Hello. Good evening everyone. Welcome again i am the director of religious programming and like to start by asking who is here for the first time tonight whether a first or a repeat offender we have a bunch of programs to check out with a conversation with dan pfeiffer to a concert with josh ritter. Went to see the things that drive us to drink im sure reality has something for us all we are undeniably into 2020 the most t polarized election of all time the 2016 election seemed we didnt know our country or communities or who we thought we did questioning those deep rooted values and with that divisive twoparty political system tonight we are thrilled to welcome ezra klein back to make sense of it all to hear his perspective how the polarization has been growing roots for decades and why we are polarized he asserts the system is a broken but working exactly as designed and how our identities the disastrous results with the bonds of older country together the editor at large in cofounder of the ezra klein show podcast and executive producer on the netflix show explained previously an editor at the Washington Post policy analyst at msnbc and a contributor at bloomberg news. I he is in conversationn tonight as a political analyst for cbs news former chief Political Correspondent perk also a talented photographer take out his visual take on his instagram please help me to give a warm welcome to ezra klein. [applause] what are you doing here cracks you know this is free as a podcast, right cracks this is the first event of the obook tour in a city that means a lot to me and it means a lot to me you are here this is a solitary and strange experience there are real human beings out here so thank you for being here. [applause] i got a copy of your book in the mail i am reading the title why we are polarized. I said this to you but when they see books with these kinds of titles my immediate thought is come on, we are not that polarized. Things have been worse to the 18 fifties, 1930s or 19 sixties. So if we are uniquely polarized in the present moment and you acknowledge in the book that it has been worse but now is different in a way that the trend is different. N i really want to note i managed not to have a subtitle and everybody is welcome trying to push against the trends in publishing. [applause] you are completely right you get the immediate intuition that whatre you are doing is lamenting everything today. That things have been much much much worse like the 18 thirties. But it does seem different today of mid 20th century it is important to say the baseline of the pundit class because people run political publications and the political comingofage i remember in dc in the eighties why cant we have reagan and tip oneill have a drink and fix social security. That was iconic. What i came to explore is that seemed wrong but why cracks and what way cracks it is wrong because mid20th century politicss was very unusual that it was not polarized it usually polarized in those countries but the second thing that i think is that polarization is not necessarily a bad thing or a synonym for disagreement or extremism the 20th century was a time of less political fracture of the Womens Movement the indigenous Rights National guardsmen killing a protester at kent state and riots and nixon and watergate and political assassination after political assassination all the trouble in the country itself not just democratic socialism like norway but communism. Stalin is right. In the recent memory of some of the people who came of age in politics stalin was a meaningful faction. So what is different now not faction or fracture but the way they align on top of each other to becomeat polarized and that party has linked to otother identities. I always think a good example is a piece of legislation and complete the bipartisan. But to imagine major pieces of legislation it is almost unthinkable. That american politics the way they function is actively different than it was at other times and how that works on a field to pass. See you begin how american politics got polarized so its very much a part of the Civil Rights Act to have the liberal and conservative factions to republicans and democrats and republicans in the political system in a way that it has never been before has a Straight Line of ideological polarizationha its not tnecessarily a bad thing even if the consequences of the political system. Implicitly people believe the alternative to polarization as agreements, comy when the alternative is suppression. Often times political systems say the reason you are not polarized is the disagreements would be polarized over are suppressed. Beforey they were suppressed by a twoparty system collapsing intoar a four party system so what Democratic Party that is left of economics with structural barriers and the dixiecrat c party all there there was a wide range of opinion conducting the form policy request of the nation of oneparty rule at home and then to ensure basically the National Political system of White Supremacy and then the republicans that this was consideredis at the time from my friend called the polarizers but he shows there were people looking at this and theres something wrong with the system but fundamentally conducting the form policy of the rest of the nation it wasnt oneparty rule at home and then to ensure that basically the National Political system forced White Supremacy in the south but then these conservative republicans at the time this was considerede a problem there is a book called the polarizers but what he shows people were looking at this theres something wrong with the system. But what they say is the problem is that the parties are not responsible. They are not putting forward a separate and clear and defined agendas. Is did you have a democrat with South Carolina and a democrat in minnesota voting for Hubert Humphrey burke you have a period where american politics functions well on what it functions upon but the cost is this important compromise but the cost of that is this compromise to allow racial supremacy to exist in the south. So this is what people underestimate. So with parts of the old confederacy it takes for a long time to become democratic. Im sorry saul of the republican into the nineties because itio takes a long time for those identities to fall away. It is a generational replacemen replacement. I dont think you can look at those compromises to say they were just there was a really nice line he talks about it being a false piece of false peace to suppress issues like this brca1 of thes arguments it is it polarization per se but it is another word for disagreements we have to have coming to the service its built theres not a way to resolve this disagreement but that is a political System Design problem not a polarization problem per se. In the book he talk about the parties or as you mentioned here the ways identities are becoming polarized all along to the theories of polarization so to find what is happening you can basically guess who somebody would vote for and what exactly is happening such that in the present you can guess who will someone will vote for based off their proximity close to whole foods or Cracker Barrel both wonderful establishments. [laughter] so where i start in the book henry is born polish jew moves to france in the thirties he cannot go to university of poland because he is jewish this is National Holocaust remembrance day. He moves to france, and list during world war ii captured by germans and becomes a prisoner of war and survives because he is understood as a french prisoner of war not as a polish jew. When he comes back his whole family has been dead and killed in the holocaust. He began subsisting in the context the only thing that mattered was the identity. Not him or who he was but a group i identity who he was understood as if he lived or died. So many people he had loved had died. He is fixated on the question of Group Identity and how does it work. He starts to run a very famous series of experiments and the idea is basically he will call subjects into a lab subject them to conditions to create coherence and see at what point the identity and discrimination began to take hold. He has all of these kids from the same school horse lawn dash 64 of them and looks s at a piece of paper that have dots how many dots do you think there are cracks he separates them into the over estimator and under estimator. They didnt care it was totally random this wasnt related to the first when one first one we will see into these groups just give us a second. Then it is a new experiment about allocating money to other kids just sorted into random groups they immediately began favoring their co over or under estimators this was not unexpected but the first test meant to be below which level Group Identity takes hold he could not take a test so subtle and meaningless characteristic with a bunch of people were already in a group and you still got this. So he did it again of paintings. False it was random and this one he shows Group Discrimination becomes very powerful people will choose to give their own group less money if its more compared to the other group. So we are very sensitive to Group Identities its easy to create them they have been created for endless number of subjects. So once the sorting mechanism begins to happen in the 20th century with the Civil Rights Act the Democratic Party becomes the liberal party and it sets off. The ideological not ideological sorting but demographic now it is diverse Republican Party is white 90 percent. Republican party is overwhelmingly christian the single religious party after that its a coalition of a lot of different groups even with the ideology of those that are self identified conservatives so its not just ideology but race and religiosity andce geography and psychological qualities. Where you live, all the downstream cultural things. So they become mega identities so in general not only by who you vote for but a lot of things that can trigger to reinforce your political identity and as the other party becomes much more ideological different and more demographically the different. Those underlying i did one dynamics are powerful. A fascinating study shows countries with the most act identities as the most crosscutting they are 12 times less likely to have civill war. These areig big numbers that drive political behavior. So should china be a currency manipulator cracks but the Group Dynamics is almost no twork. It would not be good for people like you it is a very powerful thing. And then the more you are in favor against them. So talk about the path to polarization the parties begin the realignment. But then things take their own path. But in all of this there are actors making choices how to win the election or do whatever and they end up beating polarization to put us on a certain path. But we have to move there in addition to these material changes. I dont want to say individual behavior has no effect but i do want to say has a lot less range of choice those two have a narrative in a way that is helpful for whats to u understand. Donald trump had not one in 2016 the issues would be different if obama did not run in 2008 it would be different but the underlying trend would be all that t different. Is that Newt Gingrich speaker of the house to drive that Republican Party theres a lot of people. [laughter] as somebody appears like that eventually. This is a disagreement literally over Newt Gingrich. The reason is truly a polarization a innovator. And how Newt Gingrich began to give speeches when the cspan cameras were on and would heanswer me because nobody was there im not saying its not a good story but the question is not but why did Newt Gingrich get made speaker cracks less bombastic but also the destruction every innovator but over personalized to him in some way any republican leader would do he just did not allow a vote on republicans wanted to vote on he would not have the had the power to stop them but in general i think the metaphor is taken out of the book but american politics were always trying to tell the story the other guy walks out which is wonderful history of moderate republicanism. But step back from the book the way it describes is moderate republicans are this close to figure it out and then collapse because they make the wrong strategic move or something doesnt go quite right. But conservatives are such bumbling fools to be blown out and have totally crazy people making strategic decisions. But they win and in no way like all polarization history hyto understand why because its not like they make tons of mistakes but sometimes a complete fool the fact of the matter is and then something very different is going on thats the weird thing about the democrats but also the dynamics so skeptical not that i dont think individuals can make different decisions but the reason the individuals ended up the position they did because donald trump there is a lot that is unique in a very straightforward way to give voice to what they wanted to have a voice given to and he understood that in the way the others didnt see you can look at trump and why was the party deceptive and when the dimmick party Democratic Party definitely would have been. , race didnt just affect the origins of polarization but very much driving presentday polarization because among the stack of identities if you are the evangelical christian in the south or the midwest are probably republican. That the other side appears to be growing or seemingly political dominant, seems to be in the way that may be in your mind on the world in which you live. Yes but its important to understand why the Republican Party has reacted the way it has. We can be a polarized country with a different kind of co party one that nominated marco rubio for instance we would still be talking about polarization just as we were in 2015 but not a party that had adopted the view politics and you still hear from attorney general william barr to say there is an organized assault to destroy christianity in this country. One of the things goinghi on we are on check on on track for a similar thing with religion. You will see the religiously unaffiliated be the Single Largest Group we are on track for a record percentage of foreignborn. This is a pretty rapid rise from 4 percent in the seventies. So the country really is changing and in a way that comes with power. So i got this idea from Robert Joness the head of the Research Institute but he makes a point politics is like a time machine. In politics the power White Christian demographic is ten years behind where they are demographically some more christian people come out at higher rates so the white evangelicals as a percentage of the electorate where they were ten years ago so they are bigger than they appear but culture has a funny way to be ten yearstu ahead they are very focused to get young people to buy products and watch Television Shows prescribed and a lot of cable news an interesting fact they dont care about ratings they care about the demographics only people between 24 and 45 or maybe 18 and 45 a lot of people there watching her older than 45 is not an issue. Product placement itct all moves very fast. Theres a feeling on the right they are losing the one l thing that really matters the soul of the country and the way it is changing. This is true for people on the left and right they think they we are more diverse than we are the we are a majority minority has already happened so people e that experience these changes are doing it faster so there is panic on the right but yet it creates panic on the left so in addition to Everything Else you have these two coalitions at both feel threatened one feels it should be ascended but isnt quite and people in it have a reason to feel truly threatened and others feel it is dominant representing the true america pushed out to be called deplorables and desperately fight to keep the country they grewgr up in its a high political state so that conflict is anything goes because the stakes feel that if they win it could be the end of you so look at the trump rhetoric the idea of the left wins that is just the end. I think he literally said that in 2016. There was a book about retreating from the communities to wait out the storm very apocalyptic type of politics. But here you can imagine its not just polarization but marco rubio may never take a strategy and not doing so perhaps move this away from this kind of polarization. I think thats right. Its a very tough question too ask how much running room was there quick. I will give you an example. Look at the fox news host diversification it is an extraordinary sense it wasnt just started with Tucker Carlson getting prime time bill oreilly gets on and says we see the end of the white majority this is not the country we grew up and. Listen to Rush Limbaugh how do you get ahead inay the Obama White House cracks hating white people. I remember glenn beck how obama was antiwhite president it is antiwhite america. Joe biden city there is Vice President is an antiwhite country. [laughter] so why. Whatu ve is happening make in kelly who is now understood as moderate force pushed out of fox news created this fear of the new black panthers so on the one hand there is diversity of opinion with fox people are more or less fear mongering but on the other hand it is c