America. This is one hour. [applause] before i briefly introduce our guest, i am obliged to tell you, you are not allowed to stay here after the event, you must reline up for the next event. Im also obliged to tell you if you want a signed copy of the conservative sensibility, hed be willing to do so after the conversation. Truly, george will needs no introduction. Pulitzer prizewinning columnist, he has this is the appropriate venue, preached the gospel of conservatism for over half a century. I am delighted to have him in conversation here today. Welcome, george. George thank you, glad to be here. [applause] i understand that austin is ground zero for the conservative party. [laughter] youre absolutely in the right place. Before we get started talking about your excellent book, george, just its been an eventful week. Another in a series of eventful weeks. Can we just have lets address the elephant in the room. Can we have your take on whats happening in washington today and what it portends for americas future . Thats just a small question to begin with. A softball. George my book has 565 pages of text and his name doesnt appear in it. [applause] bill maher asked me why that was so, i said doris day doesnt appear in it either. It is a book about ideas. [laughter] well, youre referring to the question of impeachment and all that. Its very difficult to impeach someone for promise keeping. He promised continuity with his campaign. He promised to continue indifference to constitutional norms and good manners. He has been keeping his promise. So its the rule is, it seems to me that not every Impeachable Offense should be grounds for impeachment proceeding. Nancy pelosi announced this inquiry 406 days before the president ial election. The cure for a bad president ial election is a better president ial election. There are 47 members of the senate who caucus with the democrats. In order to remove him from office, they need 20 republican senators to side with them. If mr. Trump today were to tweet that nine is a prime number, that minneapolis is in idaho and that the sun revolves around the earth, there arent three republican senators who would disagree with him on any of those. So the fact is, hes going to finish his term. Which as a prudential matter makes you wonder what this is about. They can send this to the senate. And it would be terrific fun to watch the republicans squirm when it got there, and theres republic good to be rerived from making them theres public good to be derived from making them take a stand. Impeachment itself if one of the articles of impeachment is the president s refusal to comply with congressional oversight, subpoenas, this would represent the beginning of the reflexing of congressional muscles that have atrophied over the years. So this recalibration of our institutional equilibrium would be another benefit of impeachment. But if you believe as i do that the primary aim should be to make sure the 45th president is succeeded by the 46th on january 20, 2021, then you have to consider whether or not this helps that. And i think it does not. I think it distracts the democrats from talking about what worries americans. Now theres an asterisk over that judgment because the democrats seem to me to want to talk about everything except what the country is worried about. They want to talk about reparations, packing the Supreme Court and all kinds of stuff. This is the 100th anniversary of the 1919 world series. I cant talk very long without talking about baseball. [laughter] it was only a matter of time. George 1919 world series, white sox, heavily favored, lost to the Cincinnati Reds because they was black sox, the scandal of the fixed world series. Watching the democrats debate im reminded of what it must have been like watching the white sox. People said theyre trying to lose. So i think to go off on a foredoomed impeachment tan yent tangent is a mistake. Youve written eloquently through the years about political courage. Where is political courage, republican representative and senators who disagree at heart with the president . Washington is not short of ego. Surely these people are thinking about their legacies. Why are they not dissenting . George fear. The Republican Party today is more homogenous than it has been probably since it was founded in wisconsin in 1854. In 1912, former republican president teddy roosevelt, challenged the incumbent and his friend William Howard taft. This was replicated in the 1940s, dewey republicans against the taft republicans. In the 1960s, the goldwater republicans against the rockefeller republicans. Division has been a constant in the Republican Party, until now. At the 500 day mark of the reagan presidency he had the support of 77 of republicans, at the 500 day mark of the Trump Presidency he has the support of 87 . Theres less dissent in the Republican Party than ever before. Its his party. Which is why the those of us who care about the two party system think what should happen in 2020 is the Republican Party gets obliterated so that the old story about hitting the mule over the forehead with a two by four, it gets its attention and something needs to be dobe to needs to be done to get the republicans attention. Let me move on to your book. It begins in princeton, new jersey, where you earned your ph. D. In the mid 1960s. And you invoke the fourth president , james madison, and the 28th president , Woodrow Wilson, both of whom also spent time in princeton. And you write, my conviction is that properly understood, conservatism is the madisonian persuasion and my melancholy belief is that Woodrow Wilson was the most important single figure in the largely Successful Campaign to convince the nation that madisonian persuasion is an anachronism. Talk about what is madisonian persuasion . George madisonian persuasion, it has three tenets. Is this still broadcasting . Can you all hear is that better now . Thank you. The madisonian persuasion which was the founders persuasion was a belief in natural rights. There are certain rights necessary for the flourishing of creatures like human beings who have a fixed human nature, that human beings are not simply creatures that acquire whatever culture theyre situated in. Second, first come right, then come government. Most important word in the declaration of independence is secure. All men are created with certain inalienable rights and the government secures those rights. The primary function of government is not to give us rights, but secures those. Ights and third, to make the government Strong Enough to protect those right but not so strong as to threaten them we need a separation of powers. This checks and balances will produce an institutional equilibrium. So we dont count on virtue now leaders but institutional restraints. The rival relationship between the branches. The great princeton class of 1879 said it was all right back then when there were only four million americans and 80 of them lived on the fringe of the Atlantic Coast within 20 miles of atlantic tidewater. But madison and wilson said were a great united country. Woven together with steel rails and copper wires. What we need now is an efficient government, a strong and nimble government, that was one of his favorite adjectives to apply to the government. And at the heart of that there must be a strong president who can be emancipated from the separation of powers, interpreting the mood of the country, marginalizing congress. Whats remarkable about Woodrow Wilson and subsequent progressives was a, how forthright they were in rejecting the founders premises and how remarkably successful they have been. The principal monument to their success is the modern presidency. For years conservatives believed what i still believe which is congressional supremacy. They recognized that the growth of the state had been teddy roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson. And therefore feared executive power. Then republicans had the heady experience of Ronald Reagan as president. And they too fell in love with executive power. I think many of my progressive friends are rethinking the romance of executive power in the current context. Which is there are some good things that are going to come out of this. One of them is the revival of congressional institutional pride that is overdue. When Franklin Roosevelt delivered shortly after his inauguration his first fireside chat, he began with two words that dont appear in the transcript as it is at the library at hyde park. The two words were, my friends. Now, were so used to this fake intimacy we have with the chief executive of the United States that no one today is startled by that, weve after all had a president who said i feel your pain which of course he didnt do. No one feel others peoples pains. But never mind. Some of us dont want the president to be our friend. We want the president to do what the rather spare article ii of the constitution says theyre to do which is take care that the laws are faithfully executed. That is enough. Dont be our friends, dont be the national pastor. Dont be our moral guide or tutor or auditor. Just get on with the business of running one of the three branches of one of our many governments. Get the presidency out of the way. I think the senator from colorado is coming to this festival. He should be nominated, i refer to his recent tweet he said nominate me an youll get a president you wont have to think about for weeks at a time. [laughter] i want to go back to present day. Why was the nation so receptive to Woodrow Wilsons change of course early in the 20th century . George almost always there almost always is a populist dimension to progressivism. Ideahe populism was in the that the president would be as Andrew Jackson said, the only man elected purely by the entire American People and therefore he was above the separation of powers. He was above the checks an d balances. It was the vox populi essence of populism. It was popular with people to have a president say, you are virtuous and i am the vessel into which your virtue is poured , and therefore president ialcentric, the essence of progressivism, appealed to large numbers of people. Yet no one ever got went broke praising the virtue of the American People. Why has congress subordinated itself . The president president s of both parties have been given by congresses of both parties extraordinary discretion. Partly because there are only 535 members of the two houses of congress. And has been for many years. In the senate since the alaska and hawaii joined the union. But in that time since we began had 535 members, the business of government, the business of government, has increased probably 20fold. There is now nothing thats not the federal governments business. So if youre a, going to stick your 10 thumbs into everything as congress is going to do, and if you want to get reelected, you want to make these interventions in American Society but not be really responsible for them, instead of passing laws you pass you say we shall have a clean environment. You in the bureaucracy fill in the details. We shall have quality education. You in the Education Department and elsewhere write the rules. If you walk into senator mike lee of utahs office you see two stacks of paper. One is about that tall. Its what Congress Passed in a recent session. The other stack is eight feet high, it is the rules and regulations churned out that is the actual legislating. If the Supreme Court were doing its duty and one of the arguments in my book is the courts, far from being not deferential enough have been too deferential, if the Supreme Court were doing its duty it would enforce the nondelegation doctrine. As john locke said in his second legislatures may create law they may not create other legislators. What congress has essentially done to avoid responsibility and to avoid the nasty work of actually legislating, congress has created a million or so legislators in the federal bureaucracy. Youre alluding to and have written in the book that america has become an Administrative State. You write, trying to restrain the modern executive, which is the motor of the Administrative State by depending on the madisonian architecture of checks and balances, seems increasingly akin to lassoing a locomotive with a cobweb. Why has it gotten so out of control . George because st. James, im a worshipper of james madison. James madison made one huge mistake. He assumed that, well, as he said in federalist 51, he said you see throughout our system the process of supplying by opposite and rival interests the defect of better motives. The house against the senate, the congress against the executive, the refereeing judicial supervision over our democracy by the judicial branch, madison assumed that institutional pride and selfinterest would be Strong Enough to keep this equilibrium. He was wrong. Turns out that Congress Today is filled with people who just want to be there. It is an old saying in politics, some people are in politics to be something. Other people are in politics to do something. The latter group is much smaller. You ask about Congress Congress like the legal profession, like dentistry, like teaching, we all live under the tyranny of the bellshaped curve. A few members over here are god awful. A few members are extraordinary. The vast majority of dentists, lawyers, journalists, columnists are mediocre. And mediocrity in congress produces docility, marginalization, and the consequent swollen presidency were now living with. I do not want to seem as though im picking on just this president. Because this has been growing for many years. Kamla harris is im not picking on her particularly, shes like a lot of them. She said the other day, if im elected president , ill give congress 100 days to pass gun control measures that i approve of. If not, i will then do it by executive order. Well, thats not the cure for the lawlessness were living with today. You mentioned that donald trump is conspicuously absent from this book. Im wondering how the party that once represented conservatism can drift so discernably toward authoritarianism . George im not sure theyre authoritarians. People say donald trump is a tyrant. No. Tyrants invade poland. Tyrants annex the sudetanland. This tyrant cant even get his own choices on the Federal Reserve board of governors. [laughter] tyranny is not what were looking at here. Were looking at abuse of power. Were looking at the again, the disruption of our institutional architecture. But this is not what tyranny looks like. We have seen tyranny in this century. I was just in hong kong. They knew what tyranny looks like. Im sorry. Centralization of power is a hallmark of authoritarianism. Not necessarily tyrannical actions. George quite right. Madison said the definition of tyranny is the legislative, executive and judicial power in one set of hands. And that were approaching. But why did we line up as an electorate behind somebody who so clearly does not represent the conservative values we associate with republicans . George the Republican Party is full again, the bellshaped curve, people who are careerists first and conservatives second. Beyond that, political scientists for 60 years have been noting a widening gap between the rhetorical and the actual americans and this is particularly true among conservatives. Americans talk like jeffersonians, that government is best that governs least. They insist on being governed by hamiltonians, by a large, omni omniprovident welfare state. Conservatives talked if years about reining in entitlement programs and all the rest. Here we are in 2019, running a trillion dollar budget deficit at full employment, more than full employment, six million unfilled jobs. At 2 growth. Thats going to be really stimulating. When the next recession begins and a trillion dollar deficit and essentially zero Interest Rate so the fed has no arrows in its quiver to fight it, leaving that aside, my belief is that republicans came up against the cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance is a fancy way of saying, people say with absolute sincerity two incompatible things. Republicans have said for years they believe in frugality and balanced budgets and the rest. Turns out they dont. One of the reasons that economics is one of the few academic fields thats moved to the right in the last 60 or 70 years is that everyone knows, everyone knows, that free trade is a good thing. Trump came in and they said we believe in free trade. He said no you dont. They said ok, we dont. [laughter] my belief is that the american Political Class for all the talk about discord in our country and god knows its real enough, but i believe the Political Class from Elizabeth Warren to ted cruz is more united by class interest than it is divided by ideology. And the class interest is that everyone from warren to cruz has a permanent powerful incentive to run huge deficits. Because all that means is youre giving the American People a dollars worth of government and charging them 80 cent for it. The public loves it. The 20 cents that will be paid later is fobbed off on the unborn, unconsenting future generations. Everybody is happy as we go on doing. This. But at the end of the day its demoralizing. And what weve now in our trillion dollar deficits an with the current president , the republicans are facetoface with the fact that none of them have believed a word theyve been saying for 40 years. Which president of your lifetime most closely approximates the conservatism you espouse . George it wont surprise you when i say Ronald Reagan who was a friend as well as and i got into a world of trouble for helping him prepare for his 1980 debate with jimmy carter. But beyond that id say Dwight Eisenhower who, one of the most underrated figures in american history. A superb president. Who knew the advantages, as did Ronald Reagan, of being underestimated. Let me challenge both, starting with reagan. An intrinsic part of conservatism is fiscal prudence. Under the Reagan Administration we saw a dramatic increase in the size of government. Can you be a true conservative and grow government that dramatically . George its problematic. Ronald reagans difference was not so much what the new deal had done, the new deal built a basic social safety net. His objection was what happened in 1965 through 1968. The Great Society. Wherein government went beyond the provision of basic safety net to micromanaging society. Deciding what where we should live, what we should think, etc. Reagan,ak that typified its interesting because between 1938 when Franklin Roosevelt, if our progressive friends were paying attention they should think about this. In 1938, back up one year, 1937, after he wins reelection. Franklin roosevelt said the madisonian architecture is wrong. The three branches of government should be like three horses in tandem all working together not write a rivalist institutions. And the Supreme Court needs to be put in harness. So he said lets pack the Supreme Court. Well. There was a rebellion in congress. A rebellion in his own party. He set out to purge from the Democratic Party those in congress who had opposed his packg plan. All the people he tried to purge got reelected. And in the process he lost his liberal legislative majority. Between 1938 and 1965, there was a coalition of conservative democrats and republicans prevented liberal legislative majorities then. When my man barry went down to flaming defeat losing 44 states, swept in such an enormous cohort of democrats into congress that for two years Lyndon Johnson could do whatever he wanted. And for two years, congress had its way. An enormous snapback began in 1966, and in 1968 conservative republicans won four of five and five of seven president ial elections. So. What the Great Society did was kindle a Great American debate about the proper scope and actual competence of government. A debate were still in the midst of. It seems to me that the demagogue, the modern democrat demigod of the modern Democratic Party is john f. Kennedy and the modern democrat demigod of the Republican Party is Ronald Reagan. But theres a lot of misconceptions about both of those, theyve been distorted. Whats the greatest misconception we now have about Ronald Reagan . George the greatest misperception has been somewhat dispelled but its that he was an affable, unreflective man. Then martin anderson, former aide, and his wife published Ronald Reagans letters. People saw an entirely different reagan. If youre a president ial scholar you knew that president ial reputations are like sine wave they come and go. Reagans has been on the upswing because people realized that a, he had an agenda that was rooted in considerable reflection. Beyond that, he understood the economy of leadership. Dont try to do everything. Have three good, big things you want to do say what they are. Say it over and over again. Focus on them. And youll be surprised what you get done. You are one of our great raconteurs, whats your favorite story of Ronald Reagan. . George it is a personal moment. I thought he got gorbachev wrong. And that he was way out over his skis on detente and wrote as such. One day my phone rings in my office and its Ronald Reagan, he said, george, im not reading you with as much pleasure as i used to. [laughter] i said, mr. President , im not enjoying watching you be president as much as i used to. And he laughed and said come on down lets talk about it. Which is the kind of guy he was. So i went down, we had a talk. Agreed to disagree. I suppose thats my favorite one. I know this is a stretch but which party most current party, democrat or republican, most approximates the conservatism you believe in . George conservatism today is a persuasion without a party. Its an orphan. In a drafty, chilly world. There is no party for it now. Im a whig. [laughter] a henry clay type. Im going to change that. Ill tell you how. There is this wonderful story told of Margaret Thatcher after shed been elected head of the Parliamentary Party but before she was prime minister. Shes meeting with members and one of them is nattering on and infuriating her by talking about the glories of sent rhythm and transcending political philosophy and all the rest. Finally exasperated she reaches into her capacious pocketbook, pulls out hayeks constitution of liberty, slams it down on the table and said, this is what we believe. My vision of the future is that someday an american president is going to pick up the conservative sensibility, slam it on the president ial desk and say this is what we believe. Until that great dawn, conservatism is homeless and shouldnt pretend otherwise. Do you see a return to conservatism in your lifetime . George im 78. So my lifetime has a short horizon. In the next two generations . George i dont know. Very clearly, some of the rising stars of the Republican Party think trump is onto something. Populism which i believe is everything that conservatism isnt, populism is here to stay. Im thinking of tom cotton, senator holly of missouri. Populism, it is antimadisonian. Madison said, democracy is our system. Majorities are going to rule. But therefore care must be taken that majority opinion is filtered and refined through representative institutions and through procedures that slow it down and give it time to mellow and take cognizance of realities. Populism says what we want is direct translation of public passion into public policy. You want to see it . Look at brexit. Thats what happened. When we sent them 50 destroyers in the deal in 1940, we should have stuffed them with the collected works of james madison. So that they would have seen the folly of that. If populism is antithetical to conservatism, what can a conservative do to overcome it . George well, i write books. Point out the error of our ways. Point out the wisdom of the founding. Point out the fact that when you depart from what madison, wonderful phrase, when you mitigatedm what democracy, wonderful phrase, you get excess, you get donald trump , you get huey long. You get excess. Wretched excess. If republicans are lining up behind donald trump because of fear, why are why is the electorate become more populist . More nativist . George partly because populism is flattering. Populism says, vox populii, vox dei, the voice of the people, the voice of god. People are wise, temperate, informed. Its all nonsense of course. But extremely flattering. People are impatient. The madisonian system makes it hard to move the government. When the founders went to philadelphia in the summer of 1787, they did not go to devise an efficient government. The idea would have horrified them. They wanned a safe government. To which end they created three branches of government, two branches of the legislative branch, each with its own elected constituencies. Veto overrides, judicial review. Supermajorities. All kinds of ways to slow it down. I, however, cannot think of anything that the American People have wanted intensely and protractedly that they did not get. We talk about, oh, theres gridlock in washington. Nothing is getting done. Barack Obamas Administration is said to be a case in point. Doddfrank was the most comprehensive financial reform since the 1930s. The Affordable Care act was the largest expansion of the entitlement state since 1965. Thats not trivial. Things do get done in washington. But its hard. And its supposed to be. You relate a startling statistic in this book. You said in 1964, 72 of the American People had faith in government, trust in government, to do the right thing most of the time. That number has declined precipitously to 20 in the book. You mentioned earlier its even lower, 17 . Why have we seen george 17 . Why have we seen such a precipitous slide . Why is our faith and trust in government so bad . George because government has, a, undertaken a great many projects it does not know how to do. It has decided that it can regulate behavior from the light bulbs we use to the water that flows through our shower heads. Through the how we choose our schools. And people are not happy with the results. Government has, you know, American People would like government to deliver the mail, defend the shores, fix the roads and get out of the way. Government does none those things including getting out of the way. Do you believe in american exceptionalism . George i do, in this sense. I do not believe that america is immune because of broad oceans and placid neighbors from some of the terrors and pathologies that have afflicted democratic governments around the world. I do believe in american exceptionalism in this extent. We were as de tocqueville said, born free. In the sense that we did not have a feudal past. Hence we did not have an entrenched aristocracy, hence we did not have an established church. We had an exceptional revolution, one that did not try to deliver happiness but set people free to pursue happiness as they individually defined it. We have an exceptional constitution in that it does not say what the government must do for us but what the government may not do to us. In that sense, i think were exceptional and have been for these reasons. Largely immune to the modern pessimism that says human beings lack effective agency. That human beings are the playthings of vast impersonal forces. Americans have an exceptionally lively saving faith in human agency. You write about conservatism without theism. What do you mean by that . [laughter] george im the son of a professor of philosophy at the university of illinois whose father was a lutheran minister , and my father as a young boy used to sit outside pastor wills study listening to the pastor and some of his more reflective congregants wrestle with the problem of reconciling the doctrine of grace and free will. That turned my father into a philosopher. I have said that im an amiable lowvoltage atheist. Im married to a ferocious presbyterian. [laughter] i just dont need that explanation. It seems to me, and this gets to the heart of what the conservative sensibility is. I think the bible reduced to one sentence is, god created man an d woman and promptly lost control of events. [laughter] the conservative sensibility finds the absence of control exhilarating. Its fun. Thats why conservatives like the spontaneous order of a market society. The fecundity of freedom, the constant surprise. Governments, the American Society is 327 Million People making billions of decisions a day. Markets generating information. Going off in odd directions. Some of us find that wonnerful. That the absence of control, spontaneous order, i mean, my two heroes are hume and 2,000 years before that, lucretius. Lucretius said not everything that works is planned. Unplanned order is part of life. Thats the conservative sensibility. Well open up the mics to questions after the next couple of questions. I dont know where your microphones are but just in a few minutes well take questions. You mentioned your ancient heroes, george, but one of your modern heroes is the person to whom you dedicated this book, Barry Goldwater. Where would Barry Goldwater be today . Would there be a place in politics for Barry Goldwater today . George Barry Goldwater had a clear disciple, senator jeff flake of arizona, who had been head of the goldwater institute, a wonderful, statebased think tank. He wrote a book called the conscience of a conservative, which was the title of barrys book, and hes out of politics because he offended the president. I dont think so. Barry was a cheerful malcontent and he proved that that adjective and noun go together. You can be a malcontent and cheerful about it. I like to think i am. I think Barry Goldwater, some people say he lost the 1964 election merely because he lost 44 states. I say he won, it just took 16 years to count the votes. You mentioned the conscience of conservative, Barry Goldwaters book, it seems to me you are the conscience of conservatism today. Who would you anoint to carry on that responsibility . George i dont know. Is there anyone out there who you think has the ability to wage a conservative movement successfully . George im a little cross with friend, ben sasse, from nebraska who endorsed mr. Trump. Who the endorsed him. Which then probably tchilled probably killed the primary challenge. Ben is better than that. There are a number of senators, republican senators, who are trying to claw back congressional power. Senator portman of ohio. Toomey of pennsylvania, particularly with regard to trade. The idea that a president can impose tariffs, which are taxes, paid by americans, collected at the border. Unilaterally. Is an outrage. Theres some there. But i would be kidding myself and you if i told you there was a plucky stout cohort in the Republican Party just waiting to get back to the true faith. If youre a republican and lined up behind donald trump because of political pragmatism as was the case it seems with ben sasse, do you think that irrevocably taints you and future, or do you think you can come back after we aside and trump perhaps move to another era . George what do you say . Oops . [laughter] i took little detour but i didnt mean it . What do you say . Rightoes the religious say down the road when the whole point of the religious right was to say character matters. . What do they say . Not every wrong turn is recoverable. Well take your questions for george will. First question. George, as you cant get too far without talking about baseball and were coming to the end of another season, yet it takes a full month for them to resolve the world series. One full month after the end of the regular season. That is having some detrimental impact on the game . George it does have the detrimental impact on the teams that play an extra month, they have trouble repeating. Youre wearing an astros hat. The astros are unreasonably good. As a Firm Believer in meritocracy, one of the reasons i love baseball is that after 162 games, you are your record. Ofeball is the severest meritocracys, because 162 games reveals everything. You have to get past the yankees and the twins, who have hit 300 home run this is year. Then you have to get past the dodgers. October is fun. [laughter] could you share your thoughts about populism with buckleys statement, and i am paraphrasing, that he would rather be governed by the first 1,000 names in the boston phone book rather than the combined faculty of harvard and yale . George i think bill was committing the fallacy of the false alternative. Id like to be governed neither by the harvard faculty or the first thousand names in the telephone directory. There was, and youre right to point out that bill was flirting with populism. Conservatives have done that get over it. Is my view. Its an astute question. Thank you, mr. Will, for your talk. The conservatives have a long tradition of supporting a Strong Military and American Leadership around the world. How do you make the case to people in Middle America who have been hurt by trade deals and are weary of war that American Leadership is necessary to the american way of life . Thank you. George theres two questions packed into your question. One is, trade, it seems to me has nothing do with this. The people are going to be hurt by free trade and society owes them assistance because society as a whole is a huge beneficiary of free trade. Which has produced the great enrichment of the last 240 years. Foreign policy clearly government overreaching is not confined in domestic policy. The war in iraq, which was the worst Foreign Policy mistake in american history, i say that partly because i think weve already paid only 20 of the cost that will eventually result from that, resulted from the belief that governments can do things we dont know how to do. Theres a whole chapter in my book on this Foreign Policy dilemma. Thats nation building. The freedom agenda of george w. Bush. I say in the book, its a little bit like, at spring training you go to the manager of a Baseball Team and he will say, im two players away from the world series. Are ruth and they gehrig. Iraq was just four people away from success. Unfortunately, they were george washington, a unifying leader for the country. James madison, a genius of constitutional architecture for getting hostile factions to live together. John marshall who could construe a founding document. And Alexander Hamilton who could assemble a modern economy. Why have we been seduced by the hubris of nation building . George partly its built into our national d. N. A. Our declaration of independence is universal. These are selfevident truths, that is true to all human beings whose minds are not clouded by superstition or ignorance. So there is a messianic temptation built into our national d. N. A. That was part of it. Second, we won the cold war. There was that heavy end of history moment. Third, we had these stunning new munitions came along at exactly that time. Im thinking laser guided bombs. Second world war, you drop fleets of bombers would drop a bazillion bombs in the hopes of hitting a factory. Now you have a laser. And the technology and the ideology and the historical moment all converged to create a tremendous hubris. Is american democracy importable . Exportable, i should say. George exportable, no. But during this run up to the war, george bush and tony blair, his great ally, said it is cultural condescension, they took that phrase from Ronald Reagan, that it is cultural condescension to say that some people are not ready for democracy. It may be condescension, its also true. That doesnt mean there are cohorts of people who are incapable of democracy. Its not that muslims are inherently unsuited or anything like that. Of the social soil United States in the 18th century that produced the 55 people who went to our Constitutional Convention was a unique social soil. The social soil of iraq was not like that. So care must be taken. Next question for george will. Yes, mr. Will, thank you for joining us today. I wanted to ask, do you think at conservatism would be better served if we changed the way we elect officials to actually follow the madison opinion about multiplying factions, that way you have less parties and two have multiple parties . Thank you. George thats a fair question. The twoparty system is not working well right now but as long as we have the winnertakeall allocation of electoral votes by states which we have in all but maine and nebraska, and they do it by congressional district, as long as we have that were going to have two parties. Because Texan Ross Perot got the popular and zero electoral votes. Two parties in the United States third parties in the United States have been like wasps, they sting and die. Successful third parties have four things in common. The only successful thirdparty is the Republican Party which was the third party when the whigs still existed. But successful third parties have three things. They have a reasonable ways, if vivid personality, any burning single issue. George wallace is the classics. Xample long as we have winner take all allocation of electoral votes we have a binary choice. Said, third parties can perform a function. If they decide to run the libertarian candidate, he would. E all 50 balance ballots. Bill weld and mark sanford are two interesting people. Quixoticic moment tilting at the windmill of donald trump. And are both serious people the bill weld is funny, charming, intelligent, experienced, a twoterm governor. So there are little ripples. You talked about the different influences of the Republican Party through time. You had to have to versus goldwater. You had reagan versus bush. And you mentioned the homogenization of the Republican Party. Why isnt there more creative dissension of the party such that another philosophy could prevail . Because it is fatal at this point. Fatal to careers. Send if weve more to had term limits. Committed people were restricted to six terms of the house, two terms in the senate. If people did not go into politics thinking they would spend their lives there. They would think, as the saying goes about the next generation and not the next election. I wrote a wonderful book on term limits read by dozens. [laughter] it had the effect most of my books read that had books had. I am a believer in term limits, but it is not happening. We have time for one more question. You mentioned earlier it will be hard for republicans to say sorry, we did not mean that when we took that the tour. But we do have a historical example which is the nixon experience. In 1974, republicans were coming out in full throated support of nixon. Suddenly, things turned and republicans did not have a full purge. I wonder if you can talk through that and say how you see that model not apply now. What are the fundamental differences within the party and the country . It is a good question. It is that nixons offenses were surreptitious. His offenses were quite literally done in the dead of june, itthe 17th of was nighttime in the Watergate Office building. Wasns taping system surreptitious. Out,the evidence trickled the system worked perfectly. The journalism worked, the courts worked. When it worked, it produced the evidence and a delegation headed i very goldwater by Barry Goldwater said that the jig is up, you are leaving, goodbye. Makesfference and what trump more enduring is that this is not surreptitious. This is a new style. Systematic coarsening of american life. You cant unring these spells, bells, younsay cant unsay these things. The president has been quoted ,pprovingly the north korea calling the Vice President of the United States a low iq idiot. That kind of discourse is going to take much longer to recover from van did nixons surreptitious revealed and punishment. The conservative sensibility. The conservative beacon is george weld. Thank you. [applause] do you want to say a few words . The book would make wonderful christmas cards. [indistinct chatter] now, a conversation with former National Security advisor susan rice. She talks about her new book tough love my story of the things we are fighting for. Some of her experiences in the obama white house, the current state of affairs, as well as President Trump and ukraine. This is about one hour
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