Ukraine/Israel Updates, Tiktok Vote, UK after Brexit, and Reversing Illiberalism in Poland Artwork

Kellogg's Global Politics

Husband and wife team, Dr. Anita and Ryan Kellogg, take on the latest international news and events with their lively discussions and occasional debates on these issues. Having grown up in red states in conservative families, the Kelloggs bring their unique perspective living in multiple countries overseas and subject expertise in their chosen fields. Join us for a conversation that began in South Korea and continues through the present day.

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Kellogg's Global Politics

Ukraine/Israel Updates, Tiktok Vote, UK after Brexit, and Reversing Illiberalism in Poland

March 22, 2024 • Anita Kellogg

On this episode, we begin with some short updates on the situation in Ukraine and Israel. We also discuss the US House vote on TikTok and whether the social media platform is a propaganda tool of the CCP.

We then take a deep dive into life in the UK after Brexit. Were promises kept and who is better off?

Finally, we look at the extraordinary story of Poland’s democratic revival and examine its battle back from its recent flirtation with authoritarianism. What lessons can Western nations learn from as they fight their own right-wing populism?

Topics Discussed in this Episode

20:00 - Ukraine and Israel update
40:00 - Post-Brexit UK: Looking back after 7 years
56:30 - Poland: How to fix a democracy?

Articles and Resources Mentioned in Episode

Ukraine and Israel Updates

Post-Brexit UK: Looking back after 7 years

Poland: How to fix a democracy?

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Anita Kellogg: [00:00:00] Welcome to Kellogg's Global Politics, a podcast on current events in U. S. foreign policy and international affairs. My name is Dr. Anita Kellogg, an international relations scholar specializing in the relationship between economics and national security. I'm here with my co host Ryan Kellogg, an expert in energy investment and policy.

Ryan Kellogg: Thanks and glad to be back. So this is episode 44 and we're recording this on March [00:00:30] 16th, 2024.

Anita Kellogg: On this episode, we begin with some short updates to the situations in Ukraine and Israel. We then take a deep dive into life in the UK after Brexit. For promises kept and who is better off. Finally, we look at the extraordinary story of the revival of Poland's democracy and examine its battle back from its recent flirtation with authoritarianism.

What lessons can be learned by Western nations fighting their own right wing populism? So

Ryan Kellogg: here we are is March. You're in the [00:01:00] middle of Women's History Month, which I know has taken up a hundred percent of your focus over the last. Last month or so. So how's it going?

Anita Kellogg: First of all, I have to say that I think this is an extraordinarily important month.

And while some people are triggered by things like diversity and equality and inclusion, the fact is, Just to have women's voices recognized. And it may seem like this isn't important, [00:01:30] but so often the default is just male. So we had three industry leaders who happened to be women who spoke on Wednesday.

And this very, it was very popular. It was very well received. And basically they didn't discuss gender issues. It was just highlighting their voices on. The defense industrial base and the kind of questions that the students had about this. I think it's important because if you look at the classes and the guests, again, just the default is male.[00:02:00]

And this happens without anyone really thinking about it. And this kind of gives an opportunity to be like, here are these, here are some women who have just as much to say on the topic who are CEOs and vice presidents of their own right. And to make sure that Everybody gets a voice and a chance to be listened to.

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, I mean, well said. And I mean, this is Because this year and in this [00:02:30] format kind of represents the first time that NDU's been approaching probably, you know, in terms of the, the quality of the, the different voices and the representation across both industry and government.

Anita Kellogg: So you definitely got elevated this year to much higher recognition.

And. Planning for the events and just organizing the events, me being the first person to really be doing that. So there was no Yeah, which

Ryan Kellogg: has been, been [00:03:00] challenging, but you know, hopefully becomes part of the tradition going

Anita Kellogg: forward. I think it will. I think there's been a recognition this year of the importance of recognizing women in industry, women in the military, in national security more generally.

And I think the school really wants to keep this. It's sort of elevated and for me, it's been challenging because there's no path to follow. And I didn't even know the procedures for anything. And so of course I pretty much messed most [00:03:30] of them up, but out of ignorance, like

Ryan Kellogg: nobody said this is who you need to talk to.

Well, I mean, when you're the trailblazer, establishing a new process and a new tradition, you know, some, it's going to be some hiccups along the way, but then going forward, you Things are going to be, can be well laid

Anita Kellogg: out. Yeah. And the events have gone really well. We've had two so far. One was a small like social mixer on that first week, but last week was one of our first big events.

And that was the panels I said with [00:04:00] women leaders in industry and they were just great. They were very candid and I think people really appreciated. They were a little bit looser than sometimes some of our guests in industry. And. We operate according to Chatham rules, so people can be free to speak, Chatham rules being that you can't attribute a direct statement to any particular person that makes it, you can allude to

Ryan Kellogg: what is being said.

Okay, so you can allude to what's being discussed, but not who said it. Right. Okay, gotcha. [00:04:30]

Anita Kellogg: Do it in a way that makes that person identifiable, right? And then the one that is causing you the most stress is that we're having three very high ranking Individuals this coming Wednesday featuring women in the armed services and that is the secretary of the army Christine warmer the undersecretary of the Air Force Which is Kristen Jones and then the chief of naval operations and she's also on the member of [00:05:00] the Joint Chiefs Both the first woman to do that, to lead any of the services, I believe, and the first woman on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Franchetti, Lisa Franchetti.

And what's interesting to this is I'm learning a lot about protocol. And how things are ranked and how the civilians are ranked higher than the military. So even though she's, I believe a four star admiral, and again, has this really, really prominent role, she's still the junior member

Ryan Kellogg: of this group. [00:05:30] Oh, okay.

Okay, I guess that makes, I mean, it is designed to be, I mean, it's just reinforcing the civilian control of the military. Yeah,

Anita Kellogg: but all of these are would be huge just to have one of

Ryan Kellogg: them. Oh, yeah, that's that's an amazing panel. We

Anita Kellogg: have three of them, and the coordination of it is, is extraordinarily challenging.

They all have their own security teams. So I've been. Meeting with the security teams who want to walk [00:06:00] through all of their own speech writers. They all have their own executive assistants. They all have their own press offices and you always, you have to talk to all these different people individually.

Yeah, this is not coordinated. Yeah. Plus, there's just all the internal dynamics. And wanting to make this a perfect event. And so the pressure, the commandant, and then I just found out the president of the university is going to attend, but I only found that out at the last minute. And so it's very stressful, but I'm very proud of what I'm doing.

And I'm very [00:06:30] happy that this event exists, these events, and that the student body faculty get to hear from these really prominent women discussing the same issues we discuss. But hearing from voices they don't normally hear from.

Ryan Kellogg: No, absolutely. No, I think this is, and you've just observed it from the outside, I think you've done an extraordinary job in terms of pouring yourself into it.

And even [00:07:00] though this isn't your area of expertise in terms of meeting organization and putting on an event like this, but you've definitely taken it on and, uh, and done a very admirable

Anita Kellogg: job. Well, thank you. It's been very stressful. These are not my skill set. But I also because confidence in doing the podcast and in other areas and moderating Wednesday's event, so there'll be all these big names up there and then there'll be me asking questions.

Ryan Kellogg: Would you have practice doing so [00:07:30] this is, this is good.

Anita Kellogg: You know, in retrospect, I wish things hadn't been so busy and we could have had some interviews with women. Not that we don't do that all the time, but to kind of again, just help feature this month. Maybe there's something

Ryan Kellogg: for next year. Yeah.

Something for next year. Absolutely. Yeah, that's a great idea. Yeah, but yeah, so you'll definitely be feeling a sense of relief on Wednesday and then evening when yeah, wednesday evening And then you have [00:08:00] a week off timing with our daughter's spring break And heading to

Anita Kellogg: london a full month of travel because I get back pretty much for a day from that I'm leaving for a conference academic conference in San Francisco.

Ryan Kellogg: I'm sure you're fully prepared for and won't be worried at all during your week in London. Yeah, that's my understanding.

Anita Kellogg: Exactly. Because yes, I have not updated my paper at all in the way that it should be updated [00:08:30] And I just have not had time to do it. So yes, there's there's no stress over that And then I literally get back For like a day or two, maybe a day, and then we leave for two weeks for our school industry trip, first going to Oklahoma City, then Norway, then Sweden.

So, I mean, literally four weeks of travel with just a day or two at home.

Ryan Kellogg: Yep, we're going to miss you. I mean, we'll be with you that first week. [00:09:00] I'm really

Anita Kellogg: looking forward to London, but the thought of all that travel is also exhausting. Yeah. So I'm just been waiting for May for a long time.

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, but it's going to be all great experiences.

Yeah. So yeah, that's exciting. I'm very excited for it. Yeah.

Anita Kellogg: Me too. Mostly.

Ryan Kellogg: Mostly.

Anita Kellogg: Well, with all that, we can get into some brief background. [00:09:30] Sort of international stories that popped in the headlines this week. First, a couple of stories on Ukraine. And one of these was that hungry Prime Minister Victor Orban met with Trump in Mar a Lago this week, which it's also very unusual for the leader of a country to meet with someone like Trump without also meeting with the U.

S. president. So there's that also going on. But he said, he related that [00:10:00] Trump told him that he would not give Ukraine a single penny where he elected president. So this obviously has caused much consternation because basically if president Trump is elected. It's saying that the U. S. will abandon Ukraine and how, to what extent can Europe really provide enough assistance to Ukraine without any U.

S. help? And Orban was very blunt in that he thought [00:10:30] the EU simply could not do that and that this would bring an end to the war quickly because Ukraine would essentially

Ryan Kellogg: lose. Yeah, it's extraordinarily unsettling. Not surprising, but I guess surprising the way that it rolled out, like you said, the fact that Orben makes this trip to Mar a Lago to visit the ex president and what he hopes to be future president to talk about policy [00:11:00] details.

Then leaks it out kind of interesting. I'm not sure about this how smart that is that component of it Because support overall for Ukraine is still a generally popular Sentiment among voters. I don't know if that helps Trump a lot Leaking out something kind of explicit as that not that he hasn't done it on his own basically saying, you know between threatening NATO Pulling out of NATO, but it becomes more and more obvious that That, you know, as [00:11:30] much as he's aligned in a lot of ways with Putin and Russia, as much of the populist right is, it's also this vendetta specifically against Ukraine and around his his first impeachment, in my opinion,

Anita Kellogg: and a lot of people's opinion.

I think that's certainly part of it. I'm not sure that he wouldn't do this anyway, but yeah, with more affinity for Putin, his vendetta against Ukraine, this general reluctance in the [00:12:00] Republicans to begin with, to continue funding Ukraine.

Ryan Kellogg: Which is still only maybe half of them, because if this, if that bill, the Senate bill was actually brought to the House floor, it would get probably 50 percent of Republican votes.

It's still a popular sentiment. That's what I don't That doesn't matter. This is a minority that's holding this hostage.

Anita Kellogg: Yeah, but they're able to hold it hostage. That's all that matters.

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, no, I, I, I know I haven't checked the status. I mean, we talked in the [00:12:30] last episode about some of the workarounds that could force a vote.

I don't know if there's been abandoned or if they're still being pursued. I'd like to think they're still being pursued because it is. Yeah, it will. It will indeed be desperate. And like I said, I think the best case scenario with that sort of collapses within the first year. Certainly. Russia takes back all of the territory that was retaken in late 2022.

I think

Anita Kellogg: the [00:13:00] Republicans, the right to the party, are betting that the rest of the party doesn't care enough so that they can make this big stance and appeal to the people who do care and who are more pro Russia.

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, but that, I mean, if it's about turnout, that base is going to turn out. I don't see this appealing to swing voters.

I think

Anita Kellogg: they just think swing voters

Ryan Kellogg: don't care. Maybe. But what the hell has happened to the party of Reagan? Yeah. They're rolling over against the [00:13:30] Russian enemy. Yeah. I mean it's this, this is unbelievable. It's crazy when against the free, independent people fighting for their country. Mm-Hmm. fighting for their land.

Mm-Hmm. unprovoked. Unbelievable.

Anita Kellogg: Yeah. And. Obviously, Russia is the strategic competitor to the U. S. We don't have the same goals in line for the rest of the world for how we see the economic, international economic [00:14:00] environment should be in terms of peace and stability in many areas, including Africa, that we are not challenging, that we would be in a position where we're not challenging Russia, but allowing them to pursue those goals that are so contrasting, and contrary to our own.

It's just craziness. But I also wanted to say like how damaging it is. Trump's not president. He may not become president, although it looks like it could happen. [00:14:30] But just saying that is so damaging because Biden kept saying Ukraine, we have your back, America has your back. And this shows that. No, it's contingent on a certain group of people, if you're going to have support from America or not, and that just, America has become so unreliable on the international stage.

And that's just really another thing that highlights it and highlights how you can't count on America beyond a particular administration. [00:15:00]

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, I mean, it didn't used to be this way and didn't have to be this way, but the fact that Trump has so completely taken control. I mean, they recently appointed Laura Trump as the head of the RNC, but it's completely taken full absolute control of one of the two political parties within the country.

And even as ex president, because of fear of him. that can wield, even though still around this issue being a [00:15:30] minority, even within Republican voters that can wield this amount of power and do this amount of damage to U. S. national interest is, is pretty extraordinary and disturbing.

Anita Kellogg: Very much my thoughts on the matter.

So that's why I wanted to bring it up. One interesting thing that's also happened is that the Pentagon sent 300 million worth of weapons. According, like, after they said after they found some cost savings [00:16:00] in contracts, which is interesting because the Defense Department rarely ever finds cost savings, usually everything is an overrun.

But it was interesting that they were able to find at least, I mean, 300 million is not nearly enough. It's just a drop in the

Ryan Kellogg: bucket, like change in the DOD's couch. I mean, it's not much,

Anita Kellogg: but what was interesting also, the story is that Pentagon is actually overdrawn 10 billion in [00:16:30] what it needs to replenish weapons given to Ukraine.

So that was kind of an unnoticed part of the story. And then this money would, they would get this money if this 95 billion package ever passed in Congress. So 10 billion of it is just to replenish our own resources that we've given to Ukraine. So lots of bright spots there, but at least this is how desperate the situation in Ukraine and how desperate the Biden [00:17:00] administration is to find some support of Ukraine and keep them, keep them floating somehow.

And I'm surprised they found any change in the couch at all.

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah. No, it's definitely getting desperate. I mean, I know the estimates are potentially run out of a lot of the anti aircraft missiles by the end of this month, but they've been able to essentially for every 10 missiles that Russia shoots at Ukrainian cities, they're able to at least try to intercept and it's usually a [00:17:30] high percentage that they do intercept nine out of those 10.

But once this runs out, it's going to be more like one out of 10 and that's, I mean, that's really what has helped keep. The majority of Ukrainian lives in these cities as normal as possible. And, and, and, you know, in case of given some of these cities in the West, their lives are, are relatively normal. And people are going out and shopping and coffee shop and all that sort of stuff.

But when that ends in terms of the, the [00:18:00] missile supply, then that, and then of course, obviously that'll have a huge impact on the economy, the ability to support the war effort internally, all sorts of negative effects.

Anita Kellogg: Yeah. So, I mean, we, we mentioned this pretty much every episode, but it's just so discouraging to see the situation continue to play out as it has.

So, regarding Israel, Senator Schumer, who's the majority leader in the Senate, argued the other day [00:18:30] for that a two state solution would be the only pathway to peace. For Israel, and he named Netanyahu as the biggest obstacle to peace in the Middle East. He urged Israelis to hold elections, to replace him.

Republicans, of course, then went out of their way to defend. Bebe, what do you think? Does you wanna go too far?

Ryan Kellogg: I don't think he went too far. I mean, it is a pretty extraordinary step both for Schumer and for [00:19:00] Biden, for backing Schumer. 'cause they, I mean, both of them have a very long history of being very pros Israeli.

And coming from the school that you, politically, you never ever question Israeli politics. There's no gap between kind of the U. S. and Israel on anything. The Shumer is

Anita Kellogg: the highest level of political office that a Jewish person holds, I

Ryan Kellogg: think. Yeah. And I think that's what makes it more, more powerful in a way.[00:19:30]

And definitely, I would say probably pretty representative of the majority of the Jewish population in the U. S. Around this and I think it just really and we talked about before just the the nature of the net and yahoo Administration and and the fact the compromises he had to make in order to retain power in order to avoid legal consequences from the last general election And it's not even net and yahoo so much as his allies within his [00:20:00] coalition who are just extremely far right and have the Full on colonial mindset around the West Bank and the removal of Palestinians.

Anita Kellogg: mean, it goes back to Netanyahu, though, actually making these decisions. It

Ryan Kellogg: is, but he's doing this to avoid jail. Not necessarily that he believes in all of the policies, but he, because he's been in power for Twenty some years and his previous administrations did not have as radical a [00:20:30] position as what his current coalition has.

He had to form this coalition because the election was tight and he's adopted these positions that are radical. I mean, these are the things that Schumer's call it out. You can't have this policy in the West Bank where you spend. into the last 20 years, just creating more and more illegal settlements and creating these little pockets and islands of where Palestinians [00:21:00] live, or accepting that these West Bank settlers can murder with impunity.

Palestinians in those territories and then reject any sort of two state solution. Everybody knows that the two state solution is the only path towards long term stability. I mean, we talked about it before. It's just frustrating because this, this should all be pretty common sense of what's in Israel's long term interest and in the U.

S. interest. We want to see [00:21:30] this coalition of Israel and the Gulf States and Saudi Arabia. It's good because it isolates Iran and it strengthens the economy and instability of Israel,

Anita Kellogg: right? Exactly. I think it is treading pretty carefully to the mind saying you need to hold elections to get this guy out of office.

But I also don't think the republicans were like, that's election interference and that's ridiculous.

Ryan Kellogg: Again, I don't know the [00:22:00] details if it's, you know, if it's, we're going to talk a little bit about the, the UK. And, and my understanding is any sort of parliamentary system, they kind of have flexibility, the ruling coalition on when an election can be held beyond like a deadline, right?

You have like a certain deadline. He's like, okay, you got to have the election by this. But otherwise the

Anita Kellogg: reasons why he was calling for it is because like, Hey, they're in a period

Ryan Kellogg: where they could hold the polls would definitely, I mean, Netanyahu and the governing again, they [00:22:30] need to be punished. This is about accountability.

That intelligence failure that led to the horrific death of all of those Israeli citizens is directly the responsibility of Netanyahu and again, these radical actions in the West Bank. Troops were not on the border of Gaza were not paying attention because they had been pulled off to the West Bank to enforce this radical policy.

Anita Kellogg: I mean, that's definitely part of it. I think Shumar also calls out just not [00:23:00] sensitive enough to civilian casualties in Gaza. He's made it very clear he's not sensitive to civilian casualties at all in Gaza and pursuing the violence there.

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah. Because again, it's in all of this, just looking at it from purely Israeli perspective.

Interest that your long term interests are not served by further radicalized by one alienating the states that you need long term in the in the Gulf and the Arab region [00:23:30] and to further radicalizing the Palestinian population where you're just going to it's just a factory for future terrorists then.

Yeah,

Anita Kellogg: and I mean the things even if you're not directly in the line of fire, the starvation that's occurring still the difficulties of getting. aid into Gaza, you know, all those things not being prioritized. Israel being annoyed that the U. S. is building a port to try to get aid into Gaza. The [00:24:00] dehumanization, the total disregard for life of the Gazans, I think is one indictment.

And like you said, doesn't help Israel at all. Like, no matter what they're doing and how many Hamas leaders they get. They are creating this huge tragedy, which only, and

Ryan Kellogg: they haven't been able to get either the top Hamas leaders. Yeah.

Anita Kellogg: So it's just creates another tragedy and we have to say something. I think about it.

I think [00:24:30] we continue to have to say something. We can support Israel. overall in the Middle East, but we have to continually make it clear that this is not okay. These actions are not okay. We do not agree with them. We want Israel to certainly change its policy. And I think we need to make that

Ryan Kellogg: clear. Yeah.

I mean, I think unfortunately it doesn't settle. It doesn't actually get them anywhere with anybody. Yeah. I think this is probably the limited amount that [00:25:00] they can do, but you're definitely not. Going to appeal to, because I mean, obviously Democrats are worried about, you know, both the left and the right.

Progressive base and Arab Americans. What they want to see is material action of Israel being denied weapons. That's not going to happen. So this feels like the best compromise they can do between that and building the fear. I mean, you're going to have a thousand troops building a temporary pier [00:25:30] off the coast of Gaza in order to, which.

It's a little bit insane when you think about, I mean, Israel is using U. S. weapons on one side and is our, our strong ally, but, you know, because of the policies they put in place, you can't get sufficient aid in. I mean, Egypt isn't helping either around certain situations, but we're going to this effort of.

Building this here in order to get the 2 million meals a day capacity that's [00:26:00] needed to feed that that population while these these embargoes essentially are in place.

Anita Kellogg: And like, from the war, millions, millions have been displaced. I mean, they just went through these cities, every million people, and they said, get out.

So they moved to the South, and that didn't save them from the violence that is now going on in the South. But that means these are all people who don't have jobs, that don't have food, that don't have shelter. You can't just have, you know, millions of people move into the South [00:26:30] with basically the same amount.

You're just doubling, you're completely doubling that population and the frustration of not being able to get aid to that area. And like I said, it's not just the people dying of the bombs, but it's also people just dying from starvation and common basic human needs.

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, and then, you know, obviously, none of this is condoning anything Hamas did, they've obviously haven't agreed to any sort of ceasefire, there's been ceasefire plans [00:27:00] kind of attempted to negotiate and would may or may not help like with the aid situation, but have have kind of refused on on any sort of terms or agreements, I think they're hoping with the start of Ramadan, that that'll be the case.

By them additional time, but I mean, ultimately, yeah, Israel in its current strategy in the way that it's deployed has not been successful and achieving sort of its core military in terms of the [00:27:30] leadership. I mean, we talked about it has eliminated a fair amount of the force of Hamas, but it still hasn't captured captured the leadership.

Anita Kellogg: Do we think if Netanyahu was voted out that things would change?

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, absolutely. No, I think they would immediately, the focus would be on a ceasefire and on hostage negotiations and, and probably, yeah, opening up aid in there. I think it would be a much more pragmatic approach. Approach to it. I [00:28:00] mean, there's there's regular protest within Israel itself, you know, wanting this election wanting to, you know, put in a more centrist party and power.

So I have no doubt. Yeah. Election has held policy would change. Significantly

Anita Kellogg: when just quick other thought that I had about this is it's interesting. And I wonder if you almost have like Israel voting block used to be considered like a single block. I think mostly for Democrats and Democrats. And the extent that the right [00:28:30] has brought along sort of the more conservative Jews to their side and basically by, they went after that really hard by Attacking Schumer, McConnell saying that he doesn't have an, a BB problem, that he has an anti Israel problem, which is rich.

Netanyahu was invited to speak at some Republican conference, but wasn't able to do it, but, virtually, but just how hard that they've gone after the, [00:29:00] the more conservatives. Israeli population in the United States and kind of divided that

Ryan Kellogg: voting block up. Yeah, a lot of the Republican strategy is going to be about, which is a smart political strategy, wearing down the margins of traditional democratic groups.

I think on a similar line, that's what you're seeing with Trump's reversal on TikTok is very much to shave away the youth vote, you know, that that [00:29:30] has traditionally and definitely the last couple of midterm elections heavily favored the Democrats. I think this is because

Anita Kellogg: the corporate leaders.

Ryan Kellogg: I think it's both.

I think it's both. I think it's convenient. Yeah, maybe maybe he's getting some money. I don't know. But I think. Right. The more just common sense political approach is and then that's the thing when you don't really believe in anything beyond yourself, then you're willing to flip on these things. So this idea also that.[00:30:00]

Oh, Trump's going to be so tough on China. I think he would gladly throw Taiwan under the bus. Yeah. Second, I don't think he gives a damn about Taiwan. Yeah. So thinking that he's going to be so much tougher than Biden, who has been extraordinarily tough on China in like real material ways in terms of building our alliance in the Pacific.

I don't think he cares. So yeah, I think it is part of that. I don't know what it gets them. I think it's probably because if you think about very conservative Jews, you're thinking orthodox, that's very [00:30:30] much concentrated in New York. I don't know if that puts any of the districts around New York City competitive, if you get enough, like orthodox Jew votes.

And then the other area would be LA. Yeah. Again, I don't see any of that being competitive. I mean, and they weren't living in Beverly Hills. That was the only area that kind of went Republican. That's a pretty solid blue block. So I don't think you're gaining a ton just because [00:31:00] geographically where that population is is located on the orthodox side.

Yeah.

Anita Kellogg: It's true. But it's still interesting to me. You just made me think about, talking about like, hmm, we're trying to try to take Taiwan under Trump, feeling like Trump really wouldn't intervene, just, there's so much instability. Because I mean, I think the U. S. has to be clear. I think Biden has been very clear that he would defend Taiwan were there to be an armed invasion of [00:31:30] Taiwan.

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah. And it's, I mean, it is very interesting to see, and maybe using. That TikTok vote as a proxy. So Trump comes out against it. And normally Republicans cave on so many things around like what Trump says to come out. But that vote still, it was really only, it was On the Republican side, it was kind of the hardcore MAGA people, but even people like Paul Gosar, famed white nationalist, [00:32:00] I know that's too far, but pretty bad dude, he abstained.

He wasn't going to come out, you know, fully, but it was, you know, the Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Matt Gates who came out and voted. against the, the TikTok ban, but still you had the vast majority. You had more Democrats, I think, that voted against it than Republicans.

Anita Kellogg: That is kind of just ironic to me.

These people who have been anti China, anti China, anti China, not voting for the TikTok

Ryan Kellogg: ban. Yeah. Cause [00:32:30] that was the China, again, it's the one unifying area within Congress is around that policy. So that's really what it makes. Interesting Trump's flip. I can totally buy into the interpretation of, yeah, it looks suspicious.

The dudes, you know, had all these massive multimillion dollar settlements against him. He's taken over the RNC, basically, probably to siphon off financing for his legal [00:33:00] bills. He hit up Elon Musk. Probably for money as well, so he's just kind of making the rounds and maybe this guy was more part. I don't know.

No, it is all speculation, but I think it's also a smart political thing to do just because, of course, you feel already angry about many things about the economy, not being able to afford housing and rent. General anger about COVID and about being shut in for, for two years and losing kind of [00:33:30] pivotal moments of their, their life in high school or college.

And then you take, you threaten to take TikTok away. Which I, the quotes are like, this is where we get our news from, and I'm just shaking my head. Why are you getting your news from, from TikTok? But is

Anita Kellogg: there news on TikTok? I haven't seen any.

Ryan Kellogg: Like people get their news from Facebook. It's the equivalent.

Yeah, you're getting these soundbites of people

Anita Kellogg: talking about news on Facebook. I've never seen news on

Ryan Kellogg: TikTok. That's at least what, and you know, obviously [00:34:00] TikTok's done a good job mobilizing, which actually backfired big time because Congress, These old Congress people don't appreciate being inundated with young people harassing them about TikTok.

That just convinced them more that, oh, TikTok, the Chinese communist tool, has the ability to manipulate people against our democracy. That's basically what this told them, is that it can mobilize millions and millions of young people. We got to get rid of this, is what that whole campaign taught [00:34:30] them.

Anita Kellogg: What do you think about the TikTok

Ryan Kellogg: ban? They had a chance to reform in terms of their data practices, and they did not do that. And this is the result of it. I think it is overblown. I don't think it's really a tool of the Chinese Communist Party. But there are big differences in terms of the practices and how the content of TikTok and the limits and the addictiveness of it.

that China allows in China versus what it allows in the [00:35:00] United States. I think that's concerning too. But yeah, in terms of the whole privacy thing, yeah, get out of here. I mean, they, they're our own social media companies are horrible around people's privacy and around information. But that, that actually, I'm pretty sure that got blocked recently, that that actually was a bill.

That he's either working his way through, but yeah, that was finally addressed the idea of selling because we talked about it before selling your Facebooks can package this data and sell it to [00:35:30] China.

Anita Kellogg: Right. They don't sell it directly to China. They sell it to like Or it gets to China. Yeah. And then China can buy these packages.

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah. Mostly to sell, you know, with their shopping apps, like the thing that was advertised on the Superbowl. Timu. Yeah. Yeah.

Anita Kellogg: Yeah. I mean. I think there's so many issues that are being conflated with this ban on TikTok. I think some people are arguing it just because they don't like TikTok itself, rather than start from China.

And there is like, you [00:36:00] can say, well, China treats its own citizens differently. Yeah, of course, because it's not a democracy and it allows its apps to operate like a democracy in the United States. It's why we don't have the same type of restrictions on other countries social media that China has on ours.

I mean, I see the concerns, but I think it's probably not a good idea. I think,

Ryan Kellogg: well, I'm fine with it. I think the compromise, because I And I don't know. I think it's really bad to take off [00:36:30] TikTok completely because the threat is that if you provide only a six month window to execute a deal, a divestiture of this, I can't remember how many billions, but I think TikTok was worth more than all the three big card companies that it's worth, you know, hundreds, I think it was worth hundreds of billions of dollars.

It was a lot. God, was it that much? I don't know. Don't put me on that. I thought it was tens of billions, but. Maybe it's tens of billions. Anyway, it's a huge, in the business world, it's [00:37:00] a very huge divestiture. You got to give a longer runway than six months to get that executed. Because otherwise, I mean, I don't understand the implication if it's just TikTok gets taken out of store.

When TikTok gets uninstalled from, let's say, a VPN pointing to Canada, it gets uninstalled automatically. I'm fine. I don't think they can do that. It just gets taken off the stores, right? And then you have to get

Anita Kellogg: taken off

Ryan Kellogg: the stores. And you couldn't access it unless you have a VPN. Right. I mean, it's still installed on your phone, but unless you get the, [00:37:30] Oh, I'm actually in Canada.

I can't access TikTok anymore.

Anita Kellogg: Right. Yeah. And that's challenging to do now. So, I

Ryan Kellogg: believe that's correct. So, I support it if you make it like 12 months. Runway for them to

Anita Kellogg: sell it. Well, the problem is China's not going to allow them to do that.

Ryan Kellogg: Hmm. I, I think though. You do? Yeah. I think so. Cause you're not giving, well, this, I mean, that kind of question with the value, but my understanding also is you're not giving a, you're not even purchasing the algorithm.

I assume that's what makes it worth money. I mean, the brand's worth money, obviously, [00:38:00] but the algorithm's worth more money, right? Yeah. Yeah. Cause nobody's been able to recreate whatever, which I find. I guess I'm, you know, I'm just, uh, I'm not a tech person. I understand the nuances, but why can't we recreate this?

Anita Kellogg: Yeah, I mean, I remember I've been listening to a lot of stories about it this week on my commute and yeah, the not being able to purchase the algorithm is a big deal. Yeah. So anyway. I [00:38:30] really dislike TikTok. I almost want it banned for that reason, but

Ryan Kellogg: There you go. That's the old person response. It's like, these kids only have 15 second attention spans because of TikTok.

Their brains are turned to mush.

Anita Kellogg: But, I don't think that's a reason to do so. I don't think so. Although

Ryan Kellogg: I think it may be true. But I may also just be old. I can't, can't separate those two.

Anita Kellogg: For some reason, TikTok to me is worse than all the other social [00:39:00] media. I mean, it's something that, you know, I don't let Becca have on her phone, even though I know she gets the content anyway.

Right. But that's absolutely not a reason to ban TikTok. And so I'm not so sure about these, this China scare side of it.

Ryan Kellogg: They had a chance to comply, they haven't complied.

Anita Kellogg: So. The next thing we wanted to do was look at what does life after Brexit look like?

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, so we, we wanted to bring this up. [00:39:30] Mostly because we're going to London.

Is that why we're bringing it up? Yeah, and we haven't really visited it since old Liz Truss had her week in office or whatever the length of time and, and that term fell apart. But, I mean, I, I think it's, we, we talked about populism and really the birth of kind of the modern era of populism began with, Brexit.

So I think revisiting it, revisiting how the British economy is doing [00:40:00] following Brexit, and then pointing ahead. And it looks like in October, the Tories are finally going to face the Piper.

Anita Kellogg: So basically, the short story of all this is that the critics of Brexit were right.

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, they were 100 percent right.

Anita Kellogg: I just thought we

Ryan Kellogg: could jump to the end, they were a hundred percent right. Everything that they warned about was absolutely true. And it's going to shatter the [00:40:30] Tory party in a way that they haven't been shattered since the late nineties when the era of Thatcher and I can't remember the prime minister came after Thatcher finally ended because that was, that was another previous period.

No, it wasn't Cameron. Cameron served just recently. Yeah. I can't remember. I can picture his face and glasses and white hair, but yeah, the name is, is slipping me. But anyway, it just stepping back. So in 2016, speaking of [00:41:00] David Cameron, one of his promises in order to win the, the, uh, that previous general election was to push for a Brexit.

A vote, you know, essentially a referendum and referendums in the UK are are relatively rare, unlike, you know, some of the ballot measures like we lived in California for over 10 years, and it was a little bit of pure democracy and that you were getting to vote on [00:41:30] things. That typically in other states, you don't get a vote on it would be like an act of legislation, but you were constantly you had all these ballot measures that would be voted on, but in the UK, it's it's a very rare proposition.

So it has very serious effects because you're not likely to reverse it. And that's always a little something surprising to me, given that in California, they reverse stuff like all the time. Yeah. So the vote is very narrow. It was relatively low turnout. Yeah. But Brexit 152 to [00:42:00] 48 percent and what you've seen since then, it was, it was promised a number of different things, you know, one, it was going to, because a lot of this was framed around immigration, and it was the fact that the UK couldn't have full control of its immigration policy and, you know, too many people were being allowed.

Into the country that was resulting in employment issues and cultural clashes and things along those [00:42:30] lines. The other thing Brexit promised is that it would make a return to the UK's peak imperial days of bestriding the globe and making awesome trade deals and not being tied down by those bureaucrats in Brussels that Brussels that were only oppressing the natural British spirit of Of just like great business sense and, and, and trade and, and the Commonwealth was going to unlock all these awesome trade deals.

They [00:43:00] were going to sign this gigantic deal with, with Trump and the U. S. I guess Trump hadn't been elected yet, but they promised they had like a big free trade deal with the U. S. And it was going to be so much better and it was going to save the NHS. So their national health care system that was going to bring in hundreds of millions of pounds a week in additional revenue because of just how awesome once you're not tied to those awful bureaucrats and the EU.

So what's happened actually is [00:43:30] So just starting off with the economy said that Goldman Sachs recently issued a report looking back at how the UK has performed over the last decade or so, and concluded that the UK is worse off today than it was before Brexit. And it's actually resulted in 5% less growth over the past eight years compared to comparable countries.

So they break this out in terms of like real GDP. [00:44:00] So if we look at like compared to 2016, so right before Brexit, UK has grown kind of a pathetic 4%. Mm-Hmm. , it's over a very long period of time to grow only 4%. The eu, by comparison, who the UK would consistently outperform. When it was a member of the EU is that 8 percent and then the US, which really has been extraordinary and has increased that gap between wealth from being roughly parody with the EU [00:44:30] to being much above it.

It grew by 15%. So nearly 4 times the amount that the UK has grown since leaving the EU. And all this has, you know, Many, many negative effects, you know, on the economy when you're, you're growing at such an anemic rate. So what was this reduction due to? The report Ties it to trade. You left very favorable trade terms to, this is where 50 percent of your trade.

Yeah. Obviously, you're right next to the [00:45:00] EU. That's a gigantic market. Yeah. And you, and you left it. Then weaker business investment, because it makes it harder for EU investors to invest within the UK. So they lost that. And then labor shortages, because migration policy, Hey. It's much harder for EU citizens to get work permits in there.

So there's a there's a big labor shortage All of this has has greatly constrained British growth, you know over this this time period and then on top [00:45:30] of it the whole swaggering Oh, we're gonna we're gonna ink all these awesome new trade deals Well, they looked at that too. The only thing that they've inked is a deal with australia and that's contributed a whopping point 08 percent impact on the GDP.

So really, unfortunately, the, the deals with the U. S. because U. S. isn't doing any trade deals, even with, with our good buddy, the UK, and then India has been, been bogged down. I mean, they're still talking, but that's unlikely to [00:46:00] result. And it's not going to be at the scale of, of Europe. I mean, you, you gave up on, on Europe.

So all in all, just a gigantic disaster from an economic perspective.

Anita Kellogg: So the critics were

Ryan Kellogg: 100 percent right. Yeah, they were 100 percent right. So there's a lot of buyers remorse that's come out of it. You've had a December 2023 poll that came out and only 22 percent of [00:46:30] voters think that leaving the EU has had a positive impact.

63 percent think it's been a large factor that's driving inflation and the cost of living crisis that's currently occurring within the UK. And. 47 percent believe it's had a negative effect on the National Health Service, who is really kind of in crisis right now. I mean, that's probably one of the big issues.

And they're very proud. I mean, I'll never forget the Olympics opening ceremony. You weren't in labor yet, [00:47:00] but maybe like this right before. You were very pregnant with Rebecca. They had a whole segment just celebrating the NHS. So they're very, very proud of their, their universal healthcare and the defense of this system.

And they used it cynically in order to get Brexit passed that, oh, this is gonna thing, this is gonna bring in the money. 400 million. That saves, that was the number that saves the, the NHS. And this is kind of the, the Codi Gras was the fact that Nigel Farage, so the real leader, him and [00:47:30] Boris on that bus.

Bus was pained with the how much money the NHS the 400 million that was gonna be brought in He came out in a BBC interview in May of 2023 basically saying brexit has failed. So just complete total Shitshow complete collapse and this was this was the start of the Western populist movement. So this is how it's going

Anita Kellogg: Yeah, no, I know.

It's it's really sad. I mean a part of me is [00:48:00] like You I was glad that the critics weren't wrong, but it's sad to see this happen to the UK. It

Ryan Kellogg: is really sad because when we When we lived in the Netherlands and we, we traveled to the UK fairly frequently, UK was kind of having a moment. It was like the whole cool Britannia period.

Now, labor had definitely laid the seeds for its own destruction in part by Tony Blair, who's a very loyal ally, and went full on [00:48:30] with W, and supported, you know, The whole, it even came up with a new justification for the war in Iraq. That did not help with, with labor's popularity, but it was more really the economic impact of the Great Recession.

And just the fact that, I mean, labor had been in power for, for a long period of time that ultimately led to Gordon Brown 2010 and leading to the, yeah, the current period where Tories have had this [00:49:00] continuous period within power.

It seems like finally the Tories are going to have to pay the piper, and it's not just around Brexit, I think the other things, you know, reading these articles is kind of unlike the US and Trump are kind of obsessed, you know, with that. And obviously we're still dealing with it 100 percent and will be maybe for the next innumerable years.

They want to move on, you know, even [00:49:30] the people that's the people that supported it definitely don't want to talk about it. You know, they're not proud of this decision anymore. And you're you're seeing that you're seeing that in the polling where again, our two societies mirror. themselves in a lot of ways.

A lot of that support for Brexit came from previous labor voters. So people that were working class, more in the rural areas of England and like Northern England, they switch their votes to vote [00:50:00] for the Tories, even though it's kind of against their economic. I mean, the Tories are the well off, the posh ruling class.

So the fact that they, they made this switch and it was around, you know, it's similar to the white working class here. It's around cultural issues. It's around. Immigrate.

Anita Kellogg: So it's, it's so scary about what was leading Brexit being that anti immigration attitude and you have. Immigration being listed as the number [00:50:30] one issue in the U.

S., I mean, nothing could favor Trump more, and that's kind of scary, that

Ryan Kellogg: similarity. Yeah, it's very similar dynamic. I think what's interesting here, and the reason the Tories are being punished is because they're the ones holding the bag, the same reason Biden's holding the bag. There was extraordinary inflation, much higher than what the U.

S. has experienced. They're the government in charge during a period of extraordinary inflation, extraordinary [00:51:00] increase in energy prices because of the Ukraine war. And all of this, you know, has made them very, very unpopular. And because they've been in the sole ones in power, they're the ones going to get the full amount of blame heading forward.

So a lot of it is tied to that as much as like the failure of Brexit. Obviously, they've weathered all of this impact, the COVID and the Ukraine war, much worse than they were if they had been part of the EU. Right. So [00:51:30] they definitely still, they've just made it kind of even more worse, but they're going to get this full amount of blame.

And. It'll be interesting to see what happens. I think especially you may end up seeing with this election in October, polar opposite results where the UK shifts to the left. Again, and punishment of just being the bag holder and then similar if Biden loses because he's a bag holder because he got the hot potato of covid [00:52:00] and this inflationary environment and is going to be blamed for it and then you'll see them switch, switch a lot.

So he may be. You may be switching places here. I'm depressed. Are you depressed now?

Anita Kellogg: Every time we talk about a Trump presidency, I'm definitely depressed.

Ryan Kellogg: But, I know, I'll close out with, you know, so they have this election, likely coming up in October. Labor, I think the reason also that the Tories have been able to get away with less things.

Yeah, Labor's been a mess. Competent, yes. They're an absolute [00:52:30] mess. Are they better now? I'm assuming. Yeah, I would say they are much better. I don't know if this is the right guy for the changes that need to be made, but so the head of labor is now Sir Keir Starmer, and he's very much described in the Economist article that I read as a pragmatist and a technocrat.

So, Pretty boring guy focused more on just getting stuff done. Yeah. And being, not having like radical changes, like Jeremy Corbyn. Yeah. [00:53:00] Who wanted to nationalize the industry. I mean, yeah, the Republicans call everybody socialists. The Stu's legit. Yeah. Because to be a socialist, you have to be willing to seize private assets and make them state owned.

That's the definition of socialism. There are no socialists in the United States in positions of power. Thank you. Yeah. For the PSA. We just want to, yeah, I mean, I just want to get that. Get that out there of what the definition is. Jeremy Corbyn, [00:53:30] legitimate socialist, got destroyed by goofball Boris Johnson.

So that tells you, I mean, labor a mess. So they have somebody serious. They're riding with 20 percent lead in polls. They're likely going to have the biggest majority since Tony Blair in 1997. It is going to be what, what do they do with that? And I think eventually going back around to Brexit that they're going to, I think it's going to be a gradual process, but they're going to begin to talk about what can we do to re enter.

Really? [00:54:00] Yeah. I think that's because I don't think immediately, but I think, I think it's going to be pushing in that direction. Cause again, the other thing that they are concerned about. Uh, as recently as a year or two ago is the complete breakdown of United Kingdom. So the loss of Scotland, the loss of Wales, the ways to keep them on board because they're very pro EU is to push towards, yeah, yeah, yeah, they're pro EU as well.

Welsh exits far less, [00:54:30] but Scottish exit is always a good, good chance. Oil revenues aren't quite where they're at, so they may not feel as confident going independent on their own. But. But yeah, nevertheless, I think it would make a lot of sense to consolidate kind of those coalition because they've lost a lot of votes in those two regions over the years as well more towards like the Scottish National Party and things like that because they don't like how how Blair and kind of the new Labour Party government.

[00:55:00] So, so I think Talking back with the EU bringing that back as a potential, maybe not in the near term, but at some point having another referendum to, to push forward to rejoin the EU under not very favorable terms compared to what Thatcher negotiated. Would the

Anita Kellogg: EU let Britain

Ryan Kellogg: back in? I think they would.

I think polls have shown that they would let the UK back in, but it's still not clear. It's not going to be any favorable because they got a sweetheart deal. That was the thing. They got a very good [00:55:30] deal when they joined the EU in the first place. And they gave all of that up. And they also had extraordinary influence.

So something I didn't mention, but the U. S. didn't necessarily deal directly a lot with the EU. It depended on its partner. It's good. Yeah. Our special relationship with the UK and the fact the UK had outweighed it just much. The way that was structured, the size of the UK economy, its contribution to the military.

It had an outside voice within the EU, so they were kind of our proxy [00:56:00] within the EU. But now that that's gone, and then with Ukraine situation, we've taken a much more direct view, and we don't really need the UK to be a conduit into the EU anymore. Yeah,

Anita Kellogg: exactly. Exactly. Exactly. So. Thank you for that update.

And the one good thing is that London is less expensive for Americans.

Ryan Kellogg: Oh, yeah. Yeah, that exchange rate, we didn't catch it at like, it was nearly proxy, you know, it was 1 to [00:56:30] one pound, which is just extraordinary, but still pretty good. Yeah.

Anita Kellogg: Versus the like,

Ryan Kellogg: two to one. Two to one, we went, yeah. Yeah.

Anita Kellogg: So we go to Poland.

So in October of 2023, there were Polish parliamentary elections that saw the end of the 10 year rule of the Law and Justice Party. So the Law and Justice Party was first elected in 2014 using a combination of social welfare for the working class, conservative social policies. [00:57:00] So provided a child subsidy program to low income households, large tax cut to businesses, and Creation of a moral panic around Muslim immigrants and the advance of LGBT rights within the EU.

So, it was benefiting from a wide support of opposition against the EU mandatory relocation scheme for Muslim migrants following the Syrian civil war. Benefited from the majority opposition to same sex marriage and adoption rights. At some point, I don't think I have a [00:57:30] year in the notes, but banned abortion completely, consolidated its power in several ways, clearing the, much of the existing courts, bureaucracy, state owned firms, and public media to appoint loyalists to all those positions, passed a law to ban people from assuming public office for 10 years.

which was later removed after popular protest and wide EU condemnation, and undermined an independent judiciary based on EU [00:58:00] review including 4 Supreme Court justices into early retirement, dismissal of court presidents and prosecutors, and appointed thousands of loyalist judges. And as. You must have said a million times how important the court system is to preserving a liberal democracy.

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, and that's, that's really what they, because when the Law and Justice Party came to power, it, because from 1989, so from the end of, of [00:58:30] communist rule of Poland, It had been governed by basically kind of of centrist or center left parties, and there was still quite a bit of corruption, you know, within the government.

So a lot of what the law and justice party road was kind of this anti corruption campaign as well. And. The other issue was, yeah, around migration. So this is right around the time of the Syrian civil war. [00:59:00] This is when you had huge migrant populations coming in. And because it was kind of interesting reading, you know, just kind of how EU law sits sometimes above.

So supersedes, because that's part of being part of the EU is that in certain treaty agreements, that That supranational law supersedes national law, where it needs to align with essentially what the EU has agreed to, and that was kind of what you mentioned on [00:59:30] the, the, what was it, the EU?

Anita Kellogg: Migration

Ryan Kellogg: plan.

Yeah, the migration plan. So mandatory relocation. It was this idea of like the help of the Syrian refugee crisis that every country needed to take like a certain quota. And you had certain countries, which later paid kind of political prices, like Germany. Or Sweden, you know, had to adopt like a certain percentage, and there was basically kind of a backlash against that, and I can't remember if this [01:00:00] is, I think it was probably in thread of this, and then the law and justice parties like, no, we're not, we're not doing this, and that's part of the reason why they were popular for so long, was because, you know, one, they addressed the migration issue, you know, Wish they had kind of disagreements one.

Two, they were seen when they were throwing out all these people offices, they always framed it as corruption. That's like, Oh, we've, we're, we're, we're cleaning house. That's like, yeah, everybody does. That's what China does too. I mean, [01:00:30] when you want a clean house, you just say, yes, it's corruption. And then the part where they layer on unlike right wing.

Sort of populism is they layered on and addressed real material needs around social welfare because that was the thing it was Poland was governed by center left Coalition, but, you know, it's primarily in the interest of the elites, you know, business owners and things like that. So you didn't have a very good support system.

It was always being promised. Well, law and justice actually [01:01:00] delivered on some of these. So they, they were very popular also for, for that reason as well. There's this child subsidies in terms of like. Why they got in power in the first place.

Anita Kellogg: Yeah, so I think kind of where I was ending though I think is important.

When I say flirtation with authoritarianism, I think the courts really Our key to understanding what I mean by that, so like you were saying, I mean, clearing by saying corruption, you know, [01:01:30] not just the courts, but the state on forums, the public media, that's another thing that was very anti democratic was hurting the, the ability for there to be an independent media.

And so in these ways. You kind of undermine the most important institutions of democracy, the judiciary and the media. And one of the interesting things about the new party, the centrist party that [01:02:00] has been elected in, is the challenge of rolling back some of these changes. So one aspect, in addition to the courts, is the media.

And basically the challenge of making it independent media, they are liquidating the state owned public radio and television broadcasters, but the process of liquidation has not been transparent and there's been no firm commitment to never exercise political influence.

Ryan Kellogg: Right, yeah, [01:02:30] which again is is real key to going back to establishing the best traditions of a liberal democracy of having a independent media wasn't clear like in the articles was I assume I'm assuming just like the U.

S. There's a combination of public and private media. I mean, public media here is real limited. It's like PBS and. Maybe a little bit NPR, although that still depends on mostly donors, not government money. And then, like, Voice of America and very marginal sort of things. I assume Poland [01:03:00] also has a number of private media providers, but I think what was chilling about Law and Justice is it wasn't just that the, you had a state owned media conglomerate that was a propaganda arm of the government.

You also had a council that was controlled by the government that set the Other operators and voices within Poland as well.

Anita Kellogg: Yeah. So basically there was not complete freedom of

Ryan Kellogg: expression. Right. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I think the, the [01:03:30] other thing that was interesting was the fact that the EU and kind of its, its role.

of oversight and the fact that it, it distributes money. I mean, kind of similar to where the federal government will give more money to poor states or developing states within the United States. And you get like a net transfer of federal funds, similar with the EU, but it comes with strings. Like you have to meet certain standards.

So you're already, because of these. anti democratic things, the law and justice party put in place over [01:04:00] its period of rule, you have about 10 billion of frozen funds that the incoming Polish government is trying to unlock. So one of the first steps that they've done is engaging directly with the EU and it's what's called a general affairs council and essentially presenting them an action plan on the steps that new governments Taking kind of around the media reform around judiciary reform and bringing the EU into the [01:04:30] process.

So it's something unlike the United States have where you can go to this third party and say, we, in order to be objective and show that this isn't political in nature, we want you to kind of take a look at these proposed judiciary forms. Because one of the things that is being debated within Poland is.

Kind of similar to what, I mean, right after Trump was elected and you're talking about like expanding the Supreme Court or his appointees weren't legitimate because of the whole [01:05:00] Maryland Garland thing, so they're unconstitutional. Let's get rid of them. Well, Poland was talking the same thing, saying every single justice that was put in this equivalent of their Supreme Court was illegitimate.

So let's just clear the bench and put in our own people. But then. That obviously just is like you're behaving just like the law and justice party. They have to stay within the framework of the constitution. But one,

Anita Kellogg: yeah, it makes it then hard to pass more reforms. If you have a court [01:05:30] that's filled with.

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, yeah, but that's the, that's the brilliant of bringing in the EU, because then you can say, well, the EU independently reviewed this and said, this guy, this guy, this guy was like unconstitutional. So, hey, it's not, we're not doing this politically. This is what the EU said. This is the third party coming in and saying, but it takes a much longer time.

It's not, you can't just go, you know, EU will take like two years. Yeah. Review it and do a very thorough and [01:06:00] produce like a thousand page report. And then its conclusion will be, yeah, these, these were appointed unconstitutional and you're fully legitimate under our provisions and to get this 10 billion, get rid of these guys.

And then they have the cover. I think that's brilliant. That's like a real way to rehabilitate both Poland and Hungary. Yeah. Because you have this third party. Which, you know, I mean, what the populist side's gonna argue is that, yeah, it's filled with a bunch of libs that, of course, it's gonna rule [01:06:30] in favor of, of you guys, this isn't, this is still political in nature, this isn't some, like, and that part's true to an extent, but I like that it provides When you're going in, the other side is deeply embedded and still has a lot of power because it still controls the judicial system.

How do you do that without looking overly political and staying within, like, an accepted legal framework? Well, you can just punt it to the EU. I mean, no other group of nations kind of has [01:07:00] that. You know, somebody else you can turn to to make decisions. Yeah.

Anita Kellogg: No, that's good. That's I didn't know that that process existed.

And that makes a lot of sense. So yeah, that that is kind of brilliant on their part. And it just takes a long time to be able to say like, Oh, when EU countries, that they can have some say in bringing democracy back on

Ryan Kellogg: track as long as The majority of the constituent countries making up support [01:07:30] those values and that's kind of law and justice then looks at, hey, look, Italy just elected far right.

Hey, Netherlands, which I need to check to see if they actually formed a government, but they just elected a far right. Portugal's going that way. Slovakia, I think Slovakia went that way. So they're like, we just need to buy our time and then you can corrupt them. The EU from within and then you don't have this.

Anita Kellogg: Yeah. Yeah, that's

Ryan Kellogg: right everything. Yeah, but in the meantime [01:08:00] I think it's a brilliant path out that only something like the EU could offer. Yeah,

Anita Kellogg: that's really interesting

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, I thought it was and then comes with the paycheck too comes with the 10 billion funds that you can say Hey, this is really this is in the interest of our country.

You know, we unlock these additional funds if we

Anita Kellogg: And especially if you use them in a social welfare sort of way I mean, it depends

Ryan Kellogg: on how you use that. Yeah. Yeah. Address the underlying economic reasons on why law and justice [01:08:30] came to power in the first place. Yeah. So,

Anita Kellogg: I think what's happening in Poland is, is very hopeful considering how many countries have elected far right politicians.

Parties who may be on a similar track of kind of weakening democratic institutions and to show that you can, you know, come back and restrengthen those institutions and restore a more complete democracy. I mean, they're still in the process of doing that, but hopeful that they can do that. [01:09:00]

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, it's going to be a real test case.

Yeah. Yep. I mean, Hungary would be far more challenging, I think, if you're ever able to kind of unwrap because the thing with Poland that stood out too was, even though they have these very deep disagreements, obviously, on how to govern internally, they were unified. against Russia, and that's actually probably forced Russia were forced the incoming administration to be more hard line towards Russia because that was [01:09:30] another reason that long justice came to power originally is because they were very anti German and they were anti German, not only for historic reasons, but also because they Germany was cozying up to Russia.

And that was the right call. I mean, this is one thing. Well, just this did do well for Poland, but the current obviously politically everybody's aligned on being anti Russia. Yeah. Yeah. Good luck,

Anita Kellogg: Poland. Yeah. We're rooting for you for sure. So is that a show? I think that's a show. [01:10:00] Well, this brings us to the end of this episode of Kellogg's Global Politics.

You can visit our website at www. kelloggsglobalpolitics. com and follow us on Twitter, now known as X, at Global Kellogg or me, AR

Ryan Kellogg: Kellogg. And you can reach us by email, so anita at kelloggsglobalpolitics. com and myself, ryan at kelloggsglobalpolitics. com. As always, please see the show notes for all the articles we discussed in the episode.

If you like this show, please take time to tell your friends and share it [01:10:30] on your social sites. It's a simple, quick, and free way to support the show. Thanks

Anita Kellogg: everyone.

Ryan Kellogg: Thanks. Bye.