{"version":"1.0","type":"rich","provider_name":"Acast","provider_url":"https://acast.com","height":250,"width":700,"html":"<iframe src=\"https://embed.acast.com/$/9a03fe9e-1ff0-4dcc-b3f6-50bd1f016ea4/ad800d0e-0c8a-422e-857d-160ab6bfb6f5?\" frameBorder=\"0\" width=\"700\" height=\"250\"></iframe>","title":"Twilight of Democracy","thumbnail_width":200,"thumbnail_height":200,"thumbnail_url":"https://open-images.acast.com/shows/6195701f2eacc3a36070252a/619570bccb3c660012e3cf47.jpg?height=200","description":"<p>David talks to the writer Anne Applebaum about her highly personal new book, which charts the last twenty years of broken friendships and democratic failure.&nbsp;We start in Poland with the story of what happened to the high hopes for Polish democracy, including what we've learned from this week's presidential election.&nbsp;But we also take in Trump and Brexit, Hungary and Spain.&nbsp;What explains the prevalence of</p><p>conspiracy theories in contemporary politics?&nbsp;Why are so many conservatives drawn to the politics of despair?&nbsp;Is history really circular?&nbsp;And is democracy doomed?</p><p><br></p><p>Talking Points:</p><p><br></p><p>Yesterday, Poland’s incumbent president Andrzej Duda narrowly won re-election.</p><ul><li>Anne thinks that this shows divisive politics can succeed.</li><li>A central issue was LGBT rights: Duda said that LGBT was an ideology worse than communism.</li><li>The ruling party now has 3 more years to continue undermining the press and the judiciary and putting pressure on anyone the party sees as a threat.</li></ul><p><br></p><p>The new illiberal way of thinking is not a totalizing ideology.</p><ul><li>These are medium-sized lies, conspiracy theories.</li><li>You can use conspiracy theories to undermine people’s trust in political institutions.</li><li>Should we differentiate between conspiracy theories and opportunistic lying?</li></ul><p><br></p><p>When elections become about ‘who is really Polish,’ whoever wins gains a sense of legitimacy in excluding and discriminating against the ‘others.’</p><ul><li>Can these arguments stand when the results are this close?</li><li>The Polish government has tools to harass its opponents. It’s a vengeful state.</li><li>The opposition now will probably fragment—this is what happened in Hungary.</li></ul><p><br></p><p>How did Brexit bring together figures like Johnson, Scruton, and Cummings?</p><ul><li>Politicians, journalists, and propagandists can manipulate feelings of nostalgia into a political campaign and ride it into power.</li><li>Did nostalgia have to be anti-European Union? In some ways, the EU is a bulwark against certain features of modernity.</li><li>But to a certain breed of nostalgic British conservative, the EU would always be foreign. To them, the idea of negotiating, or co-deciding was fundamentally unacceptable.</li></ul><p><br></p><p>In places with a shorter modern democratic history like Greece and Spain, democracy has proved surprisingly robust.&nbsp;</p><ul><li>The degree to which these forces win or lose is dependent on the local context.</li><li>History shows that democracies do fail; if you neglect rotting institutions they can bring you down.</li><li>Both complacency and cynicism can threaten democracy.</li></ul><p><br></p><p>Mentioned in this Episode:</p><ul><li><a href=\"https://www.waterstones.com/book/twilight-of-democracy/anne-applebaum/9780241419717\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Anne’s new book, <em>Twilight of Democracy: The Failure of Politics and the Parting of Friends</em></a></li><li><a href=\"https://www.theatlantic.com/author/anne-applebaum/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Anne’s writing for <em>The Atlantic</em></a></li><li><a href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/trump-claims-database/?utm_term=.27babcd5e58c&amp;itid=lk_inline_manual_2&amp;itid=lk_inline_manual_2\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">WaPo’s Trump lie tracker</a></li></ul><p><br></p><p>Further Learning:&nbsp;</p><ul><li><a href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jul/12/anne-applebaum-how-my-old-friends-paved-the-way-for-trump-and-brexit\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">A review of Anne's book in The Guardian, ‘How my old friends paved the way for Trump and Brexit’</a></li><li><a href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/14/world/europe/poland-election-court-challenge.html\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">More on Poland’s election</a></li><li><a href=\"https://play.acast.com/s/talkingpolitics/s01-ep09-simon-szreter-on-conspiracy-theories-trust-in-politics-solutions\"...","author_name":"David Runciman and Catherine Carr"}