The title of the book is vox populi which is also the topic of course that is not a new idea in latin means the voice of the people the old adage vox populi the voice of the people and the voice of god often used in history not only to attack monarchs but those people who say such nonsense. The idea of populism is also not new to America WilliamJennings Bryan or the roosevelt or Andrew Jackson previously Ronald Reagan were recently not surprisingly popular consent there has been a tension between popular government and Constitutional Government with that sense of the demagogues. So populism abounds from ancient rome to england and elected as president on a populist revolt so our speakers will speak for about five minutes and to have discussion afterwards. We will be joined by Michael Anton but we will start the first speaker is Roger Kimball editor and publisher of new criterion and publisher of encounter books. It also responsible for all of this and other great things published by a counter and i for one like to draw your intention those that have been publishing for a while and numerous topics including Molly Hemingway hemingway with trump and the media. Please start us out. Thanks everyone for coming. I dont suppose any term is more confusion than populism. And in many ways for many people populism is the term. In those who are lack of precision because anything or anyone you dont like could be into and if you could deploy the word so what does populism mean . Ninetynine times out of 100 it means this policy. But not to be confused with the german philosopher to notice that the term racism had a similar allpurpose content free aura. So with populism the certain words accumulate with a positive association. And to be in a portfolio so for example two very different careers with democracy on one hand and populism on the other. That produces pleasant vibration. But to be underlined with populism at first blush should seem quite odd because that offers a semantic space very close to democracy. And populism american to the heritage dictionary is a philosophy directed to the needs of the people advancing a more equitable wealth of power just the kinds of things the people if they were to rule with c. So the fact is that even the term populist with Bernie Sanders among that echo conscious non gender stereotyp stereotype. It is my impression that bystanders or his followers. And the media with their efforts to establish sanders in the public mind that he hurt himself is popular but not populist. Under the term populist grows on the one hand the issue of demagoguery some say populist and demagogue simply not a popular leader but they said to be in moderation to be your spiritually unmotivated populist . But upon that demagogic leader with that commentary on breakfast brexit or that election in france would have noted this. Not as a descriptive but to be delegitimizing. To have free and nothing got to demagoguery as a deplorable and even redeemable cohort. That existential depreciation and then to become aware though that these with moral view like in june in london to cover the brexit vote nearly everyone i met higher up the income to be the interlocutor to be in the European Union. In that disparagement of those arguing in favor brexit. They were said to be angry ignorant and racist. And then moved to the United States a little while later. [laughter] that those that were with brexit and then it turned who rules . The ultimate source of british poverty for centuries with the European Union and those are asking a similar question. Or is that the iranian people i am concerned that it is the location of sovereignty to play a very large role in that phenomenon that we describe. But the question of sovereignty but i will stand behind the rebellion to have those disfiguring features with the bureaucratic misogyny. That is a wide range of practical and economic effects to make any sort of innovation difficult. So perhaps they are spiritual or psychological. Many are against free speech on College Campuses the demand for those safe spaces and trigger warnings and the main points of that argument that alteration of the character of the people in exchange with those pleasures of dependence and with that discontent for circumventing parliament for what amounted to a new regime of influence peddling. And to maintain the appearance but with a closer look but the forms of the free and the end of the arbitrary government. But that discovery stands behind that Administrative State under the cloak of Democratic Institutions that is essentially undemocratic activity with the agenda to threaten the pretty to circumvent the law. At the same time the recognition of the totalitarian goals are what many have called a populist uprising. I suppose that is one word for this phenomenon the affirmation of sovereignty underwritten by the passion for freedom is another. And more accurate. Thank you [applause] we do allow approval the next speaker is james pierce and senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute at the site and also the author of many great books and also is invested in the new criterion. I appreciate that thank you so my essay is about James Madison to address the claim made by critics that donald trump is a threat to the constitution and i would like very much to hear many critics talk about the separation of checks and balances specifically they have not liked those aspects that there is little chance that donald trump will run through the u. S. Constitution the checks and balances it was drafted by James Madison to deal explicitly with a situation like donald trump to tie him down in a quagmire of conflicting political pressures from congress and it is more of a problem today because it is so huge it is nonexistent in this measure of madisons time time or anyone up until the postwar period. So not only the checks and balances and the elections so those who claim Donald Trumbull run drip shot over the constitution is that engraved their policy preferences as he entertained different preferences this is terrible the constitution will die it and trying the process and a series of wrought rights so i suggest this is badly overblown and survive without any difficulty so one of James Madisons fears is that the republic is under greater threat not from a populist but from disintegration so in some of his last letters and speeches and interviews and to be published after his death to make a statement that his greatest wish is the union is preserved and that if anyone cant abide the union can divide the union obviously thinking of the slavery issue. So what kind of estate madison and his contemporaries have envisioned for the United States . Believing that they envisioned a nationstate think a federalist number ten where madison articulates the theory of the republic he talks about a policy the country is divided into different groups with different points of view and different interests. It is difficult to agree on anything to reach consensus and that is okay because it will be so difficult to achieve that consensus with you contrasts that taking place in france at the same time where the revolutionaries talk about the people with a united front with democracy is a question of the people we have to identify the general will of the people, if you look at the france represents a paradigm of a nationstate in the United States represent Something Different we talk about it as a republic but what was he imagining . The images of the state at that time were not very wide. With the idea of the empire. That was the dominant view of the state at the time. Jefferson called the envision and when they acquired the Louisiana Purchase jefferson didnt seem to care. They were organized within the United States or a separate state as long as they were republics envisioning an empire. Not necessarily a nationstate now of course they talk about union as a sacred view and image as time went on and abraham lincoln. Forging into a nationstate those are communal events everybody participated and sacrifice and created a nationstate of the united people. Abraham lincoln spoke about thi this. If one were to look at the Development Taking place that you could see the attenuation that this was assembled under great stress and difficulty and through the course of these events United States as a nationstate developed a heroic image of itself with religious persecution to require a continent and then intervene in the european wars. This is the early version of the american nation. This is as we know from various sources happening on the College Campus that this entire enterprise was negative with the minority groups we did all of these terrible things from the american nation so the United States i would say looks less like a nationstate more like an empire with that Administrative Center at tenuate it relationship across the country nothing uniting these groups that we call in many languages or open borders. A lot like the empires of the 2h century. And those that have collapsed and disintegrated from the austrian empire these things are disintegrating donald trump i would say is elected to be constitute the nationstate again those centrifugal forces is this something that can be accomplished . It will be extremely difficult i think but that is what it represents i am not sure what donald trump has articulated but that is how i interpret that that will be a difficult enterprise to bring on for a lot of reasons the 17. Our first commentator was the director of the Assignment Center for principal politics at the Heritage Foundation david . Must be honest if donald trump ran for office we would not be here right now populism would exist that would be european and then with those short pieces and with brexit but not the yearlong series of indepth essays and analysis and those that are now collected that i highly recommend now trump is not the First American populist he had a Peoples Party that coined the term in the 1890s. But trump is most definitely the most successful populist we have ever had. But it is pretty clear that the American People have been betrayed to take advantage of by corrupt from both parties it is interesting to note calling the elites incompetent making that more compelling and attacking them with the American People. Not surprisingly they reacted in time and in the strongest possible terms the Trump Presidency quite possibly the rest of the world some of those hyperbolic predictions on the eve of election but in terms of the liberal democracy and Constitutional Order from new york magazine, trump is the extinction level event, that would mark the end of democracy in america. Paul krugman with his characteristic warned america trump would issue in the era of corruption and contempt for the rule of law with no restraint whatsoever. His conservative colleague was no more reassuring. Also with those three baseline dangers for the Trump Administration these were not farflung predictions of what we would likely face market jitter jitters, civil unrest, and a rapid escalation of risk and every geopolitical theater. That yet we are here one full year into the Trump Presidency and america and the world are still standing. [applause] not a single one of the doomsday scenarios that trump was to unleash has happened. Quite the contrary the stock market is roaring and we should probably have the third consecutive quarter of 3 economic growth. And with the independent judiciary and the free press we have what had 73 elections and selected many one by democrats the isis caliphate is no more and north korea is at the negotiating table. Trump cannot gain credit for all of these although he has done so he has had real accomplishments of his own. A Record Number of people in the federal branch bench and now for the Supreme Court he enacted a Major Overhaul of the tax code and pursuing a very aggressive regulatory agenda on all fronts good for the economy and constitution. It is hard to imagine of those 16 republican candidates but it is particularly hard to imagine any other candidate can pull out of the Paris Climate Accord to recertify the iran deal to recognize israel long jerusalem is the capital of israel. Just by conventional Republican PartyPresident Trump has had a pretty successful first year. He has made some progress he has not built a wall as and coulter reminds us on a daily basis. [laughter] deportations are up, he has not been negotiated any trade deals in the draining of the swamp is the toughest challenge it turns out that he did the audit of the Defense Department and the Washington Post reported that the federal government the number of jobs has declined by 14000 so trump is had had no success no shortage of success. That is to be expecteds announced guessing his issue of immigration lets see where that leads. [applause] i dont have to do my Clint Eastwood impersonation the Deputy Assistant to the president at the National Security council also the author for his current work wrote the flight 93 election. Michael . I remember that piece a look like 10 Million Words he thought it was hard to answer. So what was i going to say . I dont know. I have to begin from a position that i dont know what populism is. With William Jennings bryan or with any other great populist figures in American History nobody ever says that as a compliment if you are a populist you are bad. I take at face face value but explore that a little more. So democracy is good but in fact there should be the obligation of democracy throughout the world may be the subterfuge but if you hear this from certain intellectuals just to be clear. Democracy is good and populism is bad so he would tell you because the latin term for the people so there is a slight difference that subconsciously it is a part of the whole people that it is many for the multitude but that means majority rule in that it is bad and democracy is good so what brought me to my favorite writer and then to throw out some quotations but so with this discourse the multitude is wiser when is the first time a philosopher said anything . On those specific grounds of wisdom and constancy . And then to be historian worthy to affirm this that basically the people are stupid and you have to be governed to have a steady hand on the pillar and he qualifies that out of order to be the multitude without a head. But going back for second first modern examples is a multitude of those people who had lack of Border Security and are really tired getting into wars that we dont know what the strategic purpose was. So anybody who is in charge. And with that financial crisis to be more wiser and more confident. Of course this is entitled as the probability of that but with border enforcement and you have a smarter safer Foreign Policy no matter what would vote for they would come and go with both parties to the peoples frustrations so they found a candidate who explicitly and over the changed the narrative. I now trying to give them what they asked for. But also this is the partial title it is in two or three parts to say that and we give you a few examples. And look how that turned out. And the multitude with the elite conspiracy and they all opposed it. But is that never true of the elites . I dont know. But they gave us the financial crisis. But i would suggest that populism is bad democracy is good we havent been able to clarify that but however we know the demagogue from demos is bad. They could be the same thing by traditionally to be used rhetorically to appeal to the passions of the multitude at demos to be in Healthy Directions certainly there are better examples of this in the previous century. But i wonder is that only a phenomenon . Are there any people whose specialty is for the elite to tell them who they want to hear . Who are the all the dogs . T17 . [laughter] but it is to formulate and refine that conventional wisdom. With tell them what they want to hear. And even leading to wage declin decline. That isnt your fault keep doing everything the way you are doing it. So this is a category of thought that i would suggest to come up with a definition of the t17 with the populism because it does work in both ways that people get the viewpoint. [applause] we have some time for questions and we have microphones so picking up on something roger alluded to looking at the circumstances today if populism arises with the divide over history it seems to be different because of the administration and how we are ruled. Is there Something Different today with