Ready for the compliment. But one thing that is the case, and its one reason why were so proud for the 12th time, 12th anniversary of the brooklyn book festival to get an opportunity to demonstrate whats always been the case which is this Great Law School is in the forefront. This law school is a center for learning how to use the power of law for the benefit of our community, the nation and the world. So thats no small thing. Well, lets just yet right at it. You are in for a real treat, because weve got two fantastic authors and incredible books that i think youre going to find surprising in many ways as i did when i was able to read them. First is loving and the second is one nation after trump. And these books at first blush would seem to be very different having not much in common. After all, one book is about interracial sex, procreation and marriage and not necessarily in that order, but thats what its about. And the other book by my friend, norm ornstein, is about electile dysfunction [laughter] and major flaws in governance in our government for three decades. And yet both the books have a lot in common. For example, they both have incredibly bland, noncontroversial titles. [laughter] this one by professor Cheryl Cashin is loving interracial intimacy in america and the threat to White Supremacy. Okay . Thats very bland. [laughter] and then this one is really does not choose sides and is very sort of staid and right down the road, one nation after trump a guide for the perplexed, the disillusioned, the desperate and the not yet deported. [laughter] so, okay. Both bland titles. Both are compelling, incredibly readable, captivating stories about theyre political histories really with analysis of how our nations rulebook, the constitution, in practice works, how our laws are written, how theyre implemented by the executive branch, how theyre interpreted by the Judicial Branch and how theyre changed. And then finally, both books are very much focused on the meaning and the power of we, the people, the first three words of the United States constitution. So lets get right at it, and im going to start with professor Cheryl Cashin. Professor cashin, georgetown university, has published some outstanding books and articles. Shes passionate about Racial Justice and equality. And this book, loving, is quite remarkable. So im just going to ask you right at the start very briefly, just in a few moments, tell us a little bit about what motivate you to write this book and what its about. Okay. Well, loving v. Virginia, the 50th anniversary of this case, this is the case in which the Supreme Court struck down bans on interracial marriage. As a law professor, i teach the case, and i knew the 50th anniversary was coming, and it struck me as a kind of way of commenting on how it is were so messed up around race and, you know, all this division. And what my students learn when i teach this case and what i learned in researching it is that the regulation of interracial sex and marriage were the means by which White Supremacy was constructed in this country. And i wanted to tell that story from the beginning we have been in this dance between the values of universal Human Dignity and the declaration of independence written by Thomas Jefferson and the values of supremacy, also written by Thomas Jefferson. And i wanted to tell this story of how weve been in that dance. And i try to explain it and end on an optimistic note. Now, the book was, the book is about so much more than the case. There, it starts literally with the beginning of america. It runs up to the case, and then it runs forward. And this is certainly not, the book is not just the screenplay for the movie. You want to no. Explain that a little bit . Its the same case, the same title, loving, you know, shameless. Why not try to get the upcraft of the movie if you can the updraft of the movie if you can, right . But the book starts in 1607. I have before loving, during and after. And the its a sweep. And i try to tell the story of whiteness. Why was whiteness constructed. It was constructed when the slaveowning elites wanted to transition from white indentured servitude to black chattel slavery. And they had a problem. For the first six decades or so so in the virginia colony, there had been a a lot of frat earnization. Frat earnization. Indentured white people and enslaved black and Indigenous People fraternized together, sometimes got drunk together, had sex, ran away. There were some marriages. And they also rebelled together. And the initial bans on interracial sex happened in the virginia slave code. They want to coopt indigenous struggling whites and peel them away. And i tell this story from the beginning. Every time you have an assertion of whiteness and an id ideology whiteness in this country, theres an economic story of people who fear [inaudible] peeling whites off. I tell that story, and it happens again and again throughout the book and throughout our country. Now i want to ask you a couple of questions actually two about the writing of this book. And the first thing i want to ask you about is how its written. It is beautifully written. It is eloquent, its literature. It is, i hope im not embarrassing you, and, you know, as a former practicing lawyer, im not beyond i can respect on she yousness, but i really mean quite genuinely that this book is written in a way that goes far beyond. Your opening introduction could be a freestanding essay, you know, for the ages that people would refer to. So what im going to ask you as an author is are you striving for that . Is there a muse . I mean, this is a terrific history, but its written beautifully. I didnt pay him to say that. [laughter] and im not embarrassed. Thank you so much. I worked very, very hard at the craft of writing. I intentionally this is my fourth book. I intentionally have developedded a voice as a writer, and, you know, i kept a diary from age 6 to 26, and i happened to come across a line in one of those diaries where i said if i had any, if i was brave, i would admit to myself i want to be a writer. But, you know, i, like so many people, was afraid to just go ahead and do that. And i became a law professor. Its nice to have a day job, you know . But as ive gotten older, ive just and tenured and, you know, im in my 50s, you get emancipated, you know . I dont, i just go for it and try to write the best books i can that speak in my voice, that speak passionately, and i am so honored for you to use the word literature to describe this book. Well, its true, and i commend it to everybody else. Let me, were going to get back and ask you both some questions, but i want to turn to norm just briefly here and ask norm ornstein, my friend who is the ive just figured out that his two coauthors, and norm ive known for a total of 100 years plus. And norm actually has been a neighbor for a long time in washington of us. But, norm, what prompt you to write this book, and tell us about it briefly. What is, whats the theme of the book . I wasnt going to write another book. Tom mann and i had done many, many things together over decades, and we did a book in 2006 called the broken branch how congress is failing america and how to get it back on track. And then we did another in 2012 called its even worse than it looks how the american constitutional system collided with the new politics of extremism9 and then we updated it into 2016 to its even worse than it was. And i joked, but only halfjoking, if i did another one it might have to be called run for your lives. [laughter] and i didnt want to be the Debbie Downer of american politics. But the editor, a brilliant editor, tim bartlett, when had done those other books, called me and got me thinking that it was important to do something now. And so i first came up with the subtitle, and with that i recruited e. J. And tom. And we knew that we wanted to get this out as quickly as possible, and it would be better if we had the three of us and we come at things we have skills, i think, that are complementary. And then i came up with the title after that just thinking about one nation under god. And one nation after trump is meant not just to be once hes gone, its also a very significant focus on the one nation part. And this is a much more optimistic book than the others in some ways, oddly enough. And, you know well get to that. Well get to the optimism part. But i could talk for hours about the pessimism part too, you know. [laughter] you could talk for hours, i would think youre a lawyer billing by the hour, but i know better than that. And theres nothing wrong with that. I say that to my law students. [laughter] so, you know if youre the one doing the billing, theres nothing wrong with that. Norm, its not billing, its collecting, okay . [laughter] so in any event, so especially given the climate were in yeah. One of the surprising things about this book, but actually you could see this coming a long ways, is you authors including you and thom who are, youre with the conservative aei, hes with brookings, but you have a reputation as being in the forefront as straight shooters and objective commenters who love the institutionsing with. So youll be accused of having chosen sides, basically x. Is that fair . And did e. J. Dionne e. J. Die onhornswoggle you or bamboozle you . No. Let me go back with a little bit of history, you know . Its even worse than it looks became a a New York Times bestseller in part because of a wonderful and brilliant editor at the Washington Post, carlos lozada, who edited the outlook section there of the sunday paper, and we did an excerpt the sunday before the book was released on monday, and he gave it the title lets just say it, the republicans are the problem. And that went viral. And we got a lot of, were on cspan, so i wont use system of the terms, a lot of feedback. [laughter] from that. But a lot of it was pushback from a press corps that simply couldnt deal with the notion that theyre not equivalent. But we didnt come at this as partisans, we came at this as objective social scientists. And the fact is the norms had been shredded in a congress and in a political system by one party much more than the other. There are no angels here, but youre looking at the difference between jaywalking and man slaughter terms of what it was doing to the institutions and the nature of our politics. And really turning us from a partisanship thats deeply embedded in our political system to tribalism. And i may have been the first one to use the term tribalism back then which has now m become common place. And were still fining that the false equivalence finding that the false equivalence which is there for the parties but also now this and i call it the journalism stop us before we kill again phenomenon this incredible, intense need to normalize donald trump and say now hes pivoting, now hes becoming just like other president s and putting him into a frame that he simply doesnt belong in. And if youre going to be intellectually honest in this process and you go where the data and where your own experience and to observations take you, and ive had now chose to 50 years of working around washington and the institutions both congress and around president s in the executive branch and with both parties on an awful lot of things and reform and some substantive areas, and i still do the some extent. But this is the reality of our politics. And what really has rankled me about journalism is if you dont call out miscreebts miscreants and if you basically say theyre all like that, you get two phenomenon one of which help to lead directly to trump. It is that theyre all horrible. What could be worse than this. And that leads to the what the hell have you got to lose that donald trump used to dry and convince to try and convince africanamericans. And, boy, are they seeing what theyve got to lose now. But its also that you end up with a political system where theres no penalty for eroding those norms. And thats just a terrible thing. And, frankly, theyre being eroded even further in some of the areas we can get to in the senate well, ill ask you about those. I mean, norm, you like talking about norms, so youre talking about some of the norms that have eroded. How about the maybe you could give a little bit of background, the blue slip controversy thats going on right now. Sure. So everybody knows, of course, about the shredding of norms with the nomination of america garland and the merck garland and the aftermath of the unexpected and untimely death of justice and a lee a ya. And now scalia. And now his replacement by neil gorsuch. And with that, of course, the longstanding practice built into the rules for a long time that it would require a supermajority vote for a Supreme Court justice. Thats one thing. But very longstanding norm in the senate over many, many, many decades is that when nominations are moved for District Court and Appeals Court judges from particular states, that the senators from the state are consulted. And usually that consultation doesnt have to involve picking somebody they absolutely want. And, obviously, if youve got a democratic president , two republican senators or vice versa, you may not have that. But it usually involves heres a list of people, tell us who you like, who you wouldnt. And those senators, either one from the state, doesnt approve, then they have a blue slip, and if they dont turn it into the judiciary committee, that nomination goes nowhere. Now, that norm and practice continued through the obama years. And the chairman of the judiciary committee, when he was chairman the democrat, Patrick Leahy abided by it. But during a time when it was misused in a fashion we had never seen before. Because you had republican senators from states who refused to move forward with nominees, even those they had supported in the past, in some cases had recommended in the past. And it was all about keeping the seats vacant in the hopes that at some point theyd be able to fill them. And leahy, who was criticized by many of his colleagues, basically believed that this was the way you behaved, and if you showed that kind of courtesy, it would be reciprocated. And now where we have a handful of Democratic Senators holding up nominations, in some cases for a Appeals Court judgeships that had been held vacant for a long time, now were being pushed forward with nominees, and they were consulted. Mitch mcconnell is saying we may just have to blow up all right. And very briefly, whats wrong with that . Whats the cost of that . So if were looking at tribalism, it isnt just in congress and, of course, its metastasized out to many states and to the public as a whole. Americans see people from the other party as the enemy, trying to destroy their way of life. But were also seeing sharp partisanship and even tribalism infect the federal courts. Were seeing these dramatic divisions. And just, lets just pick one example recently where after wed had multiple courts say that the redistricting process in texas had gone so far over the line that you had to redraw these lines, the Supreme Court just blocked that from moving forward for the 2018 elections on a very predictable 54 vote, a partisan vote, in effect. And if you start to move in a way in which judges are selected only by one party and solely with the goals of making sure you pick a younger person who will be there for a very long time long after you have any political power which is itself something that is a dramatic blow to the whole notion of a popular democracy, youre no longer in power, but your policies get continued because these are, in effect, lifetime appointments. But youre also going to end up being pushed and incentivized to pick the most extreme people and the people who you know are going to vote the way you want them to vote. And that just i blows up the whole notion of judicial process with a level of integrity. Every one of these norms is there for a reason, and they can be abused. Well, thats a norm thats baked into the system on the basis that partisanship and shortterm political interest is not a motivation of people, but they have a longer term and so that kind of is one of the constitutional things that smooths things out over time. But well get back to that a little bit. I want to turn and ask professor cashin a question, and that is both of you. Youre going get the same question, norm. Both of you are incredible optimists in your book notwithstanding that you both are chroniclers of some of the worst, most obscene, if you will, episodes in american history, most disappointing. So why are you optimists, and why are you hopeful, and what is it that you hope can be accomplished in the future . Okay. So optimism is a choice. I could have written a very dystopian book, but i do not have much hope of a class unity among struggling people of the kind that existed in colonial virginia preblack slavery. But one thing that gives me hope in this country is rising and this is a term i coined cultural dexterity. And what is that. It is the opposite of colorblindness. It is the acquisition through intimate relationships with a person of a different race or ethnicity of an enhancedded capacity for enhanced capacity for being among people who are different, seeing those differences and accepting them rather than demanding an assimilation to your own norms. And i document this in the final part, the third part of my book. In this country today right under our noses we are exponential increase in interracial intimacy; marriage, cohabitation, dating, adoption, friendship and even parasocial or virtual relationships with characters or a black president you gain affection for in the media. And all of the social science shows that white people who have an intimate connection particularly with a black person, it tends to reduce their prejudice, it predicts that they are more likely to be angry about how black people are treated and more likely to engage in collective action to do something about it. 60 of people under 30 agree with the critique of the black lyes Matter Movement of police lives Matter Movement of police, right . So i argue or speculate, i should say, that we are going to reach a Tipping Point when a Critical Mass of whites not all whites,