youtube which made a fair amount of money by like giving advertisers in front of videos on iphones and where they could say not only i know where this iphone is but i know this iphone user has watched these particular videos before, click on this ad before, right? i have a lot more data. without that data, the advertising business suffers. one thing had been doing to prepare for that is some machine learning systems to kind of replicate that targeting without collecting the data. they are leaning in on a lot on commerce as a business. so trying to get youtubers to sell things over the platform, which creators have been doing on their own but now youtube is basically building a system to pay commissions. that i think has been in place in part because of regulation and part because of what apple has been doing.

i think you'll see a lot more of that. i think youtube was hoping to expand its business to rely less on advertising for those reasons. >> host: right. well, mark, i think we hit our time. i really appreciate your time and conversation. it was so interesting. i hope everyone reads the book. it was super informative and look forward to watching what comes from here. >> guest: thanks so much for having me. >> booktv continues now. television for serious readers. >> hello, everybody. welcome. i am yuval levin of the american enterprise as a kid and it is my pleasure to welcome you to this conversation about this excellent new book, "the right: the hundred-year war for american conservatism" this book is both an intellectual and the political history of the american right over the past century. it picks up the idea spent the

right, electoral coalition that has come composed it, the e coalition has sought power and use power in our politics, , the weights thought about the country and its future pick the book explores some important tensions between populism and conservatism, between libertarians and traditionalist, between pragmatists and purists. so gives us a lot to talk about, and that is what we will be doing this morning. we will do it through a conversation between the books author matthew continetti, and he might say one of its subjects, former house speaker paul ryan. a practitioner and a thinker about politics and the modern right. a word about each of them, as if they needed. matthew continetti is senior fellow here at aei was work is focused on american politics and critical thought in history. he's a prominent journalist, an analyst and author. he was the founding editor of washington free beacon. he was prior to that the opinion editor of "the weekly standard" cookies also contribute better

in national work queue and the columnist for "commentary" magazine. this is his third book in one way or another all of them that dealt evolution of the modern right. paul ryan is of course the former speaker of the house of representatives. he served in congress for 20 years from 1999-2019 represented the first district of wisconsin. and that time he rose her quickly to serve as chairman of the budget committee adventure of the ways and means committee and ultimately served as speaker for about three and half years. i'm sure it felt like a lot longer, paul. he's now among other things a nonresident fellow with us here at aei as well as serving on a number of boards, , teaching and notre dame and the important work. our format will be straightforward and conversational. no formal remarks, no opening statements. we will discuss the book, its core ideas, put questions to matt, and after some back and forth between matt and paul, which i will moderate, we will open up things for questions,

questions from all of you in the room and also questions from those of you who are watching live online. if you're watching us online there are two ways you can ask questions of matt, i e-mail or if you must on twitter. but i e-mail you can send a question to john roach at aei.org. if you're on twitter you can use the hashtag aei the right. and with that we can just jump in. matt, first of all congratulations on really an important and super book. may be the way to get us started and help folks get a sense of the book is by telling us all a bit about why you wrote it and why you wrote it in the way that you did, why the book as the particular character and form that you've given it. >> great. thank you, yuval. thank you paul for coming in and thank you all for attending a thank you to aei for providing me a home where i could write this book, which has been many years in the making. and finally when yuval came to

me and said you have to write the book. he was able to help me come to aei where i could write it. so i think the book began in a few ways. first is that i have an unusual habit. i love reading old journalism. and when i started as a political writer in washington 20 years ago my hobby was reading through the archives of the magazine why work at the time, "the weekly standard." and then moving from there to the archives of "national review", the "american spectator", "commentary" magazine, all these little magazines on the american right. and from that it was an education not only in the history of the right but also broader education of history of american politics and culture really for the last half-century. that's something i been doing in my spare time for two decades now. however, after 2012 in particular i again in the intensive look and investigation into the history of the american

right. because the 2012 election which you played a pretty big part in, you are familiar with, exemplified to me some of the emerging strains and tensions within the right, between the republican party establishment based in washington and the grassroots conservatism about the country, between various factions within the conservative movement and the different ideas and principles they stood for. also carrying through the 2012, it seemed to me that the populace populist moment which i believe began the most recent timeless moment begin the second bush administration around 2005-2006 was only gaining steam. so i wanted to investigate. why was this happening? what was driving this energy, and when donald trump came down the escalator in 2015, eventually won the republican nomination and in the presidency for next year, i thought history of the american right was all

the more necessary to figure out how we reached this and pass. another reason why i wrote the book that i should mention is i have been teaching this material in some form for over the years, and some of my students are here and happy to see that. and i found there was no real one volume textbook i could just hand a young person and say well, this is the history. there of course were some great works, george nash book the conservative intellectual movement in america since 1945, kind of the key tax of my field. but that book really focuses heavily on the post-world war ii conservative movement and a kind of ends its main body of the text anyway in around the late 1970s. and so i felt it was necessary to broaden the story and tell it in a narrative format in in y that synthesizes both intellectual development along with political developments. so this way i could then just

and wasted specific at about the class can just read this book, or preferably by a couple copies for you and your family. paul, maybe by way of offering some starting thoughts of your own about the book. maybe help us think about the question of the history of the right for conservatives. why should conservatives care about the history of american conservatism? >> well, will it save the country are not? i think were coming to an inflection point like we always come like all great countries do and i think if we lose the country to the left they would lose with the country is about. for me is a country, the constitution declaration rooted in natural law and the principles that flow from that should be carried through in a policies to make sure that a country realizes its true potential. and if we lose that they would lose the left and then we become like other countries. other democracies. so i think it's extremely important but we are not anywhere close to where we need

to be as a movement to deal, to even realize these things. my background is more cisco-based and everybody inflection points in the future with the dash of how much time to have before you put in place some important reforms will have to win a lot of arguments in a country before we can do that. so why is it important? it's important so that we can make sure that the 21st century is a great american century, that democracy and self-determination and markets and the rest are, and human flourishing is advance which is what we worked here at aei. i, too, what you think aei a home so i could read -- [laughing] but we'll talk about this over her a second ago. when i came to age i was going to call some 88-92 so that kind of time. i came a political came a political age in the reagan moment tom and i came into the conservative movement as a young person, as a think tanker and then as a member inside a fight

for this to solve the republican party which was likable. no clinton had just one and you had a big churn within the conservative movement and different factions fighting one another. this is not new. this is happen from time, from the beginning on. your book is a perfect example of that. for new young people who are shocked at this infighting so to speak of the conservative movement this is what happens in movement. that until you have a big standardbearer, a reagan type person, you're going to have that kind of fighting. 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 a majority movement in the country with respect to winning election so we can effectuate policy so that we can solve this big problems that are in front of us. >> matt, it must be a challenge to decide where to start in a book like this, and you mentioned george nash wonderful

book relates that american conservatives as an post-world war ii phenomenon. you don't do that and to put a lot of emphasis on the prewar right, the pre-new deal right beginning in the 1920s. why? what is there to learn now from them right before the new deal? >> yeah, i think for a historian the two hardest questions are where to begin, and then what to leave out. of course those are the two things of human wants to talk about and criticize your book once it is written. why did i begin in warren harding said inauguration of the spring diking 21? i thought that it was important to show the institutions that american conservatives saw themselves defending. if conservatism is the defense of inherited institutions, american conservatives are in an unusual place. the institutions we are meant to

defend our the institutions created by the american founding, the constitution, the principles of the declaration of independence, the political theory of the federalists. but in 1932 many people in the right believed that a revolution have taken place in the nature of the american experiment, in the nature of the american government. and that they, the people on the right, were defending the inherited institutions of the constitution against fdr and the new deal. so i thought it was important to show how the 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 allied with the progressives that of course he was a very successful republican president. woodrow wilson aligned with

progressives. he was a not so successful -- successful in some ways not in other ways, democratic president. it wasn't until the 1920s with the republican party of harding and coolidge that you saw the gop aligned itself against progressivism and say that we are going to define ourselves as the party of americanism, or is harding famously put it, of normalcy. and gop of an aching twins was extraordinary successful, but events, the great depression, delegitimize the gop is going to providing for the a average american. world war ii, delegitimized the rights foreign policy of nonintervention in the eyes of the mainstream american electorate. and so contracts conservatism there had to reconfigure itself for the post-world war ii cold war era. that part of story had not been told it had been told in some

places, figures like justin reimann who considered himself in the traditional old right way who wrote a book of the subject and want to incorporate that story into the story of the postwar conservative movement and then carry it through reagan and the most recent presidencie presidencies, including donald trump's. >> paul, in some ways the kind of work that you are most engaged in, the efforts to reform, our entitlement system, and think about the role of government are often depicted by the left as attempts to restore pre-new deal america. is there some truth to that? is the american right still seeking some way to recover from an error made by fdr, or you could make that argument maybe 20 years ago. >> i don't think that's the case anymore. i think everyone has reconciled themselves with this. i guess i'll call the social contract. i think the country, and look, the country the founders give us

a system that was designed to reach political consensus and when you do that you do big things. it's one of the reasons why we're all enamored with a filibuster even when the issue cuts against us. so i don't think that that's the case anymore. let's just take the social contract which is health and retirement security. for the old age, for low income. you have consensus on the right and the left that this is something that government has an important role to play in. so then the question, if we agree with that and i would argue most do agree on the right. if you agree with that in the question is, let's move on with making sure that that's the case, and then you have a fight about left and right about whether markets, where the choice, individualism is involved in this, or if you're a progressive you see it's a way of extending governments reach into people's lives, extending progressivism. i do think the right has reconciled itself with the social contract which is basically erected in that time between new deal and great

society, and now it's a question this is what our budgets while about which is not to repeal these things but to rework these programs so that they were actually, so that they work in the 21st century, didn't create the debt crisis, didn't bankrupt the country, and used markets and choice and competition as a means of delivering on these goals without hamstringing the country come slowing down growth, creating a reserve currency run in bankrupting the country. i think we are there. populism. look, i think you wrote about this. he and i fought about medicare and antitumor reform all the time. it became clear to me that there was no way he wanted to embrace that, other than making good on a promise on repeal and replace which really for me was a reform episode and we will invoke shive getting that done in the senate. it wasn't popular in his mind and, therefore, it wasn't going to be pursued. that was always really frustrating to me but that gives

you an example of where the right is now, which is either we don't touch it, or we reform it. but repealing it is not in the cards so i think that answers your question. >> it's always a dilemma for the right in a variety of contexts. which left its responding to. and so the right in america's always kind of fell on the defensive because first this has to do with the progressives and then has to do with fdr, but then it has to do with lbj. cola, now we're in the obama era, dealing with that left her weaving with a great awoken as we meet here today, another left. each time they transform themselves and take on new guises. the right often has to do it as well. i was struck, whenever i teach the founding document of "national review" when the magazine was launched in 1955, william f. buckley jr. who is in

many ways the central protagonist of my story, says that conservatives who are against the new deal and in parentheses and were not sure if there can be any of the kind, all are lined with national abuse principles. now, for an american on the right today to read that order here what paul just said, say hello, clearly things have changed. what has changed? passage of time, and that small c conservative instinct of just well, we don't want to rock the boat. but also the left has changed, too. the left has moved on into new territory. so many ways we are not fighting over the new deal as so much as the cultural agenda of the left which really comes out i think of the antiwar and countercultural movements of the late 1960s and as ebbed and flowed -- waxed and waned over the ensuing decades. >> i want to pick up on what you

said about bill buckley being the central character of the book. that seems to me to be the case in reading the book. your publisher put ronald reagan on the cover. you can see why i think if it were up to you you with that bill buckley on the cover. what was william f. buckley doing? what was his purpose? what was the movement he had in mind to create, everything but "national review" and the rest of the massive buckley projects starting in the 1950s, what was his ambition? >> i think his ambition as he put it at that young age when he comes out on the scene in 1951 1 with "god and man at yale", he's about 26. his ambition was any set this to mike wallace and an early interview he said i'm a counterrevolutionary, and the revolution he wanted to overturn was fdr's revolution, the revolution of 1932, the change in the nature of the american social contract, the new deal launched. so how did he go about doing

this? there are many different avenues he pursued. the first was institution building. so in addition to "national review" he was also responsible for the creation of, or played a part in the creation of the intercollegiate studies institute, isi, it's college arm, the collegiate network, the young americans for freedom, all of which still continue to this day. he also launched magazines, a quarterly the human life review which existed for many decades as a place for pro-life intellectual work. he did it in terms of trying to build up a counter establishment, to recruit people who inhabited these institutions who would make conservative arguments, but it would be treated seriously by everyday americans watching the four channels that they had access to

in the mid-1960s, right? he also won to build fences around conservatism. the big problem of the american right in the aftermath of world war ii in the post-mccarthy period, so the big 1950s carrying through the early 1960s, mid 1960s, was that it was considered a fringe ideology. america was thought to be a liberal country if not necessarily a p progressive one but a liberal country. the constitution and bill of rights liberal document, and these conservatives who after all buckley was a harsh critic of the popular republican president dwight eisenhower. these conservatives just seemed a little bit odd. the intellectual tides were all in the area of government expansion and regulation. figures like frederick i, milton friedman, fringe in the 1950s and '60s.

buckley was very concerned in making conservatism respectable, and so he began drawing fences around his version of american conservatism. and going after at the semitism, going after conspiracy theories saying that ayn rand couldn't be part of his movement because of her atheism. saying that the libertarian austrian economist murray rothbard couldn't be part of his movement because he was an an article capless, right? he would privatize everything, get rid of the state totally. national security also played a big part in this. his conservatism was one of engaged nationalism. america should be strong, america should be powerful and defend itself but also had to be engaged in the world to defeat, to roll back the soviet union. that meant a large military establishment, a standing army. that meant for defense and

forward deployment of our troops. admit i liked his like native equipment intervention like vietnam, all of which the earlier right would have been extremely skeptical if not outright opposed to. so this was the version of american conservatism that bill buckley created. the last part, part of his legacy was political. working within the republican party to the traditional vehicle of american conservatism, to turn it away from the moderate republicanism, the so-called me too, and toward conservatism. and so he played a big role in the early draft goldwater campaigns that culminated in 1964 in very cold waters nomination, mr. conservatives nomination for president on the republican ticket or ironically then the goldwater campaign which was managed by one of the most prominent presidents of this institution, locked buckley

out of the campaign. he was afraid come he was afraid goldwater would be associated with "national review" and bill buckley. but that kind of political energy also expressed itself in his early friendship with ronald reagan and even, you know, got to the point later in his life when he was willing to intervene, buckley that is, in democratic primaries, or support democratic candidates including one joe lieberman for senate in connecticut in order to get rid of the original me too. >> i came of age at the tail end of this so i studied the austrians in college and friedman and grew up reading bob bartley pages, and i had a conservative econ professor who gave me this issue of "national review." i did know what it was. as in the late 80s in college. he said i think you should take

this and you should, i'll just give you my copy when i'm done with it every week, and then i just consumed it and really took to the "national review." so if you were a young budding conservative in the late '80s and early '90s, this is the path you took and this is a movement you came into. and so we have different movements like this in different times when people are coming of age in the concert movement. at a think buckley of all people very much dominated for about two or three decades. the conservative ecosystem. nevertheless, we still had come used to let a bunch of people, you know, john birchers and others, there was a big fight, but he was the center of gravity. i think you didn't put reagan on the cover, exactly you should put buckley. >> i would say in all the debates were having at the moment over the new american right, which is if you go by my book, the third new right we've had over the last hundred years, i think there's great energy being devoted to building up an

infrastructure that can compete with the conservative infrastructure that bill buckley began creating in the 1950s and '60s, and then the early neoconservatives helped build throughout the '70s and 1980s and '90s. so that, that had been missing for this new right for many years, but now in a final years of the trump presidency and in the years subsequent to that i think they're building their own infrastructure. it just shows you you will appreciate this point, , yuval, the importance of institution, right? because without these institutions, without these spaces to work and for organizations, it's just people writing in their basements. >> buckley created this kind of conservative mainstream through all these institutions in a way it was built around ideas that would've been very controversial

in the old right, but presented itself as as a consensus, asa mainstream of the right. .. dividing line between traditionalists and libertarians. between freedom and tradition and that dividing line came to >> between freedom and traditions and that is the dividing line seem too define debates of theer conservative in overtime, the attempts to overcome those divisions, became known as fusionism in the sort of defining project of the buckley right, at leastbe in the 1960's, beginning man and tell us about what fusionism wasn't what it was meant to be and what it was not, and really make sense as a way to try to solve the problems the buckley was confronting with his uncapped. >> i think one of the underappreciated through the market price was a man named frank meyer and asked communist, who converted to the right is

meeting of the root system. he became a contributor to any of the right-leaning journals like freeman and like the american history that he became associated with national use that eventually this editor national review. and frank meyer, he had been trained in communist dialectic and polemic and so he thought very dogmatically is what conservatism is and so these are the parameters in which we are going to operate as american beconservatives. buckley used to call them air traffic a controllers because he was making sure that all the lanes going the right direction and letting and taking off on time. it's on the 1960s, meyer who again has libertarian strengthen him, because of his hello and

appreciation. it actually have begins the dispute with other libertarians on the rights over the nature of the american defense establishment weather standing army and weapons program and with the right conservative is sawyer of policy the communist including military and in prevention was necessary libertarians, coarsely and up the quote the note, the stated libertarians are noninterventionist because therv tewar will blow the state and reduce individual freedom. so was in the course the debate with libertarians that the myers the bucket, i'm going to describe the you when american conservatism is heard at what if american conservatism is, tracing back to the american founding's, is a synthesis, have individuals liberty and traditional values and what would call traditional values

moral order. and because the morgan county took place before the great ruptures of the 19th century before the french revolution in 1789, americans have been able to synthesize these two principles. freedom and virtue, liberty in order. edit this essay called the twisted tree of liberty, separate essay in his best friend, was bozo jr., bill buckley's brother-in-law and another senior editor at national review and it was moving towards very devout traditionalist catholicism at this time he was entered catholicism and became more and more devout as the years went on. he read frank's essay and he said well that's ridiculous. freedom is nothing it a politics. osha try to do frank is some type infusion. the fusionism is one of those words that was an insult millions of being appropriated

senate by a target or neoconservatism. >> this is where the debates began really was in the emerging right and can you unify individual liberties and traditional morality. in the buckley height of the people associated with a national review said you could pretty and even if it does not necessarily were god in thievery, as revealed in practice. it was revealed the lives of many american conservatives themselves that se these two worked they can coexist even if it does not quite working theory by by the way, is conservatives, we cannot worry about whether it works in theory or not. we only be concerned about whether it works in practice. but that was not enough for brazil on the religious rights and eventually broke off from buckley's american conservatism it was not an effort libertarians, who continue to critique buckley's conservatism as to status because of its belief that you needed a

powerful military and engagement with the world in order to defeatot communism itself i thik that is the a lot of debates today about the future in fusionism and i continue to think that yes, doesn't alwayshe work in theory, in effect the closer you look, it might break down. but it does still working practice when you look at how people on the right and in the main actually lived their lives. >> let me put it this way, for people not used to determine fusionism, the rating coalitions an example of when you go to effectuating promising meaning going to politics, absolutely fusion has immersed and dry working in congress having a coalition of a majority or majority in congress, the requires fusionism to come together and members of congress, people who are on the ballot and running for election, they accept this. they know that inrs a big divere country, they have a working majority, they have to coexist in a coalition of people who

come from different regions from different backgrounds and different philosophies within the test of the conservative movement or the grants say the progressives. where you had a fuse together so is just fusionism is absolutely essential to have practical working majorities to pass laws and so, in the think tank, it is harder to justify and rationalize and is harder to stitched together when you're actually affecting politics governor practicing politics, he becomes essential. >> the collision that began to be built on the notion took shape through the 60s and in the 70s onn the united states experienced what we do see is an extremely difficult decade in a lot of ways. the storytelling the smoke is a story of extraordinary vibrancy and i think i would say stepping back from the bucket, 1970s, seemed like the most important

decade of the tenad decades that you described in theme developmt of the right one having to the right in the 70s and how was it different coming out of the 1970s and going into them and why. >> i thank you so supposed to answer that question is that new groups came to become associated with the right and the american conservative movement during the 1970s. a lot of it played out as a result of the overage of liberalism and the radical left during the vietnam era and during the student rebellion and during the social turbulence of the late 1960s, early 1970s. people have not identified has been on the right, and coming into an alliance with the americans conservatives and so it became question about american conservatismns with del with these new entrants and i will give two examples. the first of what will gavin

speechwriter richard nixon, very dgood writer. he called it streetcorner conservatism and these are conservatives who are not familiar with russell kirk come the great traditionalist author but they in fact, often with democrats and they were part of fdr's majorityet coalition it ad in the late 1960s, and early 1970s, they looked on televisionws screens over the newspapers and they said, what is happening to my country rising crime, rising drug abuse, and dissolving families. democratic artie an argument over to vietnam and the new rights resolutions taking place to begin moving into the republican column. they come to be known as the hardhats. because attentively blue-collar

and tend to be not having obtain a college degree and they enter this republican coalition and they are critical to richard nixon's website went in 1972. they become part of the right over the years there were the reagan democrats. they swerved towards perrault in 1992, and new leaders bring them back in and 94. the defendants are descendents anyway of their the trump silent majority or the forgotten man. as of the roof as well that comes into the right in the 1970s and those of the neoconservatives. these were liberal anti-communist and democrats who for the samehe reasons as the hardhats on found themselves out of sync with our allies on the left with an erratic party. in all of it migration to the

republican party in 1970s, when irving kristol, endorses richard nixon in 1972, it's a scandal. in many of his neo- conservatives don't actually makeel the jump into the republican party until well into the 80s but these neoconservative intellectuals who are often well positioned within the liberal establishments, now moving and migrating to the right. as of the national review conservatives have to decide how do these neocons fit into the picture. i have always remember the moment that i rated in research, and editorial and the spring of 1971, and the national review responding to essays and commentary magazines, clearly indicative of the other commentary at the time, moving to the right. in the title of this editorial was come on in the water is fine. as of the welcoming them in. in bringing in the neo- cause

and finally lots with it enters the picture in the market right in the 1970s, religious rights. so, the religious right have been dormant in many ways the least that the nationalio political level since the scopes trial since the beginning of the majority. but it is because the federal decisions and judicial rulings in the 1970s and also because the disappointment in the presidency of jimmy carter and you see evangelical fundamentalist christiansunti me on moss from the party into the the vehicleolumn in was the moral majority in 1983 as of the american right was very different once you have the reagan revolution because not only doesn't have have the buckley ice, i know has hardhats that it now has the neoconservatives in the religious rights as well. >> i would add one thing, inside of the party, that's when he became of age, this movement

which really reinvigorated economics within the conservative movement from korean prosperity comes to pain-and-suffering to growth and opportunity so bob and belmar leffler and others and bob crown of people with the wall street journal editorial pages really reinvigorated and regular was not a blindside when he was governor and became a convert to it with jack and mufflers from california.pl but that really that is what god while i became into the supply-side brothers my entrance the moment that that really reinvigorated that economic it message they invite people. that is a key sticking in a coalition together. >> one of the supply-side are say to the party. weekly with aas big fella monitors the chicago, 3 percent of which was people like bob mindel w who was also chicago guy and there is of a fight inside of chicago

university of chicago, and started a movement which was seldom any because nixon took us off the gold standard and get a big monetary policy fight which we never really had before during the gold standard. so you had supply-side birds answers to the problem of inflation in bringing answers to tax reform and to achieve economic growth and reallyy you know show how you could have growth and opportunity and to bring in an agenda which bill steiger coming from a wisconsin guy, inject, 1978, and then in 1981 and 82, they pass the camp tax after having passed another tax card i showed what it looked like the basically prove it supply-side actually was jack kennedy, got started because 92 percentrg top margin in that day but they proved it via dennis for thesh things we do wh

tax reformers wanted to have fresh evidence of our ideas because we are all posting on the view of the reagan revolution and movement camp tax cuts whichch was achieving highr income mobility, lower wagee workers forgetting passed with a wage growth and opportunity was occurring because of supply side economics and we were running on 20 -year-old evidence person put back in place as we got fresh evidence that yes, it does actually work, andle covid-19 clearly threw a curve ball i would say that the supply-side movement was a debate within the establishment of the republican party and conservative movement and the supply-side be held and pastor ideas and not really helped stitch this fusion coalition together in my opinion. >> and all of these fluorides the strands of the 70s, which when you look at this year and you describe them a strange combination of ideas. the peculiar evolution for thehe right, really brought together

ultimately by ronald reagan. in a thing about your book is that it does not really culminate in reagan and a lot of people the right bill of ronald reagan in the down from ronald reagan they say look how far we have come down. that is not the argument that you make anyway, the book struggles about every back in the right and the left over the years and they had to struggle with how do you explain ronald reagan and who is this person and what really did he do to call he drove his biographer crazy i don't think i'm going to be able say. >> this is an example of being driven crazy. >> is book dutch, edward great biographer of teddy roosevelt admission marine himself to write his biography is a little book in parts of it are yes will depends on where you e will putt up i can be excellent there are the parts were more snow that he gets no idea what it was going

behind the smile. as we had agreed to self is a fictional character and ronald reagan's biography to try to break out this person a and i don'tle think anyone penetrated the smile feeling say the nancy reagan didn't i'm actually not so sure about that either. i think that ronald reagan absolutely self-contained. and very very unusual for someone like that and he was always on stage. but he and other qualities as well which i think make him important inconsequential prayed one was that he was or his beliefs were very consistent over the decade million shows up in my story 2047 testifying in hise capacity president to the actors guild hitting on hopper who was hollywood gossip columnist and she interviewed him about ron what he thinks had what is talking about, freedom and democracy in american exceptionalism in 1947, is

almost words for word what he says in his farewell address to the nation january of 1989, very literal and is basic belief system. very little changes and i think part of that has to do briefly, with the fact that he was very old. he was very old he was born in 1911, does not become a republican until is 51 years old he votes for fdr four times. but he hadn't w said a picture f what america was like before the new deal and again this is about the practice rather than the theory for him in illinois, whiles america and that life that he lived by the rock river was how americansth should liven teverything there and that wasn his bones. he was always very much oriented toward the future andck i think this is something that he picks up from fdr and you look fdr and

speecheses than you look at rean reagan's famous address and very 96goldwater in the last week in 1964 reagan is picking up fdr's tips want to do with destiny and you and i and if your loved that in writing to the same thing and were having a conversation and the kind of orientation towards the future is unusual to say for a conservative as a conservative, looking to the past here's ronald reagan was thinking about the future. and there's personal characteristics that make reagar set out in the kind of pantheon of the recognize. the person i really enjoyed it right reading about it only about senator robert taft, mr. republican. representative thatam prequel me to write a post americans

entering into the treaty organization after the work but robert taft who ran unsuccessfully for the republican nomination several times, we the first to tell you that he was not the most charismatic person around and conservatives you have this tendency to kinda be very pessimistic i and gosh the world is going to heck and handbasket know, but that was not ronald reagan, nothing patient does make him unusual and automated make themap appealing to partiay electric that typically when they hear the word conservative or american right, they flinch. >> they think a c luger or neanderthal and then here comes ronald reagan with that clip and a smile with a movie star care in the downtown anymore like oh, that's not what to think of when i think conservative. all of these qualities made him such an extraordinary figure and cons which will present who who

however may have been the exception history of the market right and not the rule. >> i live about 80 miles upstream from there now and there is a mention that is because press roy came from, this guy don't hundred, he just became president of the united states and this is amazing and draw people intoe looking out come from an irish catholic family county family, and it was entering into, let's see what this is all about is where a lot of people for my family were like where i came from and wisconsin, he was an entry into conservative mutism and because he is such great face and a great way about him, that he was inviting people have never looked at before to actually look at it so that is why he was such an amazing interception in time and that is why the fusion that occurred in the reagan collision, really came together

because of a unique personality that's extremely rare. >> he had buckley to so with reagan's departure in 1989 and of course pressed presidency got cut short because ofan his alzheimer's diagnosis in 1994, then with buckley's kind of ylengthy retirement, buckley really stretched out his retirement at first he retired from public is speaking and then he retired from the board of national review and one thing that he never returned from was the syndicated columnist. >> is writing today. >> and with the departure of reagan buckley to me lose these figures. almost every part of the right, and certainly, every faction within american conservatism in the conservative movement, so this is unifying and without figures like out in the preciousness, the conflictual nature of the american rights, comes to the floor.

>> hall, you entered the political world here to washington right after reagan the right think that it was headed after reagan. >> we were in a big fight u.s. while i was at think tank lofgren american, jean protect rick and bill bennett and jack kemp, they were the fusion right there physically the heads of the three different movements. working with people project for megan future cast till and crystal those guys, they all are products of urban stole and so i never really thought of myself as a new con is much as it supply-side or did not spend a lot of time in foreign policy in those days we are fighting the aerial accounts of the time which was beginning a little bit of pro and it was funny because i grew up on red from college on, the national review but it was from rose and guys like that over the national review

fighting it was not standard yet but i think it was project of american fusion. and so you had the neocons fighting the paleo cons and some of the groups in their and point being, when reagan air ended in for the defeat of hw bush by clinton, soul-searching was going on hannah conservative movement interned in word showed have each other and on until his teddy bear merchant meaning in albany this case it was w who one and then he worked on the compassion conservatism but i never really took hold of insane and overly replaced a solid diffusion because of circumstances. the wars and the and i won't get into it all but in the post- reagan era and 92, when clinton one, we were in an internal struggle in the conservative movement for the future of the conservative movement and i

think that we still are frankly think that we have had pauses we've won some white houses but we have never settled into a posture of a majoritarian center right movement is capable wrecking have consistent majorities and presidencies putting in place governing agenda for the 21st century right now is dominated by trump which is not populism them just pure on tethered populism and personality populism which is really not an agenda come as a theory or a person as i think that we are still in this term anything underneath that, as it had a fight that we had in the early 90s and kind of fight that we are having out but with digital. >> map, do you think about that in a way your book describes a post- reaganil rights as through similar and continuous with the creek reagan price and reagan is a kind of exception but what

work where, there is a way in which populism rose to the forefront and 1990s, we don't think of the '90s that we know. it was a b time when the populim was held in some way this really became the face of the right and responsible clinton otherwise how do you think about the post- reagan years. >> welcome one of those big think of my book is this relationship between conservatism and populism and the irony is that often time the only way conservatives get into power through populist politics. in which conservatives like buckley and myers were missing were often conflicted about this is clearly evident in the ring election. the populism being one of the driving forces of radiance drives and reagan able to synthesize populism with the supply-side agenda and with the interest of the religious right edit with the texas cutting in

the defense buildup in all of the areas factions of the market right as well. it is departure from the scene, his argument begins anew and i've always thought it wasin interesting and 1988 come the gop primary, was in many ways this opportunity because you had a moment there when the republican party could been forced to choose between jack kemp, and bus and buchanan. pat doesn't run for president in 1988, he was until 1992 because he recognizes smartly the reagan success is probably going to be george w. bush who was known reunite and who was established republican so there we divide between the establishment republicanism and represented by bush and buchanan in 1992 representing the populist wing and representing the resurgence

of thees attitudes towards war d immigration and really beginning and buchanan's 90s, the campaigngn picking up the trade issue as well becoming more protectionist pretty and so that debate to, the buchanan was relatively never successful than in 2000, he leaves the republican party veterans were present on the reform ticket to one of his rivals is a business man named donald trump. i think buchanan is the first to recognize the irony 16 years later, the trump would get the presidency in many of the ideas that was - buchanan about in the 2000 cycle. some of the time or at the moment it, i do think the argument has been settled in the forces of populism in the conservative governing class

they came to power with ronald reagan, lasted through the first george bush was kinda moved up to the capitol hill during the republican revolution and came back down pennsylvania avenue with george w. bush neck conservative governing class is really about 30 years had been displaced be ♪ ♪ what i saw my little my time in congress is sort of two. where the majority in the lawsuit and when obama came in and we got it back and i saw this book. [laughter] >> i was out o two - three on te name but our goal was with that plan was gomb out and recruit members of congress who wanted to take the toughness because when it happened to her majority was that we got fat and lazy and they ended up k recruiting and over the local county executives of the state senator who has the

next going mine who just want to earmark their way to standing office and so are movement got intellectually lazy have hade a happy we had earmarked and then this kind of those sort of young upstart in those days in the house that was really did not like that we lose a majority many of us argued that we deserve to lose it which then we went out to recruited people that we fought and it proved true we thought they would be willing to take the tough votes and we were excited about a tea party moments i remember talking with a bunch of people in the limit in those days which was the tea party movement it west are chance to you supply-side 2.0, andnd at one point i was agnostic on the side of government in 2.0 is not and so the supply-side to widow was progrowth economics and limited government and entitlements underen control and robust foren policy. ... pushed that to the side and then

we we really tap the tea party movement. we got the majority back. but it was in divided government. so we really couldn't effectuate much in retrospect call. is that what the tea party movement really was in the beginning it was but there was a bit of a fight and this is back to the old neo-con supply side versus the paleo-cons. that's what we call the back in those days. traded immigration versus the other trade and immigration versus in operations and hide site looking back, we didn't understand, i think in this is where we made mistakes, we didn't understand the power of the issues and back in the 80s you could see signs, or the establishment republican people like mepl included, the effects of issues for trade and immigration and how that played into not just

policy but people's perception and we were more focused on the tea party movement, libertarian supply-side, all of us agreeing on strong national defense to the isolationism hadn't crept in is now and what ended up happening was i i think the trade and immigration overtook the movement and it morphed into something like a wt it is today so there was a moment in time where we thought we had a shot. we got finally our majorities which we lost in 12, people ckflock freaked out, it wasn't n losing in 12. [laughter] but when we lost, i think people freaked out. what happened was i'm not having nice guys on the ticket, let's just send loss to robert throw a hand grenade.ar

with the digital age of cable rose at the same time so i think the entertainers were placed, the buckwheat ice and the country reactionary moment movement against progressive reactionary barack obama through the best entertainer, the best mom you could. he was inside entertainer and and they threw donald trump's at it and he won. >> and remember ben kherson -- >> he was for about a month or so. >> all outsiders and it testifies the importance of the 2012 election. i think we'd be in the beginning

of your first time a presidency had ah going a different way. the world would be a different place that i totally agree that 2012 was the sense that many people in the right internalized the idea that because of american exceptionalism barackk obama had to be jimmy carter and he could only be one because it was so good in moving america in a direction we have not gone on for many years. the progressive reagan, just as consequential change politics in a similar way. it's going to be water, it's the battle and when election is called for obama election night 2012 so early in the evening by

the 11:00 news, i think many people on the right are done. >> try being onn the ticket. [laughter] >> i can imagine. that made them say if we are reaching for the electoral input, we left the massachusetts but obama doesn't, we have the tea party congress but not able to do anything. then in 14 we get a republican wave again and it captures the sudden. after the election in 2014 obama says i heard the people voted republican in congress but here the people whoe voted for democrats and those who didn't vote atpe all and i will come fr those people, it's infuriating. the elections should matter and they didn'tt think it drove a lt

of people to say we need an outsider, external force to come in and shake up the system and the only way will be able to achieve our goals and they got it. >> i want to open up the questions so think of your questions but one follow-up, he mentioned three issues,ti immigration, war and trade. those were the issues where it broke open after voters in the right thought this wasn't working. does that really mean the consensus on those years was an illusion, the right was wrong about with the voters one? >> an illusion, it should have been apparent even at the time. as a reporter covering the immigration debate during the second term no work for a

magazine for the editors were supportive of the company as of immigration form that would include it but my reporting said there was no way that would happen because even if it passed the senate republicans in the house would not allow it because they were hearing it and that's when you begin to see real break with clean the grassroots right and conservative publican establishment here in washington over the immigration. the war is more complicated because for a while republican voters stood behind their republican president t who washd the wars in afghanistan beginning in 2007 the rise of ron paul liberty movement you see there is discontent on the right with george w. bush foreign policy. protectionism is more complicated.

i think what trump did coming out against the partnership throughout the campaign was provided a concrete symbol for the despair ravaging america. the opioid crisis for the rise in alcoholism for this unimaginable crisis, he said that's the deindustrialization, china's entry into the world trade organization china, that's giving this. whether it's true, i believe it's an empirical obligated question. politically it is brilliant and speaks to the trueness with

immigration, obligated issue really illegal immigration something republicans, conservatives oppose with what happened with the rise of isis in the second half of obama's term afterrn the shootings in sn bernardino trump proposes the muslim fans and he's able to ratake immigration and combine t with nationaldd security and all of a sudden we need to close the borders, not just to prevent people from coming in might be searching for jobs but we need to make america safe. you see how he's able to spread issues together in 2016, something he was not able to do in 2020. >> let's open it up for questions. i'd only ask you do ask a

question rather than make a statement. >> in the form t of a question. >> please wait for a microphone and tell us who you are when we call on you for question. >> i work at ordway. one reason we are having these discussions has become apparent, the small government conservatism is popular with voters, social security and medicare are politically toxic now so what does it mean for the american right? >> i'm working on a project here answering that, there are about 18 of us working on this. you have to reconcile life is

programs like we t said, no dea, these are several issues and then theou question is how do yu go about achieving those? the best possible way to maximize number gross, limited government in your economy so once we get over the fact that these programsav exist we have social construct we all agree should exist, then let's get on to the task of repairing them from bankruptcy and making them perform the best. where you think of his left government to run at all, no private sector, they won't command a resources, means of production and use it as an extension of their ideology. want to use therk power of marks and competition and deliver services we as a country reached

consensus on. that may sound like me to, it's just radical pragmatism. we are really are and agree these things are here and should stay so let's get on with business performing the tasks the right waydo so we don't lose reserve currencies for have a debt crisis because of that happens imagine what happens in the social constructe in chaos and polarization ofrs the country's record on the past ten, 20 years and lose reserve currency, these things explode and then total debt crisis with real-time surgery taking benefits from people in real life, real-time. that's what would happen if we do nothing. conserving these things not just up ahead but to win majorities, you have to have a president willing to stick their neck out to get it done. i think that's the key task of

movement for the moment right now. >> i think you made a passing reference to the iraq war. the republicans soured on the law i thought a powerful moment in the campaign was when donald trump had a moment in the debate early on who is the greatest that in a passionate way, i thought it was a cheap shot but is history or post- history is pretty spot onre and would resonate. i wondered if you could notify neufeld that was soured upon by republican voters. >> that's complicated because i

think public opinion began turning against the war after february 2006 and the onset of civil war in iraq and the war began spinning out of control and public opinion was ambivalent about the surgeon policy of iraq sending troops into changing the strategy there yet mccain and romney engaged in a minii debate over the search n the run up to the primaries in 2008 and it's a debate became supports the search one. even then you can still see winningg in iraq or achieving stability to allow us to exit most of the forces in the country was still powerful. however, i think what was going on when trump attacked bush over the war, when he said w was into

her, iraq was part of it but also much more, more about ending the bush era, turning the page on the bush era. you think about the condition of america in 2016, 15, clearly ending a polarizing two-term presidency barack obama, the situation overseas at that time, the situation domestically is not good. yet to the two parties offer? bush and hillary clinton so another sign ofan the bush dynay and you can get more establishment than hillary clinton so trump is basically saying bush is over because there is disappointment in the iraq w war, you should discontet

and opposition to cover has of immigration reform which you'd written a book about and economic legacy of the bush presidency which ended with the global financial crisis and great recession also in the back of voters heads so i think that plate part. i will say important moment is not trump's victory in the republican primary will trump won 45% of the total vote in the republican primary in 2016. had he lost the general election i think the answer trump forces still have had a good position and that's a debate that goes on in populism and conservatism 100 years as outlined in the book more evenly matched. the decisive moment was from winning presidency.

winning it on kind of a fluke, 30,000 votes in three states in the electoral college victory, substantial. once you become president, his most famous person in the world, the most important person in the world may be next to venture. [laughter] but definitely most important person in your party. youse define alternatives to set the agenda and set the example is not donald trump when he the nomination, is winning the presidency and being president for four years that transforms republicanan party, a conservate movement. >> is drawing to a close, much more to be said. i wonder if we can and thinking about the future of the right. this book ends at the end of the trump era, maybe -- it and now. we will see where we are.

how do you think based on your thinking about the past 100 years of the american right, how do you think with the right is headed in, what does the future look like? >> i would say it is important american conservatism remember that it's american and it's distinct and referenced to the american founding and american political institutions and it's lialways made with liberty and freedom and i worry sometimes the right today is drawn model in continental europe, a different right. not an american right and even though i think the train of politics shifted from an argument over the size and scope of thehe government and the size

of scope and policy may be leveraged to diminish and the right will be very different and has been for the 100 years i read b about it will not be able to sustain political coalition to attract nonpolitical everyday americans living their lives looking for answers to these policy challenges. into these institutions because i was busy formulating policy. when iran, i became a strong institutionalist for what you said which is we have to have a comfort surfeit of movement tethered to principles uniquely

american. the blood and soil nationalists, this flavor of populism here on the right disregards the uniqueness of the american idea country based on natural law and the reason i won't get into it, but to me it's important conservative movement we dedicate itself to critical is the church dedicated to these particles so youn have core standard in which you operate and then it's a movement that can have great debates on policy matters within the sphere of these principles and we won't get to that until you have a party or movement capable of having a strong debate not dominated just one personality so this is one not tethered and

principles, we can get to populism and i think we will tethered to principles with a vibrant debate in the way i look at it from flummoxed numbers trajectory of thing o in competition with china and technology and on and on we don't have a lot of time. can we put together a movement that can move and accommodate and accept different fashions in a newew fusion is the center rit has men and women capable of carrying the torch and standards multiple, not just one that can effectuate change in this country

and i think we can but we are not there now we got to go through that. >> will end there. the right, the hundred year war for conservatism, let's think matthew and paul ryan. ♪♪ >> sundays book tv brings the latest in nonfiction books and authors funding for c-span2 comes from these television companies and more including medco. ♪♪