if you're poor, you don't vote. and we a poverty problem in california and we don't talk about it nearly enough because the dominant party definitely does not want to talk about it. but there's there's a massive problem which is becoming, because of housing affordability and, intergenerational problem. and if you're pro-democrat casey but you're not pro economy, at some point, those are going to run into one another. if you're not creating a healthy economy for working class people. and a lot of economic opportunity your democracy is going to come. it will fall apart because what you're creating is a pyramid of fewer and fewer people at. the top of the pyramid of one race and ethnicity and more and more people of poverty, of a different race and ethnicity. and that story has never ended well in the course of human history, ever. and that's what that that's

california, by the way one of the most segregated states, the union california, because housing i can tell you what race and ethnicity and gender you are certainly your income level probably your college education level by zip code in california one of the most segregated states in, america, because we don't build housing for our people by intent. we've chosen this society. here's an author question during your research for this book. anything that surprised or shocked you? oh, yeah you know what surprised me the most is that the book was it? yeah. truly it was. i never like in 30 years of doing this, i was just always doom and gloom. that's probably because i in politics. but as i was writing and i was coming to these different conclusions and trying to be like more forward thinking of where this was going, all of the indicators i of what ails american society. and look, since the lincoln project talked a lot with the

george conway that talk a lot with the campaign reform people talk a lot with the you know electoral college people and all these people talking about the safeguards for democ. but as george has taught me very astutely, there is no constitution in this country can be written none if the people don't want it. you can't protect it. and we live in a we live in a society right now where those that are 65 years and older who are amongst the most privileged generation, this great nation has ever produced the beneficiaries of what has largely been a time of of peace. of global us and they have the most negative view of this country of any generation pulled in the history of modern polling techniques. and at the same time we have this of a younger poorer,

browner somewhat more recently migrated that has the highest testing levels of confidence and optimism and hope and trust in our institutions and the basic mythology of the american dream. and as i say in the book, it's foot race between these two demographics. it's who can i used always worry and struggle as an undergrad. when i first started doing this research. the early nineties is can latinos non non western european with the culture that have can we really take over the reins of power and in this united of america, which in many ways represents apex of western thought it's like the apex of protestant ism you couldn't create a better more elegant solution if you were trying say, what would these folks do? how would they create a government? mexicans could never come up with this right? and i don't mean that as a bad sign. i just culturally, not the way

that we perceive world. so can they be stewards of it and answer is screaming not only can they be. but i don't know if it can exist without them, without us? and that's the cultural reinforcement, that cultural change, that refreshing of the basic mythology and hope in america that reagan city on a hill speech that belief in our ideas, whether they manifest or not that this belief in the mythology is require immigration is required not for economics. the immigrant is actually the best hope for the future because. they by definition, come here believing that where there this a better place than where they came from. we need that this experiment doesn't continue without that and if we're not seeing it on full display now in america in 2024, you come back to a lot in the book optimism as a kind of unifying principle for latino. and you have this story in there

when you're working on george bush's 2000 campaign, setting up this event at the republican convention. yeah, really built around that idea. right. of of an novel. yeah. you day. so we have the rnc coming up next week. what you know is their optimism they're like who wears the optimistic message coming from the republican party that the vice president's job whoever trump picks in the next week i will be heading to mexico friday morning for a week to that's not the vision of of conservatism. i shouldn't say that that's not the vision of republican ism anymore. the idea and i love because, you know, make america great again is not not trump. that was reagan. it was taken by stone. roger and and re fabricated forum for donald trump. but they couldn't be more in the approach. making america great again underrate. reagan was very aspirational i

would say that the emphasis was the great under reagan. under trump, it's the again it's very backward looking, it's very restorative. let's go back to this mythical america that existed for our demographic because it worked for us. it worked for our even though we know it didn't work for anybody else, to the point where you've republicans who are literally erasing history in changing out history books and not allowed to by law talk about certain things that were, you know, history. that's a people that are view themselves very much in decline. and there's a very strong between those that are republicans and that are very pessimist about the future. so almost a direct correlation is if you don't like where america at, you don't like what it's become and you don't want you reject kind of the cultural changes that have happened that the republican party's got a place for you and that's not marco rubio.

can i don't think he wants to change it. i he did and i was early marco rubio supporter in 16 i was with marco because he was that's who he was. he realized really quickly the changed so either i'm to be a senator and continue my political career or, i'm going to stand by my beliefs and realized really quickly i'd rather be a senator so that there is no optimist, there's no optimistic character. i think tim scott tries, but i think it's so it's so obvious what he's doing that it's safe it's a certain need white republicans have who have these deep seated belief that says see we're not that then actually is genuine because he at one time say i've pulled over many times and i've been blah blah, blah, blah, blah, but you know that's not all of america. that's not the point. it's not all of america it's all of america that wants support. the continuation of that

paradigm is the problem. and he knows that he knows that. but again you know, he's he's taken a course that he's on his own journey. trump university, of course trump university course. all right. well, we have to leave it there. our thanks, mike madrid, author of the latino century. how largest minority is transforming democracy and the ken and jocelyn broad family foundation for supporting tonight's event. if you would, to support the commonwealth club's efforts in making virtual and in-person programing possible, you can visit commonwealth club doors again events. mike, thanks again. thank you, gamers. roddy, thank you. and take care.

okay, so i think i'm just going to start just doing a little bit

the bookkeeping, but as walk in, my name is chris hayes, it's always wonderful to be here at the brooklyn book festival. it's great to see all you. high and dry here inside. um, we i want to let you know that the the authors you see in this panel, their books will be available and can be purchased from books on call nyc. the authors want to be signing their books immediately. the program, i think i'd say i'm 5% sure of that. got to get nate silver in here to say what probability of them signing their books is, but i think fairly high at the conclusion of the program. authors, you guys should go directly your signing tables. they have no idea where that is. they're going to figure that out. so i want to introduce today's panelists so that the title is. the 2024 election. how did we get here. which is a broad a sentence a

question with sort of all kinds of nested assumptions inside it. so i want to just introduce our panelists the room to just get right to it. so david austin walsh is a post-it doctoral associate at yale program for the study of antisemitism. he has a ph.d. in history from princeton university. he's also taught at george mason and the university of virginia his book, taking america back conservative movement. and the far right was in april 20, 24 by yale university press. nancy rosenblum is this senator joseph clarke, professor of ethics and politics and government emerita at harvard university. her previous books include good neighbors the democracy of everyday life in america. it's a great book, and with russell muirhead a lot of people are saying new conspiracism and the assault on democracy. her newest book is on governing the on the administrative states and the politics of chaos with who was supposed to be here today. but could not join us. ruy teixeira is someone i've

been reading for 25 years. she's contributing columnist the washington post co-founder and politics editor of the liberal patriot newsletter, a senior fellow at the american enterprise institute. he is coauthor of a number of books, among them the emerging democratic majority, forgotten majority, and most recent, i believe. where have all the democrats gone? give him a round of applause. i don't i don't sling takes on weekends. so i'm i'm i'm going to pass it over to you guys. i guess i just start with the question of how do we get here? election 2024. there's a of ways to interpret that. i the way that i think about it is like how is it the case that we are here with? you know, a person who i'll be here. you like him or not, whose record includes, you know, multiple indictments, criminal

convictions, two impeachments, an attempt to overthrow the foundation of the american republic. and is is neck and neck. and i think there's lot of ways to sort of answer the question of why that is the case. and i thought i'd let each of you sort start with your interpretive framework for answering the question, how did we get here? so, david, you kick us off. well, first of all, thank everybody for coming to this panel on this incredibly soggy, rainy day. i'm trying to dry out myself. so thank you all being here. yeah, it's a tough i mean, i think that the the way that i have tried to conceptualize this in my book and just in my academic work over the past decade or so and think this is also where sort of the field of u.s., u.s. political history and people who study the right have been going is to try to get at the question of is donald trump or maga ism. if you is it an aberration in the american tradition and in the conservative american

tradition, or is it fundamentally in continuity? and i think it's fundamentally ann compton do it here. i think it's an acceleration of trends that had been there for a very long time really to the beginnings of what is sort of discernible can as a movement that developed in the 1940 and 1950s and what what trumpism what what trump has specifically is to bring out the submerged elements of this sort of right wing coalition, i call it in my book, the far right popular front that, you know, supposedly been purged in the 1960s by people like william f buckley and others, but had not in been done so. and so one of things i try to explore in my book is sort of tracing this long history of these sort of submerged radical figures in in right wing politics and conservative politics in united states. it actually came about i write about this in the the conclusion that came about, because my very first job out of college was i

was the editor of history news network, which was at the time affiliated with george mason university and the very production, you know feature that i ever did, i wasn't i wasn't the person responsible for it, but i was the person who put it into implementation was a roundtable, some very distinguished scholars of fascism people like robert paxton, roger griffin, others on jonah goldberg's book, liberal fascism, which was came out in, i believe, 27, 28 and in in book, goldberg writes very explicitly about how he's tired about you conservatives being smeared as fascists and that actually this is you know, this is really the tradition in america is close to fascism and i remember at the time i was working on my senior thesis in college, which turned out to be about ravello oliver, who's a figure i explore further in my book he was a classics professor at the university of illinois who became one of the sort of

godfathers of the neo-nazi movement in america. he was a book review editor at national review magazine in the 1950s. he was very close with william f buckley. he was a senior leader in the john birch society through the mid 1960s. you know, so and for me, that posed a question of, okay, well, that means something. it doesn't mean that, you know, the conservative movement is fascistic necessarily, but it does mean that they're adjacent in intertwined, interconnected in ways that i don't think. certainly not at the time. this is before trump rose to national prominence. most people fully sort of appreciate it or understood so i can i think about trumpism in 2024 as the acceleration of trends that had been existing in politics and in the conservative political tradition in a very for a very long time. nancy. i'm sure i'm not going to talk how we got here. i'm going to talk about the here

because could because i think that what our book governing is identifying destination and happy destination that hasn't been acknowledged as a unified thing as opposed to popular authoritarianism or what it's going to talk about. so on governing is an unfamiliar term for an it in fact unprecedented phenomenon and that is the the intentional destruction of government capacity of the to govern. and so unfamiliar unprecedented. we've given it its own name and governing it says we're directing attention to concrete ground in which the business of government goes on the administrative state. the agencies and the departments that shape and implement and enforce and adjudicate public policies of every kind every law and regulation, every benefit, every burden, every today and

every emerging mercy. and this work of bringing democracy to life is carried on by tens of thousands of public servants, from taking photographs for the national park service to getting information for the state department, and translating to voters. and this attack on the capacity of democratic government that we call governing was announced years ago by. that master of chaos. chaos, steve bannon, who talked about the deconstruction of the administrative. i want to bring it all crash ing down. and what that meant was things it meant out with knowledgeable experts, especially scientists. it meant shrug off every regular procedure that it was a strength for getting business done and above all, to paint consistently the notion of a conspiracy, a cabal, enemies of the people in every corner of the machinery of government and why, trump declared, i will totally

obliterate it the deep state. the deep state, a foundational lie about the character of american government. so it works very simply it works by disabling and hijacking and circumventing and surveilling all of the partners and agencies. and there is no place where this we call on governing can't go. you'll recognize of them. it subverts the national and atmospheric association's forecast of hurricane dorian. do you remember, trump added alabama to the knapp map. it hobbles postal service. it circumvents and blindsides the state department meetings with hostile foreign leaders. and as trump promised, if i to be president and i see somebody who's doing well and beating me very badly, i say go down and indict them. they'd be out of business. you're familiar with this thing that we call on governing and the administrative state with election. right and so what we're pointing

out is that the results of elections, the attempt to control the results of, elections depend upon attacking administration of elections. and that's what we're seeing. and the why is governing is terrifyingly simple. it's to replace limited public authority, unleashed personal will to replace office even the most powerful and but still limited office of the presidency with personal. when trump says my, it's not a simple of saying that the military is to civilian authority. it's a demand for total obedience, for submissiveness. you recall that recently talked about a call for obama to be subject to military tribunals in words the deconstruction of the administrative state is is way to populist authoritarianism. and i'll just end by saying that there are a lot of ways to fail to govern in a democracy realm.

there's obstruction, there's this this clientele ism. there's corruption, this corruption is scale. we call that kleptocracy. but on governing is its own thing, it does have a history. it has a constituency, and it has, we argue, a future. whether or not trump is reelected, because this assault on governing can be carried on by a rogue political party, the illegitimate descendant of conservative republicanism. it can be carried on by a reactionary and sometimes violent social movement and, by a majority of life tenured justices of the supreme court who clearing the way and they'll stop. yeah, i'm not going to talk. the evolution of the right or its current nature. instead, i'm going to kind of pose a question here that i think is probably on a lot of people's minds is, you know, you can look at the nature of

trumpian populism today and you can look at candidate trump and, you can kind of wonder, are the democrats kicking their --? right. i mean, this is like not a particularly hard opponent. you'd think widely disliked across the united states, he says. all kinds of crazy things, and he doesn't seem to be getting any. so the question is why? why can't the democrats decisively beat that trump the trumpian republican party? and that's really, in a sense, what my book with john judas. where have all the democrats gone is really about? so our book is divided up into two sections. one is called the great divide, where we first trace the evolution of the initial defection of, the working class from the democrats is basically among whites and, you know, had many obviously origins or are culturally shoes, too. but a lot it had to do with the lack faith, these these these working voters developed and the

ability of democrats to deliver a prosperity because this was sort of the heyday of neo liberalism if we can use that loose term in which the democrats signed to in one way or another and the bottom line was, as far as a lot of people were concerned, they really getting ahead a lot of their communities were being left behind. they didn't feel democrats had their backs in the way they once did. i mean, there's a great gallop question that's been asked for almost 75 years. which party do you trust to keep the country prosperous and the next several years and up to the reagan election, it was like an average a 17 point advantage for the democrats after that it drops off a cliff it goes back and forth. republicans run a slight advantage on typically but the latest reading for example is plus six for the republicans. so that the sort of the fdr deal image of democrats as the people would deliver prosperity and deliver it for the working class was pretty much nuked in that period. the second part of our book call

cultural radicalism and trying to get at the way in which the democratic party has become, in a sense, culturally branded with a variety of positions on race, on immigration, on gender even even on climate change, which become a heavily culture ized issue that, are essentially out of the wheelhouse of the media and, working class voter. and you know what? but are quite by their college graduate base, particularly the white college graduate base. i mean, one little telling statistic about that is if you look back even at the obama election in 2012, he lost college graduates by eight points. biden won them by eight points. so there's this really the only demographic in the last of time where democrats have made progress. everything is is starting to fall away from them. the white working class has become even more consolidated behind the republican party. and a very important fact still, i think, underappreciated, is that nonwhite working class is starting to move the ct