Donald Trump and Conservative Intellectuals

from Washington DC a city still rubbing its eyes in complete and utter disbelief - superb journalists on the shock of Donald Trump matthew cottan Eddie and Andrew Ferguson on uncommon knowledge now welcome to uncommon knowledge I'm Peter Robinson a graduate of Columbia University Matthew Conte metias editor-in-chief of the Washington free beacon a graduate of Occidental College who also studied theology at Berkeley Andrew Ferguson is the author of a number of books including crazy you won dads crash course in getting his kid into college and he is a senior editor of The Weekly Standard Andy Matt welcome thank you Peter on election night David Remnick the editor-in-chief of The New Yorker quote this is on the New Yorkers web site hours after Donald Trump becomes the winner quote the election of Donald Trump to the presidency is nothing less than a tragedy for the American Republic a tragedy for the Constitution and a triumph for the forces at home and abroad of nativism authoritarianism misogyny and racism it is impossible to react to this moment with anything less than revulsion and profound anxiety close quote he was drunk it was 4:00 in the morning sugar watching TV and he clearly wasn't in the free beacon his offices that race although everybody there was director okay so that's just so over the top we put it aside yes well I think we shouldn't put it aside because it represents the opinion of most of the media most of Hollywood most of New York most of the religious establishment most of the elite and how much of this town quite almost 80 85 percent I say of Washington DC okay and wife is shocked why look-the I was watching the polls as much as anybody else that looked as though Hillary Clinton was going to win but at his worst moments after the convention at his worst moments when he was attacking that poor soldier who dubbed poor Muslim soldier who died fighting for this country his support was still around 40% over a third to two fifths of Americans supported him even in his worst moments why didn't anybody see this coming Andrew well there are a few people who did Sean trendy at RealClearPolitics who's one of the best analysts of political trends there is hence the name I guess is he saw it and a few people who were just dismissed as cranks saw it I thought I thought they were cranks I mean it just it just seemed inconceivable to me and I think what I did that I should what I didn't do that I should have done it was to underestimate how badly people felt about Hillary Clinton and I still think that if we're putting a positive spin on what Trump represents and all that stuff it really was a strong anti Hillary boat it just sort of they'd seen enough of this woman for the last 25 years they couldn't stand her hectoring from the podium for another four years and that there was a strong motivation for a lot of people and a strong anti Obama vote as well to what extent is this a repudiation of the Obama agenda I think it's an incredible repudiation of Obama but not necessarily in the way the media thinks it is I actually think Trump positively won the election there was clearly a negative judgment on Hillary but there's also a negative judgment on Trump and Americans knew who they were voting for and the reason I think that he won in the end was was that he won the economic issue Hillary Clinton if you go back into her campaign Hillary's campaign was very well conceived in order to hold the Obama coalition that put him in the White House twice and it was based on the theory that it was libera all social issues that drove Obama's victory and playing identity politics by getting the right number of african-american voters the right number of Hispanic voters right number of LGBTQ voters the right number of Women Voters you will be able to assemble a permanent Democratic lock there was one thing missing issues and despite her reputation as this policy wonk if you go back and you look at Hillary Clinton's speeches she barely raised economic issues she was in a problem there was a reason she didn't want to raise them it was because she had to somehow find a way to repute it to separate herself from the incumbent be the agent of change she decided I'm not going to do that all I'm going to do is run a negative campaign on Donald Trump in order to get out my favorite constituencies meanwhile Trump was going to his stakes and he was hammering the economic issue not in a way that made Republicans feel comfortable but in a way that definitely brought out enough voters to swing those states that Republicans haven't won in decades okay Andy Ferguson in the Weekly Standard quote one of the weirder aspects of the anti Trump mania is it's sniffy tone explained that Andrew um well you know it's well-documented to disdain the elites is we say feel for Trump pose as a candidate and now is the president-elect but which struck me as odd is it's clearly a class-based contempt and that a lot of the same people who had this class-based contempt of Trump are also the people who have really been responsible for the kind of cultural vulgarity that's started to infuse the country you know two generations ago you know Hollywood people TV people the news media you know were to the point where Beyonce can talk about Monica Lewinsky all over her dress and then she gets invited to the White House and is fetid as you know America's chanteuse there's countless examples of just vulgarity and a dumbing down I think is the word that that some people have used and they refuse to take responsibility for it especially when Donald Trump is also taking advantage of that he's vulgar he's materialistic he uses bad language in public he's been married many times he's famous as a sexual libertine and so on and so on and so on he actually fits very nicely into the culture that the elites have created so your point is that the universities the mainstream media Hollywood all these culture making institutions have been in the hands of the Liberals and the left for half a century and they have created a culture in which Donald Trump could flourish yeah and I think nobody wants to say that certainly the elites don't want to take any credit for him and the people who are really and I'd like to point out it's not my thought it's yours yes and I think of course the people who love Trump see him is sort of an eruption of you know the true American character championing little guy and economic populism and all that kind of stuff my view of Trump has been mostly aesthetic and that's my objection to him is mostly aesthetic and but looked at aesthetically as a cultural figure he fits in perfectly with the culture that liberal Democrats have created over the last 40 or 50 years how we got here Matt in a recent article in the Washington free beacon you described the 1978 debate over the Panama Canal treaty between Ronald Reagan and William F Buckley Jr Buckley was in favor of the treaty which did of course pass in 79 as I recall and Ronald Reagan was against it and you write a replay of the controversy over the Panama Canal treaty is exactly what the American right has been experiencing over the last 16 months explain that well what the American rights it has been experiencing is the perennial conflict between its intellectual wing which is very small and its populist wing which is very large and as you study the history of American conservatism you see from the very beginning a really debate about how acclimated to the establishment should the conservative movement be and so figures like Buckley and one of his mentor's James Burnham were always more open to the idea of creating kind of a conservative counter elite that could take over the government as opposed to people like say the activist Richard Vickery the founders of the Heritage Foundation the creators of things like Nick PAC Phyllis Schlafly Patrick mccannon were always very much for grassroots populist right that rather than move into the court as a power would knock them over and so you saw that in the debate over the Panama Canal you saw them in the perennial debate over the Goldwater in rockefeller wings of the Republican Party you saw it about the place of Patrick Buchanan in the Republican Party in the 90s we took a whole decade to figure out whether Pett was part of the party or not and that emerged once again in a way none of us really expected with the rise of Donald Trump and of course the decision that the voters made was to reject the conservative intellectuals in favor of the grassroots populism that Trump now champions you write that Trump's antagonism toward the eastern establishment is obvious and I guess it is obvious but isn't it also puzzling Donald Trump born rich in a nice neighborhood in Queens makes money all his life moving into an even nicer neighborhood in Manhattan and now living in the penthouse of a building he himself built and he went to the University of Pennsylvania which is after all an Ivy League institution the best the best the best buy yes the best school to hear him tell it he has the best words tony has let me erase it yeah and so another question why is this man antagonistic toward the establishment of which he is in so many ways a representative I would say it's not that unique I mean obviously Franklin Delano Roosevelt was called a traitor to his class for for being a blueblood member the New York aristocracy and yet leading in some ways a popular it not quite as populist to some of the other currents going on in oppression but very much the champion of the Forgotten man and if you look at the rhetoric coming out of Trump Tower especially in the week since this election it's all about the Forgotten man so you find populist movements are often led by elites who are they using it cynically the this populist fervor are they in genuine accordance with its goals its sometimes it can be hard to that you make a really you make an interest to put it up until the election of Donald Trump didn't it used to be an unwritten rule of American politics that a rich polished urbane candidate could only get away with it if he ran from the left the Roosevelt's an ancient American family franklin roosevelt born to great wealth and he gets away with it because he runs against his own class the Kennedys the Kennedys were not as liberal as Kennedys are these days but John Kennedy still he's running for the common man and Donald Trump wealthy figure stands up and says I don't pay taxes I'm rich I get that I figure out how to use the text it's the most amazing thing he's running to the right as a rich establishment figure but that's because the establishment is now on the left I mean when when Roosevelt was running and you wanted to be anti-establishment ie populist you had to run to the left I I don't really quite see Trump as part of the eastern elite you know even with the University of Pennsylvania no people have tried to turn him into that but if you look through his life he's always been slightly you know low class I mean people didn't he was tabloid fodder he was the kind of guy who would actually do a reality TV show now people like say David Remnick or Graydon Carter or Barry Diller or any of those sort of heads of the elite classes that's just so vulgar and so it's not quite like it felt looming out of know so can I let me push that a little bit further so given the place where he started and giving the education that he had Donald Trump could have assimilated into the very the elite of Manhattan with the greatest of ease he had the education he had the money if only he wouldn't wear those bright red ties if only he'd have his suits better tailored if only do you see what I had a brain transplant III had entree of relish shines my relishes the chooses it yeah a sense of being on the outside now I should say also two particular kind of vulgarity that that the elites disdain I mean they're quite happy with you know I mentioned Beyonce or quite happy with all kinds of vulgarity but it's it's this kind of low-rent vulgarity that they can't remember one of the words that Trump supporters often used when they were explaining why they were for him even in the Republican primaries is because he was politically incorrect right which is another way of saying you're ill-mannered which is something I think Donald Trump has always been one of the most revealing quotes that Trump himself has said came in in a 15 bit biography that came out about him where he told the biographer it was quite frank who said basically I have I'm like a six year old boy and it's very true Trump can be impulsive he can change his mind he's can be rude he's but he's also very frank and he can posture and that is basically what you encounter in a playground and so it is despite his wealth and despite what you would imagine to be his prominence in New York society he doesn't have the manners he is not politically correct and I think for that reason he's always been as andy says kind of on the margins right right so Trump and conservatives once again I'm quoting you Matt the triumph of populism has left conservatism marooned confused uncertain depressed anxious and searching for viability close quote Andrew cheer I'm up can't do it Peter you can't No well you know you're gonna try I'll give it a try fellas this man hasn't even taken office yet the markets have set new highs the Europeans are talking seriously for the first time in decades about actually chipping in to NATO what NATO requires them to chip in Republicans on the hill are unified and the forces of political correctness those commanding heights of the culture the universities the mainstream media are everywhere confused and off-balance and on the defensive and there's an argument to be made that even though he has yet to take office Donald Trump has accomplished more for conservatives than any president since Ronald Reagan yes Matthew I don't know if I'd go that far but I do a little bit of no no why would you I've always thought that Trump had the potential to be actually a great president oh it doesn't mean he'd be great for the conservative intellectual movement and so they're all the things that you in your catalog Peter I agree with and I again I I could either well it's gonna either end very badly or very well for Trump and for the Republicans into the country but when you think about the self conception of conservative intellectuals who thought that basically the movement started by Buckley and chambers in Birnam sixty years ago was this flourishing intellectual tendency that had real purchase among the among the country at large what I think the campaign revealed is that's not true and that in fact even the ideas have grown stale and so when I talk about conservatism where it's left in this election I'm meaning kind of the people who work a think tanks people who work at a journals and the people who kind of fancy themselves conservative intellectuals I think they're the ones who are kind of looking back now and saying what happened yeah it's a bit but you know we are such a tiny tiny part of even the Washington establishment um the it's true that we were all under the delusion that people had been reading James Burnham the way we had or you know it had made Buckley as much of an icon as as many of us had if Trump succeeds but what mottely wanted to do was the march through the institution's right as the left head down it's almost like a thing aping the left the institution that he was able to take over maybe the only one over people like him was the Republican Party and so you have now something that Trump can take advantage of and I think we're seeing in these early appointments is taking advantage of there's a great bench strength there's a lot of diversity even the kind of diversity that they love on college campuses and ethnic and racial diversity there's a tremendous amount of competence that he can draw on and if he is going to be a successful president or a great president it's going to be because the conservative intellectuals took over the Republican Party and turned it into something quite substantial and productive got it got it so all right look at cheers me up yeah well this actually Andy and I talked about the I'm revealing this you this is really a therapy session for you usually I don't go to Andy when I want to but you know then uh listen kind of a lightning round through the issues here I'm just going to name a few issues and the question is really pretty simple is Trump going to stick with what he said he was going to do or was that a negotiating position so while the economy he's called for tax cuts and regulatory reform pro-growth he's also called for a trillion dollar infrastructure program and for all kinds of protection who shows up on January 20th the tax cutting pro-growth president or the big government protectionist both and that's why it's still hard to understand Donald Trump both will show up and you ask whether he means it or whether it's a negotiating position it's all a negotiating position nothing is settled until he decides it so it's kind of fun to be in the parlor game in Washington DC that we've been experiencing since his election where we say oh look at all the people going in and out of Trump Tower who is he going to pick he had dinner with Mitt Romney nothing matters until he finally pulls the trigger and names these people to office and it's the same way with these policies nothing will matter until the policy is actually signed into law at his desk and then of course it will become the best policy ever but so that's that goes back to Andy's point if both Trump's show up then it becomes extremely important the concrete realities on the hill what committee hearings are ready and that is why it's a kind of miracle he just named Tom Price congressman from Georgia to be the HHS Secretary Tom Price is a physician himself and he spent the last six years doing what figuring out detail by detail by detail how legislation can be enacted that really will repeal and replace Obamacare Trump comes along huffing and puffing and this guy actually knows how to do it grab him that's important in a sense I think the premise of your question is wrong in that there really are two Trump's that there are two Trump's rhetorically he's clearly a guy who will say damn near anything any time but free trade is a perfect example the power of talking and scaring people really is enough to change the lay of the land by himself just by itself you know the famous story about I believe it was Shultz it wasn't George Shultz was someone else in the Reagan White House and said you know mr. president if we go out and say that it'll don't think we're crazy Russians wound and he said we'll just tell them you think you're working for a crazy son-of-a-bitch right and I will knit that fullness Paul Nets it yeah so I think that Trump has that kind of advantage I mean everybody is off balance the Republicans establishment is off balance as you say the Democrats are scattered all over the place all he really has to do is kind of beat his chest and a lot of things will get done even though he's not precisely doing them that I think fantastic news in the paper today is that carrier the air conditioning air conditioning company from Indiana is actually going to keep them announced they're going to keep a bunch of jobs here that didn't require the legislation it required them wanting to get on the good side of the president who talks tough foreign policy if you were the Prime Minister of Israel do you feel better now yes I think they do feel better you'd agree with Israel yes absolutely if you were the prime minister of Estonia would you feel better now no no I wouldn't say question I'd be asking the question it as the answer I'd be worried okay Supreme Court will he stick to the list of 21 he put together two lists one of 10 one of 11 all according to all the constitutionalists i talked to every single name on that list is a very reputable name and truly would fulfill the commitment to appoint someone in the mold of Antonin Scalia will he do it for this appointment he'll stick to the list the problem becomes an appointments 2 & 3 & what the lay of the land is when those seats open up on the Supreme Court but for this one he made the Trump made many promises I spent a recent day going through his major speeches over the course of the campaign and what struck me was how substantive they were and I'm not kidding there were there was something like 30 different policies outlined in the course of this campaign did we did we hear any of them no because it was all again this is Trump it was all focused on everything else that he does but the people those rallies hurt them and so I think just look the first duty of any politician is to get reelected and how do you get reelected well the first thing you have to do is to fulfill as many of your campaign pledges as you can so on the Supreme Court yes he'll pick someone of the 21 okay and the abortion the guy one of the places as best I can tell there wasn't any nuance no wiggle no backing off no well maybe I'll think about it again later which trade his position is 20 different places on tax reform it's 20 different places and even though earlier in his life he was pro-choice at various points throughout this campaign he has been in move ibly pro-life what's he doing does he get credit for that well I don't I think it is still the old axiom is still true you it is a pro-life party you can't be nominated in the Republican Party for president without being pro-life I mean I'm very happy about that but but I think it's just a fact you know it it's interesting though and I think quite telling if you compare his view of abortion in which he says look we want to overturn roe v wade and make it a matter for the states to decide and then they ask about gay marriage which was decided in a decision actually quite a bit like roe v wade and it's outlines and it's taking on power from the federal government he says you know this is settled off we're not I you know the Supreme Court said what I'm not going to do anything about so he's clearly got a sensitivity to lots of different constituencies and he's decided I guess that that's just not a fight worth picking alright Donald Trump and Richard Nixon Andrew in an article entitled what Trump can learn from Nixon you wrote no matter who ends up Manning the White House staff it will matter less than we think how can that be this entire town is obsessed with who's going to get what job in this coming administration how can this all matter less than we think well because it's actually very hard to get things done partly through the government partly it's by design because you have power decentralized throughout the government or you're supposed to part of it it's through the incompetence of the bureaucracy part of it is people trying to cover their rear ends and in a the example that I cite you can take up any Washington White House Washington memoir and find other examples of Richard Nixon trying to get some ugly old buildings that were on the National Mall removed and he said within the I think the first six months of his presidency I want to get that get those out of there temporary naval offices constructed in nineteen 18 and even Brearley and even half-century before Nixon yet took office right and so Nixon gave the order the order went out through his chief of staff the order filtered out a year and a half the things are still there and Nixon just hits the roof finally through threats he actually threatened to demote the Admiral who was headline Authority for taking down the buildings and through a leaked story to the Washington Post which makes it even perfect they were actually torn down and the day they were gone Nixon called up his John Ehrlichman his aide who had been responsible for this and said you know finally we got something done and it was just a matter of taking down 15 buildings for the National Mall but he finally had a sense of authority because he got to do that okay so this is supposed to be reassuring for us reassuring conservative it's very reassuring to me that the government can't do a lot of things right as Ronald Reagan used to say be grateful you don't get all the government you pay for it haha so one thing the president-elect will be able to do is already seems to be doing is change his relationship of the presidency with the media right so 49 seats in the White House press room almost all of them go to what we now call legacy legacy institution newspapers and whoever the next press secretary can be contain oh no what washington post out washington free beacon in Drudge gets a seat did you hear that left the press conferences we won't have any more of those the president United States when he has a point to make he'll tweet and when he has a series of points to make he will release the video to YouTube this will be a new world correct or not partly partly Trump has a very complicated relationship with the press and it was revealed after his election with his relationship with the New York Times remember there was these negotiations over what conditions Trump would speak to the New Yorkers eventually he went and went to their building he didn't he didn't bring the New York Times over to him and power he went to the New York Times building which when you think about someone like Donald Trump always interested in hierarchies and poses and positions he went there big concession on his part big concession and they had he talked to them for an hour on the record and at the end of it he said despite complaining about the press at the beginning of the talk at the end of it he said I love the New York Times you're the crown jewel of American papers so it just reveals the complexity of Donald Trump then as man who as much as he attacks the media and despises the media also recognizes in one's way his dependence on it and then has a weird kind of stature in it I think it goes back to being a New Yorker and coming from Queens and respect for the New York Times as an institution even as he demeans it what will that mean for him is President when you talk about the populist right since 1964 one of the main targets of the populist right has been the mainstream media this has been a 50-year long tradition it's not going to stop and in fact in Trump the right the populist right has a Tribune who is going to be extremely competitive with the media still is and will remain so as president but will all of those legacy institutions all say sell newspapers right well all of those legacy institutions be kicked out no you might have a few of them on the second point you're going to have you will have fewer press conferences because he doesn't want to be put on the spot and he also believes in unpredictability and so you're not going to have the press is clamoring for one he is not going to have these big press conferences where they asked him a million questions he will control as much as he can how his image and in words represented in a media okay one thing about that that New York Times interview which was absolutely fascinating document he says it's the New York Times as crown jewel of American papers which it is I mean for all of its faults it is an amazing product that comes out every day on the other hand he also says in that same interview they asked him about Breitbart which is the great bugbear right thinkers nowadays is it's disgusting all right white nationalist and he says well it's it's like the times it's a news organization like the time and I can imagine the cognitive dissonance in their brain when they go through the transcripts but wait a minute he called us the crown jewel but then he said we're like Breitbart so he clearly has a different conception of the press than anyone who's ever sat in the Oval Office I would be surprised actually if you gave any press conferences why you know I would love to see the free beacon in the White House press office but if you've ever gone to press briefings one out of ten are worthwhile right and they're filled with peacocks posing for the cameras and all these reporters nothing ever happens so why even have the White House press room you know why not have a place where they can all come if the press secretary has something to announce or you could just do it by tweeting you know I really think there's a possibility here that the establishment press is going to be disestablishment what is it is it straight yeah well disestablishment Arianism do you remember that word from English history about separating the church in this yes yes I think there's a way that these people are going to be uncredentialed and the people that we have come to think of as the mainstream media less questions Paul Krugman in the New York to Krugman excuse me I once Paul Krugman in the New York Times quote so what do we do now by we I mean all of those left Center and even right who saw Donald Trump as the worst man ever to run for president and assume that a strong majority of our fellow citizens would agree close quote what do the Liberals and the Democrats do now well if they follow that what they've been doing since the election it means they're going to run left and with some dissidents like Tim Ryan the congressman from Ohio who's challenged Nancy Pelosi and their speaker not her speakership in our minority leadership some Democrats saying they need to run left on economics and others saying they need to run left and I dent that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote and it was only because she didn't make I guess a strong enough appeal to minority voters or to women voters that she was denied and like total college victory in the White House so there are two minds much like Donald Trump yes if you call those Minds well the important thing for them I think is it it's exactly right to say that they are going to move to the left but it really changes is it going to be Bernie Sanders where they sort of become a more ostentatiously Socialist Party or is it going to be the left where they take the political correctness the identity politics and really put the pedal to the metal and just go all out with that you know there is a tension between the two I mean Bernie Sanders remember when he had a black lives matter guy willing try and take over his his rally you know which was really quite forthright he started to think well this is not his brand of liberalism this sort of exploiting different groups and gobbling them together he's a populist who wants to you know give everybody tons of money tons of our money what do conservatives do now sit in wait for a while hear hear Peter teal this is just before the election I'm quoting Peter teal Trump's agenda is about making America a normal country a normal country doesn't have a half trillion dollar trade deficit a normal country doesn't fight five simultaneous wars in a normal country the government actually does its job close quote is there anything in there to work with anything of that connects in any way with the conservatism of William F Buckley and Ronald Reagan Oh Buckley and Reagan didn't think we were a normal country and I don't think most American presidents have ever thought all right then we're in a remote country I don't and just I think empirically America is not a normal country I mean we're a continent-wide power spanning God knows how many ethnicities and languages and religions we have this enumerated Bill of individual rights that is at the core of every American citizen we're unusual and so I didn't quite understand that teal speech I thought the one he made at the convention was much more persuasive for Trump and of course in Trump's mind America is a very special place now why because Donald Trump is going to be the president Donald America will become exceptional very quickly what a conservatives do wait and see I think a lot of conservatives are having this debate of can they be forced for positive change or a good influence on the president if they were to enter government whatever capacity I personally believe they should all people should try to work as much as they can others I think because of Trump's personality because of the statements that he's made in the course of the campaign and also because of some of his supporters will just never be in a position where they can endorse Trump express suit so we're living on we're living with Richard Nixon again where conservatives could support this or that aspect of what the president did but they never could give him their hearts and on this or that aspect of what he did they had to oppose him well as we were sitting here today you judge judging by the appointments appointments he's made he's not Nixon I mean right Nixon tried to make several statements with his early appointments that he was spanning the Rockefeller wing Randy Wright Goldwater wing of the party since the rockefeller wing of the party doesn't exist anymore Trump is clearly signaling something other than what Nixon so let me try the last question last exhortation last admonition last attempt to cheer up Matt and here's the argument if Hillary Clinton had won and remember only a matter of a few weeks ago single-digit number of weeks ago we all assumed that she would if Hillary Clinton had won the Obama agenda federal involvement in health care high taxes constant expansion of regulations stagnant economy would have been ratified and continued the Supreme Court would have been given a liberal majority which would have ruled for a generation and the federal government would have remained hostile - and become more hostile to traditional notions of decency and religious belief forcing the Little Sisters of the Poor to include contraceptives in their healthcare would have been just the beginning and instead boys a miracle has happened the Dow Jones is setting new records political correctness everywhere confused and on the defensive Supreme Court there's every reason to suppose he's going to appoint genuine originalist as the Supreme Court cabinet appointments Betsy DeVos at education Betsy DeVos is a tough accomplished pro Charter School activist she's not going to coddle the teachers unions she's going to take them on Tom Price this congressman from Georgia at HHS he's been studied he spent six years studying how to undo Obamacare so this guy has his flaws but he really does want to make the country great again and he seems by and large to be listening to the right people and the early appointments are more than encouraging so I put it to you boys that the quotation appropriate to the moment comes from the late great Jean Kirkpatrick we must learn to bear the truth about our country no matter how good it might be Andrew have I persuaded you yes you left out the part about him being a maniac see I all of that would be wonderful if it weren't for that little glitch in the hole Matthew I am like I think many conservatives and that I am much happier with the election result than I thought I was going to be and I'm more cheerful for the country on precisely the reasons that you laid out than I had hoped that said two things one it's early he hasn't even been inaugurated yet and we're looking at a man who I think Steve Banat what so at least eight years and Steve Bannon and recent interview said they're going to rule for 50 years and if luck trunk gets a second term one of those amendments he's going to start changing is the term limit for president I can guarantee that the second point I make is this I'm really in the SAU quote I'm really talking about the conservative intellectual movement I'm not necessarily talking about the Republican Party or even the Republican conservative poly a policy I'm talking about two dozen guys I know we all know I know that Peter and I know them and I say it's time for them to think anew as well because what this showed was a real division within conservatism between the intellectuals and the populace and also a division between the conservative movement and the broader forces of the country and I think this is an opportunity for to think well what is actually happening in this country and it's because we live in our bubbles in the Washington DC area where I live has done very well over the last eight years no wonder everybody thought Trump didn't have a chance we didn't go out to the Rust Belt and see what life is like and there I think it's it's very different story so Donald Trump represents a healthy dose of reality even for us conservatives Andy you're talking to me I'm talking to you well I in yes in Mathew sense I agree with that completely I think we're under estimating though conservatism in the Republican Party they're not quite identical but we really do have to understand that conservatives are a member of a party they have a party just as liberals do and I think the conservative intellectuals failed by not taking that as seriously as they should have matthew cottan Andy Andrew Ferguson thank you for the Hoover Institution and uncommon knowledge I'm Peter Robinson [Music]

Channel: Hoover Institution

Views: 384,530

Keywords: Donald Trump, 2016 Election, New York Times, Supreme Court, Conservatives, Media, GOP, The Weekly Standard, Matthew Continetti, Andrew Ferguson, Hoover Institution, Uncommon Knowledge, Peter Robinson, Journalism, President of the United States, 2016 Presidential Election

Id: ATH5A7Jtq6M

Length: 41min 47sec (2507 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 14 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/calicub]

One great point these guys make as they try and grapple with the conservative populism that swept their party is that at this point the democrats are likely to go one of two directions: instead of moving back to center, they see them going hard left on economics or identity politics. They point to the battle over minority leadership in the house but we also saw this the other day with Bernie Sanders (who is the economics wing) blaming PC culture for getting Trump elected.

[u/MillennialDan]

Fascinating stuff. I was particularly interested in the observation that there's always been a kind of split among Republicans between the large number of "grassroots populists" (which one may describe also as nationalists of some stripe) and the more elite conservative thinking crowd, and they have very different ideas about the best ways of moving the ball down the field.