Visit booktv. Org. Now we kick off the weekend on how conservative principles can tackle todays political issues. Good evening and welcome, im elisabeth, and i am joined by author rick tyler who is the author of still right an immigrantloving, hybriddriving, composting american makes the case for conservativism. He is joined by john clark. Good evening, gentlemen. Welcome to gibsons. Thank you, elisabeth. Thanks for having me. Its an honor to be with one of americas greatest independent bookstores. Thank you for saying that, first of all. I will mention this book is available from gibsons. We do happily ship books all over the country, all over the world, or if you are local, we do offer instore browsing and Curbside Pickup right now. Tell me a little bit about this book, rick. So i knew i wanted to write a book, i always wanted to write a book, and i had lots of ideas, but i had to have the first book, and the first book if you dont like this book, i wont be writing any others, but if you do like this book, i is have lots of books in my head. [laughter] i wrote, actually, different proposals to the publisher, and i got rejected by a lot of publishers, like a lot of authors do. But i had one publisher who came to me from st. Marks press, his name is steven power, and i have to i say if it wasnt for steven, i dont think this book would have began because he actually edited my proposal, critiqued it and sent it back to me. And literally that does not happen. He says, rick, if youll write this book, i would publish it. And i said i dont have the stature to write that book. [laughter] just because i thought it was, its a really to me, its such a weighty, heavy topic, and so many people are so educated on conservative thought that i just didnt put myself in that category, and he said you can do this book, and im going to help you do it. So i put together a draft, and i want to take this opportunity to introduce john, john clark, hes joining us from sunny florida. John is someone we normally meet in a coffee shop, meeting at bookstore is actually sort of appropriate. We always discuss ideas and have robust debate and collaboration about ideas. So when i got the deal to do the book, i approached him and said, you know, what do you think, and he really just was engaged. So johns been really a partner in this whole book. Because i felt, as i say, i felt swim intimidated. Having him help me through all these concepts, and there really isnt a chapter that john didnt help me shape. I wanted to write it for two reasons. One is conservativism is often bashed in the media, particularly to the centerleft, and that almost kind of hurt my feelings. [laughter] and, because the things that they say about it, i just knew that they werent true. And i wanted to set down a marker that conservativism is a rational governing philosophy. And i wanted to hold out an olive branch and say conservativism is rational. Its not my philosophy. My philosophy is conservativism, but i dont know that it serves anyone well to trash each others philosophy when in the end we have so much to agree on. Our country is a constitutional republic, and what that means is to get anything done at all, you have to compromise with people who have different ideas than you in the same way that if you want to vote for somebody who you agree with 100 of the time, you should run. So thats onehalf of the ideas. The other half were people who actually selfidentified as conservatives but seemed to be more and more embracing policies that are just antithetical to conservativism. And i wanted to lay down that marker as well. So that people who and, of course, for people who were unfamiliar with conservativism at all east because theyre either because theyre young or just havent paid attention, i think this book lays it out pretty well. I think i define conservativism actually the way john does, and he says its ordered liberty. Ordered liberty in the sense that if you take away the order, you just get liberty, and that really thats a libertarian philosophy which is not my philosophy. We dont automatically are reject ideas because theyre new. We test those ideas against established ideas, and if theyre better, we can migrate to them. But if theyre not, we juan throw out something we wouldnt throw out something thats working very, very well for something that isnt working very, very well. So i make that case on immigration, on trade, on health care, on the Second Amendment and many of the other issues that are in the book. So thats kind of, thats, that was my motivation for writing still right. By the way, we just couldnt think of of a title, and we had all these ideas, and he said you got to call it still right. The reason its still right, im an msnbc analyst and i get accused often of going to the enemy. There are more conservatives who appear willingly on msnbc on any of the other cable news networks. And one of the reasons i like to be on msnbc is i had to learn how to present a conservative case to a liberal, leftwing audience. And i think over time its been pretty successful. I think that while i havent convinced everybody who watches the network that they should embrace conservativism, i get a lot of comments that, you know what . I didnt really know what conservativism was, and at least now i understand it has a rationale. And so being accused of, you know, being a lefty and i am a trump critic, and being that, they say, oh, youve gone over to the left. No, im still right, so i thought the title fit. The internetloving, hybriddriving, composting american, which is all true, i think we should be a proimmigration country. I do actually drive a hybrid. I love technologies that protect the environment. I have a whole chapter on the environment. And we compost here at the tyler household, and we make 23 yards of dirt a year which we use in our organic gardening. And i never thought of that as a liberal idea, i thought that was actually a conservation idea. I will say our local town operates on a pay as you throw garbage removal where you pay for garbage bags, and composting has reduced our output by a third. Isnt that amazing . Yeah. Wow. I will take this moment to say youve just given us your credentials, reduction. John, tell the us rick, josh, tell us about yourself and conservativism. So just briefly, rick and i actually met, i think we were working on a campaign. I had worked as a speech writer for a few candidates at the local level and the National Level. So, rick, i think we met, we were working on a campaign together. My background, i have a degree in Political Science and economics, and i rap an Investment Firm ran an Investment Firm for about 18 years. I sold my company, and i wanted to get more into the writing side because i thought conservativism wasnt getting a very fair hearing. And i thought i could maybe help a little bit with that. So i can bring my finance, what i learned on that side of it, to the economic side of these arguments, and thats exciting. I dont think thats presented well. Im hoping what this book can accomplish is that we start a conversation because we used to try to win the hearts and minds. We wanted to really know what it is that we believe. I think one of the fun things to me about writing is its sort of stress testing my own ideas, do they work. And so, but im hoping what this does is, is starts a conversation, because i think right now the political environment is such that we just shout each other down. And that really doesnt help anybody. And i dont claim to have all the answers, by far. And, you know, i think that, you know, over time i think my ideas have changed, and i think thats a healthy thing. I think thats a positive sign. And like i say, im hoping that that, it does start a conversation. What become happy to see in the reviews is people are saying im a lifelong democrat, but i dont really see much i disagree with in this book, so i think thats good. And i think its time to start a conversation. Being willing to have a conversation is a very good thing whereas shutting yourself off and having emotional, you know, making your choices emotionally on a rational subject so, rick, did conservativism need to be redefinedded, and for persons who may be joining us seeking to learn, can you briefly define conservativism for people who may have had a different idea about it . Well, as i say in a nutshell, william f. Buckley never if actually defined conservativism. I think you can go back to the writings of william burke, and there are a lot of great conservative writers who, as i mentioned before, it was a little intimidating to write this book because i didnt feel the stature to be in that zone. But i really wanted to lay down and i dont define conservativism per i say. Per se. Conservativism, as we talked about earlier, is ordered liberty, is the idea that freedom, individual freedom matters. And, you know, its in our declaration of independence. Jefferson wrote life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and he put them in that order because liberty is of precious little use to people who dont have life, and very hard to pursue happiness if youre not free. And that combination and that government, by the way, was supposed to protect things in that order, life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. And that protection of particularly the pursuit has made america by far one of the wealthiest with, most prosperous nations in the world. And were having an argument about that, what does that mean. And i do think conservatives to an okay job of explaining the economic side. We dont always explain how conservativism addresses some of the problematic sides of our american society. For instance, people who are sort of glib and dismissive of, you know, pull yourself up by your boot straps, you know, be independent and work hard. And all those things are true, but, you know, there are people who are just never going to be independent, and theyre always going the need help. And we we dont often explain, you know, the idea of decentralized government could actually help people. So conservativism in a nutshell, ill tell you a little story. Its about Franklin Delano roosevelt whos probably the greatest politician of the 20th century. I dont think he really had a rival, and roosevelt was running right after woodrow wilson. Woodrow wilson was a democrat, and he was loyal to woodrow wilson, and he was going to run as a democrat. Husband fifth cousin, though, he his fifth cousin, though, he modeled his career after him, teddy roosevelt. And fdr was also progressive, but he couldnt run as a republican because hoover was a republican, and hoover was in the middle of an economic collapse. So that was out. He he couldnt run as a progressive because under woodrow wilson, progressivism had taken a really ugly turn, and it stems from eugenics which was the socalled failed science that we could actually decide who gets to to create and who didnt. And that was a very procreate and that was a very ugly time. Progressivism also brought us the womens right to vote, and that was a good thing, but it also brought us popular elections of u. S. Senators. I think, on balance, that was a bad thing because it cut the, it cut the responsibility or the leverage the state legislatures used to have over the u. S. Congress, it just eliminated it. So state legislatures, congress can pass all these laws that state legislatures continually have to deal with, and they hurlly have no leverage to literally have no leverage to push back. Thats not the case anymore. And finally, they a they passed prohibition right in the middle of prosperous times, if you can imagine. [laughter] you know, the roaring 20s, theyre having a wonderful time, and they passed prohibition. So fdr couldnt one as aing progressive as he well wanted to, and wilson was a progressive. In fact, teddy and wilson ran against each other both with competing aggressive agendas but from different parties. Wilson claimed hawk. Taft was the third candidate. He got his clock cleaned. But fdr did something really interesting. What he did was he put out a Progressive Agenda but didnt call it progressive. You know what he called it . He called it liberal, which is interesting because up until that point the word liberal and liberalism had been associated with what we now recognize as conservatives. So thats where the word classic liberal comes from. John and i i would identify ourselves as classic liberals in the preroosevelt sense. He just called it liberal, and it stuck. And the conservatives ended up calling themselves conservatives, and thats been the monikers of the Major Political philosophies in our country ever since. And i would argue whats happening now is, you know, trump calls himself a conservative. Hes not. Its demonstrable that hes not. And unfortunately, many people who follow him call themselves conservative, and theyre not. Consider the Republican Party just had their convention, and they for the First Time Since 1856 in which nine of the six planks in the original Republican Party platform were civil rights planks. For the next hundred years, the Republican Party was the procivil rights party. Theyve lost that. And this year they didnt put out a platte at all as platform at all. They simply put out a resolution that says were with the big guy. Thats a sad thing because parties cant sustain themselves on a personality in the same way that in israel politics, parties come and go with their leaders. If but binetanyahu were to pass from the public stage, his party, i believe, would collapse because theres nothing under it except for bibi netanyahu. The Republican Party is now the trump party, and when he he moves on one way or the other, it will collapse because its based on one person. Parties need to be based on ideas, because when we win and ive spent my career helping republicans win when we win, my question now is what do we win, what do we actually get. And if the answer is higher deficits, trade tariffs, mismanagement of a National PublicHealth Crisis that ends up costing us trillions of dollars, millions in lost jobs, thats not winning to me. I would like to return to tried and true philosophy of governing, and conservatives have always been sort of at the kids table even if they were ever invited to dinner. They got set at the kids table. They drove the agenda for quite a number of years. Now we dont even get invited to dinner, and a bunch of what i would call um posters sit at the imposters sit at the table and call themselves conservatives while john and i are not even allowed to come to dinner. Thats kind of where i think we are in a nutshell and why conservativism, i think, really needs to be revisited. And even if you read my book and you dont become a conservative, thats okay. My goal is accomplished to say, you know what . At least i understand why hes a conservative, and i understand his thinking on how it works whether i believe it works or not. Thats one thing. But at least youll know that it is a rational theory. So you mentioned earlier that your work as an analyst on msnbc forced you to examine your own beliefs in depth, and they do say that to teach is to learn. So for yourself as well, john, does teaching people, did that definitely reinforce your own beliefs, or did it change them . Well, its funny, you know, because i have nine children, amazingly enough, and i home school them. Ive home schooled all of them. Whats interesting is that probably the greatest preparations for writing speeches is teaching my children and explaining concepts to them. So i think theres that. But i think youre absolutely right. I mean if, thats the principle, right . Its impossible to separate teaching from learning. And as i say, when we have these conversations, the thing for me from a conservative perspective is, is that that much of what we believe is that the private sector is able to come up with many of these solutions. I think rick did really an amazing job in the environmental chapter because hes explaining his thats his life. You know . Thats the way that hes living his life. And the reality of it is hes not saying, hey, conservatives are sort of painted with a brush of we dont care about the environment. Thats clear wily not the case. Were clearly not the case. Were making the argument that conservativism, the private sector might simply be the best way to address this as opposed to leaving it in government hands. And, you know, again, i think that many of the areas in the book essentially make that claim that things may be better addressed. Its not that we we dont care about these things. Of course we do. Were just trying to figure out the best way to get there. Were trying to achieve the common good, presumably the same as political progressives. Were just arguing about maybe the map in terms of how to get there, if that makes sense. And . I was and rick . I was so enthralled with johns answer, i forgot what the question was. [laughter] does that help reinforce your own beliefs . Absolutely. When you have to explain to other people what you believe, and ill give you two examples. When i first went on msnbc, i started really going on the Chris Matthews show. Now, john and i have been watching Chris Matthews for as long as literally as long as theres been cable television. Like, he was a legend. Crust matthews actually worked on the hill, he worked for three separate congressmen. He was actually a Capitol Hill Police officer before he actually worked on the hill in politics, and i always had respect for chris because he doesnt pontificate because he just pontificates, he actually worked for the speaker of the house and worked in the speakers office. Thats an an experience you cant trade. So i was invited on his show hardball for the first time, and it was very intimidating. So my goal with Chris Matthews and hardball was, you know, get unviolated back, like invited back, like, just surviving. Chris was very generous, and over the years i kept getting invited back more and more, but i was the person on there that people loved to hate, right . So we all is have those people. We watch because you cant take their eyes off of them because you just hate them so much. [laughter] its enjoyable and entertaining because theyre nuts. And that was me. I would argue and loved to argue, but i wasnt very likable. And then over time i decided and i worked on a president ial, several president ial campaigns that if i was ever going to be effective in promoting the conservative philosophy, i was going to have to learn how to convince people that it was reasonable. And so i had to learn how to speak to people who didnt believe what i believed. And find common ground. And i think thats worke