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Survey the conservative parties of the Western world these days, and youll come away confused. Are they on the rise or under siege? In the United States, a Republican Party that only months ago was imploding now controls the federal government. In the United Kingdom, the Conservative Party holds power, but just barely, after a poor showing at the polls. In France, the Republican Party is outperforming its traditional rival, the Socialistsbut underperforming relative to the brand new party of the upstart prime minister. In the Netherlands, the Peoples Party for Freedom and Democracy managed to fend off a challenge from a far-right firebrand by co-opting parts of the far rights agenda.

The state of these parties has consequences beyond the normal ebbs and flows of politics, according to the Harvard political scientist Daniel Ziblatt, because the vitality of the center right has proven pivotal to the health of democracies ever since the emergence of modern liberal democracy. In his new book, Conservative Parties and the Birth of Democracy, Ziblatt draws on a range of archival and statistical evidence to show how, in Western Europe and particularly Britain and Germany in the 19th and early 20th centuries, aristocratic conservative leaders grappled with democratic reforms that threatened their wealth and privilegeand ultimately either accepted or rejected the advance of democracy. His method for capturing how British elites gradually accepted democracy, for instance, involves tracking bond markets as a proxy for assessments of political risk; with each expansion of voting rightsin 1832, 1867, and 1884investors grew less alarmed.

The common thread among the conservative parties in his study is not ideology, but who they primarily represented when they were founded: upper-class propertied economic elites or political elites with ties to the old, pre-democratic regime in each country. After 1848, when revolutions against conservative governments roiled Europe, all of these conservative parties resisted political and economic change, including growing mobility and economic exchange and the disappearance of traditional systems of social power, Ziblatt writes.

Ziblatt also documents how conservative parties have repeatedly struggled to confront radical right-wing forces that pose challenges to democracy. And he articulates a theory for how all this contributed to the breakdown of democracy in 20th-century Germany and the blossoming of democracy in 19th-century Britain. Where conservatives in Western Europe have developed strong party organizationsmaintaining control over the selection of candidates, the financing of campaigns, and the mobilization of grassroots activistsdemocracy has historically tended to be more stable, he argues. The study of conservative parties offers a framework to understand European history, Ziblatt told me.

I recently asked Ziblatt to explain that frameworkand the extent to which it can be applied to contemporary politics from France to the United States to Thailand. Below is an edited and condensed transcript of our conversation.

How American Politics Went Insane

Uri Friedman: Saying that conservative parties are important to the formation of democracies isnt necessarily saying that they are the thing that is important to democracy-formation, right?

Daniel Ziblatt: Other factors matter in shaping whether or not a country remains democratic, whether it survives moments of crisis. But I do think that when one looks around the world historically, at key moments, conservatives have been a hinge of history. Their reaction to forces of change shape whether or not a democracy survives.

Friedman: Walk me through some of those hinge moments.

Ziblatt: Pre-1914 Germany, the imperial German political system, was a highly undemocratic political system. What was so striking about it was that this was also a country in which you had the largest socialist party in Europe, you had strong working-class movements, you had high levels of industrialization, all of the things that ought to have made the country more democratic. This unstoppable force of modernization met this unmovable object of the German state. So why was the German state so resistant to democratic change? The key factor had to do with how conservatives, as defenders of the old regime, responded to those forces of democratic change. Since they didnt have access to party organization, didnt think they could survive a major democratic change, they resisted this to the bitter end.

Another setting is Weimar Germany. We often retrospectively think of all the reasons why things could have gone poorly there, but this was also a political system after 1918 [and World War I] that was highly democratic, it was founded by this incredible democratic coalition of Catholics, liberals, and socialists that had an overwhelming majority of the vote in the first years of the Weimar Republic. There were lots of right-wing critics of the regime. There was economic crisis. Certainly all of these factors mattered as well. But I think one really important factor that prevented the regime from stabilizing was the inability of the conservative party to bind all of the right-wing forces to the regime.

Friedman: Why do you feel it was a conservative failure in particular that paved the way for Hitler versus [a failure on the part of all German] political leaders?

Ziblatt: In the 19th century and early 20th century, conservatives represented those elements in society that were the greatest threat to democratic stability. The far-right end of the political spectrumthese were the potential saboteurs of democracy. And so the question is: How do you get these guys to buy in? The question of how you get liberals to buy in to democracy is important but not as critical. Socialists were pushing for democratic reform. Certainly there were far-left elements, communists, who were trying to undermine the regime, but these groups on the far-right had the motive to undermine democracy and they also had the means to undermine democracy because they often had access to the state, to the military.

There were these intervening years in the middle of the 1920s where you had relative stability [in the Weimar Republic] and these were also the years where the successor to the Conservative Party was doing well electorally. In 1928, they had a big electoral loss. There was a grassroots rebellion of the far-right who thought that the party leadership had been making too many concessions to the democratic order, and the party was taken over by this right-wing media mogul, Alfred Hugenberg, who pushed the party far to the right and began to open the door to the much further right, and sought out alliances with Hitler and the rising Nazi Party. The question becomes: Do these parties on the right ally with the very far right that are explicitly trying to overthrow the democratic system, or do they distance themselves? In this case, they clearly made the wrong choice.

Going back to 19th-century Britain theres a positive case where conservatives played a critical role in helping support democracy. When conservatives in the 1880s signed onto a franchise extension because they thought they could win electionsthey helped negotiate the Third Reform Act. And the Conservative Party, because it was a well-organized political party, thrived in the face of democratic changes.

Theres positive cases [in 19th- and 20th-century Europe], theres negative cases, so the big question becomes: Why do you get certain kinds of conservatives in some places, at certain times, that unleash these virtuous circles [for democracy] and in other countries, at other times, [that] unleash these vicious circles?

Friedman: What answer have you found?

Ziblatt: There was a major discovery made in the course of the 19th century, which was the invention of political parties. When conservatives embrace this invention and have access to party organization and party professionals and on-the-ground grassroots organizing that they controlled, then they knew they could concede democracy without conceding power. They could win elections.

When, on the other hand, they didnt have access to these organizations, when they resisted coherent party organization, then they were left stranded and naked.

In the countries where parties developed earliest, they could absorb [grassroots] groups and channel them in ways that didnt threaten democracy. [That] took place in Britain. In Germany, in Spain, in Portugal, in Italy, where old-regime elites didnt develop party organization early, [then] when grassroots mobilization took place, beginning in the 1890s in Europe, they were victims of this mobilizationthey had no instruments in place to mobilize and channel these forces.

Friedman: When you look beyond Britain and Germany, do your findings hold?

Ziblatt: Theres a group of countriesBritain, Sweden, Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway, Denmarkwhere democracy was generally more stable, where there were fewer moments of democratic backsliding, where theres a process where democracy gradually expanded without constitutional crises, and in all of those countries the right organized precociously. It developed before full democracy and it helped secure democracy.

Theres a second group of countriesItaly, Germany, Portugal, Spain, and Francewhere there was much more instability. There were moments of democratic breakthrough, moments of democratic breakdown. There was backsliding, moments of stalled reform. And in all of these places, the right was much weaker. Conservative parties didnt organize before major democratic reforms came.

France is an interesting case. There was a long period of democratic stabilitythe French Third Republicwhere the right wasnt organized. But if you take a longer view, from the 1840s through to Vichy, France was often on the verge of crisis. To the degree that it was on the verge of crisis, its because the right was a much more radical right that developed because there was no Tory, moderate, center-right tradition that was well-developed. France is a country that sits between these two broad groups.

[What Im describing is] a framework to understand European history. In Latin America theres a very similar pattern where, throughout Latin American history, countries where the right developed early and well, and did well electorally, democracy has been more stable.

Friedman: On Latin America, Hugo Chavez thoroughly undermined Venezuelan democracy, but he came from the left. So there are circumstances in which were seeing democratic backsliding and breakdown coming from the left. How do you think about that?

Ziblatt: [What Im describing] is not the only path to democratic breakdown. Im highlighting one pattern. The establishment of communist regimes in Eastern Europe after the end of World War II, the Leninist party in Russia at the beginning of the 20th centurythese are totally different paths.

Im not saying conservatives lead to democratic collapse. Conservatives can also be heroes of democracy. Its just that what conservatives look like is often a key determinant of how stable a democratic regime is.

Another good case is Thailand today. One of the reasons that theres been several military coups over the last several years was a response to the rise of Thaksin [Shinawatra], a populist leader who was himself wealthy, in some sense from the left. The Thai Democrats, who are in principle committed to democracy but represent the economic elite in Thailand, had a tough time competing with Thaksin because he had a [better] organized political party. Rather than competing, at some level, there was tacit support [among leaders of Thailands Democratic Party] for military coups to restore order and reconfigure the constitution.

Friedman: How do you think about other variables in the countries and cases youve studied? For example, varying levels of national wealth, rising wages and what that does to demands from the middle class and working class for more rights, or just the political and religious traditions of a country?

Ziblatt: Theres no stronger predictor of democratic stability than GDP per capita. The wealthier countries are, the more likely they are to be democratic. Thats the biggest moving force around the world.

Whats interesting, though, is when one looks at Western Europe, as all of these countries were industrializing, some were wealthier than others. There is some correlation: Countries that broke through first [in terms of industrializing]Britain, Northern Europetend to be more democratic. But there are these exceptions. Sweden is a country that industrialized later, as was Germany. And yet Sweden sustained democracy and Germany did not. There are these vast differences in political regimes, and small differences in GDP per capita, and I dont think we can treat the vast political differences as simply a function of economic development.

Similarly, conservative elites historically might not have conceded democratic reform unless facing heroic liberals and working-class movements demanding political rights. This was a critical ingredient as well. The thing Im focusing on is how did conservatives respond to those demands and those threats.

Religion also mattered. Religion was a key factor shaping whether or not conservative parties would organize and how they organized. In countries that were split by confessional divides, it [was] much harder for conservatives to organize. When the right was religiously more homogenous, it was easier for them to organize and they could compete in politics. So in Britain there was an Anglican elite, and this allowed the British ruling class to organize politically around religion. In Germany there was a sharp divide between Protestant and Catholic landed elites, and they both had their own political parties, so it was harder to build a cohesive party of the right. When one looks at Germany after 1945, one of the major contributions to democratic stabilization in Western Germany was the creation of the [center-right Christian Democratic Union], a party built for the first time in German history to overcome the Catholic/Protestant divide.

Friedman: To what extent are these findings applicable to today?

Ziblatt: In advanced democraciesFrance, the United States, the U.K., Austriain recent years theres been this rise of right-wing populism. And a determinant of how well right-wing populists do is what the center-right does about them. A lot has been madeand I think theres something to thisabout the varying electoral success of [Donald] Trump and [French far-right leader Marine] Le Pen. Trump became president and Le Pen did not. A big part of this story is how the center rightthe Republican Party in both countriesresponded to this populist insurgency. In [the second round of the French presidential election], Francois Fillon, who was the Republican Party candidate for president in the first round, endorsed [Emmanuel] Macron, the center-left candidate. Around 50 percent of Fillon voters voted for Macron after that, about a third abstained, and only a sixth of center-right voters voted for Le Pen. So this may have made the crucial difference in the election.

In the United States, it was a harder askto ask mainstream Republicans to distance themselves from their own partys nominee for president, but a lot of unelected Republicans didnt endorse Donald Trump. Had more Republicans behaved in the way that Fillon behaved in France, there may have been a different outcome in the United States.

Friedman: Are you suggesting that Marine Le Pen and Donald Trump would pose dangers to democracy?

Ziblatt: Its to be determined. A lot of things that Donald Trump said during the campaignif we take those words literally, which some people said not to dowere a major departure from normal democratic practice: threatening violence, accusing the opponent of not being legitimate and being a crook. Certainly American political life is more unsettled than its been in a long time.

Friedman: What are the limits to applying your findings to Trump and populist nationalism in Western Europe?

Ziblatt: This is really a book of political history. I dont mention the words Donald Trump once. I dont want to draw direct lessons. Were living through a different period now. But there are variations on a theme.

More:
Why Conservative Parties Are Central to Democracy - The Atlantic

After closer-than-expected special congressional races in the Republican strongholds of Kansas and Montana, Democrats are placing endless energy and financial resources into electing Jon Ossoff in the upcoming Georgia 6th District race against Republican Karen Handel. With Democrats hoping to channel national momentum against President Donald Trump into a win in a Republican stronghold, the race is poised to cost over $30 million the most expensive House race. Ever.

The fact that so many are donating and volunteering in a local congressional race represents a promising sign that Democrats are organizing in an unprecedented political moment. Digging deeper, though, the intense focus on the Georgia 6th and the upcoming 2018 midterm elections illustrates a familiar and troubling pattern: progressives placing hopes, dreams, and resources into individual races, rather than focusing on the broader challenges facing our American democracy.

We understand the challenge of shifting focus from the immediate to the foundational. For Democrats, it is difficult to think about anything other than the immediate tasks at hand: taking back the House in 2018 and the presidency in 2020. The problems are both endless and urgent: the withdrawal from the Paris Accord, Obamacare in the balance, escalated immigrant deportations, and a Republican Congress that continually ignores Trumps anti-democratic proclivities. Electing the right candidates is undoubtedly vital in addressing these challenges.

But focusing solely on regaining power is not sufficient. Whether Ossoff prevails or loses, the underlying problems that plague our government will remain. Rather than concentrating on the next race, Democrats, and all democracy-appreciating Americans, need to focus on the longer game. Rather than just fighting against Trump, we need to fight for our democracy. Indeed, Trumps election is a symptom, not a disease his ascendancy did not materialize out of nowhere. The threats to our democracy run deeper than one man.

Post-November, we hear about threats to our democratic institutions every day. But rarely do we actually look at the statistics and data that illuminate the true precariousness of the situation. The decline in civic participation is perhaps most alarming voter turnout has been consistently declining since 1964. The United States ranks 31st out of 35 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries in voter turnout, and only 20 percent of young people voted in the 2014 midterms, the lowest rate in history.

This participation crisis has accompanied growing skepticism in government itself. Perhaps most worrisome is a growing belief that the very concept of democracy might not work. Asked to rate on a scale of 1 to 10 how essential it is for them to live in a democracy, 72 percent of Americans born before World War II check 10. Less than 33 percent of millennials, however, believe the same. Similarly, while nearly 80 percent of Americans trusted government in 1975, that rate has plummeted to less than 20 percent.

This decrease in citizen participation and belief in democracy may feel somewhat deserved with increasing economic inequality, continual political stagnation in Washington, and the never-ending and corrosive influence of money in politics, ordinary citizens do not feel heard. But these declines still carry real repercussions. The less people participate in the process, the more the powerful are able to consolidate power. Put in a different way, perhaps paradoxically, the more corrosive our democracy becomes, the more important it is for us to participate. But this revitalization does not happen overnight.

The question becomes how to fight against Trumps agenda, and for the candidates who will do the same, while concurrently combating the forces that conspired to abet his ascendancy. The answer must be long-term: rebuilding the foundations of our democracy and concentrating efforts locally.

First, over the last few decades, there has been an erosion of civics education, for young people and adults alike. We have not emphasized the primary purpose of our public education system: educating citizens to participate in the complex task of self-governance. Perhaps no task is more important than revitalizing our democracy than investing in the very foundation of its success: young people engaging in the process. Pressure your school board to emphasize civics, and your members of Congress to prioritize civics funding in the recently passed Every Child Succeeds Act.

Second, rather than spending millions on races thousands of miles away, it is crucial to engage locally, and not just in federal races. For every dollar you give Ossoff, give to a candidate in your own district. We need a reinvigoration of energy and money into local parties, and city council and state legislature races.

And thirdly, remember that change in a democracy takes time. For Democrats, the positive of this reality is that Trump has been unable to enact his entire agenda quickly. But part of engaging in the democratic process is not getting a desired result, and remaining engaged. There is a risk that newly minted activists will become frustrated if not every congressional race goes their way. Sustained engagement is the only way to sustained change.

The energy in the Georgia 6th race is heartening. But to solve the overarching problems in our democracy, it is insufficient. While were facing an important fight in Georgia, and in districts across the country, we must recognize the bigger, and broader, fight: the one for the very survival of our democracy.

Nora Howe works to engage young people in the political process as a Program Associate at Generation Citizen. Scott Warren is co-founder and CEO ofthe same organization. GC works to empower young people to be informed and active citizens through implementing an action civics curriculum in schools across the country.

Morning Consult welcomes op-ed submissions on policy, politics and business strategy in our coverage areas. Updated submission guidelines can be foundhere.

View post:
Beyond Georgia: Democracy's Long Game - Morning Consult

The US government is springing a lot of leaks these days. Over the course of the past few months, high-ranking national security officials such as National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers, former FBI Director James Comey and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper have been called before Congress and grilled over what some see as a concerted effort to undermine the Trump administration by leaking classified material relating to the ongoing investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

The debate over leaking by members of the national security and intelligence communities came to a head last week with headlines detailing a National Security Agency document leaked by a 25-year-old contractor named Reality Winner. As first reported by the Intercept, the document described two separate Russian cyberattacks prior to the 2016 US election. According to the report, the NSA believes Russias military intelligence service, GRU, attempted to both obtain information on elections-related software and hardware solutions from a voter registration software company and hack into the email account of 122 local election officials. Winner was promptly arrested and brought up on federal charges on June 5.

Some argue that Winner is a whistleblower and a hero. Trumps bete noir Rosie ODonnell has reportedly donated $1 million to Winners defense fund, calling her a brave young patriot. But Winner is neither a whistleblower nor a heroand giving her undeserved accolades will only further encourage potentially dangerous leaks.

A whistleblower is, by definition, someone who releases information about corruption, criminality or malfeasance within the US government that the government is not acting to address. But Winner wasnt blowing the whistle on government wrongdoing. All she did was leak highly classified information about legitimate government activity. She was simply trying to promote her own partisan political agenda by selectively leaking two examples of Russian hacking simply to prove what she (and many others) believe: that Russia helped Trump steal the election. This might also explain why Winner leaked information pertaining only to Russia and not, say, Israel, China, Turkey or Brazil which are all leading state sponsors (along with the United States and Russia) of cyber espionage.

Nevertheless, the document Winner leaked hardly provides the conclusive slum dunk evidence many are hoping for. The Intercept admits as much, writing that there is no indication that the cyber attacks had any effect on the outcome of the election and that the NSA isnt sure if any officials at the local level were infected with the Russian malware. Former State Department official Peter van Buren observes, There is no evidence the hack accomplished anything at all, never mind anything nefarious. The hack took place months ago and ran its course, meaning the Russian operation was already dead.

Cybersecurity expert Jeffrey Carr points out that the NSA graphic embedded within the Intercept article shows, the line connecting the operators to the GRU is one that represents Analyst judgment. That means this wasnt a communications intercept directly from the computer of a GRU employee.

So once again, as with the allegations that Russia interfered in the election, we have an analytical judgment from an American intelligence agency, but no actual proof.

The information provided by Winner is yet another in a series of leaks that have sought to embarrass Trump by insinuating that the president is illegitimate because he allegedly colluded with Russia in order to defeat Hillary Clinton. The volume and content of the leaks, which NSA Director Mike Rogers and former FBI Director James Comey have said are illegal and are deeply concerning, raise serious questions about the intent of these leakers, who are violating the law in order to discredit a president who was, in fact, fairly elected.

Its certainly understandable that Trump disgusts many within the US intelligence and national security agencies, given his disrespectful appearance before CIAs Memorial Wall of Agency heroes in January, his reported carelessness with sensitive material, and his history of making wild and unsubstantiated. But holding a grudge is no excuse for those entrusted with high-level security clearances to leak classified information to reporters.

In the end, the endless parade of anonymous current and former government officials who are seeking, via a torrent of leaks, to force Trumps removal from office should remember that they dont get to decide who is president. In America, we have elections for that.

Learn how to write for Quartz Ideas. We welcome your comments at ideas@qz.com.

Read more:
Liberals shouldn't celebrate government leaksthey should condemn them as a threat to democracy - Quartz

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. Im Amy Goodman. And were joined by Naomi Klein, whos just written the book No Is Not Enough: Resisting Trumps Shock Politics and Winning the World We Need. Accompanying the book, Intercept just made a video, which were going to play an excerpt for you now.

NAOMI KLEIN: Shock.

MEGYN KELLY: Shocking.

STEPHEN COLBERT: I dont think I could sit down right now.

ALISYN CAMEROTA: You mean

WILLIE GEIST: Historic, astounding, shocking.

NAOMI KLEIN: Its a word thats come up a lot since November, for obvious reasons.

KELLYANNE CONWAY: Hes going to inject a shock to the system.

NAOMI KLEIN: Now, Ive spent a lot of time thinking about shock. Ten years ago, I published The Shock Doctrine, an investigation that spanned four decades, from Pinochets U.S.-backed coup in 1970s Chile to Hurricane Katrina in 2005. I noticed a brutal and recurring tactic by right-wing governments. After a shocking eventa war, a coup, a terrorist attack, market crash or natural disasterexploit the publics disorientation, suspend democracy, push through radical policies that enrich the 1 percent at the expense of the poor and middle class.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: This is a repeal and a replace of Obamacare.

GARY COHN: Were going to cut taxes and simplify the tax code.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: The United States will withdraw from the Paris climate accord.

NAOMI KLEIN: Now, some people have said thats exactly what Trump has been trying to do. Is it true? Well, sort of. But in all likelihood, the worst is yet to come, and we better be ready. The administration is creating chaos, daily.

JUJU CHANG: Breaking news: Donald Trumps national security adviser, Michael Flynn, has resigned tonight.

ANDERSON COOPER: All of a sudden, the White House is concerned about James Comeys handling of Hillary Clintons email?

CBS NEWS ANCHOR: A Senate committee will question President Trumps son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner about his meeting with officials from a Russian bank.

NAOMI KLEIN: Now, of course many of the scandals are the result of the presidents ignorance and blunders, not some nefarious strategy. But theres also no doubt that some savvy people around Trump are using the daily shocks as cover to advance wildly pro-corporate policies that bear little resemblance to what Trump pledged on the campaign trail.

DONALD TRUMP: Save Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

MSNBC ANCHOR: The White House released its budget for 2018, and among the $4 trillion in cuts it proposes are billions upon billions of dollars slashed from both Medicaid and Social Security.

NAOMI KLEIN: And the worst part, this is likely just the warm-up. We need to focus on what this administration will do when it has a major external shock to exploit. Maybe it will be an economic crash like 2008, maybe a natural disaster like Sandy, or maybe it will be a horrific terrorist event like Manchester or Paris in 2015. Any one such crisis could redraw the political map overnight. And it could give Trump and his crew free rein to ram through their most extreme ideas.

But here is one thing Ive learned over two decades of reporting from dozens of crises around the world: These tactics can be resisted. And, for your convenience, Ive tried to boil it down to a five-step plan.

Step one: Know whats coming. What would happen if a horror like the one in Manchester took place on U.S. soil? Based on Trumps obvious fondness for authoritarianism, we can expect him to impose some sort of state of exception or emergency where the usual rules of democracy no longer apply. Protests and strikes that block roads and airports, like the ones that sprung up to resist the Muslim travel ban, would likely be declared a threat to national security. Protest organizers would be targeted under anti-terror legislation, with surveillance, arrests and imprisonment. With public signs of dissent suppressed, the truly toxic to-do list would quickly bubble up: bring in the feds to pacify the streets, muzzle investigative journalismyou know hes itching to.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: You werent called. Sit down!

NAOMI KLEIN: The courts, who Trump would inevitably blame for the attacks, might well lose their courage. And the most lethal shock we need to prepare for: a push for a full-blown foreign war. And, no, it wont matter if the target has no connection to the attacks used to justify it.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: What did Iraq have to do with what?

REPORTER: The attack on the World Trade Center.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Nothing.

NAOMI KLEIN: Preparing for all this is crucial. If we know what to expect, we wont be that shocked. Well just be pissed.

And thats important for step two: Get out of your home and defy the bans. When governments tell people to stay in their homes or show their patriotism by going shopping, they inevitably claim its for public safety, that protests and rallies could become targets for more attacks. What we know from other countries is that there is only one way to respond.

EURONEWS ANCHOR: Hundreds of Tunisians have been defying the curfew in the capital, Tunis.

NAOMI KLEIN: Disobey en masse. Thats what happened in Argentina in 2001. With the country in economic free fall, the president at the time declared a state of siege, giving himself the power to suspend the constitution.

FERNANDO DE LA RA: [translated] I declared a state of siege across the entire country.

NAOMI KLEIN: He told the public to stay in their houses. Heres what they did instead.

PROTESTER: Argentina!

NAOMI KLEIN: The president resigned that night. And eventually new elections were held.

Three years later, in Madrid, a horrifying series of coordinated attacks on trains killed more than 200 people. The prime minister, Jos Mara Aznar, falsely pointed the finger at Basque separatists and also used the attacks to justify his decision to send troops to Iraq. His rhetoric was classic shock doctrine: division, war, fearDaddy will protect you. This is how Spaniards responded.

PROTESTERS: [translated] Resignation! Resignation!

NAOMI KLEIN: They voted out Aznar a few days later. Many people said they did it because he reminded them of Franco, Spains former dictator.

Which brings us to step three: Know your history. Throughout U.S. history, national crises have been used to suspend constitutional protections and attack basic rights. After the Civil War, with the nation in crisis, the promise of 40 acres and a mule to freed slaves was promptly betrayed. In the midst of the pain and panic of the Great Depression, as many as 2 million people of Mexican descent were expelled from the United States. After the Pearl Harbor attacks, around 120,000 Japanese Americans were jailed in internment camps. If an attack on U.S. soil were perpetrated by people who were not white and Christian, we can be pretty damn sure that racists would have a field day. And the good folks of Manchester recently showed us how to respond to that.

PROTESTER: The people of Manchester dont stand with your xenophobia and racism!

NAOMI KLEIN: Something else we know from history, step four: Always follow the money. While everyone is focused on security and civil liberties, Trumps Cabinet of billionaires will try to quietly push through even more extreme measures to enrich themselves and their class, like dismantling Social Security or auctioning off major pieces of government for profit.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Today were proposing to take American air travel into the future.

NAOMI KLEIN: Its in those moments when fear and chaos are sucking up all the oxygen when we most have to ask: Whose interests are being served by the chaos? What is being slipped through while were distracted? Whos getting richer, and whos getting even poorer?

WENDELL PIERCE: When the floodwaters were still rising in New Orleans, one of the first official acts that the governor did was to fire all the teachers. Whats happening is a raid of the money set aside for public education to be given to private companies. It wasnt by happenstance. It was by design. You saw the political manipulations and taking advantage of the crisis.

NAOMI KLEIN: But if we learn from this history, we could actually make history, with step five: Advance a bold counterplan. At their best, all the previous steps can only slow down attempts to exploit crisis. If we actually want to defeat this tactic, opponents of the shock doctrine need to move quickly to put forward a credible alternate plan. It needs to get at the root of why these sorts of crises are hitting us with ever greater frequency. And that means we have to talk about militarism, climate change and deregulated markets. More than that, we need to advance and fight for different models, ones grounded in racial, economic and gender justice, ones that hold out the credible promise of a tangibly better and fairer life in the here and now and a safer planet for all of us in the long term.

AMY GOODMAN: That video, produced by The Intercept. Their senior correspondent, Naomi Klein, author of the new book, released this week, No Is Not Enough: Resisting Trumps Shock Politics and Winning the World We Need. Yes, a shock. Youre a specialist in analyzing what happens next, Naomi.

NAOMI KLEIN: Right. And, you know, the reason why I wrote this book very quickly, for meyou know, it usually takes me five years to write a book; I did this in less than five monthsis because I really wanted it to come out before any kind of major crisis hits the United States. I mean, lots of people out there see Trump himself as a crisis, and, you know, I would tend to agree, but what really has me scared is what this configuration of characters in the Trump administrationPence, Bannon, Betsy DeVos, Steve Mnuchin, all these Goldman Sachs alum who are in the Cabinethow they would respond to a large-scale crisis that they themselves are not creating. I mean, the chaos is chaos theyre generating themselves, either deliberately or out of incompetence and avarice, but what happens if theres a 2008-like financial crisis? What happens, you know, heaven forbid, if there is a Manchester-like attack in the United States?

The actions of this administration make these types of shocks more likely, not less, right? Theyre deregulating the banks, creating the conditions for another crash. They are antagonizing the world, particularly the Muslim world. You know, ISIS apparently called Trumps Muslim travel ban a "blessed ban," because it was so good for recruitment. They areyou know, they are making climate disasters more likely with everything theyre doing to deregulate industry, deregulate for polluters. You know, theres a lag time between that and when the climate shocks hit, but the truth is, weve already warmed the planet enough that no U.S. president can get through a year, let alone a term, without some sort of major climate-related disaster.

So, how does this group ofthis Cabinet of disaster capitalists, is what I call them, Amy, because there is such a track record of taking advantage of crisis, whether were looking at the Goldman Sachsformer Goldman Sachs executives and the way they profited from the subprime mortgage crisis to increase their own personal wealth, whether its Mike Pence and the central role he played when New Orleans was still underwater to come up with a corporate wish list to push through. So, you know, as disastrous as Trumps policies have been so far, theres actually long, toxic to-do lists, things that people around Trump and Trump himself have beenhave very openly said they would like to do, but they have actually not been able either to get through without a crisis or they havent even tried, right? Think about Trumps threats to bring back torture. Think about his threats to bring the feds into Chicago. Think about his threats not just to have a Muslim travel ban from specific countries, but not to let Muslims into the country, period.

So I think we do need to prepare for this. And what I tried to do with this video is create a little toolkit of, you know, what I have seen work in other countries, because I have been reporting on shocks and large-scale disasters and how societies respond now for a couple of decades, and Ive seen some amazing acts of resistance, you know?

AMY GOODMAN: And talk about those. We saw some images of them here.

NAOMI KLEIN: Yeah. So, one of the things I think we could really count on Trump to do, particularly if there is any kind of terrorism-related shockand lets be clear: There have been terrorism events, white supremacist terrorism, in the United States during the Trump era, but of course he doesnt treat those as a crisis. So, an event that they decided was a large-scale crisis, we already know from the way Trump responded to the London Bridge attackshe immediately said, "This is why we need to bring back my travel ban." After the Manchester attacks, he immediately said, "This is about immigrants flooding across our borders." In fact, the person responsible for those attacks was born in the U.K. It doesnt matter. You know, we know this from 9/11, that the waythese crises are used as opportunities to push through policies that actually have very little to do with getting at root causes, and, in many cases, exacerbatemost notably, the invasion of Iraq, which had nothing to do with 9/11, but it was just that sheer opportunism.

So, you know, what Ive seen is, I think, in all likelihood, they would declare a state of emergency, some sort of state of exception, where theyre able to ban protests, like the protests we saw, the very inspiring protests in the face of the Muslim travel ban. They would say, "No, you cant block a road. You cant block an airport. This isyou could be a target of terrorism yourself. Stay in your homes."

So, you know, I give a few examples, like Argentina in 2001, when, as the president was declaring a state of siege and telling people to stay in their homes, people described not being able to hear him because the sound from the streets was so loud, the roar of pots and pans, and neighbors flooding out of their homes and going to the Plaza de Mayo and refusing this state of siege, wasthat they drowned him out. They literally couldnt hear him. So other people left their houses. And, you know, in that moment, thats the moment to resist. You know, that is the moment to just not accept it. And its really a question of strength in numbers, because if it is only the kind of hardcore activists that are out on the streets, its really easy to crush small protests. Its harder to do it when it is hundreds of thousands of people. So I wanted to share some of these stories of societies that have just said, "We will not let you do it." Right?

I was in France, as were you, Amy, a week after the horrific terrorist attacks in 2015. We were there for the Paris climate summit. A week before, 200 people had been killed in Paris in coordinated attacks. The French government, under Franois Hollande, a Socialist governmentSocialist in name only, but, you know, a left governmentdeclared a state of emergency and banned political gatherings of more than five people. You know, if that can happen in France under a Socialist government, in a country with a very deep history of disruptive strikes, what do we expect Trump and Bannon and Pence to do at the earliest opportunity? So, I think its important to strategize.

Its important to know the history in the United States. You know, in all these countries, the examples I giveArgentina, why did they flood out of their houses? You ask people. They said, "It reminded us of the beginning of the dictatorship in 1976. Thats how it started. They told us that we werent safe and that it was going to be a temporary state of emergency. And it ended up turning into a dictatorship." So they saw the early signs, and they said, "No, not again. Nunca ms." Right? You know, we talked to Americans about this. They say, "Well, we dont have that history." Really? What about the Japanese internment, you know? What about, as youve written, Amy, what about what happened to MexicanMexican Americans in the United States during the Great Depression and during that crisis and the mass deportations? There is this history in many communities, and those communities keep that history alive. You know, during Hurricane Katrina, so many African Americans talked about the history of how crises had been used to further oppress black people in this country. But these stories are offloaded into those communities, who hold them and keep that history alive. It isnt nationally metabolized, right? And so we have to share these stories. And I do think there is a memory now of what happened after September 11th and the rights that were lost and the ways in which peoples grief was exploited by men in power who said, "Trust me." Dont make that mistake again.

AMY GOODMAN: What about the connection to war? I mean, you have what happened in Manchester, the horror there. You have the continued deaths in Yemen, the U.S.-backed Saudi bombing. Now the U.S. has expanded both in Somalia and in the Philippines with U.S. forces.

NAOMI KLEIN: Mm-hmm, yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: You have this horrific attack that took place in Kabul, where over 150 Afghans died. It hardly got any attention. But the rage that must be brewing at the grassroots when they dont get any media attention from the West?

NAOMI KLEIN: Yeah, right, right. You know, people are being erased, you know, and this is a very, very old story. No, theyre already expanding the battlefields, escalating on multiple, multiple fronts. And, you know, this is the most dangerous, most lethal way that shocking events are exploited, peoples fear exploited.

And, you know, lets remember that this administration will have various motivations for changing the subject away from their domestic scandals. And Trump has never gotten better media coverage than in the wake of thehis Syrian missile strike, you know, called "beautiful" by Brian Williams. And itsyou know, suddenly, he was presidentialright?ordering cruise missiles over delicious chocolate cake at Mar-a-Lago. So, you know, we have to be very, very vigilant about this.

And, you know, the U.S. has had a strong antiwar movement in the past, but that antiwar movement hasnt been in the streets in the same way. And, you know, I think that thisthese resistance movements are going to have to get ready for that kind of a shock, because once the wars begin, you know, its very hard to stop them.

Another example, I think, of shock resistance, we just saw in the U.K. during Jeremy Corbynsduring Jeremy Corbyns campaign, where Theresa May was exploiting the Manchester attacks, the London Bridge attacks, to say, "We are going to, you know, have to get rid of your online privacy. You know, we need backdoors into all of your communication apps. We may need to suspend human rights law." And Jeremy Corbyn was talking about root causes, the failure of the war-on-terror paradigm and how this is leading to an increase in these types of attacks. And, you know, I think that a lot of people decided that that made more sense after these many years, like not to double down and give up rights in these moments, but to try to understand why this is happening and to do something about it.

AMY GOODMAN: And so, Theresa May lost her Conservative majority in the Parliament. On Saudi Arabia, the first country President Trump went to, the first foreign country, was Saudi Arabia. He does the orb with the Saudi Arabians. He does the sword dances, or tries, with the Saudi Arabians.

NAOMI KLEIN: The sword stumble.

AMY GOODMAN: He seals these deals, well over $110 billion, leaves there extolling the Saudi leadership and attacks the European leaders, and then comes home, and, despite the almost begging of the European leaders on the issue of the climate accord, he not only attacks them, but then comes home to the United States and announces hes withdrawing from the very accord theyre pleading with him to remain in. What about this primacy of Saudi Arabia right now, both its connection to war, with the U.S.-backed Saudi bombing of Yemen, which is leading to a horrific cholera epidemic, not to mention just the number of deaths, and climate change?

NAOMI KLEIN: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. You know, one of the things that really worries me is how motivated these petrostates are to have more instability, because that sends the price of oil up, and, you know, their profits flow even more. Its something that the Saudis have in common with the Russians, have in common with Rex Tillerson, former CEO of Exxon. You know, the way I think we should see that foreign trip of Trumps is basically as traveling weapons salesman, right? And hes sending this message: You buy enough American weapons, youre our friend. You know? Like this is the price. So he heaps praise on Saudi Arabia for, you know, having done that, having made that deal, and he goes to Europe, and he screams at them, you know, NATO members, for not pulling their weight, right? Which means not buying enough weapons. You know, Im Canadian. Im Canadian-American, dual citizen. But my government shamefully came home and announced a massivesorry, a massive increase in weapons spending. So, you know, this isthis is Trumps foreign policy, is traveling weapons salesman.

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Web Exclusive: Naomi Klein on How to Resist Trump's Shock Politics - Democracy Now!

This post is part of Mischiefs of Faction, an independent political science blog featuring reflections on the party system.

An incidence of political violence occurred Wednesday. This, a horrific shooting in Alexandria, Virginia, as Republican members of Congress practiced for a baseball game, is different from the Greg Gianforte incident a few weeks ago. The rhetoric surrounding a violent incident matters, and, of course, the method and scale matters too.

But both incidents are likely to shape a bigger conversation in American politics about why this type of violence is happening now. As Ezra Klein pointed out in a somewhat complicated set of tweets, the ability to resolve differences and make policy without violence is as essential as it is difficult.

Two fantastic political behavior researchers, Nathan Kalmoe and Lilliana Mason, have shared their insights. Mason provides some detail about the nature and context of American political divisions, explaining that both parties treat each other with the contempt inherited from years of racial and religious strife. Kalmoe suggests that violent political rhetoric, along with individual personality factors, can drive support for political violence.

But another point of Kalmoes stood out the most to me. He writes, Another important factor was political disaffection. People who doubted that elections get government to pay attention to citizens were 12 points more supportive of political violence compared to those with the most confidence in elections.

Based on my own research and observations, this seems like a crucial element to understanding violent politics. Perhaps its not just dehumanization and animosity. It seems likely that a sense of political frustration or helplessness also contributes to a political situation in which people talk, joke, and even act on the idea of solving political differences with violence.

Contemplating the structural conditions does not absolve individuals of responsibility for their actions. And it does not limit the possibility that violent individuals will take out these tendencies in other ways, as it appears Wednesdays shooter also may have done. But we have to face the fact that some political disputes are resolved peacefully while others are not, and there are reasons for this difference.

Ive been saying for a while now that American politics is underresponsive and overresponsive at the same time. This observation is based on my research about mandate politics. Mandate rhetoric is designed to sound responsive: Politicians claim they are doing the peoples business carrying out the policies that are the reasons they were elected.

But on the other side of that coin is the sense that once youve won, you have a broad mandate to implement your agenda, objections be damned. That your election victory justifies what you said to get there and what you do with the power of elected office. And in a polarized political context, that can mean that moving forward with a policy agenda without making concessions to the other side.

Without assuming identical tactics or policy agendas, theres plenty of evidence to suggest that both Democrats and Republicans have felt this way in the past decade or so. Under divided government, its possible both sides felt this way that those in power were failing to respond to their concerns and policy demands.

On his excellent comparative politics blog, Tom Pepinsky wrote back in January about how most authoritarian politics is characterized not by daily dystopia but by boring and tolerable existence in which political participation had little effect on the government. This post has haunted me as Ive watched the 115th Congress unfold, with jammed phone lines and canceled town hall meetings. Democracy requires real responsiveness and transparency. Elections are part of responsiveness, but the process doesnt end once the ballots have been counted.

There will be a lot of takes, I expect, castigating the tone of political discourse and calling for civility. But I suspect a deeper explanation for why political differences give way to violence has to do with the frustration of unresponsive politics. No level of frustration justifies violence. An important part of democracy, however, is trying to understand the conditions that allow anger to fester and make violence look to some like a viable approach. Peaceful democratic governance is better, and it requires leaders who listen to their citizens not just the ones who voted for them, and not just during an election year. Theres not much the left and right agree on, but perhaps these principles can be a start.

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Political violence is a sign of eroding democracy - Vox