In a topsy-turvy election year, does America’s 2024 presidential contest summon ghosts from 1968 — or, is a late-breaking 1980-style landslide in the cards? Historian Niall Ferguson, the Hoover Institution’s Milbank Family Senior Fellow, appears solo on this “mini” edition of GoodFellows (or is it GoodFellow?) to discuss the current political landscape, what roles an aging electorate and the “gender gap” will play in America’s election, plus a fondness for tariffs shared by two very different Republicans: Donald Trump and William McKinley (aka “the tariff king”). Niall also discusses the challenges in raising two young sons in the Information Age, and his renewed appreciation for the works of Kurt Vonnegut.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Collected works of Dickens,
collected works of George Bernard Shaw.
Books, books, all the books I'll need.
All the books,all the books I'll ever want.
Shelley, Shakespeare, Shaw.
And the best thing, the very bestthing of all is there's time now.
(00:28):
There's all the time I need and
all the time I want.
[MUSIC]
>> Henry Bemis (00:43):
That's not fair, that's not fair at all.
That's not fair.
>> Bill Whalen (00:57):
Hi, I'm Bill Whalen.
I'm a distinguished policy fellowhere at the Hoover Institution.
I'd like to welcome you back toGoodFellows, a Hoover Institution
broadcast examining social, economic,political and geopolitical concerns.
Actually, this is a differentform of GoodFellows today.
It's what we call a mini versionof GoodFellows, a mini show,
because instead of our usualtriumvirate of senior fellows,
we have just one senior fellow foryou today.
(01:19):
And that would be the internationalman of history himself, the one and
only Niall Ferguson.
Niall is the Hoover Institution's Milbankfamily senior fellow.
He also spearheads the HooverInstitution's history working group and
Hoover's history lab.
To say the man's a prolific writerwould be a vast understatement.
Niall Ferguson is the author of 16books and we look forward to number 17,
which will be the second installment ofhis fine biography of Henry Kissinger.
(01:42):
Niall also shares his wisdom via opinioncolumns in the likes of the Daily Mail and
the New York Post.
I would also suggest that you turn tothe free press run by the wonderful
Barry Weiss to see Niall's work there.
He writes frequently for them.
Niall, thanks for joining us today.
>> Niall Ferguson (01:56):
It's good to be with you on GoodFellow, singular.
>> Bill Whalen (01:59):
GoodFellow, singular.
I wanna thank you,my friend, first of all for
taking over the moderating chores in Julyand for also at the end of that show,
Niall, saying that you wantedme to come back and continue.
There's a phrase in American sports,Niall.
It's called to be Wally Pipp,have you heard that phrase?
>> Niall Ferguson (02:14):
I have not, please translate for the simple immigrant.
>> Bill Whalen (02:17):
Okay, to be Wally Pipp refers to a baseball player named
Wally Pip who was the first baseman forthe New York Yankees in 1925.
Wally Pipp takes himself outof the lineup with a headache.
In his place is Lou Gehrig, Lou Gehriggoes on to be the first baseman for
the Yankees for the next 14 years.
As for Mister Pipp, Niall,he's traded to Cincinnati and
he's out of the game in about two years.
So, Niall, thank you for not wanting totake over the moderating chores full time.
(02:40):
I don't wanna get traded to Cincinnati.
>> Niall Ferguson (02:43):
There's no danger of that, Bill.
It's just amazing to think that the eventsyou've just described happened 99 years
ago, and yet baseball is as much a fixturein American life as it was a century ago.
It's one of the few constants in anotherwise constantly fluctuating country.
>> Bill Whalen (03:04):
Well put, would you say the same of rugby, soccer and
cricket in the UK?
>> Niall Ferguson (03:09):
Well, nothing really changes in the UK.
And so there is this sense ofpredictable perennial activities,
even as I think we oncediscussed on GoodFellows.
Even politics is basically the samegame in which people with degrees from
Oxford University take it inturns to be prime minister.
(03:30):
By comparison,the United States is a revolutionary
republic even as it approachesits 250th birthday.
And as I go back and forth acrossthe Atlantic, I'm struck by the contrast.
There is so much more in fluxhere than in the old country.
>> Bill Whalen (03:50):
Well put. The reason why I was absent from
GoodFellows, Niall, is because I was backin South Carolina visiting my sister and
helping her take care of her fourgrandsons, ages five to seven.
Their parents were off in Europe on avacation, and so we decided to turn their
time with us into a faux summer camp,if you will, to teach them about
responsibilities and give them some choresand also let them have a lot of fun.
(04:10):
And, Niall, I thought about you duringthis because you're trying to raise two
small boys in this day and age.
And here's what I'm concerned about.
My little grand nephews are all wonderfullittle kids, they're very happy.
If they end up on a couch one day,Niall, talking to a psychiatrist,
it will not be because they're not loved.
I mean,they're having a good childhood, but
I worry about their future in this regard,Niall.
It's hard fora boy to be a boy in this day and age.
(04:32):
And it's also, I think,
difficult as parents to controlinformation going to your boy.
These little kids in South Carolina,Niall, they're vidiots.
They know how to use remote controls,they're dying to get on my laptop and
look at YouTube.
It's a fight at all times to keep thingsaway for them, so explain how you and
Ian have raised your voice.
>> Niall Ferguson (04:49):
Well, I have to confess to having a little
experience as I have five children and
the older ones are nowaged from 30 to 29 to 25.
So it's really my second life.
Or you could say I decided to cut out themiddleman and have my own grandchildren.
(05:10):
The thing I learned raising Felix,Freya and
Lachlan was that technology,video games, iPads,
iPhones, all of these thingsare highly addictive by design.
And you're essentiallyletting your children
(05:33):
have crack cocaine if youhand over these devices and
don't very closely supervise andration their use.
I have a predispositiontowards the old fashioned.
This is why I increasingly think ofmyself not as a conservative, but
(05:57):
as a reactionary.
I think boys and girls need to be outdoorsa lot, and when they're outdoors,
they're learning things that theycan't learn in the classroom.
I think that the old games are the bestgames, which is why I have,
from the outset, introduced allmy children to the things you can
(06:21):
do with round balls of varying sizes,plus oval balls.
Swimming, which is something thatI think you have to teach your
children early andseriously for their own safety.
Bicycling, the hardest thingabout being a dad is just getting
people to ride a bicycle.
Getting your kids to ridea bicycle without falling over.
(06:43):
The only way to do this isto run along behind them,
holding the saddle to providebalance until they get it.
And for some reason,
this just makes my back hurt morethan anything I could go on.
But I do think that the thingI've learned is you can't
completely prohibit the addictive screens.
(07:04):
You've got to ration them, and
you've got to explain to yourchildren why you're doing that.
Most, I think, parents inthe United States make the mistake of
treating their children's children.
In fact, what works best isto treat your children as
(07:25):
more grown up than they are andtry to get them to understand
that you're rationing the tv orthe iPad for a reason.
And even if at first they'renot really with you,
they'll eventually get it.
And so that's been myphilosophy with all my kids.
(07:47):
Although the technology has changeda lot between Felix, now 30,
and Campbell, now six,it's the same fundamental problem, and
it's not a problem that we had.
I mean, I'm now 60.
When I was a boy growing up in Glasgow,
there were three tv channels tochoose from and that was about it.
(08:13):
The public library was a place where Ispent more time than, say, the cinema.
And I was addicted to football.
I played with the round ball, soccer,
as Americans say,probably every day, several times.
And it's impossible toreplicate that childhood.
(08:37):
It's just not available today,so you have to simulate it.
And I think it's reallyworth making the effort for
the sake of children's physicalas well as mental development.
>> Bill Whalen (08:48):
Let's turn our attention to current events and I wanna talk about
this presidential election in America andtied into some American political history.
For those who are not familiar withAmerica, presidential elections,
it always begins with a false narrative,Niall,
that the current election is the mostimportant election in American history.
And I think as a student of history,you'd agree that maybe 1860 perhaps,
is a more important election than 2024.
(09:10):
It is a curious election and the otherconstant in politics in America, Niall,
is that there is alwaysa historical parallel.
Before Joe Biden dropped out of the race,we looked at 1892,
the only other time when a current andformer president faced off.
We've looked at 1972 and the ideaof a conservative Republican party
versus a very progressive democraticparty but you've landed on 1968.
(09:32):
Now, there are a lot of historicalparallels with 1968, beginning with
the Democrats reconvening again inChicago for the national Convention.
Niall, we might see a repeat of warprotest, Vietnam protest in 68,
Gaza protests in 2024.
Assassination hangs over this election,as it did in 1968,
Bobby Kennedy in 68 andTrump almost assassinated in 2024.
(09:52):
We have an incumbent vice presidentrunning on the democratic side, Niall,
against someone who's run for nationaloffice before, as was true in 1968.
But you wanna talk aboutthe lessons of 68?
>> Niall Ferguson (10:02):
Well, I'd like to promote a book in the process,
which I just happen to have.
Here is The Year That Broke Politics,collusion and
chaos in the presidential election,1968 by Luke Nichter.
And it's a fantastic read.
And whatever you think you know about 1968will be changed by reading this book,
(10:23):
which shows, amongst other things.
That Lyndon Johnson had very little faithin Hubert Humphrey as a candidate and
indeed doubted that it would be inthe best interests of himself or
the United States for Humphrey to win.
So it turns out that in fact,of all people,
(10:44):
Billy Graham as the intermediary,Johnson kind of colluded with Nixon.
That Nixon would win and then Nixonwould protect Johnston`s legacy.
That was the deal that`s oneof the surprising things.
And the other, of course, is that itwas really a third party candidate,
(11:06):
George Wallace, who decidedthe outcome of the election by taking
a significant chunk of democraticvotes away from Humphrey.
And, of course, we think of Wallaceas a proponent of segregation.
And the kind of naive take on 68 is that,well, he's just the racist candidate.
But Nichter shows that Wallace'sappeal was rather broader than that.
(11:30):
And in a way, he attracted some ofthe populist energy that has come
to be such an important factorin american politics today.
So two takeaways, there are many,but I'll give you two.
One, I strongly suspect thatJoe Biden feels about the same way
towards Kamala Harris as Lyndon Johnsonfelt towards Hubert Humphrey.
(11:53):
Ambivalence at best about their beingthe successor, though I very much doubt
that Joe Biden wants Donald Trump to win,there is a big difference there.
And the second point is this electioncould end up being decided by the third
party candidates.
They won't attract nearly as many votes.
But if you add together RFK,Robert Kennedy, Cornel West,
(12:16):
Jill Stein, when the margins are asclose as they seem likely to be,
that might actually be once again,what makes the difference.
Everybody fixates on these national polls,but of course, American elections
are not really decided by the popularpreference for presidential candidates.
(12:37):
They're decided because of what happensin a handful of counties in a handful of
states.
Think there are lots of interesting1968 analogies that we can play with.
The main reason why this is interesting,though, as you already said,
is that this year feels as fraughtas 1968 felt with that political
violence in the air andassassination attempt.
(13:00):
Of course, there were two successfulassassinations in 1968, and
thank God we've avoidedthat nightmare thus far.
Convention in Chicago, it wentcompletely nuts for the Democrats in 68.
It's hard to believe, particularly inview of recent events in the Middle east,
that the energy is suddenly going to ebbaway from the pro palestinian protesters.
(13:22):
And it will be remarkable if theydon't turn up in Chicago and
cause the kind of disruption thatthe anti Vietnam left caused in 1968.
>> Bill Whalen (13:29):
Right, we have not talked much on Goodfellas about
Robert F Kennedy Junior,which is yet another 68 parallel.
His father obviously,running back in that election.
What do you make of his Kennedy, Niall?
What do you think his appeal is?
What do you think his potency is?
>> Niall Ferguson (13:43):
Well, I would say that one of the peculiar features of American
politics is that it isa two party system and
that duopoly is very strictly enforced.
Despite the fact that roughlya third of registered voters,
neither Democrats nor Republicans,label themselves independents,
but whereas the independent party,it doesn't really exist.
(14:07):
And so, in a way,
the puzzling thing about American politicsto almost any outsider is, how do you
keep this duopoly going when there'ssuch obvious demand for something else?
And that something else cantake very curious forms.
Think back to Ross Perot,
a character who played a role intwo presidential elections and
(14:28):
was a curious mixture ofthe pro-business and the populist.
I think the key thing hereis that that appetite for
something else will throwup all kinds of weirdness.
And there's no doubt thatRobert Kennedy has some weirdness.
Weird is a word of the moment,because the Democrats
(14:50):
are desperately trying to labelDonald Trump and JD Vance as weird.
But they're not reallyweird the way RFK is weird.
And key issues about which he feelsstrongly seem to me to be cranky,
he's an anti-vaxxer.
But there are a lot ofpeople out there who,
in the wake of 2020, have become vaccineskeptics and just skeptics generally.
(15:14):
Kennedy combines that crankyskepticism about, quote unquote,
settled signs with the name Kennedy.
So I think Americans will probablycontinue casting around for alternatives,
and each time, the political systemwill throw up some quirky figure who can
get enough votes to makea difference in a close election.
>> Bill Whalen (15:35):
Now, one difference from 1968, Niall,
is because Joe Biden stepped down when hedid, dropped out on the race when he did.
The Democrats avoided a yearof having primary fights.
So unlike 1968,when you had McCarthy and Humphrey and
Kennedy competing in primaries,the Democrats avoided that.
It seems to me deal that one or bothparties are headed to a reckoning in 2028.
If Donald Trump loses in 2024,the Republicans have to decide in 2028,
(15:57):
what do they stand for?
And the same forthe Democrats if Kamala Harris loses.
>> Niall Ferguson (16:02):
That's right, the jockeying for position for
2028 has already begun.
You can tell by the fact that certainpeople didn't throw their hats into
the ring when uncertainty reignedover the democratic nomination.
And so that's because Gavin Newsom,the governor of California,
(16:24):
has concluded it's better to wait.
There was a moment of real confusionin the wake of Joe Biden's announcement
that he was stepping down,in which former President Barack Obama
suggested there ought to besome kind of open convention.
And that didn't last because everybodyelse, all the key power brokers that
(16:45):
run the Democratic Party, decidedto rally around the vice president.
But I think one of the reasons that thathappened was that there were really no
strong contenders who were ready to takethe risk of going into battle against
Donald Trump with a very shorttime remaining and losing.
So, in a way Harris isthe default candidate because
(17:10):
Biden was revealed to be tooold to run in the debate.
Not that long ago now, but seems likea wild June 27th was the decisive moment.
And we've now come, in a sense, fullcircle cuz the margin between Trump and
Harris is now pretty much the samemargin as there was between Trump and
Biden on the eve of that debate,two percentage points.
(17:33):
I think there's a distinctpossibility that Trump loses
because the Democrats havesuch a well old machine that
they could execute thisextraordinary vault fast.
So smoothly, so ruthlessly,in an amazing bait and switched.
This extraordinary bait andswitch was perfectly timed.
(17:57):
So that the Republicans,in a kind of euphoric mood following
Donald Trump's narrow brushwith death in Pennsylvania,
nominated as their vicepresidential candidate JD Vance.
And Vance is somebody it's much easier forthe Democrats to run against than Trump.
(18:20):
Trump has the curiousproperty of anti-fragility,
a word I owe to Nassim Taleb.
The more you attack him,the stronger he becomes.
The Democrats have finally learned this,and so they're gonna direct
a lot of fire against JD Vance becausehe doesn't look so anti-fragile.
This could work, it could also workjust to have the vibe of 2008.
(18:43):
Part of the strategy here is torerun the 2008 election with
Kamala Harris as Barack Obama,this could work.
A new thing is generally preferredto an old thing in american life.
That's one of the distinctivefeatures of this Republic.
If it works and Xi wins,which one can't now rule out.
(19:05):
That will, I think, be one of thosemoments in the history of a party
when you have to admit that the populistthing isn't working anymore.
This happened to the Democrats afterWilliam Jennings Bryan lost three
presidential elections in succession,they finally decided, okay,
let's try something new.
And if Trump loses, that will reallybe the culmination of a succession of
(19:28):
defeats going back to the 2018 midterms.
So I think you can imagine a scenarioin which there has to be a radical
reappraisal of the Republicanparty if that's the outcome.
But this is back to being a coin toss.
If the Democrats have a shockinglychaotic convention, if the enthusiasm for
Harris turns out essentially to bean artifact of mainstream media and
(19:53):
social media, then what couldhappen is that Trump could win.
And then the Democrats willfind themselves looking at
a kind of shattered project,just as they did in 2016.
And in that sense,
one of these moments in history whereyou're at the fork in the road.
(20:14):
And because it's close, unlike somany elections earlier in our lives,
each of these two paths has a kind ofsimilar probability at the moment.
And you therefore have to considertwo quite different futures for
american politics.
And we won't really know which one itis until the early hours of November 6.
>> Bill Whalen (20:32):
Niall, if you think of American politics as a vast exercise in
drinking andturn this election into a drinking game,
the phrase you do not wantto have is gender gap.
You will be under the table fast becauseyou're gonna hear this a lot between now
and election day in America.
Niall, gender gap, for those not familiar,
refers to one's support among women versusmen and a large gap between the two.
We may be looking at the mother of allgender gaps in this election, Niall,
(20:54):
if you go back to 2020.
NBC News poll exit polls.
Biden won female voters by 15%, lost malevoters by 8 points, a 23 point gap, Niall.
But early in 2024,NBC News again doing polling.
Niall, Biden led women by 10%,this is before Kamala Harris comes in.
So he's already up by 10% among women.
Trump leads among men by 22 points, Nialland again, this is before Kamala Harris.
(21:17):
So let's talk about the gender gap.
There's a Fergusonian phrase we shouldtalk about in that it's a boys versus
girls election.
What do you mean by that,boys versus girls?
>> Niall Ferguson (21:25):
Well, I think this will probably be the most polarised
election in terms of genderthat we've ever seen,
with a very substantial skewbetween the candidates.
That seems, at this point, pretty likely.
It's worth adding, though,
(21:46):
that's only one of a number ofimportant skews that will be decisive.
There's also an age skew.
I mean, younger voters are clearlygonna break substantially for
Kamala Harris andolder voters for Donald Trump.
Whereas the old divisions aroundethnicity have diminished
(22:08):
because Donald Trump has thusfar been the most successful
Republican candidate inmodern times to attract.
In terms of his ability to attractAfrican American and Hispanic voters.
There are the gender variables importantbecause it's black and Latino men who
are disproportionately gravitatingtowards the Republican candidate.
(22:32):
Anybody who has a model complex enoughto take into account all of these
cross-currents is a better man orpolitical scientist than I am.
I suspect that to get a senseof where we're going and
how this is gonna turn out.
You have to step away fromyour own computer screen and
(22:54):
your carefully calibrated model andhead to Pennsylvania.
Head to what I think ofas the swing counties.
There are nine counties in Pennsylvaniawhere the margin of victory for
the victorious candidate wasless than 10% points, just 9.
Northampton, Pennsylvania,is the tightest of them all.
(23:15):
It broke narrowly for Trump in 2016,narrowly for Biden in 2020,
and I feel like just going there andwandering around for
a bit to see what has really struck home,what's resonated with voters there.
Because it may be that inthe coffee shops and the bars,
they're still talking about the attempton President Trump's life and
(23:40):
the way in which hedefiantly raised his fist.
That might still be the numberone topic of conversation.
Or they may be talking about Momola memesand the issue of reproductive rights,
which is clearly whatthe Democrats want to focus on.
I don't know, but I sense that that'sreally where we have to go to get a sense
(24:03):
of how things are gonna turn out.
>> Bill Whalen (24:06):
Let's spend a minute, Niall,
on the politics of elderly electorates.
The United States electorate,Niall, is aging.
In 2020, 52% of registeredvoters were ages 50 and older,
that was up from 41% in 1996.
Niall, boomers like me are not going away.
Actually, you're technically a boomer, Ithink, you're right at the tail end of it.
You claim eithergeneration if you want to.
I think of myself asthe last of the boomers,
(24:27):
sort of- Good book,that could be book number 18, Niall.
>> Niall Ferguson (24:31):
[LAUGH] Like the Last of the Mohicans, only without the glamour.
>> Bill Whalen (24:35):
Exactly, but if you look at the 22 US midterm election, Niall,
about two-thirds of citizens 65 andolder voted.
That's more than double the turnout forvoters age 18 to 29.
Let's spend a minute actually onthe UK here, then come back to the US.
Rishi Sunak in that election,Niall, he trots out a proposal.
He wants to promise retirees a tax break,and
then he also proposes a mandatorynational service for 18 year olds.
(24:57):
An idea that doesn't playwell with young people,
I imagine, butprobably sounds good to older voters.
But that didn't work out forMr. Sunak, did it?
>> Niall Ferguson (25:03):
It didn't work cuz it wasn't enough to satisfy an electorate
that, as in the United States, isrelatively elderly by historic standards.
That stat you just mentioned, more thanhalf the us electorate is over 50,
has a pretty similar analoguein the United Kingdom.
(25:26):
And the key here is the elderlyvoters want two incompatible things
on both sides of the Atlantic.
>> Bill Whalen (25:33):
Right. >> Niall Ferguson
inflation, they dislike inflation.
And the return of inflation on bothsides of the Atlantic in 2022 made them
mad at incumbents.
But they also don't like immigration, and
this is the other issue that getsranked highly by all the voters.
Now, this is a problem because one ofthe ways in which inflation has been
(25:56):
held down in the years sincethe pandemic has been immigration.
If you didn't have the largescale immigration,
the labor market wouldhave been even tighter and
the pressure on wages and thereforeon prices would have been higher.
And if I look at what befell Rishi Sunak,
it's pretty clear that older voterspunish the conservatives by voting for
(26:17):
whoever candidate would win in theirconstituency over the conservative.
For those issues, plus, of course,the National Health Service,
which is the perennial preoccupationof older people in Britain,
its decline in terms of the length ofwaiting times has been another key issue.
(26:37):
In the US,older voters have similar priorities.
They don't like inflation,they're wary of large-scale immigration,
especially the illegal variety.
And of course, you cant go near healthcare because that's the third rail.
So I think the politics of mostadvanced democracies is quite
(26:58):
similar wherever yu go.
The incumbent has somehow to satisfy aconstituency that's impossible to satisfy.
Because if you don't have immigration,you end up with higher inflation,
to put it really simply.
I'm sure if John Cochrane were here,he'd jump in and
qualify my economics, but let's putit in those rough-and-ready terms.
(27:19):
And you can't really address the fiscalproblem which both the UK and the US have
if you don't do something about thespiraling costs of your welfare system.
And those are driven mainly bythe aging of the population and
the costs of looking afterpeople in their later years.
So who can really winunder these circumstances?
Maybe the reality is that justall incumbents are doomed to
(27:41):
lose in relatively elderly societies.
Niall, when you go to Texas and visit your wonderful endeavor at
the University of Austin, do you ever taketime to stop by and visit with Karl Rove?
I mention Mr. Rove because Mr.Rove is a William McKinley super fan.
He's written a book about McKinley,he's fascinated with McKinley, and
you wanna talk about McKinley too.
Now, I'm curious about McKinley'stie to Trump in this regard,
(28:03):
going back to historical parallels,Niall, or elect thereof.
William McKinley was a politician.
He was a member of the House of governorbefore becoming elected president,
whereas Donald Trump was an outsider,not a politician.
McKinley famously ran the frontporch campaign in 1896,
where he just basically kicked back andlet people come to him.
That is the antithesis of Magnarelli's,Niall.
What else, William McKinley sorely waslacking in charisma, whereas Donald Trump,
(28:26):
like him or not,you have to admit the man has charisma.
But yet you suggest there is a tie betweenDonald Trump and William McKinley, and
it comes down to one word, tariffs.
>> Niall Ferguson (28:35):
Well, I don't suggest it, Donald Trump suggests it.
And Karl Rove, I'm sure,must have perked up his ears when he heard
Donald Trump talk about McKinley inthat interview that was published
just after the assassinationattempt by Bloomberg Businessweek.
It's a fascinating interviewin that we get into the inner
(29:00):
workings of Trump's philosophy,and he has one.
And this is very clearlyspelt out in the interview,
in which he says tariffs are reallyimportant as a source of revenue and
as a source of leverageagainst foreign competition.
And I'm like McKinley,except that McKinley, of course,
was killed by an assassin andDonald Trump survived, but
(29:23):
in other respects, we're alikebecause McKinley was a tariff man.
And Trump alludes in thatinterview to the 1890 tariff and
reminds us that the Republican traditionin the 19th century was protectionist.
And tariffs were central to Republicanpolitics right up to the 1930s,
(29:45):
when the defeat inflictedon Herbert Hoover.
And then the period in isolation oropposition during the 30s and
40s forced Republicans to rethink theirviews on trade and embrace free trade.
And that period of free trade fromthe late forties right through,
(30:05):
really, until the advent of Donald Trump,
is still not the representative sampleof republican political history.
So in a fascinating way, andI've made this point before,
Donald Trump represents a returnto 19th century politics.
That style he has, the rally,the outdoor rallies,
(30:25):
the somewhat blowhard rhetoric,the long, rambling speeches.
Trust me, speeches in the 19th centurywere even longer than 90 minutes.
I think this was a really importantindication of what Donald Trump
represents.
And it's important because somany people misunderstand him by using,
I think, bad analogies withthe Europe of the 1930s.
(30:49):
I still feel angry every timeI think about the new Republic
representing Trump as Hitler onits cover just a few weeks ago.
That kind of thing has unquestionablyraised the temperature and
incentivized political violencein a way that's irresponsible,
but it's also historically stupid.
(31:10):
Trump's not a fascist,he's not a national socialist,
he's a populist, andhe's a protectionist, he's a nativist.
All of Trumpism is kinda 19thcentury American politics.
And it was great to see Trump confirmthat in the interview that he gave.
>> Bill Whalen (31:29):
Now, Niall, Trump is not the only one playing around with tariffs.
On May 14th, the Biden administrationannounces tariff increases on a range of
imports from China, Niall.
This includes steel and aluminum,semiconductors, electric vehicles, and
so forth.
It's only about 4% of all chinese imports.
Niall, am I so cynical as to think this isjust a way to get 15 electoral votes in
Michigan, or does this currentadministration see the value of tariffs?
>> Niall Ferguson (31:52):
One of the most interesting things over the last three and
a half years has been that the Bidenadministration has never really challenged
what Trump did.
It's accepted the return to protectionism,the return to tariffs, and
in some ways, if you look at other things,for example, sanctions,
there is now a bipartisan consensus inthe United States against free trade and
(32:16):
in favor of what might becalled economic warfare.
Trump's reasoning for the tariffs,
if you go back to that interview,had to do with currency weakness.
He argued that the Japanese and
Chinese and other Asian economies hadweakened their currencies to give them
a competitive advantage over the UnitedStates, and that tariffs were a lever,
(32:38):
implicitly, to force them torevalue their currencies.
That's a playbook out of the 1970s and1980s, actually.
It's the kind of thing that the Nixonadministration talked about and the Reagan
administration talked about, when theywere dealing with Japanese competition.
Quietly, without making any great song anddance about it,
(32:59):
The Biden administration decided tostick with that after 2020, and,
in fact, to stick with mostof Trump's China policy.
Where they changed directionwas in Middle eastern policy,
and that was the big discontinuity.
But apart from carrying on with tariffs,
there were two thingsthey did differently.
(33:19):
They did not apply as much pressureto us allies as Trump had.
Trump is an equalopportunity tariff imposer,
he doesn't mind puttingtariffs on US allies.
The other difference was thatthey stepped up the tech war.
And if you think about economic measures,the toughest economic measures
imposed on China, or indeed any UScompetitor in the last 25 years,
(33:42):
were imposed by the Bidenadministration in October 2022,
when they restricted China's access tothe most sophisticated semiconductors.
That went much further thananything Donald Trump did.
So there's a really important continuitythere that tells you Donald Trump won that
argument, and he basically won an argumentagainst free trade, and he won it so
(34:04):
completely that the other partydidn't really fight back.
>> Bill Whalen (34:07):
I'm gonna elevate you to moderator, not moderator of GoodFellows,
but something far more interesting,
which would be moderator of a presidentialdebate between Trump and Harris.
And, Niall, what is the tariff questionyou would like to pose to the two of them?
>> Niall Ferguson (34:19):
Well, I would certainly begin by asking President Trump to set
out his theory of tariffs,because most economists,
including our own beloved John Cochrane,
think of them as essentiallyattacks on American consumers,
whereas Trump thinks of them in adifferent way, that China pays the tariff.
(34:42):
And I would like to get him to address thequestion, would this not be inflationary?
Would you not, in fact, be letting downthe people that you've got votes from or
seeking votes from preciselyon the inflation issue?
That would be my question to Donald Trump.
My question to Kamala Harris would be,
can you explain to me why the DemocraticParty has not reduced the tariffs?
(35:07):
And if not,
does that mean it accepts the logicthat Donald Trump has just presented?
>> Bill Whalen (35:14):
Well put. Niall, We have but
about ten minutes left on the show.
I'd like to ask you a question aboutwhat you're reading these days.
Anytime I run into someone who wantsto ask me what Niall Ferguson and
John Cochrane, HR McMaster are up to,invariably, they wanna know what
book you're reading, and you always givewonderful, eclectic answers, I remember.
Let's see, I remember you were.
Let's see, you had a very offbeat one.
Was it Walter Scott?
>> Niall Ferguson (35:33):
I went from Walter Scott Mania in the early
GoodFellows year in 2020.
I was reading the complete worksof Walter Scott, which, in a way,
had been kept from me when I was a youngman because people said Scott was boring.
I completed those long ago,it was the way I got through the pandemic.
(35:54):
I'm currently reading Kurt Vonnegut,and Kurt Vonnegut's a wonderful writer.
The one I'm readingcurrently is Cat`s Cradle.
>> Bill Whalen (36:03):
14 novels, three short story collections, five plays,
five books of essays.
>> Niall Ferguson (36:08):
And it's all brilliant.
So there's so much Vonnegut, and
that's one of the ones that Iwould urge listeners to pick up.
The other book I'm reading at the moment,I tend to read simultaneously,
(36:28):
a couple of books, is Trollope'sLady Anna, which is a wonderful but
rather neglected workabout English society and
the clashes between the classes.
Once upon a time,everything was about class.
And you go right back tothat world in Lady Anna,
where there's a kind of loathsome,degenerate aristocrat
(36:54):
who entirely lets down his wifeby denying the legality of
their marriage,leaving their daughter in limbo.
But she's helped out by an artisan who'smotivated partly by political radicalism.
It's all there,all of English society is there.
So those are my two fictional reads.
(37:14):
And I've just embarked only thismorning on the first volume of
Iain Banks`s sciencefiction series the Culture.
Which was recommended to me bya friend who knew of my passion for
science fiction reading, is, of course, tocome back to where our conversation began.
(37:35):
Bill, the antidote to screen addiction,and the single most important
thing that I've done as a fatherhas been to try to instill a love
of books in all my children byreading to them, by making books.
The thing you do at bedtime without fail.
(37:56):
I do adore communicating my loveof literature to my children.
I'll always rememberthat moment of bliss when
I read the Hobbit to a child forthe first time.
And that most wonderful of children'sbooks has enthralled them all.
(38:17):
So last, you know, summer tip formothers and fathers,
you know, get hold of a reallynice edition of the Hobbit and
read it aloud in a room with notechnology besides a bedside lamp.
That's the way to cure,at least mitigate the addiction
(38:40):
that your children probably suffer from.
>> Bill Whalen (38:44):
We joke about the nickname the international man of history.
Which, of course,is a wonderful play on Austin powers.
Just wonderful movies butyou are international.
Unlike the early days of GoodFellowswhen we had you under lock and
key, you're in your cabin in Montana.
>> Niall Ferguson (38:57):
I'm gonna have to interrupt my contribution to shoot
a woodpecker.
Yeah, a woodpecker.
Because right now, if you listen,
you can hear it drilling a holein the wall of my house.
>> Bill Whalen (39:09):
Couldn't go anywhere, this is how GoodFellows started but
you do travel now.
When do you read, Niall?
When do you find the timeto open up a book and read?
Does this pass the time on airlines?
Or do you just make a time every dayjust for half an hour an hour to read?
How do you get through books?
>> Niall Ferguson (39:22):
Always at bedtime, I read for pleasure in bed.
It's the way in which I getmy mind out of the quotidian
challenges of writing my own book orappearing on GoodFellows.
You've got to get out of yourworld in order to sleep well.
(39:42):
And beautiful thing about a bookat bedtime is that it's like
a portal into another world.
So I can't sleep well if I don't read fora bit.
Now, sometimes if I'm very tired,the reading doesn't take very long.
And I have this awfulfeeling that my eyes are.
Closing on the third page,it helps one sleep.
(40:05):
I think that's part ofwhat makes me do it.
But I sometimes can just press on throughfatigue if the book is gripping enough.
So books by the bedsideare vital part of my lifestyle.
On planes, I work, in taxis, I work.
I try to keep writing during the day,wherever I am.
(40:28):
But the moment when I get into bed andI pick up my book now I have to use these.
It's really sad for the first time inmy life I need glasses to read, so
this is the new me.
But that's been central to my lifefrom as far back as I can remember.
(40:49):
And it's the thing that you'vegot to get children to do.
You've got to make themaddicted to books if they're
to be fully rounded as human beings.
The way I like to put it is thatactually life is a simulation.
It's literature that's the reality.
And all of one's experiences,the good and the bad,
(41:13):
the tragic and the ecstatic are moremeaningful if there is a range
of literary references thatthose experiences trigger.
I pity people who aren'twell read because they go
through life without those illusions.
But the well read person isconstantly reminded of Proust,
(41:35):
of Scott, of Niall Stephenson,of William Shakespeare,
and so life becomes reallya wander through a library.
>> Bill Whalen (41:45):
Niall, my doctor, my GP would take issue with your lifestyle.
He has told me repeatedly, bedtime is fortwo things, sleep and making babies.
>> Niall Ferguson (41:53):
I'm not going to be drawn into any discussion of that sort
because it's become a politicalissue in the United States and
we're not a political show.
GoodFellow, singular, is a show forpeople who read in bed.
Whatever they do afterwardsis their own business.
>> Bill Whalen (42:12):
Yes, well put.
Final question, Niall,have you read Slaughterhouse Five?
>> Niall Ferguson (42:16):
I have, it's the first of Vonnegut's books that I read and
it's a book I've quoted from.
In fact, I think I quoted from it in mybook on World War II, War of the World.
It's probably his most brilliant,
unforgettable book with itsaccount of the bombing of Dresden.
But the passage that stickswith me is a passage that
(42:39):
imagines the bombing happening in reverse.
This is an astonishingbit of literary genius.
And the thing that first convinced me thatVonnegut was in the top class of writers.
>> Bill Whalen (42:53):
There is a phrase he uses over 100 times in the novel.
Niall, do you know what the phrase is?
>> Niall Ferguson (42:57):
So it goes.
>> Bill Whalen (42:58):
So it goes, well done.
So as a historian, Niall, and you'relooking at 2024 in a rather tumultuous
year, we have wars in Ukraine,war in the Middle east.
We have Donald Trumpnearly being assassinated.
We have Joe Bidendropping out of the race.
We have tumultuous elections ofthe likes of England and France.
As a historian, Niall,do you look at this and say, wow,
or do you look at all this andjust say, so it goes?
>> Niall Ferguson (43:20):
I have a friend who uses that phrase, so it goes, a lot.
And I think of her whenI hear those words.
No, I think for an historian,each year represents a challenge.
It's the question, what is this like?
We began by asking if it was like 1968,and
(43:42):
then we noticed that democratswould like it to be 2008.
But I keep wondering if maybe it'llturn out to be 1980 after all.
In 1980, Ronald Reagan's campaignwas peace through strength.
And if you're paying attention,Donald Trump and
(44:03):
his foreign policy folks like Pompeo,Robert Obrien and
others have started using that phrase.
I'm asking myself, maybe,is it 1980 in Pennsylvania,
in Wisconsin, in those swing counties?
(44:23):
Is the election about the perceptionof American weakness as well as
dissatisfaction with an economythat produced an inflation bout?
If thats right,then thats the right analogy.
And Trump is gonna win againsta candidate who is an incumbent,
(44:44):
even if as vice president andwho represents the left of
the Democratic Party muchmore than Jimmy Carter did.
So that's how I think aboutthese problems, what's it like?
Which year is this mostclosely resembling?
I hope it's not 1968.
I hope we don't have any more politicalviolence, that would, I think,
(45:06):
be a disaster.
And I do feel as if, as I said onan earlier show with our colleagues,
the whole country dodged a bullet whenthat bullet missed Donald Trump's head and
hit his ear.
We, I hope, will get through thiselection with no more of that.
And if I think we can do that,we'll find out if it's 2008 or 1980.
(45:29):
I incline towards 1980.
And now I'm on the record and
you can tell me I'm wrong in ourfirst post election show in November.
>> Bill Whalen (45:37):
We'll see. We'll certainly be talking about this
between now and November, Niall,when GoodFellows comes back for
a full season in September.
We're closing in on 150 episodes,can you believe that?
>> Niall Ferguson (45:47):
Yeah, that's, in cricketing terms, a pretty good innings.
The question is, should we declare,as some cricketers do?
It's not usual in American sports tostop scoring when you are doing well,
but in cricket, you can declare.
So we, as good fellas mustdecide if in cricketing terms,
we're going to declare or just keep ongoing until somebody else calls time.
>> Bill Whalen (46:11):
Okay, Niall, we'll leave it there.
Safe travels, my friend.
Please pass along our best to Ian andyour wonderful kids and thanks for
all you do for the Hoover Institution.
We didn't talk about your workwith the history working group and
the history lab and so forth.
Maybe in another show we'll get into that.
But California's loss has been Hoover'sgain in having you at the institution,
my friend.
>> Niall Ferguson (46:28):
Thank you very much indeed, Bill.
It's been a pleasure to have thisconversation and I hope we do another,
good fellow.
Goodfellows, actually,since you're a fellow, too, soon.
>> Bill Whalen (46:38):
Well done, Niall.
And that's it forthis mini-episode of GoodFellows.
We hope you enjoyed the show andas I mentioned,
we will be back in September witha full slate of GoodFellows.
Niall, John and HR are back intheir full glory, until then,
I want you all to take care.
Thanks for watching.
If you have questions forthe GoodFellows, send them in to us.
So you go to Hoover.org/AskGoodFellows,Niall Ferguson,
where can you not find him?
(46:59):
You can find them at the New York Postindication, the Daily Mail,
the Free Press,am I leaving anything out, Niall?
>> Niall Ferguson (47:04):
I think that's about it for now.
>> Bill Whalen (47:07):
Okay, the international man of history, truly indeed.
On behalf of the Hoover Institution,my colleague, Niall Ferguson, our absent
GoodFellows, John Cochrane and HRMcMaster, all the wonderful people behind
the scenes who make this show possible,we appreciate your participation.
Thanks for watching, we'll see you soon.
Till then, take care.
>> Presenter (47:26):
If you enjoyed this show and are interested in watching more content
featuring HR McMaster, watchBattleGrounds, also available@hoover.org.
Collected works of Dickens,
collected works of George Bernard Shaw.
Books, books, all the books I'll need.
All the books,all the books I'll ever want.
Shelley, Shakespeare, Shaw.
And the best thing, the very bestthing of all is there's time now.
(00:28):
There's all the time I need and
all the time I want.
[MUSIC]
>> Henry Bemis (00:43):
That's not fair, that's not fair at all.
That's not fair.
>> Bill Whalen (00:57):
Hi, I'm Bill Whalen.
I'm a distinguished policy fellowhere at the Hoover Institution.
I'd like to welcome you back toGoodFellows, a Hoover Institution
broadcast examining social, economic,political and geopolitical concerns.
Actually, this is a differentform of GoodFellows today.
It's what we call a mini versionof GoodFellows, a mini show,
because instead of our usualtriumvirate of senior fellows,
we have just one senior fellow foryou today.
(01:19):
And that would be the internationalman of history himself, the one and
only Niall Ferguson.
Niall is the Hoover Institution's Milbankfamily senior fellow.
He also spearheads the HooverInstitution's history working group and
Hoover's history lab.
To say the man's a prolific writerwould be a vast understatement.
Niall Ferguson is the author of 16books and we look forward to number 17,
which will be the second installment ofhis fine biography of Henry Kissinger.
(01:42):
Niall also shares his wisdom via opinioncolumns in the likes of the Daily Mail and
the New York Post.
I would also suggest that you turn tothe free press run by the wonderful
Barry Weiss to see Niall's work there.
He writes frequently for them.
Niall, thanks for joining us today.
>> Niall Ferguson (01:56):
It's good to be with you on GoodFellow, singular.
>> Bill Whalen (01:59):
GoodFellow, singular.
I wanna thank you,my friend, first of all for
taking over the moderating chores in Julyand for also at the end of that show,
Niall, saying that you wantedme to come back and continue.
There's a phrase in American sports,Niall.
It's called to be Wally Pipp,have you heard that phrase?
>> Niall Ferguson (02:14):
I have not, please translate for the simple immigrant.
>> Bill Whalen (02:17):
Okay, to be Wally Pipp refers to a baseball player named
Wally Pip who was the first baseman forthe New York Yankees in 1925.
Wally Pipp takes himself outof the lineup with a headache.
In his place is Lou Gehrig, Lou Gehriggoes on to be the first baseman for
the Yankees for the next 14 years.
As for Mister Pipp, Niall,he's traded to Cincinnati and
he's out of the game in about two years.
So, Niall, thank you for not wanting totake over the moderating chores full time.
(02:40):
I don't wanna get traded to Cincinnati.
>> Niall Ferguson (02:43):
There's no danger of that, Bill.
It's just amazing to think that the eventsyou've just described happened 99 years
ago, and yet baseball is as much a fixturein American life as it was a century ago.
It's one of the few constants in anotherwise constantly fluctuating country.
>> Bill Whalen (03:04):
Well put, would you say the same of rugby, soccer and
cricket in the UK?
>> Niall Ferguson (03:09):
Well, nothing really changes in the UK.
And so there is this sense ofpredictable perennial activities,
even as I think we oncediscussed on GoodFellows.
Even politics is basically the samegame in which people with degrees from
Oxford University take it inturns to be prime minister.
(03:30):
By comparison,the United States is a revolutionary
republic even as it approachesits 250th birthday.
And as I go back and forth acrossthe Atlantic, I'm struck by the contrast.
There is so much more in fluxhere than in the old country.
>> Bill Whalen (03:50):
Well put. The reason why I was absent from
GoodFellows, Niall, is because I was backin South Carolina visiting my sister and
helping her take care of her fourgrandsons, ages five to seven.
Their parents were off in Europe on avacation, and so we decided to turn their
time with us into a faux summer camp,if you will, to teach them about
responsibilities and give them some choresand also let them have a lot of fun.
(04:10):
And, Niall, I thought about you duringthis because you're trying to raise two
small boys in this day and age.
And here's what I'm concerned about.
My little grand nephews are all wonderfullittle kids, they're very happy.
If they end up on a couch one day,Niall, talking to a psychiatrist,
it will not be because they're not loved.
I mean,they're having a good childhood, but
I worry about their future in this regard,Niall.
It's hard fora boy to be a boy in this day and age.
(04:32):
And it's also, I think,
difficult as parents to controlinformation going to your boy.
These little kids in South Carolina,Niall, they're vidiots.
They know how to use remote controls,they're dying to get on my laptop and
look at YouTube.
It's a fight at all times to keep thingsaway for them, so explain how you and
Ian have raised your voice.
>> Niall Ferguson (04:49):
Well, I have to confess to having a little
experience as I have five children and
the older ones are nowaged from 30 to 29 to 25.
So it's really my second life.
Or you could say I decided to cut out themiddleman and have my own grandchildren.
(05:10):
The thing I learned raising Felix,Freya and
Lachlan was that technology,video games, iPads,
iPhones, all of these thingsare highly addictive by design.
And you're essentiallyletting your children
(05:33):
have crack cocaine if youhand over these devices and
don't very closely supervise andration their use.
I have a predispositiontowards the old fashioned.
This is why I increasingly think ofmyself not as a conservative, but
(05:57):
as a reactionary.
I think boys and girls need to be outdoorsa lot, and when they're outdoors,
they're learning things that theycan't learn in the classroom.
I think that the old games are the bestgames, which is why I have,
from the outset, introduced allmy children to the things you can
(06:21):
do with round balls of varying sizes,plus oval balls.
Swimming, which is something thatI think you have to teach your
children early andseriously for their own safety.
Bicycling, the hardest thingabout being a dad is just getting
people to ride a bicycle.
Getting your kids to ridea bicycle without falling over.
(06:43):
The only way to do this isto run along behind them,
holding the saddle to providebalance until they get it.
And for some reason,
this just makes my back hurt morethan anything I could go on.
But I do think that the thingI've learned is you can't
completely prohibit the addictive screens.
(07:04):
You've got to ration them, and
you've got to explain to yourchildren why you're doing that.
Most, I think, parents inthe United States make the mistake of
treating their children's children.
In fact, what works best isto treat your children as
(07:25):
more grown up than they are andtry to get them to understand
that you're rationing the tv orthe iPad for a reason.
And even if at first they'renot really with you,
they'll eventually get it.
And so that's been myphilosophy with all my kids.
(07:47):
Although the technology has changeda lot between Felix, now 30,
and Campbell, now six,it's the same fundamental problem, and
it's not a problem that we had.
I mean, I'm now 60.
When I was a boy growing up in Glasgow,
there were three tv channels tochoose from and that was about it.
(08:13):
The public library was a place where Ispent more time than, say, the cinema.
And I was addicted to football.
I played with the round ball, soccer,
as Americans say,probably every day, several times.
And it's impossible toreplicate that childhood.
(08:37):
It's just not available today,so you have to simulate it.
And I think it's reallyworth making the effort for
the sake of children's physicalas well as mental development.
>> Bill Whalen (08:48):
Let's turn our attention to current events and I wanna talk about
this presidential election in America andtied into some American political history.
For those who are not familiar withAmerica, presidential elections,
it always begins with a false narrative,Niall,
that the current election is the mostimportant election in American history.
And I think as a student of history,you'd agree that maybe 1860 perhaps,
is a more important election than 2024.
(09:10):
It is a curious election and the otherconstant in politics in America, Niall,
is that there is alwaysa historical parallel.
Before Joe Biden dropped out of the race,we looked at 1892,
the only other time when a current andformer president faced off.
We've looked at 1972 and the ideaof a conservative Republican party
versus a very progressive democraticparty but you've landed on 1968.
(09:32):
Now, there are a lot of historicalparallels with 1968, beginning with
the Democrats reconvening again inChicago for the national Convention.
Niall, we might see a repeat of warprotest, Vietnam protest in 68,
Gaza protests in 2024.
Assassination hangs over this election,as it did in 1968,
Bobby Kennedy in 68 andTrump almost assassinated in 2024.
(09:52):
We have an incumbent vice presidentrunning on the democratic side, Niall,
against someone who's run for nationaloffice before, as was true in 1968.
But you wanna talk aboutthe lessons of 68?
>> Niall Ferguson (10:02):
Well, I'd like to promote a book in the process,
which I just happen to have.
Here is The Year That Broke Politics,collusion and
chaos in the presidential election,1968 by Luke Nichter.
And it's a fantastic read.
And whatever you think you know about 1968will be changed by reading this book,
(10:23):
which shows, amongst other things.
That Lyndon Johnson had very little faithin Hubert Humphrey as a candidate and
indeed doubted that it would be inthe best interests of himself or
the United States for Humphrey to win.
So it turns out that in fact,of all people,
(10:44):
Billy Graham as the intermediary,Johnson kind of colluded with Nixon.
That Nixon would win and then Nixonwould protect Johnston`s legacy.
That was the deal that`s oneof the surprising things.
And the other, of course, is that itwas really a third party candidate,
(11:06):
George Wallace, who decidedthe outcome of the election by taking
a significant chunk of democraticvotes away from Humphrey.
And, of course, we think of Wallaceas a proponent of segregation.
And the kind of naive take on 68 is that,well, he's just the racist candidate.
But Nichter shows that Wallace'sappeal was rather broader than that.
(11:30):
And in a way, he attracted some ofthe populist energy that has come
to be such an important factorin american politics today.
So two takeaways, there are many,but I'll give you two.
One, I strongly suspect thatJoe Biden feels about the same way
towards Kamala Harris as Lyndon Johnsonfelt towards Hubert Humphrey.
(11:53):
Ambivalence at best about their beingthe successor, though I very much doubt
that Joe Biden wants Donald Trump to win,there is a big difference there.
And the second point is this electioncould end up being decided by the third
party candidates.
They won't attract nearly as many votes.
But if you add together RFK,Robert Kennedy, Cornel West,
(12:16):
Jill Stein, when the margins are asclose as they seem likely to be,
that might actually be once again,what makes the difference.
Everybody fixates on these national polls,but of course, American elections
are not really decided by the popularpreference for presidential candidates.
(12:37):
They're decided because of what happensin a handful of counties in a handful of
states.
Think there are lots of interesting1968 analogies that we can play with.
The main reason why this is interesting,though, as you already said,
is that this year feels as fraughtas 1968 felt with that political
violence in the air andassassination attempt.
(13:00):
Of course, there were two successfulassassinations in 1968, and
thank God we've avoidedthat nightmare thus far.
Convention in Chicago, it wentcompletely nuts for the Democrats in 68.
It's hard to believe, particularly inview of recent events in the Middle east,
that the energy is suddenly going to ebbaway from the pro palestinian protesters.
(13:22):
And it will be remarkable if theydon't turn up in Chicago and
cause the kind of disruption thatthe anti Vietnam left caused in 1968.
>> Bill Whalen (13:29):
Right, we have not talked much on Goodfellas about
Robert F Kennedy Junior,which is yet another 68 parallel.
His father obviously,running back in that election.
What do you make of his Kennedy, Niall?
What do you think his appeal is?
What do you think his potency is?
>> Niall Ferguson (13:43):
Well, I would say that one of the peculiar features of American
politics is that it isa two party system and
that duopoly is very strictly enforced.
Despite the fact that roughlya third of registered voters,
neither Democrats nor Republicans,label themselves independents,
but whereas the independent party,it doesn't really exist.
(14:07):
And so, in a way,
the puzzling thing about American politicsto almost any outsider is, how do you
keep this duopoly going when there'ssuch obvious demand for something else?
And that something else cantake very curious forms.
Think back to Ross Perot,
a character who played a role intwo presidential elections and
(14:28):
was a curious mixture ofthe pro-business and the populist.
I think the key thing hereis that that appetite for
something else will throwup all kinds of weirdness.
And there's no doubt thatRobert Kennedy has some weirdness.
Weird is a word of the moment,because the Democrats
(14:50):
are desperately trying to labelDonald Trump and JD Vance as weird.
But they're not reallyweird the way RFK is weird.
And key issues about which he feelsstrongly seem to me to be cranky,
he's an anti-vaxxer.
But there are a lot ofpeople out there who,
in the wake of 2020, have become vaccineskeptics and just skeptics generally.
(15:14):
Kennedy combines that crankyskepticism about, quote unquote,
settled signs with the name Kennedy.
So I think Americans will probablycontinue casting around for alternatives,
and each time, the political systemwill throw up some quirky figure who can
get enough votes to makea difference in a close election.
>> Bill Whalen (15:35):
Now, one difference from 1968, Niall,
is because Joe Biden stepped down when hedid, dropped out on the race when he did.
The Democrats avoided a yearof having primary fights.
So unlike 1968,when you had McCarthy and Humphrey and
Kennedy competing in primaries,the Democrats avoided that.
It seems to me deal that one or bothparties are headed to a reckoning in 2028.
If Donald Trump loses in 2024,the Republicans have to decide in 2028,
(15:57):
what do they stand for?
And the same forthe Democrats if Kamala Harris loses.
>> Niall Ferguson (16:02):
That's right, the jockeying for position for
2028 has already begun.
You can tell by the fact that certainpeople didn't throw their hats into
the ring when uncertainty reignedover the democratic nomination.
And so that's because Gavin Newsom,the governor of California,
(16:24):
has concluded it's better to wait.
There was a moment of real confusionin the wake of Joe Biden's announcement
that he was stepping down,in which former President Barack Obama
suggested there ought to besome kind of open convention.
And that didn't last because everybodyelse, all the key power brokers that
(16:45):
run the Democratic Party, decidedto rally around the vice president.
But I think one of the reasons that thathappened was that there were really no
strong contenders who were ready to takethe risk of going into battle against
Donald Trump with a very shorttime remaining and losing.
So, in a way Harris isthe default candidate because
(17:10):
Biden was revealed to be tooold to run in the debate.
Not that long ago now, but seems likea wild June 27th was the decisive moment.
And we've now come, in a sense, fullcircle cuz the margin between Trump and
Harris is now pretty much the samemargin as there was between Trump and
Biden on the eve of that debate,two percentage points.
(17:33):
I think there's a distinctpossibility that Trump loses
because the Democrats havesuch a well old machine that
they could execute thisextraordinary vault fast.
So smoothly, so ruthlessly,in an amazing bait and switched.
This extraordinary bait andswitch was perfectly timed.
(17:57):
So that the Republicans,in a kind of euphoric mood following
Donald Trump's narrow brushwith death in Pennsylvania,
nominated as their vicepresidential candidate JD Vance.
And Vance is somebody it's much easier forthe Democrats to run against than Trump.
(18:20):
Trump has the curiousproperty of anti-fragility,
a word I owe to Nassim Taleb.
The more you attack him,the stronger he becomes.
The Democrats have finally learned this,and so they're gonna direct
a lot of fire against JD Vance becausehe doesn't look so anti-fragile.
This could work, it could also workjust to have the vibe of 2008.
(18:43):
Part of the strategy here is torerun the 2008 election with
Kamala Harris as Barack Obama,this could work.
A new thing is generally preferredto an old thing in american life.
That's one of the distinctivefeatures of this Republic.
If it works and Xi wins,which one can't now rule out.
(19:05):
That will, I think, be one of thosemoments in the history of a party
when you have to admit that the populistthing isn't working anymore.
This happened to the Democrats afterWilliam Jennings Bryan lost three
presidential elections in succession,they finally decided, okay,
let's try something new.
And if Trump loses, that will reallybe the culmination of a succession of
(19:28):
defeats going back to the 2018 midterms.
So I think you can imagine a scenarioin which there has to be a radical
reappraisal of the Republicanparty if that's the outcome.
But this is back to being a coin toss.
If the Democrats have a shockinglychaotic convention, if the enthusiasm for
Harris turns out essentially to bean artifact of mainstream media and
(19:53):
social media, then what couldhappen is that Trump could win.
And then the Democrats willfind themselves looking at
a kind of shattered project,just as they did in 2016.
And in that sense,
one of these moments in history whereyou're at the fork in the road.
(20:14):
And because it's close, unlike somany elections earlier in our lives,
each of these two paths has a kind ofsimilar probability at the moment.
And you therefore have to considertwo quite different futures for
american politics.
And we won't really know which one itis until the early hours of November 6.
>> Bill Whalen (20:32):
Niall, if you think of American politics as a vast exercise in
drinking andturn this election into a drinking game,
the phrase you do not wantto have is gender gap.
You will be under the table fast becauseyou're gonna hear this a lot between now
and election day in America.
Niall, gender gap, for those not familiar,
refers to one's support among women versusmen and a large gap between the two.
We may be looking at the mother of allgender gaps in this election, Niall,
(20:54):
if you go back to 2020.
NBC News poll exit polls.
Biden won female voters by 15%, lost malevoters by 8 points, a 23 point gap, Niall.
But early in 2024,NBC News again doing polling.
Niall, Biden led women by 10%,this is before Kamala Harris comes in.
So he's already up by 10% among women.
Trump leads among men by 22 points, Nialland again, this is before Kamala Harris.
(21:17):
So let's talk about the gender gap.
There's a Fergusonian phrase we shouldtalk about in that it's a boys versus
girls election.
What do you mean by that,boys versus girls?
>> Niall Ferguson (21:25):
Well, I think this will probably be the most polarised
election in terms of genderthat we've ever seen,
with a very substantial skewbetween the candidates.
That seems, at this point, pretty likely.
It's worth adding, though,
(21:46):
that's only one of a number ofimportant skews that will be decisive.
There's also an age skew.
I mean, younger voters are clearlygonna break substantially for
Kamala Harris andolder voters for Donald Trump.
Whereas the old divisions aroundethnicity have diminished
(22:08):
because Donald Trump has thusfar been the most successful
Republican candidate inmodern times to attract.
In terms of his ability to attractAfrican American and Hispanic voters.
There are the gender variables importantbecause it's black and Latino men who
are disproportionately gravitatingtowards the Republican candidate.
(22:32):
Anybody who has a model complex enoughto take into account all of these
cross-currents is a better man orpolitical scientist than I am.
I suspect that to get a senseof where we're going and
how this is gonna turn out.
You have to step away fromyour own computer screen and
(22:54):
your carefully calibrated model andhead to Pennsylvania.
Head to what I think ofas the swing counties.
There are nine counties in Pennsylvaniawhere the margin of victory for
the victorious candidate wasless than 10% points, just 9.
Northampton, Pennsylvania,is the tightest of them all.
(23:15):
It broke narrowly for Trump in 2016,narrowly for Biden in 2020,
and I feel like just going there andwandering around for
a bit to see what has really struck home,what's resonated with voters there.
Because it may be that inthe coffee shops and the bars,
they're still talking about the attempton President Trump's life and
(23:40):
the way in which hedefiantly raised his fist.
That might still be the numberone topic of conversation.
Or they may be talking about Momola memesand the issue of reproductive rights,
which is clearly whatthe Democrats want to focus on.
I don't know, but I sense that that'sreally where we have to go to get a sense
(24:03):
of how things are gonna turn out.
>> Bill Whalen (24:06):
Let's spend a minute, Niall,
on the politics of elderly electorates.
The United States electorate,Niall, is aging.
In 2020, 52% of registeredvoters were ages 50 and older,
that was up from 41% in 1996.
Niall, boomers like me are not going away.
Actually, you're technically a boomer, Ithink, you're right at the tail end of it.
You claim eithergeneration if you want to.
I think of myself asthe last of the boomers,
(24:27):
sort of- Good book,that could be book number 18, Niall.
>> Niall Ferguson (24:31):
[LAUGH] Like the Last of the Mohicans, only without the glamour.
>> Bill Whalen (24:35):
Exactly, but if you look at the 22 US midterm election, Niall,
about two-thirds of citizens 65 andolder voted.
That's more than double the turnout forvoters age 18 to 29.
Let's spend a minute actually onthe UK here, then come back to the US.
Rishi Sunak in that election,Niall, he trots out a proposal.
He wants to promise retirees a tax break,and
then he also proposes a mandatorynational service for 18 year olds.
(24:57):
An idea that doesn't playwell with young people,
I imagine, butprobably sounds good to older voters.
But that didn't work out forMr. Sunak, did it?
>> Niall Ferguson (25:03):
It didn't work cuz it wasn't enough to satisfy an electorate
that, as in the United States, isrelatively elderly by historic standards.
That stat you just mentioned, more thanhalf the us electorate is over 50,
has a pretty similar analoguein the United Kingdom.
(25:26):
And the key here is the elderlyvoters want two incompatible things
on both sides of the Atlantic.
>> Bill Whalen (25:33):
Right. >> Niall Ferguson
inflation, they dislike inflation.
And the return of inflation on bothsides of the Atlantic in 2022 made them
mad at incumbents.
But they also don't like immigration, and
this is the other issue that getsranked highly by all the voters.
Now, this is a problem because one ofthe ways in which inflation has been
(25:56):
held down in the years sincethe pandemic has been immigration.
If you didn't have the largescale immigration,
the labor market wouldhave been even tighter and
the pressure on wages and thereforeon prices would have been higher.
And if I look at what befell Rishi Sunak,
it's pretty clear that older voterspunish the conservatives by voting for
(26:17):
whoever candidate would win in theirconstituency over the conservative.
For those issues, plus, of course,the National Health Service,
which is the perennial preoccupationof older people in Britain,
its decline in terms of the length ofwaiting times has been another key issue.
(26:37):
In the US,older voters have similar priorities.
They don't like inflation,they're wary of large-scale immigration,
especially the illegal variety.
And of course, you cant go near healthcare because that's the third rail.
So I think the politics of mostadvanced democracies is quite
(26:58):
similar wherever yu go.
The incumbent has somehow to satisfy aconstituency that's impossible to satisfy.
Because if you don't have immigration,you end up with higher inflation,
to put it really simply.
I'm sure if John Cochrane were here,he'd jump in and
qualify my economics, but let's putit in those rough-and-ready terms.
(27:19):
And you can't really address the fiscalproblem which both the UK and the US have
if you don't do something about thespiraling costs of your welfare system.
And those are driven mainly bythe aging of the population and
the costs of looking afterpeople in their later years.
So who can really winunder these circumstances?
Maybe the reality is that justall incumbents are doomed to
(27:41):
lose in relatively elderly societies.
Niall, when you go to Texas and visit your wonderful endeavor at
the University of Austin, do you ever taketime to stop by and visit with Karl Rove?
I mention Mr. Rove because Mr.Rove is a William McKinley super fan.
He's written a book about McKinley,he's fascinated with McKinley, and
you wanna talk about McKinley too.
Now, I'm curious about McKinley'stie to Trump in this regard,
(28:03):
going back to historical parallels,Niall, or elect thereof.
William McKinley was a politician.
He was a member of the House of governorbefore becoming elected president,
whereas Donald Trump was an outsider,not a politician.
McKinley famously ran the frontporch campaign in 1896,
where he just basically kicked back andlet people come to him.
That is the antithesis of Magnarelli's,Niall.
What else, William McKinley sorely waslacking in charisma, whereas Donald Trump,
(28:26):
like him or not,you have to admit the man has charisma.
But yet you suggest there is a tie betweenDonald Trump and William McKinley, and
it comes down to one word, tariffs.
>> Niall Ferguson (28:35):
Well, I don't suggest it, Donald Trump suggests it.
And Karl Rove, I'm sure,must have perked up his ears when he heard
Donald Trump talk about McKinley inthat interview that was published
just after the assassinationattempt by Bloomberg Businessweek.
It's a fascinating interviewin that we get into the inner
(29:00):
workings of Trump's philosophy,and he has one.
And this is very clearlyspelt out in the interview,
in which he says tariffs are reallyimportant as a source of revenue and
as a source of leverageagainst foreign competition.
And I'm like McKinley,except that McKinley, of course,
was killed by an assassin andDonald Trump survived, but
(29:23):
in other respects, we're alikebecause McKinley was a tariff man.
And Trump alludes in thatinterview to the 1890 tariff and
reminds us that the Republican traditionin the 19th century was protectionist.
And tariffs were central to Republicanpolitics right up to the 1930s,
(29:45):
when the defeat inflictedon Herbert Hoover.
And then the period in isolation oropposition during the 30s and
40s forced Republicans to rethink theirviews on trade and embrace free trade.
And that period of free trade fromthe late forties right through,
(30:05):
really, until the advent of Donald Trump,
is still not the representative sampleof republican political history.
So in a fascinating way, andI've made this point before,
Donald Trump represents a returnto 19th century politics.
That style he has, the rally,the outdoor rallies,
(30:25):
the somewhat blowhard rhetoric,the long, rambling speeches.
Trust me, speeches in the 19th centurywere even longer than 90 minutes.
I think this was a really importantindication of what Donald Trump
represents.
And it's important because somany people misunderstand him by using,
I think, bad analogies withthe Europe of the 1930s.
(30:49):
I still feel angry every timeI think about the new Republic
representing Trump as Hitler onits cover just a few weeks ago.
That kind of thing has unquestionablyraised the temperature and
incentivized political violencein a way that's irresponsible,
but it's also historically stupid.
(31:10):
Trump's not a fascist,he's not a national socialist,
he's a populist, andhe's a protectionist, he's a nativist.
All of Trumpism is kinda 19thcentury American politics.
And it was great to see Trump confirmthat in the interview that he gave.
>> Bill Whalen (31:29):
Now, Niall, Trump is not the only one playing around with tariffs.
On May 14th, the Biden administrationannounces tariff increases on a range of
imports from China, Niall.
This includes steel and aluminum,semiconductors, electric vehicles, and
so forth.
It's only about 4% of all chinese imports.
Niall, am I so cynical as to think this isjust a way to get 15 electoral votes in
Michigan, or does this currentadministration see the value of tariffs?
>> Niall Ferguson (31:52):
One of the most interesting things over the last three and
a half years has been that the Bidenadministration has never really challenged
what Trump did.
It's accepted the return to protectionism,the return to tariffs, and
in some ways, if you look at other things,for example, sanctions,
there is now a bipartisan consensus inthe United States against free trade and
(32:16):
in favor of what might becalled economic warfare.
Trump's reasoning for the tariffs,
if you go back to that interview,had to do with currency weakness.
He argued that the Japanese and
Chinese and other Asian economies hadweakened their currencies to give them
a competitive advantage over the UnitedStates, and that tariffs were a lever,
(32:38):
implicitly, to force them torevalue their currencies.
That's a playbook out of the 1970s and1980s, actually.
It's the kind of thing that the Nixonadministration talked about and the Reagan
administration talked about, when theywere dealing with Japanese competition.
Quietly, without making any great song anddance about it,
(32:59):
The Biden administration decided tostick with that after 2020, and,
in fact, to stick with mostof Trump's China policy.
Where they changed directionwas in Middle eastern policy,
and that was the big discontinuity.
But apart from carrying on with tariffs,
there were two thingsthey did differently.
(33:19):
They did not apply as much pressureto us allies as Trump had.
Trump is an equalopportunity tariff imposer,
he doesn't mind puttingtariffs on US allies.
The other difference was thatthey stepped up the tech war.
And if you think about economic measures,the toughest economic measures
imposed on China, or indeed any UScompetitor in the last 25 years,
(33:42):
were imposed by the Bidenadministration in October 2022,
when they restricted China's access tothe most sophisticated semiconductors.
That went much further thananything Donald Trump did.
So there's a really important continuitythere that tells you Donald Trump won that
argument, and he basically won an argumentagainst free trade, and he won it so
(34:04):
completely that the other partydidn't really fight back.
>> Bill Whalen (34:07):
I'm gonna elevate you to moderator, not moderator of GoodFellows,
but something far more interesting,
which would be moderator of a presidentialdebate between Trump and Harris.
And, Niall, what is the tariff questionyou would like to pose to the two of them?
>> Niall Ferguson (34:19):
Well, I would certainly begin by asking President Trump to set
out his theory of tariffs,because most economists,
including our own beloved John Cochrane,
think of them as essentiallyattacks on American consumers,
whereas Trump thinks of them in adifferent way, that China pays the tariff.
(34:42):
And I would like to get him to address thequestion, would this not be inflationary?
Would you not, in fact, be letting downthe people that you've got votes from or
seeking votes from preciselyon the inflation issue?
That would be my question to Donald Trump.
My question to Kamala Harris would be,
can you explain to me why the DemocraticParty has not reduced the tariffs?
(35:07):
And if not,
does that mean it accepts the logicthat Donald Trump has just presented?
>> Bill Whalen (35:14):
Well put. Niall, We have but
about ten minutes left on the show.
I'd like to ask you a question aboutwhat you're reading these days.
Anytime I run into someone who wantsto ask me what Niall Ferguson and
John Cochrane, HR McMaster are up to,invariably, they wanna know what
book you're reading, and you always givewonderful, eclectic answers, I remember.
Let's see, I remember you were.
Let's see, you had a very offbeat one.
Was it Walter Scott?
>> Niall Ferguson (35:33):
I went from Walter Scott Mania in the early
GoodFellows year in 2020.
I was reading the complete worksof Walter Scott, which, in a way,
had been kept from me when I was a youngman because people said Scott was boring.
I completed those long ago,it was the way I got through the pandemic.
(35:54):
I'm currently reading Kurt Vonnegut,and Kurt Vonnegut's a wonderful writer.
The one I'm readingcurrently is Cat`s Cradle.
>> Bill Whalen (36:03):
14 novels, three short story collections, five plays,
five books of essays.
>> Niall Ferguson (36:08):
And it's all brilliant.
So there's so much Vonnegut, and
that's one of the ones that Iwould urge listeners to pick up.
The other book I'm reading at the moment,I tend to read simultaneously,
(36:28):
a couple of books, is Trollope'sLady Anna, which is a wonderful but
rather neglected workabout English society and
the clashes between the classes.
Once upon a time,everything was about class.
And you go right back tothat world in Lady Anna,
where there's a kind of loathsome,degenerate aristocrat
(36:54):
who entirely lets down his wifeby denying the legality of
their marriage,leaving their daughter in limbo.
But she's helped out by an artisan who'smotivated partly by political radicalism.
It's all there,all of English society is there.
So those are my two fictional reads.
(37:14):
And I've just embarked only thismorning on the first volume of
Iain Banks`s sciencefiction series the Culture.
Which was recommended to me bya friend who knew of my passion for
science fiction reading, is, of course, tocome back to where our conversation began.
(37:35):
Bill, the antidote to screen addiction,and the single most important
thing that I've done as a fatherhas been to try to instill a love
of books in all my children byreading to them, by making books.
The thing you do at bedtime without fail.
(37:56):
I do adore communicating my loveof literature to my children.
I'll always rememberthat moment of bliss when
I read the Hobbit to a child forthe first time.
And that most wonderful of children'sbooks has enthralled them all.
(38:17):
So last, you know, summer tip formothers and fathers,
you know, get hold of a reallynice edition of the Hobbit and
read it aloud in a room with notechnology besides a bedside lamp.
That's the way to cure,at least mitigate the addiction
(38:40):
that your children probably suffer from.
>> Bill Whalen (38:44):
We joke about the nickname the international man of history.
Which, of course,is a wonderful play on Austin powers.
Just wonderful movies butyou are international.
Unlike the early days of GoodFellowswhen we had you under lock and
key, you're in your cabin in Montana.
>> Niall Ferguson (38:57):
I'm gonna have to interrupt my contribution to shoot
a woodpecker.
Yeah, a woodpecker.
Because right now, if you listen,
you can hear it drilling a holein the wall of my house.
>> Bill Whalen (39:09):
Couldn't go anywhere, this is how GoodFellows started but
you do travel now.
When do you read, Niall?
When do you find the timeto open up a book and read?
Does this pass the time on airlines?
Or do you just make a time every dayjust for half an hour an hour to read?
How do you get through books?
>> Niall Ferguson (39:22):
Always at bedtime, I read for pleasure in bed.
It's the way in which I getmy mind out of the quotidian
challenges of writing my own book orappearing on GoodFellows.
You've got to get out of yourworld in order to sleep well.
(39:42):
And beautiful thing about a bookat bedtime is that it's like
a portal into another world.
So I can't sleep well if I don't read fora bit.
Now, sometimes if I'm very tired,the reading doesn't take very long.
And I have this awfulfeeling that my eyes are.
Closing on the third page,it helps one sleep.
(40:05):
I think that's part ofwhat makes me do it.
But I sometimes can just press on throughfatigue if the book is gripping enough.
So books by the bedsideare vital part of my lifestyle.
On planes, I work, in taxis, I work.
I try to keep writing during the day,wherever I am.
(40:28):
But the moment when I get into bed andI pick up my book now I have to use these.
It's really sad for the first time inmy life I need glasses to read, so
this is the new me.
But that's been central to my lifefrom as far back as I can remember.
(40:49):
And it's the thing that you'vegot to get children to do.
You've got to make themaddicted to books if they're
to be fully rounded as human beings.
The way I like to put it is thatactually life is a simulation.
It's literature that's the reality.
And all of one's experiences,the good and the bad,
(41:13):
the tragic and the ecstatic are moremeaningful if there is a range
of literary references thatthose experiences trigger.
I pity people who aren'twell read because they go
through life without those illusions.
But the well read person isconstantly reminded of Proust,
(41:35):
of Scott, of Niall Stephenson,of William Shakespeare,
and so life becomes reallya wander through a library.
>> Bill Whalen (41:45):
Niall, my doctor, my GP would take issue with your lifestyle.
He has told me repeatedly, bedtime is fortwo things, sleep and making babies.
>> Niall Ferguson (41:53):
I'm not going to be drawn into any discussion of that sort
because it's become a politicalissue in the United States and
we're not a political show.
GoodFellow, singular, is a show forpeople who read in bed.
Whatever they do afterwardsis their own business.
>> Bill Whalen (42:12):
Yes, well put.
Final question, Niall,have you read Slaughterhouse Five?
>> Niall Ferguson (42:16):
I have, it's the first of Vonnegut's books that I read and
it's a book I've quoted from.
In fact, I think I quoted from it in mybook on World War II, War of the World.
It's probably his most brilliant,
unforgettable book with itsaccount of the bombing of Dresden.
But the passage that stickswith me is a passage that
(42:39):
imagines the bombing happening in reverse.
This is an astonishingbit of literary genius.
And the thing that first convinced me thatVonnegut was in the top class of writers.
>> Bill Whalen (42:53):
There is a phrase he uses over 100 times in the novel.
Niall, do you know what the phrase is?
>> Niall Ferguson (42:57):
So it goes.
>> Bill Whalen (42:58):
So it goes, well done.
So as a historian, Niall, and you'relooking at 2024 in a rather tumultuous
year, we have wars in Ukraine,war in the Middle east.
We have Donald Trumpnearly being assassinated.
We have Joe Bidendropping out of the race.
We have tumultuous elections ofthe likes of England and France.
As a historian, Niall,do you look at this and say, wow,
or do you look at all this andjust say, so it goes?
>> Niall Ferguson (43:20):
I have a friend who uses that phrase, so it goes, a lot.
And I think of her whenI hear those words.
No, I think for an historian,each year represents a challenge.
It's the question, what is this like?
We began by asking if it was like 1968,and
(43:42):
then we noticed that democratswould like it to be 2008.
But I keep wondering if maybe it'llturn out to be 1980 after all.
In 1980, Ronald Reagan's campaignwas peace through strength.
And if you're paying attention,Donald Trump and
(44:03):
his foreign policy folks like Pompeo,Robert Obrien and
others have started using that phrase.
I'm asking myself, maybe,is it 1980 in Pennsylvania,
in Wisconsin, in those swing counties?
(44:23):
Is the election about the perceptionof American weakness as well as
dissatisfaction with an economythat produced an inflation bout?
If thats right,then thats the right analogy.
And Trump is gonna win againsta candidate who is an incumbent,
(44:44):
even if as vice president andwho represents the left of
the Democratic Party muchmore than Jimmy Carter did.
So that's how I think aboutthese problems, what's it like?
Which year is this mostclosely resembling?
I hope it's not 1968.
I hope we don't have any more politicalviolence, that would, I think,
(45:06):
be a disaster.
And I do feel as if, as I said onan earlier show with our colleagues,
the whole country dodged a bullet whenthat bullet missed Donald Trump's head and
hit his ear.
We, I hope, will get through thiselection with no more of that.
And if I think we can do that,we'll find out if it's 2008 or 1980.
(45:29):
I incline towards 1980.
And now I'm on the record and
you can tell me I'm wrong in ourfirst post election show in November.
>> Bill Whalen (45:37):
We'll see. We'll certainly be talking about this
between now and November, Niall,when GoodFellows comes back for
a full season in September.
We're closing in on 150 episodes,can you believe that?
>> Niall Ferguson (45:47):
Yeah, that's, in cricketing terms, a pretty good innings.
The question is, should we declare,as some cricketers do?
It's not usual in American sports tostop scoring when you are doing well,
but in cricket, you can declare.
So we, as good fellas mustdecide if in cricketing terms,
we're going to declare or just keep ongoing until somebody else calls time.
>> Bill Whalen (46:11):
Okay, Niall, we'll leave it there.
Safe travels, my friend.
Please pass along our best to Ian andyour wonderful kids and thanks for
all you do for the Hoover Institution.
We didn't talk about your workwith the history working group and
the history lab and so forth.
Maybe in another show we'll get into that.
But California's loss has been Hoover'sgain in having you at the institution,
my friend.
>> Niall Ferguson (46:28):
Thank you very much indeed, Bill.
It's been a pleasure to have thisconversation and I hope we do another,
good fellow.
Goodfellows, actually,since you're a fellow, too, soon.
>> Bill Whalen (46:38):
Well done, Niall.
And that's it forthis mini-episode of GoodFellows.
We hope you enjoyed the show andas I mentioned,
we will be back in September witha full slate of GoodFellows.
Niall, John and HR are back intheir full glory, until then,
I want you all to take care.
Thanks for watching.
If you have questions forthe GoodFellows, send them in to us.
So you go to Hoover.org/AskGoodFellows,Niall Ferguson,
where can you not find him?
(46:59):
You can find them at the New York Postindication, the Daily Mail,
the Free Press,am I leaving anything out, Niall?
>> Niall Ferguson (47:04):
I think that's about it for now.
>> Bill Whalen (47:07):
Okay, the international man of history, truly indeed.
On behalf of the Hoover Institution,my colleague, Niall Ferguson, our absent
GoodFellows, John Cochrane and HRMcMaster, all the wonderful people behind
the scenes who make this show possible,we appreciate your participation.
Thanks for watching, we'll see you soon.
Till then, take care.
>> Presenter (47:26):
If you enjoyed this show and are interested in watching more content
featuring HR McMaster, watchBattleGrounds, also available@hoover.org.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!