Month: September 2018

Briefings

Background Briefing: September 10, 2018

On By gram

 

Sweden’s Far Right Fills the Vacuum Left by the Left

We begin with the elections in Sweden, the results of which many find alarming though not as dire as some predicted with the far right Sweden Democrats gaining 17.6% of the vote to the once-dominant center-left Social Democrats’ 28%, their worst showing in decades. Sheri Berman, a Professor of Political Science at Barnard College of Columbia University and author of the forthcoming book “Democracy and Dictatorship: From the Ancien Regime to the Present Day”, joins us. An expert on European history and politics, she analyzes why across Western Europe long-ruling Social Democratic parties are in eclipse while far-right populism is on the rise. We discuss how much the far-right, pro-Russia, anti-immigrant and anti-EU Sweden Democrats profited from the lack of a narrative from the center and left while they were able to demonize Muslims and immigrants without offering solutions. And with Italy embracing far-right populism as Germany’s AFD challenges Merkel and Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic drift further into neo-fascism, xenophobia and white nationalism, we will assess the overall picture of radical politics filling the vacuum left by sclerotic socialists who fail to defend the E.U. and its values and build on its success while offering no alternative narrative to Trump-like demagoguery.

 

Trump to the Palestinian’s – “It’s My Way or the Highway”

Then we assess the move by the Trump Administration to close down the Palestinian mission in Washington while National Security Advisor John Bolton cites Palestinian efforts to prosecute Israelis for alleged violations of international law and the mistreatment of non-combatants in threatening American judges and lawyers working with the International Criminal Court. Khaled Elgindy, a Fellow in the Center for Middle East Policy at the Brooking Institution who was an advisor to the Palestinian leadership on permanent status negotiations, joins us to discuss how under Trump, the U.S. has taken such a pro-Netanyahu stance that it doesn’t even pretend anymore to be an honest broker between the Israelis and Palestinians.

 

The Former Cyber Czar on Russian Meddling in the Upcoming Election

Then finally we speak with Richard Clarke who served three consecutive presidents as Special Assistant to the President for Global Affairs, National Coordinator for Security and Counter-terrorism and Special Advisor to the President for Cyberspace whose latest book is “WARNINGS: Finding Cassandras to Prevent Catastrophes”. He joins us to discuss the probability of Russian cyber-meddling in the November election and the unprecedented dangers in having such a reckless and compromised president who is acting more like a tool of a foreign power than a defender of democracy.