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>> History and Biography
is sponsored by Wells Fargo
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>> Hello. Welcome
to this session
of the National Book Festival.
Brought to you by The
Library of Congress.
Which is celebrating
its 20th year this year.
I'm Steve Pearlstein.
I'm a long-time business
and economics columnist
at the Washington Post.
Also, a professor at
George Mason University.
And the author of a book
about American capitalism,
called, "Moral Capitalism."
My guests today are,
Rick Perlstein.
Who's from the branch
of the Perlstein clan that's
very strong on reporting.
A little weak on spelling.
He spells his name differently.
A Milwaukee native.
Spent some time at a publication
called Lingua Franca.
He's a man of the left.
Who has written many books,
chronicling the rise
of men on the right.
Barry Goldwater, Richard
Nixon and his latest book,
"Reaganland: America's
Right Turn."
Also, joined today
by, Nick Lemann,
a long time New Yorker, writer.
Former Dean of the
Columbia Journalism School.
Who, like many of his generation
in journalism, got his start
at the feet of the great
editor, Charlie Peters,
at Washington Monthly.
He's written books
about the SAT.
And the black migration
from the South.
And his new book is,
"Transaction Man: The Rise
and Decline of the
American Dream."
Welcome to you both.
Nick, you seem to
be somewhere rural.
Where are you coming to us from?
>> Yes, I am.
I'm very rural.
I'm in a little village that
nobody's ever heard of called,
Haines Falls, New York.
Which is in upstate New York.
In the very Northeast corner
of the Catskill Mountains.
And that's where I have
been for the last four
and a half, going
on five months.
Because of the coronavirus.
>> So, "Transaction Man."
Tell us what it's
ostensibly about.
And then what it's really about.
>> Okay. I guess, I don't know
if this is ostensibly or really.
But it's -- the premise of the
book is that there are a number
of ways to organize
a capitalist system.
And the American capitalist
system has been organized
in a succession of
fairly different ways,
over the last 100 years.
So, what I'm trying to do in
the book, is to propose a sort
of history of the
different big ideas.
By which American capitalism
has been organinzed.
I do this through a
series of profiles.
And, you know, of
institutions, people and places.
And try to show you how
different these versions
from each other.
And how each has, you know,
its good and bad sides.
Now, I'm arguing that
there's three big phases
in the American organization
of the American economy,
over the last 100 years.
I'm calling them
institutional oriented.
Transaction oriented.
And network oriented.
Network oriented is the
one we may be in now.
The era of the big tech
companies dominating
the economy.
I should say one other thing.
There's a famous old book
called, "The Organization Man,"
published in 1957,
by William Whyte.
A journalist at Fortune
Magazine.
And my title is sort of
an homage to his book.
And also trying to note how
completely vanished the world
that he was writing about.
The world of big corporations
that were going to live forever.
Dominating American
life, American employment
and the political economy.
How that world went away.
Essentially, the
story I'm trying
to tell is, what happened?
You know, when Whyte
wrote the book
and many other people
writing in his era.
This was a forever
economic regime.
And now it's gone.
So, that's kind of
the story I'm telling.
>> How did you get the
idea to write the book?
Or why did you write the book?
What prompted you to
go in that direction?
>> It's a little bit
of everything that's
ever happened in my life.
I am no longer quite so
young as I used to be.
And I witnessed the
trans -- I was --
I'm old enough to have
been the last group
in the organization man era.
Or at least that's what
my generation thought we
were entering.
When we entered the workplace.
My closest brush with that was
working at The Washington Post.
Where you've worked for
so many years, Steve.
And as you know, at least
then, it was assumed
that the minute you got in
the door, you were going
to be there until retirement.
As long as you didn't
screw up too badly.
And the company would
take care of you.
And you would do
whatever the company said.
There, and in many other ways, I
witnessed all of the certainties
that I grew up with, go away.
About how, you know, an
ordinary person would interact
with the large structures
of the economy.
And it made me curious to find
out, you know, what happened.
And just as a tiny example, I
work at Columbia University.
So, if you go back to the
1950s and even into the 1960s.
And see who were the trustees
at Columbia University?
Which is this sort of marker
for who's in the establishment.
It would be people who --
primarily, people who had
started at a big corporation.
And rose up the ranks,
over the decades.
And then become the
head of the corporation.
Now, if you look,
there's nobody like that
in the Columbia trustees.
And there's many examples.
This is just like where
I live, institutionally.
And it's essentially all
people who do private equity.
A field that didn't
exist when I was young.
So, I mean, I ask myself the
question, how did this happen?
Who thought of it?
Why did it happen?
What have been the
effects of it?
>> So, Nick, the first period
is this organization man,
organizing principle,
the institution era.
The last is the network era.
The middle era, how do
you describe that one?
>> I would describe that
as essentially the rise
of Wall Street.
And, you know, to use a more
academic word, financialization,
as the governing
principle of the economy.
The financial firm I use
as a principal example
is Morgan Stanley.
And, you know, as late as 1970,
Morgan Stanley had
something like 200 employees.
And it was a private
partnership.
And people, like us on
the screen, who were kind
of pundits writing about the
state of the American economy.
Often would say things like,
Wall Street is vestigial.
And soon will not even exist.
Because corporations
are so powerful.
And now, you know,
Morgan Stanley has been
through lots of ups and downs.
Including the financial crisis.
But it has north of
50,000 employees.
It's one of the, you know,
systemically important
financial institutions.
Aka, too big to fail.
Meaning, it's sort of
regulated by and guaranteed
by the Federal Government.
And the power has really
shifted from corporations
that we thought to be able
to do whatever they wanted.
To Wall Street firms
and a financial system
that dictates terms
to corporations.
Under the name of
honoring shareholder value.
Basics of healthcare,
job security
and a generous retirement
pension.
Rather than the government.
So, as these second and
third phases came on.
That part of it, that social
compact, got stripped out.
And created a world of much
more economic insecurity
for middle class
American's and working class.
>> So, in a sense,
in that early period,
that so called "golden period."
We -- the greatest
socialistic institutions
of the United States were
large [inaudible] corporations
that redistributed income.
And provided income security.
And took care of people.
And that was just
assumed to be true.
It wasn't anything
written in law.
>> Yeah.
>> It was just a norm of
behavior that everyone expected.
>> Right. It was written
in the law of punditocracy.
And so, it's often
stated by people.
And, you know, there are
many things about this age
that weren't so golden.
We can get into that,
if you want to.
But just as an example.
You know, Peter Drucker, the
famous management consultant
and king of the business
pundits for decades.
Because he loved these
sweeping statements.
He wrote a book in
the late 70's.
After this world was
already falling apart.
But he didn't notice yet.
Saying, guess what?
America is the first -- is
now a socialist country.
And the reason is, is that big
corporations have these large
pension funds.
And there were unions.
They were heavily
unionized then.
Also, have large pension funds.
And these funds are the biggest
actors in the stock market.
So, you know, Karl Marx, if
he were alive, would be happy.
Because the workers own
the means of production.
So, that was kind of the --
a purple pros version
of what you just said,
stated by Peter Drucker.
>> "Reaganland" is a detailed
history of the failure
of the Jimmy Carter presidency.
And the victory or
Ronald Reagan in 1980.
That's ostensibly
what it's about.
It's quite an extensive volume.
For those of you who could
maybe see it, almost 900 pages.
So, there's a lot there.
Very rich in detail.
But what is it really about?
What are the underlying themes?
>> Well, the important thing to
understand is it's the fourth
and final book of a series that
I've been working on since 1997.
And it actually ducktails nicely
with what Nick was saying.
Because it starts in this moment
of American capitalism
in American society.
In which all the
pooh-bahs opinion.
And all the gatekeepers, believe
that we'd figured it out.
That we kind of come up with
this nice equilibrium that kind
of took care of people.
Created wealth.
Created stability in the world.
And it was generally
understood to be kind
of a center left liberalism.
That kind of the world
was kind of converging.
Where we were going to become
more like Western Europe.
The ordeal of race was
kind of fading away.
As the South kind of
joined the modern world.
And that anyone who
disagreed with this.
Whether on the left or on the
right, was kind of nuts, right?
So, that was my first book
called, "Before the Storm:
Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking
of the American Consensus."
And it covered the
years from '58 to 1964.
In which, the Republicans
nominated someone who despised
that consensus, Barry Goldwater.
Who represented these
capitalists
who thought this whole
blue-chip system of kind
of guaranteed employment.
And kind of an Entente Cordiale
between labor and business
and government was
vile, socialistic.
And, of course, Barry
Goldwater lost,
in one of the biggest
landslides to that point.
And the books ends with
[inaudible] saying,
conservatism is a
complete dead letter
in the American experience.
And that if the Republicans
don't completely purge this
conservative influence.
That there might not
be a Republican party.
Something, by the way,
that comes back again
and again and again.
I write about that happening
after Jimmy Carter's
success, too.
And then the next book,
"Nixonland," is centered
on the figure of Nixon.
And how he kind of
weaponized the resentment
of middle-class people.
Towards all the social changes
that were happening
in the world.
So, you know, Francis Ford
Coppola said, you know,
"If you have a really good
story, you should be able
to summarize it in one word."
Right? And then in
the "Godfather,"
he said succession, right?
So, basically before this was
a book about organization.
How this movement on
the right organized
to become a political force.
"Nixonland" is about resentment.
You know, the kind of
resentment we see from say a,
Sarah Palin, on the right.
You know, that the liberal
swells are all looking
down their noses at us.
And they are a bunch of snobs.
And they don't understand
anything.
The next book, "Invisible
Bridge," covers the rise
of Reagan during the
years of Watergate.
And I would say the one
word would be instance.
The basic story line is
that after Vietnam
and after Watergate.
And after the ordeal of the
Arab oil shock and stagflation.
And America realizing
for the first time
that it wasn't economically
going
to stand astride the
world like a colossus.
There was an enormous
ennui in American life.
But also, a very salutary
kind of citizenship.
In which people were really
looking hard at whether,
you know, the idea of
America is the world's
indispensable nation.
Which got us into Vietnam.
Whether the idea of, you know,
capitalism being this
engine for continual growth.
All these things were
being kind of looked
at in a very challenging
way, all over the place.
In the organs, not only of,
you know, kind of the left.
But also, in the center.
And Ronald Reagan kind of
comes along and says, you know,
America is God's chosen nation.
It will always be
Gods chosen nation.
Follow me and I'll absolve
you of this necessity
of thinking dark thoughts
about America, right?
He runs for president in 1976,
for the Republican nomination.
Against, you know,
a sitting president
in his own party, Gerald Ford.
And loses.
So, that's that book.
This book culminates with Ronald
Reagan winning the presidency.
And, at least in
one of its aspects,
the economic and
corporate aspect.
The world that Nick discusses
in the first section
of "Transaction Man."
Really, being on the way out.
In coalition with all sorts
of other elements, right?
So, I write about Jerry Falwell.
You know, turning the
pews of America into kind
of precincts, you know?
I write about the corporate
world savagely organizing
against the -- that Entente
Cordiale I talked about.
In which, basically,
they accepted the
imperative of regulation.
And harmony with labor.
You wrote about this,
too, Steve.
And then, finally, there's this
figure of Ronald Reagan, right?
Who has this striking charisma.
And this ability to kind
of radiate confidence,
warmth, optimism.
In a world in which President
Jimmy Carter has kind
of organized his own
presidency around the idea
that we have to do
more with less.
That we have to acknowledge
the imperative of [inaudible].
That government has
gotten out of control.
Basically, you know,
saw the world as kind
of an austere clapboard,
hardwood Baptist pew,
you know, of his childhood.
Kind of 1930s, Georgia.
So, this series of
books endeavors
to explain how America
transformed itself
over these 30 years
that it covers.
From a center left nation,
to a center right nation.
By the time, not only Ronald
Reagan wins the presidency.
But some very, very conservative
senators give the Republican
party the Senate.
After, once again, in
1977, the pundits saying
that if the Republicans don't
purge the conservatives.
The Republican party is
going to go out of business.
>> Okay. Let me ask
you about Reagan.
And then I'll have some
general questions for you.
Ronald Reagan, was he a genius
who captured the
mood of the moment?
That you just described?
Was he just a fraud?
A manipulator?
Or was he just a front man
for these other groups?
I mean, how would you have us
think about, Ronald Reagan?
>> I tell a story in the
book that I got straight
from the horse's mouth
from Hendrik Hertzberg,
who was a Carter speech writer.
And he said, our strategy
was, we knew that as soon
as we got Ronald Reagan
on a debate stage.
Standing next to Jimmy Carter.
People would understand that
Reagan was not intelligent.
That he was not responsible.
That he was old.
He was decrepit.
He was crazy, right?
And, of course, they did --
they were able to
schedule one debate.
The set up the rules.
So, Carter would have
as much time as possible
to rebut Ronald Reagan's
errors, mistakes.
Lies, if you prefer.
And they went into that
debate five days before the
election tied.
And Ronald Reagan
won the landslide.
Long story short.
I actually found a memo
from Jimmy Carter's
advertising coordinator.
Basically, arguing that
the entire strategy
of the campaign was
to demonstrate
that Jimmy Carter was smarter
than Ronald Reagan, right?
Well, that turned out
to be not a very good --
a very good strategy.
I would say, basically, how I
would evaluate that question.
Is, that there are lots of
kinds of intelligence, right?
And he probably couldn't
have done calculus.
But he had an incredible
gift for reading a crowd.
And reading the mood
of a constituency.
And the public.
And he had some very firmly
held beliefs that were based
on his own reading and study.
He was not very fluid and supple
in changing those beliefs.
And yet, at the same
time, he was also --
and this can be rendered
in an insulting way.
Or a generous way.
The insulting way is, yes,
he was very good at
taking direction.
Just like he learned
when he was, you know,
a Hollywood contract player.
The other is, is that he had the
discipline and maturity to grasp
that there were somethings --
some people who knew better
than him on some subjects.
And that he should
defer to them.
And I have all kinds
of stuff in the book.
Comparing, for example,
the letters that his staff
prepared for him to sign.
To New York Times
columnists and scholars.
That made him sound
like a distinguished
mainstream intellectual.
And then there were the letters
he dictated to his friends.
In which he pondered the
consequences of prophecy
and the Book of Revelation,
for what's going
on in the Middle East, you know?
Or, you know, sent
letters to, Jeane Dixon,
the newspaper psychic.
So, I don't really kind
of come down any kind
of dogmatic way on it.
But it's, like, historians
like to say,
it's a complicated question.
>> So, here's a question
for both of you.
You essentially write
about this sort of move
from this era of consensus.
Sort of center left consensus.
With big corporations being
at the center of a system
that created prosperity.
The widely distributed
prosperity.
And this fell apart
in the late 1970s.
And my question, you
both seem to suggest
that this was a moment in which
the country took a wrong turn.
And yet, you also both
lay out in great detail,
why it wasn't working in 1978.
Why it had not worked
for the previous decade.
In terms of economically,
politically.
In terms of our faith
in institutions.
So, explain to me this tension
between the old system was
beginning to come apart.
The United States economy
was becoming uncompetitive.
Our political system
was unwinding.
And yet, so, we decided
to make a turn.
We needed to do something
different.
And we did do something
different.
But your argument is that
we did the wrong thing.
Is it not?
>> So, let me start by saying,
I write as a penitent
to some extent.
I was a young liberal journalist
in Washington at the time
that we're talking about.
And I regarded these changes
with tremendous enthusiasm.
As a young writer for
the Washington Monthly,
I argued for the world that I'm
now saying was a wrong turn,
as you say.
So, I've had a lot
of time to reflect
on what we got wrong
in those days.
And I'm not talking
about conservatives.
I'm talking about sort of
centrist liberals, like myself.
>> We're now called
-- we're now called --
and I'm one of them,
too, by the way.
We're called neoliberals now.
>> Right.
>> Which is not a nice thing
to say to someone anymore.
Anyway.
>> Right. And that was a
word relentlessly promoted
by the afore mentioned,
Charlie Peters,
of the Washington Monthly,
thinking everyone
would embrace it.
And, you know, and then now
it's turned into a negative.
We -- it was unimaginable.
Just two or three
things quickly.
And then Rick will
want to come in.
One is, we all believed
exactly what Rick said.
That conservativism has died.
And that it was inconceivable
that Reagan would
ever be president.
So, what we thought
was the problem, was,
using the terminology
of my book.
That sort of institutions
and interest groups were
a bad thing in politics.
And that if you had a politics
that was oriented toward, quote,
"doing the right thing."
As determined by sort
of technocratic elites.
Then you would have
all the major problems
that you alluded
to, Steve, solved.
And in during social
and political order.
And I think that assumption just
sort of a structural assumption
in a way, was 100% wrong.
That it is what I
am penitent about.
So, we were always
saying, well, you know,
if you could get
rid of the unions.
Then, you know, you could have
really a good life for workers.
And if you could get
rid of regulations.
Then you could, you know,
really reform business.
And, you know, it was all
that kind of thinking.
We were very happy
with this shift
from corporate economy
to a market economy.
And we just didn't see
a lot of things coming.
Including one; the
rise of conservatism.
And two; kind of the
dramatic rise in inequality.
Which is global and is
related to all these things.
And that if you sort
of de-structured the
political economy,
that would be a consequence.
It seems obvious at the time.
But it was not to
penitence's, like myself.
>> So, Rick, what
would you say to that?
I don't -- I'm not sure anyone
every called you a neoliberal,
Rick.
So, what would you say
about the wrong turn?
>> Sure. I would answer the
question in a political way.
One of the things that --
one of the reasons everything
went south in the 1970s.
Is that people didn't grasp
that the whole system was built
on the cheapness
and plentifulness
of this one resource, petroleum.
That turned out to be controlled
by actual human beings, right?
Who had actual interests of
their own in the Middle East.
And they decided to basically
throw their weight around.
And, you know, at the cusp of
the Arab oil boycott in 1973,
people were talking about things
like energy being too
cheap to meter, right?
And once you have something that
is not a factor of production.
That anyone considered
particularly important.
And suddenly, it's the tail
that wags the whole global
economies dog, right?
We can see that in
retrospect, right?
You know, why did
inflation happen?
Why did so much convulsion
happen in the global economy?
I think a lot of it was
this onetime thing, right?
In which a part of the
world that had no --
basically, you know, Iran was
like a colony of
the United States.
Saudi Arabia was like a
colony of the United States.
All these nations decided that
they were going to, you know,
basically speak up
for themselves.
And one of the things
that happened
when these convulsions
were happening.
And all this inflation
was happening.
Was that people took
advantage of this, right?
People -- political actors,
acted with will and
intelligence.
In order to say, look
at these terrible things
that are happening.
Here's why they are happening.
Here's why they will
continue to happen.
And here's what we need to
do to stop them happening.
And those were people basically
on the corporate right.
And one of the things that
they were able to say was,
inflation is caused by
too much government.
By too much spending.
By budget deficits.
And Jimmy Carter very much
with his austerity ideology,
bought into that, too.
Now, we know in retrospect
that that was one
of the most insanely
wrong things
that smart people
have ever believed.
That we now have 2% inflation.
And massive government deficits.
So, these people, by
making a very compelling
and strong political argument.
That people -- all
sorts of people.
People at the Washington
Monthly and people
at the National Review.
And people in the White House,
both the Carter and
Ford White House.
Were able to buy -- were able to
say, we need to cut government.
We need to cut the
social safety net.
We need to right the ship.
We need to have tight money.
We love Paul Volcker, right?
That was -- caused
untold misery.
That was completely unnecessary.
Because of a bad idea
that political actors
who had interests,
advanced very effectively.
They didn't only advance
it very effectively
by making economic arguments.
And often, very propagandistic.
And false economic arguments,
as I show in the book.
Lots of dishonesty
in that world.
But they did so by
joining in coalition
with a Christian right.
That, you know, while it was
quite economically conservative,
too.
Didn't necessarily
have the same interest.
So, what I'm talking about
is the pulling together
of a political coalition.
And I think that how that could
have gone a different way.
Is that political
coalition being rooted
out and defeated, right?
Hindsight is 20/20.
But that was probably a time
in which we needed more
social democracy and not less.
You know, more security
for ordinary Americans.
And that would have
required a redistribution
of power in the society.
And unfortunately, the one guy
who was making that argument,
Ted Kennedy, was a
pretty poor messenger.
That's a pretty fun story
to tell in the book, too.
And, you know, we're
kind of left with --
by the way, one of
the biggest surprises
in the book in the
1980 election.
We think of 1980 as this
great mandate for Reagan.
And he emerges as
the shinning hero.
Was the enormous apathy.
You know, one of my
favorite documents
that I found was a
political cartoon
of a guy on election day.
And it's feet dangling
from behind the curtain.
Because he saw the
three choices.
John Anderson, who
was also very big.
He wanted a 50% gas tax.
Jimmy Carter and Ronald
Reagan, and he hung himself.
So, [brief laughter].
>> So -- so, Rick, let me --
do you think then that the
world would have been better off
if the major industrial
unions had become stronger,
rather than weaker?
That we had closed off the
American economy to trade?
Which is what they wanted.
That we had kept
regulation of the airlines?
That we had regulations
of natural gas?
You want -- you think that
the world would have been --
the United States would have
been stronger in the long run,
if we had done all those things?
>> Well, the unions
not only became weaker,
they also abandoned
organizing, right?
I mean, George Meany cut the
organizing department, right?
So, yeah, I think
workers having more power,
probably would have
done a better job of --
if unions could have gone
to the negotiating table
with government and business.
And said, look, we want you,
you know, in a corporate way,
negotiate a contract
between the three of us.
That is good for everybody.
As far as the airline
deregulation.
One of the consequences of
that is, lots of small towns
in America don't have
airline service anymore.
>> Here's my question for you.
Is it possible that in
fact we were right, Nick?
You and I were right in 1980?
That there did need to be
-- the pendulum did move --
did need to be moved back
in a different direction?
That we did do that, that
the United States economy did
recover its edge?
And its entrepreneurial
vigor in the late 1980s.
And that we're actually pretty
good in the early 1990s.
But then the pendulum went too
far in the wrong direction.
So, that it was a
necessary corrective.
It just was taking too far.
Is that possible, Nick and Rick?
>> Yeah, well, I mean,
I would like to frame it
in a somewhat different way.
But it, you know,
let's talk about --
let's go forward to
the 21st century.
If we all agree that the
pendulum swung in one direction.
And then it kept
swinging too far.
And I think we can
all agree that now
in the U.S. and in elsewhere.
We're in a sort of global
rebellion against this order,
whose creation we're
talking about.
So, that's a major
political fact.
As many have noted, Joe Biden
is running as the farthest
to the left Democratic
presidential nominee.
Which for those who have been
following him for a long time.
It's massively counterintuitive
and surprising.
But the most to the left
on these economic
issues in many decades.
So, there's -- the voters
are pushing the elites
to be more attentive
to their interests.
I think what I didn't
see at the time.
Was that pulling all these
restraints off the economy.
Was going to engineer a
large amount of inequality.
That has been the obsessive
fact of the politics of U.S.
and Europe for a good ten
years now, if not more.
And it's a little bit
like Lucy and the football
in the old Peanuts cartoon.
It's sort of, you know, we,
neoliberals, we're saying if,
you know -- or not so much we.
But the people we were allied
with were saying to us.
We promise, if you take
all these restraints away,
we will retain a fiery
commitment to a just society.
But then, you know, the
football got pulled away.
And that didn't happen.
And so, back in the
late 70s, I was --
had too much faith in a society
that was made very fluid.
And without the kind
of, you know,
safety nets and restraints.
That I now think are required
to create a good society
that works for everybody.
>> But let me ask
a final question.
Nick, you said one of the things
that we thought several times.
Was the conservatism
was going to be dead.
And it turns out,
gee, it wasn't.
Now, people [audio
interrupts] election today.
They're looking at Trump
and they say, ah, finally.
This is that conservatism that
has reached the end of its rope.
And now it will be dead and
buried, after this election.
What -- a lot of
people are saying that.
You're shaking your head.
What do you want to tell us?
>> I want to tell you,
really, really be careful.
If you live in a kind
of liberal bubble.
I don't know about you guys.
But I do, in my daily life.
Really be careful about assuming
that if you are a liberal,
that conservatism is now dead.
And the whole country
is liberal.
That -- you know, this
is a big complicated
ever-changing country.
Rick captures that
very well in his book.
With lots of elements.
Lots of surprises.
As Rick points out, you
know, we were not sitting
around in Washington
saying in 1977.
The greatest threat to the
whole order we're interested in,
is Christian Academy's
in the South.
Which are going to become
the platform for, you know,
organizing a hugely
effective conservative moment.
So, they're out there.
They're not in plain sight.
And please do not be complacent.
And think about a
politics that appeals
to ordinary working people.
Not just to elites.
And their own notions of
what a just society is.
Just the last thing.
I had a real wake up.
I mean, Rick, you've been to
Chicago [inaudible], right?
And, so...
>> Yes. Lot's of time there.
>> There's a person
whose character
who sort of starts the book.
An auto dealer named, Nick
Dandrea [assumed spelling].
Who got kind of axed-out
in the GM reorganization.
So, he was showing me -- he
and his wife were showing me
around the neighborhood.
And they took me to
this auto repair shop.
You know, and what had
become a black neighborhood,
run by a white guy.
Just a little auto repair shop.
You know, like, "Sanford
and Son" or something.
And this is summer of 2015.
And this guy, I could not get
out of the auto repair shop.
Because he was telling me
how great Donald Trump was.
You know, I live in
Morningside Heights,
upper west side, New York.
I don't meet that
kind of person.
And I spent two, three
hours with this guy.
And, you know, you can
argue whether was he right
or was he wrong?
But it made a huge
impression on me.
That he loved Trump.
He felt Trump spoke for him.
There was a passion there.
And I came home and I said to
a lot of my friends and family.
Don't count this guy out.
Because he's touching
something that people feel.
>> And Rick, do you -- do you --
you studied the conservative
moment.
Do you think that the
conservative movement now is
in deep trouble with
this coming election?
And that liberal ascendency is
-- we're on the cusp of that?
Or are you not feeling that?
>> Well, I mean, I think the
biggest danger in talking
about the upcoming election.
Is only talking about it
in terms of elections.
I mean, the crisis we're looking
at now is it's not just the
way we've looked at elections
in all of our lifetimes.
Of how many votes a
candidate gets in what state.
It's a question of
whether, you know,
40% of the country is going
to consider the election
legitimate, right?
I mean, the parallels we need
to think of is what, you know,
Chile looked like in 1970.
Or, you know, Berlin in 1932.
Not just, you know, what are
the, you know, the balances
of forces between, you know,
Democrats and Republicans.
And which electoral coalitions
they're going to be going for.
You know, conservatism
doesn't go away.
Because conservatism is
part of the human state.
It's part of the way
Americans thinks and feel
and identify themselves
in the world.
But, you know, the
question now is, you know,
whether the institutions
of American democracy
in small Republicanism
can survive one
of our political parties.
You know, surrendering
itself to authoritarianism.
I mean, really, that's
the question.
>> Okay. Well, ii want to
thank you both, Rick Perlstein
and Nick Lemann, for
joining us on this session
of the National Book Festival.
Brought to you by the
Library of Congress.
It was a good conversation.
And thanks to all of you who
are watching, for joining us.
>> Thank you.
>> Have a good day.
>> Cheers.
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