The following podcast contains explicit language. I met your client composed of weeds vocs, not coms cast on the patently network, and I've got something fun and unequal pay today. In February, on launching a long point, I really love one from innovation wanted to do this for a while and insulting starting to do some with books. I think a really interesting use makers, politicians, writers and someone has really excited to talk too- was Roscoe these up at writer from your comes the youngest operator in the history. This really phenomenal thinker and unusual, a guy with a sort of an unusual approach to politics, but also someone with a think, a skill as a writer and a political analysts. It is really rare today, which has an ability to speak to an audience. It doesn't agree with him. in a way that they are really willing to hear him.

and engage in an extended conversation that they want to keep coming back for So we had a great discussion talked a lot about. You know his his background, how he got into politics, how we got into writing and how he thinks it writing for his audience, something I'd love from you. All is to give me some feedback on this. As a mention on launching a separate pike S, it will be devoted interviews like this one in a couple weeks to hear what you like to hear what you didn't like I'm trying to figure out my own skyline and what is going to be of most value to the EU the listener. So you can eat we at weeds at boxed I'll, come, and let me know think, let me know the kinds of people you'd like to see me interview. Let me know what you like care: what you didn't like I'd, love to get your feedback, I'm trying to think hard about how ago, such it. It is useful for you all and if on for me, so without further Ado Ross really enjoy this conversation really hope you do too Ross. Here we have thirty. Six, I think it is right. I am now thirty six, yes, your thirty six, so you are,

the youngest time's up at calmness by, I think, like seven decades, tell me, I wonder: how did you at a certain point I was gonna become you know when I'm like fifty six and people are introducing me as the youngest ever time's up at columnist, rice gonna get a little as I've lost my hair, it's gotten more stranger and strangers and introduce will I recognize you really trying to sort of aesthetically get into the role which bespeaks admirable commitment. But but what was your first job in journalism? Where does the the path to abide calmness begin and while my first actual job in journalism was working as a editorial researcher for the Atlantic, and I got that job out of college sort of by happenstance, because the then and now owner of the Atlantic David Bradley was at that point starting a kind of satellite off for the magazine in Washington DC. At that point, the Atlantic was still based in Boston where it had been for a hundred and fifty years

needed to get a gun needed in war on today needed more, embodies well worth David Bradley had he made his fortune and healthcare consulting and in healthcare, consulting as in many forms of consulting. I think the theory is you hire a bunch of peoples. it out of college who are theoretically smart and cheap, and you worked on the ground and you you know, use whatever they produce to turn a profit and David Bradley was looking for ways to make the Atlantic profitable. And I guess this seemed like the way to do it. Maybe it wasn't. My our little added did not in fact make the magazine profitable. That was left to other people years down the line, but we were hired there about five or six of us. It was a very unusual job in that we were sort of, and we were almost like consultants. We were sort of war gaming potential.

Features for the magazine and without doing anything of the sort of writing. We were trying to come up with feature ideas and so on to her. It was a sort of attempt to build a kind of miniature consulting shot onto magazine and in addition to not making the magazine profitable, it didn't, I think, ultimately, succeed because, as you know, being a journalist, actual journalists are pretty resistant to the idea that there is a group of twenty three year old eyes and girls down in Washington DC who have all these ideas of how? That's how they should run their magazine me, that's an amazing. I had no idea, that's what the job was at that time I mean so we had always know you're. Not everybody here will be in journalism, but for an editorial system. Job is very rarely coming up with feature ideas for more senior writers, That is a very fascinating kind of inversion of the total well, and we would do other things he would come up with a potential feature and then you would call prominent journalists to ask what they thought about it, and so once there

as I do, and maybe the Atlantic should run unsigned at a Torres, and I was tasked with calling various distinguish journalists to ask them what they thought of it, and I made the mistake of color Jack Schaefer, who is of course the notoriously acerbic press credit coup. I'm not sure if he'd written about David Bradley that point, but he had written things, Bout, wealthy people owning magazines and the cycle that they go through and so on things that are, I guess not relevant in the age of Chris. You selling the New republic, but so I called objection four and said. Oh I'm calling we're thinking about doing this and you know Jack Schaefer. He just started ranting about how the horrible undecided trials were, and they were the dumbest idea he ate. You know he probably went on for like twenty minutes before I got a word in and by the way to bring it to bring a first full circled. The use news, one of the has, since the New republic, the kind of the New Republic Old Guard was, he got rid of the magazines unsigned at a total slow right. So he, and yet where is the Jack Schaefer column than lamenting Christine

evolutionary impact, but yet so that was that It was a strange job and we had strange titles. We weren't editorial assistance are title, I think, was editorial analysed, which is a title that has never existed before in journalism and I dont think has existed since, but yet so that that was sort of how I started out and it was a sort of unexpected because in college I had been. I guess it's sort of a foretaste of my current career I'd been both the editor of the conservative newspaper at Harvard Andy Token, conservative Abed calmness for the Harvard Crimson and society side, Internet NASH, review- and I turn of expected to take a job and conservative media. But I wasn't offered any jobs and conservative media and I was obviously a huge admirer of the atlantic- was then Michael Kelly ERA, which I think was a high point. in the magazine and really any magazines, history, and so I left at the chance to go work there, but it was completely unexpected. I viewed asked me

junior year senior year, where I was likely to end up working in writing, I would have imagined it would be natural viewer, the weekly standard, or something like that. yeah. I remember this period in instead of your work correctly and- and I very much may not- that the early over the Earl the early doubt that at the same time you had a blog or the American seen right. This was about that same time. Yes, well so This was the time when everyone was starting blogs when it was sort of who it was cool thing tat we were going to do, but I actually wanted. When are we owe three? This was shoot thousand and three year, but I wasn't any good at it at first, I started one with a friend of my name, Stephen Ashy, who was then the assistant editor at policy review and now defunct, conservative intellectual magazine, and it was called the American seen, and I thought it had by the standards of blogs at that time. This very handsome interface it had. We had a little graphic of Uncle SAM rolling up his sleeves and

started blogging, but then the Iraq wardens, terrible with without knowing what we'd have we had a little version of arts and letters daily running down the right hand, com where we would just have short links. It was very pretend you remember that I love I like their aid. I liked your right hand. Link bar, you know pretension is the key and we didn't want to call it a blog, because, obviously, that was sort of crude and in order to organise lag ASEAN, we were you're a journal. Maybe I don't know it was it was totally just an irregular, but it also sort of semi died during the Iraq war in part, because I had been sort of generally supportive of the Iraq war and then I had a friend it was actually kind of a cliche. I had two friends, one who worked at the defence Department, who is there much in favour of the war and one who tend to state department who is completely against it and they were friends with each others. I would turn of watch them. Had these titanic arguments

and at some point basically right around the time we pulled down the statue Saddam. I sort of decided that may be my State department friend was right and that sort of and that I had. Basically you know everyone was writing that foreign policy. I was a twenty three year old recent college graduate living in a group house in Washington DC and embedded with the military anywhere. I wasn't sort of an expert in anything, and so it was the any time in my life when I found that sort of the news defeated my capacity to come up with what we now call hot takes so I started we sort of let the blog lapse, and instead I went sort of back to my college room. and ended up writing a book about Harvard which is, of course, the most obnoxious Harvard thing to do, but so that was what I did while I was in this strange job at the Atlantic. I had a blog that sort of Laird and then seem to vanish, and I wrote a book

I thought you know when you write first book you like will this book will be a massive best seller and I will go on to a career as a literary eminence who never take orders from editors again and that didn't been either, and so at that point I then- and I stopped on the four minute, though its progress towards say it's a tradition, but suddenly generally William. Buckley is kind of. You know that the great conservative founder of the National View wrote also a book about the kind of experience of being a conservative outsider at Harvard and and that the complicated He had about the institution and and I'm as yet, but I d we don't want to use it. We are not a sign of the buck night, I'm already, but I hate harbor. But how? Who is it that in your head, when you did that it was, of course in my head, but being again, this sort of arrogant, twenty, three and twenty four year old. What you're thinking to yourself as well Buckley, wrote God, at Yale and now you know that was a pretty good book, but you haven't got a man if he was just about and really was just about, the sort of academic intellectual climate at Yale. In the fifties it was all about DE christianization,

obviously campuses and the influence of sort of socialist and collective his thought, and it wasn't particularly about undergraduate life, and so I thought that I could basically do what Buckley did and also do a more assertive memoir, mystic personal account of what this weird and diving schools are incredibly weird places actually like and how it influences and shapes american life. So that was sort of the book. I said to ride was supposed to be. You know one part God and man at Yale and one part you know sort of more personal memoir, and I think that's why the book in part ended up being may be. Let's say: nordic complete success. I dont want to understand my own, of course, brilliant work, but it was a sort of uneasy, hybrid. I guess of so many Howard argument. It had a very precious title that that the book is called privilege.

yes Harvard Harvard and the education of the ruling class was this abandoned years later, the discussion of privilege ship has become, I think, pretty central to a lot of you, no sort of internet political discourse, but it's at this point primarily associated with liberal two weeks of power or of certain kinds of power, and as I remember the book, it is kind of very much doubt that right, it's very much about what the advantages of of Harvard confer on you right and it was about. The contemporary university has no conservatives, no conservatives in the faculty, it has some conservatives and the student body, but a large chunk of them are sort of kids whose parents were Republicans who then just sort of naturally become more liberal on campus, because the climate is pretty liberal and what means is that the arguments that go on elite campuses for the most part

you know there are exceptions, but for the most part are arguments between what back then I guess she would have called new Republic liberals versus the nation liberals, but you know it's bribing the centre left and the left and when I, in college way back when the centre left was completely ascendant, it was the late years of Clinton. the end of the dot com boom, but we didn't know was the end of the day combo then was an era when, basically, you could say why why even bother to take an economics. Classed Alan Greenspan has everything figured out right and, and the campus left Weena was still act There was in our citizens, they occupied the president's office to protest for a living wage for Harvard janitors it was nothing like it is today. There was none of this sense that you have today of sort of a more ascendant answered of aggressive left, actually dictating terms too, campus leaders and administrators and so on land. It was much more depends on where you went. I would easy Santa Cruz

ok well, right. California remains its own distinctive place. Even when I would say of neo liberalism. When I there we were the first City Council in the country to pass. Articles have impeachment for George W Bush with I don't have to wait hast, I don't. They quite had the domino effect the cynically City Council was looking for. But why was it the time taken? Is it as a real point of predator? It's been fascinating for me to watch this kind of rising belief that the left has become so dominant campus, because a lot of what's being scribes as a new reality now is recognisable to me from being its increase for for better. And for work. Some of it seems to me to be the terror people have of it. I was sort of an new republic liberal, as you put

in college and was a little bit contrary and in place, was very, very, very liberal, and it didn't seem incredibly stifling to me. But it did seem to me not always the healthiest exchange of ideas while right but the interesting thing, and to get back to your point about privilege that I found as a conservative at the time- and I am again still find this in certain ways today is that as a conservative watching that left versus centre left debate on campus On the one hand, you don't want to side with the left, because the left basically wants your ideas back and from campus completely banned, not just from campus, obviously, but Elton took today. Can tomorrow, the world a blend of evolution. Common resolution comes, but by the same token, there is a sense in which the left wing narrative, honestly campuses, is and has become more so is powerful for reason than there is a sort of is and why,

a kind of emptiness to the NEO Liberal University, the University of perpetual fundraising and career offices that shunned everybody into consulting jobs and this sort of lip service to ideas, about diversity and multiculturalism, and so on that really do end the instant you go to your dean and say: well, you know, one of my friends might have been raped. What university, you wanna, do it vowed at the universities like what I'd really, rather not do anything about that, because that sounds really messy and unpleasant demand. That was you know. This was a point that the cap has left was making in two thousand and one and based on some personal experiences. They were correct and I dont think their correct in the sort of what you might call the cosmic sense, because, as a concern,

It is, I think, that left wing ideas have contributed in their own way to what gets described a sort of rape culture on campus, that it is in part a somewhat inevitable consequence of straightforward sexual libertinism, but at the same time its at least the big Lebowski thing right. It's like say what you will about the tentative, Camp has left, but at least they have an ethos right where, whereas the people running the universities Harry Louis, who is dean and dean at heart, when I was there and who, at the time sort of seem to me like embodiment of this kind of emptiness, he then left the dean ship and wrote a book called excellent without a soul which, just you know he had his own problems with what was going on. I that title basically fit what I felt as the prevailing spirit of NEO Liberal Harvard, and it did give me, weird, occasionally, admittedly, kind of perverse sympathy for the campus left. Something I'm curious about your experience.

There is some reason in journals, and, more broadly, is that their tends to be a kind of conservative that that kind of technocratic, liberal finds appealing, which is to say this sort of unification, the third Party s idea of the socially liberal. oh and and fiscally conservative radiology and any to get you people's Mitt Romney Massachusetts. I think you know, but before he later became more the term is severely. Conservative was a good example to someone who is seen as being in a very good with the budget, but but pretty liberal on reproductive rights and you're a sort of. This is the main bay blackmailing right right that I'd. I did mean that now get justice and your your version, which is flawed. They are more socially conservative and I think you see things you see more of a sort of problems in terms of the family unit and breakdowns in the family unit and a little bit more economically pocket

lotta republicans. I'm curious how you think, being that kind of conservative was different on on campus at that time, in being the sort of reverse kind of technocratic, northeastern conservative. So I came to college with some on forged version of that respected, because I I think most young nerdy conservatives find their way into conservatism. Sir then find their way through Ayn Rand, you might say, and so and find their way and through their token, you know. This is the nervous where I can possibly think of. That, but I don't think I know that much about the Jared poking path where the Jarrow talking path is basically, where you start with cultural conservatism. You know, and in talking to middle earth is deeply his perspective, is deeply culturally conservative and also deeply says

Bishop of industrialists asian. It literally is the opposite of ATLAS, shrug where an atlas, ragged railroad, as are the most amazing thing human beings have ever done and in a middle earth railroads are the things that the Orkney would build. You know, while tearing up all the beautiful ancient tree my background the reason I am conservative in some senses, because I had a sort of unusual religious upbringing where my family so of wandered through various forms of american Christianity. Before we ended up as Roman Catholics in my means, but my parents were liberal Democrat.

during a lot of that journey and only swung, and in a little bit too, the right, probably because of the influence of religion. So I was coming from a place where I had this sort of religious foundation for my conservatism and to the extent that the sort of free market side of conservatism was interesting or appealing, it was, as a corollary, to aid effectively socially conservative set of convictions and on campus that was sort of in certain ways of fun place to be? If you were into being, you know, weird writer,

I am actually always surprised. He still more to being weird, if you're into being weird right- and I am actually always surprised that a little surprised at least that more, we young people don't find that cocktails ideas attractive. If only because it is the weirdest cocktail you can come up with, and young people are allegedly interested in coming up with weird cocktails ideas, especially insert of aid age of neoliberal ascendancy, to be a sort of conservative catholic to tell people he was a monarchist, not that I ever did that, but hypothetically, let's, maybe somebody I knew maybe and you had sort of an environment for that a little bed you had little more of one by the Yale than at Harvard Cause. I bet, I think Harvard is actually a little more deeply technocratic than Yale these days and Yale has both. I think a stronger sort of left wing social justice presence, which you seen manifesto

last year to but also has more room for sort of weird right: re eccentrics through the Alps. oh union. These groups, like the party of the right and on and had gone to Yale, I would have been a party of the ride weirdo and there wasn't a party of the right at Harvard Times just weirdo and we should have had our own little group and we tongue out and drank and had big argue, It's about whether you were alive in nineteen thirties Europe. Would you be a fascist or communist because everybody was over had to be either and you know, and after seven, which would you have been? I can't answer that question, because I'm not twenty one and drunk as well, so it was sort of eight,

I sort of fun way to have a kind of weird micro identity, but it's been you know. It's more striking in journalism entered a professional journalism because there really is their journalism is to place where Europe should have expressing your opinions constantly, and I would say I have benefited professionally and certain ways from not being the kind of republican that a certain type of liberal wants to say that they like, because it's me it may seem distinctive and exotic and possibly worth publishing and arguing with. I guess, but I think something about the way you published and argue- and I know the skips ahead a little bit, but in the way that you publish and argue is it you are, I think, probably the best writer today, specifically at being able.

Talk to people who don't agree with you in a way that their willing to listen to you there that you do a really, I think, phenomenal, in your columns kind of granting points and abolishing a sort of shared set of premises from which can then have an argument for you. You, you often diverged quite sharply and am cares conscious. That is, if you see that as a style, how long you been developing lifestyle for, because there a lot of people who, I think think of themselves as persuasive writers and and- and sometimes I think, upon myself here, but are only persuasive. Two people already grew them are only good. It arguing in a way that people who share their premises can really here, whereas I think of you is action Having almost to the opposite specialty, I mean it is completely cultivated and conscious to that and where a new you will act? You know I like to say that I find myself rolling my eyes, sometimes at my own attempted tricks where it's like. While I can see these sort of meaningless points in order

will the illusion of common ground, which I will then you know, tear out from tear out from under but now I mean I look. I have spent my entire life surrounded by people who disagree. May not always and everywhere, but in high school in college and in my professional life I have almost always been an environment where I was one of the few conservatives in one of the fewer conservatives who had, as we ve been saying, my distinctive cocktail of ideas, and that means that, basically, in order to reap what I was just claiming, where the benefits of having distinctive cocktails ideas. I have to be able to express those ideas in ways that people who disagree with me: don't don't just ignore throw down the newspaper, I won't say: don't fire off an angry comment underneath my coms, because I am told that occasionally there are angry comments underneath my column who, by their maybe

on twitter to buy deadly donor there, but I heard about this thing called mentions on twitter, but I've I've never actually looked into it for summer. If you do not look at mentions now, I dont look at mentioned. looked at mentions unto her for four years that proud. I said he was very wise because it's all just me making cracks about utilitarianism invokes basically I'm sure it is said that all your men, I know your big utilitarian, a lotta alot of at mentions it Dylan, yeah, yeah, Yellow Matthew, R, r, r, chief utilitarianism correspondent. Yes, I think I think could be have. But no I mean. I know that sort of a interesting thing about them, like I do sort of manage by consumption of certain social media in a way that means that I'm not really using it s, sort of the truly social sense. I have a group of people. I follow on Twitter and I interact with that group of people in that group of people is not incredibly carefully who sit in fact reasonably care

Lee chosen in order to avoid set of solid riding myself mad, which we think it goes in. I think kill you in both ways. To I mean it's not like I said I think mentions can be. You know a channel of incredible, hey It can also be a channel of credible praise, of which I think neither is particularly healthy for one psyche be absorbing I'm getting addicted to that kind of people. You don't know saying nice things or people who have saint terrible things is pride not a great way to measure yourself worth on a minute by minute basis, ripen getting back to your sort of the original question. I am very aware that if I didn't write in the form that you sort of discerned me riding in debt, I wouldn't be a very good conservative calmness for the near times. I wouldn't be reaching the vast majority of the reader ship. I wouldn't be interesting to the vast majority of them

your ship, and I wouldn't be either serving my own ideas well or the you know, interests of the newspaper in having an interesting up ad calmness, so there's a sense in which you know I'd like I'd like to tell you that this. my deep high mindedness and commitment to dialogue at work, but it is also just as you know it's it's like everything in our profession, its careerists. I value my job at the times. I value my the opportunities that that affords, but in order to do that well. I have to maintain or try to maintain a sort of dialogue style in most and then occasionally- and hopefully it's this- makes it more effective, occasionally drop the dial logic style when you want to you, know really shocked people or or make them jump a little bit, but again should hopefully dropping that style for shock effect is a little more shocking when most of the time, you're being more measured and temperate and moderate and

to the degree that some of this is, as you say, a little calculated. Do you think that the work of it makes it easier in the other direction. Do you think the work of putting herself in the practice of saying, ok, here's what here's, where I consider the stand on shared ground of people. I don't will agree with do think. Putting in that practice so today today actually makes it easier for you to read and absorb and and hear ideas from from people do not agree with me. Do you think that you have ended up with a little bit more of an been channel of sort of inability. To in your mind, a bit more than the average call. Mr, do you think that that radiological core is of is unaffected by that effort? I don't know, I don't know how much I've checked my mind, like I change my mind, a lot on foreign policy, but that's Are you aware I dont have sort of particularly strong priors? I dont have sort of deep commitment to a world. Do so

You know it's easy to change your mind in areas where you dont have those kind of deep commitments and on this sort of issues that I am arguing with people about sort of most passionately. I do think I have a strong appreciation for the liberal world view broadly defined on most fronts, and I think that I understand it about us intimately, as an outsider can understand it. I'm not a hundred percent sure if that makes me more likely to change my mind on any particular issue, because obviously onset of the

core issues that define social conservatism or religious conservatism? Or what have you haven't changed my mind and I've been at the times for awhile and in this business for a while longer so if this kind of thing did lead to deep tectonic shifts, I'm assuming that it would have happened already in terms of sort of an issue like you know what is the optimal designed for a particular kind of anti poverty programme? I think that I am very open to changing my mind, that hopefully shows up in the writing. I do core the writers who, when you see their name, you will make a point to read them, like a lot of people. Now I sort of get my material through my curated twitter feed that actually shouldn't say like a lot of people. Now, probably now, all the cool kids are getting their information through whatever about China, peach riotous peach, the news that is that, where designer I need, the staff of vocs gets there

The commission is someone on my staff to do a peach explains. Why so that you can do it you're out what it is right now? This is that this is how I learned about possibilities. Are the genius of your job, as you had an accident, have explained to you in the editing process, so I have a lot of people. I follow up twitter and it's sort of a blend of campaign reporters a lot of my fellow up at columnists and and then a sort of set of opinion journalists from the wider world and you sort of use that as a filter. I guess it's sort of unknown and this is where it obviously can become a cocoon too, but you are sort of seeing what other people say is interesting men what you're looking for. I think that you know the model would be someone like Tyler Cowan whose always get cited in these kind of conversations, but right but deservedly- and I

still use his blog marginal revolution. For this I know blogs are sort of old school and pass it, but I gotta marginal revolution, because I know the other coming back. That one thing now is to lament blogs right now and I know how you ve gone back to them yeah. So then, yes, Tyler links to interesting things and having a certain number of people like that gives you. Basically, I think the supplement that you need to reading the New York Times and the Washington Post, that sort of thing. But then you know there are also certain areas of like. I write a lot about religion and particularly days, I write a lot about Catholicism. So there are five to ten people who write about the catholic church who I am reading, and then they in turn linked to other things in that form sort of my wider diet. But that means a sort of Vienna summit. Like John Alan who started

website for the Boston Globe. On the catholic church, I was reading John Alan before he was at the globe, and I read him now and he sort of one of my five or six conduit to all things. Catholic can there's a guy named Edward Pension at the National Catholic Register, we sort of the conservatives version of John Alan and then there's probably someone who's, the liberals version of John Alan and then there are some reporters. You know some european reporters and so on. So you do that on particular issues, and I mean you obviously know this well when the Obamacare debate is going on. You'll have five or six or Vienna, fifteen or twenty. However, many people who are writing about health care policy who you're reading while this is going on and then maybe you're reading them less. When that debate subsides a little bit so you probably Red Nicholas Bagley, nodding Roy a lot at certain men's and less and other moments right. So there is a certain amount of that too. I read them religiously, when you

everything is all right now, though, but you're you're you're definitely right about the way. One thing that I think twitter is really good for is spinning spinning down information stream, so, for instance, an exemplary for me as when you know we were in the red line debate about Syria. I kind of bill like a forty, five or fifty five person, twitter, feed or twitter, best of sources on Syria, some of them are foreign reporter. Some member people inside Syria, some of them were think tanker is some of them are foreign policy pundits and when that issue, Iraq's again, I tend to do so that back in rotation in and what its quieter, I tend to check it less yet, and then you also want. Will you also want to be able to pull back witches thing that our media age doesn't do very well. So one way to do that- and I don't always pull this off. But if you subscribe to, let's The London review books, the New Yorker view of books, the Claremont Review of books and now

be the allay review of books or something, and you make that party media diet. You are adding a Layer of distance from current events without sing all the way up to the level of reading all the one thousand page books are reviewed in those publications, but that's the kind of thing to that. I think really helps with column. Writing that you know this road is easiest. Call him to write, at least for me is the kind of raise whose up whose down column in presidential yeah. We feel about you. I do that in and prejudice and starting vocs. I will, I think that my writing has become it wasn't like more reactive, Tuesday, of the political news of the day. it's more about. You know what do people think of Donald Trump right now, because the truth is you can you can do that pretty easily, but you feel you feel a little bad about yourself. After Did the world really need? Another trump thought from us Fine, at any answers on world with trotted, I mean Trump- is such a gift to our industry

I don't think you can really that these kind of gifts- well, let's say hopefully don't come along every elect. Cycle but Wednesday night's when I, when I think about twenty twelve right versus this cycle, twenty twelve to cover the twenty twelve election. I think this was true for liberals to because Obama was running a kind of despair, during com, Romany, a murderer and promised to have not changed Obamacare and that's about it kind of campaign, but the the republican campaign was pretty awful to write about the debates for entertaining there are no real ideological stakes, and you had this parade of absurd candidate to clearly weren't gonna beat Mitt Romney, or I thought they clearly weren't going to and they didn't really representative clear factions or new directions for the party. They were just sort of variations on this kind of angry Anti Obama's em and and the general election campaign was basically Romney operating under the delusion that he could just win by not be Obama and promising to get the economy moving again

I'm a long, slow to come up with regular columns and takes on what was going on there can see. I disagree, whereas Trump ok well, given tat. Tell me I mean to me trump at I mean public inside if we end up with a Trump crews, Rubio race. This is deeply ideologically interesting. It represents clear, different divergent directions for the republican party. And trump himself is a new and fascinating. Thing in american politics and who is connected to developments in your and so on, and those developments are scary and many were he's an unfortunate normative in terms of something to write about it. Just a lot more interesting than Herman Gain and Michel Bachman- and you know, whatever the Obama Binders full of woman line of the moment, is gonna, be one hundred percent. Will you say about there being a fascinating question about directions and of open party and ensure himself just being an absolutely

diagonally bizarre interesting car crash of a human being, such candidates were clearly right about that approach. To call him right practically during campaigns is dead. I look for thing. They are getting a bit of attention, the kind of gaff of the day, try to use them to pivot two things I would prefer to write about instead and so what I found a twenty twond was because there was not one single story or one single personnel, lady there was quite so dominant. It was a very open field for writing about candidate policy plans. I mean I I think I look at the mid the debate over whether Mitt Romney tax plan could add up without raising taxes on the middle class, the whale Hata people to the child for me that was the best of times and what I found in this campaign, just from my sort of very parochial perspective on this, is then This story has remained very steady, the dominance of a couple

personalities and really primarily Trump has made. It seem almost ridiculous to write about policy proposals in a way- that's not true. Another campaigns me something about trumpet is, I think, a little bit implicit in the way. Many in the media cover him is that writing about trumps policies almost feel sick, a category error. Yes, I didn't, I didn't be pretty grass about saying that we should be taking candidates at face value that bit there's good political science evidence a candidate to try to follow their campaign? Promises writing about how trumps ten point five trillion dollar tax planned doesn't add up. I mean I don't think he thinks it adds up or frankly cares. Even if he does have an opinion one where the other way you're right Trump is a better story. Is no doubt about that anything can happen at twenty twelve. I think it's a store That in some way has. Changed

doesn't have a lot of information and throwing a lot of new information associated with it, and so it is a tremendous amount of coverage of it, but very little coverage in which anybody says anything new and so while I am riveted by Trump, I'm really pretty bored by most Trump coverage, which is is endless, variations of journalist can scratching their heads at this point to be like this. Could this fuckin thing really happen now yet now it is. I think that we did. There was and has been assertive. Sir of interesting waves of takes transferring the amount of fino argument generated by something like David from a cover story in the Atlantic about the roots of trumpets them. I think you can't get from Trump too, like deeply meaningful policy debates, but you can get from Trump two important socio, gold debates about America and american politics that have some impact on policy aiming withdrawal, It's a category are to parse his plans to see if there details all makes sense is not it.

The gory error to say it matters that Trump is currently anti immigration wants to rewrite trade deals wants to protect Medicare and Social Security and so on down a slightly longer list, all those things even of the deed, don't matter the fact that he staking out those positions, tells you something the fact that he's you know so against the Iraq war and boasts about being gets the Iraq war and on that saying those things and winning support in the republican primary and generally tells you interesting things about the future the Republican Party in the future of american politics. It's just yeah, you don't to have the debate about whether is tax plan adds up, but I do think I mean one. You shouldn't complain too much. You ve got me Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton are actually going.

Hundred per sign in, and we are having a debate about shadow banking right now. All right now I am no single payer. Hilary is absolute. Raillery just said: Nina Wizard of attacking single payer on this weird motives, you know devolving into the states basis so that their and once you get to the general election, unless its Trump TED Cruises staked out a very interesting tax plan. Basically, unlike any tax plan that Republican Domini has campaigned on before the Argo Rubio has a lot of policy ideas that he's not talking about right now, but will if he is actually the nominee and so on, so I wouldn't lose Hope Ezra. There is still no time for, and for you for you to have your moment of glory and something. I think that this has been an interesting demonstration of so be true, whether its tramper Rubio, cruiser or or whoever whomever else might might win. The election right do do think I didn't covered is really going to change, because I think that

fundamental story of the campaign. So far the fundamental animating motivating force of most coverage has been. Can this thing happen? and here is- I mean I was literally in the last call my road, but one was tat of tenders, thing happen and in one one frustrating thing about that. Is it if you write about what happens if this thing, actually Then you end up just in another argument about kindest thing happened. I mean there ve been having recently interesting debates between sort of Dave Waigel Nate. Sulphur we're silver argues that always giving too much coverage to trumpet just based on poles, which are not as predictive as many in the media want to to and why why glories appoint? I think It is in that I'm that I'm, I think, a bit more sympathetic to, which is that this is an important story there or not trump winds, but I think people are gonna, get more willing to kind of think through the possibilities of these outcomes. Once you know that the field of winners down to one or two or three people, which I think to some degree, it has

truth, if not in practice, and then much more so once we get a nominee because this will be, I think, even if its Rubio this point, this is gonna, be the sharpest ideological divergence between to me your party nominees and of in a really long time I mean, I think, the difference even between marker Rubio, Hillary Clinton, is significantly larger than the difference between Mitt Romney your John Mccain, Barack Obama's. Yes, I am naturally not one hundred percent sure. That's true. I think it depends on how much tat Rubio ends up evolving in reaction to Trump and crews and also how much weight you place on the plausibility of Rubio tax plan. Basically, Rubio Rubio domestic policy consists of a very implausible tax plan. That is extremely death.

that increasing, but then all the other stuff he's actually closer. I think to a certain kind of centre than Romney or Mccain. What he's his would be Obama CARE replacement, would expand health coverage much more than Romney's would have his social security reform plan is less a sort of less enamoured of pride Innovation and George W Bush is reform plan in you, you couldn't you could go down the list on Anti poverty, stuff and so on. Theirs, I think that he consciously move to the centre on domestic policy than on foreign policy. I think, if its Hilary against a mean again. If its Bernie Sanders against marker Rubio, you will have yes one of the clearest foreign policy distinctions, but if it's Hilary, verse ruby- I mean radios, very hawkish and he's probably slightly hawkish than Romney, but he's, more hawkish than Mccain Hilary comes from the more hawkish wing of her party. So I think that unless Rubio

takes on a lot more trump ism and even there I mean this is what's interesting. To is that you know talking earlier about this sort of idea of the moderate Republican. You know who sort of socially liberal and fiscally conservative, and so on that a lot of liberal start, our enamored Trump is a certain kind of moderate Republican he's, not the kind of model. publican that people thought they were dead, but he's a you know if use. If you strip out, The rhetoric around race and religion in his immigration stuff? And you you're about again the sort of ludicrous tax plan and so on. You have a guy who's running against republican Orthodoxy, on everything for entitlement to, in his rhetoric at least taxes to trade so on and and who is appealing to a mix of voters. That includes a lot of very hard right voters, but also includes a lot of pretty secular, northeastern economic Moderates and the army

it's part of! Why Trump is such a wild card in the primary is at his cold doesn't look like normal republican coalitions, so he's competitive with TED crews in the south and he'd be competitive, with Markka Ruby, our Chris Christie in the northeast and then he's not additive at all in the west and the high planes it's just sort of a strange dynamic. But again, if you had a Hilary versus Trump Race, it's not like TED crews. Ted crews gets you that sharp ideological contrast. I think TED crews gets you as close as we could get to a sort of Goldwater L B, J race, but Rubio. Doesn't and trump is just such so SUI generous that- and this is why Republicans a right to know the sort of smart Republicans like love. If he's a nominee, you know he'll he'll, say anything to get Elect, right, I can agree campaigning on conservative principles in August if, in order beat Hilary he needed to. You now turn out a different set of the electorate. I think

we'll be really interesting, whoever it is, but I dont know if you'll get that incredibly stark ideal. Contrast, sir, you are you. Do you find there can party right now congenial for you. What we really, I find it more convene congenial than I did and twenty twelve yes in a bunch of different centres. then, as I was saying earlier, in twenty twelve Romney ran the most can I all traditional republican campaign you can imagine his tax plan was the you know: assertive boring conventional republican tax plan than any recent book, a nominee could have run on he I mean I think you may have written this yourself. He didn't have that many polish Heath ideas in genoa. Another menus narrative was just you know: businesses, good doctrine, there are good me. No measures are bad. You know you didn't build that, and so on I mean it was just a very short of conventional pro business. Get America working again kind of Republican came

and then all the people running against him were just sort of ideologically empty and mostly motivated by various forms of sort of anti Obama zeal, and since I am someone who thought the Republican Party needed some new ideas and who had sort of sympathies with the populist wing of the party but thought it needed. Some more ideals consistency and so on. What's going on this time, around is much much more interesting and that the difficulty I have that my own views on foreign policy in domestic policy don't match up perfectly with the way the factions currently match up. So the sort of reform minded conservatives who lets say markka, Ruby, I was associated with on domestic policy, tend to be more a little bit too hawkish for my taste on foreign policy.

and I have a little more in common on foreign policy, with the sort of TED crews to ran Paul side of the party, which is more sceptical of nation building, more sceptical of sort of foreign occupations. So on, but that wing of the parties then a little bit more to libertarian and supportive stance. Gently limited government dish for my taste on domestic policy. In that sense, I struggle sometimes to sort of find the republican faction that I'm most perfectly aligned with or something but in terms of having ideas in the mix that I'm genuinely interested in it, the absence of sort of nitty gritty policy debate, I think this cycle has been really really interesting, and then that extends to two trump ISM, which is in a sense a response to the blue. our disillusionment with the Republican Party. That was the basis of the argument that right

Salaam, and I made and brand new party in a sense trump is basically a version of what what you get. If republicans don't address, the issue is that we were writing about right, bright, he's kind of the dark side of your the argument. Yes, absolute from the sound of a monster under the bed is a kind. You know we had this term that we stole from Temple plenty of all people, SAM's club, Republicans, right that the Republican Party is now more the Party of SAM's Club and the party of the country club. Well, Donald Trump is the dark face of SAM's club republicanism, but you can't just make that dark face go away by screaming fascist at it. You have to actually address the concerns and anxiety, then they are making a popular to go back to something said a second ago. Why do you think is Ivan I've been fascinated by this as well? What do you think this sort of conservative reformer movement, the sort of one that's begun, trying to think hard about? What do you do about poverty about that? Had he reform somebody social programmes? Why do you think that has kindest simultaneously trend it in

we're hawkish direction. Ah, that's a sort of interesting question, not a hundred percent sure of the answer. Some of it just has to do with The sort of sociology of technocracy. You might say that the kind of people who have a bias towards action in various forms maybe have that bias in foreign and domestic policy alike, the critique of warm conservatives from the right. Is that we're just sort of right wing social engineers who don't believe sufficiently in the power of liberty and whether that critique is fair or not? It does get it an important point, which is that reform conservatives tend to be conservative sued. Think government can do things and government policies can do things that make the country a better place.

and we should think about politics in those terms, sometimes, in addition to keeping in mind to do more, abstract concerns about individual liberty and and so on, and so when you translate that into foreign policy, it may be, isn't complete surprising that conservatives who are a little more comfortable with an active government at home are also more trouble with AY interventionist social. Generic abroad, again to use the sort of language of critique there This is why you know the sort of consistently libertarian position is consistently libertarian for real right, the idea that, while the government doesn't know enough to make things better,

and certainly doesn't know enough to make things better in Iraq. That is, I think, part of it and other part of it is that the there's assent in which some of the impetus behind reform conservatism is connected to the impetus behind compassionate conservatism, the sort of George W Bush version, and I think there are some important differences, or at least I would like there to be some important differences. Both of them are in part influenced by religious ideas, jewish, but especially christian, their sort of some influence of catholic social teaching. There some influence, assertive the social justice side of evangelical ism that you see in figures like my girls in the former bushmeat Writer, repeat: waiter, who now writes occasionally for that for the times so you have a sense of sort of the moral side of government programmes, public service and so on and that informs domestic. see, but again it also creates a more moralistic sensibility around foreign policy, with the idea of being you know if we care about-

happening in India in the inner city in the? U S, then we should also care about you what's happening that sea worse in Syria right now where we could do something about it. So that's that's part of it as well. I think, for my own part, I sort of at least claim some connection to the side of NEO conservatism. That was more sceptical of of certain idealism in foreign policy, and that means the sight of NEO conservatism that in the Sixtys and Seventys said well, look. We aren't anti new deal sensitive, but we don't think a lot of these. So liberal social programmes are working that well, and you know here's what we should do instead, that side of NEO can It is also looked at, sometimes at certain effects. If U S, interventionism oversell We also need this immense on and made a similar critique and foreign policies. I do

Think I dont think my own worldview is entirely inconsistent and I think it's possible to occupy this space and sort of modest sceptic. In both places, but I think there are reasons why it doesn't fall out that way for most people Do you think there are the sort of republican politicians or even sort of republican figures right now who continue to embody that kind of skeptical, NEO conservatism, I would say likely of you tat- is the closest figure to my own worldview that exists in America. american politics right now and Lee has we mean he cosponsor Marguerite Ceos tax plan ease done, a lot of work with Rubio on domestic policy? That he's also a little more libertarian around issues of national security he's a sort of generally a little more sceptical of overseas intervention but let me let me by using Skype, which is it besides. I agree that

Lee is certainly one of the most interesting republican officeholders right now and an end today, he's up for those who do not meet a member of the who sort of a key party. Senator became a member of the republican Senate. Leadership has a complicated relationship with some of the more stably meant guard about really become. I think, I'm a real thought later Leah, Liner, yeah yeah, but- What I think is interesting about him and I think it's interesting about Ryan and some of the others is it there is strain of conservatism, which has very sceptical of government action of one of the sort of unintended consequences, is kind of skeptical neoconservative that you are you're referencing a couple

to go and then a lot of the players who, I think, lay some claimed that lineage have these extremely aggressive, ambitious multiparty plans. I mean the the Lee Rubio tax plan, which we don't need to go into into credibility, tellin here, but it's a complex big tax plan, of which there will be a lot of affects many of them. I think really unpredictable cause. A lot of other does is really quite new Rhine is that way to Lee has really a raft of policies on it in different areas, and it always strikes me that there is a kind of strain of thought that assembled Hany so sceptical of a certain kind of government action and then so confident in its own ability to create more philosophical, conservative replacements of similar levels of technical complexity. There's airbus confidence. They will do with their authors, believe they should do yeah. I think that's a fair critique of a lot. A lot of conservative policy thought yes, but it gets

rose, I think, to the perpetual dilemma of conservatives in modern american society, which is that conservatives participate in a government and attempt to manage and reform a welfare state that was built by their and our enemies. Basically, every major government programme, as liberals are want to point out, because many of those programmes are popular were passed by democratic president and the exceptions were passed by Richard Nixon when he was sort of governing. As this clause I custodian of the new deal. The dilemma for conservatives is always this tension between the sort of small seaside of conservatism, which Basically would say these programmes exist. They have their problems, but they were in a reasonably well in some cases, worse and others, but you can't sort of tear them up and start afresh, because that would be on small see concern.

And then the sort of more ideological side of conservatism which says no. These programmes were built by our enemy is right hand. You know we should not be prison by the vision of Wilson, Sdr and I'll be J? And what I say, I guess in defensive old fashioned, NEO conservatives and modern reform, conservatism, and so on is that there is an attempt to sort of find a sweet spot in between you sort of in between this sort of idea that you're, just the tax collector for the welfare state to use the line Gingrich used against, dull. But you are also not people who think you're gonna have a Supreme court justice invalidate the entire new deal tomorrow then returned to the nineteen twenty seven status quo ante right till you're, you're sort of accepting a lot of the basic parameters of the way.

First aid right, an eminent we don't have to get into the weeds, but the Lee Rubio tax plan, while it blows a huge hole in the deficit, and that I do think is a big problem. It accepts the progressive income tax, for instance, as a feature of it. You know it changes the tax brackets and so on, but it accepts the progressive income tax as the basic feature of our tax code. It accepts and expand the child tax credits as a mechanism for sort of pro family, too its policy and so on, and then the most radical thing it does is around corporate investment taxes. But even there, you're, not not as radical as TED Cruises, ran Paul's tax plan, which are much more in the vein of sort of tear up the income tax code, get rid of progressive taxation, implement a flat tax and vat. Basically daddy's deserve more radical version. So essentially, Rubio is true.

to be somewhere in between this sort of go along to get along republicanism. But Bedloe you D, overheated window is really moved on tax plans and the Republican Party. Well, in a sense I mean what I guess. My question is what is what's wrong call badly and Ruby S plan is that it expands the deficit so much in terms of its actual design. It doesn't strike me as that radical, it's just a question of sort of where Europe setting the rate, but in so undemocratic darning, zeroing out capital gains, but that doesn't even have the biggest fiscal impact I know to argue this is a problematic to step in a sort of conservative policy thought right now, which is that I don't think conservatives Republicans in general, are taking the deficit impact, what it means to increase the deficit really seriously. One of the estimates, I think, is the seven trillion arranged for the deficit impact and when you talk about what it would look like to do seven trillion dollars worth of key.

in order to put in order to back them up, and then you can look at they're, not gonna. U seven emulate! The question here is how much debt can we I would not whatever it was: something happens, overtime right and not enough of this question of what is the long run in what is a short run on it, but I do think, though, is kind of those those effects actually get kind, Significant right I mean I, I do think it becomes this kind of thing where there is very little. That is, all that radical, if you don't have to pay for it and once you pay for it then kind of the really hard tradeoffs where we have to do things we haven't really done before, as we haven't tried to pay for seven trillion, dollar tax but before, I think of you, if you try to write that out and really right down the other side of the ledger, it would feel different, and I mean you sick venture. The second go. Well, you can for the dead and look like I'm actually not a huge deficit hawk by any means

but it was not very long ago that Republicans felt that much smaller policies it would increase the dead were putting us on a fiscal path that was incredibly Ratan, right and incredibly dangerous sing and a rising tide of red ink, and you know I think that Romney put it only inches away from losing a free enterprise system and and and they're all these, then that was very radical and then and then we should move to displace right now, their republican Party, where that kind of gets, I think the smart folks, like you say, don't worry, it's not gonna happen But no, I don't. I am happy that we I'd say it's unlikely to happen in that form. I dont think one should at all underestimate the capacity of the Republican Party to return, to Reagan era and bushy era, deficits, don't matter policymaking shore, when they're back in power. I think that that is the nature of the republican parties, institutional response to the dilemma. How you know, how do you be a low tax party when you have this welfare state, an aging society, and so on then answer? Is you run higher deaf?

It's an then when Democrats are in power, you attacked them for running overly high deficits. I think that there are ways to sort of square that circle, but not with the Rubio tax plan, as it currently exists. Now I think the dad Dad tax plan is yes, is in deep and obvious tension with the rhetoric that Republicans used against Obama in twenty ten and twenty eleven. Absolutely so I want to be respectful every time, but I do want to get over the Democratic party fur for a couple of minutes work as you wrote a column before the democratic primary kicked off in earnest which I thought a lot about, since you rode at which, in the argument you made with the Democratic Party, is headed for a kind of internal ideological war that its,

coalition. That does not have a deep philosophical underpinning right now and is being held together by personalities and in this case, particularly by Hillary Clinton, and I'm curious. How sort of subsequent events have altered or confirmed that for you I mean, I think that one when it when I think about that, I do not think Hillary Clinton has been a tremendously emotionally unifying figure. For Democrats, I think Santos has been stronger than young people. Expect has been more kind of desire for alternatives. Then I think was obvious when you wrote that, on the other hand, I do think that you're, seeing some real evidence of of radiological tension and all kind of real question about where you go next and and and where you go next in a world where Democrats don't expect to hold Congress anytime soon, some carriageway what you're update on that is. yeah I mean I would say that, like most people, I underestimated Bernie Sanders overall appeal a little bit, but

I also wrote that calm before the email, revelations really broke out, I wrote a later column, afterward still saying that I thought it would be the nominee ensigns. I'm still I'm still on the hook for that and for that prediction, but I will say that I yeah, I should have expected- maybe but didn't completely- expect how quickly this sort of old, clean, tony in stench of impropriety, He would rise around her campaign and I think that that has made a big difference among the cohort dead is sort of leaning towards Sanders, which tend to be young white, politically idealistic they're, not particularly enamoured of a sort of transactional model politics which, when you have a sort of this, you now again this sort of waft of scandal, an impropriety. Your

ACT that transactional model so yeah? In that sense, I think Hilary was looks a little less unifying than when I wrote that it with that being said. I do also think that the Sanders vote. It's not primarily voters who dislike Hillary Clinton. its voters who wanted an alternative who I want to touch the party to the left in certain ways who want a sort of pure alternative, ethically pure alternative and others, and I think that the Sanders vote I feel very comfortable rallying round Hillary Clinton. When all is said and done, that is, I don't think this Fisher between Sanderson Clinton is exactly the kind of Fisher. That I had in mind of dividing the Democratic Party in the longer run. I couldn't I could be wrong. Did you say that Fisher. That sort of deep radiological fisher still present. Third, or do you think that the party us just

furthermore, united or less concerned with its disagreements, then I think that it added fish is more based on, and I mean it exists in Sanders versus Clinton You know Hilary is relying on her support from Hispanics. An african Americans deserve put Sanders away right and this Fisher. There is it's a demographic fish. I'd, say, did certain ways more than ideological Fisher, though the Democratic Party is trying to hold together very different demographics demographic said have a lot less in common with each other. logically culturally geographically in terms of income in education, then, I think, is always typical of political parties, and you know the Republican Party, for all its divisions, has a more should have co here. Demographic core now that coherent demographic core is itself a problem right all you know because it shrinking and so on. All you know, there's no, no, please

no party is ever sort of imperfect shape forever, but that the challenge for the Democrats, in the long run it is, can you be the party of sort of the liberal rich, the young white left Wing Sanders vote. And the party of this sort of complicated multicultural America that emerging, especially in the south and West, I dont think, were actually seeing those stresses in full all? Yet you know people like disable what you know. What does the? What does the report? What is the democratic version of Donald Trump look like is Bernie Sanders the democratic version of Donald Trump and the answer is no- that democratic version of Donald Trump would be. Someone who could harness

African you no Jesse Jackson was the closest to this in the eighties right. At some point you have another Jesse Jackson, except the Rainbow Coalition, will be a whole lot larger and will include some piece of the voters to are currently supporting Sanders. It's that asked no cultural Fisher that I think is the biggest challenge for the Democrats going forward, and I dont think the old wide socialist versus The younger white former NEO Liberal, now set of more comfortably left wing and ever was really liberal. Anyway, Hillary Clinton, I dont, think the centres Clinton Fisher really opens up. The deeper divisions in the party Do you think that, within this sort of possibly that Ethno Cultural Fisher is at an issues in interest these Fisher. Are you thinking about is kind of more about tone and identity right I mean: are you saying that think it's in there or be something that black lives matter wants that really offends a kind of

Look on Valley rich, or are you saying that both? I think that its I think issue based disagreements become much more? and when their driven by identity underneath and again, that's why I don't think the Hilary versus Bernie Race is going to be that angry, but I think that a different kind of race could and yet black lives matters want something I mean one. It want something that offend. Yet this sort of Silicon Valley, liberal, rich, or want something that offend the chunk of white blue collar voters. That Democrats still need to win elections right in that trunk is shrinking, but they still do need those Voters and an hour: it's not black, lives matter at something around immigration or adds something around social policy. You can, you know you can get. Tensions are ultimately around religious and cultural issues between

hardy sectors, dominated the elite level by white, social liberals and a party at the grassroots level. That's a lot more religious omitted, the democratic parties. Religious cleavage doesn't show up in national politics that much, but in terms of culture difference its immense, and I just always wonder how long that conservative. a non issue, basically that you have this extremely secular party elite and extremely secular. Her class and then your relying on the most religious population in the country. For your votes and again, you This all the time in the rubble can party where you have. This would have rebellions of the religious right with my cock, a in you now and now you have the rebellion of the white Working Class with Trump imagine a future where you have democratic primary candidate embody different kinds of revolts than just the one.

Says embodying that are more assertive driven by ethnic interests, racial interest and those kind of divergences. That's the long term accurate that I think Democrats should be more worried about than what's going on right now, I'm trying to think of a good, subway out of that, but for that either I think that actually I find that convinced What am I mean? I see them out and out using this happening in Europe right right now in interesting ways to ride where this sort of parties of the left are trying to figure out. They rely in certain cases increasingly on immigrant votes on muslim immigrants votes. But then you know in France, the parties of the left are losing core supporters to basically the fray, his equivalent of Donald Trump, a you know you. I think this is a case for white Trump is more electable away than TED crews were alighting arising from eating trio's more electable. Me too, I think, he's also Trump good luck. Was by a lot more than tat crooks giant. That's all

are you? Ok, you lose by ten points or but he's also more likely to somehow win. Yes, I do it within the Democratic Party, one of the very interesting things it as has changed in it is that it has become on an increasing per annum part of democratic identity to be to be cosmopolitan cover, a certain sort of attitude towards America's a melting pot is really interesting. Research begun it Michael Tesla, who is kind of looked at the wheel on racial controversies have become polarized among partisan lines. in a way I didn't realize had not been true before so. If you look at democratic republican attitude, two on the Oj Simpson Verdict or the Bernard gets shooting in in New York, though, which were both in a very kind of racial ized stories? There is no real difference between republican, undemocratic opinions on them. If you look at Republicans and Democrats on Georgia, Zimmermann or even

whether twelve years a slave should have won an Oscar, you see these huge, huge, huge differences on these issues at the parties really hadn't, hadn't take their own positions on right. There is not a political controversy over twelve years, a slave and and whether it should have won an Oscar, and I think one thing that has been an interesting effort. or or should a trend in the Democratic Party that speaks to what you're talking about, as it has become a much broader idea that to be a democratic bill, you no part of our coalition. In this time, part of the identity has been made of the twelve save should when the Oscar that the unit George Zimmermann, should be viewed. His defence should be viewed extremely scheme Finally, and I think the question for me when I think about the kind of scenario you are laying out here is what is the kind of candidate? What is the kinds of issues that, as opposed to building that solidarity breaks it apart.

Does that mean Agnes and it s been a cat come up with a million you need, you need a catalyst, but that's a candidate who take an obvious to take an obvious example. If you got a few years of trends that look like the crime rate trends in Baltimore and Saint Louis, for instance, you would have some the emergence of some real tensions between white rules, for whom, it very easy to say. I want twelve years a slave to invest picture, but for whom it a lot harder to say support. Black lives matters when there are five extra muggings down the street from my gentrifying neighbourhood, which it you know, which is not to say that the note which is the old tension, the Democratic Party to yes but bright and crime was a big split right by Diana was added. But then, interestingly, it was a split between the sort of Democrats, old white working class. our bureau New York or something and that white working class basis both should have gone from the demo.

Party in certain ways, not completely, as I said before, but in certain ways, but also doesn't live in those cities. A more where you know this and a modern blue city is very polarized by class and and by race right and it all sort of hold together to some extent but you know you can see it. You know in the Black Sea area in New York. There attentions I mean I just moved out of Washington DC, but I lived in Washington DC until recently and the implicit tension in our Capitol Hill neighbourhood. Around schools, an edge Asian and then just as I was leaving, there is a sudden Capitol Hill crime wave. Basically, I think tum until my colleague at the times wrote about a bit detentions, they're they're, not pervasive as long as sort of everything's going along reasonably well, but when it doesn't, then they come out, and I dont know how this plays out in national politics

you know in the end. You still have you the against the hated republican and general action, but I can see it playing out in democratic presidential campaign to come. Bernie Sanders again, it sort of he's a weird figure crises from Rina, rural White, bond he's so he's not at all. I mean black lives matter protested his event, but if it were a bill block zero figure running against Hillary Clinton, you would have again very different debates going on. I think the thing that makes sense. Thank you very much, with I'm absolutely thank you so much as it was a pleasure, those Rostov I really hope you enjoy that interview as a as I mentioned before, Adobe more of these two com, please email me at weeds talks, dot com with your feedback, your ideas for future. Guess you'd like a here, and you thought you have about. format or even regular questions. I could ask that you would find to be really interesting. I want to thank patently

work. The networking carries a visa wanna thank my producer, Ac Valdez and, of course, Ross who Caymans. a lot of time is really really thought boy in this discussion. So thanks again puppy here on this and look forward to more common sense.