Speaker 1: David Davenport is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution,
Speaker 1: the author of a couple of things, actually a really
Speaker 1: thought provoking short piece entitled War is the New Normal
Speaker 1: in Washington, which is obviously part and parcel of his
Speaker 1: new book How Public Policy Became War Because four hours
Speaker 1: simply isn't enough. This is Armstrong and Getty extra large.
Speaker 1: So it's a pleasure to be talking to David today
Speaker 1: about his recent writings that his thinkings about our nation's politics. David,
Speaker 1: it's a pleasure, Thank you. Good to be with you.
Speaker 1: So I'm reading this piece I got in my hand. Um,
Speaker 1: you say, Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal in nineteen thirty three
Speaker 1: was America's French Revolution. That's a strong statement. What do
Speaker 1: you mean, Well, the French Revolution of Chris changed everything
Speaker 1: in France, political, social, economic, and we think that Gurdon
Speaker 1: Lloyd by co author, and I think that that's exactly
Speaker 1: what Franklin Roosevelt did. He was an early practitioner of
Speaker 1: the Rama Manual school of public policy. It's a shamed
Speaker 1: a let of good crisis go to waste, and so
Speaker 1: the crisis of the New Deal really gave Roosevelt an
Speaker 1: opportunity to change the presidency and the executive branch in particular,
Speaker 1: and really how government and our society function and operate. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: you make the point that it fundamentally changed the way
Speaker 1: legislation gets passed. What do you mean. Well, and of course,
Speaker 1: even before we get to legislation, Roosevelt was what we
Speaker 1: call the emperor of executive orders. He did the executive orders,
Speaker 1: which is still a record to this day. But he also,
Speaker 1: as a historian David Kennedy pointed out in his write
Speaker 1: book on the Depression and New Deal, he quote wrote,
Speaker 1: Congress like a skilled jockey unquote. Previously Congress drafted its
Speaker 1: own bills, but Roosevelt started being a legislator in chief,
Speaker 1: drafting the bills. Sent his famous bank bill over to
Speaker 1: Congress in the morning, passed in the afternoon. Very few
Speaker 1: saw it, much less read it. And so the idea
Speaker 1: of the president driving the legislative agenda really was born
Speaker 1: under Roosevelt, just out of curiosity, was at the beginning
Speaker 1: of the president writing the budget and Congress rubber stamping it,
Speaker 1: or did that happen at a different time. I would
Speaker 1: say that happened a little later but he certainly built
Speaker 1: out the branch, executive branch in a way that that
Speaker 1: could happen. Uh. You know, we talked about Roosevelt and
Speaker 1: all of his alphabet soup agencies that he created and
Speaker 1: that became, you know, the enormous administrative state that we
Speaker 1: all know about today. So he was also the father
Speaker 1: of the administrative state. And you fast forward and you
Speaker 1: you know, you get further and further away from bipartisanship
Speaker 1: as you go when you get to today where politicians
Speaker 1: regularly tell us, including President Trump, that look, we need
Speaker 1: to have this many senators and this many many House
Speaker 1: members to accomplish what we want to accomplish. In other words,
Speaker 1: you have to have the entire number of people you
Speaker 1: need for a vote. The idea of bipartisan of getting
Speaker 1: some people from the other side just seems to be
Speaker 1: completely not even part the equation anymore. You're you're absolutely
Speaker 1: right to the extent Congress does something, and it really
Speaker 1: doesn't do a lot these days. Um, it's all basically
Speaker 1: on party line votes. Party line voting was in the
Speaker 1: six as recently as the nineteen seventies, that's approaching today,
Speaker 1: no kidding. In the seventies it was would vote party
Speaker 1: line another another. That's incredible, that's impossible to imagine. Now, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: of course, And as you say, sometimes we even hold
Speaker 1: the bill in secret. We wait until we have fifty
Speaker 1: one votes in the Senate. For example of our party,
Speaker 1: we spring it on the Senate with very little debate,
Speaker 1: no chance really for amendments, no committee deliberation as much
Speaker 1: as we used to have, and we take a party
Speaker 1: line vote and move on Obamacare party line vote, Trump's
Speaker 1: tax reform, party line vote. We do everything important these days,
Speaker 1: it seems like by party line, which makes you wonder
Speaker 1: why even have the human beings there? Why not just
Speaker 1: vote for uh, you know, a Congress representation and then
Speaker 1: a computer votes? Well? Who to all those OsO dramatic
Speaker 1: committee hearings that we all watch on c SPEN. Uh So, David,
Speaker 1: you know this is coming together in my mind. I
Speaker 1: read a piece I believe it was by Kevin Williamson
Speaker 1: who was talking about um and this is similar to
Speaker 1: some of your thoughts as well. But when you have
Speaker 1: a war on something and and the air wars being
Speaker 1: declared all the time now or warlike verbiage being used,
Speaker 1: that justifies you, uh, suspending the standard practices, morality, the
Speaker 1: rights of people, your restraints. I mean, it's war. It's
Speaker 1: all out war. So obviously, you know, if some people
Speaker 1: have to be jailed and killed and heard or that's fine.
Speaker 1: And Denny and and I know you write about that,
Speaker 1: but you're also talking about how once you make that declaration,
Speaker 1: you can be warlike in your passing of legislation to
Speaker 1: get the big war going. That's really interesting to me.
Speaker 1: You're right. I mean, if if you go back to
Speaker 1: lb J and the war on poverty and right on
Speaker 1: through the war and crying, the war on drugs, Carder's
Speaker 1: war on energy consumption, the war on terror, A great
Speaker 1: deal of public policy is done today in the name
Speaker 1: of war. And one reason that's done is it allows
Speaker 1: the federal government to take over things that used to
Speaker 1: be state or local, such as crime or drugs. And
Speaker 1: then it allows the president to take things over and
Speaker 1: rely very little on the Congress because we're at war.
Speaker 1: You know, we don't have time for a lot of debate,
Speaker 1: a lot of legislative hearings. We were at war. So
Speaker 1: and and of course these wars never end. All of
Speaker 1: the wars I just mentioned are still in effect. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then getting back to the whole party line votes
Speaker 1: thing along with the war. The war is against the
Speaker 1: other party. They're the ones trying to stop all that
Speaker 1: is good and decent happening in the country. So you
Speaker 1: can't you can't beat by partisan and give on anything,
Speaker 1: or you'll be primaried by your own party. Right, So
Speaker 1: it's a war like in every aspect. If you in fact,
Speaker 1: if you if you're in the legislature, if you're in
Speaker 1: Congress and you want to do something by bartisan, we
Speaker 1: call you a gang and put you in a room closet.
Speaker 1: The only five part doesn't work is the gang of
Speaker 1: six or the gang of twelve that decides something has
Speaker 1: to be done and then they have to hide in
Speaker 1: a small office or a broom closet to try to
Speaker 1: work out some kind of arrangement. And then, as you say,
Speaker 1: they're likely to be punished later and by having a
Speaker 1: primary opponent. So it seems easy on those people. It
Speaker 1: seems to me, though, that the public is demanding this.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, the public really punishes people that
Speaker 1: stray away from the well the party line votes. How
Speaker 1: do we get out of this or do we get
Speaker 1: out of this well? I I think that the two
Speaker 1: things that I would think would be important. One, there's
Speaker 1: a baseball cap back in Washington. You can imagine it.
Speaker 1: It's red. It's been worner on a presidential campaign. But
Speaker 1: this cap says, make Congress great again. It seems like
Speaker 1: we do have to make Congress at least relevant again.
Speaker 1: You know, it has to kind of claw back some
Speaker 1: of its war powers that it's given to the president,
Speaker 1: has to claw back spending power. Uh. And then second,
Speaker 1: we have to make Congress more deliberate of again. The
Speaker 1: US Senate has long been called the world's greatest deliberative body,
Speaker 1: but it hardly deliberates. I think, for one thing, we
Speaker 1: need to return powers to committees and committee cheers that
Speaker 1: have now devolved to the majority and minority leaders who
Speaker 1: are essentially party representatives. So those are some steps I
Speaker 1: think we could take in the right direction. You know,
Speaker 1: I tend to try to avoid cliches, but I can't
Speaker 1: resist in this case. To what extent do you think
Speaker 1: we get the government we deserve? Truly? Well, I did,
Speaker 1: to be honest with you, I do. I think the
Speaker 1: people in Washington are essentially driving this um. Yes, they
Speaker 1: managed to co opt the people in it and get
Speaker 1: them to vote for it. But the people, by and large,
Speaker 1: I think most studies show UH don't share this kind
Speaker 1: of warlike notion of politics, the fact they're relatively disgusted
Speaker 1: by it. But party leaders spend a lot of money
Speaker 1: UH and and the media fans of the flames of
Speaker 1: this sometimes to get people think we are at war
Speaker 1: and we have to hate the other people and we
Speaker 1: have to beat them back. I don't think the people,
Speaker 1: by their nature are really committed to that approach to politics,
Speaker 1: but I think the government and the and the leaders
Speaker 1: in Washington have sort of led us into this. Well.
Speaker 1: The contagion is definitely caught on though. I mean, when
Speaker 1: I'm not doing this, I'm I'm into music and musicians
Speaker 1: and that sort of thing. And man, some of my
Speaker 1: favorite musicians are just permanently angry and way off to
Speaker 1: one side. I'm sure you can guess which side, but um, so, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's out there, it's and it's traffic tough. I
Speaker 1: don't even had to give up reading a couple of
Speaker 1: my favorite sports writers because they've gone over to the Yeah,
Speaker 1: I like, wait, I want to read the sports page,
Speaker 1: And yeah, I talked about sports. I talked about this
Speaker 1: all the time I read. I read the New York
Speaker 1: Times a lot, and it doesn't matter if it's a
Speaker 1: book review or an article about a recipe or a
Speaker 1: sports story. As you mentioned, Trump gets worked in somehow.
Speaker 1: Didn't you find a gardening story? Yes, yes, things you
Speaker 1: should grow during these tough Trump times. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: just it's crazy, but so because being in the media
Speaker 1: as we are, we've noticed how the fixation on the
Speaker 1: one person, the president, is just so overwhelming, as if
Speaker 1: the president does everything. In our our attitude that the
Speaker 1: only election that matters, as the presidential election filters out
Speaker 1: into how much power apparently the president thinks he or
Speaker 1: she should grab or does it work? That weird hasn't
Speaker 1: worked the other way around. I can't tell, well, I
Speaker 1: I it is ironic because you know, in the earlier
Speaker 1: days of our republic, we thought that the primary representative
Speaker 1: that was relevant to us was our own number of Congress.
Speaker 1: You're right that presidents over time have taken the view that, no,
Speaker 1: we're the only one that's really elected by the people.
Speaker 1: You know, those are representatives are just elected by a
Speaker 1: small number of people, were elected by everybody, or at
Speaker 1: least voted on by everybody, and and presidents, I think
Speaker 1: have been very clever and how they amass power using
Speaker 1: executive orders, using a national emergencies. You, you and I
Speaker 1: live under thirty one states of national emergency, which increases
Speaker 1: presidential power. All these wars we mentioned earlier on various
Speaker 1: domestic problems, so presidents have taken over way more power
Speaker 1: than was intended, though I think Congress is acquiesced in
Speaker 1: some of that. They've been happy to give up their
Speaker 1: power because they're cowards, because they don't want to have
Speaker 1: a vote that they could pay held to on a war.
Speaker 1: They just they think the most cowardly track and let
Speaker 1: whoever's president decide. No, you're quite right. I happened to
Speaker 1: be in Washington a couple of years ago when it
Speaker 1: looked like Congress is going to have a major debate
Speaker 1: on Syria and what we should do in that word theater,
Speaker 1: and I thought, okay, this is going to be interested.
Speaker 1: But it said they decided to adjourn and go home
Speaker 1: and campaign early. And when Congressman said, I don't know
Speaker 1: if he was being facetious or not, we just like
Speaker 1: the president to bomb the place and tell us about
Speaker 1: it later. You wouldn't want to take that hard vote,
Speaker 1: which is what happens. That's remarkably candid. I think what
Speaker 1: is it they say a gaff is when somebody accidentally
Speaker 1: catches the politicians telling the truth. Absolutely, it's a tough
Speaker 1: it's a tough environment, and I think it will take
Speaker 1: quite a bit to I think of it as as
Speaker 1: we need to just get out a bunch of tug boats.
Speaker 1: We're not going to blow up the system we have.
Speaker 1: It's like a big ocean liner that's moving forward with
Speaker 1: a lot of speed and power and money. But we're
Speaker 1: just gonna have to get out the tug boats. Better
Speaker 1: civic education, more civic engagement by the people, Congress clawing
Speaker 1: back powers, becoming more delibertive again, it's gonna take all
Speaker 1: those tug boats to kind of nudge this ocean minor back. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that sounds like the sort of thing that happens over decades. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm afraid you're right. It took us a few decades
Speaker 1: to get here. It will probably take even more to
Speaker 1: fix it. Is there even does it does? What's the
Speaker 1: term civil civilian? What's the They used to call it civics?
Speaker 1: I was hung up on civil Um, does civics classes
Speaker 1: even exist anymore? Is that notion anywhere in America's academia. Well,
Speaker 1: that's a big hobby horse of mine that I ride.
Speaker 1: I think that's part of the deepot problem. Uh. The
Speaker 1: last time American students were tested on civic education a
Speaker 1: few years ago, eighth graders, which was the only level
Speaker 1: where the test was given, only were proficient in American
Speaker 1: history and only were proficient in government and civics. And
Speaker 1: that's that's I think a crisis level problem. And you're right,
Speaker 1: it's not being taught in the schools. A lot of
Speaker 1: times when it is taught, it's a very negative view
Speaker 1: of America that's presented. Uh. And we're training up a
Speaker 1: generation not only to not understand America, but not to
Speaker 1: love America. Right. You know that's the thing. You can't
Speaker 1: even suggest civics and patriotism without somebody, perhaps one of
Speaker 1: those musicians I mentioned a spitting about you know, jingoism
Speaker 1: and and you know Indian genocide and slavery and the
Speaker 1: rest of it. I mean, it's just it's like, well,
Speaker 1: getting back to our name, it's all or nothing, one
Speaker 1: side or the other, which is really kind of a
Speaker 1: sick way to look at the world. No, and the
Speaker 1: Howard Zen wrote a casebook textbook many years ago called
Speaker 1: The People's History of the United States. That's one of
Speaker 1: the most used textbooks in the country. Yeah, if I
Speaker 1: had a time machine, I'd go back and continually flushes
Speaker 1: rough drafts down the toilet until it became so frustrated
Speaker 1: he gave up on the shocking to me, that book
Speaker 1: is actually the textbook in so many classrooms. And you're right,
Speaker 1: I mean it's take the Founding for example, I mean
Speaker 1: the Founding and Zen's view was all about, you know,
Speaker 1: wealthy property owners setting up checks and balances not to
Speaker 1: protect the republic, but to protect their own property. Columbus
Speaker 1: and other discoverers were here simply to rape and rob
Speaker 1: and and as my co author of several books, Gordon
Speaker 1: Lloyd likes to say, it's hard to love an ugly founding.
Speaker 1: And so if you portray the very founding of our
Speaker 1: country as something ugly, our our kids are not going
Speaker 1: to love it. Yeah. Yeah, Hey, this is just personal curiosity, David.
Speaker 1: It's kind of off the topic. But I'm always interested
Speaker 1: in how co authors work together, which end do you
Speaker 1: handle in which end does Gordon Lloyd do or how
Speaker 1: do you? How do you mesh that stuff? Well, Gordon
Speaker 1: and I have become very close friends over the years.
Speaker 1: We started by writing I don't know, twenty or thirty
Speaker 1: newspaper columns together, and then we graduated two books, and
Speaker 1: basically we worked together because we enjoy it and we
Speaker 1: learned from each other. So we get together every couple
Speaker 1: of months for two or three days in person to
Speaker 1: debate and sort out the issues in the book, and
Speaker 1: then we each go away and do some separate drafting.
Speaker 1: In the end, one of us has to do kind
Speaker 1: of the final draft so that it speaks with one voice.
Speaker 1: And uh, we have our little uh, he claims. He
Speaker 1: provides the words and I provide the music, and I say, well,
Speaker 1: occasionally I come up with a word or two, but no,
Speaker 1: it is tricky, but we've certainly learned to do it
Speaker 1: together and enjoy it. You are the president of Pepperdine
Speaker 1: University from five to two thousand. What's your view of
Speaker 1: college campuses these days? The problem you mentioned earlier, which
Speaker 1: is now politics is everywhere, sports pages, gardening recipes. I
Speaker 1: saw that twenty five years ago in college when political
Speaker 1: correctness wasn't just coming up in political science classes, but
Speaker 1: had crept over into economics and into biology and science
Speaker 1: and climate change and art. And I think what's happened
Speaker 1: is that that sort of the sixties generation, if you will,
Speaker 1: has taken over the faculties and administrations of lots of
Speaker 1: colleges and patients with other points of view has disappeared.
Speaker 1: And the irony is what college is supposed to be
Speaker 1: about is diversity of ideas. And it seems like on
Speaker 1: campus these days were interested in diversity of everything else,
Speaker 1: but not of ideas. I think it's very unfortunate. Well,
Speaker 1: it's it's beyond perverse. It's as if hospitals became a
Speaker 1: hostile to the sick. I mean, it's it's why you're there.
Speaker 1: On a similar topic, UM, I know you're a Californian.
Speaker 1: Is there hope for Well? At times I call it
Speaker 1: corrupt Afornia. Times I call it cal Unicornia because we've
Speaker 1: completely lost our grasp on reality. Is there hope for California?
Speaker 1: I'm afraid relatively little. I've been here for forty years myself,
Speaker 1: and and thinking it might be time for me to
Speaker 1: give up. I sort of have a Pendulou view of
Speaker 1: history that things swing hard in one direction and then
Speaker 1: they finally start to push back. In the forty years
Speaker 1: I've been in California, it's still all swinging politically, economically,
Speaker 1: financially in one direction. Uh when when Jerry Brown was
Speaker 1: the best hope Conservatives head going. You know, you're a
Speaker 1: state that's that's in trouble. So the only hope I
Speaker 1: really find is occasionally at the local or regional level.
Speaker 1: I just don't see much hope at the state level. Wow, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't want to be a down calling
Speaker 1: Mayflower van lines. Yeah, we don't want to be a
Speaker 1: downer show, downer podcast, just downer people in general. But
Speaker 1: you know, not not everything is a pendulum. Some things
Speaker 1: are just a continuum until it falls apart. The that's
Speaker 1: and I think that's the track California is on the
Speaker 1: long term, the economics of that don't work. There's probably
Speaker 1: some real reckoning coming in in a lot of counties
Speaker 1: and cities over the public pension mistakes, and guaranteed the
Speaker 1: state has ignored that even when they brag about a
Speaker 1: balanced budget at the state level. Well, let's add on
Speaker 1: top of that free healthcare for illegals and see if
Speaker 1: that fixes the problem exactly. So, it's a it's a
Speaker 1: tough situation and I'm afraid Gavin Newsome and and the
Speaker 1: legislature that that has two thirds support of one party
Speaker 1: is likely to make things worse. David really enjoyed the conversation.
Speaker 1: I hope we can do it again before too long.
Speaker 1: Thank you, gentlemen. It sounds like you have a good
Speaker 1: fix on things, and or at least we agree on
Speaker 1: a lot of things. And this is why I drink
Speaker 1: David great to talk to you. Thanks again. Is having
Speaker 1: a good fix on things? Are all going to hell
Speaker 1: and nothing can be done to stop it? Is there
Speaker 1: any antage to that? Well, at least would you be
Speaker 1: caught with your pants down or would you be better
Speaker 1: off thinking I believe everything is fine and we'll get
Speaker 1: even better. No, if it all comes down, I want
Speaker 1: to be ready a couple of guns better. Yeah, um
Speaker 1: no it yeah. I'm a realist. You can't choose to
Speaker 1: be a realist or not a realist. And it's it's ugly.
Speaker 1: Although getting back to the national stuff, identifying you know,
Speaker 1: the the on the ill health, the problems, the whole
Speaker 1: warlike everything, it just it may take the time for
Speaker 1: those ideas to spread, but I hope they will. I
Speaker 1: think it's the consolidation of power and attention, both of them,
Speaker 1: power and attention in the presidency. I always remember Bob
Speaker 1: Woodward talking about in his time in Washington, d C.
Speaker 1: He's seeing cabinet positions go from something important. These are
Speaker 1: the people that ran the department and advised the president
Speaker 1: to Now they're just ceremonial. Presidents now run every department.
Speaker 1: They pick somebody to be the cabinet chief, to go
Speaker 1: out to ribbon guttings or whatever, but the president runs it.
Speaker 1: And it's just so many different things have gone that
Speaker 1: direction of consolidating everything. I make this pledge when I
Speaker 1: am president, y'all can run your department. I may even
Speaker 1: answer your calls. Maybe on my fourth or eighth year,
Speaker 1: I might say, the Department Interior, what do you do? Now?
Speaker 1: How's it going over there at State? I'm the Secretary
Speaker 1: of Labor, sir? Oh yeah, how's it going at Labor? Good? Good,
Speaker 1: glad to hear. What do you like better the housing
Speaker 1: or the urban development? Well, sir, I didn't. I really
Speaker 1: didn't want an answer, but thanks for stopping by. The
Speaker 1: White House anyway. Here's here's a ceremonial lash tray for
Speaker 1: his souvenir ash tray extra large