we've seen a few other republicans sign on to that and like i mentioned earlier, some republicans are ex-pressing and openness to his racial prosecutor. while they haven't signed on, there's an openness that nancy pelosi must think she has a window. they need 218 votes to force legislation to come to the floor. democrats do not have 218 people. either they are hoping people get on our behind-the-scenes there are conversations and they think they can pull off a mass moderate republicans in states that are up for grabs in 2018. >> alaska collins, you can rate reporting at "usa today".com. thanks for joining us eliza collins. >> thank you.

.. it's the anniversary of the day in 1979 where they return to to run from the exile in

paris and found the islamic republic that took over after was toppled. i mention that because throughout my childhood, growing up, all of our relatives and friends would ask, when is your birthday and i would say february 1. none of my relatives were opposition figures, they were just average middle to upper class tehran residents. the surprising fact is most of them supported the revolution when it happened including some who were civil servants in the regime. that was always something with me as a warning for the hazard

of political frenzies that can take over because you had an imperfect authoritarian state that was socially permissive and progressive in many ways. it was not a democracy, but in a fit of national political madness that many people who carried out the revolution immediately regretted, they toppled at and replaced it with liberal and cause i totalitarian islamist regime and it will help anchor the talk in a personal story because now i think we are not a threat as seeing it as islamic revolt takeover of the west, but to be careful about rocking about that might not be perfect but replacing it with what?

when i was invited to give this talk i had just published an article in a magazine called liberal tourism a worldwide crisis. i tried to set our wild election in the context of global development, the rise of liberal movements of the far left and right across the developing world and the decline of liberalism as a governing philosophy. >> i went on to argue that what we now call trenton sander is a represent the

american version of this wider crisis of liberal order and tradition. at the time, most journalists were convinced donald trump is headed for a thumping in november. i had met with a friend from boston who is a transporter --dash trump supporter. he said if hillary loses i will eat my shoe. i haven't been paid up on my debt yet. [laughter] i believe the essay itself has held up pretty well. i think the events have confirmed my claims. to it, i think something has gone awry with liberalism. you can see the signs from the philippines and south africa and vermont and vienna.

when i say liberalism, i don't mean that as a shorthand for people who vote for the democratic party of the u.s. or the centerleft but in the broader sense, i will define it loosely. i'm sure you will dispute my definition but individual rights, democratic pluralism and free markets. it's what used to be called the open society. that idea hasn't appeared since perhaps the period between the two world wars. nowadays the opposition to liberalism doesn't come from communism or fascism but it comes from movements that are geographically desperate and instinctive and often in

combat with each other. they are more likely to be local and focused and divided among themselves. i would like to use the first half of my talk weighing out the diagnosis that i have done in commentary magazine as well. why has liberalism gone awry and what are the defining characteristics of this new liberalism. in the second apple try to go further and offer more prescriptive claims. what is to be done? how do we restore the promise of the open society in this age of a liberalism.

i will draw on my work as a journalist for the wall street journal. i'm happy to dispute them and discuss them further in the question-and-answer period how global is this? let's start with europe. the birthplace of liberal enlightenment and give you a map. let's start with friends. right now the likelihood is that the center-right campaign in france is imploding which means the two contenders are emmanuel the crow macron and marine le pen. it will make any prediction after 2016, i've learned my lesson.

i say that i think macron is weaker than a lot of people assume. i don't think he has organizational structure and he put himself forward as an obama -like candidate. there was a presidency in austria last year end at the party that is finding outside vienna, is finding a new strength and more adherence. in germany, the alternative for deutschland party is increasingly challenging gensler andrea merkel from the right.

we will see what happens this year. [inaudible] in finland you have the finn party which entered government for the first time on an opposition to nato agenda and structure of liberal order. in eastern europe, victor or bond in hungary used to be the exception to the region where he was putting forward a quasi- authoritarian nationalism. he was hollowing out the

democratic institutions in hungary when everyone thought he was the exception but now you are seeing similar parties taking power which means he might be the trend and not the exception. more depressingly, in hungary the main opposition comes not from the center party which comes from a neo-nazi party. i have interviewed all their senior leadership and they are terrifying. increase they are led by a party from the left and they have gotten used to him being a normal presence on the international stage. given those origins, it is part of what is coming from the left.

in the 2015 election, the party that came third was golden dawn which has a swastika for its logo. in britain, the leader of the party, jeremy corbin has fast broken the parties piece with the third way market friendly liberal model championed by tony blair and he is taking the party on opposition to market, anti- atlantis and hostility to nato. and then you had brexit which, i don't suggest that every brexit voter fits in with all of this, i think it's a more complicated case, but at least one strand of brexit drew on this populism and a

liberalism. across europe, various separatist movements are separate mobilize. opposition to the european union is growing. the eu is seen as a vehicle for imposing austerity and pairing back workers rights in favor of corporations including foreign corporations. on the right brussels is blamed for blurring and substituting a bloodless multicultural agenda. then in turkey, the country is transitioning to authoritarian to see him and it's underway specially since the attempted coup this summer.

the president is attempting to transform the country system into a strong presidential one with himself at the home. then of course there is russia. russia is the standard bearer and supporter of these liberal movements across europe. it helps them deliver their message to their broadcasting message so having transformed his own country, he has set his sights toward dismantling the liberal order and consensus in europe. let's turn to iran and the

arab world. you might be surprised to mention these because they've never been liberal places. they've always been oppressive. even they are there are signs of the liberal slogans and ideals that drove the uprising and the arab spring being replaced with nationalism. there have been recent surveys that suggest that they increasingly want stability and freedom as a slogan in aspiration is no longer interesting to them. that generation of young students and middle-class types who rose up in the election, they are now demoralized 30 or 40 something you want to get on and has made their peace with the

system. i could go on. south africa and the philippines you are seeing similar ideas and movements rise. it's worth asking what is going on here. i think the typical answers, although plausible and interesting, are flawed. voters are reacting to sustained slow growth and technological change. these attitudes are growing in countries that are growing rapidly. in poland the economy is chugging along or political elites are said to have been uninterested in the pain of many and now they are having a long overdue reckoning.

okay, when have they ever been in in touch with the unprotected many. some are more persuasive than ever to think about liberalism this was one of the symptoms of liberalism and that it reduces all ideology to legal and economic issues it is a blind spot. i think what we are seeing now and will be defining feature of the 21st century is what happens when that capacity of liberalism to dissolve ideology and genuine empathy and social conflict in commerce and law reaches its limits and when liberals don't give politics ideology there do.

then perhaps their own stand of being above politics. to see this global explosion of trump -ism is a reaction to reproduce the same common error. i believe summer making the same mistake. think we have to go to the set of feelings and ideas to get behind what is driving it. to look at the policy offered by these parties and movements isn't that interesting but let's list them. they preferred trade protection and social protection more broadly to alleviate the anxieties who feel left behind. they are skeptical of the structures that have govern

the west since world war ii and produce the liberal order we are accustomed to what matters are the deeper ideological impulses and sensibilities. identify three is the defining feelings and sensibilities behind these movements. one, the restoration above proud her more coherent past is one of the main points. make america great, slogan itself recalls a time when industrial relations were fair , manufacturing was coming and we can return to that. four in hungary, the leader always talks about restoring hungary's proper national boundary when they have feelings of returning

communities that were lost in the post world war one settlement. there is a strand of brexit that has a sense of returning to the past. in the most romantic framing in imagines people can see britain's future destiny. vladimir putin presents himself against the weak west that blurs the boundaries. i interviewed marine le pen in 2015 and she said something very interesting. i asked her about the tip

between the u.s. and europe. i asked her what is your objection and she said it would mean we would introduce unhygienic american products into europe. trade by definition means shifting cultures and this anxiety about unhygienic american products is very telling. that's the first one. the second plank is a feeling of collective grievance and desire for national recognition. trump -ism is defined by grievances against bankers, mexican, chinese and so on. ironically in europe it's the u.s. who is the bogie for these types of movements.

folks who oppose the tip will say american products are on hygienic or we will have genetically modified american food and similar phobias. or take alexander to gai -- vladimir putin stop philosopher. for him liberalism is another form of invasive universalism that threatens russia and america is at its head. they described america as the kingdom of the antichrist that should be destroyed and will be destroyed. when i interviewed him he said liberalism is totalitarianism. with trump, all those who reject globalization have an opening.

that is a theological and metaphysical shift that we underestimate. in hungary they are seeking to renegotiate the worktime culpability. i asked the leader last year about hungary's role in the holocaust. he conceded yes hungarian governments had responsibility but he added this is a very complex issue because hungary suffered a lot of harm during the first world war. many territories were taken away and transferred to neighboring countries. i will never question anyone's right to commemorate the events of the past but identity cannot be built on tragedy. it will lead to more confrontation you have the sense to only center a sense of nationhood and sense of identity on never again is somehow an affront and there

is a hunger for something more. i also think there is a desire , and this is the third and final point that politics reflect the dark reality of the present time. i happen to think this is the area where the liberals really do have a point. the problem is the solutions they have are either irrational or liberal, but it's where liberals define as broadly as possible and have a role to pla play. this desire that politics reflect the realities of the present, it means recognition that amnesty can be permanent, bad actors can't be transformed is a good one and sovereign nations need to have sovereign options for dealing

with these features. the moment i thought donald trump would win the republican nomination was the massacre in november in paris where president obama came on and said everything's fine, he refused to say radical islam and our strategy against isis is working. that was the sense that there is a carpet pulled from under you because you've seen what just happened in paris, hundreds of people killed and the certainty with which the president dismissed it as it's okay, we'll work on it. it's not only bigots and reactionary and phobic characters who want to see order amid chaos. when you have al qaeda across these ungoverned spaces, you have the rise of isis, you have a refugee crisis, they

are not the only ones concerned and by the haphazard response in brussels, berlin and washington, people everywhere want to see order and clarity in danger and chaos. that brings us to the second half of the talk which is, if that's the case what do we do? i'll go back to my opening story. i come from iran. my basic life experience tells me that liberal order is good. it's almost difficult for me to have to order for that but liberal order is good. i think too many thinkers in the u.s. and europe have begun to concede away of the basic soundness. you see an unwillingness to say liberalism has outlived its usefulness or maybe we are

seeing the hidden flaws sewn into the fabric of liberalism at its founding that are now coming to light and perhaps good riddance. i also think there is a lot of for mantises him about various forms of liberalism in terms of promoting human flourishing. i see too many conservative friends whom i otherwise admire apologizing for vladimir putin in the name of. [inaudible] against christianization. i hear rhetoric from conservative quarters that i used to associate with the far left. yes vladimir putin is no angel but nor are we. to hear president say some of those things are nightmarish. for personal reasons i have a loathing for this mixture of cynicism because i am a product of the iranian revolution. the mistake that my parents

generation made has taught me that every attempt too. [inaudible] that is my basic conservative instincts. i find myself compelled to repeat the first principle under attack. liberal order is good. human freedom is good. a society that gives people the opportunity to follow their own conscious is good. trade is attractive. it is equally clear to me that liberals, and i think it's important to -underscore i don't mean the progressives, they need to redo some aspects of the program to make sure it survives the 21st century. i've began hinting at some of us in the first half. now i will put seven broad proposals for how too redo the program. first, i think liberal has to stop. i'm on a college campus and i'm thinking of an incident at

middleberry. this inability to name things by their name. in europe, often the sanctioning and censoring of the wrong speech on islam and integration actually turns the day liberals into folk heroes and martyrs who voiced for but in truth. suppressing debate about moroccan immigrants in the netherlands won't make the underlying issue of integration go away which is a real issue. the crime rate of moroccan immigrants in the netherlands are much higher than the native born dutch. they need to be able to talk about that honestly. don't give them a sense of cult power or name radical islam. why. i don't mean it as a strategic

point although there is a larger point of how you defeat islam as him. first you have to say what you're defeating. if you only say that islam has nothing to do with it, people won't believe you. this refusal to not associate ideology with the extremism that it produces results in the fact that the only people who are willing to tell the truth about it are the a liberals and are not selective enough to say there's islamism as a radical movement that's dangerous and 1.4 billion are peaceful and want to get along. it's very important to stop with this speech policing because it will not make it go away. it will only strengthen it. two, liberals need to stop looking so feeble in the face of terrorism and the threat posed by regime. it's rich to me that now in

the u.s. the democrats are sounding so hawkish when for eight years they more or less acquiesced as the president made one concession after another to moscow. it cannot be that every terror attack has happened we say things are fine. there is something going on where people are feeling insecure. i feel insecure sometimes. three, i think liberalism must return to the center. here's what i mean. the obsession with minorities at a time where you have isis and refugee crisis and the rise of vladimir putin and the economic anxiety that so many people have, it's been reduced to talk about bathrooms and whether or not you use the right pronoun which, to most people makes no sense. they look at it and they say

these people aren't addressing the problems of our time. the new identity driven liberalism that is obsessed with language games is tiresome and won't win elections. liberals need to win elections. for, i think liberals need to stop trying to short-circuit democratic processes when they don't produce the desired outcomes. i will name a few. the executive order that president obama passed down to stop enforcing u.s. law rather than going to the congress to present immigration reform. the imposition of gay marriage everywhere across the west. all of these things build up frustration because people are used there parliaments in congress and that's where they think things need to be done and not through unelected

judges or bureaucracy. i think liberalism must aggressively promote assimilation especially in europe. multicultural anxiety is not all irrational. i live in london. i've been born in a muslim country into a shiite family and i feel certain degree of it. it needn't be blood and soil identity, but there needs to be some greater thing that defines us. the assimilation question is key because when you have assimilation it eases the anxieties about immigration. six, i think liberalism needs to become more comfortable with nationalism. nationhood belonging shouldn't be just the domain of the far right. i think in europe, a lot of

times you see this crisis of anxiety playing out among both the nativeborn population and the immigrants because there isn't a sense of what does it mean to be german beyond just a set of procedural norms that are very nice and liberal and good but there has to be some other sense of identity. among some people it drives them to the far right and among muslim immigrants the search drives them to islamism. procedural is him is not enough. i think they have to be able to talk about nationhood in a comfortable way. we have to be more complicated than the far right. that doesn't mean we shouldn't attempt it. and this is a more philosophical point but i think liberalism needs purpose and moral authority. some account of evil and

fallenness. increasingly the reactions to world events to terror and economic anxiety, when you talk to liberals there is not. [inaudible] i can't think of cohesiveness and for having a place in which our conversations about evil and the irrational, someplace where those are contained in the west judeo-christian heritage. if you think of others i'm happy to discuss them. i recently interviewed schonberg and he made a similar point. when the west rediscovers its judeo-christian heritage it will discover the truth about itself. things that are good about the european union or things that are good about liberal democratic societies harken back to the judeo-christian heritage. those are my seven points.

to conclude, i do think liberal civilization has proved far more resilient when threatened by forces in the past. the institutions have a remarkable capacity to adapt. i think it still remains dominant. classically double ideas about the power of the state and inherent rights of citizens have expanded into nearly every corner of the globe and liberalism has every significant rival that has set against it since. the idea needn't die out and my bet is that it won't because it's most attuned to natural inclination toward freedom and dictate of conscious. in order to thrive, liberalism needs tougher liberals. i will stop there and thank you.

>> let me just say a word. thank you. that was very interesting. very thoughtful and very bold. it must have stimulated some thoughts and questions out there. we will move into the q&a. the program has a little tradition to invite any student in the audience, whatever level you are at in your studies to ask the first question. let me invite students to raise her hand. there are microphones. just wait until someone puts one in your hand. write down front. >> please identify yourself. >> hello. i'm a sophomore in chemical engineering. i would like to ask the question, i know you focused your talk on western civilization.

there has been a bernie sanders type person who wants to see better relations with north korea and we are seeing this creep up in china and the philippines. how are the set of solutions that you presented, are they the same or do we have to apply a different approach. >> that's a good question. my solutions are geared toward the developed world and the western democracy. i think my diagnosis tends to apply in places like the philippines and the other developments you said. what that looks like in that context, it will have to be different because development stages are different. there isn't really a liberal tradition in some of those places although there are in japan and south korea and the like. the answer is to work at a ground up.

in the same sense more than ever there are questions, they are asking what should society be like. this is a pedagogic opportunity to make a case of what it's like all over again. >> other student questions. >> in the back corner, can you identify yourself please. >> my name is jonathan. it seems like modern illiteracy --dash a liberalism , what extent do you think they are characterized by

coherent ideology and to what extent do you think they might acquire one? >> that's a good question. i think there are actually more coherent than people give them credit. having interviewed some of the leading far right politicians in the left west, these are ideas they been developing for a long time. they have a sense of opportunity now because they think liberalism is under question like never before. in the '90s there wasn't really a challenge. i think the only other alternative ideology after communism was making some headlin headway with islam a schism but no one in the right mind would say let's impose an islamic society. now they are offering a real alternative may have thought

it through. it's based on some degree of where they say let liberalism, freedom isn't real freedom. we are unhappy, we feel insecure and displaced geographically and the people who are among us who are the newcomers, they're not even happy here. they are the natural place for them and it's over there. they thought through these questions and i think there's more coherence. with trump is him it's more shoot from the hip and not all his instincts are liberal. when i'm saying that, i set aside trump -ism which i think is different.

>> we had a student question back there. >> thank you. i am a senior in the economics department. i think you had mentioned we are in a new era, macron is a new candidate in this era and in poland the economy is chugging along and they are turning a liberal. this is at a time and i am wondering what is the change in this pitchfork era. is it a grassroots error or a movement that is sparked and fueled by people buying for political power like marine le

pen. >> i don't think everything's good. i think there is real insecurity in europe on the streets where you think that at any point something could go kaboom. there is a strand -- like on fox were they just lay out data and given by such and such indicators all is good but that's not all people think about and live by. it's both. there is real anxiety but there are also people who sought through how to address it with political program and the two are co- mingling and interacting together to create the current a liberal descendents. >> other student questions?

>> thanks for the talk. i heard you say a good little joke in there. one of the things i heard you talk about was the role of the audience where like here at the university, what is the role of the academy in addressing the seven points he laid out or has academic voices been discredited by the concerns you raise. >> amazing question. all the questions are amazing. i want to be a good guest. [laughter] there is a lot of nonsense in the academy. to start with, this should be a place where we can talk about the islamist issue, the

integration issue and yet increasingly the conversation isn't even being had. let me pick another university. you see the really disgraceful this invitation where they invited her students protested, they with drew the invitation and said oh, but you can come back but it would have to be a dialogue. all sorts of other speakers come to single her out, and in so many ways, it's all that's good about the promise of immigration and liberalism because she stands for a former feminism and you would think in academia it would be in grace but it wasn't treated that way. i see the university from the outside and all i see is the

new bathroom thing. there's so much going on in the world. there are bright spots and exceptions with this program being one of them. >> hi i'm hunter and i major in politics. my question was in the very beginning you mentioned trump -ism. i think we look at bernie sanders on a platform, he is more moderate than some in finland and denmark and norway, iceland. he is more moderate than their politicians. i was wondering, do you think it's fair to compare this to trump -ism the politicians in europe are having trouble

winning elections. they cannot pay for their welfare programs. they are in trouble. i think as a socialist in the u.s., it's a program he can put forward. there are political limits but there aren't in europe. i think the sign to me that he's one of them is when they say do people need 21 brands of deodorant. that is the 1930s socialism where why can't we just have one brand so there isn't so much competition. what are we doing with all this deodorant. there is a profound point. my colleague wrote a great piec piece. his sense of astonishment at what consumer society has

achieved. this was in the early '90s or late '80s, and i think by suggesting that our dynamic capitalist system is producing too many deodorants, i can just pick on that one, it suggests that he is a kind of a liberal, he is a certain strand of american populism blended with crunchy granola that played in places like vermont. >> i spent a year in moscow about 25 years ago and there was no deodorant. [laughter] >> i was wondering if you could talk about the role that religion plays in this discussion.

in france people are saying traditional. [inaudible] there experiencing. [inaudible] i wonder if you see religion as playing a role or halting the advance of a liberalism. >> i think religion is the best defense against a liberalism. i go back to the judeo-christian tradition. why? it allows you to see the other person especially endowed with rights. you can empathize with them as if you share brotherhood across very various identity heritage.

catholicism in europe has been pushed into an alliance with the far right secularism. catholicism and christianity needn't be ideological over there. i say the same for some that i profoundly respect but frankly the bullying of religion out of the square in the west and they say look at vladimir putin. he stands up for russian orthodox. i think we need and drive those over there because they know he is a thug. it doesn't take much to realize his opponents keep bringing their head near gone somehow or keep having

accidents and eating dangerous tea or drinking dangerous tea. they know that. it's gotten so aggressive to what christians believe. it needn't be the far right. in the case in france, it's very unfortunate because he was beginning to meld a responsible filled within the center with his catholicism. it just turned out he has some ethics issues that collapsed him. >> other student questions? >> let's open it up.

>> i am nick curry, i am a student at cambridge. how much of these trends do you attribute to the fact that it might be related to the fact that the west is engaged in hybrid war and isn't fully aware of it. when you study warfare, a lot of the things that are happening are exactly consistent with their playbook and recent revelations have. how much do you think this is a matter of the russians exploiting pre-existing trends or how much do you think they are driving those trends.

>> another excellent question. >> vladimir putin spends about $300 million. year on our tea. we spend about $700 million on voice of america. it's incredibly relevant in our conversations here and hasn't been that effective since the cold war. absolutely there are things that the russians are doing with the funding of rt, with loans to far right european parties and other influence operations, but i think it's dangerous to think that what we are seeing now is just a russian conspiracy. i think the democrats in the u.s. are going in that direction rather than asking

what are we doing, what program are we offering. should we rethink something. it's the same in europe. i'm convinced with other things going on, with the refugee crisis and the wider terrorism that spinning out of these ungoverned spaces, even if russia weren't there, these anxieties would boost far right parties. liberals need to get better at governing and winning elections and persuading people and we need to combat russia's pedaling aspirations but that won't answer this deeper question. >> down front with another

question. >> i'm with the medicine program. most of the organized a liberal group tend to be on the right and you have characterized the response of liberals as being silly or irrelevant, such as what happens on campus. maybe what's been happening is that we've had generations who have actually gained control and what you are seeing is the end gai game as they begin to isolate and castigate people with whom they disagree. >> i tend to agree with you. i did touch on that in the main talk when i said they were categorizing that idea as well.

institutional capture in the nordic countries where they called the opinion court or any number of issues about immigration, assimilation, there is an normal range of opinion that's acceptable. if you bring up alternative viewpoints, certainly in the mainstream media, all of that yes, i agree. it is a bit of the left.

>> thank you very much for an excellent talk. my name is dennis. i'm a retired pharmaceutical scientist. my background is chemistry so please excuse if this is a very naïve question. i would like to return to a question that was asked before by the gentleman in the quarter. that is, from my understanding we actually are living in about the most peaceful time in world history. we tend to forget that three generations ago europe, united states and japan were involved in terrible horrific atrocities. i was here at a panel discussion last year on the danger that isis might present to the west. the speakers did not agree on everything but they did agree that isis does not and cannot present an accident was threat to the west.

in your response to the previous question, you said there is a real feeling of anxiety and that i believe is absolutely true. the quantitatively, we are living in just about the most peaceful time in world history. there is a lot of fear mongering that is being done in order to drive that anxiety. what can we do to effectively counter that fear mongering? >> let's talk about isis and jihad is him. the straw map of places who have become completely destabilized. iraq in syria no longer exist as coherent nationstates. across africa there are ungoverned areas, some of them constantly being reclaimed by forces, others not, in these

places we should also mention nigeria that has a boko haram insurgency. both the tell them resurgence and an introduction of isis, afghanistan or afghan expressio expression. i think if you're living in those zones, certainly the threat is that you're not looking at the data and thinking my life is pretty good. no, fair enough. i think the danger from jihad is him in its various forms isn't that they could obtain a weapon of mass destruction and be a threat to western nationstate although that's not something we should real out and i hope security agencies everywhere are alert to it, but the danger is the danger comes from the fact that by making people feel insecure, if you are in large urban areas in europe, you are

constantly worried about the next ak-47 of chemical off. that itself is a danger in the sense that it drives people to embrace harsher politics and turned to a liberalism. it's not the scale, it's if we were to quantify the threat now compared to two decades ago, it's about the fact that people feel insecure. sure, i think the way to do it isn't to combat people's perceptions, it's to bring order and tear to ungoverned spaces and to limit the flow of refugees. a million people ishard to absorb for any part of the world especially people who come from a different culture and free societies. i say this as an immigrant, to absorb the million is too much. >> i think quantifying it is not the answer or people are mis- conceiving things, i

think it's a reality. >> down front. then we'll go over there. >> i'm from new york city. i'm long time friend of the james madison program. looking back -- >> you can continue watching this program on our website cspan.org. type in princeton university in the video library search bar. :