Background Briefing: September 17, 2020

On By gram

 

When he Loses the Election Will Trump Call His Armed and Delusional Supporters to the Streets?

We begin with the deadly possibility that Trump’s constant signals to white supremacist groups, QAnon and so-called “Patriot” militias could result in many of them showing up armed and dangerous during and after the election. We explore the possibility that a Biden victory stolen by Russian meddling could have angry Biden supporters taking to the streets, or more likely a Trump loss that he won’t accept could result in a call to arms by Trump bringing armed and delusional pro-Trump supporters to the streets. Joseph Lowndes, a Professor of Political Science at the University of Oregon and author of From the New Deal to the New Right: Race and the Southern Origin of Modern Conservatism, and co-author of Producers, Parasites, Patriots: Race and the New Right’s Politics of Precarity joins us to discuss his article at The Washington Post “The GOP had an uneasy relationship with the far right. Until Trump.” We will investigate why the Republicans are so silent when Trump praises vigilantism and extra-judicial killing and when one of his appointees calls for armed insurrection and the stockpiling of ammunition before an election that he proclaims will have to be settled by civil war.

 

The Dark Side of Meritocracy and the Need to Restore the Dignity of Work

Then, although Trump is the wrecking ball of meritocracy having sidelined Dr. Fauci and replaced him with a radiologist who is quack and a crank promoting a deadly folly of herd immunity that will sentence between 3 and 6 million Americans to death, we examine the dark side of meritocracy with Michael Sandel, who teaches philosophy at Harvard University and is the author of the new book, just out, The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good? He joins us to discuss the need to restore the dignity of work to address the anger and alienation that drove those without a college diploma to vote for Trump who in 2016 proclaimed “I love the poorly educated” while Hillary Clinton was talking about “the deplorables.”

 

Chaos and War Will Follow Trump’s Withdrawal from Afghanistan Before the Election

Then finally we speak with Shuja Nawaz who has worked for the World Health Organization and was a Director of the Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna and a Division Chief at the IMF who is now a distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council. He joins us to discuss his new book The Battle for Pakistan: The Bitter U.S. Friendship and a Tough Neighborhood and how a precipitous withdrawal from Afghanistan by Trump ahead of the election will likely result in chaos and a renewed civil war.