In the second part of our three part interview, Thomson Reuters Digital Editor Chrystia Freeland spoke with us about the 2012 election and Mitt Romney's 47% comments. Freeland looks at the election as a "referendum on income inequality and on how capitalism is working today in America." In comparing Governor Romney and President Obama's message, Freeland was surprised at how strongly President Obama pushed a populist agenda, one that she saw as "quite radical," and the fact that a majority of Americans bought it.
On Mitt Romney's 47% comments, Freeland explained that the plutocrats notion of "I did it myself, I built it myself," is a dominant belief. Freeland thinks this notion inevitably produces a clash between plutocracy and democracy.