>> booktv visited capitol hill to ask members of congress what they are reading this summer. >> what are you reading? >> the life and times of robert kennedy. it is an incredible book about his life, political life, the history of his family and it is an enjoyable read. >> booktv wants to know what you are reading. send us your summer reading list via twitter at booktv or instagram at book underscore tv or post it to facebook, facebook.com/booktv. booktv on c-span2. television for serious readers.

>> good >> we are thrilled to welcome nancy maclean here and her book "democracy in chains." we have made no secret how important this book is in my humb humble opinion. we are doing our best. turn off the air conditioning up there? okay. okay.

my little experience in politics, some of you might know, i was on the durum city council for eight years in a previous life time. [applause] and it seemed that one very important thing in politics is to understand your opponent and what motivates them. this book shows our understanding of what is called at sometimes the radical right, the alt right, the libertarian right, has been very limited and that there has been a philosophy and a strategy that goes back decades that is behind much of

what we see in politics now and so i think there are a few things that can be more important for those of us who don't agree with that kind of politics than to read this book, understand it, and i think we will be a much better position to counter the arguments that are being made on the libertarian right. nancy maclean is the william shade professor of history and political science and public policy at duke university. she taught previously at northwestern university where she was chair of the department of history and she came to duke

university in 2010. i am very pleased and very happy to have her. thanks c-span for covering this and thank you for coming. nancy maclean. [applause] >> wow, i am show thrilled to see how many of you are here. i just feel such great community in durham and it is nice to see colleagues and friends and people have haven't met but hope to. i want to give a special thanks to tom who took a special interest in this book when i was still writing and revising but it came out in vikings catalog and he contacted me to set it up. it is a wonderful bookstore and i hope you all stay and browse if you haven't been here before.

[applause] >> oh, okay. can you hear in the back? oh, dear. okay. i am going to get my big voice on. how is that? can i hold it? well, i will do my best. can you hear me now? good. okay. so i am going to tell you a little bit about how i came to this topic and what i learned and then i want to share with you a few passages from it book and open it up to your questions and comments and such. so, i ama historian of social movement. i have a particular interest in the u.s. south. i just finished another book ten years ago and i was in philadelphia and learned about a

story i had never heard before even though i am a historian with emphasis on the south. and that story was the story of prince edward county, virginia in the aftermath of brown verse board of education where the county in the name of state sovereignty and virginia liberty shutdown the public school system and sent all the white children off to private schools with public monies and left the black children with no schooling for five years because those students had the temerity to go on strike in 1951 for a decent school. a school that might be as little bit as nice as the white people school and for that act funneled in brown versus board of education this became one of the five cases in brown versus board of education and for that act of resistance the county leaders shutdown the schools and left the children with no public

education for five years. all they had is what the naacp, american friends service committee and so forth could provide. i was horrified by this story that i never heard. i was deeply moved by what happened to these students. i started researching that story and i learned that tuition grants, what we were calling vouchers, were crucial to the story of what happened in prince edward county. i learned that milton freedman, this is part of virginia's massive resistance to brown and i learned milton freedman, the chicago trained economist issued his first manifesto for school vouchers after the news had been coming up from the south that the most arched segregationists were threatening to shutdown public education rather than allow desegregation in defiance of the federal courts. at first, i thought golly, milton freedman is part of the

story and let's keep him on the radar. i kept moving with my school story which was a civil rights meets neo liberalism you could say. in following a footnote, i learned of a 1959 report by two economists also trained by the university of chicago who had set-up a center at the university of virginia in 1956 arriving in september just after the general assembly of virginia passed the sweep of massive resistance laws. i will give you a sense of that report. that 1959 report in a moment with the reading. but let's say it really shocked me to see two university professors making an economic case for what the arch segregationists were asking and seeking. what really upset me was -- what provoked me is that these econmists were not making the

case in racial terms but in the terms of their discipline. but it was clear they were exploiting the crises and tragedy that was unfolding in the south in order to push through their agenda. so in fact when they sent their report to one of the state legislatures who was one of the leaders of massive resistance, they actually said they were making the case in the terms of their discipline letting the chips fall where they may. and that phrase haunted me. letting the chips fall where they may. that put buchanan and his colleague on my radar. but i still thought freedman was the surprise figure was tracing for the many connections he had to the virginia people who were pushing this. then i learned again by chance from a political scientist who

was transnational political scientist who worked on latin america that many people heard milton freedman went to chile and advised the dictatorship on how to combat inflation and the virginia school of james buchanan had a lasting affect and it was headed by dawn mitchell lay and constitution. then i started getting more interested in buchanan and thought what is going on here and what trail did i land on? continued to follow and it moved to north carolina in 2010 and milton freedman was my focus. he was famous, the one everybody knew about, it was like what is he doing? i am following all these connections and as you know something happened in 2010 after the mid terms here. a radicalized republican party won majorities in both houses of the legislature and suddenly all these things i was reading in

buchan buchanan's work, and this is man who wrote abstract, and suddenly it was real, concrete and frightening because i was seeing these ideas play out in what i am sure you all remember and have responded to over the last few years. what i am seeing comes from buchanan. he always argued it was a mistake to focus on the question of who rules. the real question was the rules. and if you didn't like what was going on in a government in a society, which none of his libertarian, and right wing, and ultra free market colleagues didn't. his argument was you need to focus on the rules and change the rules and you needed to break up collective power, the kind of power you would see in labor unions and civil rights organizations and even the aarp. any collective group that makes demands on government for tax

resources that would lead to transfers of resources that was a problem. and so his solution was to alter the nature of governance by radical rule change. let's come back to north carolina where this was becoming real to me. what we saw unfold in north carolina after 2010 was radical changes. extreme jerry mandering with the operation red map, attempts to undermine unions particularly public sector unions, hostility to public education and radical cuts for public education and changes to the governments of public education, refusal to accept medicaid expansion that was part of the affordable care act even though there was a desperate need among low income people for health care, rolling back measures to protect the environment and address global warming, getting rid of the racial justice act, and then instituting what some called the monster voter suppression law. what i found disturbing and even

frightening was that i could e this was an application of james buchanan's ideas. a strategy guided by his understanding of the political process and i will come back to that in a moment. he had original insight and won a nobel prize in economic science for them in 1986. but guided by his idea and a libertarian morality that says it would be better to let people die from lack of health care if they cannot afford to pay for it on their own if they did not save for it than to receive it from government. if the morality that i don't think almost anyone in this room would share but i think it is important for us to understand it is coherant ethical system and frankly for some a fanatic behavior that is shaping public policy as we gather here. so, the bottom line idea here is

that what they really mean by personal responsibility is that you should be on your own. you should be a self responsible individual and if you fail to pay for your future needs, whether that is health care, whether that is retirement security, whether that is your children's college, or our own, tough luck. your failures will teach other people that they need to conduct their lives differently and start saving from the moment they become essentially sentiment. so, in january -- i knew i had to get into his private papers and there was a collection of them at george mason. after buchanan died in january of 2013, i finally got access to his private archives at george mason. ironically just as government shutdown led by republicans who had been exposed to his ideas

and trained in his ideas were engaging in this government shutdown in the case of what buchanan might have called bargaining. in those papers, and they were wherever and chaotic.

found healther skeeter on the

chair a series of letters from a blowup that happened after charles koch started investing massively in george is mason university and, in fact, some of the people connected with operation engaged in what confidential whistle-blower identified as probably illegal activity in its violation of the tax codes. [laughter] and so that was also pretty heart stopping. in any event once i brought home hundreds and hundred was documents that i copied there and a put them together with published work and sources i found myself laying down piece was a puzzle sometimes to be honest literally nauseated me when i saw the scope of the operation being guided by this individual which i started to follow out the -- the career tray are ject rei that led out of this training center that they established at george mason saw that people coming from this program, the talent pipeline were staffing all of these major institutions of the coke donor network funded world it just was -- shocking.

took into account measure of this product i saw something tells that the formal of government these men understood ideal what they refer ared to as liberty mirrored that of mid-century virginia minus the segregation. what am i getting at here? the o key a great political scientist published a book about southern scientists before these efnghtses and he said that virginia was most big state in the south he said next to virginia mississippi is a hot bed of democracy. [laughter] so virginia, they had elite control like you couldn't imagine this kind of unified elite and harry byrd was kind of the center kind of a corporate form, and that elite made sure that they had their economic liberty and that meant that nobody else had their freedom. and they department have much else besides. so in the name had of liberty

they practiced extreme voter suppression with with a poll tax, they juror mannered the world conserve tiff district and suburban communities, they passed laws that prevented workers from organized. and even taxed labor organizers who came in. i mean it was absurd -- and they brought in harry are byrd was the biggest grower in virginia and he brought in rightless immigrants harvest apple orchard again that was liberty right and these were cheapers workers to get to why employ american workers who might have access to the constitution? anyway -- as i began to trace the operation built off george mason university with coke's money to apply buchanan understanding of political economy to charles koch said he said when he gave this big gift in 1997 when all of this really got going earnest i want to unleash kind of force

that propelled columbus to his discoveries. and what was really interesting to me -- too is that he also said since we are greatly outnumbered the failure to use our technology will essentially lead to continual failure. now this is a man with three engineering degrees from m.i.t. when he speaks of technology he's talking about ideas that can create a great advantage what he was doing was harnessing political economy developed by buchanan in order to achieve what he he wanted i think you al know that he wants very audacious radical change in our institutions but if you didn't, it's worth knowing this man is comparing himself to martin luther and he has that sense of his mission in life. so -- he had the money and he had been funding intellectual when he gave this money for three decades. until he found that technology

he wanted and he found that at george mason, and he turned it into an operational strategy for something that buchanan had long advocated. buchanan spoke of unchaining, but it was very clear to me from everything else i pounds in his papers in his correspondents and writings when he spoke what he really meant was to enchain modern democracy to undermine again, the power of organized citizens to curtain regulation to cur trail transparency, and ultimately and this is crucial because we're starting to see this roll out in our own state to make changes in state and federal constitutions to lock in what this cause had never been able to get through persuasion or the electoral process you can with advocating constitutional revolution beginning in 1970s and tried it in chile coming to america we can talk more about it in the q and a, okay -- i would just say before i go to reading few selections from the

book, that i honestly believe that what is at stake right now that my book is talking about is the face of the american democratic system. and a kind of government that citizen action remember i'm a student of social movement i teach and kind of government that citizen action has demanded at least since the populous movement of the 1980s. there was a time when all social movements hi they can be in silo you can do whatever your wind is moving activity over here and environmentalist here and and they are coming for every group that looks to government in order to achieve their vision of social justice their need to fix the environment. all of those things so this is really a unified challenge. okay, i'll stop there, again with the story of the book happy to say more in the q and a now i want o give you a sample of the narrative with selections from three moments that illustrates some of what i've just shared.

the first selection while i guess the next won't be as long but be next selection is from an early chapter about the events in the fall of 1958 in virginia -- as the governor of virginia engaged in what is is today around the country in these red controlled states being called e to prevent from what others would like to do. the governor applied massive resistance laws passed in 1956 to take away autonomy of local communities and to force on their residents the will of a jury conservative state legislature that any school -- that was about to desegregate in response to a federal court order should be shutdown. okay so that's the context. and the chapter goes back -- to our phrase letting the chips

fall where they may. james buchanan and warren did not put forward their proposed solution to the school crisis until early 1959. when they did, it was as if they had pulled down shades on every window, canceled the subscription to all of the nines plugged their ears to a new set of voices and harry byrd's virginia. the economist and their allies had setback and maintained that state's fight was against the federal government against coercion from outsiders, in a stand for liberty. true, they ignored the over racism and turned blind eye to the chronic violations of black citizens liberty and constitutional rights that the led to the federal intervention. but the voices of 19 -- 58 and early 1959 defied etch their narrow exclusionary frame aring of the conflict. because they came from white middle class virginians from parents in particular who were shocked at the actions of their what state officials and determined to resist.

most were moderate republicans and democrats of the expanding cities and suburbs of northern virginia. and they spoke powerfully enough over a six-month period to move buchanan and nut or to explain publicly what their vision of liberty would mean in practice on the most pressing matter of the day. this school system -- in a summer of 1958, three very different communities the port city of norfolk home to u.s. navy bags, charlottesville home to the university of virginia, and the tech still mill town in the shenandoah with a valley announce their intentions to admit a few black students to some previously white schools following september. they were moved to do so not because of white townspeople or their school board suddenly converted to equal rights urnsd the law . no doubt a few did. but most having being reared since inpansy in culture of jim crow did not. still, many saw themselves as

patriotic, law-abiding citizens, and so were unwilling to defy a court ruling even on the matter of race. federal courts instructed their communities to desegregate to naacp lawsuits and planned to comply. these local plans triggered implementation of the 1956 state massive resistance legislation empowering governor to -- to shut any white school that plan to admit any black students. hiss act deny public education to some 13,000 white students throughout the fall of 1958 in these communities from first graders to high school seniors. the reason it was only white schools is because no -- no white students suing to enter black schools so they weren't subject to this federal -- coercion had in the view of those who qowld disagree with it. so -- in july of 1958, the week after

governor lindsay j. jr. announced to close these schools come september, a virginia country doctor who before this time had paid little attention to state politics announced that she would run for the senate seat held by harry byrd. her name was dr. lewis. doctoral mince no words in explaining why he was shunning because senator byrd massive resistance program is designed to close our school she said. thus hurting our virginia -- children more than any other group. that was the who are that moved her as working mother of five to run for office. but she didn't stop there. the problem was not just whether local communities should be allowed to decide to admit black children to formerly white schools. virginia's coming generation she argued black and qhiet needed more and better schooling. but that was just the beginning of the changes she was campaigning for. and i think i will --

kind of skim a little bit here because i know it is hot and you're kind of crowded in. but ilk say laibts more because i was just blown away by this story and sad this woman went to her death thinking that nobody had ever -- written about her story. or understood it, it is really extraordinary. anyway. fearless in shaming byrd for presiding over a symptom rigged to keep citizens from ballot box and shex keep in mind high cold war i believe that people everywhere in virginia, as well as russia should have a chance to vote for a candidate who opposes the political machine that oppresses them. whose liberty was organization protecting? she noted in the u.s. senate senator byrd was among most -- quotes among most outspoken opponents of centralization in government. yet his political machine she said has been gradually depriving our communities and cities of their rights now even dictating to school boards what they can and cannot do . her campaign motto v's own

six -- thus always to tyrants it was time prescribe doctor for the state citizens to resist tyranny now i kind of want to read you more of that. but i think i'm going to hold back. one thing i want to tell you in a state in which unions are kind of fighting for their lives now and even though we're the least unionized state in the south are legislature is talking about putting right to work in the state so no future generation can change it and give workers the kind of right tts that they enjoyed at mid-century so there i think you need to know who encouraged doctor to o run for office he was the president of the virginia aflcio written a loart to the editor of a newspaper protesting the school closures and he called up the house that morning -- and came over and invited himself over came over shook her hands and said, we would like you to run for if the u.s. sthat. [laughter]

brought her material and supporters and it was virginia labor union then backed by the protestant main line church act vus. league of women voters all of the groups that exist in mid-century they supported the run but it was the labor movement who first -- came to her aid and i think that's extremely important to understand at a time when labor rights have been so much under attack. so -- i'll stop that story there. and get to the second story that i want to share with you. okay. so the second selection i'll share is from a moment in 1983 as james buchanan home from chile and emboldened by success cause had enjoyed there there offered strategy to achieve what even president ronald reagan had drawn back from are. radical change had social security and if you've never

read david stockman's book about this write i couldn't believe it. but he basically said what they first tried to do in reagan's first budget could not be achieved in a democrat society that shy should have understood that and should have gone back. instead -- reagan drew back and didn't want to hurt people and had liberal ideas and didn't get what was going on and stockman talked about how he was going to be engaged in mortal -- mortal combat with old people and people of -- in his own voter base and reagan drew back and end up with a huge deficit. anyway. so -- so the point i'm reading from is it after reagan has decided not to push through the kinds of changes that stockman a libertarian was first seeking. and what happened after that? so they pick up here. these libertarian seem to determine what achieve their

eppedz was stop being honest with the public instead of advocating for their goals frontally they needed to engage in a kind of a crab walk. even if they were required advancing misleading claims in order to take territory bit by bit in a manner that cumulatively yet quietly could begin to alter to radically alter power relation of american society. the program on which they tested new strategy was social security. social security as both james buchanan and davidstockman observed was the linchpin of the american welfare state. most popular new deal reform that is very success had had made it a target for the far right since its creation in 1935. now, no doubt inspired chile conversion to private pensions charles koch katoa institute turned to buchanan to teach its staff how to crab walk. my term not theirs. katoa had made the privatation of social security its top

priority. buchanan labeled the existing system of social security a ponzi scheme a word that might be familiar now, a framing that is one critic pointed out implied that the program was fundamentally fraudulent, indeed totally and fundamentally wrong. it was fundamentally wrong but the cause learned that opposing it candidly like they used to meant political suicide because the majority of voters wanted the system to continue as it was the professor warned and i quote, there is no widespread support for basic structural reform among any membership group in the american policy among the old or young. the black, brown, or the white. the female or the male. the rich or the poor, the frost belt or sun belt the near

universal popularity of social security meant that any attempt to fight it on philosophical grounds openly about opposition was doomed. buchanan therefore divide and taught a more secure and sequential indeed i would say deceptive approach but one that served this newly crab walking cause well. those who seek to undermine existing structure he advise must do two things first they must alter beneficiaries understanding of social security's viability because that, quote, would make abandonment of the system look more attractive there's a whole century of nonprofits funded right wing that have been doing this as i'm quite sure you're aware and you've seen the commercials ever since. well, step one would soften public support for the system by making it seem unreliable, step

two would apply a classic strategy of divide and concur, sipghts could be split apart in this way -- the group receiving social security benefits. these current recipients and those close to retirement should be reassured their benefits could not be cut. this tactic buchanan referred to and i quote is paying off existing claims. the reasoning behind it is -- vintage border school of thought of west virginia school was one stream. as the citizens most attentive to any change in the system, these were the people who would fight the hard fest to preserve it. getting them out of the struggle to preserve this system would thus greatly and feeble remaining coalition. the second group buchanan coached consisted of high earners, the plan here qowb to suggest that they be taxed at

higher rates than others to get their benefits thus with the image of social security as an insurance program in the minds of the wealthy by making it look more like the now -- discredited and unpopular means test income transfers popularly understood as welfare. and if that message were repeated enough and wealthy began to believe that others were not paying their fair share, they in turn would become less opposed to altering the program. the third group qowld consist of younger workers. younger people needed to be constantly reminded that their payroll deductions were providing and i, quote, a tremendous quell fair subsidy to the aged. now i think if nothing else, i have said conveys this -- i think this tells us that what we're looking at here is not classic conservatism by any one's definition.

classic conservatism does not insight class struggle of young people against their elders and say that grandmother is a rent seeker which is kind of language that this program uses. so -- so i do think there's one more thing to add a -- few more things two paragraphs to this so this patch work of reforms this is buchanan language and put quotation marks around reforms to make sure that the message was clear to those he was advising that reform was not really the end game. this package could tear a thunder group that had been united before in their support of social security. better still buchanan noted the member group of the once unified coalition that protected social security might be induced by such changes to fight against each other. when that happened, the broad failings that had had upheld the system for half a century might

fracture. now, buchanan projection left unanswered how do i identify those who would benefit from the end of social security and turn them into act aive allies of the cause? and for that, two other people at the heritage foundation contributed to this constitution with with what they called the a strategy for getting rid of social security. and they said the answer to building up that group that would help to push for social security privatization was clear, the financial sector. the right was a not against people putting away for their retirements, to the contrary, they wanted people to save, and actively for their own retirements as part of the philosophy of personal responsibility. they just wanted those savings taken out of the hands of the federal government and put into the hands of capitalists as was done in chile and also they

wanted to end employer contributions to social security as was done in chile. i'll stop that section there. the final section and the one i'll close on is deeply even to my readings%shakespearean you may have colleagues up in arms at the books portrayal of his idea and cause they move forward. but here's an interesting fact, the coke political team and their economic allies at george mason university pushed beau buchanan aside when he called what they were doing at george mason university exploitation. and when push came to shove -- top university administrators chose the man who became the university's bigger biggest donor over their first noble and

pushed beau can man to the side too. and some of those who are now complaining loudest about my book was the billionaire over their friend and colleague into fancy swanky new quarters provided by charles koch while buchanan papers were left to rot in a building that was beginning to get mold and was essentially untended. but there -- for a few people who remained loyal -- and one of them came to feel profound contempt for charles koch and his operation i think this is interesting because he was a libertarian so this is not like me an outsider talking about this. what i'm about to read you comes from a person who was the colleague of years whob ran the john lox foundation i believe it was called in virginia he was deeply involved in this cause. but he got manner more disgusted after the turn of the any century at the way wealthy

businessmen and wealthy people were taking over what was supposed to have been a movement of ideas. and so the conclusion opens with -- charles rally unheated wise whistle blowing with this and go on to question and discussion -- it has a conviction to remain self-governorring intellectual to be part of a messy ontic movement they don't entertain doubt. i expect rally felt the change underway if it didn't bother others about themselves, it bothered him it be himself. for we also know that once the coke people settled this, and then took over, in this corner of george mason university with economic development now school of law, the center, they department need the whole university just a good chunk of it. anyway, after the coke people

settled in and then took over george mason university rallies concerned turned into contempt. then disgust until he came to this early despised team of operative and academic enabler as far as rally concerned occupy oing his campus. he called richie think his former economics colleague at george dason and now charles koch by then i should say charles koch top political strategist a third rate political hack and a man who was very is appropriately named. [laughter] rally says what others never dare to admit i quote far too many libertarians have been seduced and providing intellectual ammunition for a businessman end quote. it reached the point he came to believe by 2012 that there was no hope that any of those who participated in the free market think tanks would speak out. he was blunt about the reason why. he said --

too many of them benefit financially from the pocket money tolled out charles and david coke did rally include buchanan as well in his suggestion of so many having been bought? well buchanan no longer came to campus after 1998 after this fight when he was essentially pushed to the side to teach strategy to a new generation of operatives what he once showed nor did he play any director ongoing role that he's been able to trace and now become coke's movement. buchanan continuesed to accept the honor and that coke people made sure to send his way. in his memoirs, published ten years later, rewent out of his way to say that -- looking back over his lifetime of work, i have no regrets. perhaps -- but buchanan was far too smart not to remember the idealistic young man two once promised university of virginia president

colgate that he would speak to defeat economics and liberal politics by winning the war of ideas against the other side. note by writing training manuals for subversion. had he withdrawn after 1998, so that he would not have to prnlly witness what his decades of work had brought, again we don't know. rally clearly continued to respect buchanan, but not so blindly. for he predicted as the 2012 election approached, that the libertarian cause they shared, quote, may well suffer. at least in principle serious harm for having become the instrument of a tyrant. watching how coke commandeered cato institute for what rally called crude plan to speed up the libertarian conquest of america by using the very governmental apparatus that libertarians had long criticized made rally angry. he saw too, and i quote that

coke had no scruple concerning manipulation of scholarship. he wanted katoa output to aid his cause, period. when a few libertarian board members and staff members raised questions, one actually said we support legalized prostitution just because we support legalized prostitution doesn't mean we want to be prostitutes i think what appears later. anyway. when a few libertarian board members and staff raised questions, he replaced them with his own people who now included parking lot kind of social conservative and political party figures who were inathma and liberty was to the does and concerned about katoa not america and certainly not about the fate of major rule he nor any insider wents public with their concerns. nor did anyone else sound the alarm for the rest of us about what coke's approximatey army is one rally reader called it was doing to the country.

thank you. [applause]

we now have faculty and students are trying to get transparency about theirs and it's an uphill battle on the western carolina university the faculty and students were overruled, i believe, by the administration and it's frightening stuff. what they do is create training institutes for high school students, for teachers and their training institutes for faculty from different places and there are training institutes for federal judges. i did get into that but i gave a hint of the legal story but you can -- henry manny founded a crucial entrepreneur in the growth of the field of law and economics and build georgia lace masons law school and he iran these summer scamps. that at one point by the early 1990s trained to best of all

the sitting federal judges in the united states. 40% of all federal judges had been treated to a curriculum. those efforts continue and changed under obama obama because he put in a number of federal judges but people, this is serious. these people are dead set, to transform our legal system and in buchanan's terms to lock it in with these radical constitutional changes. >> yes. >> what do you think it says about the class rule in this country on the so-called liberal opposition that they have been such an abject failure in the face of all of this. why has far right wing ideas receive power while you would think the rich people with plenty of money and intellectual ideas and the money to pay for intellectual ideas would back opposition to this. >> i have to say i don't think any of us have really understood

this. hindsight is always 2020. partly the democrats think there's money and both parties with the citizens united open big money is shaping everything and what we have is politicians have become accountable to donors than their citizens. we saw this play out with healthcare. why was the republican party in washington supporting a health bill that only something like 12% of the american people supported? because they were answering -- pushed by the freedom caucus funded by these donors and they were answering to the donor network not to their own constituents. that is began as ideas, change the incentives and make it so they are afraid to be in the answer the donors instead of their voters. on the larger question, frankly, i think we've all been remiss and we are lead that way by a culture, how many conversations have you been in the last year

where people are talking about politics and they say will it be hillary or if we focus on personalities and washington then we have to learn that the canonized lesson that it's about the rules. it's about power and the democrats in washington were so focused on washington that they didn't notice they were losing all of the states. this is a strategy that is informed by virginia's canon school of political economy and enforced by the coke donor network and they have trifecta control. both houses of the legislator and governorship in 25 states. the democrats have that in six. i think they might be starting to wake up at the national level but i'm not sure but what i will say is that people in places like north carolina even in kansas the republicans broke rank with the party and instituted a tax cut when they realize their schools were being destroyed and their state was

being destroyed but it is going, if people want to see the turnaround it will be in common on all of us. everyone is busy and has a mountain of things to do but it's incumbent on the citizens not to wait for someone else but to get engaged to make things happen gunmac. >> given the scope of what they are doing the decades they have been doing it how do we combat this? >> i hear you but i will say the single most important thing the question was given the scope of this and then it's been decades in development and how elaborate it is how do we combat this. my preliminary answer is that the single most important thing about this book and about the story i tell here is that these guys are doing this because they understand people don't want what they want and if they tell the truth about what they want

we will recoil and not let it happen. i think the most crucial thing that we can do is inform ourselves when we see witnesses and make them tell the truth and if they say i want to social security say do you support the principle of social insurance. challenge them so that they have to get out of their anodyne language that obscures what they are doing and challenge -- i made a list at one point of things that i can follow this analysis but i think the main thing is to realize that that is the source of tremendous strength that they understand that it's the majority knows what is going on and the majority sees what society they would bring into being people will want to stop it and the task is to reach out to one another, to engage and get involved in civic organizations and whatever your world is. there so many ways and networks people are plugged into and that can begin to make it up. lately, as we saw in healthcare. what better conditions do they have to for pushing through this

agenda. people didn't because they didn't like what they were seeing. they really responded. yes. >> there are clear parallels between what buchanan is doing at george mason and what freeman was doing at the university of chicago. do you see any documentation of a collaboration between those two schools? >> it's interesting. buchanan came out of chicago in the first year they talked about what he set up at the university of virginia as being a colony of the university of chicago. i don't think he liked that idea and they started -- in this hothouse crucible of what was happening in virginia and later chapters i talk about how even the university was being democratized and that was changing, the state was changing the poll tax ended and all of these different things happened

that finally were making virginia inclusive and democratic for the first time and it was in that context, in the crucible that began and developed a distinctive school of political economy that was focused on the political process and came up with these operating conclusions i just described. milton freedman, not my here person, or economists, but in some ways what they were doing at the university of chicago was a bit different. buchanan always smarted because he thought he didn't get adequate recognition by them -- there were all these tensions and they were part of this mark society which was promoting ideas for the world but i think chicago maintains a different feel. although, i don't know. maybe it's because i haven't dug in deeply into the archives so maybe i'll leave that question to someone else who will be here next year writing a book about that. back there. [inaudible] >> he asked the question was is

fox news part of this network. i will say the archival information i have was mainly from buchanan i don't know about don stock goal was big at box was part of the libertarian networks and when i was in buchanan's office he had a letter from a young woman who was talking about the summer program who had done an internship with him and become a convert to this cause. also, some of buchanan's colleagues at george mason talks about when they were launching the program about making use of insights from cognitive psychology, evolutionary biology and i do think that some of the tribalism that we have seen and up in our society and efforts to get right-wing people in a constant state of fear to think that someone because they woman

loves woman she hates their religion and wants to destroy their civilization. i do think a lot of that is being consciously exploited and i am on the direct mailing list of a number of these groups and i can tell you that some of the stuff they send out is horrific. there's a group called judicial watch which said are you aware that millions of illegal aliens are about to steal the election? this is the kind of stuff they are sending out. again, one thing that citizens can do is start holding their elective officials accountable to the kind of stuff that is being used to get people to the polls. i will say something about this, too. i talked about how the cause is taking advantage of understanding by changing the incentive they can get elected

officials, particularly the republicans, they have no sentimental loyalty to the republican party and they have made that clear and i have all kind of sources that show that. they turned it into a delivery vehicle. even people who don't agree with them will do what they say or be primaries and lose their positions. frankly, where are the people of courage in that party to say that this is wrong. i will not support that healthcare. i will not do those things because they are wrong and i don't need this caucus and i don't need your donor money. that will change things, too. i think people can put out that kind of voice and create that kind of pressure to change that so that would be one thing. yes, sir. >> how did it differ from the federalist. [inaudible] or the evangelical colleges making sure that we attack separation of church and state? how does this organization differ from those, cooperate with those? >> you will be surprised -- the

question was how does this coke funded pause network of organizations that i described relate to groups like the federalist society, the evangelical schools and so forth, at this point, i think you will be surprised when i tell you that i found in the canada archives that charles was one of the early people supporting the federalist society and helping to promote its programs in the beginning was speaking at some early federalist society events. one thing i will say, again, about both men were extremely smart. there is no question about their intelligence. there's a danger on the left about the smartest kid in the class, they are done, we are smart, that is the kiss of death. that's the worst thing people on the left to do. first, because it does make people look like snobs.

also, it keeps us from understanding how incredibly shrewd some of these people are. charles company, a lot of people said look, this guy inherited his father's business. big deal. well, what he got from his father he has increased over a thousand times in its value up to 5000 times. the guy is shrewd. three engineering degrees from mit, very shrewd thinker, always playing the long game, always thinking six was ahead and i think that is something that people want to debate this project, others will have to start doing, too. not just paying attention to what celebrities said what but instead thinking how do we save our institutions. if you want to save our public schools, how do we think forceps the odds get to the next thing. i'm not sure if i quite addressed it but all these organizations and i talk about but nausea i felt and that was when i started to get into this and to try to find out -- i felt

like claire danes in homeland. if you see not. i'm losing it. i would dig into the stuff and it was crazy how these same people circulate in the networks and so forth, state policy network is connected to alec which is connected to religious rights and phillips. i'm starting to work on digital graphics to the betas. it is beyond the normal human beings mind or ability to take it in. one more question. i see a gentleman there with a tie in a blue sweater. yes. >> my question is. [inaudible] >> i'm sorry?

[inaudible] >> the financial crisis. first of all, at this point in the story, you will not be surprised to know that people who are involved helped bring us the financial crisis. phil gramm was working with the cause of very committed public choice economist in the senate when he was pushing for financial deregulation and his wife wendy graham was presiding over the center that they created in buchanan's name at george mason. all of these people were involved in pushing for opening up the financial industry for deregulation for allowing all the stuff to happen. was there a moment of shame that the ideas that didn't work out? no, not a moment of shame. just a more aggressive push to take advantage of the crisis in that dislocation of that financial collapse to move his agenda even harder. thank you for that question.

i think our time is up but i want to say well, i am so thrilled to see so many people here and i think this could be turned around. thank you. [applause] >> but tv is on twitter and facebook. we want to hear from you. treat us or post a comment on our facebook page.