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 direction

of the republicans. we that very clearly in 2020 particularly among hispanics it was like a 16 point swing toward donald trump. donald trump, remember the guy who supposedly no hispanics would ever vote for. and we're seeing more of that in this cycle. in fact, if you look at the data we're seeing today, in a sense, this election is going to come down to a contest between much can kamala harris jack up the college vote, particularly the white college educated vote? and how much can trump jack his support and advantage among the class as a whole, including you know reducing the margin for democrats among the nonwhite working class so that's where we are today. you know, the evolution of democratic john and i trace in our book, i think explains a lot about how we got here and again tries to answer that question, you know, if we're so great, why aren't we rich if the republicans are so terrible? again why aren't we kick in their --? it's like i mean, he's not even run a good campaign, god's sake. you know? so you know, what's that all about? so those are the questions we

sought to answer in our book. let me ask each of you. so there's, i think, a confluence of themes here that i think we should stay with for a second, which is at a at a political level, this of degree divide. right. so we're seeing increasing polarization around the attainment of higher education, degrees, both across sub demographic and within them. so if you pick a demographic group, latino voters, you see the degree divided within latino voters, you see it within white voters, you see it within black voters. and then you see it aggregated across and. it seems to me that this connects with some of the themes that nancy david are both talking about. right. so this question about sort of like, shall we it to the experts, in the words of an old radical pamphlet and how much trust you should have in expertise is very much connected to, i think that sort of politics of this degree divide and also connected to a long tradition of again, to sort of

cite an old party that no longer exists the no nothings but an old tradition, sort of populist american politics. and so those two things have kind of come together at this moment, both in sort agenda affirmatively in terms of deconstructing the administrative state and in the kind of like rhetoric, tone and information environment of basically these, you know, the anthony forces of the world, these sort of like demented, egomaniacal experts want to control your life in every and look down on you are the sort of grand enemies that are that sort of run the globalist class. and i'm i'm curious, david, how much you think that the particular way in which that's come together at this moment is new and how much it isn't? well, i mean, there was always degree of, a pretty pronounced degree anti-intellectual ism in conservative politics, you know, very famously, william f buckley

said that he would rather be ruled by the first thousand people in the boston phonebook than by the faculty at harvard. you know, the difference i think one of the important differences, though, is that there's still was a a degree of committee meant to, again to go back to reveal oliver, the fact that he had a ph.d. in classics and taught at a major american university. that's something that john birch society very deliberately cultivated. they loved having him despite the fact that he was a lunatic, in addition to being a neo-nazi, claimed one point that jfk was assassinated by, the communist conspiracy. because kennedy himself was a communist and was not delivering america to communism fast enough. this wrote this in 1964, shortly after the it almost got him fired from his tenure position. but it still mattered that he had sort of academic credentials and expertise. and i think you're right that something changed in i was talking this with a friend of mine actually in the greenroom

not too long ago, just in the past hour. you know, cultural authority of things like books is not what it was 20 years ago. certainly you know, certainly not 50 years ago. so i think that but but other thing i just wanted to flag about our moment here in american politics. and this is a little bit outside of my wheelhouse but i think it's important for the purposes of our conversation this is an international problem too mean we have we just saw the far right in france perform surprise well in the elections there you see this consistently in germany you i mean you had a, you know, situation in the u.k. where the labor party won after being out of power 14 years and then immediately country descends into a nationwide race riot. so there's a broader and to say nothing of the educational decoupling that's happening across industrialized societies. so this is part of a broader international moment and i'm i'm not convinced that we have seen that wave creep and i welcome more. yeah. just to to sort of that up for a

second because to roy's point, which i agree, i mean it is funny to look at the, you know, to look at this election and look the debate and then it's like, oh, it's 47, 45, you know, like, well, that doesn't feel like it should be 4745. but, you know, in, in international context, this is this degree is is beset all of the industrialized democracies and also the international context, weirdly enough, and this sounds counterintuitive but it's true the democratic party is by far most successful center left party in in the oecd. by far. i mean, the all of the parties in the progressive international that used represent the center left across europe, austria to france. they're all they're all basically desiccated husks. and democratic party is the one that actually has been electorally quite successful amidst the trends that david is talking about. nancy, how much of this, i guess, question is what's the cause and effect in terms of the governing agenda and the and the

rhetoric around it? right. like which which which leads which before before i answer that to your to your talk which is absolutely you know, there the fact of the matter that the democrats win the popular vote over and over and over. over. so where have all the democrats gone there? they're voting. we have a system that doesn't allow that to happen. so it just needs to said on this business of elitism and knowledge and so on and so forth, i make two points. one is that in the there's always been a deprecation of experts and knowledge on the part people generally and of procedures who likes the procedure you've ever been to a bureaucracy i mean, it's a horrible thing. however, something, something new has happened and the new thing that's happened is the delegitimization of knowledge and science and procedural. listen, it's not just distrust, it's delegitimization. this means something special. it means that these people who

have expertise and these procedures that constrain them that, that these things have no and no authority. and what that means is you don't to be compliant with them is the big change, not the hatred of it or the dismissal it, but the idea that you don't have comply with it. and this is part what's leading to the violence we see against paul workers or nurses or around masks today. it's not just it's delegitimization is something very special that hasn't happened. that hasn't happened before. and in our book, we do i think, something interesting we take trump's zero tolerance policy where you remove children from their parents in an attempt to deter illegal immigration and show how that policy couldn't work. it couldn't because they didn't talk to the to experts in the departments that deal with

immigration. they didn't talk to the people who deal with the health of children. right. and they didn't they didn't have any data so that we still a thousand children that couldn't be connected with their parents, i mean, their own policy is if you call them policies, can't work because they are out to destroy the administrative. if were to since you're talking about immigration really if you're if you're to try to come up with a model theory of the trends that you and john are identifying and, talking about, and again, across these the western world, sort of advanced rich, industrialized crises, and they're not that advanced. that, you know, i that your best occam's razor contender for hypothesis would be it's all immigration basically and this is particularly true in europe and less true here but basically we have because of globalization, because of

technological changes in that in the sort of transfer of people, because of the mass of wealth that's been borne by both colonialism and its aftermath, there's just tremendous demand pressure for people to leave where they are and go to countries that are richer. and this is just messing up everyone's politics in precisely the way. and i'm struck by this because. if you watch fox and if you listen to trump, it is striking how monomania the focus is. i mean, it truly is this point almost to the exclusion of everything. it really is the only i remember this because i remember talking to anti-immigration folks back in the early aughts when i was reporting on them and they had exactly the same monomania, which is that they'd be like, well, what's issue? you'd be like, you environment there. but well, here's why immigration is a problem and you'd say, so like if you, if you were left wing in the environment but if you were right wing you crime they were like, here's what immigration's a problem. and they have the exact same monomania. and i wonder how much you think you about these sort of sort of cultural branding things around

gender and race and policing, but how much that trump and his ilk clearly think immigration is the key one, right? well, no doubt that immigration is actually a critical issue at this point. i guess i would reject sort of one variable model here. i mean, i think it's part of a constellation of issues, immigration has been handled, in a way, in the united states, a lot of other countries where you've had actually a fairly substantial inflow of illegal or quasi illegal immigrants people don't necessarily object to immigrants per se or, immigration per se. i think the data are pretty clear on that. but are really object to, you know, massive illegal immigration, which, you know, has the effect of can affect wage levels potentially people get sent out into communities and service burden just a sense that things are out of control the border is out of control. i mean you know you look you could do focus groups with hispanic voters that these

people say you know what you know i came the right way what's with these people so you can't just have you can't just in my view, the sentiment about immigration simply to monomaniacal people on the right who are ginning up this is a really important issue that a lot of working class people feel strongly about. and for some not crazy reasons. i mean, there an economic aspect to immigration. there is cultural there are many aspects to immigration and they can all just be reduced to you love immigrants or you hate them, right? yeah. i don't think that's true. totally. i think we just, you know, of bring it back to the biden administration. i mean, why is this a big issue? it's partly because it's a good deal. because under the biden administration, because basically dealt pretty loosely with border enforcement during the first three and a half years. i mean, you did have a very large influx of illegal immigrants in united states. i mean, you know, it's sort of the new york times reported, you know, you talk to these people

you know, interviewing these people, the darian gap, so on. well, why are you doing this? it's like a debate. i think if i get to the united states, you know, and i get across the border, be able to stay forever, and then the reporter said, and he's not wrong. so, i mean, that really was a situation object to this this gets to what i sometimes call the fox news fallacy, which is a tendency to look at an issue that's raised by the right or by conservatives or by fox news and say, well, if their talking about it a lot, then must not be a real issue. this is all just made up. this is just appeals to prejudice is there's no there there there's no rational kernel. and i think that is a very dangerous way of thinking. and i think it's hurt the democrats because they have not responded adequately and expeditiously enough to some of these concerns. i mean, you at it now finally they they closed down the border and you know basically cut off the asylum system. so the are gaming it in contravention of international law. just just i just have to make point. i mean, you could say international law is broken and

bad. a lot of people do. you can say the asylum for an interpretation of that. right. i mean you could say. i mean, but but as as just a matter of international law in the treaties which we've signed in terms of people crossing in between border crossings, it's a the asylum protection extends to people wherever they land. now, again, i think the system's being no, no, no. but i think those are two distinct things, right? like, i think it's clearly the case, like what you're saying about the numbers are really true, right? so the what happened particularly september, november, december in terms of border resentments, you had numbers that were essentially rivaling at the border the the busiest day at ellis island. right. and ellis island is a facility that's designed precisely the processing of immigrants, whereas the 2000 mile border. not right. and those numbers are real. i mean, when think about like the most like give us your tired give us your poorer we were hitting those numbers in november december. to your point. it was real right. in the same way that like did crime go up in 2020, 2021? yes, it did.

inflation go up? yes. did fox cover those things? yes. did it mean that those things didn't happen enough? right. they did really all three of those things really did happen. but my my question is more about emphasis, right? because it's like it's it's not to me that that like the the mechanisms of politics works is that some material factor over here in the german of this way and the politics move that way in any librium the fact that huge numbers of people say immigration is the most important in america isn't the product of the numbers at the southern border. it's the product of a political project which again, i've got political projects, too. no shame on a political project. i don't think salience of immigration would have gone up during the biden administration, as it did. it's now come back some without the actual existing things that happened at the border. i think that's incorrect? yeah, well, but i mean, also, if i can chime in here, i mean, we're also dealing i mean, insofar as immigration is a real

substantive issue that is affecting votes in politics. and and i do think this is part of a broader national trends, surely the solution cannot be a return to something like. the 1924 immigration act surely. it cannot be the policy proposal and project 2025. and i do want to actually ask you about this specific aspect of it, because you read project 25 and there is it is the unraveling of the administrative state except in one very important area, which is ice, immigration, you know, enormous capacity. yeah. if you're trying to say that my substantive policy solution, immigration is is to deport 15 million people, then you need build up an apparatus to do that that is tied to the personal ism, which is why it's so terrifying. you know, along with i believe it was, j.d. vance, who suggested yesterday that this would also help solve the housing crisis because you deport 15 million people, that's going to free up space in this country. and again. i mean, it's not to say that

immigration is not a because the numbers are real, but surely the political cannot be going back to the bad old days of the 1920s. yeah, i think we have to take account of the the rhetoric and the teaching around immigration, not just the facts of the matter i mean, if you think that your jobs are being taken right. and some jobs are being taken, but it's also true that we need immigrants to do this work. i mean, there's no question about it. and and and the same thing is true of this. immigrants, because crime are they the cause of crime here or, racial hatred and being tainted. i mean the language and the teaching for a long time now right around immigration is not about the kinds of things you're talking about and it has to have had an impact. it's not to say the problems that you're talking about aren't real and could have some solutions if people could see them as the problems that you

describe. i just think that that's not how they're taken that. well, it seems to me there are sort of two things, right? so there's there's the concerns you're talking about, which agree with. right. there's a lot of folks in a sort of conflicted middle who think that the point you made precisely before about i like i immigrants i'm immigrants my life my family might have immigrated but people need to come the right way. disorderly. i don't like this order. right. and i think true. and i think you're watching harris move to exactly that place rhetorically at the border speech. i don't know if you saw it in arizona this week, but the folks who are writing proudly, 2012, steve norris, like they don't want it, they want the 24 klan act, basically like they don't want to open like they want to shut it all down. and basically recreate the period in the u.s.. from 24 to 65. and again, that's a legitimate. yeah. what's your point i mean obviously what he proposing would be a bad idea. we shouldn't be shocked if. the right takes advantage of openings they have politically

on, you know, the highly charged issues that are real problems. and they they attempt to maximize political gain. they try to gain leverage and they come up with some really bad ideas. mean come on. this is maybe why a lot of people in this room are democrats. but just blame them for nuts, right? you know, figure out why are two democrats out competing them on this issue? and part of the reason is because for a substantial period of time, the democrats have had a very loose, tolerant attitude toward the border and security and illegal immigration. and that's that's come home to roost. you have to solve the problem if you're going to, you know, basically kneecap the right on this issue totally. but when during the biden administration, they did not solve the problem, but they accentuated it. right. why people are upset. no totally. yeah, i don't i actually don't disagree with that. but what is the how to me? the question is what is problem? right. because the part of part of populist politics all here like if you saw the harris speech, right. whole framing was an actual

policy challenge. we need actual solutions to and this gets back to these sort of different rhetorical modes that i think inform nancy david, the work that you've done about the sort of like the question is, can you talk people down using that? what do you think? well, it does it does it can you basically be like we're going to do this at the border. we're going to sign this or sign this border bill. we're to have more, you know, robots out searching the cars at, points of entry, things like that. well, i think it would be, you know, advisable. i mean, that's a reasonable thing to say. i think things are going to sign a bill that may or may not get to your desk is maybe not the most effective. we probably should talk about continuing the current sort of relative closing of the border just so when i'm president, i will continue to do this. she said that? yeah. so that's that's, you know, worth something but democrats i think basic quickly would need to sort of promulgate a different approach to immigration. and that was very strict on

border security and that actually had a a fairly clear criteria for who are the immigrants were legally allowed in the country and maybe that should be a skill by a system like other countries. i mean, you can't solve the problem by saying we're going to get a little tougher on border security. and, you know, hopefully that will work out. you know, we're not going to change the immigration system all and we're not going to change it unless we have, you know, some sort of pathway to citizenship. everybody, let me let me ask you this question, nancy. i'm just not going to work on this issue state capacity and on governing, because it does seem to me that the actual expert in some ways of of the trump first term in both sort of provides evidence for budget against your theory, which is to say they really did invest capacity in the immigration apparatus and they really have a vision for investing capacity to, pull off this mass deportation the next time around like i take them at their word on that, that they're

serious. that and i wonder whether, you think that's true or not? well, i think that are two policy areas that trump cares about. and is tariffs and taxes. and the other immigration. and he is capable of beefing up areas which he cares. but that's it. that's it. he's not a policy person. he's not an institution person. he's not a program person. and for the rest, he's willing to let this whole thing be corroded and corroded himself by by his by his interventions and think that, you know, who was it? ezra klein had a great line the other day. it was that he's never known a program that survive trump. i mean and this is this is basically it and it's why i'm less afraid of project 2025 than many people are because. i think it is a program that would take the authority in a sense from him and his personal wishes and experience and make it into program of

reconstituting government. and he's not a government reformer. you know, david, there's there's something about the information environment here that here you're on, which is the old know since in brooklyn begins ten commandments where he says, you know, never get high on your own supply, which was, you know, sort an important rule for drug dealing. right. like if you become an addict, you're going to be a bad drug dealer. and there's a lot of getting high in their own supply, i think in rightwing politics these days where there used to be a little bit of a division of there was like a certain sort of populist mode communication that was for the base. and then, you know, the people at the top, the newspaper, not really. and i don't i think they don't read they don't read the newspaper anymore. and don't they? they it's all the same thing. they're to you know, tucker podcast or whatever and. i wonder if you think that's new

way that i think it's new and b what effects it has on the sort of ability to to actually do politics and governing. well, it's it's new but it the way this worked in the past was a little bit different. so you people who were in elite positions within the conservative movement. i'm thinking in particular of somebody like joseph brand, even pat buchanan back in the 1970s and 1980s, a brand was one of buckley's acolytes at the national review, who also was reading and we know this because he had several repeated scandals around this. he was reading neo-nazi literature and introducing some of those ideas into his syndicated newspaper columns. so, you know, pat buchanan, very infamously a column for i think it was in the new york post 1990, in which he suggested that he was skeptical that hundred thousand -- were gassed at treblinka. and it's fairly clear that he was drawing that from holocaust denial that was in the orbit buchanan world at the time so there has always been this

pipeline line of the sort of radicals, but what i think is different now and i wrote about this in the new york times, a couple of months ago, is that everybody who is in sort of gop staff politics, world drinking the kool-aid to one degree or another? i do think also that i would just want to touch on the project. 25.1 of the things i'm concerned about with project 2025 is that it is if it if you are serious about implementing that as a governing vision, then j.d. vance is the guy you pick as your vice presidential candidate to implement it. i mean, whether or not vance will actually have it, i mean, assuming trump wins election, whether or not he will actually have real political influence, the administration is another question. mike pence kind of did before that, turned out very badly for him, you know, and then this is something that's also we've seen many times in many different political context. buchanan. in the 1980s was in the reagan white house.

he left after about two years because he was sick of being silent. so it's tough to it's tough to say, but it certainly looks like capacity could be there and the staffers believe this stuff, too. i mean i was just at the national conservatism conference in d.c. back in back in july. and it was it was palpable there. right. i want to ask about how you think the one of the weird things about this moment is there's realignment happening among different constituencies right. but it hasn't really affected the policy agenda that much. so like it's true that, you know, you cite this in the book, you can look at these, you know, ten most, you know, high income congressional districts or areas that. they all went for reagan. then they all for biden. right. and then you could look at all these areas that all went for democrats forever and have now shifted over trump. right. and everyone's read a million stories about this. and yet it is case that like if

the republicans get a trifecta like they are going to cut taxes at the top, like the same way a 1984 republican would. and it's still the case that democrats are going to push something much more broadly redistributive. and i wonder if you think how tenable that is, that the material policies of the parties, if the realignment continues to happen if you have to start really making changes materially on both sides. you know, that's an interesting question. i mean, it is most a problem in a sense for the republicans because they really have become a working class party. they get majority of working class votes now. they remotely used to be true and clearly derived a lot of their political momentum and their political base from working class voters and increasingly again, we see nonwhite working class voters moving into their camp. so you know, what are you going to do for them? you know, i mean, they're not mean.

they they may be susceptible or interested in a lot of these culturally conservative arguments because they are culturally conservative but you know, they live in the real world. they want their lives improved. they want better health care and better schools and better communities. and, you know, they want to be uplifted. so, you know, the theory do they have a theory of the case for that? that's the problem now when trump was initially elected right in 2016, he ran a sort of you know, tough on trade. we're going to bring manufacturing back we're going to you know, we're going to, you know, make america great again. and you great again. your communities great again. and what was his big economic, you know, sort of achievement it was the tax cuts and jobs act of 2017, which didn't do jack for most of these people. right. so you the theory of 2024, some more more optimistic conservative friends think that, you know he's going to be they'll be a more of a presence administration for like the ideas of orin cass and people like that american who have some influence and j.d. vance and

people like that but you know you were making the you know, he's not a policy guy. i mean, he's going to be the president. so what are they really going to be able to do for these people these new working class voters, you know, who they've gathered over and they may have more of them in this election if they win. so it's an interesting question. and, you know, it allows the democrats, in a sense, to skate by by being somewhat more sensible, somewhat more redistributive, somewhat oriented toward, you know, sort of ordinary people, even if the ordinary people, a lot of them buying it at this point. so but i mean, over time you could make the argument, though, if it increasingly a college educated party, you know a more a party of professional elites like it has to large extent you know so much more influenced by it. what happens to that part of the democratic party the amazing thing about this is that in the actual governing agenda of the inflation act, in the chips act and the infrastructure bill is that they have the money has flowed away.

the democratic base, it has flowed to precisely the areas that are the most. yeah, but they don't to appreciate it. which is interesting. i don't mean it just saying, but i'm saying is as a material matter. right. right. but i mean, how will it takes a long time to turn around the political economy totally states that's part of the problem i mean these were not ideas that i might argue. i think perhaps too much of it was climate focused. but that's really another issue. some of the benefits have flowed to these red states. but, you know, they're their economic state and particularly the left behind communities and areas. it's not going to be changed overnight. so you really to be able to keep pace with this and that's part of the problem with having a weak coalition that's susceptible to the you know, trumpian populism coming in and preventing them from doing anything, nancy, i think they're just 60 seconds. and do you accurately pointed out, which is their base now not aligned with their programs, but the other is that anyone who's watched in congress for the last what, 15 years would have some