The Trump effect: How much does populism drive policy? • FRANCE 24 English

as Europe Waits on France to form a government as the world Waits on the us to pick a president who drives the agenda in the wake of the January 6 2021 storming of the US capital the rest of world thought there's no way Americans would ever again elect Donald Trump so why despite the court cases and all the initial excitement around kamla Harris is he still even or sometimes even ahead in the polls going into Tuesday night's debate against the vice president the Democrats have scored points on issues like women's rights all the while shifting towards Trump's views on trade immigration how much of a shift to what degree are self- styled IL liberals driving policy in 2024 here in France where the president's tapped a GIS conservative to try and form a government that's palatable to a divided Parliament Trump admirer Marine Leen insists she in no way had a hand in Emanuel mol's pick of Michelle B even though the far-right leader has clearly emerged as king maker from an inconclusive snap election are the IL liberals winning the Battle of ideas today in the France 24 debate we're asking just how much does populism Drive policy joining us from Washington doy Bor roak senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute think tank thank you for being with us thank you for having me also in the US capital political strategist Christian Hanley good to see you thank you for having me Alisa shell is political scientists who teaches at not University here in Paris how are you good to be back and good to see Gerard Olivier author in French of uh cover up uh the Biden Clan America and the Deep State how are you fine good evening you could listen that's right listen like And subscribe to the France 24 debate on Spotify Apple podcast and other fine streaming services uh before we talk about the US and France let's begin with the latest it's out of Germany where the Social Democrat Le government is coming off a drubbing at the hands of the far right in two Regional elections and the interior Minister this Monday announcing 6 months of uh temporary border controls that had existed at its Southern and Eastern borders extended uh for all the other land borders this says the interior minister to tackle irregular migration and quote islamist extremism uh dalbor roach this is coming from again a a interior Minister and a government that is led by the social Democrats in Germany what does that tell you I think it's first of all useful to think about um this Challenge in a comparative terms because very often we use the term populist to label very different very disperate political groups and movements across across Europe and and indeed in the broader uh Atlantic space um popularism I think has to some extent outlift its usefulness you have political parties that are very stely atlanticist and political parties that are leaning towards Russia and China you have political parties that are pro Ukrainian political parties that would like to you know end the war by by having Ukraine surrender you have political parties that present a direct challenge to constitutional orders of their countries or have entrenched themselves in power the political parties that are far less benign all of them lumped together on the under the populist label U I think what has been happening throughout the West is something that is significant and common to all these countries namely that you have the undeserved portion of the electorate that might be suspicious of large scale migration that might be more conservative on social and cultural issues that might be perhaps less tolerant toward sexual and other minorities than we thought and and this this fraction of the electorate is now being served by this white spectrum of political parties that we you know lump under the labor of populist to me the real question is how we can make uh popularism safe for democracy in a way to make sure that it does not represent a challenge to constitutional order the way it does in places like Hungary or indeed the United States and also to make sure that it does not represent a mortal threat to the health of our alliances and open borders though Central to uh the whole principle of the European Union at this point these are open borders within I'm I'm talking about the EU uh Germany he got no no fewer than nine of those land borders um and again this is coming from uh a center-left Le uh government so I asked the question Del bore uh does that mean that there's this shift towards uh the uh uh anti-immigrant ideas of the far right I mean you've seen the shift in in the number of other uh European countries not least in Denmark where you had a social democratic government responding to the refugee crisis in pretty pretty sort of stern and and and and hawkish in hawkish terms and and I think the policy mix that we are going to get as a result of this if you were populist upsurge across Europe and Beyond is a much stricter immigration policy perhaps a tightening of Asylum law that would not be to the liking of humanitarian lawyers and international organizations um but the question is whether this is a price worth paying for the preservation of say the European project and of and of Western alliances and my inclination is to think that yes we probably have to live in a world of you know immigration restrictions protectionism uh and perhaps less tolerant sort of so social attitudes than than we might want to wish for but that might not be in itself the end of democracy or or the end of of the liberal constitutional order not necessarily the end of the liberal constitutional order uh we're going to pick up on that point the whole world is watching what's going on in the US where the argument of those who dislike uh Donald Trump is that democracy is on the ballot uh you've had quite a summer in the US an incumbent shock withdrawal an assassination attempt two conventions next the uh upcoming chapter uh is Tuesday's debate in Pittsburgh Matthew Mary K has that story on one side there's Donald Trump with his standard pump and grandstanding before crowds of fans on the other there's Camala Harris and her face-to-face interactions with emotional supporters they have two diametrically opposed strategies but both candidates are preoccupied with the same thing Tuesday's debate the debate with Joe how did that work out and we're going to find it out again on Tuesday night is anybody going to be watching finally got out of the debate prep to look at these spices best part of debate prep so far Harris has had years of experience with televised debate since she was elected district attorney of San Francisco in 2002 she was able to put vice president Mike Pence back in his place in 2020 Mr Vice President I'm speaking I have I'm speaking nonetheless Trump is a strong adversary Harris has hired Philipe rinus to play the role of the billionaire for debate simulations he worked with Hillary Clinton in 2016 which allowed her to dominate the debates but not to win the election Trump has also recruited a standin for his opponent Tulsi gabard former Trump rival has rallied to his cause she is known for having presented a challenge for Harris in a primary debate 5 years ago she put over 1500 people in jail for marijuana violations and then laughed about it when she was asked if she ever smoked marijuana Trump has to master his nerves and retain composure Harris has to seem reassuring and presidential those impressions are still pretty shallow so in many ways this is as much a job interview for her with this big broad audience that she's going to have as it is a debate and encounter with the former president the debate will take place in Philadelphia cradle of American democracy the candidates have just over one more day to be ready Christian Hanley uh is is it going to be about image how they look during that debate or is it going to be about substance and how they respond to key issues well I think For Better or For Worse it's going to be more about image than about substance um like the the report just said though Donald Trump really is going to have to maintain his his calm and be able to focus on what's the task at hand uh right now we've seen so far as a candidate who seems to be pretty uh scared I would say of facing K Harris on stage he was very uh able to to uh defeat uh Joe Biden in the last debate and he felt very confident after that but we've seen ever since the ticket switched up uh that he's become increasingly nervous and jittery and even has kind of stepped away from the campaign Trail in large part uh doing pressers and and different events that are in very safe places for him not in swing states where he needs to be seen and it's true for KLA Harris the Big Challenge will be really reintroducing herself to the country she's been vice president for years now but in our system that's a very um amorphous sort of role to play and very often is not forward- facing and so there were a lot of Voters especially in the swing States who are not very engaged and involved and don't regularly follow American politics who are going to be meeting uh K la haris for the first time uh tomorrow evening yeah there's a lot of criticism saying that uh she's been dodging uh questions from reporters and questions from from ordinary citizens that there hasn't been you haven't had a chance much to hear on these substance issues that we're talking about and you know I I hear that criticism but also I've been around long enough to know that it when Democrats do focus on policy American Press then faults democrats for that saying that they're being too wonkish and talking too much to an inside the Beltway policy audience rather than to the American people what we're seeing right now in the campaign Trail is that KLA Harris really is talking to people to Ordinary People and connecting with them on a viscal level and honestly I think a lot of these these policy issues are going to be for better or worse like I said before sort of secondary to uh the The Vibes if you will of this campaign right now we have this really Stark dichotomy on the one hand you have Donald Trump who is talking about you know crisis at the Border in America and disarray and look the United States has issues like any country does but it's a very dark image he's portraying of the United States meanwhile we saw at the DNC a jubilant crowd and even Adam kinzinger a former Republican Congressman was was saying how Democrats really are picking up that Torch from the age of Reagan of being the Optimist and being the Forward Thinking party and she needs to really underline that contrast there cuz people are frankly fatigued of this this sort of Doom and Gloom that's coming from the Trump campaign yeah uh kamla Harris though her uh post-convention surge has now stalled according to a New York Times Sienna College poll the poll finds voters trust the vice president more on things like preserving democracy Reproductive Rights less as you can see in this graph on the economy and on immigration and that kind of brings us back to uh what we were saying at the outset Geral Olivier on this side of the Atlantic on the one hand we're puzzled wait there was this attempted coup basically on in 2021 and yet the guy is running neck and neck and seen as a safer Pair of Hands on things like the economy and immigration according to the polls yes because K Harris is a problem she's already in charge she's running for president but she's vice president so she is the co-author of whatever has happened in the US for the past three and a half years and on the questions of immigration or inflation and the economy uh in general um Americans are not quite happy with the situation as it is and the problem with CA Harris Why do they think Trump can do better because he wasn't so bad when he was president and that's actually what he was what is going to tell American tomorrow at the debate that's what he tells in every single one of his meetings uh there was no war in in Gaza when he was president Ukraine had not been invaded by Russia when he was president uh gas was not at $7 a gallon in California when he was president uh immigration was not 10 million people over three years when he was president on all those issues that are the one that Americans are concerned about he has a record to run on because he was President she has a record to run on too but she's running away from it and what she's been trying to do is introduce herself as someone new because she's not Biden and she's been quite successful as long as the Democrats were running the show which they were doing in in July and during the convention she would go up uh in in in in the polls and that was quite logical and I think she peaked she peaked at the end of the convention and now she has to convince voters we're in the the the heart of the campaign and tomorrow's debate is extremely important for her and the more she has to focus on the issues the less she's going to be attractive to voters because they're going to connect her to the situation as it is for which she is partly responsible Alisa shell well uh yeah Trump uh was president is not being incumbent now but is sort of an incumbent because he h he was President um and it's it's an unusual situation where um a former president loses an election and runs again so who's the incumbent in in that election it's not pretty clear I agree that uh Cala Harris um campaigned to appear as the new person in this race and she is in charge uh uh indeed so uh yeah but on these issues the economy immigration how come she's not winning the argument well uh at least yeah well Co happened so the infl the inflation is real and hurts um many uh middle class Americans and as powerful as they are um US presidents cannot govern the whole economy and decide uh when inflation happens or not so we have some leverage of course but they cannot decide everything so yeah prices are higher uh that for sure in Immigration there was a crisis a few years ago when covid restrictions uh ended and there was no way to to organize um a coordinated coordinated solution so uh Democrats were uh not keen on restricting access to the United States and then uh it was not possible to find um Middle Ground or a compromise in Congress so nothing happened and that's true that in on immigration and on the economy and inflation uh the record is not so good for Democrats and that's why Camila Harris and Democrats are running on values like my values have no change but they're trying to uh hide the fact that they have some responsibility all right Donald Trump when he was president uh uh allies expressed anxiety over threats to things like quitting NATO uh they also saw a confrontational approach to trade ties with China most notably they've now become standard US policy as has a more protectionist view of global trade here is candidate kamla Harris last week alongside Joe Biden at a rally in front of union members in Pennsylvania where she rejected the prospective sale of us steel to the Japanese us steel is in historic American company and it is vital for our nation to maintain strong American steel companies and I couldn't agree more with President Biden us steel should remain American owned and American operated and I will always have the back of America's Steel Workers Dy Bor R is this um standard fair for any presidential candidate in the United states to say that uh they're going to defend a a large company like this one with strategic interest from falling under foreign ownership or is there a whiff of something that's changed well first of all there is no credible National Security argument for preventing the sale of us steel to Japanese company I mean if anything American steel industry has been falling behind in productivity Japanese steel promises to restructure the company and bring it up to International standards make it competitive uh so this is really just rank demagogy uh whether it's coming from from Republicans or or in this case Democrats and I am worried that there is an emerging consensus on both sides of of the political aisle for all the polarization that you see in the United States around questions of protectionism and and kind of distrust of trade and and and and economic interlinkages especially with allies you can understand the argument for decoupling for being wary of Chinese investment of for technology transfers uh but the best way to deal with the challenge of China and its economic practices the best way to deal with the challenge posed by Russia and our leaky sanctions regime imposed on Russia is to work with allies to work with countries like Japan and and so if this is the new normal I think you know everybody should take note and be more than a little concerned about what lies ahead Christian Hanley do you share that concern most popular take on this but this is something that I I don't believe is actually coming from Donald Trump or from kamla Harris per se they are riding a wave of public opinion that's been shifting in this country for years now especially in in 2016 we saw Donald Trump at the 11th Hour on economic issues only sort of running to the traditional left of Hillary Clinton going into the general election typically those of being more in favor of trade unions and protectionist economic policies belongs to the left in this country and not to the right which is much more in favor of free trade but we've seen to that point about consensus we've seen uh both parties kind of moving a little more in that sort of protectionist Direction I would say though that at least on the domestic front how that would be achieved it could not be more different between the two current candidates you have on the one hand K is talking about you know reinvesting in American manufacturing and protecting uh companies from foreign takeover overs which is in some regards protectionist but it's still a stark difference from Donald Trump who's talking about ideas from 100 years ago like like putting uh tariffs on on imported products from from other countries that just simply don't work and the history bears that out so there is definitely a similarity in terms of the tone but there's still a difference on a policy level what I find interesting here uh is how both both candidates are running for the union vote and uh if you look at at history recent history since FDR uh the Democrat the Democrat party has been the party supported by Union it's been the party of the working class and the UAW uh went for camela Harris Trump has been courting the the the the Teamsters Union and there has been a move by the Republican party for Union voters and uh back in August when uh RFK Jr withdrew from the race or suspended his campaign and and forced uh Donald Trump one of his point why he was disappointed with today's Democratic party is how in his view the Democratic party had turned its back on we heard that argument for ands we had with the so-called blue uh uh blue collar de Reagan democrats blue collar workers in the 1980s who supported the Republicans and they at the time was a very uh free market view of the world and but the unions have always been a a standard support of the democratic party and they're trying to maintain it they have it for for teachers uh they have it for the Auto industry uh although the union does not necessarily represent all of the workers uh in in that sectors and a lot of them are extremely disappointed with the Democratic policy regarding electric vehicle mandate for example so there is obviously today one of the issues in the campaign is the union and the workingclass vote we heard at the beginning of this conversation dalor roach tell us how we have to be careful when we use the word populism because uh there is this shift and what we seen in both sides of the Atlantic is after Co you mentioned Co earlier citizens want more protection right well um Harris and Trump are going for for what voters want to hear so yeah uh populism is is a very stretchy notion and they they they're trying to appeal to voters with tax cuts for instance so Donald Trump promised a huge uh tax cuts on on on many levels and Camila Harris promised the same so they are going for uh arguments that can lure the voters to the polls so to the voting polls so yeah um populism now is diffused in lots of discourses because nobody wants to hear the truth about debt for instance uh about more uh more taxes to solve the de crisis I mean this is true in France and in the US so they have to say what voters want to hear right uh uh um that brings us back to a point that you made earlier Christian Hanley about uh Americans uh uh wanting to have a positive attitude uh Americans are aspirational they believe in a better future for themselves and their country but according Christian Hanley to a Wall Street Journal poll less and less we're looking at a graph uh there this was a a poll recently done uh that the American dream uh people don't believe in it as much as as they used used to so there is this sort of feel this fear of decline uh that's uh uh not yet a majority but it is growing yeah and it breaks down in in large extent along generational lines uh people who were earning money before the so-called Reagan Revolution are not going to have that same sort of dim view as those of us who came after who have had a much much more difficult time being able to get ahead in life especially economically uh since the 1980s we've seen more and more wealth go to the wealthiest individuals in the country and a tax system that really disfavors working people people who actually earn their livings every single day and so we do see that both candidates are talking about these issues but also in very different ways when you talk about that feel of decline from the Donald Trump Camp we're hearing about decline on a demographic level in terms of in terms of makeup of the country on a racial level level and and just discussing the country in terms of Doom and Gloom all around on a social and and demographic front on the Harris campaign side though it really is much more about practical solutions to a decline that's purely economic in nature it's not that the country is flailing it's that bad economic policy has disfavored working in Middle Class people but with that being said and that being diagnosed there are then solutions for those problems so again there's that idea of decline that vein of that in American politics and public perception but I think there are two different answers that question from the two different camps delor R is is the decline a perception or is it a reality well there certainly has been a Slowdown in economic growth and productivity grow growth in the United States and elsewhere in the Western World going back to the 1970s the reality though is that uh the United States remains in comparative perspective an unparalleled engine of generating Mass Prosperity if you look at uh the comparison between the European Union uh as an Aggregate and the United States you'll see that per capita real incomes in the United States are more than 25% higher than than in Europe if you were to rank US states and EU countries you will see that France would be at par with place like Arkansas which is the 48th wealthiest uh State of the Union Germany would be at par with a place like like Oklahoma so so so really the gap between the US and Europe Europe is a is is a market one if I may I would like to just challenge um a claim that Christian made earlier about uh a sharp distinction to be made between the trumpian view of trade policy and and the one pursued by democrats I think that distinction is very often less less less obvious and and and less sharp as as he depicted it uh first of all many of President Biden's signature policies were passed with bipartisan support uh through through Congress beat chips act or or the infrastructure spending but on trade specifically I think it is telling that you have the Biden Administration maintain steel and aluminium tariffs against the EU for months and months on that the Biden Administration like the Trump Administration I think is complicit in the demise of the multilateral trading system by refusing to appoint judges to the WTO Apple at body and and I think there is when you listen to the um us trade representative a real sense of by partis an agreement on trade and delore is that just is that just a um uh like like Elise was Elisa was saying uh a pandering to uh to voters or uh is it just the reality of how you have to organize globalism I don't think it's a it's a feature of of this electoral cycle because this really predates this this this current current contest between Kamala Harris and and and former president Trump it's you know you have to look at how Senator vents with with Senator Warren in in in in the Senate of major pieces of legislation so so there is somewhat of a bipartisan consensus I'm afraid to say and I think it's one that Europeans in particular should be very wary of because I think the many of the assumptions that the European Union as a sort of open trading block uh is based on I think revolve around the role that the United States would continue to play in the world and we saw no later than this Monday uh jier the former former president of the European Central Bank the former Italian Prime Minister coming out with a report stating that the EU has to develop an industrial policy to counter the US and to counter China yes and everybody they're they're they're all trying to to um that's kind of the the irony of of the campaign so will it be Fortress us Fortress Europe Fortress China it is uh well it's it's it's a domination China and I'm not sure that Europe or the US are are are still a fortress but both C as far as the US is concerned both camela Harris uh and Donald Trump uh are talking about rebuilding Fortress America what what I find striking uh it's always been Trump's discourse he always been America First the word was there and and the name was there and uh in what you showed of Camila Harris speaking at uh about that um Union Steel uh she used the word American owned American built and she was dising insisting on that word American uh because being patriotic is also part of that populist wave and that's what she was trying to ride uh as far as reality is concerned everybody knows that it's going to be very very hard on simply economic terms and and Industrial terms to compete with the cost of doing business in Asia as the cost of doing business in the US or the cost of doing business in Europe sh the the share of the US economy globally has risen the last five years it's share of the global economy um from what from 24 to 25 no from 2020 to 20 24 um it may have risen a little bit but if you look at the longer term uh back in 1950 the US accounted for over half of global output today it's less than a quarter uh so the decline in in in in compar in in real terms uh is is undeniable that decline doesn't imply that the standards of living are going down but because they they are going up but the relative strength of the us as compared to the rest of the world has never ceas declining ever since the end of World War II right this this feeling about the decline we talked about uh we talked about at the outset uh the uh German interior Minister wanting to uh put in measures to uh uh stop uh uh criminals from entering the country border checks uh when he we talked about the United States and this notion of decline when he took the mantle from his predecessor last Thursday the new French prime minister Michelle barer began uh by listing priorities that included Public Services public schooling security labor spending and uh uh labor spending power and controlling immigration we will have to respond as much as we can to the challenges to the anger you mention them to the suffering to the feelings of Abandonment of Injustice that run through our cities our neighborhoods and our Countryside far too much the feelings of Abandonment Alisa shell your thoughts on that well it's one of the reason uh why populism uh grew I mean in Western Europe uh because of globalis ation uh and the recess of the industrial sector uh in the economy uh the growth of a service economy uh left a number of workers uh unemployed and with difficulty to find a new job so yes it's one of the reason and it happened in such um a context that uh leaders from the traditional left or traditional right we're not able uh to solve the people's problem so to so we are at the heart of the reason of the roots of populism in Western Europe and now uh the moderate leaders know that they have to tap into that discourse and policy if they don't want to lose votes to the extreme right Christian Hanley what was your reaction listening to Michelle barer you know it sounded almost as if that had been uh translated from English to French and then back into English for the purposes of this broadcast frankly it sounded like it could have been you know a speech given by an American politician uh today right now especially Donald Trump and not particularly him not just him um because that's really the sentiment that we have in the United States right now uh where you have vast regions of the country uh that do feel as that they've been left behind um in this economy and bringing this full circle to the talk about this this sort of economic political consensus across the two different parties uh they have slightly different approaches I still maintain that but there is still this attempt right now by both camps to speak to those concerns uh by people by voters in places like Pennsylvania uh outside of the urban cores that do feel as that they've left been left behind by a transition over the course of several decades from a more manufacturing center to a more Service uh based economy Del Bor Ro you agree I think that's that's basically right the the challenge facing Western European countries and Beyond this is is Broly speaking a shared one the question is how the populist response can be brought into the fold of democratic politics without a presenting a threat to the Constitutional order and be uh safeguarding safeguarding Western alliances you see in a place like Hungary uh that you had a populist leader who basically entrenched himself in power in a way that would be very difficult to undo through through a Democrat election let me get your reaction on that point B named after the president sounded out the far right Marine Leen and even though the exchanges were amply reported in the press the farite leader this weekend denying playing King maker let's listen I haven't chosen a prime minister I'm not Emanuel macron's head of human resources and furthermore I think only a prime minister from the national rally can implement the national R project maren who's gone to links to say she's she's not an extremist she is a mainstream political player what were your thoughts when you listen to that clip well what is also striking is that she insists that she wants no responsibility uh and she does not want to be a stakeholder in the in the political system right then be blamed for for any possible failures going forward that's what populists like to do typically and I think the best way to neutralize them is to in a way make them stakeholders uh IDE ideally minority stakeholders in the political system very few people would be worried about the challenge posed to the Swedish democracy by by by by the presence although implicit of Sweden Democrats in the governing Coalition or by the fact that Georgia Malone is in charge of the Italian government neither of those are fundamental threats to democracy I would venture to argue that the prospect of Donald Trump's returning to the office is very much a threat to the US political system and I think going forward the best way to neutralize the appeal of of Mahin Leen and National rally is to is to kind of take take take take the wind of of of of of their sales and make them kind of co-responsible for what is happening in the country Geral olier a US presidents who can name Supreme Court Justices is not the same d bore is saying as uh for instance uh a Dutch far-right leader who even when he finishes first has to govern a coalition yeah uh France has put itself in in a very uncomfortable situation and Emanuel macron is largely responsible for what we've been through those past couple of months since a European election but if we look at at at the longer picture at at the bigger picture it seems to me that what France is going through right now is the result of having blamed the messenger the messenger far too long uh instead of having looked at at the message especially on the issue of immigration maybe on the issue of social Decline and of economic decline for far too long going back to fra miton and the 1980s anyone who denounced the threat of immigration to cultural uh cohesion or economic power was denounced as a right extremist and the issue of immigration was put under the table under the guise of that extremism and even though the issue was actually real and we we we reach the moment now when the issue has been ignored for so long and so many people have felt ignored that you have this wave of populism that gave over 11 million votes to theem National a couple of weeks ago thanks to the system this did not turn into a majority at the National Assembly but the number one party in France today is the and it's only logical that they should have a say in the policy that's going to be run whichever way it's going to be run by Michelle barer Elisa CH what Marin Leen said In that clip is very much in line with her platform uh what we call in French the deiz the normalization of the assembl national so she has uh she has h has had that line for years now and what's interesting in the present configuration is that the the left part of the assembly refused uh to access power so they voted against Bernar kov and she she is in position to compromise to negotiate to be in a so-called governing party position and not in a protesting party position like the F National used to be and like the left the left Coalition is so like Gore was saying does this mean she's going to have to get her hands dirty and therefore uh take some responsibility for whatever happens next well she will have to give a sort of green light or not a red light to Michelle barer so that's their role now so that France is a good position uh with the European Union when the notation uh of France will be announced later in September so France needs to be in a good position uh towards the European Union regarding the depth crisis we have right now in France so our role uh is to let uh Michelle barer form his government yeah I agree and and if I may very briefly part of populism uh of the one we're observing right now or we observed past couple of decades uh is a rise of anti-elitism and if you look at at at France and especially what happened after the elections of June and July the legislative election there was a fight for power among a group of leftist who had not really won the election but together came in as the first party but not as a coalition as a coalition being the the one with the largest amount of seats but far from an absolute majority and they fought over the Prime Minister who was going to be prime minister they were sharing the cake before he was even there and I thought that was almost uh undignified and I think many voters looked at it with great disdain if not disgust and surprised and a typical behavior from the elite who are not after what the people are living through their their sufferings their their their request their hope their aspirations but rather let's get to power and just you know be who we are Christian Hanley uh the it was 2016 when Hillary Clinton and a fundraiser uh talked about the basket of deplorables of uh uh people from A Hard Scrabble background who supported her opponent uh is that still haunting the Democrats I don't think it's still haunting the Democrats directly you know the quote as it was originally said was of course immediately taken out of context it was not that everybody who gave from a heart scrable background was was deplorable it was the people who were the most venomous who supported Donald Trump the most fervently in his anti-immigrant anti basically everybody agenda that he had in 2016 and still has to this day but you saw ever since then for the past eight or so years an entire uh right-wing media ecosystem spring up on the internet in the United States they're really cashed in on that you know casting this this this dividing line between uh people who then sort of took on that moniker as the deplorables versus everybody else who was Democrats or Elites or or whomsoever the perceived enemy was but what we're seeing ever since really Biden came into office but then now with with the continued campaign of kamla Harris is uh a much more renewed focus on working in Middle Class issues courting the union vote and and by many measures with Biden being uh the most pro-union president since FDR uh that votes well for kamla Harris on that front and you know there's Hillary Clinton did speak of the DNC this past go around but there's a palpable difference in the feeling around KLA Harrison this current campaign versus Hillary Clinton in 2016 and we shall see what happens on Tuesday in Pittsburgh with uh that Showdown with between Donald Trump and kamla Harris Christian Hanley many thanks for being with us from Washington delore Roat also in the US capital Gerald Lisa shell thank you for being with us here in the France 24 debate [Music]