Harvey Mansfield on Donald Trump and Political Philosophy

[Music] hi I'm Bill Crystal welcome to conversations and I'm joined Again by Harvey Mansfield of Harvard University uh this is three weeks after Donald Trump was elected and so you're going to explain the the meaning of trump from the point of view of political science political philosophy and the whole thing is is Trump a an altogether new phenomenon or is he intelligible in terms of classical political science well let's see yeah let's see he's certainly a challenge to Trump is a challenge to political science but let's start with Trump's demagogue the traditional term traditional term of uh Plato and Aristotle classical term demagogue also used uh by the American Founders as something to be avoided in a popular government um demagogue in Greek means um an actor for the people deos is the beginning of it people a people uh actor and it's um unclear whether the actor is the instrument of the people or the people are the instrument of the actor and I think that's a characteristic unclarity of a demagogue but the classical writers seem to come down um at the end to say that uh he's an instrument of the people so democ demagogues demagogy is characteristic of the people it's so to speak their fault they are to blame for the people that they are using to um gain their ends now uh and and the demagogue also has this characteristic which Trump has for sure and that he's he loves to be loved and he doesn't worry about the quality of the people who love him right he's only worried about the quantity so he wants a lot of people to love him and so so to speak without discrimination and that bears a close resemblance to what we call a celebrity in in um in our Democratic Society now there a a celebrity I I would say is right next door to a demagogue and uh Trump qua celebrity had a good preparation in life for becoming in politics a demagogue not so worried about the quality as the quantity and that would imply that he has a kind of preference for uh what is directly popular and not so much for what some thinker or maker of Doctrine works out so a demagogue doesn't have an ism he um is just uh himself and he wants to promote himself or is it the people or is it both and so you can see three things that uh Trump does in politics uh two of which are new and the first first is that he's he he loves big rallies that's typical traditional with a demagogue so big rallies in which he gets to stand there and hold the attention of everyone and everyone's looking at him and listening only to him and they get it directly from him see without the media that's his great point he wants direct appeal to you but nowadays we have media so to get around the media Trump has invented this new technique I that which I think is original with him for a politician which is the Tweet right yeah just a few words and uh but they always have a punch in them and uh and so he can attract attention that way and the media are in the position of having to talk about him instead of he having to talk through them so it's uh it's really an advantage uh a very considerable advantage to be able to to to Sid step get around run an in round around the Washington Post and the New York Times even the Wall Street Journal right so they're all they're all listening to him and then and then the third thing that he does is be outrageous and in a way that one has never seen uh I think an American politician or certainly not in a presidential candidate for example referring to a woman's menstrual condition is uh really forbidden territory one would think but he go he goes into forbidden territory issues uh insults crooked Hillary lying Ted right those are things he likes epithets epithets yeah and uh and therefore he gives people the impression that he as they say he tells it like it like it is meaning he goes beyond the barriers or the boundaries of good taste and of good manners of politeness of gentlemanliness but especially beyond the boundaries of political correctness which are boundaries of our time characteristic of our time and and um that makes people think that on this other side Beyond he's um found something that sort of secret or the the hidden cause of things and U he brings that out of the out in the people he appeals to what is hidden in our thoughts really are our feelings and gives it a formulation brings it out makes it public so he doesn't exactly cause it in in us but it's because it's there already but it's you might say a precipitating cause it's a cause that makes the hidden cause our our dislike our resentment say U political correctness uh and and and brings it out political correctness is um causes a lot of um resentment it's it's just uh the most U maybe characteristic expression of it is uh euphemism so today you get a lot of talk about undocumented immigrants right yeah that's a euphemism why don't they have documents it's it's because they're here illegally they should be called illegal immigrants that's what they are um that's a non-politically correct expression for my notice that even the Wall Street Journal is now talking about undocumented elements and of course all all the universities are up in arms about great dangers to undoc the undocumented so that that's an example and it and it and uh he so Trump is appealing to those who are excluded from the benefits of political correctness for whom there is no euphemism but in fact they can be called deplorables and you can get away with it and and so these people look on uh those who are on the list say the protected list so blacks and other minorities Asians immigrants Islamic gentlemen um so um and and they see that they aren't on that list and they're and their interests are therefore not being uh preferred as uh as those others are so uh so that's uh I I think the sort of the three elements of demagogy that you find uh that you find in Trump but then we characteristically call him or his ideas bism so and today in American politics you can hear the word demagogic to refer to particular um uh particular events or actions but um demagogue as a whole to describe someone is quite rare instead we use the word populist right uh implying popularism and so that's this tendency to rationalize the irrational and to make it respectable bring it out and so people will talk in in terms I think more of ideas about Trump than is the case if if he's a to to the extent he's a demagog he doesn't care about ideas he cares about being loved by no matter whom yeah and uh but but maybe he does have these characteristic ideas um because he's looking at a particular audience a particular section of the deos that is going to prefer him and he also appeals to others who want to use him so that that another that's another way in which uh um you know people are not so enthusiastic for Trump's ideas as they are for his ability and wish to change to change and U this is a kind of Reckless word change doesn't say whether it's change for the better or not or what kind of change uh just change as if we were desperate as if our society were in Desperate Straits and uh we were reaching for any any any hope of safety yeah um so that's um uh so that's this uh demagogy that and populism that he has immigration free trade um pulling back from nation building from right neoconservatism Marshal adventurism right and um things like that that he's associated with but um perhaps one should be careful of defining him by those ideas and and that he won't stick to them this gives hope maybe right uh that he won't stick to them because uh if he's strongly opposed or if he sees that it isn't popular he'll um he'll do something different on the other hand he has his great confidence having won against the odds against everybody's opinion everybody every respectable opinion or let's say not quite everybody most everybody's respectable opinion um he has greater confidence in his own view than of others so uh we don't know exactly what we're facing so let's go back to the demagogue question for a minute and maybe you could distinguish that from the more traditional American you know Common touch Log Cabin um I mean I'm struck that Trump did invent sort of for the modern era this notion of running this entire campaign as rallies traditionally in the last week or two you have big rallies in a general election or something like that but the way you showed let's say Bill Clinton or most candidates showed empathy with the common man was to go to a diner and have a photo up where they'd pretend to have a conversation over coffee Hillary Clinton did this with regular PE reg ordinary Americans as Hillary Clinton said at one point yeah but that's different somehow I think isn't I mean so maybe you could distinguish sort of let's say normal yeah they would say democracy from from the normal uh politician would say that oh you need informality informality is the way to get to the people and they're right about that but you can use this lecture that's what Trump is essentially doing at these rallies like a professor you can use that in a very informal way and he does speak very informally very informally and and uh with a lot of personalities and uh and is case uh insults instead of jokes right he doesn't have a natural sense of humor have AAL humor of any kind Dems don't I guess maybe you think yeah I think that's right that's right and so and so they yes they don't appeal to to the popular love of humor like Abe Lincoln right who always had a joke right always had a funny story relax him a little bit no he wants to keep you tense I guess that's part of it and so so humor implies some distance maybe right it does yourself yeah you're backing off you're able to laugh I.E laugh at yourself right yeah so no uh Demag God wants he's serious you got to be and I was struck at Republican convention and this is when I thought he could win I I didn't think he would win as most people didn't but I always thought he had a chance when he said Hillary I think it's something like this Hillary Clinton says her slogan was I'm with her as and and he sort of ridiculed that and said I'm My slogan is or I'm standing here to say I'm with you yes which is a nice formulation I think of a very nice yeah either a Democratic leader or a demagogue depending on how you think of it but in a way Hillary Clinton was too old fashioned perhaps you know or the identity poit I guess his appeal to the public is a whole trumpter kind of identity politics yeah her identity politics comes out of uh the might the Twilight of progressivism Democratic party stands for Progress right but um coming out of the Progressive Party in the early 20th century but it's been a long time since they've really believed in progress progress means that you can rationally say that some situation some state of things is better than another for example it's better to be more equal than not that's what they believe but they don't think that there's any reason they can give because they are caught up in relativism and U in fact value distinction and the inability of science to say what is good and what is bad so uh they have redefined progress simply in this word change makes it much vager uh and um and it takes the edge off it doesn't really promise anything except uh as if you were to pick up America like a doll and give it a shake right that's change and and so uh what they've come to identifies as bringing more equality is protecting the most vulnerable um sections of American society and so that comes back to their list of the right politically correct minorities and they forget about the majority as a common good where is the common good it isn't there the common good consists of a an addition of of the good of or interests of various ethnic groups so that that is really striking that what even books that are written about the emerging Democratic majority they're just adding up minorities in order to make a majority that's seems uh totally inadequate where is America in that and especially where is America's Pride or to think of trump where is America's greatness right so uh and America's greatness of course gets lost lost in relativism America thinks it's great so does every other country therefore we're all equal right therefore actually the countries that think they are great are are morally inferior to those who were satisfied with being Denmark yeah so that's uh so that leads to a we a very weak appeasing foreign policy a foreign policy of apology as as we saw very clearly in uh in Obama so the status quo the status quo then turns out to be the people who are believe in or talk about change even though they don't believe in it or you could say that prog Ives are people who um have stopped believing in progress today our friend Jim Cesar wrote a piece for the Weekly Standard he was very struck by Bill Clinton this was late 90s use of I feel your pain yeah as a kind of his attempt to identify with the public obviously in a sort of populist way you might say maybe a little demagogic way yeah and I think he traced that back to Germany and thought nothing good would come of this kind of politics but I guess it is striking so the liberal view is sort of I feel your pain and what Trump's but Trump doesn't quite put it that I mean he does talk about how things are bad and things have never been worse and it's the worst trade treaty ever so there's a certain amount of but he denounces it he you denounce it morally right yeah this is very bad this is terrible right doesn't have to be so it's less empathy and more yeah more Justice or Rebellion Rebellion resentment yeah yeah nature wouldn't like Trump yeah that's L Nature the philosopher opposed to resentment he wouldn't like I feel your pain either so no there's a lot of things he doesn't like yeah while we're talking about n what about the founders though they might be upset by a politics that's a competition of I feel your pain or I yes or I express your resentments yes I think they would right I think they would prefer a politics of contentiousness yeah but uh a politics where um people propose for the common good or for the public good um in America one finds um a kind of mix or a combination of two opposite things uh a can do Spirit things can be done there are barriers in the way but keep trying we'll get a we'll find a solution and then we'll do something we'll get good results but then also there's uh a love of process I've got my rights you've got to respect them and uh you mustn't let your can do Spirit get in the way of my rights right so if I'm a small house owner in the way of a huge building that wants to get built say none of you can do for me I'm going to fight for my rights and so somehow uh it's um it's it's been uh well you the the people who stand behind the can do Spirit I think the common people who uh who want to get things done who live in a democracy and they suffer from democratic impatience they don't like longlasting Wars for example nothing longlasting right everything must be found and found quick Freedom now that's Democratic impatience and most of the desire for prog for process comes from the elites it's the elites who protect our rights who Define our rights the elites consist mostly of lawyers and um they stand up for things which means they stand in the way of things but our constitution is a kind of combination of the two it has a lot of Rights in it but it also has powers in it so U and this was meant to be a Republican Constitution that for the that for the first time would work that's what was promised to us in 1787 all previous Republican constitutions have been lists of wishes if if only the the people could have this and that and um and if only this would happen and other things wouldn't get in the way now for the first time a republic was going to be made capable and effectual with a strong executive and not just a list of Rights but a separation of powers a separation of powers which would have checks and balances um but also in the contention between the powers something good or better would emerge so having a constitution slows things down slows down the the hurried impatience of a republic or of a democratic people it makes you think twice that you have to go by Camal legislature it is you can't pass a law just through one house you have also to get the Senate as well so and this signature of the president so all this is uh supposed to add up to something more than merely preventing government from doing bad things but also enabling it to do good things right give it more energy and give it more uh stability those two opposite characters that are promised in the Federalist for our constitution so uh you could say that the Constitution that was was set up against demagogy against the demagogues the main danger identified by Madison in U in Federalist 10 is faction of a majority not just of a minority which most republics have been aimed to prevent but a majority because a a majority faction that is something that acts against the rights of others or against the common good uh looks like a legitimate Republican majority it has it's it's a seeming majority majority for faction rather than for good so um uh this uh this majority faction is uh is comes to be seen as the main danger and the majority faction is mostly demagogues people are leaders who were able to uh bamboozle the people lead them mislead them take them from where they ought to go but perhaps where they might like to ago right um so the the Federalist rather um minimizes the contribution of the people or the the the blame that the people deserve for their resentments as opposed to their uh finer feelings right in Hamilton I think in Federalist one says and this as in other circumstances there'll be these demagogues who try to arouse the public passion and so forth but but I suppose there is in a way a somewhat thin line between these demagogues uh standing for public you know inciting the public and standing with them as Trump says and energy in the executive right Trump does appeal to something I mean yes that's right or fuzzes that over perhaps so that's right yeah and there so our Founders also appealed to that a kind of mellian uh love of what is Sensational of what makes a splash right what catches attention that's what um Trump gets by being outrageous and that's what Hamilton tries to you could say tame by by um giving constitutional expression to it um enabling a person with ambition to be an outstanding person and contribute to the common good instead of uh being U dismissed or even exiled because as one person with his own ambition he's a danger to The Republic so these ambitious dangerous individuals are turned to good account in the Constitution uh but they're checked right partly by U the other powers Congress and the Judiciary but also partly by the other ambitious people because ambition is something that permeates our politics I think America is defined American politics is mainly defined as the politics of contentious ambition I would say uh in front of the people and for the approval of the people but um somehow Trump wasn't checked though by either the Republican candidates or they tried they did their best I guess there were too many of them and maybe they weren't ambitious enough I had really thought about this before but I had that instinct during the campaign that they were too everyone said that they seemed too too conventional vanill Orthodox and there was a way in which they they underestimated they underestimated him and and and his his attractiveness to to people and um but you know it's it's hard to blame them for that right because uh this was this is unprecedented that that such a person as Trump could become our president so I guess we've had many many demagogues and they've succeeded at various levels of course be senator s [Music] or leaders in other ways and in the country major figures candidates I guess what's unprecedented is to then win the nomination and then especially win the election that's it's hard to really think of a president we've had who's yeah well and of course he is literally the first president who hasn't had government office or yeah of some kind or other before becoming president which is yeah Andrew Jackson would be right I guess a close but a long long time ago yes and governor and Senator and military leader he and the same with Teddy Roosevelt also very attractive rhetorically but full of ideas bursting with ideas yeah more than Trump much more than Trump now what about populism so that's the ism that people use to describe Trump and trumpism say emerging conservativism see but populism really first began in a political party I think with then and Democratic party with William Jennings bran so Thou shalt not crucify mankind on a cross of gold right yeah so Splendid phrases like that and which stood for a policy however the you know the silver standard as opposed to Gold Standard so so he was talking about an idea and the Democrats stayed with him for three elections amazingly losing three times so showing that uh this had a certain lasting uh appeal and then in this way too the parties uh um introduce uh a kind of anti-d demagogic yeah so let's talk about the parties because I think if you one asked an intelligent political scientist well what what how do we deal with democ one answer would be the Constitutional system yeah uh but another would certainly be I think the political parties right I yeah parties stand for principles and so I'm going to say Hillary Clinton's um consolation uh Speech or or what is it concession concession sorry concession spe kind like consolation consolation yeah was it sounds grander oh yeah actually uh she did propose this consolation that we could stick together right and our our party will will continue and you know we won't collapse or Surrender a democar would simply be defeated and slink away but uh no she's not that she's a Democrat and and Democrats stand for something certain principles and they're going to be with us in U in 2020 and so and you Republicans had better look out because uh yeah so in other words the parties stand for principles which are lasting and um have a certain durability not forever but uh and they and those principles sometimes can change or policies can change and the principles stay the same or at any rate there's a package of principles and and policies which are which is sometimes vague or difficult to take apart but but still it exists and it makes a difference between u a party and a fous demagogue now the political scientists have great difficulty in in distinguishing between a party and a faction uh the great difficulty arises from their methodology their scientific methodology which says that uh facts can be known but values cannot so you cannot know that a party is more valuable than a faction or that they all the time speak of the party system why don't they speak of the faction system well that's because uh despite themselves they do have a um certain feeling on behalf of parties parties are good in fact I don't know if a political scientist who said parties are bad right they all think that today that parties are good they don't say good they say they have a function necess but that's that's fancier more euphemistic way of saying that they're good because when you say function you don't mean a bad function you mean something that that does good for you so and that is uh that it organizes opinion uh it sort of the parties stand in between us individuals and uh the country as a whole and they bring us together sufficient to make a majority so that the whole can be governed by that majority and maybe that's not a bad uh definition though it's pretty vague I I would especially wonder about the word organize because uh the what they're organization such such as they're speaking of as something which is public and not something which is secret or private therefore they're really making a distinction between party and conspiracy and there was a time when all party was considered to be conspiracy and even in a free country and it was all right to disagree or to be an opponent of the government but to get together and uh in in what was called a formed opposition this was in Great Britain um Regular organized regular organized in a regular way in and in such a way as to be publicly visible and held to be respectable and legitimate that was wrong and so that that was changed uh that that opinion was changed in the I think in the late 18th century in Britain by Edmund Burke and then in America in the um in the in the jeffersonians so Madison and uh and Washington uh deplored parties actually Madison and Federalist 10 spoke of the the P the the spirit of party and faction yeah as as if party and faction were the same well they do are they are the same in this they have a certain Zeal they both make you contentious and I think but I think that that the definition of faction was against rights individual rights and against the common good well suppose you had an organization that was in favor of Rights and and in favor of the common good like Madison himself together with Hamilton and the other federalist in other words the American Founders that would be an example of a party that was good but it didn't call itself a party because it wanted to stand for the whole and so it's still held to this old tradition that party is by itself something of a conspiracy and uh so Jefferson came along and made a party that was open and public he wanted to return America to its Republican to to the Republican greatness of its revolution against these oligarchical uh monocrat he called them the Federalists and the Federalists got sort of named um against their wish right as a party they became a party stumbling into it without really wanting to be one um but the thing about Jefferson Republicans was that it's just one party and so later on it it had to be shown that um it was respectable to have more than one party going back a little bit to Burke who had defined party as a body United upon some particular principle now that's uh not a true principle but just a particular principle and there are other particular principles and if if you look at politics that way kind of pluralistic way there isn't a true princi principle or at least in Practical terms uh people won't find one they'll only find a particular one that they like and others will find and so that leads to uh the way in which we speak of principle today is it as somebody is principled you're principled and that means you don't just act on your interest you'll sometimes act against your interest that's a sign that you're acting on principle you do something which you ought not to like um a man who favors Fe feminism for example would be a man of principle though not of Interest right yeah so uh and that so principle is U is is a way of bringing some justice and and some notion of good um without some particular good or general good that you have to agree to and so and that's uh what our parties I think stand for now and make and they therefore make it one can make a distinction in that way between U party and faction so the Federalists the Anti-Federalist didn't accept this let's call it burkean notion of parties they just the Federalists just thought we're right or we'll absorb whatever that's right whatever is correct about the anti Federalists and have these amendments to the con well bur was talking about English gentlemen and uh and the Federalist was talking about American citizens revolutionary citizens these are not people not differential English Yen there these are uh but they didn't anticipate after after the fight over the Constitution these parties were going to go away right I mean no they didn't right that's right they would go away and then uh right and uh as soon as uh the uh country saw that good Administration would follow that was Hamilton's grav and that's that comes back to our can do principle that the ultimate test of a republic is not whether it's Republican but whether it works and that's what Trump accepted as his ultimate test when he made his acceptance speech said it's all right all very well for me to have won but it won't do my love of Fame any good won't do my reputation any good unless I do a great job great job right so that's uh that's again this American greatness and the American ambition which is both National and personal um he's he's ambitious to make America great but at the same time and this is not incidental he'll make himself great and now is this a break therefore with Burke and with parties and and I mean is Trump in a sense what Burke was trying to guard against when he invented party government of course he was demagog he was he was uh he was what both Burke and Madison were opposed to but now we've got our system in place and our system consists of the Constitution plus the parties and plus the media so we've been seeing in the last 3 weeks uh the accommodation of the Constitutional system of Congress and not yet the Judiciary to uh Trump and he's been making appointments of sort of seasoned though conservative politicians um who belong to the establishment and to his party and to his party I he's not trying to transcend party differences it doesn't seem which could do as a demagogue I mean other democratics have tried that right kind of yeah no he's not not so far he's not right I mean there's no more anti-establishment figure than in American politics since uh that really to compare with Trump and yet he owed he owes his victory to two establishments first the Constitution which sets up an electoral college enabled him to win even though he lost the popular vote and uh second the party system because um it he won because Republicans came back to him they voted for him not because he was Trump but because he was a Republican and he ran behind the sort of house Republican vote yeah so it's now he of course hates that this this I think might explain he's recently been attacking or claiming that he would have won the popular vote if illegal voters hadn't voted yes seems to be not much basis for that claim since he's going to lose the popular vote by I don't know two and a half million votes or something but um but maybe that's why he cares about that Ian that I think does show about that yeah and that's he doesn't like being being obligated what's the looking for being dependent on the Electoral College he's an excellent offhand liar yes yeah that's part of being a demagogue too I suppose I think so but do you think he he lies so much you sort of he lies un unnecessarily I would say it yes right why is that what's how does that fit to the theory of Dem it's not strategic you can't predicted so he wants to be unpredictable I think that's but he wants to cause surprise yeah and um he and I I think that's calculated that he um you know he'll he'll stick it to you and uh try to Bow you over make you as he's done just with this claim yes everybody's talking about these millions of uh illegal voters right who suddenly um were prevented from um from doing their Duty so should would be alarmed bried or whatever I mean he's so willing to to use the yes Donald You've Won stop it right yeah so is he right to think that he needs to keep doing this or is he is this ultimately not in his interest in your opinion I mean time will tell they say hard to say yes yeah yeah yes uh right the chances are pretty good that it'll overreach at some point but one can't yeah I don't think he's found it yet yet and I think those of us who are more conventional probably underestimate the utility of that constant we do surprise and yeah willingness to shock a little bit and say things that aren't true and then have the media complain for two or three days that it's not true and then he gets to look like he's just indifferent or above somehow these Petty complaints yes by lying he tells it like it is maybe that's a way to end it certainly is and thank you Harvey for that really enlightening and thought-provoking conversation here 3 weeks after Donald Trump's startling surprising Victory thank you thank you for being here and thank you for joining us on conversations

Channel: Conversations with Bill Kristol

Views: 34,001

Keywords: Harvey Mansfield, Harvard, Donald Trump, Political Philosophy, American Politics, Classical Political Philosophy, Party Government

Id: 7tn_eJLOnGI

Length: 42min 50sec (2570 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 18 2016