>> welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome. >> you can watch this and of the programs online at booktv.org. >> good afternoon, everyone. i'm karlyn bowman and it is a great pleasure for me and my cohost today bill galston of the brookings institution to welcome all of you and our c-span audience to the sentiments event to celebrate the publication of henry olsons new book, "the working class republican: ronald reagan and the return of blue-collar conservatism." henry is a senior fellow at the ethics and public policy center, four aei colleague and a member in good standing of aei selection. henry arrived at aei in 2006 and we soon bonded over politics and especially what was then a somewhat obscure demographic, what the pollsters called some college. people with the technical vocational or community college education this group was large, about one-third of voters and had a near-perfect track record of voting for the winter in presidential elections. this loosely defined group, roughly synonymous with the working-class, was and is especially important in our politics. in the book can we show so reagan's preferences match those of working-class americans come transcending left and right, and providing the key to his success. success. henry's book is basically divided into two parts, one on understanding, the police of the true reagan, getting reagan right come in henry's words, and the other pointed critique of how conservatives and the modern gop have lost a way in which they must do to recover it. we have a distinguished panel to comment on both. their bios or online site will not provide long introductions. henry's going to speak for about 20 minutes and then we've asked craig shirley, the author of four bestsellers on reagan, including his latest reagan rising, the decisive years 1976-1980, to comment on henry's understanding of the true reagan. craig will speak for ten minutes. then will turn to bill galston it will moderate the second half of today's discussion on the future of the gop. we are fortunate to aei resident fellow national review senior editor jonah goldberg and the center for american progress senior fellow ruy teixeira to comment on the future of the gop. ruy has a new book titled the optimistic leftist, and he is a major contributor to the democratic strategist work on the working class. you will be able to purchase copies of craigs and roy's book in addition to henry after the discussion. this is an embarrassment of riches speak with a very tight timetable this afternoon so let's get started. please join me in welcoming henry olsen. [applause] >> i'd like to thank aei and c-span for coming to cover this event. this is my first book in my silica given doctor birth but without any a faint of real birth. tonight i like to start by making ronald reagan's last words my first, and these are words that you can see on his gravestone as they sit looking over the beautiful valleys of the sunny southern california that he so deeply loved. i know in my heart that man is good, tha, that what is right wl eventually triumph, and that there is worth and purpose to each and every human life. my book is little more than an extended essay on the meaning of those words and how important they were to ronald reagan, and how is incorporation and acting upon those words did little more to change america and change the world. as noted my book is about more than that as well. it's about an argument that the republican party and conservative movement have lost its soul, because rather than following the real reagan, the man who could say those words and i think those of the words he wants all of us to remember him by, they have instead adopted a false reagan, a reagan instead of being someone who loves mankind, someone who is in love with an abstract sense of liberty without no bounds, and the man who instead of being somebody who would be pragmatic would make sure that blessings of american flow to a point in the economy, focus relentlessly on the business man's desire for material self-improvement as the core value of economic advancement. as thas a result my argument ise republican party have failed to meet ronald reagan's vision that he set out in the 1977 speech to the conservative political action committee convention of a new republican party, a republican party where the cop, the farmer, the working name would have a seat at the republican party table that would combine conservatives of all stripes to social, physical, cultural and economic and defense conservatives into one majority party. the republican party remains today, despite reagan's advances, what it's been since the great depression, america's second place party, a party that year in and year out has few people who will say they belong to or support their ideals and say they will support the democratic party, even as the gap has narrowed in the years after reagan brought his changes. the republican party can fulfill that promise only by recovering the real reagan and recovering the love of mankind and the approach to which that means one should take to government, that ronald reagan actually exhibited in his life. let me elaborate on both of those points. the reagan point i'm sure is one that is most controversial because it flies in the face of what we've been told. we've been told b i what i calld in a recent political magazine article the high priest of reaganism that ronald reagan little more than barry goldwater with a winning personality. a man as dedicated to the overthrow of the new deal as was goldwater in the early conservatives and are today's libertarians. in fact, nothing could be further than the case. from his earliest days as a conservative, ronald reagan exhibited fidelity to the core innovations of the new deal in the sense that government at local and a state level if necessary but a federal level, possible federal level if necessary should ensure that americans have a hand up in american life and that everyone has a chance to live a life of their own choosing, even if it requires some government assistance. then i will move onto the second point which is explained why it is republicans have lost the weight and how it is that in a very odd sense donald trump has recaptured some, not anywhere all, but some of the original reagan insight and consequently it's no surprise that ronald reagan and donald trump are the only two people who were republican nominees in the last 40 years to win dramatically among whites without a college degree and in the midwest in winning the states that determine who becomes president in the states and constituencies that since 1896 have determined which party runs the american national government. so why do i say reagan was not an anti-new deal conservative? it's because that's what he basically was telling people from the moment he stepped out onto the political sphere. most people who have studied reagan know that he began life as an ardent democrat. his father was a democrat. he inherited his father slope of the democratic party, the party of the working man and the attitude that is unuseful admiration of franklin delano roosevelt. he voted for roosevelt four times picky was an ardent new dealer. he memorized roosevelts fireside chats according to his coworkers in fact, he even more dates by talking a new deal politics when you want to be talking something else. but he continued to be a democrat even after roosevelt died. he supported the democratic nominee can stretch it makes 1950 and he continued to support new deal democratic ideals in private conversation well into the 1950s owing so far according to barry goldwater recollection of calling him a fascist s.o.b. when he first met goldwater who were friends of the second wife's parents, loyal davis, in phoenix in the early 1950s. he'he moved over to the right ae became aware that the democratic party was leaving its ideals as he understood them behind. he understood those ideals as using government to help the average person. but you instead begin to see the democratic party was interested in power for its own sake, centralizing vision that made government and socialization of america it animating gold rather than providing assistance to people who needed assistance to overcome obstacles or petty tyranny in their private or injure public lives. reagan was a very smart man. he was somebody who read incessantly picky was somebody who read when he was a child. he read when he was on movie sets. he read when he was working for general electric en banc train trips and cities to cities since he was afraid of flying. he developed his own philosophy. which is best expressed is one that said he was for government that would help people have a hand up. he was for social security. he was for labor unions. in fact, at a time when right to work was a major cause among the american right, he opposed right to work. he opposed right to work in 1950 when it was on the california ballot and when he ran for governor in 1966 he made clear he opposed efforts to make right to work a lot of the california land. he said in 1958 that in the past few decades the government and america has been engaged in a great adoption of welfare projects that came at a great price picky sick people, he did not want and thought that no thinking individual would want to repeal them regardless of the cost of represented forward thinking on his part. on our part. he doesn't specifically reference the new deal but what else could he have in mind? that was exactly the process of programs that the nascent rice in william barclays national review was attacking incessantly. he supported eisenhower twice while national review was withholding their endorsement because he was too wedded to the new deal. he supported richard nixon enthusiastically in 1960 as national review was again withholding their endorsement because nixon was enthused with the new deal. even as reagan matured, reagan continued to adhere to this philosophy. he told audiences in 1961 that no one should be denied health care in america because of a lack of funds. he repeated that statement in 1964 when he was giving his television address for barry goldwater. which may give a national star. he continued us when he ran for governor to express similar sentiments, talking about we would try to engage as governor the private initiative and bureaucratic control but that didn't mean we're going to do away with the extensive programs and support that had been adopted in those years. when he became governor rather than make a frontal assault on welfare or medicaid which was then only a year old sms he called them ultraconservatives urged him to do, he pushed to a record tax increase to make sure the budget was balanced. he always claimed what he wanted to do was make sure that aid only went to those who through no fault of their own deserved support, not to people who could get by without government support. the very use of that phrase indicates his intellectual heritage because it was that phrase that franklin roosevelt used to describe who deserve government support the time of the gentleman has expired again in his fireside chats. this continued all the way through his presidency, that reagan continued to tell people and tell americans that he supported what he called a social safety net, that if you were truly needy you would be excepted from the budget cuts even though at the time he considered the economic disaster caused by large government to be the great pressing problem of his time. people are genuinely needed assistance which include people on medicare, medicaid, social security and the whole panoply of social programs would remain exempt from cuts so long as they were genuinely and truly needed. that group was a very large group indeed. he quoted from fdr extensively in his life. not only in the ways he acknowledged but in ways that are not acknowledged, that his doubts, his intellectual, his intellectual depth was so great that he would quote roosevelt at the drop of a hat without even acknowledging it. in 1982 went two went off script at the republican convention to ask can you join me as we begin our crusade together, can we join together in a moment of silent prayer? he had just become the first republican nominee to even mention the hated roosevelt and a convention speech, citing approvingly the 1932 speech that roosevelt had accepted his first nomination calling for a new deal. but only the oldest would remember that roosevelts speech concluded also with a call for joining together in a crusade to save america and return it to its people. the famous line that he used to close the 1980 debate, are you better off than you were four years ago, was not only adapted, but the next paragraph or more where he asked americans questions. are you better off? is it easier to find a job? this whole section was lifted from roosevelt fifth fireside chat or he answered his critics. reagan was indebted to roosevelt vision in a limited sense, in the sense that america should not return to the wilderness of liberty that existed prior to roosevelts new deal. where he opposed what happened was what it happen since then that the democratic party was he believed increasingly interested in power for its own sake, that this was exemplified why he opposed medicare which is true that he opposed medicare but as you said over and over again, the reason he opposed medicare was because it wasn't necessary. that only about ten or 20% of senior citizens genuinely could not afford medical care and that we should help them any support a bill called the car bills act which gave federal funds to states to grade this programs and he told a friend in a letter that if more money were needed he would put that up. but since advocates of what became medicare continue to push for a one-size-fits-all program regardless of need, he felt they were interested in something else. we were interested in socialized medicine or socialized society com,since you could legitimately meet human needs too much less intrusive and much less command and control system. the republican party no longer talks this language. it talks the language of supply-side economics, a phrase that reagan in both private letters and in his autobiography refused to adopt for in so. it talks a lineage of the entrepreneur when, in fact, when reagan was running for president he never mentioned the phrase entrepreneur. the only time he mentions it in a major address from when he entered the race 1979 until he cited tax cut bill in 1981 is in his first inaugural address where he was the entrepreneurs, what many american heroes, and you listen after the shopkeeper, the consumer, the farmer, the cop on the beat. reagan believed in the bottom of the economy which everybody matter anybody's work was worthy. and republican party that gets back to that is a republican party that can talk to reagan democrats. after ronald reagan, successors whether it's a george herbert walker bush or the people who were nominated for office after that failed to attract the support of these people, particularly the nonevangelical christian should, at the midwestern states. they just didn't see anything that they found interesting. they didn't see somebody who had the balance between individual opportunity and individual security that they ascribed to the new deal and that they wanted to see america. they want an america that gives them a hand up, not an america that treats them with hands-off or an america that lays its hands too heavily on in the form of government direction. donald trump is many things and not all of them good. but one thing he did do from the moment he entered into political life as a serious politician in 2015 was operate as a laserbeam focus on needs and wants of these people. he told him that he understood their pain, that they been abandoned by a government that no longer have their values at heart, that hard work mattered and that he had their back. if that meant is going to fight for trade deals, that might hurt some people on the coastal return their jobs, he was for that. in that sense he was apart from reagan in theory but raking in fact, the trade sanctions on japan the time of the gentleman has expired again to fight unfair trade practices, and one of reagan's proudest achievements was when he put sanctions on japanese motorcycle import to safe harley davidson. whenever you see harley davidson motorcycle running around, that was because ronald reagan stopped them from being put out of business when they felt they were being unfairly competed with bicep size japanese imports. talking about immigration, he does in a language ronald reagan would never use but reagan signed his compromised in 1986 because he felt we were losing control of our borders and that the compromise with amnesty was necessary in order to make sure we didn't have too many migrants that would drown american workers. as he wrote in one private letter, economic migrants come we can never take all of them because we never have room for them. america was so rich that it could never accommodate all the people who would want to live for and take advantage of its bounty. donald trump was onto something, and he was on to the missing link that the republican party in its talk of entrepreneurship and its disregard all too often for the realities of the way that government has provided individual security through its entitlement programs. he was onto something that the republican party has missed, and consequently he became the first republican to win the five midwestern nominated states, states that are dominated by reagan democrats. iowa, ohio, michigan, pennsylvania and wisconsin. he was the first person since 1984 in 1984 to take all five of those states. the only way forward for the republican party if he wants to remain a center-right party is to make that coalition solid into expand upon it by attracting back the republicans whom the negative aspect of donald trump pushed away from that party. that party is ronald reagan's new republican party. that party is a combination of republicans and conservatives of all face and backgrounds, one that has an ability to speak to people of all creeds, classes engenders. one which gives people a hand up in american life while still containing the task of producing taxes were necessary -- reducing -- and added. >> restoring competition to america's sclerotic public service. it's one that interprets franklin roosevelt new deal rather than opposes it. it's one that legitimately returns america on the path which it's been on for well over a century, one that allows us to accommodate the vicissitudes of economic competition in modern life while enduring, maintain the enduring truths of american freedom. it's a very hard row to hoe. it's one that will be difficult for republicans to adopt. but i believe we can do it. i believe we can do because in our hearts that's what most of us already are. it's where the voters are. it's what they said in the 19, in thin the 2016 primary win overwhelmingly rejected the shovelers of the reaganism high priest and rejected the candidates who are running on the platform that had been adopted in favor of the new look of the old reaganism that donald trump was proposing. i just like to conclude by asking you a question. do you think that if the republican party and the conservative movement continues to do what it's been doing for the last eight to ten years, that if he continues to do those things for the next ten years that we will be better off? do you think that taxes will be lower and that regulations will be smaller? do you think that traditional values will be more respected in american public institutions? do you think we will be more respected abroad? do you think we will have attracted more people to our cause since the first time since 1932? more people will tell pollsters on election day and in pre-election polls that they are republicans than democrats asked do you think those things will happen? i don't. i think we've been on the wrong course since ronald reagan. i think if we had followed that course we would have been where he expected we would be. and, in fact, i think we would fulfill what he told the columbus day audience in 1980 when he was in one of his last political speeches he spoke to a group of italian americans and seven going to do something i've never said before. he said the old party of harry truman and fdr isn't dead. that the little secret is that when the left took over the democratic party, we took over the republican party. if that isn't true, if the old party of franklin roosevelt and harry truman, the people who wanted security and opportunity have generally found a place in the republican party, the entire history of america over the last 20 years would have been different. this is now our last best hope to make ronald reagan's dream come true and finally put america on the path towards conservatism is the full governing philosophy of america, and consequently, make america the shining city on a hill that reagan always dreamed that we could be. thanks. [applause] >> when hendrick and i first spoke about this event several months ago, i asked him who he would like to respond to his thesis. he said many people he spoke to aston what does craig shirley think? so we are very pleased to have craig with us today. and craig in ten minutes can you tell us, did henry get reagan right? >> yes, and no. [laughing] thank you, karlyn and thank you aei. being here, i enjoyed bookwriting but i also enjoy meeting people. it reminds me of mae west once said t too much of a good things wonderful. over the course of my four books, six books, i've interviewed many, many people from jimmy carter to walter mondale and jim baker and nancy reagan and other people like that. there were only three people i couldn't interview, one of them was alice cooper. you say why would you want to interview alice cooper? it turns out alice was reagan supported in 1980. so i contacted his office out in arizona. alice had contributed to reagan. alice had voted for reagan era know, alice didn't want to do a debate, or do an interview. and i said why? the aide said rather sheepishly, well, alice was drunk. [laughing] i said what you mean alice was drunk? she said alice was drunk from 1976-1983. [laughing] and they said you meet all the time? she said yeah, pretty much. i think henry may have discovered there's a lot of joy in book writing as well. i certainly enjoyed it. someone once asked me what's the most profitable form of writing? is it operates, letters, speeches, bookwriting? i thought for a moment and i said the most profitable form of writing is ransom notes. [laughing] history is written backwards but limped forward and i think henry has written that in his book. what i'm going to do is talk about what first surprised henry is what i like about his book. first of all he opens up a new discussion about ronald reagan, one that has not been thoroughly and completely examined as well as it should have been. we don't fully know or at least it's been underreported about reagan's intellectual maturation. how does he go from what is he call himself? he wasn't a bleeding heart. he was a hemophiliac liberal. how does he go from a rip roaring supporter of the new deal to a libertarian conservative? and by the way he was a libertarian. that's where you're wrong. [laughing] but it is an important discussion which is why we are here today, which is why this book was written. as emil faber once said knowledge is good. no one saw animal house i guess. >> i did. >> okay. how does raking go by this journey? what it effects on in? what does he read? who does he talk to? what are the effects of hollywood? what are the effects of eureka college what he's an economics major worry first learned that smoot-hawley was a great cause that was -- great depression and start down the path of becoming a free trader from his economics professor when he developed reading from the school of economics, so it's a waste discussion, an important discussion. i think also is that he, henry writes in his book that reagan's mind in writing and thinking and intellect has been underappreciated, and i think that's also true. marty anderson who was one of reagan's closest aides for many, many years, very different in mind, told me he thought reagan's iq was 150 or higher. he thought he was a genius level the way he approached things, where he things -- the way he rejected problems of put to him. he like to point of the solutions, third ways as in combating the soviet union where it was not our knees or mutually assured destruction but to work with indigenous third-party freedom fighters in afghanistan and czechoslovakia and hungary and nicaragua and other countries to win the hearts and minds of the people rather than just the old way with vietnam and other u.s. responses to soviet incursions. if you read, at a think henry has, i'm not sure, but if you read reagan's collins, if you read his radio addresses, if you read his speeches you come away realizing this is a very thoughtful man and the man who thinks very, very deeply about things. you can see over the years is that he's becoming more mature, more reflective, more subtle in his thinking. it ultimately centers on the rights and dignity and freedom of the individual. he mentions, uses the word individual many, many times in his radio addresses and later in his speeches, including as president. i think that's also to command henry. i have three broad areas of disagreement. one is libertarian. henry rejects the idea that reagan was a libertarian. reagan was a libertarian but he was an libertine. he was traditional on issues like a drug use and other, the other excesses of the 1960s, flower child generation, but he was as one of reagan's very underappreciated historian was a good friend of mine, john patrick diggins wrote a very important book called faith,, freedom and the making of history. in the first paragraph of the first page he says reagan drew his inspiration come his libertarian inspiration from thomas paine. as a matter-of-fact he quoted thomas pink often. his two favorite philosopher probably solzhenitsyn and pain because he quoted them often turkey signed them often. i'd want to get too much in the weeds but in the 1980 campaign he uses curious phrase. we all say man and god. reagan says man with god. this is a very interesting intellectualization of how he is able to as i said a third way, the synthesis of paine, that very far of the enlightenment and the lightman teaches man is at the center of the universe, and solzhenitsyn gives a speech in our benighted said nine eviscerate the leica, joseph park, hate the whole concept. and said how can reagan, how can these two philosophers both the favorites of ronald reagan? i think it is because reagan synthesizes the two and he believes that man is a spiritual being and i therefore if man is at the center of the universe, it's because god wanted him there and as a spiritual individual because god is in that man. there's no contradiction in reagan's mind by being a devotee of both solzhenitsyn and thomas been because he synthesizes the two positions. in 1975, just weeks before is going to take on gerald ford in the republican primaries for president, he gives an interview to cbs. this humorous in your book. gives an interview to mike wallace was a good friend of nancy reagan. they grew up together in chicago. they used to go to dance lessons together. in this interview, it's up at the ranch, and broadcast in november of 75, but reagan goes into great lengths to explain his libertarian philosophy. he gives a tutorial which is quite excellent on the rights and dignity and privacy of individual and now he arrived at this philosophy. it is very, very impressive. for many, many years during the 1970s reagan used to public refer to himself as a libertarian conservative. you cite reason and he said reagan libertarianism was fundamental basis for american conservatism, and i believe he believed that complete an abstract, believed in practical sense, practical terms. but he referred to himself for many years in the '70s and libertarian conservative pick on short some point someone said governor, knock it off, nobody knows what you're talking about anyway. so we stopped doing but he really did believe in it. with regard to the new deal, he says yes, it's right turkey believe human beings over cash but it's also true he believed in individuals over state-sponsored, state managed economy as you write in your book. you also write curiously that he was republican new dealer. now, we just got rid of the phrase big government republican, and i would hate to see republican new dealer introduced into the lexicon because i don't think he was. when he was a new dealer he was a democrat. as he matured and 62 when a change party it pretty much rejected at least, at least the policies of the new deal because they didn't work or he perceived they were told on the rights and dignity of the individual. there were things he knew he could do and things he knew he couldn't do. where that was in his diaries where he dismisses tip o'neill as just an old new dealer, and in 1975 in marathon to jewels what colbert where he rejects the new deal as being just a panacea that's going to solve everything. by the 1970s, even the 1960s he's pretty much rejected the politics and the policies of the new deal. i agree like the spirituality of the new deal, that it was a mechanism to bring the country together at a time when he needed to come together. the third, the second is the new deal itself, and he did compare in collins and inviting and in speeches the new deal to miscellanies fascism -- mussolini -- "new york times" in 1981 was the same thing, the diary entry as i mentioned in the book marathon. so i don't think, i think it to look at reagan's relationship to the new deal more subtly than just whether he was for or against it. when he was elected president in 1980, the country was in deep recession, losing the cold war and american spirit is snuffed out. those of the things that he concentrated on. those are the three things -- >> another minute. >> one minute, okay. those are the things the consequent on, those with the things come uppermost in his mind, not getting rid of salsas good, not getting rid of the new deal programs or anything else like that. he was a political realist, is that there was a democratic congress, many were still new deal democrats and sell security and other social programs were still popular. he focus on those thing that he could do. let me just conclude here by saying, i really appreciate this panel but in some ways were almost gone from underestimating ronald reagan to over intellectualizing him. i hope that's not true. george schultz, hi is very able secretary of state said, really you have to realize this is god was a lot of fun and it was a lot of fun and that's part of conservatism, find is the central core of conservatism. [laughing] >> who knew? >> well, i guess you learn something new every day, don't you? >> but speaking of fun, back in the '60s, the height of the vietnam war, reagan was out walking with an aide when he was governor, he was confronted by a rather smelly, dirty disheveled hippie. maybe was bill clinton, i don't know. [laughing] the hippie was carrying a sign and the sign said make love not war. reagan looks at the sign, he looks at the hippie, turns to his aid and says from the looks of him, i don't think you could do either. [laughing] >> that we would turn to bill galston. [applause] >> well, i have 1 million things to say about this book, but you would be relieved to be that i'm not going to say anything. the moderators job is to be moderate. that is to say, self-restraint. and so i'm going to turn directly, first, to jonah and then to ruy. and then i'm going to give henry a chance, which i think he will be chomping at the bit, to seize, to respond to what he's heard, then the wii a frank and free exchange of views among the four of you. we will then turn to the audience for about 15 minutes for q&a. and i would ask only two, karlyn, reserved one minute for myself at the end to share with you a unique insight into ronald reagan's political philosophy that henry's book has helped me to see for the first time, and perhaps the last. jonah. >> i don't have a lot of time, so i'm going to skip some of the pleasantries. as henry viii cent each of his wife, i'm not going to keep you long. [laughing] let me say up front that it really enjoyed the book. i think the book makes an important point about that, not just the reagan isn't quite the person we understood him to be but fdr was quite the person that he is now liners to be either. the history here is more subtle. i'm not going to do any argument with henry about numbers. he is someone who a study elections. he's really, really good at it, only second to ruy. i consider math witchcraft. [laughing] i'm not even going to touch it. henry makes three basic arguments are at least three basic arguments that the debate about this book is going to generate. the first is that reagan was less of the reaganite than conservatives, the high priests as they call them. i've used that phrase but up a bunch of people on the right these days as well. the second is the gop needs to shed this cult of reagan, this false reagan if it's going to fix its problems of a, a majority party and do serious, important things. the third is donald trump in some ways proves some of that. i think the first ones are more important points. i will say up front i am not, i much more in the craig shirley camp about this question of whether not ronald reagan was a new deal republican. i always thought a new deal republican was one of the -- [inaudible] and ronald reagan to me was not from the progressive wing of the republican party and not what nelson rockefeller and those fellows thought of him. i'm supposed to talk about the future of the gop. here i think my fundamental disagreement, and as much i agree with in the book and i that. sometimes i'm in violent agreement with henry but the pampas of the speed entertaining or least interesting so people in conflict. henry is making in some ways the same mistakes is criticizing so many on the right of. namely, he thinks there is this true reagan, this dashboard saint of conservatism and if we can just uncover him and reveal his true nature he will like a lamp aluminate the path forward for republicans for all time. this is argument you hear from the high priest about true reagan, and henry's version of the true reagan is that he was this new deal republican. i'm just not entirely convinced that is right. one of the things people don't really understand about ronald reagan, i've always thought of, so here's why absolutely agree with henry. i think the gop, the last few election cycles, the last couple decades has been crippled by this cult of reagan. if you go back and watch the primary debates on c-span over the last couple election cycles, in iowa and new hampshire you get these gop candidates and it's like the nerdiest reenactment of spartacus where they're all like i am ronald reagan. no, i am ronald reagan. [laughing] and the problem with it is first of all if ronald reagan were alive today he would be 106. 106. first of all maybe he doesn't have the best grasp of what politics today requires. one of the problems the gop has gotten itself caught up in is is become obsessed with purity and principles. don't get me wrong, i like this principles. i've dedicated my life to this principles. that's what i do for a living is promote conservative principles. the thing is that once you get into contest of who is the purest, you lose sight of what politics is supposed to be about. politics is supposed he about persuasion. go back to aristotle, this idea that i use reason and logic i can explain why your self interest better reflected in my coalition than the other guys coalition. that's politics. instead if i'm the purest guy on the stage if by definition are excluding people rather than enticing people and ringing them in. i think the republican party has lost its way prior to trump to the art of persuasion. this gives me to my key point about ronald reagan. ronald reagan's success wasn't, yes, and have a lot to do with his ideology, we want to define it, but the big part of it was he was a really good politician. one of the things he did that almost no politicians do including donald trump i have to say is he told stories picky was really good at telling stories. george schultz tells a story about how he brought a speech to operate an acid could you at it? is an important speech. reagan looks at ss this is a great speech but this is not how i would write it. what do you mean? here's what i would do. i would go point, point, story. point, point, story. what reagan understood is that the human mind is wired to understand things through stories. most, every important lesson in your lives has a story associate with it. the bible is many things but of the black letter of it, it's a book of stories. he understood how to reach of the people who disagreed with them. he said if you agree with me on seven out of ten things, you are not my enemy, you are my ally. that is something the gop has lost in part because it has enthralled itself to reagan. one of the things that cause me to be incredibly frustrated with the gop in the last few cycles is, particularly with the election of donald trump, is the way in which the very same high priests that henry is talking about have basically beaten back anybody who wanted to be a policy innovator and say no, no, no this isn't like reagan in 82. we just have to cut top marginal tax rates. we cut top marginal tax rate from 70% down to 30%. i like to cut the more. what has two sons and likes tax cuts? this guy. it goes as a matter of logic that if you cut marginal top rates down from seven to 30 you got a lot of benefit. maybe we should look at things that payroll taxes already things that might help the white working class. with other groups, place like national review would make these points, it would be a lot of people, a lot of talk with types would say no, no, no that's not reaganism. along comes donald trump and he went over the white working class for reasons henry describes i think larger accurately and all of a sudden the people who were being denounced as too soft on conservatism and not reaganites enough for all of a sudden being thrown under the bus for not drawing out -- throwing out reagan entirely and get into this populist type. maybe just maybe people have listened to people like henry or summaries of the people, about applying reaganite principles to contemporary problems, rather than trying to run a 1982 playbook over and over again, maybe we would have made life better for the white working class. and for the black working-class. i can't stand all this talk for the white working class as if everything is going great for the black and hispanic working-class. maybe if we been allowed to do some of these innovations that applied regular principles to contemporary problems we would have won over some of his people the republican party and not let them grow so frustrated that they grew in with his fast pipe is enterprise that has no serious connection to anything like mainstream intellectual conservatism. i will close with this last point. one of the things that made reagan an incredibly successful president was that the staff knew what the old man believed. that is incredibly empowering to the bureaucracy come to the political appointee. if you know where the old man is come again is something, you don't have to go ask permission. you get to carry the ball forward. that more than anything else is one of the biggest problems with the trump presidency so far is on any given day, he's like an old, like a patient from an old home. he's wanting out in the store. no one feels empowered to follow through on a policy about anything. it makes a lot of serious people unwilling to enter the meditation because they don't feel like you'll get his back, get their back when they need it. that is an enormous problem and it is a sign that ronald reagan was a much smarter administrator and politician who managed to keep the tribes together in a way that donald trump simply has no intuitive grasp for and that is one of the reasons why historians were not look back and see donald trump as much of the comparative figure two ronald reagan. thank you. [applause] >> you did it in nine minutes, congratulations. ruy, see if you can do even better? >> i'll do my best. thanks for having me and i'm a longtime admirer of henry's work and a rigid like his book quite a bit. i probably the person on the panel, i do not bill feels, who probably is lease enamored of ronald reagan. but i ask it found henry's interpretation of reagan to be compelling, reason. i learned a lot from it. i think it has a lot to tell us about the future of the republicans, which is the subject of this part of the panel. one thing henry's book makes clear is that if we're going to stand while reagan's political success, and it was going to understand the more recent success of the republican party, including donald trump's a session to the presidency, the republican party has been utterly dependent on the white working class. not the black or hispanic working-class. the white working class. there's something set a worth thinking about in terms of that dependence which kind of i guess in some ways one must admire the success of the republicans a continuing to build their success in this group. in 1980 when ronald reagan, god blesses memory i suppose, was first elected to the presidency, 70% of eligible voters in the united states could be classified as white working class. by the time donald trump got elected in 2016 it was down to only 45%. they managed to serve the receiving weight in a pretty effective way. by 2040 estimates by the center for american progress, we feel that eligible voters were white working class would probably be down to 35% by the time we hit 2060, 28%. it's a group of continue to decline fairly rapidly in the share of eligible voters and as voters and the united states so that's something to keep in mind what you think about the coalition that reagan and reaganism has built and let's talk about reagan and reaganism. one thing, one of the central points i think of henry's book and a realized it's under dispute on the spam is the difference between reagan and was now thought of as reaganism. according to henry the reagan approach, you could think of as sort of the loyal opposition to the welfare state. he is a view was according to henry don't take away the new deal, don't disparage it,, improve it. and above all whatever you do, don't take stuff away from people as they don't like it at it's not right. so that was according to him where reagan was coming from. the reaganism approach that more a geminis is today's gop, anything can would argue is not really reaganism it's really neo-libertarian barry goldwater is with perhaps -- cultural populism on top of that on the general philosophy seems to be let's get a close to the nightwatch mines state as possible. the government should tax as though and spin as soon as possible. the new deal was basically a bad idea. there's nothing more important than cutting spending and taxes. and if that involves taking step away from people, well, so be it. .. as henry argues it's not unreasonable argument. it does not represent something we don't want success on, but rather something more episodic with the weakness of the opposition. i'm somewhat sympathetic to the argument, and we have to be realistic and look at fools gold. it looks pretty golden to me, like we've had a lot of success from a likely control the majority of governors, minorities, the president be like hey, if it ever a, don't fix it. that's the biggest obstacle henry has to getting people to dig into his argument and take it seriously. you cannot have different ideas about what the party should you can take that as a serious issue appear they look at what's happening. they say that is good. then we come to the long-term problem that i want a quote from the sacred text here about the long-term problems. within a minority party of movement in america for me for years. never have we taken the government and changed it more than a couple years at the time. it is espousing progressive values. unless we change this in the nature of the political debate, we'll be little more than tax collectors for the liberal welfare's day. let me quote from something else from david brooks which is apropos to this discussion. brooks argued today about how they are rejecting conservatism, conservative policies, lets people like you in this audience accept the fact that american society is coming apart and measures me to assist the working class. republican politicians showed awareness. they have a vision for how they want american society to be in the 21st century. they have a vision of how they want american government to be in the 21st century. it has just been on hold for the elimination of obamacare. for those making over a quarter of a million. for 50 million people off medicaid according to cbo the program covers 40% of america's children. is their vision of society underlining these choices? not really. they defined their vision around the sort of country they like to create. the current republican party has hired dogmatic rules about the role of government they have reaganism but not reagan. and google in end will solve the crisis which the way the economic trajectory as default. to paraphrase martin luther king coming here for the morons universes tending towards the left gives us a theory of my book and i urge you to go out and buy a copy. that is my view. good luck, henry. [applause] >> and recovery of five minutes to respond and then i will experiment with a new kind of moderation and i will step in only when it starts to sound too much like a group. >> i favor your endorsement. people told their favorite written stories. ibm three points i would like to get there. i go into this in great detail in the book that's 200 or more pages that i go through. that reagan used the term in a way that libertarians use that imprecisely gets onto the question of what will or should government have pad disagrees on every point and for reagan libertarian for someone who's inspired by letting them see individual choice flourish, but not the expense of one is pushed on should government be providing higher education or financing higher education, he signed with the. it gets to the finer point on the hyper libertarian polling. when you use the word libertarian, reagan really meant this to mean what i would argue that celebrity inspired americanism. that gets into the sector question, which is what does the new deal means. traditionally we tend to have the new deal getting larger and government is the arbiter of how a society should develop. and that is in fact the way the early conservative movement through the debate. i get into this extensively in the book. we find someone who's not a new dealer of expansion government direction. he was forgot in 1848, but he was vociferously opposed that. he was for interpreting what roosevelt did can we become so far removed. i want to remind you before the new deal was illegal to fire people. after the new deal, it was not. there is no such thing as comprehensive unemployment insurance. there's no extensive set of public universities and no community colleges. no federal transportation aid. all of the things we take for granted, state and federal policies comes into being because the innovation brought about during the presidency of franklin roosevelt. see affirms that from the moment he gives speeches and talking with barry goldwater. he's about cutting back the excesses. it's about eliminating the idea to bureaucrat rather than american should be the center of american life, but he's not turning back clock. not going back to pre-new deal world. republicans otherwise new dealers were simply being mean to democrats in adopting the old new deal government solution. reagan crafts a third way of between social democracy and libertarianism called conservatism. the third thing is principle versus ideology. reagan is somebody who's a minute principle but not an ideologue. it's an extensive critique of ideology, something that put facts behind principles like the limbs extending. someone could understand what the references. ronald reagan was a man of conservative principle but we have mistaken or usable for and innovation but the sense of a right way of thinking about things in the way which conscious of a conservative rather than what reagan called reality of everyday life and those always came first. as you'll see in my book when you read it, and is a conservative. he finds when he is actually put in power disagreement among people who discover he's not a person they think he is. faster among california conservatives in the discover he's a man of principle and ideology. he changes his mind. he decides it's more important than it is to stand on the principle of liberty and property according to seen fit and he changed his mind and open housing law. they post them in 1980 and 1984. that's a libertarians believe in why ronald reagan was the worst of the candidates. time and time again, ideologues opposed ronald reagan, newt gingrich and social security reform. they raise taxes as part of a compromise. he refers to people's cultures throughout history. reagan was not a libertarian the way we understand that word. he was not an ideologue. we invite you to read my book to read the full argument. one other thing i would like to say. i wrote a piece on "politico" worried about reaganism versus reagan pieces. reagan's first national security adviser and mr. henry olsen speaks out how to write its reagan wrong and is spot on and i could tell him so. one person who was there at the beginning thinks of something to talk about. okay, now. [applause] you have 12 minutes to allow that. >> but you don't get all 12. last night and sometimes confuse because he says in big government did team to the individual people. in 1981 that tip o'neill was nothing but an old new dealer in the 50 states for administrator states. it is interesting that [inaudible] >> in 1977 we have tough bright young men and women entire desk clichés and idiocy of liberals in washington. >> a sorry state of affairs -- he's denouncing the new deal. what he has denouncing to his father of his fiancée after college. they've taken a turn in the 1930s. >> that was her nickname. >> what i've said a number of times is let's take a look at the debate about the future of the new deal in 1948. they broke off from the democratic party and openly called for state control directed economy they stood at the democratic party. >> my point is that as things develop it was part of the democratic party and rejected claiming. he rejected centralization. he did not reject the basic popular understanding which included social security, support for people in old age. support for labor union. he always supported those things. he did not reject those things. they were often opposed by anti-new deal conservatives at the time. reagan distinguish between parts of the new deal rejections of american life and he was always for those latter things. >> this is my 12 minutes, not yours. >> it was supposed to be between us. >> moderator. >> timeout. he had 30 seconds to prove that. the mistake you make as you look at the world statically instead of dynamically that the new deal was the world in the 1930s and 1940s. there is no intellectual argument for conservatism or privacy or power and authority to the states. the only question was how intrusive to make it. the only argument on the stage in the 1930s. you also overlook the impact of world war ii have on reagan on this country because we decided the empire of japan into american people that looked like government was working. we built the highway system. conservatives doesn't offer a compelling argument because there's no need for conservatism. more government as good and better for you. good >> ever have to stop you now. one is that it seems part of the problem is that new deal with a lot of different things with the postmaster general -- fact that it was a really important job and was a campaign to fdr. he was asked what the idea of the new deal was. he says there's a theme to the need deal like saying the collection -- all displayed a basketball, old shoes and a guitar in your garage were put there by an interior designer. the whole idea of the new deal, which you referenced, a lot of things up against the wall. 700 did with the american people or the economy. a lot of that was awful and abandoned. you make a perfectly fine point that ronald reagan as a politician looked at the stuff that stack and was successful and said that part of the new deal and willing to stick with. hugh johnson's nra and the blue eagle i can't stand not. all the other thing were outrageous. a lot of different new deals. so i will tell my story and they will say the american enterprise institute was founded in 1938 with ideas to fight the new deal. so there was some work being done. over 25 years ago when i'm a policy research nerd here, josh gave a friday talk about neoconservatism. i asked them a question and saying what was ronald reagan in the insert ronald reagan was elected to be a foreign policy practiced in and he was smart enough to get the social conservatives and economic service on board. the guy an economist here got serious and they stood up and said he was an economic conservative than he managed to fold into his campaign for social conservatives in the foreign-policy laws. michael novak says they cannot believe what i'm hearing. everyone knew the fundamental essence of ronald reagan's campaign with social conservatism and a pro-life christian and he was managed to make the global philosophy and of course economic conservatives and a rewarding job market ball,, bob, bob. it is like an episode of "seinfeld" where jerry gets the entire pizza restaurant to fight about abortion. [laughter] am very proud of is the one that set it off. this gets me to my point. i think it's very difficult to pick any one of these threads. ronald reagan was very smart. he wasn't an intellectual, wasn't a philosopher. he was a politician, while defending ideologies to my last breath. the idea that there is a true reagan that solves all of these questions about policy issues i don't think is right whether it comes from the high priest or the wilson school of revisionists. >> roy come you get the last comment before returning to q&a in the audience. >> i don't really have a horse in the fight about what reagan really meant and what he really said. i'll let you guys fight that out. but i will say this. if we are going to fight about what made ronald reagan a track is a politician, what his success was based on family working-class voters we now refer to as democrat, it seems clear they voted for reagan and liked reagan because the more represented like henry says reagan stood for, which is let's get rid of the excesses, but let's keep the new deal program to keep basic here. we would get bureaucracy off your neck cannot take anything away from you. that's the ronald reagan they voted for it. they did not vote for the reigning philosophy of the republican party today, which again is this goldwater libertarianism or spend as little as possible in a take step away from people because that's the right and to do. i just don't think that's what they voted for. >> okay, audience. you get the next 14 minutes. i have to request. first of all, wait until the roving microphone reaches you and secondly, identify yourself before you ask a brief question. the speeches or statements, please. this gentleman in the front. >> at evening, gentlemen. thank you for coming. this is very exhilarating. i study international education policy at the american university in washington d.c. i would like to know -- i just left the embassy in sweden today and the speaker of the parliament for latvia and norway were there and we discussed the 10% approval rating the republican party has for calling the baltic state and we discussed the impression the european nations were having on the college students producing due to our political climate. what do you all think we can do to improve the perception globally due to recent development here and the united states to increase the approval rating and with these nations think of what we are producing unintellectual and collegiate level right now. >> thank you very much. you want to take a crack at it? >> you brought up a related subject which is very important. that is the cold war, which was the prevailing issue of the 1980s. in 1980 with the same cold war to the soviets. the soviets had gone into southeast asia. nicaragua had fallen. they were in angola. by every measurable standard, we are losing the cold war to the soviets. eight years later we are winning the cold war. in the course from 1917-1980, the president give up territory to the soviets and then reagan was the lack did in the majors they don't give up. i think is that part of reagan, i said before, one of the big goals was to defeat the soviet communism. i have always believed since then and 86, which everybody uses as an example that reagan is somehow a liberal was more about gorbachev and the cold war and him not handing the soviets and illegals in the united states and at that time we tell him to tear down the wall. a lot of these were from communist cuba and nicaragua but seeking political asylum. i don't know what the answer is to your question, but the cold war has not been addressed here and if we trust ourselves to that as well. >> the woman in the front row and then i will shift over to a different part of the room altogether. >> sonia graham, political consultant. he made the statement that the gop -- [inaudible] >> -- [inaudible] that reason is the house no vision for our country as a whole. so would you comment on that? >> sherry. i thought i dodged a bullet. well, i think david has a pretty good point. i get asked a lot, which i understand there's all sorts of issues by democrats are so much better at pollock takes that republicans are. for reasons that i think, that doesn't seem obvious to democrats who don't control in a government. there is a sense that democrats live and breathe politics in a way and they get help from the media and they get to the find and frame issues in the way republicans never can. part of it and they don't mean this to be nearly as pejorative as the sounds is republican politicians tend to be more normal people. what i mean by that. >> like the president? [laughter] >> in debate i would call that a direct hit. one of the liberating things about being politically homeless these days as i don't really have to defend who i want to defend. what i mean by that is remember when ron johnson asked hillary clinton the question about at this point what difference does it make. she won this round. 30 years earlier, ron johnson was trying to figure out how to get a loan to get another truck to move pallets from oshkosh. hillary clinton was doing her thesis on lewinsky. the liberals to go into politics just take it invalid that much more seriously in standard republicans is usually a guy who comes from a midwestern town. he's a leader in the community in his church and he says i want to give back. so they come from this theory sort of i don't want to say myopic, but narrow frame of american culture that does not speak well to big swaths of american culture. democrats have a similar problem. a lot of republicans think i'm going to go to washington and make sure the accounts payable department runs well. liberalist has a vision for what the society should look like. republicans have a vision saying get out of their way. i come from a place with sort of the strong media and institutions and government is the problem here. >> is not the problem on the coast and the way people see things outside of red states. conservatives need to do a lot more work figuring out a vision about what this country is supposed to look like for people who don't already agree with them. this is the signature problem of the conservative movement today. make a really good movement to audiences who already agree with you. that leaves you completely blind to what other people think and how to address them and persuade them. i think donald trump is not helping in this regard. i don't care what young people want via say, but i do care in terms of what the movements does in hopes in terms of what young people in america think about it. whatever you think about donald trump's base making conservatism caustic to well-educated millennialist and people who should be the future of the republican party and that is something we have to deal with. >> is now going to turn to the side of the room. this gentleman right here. >> but this discussion. we've been talking about trump and reagan. media is something that comes up quite a bit. we didn't necessarily like ronald reagan. i would like comments of how -- give donald trump your tip of how he can handle the media like ronald reagan did. >> reagan didn't shut them out. reagan was one of the most successful presidents of the modern era. the media was not kind to ronald reagan. the night of the iowa caucus tonight -- he lost to george bush with a huge upside and went on national news and said we just witnessed the political funeral of ronald reagan. 60 slater is a huge but. the new hampshire primary. they routinely savaged ronald reagan. they were writing articles about whether or not he had affairs, articles about the state of his and mrs. reagan's marriage. the "washington post" was to run this to ronald reagan for all eight years and even into his death. "the new york times" was not much better. he never really shut them out. he never criticized them, never went after them. there is the time he wrote a letter to cal thomas in "the l.a. times" had been criticizing him and said "the l.a. times" is not my corner. loops. that was not the extent of it. this guy made 55 movies and some of those were really bad. but he developed a thick skin through much of his career. get criticism, certainly widely panned. so by the time he was in politics, he's going to take criticism and not take it too personally. in his diaries of people he didn't like the reporters he didn't like, he once wrote in his diary about global wake her from connecticut gives up on this, no good fathead. he later wrote something else very, very nasty. he had his ways of handling those things, but he did do it publicly. he did it in private, maybe to mrs. reagan. he would certainly vented his diaries. but he had a pretty thick skin so he could turn away criticism unlike trump who can't turn away any criticism was a lover. >> just come in the woman in the second row and if there's time i'll take one more question. >> hungry initiatives foundation. about six years ago, several countries in the reagan statute and i think that is the aspirational and inspirational aspect of reagan. most importantly, the anti-communist and his mutual hatred here to wonder if that aspect which was so defining all around the world to millions and millions of people, does that stand closer to henry olsen's version of reagan? >> i think it's both. >> yeah, exactly. i don't think we would dispute that. >> reagan was an inspirational leader. is in the history of this country with washington, lincoln and roosevelt. >> reagan was the hemophiliac new dealer was supposed to tyranny in the form of fascism in the spoken about it in nearly the identical words and communism became more of a clear enemy with self-appointed elites and have the ability of the many in the name of the few, whether that was fascist, communist. >> yes, that's right. he was anti-not seek an anti-fascists japanese imperialism. he was maybe more anti-communist but that was because of the duration and a real threat to the freedom. >> we beat that not these japan and then he had to deal with communist in hollywood movies on trade with the unions firsthand. he tried to fight it back time new deal liberalism. he threw acid in front of his face and get a license to carry a gun for six months. >> as compatibility and headquarters at reagan's name etched on it in the 1960s. >> we have time for a quick question and a quick answer and then i have to kick us out. gentleman in the front. >> hi, i am martin wooster. so, reagan had no differences with rockefeller or modern republicanism? >> he had a lot of differences with them. in many ways, reagan did not dispute some of the innovations that they supported. he did not have a problem with the expansions of one of the famous rockefeller advocated. he was proud when he was governor in treatment for mental health. want to know is supposed that the government was the arbiter of all things and not only collect good the response. to that extent he was very much opposed to that wing of the republican party. but it was a nuanced difference. he supported eisenhower when he was supposed. what nixon was called in 1960. i don't think neatly into the old categories of left and right because he transcended. >> rockefeller is a difficult one because they were personal friends. they liked each other and mrs. reagan actually worked together to stop richard nixon. they were both concerned about nixon as president of the united states. here is the reagan discovery that i'm so excited about, but i wanted to share with the rest of the world. on page 218, we read reagan believe you deserve a certain minimal standard of living so long as you contributed according to your ability. on page 267, we read reagan believed that benefits should go to people who need them. >> from each according to his ability to each according to their need. [laughter] >> at 7:00. i have to bring this to a close. it's always a pleasure to host things with bill. i would like to thank all of our panelists and finally to offer my congratulations to henry olsen. a good friend of henry olsen for this new book. please buy books for sale. they will all be here to autograph books if you'd like to do so. thank you so much for coming. [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> we are exceptionally excited to welcome steve early here tonight. the last time was done in a smaller space where we used to be years ago. steve is here to talk tonight about his book refinery talent, but richmond, california. it is really exciting to see good, well researched