Next, political analysts debate the future of the Republican Party. Topics include how millennials view the Trump Administration and the twoparty system. Christina bellantoni of the Los Angeles Times moderated the forum which was hosted by zocalo Public Square in los angeles. Usthank you all for joining here at the National Center for the preservation of democracy. I am the associate publisher of zocalo Public Square. I want to begin by thanking our hosts, the Japanese American National museum and a big thanks to cspan for recording tonights program for a later broadcast. [applause] here are mission is to connect people to ideas and to each other. We are a Nonprofit Organization publishing an online ideas magazine and providing live events of that examine essential questions in an acceptable and democrat spirit. Since our founding in 2003, we presented 548 events featuring 2184 speakers, and 23 cities, seven states, and six countries. We do this all on the staff of eight people. 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If you have not already, take a moment to silence your cell phones. Again, after the program i hope you will join us in the lobby for drinks. It is not my great pleasure to introduce tonights moderator, ms. Christina bellantoni. She is an assistant managing editor of politics at the Los Angeles Times. She previously spent 12 years covering politics in washington, as well as a Political Editor at pbs newshour. She has covered three president ial campaigns and the virginia statehouse. She has also served as Vice President of the board of the Washington Press club foundation. Please join me in giving a warm welcome to miss christina bellantoni. [applause] christina thank you and keep those hands ready because we will be giving a warm welcome to our panel as well. Really lucky to have such an esteemed panel and im glad to be here. I think it will be a good conversation. In the green room we mostly talked about our children, but i think we will have fun talking about the important conversation in politics right now. What is the future of the Republican Party, effectively . And what is next . And what does that mean for democrats and those Bigger Picture political questions so many people are engaged in now more than ever. So i appreciate everybody being here. First in no particular order, i will start with leslie graves, who is the publisher of ballotpedia. The encyclopedia of american politics. She founded the organization to equip everyday citizens with accurate and objective information about elections and politics. Admirable cause. [applause] you probably read a lot of mike madrids name in the Los Angeles Times, because he is a political consultant based in sacramento at grassrootslab and he has served as the political director for the California Republican party and is well known in the state, as is everybody in the panel. [applause] christina thank you. Cassandra pye is to my right, a Public Affairs strategist and the board president for california women lead. She was also the deputy chief of staff to Arnold Schwarzenegger when he was governor and political director for the California Chamber of commerce. Please give her a warm welcome. [applause] christina and as you know, we will be taking questions after, so lets engage in a wonderful discussion starting with the premise of this conversation. Im asking each of you, is the Republican Party dead . Cassandra . Cassandra since you asked the question, um, it depends on where. Generally i think one has probably got the notion that there is at least a nail or two of them in the coffin in california, because the numbers are so low. I have a numbers guy next to me so i will have him help me cheat. Numbers are low. Dems are holding. My view at the state level is that, if the party is any position to nail a Successful Campaign for a statewide office at this point of any kind, probably not governor corbett maybe, but certainly in a statewide office i tend to think it will help the brand in a sort of balance out some of what comes from washington and stopped at our borders. That will take quite a few things. I am certainly curious to hear my friends comments in reaction to this comment. I think it will take a great candidate. I think it will take a lot of cash. It will take good timing and a little bit of luck. Waslast race i worked on the u. S. Senate campaign. He came in third. I like to tell him that he won at least one primary. [laughter] cassandra i think he came in with about seven points. If there had been just us on the ballot, i think the numbers could have been around 22 or 23 , and he wouldve come in second place ahead of sanchez and he wouldve had a race on your hands. But 2016 was 2016, so he did that with great messaging and he did it going out and is speaking with womens groups, i could go on about how it happened, but a lot of things would have to happen for us to get a statewide candidate that is viable statewide and then i think there is a chance. I will stop talking and leave it to my friends. And come back to it. Christina leslie . Leslie i would say i am giving a talk in dallas next week, the title of it, is i would be making that up, because it will not be happening. But it could happen. The Pelican Party is enjoying were public and party is enjoying electoral success right now. They have 34 governorships as of the week ago. Over two dozen states where the governors are republicans, the state senate controlled by the Republican Party. Legislation passing in those estates, achieving a lot of what the Republican Party has cherished and wanted to do for years, if they had the reins of power at the state level. One, the reppo can party is struggling in a lot of areas, right . But it is probably struggling less than the Democratic Party, so you could say it is the party that is in the least trouble, except for the other one. [laughter] christina fair enough. Mike . Can ihink i remember on november 5 or 6, i had probably a dozen panels unlike this one with the exact title. How could the party come back from the debacle of the november elections. Then we woke up and things changed and it are not to be dramatically different than i think most of us anticipated. Myself certainly, it was a surprise. And i think the point in that year that was brought up is an accurate one. We are at a time where both parties are dealing with very serious cleavages in their base. They do not tend to be necessarily just linear, with moderate and progressives, or moderates and conservatives, the populist dynamic driving both parties is really across the spectrum. And if there is really about four have a five different factions in each party. So the fact that they Republican Party stands today, and is in a strong disposition nationally in its entire history, this is going back to the lincoln days, the Republican Party has never been stronger, where it is weak it is exceptionally weak. In california is one of those places. And i think cassandra articulated it well, the many things that would have to break right to have a possible chance for these to change in california, a lot of that, we can talk about that during the course of the evening, but a lot of it has to do with the National Feeling that people are going through. It is not just gerrymandering or gamesmanship. It has a lot to do with, we need to be mindful as citizens of the country, not just republicans and democrats, but we are going through some been extraordinary right now and we are seeing i do not want to say it collapsed, but a transformation of the twoparty system. I do not believe we will look at the twoparty system in 10 years and say things do not change much, i think they are changing extraordinarily fast, i think we are trying to figure out what it means. Right now we are kind of stuck in this twoparty system that is creating a lot of angst and fear and anger on both sides, and it is not healthy. But i also believe that we are a resilient society, a resilient democracy, and we will figure it out. Christina one of the words nobody has uttered yet, i guess i will be the first to say, President Trump it is an interesting question. He is a republican, he won the presidency with an r next to his name on the ballot. When he speaks, he does not say, blank as a reppo can party. He says those guys. As were speaking with mitch mcconnell, who would be his closest ally in theory trying to get his agenda passed on capitol hill, so i think that question translates to, is trump representative of the Republican Party . I will come back to mike on that. Mike i think he is now. I will say that for somebody that spent 25 years working on republican politics, he looks nothing like the conservative movement in the conservative party that i joined. I do not think he is a conservative. He may be a republican, but a conservative and republican are two Different Things and that is the largest chasm between the factions in the party at this point in time. The president donald trouble is as runninge w against the party in many ways. He was running against paul ryan, taking the gloves off with ted cruz and with very strong conservatives. He was running against everything, so when he speaks and it says words like today, he means it like they. I do not think he has an affinity to the party. And what he is trying to accomplish and i still do not know what that is. So that unease has created a wide segment of the republic and party that does Republican Party that is not have a home. I am a republican and as we were sharing in the green room, in large part this is important because i think a lot of us can say this in our country today i am a republican because i know i am not a democrat. And a lot of democrats cant say the same. There are few people who can identify where they are for. We are increasingly a society that is defining who we are by what we are against. And i think donald trump is a living embodiment to that sentiment. Can i jump in . Argue i think we could he represents the voters in the countes, roughly forin our country voted barack obama in 2012 and they voted for donald trump in 2016. I believe that donald trump and his campaign saw that that was a possibility. And that those people who are these voters is to he is representing. And to just add to what you are saying there is an interesting constituency called the donald haters. Those are the people americans, right . They hate donald trump and who do they hate even more . They hated hillary just a little bit more and they voted for donald trump and i do not think that dynamic as the lost. So going into november 2018, when they go into the voting booth i do not, i think the Democratic Party, the leaders are struggling right now during the elections, and the elections in new jersey and virginia this year, to figure out a way to get those voters back. There is a lot of competition going on. But right now the favoring of the democratic candidate is enforced. I am here to keep honest for californians. I have to ask, we are ahead of the curve again with the nonparty prisons voters on the rise, some of those people, not all of them, but some of those cannot be republican or democrat mike no question. It is in low turnouts. If you do not have a message and the democrats are suffering from a huge, unprecedented turnout problem, these are voters that do not like republicans but they are not motivated by the Democratic Party, they are double haters in reverse. Apices double apathies. Mike i really do not like republicans, but i really do not want to vote for democrats. Mike what about millennials . Cassandra i am older than michael. Whole approve and disapprove rating, millennials not millennials, 1834 yearolds, 67 disapproval nationally of the president. Pretty much everybody else in the 40s and up. The other problem to your point about the way that this is breaking a number of ways, the other problem i think the party has got is whether or not he turns his presidency, his presidency turns off a block of voters that are making their mines up about what party they will belong to and will probably belong to this this is my case, i switched parties in my early 20s, and that happens with a lot of Younger Voters. Christina when howard dean was chairman, he would go around and say, if you can get a voter to vote for the same party for three elections in a row, you will have them for life. Barack obama captured two thirds of that and a lot of those voters not only did not stick with the Democratic Party, they got so disgusted with politics and mac sort of feeds into this, i feel like we had the antiestablishment, we want change election at the national level. You know, you saw parties get swept out of power very quickly and it had not happened in the last two decades, these last couple of years. So could there be another one . Have we seen enough change . Or are people generally unhappy with it what the establishment is doing at their National Government . Mike i do not think it is unhappy, i think they do not believe in it anymore. Whether youre on the right or left, i think we have faith in most of our institutions, whether it is religious institutions, civic institutions, political institutions, financial institutions, i could go on. If you say bake anything on the left, it is evil. Big plastic, big oil, big water, whatever it is. There is a reason for that. Ist is not there something to listen to, people are saying we do not trust our institutions. And i think it manifests itself on the left. On the right it is anger. Ande is anger on both sides frustration and it is a complete loss of confidence in where we are at. I will give you a couple of other brief examples. The economy on paper, you keep hearing that things are doing really well. In the polling we see issues like crime, homelessness, poverty. In california rising to the top. We just passed the in on this homelessness packed tax. A Homelessness Tax in los angeles county, that is raising a wife like. White flag. Lets their money at it and take care of the problem. I said that because when you leave confidence in your institutions, you are also losing, i think we see it in the Republican Party to your point, it is easier to run against the whole thing without any sort of solutions. Leslie just to clarify, people lost institutions lost confidence in institutions. Cassandra we had a conversation about reallife problems when we were talking about our kids. Leslie i was around during the vietnam war and at that time every family in america knew at least one other family that lost a son in vietnam. My family knew many families that have lost a sons in the war. Now every family in america knows other families that are struggling and in really deep and serious ways, that was not the case 10 or 20 years ago. People see it in their neighborhood, they see it in their family, or in their church. They see a lot of struggles that was not as widespread 20 years ago. Until that changes, you will see these elections. Christina when you say they think the government is not working for them, is that the donothing congress, like they are not passing enough bills . Or is it frustration that they are not repealing the Affordable Care act . What specifically . Leslie you can talk about what they want to do nationally, looking at the dysfunctions that are sort of interesting to look at coming out of washington, interesting for us. People who vote in november, they are not basing it on that, they are basing it on a live the life on a daily basis. And until that changes, they do not care what kind of games are being played in washington dc. Mike about five years ago we started asking a question in our polling. We knew that people do not trust politicians to do the right thing, democrats the same as republicans. We started to ask the question, do you think that our government is capable of solving the problems . And overwhelmingly people said no. It is not like people, you are right, what has driven that is people seeing the dysfunction between the two parties and fighting and acrimony and doing nothing, and not listening to the other side and it is the height of hypocrisy for me to have one side that says, you will not even talk about it, and the other one takes over and says the exact same think much of it as a tennis match going back and forth. But when you believe it is not capable, even if we started to work together, can the government solve these problems . People are saying no. Leslie the millennials. I will call them uber voters. They are choosing not to vote, because whether a 25yearold is democrat or republican, they get together to look at how their life has be