Transcripts For CSPAN3 Nicole Hemmer Partisans - The Conserv

Number of other publications and a book six years ago, messengers of the right, nicole traced the emergence of conservative media institutions in the midtwentieth century. In her new work, she examines why the Republican Party in the 1990s shifted from kind of conservativism that Ronald Reagan had represented and the previous decade, a conservative wisdom that was optimistic and, popular to a more pessimistic, angrier, even revolutionary conservativism. It was a period nicole, of intensifying partizan conflict when a new fury took hold on the right and when republicans grew less tolerant of dissension in the ranks and began democrats not as opponents but as enemies. What accounted the shift . Well, nicole, a number of factors which shell get into in a minute, but understanding why it happened is important, because it remains very relevant today, as nicole explains. It set republicans on a course that led eventually to the election of donald trump and to the radicalization of the right. Now were in for a very informative discussion with who will be in conversation this evening, one of the most astute political analysts and washington today, journalist and author e. J. Dionne. Hes also a longtime friend of poppy and of mine and listens. In addition to writing an always interesting column for the washington post, e. J. Is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and teaches at georgetown. Hes also the author or coauthor of a number of books about politics. His latest, 100 democracy, which was cowritten Myles Rapoport and published last march, makes very persuasive case for universal voting. So, ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming Nicole Hemmer and dionne. Thank you, brad. And thanks to our friends at cspan and in the audience out there. I love doing events at this bookstore as everybody in this room knows this bookstore is also a community organization. Its a community builder. I love the people who work here. And lisa inherited a tradition. They kept it alive and on it. And to keep a tradition alive, youve got to build on it. And theyve done great things with this bookstore. And i am so pleased and honored to be with nicole. I got to say, i love this book. I its probably the highest compliment can give. It is that you dont realize how much you are learning because book is so engaging as you through it and also like it for a very pretty killer, maybe even selfish reason because in 1992 i was assigned to cover Pat Buchanans president ial camp bed by the washington post. Spent a lot of time on that campaign. And i now learn from nicole how historically important that campaign is. You know, journalists write the first draft of history. I even made a couple of footnotes. I discovered in the book. But she makes it very, very compelling case that. Basically, reaganism and its influence ended almost as soon he left office, which is not something we usually assume. And the case she makes is really powerful. And so nicole wanted to why dont you just start there by explaining you came to that view, how you make the case here. Because as you know, people making references reagan and how much they were reaganite even as were moving away and doing so quite quickly. Yeah well of all thank you so much for doing tonight. You are an inspiration, a writer. So all of those those kind words mean quite a lot to me. So you know, this book in many ways began just the puzzle that e. J. Was talking about, that the mythology reagan grew exponentially, really, in the 1990s and the 2000. And a particular set of politics that reagan embraced were under challenge almost immediately after he left office. And was something that i started thinking about as i finishing my first book. I was writing about reagans election, and i wrote in the book little too preciously, that it was both a victory and a valedictory. It was the of this cold war movement, but it also felt like a curtain call, like like something was coming to an what ultimately was coming an end was the cold war. And what i realized as i was working through the argument of this book was Ronald Reagan was fundamentally a cold war president , that the cold war provided a kind of logic a kind of language for, his conservatism. And what that meant wasnt just that he spoke the language of democracy and freedom, something that he didnt always out in reality, but that he really appealed to throughout. But that that language and that argument about democracy, freedom affected certain parts of his policies. He truly believed that the Free Movement of people and goods was part of democrat capitalism. And so you read him on immigration and he sounds quite a lot like a democrat, especially compared to todays Republican Party and on trade. So these of things that were core to the conservative movement and during the cold war and because reagan was so popular, though he had real critics on the right, i mean, there was subset of conservatives who just punched at reagan every day of his presidency, but they found it difficult land those punches. But as soon as he leaves office, as as the cold war ends, it opens up, the space for what was, at least in part, an anti small d democratic conservative ism that pat buchanan represents. You know, one of the fascinating is the psychology of reaganism more than anything was quite different from the psychology of the later right, whose rise you describe. And i hope the power of reagan came partly because even though he forgot all the ideas, he never really stopped being an optimist. New dealer, you know, he kept roosevelts optimism and shelved. Most of the policy. Can you talk about that psychological difference . And he did have support some of that same far right in his rise, you know, including the Birch Society and others. But he didnt convey that in the way the right that came along afterward did write that optimism, that emotion. The heart of reaganism is really important and i think this is an important caveat. It was an optimism that was heard by white voters. You know, he was not popular, as popular as he was. Right. He left office one of the most popular president s in modern u. S. History. He was never popular with black voters or with hispanic voters. So were talking about a particular subset of voters here. But to them, his appeals were deeply optimistic. He appealed sometimes to fear and resentment, but oftentimes to that kind of mourning in America Sentiment and, the right that would come after him was not interested in that they werent interested in pragmatic ism or popularity. And they certainly werent interested in optimism. They were focused on a much darker version of the states and a much darker version of conservatism and the right something that, for those of you who remember the 1992 campaign was very present in Pat Buchanans Convention Speech in 1992. If there were liberals in the audience whod say, arent you being awfully nice to reagan in this account . And i was really struck a phrase in your book. I have i if you look at youll see i read this very carefully. Its full of notes. At the top of this page i wrote provide locative of this sentence. You referred to the colorblind racism of the reagan era and thing i was thinking about is as it went along, as you know, when we try to think the roots of trumpism, on the one hand, you make a very persuasive case that what followed was quite different. And yet there were also some constant equity. So i wonder if you could talk about the continuities as well. Absolutely. And sometimes the continuity is or the differences are differences degree and sometimes there are differences of kind. But that colorblind racism is really important. Its the difference between the dog whistle, the bullhorn and you can argue that theyre the same ideas are just packaged or presented in different but it does matter if you feel like you have to appeal to universalism if you have to put an optimistic on opportunity if you have to appeal to a quality versus saying for instance that iq is genetically determined and it depends on your race an idea that becomes very in the mid 1990s but i think that its also important to emphasize reagan is still in the dna of the conservative movement and ideas particularly like deep tax cuts certainly remain although they get more dogmatic after reagan of course famously cut taxes and then he raised them a couple of times and didnt face the same kind of backlash that somebody like george h. W. Did. But so there are some are some continuities, but the things that made reagan ism, reaganism, what made it distinct from cold war conservatism as a movement, that emotion that youre talking about, that to compromise and that of the big tent the idea that there are reagan democrats as opposed to the 1990s, when you get renos republicans in name only the shrinking boundaries of conservatism, those differences still seem important. The continuities there are a lot of things to get to, and i just want to mention a couple because we might not. But you should read the book. Youll learn things. Youll either be reminded of things you forgot or learn things you never know. For example, i did you know that tucker and Laura Ingraham got their starts on msm and theres some great stuff on the changes in the media, which i do want to get to. And there is also, i think, something you explore that we is there was a real turn on the right on immigration long time ago which we can talk about in national review, which had long held the view when it published. Peter brimelow and that very rightly controversial, thats a nice thing to say about a book that he wrote. There are some great things there, but i want to go to two immediately political things we all like. It was smart historian confirms something you thought and so im grateful for your insight that what the conservatives had against they actually held against George W Bush. George h. W. Bush rather and then later in some ways George W Bush, you describe as the last reaganite. But the a lot of the the the knocks on george h. W. Were really not you could have made of reagan but he was sort of such a hero that it was impossible to land those punches. And then they all went to h. W. Can you talk about that transition, and then i do want to talk a bit about Pat Buchanans campaign. Its so fascinating because once you realize thats whats happening. Its impossible to see. So you have these these hard core conservatives. They call themselves the new right, who were constantly complaining about reagan. They complained about him from the very start of his presidency presidency. Theyre not able to make any headway because hes popular. As i mentioned before, when george h. W. Bush into office, theyre like all right, this is our guy, because this is our punching bag, because he he didnt have the conservative credentials. He was always suspect. He was somebody who had been part of the ford administration. They dont like the ford administration. He was somebody was seen as moderate alternative to reagan in 1980. And they never trusted his conservative bona fides. And so that forced him into kind a corner to have to make promises. Read my lips, no new taxes. And as i mentioned earlier, you know, reagan raised taxes. Two of the biggest tax hikes in American History in 1982 and 1984. But it is when george h. W. Bush raises taxes that they not only it, but that their complaints gain traction. Same thing happens with debates over affirmative action. When George W Bush doesnt sign what was called or ends up signing what the right to write it, as opposed to bill in 1991. That is something you Ronald Reagan, had reluctant advanced affirmative action policies to his presidency. But its george h. W. Bush who really takes it on the chin for advancing those policies or for compromising any pragmatism from reagan was part of his appeal. Pragmatism in george h. W. Bush was signs heresy and. Its those ideas that h. W. Bush was a heretic that made it easier for pat buchanan to run in 1992. You have forgotten that in 1988, pat buchanan wanted to run. He floated trial balloon for a campaign. In the spring of 1987. While hes still part the reagan administration. And he realizes very quickly that hes just going to be a sacrificial for the new right. And he lets Pat Robertson that role instead. And he waits for more years. And once hes running against bush of reagan, then the very same politics take hold and gain more traction than they would have. 88 you just parent that actually another thing that i had utterly forgotten and maybe and im thinking about it particularly today because joe biden gave his speech about crime calling for a restoration, the assault weapons ban. Id forgotten how strongly ronald supported the assault weapons ban when it was first passed. And he was quite eloquent on the topic. Yeah, i mean this is where you start to see a particular policy. Immigration is one of them. But guns are absolute another and in part you can understand, right, one of the bills that he supported after leaving office was the brady named after somebody who was shot in an assassination attempt against Ronald Reagan. But even after and when it came to the assault weapons ban, reagan was strongly he comes out with other former president s or he was strongly supportive of it. He comes out with other president s, says, yes, we should have this assault weapons ban. And he runs up against the opposition of the nra. No, i think that pat buchanan could sue donald trump for plagiarism. You go to the 1992 campaign and something i even covered that campaign had forgotten that at the end of that campaign, pat buchanan went to the border with mexico and called for building a wall. That was back in 1992. Talk about the campaign where you know, it really was this mixture, a certain kind of populous, some on economics because of trade with these very, very wing positions on culture and immigration. That was almost a perfect template. Its hard to figure out where Donald Trumps campaign was actually from. Pat buchanans i think thats exactly right, which is why hes on the cover which is why he makes the cover a nontrump. Yes. So pat buchanan even changes quite dramatically on immigration in a very short amount of time in 1984 when he was talking immigration he was talking about undocumented immigrants and how they paid payroll and they paid they paid sales taxes were good taxpaying citizens who werent on the welfare rolls. It was basically way of being like theyre better than black people. But he was saying things that were very reaganesque also today sounded like a democrat when he was talking about immigration, that was not the case. Just few years later when he latches onto this idea that those issues of culture and race were the ones that that Ronald Reagan had failed to exploit. And that was the vein that you got to tap into. And so he to talk about the border wall. He called it the buchanan fence. He starts to tie what he now calls illegal aliens to crime. Accusations from both him and attorney general bill barr that it was illegal aliens who made up most of the people or a good chunk of the people were responsible for the riots in los angeles in 1992. And this criminalization and this this trying to stir folk outrage and emotion around border was something that took real work in california in 1991 and 92. We like two or 3 of voters put immigration at the top, their list of concerns. Obviously, by 1994, that looks very different with proposition one, 87. And it took a Political Movement to turn immigration into a culture and race issue that could be exploited. You know, your discussion of prop 187 is really good and it is really central to this. Lets a couple of other characters who play very big role in your book correctly so i think one is russell limbaugh. Lets just stick with rush for a second because i think you talk about two interrelated, developing ants that are so important. One is the rise of conservative talk radio, which limbaugh was the of. And he supported pat buchanan. So there is a really interesting synergy between the two of them. In 92, but the rise of rush and then the spread of of right wing radio across the am dial as music migrated to fm. But then you also talk about the rise cable leading to fox and its a great discussion because its not just about the rise of fox news who by the way important piece of history. Roger ailes tried to turn Rush Limbaugh into a tv show. And when that worked he didnt give up, he just did a whole network and but you you talk about how other kinds of cable not just fox really helped change the nature of the political dialog. Absolutely is a polite word to. Well dialog is an interesting word because this was an age of a newly Interactive Media landscape that ability. What made Rush Limbaugh so important just that he was a entertainer. But that his show was interactive, that you could call and you actually talk to him. This is also era where you have like god help you if you disagreed with. Well, yes, he had caller abortion which was an incredibly offensive thing that he did early in his career where he would abort callers that disagreed with. But you had like larry king live where again, you could call any you could be part of this new Cable Television where ross perot launches his. In 1992 and that interactive city is so important and so many of the experiments in news in the 1990s were about trying to take essentially radio and put it on television. So you have a thats a precursor to msnbc called americas talking. You have something called National Empowerment television, which is a precursor fox news in many ways. I see a head shaking as somebody who is probably on it. I think it was. Yes i thought so. Nice to see you. Yeah. So you have these experiments in in cable, in talk radio, and it is again, its its diversifying. Whats available on television, but its also creating this new conservative punditry that e. J. Indicated was not necessarily just happening on Something Like Rush Limbaughs show or on fox