[inaudible conversations] >> booktv has covered many presidential biographies most easily hoover, american ulysses about president grant by ronald white. and herbert hoover in the white house. if presidential history is a topic that interests you, visit booktv.org and search presidential biography book. several programs will appear and you can watch them all online. [inaudible conversations]

>> good evening. welcome. happy new year. i am david azerrad, dean of hillsdale college, welcome to the center for constitutional studies and citizenship which is our campus in the nation's capital. this event is sponsored by real clear politics, realclearpolitics.com. david dozier who is hiding in the back is the publisher, jan mcintyre, the cofounder is with us as well. our discussion deals with a collection of essays the list on the 35th anniversary of the new criterion magazine in which those essays were originally published, the title of the book is "vox populi: the perils & promises of populism".

which is also our topic. that is not a new idea. the voice of the people is the voice of god which was often times use not only to attack monarchs but to attack the people who says such nonsense. it is not new to america, andrew jackson, previously. not surprising in a regime of popular consent and you any quality. there has always been tension between popular covenant and constitutional government, that potential of populist demagogues and. promises and perils, so populism abounds from ancient

rome to brexit england to bernie sanders to donald trump, elected in a populist revolt. our speakers speak for five minutes or so. brevity is the soul of wit and discussion afterwards, we will be joined by michael antone but we will start in our first is our first speaker is roger kimball, editor and publisher of the new criterion, president and publisher of counter books. the author of numerous fine works, great things being published by encounter and i would like to draw your attention to sites that have been publishing for a while on numerous topics including one by molly hemingway on trump and the media. roger, please start us out. >> thanks, everyone, for coming. i don't suppose any term has been more productive of

confusion over the last couple years than populism. in many ways, it is a word in search of a definition. for many it is like the term fascism according to george orwell. that is to say the handy negative epithet, rhetorical weapon whose lack of semantic precision, promotes attraction because anyone or anything you don't like can be impugned if you can deploy the f word or the word and get it to stick. but what does populism mean? 99 times out of 100 it means little more -- i don't like this person or this policy. connoisseurs not to be confused with the german philosopher can't will have noticed the

term racism has a similar all-purpose content free malignant. exploring that will take us further afield. thinking about the term populism reminds us that certain words accumulates positive associations and others semantically just as innocuous wind up shouldering a portfolio of bad feelings. a few different careers the terms democracy on the one hand and populism on the other hand. and produces pleasant vibrations, people feel good about themselves when they use the word democracy but

otherwise populism. this should seem quite odd because the word populism occupies a semantic space very close to democracy. democracy means what? by the people. populism according to the american heritage dictionary describes, quote, a political philosophy directed to the needs of the common people advancing a more equitable distribution of wealth and power, just the kinds of things for people where they too, would see. the fact that populism is ambivalent, the fact is populism is ambivalent at best sometimes is true, a charismatic figure can survive and illuminate the term populism, bernie sanders managed this trick among the

racially sensitive non-gender stereotyping anti-capitalist beneficiaries of capitalism in the last election. it was my impression that in this case the term populist was fielded left by sanders and his followers, their effort to establish vendors -- sanders in the public's might as an example of not hillary who herself was presumed to be popular but not populist. at least two sides of the negative association under which it struggles, the issue of demagoguery. and citizens, and the popular meaner like pericles.

the populist leader, the for sake reason in moderation, and semi literate and spiritually an elevated populist, the kind of people, mcdonald's hamburgers. and the soil of that populism, the demagogic leader said to work. and a commentary on brexit and the first year of the trump investigation. and they noted this. populism is to say, less descriptive than a delegitimizing term. and you get free and for nothing, the imputation of demagoguery and was famously derided as a deplorable and

irredeemable cohort. and depreciation is possible. i was first aware the charge of populist sympathy would have a powerful political moral and class delegitimizing, in june of 2015 to cover the brexit vote. nearly everyone i met, more likely it was your interlocutor could be in favor of britain's remaining in the european union and the more pointed would be his experiment of those arguing, they are said to be angry, ignorant, fearful, the enough phobic and racist. a little while later. except that the people for

brexit wouldn't work, at least the ones i met. for them brexit turned on a simple question, who rules? a source of british sovereignty, parliament, for centuries, or is it brussels, the european union and the iranian people be on a similar question. who rules in iran? theocratic shia fundamentalist allahs or the iranian people? we will find out. and the location of sovereignty, a very large role in the lies of the phenomena in, populism. the united states and elsewhere. the question of sovereignty, who govern stands behind the rebellion against the political

correctness. and the conspicuous and features of the bureaucratic society. a wide range of practical and economic effects stifling entrepreneurship and any productive innovation difficult. and the deepest effect our spiritual and psychological. in any assault against free speech on college campuses, safe spaces and trigger warnings are part of this dictatorship. and one of the main arguments concerned the psychological change, the alteration of the character of the people, extensive government control brought in its wake.

the process is softening, innovation, exchange of the challenges of liberty and self-reliance for the pleasures of dependence. his 1770 as a, causing discontent, criticize the port of george iii for circumventing parliament and establishing by still what amounted to a new regime of royal prerogative and influence peddling. and the appearance of parliamentary supremacy. a closer look showed the system was corrupt. and a slight understatement that performs, at the end of an arbitrary government. was not incompatible.

that discovery stands behind the administrative state in our society under the cloak of democratic institutions, essentially undemocratic activities pursuing expansionist agenda, and the most comprehensive way by circumventing the law. at the same time a growing recognition, totalitarian goals, and a populist uprising in europe. populist is one word for this phenomena and. and affirmation of sovereignty underwritten by a passion for freedom, another more accurate term. thank you. >> our next speaker. [applause] >> we allow approval. our next speaker is james

pearson. and the simon foundation, he is the author of many great books including shattered consensus, the rise and decline of the postwar political order and an is a in the new criterion. >> appreciate it, thank you, roger, for assembling this. my essay in this volume is by james madison and it addresses the claim made by critics, donald trump is a threat to the constitution. i liked very much to hear many critics now praising the separation of powers and checks and balances in the u.s. constitution because typically they have not liked those aspects of the constitution. basically the theme of this paper is there is little chance donald trump is going to run

through the u.s. constitution with various checks and balances. the constitution was drafted by james madison to deal expressly with a situation like donald trump and to tie him down in a quagmire of conflicting political pressures from the congress to the various branches of government, and even more of a problem today because the government is so huge, it did not exist in this measure in madison's time and anyone's time until the postwar period. we have not only the checks and balances of the constitution, the elections and large establishment to check donald trump. those who claim donald trump will run roughshod over the constitution take the view that the constitution engraves their policy preferences, donald

trump entertains different preferences, the constitution is going to die. the constitution does not engrave anyone's policy preferences. it enshrined a process and a series of rights but none of the policy preferences any of the groups hold today. i suggest in this essay that all of this is badly overblown, the constitution will survive donald trump without difficulty. i river at the end to one of james madison's years which is the american republic is under greater threat not from a populist, designed to check a populist but from disintegration. in his, some of his last letters and speeches and interviews james madison was concerned about the fate of the union. and published after his death,

he made a statement that his greatest wish is the union the preserved. anyone who would divide the union is similar to a serpent in the garden of eden. he was thinking the slavery issue. there was a good question as to what kind of a state madison and his contemporaries envisioned for the united states. i don't believe they envisioned a nationstate. if you think about federalist number 10 where madison articulates a theory of the extended republic, he is talking about a polity in which the country is divided in countless different groups with different points of view and different interests. it is difficult to agree on anything and if they can't

agree on something, they reach a consensus, that will be okay because it will be so difficult to do that consensus. you can contrast that with a deck of you taking place in france where the revolutionaries talk about the people of the united front, democracy is an expression of the people. we need to identify the general will of the people is coherent and united conception of a nation so if you look at these two polls, france represents the paradigm of a nationstate in the revolution and the united states are present something different. we talk about it as a republic but what was he imagining. the images of the state, were not very wide, there was the idea of an empire. that was the dominant view of the state at the time.

jefferson called his vision of the united states and empire of liberty. they acquired the louisiana purchase, jefferson didn't seem to care if the new territories were organized within the united states or if they were organized in separate states, he envisioned an empire on the continent. not necessarily a nationstate with a united people. of course they talked more about the union. union with the idea, union of the states developing a sacred view, sacred image as time went on. webster talked about that and abraham lincoln talked about that. the united states was forged into a nationstate as a consequence of three wars that took place from 1860 to 1949. those events were communal events. everyone participated, everyone

sacrificed, they created a nationstate. and the united people. and abraham lincoln spoke about this, fdr spoke about this. if you look at the development taking place since world war ii, one can see an attenuation of the american nationstate that was assembled. this was assembled, the american nationstate, with great stress and great difficulty. through the course of these events, the united states as a nationstate developed a heroic image of itself, pilgrims came here to escape religious persecution and settled the wilderness, built schools and colleges. we have a revolution, create a constitution, acquire a continent, settler continent, fight a civil war and the story slavery, intervening european wars and save them from

themselves until we had a great superpower in the world. that was all being taken apart as we know from various sources, what is happening in the college campus, the idea that this entire enterprise is a negative enterprise which we oppress the indians, minority groups, women, we destroy the environment, we did all the terrible things, that is the common narrative of the american nation. so the united states, i would say, getting more and more to look less like a nationstate and more like an empire with a powerful administrative center, with an attenuated relationship to all the groups across the country. nothing uniting these groups. multicultural troops, many leg would've, open borders. this begins to look a lot like

the empires across europe in the 20th century. we lived through a century in which empires collapsed and disintegrated. that is the story of the 20th century from the austrian empire and the ottoman empire and the british empire and the soviet empire, disintegrating. donald trump, i would say, was elected to somehow reconstitute this nationstate against the centrifugal forces it is now encountering. is this something that would be accomplished? extremely difficult. that is what it represents, not sure donald trump has articulated this question all that well but that is how i interpreted it.

i wish him well but it is a difficult enterprise to bring on for a lot of reasons. >> thank you. [applause] >> commentator, first commentator is david azerrad, director of the beacon assignment center for principles and politics, heritage foundation and finances can be found at heritage.org. >> let's be honest. of donald trump hadn't run for office populism would still exist but the european theme. that would have been some short pieces on brexit but not a year-long series of in-depth essays analyzing the phenomena and of populism which are collected in this excellent book that i highly recommend. trump is not the first american

populist. we had a people's party in the us that coined the term populist in the 1890s but trump is the most successful populist we ever had. to the best of my knowledge he never called himself a populist but it is pretty clear that the cornerstone of trump's him is the following claim, that the american people have been betrayed and taken advantage of by corrupt and incompetent elites from both parties. interesting to note that early in his campaign he called the elites incompetent but made his case more compelling by starting to attack them for being corrupt and taking advantage of the american people. not surprisingly these elites reacted in kind and warns us in the strongest terms that a trump presidency would bring about the end of america and quite possibly the rest of the world.

i can't resist sharing with you the most hyperbolic predictions made by leading pundits on the right and on the left on the eve of trump's election. in terms of our liberal democracy and constitutional order, andy sullivan wrote in new york magazine, trump is an extinction level event. his election would mark the end of democracy and the beginning of tierney in america. paul krugman, with his characteristic subtlety, warned america that and become trumpistand with trump issuing in an era of epic corruption and contempt for the rule of law, with no restraint whatsoever. his conservative colleague, the usually very sensible rod was no more reassuring. he offered his three, quote, baseline dangers for a trump administration. these were not far-flung prediction but he called them perils that we would very likely face.

they were sustained market jitters leading to an economic slump, major civil unrest, and a rapid escalation of risk in every geopolitical theater. and yet we are here, a 4-year into the trump presidency and america and the world are somehow still standing. not a single one. [applause] >> not a single one of the doomsday overblown scenarios trump was supposed to unleash on america and the world has panned out. quite the contrary, in fact. the stock market is roaring and we should have our third consecutive 2:45% economic growth. america last time i checked remains a democracy with an independent judiciary and a free press. we have had by one count more than 70 free and fair special elections since trump has been elected, many have been won by

democrats. isis's caliphate is no more and north korea is at the negotiating table. trump, of course, cannot claim credit for all these things although he has done so, but he can point to real accomplishments of his own. he has appointed a record number of good appellate judges to the federal bench and contrary to the warnings, he appointed neil gore such and not his sister to the supreme court, enacted a major overhaul of the tax code and has been pursuing a very aggressive deregulatory agenda on all fronts that is doing much good for the economy and the constitution. i think it is hard to imagine any of the other 16 republican candidates he ran against doing more. it is particularly hard to imagine any other republican candidates displaying the boldness to pull out of the paris climate accord, decertify the iran deal and to recognize jerusalem as the capital of

israel. judged by the conventional non-populist standards of the republican party donald trump has had a pretty successful first year. he had less success, made some progress, as and called to remind us on a daily basis, border crossings are at an almost 50 year low, deportations are up. he has not negotiated any trade deals. and not surprisingly proving to be the toughest challenge. washington was not drained in a year. and the defense department. and in the past year by 14,000. trump has had more success as a

republican, was to be expected and how little support his views find in the republican party. by pointing out the congress the issue of immigration select see what this year brings, thank you. >> thank you, david. so our cleanup better is michael and on. glad to have you. and before his current work, private capacity, and -- michael. >> remember andrew sullivan.

and at that point, thought it was very good and hard to answer. that was nice. >> and the position of ignorance. and associated with william jennings bryan and now it is associated with trump, where there any other populist figures in american history? one thing that is supposed to be bad, if you are populist you are bad which we can take at face value but we should explore it a little bit one thing we know that is unquestionably good is democracy, democracy is good. that is the only legitimate form of government and it is an obligation or should be an

obligation of the united states government to spread democracy throughout the world sometimes by force. that doesn't work out, subterfuge and other ways. when you hear this from certain intellectuals that was not my way of critiquing the united states government so democracy is good as populism is bad. the root of populism, roger will tell you, speak and read classical languages, the latin term for the people, the root of democracy, the greek term for the people. and the most is self-consciously a part of the whole people, not everybody, it is the poor, the multitude where as the people are the whole people. democracy means majority rule. most people get to decide, populism seems to have a go like that and democracy is good. thinking about this further brought me to one of my favorite writers, machiavelli.

i won't quote better to be feared than loved. a few quotes from the lesser-known book, not even close, just after titles. machiavelli, chapter 58, the multitude is wiser and more constant so this is the first time a political philosopher says any such thing. specifically praises the people on the specific grounds of wisdom and constancy and says our historian affirms this and all other writers basically that people are stupid and fickle and you have to be governed by a prince to have a steady hand. he gives all these examples, he qualifies it typically out of order which is the way he operates. 144, the multitude without a head is useless. before i get to that. wiser and more constant than

the prince, the american people, tired of unchecked illegal immigration and lack of security, bad trade deals and hauling out the manufacturing base and getting into wars that americans don't know how to win or what the purpose was. son of the king or monarch, anyone in charge, leaders, we would say leaders but the elites, more constant, and the financial crisis, really is wiser and more constant, an open question. this is 144, perhaps the 2016 election illustrated that, the probability of that, they wanted these things for a long time, border enforcement and a wall, what did an end to bad

trade deals and smarter, safer, more realistic foreign-policy but couldn't get it no matter what it would vote for, the princes would come and go, both parties deliver the same things, a candidate who would overtly champion their interests and now he is giving them what they asked for, what they always wanted. also, the title of the partial title, big run on sentences. many times deceived by false appearance of the good -- fair enough. many times people desire that. if you want to launch the sicilian expedition, they did it anyway. the multitude gives the russian

revolution. the elites comparison the -- the aristocrats, the gentry and so on opposed it. and desire their own but is that never true of the elites, are they always me into this temptation? i don't know. that is not the multitude. the elites gave us financial crisis, this is an open question. the following, populism is bad, democracy is good, we have not been able to reconcile that. there is another word, the demagogue, demagogues, that is bad. even though like the populist he is also bad and might be the same thing but traditionally a demagogue uses rhetorical skill

to appeal to the passions of the multitude to move it in unhealthy directions. certainly there have been examples of this, many in our century, and the previous century there were quite traffic -- tragic. is that only a phenomenon? this class of people who appeal to the multitude? are there any people whose specialty is to appeal to the worst prejudices of the elite to tell them what they want to hear? i think there are. we need a new term for that, we have demagogue, there is also, start thinking about all thegog. i'm talking about tom friedman, malcolm gladwell, the editorial staff of the financial times and the economist, specialize formulating, refining, hardening conventional wisdom and enforcing, tell the elites

what they want to hear. of course your policy is justified and moral and right even though it is leading to wage declines in middle america and opioid epidemic and stuff like that. that is not your fault, that is the failure of the people, keep doing everything the way you are doing it. we need to start thinking about this, a category of thought, sometimes it helps to name things. i would suggest some of us or whoever is interested come up with a definition of that, the parallel to populism. it does work both ways in reality, just not yet in our language but i think we will get there. [applause] >> we don't want to speak that way. we have some microphones. i will start with the first

question picking up on something roger alluded to, whether the circumstances today, if populism arises when there is a divide between rulers and the people over history, as seems to be happening today, it seems to be different because of the nature of what you raised which was bureaucracy, administration, how we are ruled. is there something about today that gives rise to a different type of populist leader? is that something we are observing? >> the administrative state, the deep state is possibly the most serious threat to our civil liberties that we face because it is a systematic and quite deliberate means of circumventing the constitution, circumventing the law.

what the administrative state is is that the evolution of administrative power to entities that are not congress. the constitution says all legislative power is in congress's hands, not the epa, not the consumer protection board, not the irs and this alphabet soup of -- populated by people who tell us what we have to do, what we may not do, the ultimate goal of making everything nonmandatory for bitten. i think, there has always been administration bureaucracy, a nice fact that bureaucracy is a french word, it seems to me the growth of the state, the deep state is something that is novel and something jim pointed to in his remarks. >> the failure of the

madisonian system. madison envision the action taking place in congress, all the conflicting groups coming into congress and settle the problems in congress but in the modern age it dawned on some people this is extremely difficult to get anything done in the madisonian system so we need to make end runs around it and we find people look to the courts increasingly if you can muster five justices on the supreme court you can totally change social policy, even change the nature of the regime. that is something that has only donned on people in the postwar era. you could say they try to do that in dred scott, a spectacular blowout. now you create this administrative structure to make decisions that can never be made by congress.

it is the frustration with the madisonian system with conflict in the system that has led to the creation of all the end runs around the system and partly that is the administrative state roger spoke of. madison said this kind of problem can be solved on an appeal to the electoral principle. if the people don't like it they can vote them out. madison thought that was a simple thing to do. turns out that is a very difficult thing to do. as we are finding out. because donald trump is actually elected by the people who tried to do something about this and we find the furious resistance against it. so again i would say we are talking about the failure of the madisonian structure in the 20th century. >> a lot caused by the germans,

the french and the germans. >> i don't know that i would chalk that up, i don't know about the failure of the madisonian system but being deliberately changed to stop working way it was designed to work and be more minimal if not completely in control of the idea of the role of experts, that is where the administrative state comes from, life is too complicated, the constitution, too complicated and experts, we have to expand the bureaucracy, all this has done perhaps with good intentions, the madisonian system led to that which i don't think or that it has insufficient safeguards to prevent it which may be, this was a deliberate change, not a failure per se.

>> well said. >> also and ideological dimensions for the elites today on the left and on the right are enamored with varieties of globalism and issues that define trump all relate to the question of borders, the nation and how america interacts with the rest of the world, trade on what terms, who do we let into our country and what foreign-policy do we have, america first primary manifests in trade integration and foreign policy and previous populist movements, i'm not a historian. i think they were criticizing the elites for having too much money or monopolizing power but this added dimension that makes it more pernicious and trump, basic common sense tapped into this, the most intelligent

things said in the whole election was we have our country or we don't or we have borders and we don't come you don't need a phd in political philosophy, and this is revolutionary statement today and i don't get would have been in the age of andrew jackson. >> one thing that is remarkable rapidly accelerating radicalism. you can find recently bill clinton, barbara jordan and mainstream democrats talking about the need for border security, internal enforcement and so on, new york times unsigned editorials praising these things, years that begin with 2 and only a decade or so on, completely anathema, causes people to scream invectives at the mere suggestion. quite striking how fast opinion moves in one direction. >> questions, raise your hand, we have microphones.

michael baron here. he is coming up behind you. >> american enterprise institute, washington examiner. you have used words that all derived from the people that have antithetical meanings, democracy, populist, demagogue and one of his i haven't heard, which is volcker. the historic figures you have cited were regarded by the elites of the time, andrew jackson, william jennings bryan, he we long, the roosevelts not so much. they were sort of aristocrats. one of the things that clearly turns off a lot of people about donald trump is he does seem to have a certain outer borough vulgarity. is populism inevitably vulgar?

>> today happens to be the anniversary of caesar crossing the rubicon in 49 bc. caesar was a populist. was he vulgar? no. i don't think it is linked to populism although the people who wield the term populist as a weapon, i am glad you mentioned that, it seems to me one of the fundamental objections to donald trump is aesthetic. he put ketchup on it, unpardonable sins and other things as well. a large part of this aspect,

populism over donald trump, a matter that is aesthetic, another is snobbery. >> there are two ways to define it. it was older latin, when in everyday use but you never write a serious book and it. machiavelli's book are extraordinary because he gets you there in everyday italian. it sort of meant everybody and no question the common people have more common tastes, they are not lining up necessarily outside art museums on the weekend and going to hipster movie houses. they have more common tastes by necessity or by nature. vulgar -- identified with the fringes of commonality,

aloneness, obscenity and things like that. the first meaning of the term commonness yes, there's something necessarily ordinary about the populist because it is appealing to a broad common denominator opinion which is never going to be the most refined, it has to be gross. i don't think there is any necessary connection of vulgarity. >> what is more vulgar? donald trump's taste in steak, or's of women parading around the mall with hat in the shape of female genitalia? [applause] >> moving on. other questions? >> my question is how much

rationalism and common sense has to do with donald trump's success? if you just look at the slogan, obama's logan yes we can, more populist, trump's just saying something because he was successful in his personal life, and be successful for himself, he could be, make america successful as well. in terms of his simplicity, he is not deep or philosophical like obama but his very simple rational things has to do, something to do with his success. in addition to these rationalisms, is nationalism, brought americans together kind of the reversal of obama because obama has taken the country left and natural reaction of that so what you can see the factor as populism or simple common sense things?

>> in one sense, america's leading political analyst in the sense of watching campaign elections for the last 30 years. in one sense, this is laughable. in one sense trump ran a very conventional campaign. how do you win an election? identify the issues people really care about the most right now and aligning with political philosophy and hammer them over the course of 18 months and that is how you win. he did that. he picked a few core issues he never stopped talking about it all is the same terms, hillary didn't do that. they were common sense issues the american people said yes, why don't we have a wall? why haven't we enforced the border? why can we not be tribal societies with no technology in afghanistan? why do these trade deals and wages keep going down to the factories closing and we can doing more trade deals, it

makes no sense to me so call it rational, common sense, call it what you will but it was a very in that core way a very conventional campaign in a way his opponents couldn't match, couldn't find the three four issues that matter most to her voters and resonated with a portion of the middle and stick to them. >> in america we often have populist on the left and on the right, seems different from other countries, not completely but we have spoken of the william jennings bryans but reagan is an example of a conservative, where does trump fit relative to populist on the left or right? his policies are conservative but -- >> some are. if you had asked -- ask conservatives who opposed him, the initial and i trump argument used the most is he is

not conservative. he won't be conservative on this issue, there was conservative orthodoxy that he was thought to violate so you can say left of center populist but it is fine according to the definition, the last quarter of the 20th century but is conservative in the world fundamental things like changing my trade economic policy, working for people, got to do something different. crack i made many times, apologies if you heard it before. of the 1980 republican platform is going to be recited as scripture forever that is not going to work, we got to change. >> others. >> capital research center, i have a question for jim pearson, talking about madison,

nationstate, empire, union. if you tell us, paint a deeper picture of what madison did once, are there any things that can be done now to bring us closer to that? >> the second one is very difficult. as i said in 1787 the idea of a nationstate was not a very visible image to the founding fathers. union was the new idea and union was supported for host of reasons some of them having to do with national defense against european powers. the union and states being necessary to that. jefferson thought in terms of empire. so i believe the american nationstate was constructed afterwards from all these

conflicts are developed in the 19th and 20th century's. how do we get back to a madisonian kind of system? i have no idea because madison never envisioned a huge government. many things we are talking about, huge administrative state, financial power of the national government, none of these things were implied in the 19th century. if you were to ask the foundation, the pillar of the administrative system we have today, what is the one thing that makes it run? there are a lot of things but probably the one thing that is very fundamental is the fact the united states dollar is the reserve currency for the entire world. is that means the national governments can borrow money to

infinity because it can print the dollar to pay the debts, all these other countries have to earn their reserves, they can't use the reserves of the printing press. if we ever lost their reserve currency we would have to balance our budget, the kind of politics to go on today where politicians continue to promise programs to people that cannot be paid for. we live in a different kind of world. people suggest that would be a good thing, some people suggest that. how do we -- a lot of people talk about how to get back to the old system? >> the modern presidency, modern executive, imperial presidency encourage populism, one thing you need to do is

take that power to congress. >> i want to make a disagreement with jim. i definitely agree with the effects of the civil war, not sure i agree with that, i agree if you mean they didn't think of and if nationstate the way germans go back so far that no one remembers how germans came to be german. one reads the new book, i get a cut. one thing that is playing in the book, he said is that of the constitution and declaration and all these documents that they don't look at much anymore. over and over again the founders referred to them as

one people distinct from another people. not that we are going to create a federated system, they definitely saw themselves as a distinct people, a new people. not a nationstate the way you are thinking of but some middle ground between the implication of the nationstate in the european sense and that is where they were. >> federalists too of course. >> when you delegate to an executive they can do things with congress, that does encourage executives to promise things which they can deliver without congress, a phone and a pen. they can cut both ways. >> michael walsh, the writer, has a clever piece of the american dream website. what we should do to battle

this government is disperse it, move the department of the interior to the interior, move the treasury from kansas, move the irs to someplace, alaska. and just kind of drain the swamp physically by moving these departments that are employing tens of thousands of people and doing all these terrible things throughout the country. ..

the very telling contrast between the old populace of the 19th century and progressives they did not had quite the same degree a popular support. as a result of working there whiles inside the government. all of you make your last comments on this. just very briefly that was tiled why populism fails. populist movements tend to be very leader centered they tend not to form coalitions and in order to accomplish anything in the american system does require a great deal of bargaining and coalition building. the populace tend to be in the past i noted that historically it is noted for more than what they're against and what they're for. they tend not to have a

laundry list of programs to guide them. this is the kind of thing that tends to be disruptive once you move it from an election actually into the government. the contrast between the populace in the progressive i thought illustrated that point because they tried to organize the people against wall street and the big corporations and all of that. but the progressives were and experts movement. experts of barry -- of various kinds. they built the administrative agencies and they use that to develop their powers. the progressivism was an elite driven movement that succeeded in america. i have never run for office i don't know much about that

kind of policy. that it could be emulated. i'm not talking about the vulgarity or the statements that he makes the hammering away at the core issues. i don't know what's can happen. it is conceivable that they might have a trumpet who might get elected and that would change things because it would no longer be trumpet with it handful of prominent allies who agree with him on some issues. roger, i will give you the last word. thank you, for coming. think all of you and i think all think all of you for coming. the promises of populism.

thank you all for coming. [inaudible conversations] tweet us twitter.com or post a comment on her face but page.