in august 2014 presidential historian rick perlstein appeared on c-span q&a program to talk about the presidency between 1973 and 1976 this was a period when richard nixon resigned gerald ford assumed office and ronald reagan entered the national political stage. >> the big story of the shift of american politics in the spirit of 73 to 1976 turned out to be that in this dark dark period, which is what we started out talking about when people are turning on their tvs watching watergate seeing the politicians they trusted some like mafia dons when we lost our first war in vietnam when we got our first inklings of what they called the energy shortage, which was shocking because people didn't even know energy was something there could be a shortage of. that something very what i found secretary was starting to happen and that people were beginning to think about america and how we could solve the problems.how we could

you and i did actually we interviewed rick perlstein my memory is who wrote nixon land and as i look at nixon land it plays right into what i see happening what is your take on it i think there's a lot of moving parts to this obviously you know we've got the the actions of the police officers not just the one you know who killed george floyd but what's been happening since then the videos of all of that the videos of people you know looting a target walking out with lego sets as if that's important to what's. happening so there's a lot of different angles to this there's a lot of different sides to it but i think overall for me personally the biggest issue is the death of george floyd the death of too many african-american men and women at the hands of these officers there's no justice for them hardly ever but this has evolved into so much more than that and i don't think a lot of that was intentional and it's i don't think seriously problematic i don't think it's intentional to put antiphon the streets ok that's the 1st thing there was no intent there i have a bill maher's opinion a

they're going to be outraged by the counterculture movement taking place in america just like rick perlstein described in his book nixon when it's a big threat so can he do this yeah he's not only chan to do this he must do this in order to stay with his playbook. that was an awesome description mike and i feel like there are so many people that give credit to donald trump for being new and innovative and it seems like a lot of his ideas we've seen republicans run the playbook for once again in previous years and then to switch gears just a little bit and get on to something else you know that many of the right wing pundits and supporters of the president are citing the insurrection act of 1807 how do you think this will be used to justify a military response to the protests and does it actually hold legal weight. yeah it does and we've seen it used historically here's the balancing act that's the this 1807 issue comes and it comes into it comes into this question is that do we have constitutional rights that are being affected by the average citizen where where we can say that those constit

you and i did actually we interviewed rick perlstein my memory is who wrote nixon land and as i look at nixon land it plays right into what i see happening what is your take on it i think there's a lot of moving parts to this obviously you know we've got the the actions of the police officers not just the one you know who killed george floyd but what's been happening since then the videos of all of that the videos of people you know looting a target walking out with lego sets as if that's.

it's called mix in the land nixon land again and rick perlstein wrote nixon land and he described how nixon swept the election and in $72.00 biggest turnout ever by america's middle class white middle class labor class showed up because they were terrified what were they terrified they were terrified with the demonstrations the riots that they saw on the street they were terrified with the weathermen they were terrified with the black panthers they were terrified by what they were seeing on the news every night and so what what nixon did isn't braced all that and he said look i'm going i'm going to use that to win the white house the biggest turnout ever from middle america showed up trump is using that same thing to go forward and you know what the bad news is it's probably going to work you see biden right now slightly ahead trump if he does this just in to use the same playbook that has been used in the past you're going to have a terrified mom and pop middle america that are going to show up they're going to be they're outraged by the counterculture movement taking place in americ

in august of 2014 presidential historian rick perlstein was on the q&a program to talk about the presidency between 1973 in 1976. this is a. would richard nixon resigned ronald ragan entered the national political stage. >> the big story of 73 to 1976. it turned out to be in the dark, dark, dark. which is what we started out talking about, people are turning on their tvs and watching the watergate hearings, we lost the first war in vietnam but the first inklings of the energy shortage which was shocking because they did no energy was something there's a shortage of. something what i find salutary starting to happen. people are beginning to think about america and how we could solve big problems. how could call our leaders into account, how we could create a foreign policy that is not involved in being the world's policeman getting into another vietnam. how we could conserve energy. there is a struggle at the same time people really did not want to do the hard work of facing our problems and that ronald reagan rode on that wave and began telling people that watergate was not really a problem

historian rick perlstein wrote this great op-ed earlier this week where he noted it's unlikely political tumult will spur a backlash that benefits conservatives and usually voters tend to blame the person in charge at the moment for that disorder. also, if you go deeper into your poll, 2 in 1 say they're worried about the death of george floyd. they're more worried about that and systemic racism than they are about the actual protests. i think when voters are looking for this leadership and looking at a president who isn't even concerned with their same concerns, you know, and with the seismic shift we're seeing, the majority of americans are saying police officers are generally more likely to treat black people unfairly than mistreat white people, that disconnect is going to be really problematic for the president in november. >> i want you to listen to what former republican secretary of state colin powell said earlier today. >> we have the people of the united states, the ones who vote, the ones who vote him in and the ones who vote him out. i couldn't vote for him in '96 and i certai