liberty's now appears to prioritize identity kerry in politics over class issues we hear the word equity a lot but not equality and is there a place for merit in our politics anymore. to discuss these issues i'm joined by my guest sharon wright austin in gainesville she's a professor of political science at the university of florida and monterey we have spencer critchley he is author of patriots of 2 nations as well as former communications advisor for obama for america and in paris we have john laughlin he is a university lecturer in history and political philosophy all right plus up rules in effect that means you can jump any time you want and i was appreciating it was going to john paris john you know you would listen to my introduction and you know you were not spring chickens anymore the left use of you know speak up for the working class civil liberties was very much

a. part of that this is the civil i quit quite in my lifetime a good part of the civil rights movement as well with the left how do you define the left today because as i said in my introduction it's moved very far away from that go ahead. well the traditional definition of course is that the left is in favor of progress and the right seems in favor of reaction no conservation and more generally i think the left is in favor of universal values where's the right is more interested in particular values but there's no doubt that what you say in your introduction is absolutely right the left has changed a lot previous they used to be interested in much more concrete things like. you know incomes and faction conditions and living conditions and health and things like that and one gets the impression that in fact it's more than impression i'm absolutely convinced that the left is instead now transmogrified into something

completely different it has been completely consumed now certainly in europe and in north america by its highly metropolitan very fashionable internationalist. elements which are the reasons why it's more interested now in the kind of. virtues signaling and identity politics that you mentioned in your introduction has lost touch with its own electorate he has become as i say much more metropolitan much more privileged to be honest because very often hi aaron is our left wing there's a huge left wing dominance for example in the business and political circles that are currently meeting or eventually anywhere else the davos forum is might once have you a very left wing organization although that might surprise some people to hear it because it in britain embraces all kinds of nest wing things like colleges m and internationalism and transhumanism and so on so basic intellect with its interest

in change its obsession i would say that change has now moved on to new postures and has has indeed loch ness behind the old election and shanahan could easily get another word to expand about a lot is who has privilege and i saw susan rice yesterday. announced the obama administration's. regulations about how it's going to proceed and she stresses you know marginalized group that she isn't an amazingly privileged person and good for her ok very well educated here but a lot of working class people of all colors are not very privileged ok i mean how do you how do you of course in privilege and i am very confused by that well i think that simply because she is someone who is strong i guess what we would call a privileged middle class background that doesn't mean that she's not committed to people who are from a different background who for in working class because i'm originally from a working class background but some people could argue that i live

a privileged life as a woman with a ph d. a university professor but nevertheless that does not mean they even do you have an education even though you live in a nice neighborhood or you make a certain income that doesn't mean that you can't work in the community and that you can't serve people who are poor and working class and i think with someone like susan rice she's only qualified she's educated she's going to have a tremendous amount of experience in both foreign policy and domestic policy and that's something that joe biden has been impressed with as president obama was also when he was president and as a result of all those qualities i think that she is the kind of person who is going to serve her we're not doubting her credentials i know that i don't compound salut les ok image has a very long career. and for some people distinguish for others not ok but spencer if i can pull you in here i mean but she didn't when i listen to her speech i listen to very clear carefully there that there's no hint of class ok i mean it's

looking at marginalised people i would say there are tens of millions of marginal highspeed people in the working class of all races ok but she didn't cut she didn't give that indication and i find that to be rather disturbing because a lot of people might say. well i may have the privilege but as defined by others but that privilege hasn't translated into a lifestyle that a certainly a privileged person would have by that definition i guess go ahead spencer well there are multiple interesting strands in this discussion and i agree with the critique of part of the left that it has tended to become kind of a technocratic a leaf that has lost touch with its working class roots i think that's a fair critique of part of the left but the left is not a monolith just like the right is not a monolith and also just like really if we're talking about recent developments in us politics it's not really a left right divide anymore it's more a divide between nationalist populism and enlightenment liberalism with

a small al which includes moderate conservatism. susan rice by the way is a fantastic person and i know that she has a concern for people of all kinds this suppose a divide between the white working class and you know members of the working class of other colors i think is a red herring that's often thrown up by people on the right to try to fuel exactly that same kind of racial resentment and cultural resentment that divides the working class against itself. they issue of helping the working class as i say is not monolithic and if you look at other parts of the left for example people often overlook voices like reverend al sharpton or reverend william barber the head of the poor people's campaign they're constantly talking about the interests of working people as is president joe biden which i think is very clear from his 1st week or so in office so as i say there is a critique of the left that part of it has become kind of elitist and focused on

these important issues i would say important issues like equity but they are kind of a luxury for people who are struggling to get not have to work equity years are going to john here i mean maybe equity translate translates politically into oppressor and victim ok and that's the bad. i'm married that keeps being played and for me that's just a political cudgel ok because you know they white working class is not necessary for the democratic coalition right now that's why they don't care about ok because it if they're not part of their coalition so why invest resources and them and again you know when we go down this there's an equity thing which i am and i'm for much of for equality because that's more makes a lot more sense to me than equity seems to be a cover for something go ahead john well i think it's going much further really it's not just the democratic policy or on the left wing policies have neglected the working child so moved on to something else it's that precise need very language solved you know looking off to the people who could be neglected is instead being

taken off by the populist right that was the whole period deal of trumps and it was always the hillary sense who called the trumps the polls is deplorable so it wasn't just that they wanted to didn't they in they in their former electorate they actually came to hate them or at least came to hate policy of some of their political views we've seen this in britain as well have the contempt shown by many of the metropolitan left wing elite for boats as for example various mccarrick by the way because the same kind of thing is hillary clinton's deplorable zz so that's why i say i think the left has changed really beyond the recognition you know the idea speaker was saying people are looking up to working folk and all the rest of it that's all fine but that's exactly what his notes not not now happening yes the left maybe approach uts i gree with that but i'm talking about the people actually in power the government the people who form the elite say of the democratic party

they are not doing anything for ordinary people quite the country they despise them and they are pursuing instead of social reform another with the course is instead to seeming pursuing motivation and highly questionable identity politics including transgender and governors what else. not to mention opposite to the whole race issue in america and these seem to me to be profoundly different from what we had before you know the sheriff joe biden saying he wants to reach out to to to to all americans but at the same time you know they don't people who will say you know in his 1st week in office he killed thousands and thousands of jobs and i'm not taking issue on that pipeline one way or another but i mean if you're if you're. in the working class and you see that the 1st thing he talks about is cutting jobs he quitting 2nd sexual identity with gender which a lot of people have a very hard time dealing with that issue here and

a lot of the anx that comes from people is that it is an executive order why can't it go to congress and let people debate it ok because there's no debate it's just done and they and again this these creating these cleavage is that you know up again i always thought of the left as being a broad church that would be concerned with everyone's interests here but it seems to be very unilateral and i think that divides people more am i wrong on that go ahead i would say you're wrong in the sense. i think that the left is inclusive and i think with joe biden's executive orders he's just trying to do things that really in his opinion should have been done a long time ago and so in the sense of immigration and a lot of other things that he's done just in these 1st few days and then also as far as the comment about killing jobs i don't think that's true either in the sense that he knows that most americans are very much concerned with unemployment and the economy and want the economy to be stable again and that's one of the things that he's trying to do but i think since he's only been in office for a few days it's hard to really judge him but i don't agree with some of the things

that i've heard about the left because i think the left is very inclusive and i think by them including people like people who are members of the l.g.b. t.q. community those are people who have never really been included before and. so i think that he really is trying to address rice for everyone including people who traditionally have been excluded it was spencer that you know the issue of immigration was brought up i mean during a pandemic and economic turndown there's going to be an opening of the borders and i say that kind of loosely i mean is that inclusive because you know again you know not being a trump supporter myself i'm a conservative and that and i don't even support the g.o.p. ok but you know it's hard for me to wrap my head around you know during an economic turndown and a pandemic you want to start having a much looser immigration policy that's why a lot of people voted for trump in the 1st place. you know really i think this is

a series of straw man arguments we're hearing here and there as i say there is a fair critique of parts of the left on various dimensions but that doesn't mean that the worst examples we can find of extreme behavior on the left characterizes the entire left and yes let me ask week you said last week yeah well again again we're so if we're talking about extreme you know political correctness and extreme cancel culture and or extreme examples of arrogance towards working people i agree those are problems that exist but they certainly don't characterize the entire left which is actually as sharon says a very inclusive party that of course is concerned about the fate of working class white people just as it's concerned about the fate of all working and middle class people this is a artificial division that gets exploited by the nativist populist right to divide the working class as far as immigration goes down there is a false a false it's a false one action rate oh go back you will return you're already got a hard right now to get you where he's going to be politics they.

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well just across up here all these are considered high future lavelle sure mind you we're talking about like in a charity and politics. ok let's go back to monterrey spencer i interrupted you before we went to the break please continue sure and to get to immigration again unfortunately that's no nationalist right which is what i would say trump ism is it's i agree with you that it has very little to do with traditional conservatism it really makes no sense as conservatives are not i think if i could interrupt the ethno i mean trying to groom his support among minorities in 2020 that is you know refutable solely i wish we could be a little bit more careful with words ok unless people of color are voting against

their own interests i mean i have a hard time believing that police and i think you know if we when we see people waving confederate flags and wearing auschwitz t. shirts and storming the capitol and we sowing the proud boys in the vanguard and and we see trump fanning racism since before he declared with the birth or is a conspiracy lie i think we have to consider the case closed that that's a white nationalist element that's very strong and trump ism and if you trace back the history of what trumps demagoguery as i do in my book patriots in 2 nations if i could mention that back to the founding of a country in the countering lightman it is classic classic ethno nationalist demagoguery and we could talk about why there were rises in support among some latinos and some african-americans but it's not at all indicative of what you're suggesting it's probably another topic for that requires a more detailed discussion absent release which adds light room that nations right john has pointed out already john harris right now they're they're still going to

laurel's and they're always going to be getting deplorable and they don't need you know so and that every single person that voted for donald trump carries a confederate flag again i cannot get john right now i know and you know at home they all put on their planned outfit ok i mean this is a caricature is well and i want to keep going with class and he told the way i called your go ahead john. well i think i'm sorry to i don't want to be rude but i think it is what we've just had is a soto is an example really of the. i thought i would use the word hate filled but i would be very rude indeed but this the left is always portraying its enemies as evil and you know we've just heard stuff about outfits t. shirts you know they go in the goldwyn movement has has come pretty quickly in this debate and this is what gets the left it's terrible force and i say this with great sadness as a conservative because i do think that unfortunately perhaps it's the nature of

conservatism but i find that we are always on the defensive if we basically observe one defeat after another trump is only the latest even though 1 may of course with you peter the trump is just expect a classic conservative but the fact is that the left has won again and again and again and i think it is because of this this this i'm sorry to say this but i think this hatred of the other side which is what makes the left get up in the morning is what makes them. want to live it's what they believe the left believes that it is fighting dragons that it is fighting these evil people all over the place and that's what gets the left what c.s. lewis called that hideous strength and that hideous strength unfortunately i think is engulfing a soul on both sides of the atlantic you know sharing the issue of tolerance that was another hallmark of the left that i remember and lived through and obviously have studied here and i'm very i think that's the this chilling effect of big tech

amplifying this intolerance of speech here i mean i would like to think all of us speaking on this program right now thinking the best way to get rid of bad ideas is to push and convince people with good ideas but if we can't have that debate then how can we find the best ideas and best ideas where we can find. consensus because so many people on the conservatives and recently in the last few weeks a lot of populists and and people further to the left they're finding themselves being canceled or suppress i mean all my position is and i i'm sure john will be certainly that will agree with me is that this neal liberal radical center has been a failure 1st so many people and now be taken once to make sure that they can control the narrative because if they don't then these people in power will never be held accountable because we can't debate them issues doesn't that bother you

that you know you you and you may not have the best idea because it was never debated go ahead cher well i think when i think about some of the things that have to happen of course which were in facebook i think some people would look at that as a form of censorship but i think they only took these efforts especially which witter the president wrote was because of the suresh in its capital because although he is president trump has been giving be sending a lot of different types of tweets and he was able to do that but once it got to a point where it was believed that he was inciting this is a russian capital that's when they felt that they really needed to do something and some of the other people at least in social media decided do the same thing i don't know if i necessarily agree with it but i understand why they felt that that was necessary and it sharon you know they gave me the platform parlor was canceled and it was by its competition you know becoming huge and these people are almost mumon off police and now they're even more monopolies because they got rid of their competition but you know they did

a reason for that was is that some of the. comments on that platform that were easily duplicated on twitter on facebook but nothing was done to those people whatsoever but there was this monopolistic again up on one platform. getting rid of them for reasons that were no different on their own platforms. so would you like to reply to that because it was true or not only just ideas made are still in business competition sure yeah and if i made john's characterization of my opinions as completely wrong i invite him if he has time to have a look at my book which argues exactly the opposite base. and this is another straw man argument it's certainly not fueled by hatred and i'm constantly appealing to people on the left to try to understand how good people would have voted for trump and what the reasons for that are some of it is racism but it doesn't explain the whole picture by a long shot my point is trump is an ethnic nationalist demagogue the support for

him has all kinds of detailed explanations that said it's also pretty ironic that conservatives are objecting to what private companies choose or to carry or not carry. you know this is another anti conservative position which exposes the fact that trump is and has very little to do with conservatism and it's you know shows no understanding of what the 1st amendment actually says again doesn't mean i'm comfortable with what's going on and i do think it's an indication of the serious trouble that democracy is in for multiple reasons let me go to john and his one year because it is not only is it it is my well monopolistic business model now it's monogamy novelistic ideology money oh yes. well i'm disappointed in what i just had shirley say because. i mean you know jojo your university academic like will i could care you should share this story sharon i think. you should go to the source is the fact is that twitter and president trying for 2 tweets one of which

said usual take. platitudes about making america great again and how we're all going to carry on fighting or what have. you nothing there's no not the slightest incitement to violence and the 2nd tweet was a tweet saying i will not be attending the inauguration of joe biden on january whatever the date was neither of those 2 things can possibly be. considered to be incitement and charm the only reason why you seem to be so tolerant of all this intolerance is that the i would say again very hate filled democratic representatives led by nancy pelosi. have given have essentially given the old monks a has followed them and you were just siding with your own your own side against by the way the law and the american constitution and i find that deeply troubling i find these straw man arguments kind of

a waste of time if we could talk about actual reality instead of painting each other as demons i think we've got a little farther you can respond in at least rosemary yeah i just wanted to say that part of this where i think there was a fear that president truck in the last days that he was and also that he would tweet something that would incite further violence and i think that's why they banned him and it wasn't necessarily because of what he posted yes i think when you change really appearing even you will not see yeah i'm sorry i'm so even in new york times you didn't see and just talked about how this was planned by other people ok on these different platforms. ok i mean the news has moved forward but the left and i'm going to be very adamant here this is a conduit for them they're overjoyed by this now because it is still skeer into them into the public and now they can do what they want to do in the name of national defense against domestic terrorism and again the division gets greater and

greater and i think by overplaying this here you're alienating even more people because most people are saying i have nothing to do with something like that ok but the left collectively paints them all as the same now that may be good for your power purposes but it's not good for governance in the future and there's going to conservatives do this thing growing in alienation of the body politic ok and i think that's where the division comes from i really wish you guys would step back and see you know you could you should be careful what you wish for going to check that both they're both sides sort of leaks of the division it's not just the left it's the right as well i grant you that i grant you that ok but i think you know when you have a monopoly of the mid media of hollywood now in government here i think it's incumbent upon them to say i mean what do you guys afraid of ok but you know you have the power ok so why don't why do we engage each other instead of just

demonizing each other spencer i'm going to give the last 25 seconds go ahead sure again you know if we do straw man arguments or we paint the other side as a monolith that's all marching in lockstep we can make any point we want but this is not true of the left. i've got a lot of experience working in silicon valley and my past the dominant ideology among silicon valley executives i would say is libertarianism they certainly don't take instructions from nancy pelosi and many of the leading critics of or at least questioners like myself of what twitter and facebook are doing are on the left so it is certainly not a monolith meanwhile we have just seen an armed attack on the u.s. capitol by a president who has been fomenting devitt. and yes calling for violence throughout his term and that's not divisive answer very rapidly running out of time and to give credence to his one interpretation of events that is not universally accepted here i want to thank my guests bill moderate and paris i want to thank our viewers

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