Anti-Pluralism: The Populist Threat to Liberal Democracy Audible Audiobook – Unabridged William A. Galston (Author), Matthew Josdal (Narrator), Tantor Audio (Publisher) (Audio: Tantor Audio Hardcover: Yale University Press)

This is one more book spinning progressive socialism as liberal democracy while demonizing alternate politics as populism. The Great Recession, institutional dysfunction, a growing divide between urban and rural prospects, and failed efforts to effectively address immigration have paved the way for a populist backlash that disrupts the postwar bargain between political elites and citizens. Whether today's populism represents a corrective to unfair and obsolete policies or a threat to liberal democracy itself remains up for debate. Yet this much is clear: These challenges indict the triumphalism that accompanied liberal democratic consolidation after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

To respond to today's crisis, good leaders must strive for inclusive economic growth while addressing fraught social and cultural issues, including demographic anxiety, with frank attention. Although reforms may stem the populist tide, liberal democratic life will always leave some citizens unsatisfied. This is a permanent source of vulnerability, but liberal democracy will endure so long as citizens believe it is worth fighting for.The US decline of the past 50 years has been entirely due to of the left wing populism with a slight respite under Reagan and Thatcher. It's the same cause for the two recessions and why we are a deficit situation now. Clinton wasting the Reagan peace dividend on the populism of his 'Great American Dream' of home ownership for every American. Free college tuition for everyone, educable or not, is the new populism, along with preexisting conditions and other popular giveaways. While inequality is a fact, the promise of equality soak the rich 1% policy masks an attack on middle class wealth, the most populist policy of all. The left even resorts to 'compassion' to induce a populist response. We have economic stagnation entirely due to progressive control of government that renders us unable to compete in an environment of globalism. Thirty years ago communism was contrasted with fascism in comparison with democracy. Now communism, renamed 'socialism,' substitutes for liberal democracy with the likes of Galston, Obama, Sanders and our ultra-liberal media.

Galston lists challenges to democracy and describes democratic erosion along with a peculiar theory of liberal democracy. He states that populist challenges from far left and populist right have surged although he's specific only for the right. There's a chapter on the EU and its “enemies.”He asks whether democracy is at risk in the US, answering in the affirmative. Only 19% of US populace believes that government is run for the benefit of all the people. Borrowing a title line from Lenin, Galston asks 'What Is to Be done?' He thinks that the American center-left has a chance to stand firm. His own book shows that currently polarized politics admits no center. His 'center-left' is code for 'left-left.' Stating no conflict between democratic equality and leadership, he fails to observe the decline in leadership quality in the US. Along with a populist challenge to democratic leadership, he cites an elitist challenge, he uses the example of Douglas MacArthur. A better example is Ted Kennedy. whose family influence and money purchased police, press and a manslaughter victim's family. With a bit of wishful thinking he wants leadership characteristics like Lincoln
Stating that liberal democracy is slow to blame others, is he reading what his cohorts are writing about Donald Trump?