Speaker 1: Pushkin from Pushkin Industries. This is Deep Background, the show
Speaker 1: where we explore the stories behind the stories in the news.
Speaker 1: I'm Noah Feldman. What has happened to the American Right?
Speaker 1: That's our topic today. How did a party that touted
Speaker 1: itself as the party of ideas turn into the Party
Speaker 1: of Donald Trump? And what are conservative intellectuals thinking about it?
Speaker 1: To discuss that on this week's show, we're joined by
Speaker 1: Peter Wayner. Peter is my favorite conservative intellectual of the moment.
Speaker 1: He's a senior failure with the Ethics and Public Policy Center,
Speaker 1: and he's a contributing opinion writer for The New York
Speaker 1: Times and a contributing editor to The Atlantic Magazine. He
Speaker 1: worked for the Reagan administration, the George H. W. Bush administration,
Speaker 1: and I first met him when he was working for
Speaker 1: George W. Bush, first as a speechwriter and then as
Speaker 1: the head of the Office of Strategic Initiatives. Boy, we
Speaker 1: haven't seen each other in along I literally think I
Speaker 1: last saw you in the basement conference room at in
Speaker 1: the West Wing during the Bush administration, right back in
Speaker 1: the good old days. Depending on how you think of it, yeah, well,
Speaker 1: compared to Trump, I'd say Pete. I want to start
Speaker 1: by registering a kind of frustration. Often when people ask
Speaker 1: me who are the leading evangelical Republican intellectuals in the
Speaker 1: United States, I start by saying, Pete Wayner. You got
Speaker 1: to read Pete Wayner, But in the last six months alone,
Speaker 1: you've written pieces talking about how the terminology of evangelical
Speaker 1: Christianity is no longer the right fit for you, and
Speaker 1: even that membership in the Republican Party may not be
Speaker 1: exactly the place where you belong. So you're robbing me
Speaker 1: of my lead intellectual and within those categories they'll still
Speaker 1: be in my leading intellectual but in other some other categories.
Speaker 1: So would you talk a little bit about your own transitions?
Speaker 1: And in both of these spaces with respect to terminology,
Speaker 1: I have the feeling more than content. Two are now
Speaker 1: happy to do it, because the first thing I'd say
Speaker 1: is I'm still conservative, though I don't consider myself a Republican,
Speaker 1: which we'll get into. And I still consider myself a Christian,
Speaker 1: though I've detached myself from the term evangelical. Let's take
Speaker 1: the last one first. I mean the evangelical Christian movements,
Speaker 1: the one that I've been most a part of For
Speaker 1: for most of my adult life, I didn't grow up
Speaker 1: a Christian and a high school began a pilgrimage that
Speaker 1: brought me to the Christian faith. I was evangelical churches
Speaker 1: that for the most part I have been a part
Speaker 1: of and identified more or less theologically. With the reason
Speaker 1: that I no longer consider myself evangelical is primarily because
Speaker 1: of what's happened in the political arena. I think that
Speaker 1: the term evangelical these days is identified by most people
Speaker 1: understandably so as a political term, not really as a
Speaker 1: theological term. Most white evangelicals overwhelmingly support Donald Trump. But
Speaker 1: not only that many of them, not all, because it's
Speaker 1: a large movements, about fifteen percent of the population, and
Speaker 1: there are a lot of people on that spectrum, but
Speaker 1: a lot of white evangelicals are not only supportive of
Speaker 1: Donald Trump, but enthusiastic, and they are essentially they've become
Speaker 1: his sword in his shield. The white evangelical leadership, whether
Speaker 1: you're talking about people like Franklin Graham, Robert Jeffries, Jerry
Speaker 1: Fallwell Junior, Mike Huckabee, and so forth, they are of
Speaker 1: enthusiastic Trump supporters, obsequious in many cases rhapsodic about him,
Speaker 1: unwilling to challenge him, unwilling to stand up to his
Speaker 1: ethical and moral transgressions, and unwilling to speak truth to power.
Speaker 1: And that really bothers me. I think that that those
Speaker 1: people are doing more to harm the Christian witness than
Speaker 1: the so called new atheists ever have. Notwithstanding the complete
Speaker 1: accuracy of everything you've said, why didn't you think it
Speaker 1: was worth it just to sort of stand your ground
Speaker 1: and say, look, let's treat evangelicalism as about the Gospel
Speaker 1: the way it traditionally was, and not move away from
Speaker 1: the term by virtue of its contemporary politics. I mean,
Speaker 1: for myself, I remember when I identified as a modern
Speaker 1: Orthodox Jew. I was always troubled by the concrete politics
Speaker 1: of many of the people who shared that position. But
Speaker 1: I thought, to myself, least at the time, I'm so
Speaker 1: committed to this way of life. I'm so committed to
Speaker 1: these religious traditions and values that I don't want to
Speaker 1: let them monopolize the term. Now. To be fair, I
Speaker 1: also myself moved away from that terminology. So I know
Speaker 1: where you're coming from. But I'm wondering, why not stand
Speaker 1: up for the evangelicalism yeah, dry, good question. It's very
Speaker 1: well phrased, and I must say that I've several friends
Speaker 1: of mine who have exactly that that point of view,
Speaker 1: I guess I I'd say several things about it. One is,
Speaker 1: if you find yourself saying I'm a Republican bot or
Speaker 1: I'm an evangelical bot, and most of your your statement
Speaker 1: is the qualification of the term or the allegiance, then
Speaker 1: that's worth thinking about. That's a very good insight, by
Speaker 1: the way, in almost any area of life. Yeah. The
Speaker 1: second thing is, I mean, I'm not wed to this,
Speaker 1: I guess personal divorce with the term evangelical. If things change,
Speaker 1: I'm more than happy to come back. So it's it's
Speaker 1: not as if this is something which is necessarily permanent
Speaker 1: by any because, as you say, it's not that your
Speaker 1: Christian witness has changed in any respect. No, it's not.
Speaker 1: And it's the same thing for the Republican Party. If
Speaker 1: the Republican Party comes back to what I think is
Speaker 1: it's it's best self and it's truest roots, you know,
Speaker 1: then I would of course be associated with it as well.
Speaker 1: The other thing is I just should say that because
Speaker 1: I didn't grow up in a Christian Church. I never
Speaker 1: identified all that much with denominations, and I'm a person
Speaker 1: who has had questions and kind of zigs and zags
Speaker 1: and his faith. It's it's not always been an easy
Speaker 1: path for me in the sense that that's just my
Speaker 1: my outlook and temperament on life. I'm often examining things
Speaker 1: and rethinking and so forth. That's a good description for
Speaker 1: an intellectual. It's a more difficult description for a faith journey. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know it is. And I'm certainly within the four
Speaker 1: corners of the faith without without a question. In some ways,
Speaker 1: I'd say my faith is deeper now than it was
Speaker 1: even ten or fifteen years ago. I think I've just
Speaker 1: been less attached to Evangelical Christianity than maybe some other
Speaker 1: people have. But there's no question that the reason that
Speaker 1: I moved away from it was this Trump moment, and
Speaker 1: because of what I think is the discrediting of Evangelical
Speaker 1: Christianity by a lot of white Evangelicals. Again with a
Speaker 1: qualifier and caveat that a lot of my friends are evangelical,
Speaker 1: white Evangelical Christians, and some of them have have real
Speaker 1: concerns about Donald Trump. Let's talk about the Republican part
Speaker 1: because your path was not very wavering with respect to Republicanism.
Speaker 1: You worked for Reagan, you worked for George W. Bush,
Speaker 1: You've been the leading Republican thinker. Talk about how you
Speaker 1: could move away from that terminology. Yeah, you're exactly right.
Speaker 1: I mean, the Republican Party was the party that I've
Speaker 1: been a member of since I first cast my first
Speaker 1: vote for president, which was which was Ronald Reagan, and
Speaker 1: was a proud Republican. I never thought it was a
Speaker 1: perfect party by any means. There's no such thing as
Speaker 1: a perfect party. Otherwise it wouldn't be a party. No,
Speaker 1: there's not. There's not, And you know I would even
Speaker 1: in my writings when I was, for example, blogging for
Speaker 1: Commentary magazine, it was an unusual for me to take
Speaker 1: on Republicans. So it wasn't a party that I was.
Speaker 1: You know, I didn't feel like I was a blind follower,
Speaker 1: but I certainly was comfortable there. And as you said,
Speaker 1: I worked in three three republic administrations. I'd say several
Speaker 1: things have happened to the Republican Party which has troubled me.
Speaker 1: One is a dramatic evaluation of ideas. You know, Daniel
Speaker 1: Patrick moynihan in The New York Times in nineteen eighty
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty one wrote in an op ed in which
Speaker 1: he said that the Republican Party in an instant had
Speaker 1: become the party of ideas, and that was for somebody
Speaker 1: like me, who was really a child of the Reagan Revolution,
Speaker 1: that was really important. There was an intellectual vigor and
Speaker 1: excitement in that era. If you go back and think
Speaker 1: what were some of the key and central books of
Speaker 1: the nineteen eighties. Losing Ground by Charles Murray on welfare reform,
Speaker 1: the Closing of the American Mind by Alan Bloom, which
Speaker 1: was a warning against relativism or relativism and postmodernism, the
Speaker 1: Naked Public Square by Richard John Newhouse. And there was
Speaker 1: the Federal Society in antonin Scalia. And so that was
Speaker 1: the kind of intellectual milieu that that existed when I
Speaker 1: came to be part of the Republican Party and the
Speaker 1: conservative movement. And I think there's been a dramatic devaluation
Speaker 1: of ideas which is culminated in this Trumpian moment. Can
Speaker 1: I can I actually ask you a question just about
Speaker 1: about that deviation, because I've heard other people make a
Speaker 1: similar argument and I'm not sure I understand the contours
Speaker 1: of it in the following way. There's no question that
Speaker 1: Trump is not a conservative who comes out of that
Speaker 1: particular set of intellectual traditions that you describe. And it's
Speaker 1: also the case that very very few, if any, of
Speaker 1: the people whom he's appointed to important influential positions come
Speaker 1: out of those intellectual traditions. But that doesn't mean that
Speaker 1: the ideas have disappeared. There's those same ideas are still
Speaker 1: out there, and in one sphere, the sphere you mentioned
Speaker 1: the Federalist Society, there of conservative constitutional and legal thought. Actually,
Speaker 1: Trump has consistently appointed people who are full of ideas
Speaker 1: that our ideas, very much out of that intellectual tradition,
Speaker 1: which are creative and challenging, and they might be right
Speaker 1: and they might be wrong, but they're certainly interesting. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think of Justice Neil Gorsuch, for example, who's himself.
Speaker 1: You know, he's an intellectual. I mean, how else would
Speaker 1: you describe someone who, in the middle of his legal
Speaker 1: career goes back to Oxford to finish his PhD. And
Speaker 1: you know, on the Supreme Court he's pushing a very
Speaker 1: particular It's not Scalia's version, but it's a particular conservative
Speaker 1: federalist society version of critique of the administrative state and
Speaker 1: of its overreach. I mean, it's very it's an exciting
Speaker 1: fermenting time, even if you disagree deeply with what the
Speaker 1: ideas are that he's that he's offering. So in the
Speaker 1: ideas are still out there. It's just that this current
Speaker 1: president isn't super interested in them. Yeah, I let me
Speaker 1: untangle that a little bit and maybe give my own
Speaker 1: my own spin on what you said. I don't doubt
Speaker 1: and I would never argue that there aren't people who
Speaker 1: are intellectuals within the Republican Party or the Democratic Party.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's not as if all ideas have
Speaker 1: been shattered they don't exist, or there aren't people that
Speaker 1: care for them. What I mean about the devaluation of
Speaker 1: ideas is that if you took a step back and said,
Speaker 1: not just Trump and not just the people who Trump
Speaker 1: is hired, but the people who nominated Trump and what
Speaker 1: defines the Republican Party today, I would say that if
Speaker 1: you listen to conservative talk radio or the or Fox News,
Speaker 1: there aren't serious arguments for the most part on policy.
Speaker 1: It's the politics of theatrics that is that has happened.
Speaker 1: The way I've described it to people is I got
Speaker 1: the feeling that somewhere along the way, a lot of
Speaker 1: the let's say, the conservative media complex, of which I know,
Speaker 1: these people, I've been, you know, friends with them. These
Speaker 1: are people I've known for many decades. But somewhere along
Speaker 1: the way, I think that they just got tired of
Speaker 1: some of the arguments that were being made. For example,
Speaker 1: you know the issue of cutting taxes, right, and that's
Speaker 1: been a perennial debate here between liberals and conservatives. Liberals
Speaker 1: saying that it's tax cuts for the rich, it's oriented
Speaker 1: just to help the wealthy to get wealthier, that it
Speaker 1: exacerbates the deficit, and it's harmful to the economy, and
Speaker 1: the traditional conservative response was, no, these tax cuts are
Speaker 1: done to try and generate economic growth, which helps everybody,
Speaker 1: so overall they're better for the economy. I think that
Speaker 1: conservatives just got tired of doing that. And what happened
Speaker 1: is Donald Trump came in and there was a pretty
Speaker 1: impressive field in twenty sixteen that you could have chosen
Speaker 1: depending on what your flavor of ice cream was, and
Speaker 1: if you're a more libertarian, there was Rand Paul. If
Speaker 1: you are a certain kind of Christian conservative, there was
Speaker 1: Mike Huckabee or Rick Santorum. If you were a kind
Speaker 1: of let's say, reform conservative, there was Jeff Bush or
Speaker 1: Mark Ruby or John kay Sick, or there was Chris Christie.
Speaker 1: I mean, the one person that you would not have
Speaker 1: chosen out of that field if you were a traditional
Speaker 1: Republican would have been Donald Trump. And yet he won,
Speaker 1: and he went actually quite easily. So the question is
Speaker 1: what would have cost people who for years and years
Speaker 1: were the kind of purity patrol that said, if there
Speaker 1: was one deviation from ideology, whether it was Jeff Bullish
Speaker 1: or Mitch Daniels, they were attacked on conservative talk radio.
Speaker 1: Is no longer being conservative. And many of these people
Speaker 1: rallied behind Donald Trump, Who's who's done things a thousand
Speaker 1: times or worse than Mitch Daniels, or were Jeff Bullish
Speaker 1: And the answer was, in my estimation, large part of
Speaker 1: the answer was that they were excited by his style.
Speaker 1: They didn't care about ideas, it was the theatrics. It
Speaker 1: was entertaining to them. And the other thing that I
Speaker 1: think is part of this too is Trump tapped into
Speaker 1: these seething resentments and grievances on the American right, some
Speaker 1: of which were understandable. Certainly if you were an evangelical
Speaker 1: Christian you felt like you had been mocked and ridiculed
Speaker 1: by the elite culture. There was some basis for that,
Speaker 1: but there was the seething, these seething resentments that that grew,
Speaker 1: and Trump tapped into it. I mean, that's you're clearly
Speaker 1: right about that, Pepe, But I can I offer it
Speaker 1: a third hypothesis supplements the other two. It's not meant
Speaker 1: to replace it, and it's one that you know, cuts
Speaker 1: maybe a little close to the bone, but it's that Arguably,
Speaker 1: the George W. Bush administration had the effect within the
Speaker 1: Republican Party of discrediting the sort of project of ideas
Speaker 1: driven conservatism in the foreign policy side because of the
Speaker 1: Iraq War, and you know, as you know, because somewhere
Speaker 1: in the complexity of the chaine of government where you
Speaker 1: were close to the very top, and I was close
Speaker 1: to the very bottom. I was working for the officer
Speaker 1: reconstruction of humanitarian assistance and then the Coalition Provisional Authority
Speaker 1: in Iraq. So I was there too, and I think
Speaker 1: in some important ways when it came to foreign policy,
Speaker 1: the wing of the conservative thought world that came to
Speaker 1: be called neo conservative lost credit. And one thing Trump
Speaker 1: was very clear on was his repudiation of what he
Speaker 1: would be characterized as neo conservative ideas, ideas about spreading
Speaker 1: freedom in the world. And I think some of the
Speaker 1: blame there falls with the Bush administrations failures in Iraq,
Speaker 1: of which I consider myself to be a part, a
Speaker 1: small part, only because I was a small figure. And
Speaker 1: then on the domestic side, there was the fact that
Speaker 1: the Bush administration, partly because of the Wars, left the
Speaker 1: United States with a larger deficit than it had received
Speaker 1: and that helped drive the birth of the Tea Party.
Speaker 1: And you know, there too, the small government side of
Speaker 1: the ideas seemed not to have cashed itself out in
Speaker 1: a concrete way. And I think arguably it's just a
Speaker 1: hypothesis that opened the door for Trump to walk in
Speaker 1: and say, you don't need the ideas Conservatives, those are
Speaker 1: the people who gave you the Bush administration, and I'm
Speaker 1: going to give you something really different. Yeah. Look, I
Speaker 1: think it's it's completely valid to say that. By the
Speaker 1: end of his presidency that the Bush presidency it was.
Speaker 1: It was obviously low and there was a reaction against it,
Speaker 1: and it may well have opened the door. I think
Speaker 1: that a lot of things probably opened the door to
Speaker 1: Donald Trump. But if you would have thought that the
Speaker 1: Bush administration for the sake of the argument, if you
Speaker 1: felt like it was discredited by instead of ideas, then
Speaker 1: you would come up, presumably and hopefully with another set
Speaker 1: of coherent political ideas. That's not really what happened with
Speaker 1: Donald Trump. You got a person who has no interest,
Speaker 1: no acquaintance with ideas at all. And I wouldn't lay
Speaker 1: that at the foot of George W. Bush or anybody else.
Speaker 1: And I will say, even when George W. Bush was
Speaker 1: riding fairly high in the Republican Party, certainly in his
Speaker 1: first term, we had these conversations with him. I recall
Speaker 1: these actually where he was warning about the rise of
Speaker 1: the isms nativism, protectionism, and isolationism. And so those movements
Speaker 1: were already coming, not because I mean they predated the
Speaker 1: sense among Republicans that the Iraq War had been completely lost.
Speaker 1: In all of the rest I will say, just as
Speaker 1: a footnote here on the Iraq wars, it's more than
Speaker 1: a footnote, but in the context of the conversation. But
Speaker 1: I think it's important for the zake of history and
Speaker 1: the reality of things, which is what George W. Bush
Speaker 1: did in the Iraq War with a surge in two
Speaker 1: thousand and seven was one of the most impressive and
Speaker 1: bravest political decisions that I'd ever seen, and actually turned
Speaker 1: the war around when he named Dave Petreus and Ryan
Speaker 1: Crocker to essentially lead that effort. And by the time
Speaker 1: his presence he came to an end, Iraqis was hardly
Speaker 1: Switzerland or Swede in terms of how pacified the country was,
Speaker 1: but it was in considerably better shape than it was
Speaker 1: in two thousand and five two thousand and six, and
Speaker 1: the war had been turned around. And in my mind,
Speaker 1: when Barack Obama pulled out all of the troops in
Speaker 1: twenty eleven, that triggered the downward spiral that we're still
Speaker 1: seeing now. Having said that, there's no question that the
Speaker 1: war was deeply unpopular and it hurt the larger project
Speaker 1: of democratization in the Middle East. I think what you
Speaker 1: say makes me think that we, you know, we should
Speaker 1: have a serious conversation. I mean, the world needs a
Speaker 1: serious conversation about the Surgeon in retrospect. I was a
Speaker 1: strong supporter of the Surgeon the time, and I think
Speaker 1: it did accomplish some of the things you describe, But
Speaker 1: I think the history of it is, in fact, it
Speaker 1: is pretty complex, and you know, deserves its own thorough conversation.
Speaker 1: I wanted to say one more thing in defense of
Speaker 1: George W. Bush. You know, you tell this fascinating story
Speaker 1: about his pointing to the rise of nativism and protectionism
Speaker 1: and isolationism. Arguably, one of the things that saved the
Speaker 1: United States from entering into a period of public islamophobia
Speaker 1: in the immediate aftermath of September eleventh was George W. Bush.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you look at how Islamophobia rose during
Speaker 1: the Obama years and obviously culminated in Donald Trump's run
Speaker 1: for the presidency, I think, you know, historians will want
Speaker 1: to know, well, why didn't this happen sooner? I mean,
Speaker 1: it was so long after nine eleven had happened, And
Speaker 1: I think a major part of the answer is that
Speaker 1: the President of the United States, George W. Bush, actively
Speaker 1: and thoughtfully carved out a position that said we are
Speaker 1: not at war with Islam, and he refused to use
Speaker 1: any islamophobic rhetoric, and he allied the United States with Muslims,
Speaker 1: and I think that actually had a suppressing effect on
Speaker 1: what otherwise would have been somewhat natural islamophobic sentiments that
Speaker 1: would have followed from nine to eleven. And when he
Speaker 1: withdrew from the political scene after two thousand and eight,
Speaker 1: there was just nobody there with the capacity to rein
Speaker 1: them in. I'm not saying that Barack Obama, of course,
Speaker 1: was islamophobic, just that he didn't have the same kind
Speaker 1: of credibility on the issue with those people who would
Speaker 1: want to incline in that direction. And I think this
Speaker 1: is something that that w has not received sufficient credit
Speaker 1: for in retrospect, and I think it's something that's worth
Speaker 1: worth noting. Yeah, well, I agree with you on that,
Speaker 1: and I would just say it's on this larger point
Speaker 1: about the Republican Party in the American right and what's
Speaker 1: happened in terms of it's intellectual, you know, movements. I
Speaker 1: would say, now, to the degree that Donald Trump has
Speaker 1: any set of policies, and it's difficult sometimes to tell
Speaker 1: what they are, what what kind of ideology that he has,
Speaker 1: it is fascinating to me how much he's transformed the
Speaker 1: Republican Party. I mean, I'll give you one example that's
Speaker 1: relatively recent, but underscores I think all sorts of pathologies
Speaker 1: that have happened, and that has to do with the
Speaker 1: issue of debt, deficit, limited government. Now, people on the
Speaker 1: American right, you're exactly correct when you talked about the
Speaker 1: Tea Party right that that came out because there was
Speaker 1: a sense of tremendous frustration with Mitch McConnell and John Bayner.
Speaker 1: So if you listened to it to conservative talk radio
Speaker 1: around two thousand and nine, twenty ten, twenty eleven, you're
Speaker 1: almost as likely to hear criticisms of Bayner and McConnell
Speaker 1: as you were of Obama. So you got a sense
Speaker 1: back then, pre Trump, of this rising populism and anger.
Speaker 1: Like Rush Limbaugh, for example, shifted from years and years
Speaker 1: it was a binary conflict between liberalism conservatism, and more
Speaker 1: and more it went to establishment and the establishment. And
Speaker 1: if you look at where Rush Limbaugh is now versus
Speaker 1: where he was during the Reagan years, you see these
Speaker 1: profound changes. This the other day, Russia Limbaugh got a
Speaker 1: call from a listener who was concerned about the debt
Speaker 1: and the deficit, and Rush essentially laughed it off, said
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter, hasn't been a problem, hasn't come back
Speaker 1: to bid us. Have you listened to Russia Limbaugh for
Speaker 1: virtually his entire career, particularly when deafits were going up
Speaker 1: under Democratic presidents, he whacked them up side ahead again
Speaker 1: and again and again. And yet because of Donald Trump
Speaker 1: and Donald Trump has no interest in limited government, the
Speaker 1: deficit has increased by around fifty percent I think over
Speaker 1: the last three years. You see this illustration, which is
Speaker 1: the Republican Party, which for years made this an issue,
Speaker 1: if at least theoretically, if not in their execution and
Speaker 1: through policy, said that debt and deficit mattered, and limited
Speaker 1: government and a liberty mattered. Now you got a guy
Speaker 1: with like Donald Trump who doesn't care about those issues
Speaker 1: at all, and they've shifted with him. You see the
Speaker 1: same thing on protectionism versus free trade. The Republican Party
Speaker 1: as long as I've been alive, has been the party
Speaker 1: a free trade. Now, if you did a poll, Democrats
Speaker 1: are more likely to be free traders than Republicans. It's
Speaker 1: a fascinating flip. So we've talked a lot about what's
Speaker 1: gone wrong, but you're also looking forward and thinking about
Speaker 1: what to do next. And your new book is actually
Speaker 1: directly forward looking. It's called The Death of Politics, How
Speaker 1: to Heal Our fred Republic After Trump. So, first of all,
Speaker 1: you're assuming there isn't after Trump in our future, and
Speaker 1: I don't know whether that's actually true. But talk a
Speaker 1: little bit, if you would, about your vision of how
Speaker 1: we do go about healing a Republic that is very
Speaker 1: badly fraid by virtue of the temper and tone of
Speaker 1: public discourse, and very much by the revolution that Trump
Speaker 1: has wrought, not only in the Republican Party but in
Speaker 1: the way we talk about politics. Yeah, you know, in
Speaker 1: the short term, I'm not optimistic about where we're going
Speaker 1: to go. I think that the twenty twenty campaign is
Speaker 1: going to be the most vicious and brutal in our
Speaker 1: lifetime and one of the worst in American history. And
Speaker 1: maybe it'll it'll compete with the election of eighteen hundred
Speaker 1: between Jefferson and Adams, which was a pretty nasty, nasty
Speaker 1: affair almost for the young republic apart. So look, as
Speaker 1: long as Donald Trump is president, and as long as
Speaker 1: he's operating this way and he's always going to operate
Speaker 1: this way as long as he's president. Is just going
Speaker 1: to be very difficult to try and get American public
Speaker 1: discourse in American politics back to a better place and
Speaker 1: for decency and a sense of humanity to prevail. But
Speaker 1: in the medium to longer term, I'm not necessarily optimistic,
Speaker 1: but I'm hopeful for several reasons. One is I'm a
Speaker 1: congenital optimists, I suppose when it comes to America and
Speaker 1: its capacity for self renewal, I just think the American
Speaker 1: story is really one of the amazing stories in human history.
Speaker 1: And we've had a lot of difficult times, but it's
Speaker 1: been more or less a steady progress toward justice and
Speaker 1: more or less toward decency, expanding the rights and liberties
Speaker 1: of people. So that gives me give me with some
Speaker 1: recent setbacks. Yeah, yeah, but but of course that's that's
Speaker 1: the that's that's the story of individual lives, and I
Speaker 1: guess the lives of nations, which is that it's never
Speaker 1: a straight lined trajectory, and but I think the trajectory
Speaker 1: of America has has generally been good. Second is just
Speaker 1: I try and bear in mind historical context, which is
Speaker 1: we've had a lot worse periods in our history than this. Um,
Speaker 1: I can name a couple which are pretty obvious. I
Speaker 1: mean one I did, which was the election of eighteen
Speaker 1: hundred between Adams and Jefferson, which was a vicious affair
Speaker 1: and politics was difficult at that moment. The Civil War,
Speaker 1: it's obviously the worst time in American histories. Seven hundred
Speaker 1: thousand people dead in the country of roughly twenty nine million,
Speaker 1: so that would be the equivalent of seven million dead today.
Speaker 1: And the late sixties and seventies, I mean, I think
Speaker 1: some people may forget. I was a little young to
Speaker 1: have a lot of memory about about the late sixties.
Speaker 1: But um, you know, if you go through you take
Speaker 1: off some of the things to remind listeners. But you
Speaker 1: had the assassination of Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King
Speaker 1: Junior within several months. You had the riots in the streets,
Speaker 1: the race riots. You had the universities being taken over.
Speaker 1: You had the March on the Pentagon, you had the
Speaker 1: Vietnam War. You had Kent State in the early seventies
Speaker 1: when the National Guards shot some students at Kent State.
Speaker 1: In the research for the book, I discovered that in
Speaker 1: an eighteen month period in between seventy one and seventy two,
Speaker 1: there was an average of five domestic bombings a day
Speaker 1: in the United States. So there was a feeling for
Speaker 1: a lot of people in the late sixties early seventies
Speaker 1: that the country was kind of coming apart, and there
Speaker 1: was certainly much more violence in the streets than we're
Speaker 1: seeing now. So that I think is another thing to
Speaker 1: keep in mind, which is we've had harder times and
Speaker 1: we've overcome them. And the third thing, which I put
Speaker 1: some hope in is that sometimes I believe viruses create
Speaker 1: their own antibodies, and sometimes in the life of an
Speaker 1: individual and in the life of a country, if there's
Speaker 1: certain virtues that you forgot, you cease to pay attention to,
Speaker 1: you cease to cultivate, and they're stripped away from you,
Speaker 1: you're reminded why they matter to begin with, and then
Speaker 1: you begin to defend them and fight for them. And
Speaker 1: my sense, my instinct, some of its anecdotal, some of
Speaker 1: it's the survey data. I think that there is a
Speaker 1: big counter reaction to what Donald Trump stands for, for
Speaker 1: his style, for the dehumanization, for their cruelty, for the crudity,
Speaker 1: and I will see. We're going to find out in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty whether he's going to be repudiated or not.
Speaker 1: But I find the country exhausted and embarrassed and to
Speaker 1: some extent ashamed of what Donald Trump has come to
Speaker 1: represent and the intensity of his politics. Pete, you know,
Speaker 1: I share that insight that I think people are embarrassed,
Speaker 1: and I also think you use this keyword exhausted. People
Speaker 1: do seem to be exhausted, and so that makes me
Speaker 1: wonder where's the energy going to come from for a
Speaker 1: counter response? What I sense is this sort of fatigue
Speaker 1: and frustration without anybody really saying, Okay, here's the reason,
Speaker 1: and here's the source of the energy that will drive
Speaker 1: us to do something different. And I'm wondering, do you
Speaker 1: sense that? Do you sense a source of a place
Speaker 1: of energy? I mean, the one really energetic place in
Speaker 1: American politics other than trump Land today seems to be
Speaker 1: the Democratic Socialist left, which is highly energized. You know,
Speaker 1: it may be leading the Democratic Party into political disaster,
Speaker 1: but from the perspective of those who belong to the
Speaker 1: Democratic Socialist wing, this is their chance to take their youth,
Speaker 1: their energy, and their enthusiasm and to mainstream a bunch
Speaker 1: of their ideas and to get the party to listen.
Speaker 1: I mean, they're not wasting the crisis of Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: They're using it as an opportunity. But also, I don't
Speaker 1: think that that's the place from which we're going to
Speaker 1: get a kind of nationally unifying anti Trump moment. So
Speaker 1: I'm wondering, do you have a you know, is there
Speaker 1: someplace else in this great land of our where you
Speaker 1: see energy that could coalesce into a more energetic and
Speaker 1: powerful rather than an exhausted and enervated return to you
Speaker 1: return to civility and politics. Yeah, it's it's a great question.
Speaker 1: I do see it. I mean, I'll name one thing
Speaker 1: is specifically one movement and I'm familiar with, and I
Speaker 1: think it speaks to a broader movement. It's actually not
Speaker 1: a political movement, and I'm not sure that this needs
Speaker 1: to be or even should be driven primarily through politics.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's it's a cultural response which ends up manifesting
Speaker 1: itself in a political response. But David Brooks, who's is
Speaker 1: a close friend of mine, runs a project at the
Speaker 1: Aspen Institute called a Weave Project, and essentially what he's
Speaker 1: doing is he's getting together and using a power as
Speaker 1: the Asment Institute, as a convening form for groups all
Speaker 1: across the country who are essentially re weaving the social fabric,
Speaker 1: which is I think fraid in many places, and not
Speaker 1: just for political reasons, not just because of Donald tru
Speaker 1: but there's a sense, I think the research data backs
Speaker 1: this up that the country is alienated, lonely and isolated
Speaker 1: in ways that it hasn't been before. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of fear that I think characterizes life in America today.
Speaker 1: And you do see all across America groups that are
Speaker 1: rising up, all sorts of groups doing all sorts of
Speaker 1: wonderful work to heal the country. It's a very American thing,
Speaker 1: it's a very Tofilian thing, and that's to me as
Speaker 1: a source of hope. But I think as long as
Speaker 1: Donald Trump is the president, we're not going to begin
Speaker 1: the healing process in the way that it has to.
Speaker 1: He has to be removed from the equation, and I
Speaker 1: think that will happen in twenty twenty, but I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think it's just much too early, and obviously the
Speaker 1: Democratic Party can foul things up and Trump himself for
Speaker 1: all of his problems and for all of his ignorance
Speaker 1: and policy, has a certain malicious genius when it comes
Speaker 1: to his ability to tap into and energize his base.
Speaker 1: I've never seen anything quite like it. I think that
Speaker 1: Trump's hold on the base of his party is at
Speaker 1: least as strong as Ronald Reagan's was. There was an
Speaker 1: almost cult of personality that has happened with Donald Trump,
Speaker 1: which is an extraordinary thing to witness. It's not unsurprising
Speaker 1: when I wrote during the twenty sixteen campaign my criticism
Speaker 1: of Donald Trump, one of the things that was on
Speaker 1: my list of concerns. Wasn't my chief concern, but it was.
Speaker 1: One of my concerns is that he would he would
Speaker 1: utterly transform the Republican Party and that people would like
Speaker 1: a black hole. The gravitational pull of Trump as president
Speaker 1: would pull an awful lot of people in. And I
Speaker 1: think that's that's happened. And I must say just anecdotally,
Speaker 1: because I've been in touch, as you can imagine, with
Speaker 1: a lot of Republicans, a lot of Evangelicals who are
Speaker 1: supportive of Trump. That's the world that I came from.
Speaker 1: The obviously the Republican in Christian world. And I found
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago more qualified support support for
Speaker 1: Donald Trump, but qualified that is largely disappeared, and now
Speaker 1: it's actually changed. There's a real enthusiasm form. It's the
Speaker 1: sense that he's going to bring a pistol to a
Speaker 1: cultural knife fight, and that thrills them. Pete, I want
Speaker 1: to thank you very much for sharing your vision of
Speaker 1: reweaving social fabric sometime post Trump, and I want to
Speaker 1: thank you really for the body of your serious conservative
Speaker 1: intellectual thought. And let's hope that the return to the
Speaker 1: Republican Party as a party of ideas happens eventually and
Speaker 1: that you're you're a central part of it. Thanks for
Speaker 1: joining me. I was great to be on. I'm a
Speaker 1: great admirer of your work and it was fun to
Speaker 1: have the conversation with you. Listening to Pete Wayner, you
Speaker 1: can't help but walk away with the feeling that the
Speaker 1: decimation of the ideas wing of the Republican Party has
Speaker 1: been complete. Here's someone who was at the absolute epicenter
Speaker 1: of the world of conservative and Republican ideas, a committed
Speaker 1: evangelical Christian, a senior figure in the George W. Bush administration,
Speaker 1: and he can no longer bring himself to call himself
Speaker 1: a Republican, and perhaps even more shockingly, the political associations
Speaker 1: of evangelicalism have become so strong that he's not even
Speaker 1: going to use the term evangelical to describe his own
Speaker 1: religious fit. That's a devastating picture, and it raises the
Speaker 1: question of what is going to happen going forward? Will
Speaker 1: the Republican Party eventually seek to reinvent itself For the moment,
Speaker 1: the answer is pretty clearly that that reinvention has happened,
Speaker 1: and that reinvention has been a reinvention into Trumpism. Trumpism,
Speaker 1: though still awaits its own intellectual expression. There's a president.
Speaker 1: He has ideas of a certain structure, but what he
Speaker 1: does not have is the armature of thoughtful people to
Speaker 1: try to express those ideas in a coherent and in fashion.
Speaker 1: It's not clear where that's coming from, and it's not
Speaker 1: clear where it will happen at all, But if history
Speaker 1: is any judge, if Donald Trump is reelected, there will
Speaker 1: be an opportunity for Trump intellectuals to emerge, and some
Speaker 1: will eventually emerge to state their case. When that happens,
Speaker 1: it'll be all the more important for intellectuals from other perspectives,
Speaker 1: whether conservative, liberal or left of liberal, to offer responses
Speaker 1: and to engage in a conversation. And that conversation, if
Speaker 1: we're lucky enough for it to emerge, is actually going
Speaker 1: to be the beginning of the process of restoring some
Speaker 1: kind of political discourse in our country. Deep Background is
Speaker 1: brought to you by Pushkin Industries. Our producer is Lydia
Speaker 1: gene Coott, with engineering by Jason Gambrel and Jason Roskowski.
Speaker 1: Our showrunner is Sophie mckibbon. Our theme music is composed
Speaker 1: by Luis GERA special thanks to the Pushkin Brass, Malcolm Gladwell,
Speaker 1: Jacob Weisberg, Miah Lobel. I'm Noah Feldman. You can follow
Speaker 1: me on Twitter at Noah R. Feldman. This is Deep
Speaker 1: Background