internetwork is even harder. that's likely provide lower income students access to affordable internet so homework can just be homework. cox connects to compete. >> comics cox along with these television companies support c-span2 is a public service. ♪♪ >> if you enjoy book tv, sign up for our newsletter using the qr code on the screen. to receive a schedule of upcoming programs, other discussions, book festivals and more, book tv every sunday on c-span2 or anytime online at booktv.org. television for serious readers. >> hello, welcome. it's my pleasure to welcome you on matthew's excellent new book, the 100 year war of

conservatism. this book is both an intellectual and political history of the american rights of the past century. the ideas behind the right and electoral collection in ways the coalition saw power and use power in our politics in the country and the book explores important tensions between populism and conservatism between adventists and purists so gives us a lot to talk about and that's what we will do this morning. do it between the conversation between the books author and you might say one of its subjects, former house speaker paul ryan, practitioner and think about politics in the modern right. matt is senior fellow in here where his work is focused on american politics, a prominent journalist and analyst and author, editor of the washington

free speech. he is the opinion editor and contributor editor of national reviewing columnist commentary magazine. this is his third book and all of them had dealt with the modern life. the former speaker of the house of representatives and served in congress 20 years from 1999 -- 2019 representing the first district of wisconsin. he rose very quickly to serve as chairman of the budget committee and chairman of the ways and means committee and ultimately serve as speaker about three and a half years. i'm sure it felt a lot longer. on nonresidents fellow here now as well as serving on a number of boards. a format will be straightforward and conversational, no formal remarks or opening statements, we will discuss the books and

after some back and forth which i will moderate, we will open up for questions from all of you in the room and also from those of you watching live online. if you are watching online, two ways used can ask questions. by e-mail or on twitter. by e-mail, you can send a question to john rocha at aei.org. on twitter hashtag aei, the right. we can just jump in. first of all, congratulations on important superb book. maybe the way to get started and help folks get a sense of the book is telling us a little bit about why you wrote it and in the way he did, why because the particular character and form. >> thank you for attending and

thank you to aei for providing a home where i could write the book, many years in the making and when you came to me and said you have to read the book, he was able to help me come to aei where i could write it. i think the book began in a few ways. i have a habit, i love reading old journalism and when i started as a political writer in washington 20 years ago, my topic was reading through the archives and magazines where i worked and moving there to the archives of natural review, spectator, commentary magazine, little magazines on the american right. from that it was an education not only in the history but also broader education american politics and culture for the last half-century, it's been something i've been doing in my

spare time for two decades now. after 2012 in particular i began more intensive look investigation into the history of the american rights because the 2012 election you are familiar with the emerging strain and tension within the right between the republican party establishment based in washington and grassroots conservatism throughout the country between various factions within the conservative movement and different ideas and principles put forth in caring for the 2012 seemed to meet the populace moment which i believe began most recent anyway which i believe began in the second bush administration around 2005, six only gaining steam. i wanted to investigate why this was happening and driving this energy.

you reach this path. another reason is i've been teaching this material in some form over the years and my students see that and i found there was no real one volume textbook i could hand a young person and say this is the history. there is some great work in the movement in america since 1945 the key text in my field.

maybe offering starting thoughts, help us think about the questions of the history of the right. why should conservatives care about the history? >> i think we're coming to an inflection like all great countries do and if we lose the country to the left and we lose with the country is all about. for me it's a country declaration, natural law and principles that flow from that should be carried through policies to make sure our country realizes its true potential. if we lose that than we become

like other countries and other democracies. hink it's extremely important, but we're not anywhere close to where we need to be as a movement to be able to realize these things. you know, my background is more fiscal based and i worry about my background is more physical base and i worry about the future with social contractnd ad currency and how much time we have people we can put in place formsn that we have to win a lt of arguments in the country so why is it important? so we can make sure 21st century is a great american century. democracy and self-determination and market and human flourishing is advanced. i want to thank you for giving me a home. [laughter] but we were talking about this is technical, and i came to age in which college 88 to 92, that is the time. and i came into thee

movement as a young person as a think tanker and i came in as a think tanker and member inside a fight which is alive and well, bill clinton had just one and you had returned within the conservative rights and factions fighting one another. this is not new, it happened from the beginning, your book is a perfect example. for young people in this conservative movement and until you have a reagan type person, he will have that fight. we are where we've been before where we go. we don't yet know but it's important that the conservative movement in my opinion becomes the majority movement in the country with respect to winning elections so that we can effectuate policy. so that we can we can we can solve these big problems that are in front of us.

matt you it must be a challenge to decide where to start in a book like this and you mentioned that george nash was a wonderful book. really looks at american conservatism as a kin looks at conservatism as post world war ii phenomena. you don't do that and to put emphasis on the pre-new deal right in the 1920s. what is there to learn now from before the new deal? >> for historians, the two hardest questions are where to begin and what to leave out the two things everyone wants to talk about. why did i begin before the inauguration spring of 1921? at that was important to show the institutions american themselves in.aw conservatism is the defense of

inherited institution. american conservatives are in an unusual place. the institutions we are meant to defend of the institutions created by the americann founding, the constitution, principles of the declaration of independence, political theory of federalist but in 1932, many people on the right believe a revolution had taken place in the nature of the american government and the people on the right were defending inherited institutions of the constitution against fdr and the new deal so that was important to show how conservatives came to define themselves in opposition to the new deal and prior to 1932, where progressivism would settle in the american political continuum was still very much up for grabs. teddy roosevelt aligned with

progressives. he was a successful public and president. woodrow wilson was aligned, not soso successful, in some ways bt not in others democratic president. it wasn't until the 1920s republican party you saw the gop aligned itself against progressivismm and say we are going to define ourselves as the party of americanism or of normalcy and gop was extraordinarily successful. the great depression be legitimized when he claimed to provide prosperity to the average american, world war ii be legitimized rights foreign policy of nonintervention mainstream american electorate and conservatism there we configured itself to the

post-world war ii cold where era that had been told in some places like just remodeled, wrote a very good book on the subject but i wanted to osincorporate that story into te story of the postwar conservative movement and carry it through reagan and the most recent presidency including donald trump. >> in some ways the work you are most engaged in, efforts to reform our entitlement system and think about the role of government depicted by the left as an attempt to restore pre-new deal of america. is there some truth to that? the american right still seeking a way b to recover from an era made by fdr? you can make that gimmick maybe 20 years ago, i think that is the case anymore. i think everyone has reconciled

themselves with what i would call the social contract. the founders gave us a system designed to reach political consensus and when you do that, you consent in the reason we are enamored with the filibuster even when the issue is against us so i don't think that is the case anymore. with old age, low income you have consensus on the right and left this is something government has a role to play in. then if we agree with that, i would argue most agree on the right, if you agree with that, then the question is let's move on making sure that is the case and then you have a fight about left and right and whether the markets, choice, individualism is involved in this or a progressive and you see it as a way governments reach into

people's lives so you think the right has reconciled itself, basically corrected in the period between great society and now it's not to repeal these things but we work these kprograms so they work in the 21st century didn't create crisis will bankrupt the country and use markets and choice and competition as a means of delivering on these goals without slowing down gross and bankruptcy the country. i think you wrote about this, it became clear to w me there's no way he wanted to embrace that other than making good on a promise on w repeal which for me was in this episode, we were one

vote shy getting that done in the senate. it wasn't popular in his mind and therefore wouldn't be pursued. that was frustrating to me but gives you an example of where the right is now which is either we don't touch it or we perform it but repealing it is not in. >> it's always a dilemma in a variety of context so the right fin america so and then with fdr but then lbj. each time they transform themselves and take on new guises, the right often has to do with this as well.

whenever i teach the founding documents of national review and the magazine was launched in 1955, the central protagonist in the story says conservativesea against the new deal, we are sure that there can be any other time aligned with these review principles. for americans in the right today to read that or hear what paul just said, things have changed. what has changed? the small conservative, we don't want to talk about but also the left changed and the left has moved to new territory. in many ways minimum writing over the new deal such as the cultural agenda of the left out of the anti- war in the late

1960s and waxed and waned over the decades. >> bill buckley, it seems to me is the case, he published it with ronald reagan on the cover and you can see why. i think if it were up to you, he would beat on the cover. what was his purpose, what was the movement he had in mind if you think about national review and this massive project starting inat the 50s, was his ambition? >> as he put it, at the young age when he comes out in 1951, 26 years old and he said this to mike wallace in an early interview, a mixed counterrevolutionary and the revolution he wanted to overturn

was fdr, revolution of 1932, the changing nature of the american social contract, deal launched so how did he go about doing this? there are manyio different avens he pursued. the first was institution building. in addition to national review, is also responsible for the creation or paid a part in the clip independent studies, college arm, collegiate network, young american for freedoms all of which continues to this day. he launched musings quarterly human life review of many decades as a place for pro life intellectual work. he did it in terms of trying to build up counter establishment to recruit people who would inhabit institutions and make arguments but treated seriously

by everyday americans watching the four channels they have access to in the 1960s. he also wanted to build fences around conservatism. thee big problem in the aftermah world war ii the post- mccarthy. to the mid- 1950s to the early 1960s was it w was considered a fringed ideology. america was thought to be liberal country not necessarily cap progressive but liberal country, constitution and bill of rights, liberal document and these conservatives after all, buckley was a harsh critic of the popular republican president dwight eisenhower. they seemed a little bit off.

milton friedman in the 1950s and 60s. buckley was concerned making conservatism expected so he began drawing fences around his version of american conservatism going after anti-semitism in conspiracy theories, saying rand couldn't be part of his movement because their atheists think libertarian economist will be part of his movement because he was part of the catalyst atprivatizing everything. national security also played a part. buckley's conservatism was one that engaged national, america should be strong and powerful and also had to be engaged to

roll back the standing army that meant or what defense of our troops alliances like nato and intervention like vietnam there earlier rights would've been skeptical if not outright opposed to so the conservatism bill buckley created in the last part was political working within the republic and party, traditional vehicle of america conservatism to turn it away from moderate republican -- so called me to toward conservatism so he played a big role in this campaign that culminated in 1964 in the nomination, mr. conservatives nomination for president in the republican

ticket. then the goldwater campaign managed by one of the most prominent presidents in this institution walked buckley out of the campaign and he was afraid with national review but that political energy express itself in his early friendship with ronald reagan and even got later in his life where he was willing to intervene in democratic primaries or support democratic candidates in order to get rid of me too, the original need to. >> i came of age at the tail ene and grew up reading those pagesn and i had a conservative

economic -- he gave me a review, i did know what it was. this was the late 80s in college, he said i think you should take this and i'll give you my copy and i just consumed and took to the national review so if you are a young conservative in the late 80s, early 90s, this was the path he took. we have different movements like this. i think buckley of all people for about two or three decades and we still had a bunch of people, john and others, but he was the center of gravity. >> the new american rights which

is if you go by my book about the third new right we had over the last 100 years, i think there's great energy devoted to building up infrastructure that can compete with the conservative infrastructure bill buckley created in the 1950s and 60s and the early neoconservatives helped throw the 70s and 80s, 80s and 90s but that had been missing for this for many years but in the final years of the trump presidency and years subsequent to that, they are building their own infrastructure and it shows the importance of institution. [laughter] because without these institutions, the basis of work and organization, it's just people writing in their

basement. >> buckley created this kind of mainstream through these institutions. in a way it's built around ideas that would be undere virtual in the old right but presented itself the mainstream of the right. within that mainstream and within those institutions there is a dividing line between traditionalists and rotarians, itbetween freedom and fat dividg line became defined in the internal debate of the buckley conservative movement and overtime the attempt to overcome became known as fusion, defining product of the buckley right at least in the 1960s. tell us what fusionism was and what wasbe meant to be and what wasn't. did it make sense as a way to try tos solve the problem withn his own camp?

>> any of the underappreciated figures was a nam man namedea frank meyer, ex- communist who converted to the right from his reading. he became the conservator to right leaning journals like the bremen, the american and associated with national review eventually 15 year editor and frank meyer had been trained in communist dialectic, he thought very dogmatically, this is what conservatism is so these are the parameters in which we operate as american conservatives. buckley would call him air traffic control because hee was making sure the planes were going in the right direction, planning and taking off on time

so in the 1960s, meyer who again has a libertarian strength to him because of his love and appreciation begins disputes with other libertarians on the right over the nature of the american defense establishment whether standing army weapons programs and what the conservatives desired, the policy of communism including military intervention was necessary.f libertarians for the boat everybody knows, the rotarians are noninterventionist because the work willl growth the state gets in the course of a debate with l libertarians that meyer says i'm going to describe to you what american conservatism is and what it is going back to the americanme founding a

synthesis of individual liberty and traditional value, what we call traditional values but moral order and because the american founding took place before great ruptures of 19th century, before frenchbl revolution in 1789, americans have been able to synthesize these two principles, freedom and virtue, liberty and order. so he races essay and his best friend brent junior, bill buckley's brother-in-law and another senior editor atov national review moving toward devout traditionalist catholicism, a convert to catholicism and more and more devout as years went on. he read the essay and said this is ridiculous. freedom is not the end of politics. what you're trying to doo is soe

type of fusion so fusionism is a word that begins with an insult but ends up being appropriated or neoconservatism and this is where the debate begins withinni the american right, can you unify individual liberty and traditional morality the buckley -ites, people associated with national review said you could even if it doesn't necessarily work out in theory, it was revealed in practice and lives of many american conservatives themselves two things can coexist even if it doesn't work in w theory and conservatives, e shouldn't worry, just if their work and practice. eventually broke off it wasn't enough for libertarians who continued to critique buckley

conservatism as to status because the lease you needed powerful military engagement to defeat communism so i see a lot of debate today about the future of fusionism and continue to think it doesn't always work in theory and the closer you look it might break down but does lystill work in practice how people on the right lived their lives. >> let me put it this way for people were used to determine fusionism, the reagan coalition is as an example but when you go to policy meeting going to politics, absolutely fusionism works so try working in congress building a coalition, majority, working majority in congress, it requires fusionism to come together and members of congress, people on the ballot

running forr election except this. they know in a diverse country job working majority have to exist in a coalition of people who come from different regions and backgrounds inside the conservative movement or democratat progressives where yu had to fuse them together so fusionism is essential for practical working majorities to pass laws so in the think tank it's hard to justify and rationalize, hard to stitch it together but when you actually affect politics and practice politics, it becomes essential. >> the coalition that began to be built around this notion took shape to the 1960s in the mid- 70s when the u.s. was an extremely difficult decade and a lot of ways of the story you tell is our extraordinary

vibrant -- seven back in the book, it seems like the most important decade of the ten decades you described in the development of the rights. what happened, how was it different coming out of the 1970s? >> a consistent list answer is new groups came to become associated with the right and american conservatives movement in the lot played out as a result of the overreach of liberalism and radical left during the vietnam era student rebellion during social turbulence of the late 1960s, early 70s. people who would not have identified being on the right and upcoming into alliance witho the american conservatives to

become a question of how american conservatism would deal with these entrants now keep two examples. the first are built gavin, a speechwriter for richard nixon in good writer called streetcorner conservatives. these were conservatives not familiar with russell kirk, great traditionalist author but they were democrats part of fdr's majority coalition late 1960s and 70s they looked on their television screens and read the newspaper and said what has happened? rise in crime, rising drug abuse, dissolving families, democratic bodies backed by the on so they began moving and come

to be known as hardhats because they tend to be blue-collar, not having obtained a college degree so hardhats enter republican coalition an' critical to richard nixon's landside when in 1972 and become part of the right over the years, reagan democrats. they swerve toward 1992 newt gingrich brings them back in 1994. the defendants of the trump silent majority. there's another group as well as comes into the right in the 1970s, neoconservatives. these were liberal anti-communists and democrats who, for the same reason as

hardhats found themselves out of sync with allies in the left hand the democrat party. not all of them make migration to the republic and party in the 70s when irving kristol endorses richard nixon in 1972, it's a scandal and his fellow neoconservatives don't make the jump to the publican party well into the 80s but these intellectuals often well positioned within the liberal establishment are migrating to the right so the national review conservatives have to decide how they fit into the picture. i always remember during my research, editorial the spring of 1971 and national review responding essays and commentary magazines clearly indicative of the editor material that time and moving to the right hand the

title was come on and come up the waters fine. in thero last group of the american t right, religious rigs have been dormant at least of the national political level since the beginning of my story but it's because of federal decisions and judicial rulings in the 70s and also disappointment in the presidency of jimmy carter you see evangelical and fundamentalist christians from the democratic f party into the republican column, the moral majority in 1980ig so the american right los very different to have the reagan revolution because not only does he have the buckley -ites now the hardhats,

neoconservatives and religious rights as well. >> i will add one thing, inside the party when i came of age was the supply side which integrated economics from pain and to hope growth opportunity. bob bartley and "wall street journal", they really reinvigorated and reagan was not a supply side when he was governor, he became a convert to it but i came on the supply side crowd, it really reinvigorated an economic message that unified gpeople. >> where did the supply centers say? >> prickly the monetarists,

chicago rise people like bob mundell who was also a chicago guy, a fight inside chicago, dixon totals off the gold standard in a big monetary policy fight which we never really had before so you had supply ciders bring answers to the problem of inflation, answers to tax reform to achieve economic growth and show how you could have growth and opportunity bring an agenda which bill steiger, wisconsin guy and jack kemp in 1978 and 1981, 82 past tax cuts after passing gains tax and show what it looks like, check kennedys

cutting started because 92% in his day, this is one thing, who wanted fresh evidence of ideas who are posting of the fumes of the reagan revolution and movement and the tax cuts achieving higher income mobility, lower wage workers were getting faster wage growth, we were running on 20-year-old evidence should be a fresh evidence that it does actually work, covid clearly threw a curve ball but the supply side movement was a debate with an establishment ofty the conservative movement when supply sites prevailed and that helped stitched together so all of these threads and strands,

which are a strange combination of ideas and have broughtd together the striking thing, it doesn't really culminate. a lot of history buildup to ronald reagan and then down as they look how far we've come down. that is not the argument you make the book struggles with something every book struggles t with, how do you explain, who was this person and what really did he do? >> i don't think i'm going to -- >> familiar with theut book in biographer and teddy roosevelt and reagan himself.

it depends where you open it up and no idea what was going on in a fictional character in ronald reagan bringing out this person. i don't think anyone did but i'm not so sure about that and think ronald reagan was self-contained and unusual for someone like that. he was always on stage but has had other qualities aswe well which is consequential. one was is very consistent over the decade making sure 1947 in his capacity and the hollywood

gossip interviewing him and what he's talking about, freedom and democracy and american exceptionalism in 1947 and what he says in his farewell address in 1989, very literal in his basic belief systems changes. i think part of it has to do briefly he was very old. born in 1911 and doesn't become republican until he's 51 years old and felt for fdr but he had in his head picture what a miracle is life before the new field but in dixon illinois was america as it should be and the life he lived was how americans should live, everything was there and i was in the phone. a few of the things, was

oriented toward the future, something he picked up. the last week of the camping in choosing, reagan is picking up fdr's on debut, you and i, fdr love that and reagan the same thing. you and me, we are talking and having a conversation in the orientation for the future is unusual for a conservative. as a conservative and looking to the past but here's ronald reagan thinking about the future and then finallyhe some personal characteristics that make reagan standout in the american rights, a person by enjoyed learning and writing about is senator robert

taft mr. republican, representative of the world war ii american entry into the treaty organization robert taft who ran on unsuccessfully severall times would be the firt to tell you that he was not the most charismatic person and conservatives have a tendency to be pessimistic and gosh, the world is going to hell in a hand basket. that wasn't ronald reagan. nothing fazed him so this made him unusual also and made him appealing to parts of the electorate typically when they hear the word conservative for american right, they flinch. >> they think ogre. >> then here comes ronald reagan with a smile and movie star hair and baritone and peopleh, like that's not what i think when i

think conservative in all of these qualities make him an extraordinary figure however, may have been the exception in the history of the american rights and not the will. >> i live about 80 miles upstream from dixon now and the reason i mentioned that is or where i came from, this guide on the river became president of the unitedan states it brought people into looking at a catholic family that was jack kennedy family, it was the entrée into let's see what this is about. that's what a lotop of people fm where i came from, he was entry into conservatism because he had such great face, a great way about him inviting people who never looked at it before to actually look at it so that's

why he. was an amazing intersection and that's why the fusion that occurred, reagan coalition came together because of the unique personality and it is extremely rare. >> he had that with buckley, too. with reagan's departure in 1990 that and the our presidency cut short because of his a alzheimes diagnosis and barclays lengthy retirement, buckley stretched out retirement, he retired from public speaking and then born of national review and one thing he never retired from was columnist. >> he was writing until the day he died. >> the departure of reagan and buckley, you lose those figures almost every part of the right and every faction within american conservatism in this movement saw it as unifying.

without figures like that than the conflictual nature of the american right comes to the floor. >> you entered the political world right after reagan. where did the right think he was headed? >> i was at a thing called power america, they were the heads of the three different movements. working withit people, all products of irving kristol so i really never thought of myself that way and spend a lot of time on foreign-policy those days and we were fighting paley out at the time which was pat buchanan, a little bit of perrault and it was funny, i read the national

review, sullivan and guys like that the national review fighting it wasn't weekly standard yet but i think project for american future i think, the neocons fighting paley o'connor's and other groups in their. when the reagan yearr ended with the defeat of age to be pushed by clinton, a ton of soul-searching was going on in the conservative movement turned inward and shot each other and not until a nominee emerged in this case, w who one and he worked on the compassionate conservatism that never really took hold i would say, never really replaced a solid fusion because of circumstances, wars and the rest, i i won't get into it all but in the post- reagan

era and 92 when clinton won, we were in an internal struggle moving forward, the future of the conservative movement and i think we still are. we have had pauses, we won white houses but never settled into a posture of majoritarian movement capable of racking up instant majorities, presidency and putting in place a governing agenda and that is underway and right now it is dominated by trump which is populism, personality populism which is really not an agenda, a theory of person so we are still in this, i think underneath that is the fight we had in the early 90s, the kind of fight we are having now but with digital. >> how do you think about that turn? in your way you describe it as

similar and continuous and reagan is the exception but there's a way in which populism rose to the forefront in the 1990s, we don't think of it that way now but it was a time when populace and was held and became the face of the right in response to clinton, how do you think about the post- reagan years? >> one of the themes of my book is this relationship between and populism and the irony oftentimes the only inway conservatives get power is to populace politics which conservatives like buckley and meyer i've mentioned often conflicted, this is clearly the reagan election, populism being one of the driving forces, reagan able to synthesize

populism the supply-side agenda and interest of the religious rights, taxcutting, defense buildup in various factions to the american right as well departures from the team, the argument begins anew and i always thought it was interesting, 1988 gop primary was in many ways missed opportunity because who had a moment with the republican party who could have been forced to choose between jack kemp and buchanan. he doesn't run for president in 1988 and waits until 1992 because he recognizes reagan's successors will probably be george h.w. bush was not a regulate. an establishment republican so then we get the fight between establishment republicanism representative by bush and

buchanan in 1992 represented the populist wing, the surgeons of the old right and attitudes for war and port immigration and beginning beginners 90s camping picking up the trade issue asg well so that debate s had but buchanan never is successful. in 2000 he leaves the party and runs for president on the reformed ticket where arrival is a businessman named donald trump and i think buchanan is the first to recognize the irony 16 years later trump would ascend to presidency on many of the ideas he was on buchanan about in the 20000 cycle so at the moment i think the argument in

the favor of populism and conservative writing class that came to power with ronald reagan plastics through the first george bush, moved up to capitol hill during republican revolution and then back down pennsylvania avenue with georges w. bush, that governing class which existed about 30 years has been displaced. >> i looked at my time in congress is to periods, the majority and then lost it when obama came in and we got back in this book i haven't seen in years, young guys.wh [laughter] i was out two to three on that name but our goal with that was to recruit members of congress willing to take tough boats. what happened to our majority

was we got fat and lazy. they ended up recruiting the local county executive or state senator who was the next guy in line who wanted to earmark their way into staying so our movement got intellectually lazy, fat and happy, earmarks and it was kind of ugly and those of t us who we young upstarts did not like that. we lose imagery and many of us argued we deserve this and then recruited people we thought would be willing to take tough boats and excited about the tea party movement so i remember talking in thosee days, the tea party movement was our chance to get supply-side 2.0, 1.0 was agnostic and 2.0 is not. supply-side 2.0 forced progrowth economics, limitedov government, and entitlements under control

and robust foreign policy and the issues of trade and immigration, there was a fight but we sort of pushed it to the side and then we got the majoritybu back but it was divid government, we didn't gett much. >> in retrospect is that really what it was? >> in the beginning but there was a bit of a fight and this is back to the old neo- on supply-side versus paley o'connor. ... really good book about populism back in the 80s. where you could see signs of this where i think the establishment republicans people like me included missed was just the effects of issues like trade and immigration on the forgotten

man, and and how that really played into not just policy, but people's thinking in perception and we were more focused on just the tea party movement re-limiting government kind of a libertarian supply side feel of it all of us more or less agreeing on strong national defense. so the isolationism hadn't crept in yet like it is now at that time and what ended up happening was that what ended up happening was immigration overtook the movement. and the tea party is something like what it is today. there was a moment in time when we really thought we had a shot. when we did finally get our majorities and the republicans which we lost in 2012 people freaked out. it wasn't fun losing in 12 but when we lost in 12 they think people kind of freaked out. and then what happened from my perspective was enough having these nice guys on the ticket. no more nice guys.

let's just send an apex to just throw a hand grenade and the entertainment wing of our party in the digitalit age of cable rs at the same time. thene entertainers replaced the think tank type people the buckley people and the country reactionary movement against the progressive reaction in barack obama through the best entertainer the best bombthrower they could. donald trump was what we could find and they threw donald trump out anyone. >> remember ben carson. >> yeah. it was a rotating lead. >> all outsiders and this i think testifies to theel

importance of the 2012 election. i think you were in the beginning of your first term and had that on a different way the world would be a very different place but i totally agree with what paul is saying that 2012 many people on the right have internalized the idea that barack obama had to be. barack obama had to be jimmy carter reborn and he could only do one term because he was so interested in moving america in a direction in which it had not gone for many years. as he said his mission was to be the progressive reagan to be just as consequential to change but in a similar way. i think he really believed that this was going to be waterloo. this is a battle and win the

election isfo ultra-obama in 202 really by news that think many people on the right were done. >> try being on the ticket. [laughter] >> i can imagine. i can imagine and that made them say all right if we are reaching this point where the input the electoral input we elected scott brownn in massachusetts and obaa passed obamacare anyway. we had the tea party congress but they weren't able to do anything. then in 14 we get a republican wave again that captured the senate and after the election of 2014 obama said oh yeah i heard people voted for republicans in congress and i hear all the people voted for democrats in the people who didn't vote at

all. it's infuriating. the election should matter so i think that's true. a lot of people on the right say we need an external force to comment and shake up the system and that's the only way we are going to be able to achieve any verbal end. they got it. >> i want to open up for questions. you mentioned reissues immigration and trade. those were the issues that broke opens when voters on the right saw this wasn't working. why weren't those issues the teeming consensus that it was an illusion. the right was wrong about what voters wanted in voted for. >> oh it was an allusion. it should have been apparent at

the time. as reporter i was covering the immigration debate in the second term and i work for a magazine where the editors were very supportive of a comprehensive immigration reform that wasty included. my reporter was saying there was no way that was going to happen. republicans in the house would not allow the. and that's when you begin to see appropriate return the grassroots right and conservatives and republicans in washington. of immigration. the wars a bit more complicated because for a while republican voters stood behind their republican president who had launched the war in afghanistan and iraq. beginning in 2007 the rise of ron paul and the liberty movement you see there to there is discontent on the right with

george w. bush's foreign policy. protectionism is i old. more complicated. i think what trump did in coming out against the transpacific. airship for tpp as it was called throughout the campaign was basically provide a concrete symbol for the depths of despair that were ravaging america to the opioid crisis, further rise in alcoholism for -- >> the howling out. >> the unimaginable social crisis.. it's the deindustrialization, h. china injuring into the world trade organization. that's what giving it -- whether that's true that i believe is an empirical question in a complicated question.

politically and this speaks to his shrewdness he did a similar thing with immigration. immigration complicated issue clearly illegal immigration that the republicans and conservatives in a pose. but what happened with the rise of isis in the second half of obama second term after the shootingsdi in san bernardino trump imposes the muslim ban and he's able to take immigration and combine it with national security and all of a sudden we need to close the borders not just to prevent people from coming in who might be searching for jobs but we need to make america safe. and you see how he was able to blend these issues together and 2015 which was something he was

not able to do in 2021. >> let's open up a question. i would only ask that you ask a question rather than make a statement. >> or fraser statement in the form of a question. >> also please wait for the microphone and tell us who you are before recall any other question. let's start in the back. >> hi eliza i work at food way. one reason we are having all these discussions about the new right is that it has become apparent a lot of the tenants of small government conservatism are not that popular with voters like medicare and rolling back the ata. what does that mean for the future of the american right and conservatism? >> i'm working on a big book project here in answering that question at aei and their many of us working on this project.

i think you have to reconcile our life for these programs. the new deal and the settled issues healthou retirement security than the question is how do you go about achieving those in the best possible way to maximize economic growth limited governance and an economy. once you get overr the fact that these programs exist and we have a social contract that we all agree should exist then let's get to the task of repairing them fromm bankruptcy and making them reform in the past and where you go the nation's the left wants government to run at all. they want no private p sector. they want command of resources means of production and they want an extension of their ideology. we want to use the power of

markets and competition to deliver the services that we as a country have reached consensus on. that may sound like -- it's just a radical pragmatism. we are where we are. we do agree that these things are here in should stay so let's get on with business of performing these tasks the right so that we don't lose their reserve currency so we don't have a debt crisis because if that happens imagine what happened with the social contract and theow polarizationf the country and we loseer resere currency. these things explode and then you have a total debtto crisis where you take benefits away from people in real-life,e real-time. that's what would happen if we do nothing. i think conservatives, conserving things is a step ahead of this thing but you have

to win arguments. you have to win a majority and you have to haveoee a president willing to stick his or her neck out to get thishi done. i think that's the path of the conservative movement in the moment right now. >> right here please. >> i think matt you made up passing reference to the iraq war. could it could you address now where the republican voters soured on that concept. i ask that because i thought a powerful moment in the 16 campaign was when donald trump really had a moment early on where he just eviscerated that in a very passionate way. i thought it was a shot but i think his history was pretty spot on and i thought it would really resonate.

i wondered if you could identify when you thought that was soured upon by republican voters. >> it's a complicated question because i think public opinion really began turning against him after the bombing of the mosque and 2006 and the onset of civil war in iraq. where the war against taking control. and public opinion was ambivalent about the policy in iraq sending more troops and yet mccain and romney engaged in a meaningful debate over the surge in the run-up to the primaries in 2008 and the debate that mccain won. with mccain we could still see winning in iraq or achieving stability there that would allow us to exit most of our forces from the country was still

powerful among the republicans however i think what was going on when trump said toby head us into the war iraq was part of it but also much more it was more about ending the bush era. turning the page on the bush era. if you think about the condition of america in 2015 and 2016 clearly we are ending a very polarized presidency in barack obama. the situation over kyiv at that point the situation domestically is not good and yet who did the two parties offer? jeb bush and hillary clinton. another zion of the bush dynasty and you can't get more establishment than hillary clinton on the left.

so he's basically saying bush is over because there was disappointment in the iraq war and they are still huge discontent and opposition to the comprehension -- copper is the immigration reform which judge -- jeb bush had written a book about and the economic legacy of the bush presidency which ended with the global financial crisis and the great recession and that's in the back of voterspu heads. i think that plays a part. i would also say the important moment isri not trump victory in the republican primary. donald trump 145% of the total vote in the republican primary of 2016. had he lost the general election i think the anti-trump forces would still have had a very good position in that debate which is a debate that goes on between

populism's four years is the outline in my book would be unmatched. the decisive moment was when trump went and winning it on a fluke. 30,000 votes i think gave him the electoral college victory a substantial victory. once you become president you are the most famous person in the world the most important person in the world. you are definitely the most important person in your party. you can defined the alternatives and set the agenda. so it's not donald trumpmp women in -- winning the nomination. it's him winning the presidency that transforms thens republican party. >> our time is drawing to a close and there's much more to be said. i wonder if we could end thinking about the future of the right.

this book ends at the end of the trump era may be the end of the trump era to now. we will see where we are. where are we and how do you think based on your thinking about t the past 100 years of te american right have you think aboutt where the right is headed and where the right is looking to what is the future looking like? >> i would say it's very important that american conservatism remember that it's americans. and what makes american conservatism distinct as the founding and the american politicall institution and tradition which has made great stakes towards liberty and freedom. i worry sometimes the right today is drawn to models found in -- which is a different right. it's not an american right. and even though i think the

terrain of our politics has shifted from the argument over the side of government to an argument to the side of less cultural power and public policy may be leveraged. the less cultural power if we offlip that the americans or american conservatism than the right would be something very different than it's been for the and also i write about i would add it will not be able to sustain a political coalition that will attract non-political everyday americans living their lives who want substance and answers. >> i didn't put a lot of thought into these institutions because i was formulating policies. then when i ran the legislative

branch i became a strong institutional list for what you just said basically which is we have to have the conservative movement that is tethered to principals that is uniquely american. i think the blood and soil nationalism which airs the european flavorr r of populism t here on the right disregard the american c idea of a country bad on that law and the reasons for that and i won't get into all of that but to me it's extremely important that the conservative movement are dedicated to the founding principals say you had a standard out of which operate and then it's a movement that can have great debates on policy matters within the sphere of these principals. we won't get to that point until you have a party or movement

that is capable of having a strong party not dominated by just one personality. so this kind of populism is one that's not tethered to principals. we can get two of populism and i think we will that is tethered to principals that have vibrancy and the way look at it just from frankly from a numbers standpointnt with technology and we don't have a whole lot of time to get it right. but i do believe the country is yearning for this. it is still a center-right country. the question is can we put together a movement that can move and can accommodate and can accept different factions in the new fusion that is a center-right fusion that has men and women capable of caring that porch multiple, not just one but that we can win elections

effectuate change, and dodge and the central problems in this country and get us back on track and have a great 21st century. i believe we can but we are not there now and we have got to go through some cycles again i think. >> that is another tend him and we will end there. thehe book is "the right" the 10 year war for conservatism. thank you matthew continetti and paul ryan.