EAM S Jaishankar Blasts the West for ‘Double Standards on Democracy’ at Munich Security Conference. External Affairs Minister (EAM) S. Jaishankar delivered a scathing critique of the West’s selective approach to democracy at the Munich Security Conference, calling out hypocrisy in global politics. He accused Western nations of preaching democratic values while ignoring or undermining democracies like India when it does not align with their geopolitical interests.
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NewsTranscript
00:00I have to say this in all honesty but West treated democracy as a Western
00:05characteristic and was busy encouraging non-democratic forces in the Global
00:10South. It still does. You value at home, you don't practice abroad.
00:14We will host the panel today on the question of democracy, the state of
00:19democracy and I hope more people come because the room looks awfully empty for
00:23such an important issue. I would like my panellists to join me up here.
00:31Please do sit down.
00:49So before we dive in I just wanted to sort of take stock of where we are.
00:55A celebrity billionaire has become the voice of ordinary Americans. China
01:02proclaims to be the biggest democracy in the world. Russia has become the new
01:09role model for how to invade your neighbour. The German government has
01:14collapsed, the French government is in a permanent state of near collapse which
01:18means that Italy is now officially the most stable democracy in Europe. Now
01:24democracy is something that's on many people's mind and many Europeans are
01:29worried about the state of democracy in America at the moment. JD Vance is very
01:34worried about the state of democracy in Europe as we heard today. Something
01:39that's going on and that I hope we can touch on today is this fight over what
01:43makes a democracy a democracy and I have a great lineup of people here today who
01:49have all been dealing with this issue in their various countries. I'd like to come
01:52to you first, Elissa, since the whole world is currently trying to make sense
01:57of the reality of Trump number two. You are a senator and you are a Democrat so
02:04I guess I want to start by asking you whether our premise is fair. Is this a
02:09crisis of democracy or is this a crisis of the Democrats? Because Mr. Trump of
02:15course got a mandate, a clear mandate and even turn up was up so is democracy
02:20perhaps doing fine? Yeah, hi everybody. Thanks for having me and thanks for
02:26including me in the panel. I think, I mean just by the sheer scope of instances
02:33and countries you just went through, I think it demonstrates that we have a
02:36crisis of democracy. I don't think it's just the United States, although
02:39certainly we do in the United States. I think it's something that's going on
02:44globally where people are not feeling the benefits of a democracy in the way
02:51that we were taught. And while I am a Democrat, I also won on the same ballot
02:56just now in November with Donald Trump. My voters voted for Donald Trump and
03:00Elissa Slotkin on the same ballot. And there I can tell you the mandate was not
03:06about ignoring the Constitution or putting a bro-legarch in charge of the
03:13government. It was inflation was too high, prices were too high, and I'm gonna
03:20vote for the person who says that they can lower those costs. So I think it's
03:23important not to conflate a mandate on lowering prices, which is yet to be seen,
03:28versus a mandate to do some of the the things that are going on right now which
03:33you know constitute, I think, close to a constitutional crisis in the United
03:38States. So it's very important to zero in on this difference. I mean we often have
03:42these ideological swings, but you're saying this change of the guards is
03:48actually something much more fundamental. They are challenging constitutional
03:53democracy itself. How confident are you that in four years time those checks and
03:59balances will have survived? Well I think we're in the middle of this first 100
04:04days of President Trump and he is absolutely pushing the boundaries of our
04:09Constitution and and in some cases rolling right over them. Our courts have
04:13been involved, obviously the legislature is involved, and it's yet to be seen how
04:19he reacts. Does he get pushed back and we're now back in the boundaries or does
04:23he just keep going, you know, rifling over those? So I think it's it's yet to be
04:28seen, but I think what is important, again from the place I come from, not every
04:34single person is sitting around their table talking about the ideological
04:37shifts in constitutional democracies. They're looking at the price of food, the
04:42price of gas, they can't get a new home, and they feel that very acutely. So, you
04:48know, you can't pay your rent with democracy. So while while people may not
04:53be thinking about it every single day, that doesn't mean we don't have a
04:58responsibility to have conversations like this, but it's just a reminder that
05:02we need to have the conversations outside of our capitals and bring home
05:06these ideas to people's pocketbooks and their kids, because at the end of the
05:10day, at least in the United States, that is how people vote. And I actually want
05:14to come to that point in a more sort of in a deeper way and actually have a
05:18bigger conversation about the sort of what we can do and what in particular
05:21center-left parties can do, because my sense from reporting in countries like
05:26Germany, the UK, and France, people feel almost betrayed more by the center-left
05:32than the center-right because center-left parties always said that they would have
05:35their back. But I want to go first to you, Raphael. You are the mayor of Warsaw.
05:40You're also running for president in your country, and Poland has been here
05:45before. You have had two terms of democratic backsliding and illiberal
05:52democracy. It would be interesting to know what your advice would be as the US
05:58is entering this phase now. What would you recommend how to safeguard checks
06:03and balances at this point? Well, I'm not going to be so presumptuous as to give
06:08advice to anyone, but I can tell you that, yeah, we've been there. And when it
06:12started in Poland, the democratic backsliding nine years ago when the
06:16conservative populists won, lots of my friends in the US and in Western Europe
06:22thought that this is just a Polish-Hungarian problem. And I was telling
06:25them this is a problem with democracy. You know, there's no longer a
06:29differentiation between the right and the left. You know, it's a question of
06:33rising polarization. It's a question of social media. The algorithms work the way
06:39they work, which means that they actually emphasize conflict. And of
06:45course, it's time of multiple crises with which we have to deal, and the time of
06:50parties which are anti-establishment, which are winning everywhere. So we need
06:54to deal with that. And of course, Poland is a good case because we proved to be
07:00very resilient. And at the end of the day, the Democrats won. We still have
07:06one more election to go because we need to win the presidential elections to
07:10close the cycle and entrench democracy in Poland. But we've won. Why? Because we
07:17have a very strong civil society. We have very strong non-governmental
07:23organizations. And we were very smart in the 90s when we've regained full
07:28independence after the communist rule because we really devolved power. So
07:32there's a lot of power in the hands of the local governments. And it so happens
07:36that populists do not really win, you know, regional elections that easily. So
07:41most of the power in the cities and in the regions was in the hands of the
07:47Democrats, which staunchly defended our principles. And also because, you know,
07:52those crises made us very careful and resilient. And at least there was an
07:58agreement even with the populists. We were on the same page when it came to
08:02security, when it came to strengthening our defense capabilities, and so on and
08:07so forth. So there was this thread of understanding, which of course was so
08:13crucial in the moment of crisis and when Russia invaded Ukraine.
08:18I mean, after these two terms, when a lot of rollback happened, when it's
08:23particularly in the media and in the judiciary, what would you say, how easy
08:27it is to come back from that? Because that is the other concern, of course. And
08:30it's important perhaps to educate American voters and others about, you
08:35know, these are institutions that took a long time to build. And we're seeing a
08:41lot of potential damage being done in the first few weeks already. So I guess
08:46the question to you is, how are you doing in reversing some of the damage
08:52that was done in those two terms? And how easy is it actually to repair
08:56institutions?
08:57I mean, the real problem is that, you know, populists sometimes do not have
09:01any qualms about breaking the Constitution. So if someone is breaking
09:05the Constitution, what do you do? I mean, we do have our checks and balances. And
09:08they held, some of them held pretty strongly in Poland, right? But I mean, you
09:13know, the populists were simply breaking the Constitution. So now, our problem is
09:17that it's that, you know, we're doing it, but it's difficult to revert some of
09:22the things that they were doing. Because our president holds the right of veto.
09:27And we want to do it by the book, we want to introduce bills, which are going
09:31to introduce changes back to where we were when it, for example, when it comes
09:36to the independence of the judiciary, and so on and so forth. It is difficult,
09:41but we're doing it. I mean, the important thing is that, that the dualism, if
09:46someone breaks the Constitution, and for example, nominates new judges, you know,
09:49breaking all the rules, or nominates cronies for the Constitutional Court in
09:53Poland, who were not even judges, I mean, to reverse that is very difficult. And
09:58it's and it's, of course, terrible for democracy, it's terrible for the rule of
10:02law for economy, and so on and so forth. So we've proposed a way out to the to
10:06the president, but he was not ready to accept it. So we are slowly reverting to
10:12the rule of law. And we reverted in many cases. But in order to entrench that we
10:17need to to win the presidential elections.
10:21Well, and that's where you come in. If you don't, if you don't, which is a
10:25possibility, would that just mean that in the judiciary, that would just become a
10:31fact of life, you wouldn't be able to do anything about that constitution, you
10:34wouldn't be able to reverse those?
10:35Well, unfortunately, yes, unfortunately, that would mean that we would have, you
10:38know, sort of like, you know, two dual states with with two types of judges, and
10:42so on, which is, which is untenable for democracy. And fortunately, as I said, you
10:46know, local democracy, the media's, you know, held strong. I mean, Poland is a
10:50completely different case than than than Hungary, because we devolve power,
10:55because our, our society held strong. Even, you know, I always give this
11:00comparison, Warsaw's budget is $7 billion, billion a year, Budapest is just
11:06$1 billion. And they just, you know, are fully reliant on subsidies from
11:11government. So it shows you that the devolution of power. So for example, we
11:15when the government cut spending to non governmental organizations to free
11:18culture, independent culture, and so on, we started financing it. So, so we were
11:22much stronger, because we made smart decisions 35 years ago. But it's, of
11:28course, the onslaught of populism, it's, you know, we've never, we've never tested
11:32it before. So I mean, there's one thing when you're trying to stretch the limits
11:36of democracy, stretch the limits of the Constitution, it's something completely
11:39different when when when the public just break it, break all the rules, because,
11:43you know, how are you going to, to make sure it doesn't happen again? Just it's
11:48just a question of investing in education, and investing like kids need
11:52to know that they have to verify the data that they that they see. So this is
11:56this is really, I mean, something different. It's not just meddling with
11:59the Constitution or with the law. It's investing in public opinion, education,
12:04and so on and so forth. Non governmental organizations, local government. That's,
12:08that's, that's the only hope for, you know, fighting populism in the long in the
12:12long term strategy. It's a long term strategy. And Stora, I would like to come
12:15to you now, because you know, Scandinavia, you're part of the world, and you're the
12:19Prime Minister of Norway, one, you know, of those countries that we all look to
12:24and think, wow, you know, they're rich, they have great welfare states, they've
12:28sort of got something right. So, you know, in some ways, it is a haven of social
12:33democracy, it long has been, but even in your patch of the world, far right
12:39parties are gaining anti immigrant parties are gaining ground. But as
12:43somebody who stands for a party that is on the center left, tell us a little bit
12:50what that message is that the left needs to stand for? How can the left which is
12:55globally in crisis, I think is fair to say, and has been losing the trust and the
13:00votes of its traditional constituency working class people, which partly is
13:06because that term has lost meaning somewhat in today's economy. But what is
13:11it that the left needs to understand about today's politics in order to be
13:16attractive again? Well, it's a big question. I'll try to, you know, come at
13:21it from a few angles here. First of all, I think all societies and all political
13:27systems are under tremendous pressure from technology from what the Munich
13:33conference has identified as the main challenge in today's world, pretty
13:37similar to what the World Economic Forum did, putting on number one misinformation,
13:43fake news, and all of that coming at us at the core of democracy, which I think
13:48is a huge challenge, especially when political parties take a grab at that
13:54approach to politics to really manipulate facts. So that is pressure on
13:59the social fabric, so to say. Although just to just to jump in there, I mean,
14:04JD Vance, I thought had a point today when he said that that kind of
14:08interference only really works when there's at least some basis to the
14:13grievance and the problems that that misinformation hits into, right? I mean,
14:17there are some underlying issues. Absolutely. So that's what I want to come
14:21to and where I believe that the left, the social democracy that I represent,
14:26really, we have the elements to put together the answer. But I think the
14:29senator pointed out this. You don't eat democracy for breakfast. It is not
14:35democracy that fix your children when they don't succeed at school. So this is
14:40about the real reality of what your daily life is. If you go through as we do
14:45as a political party in cooperation with sister parties in our part of the world,
14:49the number one theme on people's concern these last year has been cost of living
14:55and purchase power going down. And until you fix that and give security to that,
15:01everything else becomes a bit irrelevant. And you become vulnerable to misinformation,
15:09to quick fix, which does not necessarily reflect. So for me, I think what we've had
15:15over this last year with the inflation coming back, it's a cancer in the system
15:19functioning of democracies, speedily going up and rapidly coming down, it should be said.
15:26But this is destabilizing the social fabric of our countries. So for my government,
15:31it has been top priority to get inflation down and in the meantime, have social policies that
15:39really are there to make welfare state work for those who really need it. So we have taken down
15:45the price of kindergartens, childcare. We have increased pensions for those with the lowest
15:51incomes throughout and a lot of social spending on that side of the equation so that people can
16:00see that we are working for their position, their dignity, their ability to manage their lives.
16:07When you get back stability, and we've been able to go through that inflation
16:11phase without increasing unemployment, but still in our country, which is a stable country,
16:17you can sense the instability that inflation is creating because cost of living is getting
16:22out of control. So that's where we have to get back. Then I think the second dimension for me
16:27here, if I may, is that, and I'm picking the example from Timothy Snyder's recent book on
16:34freedom. He was in Oslo and he was on the panel, I was on the panel with him, which is this balance
16:40between freedom to and freedom from. And if freedom only becomes a discussion of freedom from,
16:48we are not safeguarding democratic sustainability. There has also have to be freedom to.
16:55Freedom to take an education, freedom to get a decent job, freedom to be at work with decent
17:02work, not to be put aside. And Snyder's example is from this Ukrainian village that had been
17:12deoccupied. Russians had pulled back. So the question is, are they free now? Well,
17:17they are free from occupation, but they are not free to enjoy what you need to do to enjoy
17:24a decent life. So I think these issues about securing people's ability to live decent lives,
17:30combined with managing their daily economic outcome, safety of their children, investing in
17:37sports, leisure and activity for children so they get to be involved in community,
17:46that is part of where the center-left should be. And that's where we aim to be. And that's where
17:50we also aim to win elections on that basis. And I see this sort of fundamental dilemma
17:56in this argument, which I think makes a lot of sense. People do want security. They want
18:00public services that work. They want free and good, strong public education, all of which
18:08requires, you know, man and woman power. And in Europe, increasingly, immigration, because,
18:14you know, our populations are shrinking. And we're faced with this, on the one hand, voters
18:21who are very hostile, quite opposed to immigration. And at the same time, they want welfare states
18:27that function, and they want growth. And both for functioning welfare states and for economic
18:32growth, you need some immigration. So how do we, as politicians, particularly on the left, sell that?
18:38But I think, you know, here's one issue I have with the Vice President's speech. I have a few,
18:42but this one, let's mention this one. He speaks as though we are not focused on immigration in
18:47Europe. I mean, this is the big theme in every country, that we want to have control of our
18:52borders. We want to have controlled immigration. And this is a key theme, I think, all across
18:57Europe. But then he makes the remark that there was a significant increase of immigrants,
19:03unvetted immigrants, to Europe in recent years. Where did they come from? Ukraine. Look to Poland.
19:10Two million or more Ukrainians have been accepted into Poland because there is a bloody war going on,
19:17which he did not mention, which I think is not really addressing reality, which is coming to
19:22Europe. But we have to, in Europe, country by country, but also as a community, to have a very
19:30thorough discussion about controlled immigration. And as you say, we cannot close Europe because
19:35Europe's challenge in the future will probably be to have enough people to do the jobs we need to do.
19:41And to pay taxes.
19:42Exactly. But again, you know, I think that the fact that we have, you know, in my country, we
19:48have 100,000 people for Ukraine now. If you take that per capita, it would mean in a German setting
19:53two or three million, you know, in every municipality. So, you know, how do you,
19:58this is a part of the solidarity that you have to mobilize spontaneously. And those Ukrainians
20:05coming, men, women, and children, they will turn up at some kindergarten, in some school,
20:10at some medical office, and there will be discussion, you know, what are they doing here?
20:15Are they taking our places? But if you really explain why we do this in this very dire situation,
20:20it can also be understood. And I'm proud to see that, you know, that has not unleashed,
20:26you know, negative reactions in my country. So, Jonas, we'll come back to you in a bit,
20:29but I want to go to Jay now. There's one of my favorite stories about Mahatma Gandhi,
20:34was when he traveled to Britain, and somebody asked him, what do you think about Western
20:41civilization? And he said, I think it would be a good idea. So, let me paraphrase that slightly,
20:51as we're having this discussion, this tortured discussion. What do you think about Western
20:56democracy? Well, look, before I do that, let me, because I think I appear to be an optimist in what
21:07is a relatively pessimistic panel, if not room. So, I'll begin by sticking up my finger, and don't
21:16take it badly, it's the index finger. This, the mark you see on my nail, is a mark of a person
21:25who's just voted. We just had an election in my state, just over. Last year, we had a national
21:37election. In Indian elections, roughly two-thirds of eligible voters vote. At the national election,
21:47electorate of about 900 million, about 700 million voted. We count the votes in a single day.
21:55Nobody disputes the result after it's announced. And if you look, and by the way, from the time
22:04we started voting in the modern era, 20% people more vote today than they did decades ago.
22:12So, the first message that somehow democracy is in trouble globally, worldwide, I'm sorry,
22:19I have to differ with it. I mean, right now, we are living well, we are living, we are voting well,
22:25we are optimistic about the direction of our democracy, and for us, democracy is actually
22:31delivered. Senator, you said that, you know, democracy doesn't put food on your table.
22:37Actually, in my part of the world, it does, because it actually, today, because we are a
22:42democratic society, we give nutrition support, food support to 800 million people, and for whom
22:49that is a matter, you know, of how healthy they are and how full their stomachs are.
22:58So, the point I want to make is, look, different parts of the world are going through different
23:04conversations. Please do not assume that this is some kind of universal phenomenon. It is not.
23:11There are parts where it is working well. Maybe there are parts where it's not, and the parts which
23:18are not, I think people need to have an honest conversation about why it's not, you know, but
23:27I would argue that, as to an extent, as someone dispassionately viewing it, which is your question,
23:37there are some problems. A lot of it is an accumulated problem of the model of globalization
23:44that we've followed for the last 25, 30 years. I think a lot of chickens have come home to roost.
23:52So, yes, there are issues, but from our perspective today, for us, democracy is delivered. We have a
24:01visibly less elitist society. We have one where the public has faith in the political process,
24:09where actually every election, in a way, has been a kind of a verdict on the quality of governance.
24:17That, I mean, I told you we just voted in one. My party won that election.
24:23We were in the opposition earlier. We had a national election. My party won that election,
24:28and we were incumbents, and we feel, you know, if Prime Minister Modi got elected for the third
24:35time, the ruling party got elected, and to a large extent, it is because of the delivery
24:40through democratic systems. So, it is healthy. It is, well, maybe not all over the world,
24:47but let's not make that universal. I think that's a good point, and in fact,
24:53I was going to ask you a follow-up question here before I'm going to open it up to the floor, so
24:57do get your questions ready. Because we, in the West, for lack of a better term, in Europe,
25:04in the United States, I think we tend to sort of preoccupy ourselves with ourselves a lot,
25:09especially these days, and I think, you know, all the middle powers that are, you know,
25:14increasingly important, especially in our foreign policy, you know, in the various conflicts that
25:18we're involved in, for better or for worse, I think they have their own views of what systems
25:24work and what don't. We used to think, we used to assume in the West that our system is the one
25:29that everybody wants to adopt over time. So, I guess the question to you, India, of course, being
25:34the largest democracy in the world, is your sense among your counterparts in, again, for lack of a
25:41better term, the global South, that democracy is still a system people aspire to, countries aspire
25:47to, or are there now powerful alternatives, such as the Chinese model, which may be more attractive
25:55to people? Well, look, to an extent, all big countries are unique, to an extent, but we would
26:06certainly hope, I mean, to the extent we think of democracy as a universal aspiration, ideally a
26:15reality, but at least an aspiration, it is in large part because India chose a democratic
26:22model after independence, and it chose a democratic model because we are fundamentally a consultative,
26:28pluralistic society. Now, there was a time, and I have to say this in all honesty, where West
26:36treated democracy as a Western characteristic and was busy encouraging non-democratic forces in the
26:42global South. It still does. I mean, in many, many cases, I can point to some very recent ones,
26:49where actually everything that you say you value at home, you don't practice abroad. So,
26:57I do think the rest of the global South will view, you know, the successes and the shortcomings
27:04and the responses of other countries. They will also ask themselves which ones of them
27:11they relate to, you know. I would argue that in many ways, India, because it's historically been
27:18an open society, one very much linked with the world, many countries of the global South are
27:26more likely to say the Indian experience is more transposable to their societies than perhaps those
27:34of others. So, I do think in our progress as a democracy, the fact that, you know, for all the
27:44challenges that we've had, even at a low income, we have, you know, we have stayed true to the
27:50democratic model, which is almost, if you look at our part of the world, we are pretty much the only
27:55country that has done that. So, I think it's something the West should look at, because if you
28:02do want democracy eventually to prevail, it's important the West also embraces successful models
28:10outside the West. Are there any questions in the hall at the moment? Yes, the lady in the front.
28:24Trudy Rubin, a columnist from the Philadelphia Inquirer. When Vice President Vance spoke today,
28:33he seemed to be arguing that democracy requires almost illiberal values. I would be curious to
28:44hear about how you all on the stage took his remarks. Did you see it as an outspoken
28:54attack on European democracy, a sort of declaration of war? And when you look at the
29:03United States now, as the foreign minister said, sometimes we used to assume that our model was the
29:11only one. But when you look at the U.S. model now, does it have anything anymore to offer the rest of
29:20the world as a model? Do you want to take that? Well, I can tell you just one thing, that we in
29:27Poland have an experience with different models. Because, you know, I grew up under communism, so
29:34I mean, I don't have to be, and the society in Poland doesn't have to be really convinced about
29:40the merits of democracy, because we know what it means to live under an illiberal regime.
29:48Our problem is, and I think that this is the gist of our discussion, is that it is sometimes very
29:54difficult to explain to the people what democracy really means, because it's so abstract. And, you
30:00know, when people use the world, like, you know, the judiciary, the rule of law, and so on and so
30:05forth, people are lost. As the prime minister was saying, you know, people think about the economy,
30:10they think about the security, and so on and so forth. So it is the most difficult task for us
30:17is to explain that when someone is proposing an illiberal regime, that that would actually mean
30:24taking our basic freedoms away from us. And I would submit to you that that's why we were
30:30successful in Poland, because we were able to tell the people that this is not just some abstract
30:36rule of law, but that by introducing a medieval anti-abortion law, you know, the basic freedoms
30:44were taken from our women to decide their lives and to decide on their health. That by introducing
30:50indoctrination in schools, you know, we were coming back to the communist system, where we
30:55would want to have a school which teaches us skills, not indoctrinates our children. That
31:02when populists, you know, talk about national interests, somehow, quite often, they prove to
31:10be completely ineffective when it comes to influencing the outside world, because they
31:15cannot construct the winning coalitions that you need to be constructing in order to actually
31:21promote your interests. That if you want to really talk about migration, that you cannot
31:28simply allow populists to hijack that issue, because that can be dealt with by democrats as
31:35well. And that we should be focusing on some of those most important concerns. And I think that
31:42our task today is not to sort of, like, you know, catch others, you know, and sort of, like, interpret
31:49their words, but to focus on what we can do in order to prove that we are better. We, on the
31:57democratic side, are actually better at resolving issues, and that we can be as effective or even
32:03more effective at providing security, at providing growth. I mean, you know, this is the winning
32:08argument, and that's what we should be focusing on. Because if, at the end of the day,
32:14ultimately, I mean, the question is whether my life was better under a different regime, then, I mean,
32:20the only winning argument is that we can provide it, and we are not taking, at the same time,
32:25the people's basic freedoms away. So this is the argument, and I think that, you know, turning to
32:30us is always a good point and question, because we lived under both regimes. So we can tell the
32:36difference. But just maybe to reinforce the sense, I mean, maybe to sharpen almost a little bit more
32:42what we just heard as a question is, I mean, was there anything in what JD Vance said about the
32:47shortcomings, supposedly, of European democracy that spoke to you? Was there something, for example,
32:51in this idea that we freeze out far-right parties in certain countries, in this country, for example,
32:56with the firewall? Are we afraid? Are we too afraid? Are we perhaps not? Are we more liberal
33:03than actually democratic sometimes? Well, I think on that one, first of all, I think
33:11what is refreshing is that when we come together here, there is freedom of speech. And the Vice
33:16President can decide that this is how he would like to address his audience. He likes to raise
33:20these themes. And although we may disagree, that is fair enough. I think, you know,
33:25not addressing some of the key security issues that we face today is a missed opportunity. I
33:31don't agree with him that what's happening in Ukraine, what's happening in Russia, what's
33:34happening in China is less important than the presumed loss of freedom of speech in Europe.
33:41I disagree. The other element which I think is interesting here is that, you know,
33:45coming from the U.S. perspective, reading a parliamentary system in Europe, it is different.
33:51So this party is free to run in elections in Germany. But other parties are free to tell
33:57their voters whether they are, you know, open to cooperate or not. This is part of parliamentarism.
34:02You know, I run a minority government in Norway. I have to find solutions in parliament. And I
34:07seek solutions where I can have them with parties that share my platform. That is how that works.
34:14So I think, you know, this was a kind of a simplified approach which I don't share. But
34:19what I do share is that constantly focusing on, you know, accepting different views, accepting
34:25even outrageous views in our debate, accepting that people have faith and beliefs. He made
34:30points of that. I think that's what we should remind each other. I mean, he is here now speaking
34:36to Europe. If we were going to your country to speak about what we see in the U.S. about,
34:41you know, tech dominance, is there access to media for people, what's happening to our youth
34:48under control of social media? Is that, you know, challenging freedoms and democracy? I think that's
34:53also a discussion to be had, but, you know, not here. Jay. Can I make two quick comments here?
34:59One, look, I would challenge the equation of, you know, liberalism in a kind of an international way
35:10with democracy. I do think different societies have their own cultures, their own values,
35:17their own ways of doing things. And the idea that there is some kind of universe, one truth,
35:22and one judgment, and one norm, and that should be preached, propagated, evaluated, and judged.
35:30I think that is one of the big issues we are having today in politics. And it is done by
35:35think tanks. It is done by people who do ratings. It is done by newspapers. So,
35:42so I think there is a reaction in many parts of the world to self-appointed custodians,
35:48people who have never fought an election, who are nothing to do with democracy, actually telling the
35:53rest of the world what is right and what is wrong in democracy. And I think it is, to me, inevitable
36:00that it will be challenged. My second issue, you know, is, look, every country has its mainstream
36:09politics. It has its outliers. Okay. If I were to look, for example, at how much Europeans,
36:20Westerners, reach out to outliers in those societies. If my, say, if I were to look at
36:26what do Western ambassadors do in India, if my ambassadors did a fraction of that,
36:31you would all be up in arms. So, I think there are double standards here.
36:37I think it is interesting, and I think, you know, to your point, of course, within a parliamentary
36:41system, every party is fully in its right to refuse to cooperate with another party. The
36:45problem is that some of these formerly outlier parties are now the second biggest parties in
36:50our democracies, and their voters, perhaps rightly, resent the fact that they're being
36:57ostracized from government. And, you know, in this country, in Germany, and I'm German, I can say
37:03this, it goes so far as to cause a scandal when you're trying to pass a bill, and you pass that
37:09bill with votes from that party. So, it goes into a sphere that is very hard to explain to voters,
37:16right? I just want to give the audience another chance. There's another lady here,
37:21and then the gentleman. Maybe we have those two questions together, and then.
37:28Thank you. Maggie Feldman Pilch from the Wilson Center. Over the last day and a half,
37:33we've heard so much about this need to explain how democracy pays rent better,
37:39and Senator Slotkin, I don't know that anyone does that better than you. As you mentioned,
37:44voters voted for you and President Trump at the same time. You flipped your district when you
37:49ran for Congress. You did it even by a greater margin the second time, and now you're a senator.
37:55No one seems to be able to answer this question of how do we make democracy and national security
38:00make sense. Would you mind giving us a quick little lesson? Yeah, I did not pay her to say
38:06that. So, I would just say, and again, this isn't, I'm not trying to say anything about anyone else's
38:13democracy. I'm just saying in the United States, democracy is inextricably linked to a strong
38:20middle class. We believe, and no one in our country has lived under anything other than our
38:25democracy, that the thing that democracy allowed was that anyone from anywhere could do well and
38:31their kids could do better. So, when they don't feel like that's happening, they feel like the
38:36entire system is broken. Right or wrong, that's just how it is, particularly in the industrial
38:42Midwest, where we make things, we grow things, and we used to be paid much more handsomely for
38:48those things. So, when people can't buy a house, when they can't send their kids to summer camp,
38:53when they don't understand how they're going to send their kid to college, they start
38:58questioning the entire system. And that anger and that frustration leads them down paths where
39:05they're less generous with their neighbors. They don't have the ability as easily to say,
39:11okay, I feel secure, so I'm okay with you being secure. There's an entire theory of the
39:18civil rights movement in the United States that we were able to do what we did in the late 60s
39:23because of how strong our middle class was after World War II, that people felt secure enough to
39:29say, you having rights doesn't take away my rights in a diverse democracy. So, I just have seen the
39:36inverse happen, that as people feel desperate, they don't feel generous with their fellow man,
39:42and they start blaming the system of democracy. So, we have to explain, and I think the Polish
39:47example is super interesting, we have to be able to say that if we don't have a reliable justice
39:53system, here's what's going to happen, maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but it will come to
39:59your doorstep. If we don't have the financial, right now we just are in the middle of taking
40:04down our basically financial police on our big banks. If we don't have that, that it's the customer,
40:11the consumer who gets screwed, not the big bank. We need to communicate those things. We're having,
40:17we're struggling clearly with how to do that. Is it just communication? Because this is to me
40:22kind of the crux of the issue, and it's a question I ask about the Democrats, about, you know, the
40:27Labour Party in Britain, about, you know, the Social Democrats in this country. Did you guys
40:34sort of lose your way when you kind of signed up to the neoliberal consensus, and you went too far
40:41with the deregulation and the kind of free market religion almost that, you know, the Reagan-Thatcher
40:47consensus brought in? And was there something in this hyper-globalized, financialized
40:54economy that we've gone for that actually undermined your ability, even if you want to,
41:02you know, keep that middle class strong, to keep that middle class strong? And do you need to rethink that?
41:08There is most definitely a question mark on globalization, especially from a place like
41:14the Midwest, where we feel like we've lost so many jobs. There is a question every day about our
41:19relationship with China. There's a question every day about NAFTA and whether we should have signed
41:24that free trade agreement. Every single day in my state, that's a question. And that is why you're
41:28seeing this conversation in the United States about tariffs, including on friends. It's why you see
41:34a growing sort of spirit of protectionism. It's because people are fundamentally rethinking
41:40whether globalization allows us to have the secure future. I think that's an issue of real debate. I
41:46don't think there's a black and white there. And I can tell you, tariffs on a place like Canada
41:50would screw Michigan before any other state in the country. But I think that's a legitimate
41:57conversation about whether democracy continues to thrive in a globalized world, plus social media.
42:03That's a big-ass question. Yeah. Thank you. But so, I mean, that's why the response is this,
42:09that basically we, on the democratic side, we have to prove that when it comes to providing,
42:14you know, economy, when it comes to providing security, that we can be even better than the
42:18populace and more effective. And that we are not going to take away the freedoms, but we hear what
42:24the people are saying, because the world is changing. I mean, we've seen it after COVID,
42:28with Russia attacking Ukraine, with more assertive, to put it mildly, China and so on and so forth.
42:33We have to, you know, learn the lessons and tell the people, listen, we hear you. It's not just
42:39the populace who hear you. And we are going to deal with that. You know, we are going to focus
42:43on migration. We are going to focus on the economy. We are going to focus on security.
42:47But we are the ones who are actually going to deliver that in a much more effective manner.
42:52And we are not going to undermine your freedoms. And, you know, this is the thing to concentrate
42:57on the issues. Because if you say, I mean, if there's any lesson, and from Vance and so on and
43:01so forth, I mean, it is true that sometimes the populace were even better at framing the issues.
43:06They were not very, and at least pretending that they were hearing the people. But then,
43:10of course, they were terrible at providing, you know, the real solutions to that. So,
43:16we need to prove that we can hear, we can frame the issues, but we are better at solving them.
43:21At the same time, not undermining the individual freedoms. That's the name of the game.
43:26I want to end, and I'm literally out of time. I just want to end with like a very quick,
43:30just because, again, the US looms so large in this new administration.
43:35Alyssa, if you wouldn't mind, is there something that the Democrats can learn from Trump?
43:41Oh, yes. I mean, I think what, I'll be very frank, and I've said this openly about my own party.
43:50We speak about issues, and maybe others do too, as if we're speaking from the faculty lounge,
43:56right? It's an esoteric intellectualism around issues that just doesn't translate
44:03if you're not a good communicator. It just doesn't, right? We write 11-paragraph policy
44:08papers to explain something. Donald Trump fits it on a hat, right? And people would come up to me
44:13in the state of Michigan. They're like, you're a Democrat. What's your hat? You know, Donald
44:16Trump was make America great again. What's a Democrat's hat? What's your hat? Good question.
44:21I mean, I think there's a bunch of different things that I use in my own election, but without
44:26getting into it. But to me, it is just like team normal. Let's just be realistic, serious,
44:32common sense people, team normal people. I don't care if you're a Democrat or Republican. Just
44:36like, let's solve some problems. I'd get that hat. But I think Donald Trump and simple communication,
44:43clearly, not to mention his use of social media. Thank you so much. I'm aware that I,
44:50you're going to come and talk to us now. Do you want, okay, I got to give this guy his shot,
44:55because I did promise it. Would you mind just one last question? I'm sorry.
45:00I thought it was such a nice. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Because I did promise.
45:05Thank you very much. I, first of all, I would like to, I'm Stepan Safarian from Armenia. First of
45:11all, thank you very much for this amazing, fascinating discussion. And since we are talking
45:17about democratic resilience, just all the panelists, as their countries knows, my country,
45:25our country, Armenia, face a lot of attacks by autocracies and hybrid threats coming from
45:33autocratic countries. And we appreciate your support in facing, in meeting these challenges
45:42in Armenia. But coming back to the statements made on this floor by U.S. Vice President Vance,
45:51one of his policy recommendations was obviously about not being afraid of external interference,
46:00as he just described in case of Romania and other countries. So, if this is the case, and this is
46:08the approach of the new American administration, then what's your recommendation for our countries
46:15and for further dialogue with the United States, how to face these hybrid threats if
46:26United States is not supporting limitation of some, or closing of windows for hybrid threats?
46:34Thank you very much. That feels like another panel. Does anyone, which I think we should have,
46:41actually, it's a super interesting panel. We're out of time, but if somebody has a 10 second
46:45answer. No, just, you know, at the NATO summit last year, we agreed as NATO parties that hybrid
46:51threats are real threats. They are security threats. So, I think the thing to say that,
46:55you know, if you are vulnerable to foreign intervention, you have a weak case, because
47:00you should be able to resist that. I think that is denying some hard realities that we all face.
47:06So, we have to be better at identifying hybrid threats and attributing hybrid threats. And we
47:11are becoming better, but we have to work on that together also with your
47:15fine country and with the Prime Minister, who we know well.
47:17Jay, you get the last words.
47:18I think I can tell you in India, we've been dealing with external interference for a long
47:23time. I'd be happy to give you a tutorial on how to deal with it.
47:28I like that. Thank you. Thank you very much. And thank you to this great panel.