Ezra Klein: Why We're Polarized

if evening everyone and good evening to those of  you in the overflow room I'm Anna sail the host   of the podcast death sex and money I have a bit  of a cold this evening but I'm gonna just power   through it and I am thrilled to be here with Ezra  Klein the author of the new bestseller why we're   polarized and the host of the Ezra Klein show  a Vox podcast where he's also as a co-founder   and if you don't listen to the Ezra Klein show  definitely check it out it's a wonderful podcast   so my podcasts about the things we think about  a lot and need to talk about more and in sort   of in-depth interviews we try to get at people's  deep personal feelings of ambivalence and moments   of uncertainty Ezra's book is about in fact how  most of those feelings are driven by systems so   I want to talk to him about what drives our  political behavior how that has gotten us to   the place where we are right so polarized and  also how you've interacted with those systems   on a personal level and I want to start with the  question yes we are so polarized in your view is   that a bad thing no the argument of the book is  that polarization can be good or it can be bad the   interesting question is not why are we polarized  it was why weren't we for a period and when I say   polarized part of the reason this conversation  gets a little wonky is that Paul rights doesn't   mean what we take it to mean in our political  decision it doesn't mean that we're angry or mad   it just means we're divided that in this case the  parties are polarized the parties are different   and what's weird about American politics not that  were polarized now it's that we had a period where   we weren't and that's not what I think is so  fascinating about that period which is like   the mid 20th century American politics is if you  think back to it it wasn't an easy time you had   the civil rights movement the anti-war movement  the women's rights movement the indigenous peoples   rights movie political assassinations urban riots  Kent State I mean you had violence in the streets   what was just weird about it was it didn't break  down by party and so something like a civil rights   act which is one of the most divisive conflict  ridden piece of legislation we have ever passed   one of the most important moments of justice most  hard-fought victories ever in American politics   it's a perfectly bipartisan vote in fact in the  Congress more a higher proportion of Republicans   vote for it than Democrats so what was happening  in that period was that we had these big divisions   divisions that were big enough to potentially  tear the country apart they just didn't map on   to our politics and which men then the parties  either in periods of injustice suppress them and   then in periods of progress compromise their  way through them what has happened since then   is a little bit more natural which is that in  part because of the Civil Rights Act and the   realignment that followed it we have moved to  where our parties represent and thus amplify   our disagreements and I don't think that's the  worst saying I think sometimes we need to have   disagreements we need to talk about the things  we need to talk about but we also need to somehow   resolve them and the problem of polarization in  our system right now is that polarization makes   our system incapable of functioning and when you  say polarized are the two poles Republican and   Democrat is that how you see it sort of I think  of it almost more as red and blue because a lot   of people they don't really like the side of  it they're on but they're on that side because   the other people are unimaginable to them I mean  you might for instance have ever interacted with   the Bernie Sanders supporter they don't love  the Democratic Party but they're not going to   vote for the Republicans and a lot of people in  politics are like this I'm a lot of Donald Trump   supporters they didn't like the Republican Party  but they weren't going to vote for Hillary Clinton   or they didn't like Donald Trump but they weren't  gonna let Hillary Clinton be president majority   of Donald Trump voters said they're voting more  against Hillary Clinton than for Trump and so I   think of these is they're they're big coalition's  they act in very predictable ways but it isn't   the case that everybody in them feels loyalty to  their coalition but when the parties become this   different the coalition's become this different  ideologically demographically crossing over that   chasm becomes a little bit unimaginable and once  that happens then it's not just a partisanship   can hold you in place but even more powerfully  negative partisanship can hold you in place and   in some ways I think negative partisanship is  more dangerous for a system Lamar Alexander who   was the key vote to not have witnesses in this  at trial Donald Trump very courtly guy older   guys retiring this year Senate Republican from  Tennessee and he was thought of as a swing vote   because he's known for his gentility decency  he remembers way the Senate used to be wanted   to be back but after he voted against witnesses  he said something that I think is very telling   he said look the economy's good Donald Trump's  judges are excellent he's deregulated a bunch of   industries they need a really bad phone call with  Ukraine and it's just up to you to decide if that   bad phone call is worth more and you should vote  for Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders and all the   rest of it that's what he's functionally saying  there in a way is that when the divisions are   this big something like ask in a foreign country  to help you investigate your domestic political   opponents I mean that's not great but you're not  gonna let it move you to the other side and when   that happens which is an understandable almost  like I would even say rational way to treat it   that just means you don't have a system where you  can have a political accountability if your system   requires as ours does both parties to participate  in political accountability so I want to talk   about the two different parties and how they look  right now one argument you make in the book that   I found really interesting is centered around the  ways we think about political identity talk about   the ways the Republican Party is currently and  the way the Democratic Party is currently when   it comes to identity and the ways in which how we  move through the world and move through the United   States is predictive in many ways more than it was  before as far as how we're aligned so a big part   of the book is trying to rescue the idea and term  of identity politics from where it's gone which   is this idea rescue like pull it back there's  this idea that only historically marginalized   groups have identities that identity politics  is something you see when say african-american   voters organized around a political need or  claim but like the rest of politics I manages   politics and so identity then becomes this thing  that only weaker or marginalized groups have not   something that the dominant groups and we cease  to see it happen identity is most powerful when   it is invisible it's most powerful when it is so  strong you can't even notice it occurring American   identity shapes all of our politics but we don't  day-to-day like think about it question it etc   something has happened in politics is that the  parties used to be very demographically similar   I'm actually have data from the police a little  animation showing that in the 50s there really   wasn't a demographic group with the exception  actually of southerners because they were so   overwhelmingly Democratic which is interesting and  important but there really wasn't aside from that   did number have a group that was more than 10  percentage points more represented in one party   than the other really yeah this is nineteen  fifties like 1954 1956 in the 1950s now if you   look at those same charts like the lines go like  all the way to the side and so what's happened is   that for instance the Democratic Party is about  fifty percent non-white and the Republican Party   is ninety percent white the Democratic Party's  single largest religious group is religiously   unaffiliated party is overwhelmingly Christian  Democratic Party is about 50 percent liberal   self-identified liberal that's a high point the  Republican Party is 75 percent conservative the   Democratic Party across a bunch of different  dimensions is a coalition of a lot of different   kinds of groups and even what I was just saying I  think it understates how different the two sides   are because a coalition of different races or  religions is not it sounds symmetrical not you   know heavily non-white versus heavily white  it's actually not Hispanic voters have in that   dimension of their identity sometimes different  needs and african-american voters or Asian voters   appealing to Irish Catholics in Boston which  number because I have to do is different than   the comically curious in California which is  what happens when they come here and so you're   dealing with a party that has to build much  broader coalition's in the Republican Party   but aside from that internal difference which  is an important difference and the fact that the   Democratic Party has to win center-right voters  because of American geography given the Senate   in the electoral college the other thing that  is just important is that the parties just feel   more different it is easier for us as human beings  used to assessing an intuitive group difference to   feel how we are different from people than  how our policies differ from others policy   differences somebody who covers policy we often  have to work to understand it's sometimes hard to   like work your way through the new fight on taxes  and where the capital gains rate should be and so   on whereas those people aren't like me something  is changing and I don't like it that's easy and I   will say that's something that I find in political  reporting there are so many voters who when you   begin talking to them about politics for a while  it rationalizes through policy yeah and then you   get a couple levels deeper because things aren't  quite adding up and finally they'll say and you'll   often hear this line something like it I just  don't like how much everything's changing and in   a very deep way that's the fundamental difference  the Democratic Party is a coalition of groups for   that either for ideological demographic reasons  sort of like the way things are changing they   want it to change I mean it was literal eyes in  Barack Obama's campaign hope and change and the   Republican Party is a group that feels that change  is threatening alright we're gonna make America   great again and so those groups are structured  very differently but what's basically happening   is that they sense what the other is in a way that  is creating conflict that goes well beyond what   you can address through positive-sum policymaking  it's a few things that I found interesting were   not that your analysis wasn't just States but you  know we talk so much about red blue states or the   coastal elites versus the heartland like in the  way that political journalism sort of talks about   who we are as Americans you point out how many  of us live in landslide counties now that's a   new phenomenon yeah can you talk about that yeah I  hope I'll get the numbers from this right B should   all buy the book and look it up in fact but I  think the number is something like we've gone   from one in 20 of us living in an extreme landside  county in 1992 so an extremely and Psyche county   being again if I'm remembering this a county  where one candidate won by 50 points or more it's   a huge difference to one in four of us or one in  five of us so that's extremely on sight County's   landslide counties are also a huge increase I  don't remember those numbers off the top of my   head we used to be very geographically dispersed  and and something I show in the book although not   it's not me I'm in everything just arbitrage  and political scientists because they do good   work and I write well I've come into a sort of  equilibrium with them a symbiotic relationship   parasitic relationship one thing that is a really  big divide that we don't always talk enough about   his density and that is both causing consequence  of other divides and particular psychological   divides well Wilkinson has done great work here  but it didn't used to tell you and I actually   have a chart on this in the book in the early  20th century how dense the place was didn't tell   you anything about it's partisan lean nothing now  there is not a city in this country denser than   nine hundred people per square mile which is not  that dense the votes Republican not a place and so   there is this huge divide in terms of where we are  and what is particularly destabilizing about that   kind of divide there are other things that are  predicted stabilizing about otherwise but this   divide is it our politics are set up on place  and in particular they're set up in ways that   made sense at the time and was necessary at the  time but to amplify the power of sparser areas   more sparsely populated areas small states sparse  counties etc so as the parties have divided on   that line of density what it's men is a political  system that it was intended to balance small   states and big states rural areas and an urban  what it's now doing is to amplifying the power   of one party versus the other and so you have one  party in the Democratic Party that route he gets   more votes it's 1/6 of lost seven presidential  elections in terms of the popular vote and another   party the Republican Party the routinely wins much  more land the other day visibly there was another   per breakfast today which had a hell of a speech  I'm from the president but a couple weeks ago he   had evangelical leaders to the White House and  he brought out before the conversation he just   had on his desk a map of County results and  because if you do the County results the whole   country looks red so he lost the popular vote but  if you look at it in terms of like how land voted   in America like the old like one acre one vote  rule he won like everything and there's like six   blue dots on the map and everything why is this  map out here for the evangelical leaders to come   and the question was never answered it was like  just there for emotional support is the strange   is saying but you do have a situation now where  the White House - I think it's actually a really   remarkable stat that 40% of presidential elections  since the turn of the millennium have gone to the   loser of the popular vote on the Senate is  run by the party that lost the popular vote   over the past three cycles when you combine it the  Supreme Court reflects that of course the house is   under Democratic control but if they just won the  popular house float by like plus two it wouldn't   be so we've a we don't just have a land-based  structure now it's very much distorting one party   feels it has the democratic legitimacy right  in terms of democracy and in other party feels   that it represents the places of the country that  are being left behind ignored etc and that kind   of thing where the two sides both simultaneously  feel that they are the more legitimate side is a   particularly combustible form of political  polarization I can simply cackle to that you talk about how our political identities  have have started to subsume all of our other   identities so our ability to even begin to  identify with someone who sees the world   through the different the opposite political lens  is diminishing and you talk about cross-cutting   identities versus stacked identities I might  get the wrong the cross-cutting identities you   define as like having elements of your identity  that don't automatically line up with a certain   political lens for me I related to that as  somebody who grew up in West Virginia lives in   Berkeley works for New York media company spends  time in Wyoming so I'm the way I see the political   debate and read the political news is often seeing  the blind spots and in the word choice and who   they're trying to appeal to and it made me wonder  for you as you're writing this book do you think   of yourself as someone who has cross-cutting  identities or you do you think of yourself   as someone who's pretty stacked I'm horrifyingly  stacked it's very it's very no don't clap for that   it's very that mean my most powerful cross-cutting  identity have a lot of people wouldn't see it this   way is actually my journalistic identity which  I I talked a lot in the book about at some point   being being intentional about which identities you  inhabit and when and my journalistic identity is   one that I can inhabit and pulls me towards place  of curiosity it often the first question in that   identity is not what do I think but first it's  what do others think and that's a good identity   for me but no I'm look I'm a Jewish Californian  vegan who lives in the Bay Area I'm a liberal   right like it's it's a the point of cross-cutting  versus tack because I do want to spend a moment   on this is that one way we think about politics is  that the fundamental divide is over policy one of   the things and I am a policy reporter like I care  about policy I wish that there was no reason for   me to write this book like really I do this book  like it's like staring into the abyss and having   the abyss stare back at you and it took quote  Nietzsche who always comes up in politics identity   conflict is a separate dimension than policy  conflict and it is often stronger because people   are more sure-footed on their identities and they  are on a lot of policy issues people know who they   are they don't always know what the hell politics  has begun arguing over that week like some weeks   in politics the debate is very esoteric but the  group identities are not the group at very deeply   rooted and so I show there's research in the  book on this again from the Liana Mason actually   there's research in the book that one places that  have had no a let me do this differently there's   research in the book showing that if you look at  Democrats whose policy positions should make them   Republicans or Republicans whose policy positions  should make them Democrats that does that actual   fundamental substantive agreement there's only  half as much to restrain hostility to the other   party as Democrats whose identity groups lean  Republican or Republicans whose identity groups   lean Democrat so if you are you live in the  south and you're a Democrat but you're a white   evangelical southern man over 65 what that's gonna  do is you may be Democrat for all kinds of reasons   but you like you get the Republicans right they're  speaking in some ways to you you're the kind of   voter who might swing whereas if you're a liberal  vegan California and in the Bay Area etc it's a   bigger divide intuitively I'll just give one more  stat here countries with the most cross-cutting   identities internationally because they've done  research on this or twelve times less likely to   have a civil war than countries with the most  stacked identities so just sit with that yeah I   mean it made me think about someone who thinks of  myself as having cross-cutting identities it made   me think about the sort of privilege of being able  to move through the United States and being seen   as being able to have cross-cutting identities  particularly in this moment and you steps you   cite statistics that show that people with more  cross-cutting identities tend to be more open to   hearing differing opinions and and it made me sort  of pause and think like oh is this because I can   pass that I can like listen more openly because my  identity is not I don't feel personally threatened   in the same way as someone say I was talking to  a friend who immigrated as a kid to the US and   she talked about how her entire life she's been  so proud to be an American and Spence just so   proud to have the opportunities here in the last  few years her whole sort of political calculus of   where she fits has shifted because she feels  like the very fact of her being an immigrant   is is the defining quality yeah so I then need  to activate under threat so that's one thing   that I do think is important to know about them  that the easiest way to activate an identity is   to threaten it my father was an immigrant he came  here in the 70s and I don't move through the world   thinking about that very much until the moment I  started hearing anti-immigrant rhetoric and then   it activates very powerfully um being Jewish is  an important identity to me but minute-to-minute   it's not that present until I look at Twitter and  they're the parentheses around my name right and   so the more people feel threatened the more that  political rhetoric threatens them the more that   substantive policy threatens them the more  that they're just seeing clips and media and   headlines that either that that upset them to  threaten them the more they're seeing the parts   of the other side that are in tension with them  the stronger those threatened identities become   and as you say often some of us have a choice in  that I talk in the book about people who do right   the tendency of some of us to just get into  political entertainment and just sit in there   like like bathing and the worst of the other side  to be expected it sometimes can mislead us even   about what is happening on the other side and then  they're the people who don't get to choose right   they're a dreamer here right and that's both a  substantive and also an emotional identity that   they are under genuine real threat and so one of  the things that is happening in politics as he   said entities stack and then fuse is that first  threats to one the coalition tend to threaten   emotionally or psychologically more members of the  coalition so like white liberals as a Democratic   Party's become much more diverse have developed a  much more racially liberal identity and in fact a   racially liberal what do you mean um in terms  of just what they think about race if you if   you put them on these polls white liberals  are now more racially liberal and actually   non-white people in the Democratic Party because  for them to be part of the party it has become   sorted on that like racial liberalism whereas  if you're african-american there you've a lot   of conservative Comerica in the Democratic Party  because the Republican party feels hostile to them   where as a white liberal I'm sorry a white person  who is more conservative on just issues as you're   saying can pass into the Republican Party without  feeling any of that hostility right feels welcomed   and so that issue of what gets activated and how  it's being chosen to be activated it's important   but also that sense of a much larger community  is embroiled in every fight is part of like this   idea of conflict escalation and politics that  that sort of an attack on one becomes an attack   on all you I want to talk a little bit more  about white identity politics you spend some   time on this in the book will you tell us about  the the this study about what happened in the   subway platforms with Spanish speakers oh yeah  this is a fasting state by a Harvard political   scientist named Ryan eNOS and what he did was he  was trying to test something that had been looked   at observational II but trying to figure it out  experimentally and here's the thing he's trying   to test there is a lot of evidence from different  kinds of like somewhat thin but interesting lab   experiments that if you cue people to think about  demographic change right if I get people in a room   white people in the room thinking about how they  live in a place that white people are becoming a   smaller share of the population they become a lot  more conservative but he thought well I don't know   cueing them that way like that's not how people  experience that by reading an article or something   maybe that doesn't hold so what he did is he he  was in Cambridge Massachusetts and he paid Spanish   speakers to be on the train every day so that over  a period of time people who were riding the train   just began hearing more Spanish spoken around  them than they normally did and that gave him this   experiment that he could then look at how did the  people who were exposed to this change in their   opinions on immigration compared to the people  who weren't exposed to it and the answer is they   moved sharply right and these are and he makes a  point these are people in a very liberal part of   the country and they begin embracing almost Trump  like immigration views just by what is a pretty   subtle atmospheric sense that the country around  them is changing that there's a higher proportion   of Hispanic immigrants speaking Spanish in their  in their daily life you you also in that section   quote Harvard political theorist Daniel Allen  and she talks about how in any democracy some   people have to give things up and your quota is  saying that we need to quote give each other the   space to negotiate around experiences of loss  well how do you think about that when it comes   to the experiences of white people who have lived  in predominantly white areas how do we negotiate   around their experience of loss but just way I  don't think we know how and I don't think this is   something even people are very comfortable talking  about it's one reason I think the immigration   debate gets moved over to economics all the time  we're comfortable talking about economics we're   not comfortable talking about this feeling of  cultural loss what Daniel Allen says is that   in a democracy to move forward you're often asking  people to give something up I would give something   up that is substantive like pay higher taxes or  psychological like accept a more diverse country   and that for them that will be perceived as a  sacrifice so the problem is in this particular   example and I talked about this in the book the  terms uses like somebody's gonna be the political   loser it's very hard to define who the political  loser is and whose losses matter and whose losses   matter because it isn't like all of a sudden  somebody else became the winner just being able   to live somewhere making like one small stride  towards equality when you look at say the racial   wealth gap and it's bigger than it's ever been so  one thing happening in American politics right now   is that nobody is comfortably dominant so nobody  feels like they are the winner and everybody feels   like they are in a very precarious position and  people are feeling loss and threat simultaneously   the Trump is coalition one with Trump that feels  itself shrinking in a profound way the non Trump   coalition the blue coalition lost and feels self  very much under threat and so this issue of how   do you negotiate say like white identity threat  white thread in the Browning America as I talked   about it in the book that's really hard and one  of the hard things about it in particular is that   it's one thing I love the way Daniel Allen talks  about this in her book talking to strangers but   one of the things in a book that I do think is  tricky when applied to politics is that it's   one thing when a group recognizes or is giving  something up it's another thing when that group   isn't giving it up but it's changing anyway so  it's one thing to deal with a sacrifice somebody   is making on your behalf and so nothing to deal  with not even the end but just a continuation of   a brutal bitter fight the Palou coalition that  elected Donald Trump isn't sacrificing anything   not willingly it may be being taken from them  but that's part of what makes it very hard to   negotiate these questions in politics politics  is in a space practically given the zero-sum   dynamics it encourages and the particularly like  unstable equilibrium of power we're in right now   it's not a space it encourages anyone or even  creates space for anybody to talk about feelings   of loss or to discuss things in this in a safe  way and in fact even the whole concept to save   spaces has now become weaponized and mocked and  so it's very very very hard to know what to do   with a conversation that you can't actually have  in some ways you can imagine a country that is   making changes become more just right a country in  the alternative universe of HBO's The Watchmen for   instance canonically I am Robert Redford's press  secretary this is actually true if you look at the   addendum material online which means it in that  universe I helped sell reparations as his press   secretary because there were the Redford Redford  operations what are they called reparations that   is not the world we live in that universe seems  fascinating and my job seems very interesting   and I'm proud of the work that I did but in in  this universe that didn't happen and so this   idea that people fighting tooth and nail against  demographic change and often fighting that way in   ways that don't in any way recognize what the  groups are fighting with have gone through or   still going through versus these groups that are  trying to find some kind of equality the issue   there is that there's no agreement of who is a  loser and who is a winner there is no sense of   sacrifice because nobody is agreeing to sacrifice  anything at some points things being taken but   that's different and has a very different set  of emotional valence --is and this to me is one   of the hardest parts of our politics right now  there isn't the capacity to say even stabili who   is on the rise and who is on the fall so we can  even manage those questions of loss you know in   trade which is another thing that we're even not  good at dealing with but at least there's this   idea that in trade when you sign these deals the  economy benefits but you can discreetly people or   losers and you can have trade adjustment packages  and so on it's not that way with this and it just   makes it a really hard question and advocate but  one thing I am pushing a little bit in the book   and it's a very dangerous territory is that we  at least need to talk honestly that that is what   is happening and that is tough but it is better  if you don't talk honestly that this is what is   happening then you get things like Donald Trump  who is somebody who more than anything else what   he came into a Republican primary and said is  I'm going to talk about the thing that you are   feeling with the others won't talk about you don't  like how it's changing I'm gonna say that and that   it's bad but I don't say it in a good way right  he doesn't deal with that and so if you don't   have these conversations well you will have them  poorly so I want to ask you to talk about what how   you think we could have the conversation well I  want I want to cite a tweet that you sent out the   end of a couple of weeks ago the anywhere and you  and use my aides were all off the record you said   this will get me ratioed or whatever which means  I expect to get pushed back on Twitter but a lot   of Twitter seems to want to enforce the politics  where you only work or ally with people you agreed   almost totally with but to get anything done in  our system requires working with people you often   disagree with this was that was Ezra Street there  was a response to that tweet from Zerlina Maxwell   who's a progressive radio host and she quotes her  tweet and says I do not believe that sexism racism   and transphobia are disagreements I think that's  the disconnect and something you and others might   want to marinate on respectfully so that's how do  you think we we can talk about a white community   sense of loss because of demographic change when  that is also racism like how do we how do we begin   to have that conversation so I'm not telling you  first that I know how to create this national   conversation part of what I'm saying in the book  is that we're not set up for it I said I don't   have a complete way to reform us such that we are  I do think that all of us engaged in politics have   to be clear on what our objectives are and one of  the things I've been reflecting on marinating is   really no but it is that you can be doing politics  in different ways and one of the difficulties is   when people who are doing different kinds of  politics end up in collision with each other   but these different projects are not clear and  so they're pretending they're having the same   conversation and they're not your political  work can be expressive right it can be just   about showing who you are a lot of people who just  post things on Facebook but they're really doing   they're just saying this is who I am I want you to  know your work can be based on categorizing right   you can be trying to say here is who my group is  and this is what think of them in comparison I   think a lot of Twitter politics is actually about  that you're basically building groups and putting   them in conflict with others and creating kind  of status competition that's not a necessarily   a crazy thing to do in politics I want to say I  say this part of the whole thing value neutral   addressing these are different ways people act but  that kind of group oriented politics where you're   drawing the line brightly these people over here  are sort of irredeemable it's not a disagreement   it is a distinction in who is inside the political  community who is outside of it that's been very   much conflict with another kind of politics  which is a politics of persuasion you cannot   persuade somebody by telling them they're bad like  we have mountains of research if you tell somebody   like you start the conversation from like you  are contemptible it's going it's okay it's okay   to do I really want to be clear because sometimes  where you are trying to do is say these people are   should be held in contempt I feel that way about  Nazis like I just do like what I want what I want   to be true is the social status of Nazis is so low  that nobody wants to be a Nazi then there's also   but if you need to be in a politics of persuasion  which oftentimes you do because you don't have   the power to get anything done if you're not  I will say that I don't think that there is a   coalition that can hold power in this country  but it's as pure as a lot of liberals want it   to be including the coalition they currently have  including coalition elected Barack Obama a lot of   people in that coalition held views that are gets  canceled I don't really believe in cancellation   for the record so but I joke about it um but a lot  of those people hold views that are not considered   appropriate by sort of liberal leaders problem is  if the world coalition just isn't that big yet and   then there is a politics another step forward  or not even forward to another kind of politics   it is a politics of compromising coalition's  which is what if I can't persuade you but I   think there's something we can work together on I  did a podcast with a really I think amazing woman   named Leah Garces and she's the head of Mercy  for Animals I believe and I believe I got the   name right right she's somebody who's devoted  she's vegan activist and has devoted her whole   life to saving the lives of animals and I'm trying  to make their treatment better and something she   will say is that she's in many ways failed there  are more animals being tortured and killed at this   moment in history than ever before I hope whoever  that was did find their iPhone and something she   will say is that there are more animals being  tortured and killed than ever before it's in the   past couple years she's begun building coalitions  with chicken farmers these are the people doing   the work that she finds most abhorrent these are  the people who are raising chickens and often   very very difficult and awful circumstances and  then slaughtering them for profit but what she   realized and she found was that a lot of them  didn't like what big agribusiness had forced   them to do they didn't like the way they had  to do it and that there was a space in between   where things were now where they wanted it to be  and where she was where they could agree on just   making lots of chickens better could agree on  we shouldn't kill chickens but they could agree   on we should make it better and so that's it  her divide with those farmers is dramatic it   is foundational to her life's work but to make the  lives of the chickens better she's building those   coalition's and doing that work and so different  people are playing politics and doing politics in   different ways at different times sometimes we  all do different versions of these what we're   all in different versions of this simultaneously  there are times on Twitter when what I'm trying   to do is say this position should not be held  it should not be in polite society there are   positions that simply are in polite society they  are held by majorities that I think should not   be okay I don't think because my intention is to  make things better for the people I'm trying to   help for hopefully for us all there are times when  just even though that's like the position I would   like to hold it is not the position I will hold  I can't decide that I can move forward without   trying to persuade them or trying to work with  them and I'm just a journalist if you're running   for president it's much harder I mean that whole  thing had to do with Bernie Sanders tweeting out   Joe Rogan's endorsement Joe Rogan is a podcast  host he he's a politically complicated guy but   as a very politically incorrect comedian and he  said some things that are not great and he's had   he's also been a forum in his podcast for a lot  of people who are very reactionary and at the   same time he's a complicated guy he's also  been a forum for a lot of people were very   progressive and he said things that are great and  whatever he has a audience mostly of white men the   size of Florida and so he's has an audience of  politically disaffected young white men that's   a very valuable political endorsement to have  and a lot of people are very angry at Sanders   for trumpeting it because there's no way in which  Joe Rogan is pure and so the question is was sand   was doing the right thing or not in my view was  it so long December's agenda was actually trying   to help people and I think it is that if you  can bring those people into your coalition on   terms that are going to make things better than  it is worth bringing them into the coalition   and I understand the political project that says  what you're trying to do is say these things can   never be said and if they are said you're out  but if they're things but I understand at the   same time why Bernie Sanders what he's trying  to do is get Donald Trump out of office so he   can protect trans rights and that if he loses or  any Democrat loses in that effort the situation   for trans people is going to get a lot worse  I understand why he's making those compromises there's a lot of different ways to do politics  but I think it is important not to pretend   that there's only one way to do politics and to  understand when people are in a different project   than you are when you showed up in Washington  in 2005 after graduating from college with a   political science degree how did you think you  were doing politics as a journalist what did   you feel like your objective was I thought I was  gonna be right about things and is gonna tell the   people who are wrong about things why I was right  and then this part was important though and then   they were gonna agree that I was right and on  the basis of that newfound agreement that I was   right we were gonna move forward as a country in  retrospect certain parts of that were naive and so the work I mean at a fundamental level as a  journalist I want to understand things but I   want to understand them because I I don't want  to understand them I some things I do just want   to understand distract lis like I think quantum  physics is interesting and I don't understand it   but other things I want to understand because  I want to find the path forward to making them   better and one level that is you know what would  be the best healthcare policy I spend a lot of   time on that question then another question is  given that we know almost any healthcare policy   it would be better than this one why does nothing  happen that's a different set of questions and   then having I think come up with reasonable  answers to those to my next question was why did why doesn't it matter why does knowing  this have so little political fact and in some   deeper way right even in this era just like  how did Donald Trump get elected like why is   that something that happened and for all that  I think that I've been moving in recent years   away from the belief that Paul takes as an  argument and much more towards the belief   that politics is relationships and I don't just  mean individual relationship so I do mean that   too but also coalitional relationships the fun  the first question people ask in politics before   any other is how do they feel about me and if they  can't answer that question positively they are not   going to come along with you and one thing's I've  been seeing is it I think particularly the social   media age where there's a lot more pressure on a  politics like an expressive politics a politics   that is rewarded by your group which also tends  to push towards the politics of boundary tracing   this is my group these aren't my group I talk a  lot about this in the book I think it's becoming   harder to carry a torch for coalitional politics  I think it's becoming harder to argue for the hard   work of politics and I think something I've  moved more towards it's why I spend more time   doing podcasts in which I'm in conversation then I  do sort of like writing out my own opinions these   days I think that you had like the precondition  to polarization I'm sorry the precondition to   persuasion or coalition is building a space and  building a relationship where people feel like   they can listen to you without feeling threatened  by you and the moment you make people threatened   you've lost the ability to persuade them and  often lost the ability to work with them at all   and it's not to say we don't have to say when  things are wrong I I just I struggle with this   question every time I say clearly what is true  in my view about Donald Trump I turn off people   I would like to be able to speak to there is a  pension in some cases between at one level like   a simple level just in honesty right the thing  about whether or not media organizations say   Donald Trump is lying when he lies it's just that  tension right do you want to turn off Republican   voters at the cost in order to say just honestly  what is happening knowing that you're gonna lose   their threshold participation whereas maybe if  you say Donald Trump is miss stating the facts   of the matter they'll keep reading so like that's  like the like the New York Times conundrum there   but at a but like then at a higher level when  you like get into deeper things do you want to   say something is immoral do you want to say it's  wrong do you want to say I I did it about what   honesty coats and and he was saying I talked about  this in index of racial resentment in the book but   he's like shouldn't we just call his people racist  and there's this constant back and forth about do   you want to soft-pedal your language or not one of  the hard things about a political system like the   one we are in where the differences between the  sides are so big is that there becomes a sharper   in church or sharper tension between speaking the  truth in the way that one I think often times it   is true but then speaking the moral truth in the  way that you and people you're allied but see it   versus turning off the people that you may need  to win over to that moral truth I'm not here to   say I have the answer or that I figured it out  or that my like equilibrium is a right one or   even the Micra Librium is stable day to day but  just I think it's a tension that we have to spend   more time thinking about I want to ask about your  experience in the media because you write a lot   about media's participation in in the polarization  machine they're appealing to we are appealing to   a polarized public we also hold our eyes people  further as a result of appealing to a polarized   public you write an introduction toxic systems  compromise good individuals with ease and it   made me wonder if there's been a moment in your  journalism career when you can think back in a   news meeting or strategic visioning or choosing  which headline to go with that you look back   and think like oh that's me actually making the  world or making our government less functional   oh yeah I mean I wouldn't have written the book I  mean I say this very directly in the book at the   beginning that I'm inside the system looking out  feeling compromised by it not outside the system   looking in but I do want to say that in a way I  think it's even harder than that question when I   say bad systems can compromise good people with  these I the next sentence in that is that they   don't do it by asking us to betray our values they  do it by setting up a choice so that we are that   we are acting in concert so that we are acting  in concert with our values in a way that makes   system Oris that is often the the pole like Lamar  Alexander was a good example that a minute ago but   us for example for me so I shouldn't just hand  this over to Lamar Alexander oh that's easier   in the media chapter one of the things I talk  about is that in starting a media organization   or just being part of a media organization now as  you are trying to win over the attention of a very   polarized audience that has a lot of other choices  that the incentives are all towards turning up the   heat turning up the heat on identity on opinions  and you can go back and look at all kinds of   headlines I've done that even if I think the piece  was good the headlines probably 40% to hot and   that would make it go more viral at the cost of  turning off people I maybe could have reached and   that was always it's always hard choice and I can  think of times when I think I made it in the wrong   direction but in general the hard part is not that  I made it in the wrong direction the hard part is   that I made it in the right direction and it's  making the system or us like that's the hard one   it's not hard if I could see every time clearly  when the choice was like do the bad thing or do   the good thing I will choose doing the good thing  like I I have enough you know mostly mostly mostly   the problem isn't almost never that the problem  is when the choice is doing something that is   one version of good versus another version of good  doing something that is good for Vox versus good   for the media doing something that is good for me  versus better for politics doing something that   is good for my side versus bad for my persuasive  building something is good for one set of values   I have speaking clearly about moral issues in the  world and bad for another one which is engaging   in a small D democratic process of persuasion the  hard choices are not the ones we like I could be   an [ __ ] but maybe I should not the hard choices  are the ones where what has become individually   rational or even individually moral layered up  makes politics stop working I speak with some   sympathy for the choice that Mitch McConnell  made with Merrick garland to use an example   that is hard for me I think that he followed his  ideological and political and rational incentives   in a way that clearly like played out it was an  ideologically consequential vote it would matter   tremendously to the things he cared about it  matter tremendously to who won the next election   these are huge stakes life-and-death he's in  Paul I mean he's pretty of politicians McConnell   is more cynical than most but he's not purely  cynical I mean he wants to do something with   his power that's why he's got it and and yet the  choice he made as rational as it is and as much as   I think I mean he has said it was his proudest  moment telling Barack Obama he will not fill   that seat the choice he made scaled up to both  parties over time will destroy the Supreme Court   so the tension there was between what the system  needed of him long term and what his ideology his   political movement his political party his own  beliefs probably about how the country should be   governed demanded of him near-term I see why he  made the choice he did but like that's where the   choices are hard there are a few questions from  the audience and this one I think is it is just   saying it are we heading for a civil war truth and  democracy versus lies and fascism I hope not if we   are it won't be that clear-cut to be - to try to  be nice about it I don't I don't think right now   there's reasonably we are moving towards violence  we are a lot less violent politically than we were   50 years ago lot less violent than we were 100  years ago unbelievably less violent than we were   150 years ago go read Joanne fields of blood  Joanne Friedman thank you it's a great book or   go listen to my podcast with our great podcast  but she just it's just a book tracking violence   between members of Congress most of it on the  floor of Congress during the early years of the   Republic um you may have heard I mean probably  most of you haven't but there's even a musical   about one of them and so if you prefer musicals to  history you can go I think it's on Spotify and so   it's it's not that bad right now our trend is bad  our levels and that bad but it's not impossible   to imagine how it gets bad and I do think one of  the ways it gets really bad is that the political   system cannot resolve disputes politically so they  spill out into extra political means that's why I   worry a lot about the tension between the ability  to govern with a popular majority and the ability   to block that popular majority from governing  now some people say well isn't it better you   have that tension so both sides are represented I  don't think that's what's happening I think both   sides are getting more and more frustrated because  nothing can resolve and it tends I don't think our   divisions are so deep right now on any we are not  facing the kinds of fundamental questions about   the country in terms of release policy issues  that we faced it some very very even recent other   junctures what we are facing is a huge level of  escalation about our values and I think that if we   were able to resolve political conflict and into  legislation and it's solving people's problems   more smoothly some of the tension would come out  of that actually I think perversely the inability   to resolve a conflict traps us in that conflict  like health care has been a very combustible part   of American politics first for a long time now  if we had passed a universal health care system   like an actual workable one like Medicare for  all multi pay or whatever 40 years ago I don't   think it would be as I don't think we'd have  the divisions over what we do today I think it   is a fact that both sides like the Democrats  are almost always winning and the Republicans   are almost always losing but actually nobody is  winning and nobody is losing we're just in this   like toxic terrible stalemate it keeps the stakes  very high and makes it impossible for the public   to actually just like make a call as they did  with Medicare itself which is was controversial   when it passed and is now beloved like when we can  just live in the aftermath of a fight and decided   did we like the way that changed or do we want to  change back we know what to do when we're always   in the fight it just means we're always in the  fight and so I worry about continuing escalation   of tensions if we don't fix the system I hope  we're not moving towards civil war I don't see   reason to believe we our this isn't typically what  it looks like but there's ten or fifteen percent   of the time when I turn on my Twitter feed and  I see Donald Trump talking about enemies of the   people and what they're trying to do to your great  president and coos I think if I wasn't steeped in   our mythology and steeped in our national story  and I was just this was happened in Britain I   think I'd feel like I knew where that story  was going another question from the audience   Republicans are able to consolidate their power  why are Democrats not as effective at it what our   core identities that the Democrats could rally  around ah good question one reason Republicans   are able to consolidate power is that their power  is amplified through the American political system   this is super important because there is a like  a misleading assumption of symmetry here and so   a lot of liberals are constantly running this  argument of like why can't they just do what the   conservatives do and the answer is that if they  would did it they would lose and so for instance   if Democrats got 46 percent of the popular vote  in a presidential election they would not win the   White House they would get electoral II completely  wiped out if they won negative three percent of   the Senate vote they would not win the Senate  majority they would get wiped out if they won   plus two percent of the House vote they would  not win the majority they would lose and so the   issue there is it the power of the Republican  coalition is amplified by American politics the   Republic coalition is both more homogeneous but  it is also filtering through geography in a way   that gives it a power wouldn't otherwise have  I think it is a genuinely interesting question   what would have happened if Democrats had won  six of the past seven presidential elections I   think it's a genuinely interesting question what  would have happened if what had happened in 2016   was Donald Trump ran against Hillary Clinton  Hillary Clinton turned out to be a pretty weak   candidate I mean did you hear about what she did  with emails and then as we know email security is   the issue that Appalachian voters care about most  and so we say Appalachian oh that's because I'm   being obviously a little glib here but like you  run the election the same way Donald Trump loses   by three million votes Hillary Clinton wins that  means she's able to govern possibly able even to   fill that Supreme Court seat because there were  Republicans saying okay fine but if a Democrat   wins we are gonna let them we're not going to just  keep it open forever and then the Republican Party   Hera's its trump is doing apart for having blowing  a winnable election when the stakes were so high   when Marco Rubio or John Kasich would have won and  so the way in which the distortions of American   geography are permitting the Republican Party to  run a sort of minority rules politics as opposed   to being disciplined by the ways in which they  are not speaking to a majority of the country is   I think a very toxic contributor to our politics  one thing that people sort of assume that you need   to do if you're talking about polarization is say  that it's equal that the same things are happening   the parties are not responding the same way the  Democratic Party is polarizing there's no doubt   about it and it's possible it's simply operating  on the lag from the Republican Party and ten years   from now it will exhibit many more of the same  characteristics Bernie Sanders is there is no   doubt a left move in the Democratic Party and if  you look the way his supporters organize and and   prettily operate on social media it has symmetries  not moral ones but organizational ones it is   moving in a way where the argument is we will not  compromise fair enough if you can win that way and   maybe he can actually if you can win that way it's  worth trying but Bernie Sanders is nevertheless   somebody who's been in Congress for thirty years  he was the runner up in 2016 and he built a bigger   coalition after it he's had again and part of  the hole Bernie Sanders theory is he can appeal   to center-right voters in Wisconsin who can be  pulled over into a different identity and identity   of as exploited worker as opposed to sort of like  put-upon Costa I'm sorry put-upon heartland voter   so there's even there a theory of how I can win  voters the Democrats don't normally talk to the   Democratic parties to do this constant coalitional  math or public party simply isn't worrying about   right now like Doc Brown's value is it if it's  not identity in the Democratic Party is it is   there common language or I think it is at least  partially identity I'm not a political consultant   so the truth is I don't I don't know how to win  in these elections I'm not asking about winning   I'm more just like when you look at the the ways  in which the parties have sorted and polarized   what are the common variables you've talked about  how the Democrats are you know there's a bigger   share who don't believe in God they're they don't  live in more dense places are their values yeah   language around which there is an ability to be  to build a coalition yes in general the Democratic   Party does very well with a language of equality  that runs through both its economic values and   its social values and not only that I would say a  language a Democratic Party has lost is a language   of true democracy which they have thinned out to  be a kind of procedural political democracy it   would be better if gerrymandering didn't happen  true absolutely true but have lost a language of   economic democracy that in order to participate  in both politics and our economy and just to live   a free life you need a certain amount of economic  power to and I think the Democrats speak too often   in just terms of redistribution as opposed to a  kind of richer understanding democratic equality   but one of the things it is bad about everybody  in politics like almost literally everybody is   it everybody believes very few people will say  to you what I think is right is just unpopular   and so either we should like make the unpopular  argument and lose or we should make an argument   I think it's not right and try and win almost  everybody somewhat including me thinks their   particular like substantive preferred opinions  are also great politics and just like if like   everybody will let them write the speeches you'd  win and so I just I think it's very hard to know   what will move out or is it really depends  on who comes out and why and so in terms of   building a building values I mean everybody  has that they're said if not I usually think   politics should be built on but in terms of how to  motivate an electorate very few people are good at   predicting that in a true way very very very few  people so many books and op-eds are written about   why what I think is substantively right is also  politically right almost none of those people   have a good political prognostication track record  I want to get you to talk a bit about some of the   antidotes that you sort of begrudgingly but at  the end of your book you like a hostage no you'd   really didn't want to do it this is a question  from the audience it's been a devastating week   for Democrats I felt ready to disengage for my  own sanity and mental health what advice would   you give someone like me would you talk a bit  about what you write about the politics of place   yeah I do have a set of systemic structural ideas  but let's put those suicide for a minute my advice   that person is disengaged like really don't sit  here driving yourself crazy this week if you're   not doing anything about it if all you're doing is  following the omnis shambles of the iowa caucus on   twitter don't like we're gonna find out who won  in the delegates like you don't need to like go   on the emotional roller cook that's my problem  this is like but i get paid like probably you   don't so don't do it like Madeline Miller Cersei  is a wonderful book like if you're just doing this   for entertainment do something entertaining you  don't need to follow like every up-and-down and   so one thing I do tell people is that a lot of  people have gotten caught on an emotional roller   coaster of national politics far beyond where  they're actually doing any good by knowing more   about it like this person who wrote this question  I get the sense it's not a swing voter actually   and so in I might be stereotyping so in terms of  what's gonna happen between here and there like   adding on too big yeah Trump is bad his speech  today we covered it at Fox it was bananas it was   a bananas speech to give it a prayer breakfast but  it was it a prep now it's so wild and then oh my   god sorry I'm not gonna do this no I'm just gonna  do it for a minute because it's mostly satisfying then there's this whole thing with Nancy Pelosi  where she said she prays for the president in   quotas in Scripture and then Donald Trump jr.  said the Antichrist doesn't quote scripture   but actually literally in the Bible what the  Antichrist does is he quotes scripture and so like   the whole thing was just such a wild like pileup  of it's not good and just by doing that right   like I mean but what does it matter right like why  did I tell you all about it it didn't help anyway   my argument on this is that if you're basically a  hundred percent of your news is national political   news and just national international news in  general route more locally like build rebuild   a state and local political identity for a bunch  of reasons one our political system is supposed   to work that way to actually working on things  that you can change in your community is a much   more nourishing and positive kind of politics then  thank you then I'm a national political journalist   so this is a hundred percent do as I say but I've  you know hope I can influence national politics   but people are getting caught in national politics  they can't change and ignoring local politics they   can and also local politics it in important  ways complicates national politics you know   what'll make you nothing progressives are great  getting super involved in San Francisco politics it really it will very rapidly shatter a lot of  the symbolic progressive language when it turns   out the progressives believe deeply in equality  but just like absolutely nobody can live here   who doesn't have 1.5 million dollars and so like  getting involved in local politics where people   will meet with you where you do have more power  where your state Rep your city council person they   will sit down and have coffee with you where you  can connect with other people both like you and   unlike you to change something and where it can  and then even if you do want to be involved in   national politics with the national political  people want is people know how to do local   organizing they actually don't need more people  on Twitter they have enough people on Twitter   and so like rebuilding consciously your state and  local news diet so subscribe to the San Francisco   Chronicle subscribe to the LA Times subscribe like  read on SF curbed like these things really matter   there's a tremendous amount of money and know-how  an expertise and knowledge going in to constantly   reinforcing your national and strengthening your  national political identities box is part of that   and you should read Vox and subscribe to our  podcasts but not a hundred percent of the time   not such that local organizations wither and die  not such that the only political identity you have   is based on the national divisions and you don't  even know what the local divisions are anymore   like if that's happened to you fine like you can  follow politics is entertainment but no that's   what you're doing you're not doing politics you're  consuming politics and consuming like I can tell   you it's actually not a fun form of consumption  there are moments but as this person said she's   been following all week or he's been following  all week and it sucked and you know what you   don't have to and I heard you recently say that  after the 2020 election you may leave covering   politics for a while and I thought about that  reading this book I thought I'm not sure he's   enjoying this the cover design didn't he it  didn't make me wonder like how do you feel   um I am I said this is this came from my podcast  with Jill Lepore and I have been thinking about   this whether or not not whether or not I will  continue covering things that are understood   as policy in the sense of covering climate  change and covering economic inequality but   covering Washington politics campaigns weighing  in when there's something happening in election   when Donald Trump did a thing you know maybe  after 2020 that is hopefully not gonna be as   big a part of the political reporting job but  it could be I've covered at the election all   of covered politics for exactly half of my life I  started my political blog when I was 18 and I'll   be 36 and the actual reason I think about doing  something else for a while is in part two so I   don't get trapped in what I already know I mean  yes it's true I don't enjoy it at the moment very   much it's not enjoyable and in some cases I don't  really think covering politics should be enjoyable   I'll make my enemies in my profession on this but  the kind of political journalist I have the most   difficulty with is not the kind that I disagree  with it's a kind that I'll see on the eve of a   big election and the back isn't this great and I  was like no HOH like the stakes are too high for   this to be fun so I don't find that stuff fun  I find it interesting sometimes but elections   and like it's you know it's the stakes are real  it's not sports and but it within my own work I   think this book is true right now at some point  it won't be I've actually thought about what I   should have done instead of a solutions chapter is  like different ways this book could become untrue   like I don't think we're gonna solve my argument  against solutions on that I don't have solutions   is that they're not gonna pass so it's just like  me doing fantasy political football but things   will change they will change and in some ways  this book is a refutation of a dominant political   understanding that held when I came into political  journalism which is the people who ran political   news organization who had columns sometimes in  many cases this is still true but less so than   it was all their politics were baselined into  the 80s basically like there was like a macro   on everybody's keyboard that was that was you  remember when Tip O'Neill and Ronald Reagan drank   a bunch of whiskey and solved Social Security and  it's like everything is just like why can't we go   back to that and this book in many ways is an  effort to say we can't go back to that because   it changed it's not the same political system it  was we can't have that understanding my fear as a   journalist is being that person who can't see  that it changed who like convinced themselves   of their model because that model was true and  can't see that that model is no longer true so   for me I if I don't know what I will do after  2020 it will depend on what happens probably in   2020 but one of the reasons I think about leaving  politics is in some ways I feel like I've said in   this book like this is what I think is true about  politics but I'm now very convinced a bit and I'm   not sure it's actually a great place to cover  politics from and then separately I just don't   know what kind of life it will be to just spend my  whole like the rest of my days saying to everybody   who's ever excited about the prospect of political  change that the Senate is gonna crush your hopes I I think it is true and I think it's  important as a political journalist to   say true things but it gets it where  it's where it's wearing prospect I   don't like being that guy we're gonna  leave it there as we're fine everyone

Channel: Commonwealth Club World Affairs of California

Views: 29,639

Keywords: Commonwealth Club, Ezra Klein, Ezra Klein Why We're polarized

Id: CZXb2pKcU5k

Length: 70min 31sec (4231 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 19 2020