>> >> welcome to the program. tonight "the new york times" columnist david brooks on politics and society. >> this is like the worst thing to say in 2016 by i've come to be a believer, and we need to fix the establishment. i believe in establishments. we have big problems. you need big institutions to tackle them. they have to be run centrally. and so we need a really good state department. we really need a good elite conversation. >> so on the agenda ought to be reforming establishments. >> reforming institutions, yeah. our institutions are fraying. the congress is the prime example of an institution that has frayed because just the norms of behavior, the invisible codes have been ripped away. and so one of the things, when i talk about trump as a revolution in manners, and the reason we have manners, the reason we don't talk about each other's wives and how they look, the reasons we don't insult people's

looks or call people losers and liars is that it enables us to have a conversation. it enables us to be a community and be citizens together. if if you rip away those manners t is dog eat dog, today when he rips away the schrowd of those manners he has reduced us to scrambling scorpions. so restoring manners, restoring codes of civility and just desensee is the reprerequisite of restoring institutions and stses of behavior. >> rose: david brooks for the hour, next. funding for charlie rose is provided by the following:

>> and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and information services worldwide. captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. >> rose: david brooks is here. he has been a columnist for "the new york times" since 2003. he also teaches courses on leadership at yale university. he is known for tackling big ideas and wide-ranging subjects from politics and the presidency to capitalism and character. more recently he has turned his focus to the 2016 presidential campaign. i'm pleased to have him back at this table. >> good to be back. >> rose: it's great to you have, it has been a bit too long. i know you have books and things to write and other things to do. >> wine to drink. >> rose: food to eat, museums to see. isn't it great to have a huge appetite, that's what i say about life, you know. i don't want to see anybody who has a small appetite. >> that's good. i feel like a bunch of opera stars. >> rose: you do. somebody was here the other day

and they said they were talking about a dilemma and this was based on a memoir. and they said, you know, someone had felt like they had been stolen from having a big life. you know, that's sad. because a big life is not to be a celebrity or to make a lot of money. a big life is to be connected to all that there is possible. >> yeah, i have a friend named kacey geralds who asked somebody, what would you do if you weren't afraid. and this was his job interview. he was-- and the woman started crying. so like there are people who just held back. were held back by fear, including me. >> rose: because they get into early things, they get into things like marriage, children, spobt, mortgages nd career rather than. >> i always tell my college students that two thirds of you will be more boring at age 30 than you are now. the other thing that happens is you just get happier. there is this famousu curve where people's happiness is high in their 20s and it bots owm at 47 which is you will kad having teenage children and then it rises. after they have gone away. >> rose: they are out of the nest. >> so people who are old arer

look at the world in a happier way. they look at happier faces. they don't look at the bad faces. the other thing is, and this is hope where i am, you get to a certain age and you sort of know who you are so you can take a big risk in the middle of life or even toward the end of life because you figure where it's all adding up, and you've got some resources now am and you're ready to take the big risk because you've basically got a ground of stability that is when you should take your biggest risk. >> rose: and so you're taking risk? >> i hope so. you know, partly this election, you know, i messed up big time with not knowing trump was coming. and so then when something like that happens, you take a look at yourself and you think wow, what did i miss about america. and i'm too much in the-- corridor, have i to get out. that is one thing. >> meaning the corridor from boston to new york to washington rather than being in farms and factories. >> or when i'm out, believe me i travel every week but i'm at a

college here so i'm always within the bubble. so i have to get out. the other thing is i have achieved way more career success than i ever thought i would. so it's time to take some chances on the spirit all realm, on the personal, emotional realm. and i got nothing to lose. >> let me come back to that, i will come to politics in a moment and trump is much to talk about. but you're willing to take chances in the spirit all realm. what does that mean? >> well, you know, i hope i'm not violating-- so i had a friend from, i want to a sumper camp, for 15 years. and i had a friend named wes, and he was exuberance person sonnified. he couldn't get through a sentence without clicking and whistling because he was just an inner light. he just radiated it. and so he died last week, or two weeks ago now. and i went to see him, happened to be the day he died. but he greeted death with such confidence and almost joy. that he had-- he was a man of

deep faith and he said i'm going to the kingdom. and to greet death with such joy and have the faith that not only animated his approach to death, but animated his life. he was a man who worked in honduras a lot. helped with domestic violence, he was a youth counselor. a life of selfless giving. and so a lot of us who have our name and talking to my friends a lot, we don't have that. i certainly don't have that. and so how do you get that? and so you see examples like that. and you think, you know, what do i have to cut loose to get that, because that would be wonderful. and so that's-- . >> rose: you have spoken about that idea in other places. >> yeah, of course. i mean it's been a lifelong passion. but frankly, writing a book about it, or reading a bunch of books about it doesn't get you there. >> rose: talking to someone who lived it. >> my joke is buying books about it, like my book, that gets you there. but now you've got to get there

with the direct contact with the people in need. or you've got to have an emotional connection. and a lot of us in middle age hopefully become emotionally more open and frankly more feminine. and so you got to be as-- you have got-- the radical leap has to be in the emotional realm which is lived out. >> rose: part of this comes from the fact that you know that you have the skills of life in a sense. that you have skills that you can, as you say, you have a certain level of achievement and comfort. >> and i think-- you know, carl young said the first half of life is building the outside world. the second half should be finding again rattivity, finding a cause, finding something. but i think also a lot of us, you know, a lot of us move, get more emotionally equipped, certainly i was an emotional idiot for large parts of my life and then you work on it, you try to widen your repertoire of emotions by having better relationships, by listening to

music, by reading literature. and suddenly you're more emotionally sensitive to people. and you're hopefully braifer and willing to be more vulnerable. you're willing to slow down. which is something challenging for me. but out of that, i think comes a rest. there is a guy named joseph piper who said leisure is not playing golf. it's having your mind go slowly enough so that the world can be invited into you. and getting your brain slowed down enough at the right pace is a challenge. >> rose: it reminded me of a friend who didn't del me this but he told another friend that, as he was approaching death he said within days. you know, he said, if i had a longer time, i would do nothing. and to do nothing is when you are bringing all that in. you are exposing yourself to all that is there. and doing nothing is not having

a schedule. and ambition. it is. >> i mean inner formation doesn't always look like outer formation. but my last book was based on this distinction between the resume and the eulogy, the resume is what makes you go to your job, the eulogy is what they say about you after you are dead. we all want to go to the eulogy which is to be honorable and honest and capable of great love. but how you get there is sometimes a matter of passivity. another piece of writing i just came across, abraham joshua herbel on the sabbate, on taking a day off. he said the sabbate is a palace in time and you don't live-- you don't have the sabbate, you don't take a day off to be more efficient at work. you work so you can climb axe your week at the sabbath and it is done through abstentions, by denying yourself things, by saying no to things. and that is an invitation for other things to pop up. >> rose: is this part of the conversation with the students at yale. >> a bit. my class is about commitment

making. my view is-- now, my last book was too individualistic, i got some things wrong about having inner life. and the characters in my book who i really admired dwight eisenhower, dorothy day-- dorothy perkins were able to make awesome commit ams to things outside themselves. the key to a good life is commitments outside of things. the idea to my class you make four big commitments, to a spouse and a family, to a vow kaition, to a philosophy and faith and to a community. and how well you make and liver out those commitments will determine the quality of your life. and so it is about how you make these long-term commitments to things, whether it's a partner or whether it's a faith, philosophy. >> rose: that is an ongoing learning process. >> yeah, to me a commitment is falling in love with something and then building a structure of behavior around it for those moments when love falters. because we all, you know, you can't think yourself into a commitment, who to marry. you can't think yourself into a

vogues, i love being a journalist or i love being a sculpture, it is a process of love. you have to love your way into it, because it is such a big time stretch and you are trying to imagine your feult self. so you have to be vulnerable enough to be a deeply loving creature. but then at moments it is just going to suck. so you have to build disciplines of honesty, you have to have the community, you have to have the disciplines of craft. and so in my craft, you know, a surgeon lays out tools. in my case, i've got a very bad memory. and so what i do is i write everything down, an when a i write a colume i've got sometimes 200 pages of research material and notes. >> and my craft is i lay them out in piles on the floor of my living room. and each pile is a par graph in my colume, so it's only 806 words but i could have 14 piles laid across the floor. so the process of writing is not typing into the keyboard t is crawling around on my carpet, laying out my piles. and sometimes when the ideas are

flowing, and i'm organizing it well, i'm writing notes to myself, and that is the best part of my job. and so that craft of whatever we do for a living, it disciplines our commitment to to that vow kaition. >> rose: when you do that, do you know where it starts and ends or are you simply thinking of it in terms of almost like container shipping, this is a ey will end up, and how you get in and how you get out comes to you after you see it all together? >> yeah, i need to do it gee graphically. i need to see it on the floor or else it's all just a jummable in my head. and so when you get the order right, then the words will flow when you type it. but if you get the order wrong then it's all choppy. >> i agree. >> if you get it wrong, you can't fix it. you have to start over, completely new. and sometimes judges have a saying, that opinion woanlt write. they thought they were going to say when they sat down to write it, it just wasn't writing. >> their thought had an opinion. and when they sat down to

confirm the opinion, they couldn't confirm it so they knew. >> they knew something is wrong here. >> but their reasoning was wrong. >> right, they have to iron it from strach. -- scratch. and so i think that is what nonwriters don't get. it's about traffic management. about organization and structure, it's not about fancy words. and getting the structure right is the foundation. and so i do it on my floor, some writers write on the wall. >> it is about words at the end. yes, you can get the structure right and the piles right and yes you can have the ideas in there. but in the end, the best of you have a command of words. >> yeah, but i'm not prou st. i write for a newspaper so, yeah, i mean, but you know, another key, i saw stephen king thing online, and this is a lesson of my two favorite writers, george orwell and cs lewis which is never use a big word when a small word will do. >> rose: i agree. >> and bother orwell and lewis who i think are some of the greatest stylists of our age, they wrote for radio, so it had to be heard. so they wrote with great clarity.

>> rose: so did edward r. murrow. >> that's true. and it has to be heard. you want that crystaline clarity. there is still artistry involved. orwell was a genius at the first sentence. there is an essay he wrote called the lion and the unicorn about england, he writes it beurg the blitz while being bombed in world war ii, the first plien high above my head highly civilized human beings are trying to kill me. wonder why are the germans bombing me because they are ger machine and i'm english testimony is a good first sentence that just drags you right in. >> rose: did cs lewis have a religious influence on you. >> cs lewis he wrote for loves-- four loves which is a book i highly recommend, there are words in there, you can be christian or not christian. the definition of pride, the definition of sin, or the definition of soul, the idea that there is a core piece of yourself that with every decision you make, you change that core piece of yourself into something either holy or more

degraded. and now you can thaik that concept and you don't have to believe in god or not but he uses more or less secretary you lar language to describe parts of our moral architecture that is just clear and so common sensical that of any faith, it's-- . >> rose: he came to a one-to-one relationship with jesus. >> oh, no, he definitely became a christian. it took him a long time to get there. for him he wrote that christianity was, it was not a warm religion. it was a high-longing. and it was also a lensz through which he saw the world am he had a very writer's approach to faith, i think. less ecstatic and more-- . >> rose: indeed. so tell me back to what you referenced. how has your evolution taken place on the question of donald trump? where was it? what were the interim and where are you now? >> yeah, well. >> rose: because you have been very strong. >> right. i mean i didn't take him seriously for the longest time. because i knew there was dislocation. there was this coalition of the

dispossessed out in the countriment but i didn't think they would turn their disis possession to him. just because i don't think he answers any of their problems. >> rose: but do you know why they think he does? >> yeah, i think a lot of-- . >> rose: that is almost a crucial point. >> that's correct. i think there are a couple of things going on here. one, people are into manners-- their attracted by revolutions in manners more than revolutions in policies. and he is revolutionized the manners of how you run for president. so he has-- . >> rose: what do you mean the manners of how you run for president. >> well, so the first debate he had already insulted carly fiorina's face. >> rose: john mccain. >> rand paul said i'm not going to insument his looks but have i a lot to work with over there. that is just a way of talking that nobody had run for president that way. and. >> rose: it went to george bush in terms of low energy. >> yeah, so it's a

hyperaggressive, he took the style of professional wrestling and he brought it to politics. and what he did and i think the most he geej goo-- egregious thing which we have seen in the last week or two is he has offered us a different and uglier form of masculinity which a lot of people are apparently drawn by and a lot of women are repulsed by. and basically we have a form of masculinity in our culture which i think we should be very proud of. over the last generation we've taken-- our ideal man combines positive feminine, traditionally feminine and traditionally masculine traits, to be successful at work but-- to honor the woman in your life, whatever she wants to do, but to be romantic at the same time. and so we're called upon to be both male and female. and i think that's a wonderful way of idealizing, that is a great goal for all of us. but trump eliminates that. is he pure masculinity and his treatment, his treatment of the

world is an an arena where males compete and women are objects in that competition, a woman's body is there for the status of the man. or you can he mass cue late a man by attacking his woman. so to me it is a degrated form of masculinity. >> rose: the question also ought to be raised does he mean what he says and does he say what he means. you know, in both of those cases, because you know, does he, has he built in his own mind some sense i am the best negotiate esch, i am the best, i am the best, i am the best, i am the best. do you believe that? now you have written for eight years about the supreme confidence of barack obama, a very different kind of confidence an much less bravado and a man who is much less comfortable with the kind of emoting. >> right, obama is as confident as trump, also the word would be applied but obama backs it up with actual knowledge. >> rose: right. >> and substance. and intig rit.

and humanity. and-- . >> rose: and. >> he doesn't see the world as win lose. >> he sees it as a conversation, sometimes to a fault. i wrote a colume a couple of mondays ago saying i miss barack obama because he has a grace and elegance that is soarly lacking this year. and donald trump epitomizes that. so they are both confident in a superficial sense but obama overconfident sometimes but not nars sis particular and there is a distinction between the two. >> rose: the confidence of intellect. >> but it is a belief in a set of ideas whereas in trump it is a belief in myself and my own capacity. >> rose: and winning and losing. >> yeah, so he has, as i say, a heartless view. and i, you know, i get increasingly repulsed by him to be honest. have i rarely been this motivated, frankly, by a political figure in a negative way. and partly because i think he's taking a lot of people who have taken their economic lumps and he's telling them, you know, you may not-- . >> rose: he is telling them i'm your hero. i will change for you. >> yeah, that is author tairian, they are all stupid, i can solve

it simply. but also you may not be thriving but at least you're better than women and better than mugs limbs and better than mexicans. he is uniting it into a form of bigotry, i think. >> rose: do you think he can win? >> rose: the nomination. >> yes, it looks like he will win the nomination. >> rose: the presidency? >> it's very hard for me to imagine but i have been wrong before it is hard for me to imagine for a mm of reasons. his favorable, unfavor ability rating is like 25 to 55, or 60. and so if you have got 60% unfavourable and you are unfavourable rating among women is 75, well, then you, unless you turn minds, then you are doomed. and that, those unfavourable ratings among the total population have been very stable for eight months. among women they are rising. >> rose: so how did it happen? if he has all these qualities or lack of qualities you have been talking about, he is on the precipice of getting the nomination for president. and that means are you within a

heartbeat of the presidency. >> right. and so i think there are two big things. one, which is much discussed, there is a piece on the front page of the new york times. >> rose: today. >> that the republican party was the party that basically the white working class. and they spent 25 years harvesting their votes and offering them nothing. so that is one. the second thing is that there is an slow building antipolitical wave in this culture that's been going on for 30 years. we live in a diverse country. there are two ways to govern a diverse country. one is through politics, which is through negotiation and style and compromise, which is unsatisfying. you do a deal with people you disagree with you about you have to listen to them, you acknowledge. so that's politics. the other way is through force. you just get a strong man to bully his way through. and so we've gotten sick of politics, sick of compromise, and especially in the republican party the willingness to compromise has become sort of a sign of weakness. and so the only alternative is force. and so there's been this

tolerance of an awe-- author tairian type. >> rose: almost like he's become an action hero. >> just, you know, i think every interview he did, he did an interview with us, with "the washington post" editorial board, transkript of "the washington post" editorial board, they will ask him, do you think african-americans are unfairly targeted by police, concrete normal question. he knows nothing. and so he immediately starts talking about immigration. i mean there's just-- you know, when we go into a talk show or a conversation or a test, if you are a student, you are nervous if you don't have some level of presentation. but he's apparently unnervous by the fact that he's unprepared. and so you know, most people go in and buy a sofa with more presentation than he is running with. >> rose: you have written that. my point is, does he know that? or does he think, in fact, he just simply sees the world in a different way? you know, and that all those people who profes to be a little bit of obama, again, in his dislike as jeffrey goldberg

suggested of the foreign policy establishment, i realize we're talking about different levels of intellect, presentation and other things but in fact does donald trump show think that look, i mean, all those people who are supposed to be smart, and he even in fact says i learn alot about foreign policy from what i hear on television on the sunday shows am i was in china sitting next to me in china was a man who was a very, very successful businessman. he said i just know he's going to be different. because i said to him do you know anybody supporting donald trump. he said me, me. and i said why? he said because i know he will get-- will just get on the phone and will say to putin i'm coming to see you. and nobody has ever said that. and that's the way he does it. now you say that will never get anything accomplished. he believes this man does, that this is a different way and that's what is necessary. because that's part of the milieu that he lives in. >> yeah. well, maybe. but the idea that i'm going to get on the phone and show vladimir putin will see the light in politics is-- . >> rose: but transactional negotiations, in that case,

is. >> yeah, do we think shall-- do we think the state of-- is filled with idiot right now. problems are complicated and the big problems in the world are not a question of one person calling another and being really tough at a table. the big problems of the world are structural. they're having to do with technological change, globalization. >> rose: as the president said i'm more concerned about climate change than i am about isis. >> well, they're both important. it's weird to rank them. >> rose: but he said that. >> yeah, but climate change is also a complex structural problem. >> rose: that's my point. that is why he said that. >> and it's not-- you just can't brow beat people into this. >> rose: so do you think you were wrong? do you think you had show been on the-- too much and had not done what? >> you know, as i say, i'm out in the country every week. i'm somewhere. you know. but show i didn't see it coming. i am not alone. i mean a lot of us didn't see it

coming. >> rose: i don't know anybody ople now claiming they did. but in part because we've seen this kind of candidate rise and fall. and the party that is nominated mitt romney and bob mccain and bob dole and george w. bush nominates a certain kind of person. suddenly we've got a black swan. none the less there are a lot of trump voters out there. and i would run into them but i wouldn't, i didn't take it seriously enough. just maybe my own, blinded my own prejudices. >> rose: and i have had trouble trying to think through the people who do vote for him. how does one regard that? and so i have some level of sympathy because obviously they've been dislocated for the economy and technology. on the other hand, i think they're supporting a guy who is po lawsuiting the cultural atmosphere in which our kids are raised with his-- you know, attacking ted cruz's wife, i think voters do have to have

some cul paibility for that. >> rose: and so what happens if dob ald trump crashes and burns, do they believe in what happens to their grieveance? >> yeah, the greeferance stays. and so then out of my-- out of the darkness of despond i've constructed a very optimistic narrative story. >> rose: which is. >> for the republican party which is that the republican party had grown on sol let, it had been imprisoned by reagan, categories which were great for the 19 '80s but it's 26 years later. and done all trump was the agent of death for that old structure. and that old structure is never coming back. and so after the rebel of what i hope will be a trump defeat, there will be what thomas ku ne called the revolutionary period. after a scientific par a dime o collapses, then there is this period where you get all of these theories floating all over the place. and eventually one of them rises. and one that -- who knows what will rise, but it will be a time potentially of intense

creativity, and but which will focus on two things. one, the segmenting of america. and two, the disunit of the social fabric. and the problem with the reaganite orthodoxy which chrisened the republican party, you get all these big problems, wage stagnation, and the republicans couldn't have any response because they didn't believe in government for anything. so the future of the republican party will have to believe in some form of government action because the structure problems is required. >> rose: but it is also happening in part around the world. >> uh-huh. >> rose: as you said in en challenged from the top for years by dictators. but now they're challenged from the bottom by populist antiliberals who support the national-- in france. u kip in britain. vladimir putin in russia, and in some guy of done all trump in the u.s. this is a global phenomenon. >> if you looked at the freedom house rankings of democracy, they have been on retreat for

eight consecutive years. and i think it is the stress of globalization, the stress of technological change. the rise of religious fundamentalism. the rise of ethnic nationalism. all these things are making the world an uglier place than it looked like in the 1990s. >> rose: who, perhaps you, is articulating the kind of idea or narrative or structure that you believe ought to an may emerge from all that we're going through? >> well, you know, i'm a wig. and so if anybody is seeing there was this guy named alexander hamilton, who was a latino hip-hop artist. >> rose: that's right. >> and so he created-- my short hand view of american politics is that there are-- there are two parties but there are three traditional historic movements in this i c. there is a conservative movement that believes in

limited-- limiting government to enhance freedom. there is a liberal movement that believe ins using government to enhance equality but there is this third tradition started by hamilton continued by the wig party which believes in limited by energy government to enhance social mobility. so it's giving people the tools to rise up and compete in a capitalist economy. little less progovernment thran the democrats, a little more progovernment than the-- and i still think that human capital agenda not only giving people access to colleges and community colleges, but giving them the emotional, psychological capacity to complete is the big agenda. >> rose: do you hope that might emerge out of all of this. >> what is what i write about. so yeah, i hope. i'm not confident because the country has turned in to an ethnic nationalist way. and not in-- this is my view as a-- there are so many things we can do to surround people with loving relationships that will give them the emotional security to thrive and succeed. and we are, i think, fortunately

graduating from a very economical view of human nature that we all respond to incentives and tax cuts which was the problem of the jack kemp image to a more relational view of human nature which i think is what the cognitive science is-- that we are primarily loving creatures, not thinking creatures. and unless we are enmeshed in a web of love jz you are-- . >> rose: you are beginning to sound like john kasich. >> i will be add too. >> rose: but the point is, there is no one articulating that. it almost is a third way, in a sense, and almost what a third party might have represented, it is, in fact, it is a traditional definition between some sense of social responsibility and conservative fiscal policy that enables you to create the skills that enable you to prosper in a modern economy. >> yeah, if you don't have those relationships, it's very hard to exercise self-control. it's very hard to sit in a school room and build relationships with teachers. it's very hard to subbing cease in a modern workplace where

computers are doing all the nonpersonal stuff and relational skills are the key. and you know, i came across a study in a book called life reimagined by barbara badly haggerty just came out it was a study of world war ii and all the guys drafted in world war ii. and some rose to high rank. some didn't. so what explained why some rose and some didn't? and it wasn't, you think it might be intelligence but that wasn't it. you think it might be social class but that wasn't it. physical courage, that wasn't it. it was relationship with mother. that the people who had been poured into deep love by their mom were capable of giving deep love to the men in their units. and therefore they rose. and taking, putting love at the center of who we are is like a shift from the way we have been thinking about social policy which is all homoeconomics. and i think both right and left are making that shift. pope francis has made that shift. and that opens up a wide array of avenues. >> rose: you said today's problems relate to binding a

fragmenting society, weaving family and social connections relating cross the diversity of globalized world. homoeconomics is a myth and conservative needs a world view that is accurate about human nature. >> right. >> rose: was there a key in your experience that unlocked this view, or is it simply, you know, the progress of a curious yo mind? >> i hope it's the progress of a curious mind. i rarely have epiphanies but i realize things in retrospect. >> rose: as we often do. >> and so the story begins to make sense to me after i've gone through it. >> rose: what story makes sense in. >> so the story, the emotional opening which i've been talking about, i wrote a book called the social animal about six years ago and talked about it on this program. >> right, exactly. but the role of the cognitive sciences has shown us including a work by a man named antonio demaz yo that it's wrong to

think that reason and emotion are opposite. emotion is the foundation for reason. emotions are value. emotions are motivational device. love is what motivates us toward things. and love, and so love is what motivates you to do well in your job. it motivates you to get through med school, through the marine corps, and so you have to think of humans in those terms. and who will not always be motivated by incentives all the time. >> rose: coaches that i know who are very successful teach that. >> yeah. >> rose: they do. love your colleagues, love your teammates, love the tbaim itself. >> yeah. and knowing yourself well enough to have the right desires. some of us, we think we want one thing but we actually want a another but we don't know ourselve well enough. and then loving, surrounding yourself with something, i mean this is why the commitment, it's the wigness to fuse yourself with another person to future yourself with an identity. there is a quote i love by louis

devernier. and in the book there's an old man talking to his daughter about his marriage. to his wife who is now dead. and he said love is an art form. your mother and i had it. while we were loving each other, i'm sort of mangelling the quote but roots were growing toward each other underground and that the years went by and all the pretty blowsoms fell from our branches. we discovered we were one tree and not two. and that gradual fusing of the roots underground is what you want when you're becoming a writer or becoming a journalist or entering into a relationship, or serving your city. you want that thing where you are so joined with that thing you love that the commitment is rock solid. >> rose: the roots underground have come together. >> one thing. >> rose: the democrats. bernie sanders, no one would have predicted that as well. >> right. >> rose: and i'm not sure where they would have gone other than, you know, some sense of or how do you see it?

what is that about? how is that dimp from what trump is about? >> well, sanders is a more substancive figure than trump, for sure. he is, it's interesting to me that that race, aside from the obvious, that it's also a product of the segmentation of society. that a lot of people are just ill-served by this economy and we have to figure out what to do about it. sanders has a very coherent explanation. >> rose: which he has had for 30 years. >> that is what strikes me, is -- the famous distinction between the hedgehog and fox. the hedgehog knows one thing about sanders, the fox knows many things, that's clinton. so it's interesting to watch these two styles. and you know, i have some sympathy for sanders because he is a man of integrity-- integrity and consistency. >> rose: and a wonderful wife. >> but you have to think for all of our candidates, execution strategy. how is any of this going to happen. >> rose: right. >> and i'm not sure any candidate really solves it. i'm not sure the primary allows

them to solve it. how do you get 60 votes. >> rose: you would think somebody running for president had thought about it that is what you would hope. i thought it about it instantly they're an empty vessel and a bunch of people pour things into it, so what comes out of it is a campaign speech or what comes out of it are debating points. but some sense of understanding where the country is. what is in contrast and opposition and how do you fix that. >> right. >> rose: you know, and how do you go from, as mayor cu omo famously said from poetry to prose, from the campaign to the governing. >> i think from barack obama taught us, it is not enough to be a skilled politician. he came in wanting to transcend every line you could imagine. and create a governing majority. but his policies that he came in with were orthodox democratic policies. so you have to have a set of policies that cuts across lines. that a a little from colume a and b. >> rose: he thought he could prevail. he thought his own pursuit of

bipartisanship, even though it might have been limited as the republican viewed it, would overwhelm the opposition. >> i think he had a genuine transpartisan aspiration. >> rose: right. >> but his policies were not transparpt san, they were very predictable. i think the way to do it say on poverty policy. there is a natural alliance between progressive democrats and evangelical christians and you could put together a package, policy that would give each of them something they want on addressing poverty. and then you could get 60 votes. but you got to be willing to step outside your-- the orthodoxy of yufer party and say i will take a little from them and a little from us. >> rose: why wasn't he capable of that? >> because it's very damaging for the people in your own party go crazy if you step outside. and that's just-- . >> rose: how do we change the politics. >> i-- . >> rose: so it's not-- destructive? it is-- is it the nature of the people we are electing today because of the res districting and all this stuff. >> partly it's that. the people who rise in congress are the good donors, fundraisers and those people tend to be

partisan. but partly it's just leadership. you got to have five people at the top of society, you know, the four congressional leaders and the president, and they have to say okay, this is over. we're going to cling topght. i will grab you by the hip and we are just walking through this. and we are going to govern in a bipartisan way and we will do it by the-- . >> rose: that has to come from the president and also from the congress. >> right. and you've got to vay level of cooperation. >> rose: did you believe that's possible with paul ryan. >> i do. you know, he's a little still trapped in reagan categories but i think his aspirations are real. if there is hillary clinton it's possible if they don't let-- frankly one of the things they have to do is do a lot more in private. we are all allegedly for transparency and open government and sunshine laws, but my friend bill-- bat at brookings institution said government should have is some secretary

resee for the same reason resee for the same reason middle-aged people wear clothing. t only of spending but alsoreo f

there would have to be a lot of-- . >> rose: so he if i believe it's individual effort, where do i stand in terms of where the. >> then you tend to be a little more on the side of the market place, that true effort you can rise and succeed. if you think it's faith, there is a larger role for government. >> rose: and where are you? >> i believe that we tend to overestimate our individual effort but i think having that belief that you yourself can create success is a very valuable trait even if it's sometimes misinformed. >> rose: i believe it's not just about the market place. i think it has to do with your ability and initiative to change lives. >> yeah, right. >> rose: and started with the people that are closest to you, and changing lives meaning being open to-- all the things you talk about. that is where i would bring in, personally all the stuff you believe in terms of love and that there is the capacity to make a difference. >> we all know people who had every disadvantage but they had one person in their life with total rock solid faith or set of standards. and then out of that they developed this confidence.

if you look at extremely successful people, they often have one parent who's very problematic, conditional love, an one parent who is rock solid, unconditional love. and it's that weird tension between the two. the other thing is the study i read years ago if you look at the people who are phenomenalically successful in good and bad ways or phenomenally ambitious would be a better way to put it, an amazing percentage had lost a parent between age 9 and 12. so the security of their life was taken away. and then they basically hustlers. i tell my kids i've already failed them because they are over 12-rbgs i'm still here, i'm sorry. let me talk about isis and foreign policy. we had this remarkable piece by jeffrey goldberg with you and every other writer i know has praised. >> overcommanded us. >> rose: talk about that piece and what you saw in it and what did it tell you. because you said there is a disirches in a dog and a cat. >> yeah. >> rose: and barack obama is a cat. >> yeah. so dogs bound into situations and cats hang back. and so-- . >> rose: and so george w.

bush, he was 43. >> to the extreme. >> rose: and barack obama. >> we fit both extremes. >> rose: it is more than that. do you talk about how they come to their own sense of self and what kind of comeum they reach out to and how much of it is own decision making apart from the group. >> yeah. so i-- it's funny. i had a strange reaction to gold brerg's piece. the first reaction was positive. i liked the president more. because he is thoughtful and there is a consistency. you can agree or disagree. i think he looks for every reason not to take action abroad. but there's a reckoning with reality. but the distain for the establishment and the disdain for all foreign policy, i think except for himself, does smack of an you know -- unearned confidence at times. and so i do doubt that. i-- it is like the worst thing to say in to 16 but i have come to be a believer. and we need to fix the establishment.

i believe in establishments. we have big problems. you need big institutions to tackle them. they have to be run centrally. and so we need a really good state department. we really need a good elite conversation. >> rose: so on the agenda ought to be reforming establishments. >> reforming institutions, yeah. our institutions are fraying. the conditioning is the prime example of an institution that has frayed because just the norms of behavior, the invisible codes have been ripped away. and so one of the things, when i talk about trump as a revolution in manners, and the reason we have manners, the reason we don't talk about each other's lives and how they look, or the reasons we don't insult people's loks or call people losers and liars, is that it enables us to have a conversation. it enables us to be a community and be citizens together. if you rip away those manners t is just dog eat dog and to me when he rips away the schrowd of those manners, he's really reduced us to scrambling sorp ons. and so restoring manners,

restoring codes of civility and just de sensee is a prerequisite for restoring institutions and standards he of behavior. i sound like an old fuddy duedy but i go back to eisenhower a lot more than i used to, just a sense that politics is a competition of partial truths. and what you are trying to do is just balance. >> rose: but ask yourself, what is contributed to that. and has social media, where there is an anonymity on the one hand. you know, and an instant place to privately express your grieveance, your anger, your protest, your differences, your sit civiles, can it have no bounds. >> none, yeah. i would say deeper than that, you know. >> rose: maybe it can be used beyond that. >> beyond the character of the people but egotism. if you have a baifng humility or at least if you have been taught all your life to value humility then you think well, good chance i'm wrong about some stuff.

>> rose: yeah. >> so i need the people to disagree with me to balance out my error. but if you are taught you have the truth by the short hairs, what do you need the other people for. and that's a lot of what we have going on. >> rose: that is a lot of obama. >> well. >> rose: you just said that. >> okay, fine. you're trying to make me. >> trying to get you, you know, to articulate, i think you have shall. >> it's not only obama. it's rush limbaugh. >> but that's a vast difference between the two of them. >> i agree. >> and but you know, i do think you have to be-- the thing about democracy, this is why politics is noble. it forces you to recognize the other people are in the room. and they have to be-- . >> rose. >> could you wish them away. you may think they're jerks but they're in the room. >> it wasn't worked. that has been the biggest problem we've had in this country for awhile it is the absence of people willing to compromise, willing to say as ronald reagan said, you know, it's better to have a piece of the pie than none of the pie.

>> right? >> right. and you know. >> rose: and we've lost that. and everybody knows that. >> if we got attacked by canada we would all get it back. we need a hostile force to attack us and union fie us. but it is a matter of technological of skill. i knew a guy, i'm sure you knew him, a guy named richard darman, budget director under the first president bush. and he would occasionally go out to lunch. and he would just regale me with stories of craftsman like skill. like theres with a guy who was defense secretary under nixon. and he would go to the white house and he would, there was a barber shop in the white house in those days. and he doesn't have much hair but we go to the white house at 3 p.m. every wednesday. he didn't really need a haircut but he would go. and so it would say on the pentagon schedule which everyone could see, laird to white house. and so oh, well-- . >> rose: everyone understood that. >> he understood the little-- those are tricky little games. >> rose: but his role in the reagan white house, in working for jim baker was to control the

flow of information. >> exactly. >> rose: and he viewed that as power. >> yeah. >> rose: his-- understanding was shofort how power works inside an institution. >> another story he toll me was that they were passing social security reform in 82ee or '83. and it was going to hurt seniors. and the dean of seniors in those days was claude pepper, red pepper. so they pull him out to blair house, across the street from the white house, they negotiate, everyone signed on to the deal except for him. they beat the hell out of him. and he finally agrees. and they march him to give a press conference at like 2:00 in the morning. because they know if he has time to sleep on it he will back out of the deal. so just how you do that complicatedded thing is a skill. execution is a skill. and-- . >> rose: are you saying we need more of this? >> yeah, i mean, it's not something a writer has but-- it's what jim baker had it. he had that skill of execution. and it's a skill that-- . >> rose: and lyndon johnson had it. >> and withers with disuse, so passing a complicated piece of legislation with a bipartisan

majority is a skill of execution. and if you want an example of it. go see the lincoln movie, the spielberg's lincoln movie. he's passing and he is listening to, that how do you reach that i goo, how do you reach that guy, how do you touch her. it's all-- it's that political, and that is the nobody ility of politics. and we disdain politicians for being crass and deal makers. but there's-- . >> rose: do disdain the word politician. >> but there is a craft and nobody ility to it. i would say everyone's dumping all over the elites but the people i know in government, civil servants, they're in it for the right reasons. the job is not that glamorous. >> rose: you talked about on campus a modern shame culture, you know, in which those accused of incorrect-- thoughts face ruinous consequences. >> i find it is more narrow minded than five or ten years ago. what interests me is we had this book came out in 1980 ss called the closing of the minds that says we're all moral-- alan

bloom, our students don't believe anything, they're all nonjudgemental. that is not true any more. there is a moral system being born and so trying to understand what that moral system is is an interesting problem. i am trying to figure out what it is, when judgements are made, when they are not. and i was helped by a writer in christianity today, who said its because of social media and the omni presence of social media. that everyone is afraid of become excluded or condemned in social media. so we're moving from guilt culture, i don't want to do what is wrong, to a shame culture, i don't want to be excluded from the group. so it's a shift in the moral system. and so that fear of exclusion is the basis for our-- so the access is not right wrong, it is inclusion, exclusion. and if are you not being inclusive, then show are you doing something very wrong and you get the whole world falls

down upon you. the problem with that is, if you have a set of universal transcend ent truths you are trying to live up to it, you can stick to those truths through particular or thin. if you are always afraid of being excluded or condemned in social media, you are per pet allly afraid of opinions of oher people. and that makes you per pet allly insecure. and so i think there is just a lot of insecurity. >> rose: i meet people today who come on television programs, they are scared to death that they will be misinterpreted or social media will be on top of them. and when you ask them who it is, it is one click or another. you know. >> and of course we have seen people whose lives have been ruined by either a small mistake or no mistake or just a gesture. on the other hand, you know, if are you in the world, and this is true for everybody, not just people in the media, there is a lot of criticism out there. and if you don't let it feak you it, it goes away. >> rose: you have to realize that. if you are in the public eye, if you can't do that, then you will be term nally unhappy.

>> yeah. and so isolation is a very good strategy. >> rose: you also said that middle age being redefined, whatever middle age is. >> yeah, so i think look at the three candidates we talk most about. llarylinton, 68 years old, donald trump, 69. sanders 73, 47. and so they're running for president for the first term. so active life is just a lot longer. >> rose: ronald reagan we thought was very old and he was in his late 60s when he ran. so active life is longer. so that is creating two changes. the first change is in their 20s it used to be you go the married, bought a house, had kids, in mid 20s, now in many parts of the country it happens in mid 30s. so we have this very unstructured world in mid 30s which is a harsh period, are you suffering unemployment, finding your identity, so that period is underserved by institutions. there say company called we work. >> rose: i know, know them. >> which is now, it gives all the people without are doing startups in starbucks, a place to get together and work thravment is the example of the

kind of structure coming into being to serve people in their 20s. >> rose: they believe they understand millenials more than anyone else alive. >> they may be right. the atmosphere is sort of summer camp. but then so that is one big shift in how we think about a certain age. but then if you are, i'm 54. i am hoping i have 30 years of not, of sort of active live life ahead of me. so that means instead of thinking i'm slowing down. >> rose: the ak area wall tables suggest that is true. >> i hope so. so i can think, well, i have got a moment now to like have 30, maybe 20, 25 years of something substantive and satisfying and maybe something totally new. so if are you in that age group, suddenly you are okay, you have a chance to think of another chapter. and so that's just a wide-- . >> rose: let me refer to something that we haven't talked about in a long while. you chronical these people in terms of would write you and help me jog my memory, but basically, they were in their 70s and they were writing you in terms of what perspective they had at the time.

>> i asked 5,000 of my readers to send in essays and grade themselves on their lives looking back on their lives. >> right. >> and they gave themselves a minuses for kaer radio, b minus for personal life. so they didn't think they did as well, but some things they did, the people who lead better lives, they had some common traits. some of them are obviously took risks very few people regret risks but the other thing is they divided thar life into artificial chapters. some people said okay, this year is the beginning of a seven year chapter in my life. what do i want to accomplish in seven years. after seven or eight they said okay, there is another chapter. the most unhappy people just let time drib el by day by day. and so making this false by fur kaition say useful tool. i had a student of mine who was a 40 year old concernel and every time he got put in a new army base he and his wife would say okay, let's vay personal retreat. what do you think of the parenting style, of the army, of marriage. they would take it down to the grounds and then think they

would examine it. it is very useful will thing to do. >> rose: yeah. >> and when you get older, you call yourself fuse fewer problems, there is good evidence people get belter at living. >> the great brookasser said to me once, she said for a long time i cared about what people thought about me, and now i only care about what i thought about them or what i think about them. >> that's good. there is a useful bit of advice thrk comes from a book, this minister here in new york, wrote, it's on marriage. he said you should regard the marriage, regard your own self-ishness is the core problem in a marriage. your tendency is going to think it's their selfishness is the problem. but yourselfishness is the only one you can control. and that's good advice in any relationship. >> rose: great to you have here, thank you. >> it's a pleasure. >> rose: david brooks, columnist for "the new york times" for the hour. thank you for joining us. see you next tierm. 7 for more about this program and earlier episodes visit us online at pbs.org and charlie

rose.com. captioning sponsored by captioning sponsored by rose communications access.wgbh.orgoup at wgbh

>> rose: fundi >> rose: funding for "charlie rose" has been provided by: >> and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and of multimedia news and information services worldwide.

announcer: a kqed television production. woman: it kind of was, like, the bang that set off the night. man: that is the funkiest restaurant. thomas: the honey walnut prawns will make your insides smile. woman #2: more tortillas, please! man #2: what is comfort food if it isn't gluten and grease? man #3: i love crème brûlée. woman #3: the octopus should have been, like, quadrapus, because it was really small. sbrocco: and you know that when you split something, all the calories evaporate, and then there's none. whalen: that's right.