John Judis at the Center for American Progress

Join the Center for American Progress for a mid-morning discussion with John B. Judis, author of The Populist Explosion: How the Great Recession Transformed American and European Politics. Coffee and a light breakfast will be served.

In the United States, two populist candidates—Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump—have taken on their party’s establishment. Something similar has been going on in Europe for over a decade. How did the Great Recession help reawaken such a disparate but powerful framework of political appeal on both sides of the Atlantic? Populism is on its biggest run since the Second World War, in the United States (Tea Party, Occupy Wall Street, Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump); France (National Front); Britain (United Kingdom Independence Party); Finland (Finns Party); Denmark (People’s Party) and more on the right; Spain (Podemus), Italy (Five Star Movement), Greece (Syriza) and others on the left. These movements and candidates are an early warning sign of the breakup of the political consensus that has reigned in the U.S. and Europe since the 1980s. How did the Great Recession help reawaken such a disparate but powerful framework of political appeal all across the Atlantic? Judis, a veteran political reporter, offers a coherent big picture of how we got here that every reader of politics no matter their party affiliation will need to read.