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David Broder Dialogue | Munk Debates

August 23, 2022

David Broder Dialogue

Is the future of Western Democracy Fascism?

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David Broder
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About this episode

Some are worried that far right parties are poised to make big political gains in advanced democracies as inflation, economic stagnation and elite distrust surge. Of all western countries Italy is fast emerging as a petri dish for populist politics and potential herald of the political dynamics that could grip the larger eurozone and North America. The technocratic government of Mario Draghi has collapsed, and with an early election happening this fall, the potential exists for the Brothers of Italy to lead a coalition of far-right parties taking charge of a major European economy. Other countries are already looking toward the Brothers of Italy as an inspiration: the Vox party in Spain, another far-right party, has steadily risen in the polls to 20 per cent. What started all this? Is there any way to stop this rise of far right populism? And does this signal a new and dangerous challenge to pluralist democracies?

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Guests

David Broder

"There's been a collapse in left wing working class electoral turnout. We no longer have the mass parties of the past. So instead you just get this polarization between right wing populist forces or even ones with the fascist past. And then the only alternative is the sort of technocratic pro-European liberal center."

David Broder

"There's been a collapse in left wing working class electoral turnout. We no longer have the mass parties of the past. So instead you just get this polarization between right wing populist forces or even ones with the fascist past. And then the only alternative is the sort of technocratic pro-European liberal center."

David Broder is a historian and translator. His books include First They Took Rome: How the Populist Right Conquered Italy (Verso Books, 2020) and the forthcoming Mussolini's Grandchildren: Fascism In Contemporary Italy (Pluto Press, 2023). His writing on Italy has appeared in the New York Times, Internazionale and the New Statesman, and he is Europe editor at Jacobin magazine.

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