The transformation of american politics. Australia. Melbourne, numerousritten for publications including the new politico, and fox. Nicole i would like to thank both for that great introduction and all of you for coming out here today. Time oft is busy this year postelection and postthanksgiving. Thank you for coming out and for inviting me. About my bookalk and i thought i would focus on the relationship between conservative media and electoral politics since that seems particularly timely this month. To do that, i want to start not in the 1940s in 1950 passes when the book begins, but in the last few months. Donald trump announced in mid august another campaign shakeup. He was hiring steve annan, the breitbart. The world react as if wires had been crossed. From the media, jumping straight into politics. Even in the world of partisan media, it seemed unusual to give up all pretext of difference pretense of difference. Maybe that should not have been so surprising. Conservatives have been able to count on fox news and conservative radio for a generation and the generation the connection is much older. Older than most people assume conservative media is. Is deeplyof activism intertwined in the dna of modern conservative media. Betterll help us understand not way the power of conservative media but how it involved into something new a rightwing populist media that structured the message of the and will define his presidency. Starts with robert taft. The 1952 Republican Convention was ranked. The conclusion of many conservatives. They have spent years toiling in the trenches for robert, the conservative or ohio. , the heirext in line apparent for the republican nomination. Antinew deal, antiinterventionist. Nowhere, aut of in, one of thet biggest celebrities in america with no political experience who had not even been a republican a few years prior. A sinister light eisenhower when eisenhower won the nomination, his victory was greeted with a deep this nation by conservatives. A conservative popular publisher wrote delegates, i understand, were bought and intimidated with dealerships, pressure from banks, insurance companies, and , i am told, when buckley founded National Review a fears later, the magazine echoed the charge. The editor exclaimed, the machinations of eastern elites for eisenhowers rise of power. The editorial in the first issue , early in 1951, International Bankers and industrialists organized the the inflationsted to the new York Advertising firm. The rest is history. Conservatives had little patience for eisenhower who they too conservative willing to keep the new deal. The right to rethink its future in the gop. Maybe, conservatives thought, the road to the white house would not run through either party. Maybe they would need a new party to advance their ideas. Work on a new political effort came not from it came from folks within the conservative media. The 1950s, conservatives about they were excluded by entrenched liberal establishment. They cultivated and elite populism which allowed them to speak as representatives of an oppressed minority and an oppressed majority. Despite an access to traditional sources to economic, social, and political power. The story of media activists is not just one of activists advocating for change or wealthy you will the wealthy elite manipulating the masses. The work of activists sat at the intersection of these two factions. Elite populism was asked a distinguishing feature of conservative media activism from the start, while the elite part was self seldom in question. Ceoss. E the populist part took a while to develop. While the activism was simply a matter of annuity arguments and creating a sense of conservative identity among lifelong we readers and listeners, it does not matter that conservatives were in the minority. Functionslavor but it largely as a link to the past. The first generation of media activists saw themselves operating in the populist tradition. They compared their work to that of times pain, laying the groundwork for a fundamentally new type of government. That of William Lloyd garrison. At worst, judicious. Media activists constructed a lineage as radical as it was conservative. Is liberal,lishment they would dedicate themselves to demolishing it. They sought to do it not by turning to Community Organizing but through media. Believe the media were key to political power, the controlling the means of communication would inevitably lead to political change. Started their own publishing houses and radio programs and magazines. Henry found in his company in 1947 while Devin Garrity pumped up conservative books from his Publishing Company assumes world war ii ended. Conservative weekly found their footing in 1975. I conservative magazine shifted to more popular politics. Media in conservative married media with activism, using their role with voice of conservatism to push for change. Media activists attempted to pry the listeners and audiences away from longstanding party allegiances and toward a more ideological approach to voting. Because of your conservative beliefs. In thes a radical shift 1940s and a knife and 50s, when the parties were ideologically you had conservative republicans and andral republicans, conservatives wanted to create a purely conservative party. Quixotic campaigns had little effect on the National Clinical scene. They were important for conservative media and conservative electoral politics. The 1950s were a testing ground for whether they needed to work in a twoparty system. The publisher of Chicago Tribune tots a new organization he called organization for america and pointed two cochairs. Clarence, and dan smoot. Another popular radio host. In 1945, before america had emerged for america had emerged and it was founded by a publisher and led by two publishers. In the mid1950s, media activists were just getting their start. They never went into the thick of politics before. It is telling what they did when faced with their first president ial election in 1956. They urged conservatives to reject the two Major Party Candidates and vote for a conservative. Accountant with a thick virginia drawl and an easygoing charm. In 1953, eisenhower appointed head of the Internal Revenue service. Andrews was not very wellsuited for a role in the federal government. In 1955, he resigned and began to denouncing the federal income tax as discriminatory and politically unsound. As you can imagine, conservative love this. The head of the irs was saying the income tax was discriminatory, not politically so this makes him a favorite in conservative circles and his name starts crossing off as the ideal 1966 candidate pier 1 problem was nobody really knew how to run a thirdparty candidate. Howd you build a party to challenge the democrats and the republicans question mark republicans . Turned language changed. It was not in the new party but in the emergence of a powerful new president ial ticket. A ticket and not a party. That is what for america would deliver in 1966. Formally nominated in october where he was the keynote speaker. They would be running a Weekend Campaign since they both had day jobs. The ticket does not get off the until october and it does not get very far as they were on the weekend. It did attract some support. The wall street Editorial Board labeled it a party of protests, paveoted the ticket might the way for displaced conservatives to gain the attention of the two major parties. National views washington correspondent sam jones wrote an article strongly encouraging able for andrews. Where is the wall street journal mainly common on the economic positions and tax ideas . Jones focus on immigration and civil rights. In its first few years, National Review still finding its footings and presentations of civil rights, segregation and racism, mostly relied on jones and james fitzpatrick. That is chu and domestic policy but feel look of the coverage of foreign policy, it is different. Of white supremacist defenses that you see and why the south must prevail come you see it in the magazines coverage of africa and apartheid, defending the ofrtheid is ecb same sorts you see the same sorts of because they are the advanced race arguments. Was a major issue in the 1950s but conservative media activists to not put it front and center in the campaign. They used it strategically to attract white southern democrats to formally endorse the ticket, the appeal to the crowd by reading the statement that eisenhower was willing to use federal force to ensure school immigration in the south integration in the south. He said supporters were flushed flocking to his ticket in droves after the comments. Thunderous to nancy and, it was impossible to disseminate the ticket from massive resistance. The ticket has to be understood in that light. A virginian running on states rights in 1966 cannot be understood outside of that context. Such a Strong Association with segregation limited the ticketss appeal outside of the south. Act laimed with some accuracy that for america was solely responsible for the candidacy. It was an of the day, effort and they also laid the groundwork for a thirdparty. All of that was centered in the south in almost all of it was limited to his home state of virginia. He had no impact on the president ial race but his candidacy was important for media activists. They had weathered their first election cycle. Chairman of aas president ial campaign, however small. The National Review, founded earlier, has its first the editors gain important ideological purity and electoral pragmatism. They also discovered the difficulty of providing direction to readers as voters. When the most desirable candidate had no shot at victory. How do you convince leaders to throw away their vote to show their discontent with both parties . In the end, they did not endorse anyone and encourage readers to vote their conscience. Ted cruz would like that. Looking forward to the 1960 he tried another shadowy. Two National Parties risen with ideological factions. Bring themas to altogether and purge the liberals, to assess and ideological realignment of the in looking for a candidate kim clark anion goldwater, a familiar stage face on the stage. His call for a more conservative Publican Party led the Washington Posts discover it byld be better symbolized the macedon than the elephant. Manion saw goldwater as the partyss future. Goldwater insisted he would not run a thirdparty campaign and would not leave the gop. Manion shelved his thirdparty ambitions and got to work on the republican nomination. Organizing for a goldwater nomination consumed manions time. Before he could take on the gop, he had to convince others on the conservatism. Ater it seems silly now. We associate goldwater with conservatism down the line but not all conservatives were sold that goldwater was a conservative. He supported the eisenhower administration. He did not necessarily agree with all conservatives on all of their issues. Needed to do something to make goldwater synonymous with conservatism. To sellht who better those principles that goldwater himself. Idea of a statement of belief, a goldwater manifesto, appealed on many levels. A prominent politician with conservative ideas, both of them together. Second, it would popularize the senator nationally, getting him on the lips of conservatives across the country. And it would lay the groundwork withoutldwater campaign forcing the hesitant senator into a declaration of candidacy. Goldwater was not entirely sure he wanted to risk his political reputation by running for president too early. Manion believed the book to do the campaigning for goldwater until he was ready to take up the call. That book, which would become conscience of the conservative , became his determination to when it became clear goldwater would not have time to devote, manion went to the national hasew contributor speechwriters. Many and to publish it himself through his own vanity press. He arranged for distribution, focusing on corporations that could use the purchase of the book as a form of contribution. When conscience of the conservative washington april 1960, it was an instant success, but forfor book sales goldwater conservatism. Goldwaters position in the senate made him a nationally recognized figure, and conscience of the conservative made him a nationally recognized conservative figure. The book did better than the protocampaign in the 1960 in 1960. The nomination went to president Richard Nixon and said. Convention, goldwater admonished conservatives who were threatening to stay home, to grow up and get to work. Did, soon after the election, conservative media activists turned their attention to the next election cycle. In conscience of the conservative sure goldwater would remain their best hope in the race. Fastforward to four years later. Media activists were poised to become fullfledged political leaders. People like bill, publisher of National Review, took the political organizing rains from manion. You have a radio host running americans for goldwater. By 1964, you have a magazine publisher. Were not part of the goldwater for america team, were highly important as goldwater emerged the front runner and nominee. Goldwater about to have a shot of the presidency. The campaign put conservatism right smack in the middle of american politics, elevating it from a Fringe Movement to a major force in american politics. For media activists, the trip from the fringes to the center was not without its challenges. Established conservative outlets suddenly found themselves facing competition from stars who are able to challenge the dominance. Itll self published paperback books spilling over with dark, scott conspiratorial analysis , sold millions of copies throughout the 1964 campaign. Largely bypassed the conservative Media Establishment. These were self published books put together in the homes of the , and 16 million of them were circulated in the summer of 1964. It was a phenomenon booksellers had not seen before. It was in essence the conservative Media Campaign running alongside the official Goldwater Campaign. It mattered because once goldwater won the nomination, rightwing media were no longer the primary group crafting his message and image. Conservatives had to tend with mainstream journalists, which they often spoke about as one in the same. They had to deal with the official and decidedly unwelcoming Goldwater Campaign. By the time goldwater wins the nomination, he essentially purges media activists from his campaign surrounds himself with the arizona mafia. A group of Close Friends of his who he increasingly relied on throughout the campaign. For all of these challenges, the campaign remained a rare thertunity to complete process activists had begun in the 1950s to interact with leaders and listeners as voters and partisan political organizers. You all know, goldwater lost the election in as and historic landside. The very ideas that had won him so much conservative adoration sounded bizarre to americans who had never really questioned the wisdom of Social Security or containment policy in the cold war. Convincedemist, he americans to vote for him and that demonstrated something and thee power limitation of conservative media in 1964. Inh skillful organization the right clinical tailwind, they could elevate a true conservative, the major Party President ial nomination but having developed their ideas and rhetoric, they found when faced with a broad american electorate, the fulls of American Media were illsuited for building a national majority. Coveredthe press goldwaters failure to win, his historic loss, was to suggest not only was goldwater done, but conservatism was. That now the rePublican Party would become more moderate and modern and would move forward from conservatism. It does not end there. Quite the opposite here Ronald Reagans election in 1980 and the republican revolution of 1980 94 cleared up the remaining liberals and made the gop the party of conservative ideas. Found supportans from a new generation of media activists. Rush limbaugh, fox news. During those years, republicanism and conservatism converged. It matters because rePublican Party politics and conservative ideas were not always compatible. During the george w. Bush of bigtration, an era government conservatism, the right often compromise principals to advance their power. Fox news, rush limbaugh, and the gop were becoming inseparable as an establishment. As populism became the dominant motive rightwing politics, all establishments were targets. Conservative media were not immune to the populist wave, discontent with fox newss perceived establishment bias in the 2012 republican primaries. Newt gingrich and Rick Santorum former fox news contributors, accused fox news of bias toward mitt romney. In same dynamic we see today the debate over secretary of state. In 2012, it was not enough to overturn the establishment. There was no central figure to organize around, no call to action. It was discontented and also fragmented. The opposition to obama united the rightwing populist in the conservative movement, disguising tensions and widening the gaps between the two, and in many ways, opposition to the Obama Administration tapered over emerging fractures happen within the conservative movement. There were visible signs in 2011 into the thats 12. People mocked the tea partiers who held a sign that said keep your government hands off my medicare. That in theignal wake of the financial crisis, the tea party base was exhibiting a rightwing economic populism. Not a doctrinaire conservatism. That is something i think we will all evaluate in this transformation can conservative and repelled parties. That is into the 12. After, rightwing populists found more to be angry about. Gop leaders argued the parts the party had to do more to attract nonwhite voters. The top r. O. C. Priority was to commission reform. Rubio spearheaded the drive for reform. He appealed to major conservative media outlets. He teamed up with Chuck Schumer and privately met with appeal to limbaugh for support. Rubio understood if he would have any chance of getting comrades of Immigration Reform passed he needed conservative media on his side. He did more or less for a few months. If you are watching conservative media in the months the plan was there were fewer outright attacks on Immigration Reform. Shows like hannity and the oreilly factor, you hurtful for you heard full throated base support. The base saw that as a betrayal. In the span of a few months, rubio went from the next big wing of the party to being booed wherever he went. Denounced as a traitor. He was telling Breitbart News he would no longer support the warm bill that he had championed. Name, breitbart. Since 2012, the site had been run by steve bannon. As soon as donald trump entered the president ial base, breitbart became a mouth these of his campaign. The end of nominal conservatism for pieces and calls to action that asked conservatives to stop being so conservative on issues like Immigration Reform and free trade. You are now beginning to see a working out of the relationship between populism and , the senator from utah in the last week or so, published a piece in the National Review arguing conservatives need to be come more populist. That is interesting study to a certain a student of conservative media. These were the same arguments happening in 19 to seven and 1968. When George Wallace was running for president. Arguing people conservatism and populism were fundamentally incompatible. Was the opposite of conservatism and could not be reconciled. That he was a liberal with racist views. Have National Review publishing pieces encouraging populism because of trumps when in theelection win election weeks ago. Donald trumpss candidacy opens the door for bright part defendants within conservative media. The same velvet that field trumpss campaign, growing frustration with the establishment, the disappearance of gatekeepers, and the opportunity provided by fragmentation. It took the trunk campaign to arm the media insurgents. To take on the conservative Media Establishment without in my book, i read about the first generation of conservative media, and fox news, talk radio, is the second generation. I would argue we are in the myths of the thirdgeneration. Know thaton i do not i would call conservative media. I would call it rightwing media, and the relationship to conservatism is more tenuous in the same way the gop is changing from a conservative party to one of the coalitions of ideas. What is it on mean now that donald trump put steve bannon by his side and has won the election . Held together, it is now being held together by trump. Is become a broader rightwing coalition now divided in many ways on economic policy, foreign policy, and the size of government but united by power, nationalism, and opposition to cultural liberalism. That is something we will see play out through the years. How does it navigate those ideological incompatibilities . Out inights will play new rightwing media landscape. The fights over what policies will advance are carried out in the rightwing media. Pass. Olicies were will but conservatives no longer controls the party or the media and the party of reagan is no more. The gop is now the party of trump and what it means for conservative media, we are seeing interesting transformations where somebody like sean hannity was an early supporter of trump and positioned himself as a populist pretty soon after trump ended the race, and you have folks like megyn kelly who transitioned herself not as a never trumper, but as someone who sees herself as part of the press opposition to trump. How the network balances those is the same challenge as well. Howdy you balance this coalition . It is something we would have to wait to find out. Conservative media would have to be an essential part of the story. Thank you. [applause] a few ground rules before we get the discussion going. Please wait for the microphone and identify yourself before you ask your questions. Who wants to start us off . Right here. My name is stephen shore. In terms of this populism, what would happen to trumpss coalition if he should offer Bernie Sanders a position as secretary of labor . [laughter] think we willot have to worry about that. This is an interesting question that came of throughout the campaign. The rePublican Party was taking was theopulist term as Democratic Party. There was an assumption that all populists are created equal and therefore Center Supporters and supportver donald trump. Though there are policy alignments on things like ttp, there are real barriers to that kind of coalition happening. They rely on the exclusionary politics. Comments about immigrants, muslims, women, or going to make that relationship too difficult for leftwing populist crossovers. To ising it might point that we have been used to understanding american politics on a left right axis. That is not what they will be organized in the future and donald trump may not be the bringo can bring over leftwing populists into the camp for a variety of reasons. Be the bellwether for a fundamental transformation of american politics along the globalist or populist cosmopolitan axis. That is with the sanders and trump campaigns suggest. Thank you. Smith. David about illegalg voting. Donald trump alleged millions of a notice something about the more general issue, what does it tell us in the fragmented picking up two tweets . Journalists try to look into the organization he purports to represent and have not actually found that organization. Know it is the message got picked up on twitter info wars and made the leap over into the transition team. We have a president elect who was susceptible to conspiracy theories. Probably a sizable part of the American Population is accessible to them as well. That is pretty worrisome. We know Fact Checking can help at the margins. Do not know what you do when it is coming from the white house itself. It is a challenge we have seen in modern u. S. Politics and we do not actually know what will happen when you have a conspirators in cheap in chief. This is not an unknown factor. Donald trumpss political career began with the birther conspiracy theory. It did not prevent him from becoming candidate or becoming the nominee. So we knew what we were buying one we bought it. What we do not know is what that is going to mean especially toen historic low suntrust combat those conspiracy theories. Thank you for that interesting talk. It was very interesting that you skipped over Richard Nixon. Is that because you did not have enough time, or the southern strategy is not as important in your narrative as we think it we think it is . And did you expect donald trump to win . I will take the final question first. No. As a journalist, i do not make predictions and i think it is irresponsible because it gives readers a sense of false knowledge that they know what will happen when we cannot know. When i was asked, could donald trump when, win, hillary , inton could win by seven did not know he was going to win, like most people. Moreught the polls were spot on than they were. At the race was close enough that them being a little off had a real impact. Nixon, i work at the Miller Center and i think a lot about nixon and he plays a big role in the book. What happened in 1968 with conservative media and Richard Nixon is fascinating. Nixon is not seen as a conservative by conservatives. After goldwater loses in 1956 and 1967, necks and no c has to get a conservative base and he cannot win with just a conservative base but he has to capture within the nomination. He decides to move the base their conservative media. He invites other conservative columnists over. He woos them and it works. Not only had goldwater come out early on for nixon as early as 1965, but conservative media and the National Review was in the nixon cap early on. This was contentious here at there were a lot of conservatives who did not like nixon. They cannot stand him at events. The publisher of National Review hated the guy this early this viscerally. They thought they could compromise. And they could be pragmatists about the election. That is why conservative publications do not really back Ronald Reagan when he throws his hat in the ring. They stayed with nixon a lot longer than you would think. Conservatives stay in the nixon camp. It is only when he announces he is opening relations with china that they leave altogether. Media activists come out with a support foror their nixon. He sees it as one of the biggest moral failures for market policy in a halfcentury. In 1972, conservative media challenge to nixon in , nixon isican primary pivotal for them to figure out what the relationship between p t should be when it comes to president ial politics. Budget cuts. Thank you. Fun and sent. Front and center. Given what you describe in the rePublican Party, you can find similar conflicting schools analysis,somewhat conflicting schools within the should we tryty, to broaden this . Not how is settling out within the parties, why not new parties forming around different groups. Mentioned innot the constitution. Best case was the thirdparty candidacy. Maybe now the landscape is changing fundamentally. Of discussiontime about the possibility of new parties. Many people out there predicted the death of the gop within the past few weeks. Those people have looked on a dime and suggested Democratic Party would you know more. One thing that would suggest to me that would not happen is the function of parties has changed considerably. Provide, a lot of the stuff is being done by outside groups. Everything taken care of by super pacs, outside organizations, and the ability to go straight to their audiences through things like youtube and twitter. Me to haveeems to transformed from being functional organizations into more of a brand. Might be easier to just rebrand the rePublican Party. Rather than starting a new party from scratch. That is something rather than being the rise of given the unprecedented last year has been, we should not limit anything can happen. Reasons youctural suggested that we pointed to, but who knows . If nothing else, the year has taught political commentators humility. Your book focuses on your work in your research focuses on the right. ,ould you give a little context left, messengers on the that is not focused on for the broader picture . Nicole a great question. Yes but in limited ways. A background to all of this which will make my my answer make sense, one thing that fuel the media activists is the belief that media is biased toward liberalism. Liberal biasabout media, the argument is not possible until you have this should be that media objective journalists should be objective in their approach. And 50s and 60s, you can see conservatives constantly pushing back against that. They argue all media are ideological but those liberal journalists hide their ideology and we wear ours out front, out in the open and conservatives, in order to properly inform themselves about the world, need to consume conservative media. So they can balance out all that liberal media on the landscape. Have the samet you to have some of that on the book like manufacturing consent is making the same argument as Mainstream Media is too conservative for corporatists. Nevergument, there has been for liberals a fundamental rejection of mainstream news resources. There has not been a need to create alternative media. We havent and we have seen liberals try to create liberal talk radio. Liberal cable news, it has not grown in the same way. The underlying philosophical media isalternative not there and that could be changing. It is not there because liberals never rejected Mainstream Media as untrustworthy or ideologically opposed to them. They might read the nation and the new republic, but they are still reading the new times and Washington Post and think this gives me a good sense of the world. They see the media seen differently. Ideological and straight news whereas conservatives by and large were seeing the world as being only ideological media. It matters a lot the is you need forave that justification seeking out ideological news sources. Thank you. As long as we are on the left, obama put together a course. Ul coalition of he wins with this coalition but loses the house and the senate and then loses it badly. It because it is only he and his staff who are concentrating on the presidency and to heck with what happens in the house and senate races . There is no spillover from his campaign to a larger Democratic Victory in the house and the senate. Nicole if i had the answer to this, i would be in high demand. You are onto something when you point to obama. The democrats looked from the presidency to the federal the partyss and salvation in many ways. Have a charismatic figure like obama and people rally behind him. It is the local and state level. Cannot go to all 50 states and build local district parties and it is not in his purview at all. All the attention on the federal , ignoring local politics has been a weakness in the Democratic Party. It is not obamas fall, but it is full of democrats for not organizing on the local levered it on the local level. He basically said stop looking for new obamas and get out in your districts and start working on the local level. We saw in this election cycle, a swingre talking about state. Even at that point, the polls show clinton 12 states ahead, but if you look at the state ballot, most did not even have a democratic challenger. , that isy building what has to happen and it has not happened that way. I think a lot of the coverage of the demise of the rePublican Party was overstated because there were two republican parties. A chaotic rePublican Party at the national level, and then a theving rePublican Party at state level. That was not in danger even when the clintons seem to be 12 points ahead. It was almost impossible for the democrats to invest the house even in a landslide. That is a failure of local and state party building. I know it is tempting to ask questions about the most recent event, but i would encourage you to look at these and ask about the Historical Research behind the book. I have got one of those. The book spends a considerable amount of time taking us to the 1950s in the 60s showing off into the 1970s. You have got an analog but that is not your focus. What struck me was the you adapt in tone the book did you might not be able to detect if the the authors politics reading this. This is about the infrastructure built by the messengers of the right. As and that refreshing strategy and a tone for your approach to this. My question has to do with the play on the title. We learn a lot about the messengers on the right, but thosebout the messages messages delivered. I am if you would talk of more about whatdeas, conservatism is. In the 19 50s in early 60s, it is not exactly what reagan is talking about in the 1980s and not what donald trump is talking about in the 2000 and. If you could say more about what of the the messages messengers and how that sells or does not sell to a broader electorate. Nicole a great question and thank you for the kind words about the book. There is a strategic and intellectual reason why i focus on messengers instead of messages. The messages change a lot. The institutional structures and underlying philosophical reasons for being, those say the same. A place where we can see this is foreign policy. My book starts with the America First committee. Those are the organizational mediaks conservative would grow out of. The antiinterventionist movement. When editors of the press were reading the first chapter of my book, they were like, explain to us how we get from the america neoconsmmittee to the of the 1980s and beyond. It was that noninterventionists would be at the center of the story of american conservatism. In the foreigne policy round because of the cold just economy is him, but the conspiratorial side, which sawnism, communism not just as a foreign threat but a domestic one that needed to be rooted out of was centralces and in reshaping the policy. 1950s for conservatives antilabor union activism, was the key to building the new conservative media organizations. The corporations were the ones review, andonal that is not to say they were opposing unions because they needed the money, but out of ideological needs, and businesses and corporations saw a real value in that message. It was a part of their corporal core beliefs. Ideas rollingral back Social Security, hacking the new deal and the premises of the new deal and then civil rights. One thing i spent some time talking about andrews and civil rights, one reason goldwater was so attractive, he wanted to northernether supporters and western libertarians, that is why goldwater was such an interesting figure. Realized he had led antidesegregation efforts, and who couldgoing to be someone bring together all of these factions. He was too associated with the resistance. Ssive goldwater gets them out of that trap. Offers libertarian reasons. That was important for building a coalition for people who were not of that comfortable with hardcore segregationists being the person they would put their support behind. The issue changes again in the socialwith the rise of conservatism. In the early 1970s, he is holding programs that compare abortion to things like euthanasia and murder, and he hears from his sponsors who write and say, this is not a conservative issue. Stop talking about abortion. Thats a personal decision and her doctor. Abortion was not a conservative or republican or even an evangelical issue in the 1970s. It would become one over time. This issue changed pretty dramatically. The structures and the function of conservative media stay the same. Thank you. All the way in the back . Yes. You talk about three generations of conservative media, three generations, of course, also corresponding with changes in media. Those of us who were old enough to remember 1954 remember it had goldwater. Whether byng conflating media and medium changes, youre underestimating the impact of the medium changes. In retrospect, i expect the changes and medium have a lot to do with why certain messages independentctive, of the media. I actually do think the changing types of media are really important for this story and the technological and the regulatory changes that make certain types of communication possible that are not possible environments take Something Like talk radio. The talk radio we know today where you can call in, get your voice on air, have this interactive populist flavor to it that National Talk radio was not pop possible until the 1980s not only because of regulatory changes like the nessving of the fair doctrine, but you needed new would allow that for live broadcasting across the nation, that you needed low cost, toll free telephone calls, something that was not available until the midnight and 80s. There had to be this whole technical logical and Regulatory Infrastructure to make that available. I actually think the type of and thehe message politics all constitute one another. They are all constituent of one another, which is why i think the Third Generation is so interesting because it is this new media particularly through the internet that allows for much more interactivity. It drives down the cost so it allows a lot of different sites with different viewpoints and politics to proliferate, and that leads back into the politics. It leads to a fragmenting of the Political Landscape just as the media landscape has fragmented. So i absolutely agree all of these changes matter. One of the things i really try to do in the book is look at the regulatory technical logical the regulatory, technical technological landscape and all of a sudden its a really tough world for print media. Deflation since the cost of paper and ink skyhigh, but you have postal prices through the roof as well as it much, much more difficult for these newsletters and magazines to publish and their reach goes way down. So does their influence. I totally agree with you. Its a very important point. Thank you. Chest but, gentlemen in the blue gentlemen in the blue sweater there. I have a question please introduce yourself. My name is fill wechsler. She wanted to know how your opinion of evangelical leaders have influenced the scene in conservative media. Ms. Hemmer sure. One of the things i do in my book i talked about the religious right media, which there is actually a pretty thriving religious right media in the 1950s and 1960s. Its an anticommunist religious right thread you see it in people like billy james hargis, these radio preachers who have messages,itical anticommunist political messages. I dont spend that much time in the book looking at them though, except when they intersect with my main characters, and that reason is that religious right network is actually pretty separate from the political right media i look at. [indiscernible] ms. Hemmer so, let me explain why i see them as separate. In this period, and we can talk about how they are going forward, but i study media as institutions, so i looked at the connections between these institutions. Do they have personnel ties, do they have network ties, do they go to the same events . When people write in, do they talk about at all the same group of people . While there are ties among National Review, human events, the manion form, the ties andeen the religious right the more political right were very, very thin. They did not actually intersect all that much. I put them to the side a little bit. I think that isnt to say though political shows werent religious, because in a lot of ways they were. Was catholic and his whole argument about a smaller federal government was you had to have a moral populace that could self govern. He has this campaign to of the 10 commandments put in every school, in every courthouse in the united states. He has a real religious message, buckley, whoam f. Was catholic and hires a number of catholics for the National Review. Religious right radial and publishing core in the 1970s and 1980s that is aided by what was called the new right, this group of people like terry dolan who provided the infrastructure for that religious right to gain more political power. They were good organizers and political fundraisers. The new right believed you could make a lot of hay with racial issues. Things like the moral majority and religious roundtables. But there still were relatively thin ties just like today the ties between the 700 club and rush limbaugh. Its just not the same as the ties between, say, sean hannity and National Review. They are very different. Thank you. Talk for a moment about the s, joined to make those accessible. I want to push you on that. Absolutely. Yes, this book came out of many years in the archives. I started at the chicago history museum. It has everything from personal correspondence to transcripts of the broadcast to financial toers of the broadcasts financial papers. The conversations with the fcc, the listener mail. And you can really reconstruct the institution of the manion forum through that. I did the same thing with the National Review. I traveled to hillsdale college, which has all of the extant recordings of the manion forum. They are sitting in a supply closet slowly disintegrating because they cannot accept federal funds to restore them. They do exist and they are trying to digitize some of them. In that kind of archival material. I really wanted to be able to reconstruct personal relationships, economic concerns, and regulatory concerns. Why to get a sense of i didnt want to look at, say, the pages of National Review to see what they were saying. I wanted to understand what went into the decisions to print what they printed. How much was audience feedback . How much did concerns about political power shape that . , did economic concerns shape what they would end up printing in the magazine and understand the media at a more institutional el and less just looking thank you. Thank you. James banner. I would like to push you on your subtitles. Conservative media and the transformation of american politics that conjunction is a copout. [laughter] ms. Hemmer take it up with my press. [laughter] the other factors. Theres the catholic church. Theres the evangelical protestants, there are the corporations. There are the parties themselves. What are the other factors leading to this transformation of american politics, it if in fact, even that is the case . But lets not go down that road. From thede conservative media, have educated to the socalled transformation of american politics . And to put it another way, what portion of the responsibility for the transformation in american politics would you cede to the conservative media . Ms. Hemmer thats a great question, and its trying to describe all of the things that and if you were trying to describe all the things that transformed american politics in the last 50 years you could be here for quite a while. I will try my hand at it. The things happening particularly around civil rights. That was a huge factor in reshaping the coalitions in american politics. The vietnam war, the loss of faith in government, the decline there are so many Different Things we can pick out from the 1950s and 1960s. Instead of going through all of those, i will make a defense for. Hy i choose this title conservatism, which i think i would make the case is one of the most important political movements of the 20th century that has reshaped our politics in the last 50 years in pretty profound ways and policy in pretty profound ways, that movement has been studied as a grassroots movement. It has been studied as a corporate movement. I went into the archives, thats not the story that i found. The story that i found was the people who were at the center of building that conservative movement were folks whose primary work was in the media. So, for instance, its not just the Goldwater Campaign that is launched by a conservative media figure, but the organization of the right. In the late 1950s, you have these conservative americans who are alarmed at what has happened in the country and they are looking around for a leader. Who do they turn to . They turn to these conservative media figures because these are some of the only National Figures they see promoting these ideas and they asked them, what can i do . Them, well,they get little pieces of advice, but also they end up sounding organizations as well. Young americans for freedom is founded by a group of National Review writers and editors. The American Conservative Union which would become the foremost Political Organization of the american right is founded by conservative media figures. And all of that matters because they embed in these organizations ideas about the media landscape, about the necessity of consuming ideological media. To understand the in theof political power united states, you need to understand why the conservative movement was so successful and in order to understand that at, you need to understand its origins and you can do that without putting conservative media in the center. Thank you. Yes. John . The wilson with center is really fascinating to your you talk about the moving target nature of the socalled movement. Principlesrganizing that have remained consistent . I hear you talk about race from time to time, for example, white supremacists, white privilege, different ways it has come up, opposition to civil rights, whatever. Are there things like that that have remained consistently part of what is being called a movement . Ms. Hemmer yeah, i mean, thats i think for the movement, yes. Movement hasthe make compromises in terms of while i think the movement has made compromises in terms of its coal, there are positions that have remained consistent. Belief in aly think particular racial order we see it come through again and again and again, it changes over time, so i think we have to andrstand the role of race racism in the conservative movement, but that, too, changes over time. When there is a switch to essentially dog whistle politics, we cannot just see that as coding language, the idea that conservatives were not responding well to overt racial politics, that that needed to change because ideas about race and racism are changing. But i do think particularly this idea of a small governing state outside of the military that depended upon good moral citizens in order to function. Up untilhat perhaps recently that has been a core part of what it has meant to be conservative in the united states. Now we often see that, those ideas violate when it comes to conservative politicians, whether it is sex scandals or a push for Big Government spending, whether it is Big Government spending on tax cuts or war or what have you, but that core principle, i think conservatives have held onto even through those breaches as a central organizing principle of the movement. This part of what it means to be a conservative, particularly when it comes to economics and the size of government, that those ideas have remained the same. Now i dont know if the conservative movement is or if its just being displaced at the center of the gop so the gop can more easily engage in Big Government that violates those conservative principles we just know until we see. But i think its telling the agenda being put forward by a conservative, versus a populist like donald trump paul ryan is still putting forward those ,mall federal government ideas slashing taxes, rolling back medicare and medicaid, Social Security and all of those things that conservatives were fighting for policy was in the 1940s and 1950s. Thank you. We are quickly running out of time. Er here, and one ortega and one or two. I wonder if you can likely,e, william f. How does he fit into all of this . Ms. Hemmer one of the big projects of my book was 2d center bill buckley when it came to conservative media. When i look at buckley, i see an iconic last. I see someone who can be kind of all over the place. Yeah, he is a conservative, but he is also a bit of an imp and he is a contrarian. That puts him positionally , but he is also someone willing to compromise. Bill buckley gets on that nixon train ride away. They are like, i dont know, he does not seem like a conservative. Why would we give ourselves over to Richard Nixon, when he is never shown himself to be a pe . Servative of our stri i putting buckley to the background, i think we get a better sense of what the by putting buckley to the background, i think we get a better sense of what the conservative media landscape looks like. When you look at the conservative movement, when you look at the grassroots conservatives, where you look at where a lot of conservative media figures were, they were at they were to the right of buckley. They did not want to compromise the way buckley did. Was not their lodestar in the same way he would be the lodestar for conservatism for nonconservatives, and that is something i really wanted to emphasize in this book. These twowill take questions and these will be the final questions. I am wondering where Rupert Murdoch to attend. Does he just see conservative media is a good way to make money . My name is dan schwartz. I was wondering what role you think the internet, and now social media, is playing, both the roleof diminishing of the media of any kind, and the creation of may be first postideological president . Ms. Hemmer thank you. So, Rupert Murdoch. Kind of both. He does want to make a lot of money. And in places like australia, the u. K. , china, he has made a lot of money, and not necessarily being doctrinaire about his conservatism. The reason i would say he is not just about the money is he funds projects like the Weekly Standard where he does not make any money at all. He does actually believe in the politics. He believes in making money little bit more, but hes willing to subsidize conservative politics. Hes not as conservatives as Many American he is not as conservative as Many American conservatives, but hes conservative enough. Internet and social media just as we are seeing with the public and party, we see what happens in a World Without gatekeepers. And that is essentially what the internet and social media has wrought. Thats both a good thing and about thing. It means many more voices get hurt and we pay a lot of dangerous voices on the right right now that have elevatee to antisemitism and white nationalism, even though there are very small groups, they can take advantage of media structures that have allowed them to amplify the voices and that has been one of the big stories of 2016, but social media as also amplify the voices of people who have trouble getting heard when there are gatekeepers women, minorities. You have an opportunity to be part of the conversation in a way that you arent without these kinds of social media when gatekeepers can keep you out. This is perhaps the biggest challenge facing american politics and possibly American Society right now, the combination of a lakh of a of faith in institutions and the inability of gatekeepers to police the boundaries of acceptable conversation. There are upside and downside, but it has left us in a place where i think people do not know what to trust or where to look. And that has generated not a posttruth, but a post trust society where we dont even know the contours, much less how to come to an agreement about the kind of society we want to build in this new media and Political Landscape. I dont have answers for you. I can just say it has been profoundly disruptive in ways that can be both democratizing and can be democracy killing and we will see where we land on that. On that uplifting note, we have to bring this to a close. Please join us for a reception afterwards. [applause] and also, come back next week when we have Jeremy Friedman from harvard speaking on the shadow cold war, the sinosoviet competition for the third world. Thank you all. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2017] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] interested in American History tv . Visit our website, www. Cspan. Org history. You can see our schedule or watch a recent program. Artifacts, lectures and history, and more, at www. Cspan. Org. Unfoldsn, where history daily. In 1970 nine, cspan was created as a Public Service by america fell Public Television americas Public Television companies and is brought to you your cable or satellite by your cable or satellite provider. Past july marked the Smithsonian National air and space Museum Anniversary with chores and interviews. We saw oneofakind aviation and space artifacts including the apollo lunar module. Here is a preview. , when children look at this they oftay