The conservative sensibility, at the Texas Tribune festival in austin. [applause] before i introduce my guest, i am obliged to tell you that you may not stay here after the event, you need to reline up for the next event. Also, if you would like to get a signed copy of the conservative churches sensibility by our guests, you need to do so after the conversation. Needs noorge introduction. Pulitzer prize winning columnist , he has preached the gospel of conservatism for over half a century, and i am delighted to have him in conversation here today. Welcome, george. [applause] that austinerstand is ground zero for the conservative party. [laughter] you are absolutely in the right place. Before we get started talking about your excellent book, george, just its been an eventful week. Another in a series of eventful weeks. Can we just have lets address the elephant in the room. Can we have your take on whats happening in washington today and what it portends for americas future . Thats just a small question to begin with. A softball. George my book has 565 pages of text and his name doesnt appear in it. [laughter] [applause] bill maher asked me why that was so, i said doris day doesnt appear in it. Well, youre referring to the question of impeachment and all that its very difficult to impeach someone for promise keeping. He promised continuity with his campaign. He promised to continue indifference to constitutional norms and good manners. He has been keeping his promise. [laughter] , it seems to me, but not every Impeachable Offense should be grounds for impeachment proceedings. Nancy pelosi announced this inquiry 406 days before the president ial election. The cure for a bad president ial election is a better president ial election. There are 47 members of the senate who caucus with the democrats. In order to remove him from office, they would need 20 republican senators to side with them. If mr. Trump today were to tweet that nine is a prime number, that minneapolis is in idaho and that the sun revolves around the earth, there arent three republican senators who would disagree with him on any of those. On any of those. So the fact is, he is going to finish his term. Which as a prudential matter , makes you wonder, what this is about. They can send this to the senate. And it would be terrific fun to watch the republicans squirm when it got there, and theres republic good to be rerived from to be derived from making them take a stand. Impeachment itself if one of the articles of impeachment is the president s refusal to comply with congressional oversight, and subpoenas. This would represent the beginning of the reflexing of congressional muscles that have atrophied over the years. So this recalibration of our institutional equilibrium would be another benefit of impeachment. But if you believe as i do that the primary aim should be to make sure the 45th president is succeeded by the 46th on january 20, 2021, then you have to consider whether or not this helps that. And i think it does not. I think it distracts the democrats from talking about what worries americans. There is an asterix over that meause the democrats seem to to want to talk about everything except what the country is worried about. They want to talk about reparations, packing the Supreme Court and all kinds of stuff. This is the 100th anniversary of the 1919 world series. I cant talk very long without talking about baseball. [laughter] it was only a matter of time. George 1919 world series, white sox, heavily favored, lost to the Cincinnati Reds because they was the black sox, the scandal of the fixed world series. Watching the democrats debate , i reminded of what it must am have been like watching the white sox. People said theyre trying to lose. [laughter] to go off on an fore doomed impeachment tangent is a mistake. Youve written eloquently through the years about political courage. Where is political courage of republican representatives and senators who disagree at heart with the president . Washington is not short of ego. And surely, these people are thinking about their legacies . Why are they not dissenting . George fear. The Republican Party today is more homogenous than it has been probably since it was founded in wisconsin in 1854. 1912, former republican president Teddy Roosevelt challenged his friend and mentee William Howard taft. The progressive republicans are against the conservatives. This was replicated in the 1940s, the dewey republicans against the taft republicans. In the 1960s, the goldwater one, icans, of whom i am voted for him in my first president ial vote, against the rockefeller republicans. Division has been a constant in the Republican Party until now. At the 500day mark of the reagan presidency he had the support of 77 of republicans, at the 500day mark of the Trump Presidency he has the support of 87 . Theres less dissent in the Republican Party than ever before. Its his party. Which is why those of us who care about the twoparty system think what should happen in 2020 is the Republican Party gets of the iterated you know the old story about hitting the mule over the forehead with a two by its attention, doneomething needs to be to get the republicans attention. Let me move on to your book. It begins in princeton, new jersey, where you earned your ph. D. In the mid 1960s. And you invoke the fourth president , james madison, and the 28th president , Woodrow Wilson, both of whom also spent time in princeton. And you write, my conviction is that properly understood, conservatism is the madisonian persuasion and my melancholy belief is that Woodrow Wilson was the most important single figure in the largely Successful Campaign to convince the nation that madisonian persuasion is an anachronism. Talk about, what is madisonian persuasion . George madisonian persuasion, the catechism has three tenets. Is this still broadcasting . Hello . There we go. Is that better now . Thank you. The madisonian persuasion which was the founders persuasion was a, a belief in natural right, that there are certain rights necessary for the flourishing of creatures like human beings who have a fixed human nature. That human beings are not simply creatures that acquire whatever culture theyre situated in. Second, first come right, then come government. Most important word in the declaration of independence is secure. All men are created with certain inalienable rights and the governments are instituted to secure those rights. The primary function of government is not to give us rights, but to secure preexisting rights. And third, to make the government Strong Enough to protect those rights, but not so strong as to threaten them. We need a separation of powers. This checks and balances will produce an institutional equilibrium. So we dont count on virtue now in our leaders, we count on institutional restraints. Relationship between the branches. Woodrow wilson, of the great princeton class of 1879 said, matters of the great class been,1 was all rights act when there were only four million americans and 80 of them lived on the fringe of the atlantic coast, within 20 miles of atlantic tidewater. But now, said wilson, were a great united country. Woven together with steel rails and copper wires. And what we need now is an efficient government, a strong and nimble government that was one of his favorite adjectives applied to the government, and at the heart of that must be a strong president who can be emancipated from the separation of powers, interpreting the mood of the country, marginalizing congress. Whats remarkable about Woodrow Wilson and subsequent progressives was a, how forthright they were in rejecting the founders premises and how remarkably successful they have been. The principal monument to their success is the modern presidency. For years conservatives believed what i in retrograde still believe, which is in congressional supremacy. They recognized that the growth been teddye has roosevelt Woodrow Wilson, frankland eleanor roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson, and therefore, they feared executive power. Then republicans had the heady experience of Ronald Reagan as president. And they, too, fell in love with executive power. I think many of my progressive friends are rethinking the romance of executive power in the current context. Which is, again, wholesome. Some good things will come out of this, one of them is the revival of congressional institutional pride that is overdue. When Franklin Roosevelt , shortly after his inauguration, his fireside chat, first he began with two words that dont appear in the transcript as it is at the library at hyde park. The two words were, my friends. Now, were so used to this fake intimacy we have with the chief executive of the United States that no one today is startled by that. After all, we have a president who said, i feel your name, which, of course he didnt do. No one feel others peoples pain. But never mind. Some of us dont want the president to be our friend. We want the president to do what the rather spare article 2 of the constitution says theyre to do, which is take care that the laws are faithfully executed. That is enough. Dont be our friends, dont be the national pastor. Dont be our moral guide or tutor or auditor. Just get on with the business of running one of the three branches of one of our many governments. Get the presidency out of the i must say, i think senator bennett of colorado is coming to this festival he should be nominated, if only for his recent treat where he said nominate me, and you will get a president you wont have to think about for weeks at a time. [laughter] i want to go back to president day. To was the nation so we said two Woodrow Wilsons change of coursework the in the 20th century . Always, there almost always is a populist dimension to progressivism. And the populism was in the idea presidency. The president would be the as Andrew Jackson said the only man elected purely by the entire American People and therefore he was above the separation of powers. He was above the checks and balances, it was the vox populi essence of populism. It was popular with people to have a president say, you are virtuous and i am the vessel into which your virtue is poured , and therefore, president ialcentric, the essence of progressivism, appealed to large numbers of people. No one ever went broke praising the virtue of the American People. Why has congress subordinated itself . George well, the president s of both parties have been given by congresses of both parties, extraordinary discretion partly because there are only 535 members of the two houses of congress. And has been for many years. In the senate since the alaska and hawaii joined the union. But in that time since we began had 535 members, the business of government, the business of dust of the busyness of government has increased probably 20fold. There is now nothing that is not the federal governments business. So if youre a, going to stick everything, aso congress is going to do, and if you want to get reelected, he went to make these interventions of American Society but not really be responsible for them, instead of passing laws, you. You say, we shall have a clean environment. You in the bureaucracy fill in the details. We shall have quality education. You in the Education Department and elsewhere write the rules. If you walked into senator mike lee of utahs office you see two stacks of paper. One is about that tall. Its what Congress Passed in a recent session. The other stack is eight feet high. It is the rules and regulations churned out that is the actual legislating. If the Supreme Court were doing its duty, and one of the arguments in my book is that the courts, far from being not the financial enough have been too deferential, if the Supreme Court were doing its duty it would enforce the nondelegation would enforce the nondelegation doctrine, that as john locke said legislatures may create law , they may not create other legislators. What congress has essentially done to avoid responsibility and to avoid the nasty work of actually legislating, congress has created a million or so legislators in the federal bureaucracy. Youre alluding to and have written in the book that america has become an Administrative State. You write, trying to restrain the modern executive, which is the motor of the Administrative State by depending on the madisonian architecture of checks and balances, seems increasingly akin to lassoing a locomotive with a cobweb. Why hasnt gotten so out of control why has it gotten so out of control . George because st. James, im a worshipper of james madison. James madison made one huge mistake. He assumed that, well, as he said in federalist 51, he said you see throughout our system the process of supplying by opposite and rival interests the defect of vetters. Defect of better motives. The rivalrous interests, the house against the senate, the congress against the executive, the refereeing judicial supervision over our democracy by the judicial branch, madison assumed that institutional pride and selfinterest would be Strong Enough to keep this equilibrium. He was wrong. Turns out that Congress Today is filled with people who just want to be there. Theres an old saying that some be something,tics and others in politics do something. The latter group is much smaller. Ask about congress congress, like the legal profession, like dentistry, like teaching, we all live under the tyranny of the bellshaped curve. A few members over here are god awful. A few members are extraordinary. The vast majority of dentists, lawyers, journalists, columnists are mediocre. [laughter] mediocrity in congress producess docility, marginalization, and the consequent swollen presidency that we are now living with. Ii dont want this to seem as though i am picking on just this president , because this has been growing for many years. Kamala harris i am not picking on her particularly, she is like a lot of them she said the other day, if i elected am president ill give congress 100 days to pass gun control measures that i approve of. If not, i will then do it by executive order. Well, thats not the cure for the problems were living with for the lawlessness we are living with today. You mentioned that donald trump is conspicuously absent from this book. Im wondering how the party that once represented conservatism could drift so discernably toward authoritarianism . George im not sure theyre authoritarians. People say donald trump is a tyrant. No. Tyrants invade poland. Tyrants annex the sudetanland. This tyrant cant even get his own choices on the Federal Reserve board of governors. Tyranny is not what were looking at here. Were looking at abuse of power. We are looking at the disruption of our institutional architecture. But this is not what tyranny looks like. We have seen tyranny in this century. I was just in hong kong. They know what tyranny looks like. Im sorry. But centralization of power is a hallmark of authoritarianism. Not necessarily just tyrannical actions. George quite right. Madison said the definition of tyranny is the legislative, executive and judicial power in one set of hands, and that we are approaching. But why did we line up as an electorate behind somebody who so clearly does not represent the conservative values we associate with republicans . George the Republican Party is full, again, of the bellshaped curve, of people who are basically careerists first and conservatives second. Beyond that, political scientists for 60 years have been noting a widening gap between the rhetorical, and the actual americans and this is particularly true among conservatives americans talk like jeffersonians, that government is best that governs least. They insist upon being governed by hamiltonians, by a large, providentnt, omni welfare state. Conservatives talked if years about reining in entitlement programs and all the rest. Here we are in 2019, running a trillion dollar budget deficit at full employment actually, more than full employment, there are 6 million unfilled jobs at 2 growth. Thats going to be really stimulating. When the next recession begins and a trillion dollar deficit and essentially zero interest rate, so the fed has no arrows quiver to fight it. Leaving that aside, my belief is that republicans came up against the cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance is a fancy way of saying, people say with absolute sincerity two incompatible things. Republicans have said for years that they believe in frugality, balanced the jets, and all the rest. Turns out, they dont. One of the reasons that economics is one of the few academic fields that has moved to the right in the last 60 or 70 years, is that everyone knows , that free trade is a good thing. Trump came in and he said, we believe that free trade. He said, no you dont. And they said, ok, no we dont. [laughter] my belief is that the american Political Class, for all the talk about discord in our country and god knows its real enough, but i believe the Political Class from Elizabeth Warren to ted cruz is more united by class interest than it is divided by ideology. And the class interest is that veryone, from warren ted z has a powerful incentive to run huge deficits. Because all that means is youre giving the American People a dollars worth of government and charging them . 80 for it. The public loves it. The 20 cents that will be paid later is fobbed off on the unborn, unconsenting future generations. Everybody is happy, and we go on doing this. But at the end of the day, it is demoralizing. And now, with our trillion dollar deficits with the current president , the republicans are facetoface with the fact that none of them have believed a word theyve been saying for 40 years. Which president of your lifetime most closely approximates the conservatism that you espouse . George wont surprise you when i say Ronald Reagan who was a as i got in a world of trouble for helping him prepare for his 1980 debate with jimmy carter but beyond that,. Would say, Dwight Eisenhower when of the most underrated figures in american history, a superb president. As didw the advantages Ronald Reagan, of being underestimated. Let me challenge both, starting with reagan. An intrinsic part of conservatism is fiscal prudence. Under the Ronald Reagan administration, we saw it a medic increase in the size of government. Can you be a true conservative and grow government that are medically . George its problematic. Grow government that dramatically . George it is problematic. Ronald i reagans administration was not so much what the new deal had done. The new deal built a basic social safety net. His objection was what happened 1968, the great government went beyond the provision of a basic safety net to micromanaging society. Deciding where we should live, what we should think, e. G. Etc. It was that break that typified reagan. It is interesting, because between 1938 when Franklin Roosevelt, if our progressive friends are paying attention, they should think about this 1938 back up one year 1937, after he wins reelection. Franklin roosevelt said the madisonian architecture is wrong. The three branches of government should be like three horses in tandem all working together not rivalrous institutions,the supre put in harmony and harness, so let us pack the Supreme Court. Inre was a Rebellion Congress and his own party. From thet to purge Democratic Party those in congress who had opposed his plan. And all the people he tried to purge got reelected. In the process he lost his liberal legislating majority. And 1965, there was a coalition of conservative member democrats and republicans presenting authorities. Barry went down in flaming defeat losing 44 states, it swept in such a norm is cohort of democrats that for two years Lyndon Johnson could do whatever he wanted. Had for two years, congress its way. Snapback begans 1968,6, and in conservative republicans won four or five or five of seven president ial elections. So, what the Great Society did was kindle a Great American debate about the proper scope and actual competence of government. A debate we are still in the midst of. Mark it seems that the modern demagogue of the Democratic Party is john f. Kennedy and the modern demagogue is Ronald Reagan. There is a lot of misconceptions about both of those president s. They have been distorted. What is the greatest misconception we now have about Ronald Reagan . George the greatest misconception is somewhat dispelled that Ronald Reagan was unreflective. And hisrtin anderson wife published his letters. People saw an entirely different reagan. You are a president ial scholar and you know that president ial reputations are like sine waves, they come and go. Reagans has been on the upswing because they realize that he had an agenda that was rooted in considerable reflection. Beyond that, he understood the economy of leadership. Do not try to do everything. Have three good things you want to do, say what they are and say it over and over again, and focus on them. You will be surprised what you get done. Mark you are one of our great recon tors storytellers, what is your great story what is your favorite story of Ronald Reagan . George i thought he got gorbachev wrong and he was over his skis, and wrote as such. My phone rang from my office and it is Ronald Reagan. He says, george, i am not reading you with as much pleasure as i used to. [laughter] president , i am not enjoying you being president as much as i used to. Down and let us talk about this. We had a talk and agreed to disagree. Favorite that is my one. Is a stretch,his but which party, current party, most approximates the conservatism that you believe in . Is ae conservatism today persuasion without a party. It is an orphan. Chilly, world. There is no party for it. I am a whig. A henry clay type. I am going to change that, and i will tell you how. There was a wonderful story told of margaret thatcher. After she had been elected head of the party but before she was prime minister. She is meeting with her members and one of them is nattering on and talking about the glories of centrism and transcending political philosophy. Finally she reaches into her theetbook, pulls out constitution of liberty, slams it down and says this is what we believe. My vision of the future is that someday an american president will pick up the conservative sensibility, slam it on the president ial desk and say this is what we believe. Then, conservatism is homeless and we should not pretend otherwise. Mark do you see a return in your lifetime . George i am 78, so my lifetime is a short horizon. Mark next two generations . George i do not know. Very clearly some of the rising stars in the Republican Party think trump is onto something, but populism is everything that conservatism is not. It is here to stay. I am thinking of tom cotton, and senator hawley of missouri. When i say populism is everything it isnt, it is antimadisonian. He said majorities are going to rule, but, therefore, care must be taken that majority opinion is filtered and refined through a Representative Institution and procedures that slow it down and give it time to mellow and take cognizance of realities. What we want is direct translation of public passions into policy. Want to see it, look at brexit. That is what happened. When we sent them 50 destroyers in the landlease deal, we should have stuffed them with the collected works of james madison. So, they would have seen the ublicatory democracy. Mark what can a conservative do to overcome populism . George i write books. Point out the error of our ways and the wisdom of the founding, that point out the fact that madison hadart from a wonderful phrase. When you depart from mitigated democracy, a wonderful phrase, that you get access, you get excess, you get donald trump. Wretched excess. Mark if republicans are lining up behind donald trump because of fear, why is the electorate become more populist and nativist . George because populism is flatterers and flattering. Puli, vox dea. Wise andhe populace is informed, but it is extremely flattering. It says that people are impatient. And a madisonian system makes it hard to move the government. When the founders went to philadelphia in the summer of 1787, he did not go to devise an efficient government, they wanted a safe government. They created three branches of government, two one is with a vetolative branch, vito overrides, judicial review, super majorities, all kinds of ways to slow it down. I cannot think of anything that the American People have wanted intensively and protectively that they did not get. We talk about that there is gridlock and nothing is getting done and Barack Obamas administration is said to be the case in point. Dodd frank was the most comprehensive financial reform since the 1930s. The Affordable Care act was the theest expansion of entitlement state since 1965. That is not trivial. Things get done, but it is hard and it is supposed to be. Mark you relate a very startling statistic. 72 of thet in 1964, American People had faith in government, trust in government to do the right thing most of the time. 20 . Number has declined to you mentioned earlier that it is lower, 17 . Why have we seen such a slide . Lower . Our faith george because government has undertaken projects it does not know how to do, it has decided that it can regulate behavior from the light bulbs we use to the water that flows through our showerheads. Through how we choose our schools. And people are not happy with the results. The American People would like government to deliver the mail, defend their shores, fix the roads and get out of the way. Government does none of those things, including getting out of the way. Mark do you believe in american essentialism . George in this sense. I do not believe that america is immune because of broad oceans and placid neighbors from some of the terrors and path ologies that have afflicted democratic governments. I believe in american exceptionalism in this extent. Free, in the sense that we did not have a futile past. We did not have an entrenched aristocracy and established church. We had an exceptional revolution, one that did not try to deliver happiness but set people free to pursue happiness as they individually defined it. We have an exceptional constitution in that it does not say what the government must do for us, that the government may not do to us. In that sense i think we are hellbent ford these reasons, largely immune to the modern pessimism that says human beings lack effective agency. Human beings are the playthings of vast impersonal forces. An exceptionally lively saving faith in human agency. Mark you write about conservatism without fear. What do you mean . Rge [laughter] george i am the son of a professor of philosophy whose father was a lutheran minister, and my father used to sit outside the study listening to the pastor and some of his more reflective congregants wrestle with the problem of reconciling the doctrine of grace and free will. It turned my father into the flock into a philosopher. Roome said that i am in a an amiable atheist. I am married to a ferocious presbyterian. I do not need that explanation. And this gets to the heart of the conservative sensibility. I think the bible reduced to one sentence is god created man and women and promptly lost control of events. [laughter] the conservative sensibility finds the absence of control exhilarating, it is fun. Conservatives like the spontaneous order of a market society, the fecundity of freedom and constant surprise. , the American People is 327 million making billions of decisions a day, markets generating information and going off in a lot of directions. Some of us find that wonderful. That the absence of control is heroes are, my two etious. Are hume and lucr he said not everything that works as planned, unplanned order is part of the thrill of life. That is the conservative sensibility. Mark we will open up the mics to questions after the next couple of questions, i do not know where your microphones are, but in a few minutes we will take questions. You mentioned your ancient heroes, but one of your modern heroes is the person to whom you dedicated the book, perry goldwater. Bere would Barry Goldwater today. Would there be a place in politics for Barry Goldwater today . George Barry Goldwater had a clear depart disciple and senator jeff flake, who had been head of the goldwater institute, a wonderful think tank. He wrote a book called the consciousness of a conservative. Auntie is out of politics prints. He offended the i do not think so. He was a cheerful malcontent. Thatsay, he proved that adjective goes together. You can be a malcontent but cheerful about it. I like to think i am. I think Barry Goldwater, some people say he lost the 1964 election because he lost 44 states. I stay he won and it took 16 years to count the votes. Mentioned the consciousness of the conservative, it seems that you are today