they is no question that , buteen nominating folks bluntly, they need to do more and a need to do it fast. host: let's hear from brad from minnesota. good morning. caller: good morning. i know he is kind of a young man, but that is ok. i just want to ask you one question. what is the world going to conclude when they find out that we have in our premier agencies, we have political moles? if i can start by saying that you are the first person to describe me as a young man and a very long time. such as put a smile on my face. [laughter] guest: there has been a lot of attention paid to the question , number beg political appointees. i want to be clear, i think there are way too many political appointees that take on career positions. there is a substantial effort being made to make sure that that is tracked very carefully. accountability office is a legislative watchdog that does a review of all of this. at the end of the day, the numbers are tiny compared to the full workforce. you're talking tens of thousands of people. bulk ofarge, the vast the federal employee workforce are people w

so i want to say a little bit about how, in my work, i understand the relationship buteen race and solidarity, also what i mean when i talk about solidarity and how we should understand what this has to do with democracy and why it is so important to cultivate. forne of the premises people writing about democracy, for good reason, is that political solidarity is necessary for a democracy to function. the reason for this is because democracies are diverse. right? citizens need to be able to come together to see them selves as messed in relations, mutual obligations with strangers. butay not know the people, because we see ourselves as being part of the same political community, we can understand that we have relations and obligations with them. ie premise for the idea that grapple with the my book, which came out in 2009, "race and the politics of solidarity," is that we have written about this in political science, analyzing political solidarity as this is isething that exists or something that we are working towards without thinking enough about the ways in which that solidarity is shaped by