I am. I pulled him toward the optimistic side and he pulled me toward the other side. A lot has happened since writing the book, obamacare, that would lead you to think of big problems. I was talking to a women who said i dont have hope, but i think the American People will fight, but we have a lot to go through. I love our last line in the book. Everything we write isnt great, but occasionally i believe i hit it out of the park. Lets hope the United States doesnt give the wish of give us a king and we will be like every other nation out there. All mankind will pay the price. We were talking about the lights going out in europe at the beginning of wwi. You would see dark ages like you have never seen before if the light goes out. On that cheery note [laughter] comments . Questions . Concerns . What should we be doing . Buy ten copies each . You know, there is a time to meditate. I mean children of israel were in the wilderness for 40 years. They were supposed to learn something. We have gone through dark periods and others have as well. Sometimes you have to ride it out. Dont jump to conclusions or go in your bunker. It isnt time to do that yet. So watch. I think the bibles phrase is watch and fray. Pray i will be signing books so thanks for coming out. [ applause ] we would like to hear from you. Tweet us your feedback. Twitter. Co twitter. Com booktv. You are watching booktv on cspan 2. Here is our line up for tonight up next, Ian Haney Lopez argues that politicians used racist appeals when discussing crime and entitlement to get the support of white and poor voters. This is about 50 minutes hi, everybody. Thank you for coming to hear about this new book. I want to thank the strand for events like this that tell us why we need the strand, helping authors and readers and book lovers. I would like to see an Online Platform do this. I dont think they can. Dmos cosponsoring the event. They make sure everyone has an equal say in the community and we do that by building pathways for the middle class, promoting elections, promoting a business sector and curbing money and politics. Thank you. That is how we feel. I wrote a book searching for whitetopia living in the Fastest Growing white communities. I learned the mind fields of racial debate in the country. We find ourselves in the sensational talk of race and in television we will find ourselves debating did paula dean get along with her man servant or how did duck dynasty have these influences . But Ian Haney Lopez contributes to the debate in a deep and meaningful way in a deeply written book. And if you imagine two axis and on one is the middle class and racial p racial politics on the other. You can imagine the book is telling us how it is connected and why it matters to us. So here is Heather Mcgee who is Vice President of the policy and out each at dmos. Thank you for coming, again, everybody. [ applause ] thank you again for to the strand for putting on this wonderful evening. I have the pleasure of introducing and interviewing the author of this incredible new book dog whistle politics. Ian haney lopez is the professor at the Berkeley Center of law. He is the newest senior fellow here at dmos. And he authored white by law and i dont want to spend too much time before we dig into the book. Professor lopez, i am going to pretend like i have not read the book multiple times. I will put myself in the shoes of a reader walking by this book on the bookstand or shelves and ask you a few questions about the cover. What good would a book about race be if we could not judge it by its cover. What is is dog whistle politics first . I do like the irony of judging a book by its cover. First, thank you heather, thank you rich, thank you strand, and thank you all of you for being here. This is a term i think most of you have heard. It is in the political decision and uses colds to attract voters that isnt about race, but underneath is agitating racial society. Obama is a food Stamp President , illegal alien i would say. If you are press you can deny any racial intent, but the main purpose triggers a sense of racial threat from minorities. We have a sense of the term being out there. And what i want to do is push a thesis i dont think is widely appreciated it. Isnt just about dog whistle politics out in a marginal way. I am saying dog whistle politics is the primary way to understand the dramatic shift from being a country that embraces being liber liber liberalism to a country that is quite conservative so much so many people refuse to say they are liberal and that is too radical and extreme. I am saying we need to figure out how that happened. I do want to make the claim it is the primary reason, coated race baiting, is the primary reason the political sector shifted to the right and toward a government that is serving the rich mainly. So i will stay with the cover idea. I am walking by and see something in red underneath dog whistle politics and it is coded racial appeal. What are you trying to do with that on the book cover . Coded racial appeals here is what is important. Race couldnt be realize working this way if race had not evolved since the civil right movements. It drove out racial slurs. Now it is near political suicide to use a slur in public. But race has evolved on a new form. It is trigger racial panic and establishing plausible deniable on the other. This isnt just politics. This is the new public racisrac. It alarms people but they are not saying the main words so they are saying they can not be aco aco accused of this. And you talk about new terms. Talk about those. Heather is jumping to the most difficult idea here, or not difficult, but pressing, how is racism working to convince many white voters to support policies that are bad for themselves . In 2012, romney said he would cut taxes for the rich and deregulate the economy, that he would slash social services in the midst of an economic crisis. Among whites he got 35 voters and carried all age coherts including the young. Someone promise to slash tax cuts for us and won that percentage of votes. How does that happen the next question is how can racism being working that way . We should be clear. This isnt a story of sort of the hate every black person racism. This isnt a story of bigotry. People characterize the republicans saying they are bigots. I think Tea Party Folks and republicans are us. They are out there in the economy trying to make their way forward and under what is happening to them and there is a powerful narrative out there. It is minorities are doing it. They are high jacking government and streets. I know that narrative is wrong but it is powerful. Why is it so powerful. Here we come to the idea of common sense racism. How does it work . For a lot of us it is three factors it is confluence of culture belief stereotypes andthis you see in the media. Things. I want to be careful with this. I want to be clear a friend of mine said to me, yes, thats right our brains think in term of race. Absolutely wrong. Absolutely wrong. Our cognition, our minds think in term of category. We group people quickly and automatically and unconsciously. But which categories we use, thats a product of culture. Right. We dont think necessarily in term of race. We think in term of difference. What is one of the most salient differences in our society . Race. When you put together culture and especially a culture that says minorities are threatening. That cultural constantly being reinforced by conservative politicians and the conservative media. Think of the drum beat of messages being communicated by fox news. When you put together those cultural meanings with an environment that tells us race is real. When i walk through the suburbs theyre overwhelm belie white. When im in cities and its scary. Its minority. When you put those together you get a sense which race is automatic. Its powerful. Its obviously a sense. Its common sense; right . Its hard to get past all of that. Its that common sense operation of race that makes race so powerful in our society and easy for politicians to trigger your coded racial appeal. I think you get to the idea of racism. The use of that racial territory for strategic gain as a politician. I think thats right. We need to think about racism. Racism race is a complicated social phenomena the idea theres only one racism. Thats one mistake. We need to talk about racism. When we talk about people who hear and respond to the whistle by voting for romney. We talk about good people often manipulated in ways themselves do not appreciate. There is remarkable social science people affirming to the appeal dont recognize them as racial. Food stamps, i think a lot of us say, yeah, food stamps youre clearly playing on race. Are a lot of people who dont understand and see nap im telling a story of racism which is a good people being manipulated. But opposite that i want to tell a different story about politicians and the think tank and fox news. I want to tell a story about people who are word smiths. People who understand the register and the power of the term they use, the terms they invent. I want to call this strategic racism. Here is the importance of strategic racism. Strategic racism is the purposeful manipulation of race, racial animosity for ones own end to gain power, to gain votes, to gain status. Here is the core of it, its not really about race. Strategic racism is not really about race. Its not about group hatred. Its about the fiery emotion of hatred or fear or panic. Its not rooted in deepseated animosity. Its rooted in a cold, purposeful, thoughtful calculation of means and ends. If these people thought they could get votes by appealing to some other socially devicive characteristic. They would. If these people thought they could get votes about being honest about their priority. They would be honest. They dont think think that get votes that way. Now they say i want to get elected. How do i get campaign cashes . I cant say elect me. Im going to be defender of the corporate elite. What do i say . Look around to one of the most powerful thing is minorities are out to get you. Its not racially prejudice. What is animating this is strategy. Its exactly because its strategic that it is powerful and quickly adapts. We need to understand that racism is constantly adapting and adaptly precisely because there are people who are strategic racists who are not mod elevated by an mosts but thinking about how they can use racial divisions in society to further their own interest. And this is a question i think is really important for people who want to make a case for a response to what has happened to wreck the middle class. Which is the last part of their title. They want to make a case that people are staying up late at night because they cant pay for child care and put their kids through college, are working three jobs and no Retirement Benefits to speak of all. All the Commonsense Solutions require an active role for government. They do in other countries. They have in our past. How is it that in your analysis race is undermining that actist role for government . Thats a terrific question. Look, the let me answer it this way. You have a campaign between gold water and johnson. Hes continuing to expand the new deal and extend to new rights as a reflection of the civil rights program. How was the Media Program were primarily not open to i want to make sure. Sure. Absolutely. This i. T. Is a very telling history. The new deal arises in response to the Great Depression. It puts together a coalition northern blacks, it involves democrats. In order put the coalition together, there has to be a comprise and the comprise is theres going to be the effective programs to build the middle class we but theyre limited in a way that primarily help whites and also dissolve Certain Program to the state. If they wish, they can use them in a way that limit the restrict the africanamerican and latino to participate. And this is one affirmative action. This was part of the history of the new deal. This begins the change of 1964, but still in 1966, you have Lyndon Johnson representing an expansion of the new deal. Running against gold water who is promised effectively what mitt romney promises in 2012. He loses in a crushing landslide. Except in the deep south. Hes been running on rational appeal. Hes promising hes going to come out in favor of state right. The right to resist integration. Hes been promising hes going respect, quote, freedom of association, which understands as the freedom of Business Owners to exclude africanamerican. In the south, he wins white majority in ten former Confederate States and five states outright. Its a warning bell. What it is warning is conservativism might triumph if it can gift wrapped in racial animosity. Thats one. Two, goldwater is also teaching that racial animosity needs to be coded. State right, freedom of association, these are terms we can understand as racial but which goldwater deny had any racial meaning. They seem like presence. About libertarianism. Fast forward to 1972. In the meantime nixon has been elected in 1968. He wasnt that convinced that racial appeal could get him elected. He avoids it. By 1970 the logic shifted. The number crunchers have spoken its clear that race can be used to divide the new deal coalition. Nixon starts campaigning on a promise to end or slow down integration in the south and start campaigning for law and order. He starts campaigning against, quote, forced buzzing were the issue rather than integration. And he wins in an overwhelming landslide. In 1964, twothirds of whites vote to extend the new deal. In 19 72 twothirds vote to end the new deal when they vote for nixon in conservativism. Did we, as a country, change politically in our orientation toward activists government serving middle class . Or did the policy slip because it came to understand they were voting on the question of race . And what im saying is, the shift that pushes us away from the new deal liberalism and toward the conservative politics is really being driven by race. Now nixon, i want to be clear, nixon was an opportunist both in term of race and public policy. He was actually in the modern republican vein of 68 and 70 and only became conservative when it won him votes. When reagan is elected hes an old time goldwater conservative. Hes going combine coded racial provocation and hostility toward the new deal. And so you can see it in nixon. You can see it coming. But the big shift, the big giveway in term of tax cut, the attack on civil right, the i attack on union and the middle class. That accelerates with reagan 80. And just to be bipartisan. Can you talk about bill clinton . The book . Its important to talk about bill clinton. Because bill clinton raises the largest question. How do the democrats respond . How do they respond . Now, i said that the number crunchers spoke in the 70s by that i meant in part kevin philip a republican demographer. I mean from the democrats. They ran the numbers, too. They said, wow, closely tied to race we might start losing votes bhap should we do . Flee from race. Get away from race. Stop being closely associated with minorities. That idea of distancing the democrat distancing themselves from race develops and is embraced as a route success by bill clinton. Bill clinton is not just going to flee from holding a hes going to make a point to the policy at large that this is a new democrat. This is a new Democratic Party not they are going to be a couple of dramatic instances this. One, bill clinton fly back to arkansas to make sure hes there and oversee the execution of a retarded africanamerican man. No one could say he was soft on crime. Thats one. Another, clinton accepts an invitation to meet with Jesse Jackson and there is a young singer, young rap artist. It becomes clear hes not talking to Jesse Jackson. Hes not talking to the africanamericans in the room. Hes talking to white voters. And saying to white voters. Im not a Jesse Jackson democrat. Im independent of these people. Those are the sort of campaign gestures far more damaging what clinton does in term of policy. Its welfare was a key dog whistle term. Welfare connecting with africanamerican and it was a way for him to say its a new diminishing party and were actually shifting to the right and not beholden to minority anymore. Or bill clinton and the war on crime. Crime is another one of the trove that come out of dog whistle policy and has instructive implication especially minority here. I would like to say if you havent read the new jim crow. She walks through what happens. In the process she indicts bill clinton. He did much more than ronltd Ronald Reagan to boost a war on crime. That shows he was not just tough on time but implication tough on minorities. Right. Bill clinton is a sthoamic of a democratic response who said we cant beat the republicans in terms of this dog whistle politics unless we ourselves beat them at it. We need to adopt it ourselves. And so you see the Democratic Party not just fleeing from race, but itself adopting dog whistle rhetoric. Thats part of the dynamic shifted both parties to the right. Its not enough you adopt the rhetoric. Now you have to follow through on the policy. Thats what we see during the clinton years. So it has been interesting to me to see how much welfare, which you talked about, has been a signature part of republican campaigns during the period of time when welfare barely exists. Right. And when you ask people voters what are their top 30 issues, welfare is not there. But mitt romney spent half of his ad budget on an ad that was, you know, widely recognized to have been false about what president obama was doing on welfare. He was undoing welfare reform. Rick scott campaigned in florida on in florida places with lot of seniors, no state income tax, incredible defamation of wealth from the foreclosure crisis on drug testing welfare recipient. In my mind it says something not about welfare policy, which is rarely going to affect any voter directly. About who government is working for, and who is the threat to my security. And who if im the politician saying my principle goal is to make sure that welfare is tightened im going to work for as i work in government. I think that is absolutely right. I think welfare has welfare has had an incredible staying power as a dog whistle term. You can think back part it was reagan