Bruno Retailleau represents the Vendée in the French Senate, where he has been serving as President of The Republican group since 2014. His comments prompted by the storming of the Capitol in Washington on January 6 provide a useful European perspective, an alternative to the polarized discourse that has predominated in the United States. In addition to a pointed evaluation of the events themselves, his remarks also offer insight into political positioning in France in advance of the 2022 presidential election: as we are on the eve of the post-Merkel era in Germany, a post-Macron France may be approaching as well. More importantly, however, Retailleau reminds us that what happened in Washington is indicative of tendencies that are not exclusively American. He describes root causes of some contemporary social conflict, treating the Washington riot as symptomatic of tensions as present in France as in the United States, as well as across the West. At stake is more than Trump’s rhetoric, the impeachment debate, or the response to the 2020 presidential election outcome. The issues that fueled the populism of the past four years have not disappeared. Retailleau shows why.
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In today’s episode of the Telos Press Podcast, Camelia Raghinaru talks with Telos editor David Pan about his article “Economy and Ecology: Federal Populism and the Devil in the Details of Universal Basic Income,” from Telos 191 (Summer 2020). An excerpt of the article appears here. If your university has an online subscription to Telos, you can read the full article at the Telos Online website. For non-subscribers, learn how your university can begin a subscription to Telos at our library recommendation page. Purchase a print copy of Telos 191 in our online store. Now available for pre-order from Telos Press Publishing: The Crisis of Liberalism: Prelude to Trump, by Fred Siegel. Pre-order the paperback edition today in our online store and save 30% off the list price. Offer expires 9/30/20. Also available now in Kindle ebook format. Release dates: October 1, 2020 (paperback), September 15, 2020 (ebook).
by Fred Siegel In The Crisis of Liberalism: Prelude to Trump, Fred Siegel leverages New York City to uncover the key political conflicts and social contradictions in American liberalism over the last century. This wide-ranging collection of essays critically recounts how passionate intellectual debates over how to realize “the good life” in the modern city emerged from the writings of early progressive “thought leaders,” who envisioned a new educated elite capable of enlightened democratic governance. The flaws in this approach, as Siegel shows, expressed themselves most floridly in John Lindsay’s New York, whose flashy limousine liberals were a preview of today’s politically correct gentry liberalism. Its cultural programs over the past half-century repeatedly failed the downtrodden underclass and alienated middle-class New Yorkers trapped in economic stagnation. By neglecting voters’ real concerns over illegal immigration and China’s emerging threats, globalist technocratic liberals ultimately set the stage for Donald Trump’s angry nationalist demand to put “America First.” The following interview was conducted by Moritz Schwarz and appeared in Junge Freiheit, on August 14, 2020. Published with permission. Translated by Russell A. Berman, who has written a separate note here. Dr. Maaßen, the Mayor of Tübingen, Boris Palmer, has warned against a “world of prohibitions” in Germany, in which “moral condemnation” could follow the smallest mistake. This would “destroy liberal democracy.” Is he right? Hans-Georg Maaßen: I am a jurist, out of passion, and that’s why I am frightened to have to agree with him in part. I am deeply concerned that our legal state—the rule of law—is being more and more undermined by the rule of morality. Bärbel Bohley’s disappointed phrase is well known: “We wanted justice, but all we got is the rule of law.” Isn’t morality the better and ethically higher good? Maaßen: No. It is true that the law only provides a moral minimum. Yet that is precisely the precondition of freedom. The following essay was originally published in French as “La Grèce et la pandémie: Quelques réflexions,” in Revue Politique, June 30, 2020, and appears here by permission. Translated by Russell A. Berman.
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It is widely recognized that Greece survived the difficult test of COVID-19 well. The international press has been writing about the “little Greek miracle” for more than a month: a country ravaged by the economic crisis of the past years has been able to resist the public health challenge better than many other European countries. And it is right to emphasize this unexpected success as due primarily to the speed of the government’s decisions, the closing of the borders, the strict lockdown of about two months, but also the population’s obedience to special laws issued by the authorities, both in terms of health and politics. Every evening at 6:00 PM, the epidemiologist Professor Sotirios Tsiodras spoke to the public directly on television about the measures taken and the track of the pandemic, in a calm, humane, and confident tone, showing appropriate emotions when he spoke of the deaths, turning into the family doctor, a personality familiar to everyone. 
