Robert Scheer: Americans Shouldn’t Settle for Candidates ‘Who Have Created This Tremendous Mess’

In a recent interview on The Real News Network, Truthdig Editor in Chief Robert Scheer sat down with Paul Jay, senior editor of The Real News Network, to discuss the current election and the future of the American democratic system. The interview begins with Scheer talking about the Republican National Convention and neofascist rhetoric. “You don’t get fascist movements taking over, rising to power, without people being in pain,” Scheer says. “And we have a situation now in the United States that is increasingly resembling a kind of post-Weimar Germany.”

Jay then brings the conversation around to new movements like Black Lives Matter and Occupy Wall Street, which Scheer says save “a reasonable established order” by forcing those in power to respond to the needs of the people. “It’s only when the established order is failing to respond to the real needs of people that you get madness and chaos, and that’s what I think you’re hearing at the Republican convention.”

The two also discuss the United States’ militaristic foreign policy and Americans’ xenophobia against Muslims in this country. The rest of the interview focuses on next week’s Democratic National Convention — mainly, the party’s faults and the position of third-party candidates.

“There’s a lot of contradictions,” Scheer says of the Democratic Party before addressing concerns about a third-party candidate, such as Jill Stein of the Green Party, splitting the liberal vote. “You cannot blame people who take a principled position and find an audience to support them,” Scheer contends. “And if Jill Stein can do that, that’s a victory for democracy, and I’m all with her on that.”

Watch the full interview below:

—Posted by Emma Niles