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Thanks!
Richard Helppie
Hello, welcome to The Common Bridge. I'm your host, Richard Helppie. Today we have one of our favorite and most popular guests, Mr. Robert Greenfield. Robert is an American but he has traveled, lived and worked nearly all over the world. We haven't found him in Antarctica yet but certainly Australia, Europe, Asia, many points across the United States, and probably a lot [of places] we don't know about. Today we're just going to talk broadly about what's going on with the United State's European relationships, how America is being viewed in various quarters and anything else we want to talk about...in case there might be a like an election coming up, or unrest on college campuses, or a war in the Middle East, or something like that. Robert, it's great to see you. What part of the world are we finding you in today?
Robert Greenfield
Hi Rich, what a wonderful pleasure to be back with you - I think this is year number four or something like that. First of all, congratulations on your ongoing success. I follow The Common Bridge all the time; you have tremendous guests. I mean, you had presidential candidates this year, you've done transgender, you've done so many topics, and it's a great public service that you're doing. It's an honor to be here with you. So first of all, I want to say that thank you, and thank you to Brian Kruger for the great job that he does to support you. Today I'm in the south of France, it is finally getting warm, it was a little bit chilly. Nearby, yesterday, we had Xi Jinping and Macron so we're in an interesting spot here. Then Xi Jinping went on his way to Hungary, where I currently live in Budapest. So there's some action happening here in France and in Europe and I'm happy to be able to share that with you today.
Richard Helppie
This is one of the many reasons you're one of the most popular guests, even out-polling some of the more famous people, and people that weren't famous then but are now. We'd like to get them back on but they've got bigger audiences I guess. So Robert, just in general terms to set the stage, when you look at the future of the United States - and let's just limit it to European relationships right now - with Biden and/or with Trump what is the current state and what does the future look like in your estimation? You can go at this anywhere you want to culturally, economically or otherwise.
Robert Greenfield
I think the best way to describe this, which for your listeners and viewers, is that Europe is in transition and regardless of whether it's Trump or Biden who is elected in November 2024, Europe is now being confronted with taking on more of the burden of their own defense, number one. Number two is what they call the golden era of peace or the peace dividend, meaning from the end of World War II, but particularly from the fall of the [Berlin] wall in 1989. Until February 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine, Europe essentially did not pay its own way. They were under the American nuclear umbrella. They were under the American military support. There are bases everywhere, ranging from the UK, which is no longer in the EU but it's still a part of Europe, all the way down to places like Italy, and of course here in France, huge in places like Germany. So there was that, then there was the expansion of NATO, which is now increased under Biden. However, we are in transition. The number one thing to think about if you are in America and listening to this, or anybody anywhere, is what is Europe going to do in the future? And I can tell you, the way that it looks right now - I'll make my opening statement - it does not look terribly positive for Europe. They're not prepared. They're not prepared politically, they're not prepared economically, and they're definitely not prepared defense wise.
Richard Helppie
Robert, when I think about the history of Europe, that the countries there have been at war, literally for centuries, the boundaries of countries have shifted many, many times. We have ethnicities that were living in an area under one government and stayed in the same place and lived in a second, third, fourth, and sometimes a fifth one. Europe has done some great things and now they have the situation - with the declining birth rates - that their economy seems to be a little stagnant. When you think about the innovations that are really changing the world, they're largely coming from the United States, and the manufacturing is being done in the Pacific Rim and elsewhere. What's left for Europe and how do they manage with all of those demographic pressures?
Robert Greenfield
Okay, so let's hit it with the demographics first, because that is probably the number one issue after defense; defense is solvable, by the way. Donald Trump was right. Before him, Obama said the same thing but Trump said it a lot stronger, which was about contribution and defense spending. But that can be solved. Poland's solving it, some other places are solving it; it's not a bleak outlook for that. But the demographics is a serious problem. And the way that it's being solved is not in a way that...it's a revolution. Basically, on the demographic side, immigration has been played with - as former colonies, their people are invited into France, that's not working out at all. It's a predominantly Muslim type of intake and they are not integrating very well in France. In fact, there are major changes that the French people are not happy with. Similarly, in the UK, you've got a place where - I think you know and last year we even mentioned this in our discussion - around 38-39 percent of London are English - traditional English meaning Irish, English, of course, or Welsh or Scottish - now, that's way less than half. So you've got a demographic there...the Mayor of London has now been re-elected again, he is Pakistani, first generation guy. Rishi Sunak is a Hindu and he's now the prime minister. Until the last couple of weeks, the head of Scotland was actually a mixture of Kenyan as well as a Pakistani, who was also a Muslim. So you've got a change here that's happening in Europe that is freaking people out, to be honest.
Robert Greenfield
I think this actually speaks really well to western style democracy, from the Magna Carta to the United States Constitution. It really doesn't matter where people come from, it doesn't matter what their ethnicity is, their religion. I believe the Mayor of London is a Muslim, if I'm not mistaken.
Robert Greenfield
Yes. Kahn is his name, yes.
Richard Helppie
Guess what? Everybody can participate in this and, to me, that really speaks well to those structures, and that people are drawn to countries governed like that, versus the reverse. It's not like the traditional Anglo, Irish, Welsh, Scottish people that populated the English isles, they didn't move to Africa or to the Middle East or to Asia; people were attracted to come to that kind of society. I think that speaks really, really well to that underlying structure. But we have to get off this idiotic identity politics thing, which doesn't benefit anybody that I can tell.
Robert Greenfield
No, this is critical and it's something that I think is big for you - it's values. You are very much, Rich, a values guy. Whether you're talking about values and culture, the people that are entering into Europe, they're not converting them to their values. So in other words, they're not European values. My son lives in the Netherlands and he was remarking that there's a very large Muslim community, they don't want to celebrate what is called Kings Day, they were protesting against it. Kings Day is a traditional day, even though they have a nominal king, but it's a day of celebration of their culture, of their way of life. So it kind of freaked out people. Here is the issue Europe is struggling with: what is the number before our culture and our values are overwhelmed? Can we convert the people that are coming in to our values because they are coming from countries...[that are not democracies] not all...I mean, India is a democracy, even though it's a democracy under threat right now, as we know, with Modi and his Hinduism. But a lot of places they're coming from, they don't have the same values, the values that you're talking about from the Magna Carta on up. This is something that Europe is clearly struggling with.
Richard Helppie
I agree with your point. There are all those that think tribalism is going to prevail because they imagine their tribe is going to win and the other tribe is going to be vanquished. Our own president talks in those terms when he talks about the "MAGA" Republicans. Tribalism has never worked out for the tribalists but democracy, constitutional representation, has worked out pretty well in terms of peace and prosperity and in productivity and in rising standards of living. We need, I think, to do a better job about educating people about the various forms of governance, whether it be constitutional republic, a monarchy, or a totalitarian state. History has spoken. At this point, constitutional democracies have proven better for everyone. I know you'll remember this, that during the period of post World War II, that The Grapes of Wrath movie was shown to Russians to show them how bad life was in America. And it backfired because the proletariat said, hey, those guys are pretty well off, they've got a truck. I think that we need to shine a light on actual facts, which I know that we've drifted away from. But look, we'll see if people are going to speak up and say, wait a minute, we need to stay based in science and mathematics. We need to be able to build things, grow things, heal things, versus yell about things. We shall see.
Robert Greenfield
I want to make a point with that, positive on the American side. Obviously, you said I lived in all these different places. Democracies run...in some countries they run much better. In other countries, they don't run as well. But I would say this, in general, democracies are under threat around the world and one of the reasons...and I'm going to go back and hit it again, because I've been very pro-immigration into Australia. Even Australia now, immigration is a question because the numbers aren't working. It's a numbers situation, Richard. I think that we all need to recognize that the United States - ironically, even though we have the so-called polarization, I would say this - the United States is seen by Europe...if you want to ask how the Europeans feel about the US, they feel the United States is even stronger than ever. They believe that the US came out of COVID very strong, they believe that the US did their investment with their infrastructure, etc. at the right time. And of course, the US has the US dollar, and it's the global reserve currency. So what you have is a very dynamic situation in the United States; they don't like - when they look at the US and look at the rich/poor divide - they don't like that, they feel in Europe they have a better way about that. But every one of them will say that the US is the envy of the Western world when it comes to dynamism, economy, how they get immigrants into the country, it's crazy. But people get in, they have jobs, and the economy is reflected in that. So I want to make that very clear to Americans who are sitting there and worrying about oh, my gosh, things are terrible in America. I have to tell you, compared to the rest of the world, including China, the United States is seen as an economic success. It's seen as a success in many ways with immigration, of course, nobody wants the southern border, and people freak out about boats coming into Europe. So the southern border has to be fixed. But the United States is not viewed as a power in decline by the Europeans. Not at all. They see the United States as a big brother who might not be reliable but it's definitely the strongest 800 pound gorilla on the block.
Richard Helppie
It's almost like, well, the US looks like a stronger country relative to the others around the world versus measured against perhaps where we were. So by way of example, some of the things you talked about - the dollar as the reserve currency; we are abusing it with printing a lot of money and driving up debt that just can't be repaid. Where our products were the envy of the world, we now have airplanes with bolts blowing off, and we have ships running into bridges. We can't seem to get everybody into houses, we can't control the border and we've got this system that is clogged up. I mean, we can do better as a country. And to your point, I think my experience with some of the other economies in Europe, they do a better job of making sure that the base is more stable than what we've traditionally had in the US. And that's a tricky proposition to make sure that everybody's got a certain level of standard of living without thwarting or chilling the ability to be entrepreneurial. Robert, on defense, the thing that troubles me about defense is that you have commentators here in the United States - I don't know if you've followed this at all - saying these defense bills are good because we're going to be able to sell missiles and bullets and tanks and airplanes that are made in the United States. If you recall the book Catch 22, it was war is good because what's good for M&M enterprises, the quartermaster, is good for everybody. I mean, it's like, that's insane, that doesn't sound like a sustainable growth engine. Eventually you run out of people to shoot at, I guess.
Robert Greenfield
Well, I don't think there's going to be a shortage of people to shoot at but your point is well taken. I think that Europe looks at the US as definitely a war type of economy. It's true, what you're saying. They don't look at the US as producing products. US design, but Apple's made in China, US design, Tesla, that's even made in Germany, on and on it goes. It's true what you're saying, specifically on the defense side. The defense companies obviously have done quite well with the Ukraine-Russia war, but it's not sustainable, absolutely not. To let you know what the Europeans are doing about that, is the Germans have gone from essentially having no defense industry - they had a couple of things, this thing called the Leopard tank and they make a big deal about it but they were not cost efficient - now they're starting to make stuff. Poland is starting to make stuff. There are a lot of people that are saying not only can we not count on the US as the umbrella...including nuclear umbrella - by the way, we should get into that a little bit - Poland wants nuclear weapons placed in their country because their feeling is they're not going down if Russia comes across the border. They're going to go to DEF CON and they're going to go to world war three; they're not going to be overrun again. There are countries in Europe that are saying no mas - no more - they're not going to give another inch of territory. But the bottom line for the Americans is the US is not transitioning away from a defense orientation. It is dominated by those large contractors. You mentioned Boeing, I have been railing on about Boeing forever because they're a defense contractor first, they are commercial aircraft makers second, and they're terrible at making commercial aircraft because they're not focused on it. They're focused on everything but that, and they've got their stock price, their share price. So the United States has got a serious issue when it comes to too much reliance on the defense industry, no doubt about it.
Richard Helppie
Poland asking for nuclear weapons, now Poland part of NATO, that's obviously something that makes Vladimir Putin very nervous. Now we have an emerging story that will soon be making the established media ecosystem, where the United States apparently had listening posts in Ukraine, monitoring Russia, and that that didn't turn out well for the Ukrainians. I can't imagine the Russians sitting there while Poland arms up, even at the risk of a fallout war with NATO. It just doesn't seem like a very good path forward.
Robert Greenfield
No, it doesn't. We've got Macron who says - that's France - they want to put boots on the ground in Ukraine. They say they want to extend their nuclear umbrella right up to the Ukraine border. You've got Poland saying they want it, so let's break it down here. The reason why the Cold War worked was because there was the Soviet nuclear umbrella and there was the American nuclear umbrella, even though Britain picked up some nukes and then France picked up some nukes. Generally speaking, everybody said it was all about America versus the Soviets. I have attended seminars here, Richard, by NATO experts, and they're talking about the nuclear umbrella breaking down. When the nuclear umbrella of the US is breaking down, what does that mean? It means there are a lot of people who are picking up nukes or want to pick up nukes. They have this term, Richard, called “screwdriver ready,” meaning basically a few parts; Poland could have its own bomb, Australia can have its own bomb. There are several countries that are sitting on technology that they could do that. And these are not...we're not talking about these precision guidance, 100 million US dollars per bomb, we're talking dirty bombs. We're talking tactical nukes in the field. These are things that kill anywhere from 5,000 to 100,000 people. So now when we're talking about this proliferation of the nuclear side - and I stopped in Geneva and talked to an expert in this and he confirmed, he said, yes, definitely this guy used to work for the United Nations. He has been working on disarmament and he noted that basically everyone's walked away from disarmament. So if everybody walks away from disarmament, the problem for Putin is he's going to have half a dozen guys now, if he wants to attack them, they're saying I don't care about the Americans and world war three, I care about when you breach the Polish border, you're going to get Moscow bombed. That's how they're going to go. Does that escalate to World War I scenario? I don't know.
Richard Helppie
No, it's not going to be World War I where there's standoffs and trenches. Look, I'm wondering are we being conditioned for a nuclear exchange? Recently there was a map of Michigan, and it said, here's where 15 nuclear warheads strike, here's what they would hit, and here would be a 200 or 2000 warhead hit. And I'm thinking, who made that up and why was that news worthy? You hear about the ultra-rich building bomb shelters and things. Years ago, I was sitting next to Senator Warren Rudman at a dinner and had an opportunity - remember, he was working on the Gramm-Rudman on disarmament - he said the biggest issue they had was they didn't know who had them. This is post Soviet Union coming apart, and they didn't know where they were, they had to go find them. When you look at warfare today, it's sort of make the next step beyond the Cold War, where there was a clear line drawn. Now we've got drones so instead of tanks against tanks or fixed infantry positions against fixed infantry positions, an amazing amount of devastation can come through drones. How good is a Trident missile fired at Moscow against a nuclear armed drone coming in and dropping something on Warsaw? Robert, I look at you as an expert for lack of a better term for simplification, nationalism versus globalism. Someplace in there we need to have a balance so if people are trading with each other, they're less likely to go to war with each other and on an equal playing field, if you care to comment on that. I really want to hear your take from Europe on will the Ukraine war end and who might prevail? Then now, when you're telling me - this is news to me, by the way - that France is now saying they want to put boots on the ground, I'm thinking one of the issues; was Ukraine running out of soldiers? That's a little troubling.
Robert Greenfield
Well, I'll answer the last part first, because the globalism vs nationalism is a bigger question. But I want to answer that too. Just on the last one, there's controversy about that. Poland claims they have boots on the ground inside Ukraine today. They're not on the front line but it's obviously a shared border.
Richard Helppie
Vietnam, remember? Oh, we're only sending in advisors and observers, [laughter] you know, like nobody paratroops the 101st in, the 82nd in as the first thing. It's always: we're not involved here, we're just sending in guys who are gonna be in the back, they're gonna be helping with logistics...hey, wait a minute, somebody shot at our people. I mean, what's the exit strategy? Once that first deployment goes what's the next logical step that's going to happen?
Robert Greenfield
That's what it was, the World War I...not the trench thing but how everybody gets sucked into something that they don't really want to get sucked into and then the result is something that is catastrophic for a lot of people. Essentially, Europe cannot let Ukraine collapse. That's the bottom line. So the weapons being sent in by the United States are very late to the party. They are precision. They are stuff that can reach into Russia, they'll help the Russian advance in some ways. However, Ukraine has a big problem. They've got a manpower problem. Ukraine's population was 48 million 12 years ago when Crimea was part of Ukraine. Now it's 37 million. So they have lost permanently. Also thousands and thousands of young men are refusing, they're leaving. Just like in Russia, they ran over the Finnish border, now the Ukrainians are running away, they don't want to die. So there is a manpower shortage. And they're doing...the 30 year old guys, the 35, the 40 year old guys, the multiple deployments. We all know how that goes. You burn people out. People back in Ukraine, the media...I was watching PBS tonight; it's tough. It's tough for Ukraine to recruit people. We're all trying to pump up the Ukraine population and they haven't got enough people. They don't have enough people. I think ultimately, they cannot win this war with the manpower that they have today. You can't blow your way out of this with, as you talked about, $10 million Patriot missiles versus drones. You can't win a war with 1,000 or 10,000 Iranian drones versus ten Patriot missiles. The numbers don't work. And the US is muscle bound. Most of the stuff the US has is really high tech. It takes a lot of training. Ukraine guys are smart, but ultimately they've got a manpower shortage.
Richard Helppie
So how is Macron's announcement that he wants to put French boots on the ground in Ukraine playing with the French people?
Robert Greenfield
Well, that's a broad question. In general, the French look at Macron as talked big, but doesn't do a lot. Okay, I don't think that there's 100,000 French men getting over there with their espresso machines and their croissants right now. France is a wonderful country. It's a beautiful country, but they have a problem, which is France has not decided who are they going to be in the future. They're trying to lead Europe and the country that should be leading Europe is Germany and the country that opted out of Europe is the UK. So the people that are not holding up their their end of the bargain here is the Germans. The Germans are a real problem for everybody because they don't want to fight. They have that obviously horrible history. They want to protect their EV industry, they want to protect the auto industry, they want to be able to work 35 hours a week, they've got unions everywhere, all that kind of stuff, which it all sounds wonderful in a world where it's not under pressure. But every analyst here, if you ask him to cut through the bullshit, they will say, this is a German problem, not a French problem. France is far from the frontline. They could send over a token force of 10,000 people, I don't know, would that make a difference? Would it really make a difference? No, they are in trench warfare in Ukraine right now. You wanted to ask...we could cut to the chase here on who's going to win or not. Mostly everybody is hoping that nothing happens bad until the US election. And then after the US election, to be completely honest - we'll put it right out there - Ukraine feels if Trump wins, he's already said not a penny for Ukraine, that Ukraine will have to try for a ceasefire with Russia. That ceasefire would look like they would lose all the parts that Russia has essentially occupied; the Donbass region. They will lose, of course, Crimea permanently and they will try to get a stabilized line. In return, they will get a pathway to NATO, and a pathway to the EU. But Ukraine is a corrupt society. They're not a country that runs in a democratic manner. That's the Trump scenario. If it is Biden, they're looking for Biden to give them more arms, and to keep fighting it out for another year or two. But if Biden is elected, it is an endless fight. If Trump is elected, they're saying it's ceasefire and partial dismemberment of Ukraine.
Richard Helppie
That's really something when you think about that pivotal world event, hinging on the votes in the United States of America, on our wacky political system and our corrupted media ecosystem. I don't know if we're going to get to that today but I do see some green shoots out there; again, I'm a perpetual optimist. Maybe we'll come down to just a quick response session at the end. Robert, let's stay in Europe. You and I had corresponded a little bit. I'm not sure I can even form this into a question but one of the topics that you said you want to talk about is whether the woke revolution has entered Europe, what will happen at the university level as well as with immigration, what happens to migrants when they come to Europe and how can Europe handle this crisis? I was particularly struck in our correspondence prior to coming on today that you did encapsulate it as a crisis. What should Americans be thinking about, or our audience around the world?
Robert Greenfield:
This is obviously controversial.
Richard Helppie
That's why people listen to us. That's why your ratings are so high, my friend, because you're fearless.
Robert Greenfield
On the woke side, I think it's a global issue on the woke side, the DEI side, all of that kind of thing. I have gone to enough conferences here with enough people from the UK, from France, from Hungary, from Germany, from Netherlands, from Italy, from Czech, people in maybe nine or ten countries have showed up and they give their view. These are people that label themselves specifically as center right. I'm still center left, but I have to tell you, on this issue I've probably moved to center right. And what does that mean? What it means is, that at the university level, the left has a deeply entrenched philosophy that they have taken over most of the major universities. And it's very similar to the United States in the sense that the Europeans are lamenting they're not studying science, they're not studying math. They're studying social science, they're studying DEI. They're studying a lot of things that universities traditionally only lightly touched on, or they had a department but they feel now that they are dominating; the woke side. That was a shocker for me, Richard, big shock. I can give you some chapter and verse on it, I won't go into it right now but I would tell you that the general feeling is people feel that their culture is under threat. And when they say their culture, they're talking about traditional Western culture. Now, that could be...unfortunately people try to define that as white male culture whereas that is not white male culture, that is culture that comes from 2000 years of history. The way that this is conflated is it makes things difficult, especially at the university level so that's why you get a match - boom - it gets lit and overnight you've got Hamas and the things in the United States that spread to here, it's spread to Australia; not in the same level, the reason why it hasn't spread here is because the legacy of the Holocaust, people tamp that down very quickly. They don't want to hear anything that is antisemitic at all. It's not that people wouldn't like to go out and do their Hamas protesting here but governments are very leery of allowing that to be taken up.
Richard Helppie
When I see these protests, or they're dubbed pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel, however you want to caption it, I'm impressed with the supply chain management; you get those many tents distributed in that many locations with a management team ready to erect them and then with the head gear, with the slogans, I'm like, wow, that was really well organized, and people are masked up. What is it you're protesting about? Well, I haven't been trained yet so I can't tell you. Peggy Noonan wrote about this. I actually asked somebody: the river to the sea, I said, what river and what sea? Didn't know what river and what sea. I think the low point was somebody equating the anti-Vietnam demonstrations of the 60s, Rosa Parks civil disobedience with the BLM riots and with Hamas attacks. I didn't respond to the person, but it's like, Rosa Parks stood up and ultimately we got the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. When the Vietnam protests were going on it was a specific policy; what are we doing there, let's get out - and it worked. BLM has apparently put millions of dollars in pockets of people that were running that organization and they bought houses and have since left, you don't hear about them doing anything. Then Hamas would just as soon kill a lot of the people that are supporting them. (Robert Greenfield: Queers for Palestine.) Yeah, they're not...I would imagine that your average Palestinian and particularly your Gazans, don't want any part of these guys. Anybody that can go in and attack concert goers, rape, burn babies, kill people, those were their best moves and it's worthy of support? It makes zero sense to me. But I again, think it goes back to education. We're not teaching people to do stuff and we're not teaching people the actual results of history.
Robert Greenfield
Yeah, there's a systemic problem, Rich, there's no doubt about it. If you look at some of the interviews now that there's more time to interview people and it's less hysterical, a lot of people are saying, hey, I went to Colombia because it has a history of protests. So it's in the DNA, you should expect it. There are a lot of people who are saying that the universities in the United States have been changed or reflecting this to the point where, well, what do you expect? Maybe that's true. Maybe that's the real problem. Maybe the problem is...look, I can tell you from the Vietnam War, you were mentioning that, there were no professors who were marching with us. We were not allowed on campus, as an example. We had to take our protests off campus, or to Washington DC, or something like that. We didn't sit-out with encampments with nice tents, as you say, and where do I get my latte, that kind of thing. So it's a latte crowd to me, I'm sorry to say. To me, they have missed the point, the the students have. I do write about this subject. I've written about it in several different ways. I'm very disappointed in this generation. They think it's their Vietnam moment. It's not their Vietnam moment. It's a moment. I admit, it's a moment and they have a lot to be unhappy about but they are not nuanced. We are not getting good debate. We are not getting thoughtful kind of expressions of what should be done or not be done. And they're really...I think they've missed the mark.
Richard Helppie
I was talking to a Columbia grad who was on campus at the time of the Vietnam protests and he was quite proud of that, justifiably. And remember, the opposition came from the establishment of, hey, it's the domino theory; we have to fight them now versus fight them later. You've got recordings of JFK saying I don't understand why we'd want to be in Vietnam but I can't give up that much real estate to the communists this close to an election. Lyndon Johnson said, I don't know what this whole country's worth to the Vietnamese, but it's sure not worth it to us. And did those protests work and get change? Richard Nixon went out at night, left the White House, went on the mall and talked to protesters, was deeply troubled by it and knew that we had to exit that. The Vietnam protests were about let's change a specific policy that we don't buy into. The sudden awakening of let's all go be pro-Palestinian/Hamas backers and go for the destruction of Israel because it looks popular is a completely different thing. Obviously - this is anecdotally and coming through news sources; I did watch a long, live recording - the protesters and the faculty supporting this, when they get in front of a camera aren't helping themselves. They're astonished that anybody would have a problem and that their meal cards wouldn't work and they couldn't get back in their building when they need to take a shower. It's like, yeah, you're really committed to the cause, aren't you? Okay, we've beat those guys up enough, Robert, but let's wrap up on the woke revolution in Europe and at the university level, what's going on over there? Then I'd like to spend a little time around China.
Robert Greenfield
I have a specific example. I'm hoping that you and I can interview this guy. A professor gave a talk from Sciences Po which produced the last nine Prime Ministers in France. It's an English-French university, both of my wife's children have attended there. In fact, one is now doing a Sciences Po/Columbia Public Policy master's degree so I know a bit about it. He came and gave a talk and he talked about social Darwinism versus real Darwinism. He used it as a metaphor; that there were something like 72 classes that are focused on DEI, social Darwinism, equity, all of that and there were zero classes on real Darwinism, meaning The Origin of the Species, as opposed to essentially what are the values of the left that they're putting into the system. And he was fired for that, by the way, because he brought that up. He tried to do a class and they said, no, that's not Sciences Po. Sciences Po, again, is kind of a combination of Columbia and Harvard together in Georgetown, as an example. So the point that is made here - and this is true also in the UK, it's not true in some of the more right wing sides, which is including Hungary - but generally speaking in Europe, the EU has a policy that is very much a DEI type policy, and it's coming out of these universities. So they're graduating people that are now filling the ranks. As you know, in the United States, there's a lot of discussion about, well, we don't have enough sales guys but we're hiring another eight DEI people in our HR department, that kind of stuff. That type of thing is happening here. How bad is it? I don't know but I do know that there are a lot of governments that are what the US would consider socialists that are really grappling with it, they are trying to slow it down. In fact, Netherlands, the Scandinavian countries, are all saying, whoa, whoa, whoa, this is getting to be too much. France has got a historical problem, I told you, with immigration, they've got a DEI problem. There are books being written here about Islam taking over France so this is a crisis point. And the universities, frankly speaking, are turning out young people that this is the topic. They're not talking pure sciences anymore, they're talking social science. This is a big deal. If you're spending your money and your resources, such as in the United States, look at Harvard, same kind of thing. Look at the UCLA, same kind of thing. There are only so many resources, and if you're going to focus those resources on DEI style, and again, this is going to be very controversial because people look at me as a Democrat, how can he talk like this? Well, my values are that universities, yes, they are, they could be places, should be places for debate but you also have to have core science, core math, core physics, core IT or, as a society you're not going to get fed on DEI with more and more DEI people and that's a problem.
Richard Helppie
Robert, I believe that we do need to have a more just society, we do need to make sure that there's opportunity, we do need to make sure that there is inclusion, I don't care what gender, national origin, race, color, for the person designing the bridge as long as they're a good bridge engineer, that's where we need to go. And similarly, the surgeon walks in and says, hi, I'm going to be your surgeon today. I want to know that that surgeon, whoever he or she might be, that they're capable of doing this and they had to compete with other people that wanted that job and that this is the best and the brightest and has the most dexterity to do that surgery. As you know, I've talked to lots of people from all walks of life, constantly. More and more, when I talk to recent immigrants, they're all about, wow, there's so much opportunity here, here's what I can be. Mostly people of color that are coming from Africa or Central America, or Cuba or Mexico, they just want to work. And the beautiful thing is this, their kids are going to great universities, because they did what every other immigrant population, including mine, did; they did the work that had to be done in order that their kids could have a better opportunity. So I agree with your point, we need to be educating for skills. Before we go, we'll do a little lightning round at the end but I would like you to talk a little bit about the electric vehicle market. I know you've got extensive business experience in China and I know you've maintained those relationships. You've got extensive depths in Hungary as well as the United States because of some of your work in the software field. Help bridge that, frankly. What do they want for the electric vehicle market and what happens if they do something like acquiring Stellantis? Is Hungary going to be their toehold? These are all international businesses, including US subsidiaries. I know it's kind of a broad topic, but can you just enlighten our listeners, readers and viewers about that?
Robert Greenfield
You hit all the key points. Thank you for bringing this up. It's very important that Americans understand this. The way that Europe looks at motor vehicle production, if you don't make cars, you are a second tier guy. And under the old Soviet system Hungary didn't make cars, they grew stuff. Czech made cars, other places made cars, even Romania made cars. None of the cars were very good but after the fall of the wall, these car companies survived. Germany's crown jewels are their cars: Audi, Mercedes, VW with their broad, broad portfolio, which I think even includes Porsche. There's a tremendous amount of pride in the Germans in their car industry. The UK still has a car industry pretty much saved, by the way, by the Indians - Tata Motors- has saved those companies. Stellantis is an interesting one because they own two of the big brands in France - Citroen, Peugeot - obviously, they own Jeep, Dodge those brands as well as Fiat so they're a big conglomerate. Let me tell you about the key point here and the toehold in Hungary which is really, really a fascinating thing. Most people look at Viktor Orban, and they say, oh, yeah, that's the guy that went down to see Trump at Mar-a-Lago and he's Trump's friend and Trump wants to be more authoritarian like Orban, or they say, Viktor Orban, he's the guy that's kicking sand in the face of the EU and is friends with Putin. They look at him as kind of a gadfly; the CPAC went there, Tucker Carlson went there, everybody. But it only hit me the other day, when I saw Xi Jinping is only visiting three countries in Europe: France, Serbia, which is basically a plane stop, and then three days in Hungary. Nobody goes three days to Hungary, okay? They're just like nobody. They're nine plus million people, small little country. Why is he going there? He is putting in the EV - not just the batteries, remember the batteries are the big deal - he's putting in the production. The production of a company called BYD which is the number one - not Tesla - number one electric vehicle company in the world and they have a long history, 27 year history of EVs. Great Wall China, they're called Great Wall Motors, they're going into Hungary. Here's the bottom line, Hungary gets electric vehicle production. They're already doing Suzuki hybrids, which I drive one of those, they're going to flood Europe. They are going to scare the bejesus out of the Germans. The Germans, again, the crown jewels for them, they make a lot of money. The Germans made a massive mistake. They transferred all their high tech to China because they wanted to win that market. They're losing market share there. So Germany, they need a come to Jesus moment. What are they going to do for the future? But Viktor Orban is the Mouse that Roared, this guy has now got cars and he's got EVs, and he's got cheap EVs, and he's going to flood Europe. So in ten years, you're going to see one million, two million, three million, BYD and others. Stellantis is an investment group. They are not car people, so what people are talking about here? Not a lot. I'm one of the first to be talking about it. I think that Stellantis is ripe for a takeover by the Chinese once they get to a certain size. Now, if they take over Stellantis, whether it's done through proxies or however it's done, it will be China Inc. Essentially, it'll be China versus Germany for car production in Europe; that changes everything. The US, as you know, has cut off the Chinese EVs. They cannot get into the United States. The UAW has had its recent moment, they may have another moment. But I just wanted everybody to know, over here in Europe, yes, Hungary is the entry point and electric vehicles are a big deal. You don't need to do the complex internal combustion engine to be able to do that. You got a battery, you got a body, boom, away you go - and a charger.
Richard Helppie
Stellantis, it'd be really interesting because they own Jeep, an iconic American brand with ties back to our military; I drive a Jeep. Robert, a great conversation, how do you feel about a little lightning round? I'll ask a question, you get 30 to 60 seconds to rat-a-tat on it, anything you don't want to talk about, just say pass and we'll hold it for the next time we get together.
Robert Greenfield
If it's Stormy Daniels pass! [Laughter]
Richard Helppie
That actually might be a good place to start. In my reading of late, both sides, the left and the right, agree this is lawfare being waged, the political right has been more alarmed about the destruction of the legal system and the left is like, well, so what? Trump's got to face a Manhattan jury. But here's the question, how is this lawfare being viewed in Europe? If you can discern an opinion and for a guy whose not been in the continental United States, what do you think about all this?
Robert Greenfield
The Europeans...mostly I'm watching French and British TV, those are the two big ones. I do watch a bit of German TV, but it's in English. Anyway, the way they view Trump's legal issues, they follow it, obviously; you get clicks and ad revenues wherever it is. Trump is good for business, okay because viewers want to tune in and find out what's going on. I would say that their view on the Stormy Daniels thing is that it's tawdry. They don't like talking about it. They feel it's kind of slimy, sleazy stuff. They don't like the way Trump handled it, they don't like the way that New York has handled it. They don't like the constant obsession by CNN and others...who fell asleep. They don't like the late night stuff that's being done. That does not sit well with Europeans at all. I think the Europeans are less forgiving on Trump with the delay by the judge in Florida of the documents case; they feel that that is a victory for Trump on the judge situation. They dissected that a lot. They feel that the Fannie Willis and the Georgia case blew it. The Europeans would have liked to have seen a real trial on that one, and they don't think that that's going to happen. And similarly for the immunity thing with the Supreme Court, they are a little bit freaked out about that. The Europeans, especially the British, talk about the Magna Carta and divine right and immunity and things like that. They feel all those questions should have been by-the-by and that they believe that the Supreme Court is kind of parsing it a bit. They talk about that a lot too. I think just Trump's legal issues are talked about a lot, but the one in New York is viewed very negatively.
Richard Helppie
Alright, next thing, globalism versus nationalism or a middle path. What's going to happen?
Robert Greenfield
I think a year ago I would have said I really dislike nationalism. I still don't like the word nationalism because it leads to a lot of issues. The flip side is that globalism is clearly under threat. It's not working as well as everybody had hoped. The good news about globalism - and I think it's very good news - I've been in all those countries that you say and probably two to three billion people have been pulled out of poverty due to global product development and production. China, India, not just them, Indonesia, all over Asia. The global production is a positive thing. In Europe, they look at globalism a little bit negatively. They look at it a little bit like the American Right does, which is kind of a conspiracy cabal. This is the land of conspiracies, Richard, everybody's got conspiracy about that. Some people still talk about George Soros. On the nationalism side, you're beginning to see a comeback for the nationalists, not like strong nationalism here, in the sense of strident nationalism. But what you do see here is people wanting to talk about their national character and to stand up for that. It's nascent, it's just beginning, my prediction is you're going to see a growth of nationalism here. There are still people talking about Europe as a Federalist place - not going to happen - the days of Europe looking as kind of like United States of Europe, I think those are over. You're going to have more people looking at their own national interest versus the EU interest.
Richard Helppie
So we'll go to the next...that's my bell there for the lightning round. Alright, the press. And when we talk about the press, you can differentiate between the established media ecosystem, and then perhaps this nascent direct consumer reporting or any other aspect. Any sense whether the press is trying to navigate back to its original role versus looking at themselves as advocates?
Robert Greenfield
I watch...and I'll just tick them off...I don't do the Drudge but I watch CNN, BBC, The French stations, German stations, those are my primary ones. I have to tell you, by far the best news that I watch that tries to navigate - it's center left - is PBS NewsHour, sorry. But these guys actually have a one hour news program, which provides in depth coverage and that's the only place I get it. If you asked me about trying to navigate back to the middle, I would say it's up and down - yes, no, yes, no. I do think that CNN, they had their ill-fated guy that came in - Chris, whatever his name - that crashed and burned, they're now back to Trump bashing, not terribly so. There are people that are awful on there. I watch Fox, Fox is going to great lengths to try to make excuses for Trump things. I think the biggest problem that we have with the media is that they focus too much on Trump, to be honest. They need to focus on more things besides Trump, they need to focus on whatever it is - climate change - I don't care what it is but it's got to be something more than Trump. That's a problem. I don't think that the news media has made a tremendous amount of progress navigating away from Trump. I'm sorry to say that.
Richard Helppie
Great. Well, that tees up the final question on the lightning round and final question for us today. We're going to have a presidential election in the United States later this year, what do you think the issues are going to be, and perhaps, what should they be?
Robert Greenfield
What should they be? Well, what should they be is definitely not going to be what I think they should be. I think they should be a lot more focused on how to transition the US economy to a more productive economy. I think that's a big one. How to bring up a greater number of people into the middle class and to foster that middle class. I think they should be about women's rights, but not in this kind of balkanized crazy thing where we have litigation every five minutes. It should also be about what is the US role in the world, particularly in Europe; we didn't even mention Asia, Pacific or any other place, but it should be about the US role. Those are the issues. I think that should be in discussion, I think that what's really going to happen is the Democrats are going to focus on abortion because they think that that's a winner in their swing states. I think that Trump is going to focus on harkening back to what he calls the great years; the first three years of the Trump presidency, he's going to ignore the last year. Biden is going to try to ignore inflation, which is now semi under control, but it was bad for a while. I think you're going to have things that are all over the park where people are essentially going to blame each other. And I'm sorry to say, I think at the end, it's going to be the same old thing that it was before, which is turnout. If you get turnout, you're going to get a good result for your side or not. The only thing that I worry about - and I'm outside the US and I want to hear your opinion on this - is this whole idea of accepting or not accepting the results of the election. I think ultimately if Trump loses, he will say he did not lose but I think he will not foment any kind of serious issues. I think if Biden loses the Left is going to have a meltdown but they will accept that Trump won.
Richard Helppie
Will they let him govern? Because last time they didn't; we'll find out. I think you're exactly right. Trump is just a peddler. It's like, I lost? No, I didn't lose. You got more electoral votes but I didn't lose. That's just who he is. My concern about a second Trump term is who's he going to get to fill cabinet roles? Who's he got left that would be trustworthy and competent? I guess I have that same worry about Biden, maybe it comes down to the VP pick. Who knows?
Robert Greenfield
I just want to mention one thing about that. I think if they're a lot like Stephen Miller, we got a problem. If they're more like Bill Barr, I think that's acceptable. Those are my parameters. Mike Pompeo was a...you remember me, I'm a Pompeo fan. So yeah, to fill the cabinet posts, I think that's important. They need to be people who are loyal to Trump, but they also need to be loyal first to the United States.
Richard Helppie
Robert, it's always good to talk to you. I appreciate learning what continent you're going to be on; if you're in the Upper Midwest, or other locales that you find me, do come for a visit. We can sit in studio, and try to solve the world or at least chat about it. Before we sign off, is there anything that we didn't talk about that you'd like to get out there to our listeners or readers and our viewers?
Robert Greenfield
I want to make a statement about the way that the world looks at the United States. People may not like Biden, but the investments that are being made in infrastructure, chips, etc., the world looks at the United States as making very smart moves. TSMC is now putting a three stage, $60 billion facility in Arizona. These are things where the United States is clearly winning, they were not winning before. So if Trump comes in, what I'm hoping is that Trump does not step away from that, that he accepts it as a victory and fosters that thing. The United States is still seen as the most powerful country in the world. Some people say in decline, Europeans don't see it in decline. The Europeans see it as a country that they hope will weather the election, and that they will continue to be great friends with Europe. I want to make one last shout out to the partnership between the Anglosphere [nations]. That's a lot of discussion here, which is the UK, the United States, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. Those five countries which are called the Anglosphere, all of your listeners and people who watch this should remember they are very tight and that probably will hold together the Western world in the future.
Richard Helppie
We've been talking today with Robert Greenfield, a man with extensive experience in many continents in business, government and an astute observer of our social systems. With that, this is your host, Rich Helppie, signing off on The Common Bridge.
The Future of Western Unity Amidst Global Political Changes