Good evening. Welcome. Happy new year. Im matthew spalding. Welcome to the allen b. Kirby campus. Our event is cosponsor idbid real clear politics. And i recognize david, in the back, there he is. The pressurer and John Mcintyre who is with us here as well. Our discussion deals with a collection of essays med on the 35th anniversary of the new cite tieran ming. The title of the book is vox poply, the perils of populism. It means the voice of the people. The old adage, the voice of the people is the voice of god, which was often times used in history to attack monarchs and attack people who said such nonsense. The idea of populism is also not new to america. One thinks of will William Jennings bryan, roosevelts, Andrew Jackson, Ronald Reagan more recently. Not surprising in a regime of popular consent based on human equality. Theres always been a tension between popular government and constitutional government. That sense of the potential of populist demagogues. Hence, promises and peril. So, populism abounds from ancient rome to brexit england, from Bernie Sanders to donald trump elected president as a populist vote. The speakers will speak four or five minutes. And well have discussion. Well be join by Michael Anton put will start and our first speaker is roger kimball. Editor and publisher of the new cite tier cite tieron. And i would like to draw your attention to broad sites publishly on numerous topics, including one by our good friend, Molly Hemingway on trump and the media, roger, please state us out. Theres been no term that populism. Its a word in search of a definition. For many people, populism is like the term fascism. The redder to cal weapon whose very lack of semantic presomethings precision is part of its attraction because anything you dont like can be effectively impugn evidence you can deemploy the p ford or the p word and get it to stick. What does populism mean . 99 times another of 100 it meanly little more than i dont like this person or policy. Notice the term racism, has a similar, allpurpose, content free aura of save that for another day. Thinking about the term populism reminds us of the curious fact that certain words accumulate a nimbus of positive associations while others sell man tick semantically inknock cause have a portfolio of bad feeling. So, for example, consider two very different careers of the terms, democracy on the one hand and populism on the other hand. Democracy is a word that produces pleasant vibe operations. People veal good about themes when they use the word democracy, but it is unlying with populism. At fir blush this should seem quite odd because the word populism occupies a semantic space very close to democracy. Democracy means what . It means ruled by the people. Populism, at least according to the American Heritage dictionary, describes, quote, political philosophy directed to the needs of the Common People and advancing a more he cannible distribution of wealth and power. Just the kinds of things the people, the democs, were they to rule, would seek. But the fact that populism is ambivalent the fact it that populism is at with leapt at best. Times it is true a care charismatic figure can survive and illuminate. Bernie sanders accomplished this trick. Always my impression that in this case the term populist was addressed by sack desor his followers than by his rivals, and the media, and their effort to establish sanders in the publics mine as one of the many examples of not hillary, who herself was presumed to be popular but not populist. Now, there are at least two sides to the negative association under which the term populist struggles. One hand its the issue of demagoguery. Some say populist and demagogue are synonyms. Pericles was described as a demagogue, popular leader. Its said to forsake reason and moderation in order to stir the dark passions of the semi literal and spiritually unelevated populist. The kind of people who eat mcdonalds hamburgers and that sort of thing. Neared theirs fertile soil on which they work. Looking at the commentary on brexit, the campaign in the first use of the Trump Administration or last summers election in france will have noted this. Populism that is to say, is wielded less as a descriptive than a delegitimizing term. Success any charge someone with populist sympathy and you get free for nothing, both the imputation of demagoguery some what was derided as a deplorable and irredeemable cohort. The element of existential dedepreciation is almost palpable. Calling populist sympathies could delegitimize. When i was in london in june of 2015 to cover the brexit vote, nearly everyone i met was a remainder. The higher up the income and class scale you went, to the more likely you would be in favor of brittons remaining in the european join and the more poignant would argue in favor of brexit. The bricks yeteers were said to be angry, fearful, and racist, and then they moved that program to the United States a little while later. Six the people who were for brexit really werent. For them brexit was a simple question, who rules . Is the ultimate source of british sovereignty parliament as it had been for centuries or brussels . Seat of the European Union if think the iranian people are just now conjuring a similar question. Who rules in iran . The theocratic shia fundamental list mullahs or the iranian people . Well find out. Im con fibsed the issue of sovereignty, what we might call the location of sovereignty, has played a very large role in the rise of the phenomenon we describe as populism. Both in the United States and elsewhere. In this country the question of sovereignty, of who governs, stands behind the rebellion against the Political Correctness of our times, and the moral meddlesomeness that are disfiguring features of our increasingly bureaucratic society. The smothering blanket of regulatory excess has had a wide range of practical and economic effects, stifling entrepreneurship and making any sort of productive innovation difficult. But perhaps its deepest effects are spiritual and psychological. The many assaults against free speech on college campuses, demand for safe spaces, and trigger warnings, are part of this dictatorship of Political Correctness. One of the main points concern what he called the psychological change, the alteration of the character of the people that extensive government control brought in its wake. The alteration involved the process of soften innovation, and in exchange of the challenges of liberty and selfreliance for the coddling missouri dependence. In his 1770 essay, thoughts on the cause of the present discontent, edmund burk criticized the court of george iii by establishing by svelte what amounted 0 a new regime of Royal Prerogative and influence peddling. George and his court injuries main the appearance of parliamentary sprem hsu si but a closer look showed the system was corrupt. I was soon stanford, burk wrote, that the forms of a free and the ends of an arbitrary government, were things not altogether incompatable. That discovery stands behind the growth of the Administrative State in our society. Under the cloak of democratic institutions, it is essentially undemocratic activities pursue an expansionist agenda that threatens liberty in the most comprehensive way, by circumventing the law. At the same time, however, a growing recognition of totalitarian goal offed the Administrative State have caused a populist uprising here and in europe. Populist is one word for theirs phenomenon, affirmation of sovereignty, underwritten by a passion for freedom, is another and possibly more accurate term. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is [applause] we allow approval. Thank you. Our next speaker is james piereson. The senior fellow at manhattan institute. He authored shatters consensus, the rise and decline of americas post world war political order, and also hassen essay in the january issue of the new criterion. I appreciate it, matthew, and thank you, roger, for assembling this. My essay in this volume is about James Madison, and it addresses the claim made by critics that donald trump is a threat to the constitution. And i like very much to hear many critics now praising the separation of powers and the checks and balances in the u. S. Constitution because typically they have not liked those aspects of the constitution. Basically the theme of this paper is that theres little chance that donald trump is going to run through the u. S. Constitution with its various checks and balances. The constitution was drafted by James Madison to deal expressly with a situation like donald trump, and to tie him down in a quagmire of conflicting political pressures from the congress, to the various branches of government, and its even more of a problem today because the government establishment is so huge. This measure did not exist in madisons time until the post war period. We have not only the checks and balances in the storks the elections and we have this large establishment to check donald trump. Now, those who claim that donald trump is going to run roughshod over the constitution take the view that the constitution engraves their policy preferences. And since donald trump speaker takens different preferences this is terrible. The constitution is going to die. The constitution does not engrave anyones policy preferences. Its enshrines a process and a series of rightses, but none of the policy preferences any of the groups hold today, so, i suggest in this essay that all this is badly overblown. The constitution is going to survive donald trump without any difficulty. I do avert at the end to one of James Madisons fears, which i that the American Republic is fur greater threat not from a populist, because it was designed to check a populist, but from disintegration. In his some of his last hers and speech hes and interviews, James Madison was concern about the fate of the union, and in his last letter, which was published after his death, he made a statement that his greaters wish is that the union be preserved and that anyone who would divide the union is similar to a serpent in the garden of eden. Obviously he was thinking of the slavery issue. New, there is a good question as to what kind of a state mad science and his contemporaries envisioned for the United States. Dont believe they envisioned a nation state. Now, if you think about federalist number 10, where madison articulates a theory of the extended republic, he is talking bat policy in which the country is divided into countless different groups, with different points of view and different interests, and its going to be difficult for them to agree on anything, and if they cant agree on something, if they can reach consensus, that will be okay, because its going to be to difficult to achieve that consensus. You can contrast that with the point of view from france at roughly the same time, where the revolutionaries talked about the people was a united front, and democracy is the expression of the people. We need to identify the general will of the people as coherent and united conception of a nation. So, of you look at these two polls, france represents the paradigm of a nation state in the revolution, and the United States represents Something Different. Now, we talk about it as a republic but what was he imagining . Well, the images of the state at that time were not very wide. There is, of course, the idea of the empire. That was the dominant view of the state at the time, an empire. Jefferson called his vision of the United States an empire of liberty, and when the United States acquired the louisiana purchase, jefferson didnt seem to care if the New Territories were organized within the United States or they were organized aspirate states so long as they were republics. He envisioned an empire on the continent, not necessarily a nation state, with a united people. Now, of course, they talk more about union. Union was the idea. Union of the states. Thus delved a sacred view, sacred image as time went on. Daniel webster talk about that and Abraham Lincoln talked about that. The United States is fortunatelied into a nation state as a conference of three wars that took place between 1860 and 1945. Those events were communal events. Everyone participated. Everyone sacrificed, and out of those events we created a nation state of a kind of united people. And Abraham Lincoln speck about this, fdr spoke about this. Itself one were to look at the developments taking place since world war , unone can see an attenuation of the american nation state. The american nation state was astem september belled under great stress and with great difficulty, and through the course of these events, the United States, as a nation state, developed a heroic image of itself. The pilgrims camer to escape religious persecution, settled the wilderness, built schools and colleges. We have a revolution, created a constitution, acquire a continent, settle the continent, fight a civil war ask destroy slavery. Intervene in european wars and saves them froms until we are the great super pour in the world. The heroic version of the american nation. All being tan apart as we now from various sources, what is happening on the college campus, the idea that this spire enterprise is a negative enterprise. We oppress the indians and oppress minority groups and women, destroyed the environment. We did all these terrible things. Thats counternarrative of the american nation. So, the United States, i would say, some echoing madison, is beginning more and more to look less like a nation state more and like an empire with a powerful administrative sentence, an attenuated relationship to all the groups across the country. Nothing uniting these groups, multicultural groups, many languages, open borders. Begins to look a lot like the empires that fell across europe in the 20th century. Now, we have lived through a century in which empires have collapsed and disintegritied. Thats the story of the 20th 20th center, from the austrian empire and the Ottoman Empire and the British Empire and the soviet empire. Theyre disintegrating. Donald trump, i would say, was elected to try to somehow reconstitute this nation state against the centrifugal forces that its now encountering. Is this something that can be accomplished . Its going to be extremely difficult, i think, but i think thats what it represents. Im not sure that donald trump has articulated this question all that well. But that is somehow how i interpret it, and for that reason i wish him well. But i think its going to be a difficult enterprise to bring off for a lot of reasons. Thank you, jim. [applause] our commentator is david azerrad. The director of the Beacon Center for principles and politic, the heritage foundation. David. Lets be honest. If donald trump hadnt run for office, we wouldnt be here tonight. Populism would exist but would be a european thing. Roger maybe would have commissioned a couple of short species on defense, brexit, but not a yearlong sear of in depth essays analyzing the phenomenon of populism which are now collected in this excellent book. Now, trump, as matt pointed out, is not the First American populist. We had a Peoples Party in the u. S. That coined the term populist in he 1890s but trump is the most successful populist we ever had. To the best modify knowledge, though, never called himself a populist. But its pretty clear the cornerstone of trumpism is the following claim, that the American People have been betrayed and taken advantage of by corrupt and incompetent elite from both parties. Its interesting to note that early in his campaign he mostly called the elites incompetent, but he soon made his case more compelling by starting to attack them for being corrupt and for taking advantage of the American People. Now, not surprisingly, these elites reacted in kind. And they warned us in the strongest possible terms that a Trump Presidency would bring about the end of america and quite possibly the rest of the world. I really cant resist sharing with you some of the most hyperbolic predictions made by leading pundits on the right and left on the eve of trumps election. In terms of our liberal democracy and constitutional order, Andrew Sullivan wrote, trump is an extinction level event, end quote. His election would mark the end of the democracy and the beginning of tyranny in america. Paul krugman with his characteristic subtlety, warned america we would soon become trump istan with contempt for the rule of law, with no restrain whatsoever. His conservative colleague, the usually very sensible ross, was no more reassuring. He offered his three, i quote, basen dangers for Trump Administration. These were not farflung predictions but the called them perils that we would very likely face, and they were sustained market jitters leading to an economic slump, major civil unrest, and a rapid escalation of risk in every geopolitical theater. And yet we are here, a full year into the Trump Presidency, and america and the world are somehow still standing. Not a single one [applause] not a single one of these dooms day overblown scenario that trump was supposed to unleash on america and the world has panned out. The contrary, the stock market is roar and we should have ore third consecutive quarter of 3 growth. Mrs. The last time i checked remains a democracy with an independent judiciary and free press. We have had more than 70 free and fair special elections since trump has been elected, many of them have been won by democrats, isis caliphate is no more and north korea is now at the negotiate table. Now, trump of course cannot claim credit for all of these things, although he has done so, but can potential to real accomplishments of his own, appoint aid Record Number of good pel las judges to the federal bench and he appointed neil go such and nose knot his sister to Supreme Court. He enacted a Major Overhaul of the tax code, and he has been pursuing a very aggressive deregulatory agenda on all fronts that is doing much good for the economy in the constitution. I think its hard to imagine any of the other 16 republican candidates he ran against doing more in one year. I think its particularly hard to imagine any other republican candidate displaying the boldness to pull out the Paris Climate Accord to decertify the iran deal and recognize israel, jerusalem as the capitol of israel. Judges by conventional, nonpop chryst standard offered the republican party, President Trump has had a pretty successful first year. He has had less success as a trumpist populist, awe though he has made progress there, too. He was not but the wall, as ann colletedder remind meds but illegal border crosses are low, and deportations are up. He has not renegotiated any trade deals but did pull out of tpp and the draining of the swamp is not surprisingly perhaps proving to be the toughest challenge. Washington, it turns out, was not drained in a year. He did order the first ever financial audit of the Defense Department and the Washington Post reported this week that the federal government in the number of jobs has declined in past year by 14,000. So, in sum. Trump has had more success so far as a republican than as a populist. Which i think was to be expected given how little support his views were within the republican party. I point out that congress is now discussing his signature issue of immigration, so lets see what this year brings. Thank you. [applause] thank you, david. So, our cleanup batter is Michael Anton so i dont have to do my Clint Eastwood impersonation. Michael, glad to have you. A Deputy Assistant to the president and director of communications to National Security council. He is also the author before his current work, his private capacity, he wrote the plight 93 election written under a pseudonym. Michael. I remember that piece. Is my mic on . I hope. So it was 10 Million Words and a wrote of rebuttal of 12 Million Words. And found me at some point, a month later and said he thought it was very good and hard to answer. Think he was shining me on but everybody enjoys flattery so that was nice. So, what was i i dont know i have to begin from a position of ignorance. Still dont know what a populist its. Its associated with William Jennings brian and now with trump. Hughie long. Any other great populist figures in American History . The only three i can think of. Its supposed to be bad. Never mean it as praise. If youre a populist, youre bad, which is okay, take that at face value but we should explore it. Its good, unquestionably good is democracy, democracy is good. Thats the only legitimate form of government and its an obligation or should be an obligation of the United States government to spread democracy through the world. Sometime biz force. If that doesnt work out, maybe subterfuge. But we hear this from certain intellectuals. Not my way of critiquing the government. Democracy is good and populism is bad. The root of populism, roger would tell you because he has probably can speak and read class yack languages in a way i cannot the latin term for the people or democracy is the greening term for the greek term for the people. Demos is part of the whole people. Not everybody. Its the many or the poor or the multitude. Well, the people are the whole people. Democracy means majority rule. Most people get to decide. A populism has an echo but its bad and democracy is good. So, im thinking about this further, brought me to one of my favorite writers, machiavelli. He the multitude is wiser and more constant than the prince, he said. The first time a political fill of fer specifically praises the people on the specific grounds of wisdom and constancy and says our historian affirms this and all other writers a agree that the people are stupid and fixle and you have to be ged bay prince to have a steady hand on the driller. He says its not true and gives examples. But he qualifies it typically out of order, which is the way he operates, and discourse is 144, for instance, is entitled the multitude without a head is useless. But backing up. I would say as modern examples of the multitude being wiser and more constant than prince, the American People who for a couple of decades were tired of unchecked illegal immigration and lack of bordered security, were tired of bad trade deals hollowing out the Manufacturing Base and middle class and flyover country and were really tired of get something wars that america didnt know how to win or the purpose. Machiavelli used the word prince to indicate anybody in charge. We would say leaders. Whereas the elites, the prinze that were supposedly wiser, blundered into all things and the financial crisis. So who is wiser and more constant . Its an open question. He also says discourse is 144 is entitled, multitude without a head is useless. Perhaps the 2016 elect illustrated the wisdom of that. Multitude wanted these things, border enforcement and a wall, wanted an end to bad trade deals and wanted a smarter, safer, sane are, more realistic foreign si but couldnt get it. No matter what voted for, the princes would come and go, elites come and go and theyd keep delivering the same thing. Family they found a head. They found a candidate who would explicitly, overtly, forcefully champion their interests. He won and now is trying to give them what they asked for, what they always wanted. Machiavelli also says the title of titled tend to be big runnion sentences. 153, he says that many times deceived by appearance of good, the people desires its own ruin. Then we can give you a few examples. The athennan people wanted to launch a expedition and they said it would mend disaster and look how it turn out. This multitude gave us the russian revolution, the gentry all opposed. Ile. The people sometimes can be deceived by false appearance on the good and desire their own ruin but is that never true of elites or princes always immune to this temptation . I dont know. The elites are the ones who blundered us in world war1. That wasnt the multitude. The elites gave us financial crisis. That wasnt the multitude. Maybe this isnt quite an open question. Suggest that my closing thought is the following. Populism is bad, democracy is good. Havent been able to reconcile that. However, theres another word dmos, the demagogue. Democracy is good but the demagogies bad, like the populist, might be the same thing. Traditionally a demagogies someone who uses rhetorical skill to appeal to the parks of the multitude or the dempost to move it in unpavely directions there have been examples of this, many in our century the previous century that were quite tragic. I wonder, is that only a phenomenon . Only this class of people who appeal to the mountain stewed . My people whose specially tis appeal to the bad instinctses and prejudices of the elite tuesday tell them what they want to hear . I think it is. We have demagogues and need to start thinking about ogags. Im talking about tom freedman, malcolm gladswell. The whole Editorial Staff of the Financial Times and the economist, who specialize in formulating refining and hardening conventional wisdom dock. They tell the they say your policy is justified and moral and right even though its leading to wage decline in meddle america opioid ene epidemic. Thats they failure of the people. Keep doing what youre doing. We need to think about this. This is a category of thought nobody has explored. Sometimes helps to name things. Would suggest that we all or some of us, whoever is interested, come up with a definition of oligog and the parallel to populism. This does work both ways in reality, just not yet in our language but well get there. Thank you. We want to speak in oligism s. We have time for questions and microphones. First question, picking up on something that roger a alluded to, i wonder whether the circumstances today if populism arises when theres a divide between the rulers and the people, over history, that seems to be happening today, but it seems to be different because the nature of what you raise, which was bureaucracy, administration, how were ruled. Is there Something Different about today that gives rise to a different type of populist lead center is that something were also observing . Well, i think that the Administrative State, the deep state, is possibly the most serious threat to our Civil Liberties that we face because it is a systemic, and quite deliberate, means of circumventing the constitution, circumventing the law. What the Administrative State is, is the deevolution of the powers that are not congress. The constitution says all legislative powers should be in congress hands, not the epa or the Consumer Protection bordes, not the irs and this kind of alphabet soup of populated by people who are beyond masters, who tell us what we have to do, what we may not do. The up ultimate goal of making it everything that is not mandatory for business. Always been administrations, always been bureaucracy, i think its a nice fact that bureaucracy is a french word, but it seems that the growth of this state and this deep state, is something that is novel and something that jim pointed to in his remarks. Jim piereson. Points to the failure of the madisonan vision. They would settle the problems in the congress. But in the modern age it dawned only some people this is extremely difficult to get anything done in this madisonan system so we need to find a way to make end runs around it and we fine that people look to the courts. If you can muster five justice on the Supreme Court you can totally change social policy and maybe even change the nature of the regime. Something that dawned on people in the post war era. I suppose you can so they tried to do that in dred scott, but that was spectacular blowout. And of course, now you create those administrative structures to make decisions that can never be made by the congress. So, its the frustration with the madisonan esteem that has led to creation of 0 all those end runs reasons the system, and partly that is the Administrative State that roger spoke of. Now, madison said that the this kind of problem, be solved by an appeal to the electoral principle. If the people dont like it, they can vote them out. Madison thought that was fairly simple thing to do. Turns out thats a very difficult thing to do. As were finding out because donald trump is actually eeightedly the people would tried to do something about this and we find the incredibly furious resistance against it. So, again, i would say that were talking really about the failure of that madisonan structure. Caution bid the german, so its the friend and germans. Just saying. I dont know i would chock i agree with most of the announcement but dont chalk it up to the a failure of the madison ukraine sometime but being deliberately changed to stop work thing way it was designed to work and to be more amenable is not completely in the control of the idea of the rule of experts. That what the Administrative State comes front. Life has back to complicated the constitution is outmoded, life is too economic indicated. We have to expand the burkcracy into the fourth estate, all done by design, perhaps with good intents but the only way maddisonan system is if that it had insufficient safe girds to prevent it, which maybe, but remember, this was a deliberate change, not a failure per se. Perhaps also an ideal dimension that the elites on the left and right are enationallorred by variety odd globalism and the issues that define trump all really relate to the question of borders, the question of the nation and how america interacted with the rest of the world. Who do we trade with and on what terms. Who do we lead interest the done there America First manifests in the realms of trade, immigration and foreign policy, and previous populist movements were im not historian so i dont know the details but i think they were criticizing the leads for have doing much money or monopolizing power but thats added dimension that makes its more per issue in, and trump with just basic common sense tapped into this. The most intelligent thing said the whole eviction eeither have a country or dont, ehe their have border or dont. This is a revolutionary statement today, and i dont think it would have been in the age of Andrew Jackson or when William Jennings bryan was unhappy. That one thing that is remarkable rapidly accelerating radicalism of oligism. You can find very recently democrats talking about the absolute necessity for bored security and internal enforce the new york times, unsigned editorials praising these things inch years that win give a 2 and now were a decade and a half on and that is all completely anathema and causes people to scream at the mere suggestion. Quite strike how fast elite opinion moveness one direction these days. Questions. Raise your hand. We have microphones. Right here. Im with American Enterprise institute in washington examiner. You used word that all derive from the people that have antithetical meanings, democracy, popis, demagogue. Theres one other i havent heard which is troffers the people, which is vulgar. The historic figures that you have cited were regarded by the elites of the time as vulgar, Andrew Jackson, William Jennings bryan, huey long. The roosevelts not much. Something that turns a lot of people off about donald trump is he seeps to have a certain outer vulgarity. Our populist is populism inevitably vulgar . Well, today happens to be in the anniversary of caesars crossing the rubicon in 49bc. He was a pop list. Was he vulgar . No. Dont think its linked to populism, although i thick that those people who wield the term populist as a weapon would like to have us think so. Im glad you mentioned that, michael, because it seems to me that one of the fundamental objections to donald trump is esthetic. Its he wears wears the wrond of ties. Likes his steak well done. Puts catsup on it unpardonable sins. There are other things as well, but i think that the a large part of this aspect of the hysteria over populism, over donald trump, is a matter, i saidessing the tick. Maybe a better word would be snobbery. I would say that depends how you define vulgar. Theres two ways. The original just meant common or ordinary. So italian was the vulgar latin, the one in everyday use but never write a serious book in it. Machiavellis books are record because the wrote in everyday language. Theres no question the Common People have more common case theyre not lining up necessarily outside art museums on the weekends and going to hipster movie houses and things like that and drink really fine wine. They have more commentate by necessity or just by nature. Vulgar sort of be identified with the fringes of commonality. Contractsness, obscenity and things like that. In the first meaning of the concern ordinariness or common in yes, maybe something necessarily ordinary about the populist because it is appealing to a brad common denominator o opinion which is not necessarily refined. Doesnt have to be gross, but not any necessary connection with of vulgarity in the second sense. By the way, what is more vulgar, Donald Trumps taste in steak or thousands of women parading around the mall with hats in the shape of female genitalia . [applause] other questions. My names my question is how much rationalism and common sense has to do with Donald Trumps success . Because if you just look at slogan, obama slogan, yes, we can, was more populist and trumps just saying something because he was very successful in his personal life and average person can be successful for himself. He could be would make america successful as well. So, in terms of just his very dish he is not very deep or philosophical like obama. He brought americaing to just kind of obama has taken country too much on left then it was kind of natural reaction of that. Would you consider this factor as a populism or just a simple rational or common sense thing. Michael is here and americas leading political analyst in the sense of watching campaigns and elections over the last 30 years so he could tell me if im off. In one sense, trump ran a very conventional campaign. If you ask a political consultant, how do you win . Identify the three or four issue that people care about the most right now and that align with your political fill so isty and then just hammer them. He did that. Picked three issues and never stopped talking enemy. Hillary didnt do that. They were common expense issues that the American People said, yeah, i wow dont we have a ball . Why havent we enforced the border . Why can we not beat tribal societies with no technology in afghanistan . Why have been been doing trade deals and factories are closing and ages are going down so call ill rational, common sense, but it was very nat core way a very conventional campaign in a way that his opponents just couldnt match. Couldnt find the three or four issues that mattered most to her voters and that resonated with some association of the middle, and stick to them. In america we often times have populist on the left and on the right. Seem bows different from other countries. We have spoken of the William Jennings bryans and i put reagan as an example of a conservative populist. Where does trump fit relative to populist on the left and right . His policies are conservative but some are. I dont mean to monopolize the conversation but if you asked well, hell, ask a lot of conservatives opposed him before a vote as cast and the initial antitrump argue. Was he is not conservative, not one of us. Not going to be conservative. 0 there was conservative orthodoxy about trade and economics in certain ways he was thought to violate. So you can say maybe he is a left of center populist. But thats fine according to definition of conservative from at the last areaer of the 20th 20th century but is conservative in the more fundamental sense, changing the trade and Economic Policy because we have to do Something Different and if the crack of made many times, if the 1980 republican platform is going to be recited, as scripture forever, its not going to workment we have to change. Others. Scott, Capital Research center. A question for jim piereson, you said in your talking about madison and what he wented. You said nation station, empire and the union. Well, could you tell us a tough more touch more about paint a deeper picture. Who madison did want and the question are there anything that can be done now get us closer to that . Second one was very difficult. As i said, i think in 1787, the idea of the nation state was not a very visible image to the founding fathers. The union was the new idea and a union was supported for a host of reasons, some of them having to do with National Defense against european powers. The union the union of the states being necessary to that. As i said, jefferson thought in terms of an empire. So, i believe that the american nation state, though, was constructed afterwards, from all of these conflicts that developed lateener the 19th 19th and 20th century. So the question is how to get back to a madisonon system. He never envisioned a huge government. And many of these things were talking about, huge Administrative State, the financial power of the National Government, these things were not in play in the 19th 19th century. If you were to ask me what is the foundation, the pillar of the administrative system that we have today . What is the thing that makes it run the one thing that makes it run . Well, probably a lot of things but probably the one thing that is very fundamental is the fact that the United States dollar is the reserve currency for the entire world. And that means that the National Government can run borrow money to infinity because it can print the money the dollars to pay our debts, all these other little countries have to earn their foreign reserves via trade. They cant use the resort to the printing press. If we ever lost the reserve currency, we would probably have to balance our accounts, probably balance our budget, and the kind of politics that guess on today, where politicians continue to promise all sorts of programs to people that cannot be paid for. So, we live in a different thats a good thing. Could be. There are people who suggest that would be a good thing. Theres some people who suggest that. So, how do we a lot of people talk about how do we get back to the old system . But thats the modern preponderances si encourage populism . So you need to take back power into congress. How would you say it encourages . I want to make one little disagreement, maybe disagreement with jim. When you say the founders didnt envision i agree what you sat be to effect of the wars but im not sure i agree when you say the founders didnt think of the country as as nation state. I agree if you think they didnt think of us as an ethnic station state in the or germans are germans and nobody remembers how germans became to be germ januaries. But one reasonreads tom wests new book buy it, i get a cut he makes plain the become the studies the constitution and declaration but studies state constitutions and documents from the found are era that people dont look at, and over and over, consistently think founders refer to themselves as a people, one people, distinct from another people. I dont theyre saying werell just create a get fed rated system. They saw themselves as a distinction people, a new people, not maybe a nation state but theres some middle ground between the implication of what you staked out and the nation state in the european sense. And federallallist 2, of course. What i meant was when you delegate so many powers to executive who can do things without congress, that does encourage executives to now promise things which they can deliver without congress. Yes, all they need is a phone and a pen. Just a phone and a pen. Populists can cut both ways, hence the promises and perils. Michael walsh, the writer harks as clever piece at the american greatness web site today or yesterday. Says what we should do to battle your question, battle this government is disbest it. Move to department of the interior to the interior. Move the treasury to kansas. We move the irs to someplace unpleasant. Alaska. And so on. And just kind of drain the swamp physically by moving all of these departments that are employing tens of thousands of people, and doing all this terrible things, throughout the country. Its actually very clever idea. A last question to end on. Better we good. Im daniel mccarthy, editor of modern agement wanted to bring up a point that jim raises in his quite brilliant essay which is, does populism run out of steam because it cant form coalitions and operate the way that successful political movements usually do . You draw a telling contrast between the old populists of the 19th century and progressives. Progress services depend have the same Popular Support but won he day and perhaps still running our country as a result of their working their weills inside the government. When fdr figure out how to do it. All of you make your last comments on this. Well, just very briefly. That is say was title why populism fails and the idea was that populist movements tend to be very leadcentered and tend not to form coalitions and in order to accomplish anything in the american system, it does require great deal of bargaining and coalitionbilling. Populist and the progressives, i thought, all straited that point because the populist party of the 1890s tried to organize the people against wall street and the big corporations and all that. They flamed out. Williams Jennings Bryant flamed out. Free silver and all that. But the progressives was an expert eliteoriented movement. Journalists, professors, experts of various kinds. So they built all their commissions, they built their administrative agencies, and they used that to develop their power. So that was progressivism was an elitedriven movement. That succeeded in america. Populism did not. Michael, david . Thoughts on this . To me, the question is whats going to happen in 2018. Ive never run for office, i dont know much about that kind of politics, but i would think that it seems obvious that trump has figured out something that could readily be emulated. And you dont im not talking about the vulgarity or the bombastic statements or the things that put people off, that hammering away at the core issues of immigration, trade and foreign policy. I dont know whats going to happen, but its conceivable that there might be a small wave maybe of trumpists who might get elected, and then that would change things because it would no longer with trump [inaudible] ing but trump with a handful of prominent allies in the senate and the house who agree with him on some issues. Roger, ill give you the last word. Thank you for coming. [laughter] [applause] thank all of you and thank all of you for coming. The book is vox populi by encounter books. Thank you all for coming. [inaudible conversations] cspan is in lynchburg, virginia, to feature its literary community. Up next, we tour the city with lynchburg native dubois miller. I was born in lynchburg, virginia. Finish born on tinbridge hill. It was considered the forgotten hill, and i lived on the forgotten street on the forgotten hill. This is mckinley street. There were six houses on this