Colleague in this panel to discuss my new book how americas Political Parties change and how they dont first a word how we will proceed today we have with us amy walters you see her regularly on the news hour and a host of the take away with amy walter like many of you i read a lot of political commentary she is always fair and doesnt follow the pack she digs into election related data the cofounder of echelon inside the most innovative and interesting of polling and intelligence firms as a pioneer in the Digital World from 17 years ago stating a change how the Republican Party can adapt if you dont read the friday roundup of interesting stories you should sign up for it visiting fellow in senior election analyst for real clear politics has an mba just finished our masters in statistics and now for his phd in Political Science as a coauthor of one of the additions of the almanac of politics that Michael Brown introduced to the world in 1971 with americas individual entry of the idiosyncrasies of the 535 people in congress is classified of the almanac before interviewing providing a rich detailed and goodhearted each of the panelists will speak for eight minutes i want to make sure we have time for all of your questions right now thank you for all your help to put this event together just a few weeks ago writing a column one of the worlds most successful parties speculating as so many before have done on the death of the conservative party in england on our shores Stan Greenberg founded the Republican Party in the book entitled gop rip before the 2016 election many obituaries were published in the death literature it is onesided you dont have to go very far back to find the same of the demise of the Democratic Party after the george w. Bush election. What seems to be the death of the genre is slim but very substantial volume looking at the longevity of the two Political Parties with a deep historical knowledge and perspective and actually all 435 Congressional Districts and is covered politics from all angles and author of deep research and thought to explain politics and country today with a detailed understanding of contemporary politics we will have a discussion the floor is yours. Thank you very much for your kind words and thank you to the members of the panel who have come forward by three of the smartest people of the next generation those who are willing to come and discuss my book. As you mention i have been studying this for a long period of time now the almanac from which came out november 1971 that was even before the impeachment of Richard Nixon that was a long time ago. So my political memory goes back to detroit that was once americas boomtown the election of 54 which was pivotal so to know that the voting was at the Detroit Public School and this was a key race between the republican incumbent and the democratic nominee this one see that she campaigned in a trailer and that was the beginning of 40 years of democratic parties in the house of representatives with the middle income district and with those 18 districts. This was a long time ago. I was inspired in part living through the demise of our Political Parties and what fascinates me is these Political Parties are very old so in 1832 to elect jackson to sustain the charter of the United States that the Oldest Political Party in the world the Republican Party was founded 1854 to get rid to end slavery of the new territories. And both of those were successful with a dozen years of achieving those policy goals so the Republican Party is the third oldest party with the British Conservative Party that they made reference by working in his biography of a conservative party in 1846 i suggest they will win a 58 vote party if there is ever another general election in the house of commons. So having achieved their early goals to still be operating 165 years after their founding and in a time when america has grown from a nation of 20 million to 320 Million People we dont have many institutions aside from churches going back that far so i wanted to make the point that is true for some fundamental reasons there are some structural factors in the system that favors a twoparty system the singlemember district which is not in the constitutional statute with a congressional and legislative elections but there is something fundamentally more at stake and causative of the longevity and the persistence of these two parties we have seen the parties change their positions over a variety of issues they have adapted to Innovative Technologies new leaders the democrats started off as the forgiving party them by the seventies or eighties they switched positions and with donald trump as president they could be in the process of shifting positions once again the Democratic Party in the 19th century was limited government attempted to favor local option and happy to tolerate slavery and segregation of the south the Republican Party was more of a federal government party. So they have changed and adapted but at the same time there has been a basic personality character of each of the parties that are unchanging 185 or 165 years which accounts for their longevity and their resilience the Republican Party is concentrated around the core constituency seen as typical americans but never a majority the composition has changed over time but it continues from the yankee protestants to white. Christians today but that setting up the constituency has continued the Democratic Party has been a coalition of out groups regarded by themselves and others is not typical americans but when united make up a majority. Andrew Jacksons Party was of southern rights and Roman Catholic immigrants a good combination if you keep them separate. The democrats took 103 ballots to nominate a candidate for president that those of the kkk were in a fight there. Todays Democratic Party is a coalition of an usually religious black americans and secular liberals that will Work Together to impeach donald trump so when it comes to beto orourke with those taxis options for churches that dont reform samesex marriage they will disagree between the two groups and these characters help to explain their longevity. That has been important in a nation that has always been diverse you will always hear a lot of commentary that says the last three or 12 years we have become a diverse country. Weve always been a diverse country the british colonies were diverse in the Founding Fathers recognize they created a constitution that retained power in the states providing for freedom of religion but that there will not be a federal government established you can have them in the states while virginia got rid of the religious establishment they knew about the religious wars of europe and the United States was religiously diverse and they provided a framework in which we could do that in my proposition is the two parties one always on the core constituency the others of selected out groups gives a large majority of voters in an always diverse country economically or religiously ethnically and racially a choice that has accounted for that persistence it is something thats fundamental about the United States not necessarily transferable to other countries and that the two Political Parties which like to excoriate each other which are both excoriated from the radio callin shows that i hear, nonetheless they have performed over time. Im asked why havent we seen third parties emerge we have ross perot in 1982 and then again in 1896 and the Third Party Using his celebrity as a person and then for a few months he could be competitive with clinton and george h. W. Bush in the general election pulling donald traut may have taken a lesson from that with the reality tv that if you wanted to be president maybe he be better to seek a nomination of one of the two parties rather than an independent as ross perot had done 24 years before that we have had a case of that i suspect nobody in this room remembers the election of 1912. [laughter] but i do see judge williams is laughing. In 1912 it was the era articulate america had the progressive ideas the Progressive Party ended up with a candidate named Theodore Roosevelt who had the highest percentage of the popular vote of any president just ate years before. So they had a celebrity candidate with Proven Ability on Foreign Affairs highly competent candidate the Progressive Party ran candidates in the Congressional District in 1912 in the 1914 election it look like the third party was emerging what happened and then the Progressive Party in 1918 in scandinavia so Theodore Roosevelt is the oddson favorite to win the nomination in 1820 if he had not died at age 60 well short of the lifespan of the current candidates he might have ended up as the fourth term of roosevelt rather than his fifth cousin he considered inferior but thats a pretty good test case for thirdparty and it worked both parties have shown the resilience after devastating defeats those of us who grew up reading american political history are familiar with the republicans defeat when unemployment was 25 percent Franklin Roosevelts democrats one smashing victories and 3234 and 36 to the point there were fewer than 100 republicans left in the house of representatives of people were predicting the demise of the Republican Party that story is told vividly by new deal historians who are terrific writers its a familiar story but yet the republicans come back and by 1940 its my contention the republicans would have one in 1840 on that election minus the domestic issues when it wouldve been a likely outcome instead you have stalin seizing control and the election was decided and that unnerved Franklin Roosevelt but then to go back on domestic issues the democrats had a devastating defeat partly because most historians dont want to talk about the devastating defeat after eight years of the Woodrow Wilson administration but policies proved to be unpopular he had negative job ratings after he had a stroke nobody knew except wilson mrs. Wilson and his doctor you had americans continue to be involved in military action from 1919 and huge inflation and recession and an influenza epidemic with today that lethality would have resulted in about 3 Million Deaths in the United States it was devastating not only with 34 percent of the popular vote four years later it was 27 percent to the democrats held onto the south but not even all states and yes they did make progress even though people would predict they might not last to unite a Coalition Party they had some assistance from the Great Depression in 1932 but the evidences that absent that the democrats would remain competitive with the various candidates like joseph from the south and they did come back. The Democratic Party and Republican Party had both shown resilience to trump what seems to be a devastating defeat they recover. Today of course we are faced with polarized partisan parity they are about the same size. They are competitive in elections beginning in the nineties we were told they have a lock on the presidency with the internal majorities in the house of representatives then you have so baby boomers named bill clinton and gingrich come along now democrats win more elections than republicans but they have been much closer than the nomination of the house or the presidency. So we have a lot of discord and a lot of negative feelings looking past some of the controversies history tells us we will continue to have the democratic and republican parties around for a long time it could take time to adjust to the political marketplace its not without the market failures but its one that has continued to work overtime so in conclusion to go back to the 19 fifties there were academics that said our party system isnt very rational have all these republicans and conservative democrats its more rational to have one clearly liberal and conservative party they thought they would win most of the time but they genuinely believe this and i have chapters in this book about the disappearance of the liberal republicans and conservative democrats. Today their prayers have been answered as the political pundits and scientist think its just terrible you just cant go pleasing academics there is other things i will leave for my colleagues for the commentary thank you for your attention. [applause] that was a wonderful introduction to the book now we will turn to the successor generation for your comments. Thank you this reminded me to bring me back to our country it is still an essential history and you brought to life this extra life of democracy has shaped the life of elections in the 19h and 20th century religious and ethnic and racial diversity as well but Ethnic Diversity being something the definition which has changed over time. Certainly we have elections and swings of elections so now that looks different but that fundamental principle i do fear we are losing that in the electorate we are headed to a National Political culture urban versus rural to perfectly sorted parties with very little complexity that maybe still a little less in that portion then we had in the past that hopefully will prove that wrong so i want to talk about that era of the parity that we seem to be stuck in a deadlock with a pattern that despite all the pundit predictions eight years of democratic control followed by republican control you can see you next year if that holds up followed by a tendency for democrats to still have a chance certainly having them control the house with the gingrich revolution that presidency but not consistently control the white house in that time. It clearly demonstrates all the guardrails from the civil rights with conservatives such as the demise of those in the house that are almost all uniformly democratic that eventually with those political conventions and those that were dismantled in the seventies for those that have grown up under the system to be swept away with the gingrich revolution. Ever since then as the efficient market hypothesis that ideological friction and transaction cost has gone away in the partisanship predicts much more clearly than it ever did 93 percent voted for romney in 2012 it with the president ial nominees no say on state voted differently than their senate by then the guardrails. And then we spent time bemoaning the fact that election that saw the republicans. We have had the rebirth with the major factor in american politics nothing like what the russians were saying in the 2016 election in terms of vitriol and partisan hatred so with the growth the broadcast media and the rise of the voice of god to standardize the Media Coverage across the country but still heavily mediated where its hard for the partisan media of today. So that breaks down with the rebirth of partisan media with internet and cable news. I am somewhat pessimistic and that those incentives are such that with the rise of the aoc challenge that they are incentivized. And the members of congress. And those that are amplified by the echo chambers. And with that type of politics to the middle of the 20th century and if those different religions. That cities book more democrat but its not too different than what it is today. But they kind of had the same structure and as a result at the state level was pretty competitive for the most part with the massive democratic upheaval in catholics voting for the president ial nominee. So even so most of the big states were relatively up for grabs in 40 states were competitive in one way or another. Working on the Bush Campaign now the list is no more than ten. So throughout we you have little fish towns scattered throughout the regions now theres one big bill monta would big fishtown. And entire states dominated and that those votes are wasted in the Electoral College. And so for Hillary Clinton to win and as a result much of the rest of the country there actually moving in the opposite direction with this new political alignment for the continued disconnect. But also the character and what we have seen that it may be where those urban areas have moved so far democratic in the 2016 election and now thats reinforced in the 2018 election. And to be least discussed tangentially. And based on the shift of the very large metros in the south and then to behave more like their counterparts in the north less and less regional variations that you can look at the National Statistics with a number of