07/05/19 07/05/19 [captioning made possible amy: from new york, thisis is democracy now! noam: today, we are not facing the rise of anything like naziism, but we are facing the spread of what is sometimes called an ultranatitionalist reactionary international trumpeted openly by its advocatetes including g steve bannon, the impresario of the movement. amy: today, noam chomsky for the hour

on how ultranationalist movements across the globe threaten democracy, the arrest of wikileaks's' julian assange, the green new deal, russian meddling in the 2016 election. noam: as far as trump collusion with the russians, that was never going to amount to anything more than minor corruption. maybe building a trump hotel in red square or something like that, but nothing of any significance. the democrats invested everything in this issue. well, turns out there was nothing much there. they gave trump a huge gift. they may have handed him the next election. amy: noam chomsky for the hour. all that and more, coming up. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. today, a democracy now! special, an hour with noam chomsky,

the world-renowned dissident and father ofof modern linguistics. in april, noam chomsky visited his hometown of boston, where he was a professor at thehe massachusetts institue of technology for more than half a century. he now teaches at the university of arizona, tucson. over 700 people packed into the old south church to hear him speak. later in the broadcast, we'll air m my on-stage interview with him, but first we turn to his speech. noam: if you'll indulge me, i'd li to starart with a brief reminiscence of a a peod which is eererily similar r to y inin many unpleasant respects. i'm thinking of exactly 80 years ago, almost to the day, happened to be the moment of the first article

that i remember having written on political issues. easy to date -- it was right after t the fall of barcelona in february 1939. the e article was ababout what seemed to be the inexexorable spread of fasascism over the worlrld. in 1938, austria had been annexed by nazi germany. a few monthshs later, czechoslovakia was betetrayed, placed in the hands of t the nas at the munich conference. in spain, one city after another was falling to franco'o's force.

february 1939, barcelona felel. thatat was the end of thehe spaninish republic. the remarkable popular revolution, anarchist revolution, of 1936, 1937, 1938, had already been crushed by force. it looked as if fascism was going to spread without end. it''s not exactly what's happppening today, but,t, if we can borrow mark twain's famous phrase, "history doesn''t repeat but sometimes rhymes." too many simililararities to oveverlook. when barcelona f fel there wawas a hugege flood of refefugees from spain. most went to mexico, about 40,0,000. some went to new york city,

established anararchist offices in union square, secondhand bookstores down 4th avenue. that's wherere i got my early political education, roaming around that ararea. that's s 80 years ago.. now it's today. we didn't know at the time, but the u.u.s. government was also begeginningng to thik about how the e spread of fascim might be virtually unstoppable. they didn't view it with the samame alarm that i did as a 10-year-old. we now know that the attitudud of thehe state department was rathther mixed rererding whatat the significane of the nazi movemement was. acactually, there was a consul in berlin,

u.s. consul in berlin, who was sending backck pretty mixed comments a about the nazi, suggesting m maybe thehey're t as bad as everyone says. he stayed there until pearl harbor day, when he was withdrawn -- famousus diplomat named george kennan. nonot a bad indication of thee mixexed attitude towards thesese developments. it turns out, couldn't have known it at the time, but shortly after this, 1939, the state department and the council on foreign relatioions began to carry out planning about the postwar world, what would the postwar world look like. and in the early years, righght about that time, next few yeaears,

they assumed that the postwar world would be divided bebetween a german-controlled world, nazi-controlled world, most of eurasia, and a u.s.-controlled world, which would include the western hemisphere, the formerer britishsh empire, which the u.s. would take over, parts of thehe far east. and thatat would be the shape of the postwar world. those views, we now know, were maintained until the russians turned the tide.. stalingrad, 1942, the huge tank battle at kursk, a little later, made it pretty clear that the russians would defeatat the nazis.. the planning changed. picture of the postwar world changed, went on to what t we've seen nr the last period since that time.

well, that was 80 years ago. today we do not -- we are not f facing the e rise of anynything like nazism,m, but we are facing the spread of what's sometimes called the ultranationalist, reactionary y international, trumpeted openly by its advocates, includuding steve bannon, the impresario of the movement. just had a victory yesterday -- the netanyahu election in israel solidified the reactionary alliance that's being established, all of thihis under ththe u.s. aegis, r b by the triumvmvirat, the trump-pompeo-bolton triumvirate --

could borrow a p phrase from george w.w. bush to describe them, but out of polititeness, i won'. the middle east alliance consists of the extreme reactionary states of the region -- saudi arabia, united arab emirates, egypt under the most brutal dictatorship of its history, israel right at the center ofof it -- c confronting iran. severe threats that we're facing in latin america. the election of jair bolsonaro in brazil put in power the most extreme, most outrageous of the right-wing ultrananationalisis who are now plaguing the hemisphere. yesterdaday, lenin morenoo of ecuador t took a strong step

towawards joinining the e far-right alliance by expelliling julian asassane from the embassy. he's picked up quickly by the u.s., will face a very dangerous future unless there's a significant popular protest. mexico is one of the rare exceptions in latin america to these developments. this has happened -- in western europe, the right-wing parties are growing, some of them very frightening in character. there is a counter-development. yanis varoufakis, the former finance minister of greece, a very significant, important individual, along with bernie sanders, have urgeded the formation of the progressive international

to counter the right-wing international that's developing. at the level of states, the balance e looks overerwhelmy inin the wrongng direction. but states aren't the only entities. at thehe level of people, it's quite didifferent. and that could make the difference. that means a need to protect the functioning democracies, to enhance them, t to make use f the opopportunities s they prov, for the kinds of activism that have led to significant progress in the past could save us in the future. i want to make a couple of remarks below about the severe difficulty of maintaining and instituting democracy, the powerful forces that have always opposed it,

the achievements of somehow salvaging and enhancing it, and the significicance of that for the future. but first, a couple of words about the challenges that we face, which you heard enough about already and you all know about. i don't have to go into them in detail. to describe these challenges as "extremely severe" would be an error. the phrase does not capture the enormity of the kinds of challenges that lie ahead. and any serious discussion of the future of humanity must begegin by recognizing a critical fact, that the human species is now facacing a questionon that has never befefore arisen in humanan historyry, question that has to be answered quickly --

will human society survive for long? well, as you all know, for 70 years we've been living under the shadow of nuclear war. those who have looked at the record can only be amazed that we've survived this far. time after time e it's come exextremely close to terminal disaster, even minutes away. it's kind of a miracle that we've survived. miracles don''t go on forereve. this has to be terminated, and quickly. the recent nuclear posture review of the trump administration dramatically increases the threat of conflagration, whicich would in fact be terminal for the spspecies. we may remember that this nuclear posture review wawas sponsored by jim mattit,

who o was regarded as too civilized to be retaineded in t the aininistration ---- giveves you a sense of what can be tolerated in the trump-pompeo-bolton world. well, there were three major arms treaties -- abmbm treaty, anti-ballistic missile treaty, the inf treaty, new start treaty. the u.s. pulled out of the abm treaty in 2002. and d anyone who believes that anti-ballistic missiles are defensivive weapons is deluded about the nature of these systems. the u.s. has just pulled out of the inf treataty, established by gorbachev and reagan in 1987, which sharply reduced the threat of war in europe, which would very quickly spread. the background of that signing of that treatyty

was s the demomonstrations t thu just s saw depicicted on the f. massive public demonstrations were the background for r leading to a treaty that made a very significant difference. it's worth remembering that and many other casases where significant popular activism hahas made a huge difference.. the lessons are too obvious to enumerate. well, the trump administration has just witithdrawn from the inf treaty. the russiansns withdrew right afterwards.. if you t take a close e look, you fifind that each side has a kind o oa crediblele case saying that t the opopponent has not lived up to the treaty. for thosose who want a picture of how the russians might look at it, the bulletin of atomic scientists, the majojor journall on arms s control issues, had a lead article a couple weeks ago by theodore poststol

pointing out how dangerous the u.s. installations of anti-ballistic missiles on the russian border -- how dangerous they are and cacan be p perceived to be by the russians. nonotice, on the russian borde. tensions are mounting on the russian border. both sides are carrying out provocative actitions. we should -- in a rational world, what would happen would be negotiations between the two sides, with independent experts to evaluate the charges that eacach is makining against the otheher, to lead to a resolution of these charges, restore the treaty. that's a rational world. but it's unfortunately not the world we're living in. no effortsts at all have beeeene in this direction. and theyey won't be, ununless te is significant pressure.

wewell, that leaves the new start treaty. the new start treaty has already been designated by the figure in charge, who has modestly described himselelf as the greatest president in american history -- he gave it thehe usual designatn of anything that was done by his predecessors -- the worst treaty that ever happened in human history. we have got to get rid of it. if in fact -- this comes up for renewal right after the next election, and a lot is at stake. a lot is at stake in whether that treaty will be renewed. it has succeeded in very significantly reducing the number of nuclear weapons, to a level w way above whathey y ought to b be but way below what they were before.

and it could go on. well, meanwhile, glglobal warming proceeds on its inexorable course. during t this millenniumum, every single y year, with one exception, has been hotter than the last one. there are recent scientific papers, james hansen and others, which indicate that the pace of global warming, which has been increasing since about 1980, may be sharply escalatining and may be moving from linear growth to exponential growth, which means s doubling every couple of decades. we'rere already approroaching e conditionsns of 125,000 years a, when the sea level was about roughly 25 feet higher than it is today, withth the melting, the rapid melting,

of the antarctic, huge ice fields. we might -- that point might be reached. ththe conseqequences of f tt are almost unimaginable. i mean, i won't even try to depept them, but you can figure out quickly what that meanans. wewell, meanwhile, while e this is going on, you regularly read in the press euphoric accounts of how the united statates is advancing in fossil fuel productction. it's now surpassed saududi arab. we're in the lead of fossil fuel productioion. the big banks, jpmorgan chase and others, arare pouring money ininto new invements in fossisil fuels, inclcluding the most dangerous, like canadian tar sands. and this is all presented with great euphoria, excitement.

we're now reachingg energy indndependence. we can control the world, determine the use of fossil fuels in the world. barely a word on what the meaning of this is, which is quite obviousus. itit's not that thehe reporte, commentators don't knowow about t it, that the ceo of the banks don't know about it. of course they do. but t these are kind of institutional pressureres that just are extremely hard to extricate themselves from. you can put yourself in the -- try to put yourself in the position of, say, the ceo of jpmorgan chase, the biggest bank, which is s spending large sums in investment in fossil fuels. he certainly knows everything that you all know about global warming. it's no secret. but what are the choices?

basically, he has two choices. one choice is to do exactly what he's doing. the other choice is to resign and be replaced by somebody else who will do exactly what he's doing. it's not an individual problem. it's an institutional problem, which can be met, but only under tremendous public pressure. and we've recently seen, very dramatically, how it can -- how the solutition can be reach. a grououp of young people, sunrise movement, organized, got to the point of sitting in in congressional offices, aroused some interest from the new progressive figures who were able to make it to congress. under a lot of popular pressure, exandria o ocasio-cortez, joined by ed markey,

actually placed the green new deal on the agenda. that's a remarkable achievement. of course, it gets hostile attacks from everywhere. itit doesn't matter. a couple of yeyears ago it was unimaginable that it would be discussed. as the result of the activism of this group of young people, it's now right in the center of the agenda. it's got to be implemented in one form or another. it's essential for survival, maybe not in exactly that form, but some modification of it. tremendous change achieved by the commitment of a small group of young people. that tells you the kind of thing that can be done. [applause] noam: meanwhwhile, t the doomsy clock of the bulleletin of atomc scientists last january was set at two minutes to midnight.

that's the closest it's been to terminal disaster since 1947. the announcement of the settlement -- of the setting mentioned the two major familiar threats -- the threat of nuclear war, which is increasing, threat of global warming, which is increasing further. and it added a third for the first time, the underminining of democracy. that's the third threat, along with global warming and nuclear war. and that was quite appropriate, because functioning democracy offers thehe only hope of overcoming these threats. they are not going to be dealt with by major institutions, state or private, acting without massive publblic pressu,

which means that the means of democratic functioning haveve to bebe kept alive, used the way the sunshine movement did it, the way the great mamass demonstration in the early 1980's did it, and the way we continue today. amy:y: professor noam chomsky, speaking at the old south church in boston in april. when we return from break, i speak to him about the arrest of julian assange, the e israeli electionons, the e war in y yemen and more.  [music break]

amy: this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. we return to noam chomsky's apappearance at the old south church in boston on april 11. after he addressed the crowd of over 700 people, i had a a chance to condnduct ann-stage e intervieiew with the world-renowned dissident and father of modern linguistics. i bebegan by asking him aboutt wikileaks editor julian assange, who had been arrested earlier in the day. he had been taken out by british authorities of the e ecuadorean embabassy in london, where he had political asylum for almost seven years. nonoam: well, , the assasange t is scandalous in severeral respects. one of them is just the effort of governments -- and it's not just the u.s. government. the british are cooperating. ecuador, of course, is now cooperating.

sweden, before, had cooperated. the efforts to silence a journalist whwho was producing materials that people in power didn't want the rascal multitude to know about, o o that is basically what happened. wikileaks was producing things that people ought to know about those in power. people in power don't like that, so therefore,, weave e to silencece it. ok? this is the kind of thing, the kind of scandal, that takes place, unfortunaty,y, over anand over. to take another example, right next door to ecuador, in brazil, where the developments that have gone on are extremely important. this iththe most i important country in latin america, one of the most important in the world. under the lula government early in this millennium,

brazil was the most -- maybe the most respected coununy in the wororld. it was the voice for the global south under the leadership of lula da s silva. notice what happened. there was a coup, soft coup, to eliminate the nefarious effects of the labor party, the workers' party. these are described by the world bank -- not me, the world bank -- as the "goldlden decade" in brazizil's history,y, with radicalal reduction of poverty, a a massive extensioion of incln of mararginalized populalatio, large parts of the population -- afro-brazilian, indigenous -- who o we brought into the society, a sense of dignityty and d hope for the population. thatat couldn't be tolerated.

after lula's -- after he left office, a kind of a a "soft coup take p place -- i won't gogo through the detail, but the last move, last september, was to t take lula da silva, the leading,g, the most popular r figure in brazil, who wawas almost certatain to n the forthcoming elecon,, put him in jail, solitary confinement, essentially a death sentence, 25 years in jail, banned from reading press or books, and, crucially, barred from making a public statement -- unlike mass murderers on death row. this in order to silence the person w who was likely toto win t the election. he's the most i important political prisoner in the world.

do you hear anything about it? well, assange is similar case. we've got to silence this voice. you go back to history. some of you may recall when mussolini's fascist government put antonio gramsci in jail. the prosecutor said, "we have to silence this voice for 20 years. can't let it speak." that's assange. that's lula. there are other cases. that's one scandal. the other scandal is just the extraterritorial reach of the united states, which is shocking. i mean, why should the united states -- why should any -- no other state could possibly do it. but why should the united states have the power to control what others are doing elsewhere in the world?

i mean, it's an outlandish situation. it goes on all the time. we never even notice it. at least there's no comment on it. you can ask yourself, why is this accepted? so in this case,e, why is itit acceptable for the united states to have the power to even begin to give even a proposal to extradite somebody whose crime is to expose to the public materials that people in power don't want them to see? that's basically what's happening. amy: noam, what t about what's happened in israel, prime minister netanyayahu winning a rerecord fifth tere? right before the election, he announces that he will annex illegal israeli settlements

in the occupied westst bank. last month, trump officially recognized israeli sovereignty over the golan heights. noam: well, first of all, if benny gantz had been elected instead of netanyahu, the difference would not be very greaeat. the difference between the two cacandidates is not substantial in terms of policy. netanyahu -- here's another example of the extraterritorial reach of the united states. netanyahu is somewhat more extreme. the united states desperately wanted him to be elected. and the trump administration has been giving gift after gift to netanyahu to try to get him elected. it was enough to carry him over the roughly 50/50 --

close to 50/50 election. one of them, of course, was to move the embassy to jerusalem, in violation of not only international law, but even security council resolutions that the u.s. had participated in. a very dramatic change.. a second, equally dramatic, was to authorize israeli annexation of the golan heights. the syrian golan heights are, under international law, occupied territory. israel -- every major institution, every relevant institution, security council, international court of justice, all agree on this. israel did formally annex the golan heights. but the security council, u.n. security council,

with the u.s. participating, declared that null and void. ok? trump unilaterally reversed it -- another gift to netanyahu, saying, try to demonstrate to the israeli public that, with u.s. backing, he can get anything they want. the last was trump's latest, justst before the election, his declaration that, if elected, he would annex parts of the west bank. that was with tacit u.s. authorization. these are strong measures that were taken to interferere radically with a foreign election. have you heard something about how terrible it is to interfere in foreign elections? i think maybe that you noticed that somewhere. here, it's done radically. it's considered fine.e.

but exactly what are the actual consequences of that in terms of the way policy has been evolving? fact of the matter is, not much. so take the annexation of the golan heights. in fact, it was declared null and void by the security council. it wasas condemned by ththe ininternational court of justic. but did anybody do anything about it? has any move been made to prevent israel's development of the golan heights, establishment of settlements, enterprises, development of ski resorts on mount hermon? anything? no, nobody lifted a finger. and nobody lifted a finger for a simple reason -- the u.s. won't allow it. nobody says that, but that's the fact.

well, now it's formally authorized, instead of just happening. take netanyahu's proposal to annex parts of the e west ba. that's been going on for 50 years, literally. right after the 1967 war, both political parties, both major groupings in israel -- the former labor-based party, the likud-based conglomerate -- they h have slightly different policies, but essentially they have been carrying out a development program in the west bank which is geared towards the goal, the very clear goal, of creating what will be a kind of greater israel, in which israel will take over whatevever is of value in the west bank,

leave the palestinian population concentrations -- like in nablus and tulkarm -- leave them isolated. in the rest of the region, there are maybe 150 or so little palestinian enclaves, more or less surrounded by checkpoints, often separated from their fields, able to survive, but barely. meanwhile, jewish settlements are developed. cities have been constructed -- a mamajor city, ma'ale adumim, constructed mostly under clinton, incidentally, under the clinton yeyears, eaeast of f jerusalem. the road to it essentially bisects the west bank. further ones up north. jerusalem itself is maybe five times the size of what it ever was historically. all of these are linked by highly developed infrastructure projects.

you can take a trip. you can -- this is basically creating pleasant suburbs of tel aviv and jerusalemem in the w west bank. you u can travel from ma'ale adumim t to tel aviviv on a big highway, restricted to isisraelis and tourists, not palestinians, more easily than you can get from the south shore to boston -- never seeing an arab. all of this has been steadily developed, year after year, with tacit u.s. support. u.s. provides the diplomatic support, a lot of the economic support, the military aid. and meanwhile, the government says, "we don't like it. stop doing it," but providing the means for it. well, the only difference in netanyahu's statement

with trump's tacit backing is, "i'm going to go ahead and annex it, annex all of this, instead of just developing it, subject to eventual annexation." these are the real things that have been happening. the netanyahu victory, as i mentioned before, solidifies an alliance that is being -- that hasas been developed, thatat's been -- parts of it have been kind of undercover for years, not formal, but functioning, now coming into the open, of the most reactionarary arab states -- primarily saudi arababia, one of the most reactionary states in the world. egypt, u under the sisii dictatorship, the worst dictatorship in egypt''s history. the united arab emirates, similar.

israel, right in the center of i it. it's part of the international right-wing alliance system, the internrnational reactionar, ultranationalist alliance system thatat's taking shapepe with the u.s.s. leadership, a kind of a new w global system that's developing. south america, under bolsonaro, is another part of it. amy: and yet, in the united states, there's this growing awareness. for example, the democratic-republican vote against saudi arabia-uae's war in yemen, fueled by the united states. does that give you hope? noam: that's a very interesting development. that's actually bernie sanders. it is what -- [applause] noam: and notice -- and it is a very important development,

but let's noti what h happened. the saudi-united arab emirate war in yemen has beenen a hideous atrocity. there's probably -- nobody knows -- maybe 60,000, 70,000 people killed, half the population barely surviving. the u.n. describes it as the worst humanitarian disaster in the world. it's a real monstrosity. it's been going on year after year, using -- saudi i arabia, uae are e using u.s. weapons -- secondarily, british weapons -- u.s. intelligence support, u.s. intelligence directly working closely with the saudis to target bombing and so on and so forth. alall of this has been happepeg with no protest. then came the khashoggi killing,

brutal killing of a journalist for "the washington post." that caused outrage. ok? it should have, but, you know, that's not the reason why the yemen n war should have susuddenly had the spotlight shshined on it. but it was.. then berninie sanders came alon, with a couple of others, and initiated the legislation, which put some crimps in the direct u.s. support for the war. which is significant, but we should put it in the context of what in facact happened. and i think we can be pretty confident that the trump-pompeo-bolton triumvirate will find a way around it and keep the war going -- unless the public seriously protests. amy: noam chomsky, speaking at the old south church in boston in april. we'll return to professor chomsky y after a shshort bre,

to talk about the green new deal and his take on russssian meddlg in thehe 2016 electionons.  [music break] amy: this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman, as we continue our spspecial broadcasast of anr withth the world-renowned linguist, political dissident noam chomsky. i spokoke to him april 11 at te old south church in boston.

i asked profofessor chomsky to talk about the green new w dl and the lessonons of the old new dl.l. noam: first of a all, i think the grgreen new deal is e exactly t the right idea. you can raise questions about the specific form in which ocasio-cortez and markey i introduced it -- maybe it shouldn't be exactly this way. it should be a little bit differently. but the general idea is quite right. and there's very solid work explaining, developing in detail, exactly how it could work. so a very fine economist at umass amherst, robert pollil, has written extensively on, in extensive detail, with close analysis of how you could implelement policies of this kind in a very effective way, which would actually make a better society.

it wouldn't be that you'd lose from it. you'd d gain from it. the costs of renewable energy are declining very sharply. if you eliminate the massive subsidies that a are given to fossil fufuels, they probably already surpass them. there are many means that can be implemented and carried out to overcome, certainly to mitigate, maybe to overcome,e, this serious crisis.s. so the basic idea is, i i thin, compmpletely defensible -- in fact, essential. a lot of the mediaia commentary ridiculing this and that aspect of it are essentially beside the point. you can chchange the d dates fromom 2030 to 2040, you can do a couple of other manipulations, but the basic idea is correct. well, what's the difference from the 1930's? several things. one thing that's different is large-scale labor action.

the 1930's were the period of the organization of the cio. in the 1920's, the u.u.s. labor movement had been virtually destroyed. remember, this is very much a business-run society. american labor history is very violent, quite unlike comparable countries. and by the 1920's, the quite effective, mililitant labor movemenent had beenen pretty much crushed. one of the great works of labor history, by david montgomery, one of the great labor historians, is called the rise and fall of the american labor movement. he was talking about the 1920's, when it had essentially been destroyed. the 1930's, it revived. it revived with large-scale organizing activities.

the cio organizing began. the strike actions were quite militant. they led to sit-down strikes. a sit-down strike is a real sign of warning to the business s classes because there is a step beyond a sit-down strike. the next step beyond a sit-down strike is, "let's start the factory byby running it by ourselvlve. we don't need the bosses. we can run it ourselves. so, get rid of them." that's a real revolution, the kind that should take place. the participants in an enterprise wouould own and run it b by themselves, instead ofof being the slaves of t the private ownerss who control their lives. and a sit-down strike is a bare step away from that.

that aroused real fear among the ownership classes. secondnd element was there was a sympathehetic administratiti, which is very critical. you u look at the history ofof r tionons over the centuries -- therere's a very good bobook on this, incidentally, by erik loomis, who studies -- has a book called "american history in ten strikes,"," or some similar name, where he runs through the militant labor actions evever since theaearly 19th c century. and he makes anan interestingng point. he says every successful labor actionon has had at least tacit support of the government. if the government and the ownership classes are unified in crushing labor action,

they've always succeeded. ok? very significant observation. and in the 1930's, there was a sympathetic admininistration for many reaso. but that combination of militant labor action -- it was a very lively political period in many ways -- and a sympathetic administration did lead to the new deal, which greatly changed people's lives. amy: can you share your analysis of president trump? you have lived through so many presidents. explain president trump to us and assess the massive response to him. noam: well, trump is -- you know, i think there are a number of illusions about trump.

if you take a look at the trump phenomenon, it's not very surprising. think back for the last 10 or 15 years over republican party primaries, and remember what happened during the primamaries. each primary, when some candidate rose from the base, they were so outlandish that the repupublican establishmemt tried to crush them and succeeded in doing it -- michele bachmann, herman cain, rick santorum. anyone who was coming out of the base was totally unacceptable to the establishment. the change in 2016 is they couldn't crush him. but the interesting question is, why was this happening? why, in election after election,

was the voting base producing a candidate utterly intolerable to the establishment? and the answer to that is -- if you think about that, the answer is s not veryry hard to discover. duduring the -- since the 1970', during this neneolibereral per, both of the political parties have shifted to the right. the democrats, by the 1970's, had pretty much abandoned the working class. i mean, the last gasp of more or less progressive democratic party legigislative propalals was the humphrey-hawkins full employment act in 1978, which carter watered down so that it had no teeth, just became voluntary.

but the democrats had pretty much abandoned the workining class. they became pretty much what used to be called moderatete republicans.. meanwhile, the republicans shifted so far to the right that they went completely off the spectrum. two of the leading political analysts of the american enterprise institute, thomas mann, norman ornstein, about five or 10 years ago, described the republican party as what they called a "radical insurgency" that has abandoned parliamentary politics. well, , why did that happen? it happened because the republicans face a difficult problem. they have a primary constituency, a real constituency -- extreme wealth and corporate power. that's who they have to serve. that's their constituency.

you can't get votes ththat way, so you have to do something else to get votes. what do you do to get votes? this was begun by richard nixon with the southern strategy -- try to pick up racists in the south. the mid-1970's, paul weyrich, one of the republican strategists, hit on a brilliant idea. northern catholics voted democratic, tended to vote democratic, a lot of them working-class. the republicans could pick up that vote by pretending -- crucially, "pretending" -- to be opposed to abortion. by the same pretense, they could pick up the evangelical vote. those are big votes -- evangelicals, northern catholics. notice the word "pretense." it's crucial. you go back to the 1960's, every leading republican figure

wawas strongly, what we call now, pro-choice. the republican party position was -- that's ronald reagan, george h.w. bushsh, all the leadership. their position was abortion is not the government's business. it is private business, government hasas nothing toto say about it. they turned almost on a dime in order to try to pick up a voting base on what are called cultural issues. same with gun rights. gun rights become a matter of holy writ because you can pick up part of the population that way. in fact, what they've done is put together a coalition of voters based on issues that are basically, you know, tolelerable to the establishment,

but they donon't t like it. ok?? and theyey've got to hohold th, those twtwo constituencieses, togethther. the real c conststituency of weh and corporate power, they're taken care of by the actual legislation. so if you look at the legislation under trump, it's just lavish gifts to the wealth and the corporate sector -- the tax bill, the deregulation, you know, every case in point. that's kind of the job of mitch mcconnell and paul ryan, ththose guys. they s serve the real constituency. meanwhile, trump has to maintain the voting constituency, with one outrageous position after another that appeals to some sector of the voting base. and he's doing it very skillfully. as just as a political manipulation, it's skillful.

work for the rich and the powerful, shaft everybody else, but get their votes. that is not an easy trick. and he's carrying it off. and i should say, the democrats are helping him. they are. take the focus on russiagate. what's that all about? i mean, it was pretty obviouss at the begininning that you're not going to find anything very serious about russian interference in elections. i mean, for one thing, it's undetectable. i mean, in the 2016 election, the senate and the house went the same way as the executive, but nobody claims s there was russian interference there. in fact, you know, russian interference in the election, if it existed, was very slight, much less, say, than i interference by, say,y, israel.

israel, , the prime minister, netatanyahu, goes to congress and talks to a joint session of congress without even informing the white house, to attack obama's policies. i mean, that's dramatic interference with elections. whatever the russians trtried, it's not going to be anything like that. and, in fact, there's no interference in elections that begins to compare with campaign funding. remember that campaign funding alone gives you a very high prediction of electoral outcome. it's, again, tom ferguson's major work which has shown this very persuasively. that's massive interference in elections. anything the russians might have done is going to be, you know,, pepeanuts in comparisoson.

as far as trump collusion with the russians, that was never going to amount to anything more than minor corruption, maybe building a trump hotel in red square or something like that, but nothining of any significan. the democrats invested everything in this issue. well, turned out there was nothing much there. they gave trump a huge gift. in fact, they may have handed him the next election. that's just a -- that's a matter of being so unwilling to deal with fundamental issues, that they're looking for something on the side that will somehow give political success. the real issues are different things. they're things like climate change, like global warming, like the nuclear posture review, deregulation. these are real issues.

but the democrats aren't going after those. they're looking for something else -- the democratic establishment. i'm not talking about the young cohortrt that's coming in, which is quite different. just all of f that has to be shifted signgnificantly, ifif there's going to b be a legitimate polititical oppososin to the right-wing drift that's taking place. and it can happen, can definitely happen, but it's going to take work. amy: noam chomsky, speaking at the old south church in boston in april. and that does itit for the sho. if you'd like to get a copy, go to demomocracynow.org. democracy now! is looking for feedback from people who appreciate the closed captioning. e-mail your cocomments to outreach@democracynow.org or mail them to democracy now!

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>> this isis "al jazeerara." ♪ hello. hour live froms london. coming up in the next 60 minunutes, the u.s. calllls fora cease-fire after airstrikes near libya's capital. tongs the number killed almost 1000. thebrations in sudan as military and the opposition reach an agreement to share power. some protesters are not convinced. also.