other side of the coin. has done more than anyone to tell us why this matters, because frankly, everybody president since wilson -- it's not been a question whether or not they are wilsonian but how much. still continue to guide american foreign pop si today or might say coin to haunt american foreign policy. what woodrow wilson said and what professor something i win help us understand in a more forward-going way helps drive america today, which is why i'm particularly pleased to have the author of this book "why wilson matters" which is a darn good book, to come here and to explain it to us, and then you can go buyure own copy. so, without further adieu, professor smith, the floor is yours.

[applause] >> i think everything is working. i think jeff said -- kind of introduced me in a way who introduced me, my family, who i see here tonight. my sister and i grew up in the heart of the metroplex, and my friend, karen flesher-jones, who is here, used to go with me to -- lewan where the top of the north texas push. they closed in 1970. -- [inaudible] -- the lakewood

ranch used to slip in because they would be drinking underage. karen and i were horrified because we were, too, but we thought were were to -- they were calling attention to a widespread problem near dallas. i'm glad to see that a few of you know these places. well, i have known tom for a long time, tom knock, who just kindly introduced. jim holyfield, a police officer in political science and head of the center for political studies, i'm glad to see her here and then jeff engle is a real treat since i heard about him for a long time, and i saw that there was a reference to a book that he and tom just --ed, which -- just published, which i might as well tout myself for you. sounds interesting. i'm waiting for my copy. "when life strikes the

president." scandal, death and illness in the white house. i noted that neither of the bush presidents is in it, nor is jimmy carter so i guess there are a few people who were immune but looks like it's going to be a wonderful book. well, those of you who get up early and watch cbs news white see what charlie rose says, you're world in 90 seconds im'll have to give you wilson's world in 2,400 seconds which is 40 minutes, what we should keep yourself. to this is an excellent time to be discussing woodrow wilson, april 6th is the centennial of the declaration of war against germany. the result of which was that an

army of -- by december of 1918 of 1.8 million american soldiers were in europe. 126,000 died, 204,000 were wounded. this pales in comparison with european losses. something like 11 million young europeans lost their lives, not to speak of 27 million others, including ottomans who died. but the bottom line on this was that despite the fact that our losses relative to the europeans' were sluffed, the american contribution was decisive. it's quite possible the germans would have won the war had the united states not intervened when it did, and how it did. the result was to make woodrow wilson the presiding figure at the peace conference that opened in paris early in 1919. and finally, the person who is

most responsible for the creation of the league of nations in april of 1919, announced in april of 1919. so we're are in for two years of centennials. april 2017 to april 2019, passing by what was called the armistice but what in fax was the german surrender in 1918. this war left a huge mark on the 20th century. in fact, most historians give it more weight than they give the second world war, however near and more horrific that may seem to us. the reason is that it unleashed several forces. bolshevik revolution, the us and the rise of fascism? italy and nazi germany. after that we kind of shift our

gaze to the world under the nation of western imperialism and most notably, china. this, then, was the beginning of the rise really of what was later called third world nationalist revolutionary movements. the impact of these three forces is still felt with us today, but in a way communism and fascism are more or let's deadologies. the one thing that is less commonly brought up is wilsonianism. the reason it's so important is that it still is with us today. in fact, it's been with us ever since fdr entered the white house in 1933, particularly since the german invasion of poland in 1939. fdr was close to wilson and his secretary of state, cordell hull was in fact much, much closer.

so the transposition of wilson ian thinking intomer american foreign policy came about easily with the outbreak of world war ii. all this said, not much is known or appreciated about woodrow wilson. in fact, i would say the is-if not perhaps -- he can be considered the most important president who is forgotten or disliked. he was certainly very much disliked in his own time by people who opposed the war, and to whom he repaid the favor by punishing them. the liberal left, which had supported his presidency, and indeed supported the war, was shocked by his repression of dissidents to the war, people he labeled dissidents, people who he called the hyphens, namely german-americans, who were opposed. also irish-americans who were opposed to the war. people who were socialists or

pacifists, whom he imprisoned or allows vigilant grew -- vigilante groups to take out after. and then african-americans who were treated very badly indeed. there's a three-part pbs series going on now about world war ii. i don't think it's particularly good but what is particularly good is the way it focuses on the crackdown of wilson on these people or his disregard of them as with the african-americans. the dislike of wilson, though, continued far past the war itself. the united states did not enter the league of nations by a vote in the senate in march of 1920, confirmed later, and it was solidly reject also by me american public in the presidential election in november that year, when a

republican was returned to the white house, the first of three republicans, harding, coolage and hoover. only when fdr came back that wilson came into office, that wilson began to be remembered, but even at that time he was desentice build the intellectual elite. want at the letman, george canyon, john main understand keynes, the list good coo go on. also disliked by, as time went on, the left, in the united states. they saw him as a person who actually was talking about peace and democracy as a front for economic interests abroad with a strong military. in other words kind of a marxist approach. widespread in american universities in the 1960s, particularly into the 1970s.

but the right didn't like him, either. the right didn't like him because he was for strong government and because he -- well, if your a realize, he seemed too idealistic and too much of a moralist. the bottom line on this was that wilson was simply not appreciated and most recently has been opposed by african-americans. those who have followed "black lives matter," they know there were occupations at princeton where wilson was a student, then a professor, and then president, until early in the 20th 20th century. he was in politics. he didn't like to call it political science so it was politics. at any rate, "black lives matter" asks the legitimate question. if willson's most famous

statement was that he wanted to make the world safe for democracy, why didn't he make the world safe for democracy in america for starts? okay. something jim said reminded something. this is entitled "why wilson matters." believe it or not princeton university first contacted me and said, can you change the title? we're going to bees up if you leave a title like that in. why? bus it's too positive. could you change it, please to something like "does wilson matter? " so i have some explaining to do, think. the explanations go to a book i published in 1994, again at princeton, call "america's mission: the united states and the worldwide struggle of democracy." what this book introduced was the idea that the cold war had

been won essentially not thanks to our military power and our economic power alone, much as this was true, but also because the contest between liberal internationallal jim and proletarian internappallism -- an ideology struggle -- had been won by the liberal internationalists. liberal internationalism is a polite term for rebellion. it was a way camouflage phrase for him. what i pointed out was that what won the cold war was liberal international jim. it wasn't either of the containment policy nor the military. it was a combination of things. now, i asked -- i don't know how many of you pick it up that

there be a flier distributed this evening with the opening, and the first of these -- the first point on this flier is when i called the virtuous diamond of liberal internationalism. it's a combination of democracy, multilateralism, economic openness, and american leadership. the four together resulting in either a regional or a international zone of peace. the great promise that takes us back actually to the enlightenment. people didn't want to recognize this was wilsonian. woodrow wilson didn't leave a good record of his incoming in 1918-1919, largely because he had terrible stroke.

he had a series of strokes since he was a ongoing man and was not able to finish his philosophy of politics which he wanted to do after he left the white house. he had 20 pages or so written. what i tried to do is to re-establish what wilson might have said had wilson been able to put together the pieces of the puzzle as the puzzle lay before him in 1918-1919. and the answer is to look at his analysis of germany. germany for him was a malignant country and malignant for a combination of reasons. it authoritarian, it was militaristic, it was imperialist, it was protectionist, and as a result of these things, it thought in balance of power terms. when you put all this together,

you have what he called the perfect flower of war. now, the important thing to keep in mind here is that not all the authoritarian governments are necessarily for wilson malignant. germany, however, was capable of putting all of this together, although he was careful to separate german people from what he called the german imperial government. so that when the united states declared war on germany, the united states declared war, not the government of the united states. not against the german people, but against the germal imperial government, the government was at the origin of the problem. now, if we look at the second citation, the handout that it had for you, you will see what is the most famous declaration that wilson ever made, when he asked the congress in early april of 1917 for a declaration

of war, vague the world must -- saying the world must be made safe for democracy, peace must be planted on the tip of foundation of political liberty. a steadfast concert for piece can never be maintained except bay partnership of democratic nations. no autocratic government could be trusted to keep faith within it or to observe its covenants. must be a league of honor, partnership of opinion. only free people can hold their purpose and their honor steady to a common end, and perform the -- prefer the interests of mankind to any narrow interests officer their own. here, then, is the origin of the ideas that underlay the league. it would come together predominantly as a group of democratic nations, but there was a slight problem in this. i'll get to that problem later. let me switch back to the 1940s if i can, jumping ahead

to the 1940s. the 1940 sits wilson union decade. -- wilsonian decade. the system integrates the leading capitalist economies into a form of regulated capitalism that creates the greatest burst of growing and prosperity among these countries in world history. some people say it's late 19th 19th century with the british but i don't think so. secondly -- i think this was the gold senator -- was the occupation of japan and germany, which converted these two highly authoritarian militaristic countries into, guess what? democracies. in the case of germany it mattered particularly because that allowed the marshal plan to look forward to the european union. it also sent the framework for the north atlantic treaty organization, or nato, which was created in '49.

you put all of these things together, some people would throw the u.n. in but i think that is somewhat let important -- less important -- and you get, again, the virtues diamond, a place in which american leadership is in indispensable but the fact the united states is a democracy, that its klose allies are all democracies, they're joined together in a collective military situation, but they trade with each other and that they do so through multinational networks of an extraordinary sort. never before seen in world history. countries that are not acting under authoritarian orders to do this. this is really quite an accomplishment and completely fulfills what it was that the president was looking for, i think in 1919. now, the third quote here is an astonishing quote. it is a quote from mikhail

gorbachev. the cold was, gorbachev came to the united states and he went to fulton, missouri, and there are in the anniversary of churchill's famous address in 1946, said that an iron curtain was falling across europe, gorbachev, three years after the fall of that berlin wall, declared that the end of to hold war was a victory for common sense, reason, democracy. the united nations should create structures which are authorized to impose sanctions to make use of other means of compulsion when the rights of minority groups are being violated. he went on to underscore the universality of human rights, the acceptability of international interference wherever human rights are

violated. today democracy must prove it can exist not only against the antithesis of totalitarianism. this means this group from the national to the international arena. on today's alleged agenda is not just a union of democratic state but also a democratically organized global community. it's an extraordinary statement. well, see if i can find where i am in my own notes here. during the 1990s, when the book came out, i took my ball off the eye of what was going on with liberal internationallallism. libbal university and i got -- i started writing the book on foreign policy, and so in 1997 i

was at the wilson center in washington in 1998 i was -- i was at the council for foreign relations in new york, and i sort of missed what was going on in liberal international relations theory during the 1990s. finally my book came out with harvard in 2000, and i was giving book talks and write in the middle of it all, 9/11 happened. following 9/11, things came out of the blue and that was the bush doctrine. i have the bush doctrine down here -- i'm not going read it all but we have got citations from the bush doctrine which are very meaningful. what they argue is something

that at first in 2003 i wasn't quite clear what was going on. i knew that the language was -- but there was something wrong about the accent. it was like going from -- i don't know -- texas to england and you understand what is being said but you don't quite understand -- there's something about it that is peculiar. well, the bush doctrine said all the right things. if we go back to very virtuous diamond it was all there democracy promotion, open marks, cooperation among allies, u.s. leadership, world peace. and so in the fourth entry i've got here for your takeaway pages, i had the opening statement by george w. bush, which is replete with these words, and then his final statement in the pursuit of our goal, our first imperative is to

clarify what we stand for, the united states must defend liberty and justice because these principles are right and true for all people everywhere. no nation holds these aspirations and no nation is exempt from them. america was stand firmly for the nongoshable demand of human dignity, limits of law, limited power over the state, free speech, freedom of worship, equal yates, respect for women, religious tolerance and respect for private property, financial security of the united states must start from these core beliefs and. now, this is -- yes, this is liberal internationalism. but also is not traditional liberal internationalism. what i'm going to argue is that it differs in fundamental ways

from the internationallallism thought of by wilson and the way it was thought of during the cold war period. what had happened -- i'm going through it quickly because it's very complicated argument -- is that the political science steak the united states which i'm no longer in good graces that i used to be -- began to conceptualize three ideas amazing force. the force was called democratic peace theory. if democracy spreads, peace will spread. look at the european union. the second was democratic transition theory, that all countries can become democracies, that the transition from authoritarianism to democracy isn't that difficult. look what we did for germany japan. we can do it anywhere.

the third idea was that since the desirable peace is possible through democracy, there's responsibility to protect, and the war doctrine that meant we could invade any country we wanted that that authoritarian, provided it inflicted huge human rights crisis on its citizenry. well, -- where is tom nauk -- as tom would say, the -- my reaction to this was not only to be against the war but to suddenly say, what have i been doing, writing all of this words about liberal internationalism when it's under the flag of wilsonianism, democracy and promotion of human rights that we're engaged in this -- well,

what did obama call it -- dumb war with the invasion of iraq. not that the war in afghan to get rid of al qaeda was wrong, but to fly the flag of operation iraqi freedom, that iraq and afghanistan are going to be democratized? what is going on here? so, i for a while was flummoxed. i wasn't sure but that my opposition to the war should also translate interest an opposition to things that i personally liked, like human rights watch, amnesty international, doctors without border. now name it, i'm probably a member of it. okay. so, this went on for a while, this kind of confusion. how had the 1940s, the greatest decade in the history

of american foreign policy -- how had it given way, beginning in 19 -- 2003, to the greatest disaster in american foreign policy, which continues with us today. in both cases, using liberal internationalism as an peninsula explanation, the only way to deal this was to go back to woodrow wilson and study in more departments than i had what willson had to say. what i discovered -- is this better? >> okay. >> okay. so, what i found in going back to woodrow wilson was that for him democracy was very much a question of time and place. you cannot expect the democracy will split globally, either

quickly or easily or perhaps at all. he illustrated this with the french revolution, opposed to american revolution, our revolution, he said, was bare lay rev lugs at all. we were -- revolution at all. we were simply asserting the right of the english in institutions that were colonial and had been built by the english. the french -- we were doing it with the support of the church. and the church that was most involved in this was, guess which the one? the presbyterian church and woodrow wilson was a member of. in fact calvinism in general was the opposite of -- the anglican church. so, what we have here is a argument that democracy is something that is suited only to certain peoples who have had a certain cultural history to

them. well, if that's the case, what are these cultural prerequisites? here the more i read wilson, the more i became persuade that there was the dog that didn't bark, the dog that didn't bark was calvinism and it was particularly the covenant of the presbyterian church. this was the template for wilson of how democracy comes about. now, i don't know how many of you belong to the group of churches that todayening be called affiliated with presbyterians in terms of other domestic organizations, but it's not just churches. it's also judaism and explains at least in part, think, why wilson was so welcoming of jewish americans into princeton and then into his administration, and also was

protective of the notion of a jewish homeland in the far east. i mean, the middle east. okay, so, what we have then is the notion that you can strip it away from calvinism. don't have to be christian. don't have to be white. and in fact, all that these protestant denominations began to do was to found universities, like the american university in cairo, the american university in beirut, also in iran turkey. they were going to convert the locals to christians. well, didn't work very well. what they did convert them to was constitutionalism. and many of the liberal movements that we have seen in the middle east come out of these plants in the late 19th 19th and early 20th century, that are related to the protestant schools that spread in so many part offed the world. well, let's get back if we can

without me running over time, to what was going on in the united states. in the united states, the critical mistake that was made was to think that local cultures don't matter. now, it's true, we were a necessary condition to german democratization but we were far from a sufficient condition for germans democratization, that depend largely on the german peoples themselves. could not have happened without a strong german middle class, strong german protestant and in this case catholic movement, they were antifascist, without a high level development, without a perceived doctrine from even before from the kaiser their notion that civic, awe honor and duty of bureaucrats.

the germans were not difficult to democratize. germany is very much germany and yet in many weighed it'ses fundmentally changed by the american occupation. or take the only country that democratized after world war i and there was no american occupation, czechoslovakia. czechoslovakia became a model democracy by the '30s and did so not because american troops occupied check check -- check check but because after czechs s and the slovacs and what they word out. this is what happened in iraq. do you that these people really thought that democracy was just going to spring out in iraq? i mean, anyone who looks -- anyone who has any background in

the area, would have said this is an absurd belief, and yet i can document that it was a real belief. now, know what some of your are thinking, you're thinking this was all a facade of oversomething else, really the weapons of mass destruction, please, it was not the weapons of mass destruction, everybody in washington knew, every want clued in this was the calling card but there were other persuasions other, arguments that are a little more persuasive. that president bush wanted to show his father he could do something right, or that the there was a lot of oil there and we could beat opec if we got ahold of that oil, or look at the geostrategic position of iraq. touches or friends, israel and jordan and it's also -- and saudi arabia and also touches

our enemies, syria and iran. what a beautiful place to hold, with all that oil, and to show the world what we can do. so that democracy was just sort of an afternoon thought. it real -- afterthought. it it wasn't an afterthought. was in the forefront on the global war or terrorism. i'm not saying the other factors didn't matter. i think they did. i'm not giving only one cause of the invasion there was belief totally mistaken, we could democratize these countries and that in doing so, we would create the same kind of peaceful attitude in the arab middle east that we created with the europeans union. now, you're asking yourself, how do i know this? well, i think i know it because the ideology is very easy to see

how it went from university seminar rooms into the white house. there's what i call a food chain or can also be called a gravy chain because money is involved in it -- that goes from harvard and yale and princeton and stanford and other leading organizations, into groups like working ocean the american enterprise institute oar variety other places where policymakers go, and thearm 1990s were a time when everybody wanted to know, now what do we do? we're the world's only super power. what are we going to do with all this power? what the purpose to our sister and the answer was, we'll just democratize as much of the world as we can. bring peace, freedom, prosperity, and an increase in american nationalist security. you can see this in specific groups. the progressive policy

institute, which was related to the democratic party, is mind-boggling to read the statements which they put out, or the project nor new american century, which was the center of the neoconservative movement. okay. it can be easily documented that these people went into overdrive to push the idea that the iraq war was going to be easily won, democracy would be the result, and then they would be falling like dominoes in the middle east as democracy took hold. we see this even more strikingly to me more worrisome to me is studies from totally nonpartisan sources, rand, major federal -- is in santa monica, california. got all kinds of great

government grantses to write these enormous studies which you will see listed in your handout today. you can get them for free online, so today called such things as nations -- a beginner's guide to nation-building. nation and state building. how we are going democratize all these people? democratize all these anymore are you kidding? we're going to democratize afghan? i mean, what possible belief could hold up for five minutes to such propossess produce idea? well, tens of millions of dollars went into this, hundreds of thousands of lives were lost. billions of dollars were spent, proving that it could health what it proved is that it couldn't happen. well, what occurs to me in all of this is the notion and the bush white house that it will happen. he gets elected a second time.

believe it or not. what i can't to do in making my argument is to say that it doesn't stop here. it doesn't stop. this isn't a neoconservative plant within the republican party. if you look at my handouts -- we have the people who weren't measures. anumber five on the handout -- to a nation with 2009 publication of nation-building, it includes prominent german, swedish, high government officials, people who have been secretary or equivalent of secretaries of state, and also includes kofi anan. one history to me is how anybody came to this belief.

the men who wrote this -- some are some women like an three ya -- samantha power -- who had ideas that they were trained at these best universities during the cold war, by professors who knew better in all of this dish mean, knew better than all of this conceptually because i had been trained by these people myself. okay so what happeneds then... he calls it the obama doctrine.

there was no such thing. it does not exist. obama simply updated the bush doctrine. he did not change it. this is as good an argument as i can find to show the power of ideas. i will give you just two examples of this during the obama years. first, the endless decision making he had to go through during 2009 to decide whether to search afghanistan or not. then it is said to do so. after he said, he spent all of his time reading about vietnam. he did not read about vietnam i'm sure of it. but he didn't read the reports in the general's awful book called counterinsurgency, and manual. all of which were nation and state building devices which either passed over vietnam or

just talk about vietnam without coming to any real conclusions. those also are available online for free and they are listed transport so obama searched. so he did not search as much as the secretary of state wanted to only an additional 30,000 service members in 2010. he said he would have them by 2014 that is three years ago. secretary clinton wanted 100,000 in wanted that to increase. okay this is all a very unfortunate mistake. but obama, it is amazing because in the book i have quote - after quote - from it. he did not learn from the mistake that he actually thought that he was winning in afghanistan. i do not know what he thought he was winning with but at any rate he thought he was winning. so in 2011, when spring emerged, what did he do? he did what any liberal would

do. he saluted the - so that i have to admit that he did not intervene in libya. in causing intervention in libya a business mistake of his presidency -- the biggest mistake of his presidency. it was actually hillary is doing not his. have corset i have from obama that will go over. put all kinds of sugarcoating on it about how egyptian people are going to show the world the 6000 years of history is behind them as he introduced democracy into egypt. 2011. okay, as far as libya goes is going to be exactly the same. they would finally be democratic. and as for hillary, in october 2011, qaddafi was killed. same as news came and say what you have to say about this? she said, we came, we saw, he died.

probably a million people have died thanks to his fall. of course he was a madman and a cruel authoritarian. there was nothing that was going to create anything other than anarchy in that country if he decapitated it. this takes us to the end of the line because by 2011, they were also saying obama and secretary clinton the sod had to go. he was unilaterally opposed by washington. had they contacted tehran? of course not. they decided themselves that assad had to go. so he would. in their going to find the so-called moderate arabs. by 2014, president obama admitted in public testimony that they were maybe five or six they had found. 546. in other words there was no such thing as the moderate arabs.

there were a few but most of them were friends for al qaeda just wanted our weapons. syria, except for the kurds, the kurds are the single exception here. i can get into why obama became a liberal internationalist or was one. part of it came from the fact that he was born that way. as a black man, as a constitutional lawyer, as a community organizer in chicago. what do you expect? but he also used all of the buzzwords of the time. he used words like the universal appeal of democracy, the universal value of democracy, and nonnegotiable human rights that had to be anywhere in the world if anything more than george bush did it, so we get to finally 2015 and the light comes on in obama's mind. at this nation and state building thing was a mistake all along. but it is too late. he only has one year and a few

months left in his presidency. when he finally announces to the capitol the whole thing has been a mistake. the question is how the mistake took so long to be corrected. let me conclude by turning to your next subject which is the first 100 days of donald trump. one of the ways they were correct it was by the election of donald j trump as president of the united states. liberal internationalism in important ways did itself in. first of all the imperialist wars, it could not when and for good reason, and ended and scare the american public. so it certainly angered and scared me, i do not know about you.about 3 million american service members have now served in muslim countries since 2003. they come back to their families with posttraumatic stress syndrome, they come back with all kinds of tales of

suicide, taking more of their colleagues than enemy fire. they come back with defeat written all over them because they have been defeated and i'm sorry to say this but we have been defeated time and time again. in the wars. and we will continue to be defeated in the wars. look at iraq, the whole thing is just unbelievable. it is not believable it is totally believable at any rate, it scares and angers the american public. and donald trump said something very important. he says, i'm not going to push human rights and democracy. we will defend the national interest but we are not going to engage in this talk about human rights and just yesterday or monday, when - won the election truck he called and congratulate him. well, he is everybody's

authoritarian folks. let's not pretend he is not. and in fact he was contradicting his own secretary of state if i remember correctly. they said the election was rigged and all of these people are in jail and torture is going on. that does not matter to donald trump. i do not think will matter much to woodrow wilson either. we cannot preach these things to people that are not ready to hear us. it does not matter, we certainly would like them to become this way but that they would respect human rights any -- in guatemala there is a statement. our culture is a resistance. and so, you have the communities that assert their mayan personality. it is fine guatemala. in the muslim world it is by

becoming more muslim than they have been in generations. in part, because of these questions that are coming from outside. although i agree with donald j trump on this, there is a significant difference between donald trump and wilson. wilson was not going to engage in war to bring about, he was not an imperialist.he was an idealist, a moralist but he was not a utopia and he was not an imperialist. therefore, you create something like this that would protect democracy in foster democracies where they had some chance of existing. but he was not going to send in the troops to enforce people to do this. donald trump so far as i can see is not interested in a league with anybody. he is leaving the paris climate

accord, leaving the trans-pacific economic agreement.he is leaving the kinds of multinational organizations that can sponsor democracy and alliances among democratic peoples.for this reason although you can see the superficial similarity between wilson and donald trump. in fact, the differences outweigh the similarities. the second and i'm going to conclude unless, is something that i haven't talked about it all. and that is the neoliberal economic globalization. now, this is something that you might say is liberal internationalist. indeed, in a way it is. except it for what woodrow wilson democracy always has to be regulated. think canada, sweden, think any of the scandinavian countries.

there had to be ways in which democracy wasn't going to be undermined by capitalism but instead, strengthened by capitalism. wilson was not against a free market. he was against an unregulated free market. think how many banks collapsed in the united states between 2007 and 2009. not a single major canadian bank collapsed. they are regulated, that's the difference. they also regulate the immigration. they do not have immigration problems. they regulate that also.but i will not into immigration. the point here is that it was this economic globalization that was unregulated and created the extraordinary economic disparities in the united states. probably the largest to have or have existed in the country. certainly is great. it has resulted in not only a relative but absolute decline

in the purchasing power of at least 60 percent of the population. of course these people are going to work for donald trump. he says, they are global in the middle class while they are impoverishing our middle class. he is right! the trouble is, he talks the talk but does not walk the walk. when he does is he allows - he puts his daughter and his sons in charge of his businesses. i do not know how much money his daughter is now making in her lungs of closing is nice but it seems to be considerable. the sums are doing much better. although he did lose a deal with the chinese but they will be something that comes along. he has honeycombed his administration with former lobbyists that he said he would never hire. in other words, he told, he sold out the very people who thought that he was going to

bring them help. as he helped the carrier people but it looks as though others were going to bring the investments anyway. what about their wilsonian reaction to this? wilson would have said yes. it is fine to have open markets. but they must be regulated and those who benefit from them must be taxed for the benefit of the entire country. this means for example that the 2.5 four $3 trillion in corporate office left abroad should be brought home and taxed. yes, we should probably go to the corporate income tax. from the very high level it is not to something like 10 percent. okay fine. but i think this is something that bernie sanders and senator elizabeth warren and nobel prize -- would agree with. in short, there is something of

an agreement among people like senator sanders and warren. that economic globalization got out of hand and an agreement with trump but they have a solution that will reinforce the democracy but donald trump is going in the other direction. let me conclude by saying that wilson i think would say in effect, physician hills myself. we have enough problems at home. the drug problem, prisons, inequality. the actual decline in the purchasing power of the lower 60 or 80 percent of the population. and so i would conclude by saying why lawson matters. that wilson would have seen all of this but there is nothing that wilson would not have seen and what is going on today. and that is what i would like to conclude with a paid i

cannot find which is the last statement on the handout sheet that i have. it is his famous address. you have it? the nation service i'm sure tom knows, a princeton graduate. this is the princeton motto. the world membrane must be kept alive or we never seen and. we are in danger to their identity and become infantile. in every generation. i need not say that i believe in full explicit instruction and history and politics. in the experiences of people and fortunes of government, the whole story of what men have attempted and what they have accomplished through all of the changes both of form and purpose. then i will speak to the end. you do not know the world and say you know the men that have

possessed it and tried it ways before he ever with give your brief run. and there is no sanity comparable to that which is schooled in the thoughts it will keep. do you wonder then that i asked to the old drill family of memory. the old school and tradition. the old keeping of fate with the past as a corporation for leadership in the days of social change. that is why wilson matters. thank you for your attention. [applause] >> thank you all. [inaudible]

[inaudible] >> you mentioned during your presentation wilson and calvinism. can you explain what you mean by the relationship between wilsonian internationalism and calvinism? what is the relationship between calvinism and these prerequisites necessary for democracy? >> interesting about wilson is he was a son and grandson of presbyterian ministers. he prayed every day, he read sections from the bible every day and if they have found some interesting and terrific about the presbyterians was that they have two books. i think my friend will confirm with this the episcopalians do too.

one is called the book of worship which has to do with the beliefs about all presbyterians must have. yet others the book of order. and the book of order reads like a constitution. and what you find in this is that to be a minister you must be ordained in a seminary recognized by the presbyterian church where princeton was the major seminary at the time. then once you passed on your exams and things in greek and latin in hebrew and church history, you will be vetted, given the ordained as a minister and the other ministers will propose you to congregations who are in need of a minister. my understanding by the way is that other protestant denominations are very much like this as well. which they got from it comes

from the cincinnati movement in ohio and the contact between the jewish chairman's and the protestant reformation. so again, you just need to be -- my friend doctor jekyll say that the episcopalians of something like this. secondly, the congregation empowered is empowered to deacons, through elders who associate themselves with the ministry when he or no, she, goes on meetings with other ministers. the covenant which is the center of all of this, is changeable. and wilson's time, it was unthinkable that a woman can be a minister. now there are many presbyterian ministers that are women just as there are many woman rabbis.

the same is true know of homosexual ministers in the presbyterian church and the episcopalian church. and in reformed judaism. what we see then is a way in which the constitution changes over time. if you look at, and definition of the covenant that comes from - brother richard. if you look at the covenant into think about, if you get out one of these extraordinary book of orders as it is called that the presbyterians have, it is the democratic. you immediately want to convert. i mean it is terrific! if you're a democrat that is. because they have checks and balances built into them. they have all kinds of freedom of information and speech built into them. this then becomes the template for the american constitution.

in many ways, it was the calvinist who waged the revolutionary war against the brits. for example the major calvinist burial site, because the colony was founded by them after that was dug up the bills a church. you know what this does if you are a calvinist? get mad. so present itself became a bastion of - this then leads to the triggering history of princeton. how far i can go on before he cut me up i'm really into this but john witherspoon, one thing that i found in all of this was that the greatness of the scottish enlightenment which i had not appreciated before.in the presbyterians with the

presbyterian church, it is most powerful in scotland. there was an early contact between enlightenment thinkers like adam smith and david you and the church. so that by the time witherspoon arrived at princeton, in 1773, he was a minister. he told his students, there is nothing that faith will teach you that reason cannot sustain. nothing that faith will give you that reason cannot sustain. this is a meeting of the enlightenment with faith. quite extraordinary if you ask me. and this is why when you see these various groups that go along with this, they have long sessions of prayer and religious meditation and then they enter into conversation with one another. this in many ways i think has

become the constitution but if you look at the great statements i will send on the covenant of the league of nations, it is all there. and finally, in kansas city on september 9, 1919. was and got so excited that he held up and waved at the crowd 's copy of the covenant and he said, this is the covenant of the league of nations. i am a descendent of the covenanters scotland. this is the covenant. and the covenant payment constitution. the question is, what other people can become like this? you don't have to be christian. you don't have to be white. i mean, india. i don't know come we can argue about a lot of countries, tunisia can become a functioning liberal democracy. i happen to think so. maybe cuba. cuba has a lot of the ingredients that could lead to a liberal democratic take over there. i do not call it a white

country and as you think is particularly christian anymore either. the point is it is not restrictive. what wilson was trying to do was overcome the idea that you have to be white, of british descent into had to be a christian particularly catholic or evangelical to be a full-fledged american. it was enough to be a democrat, a liberal democrat could be an american. that was his great, one of his many great - sorry i went on so long. >> i just had a couple of quick questions. number one, you mentioned early on that since wilson, every president that has followed him has been wilsonian to a degree or more or less. i would like to ask you, how wilsonian was lyndon johnson? >> that is fair. first of all since fdr.

neither nixon, nor lbj were particularly wilsonian. you're quite right. in the book i do have reservations for these people. on the other hand, nobody talked so stridently against. in other words, they would engage in open economies worldwide. they certainly saw democracies in nato is important to us. you did lbj or nixon would have said quoting donald trump, nato is obsolete, that donald trump saluted the british exit from the eu. that trump repeatedly mocked german leadership of the eu. and singled out angela merkel for particular criticism. it is an thinkable that lbj or

nixon would've ever adopted positions so extremely antiliberal as that. i mean to someone with me is simply shocking that he has begun to reverse himself. good. just like the fleet that was going toward north korea reverse itself and heading for australia. again - i don't know. >> my second question is, we need to find the difference between capitalism and corporatism and give us an idea of how it affects democracy. as we are living today. >> that is a really hard question. but what i would say is the capitalism can be of many different types. in management countries, it all depends. it can be small capitalism, they can be corporate capitalists. corporate capitalism has the capacity to become multinational. to be global. and that is at the point that they begin to find the cheapest

resources if they pollute, that is up to the local people to decide. to pay the lowest wages, if it is not unionized - if they park their profits abroad because to bring them home meets their attacks, that is with the corporation city said. an example of this is absolutely took my breath away. was last year when the, when apple corporation was told by the european commission that had to give $14 billion in profits, anyone remember this story? to the irish government. if you recall, the irish government refused to accept the taxes. they said absolutely not. we have all of his corporate tax agency or. if we tax id apple, the others will come. so the european commission said well then, the united states should tax them. apple is an american company. the obama administration

immediately is that we do not tax corporate profits abroad. you wonder why donald trump had a certain appeal? it have a certain appeal to me when he gets angry at things like this. and i do hope that he lowers corporate taxes. i personally think they are too high. so that more money is repatriated at a reasonable rate and injected into the american economy. what is the young lady from princeton who wanted to say something? i met her earlier. yes. that is not the young lady from princeton but - oh he is, good. quincy will be that the might question has nothing to do with princeton. my question is, do you know if wilson read montesquieu? and because at the heart of the philosophy but his mother might be called the politics? he believed the right resume

for any people is very much determined by their culture, religion, economy, environment, all those factors mattered to what kind of government would actually succeed in that kind of context. now, montesquieu may know was the thinker - i would imagine was a new something about montesquieu by the way, was the source of the inspiration for checks and balances, separation of powers in the u.s. constitution. the idea is at the core of what you're talking about. >> it is at the core. and he did not read it carefully. the reason, he knew of course about it. it would be impossible not to know about it. the spirit of the laws, that kind of thing. and like everybody, there was enormous respect for montesquieu. he was called one of the greatest thinkers. he read - more. but he did not like the french

revolution so he avoided the french. the problem with the french illustrate your point. they made the mistake of revolting against the throne and - they destroyed the catholic church and the monarchy. and in the united states the revelation was back by the church. many of the leading churches. certainly the presbyterians. and instead of destroying the institutions, are revelation claims the institution, the english farmer on. but besides montesquieu, it is not evidence me he read this in the depth that he read other people. berkeley is the person he mentioned most and it was particularly the british historians. he kept a log of everybody that he wrote. i found - mentioned was in the 70 volumes. there is one reference to it in

that is it. yes, sir? >> will get you a microphone for the next one. i am going to push back a little bit. >> good! >> they have not yet. you'll get on the way out. as a card-carrying liberal internationalist. i want to push back. and bizarrely enough, i'm going to defend the bush doctrine. and defend the obama doctrine as you put it. as one in the same. because it strikes me that one of the major critiques that our students and i think the general public has about wilson, when i think of wilson - when they think of those in the oftentimes associate with him with failure. because obviously did not achieve the world he wanted. he did not achieve the league of nations wanted, or emergent participation. i like to point out that if you

trying to remake the world and you get 94 percent of it right, that is pretty good. let's not focus on the six percent that went bad. and i think the same could maybe be applied to bush and obama. in the sense that for all of their faults of exuberance, for promoting democracy, it is true i think that they were trying to promote the diamond as you described it. they were trying to promote a better world and trying to create a world in the 21st century which is different of course in many ways and wilson's. but also the same in the sense of trying to promote democracy, trying to promote civil rights. all of these things will send approved of. so my critique i guess in a sense is that is it fair to look at the faults of the obama and particularly the bush years as sins of commission when

their hearts were in the right place but also this is the kicker, if your primary critique as i understand it is that they tried to create democracy in places where it naturally would not fit. it is hard to know until you try. >> okay. good! you are on my side! let me answer both of these briefly. good! the gentleman who talked about this had it right i'm sorry you are wrong. wilson was redeemed by fdr in the 1940s. that is my point. that is why people like spencer and i trying with a few others to rehabilitate. we are seeing now in the longer historical perspective that allows us to see the 40s and the 80s as times in the

wilsonian vision triumphed. only to be undercut by its own pride. a tragic flaw. but i'm glad you all agree with me because when i lay out in the book is the number of what, you are young! you weren't in political science. the political sciences divided into different domains but one is comparative politics. comparative politics the study of individual countries on their own bottoms. wilson with a comparative political scientist. and in this, he came to what in the cold war the establishment of politics clogged preconditions and sequences for democracy. this is a long list of them. they included such things as a middle class. some tradition of government.

some limits on central government.some kind of social contract that provided for tolerance. had a long list of these things. and what happens is that only in the late, instructed in 1970 but with the change in the iberian peninsula. when everybody thinks this is going to be so easy. look at what happened in portugal and spain overnight. it is not open and cordial and spend it is a very long process. now, what occurs then is that you need the equivalent of this and in the book i try and lay out a series of differences between the democratic transition cloud and what you should look for. it is not a mystery. if you had known about germany, they are no better than japan, it looked at germany he would

have said the ingredients are here. for germany to be a democracy. it is not a matter of the german government, is a matter of the german people having the ability to make this transformation. to compare as these people did it is just unbelievable to see it. germany with afghanistan? germany with iraq? i have a whole list in the book of the differences between the two. and how one - if you want to wage a war, i am not a pacifist i am for waging war against afghanistan to get rid of al qaeda. not naming democracy just to get rid of al qaeda. i am for waging war against isis. but not in the name of creating democracy in syria and iraq. that is a pipe dream. i want to get rid of vices. that is what i want to get rid of. so anyway, jim has some things. okay a two finger one.

sam huntington agrees with me completely from the grave! no, no sam - sam is the most famous comparative political person going and he died several years ago. i'm one of the two people who were academics that criticized who read his third wave in 1991. are you another? i do not remember your name there. anyway in 1996 he wrote a book called the clashes of civilizations. and in this he made exactly this point.the book went down in flames everybody was so theories about it. huntington was 100 percent right. as he put it, islam has bloodied borders. that is probably the most single famous line from the book. in other words, if you launch, he kept saying, the clash of civilization is going to be our fault.

i do not know when it will happen. but i see all of this growing up, all of this pride in the united states. all of this self-confidence. all of this self-righteousness. yes! we did win the cold war. yes, the right side one.yes, we should be proud of who we are and so on and so forth. but do not think that these other people are going to be like us or want to be with us or respect us. they may strike, there may be an authoritarian backlash. he was right. in 1994 i said the same. don't play with the muslim world, china, russia or africa. they do not have the ingredients. maybe central europe, eastern europe, perhaps. south europe, perhaps. the rest of the world forget it. you have to get along with them as they are and hope for the best. if they turn out to be mad dogs

like the germans, trampled by the ottoman empire or austria and hungary, they were just sort of like what you call them? stuffed animals. you could kind of admire them for their strudel. i don't know. it, they were not good people but what about us? what about our african-americans and native americans? what about the drug problem and so on and so forth. let's not worry about studying other people's houses, let's try and get hours straight. unless they attack us. then if they attack us we will take them on of course. i will stand up i guess. when you were talking about the middle east, i thought i understood you to say that unless a country has got a cultural affinity or history with democracy, they are not going to be democratic and i said okay.

otto turk approved they tried to take turkey out of the middle east but you cannot take the middle east out of turkey. so that is obvious. i thought maybe isolationism. but then how do you explain culturally similar countries like japan and south korea? asian countries which have embraced democracy whereas russia, a western country has failed. >> that is a good question but each of these they would say has to be looked at individually. and what you'll find in most of these countries is first of all, either an american or british influence. those are outside influences that are very important. you will usually find a middle class which is educated in cosmopolitan. you'll often find a movement and south korea presbyterian, presbyterians are big and south korea. i didn't even know that. and so are catholics.

and since the vatican reforms, democracy has been very important to both catholics and presbyterians and south korea. none of this is to be found in mother russia. the, it's crony capitalism. it is traditions of absolutism. now they have that and other places to annually see place like south africa or south korea we should salute it. chile is another one. all of the ingredients were there. it was terrible, the nixon and kissinger pulled the rug from under a guy that none of us need to have liked. i am forgetting his name. [inaudible] yes! and i think chile is now stable functioning democracy and all power to them.

we can undermine democracy and we have. and i'm afraid that to go back to this gentleman!, the nixon years like the lbj is one of the happiest. >> i think we have time for one more question and can i just say that you need to have his place at dinner with me tonight. just so you know. [laughter] >> do you agree sir, that the philosophy, wilson's statement that we are going to come to america will make the world safe for democracy. was looking back now, terribly misguided to the point of disastrous for us because he

had successful presidents buying into this an example, go anywhere bear any burden. bush saying that we are going to invade iraq. and the modern day kaiser payment image with democracy and the same thing there that we did in world war ii. and it has just been a succession of disasters when this philosophy has been applied way too broad. >> i wonder, it is an excellent point. and i wonder if wilson hasn't been taken out of context. let me put it this way. i think no phrase and john will agree with me on this has been more debated in the wilson literature than what he meant the world must be made safe by democracy. now, my interpretation of it after long readings about the leak is that he was very worried in 1919. that democracy was going to fail most places.

when he went to paris he was shocked at the way the french and the british and the italians not only did not cooperate with each other but did not cooperate with him either. and he was going to create this league of democracies with governments all of which were thinking in terms of balance of power and revenge. for him therefore, the league had to be run by the united states. or as he put it, in his famous words it became the title of one of - books we would break the heart of the world. and we did because we did not do it. and by not joining, the leak became too weak. by being too weak, it became a total failure. okay so, your question is nonetheless you see from my point of view, and i do not want to put words i know john cooper. is that the leak was seen as a protecting or defensive

organization. circling the wagons if i can put in texas terms. it was not seen as will pay any price and bear any burden. that was what people like -'s it was implied in article 10 in the league of nations. but if you read article 10, you and i may disagree on this. i do not see it in article 10. it says that the council of the league will consult with the member of governments. it does not say that we are - the councils going to override the american congress. this goes back to the whole illness of wilson and all there is. we don't have time to get into bed the major point here is that these later expressions of faith had to do with i think an exaggerated fear of communism. but nonetheless the fear of communism that i think all liberal internationalists

shared. liberal internationalism understood communism was a dire threat to liberal democracy. you're not going to find liberal internationalists liking communists. in fact, they work with authoritarian governments against us. in hopes that they will mend their ways. chester crocker put it in south africa that way. we will put our armor on south african apartheid regime and by reassuring them, they can get rid of apartheid. that kind of thing. so your question is a good when i really think wilson is protected from it. the defensive, not offense of nature that he placed. he really was worried about democracy. surviving. >> as you are. thank you for giving us that.

thank you all. [applause] let me quickly remind you that there are copies of the book available for you to get and get signed. let me also remind you that i spent the whole weekend with it and it is really deep and really good and thoughtful. also we will see you next week for trump100 days. >> this weekend on booktv, saturday at 10:00 a.m. eastern, where live at the mississippi book festival with featured authors including mark bounding on his book - a turning point of the american war in vietnam. walter stark author of stanton lincoln's were secretary. and alvin felson burke on his

book, a man and his presidents. the political odyssey of william f buckley junior. sunday at 9:00 p.m. eastern, - is our guest on "after words". >> trolling is about sweeping away old concerns about what people might say about you or think about you. safe in the knowledge that if you tell the truth, and you do it in an entertaining way, that you will win way more cans than the media has made enemies for you. >> at 10:00 p.m., james o'keefe founder and president of project veritas discusses his book breakthrough, guerrilla war to expose fraud and save democracy. >> it is very hard to break through the mainstream media these days. we just a big story on cnn, they did not mention a word about it. and the notion of getting on the front page of the new york times are getting anderson cooper to talk about you are

getting the number one video on youtube, the number one trending on twitter. these are what withhold breaking through. >> for more this weekend's schedule, go to booktv.org. >> c-span's coverage of the solar eclipse on monday starts at 7:00 a.m. eastern with the washington journal live at nasa's space center in maryland.i guess our -- at noon eastern, we joined nasa t.v. as they provide live views of the eclipse shadow passing over north america. and at 4:00 p.m. eastern, viewer reaction to the rare solar eclipse over the continental united states. live on the coverage of the solar eclipse on monday starting at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span and c-span.org. listen live on the free c-span radio app and this saturday will take a look the preparations for the first solar eclipse over the united states in 100 years. plus, programs on the nasa

budget, mars exploration and more. beginning at noon eastern on c-span. >> this year's festival is so exciting and i must tell you it is going to be one of my favorites because i am a big nonfiction fan. and the types of authors that we will have from david mccullough to jd vance 's book is on every reading list, that you can imagine and every book club. it is just an exciting time. i am thrilled. >> join booktv for the national book festival live from washington d.c.. saturday, september 2 on c-span .

-- the second place prize of $1500 went to a classmate for her documentary on mass incarceration and mandatory minimum sentences. also one third place winner won a prize of $750 for her documentary on gender inequality. and another one in honorable mention prize of $250 for a documentary on the relationship between the police and the media. thank you to all of the students who participated in the 2017 students can documentaries. to watch the videos go to student cam.org and student cam 2018 starts in september with the theme, the constitution and you. for asking students to choose any provision of the u.s. constitution and create a video illustrating why the provision is important.

>> in his book, "the working class republican: ronald reagan and the return of blue-collar conservatism", henry olsen argues that ronald reagan was an heir to the legacy of fdr's new deal. and more progressive than today's republicans. he spoke about reagan at an event hosted by the american enterprise institute. following his remarks he is joins a panel to discuss ronald reagan and his book. this is an hour and 1/2. >> good afternoon everyone.i am karlyn bowman is a great pleasure for myself and my cohost to welcome all of you and there was c-span artist to this afternoon's event to celebrate the publication of henry olsen's new book "the working class republican: ronald reagan and the return of