#32 Dr Stephen Davies - The Great Realignment: Why the New Right is Here to Stay

Politics over the last 10 years has felt for many people like a continuous experience of jarring dissonance. Not for Dr Steve Davies who is an accomplished historian and political theorist. His latest book “The Great Realignment: Why the New Right is Here to Stay” has the best explanation I’ve come across for why our map for understanding the public landscape is outdated. Politics has always been binary with voters aligning around a small number of salient issues. Alliances form around these issues but after a period, voters’ concerns change. Steve argues that realignments have been a regular feature across history and his book allows us to better understand and prepare for what is to come.  Reasons for the current re-alignment range from deranged monetary policy, economic stasis, a lack of genuine innovation as outlined by Peter Thiel in Zero to One, and aggressive rent-seeking. The consequences include a revival of nativism, isolationism and producerism (make stuff at home rather than import said stuff). In his words:“what you have, and you could see this very clearly at the moment, is an economy in which the main way to become rich is not to generate profit and with that wages, but to capture rent.” Steve brought a range of historical justifications to the conversation from his book including the Roman Empire, China, Bismark, the French Revolution, Marx, and of course Henry George! We finish with what this means for the future in terms of voting patterns, shifting alliances and policy. It was a privilege to tap into Steve’s mind which provided accessible insights from decades of research, thinking, and experience. His book “The Great Realignment: Why the New Right is Here to Stay” is available online and in all good bookshops.This podcast was produced by Matt Cooper with music composed by Loverman.