MM#368--We Should Have All Seen It Coming

0:07 Welcome to the Theory to Action podcast, where we examine the timeless treasures of wisdom from the great books in less time, to help you take action immediately and ultimately to create and lead a flourishing life. Now here's your host, david Kaiser. Hello, I am David and welcome back to another Mojo Minute. For those of you that are sick of the political Mojo Minutes the last couple of weeks and want to return to regular programming, we hear you, and this will be our last Mojo Minute on the topic of the 2024 presidential election.

0:48 Well, at least, as we let the dust settle, though, there might be some members-only specials coming soon. So if you are a member, stay tuned for that. Not sure, but we might have a little bit more in the tank to say about this major, pivotal election. But for today, we're going to zoom up to 50,000 feet and see the forest from the trees, as they say, and view this election from a special vantage point. With that, let me introduce you to our book of the day. We should have seen it coming From Reagan to Trump, a front row seat at a political revolution. It's a veteran.

1:30 It's a book by a veteran journalist, gerald Seib, that chronicles the rise and evolution of the conservative movement in American politics, Charts its course from the Ronald Reagan presidency to Donald Trump's takeover of the Republican Party. And I read this way back in August on a work road trip to uh, it was a road trip to Illinois. I had listened to the book on audible so you can cheat that way and listen to it on Audible and I found the book just fascinating. Because C? The veteran journalist, essentially connects the dots between Reagan's presidency and Donald Trump's 2017 election.

2:17 Most especially, it traces how conservatism became the dominant political force in America, starting with Reagan's election in 1980, essentially replacing the New Deal liberalism that had shaped policy in America for decades. Siebe shows how conservative institutions like the Heritage Foundation and the National Rifle Association, and then, post-reagan, fox News, provided the crucial support and infrastructure for the movement. Then it changes in the book and Siebe identifies warning signs, as he calls them, of this populist revolution that would eventually lead to Trump's rise.

3:09 He included figures like Pat Buchanan and Ross Perot and Sarah Palin and the Tea Party movement, so all of this was equally fascinating. So, in fact, let's grab our first pull quote so I can show you what I mean. We all should have seen it coming. For almost four decades, the Republican Party had been defined by a man, ronald Reagan, and his movement, the Reagan Revolution. Reagan was the most unlikely of revolutionary figures, a modestly successful actor with a self-effacing style and no intellectual pretensions, yet he personally had made the Republican Party into a conservative party, and his legacy continued to inspire the movement's leaders, animate its policy debates and stir its voters' emotions long after he had left the scene.

4:05 Over time, however, emerging signs, chief among them grassroots anger at the political and financial establishments and frustration over the impact of conservative policies on the party's new working class base, suggested that the foundation Reagan had built was starting to crack, though those signs were largely ignored or dismissed and finally the foundation did collapse. In fact, it's possible to pinpoint the moment when Republicans closed the door on the Reagan revolution and opened the door to a new era the populist and nationalist era of Donald Trump.

4:46 It came on the evening of July 20th 2016, when Senator Ted Cruz strode to the podium at the Republican National Convention at Quicken's Lone Arena in Cleveland. Cruz, a tall, striking figure with a shock of jet black hair, perpetually intense air and a kind of self-assured or radical style born of years of as a college debater, was there to deliver a concession speech acknowledging that he had lost a bitter nomination fight to Trump. The arena was crowded and buzzing with anticipation, like boxing fans bored by the preliminary fights and eager to see the main card.

5:31 Delegates were milling around restlessly waiting for the Cruz speech to begin. As he waited behind stage, text of his speech tucked into his pocket. Cruz wasn't sure exactly what he was heading into, though he sensed it might be dramatic. Cruz had arrived in Cleveland after running for president explicitly as the heir to Ronald Reagan. Indeed, ted Cruz loved Reagan and he had been preparing to follow in his footsteps his entire life steps, his entire life. So it's interesting that Siebe details the Cruz Convention speech as when the Reagan movement collapsed.

6:12 And not to dispute the veteran journalist, but perhaps, just perhaps, may I make a suggestion and offer an alternative explanation, even a recommendation that there was, in fact, a more poignant time in the 2016 primary season when the Reagan moment collapsed. It was during the day of voting at the Indiana primary. Ted Cruz viewed the Indiana primary as his last major opportunity to stop Donald Trump from securing the Republican nomination. Cruz had went all in on this primary, recognizing its importance in holding Trump under the 1,237 delegate threshold, needing to clinch the nomination before the Republican National Convention.

7:01 To clinch the nomination before the Republican National Convention, he had formed an alliance with, of all people, john Kasich from Ohio, who agreed to effectively concede the state to Cruz. Then Cruz took the unusual step of naming former rival Carly Fiorina as his running mate before the primary almost unheard of. And then he secured the backing of Indiana Governor Mike Pence, although the endorsement was very tepid from Mike Pence. Now, for those of you that were not longtime listeners, I was a Cruz devotee. It was my firm belief, beyond doubt, that Cruz could win in 2016. He could pick up a large portion of the Hispanic population and win big, like Reagan did in 1980.

7:47 He could restore American exceptionalism while reforming the GOP party and making it a more hard-working working class party, buttressed by support from African-Americans and mostly from Hispanics. And when I say firmly, if it's almost certain my friends were exasperated of listening to me talk endlessly about Ted Cruz in all of 2015 and 2016. There was many heated debates during the primary season of 2016 about Trump and the direction he would take the GOP party.

8:29 I was not a believer in Donald Trump, but during the Indiana primary, there was this moment, and this is when I knew it was probably over for the Cruz movement in the spirit of Ronald Reagan and something else was afoot. Over for the Cruz movement in the spirit of Ronald Reagan and something else was afoot. There's a video somewhere of Ted Cruz coming out to talk outside of a polling place and there's a cadre of Trump supporters. Cruz wants to come out and debate with the whole group. As Cruz approaches the group, an argument heats up when he's not even within 10 feet. As Cruz approaches the group trying to make his points and these seemingly mild-mannered Midwestern, nice, normal folks eventually get all riled up within a minute, and I mean spun up big time.

9:25 They're pissed off beyond all, get out and they're venting it at Cruz and Cruz is trying to reasonably talk to all of them. Eventually this escalates to two men getting in Cruz's face and they're literally inches away. As C-SPAN is videotaping this. They're talking so fast and with so much passion that they are spitting and Cruz is trying to listen to each of them and debate with each of them separately. Finally, cruz gives up, puts his hands up, kind of ushers himself away from these guys, because these guys, frankly, weren't going to listen to anything he had to say.

10:14 Cruz then suffered a devastating loss to Donald Trump in the Indiana primary. The results were 53%, trump, cruz at 37 percent and Kasich at eight. Trump's victory was decisive, winning by about 20 percentage points and securing all 57 of Indiana delegates. When that argument took place and Trump's supporters could not be reasoned with, I knew that was the moment that the Reagan revolution had died and something else was coming to take its place. After all, politics in a vacuum is always filled. Let's go back to the book, because again, seeb charts the downfall of the Reagan movement at the GOP convention in Cleveland.

10:58 So let's hear what he has to say about it. But it was not to be. As Ted Cruz and the rest of the world learned in 2016, the Republican Party had changed. It had become more blue-collar, more rooted in the role in small-town America, more disillusioned with the existing party establishment, more skeptical of free market economics and global trade, more anti-immigration and simply more angry. Its voters were ready to consider something different, radically different, in fact. They were ready for Donald J Trump. Trump was a populist and a nationalist, but certainly not a traditional conservative.

11:42 Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich would become a Trump fan simply saying he's not a conservative. He didn't sit around reading National Review, the traditional Bible for conservative thinkers. Instead, gingrich defines Trump as anti-liberal, a common sense, practical person who understands how much of a modern, how much of modern political correctness is just total baloney and how much our bureaucracies are decrepit and failing. Corey Lewandowski, trump's campaign manager in 2016,. When asked whether Trump is a conservative, replies he's a pragmatist. In fact, most conservatives were scornful of Trump.

12:25 He certainly didn't share a Reagan-esque belief in the virtues of immigration. When Reagan launched his general election campaign in 1980, he did so with a speech in front of the Statue of Liberty in which he praised generations of immigrants for the work they did in building the United States. Quote they brought with them courage, ambitions and the values of family, neighborhood work, peace and freedom. We all came from different lands, but we share the same values, the same dream. End quote. When Trump launched his campaign, he did it a few miles away in his eponymous Fifth Avenue skyscraper, with a speech in which he called Mexican immigrants rapists and drug dealers.

13:09 Nor did Trump share conservatives' devotion to free trade, a trade pact with Canada and Mexico. That was the culmination of a dream Reagan laid out when he called for a North American accord. In the same 1980 campaign, trump openly praised tariffs as a tool of trade wars, even calling himself Tariff man at one point. While conservatives disdained tariffs as a form of taxation paid by regular citizens, conservatives believed the magic of the free market, unconstrained by government interference, while Trump openly tried to pressure and coerce private companies to act as he thought they should.

13:54 So, indeed, the GOP was changing, and changing rapidly. Siebe explains how Trump capitalized on this populist sentiment to win in 2016 and then began breaking from the traditional conservative orthodoxy once in office. Now this book is easy to follow. Now this book is easy to follow. It is structured as a chronological history connecting political developments over a 40-year period to show how the conservative movement evolved. Like I said, seib's the longtime veteran reporter, and his firsthand observations add color and credibility to his narrative.

14:39 Now, the funny thing is way back in August, when I read this August of this year, I was close to Ronald Reagan's alma mater, eureka College, so I rescheduled or I changed my schedule rather to stop in for an hour or so to see the Gipper and the small museum that they have for him. It was quite remarkable remarkable, all the stuff they have for the Gipper and about him and around him, and he gave some three or four speeches at the college before and during his presidency, so it was quite fascinating. If you are a Reagan aficionado like myself, I would recommend it to anyone who appreciates our 40th president of the United States and appreciates the greatest, at least one of two greatest presidents US presidents in the 20th century.

15:29 But getting back to the book, I was unsure. I went to share my new political nuggets of wisdom with you guys because I thought it might just jinx the 2024 election. And frankly, I'm glad I did hold my fire, because now this information is just much more sweeter and even more inspiring, because a little over one week ago we saw and witnessed a very pivotal election, a major, complete realignment election. The GOP is now remade under President Donald Trump. It is a working man's party. The Democratic Party is now the elitist party in the party of rich oligarchs, and that switch was remarkably made in just under nine years, which is astounding, frankly mind-boggling for it to happen so quickly.

16:24 Now we will surely cover and talk about the books that have to be written about all of this history that we're witnessing, everything we're witnessing before our very eyes. Let's go back to the book for another nugget of wisdom. At that moment, the conservative movement in the Republican Party, which together had been the most powerful force in American politics for the preceding 40 years, essentially parted company. The party of Reagan had become the party of Trump. The story of how this happened is the most important political story of the new millennium.

17:05 The primary lesson that emerges from a look back over the four decades of this evolution is as simple as it is profound. None of us should have been surprised by the rise of Donald Trump. There were signs there for years. The populist presidential campaigns of Pat Buchanan and Ross Perot, the anti-establishment, anti-intellectual vice presidential campaign of Sarah Palin in 2008, the Tea Party revolt in 2010, and, above all, the rancorous debates over immigration reform were just the most obvious of indicators. Most of us either didn't take them seriously enough or offered and had other explanations.

17:50 The arc of this change also happens to track with my own journalistic career. I arrived in Washington in early 1980, just as Reagan was seeking the presidency and, save for a stint in the Middle East, have been chronicling this narrative ever since. As a result, I was lucky enough to see much of the history chronicled here firsthand and to record it in the pages and the website of the Wall Street Journal and the website of the Wall Street Journal. In short, I had a pretty good seat for a very good show and have woven in my own reporting and observations along the way in the telling. It's a tale filled with fascinating characters, many of whom I've come to know, as well as strange twists and more than its fair share of drama.

18:36 Still to be answered, though, is the core, underlying question Is this turn towards nationalism and populism permanent or just a passing fad? And this book was written in 2020, at the end of Trump's 45th presidency, but before the COVID election of 2020. And now sitting here in November, post-election 2024, we know the rest of the story.

19:24 The most remarkable and greatest political comeback in US history began on January 7th 2021, and it culminated with a resounding defeat of Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party in a mandated victory for Trump's new GOP party, remade to his liking. We have to ask and appeal for Gerald Seib to write the next book chronicling this rise of the phoenix from the ashes, from january 7, 2021 all the way to the remarkable victory that we all just witnessed a week ago on november 5, 2024. It was truly historic, beyond the ability to capture it all. Now there's one last quote that we thought was ironic that Saib writes here.

20:10 It comes to us from the paperback edition of the book that was released in February 2021. Let's hear out that quote. One of the wonders of the American political system is that parties and movements are always evolving. They change form as they adjust to shifting sentiments. Sometimes those adjustments are smooth and sometimes, as currently, they are rough. Sometimes the adjustments come quickly, sometimes not. Sometimes the adjustments come quickly, sometimes not. It took four decades for Republicans, the party of conservatives to evolve from Ronald Reagan to Donald Trump. The only thing that seems clear now is that the party simply cannot go back.

20:56 And those were prophetic words because they did not go back. They could not go back. Now we have heard the dramatic changes to the GOP under Trump. We have rattled off the numbers of the new GOP coalition in previous podcasts this past week. So, with this mandate and wins in the electoral college and in the popular vote, this is indeed Trump's party, no doubt about it. So in today's Mojo Minute let me say to Gerald Seib, who has written the first part, let's say volume one, of this remarkable transformation of the GOP party into a working class party, and thank you, mr Seib, for a great edition, a great volume one.

21:43 But can we ask, sir, can we hope that you will write the second book to capture the rest of this story? Can we ask that you please write the second volume of the story? We sincerely hope that you'll consider it. And for now we can say, with Mr Gerald Seib, the title of this very good book. We should have all seen it coming. As always, let's keep fighting the good fight. Thank you for joining us. We hope you enjoyed this Theory to Action podcast. Be sure to check out our show page at teammojoacademycom, where we have everything we discussed in this podcast, as well as other great resources.

22:31 Until next time, keep getting your mojo on, thank you.