unsettling ripples into human capital and social networks. a lot of what people panicked about then is what we will experience at work speed forever more. we will have 45 and 50 roles disrupted not out of just out of jobs but full industries. we will create a civilization of lifelong learners. no one has ever done that. that is on c-span twos book tv. >> next a discussion of the , future of the public -- republican and democrat parties. with vertical scientists and campaign strategist gathered at the southern california university. the panel included the head speechwriter for the hillary clinton campaign and was part of the daylong event on the first 100 days of the trump administration. this is an hour and a half. ok. >>

we are going to cut the music. we are going to do our last panel. for me, this has been enlightening, and it is great stability. and a time where there are no civil discussions or very few going on, with people with radically different views, there were a lot of respectful exchanges. , someoneannouncement had said in president had met with the entire senate to join his strategy on north korea. that he meante for 14 minutes with the entire senate. yes, john, you met for 14 minutes. i don't know what that says about the last panel. our final panel is on the future of the parties. let me introduce people briefly. schmidt, aeft, steve

close friend. previously the chief strategist for the 2008 john, and george w. bush presidential campaign. you have all seen him commenting wisely and a sagely throughout 2016 and beyond. colleague ands, a a professor of political science here. he is offer -- author of a book on race and representation in washington. another friend, adam, the bureau chief of the new york times and the previous chief correspondent. another friend i'm exploiting, theriendships, ryan, who is former chief of staff to al gore and hillary clinton in 2016. he was called the professor of humanities and anthropology. the former director of speechwriting for hillary clinton in 2016 who also worked

with her the state department and senate. start with a very general question that i would like everyone to weigh in on. it seems to me, and ron and i were talking about this earlier, but donald trump represented hostile takeover -- a hostile takeover of the republican party. you now see democrats engaged with each other about 2016 and the future. are we seeing a collapse of the party system in this country that we are seeing a collapse of the party system in france? we start there if you want. >> i do. us in ourr all of political careers, we have viewed politics through an ideological prism. american politics has been divided down the middle of the an ideological line that separates right from left,

and we debate politics between the 45 yard lines in this country. if there are any canadians in the room, you would debate between the 48 in the 52. we do it very hyperbolically. if you were to listen to the campaign rhetoric, the delta between a just and unjust society is the difference between the 39.6% clinton obama tax rate and the 35% bush marginal tax rates. i think we started to see, in the selection, and you see this playing out in europe with the brexit vote, the french presidential election in poland and hungary, i think politics are being redefined by a horizontal line. above that line are the people that benefit from globalization, from technological revolution, and below that line, the people that have been left behind. they haven't seen a real wage increase since the 1990's.

we talk about on the coast, the advent of driverless trucks and cars. that is three -- 3 million up to 5 million jobs. i think the defining event of this generation was the economic collapse in 2008. a chilean dollars in bailout to the bankers above the line, no he goes to jail, below the line, 13 million people lose their homes and 13 million families lose their homes to 12 million people lost their jobs. look at theou transference of votes from far left parties to far right parties, and it makes no sense when you view it through that vertical line. it makes all the sense in the world when you view it through the horizontal line. so, when we look at this election, how does a sanders voter moved to become a trump voter? we all scratch our heads from as we are looking

at its vertical he and not horizontally. completelyis rigged against them. one of, when you realize the number one indicators of a switch from an obama county to a trump county is the intensity and rate of increase in the opioid epidemic, and you look it technological dislocation of jobs at the advent of the age of artificial intelligence. i think this will be the fault line. the fault line that defines our politics. i think that's voters hate both the parties, they think they are a play on the country. the one that they hate the most, in any given hour, is the one they perceived to be in charge. i think, if you see a trump versus and elizabeth warren, you will see a real legitimate candidate for the presidency. my last point, and i don't mean

to filibuster here, but, the blue counties should become bluer, the democrats should become tribally more urban. the republicans have become more rural and i think you have a suburban population in the country that isn't spoken to by either party. >> christian? >> i agree with some of that. -- one key difference is that trump is a third-party candidate who took over the republican party. ont of the fracturing going in the republican party, that is being papered over here and there and will emerge more, is that he doesn't have any base among the elites within the republican party. some of that is changing. people are trying to decide where they want to be within. among the left it -- elected

officials, they don't know how to deal with them. with the horizontal and vertical, i think that is right. there's a factor that keeps pulling to professors and the professor here to work on it that have shown -- has shown democrats and republicans are wider spread apart since the civil war. historically, there have been multiple dimensions that has explained the divide. if you look at the republicans, one of the reasons john wasn't that good at handling his caucus when he was the speaker was because he was not -- he was a little high up on a second dimension of political ideology. historically, that dimension has been race and social issues. when we think about who is voting for republican -- a republican who has been on the left, who is voting for a democrat on the right, a lot of it is race. it is not just rural people it is rural white people.

for democrats to succeed, they need to get more white people. they don't need to win white rural people but they need to get more support among white. republican parties are the inverse. get more support among high income voters who used to vote for them and get a little better among latino and racial voters in particular. >> i agree with a lot of what he said, what, two things. go to the direction of france, the structural obstacles are two much in favor of having to partisan -- it is hard to have an independent candidate win. i think we're seeing party restructuring more in the republican than democratic party. if you look at the struggle, the struggles are not surprising or different from what we have seen over the past 30 years. in this case, cultural versus economic. , nothave been resolved

result, but handled in various ways. i wouldn't underestimate that. i think the new structuring is more intense on the republican side. trump has taken over the republican party, and trump, i ' nk, i'm not being' sassy. seen theou've republican leaders that aside on things you believe in, like nafta, to accommodate trump. i don't know what happens after four years, eight years, after he goes away. i'm not sure the republican party stays like that. can it succeed without the trump borders as part of its coalition? i'm not sure. i think they have a much more difficult task going forward. ron, do you think the democrats are more coherent than the republicans.

first off -- >> first off it is great to be here. i learned at bob's right hand. adam that there should be structural reasons why our candidates will carry the label, democrat and republican, and, while i don't think there will be a serious third-party threat here, what those labels mean is what is up for grabs. whether or not they mean anything at all, i think that is up for grabs to. our political parties are department stores. complicated, aggregations of products and things and they are dying. people want to shop for what they want, where they want to buy it. i think our partners are facing that too. much more powerful republican sean and other

individual rich people. we have all the same thing on the left. tom stier and george, and other people specifically interest groups. i think those are the driving forces in american politics today. those are the things that make candidates win or lose. that's along with their personality. party labels are kind of an afterthought right now. >> peter? >> bob, i will jump in and say intoi will not try to jump current and a hustler in for early america. ofill put this into context the revolution which i teach a course about. it poses a question, our political parties coming to an end? i think the answer is yes. the founders would be delighted because they were terrified of them. the whole debate about whether we could live in an extended

republic was a fear of the parties that they called actions. naive view as a the parties emerged in the 1790's, but they are uncomfortable with the idea parties. so uncomfortable you see the inediate response to the act the kentucky results. what did madison and jefferson do? they restated the proposals of the republic. we are all federalists, republicans. they had a core of version of the idea of factions. machine, in a time historians always want to take their students back to it, and maybe way would say -- and maybe they would say, it is time to come to an end on the party system. aboutas a two things realignment that we have been talking about. at to the you look results of the last election,

the biggest constituency in the country is still for centerleft solutions. every got 66 million votes. there's a really big constituency on angry population on both the left and right. what trump exposed is there is constituency for classic supply-sider chamber of commerce republicanism. we used to think that was the big debate for years of the size and role of government, it seems it missed what is going on. a lot of people who voted for republicans thought, i am fine for the government if it is for me and not for the other guy. trump brought that out in a way that we should reassess some of the debates we have had in a long time. weak,parties do feel which is why i think we saw it on both sides, partisanship is very strong. it is an interesting inverse relationship there. who didn'tublicans

like donald trump voted for him anyway. because they couldn't stand voting for a democrat named hillary clinton and he had in our next to his name. r next to his name. whatever roles they played, institutions, peoples and the power of partisanship in force of public life seems quite high. >> anybody want to comment on anything that was said? otherwise i want to want to something specific about the republican party before i turned to the democrats. prepared for this conference, the democratic shutdown seemed almost certain. trumpas because president was demanding a porter force -- border force and he backed off. today, the and ministration announced that they would fund the obama exchanges, which was

one of the big concerns for democrats. the administration backed down on the health bill after the house leadership said, we don't have the votes for it and you can't make us have the vote. steve, who is running the show iswho is likely to become -- trump likely to become a more and more conventional republican? >> we are as close as we have ever been as a country having a three party system in washington easy. there's a trump -- washington dc. as a trump party, a republican party, and the democratic party which is at its lowest point of political strength since the 1920's. there was never a unified republican party in any moment election of trump. it is extraordinary to watch his speech before congress and to see the democrats sitting on their hands when he is talking about clean air and clean water,

and for the republicans cheering for tariffs and protectionist measures. to the point that they made, partisanship and the danger of factions in george washington's farewell address and warnings, this notion of that we have become a notion -- a nation of warring tribes. i don't think we are artisan as much as they are tribal. i think they are disconnected from ideology. we have an enormous competency gap. republicans have been dealing with this since the advent of the tea party movement and the sims 2000 and 10. i think democrats are dealing with it now and it is this. like the characters in the drastic park movie, meandering through the park is the democratic elected officials and they have just learned that the velociraptors are out of the cage. that is the voter.

[laughter] even if there is a demand, on the democratic side, we would like a trillion dollars of infrastructure, there is an paid formulti-to be any democratic elected official that goes down to the white doing business with donald trump. it is not for the opposition, it is the resistance. resistance means no -- iboration, which is would argue is pernicious in a democratic society. there is an enormous competency gap. we have achieved 240 some odd in and achieved peak confidence among our elected class. at a federal, state level, and carereality is, is obama going to be repealed?

of course not. once the entitlement is had, it is never taken back. will there be a reduction of 50% tax rates for $20 trillion in debt when we spent $60 billion on the public relation sundwall? none of this stuff -- stunt wall none of this stuff will happen. by orders of magnitude there is a greater likelihood that absolutely nothing gets done than anything gets done and is donald trump going to become more normal? no. he is donald trump. episodenot a 98, it is 98 of the administration. was in canada, i was meeting with canadian government officials and i said war. -- dairyhe war. i did not know you were the north korea of milk. his northstar is being popular, it is trying to be successful.

so will he modulate his behavior toward what he perceives to be the applause, that is is incentive is to do things that are popular. we talked about steve bannon and the globalists versus the conservatives. the globalists, he got on a plane at lax which you and i have done before to fly to abu dhabi. it is not that steve bannon has a point of view that you would disagree on from a spectrum of conservative to liberal. i'm not a liberal. i understand the point of you and i understand where that philosophy is coming from. of the worldnons are crackpots. what has -- trump has learned is when i listen to the crackpots it is equivalent of giving the he driveso junior and it into the wall at 50 miles an hour. if i listen to the people steeped in reality, jim mattis

or a couple of these others, from an incentive basis, people give him a cookie. and say good job on the news. the intensity starts wearing off and that is how i think you will see trump comport himself over the next four years. >> i think steve has raised something that gives us a good question. major agree that nothing that requires legislation is likely to get done and what we are going to see in terms of change is going to be done where he has unilateral power to do it? >> i hope so. i have more confidence and my team to fight then maybe steve is. ronald reagan got a lot of votes for tax cuts. tax cuts were super popular. if trump put forward the infrastructure plan that he sometimes talks about are not numbered days you would get -- odd numberered days, if

you wanted to [inaudible] democrats would vote for that. it is important to know which of these many donald trump's are emerge and where he winds up and where the cookies are and who is giving him the cookies and which matter. some cookies may be chocolate chip, some may be asparagus cookies. it is hard to now where he is going to navigate. what we do know is this. and pick up on something adam said, trump is in the process of remaking the republican party in his image and the party is going to become more trumpish. steve is a good man, he will hold out till the bitter and but if you look at polls,

republicans, rank-and-file republicans have change their mind on trade. this used to be a pro-trade party, it is now an anti-trade party. he told her publicans do you know what trade is, it is doing business with foreigners and you people hate foreigners and you should hate trade. his party is turning to get that message. and russia. party republicans used to be vehemently opposed to russia and now he has more rank-and-file republicans interested in a relationship with russia. does this party survive trump or ize theump trump republican party over the next four years. >> i will try it on you. is the republican party now the party of trump and if it is, does it have to meet the rising demographic challenges of the new electorate, that will over time prove decisive in presidential campaigns and how can it do that? >> i am not sure how it becomes

the party. for four years. i do not think a lot of people were part of the party until now are very supportive of trump. i am not sure that the people trump brought into the party to win those states will necessarily stick around. going through this crisis. well traditional republicans -- will traditional republicans come back, does it matter anymore? i do not take it is the party of trump. we will not be talking about it that way in eight years. party of trump in the sense that the president when there is newly unified government is identified i voters as the leader of the party. one thing to me that is interesting about trump is his low approval rating, that is one of the cookies that is not doing so well. other than among his supporters and republicans. wholly you get a democrat

is president replaced by a republican, you have a flurry of legislative activity if the congress is controlled by your party, that is the honeymoon period, we do not have that now. even though there is a republican controlled congress and a republican in the white house. part of it is due to the lack of experience that trump has but part of it is the big divide in the party where the leaders of congress that want tax cuts, they want standard republican policy, they have to fit in all these other issues that trump is going for. in some ways i think it is the party of trump at least for the next couple of years and the midterm elections. >> we do not have a consensus on the future of the republican party. it is up for grabs in one way or another. >> how do parties remake themselves? >> some of this is not

surprising historically. you have to say the party of trump is not the party of lincoln. there has been some radical changes since the party formed. the interesting moments we are in as we are in this time of deep partisanship, of tribal politics, that is a good way of phrasing this, where people identify on some deep level with one of these party labels. it seems we are so stuck in this binary. when you walk into an election or wherever we are going to go. maybe trump is the change agent and some people will say this does not work, this will involve. trump hijacked the republican party. either others will come back and take it back or they will go somewhere else. over the long-term that is logically what would happen. seemrically this does not all that shocking.

thehe democratic party is oldest political party in the world and the republican party is the third. i do agree that there are structural impediments to a third party but that is different than an independent presidencyor the that very quickly depending on who the democratic nominee is in four years could be at 40% of the vote. and so i think one of the things that we look structurally at what is going on is the party of lincoln, the republican party, founded in 1854 is by 1850 the majority party in the north and west of the country. and the day that lyndon johnson signed the civil rights act there are three elected republicans in this country south of the mason-dixon line and today, it is unmistakably the country's southern party and

the parties had never been but are today, they did not used to be ideologically and regionally homogenous. you had liberal republicans in the northeast, ronald reagan could do tax reform with a conservative democrat from texas named phil gramm, and all of that is out. i do think when you think about the parties and you think about it through a tribal lands, the attempted is a reciprocal -- the attempt is a reciprocal motion. i do not think these voters like trump so much but they sure as hell hate the people who explained to trump's election by attacking his voters and calling them racists and homophobes and misogynists and every other label you can under the book. i will say this. the democrats as a strategic

elitismve an enormous problem. they have a coastal elite problem. you go to silicon valley, you could not find people more out of touch with the lives of average americans than if they lived on the moon base on jupiter that newt gingrich built in 1996. kidding, i digress. and i livef it is, in park city, utah and i spent a lot of time in manhattan and the bay area and los angeles. people at the dinner parties, ,eople in conversations deplorable is exactly how they feel about these people who do the dirty jobs. do not have the fancy college degree. in 1980 when he ran against a mccarter, he did

not attack the carter voter, he created a permissive environment to cross back over without repudiating their last boat. he asked a simple question. are you better off than you were four years ago? the cultural condescension is like a magnet under the compass. it is skewing the readings. and the division in the country along that access -- axis has a lot to do with the division in , that is not.c. being driven by ideological differences on policy. i think it is a huge component of what is happening in the country. >> the attempt goes those ways and east coats -- coast elites and west coast elites do not realize that. >> who has got the power? >> it would be donald j. trump. mitch mcconnell and paul ryan.

>> i agree with you. >> has got the power, not politically in the elected officials, which group, as it youngstown, ohio, or is it silicon valley? ita new york city or -- is new york city or someplace in huntington, west virginia? you have a third of the country -- >> you think silicon valley has the power now? >> a think they have power. they have economic power. -- i think they have power. you have a third of this country that has alling life expectancy. higher infant mortality rates and the people at the top third of the country are living longer, living better, living more prosperously than any human being has ever lived in the history of the world. the geographical power centers valley, people, silicon right down the coast, that blue tinged down both coasts, both sides of the country, that

disdain they project. whether it is the "saturday skit that reflects the voters or the culture, there sustained contempt projected at those people who are above the line. itis for below the line and is wrong. >> there is some of that and it is wrong and it should not exist. but i am also saying there is a hell of a lot of content that goes back the other way. went donald trump launched his by calling mexicans rapists and murderers that is contempt. and fill in rising immigrants, that is contempt. when he goes around the country and says the kinds of things, he is starring contempt -- stirring contempt, too.

this contempt down on both sides and find solutions. the contempt goes both ways. i agree with adam. donald trump is president because he stirred a lot of contempt forot of a lot of changes that have happened in our country. the voters find, some of which are economic and some are the horizontal line, some are social and cultural. and trump stirred that pot in a way that no prominent national figure has. and by the way, the only other metaphor we have for this is what kate wilson tried to do in this state a long time ago. -- pete wilson tried to do in this state a long time ago and he paid ever -- a huge price for it. >> i think your missing my point. those are all the things trump did. i would put that into just a plain old-fashioned nativist

race meeting. that existed in this country going back to the know nothing movement. what i am talking about is something different. it is a cultural condescension from the people that are doing culturally, not any candidate level. for the people that are anonymous, that are hidden, that are not seen, that lost their homes in the foreclosure crisis. that lost their jobs, that lost the capacity to be in the middle class of the country. i think there is a cultural scorn and i do not necessarily attack partisanship -- attach partisanship to it but culturally obviously the silicon valley culturally is democratic and its political orientation. that this contempt i am talking about at a cultural level i really think played a big role in this election with those 100,000 voters across those

three states. my personal view is that if joe biden had been the nominee of the democratic party he would pretty comfortably. he understands how to talk to that community through a prism of respect. and just to be clear, i am not going to be on any white house christmas card list. i have been pretty direct in my t with the-- disgus manner in which they ran their campaign. it is what he did is something else. it is a different thing. >> and want to move on the little bit. i am going to ask your question. i do want to make a footnote if i can, that if you listen which most of the people in this room do not, to a lot of cable theets especially on religious right, there is a huge contempt for people in new york,

los angeles, san francisco. what the causality is, how it started, who is most guilty, i am not sure but there is a lot of mutual contempt, i think. and this whole discussion leads me, you make your point first and then i have a question for you. >> and wanted to say two things. one, about deplorables. >> i was not going to mention that because i thought it would be too painful. >> it is clearly that strategy to insult voters. although donald trump did when by insulting lots of voters but i don't think anyone will go out there and say insult voters. the best way to be called a racist is to not be a racist. being are offended about called out on their deplorable views. it happens to be true. be worth saying. the second point related is there is a whitewashing of the

whole debate, when we talk about the divide between the working elites, there are rich people in both parties. it is true that in this election the divide between people who have a college degree and those who do not was quite significant. the clinton voters were on average lower income than trump voters. two thirds of minimum wage workers are women. lots of the working class are people of color. they work in service jobs, they workt wear hard hats and on factory floors but in our political debate it is like we 1950's pictureme of the working class where it is that gotunion jobs shipped overseas and the country does not look like that anymore. caught up.s has not there are people like that and many of them were trump voters

but when we talked about the rich people voting, the elites voting for democrats and the hardscrabble invisible working class people voting for trump, we white wash out lots of working class people who are -- who voted for hillary. >> and want to jump off that to the future of the democratic party because we are talking about the republicans and steve got us to the democrats and you just did again. it is true that the working class or working-class voters or the color voters, whatever you want to call them, are much more diverse than the stereotype. it is also true if you look at the election results in places like , wisconsin, they were critical blocks of apparently white, blue-collar voters who voted twice for barack obama. and something that was being called in the poll that switched to donald trump.

there is a dispute about how democrats should react to this. do they need to make a renewed effort to reach out to these the color voters, can they, or is the challenge simply as a lot of people are suggesting now, sibley to motivate the base and make sure it turns out? -- simply to motivate the base and make sure it turns out? it we have ton -- have an economic message that appeals to working-class people or we need to have cultural message that appeals to liberals and people of color. false choice.s a a good economic message should appeal to everyone. i do not know any democrats who, it would be a disaster to back off the parties commitments on social justice. i cannot believe that is a serious -- i think they go together. i would say, my personal view is we are an election where

seeing this realignment, where places like the georgia special this was the first time a democrat had one in orange county since fdr. there are more than enough house districts that hillary won in sun belt states and places like that where democrats could retake the house. you should try to compete everywhere area you should go for the obama voters who went to trump. the future of the party given the long-term demographic trends is more for grounds to continue to go after an increasingly diverse better educated electorate in sun belt states. when texas and arizona were closer than iowa, it seems like that is where you should be investing. the georgia special is a good example. everywhere,ompete try from those people, find a message that appeals to

everyone. i do not think we should be backing off of our core of social justice commitments and i , you have toe is hunt where the ducks are. there are a lot of ducks in the suburbs. this was pointed out. who are looking for a non-crazy person who offered solutions and i think democrats can do that. they cannot lose quite so many of the other people. >> i am intrigued by that because when you think about it, these folks voted for barack obama twice. when he was conspicuously for social justice. when in 2012, he came out for marriage equality. are you saying we are less likely to get them back then we to get new we are voters in arizona, georgia, texas? >> we underestimate that there

are two candidates in every race and mitt romney not appealing to have not been a significant as barack obama. labor versus capital, progressive economics versus conservative, in -- it was not a race about race but i think this one was. researchers talked about racial priming as a way of it is not as ityour identity is static, does change over time so when trump runs a race baiting campaign for two years, there are voters who are susceptible to that who may not have been earlier. but basically, yes, i am saying that you should go after those voters, but there is a more fruitful ground in these fast-growing suburban places every reason to believe they have been moving toward democrats for a while and that is not true in these shrinking rust belt states where themight win them back in

next election, you might not. if people voted for trump, the voters you're not going to get back anytime soon are voters who went for him not in spite of his offensive views and comments, but because of them. there are some of those, there are a lot of them. those ones we are not going to win back. if you liked what you heard about immigrant bashing our race meeting, i do not think the democrats will win them and i am not sure they should try. >> could you put in historical context how parties adapt to what are the constantly changing demographics of the american journey? >> i feel a guy need to write a dissertation about that. >> we do not have time. >> think god. for everyone in this room. i will twist or question slightly. i hope i get to the same point in the end. spend a lotrian, i of my time worrying about the 18th century and i remember being in this room a couple of years ago and hearing a thing that really, i thought about

ever since. it is that voters respond to the candidate who they think is authentic. they may disagree with a lot of the policies. it may be hard for the current president to figure out what the current policies are from day-to-day. that are voters who think he does not hide anything and it comes off as authentic. i do not mean disrespect for his opponent. i used to live in kansas. sure everyone on this panel read what is the matter with kansas? i am happy i moved away with auld to respect to kansas. for you couldlace look at the election result and constantly people voted against economic interest. time after time. for you could look at the election resultsinc. they voted for people or issues that are some hard -- somehow core to them and they find ways to move in that direction. that is ultimately how parties,

how society moves. aboutteve was talking silicon valley before, it has been on my mind a lot. does trump when without silicon valley, does trump win without the rain power that created twitter, that created the way that we talk to each other now and found a way around the mainstream media, i hate that phrase but whatever. there is a sense that political -- politicians and parties adapt to new technologies to try to reach out to the core. it is a sense of authenticity that people respond to. >> there is one man whose name has not been mentioned so far here and he may be the most popular democrat with the exception of joe biden. and barack obama who obviously cannot run again. and that is someone who refuses to say he is a democrat, bernie sanders. do you see him shaping the future of the party and does the party lean left or lean further

left in reaction to 2016? >> yeah, the answer is yes. he is doing it already. he will continue. i do not see him running for president again. he is pulling the party to the left but on economic issues, i do not think that is necessarily a bad thing for the party to win back the white house. i do not see him runningi agree. i think democrats expand their economic argument because without bringing this up again, i do not agree with steve that he was contempt from the east coast to what is going on. it was ignorance. we saw examples. mostly what, people did not know, for whatever reasons. people live a different life here. it is important for the democratic hardy to be prepared to understand the things that are going on and to respond in a way that president trump did. in a way the other stuff is a most irrelevant. sanders gets that. sanders got that during the

election. he is from vermont. he understood what was going on in a way that i think trump did and democrats need to do that. sanders will help show them that direction. >> when you look at these election results, how do you, what is your read on all this? think bernies -- i sanders ran against hillary clinton, a lot of people did not theyhillary clinton, thus voted for bernie sanders. a liberal socialist from vermont is not the future of the democratic party that is going to win. it is definitely the future of the era party that runs and loses by moving too far to the left. i think young voters are excited about bernie sanders. there is something there but a might have been excited about elizabeth warren or another candidate who is more palatable possibly to the liberal part of the wing of the party without having the name socialist attached. i could be wrong.

, i live ink he seems congressionalin a district where trump got 11% of the vote. two candidates advanced, both democrats, neither one are bernie sanders people, there in the mode of the mainstream hillary democrat. somebody who is more mainstream but can talk about economic issues is going to be important. also what is the state of the economy in general? the economy is going well. unless trump says off-the-wall things. he will probably lose. think one thing to understand about the republican party is, what is the bonding the republicans party and its voters together right now? and what it is is grievance.

it has become the grievance party. it is aggrieved. it has become the grievance party. it is aggrieved. and some of the grievances are legitimate. and some of those grievances are still couple by demagogue and candidates on race and others, like donald trump. adam.d disagree back with one of my favorite moments of any campaign is usually on the morning shows, when one of the anchors goes on safari to youngstown, ohio, to report on ohio,imitive people from wherever the swing district may of new york.de ad i just think there is profound level of out of

touchedness that exists in the country from the people above the line and the people below the line. most importantly, we haven't weked about this, is that live in an era word trust has completely collapsed in every institution in this country, with one exception, which is the u.s. military. an extra nares survey, what happens when trust collapses, is strained.ms are a harvard university study shows that 80% of people born in the 1930's think it is essential to live in a democracy. that number is 25% for people born in the 1980's. and its lower for people that are born in the 1990's. i think that, when you sit there who-- where they're racists voted for donald trump who responded to that message bec

ause? for sure. did donald trump because there is suddenly a racist majority in the country? of course not. you are by definition not racist if you voted for barack obama and then you switched over and you voted for donald trump. but i just wonder, there seems to be analogy to being able to put, from a democratic perspective, themselves into the shoes of the voters living in macomb county, michigan. the campaign as the black lives matter movement was taking off, culturally mainstreaming, kind of the words that there is always new terminology that comes out in election cycle -- white privilege. i do think there is a privilege for all of our kids. but what about the former coal miner in huntington, west virginia? what's his privilege?

i think that, when people hear that in these places where the middle class american dream is gone, slipped away, where these voters believe their children will not be as well off as they are, when we talk about immigration, i don't think it is a directive that they don't like mexicans. i think what they hear, the focus groups that i sat in on, is the sense that their american dream is lost. and through their prism, there is protected classes of people that keep cutting in line in front of them. what drove trump's candidacy, despite all the ugliness on it, it was in some ways an incredibly optimistic candidacy. if anyone has ever had expense with a terminally ill relative

and they are in the drug trials, you have to believe it is going to work. you have to have hope. so when he went to these places and he said we are going to make the country great again, we are going to bring back the jobs, they had to believe it. hope required that they believe it. so at a time where trust has collapsed, and the reality was there was never a candidate in history in the country that has been in the center of the stage for 26 years that we had -- we ask a consider making president. richard nixon is the only analogous and he wasn't famous for his long and is famous as hillary quentin was. but when you look at this -- hillary clinton was pure but you look at this, all of these factors, the collapse of trust, the cultural chasm that has opened up in the country, these are all profound factors that are weighing in on this you look at this, all of these factors, the collapsestufe

ideologies which become -- we become used to become a part of the parties that are empty vessels for ambitious politicians. >> i want to get to the near-term consequences of this. things.ple of one, i agree democrats have to do a better job of communicating their care and compassion and plans for these voters. i can tell you donald trump doesn't give a rats about them. >> of course he doesn't. of the voters in these towns are black voters, around voters. one of those is an auto town, flint, michigan. it has famous problems with its water system. democrats have been there. donald trump hasn't. if you ask me why -- some of these areas, you say it is not

about race because they voted for obama and then voted for trump. look them up part of that is due to the great credit of john mccain for not stoking the fires in 2008, and standing in a town hall and taking the microphone away from a woman who tried to say that barack obama really wasn't an american. so when leadership matters, donald trump led in a direction and it had consequences. in the end, i think the key for democrats is some combination of, one, staying faithful to and rallying our base, the social justice issues, two, doing a better job of articulating our positions on these issues, but, three, calling out the fact that donald trump will not deliver for these voters who did put some level of trust in him. he is not going to bring back their jobs. he is not going to really an act

tax policy. and disinfecting them from trump is step one in bringing them back into our fold. >> ok, i want to talk about the next step, electoral 2018. democrats are at a disadvantage in the senate with 25 seats up to the republicans having nine. the house, the problem is gerrymandering, and the concentration of them across in urban districts. given that the democratic base now seems to be so energized, could the midterm pattern that is traditional be broken? the pattern where democrats shorten -- show up in presidential races but don't in midterms? are these people who are marching now actually going to march the polls in 2018? if so, is it conceivable that the democrats could take back the house? >> i think so. are said earlier, there enough, just with the district hillary won, enough to swing the

house. we have seen so far specials in kansas and georgia where there was a 20-point swing in both districts towards democrats. whether he can be sustained to 2018 is another question. but you're right. in his last several -- in the last several midterms, democrats have had trouble turning out. but you don't have to go -- in 2006, the last time there was a midterm with a republican president, democrats did pretty well. if trends continue, there is reason to believe that it will be a good day for democrats. whether they can take back the senate in the house, i don't know, but they should make strong gains. >> i agree. the other point i would make is that we don't know where these truck voters will become 2018. right now, we are seeing these 100-day reports that show they are form but happy.

but if the economy is slowing down and health care hasn't happened and tax hasn't happened and got for bid we are at war with -- name a country -- >> canada. [laughter] >> i'm nothing those voters will look for democrats, but a lot of them might not come out. it is possible the democrats can get back the house. the idea the democrats take back the senate seems more on mars. not totally impossible. >> i would say on the moon. >> one they we haven't talked about that the democrat strategy in midterms is that there is a natural decline so the democrats should do better in the house. the question is whether they will win two or three seats or win back big. in 2002, republicans didn't find come even though it was a midterm. there wasn't a major scandal and there was a specter of 9/11.

in 1974, there was the watergate scandal. if the democrats -- they are doing this, the democrats are focused on the corruption aspect , whether it is perceived and not real or real going into the midterm elections, combined with this natural surgeon decline and they are likely to do better. otherwise, it will just be a few seats that are picked up. >> i think something has happened to our politics. we are talking about accepting the idea that people will walk into a voting booth and assume that their vote is about what happens at the national level. it wasn't that long ago that we did talk about politics being local. you know this much better than i do. do americans go to a voting booth to vote for somebody or cometh that persons name is not on the ballot, will they go to vote against him if it is not? isn't it a question of feeling -- fielding really strong candidates who do the grunt work? >> does the election going to be nationalized? >> can democrats

>> people won't just say i hate trump. they will stay home if there is not someone to vote for. >> i think the democrats are going to win back the house. history tells us that the democrats will pick up seats. i think trump has energize the party. i think that they are united in going out and casting and opposition vote. republicans will be disaffected because obamacare and the domestic agenda he talked about, known of those things are going to happen.

the georgia 6th special election is significant and similar to 1993. there were two districts on the mississippi river in kentucky. they had never voted for a republican candidate in the .istory of the country they both voted for republicans and specials. the georgia 6th election, mitt romney won this district with 66%. there are more than enough districts that hillary clinton one that could drop and reverse. -- i have ahat personal point of view. of don't want to see either the parties with complete control. i think there will be a reset towards that. i would mind if i saw one party control government but i won't say what it is.

i'm going to ask a final question about the democrats. president trump according to tok sanford, has threatened primary some republican members of congress. sanders said that is counterproductive. will it ever really happen? >> i was struck when you said president trump. you can never get used to it. look. i think that if you threaten somebody you better deliver on the threat. politics he's not the first governor or president that has threatened if you don't do what i say i'm going to primary you. in almost every instance i can think of they fail to deliver on the threat. very famously on the obamacare

repeal vote, steve annan summoned everybody to the in the and threaten them eisenhower executive office building. it is not how politics works. think, politicians, elected politicians, a species of humans distinct from the rest of us, have finely honed instincts for survival. you think of the is republicans, they relate to donald trump at his 42% approval level differently than at his 32% approval level. 35-42%.ing range is 32, 31.go as low as

but remember, donald trump one by a hundred thousand votes across three streets -- three states. reelectedor him to be it requires the democratic party to nominate fundamentally an unelectable candidate. we have a contest between two historically unpopular candidates that would be viewed as unelectable and in a 10 -- to pay -- two-person race, one of them is going to win. >> that brings me to my other question. we talked about the democratic party message, economic justice, social justice. party lacks a messenger. who should the party look to? what are they looking for? hillary clinton doesn't run.

>> which is a good assumption. ron and i were talking about this earlier. having watched the last two ,ontested democratic primaries no one is going to be nominated who can not appeal to voters of color, especially in the south. clinton.hy obama beat anyone who thinks that they are going to -- that there is a different coalition, we have not seen it. does that help cory booker, i don't know. i don't think it has to mean the candidate has to be a person of color. but no one is going to win the democratic nomination by saying we should be talking more to white men and less to women and people of color. that's a losing proposition. >> peter.

say, not knowing who the party would come up with, i do think they need somebody who can master the media of that , who iswho is quick willing to go toe to toe with beeone who seems to authentic preview can be the smartest person in the room and lose. votesn analyze a lot of and patterns but really they need someone who is just going to reach out to voters in some direct way. theone who will master media of the moment. that is what we see in american politics frankly since the start. >> i'm not going to give a name for this reason. i think the leadership struggle of the democratic party over the

past eight years has been centered around two questions. haddad you respond to the financial collapse and had a jew vote on the war in iraq. those have been the driving cutting lines in our party. i do not think in 2020 those two very backward looking dividing lines is going to decide who our party nominates. it's going to be defined by the most effective in responding to trump and building a new agenda. we look at the field today. you align these people around how anti-wall street were they in 2008 and 2005. those have been the tests of leadership into our party until now. i think those dividing lines are going to change. i'm dodging the name thing. it's interesting, i think the

bar has been lowered for -- with who the candidate could be. democrats are freaked out about trump obviously. people have said that people think trump is beatable. a lot of democrats might not have been in the race normally because they might not be ready. people, younger people, that in a normal year may not be concerned -- experienced enough. i think that is out the window in the era of trump. >> the general election, assuming a numbers stay where they are, any democrat who was breathing with a little bit of experience, kamala harris has a good chance. she could win the primary winning california. if cory booker doesn't run, african-americans.

that's enough to get for the convention. getting that nomination is going to mean a lot. that's assuming the economy is not going gangbusters. unpopular, look to the midwest. those are the states where they are these swing states now. >> you disagreed with this. that presidential politics, the next president will always possess oppositional virtues to the last president. they are not experiential virtues. they are character virtues. i'm not sure who that is in the democratic party other than to joe,n the set of morning tim ryan. he's a very nice guy, very

articulate. i said you are awfully young looking for a leader in the democratic party. he started laughing. i think when you look at the obama years, the amount of seat losses democrats have sustained, you have the bench. you have old people and then you have not ready people. nominee is more likely than not to come out of the side of the may not be particularly ready but at the right moment. , we werehere's people talking before, seth moulton from massachusetts. decorated for valor. harvard university. good on tv. i don't know how he does shaking hands but what we have learned

is that if you can get on that as anand you can perform athlete, you can do well in those debates and trigger fundraising in your off to the traditionalof the entry points, the ability to have a big field organization in iowa, to have those endorsements, it is a disruptive process. much more than typical machine politics. it couldn't be more right. >> i think we have some time for questions now. all the way in the back. in the blue. that is you. >> so, a point about contempt.

an interesting misperception, the term elite seems to be amongstd for democrat rule working-class voters. they seem to equate the two, which i suspect might be because many elites that are visible to them, silicon valley and the media are the ones they can see but the elites that are less publicly visible are supporting policies that actively hurt their interests economic and otherwise. extent anyng to what of you think that might be part of why they seem to be voting against their interests on occasion. >> ron?

>> a couple of things. i don't think it is just immigrants. , newruz did try this line york values. whatever that was supposed to mean. i do think there is mutual contempt here that needs to be dialed back and dialed down. but look. overall, this whole thing about the obama voters voted for trump, i think that is a weak piece of analysis. there are counties that went for obama that went for trump. it doesn't mean there were voters who voted for obama who voted for trump. a lot ofened in predominantly white counties in pennsylvania and michigan and wisconsin, a ton of people who

didn't vote in 2008 showed up and voted in 2016 and that flipped a lot of counties. you had incredibly high levels of turnout. white rule working-class voters. to me in the end the democratic outtegy is not around elevating their elites, it is thoseround reaching voters and persuading them that trump is not going to deliver for them, is not delivering for them and then it is incumbent to explain what we would do for them. how we would create economic growth and vitality in these parts of the country. was that the strengths it didn't do what most polls did. it didn't throw out people who hadn't voted in 2012 and 2014. it allow them to express their opinion. they were going to vote for

trial. the somebody else have a question? somebody who hasn't asked. go ahead. >> thank you for coming. i have a quick question about potential centrist candidates. is it possible somebody could run in 2018 and say ohio, maybe sharad brown, to capture those voters that secretary clinton clearly lost out on? somebody like mullah harris can be as anti-trump as she wants to . she's not going to sluice support in california. but somebody like sharad brown is at risk of losing a seat if he doesn't at least play to the middle a little bit. to what extent do certain democratic candidates in swing states have to be more centrist

or do they just have to mobilize the base on the left and increase turnout and sit of compromising to the middle? thing, i've howally been shocked by relatively moderate to conservative democrats have voted against trump in the house and senate so far and don't feel that pressure. on the supreme court nomination trump only got three democratic votes including claire mccaskill, one of the most vulnerable democrats who felt free to vote against donald trump. is, with trump's approval rating as low as it is, being as provocative and as divisive as he has been, not making effort to reach out to democrats, democrats can oppose them with impunity. i don't think they feel pushed

back against that, even in these more swing states. debate about the what actually happened in those states. if you think that it is about populism and not moderation then populist,own can be which is what he wants to be and do fine. he doesn't have to attack the middle. just because it is a red state. but as a populist red state he is fine. if you think that is a misreading of what happened and you look at portman and john ohio, being popular in and the results of the senate race in wisconsin, and how well republicans have one in state races there, then maybe you would say you do need to worry. maybe it isn't just thing

populist is enough. that is one of the questions democrats are wrestling with. the sanders wing would say it is to go more left instead of center. >> time for a couple more questions. leslie. >> i know the panel may disagree with this premise. but to suspend disbelief, could you argue the possibility that the u.s. still has a cultural roadblock against electing a woman as president? just arguing, take the opposite point of view. is just goingor to say it's tougher for a woman to be elected president. more evidence is going to show that. >> there is a study by brian schaffner that looked at support for trump versus clinton and compared the vote for obama in

2008 versus mccain. attitudes about traditional roles for women and the house were correlated heavily with support for trump. there is a little bit going on there in the data. racial resentment was big. economic factors. >> i don't think anybody would disagree. disagrees thatho there is a barrier for a woman, it's a higher hurdle and there's more to overcome? think it will come up in the future, we took -- hillary was the only data point we have. she brought a bunch of her own weaknesses and limitations that had nothing to do with being a woman and a set of challenges that did. it is hard. we only have the one example. one of the strengths she brought that was unique to her was her

credibility on national security. the longtime knock on women candidates was they are not seen as tough on security. that didn't really happen to hillary. aboutwon voter scare terrorism but lost voter scare to about foreign policy. lawyer -- for women who were not secretary of state, don't have that reputation of the iron lady, we will see that particular barrier come back with a vengeance. people note associate with national security, you are going to see a host of problems on the national security front because of their gender. that is something we didn't see as much because hillary was unique. the superdelegates, how do

you feel, is it time for that to go? is there a value to it? >> i haven't heard that word in so long. i forgot about superdelegates. it was like 20 years ago. >> i don't know what people are going to say. the superdelegates have never , tod to be, a poison pill overturn the results of the primaries. if they have the democratic party would have exploded. does anybody else have anything on this? that would be the counterfactual. >> in the back. mentioned on the panel, the two-party system, that it is dodgy and lumbers

along. don't you think that the two-party system in the united states has offered stability to the country for a long time. moving forward, it is hard for me, it is entrenched. it is hard for me to see in my lifetime or in the next 50 years somehow it's going to be dismantled or molded into something else. for much as how people talk about how bad it is, can you comment on the benefit that it has given the country? >> if you want it to run that ,he other way you would say there were more than two parties in the civil war at the time. did it provide stability or is there a core understanding that ties us together as a nation

that provides us for stability? i would argue it is that. nowtwo-party system we have , historians are terrible at predicting the future. i don't that testing that accounts for our stability. >> watching marco rubio and john andch doing morning shows >> not by marco rubio. >> why? because the risk reward calculus doesn't pencil out. john kasich seems to be is moving when he beyond both parties, they are both broken, is there an independent candidacy there, who

knows. i think it is tough to primary from the -- trump will have to be in a state of abject weakness. i don'tm someone who see any scenarios where this turns out well. he turned out to be a great president. wow. athink that there is tremendous chance a lot of bad things are going to happen. >> we have one other thing to do, it's been a wonderful panel. introduce for a few --sing remarks, i know we ,he remarkable dean of usc without whom this conference

would not have happened. who has given such support to practical politics and liberal the dean of the college of arts and sciences amber miller. >> thank you for having me. on behalf of usc i would like to thank the participants in today's discussions and the political science department. his thanks of course to its director who brought us together. forpe you will stay with me the next two hours of my closing remarks. lots of great discussions today. much left to be sorted out. i suspect there are a lot of things we don't agree on. one thing we do is that the challenges we face today are incredibly complex. we are facing them as a more divided nation.

today conversations have been a breath of fresh air for me. we use to talk about the art of debate. debate takes creativity and technique. this seems to have gone missing from so much of the debate these days. but i heard it today. it is heartening to watch a group of experts from inside and out of the academy with a wide range of perspectives and approaches grapple with the tough questions we talk about today in a smart and honest way. including today's conference, an example of the engagement i believe we need more of in today's research universities. and specifically as the new dean here at usc is to provide ways to connect ways to real-world issues faced by today's society in a two-way dialogue. i look forward to expanding

conversations to other specific issues such as sustainability and the environment, refugees, and economic disparity. with these fundamental questions facing us in terms of what needs public,one to serve the we have no choice but to figure out a multilateral bipartisan approach. i believe our research universities provide an publicenvironment conducive toh this kind of thought and action that responds effectively to these questions. that generate new knowledge and prepare the next generation of leaders. universities can engage with our communities in ways that make what we do more relevant and ways that create more impact. facts do matter. so does science. solve thisng data we morning demonstrates that we are not working from a common set of facts.

it makes clear to me that universities need to step up. my ambition for usc is to become a national hub for convening groups of people intent on generating fact-based solutions to the world's most challenging problems. there is expertise in this room to do it. academics, journalists, public servants and others. i believe universities can be some of the most important convening spaces for developing the best solutions to complex problems. brokerserve as honest help america reestablish our long tradition of inclusivity and finding common ground. we found this on display today. respect,ions based on the breakdown of civility in the last election cycle not only among politicians but the media and the american public cannot define us.

america's a nation with a long history of coming together in the most trying times by relying on a process that values cooperation. two quotes come to mind when america's political climate was fierce and fractured. civil.course was mostly republican president dwight eisenhower said this world of ours must avoid become -- becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate and be a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect. franklin roosevelt reminded us in 1938 democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choices are prepared to choose wisely. the real safeguard of democracy is education. i hope so. i hope so. i hope you will continue to join us as we take on timing issues. today's conference was part of the economy -- academy series

that will take place at usc over the next academic year. these public forms will focus on hot button issues such as climate change and domestic terrorism. a longtime supporter of usc for graciously sponsoring this upcoming series. we will have more of the information on these events and others, coming soon. think you all, again for joining us. [applause] i should have said letters arts of sciences, but i did not. arts, letters and sciences. ean millerthink d because without her help we would not be here and would not be able to do this. i want to think the staff, the political science department, my colleagues, all of who work so

hard on this. i think the panelists, my friends that i imposed on. others that i him posed on anyways, even if i did not know them that well. jill, who has kicked this thing off with some illuminating inch -- information. thank you all very much. as an audience you have been terrific and you get, if we are asking for grades, an a. [applause] ♪

>> to discuss the reports of the trump administration read withdrawing from the paris climate accord. will the wilson center discuss the investigation into russia and the elections. lindsay will talk about challenges to retailers. andh the washington journal join the discussion. this weekend, the c-span cities tour will explore the literary life and history of

eugene, oregon. a look at the life of king kesey. >> the book was published and lewis hartline read the book and he sent a letter and there was a fun correspondence between the two of them about mental institutions and psychiatry. >> the author of the culture of the lifeegro explored of african-americans in world war i. in terms of the effect of the war and reforming how people feel about race relations, it did not have the impact that african-americans hoped.

scott story of abigail dunaway. is angail scott dunaway example of one of the great diaries and she describes what is happening between the people and troubles that happened. she describes the landscape and the scenery. it is clear that she is a good wellr and that served her later in her career in the suffrage movement. >> hear from the former oregon senator. >> he was a curmudgeon and a man of high principle. if you did not have that same focal and he would be he would stand his ground and would not compromise sometimes.

i think that people were trying to move him a long and became frustrated. in the end, he is known for his integrity. sunday at 2:00. >> sunday night, ben says scores how to encourage adolescents and young adults. >> by and in large, the students who graduate are going to change

jobs three times in the first that scary stuff in progressivism was about this idea that job disruption created a ripple into neighborliness. a lot of what people worried about is going to be what we experience forever more. we will have to create a civilization of lifelong learners and we have never done that. watch on book tv. >> wilbur ross discusses nafta, the north american free trade agreement and announced a renegotiation