This is GPS, the Global Public Square. Welcome to all of you in the United States and

around the world. I'm Farid Zakaria.

Today on the show, Bob Woodward, the Trump administration, and fear. How does the Trump

White House compare to the eight others he has written about? What is the quote, big

problem Trump's top aides talk about constantly? And why do so many people tell Bob Woodward

so much? Also, it's 10 years since the collapse of Lehman Brothers. Since the financial

meltdown we haven't had a crisis or a crash. Are we overdued for one? And more importantly,

are we ready for it? I'll bring you the troubling truth. And Pope Francis, the Vatican,

child sex abuse. Can the church heal? Can it survive as is? I'll talk to the New York

Times's Ross Douth Act, who has a new book out on Pope Francis.

But first, here's my take. For several years now, scholars have argued that the world is

experiencing a democratic recession. They also know the general hollowing out of democracy

in the advanced industrial world. When we think about this problem inevitably, rightly,

we worry about Donald Trump. His attacks on judges, the free press, his own justice department,

but there is also a worrying erosion of a core democratic norm taking place on the left.

It has become commonplace now to hear cries on the left to deny controversial figures

on the right a platform to express their views. Colleges have disinvited conservative

speakers like Condoleezza Rice and Charles Murray. Other campuses were unwilling or unable

to allow conservative speakers to actually speak with protests overwhelming the events.

A similar controversy now involves Steve Bannon, who in recent months has been making

the rounds on the airwaves and in print, including an interview I did with him on CNN.

Some have claimed that Bannon, since leaving the administration, is simply unimportant, irrelevant,

...