>> Good evening.
Mr. Axelrod, Mr. Rove, members
of Congress, miss Compton,
distinguished guests,
good evening.
And for those watching via
live stream in Hawaii, Aloha.
On behalf of the Library of
Congress it's my pleasure
to welcome you this evening
as we celebrate a wonderful
five-year collaboration
with the Daniel K institute
to commemorate the life,
legacy and values of
the late Senator --
they've featured distinguished
friends of the late Senator,
current and former
cabinet members
and other thought leaders.
For five decades, the lecture
has brought an expansive themes,
diplomats and historians.
From the first lecture
with secretaries of state,
Madeline Albright -- left an
enduring legacy at the library.
Some of you may know
that this year our theme
at the library is celebrating
our nation's change makers.
And I think you'll all agree
that our guests tonight
fill that bill.
And we are excited to hear
them talk about the challenges
of our nation's political
system.
The lectures have
been made possible
by a very generous donation from
the Daniel K. inway institute,
we -- the driving force behind
its legacy could not be here
this evening but I ask you
to join me in recognizing her
because she is watching.
[Applause]
>> Thank you.
So now, Ms. Jennifer saf as,
director of inway institute
will say a few words.
On behalf of the
Daniel K inway institute
and the inway family,
good evening.
It's hard to believe this is
our final lecture this evening.
The underlying theme that
we selected to serve --
elected service is
bipartisanship,
the power of bipartisanship.
And as the librarian said we
began in with former secretaries
of state and we have continued
each year with amazing Democrats
and Republicans on this stage.
One of the Senator's favorite
things was we can disagree
without being disagreeable,
which sums up his long time
friendship and relationship
with Bob Dole, Ted
Stevens, Warren RUDMAN.
I know that he would
never give up hope
that it would one day
return to capitol hill
as an important means to
move our agenda forward.
A special thanks to our
librarian and her predecessor.
And has brought out the best
in each of the speakers.
A special shout out to our
institute partner with some
of our leaderships in
the House this evening
and with the lecture being
live streamed on our campus
for our students to enjoy.
And finally, in his later
years, the Senator was very fond
of saying that America
is a great country.
And that nowhere else but in
this country could grandson
of Japanese immigrants who
came to Hawaii in search
of a better life who would be
deemed an enemy alien during
World War II solely because
of the color of his skin
and who would go on to
become the recipient
of the congressional
medal of honor.
And then would go
on still further
to become the president protell
me of the United States Senate
and third in succession
to the presidency.
Only in America would he say
you're prepared to dream big,
work hard and never give up.
Thank you for your support,
friendship and allowing us
to share the with you.
Now it's my pleasure to bring
to you John what is Kell,
the director of community
center.
>> Thank you.
Before we begin let me
take a moment to remind you
to silence your cell phones.
And for those of you who
are Tweeting the event,
we are using the hashtag
inway and includingy.
He was an Olympian figure in
Washington, as most of you know,
as well as in his
home state of Hawaii.
Born in Honolulu in , he
graduated from high school less
than six months after
Pearl Harbor.
He enlisted in the
Army and served
in the famous academic regmeant,
who fought with extraordinary
gallantry.
In the final weeks in Europe
in he was severely wounded
in battle after taking out
two German machine gun nests.
He lost his right arm.
He returned home with on
that medals and citations.
His commitment to bipartisanship
stemmed in pardon by Bob Dole.
He graduated from the
University of Hawaii
and became Hawaii's
first representative in ,
three years later --
Edward Kennedy, of course
at that time the
president's brother.
He served for years in
the Senate, a rich ligcy
that prominent Senate on the
Senate Watergate committee
and decade of -- he was
awarded as Jenn pointed
out the awarded posthumously
the presidential medal
of freedom becoming the first
Senator to receive both honors.
Tonight presents
the fifth and final
in this five-year
distinguished lecture series
to commemorate Senator inway's
commitment to bipartisanship,
moral courage, public
service and civic enhancement.
I would now like to introduce
our distinguished panelists.
Please welcome David
Axelrod, Karl Rove,
and former ABC White House
core respondent Ann Compton.
[Applause]
>> The fabric of democracy has
never been under so much stress.
Leadership is always a
challenge and reporters
like me always cover politics
as a fight on a battlefield.
So the good news is tonight
we have two real experts,
both of them adversaries but
sharing the stage tonight
and bringing together
their ideas on their vision
of American leadership,
because they have,
obviously, seen it up close.
We are seeing a graphic example
of political conflict
at this very moment.
Karl Rove is what we're
seeing in the last hours
between the White House and the
Congress has some barrier been
broken this weekend that
we had not seen before?
>> Well, in one way, no, because
we've always had ugliness pop
up periodically through
American politics.
And the ugliness we're seeing
in Washington has
been repeated before.
But I do think the last years
have seen a change in the nature
of our political discourse
accompanied by changes
in how we receive and
circulate the information,
namely the explosion of social
media, internet and cable TV.
So I worry about this long-term
because we're making it easy
for people to make outlandish
comments and we pay them
by giving them lots of
coverage and we engage them
like extended food fight.
I think it sickens
a lot of people
when they see the
discourse in Washington,
they say is this the
best our country can do?
It's not one person,
it's not one party.
I'm worried that the
system is breaking.
I used to be much more of
an optimist than I have
in the last four,
five, six years.
>> David there is a young man
who launched the
young progressives
that have been elected
to Congress.
He has this criticism
of Democrats.
He says up until now we
thought you thought we had
to take back the
hypothetical middle class.
What I think that means is you
don't take unnecessary risks
and don't do anything.
Whereas he says we have a
completely different change
which is the most different,
most badass -- can I say that?
>> You just did.
>> He said we have got a
completely different theory
of change, you do the biggest
most badass and then that's
when are you going to excite
people and they will go vote.
David, does he have a point.
>> First of all, I think he said
that get Ann Compton to repeat
that in front of an audience.
It's great to be here
with both of you.
We are on both sides
of the political tassel
but we share a rev Rens
for institutions and norms.
That's why it's concerning
for all of us.
It's great to be here
for Senator Inouye,
who is a great American hero.
I think that what he said is
a reflection of an attitude
that a lot of young people have
and particularly young people
on the progressive side
who have been frustrated.
Many of them grew up and came
to political awareness during
the last decade, they saw a kind
of blockade aimed at
president Obama and things
like what we saw at the end
of the last term relative
to the appointment
to the Supreme Court
and their conclusion is you
have to fight fire with fire,
that we can't play by Marcus
of queensbury rules
if they are not.
There's a danger that we're
in this kind of spiral
and that one thing
feeds on another.
I took a group of students
from the institute of politics
at the University of Chicago
where I'm the director
this morning to meet
with speaker Pelosi
and we talked
about why compromise is
necessary in a democracy.
And if we have a kind
of scorched Earth,
zero sum game politics
that envelopes everything,
we are not going to
accomplish anything
and frustrations
are going to grow.
I'll make a last point on this.
The Affordable Care
Act meant a lot to me.
I have a child with -- I felt
it would help people including
people like myself.
I have a -- even after I'd
run into people, progressives
who would say that was a dare
licks, then I run into people
that say that law saved
my life and my child.
People coming up to me in tears.
And I thought we could say we
could have helped your child
but we didn't because we
couldn't get everything
we wanted.
That would have been
a terrible mistake.
>> Every president who faces
leadership faces challenges
like that.
Historians will point
out to you the revolution
and founding the Republican
was no picnic then.
Has democracy, David, come
to a crews I believe moment
where there could be lasting
damage from what we're saying
in the early part
of the st Century.
>> I wrote a book called
believer so I feel I have
to stick to my brand here.
It was a belief in this great
self-correcting democracy
that we have.
Karl and I have had a
lot of talks about this.
The danger is with all of these
new developments, the breakdown
of parties, the influence of
money, the media environment,
social media environment,
and misplaced incentives
because how we sort ourselves
in redistricting and so on,
has the game changed
in such a way
that we could actually lose it.
I have been reminded a
lot lately that the fact
that democracy was an
experiment, it's a fragile thing
and it requires our engagement.
We took too much for granted.
I think I took too
much for granted.
I think we can lose it.
And there are a lot of things
that we should be
concerned about right now.
This is a timely discussion.
We could probably
settle it right here.
>> Two quick points.
One is Affordable Care Act.
Why wasn't it popular
when they were passing it
and why is it popular today?
It scared people when
they were talking about.
And yet its implementation
effects is million are covered
by it.
million who got insurance
coverage
and to kept their coverage.
It affected not the whole thing.
So it was like David's
point about incrementallism,
maybe the system is designed
to accept that and to be afraid
of massive huge changes
unless they seem justified
by the circumstances of
a national emergency.
We must A abolish slavery
and must immobilize
to win World War II.
If it is a big change
in a time of peace,
particularly how it affects us.
This issue of deterioration,
David's right.
Things have been ugly for
most of the Obama terms.
I remember on July , ,
Ted Kennedy gave a speech
that Bush lied about
the WMD in Iraq.
Kennedy knew it was a lie.
He went and gave a
speech at Georgetown
and said we shouldn't remove
it by force but diplomacy.
And yet by political
reasons he made this assault
on the president's
fundamental integrity.
It didn't keep Bush
from working on it.
He said it's more
important for me as a leader,
which is why Bush, McCain
and Kennedy worked
very closely on reform.
For me, it was disturbing
because for the purposes
of political short-term gain,
let's do something that we know
from a guy who knew it and
had great enormous credibility
in leveling the charge.
>> It really goes back further.
If you want to really drill
down into how this deterioration
started, I would argue
that it started in the
late s and early s,
with the Gingh rich revolution
and newt brought a sharper
edge politics in the house
and Bob Michael became appeasers
and opponents became enemies
and that fed on itself.
I want to make a
different point,
which is here's my deepest
concern about democracy.
Democracy and American democracy
is built to move slowly
when the country's
divided as we are today.
That is the way our
system was set up so
that one side didn't overrun
the other side and so on.
At the same time, there's
enormous anxiety because we live
in a time of warp speed change.
Technology is bringing change
at a faster and faster pace
that is wonderful for people
who are well positioned it take
advantage of and very unsettling
to the majority of people who
are on the other side of that.
So you have this mismatch of
change coming faster and faster
and democracy stalld in
many ways and I worry
about the disenance
that creates.
>> I think David's right and
that touches my optimistic nerve
because we have been
here before.
If you think change is
today, think about the change
that was in the Gilded Age.
Electrification of our cities,
the guygantic urban culture
and gigantic society.
It was one of four periods in
our history where the percentage
of immigrants of the
U.S. population is %
which is where we are.
There was a Republican
named William McKinley
that changed politics
for the next years.
In American politics when we
run into moments where we appear
to be coming apart,
what generally happens
is somebody comes along
and copies the tempers
and copies the waters.
Unfortunately he's
generally occupies a corner
in the west wing.
>> There's no doubt
we're living now
in a new industrial post
industrial age and some
of the same tensions
that you wrote --
you usually plug your book here
so I'm going to do it for you.
>> Thank you.
>> Karl wrote a great book
about this -- [Laughter].
>> Trust but verify.
Let's see how good you are.
>> I highly recommend it.
One of the things
that happened was
that government did intervene
to protect child labor, children
and invoked child labor laws,
minimum wage, there were a range
of things that were done.
We made public education
universal through high school,
prepared people to compete
and there were a lot of things
that government was able to do
to ameliorate the impacts
of all that change.
I worry now because we have
gone through a year period
in which the brand of
government has been so degraded
that we don't have the
tools to intervene.
These young people
said we should.
They see this massive change
and all the dislocation
that it creates and they feel
like government should do
something big to deal with that.
That's part of the source
of their frustration.
>> Let me ask you, because
we have got two people
who know not only the White
House and the campaign so well,
but you have been there
when presidents have had
to make leadership decisions
and when Congress has had
to either get on board or
find a way to lead as well.
Let me start with Karl.
You and I were together
on Air Force one
on that quiet September
morning in .
And president Bush had been
in office about nine months.
He had been a Governor.
Most of the presidents I've
covered have been Governors,
they had executive experience
and had worked with
the legislature.
How did George Bush throughout
the Ark of his presidency use
or change his leadership
skills or find different ways
to use leadership because
he went from the post -
crisis mode into the Iraq and
weapons of mass destruction
and Patriot act which took
way so much of the kind
of cooperation he got
at the very beginning?
>> Well, first of all, he
applied what he had developed,
the skills he developed.
Remember the first member of the
House he calls is George Miller,
the ranking Democrat
on the House labor.
The first member of Senate
he talks to is Ted Kennedy.
He had this mindset that
his job as president was not
to worry first and foremost
about his party or presidency
but to worry about the country.
I'll give you one example
that represents his
continuing view of this.
I don't know after - when
you went to Chicago with us.
We had united America.
We were going to go
back in the area,
we had this terrible period with
no air travel, we met in Chicago
and united Chicago
was going to --
everybody in that crowd
knew somebody on one
of those three planes.
Lots of tears and so forth.
Bush heard that Gephardt
was going to be in Chicago.
He asked gep hard to return
to return to New York.
He said we have got a
problem in our economy.
My economic people tell me here
are some things we are going
to offer to Congress
as a package.
And number one was a cut
in the corporate tax rate.
He said it will be easily
be put in the companies.
Gephardt said Mr. President,
I can go for three of those.
I can't get votes for
the accelerated tax rate.
I think some Democrats
will vote for that.
We got back to the White House
and Bush calls Larry Lindsey
and said we are going
to swap this out.
And Larry protests.
The president says Gephardt says
-- Gephardt voted against it.
I'm a little pissed off.
>> I would let it go, Karl.
That was a long time ago.
>> It's hard, man.
I meet with my therapist
all the time with it.
>> Who would want that job?
>> Buddy at $ an
hour, a lot of people.
Let me finish.
I was rudely interrupted.
I'll take this up with
my therapist next week.
>> Working on that
anger management thing.
>> I walked into the oval office
and Bush said how was the vote?
Gephardt voted against it.
Bush laughed.
He said you were so naive
as to think he was ever
going to vote for it?
I said yeah, I was.
He told you what he wanted
and told you what would be
acceptable and voted against it.
He said he's never
going to vote for it
but he knows we listen to him.
That's what's important
for a president to do.
That's when Ted Kennedy calls
him a liar, Bush was willing
to say I'm the adult and let's
get Ted over here and see
if we can't get together
about comprehensive
immigration reform.
Ted Kennedy came across.
His brother had started
family unification in
and it was Ted Kennedy who said
to the Catholic church I know
you liked what my brother did
but we have to dial it back.
If your parents come over here,
you're financially responsible
for them but we need
to do this in order
to instill greater confidence
in the immigration system.
That's the result of being
an adult in the oval office.
Bush tried to do his best.
>> David, let me
ask you specifically
about the Obama administration
when many presidents
I've covered
when they are elected
office often have one
if not both Houses
of Congress come
that way or keep a majority.
And it doesn't last
in modern times.
And president Obama had two
years to get Obamacare done
and then he lost the House.
How did it make his leadership
and his issues and his way
of leading with Congress
different
after those first two years.
>> First of all, let
me say parenthetically,
I disagree with a lot of
what President Bush did.
>> Really?
That's a surprise to me!
>> But I never questioned
that he was doing what
he thought was best
for the country.
And I have said this to Karl
privately and in public before,
when we were elected and
there was a transition,
no one was more supportive
than president Bush
in every way he could, including
having all our counterparts meet
with us, explain how the White
House worked what they did,
he hosted a lunch
enfor president Obama.
And I viewed that as
an act of patriotism.
Even though they had
great disagreements
that they were trustee of
this democracy and that --
>> He authorized
security clearance
for people working
on the transitions.
>> He did everything
possible to be helpful to us.
This doesn't involve president
Bush and they had a chance
to work together a little
bit and they worked together
when layman brothers collapsed.
President Obama were
in the campaign
and it was a tense time.
We were having a strategy
meeting, it was a Sunday,
and he said I spoke to
Hank Paul's on last night
and he told me there's something
that happened tonight
that's going
to have an impact
on the economy.
I told Hank, to the best as we
possibly could, we would try
to be as helpful as possible.
Ultimately as people
remember, a week or days later,
he was called to the White
House for a big meeting.
John McCain asked
for the meeting.
>> McCain is running.
>> He's our opponent.
It wasn't what we wanted to do.
We were preparing for a debate.
McCain called Obama and said
we need to solve this problem.
McCain -- solve this problem.
But president Bush called
and said McCain really
wants this meeting,
I would like you to come.
Obama came.
At that meeting, John Boehner
announced that the Congress
and the House would
not support them.
President Bush said very
little in the meeting.
President Obama said I
guess we can start all over.
Bush said we are
not starting over.
And president Obama and the
House leadership provided the
votes to help pass the TAR.
And that was as it should be.
It was a tough vote, it
wasn't a popular vote,
but it was essential.
What was unsettling was three
months later we now are there,
the economy is in full free
fall, we're engaged in two wars
at the same time,
and we anticipated
that we could get some level of
cooperation around solving some
of these problems, including
implementing the TARP
and we did not.
And that was deeply
disappointing.
>> Can I add a little
insight on that.
>> Yes.
>> Because I ended
up having dinner
at an undisclosed
location in Washington,
D.C. at a Korean restaurant in
October of with Larry Summers,
we have a mutual
friend, ben Stein.
And I won't bore you with the
details but we had dinner.
And during the course
of the dinner he said
to me I'm really surprised
that we didn't get more
Republican support.
I was really surprised.
Can you explain why?
And I knew the answers
to the questions I was
going to ask him in return.
I said let me ask
you a few questions.
Were you there in
the cabinet room
when the president said we won.
He said yeah.
I said did you see
a problem with that?
He said no.
I said did you ever go up
to capitol hill and meet
with the homeless and say what
do you have in the way of ideas?
He said no.
I said did you ever contemplate
swapping out anything
in your package for
what they were offering?
He said oh no, we
had the best ideas.
I said why should
you be surprised
if you didn't give them
a seat at the table?
You need to give people
an ability to say yes.
President Obama did what he
thought was the right thing
and got it through and he had
the numbers to do it obviously.
But sometimes you need
a Nick Gephardt moment.
>> I wasn't at the restaurant
though I love Korean food
and wish I had been invited.
I can't vouch for the
full account but one
of the reasons why
the recovery --
we were criticized by Democrats
because there were the third
of the package or more
were tax cuts and part
of the reason there were
was Republicans were asking
for tax cuts.
Anyway ...
>> We have have been
talking about what happened.
I want to explore why
and then we are going
to take some questions
from Hawaii.
Why has this current
era, the last couple
of years, been so traumatic?
I have a theory and I
think it's the media.
Now, I spent years, proud
years, covering the White House
and presidential campaigns.
But I blame the digital age
for changing the way
Americans get their news.
And you look back to
s, very close election,
what happened that year?
CNN was born.
years later the closest
election from a landslide
to the closest election in .
What happened by then?
Lots of cable networks.
And the way the media brought
politics and decision making
and presented leadership
to the country was completely,
completely different.
David, let me start with you.
What is the main factor
that is happening to us now
that might be able
to be corrected
or changed or rechanneled?
>> Well, there are some
reforms that we could make
which I'll get to in a second.
On your media point, I think
what is absolutely true is
that we now live in a world
where we can create our
own virtual reality silo
in which all our views are
affirmed and often not informed
and everyone outside that silo
is alien and maybe even an enemy
and that has been a
dramatically negative --
that has had a dramatically
negative impact on our politics.
You have a competitive
news media environment,
people fighting for eyeballs
and some have made
an ideological pitch.
Fox News, Roger Ails
had an inspiration
which is there was an
audience out there.
And Fox News has
become, and Karl is one
of their great assets.
>> I think ass -- I know where
you put the acput the accent.
I have more viewers
than you do, pal.
>> I don't doubt it.
They have done a remarkable job
of consolidating Republicans
under their banner.
But social media, obviously,
has been a huge factor.
Media is part of it.
Part of it is I remember coming
to Chicago in the early s,
shortly after the democratic
convention of and like a lot
of young liberals of that time,
I was very much about reform.
I wanted to see the
-- take it away
from the party bosses
and that was done.
And little by little we
basically have reduced the role
of parties, which played
a moderating influence
in the selection of leaders and
gave leaders some insulation
in terms of the decisions
that they had to make.
The way we -- the huge infusion
of money into politics, I think,
has helped add to this.
And then the issue of how we
choose our representat we have
refined the art of
redistricting, another gift
of technology, to the point
where you can cut the sa lamb I
very, very thin and cut the --
>> On both sides.
>> Both sides.
And most politicians need
only fear of primary.
That has really empowered
the polls in both parties
to really be a dominant force.
So all of those things,
I think, have contributed
to where we are right now.
Donald Trump is not
the cause of this.
He is a guy who has
exploited it effectively,
butly is not the cause.
This has been in the
making for a very long time.
>> Go ahead, Karl.
>> I agree with David on the
weakening of the parties.
I have a slight disagreement,
Ann, on the media.
We've always had this.
How big was television
changing our elections and --
cheap daily newspapers,
how much was the del graph,
used to take weeks or months
for information to flow.
The way we were going back to
the early days in the Republican
where we all read our
little local newspaper
and it was David's cocoon.
We read our local papers
so we're back there.
I don't have an answer for it.
You're right, the media
has a role to play in it.
We've dealt with it before
and we are going to have
to deal with it again.
>> On that point, you're
absolutely right about that.
The difference is that those
newspapers had to be printed
and there were long lag
times before they arrived.
Now things travel
instantaneously
and the insend areay nature
of that can be very,
very know profound.
I don't want to sound
like a Luddite.
I think there are great things
that technology affords us.
I fear that technology
is advancing faster
than our ability to fully
get our arms around it.
>> I agree and we've found
a way to muddle through it.
We're ignoring two big things.
One is part of the problem is
both political parties have
largely succeeded and
their agendas have run out.
Republicans wanted to have
limited government tax cuts
and defeat the commies.
Democrats wanted to
democratize the country
and institute civil rights
and we've made great progress.
Both political parties
are like exhausted boxers,
they're running out of ideas.
There are things to be seen in
both parties trying to figure
out what ought to come next.
The other thing is there was an
aftermath of the fiscal crisis
that is with us today.
It created a moment of
pop lass mid-America.
Bush pass TARP, Obama --
pop lass is not a
very well organized,
orderly political ideology.
It's more a sentiment.
Right and left shares
something in common.
Left pop lymph says the -- right
now the rich and the powerful,
the corporations and the
wealthy are in control of things
and we have to redo
the relationship
between the little man
and his government.
You bailed out the bankers
and nobody went to jail
and you bailed them out with
my money and I suffered.
The right pop lass says the
relationship with the government
and little man has been
altered because the little --
the banks got bailed out and you
bailed them out with my money
and then you turned around
and bailed out sa lindra.
Both of the pap lass eating away
at both parties is saying we
can't trust our government
and parties.
We need an upheaval.
>> I think one important thing
about that is you're right
about much of what you
said but it's also true --
>> All of what I said, man.
All of what I said.
>> In your name mind
you're right
about all of what you said.
But in reality --
>> Which party smokes more
dope than the other party.
I just want to ask
that question.
>> One of the realities
of the financial crisis
and the economic crisis was
that companies rationalized
themselves, technology was used
to try and solve the
problem of productivity
and it's just demonistrable
in the data
that there were large numbers
of Americans who have been kind
of pedaling just to try
to keep their place.
They have not recovered.
The economy has recovered.
These have been years
of great growth,
dating back I would
point out to .
But not everybody has
recovered and that creates a lot
of tension as well
in an audience --
>> That's exactly my point.
>> Well, then you were right.
>> Yeah, thank you.
Now we're starting -- it's like
the last two years have been --
the first two years in the
recovery in which wages
for working people
rose faster than wages
for supervisory personnel
and the reason the
tight labor market.
I get it. There was
a period even after,
and TARP was the
right thing to do.
We actually made money on it.
Out there in the middle
of the country people
said you know what,
either I'm a left winger and
by god you're screwing me
or I'm a right winger
and you're screwing me.
>> By the way, it wasn't
just the attitude of a lot
of these folks was bail
outs for the wealthy,
handouts for the poor, and
I'm stuck in the middle.
>> Right.
>> That was more the right
wing pop lass argument.
>> One more question
before we take questions
from the students
and folks in Hawaii.
Why do so few Americans
actually get out and vote?
And another question which
had been passed along
to me is can a successful
presidential campaign also be a
principled campaign?
Number one, why doesn't America
have a much, much higher voting?
>> They don't want to
encourage the bastards.
I'm serious.
I think a lot of people say
I'm so sick of politics.
There's nothing in it for me,
I'm not going to participate.
>> But that doesn't
leave you with much.
>> Well, I know.
The good news is we're
in a secular period
in which presidential
participation has been rising
since .
It sort of may be
about ready to peek.
I doubt it.
I think we are going
to have a period
which is unusual in
American History.
I bet you is even higher.
The problem sometimes
solves itself
by people saying there's
something in this that causes me
to feel I have something
to do to help my country.
>> Also, we should
note that the turn
out in the midterm
elections was astronomically
than four years earlier.
And I suspect the turn
out in this presidential
election will be higher.
And whatever else you
say about Donald Trump,
he certainly has inspired
people to pay attention.
And I think that he is
responsible for some
of that increased turn out.
>> If you chart the
midterm increase,
it's like the presidential
year except
that the to goes like this.
And I think David's right,
we may pre-stage an
even bigger increase.
>> We have an unusual
treat tonight.
Questions from two
elected members
of the Hawaii state legislature.
Let us role question number one.
>> Hi, I'm representative
Scott --
a democratic member
of the Hawaii state
House of Representatives.
My question is when you're
having a discussion with someone
with fundamentally viewpoints
of your own, what are the tips
and tricks you use to keep that
discussion civil and productive?
>> Or do you keep it
civil and productive?
>> This gets back to
that marijuana thing.
[Laughter]
>> Just like a Democrat.
>> You know, there's a coffee
group in Austin, Austin,
incidentally, you
may not know this
but is a pretty liberal town
like a blueberry
in this sea of red.
There are four guys
this this coffee group
and they're all great
writers and they're all left
of center ranging from slightly
left of center to way out there.
I feel honored because they
let me join their group.
It's civility.
Maybe I can persuade them or not
but I'm not going to get angry
about it and vice versa.
I don't know how
to recreate that.
This may surprise you.
Y'all think of Texas
as red neck.
You know we -- Republican
state senators, when I moved
to Texas there are two out of .
Out of members of the House
I went to work and worked
for the senior Republican
in the House.
We had . There are now or .
And we don't organize
it on a partisan basis.
There's Democrat representative
of House and Senate.
My member had been a -- outside
of big profile, redistricting
and bathroom bill, we
try to get things done.
The second most popular State
of the Union, days under --
we are going to pay
you $ a month.
And it works.
>> Plus tips.
>> And it works.
This year, the budget for
our state passed the Senate
unanimously and passed
the Texas House to .
And why? Because
members had to get there,
they had limited time,
they had to get together
and find a way out of it.
They all particularly
learned from the last session
when we had the bathroom
bill up that time's wasted.
>> I think we have to
somehow find the humanity
in each other again.
Karl and I -- I do this podcast
called the Axe files and Karl
and I were in a conference
and we sat down and do this.
I started this thing because
I thought if you learned
about who people were, even
if you disagreed about issues,
that you could find
common things.
We have a common tragic thing,
which is that we both had
parents who committed suicide.
We spent a fair amount of time
in that show talking about that.
We've done things together
since on suicide prevention.
I don't agree with Karl on a lot
of things, but I recognize him
as a person, as a human
being, we're friends.
There are lots of things to
talk about other than the things
that we disagree about.
Maybe president Trump has
brought us closer together,
I don't know.
But I think that part of
what you were saying earlier,
part of what happened
was legislators live
at home now, not in Washington.
And when people lived with
each other and they went
to the same church or synagogue
or the same little league team,
or the kids went to
schools together,
they got to know each other.
Barack Obama when he was
in the state Senate
had tremendous success
because the legislation would
go to Springfield, small town,
and live down there and
spend a lot of time together.
Socially at a poker every week
where he took money
from the Republicans.
>> Should have been warned.
>> He was able to pass things
like death penalty reform
and racial profiling laws
and to help shape the welfare
reform bill in Illinois
and do it with large majority,
Republican and Democrat,
because he knew these
folks and he was able
to negotiate in good faith.
If you treat people like
they are the enemy, if you --
because I disagree with Karl
I decide he's not as American
as I am, it makes it a
hell of a lot harder to
and to some agreement.
>> And the trend in Washington
has gone just the opposite.
Members don't necessarily
live in Washington
and keep their families here.
I'm going to take question two
from the Hawaii legislature
and actually we found
a Republican.
>> I'm -- Republican member
of the Hawaii House
of Representatives.
I represent district
which covers --
as a newly elected
representative and one
of five Republican
members of the Hawaii House
of Representatives, it is
a challenge to get electric
in a blue state because
of the effect
of politics on a national level.
My question is what are the
biggest obstacles to civil
and logic-based discourse
in this country
and what can you do to fix it?
>> I like where she
says obstacles to civil
and logic based discourse?
>> Yeah, logic.
>> How do you introduce that
back into the political mix?
>> Voters ought to reward
people who are aspirational.
The toughest thing is to
tell people what you do
and the easy thing is
to trash your opponent.
We've gotten really
good in politics
of trashing your opponent.
President like president Obama,
what an incredible message.
I don't want to be the
president of red or blue states
but the United States.
That's exactly what
people wanted to hear.
If you look back again,
I recommend my own book,
the try umps of William
McKinley.
It's got sex, violence,
back stabbing, betrayal
and really cool nicknames.
One of the reasons
he wins the election,
he strikes these moments
of national unity.
For example, here's the
decorated war veteran,
these were the men on the other
side of the guns who were trying
to kill him and he gentlemen
-- asked for their vote.
The first presidential
candidate from either party
to appear with black voters.
He did so openly.
And this was unknown.
If you were a Democrat you
didn't deal with blacks at all.
Republicans dealt with
them at a distance.
Here's a man who appears
with black audiences
and explains we're
all in this together.
I hope we have more
politicians in both parties
who are aspirational,
who can accept the fact
that they are not going to
get everything they want
and don't demand that and put
more emphasis in the conduct
of their campaigns on
things that cause people
to say this is what they're
for and they've drawn me
to them because of it.
>> We have to align
the incentives
so that they actually
get rewarded for that,
not punished for that.
It goes back to in part
what I mentioned before.
If the loudest voices in our
debate are the dominant voices
in primary contests,
it makes it --
it does not reward
fact-based, logic-based --
>> Is there more of
a burden in a place
like the Hawaii legislature
where the Democrats have
the overwhelm majority,
is it a burden on them to make
sure that the Republicans are
at least at the table and
have a voice and are heard?
>> I would think so, yeah.
And I would think there's
probably an incentive.
What I heard in that question
was she was not a Washington
style politician and
out of necessity tries
to work across those lines.
And hopefully people reach back.
>> This may be parochial
but we had last year
in the Texas Republicans
preparers a bunch
of contests based on what you
would success the hard asses
inside the Republican
primary and then people
who had a broader
view of things.
There was a concerted effort
to go in and aid the people
who were the more let's say
aspirational candidates.
And the Republicans succeeded in
every single contest except one.
And that one contest, the
candidate of the hard right,
put in two million
dollars of his own money
in the Republican primary
of the state House seat.
Seemed to have an impact.
The rest of them, because
community and business leaders
who said we want someone who
is going to put the education,
not the bathroom
bill, we want somebody
to recognize they are going
to Australian and working
in a bipartisan environment.
One of the issues was should
we continue this great Texas
tradition of organizing
the legislation
on merit and not party.
In all but three, the
good guys prevailed
and the two races they won
in the primary they lost
in the general election.
And all the rest of them
the good guys held the seat
in the fall.
>> It should be noted in the
congressional races last year,
you had Democrats
won in districts
that president Trump carried.
And by and large
they fit that bill.
They don't get a lot of
attention because the nature
of being moderate is you don't
draw attention to yourself.
That is the story
of were those .
>> Back to your point about the
media, I've read a rough draft
of a column that's going to
be in the Wall Street Journal.
>> Karl writes a great column
in the Wall Street Journal.
>> Every Thursday morning.
>> I'm going to make
a fortune here.
>> I owe you.
One of the interesting things
is the media do not hold some
of the fringe members
responsible
for what they say and do.
For all due respect of the
AOC, that draft resolution
for the green New
Deal where it talks
about cow flat Lance was weird,
and earlier on July fifth
in an interview on the
New Yorker radio program,
she said I want to abolish GSH,
it was an egregious mistake.
Really? Everyone can get on
the airplanes with box cutters?
And immediately what she
said was immediately Tweeted
out talking about
reorganizing is responsible.
Well, you didn't say
reorganize, you said abolish it.
And yet the media treats her
as be a serious legislator.
Go write the bill if
you want to abolish it
and be precise in your language.
The media do not hold
people on the fringes
of both parties for nutty ideas.
>> She wouldn't have
been the first to suggest
that department be reorganized.
>> No, but she would
be among the first
to say it should be abolished.
And maybe the reporters
wrote it that way --
>> No, no, I've quoted
her extensively.
I'll let you make that
distinction on Thursday morning
when you pick up the
Wall Street Journal.
>> I have another question
I'm going to read to you
from Colin Moore, director
of the public policy center
at the University of Hawaii.
To what extent has the rise
of the political consulting
industry contributed
to political polarization
in America?
And do you expect
the role in politics
to change in the near future?
>> Hey, I gotta run.
Do you want to take this?
>> Well, the consultants
have always been with us.
The problem is the
parties have been weakened.
It used to be the
chief organizer
and the Republican bad guys
was James S. ret Clark son
and he was their
chief operative.
We've always had
consultants around.
Now, as you weak enparties,
you strengthen the roles
of actors and campaigns.
They are not responsible for
going into the party Chairman
and saying I'm with you, pal.
It's how can I throw the
fire bomb or pull the pin
on the grenade and cause
bad things to happen for you
and good things to happen to
me in the primary contest.
I helped to organize
the super pack.
American crossroads.
We raised $,, in the cycle.
>> And all you gave
me was a lousy ?
>> I do it as a volunteer
because I don't want
to take a single dime.
I wish to God we
didn't have to do it.
Political parties have tended
to be vehicles that tended
to be mostly, not always,
to keep things towards the
center of American policies.
They're practical people.
They want to win.
It's who can put
together the votes to win.
We've weakened the abilities
of parties to act on behalf
of the -- they've made
themselves office holders.
Martin Van Buren
became Vice President
because he carefully
constructed theterrive
of to help electric the
president of the United States.
He's made it possible for me to
win Pennsylvania and New York
to diminish the Whig strength
in the northeast, put that guy
on the ticket, smart guy.
Particularly I'm on a --
it's just all about --
>> The issues.
There's more money than
there's ever been in the system
and so again it's a
question of incentives.
The incentive is there to try
and grab some of that cash
and there is an unbridled
nature to it.
There are no guardrails
or norms.
>> I have got two
more questions.
This is from Denise cone an.
Denise asks has the popularity
of social media polarized
politics and led to the downfall
of civility in every
day discourse?
In the way we treat
our neighbors
and our families
and our community?
>> I worry about the
kourossive effect of Twitter.
I don't read my Twitter account.
The first time I read it, I
had hair and it wasn't gray.
People are ugly.
It says something to me about
a society for getting rewarded
by attention for
being rude and crude
and angry and over the top.
That seems to be a lot
of what social media is.
>> It's also misleading if
there are any journalists here
and I'm speaking to one here,
one of the things
that's happened
to campaign coverage is way
too much attention is paid
to Twitter and there's
interesting survey that showed
that Democrats who are frequent
users of Twitter were supportive
of the abolition of ICE, but
they weren't the largest part
of Democrats and
overwhelmingly the other cohort
of Democrats have
exactly the opposite view.
So I think one of the
things that's happened
to political coverage is
we cover Twitter and polls
but we don't cover
people enough.
>> This question comes
from a student in Hawaii.
Megan O'Connor.
Do you think president
Trump emboldence
or undercuts traditional
Republican values?
And she adds, does
anyone care anymore?
>> First, before I
answer that question,
let me say something
about Hawaii.
I just got back from Hawaii.
And my wife and I
flew out of Honolulu.
I don't know if you've
gone to Honolulu airport
but there's this unbelievable
exhibit about Senator Inouye.
It's got his pictures
and life story.
It is deeply moving that a
man that was so mistreated
by his country --
it's a testimony to the
man and our country.
Even though the state
only has five Republicans
in the state House.
I think this is a big
question because I think a lot
of Republicans say
to themselves,
I like what he's doing, but I
don't like how he's doing it.
And the parties are so broken
that right now, if you attack
on either party, if the leader
of the party is attacked,
everybody rallies around them.
Whether this is going to be --
the big thing facing
the Republican party is
in the future what
is it going to be.
Trump is trying to sort
of have an ideology
but his most successful parts
been to follow dogma, tax cuts,
conservative judges,
deregulation, all
in energy policy.
So the real question is going
to be what comes after Trump.
What's also going to
be true is what comes
after whoever the
Democratnom ne is.
Because as I said earlier,
I think both parties
are exhausted.
There are two boxers in the
ring and beating each other up
and that's why we're seeing a
battle inside the democratic
party with the hard left.
The idea with Medicare for all.
Everybody on the
stage, who's in favor
of free healthcare
for immigrants.
This is going on
for both parties.
It's not going to be pretty
but how it's resolved is --
>> I will say if a
democratic president --
we're headed for
a record deficits.
We are involved in a trade war.
If a democratic president
had done those things,
there are a lot of Republicans,
I would expect Karl Rove
who would be pretty
hard on them.
But this is Donald Trump's
Republican party now.
And I think there's a great deal
of retsense and we've seen it
in the last couple of
days, don't tangle with him
because he will come
back and take you out.
We've seen it with a number
of members of Congress.
His agenda has some of the
old Republican agenda is part
of his agenda.
And his agenda has
superseded some
of the old Republican agenda.
But make no mistake about
it, it's his party right now.
>> He's done an amazing thing.
He's turned Republicans
into -- hard to see.
>> My closing question to
you is looking forward.
If Karl, you say the parties
are at a state of exhaustion.
David, you have looked across
the landscape and worry
about the future of it as well.
What is it the American voters
should demand of the candidates
and the parties and
possibly of a move away
from a two-party system,
is a third-party ever going
to have a major impact
in this country.
Karl, you're shaking your head.
>> No, the electral college
and web of state laws are going
to make us a two-party system.
Here's where my optimism, I
admit that I'm less optimistic
than six or seven years ago but
there's a fundamental optimism.
And that is there comes a moment
where the good common sense
of the American people
reasserts itself.
And it happens periodically.
And along comes somebody
who is worthy
of that support and
things change.
It happened, we seemed a country
lost in the late s. We had gone
through a terrible
period of urban unrest
and deep divisions
of war in Vietnam.
Seemed like we had
lost our mojo.
And along came an
actor from California
and restored our confidence.
Voices of populace were rising
up, along came the man crippled
by polio who said we have
nothing to fear but fear itself.
Along comes McKinley, you
think politics today is ugly,
I'm reading -- one Democrat from
Georgia says of another member
of Congress, I would not
blank you if you were a dog.
You can fill it in.
Who he was attacking was the
democratic speaker of the House.
Two years of Republican
government, House, Senate,
presidency, two years
of democratic government
and the rest of the years
and the other years were divided
government which little got done
because they were not
only deeply divided
and they're still
fighting the Civil War.
Democrats take control of the
House in for the first time
in years, it's called the
victory of the bringing dears.
And they got elected by simply
wiping out the black vote
in the south by violence that
is hard to comprehend today.
Has it been bad before?
Yeah. At some point
American people say enough.
This person represents
our aspirational goals
for a better country,
better future,
better nation and it happens.
>> I agree with all that.
As I said earlier, I think there
is a self-correcting nature
to our democracy.
And the fact that more
people are paying attention
and participating I think
is an encouraging sign.
I think there are obstacles that
exist today that are significant
that we didn't face in the past.
We face them in a
more primitive form.
So we are going to
have to work in terms
of how we communicate and so on.
I'll tell you what, if you ask
me what makes me optimistic.
I work every day at the
institute of politics
at the University of Chicago,
and I come into contact
with young people who are
skeptical about where we are,
skeptical about government,
but totally committed to trying
to make their contribution
in the world.
And they are more open to each
other, they're in my view,
more tolerant, and I have great
hope for this next generation.
One of the reasons I do the
job I do is because I want
to go home hopeful every
day and they do it for me.
Many of them are now working
here and elsewhere doing things
that are actually making a
difference and changing lives
and pointing us in
the right direction.
So my hope is invested in them.
>> And this country is in the
hands of the American people
and those coming along in the
future and exactly the kind
of ideals that the Inouye
Foundation has promoted during
this series of five
remarkable years of lectures.
Please thank our extraordinary
panel, David Axelrod, Karl Rove.
[Applause]
>> You know, over five
years in this series,
Ann Compton has dealt
with cabinet secretaries,
corporate CEOs, former cabinet
secretaries, journalists
and now political consultants
and every time has
brought it home.
Special thanks to
Ann for five years.
[Applause]
>> Thank you all for spending
your evening here with us
at Library of Congress.