Noam Chomsky on the new Trump era | UpFront special

he's been the number one critic of US presidents for more than 50 years so what does he think of president-elect Donald Trump in this upfront special alas Noam Chomsky noam chomsky thanks for joining me on upfront you've witnessed 15 presidents over the course of your lifetime is the 16th is Donald Trump the most peculiar perhaps the most astonishing choice that the American people have made during your lifetime in your view he certainly is off the spectrum there's not never been anything like him in what specific sense do you think has been nothing like him well first one thing has no background at all in any political activities never held office been interested in office his has no known political positions he's all over the map at his comments it's basically a showman some are worried that he's more than just a showman he's a dangerous individual some say that you predicted Donald Trump back in 2010 when you said quote if somebody comes along who is charismatic this country is in real trouble because of the frustration and justified anger you said quote illegal immigrants and the blacks will be targeted and quote we will be told that white males are a persecuted minority people will be beaten up and if it happens it will be more dangerous than Germany you sound almost prophetic there is that the path that the United States is now on in this new Trump era what you predicted back then well I wouldn't compare it with vimar Germany Hitler was in sincere dedicated ideologue Trump isn't he has no known ideology other than me you know but the up to the last phrase the description is pretty accurate but when you have white nationalists like Steve Bannon appointed to the White House as chief strategist at this past weekend in DC you have basically neo Nazis turning up in Washington DC to have a rally saying Heil Trump that he may not be an ideologue or a neo-nazi but clearly he's energizing and embolden in people who are not just in the United States if you look at the European reaction every far-right ultra nationalist neo-nazi was greatly encouraged and excited by his victory thought it helped them whether he'll go in that direction we don't know you've spent decades critiquing US presidents you once famously remarked that if the Nuremberg Laws were applied than every post-war American president would have been hanged given the impending arrival of Donald Trump in office some might say is it time for you to say actually I was a little hard on the people who came before Trump because Bush Reagan Nixon however bad they were they weren't on this Trump level of some might say insanity well we that run on the issues of intervention international violence and so on it's not very clear what his positions are they've been all over he is in favor of a substantial buildup of the American military he claims ridiculously that it's decaying and depleted in fact it's far beyond any military in the world in technological advance and the amount of spending and so on but but it will be undoubtedly he's also said stuff like I would take the oil I would bomb the hell out of ISIL kill the families of terror suspects bring back torture I mean this is stuff that some presidents have done but no one's ever talked about it as gleefully and openly as this president on the other hand he's also talked about reducing tensions with with Russia which is probably the most dangerous flashpoint in the world on the Russian border so it's hard to predict in fact the most predictable aspect of Trump is unpredictability I think it's dangerous very dangerous but I doubt okay but just to take a kind of historical perspective given you've been on the scene watching and writing about president after president for decades now cast your mind back to the similar period under any other previous President Elect how worried were you compared to now how I'm trying to get to a sense of how unique you think this moment is well it may surprise you but one of the presidents who worried me most was Kennedy and in fact Kennedy brought us closer to nuclear destruction than anybody whether that will happen with Trump we don't know but it's certainly extremely hazardous to have a an ignorant thin-skinned megalomaniac who sends off you know Twitter's at 3:00 a.m. if somebody angered him on Russia a lot of people do welcome a kind of new reason another reset of relations an improvement of relations between the US and Russia you clearly do but a lot of people might say it shouldn't be done on these terms yes we should have better relations between the US Russia but not because the president the United States may be compromised by his business interests in Russia or because he thinks that the Russian president is a great guy a strong leader Vladimir Putin a man you told me a few months ago and we spoke you're not a nice guy horrible leader you yourself said that clearly that's not the right way to do a reset of relations is it on those terms it's not there first of all we don't know what's in his mind I suspect he doesn't know what's in his mind it's as far as we know pretty vacuous almost everything anything comes out but anything that would reduce the three growing and dangerous and severe threat of nuclear war is to be welcomed it's nice it would be a nice thing if humanity could survive a major war between to power to nuke the United States and Russia would be the end and it's the tensions are developing both sides are carrying out provocative acts military buildups on both sides close close confrontations jet planes buzzing each other and so on you of NATO military operations a couple hundred meters from the Russian border the Russians putting missiles and Kaliningrad although this is very dangerous steps taken to reduce the tensions to return to turn in fact it partly returned to more amicable relations and if those issues or relations involve NATO kind of falling apart Donald Trump is basically cities not really interested in propping up NATO funding NATO in the same way that previous US presence have you've never been a fan of NATO's that's somewhere you find yourself on the same page as Donald Trump well you know sometimes he says things that I would say but for totally different reasons first of all he's not calling for disbanding NATO what he's calling for is getting other countries other NATO countries to pay more well what he's talking about in fact is expanding NATO but he's also question the whole solidarity consultative coming to aid of a NATO ally he has done he said that and he said everything else you can think of so if you were a Latvian Lithuanian you wouldn't be worried about your security or independence under a trump presidency if I was a Latvian or Lithuanian I would be worried about the build-up of NATO forces on the Russian border you would be worried about Russian tanks coming across the border given what's happening that's that's what might lead the Russian tanks to come across the border who don't think Vladimir Putin has any expansionist aims independent of NATO not that we know of there's no evidence for it whatsoever not a nun in fact even Ukraine Ukraine was a reaction to the what amounted to a coup that overthrew the government and recall that NATO had actually offered Ukraine the had invited Ukraine to join NATO that's a no many your critics would say you're under estimating Vladimir Putin you're giving him a pass this is a guy who domestic critics and Russia say is authoritarian is expansion if he does want to use Foreign Wars as a way of distracting from domestic crises just like many authoritarian leaders in the West of day people so many things but I'm looking at the fact because I the next Crimea there's no justification for that is that you whether there was a justification or not no I don't think there was justification but we understand the reasons is later no it was the reaction to what happened in Ukraine and for example is there justification for the United States holding southeastern Cuba no none whatsoever but that doesn't mean the United States is going to immediately go to war to conquer the world okay so you don't think anyone in those Baltic republics for example have nothing to fear yes they have Donald Trump they have a lot to fear from the build-up of tension at the Russian border but there if there ever was a conference they'd be wiped out okay do you believe as the US intelligence community and plenty of US investigative journalists have pointed out that Russia tried to undermine the u.s. election through hacking through leaking through deliberate disinformation it's possible but it's a kind of strange complaint in the United States the US has been interfering with an undermining election to all over the world for decades and it's proud of it so yes maybe maybe they're doing it too Noam Chomsky on the subject of the media you've been a long-standing and famous critic of the US media of the corporate controlled media of the way in which it quote-unquote manufactures consent for US capitalism US imperialism how responsible do you think the media was for Donald Trump's victory for the Donald Trump phenomenon as a whole they gave him enormous publicity essentially for the reasons that the chair of CBS pointed out it's great for our ratings we get a lot of ads but that's not the most serious thing by any means the real treachery of the media in this election was to avoid issues totally take a look at the massive coverage huge coverage practically nothing like it especially on November 8th one thing was missing issues and in fact on November 8th that was pretty dramatic because actually two events took place on November 8th one was the American election the other was the international conference at Marrakesh on survival of the world and on November 8th the World Meteorological Organization delivered a study with dire reports on the nature of the climate danger that wasn't even reported but that's typical all through the campaign and I don't Trump specifically and we'll come back to climate change he's now been attacking the media since being elected he threatened new libel laws he hasn't held press conferences during the campaign he incited his supporters against journalists who are at rallies their physical safety in some cases was endangered surely even you would stand with a flawed corporate media against a trump administration that tried to bully or intimidate the press or any other intimidation wherever in the world meet journalists should be protected but that has nothing to do whatsoever with the failure of completely agree okay completely agree and on the issue of free speech now in terms of people are worried about climate of intolerance what's going to happen to dissent under a pretty authoritarian administration how worried do you not very I think there have been actually I think was worse in earlier years there's been real gains in protection of freedom of speech and I think they're pretty deeply embedded and my suspicion is that the there will be a tax on freedom of speech my own feeling is there are not likely to get very far and does the rise there's been a lot of coverage of so-called fake news online of fake stories that have gone viral does the rise of so-called fake news of a post truth climate people are talking about especially online especially on social media sites like Facebook does that worry you as an educator as a public intellectual how do you combat that you combat it by being an educator by trying to educate and organize and bring people to understand that they should use their critical intelligence to evaluate what they read whether it's in the mainstream media or on some site that they're looking up no other way and it's a bad thing but I think it can be overcome do you think can be overcome in fact one really dramatic result of the election I mean apart from the fact that Clinton won by maybe two million votes is that among younger people Clinton was way ahead and Sanders had an overwhelming majority that could be a positive portent for the future damn Chomsky we're going to take a break so who are the people who put Donald Trump in the White House is this a revolt of the dispossessed of the left-behind of globalization's losers is it a backlash against free trade some of the top voices on the u.s. left seem to think so but what if the economy isn't the main driver what if it's racism and racial resentment that helped put Trump in the Oval Office what if it's the white lash build that war build that war to get out that's economic anxiety just look at the evidence first off exit polls from the primaries from the median household income of a trump voter is well above the national average and the exit poll from the presidential election confirmed Hillary Clinton won the majority of voters are earning under $50,000 in addition a massive pre-election Gallup study found living in areas more exposed to trade or immigration does not increase Trump support second people of color in the United States especially black voters are far worse off economically than their white counterparts if it's all about income and jobs and trade why do people have colorful overwhelmingly for Clinton not Trump order their economic anxiety not count third just listen to what Trump voters actually say about why they support him one study found that the easiest way to identify someone supports Trump / Clinton is to ask if they think Barack Obama is a Muslim it's more accurate than asking them whether they're Republicans that study also found factors like economic pessimism and income statistically insignificant - Trump's rise other studies found a strong relationship between anti black attitudes and support for Trump with Trump supporters more likely to describe african-americans as criminal unintelligent lazy and violent more likely to believe people of color are taking white jobs with a majority of the rating blacks as less evolved than whites do I really need to go on oh but what about all that low-income white voters at Obama won in 2008 but Trump won in 2016 a there's no evidence that it's the same white people who voted for Obama the vote of a Trump we just don't have that dating it be Democrats lost more votes in counties where white income growth was highest than where it was lowest and see Obama wasn't running against a candidate who engaged in the textbook definition of racism and had a long history of anti-black bias look there are multiple reasons why Trump won a full Democratic candidate and low Democratic turnout the highly mail issue and yes of course the economy played a role but to focus all or most of our attention on income inequality and they left behind real issues which need addressing doesn't tackle the racist elephant in the room and yes I accept not all Trump vote of the races but the racist did vote for Trump Plus as one very viral tweet aptly put it not all Trump supporters are racist but all of them decided that racism isn't a deal breaker and so we have a situation where in January the first black president of the United States will hand over to a president endorsed by the KKK but apparently it's the economy stupid I don't think so noam chomsky what is your advice in terms of reforms a u.s. political system that looks broken to a lot of us outsiders second time in 16 years a Republican has been elected to the White House despite winning fewer votes in the country than his Democratic rival would you get rid of the electoral college would you abolish it as many Americans want to see that abolition if I couldn't snap my fingers yes but it's not going to happen it's not a system you think works I don't think it works very well but there's other problems too the entire system of apportionment of Delegates happens to give extra power to rural areas which happen to be mostly conservative Republican the the significance of elections are almost bought huge amounts of money go into elections from the house up to the up to the White House the representatives affirm the majority in fact do not represent their constituents if you look at they've been good studies of the correlations between people's attitudes and the positions taken by their representatives and for about 70 percent of the populations basically no correlation these are really serious problems the American political system happens to be pretty regressive in its structure and it probably wouldn't even be tolerated by the European Court of Justice but and it should be changed but there are deeper issues of course you were pretty explicit when I interviewed you earlier this year that progressives should vote against Trump and if that you were in a swing state you would have voted for Clinton as the lesser of two evils a lot of progressives didn't agree with you a lot of young Millennials they voted for third party candles like Gary Johnson and Jill Stein or they stayed at home and didn't turn out saying Trump Clinton what's the difference they're all the same what's your message to those voters today who refuse to vote for Trump or refused to vote to stop Trump what's your message then now that he's won and he's in the White House same as before they're making a bad mistake first of all mistake there are two issues one is a kind of a moral issue do you vote against the greater evil if you don't happen to like the other candidate the answer to that is yes if you have any moral understanding we want to keep the greater evil out second is a factual question how to Trump and Clinton compared and I think they're very different I didn't like Clinton at all but her positions are much better than Trump's on every issue I can think of and I interviewed Slavoj Zizek the leftist philosopher Slovenian critic who you've criticized in the past on this show recently he said in a kind of Maoist revolutionary terms he said Trump would shake up the system and could end up being a positive force in terms of undermining the status quo does he have a point a terrible point there was the same point that people like him said about Hitler in the early 30s because it backfires in the end he'll shake up the system in bad ways the what what the what it means is now the left instead of if Clinton had won she had some progressive programs the left could have been organized to keeping her feet to the fire and pushing them through what it'll be doing now is trying to protect rights that have been gains that have been achieved from being destroyed that's completely regressive Noam Chomsky on Barack Obama the left critique of his foreign policy record has been pretty clear escalating an Afghanistan regime change in Libya drone strikes in Pakistan increasing aid to Israel but there's also been a positive side to his record surely as well the Iran deal the reopening of with Cuba the Paris agreement on climate change all of which are now at risk from a trump presidency given the arrival of Trump well we end up missing Obama won't you miss him even a little bit well the things that you mentioned like it's worth talking about them Obama did move towards normalization of relations with Cuba the reason is not the one that was and the reason was the United States was becoming so isolated on the hemisphere that it was on the verge of being literally kicked out of hemispheric meetings so it was good to make those small steps much too small on the climate change issue the Paris negotiations were step forward nowhere near enough but and that in great danger now the Iran deal I a lot to talk about but it's better to have the deal than not and if Trump withdraws from it could be as any things could happen so regardless of his intentions he did make small positive steps as you say there were so surely we're looking when you look at Donald Trump in the White House are you going to look back with some fondness on Barack Obama with some hindsight not fondness but opposition to what Trump will be doing there are also some very ugly aspects of Obama's policy adventures out of course only like the global assassination campaign that's a form of international terrorism we haven't seen before undoubtedly so no Israel of course the Obama administration has been accused of being anti-israel he's had a personal falling-out with Benjamin destino but when you look at the military aid it's gone up when you look at settlements they've gone up what is Obama's record on Israel going to be Obama's record on Israel was pretty awful and Trump's is worse considerably worse so so far at least what he and his spokesmen have said is that basically the settlements are not an obstacle to peace they're legal go ahead Israel's already reacting instantly the Israeli right is overjoyed they're considering a law in the Knesset right now that would legalize retrospectively settlements that even they had regarded are illegal and looks like cart launch for the settlement movement he's also talked about of course many presidents talked about moving the capital in Jerusalem he thought I might do it just before we finish Noam Chomsky on climate change you've called the Republican Party the most dangerous organization in world history because of their climate denial what do you say to those on the Left who say look none of our political leaders or parties are up to the task of tackling climate change taking it seriously Clinton would have been no better on climate change than Trump that's what Jill Stein the Green Party presidential candidate said on the show Fremont's ago so what a who cares about the rhetoric the fact is they're all as bad as each other on climate which is pure nonsense Clinton's programs are not good enough but they're better than Obama's so for example she called for having all US households on renewable energy in four years she supported the international agreements Paris and would have supported Marrakesh the policies are not great but their way there's been a considerable reduction there are regulatory systems which have improved reduced greenhouse gases all of this is to the good furthermore she provides a basis for moving on in the case of Trump radically the opposite so that means radically the opposite take a look at his proposals so is it all over now for climate change is it too late to stop climate change well we don't know but it's certainly a radical setback fact you saw at Marrakesh as soon as the election results were announced the conference basically and that no substantive results came out but this is a man and it's not just him it's the whole Republican Party every single candidate in the primaries either said it's not happening or we shouldn't do anything about it Trump's position is more fossil fuels eliminate regulations even coal refuse the payments promised payments to countries trying to move to sustainable energy to claim that this is the same as Clinton's programs as just madness in my view Noam Chomsky thanks for joining me on upfront you

Channel: Al Jazeera English

Views: 2,624,008

Rating: 4.1136642 out of 5

Keywords: United States, us, Hillary Clinton, Noam Chomsky, politics, donald trump, youtube, Upfront, Mehdi Hasan, up front, Trump, 2017, Noam Chomsky on the new Trump era - UpFront special, Noam Chomsky on the new Trump era, new Trump era, Trump era, UpFront special, aljazeera, al jazeera, aljazeera english, al jazeera english, hillary clinton, elections 2016, united states, aljazeera live, 2016 elections, president, chomsky, philosophy

Id: jB54XxbgI0E

Length: 25min 3sec (1503 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 25 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/mmm27]

What the fuck is going on at 13:30?

The interview is relatively calm but then he cuts to a segment with wacky graphics and sound effects and fucking Skyrim music. Like cool your shit.

[u/faiek]

Interesting interview. Noam always has a very calm demeanour and clearly expresses his ideas. I don't understand why the interviewer is yelling at the audience during his interval pieces though, turn it down a notch dude...

[u/DownOnTheUpside]

He's absolutely right about the media. Giving Trump more airtime because it generates more ad revenue is to be expected, they're companies and they exist to maximize profit. The real crime is their complete avoidance of real issues. I don't think increasing ratings was the only reason this happened.

[u/MACFRYYY]

Awful interviewer

[u/BuddhistSagan]

Even if you disagree with Chomsky and hate aljazeera, Chomsky's view is always a refreshing break from other commentators.

[u/Fuckanator]

Hmm, seems like an interesting video, the interviewer is kind of pushy with some questions and seems a bit biased..

cuts to "commercial break"

Into the trash it goes.

[u/what2ever]

The interviewer was making the most outlandish connections which would probably fool your typical uninformed viewer. He was like taking every wack job trump conspiracy theory and sprinkling them throughout as if they were facts. Right off the bat he tries to insinuate his advisor is a neo nazi or holds such views. What the ever lovin fuck.