Noam Chomsky has been one the world's most trenchant intellectuals over the last fifty years. Many questions were raised in this interview but it can be summed up in a few sentences. Chomsky believes that we are at greater risk from nuclear warfare than we have been since the cold war. We hear a lot about the risk from North Korea but Chomsky is more concerned about the US modernization of it's nuclear capabilities. It threatens other nations with nuclear weapons who might be worried about being the target of a surprise attack. They might be motivated to strike first. The other catastrophe that concerns him is global warming. The danger is very real but the Republican Party has sided with the fossil fuel industry in resisting government efforts to participate in limiting its impact on our future.
He had nothing to add about Donald Trump that we do not already know. His major concern about Trump is that his policies will be dictated by the corrupt political party which he nominally leads. He has taken anti-intellectualism to a new level but his war against science and reason is consistent with Republicanism and much of its base. He regards Bernie Sanders as the most popular politician in America at this moment. His campaign, which was essentially New Dealism, demonstrated that a popular campaign can be conducted without reliance on funding from the usual suspects. The Democratic Part lost its working class base during the Clinton and Obama administrations according the Chomsky. It seems to him more like what the Republican Party was before it moved to the far right. Both parties have been captured by neo-liberal ideology.
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