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Live on Wednesday 18th June at 7:00 PM BST: Lord Jonathan Sumption is an author, medieval historian, barrister and former senior judge of the UK Supreme Court. His recent piece in the New York Times on why cultural decline in the US could pose a threat to democracy made waves on both sides of the pond. For the first time since the inauguration of Donald Trump, he joins UnHerd to discuss what he has observed of the American system and why he chose to ring the alarm.
Well, which is it? Tuesday or Wednesday?
Wednesday…
No it’s not, it’s Thursday
Yes, I’m rather thirsty too. Let’s go for a cup of tea…
And the article? Blokes and their binary choices… The whole thing reads like a couple of people who have a distinct lack of imagination and when they DO try to imagine, their brains immediately go to the negative – which only says more about THEM than society at large. People who find it easier to imagine the whole planet blowing to smithereens than a positive alternative to democratic capitalism?
“Basically, if you’re not a utopianist, you’re a schmuck”…
The Biden administration didn’t catch his attention?
Hear hear. Nor does he seem to realise the extent of the deep state take over of CIA since the death of Kennedy who threatened their independence and strength. Same goes to some extent to MI6 in UK over which parliament has little real control. So his idealised model of ‘democracy’ is not really correct. Similarly he ignores the fact that UK parliaments increasingly often simply throw away everything they’ve promised. Brexit was a perfect UK example, and even more so immigration levels. And in USA, compare Trump’s promises in 2024 – to be the great peacemaker with his seeming increasingly war-happy postures as the neocon deep state and CIA and Pentagon drive the agenda. Sumption’s idealised model of political structure takes no account of all this.
Indeed! The very idea that “democracy” has been significantly imperilled by so-called populists after an era of neo-liberalism during the “unipolar moment” is not worthy of Lord Sumption’s unquestionable erudition…
I’m sure he of all people (as well as Mr. Sayers) will be familiar with the case Missouri v. Biden (5th circuit, 2023) which finally reached the Supreme Court last year? In brief I will quote the final paragraph of Justice Alito’s dissention from the dismissal of the plaintiff’s case:
“For months, high-ranking Government officials placed unrelenting pressure on Facebook to suppress Americans’ free speech. Because the Court unjustifiably refuses to address this serious threat to the First Amendment, I respectfully dissent.”
Well done, the American guy!
Too much on Trump’s arrogance and why we shouldn’t have left the EU. No questions, from Freddie or the audience on (a) democracy when a senile president’s senility is hidden and it’s not clear who is in charge of the USA and (b) the lack of democracy in the EU, where the elected parliament has little power and appointed officers have much.
These are glaring example of the erosion of democracy.
Couldn’t agree more! I attempted to ask Lord Sumption exactly the questions you have posed but, very unfortunately, didn’t quite catch Freddie’s eye…
When an entire party and government institutions such as the CIA, FBI and DOJ are committed to destroying a presidential candidate with fake and frivolous law fare, even Hitlerizing him in the almost fulfilled hope that he would be murdered, I would say that democracy has already broken down and it needs a non-establishment player, someone like Trump, to really shake it up if it has any chance of surviving.
When people in the UK and Europe are persecuted for what they saying and what they think, when political candidates who present a threat to the establishment are persecuted and prevented from running, when a bunch of countries have yielded their sovereignty to an unelected and unaccountable government as in the EU, I would say that democracy has broken down.
Lord Sumption, bless his cotton socks, is living in his own elitist bubble.
Exactly my thoughts! In such a context, advising people to trust in politics and those in power, while dismissing their hopes for an effective state, exposed a rather condescending attitude on the part of the old man.
Old fool is more accurate. Like most “historians” AKA the portavox of any ruling elite, this guy imagines history is made by men on horses with swords, or the modern version: ICBMs and F35s. Rather it is made by men, women and children who live learn work and die and their relationships to their environment EG guns, germs and steel. Sumption eh? Ymak shemoy.
True, there is no democracy once the demos have left the bargain…so maybe Biden was the first non elected pres? Or maybe Obama considering how easy the 2020 steal was pulled off, whose to say 2008 n 2012 weren’t the same?
Isn’t it a little rich for the establishment (of which Lord Sumption is a part) to open the floodgates to mass immigration, thereby damaging democracy. Then, when ordinary people use their votes to howl in protest, to accuse them of damaging democracy? They feel democracy has damaged them, with some justification.
i acknowledge that my use of the word ‘establishment’ lumps together Lord Sumption, Tony Blair and Boris Johnson.
Which is legit.
Lord Sumption is an intelligent Mandarin, but even when attempting to be open-minded, always puts the Mandarin case.
Mandarin, yes.
Freddie could have pushed him harder. He claims we need immigration to staff our care homes (or to pay care staff more). Obviously I would have been happy to pay more taxes to avoid mass immigration, but what is clearly wrong here is that only a tiny fraction of the 1 million net immigration each recent year are working in care homes. Does the imposition of mass immigration justify a loss of faith in democracy? You bet it does.
I found Jonathan Sumption’s comments about the need for immigration because of its alleged connection with lower wages for staff in care homes to be tasteless and revealing in equal measure. He suggested that if an appropriate wage were to be paid to care home staff, the only way of defraying the extra expense would be to raise taxes: an unpopular move. My rejoinder to him would have been to suggest that if the UK could avoid helping to foment overseas wars and spending huge amounts on so-called ‘defence’ budgets, there would be more than enough money to pay staff in care homes their rightful wage, regardless of whether they are migrant or indigenous workers. Many of these problems seem to have an Augustinian basis: it’s not that we lack the know-how, or even the means; it’s that we lack the will.
I never expected the noble Lord to erect so many straw men!
What don’t these lefties get? He says “a majority of Americans appear to want it. Now that is, I think, a symptom of the serious cultural disintegration of the democratic ideal”. He does not appear to know what democracy is, and believes that the majority opinion instead of being what should happen in a democracy, is ‘populist’. It is not. Most of us know what a democracy is, and it’s not the elite lefties espousing their activist extremist views and calling us names if the majority refuse to accept their insane bile.
You’ll remember that J D Vance recently presented his definition of democracy to EU leaders – as they don’t seem to know what it is – which resulted in hissy fits and tears. It’s hard to explain grown-up things to children.
so basically what he seems to be saying is unless all you selfish populists knuckle under and accept the values (and implementation presumably) of socialism (aka stakeholder capitalism) then you’re going to get the big stick rather than the carrot to ‘help’ you conform
Indeed. Sumption seems to have a French view of Trump.
TDS a la Paris as repeated endlessly on France24.
Biden opened the borders and deified trans with executive orders and not a word was said about it.
More accurately someone other than the elected President decided those policies and Biden dozed on.
I do not know what happened to this man, I used to have respect for his opinions. But he succumbed to the malaise Trump Derangement Syndrome. Seems there is no cure for people with severe cases, they turn into Mr Magoo, blind to all around them.
Goodness me, the use of the TDS phrase is getting supremely boring.
Yeah it is, we’ll stop using it when the derangement stops.
I’m reading a lot of the comments, which it’s a pity if Freddie and Lord Sumption don’t do likewise. It seems to me this was an epic, myopic fail. Unless you’re a Leftist who hates Trump and parrots the Leftist talking points. Very disappointing interview to say the least.
Conspicuously missing from the Good Lord’s commentary is the difference between Democracy and Liberty. America’s founders recognized that Democracy reverts quickly to tyranny of the majority. This is why the word “democracy” does no appear in our founding documents. For my part, a Libertarian (Classic Liberal) dictatorship is preferable to a Leftist Democracy (say, Venezuela).
That being said, Trump hasn’t done anything his predecessors did not do with respect to executive over-reach. Covid Response, Climate Fraud, and starting the Ukraine War by funding the Maydan Insurrection comes to mind.
But this also brings up the 4th branch of Govt – the unelected Administrative State which creates its own weather to keep itself in power. FBI, CIA, and myriad other agencies conspired to undermine Trump 45. It is time for a re-revolution to remove the new King George.
Neither China nor Russia nor Iran pose a bigger threat to American Liberty than does our own deep state. One only needs to see how it was used to torpedo Trump when he attempted to clean out the swamp.
Lord Sumption has given us much wisdom, but in listening to the first 20 minutes, I am deeply disappointed in his focus on democracy and not on individual freedom from tyranny from democracy.
Lord Sumption is clueless about America, as many other respondents have said. America is a democratic Republic. Trump 2.0 is operating 100% within US Constitutional law. And there was very little Lord Sumption said about the ‘administrative state’ and how the elites and ‘experts’ have operated in opposition to where the population stands. Not that was known at the time of the interview, but as Mike Shellenberger has exposed these past two days that the CIA, USAID and others have been involved in the treasonous act of trying to overthrow the existing administration of the USA. And the people are not to ‘revolt’ against this? Has nothing to do with economics. Disappointed, not in Unheard, but in Lord Sumption.
Dems short circuit their 2016 primary to install Hilary, cajole all contenders to quit and rearrange the schedule in 2020 to prop up cadaver Biden, and then replace him with zero votes to put forward the empty Kamala in 2024 to bow to their racist, sexist base and this fool thinks Trump, who walked away peacefully in 2020 only to sweep to a strong victory in 2024, is a threat to democracy?
Hahaha!!!!
“The really sinister thing about Trump is that though he has been perfectly explicit about what he wants to do, a majority of Americans appear to want it. Now that is, I think, a symptom of the serious cultural disintegration of the democratic ideal...” So, the ass-sumption of the Lord is that the President elected by the democratic majority to do what the democratic majority approve of, represents the disintegration of the democratic ideal. Go figure.
Yes, that jarred with me too. I usually find Lord Sumption’s views thoughtful and well-considered. It seems he has lapsed a little here – even Homer nods.
You’re quite right about the apparent self-contradiction of this remark. It seems that those in the credentialed classes who want to separate ‘democracy’ from ‘populism’ have a problem with the concept of democracy itself.
When the electorate votes for something they want – it’s democracy, otherwise it’s populism.
IMHO then main problem with reading this article is the baseless reference that Trump is responsible for all that ails the American System of Governance. And yes, to bore one reader, this TDS is rampant in the MSM of the Western Democracies at the moment. Yes seemingly all co-operation seems to have disappeared between waring parties, for sure. But human nature is difficult if not impossible to basically change although attitudes and ideology do play a roll in the development of Modernity in this troubled World.
As an erudite discussion LS could and should surely have blamed and laid all that ails America, at the feet of their Constitution of system of governance, which LS singles out France and the US. It is their system of governance and the overriding power of the Presidents that these two forms of government have enshrined, rather than the individual who is elected to be President, that is blamed for what Trump is doing in the US and many other Presidents have done in years gone by, what ever Party they represented and were democratically elected, surely?
What needs to be changed and amended, is the American Constitution or the French Constitution of 1958 that sets out most of the principles which govern the country, with additions being added periodically to keep it current and useful. The Constitution of the US similarly mirrors that of the French Constitution, in Presidential powers, we are led to believe.
All political parties in western democracies are interested in power, and believe their principles are better than those opposing them. All ruling classes lie, obfuscate, and gaslight their electorates that what they are doing is, legal and “right.” The “Civil Service” and oxymoron to be sure, in the UK, the Blob, the Swamp, whatever one calls the unaccountable faceless unelected institutions of government in other countries, seem to have been highjacked and are the hand maiden of those of the Leftish ideology. This is on purpose and not accidental some would say.
Many solutions LS offers have not been forthcoming since the advent of democracy that LS said came in the 1850’s. And account of human nature, are unlikely to evolve anytime soon. So the western democracies stagger from pillar to post and are likely destined to do so until…….. ? Well ask that question to a cross section of society and you will get a whole host of answers that LS touches on in this interview. Quo vardis?
What truly needs to be pushed back is the extension of “Executive powers” that occurred under both Democratic and Republican administrations.
So the decline of Christian belief has nothing to do with the decline of Christian values ?
So what did cause the decline of the latter ?
The need – under Divine command – to pray for one’s enemies – is a value, a belief, unique to Christianity, in any case.
The situation in Northern Ireland began to improve when the two sides attempted to practise Christianity by forgiving their enemies.
That belief in forgiveness is not very visible in either side in the Middle East.
And until it is, the political barometer there is likely to remain stuck at Mutual Assured Destruction.
Looks like Lord Sumption’s ox is getting gored, and he is not happy about it. America is always like this, and still the country most folks want to come to for opportunity. It is messy, rough and tumble, and apparently doesn’t fit in the Lord’s idea of democracy. Well, sir, you are wrong, and apparently you have been in a position of power for a long time, and have contributed to England becoming a shithole due to the grooming gangs. Where was your opinion then?
Another irrelevant dude trying to get to the last orgy before the visigoths come.
Parts of America are indeed a great country, mostly due to landscape and climate. Also some wonderful people. Those factors for me outweigh the negatives, amongst whom I would include the above.
That Trump is a Bully (and an irascible, thin-skinned one), does not make him a Tyrant.
Though it does mean that he has committed the unforgivable sin of challenging the liberal consensus.
It is lawyers who have destroyed Western democracies, paralysing it and hollowing it out.
Britain ceased to be a democracy and became a tyranny, under the rule of two ambitious, politically-motivated lawyers, A.C.L. Blair and Charles Falconer.
Who did their upmost to tie up British governance in legal tape, a policy now reinvigorated by Keir Starmer and Richard Hermer.
Throughout the West, legislatures often find themselves tied hand and foot by judge-made law (the activist judges involved almost always being liberals).
Hence the West is largely ruled by unelected judges, not elected legislators. In most matters, lawyers – not Trump – rule the USA.
Trump (like Farage) is largely no more than a safety-valve for popular discontent, now becoming fury.
This evil Power Grab by lawyers, was of course attained in ways surreptitious and under-handed.
(Though admittedly, to use “surreptitious” and “under-handed” when talking about lawyers, is tautology).
SAumption is a lawyer,of course, though seems to be aware that they have arrogated far too much political power
The modern “man for all seasons”. Equivocation veering to intellectual incoherence in a tame interview. Beware of celebratory lawyers.
As an amerikan, I can say fairly confidently that we’re a constitutional republic, not a democracy. So there’s that….
“One fundamental principle of a constitutional republic is the protection of minority rights against the potential tyranny of the majority.”
From Republic vs Democracy – U.S. Constitution.net
Christian values derive from social values? I’m guessing you’re Anglican?
As an amerikan, and not one of Trump’s biggest supporters, I will say that he IS addressing human rights — specifically, the human rights of the citizens of the country over which he has purview! The prior administration completely disregarded the question of human rights to the detriment of those being trafficked and the citizens of the country. I fully support his removal of ALL criminal aliens — and the fact of a person having crossed the border illegally qualifies him for that category.
SCOTUS isn’t dominated by Roman Catholics. It’s dominated by Christians, some of which adhere to the Novus Ordo sect which is, without question in its sacraments, NOT Roman Catholic.
I would LOVE to have heard the Lord explain how Kamala Harris would have been a better choice.
Flat out BS from a guy whose country is actually declining into tyranny. Arm to bicep, fist in the air. Away wit’ ya.
I have all Lord Sumption books he wrote in his retirement, but his TDS and pro EU views are not different from established “illiberal” narrative.
For a start, any normal state has a right to defend its borders.
If you sink dozens of invaders boats they will stop coming.
Maybe Lord Sumption care to explain why it is not possible?
His ignorance of economy is staggering.
Why do we need MILLION of new migrants every year?
How many people are needed as employees of care homes?
How many of the Muslim and African savages we import every year are actual net contributors if you include dependants they bring in?
Most are benefit scroungers.
He fails to mention that basic ingredient of stable, democratic society are shared values.
Unfortunately mass importation of incompatible people doesn’t contribute to that goal.
As a lawyer and historian, can Lord Sumption provide single example of multiculti society which is functioning and successful?
His argument that globalisation and resulting consequences were somehow unavoidable is nonsense.
It was decision of higher orders of the West to destroy working and middle classes of society in order to capture ever increasing wealth by outsourcing jobs and enabling mass immigration.
I don’t know Lord Sumption professional career to claim he was enabler of this trend, but many of commercial lawyers like Sumption and human rights lawyers like Starmer, Harmer etc were instrumental in this.
Apart from the fact that you are obviously a racist I understand the thrust of your argument but would remind you (and other contributors to this debate) that we are discussing the threat to democracy posed by the likes of Mr. Trump and so-called populists throughout the western “democracies”…
No, Nick. We, like you, are discussing what we each find interesting and useful.
To me, the subject was best put by Sumption when he pointed out that the main problem in the US was the almost untrammelled power, under its unique Constitution, of any and ALL Presidents. Trump has brought that power into the open more than many other Presidents but all have the same potential.
Where Trump differs from his predecessors significantly is his use of that power in a declared intention to control the civil service. Sumption says that the civil service is totally at the President’s command but few intelligent observers would describe the US civil service as the unquestioning implementer of its President’s wishes. It is a fourth arm of government, outside the Constitution, whose size and reach is now so large that it is almost uncontrollable by any one man. It clearly has the ability to prevent the President’s wishes being implemented in many areas.
Sumption, of course, was part of that fourth arm and carefully skirted that basic aspect of Trump’s agenda in answering Sayers’ questions.
Spot on. Thank you.
I think I’m developing Trump derangement syndrome derangement syndrome. I can’t believe how TDS blinds ostensibly rational human beings. How anyone can look at what the Democrats have done in the last three or four years between trying to get Trump kicked off the ballot so the citizens couldn’t vote for him, trying to put him in jail on BS charges so he couldn’t be president, swapping out their democratically nominated candidate when it was obvious he was going to lose, and sliding in another establishment candidate without the consent of the citizens… And then look at Trump and cry about democracy being in peril, absolutely blows my mind.
The notion that the election of Donald Trump is a threat to Democracy is absurd. Democracy would have been seriously threatened if he hadn’t been elected. Vast numbers of Americans, particularly the less well-off, were furious at the failure of the Democrats to do what they wanted, particularly, of course, controlling the borders and enforcing the laws on migration. It was Democracy that came to their rescue.
10:40 “The really sinister thing about Trump is that, although he has been perfectly explicit about what he wants to do, a majority of Americans appear to want that kind of thing. That is, I think, a symptom of the serious disintegration of the democratic ideal.”
This person exhibits clear signs of being captured within the aristocracy, while still convinced, in his isolation, that his peers maintain the democratic ideal. His perception of the state of the nation ‘across the pond’ is matched only by our own.
Sadly naive.
“FS: I feel I have to push back a little here, because the 2019 example is an interesting one. The people who would have answered that poll had just endured three years of what felt like a democratic decision, Brexit, being thwarted by a complex system of politicians and lawmakers that refused to act on what they had voted for.
JS: That is completely untrue…. ”
I don’t like contradicting Lord Sumption but on this point he is surely wrong. Prominent Remain political figures (I think one of them was Alistair Campbell) openly later admitted that the obstructions they placed in front of the government’s attempts to deliver upon the Leave mandate were in fact attempts to sabotage the Leave victory and remain in the EU.
the only way to staff care homes is not to pay more but to reform the benefits system so that the brit subjects have to work…. ( after all they’re not even citizens who have rights) Or set it up so benefits only pay what the paro pays in Spain- 560€ pm no kids to 749€ pm 1 or more kids… starmer & his promiscuous culturas take note! £11 hr to wipe bottoms 160 hrs pm = 1760 £s. It’s a no brainer if the brit doesn’t have their usual low level drugs/ crime/ cash job with no paid leave or injury at work insurance. In that way GB much resembles Spain in the latter Franco era. Pluriempleo was the name for it. Laborers with no shoes like India and Bangla today
Snooty anglos have been saying since 1783 that the American experiment will imminently fail. Sumption is just the latest.
I was at the talk and did not get to ask my question about Lord Sumption’s love for the Schloss at Würzburg.
It doesn’t make much sense to give such a one-sided account of the destabilization of democratic and liberal norms in America.
As if Trump is an all powerful Sulla or Caesar, with no basis in liberal culture himself.
In reality ‘populism’ is just responding to the totalitarianism of the Left. That doesn’t mean it can’t begin to mirror it in some ways, but completely ignoring the role of the left and focusing purely on the ‘populist’ counter-revolutionary response is just a pathetic unthinking liberal bourgeois prejudice. So tedious.
Good Lord, um, Lord, there’s not a few sins of omission in the narrative pushed out by the, um, Good Lord.
For example:
My “crisis of expectations” is that it is my expectation that the majority of the people in the party of government, not least the Prime Minister, do not try and push the line onto me, that men and women are biologically interchangeable, including having cervixes, and gender is a choice. This is a form of mass delusion, whereby everyone except the little boy who doesn’t know any better, goes along with the pretence that the King is regaled in the very finest finery, when he is in fact, walking around naked. And the point I’m making is not about the specific delusion in question, but the nature of the people who, for a myriad of reasons, want to pander to delusions. Are you, Lord Sumption, going along with what Starmer & co are willing to go along with, for your own reasons?
I applaud Unherd for bringing up differing opinions, but it was quite incredible how ethnicity was completely absent throughout the entire discussion (Not sure I’ll listen through the Q&A).
In a time when civil war is within the cards, at most he offered up “anti-immigrationists aren’t honest about downsides of stopping immigration”, which just factually isn’t true.