Was founded in 1951 and in 2019, they began the first bookstore selling. This allows us to keep over 100,000 books on our shelves and work with likeminded true owners at the University Chicago to ensure events like these. This is motivated by a Washington Post columnist covering notional politics. Joining the Washington Post in 2010. During the 15 years at times, she wrote more than three dozen stories. She helped time of the Congressional Correspondent and white house correspondent. Serving on the board of institute of politics at the university of chicago and the university of texas in business school. Good evening. Thank you so much for being with us tonight. The only thing that makes me sad about this is that i cant actually be at the university of chicago, which is the place i dearly love but i think our conversation tonight is going to be very interesting speaking to them about their fascinating and very provocative new book. Introducing them, and what you read this to make sure i dont screw it up. The professor in american politics at the university of chicago and director of the center for effective government he cohosts the podcast, not another politics. The William Bennet monroe professor clinical scientists, stanford and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and this is the second book the two of them have been together the fact that they are still friends may be the most remarkable thing of all. Thank you so much for engaging with us in this conversation. I thought a good place to start would be to agree on the definition of the terms of what we are talking about tonight here. What exactly is populism . How do you define it . Why is it that you believe it is a threat and corrosive of democratic norms . Ill take that on. The language, i think it is normally associated with standing up for the little guy and the disadvantaged. Something liberals would think is a very good thing but this is not the way scholars typically use the term based on experience. Scholars, it means something very different with different for william and for me. At the heart of the Populism Movement is the voice that they represent the real people of a nation. Socially conservative christian people. They have a corrupt illegitimate system at its core, populism is the people against the system. In expressing their rage, they almost invariably embrace a believer who expresses the rage takes on the system but attacking institutions, it norms, established leaders and who can get things done on their own. This is why populism is so dangerous. Its not just in the system, it arises within a democratic system. It is an attack on democracy itself led by strongman peter. I thought one of the interesting points you make early on in the book that i never thought of before is that not every authoritarian leader is at the head of the movement, is an authoritarian leader. The populist comes in and says look, the regime democratic regime is legitimate, a uses the most sweeping language movement. He says i stand apart from the wreckage. I am not of that mess so what you should be doing is inventing hopes and aspirations in me and thats where the strongman comes forward. The strongman says i will deliver the system has failed you. The hallmark is my willingness to step over and around that system. In this White Christian americ american, true americans so it is these strands that run through populism that are deeply troubling. We of course, are in a populist moment in our own history. A friend of mine of the wall street journal has a new book out also describes a moment where he bannon who later becomes a key political advisor to donald trump, meet donald trump for the first time, he tries to talk him into running for president in 2012 and says he cant run on these old ideas, you have to run as a populist and trump said thats what i am, i am a popular artist and bannon realizes yes, that is exactly how trump sees it, it is all about him. You say in the book we have had other populist moment in our history, somewhat around the time of andrew jackson, the progressive era, the beginning of the 20th century to some degree during the Great Depression but we had a government sort of capable of dealing with these citizen passions. Could you walk us through our own countrys history with populism . I can take a stab at it. One of the main things in my book is that populism is an expression of dissatisfaction in modern times with globalization and technological changes and other modernizations but, our government has been ineffective in dealing with these problems and that is why there is a populist rage against the system, a system that doesnt work for them. This kind of thing has happened before so around 100 years ago, this country went through social change, industrialization, immigration and organization that led to real turmoil and weve had a government completely incapable of handling it and it led to the Progressive Movement, which is the most powerful movement in our nations history and what they did was reform our institutions to make our government more effective. It didnt make it super effective, just more effective and they gave us a president ially led Administrative State that did a much better job with those problems and that diffused will could have been a major populist revolt at the time. The Great Depression was another one of those critical junctures in American History where capitalism fails, our government had failed and there were populists ready to take advantage of that and blame democracy along came fdr and the new deal and all of these programs to deal with the problems of the country and that really diffused the populist vets. Here we are again, 2020. We have problems that have resulted from the huge disruptions in our government is not dealing with them and if we dont find a way like the progressives did and the new deal, to deal with these problems in a more effective w way, we will not be able to diffuse populism and it will be a real threat to our democracy. If i could add one thing, the key thing that distinguishes this moment from the previous two is that populism is broken through, it has taken hold of the apparatus of government and using the powers of government in order to continue in anger and disaffection, to use the powers of government to undo the government within. The challenge is presented to us is profound, not just because populism comes from the failures of government to meet modern challenges because it is seeped into the government itself and weve got to find a way to extricate it and rehabilitate our government if we will stay moving forward. One of the corollaries of populism is intolerance of other points of view, minority points of view, isnt that also one of the dangers . Cant coexist with pluralism. For short you see that. Attacks on democracy look like, delegitimizing branches of government, telling the press the enemy of the people, refusing to concede any merit for liberal opponents, calling for the rest of ones political opponents, this is not the stuff of robust meaningful literal dialogue but we can bridge differences, come together and figure out how to solve our problems. Rather, its feeling anger, increasing division and crippling our ability to come together. Hollowing out our democracy, not enriching. Sorry, this is not uniquely american phenomenon, could you talk about how this is actually something happening in many parts of the world right now. The disruptions that have occurred due to globalization and technological change in immigration our worldwide disruptions especially in the west. They have led to backlashes in countries all across western europe and scandinavia and the uk. Their economic i people who have lost jobs due to the howling out of manufacturing and defending of jobs overseas and developing nations but its also cultural. There is a cultural backlash to these other people coming in immigration and creating diversity within countries that have not been diverse. These are White Christians, distinct cultures and suddenly there are all of these immigrants coming in and where you see this search search and populism in europe, 2015 16 in, large numbers of immigrants coming in from africa and middle east and the european nations didnt handle it very well and because they didnt handle them well, many people were threatened, they were culturally threatened which led to a surge of popularity, populism and europe and its very dangerous. European nations have sort of gotten together on immigration and the populist parties are not surging anymore in europe so i think right now, its less dangerous in europe than they are here because our government is much less effective than their government and we have not gotten a handle on it. You guys talk about two things. You think to sorts of forces are driving this problem in the u. S. And making it practically impossible to deal with. One is our deep Political Polarization and the other is the functioning of our government and i would like to pull those things apart. Lets start by talking about the politics, the political divisi division, the fact that we have two Political Parties you say used to be, im talking about recent history, were very heterogeneous, liberal republicans, conservative democrats and that is not the case anymore so how has that contributed to a system where executives have become all powerful and congress has become completely impotent . Or am i overstating that . You put in place a number of things. There is polarization, that is for sure. Parties are divided in ways we were not divided a halfcentury ago. A theme of our book though, the failure of government to solve problems is embedded in the institutions and has a polarization. Whats significant when we think about, and not talked about enough for recognize enough, we think about the threat of populism to our democracy, in addition to having two parties to disagree with one another, we have one party that is the primary vehicle will populist itself so the remaking of the Republican Party for being a party of limited government and smaller taxes and deregulation in to being from the vehicle by which trump, and we can expect future populist to cling to vast powers and undermine the efficacy of our government and hollow out the administrator state is deeply problematic so it isnt just, this is another thing. We look back to what distinguishes this moment from mike when Woodrow Wilson took office in 1916 where you saw an effort by president , president offer progressive response to the threat of populism in addition to it, you have problems in breaking through and grabbing full and one major party that has capitulated to populism and it is deeply problematic with think about our ability to productively constructively move forward and make our democracy and improve. If i could add to that, i think the Republican Party has been transformed. This is not your grandfathers Republican Party. It just isnt. The Republican Party is much more extreme ideologically than it ever has been and its no longer in the business of solving the nations social problems. In the business of cutting taxes, getting government out of peoples lives, making government as small as possible and as a result, it simply is not going to deal with these things and it thrives on being anti system party that when the system fails and behaves ineffectively and the republican stands up and says we told you so, we are the anti system party, this is a system that doesnt work. The other thing is that republicans, because of the demo graphics moving against them, no. Democracy does not work for th them. The more people that vote, the more it is for them. There more minorities. Year after year, less educated white people, smaller and smaller percentage of the electorate so looking forward, republicans know the only way they can win elections is to suppress the vote and engage in other means of undemocratic. So the dynamics here are not good for our democracy and they are coming from the Republican Party. We hate to say that, social scientists want to say we hate democrats or republicans but the fact is, the transformative change is happening here linked to populism happen within the Republican Party. As a vehicle for this threat to democracy. We are also describing trump is him so donald trump is not going to be around forever. Hell either be around until january or until january 2025. The tropism continue to exist after donald trump is gone . Yes. For at least two reasons. The first is that there are, if he loses in 2020, even if he steps back and sees the power and biden assumes the white house, we can expect him to continue to rail against the system and tens of millions of people support him will reward those who follow in his wake which points toward the foundational reason why trumpism reads populism will persist, the problems they froze up are not going to go away. Theyre not going to slow it down and suddenly have a Manufacturing Base redirected and population slows and the destruction to our economy are not going to suddenly settle down. As long as we have a government to meet those challenges, there is going to be a base of people who will be angry and you will not just skeptically but will respond to it with real anger and they will reward politically anybody who steps up in the way trump has and calls out the system and behaves as trump has. Connection between an effective government and populism. Something we want to call attention to. As long as we have a government that fails to solve problems in the problems modernity kicks up will persist the foundations will be there, if not for trump and his successors to rise to power. Speaking of successors, you look out today, because there are people already elbowing each other for 2024. Who can you see on the scene today as sort of the legacy of tropism who are sort of waiting to pick up his mantle . Well, you could say his immediate family, john junior or tv personalities and say Tucker Carson will step forward and say ill be the one. There are plenty of officials were not just standing quietly beside trump but going out of their way to support him. I think what is really important though for us to recognize we are trying to do in the book, capture attention to Structural Forces in the way. In 2014, nobody would have thought trump is going to be the one. Bill rise to power and be our next president so its hard for us to say, place bets on who is going to be placing him. As long as these forces are in play, the ground will be laid for somebody is charismatic, and outsider, who has the ambition and is willing to play rather populist playbook to rise to power. Who that is, we dont know so i think we can expect it to continue to be a powerful force in our politics and a threat to our democracy going toward. The prerequisites populism are in play. Ill just add one thing, there is a continuing battle going on between populace and the party and establishments, orthodox numbers. They want to take it back so many of the people in the Republican Party, they are not real populace. In willing to suck up to trump in every possible way but mainly conservatives, orthodox, republican service. Ted cruz and paul rand rand paul, excuse me. Many others are real populace so i think there is a battle going on and i dont think it is entirely clear that lets say donald trump loses big in the election, trying to take it back the problem we will have is that there is a populist base to the Republican Party and they are off the charts enthusiastic about populism and willing to punish people and they will have to fight against that. This is part of the transformation will take place over a period of time and we will have to see how it plays out. One of the big things in your book, i think it is one that is very provocative because a lot of people would think it is not only provocative, practically blasphemous is the fact that one of the problems here is our constitution which we all have grown up learning to revere, our Founding Fathers were men of great wisdom newton and you say they have built a system that is not equipped to deal, they lived in an isolated society, not these inter selected global one that we are living in today. Could you talk about that a bit in and how you think the constitution needs to be retooled to deal with modern society. It is a great surprise. I think there is all this reference, or used to before the institution treating it like the bible, something we should bow before and read deeply and learn from and not something that we should reimagine, rewrite. Is pretty nice but go ahead. Sure but this was a system of government written 235, 240 years ago by fewer than 4 million farmers that 700,000 were slaves and men were the only people who participated in politics and they didnt expect the government to do much and they built a government but couldnt do very much by design so it may have met their expectations for what the government ought to be in the business problem solving, recognizing the particular challenges but not the government capable of meeting kinds of challenges we face today. This was the initial recognition that led to the Progressive Movement where in 100 years in the nations history where they said we have inherited what in order to meet the challenges of industrializations . Are you kidding me . They tried to build a modern democracy, and Administrative State where expertise would be rewarded and president ially led Administrative State. The problems our country faces increase manifold and complexity and size so to say the institution we have inherited this basic structure remains intact basically, the institutions we now need in order to meet modern challenges, it seems eminently straightforward but why would we expect it to work for us today when it was written so many years ago . What we call for in the book is a deep rebuilding and reimagining, focusing on the president in particular in the service of a more effective government because that is the key to pushing back against the democratic threat populism presents. What are some of the specific changes, what parts of the constitution needs to be ditched, in your opinion and changed . Why dont you take this one . [laughter] you say i should, i say you should take it. [laughter] first of all, it is important to distinguish the bill of rights, which is a very valuable part of the constitution worth keeping the architecture of government they created to govern themselves in 1789, for gods sake. It is a time when they didnt expect government to do much and they created a separation of powers system in that is filled with details that make it virtually impossible to do anything major, especially when youre dealing with complex problems that they didnt have 235 years ago. Well, we do. Society has modernized the problems have gotten more and more and more complicated and vexing to deal with and we need a government designed to be able to deal with. They didnt do that. That was not their job and they assumed overtime in future generations would modify the constitution but the generations never did that and that is the problem. What we are suggesting in switching to a parliamentary system will do anything radical like that, we try to take advantage of what president have to offer without giving in to that. We want to get the promises of the presidency while constraining them much more than they are now, the kinds of things that trump is doing. The reason for empowering the president to some extent, president care, above all else, about their legacy that means that they are concerned first and foremost, tackling the nations problems, the big ones and doing it in coherent ways that intellectual well justified and at work. Congress is at the center of the law making progress and they do it completely differently. They are accountable for getting whatever godforsaken think they are doing and its not something that is comprehensive and well justified and will solve national problems. Congress doesnt do that. Weve been burdened with the institutional must create patchwork a dozen solve problems where as president s are driven to try to solve problems so the reforms we have in mind two things. One, take advantage of a promise the president has to offer and number two, they can take what is dangerous so i will turn it over to william so he can talk about what this is. Ill give you a couple examples. [laughter] right after article two but go ahead. [laughter] on a promise, what we want to do is increase the president s authority and give something akin to the pastor, the power of the president and trade policy where the president can come forward and say heres a bill, here is a proposal. You have to vote on it and you have to vote on it in an up or down basis, in a certain period of time, youre free to vote it down but you cant water it down to make it okay, you have to take a position in that, we think will elevate National Longterm considerations that are vital to enhancing our National Governments ability to self big and complex problems. On the fear side, we have a much longer list. We want to significantly reduce appointments the president can make. What you see is the denigration, undermining expertise, a lot of scholarships done on this. Using the power to appoint and build his political base. We cannot get rid of them entirely for a variety of reasons. But when you see that the assembly of reforms that are trying to create a modern presidency for modern times, which is about leveraging the promise of president ial power in the service of an effective government melding attentive to the threat of a demigod presents to our democracy. That is what we need to be in the business of doing. That is what were trying to jump start with this book, these types of conversations. Host and what you do about the way we elect our president . Is it time to ditch the Electoral College . Yes. Yes. It has been long overdue. And i will say, one of our point is that president s represent the country as a whole. But they do not do so perfectly. In part because they look toward a college which the institution encourages them at least every four years to pay a disproportionate about attention to florida to the exclusion of illinois or california where terry and i reside. Some of it has to do you would get a better expression im sorry a more, a fuller articulation of natural while concern from the president were we to have Electoral College. But the reason to get back, is because of the pathology that prevents the electoral system in a disproportionate attention to give to some people to the exclusion of others. It is an abomination that we have to swear in april plurality of people vote for one president and at a different president assumes the home. It makes no sense. Talk about a relic of our constitution. It sort of a bit of a chopping block. We just point out is Electoral College was to frame earth precisely from having ordinary people electing the president. That is an outrage today. It was not an outrage back then. They wanted other elites in the state legislature, elite electives who would be responsible and be people of good character, et cetera et cetera. It would avoid the possibility ordinary people might pick someone they did not like. This is a very, very antidemocratic move. Longer sits with american society. I think most americans have an outrage that we allow someone to be elected president even though they won the popular vote. The classic example of trap to the constitution that was designed to hunt 35 years ago for a society thats absolute nothing like our own, needs to be changed. Strack made a few more minutes. Before i go to sonja who was going with the much smarter questions im sure are coming in from our audience. About my business, the media . How has the evolution of the media. Specifically this idolization of the media. Your conservative, and got all the information from the people who agree with you already procure a liberal you can get information from people who agree with you already. How is that contributed to the situation in which we find ourselves now . Cynic karen how would you answer that question . Ischemic just dont think its healthy, now they turn to the media for affirmation not information. Basically the real problem here is studies have shown, there is a great study out there based on millions of pieces of data, brandnew. So network propaganda. They show is that media system as a whole consists of a right wing media. At the center of that, and all of the rest of the media. Almost all are in the center somewhere in summer on the left. All thats governed by professional norms of accuracy the right wing media is not. The right wing media is a propaganda network. And that is where the conspiracy theories come from. Thats where the misinformation comes from. Sure, there might be some of that over on the other side. But is completely asymmetric. And so what happens then is you have people on the conservative side who were sideload and watching fox news 24 7. It turns out the kind of information they are giving is not accurate information. It is propaganda. And it is being set up to be that way. They designed it this way, it worked that way. It has a pernicious effect, profoundly on our democracy. I think we can move over to sonja, are you there . You can come on and we can bring in some questions from the audience. Thank you so much karen. Got a couple audience questions will try to get there as many as we can. How does your definition of populism with the socalled leftwing populist . International examples, how do these differ from the strong men you focus on the book . Guest so, we talk about Bernie Sanders in particular grade lets take him. Because i think he is useful. We say he is not a populace. And he is not a populace because, while he does offer a kind of wholesale critique of the performance of our government, and offers a deep critique of our system, he is also in the business of first, rolling up his sleeves, trying to offer Constructive Solutions to rebuilding it, redirecting it in a way that works. And moreover, hes not against democracy. Hes not against accruing power for himself. He is about trying to radically alter the performance of government. And so look, you can have emphasis or people sound like populace because they say things like our system is broken, it is possible to say that into followup with Constructive Solutions to that broken system that dont involve accruing more power for ones self. What makes him a populace you redeemable. So therefore what you ought to do and that is a move of leftwing populist. Constitutes the other, who constitutes the threat is usually different. His true emblematic, the emblem of ones National Identity is different. But the playbook is much the same. Project anything to that . Are you talking to me . Which liked anything . Its a great answer. Yeah. On the left and on the right, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are really populace in the more conventional common language in standing up for the little guy, but they believe in democracy. They believe and our constitution. They want a more effective government. That is not what donald trump was, is not we want for anyone. A question coming in from alexis, what are some of the problems you expect to encounter by giving the president more power . How can you mitigate some of those on a structural level . We think a lot about this. We are not arguing for a generic increase in president ial power, that is not what we are doing. Theres the promise and there is the fear. When the grant power its we want to do so in order to leverage a national outlook. That president taft to offer in a more effective government. And when they allow for that to happen but without presenting a very real threat when deployed in the hands of a demigod. Then so be it. We also need to think about checking, reducing president ial power particularly work doesnt do anything for the government. In fact may undermine it. The politicization of the initiative statement. And also exacerbates the fear that we should justifiably have. Could you speak a little bit more to the politicization . Can you talk about in the book. Could you elaborate . Yes i will Say Something about that. As politicized our bureaucracy in the extreme. Hes filled it with lobbyists with the political lackeys to zero experience. The pharisee jim various policy realms. What they stand out for and what they get the undermine the professionalism of the government, exactly what we need the department of justice are extremely powerful extremely dangerous agencies is clearly a threat to democracy. Not you look at the other democracies around the world develop demographys and britain, they have very, very, very you. Not of their bureaucracy of any particular department. They may have one or two political appointees. You know we have layer upon layer upon layer of political appointees. They are not necessary. And they undermine the effectiveness of our government and the independence of the government, right . We dont want the cdc in this country doing exactly what donald trump wants it to do. There are scientists at the cdc that no what science requires. This is what fulda station leads to. And there arent solutions there is nothing to stop us from drastically eliminating the appointees in the bureaucracy. To do that. This is worth recognizing. There are things that we can do legislatively to attend to the fear and the promise of president ial power in order to create a more modern presidency and more effective government. Not just about back to the relic rebuilding although there certainly work to be done on that front . The president has to make him when these administrative agencies were created in the first place. Designed to keep us from revisiting those. And changing the president s power. Teachers are another question for which got like 12 or 15. [laughter] here is one from alexis. Populism is the answer to democratic failure. How did faster . Oh tora former political reform . Different people of different approaches. I mean theres only things wrong with the system. So clearly we need to do something about gerrymandering , we need to do something about the courts, we should not have lifetime appointments. And we can go right down the list. The kinds of things we are talking about, our Structural Reforms to government that we think will make it more effective. Many of the other reforms are making the government more democratic. The makeable responsive to the will of the people. And that kind of thing. We are talk but effective government. In the context of the government with all the checks and balances and details is so cumbersome virtually impossible to actually address the problems. Spent reviews have American History, youll see steadfast and continued efforts over time to democratize our system. To make it more representative, to increase the franchise. Amendments to the constitution most Early Service of that. So we have is the inattention to the structural concerns. The fact that in the institutions that we have today look a whole lot like the institutions as they were initially envisioned. And the basic lawmaking process looks a whole lot like it was written into the Constitution Day one. We are way behind in this front we have a lot of work to do. Speak at length about the progressive era new chocolate this other places as well. We think about the time in American History there other societal issues, reticular doing with racism, it was a blind spot of that era. You think about calling upon a new progressive era, what should we do for this potential blind spot . Stomach i can handle it you go second period. [laughter] that was 100 years ago. Racism is a problem today. It was a problem back then. Woodrow wilson was president , he was his segregation was he was a progressive president pretty segregated the federal workforce. So progressivism, clearly transformed American Government in a good way. Driven by one 100 values. You have to remember the time in which it occurred. We had a new Progressive Movement now, what we are is the movement thats really focused on the government which is at the heart of the original. The question is, okay, this is the government how can we make it work better . What kind of reforms into be done . Theres also an urgency to it. Its really threatening problems. Because they had a system that was obsessed by problems and they cannot solve them. I think that is where were at right now. We are in genuine crisis. Im progressivism is the analogy, to driven to institutions and have gotten better. I think, that we have come a long way in promoting the cooperative and race and gender and in other ways. We are far from perfect. We certainly come a long way from 100 years ago. I think the bureaucracy has been a main mechanism for progress. And if we can create a government that is much more effective it will be much more effective at promoting racial equality we certainly did not do 100 years ago. Cant just add one thing her here . The spirit as we do in the book for a second movement, it is not that we thought all of their answers were the right answers. Or certainly what we ought to do is replace james mattis with Woodrow Wilson, right . And not let us prostrate before wilson and channel our inner wilson, the argument is that they got they characterize the dilemma which is the institution that we have inherited, are inadequate with respect to the challenges that we as a country face. And that majority, super majorities of americans expect to see some action on. What we need to do now is think for ourselves. To take ownership of these institutions and to re craft them in a way that allows for meaningful action moving forwar forward. It is that sort of spirit and that conviction that we want to highlight. And it needs to be done at the scale of the Progressive Movement. This is not tinkering at the edges. Its not an executive order here and a resurrection of a norm there and we are good. Its going to require deep commitment. And profound structural change in order to get the government that we need. We have time for one last question like post each of you. What is it about this election that makes a stick so high . Karen you should go first. I do think that if donald trump is reelected, not an aberration, becomes the new direction of the company. That implies really profound changes in our institution. And in our way of dealing with each other. And i think that in some ways, that is really the choice that people are going to be we may not know the results until december. I do think that a ratification of trumps him is also a ratification of the different set of norms in this country, im overstating that . Stomach i completely agree. And it ratification of trump assemblies to acceleration. Its not just about a continuation of what we observe, we can expect it to be accelerated, double triple down on the antidemocratic that you made. Stomach we are in a Holding Pattern right now. Visavis the Republican Party just on Foreign Policy we are in a Holding Pattern. Their country saying how should we respond . Lets wait and see exactly what is going to happen. They are going to be commitments that are made, both within this country and abroad that are going to make the populism not just a threat to democracy but a defining future of our politics should he be reelected. I will be in a world of hurt as a result. I think of trump gets reelected, we have to really worry about going down. Our democracy going down. Some things are going to be unchanged. I think trump is an authoritarian wannabe. He is constrained to some exten extent. But congress does a very, very weak job of constraining him. He just blows them off. The courts, you give him another four years and he will take over the court system. He is on his way to do that right now. Hes going to make hundreds more appointments to the court system. He is going to appoint justices like he does great this is extremely dangerous. Imagine four more years of william barr as head of the justice department. Taking out after the president s enemy matter what he does he believes in the theory the president can do whatever he wants avnet article two and it says i can do whatever i want. I think four more years of trump is going to be the most destructive thing to our democracy except for the civil war that has ever happened in the entire history of this country. So this election is the most important election that we have ever had. I realize that was a great question i think i need to end on a positive note, why dont we end with another question . Civic cosa question can i sharpen that in the media, i have a sense as an outsider that there are pockets of revitalization. The Washington Post is such a place. Where you see some growth and some energy that did not previously exist. In that response is something that we desperately need. That is something to define hope in. I do think that a very small handful of media organizations, including mine which is fortunate enough to be owned by the richest man in the world, yes, you are seeing a creativity and an energy in journalism unlike anything imaginable. I look around the newsroom and twentysomething colleagues are amazing in their ability to find new ways to tell stories. But i do worry because local newspapers are dying. Even mid to large size paper. Like the shadow of what it needs to be. And i worry what that says about the watchdog function the resources or not there anymore. Choices and thing helpful . Civic i love it. I hope trump loses. I hope that he loses big. I hope that young people and minorities vote in very large numbers. And i hope that if things things happen fighting much more longterm and losing battle against the systemic graphics and the need to be going to the center ever hopes to win elections and a democratic system. Realizes it cant and it doubles down on being anti democratic party. That is dangerous. But the hope is that they will see the writing on the wall and become a more moderate party. Thank you. And on that note, thank you so much for moderating tonights conversation and thank you for joyce again on another simcoe is look at some books pin publishes this way. Undaunted former cia director john brennan reflects in his career with the agency. Former democratic democrat credit mayor of south bend indiana, Pete Buttigieg argues that americus must show trust in the Political Institution and each other to restore our democracy. And historian Margaret Mcmillan looks at how military conflict have impacted our lives. Also been publishes we can follow the money, political commentator, argosy deep state has been trying to attack President Trump with a string of scandals. Surprise winning book critic examines the Trump Presidency through 150 books, written about the president over the past four years. And what were we thinking. Historian h. W. Brand has a dual biography of abolitionist john brown and Abraham Lincoln and the zealot and the emancipator. And in ten lessons repost pandemic world, cnn weighs in on how our lives will be changed to the covid in pandemic. Find these titles this week wherever books are sold. Book tv in prime time starts now. First up the wife of the late democratic congressman, Elijah Cummings of maryland talks about his life and political career. And then pj overwork has his collection of essays on economics and culture. Also this evening actress and political activist jane fonda offers her soft on climate change. Foxbusiness news host lou dobbs addresses President Trumps agenda at americas future. An environmental activist Aaron Brockovich americas facing a water crisis. When more information on your Program Guide online at book tv. Org. And now, here is high everyone. My name is brittany the Deputy Director of events policies and present id like to bite you all to pmp live. A few housekeeping items to go over before we begin. First ill be dropping links in the chat where you can purchase copies of both speakers books today, straight from the websit website. You can also have instore pickup if you are local and you do not feel like waiting for shipping. You could also ask the doctor a pungent author a question by click on the q a button at the bottom of the screen. Will try to address everybodysst
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