And to protect us and save us from ourselves so pressed we must be. [inaudible]. I hear that concern. Time is up. How amazing . Thank you. [applause] 1 45, 1 and 2 if you want more. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] next from the vegas valley book festival a panel on the 2016 president ial election. The [inaudible conversations] we are going to get started. [inaudible conversations] okay, we are going to get started, thank you. You have been warned. Before i get started i want to welcome you to the fourteenth annual vegas valley book festival. I would also like to acknowledge the producing partners who produce the funding for southern nevadas celebration of the written, spoken and illustrated word and those partners, the city of Las Vegas Office of cultural affairs, Park County Library district foundation, las vegas Park County Library district, Beverly Rogers and carol carter institute, the local chapter, it now that the humanities and cox communications. I would like to thank the Literary Committee chaired by Jeff Schumacher who is today in the panel. And the logistics committee, writers block, volunteers and authors you are going to hear from today. I m Political Columnist steve sebelius. Libya introduce the people on the panel, this is molly ball, staff writer with the atlantic, she covers west politics. Before that she was with politico, the National Political reporter is there. She was at the university of michigan. Before it that, she she looks familiar to you, she was a political reporter who worked out of the las vegas son. Sheet has been a frequent guest on National Television programs like meet the press, face the nation, and s nbc, and fox news. She is everywhere. She is not afraid to go anywhere and she is a proud graduate of Yale University so welcome, molly ball. [applause] to my immediate left is steven hayward, author and political commentator, ph. D. In american history, claremont graduate school, he is creator and star of a documentary called an Inconvenient Truth or a convenient fiction, a response to al gore, he is not in the original Inconvenient Truth just to be clear about that. He is the author of a two volume biography of president Ronald Reagan, age of reagan, fall of the old liberal order and conservative counterrevolution. He has written books on churchill on leadership, the real jimmy carter, the national review, wall street journal, New York Times and he is with the power line. [applause] at the very end of the table, Michael Green, associate professor of history, has a ph. D. From columbia university, is the author of three books on the u. S. Civil war and most recent book is just this year, nev. History of the silver stage and is that on sale here . Is on sale here. You get a cash discount. Cash only. He writes a column on politics for vegas 7 and he writes segments that you hear on nevada yesterday. He teaches since, in american life, slavery, emancipation and civil rights. Welcome. [applause] we are here to talk about whether or not issues matter in politics, and question whether it is a ever mattered. We have seen the lines between politics and entertainment start to come closer and closer since the first televised election. Today they intersected in the person of donald trump, a person who is currently an entertainer, not a former entertainer but currently an entertainer running for president and acting as republican front runner. And take issue oriented position announces these folks, white paper like Martin Omalley has on his web site. It is your issue, trump is the opposite. I guess you will start there. Have you reached a pursea place where we will see a quantum singularity the swallows the earth because donald trump is running . Anybody on the panel . Yes. All right. Now that we are doomed, and the audience questions . I will throw in the footnote. If you go back to the Nineteenth Century, the rise of popular politics, politics was entertainment, a politician was expected to know how to entertain. If you want to compare debate, lincoln and douglas did three hours a pop. Imagine, there is a fight right now whether the debate can last that long with ten or even people with no moderator. You think trump would say i am going to run that won but instead, know. Is a big argument. Our Attention Spans have a change to. The politician in the Nineteenth Century and a 20th had to know how to be entertaining but at the same time i think we have changed in the process. Think of fdrs line where he said the orson welles there are two great actors in america, you are the other one. Maybe we havent changed at all that much. These days there are too many issues. There is usually a dominant issue or two in most elections cycles but that has been changing over the years. The most interesting thing on the republican side is the top three in the polls, trump, carson and carly fiorina, almost 60 of the current references of republicans running, what is remarkable how about that is none of them held office before. It used to be true of both parties, the dominant factor in president ial cycles going back at least 40 years is the outsider candidate, usually a governor, that is run the democratic side, jimmy carter and bill clinton ran against washington leave and obama ran against washington to a certain extent to which he was a senator but the atmosphere created was i am not part of the rushing to invest. Governors of all is done very well in both parties and some lead this year on the republican side people are saying we are not satisfied with outsiders, we have seen walker and perry flame out, Chris Christie is getting nowhere, and they havent even held office, and maybe that is an infection point. Never elected a non officeholder president , who never held office. Except for generals like eisenhower but being a general is up pretty serious qualification to be president , taft was a serious administrative elite time one was nominated was Wendell Willkie in 1940. Is not implausible they might repeat the Wendell Willkie phenomena in a you will see how that plays out. A couple things to my answer. There is no reason politics shouldnt be entertaining. I think part of the reason politics gets regarded as a dreary civic duty is because we treated that way classwork of political coverage should be boring as you should read it because you have to end take your medicine and i dont believe that. I think it should be interesting, it is a great story. It is a great narrative, great drama, the cast of characters is fascinating and so i dont have a problem with politics being entertaining and it was ever thus to some extent, people have always looked to their leaders to give them some bread and circuses, to enliven their dreary lives. It is all entertainment, we are all trying to fill the minutes before we draw with sums of antidote to boredom, bought the tickets, entertainment, what is the difference . This is a depressing panel. And i would say also that the issues where donald trump has taken positions, what he has done is pointed out the divisions within the Republican Party particularly very well known for his position on immigration but also on entitlement saying he would not cut Social Security, and on trade, being against free trade and the transpacific partnership. He said repositions he has taken that are opposed to the official republican establishment position. The republican governing class in washington is sort of pro immigration reform, the Business Community wants it, internal reform, they are for free trade and those are not popular positions with the American Public so you have the Republican Base saying to its establishment and consultant and governing class, that is not who we want to represent us, we want this utter point of view and you will be difficult to resolve those differences. On the other side of the of political aisle, you have a figure that is the anti trump in the person of Bernie Sanders. At least tells us he wants to talk about nothing but issues, he doesnt want to talk about hillarys dan emails, he doesnt want to talk about his hair. He specifically doesnt want to talk about his hair. He doesnt want to talk about anything but issues and how the income gap is getting wider and how that is unjust and unsustainable and society is not going to go on but yet even in doing that it seems to me he is incredibly entertaining. He entertained a crowd at Liberty University which is not something you would expect a 74yearold jewish socialist to go to a Christian University in virginia and be entertaining, but he held their attention and even got some applause. So do you think that is proof of what you are saying . Politics is entertaining and Bernie Sanders found a way to be entertaining while at the same time trying to be substantive . He is meeting a hunger in the election whether it is hunger for substance, it is a hunger for a certain type of extremism, you have people who are tired of this sort of governing consensus in the 20 in the middle, triangulating, trying to tell people what they want to hear, you have people saying no, we want to go far out to the left wing or the right wing, we want to hear a set of solutions that are not safe, not poll tested, we want to go all the way to socialized medicine and government run college and all the things Barry Sanders is offering and so i do think that it is part of it. Bernie sanders is a passionate politician, a conviction politician who brings a sense of urgency, crisis to what he is saying and hiking that is what people in this country feel. Theres a sense of a anger that people seem happy, seem like theyre going to be fine no matter what happens because of lower revolving door of lobbying and everything else, they want someone who seems to feel this is a crisis and we have got to burn the system down if necessary to solve it. What do you think of that . Bernie sanders, the anti trump but at the same time shares a lot of characteristics with donald trump in that he is entertaining. I am not sure i find it entertaining but i think he is authentic. He does talk about issues instead of his record or his experience. The most amazing the other night was when the missing link file is called him said i have good judgment and a few questions later why did you cast this terrible vote . He was incoherent about it. Sanders doesnt talk about his good judgment for his record, a little about his record but it is always subordinate and connected to his old position on issues it is quite rare in politics. The analytical point conviction politicians usually dont make it across the finish line unless they can bridge the gap with the establishment, that was Ronald Reagans secret to success in 1980 and that is true of obama. It works in both parties. You have got to have a skill to bring both wings of the Party Together and we will see what the democratic establishment favors hillary thinks if he wins some early primaries. Look at sanders, he is the outsider. He has been in congress for 25 years. That is not altogether outside but at the same time he has been an outsider within congress. If you look it his record on guns, vermont is a different kettle of fish and massachusetts. He is going to take positions that helped him get elected. You dont succeed in politics without getting elected and being in position to implement your policies. The other thing is several people without prompting have said to me when they hear Bernie Sanders and turn their backs they think it is larry david. He has a lot to complain about. Entertainment. Kind of entertaining to see this scruffy looking older guy with hair flying in all directions kind of looks like a professor i hesitate to say, he does. There is something entertaining about it even if he is not himself very entertaining, the fun of watching, are you yes, i am. If nominated i will not no. That debate, may be one of the reasons a lot of pundits were saying Hillary Clinton won the debate was because Bernie Sanders was exposed as a politician after all. He has feet of clay. Here on the gun issue you have a product that is made by big corporationss and Bernie Sanders would normally be repelled by big corporations and their products but yet in this case he suddenly calls for consensus or conciliatory approach to guns, we all have to get together at come up with some kind of solution, we shouldnt shout at each other but yet if this product was a drug, pharmaceutical products, financial service, he has perfectly been shouting since the beginning of the campaign. So all of a sudden on guns it is a different story. We found a fault line, a hypocritical fall line with Bernie Sanders. We found a hypocritical fall line with everybody. Years ago there was a senator from georgia whose nickname was the senator from cocacola. 1 2 karen for a while was called the senator from copper, you have to represent the home folks and that is part of the problem talking about outsiders as governor. The u. S. Senator or member of congress has had to cast votes on Major National issues while also doing things for people at home. You face different issues, different votes and it can come back to bite you as it can with Bernie Sanders or any other senator or congressman in the race. That was an interesting moment in the debate the other night. The premise of the panel is due issues matter . One problem in addition to there being too many issues, the format of the debates when you have 11 people is mentioning an issue and stand on platitude. You saw some back and forth, fewer candidates helps but that is the kind of dynamic they ought to try to recreate in these debates but the format is against it. Ive thought it was a very bad moment for Bernie Sanders and if you saw the focus groups, some of his supporters squirmed at that moment because he was sort of making the clinton argument, the argument for meeting people where they are rather than convincing them of the truth and rightness of your own more pure ideological position. I have spoken to Bernie Sanders that he has the answer to everything because his position is popular, he can say this is popular and it is not, the people have seen Corporate Media and when they get the truth they will see the right thing to do. This is the only area and it was clear his only argument for his position was he couldnt get elected if he didnt hold it. It was a politically popular position he had to take to keep getting elected in vermont and for him to be the one, not Hillary Clinton, standing on stage saying we have got to take positions that make us electable was very interesting. And could hurt him a little bit. Most of them are so in the tank for bernie they will ignore any evidence. This may have been the first time people suddenly said my guy who i love on all these other issues of a sudden, wait a minute, you are right, now he is talking in terms of any other issue ever since the campaign began. Views on immigration that didnt come out. I want to ask because of your knowledge of Ronald Reagan. We hear all the time Ronald Reagan has been adopted by at the remove of history by both left and right and people say the same about Ronald Reagan, Ronald Reagan could never get elected in an election today, could never survive the republican primaries. Since you are the expert i want to make sure to ask you before we leave that is true and what would it look like if Ronald Reagan was running today . Is completely untrue. How is it Ronald Reagan couldnt win but the last few nominees have been people who elected reagan, mitt romney, bob dole before that. Something wrong with this picture. The general answer he was an extremely skillful politician and he would do fine in this environment and one of my frustrations is the republicans as iron ore reagan republican and i see no evidence any of them spend five minute studying the range of skills he brought to bear. Just say i am a reagan republican does not make you one. It is appalling to me and i endlessly count these guys dont bees trish regan that way please. Interesting to see the hazing Ronald Reagan would get from the republican primary elected. They nominated moderates in recent years and reagan would seem like a relative moderate. This would not be news to reagan, conservatives complained about him as soon as he was elected, you had the same conservative movement that elevated him attacking him for not being conservative enough as it is he was in office it had to make compromises which he did but amnesty, taxes, all these issues reagan would get a different reception today. It is common in history, lincoln once made a speech by saying you democrats have been feeding off jacksons carcass forever, what have republicans and in turn . Fed off of lincolns carcass. I used to say in class you say the name Ronald Reagan and you can tell who the republicans are and who the democr