Transcripts For CSPAN2 Ezra Klein Why Were Polarized 20240713

You can come and see all of our rabbis wasted. [laughter]. And speaking of things that drive us to drink, a few weeks into the new year year and decade, the reality has set in for us all. For now undeniably in 2020, approaching one of the anticipated and polarized american president ial elections of all time. The 2016 elections results were shocking to many of us. It seemed that we didnt know our country, our communities, or even her friends as well as we thought we did. The aftermath had people questioning peoples deep rooted values. Tonight we are thrilled to welcome ezra klein back in dc to make sense of it all and to share his perspective of how the polarization has been growing roots for decades. And why we are polarized. He asserts that american political system isnt broken but rather is working exactly as it was designed. Aezra klein shows us how disastrous results are Building Bonds to pull us together. The editor at large, vox cofounder ezra klein and executive producer on the netflix shows explained. Previously he was an editor of the washington post, a policy an analyst at nbc and a contributor to bloomberg news. And as we are joined in conversation tonight by janelle and a columnist for the new york times, a political analyst for cbs news, and the former chief political correspondence. Is also very talented photographer you can check out his visual take on people and places on his instagram account. Now please help me give a form welcome to ezra klein. [applause]. What are you all doing here. You know we have a podcast right. I just want to say thank you. This is the first event of the book tour in a city means a lot to me in a menu that means a lot to me. Enemies lets me that youre all here working on the book is a solitary strange experience. And to see their real human beings out there who care is a wonderful thing. So think you all for being here. [applause]. So ezra klein. I saw your book. [laughter]. Got a copy in the mail and reading this why we are polarized. When i see books with these kind of titles my immediate thought is pokemon, were not that polarized is not that big of a deal. Things have been worse in american history. The 1850s, even the 1960s. So if we are uniquely polarized in the present moment, what makes us unique and you acknowledge in the book itself that things have been worse. But now its different in the way the maybe the trend is worse than it looks pretty ezra i want to note that i managed to not have a subtitle everybody is welcome to try to push against trends and things. But when you use the word polarized youre completely right. You get an immediate intuition on the audience inside of what you are doing is moment saying how bitter everything is today. As you say things have been much worse. The 1930s, the thing that is different today, in the mid 20th century politics i think its important to say that the baseline and we being the class, we baseline american politics to the 20 century. A lot of people who run political publications, their political comingofage in the 20th century. I remember when i got to dc, all people who got into nbc 1987 causally, why cant we have a reagan, a tip oneill, and get a drink and fix social security. That was the iconic way the american system is supposed to work. When i came to have to explore and think about is that seems wrong but why. In what way was that wrong. But we was a intuition correct in the way the strong is that the mid 20th century politics was very unusual in that it was not polarized. In that politics is usually polarized in most countries in most places apple times. The second thing i think is unintuitive here is polarization is not necessarily a bad thing and its not necessarily a synonym for disagreements or bitterness or extremism. It was a much more time and foundational political fracture than what we are in right now. You had the Civil Rights Movement and the Antiwar Movement the addition it Rights Movement and National Guardsmen telling protesters it can state, urban riots, and watergate and political assassination after each one after political assassination and you had all of this trouble in the country itself. On a much larger range of ideological opinion. Not democratic socialism like norway, to republicanism as we see it today. The communism. Like actual, excellent is right. All of the way to the recent memories. Ezra when they came of age in politics, as a meaningful thing to do with. Host what is different now is not perfection or fracture, it is the way the different factors aligned on top of each other. The way we have become polarized my party and that party that political identity has linked to a lot of other identities and a lot of other fractures in american politics. I always think that a good example is that an intense piece of legislation and comes up for hardfought political value and completely bipartisan. And then medicare which comes run on the same time kids i think certain 13 or 17 public votes in the senate to imagine major pieces of legislation representing fundamental political context of the era. Passing with very little coalition and its almost unthinkable today. So that i think is the thing i am trying to animate here. In american politics in the way the parties function in the relationship to our fractures, is actually actively different than it was at other times. And we have to build their understanding of how politics works on that. Not on an over link nostalgic view of the past. So in the book you begin talking about how american politics got polarized in the way it is now. And the summary stories is very much part of that story and that the Civil Rights Act essentially realigns the conservative factions in both parties. Basically to the respect of the parties liberal and republicans democrats and vice versa. In the political system in a way that is never been before. They have a Straight Line of ideological polarization. You described this as not necessarily be a bad thing. On who you talk about why it wasnt a bad thing even if the consequences have not necessarily been in the political system. I think implicitly, they think the alternative to it is the agreement, compromise. When the alternative to polarization is often suppressed, often times the reason youre not polarized, is that the disagreements you are polarized over are somehow or another being stressed. In the american political system the way they were suppressed was by a twoparty system collapsing into a four party system in a way that made it incoherent in its ability to service certain kinds of disturbance especially race and what you have as you mentioned the Democratic Party had what you think of is a party that is left on economics and structural barriers, opportunities and then none of party that was quite conservative. There was a wide range of Economic Opinion among them. It is fundamentally conducting itself rated it was imposing oneparty rule at home and it was ensuring basically the National Political system of course White Supremacy in the south. It this was considered at the time a problem. It was a great book. For my friends who used to be called the polarizers. What he really showed was that there were people looking at this and thinking theres something wrong with the system. In the American Political Science Association reported 1950, they become famous and infamous and what they say is the problem in american politics is the parties art politically it was possible. With amoebae responsible is that they are not putting forward separate clear defined agendas so the people can make a choice in between them. Instead you have a democrat in South Carolina voting for a very conservative it senator. And so you have this. Where american politics in many ways functions well on the things that it functions upon. But the cost of that is this compromise to allow racial White Supremacy. The civil rights does not and all at once. And i think this is part of it the people underestimate. Some part of the old confederacy but it takes a long time for the south to become well into roughly the 19 hundreds. Im sorry, well into the 90s. And that is because it takes a long time for those old identities to fall away. This all begins more often the republics can sit nationally. But in terms of party it affiliation, they occupy the south and that was again in the memory of some of the people there. Its a generational replacement that leads to that heading over. I dont think you can look at those compromises in the mid 20th century politics and say they were more or just. It is a really nice line from her mitchell found friend adam. Im going to get this a little bit wrong but he talked about it being a false peace. The false peace of suppressing issues like this. One of the arguments throughout the book is that its not polarization for state. It is often another word we have for disagreements we have to have coming to the surface. The problem in our system is that it is built so that in conditions of polarization, theres no way to result the disagreement. And good locks and new forms of paralysis or unending conflict that is the political System Design problem. Not polarization problem per se. So, you can go into different options here. So in the book you talk about as you mentioned here, the ways in which many different identities are becoming polarized along political wires. You walk through, basically polarization theories. Can you sketch out in little more detail, what that process of polarization looks like. What exactly is happening such that in the presence you can basically get to someone is going to vote for off their proximity to a whole foods, or cracker barrel. Those are wonderful establishments area together myself. [laughter]. Ezra we could build this from the ground up. I will start in the story start the book which a guy named henry. He is bullish and he moves to france in the 30s. Because he cant go to university in poland because he is jewish. More by the way our National Holocaust remembrance day. He moves to france, analyst during world war ii, he is captured by germans. He becomes a prisoner of war and his. Because he is understood as a french person and not as a polish jew. And when he comes back his whole family said. They been killed in the holocaust. He begins thinking of assessing about the idea that in this context, the only thing that mattered was an identity. Not him, not who he was, nothing is different about him. He had a Group Identity which identity was understood as. And he decided whether or not he lived or died. And so many people eat lit love had died. So he becomes dictated on this question of Group Identity. What is it and how does it work. He starts running and would become a very famous series of experience rated minimum group paradigm experiences. Is going to call subjects into a lab. Subject them to conditions that begin to create coherence and feel at one point Group Identity and very importantly outward discrimination begins to take hold. So has all of these kids from the same school. Sixtyfour of them. He has them look at these pieces of paper, screens that have dots on them. Do you think, how many dots you think there are here. They separate them into two groups. The over estimators and the underestimated. This is totally random. I did not care how many dots they had. Over estimators and under estimators. And then they were thinking while we have all of you kids here, we want to do one other experience. But if you dont mind is hanging out for a minute we are going to start you into these groups based on how many dots you estimated and just give us a set care. They then put this into the new experiment thats about allocating money to each other. Theyre all from the same school. Theyve just been sorted into these completely random groups. And immediately begin savoring their over. Estimators and there under god estimators and this was actually unexpected outcome. This was the first test below level of identity behavior to cold. He found first that he could not create a test so subtle the Group Identity would not take hold. A meaningless characteristic that was itself untrue, with a bunch of people who are already in the group together, and he still got this. So he did it again with painting. Do you prefer the painting of the sky in the sky. And again false wish painting is totally random. Same thing happened in this when he shows prove discrimination becoming very powerful. People will choose to give everybody less money. Their own group less money if it means there group gets more money compares to the other group. Its the winning that is important. And the reason i bring it up is because we are very sensitive to Group Identities. Its very easy to create them. The studies have been replicated endless numbers of times with all kinds of subjects. If you dont believe what i am saying, just think of two seconds about sports. It is all based on this. These are contests. Im sorry everybody. People get in actually riot and burn cities in the aftermath. Identity is very powerful. And it doesnt require much to activate it. I think that becomes important here is to recognize we all have a lot of different identities. I am jewish, im a journalist, a liberal, im a california. So on and so forth. I like dogmatic cats. Some become very weak in the knees and some become very strong. But becomes very important in politics is the way your identity links to each other. For a lot of american history, the republican parties, are internally in terms of the groups connect to them, because they are so internally mixed, they are similar religious compositions. Not similar racial compositions and not even similar ideological compositions but once the sorting mechanism begins to happen, in the 20th century, and it said, the Democratic Party becomes liberal party and the Republican Party becomes a conservative party. A sense of a period of not just ideological sorting, the demographic sorting. So the Democratic Party becomes much more diverse. Democratic party is about half nonwhites. And the Republican Party is about 90 percent white. The Republican Party becomes an overwhelmingly remains i should take overwhelmingly christian party. It did Democratic Party in beyond that is a coalition of a lot of different religious groups and communities. Even with an ideology the divided party is about half as liberal parties about 75 percent. So begins to happen is the party sort by not just ideology but race, the religiosity geography, psychological qualities like openness to experience in conscientiousness, this fluid type of things. Where you live, and that all these downstream cultural things. Cracker barrel, do you watch duck dynasty or do you watch mad men. As of the become these mega identities where one we know a lot about you in general by who you vote for. But too, there are a lot of things that can trigger and strengthen and reinforce your political identity and three, as the other party becomes much more ideologically different, and more demographically different as you feel that they are not your group. This underlying Group Identity dynamics take very powerful holds. And i want to say one more thing on this is that there is a fascinating study that shows to just get us into how powerful this is, in countries with the most stacked identities, which is like all of the identities aligning versus other countries theyre pulling you you different directions, the countries with the most cross identities are 12 times less likely to have civil or. So these are big numbers and drive a lot of political behavior. It takes work to fill the policy and politics. To think about try to give currency and what should the group dynamics. Once you since the other party does not like you, its not going to be good for people like you. The more since you have of this the more aggressively you will react in favor of your side and against them. Host weve talked about the past polarization is essentially moving. Save and happened in the 60s, and the parties begin to realignment. And there are other events that are bearing on the parties realignment said then kind of things take their own path. Putting us on a certain path. We have to be moved there in addition to these groundlevel material changes. I dont want to say that individual behavior has no effect at all on politics. That would clearly be untrue. What i do want to say that individual behavior has a lot less range of choice in politics than we think it does, that particularly american political journalism now devises the story through individuals in a way that is unhelpful for understanding what has really happened here. So theres definitely a lot that individuals if donald trump would not run a 2016 american Political Energy would be terrific. But a dont think the underlying trends would be all that different over the long run. Is that like a matter of Newt Gingrich become speaker of the house, he ends up being really powerful force in driving the congressional Republican Party to the right but if Newt Gingrich, if it never happened, if you somehow never born, sts a math teacher or history teacher, married his math teacher i think, Something Like that. Hes married a lot of people. [laughing] with some like that have like this is actually a a disagreement i have with polarization literature. It is over Newt Gingrich iced. Theres too much Newt Gingrich in the polarization literature in my view. The reason i think theres too much is not because hes not himself truly polarization innovator. He came up with stuff and like every polarization book includes a long story but have Newt Gingrich begin having him and his latinas give speeches with the cspan cameras were on. If the democrats were not cowards you would come up and answer me. It was 2 00 the morning but you couldnt say. Its not a good story. Its a good story and its true but the question is not what did Newt Gingrich come up with. The question is why did Newt Gingrich get made speaker . Why was Republican Party fertile soil for Newt Gingrich in first place was with now that we dont have Newt Gingrich that Mitch Mcconnell. Less bombastic, less firework you, less erratic. But has also been an obstruction or innovator in interesting ways i also think it gets overly personalized to him, that is doing it similar to any republican leader of the senate would do. He didnt invent new powers to stop merrick garland. He just didnt allow a vote on some of the republicans did want to vote on. If all of a broken he would not have had the power to stop it. In general you to look for this metaphor got taken out of the book but i had a draft writer described as american politics focuses on the flowers and not the soil. We are trying to tell the story like this meeting and this person, the other guy walked out. Theres a great book i highly recommend, im blanking on the name rule of road which is a wonderful history of modern republicanism as an actual distinct thing. If you take a step back from this book, what you notice is the way he describes what is going on is a moderate republicans always like this close to figuring out and then collapse because a make the wrong strategic move or Nelson Rockefeller is an egomaniac or something doesnt go quite right. Meanwhile i think the conservatives are bunch of bumbling fools, like getting blown up in elections, the goldwater election. They have totally crazy people make bad strategic decisions. They have less money but they win. In a way almost all the polarization histories do a little bit too little to understand why the players one. Its not like they didnt make kinds of mistakes. Newt gingrich sometimes a brilliant political operative but sometimes a a complete foo. The fact of the matter is the of the people didnt win. It was a good soil for them. On the democratic side something very different has been going on. They had the same house leadership in a 2006. Thats weird. It also speaks to dynamics. The reason im skeptical is not that it dont think individuals could make different decisions that would end up mattering. Its the reason the individuals whose decisions mattered ended up in the positions they did was because they were hunting where the ducks were. Donald trump, theres a lot unique and distinct about it but in a very straightforward way the reason he won the primary is he gave voice to what republican basically wanted to have given a voice to come which is a white backlash nativism. That was where the center of the party had been and he understood that in a way the others didnt. You can look at trump but you also have to look at why was the party receptive to trump when it would not have been in another time. This its too part of the story in the latter part of the book, which is that race isnt just, it didnt affect the origin point of contemporary polarization but is driving presentday polarization in part because among the stack of identities lined up part of such unity is also. If you are white, an evangelical christian, these live in the south, live in the midwest, youre probably a republican. Not just that but the other side appears to be growing, seemingly political dominance as evidenced by the previous president. Seems to be on the advance in a way that doesnt just mean you will lose a couple time. May in your mind fundamentally threaten the world in which you live. Yeah, yes. I think this is important in understanding why the Republican Party has reacted to polarization the wait has. We could be a polarized country with a very different kind of Republican Party. It could be a Republican Party that nominated marco rubio, for instance, who is very conservative and we would still be talked about polarization just as we were in 2015 with barack obama but it would not be a party that had adopted this flight 93 view of politics that you heard in the run up to donald trump. Few children from people like attorney general william barr saying theres an organized assault to destroy christianity in this country. One of the things going on is we are in a time of rapid demographic change to become a aggiornamento to country racially by 2043 Something Like that. We are on track for summer thing to happen to religion. Again in the 20 40s if demographer projections are correct. You see the religiously unaffiliated passive protestants, Single Largest Group which is remarkable thing. We are on track to be at a record percentage of foreignborn americans and a couple i think its a couple of decades but this is been a rapid rise from 4 in the 1970s to about 14. 5 now. Its changing the way the creates interesting disequilibrium in terms of power. Power. Something talk about in the book, this idea from robert jones was ahead of the Public Religion Research institute and a very smart guy on these issues, but he makes the point politics is like a time machine. In politics, the power of the White Christian demographic which he studied for closely, its about ten years, its ten years behind with it are demographically. Older, wider more rural people tried out a thai rates and soy its a look at where like white evangelicals are as a percentage of electric its what they were as a percentage of the country can years ago. They are bigger than they appear. Meanwhile, coulter has this photo letter whipping tenures and demographically. It comes out of urban centers, very focused on getting and people to buy products, to watch television shows. Ive done cable news and an interesting fact, they dont care about ratings. They care about the demo. They only care about people between. I think its 24 and 45 watching it for maybe 18 and 45 but a lot of people watching your older than 45 and its not an issue. Culture, television, product, placement its all moving very fast and so theres this feeling on the right that theyre theye losing the one thing that matters which is the soul of the country, the way the countries changing. If you pull people they think were much more diverse country than we are. They think the Tipping Point of becoming majorityminority country has already happened. People experiencing these changes happening faster than their happening. That creates panic on the right. Meanwhile, the amount of political power the right holds creates panic on the left. In addition to Everything Else you have these two coalitions that both feel threatened, one feels in some ways like it should be ascendant but isnt quite and a lot of people in it have good reason to feel truly threatened. The other feels like it has been dominant and represents the true america that it is being pushed out and made into tickets and call deplorable and they need to desperate fight to keep the Country Faith they grew up in. Great a high sense of political stakes and that conflict can become very anything goes because the stakes feels like he cant let the other side when because of the two that might be interview. If you look a lot of trump is rhetoric, if the left wins, that might just be the end of christian america. I think he literally said that in 2016. William barr has said things like that. Its a very apocalyptic sense of politics. An interesting thing is here we are running into a bit of attention between structure and individuals because you can imagine as you suggested it snatches polarization if marco rubio for president but he may not of taking the same strategies. Not doing so perhaps moved this away from this polarization which compounds the system. I think thats right. Its a very tough question to ask, how much running room was there . Ill give an example of this. If you look at the way fox news hosts talk about the diversification of america, it is with an extraordinary sense of threat. It didnt start with tucker carlson. Go back to 2012 the eve of the election, bill oreilly gets on and he says we are seeing the end of the white majority. This is that the kind we grew up in. If you listen to Rush Limbaugh he says how to get ahead in an Obama White House . It is by hating white people. I remember watching glenn beck with the chalkboard talk about obama was an antiwhite president and the should be an antiwhite americanarab. Joe biden is sitting there as Vice President of their like its an antiwhite country. [laughing] you asked like what is happening there and why Meaghan Kelly who has understood this is more moderate force gets pushed at a fox news, creating all this fear about the new black panthers. There is on the one hand, diversity of opinion within fox. There are people who are more alister mongering about this and on the other hand, it is clear who wins. That is partially rating study. It isnt clear that murdoch cares very much about creating this kind of panic but it is very clear roger ailes and want to win. At some point fox in step four moment in conflict with cultural early in the republican primary. This is a pivotal moment. Fox has been inflating the truck bubble. Its good tv. He calls into fox and friends. This guy is running for president. The first play the first primer of the 2016 republican cycle is on fox news and its like they are kind of journalist cohort us. Chris wallace and representative beyer and megyn kelly and they really confront trump. They read in the terrible things he said about women. They talk about what used to be democrat, i fox news goes into the primary in an aggressive way and they decide it seemed to me this would pop the truck bubble. Trump goes to war with them and he went. He attacks them. He begins attacking them as liberals and a couple days later there are the stories roger ailes has gone jim and promised their coverage. Things like this contingent happen. The are part of the Republican Party that fail and bend the knee. There is the question of individual actors but also the question of what did the individual actors who tried to make another choice, what happened to them . Mark sanford, in 2012 is considered to be a very likely republican challenger to barack obama before some of the hiking the appalachian trail stuff happen. But serious intent republican guy like all the way out there, understood one of the most libertarian conservative members of the party. Rand paul, with all these fault. People like a mosh and sanford and jeff flake to some degree bob corker when the challenge trump, which should do a couple of addictive they get run out of the party. They realize theyre not will have future. It isnt that are not moves available to people but to look at the people try to take one of those moods, making kelly is outfox a year after she comes into conflict with trump. Sanford and corker and flake out of office after they decide to become at the truck. There were tied because they thought they would lose. Again there is movement here and think you could do but there were individuals who tried and theres a reason they didnt win. 16 of the ran in 2016 who were not donald trump and said he was a cancer on conservatism. That guy became his energy secretary. The guy who said a speck of dirt is more like him should be president instead of him, i think that was rand paul, became really positive about him and his senator Lindsey Graham said horrible things about donald trump and his lavish towards them. People did try to make other decisions and their loss. Its important to analyze the ecosystem that led to them losing. There were two direction we go in, one to going the other direction which is the structure of american government. You make this case in the book, if we had a different political system that polarization we are experiencing, the stack polarization doesnt necessarily to gridlock. It may not lead to something good but it doesnt produce the kind of institutional dysfunction where expecting right now. Think about this in the uk. Orson johnson, Boris Johnson just one and when he won by know we were saying sure he won, but is not going to be able do anything. That was a very divisive election. Sure he won right he cant get anything through parliament. Something distinct is winning elections, it does mean you can do anything close to governing. It is very possible that, though be a strange outcome that in 2021 Bernie Sanders what sanders will be president and Mitch Mcconnell will be Senate Majority leader. Medicare for all is not passing. If that is the collection of political power, nor if joe biden is present and Mitch Mcconnell is majority leader is public option passing. You have this idiosyncratic system, and as conditions polarized parties make the system ungovernable functionally. Not just uncomfortable innocence of paralysis but also in the sense of potential crises. I have an argument in the book which liberal readers will find somewhat tough to read, which is it is very hard to pin point what Mitch Mcconnell did wrong with merrick garland. He used powers he had constitutionally to not have a vote on someone he and his party did not want to be on the Supreme Court in what was without that the single most important ideologically important vote anybody in the senate would take that cycle, a swing seat on the Supreme Court with a lifetime appointment. He didnt invent a new power, he didnt get armed looters in the street picky just said no. He had the power to say no. His team won the next election. That isnt to say what Mitch Mcconnell did was good. Its to say in perfectly straightforwardly following the incentives rules and are structure of american politics, he set up a president i could completely destroy the Supreme Court. It is possible we could have an extended time of democratic presidencies and Republican Senate. In the structure of the Supreme Court which is to be able to fill vacancies. Theres nothing that assures they can fill vacancies and then you just no longer have the highest court in the land operating and a serious and credible fashion. Or in the reverse, you might have situation were democrats stop like imagine what happens is you have a democratic president and you have a republican Supreme Court sorry, Republican Senate and the our vacancies open. The republicans dont let them feel. In that condition if the Supreme Court keeps doing rulings against with a democratic president wants to do, democrats is topless essay whos going to stop us . How to sow and other systems of the countries our particular political system breaks down because a great the potential for irresolvable crisis. A point you make it that is that there are competing sources of legitimacy, the president s are elected by one electric, caucuses are elected by different electric. Indus conditions its not clear like really ought to have legitimacy. Barack obama could say i just got elected, reelected in 2012, i got reelected reelected by 60 Million People and you guys did not. But mcconnell can say in 2014 we had in election and i and it this majority. Right. Its compounded by the fact not only does a system of spray power out but it warps opinion. Right now i think its important to appreciate this. We call ourselves a democracy when kids go to school and learn where a democracy. Right now the white house is occupied by the candidate who won fewer votes in the runner up. The senate is occupied by the party that won fewer votes over the past three cycles. The Supreme Court is occupied and controlled by a majority that is appointed by the party that won fewer votes in the relevant election. Three out of the four main Power Centers in american politics occupied by the party that did not have a popular majority to implement their agenda. Thats weird, weird way to run a real good. When you combine that with divided government thats another way to get legitimacy crisis because its not just Mitch Mcconnell can say i was elected it is true in 2014 he had a much better claim to majority. Republicans did when that election by substantially but over time he doesnt. Theres not a lot of somalia democratic legitimacy in the republican ruling class. It is reliant on people accepting the norms of american politics mac small d democratic. It continues to diverge. Will democrats stand from behind the large of a larger potential it pocketable majority continue accepting not being able to convert that into power . Maybe but also maybe not. You dont just have divided government, you also the geographic working to mention which at this point is played out sharply and one parties favor. That compounds the internal stress of the structure. This gets to the thing i said that the beginning, what makes the current polarization particularly bad is exactly the combination of stacked identity, dollarization and a rickety old system means we are heading towards a legitimacy crisis, either now or later, later when a handful of states can only send eight senators by representing 60 of the population, just running into this massive crisis. Your book doesnt have any solutions for this crisis. [laughing] by design. That means holding the book. Its just by design. What kind of things that are not can we do but how can we think about things in ways that might help us deal with the crisis when it comes . Ibook has solutions. I advise you not to take them seriously because they wont happen. Which is a different thing. I could solve this as keen, i just dont the argument i i make in the book is about when people think about like the fundamental equation of american politics, under conditions of polarization our system breaks down equals something. The place we normally go is lets turn back polarization. The simple truth is its possible something will happen that will turn back polarization in the next 30 years that i cant predict. Maybe we will go to war with china and expo in any way unify americans. Things like that happen but assuming nothing like that happens i do hope we dont go to war with china will not put the polarization genie back in the bottle. The second half of the book is all about institutional feedback and that it were some polarization, get in the feedback the media, without elections are won, and they are making polarization a lot worse. We should focus again in a world where we could on the other part of it, the way the system works. The primary think i said would help that i do think would help but it would not bring down polarization, it would just make the system governable is democratization. I think majorities of the country should be able to turn their popular vote majority into political power and use that power to govern and then i think the country should judge them on whether or not that governance is good or bad. When you say this people like thats crazy. Were a democracy, not of the public. [laughing] were a republic, not a democracy. Thats right, i got it wrong. We are not a republic in that way. It annoys me because that sentence doesnt mean what people think it means. Those specific ways in which a republic is not supposed to be that we get one Political Party and outsize about a popular vote power. Like to specific way we are republic is different. Its about time is just weird argument people make. Anyway, we can democratize and the without a good effect. What is a popular vote majority could wield political power, then you would have an incentive for both parties to compete for majorities. A very bad thing but the Republican Party is very negative incentive structure is it has begun to see at once to continue rolling through minority rule. It sees democracy itself as a threat to republican inches and that the dangers and leads to efforts at all levels of the republican power structure to constrict the francesco to fight over who gets to vote and how much weight their boat holds. Injury many which to measure democrats do, republicans do more and with more power and more aggressively, you see that in the Supreme Court decision on publicsector unions and campaign finance, in voter id laws and so on. Making the fight over the rules of who gets to vote is a very damaging and dangerous thing for the country. It would be better if the Republican Party were competing for the whole country for 51 majority, but then if either party want i would like to see them and implement their agenda. This is a problem both sides the people prefer the problems of inaction to the problems of action, the problems of paralysis and the problems of governors. Democratic senator say it stuff that above to filibuster but were often in the minority and as such filibuster is important for blocking things we dont like. I think that if you think your agenda is a good agenda and the other agendas bad then you should be positive about getting rid of things like the filibuster and permitting majority to rule. I just dont think it is a quick position to say healthcare is important in peoples lives and it would be meaningless if republicans kicked with five people off with health insurance. I dont think it works that way. I think the way the system should work is that the public should vote in a party to govern, that party should be able to pass its agenda and then the public should be able to say that i like what is happened to the country . Instead, the public votes and summoned to govern, that person and the party does not pass its agenda. The public feels theres been a lot of fighting but nothing has changed and then they thermostatically swing back to the other side and thats a weird way to run our political system. If you implement my agenda we would not endure an era of politics, no argumentation, no bitter divisions come like and in the piece and idyllic life and puppies and so on if, it would be that good. It would just be governable and i would prefer that you ungovernable. On that point i think we both move over to questions. First, thank you. [applause] we have two mic stand so please come up there. My identity is polarized being around a tough moderator so i will strongly encourage you to ask a question, and if i have since its that happening, i will let you know. [applause] so the gentleman on my right, please. Im wondering what structural changes do you think could help create a political culture where tribal plays a small role . The question as about tribal system bulge to which is turn e comes my colleague dave roberts and dysfunctional about the way the conservative side of the spectrum has cocooned itself in a much Smaller Group of Media Outlets that fundamentally since fincens is having moving incentives. If you look at who the democrats trust, that most trusted that is seen in republicans trust boxes. If you look at the range of outlets, pew did a study 22 of 30 outlets that that remain, republicans trusted seven and four of them were breitbart, Rush Limbaugh, fox news and a think it was handed the Something Like that. How to get out of that . I dont know. [laughing] tribalism is hard. Its also about peoples individual choices. The meeting has its own dynamics and the argument i make is the meeting dynamic has a lot to do with the culture of a lot of choice a lot of competition. But what has kept the left side of the divide rooted in more mainstream institutions that discipline some of its worst instincts and aspects is an interesting sociological question. How you would rebuild that is much harder. I dont like giving fake answers to question i dont know how to solve so i will say tribalism is bad but theres i dont think theres a think you can pass a some kind of policy you could do that would end it. I think the best i can say for it is the way to make good information matter is to make Good Governance possible and matter. If your governing based on Bad Information people would see it and react but to the extent you have tribalism plus paralyze governance the becomes very hard for people to see the outcomes of that and assign blame clearly and so you end up with our system. I guess i will say no more than ever the thing is to before is the stuff we should do. The big difference between engaged voters and non engaged voters. How is this affecting the country so vastly went, i think you talked about most voters are not engaged. Theyre not paying attention to everything going on. Thats a great question and its two parts. One, its polarizing in a soft way disengaged orders. This study i talked about in the book, here are a couple of great findings. The declining vote of the declining voter. He shows inside, low information voters today, much clearer understanding of the difference when between the two parties than they did in the 70s. The reason for that is not that they have more information, its that the difference between the two parties is clear. Its easier to tell the difference between the dark and in all of it in a donkey in a meal. If you go back to other. , qc parties are quite similar. 1976, Convention Platform has a plank on abortion and says our parties divided on abortion, people are inside of it and think we should have abortion on demand and those who think it should be illegal in all circumstances. We respect that difference of opinion. We go back to the Democratic Party platform, sounds like donald trump today. It does not sound like the Democratic Party. It was a lot harder for disengaged voters to tell the difference between the parties because they are not as different. One, the clearer the choice becomes, the more polarized they become. To see the side they are ultimately on the other thing, this is an argument endlessly over the elites polarizing but the reason these things matter is that elites are the one in these hyper polarized media spaces. An example, the reason we are having an impeachment trial today is donald trump, the president watches a lot of fox news. Fox news spent a lot of time promoting this Conspiracy Theory about biden and hunter biden and charisma and ukraine and trump so invested in this thing that was in the right wing swamps that they invested the power of the executive branch and investigating it and the consequence is an incredibly unpolarized impeachment trial that we are getting through and having to respond to. To create the system everybody else response to his they are in these polarized cases and creating a hyper polarized system and everybody else has to live in the wreckage of what they have constructed. Do see a problem with the tyranny of the majority . I do. I dont think we should have a system without minority protections. Which have constitutional protections, we should have also i believe procedural protections. I dont think we should have a filibuster lets invisible on anything but it be easier for minor disease minorities. I dont think majority role in politics is necessarily a tyranny for the majority. Theres a lot of other things we do in countries that are not listed like canada or britain separate from making politics possible for geordie to govern. In my view, he should have minority production. The fabric of the rights of a country and how political conflict is structured but i think its been an opportunistic move but simply running the system like other systems run of the majority. Good evening. Im hoping you can discuss in the context of your solution americas historic failure to deal with the negro problem. Where we note that people go against their own best interest when it comes to identity specifically race politics. A couple of things here, i dont think, theres a line on the left the people vote against for interest but i think it narrows the way people understand. They understand in terms of is there group going to become and remain dominant . They understand expressively. It ends up when they think peoples interest boil down to resources. Then people dont really vote on that basis at the left is surprised. In terms of getting these larger prosperity coalitions and cross racial coalitions, we need to start with a sense of interest thats much larger. One of the things im trying to do in this book is to give a more rigorous account of identity so that people acting in politics can build more inclusive identities. One of the things i think tends to narrow politics and confuse people as identity politics is understood something only marginalized groups to and have. Then theres this constant hussle between other, trying to get people to vote in the interest. If you do a much better job building identity around class. It something deeper than just sort of whats happening in healthcare policy. You will have to build things around Group Identities and you see happening in the rising left. Its an identity signal to the world. A way of collecting themselves into a group. To the extent expected, just that politics redistribution carry them through. One of the reasons it hasnt its its been based on and ignoring on how much people vote expressively to vote identity and how much people understand their identity as there group is rising versus falling and status. One of my biggest celebrities. Have you ever seen an actual celebrity . [laughter] you are an actual celebrity. I actually do have a question. Dont worry. [laughter] actions taken or not taken by google, facebook, twitter on political ads. Im curious from your perspective, how do you view micro targeting for political ads and other technological advances as a method of accelerating . Im caught on this one. I dont believe it works. I do not believe in of attica had any influence whatsoever on the election. I dont in general believe they did, i do believe the russian hacking had an influence but not commit social Media Operations which were very real, it was such a tiny drop in the bucket of what people were seeing that i dont know, i cant tell you for sure that micro targeting isnt part of it, certainly allows us to be more specific into dust cut to identity grou groups. Most of the Political Science research on advertising says that it matters a little and it could be superfast. What will happen is even if you really nail people of advertisement to move them three weeks later, they have completely forgotten it. Theres a lot of cross pressuring. Everything ive been saying performed now in this discussion suggests to me that its very hard to move peoples, at best you are reinforcing what they arty have. A lot of research now on who is polarized here and internationally is that people who are the most polarized can be older voters or the least exposed to micro targeting campaigns. Its entirely possible to me that as micro targeting gets better and Online Advertising gets better but it will have the capability to influence actions but have you ever seen Online Advertising . Obviously all advertising is beautiful and super high quality of its great but. [laughter] if youre anywhere else on the internet, its like i see you recently bought a bike, would you like to buy another bike . [laughter] just forever. I bought a bike one time in three months, if you want a bike . So im just not convinced its so good. Most ads dont matter. Internet ads seem bad and we are believing bs people are saying about the targeting techniques. I dont have a high confidence in that opinion. [laughter] what you think the most important thing individuals can do to potentially make an impact in polarized world . I dont want to say, i think would be genuinely weird, i cant put myself actually in a position of not having a view on who would be right in the current collision and i write about them media of the more fundamental divide is not left, right, i things easy for people on the left to model each other. Easy for a tribulation in my mind. Its much harder to imagine looking at insane i just dont know. That said, i probably do have a real answer to this. Which is that theres an argument that floating voters are super accountability in the political system because they were willing to change their mind primarily based on economic and whether we are in a war characteristic system. At the very least, they created an incentive to current the economy recently while in the short term but its often not a politicians fault if a recession hits when they are in office. The president accidentally hit the recession button in the oval office but it did impose something that is not just partisanship. Having people attached to the political system were voting more on this, what they are seeing around them as a barn. Theres an interesting study that relates to one of the previous questioners, people are not bad engaged, they tend to vote on the question of what will this persons policies do for me to the extent that i know them people get bored and politics, or to these policies and ideas say . One of the things waters that say who are not on either side, they tend to vote in a different way than highly engaged voters which makes them crosscutting group and we can use more crosscutting groups. Major recommendations that everybody can do for me as a journalist, we have way too deeply indexed and have atrophied. I have a lot about this in the book but i really urge people, whether you are highly engaged or not, to get more, to move your political information consumption and Political Action and activism somewhat more towards local issues. One thats crosscutting, whats needed in San Francisco or boise or des moines or new york on famous city, its just different than the National Parties arguing over. But also having that different of information is more nourishing, being involved in your community is less frustrating than being on twitter, tweeting things donald trump or dont tweet things at me so getting involved with the state and local level is good for everybody even if youre soupy super highly engaged. My question is about your article that i interpreted as being primarily about republican advantage that boils down to. Media, not the median. Why shouldnt Democrats Campaign for a System Campaign again a legitimate system rather than a system in the median . I think they should campaign against it saying that its illegitimate and not medium voters institution, the things that are legitimate would be like proportional representati representation, we get those, Everything Else is illegitimate. I think burning demo system is not likely to help the people the democrats need to help. Politics is simultaneously in a game. On the one hand, the two sides are colliding for advantage in the here and now, they really are life and death, really high. Its not the case you can only think about projects and preserving what was gone but the fact that we do have this history of constitutional continuity more or less, its been forced before. It really has. They happen in other countries, i think taking for granted we see how far the system stretches and people can take part in it, taking for granted theres some power in the fact that you have a System People more or less trust in order to see continuity and is something real. Its part of the quality hopeful ending of the book is distinguished between trends in american life. The trend right now is that, i think its bad. We have been going up in terms of our search for justice and equality in representativeness and so on and right now, we are going down otherwise. Not many times you prefer to be in from a political system perspective. When artwork democratic 30 years ago or 50 years ago or 100 years ago. Saying that right now it has turned against democrats, i think its going to rent out for shortterm advantage. Also assuming we know where things are going from here. I think a possible way this shakes out when people are looking back, we are just in it affect area and pretty quickly, texas became blue. Things became more comfortable because you have more majority capable of governing etc. Im not tell you that wont happen that i dont think we ars of trying to tacked on a system are quite direct and i dont think we are at a point or its time to do that. One thing you wrote several years ago, you and matt had a debate about whether or not the democracy or we were meddling through and it seems like we are meddling through poorly at the moment but along with that, im wondering if you still still feel we are meddling through and what it take, im trying to think this reform that i agree with you about what we need, what would it take to get the parties to even think about doing Something Like that . It feels so are far off in the distance, how do we know our democracy is broken and what would happen to get them to do something about it . I do think we are stuck meddling through. Even with donald trump, its not become the strongman of political commentator fear, i think weve seen this definitely could if he has more of an Attention Span so thats very scary so he flipped through so we are currently meddling, its not pretty or fun, i dont recommend it. I know that the parties will do it. I think theres some chance they get set up enough a little bit to the last questioners point where they dont campaign against the system but they take the illegitimacy seriously enough on to do something. Democrats get power, is totally possible they going to the white house even in 2020 and then the first thing they do over some building campaign, there in the senate and its a completely value based legitimate base to make it work better. [applause] thank you. [laughter] thank you for the easy crop that. Puerto rico should have representation because they should but whats even crazier is that that is a possible law and i think to a large extent, democrats do not prioritize because its a power rot if the people chose to elect democrats using their franchise. Its a crazy situation, i dont know what to say about it. You could do a lot on gerrymandering just passing things to the house and senate. You could get rid of the filibuster, you could ban the entire system but one reason i dont worry about tierney, we are not going to get to a majority, we get a little bit less for the minority and that would just mean democrats come into power and saying we think these things are the right thing to do. Theres been pieces of it, i think in 2015 republicans and the role and reinstated it, these things go back and forth and a lot of the. We are talking about in the 60s up until 75, its a two thirds majority to end the filibuster. Things can change if they want to change them but they have to prioritize. This is like my hobby but theres a big difference between the party that comes into power 2021 and is like we are going to try to pass medicare for all without doing anything about the filibuster and theyre going to lose. We are going to make things governable people we govern. Then the people judge it from governing. You could do that, its basically what Mitch Mcconnell does something that the other side might see legitimate but trust that your site is legitimate and people will prefer the outcome, democrats can do it in the direction of Healthy System and in my view, speaking as a non part also political as they should. [laughter] we had time for two more questions. I want to let you off the hook for the impact of technology, youve got the impact of social media and information on the mind and its not micro targeting and theres a lot of other parts of current networking technology, what you see as the impact of technology . I can tell we might be ending in there going to be traffic, im going to quickly on the note of technology, take a quick photo of this room because i would like to have the recollection of one book event here so you can all just hang out for one second, im going to try to do a panorama, nope. Its going to end on me. I dont know. [laughter] the impact of technology seems to be an aggressive accelerant of this. I want to say that it does not fully back me up here. The evidence seems to be the poorest people were not on social media that cable news is you have an impact on the system but its not at all clear that all technology does. I have been on social media more than once and im pretty sure its polarizing. Everybody hates each other and ive seen the politician who uses it most effectively is donald trump so i believe polarization, social media is powerful force, its clearly an identity oriented force. Have a chapter on immediate in the book and it should be tomorrow but by the book, by from a local bookseller we talk about in their how much it was identity based content that goes viral on facebook. You should assume the internet is going to make it worse so i think the internet is going to accelerate, its certainly not the cause but they really are my think we might just be an allblack if it takes over. I dont think you can look at politics on social media and not think theyre going to get a lot worse. Its one reason im pessimistic about depolarization. You cant look at what the conversation is happening and think its about to move into a place of abq have a point. I think you might get banned for saying you might have a point on twitter. How much of our Current Situation is a question of our structure versus demographic. If you took the exact same america parliamentary system for 2150 years, with the demographics of the same racial interesting thing today, how different would it be . Heres what i think about this. One thing our to say i dont know. But imagine if we from the 2016 election, the democratic nominee, with donald trump surprisingly is republican. Then they cried out its clear its a weak candidate. I dont if youve heard but the security extremely lax. [laughter] he wouldnt a lack allow anyone near the presidency. He manages to put out by winning the popular vote. So humans forget its clear she could have been beaten. Inside the Republican Party theres a civil war because republicans could have nominated marco rubio or maybe even ted cruz and one. You can see that the whole time but instead they elected this lunatic. It becomes increasingly discredited and theres a sense to everyone again instead of letting Hillary Clinton and. In that world from roebling and party moderated that. I think exposure to the demographics of the era is a healthy disciplining force for political parties. How can you deal with the country as it is, not as your college and would like it to be is good because your to change your message to went over those people. I cant say for sure what be true if we were a parliamentary system, i dont think it would erase all conflict, another version of politics everyone will look internationally, as i like the uk looks great right now. Canada is having problems but specific ungovernable toxicity of our system and logistically questions and so on, then how to be here and it would be a have three playset they werent. [applause] will be selling and signing books here. Right here. To emphasize the power dynamic. Right here. I believe people are in groups, we could probably get expert guidance here. Thank you all for joining us. Our copies of the book for sale in the hobby. If you like it signed, please stay seated for a few minutes. So that those who want to exit can do so. Thank you. Is a look at some authors who recently appeared or will be appearing soon on book tvs afterwards. Our weekly offer Author Interview program. Last week espn writer howard offered his thoughts on sports, politics and race in america. Coming up, journalist nicholas and cheryl will discuss issues facing the working class and rural america. This we cannot afterwards, Research Institute offers her thoughts on healthcare reform. Canada is one of them that has a true singlepayer healthcare system. The others are north korea. The United Kingdom has what we call universal coverage system. The nhs started in 1971, it covers about 90 . They allow private coverage but they have private coverage and some of the countries like the Blue Cross Companies but this is becoming more popular because just in december, there were over 4 million wrists on a waiting list to get treatment. The Cancer Treatment is not supposed to be general practitioner to get more than 62 days. They havent met that standard for over five years. More important, under the world Growth Organization study, wrists on the bottom of the run in those countries. That tells you something about Life Expectancy with cancer under basically a government controlled system. Afterwards as sunday 10 00 p. M. And sundays at 9 00 p. M. Eastern and pacific on petitti on cspan2. All previous afterwards are available as podcasts and to watch online booktv. Org. As a look at books being published this week. Brian greene explores the origins and future and until the end of time. In whistleblower, former uber engineer, susan speaks out about the Sexual Harassment culture she says she encountered while working for the company. In congress at work, historian argues the civil war was not one by abraham think in part by the house and senate. Also being published this week, professor of law tim argues the Blind Loyalty of the military has led to failure both on