beginning in 2006 if memory serves it seems of the last three "national review" institute summits have been what went wrong, not again and god help us last night this one is different but before do anything else on to thank the national

review institute for special lindsay grega bole are wonderful staff, the hard work they've done to make this possible. thanks. [applause] so why are we in a different cast of mind? just on a personal note i'd i don't like to brag about my personal financial circumstances but i was an early investor in uranium one. yes my wife was a little nervous when it decided to make -- our personal financial advisor but you can't argue with results. the results. i'd like to mention for those of you who like to plan ahead that the next "national review" eurasian river cruise will be on -- very scenic and ugly the most beautiful waterway in all of eastern kazakhstan. and my next big move after this windfall, these should investment, we will be hiring al sharpton's accounts. if someone had told me 10 years

ago that commentators on msnbc didn't have to pay taxes i never would've signed up for fox. let me share by way of opening this event three broad reasons i think we have to be optimistic as conservatives. one is just the pendulum swings in american politics always based on which side has blown it most recently. you never get reagan without carter. you never get speaker gingrich without the tragicomedy of the first two years of the clinton administration. and what president obama we are looking at a failed presidency on his own terms. he wanted to restore faith in government, and despite all the hectoring on this score, despite all the activism, only 23% of people according to a recent pew

survey trust government to do the right thing, at least most of the time. and why not? a stimulus made a mockery of the phrase shovel-ready dogs and shovel -- shovel-ready projects and green jobs. we've seen an anemic recovery badly drilling the reagan standard. we have a health care program that has a reduce the cost of health insurance involves massive new spending and taxes and parts of which are not even legal. we've seen a disastrous meltdown in our global position. the nation that will almost certainly have gained of the most by the end of the obama administration is the anti-american theocracy in iran. decades of progressive role in urban america have created and updated cascading institutional and social breakdowns. and whenever this comes to the

nation's attention at a time of great crisis we are told in a scolding tone that it's the fault of all the rest of us. and on top of all this joe biden is vice president of united states, literally. so this is a poor record and a significant opening for the right which brings me to my second point. although it's less true than it once was and we've seen an erosion on this front, our ideas are still more with the grain of the american idea and the american character vendors are. when it comes to dark theories about president obama's origins my guess would be if i was going to play that game that he's a secret prussia. someone please get the word to donald trump right away. but the leading idea in 19 century prussian political thought was that the state was

the vehicle of history with a capital h. for hagel, the state transcended, the particular interests of civil society and represented rationality and progress represented gods of march through the world. hagel the government embodies thethe indwelling of us. and the history of the nation. obama if the people cannot trust the government to do the job for which it exists to protect them to vote the common welfare, all else is lost to hagel society and a state of the very conditions in which freedom is realize. obama, preserving our individual freedoms ultimately requires elective action. hagel, the owl of minerva flies at dusk. obama, you only live once. so okay perhaps this comparison isn't perfect but you get the point. and a modern american conservatism in contrast is in

sympathy with the anglo-american tradition of liberty that is still written into the american dna and represents a system uniquely suited to human flourishing. it is a tradition that features inherent distrust of government and adherence to the rule of law, not of men a constitutional system that gives an outsized place for deliberative assemblies, believe in certain unchanging truths about human nature and our god-given rights. and, finally a concrete expression in the political economy what was once called free labor ideology, which rests on a profound belief in the dignity of all labor and the right to the proceeds of our own labor. and that brings me to my third and final point, which is the right is simply more vibrant than the left at the moment.

and this is not just because the vanguard of the left is busy trying to carve out safe spaces from unwelcome ideas on college campuses, and is consumed with the base over things like whether the bodies of transgendered men create unrealistic expectations for women's body images. to which i would answer, then should they answered probably yes. and these are questions we will take up in more detail at the next "national review" institute summits which will be held at overland. but the fact of the matter is that the right has the new ideas. the presumptive standardbearer of the democratic party right now is a 67 year old grandmother who's been at the top of american life for 25 years, the chief challenger right now is a 73 year-old socialist, and the two of them are sent to the custody abate over whether their party's animating ideas should

have their pedigree and 1965, 1933 or 1789. at the moment among president obama's hot new ideas are infrastructure spending, the minimum wage job training and head start, all of which were probably among the leading agenda items of any democrat over the last 40 years. ideas that have the freshness of the hoola hoop and wage and price controls. at the moment the political and ideological project of the left is to muster a coalition of the essence in on behalf of an agenda of exhaustion. in contrast on the right we see a time of genuine ferment come to his death bill buckley said that conservatism needed to be rebaptized. the tea party has been the concrete vehicle for that reaffirmation of the pillar of the conservative faith, and we

have begun to see ago effort to fill in the details of those principles with concrete policy, whether it's the entire but reforms of paul broun attacks planned of marco rubio, or the health care proposal of richard burr and erin hatch -- orrin hatch. much of his lies under the banner of so-called reform conservatism which should properly be understood i believe as either a misnomer or a redundancy. because reform shouldn't be a faction within conservatism. properly understood. it is an inherent part of conservatism going back to burke who of course have a state without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation. so buckley himself in the '70s wrote a book called for reforms, a program for the 1970s. as senator mike lee has said it's not enough to have a leader

for the ages, which, of course, we all heard only hope -- open wish for, without an agenda for the times. and we are seeing now that agenda sketched out and we will do more about it at the next couple of days. now, for all the confidence of the theme of this conference, of course nothing is inevitable and the obstacles are formidable to a conservative revival from the heavy inertia that inherits in almost any government program after the breakup of the family come and deliver an increasingly in the middle of income distribution. for new conservative program to be enacted it will take argument effort and yes some lucky bounces. one of bill buckley's favorite things was gratitude. we should always be part and parcel of the conservative impulse because we are heirs to

a civilization that is given us liberty and dignity unimaginable throughout most of human history history. and none of us have done anything to establish it. we were not at least be. we were not at philadelphia. we were not at gettysburg at all is asked of us it's about a proper attitude of thankfulness for all of this, which i think requires concrete expression and abiding gratitude and at defending in revitalizing the system and the ideas that have been bequeathed to us. now, whether or not we will be able to say i told you so, like hayek watching the berlin wall fall, i don't know. but we will be able to take satisfaction and engaging in this most noble struggle.

and to say to anyone who sat it out, something in the spirit of the french king henry the fourth who wrote to a missing lieutenant after a famous battle hang yourself, for we fought, and you were not there. thank you very much. [applause] >> my name is reihan salam. i am extremely excited to bring you this group. we have with us ramesh ponnuru a senior editor at "national review" his actually been with the "national review" for almost two decades. i was reading him when i was

come i to say i must've just been a year or two younger than driven by remembering from a youth under pressure he is someone -- that's a real honor to get to work with him now. mona charen is a senior fellow at the ethics and policy -- ethics and public policy center. she's one of the kenya's political analyst i know it also very sensitive and thoughtful observer of the culture. and opposite of sensitive and thoughtful, i'm kidding, our roving correspondent and mona and comer of the brains of the american right. kevin is someone which is inevitably compelling storyteller who certainly can think in abstractions but also someone who really gets in the nitty-gritty of what's happening in american life today. you should all feel very lucky do these guys. charlie cook is about right national do and they frankly frightens them a little bit.

charlie is a foreigner, now a naturalized american buddies a dangerous radical who wants to teach americans lost lessons about freedom and frank i find it alarming some of the time. we would get into that now. said just a few miles up the road from your you know baltimore, city that was once a thriving, forcing please, save over 600000. naturally in the middle of this incredibly wealthy corridor of knowledge creation and wealth creation. and yet weirdly baltimore is a pretty grim place there and of course, baldwin has been in the middle of this amazing series of urban unrest. you guys of all had things to say about that i want to start with you kevin. kevin, president obama tells us that baltimore is an indication we need a more centralized america. baltimore is failing because of the federal government hasn't stepped up and down in a. get your from texas.

you've done a lot of traveling around the country and it seems that our other parts of the country, other cities that are not been quite as bad as baltimore. >> i think baltimore is almost 900,000 or a little more. just under a million people at its largest. i think things will probably radically change in urban politics in america today. some walking around baltimore stops and says why doesn't this crap happen in provo? because it's a different place. if you think about in terms of centralization of government, probably the least centralized place in the united states is used in which they is basically no zoning laws. it's like skyscraper house taco bell country club. but, you know, houston has a really very thriving middle class economy, manufactured jobs, people don't talk about that that much. everyone thinks it's just an oil city. a lot of the things the left

worries about our problems or if not exactly solved certainly ameliorated in a lot more conservative parts of the country. so if you look at things like income inequality between blacks and whites or income inequality crossed the border between the top and the bottom, the least unequal place in america is utah. not to go off on this for too long but you've got a real test case and joe morgan one test case. if these left wing progressive governmental led economic planning ways in the world work you would see serial failures in place of the control by progressives since the 1940s or earlier. ultimo philadelphia cleveland chicago detroit, to an extent places like chicago and los angeles and san francisco as well. all have similar failure to evolve failed the same sorts of reasons. in some ways this is really

striking. something i was writing about for a while was ongoing scandal with the cheating in public schools in atlanta. i think i'm how messed up is your view if government has to be a judge or public schools organize with a criminal conspiracy against churchill? that sort of thing doesn't happen by accident it's one of things where someone made a bad decision and then turns out it's not just a few bad apples where we learned earlier there's a similar cheating scandal involving the atlanta police department, which good thing we have the same problems with police misbehaving lately. but when he is about basically you need the federal government to step in because of this kind of local corruption which is going to be endemic yet part of what i'm hearing his way to second there are some places that were. it your sense that the places that don't work is only very slowly and over time learning from the places that do come our

citizens action responsive in that way. i think so. you saw pretty radical change in new york in the 1990s in terms of the way cities are organized. in terms of come. didn't become a conservative place by any stretch of imagination. it became a place in which certain sorts of manager standards were demanded. that made a huge difference. there's a reason why in spite of having a larger public sector and a bigger welfare state that canada and the northern european countries are not hellholes where nobody wants to live there. actually pleasant place at the matters without a crust or non-corrupt government or whether the systems are effective or not the that make a huge difference. you've even seen some reform in places like philadelphia is a good example which was a really really bad shape in the middle 1980s. they did some smart economic thanks to encourage some investment redevelopment, made huge difference and to track the city was on.

you will probably see some of that in places like los angeles which in spite of the deep bottomless stupidity of his local political culture is not in the same sort of situation that detroit, for instance, was sent in which it is really polarized racial politics prevents any sort of real democratic -- spewing safety system source of optimism. transport from one thing striking about the presidents remarks remarks is that sure, he said that federal investment is going to be the cure for the deep-seated ill take else is something yesterday talked about the importance of father. i wonder in your experience there are a lot of things to be depressed about we look at changing family structure. yet is it fair to say we are seeing a kind of growing consensus around the imports of two parent families?

>> well today was a great day for me because it was the first time and i think seven years and i felt i had an opportunity to praise barack obama. and so i jumped on a. i was on twitter. i said a couple things about that some aspects of his remarks in the rose garden were actually helpful. he said a person takes a crowbar and goes after a star and steals things is not a protester teresa peter kassig we set off are your an arsonist, not a protester. great. and as you say the other thing he said that was helpful when he was diagnosing what's wrong with the cities and why we have these festering sores in many cities in america he mentioned that you have whole communities of people growing up with our no fathers to set an example. so i praised him for that. i think people who follow me on twitter must have been adjusting their screens there's a mistake you. it looks like mona is

paraphrasing obama. but then, of course, the president rerouted to the standard line which is having given lip service, and i think it's good that he said it they then said that the answer was a massive federal investment in inner cities. eddie took a swipe at the republican congress and said you're not going to get that out of this caucus because they don't care about people. win in point in fact, for decades starting from when i was in diapers the policy of the united states of america has been to spend trillions of dollars trying to revitalize the city's bike urban renewal scam spending money on medicaid, job training. there are 92 different means tested federal programs that attempt to lift people out of poverty. and the president has been deep

dive into progressivism to keep least that's the answer that people know best in washington industry be dollars and that will improve matters, whereas -- >> i encourage you to look forward of it. we had this debate and you thought in 2012 and also 2014 this idea of a war on women. basically i've been many years ago in which social issues come in the wake was somewhat effective in a summit seemed as though the last -- using them effectively. you believe the future is going to be in a decade or two to come at the left will continue winning these debates on social issues or do you think the right as some effective way to counter or that people are being more receptive to the right message on those issues going forward? >> democrats had a good run with the war on women in 2012. it helped in part because the recovery public and assisted boneheaded things that played

into the democratic narrative and, of course, they always have the press. so that worked. but it didn't work and 2014. they overplayed it. by then it was washed up. mark udall got tagged with anything marked uterus because 50% of his ads were about abortion for birth control people and here about the economy and other things. women start they feel patronized. it's run its course, but that doesn't mean that republicans will not be victims of other kinds of attacks on democrats along the same lines. that you don't care about people being the one that has been a hardened the perennial, and i expect to see it in force. >> do you see anyone other come in a conservative who has been able to articulate a message that has been more effective that is addressing these arguments head on? >> i think tremendous intellectual life among elected officeholders now. that you frankly did not see so much of five or 10 years ago.

you've got a whole reform thing but it's been picked up i members of the senate. you've seen some interest like mitch mcconnell who mostly come mitch mcconnell, these old establishment type. but he's interested in the notion that republicans have moved too far in the direction of talking about entrepreneurs and a talking enough about wage earners and people just want a job. they just want a job with good wages so they can raise their families and be independent and not give the government. and that message i think this getting through and that's a very, very helpful thing because the biggest problem for republicans is the perception on the part of many voters that they are for the rich. >> so ramesh i mean they recognize that as well? d.c. batch of republicans turned to talk about issues in new

ways? and are the opportunities being created by the left in that regard? >> i think that the first years of the obama administration made republicans go very far into opposition mode quite understandably and correctly. those with regis and people think republicans were the party of no. and the party of know what's i think the right thing to be but i think we saw in 2012 that merely being that was not enough enough. and even if it had been a reasonable strategy to proceed in 2012 it just does make quite as much since when you're in a different political context or even reelected he would there be on the ballot again and just got a different situation. if you recall the omission on the part of liberals was that obama was going to be the liberal reagan are really rather the liberal anti-reagan, just as reagan had sort of copied the

fall of the old liberal order. so obama would do that for the reaganite order. and there are certain parallels and certainly times when you think the republican party might need to be reformed and conservatives might need reformed the same way as the democratic party had to be reformed in the late 1980s. but the difference is americans were actually pretty happy in the late 1980s with how they were being governed the reagan agenda was seen as been largely successful and fair-minded liberals had to concede maybe reagan had a point about inflation or about crime are about high taxes. i think we're in a different situation now where you have liberal little success that is not matched by any kind of popular happiness. people still think the country is on the wrong track not the right track. and so i think that basic unhappiness that either party

has really been able to tap is what creates an opportunity for conservatism with a fresh agenda. conservatism that marries the public basic ideological disposition towards a small government and towards concern about the family, respect for religion to a practical agenda that explains how those dispositions can be made to work for people in areas like health care and higher education and so forth. we haven't done enough of that in the recent past as conservatives. i think we are starting to do more of that entity could redo the a hard to beat combination. >> which made reference to the stillness of the democratic agenda. it seems make the minimum wage a little bit higher let's have universal childcare. i'm curious do what you think of that because i think i guess from the democratic perspective this idea their intellectually -- is that we ought to have kind of universal provision that could make huge difference for

many working women to this could be potent. is it your view that is not going to resonate with the broad middle of america? or do you think it's a real threat? >> nostalgia is a powerful emotion. so the fact that agenda is to help destiny it lacks political potency. if you think about the democratic calls for reviving the labor movement, that is entirely steeped in nostalgia. if you read every other paul krugman column which is about the rate at which i would suggest reading them or the sender for american progress to report on what to do about the middle class, ma the storyline is essential everything was great in postwar america dominated by the it was by an alliance of big government, big labor and big business come and it was high wage. then ronald reagan came along

and destroyed everything. and here we have been suffering ever since. actually the union taken his countryman 1963. this was a very long running sort of decline. the reason for the decline have to be primarily i would argue with the fact that unionized companies were less competitive and nonunionized once. so if you're a nonunionized manufacture your adding jobs at the same time unionize manufacturers are shedding them. and the public is less and less in favor of unions, and more and more skeptical of them. the basic liberal response to these trends is to plug their ears, shut their eyes and wished that things could be made the way they used to be. and that nostalgia is just like -- we can have a debate where it's just ended to adapt things where the right wants to go home to the 1950s and the left

wants to work there. a straw is that emotion can be when there's nothing to counter no attractive agenda alongside that nostalgia, i think people can see through it if that alternative is presented. >> charlie comprehensive historical social issues there's this defensive reaction, the sense that let's say on abortion, public opinion is holding the line tepidly. if you're looking at same-sex marriage but just been an utter collapse of social conservatives who oppose same-sex marriage yet there's one social issue if you want to call it that gun rights where there's been a really dramatic reversal in which would've once been considered for a fringe conservative views are not very mainstream. tell us a bit about that. >> i think the first structure recent episodes tend to win on this is the one time that we get to say to the site you can't take this away. generally with people who take things away but it is the democratic party wants to take the guns.

it's a useful like people don't like having the goods taken away from them, their rights taken away from them. sort of historically the last 25 years has been fascinating because it is seen as a great success to the right, in some ways cannot be emulated also particular said to me in 1990 to an average political observer that by the year 2015 every single american state would have a concealed carry not perfect at but every single one would have been. washington, d.c. would've had its laws overturned, the supreme court would've correctly recognized the second and as an individual right and then incorporated it to the states. they would be no so-called assault weapon ban at the federal level. and the number of firearms in the united states would have doubled over 22, 23 years can almost 350 million. but crime would have dropped in half and can violence overall

would have dropped 75%. people would've looked at you funny. it would it's absolutely not. clinton was popular when he proposes reforms and 92-93. the brady bill was popular. spin how many of you in the room own a firearm? just a show of hands. welcome you have a receptive audience. >> to ronald reagan at the so-called assault weapons ban with the brady bill. this would be unthinkable now. the reason for that is not the nra somebody came into existence india 2010. this republican politicians and in -- a grass-roots backlash. syncing with 9/11, americans felt a little more vulnerable to you do see a spike in his support for gun rights. but more of it was about the loss of simply were not working. we've heard about the sound of broken a lot about self defense

but people don't realize in the 1970s and the 1980s many states essentially got rid of the old laws the laws that come from british common law and they were left at the mercy of prosecutors if they ended up killing somebody for defending himself. that stopped working for crime rates spike in the early 90s and americans change their mind on these questions. they started to put pressure and it really is commuters which by the national rifle association. there really is a grass-roots -- >> another element. when people are expressed in anxiety about the political future of the american right they often point to the fact america's demographic mix is changing and it tends to be white voters yet with regard to gun rights it seems there's been a sea change of opinion among minority voters. >> is beginning to change. 51% of african-americans think the house with a firearm is safer than held without. that's a remarkable shift over the last 20 years. women, younger people, even

hispanics are less in favor are changing their views but it is difficult to suggest it increase the supply far on stimulus and the laws come more people will be killed but it just hasn't happened over 25 years. this is an example and fit for the right where the facts are on our side. people really cared about this they jumped come to the opportunity of a changed the laws. there isn't much enthusiasm to change them back. >> one thing i wonder about is when you look at economic policy debates come increasingly to resemble cultural debates. if you look at the rise of different entrepreneurial firms it's been really striking because these are entirely new businesses creating opportunities for many people and get i keep hearing about how gosh over drivers ought to be unionized. they have to be full-time employees. i kind of wonder about that. kevin, you wrote a book in which he predicted absolute doom and

apocalypse for the postwar welfare state entities it was going to be really great. tell us a bit about this war over the new economy we are seeing right now which is seems every major media outlet seems to be declared war on these new entrepreneurial businesses. what's happening? >> before i take it that there's a few things that came up. for the political context of where we are i think it's important to keep in mind how much has been accomplished and it's one of the reasons why the right as an philosophy has been going through a rethinking of some of its priorities. in the election of 1980 the things that people forward about on the right were communism which is gone runaway inflation. spent except for a few guys who write for rolling stone. >> and crime which has been reduced by depending on your measure between 70-90% over the years. so we have want a lot and we moved on to tax cuts and we were so good that tax cuts that it

stopped being an effective issue issue because we it's so may people who don't pay federal income tax. we have improved some things and some things are going to get radically better i think stupid if you look at the worldwide economic growth rate right now, it's about 3.3%. that's what it's expected to be for the foreseeable future. that's all over the world which means kids born today 30 or so that will be about 2.6 times as wealthy in real terms as we are on average. i don't think people who are 2.6 times as wealthy in real terms as we are on average will standard let themselves get pushed around by some who says you can't have a car, take you up in new york city because went to a special rule about the fbi guy with a million dollars seal on his car to come pick you up and a special yellow car and drive you to places you want to go but it's so important we do things this way that it's a crime for anyone else to do. it's just absurd.

you meet all sorts of young lefty progressives will talk a good game about unions and all that sort of stuff but they use uber. of course, they do. it's the new normal. you're not going to get to a place where people going to give up what i've got to the point they think they can't live a normal life without. you know it's true all over the world but interesting about the stuff of these fractured occupant of economy is that ordinary people are getting in sort of a new high-tech way the sorts of things they used to be to preserve for very wealthy people. an example of photius is self of which 1980s $10,000 to you have to be a millionaire to avoid. now everyone has one. it used to be you had to be confused to have to be bill buckley to have a chauffeur. now, of course, anybody has a chauffeur when they need a chauffeur. things like credit cards and things like that used to offer

concierge service and that was a big part of what to do. if you lived in a really nice building was really nice building was take a good hotel there a concierge services. basically a good has accessed to that stuff like open table and other sorts like that. i think it's going to really difficult to get people behind this sort of stone age 19th century regulatory mindset. the other thing is technology is making it basically impossible to regulate a lot of things. we had our war on drugs forever but turns out you can go mayor one in lots of places. we were never particularly good at this topic on that. we've got a world of 3-d printers that are basically ubiquitous and you can make whatever you want, good luck regulating those when every kid can make one at home. space i want to ask anyone in the audience, you our cards on youronthe table for get questions johnson down and we will collect them later on. ramesh so -- not as quickly

somewhat like but it has grown more affluent and yet it's not clear we have moved further in the direction of economic independence. you think that people are far richer than you in 1945 would say i would meet my own retirement needs are i will handle those there is problems. why do you think that is? did you think that might change? to think in the future as people grow more affluent they might want to take more responsibility? >> in some respects people are taking responsibility they are a lot more private retirement accounts and 401(k)s have gotten better over the years the same time that public retirement accounts like social security are showing no signs of change whatsoever except they're getting a little closer and closer to bankruptcy. with every year. i think when you think that the economic trends of the last couple of decades you've got to distinguish between the last 15

years and the last 40 years. so again the left wing story i was talking about said everything started going south of the 1980 or maybe 1973. but, in fact, the 1980s and 1990s were good decades economically. everybody lived at the time basically, understood that. and statistics show that as well. the last 15 years have not been so great began so great even when you've had years with a decent gp growth. if you're in the middle of the income spectrum you didn't really feel that grow yourself and your own take-home pay come in your own standard of living. i think a lot of that has to do with some of the big ticket items that make up the middle-class lifestyle where you have not had decreases in the cost of living. so that a lot of anxiety about paying for college either paying off college debt for younger people prospectively paying for your kids college for

older people, the cost of health care. so if you think about why people say they feel as though they have to work harder in order to stay in place and are added constantly increased risk of falling out of the middle-class or the kids falling out, it's about cost of living. i think that is in itself a kind of as ominous sign that is the confidence that are typically do better than we usually plummeted. is also something hopeful and for conservatives in that most of those areas are concern as we're concerned policies have just not been brought to bear. the real liberalism i should do with american policy handles health care and handles higher education. conservatives have barely even turned attention to -- >> they have just been more reactive? >> that's right. but these are areas where

competition, decentralization accountability consumer choice, e.g. give them a chance that they could have a real potential to drive value in the sectors of economy as as they do in every other sector of the economy. and that gets back to what rich was saying earlier, that our agenda is just a better fit for the circumstances we find or something. >> this a little bit of striking up a ramesh just a. one of the -- one view is if sluggish economic growth will be a lot of people who think i don't want your crazy new redistribution scheme because frankly, i'm a little concerned about what i'm going to of leftover in my paycheck and it sounds risky to me. this is a good that has not delivered better outcomes for people. that's kind of one take. but i know that he is when the economy is growing and forging a more entrepreneurial, i'm more willing to take risk and

actually my what a more dynamic vibrant economy. where do you think it falls? do you think actually having a growing economy makes a more conservative, or the office of? >> well, it is the case that polls have shown that through disappointment of the left come income inequality just doesn't rank very high on the list of priorities for the average voter. they are not as angry about it as occupy wall street people at the democratic party but i repeat myself are. it's just not what motivates them. but what we do see, for example, if you look at the views of young millennials, so there's a distinction that they have drunk a sort of cut those thin and have looked at older millennials who were just voting for the first time when obama ran in 2008 and comparing them with the younger ones who are just coming

up, 18-24 year olds and there are differences. so one of the things that you find among the younger millennials is that they do believe in government solutions to problems. that might just be naïvenaïve té, that might be something to go out of but think there's a way to address voters like that and too excited about the possibilities for government to be an agent of of reform to give them more opportunities. they are for me with uber with energy and become with all the new economy goods that are out of there, but what they might not know is that governments, if they are deregulate they still can crush job opportunities through licensing requirements so that if you want to break year for a living at to go through all this elaborate training and so the reforms like that that make it force the government to step back and let

people get on think i think that -- but let people find opportunities and let them find what if instead of the the rubric of the government is doing something for you it will appeal to younger voters. >> we are very concerned about the hair breaking issue. charlie come with it makes the nervousness of sense when you have a sluggish economy because of excessive regulation and kind of cronyism and for his other problems, then you just have this larger group of people with low incomes who will find recognition more appealing to it seems like this weird kind of vicious circle. is the reason the optimistic? is the way to break out of that? >> this is a common a point i think we should define what we mean by conservative. we all know what we mean by that but in a sense we are conservative of radical ideas. what you're describing is the

conservatism as a sort among young people and that they want to stick with the presumptions which which they grew up. it's always amused me that you can argue if you so wish that the american constitutional order, the american market in say 1930 was not suited to the changing nation. you can argue that depression had made it unreasonable. you can argue that the industrial world has made it constitutional setup that was designed for an agrarian nation. but it seems it's not so much the left today is making that argument after whatever was decide between 1917 and 1953. which is now how she'll always be. and two extension of younger people who have only known that. maybe they were more conservative when bill clinton was president it is the economy was -- if conservatives want to

make their point i think they need is a maybe we need a third developer and. maybe sure there was a time when we need a change because the country change. it changed again. really there's no living constitutionalism on the left. as kevin said they want the tax commission or do you want pashtun taxi or do you want to uber? these are important questions, and in essence we need to regain the suppressive men are rather because of the manpower because the people are advocating the radicalism are not on the left. they are on the right. i think that's the argument i agree to an extent it needs to be couched in more government friendly terms but it does need to be said that the left is an man, not the right. >> the choice isn't between health and airbnb. it is between housing projects

and airbnb because there is a choice if we have a question on the audience. it's about often. often seems like a quirky place where have a lot of entrepreneurial spirit, very young population of people who are curious people. and yet the city -- is a city that seems to move in a kind of leftward lurch. how do you reconcile those two things of? >> well, you don't. think about austin as a faux municipal -- being quirky and all the. i wrote the piece, talking to -- [inaudible] often full of people who are 24 years old in the first job in making someone if you like they are sick because the don't live in brooklyn.

austin's problem is it is second rate. it's a secondary place but it's not brooklyn come it's not brooklyn come it's not it's not brooklyn from its upper click on if those efforts is good but it's the same reason the university of michigan is so much more stridently pc and say harvard is. harper doesn't have all that much to prove. austin does. austin is a second rate a place. spill let me push back a little bit. could it be that in a city when you have large numbers of freelancers, people who don't know some have traditional nine to five jobs, that they actually might want more government as a kind of bulwark against that instantly that is just part of having those jobs? >> i don't think that's all. austin's problem is the same problem you have generally of well off young people which is that they are stupid and insult. i live in spitting you are

winning a lot of friends still live in the south bronx for some years as you know in the fourth congressional district in the countryside are people talking about you want to solve these are been problems with massive federal investment. i want to take and were used to live in the south bronx and say want to read a statement at 3 a.m. sometime can come back and tell me what the single biggest problem is. the answer is going to be housing projects which is the last big federal investment we have. if you're an upper-middle-class white person from greenwich or austin or some nice not from greenwich. ur mona, you get pretty good government services come right when you get pretty good public schools. you get police to treat you with a measure of respect and dignity, and you've got good public libraries and that sort of thing to a few growth and that's all you about the way government works, then you didn't think i could replicate

that in other places to which sort of like people see in sweden they do things this way or is what this way or this way or is what you think garbage this would require do we do that in pakistan are why don't we do that in baltimore? why do we do that in the south bronx? of course -- >> i know ramesh wants to weigh in. >> not about irate austin. but on the general question what's wrong with the kids today -- politically. i think that remember one of the major reasons a big part of the estimation for the twentysomethings of today are to the left of the twentysomethings of three or four decades ago is that a much smaller proportion of them are married, white, and christian. you just got to keep that basic demographic back in my. >> and quite conservative. >> that's right. this means a couple of things. one is some those things are not permanent. you can get married and his people are not lost forever.

the other thing to keep in mind in addition to making some sort of generational appeal from there's just no alternative to conservative making inroads among nonwhite population in the long run. >> okay. one of of her questions about higher education was not there's an opportunity for conservatives to paint in the way the left bank of the big tobacco and big pharma. is there a kind of way to say but hey instead of aligning with your professors against taxpayers, could you say hey, why don't you student come young person who wants an education why don't you join with these taxpayers are concerned about the enormous waste? against a higher education system that is busted and broken. >> the our, recently drove of a

a lot of college campuses taking one of my sons to visit, as all good parents do. you now see on college campuses big sort of banner ads about dealing with the high cost of college. it's just everywhere. it's in the easy. anyone is either worried about it or at least considering it. it weighs heavily on the minds of young people and their families. and so i certainly think that's an opportunity and i think one of the things that technology is going to do is going to be to provide a possible alternative and republicans consider -- can sort of get a jump on this happening anyway. >> you are taking the the traditional college tour. you're not asking your son -- >> a lot of people are still going to do, many people are still going to do the bricks and mortar for years but it isn't for everybody. and the online open online courses that are coming and that will be available they already

are, are going to open up opportunities for so many more people than can't afford those unbelievably expensive for years in the traditional educational setting. and that's one of the reforms and one of the things that conservatives should be enthusiastic about. >> charlie you're a young man. tell us what you think about this. >> one of the groups that conservatives can start to make inroads with are those who don't want to go necessary to do a four year degree as perhaps your son did but who nevertheless are ambitious. my own country of birth, we started to look down on people who don't go to university, to apply social pressure to them. and this of course does not mean you are not doing well in and of their own right. if they go to a dinner party and

there will be an undercurrent of judgment. we saw with the way to which some on the left have been reacted to the news that scott walker hadn't finished his four year degree to which is really, youeconomic the argument with a straight face that scott walker hasn't done well for himself. he's the governor of wisconsin, for goodness sake. there is nothing wrong with not going to college. consultants need to be carefully built make it seem their anti-intellectual, but we have a good number of people who are maybe looking at these figures and so this is not for me. it's important culturally to say it's okay for you to go and do something else, maybe a vocation, maybe something more direct. >> i do wonder there is something specific about this idea that characterizing higher ed is the kind of corrupt interest group the way that people see big tobacco or so but the way they saw big tobacco. do you think there's something to that as a kind of populist argument as a way to change the

politics around this issues because i think they are used car salesman. it's the old gmac model of love someone $30000 so they combined $18,000 car. you got enough done, it will be pretty profitable. partly it's that. partly it's this credential is the attitude that if i jump do is have them automatically guarantee a comfortable middle-class life which is why they're so many young people disappointed right now. the economy is in a freefall and they are very bitter about that. but the other thing is and i think it's a much deeper cultural problem of the contempt in which we hold people like pipes, people who build things from people who do construction that sort of thing. as charlie was a there were a lot of people make it a good living at that and a joy.

what's funny is you you've got these people are making $32,000 a year and hating their lives sitting at a desk and then they go home and watch really shows the people who build motorcycles. so we are watching people do work on television but we in real life hold people in content blocks of work as mechanics and doing fabrication which is in same. >> i don't think i would so much make our higher education policy about attacking traditional higher educational institutions but i would say the system we have served the interest of better then served the public interest. and that what is needed is not an assault on those institutions but the creation and expansion of alternatives to them. online courses apprenticeships vocational educational programs, new forms of accreditation so you don't just have to be like every other higher education institution in order to have access to federal loans to as all of us i think you are saying we do need to push back on this

cultural message that you have to go to one of those institutions or you're a loser for the rest of your life which is very bad which is really cool for a large number of people in our society. and ultimate i don't think serves the purpose of liberal education will either. >> when i was a kid growing up in new york city there was very contentious racial politics and then got called down to some degree ironically after crime rate fell by rudy giuliani was a polarizing figure but a polarizing figure but in some ways the racial climate improved after he was in office. too many of us it seems as though in the obama arab we believe we would have a less after ms. racial politics and yet it seems we have more acrimonious racial politics. certainly there are issues concerning police brutality that used to be considered primarily local issues that are now becoming life issues let's say an intro democratic primary battles and much else.

do you think that we are in a kind of one way push, that whoever the next president's going to be would be engaged in this particular style of racial politics? or do you think this is just a temporary aberration? >> that's a great question but it depends to a large degree on the outcome of the next presidential election. i do think there's just a general way of thinking and acting on these issues that is very broadly shared on the left and is not the way most of the folks were on the right think about these things. so i don't think it would have come in some way she would have come if you have a republican administration you have a racialized attack on the administration as being indifferent and callous and racist and so when. on the particular questions about police brutality, that is i think very much tied to the fact that you have the success in bringing the crime rate down.

the public's reaction to these incidents would be different if people felt that sense of danger that people in new york city for example, felt every day in the late 1970s and early 1980s. it's reasonable to think about issues differently when you've got a changed social context but what would be unreasonable would be to discount the progress that has been made and just take it for granted and assume that any amount of anti-police rhetoric or policy can be indulged. and i suspect that the political conversation about justice has gotten ahead of the public and that i am all for a lot of criminal justice reforms that i'm glad to see hillary clinton catching up to rand paul and ted cruz and mike lee on the issue but it has to be it's very important that the basic orientation of criminal justice reform the pro-public safety, pro-law enforcement, pro-police

and not move off the wrong direction. >> mona? >> this topic of what goes on between police and black young men is part of a much bigger picture with what has gone wrong with many aspects of our society. by no means limited to african-americans or minorities. ..