The conservative sensibility, at the Texas Tribune festival in austin. [applause] before i introduce my guest, i am obliged to tell you that you may not stay here after the event, you need to reline up for the next event. Also, if you would like to get a signed copy of the conservative churches sensibility by our guests, you need to do so after the conversation. Needs noorge introduction. Pulitzer prize winning columnist , he has preached the gospel of conservatism for over half a century, and i am delighted to have him in conversation here today. Welcome, george. [applause] that austinerstand is ground zero for the conservative party. [laughter] you are absolutely in the right place. Before we get started talking about your excellent book, george, just its been an eventful week. Another in a series of eventful weeks. Can we just have lets address the elephant in the room. Can we have your take on whats happening in washington today and what it portends for americas future . Thats just a small question to begin with. A softball. George my book has 565 pages of text and his name doesnt appear in it. [laughter] [applause] bill maher asked me why that was so, i said doris day doesnt appear in it. Well, youre referring to the question of impeachment and all that its very difficult to impeach someone for promise keeping. He promised continuity with his campaign. He promised to continue indifference to constitutional norms and good manners. He has been keeping his promise. [laughter] , it seems to me, but not every Impeachable Offense should be grounds for impeachment proceedings. Nancy pelosi announced this inquiry 406 days before the president ial election. The cure for a bad president ial election is a better president ial election. There are 47 members of the senate who caucus with the democrats. In order to remove him from office, they would need 20 republican senators to side with them. If mr. Trump today were to tweet that nine is a prime number, that minneapolis is in idaho and that the sun revolves around the earth, there arent three republican senators who would disagree with him on any of those. On any of those. So the fact is, he is going to finish his term. Which as a prudential matter , makes you wonder, what this is about. They can send this to the senate. And it would be terrific fun to watch the republicans squirm when it got there, and theres republic good to be rerived from to be derived from making them take a stand. Impeachment itself if one of the articles of impeachment is the president s refusal to comply with congressional oversight, and subpoenas. This would represent the beginning of the reflexing of congressional muscles that have atrophied over the years. So this recalibration of our institutional equilibrium would be another benefit of impeachment. But if you believe as i do that the primary aim should be to make sure the 45th president is succeeded by the 46th on january 20, 2021, then you have to consider whether or not this helps that. And i think it does not. I think it distracts the democrats from talking about what worries americans. There is an asterix over that meause the democrats seem to to want to talk about everything except what the country is worried about. They want to talk about reparations, packing the Supreme Court and all kinds of stuff. This is the 100th anniversary of the 1919 world series. I cant talk very long without talking about baseball. [laughter] it was only a matter of time. George 1919 world series, white sox, heavily favored, lost to the Cincinnati Reds because they was the black sox, the scandal of the fixed world series. Watching the democrats debate , i reminded of what it must am have been like watching the white sox. People said theyre trying to lose. [laughter] to go off on an fore doomed impeachment tangent is a mistake. Youve written eloquently through the years about political courage. Where is political courage of republican representatives and senators who disagree at heart with the president . Washington is not short of ego. And surely, these people are thinking about their legacies . Why are they not dissenting . George fear. The Republican Party today is more homogenous than it has been probably since it was founded in wisconsin in 1854. 1912, former republican president Teddy Roosevelt challenged his friend and mentee William Howard taft. The progressive republicans are against the conservatives. This was replicated in the 1940s, the dewey republicans against the taft republicans. In the 1960s, the goldwater one, icans, of whom i am voted for him in my first president ial vote, against the rockefeller republicans. Division has been a constant in the Republican Party until now. At the 500day mark of the reagan presidency he had the support of 77 of republicans, at the 500day mark of the Trump Presidency he has the support of 87 . Theres less dissent in the Republican Party than ever before. Its his party. Which is why those of us who care about the twoparty system think what should happen in 2020 is the Republican Party gets of the iterated you know the old story about hitting the mule over the forehead with a two by its attention, doneomething needs to be to get the republicans attention. Let me move on to your book. It begins in princeton, new jersey, where you earned your ph. D. In the mid 1960s. And you invoke the fourth president , james madison, and the 28th president , Woodrow Wilson, both of whom also spent time in princeton. And you write, my conviction is that properly understood, conservatism is the madisonian persuasion and my melancholy belief is that Woodrow Wilson was the most important single figure in the largely Successful Campaign to convince the nation that madisonian persuasion is an anachronism. Talk about, what is madisonian persuasion . George madisonian persuasion, the catechism has three tenets. Is this still broadcasting . Hello . There we go. Is that better now . Thank you. The madisonian persuasion which was the founders persuasion was a, a belief in natural right, that there are certain rights necessary for the flourishing of creatures like human beings who have a fixed human nature. That human beings are not simply creatures that acquire whatever culture theyre situated in. Second, first come right, then come government. Most important word in the declaration of independence is secure. All men are created with certain inalienable rights and the governments are instituted to secure those rights. The primary function of government is not to give us rights, but to secure preexisting rights. And third, to make the government Strong Enough to protect those rights, but not so strong as to threaten them. We need a separation of powers. This checks and balances will produce an institutional equilibrium. So we dont count on virtue now in our leaders, we count on institutional restraints. Relationship between the branches. Woodrow wilson, of the great princeton class of 1879 said, matters of the great class been,1 was all rights act when there were only four million americans and 80 of them lived on the fringe of the atlantic coast, within 20 miles of atlantic tidewater. But now, said wilson, were a great united country. Woven together with steel rails and copper wires. And what we need now is an efficient government, a strong and nimble government that was one of his favorite adjectives applied to the government, and at the heart of that must be a strong president who can be emancipated from the separation of powers, interpreting the mood of the country, marginalizing congress. Whats remarkable about Woodrow Wilson and subsequent progressives was a, how forthright they were in rejecting the founders premises and how remarkably successful they have been. The principal monument to their success is the modern presidency. For years conservatives believed what i in retrograde still believe, which is in congressional supremacy. They recognized that the growth been teddye has roosevelt Woodrow Wilson, frankland eleanor roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson, and therefore, they feared executive power. Then republicans had the heady experience of Ronald Reagan as president. And they, too, fell in love with executive power. I think many of my progressive friends are rethinking the romance of executive power in the current context. Which is, again, wholesome. Some good things will come out of this, one of them is the revival of congressional institutional pride that is overdue. When Franklin Roosevelt , shortly after his inauguration, his fireside chat, first he began with two words that dont appear in the transcript as it is at the library at hyde park. The two words were, my friends. Now, were so used to this fake intimacy we have with the chief executive of the United States that no one today is startled by that. After all, we have a president who said, i feel your name, which, of course he didnt do. No one feel others peoples pain. But never mind. Some of us dont want the president to be our friend. We want the president to do what the rather spare article 2 of the constitution says theyre to do, which is take care that the laws are faithfully executed. That is enough. Dont be our friends, dont be the national pastor. Dont be our moral guide or tutor or auditor. Just get on with the business of running one of the three branches of one of our many governments. Get the presidency out of the i must say, i think senator bennett of colorado is coming to this festival he should be nominated, if only for his recent treat where he said nominate me, and you will get a president you wont have to think about for weeks at a time. [laughter] i want to go back to president day. To was the nation so we said two Woodrow Wilsons change of coursework the in the 20th century . Always, there almost always is a populist dimension to progressivism. And the populism was in the idea presidency. The president would be the as Andrew Jackson said the only man elected purely by the entire American People and therefore he was above the separation of powers. He was above the checks and balances, it was the vox populi essence of populism. It was popular with people to have a president say, you are virtuous and i am the vessel into which your virtue is poured , and therefore, president ialcentric, the essence of progressivism, appealed to large numbers of people. No one ever went broke praising the virtue of the American People. Why has congress subordinated itself . George well, the president s of both parties have been given by congresses of both parties, extraordinary discretion partly because there are only 535 members of the two houses of congress. And has been for many years. In the senate since the alaska and hawaii joined the union. But in that time since we began had 535 members, the business of government, the business of dust of the busyness of government has increased probably 20fold. There is now nothing that is not the federal governments business. So if youre a, going to stick everything, aso congress is going to do, and if you want to get reelected, he went to make these interventions of American Society but not really be responsible for them, instead of passing laws, you. You say, we shall have a clean environment. You in the bureaucracy fill in the details. We shall have quality education. You in the Education Department and elsewhere write the rules. If you walked into senator mike lee of utahs office you see two stacks of paper. One is about that tall. Its what Congress Passed in a recent session. The other stack is eight feet high. It is the rules and regulations churned out that is the actual legislating. If the Supreme Court were doing its duty, and one of the arguments in my book is that the courts, far from being not the financial enough have been too deferential, if the Supreme Court were doing its duty it would enforce the nondelegation would enforce the nondelegation doctrine, that as john locke said legislatures may create law , they may not create other legislators. What congress has essentially done to avoid responsibility and to avoid the nasty work of actually legislating, congress has created a million or so legislators in the federal bureaucracy. Youre alluding to and have written in the book that america has become an Administrative State. You write, trying to restrain the modern executive, which is the motor of the Administrative State by depending on the madisonian architecture of checks and balances, seems increasingly akin to lassoing a locomotive with a cobweb. Why hasnt gotten so out of control why has it gotten so out of control . George because st. James, im a worshipper of james madison. James madison made one huge mistake. He assumed that, well, as he said in federalist 51, he said you see throughout our system the process of supplying by opposite and rival interests the defect of vetters. Defect of better motives. The rivalrous interests, the house against the senate, the congress against the executive, the refereeing judicial supervision over our democracy by the judicial branch, madison assumed that institutional pride and selfinterest would be Strong Enough to keep this equilibrium. He was wrong. Turns out that Congress Today is filled with people who just want to be there. Theres an old saying that some be something,tics and others in politics do something. The latter group is much smaller. Ask about congress congress, like the legal profession, like dentistry, like teaching, we all live under the tyranny of the bellshaped curve. A few members over here are god awful. A few members are extraordinary. The vast majority of dentists, lawyers, journalists, columnists are mediocre. [laughter] mediocrity in congress producess docility, marginalization, and the consequent swollen presidency that we are now living with. Ii dont want this to seem as though i am picking on just this president , because this has been growing for many years. Kamala harris i am not picking on her particularly, she is like a lot of them she said the other day, if i elected am president ill give congress 100 days to pass gun control measures that i approve of. If not, i will then do it by executive order. Well, thats not the cure for the problems were living with for the lawlessness we are living with today. You mentioned that donald trump is conspicuously absent from this book. Im wondering how the party that once represented conservatism could drift so discernably toward authoritarianism . George im not sure theyre authoritarians. People say donald trump is a tyrant. No. Tyrants invade poland. Tyrants annex the sudetanland. This tyrant cant even get his own choices on the Federal Reserve board of governors. Tyranny is not what were looking at here. Were looking at abuse of power. We are looking at the disruption of our institutional architecture. But this is not what tyranny looks like. We have seen tyranny in this century. I was just in hong kong. They know what tyranny looks like. Im sorry. But centralization of power is a hallmark of authoritarianism. Not necessarily just tyrannical actions. George quite right. Madison said the definition of tyranny is the legislative, executive and judicial power in one set of hands, and that we are approaching. But why did we line up as an electorate behind somebody who so clearly does not represent the conservative values we associate with republicans . George the Republican Party is full, again, of the bellshaped curve, of people who are basically careerists first and conservatives second. Beyond that, political scientists for 60 years have been noting a widening gap between the rhetorical, and the actual americans and this is particularly true among conservatives americans talk like jeffersonians, that government is best that governs least. They insist upon being governed by hamiltonians, by a large, providentnt, omni welfare state. Conservatives talked if years about reining in entitlement programs and all the rest. Here we are in 2019, running a trillion dollar budget deficit at full employment actually, more than full employment, there are 6 million unfilled jobs at 2 growth. Thats going to be really stimulating. When the next recession begins and a trillion dollar deficit and essentially zero interest rate, so the fed has no arrows quiver to fight it. Leaving that aside, my belief is that republicans came up against the cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance is a fancy way of saying, people say with absolute sincerity two incompatible things. Republicans have said for years that they believe in frugality, balanced the jets, and all the rest. Turns out, they dont. One of the reasons that economics is one of the few academic fields that has moved to the right in the last 60 or 70 years, is that everyone knows , that free trade is a good thing. Trump came in and he said, we believe that free trade. He said, no you dont. And they said, ok, no we dont. [laughter] my belief is that the american Political Class, for all the talk about discord in our country and god knows its real enough, but i believe the Political Class from Elizabeth Warren to ted cruz is more united by class interest than it is divided by ideology. And the class interest is that veryone, from warren ted z has a powerful incentive to run huge deficits. Because all that means is youre giving the American People a dollars worth of government and charging them . 80 for it. The public loves it. The 20 cents that will be paid later is fobbed off on the unborn, unconsenting future generations. Everybody is happy, and we go o