In the latest Brookings Essay, “Covering Politics in a Post-Truth America,” Susan Glasser chronicles how political reporting has changed during the course of her career and shares concerns about the outcome of the 2016 presidential election.

On December 13, Susan Glasser reflected on her own personal experience as a journalist and lead a discussion on the state of today’s “post-truth” media landscape and the road ahead for political reporting in America.

      

 

 

In his new book, “An Accident of Geography: Compassion, Innovation and the Fight Against Poverty,” Richard C. Blum narrates his daunting, uplifting adventures in the worlds of business and philanthropy. He profiles dozens of people whose inspirational work combines disciplined methods with embracing a greater voice for the world’s poor, arguing that combining the principles of long-term investing with empathy and compassion is essential for aiding the earth’s billions who remain desperate for clean water, food, shelter, basic health care, and access to education.

On October 14, Brookings hosted a conversation with Richard Blum on “An Accident of Geography” and pathways out of poverty. Brookings President Strobe Talbott provided introductory remarks and Homi Kharas, senior fellow and deputy director of the Global Economy and Development program, joined the discussion.

      

 

 

As we open our afternoon session, let me offer some historical perspective. American presidential campaigns are, in a sense, like the Olympics: they happen every four years; there’s a lot of spectacle; they’re followed around the world; and they’re all about competition.

But that’s where the similarity ends. American elections seem to go on forever. And when they’re televised, it’s not always easy to figure out what’s going on and what it means. Nor are the events always edifying.

For all those reasons, this quadrennial process for picking our leaders often baffles our friends around the world.

Author

Strobe Talbott

President, The Brookings Institution

strobetalbott

As for the debate itself, it sometimes degenerates into name-calling and smear tactics among the contestants.

When foreign policy does come up, it’s often accompanied by criticism of other countries that are often allegedly taking advantage of us. As a result, our allies and trading partners would prefer not be mentioned at all in the heated national discussion.

Now to the current election, which will, mercifully, end four weeks from today. All those negative factors I’ve just listed have been exaggerated to an unprecedented degree. It’s been an appalling experience for many of us Americans as well as for many of you. But at least we get to vote, while there are 195 countries whose citizens have no say in a decision that has very real consequences for them and their future.

The driving reason for this year’s bizarre and dispiriting election is, overwhelmingly, the candidacy of Donald J. Trump. I’m struck—though not surprised—by how concerned Koreans are about him. That’s partly because of his persona, but it’s also because of his views on America’s role in the world, especially in this region.

I had a hard time answering, or at least explaining.

Several of my fellow travelers asked whether Mr. Trump would turn those dreadful ideas into U.S. policy. There too I had no answer, not least because Mr. Trump is neither consistent nor coherent in his pronouncements. His trashing of 70 years of tried-and-true U.S. policy seems not to be based on principle, strategic logic, or ideological belief; rather, it seems to be for effect—that is, to arouse emotions among his disaffected followers and cast himself as a change agent without much consideration of the consequence of what he proposes.

Perhaps, if elected, his advisors would convince him to leave his campaign rhetoric behind. Would he, for example, follow the precedent of Jimmy Carter who, as a candidate in 1976, said he would remove U.S. troops from the Korean Peninsula, then reversed himself after winning?

I wouldn’t want to bet on that, given Mr. Trump’s repeated statement that his most trusted advisor is himself.

As others at the conference have said, Mr. Trump still has a chance of ending up in the Oval Office. But the trend in polling suggests otherwise. In both national surveys and in the swing states that will determine the outcome, he is falling behind precipitously.

Given the blow to his prospects from the video tape released last Friday and the hemorrhaging of support from his own party over the weekend, the speculation is now less about what a Trump victory would be like and more about what his post-defeat strategy will be. That is, will he contest the outcome, and with what result?

On that cautionary note, let’s turn to what that likelihood of a Clinton45 administration.

Wendy Sherman spoke about Secretary Clinton’s commitment to the U.S.-R.O.K. alliance and the seriousness she attaches to the threat from the North as well as the role that China can play in reducing tension and fending off a conflict. America’s solidarity with the R.O.K. has been baked into our foreign and security policy DNA, going back to President Truman and the Korean War.

As for the biggest peril in this region, the last four U.S. administrations—two Republican, two Democratic—have dealt with the potential and now the looming actuality of a nuclear-armed DPRK.

There is a widespread view in Washington that the coming of the third generation of leadership in Pyongyang has made the problem much more acute.

Kim Jong-un has been in power for five years, less than a third of the time as his father. Yet he has conducted 38 missiles tests, 22 this year alone, and three nuclear tests, two this year.

Along with the alarming numbers come alarming words. He talks about “standardizing the process of manufacturing warheads,” suggesting mass production and versatile weaponization of various ballistic missiles. He has also, in effect, proclaimed the DPRK as a nuclear-weapons state. It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that, while Kim Jong-il seemed to be using his nuclear program for bargaining purposes, his son is dead-set on developing an actual capacity—and as soon as possible.

That prospect is deadly not just for the Republic of Korea but for the United States as well, given the possibility that our West Coast might be vulnerable to attack within a decade. So I’m just adding an “amen” to what you heard from Wendy: the U.S. and R.O.K. are bound together for the foreseeable future—and beyond.

Before going to discussion, let me add one more point about the 2016 U.S. presidential election campaign and its ramifications for the future.

If, as it now looks, Mr. Trump is defeated, the phenomenon that he has channeled, fueled, exploited, and personified with surprising effect will have a long and troublesome after-effect. Both Wendy and David Rubenstein spoke about the challenge of building support in the United States for its global role in leadership, security, and trade

Again, some historical perspective.

Pretty much every four years, we Americans learn something about ourselves and about our country. Some of our presidential elections have been “eureka” moments. 2008 was one of those. The demographic revolution and the diversification of American society made it possible for a candidate to reach the presidency who is, literally, an African-American, with a name that resonates with both his African and Muslim heritages. Whatever their politics and preferences, a lot of Americans saw this as a near-miracle, and the realization of a 21st century version of our national motto, E pluribus unum: out of many races and creeds comes one nation, united.

The 2016 election, however, has taught us something more sobering about the state of our union. The United States of America is actually all too disunited—fragmented, polarized, and dyspeptic.

Much of that is because many of our citizens are hurting, and in their pain they are aggrieved, angry, and fearful.

Culture, ethnicity, and gender are definitely a factor. Many Americans with my complexion, my religion, my European ancestry, and my sex—though with far less good fortune—feel marginalized by the accelerating trend of the United States toward becoming a country with a majority of minorities.

Moreover, they also feel victimized by globalization. Their antipathy to that word translates into widespread opposition to free trade.

There is much to be said for globalization. It has, for one thing, created the global economic environment for emerging markets like Korea. But along with the winners, there are losers, notably in developed countries. In recent decades, political leaders in countries like mine didn’t take proper account of the depth and breadth of distress among their own constituents. Nor did they recognize the degree to which that distress would empower demagogues and populists.

Now we know. We’ve learned our lesson the hard way, this year in particular: in Brexit, in the rise of nationalistic parties in Europe, and in Mr. Trump’s appeal to large sectors of America.

A major challenge for governments on both sides of the North Atlantic is to address the downside of globalization’s impact on their societies. This does not mean repudiating open markets and trade pacts. Quite the contrary, it means shoring up the necessary public and political support for them.

Global trade, like so much else that is global, needs to be subject to governance. Hence the regulations and standards that have been negotiated with emerging nations that are ramping up their manufacturing capacity. Now there needs to be more emphasis on remedial action in the developed nations that have also benefited from trade, but whose workforce, especially in industries that have outsourced manufacturing, needs more robust and systemic help to weather the hardships and make the transition to a 21st-century economy. This, I believe, is the mega-issue that has emerged across party lines in the U.S. presidential campaign. It will also be a mega-challenge for the next administration.

Remember what Wendy Sherman said about the Obama/Clinton pivot to Asia: it didn’t mean turning away from the rest of the world. By the same token, a pivot to the U.S. home front on trade policy will not be a pivot to protectionism. Rather, it will be a rebalancing of robust international commerce, social progress, and inclusive prosperity at the global, regional, and national levels.

Achieving that balance will help make globalization itself more economically equitable and politically sustainable. That’s a goal that resonates, I believe, with the mission and ethos of this conference.

      

 

 

George Kennan, the architect of US policy toward the Soviet Union, called Isaiah Berlin “the patron saint among the commentators on the Russian scene.” In The Soviet Mind, Berlin proves himself fully worthy of that accolade. Although the essays in this book were originally written to explore the tensions between Soviet communism and Russian culture, the thinking about the Russian mind that emerges is as relevant today under Putin’s post-communist Russia as it was when this book first appeared more than a decade ago.

This Brookings Classic brings together Berlin’s writings about the Soviet Union. Among the highlights are accounts of Berlin’s meetings with the Russian writers in the aftermath of the war; a celebrated memorandum he wrote for the British Foreign Office in 1945 about the state of the arts under Stalin; Berlin’s account of Stalin’s manipulative “artificial dialectic”; portraits of Pasternak and poet Osip Mandelshtam; Berlin’s survey of Russian culture based on a visit in 1956; and a postscript reflecting on the fall of the Berlin Wall and other events in 1989.

Henry Hardy prepared the essays for publication; his introductory discussions describe their history. In his foreword, revised for this new edition, Brookings’s Strobe Talbott, a long-time expert on Russia and the Soviet Union, relates the essays to Berlin’s other work.

The essays and other pieces in The Soviet Mind –which includes a new essay, “Marxist versus Non-Marxist Ideas in Soviet Policy”, and a summary of a talk on communism—represent Berlin at his most brilliant and are invaluable for policy-makers, students, and anyone interested in Russian politics and thought—past, present, and future.

Isaiah Berlin (1909–97) was a Russian-born British philosopher, educator and intellectual historian, famed for his intellectual brilliance but also for his ability to explain complex ideas in a remarkably accessible style. He taught philosophy and social and political theory for most of his life at Oxford University, where he was the founding president of Wolfson College.

Henry Hardy is a fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford University. He is one of Isaiah Berlin’s literary trustees and has edited a number of other collections of Berlin’s essays.

Strobe Talbott is president of the Brookings Institution. Talbott, whose career spans journalism, government service, and academe, is an expert on U.S. foreign policy, with specialties on Europe, Russia, South Asia, and nuclear arms control

This reissue is a Brookings Classic, a series of republished books for readers to revisit or discover previous, notable works by the Brookings Institution Press.

      

 

 

On October 7, The India Project at Brookings hosted a panel discussion to launch Shivshankar Menon’s new book. Former U.S. Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns and Menon discussed some of the major foreign policy choices he outlines in the book, and what they reveal about India’s strategic culture and decision-making, its policies toward the use of force, its long-term goals and priorities, and its future behavior. Brookings President Strobe Talbott provided introductory remarks, and Tanvi Madan, fellow and director of The India Project, moderated the discussion.

      

 

 

Thirty years ago, Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev met in Reykjavik, Iceland for a summit devoted to arms control. While a potential agreement—possibly including elimination of all U.S. and Soviet nuclear weapons—collapsed over differences regarding ballistic missile defense, the meeting set in motion moves that produced significant reductions in nuclear arms numbers. Arms control has remained at the center of the relationship between Washington and Moscow.

On October 4, the Center on the United States and Europe and the Arms Control and Non-Proliferation Initiative at Brookings hosted panels to discuss what happened (and what almost happened) at Reykjavik and how arms control has figured in the U.S. relationship with Moscow since then.

      

 

 

After an introduction by Brookings President Strobe Talbott, Jim Yong Kim delivered his speech and engaged in a conversation with Kemal Derviş, vice president and director for the Global Economy and Development program at Brookings.

      

 

 

Mr. Lipton and Ms. Williams make a sweeping allegation that, in return for donations, Brookings promotes the business interests of certain corporations. They assert that the line between researchers and lobbyists has “at times” been blurred. That is not the case at Brookings: the line is always clear, hard, and recognized by our scholars, our institution, and our donors. The reporters attempt to buttress their thesis with cherry-picked phrases lifted from thousands of pages of internal—often informal or draft—documents, using them out of context. They also ignore a large body of evidence we made available to them demonstrating that the projects in question were developed in ways that hewed to our institutional standards of scholarly independence.

For more information

• Read our detailed response to the New York Times allegations »
• Learn more about our Global Cities Initiative »
• Learn more about our work on innovation districts »
• Read more about our Independence and Integrity Policies »
• Read Strobe Talbott and Kim Churches’ op-ed on safeguarding independence in an era of restricted giving »

The target of the Times piece is Brookings’ Metropolitan Policy Program, whose purpose is to advance the public good and improve public policy. It does so by helping local economies grow, innovate, and create jobs. For 20 years, Metro has helped dozens of cities across the United States and beyond. The success of the program depends on building networks of stakeholders at the local level. This means working with elected officials, civic leaders, philanthropies, and corporations.

If that crucial aspect of Metro’s work were recognized in the Times article, it would have told a different story, bringing to light these facts that the Times overlooked:

1. Individual Brookings scholars, exercising their academic freedom, decide what issues merit research that will lead to better practices and policies. Corporations do not determine what we study, who conducts our research, what the methodology is, or what we conclude. Every donor in the New York Times’s story supported a topic area—innovation districts, smart cities, metropolitan trade, or infrastructure—that had been independently determined by Brookings scholars as meriting deeper research, wider thinking, and public discussion. Donors’ for-profit agendas are not our agenda.
2. All our research is made available to the public; it is not proprietary, nor is it intended to help donors advance their own business interests. Rather, our research is focused on the public good that private and public sector investments can bring to communities and their citizens, especially those that are struggling. Brookings has not, does not, and will not serve as a commercial consultancy to our donors or anyone else. Brookings scholars are often asked to provide advice for a wide array of programs sponsored by donors and non-donors alike, though The New York Times focused only on the former.
3. Brookings promotes its scholars’ research, not the brands of our funders. An honest and objective review of our work confirms this. Mr. Lipton and Ms. Williams acknowledge that our scholars promote their studies and distribute their products to a variety of audiences that include a range of relevant stakeholders including policy makers, members of the media, and donors and non-donors alike. Given that the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program focuses on cities, we routinely identify proven public policies as well as individual projects of excellence, all of which are selected through objective criteria and independent analysis. The reporters of this story confuse this legitimate activity with boosting the business interests of donors, which we do not do under any circumstance.

Brookings and its Metropolitan Policy Program apply the experience and expertise of its scholars to the biggest challenges facing our cities, the nation, and the world. The challenges of governance today require public, private, and nonprofit actors to work effectively together to develop solutions. Brookings is proud to serve as a catalyst and convener for these groups. Our work is only as strong as our engagement with the innovators and stakeholders who are making our communities more prosperous, resilient, and inclusive.

In the coming days we will provide point-by-point rebuttals of the reporters’ allegations made in these articles.

We are proud of our scholars, their work, and our partnership with our donors.

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RT Rybak, Former Executive Director, GenerationNext, President and CEO, Minneapolis Foundation
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