Assista à palestra de Steven Levitsky no evento de 20 anos da Fundação FHC

[Music] [Music] V the for [Music] for for for uh Steve uh it's a great pleasure to have you here it's the second time you're here you've been here before in 20 2018 September 2018 one month before uh the first round of the presidential election that led president candidate bolsonaro to be president of the Republic for for four years I had nothing to do with that no no you're not you're not the one to be blamed uh but it's a great pleasure to have you back here uh just to just a footnote the video that they

recorded in In September 2018 is still the video with the most viewers we have ever had in the history of this institution the last time I saw it the number was above two 200,000 which for us it's U it's an incredible number so this is this is u a sign of the interest that you uh trigger here in Brazil so the floor is yours thank you uh Serio uh it is a uh can you hear me okay and I apologize but my uh Portuguese is too embarrassing to to try to do it uh publicly um

it is a Great honor to be and a great pleasure to be back here uh I've been a a deep admirer of President Fernando rri cardoso since I was a young undergraduate back in the 1980s uh and I'm a big big fan of the work that this Foundation does so it's a really an honor to be invited when I spoke here six years ago I didn't know that the uh the video was so popular but when I spoke here six years ago uh I'm pretty sure I told you that US democracy Was under threat um

Americans had just pretty recently elected a president with authoritarian instincts and uh the Norms of mutual Toleration and forbearance that had long sustained American democracy were pretty rap ly fraying um today I'm pretty confident in telling you that the threat to democracy in the United States is even greater than it was six years ago not only did Donald Trump go on to uh undermine Democratic Norms but he attacked the Basic rules of democracy not Norms but rules of democracy he was the first US president in history to try to overturn an election and block a

peaceful transfer of power and unlike Brazil us institutions have mostly failed to hold Trump accountable so he's running for president again with a pretty good chance to win Trump this time has been very clear about what he will do if he returns to power he tells us that he will Purge the state and pack it with Loyalists he tells us he will use the justice department to investigate and prosecute his Rivals he tells us that he will use the state to try to punish critics in the media he tells us he will mobilize the Army

to repress protest this is one of the most openly authoritarian campaigns I've ever seen not even Chavez not erdogan not Orban ever said anything like this during their campaigns sorry I need notes because I Can't remember what I'm old I can't remember what I had for breakfast so I have to use these notes all right this what's happening in the United States today was not supposed to happen political scientists don't know very much um but we've discovered two pretty Rock Solid facts about democracies one of them is that rich democracies never die the wealthiest democracies

ever to break down Argentina and Hungary both Had a per capita income of about $188,000 in today's dollars the United States is four times wealthier than that the second seemingly Rock Solid fact about uh uh democracies is that old democracies never die they're not like human beings they get more robust as they get older no democracy above the age of 50 has ever died ever even if we date the birth of United States democracy at 1965 which I think is right that's when we achieved full suffrage US Democracy over over 50 so American democracy ought

to be safe but it's not in our recent book uh uh tyranny of the minority we have a different title in Portuguese Danny and I try primarily to explain why United States democracy is not safe and we argue centrally that the United States is undergoing an unprecedented transition one in which a once dominant ethnic majority is losing it dominant status this transition to uh a truly multi-racial Democracy has triggered an authoritarian reaction among a minority of Americans but that we argue is only part of the story the United States Constitution is exacerbating the problem by

empowering that authoritarian minority I'm going to focus today on the first part of this article why the Republican Party a 150y old party has suddenly turned away from democracy I will then turn to the question which is not really in the book About of of how democracies like the United States and Brazil can protect themselves from authoritarian threats okay the principal problem most immediate problem facing US democracy uh and it's a big problem is that one of our two major political parties is no longer committed to democratic rules of the game parties that are committed

to democracy politicians and parties that are committed to democracy or what the great Spanish political scientist Juan Lind uh called Loyal Democrats loyal Democrats must always do three things first they must always accept the results of elections win or lose free elections secondly they must always unambiguously reject political violence and third they must always break completely their ties with violent or anti anti-democratic forces so Democrats must accept election results must reject violence and must break with extremist forces since this is taken from lens This goes way back since 2020 the Republican party has arguably violated

all three basic principles of democratic Behavior Not only was Trump the first president in US history to ref refused to accept uh the results of an election but crucially the bulk of the Republican party went along with it um a group of you hear me you hear me okay right a group of journalists analyzed the public comments of all 261 Republican Congress people members of the House of Representatives and senators all of them in the aftermath of the 2020 election to see whether their public comments cast doubt on the legitimacy of the 2020 election 86%

of them cast doubt on the results of the election so it wasn't just trump it was the entire Republican party Republican politicians have also begun to flirt increasingly with political violence during the 2022 uh election campaign for for congress the New York Times found more than 100 Republican television ads camp cign ads in which candidates fired weapons of War fired automatic weapons I can think of no other major party in any established democracy in which candidates so openly Embrace violence finally maybe most importantly the Republican Party refuses to break with anti-democratic extremists this is A

phenomena this refusal to break with anti-democratic extremists is a phenomena that Juan Lind called semi loyalty Democratic semi loyalty semi- loyalty is when politicians refuse to condemn violent or authoritarian Behavior among their own allies among their in their own Camp it's easy to condemn violent or authoritarian behavior on the other side but um uh but semi- loyalists will instead of condemning or rejecting authoritarian Behavior in their own Camp they will tolerate it they will downplay it sometimes even justify it history has shown us over and over and over again that when mainstream parties and politicians

of the center left or the center right tolerate or accommodate anti-democratic extremists democracies get into trouble Republican leaders knew knew that Donald Trump lost the 2020 election all of them knew it and many of them Many republican leaders in PR were really troubled by Trump's anti-democratic behavior in the aftermath of the 2020 election but they enabled it anyway they protected Trump by refusing to impeach him or convict him in the Senate they blocked an independent commission into the January 6th Insurrection and they overwhelmingly backed Trump's candidacy in 2024 even after he was indicted for trying

to steal an Election so again it's not just Donald Trump the entire Republican party the vast bulk of the Republican Party leadership is abandoning its commitment to democracy so the question is why the hell is this happening why would a mainstream political party a party that has competed peacefully in elections for more than a century and a half suddenly turn away from democracy we argue in the book that it's Centrally about fear of losing for democracy to work parties have to be able to lose nobody likes losing losing sucks but for democracy to work parties

have to be able to live with losing they have to be able to tolerate losing when parties or their supporters the constituents perceive losing to pose an existential threat they tend to radicalize and they sometimes turn against democracy we saw this and we Have a chapter on this in the book with the southern Democratic party in the United States during the post Civil War reconstruction uh the 1860s 1870s after the US Civil War reconstruction was the was United States's first experiment with multi-racial democracy reconstruction brought widespread black enfranchisement uh black men because women were disenfranchised

across the board African-Americans were a majority or a Near majority in every state in the US South so not only did Black suffrage threatened the Democratic party's electoral dominance in the South it threatened to overturn the entire racial order in the South and for many Southern whites that felt like an existential threat so the Democrats representatives of Southern whites abandoned any pretense of democracy they used a combination of violence and election fraud to seize power across the south in The 1870s and then they entrenched themselves in power by using things like pole taxes and literacy

tests and other measures to wipe out African-American voting rights so unwilling to lose unwilling to tolerate losing the southern Democratic party stripped the right to vote from nearly half the population ushering in almost a century of a aarian rule in the US South rule that lasted until the early 1970s we fear that something similar is Happening to the Republican party today and the roots of this phenomena this transformation lie in the Civil Rights reforms of the 1960s that was America's second experiment with multi-racial democracy the Civil Rights Revolution generated a fair amount of resentment among

white voters particularly in the Us South which was overwhelmingly Democratic so whites in the US South were almost all Democrats and they were the ones who were Particularly resentful of the Civil Rights reforms the Republicans were a minority party in the 1960s but white resentment over civil rights gave them an opportunity in the South to expand their base um so beginning with Barry Goldwater continuing with Nixon continuing with Reagan the Republicans explicitly targeted racially conservative white Christian voters and they succeeded it worked Southern whites flipped from being overwhelmingly Democrats in the 1960s to being overwhelmingly

Republican by the early 21st century the Republicans effectively became the party of white Christians in the United States and because the United States electorate was still overwhelmingly white and Christian in the late 20th century uh the Republicans did in fact become the majority party in the united in the United States the Republicans won every single presidential election in the United States between 1968 and 1988 with the exception of the Watergate election of Jimmy Carter in 1976 that's a pretty good run but the strategy eventually ran into trouble because at the same time that the Republicans

were becoming America's white Christian Party America was becoming less white and less Christian that was a problem the percentage of Americans who Self-identify as white and Christian fell from 80% an overwhelming majority in 1976 to 43% in 2016 that posed two threats to the Republican Party first was electoral it became increasingly difficult for an overwhelmingly white Christian party to win national majorities in the United States in the 21st century which is why the Republicans have only won the popular vote for president one time in Taylor Swift's lifetime they've won the presidency once the the popular

V for president once since 1988 but the problem and so that's a serious challenge for the Republican Party unable to win national majorities but the second challenge was even deeper the second threat was even deeper the problem Way Beyond just losing elections for much of the Republican party's base the United States has transitioned To multi-racial democracy felt like an existential threat because white Christians are not just any group for two centuries for 200 years white Christians occupied the top position in every one of the United States's uh hierarchies economic political social cultural hierarchies they were

the PO policians they were the judges they were the CEOs they were the university presidents they were the TV newscasters all the way until the 1980s All the way until my bar mitzvah in the early 1980s every single president every vice president every single house Speaker every single Senate Majority Leader every single Supreme Court chief justice every single Governor every single every single Fortune 500 CEO and every Miss America all of them every single one were white all of that is now ending rapidly relentlessly right before our eyes in the United States the number of

black And Latino members of Congress has more than quadrupled since my bar medville it's more than quadr from 28 in 1980 to 114 today today in the United States for the first time in the history of the Republic the percentage of a African-Americans in Congress is equal to the percentage of African-Americans in the population African-Americans are not under represented today in the US Congress for the first time ever in 1965 all nine Supreme Court Justices were White men today four out of nine are white men only six out of nine are white and the change

extends Way Beyond politics we see it in the rapidly growing presence of non-white and multi-racial Families in television ads television programs in movies we see it in mounting societal push back against active racism think of the black lives matter protests and we see it in challenges in newsrooms in classrooms to historical narratives in the United States long established historical narratives that downplay or ignore America's racist past we are witnessing in the United States an unprecedented assault on our country's racial High but when your group has been at the top of that social hierarchy for say

two centuries challenges to that hierarchy can feel pretty threatening losing one's dominant social status can feel like can generate a sense of loss and it can feel like an existential threat many Trump Voters many Trump voters feel like the country that they grew up in is being taken away from them and that sense of loss has pushed many Rank and file Republicans toward extremism and an important survey uh sponsored by the American Enterprise Institute three years ago 2021 56% of Republican voters agreed with the statement that the traditional American way of life is disappearing so

fast that we may have to use Force to stop it 56% now Republican authoritarianism would not be quite as threatening if the United States were like other democracies in which electoral majorities govern trumpism Trump himself and trumpism have never been supported by a majority of Americans not for a single debt you cannot find a poll that shows trumpism with a majority uh American Support trumpism is an authoritarian minority but our institutions unfortunately are Protecting and empowering that Minority the Electoral College the Senate the Supreme Court over represent rural areas over represent sparsely populated uh States

and territories and the Republican Party in the 21st century has become the party of rural areas and that gives the Republicans through no fault of their own it gives the Republicans an electoral advantage in 2016 Donald Trump lost the popular vote for president and won the presidency at the same time the Republican Party lost the popular vote for the Senate and won control of the Senate that president that Minority president and that Minority Senate went on to appoint three Supreme Court Justices creating a um a a powerful and and uh long-standing right-wing majority on the

Supreme Court if simple majorities if majority rule determined who won the presidency in the United States and who controll the senate in the United States the United States would have a 63 liberal majority on the Supreme Court today rather than a 63 conservative majority this is minority rule I can think of no other way to describe it now in our book Daniel and I proposed 15 reforms to democratize us US democracy including abolishing the Electoral College we are the only presidential democracy in the world that still has an electoral college Argentina was the last one

last other country to Get rid of theirs uh we propose a more representative Senate we propose an expansion of of access to the ballot uh and term limits for Supreme Court justice so a whole slew of reforms but these are long-term reforms none of them are going to happen this year of course and right now we Face an imminent author itarian threat so I want to finish up with the question of how democracies can protect themselves from authoritarian threats that come from Within so all democracies inevitably by definition all democracies are vulnerable to threats from

within anytime you have really Democratic competition you create opportunities for anti-democratic forces to win power you you cannot uh you cannot immunize yourself completely from authoritarian threats without ceasing to be a democracy it's impossible um now in an article we're hopefully about to publish in the New York Times Daniel and I identify five different strategies that democracies can use to protect themselves against electoral authoritarian threats Americans United States historically has adopted a liberal or La Fair approach in which B all perspectives are not only allowed but encouraged to compete freely and the the basic idea

is that electoral competition works like a market uh and that if all ideas are openly debated and if all Ideas compete freely good ideas eventually will prevail over bad ideas history I think suggests that in politics at least that approach is pretty naive the good guys simply do not always Prevail in elections Chavez Orban UK going back years Peron all one majorities in free elections for that very reason many democracies in fact most of the world's democracies take a much more muscular much less liberal approach they Empower State authorities to ban candidates or to ban

political parties that threaten democracy or threaten the rule of law this is what's commonly known at least in political science as a militant democracy approach it was first ideas of militant democracy uh first emerged uh understandably in postwar Germany in the 1940s but they pretty quickly spread across Europe and across Latin America as well including to Brazil Brazil's sup uh Supreme electoral Court as you know Has vast authority to Bar politicians from running from office for corruption for vote buying and now uh recently for attacking democracy uh and last year you all know the Supreme

electoral Court used that authority to Bar Bolado from competing for public office for eight years lots of debate about that but just think briefly about the contrast between that and what has happened in the last four years in the United States Trump and bado were both far-right populists Both of them governed pretty badly both of uh lost their re-election bids both of them tried to illegally overturn the election but whereas Trump is running for president again with a pretty good chance to win bado is banned from politics um we can uh debate the merits of

that I just want to call attention to the contrast now the US does in fact have an element of of militant democracy in its Constitution the 14th Amendment to the Constitution bars office holders who participated in Insurrection from ever holding office again uh this was initially used for confederate officers from the uh from the Civil War but efforts to to to apply the 14th Amendment to use the 14th Amendment to Bar Trump from running a 2024 were struck down by the Supreme Court they were invalidated uh and Supreme Court also stepped in and and seriously

Stalled efforts to prosecute Trump for his effort to overturn the 2020 election and it very recently ruled that presidents have broad immunity for official acts as president so the US Judiciary basically has failed to hold Trump accountable for his assault on Democracy so if State institutions don't protect us at least in the United States from authoritarians what are the other tools that are available Daniel and I think That the next best alternative if not the state is political parties and this is a process that Daniel and I call partisan self- policing um mainstream political party

leaders party Elites have a responsibility to engage in get in Democratic gatekeeping they have a responsibility to weed out extremist threats from their ranks they have to be willing to publicly denounce to expel uh uh and to reject extremists as Candidates for higher office I was back when I was here six years ago I was very critical of the Brazilian right for backing Bolado in the second round in 2018 I think it hadn't done it yet but it was about to and it did but right-wing politicians in Brazil I think did a pretty reasonable job

of self- policing after bado got elected in 2021 conserv a conservative Congress uh passed a law that made it a crime to Attack Democratic institutions that law might eventually land Bolado in prison in 2022 very notably all major right-wing politicians in Brazil immediately recognized L Lula's Victory on Election night very big contrast to the United States uh right-wing politicians in Brazil forcefully denounced the January 8th attacks and most of them or many of them pushed for an Congressional investigation into the January 8th Um uh Uprising in the United States by conest Republican leaders have consistently

defended Trump even after January 6 they blocked creation of an independent commission to investigate the January 6 Insurrection and when Congress impeached Trump and the Senate voted on convicting Trump which would have barred him from running if he had been convicted in the Senate Trump could not have run for uh in 2024 but Republican Senators Acquitted him did not convict him even today when Trump has been indicted for trying to overturn the 2020 election Republican leaders continued to back it so the Republican party will not protect us from Donald Trump that's pretty clear that leaves

a fourth strategy the formation of a broad multi-party Coalition a broad front to isolate and to defeat anti-democratic extremist ments when faced with an authoritarian Threat an electoral authoritarian threat pro-democratic parties this is something that Lind taught us 60 years ago pro-democratic parties have to temporarily set aside their partisan differences have to temporarily set aside their ideological differences and join forces to and close ranks behind democracy we saw this strategy back in uh in Europe in the 1930s in Belgium and Finland were Center left and center right parties join forces to defeat Fascist movements we

saw it last year in Poland when parties of the left Center and center right joined forces to defeat the law and Justice party we've seen it several times over the years in France where left Center and centero parties have often come together to form a so-called cordone San my French is even worse than my Portuguese Cordon San to keep the far right out of power Brazilian Democrats small D Democrats failed to build a broad Coalition against bado in 2 2018 which I thought uh was terrible but it did but the Brazilian Democratic forces did that

pretty effectively in the second round in 20202 did a reasonably good job of coming together in the United States a handful of Republicans have embraced the strategy of multi-party containment congresswoman Liz Cheney's cooperation with Democrats on the January six committee is a great example Liz Cheney Daughter of Dick Cheney is a right-wing politician a very very conservative politician but she made it clear has made it clear every day that Trump's threat to democracy outweighs any partisan loyalties or any policy preferences but containment multi-party coalitions are really hard in a two-party system like that in the

United States and in fact very few anti-trump Republicans Republicans who fear Trump who uh who recognize the threat that Trump poses very few of them have been able or willing to openly endorse the Democrats in the 2024 election so we were unlikely to see an American version of a cordone San so if neither the state nor political parties will protect us then it's up to Civil Society this is the fourth strategy the fourth stry is a strategy that Daniel and I call societal mobilization that means that Business Leaders union leaders religious leaders Public intellectuals other

celebrities must step up and take a high-profile public stance in defense of democracy much stand up and draw a red line for Society for Citizens for anybody who will listen and say this is a line that cannot be crossed we call Daniel again call this the strategy of societ tial mobilization we saw this earlier this year in Germany when the farri afd party uh it was revealed that it was linked to to these crazy plans for a mass Deportation of immigrants the societal response to the revelation of those plans for sort of nazil likee deportations

was extraordinary top Business Leaders top labor leaders Catholic Bishops all came out and publicly denounced the afd as unacceptably undemocratic one leading Catholic bishop declared and I quote anyone wishing to deport other people denies their human dignity the afd has abandoned Democratic principles and Cannot be voted for by Catholics there were also massive citizen demonstrations for seven weeks more than two million Germans marched in cities and towns across the country in repudiation of the afd we saw an even larger societal mobilization in Israel last year in response to Netanyahu government's attempted judicial coup there were

10 months of protest that mobilized hundreds of thousands of Israelis Israel's top Business Association the Israel business Forum joined the protest unions organized a general strike universities shut down thousands of artists intellectuals celebrities and retired generals spoke out publicly forcefully in defense of democracy we saw some elements of societal mobilization here in Brazil in 2021 and 2022 in August 2021 107 Civil Society organizations published a letter in defense a public letter in defense of Democracy which stated a commitment a joint commitment to free elections and the rule of law the letter was signed by fisp

it was signed by Catholic officials by human rights groups by all the leading Law School scho and University faculties US Civil Society has not responded in the same way most of the country's top Business Leaders have remained silent after January 6th many many Business Leaders many companies made a public commitment not to give Money to those who didn't accept the results of elections what we call election deniers but most of them subsequently abandoned that commitment and started giving money again same thing with religious figures us Bishops have not spoken out in the same way as

their German counterparts even though Trump has also embraced the idea of mass deportation of immigrants sociey seem to be more likely to respond Society Civil Society seem to Be more likely to respond seriously to authoritarian threats when they've experienced losing democracy Germans and Brazilians have memories of past author uh Americans simply do not so to sum up very quickly there are four ways to actively defend a democracy against threats from within the most muscular strategy which we can debate is to empower the state to ban anti-democratic forces that's what Brazilians did with bado if you

do not Use the state you've got to rely on political Elites either through self-policing or through the forging of broad coalitions as we saw recently in France and Poland if political Elites fail to act then Society must Step Up societal actors must step up and mobilize like we saw recently in Germany and in Israel what worries me and here I will uh mercifully close is that Americans are pursuing None of these strategies instead we continue to leave things to the Electoral Marketplace and history suggests that that may be sufficient I'll stop there thank [Applause] you

if thank you so much for your insightful and and passionate presentation uh I think we should start with Leila and then we we take we take turns here thank you so much s can you hear me so it's it's a pleasure to be Here good morning to everybody and um I'm fortunate to have to be able to talk to Steve for the second time second time interview him um it's not a proper intervie SP of of a conversation but still when you launched your Brazilian version of how democracies died we we had a chance to

talk anyway but my first question will be why doesn't America follow the steps you've just proposed I mean why there is no uh societal mobilization and so forth That's a great question uh we don't have a great answer to it um I I think that I would begin with the the point I made briefly earlier uh which is a point that uh uh several Brazilians have made to me as I I I've been really interested in the contrast in brazilian's response since 2021 2022 and the US response to Trump because after several years of of

living parallel political lives um there there's been this Divergence and how we've we've responded to our uh our our Right-wing populist and um what and there there are many reasons for the difference but um one point that Brazilians keep making to me is that there's memory of authoritarianism here uh that simply does not exist in the United States there is still look I have a I have a a public position that uh I'm very worried that that uh although I don't expect us is going to fall into fascist M or even uh a Russia style

dictatorship there is a real danger that US democracy could go off the rails that we could slide into a serious crisis The Economist magazine asked that question a couple of months ago is America dictator proof is it no it's not my point is it's not I I don't think this is a longer point and I'm getting off off topic but I don't think we're going to consolidate a dictatorship we're not headed toward putinism but we're headed potentially to a serious CR in which we you know some sort of soft authoritarianism emerges at Least for a

while that's a real danger my point is not all Americans believe that many many very smart very informed um uh Elites in the in the business community in politics in the US establishment don't really think there's a danger they um uh they don't believe it and you know maybe they're right and I'm wrong but um there is a a concern in the establishment in Germany I think in France um uh in Brazil that you do not see in the United States there's not a Consensus among the US Elite that democracy is in danger I jump

into the conversation um Steve you've just said that the the Americans have laughed To The Marketplace um to the voting system to to to the Electoral process um to face Democratic threats in in the country so let's look at the market the the the political Marketplace um that we have today and um we can see the basic scenarios and I Would like to delve into each one of them one is Trump wins right uh what happens uh how Democratic forces can deal with that threat in other words how can Democratic forces defend democracy under a

second Trump term in in the White House this is one one scenario the other scenario is Trump is defeated is there life for trumpism after Trump um very unlikely that that Trump trumpism will simply vanish in the in the thin air after uh being defeat Defeated electorally so to start our conversation here um please take into consideration this this two scenarios and your thoughts on uh each of them um great questions political scientists are not very good at explaining the past and we're even worse at predicting the future but I I'll I'll give it a

go we're pretty useless uh in fact I was telling a group yesterday and this is the truth the last correct prediction I Made about politics was in a SE when I was a graduate student in a seminar on Latin American politics in early 1994 so I've been 30 years without a good prediction I'm better in football but the last time I made a correct prediction was at the beginning of the pl and when Lula was way ahead in the race I predicted that cardoso would come back and I swear to God and and win the

election it's the last time I was right about anything very yeah okay all Downhill from there um if if Trump wins my expectation is it's kind of messy a lot of instability I think there will be a authoritarian attempts I think one of Donald Trump didn't know what he was doing in 2016 he didn't expect to win he didn't have a plan he had no experience he had no team he relied on technocrats and Republican po mainstream Republican politicians to fill his government and those officials constrained him Trump Didn't know what he's doing Trum Trump

remember Anastasio Samosa in Nicaragua or tro Trump has a mind like that he thought that the no really he thought the institutions of the state could all just be deployed for his own personal use like Samosa um he would have loved the Nicaraguan state in the 1950s but the US state doesn't work that way and he was surprised by that and he was angry he was frustrated by the fact that the state didn't do whatever he Wanted this time he's much more attuned to that which is not to say he can govern like Samosa but

he will be much more likely to try to purge and pack the state with loyalists he's very concerned obsessed with purging the justice department and packing it with loyalists so that the justice department can in fact be wielded as a weapon against Rivals I have no doubt that he will do that this doesn't mean that he can put his rivals in prison because the courts In the United States remain pretty independent but what Trump can do and what I predict he will do and you know how good my record of predicting is what I predict

so don't take it very seriously what I predict he will do is he will use the justice department to launch investigations and in some cases prosecutions of hundreds if not thousands of people um critics so a lot of them are critics within his own party Because he really hates that journalists opposition figures very few of them will end up in jail but they will have to spend away their bank accounts hiring lawyers to defend themselves they will have to spend months and months and months of of their time scrambling to defend themselves from investigations and

of course they will be harassed in into exhaustion some of them will give up on politics and um and it will send a message to other people maybe better not To involve myself that has a big effect so just simply launching investigations against hundreds if not thousands of people can have a big effect that will happen uh I think there will be e there will be a much more concerted effort to repress protest um and that could lead to a fair amount of violence I think Trump could encourage some sorts of paramilitary violence um so

I don't I do not there are statements by people on on the left Saying that if Trump wins that's the last election that's almost certainly not true um but Trump will attempt to tilt the playing field against uh against the opposition he will violate basic civil liberties um and he will uh encourage what could be a sort of a medium amount of of violence and so it'll it'll be very very ugly very unstable um I think luckily Democratic forces have mobilized not the degree to which I Would like to but we now for the first

time uh in the United States have pro-democracy organizations well-funded pro-democracy organizations they were born they were they there's no sense that they were needed before 2016 but they're now a a bunch of organizations with a lot of high-powered lawyers and a lot of money um that are that are engaged in um uh in whether it's lawsuits or lobbying or efforts to mobilize people in defense of democracy So there will be this will not be Hungary this will not be Russia there will be a lot of societal push back um and I think it probably will

eventually succeed um there will be effort there will have to be efforts by uh because we're a federal system by governors of Democratic states by the governors of New York in California and Illinois Michigan and other states to coordinate responses that's hard those conversations have already begun so I Think uh it'll be very very conflictual um and I again I don't think Trump will succeed in consolidating autocratic rule but I think he'll do a lot of damage what will happen if he loses um I mean that's that's the key question the only way the democ

the Republican party is going to D radicalize is if it changes course if it changes strategy and tries to build a broader Coalition um of and the only way that the party Will rethink its strategy is if it loses and ideally loses badly losing is the best incentive in a democracy for partisan rethinking um and you know this time if it's a really close election and Republicans convince themselves the election was stolen then it'll be a little harder if uh if Trump actually loses in a pretty convincing fashion which is now at least possible um

you you may see forces within the Republican Party pushing for A rethink but and this is the last thing I'll say I do not think the Republican party will go back to being a sort of center right Pro bus party I think the the Republican party of Ronald Reagan and Mitt Romney is done I think it'll be it'll be much more of a kind of ethn nationalist uh illiberal uh religious party which is not to say it has to be very extremist which is not to say it has to be authoritarian but it's not going

to be a center right Suburban Pro Business party uh it'll be something else and it's so interesting to watch the US presidential race through um the glasses of your book because we see the Democratic ticket uh impersonating this multiracial democracy and the the Republican ticket doubling down on a white Christian male America but anyway we are getting many questions from the audience so let's begin gazar asks let us imagine Donald Trump wins the election and kicks off his Project 2025 plan do you think there is a way for the defeated and oppressed majority uh to

protect itself and democracy at large by resorting to transnational networks and international alliances this is what Brazilian Democratic forces did to curb bado's authoritarian plans which included a coup attempt attempt on the eve of the 2022 elections that's a really interesting question I not thought about it um my Guess I think I think that as I said earlier I think Democratic forces have a number of tools available to them fortunately uh you know the US small DED Democratic forces have many resources that were that are not available to oppositions elsewhere in Venezuela or in uh

uh in Russia or Hungary uh there's a lot of money a lot of private sector money behind the Democratic party the Democratic party is um is is quite United um and very strong in in Dynamic Economic parts of the country um so the the the Democratic forces will have a number of tools available them to them to push back I suspect unfortunately that uh transnational or International alliances will not be part of the toolkit and primarily because we have the the uh the The Misfortune of Being an aging superpower uh because we continue to think

of ourselves as the most powerful most important country in the world um the idea of U help from Abroad uh just like the idea I mean in the book we push for a number of of democratic reforms that that exist in all other democracies but still most Americans don't want to hear that they think we're the best democracy why should we learn from Finland you know why why should we learn from Denmark or uguay and um and I think the same the same attitude will prevail after this election that no matter what the Canadians or

the European Union or Brazilians offer um it's not going to be taken seriously up by most members of the US establishment back on the on the Kazar uh question but to to take it from a different perspective and what would be the impact worldwide and in the Western World more specifically if Trump wins how would that affect the political dynamic in the western world it's a great question um and it's Really hard to say I think that um I think sometimes we overstate the impact that external forces have on uh on events in particular countries

um obviously they they have an impact but domestic in in almost all countries particularly bigger ones wealthier ones domestic politics ultimately uh weigh very very heavily I think that uh Trump election will have a pretty significant effect on democracies smaller democracies in Smaller poor states in the global South um we already saw UN in in two ways first trumpism is a model um we saw in for example in Peru just months after the US election uh K fim Mori borrowed from the Trump Playbook and refused to accept the results of an election and tried to

overturn I don't know how influ Trump's Behavior was on bado but probably some effect too um so so Trump Trump's authoritarian behavior when it comes to the United States can be a Model that's replicated by forces elsewhere that will happen the other impact the United that Trump presidency will have is that the United States will not lift a finger to support Democratic forces elsewhere in the world with maybe a couple of exceptions this happened in um in Trump's first presidency one of the reasons not the only reason but one of the reasons uh why uh

huras and and El Salvador and Guatemala slid pretty Markedly towards authoritarianism under Trump's watch As Trump said fine and uh so they will have that impact in the global South in in Europe in in the rich democracies it will have a mood effect it will encourage the far right uh it will give inspiration and enthusiasm to the far right it will have a uh a demobilizing discouraging blow for Liberal forces From the center left to the center right just like brexit did just like Trump's first presidency did so it'll it'll it'll affect moods it'll affect

enthusiasm I don't know how much it'll reshape power balances two more questions here from the audience of Fernando frees who is here um I skipped the intro actually to make it shorter over the past 20 years despite economic risis a pandemic and ongoing Regional conflicts the world has seen significant economic growth and reductions in poverty and inequality exemplified by progress on the Millennium uh development goals however uh sorry however the future of democratic regimes now appears uncertain democracies are struggling some have fallen and many face serious threats what really went wrong and there is another

question um Margarita G from P democracia we see a lot of exchanges of Support and inspiration among authoritarians globally how could Pro democracy of forces do the same to join forces and share strategies you want you don't believe there is a democratic recession in the world right you are one of those those who who see the the glass half F and not have empty but still right um let's see uh on the first question so democracies in the world do face uh a a a serious challenge um and I think Different regions different kinds of

democracies face different challenges but part this is a boring social science um answer but one of the reasons so many democracies are in crisis is because there are so many democracies in the world let me let me just take a minute to to develop this point the third wave that the 1990s the after the fall of the Berlin Wall there were about 15 years in which the United States and Europe were had uh exercised to gmany in the world They were the the world's dominant military economic and ideological Force there Russia was in was in

shambles China was just beginning its rise and so the liberal West was where power was at between 1989 and maybe in the Iraq War early 21st century and democracy became the only game in town during that period the number of democracies in the world more than doubled and importantly very importantly we forget this Democracy emerged in a bunch of countries 15 or 20 countries that um all social science theory suggests democracy as a very low likelihood of survival very poor countries with tiny middle classes and private sectors very weak civil societies and very weak States

uh and high levels of inequality have a really hard time sustaining democracy but democracy arrived in Benin And Mali and M and Madagascar and Albania and Nicaragua and Haiti and Bolivia and countries where there is no social science theory ever invented that predicts democracy would survive there so what happened over 20 25 years first of all the international environment grew much less favorable inevitably right the the the the brief era of us and European hegemony ended that was pred predictable us power and influence is no longer what it was there are Alternatives for authoritarians across

the world in China in Russia other powers so it's much easier to be in haven't tried it but it's much easier to be an authoritarian today than 30 years ago so the international environment is much less favorable it shouldn't shock us it's sad but it shouldn't surprise us that democracy failed in mly and it failed in benain it failed in Nicaragua um and it's failed in a bunch of other Countries where democracy really uh is is is fighting an uphill battle that's where a lot of the democratic recession we there are six fewer democracies in

the world today than there were 15 years ago there are more democracies in the world today than there were in the mid and late 1990s at the peak of the the third wave so there has been a modest recession and given the changing circumstances and given that democracy emerg in places where Really is unlikely to survive that shouldn't shock us um the thing is democ in in countries in third wave countries that are relatively developed that are pretty urbanized pretty wealthy have large middle classes large private sectors strong civil societies democracy is surviving it's not

necessarily very healthy but democracy has not broken down in there are 21 countries 21 countries that became democracies and became according to the World Bank High income countries in since the 1970s 21 countries Brazil's not quite there Uruguay Chile are Argentina uh Panama are there of those 21 countries 20 have remained stable democracies only Hungary Hungary is the only exception the baltics Eastern Europe East Asia kot the southern C in Brazil democracy has survived and so the crisis I don't think is as bad as as people say there are causes of of of of democratic

crisis is not the same thing As authoritarianism Rising Democratic crisis is a product of in South America of um of of rising discontent due in large part to crime and Corruption uh you know State and efficiencies in the west it's mostly a product of um of growing diversity and and immigration a reaction to growing diversity and and immigration but I'm optim to but and and I think the whole the the election of of anti-stem Outsiders or sort of threatening Outsiders has been dramatically facilitated by the rise of social media which we as societies have yet

to fully learn how to effectively live with and regulate so my point is there are a series of things migration crime social media that have created crises in existing democracies I don't yet see evidence that these are fatal crises and I'm actually somewhat optimistic that democracies will muddle through them the Way that Brazil has muddled through the the the the last 10 very difficult years and what about what um marar asks um support and inspiration among authoritarian globally how could Pro democracy forces do the same join forces and share strategies it's a great question um

to some extent they do I mean the Democratic forces were greatly greatly uh uh you know pay a lot of attention to what happened in Poland paid a lot of Attention to what happened in France paid a lot of attention to what happened in the United States in 2020 and Brazil in 2022 um they do they do get cheered by that the the problem is and I'll be very quick there's an asymmetry between they're they're merging kind of two camps at least in the in in the in the west uh a a Cosmopolitan Coalition let's

call it a maybe a liberal Coalition that ranges from the the sort of Social Democratic left to the liberal right um and an ethn nationalist illiberal Coalition right you can recognize the the two sides the ethn Nationalist illiberal Coalition the the the trumps the bonaros the orbons the putins um they're very homogeneous and very ideologically coherent they're they really have a they're they're they're all pretty similar they're not a a heterogeneous Bunch they're a bunch of white Christian men who believe that Society's gone to hell since 1950 you could you know put their ideology in

a parag the liberal Coalition the ones that that that Margarita is asking about are really heterogeneous they're everybody else in societies right they're every they're they're uh they're broadly secular Urban but they range again from people on the left to people on the center right um and they're harder to unify they they are they come together To oppose authoritarian threats but they don't agree on a lot of things they don't hang out together they don't have a a mystica that holds them all together the best they can do is unite in together in in the

face of of an intense threat but on the dayto day they're they're living in different worlds they're different camps they believe different things so it's a the what we call the Democratic forces are a very heterogeneous um group without a Unifying ideology so that makes the work um much much harder hate to be depressing da I want you to get deeper into the similarities and differences between the US and and Brazil based on the assumption that I think what happens there in the US affects us as no other country in the world does given the

very strong links between the Brazilian far right and the US and the US far right my question this is a broad topic uh but I Would like to start with with a question on um what's the role of religion and uh is there there is this wide um Christian nationalism in the US what is if this is possible to uh I think there the two factors have really intertwined but if you if you it's possible to analyze them separately what is the weight of the religion aspect of Christianity and the as yeah I'm I'm really

really fascinated by the the comparison between the United States and Brazil and um and one of the primary reason I come to Brazil is for the P Theo but after that I'm um incredibly interested in learning about what's happening here and and and how it is similar and different to what's happening in the United States it's a really really interesting comparison and uh I'm not an expert on Brazil and so um I'm frankly still learning about this and uh I I think so on on the religion Front uh Evangelical Christianity is one of the key

ideological foundations of the far right without question um I suspect that there are some differences between the United States and Brazil uh we had the rise of a the rise and politicization of the Evangelical right in the late 20th century started in in the late 1970s and really Reagan was the first a right-wing politician to to Really mobilize the new Evangelical right and they entered Politics in a heavy way in the early 20th century in late late 20th early 21st century um what's happening now is a little different um it's not entirely different but the

white Christian nationalism is much more about white nationalism than it is Christianity there is not a perfect overlap there's not even a strong overlap between religious Believers people who go to church God knows how many times a week uh and and really sort of believe in uh Whatever they believe and activism in trumpism they call themselves Christian but it's more of an identity than a religion or an ideology and that's an important difference I don't know enough to to um to speak to Brazil uh it seems that you know the the Evangelical entry into uh

into politics came a little bit later in Brazil and it uh it seems to me and I could be wrong that it's still more in this phase of of religious activism than A sort of political identity apart from religion the other thing I would say about about religion is um we're in an age I don't think we always grapple with this but we're almost all other ideologies are really weak right now um politics in Brazil and elsewhere is really fragmented very very fragmented no political force has more than 25% support ever um and all you

know what the left has no ideology has a set of values stands for certain policies but There's no there's no ideology that gets a lot of people out of bed in the morning on the left not just in Brazil anywhere liberalism is um is is there are a lot of people who hold liberal values but as a mobilizing ideology nobody's voting for liberalism in in in uh so the only to to from what I can see uh and you know you could talk about whatever gender ideology where that's a very small number of people the

only religion that really mobilizes a lot the Only ideology that mobilizes a lot of people that really gets people out of bed to do political work at 8:00 a.m. on Saturday morning is religion is is is evangelical religion it's not a majority of Brazilians nor is it a majority of Americans it's actually a it's not a it it but it let's call it 25% of of the uh the population or 20 in a fragmented political field when all other ideologies are kind of weak and demobilized you can go a long way with 20% and I

think that is what's happening in Latin America it's not that a a majority of Latin Americans have become right-wing Evangelical Christians nowhere near but even a cohesive mobilized committed 20% can do pretty well in a very fragmented politically weak not very mobilized or committed field and it can make it in in Latin American context into the second round of any of almost any presidential election um so I think Sometimes we overstate just how how widespread uh and how pervasive it is but the but the political power that a committed 20% can can amass is is

quite a bit I mean we also there's all this attention to the growth of Evangelical beliefs and and Conservative Christian beliefs in Brazil uh at least in the United States when we talk about Brazil we often understate or ignore the fact that um secularism is also dramatically expanding I mean the the number of Brazilians who hold liberal secular beliefs and and uh and socially liberal views uh even atheism has also increased dramatically um I I don't know why we pay so much attention to the for very low base very very low base right but the

number of bra but the number of Brazilians for example who Embrace gay marriage uh and and other you know socially Li agenda items uh is very high much much higher than 10% but look at polls AG nice nice nice break of the rules we're liberal here exact except very good question very good question but just one once is enough so through the through please through the through the QR code via the same applies to you was no was [Laughter] all right so in but on the mic please [Music] I have I have two questions St

two questions very very fast no you're you're no you have the right you have the right to one question it's in relation to uh to the one complex question right it's in relation to the the uh the profile of the autocratic Republican part right now because in the support for this party is not just white there are a part of the support that is Latin and black so a a it's a kind of Very conservative multi multi multi-racial party I mean I don't I am say I am don't denying your argument but there is is

that I imagine if if the Republican Party would be just white the the power would be significantly undermined it would be different so my question is why do you see that this a minority of black electorate and and Hispanic Latin electorate support Trump Republican party okay so that's that's an important Question um a couple of things first of all we have to remember that it's a relatively small number of people uh about 10% of uh African-Americans voted for Trump in uh in 20 20 little more than than than 10% that is a tiny figure people

vote people have all kinds of different personalities all kinds of preferences vote for all kinds of reasons that that an ethnic group would vote nearly 90% to 10% is is stunning now there are surveys that show an Increased support among uh African-American men for Trump um and and and it's certainly true that at least a third of Latinos will vote Republican so let's take each group in in in turn um with uh I mean the most important thing to know is that you know no group no ethnic group is ever homogeneous people vote for all

sorts of different reasons some people vote based on uh a program that may be linked to their ethnic identity others do not and So religion is one important counterveiling force that leads non-white voters to vote Republican um the but the and and that's I think maybe more so among Latinos than among uh than among blacks the race is another issue that divides Latinos in the United States there are many uh Latinos who self-identify as white uh and and who therefore are very comfortable opposing immigration opposing affirmative action Opposing the Democratic party but we have to

keep in mind that um even among uh uh Latinos the overwhelming majority vote for the Democratic party I think what just couple couple points one is that uh the the the growth of support a lot of attention has been made to this to to this point that uh polls seem to show some Latinos and blacks drifting away from Biden and towards Trump I think the main reason for that is there's a very high level of discontent In electorates everywhere in the world everywhere except for Mexico um with with official ESO like there uh voters whether

it's Canada the UK Germany France um Argentina United States the vast majority of Voters are unhappy with the status quo unhappy with the incumbent government and want to vote for the opposition in Latin America the opposition is won almost every outside of Mexico almost every single democratic election since 2018 People vote opposition now there are about 20% of Americans of all Races and ethnicities who do not give a about politics they don't pay attention to politics they don't have a party they don't have a clear ideology they don't read the news and uh political news

they're pretty alienated from the political world they just they care about other things they don't vote very much United States to vote is voluntary but when they vote they're pretty Frustrated with the status quo and they vote for the opposition among whites among Latinos and among African-Americans those guys if they vote are going to vote for Trump because he's against the status quo I think that's the primary explanation one final point it would be great it would be great for American Dem it would not be good for my party I'm a Democrat it would not

be good for my party it would be great for American democracy if the Republican Party does in fact become a multi-ethnic party that is the only way that the Republican party will deradicalize and if the Republican Party can win votes among whites and Latinos and African-Americans and young people and women it can win national majorities again and if it can win national majorities again it doesn't have to fear elections so I think the cure for the the the the polarization of American democracy is precisely the Republicans Also becoming a multi-ethnic party so I it's it's

not good for my political party if that happens but it's very good for American democracy they're talking about just okay go ahead comments before I head it back uh to you one is um bush bush uh son got I think 40% of this spanic vote in in his reelection I guess in his reelection yeah I think he raised a very important Point um to understand the the political Dynamic here in Brazil the fact that Moral issues play a critical role in this political Dynamic um the Supreme Court in Brazil based on the fact that our

constitution is large and detailed is often provoked by political parties the right to petition here is so the the Supreme Court has has been deciding on on moral issues about same seex marriage um abortion rights that kind of thing that Um this decisions are pictured by the right as decisions against the majority uh average opinion of the Brazilian population uh as an encroachment on their rights uh taken by um laugh t uh Cosmopolitan Elite that have strategic positions in the state apparatus and I and I think we should take this this uh this argument seriously

because there is a grain of Truth in the in this in in this Artic clarify because I think this is an Important Point yeah this is the this is the rhetoric yeah yeah that's how it starts to sound a little anti-Semitic that starts to sound a little anti-semitic globalist elite doesn't uh starts this is one more element of the right-wing rethoric uh here yeah no I mean this is a real this is actually an issue of debate uh with the political sides uh flipped in the united states in the United States the Left is concerned

about an increasingly interventionist Supreme Court uh that is stripping away social rights here it's a obviously a very legitimate debate this this supreme court has been extraordinarily active involving itself in issues that in most democracies most of the time are resolved by legislates as you pointed out um you know it's not it's not unique that on the issue of gay marriage however that the Supreme Court would make the decisive move I mean it One could argue not everyone will agree with me but one could argue that gay marriage is a basic civil constitutional right it's

not a matter for the legislature it's something that should be Beyond temporary majorities uh in the United States the first major progress uh legal progress towards Civil Rights was established by the US Supreme Court in the 1950s at a time when majority public opinion didn't favor those steps you couldn't get civil rights laws Through Congress it had to be the Supreme Court and thank God they did it before I I get into the questions concerning race which are very interesting just a quick question about the reforms that Joe Biden wants to implement in the Supreme

Court are they significant or minor changes how do you see them uh are they politically feasible I mean right um really really interesting so um we haven't we haven't reformed our Supreme Court in a very Long time Biden basically makes two two proposals one is a pretty pretty basic code of ethics for the Supreme Court right now our Supreme Court Justices as we know can accept uh massive vacation packages from billionaires who were linked to cases there before the court well sounds familiar I don't know about Brazil any not a great thing and we have

no nothing to hold these guys accountable so the idea of some sort of code of ethics uh For the Supreme Court seems seems pretty reasonable and may even get by Parson boort at some point the other is a little more controversial but it probably shouldn't be which is term limits on for the Supreme Court the United States is the only established democracy today that has truly lifetime tenure on the Supreme Court every other established democracy has either a retirement age or some kind of a term limit so Biden's proposal for 18-year Terms is would bring

the United States in line with every other established democracy on Earth I don't think it doesn't really have much of a partisan effect uh he wouldn't be packing the court he wouldn't be changing the composition of the Court um so it is at least possible that it could gain bipartisan support it would not um necessarily Advantage any any party over another there's a debate about whether it is Con it requires a constitutional Amendment or not if it requires the Constitutional Amendment that becomes almost impossible in the United States we have a very very difficult constitutional

reform uh there are those who argue that with legislation it can be done sort of within the confines of the Constitution I'm not a constitutional scholar but it um I think it's it's an important democratizing step I mean Supreme Courts justices should be independent of public Opinion and current administrations but there's no reason in hell why they have to be there for uh 40 or 50 years uh as a counter majoritarian uh opposing majorities Generations into the future so I I think it's a it's a reasonable reform I don't think it would have a huge

impact on the how the court works but um institutional reforms really hard in the United States so I'm not holding my breath requ two of And state legislatures almost impossible today yeah so Casio F asks I would like the professor to cont talize the presence and the role of black leaders in the current American political scene both the political leaders and the Democratic party uh and of uh Civil Society have they been relevant actors in strengthening democracy and at law asks i' would like to hear Steve comment uh is yeah I'd like him to comment

um about How he perceives the the challenge of persistent race ISM in Brazil as a threat to democracy contrary to the US black people are profoundly under represented everywhere including in our audience here today yeah I was noticing that um oh God what was the first question first question about the role of black um representative yeah uh the political leaders and the Pol the American political scene uh that was the only Question just the black leaders yeah yeah yeah yeah really interesting question I me I and my view which is uh you know maybe not

shared by everybody I think at least for Americans in in in in our lifetime the only real democracy movement that we've experienced in in the modern era is the Civil is the Civil Rights Movement the the the the the the the the greatest living champions of democracy in the United States were the leaders of the US Civil Rights Movement Those were our democratizers they're the ones brought Dem full democracy to the United States in the 1960s and70s and um the you know everybody knows the uh or at least everyone in the United States knows the

the sort of moral Authority and political influence of that generation of leaders uh you know King obviously was uh assassinated young but there there was a whole generation of civil rights leaders that um went that was active in politics in the late 20th Early 21st century many of them went into Congress and were very influential they are now um uh aging and dying that generation is is is leaving us um and so we don't have a a similar generation of social African-American social Leaders with great moral Authority um I think it remains to be seen

whether the black lives matter movement produces enough another generation of of leaders that that that movement was very very young I guess the Civil Rights Movement was also Very young in the 50s too uh but these guys are young and it's not clear yet what the future holds for that generation of of Civic activists well we now have in terms of of of uh Black American leaders are much more traditional politicians increasingly in both parties mostly in the Democratic party um but you know not social leaders not people earn their Authority necessarily in uh in

political activism but who rose up through the ranks of Politics in a more traditional fashion um and I think it's really important most of them are in the Democratic party today but it's really important that non-white figures are emerging in the Republican party as well uh Senator Tim Scott in um uh from South Carolina is maybe the most prominent Republican black official but compared to 30 or 40 years ago it's a it's a much more sort of normalized uh establishment African-American political Elite um and about Brazil oh boy so look I uh race in politics

in Brazil is super complicated and uh I am uh not equipped to to speak tell take the fifth take the Fifth Amendment I I could take it yeah but I look I think if I could dip dip my toe precariously into this I know uh racial categories are really really complicated here and there are many different ways to measure uh racial demographics in Brazil uh I don't know exactly where the Number 56% self-identifies as black in the latest I don't know where that comes from but I've heard it uh if it's true it's obviously very

different from the United States where 11% of the population ID as African-American um if racial identities are politicized further and if democracy works the way it's supposed to work and democracy never works the way it's supposed to work but over time uh much more slowly Than than many of us would like but over time where democracy is real and Brazilian democracy is real um you tend to get gradual movement towards greater inclusion um again I haven't made a correct prediction since 1994 but I think over time uh there is going to be a fierce reaction

against greater demands for racial inclusion and racial Justice in Brazil um on most measures including really important measures like police Violence uh Brazil is scores much worse than the United States in terms of equal production uh and the United States has a lot of serious deficits but uh in terms of the state treating individuals of each race or ethnicity equally Brazil has a long way to go and I think that the push for racial Justice or greater Racial equality is inevitable in Brazil and I think the push back is going to be fierce oh this

is I mean I agree 100% but one one one caveat um the way we Categorize race in Brazil is different from the way you you categorize race in the US I'm not denying that we have racism in Brazil but the the way the the race issue is dealt with in Brazil the way it is perceived in Brazil is not the same way as it is perceived in in the US and I think we should keep keep this in mind I'll I'll I'll live my comments here to introduce uh a comment in a in a qu

actually a question asked by hicard Terman I'll I'll try to uh to summarize it um some critics in Brazil and the in the in the US would considered uh ethnic and gender characterization is identi ISM um what sort of negative yeah yeah like I mean Mark Leela and and even Yasha among that uh to to mention two two important authors how do you see the statues of race and gender as political categories how do I see the what what's the yeah not an easy question uh the way Publishing my book so I I can't give

an honest answer hiado are you are you there okay so um identity politics is one of those terms that's over has become like populism it's used all the time by everybody PE and we've lost track of what it means and and what it actually refers to and it's used in an increasingly politicized and negative way uh that I don't think is very Accurate or very useful um this is not to deny that identity politics uh exists in the United States identity politics has always existed there's never been a moment in the United States I cannot

speak to Brazil there's never been a moment in US history where identity politics didn't exist our civil war was over race the uh the the the authoritarian turn in the US South for 80 years after the Civil War was about identity Politics the primary Sociopolitical Battle of the middle of the 20th century the Civil Rights Movement was about race um and so uh there's the to to say that sort of politics is has become racialized in the United States in the 21st century is a ridiculous statement now I'm not denying that there has there are

um there's uh sort of an increased focus on ethnic identity and uh gender identity in uh in some sectors of society I cannot speak to Brazil in the Univers in the United States it's confined primarily to universities it's not a mass level phenomenon my concern is this that um there are legit imate Liberal Liberal demands for greater Justice on racial issues when you have a state in which um people of One race are arrested at a higher rate than people at another race of of another race where people are of One race are killed by

police at a higher rate than people of another race when you have a uh Situation where um uh uh it people of what in in in Black in overwhelmingly black areas you have there are fewer ballot boxes so it takes three or four hours of waiting in line to vote whereas in my neighborhood it takes five minutes to vote that is the state treating individuals of different ethnic groups unequally to demand equality of treatment of individuals of different ethnic groups is liberalism it's basic Liberalism it's not identity politics I say this because there is a

right-wing push back in the United States and I think in Brazil as well against really basic demands for liberal rights calling it identity politics and I think that that's horrendous let's talk about gender Anna kolina asks a woman finally right Alo marara has made a question to anyway um is there agenda cleage not only in terms of the profile of Voters supporting authoritarian leaders but in A broader sense uh as you call as you call it we are seeing a wide resentment resentment movement can we say there is a white May resentment we've been seeing

a gender cavage on other countries that elected authoritarian leaders Argentina Brazil Hungary in Brazil for instance if among conservative evangelic there is an important pillar of bism we see a gender CLE with women stepping out of bism and to that I'd like to add concerning the US uh presidential race uh as a result Of the Supreme Court um decision regarding Ro Wade main states will have abortion rights in their ballots in November um is can it make a difference uh in terms of Women Voters the to turnout and then influence the national presidential race yeah

great questions um so Daniel and I have been criticized I think pretty legitimately for um focusing very heavily on uh and race and paying insufficient attention to gender I think that's a pretty legitimate Criticism if you um we were sort of aiming for parsimony but um I'm going to speak about the United States right now racial hierarchies are not the only hierarchies that have been seriously challenged in the last half century gender hierarchies have also been seriously challenged and there is a reaction against that as well um and you know the the in these two

camps that I mentioned uh earlier sort of liberal Cosmopolitan camp and an Ethnonationalist one there is a gender element to it um a uh the the uh everywhere you have representatives of the sort of urban liberal secular coalitions they they're they're um tend to be more supported by women and uh uh and and men are overwhelming men are over represented in the ethn Nationalist camp that it's not the Divide is not as Stark as Urban versus rural it's not as Stark uh as liberal versus secular but there is a gender divide meaning there Are a

lot of women in the ethn Nationalist Camp there a lot of women who voted for Trump a lot of women who voted for bado so it's not a it's it's not not as uh Stark a cleavage as race urbanism education secularism but it is it is it is pronounced it is increasingly pronounced in the United States um and it uh I think that the um the Trump campaign was overconfident when it picked JD Vance a sort of another a a very a guy who really Appealed to sort of angry white men as his vice presidential

candidate he thought he was going to win when he did that and it's probably going to hurt him the gender divide has never been greater in the United States women actually vote at a slightly higher rate than men so this will probably benefit KLA Harris um again uh gender is not as uh it doesn't divide as starkly as some other categories which is I guess the reason why we paid less attention to it But it is very very important if you want to understand the the the right-wing re action in the United States and I

pretty sure in Brazil too um change challenges to establish gender hierarchies are are u a major part of the reaction major yeah major trigger of the reaction as well will abortion rights make more women go cast their ballots in November probably it's a key mobilizing uh issue for women of various ages certainly for for young women um Yeah I I think it's an important uh the the the again the Cosmopolitan Coalition is is it's really a difficult task politically to manage because it's a really really diverse group in the United States the Democratic party represents

you know left-wingers like uh uh like Bernie Sanders uh African-Americans Latinos and a lot of Center Suburban former Reagan supporters that's how big and diverse the camp is and so finding something that motivates Members of The Cosmopolitan Coalition is um It's Tricky it's hard and it's really important and abortion is one of the things that unites everybody in the cosol Coalition women across the political Spectrum uh I'm afraid we are approaching the the end of this this event the end of this fascinating conversation um I would I would ask uh also to close uh the

event but but before that feel please feel free to make your final considerations but I Have one final final question you you talked about uh two broad coalitions in the US I think we can that mirrors pretty much the situation here and and in many many Western countries uh what would be what would be the agenda to enlarge to strengthen uh the Common Ground between these two uh the main topics of an agenda that could enlarge and strengthen the Common Ground between this two uh Grand coalitions that is a great question a a Really important

question um not a question where I have many intelligent responses unfortunately I probably should um it's the kind of question where if I actually knew the answer I'd have a really well-paid job somewhere else um but it's really it's really important and there are uh um and it's important question to to resolve I think in many countries and this varies country by country um n some some variant of nationalism And patriotism has to be a unifying factor I mean what one of the tragedies about the United States is we get United when we're at War

right with what um the United States has had many periods of of deep division we had a really intense reaction against immigration in the early 20 20th century it was World War II and then the cold war that um that brought Americans together and they created a single national Identity um hopefully we find you know there there have to be um alternative sources of national ISM patriotism Beyond War because you know going to war with China Pro that would that would help resolve our polarization unit stat I not I wouldn't Advocate it you know I

don't think you guys you know too bad about the Mund but I wouldn't recommend going to war with Argentina um but you Know any viable political force in uh in any modern democracy has to be able to appeal to some kind of identity and I I don't have the you know this is something that Frank fukiyama has written some about the idea that we we share a common Destiny right and has right and and so I that's where I would start the problem is it's usually war and Military threat uh for me it should be

about you know World Cups and sports but that's some seems like it's not Quite enough but it's uh I think you point to an incredibly important question I wish I had a smarter answer Sala please one of the themes of fernand's book was how do you find a common ground and a shared common ground that is capable to sustain democracy so it's interesting to point out the relevance of his thought to the discussions today uh I think we had a very good discussion it was very useful uh what happens in The US has a worldwide

influence as we all know and of course uh the US now more than Europe represents the West now if the West as it is is facing this has an impact on the point of view of how do you organize international relations and the meaning of the global South that theoretically does not share these values so think this is part of the international agenda to do what happens in Hungary is very relevant for us to think but it doesn't Have an impact in Brazil what happens in the US yes what happens in Europe also but to

a lesser degree so I think it is in this broad uh uh framework that we should also uh think the insights we have received from your excellent presentation that we thank you very [Applause] much thank you so much for coming for your excellent excellent questions really very Pro provocative and in Another language for [Music]