Why Diverse Democracies Fall Apart and How They Can Endure

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Next, checking democracies path, it still threatened in so many parts of the world by the rise of authoritarianism. Writer Yascha Mounk is known for his work on democratic institutions and liberal values. In his latest book, “The Great Experiment,” he describes ethnically diverse democracies as the biggest test of our time. He explains to Walter Isaacson.

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WALTER ISAACSON, HOST: My thank you, Christiane. Yascha Mounk, welcome to the show.

YASCHA MOUNK, AUTHOR, “THE GREAT EXPERIMENT”: Thank you so much.

ISAACSON: We’ve been going through in the past 50 years a great experiment, in fact, that’s the name of your book, something unusual in human history, which is that nation states, which were generally homogenous, in other words, they had all that diverse, especially western democracies, be at Sweden, your home country of Germany, England, the United States, had a dominant ethic culture. Now, we’re into a great diversity. There’s all sorts of immigration and change, that’s called “The Great Experiments” in your book. How is that experiment going?

MOUNK: You’re exactly right. So, you know, when you look at countries like Sweden or Germany, they used to be very homogeneous until 30 or 40 years ago. And then, now, after we start to realize that they’ve actually become extremely diverse in a very short space of time. They have nearly as many people, in some cases, more people born outside the borders than in the United States. (INAUDIBLE) always been a diverse nation, but it used to be a nation of a very steep, ethnic and religious hierarchy, which some people had full rights, full profession (ph), many others were brutally subjugated. Now, there are many injustices that remain today, there are many problems that remain today, and we can political challenges that come from that and part of polarization that comes from that. But what I argue in “The Great Experiment,” into my book, is that when you actually look at how difficult and untaken (ph) this is and how much progress we’ve made over the course of the last 200, 250 years, we should be a lot more optimistic than we found (ph) to be feeling.

ISAACSON: We often say that diversity is our strength, you mentioned that in the book. I’m from New Orleans here, and I think of everything we do here, from the jazz, to the food to the architecture, it comes from 250 years of great diversity. And yet, as I read your book, I realize democracy aren’t really that strong at times at dealing with this diversity.

MOUNK: That’s right. So, when you look at diverse societies of any kind throughout history they often went wrong in really terrifying and brutal ways. They led to war, civil wars, forms ethnic cleansing, forms of genocide. And three big reasons for that. The first has to do with the fact that human beings are groupish. That we find it really easy to be very altruistic and courageous in defending our own, but can also be very brutal towards anybody who we think of is a member of the out group. The second has to do with the fact that not always in history, but often history, the lines of ethnicity, religion, language, culture those were the things that motivated this in group, out group distinctions of a more diverse in society as the easy it is way to fragment those ways. But the third has to do with democracy, as we’re implying, which that I’m a great believer in democracy and I believe in diversity. But in some ways, democracy makes it harder because, you know, 500 years ago, if we are living under some monarchy, you didn’t have any political power, I didn’t have any political power. As long as we both trusted the monarch who sort of tolerated us, which was true in Baghdad in 19th century or in Vienna (ph) in the 19th century, it didn’t matter if there was democratic change, it didn’t matter when there’s new people coming into society, it didn’t change the relations of power. In a democracy, we’re always searching for majorities. And so, when people think, hey, I used to be in the majority, but now, suddenly, this other group, you know, has more influence coming or perhaps has matured, you know, I might lose that majority. Everything might change, I might lose my power, I might lose my status in society, and that elicits a lot of fears. And we can see that in rise of rocking (ph) populism and a lot of the forms of politics we’ve been chronicling in the United States, in many other countries around the world over the last 10 or 15 years.

ISAACSON: Yes. Democracy seems to be really endangered now, throughout Western Europe, sometimes in the United States. Is it because of a populist backlash against immigration?

MOUNK: That is one of the reasons. I don’t think is the only reason. It has to do also with the rise of the internet, you know, social media. It has to do with economic stagnation and the living standers of ordinary citizens. I think in the part, being self-critical, you and I as sort of members of elite just by virtue of being on television and talking about these topics, I think often has to do with, you know, people out at social circles being a little bit out of touch with the rest of the country and trying to perhaps impose our preferences, our ideas about the world, not always listening to the — just not always listening to feedback. All of those are reasons. But I do think that one important reason is this great contestation of what are the rules of our society going to be like? Is there going to be a vision for our society in which members of historically marginalized groups feel that they have a full seat at the table, but are being treated as equals? But also, members of a historical majority, of historically dominant groups, become paranoid about, you know, what’s this country going to look like in 20 or 30 or 40 years. Am I still going to have pride of place in this country as well? That is a great challenge of this moment. But I am quite optimistic about us being able to create that. I actually think that what we have the foundations for civic patriotism, and I also think that we have foundations for a cultural patriotism. I think most Americans love their country, agreed — not ending about politics today but about some of the fundamental principles and values and documents which would guide our common life. And I think most of us love the country in its concrete way. Love its cities and landscapes and sites and sound and smells and it’s every day culture, which has become that diverse over the last decade. And with a few exceptions, you know, very small minority of migrants accepted, people love that about their country and appreciate that about the country.

ISAACSON: You know, the great replacement theory, the sort of theory that non-whites are emigrating and migrating into America, going to replace us, have done to change our culture, there are a lot of studies saying that that has some gained traction. In your book, you mentioned some studies that say that has gained some traction. What is your reaction, and how does a diverse democracy deal with something like the great replacement theory?

MOUNK: Yes. What’s interesting about the great replacement theory is that it posits this sort of weight intentionality to these democratic changes, right at saying there’s this deliberate ploy by a bunch of people who have decided that want to exchange our population. And when you look at the history of how our society has become diverse, it’s simply not true. In Germany, where I’m from, the guest work is — you know, the idea that all the government officials had was, you know, they’re going to go home after three or four years. But what now? The fact is we pay them well, they’ll go back home. And that, of course, didn’t happen. And so, (INAUDIBLE) denial for many decades. In the United States, when you look at the key reform of Immigration Act from the 1960s, which had a big impact on the Roe and diversity in the United States, people at the time were convinced that it wouldn’t have a big impact on the demographic composition of a country. So, you know, factually, of course, his conspiracy inferior — of a great replacement is simply wrong. When you look at the impact it has, I actually think it is a problem of very motivate extremists, but it is not a problem of the majority of the population. There are some people who really are deeply afraid of these demographic changes, who cannot imagine a place for themselves in the future in the United States, if it’s not a majority white nation. But that is very thinly a minority of the population when you look at polls. Most Americans do welcome people from different backgrounds and the country do understand that we are made stronger by having that kind of ethnic and enrich diversity.

ISAACSON: You talk about the polarization based on race. You talk about identity politics being dangerous. Tell me, when people talk about having a majority minority nation, or the identity politics, how do you press back against that?

MOUNK: Well, so, this idea of the majority minority nation, I think, is really interesting because, in my minds, it is based on a very simplistic reading of what the sociological reality of our country is, right. It assumes, first of all, that you can easily cleave America into right (ph) homogeneous block of white people and a right (ph) homogeneous block of so- called people of color. But there’s actually a huge amount of variation within those groups. First of all, the so-called people of color, including many mixed-race people who may have, you know, three white grandparents and one Latino grandparent, and they don’t think of themselves as somehow split down the middle. They think that they belong to both cultures. It assumes that in a natural way, you know, Asian Americans or Latinos who have European extraction are always naturally going to go, for example, with African American. Or best, natural way — in which these are two mutually hostile blocks. And I think that’s a vision of our society that we should reject. It’s cynical. And if it came true, if it came to be true in 2050 that we have these two blocks in population that vote inconsistent ways, that mistrust each other and so on, that would be a deep failure of in our society in a very dangerous development. Now, thankfully, for all the negative trends in our politics, all the polarization, all the dysfunctions in Washington, all the worries that I have about right in populist like Donald Trump, we have actually seen a deep polarization by race in our politics over the past 10 or 20 years. In 2012, in 2016, if you told me the democratic attributes of the (INAUDIBLE), if you told me about their race, I would have been able to create very well who they voted for. Today, I can predict that much less well than the past in part because Joe Biden became the legitimately elected president of his country in 2020 by increasing the share of a white vote relative to Hillary Clinton in 2016. And Donald Trump who was competitive, came quite close because he significantly increased the share of the vote among every non-white voter groups, particularly but not only among Latinos relative to 2016.

ISAACSON: There seemed to have a great sort of head snapping change in our democracy between voting for Barack Obama and reelecting him and in a sense, embracing the diversity of America and then, a reaction that comes with the election of Donald Trump. Why did that happen?

MOUNK: Yes. I think, one simple observation by the like is that Americans often vote for the inverse of the last president. They voted for the photonegative of whoever the last president was. And if think — if you try to think of the man who has — is unlike Barack Obama as possible, you sort of get to Donald Trump. But fundamentally, you know, there are is a hardcore of Trump’s base which helped win him the 2016 primaries in particular. But I think really is a very uncomfortable what I call “The Great Experiment,” that really doesn’t want to live in a diverse nation that actually gives people from different ethnic groups equal rights. But when you look at what the great majority of U.S. population, well, that’s polarized than we think. And we have opinions that are a lot more subtle that may appear. Most Americans believe that there is significant discrimination against African Americans, most Americans believe we have a serious problem with police violence that tied us, not only, but particularly African Americans. Most African Americans also think that we shouldn’t defund the police, and that we need a functioning police force that will actually behave respectively and protect its citizens. The same is true when it looks to — when it comes history. In a recent study from Moran Common (ph) has shown that, you know, Democrats believe, you know, Republicans don’t want to talk about slavery, they don’t want to acknowledge the evils and parts of our history. They don’t want to talk about the negative stuff at all. And Republicans think, you know, Democrats wouldn’t be willing to celebrate George Washington and think we should be ashamed of being Americans. And both of those statements are in true. Most Americans believe that slavery was a great sin that we need to teach our children about in school and at the same time, we can be proud of the very positive aspects of American history and some of the great things we’ve achieved as a country, those are not mutually exclusive. We don’t have to choose between 1619 and 1776. And the great majority of Americans recognizes that.

ISAACSON: When you’re talking about this conflict, this clash between cultures and everything else, one of the antidotes that you described in the book, I think you call it intergroup contact. There’s studies about it that you site. Relationships, and for that matter, marriages between people in different groups. To what extent is that really growing and is that a factor?

MOUNK: Yes. So, this is one of the things that gives me hope that, you know, there is a research program, a social psychology that’s been going this time for a policy that’s going on for 60 years, with thousands of studies, with very, very robust findings which show that when people have contact (ph) with each other, when they live next to each other as neighbors, when they’re in school together, when they work together, when one support teams together, it has a very significant impact on reducing prejudices about each other. There is a positive piece of news here, which is that the country is becoming more integrated. That the number of deeply segregated neighborhoods has been reducing overtime. But it’s the country is just becoming more diverse as, you know, the sort of ethnic majority has this elastic share of a country, it becomes much harder for people to live in these completely monochrome communities, and that is having really good impact on how people think about each other. When you think about the change in attitudes towards immigrants in California from the 1990s to today. I think that’s a really good sign of what may be ahead in other parts of a country as well.

ISAACSON: Let me read you something from your book, which sort of an optimistic statement, which is you write, anybody who is serious about creating diverse democracies, that endure, and thrive, needs to put forward a positive and realistic vision for how this great experiment can succeed. Tell me how.

MOUNK: Yes. So, you know, the first part of this is that we’re always heavily focused on the things that are wrong in our society, right? Saying, hey, the train came on time today is a boring statement. Saying, can you believe I had to wait an hour and a half, you know, to get in the subway? That’s interesting. So — and that’s heavily because we want to fix that problem when it’s there. We have many problems in our society today. But we also need to be able to assess how well we’re doing in a realistic way. And again, when you compare the Unites States today to what it looked like 100 years ago, to what it looked like 50 years ago, even to what it looked like 25 years ago, I think it’s clearly true that we’ve made tremendous progress in including sexual minorities, including ethnic minorities, religious minorities in the country in a much better way than we did in the past. And actually, living up to the fundamental promise of our constitution, of our founding documents that every American citizen should have the right to living in freedom and being able to pursue the happiness. And so, the first start to an optimistic vision is to continue being angry about the things that are wrong, but not to be cynical. To realize that some of our fundamental institutions and principles have helped us strive for a more perfect union in the past and we need to continue working towards that on the basis of those same values and documents in the future.

ISAACSON: Yascha Mounk, thank you so much for joining us.

MOUNK: Thank you so much, Walter.