefited enormously from the U.S.-backed status quo, even if they’ve had to deal with the fallout of western militarism — particularly in Europe, where the influx of refugees has coarsened regional politics.

Politics of fear

• Read more:
  Canada should be preparing for the end of American democracy

  Domestic political instability in the U.S. may eventually motivate even more aggressive American foreign policy.

• The U.S. has never shied away from the politics of fear and the exaggeration of threat.
• Is preserving the privileged global position of the U.S. really so important to the rest of the world?
• U.S. allies need to learn the lessons of the war on terror and the 4.6 million people it’s killed.
• American allies could make their support of the U.S. conditional on a pledge to ease up on militarism and focus on greater global co-operation.

• Billionaire investor and philanthropist George Soros is handing control of his US$25 billion holdings, including his Open Society Foundations, to one of his sons, Alexander Soros.
• Baseless conspiracy theories have at times clouded his legacy as one of the world’s biggest donors to causes like higher education, human rights and the democratization of Europe’s formerly communist countries.

Success followed early hardship

• After World War II, he moved from Budapest to the United Kingdom, where he studied at the London School of Economics while working part time in low-wage jobs.
• By the 1990s he had amassed a fortune and established himself as one of the world’s most important financiers.
• But his dedication to philanthropy and his support for political freedom are what brought him the most attention.

Deep-pocketed philanthropy

• Soros’ first philanthropic foray was in 1979, when he funded scholarships for Black students in apartheid South Africa.
• In the 1980s, he helped promote the exchange of ideas in Communist Hungary by funding visits of Hungarian liberal intellectuals to Western universities.
• The broad goal of much of Soros’ philanthropy is to support tolerant societies with governments that are accountable and allow everyone to campaign, protest, donate to candidates they like or even run for office themselves.
• But his fortune would have been far larger had he not given some $32 billion to the Open Society Foundations since 1984.

Antisemitic conspiracy myths

• Soros’ wealth and influence have also made him a target of numerous conspiracy theories.
• Such baseless accusations often target his Jewish heritage, invoking hatemongering and centuries-old antisemitic tropes.
• As I explained in a book chapter about nationalism and populism, U.S. conspiracy theories have hounded Soros for years as well.
• National Rifle Association leader Wayne LaPierre accused Soros of planning a socialist takeover of the U.S. in 2018, evoking antisemitic myths from the early 20th century about a Jewish-Bolshevik plot.

A complex legacy

• As is true for all billionaires, the Soros family fortune helps perpetuate a system of income inequality and concentrated political influence in the hands of the world’s wealthiest people.
• When megadonors of any political preference make big donations to a candidate or party, their gifts can shape the agenda and distort democratic processes.
• It’s still not clear how Soros’ son aims to put a stop to the demonization of the family’s philanthropic work.

• He argued in a celebrated essay that even the prosperous, post-Second World War United States was not immune to the radicalism of authoritarian populism.
• The so-called Red Scare of the 1950s was “simply the old ultra-conservatism and the old isolationism heightened by the extraordinary pressures of the contemporary world.” Seven decades later, Hofstadter’s words ring true again.

Paranoid politics

• With so much money and power behind it, this paranoid style of politics — with its enemies lists, demonization of opposition leaders and often violent language — has gone mainstream.
• But is there anything to fear from the red-hot rhetoric of the paranoid style of politics?
• In Hofstadter’s time, after all, American conservative politics turned away from fringe radicalism following the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963.
• The following year, Lyndon Johnson defeated right-wing Republican insurgent, Barry Goldwater in one of the largest landslides in U.S. history.

1. The shrinking middle ground

• We are now in a world of zero-sum political contests, with a shrinking middle ground.
• Conservative parties often force extreme referendums to maintain their grip on a deeply divided electorate.
• Republicans are now doubling down on the abortion issue, even though they’re facing pushback from some state legislatures and governors.

2. The working class isn’t benefiting

• Nevertheless, conservative parties around the world are marketing themselves as parties of the working class.
• Populists recognize the working class is essential to their success at the national level because of the “diploma divide” that now separates right and left.
• It used to be that working people recognized education as a path to prosperity.

3. The rich and powerful direct the chaos

• In a war of all against all, it’s not the wealthy who lose.
• Furthermore, once a lust for vengeance takes hold in the general public, it’s almost always being directed by elites with money and power who benefit financially or politically from the chaos.

4. Assaults on the rule of law

• The paranoid style of politics has entered a new phase with a full-spectrum assault on the rule of law — from inside government.
• Populists are lying when they argue they want to empower the rest of us by divesting judges of their authority to oversee democracy.
• As he runs again for president, he’s already telegraphing his violent desires, promising pardons for the Jan. 6 insurrectionists.

The road ahead for populists

• The defeats of Trump and Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro don’t represent absolute rejections of their movements.
• Despite an indictment for alleged financial crime and being found liable for sexual abuse in a civil case, Trump is still the 2024 front-runner.
• Read more:
  Why populism has an enduring and ominous appeal

  We can’t count on an easy institutional fix, like a grand electoral coalition to push the populists off the ballot.

Red lights flashing

• Nor can we count on the right to step back from the abyss of culture wars.
• We can’t even say for certain that the populism will recede in the usual cyclical manner.
• All citizens can do is offer is constant, concerted pushback against the many big lies told by populists.

• Taken together, the takeaways provide a powerful path to healing our democracy where citizens are provided with the tools they need to take personal civic responsibility for creating a solution-focused political climate.
• The panelist and speakers all agreed that the dangers to our democracy were serious and no one election could solve them.
• The six major takeaways from the forum entitled, A Path to Healing our Democracy, are outlined below.
• The Citizens Campaign is building The Citizen Service, a new national public service open to all.