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Episode 67: The Great American Crack-Up · Political Junkie Podcast

0:03
SPEAKER_01: Back in 2016,
0:04
SPEAKER_01: like about a million other fans,
0:06
SPEAKER_01: I was listening obsessively to Lin-Manuel Miranda's Broadway show,
0:10
SPEAKER_01: Hamilton,
0:11
SPEAKER_01: the Musical.
0:12
Unlike a lot of stage door johnnies,
0:15
I'm a historian of the United States.
0:17
SPEAKER_01: So when my friend and colleague,
0:19
SPEAKER_01: Renee Romano,
0:20
called to suggest we edit a collection of articles that would
0:23
help teachers,
0:24
SPEAKER_01: students,
0:24
SPEAKER_01: and Hamilton fanatics think critically about the show,
0:27
SPEAKER_01: I jumped at the chance.
0:30
SPEAKER_01: The result of René's brainstorm was Historians on Hamilton,
0:33
SPEAKER_01: how a blockbuster musical is restaging America's past.
0:37
SPEAKER_01: The Hamilton story was compelling,
0:39
SPEAKER_01: at least in part,
0:40
SPEAKER_01: because it spoke to the optimism of Barack Obama's presidency.
0:44
SPEAKER_01: For example,
0:45
SPEAKER_01: Hamilton and his pal,
0:47
SPEAKER_01: the Marquis de Lafayette,
0:49
SPEAKER_01: were portrayed as ambitious immigrants,
0:51
SPEAKER_01: even though neither was really an immigrant.
0:54
SPEAKER_01: But never mind.
0:56
SPEAKER_01: After an openly racist Republican,
0:58
SPEAKER_01: Donald Trump,
0:59
SPEAKER_01: was elected president in November 2016,
1:01
SPEAKER_01: the line,
1:03
SPEAKER_01: Immigrants,
1:03
SPEAKER_01: we get things done,
1:05
would incite a cheerfully partisan New York audience to leap to
1:09
its feet in
1:09
SPEAKER_01: show-stopping applause.
1:12
SPEAKER_01: But that moment was also a symptom of a deeply divided country.
1:17
SPEAKER_01: Trump and his allies excoriated liberals,
1:19
SPEAKER_01: women,
1:20
SPEAKER_01: foreign nationals,
1:21
SPEAKER_01: people of color,
1:22
SPEAKER_01: and even Republicans who balked at extremism.
1:26
We see the distant origins of that partisanship in cabinet
1:30
battle number one,
1:31
when Hamilton,
1:32
SPEAKER_01: now President George Washington's Secretary of the Treasury,
1:36
SPEAKER_01: has to learn to make deals rather than force others to his will.
1:40
SPEAKER_01: At the end of the song,
1:42
Hamilton explodes while Thomas Jefferson and James Madison
1:46
taunt him with his
1:47
SPEAKER_01: inability to move legislation without their help.
2:07
SPEAKER_01: Figure it out, Alexander, Washington snaps.
2:10
Miranda portrays,
2:11
however imperfectly in some historians' minds,
2:14
an important transition.
2:16
SPEAKER_01: The Founding Fathers,
2:17
having originally seen political parties as a source of
2:20
dangerous factionalism,
2:21
SPEAKER_01: changed their minds.
2:23
Governing required that partisanship be disciplined and
2:26
contained in political
2:28
SPEAKER_01: parties willing to negotiate with each other.
2:31
SPEAKER_01: This isn't a progress narrative, listeners.
2:33
Those negotiations bargained away the rights of many Americans
2:36
for centuries,
2:37
SPEAKER_01: and they have also worked to restore those rights.
2:40
SPEAKER_01: But a funny thing happened on the way to the 21st century.
2:44
SPEAKER_01: One party,
2:44
SPEAKER_01: the GOP,
2:46
began to toy with breaking the norms that had emerged over two
2:49
centuries in both parties.
2:51
SPEAKER_01: In 1964,
2:53
Arizona Senator and presidential candidate Barry Goldwater
2:56
openly mused about using
2:58
SPEAKER_01: nuclear weapons in Southeast Asia.
3:00
President Richard Nixon was found to have used the tools of
3:03
government to cover up
3:04
SPEAKER_01: his own crimes and punish his political opponents.
3:08
SPEAKER_01: And in 1995,
3:10
SPEAKER_01: Newton Leroy Gingrich,
3:12
SPEAKER_01: a congressman from Georgia,
3:14
SPEAKER_01: steered House Republicans to a majority and seized the speaker's gavel.
3:18
SPEAKER_01: For three hair-raising years,
3:20
Gingrich spoke about liberal policies in extreme and often
3:24
inaccurate terms.
3:26
SPEAKER_01: used government shutdowns to force spending and tax cuts,
3:29
and presided over an impeachment inquiry against President Bill
3:32
Clinton for lying
3:34
SPEAKER_01: about a sexual relationship with then-White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
3:38
In one exchange between Massachusetts Democrat Barney Frank and
3:42
Republican
3:43
SPEAKER_01: committee chair Henry Hyde,
3:45
Frank accused Hyde of masking a partisan attack on Clinton by
3:49
pretending the
3:50
SPEAKER_01: committee's work was merely procedural.
3:52
SPEAKER_01: Hyde responded that because only a bipartisan Senate could convict,
3:57
SPEAKER_01: an impeachment could never be truly partisan.
4:00
SPEAKER_00: Yes,
4:00
SPEAKER_00: it is true that as a consequence of this,
4:02
SPEAKER_00: the president will not be instantly thrown out of office.
4:05
SPEAKER_00: It is also true that
4:06
SPEAKER_00: that the only justification and basis for this proceeding,
4:09
SPEAKER_00: and the only basis on which members can honestly vote for these articles,
4:12
SPEAKER_00: is their conviction that the President ought to be thrown out of office.
4:15
And I think there is a tendency that we have seen over the past
4:18
few months to try
4:19
to lighten up impeachment and to take as profound an instrument
4:24
as can exist in a
4:25
SPEAKER_00: democratic society,
4:26
SPEAKER_00: the cancellation of an election by people not themselves electorate.
4:30
SPEAKER_00: And it has to be there from time to time.
4:32
SPEAKER_00: But to reduce its impact that way, or at least to reduce our part in it,
4:37
That's,
4:37
I think,
4:38
one of the most important philosophical differences between us.
4:40
I hear the gentleman,
4:41
and it is a respectable point of view,
4:43
but I thoroughly disagree with it.
4:45
SPEAKER_02: I think you denigrate the role of the Senate,
4:48
SPEAKER_02: which has the important adjudicatory role to weigh the evidence,
4:53
SPEAKER_02: to study what it wants and agree and disagree.
4:57
And then our founding fathers made it extraordinarily difficult
5:01
to eliminate a
5:02
SPEAKER_02: president from office by requiring a two-thirds vote.
5:06
SPEAKER_02: And that's why I have always said,
5:08
SPEAKER_02: unless this is done bipartisanly,
5:10
SPEAKER_02: and tragically there is no bipartisanship here,
5:14
SPEAKER_02: but I'm hopeful if it gets to the Senate,
5:17
SPEAKER_02: there would be bipartisanship.
5:19
SPEAKER_02: But absent that, there will be no bipartisanship.
5:22
SPEAKER_01: After reading Princeton historian Julian Zelizer's new book,
5:26
SPEAKER_01: In Defense of Partisanship,
5:27
SPEAKER_01: I would say both men were right.
5:30
SPEAKER_01: Yes,
5:31
SPEAKER_01: the attack on Clinton was partisan,
5:33
and the impeachment was one chapter in the GOP's strategy to
5:36
accelerate and harness hyper-partisanship.
5:39
SPEAKER_01: But also,
5:40
SPEAKER_01: yes,
5:41
to Hyde's insistence that effective partisanship ultimately
5:45
required bipartisanship
5:47
SPEAKER_01: to succeed.
5:48
It is perhaps that last truth that explains the modified
5:51
Republican Party's
5:52
SPEAKER_01: determination to govern from the White House in Trump's second term.
5:56
SPEAKER_01: After the 1990s,
5:58
SPEAKER_01: a partisanship that no longer brooks compromise,
6:01
SPEAKER_01: and narrow margins,
6:02
SPEAKER_01: regardless of which party is in the majority,
6:04
SPEAKER_01: produced an increasingly frozen,
6:06
SPEAKER_01: not to mention uncivil,
6:08
SPEAKER_01: Congress.
6:09
SPEAKER_01: Does it have to be this way?
6:11
SPEAKER_01: No,
6:11
SPEAKER_01: Julian argues,
6:12
SPEAKER_01: not if Americans understand that partisanship,
6:15
SPEAKER_01: responsible partisanship,
6:17
SPEAKER_01: is integral to democratic governance,
6:20
SPEAKER_01: not a path to domination.
6:22
SPEAKER_01: Join Julian and me for this episode of Why Now,
6:25
SPEAKER_01: where history and politics meet the challenge of today.
6:27
SPEAKER_01: And I'm your host,
6:28
SPEAKER_01: Claire Potter,
6:29
SPEAKER_01: professor of history emeritus at the New School for Social Research,
6:33
SPEAKER_01: a contributing editor at Public Seminar,
6:35
SPEAKER_01: and the author of The Political Junkie Substack.
6:38
SPEAKER_01: This is episode 67, The Great American Crack-Up.
7:06
SPEAKER_01: Julian Zelizer, welcome to the show.
7:08
SPEAKER_03: Thanks for having me.
7:09
SPEAKER_03: It's nice to be with you.
7:10
SPEAKER_01: Particularly on Inauguration Day,
7:12
SPEAKER_01: which is when we're taping,
7:14
SPEAKER_01: and a terrific day to talk about your new book,
7:17
SPEAKER_01: In Defense of Partisanship,
7:19
SPEAKER_01: which in addition to being really smart and really helpful,
7:22
SPEAKER_01: is also really beautiful.
7:26
Julian,
7:26
I want to talk about the terms that we're going to be using here.
7:31
SPEAKER_01: Partisanship,
7:32
SPEAKER_01: which is obviously in the title,
7:34
SPEAKER_01: and something that I think people often confuse with polarization,
7:40
SPEAKER_01: which is a bad thing.
7:42
SPEAKER_01: But you say partisanship is a good thing.
7:44
SPEAKER_01: So could you talk to our listeners a little bit about that?
7:48
SPEAKER_03: Yeah,
7:48
SPEAKER_03: when I think of partisanship,
7:50
I really think of two strong parties where you have the leaders
7:55
of the parties
7:56
SPEAKER_03: offering alternative understandings of American politics,
8:00
SPEAKER_03: different perspectives on the issues that divide us.
8:04
And they try to organize themselves from the leaders to the
8:07
voters into coherent blocks.
8:10
And ultimately,
8:12
those parties,
8:13
and we've had this system really since the founding,
8:16
SPEAKER_03: are responsible for trying to negotiate,
8:20
SPEAKER_03: debate,
8:21
often fight within legitimate boundaries over the solutions to
8:26
the questions that
8:27
SPEAKER_03: divide us.
8:28
SPEAKER_03: And that is, for me, what strong partisanship is about.
8:33
SPEAKER_03: And again,
8:34
all of that has to take place with an understanding between the
8:38
two political teams,
8:39
SPEAKER_03: so to speak,
8:40
SPEAKER_03: that there are rules to the game.
8:42
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
8:42
And of course,
8:43
breaking the rules has been typical of the last 10 years in
8:47
American politics.
8:48
SPEAKER_01: And as we'll talk about even before that.
8:50
SPEAKER_01: But let's go back to the founding.
8:53
The framers of the Constitution and that first political class
8:57
that comes out of
8:58
SPEAKER_01: that moment actually were not united about partisanship.
9:03
Some of them thought it was a good thing and some of them
9:05
thought it was a bad thing.
9:06
SPEAKER_01: Can you talk to us about that?
9:08
SPEAKER_03: Yeah,
9:08
SPEAKER_03: I mean,
9:09
you can see in the founding debates differing perspectives on
9:13
what they thought of
9:14
SPEAKER_03: as factionalism as opposed to party.
9:17
You had some who were more realistic or perceived that
9:22
divisions in a democracy are
9:24
SPEAKER_03: literally inevitable.
9:25
SPEAKER_03: It's almost the essence of democracy.
9:28
And more famously,
9:29
you had figures like James Madison who feared this so much that
9:34
the
9:34
Part of the goal of developing our Constitution was to create a
9:38
system that would
9:39
SPEAKER_03: prevent this from ever happening,
9:41
that would prevent parties from forming or factions from
9:45
forming and one faction
9:46
SPEAKER_03: being dominant for a long time.
9:48
So what I think of as an anti-party philosophy is there right
9:53
from the beginning,
9:55
SPEAKER_03: even though right from the beginning it proves to be illusory.
9:59
SPEAKER_01: And Madison kind of changed his tune later on, didn't he?
10:02
SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
10:03
SPEAKER_03: I mean, he he becomes part of the formation of a two party system.
10:08
SPEAKER_03: Many people don't like parties are often part of one.
10:10
SPEAKER_03: They just don't like the other party.
10:13
SPEAKER_03: And you can kind of see that from the beginning.
10:15
SPEAKER_03: Part of it's just the realities of politics.
10:18
SPEAKER_03: I also take at face value.
10:20
SPEAKER_03: Someone could have aspirations and learn very quickly.
10:24
SPEAKER_03: That's not the way it's going to work in practice.
10:27
SPEAKER_01: Just out of curiosity,
10:28
SPEAKER_01: because I think listeners would be interested in this,
10:31
the United States is one of the few democracies in the world
10:34
that only has two parties.
10:36
Does partisanship work differently if you have two parties as
10:40
opposed to multiple
10:41
SPEAKER_01: parties that have to make coalition with each other?
10:44
SPEAKER_03: It does.
10:44
SPEAKER_03: I mean, a two-party system, by definition, is a winner-take-all system.
10:50
SPEAKER_03: Generally,
10:50
SPEAKER_03: one party wins,
10:51
SPEAKER_03: the other's out of power,
10:53
as opposed to the parliamentary systems that you see in a
10:56
country such as England,
10:57
SPEAKER_03: for example,
10:59
SPEAKER_03: where the dominant coalition is a coalition.
11:02
And you often have to ally with people you don't like,
11:06
with differing minority voices.
11:08
And so the benefit of the parliamentary system,
11:11
for those who like it,
11:13
is it
11:13
SPEAKER_03: automatically includes a much broader range of views,
11:18
SPEAKER_03: even if many of those views were on the losing end of the competition.
11:21
A two-party system is not totally,
11:24
but more decisive in terms of who has power and who doesn't.
11:28
SPEAKER_01: And,
11:28
SPEAKER_01: you know,
11:29
SPEAKER_01: I just want to inject another bit of language here because you talk about
11:34
SPEAKER_01: partisanship as a good thing and hyper partisanship as not a good thing.
11:39
And we really sort of get the best examples of hyper
11:42
partisanship toward the end of
11:44
SPEAKER_01: the 20th century.
11:46
SPEAKER_01: But let me just ask you,
11:48
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
11:48
SPEAKER_01: the British system of multiple parties,
11:52
SPEAKER_01: actually,
11:53
SPEAKER_01: in Parliament,
11:55
SPEAKER_01: we have seen people openly insulting and mocking each other for years,
11:59
SPEAKER_01: a kind of behavior that only arose more recently in the United States.
12:04
How do we explain the British capacity to move a multi-party
12:10
system forward with
12:12
SPEAKER_01: that rigorous form of debate?
12:15
Well,
12:15
some of it is the structure of politics can often do more than
12:19
the rhetoric of politics.
12:21
And I do think when you have that kind of coalitional structure
12:25
that's forcing one
12:26
SPEAKER_03: party to include the other and you have to give items away,
12:30
SPEAKER_03: essentially,
12:30
SPEAKER_03: to keep them in the fold,
12:33
SPEAKER_03: Whatever you're talking about,
12:34
whatever you're saying about the other doesn't outweigh the
12:39
votes you need to keep
12:40
SPEAKER_03: yourself in power.
12:42
SPEAKER_03: And and I think a parliamentary system,
12:44
SPEAKER_03: by the way,
12:45
SPEAKER_03: which has many flaws,
12:46
SPEAKER_03: it's not as perfect as some people imagine,
12:48
SPEAKER_03: but it does have that virtue.
12:50
SPEAKER_03: I think it mitigates.
12:52
some of the effect of the language you hear if you watch any of
12:56
the debates,
12:56
SPEAKER_03: which can be quite blistering.
12:58
Here in the United States,
13:00
I argue that what we talk about today isn't actually partisanship.
13:04
SPEAKER_03: It's hyper-partisanship within a two-party system.
13:07
So there you have the toxic rhetoric that has become normative,
13:12
kind of anything goes.
13:13
SPEAKER_03: You also combine that with procedural rhetoric.
13:17
SPEAKER_03: partisan warfare where every process, every decision can be weaponized.
13:23
SPEAKER_03: And finally,
13:24
a period of unstable majorities where whoever has power is
13:30
aware that within two
13:31
SPEAKER_03: years they can lose it and the power is often narrow.
13:34
And that's become a brew for something different than we see in
13:38
parliamentary
13:38
SPEAKER_03: system where the structures actually intensify the rhetoric.
13:42
SPEAKER_03: They work with the rhetoric rather than working against it.
13:45
There is a moment in the 19th century in which
13:48
hyper-partisanship rips the nation
13:51
SPEAKER_01: apart over the issue of slavery,
13:54
but also over the issue of whether states can in fact govern
13:58
themselves separately
13:59
SPEAKER_01: from the federal government.
14:00
And of course,
14:01
today people talk about the next civil war or that we're
14:05
actually in a civil war.
14:06
SPEAKER_01: It's just that there's no shooting or at least no organized shooting.
14:09
SPEAKER_01: What happens after the civil war
14:13
in the political parties to try and ensure that that kind of
14:16
hyper partisanship
14:17
SPEAKER_01: doesn't happen again.
14:19
SPEAKER_03: Well,
14:19
SPEAKER_03: most important is the two-party system survives,
14:22
SPEAKER_03: which is kind of remarkable when I was just stepping back.
14:25
SPEAKER_03: It's not inevitable or obvious that after a civil war,
14:29
SPEAKER_03: a brutal civil war,
14:30
SPEAKER_03: this thing will remain in place.
14:33
SPEAKER_03: You do enter into a very partisan period in American politics.
14:36
In the late 19th century,
14:38
the parties actually are post-Reconstruction,
14:42
very divided.
14:43
SPEAKER_03: But the system does two things.
14:45
SPEAKER_03: I do think that's an era...
14:47
where you have leaders still operating in an older mechanism of politics.
14:52
SPEAKER_03: Partly the memory of the Civil War is very real.
14:54
So when you talk about how a Civil War can destroy us,
14:57
it's not theoretical.
14:59
SPEAKER_03: Everyone had lived through it.
15:00
SPEAKER_03: So there's limitations to how that...
15:03
SPEAKER_03: partisan division operates on Capitol Hill,
15:06
especially with leaders respecting traditional processes of
15:10
government and
15:11
SPEAKER_03: containing the worst inner demons that I think can emerge.
15:15
And the second interesting part of that period is voters are
15:18
still very integrated into parties.
15:20
SPEAKER_03: Historians write about how parties were mass phenomena.
15:24
People went to rallies and barbecues and listen to speakers and
15:27
considered parties
15:28
SPEAKER_03: almost a sport,
15:29
SPEAKER_03: but integral part of their identity.
15:32
And some of that shouldn't be romanticized,
15:34
involve a lot of alcohol,
15:35
etc.
15:36
SPEAKER_03: But it was important and you have high rates of voting.
15:39
And so I think some of the partisanship actually is managed
15:43
because you have
15:44
SPEAKER_03: citizen engagement in these institutions.
15:46
SPEAKER_03: And and at some level,
15:48
I think that makes them more stable and kind of integrated into
15:53
governing rather
15:54
SPEAKER_03: than a more destructive version.
15:56
Well,
15:56
and of course,
15:56
after 1877,
15:58
there is a tacit agreement between the parties and
16:01
that for example black people will not vote in the south and
16:05
they don't talk about
16:06
it in that direct way but how is that deal cut very important i
16:11
mean the end of
16:12
reconstruction and the agreement lasts until really the 1950s
16:17
and 60s is a cut
16:19
where the republicans who had been very vigorous after the
16:22
civil war in expanding a
16:24
SPEAKER_03: reconstruction program
16:26
agree to let the states especially in the deep south dismantle
16:30
them and so the
16:31
democrats are free in states like mississippi to put into place
16:36
what will become
16:37
known as jim crow laws that undermine citizenship undermine
16:41
black rights and in
16:44
exchange for that the party is is rebuilt and even as the party
16:48
becomes more
16:48
liberal in the 30s they tend to avoid touching on these kinds
16:52
of questions and
16:53
SPEAKER_03: republicans maintain their power so
16:56
The two-party system until the post-World War II period is
17:00
built on agreement,
17:02
SPEAKER_03: tacit or sometimes explicit,
17:05
that race and the questions raised by the Civil War would not
17:09
be part of the conversation.
17:11
And you actually have a bipartisan alliance formed in the 1930s
17:16
of Southern
17:16
Democrats and Republicans in Congress who make sure that that
17:21
agreement is
17:22
SPEAKER_03: maintained and that it endures.
17:24
SPEAKER_01: Right.
17:24
SPEAKER_01: And of course,
17:24
there's a very powerful caucus of Southerners that emerges in
17:29
the 1920s and 1930s.
17:30
SPEAKER_01: Richard Russell is the sort of informal chair of it.
17:34
SPEAKER_01: But...
17:35
SPEAKER_01: What interested me,
17:36
SPEAKER_01: too,
17:37
SPEAKER_01: and what I loved about this book is that scholars in this sort of newly
17:43
professionalizing disciplines of political science and history
17:47
are weighing in on
17:49
SPEAKER_01: what partisanship should look like.
17:52
And at least one of the scholars,
17:53
and you probably remember who it was,
17:55
and I don't.
17:55
SPEAKER_01: Maybe it was Schatzschneider from Wesleyan.
18:00
SPEAKER_01: He argued that there were four parties.
18:03
SPEAKER_01: There weren't really two parties.
18:05
SPEAKER_01: Can you explain that to our listeners?
18:08
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
18:08
SPEAKER_03: One of the chapters is basically an intellectual history.
18:11
SPEAKER_03: And I realized I was talking the other day.
18:13
SPEAKER_03: I'm now part of it, I guess, although much lesser than the other people.
18:17
But it starts back with Woodrow Wilson when he's a political
18:21
scientist and he
18:22
SPEAKER_03: writes a book,
18:22
SPEAKER_03: Congressional Government.
18:23
And he makes the argument in the 1880s that first he believes
18:28
the parliamentary
18:29
SPEAKER_03: system would be valuable here,
18:31
SPEAKER_03: that we need coherent parties,
18:32
SPEAKER_03: that
18:33
SPEAKER_03: They're not watered down.
18:34
SPEAKER_03: They stand for something.
18:35
SPEAKER_03: They stand for something different than the opposition.
18:38
SPEAKER_03: And they would connect Congress and the presidency.
18:41
SPEAKER_03: And he was frustrated.
18:43
We had a system where all these committees had formed and it
18:46
was fragmented and decentralized.
18:48
SPEAKER_03: Fast forward to 1950.
18:50
The American Political Science Association has a multi-year
18:55
study and they put out
18:56
SPEAKER_03: this big report calling for responsible partisanship,
19:00
which for them meant moving away from this bipartisan cabal on
19:05
Capitol Hill.
19:06
and creating two parties that were more robust,
19:09
centralized,
19:10
and coherent.
19:11
SPEAKER_03: He even proposes,
19:12
SPEAKER_03: or the study actually proposes,
19:14
the creation of an uber council for each party of key
19:18
constituencies that would
19:19
SPEAKER_03: make decisions everyone in the party had to follow.
19:22
SPEAKER_03: They were frustrated that things were so broken.
19:25
SPEAKER_03: And they argued you had four parties, you had
19:28
SPEAKER_03: a presidential Democratic Party,
19:30
SPEAKER_03: a presidential Republican Party,
19:32
and then much more localized and in many ways reactionary
19:37
congressional Democrats
19:38
SPEAKER_03: and congressional Republicans.
19:40
SPEAKER_03: And 10 years later,
19:41
SPEAKER_03: about a guy named James McGregor Burns,
19:44
SPEAKER_03: a political scientist at Williamsville,
19:46
SPEAKER_03: articulate this as well.
19:47
SPEAKER_03: And this whole tradition,
19:48
SPEAKER_03: the argument is that,
19:51
SPEAKER_03: in fact,
19:51
bipartisanship and decentralization is the problem and that
19:56
this country with an
19:57
SPEAKER_03: already
19:57
Every fragmented constitutional design needs the parties to be
20:03
the connective
20:04
SPEAKER_03: tissue between the different branches or nothing will get done.
20:08
SPEAKER_03: We will not be able to solve the problems of our era.
20:11
SPEAKER_01: Well,
20:11
SPEAKER_01: and really,
20:12
and this is something that I'm shocked that I didn't know since
20:15
I wrote my first
20:15
SPEAKER_01: book about the New Deal,
20:16
SPEAKER_01: but it's FDR who says,
20:19
SPEAKER_01: actually,
20:20
we need to move the liberals into the Democratic Party and the
20:23
conservatives into
20:24
SPEAKER_01: the Republican Party.
20:25
And he's really foreshadowing something that's not going to
20:28
happen for another 45 years.
20:31
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, no, absolutely.
20:32
SPEAKER_03: He does.
20:33
SPEAKER_03: He talks about it.
20:33
SPEAKER_03: He actually tries to implement it.
20:35
SPEAKER_03: This is a famous midterm in 1938.
20:39
And part of what he does is he injects himself in the midterm
20:43
and basically goes
20:45
SPEAKER_03: after eight incumbents and most are Southerners.
20:49
SPEAKER_03: And all of them win, even though he campaigns in their districts.
20:53
He appears on stage at one campaign where the person he's going
20:58
against is right
20:59
SPEAKER_03: there and says,
21:00
SPEAKER_03: vote for the other person.
21:01
SPEAKER_03: But it fails.
21:02
And that's actually in 38 after that midterm is when this
21:05
coalition we're talking
21:06
about in Congress really takes hold and becomes the dominant
21:10
force in the committees.
21:12
SPEAKER_03: And the parties are pretty weak.
21:15
SPEAKER_03: Each committee chairman really has power to do what they want.
21:18
So it's no accident that it's under FDR that power begins
21:23
moving into the executive branch.
21:25
SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
21:25
SPEAKER_03: I mean,
21:26
SPEAKER_03: that becomes one solution and something we still see today,
21:30
SPEAKER_03: that it's via presidential power that you'll solve problems.
21:34
SPEAKER_03: And for a liberal president like FDR,
21:36
this was the only way on many issues because otherwise you hit
21:40
the roadblock of
21:41
SPEAKER_03: Capitol Hill.
21:42
SPEAKER_01: Right.
21:43
And it's also no accident that we're beginning to see certain
21:46
kinds of money being
21:47
SPEAKER_01: injected in the process.
21:48
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
21:49
Robert Caro has written about Lyndon Johnson coming to
21:52
Washington with suitcases of cash,
21:54
which he would hand out to various people to secure their
21:58
loyalty and so on.
22:00
But the whole question of money then begins to drive
22:04
hyper-partisanship later in
22:06
SPEAKER_01: the 20th century,
22:08
SPEAKER_01: right?
22:08
SPEAKER_03: No, absolutely.
22:09
SPEAKER_03: And the one break in the story,
22:11
SPEAKER_03: obviously,
22:12
SPEAKER_03: is Watergate,
22:12
SPEAKER_03: where the connection of what is taking form very well in the 1930s,
22:19
SPEAKER_03: 1940s period and the kind of fundraising that Caro talks about so well.
22:25
SPEAKER_03: keeps accelerating.
22:26
Part of it's the cost of TV is escalating how much campaigns
22:30
are going to cost.
22:32
SPEAKER_03: Watergate brings a lot of this to light and there's reforms in 1974.
22:36
SPEAKER_03: We have a quasi public finance system for presidential elections.
22:41
SPEAKER_03: Congress, there's limits on how much you can give.
22:43
But ultimately,
22:44
the system,
22:46
although it's not irrelevant over time,
22:48
it erodes.
22:49
SPEAKER_03: And
22:50
We enter into a period by the 1990s and early 2000s when those
22:54
Watergate reforms
22:55
SPEAKER_03: are almost irrelevant.
22:57
And with Supreme Court decisions,
22:59
the floodgates for money into politics have increased.
23:03
SPEAKER_03: And a lot of that money comes from single interest issue groups that say,
23:08
SPEAKER_03: you have to support our issue or that money is cut off.
23:11
SPEAKER_03: And they align with the parties pretty well.
23:14
So the money pressure becomes part of an acceleration of the
23:18
partisan pressure.
23:20
One of the things that both Republicans and Democrats agree on
23:24
in their different
23:24
SPEAKER_01: forms is that third parties are really not good for the system.
23:30
SPEAKER_01: And we see a populist party emerging in the late 19th century.
23:34
SPEAKER_01: We see the States Rights Party emerge in 1948.
23:37
But those third parties eventually then merge back into the
23:43
two-party system.
23:44
SPEAKER_01: Why is it in the United States that a third party never really...
23:50
SPEAKER_01: gets traction.
23:51
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's very hard.
23:53
SPEAKER_03: I mean,
23:53
the most obvious reason is the electoral college system makes
23:59
it very difficult
24:00
SPEAKER_03: because parties essentially have to get on the ballot in every state.
24:04
SPEAKER_03: That costs money, human power.
24:06
SPEAKER_03: It's just very difficult to do.
24:08
SPEAKER_03: So often third parties find this as an obstacle.
24:11
SPEAKER_03: Part of it is the two parties are very strong,
24:14
SPEAKER_03: even though people don't like them as organizations.
24:17
SPEAKER_03: They are incredibly robust from money to personnel.
24:22
SPEAKER_03: And it's very hard to break that.
24:24
SPEAKER_03: And you see that whenever a third party emerges,
24:27
SPEAKER_03: one of those two parties will both absorb and crush them.
24:31
SPEAKER_03: And it's very hard to get over that.
24:33
SPEAKER_03: And I think today,
24:35
SPEAKER_03: I mean,
24:36
SPEAKER_03: we are in an era of partisan identity,
24:37
SPEAKER_03: even though,
24:38
SPEAKER_03: again,
24:38
SPEAKER_03: people hate parties,
24:39
SPEAKER_03: it's still very strong.
24:41
SPEAKER_03: And so it's hard to wrestle people away from that.
24:45
SPEAKER_03: You combine all of that.
24:46
Historically,
24:47
third parties,
24:48
even in less polarized times,
24:51
have just not had much success.
24:52
SPEAKER_03: And my book is it's not dismissing the notion that a third party could be
24:57
SPEAKER_03: attractive or important.
24:58
But I just don't see that as really a realistic path at a
25:03
national level in the
25:04
SPEAKER_03: foreseeable future.
25:05
SPEAKER_03: So we kind of have to work with the system we have.
25:08
SPEAKER_01: Well,
25:08
SPEAKER_01: and it's interesting because certainly in the Northeast,
25:12
the club system in urban areas has been a way to have partisan
25:18
battles within the
25:20
SPEAKER_01: Democratic Party.
25:21
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
25:21
SPEAKER_01: the emergence of the village Democrats,
25:23
SPEAKER_01: for example,
25:25
in Greenwich Village that begins to promote feminism and gay
25:28
rights and so on and
25:29
SPEAKER_01: so forth.
25:29
So there are these kind of notes at the grassroots that can
25:33
push reforms upward,
25:35
right?
25:36
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
25:36
SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
25:37
And even if you think in the late 40s and early 50s,
25:41
one of the things that happens is the
25:43
SPEAKER_03: Liberals within the Democratic Party become much stronger.
25:46
People like Hubert Humphrey are much more vocal about the party
25:51
needs to move on civil rights.
25:53
SPEAKER_03: It's no longer going to just stay status quo.
25:55
And part of that is coming in Minnesota,
25:57
for example,
25:58
from more progressive groups.
26:00
SPEAKER_03: I think that's where third parties or factions of the major parties,
26:05
SPEAKER_03: whatever they form or clubs,
26:08
SPEAKER_03: Can have an influence,
26:09
but it's within this two party system that they tend to achieve
26:13
the success in
26:14
SPEAKER_03: changing what the major party is about.
26:17
SPEAKER_03: You see that with conservatives, too.
26:18
A lot of the kind of ferment in the 1970s from the right comes
26:24
from extra political
26:25
groups in states like Texas who are attracted to the Reagans of
26:29
the world.
26:30
SPEAKER_03: And ultimately, they make their voice known not as a third party.
26:33
SPEAKER_03: They don't move in that path.
26:35
SPEAKER_03: They end up right in the GOP.
26:37
SPEAKER_03: They just change what the GOP is about.
26:39
SPEAKER_01: Sure.
26:39
SPEAKER_01: And,
26:39
SPEAKER_01: you know,
26:40
SPEAKER_01: I kept thinking about when I hit that portion of the book,
26:43
SPEAKER_01: Phyllis Schlafly is a choice,
26:44
SPEAKER_01: not an echo,
26:45
SPEAKER_01: because that is really her critique of the Republican Party,
26:48
is that there are all of these people on the right at the
26:51
grassroots and that they
26:53
SPEAKER_01: believe that they are a majority of the party.
26:56
but that the nominating process marginalizes them and puts more
27:01
liberal kingmakers,
27:02
SPEAKER_01: as she called them,
27:03
SPEAKER_01: at the center.
27:04
I'm also glad that you brought up Humphrey because that moment
27:08
at the Democratic
27:09
SPEAKER_01: Convention in which he pushes the civil rights plank through,
27:14
SPEAKER_01: catapults him onto the national stage,
27:16
and then he gets to the Senate and is utterly stifled by the
27:20
seniority system.
27:21
SPEAKER_03: Correct.
27:22
Can you talk about the seniority system and how it changes and
27:26
how the committee
27:27
SPEAKER_01: system changes?
27:28
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, my book really uses Congress as the focal point.
27:31
And you have this committee system,
27:33
which in the,
27:33
I'd say,
27:34
1930s through 70s,
27:34
it's basically...
27:38
a system where each committee chairperson who gains their power
27:42
through seniority,
27:43
meaning you just have to live and stay in office and you keep
27:46
moving up the system,
27:47
SPEAKER_03: they are the base of power.
27:49
The party leaders,
27:50
as we think of today,
27:52
they can't dictate what a committee leader does.
27:54
SPEAKER_03: So if you have someone like a Hubert Humphrey saying,
27:56
SPEAKER_03: let's move on civil rights,
27:58
SPEAKER_03: the committee leaders,
27:59
SPEAKER_03: as they did,
28:00
SPEAKER_03: said,
28:00
SPEAKER_03: nope,
28:01
SPEAKER_03: not going to happen.
28:02
SPEAKER_03: And you had Southern Democrats tended to be
28:05
the chairs of the most important committees because they were
28:08
in office longer.
28:09
SPEAKER_03: They had safe seats and they allied with Republicans.
28:12
SPEAKER_03: And it wasn't simply the alliance.
28:14
SPEAKER_03: It all happened behind closed doors.
28:15
SPEAKER_03: There weren't sunshine rules.
28:17
SPEAKER_03: It's very hard to know what was going on, who was voting, how.
28:21
SPEAKER_03: And it was like we often talk about the smoke filled rooms.
28:25
SPEAKER_03: That's what this was.
28:27
SPEAKER_03: And for a liberal like Hubert Humphrey through the 1960s and 70s,
28:32
This was really the bane of their existence because this
28:34
committee stopped all
28:36
SPEAKER_03: sorts of things,
28:37
SPEAKER_03: race primarily,
28:38
SPEAKER_03: but other issues as well.
28:39
And so I fast forward to the 70s and that's a real era of
28:43
partisan reform.
28:44
SPEAKER_03: You have conservatives,
28:46
SPEAKER_03: like you said,
28:46
SPEAKER_03: a Phyllis Schlafly talking about why watered down parties are not good.
28:51
SPEAKER_03: And you had many liberals of that era who like a Richard Bowling,
28:54
SPEAKER_03: a congressman from Missouri,
28:56
who said we need strong parties on Capitol Hill to break these
29:00
committee fiefdoms.
29:01
And at the top,
29:03
they will decide what members do and don't do so we can get
29:07
things done.
29:07
SPEAKER_03: We can act with force.
29:09
SPEAKER_03: And by the end of the 70s, as a result of many reforms I talk about,
29:13
SPEAKER_03: Committee leaders are no longer what they used to be.
29:16
SPEAKER_03: They're essentially tools of the party leadership.
29:19
And we enter the 80s,
29:21
where on Capitol Hill,
29:22
both parties are much more centralized.
29:25
SPEAKER_03: They have much greater control over their members.
29:28
SPEAKER_03: And they reflect the sorting of the electorate that's taking place,
29:31
SPEAKER_03: where red and blue voters are divided much more neatly.
29:34
SPEAKER_03: So by the 80s,
29:36
we have a version of the partisanship that all those
29:39
intellectuals had been talking
29:41
SPEAKER_03: about for some time.
29:42
SPEAKER_01: Now,
29:42
SPEAKER_01: here's an interesting turning point,
29:44
because you actually show that partisanship does not prevent
29:48
getting big things done.
29:50
SPEAKER_01: The Great Society is your example of that.
29:52
SPEAKER_01: And I think it's a terrific example.
29:54
So much legislation is passed that is so shaping for the nation
29:58
and for individuals.
30:00
SPEAKER_01: But then we veer into the 90s with our old friend Newt Gingrich.
30:06
SPEAKER_01: And I want to tell listeners,
30:07
SPEAKER_01: you've written a great book about Newt Gingrich that they would love.
30:11
SPEAKER_01: And here's this paradox,
30:13
SPEAKER_01: which is Gingrich actually wants to get a lot of things done,
30:17
but he creates the conditions in which we live today or the
30:22
beginning of those
30:23
SPEAKER_01: conditions in which actually nothing can get done.
30:26
SPEAKER_03: Right.
30:27
SPEAKER_03: So one irony of the whole reform year of the 70s is...
30:31
Liberal Democrats were the principal engines behind all the
30:35
reforms that create
30:36
SPEAKER_03: stronger parties.
30:37
SPEAKER_03: But they imagine when you had stronger parties,
30:40
SPEAKER_03: when you had the majority having the ability to get things done,
30:43
SPEAKER_03: it would benefit liberalism.
30:45
SPEAKER_03: But it didn't turn out that way.
30:47
And Gingrich is fascinating because he was very aware of the
30:50
reforms and how
30:51
SPEAKER_03: Congress had changed and how parties were stronger.
30:54
SPEAKER_03: And he capitalized on it and turned it to the advantage of conservatives.
30:58
SPEAKER_03: And that was his rise to power.
31:01
SPEAKER_03: I argue that between Gingrich and Trump,
31:03
SPEAKER_03: essentially,
31:04
SPEAKER_03: with the Tea Party as an important part of that story,
31:07
SPEAKER_03: Republicans embrace a kind of partisanship which is very different.
31:11
SPEAKER_03: It's a hyper-partisanship,
31:12
SPEAKER_03: which I just define as partisanship without guardrails,
31:16
SPEAKER_03: without rules,
31:17
SPEAKER_03: without constraint,
31:18
SPEAKER_03: where other key parts of American politics governing politics.
31:22
thinking about the health of democratic institutions become
31:26
secondary in pursuit of
31:28
SPEAKER_03: partisan power.
31:29
SPEAKER_03: And I think that intensifies.
31:31
SPEAKER_03: Gingrich is the key person in the 80s and a speaker.
31:34
SPEAKER_03: The Tea Party takes it to a whole new level.
31:37
And I think not only President Trump,
31:39
but MAGA Republicans are now taking it
31:42
SPEAKER_03: in an even greater direction.
31:43
SPEAKER_03: And that's a hyper-partisanship because everything is fair game.
31:48
And you didn't have that in the 1950s and 60s or in the 70s,
31:52
this intensification of parties.
31:55
SPEAKER_03: Again, they still imagined rules to the game.
31:58
They still abided by some sense that when someone like a
32:02
Senator Joe McCarthy emerges,
32:04
SPEAKER_03: as he did in the 50s,
32:05
SPEAKER_03: that person's not going to be a leader of the party.
32:08
SPEAKER_03: By the 1990s and 2000s, it's a new world.
32:12
SPEAKER_03: There's no rules.
32:13
SPEAKER_03: And those are the kinds of figures who are the leaders.
32:15
SPEAKER_03: And I do argue
32:17
SPEAKER_03: the Republicans are the drivers of this, not the Democrats.
32:20
SPEAKER_03: I think it's a very different vision of partisanship.
32:23
SPEAKER_03: And so that happens.
32:24
SPEAKER_03: And the second thing,
32:25
SPEAKER_03: which I referenced earlier,
32:27
SPEAKER_03: is after 1994 in Congress,
32:31
SPEAKER_03: neither party controls Congress as they did in the decades before that,
32:35
SPEAKER_03: when Democrats were in control.
32:37
SPEAKER_03: So every election is high stakes.
32:39
SPEAKER_03: And as a result,
32:41
That works with hyper-partisanship because party leaders can't
32:45
afford to negotiate
32:46
SPEAKER_03: with the other side almost ever.
32:48
SPEAKER_03: They imagine power will be lost.
32:50
And that has created a pretty toxic political brew that we find
32:55
ourselves in today.
32:57
And so my talk about responsible partisanship is pulling away
33:01
from some of that and
33:02
SPEAKER_03: moving us toward,
33:03
SPEAKER_03: again,
33:04
SPEAKER_03: a more contained competition between two strong forces.
33:09
And that would also include dealing in a different way with our
33:16
oversaturated media environment.
33:18
One of the things you point out about Speaker Gingrich is that
33:22
he figures out how
33:24
SPEAKER_01: to use television in a whole new way.
33:26
SPEAKER_01: And you go into it in greater depth in your book about Gingrich.
33:30
SPEAKER_01: But we go from...
33:33
SPEAKER_01: The idea of visibility being a reform,
33:36
SPEAKER_01: you know,
33:37
SPEAKER_01: shining a light on what everybody is doing,
33:39
not having so many backroom deals to a moment in which hyper
33:44
partisanship is also
33:45
SPEAKER_01: being driven by hyper visibility.
33:47
And of course,
33:48
that's going to get worse with the Internet in the 21st century.
33:51
SPEAKER_01: Right.
33:52
SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
33:52
SPEAKER_03: I mean, I do talk about the media.
33:55
And I think that has complemented some of the changes that that
33:59
we're talking about.
34:00
SPEAKER_03: Initially,
34:01
the changes in the media were meant to create more space for
34:03
political news and
34:05
more visibility to what was happening on Capitol Hill so
34:07
reporters could see in
34:09
SPEAKER_03: front of their eyes.
34:10
SPEAKER_03: But that becomes weaponized.
34:12
SPEAKER_03: And, you know, one of Gingrich's real tools is C-SPAN.
34:16
small,
34:16
sleepy channel that forms in 1979 after a new rule allows
34:20
cameras to cover Capitol Hill.
34:23
SPEAKER_03: And he's like, oh, man, this is a great communication tool.
34:26
SPEAKER_03: And he uses it to just devastate Democrats day after day.
34:30
SPEAKER_03: And he'll continue to use the media
34:33
SPEAKER_03: As a really important platform.
34:34
SPEAKER_03: And that's one change.
34:36
But I do think we've had an evolution in the media through this
34:39
day that is part of
34:41
the challenge of moving away from a hyper partisanship in
34:45
addition to the elements
34:47
SPEAKER_03: of politics that I've talked about.
34:49
SPEAKER_01: In a way,
34:49
SPEAKER_01: there's kind of a parallel for how Trump learns to use Twitter in 2014,
34:55
SPEAKER_01: 2015,
34:55
and that he's willing to do and say things that nobody else
34:58
will do and say.
35:00
SPEAKER_01: And I want to introduce another phrase here for our listeners,
35:03
SPEAKER_01: which I think is really important.
35:05
SPEAKER_01: It does a lot of work.
35:06
SPEAKER_01: asymmetric polarization.
35:09
And you argue that the Republicans become willing to do things
35:15
that Democrats won't
35:16
SPEAKER_01: do because Democrats are so wedded to institutions and norms,
35:20
SPEAKER_01: which is not a bad thing.
35:21
SPEAKER_01: But how do we solve this problem?
35:23
SPEAKER_03: Yeah,
35:23
SPEAKER_03: I mean,
35:24
this is an idea from political science that I think is very
35:27
important and accurate.
35:29
People often hear it and they're like,
35:31
oh,
35:31
you're partisan because you're blaming Republicans.
35:34
But I actually think it's just an accurate assessment of the
35:36
difference of the parties.
35:37
That's why you have Joe Biden versus Donald Trump in the
35:40
presidential elections.
35:41
SPEAKER_03: It says it all in terms of the type of politician.
35:44
SPEAKER_03: And so, yes.
35:45
The arguments are Republicans go much further in terms of the
35:48
partisanship they
35:49
SPEAKER_03: subscribe to in terms of the kind of extremism within policy.
35:53
SPEAKER_03: They move much farther to the right.
35:55
SPEAKER_03: Democrats can't afford to do that.
35:57
SPEAKER_03: It's just the elemental part of the party.
36:00
SPEAKER_03: They believe in government.
36:01
SPEAKER_03: And if you believe in government, governing has to happen.
36:04
SPEAKER_03: If you're
36:04
SPEAKER_03: anti-government,
36:05
SPEAKER_03: as Republicans have openly been since the 80s,
36:09
SPEAKER_03: it's easier to live with dysfunction and gridlock.
36:11
SPEAKER_03: So how do you move around that?
36:14
SPEAKER_03: And I try to kind of focus on three key sets of issues related to that.
36:21
SPEAKER_03: One are
36:22
rules changes and procedural changes that I argue would take
36:25
away the worst weapons
36:27
SPEAKER_03: of mass destruction that we've seen deployed in the last decade or so.
36:32
So at least we don't have to be on the cusp of destroying
36:35
ourselves over this.
36:37
SPEAKER_03: Part of it's amorphous.
36:38
SPEAKER_03: It's about a new kind of leadership that I think we are going to need.
36:42
SPEAKER_03: Some of this is about leadership.
36:44
I talk about normative leadership instead of transformative
36:48
leaders who change the way we think
36:50
SPEAKER_03: or transactional leaders who are great negotiators and make deals.
36:54
SPEAKER_03: We need leaders who espouse new norms of governing.
36:58
And I do think Biden tried to do some of this work and did some
37:02
of this work.
37:02
I think there's some Republicans such as Liz Cheney who are
37:06
trying to do this work.
37:07
SPEAKER_03: It's still far and few between.
37:09
SPEAKER_03: But if there's a generational change of all the things they can add,
37:13
SPEAKER_03: I think this will be essential.
37:14
SPEAKER_03: And finally,
37:15
I talk about reforms to integrate citizens to parties in ways
37:20
we talk about in the
37:21
SPEAKER_03: 19th century.
37:22
So people don't feel as disconnected from the institution,
37:26
even though they feel very partisan.
37:28
SPEAKER_03: I just think that's healthier for a strong partisanship.
37:32
I think people should read this book now because they need to
37:35
better understand the
37:36
SPEAKER_01: history of how we got to where we are and the best history books do that.
37:41
SPEAKER_01: But once they've read your book,
37:44
what do you want listeners to actually do to make the next four
37:50
years a turning
37:51
SPEAKER_01: point to something better?
37:53
I'm not going to say I'm a historian,
37:55
so I don't do that,
37:56
because even in this book,
37:57
I do that.
37:58
SPEAKER_03: And I do think this is a long game.
38:00
SPEAKER_03: I mean,
38:00
SPEAKER_03: I do think the process of reforming,
38:02
SPEAKER_03: that's frustrating,
38:04
in part is about continuing to push on some of these questions
38:07
until the windows open.
38:09
SPEAKER_03: to deal with them.
38:10
SPEAKER_03: That's what we saw in the 70s.
38:12
SPEAKER_03: Those were decades in the making.
38:14
SPEAKER_03: But look,
38:15
SPEAKER_03: one,
38:15
I still believe the most basic thing voters can do is text and
38:21
email members of
38:22
SPEAKER_03: Congress on some of these questions,
38:24
SPEAKER_03: whether it's voting rights or campaign finance reform,
38:27
or when a debt ceiling is being used as leverage for a budget fight,
38:32
put pressure on members.
38:34
SPEAKER_03: I mean, that still works really well.
38:36
SPEAKER_03: That's what Indivisible did when Trump was president.
38:39
SPEAKER_03: That's what the Tea Party did when Obama was president.
38:42
SPEAKER_03: Members, listen, they don't like unhappy constituents.
38:45
SPEAKER_03: So I do think in the next four years,
38:47
SPEAKER_03: two years,
38:48
SPEAKER_03: one year,
38:49
SPEAKER_03: some of this is going to have to be a bottom up process.
38:52
SPEAKER_03: Part of it is
38:53
SPEAKER_03: conversation starting.
38:55
SPEAKER_03: I know not everyone's involved in politics.
38:57
SPEAKER_03: Some people now want to tune it out.
38:59
SPEAKER_03: But the more you can do in your capacity to have,
39:03
SPEAKER_03: whether it's a coffee clash,
39:04
SPEAKER_03: as conservatives did in the 60s and 70s in places like Orange County,
39:08
SPEAKER_03: California,
39:09
SPEAKER_03: very effectively,
39:10
SPEAKER_03: or we saw groups in 2018 before the midterms
39:15
SPEAKER_03: mobilize, that is important too.
39:17
SPEAKER_03: Instead of just complaining about Washington,
39:19
SPEAKER_03: kind of what can we do and what kinds of arguments can we make?
39:23
SPEAKER_03: And finally, think about who you vote for.
39:25
Look,
39:26
if you keep voting for people who do this,
39:27
you're going to have this.
39:29
SPEAKER_03: If you change voting and you really consider these issues,
39:32
SPEAKER_03: the kind of politics practice,
39:34
SPEAKER_03: a defining issue,
39:36
SPEAKER_03: that would bring new kinds of leaders.
39:38
SPEAKER_03: And I believe they're out there.
39:39
I always have confidence in the electorate and I believe we're
39:42
always capable of change.
40:03
SPEAKER_01: And that's it for today's show.
40:04
SPEAKER_01: Thanks for listening.
40:23
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40:24
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40:35
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40:35
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40:37
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40:42
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40:47
Why Now and Political Junkie are written,
40:50
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40:51
edited,
40:52
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40:53
Claire Potter.
40:54
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40:57
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41:00
SPEAKER_01: That's all for now.
41:01
SPEAKER_01: See you next time.