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The Current Transcript for January 17, 2020

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

Can of woman beat Donald Trump. Look at the men on this stage. Collectively, they have lost 10 elections. The only people on this stage who have won every single election that they've been in are the women.

[Cheers]

MATT GALLOWAY: The issue of whether a woman could ever be elected president of the United States was front and centre in the latest Democratic debate this morning, two women with long political resume aides talk about gender, electability and sexism, both in the United States and here in Canada. That's coming up in about half an hour. And then.

SOUNDCLIP

The old idea of the two parties in America and many countries just doesn't matter anymore. It's now elitist versus populist. It's the cities versus the rural areas and everything's being realigned that way.

MG: Confirmed elitist, Joel Stein, bravely took it upon himself to explore that divide up close. His new book is called In Defence of Elitism: Why I'm Better Than You and You're Better than Someone Who Didn't Buy This Book. Cue outrage in an hour. We begin, though, with the outrage in Australia over a thriving coal industry, raging bushfires. And a prime minister who's taken a side. Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway. This is The Current.

Australia climate protests

Guests: Lily Campbell, Greg Busson, Justin Fisher

SOUNDCLIP

[Crowds protesting]

What do we want? Climate action? When do we want it? Now.

MG: The signs read koala is not coal, and we're fired up about climate action. Tens of thousands of Australians took to the streets this past week protesting in cities across that country. Their anger is directed at the government, saying its climate policy is contributing to the ongoing bushfires and a particular target of that anger. Prime Minister Scott Morrison accused of having a cozy relationship with the coal industry. Lily Campbell is with Uni Students for Climate Justice, organisers of these protests. Lily, hi.

LILY CAMPBELL: Hi, Matt. How's it going?

MG: I'm well. Tell me why you're out protesting.

LILY CAMPBELL: We are protesting to bring down Scott Morrison. I think the fire crisis has really ravaged Australia over the past couple of months now, but the anger has really turned towards the government, their inaction, Scott Morrison's decision to flee the country in a time of crisis and continued inaction on climate change as well, remaining totally addicted to fossil fuels. We wanted to fund the fire service as well and demand services and action for the communities most affected.

MG: These have been huge protests. How many people have been out there with you?

LILY CAMPBELL: Well, I was an organiser of the Sydney demonstration and we reckon there was about 60,000 people in Sydney on Friday, which is amazing considering it was a snap demonstration. In Melbourne, 30,000, kind of accumulative play across the country on Friday. I think it was about 100,000 people. And then today there's been more actions all across the country demanding action.

MG: What do those numbers tell you about what's happening in your country?

LILY CAMPBELL: I think there is a serious politicization going on and people are starting to realise that Australia isn't the lucky country, but also that in the climate crisis, which is now we're living it, nobody is going to come to save us. The government has just abandoned ordinary people and communities everywhere. People may have seen I don't know what their news has been like in Canada. People stray on a beach and Maliki to with blood red skies. Families left for five days. And people just think that this couldn't happen here. But it's happening here. It's happening now. And the rich have just abandoned us.

MG: You say that the prime minister has abandoned the country. I mean, controversially, he was out on vacation in Hawaii and then had to come back when the fires got too hot and the pressure got hard on him. What else do you think he hasn't done when it comes to what's happening there?

LILY CAMPBELL: I think expressing basic human empathy is a thing that is seriously lacking from Scott Morrison. Famously he had to hire an empathy consultant before he went around the country in order to know how to relate to people. I think also seriously lacking action on climate change. Morrison is famous for fondling a lump of coal in parliament and his close relationships with the fossil fuel industry. So I think the anger at Scott Morrison right now is both his kind of personal ineptitude in dealing with the crisis, but also a built up anger over the past year of climate strikes and his intransigence on the issue of climate change. And it's a little now spilling over into the demand to sack Scott Morrison.

MG: So the first thing you said is that you want him brought down. What would change if the prime minister were to be given the sack?

LILY CAMPBELL: Good question. I think the Liberal Party through and through they're kind of soldiers for the coal industry and a bunch of ways. But I think the next Liberal prime minister, whoever he may be, will be on his toes. If it isn't, we managed to bring down the current administration.

MG: There are many people, many thousands of people across Australia who work in that coal industry. What would you say to the people who rely on that industry to make a living, to keep the lights on, to keep food on the table?

LILY CAMPBELL: Just transition away from fossil fuels. I think that every working person should have the right to food, electricity, but that the people who are your enemies are coal bosses who say that your only option is by sticking with fossil fuels. Future of their climate catastrophe is a catastrophe for everyone. Australia is on fire right now, but Indonesia is under water. So I think, you know, I implore fossil fuel workers to join the climate movement that we are not against, instead, we're building a world where we no longer need fossil fuels. We can have a just sustainable economy.

MG: But what does that mean, just transition? These are people. This is their livelihood. This is what they depend on, again, to keep the food on the table. So what is a just transition mean in the lives of those people who work in the coal mines?

LILY CAMPBELL: Well, I think Australia is going to need an enormous systemic change to almost the entire way that the economy functions. The bedrock of our economy is coal, and it's not being shut down anytime soon. But I think in order to seriously move away from fossil fuels and be able to establish new industries where people can work in fields that they actually enjoy working in, that don't give them black lung, another discussing diseases that you get from working in coal mines, there's the capacity to create a society with collective effort that doesn't rely on these disgusting industries.

MG: Is it realistic to move to that society? I mean, in the immediate term. Right now, as you know, your country's on fire and people are pointing the finger at the prime minister, as you said, for fondling that lump of coal. And people want change immediately. So, is it realistic to think that that that kind of transition can happen in this, the speed and with the pace that you're you're calling for?

LILY CAMPBELL: I think it's unrealistic to think that you could solve the climate catastrophe that we're facing within the bounds of the system that we now have. I think in order to like, you know, start to chip away at the power the fossil fuel industry has means an enormous transformation of the whole of society. So being realistic, like I think to be realistic means the demand total system change, which has been the demand of the school strikes for the past year and was the demand of the demonstration as well on Friday.

MG: Lily, great to talk to you. I appreciate it. Thank you.

LILY CAMPBELL: Thank you very much.

MG: Bye now. Lily Campbell is with Uni Students for Climate Justice. She was in Sydney. Coal is one of Australia's biggest exports and the coal industry directly employs tens of thousands of Australians. And as you heard, Scott Morrison, support for Australia's coal industry has been a staple of his career. Lily, mentioned that story of the prime minister, as she put it, fondling a lump of coal. It happened on the floor of the Australian parliament in 2017.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: This is coal. That'll be fried. That'll be steak.

VOICE 2: Treasurer knows the role on crops.

VOICE 1: It's coal. It's coal that has been sought for over 100 years. And energy competitive advantage that has delivered prosperity to Australian businesses and has ensured a thriving industry has been able remain competitive on a global market.

MG: Greg Busson is the district secretary of the CFMEU union that represents coal miners and energy workers in Western Australia. Greg, hello to you.

GREG BUSSON: Well, how are you this morning?

MG: Ye, I'm well. I know you listening to our conversation with Lily Campbell. I want to get to that in a moment. But tell me about your connection with the coal industry. How long have you been working in that world?

GREG BUSSON: I work 35 years with a company called Griffin Coal in Collie. Machine operator truck driver. As it is, Collie would rely, solely reliant, on the energy sector in the coal mine. It's generational employment in the town.

MG: You'd have families and parents and grandparents and what have you who worked in that industry as well.

GREG BUSSON: Yes. The town is, that's what it was built for: coal, 125 years of history with coal mining supply over a third of the [unintelligible] for Western Australia.

MG: What do you make of what you heard from Lily Campbell about why tens of thousands of Australians have been out protesting in the streets and how they see the coal industry?

GREG BUSSON: We in West Australia, we didn't have any protests over the last week. I understand what people are at, poorly law issue at the moment with what's going on the East Coast. And I agree with everything she said about the prime minister. That lack of empathy and support for certain causes above all else doesn't flow well, with the community apparently.

MG: Those protesters blame a number of things for what's happening. But you heard I mean, they say that the prime minister, in some ways, is in the pocket of the coal industry, has a cozy relationship with the fossil fuel industry, and that that has exacerbated the fires that are happening right now. As somebody again, who has long ties in that world, what is it like to hear that?

GREG BUSSON: Let's be upfront. As a union since the early 90s, we recognize the need that things can't go on forever. Our national president from the early 90s was trying to persuade governments and coal looking for clean coal technology. But unfortunately, as the last lady said, the majority of the Liberal Party people were climate change deniers. And most of the coal companies are out there for the profits of their shareholders. So they don't want to invest in any of this stuff. It's talk about profits now are not for the future.

MG: So you support the idea of, if not a transition away from the fossil fuel industry to something that would be better for the environment.

GREG BUSSON: It will currently, Collie, we're at 12 months into the transitioning end of coal, so we've got a better 20 to 25 year program. We're looking at to transition away from coal generated baseload power in Western Australia. Our main thing is that no one should be left behind. That transition should be just not just a transition which we adjust transition with equal pay and conditions to keep these communities alive that we're so reliant on the coal and power generation industries.

MG: What does that mean? I asked her that question. What does it just transition. If people have jobs that are dependent on that industry and you're going to face that industry, what happens to those people?

GREG BUSSON: Well, that's the thing. You know, Collie is probably unique to some other places because Collie is solely reliant on the coal industry and the power generation industry. Other sectors of the coal industry in Australia, whether it's power generation or export coal for coking coal for making steel and etc, may have other industries in the area. So it's probably a bit easy to set up a transition away from them. But it's like, you know, people have got a lifestyle. People that family. So it's about setting up other industries that will replace what we currently do over a period of time so that there's a scheduled transition away from that and that no one's left behind. There's no one forcibly be made redundant, no one forcibly sitting on welfare. There are jobs for the families to go forward so these communities can thrive and flourish. I suppose like a phoenix coming out of the ashes, probably a wrong pun, but they can have new meaning for their communities and always people are looked after, future generations are looked after and the prosperity of the region is assured going forward.

MG: What sort of anxiety are the workers that you represent feeling facing that?

GREG BUSSON: They are because these coal places are generational jobs problem. A just transition also involves the workforce to end the community to have an input into what they want their community to look like, what jobs they would like to see in the community, and what jobs they would like for their children and your children's children. It's a bit of a shock to the system early on because it's a brand new world out there. It's a gradual change. We're looking at slowly phasing things out as new things come on so that you've actually got some to transition into. You will shut down one industry tomorrow and you got to wait another couple of years for something else. So you need something that drags those people along when they can transition at a pace that suits them. Just some people in the coal industry or close to retirement, others are just starting. So there's different needs for those different people. Some people might want to take an early redundancy or transition into part time work or rehabilitation of the mine sites when they finish. Other people want long term employment going forward that has like terms and conditions as far as living standards.

MG: Do you feel like you have an ally in the prime minister's office? Where are the protesters saying that Scott Morrison is too cozy with the coal industry and that they want him removed from office. Do you feel like he is a supporter of you or of your industry?

GREG BUSSON: To a certain degree, I think Scott Morrison is a trained very well as Scott [unintelligible]. But people as the last guest said, people would rather they took the line of I support coal. They took that as their policy. It was a statement. It wasn't a policy.

MG: Just finally and briefly, have the fires changed? Do you think how people in your industry see not just call but see climate change?

GREG BUSSON: I don't think it's on the [unintelligible] industry. I think a lot of people are now questioning, you know, before it was just, you know, you're either a sceptic or you're a believer. I think now people say that you don't have to be a full blown believer, but you know that things are changing. Whether it's fully to do with the coal industry or whatever, it depends on people's different beliefs. But there's enough evidence out there. And what we've seen in the philosophy of them and what the environment's suffering as far as how dry it is, the fires, the fire season is getting longer. I think this actually hits home now and people who start, they are standing up and starting to take notice.

MG: Greg, I am glad to talk to you. I appreciate it. Thank you.

GREG BUSSON: Thanks very much. Appreciate the opportunity.

MG: Greg Busson is the district secretary of the CFMEU union that represents coal miners and. Eastern Australia. Of course, Australia isn't the only country struggling to balance climate change with fossil fuel industries. Justin Fisher is a researcher for Climate Justice Saskatoon. He studies the history of fossil fuels and the coal industry here in Canada. Justin, good morning.

JUSTIN FISHER: Good morning.

MG: What do you make of what you heard from Greg Busson and Lily Campbell? Perhaps to some people, but more alignments than they might expect from a climate protester and somebody who represents workers in the coal industry?

JUSTIN FISHER: Yes, for sure. I think in many ways I was struck by how similar the conversation is to what we see in Saskatchewan and in Alberta as well. I guess on a bigger scale in Australia when you're talking about a lot more people employed in those industries there. But, you know, here we've also got climate justice activists and we've also got a lot of people that are working in the coal industry. I was excited to hear Greg talking so, so much about a just transition which suggests that that conversation is a little bit further ahead. There you see a little bit more alignment than we tend to see here.

MG: How much coal is produced here in Canada?

Well, it's not nearly as much as in Australia. About three quarters of the coal it's produced in Canada is produced in Alberta. [Unintelligible] has been in Saskatchewan, which is the second biggest producer, and the vast majority of what we produce is used for electrical production here. We're still using coal for about 35 to 40 percent of our electricity in Saskatchewan.

MG: And so in the communities where coal is being produced, what conversations do you hear about climate change?

JUSTIN FISHER: Well, interestingly, over the past two years, I was involved with a project where a group of climate justice advocates went into these two communities in Saskatchewan, Amsterdam and [unintelligible], which are our principal coal producing communities, to have conversations about phasing out coal, what the impacts of that would be on those communities and why those policies are being advocated for. Interestingly, you know, we were going in to try and find what common ground exists, what our differences are. And I think we found that there is significant common ground in that we all quite read about both the future and not just the far off future, but the future in our lifetimes. And we're all feeling let down by decision makers. But it was important that climate change was playing really different roles in those worries, which speaks of the need to have more listening in both directions. You know, for us, for people advocating for these types of policies, climate change is the reason that we're phasing out coal. Whereas for some folks in these communities, climate change policy is what's making them fearful for losing their jobs and the viability of their communities.

MG: And is your sense that that listening isn't happening in both directions, that people are making assumptions from either end of this conversation?

JUSTIN FISHER: Yes, and I think they were encouraged to do that through the sort of political process and rhetoric that's going on. I think we're raft and I might even suggest pitted against each other as an excuse for inaction that, you know, that all of the conversation is so polarized. You can't please everybody. But the exciting thing about the work that we were doing is we found that, you know, when we actually did shut down in a room together, we were able to identify that pavers. Some common concerns here. There are things that we can work together on. You know, if we can work through some of our differences, but it doesn't have to be as polarized as it's presented.

MG: But is there a real concern in those communities that you visited that people's livelihoods are at stake when the conversation ends up shifting to let's eliminate the production of this material. Let's stop taking coal into the ground?

JUSTIN FISHER: Yes, absolutely. And another important thing I learned through that work is that, no two coal communities are alike. I mean, asked around in [unintelligible] community of over 10000 people, whereas [unintelligible] is a community of about 600 people. So for a small place like [unintelligible], it's really an existential crisis where everybody's employed either directly or indirectly, it seems, in that industry. But we also heard in those conversations that there's a lot of concerns about how this is just compounding this process of rural decline that we've been facing for many years, where these communities have been losing services, losing health services, not having the roads repaired. And so in general, they've been feeling kind of let down and not part of these conversations. And they really just don't want to be forgotten about anymore. So like Greg was talking about in Australia, I mean, the imperative is to find solutions that can keep people in those communities, having local conversations about the kinds of solutions might work there, because everybody everybody's facing unique challenges and opportunities.

MG: Do you see, and Greg mentioned this at the end of our conversation, do you see an influence on, you know, the conversation around climate change from things like these huge fires in Australia, or even what happened in Fort McMurray a few years ago?

JUSTIN FISHER: I think that that is having an impact for sure. I mean, we're seeing fires pop up around the world now. You know, in Canada, in the boreal forest, in California, in Australia, more and more extreme weather events. And people are definitely taking note about that. I think folks in Saskatoon, where I am I, we're getting a little bit more accustomed to the fact that for periods of our summer, our air quality is becoming really polluted to fires in the north. I don't think that things have kind of reached the scale of crisis that they're at in Australia right now. But I think all of these things together are making people realize that these changes are happening a lot faster and in many cases a lot closer to home than expected. And therefore, the changes that we need to see in our economy and society also have to happen faster than we kind of anticipated.

MG: Just in the last few seconds that we have. You talked about listening. Is there really the will to listen from both sides and get beyond that rhetoric?

JUSTIN FISHER: I honestly think that there is. I mean, when I travelled into those communities, I didn't really know what to expect. Everybody was extremely welcoming, really wanted to be heard and to hear more about what I had to say. I think often we're afraid to take that step. But I'd really encourage more people to be out in their own situations with their family and friends. But also, if, you know, folks that are facing these kinds of challenges reach out and have those conversations.

MG: Justin, great to talk to you about this. Thank you.

JUSTIN FISHER: Thank you.

MG: Justin Fisher pitched his candidate at the University of Saskatchewan studying the history of fossil fuels in Canada. We did request interviews with Scott Morrison and a member of his government. No one was available to talk with us this morning. The CBC News is next. And then last summer, Patrick Matthews disappeared. He was a former reservist from Manitoba, was under investigation, accused of recruiting for a global neo-Nazi group. Patrick Matthews has been found in the United States and arrested by the FBI. We'll find out why coming up in about six minutes. My name is Matt Galloway and this is The Current on CBC Radio One.

'Not too surprising' that Canadian ex-military member allegedly involved in U.S. neo-Nazi group: reporter

Guests: Jared Holt

MG: Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current.

[Music: Theme]

MG: Still to come, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren is taking on the men. She's vying to be the Democratic nominee for president, but also calling out detractors who say a woman can't win the White House. That story coming up in about 10 minutes. But first, the role of a Canadian in rising tensions over gun control in Virginia.

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

We have received credible intelligence that there are groups, militia groups and hate groups planning to travel from across the country to disrupt our democratic process with acts of violence. They are coming to intimidate and to cause harm.

MG: That is the information that prompted Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam to declare a state of emergency this week. The democratic process that he's talking about is a pro-gun rally planned for next Monday in the capital, Richmond. The FBI has arrested three men who talked about going to that rally, including a Canadian named Patrik Mathews. He's a former Army reservist, disappeared last August after the RCMP raided his home northeast of Winnipeg and seized weapons. The FBI says it found him with two other members of a neo-Nazi group called The Base, which Mr. Mathews had been recruiting for in Manitoba before he vanished. The trio face charges, including transporting a firearm and ammunition with intent to commit a felony. Jared Holt tracks far right groups as an investigative reporter with the non-profit publication Right Wing Watch. Jared, good morning.

JARED HOLT: Good morning.

MG: What are these men alleged to have done?

JARED HOLT: These men are alleged to have belonged to a violent white supremacist paramilitary organization in the U.S. called The Base. This is a group that differs from sort of run of the mill white supremacist organizations and that they explicitly call for acts of terrorism to advance their agenda. And what these three men were accused of was gathering parts to create an assault rifle and gathering ammunition with the intention or at least discussions to have the intention to attend a pro-gun rally coming up on Monday in Virginia.

MG: And what were they? What do police and law enforcement officials think that they're going to do in Virginia?

JARED HOLT: It's yet to kind of be seen. With the track record of the group that they're alleged to have belonged to, we can't imagine that it was anything short of violence.

MG: There has been discussion that perhaps their goal that you talked about, their agenda was to or is to accelerate a race war, to create something that would lead to further conflict. Tell me a bit more about that.

JARED HOLT: So the philosophy of groups like The Base is similar to another group called Atomwaffen Division. They come from a school of thought known in extremist studies as accelerationism. And this is the idea that in order to evoke their agenda of a white ethno state in the United States or Canada or whatever country they belong to, that the fastest path to that is to destabilise society through acts of mass chaos, including terrorism.

MG: And is that the sense that that this is perhaps what they were looking at doing in Virginia at this rally on Monday?

JARED HOLT: It's hard to imagine why they would have gathered automatic weapons and so much fire arm and body plates if that wasn't the intention.

MG: What do we know about Patrik Mathews? He's a former Canadian reservist, disappeared last summer. People say that he fled into the United States illegally. What do we know about him and what he's been doing since then?

JARED HOLT: He was, you know, at the time that he was sort of discovered to be connected to this group, The Base he was recruiting in Canada. And by all indications, he was continuing those kind of activities while he was here in the U.S. He entered the United States illegally through Canada, authorities allege, and was being harboured in Maryland, where members of the group were discussing over the course of the last year building some sort of compound to train and prepare for this race war that they intended to implement. And it seems that, you know, stockpiling this weapon and getting these ammunitions together was part of that.

MG: How surprising is it to you that a former member of the Canadian military is allegedly involved with this U.S. neo-Nazi group?

JARED HOLT: Unfortunately, it's not too surprising. These white supremacist groups are always in search of foot soldiers for their movement. And there is perhaps no better foot soldiers than a trained soldier. So we see white supremacist groups often target the military and active service members to try to build out their ranks with people like Mathews, who is reported to have had experience with explosives and, you know, combat engineering. So unfortunately, I wish it was more surprising, but it's not entirely shocking.

MG: And so what does that say to you, aside from his work, apparently as a recruit? What does what you've just said say to you about his significance to The Base?

JARED HOLT: I think, you know, for the agenda that The Base is trying to implement. He becomes a very high value figure in the organization because he's able to bring a type of knowledge base and experience and share it with others that enables the potential harm and violence of the group to skyrocket exponentially as to where an untrained civilian might not be able to inflict the level of violence they would otherwise.

MG: Why are those people who were arrested, including Patrik Mathews, facing these weapons related charges and not something more serious like domestic terrorism? If, as we heard from the governor, but also as you're saying, the allegations are that they were planning something significant at this rally on Monday.

JARED HOLT: So as U.S. law stands right now, domestic terrorism is defined, but there's no legal penalty for it, which means that oftentimes when it comes to terror groups like this or people that the government suspects are going to enact a act of terror, they are often booked on weapons charges or gun charges. There are efforts underway, advocacy groups and different lawmakers on Capitol Hill, here in D.C., are seeking to change those laws and rewrite them. But there's a lot of Second Amendment and First Amendment concerns that have to be considered in any sort of consideration of that.

MG: How sizable is this group, The Base? I mean, what else do we know about how many people might be involved in an organization, if I can call it like that?

JARED HOLT: The Base, their numbers are kind of a little bit up in the air. I would probably estimate it's less than 100 people, although the membership rolls and the day to day workings of the group are closely guarded secrets in modern times.

MG: The fact that these arrests took place, what does that tell you about the work that U.S. law enforcement is doing to try and find elements of the far right who might be planning acts like the ones that they say The Base was was plotting?

JARED HOLT: I mean, I think this is undeniably a win for U.S. law enforcement. I would like to imagine that through these arrests, U.S. law enforcement potentially save dozens, if not more lives on this rally that's coming up on Monday.

MG: What else do we know about the rally? This is happening on Monday, which happens to be Martin Luther King Day in the United States. What else do we know about the rally and who was meant to be coming to it?

JARED HOLT: So this is a rally hosted by Virginia Citizens Defence League. It's a pro Second Amendment pro gun group in the state of Virginia that's existed for some time. Every year they do something called lobby day. But with various gun control laws passing through the Virginia legislature, there was kind of a increased emphasis on this year's event. And that event has been drawing national attention from groups as far away as Nevada and Oklahoma. And it's also drawn the attention of militia groups and far right groups in the U.S. who hope to view this event as some sort of flash point or turning point where, you know, you can stand up against the government or perhaps kick off the mass unrest that a group like The Base is seeking to be responsible for.

MG: Its plan for happening in Virginia, in the capital not so far away from Charlottesville, where three years ago there was a rally that spiralled out of control and became a national incident. Are the two connected?

JARED HOLT: There is some fear that some of the groups and individuals that were participating in Charlottesville are going to make another appearance at this rally on Monday. And that's certainly a fear that the state of Virginia and Gov. Ralph Northam are very fearful of and are taking precautions to try to prevent. Charlottesville is still very fresh in the minds of Virginians. And I don't think anybody wants to see a repeat.

MG: Just briefly, what does all of this tell us about what's happening in the United States when it comes to the extreme right, perhaps not just in the United States, but across North America?

JARED HOLT: Well, I think after Charlottesville, we saw kind of what was portrayed in the media as the ultra right. This quasi supposedly intellectual white nationalist movement emerging really have its reputation damaged. Many movement leaders fell to the sidelines and, you know, there is kind of this mainstream idea I kept seeing go round that these movements had been defeated and debated out of the marketplace of ideas. But I think the recent events can just tell us that right wing extremism in the United States is as prevalent as ever and is still a very dangerous threat that law enforcement is taking seriously.

MG: Jared Holt, thank you so much.

JARED HOLT: It's been a pleasure.

MG: Jared Holt and tracking the extreme right as an investigative reporter with the non-profit publication Right Wing Watch.

[Music]

The challenges for women in politics

Guests: Amanda Hunter, Pat Sorbara

SOUNDCLIP

This question about whether or not a woman can be president has been raised and it's time for us to attack it head on. Look at the men on this stage. Collectively, they have lost 10 elections. The only people on this stage who have won every single election that they've been in are the women.

[Cheers]

MG: The consensus is that U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren probably got the line of the night award for that, she was speaking at the Democratic presidential debate this week. The question she's addressing isn't a new one whether women can win the highest seats of power in the United States, here in Canada as well. Now that Warren is attacking the issue head on, the debate is raging once again. Amanda Hunter is the research and communications director at the Barbara Lee Family Foundation. This is an organization that supports women in politics. Pat Sorbara is a longtime liberal strategist and the author of Let Them Howl: Lessons from a Life in Backroom Politics. Good morning to you both.

PAT SORBARA: Good morning, Matt.

AMANDA HUNTER: Good morning. Thank you for having us.

MG: Thanks for joining us, Amanda. We'll start with you. What was your reaction to what Elizabeth Warren said on that debate stage?

AMANDA HUNTER: Well, we've been studying the obstacles and opportunities women face when they run profits for 20 years. And so unfortunately, this is all very familiar to us. And based on our research, Senator Warren was able to really keep a light tone and show confidence and clearly she was prepared with facts. And we know that those are all tactics that win over voters. Voters assess women's confidence, tone of voice and presentation when evaluating likability. So he really did a great job laying out the case and clearly stole the debate in that moment.

MG: There's been some audio that's been released subsequently showing that perhaps the tone wasn't this light after the debate when she and Bernie Sanders had a heated moment and Bernie Sanders denied what Elizabeth Warren had said. Pat Sorbara, what did you make of what Elizabeth Warren said?

PAT SORBARA: Well, I was also quite excited to see the way that Elizabeth Warren handled it, because it is important not to kind of overreact or under react because people just look for an emotional reaction most of the time. So she did handle it in a very upfront, calm way. You know, the exchange with Bernie, I think that was OK, even because it's pretty natural that the two of them would have that out. They took very different positions during the day and they were going to have it out, you know, being caught on television, having that exchange. I don't think people were shocked it was going to happen. It's kind of good to see that they then talked about it.

MG: Well, and it leads to further discussion about the issue itself, which is what Senator Warren was was alleging that Bernie Sanders said that a woman could not be elected president. Amanda, if you take a look at what's happening right now on the Democratic ticket. Does what happened in 2016 when Hillary Clinton lost to Donald Trump make it more difficult for a woman to lead that ticket?

AMANDA HUNTER: Women have faced issues around questions on electability for years and years. And what 2016 really did was activate women across this country into political engagement in a way that we have not seen in hundreds of years, probably since the suffrage movement. And so we saw in 2018 a record number of women elected to office, propelled mostly by other women who were volunteering on campaigns, door knocking, passing out pamphlets and posting on social media. So I would argue that 2016 really laid the groundwork for what we're seeing right now with women's political engagement, with the caveat, of course, that women aren't a monolith when they vote and women don't always vote for other women force.

MG: And yet we still hear this talk of of electability and electability can mean any number of things, but it's asked about and pointed at someone like Elizabeth Warren. What? And I want to get to Pat in a moment. But from your perspective, Amanda, what does electability mean in this context?

AMANDA HUNTER: Well, we often say electability is really a code word for sexism, and especially in the context of 2020, because much of this is based on stereotypes. There is a long held stereotype in America of watch a presidential candidate looks like it's an older white man. And that's because for the entire history of this country, for hundreds of years, the norm was straight, white and male. And if you change one of those characteristics from male to female candidates face additional obstacles. What we found in recent years is that women seeking executive office have to run dual campaigns. In addition to the mainstage campaign where they're trying to win over voters, they have the additional burden of having to run what we call a campaign of belief that convinced donors and thought leaders and others that they can win. And men just simply do not have that extra burden. They're assumed to be qualified.

MG: Pat Sorbara.

PAT SORBARA: Yes, I agree with that. I think what's happened in Canada, though, is that we had a peak right in 2013. For almost a year, we had 80 percent of this country ruled by a woman, not ruled, but you know, there was a woman in power as a premier and few years later all of them were gone.

MG: What happened?

PAT SORBARA: Well, for us, I don't think it's so much about electability, but re-elect ability. And we I don't think we quite know yet. I think the research that being done in the states is not being done in Canada to the same level. And I think we need to get there to understand why voters- well, I mean, we worked very hard to find out why Kathleen Wynne had gone down to 12, 10 percent. And actually most voters could not actually articulate why they could no longer vote for her. And I think underneath sexism and and other issues were there, but they didn't articulate those.

MG: In this country, is electability a code word for sexism?

PAT SORBARA: Yes, I think it's a code word for sexism.

MG: What does what does it actually mean? I mean, if people talk about electability and that's a conversation, you're seeing it now playing out already in the early stages of a conservative leadership campaign, elections that are happened across the country, what does that actually mean to a voter or to people who are involved in politics?

PAT SORBARA: I think the problem is that it triggers, the word electability, triggers what people feel about whether women are accomplished enough, have done enough, things are experienced enough, or have actually had the careers that that men have had that make them competent. And it is the question of whether they feel women are as competent as men. And until we elect more women and they do the job for longer and there's more of them, I don't think we'll push through.

MG: In the fall, Valerie Ouellet who's the CBC senior data journalist, looked at the number of women in politics and found that women were still far behind men in political participation. You've hinted at a couple of things, but what's holding women back?

PAT SORBARA: I think there's a lot of things. I think we don't set women up for success the way we need to and that they're not men right there. Women need a different set of supports. They need a different way to proceed with their specific outlook, what they need to achieve. We don't do that.

MG: What do you mean by that?

PAT SORBARA: I mean that men- there's just an assumption that women are the same as men in politics. And they are not. They have different hurdles. They look at it differently. I talk in the book about imposter syndrome. Often women ask a lot of questions about whether they're even able to do the job. Like, am I going to be competent? Am I the right person to run? Can I get this done? And that's unusual, so we have to give them those a different set of support networks and stick with it all the way through.

MG: Amanda, are those support networks beginning to be established, that scaffolding to be beginning to be established in the United States?

AMANDA HUNTER: In the United States we're fortunate that we have a number of training organizations and great resources that are both bipartisan and resources on both sides of the aisle for women. But I do agree that the issue here in the state is not that women aren't qualified. A lot of times the women that are running, I would argue, may even be more qualified than their opponents. It's because women are held to a different and higher standard. We know from our research that voters assume men are qualified. Men just have to release their resume. Women have to prove and argue that they're qualified. And that's what we're seeing play out in 2020. Certainly the women senators in the race are qualified, accomplished women, and they have to prove over and over what they've achieved. We've heard in the debates some of the women senators use action oriented language, talk about bills that they've passed and projects that they've worked on. And that's probably no accident because that's what women need to do to remind voters over and over that they've done these things.

MG: You know that people, some people, might be listening, Amanda, who would say, why does this matter? That that if we're voting for somebody, we want to vote for the most competent person, whether it's a man or a woman, that should be irrelevant. Why to you, is it important that more women are elected, whether it's the Congress, whether it's to the White House?

AMANDA HUNTER: Well, certainly we also think that the most qualified person should win elections. What we're really looking at is how can women have an equal playing field because we know women have all of these barriers. And it's important in the United States because women represent more than 50 percent of the population in the U.S. And having more women in office creates a richer dialogue and debate and ultimately better public policy, anytime the government can look like the people it represents, it's going to be more effective.

MG: To a lot of people, this is about sexism in politics. And we know that that can be covert. It can also be right out in the open and it can be very ugly. In this country. Federal Cabinet Minister Catherine McKenna had sexist slurs yelled at her on the street. Her campaign office was vandalized. The right wing media let the rebel repeatedly called her climate Barbie when she was the minister of the environment. And at one point she said she'd had enough.

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JOURNALSIT: Christopher Wilson, Rebel Media. My questions for Mr. McKenna.

CATHERINE MCKENNA: So you're the rebel media that happens to call me Climate Barbie. I certainly hope that you will no longer use that hashtag.

JOURNALSIT: Personally, I never had minister.

CATHERINE MCKENNA: Just saying rebel media. So I can I get a commitment from you that you will not use that hashtag and not use that name in your articles?

JOURNALSIT: Well, me personally, yes, but I don't have control others.

CATHERINE MCKENNA: But I just would like a commitment that you will not call me names, that you won't talk about the colour of my hair, that you will make fun of me. And the reason I ask you not to do this is because I have two daughters. There are lots of girls that want to get into politics and it is completely unacceptable that you do this.

MG: That's from the press conference in 2017. Pat Sorbara, what is the impact of overt sexism on young women who might want to enter politics?

PAT SORBARA: So I just wanted to say that, to me, that moment with Catherine McKenna is like what we saw with Elizabeth Warren, the tone she used, the approach used straight up, calling it unacceptable, but not getting overly emotional. And that's important for women to see. For young women in politics, I think the big thing, again, comes down to being able to have success. So getting elected and then actually being able to do something once you're elected. We lose a lot of women in politics. They don't run again because they don't see that they were able to bring about the change that they ran for. So for young women in terms of sexism, I think with the Me Too movement and, you know, the no more stuff that's happening, I think we're seeing a lot of shifting in that and they're calling it out. So the more it gets called out, the more young women are standing up for themselves.

MG: Amanda, what's the danger, or is there a danger, in female politicians, as Pat says, calling it out and taking it and taking issues like that head on?

AMANDA HUNTER: Well, first of all, I think that was a fantastic interaction and she did everything right. But we know from our focus groups and from 20 years of focus groups that voters are a lot harder on women and anything that is even perceived or construed to be a whining or complaining is not popular with voters. And so that is another example of additional barriers that women face. It's effective for them to stand up for themselves, to call out sexism and show confidence because confidence is important. But then they can't be painting themselves as victims. And also, there was a recent New York Times article that said that written by Maggie Astor that said that generation Z women are the first generation in the states that will probably have women participate more in politics than men. And interviewed a lot of girls in high school that wanted to run for office. Now, that's very encouraging.

MG: Pat, briefly in this, are you seeing the possibility for change?

PAT SORBARA: I'm seeing the possibility. I'm not personally as encouraged in Canada because of this huge loss that we went through. And then you have to look at the [unintelligible] team like how many women leaders, even of opposition are there, how many women are running? I think the United States has moved into a world where they're doing a lot better with building the base so that more women find a way to run. We need to do more, a lot more of that in Canada.

MG: Pat Sorbara, thank you. And Amanda Hunter, thanks so much.

AMANDA HUNTER: Thank you.

MG: Amanda Hunter, director of research and communications at the Barbara Lee Family Foundation organization that supports women in politics. Pat Sorbara, a longtime liberal strategist, author of Let Him Howl: Lessons from a Life in Backroom Politics. Your thoughts welcome cbc.ca/thecurrent or on Twitter @TheCurrent CBC.CBC News is next. My name's Matt Galloway and this is The Current on CBC Radio One.

One man's case for elitism

Guest: Joel Stein

MG: Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway, and you're listening to The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

Unlike some of the folks in Washington, D.C., I'm talking about the cold shoed cosmopolitan goat's milk latte drinking. [Cheers] Avocado toast eating insiders [unintelligible]. I believe that everybody counts and I care about you.

MG: U.S. Republican Senator John Neeley Kennedy, no relation to the Massachusetts Kennedy clan, sure knows how to fire up a Trump rally, cause he probably didn't mention that he's actually an Oxford graduate because some Trump supporters might find that, well, a bit elitist. In this era of surging populism Joel Stein wanted to find out why elitism is growing and getting such a bad rap. The self-described elitist is the author of a new book. It's called In Defence of Elitism, Why I'm Better Than You and You're Better than Someone who didn't Buy this Book. Joel, good morning.

JOEL STEIN: Speaking on elitist public radio, there's no better place for an elitist than right here. So I'm not very happy to be here.

MG: Goat's milk, latte drinking. Did the senator give a good description of an elitist there?

JOEL STEIN: No, he must know better. Goat's milk. I think he means oat milk. We save our goats for yoga. He's a little bit off, but basically he has it right. And I think he- you know what? When Trump won the election, I got very freaked out because, you know, a member of the elite hadn't lost the presidency probably since Andrew Jackson. And I was I was legitimately really scared. I'd been scared after Brexit. I've been scared about your Ford brothers up there. And what I came to realize that night of the election was that this wasn't about racism. This wasn't about economics. This wasn't about sexism. Though those things matter, this really was a new world we were living. The old idea of the two parties in America and many countries just doesn't matter anymore. It's now elitist versus populist. It's the cities versus the rural areas. And everything's being realigned that way. And if people can't see that, I think they can't solve the problem.

MG: What makes you an elitist?

JOEL STEIN: Oh, my. So many things. First of all, as I said, I'm so excited to be on public radio right now. But more than anything, what defines me as an elitist is I believe that people with expertise are best to run things. And I don't think that relying on your gut and knowing more than the generals, as Trump often says about himself, is any way to run anything. And you know that about, even populists know that about whatever industry they're in or whatever expertise they have, they know they don't want someone who doesn't know anything about that world running it. And yet they feel very differently about politics. They, you know, they shun anyone involved in what Rush Limbaugh called the four horsemen of the apocalypse, I think, which was the media, academia, government - I'm trying remember the fourth one, but I'm probably a member of that one, too.

MG: You might be there as well.

JOEL STEIN: And, you know, I went down to this part of America, which had the highest percentage of Trump voters. 95.3 percent in the county of Roberts County in Texas. And I kind of asked them specifically what they object to about me, about elitists. And I quickly saw the difference and what made me an elitist and what made them a populist.

MG: There's I mean, we heard that in even a little clip there of the senator, whether he got the oat milk or goat's milk thing wrong.

JOEL STEIN: That's so sad.

MG: There is a lot of anger directed at elitist. Do you understand why people would be so angry and elitists?

JOEL STEIN: Yes. Because they are running our culture. And for the most part, still they're running our government. And I think the part of the world that's shrinking, which are these smaller towns, are very frustrated that no one is paying attention to their problems. Because when globalism occurred, change happened very, very quickly. And if you lived in a city, that change gets metabolized very, very quickly. And you kind of don't notice that, oh, gay marriage is fine and the women's movement has come a long way and with the Me Too movement. And there's all this change occurring that you don't notice is being a huge change. But when you go to an area that's not moving as quickly and it's probably physically shrinking as far as population and their lives are very similar to it was in the 1980s. These changes are dramatic. And people are standing on top of a mountain yelling, stop. And that's what they're looking for when they're moving towards nationalism and tribalism. They just want this globalization to stop.

MG: Why shouldn't they be offended if they've seen their lives turned inside out and upside down?

JOEL STEIN: I think they should be. I mean, look, globalization has saved so, literally saved, so many lives as far as people dying of diseases and starvation. It's done so much good in the world and caused so much wealth. However, there are pockets of the world where people haven't seen the same gains as people who are in cities, in the knowledge economies or in these, you know, developing nations that have really improved. There are these other pockets where life hasn't gotten better and where they have less power than they used to. For instance, I would talk to in this town, Miami, Texas, to people who were very Christian there. This town is entirely white, entirely Christian. And I would ask them because I'd read polls that said this. I'd ask them, do you feel like white Christians are more discriminated against than black people? And to a person, they all said definitely. And it took me a while to really understand what was going on. And eventually I realized that we feel acceleration, we don't feel speed. And what they've noticed is that white Christians have less power than they did 10, 20, 30 years ago. And that's real. Now, they still may have way more power than black people. But what they're noticing is that they have less. And it's an existential threat that the world that they live in is disappearing. And that's very, very true. And they feel like if they don't do something radical and extreme to stop it, that the world that they love and they believe is better for our country is going to disappear. And so they're willing to kind of do anything to stop it.

MG: Tell me about this town. Miami, Texas.

JOEL STEIN: So I was really nervous when I went down there as like, you know, an elitist Jew that I was going to this town. Everyone in my family and my friends were like, you should be careful when you get there. So I was really nervous.

MG: And what was it? What were they worried about?

JOEL STEIN: I think they were nervous that I would get beat up or shot, literally. I mean, you know, the I've been smug my whole life. When I was a child, I was called precocious, which is the which is I think the definition of precocious is smug child. So I think, you know, when I got down there, my sister was like, you can't wear those salmon coloured pants you have. So I think she just, they just figured that they would take one look at me and just decide I had to be beaten up.

MG: You end up there. What did you learn about the town? Describe this place.

JOEL STEIN: So I had read Hillbilly Elegy and I had a very specific idea of what I'd be running into in this very rural town, kind of in the middle of nowhere in Texas and the panhandle up near Oklahoma. And I figured they being a meth addicted coal mining mamas and that's not at all what I encounter. This is a really well educated and most people I went to had gone to college. They were very well off the poverty level there was much lower than it is in where I am in Los Angeles. And they were incredibly nice. I met at least half the town in the week I was there and I didn't pay for, I don't think I paid for one meal on my own. Now, there only was one cafe in town and it wasn't open that often. So I ate in people's houses a lot, but still they were so friendly and nice and honest and open. I had a really, truly great time.

MG: describe the people that you met there. Tell me more about them.

JOEL STEIN: They're very religious. I would walk, I remember walking into my first house for a coffee with a group of people. And I walked into the living room and I saw some more crosses in that room than I'd seen in any room in my life, including churches. There were 14 crosses on the wall. And a lot of their life is about the Bible and Bible study and church and I went to church with them and I went to Bible study and I went to someone's house after church. And they don't spend a lot of time on their phones. They gathered together in porches. There is a real community, everyone. It's small enough where basically everyone knows each other.

MG: It sounds like something that people would actually want to aspire to. Being around people not looking at their phones.

JOEL STEIN: Honestly, they saw my life as a bit of a dystopia where I don't know my neighbours, which is true. I lived in a apartment building in New York. I saw the same people on my floor at the elevator all the time and we didn't talk to each other. You know, I do spend way too much time looking at my phone. And there are homeless people, you know, not far from my house that I walk by all the time. I don't this is not a world they want to live in. And this is not an America that they think we should aspire to. So they're not completely wrong in their objections.

JOEL STEIN: You talked earlier about experts and you and you write in the book about the tyranny of experts. What does that tyranny look like in terms of people's fear of experts? How does that manifest in their daily lives?

MG: Well, I mean, Trump is the great simplifier. So he will tell you that there are simple problems that you can solve just by common sense and moving from your gut. There is a real distrust of any kind of expertise that, in essence, experts are over educated, sneaky people who are using obscure rules to try and keep power in their own hands, which is kind of what most conspiracy theories are about. So there is a real distrust of the cities and Washington and experts because they feel like not only aren't they listening to them, but they're doing it on purpose in order to consolidate power for their own good.

MG: How much of that had to be, if you stay with politics, that how much of that had to play a role into the election of Donald Trump in 2016?

JOEL STEIN: I mean, I think that's why Donald Trump won. Like populists always are able to define the you, the real Americans or the real Canadians in a very specific way. It doesn't have to be the majority.

MG: How is he not an elite, though? He's a billionaire. He's a New York real estate [unintelligible]?

JOEL STEIN: Yes. So I should have defined that right away when I talked about in the book about elites and when that quote that you read at the beginning is not about money. What's happening right now is a fight between two kinds of elites. And there is this essay written in 1900 by Alfredo Parade out where the word elite is first kind of introduced the way we use it called the circulation of the elites. He argues that there's never a populist revolution where the people take over, that those are, you know, whether you call that Bolshevism or it doesn't matter. It's Animal Farm. There's always going to be an elite. And a there's a fight between what I call the intellectual elite, which is the kind of elite I was talking about and the boat elite.

MG: The boat elite.

JOEL STEIN: A kind of elite. That's what I call them. I call it that because Trump had railed against the elites during the entire campaign, as have Republicans, for a very long time. But then all of a sudden, about a year and a half ago, he's at a rally where he's out of nowhere, as he often just says things out of nowhere. He says, why are they the elite? We're the elite. We have bigger houses. We have more money. We have better boats like we're the elite. And what he's talking about there, which I thought was very true, was that his idea of the elite, which are rich people and people who care about money and power, versus my kind of elite where we don't want a yacht, we want a TED talk, are very different people with very different goals. And you know, when you talk about Davos or I do a whole chapter on these different elitist organizations, the people there aren't necessarily rich. They can work in politics. They could work in nongovernmental organizations or which is the elite word for charities. They can work in academia. They're not necessarily rich at all. And most of the rich people in our country, like live in in kind of the middle of our country and maybe sell some kind of, you know, piece on it that you find at your gas station or they- I know a guy who owned a bunch of Arby's in Nebraska. And you could own all the Arby's in Nebraska. And unless you were Warren Buffett and bought them all late at night because you would smoke too much marijuana, you're not going to be a member of the elite. So I think what the people who are members of the boat elite want are very different. I think they see Donald Trump as exactly who they think they're going to be one day. They're going to get a lot of money. They're going to get a new super hot wife. They're going to get a private plane and pour gold on top of everything and eat fast food on fancy trays. I think that's their dream. And people who move to the city, that is not you know- we want the avocado toast and apparently the goat milk.

MG: The opposite of that kind of elite, I guess, is what Barack Obama was called in 2008. He had this racial reaction, have a listen, to being called an elite or an elitist for going to Harvard.

SOUNDCLIP

We have done everything that you said you wanted your kids to do. We worked hard. We focussed on school. We reached for what we were told was the best education possible, to then suggest that that makes us elitist or that we're no longer part of the community, which again, is not only been part of the public dialogue, but Michelle and I and a lot of other African-Americans sometimes have to struggle with the notion as if you're authentic in the community, that it means that, you know, you wouldn't go to a place like Harvard. I think a that's a perverse incentive, a perverse message in terms of what we want to send to our kids.

MG: So, Joel Stein, that's not pouring gold on everything. Why is going to an Ivy League school seen as being elitist?

JOEL STEIN: First of all, I knew Barack Obama was the guy I was going to support for president when he was talking about the economy, when he was first running. And he said, have you seen the price of arugula at Whole Foods lately? I knew he was- he was our people at that point.

MG: Man of the elite right there.

JOEL STEIN: He really was. He knew his bitter greens. Whereas, you know, Trump eats his steak well done and pours ketchup on it. I think President Obama is completely right in noticing the problem, but kind of wrong in his analysis in that he doesn't understand why that would be considered elitist and bad to go to Harvard and inauthentic, but I think there's a lot of people in this country who don't think that education- you know, if you poll Republicans, they will tell you that universities do more harm than good in this country and they think of education as [unintelligible] in liberalism and that it's really just a way to learn how to manipulate the power structure and then not do hard work and instead find sneaky ways to get power or money. So I don't think that everyone is telling their kids to try hard in school. I think a lot of people think, you know, go start your own business or, you know, go play on the football team and do sales. And I think there's a lot of other principles that are taught to children besides work hard in school. These are very different values, I think between people who live in cities or want to live in cities and people who don't live.

MG: There are, and maybe it's explained through, a couple of people that you spoke with or at the very least appear in the book that represent those polar opposites. One is Rob Reiner, who apparently you offended at a resistance party. Tell me about the party and what did you do to Rob Reiner?

JOEL STEIN: Oh, man, you make it sound even worse than it was. So four houses up for me on my elitist block in Hollywood is this woman, Stephanie Miller, who is a liberal radio host. And in fact, it was her house where I brought as a gift for the election night party in 2016 a bottle of Trump's sparkling wine from his winery.

MG: As you're thinking?

JOEL STEIN: Thinking we as you do thinking we would open it as he lost and toast him with his sad attempt to join the elite. But I think that bottle is probably poured down the drain as I went home sad that night. But a couple months after he had taken office, I went to one of Stephanie's - she called them resistance dinner parties - and the main reason I went, actually, was because Rob Reiner is going to be there. And I wanted to meet Rob Reiner. So we were sitting around, and this is just a couple of months after Trump taken office, and they were talking about how he was going to be impeached because of the Russian interference and thrown out of office and how are we going to deal with President Pence? And I thought to myself, oh, these people are severely deluded. I mean, this man just came into office. He was very clear about who he was. He's not going to be thrown out by the American people in a couple months. So I basically said, look, there's a wave of populism taking over the world right now and getting rid of Donald Trump isn't going to end that wave of populism. He is just a symptom of the problem. He is not the problem. And I thought that was sufficiently liberal of me to say. But it the room really turned on me quick, rob Reiner in particular, and all these people, you know, are against the death penalty. But I think at least at that moment, they changed their mind about it.

MG: And you weren't sufficiently liberal.

JOEL STEIN: I wasn't sufficiently liberal.

MG: Or sufficiently elitist.

JOEL STEIN: I wasn't sufficiently angry. I think I was sufficiently elitist because I was you know, I was referring to two bigger ideas and that was fine. But I think I didn't have enough anger and maybe I didn't have enough faith in the American people or people in the world in general that they believed what we believed.

MG: What did you learn in your research about the connection between this country's prime minister, Justin Trudeau, and Fidel Castro?

JOEL STEIN: Well, as a Canadian, I'm sure you know the answer to that, don't you?

MG: Why? It was, I will admit, probably surprising for a lot of Canadians to learn some of the details that you learned.

JOEL STEIN: Oh, OK. I wasn't sure because it was surprising for me. But I am not- I'm just a candidate file. I'm not an actual Canadian. So, you know, there's a lot of secrets you guys probably have about Gordie Howe that I don't know. And I thought this was, this is a Trudeau fact, I don't know, but I was hanging out with Scott Adams at his house. Scott Adams being the creator of the Dilbert cartoon who lives near Berkeley and I think was a pretty liberal guy until the 2016 election in which he became a full fledged, nearly full time Trump supporter. He has a periscope discussion every morning, which you can see on Twitter, where he drinks coffee and talks about how great Trump is. And he goes on Fox News and has since met the president, someone and he doesn't believe in facts. He full on doesn't think one can ever know the truth. And so the best tactic is just to negotiate and argue as much as you can in this fog of unknowable, you know, unknowable facts. So I was talking about this and as I was leaving, he made some joke about how liberal I was, and you think he said you're more liberal than Justin Trudeau, whose father is Fidel Castro or son of Fidel Castro? And I thought that's a very clever way of calling someone liberal like you, just throwing a bunch of people's names who were also on the far left spectrum. And then he kind of looked at me confused. He's like, you don't know. And I said, no, I don't know what I don't know. And he said, come over here. He opened his computer and he went on Google Images and he said, no, Justin Trudeau's dad is Fidel Castro. I said, I think you're mistaken because he actually is one of the most famous fathers in the world. Like we all know, his dad is Pierre Trudeau and. Yes. Oh, no, no, no. His mother slept with Fidel Castro. Look at these pictures. And there's pictures side by side of - you can find two pictures as Spy magazine proved in separated at birth. You can find two pictures where people look, two people look similar. But, yes, they look kind of similar. They're closer in height than than Justin and picture are. And the mom did, in fact, have a very colourful life in which she was around a lot of men and actually later in life did meet Fidel Castro. But there's this belief among a certain percentage of the far right that a bunch of people on the left are interconnected through birth, that Chelsea Clinton's father is actually Webster Hubbell. Try to remember all of them. But there's a bunch of these. And they really point to the idea that as does the Ukraine issue with Joe Biden, and pizza gate. There's a belief that there's a small, very, very small group of liberal people who all know each other. This incestuous little group, they're sleeping with each other and they're using Davos and all kinds of other things to control the world in their favour. And I think that's what the Fidel Castro rumour is about.

MG: Your country is gearing up for another election and this could be some-

JOEL STEIN: Weird, bizarre.

MG: Oh, it always is. But the battle is getting hotter. And it seems as though this could be some sort of apocalyptic battle between elites and the populists, Donald Trump and whoever the Democrats choose to go up against him in that battle. Who do you think? And whether it's the election or beyond that, who will be the ultimate winner?

JOEL STEIN: Well, that's one of the things I learned in this book is not to overestimate your expertise. And what I do in the book is to try and go figure out what the problem is. Which I think people have done a very poor job in figuring out. And I think there has been this realignment between elites and populists. And I have no idea who is going to win or how it's going to turn out. I don't know if this is short like McCarthyism was in the U.S. or if this is the beginning of the dark ages. I know that the history of populism isn't pretty. You know, if you take all the intellectuals in Cambodia, you know, I mean, yes, Cambodia is a very nice place full of nice people now, but they're out there hasn't been a Cambodian Nobel winner. So I don't I know that the populist winning won't be good. I don't know how this turns out. And it's certainly not just America. It's your country, too. I mean, you had Ford brothers. You still have one Ford brother. This is happening in India right now. This is certainly happening in England. You know, you look at Hungary, you look at Turkey, you look at Poland. Like I don't think anywhere is immune from this. There's that a real populist movement happening in the less dense places in the world. And people are becoming tribal and nationalist. And I don't know what happens. But I know that the first step is seeing that that's the battle. And that's no longer how much capitalism did you dip in my communism? Or vice versa.

MG: Joel Stein, it's great to talk to, but this is a very funny book. Thank you.

JOEL STEIN: Oh, yeas probably didn't get that across. Yes, it's supposed to be funny book. It's such a not funny topic. I'd like to be the only one who wrote a book that wasn't purely angry because I don't think that's the answer. So I tried to make it funny.

MG: Joel, thank you.

JOEL STEIN: Thank you.

MG: Joel Stein's new book is called In Defensive Elitism, Why I'm Better Than You and You're Better than Someone Who Didn't Buy This Book. Happy to hear from you on this cbc.ca/thecurrent. Click on the contact link or you can go to Twitter and tweet us @TheCurrentCBC. That's our program for today. Stay tuned to CBC Radio One for Q. Molly Burke is a Canadian YouTubeer, makes content about growing up blind and her love of fashion and makeup. She will speak with Tom Power about how she aims to break barriers for people with disabilities in the YouTube community, that's coming up in just a few moments. And of course, if you missed anything, not just on The Current or Q, but anywhere across your CBC Radio One or CBC Music or beyond, you can go to CBC Listen, the new free app that lets you find just about everything that is produced out of your CBC Radio, Podcasts, CBC Audio, CBC Music. Go to wherever you get your apps and look for CBC listen, Joel Stein mentioned that Donald Trump's definition of elitist just a little bit different than his is Exhibit A, a rally that happened in Ohio last year. The last word today goes to the president. My name's Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening to The Current. Have a great weekend. We'll talk to you Monday.

SOUNDCLIP

DONALD TRUMP: You're the great people here, the great people, you work hard, you pay your taxes, you do all these things and you were forgotten. They forgot about you. And you're the smartest people. You're the smartest people. You know, when they talk about they talk about the elite. The elite. You ever see the elite? They're not only you're the elite. You are the elite.

[Cheers]

DONALD TRUMP: You're smarter than they are. You make bigger incomes. You've got everything going, you know. So let them keep calling. You ever hear it? Hey, you go to the best schools. You do a tremendous job. You own companies. You work for tremendous salaries. You do all the things that you do. You're talented with your hands, with your mind. And then you hear the elite has just said, the elite, they're more elite than me? I've better everything than they have, including this.

[Cheers]

DONALD TRUMP: I became president and they didn't, meaning you became president.

[Cheers]

DONALD TRUMP: And it's driving them crazy.

[Cheers]

Friday January 17, 2020 Full Transcript

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