A Letter from Peter Munk
Since we started the Munk Debates, my wife, Melanie, and I have been deeply gratified at how quickly they have captured the publics imagination. From the time of our first event in May 2008, we have hosted what I believe are some of the most exciting public policy debates in Canada and internationally. Global in focus, the Munk Debates have tackled a range of issues, such as humanitarian intervention, the effectiveness of foreign aid, the threat of global warming, religions impact on geopolitics, the rise of China, and the decline of Europe. These compelling topics have served as intellectual and ethical grist for some of the worlds most important thinkers and doers, from Henry Kissinger to Tony Blair, Christopher Hitchens to Paul Krugman, Peter Mandelson to Fareed Zakaria.
The issues raised at the Munk Debates have not only fostered public awareness, but they have also helped many of us become more involved and, therefore, less intimidated by the concept of globalization. It is so easy to be inward-looking. It is so easy to be xenophobic. It is so easy to be nationalistic. It is hard to go into the unknown. Globalization, for many people, is an abstract concept at best. The purpose of this debate series is to help people feel more familiar with our fast-changing world and more comfortable participating in the universal dialogue about the issues and events that will shape our collective future.
I dont need to tell you that there are many, many burning issues. Global warming, the plight of extreme poverty, genocide, our shaky financial order: these are just a few of the critical issues that matter to people. And it seems to me, and to my foundation board members, that the quality of the public dialogue on these critical issues diminishes in direct proportion to the salience and number of these issues clamouring for our attention. By trying to highlight the most important issues at crucial moments in the global conversation, these debates not only profile the ideas and opinions of some of the worlds brightest thinkers, but they also crystallize public passion and knowledge, helping to tackle some of the challenges confronting humankind.
I have learned in life and Im sure many of you will share this view that challenges bring out the best in us. I hope youll agree that the participants in these debates challenge not only each other but also each of us to think clearly and logically about important problems facing our world.
Peter Munk (19272018)
Founder, Aurea Foundation
Toronto, Ontario
Copyright 2018 Aurea Foundation
Stephen K. Bannon and David Frum in Conversation by Rudyard Griffiths. Copyright 2018 Aurea Foundation
Published in Canada in 2019 and the USA in 2019 by House of Anansi Press Inc.
www.houseofanansi.com
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Title: The rise of populism : Bannon vs. Frum : the Munk debates / edited by Rudyard Griffiths.
Names: Bannon, Stephen K., panelist. | Frum, David, 1960 panelist. | Griffiths, Rudyard, editor.
Series: Munk debates.
Description: Series statement: The Munk debates
Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20189060905 | Canadiana (ebook) 20189060913 | ISBN 9781487006297 (softcover) | ISBN 9781487006303 (EPUB) | ISBN 9781487006310 (Kindle)
Subjects: LCSH: Populism. | LCSH: World politics21st century.
Classification: LCC JC423 .R57 2019 | DDC 320.56/62dc23
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018962115
We acknowledge for their financial support of our publishing program the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Government of Canada.
Pre-Debate Interviews with Moderator Rudyard Griffiths
STEPHEN K. BANNON IN CONVERSATION WITH RUDYARD GRIFFITHS
RUDYARD GRIFFITHS: Steve Bannon, thank you for coming to Toronto for the Munk Debates.
STEPHEN BANNON: Thank you for having me.
RUDYARD GRIFFITHS: Great to have you here. Youre an important global participant in the conversation about populism. I want to start by defining some terms. Tonights debate is about whether the future the political future of the West belongs to populism or liberalism. What kind of populist are you? Are you a small-d democrat populist, a capital-r Republican populist, a capital-a Anarchist populist? Help me understand the populism of Steve Bannon.
STEPHEN BANNON: Our populism is tied to economic nationalism. The movement in the United States and the one that I am associated with worldwide is anti-elite. We believe that what I call the Party at Davos this kind of scientific, engineering, managerial, financial, cultural elite has taken the world in the wrong direction, buying into globalization to the detriment of the little guy. And so this is really a representation of anti-elitism, and really about having the little guy get a piece of the action. As conservative or right-wing populists, we believe in economic nationalism; America First national security which is not isolationism, but America first; and what I call the deconstruction of the administrative state, to take apart the Leviathan, this all-encompassing state that weve got in the United States. So were definitely not anarchists or libertarians, but were very anti-elite.
RUDYARD GRIFFITHS: Where did this all come from? To the casual observer, it seems as if in the last twenty-four to thirty-six months, populism has gone off like a flashbang grenade around the world. But you think it has older antecedents a longer, delayed fuse that has ignited. Take us back through that story.
STEPHEN BANNON: In story terms, the inciting incident is clearly the financial crisis of 2008. Now, many of these issues were around before then, but I think thats the thing that really drove it. In the financial collapse of 2008, brought on by the elites among which no ones ever been held accountable what you had was really the elites taking care of themselves. Essentially what they did was just create money. They flooded the zone with a fancy term we call liquidity. The balance sheet of the Federal Reserve was about $880 billion on the day of the financial crash, September 18, 2008. When Trump took office in January 2017, it was $4.5 trillion.
That money lifted up asset holdersstocks, bonds, real estate assets, hedge funds, investment banksand it was paid for by the little guy. The little guy you had zero on your savings account, youve got pension funds that have never had a bigger gap of returns, you cant do public bonds anymore because theres not enough yield. So its the little guy of every race, nationality, creed, ethnicity, gender, and sexual preference in the United States the working class and the lower middle class, whose burden this became.
When people talk about anger, I think its a kind of recognition that a certain group has done extraordinarily well the greatest run weve had in owners of assets, whether intellectual property, stocks, or whatever, has been in the last ten or twelve years, because we have basically created money and floated our way out of here and we havent seen a spread of the wealth, what I call a piece of the action, given to the little guy.
