John Avlon & Margaret Hoover

for mccain auditorium at kansas state university katie our presents an hour with political pundits and husband and wife john avalon and margaret hoover i'm kate mcintyre john avalon is editor in chief of the popular political website the daily beast he and hoover are both contributors to cnn between the two of them they published three books about partisan politics she is also the great granddaughter of president herbert hoover fifth of april fifteenth two thousand sixteen as part of the landon lecture series in kansas the university and thank you very much for having us and i think you were spending for friday we appreciate friday night and you're here with us percent could've been anywhere in the air mr hoover and this is john outline and then i think you first up residence else with a generous introduction and cathy hartman for receiving us here they along with your doctor and i thank you very much for escorting us around campus and showing us around and giving us a good warm manhattan welcome it's a very different

welcoming we get home so i do appreciate that and what we want to talk a little bit about tonight is certainly the twenty sixteen election but i think talk about our politics with a sense of perspective because it's the thing we have least in our political debates these days at an ann margret night you know if we stand out from the pack it's probably in part because we have very different with every different places we talk about politics but some work that we've figured out how to disagree agreeably and often find that work were actually not ending up in a different place were discovered at it from different directions and dejection i come from is that i'm a republican that is a concern about the future of the republican party bandar viability to compete in the future and especially to appeal to a rising generation of americans that are known as the millennial generation and represent the bulk of the student body here it tasty one would assume that they didn't invest in the

youngest millennials are sixteen and the oldest to thirty five well and they're ego three bye bye have nothing to add to my wife statistics i don't know what it's best just to concede to move on and what i'm really talking about is a sort of an independence perspective on the politics and and the hyper partisanship we're reading right now with a very surreal election campaign an end hopefully offer a little bit of hope about how rome is unnecessarily burning just yet but it's bad folks don't kid yourself eye back in two thousand eleven i published a book is as president of mission called american individualism how a new generation of conservatives can save the republican party so i wrote this book because i was concerned that my cohort mike years and people that were just a little bit younger than me i didn't know how much positive

sense that much of a positive sense or impression of the republican party and the title of the book i chose because i was inspired by a philosophy that i first read about first in university but had been kicked around the house as i was growing up a book that herbert hoover in nineteen twenty one called american individualism i turned it can borrow titles it's not plagiarism like that which really was an apt title for the but then i had an m and what i tell you because you know this is a time where a johns is a comprise unprecedented political time and we do have this unprecedented political moment where donald trump aspires to become the second civilian elected to the presidency without ever having served elected office the first was herbert hoover but many people don't know about hoover because he is so connected to the pejorative into the negative economic i'm really calamity of the nineteen thirties it is that hoover was an orphan

from a neighboring state from frankly land that looks a lot like yes he was born in west branch iowa orphaned at the age of nine cent west to live with relatives and wound up in the first class at stanford aside from being the president was known as the great humanitarian he was known as the master of emergencies a great statesman in his post presidency really creating a model for the modern post presidency and even though he had never served in elected office before it had really catapulted to the heights of international leadership through humanitarian relief during world war one so when i think about what herbert hoover did leading up to that point reverse the presidency and what donald trump did i think there's really a contrast that's worth noting hundred years to get a herbert hoover was the chair of a thing called the commission for the relief of belgium what's most of it lies essentially an independent republic of relief the first

international organisation dedicated to the feeding of an entire nation during world war one when the germans invaded belgium in august of nineteen fourteen they and occupied the population but refuse to feed the civilian population because of the english like at the english team won eighty percent of the food in belgium was important because it was opposing is an industrial nation the population couldn't feed itself the endless didn't want to import food because they were afraid that they would go to the occupied there today to be an occupying army rather than to the civilian population and so hoover was task and asked as a volunteer to organize family for an entire nation and his tasks include raising money from around the world through gerald heels and government subsidies he had to purchase of wheat and corn and food from north america south america australia and organize the delivery of eighty thousand tons of

food to belgium every month throughout the course of the war and he was able to do this because he was at that point in his life at an international mining engineer who was living in london which was the capital of mining finance and had mining enterprise is on five continents he actually had the logistical expertise to be able to orchestrate this is totally unprecedented relief effort he was able to arrange for the safe navigation of fruit or european waters avoiding german u boats arranging for this complex logistical unloading of eighty thousand tons of food into barges sending it through canals delivering it to males dairies and bakeries where food was prepared and then fairly distributed too i frankly uneasy population of twenty six hundred belgian towns all while keeping the food away from the germans throughout the course of this endeavor he was the only diplomatic allowed to

travel on both sides of the lines throughout the course of world war one and he knew all the players at the table in versailles and so president wilson asked him to help navigate the consciences of versailles which led to that treaty which hoover ultimately walked out on the conferences at versailles thinking that the reparations and the germans would lead to another war he was right i even went on to serve and president harding's cabinet and president coolidge's cabinet as the secretary of commerce so this for fifteen years of international domestic and public service is a very different profile i think in the profile you see today one of the other office seekers who has not held public office previously but at the start of the twentieth century was around this time hoover came back to the united states and he wrote this book called american individualism and he wrote it because the rise of the twentieth century he had actually been part of a group of americans the last one

hundred and thirty seven foreigners that he'd been in china before being kicked out by the boxers in the boxer rebellion he had then also seen the bolshevik revolution lost mining properties in russia see the rise of fascism in germany and had seen what he called a sickness is ems sweeping the arrival of sweeping the world in this type of revelation and he thought first he was afraid he was worried that these reasons would creep across the atlantic to the united states' fascism also has them communism and so he wanted to characterize what it was about the american experience that has made his life possible an orphan from west branch iowa that wound up in the position of being able to keep one third of europe's population alive during world war one until he called our is an american individualism and the idea was essentially that we are it was his expression of the concept of american exceptionalism but it was the idea that america is built on a system

of individuals but what makes it uniquely american is that we are deeply grounded in a sense of voluntary service to others so its individual isn't tempered by a duty to serve your community and that was frankly he was at a quaker upbringing in west branch iowa i think this is what informed his international experience helping to feed the belgians during world war one and this truly is an ethos that is really channeling i think in the millennial generation a generation that is deeply individualistic but also deeply connected to their communities whether it's through cyber connection or through voluntary cooperation in your communities and they are global generation of technologically letter a generation and a deeply service oriented generation and so i found it i quite frankly channeling herbert hoover we could find this template

for really dry and a republican tradition and then using that to reach out to millennial generation so that's what i wrote the book about and then the idea was by explaining the millennial generation to republicans and what hu the more deals are and what they're about might actually help update the republican party to find a conservatism that could compete in the political sphere for the twenty first century so where was a little bit ahead of the curve on that one it's it's it's a noble fight that my my bride is taken on and it's one that i think as in many things in politics and our our political life and when you understand the history and it gives you a little bit of courage to know that you're not alone however distance that history might be if you can find a tradition that you're trying to build on and as you try to force the future that you'd like to see for yourself or your

community or country and that creates a context that i find can sometimes warm us that when when it can seem awfully cold and then the winds are blowing the opposite direction but that all of us i think you know not all of us have to look at history books and then and see our families but we all i think in taken great deal of comfort for our own history whether it's familial or our country and you know i bet as as an independent as a journalist as as an author and i don't come from a family that has had journalists and authors per se but my my grandparents immigrant experience absolutely shaky and i find that as with many people who were within living connection to their family's immigrant roots i grew up with a deeper appreciation for american coal kidney and a sense of obligation to the opportunities that they provided you know and i proposed to margaret warner the southern tip of manhattan the other one and andy was part because you can see all

silent or my grandfather came through the ages of three and you know he was an extraordinary guy lived in youngstown ohio where he met my grandmother who was a hundred still lives there and is amazing which vanguard are five month old daughter after her but you know he it was a guy who made his way up worked in the steel mills went to medical school served in world war two and i remember talking to him as a kid about politics as fast as my political issue presidential history and i'm an end his favorite president he was a midwestern republican but is for president harry truman and i had a little bit of skin in the game i think because of serving in world war two in the pacific theater but it was a reminder to me that so much of our our political debates today when you look at politics in the rearview mirror of history the party's fall away from the presidency may have ideological divides but by and large they are less relevant and that's a reminder to us today if we care about politics and politics is history in the present tense and we need

to do the opposite which is remembered to see our politics with a sense of perspective and when i started out working in in politics and government in my twenties i i didn't go to washington which is another way of saying that i didn't drink the partisan kool aid where you know in washington you know you go into a congressman's office and you know by what tv station have on what newspaper they have on the desk you know what team there on and i think it was a da it's not significantly more specific than that folks here there's a little bit if you know ideological catechism day and go ok but it's not it's really about what team are you on and in city hall he even in new york and mike is working for republican rudy giuliani is one democrat the absence is much more basic it's how do you serve the people it make a measurable progress for all authority and mayor of new york in nineteen thirty seven there's no republican democrat or socialist way to clean the streets annie's

right it's can you get the job done and an end that's any of those which is obviously missing from our politics and another great reminder of that in my life was in the immediate wake of the attacks of nine eleven which were just a few blocks from your we all were in city hall to see that more courage of national unity and to see all the partisan fighting which at that point had been bubbling up but hadn't really crested immediately evaporate the face of of a national challenge that ended and reminding us that we can't wait for these cataclysmic events tonight as a nation that many of the jobs we face are slower moving anne and when one out of city hall and began my work as a journalist and a columnist i wrote my first book on independent nation to be a summer read a hidden history of centrist leaders in american politics now some succeeded and some fail and harry truman teddy roosevelt dwight eisenhower

you know certainly the president's that don't actually fit into the way we think of politics which it has to be a choice between the far left to the far right that it doesn't fit most american presidents are most american political history i wrote that book in two thousand four and done the initial son joe was about the vital center is changing american politics that proved to be a little optimistic and so i bounce that out with my next book when nets have a lunatic fringe is hijacking america now i actually was trying to make the same point from a different perspective which is that part of the problem with those of us in the center is that we've allowed the center which i think is a place of of common sense and common ground to be defined by the extremes that it we haven't stood up and spoken out enough and playoff wins against the extremes and the interplay that exist between the extremes and so i thought it was time to sort of you know the radical centrists and to take the fight to be extremes and start to punch back and i still believe that we need more

examples of her muscular moderates two straight years of a backbone and waitin at the civic debates and are willing to call our folks on the far right and the far left without magically believing and moral problems but as he looked at the beat the dynamics of this presidential race which are really a departure battle with our best traditions but from anything resembling what we've accepted as normal says the eighties sixties rhyme you know it is it is worth remembering that this didn't happen overnight that we've been playing with these forces for far too long encouraging polarization and hyper partisanship and ideological litmus test of rhino hunting out the center right of the republican party and an end deep runs the democratic party which are starting to come to the forefront that will get into and just to realize that this election which has basically been conducted along the lines of extremism and insults is a departure from our best traditions this is not normal folks and we need to actually remember that we go to the ballot box this is not are our greatest moments a country ability that

all end up ok but we're playing with real fire here and so that's when like to talk are you so fat you know as i read says it i'd like to see or about a great it's a bit more on modernize freely can win national elections i mean i don't have the time and to say there really is terrible for us of how to you know whatever comes up through translator new york you know they want a competitive two parties and they don't have a competitive races them because the age of the republican party is not to put up a competition and i frankly tend to agree with them and part of the reason i agree with him is because of this work that i've done on millennials and the truth of the matter is the republican party is only one one of the

last six national elections ok so returning to those on the anti no i'm not and it doesn't bar just just hadn't been hired matt recommended in terms of the popular vote we have won one of the last six to five the last sixty plus and if you care about having competitive and vibrant two party system you have to have a strong republican party and i think by stating the millennials were even see is sort of a microcosm of what's not working on the republican side for many reasons and an hour a break down just a few characteristics about them one young generation and then back into sort of what the republican party can do it to be competitive and unloaded and the twenty sixteen race first of all the reason people talk about the millennial generation as being anything significant is the rise in terms of sheer numbers this is the largest generation in american history straight dave outnumber baby boomers line two thousand fourteen they finally surpassed the rumors in terms of sheer numbers but in terms of the electorate this year there'll

actually be only two hundred thousand more baby boomers are eligible to vote than millennials fur ed point five million millennials will be eligible to vote and thirty point seven million baby boomers so millennials will be thirty percent of the electorate in twenty twenty will be thirty four percent of the electorate and baby boomers will be twenty percent of the electorate right this is a huge bloc of the american vote they are the most diverse generation in american history with forty percent of them being not quite twenty percent of them having at least one immigrant parents they ate here at least to traditional family structures more have been raised with a single parent household what families are important to them you'll get all of the polling and by the way the harvard institute of politics the gallup organization and the pew foundation have

done extensive pulling on millennials since twenty ten all of them say that they as teenagers far less on their parents' and frankly when the economy bottomed out in two thousand seventy thousand eight one in eight of them have boomeranged home and were living with their parents in the context of the chronic underemployment they had had that generation they placed parenthood and marriage as a higher priority than financial success but they are not rushing to the altar only one in five of them are married which is half of the share of their parents' generation at the same point in their lifecycle interesting way they mostly attribute this to economic reasons they feel financially to financially insecure to start families part of this is to think that part of this is the economic malaise that the country's only really recently recovering from they adhere at least to traditional gender roles

in terms of how families are structured with a male breadwinner in a female caretaker being the older model that really represents more than the baby boomer generation only twenty five percent identified formally with religion organized religion although the reader's digest polls had sixty seven percent say they pray every day they absolutely are the generation that has the fewest hang ups about sexual orientation seventy five percent of this generation is in favor of lgbt the freedom to marry of of same sex marriage and sixty three percent of millennial evangelicals are in favor of same sex marriage and they fundamentally believed that their friends who are gay should have all the same freedoms that they do in their politics they are essentially problematic they're your people day at you know the overwhelming majority fifty two percent self identify as independents but when

you ask them about their political philosophy they say their independence right they're moderates there are a larger percentage another can self identify as liberal close to thirty percent twenty percent of self identifies conservative fifty percent self identify as moderates they have a positive view of government and this is something i always tell groups of republicans think about that they actually ronald reagan first one from one of the towns conservatives have these days is that every problem has a quote from ronald reagan to solve it and it would be the oldest the oldest millennials were eight years old when ronald reagan left office holder and mean nothing to me more new generation and so to continue to quote rob ryan as a solution for the future of america is really is it's such a throwback minutes it's totally useless rob ryan said the problem with him he always said to the problem is government government has a galloway ways forced on the world it's the guys who are running that those

guys out that new people and that's that's not how you fix a system the number one thing that that drives a politics and we're seeing this so self evidently billy emerge in twenty twelve he was certainly part of what's what rocco on an office that is hugely driving forces of bernie sanders is authenticity and the exit polls from cnn especially say integrity level headed as authenticity are the most important elements for the millennial as they experience their politicians political identification in a win win some polls to calls on the phone and says how do you identify your public memory the battery an independent your willingness to say democrat republican or independent generally solidifies over a lifetime only three presidential cycles frankly it's a bit porous awesome is not likely to grow but there was certainly at the trends solidifies after three presidential election cycles of voting in the same party

so it starts off like cement and then like cement hardens over time a new generation as it comes of age if it goes in three presidential election cycles from the same party building politely self identify affirmatively with that party for the rest of their lives so you saw the first generation the first part of them when young generation begin the vote in two thousand but not enough statistically to really be that significant two thousand four and was relieved they began to break democrat it went for john kerry about nine percentage points more than george w bush and then in two thousand of her brother juan as we all know they weren't for thirty three percent more of them voted for barack obama and john mccain twenty twelve was a little bit better and this was because of the economic malaise and i think they get the housing crisis but still democrats won them a twenty three percent now if you asked them why your generation who should hold the white house by twenty points they say democrats

lead the republicans have essentially lost this generation well and anne and i i got to say that if you look the republican party right now they're not doing their best to attract new voters i mean what we've got going on right now i mean aside from the spectacle of a party regarding itself on fire is a at a real summit prague right if you talk to go republican party began the cycle and they're not done well in the midterms and they had seventeen candidates running and people were getting all hot and bothered saying this is the most qualified republican field you've ever seen look at all the governors we could have any number of presidents and vice presidents his fields and if you talk people that time that would basically be down trump and cruz but i think they probably would've jumped off a bridge i'm actually are and that we are i am you know to just cannot afford lindsay graham who was one of the seventeen is always good for for a quote

deserve south carolina said that the choices they wouldn't be these property choosing between trump and cruz when choosing between being shot or being poisoned heat should be now said is now actively campaigning for cruz as a better alternative to trump which makes him basically a poison salesman these are the choices right john casey deserves a better world right i mean he is a two term governor from a swing state properly elected and he can't get arrested right i mean he came in fourth in in kansas city he's hanging in there and he shouldn't but you know traditionally america we elect governors president while they have executive experience and an all the crop of governors who had executive experience who were from swing states typically profiled someone would make a great candidate and a great president not wiped out and they got wiped out because the variant strain of

rhino hunting that the republican party's been incubating for a long time write a haunting stands for those or you don't spend too much time in political circles martin's been colder i know i am but you know what happens is it's the city's purity tests where the party was chased out heretics and that stark urging people if they disagree on any not a handful of issues and so you've burned down in the big ten and andy shouldn't be surprised when all the sudden you you basically narrow the base the party to such an extent that the primary votes are not representative of the nation at large or even the party as it once was to having a increasingly hard time collecting candidates who can win a general election and i want to dwell on all the dozens and dozens of reasons why donald trump is a really bad idea for the republican party in the country they're somewhat self evident and you know we we had the daily beast you know we weren't were nonpartisan but were not neutral and what that means is

that we will have left or right wing we dont have a team i think partisan media is one of the real problems in american politics has led us to this moment because it's brought one the core ideas of civic debate under assault which is that you know everyone's entitled their own opinion but not their own facts or partisan media makes people come to civil debates on with their own facts that's a real real problem when it comes to actually bring people together to reason together and so one of roles i think we can play to push back on that as insist on a fact based today that means a god willing to have both sides' appropriate would be don't fall know on the one hand on the other definition of how to mediate a political dispute he called out and one of our missions is that the daily beast is to confront boys bigots of hypocrites and donald trump different times has been all three some of the same time so we're not in his christmas card list and that's ok with me but but you know the larger problem that's created you know the crops truth cruz and trump and marginalize the

cases is really really serious it's about parties being more polarizing the american people it's about the incentive structures in congress moving people to the extremes in elected office because they're never lose a general election as their only thirty five competitive seats now's representatives the only way there to lose their jobs if they lose a partisan primer with low turn out to someone who is more ideologically pure than they are so you get basically a bunsen got was weasels and washington were terrified of reaching across the aisle and the safest thing to do is to do nothing so that leaves the deadlock that leads to confusion why is that at any decision a way that actually discredit our country and anne why that is so deeply dangerous is a lot of frankly what donald trump is tapping into in ted cruz to some extent to you know is a one term senator whose only achievement as shutting down the government and he is incredibly impressively uniquely disliked by his colleagues one of the quotes we have in one of the articles from a hispanic republican who accused of switches position immigration quote was just to note

that estate and he's like the likable responsible one right now right between trump so that the dynamic though is it is as deadly serious just work for two quick reasons one i do this anger they're tapping into is about division dysfunction washington to some extent there is a frustration donald trump is not wrong way says the games read been a big ends tim it was the donald centric universe but the the big game is read people do you understand that washington is more divided and dysfunctional should be but the people trying to surf off that anger or selling more to say you know they are they're diagnosing the problem that they're selling more of the ploys instead of a prescription actually solve a problem that's a long term danger and on the democratic side you know the liberties in his populist campaign has has inflamed a debate of ideas in the democratic party that's the nice way could say the guise of democratic socialist who is on the far far far left democratic party party or on the american political spectrum by any standard for four decades and this is a guy who had the height of the cold

war podcast for a better argument than than you know railroad without the sandinistas you know the bread lines was quote was one of our economies that we honor three was mayor of burlington the bread lines in nicaragua were a sign of economic health you know the fact that their organs have any protracted fight with her and speaks to a lot of things and one of which is i think the impact of the great recession on the model generation and a lack of appreciation for the struggles of the cold war and then the evils that occurred under communism and under the the rubric of liberation but also that the democratic party is not immune from this disease it is it is asymmetric it is more to broaden the republican party right now but it's coming down the pike for the democrats as they should be entirely self satisfied watching their friends and they're out there suddenly i allied themselves on fire are having that i'm not a score that one home at all canal and certainly you know you got a point not

tolerated but relieved you should stop embarrassing yourself you're here is that is why your right arm or from tom what role it that years and years ago often tell me demographics are destiny and look at the millennial generation their forty percent nonwhite years figures the problem with republican math as there are people who will make the case that donald trump actually beat hillary clinton he's appealing to this white working class element maybe some sanders supporters will support him a beekeeper in wisconsin and a player pennsylvania to play maybe there is a coalition here to be hands and hears why that is totally bogus demographics are destiny as you say and if you look at what the gop has come into it if republicans are going to win is not to give to get enough yet at sixty nine million people about three maybe seventy million people about forty groups that form the core of support for the republican party are older whites

blue collar whites people that are married and rural residents all of those groups of people are declining as a proportion of the electorate the groups that voted democrat now include millennials silently by thirty percent and only thirty percent of the electorate of minorities and single women and those groups are all growing so right now they're just simply aren't enough traditional is yes there's a little mexican that this was not a good opening line for doctors not having life about nine nordic noir is continuing to build a wall or telling muslims arrested in britain we had the door are not really muslims in all of this rhetoric not only does it not until two millennials or hispanics doesn't appeal to white suburban voters who you knew julian force awakens we need to forget about the women's so this is the plan that i'm trying to make is that there are enough traditional gop voters in the us a letter to win like mitt romney won the highest percentage of white voters of any non incumbent president in history and he still

lost by five million votes and he won every significant white seventy one than he won women human young he won gold he won protestants and catholics and he won by really overwhelming margins but he still lost by five million votes because he only won six percent of the african american vote he won twenty seven percent of the hispanic vote and he won thirteen percent of asian americans and that is just too abysmally low the republican party has to have a message that is update appeals they have a not just a message to have policies that have healed and positions that appeal in order to grow the tent because there aren't enough people right now who self identify as republicans who will vote republican to get the republican party over the finish line and so they pay attention what's interesting to the millennial generation right they'll also be solving the problem of what's interesting this mess and what's interesting to women and what's interesting we will have houses they can actually kill far more broadly so what countries are very secure when a presidential election by grabbing a larger piece of a

shrinking pie and this is this is something he has them falling on deaf ears entirely among the two front runners in the republican party as ted cruz's promised his entire campaign on becoming the most over orthodox conservative republican ever to run for presidency because there is a myth that part of military has for themselves which is that if you're only the most conservative than your way because the problem with mitt romney is that he wasn't conservative enough and the problem with john mccain is that he wasn't conservative enough and there are three to five million missing white voters out there who are who were orthodox conservative iowa not religiously conservative republican modern that movement conservative types to just stay home and this is what they look at the data and they look at the voter rolls and what they tell themselves the twenty ten or twenty two thousand twelve and so this is what ted cruz has promised his campaign on being the most conservative and so he's an artist values voters platform mean this is how you slap suppose or he was going to see the sec primary these were all of

the states in the south used to wrap up the evangelical vote and now donald trump happened and it turned out that all those missing white voters that were staying home that ted cruz was going to get voted for donald trump turned out that maybe it wasn't because they were orthodox conservatives that they weren't staying home maybe donald trump is tapping into something important and so i try to be very very careful about separating donald trump from the energy's representing think you have some thinkers on a separate who have really given thought to you not just what's happening with donald trump but is what's happening in terms of the failure of the republican party to offer real economic solutions and policies to a significant porous portion of the republican base is white working class base that donald trump has tapped into that and you know you have it marshals like charles murray from the american enterprise institute who's written extensively about this phenomenon of the white working class that has been left behind and when you have real family

income people on the bottom half of the income distribution that hasn't change since the late nineteen sixties you have a hollowing out and a real economic crisis it is going to bubble up and represent itself in the electoral process that's that's what trump taps into that i don't think trump had any idea that's what he was going to tap into i think he was running for president a run for president but you began to get hands and has channeled that portion of the electorate i think sadly because of the republican party's really market failure to offer economic solutions that are competitive and interesting and capture really the needs of this part of the republican base it's also emerged with a real fever protection as an nativism and isolationism that are healthy for the republican party here says the problem is that you know two thirds of it are either for cruz or for trump and none of those are going to create the demographic

formula you need to get over the finish line in november match that with the possibility of saint is donald trump versus hillary clinton if you stop that line is not a likable candidate in fact historically high unfavorable ratings shockingly it but her and they've already seen every demographic group hispanics millennials huge and the rebels and someone else actually her win anyway when they republicans are doubled and sometimes tripled by the unfavorable ratings of donald trump so that the best gift that could happen every coin is if republicans nominate donald trump in terms of simply wanting because republicans just don't have the combination of coalitions to create the sheer amount of votes is going to have to win in november but there's division america of following politics like

sports that can be enormously helpful of course the big differences is that you know it's that it's not a game it's our country and this election and the fact that five to three out of the five candidates who are running for president are not credible candidates for a general election should concern the two parties and should concern mainstream voters and it speaks to the breakdown in the two parties right now we have a market failure and it's been coming for a long time the parties being more polarize than the american people ignoring independent voters focused on reaching out to their own base rather than to the center to create and build broad coalitions so whatever happens in the fall and and one of the great dangers of course that how we got here is that you know extremes and activists hijacked the process really alienate mainstream voters start to see politics as obscure cult with very little upside and engaging and and then that's how the parties get hijacked even further so we gotta stay engaged project which are in the center of the electorate we all have an

interest in a vibrant to or maybe one day three party system i will say that part of the reason we see this breakdown is that we've been sold a full stolen goods when we're talking about american politics were told we need to choose between liberal or conservative the far right and the far left in fact that's not the way most folks think it's not the way most folks vote and certainly not the way most folks got there is an older tradition the thinking about american politics that i wrote about an independent nation that goes back to the progressive era so the real deeper divisions in american politics or between radicals on the far left reactionaries on the far right and reformers in the senate and i think that's the way we should scale back to thinking about are all things i think it's true or to who we are i think it's not what might be needed to re center a political debate because you know someday to selections command i have it on good authority will be in november and an end then we're going to need to actually get about governing again and a real push will be how to reset our politics and rediscover best missions

depending on who the nominee is you know maybe the conservative movement will reassess maybe the republican party will reassess and start taking harvard's of us i'm with all the other folks who say you know what this is what we need to reunite let's focus on dating where the democratic president as if the democratic nominee if the democratic nominee get selected let's assume that hillary clinton is the bernie sanders the nominee you know we should come back in three months of talks with a variation of the different they end you know that attack to unite the coalition an opposition is part of how we got here you know parties need to stand for something positive not look for simple unity in opposition and republicans have a good argument they can make the millennial voters republicans have a good argument based in fiscal responsibility and a strong foreign policy if you look at independent voters historically and other because we can serve a social liberal stronger national security republicans should be able to compete for that and and so and frankly as we weathered talk about manhattan new york or you know or or manhattan kansas a two party system in a severe

state is necessary to keep the other guys in check right i mean you know if you if things devolved to one party state becomes a bastion of cronyism then obviously corruption and incompetence so the two party system was vibrant general elections this year one of the things right now you're donald trump said the system's rigged i agree with him on this one thing you notice that that maybe we can start have a conversation about the kon election reform we need to lead to more representative turner with more open primaries instead of closed caucuses redistricting reform some politicians are choosing their voters rather people choose their politicians that that might just so the incentive structures that leads to this or mindless polarization elisa divided and dysfunctional government that's one thing we can do but we're also we need to change the culture in and end that sucked all about that so that you're actually standing up when when you know that the group think at our dinner table or community meeting all sliding one way to stand up and being able to say no you know

people are not organized into debris dividing parties and to be angels are doubles neither party has a monopoly on torture or vise and we're gonna vote for the person not the party and if you do that you know magically all find yourself about some power but people need that courage and we can do that by serving a couple basic things first let's remember the democracy depends on an assumption of goodwill among fellow citizens that's what almost entirely forgotten you know especially when we're living in one party syriza state there's a tendency to demonize the other an end and liberals director conservatives and conservatives do have the liberals and and there's a tendency to dehumanize and de legitimize these the other people there's no longer an assumption of goodwill that's dangerous to the country or work and we need to remember we can disagree agreeably get thomas jefferson in his first inaugural address said every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle wouldn't remember that and why does this all really matter right what what is this all matter does the presidency really affect you on the geopolitical stage if

you believe in american exceptionalism you're damn right it matters because other countries are right now offering frankly a challenge to liberal democratic capitalism whether it's russia and china or the islamic republic of iran and one of the things that some of these computers do is look at american democrat democratic dysfunctional the mac see it's inefficient and an end and we could offer you a way to get rich and you may sacrifice a few freedoms but much more efficient get in big things done here this is actually existential as well as the circus the world watching right now i just finishing a book on george bush's farewell address which he wrote and seventeen ninety six declining a third term as president in the two greatest ghost riders in history james madison and alexander hamilton and it you know the warning to future generations and he said the things that that three basic forces he felt could destroy the american experiment that says this is twenty years after the declaration of independence partisanship

the gulf actions but hyper partisanship excessive debt and foreign wars serbia and these are the stakes you know if we start making a mockery of ourselves through elections by party's nominating people who don't represent the vast majority of american electorate if we keep putting people in washington who are invested in division and dysfunction democracy itself starts to look suspect and that's when things get dangerous and that's when all the sudden the appeals of the strongman promising to come in and solve all problems no details the old demagogues appeal of us against them which is what we're seeing a lot of his election debates starts to look pretty good so those are the stakes and that's why all this matters and that's what's a reason that sailed for through all the insanity and stay engaged whenever one low around it looks like they're losing their heads it's a real pleasure talking with love to take some questions more fun of a dollar below

listening to political pundits jon hamm won and margaret hoover at the kansas state university landon lecture series we now take questions from the audience to cases be the nominee through mr kay say matt mac they'll be impossible for him to get the twelve hundred and thirty seven delegates he needs in order to be the nominee but also any any rate and so then there's this possibility of innate in a convention if we have a brokered convention on that for kennedy a firefight and can it possibly went on there's a role rnc has created at least the last time when mitt romney was the nominee called rule forty b which says they also in your candidate you have to have won eight states see not just the twelve thirty seven delegates you also have to have won eight states which case it is not on track to do since he's on his one stick know it is possible that those rules could be rewritten and they will be rewritten and they might be right rule forty b however the delegates who will be elected to go re write rule

forty b will most likely be overpopulated with trump and cruz delegates and have absolutely no incentive to change a rule forty b because they want their guy who is well both of them won to be the nominee so at this point it is very unlikely but just the reality check the obvious reality check is that hear cases the one guy who consistently beats her to still in the race who consistently beats hillary clinton had said matter of simple and yet the party is ignoring an even the responsible folks in the center right you know better ignoring that becomes a self know known unknowns and jeb bush in the primary you're much better look so yes on a moderate republican in kansas and that's hard to exist now we have an extremely right to far right republican party it's controlling our state on how to take care that and what do you do to get it you can see the progress sure as you talk about you know honey our city our manhattan is a one party state

and kansas is also when i say well there's going to be a really interesting election last time around of interest of break that way i hear it it's also i mean the median set his question i also answering to no i think he does so well which is that the dangers of that of the monopoly of one party will look right at me first formal oath to talk about local politics i i i follow kansas politics more than you might imagine because i was actually really really interested in and you know one of the ways were breakdowns reporters the senate has to have more senators like a disc and independent from a n and greg orman running looked like he could add to that coalition the only be a small number of centrist or independent senators to serve as a voice of reason and serves the bowels of power and i was i was paying very close attention that race like attention to governor brownback in part because you had a fairly ideologically pure imposition of a fiscal vision in a state and it didn't seem to work out too well now the

fact that if he had lost if he lost it would send a rewarding shah i think the republican party nationally and another would change the under you know that the underpinnings the stapler quake but it would've said you know if you go about governing in any logical way and purging your party which is what i understood partly was the basic reforms were still a centrist mainstream republicans have been systematically purged by the governor and this is what ideologues do with fundamentals do look it got two or three choices right in bristol get really involved in the next killer drone race voted back party to build the democratic party if it is willing to reach out to the center and it may well be we're trying to create something new which is the most difficult for the republican party but but but i but i will say about the tradition you know i as an independent i can put new primaries and i had a fight slash debate with a home for the former democratic party chair and an affair and he said well what i'm just make the process torn apart as it were you know their countries where that's

true and it shouldn't be that way in the nineties states of america you know i get nervous one of the things is that all political fight is occurring within one political party you never never presented of turnout an end and it's going to end up being a factional fight between two warring groups of insiders and that itself isn't representative says roy do you think you know open primaries is key and i also sort of system of re disintegrates the closest you can get to a competitive congressional seats you can at least of a chance in the general election but but you gotta stand up to these voters talk about that on its own so far we have not heard anything about money and it seems to me that there's chart twenty or thirty percent of the writer well funded lawyers last letter well funded in the middle is not well funded and funding drives

media and the collection of the two seem a lot to me to be driving what's going on well so so couple things about that first of all because of citizens united unless we have a movement to repeal citizens united our short one has said she backs and the president has now thought about proposing formally but asked you know you've got that supreme court decision on you know veep if you read the decision closely anthony kennedy has done some great things in his career he's done some really probably not helpful things and that falls under the latter especially because if you look at the decision the details byron white who was a certain democrat appointee of john f kennedy i had worked in politics so that the absence of the team's work in politics of the supreme court leaves a lot of broad sort of theories that are not a surly conversant with out political reality and an among other than among the many blouses united martin i disagree about this is that the all the enforcement tools designed to

leaders utopian total disclosure depends on a a a highly functioning choir as at an fec federal election commission which has basically been designated toothless by design so so the regulatory certain clarity isn't occurring now the one thing i'll say is that your jobless rate under ten million dollars and he couldn't buy the nomination to bernie sanders and donald trump agree on nothing in my mind the wrong almost anything everything however they i think both the captain of frustration in the sense that part of rigging the system is related to big money and trump has proven that you know high name id does not a surly become for money it helps his case if you shame was a near celebrity down the gardener will to say crazy things and get a lot of attention with this is a larger issue because it's eroding people's faith and trust in democracy and that's one of the things that those two folks are tapping into and it needs to be taken seriously and i would

love to see an effort to repeal says united because i think that's what's going to make say the general election does come down to the trump think when we think the chances of trumping nomination are on based on like his performance and yet he took i think it's a big mistake to say that anything's forgotten most republicans will tell you to know that they're incredibly nervous about the prospect for trump or cruz when it comes to things like keepin on the senate but you know obviously trump is a talented campaigners slash affected them a gun and i don't think you can discover all celebrity in his rise of the way and they're always x factors you can account for elections so you know while all the demographic map that margaret delineated is right and it is an incredibly difficult for me you know if you made a cornerstone air campaign and out and in and soul thing you know messiness is it you're not yet you're not going to cobble together the majority but there's always the danger of

an external x factor at an end and that's what the rest of world looking for you know are we susceptible to a berlusconi to prove you mean if there were a terrorist attack is not have their son's summer some some external external factor using things happening campaign for external events and seven shane jennings and cars and if someone was you know god forbid someone decided to trot out with their thumb on the scale that affect your experience and that's my guest is acting in knowing what we know now about how the electorate line that donald trump has been truly the most polarizing figure certainly the millennials lifetime in politics so what would be hard when you do is assemble the obama coalition nation is to put together the heightening only won forty percent of white votes but on such a high percentage of the other african american poets minority votes asian <unk> who needs to put that together again those words are pretty clearly energized by her location they

haven't really turned out in big numbers in the primaries today said that they had especially in the money of how hard they're far more energized and bernie sanders but then thing that could really codified their excitement voters voting against donald trump and that's the that's the thing right maybe there is more coming from the center of the center left before looking for h goes well from unless you know where there's more of us when it comes to governing in sheer numbers but but you know what comes next is going to be at least as interesting as important is what comes down the robber ok let's have fun of on the daily beast and his wife's political analyst margaret hoover speaking april fifteenth two thousand sixteen at kansas state university is landon lecture series and seek a stay for providing audio of this event i'm kate mcintyre at our present through the production of kansas public radio is at the university of kansas