we really need to do better and we need to start today, make a better world for us because the things going on in this world between this virus, the bombing and all that, we should not live like

these ideas that not come from the grassroots. as being asjected marginalized members who were minorities or victims, they wanted to access the american dream individually through their own agency. these are people who were

discriminated against and yet they believed they could improve their life individually. the act of the collective is imposed on ideologues who have this idea of mind.ng america in i think it is the most important things to call out right away and say we should be very aware that our best impulses are being hijacked. the other is this idea of the a after theemography new immigration law in 1965 necessitated this division of the country in groups. that is not the case. american democracy has been 1600s, thence the advent -- the arrival of germans in the scotch irish, then the scandinavians, and germans. because of the potato famines. island, aellis

profusion of groups from armenia, syria, sicily, is to europe and hungary. the american democracy has always been changing, there was nothing about this new wave which was just a continuation of the american story, the necessitated breaking up the country to categories. host: two things, tell us about you immigration background coming to this country, your thingsand secondly, the you were talking about, there seemed to be the idea of a melting pot in america. is that still an idea worth having? guest: let me take that one first. yes, the melting pot is one of the first ideas targeted in this new disposition of identity politics, for a reason. because the melting pot is about joining the system and improving the system and accessing the system, and the people who have tos in mind do not want

improve the system, they want to change the american system starting with capitalism. these are very marxist ideas. critical theory on which all of this is based is in your marxist school. my own history is one -- i am an immigrant, i was born in cuba, left at the age of 12. my family went to europe than we came here to new york in the early 70's when i had just turned 14. i have this history, if you want to use the language of the left, it is my lived experience to understand certain things. but then, as you mentioned, i was a journalist and foreign correspondent, abroad for 15 years, spending the bulk of that in asia and europe and some that in lating america as well but the majority was spent in asia and europe.

so i am able to compare and contrast and able to see, to compare different models. and i believe in america, i believe in the american system. this is a fantastic country not just a cause of the opportunity theave my family to escape harsh realities of communism and socialism, but also because it has produced a level of liberty and prosperity unheard of in the history of mankind. our: mike gonzalez is guest. we welcome your calls and comments. 202-748-8001,s, democrats, 202-748-8000, 202-748-8002. you write that our struggle to realize the promise of an america where no one neither benefits from or is persecuted for their meal or attribute traits and to resist creating

the impression the victims with no agency, what we need is to confront whatever racial discrimination and social injustices persist in america with a new civil rights movement, the civil rights movement 2.0. what would that look like? guest: one that finishes the job of the civil rights movement 1.0, which is to have a colorblind society. lawsve had color-conscious in the past, for many years we had slavery for many years. then you had the era of plessy , the idea that we could have separate but equal. the civil rights movement starting with brown in 1954 and then through the 1960's, it really is about producing a government that lives by the reconstruction amendment that --

of equal protection to all americans. the state exists to protect our natural rights to matter who we arem, what our background is, what our sex is, what our race is. i think we need to pursue that an undue the betrayal -- and the civiletrayal of rights act that we saw also been with, for example, the advent of the racial preferences of affirmative action. something that rankles many americans. all the polling data has been you describe to americans what these racial preferences are, it really is rejected. we just saw in california where, by an 11-point margin californians in the bluest to state rejected affirmative action. host: i want to go back to the election. the day after the election we had a piece in the wall street journal -- tuesday's big loser,

identity politics. americans reducing everything to race and sex with trump's strong minority showing. has your view of that been bolstered or changed at all? guest: completely bolstered. as more data comes out, even some districts in philadelphia that are heavily puerto rican .ad a swing towards trump in alexandria ocasio-cortez's own district in new york city, you saw a swing toward trump. nothing is humongous we saw in the rio grande valley, counties that are 95% mexican-american with massive swings to trump. the county that hillary clinton had won handily in 2016. and, of course, you have the example of florida and south florida with many south american s and cuban-americans voting for trump in very large numbers. more importantly, puerto rican

districts in the so-called i-4 corridor between tampa and orlando swinging towards , president trump. what we saw then was exactly this rejection i am speaking of of people saying please do not use us as victims. we are going to vote as all other americans. we are going to vote on the economy. we are going to vote to sustain capitalism, to make sure the system of government and our economic system has not changed. the group of americans listed in the senses as hispanic-americans show every time when you poll them that what is most important is the economy, education, which is the ladder to success, health th.re and so for

host: we spent the first hour of their programs begin to our viewers and listeners about the cabinet pickst's so far, asking them if diversity matters. in yourersity matter, opinion, for the selection of the president-elect were any president coming in? guest: i was listening to that. i was comforted by a lot of people calling in and saying diversity does matter. for example, it you need a diversity of experience. you need people not just educated at harvard and yale, but you need some people who, perhaps have not graduated college, or have gone to a state school. this idea that we are to be run number of people who graduate similarly from the ivy's has not been great for swathes of america.

you need also a geographical diversity. you need people from appalachia the deeped people from south, people from california, the pacific northwest and new , england, not just people from the corridor between washington, d.c. and new york city. in many areas of life, in the -- i imagine, not in the cabinet, tha but in newsrooms, for example, you need a diversity of views and in academia, in the faculty lounge . you need to have a diversity of control not just by the most extreme aspects of the left, which is what we are seeing in college campuses and in newsrooms today. host: we have plenty of phone calls waiting. a question from twitter, no one asks, how do identity groups who feel marginalized address those grievances in a meaningful way? can identity be used to address

systemic issues in the united states? guest: i think it is not only fine but healthy to take pride in who you are, to take pride in your history. self-knowledge is a powerful thing. i think it does empower you to understand your life, your background, the life of your parents and your grandparents's struggles in where you got to be where you are. you are a point on that continuum. i think that for that, you don't ls ando rely on the pol synthetic categories created by the office of management and budget, creates hispanics and 1877. americans in you can have your own background , you can be colombian-american and take pride in that and use that as fuel for your own success. you can be puerto rican and take huge pride in your traditions. i think that individual agency is individual striving, adopting good habits the habits that lead to success is what leads to

success. becoming virtuous first in small ways, practicing, that is what leads to a fulfilling and flourishing life. the idea that you must join a category often times created by government in order to collectively change the system, i think that is pernicious. host: our guest, mike gonzalez is from the heritage foundation. he is the author of the new book, "the plot to change america- how identity politics is dividing the land of the free." let's go to callers and hear first from albert on our democrats line. caller: here is what i have noticed about identity politics. republicans went after what bathroom a transgender person could use. that was identity politics,

because you did it based on the transgender identity. when trump issues his ban on muslims coming into the country, that was done based on their identity as a muslim. that is identity politics. when in north carolina they pass their voter i.d. laws, or whatever kind of voter laws they pass, because the north carolina supreme court says those laws targeted african-americans with , quote, "almost surgical precision." that is identity politics. why is it that every time the left liberals, democrats pushed back against these identity politics policies they get , accused of playing identity politics when all they are trying to stop you all from stripping the rights of people away based on their identity? host: we will get the response from mike gonzalez.

guest: thank you fro for that question. we have very good laws on the book about not singling people out according to their race or sex or their national origin. we need to enforce those laws and we need to throw the book of any company or any school or any entity that makes decisions on somebody's background or somebody's race or somebody's sex. absolutely. i think that the identity politics i am referring to is this idea that we are a confederacy of categories with varying degrees of victimhood that give us a claim on compensatory justice.

with intersectionality you can have an olympics of victimhood. that is the identity politics i am referring to. absolutely any entity that discriminates -- this is the kind of country we live in. we need to enforce these laws. host: texas is next. rick is on the independent line. caller: good morning. i had a question for mike after what i have on my mind -- we need diversity in the cabinet. i think that with diversity you have got a difference in perspective to views are coming from the country. didn't have cabinet -- you had people that were just put in there because they were friends. my point is a think that diversity in the cabinet does make a difference. gonzalezon to mr.

was, do you believe that we should give a number, maybe a tax number, driver's license to the 12 million illegals who are -- illegals that are here? and do you think that is good for the country as far as knowing that the baby boomers are retiring and that we need that incremental income coming in to that best to sustain that social security fund. baby boomers are retiring and we need that incremental income to sustain that social security fund? you for calling from texas. happy holidays and merry christmas to you. i think embedded in your question is the assumption that ideas inhere in your race. so you say you do need racial

diversity in order to have different views, but if you have someone surname gonzalez who has graduated from harvard, and somebody named johnson who is white and has graduated from harvard and you have an african-american who has graduated from harvard, they are going to have very similar if, forspecially example they are liberal or conservative, just cause they have a different national background, a different country of origin background, different race or different sex does not mean in the least that they are going to have different views. this idea that your race carries ideas with you, that carries ways of thinking is very

proves but i do not deal with that at all in my book. host: you say, you write that the key in terms of identity politics, the key is to eliminate the economic incitements of adhering to group identities, which in many instances have been fabricated for the express purpose of dividing us into factions. society must decide to withdraw the inducements to group making to shut down the casinos of identity politics. mike gonzalez, give us some

examples of what you are talking about there. guest: yes. in my book, i have a chapter dedicated to this new identity the obama administration tried to create in expecting that clinton administration to come in and rubberstamp the idea, which, of course, did not happen. i look at the debate in the -- censuso in 2016 bureau in 2015, where the census bureau brought in a lot of so-called experts. sarsour was one of the people at this debate. i have the video transcribed. they kept saying that people from the middle east and north africa do not want this category. by the way, these are americans like johnson or no end mitch and mitch john sununu

daniels, people of lebanese origin. they kept saying in the debate that the grassroots to not want this. associatingy start being a member of the mena category with having an advantage in college admissions or in government contracting or hiring, they will really love it. and that is what it is. these inducements to adhere to the category is one of the things the government should take away because this reimagining of the country has not been good for us because we are a country of people from many different ethnic backgrounds. we really cannot become what

the ottoman empire was, or the habsburg empire was in the 19th and 20th century where you have different groups with different laws. that would not work at all. host: so you are pushing back less against the groups that identify with various minority or different categories, and more with the groups that makein those people, or claims to represent those people, organizations that benefit, as you pointed out, from government funding or grants. is that your charge? guest: that is one of the arguments i make -- that is not the only argument i make. a group thatample, is supposed to represent the views of asian americans. in fact they are for affirmative action, which is now hurting chinese-americans and indian-american, and they are

not at all responsive to the rejection of affirmative-action that we see amongst chinese-americans across the country. up thesee who make ethnic affinity organizations a," which has now us,"ed its name to "unidos they are the ones who benefit the most cause they have a job for life. these are members of network organizations. they are more plugged into what is happening in washington, d.c. than they are plugged into what is happening to the individual districts and neighborhoods in this country. host: let's hear from terry in illinois, republican line. caller: hello, my name is terry. --anted to get my comment gave my comment on my view of identity politics. i remember a while back when

bush, sr. spoke at a university saying that i was going to destroy our country along with, in my opinion, the internet. it is like the people that are calling and listening to you, they are not really listening to you, they are still hearing what the media is telling them and what the all editions are telling them. like the gentleman from illinois with the transgender and the bathroom. in my opinion, the bathroom is the safety for children. any pervert can use that to go into the washrooms. so we are getting it out of the university and changing the laws on capitol hill to shelter the lawmakers from standing there lying to the public and getting away with it. the media are destroying our country. identity politics is a terrible thing. host: terry in illinois. mike gonzalez, we have not talked about the role of the media in either promoting or

dismissing identity politics. guest: terry, thank you so much for that call. and you are absolutely correct. what i am saying is jarring to many people who have never heard these things. that is the reason why i wrote "the plot to change america," because i was in a way horrified that all these myths have gotten so much currency in society, and they are all proposed by the media. the media are huge proponents of these ideas. npr, for example, which is paid by all of us, they constantly use the term latinx. nobody. there is not a coffee place in little havana in miami or a bodega in the bronx, where anybody in their right mind would use the term latinx. it is rejected by the people on whom npr and the media complex pushes this term. and the term "hispanic"

"latino" themselves are not used by cuban-americans, mexican-americans, puerto rican -americans. host: where did that term come from? guest: the term comes from -- latinx?e guest: that is a super woke term meant to correct the fact that castilian adjectives and nouns are gendered. so you have in spanish latina and the term latino, in the addled mind of some professor was too exclusive in only isolating the males. that is a deep misunderstanding of how the spanish language works, and i don't think npr should be in the business of changing the language. in madridy

issues dictates and is made up of academics who understand the language of cervantes a lot better. host: our guest is mike gonzalez with his book "the plot to , change america, how identity politics is dividing the land of the free p are quite 202-748-8000, 202-748-8001, and all others, 202-748-8002. kathryn is from ohio on the democrats line. caller: good morning, and merry christmas, everybody. i think your book is written so that old, white, republican males stay in power. if you look at gerrymandering, i would imagine you would go along with gerrymandering, where you can have a black community but it would -- the people that were being elected were old, white male republicans.

we as americans and me as a woman, i called my congressman and told him three years ago that women, black women, brown women, hispanic women, asian women, american indian women, we would take out the president of the united states. and we did. and now, because we have put in joe biden as president -- i don't know if you acknowledge him as president or not, i really don't care. we want a diverse cabinet. we want people who represent us and our ideas. it is our money that is sent to washington and we want the money to come back to us. we want all the healthcare we can get. this president has made a mockery out of the health care system. we have -- my grandson -- give

you an example -- he is an icu nurse in the greater cincinnati area. i didn't sees -- him over the holidays, but i did speak to him on the phone, and he said that he has not had one patient, not one, sir, not one, who has left the icu that has not gone in a body bag. but yet we cannot get this administration -- we couldn't even get him to say: a virus. they call it china virus. ohio.ok, catherine in any response, mike gonzalez? guest: kathryn in ohio, merry christmas to you. thank you for your call. we have some ground of agreement. i hate gerrymandering is much as you do. i think the racial gerrymandering we have seen is one of the reasons why we have the polarization that we have in america today, a district for

which nobody can really compete produces politicians to go to that politicians will go to washington who do not feel no need to reach across the aisle either to the left or the right. i think that is a big problem in this country. what i want to see is a successful government. -- i want to see a diversity that is organically ideas andwhere creative people are really fulfilling their lives. and it doesn't matter their background, their sex, the color of their skin. that is truly the america that i want and the america that a lot of people i know on the left and the right want. from pennsylvania on the

republican line, this is bob. caller: thanks for taking my call. there's a couple of points i would like to make. one is, i remember reading a study on race. they looked at dna of different races and they determined that it was actually more diversity within a single race than there were between races. which makes you think that we all come from a common ancestor. so these differences that we see in skin color, in eyes and hair and whatnot are really secondary, and we are really so much more alike. that is one point. the next point is, i agree with mr. gonzales and what he says about certain ethnic groups having, thinking a certain way -- i don't believe that. i believe we should have a colorblind america, like martin luther king said. another point is that when you the at who graduated from

ivy league school and etc., etc. one of the most important things that i have always said, is that intelligence does not run parallel with character. neither does race, ethnicity, but character is extremely important. and i think character is one of the things they do need to look at when they choose people for these high posts. i will leave it to mr. gonzalez. host: ok, bob, thank you. guest: bob, what a great point you make about character. byis a word that was used martin luther king -- character ,eally is, along with ability slaughter of the main thing that anybody hiring or giving a of.ract should think an absolutely, what you said about that we all come from the

same ancestor, i think the more scientifically, the more we see that there was an original female ancestor and an original male ancestor of all humanity. and that we are all the same. it is our humanity that we share. the faculties we have of reason, of thinking, of speech that really think us together, all 7 billion of us on this earth. host: in norcross, georgia, on the line. go ahead. caller: good morning. host: good morning. caller: i would say, there are so many issues that seem to have come into focus here, but i would say, as far as when you are hiring a cabinet, filling a cabinet, you make sure that the

people that you are pulling this covenant from is diverse. race or anything but competence to pick those officers for your cabinet from. and if you start getting raceted into all of this or anything else but other than qualifications, you pick the best qualified. i mean, you know, there's never going to be a time that you are not going to deport a certain amount of time to making sure your diversity matches -- going to devote a certain amount of time to making sure your diversity matches. but the real thing we all have to worry about is policy right now. because what we have is this

between the common and the top half of 1%, or ..1% and the policy changes need to be made because the middle class was built by policy changes during the 1930's and 1940's that brought about the middle-class. the middle-class burgeoning in this country. host: ok, harry. response.lez, your guest: again, harry, a great question. this is a very high caliber audience you have here, bill. the ability to perform, along with the character that bob spoke about earlier, i think that is what is needed, not only -- in cabinet, but in our

a court, in an office, in a legislature. i live and work in the washington area. you do have a settled permanent , administrative state that really does run and believes it has the right to run the government and the country, as with little or no political accountability. i think that is really, as you said, harry, the divide between the elite on the common man, which is something we have seen, not just in the last four years, but the last few years. it emerges as one of the issues, that we have in society, and a believe we need to address that with a diversity of backgrounds, a diversity of educational backgrounds and geographical backgrounds. not just choosing people from the corridor who think, who have

these monolithic mindsets of new york and washington. i think that is what the country needs. host: let me ask you about that political accountability. we mentioned your "wall street journal" opinion piece that said basically identity politics lost in the last election. looking ahead to the biden administration, do you see identity politics being used more by the parties during the biden administration? guest: i think the country is rejecting this. my book is selling well because, for reasons that i don't like necessarily, we had a very tumultuous year and i think we see not just from the right, but among the left, many people on the left like francis fukuyama

steven pinker, michael lynn, , professors who are more left of center, with whom i do not agree with -- andrew sullivan, the brilliant writer -- people who i don't agree with a lot on many things, but they do agree that identity politics is a problem occurs it threatens our liberal democracy. -- people with whom i don't agree with on a lot of things, that they do agree that identity politics is a problem because it threatens our liberal democracy. it expressly threatens the idea we are based on natural rights and the people are rejecting this. not just people like pinker from harvard, but americans. similar to what happened in california. 11-point margin, a

resounding failure of the attempt to introduce affirmative-action. they had all the media and the corporations and the elite on their side. campaign grassroots led by many chinese american families and many immigrants, were able to defeat this. so i don't say not only in the federal government but in the united states, our leadership really doubling down on identity politics. they do at their own peril. host: a question from another political science professor from brown and diversity, in an opinion piece from the "washington post" that was headlined "identity politics keeps america healthy," he said in that is that identity politics springs from a dynamic society in constant motion. there is always a group from the margins pressing for a proper place at the table.

irish, italians, catholic, jews, chinese, formerly enslaved people, latinx, same sex partners, transgender individuals and many more fired up by identity politics. yes, each groups provokes culture classes, but they add up to a vibrant, changing and open society. new groups constantly inject fresh energy and new ideas and they all face grumpy pushback from the powers and the identities that were." guest: that is a deep misreading of the historical record. our democracy has been churning from the very beginning, that nobody -- thank 1910s nobody in the and the 1800s and the 1890's thought, let's have all these people come through ellis island and have them denoted as

marginalized minorities and instill them with grievances so they can change the country from within. it was the opposite that was done. just as was the opposite done with the scandinavians and the germans and the irish and the scots-irish. it was a beckoning, an extended hand saying, you join us in our system and our culture. you become americans. no other country does this, by the way. this is where my experience as a foreign correspondent -- i can tell you, having lived in many different european and asian countries that we are unique in extending invitations to newcomers to become americans. identity politics is a departure from the model. to say that this is what has been done for centuries, it must be a deliberate misreading. and that author's use of the term "latinx" shows where his political bias lies.

host: let's go to bob in tyler, texas on the republican line. caller: yes, good morning. host: good morning. [indiscernible] host: bob, you are breaking up a little bit. go ahead and rephrase your question. mike and i were having trouble hearing you. caller: ok, let me try again. we keep asking what we need and i would like to ask -- there are two laws in the first sentence of the u.s. code. do we need or can we trust anyone that does not know those first two laws? and i would like to ask if you know them? host: the first two words in what, bob? caller: the first two laws in the first sentence in the entirety of u.s. code.

host: i am going to throw my hands up. mike gonzalez, do you want to take a shot at that? guest: can you rephrase that? in what? host: in the u.s. code? guest: i don't know. host: we will go to james in charlotte, north carolina. james, go ahead. caller: i think you have a failure to face reality in what you are saying and what you are writing. i think you're confusing culture with race. and it is obvious to me that you are. you are saying that identity politics lost. no, it won. white identity is still dominant, but that is the dominant political structure of the country, financial, and they keep dominating whatever minority groups try to enter, and to say, it's all about race.

like you said, mr. sununu. i guess he would consider himself white. you are mike gonzalez, you probably consider yourself white. and you are from cuba. but i am sure that mexicans across the border don't consider themselves to be white. so i think you are confusing one for another. trump did not have black people in that entire cabinet, they were on the outskirts -- i forgot the medical doctor and the guy, i forgot his title, but he was very emphatic in putting a white cabinet together. and i didn't hear a guy like you come out and say where is the , diversity of that. forget about racism, the diversity of thought. so i think people like you are

really, you are really there you are really bigots dressed up in a real nice suit that hides it. host: i am going to cut you off and let mike gonzalez respond to that. guest: [laughs] i don't think he's truly seeing me. if he thinks i wear nice suits -- i wear quite old suits. let me attempt to answer his question in two ways. i think there's a big difference between race and culture, obviously, and i think culture really does matter. cultural habits matter with regards to how successful you will be as an individual. thriftiness, punctuality and hard work matter, and these are things that no matter what your last name is, the matter your sex or the color of your skin, if you practice these habits, you will probably avoid poverty

and have a good chance of becoming successful. on the question of the cabinet, i recently had the opportunity to be in the same room with ben carson. ben carson is a very active member of the cabinet. he is also a brilliant surgeon. he also happens to be african-american. not ast is really important as the fact that ben carson is a man of character. he is a brilliant person and a great american. there,ing to leave it that's -- i was lucky enough to work at the state department when condoleezza rice was secretary of state, a woman that was filled with ability and character. that is really what mattered to

me and what inspired me. host: let me ask you a little bit on the cultural aspect you read on in the book. you write in the book that there was a fundamental problem with equating the experiences of african americans, limit, gays -- equating the expenses of mexican americans, women, gays, to the experience of blacks. in experience of the negroes america has been different in kind not just in degree from any other ethnic group, and you'll write that it is for this reason that this book does not have a chapter dedicated to african-americans. tell us more about your decision on that. guest: i don't have a chapter in the book dedicated to african-americans, because that is the one unique group, that one group in america whose all, obviously, because we have had many immigrants from the caribbean africa, but african

americans as a whole are a group of people whose ancestors were brought against their will and have a history of harrowing experiences with slavery first, then with jim crow then with separate but equal, which was legal segregation. we havesomething that always strived to address by living up to the ideals contained in the founding documents. what happened, what you see in the 1960's and 1970's is political entrepreneurs, these activists and ideologues saying, the members of my category suffered equally. there was a false analogy drawn to the experience of african-americans. that is how it was done with every group. there was even a paper written law," "jane crow and the

in other words, extending the jim crow idea to women, to white women in this country. this is not to minimize the fact that women have being discriminated against. for example, mexican-americans especially along the south, the , southern border areas in of texas, faced real discrimination, but the analogy was false when it was drawn to black americans. black americans suffered uniquely. and that is something we are still living with the consequences of that. so that is another thing i wanted to do was "the plot to change america," is point out this false analogizing. host: we will hear from martin next in sync peters, missouri, on the republican line -- saint

peters, missouri. caller: i would like to hear -- first ofs on all, i don't think america should be looked at anymore as a melting pot. i like to look at it more as a salad where all the ingredients are mixed together but still retain their individual properties. i think that is a big problem, because i think that representative bobby jindal said it best when he said that immigration without a simulation is basically -- immigration imilationss is basically an invasion. that is what is happening with our country. i would like you to comment on role in medias' how the country views things, because i think they are trying to control the narrative of what the american people think. so if you could comment on that, i would really appreciate it. guest: hi, mark.

thanks for the call. i completely agree with you on this idea of the salad, which is more the canadian model. we are a country with many different people's and should be united by common purposes. we are a world leader and we we imagine ourselves as a confederation of categories of the oppressed. i think we saw a little bit of that in the election, as i wrote in my "wall street journal" piece. you have either rio grande valley, in these companies who are heavily mexican american, they voted not just not as mexican-americans, they voted as texans. as tejanos. many of these families have in here for 15 generations. they are not immigrants. ,hey may be surnamed hernandez

but they have been here since 1598. so you saw a push back against this idea of the salad model rather than the melting pot. or in gets up in uruguay lisbon, portugal, or guerrero, mexico one day and says i want to emigrate with my family to the united states because i want my children to grow up there to be victims, marginalized, and change the society from within. yet this is the central idea in identity politics. it misunderstands human nature, which is why it needs a system of rewards through the racial preferences of affirmative action and things of that nature, because otherwise it falls apart. people just want their children to succeed. host: let's hear from gary in fletcher, north carolina, independent line.

caller: yes, sir. hi. this is another great topic. i got three questions. do you think that gerrymandering is kind of a response to identity politics? that racism thought is kind of treatment of people differently, and at the border, for example, i don't see people letting in white people or other types of people and not letting in others, so i don't see the that point. on and i will end it there. host: mike gonzalez, your response? guest: thank you. i think you are absolutely right on gerrymandering. this goes back to the reinterpretation of the voting rights act that reduces districts that are, you know, 85% of one category, be it

african-american or mexican-american cuban-american, , what have you. this is not a good idea at all, because, as i said, it produces politicians who really have no reason to reach across the racial line, to reach out to all americans to make sure the best but ares introduced , very responsive to a race. we should have a system that admits people who are going to improve america. we should think of immigration as with any other policy, as to what is in it for the united states and its national interest. host: last question about the identity politics using identity politics came into play really in the almost year-long debate about whether undocumented immigrants should be included in the census count.

guest: yeah. i think that we ask all these questions in the census -- whether somebody is hispanic, for example, is a category created again the u.n. recommends countries do that and any other countries do that without controversy. gonzalez,guest, mike our final author on "washington gonzales, thank you so much for joining me.

"washington journal" continues. host: joining us now, thom hartmann. host of the thom hartmann program. for being here. guest: i am pretty sure that we have covered your program in political years, but i think this is your first time on "washington journal." you're right. i have been on c-span a number of times. i did an interview with brian a number of years ago. and familiarlks with your program, tell us about it. guest: i am a progressive commentator. i am an old news guy. i used to work in radio news back in the 1960's and 19 70's. we started the program 18 years ago. i wrote an