In this third episode of Across the Pond, presenters Verena Kahl and Dan Krause welcome former White House advisor Fiona Hill and heartland economy expert John Austin to explore what Trump’s second term means for democracy, freedom, and society on both sides of the Atlantic.
Together, they look past polite diplomacy to talk about:
- What “the West” still means today – if anything,
- Trump’s impact on US democracy,
- Why the industrial heartlands decide democracy’s future, and
- How growing diversity is reshaping transatlantic identity.
Key Topics in this Episode:
- Is “the West” Broken?: Why the post-war idea of the West as an alliance of shared values is unraveling – and why a narrow, civilizational version of it is no answer.
- Bridges Below Washington: Why US states, cities, and regions – from the 13 states bordering Canada to climate partners like Baden-Württemberg – may be where transatlantic cooperation survives.
- Turning Back the Clock: How the Trump administration is trying to roll back rights won since the 1960s – and why unlikely activists, from rural Idaho to Minneapolis, are pushing back.
- Hope for the Heartlands: Why bringing economic opportunity to left-behind industrial regions is the best defense against populism – and why diversity is a strength, not a threat.
- The Transatlantic Treasures: A coal miner’s lamp from County Durham and a statue of Bill Clinton in Kosovo – two surprising objects that reveal what self-organization and US-America’s example once meant to people.
If democracy can’t be saved from the top down, who will forge the transatlantic partnership anew – and what can Europe and the US build together, city by city and state by state?
Meet the Guests & Hosts
- Fiona Hill is a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and Chancellor of Durham University. A former Senior Director for European and Russian Affairs on the U.S. National Security Council, she is the author of the bestselling memoir There Is Nothing for You Here.
- John Austin is a Senior Fellow with the Eisenhower Institute at Gettysburg College and a non-resident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. He created the Transatlantic Heartlands Transformation Network, which connects more than 800 changemakers from 30+ countries to bring economic opportunity and democratic renewal to left-behind places.
- Dan Krause is the Program Director for Europe and International Politics at the Bundeskanzler-Helmut-Schmidt-Stiftung (BKHS) in Hamburg.
- Verena Kahl is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Hamburg specializing in international law, human rights, and climate justice.
Resources & Shownotes
- Project Context: Learn more about the underlying initiative on the official FOTAR 2026 Project Page.
- Book: Read Fiona Hill’s book There Is Nothing for You Here: Finding Opportunity in the Twenty-First Century, her bestselling 2021 memoir tracing her path from a coal-mining town in North East England to the White House – and a powerful warning about how vanishing opportunity in left-behind regions fuels populism and threatens democracy on both sides of the Atlantic.
- Book Alert: Keep an eye out for Fiona Hill’s upcoming book “Resilience!”, which offers a crucial blueprint for strengthening democratic societies against shifting global threats and will be published in fall 2027.
- Work on the Ground: Learn more about the important work done by the Heartlands Transformation Network which connects efforts on both sides of the Atlantic to bridge geographic economic divides and reconnect residents of rural and former industrial heartland communities to economic opportunity.
- Interview: Read John Austin’s call for Germany to step up as a leader of the democratic world – and why he believes a new economic alliance of democracies must now move forward without Washington, published by the Academy of International Affairs NRW.
- Further Reading: Dive into how demographic change is reshaping the US – and why growth has always been driven by migration – with William Frey’s Diversity Explosion.
- Critical Take: Is it really all about the economy? In Cultural Backlash: Trump, Brexit, and Authoritarian Populism, Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart argue that populism is driven not just by economic decline but also by a generational backlash against socially liberal values – a thought-provoking complement to the heartlands thesis.
- Deep Dive Case Study: See how cooperation below the federal level works in practice via the Under2 Coalition, the climate alliance co-founded in 2015 by California and Baden-Württemberg that today unites hundreds of states, regions, and cities worldwide.