 Ladies and gentlemen, it's a great pleasure to welcome so many people here today at our next symposium, Democracy Today in the USA. On the 4th of March, 801, was President Thomas Jefferson, who in his first in oil address expressed his conviction that America is quote unquote the world's best hope. En in 1862 was President Lincoln, who reminded Congress that America is again quote unquote the last best hope of Earth. Just two decades later, the millions and millions who immigrated to America, they all would pass the Statue of Liberty. With on its pedestal, the immortal words of Emma Lazarus. A mighty woman with a torch whose flame is the imprisoned lightning and her name Moroff Exiles. Key patient lens, your storied pomp, she cries with silent lips. Give me your tired, your poor. Send these the homeless, tempestose to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door. Now welcome by these words on the Statue of Liberty. For all those millions, just like Jefferson and Lincoln, America represented the last best hope on Earth. Why? Because America is a democracy. And this word became a shibboland for a whole idea of civilization. Democracy meant for all of them, liberty, equal rights, the rule of law, separation of powers, freedom of expression, freedom of religion, a world of reason, the pursuit of happiness. When in the 20th century, the old world, our world, came in the grip of a self-inflicted totalitarianism. As we should never forget that Mussolini, Hitler, Lenin and Stalin were all welcomed by millions. For all the millions, in particular Jews and their fascist artist intellectuals, America again proved to be the last best hope on Earth. One of those who found refugees in America was the novelist and Nobel Prize winner Thomas Mann, who not long after his arrival in 1938 went on a coast-to-coast town hall lecture series on entitled The Common Victory of Democracy. Here is what Mann says at the end of his lecture in 1938. Four years ago I visited America for the first time and since then I've come here each year. I was delighted with the atmosphere that I found here because it was almost free of the poison that filled the air of Europe. Because here, in contrast to the cultural fatigue and inclination to barbarism in the old world, there exists a youthful, respectful culture, a youthful sensitivity to its values and its products. I believe that for the duration of the present European dark age, the center of Western civilization will shift to America. America has received much from Europe and that debt will be amply replayed if, by saving our traditional values from the present gloom, she can preserve for them a brighter future that will once again find Europe and America united in the great tasks of humanity. After the Second World War, with America as superpower, democracy and America became synonyms. Synonyms for the free and civilized world. And that part of the world, where there is no democracy, well, there is no freedom that's not civilized and therefore the whole world should be made safe for and through democracy. Ladies and gentlemen, the Nexus Institute has chosen to organize today's symposium democracy today in the USA We are convinced that what Alexis de Tocqueville said in his magnificent book Democracy in America is still very true. To have an understanding of America's democracy will help us, Europeans, to understand what we have to hope for or fear from. And when American democracy is in trouble, then that will affect something much larger than the world as it is nowadays. Because it will have a tremendous effect on our world view. It does affect our notion of what a civilized world is supposed to be. Ok, I am very pleased that an all-star American team accepted my invitation to come to Amsterdam to engage in a conversation about issues and questions which will not only determine the future of America, but will have a huge impact on European society as well. So please join me in a very warm welcome to Anne Applebaum. Sean Wilhands, Roger Bergevic, Ambassador Derek Schierer and Randall Kennedy. Now, unfortunately, and very much to our regret, due to family circumstances, our dear friend Arsenaar Vici could not make it. But Jet Bush is here and we are very proud of having him and honoured that he has chosen the next symposium to present his views and discuss with our other guest democracy today in the USA. A heartfelt welcome to Governor Jet Bush. Good afternoon. It is a joy to be here. I've heard so much about the Nexus Institute and the thoughtful conversation we're going to have for the next three hours. And the fact that you all are here to hear about something that is very important. I'm with five incredible scholars and a former politician. Hopefully we'll all learn together about the challenges of democracy in our country en the impact that might have here in Europe as well. We share a common culture, we share a lot and I think our political systems also are being impacted in similar ways. In retrospect, I was a candidate, you may know, I wasn't there long enough, you might not have noticed the campaign but it was actually 13, 14 months and during that time I learned a lot. I did share, I listened to the frustrations of a lot of people that were concerned that our system wasn't working, that our democracy really wasn't working, that our government wasn't working. In our country, a country where Europeans not that long ago would constantly say you Yanks are way overly optimistic about things, naively optimistic, no one can say that anymore about America. Literally for the last decade, Americans when asked in polls will say that we're on the wrong track and they're deeply pessimistic about the future. For the first time in American history, people believe their children will have less opportunities than what they had. In that environment, it's not surprising to see the disruption of the political system. In fact, I would argue, and that's the point of my brief remarks here today, that this has all been happening perhaps in increments not discernible to the naked eye for an extended period of time, the financial crisis makes all of this kind of cascade out into the public domain and the changing culture and many other things now has changed our political system. I wanted to give you my views about why this is because there are some rational things that have taken place where we haven't made adjustments. First, we are living through one of the most extraordinary times in world history where the advancement of technology and innovation is extraordinary. We're moving at warp speed with the changes that are taking place and the institutions that we've relied on to provide some security and stability in our lives have stopped to work to the degree that they used to work. Technology and advancement and innovation is phenomenal if you're educated, if you're motivated, if you have a support mechanism around you, you can embrace that technology and live a life of purpose and meaning that is awe-inspiring. In fact, I would say it's probably the best time to be alive. Babies brought into the world today that have loving families that have resources will live easily till they're 120, 130 years old. They'll live healthier. I'm not sure exactly what the world looks like 100 years from now but it is because of technology and innovation that you can dream the biggest possible dreams. On the other side of this, though, technology has created massive disruption. Think about Facebook. Facebook has a market capitalization of value that is, on a net present value basis, I think greater than General Motors at the height of its power. General Motors at the height of its power had 300,000 employees. Facebook, I think, probably has 4,000 employees. You see the aggregation, accumulation of wealth in ways that no one could have imagined and the innovation that's taking place isn't kind of creating the jobs that we would expect in the world that we've gotten accustomed to. So innovation can be your friend but it also can be a disrupter and there's a lot of disruption going on in America today. Last year, Mackenzie did a study that showed that half of the jobs in the United States could be disrupted because of automation. Babies brought into the world today, perhaps in Amsterdam but certainly in the United States. If you're born into poverty, the possibility is that you'll never have a job. So imagine if you're a voter and you're looking at all this disruption and you see your life change and you don't see the systems that we're there to take that provide security and opportunity for you. You don't sense that they're working. You have a financial crisis. It's not a surprise that we have clearly a pretty wild and crazy political system that's because of that. The second issue that I think is a trend that's been taking place for more than a generation is globalization. Again, globalization has brought huge benefits to the United States in terms of lower consumer prices, new markets, people being lifted out of poverty that creates great potential for our country. But globalization also means when you lag behind, when you don't modernize your regulatory system, when your education system operates as though it was in 1950, where higher education operates with the same model that applied 100 years ago and you see the challenges that take place, you don't have the benefit in a globalized world where money is fungible, where you'll see investment patterns move to what the best climate is. We lose our competitive edge en it creates greater imperils more and more people. Once again, a trend that is a secular trend that has nothing to do with American politics has created strains on our democracy that the political system hasn't dealt with. The third secular trend that is pretty dramatic and it's certainly dramatic in Europe and equally dramatic in the United States is that our demographics have changed dramatically. My plan, by the way, for everybody in this room 10 years from now is that you're going to be 10 years older. Anybody argue with that? Well, the simple fact is we're getting older together and that dramatically changes a lot. The social contract that existed in Europe certainly and again in the United States is being torn apart by changing demographic changes. Our demographic pyramid is inverted and the political system seems unable or incapable te be able to confront that great challenge and people are scared about their future. Recently there was a poll done by Money Magazine that suggests that 63% of Americans cannot afford a $500 car repair. 70% of Americans cannot have a crisis that would cost $1,000 or more. They don't have liquid assets to be able to deal with a crisis. If you don't think that impacts the political system where the anxiety that people feel about their future where one car wreck or one visit to the emergency room will change your life and change your family's life, trust me, it does. In that period, this time of deep anxiety, partially related to the fact of our inability to change the social contract to deal with the reality of our changing demographics, people are fearful. I'm the chairman of a foundation for education reform, K-12 education reform in the United States and hopefully we'll talk about that today as one of the means by which we change, we get back in the game as it relates to making our democracy vibrant. But we created a dependency ratio. If you take people under the age of 18 and you add up the people over the age of 65 and you divide it to the rest of the people, that's the dependency ratio. En that dependency ratio in 2010 was 59. By 2030, that'll be 79. In Florida, in Arizona, in Nevada, three of the fastest growing states in the United States, that number will be 90. And in Florida, which had the oldest dependency ratio and the highest dependency ratio in 2010, by 2030, every state in the country will have a higher dependency ratio than Florida's of 2010. The world is changing and yet our political system and our governance model seems ill-equipped to be able to deal with it. In fact, I would argue immigration should be a solution to some of the challenges that we face. When in fact it's now a political wedge issue that it's like never ends. Just every cycle both sides use it as a wedge issue to garner political votes rather than taking advantage of this extraordinary American experience of immigration. It now is stuck in Groundhog's day. It just never goes away and we're not taking advantage of the potential to solve these problems. The fourth big secular change that's taking place in our country is our culture is changing. My party talks with great, speaks a lot about Ronald Reagan. Well, he was a great president. I loved Ronald Reagan. And my dad got to serve eight years as his vice president. And he changed the world in many ways. But that was a long time ago. And our culture is dramatically different today. And the need to be able to update one's message to talk about the challenges that we face today seems hard to do. And one of the reasons why we're in the mess we're in is our culture has changed. Today in the United States 42% of the babies brought in the world will have a dad, obviously. But that dad won't be the husband of mom. In a quarter of all children will grow up not knowing who their father is. This is an experiment that has never taken place in modern history. And the strains that this is now placing on our system is dramatic. And yet, and that's a cultural change that hasn't been dealt with in my mind. We have social and economic mobility now that has stalled out. America was always proud of the fact that it didn't matter where you started in life. If you worked hard and played by the rules you could be born in poverty and achieve great things. Well, today if you're born poor you're more likely to stay poor than any time in modern history. And if you're born wealthy you're hanging out with people of wealth. You're living in the zip codes where wealthy people hang out. You go to the best schools and you're going to live a life of extraordinary purpose en meaning. En dat lack of mobility is one of the reasons why we have a strain in our democracy. And the inability to deal with these great challenges I think makes it easier in retrospect to see on the left a candidate like Bernie Sanders and certainly in my party, the emergence of Donald Trump becomes easier perhaps to understand. So what should we do? First and foremost I hope we get to the point where as Americans whether you're a liberal or a conservative or a libertarian or a socialist now I guess we have that you believe that high sustained economic growth has to be part of the answer. We're accepting the new normal, this terminology that I find repugnant of 2% growth. 1.5% growth. 1.5% or 2% growth will create demands on government that will overwhelm us. Will make it harder for people to be optimistic about the future. More and more people will be given the false choice of what they perceive to be economic security rather than economic opportunity. And the dynamism of our country will continue to decline at a time when we need to be significantly more dynamic. Higher income by itself, higher growth by itself isn't all the answer but without it it creates very limited possibilities. And we could grow given the nature of our country given the size, its scale the fact that we have the potential inside of us were still dynamic in many ways we could grow at 2% more. To put it in perspective 2% growth compounded out for 10 years would create a Germany of additional economic activity something like 4 trillion dollars of additional economic activity in the 10th year alone. It would create rising income instead of declining income and my guess is that it would dramatically change en we go about viewing our politics. If people are more hopeful and optimistic they won't fall prey to the false promise. They won't fall prey to the large the big horse in the room that is offering all sorts of promises that aren't backed by substance. So economic growth has to be part of this. The second thing that I think is essential and again I don't believe this is necessarily a partisan issue as well or what are the tools that people need to be able to rise up again? How do we deal with this great challenge of people feeling like their lives have been stalled out? I don't think the issue is when we'll talk about this income inequality I think the issue is the lack of social and economic mobility and there are certain things that really matter as it relates to the chance for people to rise up. The most important one of which is to move our K-12 or K-forever education system make it lifelong transform our education system so that more and more people have the power of knowledge. The tools that come from equality education will allow people to be on the good side of innovation and change rather than be overwhelmed by it in terms of the disruption that it brings. We've got a long way to go starting with pre-K all the way through our higher education system it has not been challenged to the degree it has to. I can envision an education system 20 jaar van nu waar alle kinderen de mogelijkheid om de godgeving van de mogelijkheid te hebben waar ze de schilders nodig zijn om te zijn effectief in hun leven en waar ze altijd terug kunnen om hun educatie te adjusten based on the circumstances in which they're living waar iedereen leert in hun eigen manier aan hun eigen gegeven dan met een klein buit in een buit als je jong bent fundeerd door 180 dagen waarin je een educatie systeem hebt waarin je de mogelijkheid van mensen te kunnen leren en waar mensen, jonge mensen die kunnen leren sneller gaan graderen met de schilders nodig om een post-secondaire degree te krijgen en voor de mensen die ze zijn ze krijgen de helpt nodig om hun objectief te krijgen zonder de achtergrond gecast. Vandaag in Amerika, dit is hard voor mensen te imagineren in ons land, maar mensen die in hun schilders graderen van hoge school career of college ready. We hebben een 80% hoge schoolgraduation rate en iedereen praat het wanneer het percentagepunt gaat elke jaar, iets zoals dat maar half van die kinderen moet remedial werken ze gaan naar de communie college luister in hoge school reading en in hoge school math en als je een career ready is naar de universities of de communie college om te kunnen gebruiken wat ze hebben geleerd om een betere werk te krijgen. Ik denk dat we een revolution nodig hebben in education, eerst en voormost en ik denk dat onze politieke systeem beter wordt als we mensen hadden die de capaciteit hadden om succes te bekijken. Het verandert je dynamiek als je optomistisch is omdat je in je eigen schilders geloven en nu, eerlijk, meer en meer mensen het verantwoordt voor ze. Het eind wat ik zou zeggen is dat we moeten werken en dat is ook niet een partijse issue als je geluid in een grote verantwoord wil, als je geluid in een kleinere verantwoord wil, wil je werken. We hebben een verantwoord met 360.000 employeurs dat is veel mensen ze hebben in hun budget in de tijden van miljoen over de laatste decade maar als je kijkt hoe ineffectief ze zijn voor doen wat ik denk misschien de hoogste prioriteiten een van de hoogste prioriteiten van de goveren is om mensen te zorgen dat onze land veilig is niemand kan argue dat ze zijn werken. In het laatste jaar de Veteran's administratie geeft ons een bonus van 140 miljoen dollar en in die bonus structuur geeft ze bonus voor de manager de grootste health care systeem in de wereld ze geeft bonus voor mensen die op de wettingslist voor Veteran's die niet op de wettingslist werken hier is het probleem ze werken op de wettingslist mensen werken op de wettingslist maar niet op de wettingslist en Veteran's gelaten en bonus's gingen uit en na de scannen en alleen drie mensen zijn gevierd wanneer je een liberal of een conservatief is dat is uitgaans en we moeten veranderen hoe de goveren werkt het lijkt me dat de gover moet meer servend orienteren en meer effectief en ik denk dat er tools dat we vandaag hebben om onze gover in de 21ste century te brengen en er zijn veel exemplen van successtoren in dat geval het finalste wat ik zou zeggen is een punt dat ik hoop dat we een beetje gaan praten die is in de United States mensen kijken naar het politische systeem en ze denken van het als het oudere object ze doen het echt ze praten over politie en de gover maar het is iets van hun leven en dat maakt het harder om onze politieke systeem te veranderen en om onze democratie te veranderen als mensen het veranderen in fact, politie is een mirroer image van ons net als het hier is in de Nederlander het is zeker dat man in de United States een circus mirroer is van onze cultuur en we moeten geïngageerd in het veranderen Arthur Brooks is de CEO de president van de American Enterprise Institute die is een van de ledende denktankers in Washington D.C een centraal-righte denktanker en hij is een goede vriend, een woonvuldige jongen hij is bevriended de Dalai Lama die ik vind als een ongevaarlijke oddcouple en op een van de laatste conference de Dalai Lama bevrijdt met al deze grote doneren op dit prestigieke denktank Arthur zegt aan de Dalai Lama dat ze niet zeggen wat het betekend is dat zou mijn eerste vraag zijn hij vraagt hoe we de politieke klimaat veranderen en de Dalai Lama heeft observaties die ik denk echt zijn hij zegt dat de solutie niet begint om mensen te veranderen dat als je het gaat dan hebben we een responsibiliteit om te veranderen en in de politie dat betekent dat de eerste impuls niet moet zijn om iemand te demoniseren want dat is wat er nu gebeurt in Washington D.C. in Washington D.C. in particular misschien niet in de state capitals republicans niet meer interacten met democraten en democraten niet interacten met republicans het is heel makkelijk om iemand te demoniseren ik heb liberalen vrienden en hopelijk liberalen hebben conservatieve vrienden in onze reale leven dat is wat we doen in Washington we moeten datzelfde attitude dat omdat iemand het niet betekent dat ze een goede persoon zijn als je met dat premissie begint hoe de cultuur kan veranderen en hopelijk de volgende president van de United States zal deze een van hun hoge prioriteiten veranderen wat hij zei dat ik bedoel dat het extraordinarily belangrijk dit tijd is waar duifheid en sterkheid is met vulgariteit en de volume van je voet in een Amerikaanse politiek leven wat hij zei is dat mensen weer warmgehaald moeten zijn dat ze een hart moeten hebben dat het eerste impuls is om iemand te bevinden dan om jezelf te bevinden als een mensen mijn guess is dat onze politieke systeem wordt geïnteresseerd en politieke mensen die aan de mensen en hun feest zouden niet de soort van support dat opnieuw temperatuur is dat ze vandaag in de United States veranderen als we seriënt om de democratie te veranderen en ik hoop dat jullie allemaal een belangrijk prioriteit voor de wereld en zeker voor onze eigen land voor de zaken van mijn vrienden en iedereen's vrienden dat is een heel belangrijk deel we moeten weer warmgehaald zijn bedankt voor het kijken