This is Democracy – Episode 107: Partisanship and Congress

[0:00:05 Narration] This Is Democracy, a podcast that explores the interracial inter generational and intersectional unheard voices living in the world’s most influential democracy.

[0:00:17 Jeremi Suri] Welcome to our new episode of This Is Democracy. This week we have with us, I think, the foremost scholar on the history of Congress and the contemporary nature of congressional debates and politics in our society. Today. Julian Zelizer Julian is also a good friend and really one of the leading figures in our society today, bringing historical knowledge to contemporary policy debates. I’m sure many of our listeners have seen Julian on CNN, read his pieces in The Washington Post, The New York Times and elsewhere. Hey is officially the Malcolm Stevenson Forbes Class of 1941 professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. He’s the author and editor of 19 books on American political history. In fact, the new one might be the 20th so I’m feeling very unproductive relative to Julian these days. Ah, it’s impossible to list all of his work. Some of my favorites, including include Taxing America, Wilbur D Mills, Congress and State 1945 to 75 which probably amounts to more than half of what I know about that period in Congress, Julian also wrote, I think, one of the best books on Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society and the congressional politics surrounding it. The fierce urgency of Now recently co authored with Kevin Kruse. A Wonderful History of American Society since 1974 Fault Lines of History of the United States and most recently, the book will spend a fair amount of time talking about today, burning down the House. Newt Gingrich, the Fall of a Speaker and the Rise of the New Republican Party. It’s a brand new book that’s just come out and available everywhere and getting a lot of attention as it well deserves. Julian, thank you for joining us today.

[0:02:03 Julian Zelizer] Thanks for having me. It’s great to be with you guys.

[0:02:06 Jeremi Suri] So before we turn to our discussion with Julian, as always, we have our scene setting poem from Mr Zachary. Siri. What’s the title of your poem? Zachary The Sour Grapes Boy, I can’t wait to hear this. Let’s hear it, Zachary.

[0:02:21 Zachary Suri] It is sour so sour watching the Congress burst at the seams on live TV and the votes the votes pop up in the same line It was tempting, so tempting to believe the man screaming at midnight to empty seats and believing the lies on C Span. So it seems so sweet to them to forget morality. It is sour, so sour to think of that year in the chaos that began to flow from the seats of the minority until there was a volcano. It is tempting, so tempting, to stare at the photo in the history book the Georgian with a baby face and a pulpit on the floor of the Congress and want to tear it up or fold it into an ironic rose. It is easy, so easy to imagine. It used to be better, that we can just go back. But I remember that when I was born, it was the same flag behind the man on the empty floor of the house. It is easy, too easy to slip into the dichotomy to slip into the good and the bad, ignoring the speeches and the condemnations and the regrets of the existence of the national conscience. The existence of conscience does not disappear with the sour grapes.

[0:03:27 Jeremi Suri] What is your poem about, Zachary?

[0:03:28 Zachary Suri] My poem is really about this contradiction between ah, the moral, the moral nature of our society and how we can stay. Ah, committed to our values while also the very petty politics that are beginning to define us and have to find us for decades.

[0:03:44 Jeremi Suri] Well, that’s a perfect spot to turn to. Julian Julian. You’ve written so much about Congress in American policy making, particularly after World War Two. They’ve always been petty partisan politics, But it was different during the Cold War years, particularly the fifties and sixties, wasn’t it?

[0:04:02 Julian Zelizer] It was very different, and it’s often hard to explain if there’s partisanship all the time. How could it be different in one period from another? How could two parties bi partisan in different ways, But during the Cold War era, you had parties with strong positions. But members of Congress, especially the leadership, would always balance their partisanship with the needs of governance. This was, ah, commitment most of them had on the needs of the institution to just keep it healthy, keep it functional. And in an era when many members would keep stay in office for much of their careers, these were values that they balanced and partisanship was always checked at some level, and that’s very different than what we’ve seen since the 19 eighties.

[0:04:49 Jeremi Suri] And before we get into that, that shift that you date to 1989 and documents so well in your book, what were the consequences of what you’ve described as a Congress that that had a certain leadership consensus? What were its achievements and what words? Limitations

[0:05:06 Julian Zelizer] with limitations. During that pre seventies period, there was, ah, conservative coalition of committee leaders that had the support of the speakers and the majority leader’s. This was Southern Democrats and Republicans. When they didn’t want things like civil rights legislation, they were able to block it. Uh, and another negative part of that here is a lot of it was behind closed doors. There wasn’t a lot of sunshine on the institution or accountability. On the positive side, there were bursts, riel, bursts of legislative productivity, which, in retrospect, there hard to even imagine today whether it’s the 19 thirties or sixties on when the institution was needed in times of crisis, it could function. It was functional. Ah, it was not sitting still as crises fell onto the onto the nation. So so I think those were the pluses and minuses of the period.

[0:06:02 Jeremi Suri] And it is worth remembering that although you had partisan disputes, you didn’t have threats to shut down the government every few months, as we’ve had most recently correct?

[0:06:13 Julian Zelizer] No, absolutely. A lot of the normal routine processes of government, whether it was passing a budget or whether it was Supreme Court confirmations in the Senate happened. Those were not part of the partisan battles. And so not only were people limited and how far they would go in destroying an opponent or in destroying, you know, key parts of a negotiation, just parts of the process weren’t even included in the competition. And that was important because you didn’t have to worry about passing a budget or shutting down the government in a way that you do today,

[0:06:51 Jeremi Suri] right? Right? It does. It does seem like a history so distant from our current practice. One of the real contributions and one of the pieces of your new book I really enjoy Julian was your focus on the paradox of the reforms of the 19 seventies. In many ways, a reaction as you document and his others have documented to the racial and racist hold that Southern Democrats had on Congress and the limitations on sunshine and transparency. Post civil rights movement, post Watergate. There were efforts to open up Congress, the Watergate babies, as you call them. Ah, one of the document is how that actually contributed to MAWR partisan disruption. Can you explain that?

[0:07:33 Julian Zelizer] Well, yeah. So after Watergate and Vietnam, there’s a big push by Democrats to change the way that Congress works, and that includes a number of reforms from reforms. Such a sunshine rules like putting television cameras on the floor of the house so that people could see what members of Congress dio. And so there was some kind of accountability to ethics rules which are put into place to make sure that a members couldn’t do whatever they wanted financially, and that there was disclosure of where they were making money, where they were getting money from, and the ambitions were really toe move beyond this horrendous crisis that unfolded in 1974. But what happened was that not always anticipated. The new generation of Republicans led by Gingrich saw these as mechanisms for partisan warfare rather than mechanisms for making the institution better, and they proved to be pretty devastating in a number of ways.

[0:08:36 Jeremi Suri] And that, to me was was really a surprise in the book. I have to say, even though I thought I knew this story that the extent to which these efforts, for example, the church committee and campaign finance reform the ways they were weaponized by partisans like Newt Gingrich, that was really quite striking to me. Can you give us more of those details?

[0:08:57 Julian Zelizer] Yeah, well, you think about it. Gingrich is elected in 78 to the House he starts in 79. Republicans had been out of power in the House since 1955 in the Senate as well, so most Republicans were frustrated. They felt they would never really have a lot of influence in the institution. And so Gingrich’s central argument in his campaigns in his early speeches in Congress was The Democrats were corrupt establishment. They were tyrannical, they were unfair. They they brutalized the opposition, and he understood that in this era we’re talking about that argument would really hold. But then the weapons that he used to make that a fulfilling prophecy, so to speak. We’re all these reforms. So one example the House and televised their proceedings and every speech was being covered by a new network called C SPAN. And so Gingrich said, Perfect. And in 1984 he goes on the floor at the end of every day with his allies, and he delivers these blistering speeches about Democrats saying they’re weak on defense. They don’t really care about the security of the nation. They’re letting communist run amok, and, uh, and and you’d actually name specific members and asked them to respond. And if you were watching on C SPAN, you were watching the sunshine. You heard nothing. It sounded like the Democrats were guilty. But really no one was in the chamber at that time of the day, and the camera was only focused on the speaker. Ah, and that was really ah, big moment for Gingrich. And many Democrats were taken aback, and I thought these were below the belt kind of attacks on the patriotism of members. So that’s one example of how the sunshine was turned into a partisan bludgeoned.

[0:10:51 Jeremi Suri] Why did establishment Republican figures who you talk about in your book? Robert Mitchell, Bob Dole, Ronald Reagan for that matter. Why did they put up with this? Because they benefited from the older system, didn’t they?

[0:11:05 Julian Zelizer] Well, they wanted to be part of the majority. And so they had been influential Republicans through this conservative Alliance. But But that was different than controlling the chamber, and they felt that they were this embattled minority. And then when Reagan was elected in 1980 the world changed for them and seemed like conservatism was rising in the Senate. Republicans take control of the Senate, and the House is this last bastion of Democratic power and liberalism. So in the early eighties, when Gingrich is shaking things up in arguing that that Republicans have to go far Ah, summer Republican leaders or at least listening, they know he’s toxic. None of them want to publicly associate themselves with someone who’s seen as a new Joe McCarthy. But the story I tell is, gradually, a lot of these leaders, like Bob Michel, the House minority leader, start toe echo his rhetoric. George H. W. Bush starts toe bring in some of Gingrich’s themes into the 1988 campaign they can’t resist. They think they can control a Gingrich, but Ultimately, they want power, and they like his promise, and they go there in an effort to change the way that Washington work.

[0:12:20 Jeremi Suri] Why did the Democrats fail to respond effectively to Gingrich?

[0:12:25 Julian Zelizer] That’s a big question in the book, and I think there are two things that I saw one were Democrats because they had been in power for so long and because they were comfortable in this system, they didn’t really have a grasp of how much things were changing. How much conservatism was changing. The conservative movement was changing the nature of the GOP. People like Jim Wright, who becomes speaker and 87 didn’t really get cable television and thought investigative journalism post Watergate was important. But it wasn’t gonna really change the way that Americans were consuming that their politics. And so they were kind of, Ah, an older party that was caught off guard and not fully Ah ah, cognizant of where this was all going. And the second reason is, you know, their partisanship was gonna always be checked. Democrats can never be quite as ruthless as Republicans, because Democrats certainly in the eighties, but even today need government. They are a party that believes in government is a central piece of their agenda. And so a partisanship that ultimately renders government dysfunctional doesn’t work for Democrats. Where for Republicans it fit the Reagan philosophy, and they were much more willing to go further than Democrats could even imagine.

[0:13:49 Jeremi Suri] It’s striking you say that because at the same time as your scholarship and others has shown, I mean Republicans rely very heavily on federal subsidies, land business subsidies, military subsidies and Gingrich himself. Right? Was an advocate of more more spending on the military. More spending on space, various other ideas. He had some of them kind of crazy ideas, actually. Eso So is that more style than substance? The difference between the two parties?

[0:14:17 Julian Zelizer] Well, there is, I think they’re both. There’s obviously a level of hypocrisy and Republican rhetoric, Um, but a lot of the kinds of measures that are hardest to pass in American history or often these areas that Democrats certainly since the thirties of more invested in I mean historically, it’s a lot easier to get boosts of spending, for example, for military contracting or even corporate subsidies that it is for social safety net programs. There’s a big difference. And so if you’re gonna have ah institution capable of having negotiations, having interaction, having legislation work, it really renders that, uh, not impossible, but extraordinarily difficult. Where I think some of these other areas air pretty insulated. They’re not into girl. To a lot of the debate of these periods

[0:15:07 Jeremi Suri] as I was as I was reading your book, I was thinking, especially in the current moment. Is this difference also a difference around race that the domestic issues that require a coalition have require multiracial coalition and serve a multiracial public on? And do you see Gingrich playing the race card from the very beginning?

[0:15:29 Julian Zelizer] Yeah, I mean, that’s always controversial. If there’s one issue, he will quickly respond. Teoh. It’s the accusation that he did that and and he’s very interesting. It’s It’s the what you can accuse him are argue that he’s done all these terrible things, but that’s the one who’ll respond. I supported an MLK Ah, birthday early on that he goes after white politicians as much as African American politicians. But there’s tons of examples in his career where he’s certainly tapping into this Republican rhetoric about issues such as welfare civil rights policy. That’s at least capitalizing on that white backlash politics, even if he himself is not a believer in it. Down deep. It’s always hard to tell, obviously, but it’s hard to separate him from from a party that has made this pretty important to a lot of their rhetoric since the eighties.

[0:16:26 Zachary Suri] How does how does Gingrich’s actions alter the regional appeals of the different parties? How does it change the, uh, the regional divides within the country?

[0:16:36 Julian Zelizer] Well, it’s, ah, one of the changes that happens from that earlier period we discussed is that the South becomes Republican. The South had been a bastion of Democratic power, and Gingrich’s part of this generation of Republicans in the seventies hey had been a Rockefeller Republican, meaning a moderate Republican. He had been a Nixon supporter. Thought Richard Nixon was a great president, is trying to build a big coalition for his party, and, ah, at the local level in in Georgia, near Atlanta. He’s trying to, you know, be part of this effort to build Republican Party politics in a heavily democratic area, has his first opponent to who he loses in 74 76 is Jack Flint, who is, Ah, classic old conservative Democrat, especially on race issues. But eventually he wins when Flint retires. And so he’s part of this wave, and the media in the seventies often identified him as an exciting voice of the new Republican South. And that realignment is, I think, central to the story of partisan party politics since that period. And it weighs the Republican Party to the conservative side on bakes more the moderate people and moderate voices less of an influence in the GOP.

[0:17:59 Jeremi Suri] Right, they get crowded out by Gingrich. In a sense, your book centers really around the overthrow or the forced resignation of Democratic Speaker of the House Jim Wright, Um, and what follows from that, But I wanted to extend our discussion a little bit further. I remember when Gingrich was in Austin and I had the fortune or misfortune. However you you’re one determined of hosting him on one of the topics that it was really raw with him. Ah, this is when Obama was president, was his relationship with Bill Clinton. And, uh, first of all, how does he get Clinton impeached? And then why does he end up being the one who leaves office. Not Bill Clinton.

[0:18:42 Julian Zelizer] Yeah, I e mean Gingrich’s ah, foe of Bill Clinton. And of course, the Republicans retake control of Congress in 1994 and Gingrich becomes speaker. And that’s an important moment because it basically delivers on the promise he’s made throughout the 19 eighties that he was the one who could do this. And part of what he does is he characterizes Bill Clinton as a far left Democrat, you know, proposing health care plans that will allow socialism to essentially take over the country on then. The Republicans, after that takeover, devote a lot of time to investigation, and numerous investigations continue into the administration. Ah, there’s Ah, book by someone named Steve Gillan that argues behind the scenes. Gingrich’s is enamored with Bill Clinton to some extent, and then 97 is trying to work on a deficit reduction package with him that would include cuts in Social Security and Medicare. But ultimately all that falls apart because the Republicans moved to impeach the president and ah, that happens in 1998. It revolves around President Clinton, who has investigated for multiple things, perjuring himself about an affair that he had with a White House intern named Monica Lewinsky. And Gingrich is the point person in all of this, a speaker of the House. And it culminates in 1998 in December, when the House is getting ready to vote on the articles of impeachment. Republicans were angry because they didn’t do well in the midterm elections, and they thought they would. And many House Republicans are angry with Gingrich, and they believe he got them into this whole mess and it wasn’t working. And they are also unhappy with him because he was having an affair at the time. Ah, and so it wasn’t really great to have the head of your party in the middle of the personal relationship when that was the center of what they were saying. President Clinton was being impeached about. And so he is forced to step down. And so he falls after a few years a speaker at very Shakespearean ending, given he really launches his career bringing down another speaker,

[0:20:59 Jeremi Suri] and I remember thinking at that point and even thinking this in 8 4009 Long after that, that that that was the end of of Gingrich. How did he resurrect himself after you link him to Trump? Of course, you open the book with the possibility of him having been chosen Is Trump’s vice presidential running mate even?

[0:21:20 Julian Zelizer] Well, look a. The Washington he hated so much proved to be very fertile ground. He does a lot of consulting on, makes a lot of money and works in the Washington think tank slash consulting world. He runs for president in 2000 and 12 unsuccessfully with Kellyanne Conway running his campaign. And he becomes a presence in this conservative media world, which really takes form after my book after he’s already made himself known. And he becomes a frequent contributor and commentator on Fox News and many of these other sites which again, it’s It’s part of a Washington that provides a home for ex politicians. So he survives in all this. And then when President Trump comes along, there’s a kindred spirit who’s running for the Oval Office. He’s a finalist for the vice presidency, doesn’t get it, but he really sees himself and Trump as very similar kinds of people and politicians. And since being elected, he has been one of his most vocal supporters. He’s written several books on the Trump presidency as a transformative one, and any time now President Trump does something controversial, it’s a pretty good bet that he will either be on Fox or Twitter talking about why it was actually something good rather than bad that you just saw, including the interview with Chris Wallace on Fox. Tell

[0:22:52 Jeremi Suri] right, right, Yeah, he was he tweeted. I saw that Trump was brilliant in his interview with Chris Wallace. He seemed to be the only person who thought that Teoh, what extent Julian is there, therefore, continuity from where your book reaches its sweet spot in in the eighties to the present. Is this the same dynamic we’re seeing in Congress today?

[0:23:14 Julian Zelizer] Yes, for sure. And I started. I wrote most of the book before Donald Trump was a candidate, let alone president and for me. Ah, besides, the story in the history I’m interested in the Tea Party was really on my mind, which you came into office in 2010 and was doing all sorts of things that caught people off guard like threatening toe, not raise the debt ceiling, which would send us into default just during budget negotiations. And my argument, in the end, was yes. There’s immense continuity from the time Gingrich cement his role in the Republican Party through today. And we need to understand where we are in 2 20 not a some aberrational moment, not as a moment produced simply by the president, but really ah, long term change in Republican politics, which which makes people like Gingrich the senior statesmen, really, rather than a Jeb Bush or someone like that. Ah, and it’s deeply ingrained and where most of the Republicans are today. And that’s kind of important Iraq and with especially if people are talking about, how will the GOP change? It won’t be easy, because this has been going on really since the 19 eighties.

[0:24:30 Jeremi Suri] And so you’re pessimistic. This would even change if, as you posited in a piece he wrote for CNN, I think, earlier this week or late last week, even if the GOP suffers a devastating loss in this next election, you think this is still hardwired into the Republican Party, particularly the congressional members?

[0:24:48 Julian Zelizer] Yeah, I mean, it would have to be a loss pretty devastating, and it’s not the kind of lost. That probably will happen. We don’t have landslides like that. You really need to reach a point where many members of the party feel that this is not in their interest. The logic of partisanship works against what we’ve been seen on. You also need a generational change that capitalizes on it. Younger members, younger Republicans who who think this is not a way to win power in the long termine. And so a landslide defeat for Republicans is the minimum of what would have to happen. It’s the best bet for a real change in the party, but I’m that I’m dubious. That will happen. And even if it happens, it’s not a guarantee. I just noted that people are saying Tucker Carlson might be, you know, the younger Republican side of speak, whose next in line to run for president. And that doesn’t bode well for those who want the party to change

[0:25:45 Jeremi Suri] right, And it it does seem it’s clear what the Democrats need to do on the other side of this. But what does a moderate Republican running from you know, a an area? Let’s say, you know, a suburb of New York City, a Westchester County or a suburb of Austin, Texas. What should a moderate Republican do?

[0:26:06 Julian Zelizer] It’s very tough. I mean, I assume the way a moderate Republican positions themselves is by aligning themselves with the policies. Many of the policies of the administration, which are still pretty mainline Republican policies, deregulation, tax cuts, those sorts of things and trying to somehow separate themselves from from the present. That’s what moderates air doing. But it’s really a hard thing to Dio. Ah, this is all one package. At this point, most Republican voters support the administration to moderates, put themselves and it really that they’re in a tough spot. That’s why there’s not a lot of them, Um, but there’s not a lot of space for what you’re saying, and there’s not a lot of wiggle room toe craft a candidacy based on that.

[0:26:54 Jeremi Suri] Yeah, I mean, you say that on the same day that you and I were both reading about Jim Jordan and other leaders of the Republican congressional delegation lambasting Dick Cheney’s daughter, Lynne Cheney, for having the temerity to criticize Trump’s response to the Corona virus. It’s extraordinary the pressure that that even not so moderate Republicans seem to be under.

[0:27:16 Julian Zelizer] No, for sure. And there was. There’s always a stands like after 2018. The midterms go so poorly, and there are many who were speculate. Okay, there’s there’s the turning point. And then there’s the Lincoln Project, and everyone’s like, OK, now, now the changes happening, But But really, I think the story just told is more indicative of where most of the party is. They’re not in the space to change right now. And so that means if you want to be a moderate Republican, it might be better to be a moderate Democrats,

[0:27:46 Jeremi Suri] right? Right. So, Julie and we always like our podcast too close with some reflections on how this historical scholarship and research is useful for today. You’ve already done some of that, but we like to be positive also. And it’s a somewhat dismal story you’re telling here, uh, assuming as you do, and as I think we all do, that we need ah functioning Congress in our society, perhaps more than ever, and that we need a functioning two party system. What should we be doing as a society? What? What should What are the lessons we should be taking from your work.

[0:28:21 Julian Zelizer] Well, I think from this particular book there is a lesson in that. You know, I tackle this big issue of political polarization that we hear about all the time. And when we talk about it, we usually talk out these grandiose forces that cause polarisation, meaning how gerrymandering works or how voters sort themselves, or how the media is siloed things that seem beyond our control. And part of what I really wanted to tell was, ah, on actual history of how this happened with a person who pushed things one way rather than another with the moment when things actually do change pretty dramatically. And in this case, I argued, Democrats really failed to stop him. But the fact that you could have individuals or agents of change and you can have turning point moments the kind we study all the time means that can happen today. Ah, it’s difficult, but it’s not impossible to forsee someone of that skill. Ah, kind of capitalizing on where we are today from either the Democratic Party or segments of the Republican Party to push a similar change. So I am pessimistic. But the book itself shows me polarization moved one way, very specific time from specific people. And that means it can happen again. And I hope people can see that in the book The broken can be fixed and maybe 2 20 or 2 21 could be that turning point that we look back on years from today

[0:29:53 Jeremi Suri] I took away exactly that message, Julie, and it’s also the message I wanted to take away. Ah, who is your candidate? I don’t mean a name. I mean, what kind of person would be that? That sort of person you sketch out early in the book How in a certain way, Gingrich was perfectly situated to do the things he did. Who would be situated to do that today in reverse?

[0:30:13 Julian Zelizer] I think I think these younger generation Democrats actually, um who not just the AOC. So I think, is quite skillful. But just that class, a lot of the candidates who won our generational change candidates, they have come of age seeing what politics is through the lens that I’m writing about. This is the normal for them. So they’re very clear eyed on the kinds of changes that are necessary. They’re very attuned to the structural problems that are behind a lot of what’s going on. Uh, I think anyone from AOC to Katie Porter could be really interesting candidates in the coming years for being those figures, and we’re still early in that story. But that’s why I look to even more than some of the presidential candidates we’ve discussed,

[0:31:04 Jeremi Suri] right Zachary D Do you find Do you find this inspirational is, as a young person who’s really engaged and concerned about politics? Does this offer you hope?

[0:31:15 Zachary Suri] I think it does. And I think what it really shows is is how these institutions evolved, that they never stay the same. And that means that we can have a real impact in our time on changing these institutions to better fit how we think they should be serving us citizens and voters.

[0:31:29 Jeremi Suri] So on that note, Julian last question. What advice do you give to young young men and women like Zachary, Like your kids who care about this and want to make a difference and and are not? The AOC is themselves right now where the Katie Porter’s what should they be doing?

[0:31:46 Julian Zelizer] Well, the first thing to do everyone of that aid should be tweeting at were writing to members of Congress to protect voting in November. I really I tell audiences this all the time. This is the number one threat that we have to make sure that the basic part of our democratic process works and young people in Mass. Not only do they need to vote, they need to be part of the effort to protect the vote. Ah, and we’re really way behind right now with mail in voting and the possible impact of the pandemic on voting. But then, look, you don’t AOC is a great story because she wasn’t AOC a few years ago. So for young people out there who were really interested either in election, being elected or in being activists, do it. Um, there’s just a 1,000,000 stories. Even Gingrich didn’t start as the person he became in terms of a power broker. That’s the beauty of our democratic process, or take to the streets or take to the campaign trail. But, you know, don’t wait for some other person to be that agent of change. I would tell you hunger people, you know you do it.

[0:32:58 Jeremi Suri] It’s a great message, Julian. It resonates with our podcast over the last two years, which is very much about grassroots democratic change and how, in FDR’s terms, right, the new chapter of our democracies, written by every new generation and just the way you said, I’m I’m proud to say that Zachary, even though he’s only 15 has signed up to be an election worker. Ah, for just the reasons you laid out. I hope many of our listeners will do the same. And I hope all of our listeners will read your book. It’s really Ah, book that adds a lot of insight, not simply in the rise of partisanship on the workings of Congress, but also in the changes in American politics as a whole. So I really do hope that our readers will read your book and continue this conversation. Julian, thank you so much for joining us today.

[0:33:46 Julian Zelizer] Thanks to both of you. I love this conversation

[0:33:48 Jeremi Suri] well, and thank you to Zachary for your poem. Of course. And thank you most of all to our listeners. Thank you for joining us for this episode of this is Democracy.

[0:34:04 Narration] This podcast is produced by the liberal Arts Development Studio and the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Texas at Austin. Music in this episode was written and recorded by Harrison Lumpy. You confined his music. Harrison Lunke dot com Subscribe and stay tuned for a new episode every Thursday featuring new perspectives on democracy