Yordanos Eyoel: It's my absolute pleasure to be here with Bret. As we all know, we are living in a highly polarized time where even the topic of democracy has become a highly divisive issue. I also believe that there's this pernicious sentiment, both in the US and globally, that democracy is only functional when we agree. In fact, what democracy requires us is to continually live with our differences and manage those differences for the collective good. We won't always have consensus, but we will always need to productively manage our differences. I also believe that in an inclusive democracy, we need systems and norms and a culture that supports vibrant, multiethnic, multiracial, multi-religious society as well as ideological diversity. Among many things, this requires us to be adept at having difficult conversations and also to listen when we disagree.
So Bret and I come to the stage with very different life experiences, but we also have a lot in common. We both have lived in different cultures, we're multilingual. And, more salient for this conversation, we both believe that we have a crisis of democracy, but we're also hopeful. We believe that we collectively, not only can defend democracy but also strengthen it to become more pluralistic.
So, Bret, I'm excited to be in this conversation with you and would love to start with a more personal question. I know both of us draw inspiration from our life experiences, and I know you're passionate about democracy, but where does that come from? What in your background makes you passionate about democracy, and why are you worried?
Bret Stephens: I think a lot has to do with my background. In 1917, my great grandparents were living in Moscow. And there was a brief experiment with democracy between March and October of that year. It ended badly. My great grandfather was arrested and he disappeared, and it sent my great grandmother and her four children into exile. They ended up in Germany up until 1933, when the rise of Adolf Hitler sent them into exile again. They were a Jewish family. They went to Italy, where my mother was born. My mother was born and spent the first five years as a hidden child in Nazi-occupied Europe, and then her next five years as a stateless person, a person without a passport. And it was only because Harry Truman pushed through the Displaced Persons Act in the late 1940s that my mother was able to arrive here with seven dollars as a refugee.
So the idea of the open society is not an abstraction for my family. And I think for so many of us who have immigrant roots, we feel, very strongly, that this idea of an open society is actually a rare and a precious one, and it's one that we really have to invest in defending. Because if it goes, there's not a place for people like us, people from minority backgrounds, people who have been traditionally persecuted.
I also spent my early years in Mexico City when it was a essentially an authoritarian society. So I get, in my bones, the difference between what an open society is, what a closed society is, and how easy it is for the former to slip into becoming the latter.
YE: And I think that's what we're seeing all over the world, right? So the renowned think tank International Idea released a report recently saying that democracy is continuing to deteriorate in every part of the world. What do you think is driving that problem? Like, how are you making sense of this moment? BS: I came of age with the end of the Cold War. I turned 18 just before the Soviet Union collapsed. And I remember that incredible optimism that people felt in the 1990s that democracy was the future, that we had reached the end of history. Turns out it was a terrible way of thinking about the world, not least because it made us complacent about what it means to sustain a democracy. Democracy isn't just a kind of a mechanical system that kind of works miraculously by itself, without people investing energy, ideas, and a willingness to reform and adapt to make it thrive. In the last, I think, 20 years, there's a sense that democracy isn't performing a series of functions that it was intended to perform in terms of economic growth, in terms of inclusion, in terms of upward mobility. People look at other systems and they say, "Well, that's more efficient, that gets things done." And it is absolutely the case that if you look at many of the so-called advanced democracies, they have not been providing as they had promised to provide. Economic growth stagnant, particularly in much of of Europe. A sense that people are dividing increasingly into classes and that elites have become self-dealing, that we perpetuate a system that is for the benefit -- I'm speaking as an elite now -- for the benefit of our kids at the expense of other people's kids. And I think that explains the moment of populism and kind of authoritarianism that has crept into so much of our discourse here in the United States and throughout the world. People are starting to say, well, maybe that's a model.
We would do well to remember that democracy has previously fallen into these crises, but at our best, we have been able to reform, whether it was the reforms of the 1930s of the New Deal going back to the progressive era of people like Teddy Roosevelt emerging from the Gilded Age. This is a pattern in history. But it doesn't mean that we're fated to overcome the challenges we have now. If we don't put our shoulders to the proverbial wheel, we are going to end up moving towards a Hungarian-style system. Or perhaps even worse.
YE: I want to double click on your point around disillusionment coming from democracy not delivering on its economic promises, right? And some people would argue that perhaps there is another compelling alternative that is offered by China, right? And so how would you respond to that? What would you say to people who say that, actually democracy has not been working for me?
BS: So I think this is one of the great debates that's going to define the 21st century. Does the Chinese model, at least at its "best" of efficient authoritarianism, is that a superior model for providing more goods to more people, more satisfaction, than our democratic system of compromises and bureaucracy and things taking a long time? And I've consistently made the argument that as problematic as democracy often is, it is a vastly preferable solution to the Chinese solution. And for a couple of reasons. The first is that authoritarian systems like China are very good at advertising their strengths and hiding their weaknesses. Democracy, almost by its nature, is constantly advertising its weakness. But it's hiding its strengths, even to itself, so that we're sort of constantly surprised when we somehow emerge stronger than some of our adversaries. If you look back to the 1970s, it was a period of real disillusionment and doubt about the future of democracy. But it was in the 1970s that some guy named Steve Jobs was kind of tinkering and, you know, in a garage somewhere or Bill Gates, all these people who have really defined the decades to come were in obscurity. We just didn't know about this. So when China advertises its strengths, when it looks strong, on the one hand it appears to be fearsome. On the other hand, there are fewer mechanisms in China that are self-correcting mechanisms. If the leader in China, Xi, says, "We're going to invest a trillion dollars in a Belt and Road initiative," no one disputes that. No one asks questions about it. Turns out it was a trillion-dollar bad investment for China.
In the end, the one advantage democracies have is that we bend and we adapt. But authoritarian systems are brittle. They're like glass. So when they begin to break, they can very quickly shatter. And I think that's one of the lessons that I draw from the 1980s. Early 1980s, the Soviet Union looked strong. And it was on the ground by the end of the decade, again, because it is hiding its weaknesses, advertising its strengths. We're on the other side. We may surprise ourselves by how resilient and adaptable we might be.
YE: I love that, and I think it also spoke to the messaging problem that we have on the pro-democracy front. And obviously the media plays a huge role in that. And you're a journalist and we know that, from all of the latest trust metrics, that the media is one of the least-trusted institutions next to governments globally. And so in this moment, when we're having a crisis in our information ecosystem, how do you think the media needs to evolve, first and foremost to gain trust or regain trust, and then secondly, to protect democracy and be a champion for democracy in the ways that you're talking about?
BS: Look, I think the best way the media can protect democracy is if it should stay in its lane, which is to say you want your liver to perform the functions of a liver, not the functions of a heart. Everything has its place so that when too much of the media goes into the mold of effectively social advocacy, it is eroding trust, particularly among people who don't necessarily agree with a given type of of social advocacy. You know, back in the 1960s, we had a flawed system. But when Walter Cronkite would say, "And that's the way it was this day, I don't know, March 15, 1966," America went, "Yeah." And there was a sense of authority. I think one of the ways in which the media has hurt itself is that we have allowed it -- we, I'm part of it -- we have allowed that sense of authority to dissolve. Now, part of it has to do with new technologies, social media, the diversification of the media ecosystem, cable news. You can talk about lots of exogenous reasons why trust in the media has eroded. But I kind of tend to think of, you know, physician, heal thyself. Those of us who are in the mainstream media really need to reflect in a deep way as to why so many segments of American society have stopped trusting us. And part of the answer, I think, is that we have given them reasons not to trust us. It's incredibly important that the media include a much greater amount of diversity within its ranks. And I don't just mean diversity of race and ethnicity. Those things are obviously important. I also mean diversity of class, of geographic location. If you don't have reporters who kind of grew up in, wherever, Branson, Missouri or what here in New York we call flyover country, you're missing a big part of the story. You may have missed how it is that this guy, with no hope of becoming president in 2016 became president in 2016. So we have to be listening to those voices, particularly the ones that we disdain, dislike, don't think are worthy of inclusion. The media cannot be an echo chamber. If that's what we end up becoming, we will disserve ourselves, we will disserve democracy, we'll disserve even our own business model. Because at the end of the day, if people don't trust us, they're not going to turn to us.
YE: I really appreciate that. So we talked about what you think needs to be done in media. There are a lot of people who wake up and who don't think about these issues, right? What do ordinary people need to do in this moment to contribute to a healthier, more inclusive democracy? Are you seeing solutions, exciting solutions in your community or from your work across the world? Like, what are some suggestions that you have for what we could do as individuals?
BS: Look, it begins with us. It begins with each of you and I tend to be wary of, like, coming up with a grand scheme. Start your day by reading someone you know you're going to disagree with. The worst that can happen is it will sharpen your own argument, right? You will at least know what your ideological opponent, or maybe even your enemy, as you perceive that person to be, is thinking. It doesn't hurt you. Your media diet should not be a morning massage where you have your personal genius affirmed because you're taking in the views of someone who thinks as you do but just says it a little bit better. And I try to do this. I mean, people know that I'm a center-right columnist. Look, I work at the New York Times. I just open up my own paper, and I'm starting to read people I don't agree with. It's good for me, it's good for me. It sharpens my arguments. When I read my friend Nick Kristof in the morning or when I have a conversation with my buddy Gail Collins, it's forcing me to think, it's like jumping into cold water, not always immediately pleasant, but bracing and invigorating. And we have to find all kinds of mechanisms in our lives in which we make the art of disagreement come alive. Debate is something that I really believe in. Also is a great exercise for kids. But at every level of discussion, figuring out how we, once again, find ways to disagree agreeably, to find light rather than just friction and heat from those moments of disagreement. To understand what the other person is saying or even trying to say. Because a lot of times you will encounter an opposing point of view, and that person isn't necessarily expressing him or herself well. So the art of disagreement is also the art of listening. And this is ironic for me to say, because here I'm doing all the talking, right? But that art of listening is every bit as vital to the health of democracy, in fact, more so than all the talking.
So listen attentively, think before you speak, enjoy difference and democracy will become stronger.
YE: Well, that's a powerful way to end this conversation. Thank you so much, Bret.
