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Speaker 1: Pushkin from Pushkin Industries. This is Deep Background, the show

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Speaker 1: where we explore the stories behind the stories in the news.

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Speaker 1: I'm Noah Feldman. What has happened to the American Right?

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Speaker 1: That's our topic today. How did a party that touted

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Speaker 1: itself as the party of ideas turn into the Party

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Speaker 1: of Donald Trump? And what are conservative intellectuals thinking about it?

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Speaker 1: To discuss that on this week's show, we're joined by

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Speaker 1: Peter Wayner. Peter is my favorite conservative intellectual of the moment.

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Speaker 1: He's a senior failure with the Ethics and Public Policy Center,

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Speaker 1: and he's a contributing opinion writer for The New York

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Speaker 1: Times and a contributing editor to The Atlantic Magazine. He

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Speaker 1: worked for the Reagan administration, the George H. W. Bush administration,

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Speaker 1: and I first met him when he was working for

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Speaker 1: George W. Bush, first as a speechwriter and then as

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Speaker 1: the head of the Office of Strategic Initiatives. Boy, we

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Speaker 1: haven't seen each other in along I literally think I

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Speaker 1: last saw you in the basement conference room at in

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Speaker 1: the West Wing during the Bush administration, right back in

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Speaker 1: the good old days. Depending on how you think of it, yeah, well,

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Speaker 1: compared to Trump, I'd say Pete. I want to start

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Speaker 1: by registering a kind of frustration. Often when people ask

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Speaker 1: me who are the leading evangelical Republican intellectuals in the

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Speaker 1: United States, I start by saying, Pete Wayner. You got

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Speaker 1: to read Pete Wayner, But in the last six months alone,

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Speaker 1: you've written pieces talking about how the terminology of evangelical

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Speaker 1: Christianity is no longer the right fit for you, and

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Speaker 1: even that membership in the Republican Party may not be

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Speaker 1: exactly the place where you belong. So you're robbing me

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Speaker 1: of my lead intellectual and within those categories they'll still

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Speaker 1: be in my leading intellectual but in other some other categories.

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Speaker 1: So would you talk a little bit about your own transitions?

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Speaker 1: And in both of these spaces with respect to terminology,

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Speaker 1: I have the feeling more than content. Two are now

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Speaker 1: happy to do it, because the first thing I'd say

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Speaker 1: is I'm still conservative, though I don't consider myself a Republican,

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Speaker 1: which we'll get into. And I still consider myself a Christian,

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Speaker 1: though I've detached myself from the term evangelical. Let's take

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Speaker 1: the last one first. I mean the evangelical Christian movements,

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Speaker 1: the one that I've been most a part of For

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Speaker 1: for most of my adult life, I didn't grow up

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Speaker 1: a Christian and a high school began a pilgrimage that

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Speaker 1: brought me to the Christian faith. I was evangelical churches

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Speaker 1: that for the most part I have been a part

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Speaker 1: of and identified more or less theologically. With the reason

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Speaker 1: that I no longer consider myself evangelical is primarily because

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Speaker 1: of what's happened in the political arena. I think that

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Speaker 1: the term evangelical these days is identified by most people

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Speaker 1: understandably so as a political term, not really as a

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Speaker 1: theological term. Most white evangelicals overwhelmingly support Donald Trump. But

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Speaker 1: not only that many of them, not all, because it's

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Speaker 1: a large movements, about fifteen percent of the population, and

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Speaker 1: there are a lot of people on that spectrum, but

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Speaker 1: a lot of white evangelicals are not only supportive of

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Speaker 1: Donald Trump, but enthusiastic, and they are essentially they've become

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Speaker 1: his sword in his shield. The white evangelical leadership, whether

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Speaker 1: you're talking about people like Franklin Graham, Robert Jeffries, Jerry

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Speaker 1: Fallwell Junior, Mike Huckabee, and so forth, they are of

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Speaker 1: enthusiastic Trump supporters, obsequious in many cases rhapsodic about him,

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Speaker 1: unwilling to challenge him, unwilling to stand up to his

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Speaker 1: ethical and moral transgressions, and unwilling to speak truth to power.

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Speaker 1: And that really bothers me. I think that that those

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Speaker 1: people are doing more to harm the Christian witness than

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Speaker 1: the so called new atheists ever have. Notwithstanding the complete

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Speaker 1: accuracy of everything you've said, why didn't you think it

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Speaker 1: was worth it just to sort of stand your ground

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Speaker 1: and say, look, let's treat evangelicalism as about the Gospel

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Speaker 1: the way it traditionally was, and not move away from

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Speaker 1: the term by virtue of its contemporary politics. I mean,

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Speaker 1: for myself, I remember when I identified as a modern

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Speaker 1: Orthodox Jew. I was always troubled by the concrete politics

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Speaker 1: of many of the people who shared that position. But

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Speaker 1: I thought, to myself, least at the time, I'm so

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Speaker 1: committed to this way of life. I'm so committed to

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Speaker 1: these religious traditions and values that I don't want to

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Speaker 1: let them monopolize the term. Now. To be fair, I

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Speaker 1: also myself moved away from that terminology. So I know

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Speaker 1: where you're coming from. But I'm wondering, why not stand

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Speaker 1: up for the evangelicalism yeah, dry, good question. It's very

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Speaker 1: well phrased, and I must say that I've several friends

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Speaker 1: of mine who have exactly that that point of view,

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Speaker 1: I guess I I'd say several things about it. One is,

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Speaker 1: if you find yourself saying I'm a Republican bot or

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Speaker 1: I'm an evangelical bot, and most of your your statement

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Speaker 1: is the qualification of the term or the allegiance, then

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Speaker 1: that's worth thinking about. That's a very good insight, by

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Speaker 1: the way, in almost any area of life. Yeah. The

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Speaker 1: second thing is, I mean, I'm not wed to this,

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Speaker 1: I guess personal divorce with the term evangelical. If things change,

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Speaker 1: I'm more than happy to come back. So it's it's

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Speaker 1: not as if this is something which is necessarily permanent

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Speaker 1: by any because, as you say, it's not that your

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Speaker 1: Christian witness has changed in any respect. No, it's not.

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Speaker 1: And it's the same thing for the Republican Party. If

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Speaker 1: the Republican Party comes back to what I think is

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Speaker 1: it's it's best self and it's truest roots, you know,

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Speaker 1: then I would of course be associated with it as well.

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Speaker 1: The other thing is I just should say that because

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Speaker 1: I didn't grow up in a Christian Church. I never

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Speaker 1: identified all that much with denominations, and I'm a person

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Speaker 1: who has had questions and kind of zigs and zags

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Speaker 1: and his faith. It's it's not always been an easy

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Speaker 1: path for me in the sense that that's just my

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Speaker 1: my outlook and temperament on life. I'm often examining things

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Speaker 1: and rethinking and so forth. That's a good description for

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Speaker 1: an intellectual. It's a more difficult description for a faith journey. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you know it is. And I'm certainly within the four

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Speaker 1: corners of the faith without without a question. In some ways,

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Speaker 1: I'd say my faith is deeper now than it was

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Speaker 1: even ten or fifteen years ago. I think I've just

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Speaker 1: been less attached to Evangelical Christianity than maybe some other

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Speaker 1: people have. But there's no question that the reason that

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Speaker 1: I moved away from it was this Trump moment, and

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Speaker 1: because of what I think is the discrediting of Evangelical

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Speaker 1: Christianity by a lot of white Evangelicals. Again with a

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Speaker 1: qualifier and caveat that a lot of my friends are evangelical,

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Speaker 1: white Evangelical Christians, and some of them have have real

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Speaker 1: concerns about Donald Trump. Let's talk about the Republican part

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Speaker 1: because your path was not very wavering with respect to Republicanism.

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Speaker 1: You worked for Reagan, you worked for George W. Bush,

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Speaker 1: You've been the leading Republican thinker. Talk about how you

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Speaker 1: could move away from that terminology. Yeah, you're exactly right.

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Speaker 1: I mean, the Republican Party was the party that I've

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Speaker 1: been a member of since I first cast my first

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Speaker 1: vote for president, which was which was Ronald Reagan, and

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Speaker 1: was a proud Republican. I never thought it was a

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Speaker 1: perfect party by any means. There's no such thing as

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Speaker 1: a perfect party. Otherwise it wouldn't be a party. No,

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Speaker 1: there's not. There's not, And you know I would even

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Speaker 1: in my writings when I was, for example, blogging for

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Speaker 1: Commentary magazine, it was an unusual for me to take

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Speaker 1: on Republicans. So it wasn't a party that I was.

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Speaker 1: You know, I didn't feel like I was a blind follower,

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Speaker 1: but I certainly was comfortable there. And as you said,

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Speaker 1: I worked in three three republic administrations. I'd say several

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Speaker 1: things have happened to the Republican Party which has troubled me.

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Speaker 1: One is a dramatic evaluation of ideas. You know, Daniel

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Speaker 1: Patrick moynihan in The New York Times in nineteen eighty

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Speaker 1: nineteen eighty one wrote in an op ed in which

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Speaker 1: he said that the Republican Party in an instant had

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Speaker 1: become the party of ideas, and that was for somebody

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Speaker 1: like me, who was really a child of the Reagan Revolution,

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Speaker 1: that was really important. There was an intellectual vigor and

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Speaker 1: excitement in that era. If you go back and think

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Speaker 1: what were some of the key and central books of

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Speaker 1: the nineteen eighties. Losing Ground by Charles Murray on welfare reform,

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Speaker 1: the Closing of the American Mind by Alan Bloom, which

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Speaker 1: was a warning against relativism or relativism and postmodernism, the

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Speaker 1: Naked Public Square by Richard John Newhouse. And there was

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Speaker 1: the Federal Society in antonin Scalia. And so that was

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Speaker 1: the kind of intellectual milieu that that existed when I

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Speaker 1: came to be part of the Republican Party and the

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Speaker 1: conservative movement. And I think there's been a dramatic devaluation

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Speaker 1: of ideas which is culminated in this Trumpian moment. Can

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Speaker 1: I can I actually ask you a question just about

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Speaker 1: about that deviation, because I've heard other people make a

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Speaker 1: similar argument and I'm not sure I understand the contours

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Speaker 1: of it in the following way. There's no question that

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Speaker 1: Trump is not a conservative who comes out of that

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Speaker 1: particular set of intellectual traditions that you describe. And it's

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Speaker 1: also the case that very very few, if any, of

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Speaker 1: the people whom he's appointed to important influential positions come

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Speaker 1: out of those intellectual traditions. But that doesn't mean that

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Speaker 1: the ideas have disappeared. There's those same ideas are still

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Speaker 1: out there, and in one sphere, the sphere you mentioned

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Speaker 1: the Federalist Society, there of conservative constitutional and legal thought. Actually,

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Speaker 1: Trump has consistently appointed people who are full of ideas

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Speaker 1: that our ideas, very much out of that intellectual tradition,

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Speaker 1: which are creative and challenging, and they might be right

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Speaker 1: and they might be wrong, but they're certainly interesting. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I think of Justice Neil Gorsuch, for example, who's himself.

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Speaker 1: You know, he's an intellectual. I mean, how else would

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Speaker 1: you describe someone who, in the middle of his legal

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Speaker 1: career goes back to Oxford to finish his PhD. And

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Speaker 1: you know, on the Supreme Court he's pushing a very

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Speaker 1: particular It's not Scalia's version, but it's a particular conservative

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Speaker 1: federalist society version of critique of the administrative state and

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Speaker 1: of its overreach. I mean, it's very it's an exciting

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Speaker 1: fermenting time, even if you disagree deeply with what the

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Speaker 1: ideas are that he's that he's offering. So in the

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Speaker 1: ideas are still out there. It's just that this current

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Speaker 1: president isn't super interested in them. Yeah, I let me

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Speaker 1: untangle that a little bit and maybe give my own

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Speaker 1: my own spin on what you said. I don't doubt

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Speaker 1: and I would never argue that there aren't people who

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Speaker 1: are intellectuals within the Republican Party or the Democratic Party.

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's not as if all ideas have

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Speaker 1: been shattered they don't exist, or there aren't people that

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Speaker 1: care for them. What I mean about the devaluation of

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Speaker 1: ideas is that if you took a step back and said,

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Speaker 1: not just Trump and not just the people who Trump

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Speaker 1: is hired, but the people who nominated Trump and what

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Speaker 1: defines the Republican Party today, I would say that if

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Speaker 1: you listen to conservative talk radio or the or Fox News,

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Speaker 1: there aren't serious arguments for the most part on policy.

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Speaker 1: It's the politics of theatrics that is that has happened.

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Speaker 1: The way I've described it to people is I got

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Speaker 1: the feeling that somewhere along the way, a lot of

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Speaker 1: the let's say, the conservative media complex, of which I know,

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Speaker 1: these people, I've been, you know, friends with them. These

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Speaker 1: are people I've known for many decades. But somewhere along

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Speaker 1: the way, I think that they just got tired of

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Speaker 1: some of the arguments that were being made. For example,

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Speaker 1: you know the issue of cutting taxes, right, and that's

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Speaker 1: been a perennial debate here between liberals and conservatives. Liberals

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Speaker 1: saying that it's tax cuts for the rich, it's oriented

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Speaker 1: just to help the wealthy to get wealthier, that it

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Speaker 1: exacerbates the deficit, and it's harmful to the economy, and

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Speaker 1: the traditional conservative response was, no, these tax cuts are

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Speaker 1: done to try and generate economic growth, which helps everybody,

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Speaker 1: so overall they're better for the economy. I think that

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Speaker 1: conservatives just got tired of doing that. And what happened

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Speaker 1: is Donald Trump came in and there was a pretty

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Speaker 1: impressive field in twenty sixteen that you could have chosen

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Speaker 1: depending on what your flavor of ice cream was, and

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Speaker 1: if you're a more libertarian, there was Rand Paul. If

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Speaker 1: you are a certain kind of Christian conservative, there was

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Speaker 1: Mike Huckabee or Rick Santorum. If you were a kind

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Speaker 1: of let's say, reform conservative, there was Jeff Bush or

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Speaker 1: Mark Ruby or John kay Sick, or there was Chris Christie.

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Speaker 1: I mean, the one person that you would not have

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Speaker 1: Republican would have been Donald Trump. And yet he won,

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Speaker 1: and he went actually quite easily. So the question is

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Speaker 1: what would have cost people who for years and years

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Speaker 1: were the kind of purity patrol that said, if there

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Speaker 1: was one deviation from ideology, whether it was Jeff Bullish

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Speaker 1: or Mitch Daniels, they were attacked on conservative talk radio.

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Speaker 1: Is no longer being conservative. And many of these people

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Speaker 1: rallied behind Donald Trump, Who's who's done things a thousand

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Speaker 1: times or worse than Mitch Daniels, or were Jeff Bullish

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Speaker 1: And the answer was, in my estimation, large part of

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Speaker 1: the answer was that they were excited by his style.

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Speaker 1: They didn't care about ideas, it was the theatrics. It

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Speaker 1: was entertaining to them. And the other thing that I

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Speaker 1: think is part of this too is Trump tapped into

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Speaker 1: these seething resentments and grievances on the American right, some

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Speaker 1: of which were understandable. Certainly if you were an evangelical

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Speaker 1: Christian you felt like you had been mocked and ridiculed

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Speaker 1: by the elite culture. There was some basis for that,

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Speaker 1: but there was the seething, these seething resentments that that grew,

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Speaker 1: and Trump tapped into it. I mean, that's you're clearly

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Speaker 1: right about that, Pepe, But I can I offer it

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Speaker 1: a third hypothesis supplements the other two. It's not meant

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Speaker 1: to replace it, and it's one that you know, cuts

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Speaker 1: maybe a little close to the bone, but it's that Arguably,

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Speaker 1: the George W. Bush administration had the effect within the

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Speaker 1: Republican Party of discrediting the sort of project of ideas

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Speaker 1: driven conservatism in the foreign policy side because of the

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Speaker 1: Iraq War, and you know, as you know, because somewhere

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Speaker 1: in the complexity of the chaine of government where you

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Speaker 1: were close to the very top, and I was close

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Speaker 1: to the very bottom. I was working for the officer

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Speaker 1: reconstruction of humanitarian assistance and then the Coalition Provisional Authority

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Speaker 1: in Iraq. So I was there too, and I think

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Speaker 1: in some important ways when it came to foreign policy,

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Speaker 1: the wing of the conservative thought world that came to

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Speaker 1: be called neo conservative lost credit. And one thing Trump

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Speaker 1: was very clear on was his repudiation of what he

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Speaker 1: would be characterized as neo conservative ideas, ideas about spreading

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Speaker 1: freedom in the world. And I think some of the

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Speaker 1: blame there falls with the Bush administrations failures in Iraq,

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Speaker 1: of which I consider myself to be a part, a

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Speaker 1: small part, only because I was a small figure. And

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Speaker 1: then on the domestic side, there was the fact that

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Speaker 1: the Bush administration, partly because of the Wars, left the

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Speaker 1: United States with a larger deficit than it had received

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Speaker 1: and that helped drive the birth of the Tea Party.

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Speaker 1: And you know, there too, the small government side of

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Speaker 1: the ideas seemed not to have cashed itself out in

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Speaker 1: a concrete way. And I think arguably it's just a

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Speaker 1: hypothesis that opened the door for Trump to walk in

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Speaker 1: and say, you don't need the ideas Conservatives, those are

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Speaker 1: the people who gave you the Bush administration, and I'm

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Speaker 1: going to give you something really different. Yeah. Look, I

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Speaker 1: think it's it's completely valid to say that. By the

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Speaker 1: end of his presidency that the Bush presidency it was.

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Speaker 1: It was obviously low and there was a reaction against it,

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Speaker 1: and it may well have opened the door. I think

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Speaker 1: that a lot of things probably opened the door to

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Speaker 1: Donald Trump. But if you would have thought that the

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Speaker 1: Bush administration for the sake of the argument, if you

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Speaker 1: felt like it was discredited by instead of ideas, then

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Speaker 1: you would come up, presumably and hopefully with another set

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Speaker 1: of coherent political ideas. That's not really what happened with

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Speaker 1: Donald Trump. You got a person who has no interest,

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Speaker 1: no acquaintance with ideas at all. And I wouldn't lay

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Speaker 1: that at the foot of George W. Bush or anybody else.

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Speaker 1: And I will say, even when George W. Bush was

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Speaker 1: riding fairly high in the Republican Party, certainly in his

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Speaker 1: first term, we had these conversations with him. I recall

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Speaker 1: these actually where he was warning about the rise of

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Speaker 1: the isms nativism, protectionism, and isolationism. And so those movements

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Speaker 1: were already coming, not because I mean they predated the

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Speaker 1: sense among Republicans that the Iraq War had been completely lost.

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Speaker 1: In all of the rest I will say, just as

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Speaker 1: a footnote here on the Iraq wars, it's more than

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Speaker 1: a footnote, but in the context of the conversation. But

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Speaker 1: I think it's important for the zake of history and

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Speaker 1: the reality of things, which is what George W. Bush

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Speaker 1: did in the Iraq War with a surge in two

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Speaker 1: thousand and seven was one of the most impressive and

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Speaker 1: bravest political decisions that I'd ever seen, and actually turned

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Speaker 1: the war around when he named Dave Petreus and Ryan

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Speaker 1: Crocker to essentially lead that effort. And by the time

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Speaker 1: his presence he came to an end, Iraqis was hardly

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Speaker 1: Switzerland or Swede in terms of how pacified the country was,

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Speaker 1: but it was in considerably better shape than it was

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Speaker 1: in two thousand and five two thousand and six, and

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Speaker 1: the war had been turned around. And in my mind,

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Speaker 1: when Barack Obama pulled out all of the troops in

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Speaker 1: twenty eleven, that triggered the downward spiral that we're still

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Speaker 1: seeing now. Having said that, there's no question that the

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Speaker 1: war was deeply unpopular and it hurt the larger project

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Speaker 1: of democratization in the Middle East. I think what you

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Speaker 1: say makes me think that we, you know, we should

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Speaker 1: have a serious conversation. I mean, the world needs a

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Speaker 1: serious conversation about the Surgeon in retrospect. I was a

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Speaker 1: strong supporter of the Surgeon the time, and I think

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Speaker 1: it did accomplish some of the things you describe, But

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Speaker 1: I think the history of it is, in fact, it

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Speaker 1: is pretty complex, and you know, deserves its own thorough conversation.

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Speaker 1: I wanted to say one more thing in defense of

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Speaker 1: George W. Bush. You know, you tell this fascinating story

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Speaker 1: about his pointing to the rise of nativism and protectionism

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Speaker 1: and isolationism. Arguably, one of the things that saved the

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Speaker 1: United States from entering into a period of public islamophobia

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Speaker 1: in the immediate aftermath of September eleventh was George W. Bush.

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Speaker 1: I mean, if you look at how Islamophobia rose during

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Speaker 1: the Obama years and obviously culminated in Donald Trump's run

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Speaker 1: for the presidency, I think, you know, historians will want

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Speaker 1: to know, well, why didn't this happen sooner? I mean,

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Speaker 1: it was so long after nine eleven had happened, And

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Speaker 1: I think a major part of the answer is that

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Speaker 1: the President of the United States, George W. Bush, actively

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Speaker 1: and thoughtfully carved out a position that said we are

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Speaker 1: not at war with Islam, and he refused to use

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Speaker 1: any islamophobic rhetoric, and he allied the United States with Muslims,

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Speaker 1: and I think that actually had a suppressing effect on

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Speaker 1: what otherwise would have been somewhat natural islamophobic sentiments that

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Speaker 1: would have followed from nine to eleven. And when he

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Speaker 1: withdrew from the political scene after two thousand and eight,

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Speaker 1: there was just nobody there with the capacity to rein

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Speaker 1: them in. I'm not saying that Barack Obama, of course,

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Speaker 1: was islamophobic, just that he didn't have the same kind

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Speaker 1: of credibility on the issue with those people who would

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Speaker 1: want to incline in that direction. And I think this

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Speaker 1: is something that that w has not received sufficient credit

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Speaker 1: for in retrospect, and I think it's something that's worth

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Speaker 1: worth noting. Yeah, well, I agree with you on that,

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Speaker 1: and I would just say it's on this larger point

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Speaker 1: about the Republican Party in the American right and what's

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Speaker 1: happened in terms of it's intellectual, you know, movements. I

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Speaker 1: would say, now, to the degree that Donald Trump has

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Speaker 1: any set of policies, and it's difficult sometimes to tell

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Speaker 1: what they are, what what kind of ideology that he has,

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Speaker 1: it is fascinating to me how much he's transformed the

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Speaker 1: Republican Party. I mean, I'll give you one example that's

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Speaker 1: relatively recent, but underscores I think all sorts of pathologies

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Speaker 1: that have happened, and that has to do with the

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Speaker 1: issue of debt, deficit, limited government. Now, people on the

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Speaker 1: American right, you're exactly correct when you talked about the

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Speaker 1: Tea Party right that that came out because there was

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Speaker 1: a sense of tremendous frustration with Mitch McConnell and John Bayner.

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Speaker 1: So if you listened to it to conservative talk radio

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Speaker 1: around two thousand and nine, twenty ten, twenty eleven, you're

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Speaker 1: almost as likely to hear criticisms of Bayner and McConnell

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Speaker 1: as you were of Obama. So you got a sense

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Speaker 1: back then, pre Trump, of this rising populism and anger.

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Speaker 1: Like Rush Limbaugh, for example, shifted from years and years

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Speaker 1: it was a binary conflict between liberalism conservatism, and more

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Speaker 1: and more it went to establishment and the establishment. And

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Speaker 1: if you look at where Rush Limbaugh is now versus

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Speaker 1: where he was during the Reagan years, you see these

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Speaker 1: profound changes. This the other day, Russia Limbaugh got a

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Speaker 1: call from a listener who was concerned about the debt

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Speaker 1: and the deficit, and Rush essentially laughed it off, said

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Speaker 1: it doesn't matter, hasn't been a problem, hasn't come back

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Speaker 1: to bid us. Have you listened to Russia Limbaugh for

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Speaker 1: virtually his entire career, particularly when deafits were going up

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Speaker 1: under Democratic presidents, he whacked them up side ahead again

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Speaker 1: and again and again. And yet because of Donald Trump

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Speaker 1: and Donald Trump has no interest in limited government, the

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Speaker 1: deficit has increased by around fifty percent I think over

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Speaker 1: the last three years. You see this illustration, which is

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Speaker 1: the Republican Party, which for years made this an issue,

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Speaker 1: if at least theoretically, if not in their execution and

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Speaker 1: through policy, said that debt and deficit mattered, and limited

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Speaker 1: government and a liberty mattered. Now you got a guy

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Speaker 1: with like Donald Trump who doesn't care about those issues

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Speaker 1: at all, and they've shifted with him. You see the

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Speaker 1: same thing on protectionism versus free trade. The Republican Party

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Speaker 1: as long as I've been alive, has been the party

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Speaker 1: a free trade. Now, if you did a poll, Democrats

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Speaker 1: are more likely to be free traders than Republicans. It's

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Speaker 1: a fascinating flip. So we've talked a lot about what's

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Speaker 1: gone wrong, but you're also looking forward and thinking about

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Speaker 1: what to do next. And your new book is actually

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Speaker 1: directly forward looking. It's called The Death of Politics, How

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Speaker 1: to Heal Our fred Republic After Trump. So, first of all,

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Speaker 1: you're assuming there isn't after Trump in our future, and

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Speaker 1: I don't know whether that's actually true. But talk a

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Speaker 1: little bit, if you would, about your vision of how

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Speaker 1: we do go about healing a Republic that is very

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Speaker 1: badly fraid by virtue of the temper and tone of

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Speaker 1: public discourse, and very much by the revolution that Trump

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Speaker 1: has wrought, not only in the Republican Party but in

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Speaker 1: the way we talk about politics. Yeah, you know, in

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Speaker 1: the short term, I'm not optimistic about where we're going

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Speaker 1: to go. I think that the twenty twenty campaign is

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Speaker 1: going to be the most vicious and brutal in our

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Speaker 1: lifetime and one of the worst in American history. And

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Speaker 1: maybe it'll it'll compete with the election of eighteen hundred

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Speaker 1: between Jefferson and Adams, which was a pretty nasty, nasty

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Speaker 1: affair almost for the young republic apart. So look, as

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Speaker 1: long as Donald Trump is president, and as long as

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Speaker 1: he's operating this way and he's always going to operate

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Speaker 1: this way as long as he's president. Is just going

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Speaker 1: to be very difficult to try and get American public

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Speaker 1: discourse in American politics back to a better place and

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Speaker 1: for decency and a sense of humanity to prevail. But

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Speaker 1: in the medium to longer term, I'm not necessarily optimistic,

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Speaker 1: but I'm hopeful for several reasons. One is I'm a

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Speaker 1: congenital optimists, I suppose when it comes to America and

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Speaker 1: its capacity for self renewal, I just think the American

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Speaker 1: story is really one of the amazing stories in human history.

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Speaker 1: And we've had a lot of difficult times, but it's

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Speaker 1: been more or less a steady progress toward justice and

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00:24:07,556 --> 00:24:11,996
Speaker 1: more or less toward decency, expanding the rights and liberties

429
00:24:12,036 --> 00:24:15,796
Speaker 1: of people. So that gives me give me with some

430
00:24:15,876 --> 00:24:18,956
Speaker 1: recent setbacks. Yeah, yeah, but but of course that's that's

431
00:24:18,996 --> 00:24:21,236
Speaker 1: the that's that's the story of individual lives, and I

432
00:24:21,236 --> 00:24:23,276
Speaker 1: guess the lives of nations, which is that it's never

433
00:24:23,316 --> 00:24:26,116
Speaker 1: a straight lined trajectory, and but I think the trajectory

434
00:24:26,116 --> 00:24:30,076
Speaker 1: of America has has generally been good. Second is just

435
00:24:30,276 --> 00:24:33,356
Speaker 1: I try and bear in mind historical context, which is

436
00:24:33,396 --> 00:24:36,756
Speaker 1: we've had a lot worse periods in our history than this. Um,

437
00:24:36,956 --> 00:24:39,476
Speaker 1: I can name a couple which are pretty obvious. I

438
00:24:39,516 --> 00:24:41,276
Speaker 1: mean one I did, which was the election of eighteen

439
00:24:41,356 --> 00:24:45,356
Speaker 1: hundred between Adams and Jefferson, which was a vicious affair

440
00:24:45,396 --> 00:24:47,636
Speaker 1: and politics was difficult at that moment. The Civil War,

441
00:24:47,996 --> 00:24:50,836
Speaker 1: it's obviously the worst time in American histories. Seven hundred

442
00:24:50,836 --> 00:24:53,836
Speaker 1: thousand people dead in the country of roughly twenty nine million,

443
00:24:54,316 --> 00:24:56,996
Speaker 1: so that would be the equivalent of seven million dead today.

444
00:24:57,796 --> 00:24:59,836
Speaker 1: And the late sixties and seventies, I mean, I think

445
00:24:59,956 --> 00:25:03,356
Speaker 1: some people may forget. I was a little young to

446
00:25:03,596 --> 00:25:06,796
Speaker 1: have a lot of memory about about the late sixties.

447
00:25:07,476 --> 00:25:11,076
Speaker 1: But um, you know, if you go through you take

448
00:25:11,116 --> 00:25:13,796
Speaker 1: off some of the things to remind listeners. But you

449
00:25:13,796 --> 00:25:16,236
Speaker 1: had the assassination of Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King

450
00:25:16,316 --> 00:25:19,476
Speaker 1: Junior within several months. You had the riots in the streets,

451
00:25:19,516 --> 00:25:22,436
Speaker 1: the race riots. You had the universities being taken over.

452
00:25:22,516 --> 00:25:23,916
Speaker 1: You had the March on the Pentagon, you had the

453
00:25:23,996 --> 00:25:26,596
Speaker 1: Vietnam War. You had Kent State in the early seventies

454
00:25:26,636 --> 00:25:29,676
Speaker 1: when the National Guards shot some students at Kent State.

455
00:25:30,476 --> 00:25:34,276
Speaker 1: In the research for the book, I discovered that in

456
00:25:34,316 --> 00:25:37,156
Speaker 1: an eighteen month period in between seventy one and seventy two,

457
00:25:37,196 --> 00:25:39,436
Speaker 1: there was an average of five domestic bombings a day

458
00:25:39,996 --> 00:25:42,516
Speaker 1: in the United States. So there was a feeling for

459
00:25:42,556 --> 00:25:44,716
Speaker 1: a lot of people in the late sixties early seventies

460
00:25:44,716 --> 00:25:46,956
Speaker 1: that the country was kind of coming apart, and there

461
00:25:46,996 --> 00:25:48,956
Speaker 1: was certainly much more violence in the streets than we're

462
00:25:48,956 --> 00:25:51,196
Speaker 1: seeing now. So that I think is another thing to

463
00:25:51,276 --> 00:25:53,196
Speaker 1: keep in mind, which is we've had harder times and

464
00:25:53,316 --> 00:25:57,196
Speaker 1: we've overcome them. And the third thing, which I put

465
00:25:57,276 --> 00:26:01,156
Speaker 1: some hope in is that sometimes I believe viruses create

466
00:26:01,236 --> 00:26:04,276
Speaker 1: their own antibodies, and sometimes in the life of an

467
00:26:04,276 --> 00:26:06,676
Speaker 1: individual and in the life of a country, if there's

468
00:26:06,676 --> 00:26:12,876
Speaker 1: certain virtues that you forgot, you cease to pay attention to,

469
00:26:13,036 --> 00:26:16,476
Speaker 1: you cease to cultivate, and they're stripped away from you,

470
00:26:16,476 --> 00:26:19,516
Speaker 1: you're reminded why they matter to begin with, and then

471
00:26:19,556 --> 00:26:23,356
Speaker 1: you begin to defend them and fight for them. And

472
00:26:23,436 --> 00:26:26,596
Speaker 1: my sense, my instinct, some of its anecdotal, some of

473
00:26:26,636 --> 00:26:30,156
Speaker 1: it's the survey data. I think that there is a

474
00:26:30,196 --> 00:26:34,036
Speaker 1: big counter reaction to what Donald Trump stands for, for

475
00:26:34,116 --> 00:26:37,356
Speaker 1: his style, for the dehumanization, for their cruelty, for the crudity,

476
00:26:37,996 --> 00:26:39,516
Speaker 1: and I will see. We're going to find out in

477
00:26:39,516 --> 00:26:41,916
Speaker 1: twenty twenty whether he's going to be repudiated or not.

478
00:26:42,116 --> 00:26:47,636
Speaker 1: But I find the country exhausted and embarrassed and to

479
00:26:47,676 --> 00:26:50,396
Speaker 1: some extent ashamed of what Donald Trump has come to

480
00:26:50,436 --> 00:26:53,596
Speaker 1: represent and the intensity of his politics. Pete, you know,

481
00:26:53,636 --> 00:26:57,156
Speaker 1: I share that insight that I think people are embarrassed,

482
00:26:57,276 --> 00:27:00,236
Speaker 1: and I also think you use this keyword exhausted. People

483
00:27:00,276 --> 00:27:02,676
Speaker 1: do seem to be exhausted, and so that makes me

484
00:27:02,756 --> 00:27:06,276
Speaker 1: wonder where's the energy going to come from for a

485
00:27:06,356 --> 00:27:09,676
Speaker 1: counter response? What I sense is this sort of fatigue

486
00:27:09,916 --> 00:27:14,716
Speaker 1: and frustration without anybody really saying, Okay, here's the reason,

487
00:27:14,876 --> 00:27:17,316
Speaker 1: and here's the source of the energy that will drive

488
00:27:17,436 --> 00:27:21,036
Speaker 1: us to do something different. And I'm wondering, do you

489
00:27:21,076 --> 00:27:24,116
Speaker 1: sense that? Do you sense a source of a place

490
00:27:24,116 --> 00:27:26,516
Speaker 1: of energy? I mean, the one really energetic place in

491
00:27:26,556 --> 00:27:30,436
Speaker 1: American politics other than trump Land today seems to be

492
00:27:30,476 --> 00:27:34,156
Speaker 1: the Democratic Socialist left, which is highly energized. You know,

493
00:27:34,196 --> 00:27:37,316
Speaker 1: it may be leading the Democratic Party into political disaster,

494
00:27:37,396 --> 00:27:39,116
Speaker 1: but from the perspective of those who belong to the

495
00:27:39,196 --> 00:27:43,036
Speaker 1: Democratic Socialist wing, this is their chance to take their youth,

496
00:27:43,116 --> 00:27:46,316
Speaker 1: their energy, and their enthusiasm and to mainstream a bunch

497
00:27:46,316 --> 00:27:48,796
Speaker 1: of their ideas and to get the party to listen.

498
00:27:48,796 --> 00:27:51,876
Speaker 1: I mean, they're not wasting the crisis of Donald Trump.

499
00:27:51,876 --> 00:27:54,916
Speaker 1: They're using it as an opportunity. But also, I don't

500
00:27:54,956 --> 00:27:57,436
Speaker 1: think that that's the place from which we're going to

501
00:27:57,516 --> 00:28:03,916
Speaker 1: get a kind of nationally unifying anti Trump moment. So

502
00:28:03,996 --> 00:28:06,996
Speaker 1: I'm wondering, do you have a you know, is there

503
00:28:07,076 --> 00:28:10,116
Speaker 1: someplace else in this great land of our where you

504
00:28:10,196 --> 00:28:14,436
Speaker 1: see energy that could coalesce into a more energetic and

505
00:28:14,516 --> 00:28:18,756
Speaker 1: powerful rather than an exhausted and enervated return to you

506
00:28:18,956 --> 00:28:23,556
Speaker 1: return to civility and politics. Yeah, it's it's a great question.

507
00:28:24,076 --> 00:28:25,796
Speaker 1: I do see it. I mean, I'll name one thing

508
00:28:25,796 --> 00:28:28,556
Speaker 1: is specifically one movement and I'm familiar with, and I

509
00:28:28,556 --> 00:28:30,956
Speaker 1: think it speaks to a broader movement. It's actually not

510
00:28:30,996 --> 00:28:33,276
Speaker 1: a political movement, and I'm not sure that this needs

511
00:28:33,276 --> 00:28:36,956
Speaker 1: to be or even should be driven primarily through politics.

512
00:28:37,156 --> 00:28:40,956
Speaker 1: Maybe it's it's a cultural response which ends up manifesting

513
00:28:41,036 --> 00:28:44,956
Speaker 1: itself in a political response. But David Brooks, who's is

514
00:28:44,956 --> 00:28:47,036
Speaker 1: a close friend of mine, runs a project at the

515
00:28:47,036 --> 00:28:51,356
Speaker 1: Aspen Institute called a Weave Project, and essentially what he's

516
00:28:51,436 --> 00:28:55,276
Speaker 1: doing is he's getting together and using a power as

517
00:28:55,316 --> 00:28:58,756
Speaker 1: the Asment Institute, as a convening form for groups all

518
00:28:58,796 --> 00:29:02,756
Speaker 1: across the country who are essentially re weaving the social fabric,

519
00:29:03,116 --> 00:29:06,716
Speaker 1: which is I think fraid in many places, and not

520
00:29:06,756 --> 00:29:09,076
Speaker 1: just for political reasons, not just because of Donald tru

521
00:29:09,636 --> 00:29:12,676
Speaker 1: but there's a sense, I think the research data backs

522
00:29:12,676 --> 00:29:18,276
Speaker 1: this up that the country is alienated, lonely and isolated

523
00:29:18,396 --> 00:29:20,156
Speaker 1: in ways that it hasn't been before. There's a lot

524
00:29:20,196 --> 00:29:24,596
Speaker 1: of fear that I think characterizes life in America today.

525
00:29:24,636 --> 00:29:28,396
Speaker 1: And you do see all across America groups that are

526
00:29:28,476 --> 00:29:30,676
Speaker 1: rising up, all sorts of groups doing all sorts of

527
00:29:30,716 --> 00:29:34,876
Speaker 1: wonderful work to heal the country. It's a very American thing,

528
00:29:34,876 --> 00:29:37,956
Speaker 1: it's a very Tofilian thing, and that's to me as

529
00:29:37,996 --> 00:29:41,516
Speaker 1: a source of hope. But I think as long as

530
00:29:41,556 --> 00:29:45,036
Speaker 1: Donald Trump is the president, we're not going to begin

531
00:29:45,116 --> 00:29:48,076
Speaker 1: the healing process in the way that it has to.

532
00:29:48,196 --> 00:29:51,076
Speaker 1: He has to be removed from the equation, and I

533
00:29:51,116 --> 00:29:53,116
Speaker 1: think that will happen in twenty twenty, but I don't know.

534
00:29:53,196 --> 00:29:55,756
Speaker 1: I think it's just much too early, and obviously the

535
00:29:55,836 --> 00:29:59,716
Speaker 1: Democratic Party can foul things up and Trump himself for

536
00:29:59,796 --> 00:30:02,836
Speaker 1: all of his problems and for all of his ignorance

537
00:30:02,836 --> 00:30:07,316
Speaker 1: and policy, has a certain malicious genius when it comes

538
00:30:07,356 --> 00:30:12,236
Speaker 1: to his ability to tap into and energize his base.

539
00:30:12,716 --> 00:30:14,756
Speaker 1: I've never seen anything quite like it. I think that

540
00:30:15,076 --> 00:30:18,156
Speaker 1: Trump's hold on the base of his party is at

541
00:30:18,236 --> 00:30:20,676
Speaker 1: least as strong as Ronald Reagan's was. There was an

542
00:30:20,676 --> 00:30:24,196
Speaker 1: almost cult of personality that has happened with Donald Trump,

543
00:30:24,236 --> 00:30:26,996
Speaker 1: which is an extraordinary thing to witness. It's not unsurprising

544
00:30:27,156 --> 00:30:32,756
Speaker 1: when I wrote during the twenty sixteen campaign my criticism

545
00:30:32,756 --> 00:30:34,876
Speaker 1: of Donald Trump, one of the things that was on

546
00:30:34,916 --> 00:30:37,596
Speaker 1: my list of concerns. Wasn't my chief concern, but it was.

547
00:30:37,636 --> 00:30:41,516
Speaker 1: One of my concerns is that he would he would

548
00:30:41,556 --> 00:30:45,196
Speaker 1: utterly transform the Republican Party and that people would like

549
00:30:45,276 --> 00:30:48,476
Speaker 1: a black hole. The gravitational pull of Trump as president

550
00:30:48,836 --> 00:30:51,236
Speaker 1: would pull an awful lot of people in. And I

551
00:30:51,276 --> 00:30:54,956
Speaker 1: think that's that's happened. And I must say just anecdotally,

552
00:30:54,996 --> 00:30:56,636
Speaker 1: because I've been in touch, as you can imagine, with

553
00:30:56,676 --> 00:30:59,076
Speaker 1: a lot of Republicans, a lot of Evangelicals who are

554
00:30:59,076 --> 00:31:01,796
Speaker 1: supportive of Trump. That's the world that I came from.

555
00:31:01,836 --> 00:31:07,036
Speaker 1: The obviously the Republican in Christian world. And I found

556
00:31:07,076 --> 00:31:10,676
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago more qualified support support for

557
00:31:10,796 --> 00:31:16,436
Speaker 1: Donald Trump, but qualified that is largely disappeared, and now

558
00:31:16,476 --> 00:31:20,116
Speaker 1: it's actually changed. There's a real enthusiasm form. It's the

559
00:31:20,196 --> 00:31:21,956
Speaker 1: sense that he's going to bring a pistol to a

560
00:31:21,996 --> 00:31:27,516
Speaker 1: cultural knife fight, and that thrills them. Pete, I want

561
00:31:27,516 --> 00:31:29,996
Speaker 1: to thank you very much for sharing your vision of

562
00:31:30,316 --> 00:31:34,836
Speaker 1: reweaving social fabric sometime post Trump, and I want to

563
00:31:34,876 --> 00:31:39,036
Speaker 1: thank you really for the body of your serious conservative

564
00:31:39,116 --> 00:31:43,596
Speaker 1: intellectual thought. And let's hope that the return to the

565
00:31:43,636 --> 00:31:46,876
Speaker 1: Republican Party as a party of ideas happens eventually and

566
00:31:46,876 --> 00:31:48,796
Speaker 1: that you're you're a central part of it. Thanks for

567
00:31:48,876 --> 00:31:50,756
Speaker 1: joining me. I was great to be on. I'm a

568
00:31:50,796 --> 00:31:52,716
Speaker 1: great admirer of your work and it was fun to

569
00:31:52,716 --> 00:32:01,836
Speaker 1: have the conversation with you. Listening to Pete Wayner, you

570
00:32:01,876 --> 00:32:05,036
Speaker 1: can't help but walk away with the feeling that the

571
00:32:05,156 --> 00:32:08,836
Speaker 1: decimation of the ideas wing of the Republican Party has

572
00:32:08,836 --> 00:32:12,796
Speaker 1: been complete. Here's someone who was at the absolute epicenter

573
00:32:13,196 --> 00:32:16,636
Speaker 1: of the world of conservative and Republican ideas, a committed

574
00:32:16,676 --> 00:32:20,436
Speaker 1: evangelical Christian, a senior figure in the George W. Bush administration,

575
00:32:20,716 --> 00:32:23,356
Speaker 1: and he can no longer bring himself to call himself

576
00:32:23,356 --> 00:32:28,716
Speaker 1: a Republican, and perhaps even more shockingly, the political associations

577
00:32:28,756 --> 00:32:32,116
Speaker 1: of evangelicalism have become so strong that he's not even

578
00:32:32,156 --> 00:32:35,316
Speaker 1: going to use the term evangelical to describe his own

579
00:32:35,556 --> 00:32:39,996
Speaker 1: religious fit. That's a devastating picture, and it raises the

580
00:32:40,076 --> 00:32:43,596
Speaker 1: question of what is going to happen going forward? Will

581
00:32:43,636 --> 00:32:47,756
Speaker 1: the Republican Party eventually seek to reinvent itself For the moment,

582
00:32:47,796 --> 00:32:50,556
Speaker 1: the answer is pretty clearly that that reinvention has happened,

583
00:32:50,636 --> 00:32:55,276
Speaker 1: and that reinvention has been a reinvention into Trumpism. Trumpism,

584
00:32:55,476 --> 00:33:00,276
Speaker 1: though still awaits its own intellectual expression. There's a president.

585
00:33:00,356 --> 00:33:02,596
Speaker 1: He has ideas of a certain structure, but what he

586
00:33:02,676 --> 00:33:06,276
Speaker 1: does not have is the armature of thoughtful people to

587
00:33:06,276 --> 00:33:09,796
Speaker 1: try to express those ideas in a coherent and in fashion.

588
00:33:10,276 --> 00:33:12,196
Speaker 1: It's not clear where that's coming from, and it's not

589
00:33:12,236 --> 00:33:14,636
Speaker 1: clear where it will happen at all, But if history

590
00:33:14,836 --> 00:33:18,516
Speaker 1: is any judge, if Donald Trump is reelected, there will

591
00:33:18,556 --> 00:33:22,996
Speaker 1: be an opportunity for Trump intellectuals to emerge, and some

592
00:33:23,516 --> 00:33:28,076
Speaker 1: will eventually emerge to state their case. When that happens,

593
00:33:28,276 --> 00:33:31,636
Speaker 1: it'll be all the more important for intellectuals from other perspectives,

594
00:33:31,676 --> 00:33:36,076
Speaker 1: whether conservative, liberal or left of liberal, to offer responses

595
00:33:36,316 --> 00:33:39,916
Speaker 1: and to engage in a conversation. And that conversation, if

596
00:33:39,916 --> 00:33:42,916
Speaker 1: we're lucky enough for it to emerge, is actually going

597
00:33:42,956 --> 00:33:46,796
Speaker 1: to be the beginning of the process of restoring some

598
00:33:46,916 --> 00:33:54,316
Speaker 1: kind of political discourse in our country. Deep Background is

599
00:33:54,316 --> 00:33:57,196
Speaker 1: brought to you by Pushkin Industries. Our producer is Lydia

600
00:33:57,276 --> 00:34:00,876
Speaker 1: gene Coott, with engineering by Jason Gambrel and Jason Roskowski.

601
00:34:01,156 --> 00:34:04,236
Speaker 1: Our showrunner is Sophie mckibbon. Our theme music is composed

602
00:34:04,236 --> 00:34:08,116
Speaker 1: by Luis GERA special thanks to the Pushkin Brass, Malcolm Gladwell,

603
00:34:08,236 --> 00:34:11,756
Speaker 1: Jacob Weisberg, Miah Lobel. I'm Noah Feldman. You can follow

604
00:34:11,756 --> 00:34:14,836
Speaker 1: me on Twitter at Noah R. Feldman. This is Deep

605
00:34:14,916 --> 00:34:15,476
Speaker 1: Background