Anthony L. Fisher on Antifa Violence & Neo-Reaction

2017-10-08 · Guest: Anthony L. Fisher (Writer and filmmaker) · 48:27

Filed under: Free speech and civil liberties
Topics: First Amendment · Free Speech

Antifa and the counterproductive nature of political violence

Bob Zadek interviews writer and filmmaker Anthony L. Fisher about the rise of Antifa and the counterproductive nature of political violence. They discuss the historical roots of anti-fascist movements, the role of free speech in a liberal democracy, and how violent tactics often embolden the very groups they aim to suppress.

Topics: Antifa, political violence, free speech, First Amendment, Richard Spencer, Charlottesville, Berkeley protests, fascism, capitalism, government overreach

Speakers: Bob Zadek, Anthony L. Fisher

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Introduction to Antifa and Nazi Punching [00:28]

Bob Zadek: The Bob Zadek Show, the only live libertarian talk radio show on the air on the weekend. The show always of ideas, never of attitude. Thanks so much for listening to my conversation this morning with Anthony Fisher. Anthony has written a compelling piece in the Daily Beast recently: “Why Antifa Nazi Punching is Just a Gift to the Right.” In other words, Anthony’s thesis—and of course he is correct—is that when the anti-fascist movement (kind of an absurd title, but the anti-fascist movement) resorts to violence to suppress or oppose the alt-right (which probably has some roots in violence as well), it just becomes violence begets violence begets violence, and the point of all of it is kind of lost. There is no intellectual conversation; there is just people punching people on YouTube. Anthony, welcome back to the show this morning.

Anthony L. Fisher: Thanks, Bob.

Bob Zadek: I am an anti-fascist because I am opposed to fascism. So that’s kind of a phrase that everybody—if that’s the label, doesn’t everybody belong to it? And what distinguishes the Antifa anti-fascist movement from those people who just plain, like you and I, are anti-fascist?

Anthony L. Fisher: Yeah, I mean, I would describe myself as anti-fascist. I would also describe myself as pro-life. I would also describe myself as pro-choice. You know, so these are terms that by definition are helpful. So yeah, I consider myself anti-fascist. Part of the reason why it’s been frustrating debating with people who don’t understand Antifa, or maybe understand it all too well, is that a common straw man argument is “Antifa is short for anti-fascist action. How could you be opposed to that?” And that’s just an absurd straw man argument. You can be anti-fascist and still think that the group that calls itself Antifa—that their tactics are actually ultimately embolden fascism, and that they certainly—I mean, there’s definitely evidence that their actions have led to crackdowns on peaceful protest, free expression, and marginalized groups that they ostensibly claim to be speaking for.

The Ethics and Efficacy of Violence [02:53]

Anthony L. Fisher: So, the reason we’re talking about Antifa today primarily is two incidents. One, the day of Donald Trump’s election, when—I’ll call him a neo-Nazi, he would call himself alt-right—Richard Spencer was giving an interview to an Australian TV station in Washington, D.C. on the side of the road, and a young person, very likely a male, dressed head to toe in black and a mask, came up and blindsided him and sucker-punched him. The video of this sucker punch went viral, mostly to universal acclaim, because, you know, who doesn’t like seeing a Nazi punched and humiliated?

But I immediately kind of recoiled and said, “Yeah, you know, to hell with Richard Spencer. I’d love to see him humiliated. But when you’ve resorted to violence, all you’ve done is made a martyr out of him. All you’ve done is give the far-right ammunition to claim that opposition to their movement is inherently violent. And you’ve now lowered the bar for what is acceptable violence.” And so immediately, people defending it would come up with comic book covers from World War II where Superman is punching a Nazi or Captain America is punching a Nazi, as though Richard Spencer—who reappeared last night with his entire movement of 30 imbeciles in Charlottesville marching with tiki torches—elevating Richard Spencer and his neo-Nazi movement to the German war machine of the ’30s and ’40s is just absurd. It’s not a good-faith argument. But this began the argument that continues now nine months later of the ethics of Nazi punching.

Journalists and the Black Bloc [05:40]

Anthony L. Fisher: So, that’s the first incident. The second incident, which I just alluded to, came primarily from the protests in Berkeley that preceded the murder of an anti-fascist protester in Charlottesville in August. So in Berkeley, Antifa were attempting to shut down a kind of broad protest that included some alt-right neo-Nazi types and other just kind of general Trump or other right-wing types. But in this very, very large protest where most people were peaceful—and when I say most people, I mean most of the counter-protesters, most of the people who would either be on the anti-fascist side or the pro-left side, as it were—but there were plenty of people who either identified as journalists or were mistaken for being on the Nazi side, or were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The people dressed in Black Bloc—which is a tactic, not a group, but that’s when Antifa are dressed in all black to anonymize themselves from both media coverage and law enforcement—when you ran afoul of one of these people and they came after you, the Black Bloc followed. You no longer could explain that you were a journalist or a bystander or that you were a liberal who opposed violence as a matter of principle. They were coming after you. And this is a fact. It’s been documented in an article in the Weekly Standard, and there’s been other incidents. I believe Taylor Lorenz is a journalist from The Hill; she was attacked by Antifa. These are things that I warned about immediately—that when you’re a liberal (and when I say liberal, I don’t mean like Democrat; I mean like somebody who believes in the principles of liberal democracy) and you kind of wink at these masked vigilantes who have self-declared themselves the arbiters of violence, and you’re saying that these people are the brave soldiers on the front lines against fascism, and you’re saying that it’s okay that they, on the streets in split-second decisions as a mob, decide who’s a Nazi and who is worthy of being beaten, I think you’ve already lost the argument. I think you’ve already ceded the ability to say that you’re better than them or that you believe in universal principles of civil liberties.

The Intellectual Defense of Antifa [07:51]

Anthony L. Fisher: So, I’ve had these arguments, and I was invited on Al Jazeera after writing the article that you mentioned in the Daily Beast, where I was invited to debate two self-professed Antifa activists, one British and one Italian, and also Mark Bray, who’s a Dartmouth adjunct lecturer and the author of a recently published book called Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook, which is pretty much to date the word on the Antifa movement and its history going back more than 100 years.

And again, I was met with bad-faith arguments where the idea that even criticizing Antifa tactics as counterproductive or illiberal was in some way equating them with Nazis, which I full-throatedly in my Daily Beast article said, “No, they are not equivalent.” That far-right violence is completely demonstrable; they’ve killed more people, they’ve hurt more people, there have been more far-right violent incidents than far-left incidents in the United States. And that I felt that this tactic was wrong and I felt that this movement was misguided.

So after this debate, I read Mark Bray’s book and then wrote a review of it in the Daily Beast. And unsurprisingly, the movement doesn’t just define itself as anti-fascist. They are proposing what they call a “radical socialist revolutionary alternative.” So it’s still the same stuff that we’ve always heard—that this time socialism is going to be the real deal. It’s not going to just devolve into starvation or genocide or dictatorship or cult of personality. This time it’ll actually be egalitarian. So it’s all right. This is very intellectual, in-the-weeds stuff.

Historical Precedents and Failures [10:40]

Anthony L. Fisher: But let’s stick to the topic at hand, which is whether or not violence is justifiable for a cause, whether or not you believe in the principles of a liberal democratic society. And what I found is in this entire book, there was one paragraph—just one—that expressed any concern about the potential for backlash or the potential for violence being so fetishized within the movement that it came to define the movement. One paragraph. That was it. And zero acknowledgment of anyone who was innocent or journalists being caught up in the violence.

So that pretty much told me what I needed to know, which was that the leading intellectual who made it his point to research all the history of Antifa—fighting fascists in East London in the ’30s and fighting the Franco regime in Spain—really showed no self-reflection. No acknowledgment that their most famous victory, which was called the Battle of Cable Street (which Labor leader Jeremy Corbyn just commemorated), where a large group of anti-fascist protesters prevented a fascist movement—a politically active fascist movement—from marching in East London. That’s still being described as their great victory. But no acknowledgment of the fact that after that, this same group, the British Union of Fascists, gained electoral victories in the local government and that violence against Jews went up in that area. So ultimately, they had a victory for a day that they’re still celebrating over 70 years later, but the broader ramifications were one of failure.

The Evolution of Street Violence [11:31]

Bob Zadek: So your prediction, or your thesis of your piece in the Daily Beast, was that in fact the violence of the alleged anti-fascist action movement—the tactics they adopt—are profoundly counterproductive and it just encourages counter-violence on the right by the neo-Nazis and whatever other groups fall within that umbrella. Now, Anthony, the question I would have is: of course, you don’t have to think back very far to think of a time when there wasn’t so much violence in the streets between the right and the left. And can you—you are a great student of social movements and you study it and you write in a very informative and accessible way about these movements—is there a starting point? Can you trace this very disturbing violence-begets-violence-begets-violence movement? Can you trace it to an event or circumstances? Because it didn’t used to occur all that much in America. Sure, there was occasional rioting, racially driven like that in the St. Louis area and things of that nature, but nothing as political as this. Is there a starting point, and is there possibly an ending point for this?

Anthony L. Fisher: That’s a good question. I mean, this particular iteration of Antifa, before Trump was elected president, was probably best known for some occasional Black Bloc violence during the Occupy movement—a little bit in New York, much more on the West Coast, specifically Occupy Oakland was kind of besieged. And I had spoken with some Occupy Oakland organizers who didn’t want the Black Bloc or Antifa co-opting their cause, that they had made it a very deliberate point to be peaceful protesters. And so when you had people coming in and torching police cars and breaking windows and attacking people, that kind of threw the whole peaceful protest thing out the window. Prior to that, in 1999 in Seattle, when the World Trade Organization was meeting, there was a huge riot. It was commemorated in the film The Battle in Seattle. But that didn’t catch on. These were like real blips.

Bob Zadek: They were like flash riots. They were kind of flash riots.

Anthony L. Fisher: Yeah. So whereas now, Fox News is heavy breathing on a daily basis that Antifa is about to bring about a Stalinist dictatorship, which they’re not. It’s absurd. But on the flip side of that, you have more center-left sites like Vox producing videos saying that to focus on Antifa violence is to miss the point. And that’s just so absurd and such a cop-out, because you would absolutely focus on the violence, even if it was limited or rare, if it was on the right or with anyone. So instead of blaming the media for covering violence, which anyone in a liberal society should abhor, perhaps say, “Let’s not do this. Let’s protest vigorously. If you want to protest the Trump administration, do it. You want to protest the Nazis, get 10,000 people together and laugh at them, point at them, stop them from marching. But as soon as you start sucker-punching people, as soon as you start lighting Roman candles on public property to stop people from speaking, you have demonstrated a failure of thought.” And this is not a right-wing pundit talking. This is Bernie Sanders talking. This is Elizabeth Warren talking. This is Noam Chomsky talking. All of them say that violence is not our game. Our game is ideas. Their game is violence.

Bob Zadek: And the trouble, of course, with any movement, whether it’s the alt-right or the alt-left, is that regretfully, I think it’s fair to say, there are some members—a tiny minority in society—who simply are drawn to any activity where violence is kind of allowed, if not for the minute, for an hour or for a day. And they’re just drawn for the violence of it, not for the ideas. So you end up building a movement that, whatever political goal it has, it becomes permission to do violence and it draws the thugs of society as well. So it becomes then just a gang.

Anthony L. Fisher: I mean, to be fair to Antifa, one of the things that they do that is great and valuable work is investigating and exposing Nazis. So they’ll be doing—they’ll be trolling websites where Nazis are planning on organizing. And it should be made clear that in Charlottesville, on some of these message boards, the Nazis who had been at the rally were also talking about violence. They were also talking about using cars as a means of violence. And that’s what happened. So if Antifa had been just focusing their efforts on that—on investigating them, making sure they know where they’re meeting, and then exposing them so that they are ostracized from society, or perhaps even get a few of these people who, like you said, are young men on the fringe who might be drawn to the rebel violence but may not be so completely committed to a white ethnostate that they’re willing to ruin their lives over it—exposing them, sunlight is the best disinfectant. Maybe they go, “You know, not worth it. Not worth losing my life, not worth being branded a Nazi for the rest of my life, losing friends and family. I’m going to bail on this thing.” But as soon as you start creating these lawless militias that just go around marauding and hitting everyone—everyone that stands in their way, whether they’re just dissenting liberals or journalists or people of color who might be right-wing, which all of these things have happened and they don’t want to accept it—then like you said, it’s not just people on the right, it’s not just young people on the right, it’s young people on the left who are drawn to this rebel action. And they use very self-aggrandizing language like, “We’re the brave ones. We’re the ones brave enough to fight the Nazis. You liberals in your ivory towers with your pointy heads talking about the First Amendment and civil liberties, those aren’t going to do you much good when you’re on a train to Auschwitz,” which to me is not only offensive but the mark of hysteria. That’s just not a rational argument. It’s insulting and it really shows the weakness of their own argument.

The Role of Government and the First Amendment [18:41]

Bob Zadek: Anthony, there’s another aspect to this which hasn’t been mentioned so much in the conversation about the Antifa movement, and that is this irrelevant reference to Nazi Germany and standing up to the Nazis when they were a small-ish movement is the role or the absence of the role of government. In Nazi Germany, the government was quite passive in suppressing—either powerless or didn’t care—but in suppressing the Nazi movement, and the Nazi movement when it got violent just was not repressed by government. In the U.S., there is no suggestion that any violence by the alt-right will not be dealt with adequately by government, by the government’s police powers. And for Antifa to use Nazi Germany as a reference point ignores the fact that they don’t have to be violent because the government is functioning and history has been government will react appropriately to violence whether on the left or on the right. And therefore, implicit in the Antifa movement is a lack of faith in government. And that’s, I think, an unwritten but important part of the movement.

This is Bob Zadek. I’m talking with Anthony Fisher. We are discussing the Antifa movement. Violence begets violence begets violence. How did it start and how did it end? More with Anthony in about 30 really short seconds. Please stay tuned. There is so much more to come.

[Break]

Bob Zadek: Welcome back to the Bob Zadek Show, the only live libertarian talk radio show on the air on the weekend. The show always of ideas, never of attitude. Thanks so much for listening to my conversation this morning with Anthony Fisher. Anthony has written a compelling piece in the Daily Beast recently: “Why Antifa Nazi Punching is Just a Gift to the Right.” In other words, Anthony’s thesis—and of course he is correct—is that when the anti-fascist movement resorts to violence to suppress or oppose the alt-right, it just becomes violence begets violence begets violence, and the point of all of it is kind of lost. Anthony, welcome back to the show this morning. Now, before we went to break, I offered the observation—perhaps I’m right, perhaps I’m not—that implicit in the Antifa movement is a distrust of government, that government will be able to deal with the violent component of the neo-Nazi or the alt-right movement. To the extent that the alt-right or neo-Nazi movement does not resort to violence but only spews ideas, then there is no reason for violence, and violence against ideas is as anti-American and as anti-Bill of Rights and as anti-American values as a movement can be. So, if there is an answer to this, why doesn’t Antifa leave it to government to deal with the violence and leave it to the debate format and to the public square argument to defeat the ideas of neo-Nazism?

Anthony L. Fisher: Well, a couple of real quick points. One, it is kind of absurd that a group that is calling for a radical socialist revolutionary alternative—which would mean basically government controlled everything—does not trust the government to police violence. And two, just to loop it back a bit, Antifa will argue that because Hitler started out with just a few Brownshirts at the beer hall, they should have been stopped violently and there never would have been World War II or the Holocaust. But in Weimar Germany, there actually were speech laws, there were anti-hate speech laws, and there were anti-Nazi laws that prevented them from speaking in public and demonstrating. And that really didn’t work. If anything, that made them martyrs and helped build up the radical right fringe.

Distrust of Institutions [22:51]

Anthony L. Fisher: So as far as the present day, they would argue—it always comes back to that counterfactual—that because the Nazis weren’t violently stopped in the crib, World War II happened. And they point to things like in Scandinavia, in Britain, and even in places in America in the punk rock scenes in the 1980s and ’90s, that every once in a while skinheads—racist skinheads—would try to infiltrate those scenes and violent clashes would take place, and most often the skinheads were ousted from polite society when it came to these music scenes and skater scenes.

But again, there’s a huge gulf between those two things. There’s a huge gulf between Hitler and punk rock skinheads. But the pro-Antifa argument always relies on that counterfactual—that Nazism is so bad, fascism is so bad, racism is so bad, that it somehow imbues people with superpowers. That before too long, if you don’t kill all the Nazis as soon as they start saying racist stuff, then they’re going to be marching into Poland. And that’s just such a leap of logic that ignores all the other potential consequences like backlash or like left-wing groups getting out of control and lowering the bar on who’s a racist or who’s a fascist or who’s a Nazi or who deserves violence as opposed to who just deserves to be denounced or vigorously debated.

So that’s why I try to plead with people to pause and think about the fact that at various times in this country, civil rights groups were described as hate groups. The gay rights movement was described as a hate group by hard-right Christians. Martin Luther King’s movement was a complete affront to Southern values. And none of these movements were broadly popular or even popular on a local level quite often. But it was the principle of free speech and it was the law that the First Amendment protects that allowed these arguments to be made and ultimately allowed them to win. So when people say, “We can’t trust the government, we can’t trust the police, Nazi punching is the only way,” I try to remind them that free expression works both ways and that when you protect the absolute worst, most despicable, abhorrent speech and at least allow it to be heard peacefully, you’ve also protected the rights of the minority, the rights of the disenfranchised, and the rights of people who are fighting for rights that had not yet existed. They didn’t fall from the heavens; they had to be fought for, and the only way they could be fought for is by being allowed to be heard in public.

Free Speech on Campus [27:43]

Bob Zadek: Anthony, one of the great pleasures of an opinion show such as the show we are on right now is we are allowed to speculate and nobody can yell at us. So taking advantage of the license we are given, I have two questions. First of all, Antifa—we are discussing Antifa as a movement, its tactics, and whether or not the use of violence makes much sense, and of course it does not. But Antifa, I guess and I believe, is a function of a larger movement or set of political circumstances which are part of the compromise of the principle of free speech, which of course, as you are well aware and have written about, is occurring on college campuses. There is more suppression of free speech, disinviting of speakers at commencement exercises and the like. So all of a sudden, in my view, there has been a growing suppression of free speech in general. Is Antifa simply part of that bigger picture of suppression of free speech when the ideas being spoken are unpleasant to some people?

And the second part of my question—and this is really the tough one—I’m not at all attributing any of this as blame to Donald Trump. I’m not, I reject it, no, no, no. But as a commentator, Anthony, because you see the world in a way that other people—you see things other people miss. So to what extent is there a dotted line or a solid line between the Trump election and Trump’s style and the Antifa and related movements? Is there a relationship at all? Is it coincidental or is it irrelevant?

Anthony L. Fisher: I think it’s totally relevant. And I don’t blame the president for any particular violence that didn’t occur outside of his own campaign rallies. But let’s not forget that there was violence at the campaign rallies, and there was violence that I’ll plainly say he encouraged. He absolutely told people, “If you see somebody about to disrupt one of our rallies, punch him in the face and I’ll pay your legal fees.” He did that. That happened. We got video of it. And what also happened was there were people who did sucker-punch people disrupting rallies.

Now, complicated thing, because the disinvitation stuff I think is a bad idea. I think it’s a terrible idea. But at the same time, I also completely condemned when his rally in Chicago was shut down. That’s not the way—Donald Trump was on his way to the Republican nomination. Violently shutting down one of his rallies was not going to silence his voice. And all it did, like I said, is give credence to the idea that opposition to Trump is inherently violent.

Now, as far as the culture of disinviting speakers to events and college campuses and suppressing free speech in general, I’ve absolutely written about it often. But I think we always have to remember that as long as we’re not succumbing to the “heckler’s veto” and we’re not succumbing to the threat of violence to shut down speech on public property—so for instance, if the College Republicans at Berkeley, a public school, invite Milo Yiannopoulos to speak at an event at Berkeley, public property, and it’s violently shut down and the authorities capitulate to the mob, that’s wrong. That’s not right. But if a private university or a private club decides that it’s not worth the baggage to have a controversial speaker speak at their event, while it might be a chilling overall effect to free speech to have these kind of disinvitations, it’s fine. Private groups and private organizations may invite and then disinvite anyone they choose. So it’s important to make those distinctions.

Bob Zadek: And just to explain it to our—it probably doesn’t need explaining, but the First Amendment, which assures us in the broadest sense possible of free expression and the right to speak, that limitation or that consent to speak only limits governmental action. So that when, for example, movie stars, those people in Hollywood, find people boycotting their movies because of what they said, that doesn’t violate their free speech rights. That is simply the marketplace reacting in the way the marketplace is supposed to react. So Anthony reminds us that the guarantee of free speech only limits government from acting to limit free speech. It doesn’t affect the behavior of private parties. Thanks for making that reminder, Anthony.

Anthony L. Fisher: It also protects you from the violence of the heckler’s veto. The First Amendment does not—it is not under the purview of the First Amendment for a mob to shut down someone’s speech.

Bob Zadek: And the heckler’s veto is where people can shout down a speaker—happened to Betsy DeVos somewhat recently—where the hecklers, those people in the audience, are so disruptive that the speaker doesn’t get a chance to speak. That is known in political conversation as the heckler’s veto.

Antifa’s Broader Political Agenda [34:53]

Bob Zadek: Now, Anthony, in the Antifa movement, what struck me as being strange was one of the pro-Antifa speakers who was debating you on that Al Jazeera broadcast mentioned—and it was kind of a throwaway line, but I noticed it—they mentioned they were opposed to, of all things, capitalism. So here you have an anti-fascist movement that is able to intellectually throw into the basket of things they oppose capitalism, which shows how absurd it is to rely upon labels like anti-fascist. It’s anti-stuff, and not anti-fascist if you can lump capitalism and fascism into the same point of view.

Anthony L. Fisher: Absolutely. Fascism is not capitalism. Fascism is, among many other things, the complete intertwining of business and government. It is picking winners and losers. It’s a different kind of top-down economic system. But yes, like you said, it’s by design. This is why these labels are meaningless. Like the same way so many people who on the left who call themselves pro-choice pretty much are not pro-choice about anything except abortion. If it came to school choice, they would not be pro-choice. And same thing with people on the right who are pro-life, which means they’re anti-abortion, but they’re pro-death penalty and they’re pro-war. So it’s a virtue signaling kind of label. And that’s what—to defend a revolutionary socialist alternative under Antifa is a total whitewash and it’s a scam. It’s one of these academic word games that really—I understand why they exist, and I’m not an anti-intellectual, and I read voraciously and I deliberately seek out points of view that I’m not inclined to agree with, but it’s just the kind of navel-gazing to throw in a million SAT words to justify the use of a redundant and failed ideology.

Future Outlook and Potential Backlash [40:54]

Bob Zadek: Anthony, what is the—the Antifa movement, I can’t tell whether it’s just a series of flash mobs formed for a particular event and then it dissipates. As you pointed out, there isn’t any Antifa LLC, there isn’t any governing body, they don’t have meetings, don’t have officers, they don’t have fundraisers and things of that nature. So it has some of the attributes of a flash mob formed for an event and then people take off their black clothing and take off their masks and go about their lives as accountants. So to what extent is attention to Antifa overblown because it’s nothing other than a series of events with no legs, if you will? And to what extent is Antifa to be paid attention to as the beginnings of a movement that perhaps can become disturbing in civil society? It’s not going to overthrow anything, but disruptive, cause unpleasantness and violence, and innocent people will lose their freedom, their lives, their property, and their rights because of the Antifa movement. So as you—and once again, we have the luxury of being allowed to crassly speculate if we want—what do you see two years from now the Antifa movement to look like?

Anthony L. Fisher: Well, I certainly wouldn’t hinge anything on elections, because I think it’s a great line and very true that politics is downstream from culture. So I don’t really think it matters who’s the Senate majority leader in 2018. But here’s what has been my concern ever since Donald Trump was elected: what happens when there’s a major terrorist attack in the United States? Now, if the Las Vegas shooter had been a Muslim, I worry that we’d be already debating Patriot Act 2.0 and possibly invading a country right now. So again, I begin and end this argument with violence begets violence, violence is a failure of political thought, and violence leads to crackdowns from government that almost always end up infringing everybody’s civil liberties.

So I don’t think Antifa is going to become like a cultural force or a fifth column in this country, and I definitely reject the Justice Department’s designation of them as a terrorist group, but that’s more on principle than anything else. I think that those labels are overbroad and sweep up innocent people. But what worries me—I think the worst thing that could happen from Antifa is in the event that they kill someone, which could happen. People get punched in the face and then hit their head on the cement and they’re dead. People act like street beatdowns don’t have the potential for death; that’s insane.

But I would say that my biggest concern for as long as Donald Trump is president is how not only the government but the people react to a major terrorist event and whether or not they did what the vast majority of Americans went willfully along with after 9/11—went willfully along with the Patriot Act, went willfully along with two wars. And that was under a president who was certainly controversial—good half of the country probably considered him illegitimate—but not nearly as controversial as President Trump. Now, in the reaction of an overbroad crackdown on civil liberties or if Donald Trump launched a full-on on-the-ground war, then I could see Antifa violence really ramping up and being a real corrosive force. But short of that, I don’t see this movement flaming out so much as kind of ebbing and flowing as it has always done. They’ve never really, because they’re asymmetrical and they’re not an official group, they only pop up and really thrive when there’s a specific enemy to fight. And when there isn’t, they kind of retreat and then split up and then they come back again when there is a fascist threat. And there’s no question that they think that the Trump administration and their allies represent such a fascist threat. I’m not willing to go there yet, but there’s definitely reason to be concerned. And like I said, you cannot prevent every terrorist attack, though I think Americans are kind of coming around to understanding that. 9/11 was such an unprecedented and shocking atrocity in both scope and scale and the fact that it was on the American homeland that I think people were scared. They followed the government into a whole lot of rabbit holes. And as long as President Trump is president, I feel like the threat of Antifa—it’s a mutual threat. This government and Antifa will feed on each other. Violence from neo-Nazis, violence from the government, violence from Antifa all beget more violence, not less. No one’s going to beat anyone down. The violence will be met by violence.

Sidewalk Traffic and Closing [46:28]

Bob Zadek: Anthony, thank you so much for your discussion and analysis on Antifa. We have a few minutes left. Tell us about Sidewalk Traffic.

Anthony L. Fisher: Thanks, Bob. So Sidewalk Traffic is a narrative feature film, a comedy-drama that I wrote and directed and co-produced that is available to rent and purchase on iTunes, Amazon, YouTube, Google Play, basically all major video-on-demand platforms. It stars Johnny Hopkins, Erin Darke (who was most recently seen in Good Girls Revolt), Sam Levine (from Freaks and Geeks and Inglourious Basterds), Heather Matarazzo (from Welcome to the Dollhouse). So a lot of great indie and comedy stars. Tom Shillue, who used to be the host of Fox News’s Red Eye, Kurt Loder, who we all know and love from Rolling Stone and MTV and now reviews movies for Reason. So it’s a great New York cast. And I would kind of say if you’re a movie fan, it’s very much in the vein of Woody Allen or Louis C.K., where it’s definitely heavy themes like new fatherhood, depression, career calamities are all dealt with, but the comedy comes from like the uncomfortable and really recognizable truths about the human condition. So again, Sidewalk Traffic, you can find it on all the VOD platforms. And if you’re somebody who’s a new parent or knows a new parent or knows someone struggling with depression or artistic dreams, this is very cathartic and very funny.

Bob Zadek: Anthony, you’ve listed the entire society of the United States. The movie is called Sidewalk Traffic. Be sure to catch it. This is Bob Zadek saying so long for now. I’ll be back next Sunday. Thanks again to Anthony Fisher for his explanation of Antifa. Thanks so much for listening. Enjoy the three-day weekend. So long for now.

Show prep notes

Bob’s own preparation for this episode.

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(424) BOB-SHOW // (424) 262-7469

Notes:

Why hasn’t it happened yet? Bureaucratic Inertia

“Entrenched interests both inside and outside government, remain committed to America’s global military presence.”

John Glaser on Shutting Military Bases - 10/1

Show Notes:

This Day in History

Background

Other Articles - Iran, N. Korea, and the End of Pax Americana

Audio & Video

Show Notes:

Headline: Rethinking Pax Americana with John Glaser

We’re living through the longest period of peace the modern world has ever known, so why all the hysteria of late? John Glaser, Director of Foreign Policy Studies at the Cato Institute, says it’s past time to start closing many of the 800 U.S. military bases around the world, and retool America’s strategy for deterring threats. He argues that the current saber rattling with Iran and North Korea represent the consequences of decades of overly-expansionist interventions. The idea of a “Pax Americana,” or the pacifying influence of American military dominance, has been around since the beginning of the Cold War. It has led us to make compromises with brutal dictators to maintain a troop presence near perceived threats, and continues to cost us hundreds of billions of dollars a year. Worse, the alleged deterrent effect of a hegemonic military power may be an illusion. In his recent Cato policy paper*, Glaser persuasively argues that certain countries, which would otherwise feel neutrally towards the U.S., end up feeling threatened, and ramp up their military spending. Did Trump’s “get tough” rhetoric at the U.N. make us more or less safe? Find out this Sunday, and call Bob and John with your thoughts – (424) BOB-SHOW.

*Withdrawing from Overseas Bases: Why a Forward-Deployed Military Posture Is Unnecessary, Outdated, and Dangerous, by John Glaser, Policy Analysis No. 816. July 18, 2017.

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>> Stream Online

>> Call in: (424) BOB-SHOW

Listen LIVE - 8-9 AM PACIFIC, on 860 AM - The Answer, or Streaming LIVE online

Links

• *Withdrawing from Overseas Bases: Why a Forward-Deployed Military Posture Is Unnecessary, Outdated, and Dangerous, by John Glaser, Policy Analysis No. 816. July 18, 2017.

• @jwcglaser on Twitter

• Cato Foreign Policy and National Security

Related Shows:

• A. Trevor Thrall on Millennials’ Attitudes Towards Foreign Policy

• Michael O’Hanlon on *The Future of Land Warfare*

• 16 Years Later – the Forever War Rages On, Anthony Alfidi

• John Mueller on Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism as Dark Comedy

BIO (Cato)

• “John Glaser is director of foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute. His research interests include grand strategy, basing posture, U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, the rise of China, and the role of status and prestige motivations in international politics. Glaser has been a guest on a variety of television and radio programs and has had his work published in Foreign Affairs, The National Interest, CNN, Time, Newsweek, and The Guardian, among other outlets.

• Glaser earned a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a Master of Arts in International Security at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University.

FIND HIS WORK AT:

• @jwcglaser on Twitter

• Cato Institute Center for Foreign Policy and National Security

This Day in History

N/A

Background

The Potential Upside to Shutting Down Military Bases | Time.com by John Glaser, Jan. 14, 2017

800 bases with more than 270,000 troops in 70 countries. Cost: $70 - 120 billion/year

Cold War legacy, not justified by thread of Eurasian enemy, but thought to make world more peaceful and stable through deterrence and reassurance.

“Pax Americana”.

Glaser notes the decline in global violence, and existence of a “long peace” – anomalous by historical standards.

One theory is that our weapons are so powerful, no one dares use them:

“Some people look at the nuclear peace theory, though, and conclude that, if anything, nukes are redundant. It is really the destructive power of modern, industrialized conventional militaries that explains war’s decline. The contemporary machinery of war means the potential costs of conflict have become prohibitive, while the gains have greatly diminished, meaning that states are more likely to compete economically or through non-state proxies than to make war.”

Economic interdependence also prevents war. “Where goods don’t cross borders, troops will.” - Frederic Bastiat. The inverse is also true, where goods cross borders, troops wont.

Empirical evidence shows that democracies tend not to fight one another.

Does our military presence abroad make us more or less safe? Bases in Japan and Philippines risk getting dragged into clash with China.

America’s global role and the U.S. superpower status | Pew Research Center

Public opinion is against international involvement. 41% say military does too much compared to 27% who say too little. However, three years ago, even more people say the US does too much. ISIS, etc. has increased people’s fears.

Policy Analysis - Withdrawing from Overseas Bases: Why a Forward-Deployed Military Posture is Unnecessary, Outdated and Dangerous, by John Glaser, July 18, 2017

The United States maintains a veritable empire of military bases throughout the world—about 800 of them in more than 70 countries. This forward-deployed military posture incurs substantial costs and disadvantages, exposing the United States to vulnerabilities and unintended consequences. The strategic justifications for overseas bases—that they deter adversaries, reassure allies, and enable rapid deployment operations—have lost much of their value and relevance in the contemporary security environment.

Not so much about National Defense as an insurance policy on stability abroad – however, Glaser argues, this is outdated – the relatively stability globally makes it so that American presence elsewhere has more harmful effects than helpful ones.

Conquest by great powers is no longer the norm.

American Pacifier Theory

“The presence of the American military is supposed to discourage nuclear proliferation, conventional arms races, and war.”

“By bolstering U.S. credibility to intervene in response to attack, forward deployment is intended to simultaneously deter adversaries and reassure allies.”

“a tangible indicator of American willingness to fight” should an adversary attack a U.S. ally or otherwise destabilize a region through military action. They serve as a tripwire, by putting the lives of American soldiers at risk and thus triggering U.S. military intervention in case of attack.”

Deterrence

How do you measure deterrence to know whether it’s working?

Proximity and Response Times

“The United States’ long-range bombers can deliver nonrefueled payloads for missions of up to 8,800 miles, and tanker refueling “can extend that almost indefinitely,” says Harkavy.”

…

Moreover, robbing the executive branch of the ability to rapidly insert the United States into a military conflict abroad may indeed be a good thing. Since World War II, constitutional restrictions on the president’s war-making powers have eroded. But the Framers of the Constitution were wise to constrain the president’s war-making powers. Affording the executive a speedy response with in-place forces, therefore, not only undermines the rule of law but also can intensify war proneness. As Bernard Brodie once wrote, “the notion that it is incontestably good to expand the chief executive’s options is rather peculiar” because “it runs directly counter to the basic tenets of constitutional government” and because “one way of keeping people out of trouble is to deny them the means for getting into it.”

Inverse Deterrence & Moral Hazard

“Another major strategic problem with a forward-deployed military posture is that it can sometimes have the opposite of its intended effect. Stationing military bases near an adversary can cause fear that generates counteraction instead of scaring an adversary into submission. 

…

Overseas bases can inspire blowback in the form of terrorism. According to Robert Pape, “the principal cause of suicide terrorism is resistance to foreign occupation.”  Infamous examples, like the 1983 bombings of the Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, that killed 241 Americans, and the al Qaeda attack in 2000 on the USS Cole off the coast of Yemen, are illustrative.  But bases can also motivate attacks on U.S. soil.”

U.S. has had to back oppressive dictators in exchange for stationing its bases in countries like Uzbekistan.

Glaser reviews the situation in Europe, Middle East, East Asia, and concludest most bases could be closed.

He says there is a strategy argument for bases in Guam and Diego Garcia, to reduce transit times to the East Asian areas. Since Guam is a U.S. territory, it won’t create a backlash.

Diego Garcia is in the Indian Ocean and offers similar advantages.

Conclusion

Even back in 1970, congress investigated the idea of reducing security agreements abroad:

(424) BOB-SHOW // (424) 262-7469

Notes:

Austin Petersen - 9/24

Cell is for planning call at Friday afternoon at 3 pm or so.

Land line for Sunday is

Mike’s Notes:

Happy to talk about the prog-left reaction to “public choice.” And we could do it in the context of talking about Bob’s book, which I’m happy to read.

So something like, “Why is Nancy MacLean so confused about Public Choice, which is mostly common sense? And, in fact, many people on the left are essentially invoking Public Choice in opposing what they see as power grabs by Trump.”

[Michael is coming out with a new book soon, called Choosing in Groups. You could give this a plug towards the end of the show

Charlie’s notes: This was an interesting topic for me, having spent time in the Koch-backed “liberty movement.” It confirmed an impression I’ve had for a while about the difference in perception on the inside of the movement versus the outside. MacLean quotes James Buchanan on the alleged “gravy train” for libertarian academics and think tank employees (he was suggesting that stipends be increased for grad students pursuing public choice research). The jobs in the liberty movement do not pay particularly well – they are nonprofits, staffed by sincere and committed ideologues (not a pejorative). There is a strong sense of being underdogs – a “remnant” even – rather than an ascendant movement that holds the reins of power tightly. Whether or not the ideology is correct is a different question.

The second major mischaracterization is that there is a conspiracy afoot. The Institute for Humane Studies et al. seems fairly upfront about their strategy to recruit libertarian talent into their programs, to help them get placed at top universities.

The third major mischaracterization is that public choice is about casting aspersions on the motives of people who economists know nothing about (i.e., public servants). It doesn’t take a complete cynic to observe that government workers are subject to the same laws of human nature as actors in the market or elsewhere. While some people might take the core insights to suggest that we should dismantle the public sector entirely, virtually everyone who reads and understands public choice thinks of proper constitutional limits as a remedy for enhancing the quality of our institutions – not abolishing the state. As Munger says, “common sense.”

I would suggest to Munger and Co. that they further embrace their identity as counter to mainstream academia, and continue to make a case why public choice economics is a vital missing ingredient in most mainstream research. All the better if they can do it without support from “billionaire backers,” but this is fair practice in academia (see Time, “How the Koch Brothers are Influencing Colleges” - “[P]rivate foundations led by liberal political bankroller George Soros — the Kochs’ de facto Democratic foil who also heavily funds higher education — spent slightly more money on a smaller number colleges and universities than the Koch foundations did during 2014.”

Show Notes:

This Day in History

Overview - Democracy in Chains

On Trump

Audio & Video

Show Notes:

Headline: Michael Munger on *Democracy in Chains* & Public Choice Economics

Original:

Duke historian Nancy MacLean won praise from progressive media like NPR for a new book telling a bombshell of a story. Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America tells of a strategy, led by Nobel laureate James M. Buchanan (†2013) and his billionaire backers, to hijack academia with right-wing economics and ultimately replace American democracy with authoritarian corporatism. As serious factual problems with MacLean’s book started surfacing, NPR had to apologize (partially) for assigning a novelist to review a work of political nonfiction. Honest nonpartisan reviewers have debunked MacLean’s claims about the shadowy origins of “public choice economics” – a common-sense branch of the dismal science dealing with the incentives and decisions of government officials and politicians. The best defense of Buchanan’s legacy of public choice economics came from MacLean’s colleague, Duke political science professor Michael Munger. NPR’s choice of reviewer may have been appropriate. Taking certain first person “quotes” fabricated by MacLean but attributed to Buchanan, he observes that MacLean has written an exemplary (if defamatory) work of “historical fiction.” Maybe NPR’s choice of reviewer was thus appropriate after all. Professor Munger returns to the program this Sunday to analyze the progressive reaction to MacLean’s “historical fiction,” and explain why the left should embrace the core insights from public choice economics now more than ever. They will also discuss Bob’s new book Secret Sauce: The Founders’ Original Recipe for *LIMITED* American Democracy [emphasis added], and reveal the U.S. Constitution for what it is: a not-so-secret plot to “chain” majoritarian democracy to certain rules to protect the rights of minorities and individuals. Download Bob’s book for free on Kindle Unlimited and tune in every week to hear Bob and his guests on the latest libertarian issues. Call in: (424) BOB-SHOW.

Posted Blurb:

Nancy MacLean’s Democracy in Chains is a bombshell of a book. Praised by NPR, her tale of how a humble Virginia economist hatched a plan to subvert American democracy is perfectly crafted to inflame and entertain progressive partisans. The conspiracy theory traces the “radical right’s stealth plan,” and quotes the central bogeyman, economist James M. Buchanan, saying “I can fight this [democracy] … I want to fight this.” The bad news for MacLean’s fawning reviewers is that Buchanan never said this. MacLean made it up. Vox.com delivers a death blow to the book’s premise of the shadowy origins of public choice economics – a common-sense branch of the dismal science that explains government failures in terms of bad incentives facing politicians and bureaucrats. Professor Michael Munger is both MacLean’s colleague at Duke and an expert on public choice. He joins the show this Sunday to break down Buchanan’s real legacy – his Nobel-Prize winning contributions to economic science – and to help Bob understand the bizarre progressive reaction to his work. One of public choice’s central insights, and the theme of Bob’s new book, Secret Sauce, is that democracy must be limited by a constitution to protect the rights of minorities and individuals from mob rule. Ironically, it is today’s progressives who can best utilize Buchanan’s insights to resist a power-grab by our democratically-elected president and congress. Don’t miss the autopsy of MacLean’s failed attempt at revisionist history (or successful attempt at “historical fiction,” to be more charitable), and call in to speak with Bob and Michael at any time: (424) BOB - SHOW.

>> Tune in to the Answer: SF Bay Area: 860AM // Sacramento: 1380AM // Seattle: 1590AM

>> Stream Online

>> Call in: (424) BOB-SHOW

Listen LIVE - 8-9 AM PACIFIC, on 860 AM - The Answer, or Streaming LIVE online

Links

• On the Origins and Goals of Public Choice: The Independent Institute, Mike Munger’s review of Democracy in Chains, June 29, 2017

• What Nancy MacLean Gets Wrong About James Buchanan - Reason.com by Brian Doherty July 20, 2017

• Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America - by Nancy MacLean – Amazon.com

Related Shows (Subscribe to the Podcast):

• Who Wants to Buy a Politician? With Mike Munger, December 31, 2014

• Is There Such a Thing As Too Much Democracy?, July 11, 2017

• Bob Zadek on Life!Line on *Secret Sauce*, July 11, 2017

BIO

• Director, of Undergraduate Studies (Political Science)

• Director, of PPE Program at Duke University

• Professor, of Political Science

• Professor, of Economics

• Professor, of Public Policy

Worked as a staff economist at the Federal Trade Commission. Taught economics at Dartmouth, and Political Science at the University of Texas at Austin (1986-1990) and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (1990-1997). At UNC he directed the MPA Program, which trains public service professionals, especially city and county management.

Chair of the Duke Political Science Department from 2000 through 2010. He has won three University-wide teaching awards (the Howard Johnson Award, an NAACP “Image” Award for teaching about race, and admission to the Bass Society of Teaching Fellows). He is currently director of the interdisciplinary PPE Program at Duke University.

Munger’s recent books include “Choosing in Groups” (coauthored with his son, Kevin Munger) and “The Thing Itself,” both in 2015. His research interests include the study of the morality of exchange and the working of the new “Middleman Economy.” Much of his recent work has been in philosophy, examining the concept of truly voluntary exchange, a concept for which he coined the term “euvoluntary.” His current project is a book entitled “Tomorrow 3.0,” excerpted here.

FIND HIS WORK AT:

This Day in History

1776 - Nathan Hale volunteers to spy behind British lines