And all i am trying to do here, paul, is identify a problem and a course and possible solutions for the American People and hope that bubbles up to the grassroots political process so that you all in government and think tanks can get the job done that you know needs to be done. There is no question that things can go bad. Thank you, everyone, for coming. I really appreciate this. If anybody wants any information about that, crouching tiger. Net. Thank you so much, peter. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] James Thurber explores the challenges of partisanship in government next on book tv. Welcome professor James Thurber from american university, coeditor of a new book called American Gridlock the sources, character, and impact of political polarization. Good morning. Morning. Good to see you. Why are we so polarized . There are variety of reasons. Sorting going on. It is a phenomenon where people mo to e th we have a phenomenon, if you live in downtown baltimore your africanamerican around people that agree with you. You have lots of people that agree with you also. The theory is, you move to areas where if you can there are people you agree with. If you do not, you keep your mouth shut or begin to be like people around you. Redistricting is drawing lines around those things. Partn phenomenon around the United States. Redistricting for state legislatures as well as the house of representatives creates districts that are pretty safe. There are only 21 seats in the house right now that are estimated to be competitive out of 435. Many of the state legislatures are dominated by one party. They are becoming polarized. Reinforces this by having people go to places where valuesree with their own and not being challenged. The courts at the lowerlevel are becoming a bit polarized as well. There is this polarization that goes on that creates a phenomena. The left and the right fighting each other with very few people in the middle. A statistic on that. In 1970s and 1980s, the house of representatives and the senate had a bout a third of its members voting together. Anything we call common vote analysis when they vote together. A third. That was a governing coalition that created moderation and got things done. Today, only 4 of the house and senate vote together. Therefore, it is hard to get anything done. You have constituencies out there where the primary is the real election, and they are therefore, it is hard to get anythingreinforcing people sayig extreme things. If you use the term compromise, you get primaried. You get challenged in the primary by her own party. It is hard to win. The voters now are expecting some of this in the president ial election on the left and especially on the right with donald trump. Host you write the following quote. Income inequality and immigration have all increased dramatically in the United States over the past three decades. Guest yes. That the anger that you see as a result of some of these phenomena like immigration, but also income inequalities expressing itself on the right and left. If you are a moderate, a kasich or establishment republican, you are criticize because you are compromised moving to the middle. Bernie sanders look is to the far lef. He was like he will not get the nomination. We write about that in this book. The book is made up of some of the top scholars in the world writing about polarization for the media, the judiciary, the voters, in congress, and state legislatures. It is the first time we have all of that together. No one has brought it all together. We do that in this book. Host speaking about state issues, you and your colleagues write this. Guest we have all kinds of unintended consequences when reform occurs. I think that what is happening overall the state level is the partyshe dominant redistricting in a way for state, senate, and house seats to make sure they continue to dominate. Until we have another census, we will not see that change. I accuse both parties of doing that. No one is out there saying let us have more competitive districts. By the way, other nations do this. Canadated kingdom and and new zealand and australia have commissions that do redistricting. They have equal populations compact. They are bringing about more competition. I believe in competition. My colleagues believe in competition. Competition will bryn bring more moderation. Host you have been teaching for how many years . Guest i have been there since 1974, but i have been in and out of government in certain impossible reform activities like redistricting and Committee Reform and Campaign Finance reform. Always failed reforms i have been in and out working on that these years. Grader i a top ugh should point out. Good morning. Caller good morning. How are you guys doing . Host fine, thank you. Caller please do not cut me off here. Another useless academic. My mother did not want me to go into academia. You are along with her values. Host why be so direct with a guest the has agreed to come here on a sunday morning . Caller let me get to the point. The reason we are having this incredible gridlock and everything, and this is the reason the tea party arose in the first place, as we have gotten too far away from the constitution. Let me give you an example. I just watched the first few episodes of the roosevelts, an intimate history. The ken burns documentary. Let me give you an example of when this all started. Host ok. Teddy when tony wa roosevelt filed an indictment from the department of Justice Without warning against j. P. Morgan and the Northern Securities company for being a trust, that came out of nowhere. He invoked the sherman antitrust act to do so. Was he within his rights as the president to do so . Absolutely, he was. Absolutely. He was within his rights. He was exercising his constitutional duty because congress had passed the sherman antitrust act in 1890. Host thanks for the call. You can respond to that. Guest i dont know if i am a worthless academic. I think it is important for young people in america to understand the constitution like this individual and history. What we do is research, but we also teach people about how the system works. I do believe the president was within his right to do that. There is a controversy now over using executive order. Way, this president has had fewer executive orders on average than almost any president for the last about 70 years. I agreethe questioner, him. He is within the Constitutional Rights to do that. Host our guest is James Thurber. Him. Hehe has worked for among others senator hubert humphrey, stephenson, congressman david ovi. He is author or editor of now nine books. John from misery is next on the democrats missouri is next on the democrats line. Caller good morning. This. D like to address thisiggest cause of disintegration of the american political system is rupert murdoch. He devised this country. H he divided this country. Host others would argue we are seeing that in the left as well. Guest the media are. It is plura it is plural, and we have competition. There are biases in the media. They go to the internet to get their information will look for fox presents are other places present the media. They go to places they want to be and entertain. Entertainmt the best aspect of presenting material. I think that certainly fox is known to be conservative. Murdoch is a conservative person. I dont think he is the reason we have division in america. We have division in america based upon culture, race, and ideology, and the media does not control that. They reflect it to a greater extent. Host this is an editorial. Last. S from jonathan it is called storm clouds. He makes a couple of points. Isdonald trump wins what he calling a republican civil war, it can go the way of goldwater in 1964. Is awe are hearing now good signal for the party that we could go to a conservative candidate. We had remnants of that from mitt romneys speech last week. He would open the door for a conservative candidate that would almost assuredly guilty Hillary Clintons election in november guarantee Hillary Clintons election in november. Guest the polarization of voters, and you mentioned goldwater. We had reagan who ran against ford. It came right down to the convention, but he lost as an outside antiestablishment, really at sign northeastern establishment candidate. Is there are a lot of the reason right now, but let us assume from gets the nomination assume trump gets the nomination. It is believed he will not do well in the nine battleground states. He has alienated women. He has alienated nonwhites, which make up a significant proportion of the electorate and are leading to the democrats. He has alienated other kinds of populations. He is likely to lose. What happens . The Republican Party comes together and trusted figure out what happens, and there will be between thoseght that are Establishment Republicans and those that are these ne Tea Party People on the far right. I dont know what will come out of that. But if the party wants to continue, it has to is all that and reach out to nonwhite americans because the white americans will be a minority soon, and they need to reach out the way george w. Bush wanted to do that as an establishment republican. That is what he wanted to do to broaden the base of the party. The party had a very low percentage in terms of already. D. Compared part i host here is what a summit the Senate Democrat leader said. Donald trump is the Republican Partys i can start i would get an update the republican establishment acts like it is a surprise. His victories around the country. They feign outrage the demagogues. Somehow winning in a party that is telling people they are not welcome in america. They continue to support a man who continues to distance himself from the ku klux klan. The Republican Voters cheer trumps schoolyard taunts. They deny a fair hearing to the president Supreme Court nominee for the 1st time ever. Republicans should be surprised. Rise of donald trump. Host that was a statement of harry reid last wednesday. I want to share with you this editorial from earlier this month from the wall street journal. Guest lets go back to harry reid also. I think he has expressed the democratic position of why this is happening, but it is more complex than that. It is not just that they have been bashing government for all of these years and pushing far right agendas. The party really believes in smaller government. Recent polls show 74 of republicans want smaller government. 81 of democrats want larger government. This is part of the division. When it comes to guns, prolife, gay marriage, the parties are split in almost the same way. We have a clear external threat to the United States adding to your second question. America really likes to have a clear mission, a clear statement of what you will do about it. It may not be very realistic sometimes, but they want a strong leader. They see donald trump is a strong leader. One of the problems i see is we do not know specifics about what he will do as a leader, and then he changes those positions from time to time. He flips back and forth. That will come out in the general election. We will have a debate probably between hillary and trump on this. They are looking for a strong leader. They are not looking for a nuanced leader. They are looking for someone who keeps it simple. He is attractive in the support,n party, great and he has drawn in some independents. I am waiting for the data. There is a certain he is bringing in candidates, democrats. I have not seen hard data on that point. Host the most important voting surprise, those who like donald trump like the fact that he says it like it is. It is an issue, of who can win november. Hillary clinton doing well among africanamerican and older voters. Bernie sanders doing well among younger voters. Let us go to robert in harrison, arkansas. Good morning. Caller good morning. Thank you. I have not heard one comment about jill steins thoughts on this issue. Nonprofits were designated for exclusively for social welfare purposes only. This thing called partisan nonprofits. We see money where their donors do not have to identify themselves. They commit not necessarily speaking for a party, but having a definite background, conservative, liberal, or progressive. They are carrying these messages uth orre basically mistr basic lies. One of the things is Bernie Sanders, who i did not vote for, but i thought he would have a problem because he is legally socialist. When you look at this he is labeled a socialist. When you look at this, nonprofits, all of those that supply insurance to their people get that subsidized through the government. But when we talk about helping a person that is not a part of that group, that becomes socialism. Host we will get a response. Robert, thank you. Guest he makes a good point. Bernie sanders calls himself a democratic socialist. Other people say that the Social Security system, medicare, medicaid, other supplements for people who are retired our socialist programs, progressive socialist programs. He wants to expand that for College Students to reduce their education,or their try to bring in minimum wage. It is very attractive because people have been hammered by this economy at one level. He talked about behind what he is saying or the super pacs pouring millions of dollars into these campaigns. Lets put it in perspective. Last time, the cycle, according to all accounts, the last president ial cycle in 2012 had 7 billion spent in the primaries, general elections for the house, senate, and including party money, money from super pacs. This time, it will probably go to 8 billion. One thing that we know is that the outside groups have not had that much impact. In fact, before going into this cycle, we thought oh my gosh, the money will come in and change the agenda. Donald trump has shown you can do this without a lot of outside money. It is a problem. People invest in campaigns, not just for democracy. They would like to have certain policies. Many times from the super pacs where we do not know who the donors are, we do not know what they are spending until much later. They have an impact on the system. In terms of people distrusting what is going on, they cannot coordinate, all they need to coordinate. Coordination is illegal. All you have to do is watch tv to coordinate. I think the story so far is money does not make that much difference. Look at jeb bush. He had a lot of money, a lot of endorsements, and he barely got about 7 and dropped out in the campaigns. Host 140 million. Guest a lot of money. More than anyone else before he went in. Even a little more than hillary at the beginning. Trump is not have a lot of outside money. He says he is spending this money himself. Will find out a lot more about that later, but it was certainly not because of outside pacs like the Koch Brothers or something supported him. He has done it on his own. He has captured the anger of the people on the far right. Host Time Magazine has the cover story this week looking at donald trump and the split decision in yesterdays primaries and caucuses available on time. Com. We welcome in James Thurber. For listeners on cspan radio next inwe go to thomas holly hills, florida. Good morning. Caller good morning. Guys haveknow you this book American Gridlock, and i think it when then 2000 republicans figured out a way to steal that 2000 president ial election through katherine harris, jeb bush, basically the Supreme Court. When all is said and done and all the votes were counted, he did not really win that election. Started actually guest gridlock started actually in the 1980s. We had fewer and fewer people elected into state legislatures that could be called moderate. A liberal republican and a moderate republican are endangered species. Secondly, we used to have blue dog democrats. Democrats that were fiscal conservatives. They were voted in the middle with many of their colleagues in the 1970s, 1980s, and they started being redistricted. They lost. They are no longer around. About a third of the house and Senate Voting together in the 1980s to write now about 4 . When you got that, there is no incentive for members to move to the middle and challeng govern. That is reinforced by leaders in the house and senate that keep their group together against the public will. One example of that is the consideration to have a hearing for a nominee for the Supreme Court. They announced well in advanced in the senate they would not do that. It is an example of reinforcing the base, getting people in the base of the far right to support them. The 2000 election is part of the history of this, of course, as well as the Supreme Court decisions that allow the growth of super pacs and a lot of other things. What is happening basically is the voters are sorting. The parties are reinforcing that. When you get to the general election when more people about, they say we imminent vote, they say wait a minute. They are angry. That is more important i think that the 2000 election. By the way, we have a constitutional framework that makes it hard to get anything done. We also have divided party government. We flip of the time, back and forth since 1980 between the parties and the house dust in the house, senate, in the house,y senate, and presidency. Immigration is an example of that. We should have had an immigration bill along time ago. Both parties are benefiting from not having that the cost at this point. That is more important than the 2000 election. Host barbara is next. Massachusetts, democrat line. Good morning. You arefirst of all, nothing but the useless academic you are a useful academic host we appreciate you joining us. Which reminds me, i won you guys at cspan to create the washington journal 100, the people wont vote and we will tell you who we want to see. We want to put crowns on their hands and we will do step showing their clips over the years. Host ok. Thank you for the idea. Caller i heard that are blessed first president , george love him washington said, watch out for the political parties. They will do us in. I wondered the other night listening to trump, who was accused of flipflopping positions, if what he is actually doing is deliberately unconsciously is a tactic to create a National Unified platform on the remaining issues, in other words, he is picking the best sense for both sides. Way,m it up in a funny they could beat from looking at the american electoral system and saying, you are fired. Thank you. Host thank you. Guest that is a great comment. Lets start with the first one and remind the viewers of madison. It is written about how we have republic but we have to worry about it and what it will continue or not and it said, the where factions, they will undermine the Public Interest. The aware of then parties, they will undermine the Public Interest. Specialized interest that will undermine the Public Interest. The American People sort of believe that. I think trump, to a great extent, and Bernie Sanders on the left and right are talking about these specialized interest undermining the Public Interest in their way. scannot add to the caller interesting comments about trump very i do not know what is going through trumps mind from day to day because he changes it so much. And sometimesual it is wrong, but it does not make any difference. He goes on the next and changes neversition, so we have seen anything like this in american politics. He is unique. Host lets turn to robert in england. This program carried on the Bbc Parliament channel. Good afternoon. Caller good morning, cspan and good morning. Guest good morning. Host thank you. Part of the is International Example of polarization. You mentioned media polarization earlier, but one of the things that you guys maybe are not u. S. And thehe weight the polarization of the u. K. s media, about 30 of the u. K. s media [indiscernible] basically, we only have the paste and that is one of the reasons why i think most americans [indiscernible] u. K. , we have this referendum which is when the most important decisions countries make discussing generations. What has happened is that you have got this conservative media ishe majority of the media held in london, as with the rest of the u. K. Does not have the same media boats. What is happening in the american president ial elections Major Centers of national power, which should be places like atlanta, new york or washington, and you have lots of regional media. Oneasically means you have of the cities representing the actual proof of what is told as opposed to journalism. Host i will give our guests the chance to respond. Thank you. Guest i lived in london and talked at the university of london many years ago, and about the fact that you had multiple papers in london. I did not think about the regional question that you have outlined, but what is happened in the United States is our regional and city papers are hurting. Papers generally are hurting. They are relying upon National National issues like the new york times, the washington post, the washington journal, and theyre local thein National Papers that exist. People in the United States watch local tv and they get much more indepth analysis, sometimes, but the weather and also politics compared to the National Broadcast television stations that are really 23 minute Headline News services ads and peopleug the cablef it, television, cnn and others, they watch, but i think more and more, especially on the people, going to the internet for information. They are getting lots of different sources of information but they are going to the places where they agree. To talk about regional coverage in the United States compared to the u. K. , we get lots of investigativesis, reporting, and it is a very rich source of information compared to many other nations. Host your expertise on another issue that percolates, and this is what the chairman of the Republican NationalCommittee Said at the cpac conference on friday with regards to potentially look could happen in cleveland at the summer convention. [video clip] is of the the nominee party, they will get the full backing and 100 support of the Republican Party. [applause] process and it is simple. We sat at a process and republicans are voting in a lot of the states, but they bind delegates to the convention and at the convention, obviously, it takes the majority of the delegates to become the nominee. That person joins the Republican Party. Have tried to make this case and it takes a little longer than you have got on a 32nd response on television, but i want to calibrate everyone and remind you what is going on. We have candidates that are competing to be the nominees of the Republican Party who want to and the Republican Party our convention in cleveland, and when they joined the Republican Party, obviously, they take in what we have been able to build at the rnc. We do not take sides, regardless of what you may think or read, there is no side that we take at the Republican Party. , alsoJames Thurber pointing out that the expects the republican nominee will be decided before the convention. Guest i agree. I think we will know fully after ,arch 15, after several states we wont go through them, but it trump continues to win in those states, he will clearly have enough delegates before he goes to cleveland for the nomination. We may have an, open convention, not a brokered Convention Like in the old sense where white guys got together with cigars behind closed doors and selected to they would have. After the first ballot where people are required to vote a certain way, then you will see well, before that, a lot of negotiation behindthescenes, and eileen toward conventional wisdom at this point that trump will get the nomination. Host will it be fascinating . Guest last year about this time , i thought this election would bush andzer with hillary going after each other, but this one has been so exciting. It has been too excited. If we have one of those kind of conventions, it will be wonderful for political analyst to analyze. Host lets go to friendship, maine, dale is on the phone. Where is that . Caller it is on the coast somewhere near robin. Host are you caucusing this weekend question mark weekend . Caller i stay independent. I dont vote in any of them. I have to commit one way or the other. Basically, my comment is that i am from maine, we are mostly independent thinkers, we went to go back to the way that people fight for community first. Donald trump needs to be reminded that when someone [indiscernible] could never run for president of the United States. Against theing financial elite. I am living in a state that fosters community, a recipe for success, and most Business Owners take care of their workers, especially the workers in building companies. Fosteredp, they away to build the Community Without first with help first, to build people up. Kennedy would say, not what can my country do, but what can you do for your country . The country for everyone and not to take cap. Host thank you. Guest first, he is an independent. Let me say that i would push a reform tab open primaries, this is throughout the United States to allow independents to go one havingthe other without to identify that they are democrat or republican. I think we will get better turnouts. I am from oregon, born and raised in oregon, and we used to vote for the best person. My father was republican, but he would vote for way more spending was a democrat and hatfield, a republican, fort wayne morris when he was a democrat and hatfield, a republican. A lot of people from maine settle in oregon. In the United States these days, we have a lot of people who are not splitting their ticket when they are voting in the general election. If you look at the data, the surveys or academic surveys on 93 , good academic surveys, of the democrats that voted for obama also voted for democratic 80 9 voteds and for Senate Members and the data are the same for romney and republicans. It is very hard to get people who do what this individual says and for independent, we like to vote for the best person. People are not splitting their ticket and i think that will continue doing this particular administration. In terms of policies they referred to, these are all good points. Things go the candidates have to take into account, and that is better wages for people and having Small Businesses create jobs and other issues, as mentioned. Host if you are listening, our guest is James Thurber. Good morning. Caller good morning, cspan. O outor sanders won tw of three states and their has been no mention on cspan or social media. I think including superdelegates is misleading as to how the vote is going and that paper has hillary clinton, who was mentioned with the superdelegates, and i would like to know how bernie is doing in the actual vote . Do you have the numbers . Host we do. In fact, they are on their website and we can show you the delegate totals. We are including the superdelegates. Here is why we get our numbers from the Associated Press on primary and caucus nights and the results are from the ap, and and a website. The delegates are elected officials and dnc officials who say they will poke for hillary clinton. If they change, our numbers will change and you will see the delegates for senator sanders, including his pledged superdelegates, jeff are fewer than hillary clinton. What about that question mark about that . Guest superdelegates are part of the rules of the democratic party, so there is a balance. Superdelegates are elected Party Officials and the delegates you get from caucuses and primaries, but i should mention the senate, hillary has the superdelegate vote their, and she has all of the senators except for senator warren and Bernie Sanders has none at this point, which is telling about what sanders colleagues think about him. Criticized roundly his colleagues in the senate, which is something about cruz. Host lets go to cole from new jersey. Good morning. Caller good morning. A macro question. I was wondering about whether or not his present state of affairs, to some degree, can be laid at the seeds of our lack of teaching and civics as a core issue and to see the demonstration and Public Discourse . I think there is a generational part of our country who had that experience, generally older, and understand politics is not the end result but a manifestation of the health and quality of our civic life. As a civics teacher, i was hoping to hear your perspective on that macro approach to the present situation. Host thank you. Guest i agree with that. I have been involved with centers for the last 20 years that have been trying to improve the way that we teach civics. At the high school and gradeschool level, in particular, former member of hamilton has been doing this since he has been retired. He has the Competition Among teachers to be educated at Indiana University during the summer to improve the way they do it. He has created interesting online games, so it is the Dirksen Center in illinois, a variety of congressional centers and president ial libraries and are trying to do this. The Foundation World has been worried about this for two decades, and they have pumped millions of dollars into trying to improve this. And i thank you for your comment because i feel like im trying mydo this with undergraduates and graduate students to do a better job of teaching people about how the system works and to improve it. Host of the question from don who says, does your guest believe this is a realignment election . The r