Interview · moment 9 of 10
Nationalism, Migration, and Europe's Fraying Order
from We're Toast with Russ Baker · #118
Audio-only archive episode — no video to seek.
8 minGuest
They discuss Steve Bannon's European tour, rising authoritarian nationalist figures worldwide, and a nuanced take on why fear of demographic and economic change (using shifting neighborhoods as an analogy) drives people toward extremism, plus the failure of elites to represent citizens.
- 40:46Change is deeply unsettling, and dismissing people who fear it as racist is a mistake Democrats make.
- 41:17Europe faces assimilation problems that America doesn't have; immigrants there don't integrate the way they do in the US.
- 41:48White flight from neighborhoods is real, but so is gentrification destroying those same neighborhoods later.
- 42:39People are naturally self-interested; elites in charge have lost connection to what citizens actually need.
- 43:53Steve Bannon fascinates as a figure who went from Goldman Sachs to Breitbart to reshaping global politics.
- 44:47Populist strongmen—Hitler, Trump, Brazil's kooky presidential candidate—emerge as reactions when traditional excellence fails.
- 45:51There's an inevitability to leaders like Obama or Roosevelt who excel from youth, versus the schlubby guys who come from nowhere.
- 46:35Stephen Miller, whose teacher said he ate glue, became a top presidential advisor—showing improbable characters always rise.
- 47:09Media have limited bandwidth and choose which problems to focus on; vote suppression matters more than following Steve Bannon's movements.