came from students talking to the election, rejection is because they said in their own words, this is this is the future of democracy for me for the rest of my life. and i want to know why you. don't think it works because i'm just to think it does work and i want it to work. and they were deeply involved and passionately engaged in this conversation. and that gave david and i witnessing it firsthand a real sense of optimism. unfortunately, that i know we are out of time. thank you to the four of you. thank you to all of you. and now the mall grab their books, beare our panelists todae

philip bump malcolm nance and will sommer. and i'll introduce them in just a moment. this is call this is called the prognosis for democracy. see, and i want to start, first of all, by welcoming you here on behalf of organizers and also for the donors have organized this. we want to make sure that you recognize also the leadership of our volunteer who are here and those have contributed their energy. thank you very much. we're not able to hear. okay. okay. thank you i'll lean in a little bit to as well. there we go. so i'd like to thank you all for that. and i'd also like to acknowledge that at the end of this session, we have an opportunity to do the book signing. book signing location will be right nearby and volunteers will direct you there? but i want to jump into it. my role as moderator is basically to introduce the

authors and then to make sure that all the authors have some equal time to talk about your books. we're basically to be focusing on you know how did we get here? what's the history of this political crisis that we find our self in the midst of? how are we to understand the political crisis that we're living through and? then what's the prognosis going forward? and i just want to start off by briefly about the books, the three, three authors, the two of the books speak pretty directly each other. malcolm nance they want to kill americans, the militias, terrorists and deranged ideology of the trump insurgency in, america or he as he generally will talk about it. the trump insurgency really speaks about how how the trump insurgency came at out of broader historical movements dating back to the militia, the patriots movements, the know to attack movements in the sixties and seventies, but really came together with january six in the

election denial and then the violence that has. his book overlaps with the second book that's on our panel, which is by william will summers. and that's trust the the rise of q and on and the conspiracy that unhinged america. i think many of us are of surprised that this incredible qanon that has liberal wanting to drink the blood of children to stay immortal how this came moved from the fringes of society and what we might dismisses a lunatic fringe to. according to latest polls, 41 million americans support or at least identify with some of the and on conspiracy ideas including members of congress who are openly avowed qanon. now malcolm's book on the trump insurgency also on qanon. so we'll have some good for them

to talk about theories and malcolm's bestseller books have focused on the history of isis and the russian disinformation that helped to contribute to the 2016 election outcome. so he'll be able to talk to about radicalized asian and some of those other aspects of it. and our third book is by philip bump and it's kind of a biography of many of the folks looking out in the audience here. the bigger of our generation. it's called aftermath the last days of the baby boom and the future of political of of power in and the history. our generation, i think, is something that will help us to think more broadly about the political moment and the future of power in america, i think will give us something to talk about at the end of the session. so with that, i want to turn it over to our authors and start particularly with philip,

because yours is more broadly focusing. how does the history, the kind of biography of a generation that you provide with all the detailed information and the interviews you include, how does it how does biography of the boomers help to explain this mess that we find ourselves at? sure. yeah. and i want to be very that when i talk about the last days of baby boom, i'm talking about decades. that's one of the first things i always wanted to know. but this is in the best to start is with the boom itself, the baby boom generation, 1946 to 1964. one of the things to remember about the baby boom generation that emerged at a point which immigration was restricted in the united states about a century ago. there are new limits placed on immigration in the u.s., particularly in response to new immigrants from eastern europe. southern europe and asia. that was lifted after the baby boom. so the baby boom itself was, a very, very native born american generation, unusually so subsequent generations, have not been. and so when we talk about the difference between the baby boomer generation in particular and old and americans more

generally and younger americans, one of the key things we're talking about is demographic change. we're talking about an america that is much more diverse these days among young people than it was when the baby boom emerged. and so you can see instantaneously the ways in which that our politics, you know, all of the ways which demography is an undercurrent. a lot of the political debates that we have at this point in time. that said, it's diving in a little bit. so when we talk about what american democracy looks in the moment, we talk about this tension between older and younger americans. the first year, the first presidential election in which there's a really, really wide gap between how older, younger americans voted, was the year 2008, which, of course, was the election barack obama. and one of the responses that we saw to the election of barack obama was the emergence of the tea party, which ostensibly was about taxation. but i think anyone who's paid attention to the scholarship understands was really about concern, about changing america. it was concern about immigrants coming to the united states. it was concern about where people's tax dollars were going, if they were going to benefit people who were seen as unworthy

of getting that, of getting that money. it was also, according to people with whom i spoke for the book. it was also about older americans worrying about younger americans under the sway of this socialist from kenya. there was this aspect of it which was older americans being like what is happening? why are young people why did they find this guy? who is this barack obama? why are they voting for him? and that really helped accelerate a lot of that tension. it is not the case that the baby boom generation is a broadly conservative generation. i think people in this room are cognizant that. but the baby boom generation is a massive, massive generation. that's the point, really. the scale of it is really, really huge. and when we talk about particularly on the right, a political right, which is heavily older to the political left, which skews much younger, we're talking about a movement which is much more densely populated with older americans. and so then that reinforces this idea that older americans are more conservative which isn't the case. you know, as i said, the baby boomer generation is fairly evenly split. but now we come to this point, we come to this moment in the united states when we're really to determine are we going to be a pluralistic, are we going to

be democracy, where people no matter what their background is, if they are citizens of the united states, if they are black, they're hispanic, if they're asian, are they going to participate equally in the united states? democracy, which has only happened since the sixties? right. it's only happened since the passage of the voting rights. are we going to uphold that? and there's pushback. and this is a moment of tension that is overlaps with generational divisions. but there's a moment of tension essentially a very heavily older, whiter america and a younger and more diverse america, which leads to all of these debates that we see manifest, all sorts of different and toxic waste. now, in addition, the demographics that you talk in aftermath, you also point to the history of technology. i mean, those of us who are boomers, we were the television generation and we're to hand over to the largest we were the largest generation in america. you said in recent years. it's now millennial millennials and. millennials are really the internet generation. so how is that also contributed

to the current situation, the current malaise that we're experiencing. well, there are two ways, and i know that the other panels to talk about technology to some extent, there are two ways. one is that when we talk about the heightened tension that we sense between generations, part of that is rooted in technology. right. there's a great quote from a guy who was talking harper's that i that i cite in the book in which he says, you know, you can sit in your bedroom, cleveland, you get a million followers overnight. and that's true. you can you know, some kid can go ahead and just create something on tik-tok or on instagram in of people can see it within a span of 24 hours. there is an ability of younger people a generation which is very vocal and very diverse and very different than the older generation. they can speak directly to their elders in a way that when boomers were young, they couldn't do, they had to work through gatekeepers. you know, yes, they certainly can have protests and hopefully that a covered in the san francisco chronicle but it's very different now and there's a presence that young people can have the lives of older americans which exacerbates that tension. then, of course there's the aspect of social media and social media breaking down.

you know, when we talk about gatekeepers, we're talking to some extent also about broadcast television. we're talking about we're talking about these institutions, which were the ones that collected information, shared it, and now people can share information directly with one another, which obviously has plus sides. it also has its downsides because people can say, oh, you know, all the liberals are drinking the blood of children. don't you agree with that? everyone can say yes. right. so so there is downside to it, too. i know you guys are going speak to that as well, but this idea, the idea that young people can manifest in their lives, you know, obviously when we talk about generational tension, i was inevitably going to say, but okay, boomer, what is okay, boomer? okay. boomer was born of a tick talking in which boomers started adopting tick tock and going on tick tock. and young people were irritated because don't want to see this what they call cringing material on tick tock. and so they would respond to it and say, okay, boomer. right. but that is exactly the it is this use of media to confront two in a cost power the power of okay so if we think about you know white americans the aging

anxieties of white americans and america that they were born into is not the america they live in to and then we think about the change in our information systems. this kind of brings us to reflect upon how the trump insurgency kind of coalesce and become such a dominant power in american life. how did it happen that conservatism got overridden by? trumpism and the republican party is for those who have identified with it, it doesn't look anything like what it looked like 20 years ago. malcolm your book really helps to explain that in addition to the demographic changes that phillip talked and the change from and the information commons to the internet. what other factors do you think contributed to what you characterize as the trump insurgency? well, i think that a lot of people who were in this room certainly were all. you're maybe not. you, but crazy kids.

we all remember carol o'connor as archie bunker and all in the family and carroll o'connor's character, by the way, that was him acting was a radical left, you know, progressive. and he wanted to showcase just exactly how body of a white american working class male lived. but if you recall that, show it allowed for him to change by being impacted by his son, rob reiner. his son in law rob reiner, his daughter. right. and his wife. and for those who remember the show, the most traumatic event in the entire history of that show was, when edith tells archie to stifle himself. all right. you remember that moment. i was like 12 and and everything in my house froze. but the the waters that

buffering archie bunker, that brought him to moderate his you know, he's his big mouth which in that show words we can't use today. right. so i thought about that for a long time when i was writing this book and i realized there was something going on that was just than demographics. all right. yes. there's going to be a decrease in the white population due to an increase. and the people of color in the united over a period of time. and i'm certainly, you know, i'm sure that when barack obama was elected as president and i say the same thing, it was a big catalyst in the movement that led directly donald trump. and what become the what i call titus, the trump insurgency in united states. but the thing that i found that played the most and i'm sure someone's a political psychologist out will well eventually write a book about is not so much that donald trump was representing there there

their generation within or even their demographic. it was what he was saying how he was saying it. reza needed with this body of america who probably saw archie bunker as a hero and i called this entered into a phase that i don't think we've ever seen before and pure political try able ism where donald trump became the avatar of the white working class american which by the way, when you look at the polls about who really supports him it is not the lower middle class. it is upper middle income whites, what they call people who have a who have a boat, who have an extra house, a beach house or something like that, who are still working class, you know. you contractors, professionals, things like. and they saw him as a tribal chief. and when you have a tribal

chief, there's virtually nothing he can do or say so long as he is leading you in the direction that you want to go. and therefore, when he says something that's outrageous, well, they cheer because outrageous because they want to say it. and, you know what? you know what we call woke in the united states now, which the republicans are bandying about in the days this was called common decency and. but as barack when barack got elected president, the political lines in the united states shattered. yes. white union, male voters of that demographic voted for him, but he did not speak for them. he spoke for the union and. we saw the attacks on the unions place while he was president. and then they realized donald trump speak for me because he says what i what i believe he says what i want to say. there's that old new yorker

cartoon of the sheep who were in the valley right. and there's a big billboard and. it's a wolf in a suit. all right. and it says it says, i will eat you. and this one sheep says to the other, i like him because he tells it like it is. and apparently a lot of you don't read the new yorker, but that tribal when you have a tribal sheikh. right. a tribal chief. the funny thing, i worked in the middle east my entire career. you don't have loyalty to that person. you have loyalty to the chain chain that leads up to that person. and he promised them their version of america will dominate everything else. he also promised that elections wouldn't mean anything because they're already stolen. they're already taken. he also promised essentially that all the benefits of government would bestowed upon them and not all the tax cheats and -- and the whip.

you with your uteruses make and demands about things right? and then he would give guns more rights than your uterus which they have successfully done. he is a sheikh, right? he is a tribal chief, is a warlord chief. and so long as he says what he wants and is decisive. right. the last guy i mean, we've seen guys like this before. adolf hitler, benito mussolini. all right. they led their countries to total if total ruin but still people joined the military is thousand bomber raids were leveling berlin. right. i mean it's just absolutely amazing how when you not to the that common decency the actual precepts of the constitu of the united states. i'm from philadelphia i always put this in my books i'm a i'm a purist about what was written in the declaration of independence in the constitution. i believe in it. and even thomas jefferson said, know this, this is a living

document. these things must change. according to our. but they didn't promise that they promised. there be one way in america and it would be the way of the people who for me, i will take away from every one else, and we won't we won't govern america. we will rule america. and he you saw during is after his election. he for 35 to 40% of the country. he didn't care about the other 65%. he was literally taking resources from other 65%. he like like we said, you know, with with isis and al qaeda, he learned the language of radicalization to make them feel like they were special. and that's where you get it's just about guns. right. i guns. it's about the who said in in portland, oregon. when we start getting to use our guns. when can we start killing

people? these people have been radicalized to believe that the the movie of the 1980s red dawn that the united states was occupied by the commies which are now the democratic party leading to this explosion in the crazy political conspiracy theory which will sommer i don't know who wrote a whole book about this because is crazy. and that's a profession intelligence term. i'm using. all right. that craziness. 41 million americans. my book about i had predicted in that book the q and i would take over the republican party base ideology in six months. it happened faster than that faster than that. and now we have americans here who they don't believe in. they don't in medicine. they don't believe government. they don't believe in elections unless it's their election. i mean, we're sitting of in the heart of crazy, right? i mean, no, really.

when i wrote that book, they want to kill americans, the question was, who's they? and they are your neighbors. and in arizona, that means a lot. so let's use as the lead in to. yeah it's a lot like you will sommer good to talk about you know. i mean if you can imagine any demographic in america that would might be more challenging to strike a conversation with. i imagine any group more challenging than a q and on and you spent a lot of time talking to them including a baby. q who claims to be? q from. a from current time getting voices from the future. q and oh, by the way, he lives in a compound outside phenix. yeah. tell us about what you've learned with interviewing people believe in q and on, and tell us how zany and this lunatic fringe became a mainstream political

movement in america. sure. so, yeah, you know, i think we can build on here. what malcolm? i mean, if we look at the future of american. q and can initially seem like sort of a weird internet thing. i mean, it certainly is right? but it's also really sort of laying the for its believers in a of fascist takeover of america. and two just you know laid out mean if you've been kind of scared to look at q and on you know is concerned it's too it's too complicated. in the book i try to lay out the sort of the basics of it very briefly. q and on believers, they've used a series of anonymous clues from someone that they believe close to donald trump. perhaps don jr flynn to create this worldview and you know bear strap in here right. okay so the the keys to it are that the world has been controlled for thousands of years by a cabal and the people who run this cabal are in the democrat party, hollywood in banking. and there's obviously a lot of anti-semitic overtones here as well. right. i mean, like george soros is

this great villain for them and think that this cabal, you know, causes all the wars, etc. , it creates disease. but and someday donald trump will come or, you know, essentially this moment called the that donald trump will come and essentially like create a fascist utopia in america trump supporters. and so when malcolm about this idea of really punishing people who aren't on trump's side, that plays into it. and so they think that this cabal drinks children's to stay young, all this kind of stuff. and yes, i mean, there are a lot of people who believe this. and, you know, as we saw on january 6th, you know, it really powered a lot of the insurrection. a lot of people who were killed that day were coming on. believers and were convinced that that day would be the storm. and so anyway, so you might say now that, you know, if you're not is right. how does anyone believe this? and so in the book i travel across the country, i meet with q and unbelievers try to get into the effects it has and why people get into it. and often it's, you know, people can a weird way they kind of kind of trace their own radicalization very they have a

lot of insight into why they got into it. but they they think it's real. so they think it's okay to be in to keep it on. and so it's often, you know, a disease that they they don't have insurance for and they they think that perhaps, you know, trump will the cure for this disease when he sends hanks and barack obama to guantanamo. you know, all these like really irrational ideas. but you can kind see the motivation at the heart of them. and so since we mentioned the arizona here. yeah. so there's this guy named who ran sort of a of cunanan and he built a compound or he lived in a compound. his believers and the fbi was involved and all these guns and his one of his followers sisters called me and said, you know, can you get my sister out of this group? and mean absolutely unqualified to. do that. but i did go out there and try to get to the bottom of it and it's very bizarre. and the thing is, you know, you okay. this guy believes in time travel. he says he's barbecue, whatever you might think. well, at least he's off in his compound. right. he's not affecting politics in arizona. well tuned, because after he gets out of jail for various

issues, he then go visit him in phenix and he says, yeah, i just got done. i was working on the audit recount. right. and so this is a guy who handling these ballots and then, you know, he's running a congressional campaign, he's giving speeches to state senators. so this is really i mean, you guys know this than anyone. there's this fusion between fringe, whether it's cunanan or something else these militias, all this stuff. and the republican party. i mean, it's really real and certainly here in arizona, you know, can i can i make a quick comment on that? he pulled his punches as they're about q okay. the storm is the day supposed to mass murder liberal in america also known as the day of the rope which was taken from the order of the book. you know the book that timothy mcveigh the turner diaries had had used and they were supposed to hang all white liberals. they were supposed to kill all people of color. and they were supposed to sterilize the united states. and people thought january six was the storm. just why the first people in the building were wearing shirts and

they thought they were going to you know, i had said this on msnbc night, there are what we call murders in there. some people in are there to kill and they are going to work their way in there. they're going to let the crowd work their way and they're going to kill or rape government officials kill, rape and, kill government officials. but this is the crazy part. so what are your arguments phil is is that the boomers create in america. so can we blame for cunanan? yes. good night. thank you. but no. oh, yeah that's that's a quite a sad look. look, here's the way i would describe it when think about why is the republican party giving space these folks. right and it's easy to have an ungenerous to that but the the the answer i think really fundamentally is that the republican party understand that its ability to gather power is limited with a younger population that much much more sharply liberal and democratic than previous younger generations. they are not making any inroads. i talked to michael steele, the

former head of the republican national committee and his argument essentially, we lost them. they're gone. we're not getting those young people back. if you're not getting young people back, then you have to quadruple down on the people you can get and who can you get. you can get psychos who like living in the desert right now. i mean, you can i mean, cunanan is also great. you know, not everyone adheres to cunanan, adheres to malcolm, a vision of it. there are sort of entry level cunanan levels to right where you can sort of get in. no sincerely. and so there's a lot of people who adhere those simple ideas that the liberals are bad, they're evil, and and that they must be stopped. and, you know, when we think about donald trump slogan, make america great, what's he talking about? he's talking about the white america that he visualizes from the 1950s and sixties. right. he is appealing to that aspect of america, which is very concerned about how america doesn't look the way it used to. and so when you combine these things, when you combine the republican party is limited in its ability outreach to younger people. when you combine that this very, very potent appeal to what america used to be, this political nostalgia, and then you layer in all the craziness,

you actually have a contingent of people who can compete for power. and it was enough carry the electoral college in 2016 so malcolm you talk about the trump insurgency sometimes roll it all the way up to all republican voters. yeah. now there may be some i sense we have a pretty friendly crowd for some of these arguments, but for those people might be republicans if they into perhaps the wrong session session and they're kind of looking around and they're you know, this is another of conspiracy. i'm not identifying with some of this way of thinking, how do we build a that's more expansive includes and sustains relationships with the independents, the moderates who are actually responsible for the democrats winning the last election. if we stay with the trump insurgency, how does that carry us into the future? well, first off, you can't ignore an imminent and immediate

threat. and we have already seen this threat manifest itself. we've people knock down power for 100 and 200,000 people in north carolina just a few months ago, they went around and the power plants, you know, i wrote four different incidents that occurred in the last five years in. the united states, as part of this whole, you know, militia belief system in their full disclosure, i was a republican, right? i was a colin powell star republican. right. strong on national security, socially liberal. we now on the x y axis come down way in the lower corner over there with ronald reagan and richard nixon, where republicanism has moved today is so far off the charts that you, the people who they call constantly rhinos, you mentioned michael steele. michael steele is not allowed to come to any republican, you know, party reindeer games. they don't want him they don't want anyone who does not espouse the tribalism of titus the trump

insurgency in the united states. and to answer question he made a very good point of that it's the energy these people you're right. some people may come into it because they're anti factors. other people may come into it because they believe that aliens are coming and that donald trump is a hero rescuing children from pedophiles and, saving them from having their blood drunk, which is all of these are qanon absorbed all these. but when i say the republican party, i mean the republican party today, this minute. okay, wendy rogers level republican party. all right. as i like to say, crazy a capital k. all right. and you know, but they have moved so far away from conservatism right to pure tribalism. why just don't change the party to the trump party in name is beyond. you have now the same people you

have the ron desantis of the world and others who are espousing trumpism, which is a full, wholehearted step into fascism right. i mean, desantis the other day is trying to pass a bill where no right blogher anyone who gets paid even if it's like a newsletter they can criticize him right? i mean it's just wait for that to pass minute one second one. i'm going to hit transmit right and take it to the supreme court. i mean, but the point they're not just moving the overton window, all right. they are knocking down the wall and creating you know, the overton doors and allowing as much crazy to come in there in order to override common sense and common decency. you, the of you, on the other hand, who are here are clearly nice people, who a lot of common

sense books. malcolm yeah, well, i mean, look, they just saved the state, right? for the most part. which will motivate the crazies to be even crazier, you know, so that being said, you know, you know, and i know we're going to be on c-span tomorrow, they're going to ask me this question and going to look into that camera. and i'm going to say, my family is defending this nation nonstop. from april 1864 to today. and you don't represent any of those values that were espoused. when i lived in philadelphia. all right. where i when i was a kid, could go to the independence hall and ponder what the meaning of why i was to participate in this country, in this governance government. equally whether you liked it or not even though we had to fight, they don't believe in that anymore. not at all. i don't even be quite honest. i don't even think they're american. i think they're trumpist.

malcolm. so let me turn this over. will you spend a lot of time talking to people who are really hardcore conspiracy? you know how how do you know some of the people in this room, i'm sure have in laws or cousins or nephews, perhaps that are also caught up in some of these conspiracies? how do you talk to these people? is there how do you understand the way back in dealing with some people who are deep into these? sure. i mean, this is a very difficult question. and i hear from so many people who have lost relatives, you know, parents, spouses, children to q and on and sort of lady to conspiracy theory movements. and it is really tough and it's heartbreaking. and i get into it in the book i mean, it's people in one chapter, i follow a family for a year as their son kind of gets deeper and deeper into it and it's you see it all starts there's kind of this moment where the cute unbeliever in your life says something a little crazy. you go, sorry, what would you

say and then, you know, you think they're joking or. they're doing a bit maybe. and it's really not the case. and so in this case, this guy, his son, his adult son came in and said, hey, dad, you know, i just want you to know they're going to be a lot arresting a lot of celebrities soon. you know, going to be tom hanks, steven spielberg. they're going to guantanamo bay. and the dad said, well, as long as it's not selleck, i love tom selleck. right. then he said, you know, that it was kind of weird conversation. and then, you know, that's sort of the beginning of this family's journey with you and on. and so when people ask me, you know, how do you get someone out? i mean, in part it's difficult because i think our institutions, you know, somewhat understandably, have been really ill prepared to deal with this. and so, for example this family goes and sees a psychologist and the psychologist says, all right, know this is way above my pay grade. i got to google quote on thing first and this father goes, jeez, know this guy can't help us. and they, you know, they end up emailing people like me. and i don't have really great answers, but i think you the keys to it are if you have this in your life, know, first you have to evaluate. do you really about this relationship? right. and so it's like there's someone, you know, on facebook, you know, i block them, right. because it's it's a long journey. so but, you know, if it's

someone really close to you, if it's a spouse, what have you, you you try to get them offline as much as possible which is not always easy. but, you know, if there's something that they enjoy doing, that's not connected to conspiracy theories, you know, go do that. and then, you know, you kind of just try to maintain that relationship up until that person snaps of it on their own. and, you know, that's that's easier said than done. but often i talk to these excuse and unbelievers, they have there something kind of clicked in their heads. they would see something that was to them a proof that, you know, this whole conspiracy theory was real and suddenly something happens. like, for example, when biden was inaugurated and then, you know, that was sort of the that disprove q9 for many of them. i talked to one woman who said she wanted to throw up because just, you know, she had invested so much for identity and so much for reputation into this and. suddenly everyone was seeing that she was wrong. national tv and everyone that she knew and so, you know, it's very, you know issue obviously can i just i just want to elevate something a little said there when you speak to q and on adherence i think if you repeatedly is well, you just have to do your own. and so when he says this thing about taking them offline, they

are convinced that they have learned the truth through the through their own knowledge, that the institutions are lying to them and, that of course, all they're doing is picking up on things other have said. right. and using other people as a source of information. but his point there about going offline is absolutely essential because what do is they get burrowed in online and think they're teaching themselves what people don't want them to know. yeah. and so much of this is the result of decades attacks from the right on independent institutions of fact right whether it be academia the media, scientists and savers, newspapers. exactly well, thank you. and, you know, it gets to the point where then everyone, you might say, well, you know, look, the nih, this, they're going to say, you know, you believe fauci, you know, and so it just becomes very difficult to pull people of it because that meanwhile they'll take something. you know, i was talking to someone and they said something. i said, where did you hear? you know, did you hear that on fox news? the wall street you know, wall street journal, something they said, oh, no. where i get all my news conservative treehouse. what the heck is that? right. and so i mean it's very difficult to deal with people when the the for credibility

they really don't any skepticism so when we think about this as a political and social movement and we identify it with demographic changes in in the united states that doesn't explain it because it's global movement. what we're talking about is a rise of authoritarianism throughout the world. so, you know, malcolm, you've on the front lines fighting ukraine last year as part of the brigades. and you're broader program of work is concern with the international development of authoritarianism and also will your book you conclude by talking about the globalization of q on which seems so one cannot even imagine it as export. but this movement is happening around the world. so i invite you both to kind of

how how do we understand this reaction to it to liberal democracy which we had thought was going to be the great accomplishment of the 21st century? you know, in 18 i wrote a book called the plot to destroy and the subtitle, how putin's spies are dismantled are damaging and dismantling the west. and i could, as an intelligence professional, very clearly see that this was a political co-option of of conservative political groups around europe and in various parts of the world. i've to vladimir putin's office, by the way, when he was a spy in dresden just to the feel for what this guy was doing he actually admired the east german stasi police force. he admired east germans. he didn't admire the how the russians did it. and he his current russia being a fascist, authoritarian state. and he you know, he hasn't gotten to the point where everyone is watching.

everybody. he's working his way there. but what shocked me was how much money they put into foreign political parties every conservative movement in europe, funded by putin's united russia and in fact there was a plan and you could just see it as clear as day when i talked to other intelligence, there was a period of time where putin was going to essentially knock down everything that we had built since we landed in normandy 1944. it was going to start with the election of donald trump. then two weeks later, the election, the government of austria, which, by the way was a party formed by two austrian ss officers in 1952, right hard core conservatives, they elected. the minute they got elected, they went to moscow and signed a political a binding them to the united russia. then was supposed to be at the same time a d'état in montenegro

and you probably think montenegro was that just north of greece, you know, going up past albania and along the adriatic coast. why was this significant? there's a serbian majority population. they supported russia if they overthrew the montenegro majority minority government. and here it was their plan. they were going to kill everyone in parliament. they had men, they had police were going to take over. the government wiped them all out, then called for russia to land troops in montenegro and give them a naval base right there east of italy. and then the next was going to happen two months later, the election of marine le pen as the prime minister of france, who was going to withdraw france from nato, which would have allowed donald trump to break up nato. and it was just so clear i a six month arc our world could have changed as dramatically as world war two. but what it really was, and i

describe it this way, it wasn't just that he had funded trump. yes, he had been i mean, he had he broke out the kgb archives that had been monitoring trump since 1977 and in 20 1420. yeah, 2014 when he came to miss universe power, miss universe pageant, you know, he broke out those archive eyes as a profound professional officer. i would have and i would have said, this guy's going to be easy to manipulate, but he would have created in six month period of time a, solid foundation of what i call an of autocracies united states, france, austria it probably would have impacted the german elections, allowing alternative for deutschland, you know, the neo nazi party to take over then the election of bolsonaro in brazil. the world would have looked very different if it hadn't been for the failure of that coup in

montana and marine le pen losing macron. this isn't happening in the united. the russians co-opted the extremist wing of the evangelical movement with their christian chris saving christianity in moscow for the last 20 years. they the nra they put actual spies into the nra key fsb officers maria butina who got the oscar question ever asked of donald about, you know, is there going to be friendship between the united states and russia? it was a spy operation from beginning to end. ukraine, an end to all of this. ukraine is the eastern wall of democracy and our western wall is crumbling, which is why i'm home. all right. i can you can shoot russians? that's easy to do. they're fish in a barrel. but what's happening back here is a full scale, sustained effort to destroy this. and create what donald trump and them really believe is a

constitutional autocracy, where the trappings of the constitution can exist for those people who are on side and the rest of you are going to be treated like slaves. all right, mark, let's open it up and get some questions from the audience. sorry. okay. we've got the first one right here, sir. stand up and speak. please speak up. and i will repeat question so everybody can hear it as questions, kind of a fill up for. everybody talks about the the boomers and the millennials, but talk about generation x, i didn't know your my formative years were spent under reagan. sure. and you know, i remember 35. oh, sorry. i i'll start over so. you didn't you know, you mentioned the boomers and the millennials, but you mentioned generation x, right? you know, my formative years were spent under reagan. i remember 35 years ago, standing outside of this building, pushing pamphlets, michael dukakis, you know, but

you, the boomers, overwhelmingly supported reagan, they you know, they it was a landslide against mondale. so hippie boomers supported reagan was refreshing to see the oh, it's refreshing to see the millennials with their activism attitude. you see them moderating. what do you see for the future? so i mean, i mean, in 1984, everyone got it wrong, right? i mean, won by a million. i mean, he he won, right? so i get this question on gen x a lot in might the easy copout answer is i remember gen so i get to do what i want. right. but, but essentially the reason i don't talk about gen x a lot is simple. it's because you had the baby. let me put the scaled baby boomer perspective. 1945, there's 140 million americans over the next 19 years, 76 million babies are born right? more than 50% of the population, 1945. it's a boom like we don't understand the scale of the baby boom. right. and so what happened is you have this massive that ends gen x and millennials. and the simple fact is gen x never really was able to compete for power. the baby boom. there were just weren't enough of us right.

the millennials are also we have the same competing interests as the as the millennials do. so right now what we have over the course of the baby boom, what happens, right? you have all these babies born, you got build new schools, you got to hire new teachers. you got to build more. you got to find more jobs and the whole thing swells as the boom comes along. and now we've gotten to the point where boomers are starting to retire. so we've got to figure out senior housing. we've got to figure out security, medicare, we've got to figure out these issues that are now important to seniors. but now we have a large young generation that's competing for resources and power. gen x was never in that position and. so god bless us. i love gen x, but we are not part of this intergenerational tension story, especially what's manifesting. yeah, next question right here next to you, right in this third row, right there. we'll come back over here. question is about the opposite and why do the why does the democratic party still operate like they were in 1970 and talk about reaching across the aisle for them? well, i think that yeah, i'm

asked this question a lot, principally. principally because those of you who know how i speak television, i pretty plainly an old navy chief. so i don't have time to play games with words. so i give my message directly and forcefully and and it seems to cut through a lot of the the fluff that you hear. and i think the democratic party right now focused on traditions that we have always had of maintaining comedy. comedy right in within the house of congress, not raising their voices, trying to get as much cooperation as possible. they don't want to seem tribalist. right. but we're beyond that. we're way beyond that. you know, i chuck schumer the other day say, oh we're going to do a bunch of investigation.

and it reminded me of a that was on i think it was cartoon where they had nancy pelosi, chuck chuck schumer making a motion for lunch and it out to like a 3000 word document which they called upon all parties to go to lunch. you know, it's just like, for god's sakes, just cut through it. and i think we're seeing some of the more the younger members who have had enough the eric swalwell's right. they're just like okay that's it. i'm i'm with that so that when they see, you know, serious crazy thrown out, you know, you to address that immediately immediately directly and forcefully in as few words as possible. you know, when marjorie taylor greene i had a friend who ran against marjorie greene and he tried that, you know, but he couldn't get the traction in over her crazy. right. is army sergeant, you know, she

said, hey, she's nuts, right? everybody agreed. so she got reelected. so, you know, and i think that's that's what we need to understand is that we're dealing with people who are who think that they're coming into an institution and they want to maintain the traditions, the grace the dignity of the institution. okay. armed insurrection. we're coming to kill you in many instances, as you know. now it's time. speak up for america. that's that's how. i do it. next question. i had very quickly. part of it, too, is that the politicians are very superstitious in the way that like athletes are. and so if you got to a particular place by doing particular things and running on particular issues, that's what you keep doing your campaign consultant say this is how you win elections. one of the things the most important things that's happened in the course of the past six months, when we talk about generations, is the fact that nancy pelosi and steny hoyer stepped down and the reason they stepped down because they recognized a, that democrats are a very young party and they're very frustrated with baby boomers and silent generation people at the top of their party.

but they also did it because. they recognize that the issues that they ran on the issues that a lot of baby boomer liberals ran on and fought for are not the that are motivating young people in part because boomers were successful. and so what young people today fight for lgbtq issues change gun control right things that were not as sailing into the baby boom generation and so stepping aside and creating space for those new leaders also give space to new issues, new tactics. another question right back here and right here on the aisle and, then right behind the person. next person back. first of all, thank for a compelling panel this is mostly for will do. i found it very striking when you were talking about some the motivations for q and on folks like brain cancer or you know untreated mental health and i'm in your experience if there is overlap between these unmet societal and falling back on conspiracy. yeah absolutely yeah and at the

end of trust the point i make the point that you know i'm certainly not the policy here. but as you say mean so often you can just see the direct line become between some sort of social misery that's visited upon someone and sort of a broken safety net. and then the moment where they say, you what i think i'm going to get into, kiran. and so, you know, there's a guy in the book who's part of this arizona group who had this disease, and he was rejected for disability. and that was the point where he was he was just so mad at the world and i think understandably so, that he went online and then he saw donald trump and he said, now, here's a guy sees all the problems and who's going to get a sort of revenge for me? and then from there he got into q and on. so i think really, you know, when people talk about how do we get people of conspiracy theories or how do we, you know increase information literacy? i mean, ultimately, i think the thing to do is to make a better society in general that, you know, it's the people aren't in misery aided in this way that they often turn to it. and, you know, i shouldn't say obviously everyone we a lot of people deal with serious issues with debt issues, this kind of stuff and they don't turn

towards conspiracy theories. and so it's not that this person is such a, you know, an innocent who kind of stumbles into it. i think there is like a nasty element to it as well. but often i do think it is those kind of holes in the social safety net. and right behind this speaker police ship. i think you all i have a math question for. you each of you, what do think the probability is that trump will win the nomination and if he wins the nomination, that he be our next president? all right. okay. i'll start by the evening of eighth 2016. i swore i'd get out of the prediction business the. odds are good that he can win the nomination. i think the more republicans who get into the race think that ron desantis has never had a real challenger. you know, he'd he did it. he had a fight in 2018, but not he wasn't attacked for his current policies. trump's going to do everything

adam, for real or fake? we know how that works and i think that the democrats you know again you know if i am a leader of the democratic party do i want to see joe biden run against ron desantis or donald trump? i don't know. but i think probably just because so many people have already rejected him, because so many republicans are like, oh, god, like, really? a lot of republicans. i mean, yes, there's a lot of trump businesses, probably powerful, but a lot of republicans would like to move from trump as well. not a majority of them. but, you know, the odds are the odds are good. yeah. i mean, just to echo that, i mean, i think when people say, oh, do you think ron desantis is going to beat trump, i really encourage people to watch ron desantis give a speech or i mean this guy he's a charisma black hole and it's just the when you consider a guy who's going to be up against donald trump. i mean, the news today is that trump is you know, he's workshopping new nicknames. he's talking about tiny d like little d and, you know, it's not terrible. right. and so it seems, though, trump i mean, trump really has i think found his footing where he's like, i was going to tear into

this guy and it seems to be working thus far. mhm. yeah. agree i think that trump does have a good chance of getting the nomination, the more people that get in there dilute, dilute the message and and the energy of, the trumpist wing of well the trumpist party right what i call the titus it has energy real. energy. they'll come out and they'll support, you know, these rallies and you know, going out where he does these speeches that's energy and that's what they really want. they will go and knock doors, will go and make phone calls. and if you're given those and a guy like ron who's trying to be like trump, you know, but like you said, he hasn't been tested at all. he h wn donald trump starts tearing you personally right. the question is, do you want to lose the trump voters that put you into office that will guarantee that the election you will lose because they now hate you know, he'll pull a fool, ted

cruz right where guy insulted his wife in his face you i would have punched him in the face on the stage right and walked away laughing ted cruz you know, kisses his right. i think that's what ron desantis will do in the end. yeah, right. go ahead. what do you. the question is, what about russian propaganda? malcolm has written a whole book on this and touched on it. another one of his books. and what are we supposed to do about the russian mission that influenced our prior elections. and yeah, no doubt influence future elections. yes. stop worrying about the russians. you're done. their influence campaign was for 2016. it worked. it was completely wholeheartedly taken up by the republican machine. all right. and q and on. i mean, it's an order of

magnitude, way more powerful than anything the russians put out. so their process was donald trump attacked clinton. we found out. then donald trump took up to discredit that by saying russia, russia, russia, russia. i still get death threats from people like you said, lies about donald trump and russia. it's like really, really there's this huge book called the mueller report and we didn't even really look into his espionage related activities. so you're right now, don't worry about the russians really start about your neighbors. and, you know, i'm not joking. the people who vote who are the voters here who, you know, will never quit or want overthrow government or take over the school, go to the school board meetings? it's now down to the activist level. so one last question and i want to bring it back to the panelists to give a prognosis

democracy. so here the last. is the radical. we got one back here to. yeah, i would give you one. all right we'll give you the right is so energy ized and there are so many more i hope sort of of us than of them. but i we're all sort of subject normalcy bias to some extent. another and how do we get that same energy level going in resistance to that radical right. you know, why don't you jump in. sure. yeah. i mean, i think there this the advantage often is on the people who are most most enthusiastic, even when they're a minority. i mean, you think of all these burnings, right? and, you know, people get so you know, they get so obsessed with banning certain. then for the average person, you have a job you have a family to deal with and you just sort of say, right, i guess if you want the book out so badly, you know, we we have a whole library. but i mean, the reality is i think it's up to two people who have not been politically engaged in the past or, you

know, just voted, you know, to take more of a look at this local level. i mean, because really, there is so much passionate intensity among on the far right, these conspiracy theories. but then again, you the good news is obviously the there's a lot of normal people, right. and a lot of people with with good thoughts, you know, for the country, you know, as we saw in the midterms. so i guess that would be my take. phil, did you have something you wanted just very quickly? i mean, remember the midterms right i mean, what was supposed to happen based on historical patterns? what actually happened? don't don't short the push back to normal america. one more question. can i just get a quick answer on that real quick. where i live in upstate new york. we had a congressman who was completely absent named john faso. so the indivisible group there fashioned a action every called faso friday guy never to his office for four years right. mean three years and and so they had people come there and it became the largest pizza party every to where it went from few dozen people to hundreds people

every friday it was an event. and the republicans, especially the trump business. right. they had those events. remember the trump truck parades every in my district or every saturday my district, they would meet at the safeway and and gather talk. you have to be as active and you got to bring whoever is the youngest member in your family. if you got an year old that's turning over, explain to them why it's important that they vote. ask them if they want to drink nasty. ask him if they want to burn. you know when you know because there's climate change. ask him you know if they you know, want to you know do things like be forced to marry the woman that they get pregnant you know sounds radical, but we're living in you know, it's almost like the handmaid's tale is a documentary, you know? so one more question back there and then i want give the panelists a couple moments to to conclude back up.

we've got to go people's champ. when you hear the conversation. oh 0808 she is this guy's been waiting so well. well we'll give you both a chance to ask. well, we'll be quick. you got time for i see member go army beat navy hall but have with all the traits of cunanan it is predicated on belief it's motivated reasoning. has there been any attempts to de-radicalize us through some of the, you know approaching it as a belief system as opposed to as a logical system? yeah, absolutely. i mean when you look at it, it has a lot of characteristics of, a religion. there's so much faith in it. you know, people called it a cult, for example, and you know, i think there's a lot of great research out there, but it is so complicated and just be quick about it. i mean, you know, it's a great question. and, you know, it's people it for such personal reasons because it's so broad and people are drawn in for so many. it's very complex.

yeah. and his book title just sums up what they kept saying to each other. trust in plan. trust in the plan. it's a belief system. and i think it is going over to religious cultism like aum shinrikyo and some of these other violent cults. so one last question here and then we'll will be of time. i just want to know, confounded me for about a week. i've always voted and last week i got a large manila envelope with, postage stamps all over it from jim jordan with a three page i call it a but it was i know they were asking for money, but why was i got a list that when it was sent to you. yeah. my guess is based on deserted arizona party registration. when you register, you have to sign up for party. my guess is they were just taking a shot in the dark and figured maybe you don't it because you're are you know potentially in the they were targeting or they just messed up or like this is not rocket science. right i mean there's you a lot of political consultants they

probably said, hey, let's pad the numbers some more to jim jordan. don't know. okay. it's not no fault of your own, i assure you. and yeah, did you give money? so no i don't think they do. all right. so please me in thanking the authors. and also i think she's actually stepped out. but i also wanted to thank maria parnham, who put this panel together along with the other political science and current affairs with a whole group of people who spend the year reading books and and deciding on these sessions. there's a lot of invisible labor around here behind the scenes here. so please join me in thanking folks.