From KCRW in Santa Monica and PRI, Public Radio International, this is To the Point.

Is populism a threat to democracy?

Hello again, I'm Orinolny, and this is To the Point.

In the aftermath of the Cold War, the consensus of Western politics was that more countries would

evolve into liberal democracies and stay that way. The European Union was seen as the model.

But this week, Italy's centrist prime minister was driven from office, hard on the heels of Brexit.

There's right-wing nationalism in France and Germany, and Donald Trump won by directly assaulting America's

political establishment. We'll look at evidence that liberal democracies aren't as stable as they

once were cracked up to be. On our talking point later, fake news, real guns, and tweets by a powerful

aid to the incoming president, Donald Trump.

First, here's the news.

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Program Fund. Hello again, we're on. I'll only back with To the Point. First, there was Brexit. Now Italy's

political instability is threatening the European Union. Liberal democracies are under siege in other parts

of the world. What's the relationship to Donald Trump's victory over America's political establishment? On our talking point later, a Washington Pizza

Restaurant was fired on after fake news reports that had housed a child abuse ring associated

with Hillary Clinton. That has renewed attention to the Twitter habits of a top Trump

advisor. First of its news update. The Washington Post

reports that the Pentagon buried an internal study documenting no less than $125 billion in

...