Pachios on the News - Dan Shea - September 2026

[music] Good evening. We're on the air again with another edition of Patience on the News. And I'd like to welcome our guest tonight who's Professor Daniel Sheay of Kobe College. Uh professor of government at Kobe, well-known guy. Uh he's on a lot often on a lot bigger television channels than this one uh around the country. But we're delighted that he agreed to come on here. He's an expert on uh politics generally uh government generally and uh I've talked to him quite a bit recently and he has some very very interesting observations. So we welcome you to the show. We think you'll uh enjoy it and u I'll try to be as quiet as I can and ask the questions and get the answers, but I might make an observation once in a while. Dan, thanks for coming here. >> Well, thank you for having me. I'm a huge fan of the show and you're a legend in Maine politics and I'm just so glad to sit with you for an hour and I hope that we'll continue our conversation after our hour through the years ahead. >> What do I do now? End the show. That's it. We've heard enough. [laughter] So, uh, Dan, I want the everybody to understand what it is what we're teaching. You know, people people say, "Well, you know, you're not teaching them to fix machines. You're not teaching them something that will prepare them for specific career. It's different than engineering." Uh, and I'm a great believer in the liberal arts. Uh, you're you're teaching people to think and analyze. Uh, but tell us about uh government. I mean, what what what are you trying to impart to kids? Why why should they learn it? >> Well, it's it's awful broad. You know, uh not too long ago, focus on government tended to be legal or institutional, right? It tended to be about the law or it tended to be about Congress or the presidency. There were some theoretical pieces, right? You'd read Plato and you'd read Makaveli. In the past few decades though there is another piece and that is what we call political behavior the activities the actions of individuals. There is to some extent a psychological piece that's involved. How do people vote? What motivates them? What's the impact of negative campaigning? What's the impact of commercials uh ads more generally? So there are a lot of pieces to the study of politics and government. Um, we've got a great little pitch for our our faculty at KBY, wonderful professors that cover international politics. We cover theoretical politics, media, we cover a lot of American politics themes. So, uh, really strong department. Of course, we're Maine is gifted with some really good liberal arts colleges, Bowden, Colby, and Bates. Not necessarily in that order, but >> we understand, [laughter] >> but really strong liberal arts colleges. And each of those have really strong politics government departments. I uh I went online and uh a asked what are this guy's areas of expertise and there's several of them and I'm just going to read them and not ask you to comment them all so the folks watching know that his uh areas of expertise is publicly stated American politics generally which he just talked about rural politics and we're going to ask some questions about rural politics because I find it interesting what he's found through his studies. Uh main parties in elections, we're all interested in that particularly this fall. Uh campaign management and strategy, parties in election, US Congress, politics and the media, youth political engagement, young people, uh and the last one that on this list and one that particularly in interests me and probably interests you, civility in politics. What happened? So, uh, but we're gonna start. I'm going to ask you, Dan, just to for a little background here. Um, is there a relationship between political science, which you teach and study, uh, and other social sciences, sociology, psychology, and are there any others? Well, yeah, there's a deep connection and u since you brought up the rural project, so my colleague Nick Jacobs and I, we wrote a book two years ago called The Rural Voter. And I think it linked all of those different pieces together because in some regards it was about culture and about communities and it was a psychological piece. It was about why how rural voters feel about their communities, how they feel about their future and their children in those communities. So it brought together all these different pieces. There was the traditional more governmental piece of it, public policy. There was the cultural piece and there was a psychological piece. I will say that there's a a growing focus in political science, political science on the psychological component. It is a branch political psychology and is now a branch of what we do. Um, >> but we're really talking about the behavior of voters. >> Yes. Behavior of voters. >> Why do they do what they do? >> Yes. That's what we all want to know. >> Yeah. And so that's psychological, sociological, and I think you told me at one time that neuroscience has a role to play in all this now. >> Yeah. We're starting to focus in a bit on u what motivates voters, what motivates citizens, and the impact of social media. And there's a growing body of research to suggest that different parts of the brain are activated through different cues, different political messages. Dopamine is released in different ways which is an addictive hormone, a different addictive chemical in the brain that helps us understand for example why uh ugly nasty posts on social media about politics are so popular. You know, why is it that saying good things about legislators or saying positive things about our community don't seem to get the likes and the shares that nasty vitriolic things get. And part of that has to do with neuroscience. One of my uh friends who's uh a Trumpist um said doesn't like me using the word tribal when I describe these political debates of the early 21st century. But isn't there a tribal aspect to this? >> Yeah, there is. Um one of the brand another piece of uh political science in the past few decades uh deals with when voters coales with other likeminded voters there's a phenomena called geopolitical sorting and really fascinating Harold what we find is that some Americans are now moving to communities that are ideologically in sync with their own view. They're choosing places to live based upon politics, based upon their ideology. They want to be part of that group. Maybe we can call it a tribe. And a lot of interesting thing ha things happen when they do that. When we see sorting, what tends to happen, for example, is that an individual's perspective on politics becomes more extreme as they coalesce with like-minded citizens. You can imagine the opposite. If you're in a community with a lot of different perspectives, your own view is mediated, is moderated a bit. So political sorting and >> does that happen with human beings if they're in a situation where they're hearing a lot of different opinions that their own opinions tend to moderate a little. >> Yes. And conversely, if they're in groups with like-minded citizens, their positions actually become more intense, more extreme. And that helps us explain a bit of what's happening in our politics these days. Now the extent to which uh sorting happens it's a it's a fascinating debate in the literature. A fellow by the name of B uh Bill Bishop wrote a book called the big sort about 15 years ago. Um and what he found is that the number of places across the United States that had a close election outcome were shrinking. Conversely, landslide communities were growing. So, we see that now we can take a look at county level returns, election returns. There are very, very few counties in the United States that are marginal, that are swing counties. They're either strongly to the right or strongly to the left. And what he argues, what Bishop argues is that partly is people are moving into those communities because they feel more comfortable with their ideology there. Um, others suggest that it tends to be sort of a merging of lifestyle issues that connects with partisan politics. I mean, if you if you like going to beautiful nice restaurants and foreign movie theaters and you want a lot of cultural things, you move and you happen to be Democratic, well, you move to a place like Portland. >> Yeah. >> If you like being outdoors and you, you know, you happen to be a Republican, you move to a rural area. So, it's not exactly sure what happens, but I will tell you maybe you've got some examples yourself. I do know that it does happen because I have talked to people when before coming to Kobe, we were at Alageney College in Western Pennsylvania, which I don't think it was a particularly left-leaning area. It was actually uh controlled. The member of the House was a Republican, but some family friends decided to move from northwestern Pennsylvania to either Oklahoma or Texas, they said, because they wanted to live in a conservative place. So it does happen for some Americans. They make that choice. I think for example, maybe some college professors even at KBY might want to live in a progressive area, might choose to live in Portland or someplace along the coast. >> Why don't we have more heterogeneous congressional districts? Is it germandering one of the reasons? >> It's it's two reasons. I think we want to run quickly to gerrymandering, but it becomes hard to create ideologically politically diverse communities when everybody of the same mind is living together. Right? So, one of the largest places we see that is in metropolitan areas. Metropolitan areas are homogeneous, ideologically homogeneous places. I mean, these are these are strong democratic communities. Now we can talk about rural politics. I can talk about rural politics for hours but it is safe to say that the Democrats have coalesed in urban areas uh which makes it hard to divide them up. There's a book uh um called why cities lose and his argument a scholars argument is that that's partly because we've all Democrats have all gathered in one small geographic area. It's difficult to create congressional districts across the state that are moderate when everyone's clustered in those cities. All the Democrats are clustered in those cities. So gerrymandering is part of it. Yeah. >> But housing patterns, choices of where to live is also part of it. >> Now, I wanted to ask you about this because this is yeah >> something I'm going to ask you about particularly intrigues me. Um, what percentage of the members of the Republican party and percentage of members of the Democratic party generally uh vote in the primaries? >> Uh, well, it depends if it's really competitive or not. It's often below 20%, usually around 15%. Um, so it's pretty small. >> Pretty small. So that the the candidates for office the choices we're given are given to us by a small number of people. >> Yeah. Uh and in the old days the small that that those choices were made by party bosses. Yeah. >> And their theor this this is my theory now and their objective was to find somebody and push them forward that could appeal to broad numbers of voters and get elected. Yep. >> Now, often times getting the person elected in a general election is not the objective of the voter in the primary. It's ideology. It's who fits best with me ideologically. Do you agree with that? >> Yes. I'm going to add to it though, and that is um >> the party bosses might have chose candidates that could appeal to the middle of the election. >> Yeah. Because the whole idea was that the electorate would be normally distributed. There'd be some on the left, some on the right, but there'd be a lot in the middle. But what we find in a vast majority of districts right now is they're not normally distributed. They're skewed dramatically screwed skewed to one side or the other. So what happens is a small number of people turn out in these primary elections to essentially pick the candidate because there is no real competitive general election. Okay? And what happens is as this member goes to Congress or the state legislature, they keep an eye on that because they know if they veer from that far left or far right position, they're going to get it the next primary election. So there's no incentive to moderate. There's no incentive to reach across the aisle. >> All you need is that 15 or 20%. >> Yes. Angry at you. you all you need is I don't know 8% of the 15 or 8% overall 50% of the 15 >> angry at you and you're finding another job right and I'll give you one other little piece on top of that it used to be >> uh there were studies done of why legislators would be doing what they do why would you be a member of Congress why would you be a member of the state legislature and for a long time the studies said that they were doing it through a public service they wanted to do it temporarily. They wanted to do it and go back to their law firm or go back to their teaching job or whatever they did. What we find now is they want to do it as a career. They see it as they they when we ask them what's your profession, they say legislator. Used to say they used to say I'm a doctor. They say I'm a lawyer. I'm a construction worker. Right? But I'm here in the legislature. Now they say I'm a legislator. So if that's their incentive, that's what they see as their career path, they don't want to lose that primary election that so that helps us understand why there's such polarization in Congress and in state legislatores. And there's very little efforts to jump to the middle >> and and and why if you're a Republican member of Congress, you'll do what Trump wants you to do because if you cross him, you're out of work >> for a vast majority. Now, there are just a few places, right? There are few places where congest estimate is about 35 maybe 40 of the 435 house seats that are truly competitive. >> The rest are automatic. >> All the rest are automatic. So a few of those are places where Kla Harris won. So there are some Republicans in places where Kla Harris won. So they might take on the president. Or if you're a sitting senator and you're from a state, if you're a Republican sitting senator from a state that voted for Kla Harris, >> would you know of any examples of that? [laughter] >> I happen to know of one. Do you know that uh it was quite common to have a split outcome? Right. So you'd have a senator of one party, a successful presidential candidate of the of the other party. >> Yeah. that disappeared. The only place that happened in 2000 20ou I'm sorry in 2020 2022 24 was the state of Maine. It's >> the only place that that happened. >> Only place in the United States. >> That's correct. >> Wow. Amazing. Well, uh it one final question about psychology, sociology, so forth. It seems to me that to govern people, that's all this is about is governor. How do we create some mechanism to govern ourselves? We have different passions, different views. Pretty unruly crowd. >> Yeah, >> we got murderers, crooks, good people, ministers, uh, all kinds. How do you design a government that can manage that? And that was done in 1787. It was quite remarkable what that the development of the American Constitution to do this with separation of powers and so forth. You want to comment on on that? >> Sure. >> Yeah. Well, I it's fair to say there was a lot of skepticism about the capacities of average folks and we can see that right from the get-go because of all this mechanism that is the federal government only one piece would spring from the people the house of representatives. Remember the Senate until the 17th amendment was appointed by the state legislatures and then we have the electoral college and then we have the courts which of course are not elected and they're appointed for life. Here's the other little thing. Why did they do what's called rotation in the Senate? So the Senate is six years which is a long term right slow down the passions of the people but there was also what we call rotation. So why is it only onethird of the Senate is up every two years? Why do they do that? They did that because they they they imagined they fashioned that it would take two election cycles to change the majority of the Senate, right? They were worried about the passions of the people, right? Hamilton said the people are passionate. They seldom judge or determine right. Hamilton's not fair to use on that. He was pretty tough on the average folk. But even James Madison, who was more optimistic, said the legislature would refine and enlarge the public will, right? Enlarge refine and enlarge >> enlarge the public will. In other words, maybe they're not they don't quite know what's best for them. But if we create a republic, if we not a direct democracy, there are no direct democracy elements at the federal level, state level, referenda and so forth, not at the federal level. But if we create a republic, at least in the house, that that branch would enlarge and refine the public will. Now, it's fair to say that by about the 1830s, there was a growing movement towards more popular democracy. That's when we get rid of the state legislatores electing the electors, jonian democracy culminating with women's suffrage and the 17th amendment and so forth. But you're right, there was concerns about it. You you are you pushing me to talk about factions? Is that what you want? I I don't want to get too professorial on this. >> I do want to talk about factions because everybody watching this program every day uh sees the battle going on. All the factions in America, some of them very narrow factions and some of it very vicious factions. And weren't the people that drafted our constitution, weren't they real concerned about that? >> Yeah. It's he Madison who writes about factions and federalist number 10 talks about those who worry about popular governance never fret so much as when they contemplate the evil vices of factions. So what does he mean by factions? >> Evil devices of factions. >> Evil vices. Oh, >> evil vices of factions. >> Yeah. Well, what are factions? factions are people pulled together adverse to the will of the whole. So he goes through this whole mechanism of what can we do about it, right? People coming together because of their interests adverse to the will of the of the whole. So there's on one hand we can't do anything about it because everybody's different. We all have our own interests. We have our own passions. We can't stifle the passions because that's freedom, right? But what we can do is make it so that those factions can't become a majority. And the solution, he says, is an extended republic. So create one large republic instead of a series of small ones. Because one of the ideas at the time was I want to be like a European countries, several small nations. He said, "No, no, no. The way to get rid of factions is to make sure that none of them become a majority." So the the fishing interests in New England would never be a majority of a large country. It might be a majority if the nation is just New England, but it won't be of all of them. Right? So we think about factions these days because we wonder if he was right. Is it if we have an extended republic, is it true that we can stifle and control factions? Um because as you're right um there seems to be a lot of some say factions are similar to special interest groups. Now some have said well what he was really getting at was political parties. You know do we have parties that are interested in their own good at the expense of the nation? So a lot of time these days thinking about Madison and whether or not he was right about factions. Sorry to be so professor, you know. >> No, no, no, no, no. We're here to We're here to learn. We're here to learn, professor. [laughter] But >> don't call me professor. That's the problem. >> So, uh, if I was your student, I'd call you professor because I want to make sure you like me. Uh it look uh the another thing that they wrote about in the federalist papers they were concerned about and I think they thought a lot about in designing this constitution >> was they just finished living under a monarchy and they had to a battle a fight >> because of the tyranny of the monarchy and so they last thing they wanted was a monarchy. Did they write about that in I mean they they they wrote about tyranny tyranny. >> Yeah. Oh yeah. >> So how did what how did this relate that to the design of the constitution? >> Well that's that's the genius of the Msonian model and he flips governance on its head. See prior to Madison and the Msonian model the idea was that a good government would spring from a virtuous person the right king. the mechanism for creating the right rulers. And if it's bad governance, well, we didn't use the right mechanism or it's just a bad person. But really, good governance would spring from benevolent smart leaders. Madison said that's not going to work. That's not going to work. It's just ambition will drive each person. >> Ambition. >> Ambition is the key. And what he said in Federalist 51 is that ambition must be made to counter ambition. And that's checks and balances. That's the whole idea that if you have a rogue president, you have the president moving in directions that that are wrong that you'll have a Congress to check the president. >> Not working right now. >> Yeah. [laughter] I won't comment about that, but but but that was the idea. That's the Madisonian model. And you know, all your your viewers know about all the checks and balances between the courts and the presidency. I mean, so Donald Trump can move very quickly on a number of initiatives, but he's often checked by the courts >> sometimes. >> Sometimes checked by the courts, right? The courts can issue mandates, but they actually don't have any enforcement mechanism. Congress can appropriate funds, but guess what? The president is responsible for spending those monies. So we have this intricate dynamic of checks and balances, shared powers and you know they they offered up this model and right from the start within a couple decades they said holy cow we've created what was called constitutional obstruction. How the hell are we going to get anything done? That was the question. But something came to save the day. Any guesses on what mechanism that that you know very well I can tell you that came in to save the day for our system. >> Tell them >> his parties political parties. So how do you get say how do you get FDR who comes in with this bold idea about the New Deal whether people like it or not but it was a bold idea. How do you get that to happen? Well it was Democrats in the legislature that made that happen. So it was parties that bridged the constitutional obstruction. Donald Trump would not be successful if he confronted a hostile Congress, which he may confront shortly. Right? So you need parties. You need Republicans and Donald Trump to come together for better or worse. >> Somebody might argue with that and say he he has he his view of governing is he doesn't need Congress. So I mean he he does things and then gets sued and then either wins or loses but he does a lot of stuff without that is in the purview of Congress and he doesn't care about Congress. >> Well he is he is stretching that executive powers about as far as as far as we've ever seen >> more than we've ever seen. >> And in some places it's he's seems to be winning out. you know, he'll move from one tariff rationale to another. Um, but in other respects, he's not he's not it doesn't work out, right? Um, probably one of the best examples of where that that sort of conflict may happen is war powers, right? And that's obviously on our minds these days. So, on the one hand, presidents are commanderin-chief, but on the other hand, it is Congress that declares wars and appropriates funds for wars. So, how do you commander-in-chief over here, but Congress declares wars? And >> the solution to that is don't declare war and make a war. >> Yeah. >> Say what? Say we're not at war. Or say after a week, the war is over. The other side has given up. It's all over >> and now you don't need a war powers actu from Congress. So there we've seen a lot of ways in which the system that Madison and Hamilton worked on u has been perverted. But back to what I said before, you know, with this whole thing is a search to manage people. Yes. >> Human beings. Yes. We all come in all shapes and sizes, different views, some sane, some not sane, you know, whatever. Uh and um so human human nature, the the founders, the people who wrote the constitution had to be thinking a lot about the nature of the citizens, nature of man. Yep. That that informed a lot of it, didn't it? Sure did. And they, for example, they all knew that George Washington was going to be the first president, right? And boy, was he loved. You know, Harold, we don't have any polls from those days, but we can tell how much he was loved by taking a look at the number of people that were given the names during those early years as George Washington. It would be George Washington Smith, George Washington. By the way, in Mount Vernon, Maine, do you know we've got an old >> That's where you live at. Mount Vernon, Maine. >> Mount Vernon. So, we have a there's a non-indigenous a native oak tree in our town that comes from Mount Vernon, Virginia. That's about 230 years old. >> Is that why Mount Vernon is named Mount Vernon? >> Of course, there's a Mount Vernon in every there's a Mount Vernon in every state. George Washington was truly beloved. But here's the point. Uh they also knew that even Washington would have to have checks and balances. There's a great story about how as beloved as he was, he passed he sent a Senate he sent to the Senate a treaty to be ratified. He just sent it over and he just said, "Okay, ratify it. I'm George Washington. I'm the president." And the Senate just sat there with it. Took their time and even went over to the Senate and sat outside. >> Washington did. >> Yes, he did. and they sort of pounded and said, "Where is that treaty? Ratify it." >> And they refused to do it quickly. In the end, they did. But they were trying to show that there are two branches of government. >> And what's interesting, of course, is that the the framers had in mind Congress would be the first branch of government, the people's branch. They made it article one for a reason. >> That's why it's article one. >> That's why. Yeah. You know, you wouldn't think that today >> or or in the past few decades, not just Donald Trump. >> I think any of us living in this day and age uh would say that's been obiscated. We that that isn't the way things work anymore. Yeah. >> So, uh things are happening then today that are much different than what the people who wrote the constitution anticipated. >> Yeah. They anticipated nonverirtuous people in charge, but they thought the checks and balances would be sufficient guard rails. >> I would say the principle, the foremost disappointment, if we could bring them back from the grave, is how impotent Congress seems. And it might I'm not saying just the Republicans or the Dem. just think in general they had in mind that the Congress would set the agenda that the legislature would adhere to the interests of the public and that's as you say it's been obiscated and now we rely upon the president I guess there's one argument to be made there is only one person in our system elected by everyone right the entire nation and that's the president and the other argument you often hear is that it's the only part of the system that can move quickly, right? Because like Democrats don't like that that Donald Trump is moving quickly now, but here's the thing. They liked it when Barack Obama was moving quickly. So, it depends what side you're on. There's one part of the government that can be responsive at a time when people really want some changes. >> Yeah. But Madison wouldn't have bought that argument uh about speed because they knew a king was the speediest way. >> Yeah. Oh yeah. Issue issue a dictate and it happens. >> Yeah. A dictator. >> Yeah. >> Joe Stalin didn't have this problem. >> Hitler didn't have this problem. They just did it and it got done. And in fact, >> you know, I think I read a lot about mid 20th century history and uh world history. And I have several books on Germany 1933 to 1945. And it's interesting how in the beginning, of course, Hitler wasn't that popular, but he was part of a coalition government. He got to be chancellor and and then suspended the constitution. And um they they liked it because he got more and more popular. Why? Because it wasn't slow and laborious. He got things done. The they say the trains ran on time. Why? Hitler made the trains run on time. So there are a lot of people like it and I think today there are a lot of supporters of Donald Trump that like it because he's getting done what they want done beginning with putting his fingers in the eyes of the liberals and pushing them down and crushing them. >> That pleases a lot of people and it wouldn't be without the power of exercising too much power. He wouldn't be able to do that. But there are no guardrails and they like it and they like, you know, as I say, he's not the first one who's wanted to do that. Kings want to do it. >> Yep. I think that on Donald Trump, I think that we're starting to understand that better. What happened in 2016? I don't think scholars really appreciated desire for change, >> right? >> Yeah. >> Voters were hoodwinkedked. voters were, you know, deplorables. They just let this guy in. >> Yeah. >> But I think in all fairness, the same drive that led to Donald Trump in 2016 was also related to the surprising success of Bernie Sanders and the Dem. Bernie Sanders took Hillary Clinton to the 15th round to use a boxing analogy, right? Bernie Sanders, a socialist from Vermont, takes Hillary Clinton to the very end of the primary. What does that mean? That means the voters are anxious for some big changes. And that's why Donald, my view, that's why Donald Trump won. >> I think you're absolutely right. And the I was very interested in post-election polls, exit polls that showed that many people who voted for Donald Trump in uh in in prior elections voted for Donald Trump were Bernie Bernie supporters voters in the primary. Same people. >> Yeah. We hear about those focus groups where people were saying I'll I'd either support Donald Trump or Bernie Sanders. >> Yeah. I empirically, you know, I try to be straightforward in this. It doesn't I don't think it's too many. It's maybe five or eight% of the electorate, but it does speak to this issue of a true desire for change, right? And I think >> what is the change? We we've many huh >> how much time we have? I uh you know our world is has changed a lot and it's not the same as when I was a kid. I'll just give you a quick example, right? Uh my wife grew up on Long Island. She grew up in Medford, if anyone knows where that is, about halfway out on Long Island. So, uh her mom worked at home. She's a stay-at-home mom. And her dad was an auto body mechanic that worked often off the books. didn't own his own shop. Kind of went from place to place sometimes off of >> Harold. They had a beautiful little home. They ate pork roast at night. They had vacations on the one bluecollar salary on Long on Long Island, right? In the 1970s and 80s. That's unimaginable today, right? We all know about the affordability issue. We all know about the challenge of health care and pharmaceutical issues. You know, the world's tough. The world is, you know, the the mobility, the issue of can you actually will your kids have a better life than you had for generations and generations and generations. That's what made America great. Now folks are just wondering if they can have as good. Will our kids be able to get the type of house that we had? So there's a lot there and it's it's grumbling and that if you ask me that's precisely the same force that's driving socialists in some places right Mandani and another Bowden speaking of Bowden uh uh what's driving uh this change in some of the primaries there's an anger there's a frustration and an anxiety that's pushing uh the lever on the voting booth for change >> and the politicians are stoking it because They know they're trying to get their support and so they're saying, "I know you're angry and I'm angry, too, but let let's get angry." Yeah. >> Uh so we we we see a lot of this. Let me ask a couple other things about uh voting patterns. Again, as you can tell, >> I'm at the stage in life where I think a lot about human nature and how difficult it is to manage it and to design governments to manage all these desperate humans and their passions. uh uh and one of the things that I I I believe in the uh what's the theory of government where one person a leader makes history uh history is the product of individuals powerful individuals and I I uh I I believe that >> but uh civility we've talked a little bit about this angry and why people are angry agree and that's new this incivility. Do you think that social media is the reason for that? What's >> ah just there's so many pieces to it. >> Yeah. I did a book uh um maybe 15 years ago on civility and politics and social media is a big part of it but do this really quickly. There are a number of changes. Um, in 1987, the fairness doctrine was eliminated, which allowed for hardcore partisan news commentary. Right about the same time, we get talk radio and really ab a biting tough talk talk radio particularly on the right, >> right? Um, so we get uh I think also it's only fair to say that Nuke Grich was a key part of this. He ushered in a different way what's called politics by other means. Nuke Gingrich ushered in a different way of doing politics. A much more hardcore bare knuckles. Now I want to be fair about it. Anybody that studies civilian politics will point to new Ginrich. But what I think he would argue is something had to be done. The dem the Republican party had been a minority party for a long time, right? And his argument I think would be things needed to be shaken up. Right about that same time, this is a fascinating piece of the story, both parties began to pitch policies in terms of rights and and what was what's called rights talk. Maryanne Glenn Denon wrote a book called Rights Talk. If you take a policy dispute and you turn your side into a fundamental right, then the other side isn't just wrong-headed. >> They're injust. >> They're injust. They're oppressors. >> They're oppressors. Yeah. So both sides have done that and you can go you can go down the list and so what used to be a policy dispute. Let's just take it happens on the right happens on the left >> for the longest time gun control was not a right centered argument. It was a both sides tried to find compromise but it turned into gun rights and that changes everything. So that was part of it. 24-hour news and punditry becomes part of it. And then of course on top of that is the internet and social media. The internet is interesting, right? So it it is our the ability to to funnel out discordant information. So Cass sustain right a writer thinker had a great line. He said it used to be in the morning you'd open up the daily news. Now we open up the daily me. >> The daily what? >> The daily me. >> Daily me. >> You get the daily. In other words, you get the information that feeds right into your position, right? If you're conservative, you turn on Fox. If you turn if you're a Democrat, you turn on MS Now or you go to the New York Times opinion page and so forth. We can we can do that. It's not three three newscasters and a local newspaper. It's our ability through the internet to find just the news that matches who we are that adds to the incivility. And then of course on top of it, the big the 800 pound gorilla is social media in my view, right? The the >> and you don't have to look anybody in the eye when you type something into social media. You can be as nasty as you want and nobody can punch you because they don't half the time they don't even know who you are. And if you want those comments to be shared, make it especially negative. >> Make it sh >> make it negative because that'll be what's shared. >> You know, it's it's tough. The social media piece is a really important part of it. >> Let let me get get to uh two or three things that I want to ask you about. Rural voters. You spent a lot of time you wrote a book about rural voters >> and it's an interest of yours. >> Yep. So, um, you know, there are people here in Maine who say, "Oh, sure. Northern Maine, rural voters, and, uh, uh, that what does it?" Well, their fundamentalist religion, a lot of small churches up there, stirs them up. They're, uh, mad. They're out of work. The mills have closed. They got to blame somebody. Uh, so they, you know, they they're they're blaming the establishment, all of that. Uh, what do you know? What did you find out about rural voters? Is it that, you know, they they don't know any better? >> Because we know that's not true, but there are some people would say that. >> Yeah. No. So, um, just to back up for some of your viewers, they might not appreciate that this rural as Republican is fairly new. Didn't used to be that way. You and I during dinner were talking about I was a kid and I had the opportunity to shake the hand >> of one of the most liber probably the most liberal Democratic nominee for the president ever and I did that in his home George McGovern in Mitchell South Dakota >> that's >> the liberal from South Dakota >> and there was a time when there were many liberal progressives from rural states Montana used to be very Idaho, Washington, Indiana, the upper Midwest, of course. >> Michigan. >> Well, that's close to 400 pages, Harold. [laughter] But let me >> buy the book anyway, but uh >> yeah, it's [clears throat] a toone. It's it's [laughter] it's longer than it should be. Uh so what we did was we tracked it over time and we found that there weren't geographic voting patterns till about 1980. In other words, there was no distinction between Democrats and Republicans in rural areas uh across the nation until 1980. And then we begin to see this change. Um in summary, what what we find is I would say that the alienation, the worries, the frustration that we all feel right now, I would say double that and take it back 20 years. And that's the rural voter. Their world was changing underneath them, right? There are a lot of lot of events that we track, right? For example, the farm crisis. The farm crisis of the late 80s um I'm sorry, the late 70s and early 80s wasn't just about farm foreclosures. It was about what happened to those banks and cafes in these small towns. Right? Skip ahead to NAFTA. Oh man, the story of rural communities and NAFTA is huge in Maine. Right? It is a story of small manufacturing plants in the Wiltons and the Jay's and the Watervilles of the state closing because of trade related issues and the China be admitting in the WTO in 2001. So the the the base and here's what's interesting. We we talk about a couple different places in particular. We talk about Milanaka. So when Great Northern Paper closed, it wasn't just that people were out of work. the entire town's identity was lost, right? It was a golden town when that was open. So when that closes, it's gone. Right? And we talk about Newton, Iowa, Mag. Somebody said if you were to cut an arm of a person from Newton, Iowa and 1980s, they would bleed MagG blue. Right? The identity of the town is linked to these industries and they're gone. So, as this is happening, our argument is that the Republicans were were able to come in and say, "We truly care about you." Ronald Reagan was good at that. We had other Republicans that followed up. And the Democrats, I think, took a stab at it. Um, but after a while, I think they said that what is called demographic, demographics is destiny, they let it go. They turned their backs, we argue, to rural America. And now, you know, there's a story in the New York Times this morning about uh candidates across uh rural areas, Democratic candidates trying to run away from their party label. Well, I'm a Democrat, but I'm not like those Democrats. So, >> interesting. Uh we only have a few minutes left. We're going to have to have you back because we got >> Sorry, I go >> I got a whole pad here of questions. >> You called me professor so I just go off. [laughter] >> Yeah. Yeah. Well, we have a whole pad here but I haven't gotten to that. But I wanted to go back to where we started which was the psychology uh the inter relation to politics, psychology, sociology and so forth. And uh and you added neuroscience to my understanding of this. Uh, I've got an article here from 10 years ago about President Johnson who I worked for and, uh, this says, um, Richard Goodwin, Doris Kern Goodwin's husband, >> Colby Grab, >> yeah, published his memoir, Remembering America. Goodwin, who was a young staffer in John Kennedy's White House, uh, stayed on to become a significant player for Lynden Johnson. Uh and Dick said, "I became convinced that President Johnson always large eccentricities had taken a huge leap into unreasons staff member." My conclusion is that President Johnson experienced what I believe to have been paranoid behavior. And he goes on and he says, "Well, Johnson told him one time that communists control the three major networks." And another time he told him that Walder Litman, who was the famous columnist of the time, is a communist. And so is Teddy White, one of the most famous writers uh in those days, a communist. Uh and uh and he Johnson would note to Dick the presence of the Soviet ambassador at dinner parties in Georgetown, social gatherings where members of Washington media were present, suspicious, paranoid u and uh uh Goodwin was not alone. Bill Moyer's my boss, same thing. He quotes Moyers who who served as Johnson's closest adviser told historian Robert Dallock that when members of Johnson's administration were deeply concerned about his behavior, they would call me, said Moyers, and say, "We think, you know, guy's paranoid." Uh, and they even talked to psychiatrists about it. So, there's this deep concern about this the president's psyche. That's important. It affects history. And so, uh, he goes on to say, uh, that Johnson never acted on his most outlandish delusions. He never sought to indict or sick the Justice Department on Lipman or White. He didn't act on it. And he said Johnson with the most out there beliefs were never displayed to the public, which is true. And I know all of this to be a fact. I was in those discussions. Both Goodwin and John Moyes were very close friends of mine. So if Good Goodwin was here today, if he was in, let's say he was in the Trump White House today, what would he do? What would he think about that? And he I think he would probably call the m American or go online actually the American Psychiatric Association. Don't get excited, you Trumpist. I'm not going to say anything bad. Uh but he would call them and say, "Look, uh uh I want to know about uh something." and they would refer him to narcissistic personality disorder. And I went online, the American Psychiatric Association, and here's what it says. Has a great a grandiose sense of self-importance that is exaggerates achievements and talents. Interesting. occupied, preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, and what he thinks is beautiful, believes he is special and can be only understood by special people. He requires excessive admiration, has a sense of entitlement, takes advantage of others to achieve his own ends. Lack of empathy. Unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings of others. Envious of others. demeaning of others. So I wanted to say that's what Dick Goodwin say. I worked for a president whose mental stability was questioned and it should always be questioned and people should always pay attention to it. So uh that relates back to psychology, sociology and political science. These people make a difference in the world and they have psyches and we should keep that in mind. So let me go back to one thing unrelated to that that you said you talked about Nuke Gingrich. I happen to think Ninglish was the most one of the most con consequential politicians of the late 19th century the second half of the and obviously the consequences of Nick Gingrich are very present in the 21st century tell us about that >> well we haven't had a chance to talk about realignment right which is a fascinating topic about how parties change and move over time >> right uh the there are periods in American history, elections in American history that have these huge consequences, landmark elections. Most scholars say 1800, the Adams Jefferson, then 1828, Jackson Adams, 1860, the Lincoln election, 1896, McKinley, and so forth, Roosevelt, 1932. Right? It's hard to know when we get a more recent realignment. For example, Richard Nixon wins in 68, ushers in a Republican period, Jimmy Carter, but it was Watergate after Watergate. So maybe maybe it was 68. But one thing we know for sure is that Nuke Grich helped usher in a dramatic change in the South in particular, right? So the first election in American history since reconstruction that a majority of house members from the south or republican is 1994 >> 94 >> 1994 that was new Kendrick >> is that when he became speaker >> that was when new Kendrick did it >> right they they 56 race we're talking about a flip of five or eight house races in this big blue wave that people are expecting right maybe five See 55 seats switched in 1994. 55 >> and many s southern >> s south south became Republican. South became a Republican. So he was a consequential figure. >> He really changed things a lot. >> He sure did. >> And it was aggressive. No prison take no prisoners no compromises. >> We call what scholars call politics by other means. In other words, instead of negotiating behind the scenes and finding policy solutions, it is attack, attack, attack. Get the public to back you and then the legislature will follow rather than lobbying the legislators themselves. >> Now, one last question. Uh, [cough] that was not a question. Bless you. Um name uh Platner still has his followers out there apparently. I don't is it you see much difference between their attitude toward Platner. This support is it almost like Donald Trump says I could go on Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody dead and my supporters would never abandon me. Is there some of that there? >> Oh, I I don't know about that. I think that he roused a lot of passion and he laid out a policy agenda that resonated with a lot of people. >> I think his departure was tough. I will say that Troy Jackson, I have I said before, I don't think you could slide a piece of paper between the policy agenda of Graham Platner and Troy Jackson. I mean, they're they're in lock step. Yeah. >> But he was surely was a powerful speaker. >> He had he had quite a following. My kids were devastated. >> Really? >> Oh, yeah. >> Okay. The last thing, Troy Jackson is gets one ad. I watch the sports at night. Get all these ads, constantly ads, and there's about 10 Collins ads for every one of Jackson's. That make a difference? Uh it it might make a dis difference towards the end when it comes to mobilization. So the [music] Republicans are against they've got their back against the wall when it comes to voter turnout in Maine and elsewhere. The Democrats are enthusiastic. They're ready to go. Right. So the trick for [music] the Collins folks is to get their people out. >> Great. Thank you very much for coming. We didn't cover >> 10% of what I wanted to cover, but you'll come back again. I'll come back. >> We drive down here all the way from Waterville and >> Mount Vernon. >> From Mount Vernon. >> Yeah, I pitch for that. You know, I'm a select man. Didn't talk about local politics either. [music] Heat. Heat. [music]