Transcript

0:50 Douglas Blackmon Welcome back to American Forum, I’m Doug Blackmon. Americans are experiencing what feels like a pivotal moment in the history of our political process. It’s not just that the 2016 campaign was coarse and deeply polarizing. The ground actually seems to be shifting beneath us all. We sometimes forget that the strict two-party competition between Republicans and Democrats hasn’t always been that way. Major parties have come and gone in American history. The Federalists—so important in the early years of the republic—died off in a few short decades. The Jeffersonian Republicans, the Whigs, the National Republicans, the Liberty Party, Greenbacks, Free Soil—all had extended or brief moments, and then faded, long ago. Through the past 100 years, we have seen waves surge among the parties with anxieties about immigration, or battles over racial preferences and economic setbacks. In the last 50 years, the Democratic Party changed profoundly—from the great defender of southern white supremacy and racial segregation to the party of Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. Now the modern Republican Party—and the conservative movement itself—are wrestling to redefine themselves in the 21^st Century. What will the GOP look like in the years ahead? Does “Trumpism” redefine Republicanism? Where does the Tea Party fit in? Is the Libertarian Party finally for real? And in the midst of all these changes—how is the system going to work? Who is going to pay for our politics—big companies? anonymous organizations? huge donors?  tiny donors? Who will be allowed to pay? Who has to reveal their activities? Does everyone still get to speak? And how does a President from any party establish a clear mandate from the people? In this episode of American Forum, we turn back to our special series on the Future of American Conservatism. Joining us is Kimberley Strassel, who writes the regular Potomac Watch column for the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal. She is also the author of a new book The Intimidation Game: How the Left is Silencing Free Speech. Thank you for being here, Kim.

Kimberley Strassel: Great to be here Doug.

2:56 Blackmon: So, we are taping this, uh, before the election. Uh, but most of the things we are going to talk about won’t have anything to do with the actual election, and we will broadcast this on public television after the election. But for now, uh let’s talk a little bit though about the campaign itself during the primaries you are not a, you’re a conservative writer for the Wall Street Journal and you had some skepticism about the ultimate nominee for the Republican Party. But how do, how do you see Donald Trump at this stage and how do you see the state of the presidential campaign?

Strassel: You know I, I still do have a lot of skepticism about the ultimate Republican nominee you know because Donald trump is obviously something very different for conservatism. And uh we had this incredible crew of candidates out there, 17 in total. I think it was a very healthy competition that was had in the end, despite all of the mudslinging and some arguments, there were some good discussions to be had. Um, look I think the worry here for conservatives in the more long term is that you’ve got a nominee that is much more populist than has ever been out there before. Um, that doesn’t seem to have the same interest in sort of basic conservative principles that many, many conservatives care about. Um, how he’s gonna change that long term I don’t know. But I do think that there are upsides to Donald trump being there as well. [Blackmon: Well, well, and tell us about those.] Well so mostly in the what I think Donald Trump has done is make some of the leading conservatives out there, leading Republicans I should say, recognize that there has been this silent, probably majority, within the Republican base. It feels as though some of the issues that really matter to them have not been addressed. I also think Donald trump has, uh forced the party to realize that it needs to do a better job of outreach. In part because he doesn’t always do it very well, and it’s a way to put a microscope on some of the broader problems that Republicans have had in reaching out to people

4:52 Blackmon: Yeah, it jumped out at me when the at the point that uh when, when trump uh got into uh another round of criticism after he after his remarks about uh what do you have to lose to African Americans and this what, what was taken as overly sweeping descriptions of problems in the inner city. But it was striking to me that as uh, as problematic as that was for many people who were interested in those issues, uh I think I even tweeted something out that said uh, at least both parties now finally agree that what, that the problems in the inner city are really a problem [Strassel: Yes.] He was able to say that more explicitly than typically a republican nominee has quite been able to, or willing to do it.

Strassel: No, and you have seen its happened behind the scenes because there has been so much focus on the broader presidential election. But, if you look for instance at what Paul Ryan is doing in the house these anti-poverty initiatives. It’s based not on policy, but a new way of looking at this. You know, he’s worked with Robert Woodson, uh, who is a very influential figure in a lot of, uh inner city communities. And, and that message there has been: You can’t just talk about this, you can’t just sit and write on a piece of paper here is a problem and here’s how we’ll to fix it. You got to show up. You gotta go into these places and learn what the problems are first hand, and get the cooperation of local community, and show that you are, you have a legitimate understanding of what the problem is. So, to the extent you see republicans doing that in the house, and in the senate, and now you’ve got a presidential candidate who is trying to draw attention to it. I think that that’s an interesting and important shift for the conservative movement overall. I do find it difficult, and I think if you talked to anybody out there and you look at the history of him, but uh the idea that he is a racist, I find a little bit harder to believe. Like I mean, he lives in New York, he’s worked with a library people. So, of all the things you could say- is he hot headed? Does he have some bad policy ideas? Absolutely. I, I find that one a harder charge to actually believe. And I find it a bit remarkable that you have a, a uh rival candidate who would make it.

6:47 Blackmon: There has been a level of severity of language across the board [Strassel: Yes, on both sides] Yeah on both sides- that’s maybe is one of the most unique dimensions of all of this. So you’ve written a book that I think would surprise a lot of people in its premise, in that, uh, and correct me if I, if I state it wrong, that you make the case that Citizens United, this ruling that generally when its talked about its talked about particularly by liberals, that Citizens United is this terrible thing and that it, uh has stripped away all of the campaign finance restrictions, and has unleashed all sorts of terrible forces and dark money in the political system, uh and that it’s kind of a conservative plot of its own.

FACTOID: Citizens United protected political spending under First Amendment

You know that, that would be the conventional liberal telling of Citizens United. You make the case the Citizens United actually is some respects is the opposite of that, in that it sets the notion of a left wing, uh, coordinated effort of some sort to intimidate speech and political activity at the other end of the spectrum, across the board.  So that’s, I think, a fairly unfamiliar idea to a lot of people at the beginning. So, so break that down, how, how was it that Citizens United did that?

Strassel: Well, let’s think how we got to Citizens United, because I think that’s a really important starting point. So, for about 100 years, the U.S. has been, uh slowly imposing more and more campaign finance laws. Now some people call them campaign finance laws, I call them speech laws, because the reality is, money is a proxy for speech. I mean there just isn’t really any way, money is not speech, okay we can stipulate that, but, money is a proxy for speech, and it enables speech. I mean, if you said you were going to run for the presidency, and I said that’s great, Doug, but you can only have 50 dollars, I think we would agree that you would have difficulty getting your message out to a nation of 320 million people, money does enable. More of it you usually have more speech, less of it you usually have less speech. Also bear in mind, why the politicians layered these on. You will hear often, from many of them, and I have no doubt there are reformers out there who believe that these laws are about cleaner elections, anti-corruption. That’s not why the politicians pass it, I mean, you’ve spent time in Washington. Often, its driven by very basic motives, they’re trying to put restrictions on their opponents from operating in elections and both sides have done this over the years. Republicans did it to democrats by putting, imposing restrictions on speech for unions, for instance. Democrats did it to republicans by imposing restrictions on corporations, because those different groups tended to always support one side or the other. These things got piled up, layered up, layered up, and finally we get McCain-Feingold, very big, mammoth, mother of all campaign finance restrictions.

FACTOID: McCain-Feingold limited campaign cash from individuals, companies

And the Supreme Court says, we cannot tolerate this anymore, you have just gone one step too far. You’ve impeded on basic first amendment freedoms; we are clearing a bunch of these things away. Now at this point a lot of conservatives cheered because it was a victory for the first amendment and the ability to speak. Democrats saw it very differently, uh, they’d come very much to rely on these laws to, in fact, keep some of their biggest nemeses out of the political process, like corporations. They hated the fact that they were being let in. It was 2010, very difficult midterm election coming up, already all the signs of the blowback from the public Tea Party groups going in. So, they had a very public discussion, and you can see it, I trace it in the book, where they say, alright, we can no longer legally bar our opponents from taking part in the election, so we’re going to do the next best thing. We’re gonna scare them, harass them, intimidate them, and generally send the message that if they choose to go forward and use these rights that have been restored to them by the Supreme Court, that they will pay some sort of political price, or personal price.

10:19 Blackmon: The big incident that is most known to people that you talk about, is the scandal around the IRS, and the uh, the charge that the IRS had specifically identified Tea Party groups to uh, slow pool approval of their tax exempt status. But, but so tell us, and a big character in your book is a woman named Karen Kenny, uh from the San Fernando Valley. But, so what was it that happened to Karen Kenny, and how does it fit into the, this campaign of intimidation?

Strassel:  So I think the important thing here is one of the tactics that is now being use is to mobilize federal bureaucracy against your opponents. Again, can’t legally bar them from taking part, but you can scare them by sticking the federal government on them instead. This is what happened to Karen Kenny. She ran a very small little group, a tea Party organization out there. By the way, they were hardly even political, and to the extent they were very non-partisan. They do consider themselves constitutional conservatives. But mostly they did things like show up at Memorial Day events and hold signs of fallen soldiers, arrange food banks in their neighborhood and everything. But they did get one idea, they wanted to get non-profit status because they wanted to collect money and run a get out and vote campaign. Not on one side, they just wanted to run these billboards in their area that said, go vote, you know you need to go vote. And so they go through the process, fill out the forms, and were just harassed for years and years with questionnaires, they couldn’t get their status um, and this continued until such a point that she actually withdrew her application. When she started getting forms from the IRS saying tell us the names of all your donors, tell us everything you talk about at your meetings, tell us who the politicians are that you’re in touch with, who comes and speaks to you. She just was too worried that she was putting the people in her group at risk of some sort of federal, uh, plot. And by the way, we know how this came to be. This was not some, uh line agents in Cincinnati who didn’t understand the law. We had senate Democrats writing letters to the IRS demanding that they take actions against the very groups that they did. We had the president of the United States out on the stump almost every day, warning about shadowy groups that had been unleashed, we didn’t know if they were operating illegally, somebody ought to do something about it. And we had a very partisan IRS bureaucracy led by Lois Lerner who listened to all these things and did take specific, deliberate action to put these groups on ice.

12:37 Blackmon: Are we talking about a, uh, a broad, well-coordinated multi-part effort to accomplish the things you were talking about? Or is it more that you’ve got perhaps an agency that is not behaving the way it ideally would? Maybe some people who are, who have gone off the trail in some respect? But that it is a series of foolish mistakes by individuals as opposed to a big coordinated conspiracy?

Strassel: No, it was coordinated. Look we have their notes and the emails from inside of the IRS and the Treasury Department. You know, in a couple of things that I think are really revealing here, Doug, is that Lois Lerner did this. A lot of people who were around her knew what was going on. There were people out in Cincinnati who were sending her notes saying what’s happened to all these applications?

FACTOID: Lois Lerner was not criminally charged for charges against IRS

You guys took over this process. We have an obligation to give these people their status. What are you folks doing out there? You know, saying, by the way, we have an election coming up. So, this is really looks bad and we should be doing something about it. They got, they got the cul-- you know, the hand. Nobody gave an answer to them because these things were being locked up and sort of drawn out on purpose, slowly, so that these groups would not be able to operate during the 2010 midterm elections, but also the 2012 presidential election. And I think that this is, again, one of the really revealing things. Senior members of the Treasury Department understood that something was rotten in Denmark early in 2012. Because, the IRS began sending out all of these letters to these groups, and these groups had come to congress and said we’re getting harassed by the IRS. So, Congress begun investigations. Senior members of the Treasury, what’s going on? They deputize people to go and look at Lois Lerner’s department. They know this is happening, and then they keep it quiet in front of congressional inquiries for the rest of 2012. And, they don’t bring this out until twenty-thirteen. You know, if you knew something was really bad at the IRS and you knew it in March of 2012, and Congress is asking you about it, you would say so. Unless you really didn’t want people to have non-profit status for the rest of the presidential election.

14:40 Blackmon: Alright, and I uh, wanna circle back on some of this, but let’s also talk about some of the other things that you write about that are not really specific to the IRS. Uh, including uh, sequence of events that happens in Wisconsin in Milwaukee County. But, uh the very dramatic description you’ve got. But tell us what happened there.

Strassel: Yeah, so this is another tactic. I mean, again, one sicking federal employees on people. Another one, liberal prosecutors who abuse their positions. So, what you have up in Wisconsin, and I think this is the most scary part of this book. You have up in Wisconsin what is about thirty conservative groups that defended those government reforms—those very controversial government reforms—that Governor Scott Walker put in in Wisconsin. As this is going on, uh, a little bit after this happens, uh, all thirty of those groups end up getting subpoenas. And it turns out that they are under a secret investigation into supposed campaign finance allegations. Now, again, to put this in context, 97 percent looks at campaign finance allegations are civil. Okay, now these people are the subject of a criminal inquiry into campaign finance allegations. Uh, and it’s being done under a special law in Wisconsin called the John Doe Law which allows prosecutors to conduct it in secret.

FACTOID: John Doe Law used to determine if a crime has occurred

These people have their financial records taken, their emails tracked, all of their interactions watched, uh, their phones are looked at. There are pre-dawn raids at their houses, okay. The cops show up at their house in the morning to drag stuff out of their house. And by the way, one of the worst stories in here. One of the targets of this entire probe, he and his wife were off on a charitable fundraising trip, their teenage son is home alone. The police come in the early morning dark. They put him in a room. They tell him that he cannot call his grandparents who live down the road. He asked if he can call an attorney. They tell him no. They take things out of the house, leave, as they leave they tell him, by the way, this is being pursued under a gag order. You tell anyone what happened to you this morning, you can go to jail. So, these are the kind of tactics that are being used. It’s only because a very brave man came to the Wall Street Journal and told us what was happening in all of this that this even came out in the end. A lawsuit ended up getting filed, went all the way up to the state Supreme Court. The State Supreme Court had to shut this probe down. And, in doing so, and I’m paraphrasing a bit here, but one of the sentences in their ruling was the prosecutors in this case had invented theories of law in order to after citizens who were wholly innocent of wrongdoing.

17:05 Blackmon: But, we’re in this world of massive manipulation across the board, that – that where everybody is, and maybe it was always this way, there are just more levers now. But, uh, but where every constituency seems to be engaged in some version of this. If you’ve got a state legislature, then you’re redistricting to preserve your position there. If, uh, if you want minorities to vote, then you push hard for, for more relaxed voting procedures.

FACTOID: Trump received 8% of black and 29% of Hispanic vote

If you don’t do well with minorities, then you want there to be fewer voting days. That, and so all across the board, it seems to me that everybody is flexing everything that they can flex for political advantage, without so much, uh, consideration of is this really good for the country or what are the basic principles at work here? I mean, is, so I guess one, would you agree with that? And two, what I guess I’m really pushing at is the suggestion that this is a left versus right, uh, uh, phenomenon as opposed to this is just the system gone awry?

Strassel: No, because what you’re talking about there, you’re talking about actions that people have taken for instance to sort of change the laws, uh, you know, within a state for instance on the voting right thing. This is about intim– this is about abusing federal power, abusing state power to scare people out of politics, to put them into legal jeopardy, to actually, you know, I mean, we’ve got examples in there, I’ve got an example in there of a man who gave money, uh, to a Romney Super PAC back in 2012, okay? And, a name of Frank Vander Sloot. Uh, he gave a sizeable donation. He’s a wealthy businessman out in Idaho, uh, a million dollars. President Obama’s campaign team took his name, and out of seven other individuals. They got them from financial disclosure records, because if you give money to Super PAC’s, it has to disclosed. And they put him on the campaign website accusing him of all kinds of terrible things.

FACTOID: October 2016: Clinton raised $188M, Trump $60M from Super PACs It said they were bad people. They were potentially criminals, et cetera. Within a couple of months, this guy had had a private investigator riffling through his divorce records. He’d had two visits from the IRS. He’d never had an audit before. Both of his personal business, uh, personal finances and his business finance. The Department of Labor showed up to inspect his ranch. I mean, as he said, when the president named me out there, he put a target on my back. So, those are the kind of tactics that I’m talking about in the book, and I don’t believe that they are in fact happening on each side. I, I’m an equal opportunity, first amendment believer, and when I went to go write this book, I looked for examples of this on both sides. It’s not happening and I think that’s in part because conservatives are a little bit hard-wired. They believe in limited government. They believe in more restraint from government. They believe in uh, uh, uh the Constitution and the first amendment. It’s kind of some of their guiding basic principles. Um, and so they tend not to now there are a couple of examples in there where they have gone awry, but for the most part, this is a racket that is being practiced by the, an organized political left. And I say that by distinction to, to liberals. You know, left of center voters.

20:08 Blackmon: OK, Let’s fast forward to February 2017. Uh, you’re sitting at your desk in the Washington bureau of the Wall Street Journal, uh your phone rings and you pick it up and it’s someone in the office of President Donald Trump who says I’ve been reading your column for years uh do you have any idea if that’s actually the case?

Strassel: [Laughter] I’m not going to hazard a guess on.

Blackmon:  The message is, uh, that Donald Trump’s been reading your column uh, for years and he wants you to come over and talk to him for fifteen minutes until he’s aware of the things that you point out here. What’s your message to President Donald Trump?

Strassel: Yeah, two things, is one, we do have to set up a situation in which uh, federal bureaucrats are stripped of their ability to make qualitative judgments, quantitative judgments about politics. And there are ways to do that in which you remove their power—in my perfect world as a conservative I would do it by removing much of the federal bureaucracy, right? It would be much better to have a flat tax code because, and there’s no judgment involved in that whatsoever, but if you can’t do that there needs to be some sort of proactive ability to, to remove some of this decision-making from the bureaucrats, put it in the hands of people that are appointed and accountable.  Um, that would be one thing. Two, rethink our disclosure laws in this country. Disclosure these days is being used to get the names of people to go and target and harass.  Um, disclosure is supposed to be about citizens being able to keep track of their government. Increasingly, it’s about government and activists being able to track and harass citizens so we need to completely re-revamp our disclosure regime in this country.

21:38 Blackmon: So let’s say you give that advice to President Trump and then he says to you that’s great those make, those, those, those are good suggestions, somebody write that down.

Strassel: Those are huge.

Blackmon: Those are huge. Big league. Those are hugely big league, most excellent and incredible suggestions. Uh, but then he says what can I do to try to unify and create a real mandate in the first few weeks ahead so that in this first year of my presidency I can really accomplish big things? What do you tell the president?

Strassel: Honestly, to put all of his time and effort behind one big initiative and get it done. Because this is the problem as Americans just look and they think nothing can get done in Washington, nothing that makes life better for them. Ok, the last big thing we had was the president’s health care law. It has not made life better for many, many people, that is, remains very unpopular. It has for some, but this is not viewed as a sort of, you know rock ’em sock ‘em success out there and so you know, whether it be a, a very bold tax reform. Something, and say this is what we’re going to make happen, and then go out there and meet with Democrats, meet with both sides, and say we’re going to get this done together. What do I need to bring you on?

22:47 Blackmon: All right, let’s spin the time machine again. Once more it’s February the first of 2017, you get a phone call, uh now it’s from the office of President Hillary Clinton who has squeaked through to a victory over Donald Trump. You’re not on the same side as me politically…

Strassel: And she has not read my column.

Blackmon: She—and I have not read your columns, but I hear you’ve got some good ideas and I want to hear from the other side because I have got to build a bigger coalition, I’ve got to have some sort of mandate, it’s going to be better for the country if there’s some sort of unity. I’m calling on you as a patriot, come and give me some advice uh to, about these first steps that I can take so I have the most successful first year.

Strassel: Well first of all I, I would advocate that she should do the same thing I suggested with Donald Trump with the bureaucrats and the disclosure.  But the other thing is to drop this promise that she has made. She’s said that within her first you know, month she’s going to try to get rid of Citizens United and um, uh, essentially go and uh, propose a new amendment that, it’s never put that way but it would in essence give government control over speech. And I think that’s an incredibly disturbing thing. James Madison kind of had it right with the first amendment. We probably don’t want, uh, putting a bunch of elected people in charge of that, um, and it’s a, it’s a very disturbing idea that should in general be dropped.

24:05 Blackmon: Is there anything that President Hillary Clinton could do, uh, that could, that could be seen, that, that, could be seen as a gesture toward uh, whatever we want to call them, centrist Republicans or maybe all Republicans, or a gesture to the people that she referred to as deplorables. Is there, is there something that Hillary Clinton could do as president uh, that would be accepted as being valid in any way that would bridge any of those sorts of divides?

Strassel: Oh yeah, no I think there are things out there that both sides understand need to get done. I mean for instance, corporate tax reform, that’s a great one for either—you know, any candidate to, to jump into and do right away. Both sides understand that we’re just getting killed out there internationally because we have one of the, or the highest corporate tax rate, corporate tax rate out there. Definitely going to be a lot of division over how it’s done exactly, but great common ground as a place to start.

25:00 Blackmon: Kim Strassel, thanks for joining us.

Strassel: Thank you for having me.

Blackmon: The book is The Intimidation Game: How the Left is Silencing Free Speech. If you’d like to send us a comment about this episode or join an ongoing conversation about the future of American politics, go to the Miller Center Facebook page, or follow us on Twitter. My handle is @douglasblackmon. You can reach our guest @kimstrassel. To watch other episodes of American Forum, share them with your friends, join our email list, or read a transcript of this dialogue, visit us at millercenter.org/americanforum. I’m Doug Blackmon. See you again next week