the unionist cause with katie shively of virginia commonwealth diversity. termers --that nat turner's rebellion. the artifacts of the civil war. with atinuous coverage discussion on preserving gettysburg national military with jennifer murray of obama state university. violence in the civil war from louisiana state university and a look at the civil war and emancipation in the heart of america with and heirs of the university of richmond followed by a discussion on seeing the conflict through the eyes of panelg historians with a watch the annual gettysburg

college civil war institute summer conference live this weekend on american history tv on c-span3. wehner,at thus is peter that's with us is peter wehner, -- with us is peter wehner, out with a new book. ae cover of your book is picture of a freed flag. -- frayed flag. fraying of think the politics in our country started? guest: i argue in the book that a lot of these trends that are troublesome in politics, the polarization, anger, acrimony, deathmatch mindset predates donald trump. i do fault him for having accelerated all of the worst friends.

most of the worst trends in american politics -- all of the worst trends. most of the worst trends in american politics have occurred in the last 30 years, and i do not recall a time with this much antipathy when the temperature has been as high as it has been. host: you wrote in the book that day one, you were opposed to donald trump as president is a veteran republican. when did you come to the conclusion that politics are dead, and what do you mean by "the death of politics"? guest: i am a person of the christian faith so i believe in life after death. there is an alarm bell to this book, because what i mean by the death of politics as some of the best of the american traditions are dying. my supposition in the book is that politics matters a lot.

politics is a complicated thing. it has downsides and dark sides. there are people who lack integrity. at the same time, there are people with integrity who were trying to help the country. politics is finally and fundamentally about justice. the only way to pursue justice and an important way to do it. if a country gets its politics wrong, there will be a huge human cost. so much of what we love can be swept away if politics goes, and if you get politics right, that allows for human flourishing and human dignity to be advanced. what i am worried about is a sense i get from people -- and you may too just from c-span, listening to callers -- a sense of cynicism and fatalism, there is nothing we can do. explainook, i try and

what we can do on a practical level, but in a deeper sense i try and untangle what politics is, and the attitudes toward it and how we as citizens have to andge our view of politics what we can do to recover it. host: you are with the ethics and public policy center. you spent time with three republican administrations with reagan, bush, and george w. bush , but when did your interest in politics start? were you a republican from the start? guest: i have had two abiding passions since i was yet -- i was a young kid, politics and sports. growing up, i grew up in washington state and we had a cabin in the cascade mountains and we used to go there every weekend.

,e would listen to the radio the news, and i would talk to my parents about what was on the news, just fascinated. when i was growing up, the vietnam war, the impeachment of war inthe arab-israeli 1973, on and on. those things interested me. in junior high and high school, social studies classes were the most interesting to me. i remember having debates with my teachers. i was conservative, mostly because my parents were, and often happens. my teachers were liberals. we had good discussions, interesting discussions. that is when my interest began. book, the story in the when i went to the university of washington, which is where i went to school, and i used to go to the library which is majestic

, the library at the university, and often on friday and saturday nights when other people are out doing social things, i would listen to speeches by john f. kennedy and bobby kennedy, because i was struck by the beauty of their language. i began to memorize some of those speeches unintentionally. it wasn't like i didn't have a social life, but parts of politics interested me. some people get involved in politics because they like the competition, they are interested in the party apparatus. they become a democrat or republican for life and are loyal to the party. for me, politics was about the human drama. i was fascinated by the intersection of ideas and people , and how ideas can shape history. i was a conservative before i was a republican. host: peter wehner, his new book "the death of politics, how to

heal our frayed republic after trump." republicans, (202) 748-8001. democrats, (202) 748-8000. independents and all others, (202) 748-8002. you can also send us a tweet. ever a part -- you opposed president trump from the beginning -- but once he was nominated do used to back and say, i am open to giving him a chance, as a republican? host: more even as an american than a republican. anybody who cares about their country of loves it once the president to succeed and do well for the sake of the country, and i hope i was open to having him prove me wrong. i am certainly willing even now as a critic of trump to acknowledge that he has done

things that from my perspective have been good. his court appointments have been very good. increased spending on the military has been helpful. his deregulation policies have been somewhat helpful. i think he has made some serious errors in policies and has hurt the country and the social fabric. when i went in, i was hoping he would do well and hoping that he would surprise me. he has not. one of the first prominent republicans to say that i wouldn't support trump under any conditions -- i write a bimonthly column for the new 2016 and i-- january said, i wouldn't vote for trump under any circumstances. there was a variety of reasons. one is that i thought he was intellectually and emotionally and psychologically not fit to be president. second was the way he practiced

politics, the inflammation of our politics. host: inflammation. guest: this is a person who would have a divisive presence in our country for sure. bute andrew jackson, certainly in modern times we have not had anybody who seems to thrive on the visions in acrimony in the country. there seems to be psychic satisfaction that donald trump gets out of causing divisions. the demonization of his cruelty, that has radiating effects. republicans and conservatives use to agree with me back in the day. they talked a lot about the importance of character in politics and politicians, and also how a culture, a political soldier is dutch culture is central to the health of a country -- culture is central to the health of a country. host: getting information on foreign entities?

guest: that is an illustration. those are outrageous comments. if any other president had said that, it would be a furor. it is illegal, unethical, unwise. it can trigger mutually assured destruction in our politics because if you have one person, president of the united states who gives a green light to interference by hostile foreign nations and elections, the other side may say we will do it too, and where does it end? i was listening to donald trump give the interview to george stephanopoulos and the thing that struck me, those comments were a window into his, what i would say is his inverted moral world. for him, what helps him is right by definition and what hurts him is wrong by definition. he doesn't seem to have any kind of objective moral boundaries.

there is a moral narcissism. everything involves, his human relationships, all his actions revolve around whether they help him or not. he is a one-man battering ram against our institutions, against our norms, against integrity. that has a big effect. george will come at the other day -- host: who likewise has a new book out. guest: i have just started it, and it looks very good. columnist, has been a columnist since the early 1970's, and is a dean of conservative writers. he is a man of distinguished pedigree and intellect, and he said in an interview that the trump is doing to america exceeds what nixon did, and that trump has rung bells that cannot inwrong in terms -- unrung

terms of politics. line inr independent medford, massachusetts, bob, go ahead. caller: i just wanted to tell a story about my parents. i am in my 70's, so this was a while ago, but they started voting for franklin roosevelt back in 1932 and continued until he passed away in 1945. then they switched over to hermie truman -- harry truman and voted for him until he lost in 1952 to dwight eisenhower. father,mother and lifelong democrats, swung their support in behind dwight eisenhower because as my mother said, it was our country and he was our president. today, that feeling is gone . it is completely erased from our

attitude. agenda,w our party, our and nobody can object to our plan and our philosophy. it is just out. nobody listens to each other, and it is very sad. i don't know what the answer is. you go up and down the channels and you know which stations will be pushing out their agenda. it is plain and simple. trump,ot vote for donald but i support him because he is our president until he does something totally outrageous, but i would ask your guest if he thinks trump has an inverted moral agenda, what did he think of bill clinton? clinton, i will take that one first, i was a critic of bill clinton actually. i said so at the time publicly.

vocal about those criticisms. because i made the argument on character matters, i don't think if you look through my history that i have moved at all in terms of the standards that i apply here. a lot of conservatives and republicans have, the same by four touse a two bash bill clinton upside the head and argue integrity matters, and now donald trump, that is not the case with me. i have been a lifelong republican and conservative, so whatever is wrong in my analysis and whatever criticisms one might have of me, hypocrisy is not one that is merited. in terms of the political tribalism the caller describes, i agree and i talk about that in the book. it is more accentuated than at

any point. let me say one thing -- and i do this in the book -- and it is important in part because of the criticisms that i have, concerns i have. we have to keep historical context. there is a tendency for all of us to think, whatever age we are in is the worst or best there has ever been. american politics and politics and every free country has always had its rough side. election wastested a rough fight and almost toward the young republic apart. you had the dual between burr and hamilton, where hamilton was killed. countrypeople dead in a of roughly 30 million people. earlyte 1960's and 1970's, riots in the streets,

universities being taken over and burned. kent state, the national guard shooting. the democratic national convention in chicago where there was blood in the street. the vietnam war. the research for the book, the 1972d between 1971 and there was an average of five domestic bombings in the united states per day. odshave had other rough peri and having said that, the tribalism is difficult. ultimately what we have to do, it is really up to us. the political system is responsive and if citizens at every level stay local and national, and in their put adual lies -- eyes, premium on integrity, decency, and ethics, we will get that.

if we don't do it, then we will get the politics we have. i think a lot of times people say, a look at our politics and say the political system is broken and the country is fine, and that is not right. we have angry and divided politics because we have an angry and divided country, and politics is the arena on which that is playing out. i get a sense from the country there is kind of an exhaustion with this kind of politics. sometimes in the life of an individual and in the life of a country, there are certain qualities, virtues you take for granted, but when they are stripped from you you realize why they matter, and then you are willing to fight for them and reclaim them. i hope and believe the country will be doing that. this country has a tremendous capacity for self renewal and it is within our power to write

wonderful new chapters of the american story, but it is up to us. ont: let's hear from james our democrats line in baltimore. caller: i hope you give me a little bit more time. has come to perform -- 40% of americans have in them. it is about greed. i don't care about somebody else. it is not mine. i don't care about you and i don't care what happens, even if there was someone uniting the country. he divides the country. them, they will tell you lies. they will say, what about obama? that is the only thing that ever bring up, that is the only lie. , what hasd sake

hillary clinton ever done? you cannot mention a sentence without mentioning that woman's name. she has the audacity to run for president and support her husband. bringing up uranium -- host: i will let you go. andt: to some extent, james people all over america are indicative about the state of politics. you can sense the anger and passion and feeling that one size -- one side has. the other size does -- side does not understand, maybe. there is a sense that people who disagree with us are not only wrong but are morally defective. they are by definition almost corrupt. in a sense, this is the deathmatch mindset i was referring to earlier, the feeling that if the other side wins our country will die and wipe away all that we care

about. i think that is one of the problems we have. i know the struggles of this. i have been involved in politics a long time. i care about politics. my passions have been stoked up at times and i have had attitudes when upon reflection, i wish they changed -- i tell of of aecdote i had relationship with joe klein. , very fineolumnist columnist and beautiful writer for newsweek. we met in the 1990's. william bennett. host: the former education secretary. guest: and drugs are for george w. bush. he was more -- drug czar for george w. bush. he was more liberal than i was.

i went into the bush administration for a variety of reasons. i was deputy director of speechwriting and became director of the officer -- office of admissions. joe felt i had gone to the dark side and he was critical to me. when i got out of the administration in 2007, i was free to write, i responded, and we had back-and-forth. you can google our names and see the back-and-forth. he got angry and there was antipathy and some of the exchanges got too personal. some people were cheering me on because they agreed with me, disagreed with joe, but i felt like there was something about it that was not right. people who knew me best like my wife thought ultimately that needs to be repaired. several years later during the obama presidency, i reached out

to joe and we had a nice exchange. we met at the jefferson hotel in washington, d.c., and as we were walking, we came from different sides from the hotel, which is probably fitting, and we embraced on the street corner almost before a word had been said. we had a wonderful breakfast in conversation and reconnected, but that is an illustration of what can happen when you go out each other politically and have different views. it takes intentionality and real effort. in the book, i tell a lovely greatthat cs lewis, a medievalist and author of children's stories in 20th century england, he started a group of intellectuals. hisis book, he talks about first friends and second friends. a first friend is a person who

is your alter ego, where if i start a sentence, you can complete it. we all need first friends. that is part of having community. for him, there was a person named arthur graves. he talked about the second friend. the second friend is the anti-self. that is the person that reads all the same books as you do but draws all the wrong conclusions. we used to go at it late into the night, trading punches, and almost without knowing it beginning to hear the other person and what they said. the key thing as it relates to politics, the reason i tell the story in the book is both treasured their friendship, in part because they saw the world in a different way. they felt like there were things the other person could teach them, and angle of vision on

issues come on reality, on truth that they -- issues, on reality, on truth, that they wouldn't be able to see otherwise. he said they did not debate for victory, they debated for truth. that is an entirely different way of viewing political debate. what we have to recover is the sense of listening to other people, not necessarily changing your point of view, but trying to learn from them, what might they see that i don't? host: anthony in huntington station, new york, republican line. caller: good morning and thank you for taking my call. i am calling to say a few things about the gentleman here. he is a never trumper. i understand these never trumpers would prefer hillary. you talk about conservative and republican politics, the election of donald trump was a

rejection of politics as it was trending. it does not seem to be understood by your guest. you talked about moral narcissism about donald trump. there is a narcissist culture in washington that was redirected, and this man was duly elected by the people of this country to be a wall against that. i just want to know, if you are will voteper now, you for bernie sanders or kamala harris? i don't get it. i don't get you never trumpers. you call yourself conservative republicans but prefer eight years of hillary. guest: let me try and untangle some of that. in terms of hillary clinton i was a critic. i did not vote for her. i did not vote for either one. i am a conservative but i am a critic of trump, and you can be

one at the same time. what i have argued in the book and outside the book is precisely because i am a conservative, in some respects i am critical of trump. i did not vote for a liberal. one anthony said i did not understand the election of donald trump was a rejection of politics, i say the opposite in the book. that is part of the explanation for what happened. and i talk about the failures of the political class and that there is an enormous amount of frustration in the public with the way politics is practiced, and that is understandable. a lot of things have gone wrong. culturalout massive and demographic changes, economic shifts on the scale of the industrial revolution. has gone on increasing polarization in the country. i understand for trump supporters, they viewed him as a

wrecking ball against the political system. the question is, is it going to be worse or better because of him? my argument is it is going to be worse. host: on the political parties, right that both political parties are exhausted and devoid of ideas. do you think the republican party now is the party of donald trump, and the democratic party >> right now it is there is no question that the republican party as the party of trixie. i would say his hold on at least a large part of the base is in some respects deeper than even ronald reagan, which is astonishing. this is a man whose entire life prior to becoming the republican nominee was not in the party. he supported democrats, a person of liberal views. he has no acquaintance with conservative ideas.

spend time in politics preview can see in the primaries, he couldn't string together three coherent policy sentences. party, andn over the as i wrote about and predicted, the party would be transformed into his image, and i think that is problematic. in some respects, and i will just take one issue, say protectionism versus free-trade. that is one conviction that trixie has had pretty much his entire life -- that trixie bank -- that trump has had pretty much his entire life. he is against free-trade and is a protectionist instinct for that is why the main aero in his quiver is tariffs. the republicans for decades and decades has been a free-trade party. he is transferring it.

-- he is transforming it. of the editors of the atlantic, and about a realization of the democratic party, and i agree there moving left at and a remarkable rate. you take a person like bernie sanders who almost beat hillary clinton, did not in part because of the establishment was for her and not for him, but it was a challenge. he is a self-proclaimed democratic-socialist. if you go back and read about his views in the past, they were more radical than today. that is the center of gravity increasingly of the democrats prayed you see it with joe biden. hadek or two ago, he supported an amendment that said federal funds would not go toward abortion.

roe v. wade is the law of the land, but no federal funding to go. biden says he still supported it. within 24 hours he flipped his position, i think that both parties are in a bad place right now. i think there's a sense they are both exhausted, and they don't have it within their toolkit, policy toolkit to meet the challenge. having said that, these challenges are enormous. we are going to huge transitions . anytime a country goes through transitions that we are, there is dislocation. politics cannot solve all of that. host: our guest, another half hour or so on his new book "the death of politics: how to heal our frayed republic after trump. " democrats, (202)748-8000; republicans, (202)748-8001,

independents, (202)748-8002, and all others, (202)748-8003. we welcome brian. caller: we have globalized everything on the economic front, and now i would like to talk about how it has affected our political parties, and it seems like we have these internationalists that control vast pools of wealth, and they are not really having any allegiance to any country. they just float around the world doing business, making profits. they are putting lots of money into the american electoral system. i have read many stories about all of the saudi money floating around washington and how that affects our foreign policy, plus the is release. it used to be -- plus the israelis. our two parties used to be more like. when my dad was a young man in the 50's, eisenhower really

wasn't a right wing, yes he was pro-labor unions in some respects. now we have sold out the american worker. you are for free-trade, but we have traded our jobs away for cheaper goods. now for most americans, their standard of living is not improving. it is harder to make a living as an average joe here. our political parties don't care about average joe. they think average joe is just some ignorant person, doesn't really understand anything, all we got to do is when his vote when election comes. meantime, but politicians are focused on is money, get money. host: we will hear from pete. there are a couple of issues. i agree with what brian has said about the perfect asian, it's

called the purification of parties. -- purification of parties. purified, they are more polarized that it in the -- more provide then since the civil war. when i first came to washington, in 19 the 80's -- in the 1980's and in the 1990's, you had overlaps. bob packwoode like and chuck percy, liberal republicans, daniel patrick moynihan, some democrats who are more conservative peer that allowed parties to engage each other for a variety of reasons that has changed. -- makes compromise compromise more difficult. there are other factors. in terms of globalization, i appreciate that. i would be a little less

cavalier about cheap goods. bad thing. is not a consumers would rather pay for things that are cheaper than more expensive for the globalization of the economy is going forward whether we want it or not. there are a lot of benefits to that. as you make advancements in an economy and as some kind of professions die, it creates dislocation. when he went from the age of the horse and buggy to automobiles, generally most people say that was good. but if you are in the horse business, it would be a difficult time, and you would have to have some help. money and politics, i am open to this idea, the fact is this is about free speech could there have been efforts to try to get money out of politics. believe, i believe in the law of unintended

consequences. a lot of times you try to do something, and are unintended consequences. one of these of people who wanted to remove money from politics, now there is a lot of dark money. ,roups that are out there committees that we know much less about them then when political parties were involved. there has been a weakening of the political parties which has opened things up to a kind of wild west show. you can't get rid of money and politics. the question is how to keep it in ways that are sane. election that the 2016 proved, money and politics is not dispositive. it doesn't control. president trump spent, to paired to the others, relatively little money. bush had a lot of money, and he did not win. i don't think money was what

drove the outcome. note, this is on the kellyanne conway, the violations reported yesterday, the president was telling fox he will not fire her over the hatch act violations. they have tried to take away her speech, and i think you're entitled to free speech in this country. what is your take on that story? he won't fire people originally, no matter what they would do. they have been some exceptions if he feels like they are harmful to him, but in terms of ethical violations, that doesn't seem to bother him. in terms of that story and the hatch act, it's not a violation of free speech. act is a rule that basically says for federal workers, there are certain lines you should not cross pretty what to keep workers from being overly politicized.

if you're on the federal payroll, and everybody in the admin assertion, as i was, we are all the mayor with the. -- the mere with it. a general matter, this is a wise thing. i think there is ambiguity on when you cross the lines or not. kellyanne works for a man who transgresses lines on a daily basis, and they really don't care. they don't care what the rules are. they don't care what people say about the rules. we see that with subpoenas from congress. they say, screw it, we are not going to do what you want. president trump would fire kellyanne conway or that she would care, that is not the ethic of the presidency. their view is might makes right. our way or the highway. we do what we want. catch us if you can. portland onl go to

the democrats line. you are on the air. had, still focusing on the thesis of your book. there have been feelings of the democratic party as feeling polarized by the big politics. one can't go very far without seeing that. , the are some efforts things that go through congress, and no one hears about that i --l like might help to l.a. allay some of this rift. i do a fair bit of advocacy work in preventing global poverty. i have been keeping up on bipartisan things like the includects, and they

big proponents from both parties that can work together to sign on that. i feel like these are important efforts that do things all over the world, global leadership. that's just one example of bipartisan things like this. do you have any thoughts on how we could publicize this more to the public to help rebuild this lost sense of confidence and help people feel like we are working together, and the most support and things are getting done. they're just a couple areas that we are still fighting on. host: i would like to ask you the media's role on this. his point a week ago, congress passed four pieces of climate change legislation that dealt with carbon dioxide and the oceans. they passed overwhelmingly. there was barely any reporting on that. this is somewhat of the issue he

brings up. caller: those are good questions. i deal with some of this in the book. i think the media has some responsibility here because as politics has gotten polarized, so has the media. there is a way in which the press decides to cover the most inflammatory comments. they are drawn like moths to a flame when there is conflict. the most outrageous things that are said are the most publicize. you have social media, which is history ofnew in the politics, and i have a friend, i talked about this in the sections on the media, that says as things speed up, we need to slow down grade one of the things i write about, i think the press needs to do, is to slow down and calm down.

i wish fewer reporters, not necessarily conlon musts were on twitter -- columnists were on twitter because they so often antagonize things. i think there is within the towards conflict and division. as logan said and as you pointed out. there is a lot going on low the radar. legislation is being passed all the time, often with a fair amount of bipartisan support, and we need to publicize that. i think we need figures in the media, frankly and politics, who defend what politics is, who talk about why it matters. i've got a chapter in the book on the democratic virtues of moderation and civility and what those things really are. they get tangled up sometimes.

one other thing which logan dimension, the global poverty work he is doing, i appreciate that. we have seen advances over the decades in this, and in some respects around the world and even our own country. a lot of the trends are actually by encouraging come and president bush one of the great achievements of his, says his effort to combat malaria on the african content, so there are good things going on. john, from mclean virginia. comments are ic tend to agree with you. i would submit for your consideration that the structural problem that we have in our political system is that we gerrymandered districts with regards to an right or by race.

we probably should not do that. we probably should gerrymander or draw districts to balance extremism,xtremes, balance them, draw them so that they are balanced as close as possible. happens when we draw them to favor a democrat or a republic, which are merely the two parties that we have in our country. secondly, i would suggest that what we are dealing with today over the last 20 years is a move , classic western liberal thinking to one of central planning and socialism versus individual freedoms, and

those are the battles we are seeing on capitol hill when we elect our presidents and in the activistsn we look at judges versus conservative textual reading of the law passed by the legislatures. host: we will hear from pete wainer. -- peter wainer. ner.ete weh his point, when you gerrymander these districts, this is done all the time because they want to create districts so they are not challenged. a distinguished scholar at brookings, who worked for president clinton, indulged a flick of theorist, and he has gerrymandering and

has said it is not as much of a problem as people often ascribe. he is worth reading about on that. the other thing that bill says is that politics is divided not just in terms of the house races , but you see it in the states themselves and in the senate, which of course gerrymandering is not relevant. there is no question in my mind, i think it is common sense, if you get these districts and produce people like nancy pelosi or aoc for the democrats or jim jordan or some of the freedom caucus guys for the republicans, they come at politics with a bigger and intensity -- with a intensity that can sometimes cross the line and make politics worse. if you don't have people within the district that offer a kind of mitigating influence, that is

a problem. the reality is that some people live in districts honestly in areas of the country where there is not a lot of diversity. there is something social scientists called -- called a big sword. people begin to sort themselves andin all sorts of ways, that's part of, as i said, the mantis -- manifestation of that is going on. host: you mentioned you are a christian. i want to ask you about a couple of numbers. the recent gallup poll over all the presidential approval numbers, 90% we talked about the party, but this number, among 78% approval rating, does that number surprise you? caller: yes and no. that is complicated. person of that i am a

christian faith. my faith is more important than my politics. i have a chapter in the book on politics and faith in what i think it can contribute to politics and why i think it can hurt politics. does that surprise me? most self-proclaimed evangelicals are conservative, in their ideology and their politics. the president represents the republican party, which has traditionally been the more conservative party. the president is advocating policies particular in areas that evangelicals traditionally care about. it would make sense that they would support him in large numbers per they voted for him in huge numbers. for trixie then forge w. bush -- more voted

the president then for george w. bush. i no longer consider myself an event shall call, but still a kurdish -- christian. my criticism is not that they support the president or his polities. i did not vote for clinton or the president. where i criticize a lot of the evangelicals, especially the is thatip in politics, they won't hold donald trump to account. they will not say that we appreciate his court appointments. they think is policies are good. the fact that this guy is in the dehumanization --his appointments opponents.

-- man was an undivided unindicted conspirator on hush money payments to a pornography star. he was having an affair with her on his third wife after their son was born. if that had happened to a liberal democrat, bill clinton or barack obama, can you imagine what the evangelicals would say

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