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announcer: the principal's first summit brought together conservative centrist and pro-democracy advocates and provided an alternative to the conservative political action conference. commentators talk about what has gone awry in a right wing politics and culture as well as conservativeonald trump. heath: all right, if people are standing up, maybe we can filter

back into our seats here and i duce the next panel. this next discussion -- they can make their way onto theour analm introducing them. this next discussion is on a lot of people'mithe title of the pal leadership in america, principles for state, church, culture and communi. i think this is an issue we have seen increased in importance in christian communities, faith communities, what has happened to them in the wake of all this political turmoil we've had in the country and the way that hip matters. telling the truth matters and how we form those morals in our country are important. the panel we have here is really second to none. this is exactly who you would want talking about these things at principles first summit.

be the president of the trinity forum. if you are not aware of that organization, it is atastic organization. great printed materials. i encourage you to check out all the literature. mr. michael weir, the president at the center of christianity in public life. also tackling these issues head-on. on of the bulwark. she really needs no introduction. she has been at this a long time and has been focused on social policy and issues of family formation in the united states. a lot of great thoughts on that. then, we are delighted to have i think for our first time, mr. robert a. george, writer and spear. probably familiar with him from twitter. he's formerly of bloomberg opinion but rights some insights

ful commentary about our culture, the state of american life. i am thrilled to hear from all of them today. thank you. [applause]>> thank you very muct to be with you all. i will confess it is a bit intimidating to have to follow the courage of kassidy and sarah and alyssa, as well as the a erlie sykes with moral philosophy. the last few years have proven the incredible importance of this topic. it shows the reason why this topic, moral formation and moral leadership preoccupied so much of history, the historians, the moral philosophers. it shows pre-occupies the mind of the founders and framers. why they wrestled so extensively

in the federalist papers with meant to check and constrain and channel self interest. to check faction and■1 cultivate the better angels of one's nature. it is why george washington took the opportunity at his farewell address to talk about support to political prosperity and freedom itself that moral leadership and moral character in citizens played. it is also why we are at such an important and in many ways unsettling crossroads right now. because while it is certainly true that throughout history, it is not like we had one great moral leader after another. there have been plenty of villainsd liars and tyrants and moral mediocrities who are citizens and who have been moral leaders. but, we had retained a sense that a more perfect union is possible and we as a country have also faced challenged, and

overcome■ failings and moral challenges in our past. right now, we are at a point of great challenge and peril. on both ideological and partisan folds, there are real challenges to the idea of moral formation and leadership. whether it is on the left, where character and morality itself is seen largely as a smokescreen for power plays and virtue and blame are seen to be more likely whether you belong to a colonizer class or based on the intersection of your identity. as well as on the hard right, where frankly, evil and nihilistic leader whose worst tendencies of belligerence have not only been tolerated, but what it means to win and show strength. so, what does moral formation what does it look like?

how can we cultivate it and what difference does it make? it will be hard to get through alof but we have a panel who can make a huge dent in our understanding of why this is so important. paying to it and how we can cultivate it for more perfect union. starting off, i want to turn to my -- fellow panelists. when we speak about moral formation and moral character in our leaders and citizens, what are we talking about? how is character formed? >> great. i am really happy to be here, really happy to be on this panel. part of the problem here right at the outt is in politics, the sum of what it means to be moral has been taken up or

the right answers. i think the way in which that consumption of morality alone, the way that can be misused has become really apparent. when you talk about formati abol formation in part because of that reason. the spirit refers to our character or ourl.formation is s by which our will takes on a specific defined character. everyone has a formation. there's no getting around it. one of the reasons why i love the name of this gathering, why i love principles first is because it could just be the organization for the right principles. principles implies that we want to be the kind of people who can uphold our principles even when it iifficult.

kassidy is a wonderful example. she didn't just have the right ideas. a lot of people have those ideas. a lot of people if you ask them in a survey, yeah, rule of law is fantastic. the real test is are we the kind of people that can follow through on our intentions in the moment of crisis? and that's a real issue for us. t.s. eliot once suggested -- by the way, he was not posit this,n observation. the great human endeavor has been to create a system so have to be good. and that is the political that we have. th without being the kind of people who can back them up and that is why moral formation is so critical. er i want to invite my

fellow panelists to jump in as you see fit. if there are other thoughts, feel free. >> before i begin, i want to thank all of you for being here greet and talk with last night and during the day so far. it is so gratiinsh. you are -- i am old enough to remember george h w bush'she grl society that was out there. he called it 1000 points of light. that is what i see in this group and it is unbelievablythank you. [applause] i love what you said, michael. i was thinking about moral

formation and it is very important, morality is key to a thrivingemocratic republic. we have all kinds of expressions of this from the founders. for example, john adams said our ade for a religious and moral people. it is wholly inadequate for the governance of any other. and yet, look, we have to be realistic. the people on the maga side and the people on the far left, they also feel they are the moral ones. we are evil and they will say that very clearly. kristi noem at cpac said there are two kinds of people in this country. there are people who love people who hate america. i want to reflect on this for a ■:minute because it is important

to understand, i think, or try to understand the moral reasoning that can lead people to embrace wt we is one of the most wicked, evil forces that has darkened america's doorstep in our so, we have to think about the fact that they argue that the house is on■y fire. the country is in dire -- it's in a dire emergency and because of that, we have to turn to a strongman like trump. if your house were on fire and your neighbor came along with a gardenoaou wouldn't turn his help away because he was a sex offender, right? you would accept the garden hose, you would accept ank him very kindly. of course, in that analogy, you would thank him, but then you wouldn't elect him president of

the neighborhood association. and, that is, i think, so key to why they maga people always need to say this is an emergency. the country is burning. biden is destroying america. itñ4 all hands on deck because they know that they have embraced this really morally compromised, horrible leader. so, there is never a acknowledge country is actually just fine. that we are notre emergency. that is the secret of their -- i don't know if it is a secret but

it is my interpretation for their justification. a great science fiction writer oncez■ said "man is not a rational, but a rationalizing creature." do rationalize their support for trump, so they need to make the other side seem evil. this nonsense about the biden crime family. biden is many things. a master cbut, that's the key tr moral universe. whether we can puncture that, whether we can appeal as cherie says to the better angels of their nature, i don't know. certainly not for the maga hard-core, but potentially for people who are not quite at that level, but who are in the more persuadable category.

>> mona, i get what you are saying on the robert line. it is a real honor to be on this panel. i should tell everyone here, i signed up for this conference about seven or eight days■t ago. then, the next day, i got an email saying would you like to be on a panel? what i am saying is, this could also happen to you. whether that is good o bad is up for you to decide. i would slightly disagree with something mona saidwhile it's as saying the country is on fire,

ultimately that they overstated the case that the country is fine, i would say the country is not fine. maga and donald trump are reflections of the fact how far the country has gone off course. right. e thinis though, it is not just that. as you were saying before, this view that we pat ourselves on the back and say we are the somewhat sane middle, those on the left and those on the right that call us evil because either we are not woke enough or not em. we cannot rise to the moment that is required.

just in the context of where we have gotten to and this moment of amorality, i sort of see it in a spectrum of a 25-year, quarter-century kind of decline. just so we can get a littlof old bring up a name that is not been mentioned much so far and that is bill clinton. i think when you go back to that f well, it depends on what sex is. it was at that moment where you have the presi o that is in a se putting moral relativism into the public sphere.

and while there was bipartisan consensus at the time that the president had done something wrong, the question was what was the solution about that? republicans thought it was impeachment and democrats said but what ultimately came out of that, the democra, in almost any other moment in our history, the bipartisan consensus, the pressure would have been strong enough to get the president of the united states to resign. was a decision by the democrats and allies in the media and so forth that what he had done was not so bad that it required

resignation, and instead, there was a wering through. the first principle, if you will, at that point was kind of power. how can we push through against these usual ethical and moral hd have been enough to move the president out of the way and allow the vice president to take over? instead, the president pushed through. he survived, within the question is -- but then the question is at what cost and what lesson was learned? i think one of the residual lessons is that forget about ethics, forget about actual morality. the number one principal is pow.

i think that's a lesson that the maga people have learned. their standardbearer has taken the clinton model and amped it up to 10. cherie: just riffing off of that a little bit. i want to ask you each your thoughts on what has gone awry. what i mean about this is not just a political analysis. we will hearken way back, thousands of years to saint augustine who talked about how virtue is largely properly ordering your loves and desires. ordering your values that accords with reality, wise and prudent, as well as love. loving things in the right way. when you think about that, you think something has gone on dion just -- beyondlgthe former prest

fill stadiums for people looking forward relishing seeing th hume they want to see a win in the next election. there is something that we the people are starting to value the wrong things. starting to love domination and humiliatn what has gone on? mona, we can start with you. mona: nice, small topic. there are many things that are tearinuswe have a radical changn family structure where many people now are living alone. axv are living alone and record numbers of people are lonely, which is not exactly the same thing in every case. you have lots of kids growing up with very chaotic home

environments, where they not only see their parents split up, but then the parents have new relationships and the kids are shunted around two different homes with different stepsiblings and all of that. &lwe know that is not good for e stability and mental health of the kids raised in those environments. this has been going on for several decades. we also have the rise of the internet and the information silo, which gets mentioned a lot but it is crucial. when i was growing up, people say you are what you eat. i think now, we wnew can tell ed to know about a random, 70-year-old, single man who lives in central pennsylvania by whether you walk into his house if fox news is on all the time else. people have become so insulated

and into their own bespoke realitiethey create their own rs and it is unbelievably disruptive of a country that is c its very nature large, pluralistic. we have lots of different communities. huge geographic diversity. religi racial, every kind of diversity. and we need to be able to have certain things that we agree on. we have to have certain facts that we all except as true so we can compromise with one another and we can say, ok, you likemmis immigration, let's meet in the middle. that has become practically impossible in our age of bespoke realities where people on the right don't just think that democrats want more immigration oriberal views about it. they think that democrats have a

scheme, a plot run by jews■2q: o import more dark skinned people into the country in the great replacement. so, how do you compromise with such a terrible [laughter] and so, those are -- it's both a technological challenge that was brought to us by the internet and also by cable television. so, the technological challenge is part of our problem and the social challenge, as i mentioned, with more and more people living alone. let's say this last thing about being lonely and being alone. i cannot prove this, but i think people are more easily led into extremism when they are not living face to face with other humans. and having the ability to bounce off ideas. check, right? sam saw something on the

internet that there is a scheme to run an underground railroad from mexico through canada. which by the:< way was on the internet. when he goes online and puts this in, you get all kinds of people who say yes, we heard you are right, we agree. whereas if he said it to his wife or his live-in lover or whoever, she would say what you talk about? no. that does not sound right. there are fewer and fewer of those in real life sort of reality checks for a lot of americans. i think that is part of life we are seeing that the crazy gets more traction. michael: the state of our

politics is a reflection of the souls. this is the beauty and weakness of democracy. there is no getting around the kind of people we our ultimate s derived from politics, then our ultimate principles will be subject■ to circumstances. that is a lot of what we've seen . in 2020, a group of social scientists came up for a framework for thinking about the particular kind of polarization we have today. they called it political sectarianism. said it is a toxic cocktail of three ingredients. first, a version --the tendencyd distrust a political opponent. othering. the tendency to place as other or essentially different from those who are political

partisans. and then the tendency of a misplaced moralization. the elevation of political disagreement to that of good and evil. the fuel of our politics, then all kinds of rationalizations can take places talking about. the problem is not that we take politics to■w we take it seriously and all of the wrong ways. if you think politics is not just about power, then that is what is going to guide your political actions. part of what we need to do is provide a vision for a politics that is not solely about who has the power, who can impose their will? that is a chief challenge because frankly, that is how our politics has operated for quite some time. we need to have a different

source. this is the issueliberalism onbr philosophy which is that liberalism allows for decisions that are made on the basis of power. but if that is your only construction of reality, yeah, everythinges you have one opinion about january 6, i have another. there is a truth. there is a just who thinks january 6 was a bunch of patriots fightfor a fair election. it was a disgraceful affront to democracy. there is an actual■6 reality and we don't need to be insecure just because there's a difference of opinion. we actually need to understand that we can name a truth robert: exactly.

me us look at this partly in a political context, but we can also see this moral relativistic aspect in other institutions as well. one that i have been part of for 25 years, the media broadly understood t■lhere's a large responsibility as well. as mona said, there has been a collapse of media, partly because of the internet and the siloing of news. the greatest responsibilities that media traditionally has is to inform and to educate. now, either yesterday or the day

before, i forget when these clips ran. at one of his events, the former president was saying i am going to stand for christians because the other side is coming to take your crosses. the first thing that of these religious symbols and so forth. basically, terrifying the base.n msnbc who basically said that christian nationalists believe that our rights come from god and this is what the christian nationalists believe. this is what they are trying to do if they get into power. all you have to do is look at something likthe constitution. it has been in the news.

it is something people should be able toyou can find that it sayt there, that the rights come from a creator. it is a christian nationalists sensibility to believe that. but,hen a media entity put that out there, it makes it so much easier for people on the other side to say, well, maybe trump's got a point. maybe they are trying to come after us for our religion, for what we actually believe. that sort ofhing is happening from the media. meanwhile, if you are watching the house hearings a few weeks ago and you've got three intelligent, supposedly intelligent academics who can't

find it easy for them to say that, oh, if our student body calls for the death that might violate our free speech codes. when these supposedly mediating institutions also are not able to either, a, educate correctly or, b, clear moral statements, it is not surprising that the broader society is collapsing as well. cherie:now which is about our ma institutions. our mediating institutions have been one of the chief ways of trying to call forth the better angels of our nature, in terms of being morally formative. be morally d formative -- deformative.

i think it is fair to saye nowy of our most important and formative institutions are weakened, which are true in the political sphere. congress is significantly weaker than it was just a few years ago. but also in our sphere, with families and churches and schools facing their own internal challenges. an mona, maybe we can start with you. what hope do you see for the renewal and reinvigoration of morally formative institutions? mona: at the risk of getting outside my area ofuse i am jewim very interested in what goes on in the christian world, which is far more country. there's a great book by tim alberta where he outlines --

yes, applaud that book, fantastic. the corruption of the churches and how they have become sacrilegious. they have replaced a worship of the united states for god. replaced, in many cases, they are elevating donald trump to some sort of godly figure and status. and that is profoundly, dangerous, deforming of our national character. the church -- of course, they should be morally forming institutions but a lot of the pastors will say, look, they are watching fox and the are on the internet 12 hours a day, and i've got them for two hours on sunday.

it is no contest. so, people come to church now believing in qanon and that sort of thing and they are impatient pastors who try to dissuade them. that is a huge problem. an churches which should be a bulwark, if you will, against the forces of nihilism and baseless hatred and demagoguery are instead elevating it. joining in. giving fuel to the fire. the good news is there i pushback and that there are people within that world who are very energetically attempting to roll it back and provide far better models. russell moore, david alberta --.

we have to give them all the support we can and hope that is somewhat s religion because it helps you to see the good and it helps you to see what is right. we have to rely on that part of human nature to prevail in the end. it is a huge struggle to sort of wrap your arms around what's happening in thei turn to you, . michael: i will just say certainly, we are seeing -- i have a new book out on the spirit of our politics and i talk about this concept. some of you may be familiar with the term moral theism.

i introduce the idea of political theism, which is supported by beliefs by god is on my political party's side or god has a general approval of my behavior■ in politics because i hold the right position. and, there has been a development. for number of reasons we will today, what it means, in the same way, what it means to be to have christian politics means to have the right answers on a few discrete policy issues. there has been a theological development that is almost exclusively west that what it means to be a christian is to provide mental assessed to a few lines of doctrine and you can have the worst kind of character possible, so long as you're willing to nod your head

yes. that's it, you're in . that is fundamentally contrary to the gospel. to the christian nationalism point, am profoundly hesitant both substantively, but also strategically to point at a group of folks who welcome someone like donald trump, to tell them that loving your enemies, that stuff from jesus, maybe try that in your personal life but if you try that in politics, you are going to get steamrolled so let me take care of you. i'm really hesitant to say that is christian anything. [applause] we need to careful about what we are willing to give over to donald trump and his bra■pnding

and his outreach. i feel very confident fundamentally saying if your politics is not oriented towards the good of your neighbors, it is not christian. it is not christian. robert: who needs a golden castle, when you have golden sneakers? we're running out of time, but really, this particular part of the question is much broader because we also have a large, an increasing percentage of society that no longer sees itself as religious. it's not just no longer christian.

they are completely secular. if not atheist, maybewhen you ht decides to stray away from some version of religion, the lessons that religion can still inform on a broader secular society tends to deri. and the common moral language that kept the 250 years or so s. we no longer manage to in a that is sort of where we are. what's going on with maga and christianity and so is certainly a problem, but the fact we cannot really speak with same language across a society

roblem. mona: could i jump in on that point? for years, i would say it is really a declining and more ande people are not members of congregations and they don't have that sort of community lives, and that's a problem. yet, right now, we are also living in a time where some of the most destructive voices in this country are the most religious, i am sorry to say. [applause] cherie: we have talked about the kind of moral■6 confusion and different realities that people are occupying, such that we are in a situation where you can have protesters in support of genocide on one hand, and on the other hand, people invading the capitol and hosting prayer service.

we talked about the decline of the morally informative institutions that have helped shape character. we talked about the perversions and distortions of christianity that have enabled an accelerated the decline of and moral leadership. all this leads us to the big question. what do we do? how about renewing and reinvigorating moral formation and moral leadership in our country? are going trobert, we will sta. robert: thanks a lot. the immediate word that comes to mind is pray. but, i'm going to say a phrase you don't often hear on panels like this,nd that is i don't

know. because what's going on heres soin fundamental and certainly maga and trump are on. but, it can be somewhat argued thataspes on the far left, some of the wokeism sometimes elevates itself to almost■2 a pseudo-religion as wl . and that is also something that is to pushed back on. the kind of self-lovend identity overall. this sounds like a little bit of a cliche, but a lot of it has to

start with basic education. you are trying to instill civics , moral civics at the earliest ages. that means in a sense, having stronger control of the elementary schools and so forth. that is one place to start. mona: well, i admire you for saying i don't know. ■yyou are right, most people say that. i would agree, i am not sure. i would say what i am personally trying to do in this moment, because i do think that the information silos, the two completely different realities th in is one of our biggest challenges. one of the reasons why i started my podcast is i wanted to show

civilized conversation amongst people who have different points of view. we do happen to agree because we all agree about things we do disagree and we model that you can respectfully hear out somebody who has a different point of view and come to some sort -- you may not agree, but at least you can have an airing of views and have afa. i have to believe that the greatest challenge is helping this country to at least a shary instead of separate realities. i would just close by reminding us that we have an unbelievably rich history and tradition to drawus strength. our roots are so deep. i was reading about john adams sendinhis first couple --

spending his first couple of nights in the white house, the first president to live in the white house. at the time, it was unfinished, it was drafty, damp, uncomfortable. but, he sat down and wrote a letter t and he closed with these words which have since been inscribed into the mantelpiece in the fireplace in the state dining room. at he wrote -- "before i end my letter, i pray he aven the best of blessings in this house and all that shall after. may wise men ever rule under this roof." cherie: michael, bring us home. [applause] michae fortunately, i do have the answers. [laughter] no, i'm just kidding. robert: what is the name of your

book? michael: it is all there. i gave youenough of a taste to find the actual answers in the book on amazon. [laughter] look, part of what it means to come to terms with our situation is there is no program or three-point plan for getting us on the right track. we can delude ourselves into e. one thing i would say is, one of the greatest■c gif w our politics in this moment is not telling it what it is, what it must be, but reminding our politics, reminding our fellow citizens of what politics is not. we need to provide a further horizon thanolitical outcomes. that means further out than this upcoming general election. further out than donaldwe need d

what is true, that politi i ult. politics is not the area of the dogmatic, it is the area of the the politics is not pure expression of our will. it is about a conscious of ideas. the palooka parties are not meant to be brands, they are vehicles for mediating difference. these kinds of things helping americans once again or maybe for the first time rightly situate politics would do so much to help theta[applause] cherie: michael, mona and robert, thank you so much. it has been a delight. >> thank you. cherie: i think you all are

released for your coffee break. heath: we will observe the 10 minute coffee break and we will get started with the economic panel at 3:20. >> this year, c-span celebrates 45 years of covering congress like no other. nce 1979 it has been your primary source, providing balanced unfiltered coverage of government. all with companies. c-span.

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