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This guy's voice, with his shredded vocal chords, is giving me a fucking headache.

Professor Chambers, I don't know if you are being overly diplomatic in your discourse or if you know much western history, as you should, but this phenomenon you call populism is demagoguery. Trump is Commodus, a tyrant as defined by Aristotle, Polybius, and the other Greeks. The fear of change that leads people to follow dictators is becoming prevalent in the west. And lastly, please don't call America a democracy. We are an empire. You know this and you should frame your discussion accordingly. I will look forward to your future discussions. My favorite US historians include Hofstadter, Zinn, Beard, Becker, Turner, Kolko, Quigley, and a handful of intellectual historians of early 20th century. They were honest. Aristotle would have called early America a polity. He would be worried about what we have become. FDR was the last statesman . Successive presidents have been puppets of the ruling class.

Thomas Kenneth Walker Jeffrey Williams Jennifer

This is a great conversation. Thanks for hosting it. I agree that democracies are being threatened around the world, and that does pose larger challenges. I do take issue with the assertion that “fringe parties get elected because they have popular policies for the people.” I am not sure if you are solely referring to the United States, but here, gerrymandering and fear of upsetting Trump’s base are a core reason that the fringe party (MAGA Republicans) have power despite a majority of the country being against those policies. They further solidify their power with lies about a stolen election in an echo-chamber media environment and then claim they are following the preferences of the people. Thanks for leaving on the hopeful note about people not being bad - we do need to have more productive conversations across the aisle - and for pointing out the progress being made on things like LGBTQ rights. Unfortunately, I see more of these being rolled back. While I do take the long view, I do feel that this election is critical to repudiate the cultural forces working against that progress. These issues are not just political ones anymore, they have metastasized into people's identities. Perhaps you will consider a similar conversation on how cultural forces are shaping the world.