transparent social process but it's supposed to result in something that's no for private industry but purely for the public good, we use that word but it's really a relationship between the state and the corporations. >> so i want to thank everyone for coming, i want to thank elizabeth, steven and wendy. [applause] >> please virginia humanities implores you evaluation forms, i implore you, if they have time, i'm sure, the authors will be happy to speak with you. thank you. [inaudible conversations] >> a look at american politics

in the age of donald trump. [inaudible conversations] >> good afternoon, and welcome, my name is kara, university of virginia, i would like to welcome you in virginia humanities, the producer of virginia festival of the book. ii would like to acknowledge the city of charlottesville which is the event sponsor and host venue today. at this moment i would like to ask you to please silence your cell phone but you can also tweet about this event live using the #va book 2018. we -- the festival is free of charge but not free of cost, we ask you to please consider to go online and to give, to give back or pick up a giving envelope

from the information desk at the omni and support the festival so we can sustain it for years to come. at the end of the program, we will have a evaluations available and we please ask you to help us to evaluate the programs by filling out the brief survey and if you can fill out the paper evaluation before you leave or you can do so online at vabook.org/survey. we also ask you to please support the festival and our book sellers and authors by purchasing a book today, we will leave sign at the end of the session for book signing as well. and now we will begin our program so welcome to american politics, left, right and center. just as we face ever more complex and challenging local and national problems that challenge and more divided it has become. in the age of bipartisanship, a

range of actors are using wide variety of strategies, tactics and technologies to evoke our emotions especially anger or anxiety with goal of inmobilizing or suppressing constituencies and institutions, in our emotional state of policy there's no amount of fact-checking that can matter and possibilities, animosity towards in fear of opposition has grown at peak levels at the same trust of institution, political leaders and media have both declined and become immediated by bipartisanship. the electorate is very divided by a range of factors including by ideology and demographic factors like race, gender as well as by education. so we are very lucky to have three distinguished authors with us today whose books articulate

the transformations in american politics, institutions and media that have contribute today our divided state in america today. we have with us katrina perry, an award-winning irish journalist who until january of this year was based in washington, d.c. she traveled our country for four years report on all aspect of american life and in america is her first book. she has now return today ireland is now the anchor of the country's most watched main evening news bulletin, so we are very happy to have her today. one to have most keen observations that she makes is that our two-party system does not serve a nation that's so diverse as ours, but she also speaks to the polarized political discourse in our nation and how that has contributed to the disillusion with political leaders and political institutions, the

disconnect with elites in the country and the experiences of people across the country. we also have with us former congressman jason altmier who served three terms in house of representatives during which he was a bipartisan centrist, who had 29 of legislative initiatives signed into law, quite impressive. [laughter] >> and he went 5 and a half years without missing a single vote and introduced a bipartisan bill that gained the most congressional sponsorover any congressional bill in american history. the national journal calculated voting record to be at the exact midpoint of the house, the dead center. [laughter] >> his book -- his book is a wonderful combination of deep understanding and synthesis of the political science and psychological literatures that help us to understand how we have come to this political polarized situation in our

country, he also offered various pragmatic solutions to the situation that we are in that he's going to speak about today as well. we also have with us today, nicole hemmer, authors of messengers of the right and cofounder and editor in washington post and i have no idea how she sleeps. [laughter] >> any of our panelists. so if we think that we are in a unique period in american history, nicole, nicky's book remind us that we are not and she retrace it is roots of -- and puts at the center an analysis the world of media activist have played in constructing coalitions and the tensions that that has created within the republican party. she also reminds us of the powerful combination of both power and populism in raising --

and the implications of that, not only for the republican coalition but also for governance. so for this program, each author is going to give about 5 minutes to talk about their book and the central thesis of their research and how we can understand their research to the state of affairs that we have come to today. then i will ask a couple of questions and we will turn it over to an audience q&a so we can have plenty of discussion. we will start with congressman altmier. >> thank you, i suspect that's why there's such a large crowd, thank you all for being here, in the book, i do a few things, i try to wave together different aspects of the political polarization and the first thing i do is talk about the psychological research into the way partisan think, how people react under different

circumstances cognitive, would they accept information that conclusively proves that their point of view is wrong, you probably know the answer to that. [laughter] >> impact they have, they work on campaigns, they give money to candidates and as the pew research center have shown, those are the folks that determine the outcome of our election, it's important to understand who these folks are that are on our political extreme. a lot of research into the way partisans think and going into pretty good depth on that, then i talk about the systematic causes of polarization, the things that you here about, gerrymandering, the partisan media, close-primary system and going into detail of not just what the problems are but the impact that they're having on our candidates running for office and our people who are currently serving in elected office and i weave throughout

the book anecdotes. i was the centrist in congress, i had a district in western pennsylvania that was a toss-upswing district, one of the classic purple district that is you hear. i had a mix of kind of steel town, rust-belt area, mixed mixh the affluent societies out of pittsburgh, i had to represent both communities and listen to both sides so i tell that story throughout my book and what you find when you research a book like this you go into it with a certain point of view on what's causing causing the polarization, what's the impact, then you get sphwo the research and you find out it's a little bit different than what you thought. i did change some mind as i was researching the book, the most interesting thing about it is there's a lot of political science work that's been done which i cover in that cognitive bias, a lot of social science research, there's a lot of work

that's been done diagnosing the problem, talking about all of those that i talked about but i don't think anyone has talked about the impact of the people actually serving in the office, how that impacts your decision-making and how it impact it is way you speak to your constituents, the way you campaign and the way you vote and in the end, the last chapter i offer solutions which i will get into today so thank you for having me. [applause] >> thank you also for having me, real treat to be here and thank you all for coming out this morning. as a foreign correspondent based in the u.s. you arguably have a bird's-eye view of joust how polarized u.s. politics are especially if you are like me you come from ireland or anywhere in western europe where public broadcaster which i am, you have a legal obligation to be objective and balance in your coverage of politics and

elections. and then you transfer it from that into the u.s. system where the media is largely driven and with the exception of the public -- but the main cables and broadcast networks were very different experience for me to see and so i have states still hope to go make the magic 50 eventually and take off the bingo card. [laughter] >> and it was just surprising to see when you went from state to state how diversely each state is. outside of the u.s. we view it as a country when actually you should view it as federation or continent because everywhere it's so different. people's opinions are so different, racial make-up is so different, ethnicities are so different and so on. since i've been back in ireland in the last few months, the question that i keep guessing even though we are a year and a

half, how did donald trump get elected and who are the people who voted for him and question many people inside of america are also still asking themselves, largely that's what my book is about, it was about assessing who the voters were when you got off the main highways, when you got out of the campaign plane, yes, e went to plenty of donald trump and hillary clinton rallies and rally for other candidates during primary season as well but base driving the lesser traveled roads, talking to people, seeing what their motivation was and what happened in the american political system to create this essential vacuum for someone who wasn't a traditional politician and he said things that were offensive to so many people but they were able to overlook that and see the good in the candidate that they wanted to be the president of their country and i basically found three reasons for that,

you know, and we do have to stop and, say, hillary clinton did win the popular vote and when you're analyzing who voted for donald trump, you're dealing with really, you know, the margin of 77,000 odd voters in three states, wisconsin, michigan and pennsylvania that made the difference with the electoral college that got him into the white house, but basically i saw huge appetite for backlash vote and people were so disillusioned with traditional politicians, washington, there was a disconnect there from voters from all parties about just what mattered to them versus what politicians told matter today them and we see the same thing happened in ireland and european countries. in our most recent elections, we actually have the minority government now because the major party couldn't get support more people vote for independents and smaller parties for similar reasons they had enough and in that way donald trump was able

to appeal to people as every man, that type of guy even though he was born into wealthy background, lived in new york, people still felt in disadvantaged areas that he had their back and that's leads me to second point which came time and time again which is the concept of dream, when you come from outsider, you are struck by the positivity and optimism and there's always hope and things aren't great now, they will get better, they're not great for me but they will be better for my kids and grandkids and that had diminished, the recession had come and gone and on paper, you know, employment figures were back up, the economy was recovering but but it wasn't trickling down to people. again, we had the same thing in ireland where, you know, employment figures were back as it is here, a lot of those employment zero contract, short-term, not-quality jobs,

the economy is back but you still have statistics, 3 out of 5 people were no better off than ten years, that's a lot of hard graft and for your life not to have improved. the third point was because donald trump didn't particularly stand for anything in particular he could stand for anything. [laughter] >> he was al carte candidate. your policies are layed out and because donald trump kept a lot of the policies quite vague in the election people were able to pick and choose and ultimately a lot of voters are single-issue voters. .. ..

>> and then take a chance and see what happens. my book is really stories of people telling me and then we get to where we are now with the election of donald trump through the political situation in america without the cause of anything. [applause]

>> someone who covered firsthand the violence in charlottesville i have seen those consequences and what that looks like and this is a crisis in need of solution and in order to understand the current political problem we have to understand the origins of the media crisis because of they create media politics that is one thing it is almost impossible to ignore but we have for far too long. not talking about rush limbaugh 30 years ago but by the time they appear that shift of media values has already happened going back to

the 40s and 50s and the origin of a powerful idea liberal media bias this emerges in the 50s at a time trump in journalism was 80 or 90% and if there was a bias it was a conservative bias and they tended to be conservative so the idea that had to be constructed and sold. and it was and had real consequences when they took up this idea with the underlying argument all media is ideological only driven by ideology so to figure out how to trust a media source figure

out the ideology so seek out those sources that is important because from the objective media trust us because we are right wing. in this is how they make the argument to bifurcate what is necessary with conservative media about the world. that becomes part of the conservative identity very early on by the 60s to have those media sources like national review or human events no way as powerful but

it is central early on what it means to be a conservative in the united states. that has a real impact on all the other media because by the time you get to the 1970s under fire for misreporting on vietnam you see more mainstream objective in the -- media. but also a deference to and authorities of somebody told you something, he reported that as fact and understandably that breaks down as objective media get rid of that idea for deference to authority what they replace that with his balance. the way we will demonstrate that objective we will not

necessarily repeat what authorities say but somebody from the left and from the right that is a sign of objectivity because one of the big complaints of nonconservative media today is a passé false equivalency that is a practice invented since the 70s we can't just draft the development of the past ten or 20 years but think is a generational project with the generational impact. that also requires a reckoning because conservative complaints is that they weren't exactly wrong. in the media the 50s and 60s there were a lot of voices considered beyond the pale and conservatives were seen as a radical fringe element of course so were

feminist and african-american civil rights activist and union members are members of the socialist party a lot of individuals were out of bounds etienne did need to reform itself but it is possible that americans lost too much faith in mainstream media and we will talk what the solutions to some of these problems are but there needs to be media reform and that is clear over the last two years but also media consumer reform with some responsibility on behalf of us as consumers to trust with skepticism and not just look for things that confirm what we already believe. [applause]

>> all three books touch on the nature of the two-party system and we think of being team red or blue or republican or democrat but it is the polarization with the internal fractions of the parties really the range of factors i'm sorry the array of actors so how you see the construction of the coalition and the evolution of those political coalitions and how they have come to power and those struggles that are happening right now in governance in the upcoming election this fall? >> i talk in the book that both parties have gone through this internal power struggle between the more extreme element the far left and right more mainstream in the way it is laid out is that in the congress, in the house the

moderate voice has been purged at this .2006 and 2008 elections brought thousand eight elections brought a wave of democrats people from districts like the one that i described that i represented more conservative democrats over time ended up leaving the house losing the reelection the republicans right now are having a debate between the freedom caucus the tea party type in the more mainstream republicans and when speaker ryan talks about working with both sides more often than not they mean both sides of their own party not just democrats. [laughter] and people with like charlie who was very thoughtful member of the republican party very high standing active legislator throw his hands in the air and say i don't want to do this anymore there is a record number of retirements

overwhelmingly they come from the mainstream area. both parties are having this discussion democrats are having it outside of congress with candidates republicans are having it within congress but i don't know which way it will go but it does appear the extremes are winning at this point which i don't view is good for the country. >> i agree if you look at the 2016 election with donald trump on the republican side but he joined the party to run for president on the democratic side you have bernie sanders who joined the party one year earlier to contest the presidency so two people were not traditional and that party put forward as a figurehead and bernie was not the nominee in the end but the democrats are still dealing with that with people who backed bernie versus hillary and i think they are

doing a lot of soul-searching as are the republicans and there is no clear answer emerging from either party at this point and for that reason you may see a very strong third-party run in 2020 and do well because if you have money or brand and name recognition that put trump ahead of a lot of others in terms with the campaign i think there is something big and huge going on in u.s. politics at the moment and the question is how do you fix it? but i don't know if there is a short answer to that. >> it is fascinating because basically trump was a third-party candidate winning the nomination becoming president we are at a fascinating time in party

politics clearly there is a reorganization but one of the things i talk about in my book is from the 30s through the 60s the parties had a pretty diverse range of ideologies with conservative democrats then there was a fundamental orientation of ideologies there was a liberal democratic party although less than the republican as conservative it becomes incredibly conservative but something has changed because on the one hand they are not as powerful as they used to be they are not very good at gatekeeping in 2016 is a good example there are ways for candidates to get what they need to do without relying on the rnc or dnc but at the same time loyalty to parties seems to be

incredibly strong especially in congress so there is a tribalism that we don't necessarily know the political content of that that is what is scrambled right now so what does that mean to be a republican? right now it means the r not necessarily that you are conservative in a traditional sense it could change between monday and friday. [laughter] >> so what about the state of politics? from each of your experiences and research? >> what surprises me is the low level of engagement actually and i think we talk about the party fixing themselves are talking about a small amount of the population

that actually cares you need to get more people involved on a grassroots level when you see what we see the last few years people turning away from traditional politicians, why is that? local elections and school boards and there is some soul-searching why people don't care and don't vote the rest of the world looks to this country to see who will be the president and they stay up through multiple time zones and then well below half of the electorate year after year there is a disconnect in that there is a media problem here that needs to be solvay said earlier it was generational and i don't mean this will be

fixed overnight but i also think a lot of americans put a lot of faith and technological or regulatory solutions for problems with media in the election were not regulation problems about how we choose to consume media and construct reality and that is a difficult problem to solve with the rebuilding of civil society through education and also through a shared census that it is worth fixing. i'm not super optimistic this will change in the next five or ten years spent the march today makes you think it is possible we will see a broader generational change in 20 or 30 years with a real commitment to build civil society but just to say it

will not happen overnight doesn't mean each of us doesn't have a responsibility to start today. >> with the information technology today we have this miraculous invention of the internet with 300 channels or television with every book ever written every word ever spoken at our fingertips but instead of using that to seek knowledge and learn about issues with an unbiased look we use it to reaffirm our opinion we decide our position on an issue then seek out information to back up our position to make our argument stronger. youtube is one example facebook or twitter they all do the algorithm when you search for what you like they give you more of that if you watch the 911 conspiracy or moon landing conspiracy or

elvis pressley is still alive on the right side they will show you more of the sign -- of the same your recommended viewer list so that is all that ever sees or gives you that certainty that you are right so now researching how partisans think to the extreme of the primary system is the people what the data shows those who are the most certain of their opinion are often that know the least about the subject and they bring that bias with them to the polls talking about solution i could go long-term like civics education the book is filled. [applause] all of these amusing examples of how ignorant the american people are and we have the stomach reform that is possible with the interesting idea if you run for speaker of the house you should need 60% of of the house rather than

50% which means you can get some members of the other party to vote for you have to build a coalition from the sound -- the center out rather than the fringes in so the more polarizing speech or acres nancy pelosi they would need around 30 members of the other side that probably would not have happened we would've had a both moderate speaker and both of those examples get into the gerrymandering and campaign-finance, the supreme court has ruled that makes it very difficult to do the reform that is necessary but if we get many out of politics that is a huge moderating influence but the most important thing we can do i didn't start with this but absolutely the way to moderate

to limit the influence of the extremes in the primary election because if you are a candidate running for office and those who control your destiny are on the far extreme you will do what you can to appeal to them you will say what they want you to say and act the way they want you to act and if you don't you will lose and you see that both parties look at the solution like california the top to open primary system every candidate regardless of party affiliation they are all on the same ballot and every registered voter regardless of party affiliation shows up to vote and the top two regardless move on to the general we need to have something like that so sometimes in the wheezing and i you could have two republicans in california could have two democrats but if you are a candidate running for office in the system and only appeal to your narrow

base you will lose. you have to appeal to a much wider swath of the electorate to those in the center and on the other side to have a chance to win and it has worked in california does help to moderate their delegation washington so one thing we could do politically realistic that is the answer to dilute the influence of the extremes in the primaries. [applause] mckay forgot a very important announcement this is recorded for charlottesville public television our own tv ten and public access and also on the facebook page and city hall and also c-span book so that this time we will move to the q&a session so we can have

discussion to incorporate the audience and because this is recorded please raise your hand and wait for a volunteer to hand you the microphone before speaking also please keep your questions short and to the point so we can incorporate as many as possible for my first of all each and every one of you this is been helpful but can you give several examples of the false equivalencies? >> several examples. so now for example during the primary season the tendency to

bring on those white supremacist to counter the liberals i would argue they represent a different constituency just to have that climate change denier more than once it suggest equivalent constituencies when they don't so that is one place but the other place we saw was the other half of the general election when you heard much less from anti- trump republicans it was difficult for anti- trump republicans to actually appear on cable news programs so then you have the pro- clinton

democrat and it disguised them of that division that continued at that point things like that but also putting one side against another not fact checking the article itself is a big problem some papers are doing better at. >> what part would a third party movement have a solution and what are the obstacles to the third-party movement and what they face now? >> i get that question every time i talk about this i purposely do not talk about third parties as a solution and here is why. most people think in the context of the national presidential race the problem is the institutional hurdles you have to win a majority of the electoral college to become president if it's not a

majority then goes to the house and then they pick the winner. unlikely in most cases to pick anybody other than the majority party of the house so for the independent candidate to win they have to fund their own and when the electoral college so with three small two party backed candidates is pretty unlikely so now the lower the level of the race the more likely a third-party candidate could it off senator sanders is an independent house members are independent so it can be done but my concern i don't talk about it because the basic third-party was designed for the centrist or the moderate constituents by definition you are pulling those from the two major parties to create a third party which means republicans and democrats have no

incentive whatsoever to ever appeal to anyone in the center because it is not part of the coalition and if you don't have that critical mass to win elections mutate that incentive out you make the problem worse. >> just a first quick comment in terms of the equivalency five or six years ago the example of the tv stations wanted to have a holocaust believer in a holocaust denier to see that typical example false equivalencies so talked about getting people back out to vote whether the primary or whatever there has been some evidence if not voter suppression getting to the

polls and voting difficult if there is only one or two polling places aside from if you are eligible and in one county i read if you hadn't voted in the last election they would not let you vote or something like that. so that movement is altered in order to allow a broader range of voters? >> i think it is difficult to alter because there are powerful incentives for disenfranchisement which is why it is happening if you can exclude people you think will vote for the other party from voting then you do that and in the currently constructed electorate primarily it is republicans who say we need to close down polling places and primarily in african-american neighborhoods that is a major

democratic crisis with a small de. i don't think we necessarily need mandatory voting but if we are really committed to the experiment we need to make it as easy as possible for people who want to vote to be able to vote and there is no moral argument to be made to keep people to go to the polls if they want to vote. >> isn't just the traditional way of voter suppression the new york times reported this week of data mining from cambridge analytic us so would you like to address that aspect the way in which campaigns use analytics and information to suppress voters

not just traditional tactics at the polls. >> it works both ways certainly there is real voter suppression that happens when wisconsin passes a rule that encloses offices people understand what is going on but to the data mining you have candidates now can do very precisely identify who their voters are on the extreme no longer targeting the swing votes to decide the outcome of elections and just worried about motivating their extremes and by neglect those that are from being contacted

it is the indirect voter suppression that leads to lower voter turnout. >> on the issue of those polling centers the way to counter that is to have a standardized approach across the united states and then when you get into different states like in ireland that is just the way that it is. and with cambridge analytic, that is very tricky from the democratic point of view but on one level there is nothing new about politicians targeting those who are susceptible to a certain type of message that concept of data mining and the information we all give away in spite of ourselves you cannot buy anything in a store

without your e-mail address if you refuse to give it they will look at you like why would you not give me that? [laughter] it just makes it easier for political parties or activists before take a look at a street and say that will vote this way or that way and door knock accordingly but just now it means it is more under the table subconsciously getting e-mails almost unaware of why we are getting them but people have to be more educated about that i know when you see something it doesn't sound right then and possibly is not right with study after study from the institutes that say the majority of people are getting their news from social media and online but they take

one quarter of it that is factual so they have their own filter and it comes back to people being open to the message in the first place. >> micro targeting comes from the consumer corporate side. . . . . >> the technology might be taking but the practices have been -- nixon's campaign. >> thank you for bringing up the story. that's what is going to ask about. a two-part question that

dovetails to each other. the first part is how can get people out of the partisan bubbles in terms of social media providing confirmation bias? number two, do you think, anyone can answer this, does anyone think that the social media providers are going to be subject to more stringent like regulations by federal regulars, state regulars, maybe even european regulators? the eu and brussels are very active with data privacy and such. >> i think it's much more likely that they will face regulation from europe, britain, those places that have stronger tradition of regulating media. it's less like to to happen in the united states and i'm not sure if regulation is going to solve these problems because to answer your first question i know we mentioned this already, how to get people out of the bubbles? they have to want to get out of the bubbles.

you can't force them to. it becomes a question of civic education, a question of media literacy but also encouraging people like when you read something and you find yourself nodding along, that's when you should be questioning the sources and the facts, and try to make sure that you are not just reading it to read from something that you already believe. that's an education project and it's not something you can pass along to make happen. >> the search algorithm justified received a lot of criticism, google, yahoo!, facebook, twitter, and the problem with solving finding a solution to that is even if you give people more choice in what they are saying they let you something they disagree with. facebook has tried to do that, right? so that you don't just see all the things in your little silo. they will give you other opportunities but you don't click on it. that's the problem. we all have experienced the

blind sharing ideas where you circulate articles that you haven't have right to show off your newfound knowledge. [laughing] and there was a study that was done over multiple weeks, and they showed that 59% of the articles that are circulated on social media are not clicked on before they are red. right? so given that gets to people just being so sure they are right but being ignorant of the facts. there's a lot of study sediment done on twitter and the language people use, and you can tell pretty clearly whether somebody is republican or democrat just based on the way they talk. i don't mean it is a benghazi obamacare you're more likely to be publican, i'm just talking about the phrases that use and the common everyday terminology and the emotion that you show. you can tell very clearly where somebody is coming from. now we have people who say in their bios that they will probably block anybody who is of a different opinion than them. you have the hashtags, the

resistance on one side. it's become more and more polarized but to your question, there is hope, and hope is that both twitter and facebook used to let friends. you still have family members. you stop the people that you wk with that you interact with on social media, who hopefully at some level occasionally expressed a different point of view. or express something that's newsworthy that you are unaware of. i do think with facebook in particular there is still hope that if people of large networks, although they will choose to associate with their own political persuasion, into her own family networks and friend networks, hopefully it will be exposed to news. there was a study that was done going back to the early 1980s and in the 1940s when they used to have the newsreel that would play before you watched the movie. and in the early 1980s if you want to watch, a before and a

'70s and before, if you wanted to watch wheel of fortune at 7:30 you had to sit through either john chancellor, walter cronkite or david brinkley to get there. because there was no remote control. you did what he get off the couch and there are only three networks you could choose from. [laughing] so with that found in studying is the rub a lot of people who were very disinterested in politics, disinterested in current events but they still voted. whereas today if people are disinterested in politics, they can go anywhere. they can see what the kardashian sisters are up to. [laughing] they can watch march madness. they can watch a cooking or home renovation show. they are not exposed to news in the same way they used to be in the previous examples and they don't vote in the greatest numbers. i do think with facebook, hopefully people will gain some exposure to news that the otherwise would have missed. >> i would just add to that as well, there's nothing you and the world and propaganda either,

like as long as politicians are around. it's one thing exposing people to news, but again the surveys are there, the statistics are there that the trust in the news media in this country in particular is extremely low. 30% or something like that. so that's a problem easily find a way to get people a balance, unbiased objective news that they're not going to believe it anyway. and on the subject of regulation, in ireland we are home to the european and middle east headquarters of most of the big facebook, google, twitter, all of that, and with obviously european regulations at our data protection commission and island has taken a number of cases against various people looking for information to be handed over and protecting rights. i do think the driving force for this might come back across the atlantic like that. but again the mainstream media is also regulated, and that

doesn't mean either that it's perfect. >> for 45 years i worked at a business -- excuse me -- for 45 years i worked in a business business that was highly involved with foreign people or people from, experts from other countries. every year the was an election. they would come to me as an american and be very concerned about the lack of people voting here it was interesting to me what made that comment about all of the other people. but the question is, do you see anything that will eventually come forward from this apparently youth movement right now that we have with the guns and shooting and whatever? we have marches here, marches in

washington. do you think any of that will manifest itself into those people come up and getting into the political system, at least enough to vote? >> i think one of the most positive benefits of the anxiety that the country is clearly experiencing right now politically is the political activism. hopefully on both sides. the most prevalent have been anti-trump, the women's march and the nra anti-nra march today. but i do have hope that they have spurred a more civic minded young constituency and the f spurred within people i feeling of a duty that i need to vote, i did to show up, i need to be involved in current affairs and the need to be politically active. we will see at that lasts. traditionally get people to vote in very low numbers. as they get older and they get families and houses, they become more politically interested.

i think there's a change that's occurring. that is sort by demographic change occurring in the country at a think there's a political interest change. the pendulum always swings back and i would argue the pendulum has swung about as far as it can swing for just come on both sides, the anxiety and the polarization that exists and hopefully it will start moderating and hope it falls more political activism not just from young people but all demographics in the country. >> i think we are seeing that already. i mean, we see this marches as the big media events but it may have translated into actual traditional forms of political activism. there are massive voter drives among young people. right now in florida we've seen in the aftermath of the women's march, the number of women who were not just looking to vote but were looking to run for office has multiplied by more than ten times. like it's astronomical the number of women who are seeking to get involved in traditional forms of politics.

and we've seen this tradition as well. there was a major march like this one for the moratorium against the war on vietnam in 1969, and even though it didn't end the war in vietnam that you, what it did was it turned those young people into political activist who fundamentally change the democratic party three years later. i think there's both present for this but also signs right now that this has the potential to have some lasting effects on traditional politics. >> i think there does have to be changed though because people march in the campaign, and it the status quo remains, they will stop and become disillusioned like every other generation. it's heartening to see a level of activism and as you were saying the number of people who want to run for elections. that's really where you get that momentum building. >> in contrast to the united states, australia has mandatory

voting laws. would you care to comment on that? >> i lived in australia for a while and i still write about american politics for australian audiences. i think it's a powerful idea that works really well in australia and australia, if you want to protest vote, you can either scratch your ballot and pay the fine or you can just not vote for anyone on your ballot you can register your protest that we. i think it would be almost impossible to enact that here in the united states structurally. >> we don't have much free voting in and island but i thik forcing anyone to do anything is generally not a good idea, and democracy should become you should encourage people to want to have the appreciation of the four fathers and mothers who went before you to struggle to get that right to vote, that it's more about encouraging people to want to do that and to want to be engaged in their community to such a point that

they care about who is making the decisions. >> i discuss mandatory voting in a a book and a talk about australia in the context of the people who are currently sitting at home today bringing moderating influence to the polls when you vote. i would like to see a way to get into the polls, mandatory voting is not only difficult in this country, it's probably unconstitutional, that there is a debate about that. that makes it really difficult and it would not be politically popular certainly among the republicans to bring more democrats out to the polls. [laughing] but norm ornstein has a great idea about this, that rather than provide something we do mandatory voting, , you give people an incentive such as hold a national lottery where your vote is your ticket to the lottery, and then you would incentivize people to come out. finding a way, and states can experiment with other ideas to do this but find a way to get more people to vote next

difference. if you look at australia, the candidates who run in australia have said specifically that the fact that the 95% turnout changes the way they approach the electorate. they are more moderate and more reasonable and they compromise in the legislature because they are accountable to the entire voting population rather than just the extremes. >> just a quick process. i'm noting has gone and have a running list. we have a question down here. >> thank you. the q&a is excellent. thank you. my question is our polarization is terrible but are there examples in history that you can call the mind that you've considered, and also consider the manner in which that polarization either in print, because in most instances i think it did improve, or changed? >> i mean, polarization isn't something that's new to the united states nor is poker politics. if you look at the way thomas

jefferson and john adams used to beat up on one another, it was pretty miserable. fight with breakout between taft supported and was about voters in 1912. the ribbon types of polarization in the united states. one way in which they seem to resolve themselves is you get these breakouts, third-party candidates that begin to fundamentally change the conversation. the thing about polarization is yet to polls and there people who feel unspoken for. when you get a a popular third-party candidate, beat somebody like theodore roosevelt in 1912 1912 or george wallacen 1960 or ross perot in 92 and 96, they begin to fundamentally change the parties because the parties see that there is a vote up for grabs there. that begins to change the conversation, resilient the politics and bring in more overlap. it may be something that we see

relatively syndic as we are seeing the rise of all these third-party candidates who are changing fundamentally where the polls are requesting a breakdown in consensus of conservative foreign-policy, of conservatives opinions country. everything is getting mixed up right now and you can imagine how that sort of crisis or out of that moment of change that the polls began to break and because they are not sustainable anymore. history provides lessons. it doesn't necessarily provide a crystal ball to see what happens next. >> i think it's important to remember, i argue that the nation as a whole is but nearly as polarized and politically divided as it is made out to be. certainly congress is and it is because of the recent i talk about. we incentivize the extremes in our electoral process, but most people don't wake up everyday thinking about what congress is up to you or how polarized they would like to see the country. they think about what's my

sporting going to do in the upcoming draft, what activity dislike it up tonight, what does that work week look like next week? internet thinking everyday what's going on in congress. those of the folks that are less politically interested. as we talked about they don't show up in the polls. in congress we are a lot more polarized. and we had in the nation's history we are in virginia now certainly we remember the civil war. it was a time when we were i think it's fair to say more polarized than we actually took arms against each other. people would argue the '60s with vietnam issue and the campus protests here certainly the early days of the republic. we had a sitting vice president killed alexander hamilton of all people in a duel. that's pretty polarized, right? [laughing] we have fistfights on the floor and canyons on the senate. it's been worse, but what's different about today is it's not just us. it's everywhere in the world. look at the european elections that happened recently. they are very polarized in the

populism that exists is driving that among the electorate. a good thing about social media is it to driving people to be aware of issues but it's also driving action. look at the arab spring that occurred in 2011. there's that type of thing building again in the middle east and again you are seeing it in your. it's shaking out, right, they're been a struggle examples of when it's been worse. but i would caution you to think that the entire country is polarized. i have not found that. maybe caitriona you could, and on that. think most people are normal folks who may be the vote republican or democrat and usually vote that way that they want a functioning government. they want a congress that can work together and compromise and get things done. they don't want the single party ideologically extreme congress that we have right now. >> i think actually politicians

have big part to play in that, because if all you are seeing on your dues or social media feeds on whatever is the republicans blaming the democrats for not being able to get the policies through, , and the democrats planning the republicans, then that polarization is broadcast and magnified to people who like his hair going about their daily lives. it weaves into this overarching to what no politicians doing anything frequent. i remember in wisconsin speaking to some farmers at a farm show, and they said washington is for fancy people. they don't know anything about my life. they don't know us but would like to do, what it's like to do a daypart labor for 12 hours, you know, and how to come on this and worry about how will your feeding your children and so on. there is a polarization taking place as we discussed right across europe as well and moved away from traditional politicians. i do think i've noticed in the

four years of later from the beginning to the end that was more of a visceral hatred towards the other that i been had notions to when he first arrived, and the tolerance level has dropped from police that other people hold and that you don't understand but maybe you're not interested in making an effort to understand either. that's the sort of dangerous cycle to get into. >> i think one of the things to note about the history of polarization is polarization is the norm. we just had this awkward. between 1952-1980 that wasn't as polarized on the surface but that's the outlier. in the history of american politics anyway. one other comment is, we also need to think about the way that foreign affairs has played in key polarization and that oftentimes it's national security threats and national crisis from threats abroad in the bring the parties together because when the super goal to use the psychological literatur

literature. brings the sites together to address together. the gentleman in the glasses back to his next and then don't gentlewoman with glasses and the blue jacket on the side. >> thank you. if trump during the election was complaining about the fact everything was rigged, and what i'm concerned about is, , what s i could talk about, is the change in the attitude towards politics and to some extent in business where the whole purpose is to win come to make money or to get power. and you do this by breaking the rules and setting new rules so that we end up with minority role of the extremist. that's exactly what trump seems to be doing, it's with the american legislative exchange council has been doing. so how do you prevent this -- what's the one thing you would do, for example, to what we could do to get some leverage to

get people think about the general interest again and to prevent a takeover by extremists through subterfuge to making the system? >> well, you know, i wouldn't agree that the system is rigged here. a difference isn't the one we have in ireland and in europe but it's the system that the founding fathers put in place for good reason. if that's the way it's set up, then this is what happens. donald trump was democratically elected whether you like it or not, it in accordance with electoral college. i know that our investigations going into russian interference or interference by outside factors but there's no evidence of anyone stuffing ballot boxes. it's all suggestibility and masses online and so on. you just have to be quite

careful about what you're saying about the system in that regard. what you do about keeping people engaged -- what was the second part of your question? >> gerrymandering, restricting the vote, electing judges were going to vote only your way. >> yes. okay. traditionally, , whichever party is in power here appoints judges to the viewpoints. you know. the trump administration is not doing anything new there. and that is the rights and taliban of whatever party is in power. >> gerrymandering would you just mentioned is anathema to the principles upon which the country was founded. where you would in theory have people choose their leaders. now we have a system where our leaders choose their voters.

i do think that the supreme court, they will rule on this and think regardless of what the ruling is, gerrymandering in the states courts have ruled against the ability of a partisan gerrymandering based upon legislative leaders wins. i think it's going to hopefully pass from the scene as far as partisan gerrymandering you had to find a way to draw the lines. the people draw the lines always could have political bias but they don't have to be a very people whose jobs depend on the week all those lines. they can always be somebody else. i will refrain from giving you a long lecture on money in politics which is what he thought about when asked that question but but i would give n interesting stat that would just flabbergasted you. and that is the we spend about $6 million in our federal elections in 2016, so it goes up every cycle. of the money that we spent as a country to influence federal campaigns, approximately 40% of

that money comes from people in the .01% income bracket. not 1%, not .1%. .01%. talking about a couple hundred people in the whole country they give up 39% of the money to federal campaigns in the country. and again there's a supreme court equivalency where money equals free speech. it's unlikely to see the change. under the american people just kind of intrinsically think money plays a big role and i wish it didn't. but if they really understood how prevalent it is and how much of an influence it is. if you track the votes of members of congress they outline much more closely to the people who were the campaign donors and the constituents they were elected representative the amount of money and time to just been as elected official thinking about money and raising money just to worse every thing else that think about when you're in office. if there's one thing we could --

dwarfs. that would help alleviate a lot of these things are talking about today, that would be at. but, unfortunately, it's politically unrealistic. >> i would add because of a part of your question is what happened to this idea of selfless public service or this idea of the public good. i do think that if change. politics has long been corrupt, that's nothing new but i think the was an era in which this idea that you get back through public service and public service was a good thing to do, the running for office, it's not entirely selfless but that it was part of an obligation rather than a way of making yourself rich, enriching yourself. that idea has and as a cultural value. we spent the last 40 years both parties demonizing the ideas insiders in washington, the idea of experts and elite. i'm not saying yay for the elite but i do think one of the things

we should start thinking about is what it means when we continue to say that everybody in washington is part of the swamp, or that we need for people who have no experience inside washington running things because that doesn't seem to work out well over the past 40 years. [laughing] >> listening to everybody, it's like i feel so helpless, you know? it's daunting. but i do know there are movements happen just with the students and other movements but also with better angels. are you familiar with better angels? better angels is a bipartisan national group that bring together people on either side to have conversations constructive conversation. they are trained moderators in charlottesville and were looking for organizers, but do you see these movements connect any kind of effect, positive affect the bring our country back to where, back to the middle ground?

>> i think it's very helpful. there are a lot of groups, you mentioned one of them. i encourage your work and please continue doing what you're doing. it's just very difficult to motivate people to take that interest to the polls, especially in private areas. most people who were not living and breathing politics everyday have a tendency to settle on the primary election day and that show up in the general election as a why are these my two choices? why do i have to choose from the far left and the far right? i will say i am skeptical of some of these groups that are led by members of former members of congress on the boards, people who were notoriously partisan when they were in congress and now are lecturing the iraqi people about how good it would be if everybody could just get along. there are some folks have written books like that who are very partisan. i i just think that falls on def ears. the types of organizations you're talking about that are

citizen led and from the grassroots up, , those are the type of groups that are going to change america. keep doing what you're doing. >> and don't give up hope. as i i said that's one of the wonderful things this country, people are so optimistic and positive and everything starts small and easy to make a difference in one small community, it ripples out from there. >> the story of the united states across its history has been the strip grassroots activists finding a way to fundamental fundamentally change the country. if you think about the obstacles faced by black civil rights activist who are active and like the making '40s and the 1950s and labored for decades without seeing very much change and then fundamentally change the country. this is happen again and again and again in american history and there's a reason to think that's going to stop now. it's hard. it takes a long time. that doesn't always end up the way people want but it is emily possible and effect one of the longest stories of american history. >> we had time for just one more question.

>> my question, a lot of this has circled run education and a bit on education abutters and so forth. there may be more for nicole. i recently read a book by jonathan hite he was a uva professor now at nyu. i heard nadine strossen who was a former president at aclu who speak your time recently. mentioned what, there is an organization the heterodox academy and essentially it was, my understanding is what jonathan, professor liberal and nadine, also professor has said is that from the '60s in academic world, two out of three professors would be classified as to the left. today at somewhere around 20 to one. their concern is the ability of

students to engage in critical discussion and free speech and what the effect has been on the academic community and wanted to get the thoughts of the panel on that. >> i actually don't think the students are facing many barriers to critical discussion of freedom of speech. i think by large universities face problems on the edges by large, in classrooms and and student groups, students are engaging in really fundamentally they conversations in universities. i think that's a bit of a red herring, but i do agree that universities have changed substantially. just like we were talking but with the media, in the 1940s and 1950s universities were seen the fundamentally conservative institutions. that does change as you bring in more women and more people of color into the professor at, things began to change as

conservatives, withdrawals and from university and the thing thinks and other places. you know, i don't know that suggestions like affirmative action program for concern professors is the right move. that's a legitimate something t people raise but i also think we need to be careful about the caricature of universities as liberal places because academia is still incredibly hierarchical. it's still a place within the professor it women of people, often don't have the voice is heard as much. so i'm all for bringing more conversation. i'm all for making sure students pushing a wide range of views. students who are never challenged in their views leave college less popular than students who are but i don't know there's a way to regulate that change. i think johnson disagrees but it would be difficult to regulate. >> the other point is the

affordability of american universities. the professors are one thing but the student body is almost self-selected like the cogs cas when you talk about, donations to political parties coming from the super wealthy, some of the biggest universities in this country. they had scholarship programs but their student body are quite largely wealthy as well. there's a lot feeding into that but i would agree with nicole in that i think universities have always been home to debate and whether it's in the coffee shops or in the lecture halls that's from the great things about you and people and an appetite to learn and to debate. >> i would agree. very much in favor of diversity on college campuses in every aspect especially in thought. i don't think it's as important whether your chemistry professor votes republican or democrat but there are certainly subject matters which would hope there is a diverse point of view in whatever we could do to help encourage that would be

meaningful. >> thank you all for joining us today. please join me in a plotting our authors today. [applause] and thank you again for june a humanities and please join us up front to a book and have it signed by one of our authors. [inaudible] >> booktv's "after words" of the virginia festival of the book continues now with an author discussion on science literacy, policy and ethics.