That. Which is a plan obama put forward that relies heavily on ideas tat conservatives put forward 520 years before. It was like mitt romneys plan in massachusetts and the Heritage Foundation and republican plans people like bob dole put up as an alternative to bill Clintons Hillary clinton proposal but it wasnt enough. Host lets go back to the start of your book because we are in a political season. You start the book by talking about the rise of donald trump and you suggest that trump, the roots of the rise of trump, are in conservative history and it helps to explain why, in your opinion, the right went wrong. Explain ow the roots of trump are in conservative history. The fir guest the first sentence in the book is this is a story of betray betrayal. And i quote eric ericson where he said the Republican Party created donald trump because they made a lot of promises they didnt keep. Ever since Berry Goldwater, republicans promised to create a small government, which no republican president could do whether it was nixon, reagan or either president bush. They promised to roll back the cultural changes in the 1960s but most of the country didnt want to roll back those cultural changes and their efforts failed. Mow recently, a lot of republicans, including trump, said they would try to change the epic makeup of the country back to where it used to be thus trumps call for deporting 11 million people. That is one way in which the rise of trump is ec explained. The other is the white vote relies on the working class voters and as cited in the book, there Republican Party has the working class votes and done nothing materially for White Working Class voters. When you look at the vote, it is a vote of people in lower middle class and working class who are angry and tired of one of my favorite quotes is from jun kennedy who said in his jogeral address in 1961 he who rides the power on the back of the tiger ends inside. And i think the republican establishment has been riding this tide of resentiment and here is donald trump and he says they are fake and i am the real thing. Host in the book you talk about the goldWater Campaign, he lost in a landslide to president johnson, obviously, but you describe his appeal as based on white southern male backlash to the Civil Rights Movement. Does trump reflect that . Guest he does often reflect that. Some of his language goes back to Richard Nixons language unt law and order. He has specifically used that language. Gold water was the most consequential running mate in history because he altered the Republican Party. The Republican Party was the party of lincoln, civil rights, and africanamericans. When barry gold water came along, even though he wasnt a racist. He was a decent man and supported local civil rights law in phoenix but was against a federal civil rights bill and echoeded the segregation in this because he was in favor of state laws and thought civil right laws interfered with pub linebacker property laws. Suddenly the map changed and the makeup of the two parties changed. Southern white segregationist who were on a long flight from the Democratic Party shifted to the republican and that called for the realignment in the north where first africanamericans left in groves. Gold water got 6 of the africanamerican, nixon a third and ike almost half. A lot of moderate republicans said this isnt our party and they started to leave. The last thing the gold Water Campaign did is set off a purge. Whether the republicans took over, they purged the liberal republicans. We forget there were liberal republicans. They were gone. And then slowly they purged most of the moderates out of the party. So Republican Leaders wonder why talk of ted cruz has been so strong is because most people who would have been more liberal republicans are no longer republicans. Host you describe in the book listening to Ronald Reagan give a speech in support of barry gold water. A time for choosing. You said you were electrified that night. Guest right . We saw Ronald Reagan as the guy who would lead conservatives out of the forest. You saw this guy delivering goldwaters basic message but had the capacity to reach many people. There are two politicians, two recent politicians, who made careers on one speech. Reagan in 1964 where from that moment on conservatives identified him as their leader. And barack obama with the 2004 convention speech. I write in the book what each was doing with their big speech. Reagan was really trying to define a conservative opposed to an establishment liberalism. Barack obama was trying to push aside that and trying to reestablish a moderate, liberal consensus of the 2004 speech. Goldwater became a conservative hero that night. He is also a problem. The chapter on reagan is called the ambiguous era. Because reagan, the movement leader, who many on the right wring identify with but he had govern with democrats and did compromise when he had to. His heroic status with conservatives meant they didnt think he wanted to do. Whereas when George H Bush did it he blamed. They didnt blame reagan but they blamed the elder bush. Host lets go back. When we talk about the roots of modern tybeginning with goldwater and reagan i think there is a little precursor to that in terms of what was going on in the 50s i am interested in the idea of you have william s buckley, Great National review, and robert welsh, is taking on president eisenhower saying he is not a real conservative. How do you explain how we get to goldwater from eisenhower who i think was one of your moderate republicans with and what does it mean when you have william s bux buckley take on welch . Guest goldwaters book was written by buckleys brotherinlaw. National review was founded in 1955. The first words of the first editoral spoke about yelling stop and what they wanted to stop was the flow of liberalism in america that started with Franklin Roosevelt and continued through harry truman and many conservatives, including buckley by the way, did not like Dwight Eisenhower was they saw him as a republican enabler. I argue that ike is the alternative for a different kind of conservative behavior. Both buckley and welch recognized two sides of the rising conservative movement. Buckley was more intellectual and wanted conservatives to play in the same arena as liberals do so National Review was started as an alternative to the great liberal papers. He wanted to take liberals on straight up. One other thing i talk about, and here again, race is very important for this conservative story. National review early on actually identified with the segregationist in the south. I quote and some of the things buckley wrote defending the exclusion of blacks from the electorate and it is something buckley later regretted. But it is important to be honest as to how much there was racial backlash on their side. Buckley was against other prejudices Like Fighting anti symm symms semitic behavior. And he said when he said when welch called him a communist buckley said he is not a communist but a walton. He didnt think ike stood for anything and was critical of ike. But the National Review was built from this movement with long pieces and editorials. Maybe the ideas and favorite books were all conservative books for the tea party. If you looked at glenn becks reading list who had a poplar show with the tea party some were all john burke books. So the chapter on this is the new new old white. Host you have deal with Gene Mccarthy and the whole mccarthy movement during the 50s. Guest buckley wrote a book with the man who wrote the goldwater book defending buckley and his enemies. And later in life, a fascinating novel was written about mccarthy that was more complicated than his original view. Yes, mccarthy kind of started communist behavior and the fall of the tarp against liberals who were not communist but he was charging they were. I am a liberal who is weary of yelling mccarthyism every time conservatives make an attack. Not every attack is mccarthyism just like i am leery of using fascist when it isnt appropriate. But not seeing the energy within is very much there in parts of the white. You have seen it in the obama years with the notion he is muslim. I think that, too, has roots in mccarthyism. Host we are up to the goldwater period and i want to go through the goldwater agenda and platform running in 64. He is for ending Social Security, he is for ending aids to school, he is for ending federal welfare programs, ending bond programs, he is really opposed to unions. That comes through in so many of the leading conservatives of that era. And of course we come back to race and he felt brown vs board of education was constitutional. So this is Berry Goldwater and here comes Ronald Reagan in support of goldwater. Tay lose but none the less this is the sea bed for modern day conservatives. Anti Social Security and anti immigration. Guest before writing this book, i sat down with a lot of conservatives and i had long chats with them. They knew i was a liberal and going to be critical of conservatives and knew i was trying to figure it out. And one of the great interviews i have is with ben weber the formal congressman from minnesota who describes himself as an 11yearold goldwater supporter going to his aunts in new england who were loyal republicans and asked if they would put up a goldwater sign and they said couldnt you just put up something that said vote republican and ben said why confront dont you want a goldwater sign . And he said said we dont like what he is saying about Social Security. And so, yeah, this was the core of the program. Goldwat said i dont i tend to reform government but i want to reduce its size. And lots went down bad with americans who accepted the deal. Ike won and nixon did well in 1960. Some republicans think he won. Because they were willing to live with the new deal and thought it was part of the american new way of life. Goldwater didnt. When you go to 1980, reagan writes that great speech and gets elected governor of california and indeed turned out to be just as persuasive as my dad and all of those conservatives thought he was thatnectomy that night. But he came along when there was a backlash against liberalism. 1966 was a push back against lbj and civil rights. You had the students rebelling on campus at berkeley and reagan pushed back. Pat brown helped build modern california. After eight years, it has been become less poplar and reagan beat him. When he governs, he did a number of things. He cut down in certain respects but compromised in the legislature. He was a governor who signed a bill dismantling the abortion law and later recamped that position and became prolife but signed an abortion liberalization bill while governor. Conservatives seeing him as fundamentally conservative because of what he said from the time he left the party till this time he was a spokesperson for conservative ideas. He ran a half hearted effort to become the republican nominee in 78. Rock feller and reagan were hoping to get enough votes to open it up to the convention. In 1976, reagan nearly beat sitting president gerald ford, granted a president who took power only after nixons resigning. But came within a handful of delegate votes of unseating gerald ford after the nomination. When ford lost, he was clearly established as the strongest republican for the nomination. A conservative writer wrote an interesting book on the 76 race arguing that set goldwat skwr the conservative movement up for victory in the 1970 and i think that is correct. Host you mean set reagan up . Guest set reagan up, i am sorry. This is fascinating because my interviews with conservative, i talked to bill crystal and he said when he the tea party came up and thought about the g governing side of reagan and he said they need to realize the gold water side didnt work and they need to embrace reagan. Host what is is interesting to me, ej, and that initially the republicans seem to value Family Planning, were open to to the idea of abortion, and you get nixon taken a stand saying we will have a southern strategy appeal to the south very explicitly after the Civil Rights Movement of the 60s but we will appeal to the church and people who are faithful. The Catholic Community that has been voting democratic and part of that argument was about abortion. The Family Planning issues is so interesting. Another thing about the goldWater Campaign is goldwater began to pioneer the religious issues and use of war during the 64 campaign. Another great book from this periods reminds me of this 30 minute video goldWater Campaign put out later called choice. It is worth finding on youtube for those who want to go back. It showed all of the decadence the conservatives opposed. Race riots and women dancing with little clothes on. It is trying to appeal to conservatives who said the country is going down the wrong path. You almost heard the words take our country back in 1964. So that moral argument is first injected by barry goldwater. Family planning is a weird thing. The democrats were the party that often opposed legalized Family Planning because they were primarily the catholic party. And the republicans were the Protestant Party and were in favor of making Family Planning legal. There were americans for Family Planning but not for abortion. Nixon was running what was called per missive values. The slogan cited against mcgovern, it was said from senator tom eagle off the record, were acid, amnesesty and abortion. Saying he was the candidate for legal drugs and the draft and abortion which the party was split on but they started becoming much more prochoice than republicans. Host this was an era of sexu sexu sexu sexual revolution because you have the pill coming out and that plays into loose morals and c con goes against the republican values. Guest that is when you started seeing change on what was broadcasted on television. Fathers knows best was one of the 50s show and mass entertainment was becoming more racy and that bothered a lot of conservative people. This was building up in the early 70s. And interestingly, it was jimmy carter who first rallied the evangelical vote. When it turned out jimmy carter was born christian the press said what in the world is that . One writer said he treated evangelical christians like they were an exotic tribe when they were or fellow americans. And carter rallied the evangelical vote. But then wait it minute, there are a lot of social conservatives out there and people voted republican because of civil rights, southerners, we can rally them for the Republican Party. And we approached jerry fall well and said we would like you to read this and he did. That was in the late 70s and moral majority was born and by the time reagan ran in 1980 this was a going operation. 78 and 1980 were the elections where they began to rally this vote a lot. Jimmy carters greatest drop off in 7680 was among his evangelical christians. Over time, the majority of those folks drove more into the Christian Coalition when Pat Robertson ran for president in 1988 against George H Bush. What you have on the right are a number of strains and a number of ongoing conflicts. Host let me just come back to that. I think that is a theme of the book i wanted to bring the viewers and listeners attention to. You talk about this sense of grievance and betrayal among republicans against fellow republicans. So if we go back to goldwater, obviously he loses, in a sense she is not being listened to and didnt convey the message. You come to nixon and they are disconcerted about how nixon deals with race and Henry Kissenger and the outreach to china. Then you come forward again, and there is a sense of well, union, Ronald Reagan promised to cut government and lower taxes but government is getting bigger and taxes are getting higher even though reagan is great republican icon of our day. Back then there was discontent. This becomes a theme in your book that time and again, widespan republican officials, elected officials, take back america or in trumps language make america the 1950s america that they were more comfortable with especially the white southern male. Guest you are right. Nixon is a fascinating figure and one of the most liberal president s we had ever ironically. He opened the relations to china and created the Environmental Protection agency and osha and indexed Social Security. So a lot of conservatives were disappointed in nixon. I talked about a group of conservatives who announced they were suspending their support for nixon. It was a conservative member from iowa who ran against nixon and his bumper stickers had a no left turn sign on them. And then reagan finally came along jerry ford was also seen by many of them as in sufficiently conservative with he took over for nixon. He picked rockafeller who was an the enemy by conservatives because he was liberal. They rock feller put dole on the ticket and barely lost to jimmy carter. Reagan did not roll back abortion rights. Reagan could not reduce the size of government. As i note, the size of government is exactly the same as when reagan left over and took over. He ran large deficits which as a liberal i would point pulled us out of the Great Recession but his spending was more on defense than social programs. But conservatives didnt ho i they didnt hold that against them they held it against George H Bush who raised taxes. And then you get the second bush and i argue the tea party starts at the end of ws administration as it was seen as failing. And conservatives didnt want to define it as a failure of conser conserve so defined it as Big Government nevermind most of inspening was in baghdad. They criticized him for the Prescription Drug program under medica medicare, criticized him into no child left behind, and for him being open on immigration and bush was open on immigration and tried to pass Immigration Reform. At the end of each of these republican presidency, a lot of rank and file conservatives said what did we do all of that work for . We have not changed the way politicians say they will change things. So we should not be surprised the whole thing blew up in 2016. Host they have this notion of being betrayed by former republicans and then we come to the impeachment of bill clinton who you describe as one of the low points in america history. Can you explain . Guest you know, clinton, had this relationship with Monica Lewinsky and denied it and then finally admitted it. His definition of sexual relations in the famous statement was released. There were two reactions in the country of two majority reactions. One majority reaction was this was wrong and the country wanted to condemn. The other was that, you know, we know a lot of politicians tat led less than good xhafrps of sexual lives and we dont want to impeach him for it. The country, luckily for him, was in good shape at the time of the scandal. We had a roaring economy, the budget deficit was replaced by surplus and americans felt good about the country. All during the impeachment battle clintons Approval Ratings were quite high and the question pollsters ask is do you approve of the job president clinton is doing and they were fine on the job. They just didnt like the scandal. The republicans were really pressing this impeachment issue. And it was later to be repeated by George W Bush in 2011 the party gained seats in the house of representatives. Everybody said all right. The democrats adopted a position that said we will censor him and move on. We will declare we dont like this but not try to impeach him. Newt gingrich was the republican leader and this saga is an important subtext to a large part of my book. I think from the evidence, gingrich probably wouldnt have movaled moved to impeach clinton but once he was pushed a side and robert livington, the guy who was supposed to be his successor was pushed aside when another story about his sexual life emerged, the new Republican Leadership has this issue fall to henry hide the chair of the Judiciary Committee and they wanted to push with impeachment and did. It was mess the country didnt want to go through and didnt have to go through but we did anyway. Host what was the impact on the conservative movement . I am really interested in the Republican Party here. Guest if you look back at that time, why did the republicans push impeachment . I think they wanted to stain the clinton legacy forever because republicans never got over the fact that bill clinton grabbed the white house back after 12 years of republican rule. They thought now we have realigned the country and it turned out they had not realigned the country so they never liked bill clinton. But also they wanted to sort of tarnish his legacy so it would not be a usable legacy. But the other side of this that has been repeated over and over again, a lot of republicans in congress were not hearing the voices saying we dont like the scandal but dont want to impeach him. They heard voices saying lets go full speed ahead and the 90s were when the polarization really set in. Just comparing the 1990 Congressional Elections to the 1 1994 Congressional Elections. In 1990, a lot of southern democrats were voting republican in house races. By 1994, the Republican Party had become a conservative product those who voted for democrats in house races were now voting republican. So you really saw the parties begin to pull apart. I argue in the book it is not surprising that, you know, the full polarization that took hold in the 90s was the impeachment of bill clinton. Host in your book you talk about how clinton moved toward the conservative ideology talking about this is the end of the era of the Big Government. He is taking on the language of the conservatives. He does well with independents and i suppose what remains of sort of moderate to liberal republicans because he wins twice. But doesnt that indicate this conservative movement has power to force clinton to the right . Guest yes, in the book i quote a progressive activist who has been around and said just as nixon was the last president of the liberal era clinton was the last president of the conservative era. Clinton understood after three democratic defeats in president ial elections there had to be adjustments on the democratic side. I think some of the adjustment was necessary. It was possible to be against cline without being a racist and possible to be for welfare without being an acting punitive welfare law and so on. In the end, there were calls for. The bill passed under clinton, and clinton acknowledged this, created penalties that let to this massive over incarceration in the country where people like cory booker and rand paul are trying to fix in congress. People are saying this is an outrage and i think it is. But there was a need to say in the end this wasnt being conservative. The bill he signed was far too punitive. I was symthetic to welfare weform but i thought the bill was inadequate. He didnt have to say the era of Big Government was over. He was saying it at the same time while cornering republicans while defending medicare, medica medicaid, education and the environment. These are areas where government was playing a big role. The public wanted government to play a role in that area and that is why clinton won the budget fight. So there are ambiguities there. The other area again, which i think clinton acknowledges this, on the deregulation of the financial industry went too far. There was a Republican Initiative clinton signed. Host so clinton is moving to the right responding to conservative agenda in the ways you spoke. But you come to George W Bush and come to the seen of betrayal. The expansion of medicare under the prescription part d. You get the trump people who are disc discontented with his National Security and weapons of mas destruction issue. This theme of the face of the party, the grassroots feeling like we are not getting our mon moneys worth from conservatives emerges again. Why . Bush and caldwell were interesting figures. They understand clinton cornered the Republican Party and understood a party that doesnt look compassionate snut going to win so compassionate conservatives were born. Senator dan coats who later become a speech writer for bush, bush nearly grasped that idea. If clinton had a way, tay they created another way. Bush and rove were proud they turned the education into an easy way that helped bush and helped the democrats on the issue. After the election when bush failed to win the poplar vote, rove, when thought he would win the election clean, without the fight over florida, and by winning the poplar vote went back to the polling, discovered there really wasnt a big moderate vote. So bush backed away from this strategy and moved toward a base strategy. He did embrace some of the compassionate conservative ideas but they had no traction in the republican congress. And 9 11 happened which changed the course of the bush presidency. I think if bush had succeeded, saying if the iraq war went better and it turned out to be a good idea and not what, i think, history will show as a bad idea and the Great Recession had not happened, conservatives wouldnt have turned on bush. Instead they didnt notice the conservative things bush did such as the enormous tax cut enacted. Two enormous tax cuts enacted during bush. Instead they focused on the areas where bush did embrace Big Government. He had the worst of both worlds in the end. He didnt get the traction among moderates and progressives out of Immigration Reform and other areas. He did win a big share of the latino vote in 2000 and 2004 but after the republicans blew up the immigration bills it wasnt lasting. So you had over time this rebellion of bush. And i talk about the fight for the republican nomination in 2008. You did have the relatively moderate conservative john mccain prevail. But the point i make is that in 2008 and 2012 the more moderate conservative prevailed because the conservatives on the right end of the party split up the vote. In mccains case you had mike huckabe e checking romney in the iowa caucuses. Mccain prevailed with a minority of the votes in the early primaries just because the more conservative candidates, particularly huckabee, romney and Fred Thompson were splitting the republican vote and that is why sarah palin ended up on the national scene. Mccain wanted a moderate running mate so we ended up picking sarah palin. So the right was able to create an important figure in our public life sense. Host you mean sarah palin . Guest yes. Host what i am coming to is the high degree of polarization that has come to identify the party during the twoterms of barack obama. Obstruction, polarization it led to, and obstruction in the terms of the repeated votes to defund or repeal obamacare blocking nominees and regulations, and lack of cooperation. They would say obama as a monarchy and trying to use executive powers and executive authority to pass bills or put in place rules and regulations without going through the congress. The result has been this high degree of political polarization. Lets put that aside for a moment. Inside the republican race, there is a high degree of polarization that we can see playing out in the president ial primaries and caucuses and you get donald trump. But why, i am going to ask, why this sense that the grassroots feels betrayed by the republican establishment but at the same time is saying we dont want any part of government. That is what troubles me. It is as if the Republican Party thinks it is more important to show definance of structure than to take the opportunity to work even with an Opposition Party president and govern the United States of america. Guest i obviously agree with you on that. I think it is deep in the cake. In the beginning of the become, i argue the polarization in our county asymmetric and i cite a bunch of evidence. But one thing that is key do you prefer politicians who compromise to get things gone or people that stick to principles 60 of democrats want to compromise to get things done but only a third of republicans want to comp pro compromies. So the leadership from the party, independent from the tea party, decided defeating obamacare required spoiling the program because he promised to bring red and blue together. All they had to do was try to block as much of that from coming to pass as possible to declare that obama was a failure. And that put his fate in the hands of the republicans. I tell the story first told by Robert Draper at a meeting at a restaurant on the day obama was inaugurated. It was a meeting by a group that plat to say we will block obama right out of of the box on the stimulus. A month later, Mitch Mcconnell tells the Senate Republicans here is our strategy, and it involves slowly blocking obama. Host he said our goal is to stop a second term of obama. It was all political. Not government. Guest right. This is the way they proceeded. And i point out the criticism of obama saying he could have appealed to congress more but i think this obstruction strategy was baked in the cake and i think with every republican member could have been appealed to and it would not have made a difference to this strategy. Host if they pursued this policy of obstruction, defiance and why is it we see the republican congregrassroots conservatives not liking this establish . They threw out john boehner. They feel like despite rebute of president obama it wasnt enough. Guest it wasnt enough. The establishment was trying to play a double game in a way. They wanted to cast themselves as a responsible Government Party but wanted to cast as a congre grassroots to people who will stop this. No one in the party, paul ryan is doing it a little but he is in opposition to everything obama does, no one is saying here is where we want to go, is there any Common Ground we can find with obama. It is all about rolling things back that government does. That is why i point to eisenhower as providing an alternative path. That was a long time ago, that era, but i think the core philosophy is relevant to the point the right is doing now. Because eisenfp eisenhower was a conservative. He believed in america life and american powers and the influence during his year. He accepted certain reforms become part of tehe way of life. He said government has something to do this. He invested in the state highway system and the steam road Program Helping americans go to college including me. I think conservatives were angry but had very good reason to feel happy with the state of the country when eisenhower left office. There seems to be magic in three. David camerons adjustment in brita britain modernizing project came after three defeats and i think it will happen here. Host was that a prediction . Guest i think if the republicans lose the president ial election, everything is equal on the demographics, the democrats win this election but i think it will be close so i am not prepared to say with certainty. I am saying if they win, i think you will see the changes. At least there is a shot at the changes in the conservative movement i write about. Host the Republican National committee had an autopsy after 12 and said there needs to be more outreach to young people. But in 16, the leading candidate, has nothing to do with that. It is almost back to the grassroots, the southern strategy, the betrayed white male you describe in the book. Guest it is almost as if they decided the autopsy was performed on another party in another country and left it aside. One of the common responses i have gotten from my conservative friends is if they are in such bad state why did they do well in the 2010 and 2014 midterm elections. And i would argue back, and conservatives have said this th th th th themselves and i would say it is because they are reliant on older voters who vote in the midterm elections bet weak among the Younger Voters who vote for the president. But i hate to say this the future doesnt live on with older people. It is in the hands of younger people. So while they have been able to do well in the midterms and maintain a certain base it doesn doesnt bode well in the long run for the Republican Party. They need the Younger Generation that is more moderate, heavily latino and asian and africanamerican, and a party that takes this path is over the long run not going to remain the majority party. There are republicans who will acknowledge this. I quoted from the chair of the Republican Party out in california who said where Ronald Reagans state where republicans used to be strong there but because of the way the problem alientated the woman and asia note they are going down the road. He is saying they should look at this nationally so they dont end up in the same situation we are in here in california. One lesson from trump is White Working Class voters are really angry and are kind of tired of the republican establishment that has not delivered very much for them. So that i see a kind of twoprong reform strategy here umbodied in two defeated candidates of Rick Santorum and john huntsman. Santorum is showing the party has to pay more attention to the white base and huntsman showing they need moderation on social issues or immigration or they will leave on that side. Yes, they are broad together, but i think they independently, and in quite different ways, highlighted two core problems that the conservatives have. Host so the future for conservatives boils down to what . And i might add, how do liberals, the Obama Coalition respond . Guest thank you for that. The future lies in the prudence and balance that ike represented, that lincoln represented, Teddy Roosevelt and many other republicans in the past represented. You cannot roll back all of the things government has done and dont pretend government is an a alien force in america life. Pursue a probusiness strategy and try to defend the best part of and i argue we do need a Great National conversation on the family. The family break up is a problem especially because the economy has been battered so much and it created problems. Lets have a better conversation on that than the idea that americans who are gay and lesbian are the people who undermined the family. No, it those of us who are straight that have that responsibility. Prudence, balance, and moderation are conservative rur vir virtue. And there is an enormous frustration created by the economic changes in the last 30 years. People in the working class and miding class who are feeling battered are not making that up. Wages have declined. We need a more inclusive economy where we have shared growth again, where everybodys income is not just growth or small percentage of americans. Liberals have to persuade people that government can work again. I think that is the job they havent done. They havent said we know people are frustrated with government, yes, we need to depend on government to solve a lot of problems, we will make it work better and solve the problems. I think a problem solving liberalism against a problem solving conservatism would make people happy. Host author of why the right went wrong has been speaking to us. Thank you so much for your time. Guest thank you for a careful reading of the book. I really appreciate it. When i tune in on the weekend it is authors talking about their new releases watching the nonfiction authors on booktv is the best television for serious readers. Cspan gives them a longer conversation to dive too conversations. They bring you author after author spotlighting fascinating people. I love booktv and i am a cspan fan. And booktv is live again on the campus of the university of arizona for the annual tucson festival of brooks. Several hours of coverage coming up today. You will hear from many authors and have chance to talk them as well. Find the full schedule at booktv. Org. Human rights, immigration, voting rights, race in america and politics are some of the subjects we will talk about. We are kicking off with a panel on human rights. You are watching booktv cspan2 live from the university of arizona