Does democracy have the flu -- or cancer?

A conversation with Rory Stewart, a British writer, scholar, and diplomat who tried his hand at electoral politics in the age of populism and emerged with...thoughts

Rory Stewart has been many things: a soldier, a writer, a diplomat, a professor, among them. And in 2009, he decided to add to the list: He moved home to Britain, leaving his prestigious teaching post at Harvard, to run for Parliament as a Conservative.

Now he is out with a memoir about his misbegotten foray into British politics in the age of Brexit and…