Dance, folks. Thanks for being here. A this is really an exciting discussion that kim is going to lead today. He and i started talking about this a couple years ago and it is something ive been veryti interested in for a long time am i to see the growing intoleranc and intimidation from the left. The very first book i wrote is called why we whisper in the subtitle is losing our right to say its wrong. Its all about the growing intimidation of anyone who wanted to take a position that was based on any kind of traditional values, and a judeochristian reality and how the left carries out that intimidation in a way that makes everyone whisper. G the title of that book came from my experience has been something in my Senate Campaign for i was just pummeled in the media all over the place. There was no public support for me. Everywhere i went, people would come up after the meeting and get real close since they keep fighting. We are with you. But it was always a whisper because people were so intimidated. Cap homes kim holmes i sent a much better job to the point to where we collect liberalism today. I actually have some prepared remarks that i would just like to read, to give you a more scholarly introduction here because this book and i told kim after i read it, i was surprised he seemed so normal because they really deep analysis of where we are, more than most people would you willing to listen to, but very profound and Perfect Timing for this book to come out, given what we see happening around the country. Everyday we see stories about disruption to learning on College Campuses due to heat it protests over free speech onal racial issues. Ni the dismissal of the concerns of people of faith in running their schools or businesses, that announcements are professors, officials, scientists were opin unfashionable opinion in a disturbing trend to attempt to destroy the careers of public profiles of the individuals for their ideas. These are a few examples. You will agree with me that today the variations are almost endless. You may have experienced some of these in your own world. The overarching theme is the impulse to not just disagree, but to dismiss, and he mean, degrade and even try to use the law to silence those with whom you disagree. American society and Public Discourse reached such a levelra of instability and intolerance, leaving many afraid to exercise their constitutional right to express their own opinions on the important matters facing this country. Today we will hear about this from kim holmes, who will introduce to you his new book,nt the close of the liberal mind how groupthink and intolerance define the left. This did not happen overnight. As you will hear from a lon dr. Holmes, this is the result of a long philosophical growth has started prior to the american founding, a road that took two different directions. One european and one distinctly american. While this may seem academic, it is quite important to understand the situation we find ourselves in today and how to think about the terms liberal and liberalism. Dr. Holmes will talk about how american liberalism, which for centuries but for individual liberties such as free speech and freedom of conscience. It has become its opposite, close minded and intolerant differing points of view, a development that is transformtransform ing a once vibrant liberal tradition into and of liberal forests were denying peoples right and freedoms. The closing the closing of the liberal mind is threatening Constitutional Rights at one timene have been among americas greatest causes. It is up in indy or did that once was the bastion of American Freedom and equality, which in the end is not only a threat to the country, but to the great traditions of liberalism that health. But the prognosis is not all bad. Theres a way forward and dr. Holmes will talk about that, an too. Thank you all for joining us. Please give a warm welcome to one of heritages top scholars and a great friend of ours. Thank you. [applause] thank you, jim. P i was a better summary that im going to be able to do. That was perfect. Theres a lot of people to than. For me being able to write this book. I know its always a dangerous thing to start mentioning names. Surely jim, you are at the top of the list because two years ago when i went to see you in your office and i said i had this idea about writing the history of liberalism and why it has become the way it is. I remember i used a term and i said you know its becoming a liberal. You let that man like zero, hes going to go off in an academict. Direction. And i didnt do that. I benefited greatly not only from your support, but also from the discussions we had. I think the subtitle is entirely yours. A greatly benefit from your support and friendship and i greatly appreciate it. My old boss, i wouldnt even be in this position been able toe read these books are there werent for the faith and confidence of adding me. Its great to see you here. We do have a problem. If you look up the definition of the word liberal in the dictionary, you will find it means many different things. The word broadminded comes up. The word openminded comes up. A liberal is supposed to be somebody according to the definition that is tolerant of different points of view. The idea being that while you may disagree with me, with you have every right to yours the rt opinion. Above all, no one has the right to deny you of me reading of expression or freedom of conscience. In a marketplace of ideas, competition must be kept open. There is no settled science. The end of history are openended. We are not sure where we are going. Checks and balances must be maintained in the government to ensure that no one single party or even one partisan point of view ever prevails wherever. The rule of law is sacrosanct and the same rules should apply to everybody. That is sort of the general idea of what a liberal minded person should be. By the standards, today liberals have a problem, selfdescribed liberals have a problem. Speech codes and safe spaces are used on campuses to stifle dissent and shut down debate. Aggressive attorneys general are issuing subpoenas against socalled Climate Change deniers. Some activists actually want to try them as war criminals. The irs has targeted the president s political opponents by the president himself has abused executive authority. Religious people who question samesex marriages are called bigoted and worse. Some are even threatened to boycott signs and even imprisonment. Universities where progressivism reigned supreme in our places of stifling intellectual conformity and all across america, whether its in our neighborhoods, schools or local government, there is a zero tolerance ofhe anything that may offend or disturb whatever the orthodoxy happens to be in that particular institution at that particular time. It is plain to see that progressive liberals today have become the opposite of the liberal minded person as i described in here. They become intolerant in the name of tolerance. They become close minded. They become even yes liberal, which is the opposite of the liberal minded person. Close minded, intolerant,and tof stifling dissent. Too often made his public shaming rituals, particularly in the universities and even coercion and increasingly through the law to stifle dissent and shut down debate. So i wrote this book because i wanted to tell the story of how this happened. Its a long story. Its actually an historical story. Not just what happened in the last eight years. Its been going on a very long time. Unfortunately also theres a lot of misunderstanding segments that i want to tackle. I must say at the outset it will not do if you are conservative and simply argues that progressives have always been this way. This is the response ive gotten on twitter as ive been trying to promote the book. A lot of people come back with whats new under the sun. Theyve always been intolerant. I dont think that progressives, even though theyve held long, strong held views, but i think that their work is dissent and desire to control have never been as intense as they are today. Theres something fundamentally different and new. It wont argue either my opinion if you happen to be a liberal to say are you kidding me . You are calling us intolerant when you have so many big is in your midst as conservative . You can find intolerance and closemindedness that any ideology. You can find it on the left. You can find it on the right. Today with her post calleds is n intolerant and bigoted by conservatives is often a legitimate different that opinion. Apparently times change and standards shift. Just a few short years ago, for example, barack obama and Hillary Clinton held views on marriage that today progressives regularly condemn it bigoted. Should we call obama andinton clintons bigoted to . . I dont think so. Liberals have got a singular problem. They are caught up in a crippling contradiction. They brandished a sword of zero tolerance in the name of tolerance and they close down debate in the name of openmindedness. This is not just hypocrisy. I think more importantly it is a betrayal. A progressive liberalism is that ward with what it professes to believe in. Not only tolerance in the openrt mind, it increasingly freedom and democracy. Liberals are becoming their own worst enemies. They are becoming a force for undermining book remains of a once great liberal tradition in america. In the closing in the closing of the liberal mind, i will go through the books main points. The first one is somewhat surprising when i started the research. That is that todays progressive liberalism is not your parents liberalism at all. It is far more radical and far more different. Its just in the old liberal traditions of fdr and jfk such as freedom of speech, political pluralism and particularly respect for western values and family. Its not even the liberalism of president bill clinton when he waspo in office, who if you recl at the time was a moderate new democrat. You will recall in the 90s clinton disavowed the middle left with the socalled sisters soldier moment, but only a couple weeks ago he was forced to apologize to a group of black waste matter protesters who were shooting him down. The difference between the old bill clinton and the new bill clinton shows you how muchnted progressivism has changed. Todays progressivism, what i call in the book the postmodern left is a child of the new left of the 1960s. From the new blast, it got its start to revolutionize culture and society. And also got its unique talent for finding new issues such as politics and environmentalism tc advance the cause ofhe new egalitarianism. His particular genius, and i have to call it that, at least in terms of being politically affect the, was to infuse the cultural revolution and identity politics with the new ideas of postmodernism and multiculturalism. That is the belief that morality is completely irrelevant. Truth is totally subject to. All cultures, except for the west of rse, which is inferior or completely equal. Freedom and even reality are fit and, nothing more than social constructs an absolute redundant and perfect equality are achievable by the state and by the enforcement of the law. Provided the right people are in charge and enough enforcement is applied to the problem. So why do i say genius . These intellectual elements, values really a postmodernism as i have described them, once they were, once they were fused with the old radical dream of perfect equality, dave became a very powerful tool and deconstructing with t deconstructing that is dismantling the old order, the old culture and the old values of the postmodern left didnt appear to be about politics at all. Ns it appeared to be mainly about personal freedom and the never ending dream of achievings at perfect happiness in completema personal satisfaction. He looked out to be expanding the horizons of freedom and the practices we have seen intoe opposing speech codes and find them pastors are refusing aten samesex weddings. Make no mistake, a postmodern idea may have appeared to be all about language, art, Human Experience of ecoin any university, thats what they are mainly interested in. Activists and most importantly politicians and journalists became intellectual weapons to overturn the old cultural order. And what does this mean . Think about it. If all morality is relative, who needs that . If truth is subjective, men and women are free to define who and what they are, including the right to amend to claim it is really a woman in a court ofou law. If all white people are by definition guilty of white privilege, then who named to either with what it thinks, believes erdmann does. Ha it is a mere fiction, in their social construct and could be controlled and could be eliminated for the purpose of achieving the political agenda. It is boundless relativism and its utter lack of interest in history and in reality was a ken gateway for the radicalization of progressivism in the past 25, 30 years. It opened away for a new kind of radical individualism and i had to call it that. One where the only view that count is the one that a Single Person believes claims. That view is after all the very essence of identity politics. But it also redefined with the last manned by equality. It is true we still have, you know, Bernie Sanders is anan oldfashioned socialist. We still do have socialism defined economically. But in the kind of cultural radical design here, it wasnt just economic. It was focused on culture and social change and particularly the place that individuals had in certain social groups, particularly those based on race, gender and preferences. This world coming to danger individual right not by what you shared in common with all humanity as it had been understood by natural law could rather come you got them by virtue of membership in that group. If you belong to or, for example, a persecuted minority,i u. S. And individual shared in the persecution of the wholee, n quarter. It didnt matter if you had aser an individual can persecuted or not. What really mattered was the historic and social position of the group but which you remember and found that calms the whole basis of identity politics and the new kind of code increasingly enforced across america. That this was a momentous change. Not only fundamentally change the way we view civil rights. It also turned equality and two button that could be used against freedom of speech, which is what jim dement was talking about. Certain critical views cannot be called hate speech and you could develop elaborate legal concepts to go around this idea. If it was hate speech, it could legally be curtailed and even silenced if necessary. An expression could be silenced and it was all done of course in the name of quality. This world view, this postmodern worldview that i described here may sound a bit academic. It is true that i had to go back in and read some of the Academic Studies because this is where the ideas originated over theome last 35 years about critical theories and the like. I was astonished not only how badly written they were, but how much they relied on the kind of insular, hermetically sealed her killer reason, where nothing was allowed to interfere with and always ending, basically begging the question all along. But, it is not just academic. Its actually the very real stuff of modern politics and culture and it is spread and enforced by a prevailing world view, groupthink and theit is sp subtitle, that is professed by professors, teachers, journalists, lawyers, entertainers, increase in the Corporate Leaders who not only think alike, but who cannot possibly imagine and worldview outside of their own. It is not a conspiracy. Its just spring via consensus. They dont have to sit in dark rooms and concoct conspiracies all although the activists do. They are all part of the same class. Theyll largely share the same education. They operate in a world of cozy symbiotic relationship. They are wealthy, connected, come from the best schools, watch the same shows and movies. They live in the same neighborhood. They intermarry, interact with one another. E they are the most influential today, people in american politics and culture. Many of them, particularly the professors and researchers are refunded directly or indirectly by the federal government. So this process of liberalization but i described here has definitely accelerated under president obama. It has many different aspects come in many familiar to all of you here at heritage. Or indirec the abuse of executive authority the irs targeting political opponents. Laws were essentially written bl not enforcing them or by reinterpreting them to mean Something Different from what they had been originally intend to. There has been heavyhanded use of the Justice Department to investigate local jurisdictions, officials and Police Departments but only when they served the president s agenda. All in all, its a record of using power to get ones way. Science is settled. History is over. The whole system must be way. Transformed, which in reality means altering it for goods of the president s opponents, mainly conservatives, will have no means in the future to undo what he has achieved. All this means is that the main battlefront of intolerance inen america has shifted. It used to be that progressives, because they believed they were the minorities were all in favor of free speech and open discourse because they thought being a minority served their purpose as dissenters, a few well, to keep things up in. Now that they are increasingly in charge, they are trying to close the doors behind them. As a result, conservators find themselves to be a minority against a powerful new and even wealthy liberal majority, particularly in their influence in the industry, business, entertainment industry, and even frankly increasingly mainline churches. Across the various brands of the culture wars, we see them every day, progressives are pressing their advantage and they do so because they think they are winning. That is why they become of a boulder and make ever new demands. As a result, conservatives still on the defensive. They feel like they are the ones who now have to be worried about their rights because thats a minority, they are seeing the lot in certain areas of their beliefs being used to suppress their freedom of conscience or freedom of dissent, freedom of speech, which brings me to the trump phenomenon. The understanding has become in your possession. I go into this area with great trepidation. Everybodys got a theory what caused all of this. All i can say is what you see in donald Trump Supporters of a backlash against all of the things i am describing here. It is tight fire with fire is mentality. If you cant beat them with the old constitutional conservatism, with its interest in checks and balances and a koran and all of these things, we are free to fight liberals with their own type x. Es there is no way i think to explain the anger and frustration of the gop electorate in this election cycle without acknowledging to facts. One is that as i suggest here, n counter reaction to the liberalism of the last in the direct consequences of obamasha success in changing the systemti and changing the rules, which conservatives believe is now permanently rigged against them. So president obama may complain about trump. Liberals may complain about him and his supporters, but they ara in this respect natural consequences of the polarization the president has helped create. Finally, my last point and please forgive me i will do a little bit of an academic dance. It is about the history of the problem and the history of ideas, which frankly are important. I know that we live inob washington and we think politics is all about money, power and interest and of course it is. But when you take the long haul of history, parties and people have to believe in something. They have to have some ideas, sm therefore the ideas particularly to the intellectuals in universities and elsewhere who formulate all these theories, the ideas do matter toun understand where they come from and hopefully where they are going. I think you have to look at the actual history of the ideas to understand not only their appeal, but frankly why they have been so successful. Ea i described at length in the book. It could be boiled down to two points. One is that the ideas of the last today, whatever you want to call them, revolutionary left, liberal progressivism in some ways nothing has changed. It is the old dream of perfect and absolute equality. What historians call radical egalitarianism. In that sense, its been around since the french revolution and even before. But as ive mentioned already, the postmodern left has added a new twist to it. Today, to be a radical egalitarian, you must also be a radical individualist. This is new. After all, transgender event are not argued by people supposedly what is best for society. Its not argued as a question of freedom so much. To their mind, it is mostly about equality. What matters here is they are really arguing what really matters is they are supposedly what they advocate is best for them as individuals. They have a right and the dignity and whatever else they claim. That is the emotionally power used by this movement. Thats the very essence of the identity claim. For them and for people involveg in this, the personal is social. More importantly it is political. That is a new interesting twist on this whole long history of that desire quality. The second point is the postmodern left is an intellectual historical hybrid of far left, but also far right. From the last, you get theal classes they mention for perfech equality. Or from the right and here i dont mean the american right. Tm the european right and mosthe r particularly the philosophical counter reaction to the enlightenment and the french revolution that happened in europe. You get this radical subject to the zen and assertive tribal mentalities that first originated by the romantics and german idealists worked its way through the history of germany and Central Europe for ideas of cultural nationalism. The idea that the identity of the group is really where you found true authenticity and true meaning and true freedom. In europe that is a rightwing idea. Not here, but in europe that was a rightwing idea. Id and it migrated and the left in america to uganda,t postmodernism. These philosophers in france, people whose followers came to america mostly in the 1970s, particularly at the university developed the foundations of all the critical theories that today is the defining concept of theil left. These ideas of postmodernism come from, the forefathers were these people these guys in 19th century europe were radical individualist. They believe in the hero the heroic individual. They believed in a kind of pure subject to the d. , the exercise of the will in human history. But they also were the ones who influenced these postmodern philosophers that i described. Look at the intellectual historu and its a very interestingdesc. Idea. The history of ideas, how something migrated from that counter enlightenment into what is today supposed to be very expression of the enlightenment, which is the radical left, which is very interesting to me. Its not just an historical point. I find it fascinating. A lot of people dont find it fascinating. Sting to me. I tried it on my wife the other day and she said who cares. Well, fine. Here is why i put it in the said book. Because the postmodern left is a hybrid. As a hybrid, it is philosophically very slippery and very flexible. It is not easy to pin down. Its very adaptable and its managed to be calm, even on talking abstractly about ideas, but in the reality of everyday life in society and politics, where the ideas are not talked about directly the way i talk about them, it has become part of the Popular Culture in the sense of identity politics, in the sense that i am who i am. I care about only what my rights are. There is no absolute truth and so therefore i defined what then truth is. Uth so therefore i get to define with the truth is and if i have to get into power by the way whether its a university with administration, or somewhere else and i can start enforcing this conformity with regulation because after all if you oppose me, youre so this ideology is flexible, its light, has no use for rigorous logic. It is not interested in a big system of ideas like marxism was, it is exact opposite of that. Extremely flexible and in the end, truth, reality, freedom, anything you come up with are only defined, they are defined only by those who are in charge because if you have no natural law, no outside reference, everything is truly relative, you cant enforce conformity there is no external way to challenge you because the culture doesnt recognizee anything outside of terms of reference of the philosophy that is now the orthodoxy. So now, let me conclude by making an appeal. This is where i think, jim said to me, dont be all darkness. You, we have to have some hope here. So let me conclude by making anl appeal. The first is that progressives, in my opinion, have not always been multicultural radicals. If you look at herbert crowley, you never find him denouncing the family, denouncing western civilization. He was a an american nationalist. Is sew tariq ideologies of identity politics would have puzzled fdr, jfk, even john dewey by terms of his day was a big radical. Progressives think they are updating progress system. I dont think they are, i think they are veering off entirely and new and different direction. Quite frankly the direction they are veering off to, cultural liberalism, can only survive doubling down on authoritarian control. And by trying to eliminate opposing points of view becausee if you let in the light of another standard, or another objective, or another way of looking at the world, their world view doesnt stand up very well to scrutiny and criticism and so, that is why the universities very often are sor intent on having only one pointt of view, oddly enough, all their critical theories have ended up producing just one point of view that is now the orthodoxy. Now look, im a conservative. I happen to believe that even traditional progressivism was misguided by but i also, this does not mean that i believe america does not benefit from a movement that continually pushes for change and inclusion. America is always had a venerable, liberal tradition and frankly i think it still needs one but it needs one that combines social progress and respect for individual rights and freedom. It doesnt need one that denies those rights and stifles freedoms all in the name of a new concept of progress. At the end of the day, whether you are a liberal or whether you are a conservative, you should s want a system that is pluralistic and open. No one side should ever completely prevail over the other and yet today with our settled science, the statements about history being ended, progress defined in only one way, and also the bullying tactics that i have described here today, progressive liberals are acting as if its all over. They have won and all that is left is mopping up operation. Be all i can say to liberals andt believe it or not i have liberal friends, to be very careful what you wish for. Hubris is a terrible master. It is not only threatening my liberties, your liberties, all of our liberty abouts, i think frankly and i say this to my liberal friends, it is ruining your movement, and you should be as concerned about that even more than i am. Thank you very much. [applause]is ruining we do have time for questions. We have microphones if you will be wait and be so kind to identify yourself and affiliation if it is appropriate. Av i will start, however, i think radical individualists is very pleasant term. I tend to think of the founders and people that discovered the west as radical individualists. I think the radical individualists today are basically anarchists. When did we hit the Tipping Point of anarchy . Ca yeah. Well, that is interesting point. I have a segment in the book about the history of the libertarianism and, i go back to the 19th century, there was a Strong Influence of anarchism in 19th century and early founders of libertarianism. There is classic liberal views of economics and the like fused with it. When i say radicalce individualist, i dont have in mind a libertarian notion of it. I have in mind the kind of extreme selfishness, heroic selfishness you saw in these philosophers i mentioned, peopln like if you find whatever it good for you cant find anybody to argue with you on that. They dont have outside reference. I can tell you that the founders looked at individual rights. They believed in the importance of virtue. You had to control and contain yourself. You had to be respectful of other peoples rights. It wasnt an extreme radical view it is all about me. Some people call that narcissism. I dont call it that. I just think that there is something wrong with trying to pretend that your cause of individual satisfaction is really all about the kind of cultural equality that theyre arguing about. I just point it out because its not, i just dont think it is commonly understood what were dealing with. Question . Start down here in front. Sorry, there you to. Heritage foundation. Congratulations kim. A grit discourse this morning. I look forward to reading your book. Ra you reminded me something i never quite understood, the philosopher kirkegaard said, without god there is no freedom. The absence of a system of belief of a religious foundation is totally missing and, that gaping hole leaves room for the radical individualism that youre talking about. Yeah. If you go back to the old radical left of europe, marxism and socialism, even to socialism in america in the 1950s, they were not believers in natural law as it was understood in the 18th centuries but they did have an idea there was such a thing as universe aol justice and that they would be able to systematically logic and describing history to be able to describe what it was. The thing about the postmodern left is since they believe there is no one universal source of justice, that your justice is just as food as mind, as good as his, since there is no center you can basically press thehe agenda whatever your personal agenda is and call it equality. This was not only a new thing it, was actually very effective as a Political Movement because everybody can identify with their own personal freedom,ffeca cant they . Ca therefore the freedom of person who is gay to marry in samesex marriage can be something that i can identify with because i want my own personal freedom. In some ways it is original liberal idea of the relative freedom of individuals taken to an extreme. And that, that to me is not only interesting, but it also explains, as i said in my extree remarks, why the left today is so politically intellectually slippery. The frankly conservatives findly themselves using trap of terminology used against them about discrimination and the like is because they i think they lack understanding where theyre coming from. So to have the confidence to come back and say it is not really about discrimination, it is about your rights versus my rights. Lets find a way, a true liberal way to make sure my rights aree not being destroyed by your rights. After you will, if you get into the area of bathroom wars down v in north carolina, you would think that women and children would have a right to privacy . Af but that is not really the question. And so why is that . Why are their rights not being respected . Thats because the narrative iss not about them. It is about the ones making original claim. Yes, right here, the lady, please. [inaudible] i have a question about again on radical individualism. I well, to what extent do you believe that there is an awareness on the part of thetenh postmodernist that radical individual system really just a vehicle to get to radical conformity, temporary . And you know, we see all this stuff now but, you know, the destination of this train which is way out of station is really coercion and radical conformity. I mean, this whole thing is temporary. I dont think recognized in a few years at all. But in any event, do you think there is awareness that it leads to that and that is the intent . You know, it is a tricky business trying to figure out what theyre aware of. And what they say and that the analysis that they use is so selfcontained in their own terms and logic, that you, when somebody like me or you starts ascribing different words to what theyre saying, it is like a big gap occurs. I think youre right that the, that the end result that you mentioned, regardless of the interest in radical individual system conformity. The real question is, why is that . And i think the answer is, as i, described in my presentation isr because it is not just about radical individualism, it is about perfect equality. Probably at the end of the day as they define it. At the end of the day that matters more than anything else. That is the trump card. That makes them true leftists. I say they are looking around the culture and looking at history of ideas and theyre finding some of these new ways of looking at the individual a useful way of fighting the old a battle of equality. Are they sincere about it . I dont know but i mean, the thing is, that if you, if you look at the way, for example, gay rights are advocated, they are, i looked at it very closely, the argument is not made on the basis of freedom which you would expect. That would be old argument, be free to do what i want. That is not really the argumentm the argument is not made on well, this is the best thing for society, which have been an old socialist argument. Theyre saying it is the best thing for me and that is an old, can be on one hand an old liberal argument but also cant be, as i said, pretty much the way that these post modernist philosophers and critical theorists look at what the Human Experience was most important in the Human Experience. It was to them the authenticity of the individual and so they managed to combine that with the agenda of multiculturalism and its a brilliant connection. It works very well but fact that theyre playing on differentnt intellectual fields is very ver confusinging one time or another you dont know which one youre arguing. They switch over to civil rights argument on one hand and youre arguing the 1960 Civil Rights Movement but youre buying into the assumptions that they were the same things and they are actually not the same things and you have to, try to understand why theyre not the same things is the challenge. One down here in front and then well go back. [inaudible]. My question is there republican failure that how you described the conflicting views are totally very important to republicans rather than democrats . Do you see any democrats, profession anything, you would have so much diversity but to accept everybody include everybody, yougo to capitol hill clubs, Republican National committee, you will hardly see a couple of blacks, a couple of asians and latinos, and most of them are white men clubs. What you are seeing philosophically i agree with you 100 , media doesnt describe that. Reality somehow republican and t conservatives have become very narrowminded, very inclusive and they just want to push everybody out. You see donald trump hijacked Republican Party. I think he is more honest than 99 the politicians because he is not talking honest, thanks. My book is not about politics. It is not about the gop. It is not about donald trump. And it is not even about conservative movement as a Political Movement. The book is about ideas and what is happening with liberalism. And, you can make any argument you want i suppose if you were liberal, progressive liberal sitting there, were only way we are because of way you are andrg get off into that. Im trying to rise above that and trying to take them seriously for what they say and claim and believe and maybe we can write that book that youre talking about another day but even if what youre Say Something true, and im not saying it is, it doesnt negate what im saying to be true and there is something fundamentally changed with progressive liberalism over the last few decades and im trying to makee. The appeal that if they continue down this path, then the kind of reactions that theyre seeing on the right will be the same, if not worse. Actions that so, you want what we do, do we as americans want to go down that path or start taking each other more seriously . And, taking the ideas seriously. So, i just think that it is important to realize what is happening to american liberalism. Question here in the back. Thank you. I think we know as students of modern history that revolutions devour their children. I would rather not wait that long. I would like to know, if you can give some prescription, how we fight this battle of ideas . Were merely voters, parents,onw employers. We participate in a social contract that others no longer recognize. How do we fight back . Simple question. No, it is not a simple question. Im, at my age im thinking there as you ask the question do i have 30 more years to do this and it may take that long. The short answer, take ideas seriously. Educate yourselves and take the culture seriously and take what is happens in the universe seriously. We conservatives understandably so, have a tendency to think wee can focus on politics and somehow that will be our is vision and that which must do that im not suggesting we dont or cant do that. On other hand im talking about here, values and mores andhand,t concepts of the culture changed slowly but dramatically in last 40 or 50 years and happened mainly in the realm of culture and ideas particularly in universities where you have stifling intellectual conformity. Many conservatives, it is like going into hostile territory and yet, that is where our ideas come from. The students dont come up with these crazy ideas about identity politics. This is what theyre taught in the classroom. Frankly the journalists dont either. That is what they learned at columbia and elsewhere. So i think we have to reengage on ideas and start taking ideas, intellectual ideas even, and ths culture more seriously. There is pragmatic aspect of, that. What do you do with hollywood . What do you do with the churches and the like i get all that but in some ways all that is downstream. If you cant get it at beginning and influence the process at thh very beginning and you go at the very end of it, it will be like trying to put your finger into a dike. If you lose the culture which ir think conservatives have, thatv going to be a problem. By the way, very quickly, im not suggesting here what does that mean . We to back to the 1950s and go back and reconstruct the things the way they were . I dont mean that for a minute. Im talking about taking thehe ideas of the founding, the idea there was something called individual rights, there was a sense of ions versal justice. Yes it was understood by natural law before or by religion andth that the constitution was formed in order to protect those rights and whether youre liberal, conservative. That is an idea that every american should rally around. But that is not what is taught in the american universities. Not at all. Yes. Terry miller of the heritage foundation. Congratulations, kim, on a fantastic book. Thank you, terry. Seems one of the points of vulnerability for the other side or illiberal liberals, might be a place where radical individual intersects with stealth thinkins groupthink. Coo you elaborate a little bit how that happens . I have been asked, i doing a number of radio interviews, i get questioned over and over what do we do next . I say one, theyre overreaching. Theyre going too far. These excesses are too offensive to liberal ones. Talking about universities, using subpoenas by attorney general to go after Climate Change. These are excesses if you will. This is embarassment. And, perhaps not to thene president but it is embarassment to most americans. So i think that, this is why i wrote the book. I wanted to say, this is where we should engage. We should be having the fight in the American Public domain on this issue. That it is not just that they are doing opposite of what theyre claiming to be, they may say theyre radical individualists and the way they justify to themselves but theyre ending up in a terrible conformity. That the is contradiction you engage on. You move into the middle of it. , it is not only hypocritical but betray what is it means to be liberal. Any honest to goodness progressive liberal who has some respect for history would have a hard time dealing with that particular argument. So it is very important that we dont get into the hermetically sealed circular reasoning world of the postmodern left and stari arguing over discrimination and meta narratives and all stuff they use. Their terminology and their points of references and we will lose. Step back and reassert our own values, our own understanding of what universal justices, what is right and what is wrong, what individual rights are and, and, be very confident about it. And i think we can win that debate in the long run. I think there could very well be, well, frankly there is already a backlash. I talked about that there. Is a backlash against this already happening on the right, whether or not it is being channeled in the right political direction, that is a whole different story, a wholee different question but i think this is where it is coming from. The real question is, is it too late for liberals themselves to realize what is happening to their own movement. That is the question i have. Thank you, kim. Thank you. [applause] but as noted we have copies of kims book available in the foyer. He will be glad to talk with you further up here. As a bonus well let you have a copy of his previous book rebound. When you are visiting with us today. We look forward to seeing you at heritage in the future. [applause] youre watching booktv. Television for serious readers. Watch any program you see here online at booktv dotorg. Host radio talk show host mark levin says this book will make you squirm and think. The author is radio talk show host, steve deace. Why a novel . Guest i thought it was a device to tell some Inconvenient Truths to borrow title from another book. In a way it would be more entertaining and less confrontational. May cause people to take a look what is happening to the culture, albeit from another point of view. Host what are some of those Inconvenient Truths . Guest Inconvenient Truth unless we return to the constitutional form of government in this generation or see some form of moral and spirit all revival like what we saw at founding of country and great awakening that gave birth to liberty in our civilization in the first place we might be totally and irrevokably screwed. Given the course were currently on. This book is humorous although at times unsettling warning. Like a road sign that says danger ahead, turn back now. Host without giving away the ending how, the plot, how does the a nefarious plot form . Guest nefarious plot is contemporary homage to c. S. Lewis. He was passed by hell with destroying the United States over century ago. He is so confident his plan worked he connects all the dots, names names, talks about philosophies, institutions, you know, movements that they either started corrupted or coopted in order to accomplish the demise of the United States as a superpower. And he is so confident that the plan has worked, that he has written it all in this book, in vivid dei will at that. He connects every dot and our inability to believe that it is true, to think this is paranoia, this is conspiracy, this cant be right, that is how he will convince his master the devil, we are done and his plan has actually worked. Host steve deace appeared on cspan many times, if youre listening to nye iowa you recognize the voice from his radio talk show. What, what prompted you to write a book . Guest i was in the shower getting ready to do pr for my last book, rules for patriots and this idea popped in my head. My best or words ideas come in the shower only place where im not talking to somebody or my cell phone is going off. I was in the shower. This came to me. This book is dedicated to all the useful idiots out there, especially those who are ahn way wear we were using you all along you turned out to be the most useful idiots of all, lord nefarious. That is a mustard seed, to borrow expression, that where the rest of the book came from. In western civilization there is great examples of using alter egg goes or caricatures to tell culture truth maybe if you put your own name on it they might be offended by, one of the greatest examples, sir thomas moore utopia was scathing rebuke of monarchy what is happening at the culture at the time. They eventually burned him at stake, by writing first in the book utopia. He escaped persecution originally and got people to listen to his ideas. This is way to get around some of the Political Correctness and maybe some walls we built in our culture between different idealogical dividing lines or theological lines and objective look at what has become of us as a people and where were going if we dont turn back. Host ben shapiro says that steve deaces humorous new book take as wry, satirical look at future that faces america as she continues down the path of unchecked leftism. Mr. Deace, were talking to you in early march here at cpac. If you were to write a story about this election season so far what would you entitle it, what would you write. Guest instead of primary colors, it would be paradigm shift. Youre watching a massive paradigm shift happen in the american electorate. What is happening is, there is existential revolt happening within the conservative movement and within the Republican Party. There is no question the Republican Party as it has been known since George Herbert walker bush left the stage, if you look at history of the party one of these things is not like the other. Nixon, ford, reagan, bush, dole, mccain, bush, i mean one that sticks out is reagan. The rest of the party has traditionally been sort of this right of center, small p, progressive, corporatist leaning Political Party except for era of reagan. Most of the conservative base is tired of it, fed up with it. Last straw with romney losing in 20 he self and Massive Gains republicans had in the 2014 midterms and there is literally nothing to show for it whatsoever. Thats why we sit here in early march, two candidates, donald trump and ted cruz who are dramatically different people. Donald trump is running on essentially some form of White National i. He is running a dixiecrat platform. That is not conservative system. Cruz is running on conservatism. He is trying to conserve ideals and traditions built america. Those two individuals who are seen by the voters as the two most outside of the republican mainstream, are right now blowing away the field and are roughly neckandneck in the delegate county point because they represent the biggest paradigm shift. So the debate well have in the Republican Party now the rest of the way is one, should there even be a Republican Party and two, if there should be, which path, instead of cronyism and corporatism, which path should it pursue . Should it pursue what trump is advocating sort of return to White Nationalist dixiecrat, sort of americanism . Or should it be a truly conservative party that is trying to conserve the values that made this country exceptional in the first place. Host radio talk show host and author, steve deace quote a nefarious plot. In his most recent book. Here are authors recently on after words, our weekly program. Measures to alleviate income inequality actually end up hurting low income americans. And peter marx remember the career of late aig ceo bob benmosche, who turns the company around during the height of financial crisis. In coming weeks on after words, Senate Majority leader Mitch Mcconnell how his political philosophy formed his time in the senate. Senator Barbara Boxer will look at her career in politics. Also coming up, profiling of the women instrumental to the development of americas Space Program in the 1940s and 50s. This weekend, demos Vice President of policy and research, tamara drought, will talk about americas new working class and their potential political power. She is in conversation with democracy nows amy goodman. We have a deep and long history in this country of undervaluing work that involves serving people, and especially caring for people. So we now have a working class