WEBVTT - What happened to the party of ideas? 0:00:03.440 --> 0:00:06.720 Welcome to off the cop with me, se cop. Some 0:00:07.000 --> 0:00:12.320 of you may, I'm realizing they only know me as 0:00:12.360 --> 0:00:16.760 a never Trumper, a former Republican turned independent, and that's great. 0:00:16.800 --> 0:00:20.279 I'm happy to fit in that box for you. But 0:00:20.920 --> 0:00:23.640 it's not a role I ever endeavored to play. It's 0:00:23.640 --> 0:00:25.760 not the role I imagined I would I would play. 0:00:25.800 --> 0:00:27.400 And I want to talk to you about that evolution 0:00:27.440 --> 0:00:30.880 a little bit because I think it's important and I 0:00:30.960 --> 0:00:33.279 know I'm not the only one who made it, so 0:00:33.320 --> 0:00:35.400 maybe it'll help you understand me a little bit better, 0:00:35.440 --> 0:00:37.199 but also give you some context as to why I 0:00:37.280 --> 0:00:41.200 work so hard every day to expose just how awful 0:00:41.240 --> 0:00:44.800 and existentially alarming I think Trump and Republicans are and 0:00:44.840 --> 0:00:48.440 where that's coming from. I think that's important because for me, 0:00:48.680 --> 0:00:51.360 this whole thing that I'm doing, this isn't a grift, 0:00:51.479 --> 0:00:55.560 this isn't a hustle. I've turned down jobs and more 0:00:55.640 --> 0:00:58.520 money than I've ever made in order to stay true 0:00:58.560 --> 0:01:02.360 to what I believe, and leaving my party actually cost 0:01:02.440 --> 0:01:06.600 me a lot. It costs me dollars and jobs and opportunities. 0:01:06.680 --> 0:01:11.560 It's put my life at risk, but importantly, it also 0:01:11.680 --> 0:01:15.360 cost me friends and colleagues and relationships. Certainly not with 0:01:15.440 --> 0:01:18.160 everyone I once communed with, but with plenty of people 0:01:18.680 --> 0:01:21.560 who you know, suddenly started doing and saying things that 0:01:21.640 --> 0:01:25.320 I just couldn't jibe with at all, and vice versa 0:01:25.440 --> 0:01:29.520 for them and me. I'm sure, because when you know 0:01:29.640 --> 0:01:32.280 someone through politics and then you no longer value the 0:01:32.360 --> 0:01:36.800 same things, and the things you do value become radically different, 0:01:36.840 --> 0:01:41.080 and you start using your platforms to do radically different projects, 0:01:42.440 --> 0:01:44.440 and you believe that one of those projects is actually 0:01:44.520 --> 0:01:46.880 hurting people. Well, yeah, it's hard to be friends. It's 0:01:46.880 --> 0:01:49.840 really hard to be friends. But all of that's okay. 0:01:49.960 --> 0:01:53.240 I'm good where I'm at. I'm here because I care 0:01:53.280 --> 0:01:56.800 about the country. It's just never where I expected to be. 0:01:57.000 --> 0:02:00.920 A party apostate and someone who now calling balls and 0:02:00.960 --> 0:02:03.960 strikes and no longer on a team, and a person 0:02:04.000 --> 0:02:07.160 whose values just don't seem to be like represented anywhere 0:02:07.200 --> 0:02:11.760 today in politics. Just politically homeless. And maybe you feel 0:02:11.880 --> 0:02:14.120 that way too, because I know more and more people 0:02:14.160 --> 0:02:18.440 are because the two parties have become both so extreme, 0:02:19.040 --> 0:02:22.280 but also they've become really bad at solving our problems 0:02:22.919 --> 0:02:25.520 and listening to us and doing the things they were 0:02:25.919 --> 0:02:29.480 meant to do, but it didn't always feel this way. 0:02:29.600 --> 0:02:32.880 I became a conservative somewhere early on in college. I 0:02:32.960 --> 0:02:36.440 went to a debate freshman year for something to do 0:02:37.440 --> 0:02:40.320 in between, you know, smoking clothes cigarettes and drinking coffee 0:02:40.360 --> 0:02:42.760 and reading Nietzsche and trying to feel smart. I decided, 0:02:42.880 --> 0:02:45.040 let me go to a debate. That'll that's that's something 0:02:45.480 --> 0:02:48.160 affected college students do, right. So I went to a debate, 0:02:49.200 --> 0:02:54.279 and to my chagrin, found myself agreeing with the conservative 0:02:54.480 --> 0:02:56.960 debater more than the liberal debater. And I was shocked 0:02:57.000 --> 0:03:01.239 and appalled and ashamed because I grew up in Boston, 0:03:01.320 --> 0:03:04.239 where Democrats were good people and Republicans were bad people. 0:03:04.520 --> 0:03:06.280 That's what I saw on every movie, That's what I 0:03:06.320 --> 0:03:09.760 saw on every TV show, you know, in the eighties. 0:03:10.520 --> 0:03:13.520 So when I discovered that I really actually gravitated to 0:03:13.560 --> 0:03:16.480 the right on like a bunch of issues, mainly fiscal 0:03:16.760 --> 0:03:20.520 and defense, I was like embarrassed. And I made the 0:03:20.600 --> 0:03:25.560 very uncomfortable call home to say, Mom, Dad, I have 0:03:25.600 --> 0:03:29.560 to tell you something. I think I'm a Republican. They said, 0:03:30.000 --> 0:03:32.520 so are we, and it was like we had just met. 0:03:33.280 --> 0:03:36.160 I didn't know this about them. We didn't talk about politics. 0:03:36.160 --> 0:03:40.040 Growing up. We weren't radical, We didn't hate Democrats. All 0:03:40.040 --> 0:03:44.520 I knew were Democrats. So it was this revelation that 0:03:44.600 --> 0:03:49.040 I came to very honestly and not at all sort 0:03:49.040 --> 0:03:52.680 of indoctrinated. I was just really inspired by the idea 0:03:52.720 --> 0:03:58.000 of limited government. Who, after all, is inspired by government. 0:03:58.400 --> 0:04:03.080 I never understood that's what's inspiring about government. Who wants 0:04:03.200 --> 0:04:05.440 more government in their lives? 0:04:05.480 --> 0:04:05.640 Now? 0:04:06.360 --> 0:04:10.000 I believe government's good for things. Government is necessary for things, 0:04:10.040 --> 0:04:15.800 but it's not what I aspire to more government. I 0:04:15.840 --> 0:04:18.760 was also inspired by the idea of rugged individualism. I 0:04:18.839 --> 0:04:23.480 was really drawn to economic conservatism. Starve the beast, lower taxes, 0:04:23.560 --> 0:04:26.440 lowering the debt and the deficit, fiscal responsibility. This was 0:04:26.520 --> 0:04:30.680 sexy to me at eighteen, guys, that's how big of 0:04:30.720 --> 0:04:35.000 a nerd I was. But this was sexy. You know 0:04:35.040 --> 0:04:38.240 what wasn't sexy all the college kids protesting, you know, 0:04:39.800 --> 0:04:42.359 the normal liberal stuff. What I wanted to do a 0:04:42.400 --> 0:04:47.000 March for fiscal responsibility. How about March for austerity? No 0:04:47.040 --> 0:04:51.039 one was doing that, So that was the genesis. Then 0:04:51.120 --> 0:04:52.839 I moved to New York City in nine to eleven, 0:04:52.920 --> 0:04:55.800 happens the very next year, and I had always been 0:04:55.880 --> 0:05:00.480 very patriotic, but that made me certainly more hawkish, to 0:05:00.800 --> 0:05:04.479 be honest. But also I really disliked identity politics. That 0:05:04.600 --> 0:05:07.000 was a thing that the left had really beigun leaning 0:05:07.040 --> 0:05:09.279 into and kind of decided it was the main event 0:05:10.080 --> 0:05:12.880 over a few decades. And I just thought that was 0:05:12.960 --> 0:05:17.000 super deleterious, divisive, counterproductive, and I thought it would read 0:05:17.040 --> 0:05:20.600 a lot of resentment and division, and guess what it did. 0:05:21.720 --> 0:05:24.880 So I rejected that and I found empowerment in conservatism 0:05:24.920 --> 0:05:28.400 and at the time the Republican Party. I loved our 0:05:28.440 --> 0:05:33.400 conservative intellectuals like George will and Croudhammer and Joanah Goldberg, 0:05:33.440 --> 0:05:35.159 all of whom I luckily got to know and work 0:05:35.160 --> 0:05:39.520 with eventually in some capacity. These were smart people. These 0:05:39.560 --> 0:05:44.240 were normal people, maybe nerdier than your normal folk, but 0:05:44.360 --> 0:05:49.640 like smart, normal rational These weren't mouth breathing wackos and 0:05:49.720 --> 0:05:53.719 conspiracy theorists. They made a lot of sense and politically 0:05:53.760 --> 0:05:56.040 I was inspired by people like John McCain and Paul Ryan. 0:05:56.160 --> 0:06:00.479 These were also just good men, principled men. The thing 0:06:01.320 --> 0:06:03.520 I think I liked the most though, and this is 0:06:03.560 --> 0:06:09.159 the point, was the Conservatism was a movement of ideas 0:06:10.440 --> 0:06:14.560 and that was a relatively new thing. Conservatism had spends 0:06:14.600 --> 0:06:20.480 from decades in the wilderness in the earlier part of 0:06:20.600 --> 0:06:23.520 the twentieth century, and then the conservative movement got some 0:06:23.680 --> 0:06:27.120 life breathed into it when Barry Goldwater came along with 0:06:27.200 --> 0:06:31.920 Conscience of a Conservative. Liberalism had reigned supreme for decades, 0:06:32.080 --> 0:06:36.120 but it had kind of stopped working as well as 0:06:36.120 --> 0:06:41.040 it had promised to. Intellectually, liberalism was king, but practically 0:06:41.080 --> 0:06:43.960 it had kind of stopped doing the thing it was 0:06:44.040 --> 0:06:46.640 meant to do. And America was ripe for new ideas, 0:06:47.800 --> 0:06:52.039 and conservatives decided to bring those new ideas, and a 0:06:52.040 --> 0:06:54.760 lot of voters liked those new ideas, believe it or not. 0:06:56.200 --> 0:07:00.320 Here's a clip of Ronald Reagan describing this time time 0:07:01.640 --> 0:07:03.720 at a Seapac speech in nineteen eighty five. Now the 0:07:03.720 --> 0:07:05.440 clip is a little over two minutes, but don't where 0:07:05.440 --> 0:07:06.240 I'm coming back to. 0:07:06.320 --> 0:07:09.840 Listen, This great turn from left to right was not 0:07:10.040 --> 0:07:13.559 just a case of the pendulum swinging. First the left 0:07:13.560 --> 0:07:15.800 holes sway, and then the right, and here comes the 0:07:15.880 --> 0:07:19.960 left again. The truth is conservative thought is no longer 0:07:20.040 --> 0:07:33.000 over here on the right. It's the mainstream now, and 0:07:33.040 --> 0:07:37.560 the tide of history is moving irresistibly in our direction. 0:07:39.080 --> 0:07:45.640 Why because the other side is virtually bankrupt of ideas 0:07:46.640 --> 0:07:51.160 it has it has nothing more to say, nothing to 0:07:51.200 --> 0:07:54.880 add to the debate. It has spent its intellectual capital 0:07:55.160 --> 0:08:01.040 such as it was, and it has done its deeds. Now. 0:08:01.080 --> 0:08:03.840 We're not in power now because they failed to gain 0:08:03.880 --> 0:08:07.880 electoral support over the past fifty years. They did win support, 0:08:08.440 --> 0:08:13.640 and the result was chaos, weakness, and drift. Ultimately, though 0:08:13.680 --> 0:08:28.600 their failures yielded one great thing. Us guys, we in 0:08:28.600 --> 0:08:31.720 this room, are not simply profiting them from their bankruptcy. 0:08:32.640 --> 0:08:35.800 We are where we are because we're winning the contest 0:08:35.840 --> 0:08:39.080 of ideas. In fact, in the past decade, all of 0:08:39.080 --> 0:08:45.040 a sudden, quietly, mysteriously, the Republican Party has become the 0:08:45.080 --> 0:08:48.640 party of ideas. We became the party of the most 0:08:48.640 --> 0:08:52.360 brilliant and dynamic young minds. I remember them just a 0:08:52.360 --> 0:08:56.160 few years ago, running around scrawling laugher curves on table napkins, 0:08:58.200 --> 0:09:01.440 going to symposia and talking about how social programs did 0:09:01.480 --> 0:09:05.760 not eradicate poverty but entrenched it. Writing studies on why 0:09:05.800 --> 0:09:09.440 the latest weird, unnatural idea from the social engineers is 0:09:09.880 --> 0:09:10.959 weird and unnatural. 0:09:20.160 --> 0:09:20.880 You were there. 0:09:21.840 --> 0:09:27.760 They were your ideas, your symposia, your books, and usually 0:09:27.800 --> 0:09:32.760 somebody else's table napkins. As all of a sudden, Republicans 0:09:32.760 --> 0:09:35.839 were not defenders of the status quo, but creators of 0:09:35.880 --> 0:09:36.400 the future. 0:09:38.200 --> 0:09:42.640 So, look, you can disagree with Reagan's diagnosis of the left, 0:09:42.400 --> 0:09:47.400 but this was inarguably a time when the Republican Party 0:09:47.440 --> 0:09:52.000 believed in things the right believed in policies and principles, 0:09:52.080 --> 0:09:58.320 I mean dogmatically rigidly to a point. Conservatives genuinely believed 0:09:58.320 --> 0:10:00.880 in democracy in America, and not the s new version 0:10:00.920 --> 0:10:05.520 that requires its citizens to hate each other to perform patriotism. 0:10:06.679 --> 0:10:10.440 And they really believed in a contest of ideas. And 0:10:10.520 --> 0:10:12.520 this concept of competing for the soul of the nation 0:10:12.600 --> 0:10:17.800 with intellectually rigorous ideas and admittedly populist rhetoric became foundational 0:10:18.120 --> 0:10:21.600 to American politics, and in particular movement conservatism later on 0:10:21.840 --> 0:10:24.960 in that century. It was foundational in the kind of 0:10:24.960 --> 0:10:29.440 conservative thought that I came up in. And so in 0:10:29.480 --> 0:10:33.199 twenty twelve, when we lost the presidency again got trounced 0:10:33.240 --> 0:10:36.120 in Congress, we had to do an autopsy. Why we 0:10:36.240 --> 0:10:40.480 needed new ideas. The party knew it. We didn't have 0:10:40.520 --> 0:10:47.400 to slice open democratic institutions and cut them down and destroy. 0:10:47.640 --> 0:10:51.120 We just needed new ideas. So I worked on that 0:10:51.200 --> 0:10:53.720 autopsy to find new ideas that would matter to new 0:10:53.800 --> 0:10:57.600 kinds of voters, women, minorities, millennials, LGBTQ. That's what I did. 0:10:57.640 --> 0:11:00.640 I found the ideas that would appeal to these voting 0:11:00.640 --> 0:11:04.599 blocks that we were missing. Those ideas were on regulation, 0:11:05.440 --> 0:11:10.840 the tax code, entrepreneurialism, all kinds of things. But in 0:11:10.880 --> 0:11:13.960 twenty fifteen, as you know, everything changed. Donald Trump came along. 0:11:14.000 --> 0:11:17.559 He didn't care about ideas, he didn't care about policies 0:11:17.640 --> 0:11:20.720 or principles. He didn't really even care about the GOP 0:11:20.880 --> 0:11:23.640 or what it was meant to stand for. All he 0:11:23.679 --> 0:11:27.520 saw was power and dollar signs. And I blame him 0:11:27.520 --> 0:11:29.240 a little less at the time than I blame the 0:11:29.280 --> 0:11:32.160 party leaders who should have stood up to him more. Instead, 0:11:32.600 --> 0:11:36.079 the GOP rolled out the red carpet, abandoned everything it 0:11:36.200 --> 0:11:40.320 once cared about, said that those foundational things like lowering 0:11:40.320 --> 0:11:43.560 the debt and deficit, anti protectionism, family values, etc. They 0:11:43.600 --> 0:11:46.720 just didn't matter anymore because they didn't matter to Trump. 0:11:47.960 --> 0:11:51.679 So conservative ideas just didn't have any utility anymore. He 0:11:51.720 --> 0:11:58.760 wasn't interested in persuading. He was interested in dictating. He 0:11:58.880 --> 0:12:03.040 wasn't interested in selling the country on a vision. He 0:12:03.200 --> 0:12:08.440 was interested in conning the country. He wasn't interested in 0:12:08.480 --> 0:12:12.640 competing for your vote. He was interested in competing for 0:12:12.679 --> 0:12:16.800 your attention. And look, he was hugely successful at this, 0:12:16.920 --> 0:12:19.559 as we know, but it came at a significant cost, 0:12:19.600 --> 0:12:22.760 obviously to the country, but also to the whole premise 0:12:22.800 --> 0:12:27.240 that politics is a marketplace of ideas, competing for your vote. 0:12:28.040 --> 0:12:29.920 Now it's the second term, and it couldn't be more 0:12:29.920 --> 0:12:32.960 clear that he doesn't care how the Republican Party does 0:12:33.160 --> 0:12:36.880 in the midterms. The economies in the toilet thanks to 0:12:36.880 --> 0:12:38.760 his dumb tariffs and his dumb war, and he's telling 0:12:38.800 --> 0:12:43.160 Americans he doesn't think about their finances, and can he 0:12:43.240 --> 0:12:46.240 have a billion dollars for a ballroom and another two 0:12:46.240 --> 0:12:48.680 billion for a slush fund for his friends. He doesn't 0:12:48.679 --> 0:12:51.280 give a shit that none of this is good for 0:12:51.360 --> 0:12:54.160 his own party or keeping the majority. He doesn't give 0:12:54.200 --> 0:13:00.160 a shit. Now, Republicans, Republicans know this Republican leadership. Mike 0:13:00.440 --> 0:13:02.440 Johnson in the House, John Thune in the Senate, they 0:13:02.480 --> 0:13:06.680 know he doesn't care. They know that They stopped selling 0:13:06.760 --> 0:13:11.280 ideas ten years ago when he first got elected throughout 0:13:11.280 --> 0:13:16.480 of ideas. Ideas don't work because Trump will contradict them. 0:13:16.600 --> 0:13:19.200 So what are they left with. The news is bad, 0:13:19.240 --> 0:13:21.120 the polls are bad, the president doesn't care, and they 0:13:21.120 --> 0:13:23.839 can't go out and sell ideas, So what can they do. 0:13:23.960 --> 0:13:29.240 All they can do now is rig it. All they 0:13:29.240 --> 0:13:32.360 can do is redraw the maps. All they can do 0:13:32.440 --> 0:13:34.040 is make it harder for black voters to vote, and 0:13:34.120 --> 0:13:38.480 Hispanic voters to vote, marginalized communities to vote, and they 0:13:38.480 --> 0:13:41.120 can try to bribe voters. That's what this Trumps slush 0:13:41.120 --> 0:13:44.200 fund is. It's an attempt to buy off MAGA voters 0:13:44.200 --> 0:13:47.080 who are disappointed that his economy sucks and that he 0:13:47.080 --> 0:13:49.320 didn't release the Epstein files and that he got us 0:13:49.320 --> 0:13:51.520 in a war with Iran after promising not to. It's 0:13:51.520 --> 0:13:55.880 a bribe, and what else do they have. They can 0:13:55.880 --> 0:13:57.760 try to silence the media and the critics. That's what 0:13:57.840 --> 0:14:00.360 all of Trump's lawsuits against the press are. That's why 0:14:00.400 --> 0:14:03.960 he's trying to orchestrate these Trump friendly mergers. That's why 0:14:04.000 --> 0:14:06.360 he's trying to get reporters fired from news outlets like 0:14:06.400 --> 0:14:11.240 Fox and CNN and CBS because he can't sell his 0:14:11.320 --> 0:14:14.120 bullshit if a free and fair press is constantly calling 0:14:14.200 --> 0:14:18.520 him out for lying and grifting and corruption. He needs 0:14:18.520 --> 0:14:22.880 a friendly press. He needs propaganda. So all of these 0:14:22.920 --> 0:14:25.200 are signs that the right has waived the white flag 0:14:25.200 --> 0:14:29.360 of surrender in the contest of ideas. Forget whether the 0:14:29.400 --> 0:14:31.360 ideas are good or bad. They're not even bringing them 0:14:31.400 --> 0:14:35.680 to the table. They're not competing for your vote at all. Instead, 0:14:35.800 --> 0:14:37.640 they're trying to draw you out of maps. They're trying 0:14:37.680 --> 0:14:39.560 to buy your vote. They're trying to silence you. That's 0:14:39.560 --> 0:14:44.640 all they've got. Trump, the consummate salesman, isn't even bothering 0:14:44.680 --> 0:14:48.120 to sell voters on his economy or his war anymore. 0:14:48.960 --> 0:14:52.240 He's just lying about them both and hoping loyalty to 0:14:52.360 --> 0:14:55.680 him will be enough. But just in case it isn't, 0:14:55.720 --> 0:14:57.960 Republicans are doing every craven thing they can to tip 0:14:57.960 --> 0:15:02.240 the scales and go around the voters to watch how 0:15:02.280 --> 0:15:06.280 far the Party of Reagan has fallen my former party. 0:15:06.280 --> 0:15:08.640 And I'm not just sad because my ideas aren't being 0:15:08.680 --> 0:15:11.640 platformed by a party I once love. I'm sad because 0:15:11.680 --> 0:15:15.960 no ideas are being platformed the party that once counted 0:15:16.000 --> 0:15:19.240 among its intellectuals in Rand and Hyak and Buckley, has 0:15:19.320 --> 0:15:23.960 no use for intellectualism anymore because the party's leader can't 0:15:23.960 --> 0:15:29.120 string a coherent sentence together. Because he villainizes experts because 0:15:29.120 --> 0:15:32.400 they won't lie for him. He believes his own voters 0:15:32.400 --> 0:15:37.000 are too stupid to know he's fleecing them. They have 0:15:37.120 --> 0:15:42.080 no use for ideas because Trump hasn't actually created anything ever. 0:15:42.760 --> 0:15:47.680 He just takes and puts his name on things. They 0:15:47.720 --> 0:15:50.800 have no use for competition because they know the Magabase 0:15:51.520 --> 0:15:53.960 is a cult that will agree with anything Trump does 0:15:54.080 --> 0:15:57.920 or says, even when it contradicts the last thing he 0:15:57.960 --> 0:16:02.880 did or said. Why bother compete? And I hate to 0:16:02.880 --> 0:16:05.240 say it, they benefit from the other party being factless 0:16:05.240 --> 0:16:08.840 and out of touch. I promise Trump isn't some Svengali 0:16:08.920 --> 0:16:12.280 or supernatural force. If the Democrats were better and stronger, 0:16:12.440 --> 0:16:15.920 Trump wouldn't be president today. Here we are with a 0:16:15.960 --> 0:16:18.600 party that's given up idea on ideas and competition, and 0:16:18.680 --> 0:16:22.920 another party that doesn't know how to show up. It's 0:16:23.000 --> 0:16:26.120 not a great place to be. But the good news 0:16:26.200 --> 0:16:30.120 is we have time. It's just over one hundred and 0:16:30.160 --> 0:16:33.560 sixty five days until the midterms. We have just under 0:16:33.600 --> 0:16:37.320 six months to show up, and that doesn't just mean 0:16:37.480 --> 0:16:39.920 protesting Trump. It means showing up for Americans with an 0:16:39.960 --> 0:16:43.360 agenda of our own, instead of just letting Trump create 0:16:43.400 --> 0:16:48.120 our future. Let's describe our vision of America, and for me, 0:16:48.440 --> 0:16:51.480 that's an America in which hating a whole half of 0:16:51.520 --> 0:16:54.280 it isn't a requirement. You don't have to hate anyone 0:16:54.640 --> 0:16:57.560 to live in my America, and politicians who try to 0:16:57.600 --> 0:17:01.600 get you to hate other Americans are not reward for it. 0:17:01.600 --> 0:17:05.679 It's an America that isn't embarrassed of empathy or compassion. 0:17:06.760 --> 0:17:09.479 It's in America that doesn't villainize success or wealth, but 0:17:09.480 --> 0:17:11.840 that wants everyone to be prosperous instead of just a 0:17:11.880 --> 0:17:16.080 little less poor. It's an America where public servants are 0:17:16.080 --> 0:17:18.160 meant to affect change and solve problems, not get rich 0:17:18.160 --> 0:17:22.120 and famous. It's an America where our kids feel safe, 0:17:22.520 --> 0:17:24.840 where we can buy a home, where college grads can 0:17:24.880 --> 0:17:27.119 get jobs, where people don't have to work for jobs 0:17:27.200 --> 0:17:31.080 or until they're eighty. It's an America where communities are 0:17:31.119 --> 0:17:34.240 safe from gun violence and crime, where laws and borders 0:17:34.480 --> 0:17:37.520 are enforced, but where no law abiding citizen has to 0:17:37.600 --> 0:17:41.080 cower and fear of lawless goon squads or live in 0:17:41.160 --> 0:17:45.199 militarized zones. It's an America where you can count on 0:17:45.240 --> 0:17:49.800 free elections, free press, free speech, freedom of assembly, no 0:17:49.800 --> 0:17:51.800 matter what you look like or what you believe in, 0:17:52.720 --> 0:17:55.000 and a government that won't attack those institutions for its 0:17:55.000 --> 0:17:57.840 own personal gain or self survival. I don't think these 0:17:57.880 --> 0:18:01.440 things are complicated or unattainable. I just think we've forgotten 0:18:01.480 --> 0:18:06.240 the basics common decency, a functioning government, democratic ideals, a 0:18:06.440 --> 0:18:10.520 United States. And we have to let the Republicans know 0:18:10.600 --> 0:18:13.280 they can give up on us all they want. They 0:18:13.280 --> 0:18:16.240 can give up on ideas and competition, but they can't 0:18:16.280 --> 0:18:20.600 redraw us. They can't buy us, and they can't silence us. 0:18:21.840 --> 0:18:24.840 And that's up to you and me. Okay, after the break, 0:18:24.880 --> 0:18:26.720 my good pal John Avlon is here to discuss the 0:18:26.760 --> 0:18:38.880 week that was see that. Welcome back to Off the Cup. 0:18:38.880 --> 0:18:42.120 I'm joined now by my good friend and world famous, 0:18:42.119 --> 0:18:46.520 world renowned pepke mache artist John Avlon. Welcome John. 0:18:47.080 --> 0:18:48.679 I love that. I love that. You know what I 0:18:48.680 --> 0:18:52.360 love really is that I never pronounced it the French way, And. 0:18:52.560 --> 0:18:55.359 Well I'm a loser and a nerd and a Francophile, 0:18:55.480 --> 0:18:56.320 so I must. 0:18:57.720 --> 0:18:59.640 Pig for an Angler file. But there you go. 0:19:00.160 --> 0:19:02.280 No, I'm a I'm a Francophile. 0:19:02.720 --> 0:19:02.840 No. 0:19:02.960 --> 0:19:05.720 John Avlon is a journalist and historian. He's author of 0:19:05.840 --> 0:19:08.879 Washington's Farewell and Lincoln in the Fight for Peace. I 0:19:08.920 --> 0:19:12.280 know you're working on another book, but we're so happy 0:19:12.280 --> 0:19:15.720 to have you in between your Pepia mesche. 0:19:16.160 --> 0:19:18.359 I love it, I know, and we're going to create 0:19:18.520 --> 0:19:21.120 new personas every time I come on, just to keep. 0:19:21.320 --> 0:19:22.080 What we're doing here. 0:19:22.480 --> 0:19:24.800 Always fun to talk with you. That was a great monologue. 0:19:24.840 --> 0:19:28.359 And I'm not just saying that because I really agree 0:19:28.400 --> 0:19:30.679 with it, but it was. It was really you had 0:19:30.720 --> 0:19:33.359 a great arc. You had history, you had a Reagan 0:19:33.400 --> 0:19:34.440 clip I've never heard. 0:19:34.280 --> 0:19:36.080 Before, all the things you love I don't, and. 0:19:36.520 --> 0:19:40.240 You landed the plane with with regard to our challenges. 0:19:39.840 --> 0:19:43.320 Today, well, I wanted to have you on specifically because 0:19:44.680 --> 0:19:48.399 for this conversation, because you and I politically grew up together. 0:19:49.600 --> 0:19:51.760 The time I was describing was the time you were 0:19:51.800 --> 0:19:54.479 you were both present for, not only because you were 0:19:54.480 --> 0:19:56.280 also in politics at the time, but we like we 0:19:56.280 --> 0:20:02.240 were there together, and you know you you were I was. 0:20:02.240 --> 0:20:05.439 Never, never, And I was never a Republican. But I'm married, 0:20:05.480 --> 0:20:08.440 that's right. But but you were, and I worked for one. 0:20:08.800 --> 0:20:14.520 But you communed absolutely with us at times, and we 0:20:14.520 --> 0:20:17.600 were often efforting at the same project. 0:20:17.920 --> 0:20:21.080 Absolutely No, But I've been at committed centrist from the beginning, 0:20:21.200 --> 0:20:23.680 the lonely consistent radical centrist. 0:20:23.720 --> 0:20:27.040 But yes, yes, And then you know, you married a conservative, 0:20:27.080 --> 0:20:29.120 and you got some conservative friends, and you know. 0:20:29.240 --> 0:20:31.480 Sure I had them before we would do My best 0:20:31.520 --> 0:20:32.680 friends are libertarians. 0:20:33.000 --> 0:20:36.800 Yes, we'd have these late night discussions and it was 0:20:36.840 --> 0:20:39.639 a heady, fun time and no one knows and appreciates 0:20:39.640 --> 0:20:43.400 more than you do the I think the rigorous intellectual 0:20:43.480 --> 0:20:45.959 history of our politics, and for my purposes the purposes 0:20:45.960 --> 0:20:49.520 of this discussion, the intellectual history of the conservative movement. 0:20:49.720 --> 0:20:52.159 And you don't have to agreed with all of it 0:20:52.160 --> 0:20:54.080 to acknowledge it was a foundational part of the movement 0:20:54.080 --> 0:20:58.000 and the movements success. And I'm wondering where you think 0:20:58.160 --> 0:21:02.880 that's all gone? It was it just Trump? Was it 0:21:03.000 --> 0:21:03.800 the Tea Party? 0:21:04.000 --> 0:21:04.760 Was it? Right? 0:21:04.800 --> 0:21:09.480 So take take me through John Avalon's a train of 0:21:09.480 --> 0:21:11.120 thought on where intellectualism went. 0:21:11.280 --> 0:21:13.920 Yeah. So, so I'm gonna have a slight alternate history, 0:21:14.400 --> 0:21:19.479 but it's it's not without admiring certain elements. I mean, 0:21:19.520 --> 0:21:24.080 I try to see the three sixty. It is true 0:21:24.480 --> 0:21:29.879 that conservatism got a jolt in reaction to the rise 0:21:29.920 --> 0:21:33.679 of the New Deal and echoes of those policies that 0:21:33.840 --> 0:21:39.760 seemed stalitarian, not by world standards but by historic American standards. 0:21:40.560 --> 0:21:46.359 It's true that the movement got another jolt. Uh and 0:21:46.600 --> 0:21:50.000 and and I say this with some hesitation, because one 0:21:50.040 --> 0:21:53.040 of the things I share with you is a deep 0:21:53.200 --> 0:21:56.720 dislike of identity politics. And I think one of the 0:21:56.760 --> 0:22:00.800 democrats real problems is a reflexive impulse to call people 0:22:00.840 --> 0:22:04.920 they disagree with racist. But it is also historically undeniable 0:22:05.040 --> 0:22:08.760 that Conservatism got another jolt in the wake of reactions 0:22:08.760 --> 0:22:11.760 to Brown versus Board of Education, which is where you 0:22:11.840 --> 0:22:17.280 saw the demonization of Republicans like Earl Warren, who who 0:22:17.400 --> 0:22:19.439 was the chief Supremeport chief just the time, who'd been 0:22:19.480 --> 0:22:22.600 a centrist Republican, which is a great tradition and one 0:22:22.800 --> 0:22:24.640 you know, if you look at the history of early 0:22:24.680 --> 0:22:27.480 Republican Party, it's a moderate progressive party founder by Lincoln 0:22:27.600 --> 0:22:31.520 tr tradition, what Hoover once called a independent. He was 0:22:31.560 --> 0:22:34.600 an independent progressive in the Republican tradition, which sounds like 0:22:34.600 --> 0:22:38.680 a contradiction until you think about it, and then and then, 0:22:38.760 --> 0:22:41.840 and then, of course the political map flips abruptly. In 0:22:41.960 --> 0:22:45.119 nineteen sixty four, Barry Goldwater puts forward a lot of 0:22:45.280 --> 0:22:49.000 ideas which were inspiring to people from a libertarian stance, 0:22:49.040 --> 0:22:51.399 but in the context of the time, it's the he 0:22:51.520 --> 0:22:53.600 is opposing the Civil Rights Act, in the Voting Rights. 0:22:53.440 --> 0:22:56.320 Act and guess ury and voting guess what. 0:22:56.520 --> 0:23:00.240 The South goes from voting solid Democrat, which had been 0:23:00.280 --> 0:23:02.680 the conservative populist party at the time States Rights Party, 0:23:03.040 --> 0:23:05.760 to flipping of the Republican Party on a dime after 0:23:05.840 --> 0:23:10.280 one hundred years. That's not coincident. It's not incidental. It's 0:23:10.480 --> 0:23:15.480 fundamental right. And so for me, you know, the conservative populace, 0:23:16.000 --> 0:23:18.760 I'm big on finding common ground. But if you got 0:23:18.800 --> 0:23:21.479 to pick a Chus side in the overall intellectual debate, 0:23:21.640 --> 0:23:26.440 I'm not going to be with the conservative populists or 0:23:26.520 --> 0:23:29.400 folks who believe on some level that society is held 0:23:29.440 --> 0:23:32.560 together by belief that might makes right. I'm going to 0:23:32.640 --> 0:23:35.359 go with Lincoln consistently that we need to forge a 0:23:35.400 --> 0:23:38.040 society where right, makes might, and we need to find 0:23:38.080 --> 0:23:40.280 a way to find common ground. But so even in 0:23:40.320 --> 0:23:42.600 our lifetime and careers, I worked for Rudy Giuliani during 0:23:42.680 --> 0:23:44.639 nine to eleven. I deeply believed I was sort of 0:23:44.640 --> 0:23:47.720 a DLC Democratic Clinton kid. I know that's an athematic 0:23:47.720 --> 0:23:49.640 of you, but to me, that movement made a lot 0:23:49.640 --> 0:23:51.840 of sense in building a third way, the Clinton Blair tradition, 0:23:51.920 --> 0:23:54.040 and Rudy was an extension of that in the context 0:23:54.080 --> 0:23:57.399 of you know, New York. He was fiscally conservative, he 0:23:57.480 --> 0:23:59.879 was tough on crime, things that I identify with, but 0:24:00.040 --> 0:24:02.280 he was also pro choice, pro gay rights, pro healthcare, 0:24:02.320 --> 0:24:04.879 poe immigrant ye. And then came nine eleven, which was 0:24:04.920 --> 0:24:07.719 fundamental to me too. I was his chief speech right 0:24:07.720 --> 0:24:10.439 at the time, and you know, was there when the 0:24:10.440 --> 0:24:12.800 towers fell and wrote the Old Juice of the firefighters 0:24:12.840 --> 0:24:17.320 and police officers with members of my team. But then 0:24:17.400 --> 0:24:19.960