Christopher Caldwell: How Immigration Is Erasing Whites, Christians, and the Middle Class

So, you travel more than anybody I know. You  spend more days out of the country and have. for more years than literally anyone  I know. So, answer this question. The. countries that seem to be moving backward  the most quickly, this is my perception, are the white Christian English-speaking  countries, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, UK, United States. Am I matching that? What  is that? Well, I no I I don't I can't really. speak about the countries of what they used to  call the the old Commonwealth, the uh you know,

Australia, New Zealand. I've never I've never been  to those places. Um but um I I I certainly think. that England um uh the UK more generally, but but  England in particular um is really in a difficult. position now. and and uh I I I think that the  diagnosis that that English people generally are. coming to is that they've had that they've had  too much immigration [Music] [Applause] [Music].

[Music] [Applause] [Music]. It seems like they've been overwhelmed by  immigration, but you may have a better hand on the. numbers. How much immigration has the UK had is?  Well, I think that they're up around uh you know,

the the the country is the country well most  recent the country's had a lot of immigration. since um you know, since the Second World War.  Um it it had some moments of acceleration. it. um they had a huge wave of migrants from both  the um the Caribbean and the Indian subcontinent. um in the years right after the war and by a  huge wave you know uh one you know it's it's a.

couple hundred thousand but more recently we've  had uh even larger numbers and in fact one of. the one of the things that made has made Brexit so  contentious in England is that the big pro promise. of Brexit, the primary promise of Brexit um was  to limit immigration. That's what most English. people thought it was for. Um now Brexit was  delayed between the referendum and um and 2020.

And when when Britain finally got Brexit, it had  COVID and so it had a period of zero immigration. for a while. But then something really interesting  happened which is the the people who had managed. to get Brexit that is the um the government  of of of Boris Johnson sort of looked at the. numbers and they were very frightened that  uh that the economy was going to continue. slow after after CO and due to the way the British  government scores economic predictions immigration.

um comes out as by definition a benefit to  the economy. So they seriously so they Yes. So they decided they decided to just loosen  immigration for a little bit and the result. was really extraordinary. Um they got um I think  4.5 million immigrants between 2021 and 2024. Um.

4.5 million. Yes. And so we're talking about a  in in 3 years we're talking about an immigration. um that is 7% of the of the country's uh uh  population. And that immigration because uh the. European because Britain had left the European  Union was not European immigration. It was 80%.

of it came from outside of Europe. So it was a  profoundly foreign immigration and the largest. um Britain had ever had and um it was brought  about by the very people whose entire reason. for being in government was to stop immigration  and it's had an an extremely destabilizing effect. on the on the politics of the country. So they  according to the way British economists score.

the economy more people almost always from poor  countries make you richer or something. Yes. I. mean it it it's sort of like it adds it adds a  certain amount of units of labor in the country. Is that many units of labor richer? And there's  not really a sufficient uh without going into the. economic details, there's not sufficient reckoning  uh done of the fact that these people will age,

they'll form families, and they they will collect  the generous and perhaps overly generous state. benefits that they've been brought in to to, you  know, to help defay. Yeah. I mean, is there in. the history of the world a country that's had like  that level of immigration from poor countries that. got richer because of it? um the United States  and and it but it's a very special case because.

we were a you know we were a we had laid claim  to a you know a continentwide land mass although. we didn't always do that explicitly and we had  only a very few millions of people with which to. claim it. Um, and so we really needed people and  they generally came from societies that were or. let's say they came from they might have come from  societies that were richer than ours but they came. from the less fortunate parts of those societies.  So I think it did enhance the United States while.

we had you know a more or less virgin territory.  I understand that the Indians were there but a. lot of the territory was virgin and ripe for  for development. um as long as we were in that. position, it was a benefit to us. The mistake that  other countries in the world have made and Europe. more than anyone has been to assume that if they  get mass immigration, it's going to work the way.

it did um under the very special circumstances  of 19th century North America. But instead what's. happening is it's it's working more like the  circumstances of 17th century North America. That. is the the people who are arriving from abroad  are becoming the the core group in in they're.

replacing the indigenous population. That seems  to be what's happening. Not everywhere but in. in a lot of places. If you go to London if you go  to London you it's it's incontestable. Well, it's. overwhelmingly it's like 70% non-British, right?  Non English. That's right. That's right. So, what I mean, can that be changed, fixed, reversed?  That's what the discussion in England is about. now. And that's why um the politics on the English  right is so, you know, it's it's so fractured.

It's it's fractured, but it's actually very  interesting. a lot of, you know, there's a lot of. um sort of like new ideas sort of popping up out  of desperation, you know, like what they're mostly. of uh they're mostly ones that you would recognize  from, you know, the Trump campaign. They have a. lot of them have to do with deportation, you know.  Um uh there are there's a lot of discussion of.

withdrawing from the European Convention on Human  Rights and from the UN um you know refugee treaty. um from the 1950s. I the the the U the the the  UN um has a refugee convention from the the 1950s. that governs a lot of um rights of asylum. and the  uh Tony Blair government in the late '9s and the.

early part of this century um passed something  called the Human Rights Act which made um which. uh uh made European human rights law and the  authority of the uh European Convention of Human. Rights binding on the UK. So there is talk about  about um exiting those agreements and and to not. just talk I mean this is the sort of thing that  that that whenever it's brought up in a western. country it's described as extreme right-wing  and fascist and and and and that kind of thing.

It's not just being talked about in England. It's  being talked about by I would say the three main. forces on the English right which are Nigel Farage  who's in the reform party. uh Chem Baden who is. the leader of the um of the Conservative Party and  Robert Genrich who's the main sort of like radical. let's let's just say the conservative alternative  within the Conservative um party all of them are.

talking about getting Britain out of the European  Convention of Human Rights to to the extent where. you you think if there is ever a Conservative  government again it will happen. I mean, it's. no it's no less believable than Brexit was before  Brexit happened. You probably heard about eight. sleep. Lots of people are talking about it. It is  a company with one mission, improving your sleep, and it's changing the way people do that, the way  they get a good night's rest. We just got word.

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within a month. That won't happen. We think you'll  love it, but you can if you want. 8.com/tucker. But that's still I mean that's pretty tepid  really like pulling I mean the country's been. pretty much the same for a thousand years. I mean  you can go to Stonehenge, pull up bone fragments. and trace the DNA to people living in Britain.  So I mean for all history that we know of it's. been pretty much the same. People was something  the French came a thousand years ago or whatever, but there have been some changes. But in general,  they're the indigenous population and now in 80.

years they've been like overthrown, replaced.  It's extra extraordinary. This is an extraordinary. anthropological moment. It's like I've never  heard of anything like that happening. Well, there were these the there were have been a couple  of examples of um you know what the German um. uh uh uh paleo uh historians call you know uh  fulkar vanderong you know movements of peoples.

you know where you know people move off the  steps in Asia and and um into western Europe. and then they you know that's how we got our  independent sorry our Indo-European languages. and you know there's movements down through  Greece and onto you know you know the Manoan. you know area I don't I don't know exactly when  it was about a thousand Russians and the Fins. have kind of Asiatic eyes you know I I don't  I you know I I don't know what happened when.

but occasionally there are these huge movements  of population this one's a little bit different. because it's enabled by technology so it's  not contiguous people's sort of like pushing. against one another. I mean it's sort of people  who are brought by boat and by and by uh airplane. but in terms of its its importance yeah it's a  it's a major I guess what I'm saying the reason. it's unprecedented I mean Genghaskhan you know  rolled over and impregnated thousands of people.

Uh but I don't think those people's leaders asked  him to come and impregnate their wives. This is. like the only invasion I've ever seen that was  been bidden by the leaders of the countries that. have been invaded. Like come and invade us. It's  not like they were begging for it, but they they. they sort of created a climate of permissiveness,  you know, that um which people took advantage of.

And and it's the I think I think what you're  getting at is what was the psychological state. of Europeans between 1945 when they started doing  this. Yes. And and today that made this exactly. the question and I don't understand it and it's a  funny thing because you and I have lived through. the deepest part of that trans transformation and  it's still kind of a mystery to us. So if anyone's. watching this uh 100 years from now, they you  know they you know I hope they they can see how.

confused we in fact were. But I mean I think that  in the wake of World War II uh something happened. in the middle of the 20th century and it's really  tough to say what it was. It might be a coming to. you know to consciousness of uh you know after  the horrors of the two world wars. It's like.

You don't want to, you know, this is maybe  too moralistic an explanation, but you know, people began to understand that there were bad  things could happen if you were too judgmental. about other people's or or or enimical.  But there are other factors such as just. the technological factors the the sort of  the visibility of alternative places to live. through television and that I think is I think  it's I think the technological are as you know.

and oh and the fact of the fact of um easy travel  through airplanes and the fact that you that the. telephone the television and finally the internet  enable you to go someplace without being cut off. from your ancestral homeland. So it makes the  decision to travel abroad much lower stakes, you know. I mean the people who came to the  United States in the 19th century from Sicily,

they were gone. They got on, you know, for the  most never saw their people again. Yeah. Well, you know, in fact, in the Italian migration, a lot  of them did go back. But it was a in generally in. general it was a big decision in in in in in the  case of the Irish I think they were usually here. for for good. Anyhow I I think it's a combination  of uh you know at the statesman at the level of. statesmen I think it's a discomfort with any kind  of expression of hostility or lack of hospitality.

towards other peoples. Um but at the just the  operational level of the individual migrants I. think techn technology had a lot of had a lot  to do with it. It's impossible but but I mean. yeah technology for sure but you know I don't  know Victorian England had you know the ability. to move people around the world to control you  know the world's biggest navy and all that and. it would have been unimaginable. They didn't want  millions of non-English living in England because.

they were proud of England and they thought it was  distinctly English and they thought I I guess what. I'm getting at is it's so strange to me that the  self-confidence of Western Europe collapsed after. winning the war. I think that's so Germany's  a different case, but I mean Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, I mean these are all countries  that Blake had nothing to be ashamed of from my. perspective. Certainly England and France. Why did  they lose confidence in themselves after winning?

That's a that's a sort of complex question. I'm  not sure I agree that these countries had I mean. they were all in they were all in very different  positions. I mean um Germany, Austria and Italy. were the defeated powers and the malifactors  in the war, right? um France had collaborated,

part of France had collaborated and there was a  tremendous amount of soulsearching and there was a. tremendous amount of guilt. Um Spain and Portugal  had kind of resolved their own civil war in the. 1930s and they were kind of out of the picture. It  would seem that Britain had a record that it could. really be proud of, but it was dismantling an  empire. And um so the two main victorious non the. you know the vic the main victorious powers were  the United States, Britain and Russia. Russia was.

communist and had its own project to propagandize.  But the United States and and and Britain, they also had reasons for self-examination. There  was, you know, there I I think there was plenty of. triumphalism after the the Second World War. It's  a very it's very tough thing to read. I think that. the America I grew up in was really quite proud  of its its role in the Second World War even as.

it was re-examining its own history, you know, um  of racism and slavery and and and and even the, you know, the settlement and the and the wipeout  of of the Indians, you know. So, it was a mix of. it was a mix of impulses. So, I'm not sure that  they were I'm not sure these countries were were. as self-doubting as we as we think. Well, the  effect was to just collapse. I mean, especially.

in the case of the UK. Um, so is there any getting  back to what it was even 354 years ago? You know, it's funny. I heard um a member of the Reform  Party saying that what people um uh what people. really long for in um England is a return to the  status quo anti-Tony Blair. That is, you know, Britain had a lot of um of migration. There was  one wave in the 40s and 50s. There is another one.

that kind of coincided with our the beginnings of  our latest wave which has never which has gone on. unabated but they had a wave in the 70s and 80s  the British did but the but the the biggest one. was just was intentionally started by Tony Blair  and um the so the reform this one member of the. for reform party says if we could just go back  to the status quo anti Blair that would be fine.

that was only 30 years ago but in In fact,  the amount of change has been so tremendous. And it's not just the that the numerator of  of migration has changed. It's also that the. denominator of the of the of the total population  of Britain has changed. That is Britain is a very. very slow growing demographic. So they're not  really producing a lot of new children. And so.

the a disproportionately large amount of the  of the British people in years to come are. going to be the product of of immigration. So  no, I don't see any any in general there's no. way sort of like cataclysmic developments to to  to reverse any of that. We're sorry to say it, but this is not a very safe country. Walk  through Oakland or Philadelphia. Yeah, good luck.

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I mean the because there's no way that those two  cultures can live and share power. I mean one that. doesn't that's never happened in history. A c one  culture dominates in the end. You have a culture. It depends on how separate they remain. I mean,  let's look at the at the um at the history of. um the settlement of North America. I mean, the  the British, particularly if you talk to Spanish.

historians and and Spanish observers of this, were  notoriously insistent on remaining separate in. the in the lands they they conquered. And and they  did and they did dominate. In some in some places, they were able to settle these these uh areas.  In other places like India, they were sent home, you know, after a long period of exploiting  the place. But there were other um there were. other nationalities that tended to colonize by by  mixing more. And so there is a there is a sort of.

a there a mix of cultures becomes possible. the  cultures that mixed into what we now think of as. um you know different Latin American cultures were  earlier on quite separate. There still is a degree. of separation in South America between these  different strains of like the European culture and. the the the native culture of um but I mean in in  in most of Latin America you can say that there's.

such a thing as Brazilian culture, there's such  a thing as as Mexican culture and there will be. uh you know I trust such a thing as English  culture in you know in 50 or 100 years but it will. be a very different thing than the English culture  that we recognized over the last 500 years. It was. so it is a rupture. You're right. What happens  to the I mean at some point do the politics get.

radical? Well, that I think is the It makes me  feel radical hearing about justice. Well, that I. think is what's happening in England now and it's  one of the reasons I went to England and it's why. I I think it's really it bears watching in uh in  the next few years. They had a they had a huge. um they had a lot of riots last summer. I mean,  there was an episode in which uh um you know,

the the Britishborn child of um Rwanda immigrants,  who sounds like he was kind of a crazy man, um went to a to a Taylor Swift dance party  that was being held for a bunch of um you know, little girls and he stabbed a dozen of them and um  and killed three of them and the and and the town. in which he did it just blew and the um and and  and and the protests spread across the country and.

you had like a wave of really quite spontaneous um  public uprising and that was last that was about. just about a year ago in August. Um the government  which had just entered office the the Star the. government of Kier Starmer the Labor government  chose not to view it as a spontaneous um uprising. They described it as the, you know, a reaction to  misinformation and that sort of thing. That did.

not convince the um the public very much though  and I think it contributed to the in general. low popularity the government has enjoyed since  then. It's a strange just as an aside, it's a very. strange situation in Britain where they they have  a lands that this Labor government has a landslide. majority although they've won only a third of the  votes. So that in itself is very stabilizing but I.

think the events that we've just been let's see  the the developments we've just been discussing. have made have contributed to make to make Britain  susceptible to radicalization. What about Germany? I mean, Germany's also been completely transformed  by immigration, but that's a society with less. free even than Britain, and people can't even  say it out loud. They've been taught to hate. themselves and to keep that stuff inside. But you  wonder at some point, did Germans say, you know,

we just had enough. Yeah. Well, you know, I think  it's it's worth it's worth remembering that, you. know, that we had a lot to do with that, you know,  German culture of of denazification and um and. um sort of let's say German uh the the critical  German approach that that they take to their past. I and so Germany was not Germany has never been  a real free speech society. It's not a it's not a.

um a value that is held to quite the high degree  that we hold it in our first amendments. Very in. fact no other culture on earth really has that  absolutist idea of free speech that we treasure I. think rightly. Um but so working with that German  culture which is not a pure free speech culture. I.

think that we reasoned you know the United States  partly because of the circumstances of the cold. war wanted to reintroduce Germany into the family  of citizen of civilized nations very fast. I mean, we were talking about rearming them in the 1950s,  you know, we were talking about creating building. a European army around Germany in in like 1955.  It was as an alternative to that that the European.

Union was created because that prospect really  freaked the French out. Okay. But at any rate, the United States really wanted Germany to be  re introduced to the West and and to do that. a certain number of ground rules had to be laid  down. You know what I mean? Like you couldn't buy. a um uh you couldn't buy a copy of Mine Comp. You  couldn't um you eventually you you couldn't join.

a communist party. You know what I mean? There's  um um so yeah, Germany had Germany's Germany's. free speech was was a little constrained, you  know, um it might have been constrained anyway, but it also had this highly critical idea of of of  of German history. And again, it's understandable,

but there's a lot of great stuff in German  history, too. I mean um the reformation comes. out of Germany. Germany was the most cultured  country in the world with the you know with the. arguable exception of of Britain at the end of the  19th and the beginning of the 20th century. And. it's it's I I mean I don't have to go through  the through the list. It was only a matter of. time before Germans said well like can't we talk  about the good things in our in our culture too? I thought that that moment actually was coming  around the time of the Iraq war. And I think that.

that was a to a to a you know Ghart Schroeder.  I mean at the time it was fashionable to blame. France for the European opposition of uh uh uh to  the American adventure in Iraq in which in which. you know Europe has been spectacularly vindicated  I think. Yes, but in fact I think it was Germany.

as much as France that was that was driving that  you know rebellion and it was Ghart Schrudder who. said you who is then the chancellor of Germany he  said the you know the foreign policy of Germany. is going to be made in Berlin and only in Berlin.  Um I thought that that was happening then. At any. rate, for a long time, people really lacked the  institutions through which to express that German,

you know, I wouldn't even call it pride. It's  just it's the desire that it's partly pride, but it's just the desire that German Germany be  treated like a normal country again, you know. And I think now 80 years after the war that  um 80 years after the war and confronted by. certain problems that actually require a certain  amount of national pride to address. I mean the.

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It's interesting that um AFD, the alternative for  Germany, um is treated like an outlaw party by. the courts in Germany and yet it's growing in  popularity. I was just reading in the largest. German state um members of the party were banned  from owning guns because they were North Ryan West. failure. Yeah. Um can that continue? Well, this is  a big this is a big drama. Yes, it can continue.

It's a you know, it's um it's an interesting  situation. I mean the German um the German. I'm not sure where in the grund gazettes it is in  the basic German basic law but but the German um. the German constitution permits something called  the office for the protection of the constitution.

to monitor parties to make sure that they're not  dangerous right-wing extreme extremist parties and. the goal of having that in the constitution was to  prevent any recruescence of of Nazism. Now there. are parties all across Europe that had certain  antecedants whether in the institution itself or. um in certain just personnel you know the way for  the the way for example Mussolini's um fascist.

party was ended at the end of of uh World War II  but a lot of its members went and they joined the. MSI the Italian social movement and that sort of  continued ed after the second world war and then. there was there there were offshoots of it many  of the people in it became left-wing um uh uh. Georgia Maloney started a new party but it had  some people who were in the MSI so if you want.

to trace a genealogy from to you know from mid  20th century fascism to certain European leaders. you can and and and people do that as a way of  sort of gaining talking points against Maloney. Yeah. However, the interesting thing about about  the AFD though is that the AFD is not one of those. parties. The AFD was founded in 2013 by a bunch of  academic macroeconomists who were worried that the.

European Union by guaranteeing um the the debts  of Greece and other failing countries was in an. invisible way taxing Germany. So it was it was it  was built around a very recondite complaint, you. know, um and not a hate-filled complaint. And I I  remember interviewing the head of the party at the.

time who was an economist named Bar Looker um and  he was just a very nerdy guy. He's left I think. he's left the party since, but the party underwent  two transformations. The first came in 2015 when. Angala Merkel invited immigrants, you know, from  fleeing the the Syrian civil war um to come to. Germany and they began streaming over land um  into Europe and were then joined opportunistically.

um as you may remember by a lot of Pakistanis  and Iraqis and Iranians and Afghans and just. a whole huge human wave and A woman in the party,  a very charismatic um sort of like mother of many. children named um named Frraa Petri said, "You  know what? We are the alternative for Germany. No, no party is uh uh argue arguing for an alternative  immigration policy and that has to be us." And so.

it became the um the anti-immigration party. But  at the same time, it had it had for similar but. less noticeable reasons, it had attracted people  who wanted a change in Germany for all sorts of. things, including, you know, what we would call  culture warriors, people who wanted to change the.

school curriculum to so that it denigrated Germany  less. And then it became a whole big grabag of. parties of of of tendencies, which it is today.  Although they are a much more united party than. I think a lot of people think and they're now,  you know, they're they're they they got 20% in. the last election and between elections they tend  to pull much higher. So they're a serious party. They have at at times in the last in the last few  months since the elections in January, I believe,

um they have been the largest party in  in Germany in terms of opinion polling. So if the if you have a country that calls  itself, advertises itself a democracy, a country, you know, run by the people who live there and  over time the establishment excludes parties that. represent the majority of the people, then don't  you get a revolution at a certain point? Maybe I, you know, I think I got a little off  track. There's one piece I forgot to.

to explain. So So there is the there exists in  the German constitution this idea of of banning. parties. Yes. Um and it's I think that then when  people understood it, it was something that was. supposed to be done in like 1948 whenever like  a gang of people, you know, got together in one. city. And that's why like there have been parties  banned um since the Second World War, not in a.

very long time. and they tend to be tended to  be, you know, tiny little groups of what we. would call jack booted thugs. The idea that that  this mechanism could be used to ban the largest. party in the country and and furthermore one that  was founded one that was founded two generations. after the second world war in 2013 is not what  the constitution in envisioned. Nonetheless,

you can see the appeal of it for two formerly  big national parties that are now shriveling up. and want to get those votes back or want to  keep from being swept away, you know. Well, of course I can. It's just such a violation of the  core principle of a democracy that I just don't. think you, you know, either you have to change  the name of the system. It's just, you know, it's an autocracy run by people with power and  everyone else shuts up or you have to stop doing.

that. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. I mean, you well,  you have um you know, you have you've interviewed. um uh Ken Georgescu on this um on this show. If  you look at what happened in in Romania and the. elections last, you know, last November where  he was simply disqualified because someone in. the government asserted without presenting proof  that that there had been a Russian campaign to to.

elect him and and and and managed to head off the  next, you know, his replacement um in the second. round of that election, which was delayed for many  months and got a member of the establishment into. into the Romanian government. It didn't really  work like like a like a democracy. And yet when. it happened, people said, "Well, we've defended  democracy. We've defended democracy against the.

voters." So, it's the sort of kind of it's the  kind of thing that that Beer told Bre would would. make a joke about, right? Um and and yes, it's  not small d democratic, but people have chosen to. call this this form of government, which is I you  might call it like state of emergency liberalism, which is basically the I think the most accurate  description of what it is for uh they they they. they claim they claim the term democracy, but I  don't think they're doing so very successfully.

and the the parties that that that that that  represent this state of emergency liberalism. do not do terribly well. It just seems like the  spread between what people want and what they're. getting grows wider every year. People seem to  hate mass migration everywhere in the world. I don't think there's a single person who likes  mass migration really and you can tell by their. behavior. Certainly true in this country. I think  people have an expectation of sovereignty which.

almost no country has like a country gets  to make its own decisions but that's not in. practice happening anywhere with only a again a  few exceptions and so there's so much frustration. about that that I just I'm wondering what's  the point where it bubbles up into something. unmanageable. Well, a couple of things. I  don't I'm not sure that the I I think that. the gap between what people want and what they're  getting is is wide is wide, but I'm not sure that.

it's widening. I mean, the the election of Trump  was certainly a Yes. was certainly a call for. more action against mass migration. Yes. And since  he's been elected, the border has been pretty much. closed. There have been deportations. There have  been, you know, certainly the rhetorical stance of. the of the administration is against migration.  I mean, Trump may disappoint his vote voters on.

other things, but on that one thing, which I think  we agree is like a really central issue. Actually, the the will of the the the people and the actions  of the government have kind of converged. I agree. with that. If the if there were to be, as I've  just described, a conservative government in. um England and the um and it abolished the the  Human Rights Act, which would allow Britain to act.

in a fully sovereign way, then the way would be  wide open to deporting people who did not have the. right to be there and certainly to stopping the  ongoing traffic of of small small boat migration. in England. So I think that that's I think it  is um I I I possible things are getting better. from a democratic point of view. You also said  okay so at what point does this explode? I'm not.

sure it does because one of the things that makes  things explode is the is the is discontent in in. numerous and dynamic classes. And that's why, you  know, the the Arab world was so unruly throughout. the the 1980s and the 1990s because you had this  was a a part of the world in which people were. having like six or eight or 10 kids and there was  no place to put these young men and um there was.

a lot of there was a lot of marshall dynamism in  the in these societies and um uh in fact wherever. you have a lot of young people. If you look at  the United States in the in the 60s and 70s, you. have a lot of disorder and rebellion. But we're  not societies like that anymore. We are topheavy. societies full of old wobbly people and and and  not these are not the kind of societies that that.

say, "Darn it, I've had enough." These are people  who need I mean the the the the the demographic. heart of of our societies is in the in in people  who are of an age where they need care, not where. they're going to run out into the street shaking  their fists. So most of what the big health. companies sell is loaded with sugar and fillers  and synthetic junk. It's probably not too good for.

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15 years. Um then you're going to have a really  dynamic society. You're going to have a lot of. people born in this country to immigrant parents  who feel like they want a piece of it and you're. going to have massive change, wouldn't you think?  Absolutely. And that I think is that's why I I've. I've tended to look at this, you know, what's  happening now with arguments over the border and.

with um you know, with Trump as part of a process  that will come to resemble about a century later, the process that led to the New Deal.  I mean because I think the New Deal was. u was the con consolidation of a new governing  system in a way that took account of the waves. of migration that had changed the country between  8 1880 and 1920. you know and and you know we are.

we look at our present demographic change  and we say oh my goodness things are really. you know what country has ever faced anything  like this and it's it's really there really is. a there are really a lot of points of contact  between what h what has happened with us and. what happened to the country between 1880 and and  1920. you have, you know, people from, you know,

the the the initial argument is, look, you know,  it's all well and good to receive people, but this. country is about a certain set of values. It's  about, you know, it's historically determined. These people who are coming know nothing of  our of our country. How are they going to ever. um you know, assimilate into it? It's exactly the  same arguments that you got in the 1880s, 1890s. Then you get demands for you know like closing  the border and it just doesn't happen and doesn't.

happen and doesn't happen until 1924 when it  suddenly happens and then suddenly the only. people who can come here are the people who are  already here you know I mean let's see the only. Americans are the ones who've already arrived  those are the only foreigners and that's why. you know if you look at it's why there are so  many Italians in Argentina they came after 192. 1924 when the Italians could no longer go to  to to New York. Um, and so from there, these.

people had no choice but to mix together into a  new kind of American. And and and the people who. said these people will never be able to adapt to  the old American ways, they were wrong, but they. weren't totally wrong. I mean the sort of like the  the country did change to reflect the identity of. the new of the new immigrants. And then in 1932  when Roosevelt came to power on the heels of an.

event that discredited the old elites which is the  crash. Then he claimed the authority to basically. reorganize the the the country in the name of this  new mix of the you know of the settled Americans. and the new immigrant Americans. And it it knit  the country into one people so effectively that by. the 1950 1950s and60s young Americans were sort of  like complaining about how boring and homogenized.

the United States was. You know what I mean?  Yes. So so it can be done. Will there um after. Trump leaves in three years, will there be like a  series of Trumps or will the party revert to what. it was? Oh, you will the Republican party revert  to what it was before Trump? Oh. Um, first of all,

I I think Trump is such a an unusual person that I  don't think he can really be replicated even if um. no matter how hard anyone tries. He he was um he  was a I I I I I I I mean he he came to prominence. because he had an incredible amount of you know  what used to be called brass at a time when brass.

was was what what was required. There are other  people who have sort of sort of who seem to have. more of the you know more of the qualifications  that that a politician would require. That is. like patience and and like an understanding of  policy and things like that. You had people like. Ronda Santis seem to be offering that to the  Republican pe uh party for a while. But it's.

not what the country felt it needed. The country  felt it needed brass. The country felt it needed. someone to come in and insult topple and and break  the old establishment. Was that establishment. broken like after Trump? Well, it's still in  progress. I mean, it's I mean, I think I mean, this is something you know a lot more about than  I do, but I I I I mean, if I look at Trump one, I.

would say that that it was an almost utter failure  on Trump's own terms. that is um I mean he he used. that list that Leonard Leo and and others had  given him to to to to fortify the Supreme Court. as a you know a more or less conservative um uh  uh uh force and and he nominated a lot of judges.

Um, but I don't think that he ever understood the  where the actual levers of power in the government. were. And so the the same deep state that he  had complained about went on was as strong on. the day he left office as it was on the day that  he arrived. And so one had the impression that. he'd learned absolutely nothing. And so what has  happened in under Trump too is one of the most.

astonishing surprises in the history of American  politics. Now in Brexit, you had a guy who was. kind of a a genius in the workings of British  government named Dominic Cummings who was be. able to was able to say, "Well, no, you don't need  to win a a majority in parliament on this one. you. just need to control the the the cabinet office,  etc. Um, Trump never had such a person, but.

apparently, and the details are still not clear  how, apparently he acquired one or several in the. course of um in the course of his four years  out of power. I think Steve Bannon is correct. to say that the two four years out of power in in  Trumpian terms were were a great blessing for him. So there's someone I mean maybe Steve Miller is  an and is a candidate for this who has the most.

tremendous Mchavellian understanding of what can  be done inside government. I mean the speed with. which um you know USAD was was dismantled which in  in what seems to me it was not really a costsaving. operation. It was like a purge of a of a certain  tendency in in in government was really, you know, whatever you think of it as an ideological  operation, it was a tremendously expert.

um operation in terms of, you know, government  rejiggering. um the the executive orders that. he has, you know, cancelled and the new ones that  he has passed in order to give a new reading to. affirmative action. And I would say that the  that affirmative action was in many ways the. key institution of American government of the last  half century to render it inoperative even if he.

hasn't fully killed it is a is a constitutional  revolution. So yeah this is I mean things are. still in progress. It's it's it's very difficult  to see whether for whether an operation like say. deportations whether that is going to accelerate  or whether Trump is really running out of gas and.

and and and and and this is going to but it's  it's hard to see how it will proceed from here. but it's been a huge change. He's turned out  to be a very significant president. Can you. go back a second? How was affirmative action  the key institution in American government? Well, I you know, I've always thought and we've  we've talked about this that that the passage. of the um Civil Rights Act of 1964 was the, you  know, it created a a new constitution that was.

was really at odds, a de facto new constitution  that was at odds with what we thought of as our. real Constitution. And as you know uh you know  what it basically tried to do was sort of like. create a more you know create a society in the  south where you know blacks could live as equal. citizens to to whites um you know in in public and  in in large companies and and and and that sort of.

thing. But it wound up to be a wound up being an  incredibly um versatile tool. you could use it. for anything. Um once you had declared a sort of  national emergency, so like getting women onto, you know, like corporate boards or getting um you  know uh uh uh uh bilingual education into schools,

getting, you know, protecting, you know,  transgender story hour. I mean, it just it. just ramified into every corner of American life.  And um anybody could be made any anybody was under. suspicion. Um and you know let's let's just say in  corporation well it worked publicly and privately. in corporations anyone who ran a a company that  was you know larger than a few dozen people was.

understood to be under you know the government's  watchful eye. um you could you could you could. avoid being sued really only by establishing  a an affirmative action program. And so it. became it it became the the means through which  the government could approach any institution. public or private and say you know we'd like to  have a look at your hiring practices. We'd like.

to have a look at like how you, you know, how  you've been behaving for the last, you know, um, for the last year and your board meetings.  We'd like to know if there's anyone you're hiring. who has kind of an an animous against black people  or women or gays or or immigrants. And so it had a. very chilling effect at every level of government  and at every level of of society. Is that over?

It is for now. Except we now have a culture  in which for 50 years people even in the. most private, you know, conversations sort of  have been trained to ask themselves, you know, can I say this or or is this okay? or or you know  like um you know I'm not homophobic but you know. um and and and so you have a you have a you have  a society that has really been trained to be.

scared. So a lot of this, you know, yes, I think  so, so I think that institutionally it's over, but but culturally we are really not a a people  that has sort of like learned to use freedom and. that will take a long time. It'll take a long time  to get an easy freedom of conversation back about.

about things, obvious things that you notice,  differences between people and differences between. groups about anything. Almost about anything.  Almost anything. Yeah. Do you see that changing? I see it changing. Do you see it changing?  Yes, I do. That's interesting. Yeah. Um it. feels like the term racist has lost its sting like  almost completely. Um Yeah. I well I would expect. that to happen. I'm I'm I don't I haven't really  gathered any evidence about it. You know I mean.

for one thing it's harder to you know sue a person  when you're you know the government has announced. that it's not enforcing affirmative action that  kind of thing. So, I mean, if you can, it used to. be that if someone could just if you could just  successfully attach the word racist to a person, um, you know, whether through a lawsuit or a  or a or or a or a public relations campaign,

no one could hire him. Do you know what I mean?  It was a real Oh, I do know what you mean. Um, and it and it and it was sort of like it was  not as different from the the Chinese social. credit system which we liked to deplore as we  like to think and that is no longer true. Um, yes I think I think that is no longer true. I  think it's no longer true that in institutionally.

you can destroy a person with that kind of  imputation. However, it may become true again. depending on what happens in the in the next  election. Um so people are wary and um I also. think that people we're not the sort of people  that is comfortable going out on a limb anymore. We've become a very conversationally cautious  people or at least anyone who's like lived the.

last several decades in this country, you acquire  habits. I mean, I think that that you can't expect. um a person who's had these very self-protective  habits beaten into him over over decades to give. them up. In the same way that, you know, like  you know, people who lived through the depression. maintained their habits of frugality for 60  years after that. Yeah. I remember when banks.

introduced ATM cards, they couldn't get people who  grew up during the depression to use them. Well, that's a very good analogy because it  was just too spooky, you know. Yeah. Um, do you remember a country where people spoke  freely in conversation? Do you have memories of. that? I remember one where people spoke more fre  more freely. I remember and and in fact, I went to. college in the 1980s. I think it was pretty free.  And I and and actually when people describe the.

um the first um really mention in the wider public  of so-called political correctness was I think in. the winter of 1990 to 1991. Yes. Um and shortly  thereafter, you know, you had the Clarence Thomas. um hearings for the Supreme Court which introduced  the idea of of sexual harassment. Um and I I got. the feeling that things were changing very um  quickly right then. Um there were a couple of.

incidents um then. Um and and and one that I I I  remember very clearly was there is a there was a. a a Dodgers an an executive for the Los Angeles  Dodgers named Al Campanis. Yes. Yeah. Who got. invited on um on uh uh Ted Cppel's show Night  Line to talk about Jackie Robinson 40 years after.

um you know he'd entered the you know big leagues  and and Al Campanis had been um you know he was. he was not only was he not a racist he was he  had been Jackie Robinson's roommate and he was. one of his defenders. He was great, but he said  a few things kind of the wrong way, you know, like he gave a wrong answer to the question of why  aren't more blacks managers? And he was ruined. He was ruined. This is a guy who had like fought  to bring Jackie Robinson into the major leagues.

But I mean, you know, you had um he he lost his  job. And I remember Maxine Waters, who was the. uh who was already in I don't think she was yet in  Congress actually, but she was a very active in in. California politics already. Was so she wanted  to be sure that he wasn't, you know, secretly. being given any benefits by by the Dodgers of  any kind. And I mean, he was just like he was. just destroyed. this this this kindly old man who  had been a friend of Jackie Robinson's and it was.

clearly something was something was was happening  there. Um, and I think that what was happening. is that these enforcement possibilities which  are in the Civil Rights Act that that lawyers. were getting we're getting more adept at using  them for a growing number of things like saying, "Well, of course you have freedom of speech,  but if you say that in the company you own,

you will create a hostile environment for your  your employees and therefore they'll be able to. sue to you for this much money. So basically  without without banning speech you were able. to make speech very uncomfortable for people.  Did that just play out? Was I mean is it just. impossible for people to live this way forever and  people just decided No, it didn't play out. it had.

to be rebelled against. And the and the um the  the removal the lifting of the executive orders. that that that that order um affirmative action  um by Trump was an absolutely necessary step. The decision not to enforce infir affirmative  action um was a necessary step. Um, by the way,

it was preceded, it was preceded by a Supreme  Court case that appeared in its mealymouthed way. to say negative things about affirmative action  programs in universities, but it's clear that. universities were proceeding um were proceeding as  as best they they could to to maintain it. So, no, it does not play out. It's uh it's uh uh uh this  affirmative action, political correctness, woke,

this whole constellation of authoritarian and even  totalitarian seeming rules. They are rules. They. are not part of the culture. They are not the  result of, you know, a lot of people deciding. we really ought to be nicer to trans people.  They're they are enforced by the fact that that if. you fall a foul of these uh of of of you know of  of civil right rights laws, it can cost you your.

business and your reputation and everything else.  What what's the real purpose of them? I I sense. that social justice is not actually the the the  goal. Well, I no I you know you know I and and I. should add that that that you know th this is just  a well let's le let's deal with this. I think that.

that solving the age-old race problem in the  United States was the original goal of civil. rights. Yes. But the tools that that were given  to solve that problem included ways to overturn. um democratic democratically made decisions in  in in the south. that tool, that ability to to. circumvent a democratic mandate from the American  people, from any people is such a valuable thing.

for politicians to have. And so they started  using it for everything. As I say, you know, um um you know, under reppresentation of  women, under reppresentation of immigrants, under representation of Hispanics, all these  things become become crisis and social justice. actually was the name that was given to this,  but it was always and you can call it anything.

you want, but it it always was a way of of using  the government to sort of order society and that's. and the danger of it was that you could do that  at a really really micro level you know I mean you. can do it at the level of like what signs people  hang in the doors of their shops you know and so. it became kind of like the world that you know  Vatlav Havl describes in his um and that's why.

everyone started reading Vatlav Havl and Alexander  Soljen again because our society felt like those. Eastern European societies is at the time of No,  it was it was Soviet. It was totalitarian. I mean, in this in the strict sense, it was total  control over people's lives. Yeah. I like. the to to draw the distinction that that Hana  aren does. At one point, a lot of people use. totalitarianism to mean like a really, you know,  I mean, Mussolini originally used it to mean,

you know, like the state can, you know, like can  be all competent. And a lot of people in our time. use it to mean like a really really really bad  dictatorship. But the way Hana Art uses it means. like the state gets into the totalitary to the  totality of your exactly of of your life. There's. no right. There's no nook of your life um that the  state where the state does not belong. The state.

wants to be at your dinner table. You know what I  mean? And and and listening in on you. you know, the state wants to be, you know, on your  route to work and make sure, you know, it the state wants to be everywhere with you in  everything you do. Can we go back to that? So, you said that this was not organic. The population  never cried out for total control of its personal. conversations or anything else. It it was imposed  on the population by the state. Now, it's been.

rolled back by the state, right? Run by Donald  Trump. But can it be reimposed? Would people put. like could President Alexandria Kaziocortez be  like, you know, my goal as president is gonna be. to eliminate racism? Wouldn't people just laugh  at her? Yes. Um but there there there might be. a confrontation. I mean, as long as Trump hasn't  um, you know, removed these laws from the books, which he hasn't, um, he's merely sort of  like suspended the enforcement of them and.

he's unwritten some executive orders which can  be re, you know, reissued. I mean, it's it's a. reprieve. So the interesting thing would be what  would happen if you know how would the the public. respond with you know four years of living more  freely if those freedoms were suddenly withdrawn. And this includes you mentioned young people.  This includes people you know who've had who've.

never had any experience of of having political  politically correct censorship at work or or that. sort of thing. And I don't know, you were saying  last night at dinner that people often say the. Democratic party when it takes power again, as it  will at some point, will be a lot more radical, but you were saying maybe that's not correct. I  don't know what they will have the the capacity. to do. you know, I don't, you know, you say, well,  you know, how will people respond if President.

Okaziocortez says, you know, we're gonna have, you  know, affirmative action and and drag queen story. hour again. Um, I just don't know. But I do, yes,  I do think the Democratic Party is is probably. um is probably going to, you know, it's  going to find something to, you know, some way to radicalize. At what point do economic  debates like reemerge? And notice we've, you know,

as we've been talking about drag queen story  hour and race and sexuality and all this stuff, there's been in a way that would have been weird  40 years ago, but almost no conversation of like. macroeconomics in public. Like all the oxygen's  taken up by that this the political correct stuff. Yeah. I and I I I think it's it's a very welcome  thing that economics is coming back. You hear a.

bit of it when we talk about the tariffs, you  know, a very I mean, but Trump is um Trump has. really confounded a lot of the of the categories.  I think that that everyone has the habit of like. saying, you know, talking about tax cuts for the  rich and and and all that kind of thing. to tie. this to what we've been saying with immigration.  Immigration is a very important part of this.

economic um question. Trump, an interesting thing  about Trump's first term is that as best we can. measure it, it was a highly egalitarian period.  And um you know we really only have accurate. undistorted numbers for the first three years  of it because the final year of it was was co. um but it really appeared that the that the bottom  quintile of um of of earners advanced against.

other quintiles for the first time since the 20th  century. And I you know really Yes. Yes. And this. is in the the the Fed's numbers that came out at  towards the end of the the Trump administration. If you look at total economic performance  like the way we tend to measure it, okay, we. tend to measure it by the mean that is the GDP per  capita. Economic performance was much better or it.

was better under the Obama administration than it  was under Trump. The economy grew more. However, if you look at the distribution of it, it was  there were far lower gains for the the very rich. under Trump and and but there were relative gains  for the pe there were absolute gains, let us say, for the people in the lower quintiles. I think  the four bottom quintiles did quite well under.

Trump. Um, and that so his his voters benefited is  what you're saying. Exactly. Okay. So there's a I. mean it's hard to say why that happened. I think  immigration did go down but mostly immigration was. talked down. Okay. When you have high immigration,  high immigration is like a direct transfer payment. from those who compete with immigrants to those  who use immigrants, you know. Um but that's that's.

interesting. Yeah. So, immigration really is a  transfer of wealth to the rich. Yeah. So, um when. we talk about Trump and immigration, that's that  that's I think an important thing to keep in mind. Um and and and and that is why um a lot of people  were really surprised um by the shift in votes um.

uh among particularly among black and Hispanic  males to Trump in in in 2024. And people have. sought to explain it through these cultural, you  know, factors that we've been discussing earlier. today. Oh, was it Trump's, you know, endorsement  by this rap hiphop star or whatever. But I think. it might just be that people, you know, people at  that part of the economy, you know, who tend to. be, you know, that that benefited from Trump one  tend to be disproportionately black and Hispanic.

and it might just be a direct a case of of  of people just devoting their direct economic. interests. It's a little weird if you go through  the Congressional Black Caucus um certainly among. the people whose names you've heard like the  famous black political leaders in this country, they're all for open borders. Huh. Well, I  think that that is largely intersectionality. And you know people talk about people in in in  universities talk about intersectionality like.

it's a a theory about you know the how you know  um different types of lack of privilege intersect. like you know am I am I more um discriminated  against because I'm a black woman or because. I'm a lesbian and and that kind of thing um or  because I'm foreign or whatever. But actually what. intersectionality is, you you you've used the term  on your your show, but I what I think it really is.

is just coalition building. The civil rights  regime created a a system in which you um you. could do almost anything you wanted. A minority  could do almost anything you that he wanted. with government. You could do almost anything you  wanted with government in the name of minorities. But minorities remained minorities. You couldn't  get the the majority to do that. So what happens.

is minorities wind up make the beneficiaries of  minority government wind up making a an alliance. You know, you can't vote against immigration cuz  you're a woman and you know women's rights are. immigrant rights and immigrant rights are human  rights and human rights are gay rights and and. they're all wrapped up together. So, and that's  where the, you know, like the the much mocked. nonsequittors of intersectionality come from,  like like gays for Gaza and and and and that.

and that kind of thing. My favorite. Um, yeah. So,  but really you're just describing the Democratic. Party that that this is just like theoretical  overlay to justify retroactively a coalition. The. Democratic Party is the party of the beneficiary  beneficiaries of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Democratic Party is the party of  beneficiaries of the Civil Rights Act. of 1964 and the Republican Party is the party  of the victims of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

or those who have objections to it on you know I  mean if you count among the victims those who feel. their liberties constrained by it yeah I would say  curtailing someone's liberty is to hurt somebody. okay yeah um interesting does that change well  as I say I think it's it's in obeyance now but.

um but you know to If if if I could say another  thing about about immigration and the economy, there is a kind of a longer term there's a kind  of a longer term process sort of working itself. out as we create this um as we create through  border enforcement a tightening of the labor.

market on the bottom of the income distribution.  It should do some very good things for the for the. country. If you believe, as I think you probably  should believe, that that inequality is one of. the biggest problems confronting the country,  it's going to alleviate that somewhat, but it's. going to do it in a kind of a it's going to do it  in a way that is going to hurt in places. I think. people are right. I mean, I think those economists  who say that that that immigration that curtailing.

immigration is inflationary are right. And it's  inflationary in a lot of ways that affect the not. just the upper middle class but also the middle  class lifestyle like the great proliferation of. um of really nice restaurants. the idea that, you  know, when this experiment in mass immigration. in in a nearly open border, you know, with Mexico  began in in the 1970s, there weren't a dozen sushi.

restaurants in Pittsburgh, you know, I mean,  people didn't there were no sushi Pittsburgh. restaurants in Pittsburgh. Oh, this stuff. We tend  to think that that this is that these amenities. have developed because of our, you know, improving  taste that we're just so much more discerning than. our parents were. But the difference, I think, is  this s source of of of just plentiful, bountiful,

really cheap labor for people who can can, you  know, work in back kitchens and things like that. So there's no when I worked in a restaurant  as a dishwasher 40 years ago this summer, it was a diner in New England, everyone was white  in the kitchen. Everybody everyone had a criminal. record, everyone was white. That's that's  interesting. But so when you when you when. you tighten up that labor market and suddenly  you have to pay your dishwasher a dollar more,

$2 more, $3 more, the the the the meals in your  restaurant are going to get more expensive. So, there aren't going to be, you know, like  sandwiches, gourmet sandwiches for $11.99. anymore. They're going to be like $28.99, you  know, and people are going to say, "Uh, I'm. going to bring my sandwich to to work, you know.  I'm going to" and and then the restaurant is going. to close and the country is going to become much  more like it was like what you saw the tail end of.

um in your diner in New England. It's going to  have crummier food. It's going to have uh you. know things are going to there's going to be a  lot more sameness. That's the that's what the. world of a of a of a of a low immigration less  free market or let's where there's less of a free. market in labor. That's what a society like that  looks like. The the working class gets richer.

They they move towards the middle. Everyone  gravitates towards the middle class, right? and institutions, economic institutions begin to  serve the middle class. That is, you have a a a a. shrinking of of gourmet restaurants and and a and  a concentration of restaurants in the middle of, you know, the middle of the road category. So, the  middle class was the dominant um you know, was the. dominant portion of the country, was the majority  middle class country up until I think 2015.

And did that change? And then the middle class  is no longer the majority. Is is that because of. immigration? Has a lot to do with immigration.  Yes. Globalization and immigration. And um I. mean I think people people tend not to mention um  immigration. I mean people tend to say it's a mix. of globalization that is free trade and technology  you know. But I think that the most important part.

of globalization is immigration. Why is it the  most important? You mean it has affect the most. changes? George Borhas the Harvard economist has  said that you know immigration people always talk. about you know is immigration good for the economy  or bad for the economy and basically whenever. you measure it it's tough to get an effect on the  economy that's more than like 1%. It's so trivial. I I I I mean but what the huge effect is which is  like dozens of times larger than the effect on the.

economy as a whole is the transfer effect.  The sort of loss of jobs by people who need. $15 an hour to wash dishes to those who will do  it for $8 an hour. Okay. And the benefit to people. who used to be paying their gardener, you know,  $30 an hour, but now find it can be done for $6. an hour. Or more likely, they pay a guy who's got  a team on his truck and they pay him, you know,

$30 an hour and let him sort out how this is done  and he does it much quicker and they save money. You see what I mean? I do. So it becomes  a it becomes a transfer from the from the. working class. It doesn't necessarily I think  what you're saying is it doesn't necessarily. expand your economy, but it just makes the rich  richer. I think so. So that would explain why.

rich people in these are broadstrokes, but in  general hate any conversation about immigration, immediately go to motive, you're a racist, and  just aren't at all interested in talking about it. at all and why workingclass people really resent  it. There may be other reasons too, but that seems. like a big reason. Yes, those are broadstrokes,  but I think they're roughly accurate. There's a I. you know, I I I there's a French sociologist named  Kristoff Gilwi who's written books about how this.

has worked in France and his thinking has really  clarified mine on this. But you know you basically. in France you have 20 cities that are like nodes  of the global economy and they like you know like. in in Tulus you have Airbus and where you know  where there are engineers and executives at Airbus. they have you know you know African gardeners and  and and there are nannies and there are all sorts.

of people there. It's a global economy niche.  When you get out into the countryside none of. that stuff touches anything. It's basically people  the economy consists of like returning you know. cans to the you know to the grocery store. Um this  explains why you know if you live in a place like. Washington DC or or Berkeley California and and  and or Boston people are like sincerely puzzled.

They say like how did Trump win? I don't know  anyone who voted for him, you know, and they say. they'll say something like, "No, really." I've  talked to people of all classes. I didn't vote. for him, you know, my mother didn't vote for him.  My nanny, you know, you know, in, you know, from. Jamaica didn't, you know, who's not naturalized  and can vote. She didn't vote for him. And the. answer is the the dividing line is is not between  rich and poor. It's between the beneficiaries.

of and the excluded from the global economy.  Right? That's the dividing line in the politics. So when you give up open borders, you're really  giving up like a whole way of life. You give up. the solidarity between classes in your country.  Huh. What does that mean? I don't know. I'm as. soon as I said it, I realized that what you could  look at it in a in a separate in a different way. I mean, you you give up a dynamic that brings  the classes close together, you know, which is.

that the the ability of of workingass people to  withhold their labor for more money. You know what. I mean? You undercut that. they become the it's  why trade unions when they were actual industrial. unions and not arms of the Democratic party, you  know, were, you know, they they equated immigrant.

labor with scab labor that was they were behind  the immigration restrictions of the 1920s. Um, so you give up that dynamic, you know. Um it's but  it's very tempting you know it's there there are. other ways to look at it but yeah I think that's  basically that's basically the the best way to. look at will China ever decide um as it as its you  know economy matures and it and cools inevitably. that it needs mass immigration to China. Um you  know I don't know much about China. I know I know.

a little more about about Japanese. You know,  China China has had a China's had a tremendous. amount of of internal labor migration which it is  just which is just about to come to the end of um. and and and so its labor costs are going to rise.  Um I don't know how it's going to react. It's very.

interesting that Japan has chosen um you know a  tightening economy over a diversifying society. That is they've they've kept out immigrant labor  for the most part. And where they've admitted it, they've tended do tended to do it on a temporary  basis. You know, you get a few Filipino nannies. and you they send them home at the end of their  of their of their term. The only mass migration. they've had in the last 100 years has been from  Korea. Uhhuh. Um, which they controlled until.

1945. And then the Koreans who stayed kind of  pretend they're Japanese. Yes. So I, you know, I think that, you know, and how's that trade  worked for them? I think it's worked well for. them. I mean, I think it's worked for them. I  mean the United States is constantly that the. the United States has brought tremendous pressure  on Japan to to admit immigrants and this is one of. the things that I find exactly this one of the  things I find quite mysterious but if you look.

at the pressure that the United this is one of the  things that I think that USID did it's I mean it's. sort of an ideological arm of the country but if  you look at not just programs but but people in. the United States diplomatic who are in the State  Department were always sort of like browbeating. um Victor Orban in Europe for instance for not  for not ex being more welcoming of immigrants. But.

I so I think we're at the point now where we're  in a moment of of transition. But I I I you know. Japan is is deeply in debt. They I believe they  have the largest per capita debt in the world. although it is all to themselves you know so  it's the it's debt to the so it's it should be it. should be workable but there's still a Japan and  um you know as we've discussed ju Japan decided.

that it valued its cultural continuity more than  European um countries did and so Japan if you. go there you'll discover it's still I think the  Japan that people who went there 20 or 30 years. ago remember it as. So that I mean they seem  like the only smart country like in the world. cuz that does seem no one's starving in Japan.  Actually Japan is infinitely nicer than New York.

for example. Sorry. Tokyo is and even though it's  bigger and more crowded. Yeah. I and I just wonder. like is that like that just that just seems like  the greatest win to me. I Well, I well they they. think so because they continue to they continue  to keep this policy and and there's not a lot of. um there's not a lot of agitation for for changing  it, you know, but I don't I don't I don't know.

It's been a few years since I've been there. Last  question. Are you hopeful about the United States? Yeah. You know, but I I I'm not sure that's  saying much. I I I tend to to to want to be. hopeful and and and um the United States has  some um tremendous strengths. You know, it's got. um the United States has something has happened  since the I'm I'm I'm using Europe, which I think.

is the best, you know. frame of comparison here.  The you know the United States has got a lot. richer than Europe in the last 15 years. I don't  know why that's happened. The two societies seem. to be converging up until you know roughly the  time of the the you know the the the the financial. crisis of 2008 and then the euro crisis that  followed it. And since then, the United States.

has peeled away by like, I don't know, 20 20 or  25% from from European standards of living. So, it's it's richer. It seems to have a it seems to  be in a period of democratic abolition. I mean, that is the the the the populace is engaged.  This doesn't mean that, you know, they've made. a right choice with Donald Trump or that he's  always going to do the right thing. But uh but.

the the the the the public is kind of vigilant  and and it's it is reforming the country and. um we've reformed before. So I'm I'm relatively  I'm relatively optimistic. I am too. And you. make me feel optimistic. Christopher Caldwell,  thank you very much. Thank you, Tucker. [Music].

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