 This is Think Tech. I'm Jay Fidel. It's 5 p.m. on a given Wednesday. We have we have John David and here from HPU history professor to take us down the path of history to understand things we would not otherwise understand. Welcome to the show. We love having you here, John. Hey, it's good to be here. Thanks for, you know, having me on and yeah, it's good to do a show. You know, we need to do a show now to talk a bit about the elections are over right now. The kind of the political lines have been redrawn and I think it's an interesting time to do a little what I would call contemporary history and actually look. Not so much for historical perspective by going back to the deep past and, you know, drawing lessons from it, but actually look at the last 40 years of politics and look at the way that American political system has shifted over time. You know, we, we, you know, I know there's a lot of talk about what, what kind of transformative moment this is in American politics and, you know, yes and no, I'm not quite so convinced that it's a complete transformation. I've seen a lot of history. Okay, when I, you know, I studied the American Revolution, you know, the political crises of the late 18th century, the rise of abolitionism and the battles and the violence that that included the secessionism and the Civil War. And even Abraham Lincoln's interregnum, right, the time, the very long time actually it was actually much longer than today, because of course the President was inaugurated on March 4. Even that was actually, believe it or not, it was the threat of violence hung over that whole thing, a lot more than even what happened in 2021 so because mostly it wasn't violent, there was the violence, of course, on January 16, but other than that it was a lot of lawsuits, right, and a lot of protests. Even, even this is interesting, even the supporters of Lincoln, Lincoln, you know, took this long train trip before he got to Washington DC, he started, I think on February 8, and went to, to Cincinnati and Cleveland and Buffalo and other these, and, and Columbus and all these, all these kind of Midwestern states that had been kind of the bedrock of his support. And he was nearly crushed to death in Buffalo by his adoring crowds. So, sometimes the violence is completely inadvertent. I mean people really, it was actually a stampede in Buffalo and people got hurt in the process so that didn't happen this time around thankfully Joe Biden was not, you know, crushed under the crowds we didn't have crowds because of COVID and because of security concerns so. And I think, you know, a discussion about where we might be headed what this particular time looks like. And what are the changes what are the, what's things. Yeah. Well, you know, it points up your story about Lincoln and all that, and the interregnum and threats whatnot. It points up that you know the transfer of power inherent in a democracy is central. It's like they say, you know, Congress and representative government and the capital that's central but, but even more critical to it is the transfer of power peaceful transfer of power. And you know, in our lifetimes yours and mine and the people we know. There's been really no issue about the transfer of power. We really have to look way back to find a time when there was an issue. But reality is this reminds us the whole affair reminds us that we really have to preserve a peaceful transfer power we cannot tolerate what happened on January 6. It's too risky. You know, I personally I felt the bullet whiz by my ear. I think the country felt the bullet whiz by our ear. It could have just as easily gone the wrong way. If anybody had been, you know, assassinated, if they had, in fact, stopped the vote, take it over the capital, or any length of time, our entire system would have been threatened. And really the question is whether it is still threatened by the events that follow. We're not I keep saying we're not out of the woods. Congress is Congress. It's a sick puppy. May I say that a sick puppy. And we're going to find next Wednesday that they they exonerate him in that Senate trial that's a five. There's going to be no conviction. And this that really tells us and the world, just exactly how, how much a sick puppy our Congress is. Yes, something that has to be marked in history. Yes, so, you know, I, I'm a little more kind of, I'm not quite so I don't feel quite so negatively about the current situation. Yes, the insurrection could have been much worse. On the other hand, you know, they kind of got what they planned for that there wasn't they clearly wasn't a deep plan to take over the, the, the Congress and the capital was more kind of, you know, primary types and true believers who just kind of on an impulse stormed in there was maybe a little bit of planning there was some, you know, talk about weaponry and stuff but they're you know, they could have done a lot of things to plan this thing so part of me thinks, you know, if that's the best they've got, then they're really not a huge threat to the Republic to the survival of the Republic but, but yes we definitely we have to take it seriously. I think that one of the, you know, the, the long term impact of this because this is, you know, this has never happened before and, and this is going to stay in the political memory of, you know, both Democrats and Republicans so one of the long term impacts I think is that the Republican Party has got a lot of explaining to do for a long time. Because while there's a lot of things that, that America, you know, politics is, you know, kind of the soup of the day you soup to your right you know so. But this was beyond politics. As you pointed out this was about the political system itself it was beyond any political issue right it was about the, the sustenance the survivability of the political system and therefore, I think this will stick with Americans and it's going to be quite frankly reflect badly on the Republicans because there's you know the Republican president inside of this mob to this interaction so. So that I think actually in the long run is going to play in the favor of the Democrats. Let me sketch something out for you, Jay. So, but this is what I think has happened in let's take the long, long view and then we can dig into various spots of this and we can talk politics and debate it. The, so the long view is that since the 1980s, the Republicans have been, or let's say conservatives have been dominant in this country. They still compose, you know, they're about 35% of the 34% of the public and liberals are about 26%. So now liberalism has grown in popularity in recent time, but it's still behind conservatives so we've been living with this conservative paradigm for about 40 years. But I would argue that the conservative paradigm has begun, he began to come apart in in George W. Bush's presidency, started to come apart because he mishandled. Well, the whole Iraq war was just a fiasco and we know that you know when he left the White House is his approval ratings were in the range of you know like 25%. So it was, you know, it was a bad moment and of course, what we get then is we get this kind of change candidate out of that and you know in Barack Obama and so what we can say about Obama's Obama, maybe in some ways underperform, maybe early on, when he could have, he had a chance he really had a chance to move the electorate. He didn't move the electorate into the Democratic category as much as he could have because he was maybe a little too conventional. He went to Washington with the goal of kind of okay let's all get along right there's no blue and red there's just Americans. That's a nice idea but honestly, you know this this thought that you somehow you can go there and you can, you know, get people to hold hands and sing Kumbaya I'm not insulting Obama things. I like Obama but look, it's not kumbaya there it's about how politics is played and I think, I think Obama kind of he was young he was inexperienced. I saw that inexperience in his attempt. Let me give a specific example. Obama spent, maybe, almost six months trying to convince Republicans that they should sign on to some version of the affordable care app. And he spent six months and lots of political capital believing that that this had to be done in a bipartisan way. What did he get for it. Nothing. You got nothing for it. So they had to in the end they had to do with Democrats only wasted a lot of political capital kind of got behind the eight ball. So, so, you know, I think this idea of, you know, let's all work together is is over. It's, it's kind of the value of its exaggerate. And that's not to say that people shouldn't get along. But in politics politics is, it's about leverage. It's about being able to appeal to various, you know, constituencies with your policies. And it's really it's never about saying nice things because, except for an occasional, you know, really brilliant speech, and Obama had a few of those actually. It's, it's really about, you know, what you can get done. It's kind of the art of the doable so so Obama had more. I would compare Obama's opportunity to that of Franklin Roosevelt. And Obama's problem is he was reading books on Abraham Lincoln, not Franklin Roosevelt. Now, Joe Biden, and his administration, they're reading books on Franklin Roosevelt, and I think that's the right choice. I still think that this is a moment where where this is a kind of a Rooseveltian moment where where the electorate can be there's a fungibility in the electorate you talked about a transformative moment but I do think there's a fungibility there's a, there's a softness in in the electorate and I think the electorate can be persuaded to move. And that's what Roosevelt did in the 1930s with his policies. And I think the Democrats still have that chance to make that happen. And that's part of, you know, so, so just to, you know, I'm talking a lot, Jay. I think what's going on is the end of that conservative political system the Reagan type political system, really begin down with Obama. And we see now that I think for a while at least we're going to see some political parity between the parties and that's, that's one thing that has happened in history and political system as well but at least for the moment the Democrats have the upper edge and the upper hand, and if they can, they can embrace this relevant Rooseveltian moment and push forward with policies that appeal to, you know, to working people to social progressives, to environmental progressives that they can push if they're successful with those type of policies then they've got a chance to move a majority of Americans into their category. So, yeah, so that's When I was saying that Congress was a sick puppy I was really saying the Republicans are a sick puppy. I mean what you what you have now is a very strange thing I know you can, you know, you can comment on whether it has existed before but you have one party that wants to serve the public, whether they're, you know, finding best ways to do that or not. It's very clear that they want to serve the public. The other party wants to serve themselves, whatever that is and it's kind of learning tunes right now. They want to perpetuate their power they want to stop the Democrats for any achievement whatsoever. It's a very odd, you know, it's a very odd configuration. And, and I, and I suggest that that in order to go forward and continue on democracy and sort of We, we find ourselves rediscover ourselves and create a new world that works in our democracy. We're going to have to see a big change in the Republican Party that change may be coming. But it may not be coming to me. You know the thing is you take a pathological person. Let's say, let's say Trump, for example. If he gets away with something, it's going to be more than likely that he's going to try it again. So take a pathological party, which is easy to connect the Republicans with with the Trump pathology. And they go and they break into the capital. They don't succeed, but they learn, they learn. And so, you know, you can kind of expect they're going to try this kind of stuff again. Of course, the Democrats can learn to they can learn how to prevent this from happening again. But you have this ongoing tension between the possibility of the pathological result and the result of trying to, you know, correct that. And to me, it's not clear that, you know, that we, the capital is now safe. It's not clear that our elections are still safe. It's not clear that, you know, that we are still safe with all those Second Amendment assault rifles in the street. So I think we're still at a balance point. That's why I was, I was telling you about the Ahus at the top of Montelor. You know, you get to one Ahu for navigation. You don't know where the next one is until you get to the first one. Right. We don't know the success of our democracy here until certain things get done. And one of them has to be right now the next Ahu wherever it is has to be the clarification of the Republican Party because right now it is a total loser. It's all negative. It's all Trump. It's all pathological. And I think the country stands in the balance. I don't know, you know, and Biden is an admirable guy. Initiatives are admirable. His attitude, his kindness, his gentleness, his destructive approach to things admirable. But query can he function in the framework the founders established for when the other side, which is going by definition, have a balance of power with them. I have no intention of cooperating. Now this happened with Obama too. Their approach was trying to stop Obama from achieving anything. He's a black president. We have to show that he doesn't count. And they spent four years doing that and in many ways they succeeded. Now they could do the same thing. And that would really be terrible as far as the person industry is concerned. The one we want to be confident of our government who believes that he is part of it is part of him is serving him and so forth. So I think the next navigational point and the critical one it seems like it's a critical one every day. The critical one is that Republicans have got a shape up. Yeah, so let's talk Republican Party. So yeah, I mean, so you're right. I mean, the Republicans have been the party of no for, you know, for a decade, maybe a little more than a decade and, and, you know, this this refusal to cooperate has not hurt them until now. And now they're, they're going to be hurt if they don't do anything you can see. So, so let's take there's a, there's several things we need to say about the Republican Party but let's just take what's happening right now in the Senate with this, the COVID bill. So the Republicans were really they wanted to destroy this they would have never come forward with with any kind of a counter offer right. They, their, their, their concession speech was in their counter offer. It's like, we need to do something to appeal to people who are really hurting out there so they're making all the kinds of concessions right now. Part of it is that Trump drove the Republican Party in a different direction. Conservative limited government, you know, control over budgets while the Republicans have never had to haven't had control over budgets for, you know, Reagan, and then George W Bush, and now Trump for the last four years. The problem is that the Republican Party has kind of lost some of its values and that kind of core of conservatism has really trumped, really began to tear at that conservatism, because he wanted a government that could, you know, that was very powerful, not a limited government but a very powerful government. And he was willing to, you know, to spend any way that he needed to to kind of to bribe American people into voting for him. So, the Republicans have that's that's problem number one is that their core their core of conservatism is was actually under assault for four years now. You know, Trump spun lies and spun lies so it wasn't always clear but now Trump is not spinning lies and and the Republicans are having a hard time with with you know well we have to, you know, we can't spend money and all of the sudden we can't spend money now that the Democrats are in control but, like I say this this counter proposal indicates that the Republicans are they're on shaky ground in terms of their values. That's one thing I offer another thought on that john. They offered one third of what Biden has been pushing. And it's very clear. I mean, every everybody in the country knows we are in crisis. And the 1.9 trillion was not unreasonable. And if it was a little too much so what there are people out there starving huge number of people putting children starving. They come up with one third of what Biden is asking for. And there's no justification. It's like numerology. You know, what I mean by that is, you know, you practice law, for example, and you want to make a deal. They throw the other side, and they throw one third on the wall without any justification or explanation. They're just trying to get you down. And I do not believe I'm sorry I sometimes I want to believe that Susan Collins is okay, but she disappoints me every single time. I think they were just playing, they were playing the Democrats and I give Biden very high marks for blowing that off and saying no, it wasn't sincere I'm not negotiating with you, you're way out of the field of reasonable. So yes, they made an offer, but it was a stinky offer. And if it was an offer that a good lawyer saw, crossing his desk in response to his offer, he would say, take a walk, not too mad, which is exactly what Biden did and good for him. Right, so, and this is what Obama did not do in 2009 right, he should have done this he should have been a little tougher with them. He was not. The other problem that the Republicans have is that the Civil War is commencing within the Republican Party. And they're going to try to hold this line right okay as you as you mentioned as you mentioned before the show. So, you know the Q and on supporter Marjorie Green is she apologized today for her, what she termed her past support for Q and on I don't think that's going to cut it. Now the Republicans, you know, have attacked her, their parts of the Republican Party that think she's fine. You know, so there's a kind of, you know, you, you don't really know exactly how many Republicans are in that camp, but there there is a kind of the kind of the crazy camp of Republicans which is sizable actually it's either a sizable minority might even be in the Republican Party at this point. But so, so you've got this, which is distracting and damaging Republican credibility you've got the Arizona GOP censured their own governor and attorney general. So, so you've got the Republican Party beginning to fight itself. And that's a that's a sure recipe for, you know, splits and and weakness in a party so. Well, what on the last show I think was one of these I think it was the last show I said look one of two things can happen that either the Republicans go down Trump Lane, they continue to go down Trump Lane, and they become a true minority because it's there's some other issues there with Trump that we'll talk about in a second, or people like McConnell decide you know what we got to take back the party from the crazies. And there's going to be war because it's not like Trump is going to go away. It's not like it's the problem is with Trump you can't split the difference. It's his way or no way that's the way he's always been so that's, that's not possible to just kind of say well, we'll be nice to Trump but we're going to be, we're going to return to the kind of normal party of conservatism and, and you know we're just not going to just get ignore this radical segment. The problem is the radical segment is big. Estimated 35% of the voters of American voters think that voter fraud was significant in the last election. Okay, and they're almost all in the Republican Party. And so that's, that's probably 50%, it might be more than 50%. I mean, it might be 70% of Republicans, there have been polls that have shown this. This, this actually matches almost exactly the percentage of Americans who wanted Obama impeach 35%. So that kind of that 35% is out there, and it's, you know, and the Republicans are they're going to have to deal with that 35%. And, you know, you go like I say so. So, there's, they're going to have to make a choice here in the beginning, you're beginning to see that choice being made Mitch McConnell I think believes that he can pull the party back together. He can go around the edges, criticize somebody here or there, and then the party comes back together but I think, you know, the Trumps the Trumpers that they're not going to put up with. They're going to go after anybody who opposes them in any way. One is, you know, history always moves forward. I think that we had back Balkan years ago, he's the dean of constitutional law at Yale, and I said to him, can we can we go back to the way it was before Bush. Can we just return, you know, to free Bush day because push push at the time seemed objectionable. Now, which looks like a nice guy. You don't understand it always moves forward. Everything that happens contributes to the stream of I'm familiar with the stream of history going forward. So yeah, Trump is built into our history, right. And January 6 is built into our history. We have to cope with that the country, you know, has it as part of its memory now. This is very this is troubling, because we can't get away from it so quickly and you say that Trump will continue but I'd like to offer you possibilities on it. Number one is Mitch McConnell win, and he exercises from from the party, this will the Republican Party never going to succeed with you. And you're, you know, it's you're always saying Trump or, you know, Trump is Trump is my way or no way. So it's you're a mess and you're creating a problem for me for the party for for the power of the conservative move in the country. So you're out. And he wins. Let's say he went and Trump has to go away at that point. Trump successfully formed the Patriot Patriot Party. And I wanted to ask you about this since that came up because I wanted to ask you, you know, how successful have these splinter parties been. Could Trump succeed in building the third party. The other possibility is Trump. Trump just goes away. Is it possible that Trump could just go away. He doesn't have Twitter. My question is this sort of my question about about push. No, could it be that we return to a time when all of this sort of fades away and we go back to a more rational, kinder, gently, or America. Is that possible here, or has Trump screwed it up in such a way so that we can never return. No, so, so it's, it's not just Trump. Let's talk about Trump but it's not just Trump that's that's creating change in the United States it's actually a black lives matter. It's a protest culture. It's a leftward shift of the Democratic Party that they've been able to do with the leadership of Joe Biden, the classic moderate and centrist now is actually implementing policies that are more progressive. So this is why the Roosevelt example is much better than the Abraham Lincoln example because that's what happened to Roosevelt Roosevelt was pushed. He responded to immense difficulties, and he became more progressive, because he had to solve problems and Joe Biden takes the same approach. He's not going to solve problem that's very clear he's, he's not, you know, he's not so stuck on, you know, unifying the country or bipartisan bipartisanship that he's not going to stop he's not going to get stopped up and not solve problems so. Of course, Trump's concerned. The thing about Trump is that he still got political capital in the Republican Party. He does not have much political capital in the country. And yeah he's been defanged because he's off of Twitter and Facebook. The pure charitable trust did a really solid polling about what happened to Trump's popularity after the insurrection. And the bottom dropped out of it I mean his he was in the height, height 20 so he was comparable to George W. Bush at the end of his tenure. It might have popped up a little bit since then but so from kids from might be finished as a national leader as somebody who can command, you know, 4748% of the electorate. Probably finished in that regard because of the insurrection, but the movement is not finished. And so that's that this is the problem is that you're still you still have that kind of the crazy 35, crazy 35%. And it might be you know might not be 35% might be 25%. We don't know exactly but you've still got that element there that'll they'll jump off a clip for Donald Trump. So, as far as going away. I'm not so sure that he's just going to go away. And maybe if if Mitch McConnell does win and McConnell's of course a much better strategist and Trump. So he'll he'll take advantage of Trump's mistakes he's not going to go, you know had in hand to visit Trump at Mar-a-Lago. And it's possible that Trump would do something drastic like form a third political party which which would be, you know would be, it would doom the Republican Party at that point, because Trump would have a much more going political party because he would be four years in the presidency. He's, he loves the organizing part, you know, going to rallies and stuff. And if he formed his own political party he would be much more effective than for instance a Ross Perot. Ross Perot ran as an independent in 1992. And, you know, he did well he got almost 20% of the vote and provided it really provided a victory for Bill Clinton. But, you know, Trump's got more, he could get, you know, 30% of the vote. That makes me to my last question to you, which I've been thinking about lately through you have to. So the likelihood is that Trump will be, I don't want to say exonerated, but he'll be acquitted at this trial next Wednesday. It's a possibility maybe remote. It sort of depends on what what McConnell wants to do. And whether in the next week there are dramatic changes under the blanket with the Republican Party. And so, maybe he'd be convicted, maybe he'd be removed. I mean, permanently. That would that would be really terrific. My question is, what happens next Wednesday. How does that affect that trial. Okay, they or nay. How does that affect all of what we've been talking right you know it's, it's a little unclear to me because the lawyers that Trump hired and then fired. Those were lawyers who are going to put forth the argument of election fraud right and continue to push that the elections ill legitimate and therefore, you know all the rest of this doesn't matter because Trump should still be president and there wouldn't be any direction and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, you know these these kind of the conspiracy theory approach now he let those people go. And yet the new folks came in and they seem to be pushing a similar line and you know the Republican, the Republican leaders including McConnell have have signaled very clearly that what they want is for the Trump team to argue look this is. a constitutional impeachment because he's already left office. And that's, of course that's not true. The Senate has actually impeached former office holders before never a president but the president is an office holder like any other so. It's not completely clear if Trump does take the approach that this is all fraudulent and you know and the conspiracy theory approach, there might be a few more Republicans wanting to convict. Because that's what you know they've made their wishes clear that hey you can clear this and we'll just, we'll just kind of patch you on the back and send you on your way. If you argue that this was this is unconstitutional period end of argument. So, we'll have to see it's it's not clear to me, but if he does go down the route of the conspiracy theories then, then the Republicans they have to choose again right this is, this is Marjorie Green all over again right, and Mitch McConnell might have to get up and say those are lies those are lying lies and I'm voting to convict or, or what do they do then. See this is that the public and Republicans have they've lived under a guy who couldn't tell the truth from the broad side of a barn. And now they somehow have to squeeze these liars out of out of their party. And, you know, Marjorie Green might have apologized for now but let's see next time you know let's be sincere. So, okay, but the question is, if he is acquitted that presumably that would leave him in better condition to run again to form up, you know, to have influence within the Republican Party. You know, other options, if he is convicted presumably that will leave him with fewer options and maybe that's the end of the Trump era. If he is convicted I mean, you know, I don't have a clear feeling that one way or the other gives us a pass to the next hour. Yeah, I think I can, I can almost guarantee this that we have not seen the end of Trump ism. Not by a long shot not when 35% of the electorate still wants to go that route. It's susceptible to that route. So, you know, it's like, maybe it's the best way to see it is that, you know, we peaked I think Trump's political leverage and power has peaked. I think he's on the downward slope. But, you know, we can see see a little ways ahead. The continuation of Trump ism yes, the damage to the Republican Party yes, the inability of Trump to really I don't think if he runs for president again he's, he's not elective. Republicans have this terrible dilemma. I mean, it's the Marjorie Green dilemma right they've decided that they're not going to be the party of conspiracy theories and lies because it led to an insurrection. So the somehow they have to get outside of that. And Donald Trump does not lead them outside of that so that the Republican Party is on the hot coals right now they have to actually, they're going to jump around. They might survive as a party. Actually, we'll see I think under McConnell's leadership they've got a pretty good chance of surviving as a political party you know all political parties disappear eventually. We saw a lot of this now but we of course the Republican and Democrats have been around for a very long time. But at a minimum, almost guarantee you that the Republican Party is weakened by this. And indeed, at the same time it's a funny association a funny connection that as the Republican Party is weakened so has democracy. So, so has the country. We feel so fragile now, because it isn't working quite right they should be collaborating in Congress. We shouldn't be believing lies over. We have things things in our midst that are very hard to reconcile with with a rational government. Anyway, John, it just seems to me that the role of the historian has changed to know they say the change happens faster now. The role of the historian happens faster to it's not that you can dwell on things that happened, you know, 100 years ago or 200. The historian has to connect the dots from yesterday and tomorrow. It's different. You feel the pressure. No actually I feel energized by it. I mean the role of the historian is so much more important than it was 10 years ago. We can be navigators actually historians can so I actually, I've never been happier. I've never been happier having you on the show. Thank you so much, John David. I look forward to our next discussion together. Good. Take care.