This week, editors Peter Suderman, Katherine Mangu-Ward, Nick Gillespie, and Matt Welch discuss the riots engulfing France and whether the country's increasingly unsustainable welfare state has made it ungovernable. They examine competing claims that immigration and austerity are fueling the unrest, the political gains being made by the French right, and why even modest pension reforms provoke fierce resistance.

The conversation turns to the United States, where President Donald Trump's tariffs are losing support among blue-collar voters and Republicans are struggling in traditionally conservative areas like Ohio. The panelists then discuss the abrupt departure of White House press secretary Katie Zacharia after just five days on the job. Later, they examine Sen. Elizabeth Warren's (D–Mass.) opposition to a proposed $45 billion merger involving McCormick and Unilever. Finally, a listener asks why libertarians don't follow the Democratic Socialists of America's example by trying to reshape the Republican Party from within.

0:00—France's riots and the imploding welfare state
21:29—Trump's tariffs lose support among blue-collar voters.
29:41—Zacharia's tenure as White House press secretary
35:45—Listener question on libertarian influence strategy
45:52—Warren's corporate merger opposition
57:07—Weekly cultural recommendations

Upcoming Reason Events

Reason Versus - Authoritarianism Is a Right-Wing Problem, November 10

Mentioned in the Podcast:

"France Burns," by Liz Wolfe
"Protesters in France and Spain Are Angry at Government Failure—and Demanding More Government," by Reem Ibrahim
"French Tantrum," by Liz Wolfe
"Yes, Heavy Regulation Hurts the Economy. Just Look at France." by Veronique de Rugy
"Even Blue-Collar Workers Have Turned Against Trump's Unpopular Tariffs," by Eric Boehm
"Ohio's Democrat Momentum," by Liz Wolfe
"Trump Fired Kimberly Guilfoyle for Influence Peddling That Pales Next to His Presidential Profiteering," by Jacob Sullum
"Why populism leads to decline," by Nick Gillespie
"How Third Parties Die," by Jesse Walker
"How GOP Fiscal Sanity Died, in 7 Easy Steps," by Matt Welch
"Be Prepared for Elizabeth Warren's Reign of Economic Error," by Nick Gillespie
"Elizabeth Warren Wants the Government To Investigate America's 'Sandwich Shop Monopoly,'" by Christian Britschgi
"The Elizabeth Holmes Documentary You Can See Everything Is an Act of Radical Empathy," by Peter Suderman
"Thank Dutch Merchants, Not a Strong State, for Capitalism," by Edward Stringham

Today's sponsor:

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The post France's Welfare State Is Finally Imploding appeared first on Reason Magazine.

Europe's political class loves democracy – right up until voters choose the wrong people. From Sweden to Germany and Britain, Steven Tucker says the establishment has found plenty of ways to keep the public in its place.

The post Democracy Dies in Fakeness: False Elections All Across Europe appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

The most consequential changes in a democracy do not always arrive with a constitutional crisis. Rather, they come through appointments, legal amendments and seemingly ordinary political bargains, accumulating one after another until the political system begins to look different from the one that came before. That is the real value of the “boiling frog” metaphor. […]

The post The slow boiling of Indonesian democracy appeared first on Asia Times.

Ever been called 'far Right' for wanting low taxes, free speech and controlled immigration? You're in good company: JFK wanted much the same. The label is ludicrous – and the elites know it, says Dr James Allan.

The post If I’m Far Right, then so Was John F. Kennedy appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

Daniel Shailer embeds with the tiny separatist group “Shetland First,” whose members believe the Shetland Islands were never legitimately ceded to Scotland. Its 83‑year‑old leader, Stuart Hill—shipwreck survivor, serial litigant, self‑proclaimed weather‑controller—is such a compelling eccentric that Shailer ends up as absorbed in Hill’s own story as in the broader currents of populism on these remote isles.

Previously, Hill has focused on relatively esoteric points of history and legalese. Now, on the advice of his chief campaign advisor, ChatGPT, he is meeting people where they are: should council tax go up while official salaries get bumped? Is it fair to live in fuel poverty at the footsteps of Britain’s largest onshore wind farm?

‘There are all these injustices, and once you read the history, you can see a basic injustice,’ Hill says. ‘Everybody seems to be kind of comfortable with it, but at the same time there’s a basic undercurrent of dissatisfaction.’