>> good inning. this is definitely the most special time i have been able to talk about the book, because my fifth grade elementary school teach teacher is here. [applause] >> thank you for coming. so, the book does not have a subtle title. subtlety is not usual live my thing. so you probably have a sense of my argument. but first i wanted to talk about why i wrote this book, and i believe at the core that the most powerful thing that we can do as citizens and the most powerful means by which we can express our citizenship, is simply to ask questions. i think sometimes we think it's -- these other things but i think at the core, of course some things are important, what our democracy requires is citizens who ask questions, and i don't mean questions like, are we there yet? or one that my teacher has heard, there is more homework tonight? i mean, inquiry, you know, really thinking and formulating your question and reformulating and it evaluating the results and discerning the authority of the sources you're reading, and constructing a response. my thesis is that we don't construct truth as much anymore. instead, we try to locate them. and i think that's a symbol of the times. the speaker -- i don't mean the speaker -- the speaker of the city council, and that can be confusing for her sometimes. chris, just talked about my career as a policy person and activist, and that's the reason that i wrote this book, because it occurred to me, perhaps a little too young in my life, starting to evaluate what it is why leave behind. no matter how hard i worked on a research report or the drum major institute advocated for an issue or even we solved the problem momentarily, that ultimately the most important thing that we could do is to generate and cultivate in a younger generation the ability to ask questions. policy victories are fleeting. we're having a health care conversation now. we have had one for. we will have one again. the question of what the appropriate role of government is in our life, what we owe to one another. those are questions that society constantly asks and re-asks. so we can fix something today, and i hope we will soon fix health care but it's not a long-term deal, and perhaps -- i don't mean that to sound mess mystic because i can only be an opt miss to do this work but the policy victories are momentary re-arrangements of power. political victories are momentary re-arrangements of power. the number one thing to enshire a progressive country is to enshire we have generations of young people who are prepared to ask questions, and that requires some humility. that doesn't necessarily come naturally to lot of us. i work on it, as my staff can attest. i thick requires more humility that we need to make sure that people are asking questions. so i spend a lot of time in the book detailing the threats to inquiry as i see them. whether it's our addiction to self-help or unreasonable expectations of our elected lead efforts, the way we think about public education and filling in the right bubbles, and our ask-not consumerism, and i explore these in depth, from the internet which i think -- i shouldn't use a brand name -- where google is another search engine. it can be your preferred search engine, are really redefinding the way we think about curiosity. somebody said in the process of interviewing a professor for this book, and who studies the internet and is a college professor, and he said, the issue isn't about the questions that google can answer. what we have to worry about is, what about the question that google can't answer? so, the comer shall do sharks high eyelids and do twins have the same set of fingerprints, are those the questions that define inquiry today? and i study and recap the research on how young people in particular are studying on the internet, where you plug in a search term and you find the first three answers -- three results that come up and you print them out and hand them in and rinse and repeat, and it's not a rigorous process. it's one in which people aren't think about the sources or the credibility of what they are retrieving, and i'm only 32. all of this may seem somewhat an akronistic but i interview librarians who complained -- explained that research is supposed to be work, and at a time when we hard are cart catalogue, you have to think about the questions, and think about whether the responses you were getting were getting you closer to the information you were looking for. i was thinking as a young librarian who was working with the students, and she was studying something and the did a search and the answers came up on the screen. and she said, okay -- one of these google book searches where the results come up and the words your looking for are highlighted in yellow. so she said this is what i want, right? and the lee br'eran said, i'm not sure irunderstand your question. she said, this is what i need. and then finally the obstacle was clear. the student didn't realize she had to read it in order to determine the relevance, that relevance cannot be delivered to you by google. i see a threat in our media, which i think is increasing any interested in offering opinion and less interested in investigation. the perfect example of the value of questions becoming stoked the value of answers, and in particular to our desire to have a guide, a way to understand events as they unfold, which directly relates to the next threat that i write about in the book, which is the idealogical -- it's stifling inquiry. i don't know if your familiar with bill bishop's book. he describes in a book how americans are physically moving to places to be near people with whom they agree, and certainly you can spend all day online -- i often do -- without ever encountering a opinion with which you disagree. we turn to the media we share, talk show host that has an opinion that we share. i write in the book about my own person experiences with my lead favorite talk show host, and when i start the book, i ask psychiatrist and practitioners who work with children, how do children learn to inquire? and the answer is very simple, but to me, again, was just profound. they learn to question when they bump up against the unfamiliar. and my concern is that as we increasingly segregate ourselfs into these bubble of idealogical agreement, that we lose the catalyst to question. the place in the book i spend the most time, though, is on schools, and i have long been interested in the issue of public education, and i see in schools, really, where you have the most evidence of our society's emphasis on the answer versus on the question. clearly our evaluation of students is determined by their ability to get the right answer, increasing roll of standardize exams to the point i think of an educateor who says we have begun to think the standardized questions are the reforms. and this might seem odd considering my age, but about civics education, and civics is a place where young people learn to question, and they learn to do so? what i think is the ultimate, safest space, questioning their democracy. and sinks has become less of a priority because it's not correlated to a standardized exam. there is a standardized exam offered every seven years as an indication of its important, and to me this is a great loss because ultimately, and actually originally, the purpose of public schools was to prepare citizens, and in this effort to prepare consumers and workers, this emphasis on answer as has in fact, i think, produced neither. neither effect fifth workers or consumers or effective citizens, and i contrast this idea of civics education with this growing movement towards financial literacy, education in the school. the publisher said to put the good stuff up front so i tried to make my table of contents as interesting a as i could. so this chapter is called no piggy bank left behind. which is my -- [laughter] >> thanks. which is my chapter on the financial literacy movement in the schools. granted, we want everyone to be financially literate. all those that are most financially literate got us in this mess. i observed in schools this movement that actually takes children out of class time to be tutored by bank executives who volunteer to come and talk about which of the many products they offer that young people should select, and i don't think this is an appropriate role of schooling. organizations that support financial literacy education -- which is the ultimate -- this is the market as it is, don't question it, maneuver it, as opposed to, this is our democracy, question it, improve it, it's yours. the con contrast between questions and answers and organizations that promote financial literacy, do the survey -- only what gets tested is what is taught. and so they have questions mike works in a factory in a state and this state is considering raising taxes. which of the following is likely to happen in five years. the answer is that mike's factory moves to another state and mike lose is his job. well know, that's already true, and if mike works in the factory he is rare. and the idea that state taxing, recordless of whatever that a pays for, means that hard a-working mike in the factory is going to going to lose his job, and that's an agenda there and it's restoring the original mission of schooling. i visited a school -- i should preface that's by saying i worked for many years and will return to the drum major institute, progressive think tank, that in my view really embodies what questioning can do to advance a progressive policy conversation, and as was -- rivalry is a good motivation so we're generally very interested in the idea of the manhattan institute, and when i say interested, i mean generally opposed but motivated by. that was also a joke for you. thank you. [laughter] >> the manhattan issue wrote a series of op-eds about schools on his dishonor role. i said what could the school in brooklyn have done to merit a space on the dishonor roll, and it's a school with an explicit social justice mission but certainly secondary to the mission of graduating students. and the problem with this school, according to this fellow from the manhattan institute, is that the school was spending too much time on the social change stuff. every student was required to complete a change project in which they identified something in the community they wanted to change and then would work purdues doing the research, investigating it, things from simply why isn't there more updated equipment in our school, which led to an investigation of the campaign for fiscal he can bit and a conversation about school financing, which is think is an incredibly sophisticated topic. and how do we create stronger relationships win the schools. and to the manhattan institute school this was radicalizing, promoting -- the title of the chapter, the radial alleged -- you have to buy it. and of course, this fellow at the manhattan institute criticized the fact that there was a lot of conversation about nuclear disarmament in physics class. he didn't mention that unlike in any public school i heard every, every student at the school for democracy and leadership, mainly low income, african-american immigrant unit, is required to tackifiesics, and didn't mention in the same building that graduated fewer than 45 percent of its students is now graduating over 95% of their students. and to me that link -- and of course, when i call it, again, another chapter title, the three rs and they. this motion that the why matters to understanding understanding , that you need to know this stuff to change your community. i'm sure that that's a big part of why that school, same building, same community, is graduating twice as many students as before. that reflects in my mind the idea that there aren't just the value of inquiry didn't disappearing just because it is, because it's some natural evolution -- revolutionary process. whether it's banks, or conservative think tank fellows who want less conversation about dem karaisms there's an interest and an agenda in perpetuating a situation in which inquiry isn't valued. so, the book isn't a complete downer. just so you know. i tried to travel around and find the places where inquiry is alive and well, whether it's the school of democracy and leadership, whether it's hampton, virginia, where i spent time -- anybody from hampton? yeah. it's a small city. but where they decided that they were dealing with this issue of the disaffection of youth. so they brought all the social service agency heads together and said, what are re going to do? they said if we bring the same people around this table and have the same conversation, we're going wind up with the same social service response and ultimately not change anything fundamentally. say said we need to have young people around the table. so this entire city is dedicated to what they call a youth engagement system, whether it's fourth graders who take civic klaas, every high school has a youth committee that advises the principal. could we have a city planning department? there are youth planneres on the -- in the department of planning, and a youth commission that has decisionmaking power. and there was -- the mayor then had come to this youth commission, and i think this sums it up, and he wanted support for a trade school that he wanted to establish that would offer training and in his mind address the dropout rate. so the youth commission prepared by working with an organization that they partner with, by actually just practicing the asking of questions. and they didn't do elaborate resuch and -- research and power point, and they questioned what kinds of requests to ask the mayor to five -- identify whether it would meet their goals, and so the asked the mayors his questions and they said this trade school isn't going to accomplish. the answer was no endorsement from us. i liked that. i like rebellious young people. don't repeat that. but the idea that, again, -- this is to bring it full circle here -- that the questions are power. it was more powerful for them to ask the mayor questions than to have come in with a prepared statement about why this school wouldn't meet its goals, and it's a power i realized when i was a young person sitting on the new york city board of education, when there was one, and my job was to represent my 1.1 million peers in a system, and i had no vote, and i was essentially token presence but the real way for me to exercise whatever limited power i have is to ask questions, and so i would bring student newspaper reporters to grill board officials. much easier than making a a statement, by watching them sweat while students asked questions. so without belaboring the point, i write about preparing young activists to pursue careers in public policy, and we think about them as questioners, bit getting them -- actually -- this is my favorite part of the program -- they actually read the physical newspaper. are you familiar with this? the physical newspaper. you heard about it? a newspaper and you turn the pages. one day the answer will be no; but we actually start the day by -- of course, teaches them how to followed "the new york times" anytime the right way, not that that matters in l.a. but this motion of actually thinking critically about the news and turning the page and reading something that you otherwise wouldn't have found as opposed to getting a google alert about the subject you're knew you were interested in or finding the facebook link that you read the first two sentenceses of, and it changes them. because they begin to think about the asking of questions and thinking critically and their ability to be activists in determining their future as linked. so, i think i have probably talked too much here, but i did just want to say that i think -- we talk a lot about values in our culture, and the book -- i end with an experiment that -- a study that someone did asking teachers, what values do you want your students to leave with? and when the list was provideds, curiosity or inquiry, i don't remember which word, is it was always circled. when you started from a blank page and asked teachers which value do you want to promote in your students, curiosity and inquiry were never on the list. i think that that's not the fault of teachers who are doing the best they income an -- in their environment, but i think that speaks to our broader culture. yes, it sounds good when we talk about maybe some of you are nodding your heads or nodding off, but the -- yes, inquiry, that sounds like a good value. but is it a value we would put on that blank page of ones we think are important in our homes in our schools, in our politics, and my hope is in talking about this, and in people reading and talking about the book, that we can bring that more to the place that i think it deserves. and i will take questions. thank you. [applause] >> i'm so sad that christine left because one of the reasons i came was to ask her, why she refuses to help the disabled. >> are you going to ask a question about the book? >> yes, no. >> next question. right there? yes. >> hi. i'm actually working at the new york city law department and i work in the press office, and one of the things i respect most about the press avenues is anytime they get questions from reporters they answer the questions forks matter how small the publication. but i think that's almost like the sole job of the press office. but what kind of ideas do you protoes facilitate public officials to answer questions by citizens especially when they're at the level they can't answer every letter. >> it's a good question. the to sum it up was, how do you create a situation in our politics in which elected officials are answering questions of their constituents more when especially -- more and more questions and more vehicles and ways to do that. how do you actually -- is that an accurate -- >> so i actually in the book i start with the conclusion by talking about -- i was speaking to some students at city college and giving my whole questioning speech, and this is right before the election. this is completely original and unique and inspired, and the student said, okay, have a question for senator obama, and at that point he was soon to be pret elect obama. how do you propose i get an answer? i was speechless because i had no idea, and i write in one of the chapters how our presidential debates have made in my view such a mockery of the asking of questions. essentially -- i think it's a 32 or 35 research assistant on the book, probably knows but i will suffer -- either 32 or 35 pages of regulations determined the presidential debates, each debate, from like 35 pages, single-spaced. i can't confirm. down from where you put your water glass to which pen you use in which hand, and of course the questions are often not questions, and we don't see to it that they're answered. the vice presidential debate bass the perfect embodiment of that, a question was asked, a speech was given, winch wink was in there, and there was no relationship between the question and the statement. so i don't have a good answer for you except that i think that the politicians who are the smartest know that the key to their strength is to ask questions, and the people i hang out with a mixed group of people. and some are political, and i remember someone telling me about both john mccain's campaign and senator clinton's presidential cam opinion, and the moment when they started taking questions is when they actually surged. and so it's this irony that politicians are often scares of questions when i think it's they're stance that is the ultimate questioning that would serve them best. our president has done more prime time news conferences and answered questions than our previous president did during his entire eight years. so the answer is, i don't know. that's why i wrote a book about questions, so i don't have to come up with answers. so generally whether our questions are valued in politics is one we need to pay attention to. >> this relates to the political arena but can relate to everything. the man in the street, someone is not in the power structure, does the man in the street actually have the opportunity to get into a forum where he can actually ask a question and get that question properly answered in i use this gentleman as an example. he wanted to ask a question of an elect it official. >> i think the first -- >> to the very top. because basically the question, if we were asking questions in the media, or people in the press, people in power structures already that the many ways of the democracy of the man in the street. >> right. >> ask a question of someone in power. >> got it i think you need to ask the question of the person you want to ask it to. so in this case that was a poor fit. but i mean that's why i wrote the book. so where is the role and where is our ability to ask questions of those who are accountable to news now, the book is not -- is also about whether or not we-thinking critically about the asking of questions. and so, frankly, and perhaps this is not what you want to hear but i think it's also a comment upon us to be thinking critically to be digesting the news and not just that which comes in our in box, but to be thinking about how we want to engage, and frankly, over the last week to be thinking about whether or not we are preparing subsequent generations with the same value of inquiry that will enable them to have their questiones answered. so how do i -- i don't have a specific answer to how we enable everyone to have their questions answered by elected officials, but if we can restore the rightful place of inquiry in our cull treasure that would be a long way from where we are now. in our book i talk about how our own expectations of how our questions will be answered has trickled to paralyzing our policy discourse. we now expect our leaders to have answers to us about what is happening in the moment in which it happens. we expect it. if they don't give it, then they are delaying. if they don't give it, then they don't know the answer. nice time for deliberation or to think about things as they unfold to ask their own questions and come back. that's as much something that the media has created as it is something we have created. are we patient enough to allow those we have elected to process and come back to us with answers. i think it's as much on us as it is the power structure loosely defined. >> why did you so rudely dismiss this gentleman's question? >> because it wasn't to me. the irony is incredible. >> the question is to someone who left the podium. next question? >> very good i will be signing books here. thank you very much. -- oh, there's a question over here. >> reaction -- >> the question was, what has been the reaction to the book. well, my mom liked it. my dad hasn't read it. i think it's enterdifferent parts -- i was speaking to a group of teachers who were i think excited about someone who wasn't in the education field was talking about the issue of whether or not our schools are designed to actually produce the citizens and the neighbors we want. ... >> but obviously i welcome your feedback on the book. someone told me when i said i want people to like the book, my and a friend said you do not want them to like the buck but discuss the ideas and the book but that is not trooper i want them to like the book. [laughter] >> i that it was important you said you went to a number of schools but i am curious how you chose the schools or how did you decide which schools to go? the underlying comment about inquiry because i was having discussions if you google something and you get an answer is not something necessarily that has been investigation or has had research i just want to know how many schools you visited? >> i want to make one point*, i'd love google dusting case there listening and wants to find in the future projects that the drum institute. i have visited some of them or read studies where people are working but yet still have digital illiteracy here is how you can use a search engine in a way that is rigorous were you evaluate if we cannot, i know what kind of democracy we can have how do you discern? there are places that is happening but it is not necessarily natural and at the presence of a device that is seemingly about the asking of questions does not mean it is about ann currie baidu want to say i think more programs are catching on is a literacy the needs to be taught and they will pat tj but we have to pay attention in terms of which schools? i paid attention to people in the field were pointing me. i have been upon the exploratory minnesota california and went out there to visit where it is all about getting teachers accountable with the process of inquiry based learning i knew good things had to be happening because people were saying bad things about it. it was not a scientific survey i went to virginia because i read about in the context of researching where serb -- civics was alive maybe that is the school board in may but there are other places where questions are considered to be central to the educational practice. my assessment is that is not the pressing question in education today. i do love our new president but during the campaign now one word was spoken by a either kennedy about the civic function of schools and to some extent we're not yet having a conversation about the role of public education today. we certainly had a continuation of the same policies with some new stuff added on with a commitment to community colleges to meet both educational and work force needs but i don't think we're stepping back and asking what role or through first 212 produce? or what role to the public institutions play to prepare those of the sens or nabors? that is a little beyond even our most pressing is not just theoretical if we do not ask the core questions i think we end up with the status quo and i feel in the education policy that will be true. >> why is it called the drum major institute? >> excellent question we do not give music lessons the organization on which i am on leave was founded during the civil-rights movement by close associates of dr. king and he would talk about the drum major instinct to lead and how it could be used for good or bad but the notion to lead a movement and the drum major institute today definitely tries to be a movement of ideas and progressive thinking toward the direction of changing our public policy. that is why it is called the drum major is 22 and dr. king made a sermon called a drum major in 16 -- instinct which you may find interesting that he made refer he was killed. >> will you be reaching out to the secretary of education and arne duncan and to the secretary of labor hilda solis to discuss these ideas in terms of education and preparing the work force? >> touche the teachers and mentor's never stop by sent to my college professor who assented to put secretary dunkin because i was too nervous to do so. the copies are out much to my publishers dismay and where that goes, i don't know. it is a different position being in a policy-making role to talk about the inquiry and the value and the secretary of education could be talking about the value of the inquiry and education but that does have specific applications to our current policy debates and frankly again that it is what we need to ask ourselves not just policy makers but what role do we see? and in our broad culture and in our world those are questions we need to engage in as well. >> now many americans come from a culture where father knows best. have you run into this at all? >> can you be more specific? >> my father watches the tape. >> i am the father, a don't ask me no questions? a lot of kids come from asian or hispanic culture, that is the culture that the father knows best is the way i tell you now you bring them into a public school to say ask your father request and. >> i do not think i would attribute that to a cultural distinction the very term you're talking about is fair rate much part of a traditional american in lexicon but there is a struggle between generations but actually the critique i expect of the book is not around the bat but around young people in a broader coulter who will say yes there are the most involved they have never been, they helped to elect a president inventing new forms of socialism how can you say they are not in acquiring? and my point* is their involvement in the 2008 campaign is a sign of the potential but now one out of three young people don't think cage with the news on at any given day in a meaningful way including online or on tv but the political involvement is shallow or temporary. so i think some of the response from my friends or the effect of this committee is am i giving young people a hard time? it is not about a specific generation but about a culture and environment in which today's children are being raised. my teacher, last question. perfect. >> in the 18 years since i have been retired there is little change in the way they are assessed if we want to change the way they are thinking but also the way we evaluate them at the end of the year instead of filling in the little bubbles. >> i agree with always whenever my teacher says. that is the secret. [laughter] i was doing this event in washington d.c. somebody asked me a question from the national constitution center i don't know if you have been there but a very impressive facility, learning environment, he was always frustrated because they could not figure out how to engage people with the information so they did a quiz, to help the young people who were visiting to figure how to navigate the space so of course, in my mind the question is there to ask would be what you want people to leave the national constitution center with? if you worked that backwards you probably would not wind up with a quiz or an exam or a treasure hunt. i think ultimately the way we assess is very much the way we wanted people to do. i look at surveys of employers and what they want and what they need and what they say is, we need more critically thinking people who are creative. that constantly use the word adapt. the ultimate irony is what our democracy needs and what our economy needs is critically thinking questioning and creative people but don't think that notion and the idea informs the way we think about we expect our students to do or achieve. until we can can a bridge that e will not reach you their goal of preparing workers or $0.07 that we need. thank you [applause] >> joseph lowndes in your new book "from the new deal to the new right" you argue modern conservatism was founded in the south. why? >>guest: i make that claim because people talk about a southern strategy and they capture of the south by the g.o.p. in the '60s beginning with goldwater and the nixon at 72 election but in some ways it is reverse seveners played a key role in development as they capture the republican party itself and then republican ascendance a nationally. there are certain ways a combination of segregationist politics and northern conservatism was blended over time by a very political actors and a wave of allowed a national language of racial resentment and opposition to the democratic power generally. >>host: so how did they blend and when did this begin? >>guest: a begins decisively in the 1940's than congress there is a conservative coalition of that comes together after 1936 to resist some of fdr political imperatives but after world war ii with the truman administration when he pushes for federal employment practices commission and the desegregation of the military the southern political e lead suddenly declare independence from the national democratic party first running as the dixiecrat or the state's right revolts the strategy was to get enough electoral college votes into the south to throw it into the house of representatives but began the process of separating it southern democrats from national democrats and liberal wing liberalism of the democratic party. then what happened conservatives and the north first-rate with eisenhower with what they thought the meat to of the republican party in the new deal era of began to look south four allies and a new coalition to rebuild a conservative party and pushed back against the new deal so "national review" begins inviting segregationist writers and journalists and others to penn of editorials and articles and strategists began to build the republican party and the south which had never been a viable party certainly not cents reconstructions rovell level of intellectual discourse and strategy begins that the northerners look south. >>host: the shared interest was economic? >>guest: economic and racial. southern segregationist saw their struggle was going to remain regional unless they could find allies and convince southerners who were quite loyal to the new deal they need to resist the liberalism of the national party number conservatives prior to the fifties began to see how racial politics would animate number audience and began to peel off segments of the white working-class and others from the hegemonic democratic party. is both. >>host: who are some of the leaders of this movement? >>guest: in the 40's charles wallace collins in particular the intellectual to rule of the dixiecrat revolts kind of a hard white supremacist segregation leader but really seeks to convince strom thurmond, southern elites they have to articulate a conservative and i government policy, a business, a ratio anti-government policy. he is a leader. 1950's and '60's, buckley, william f. buckley, he really makes traumatic efforts to bring southerners into the conservative coalition. he pens and editorial and 57 arguing denial of the vote to black citizens in the south is perfectly justifiable because these people have not reached a level of civilization that would allow them to participate democratically. cold water is somebody who when he runs in 64 he only wins a handful of deep south states nowhere in the nation. >>host: why did he win those states? >> in the 1964 election one of the major issues was the civil-rights bill that johnson had proposed. cold water opposition to the civil-rights bill was one of the things that he used supporters to get votes for him. civil-rights were articulated and states' rights and individual list ideology. >>host: what is the southern strategy? >> the began with the third goldwater or nixon and the idea nor the republicans hope to win over southern voters and southern states by pushing for articulating coated or open language for an extent anti-by saying and cold water opposition so that is what people refer to when they talk about the southern strategy. i again, the agency and activity of southerners themselves to put this on the table and provide the language, operational politics that play is not just in the south but gary indiana and teach right michigan, baltimore maryland and philadelphia, pennsylvania were issues of open housing, open unions, anti-discrimination measures that focus directly on race can potentially lead to a broader white audience. >>host: how do get from the new deal to the new right today? >>guest: i begin, the story i tell looks at elements inside and outside of the new deal. the democrats than northern conservative republicans and western republicans begin to bring their political perspectives to gather and opposition and finally whereby 1980 ronald reagan and wins and 84 even more so with a national realignment or regime change which we are at the end of now. >>host: ronald reagan and kicked off his campaign in mississippi. >>guest: not just been in mississippi but in washoe by county the site of the three civil-rights workers were slain by klansmen and 1963. this was a place that was steeped in racial history and trent lott brought him to give a speech and he said like you i believe in states' rights which he could have meant any number of things but the certain message was kerry fourth. >>host: what is a state in your view of the new right or conservative movement? >> we're in a "twilight" of the reagan revolution many soldiers say the same thing starting with newt gingrich and others, i think what happens in american political history is certain ideas dominates and certain political imperatives shape the landscape and overtime they began to wane as new political questions and a surplus time it -- circumstances arise to change political identity and i think now in some ways like democratic liberalism in the '70s the republican right has run out of gas or is a splintering with major internal strife over the future direction of the party. it was interesting to see in the republican primary you have a whole range of candidates but none could claim conservative credentials but yet all of them invoking reagan over and over. >>host: what does that mean for the south? >>guest: it is very much and play in a way it has not for one generation. we saw it in north carolina in the last election, georgia, mississippi , across the south black voters are playing a more decisive role, latino voters and white voters are more fragmented. part of this is changing political identity and others is a strong enforcement of the voting rights act was recently that it is opening to exciting change. >>host: this is your first book. >>guest: my day job political science professor i teach a university of or again i teach politics and right now comparative conservatism u.s. and europe with my colleague and racial politics from the mid 20th century through the present. >>host: with comparative politics what is the difference? >>guest: one difference america was founded on classical liberal idea and a way that european states don't have if you look at the origins of american conservative is a news the strains of hamilton's ideas of manufacturer tomei capitalism, markets, centraliz ed power and jeffersonian they blend together into a conservative movement there is no clear tradition the whigs at lagged a mob to defend against you do not have feudal traditions. >>host: professor joseph lowndes from the university of oregon "from the new deal to the new right". >> as the author of a new book about how congress are rarely works called the waxman reporter i hope people will read that. it is nonfiction what i tend to read rather than fictional the willis faber i listen to books rather than read them brian listening to the book of the sequel to fiasco which was a fabulous book i just finished "the inheritance" of foreign policy problems this administration is inheriting and i'm looking forward to a book about the involvement of the united states in the middle east. i read the six days of four and i highly recommend the book it told me although i lived through that time and the arab neighbors and israel there are things i just did not know what had happened that is why i thought it was worthwhile and that is why i think it is one that people should listen to or read it tells you things that you really think you do know but you do not know the full story of the discussions or the controversies or the train offs to produce legislation people usually hear about the scandals. they hear about the ineptness of government. people have been poisoned since reagan said government is the problem, not the solution they think government can do nothing right but they can do and must do things that affect positively millions of americans and i tried to show how bills that i fought for, and many were very controversial alert so successful and i believe the kinds of changes we're working on in congress under the guidance under president obama to reform energy and a deal with health care to make it affordable to all americans to hold out the cost so we can balance our budget because the biggest cost we have is health care under medicare and medicaid we have to bend the cost curve so we can hold down the deficit and make sure we have a more rational system. government can be a force for good and has been a force for good i tried to point* out how congress often does the right thing that you do not hereabouts as opposed to hearing about the negative side.