INDIANAPOLIS -- Bill Kristol is still a little sore about Ross Perot.
At the time, 1992, Kristol was chief of staff for Vice President Dan Quayle. Quayle and President George H. W. Bush were trying for a fourth consecutive term of Republican control of the White House. As Kristol notes – a little wistfully – Bush was elected the first time around with 54 percent of the vote. For round number two he was facing a Democratic challenger in the charismatic, but relatively unknown, Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton.
And then a billionaire railing against NAFTA, the national debt and outsourcing of jobs went on TV to declare himself a candidate for president of the United States.
"He got 19 million votes!" Kristol told a group gathered at IUPUI's Lilly Family School of Philanthropy. "And he was a little crazy."
Kristol, who went on to political prominence in his own right – founding the conservative The Weekly Standard political magazine and becoming a regular panelist on Fox News Sunday and then This Week with George Stephanopoulos – wasn't happy with the 2016 election either. In fact, he was one of the most visibly unhappy conservatives in the country. But he's not inclined toward unchecked pessimism.
"This could be a moment when historians look back and say, this is when American politics changed," Kristol said. "It could be a revitalizing moment. Or a dangerous moment."
Kristol's speech – entitled "Whatever Happened to Civil Society -- and What Can Be Done About It?" – was part of Indiana University's Tocqueville Program. Program director Aurelian Craiutu said the school picked Kristol because of his "civil style, his willingness to engage in dialogue with others and his passion for ideas."
After his speech, Kristol sat down with RTV6's Senior Digital Reporter Jordan Fischer for a discussion about the state of civil discourse, the modern conservative movement and, as the chief of staff for the last Hoosier vice president, what role he sees Vice President Mike Pence playing in the Trump White House.
Watch the full interview, and find a full transcript, below:
We have, for the first time in almost 30 years, a Hoosier back in the White House as the VP, that being Mike Pence. The last Hoosier to serve in that role was Dan Quayle. You were his chief of staff. I guess, from your perspective, can you tell us what sorts of things former Gov. Pence, now VP Pence, is walking into? What is his job going to be like?
"You know, I think every vice president has a different job depending on what the president wants him to do, and what his background and skills are. Dan Quayle, he played a good role in the Bush White House, but you had George H.W. Bush who had been around for a long time, and Jim Baker who was a seasoned pro of Washington. Dick Cheney as secretary of defense. He was the young guy in the White House, Quayle was. He was a former senator, which the others weren't, so he did a lot of work with the senate. A lot of behind-the-scenes stuff.
Pence, I think, could have a much more visible and probably more central role. The Trump White House has almost no one who has served in the federal government. They have, I think, literally no one at the very senior level who has served in the White House or the executive branch. But the person who knows the most about how Washington works in the White House is Mike Pence.
If you imagine the Trump cabinet meeting or the Trump Oval Office meeting, and they're a mixture of people, some of them good, some of them not so good, but the one thing they all have in common: no government experience. Except for Mike Pence and Mike Pence's team. So Pence … and you know what, you need to pass legislation if you want to be a successful president. If you want to change America, you can do some stuff with executive orders, you can do some stuff with the bully pulpit, but basically you need to get legislation passed through Congress. Who has served in Congress and in a leadership role in Congress? Mike Pence. So I think Pence could be quite important to the success or failure of the Trump administration."
Piggybacking off of that, here in Indiana, there's been a fair amount of talk that, A.) It's just good to have a Hoosier in the White House, but, B.) From your perspective, how much can the VP really do for his state, or any state?
"Not that much, because there are rules and regulations. I mean, he can't detour federal funds here. They have to go through a certain process. It's funny: When you come to Indiana, of course, Pence was governor here the past four years, he's been a figure in Indiana politics for so long, people liked him, they didn't like him, whatever, but it's a big deal that he's from Indiana.
I'd say in Washington the way in which Pence is a big deal is that he was a member of the House for 12 years and in the leadership the last several years, an influential member of the House. That's kind of the comparative advantage he brings to the Trump administration. So from the Washington point of view, it's more, Mike Pence: House member; guy who knows Paul Ryan; guy who knows the committee chairman; guy who knows how complicated it is to pass a tax bill. That's really the key side of Mike Pence that people are focused on in Washington, less the fact the he was governor here or is a Hoosier. He talks about Hoosiers a lot, though. More people will know what a Hoosier is by the end of the Pence vice presidency."
You talked today about the importance of civil society and, on a related note, civil discourse. I was talking to some of the folks before your speech, and the thing that they echoed repeatedly was how troubled they are by what they see as the breakdown of civil discourse. You talk to a lot of people. People who disagree with you. People who agree with you. Politico did a profile on you last year during the conventions about how you were, I don't think they used this word, but sort of unflappable. Didn't let criticism get to you. I'm wondering if maybe you can offer some perspective on how we get back to that place?
"Look, one reason I didn't much like and don't much like Donald Trump is I do think he's reckless in the way he speaks, and that does corrupt the public discourse, coarsen it, cheapen it somewhat. And that's not a good thing. But we shouldn't overreact either. We still live in a very free and vigorous country. People have arguments and then they go out and have a drink. People live next door to people they disagree with – they don't get into fights or shoot each other, thank god, 99.9 percent of the time. We don't have mass violence in the streets. We have huge marches, the Women's March in Washington was a very big thing, totally peaceful. We have people with very strong views on different issues, almost always totally peaceful. People get along with neighbors with whom they disagree.
I think one can exaggerate if you look at the TV news, and especially at Washington, you could exaggerate the problem. There is a problem. But you could exaggerate it. And that's one reason I think getting power back to localities, decentralizing, getting authority back to communities helps a lot. People do work together in cities and counties and towns. They have to work together, and they learn to work together and to work across whatever divisions they have. If you just are voting once every four years, and otherwise you're screaming at the TV and berating people you don't agree with and only watching TV shows you agree with, and reading things you agree with, that does lead to a populace that's more angry, more cut off from each other. If people have to get together and resolve local issues – many of which are not very ideological – then they get used to working with people who aren't like them, who are a different generation, maybe a different color, a different religion, different political views. That really is the argument for decentralization and localization of authority."
Jumping off that, there's been a lot of attention paid recently about who gets to go on TV and share their views. Of course, CNN was heavily criticized for … at one point they had both Corey Lewandowski and Donna Brazile on the payroll. Lewandowski was still being paid by the Trump campaign and Donna Brazile of course is a long-time member of the Democratic National Party. You go on TV a lot too. I guess, A.) Is there a value to the viewer in having, sort of unrepentant, unabashed party flacks come on and just talk past each other, and B.) If you could remake political news television, what would you do?
"When I first did the Sunday shows, both on ABC News and Fox News Sunday, there was a rule that the people on those panels were journalists or magazine editors or commentators of some kind. They weren't elected officials, and they didn't work for the parties or the elected officials. There's been more muddying of the waters, or mixing up of people in the last several years, and that's not necessarily a terrible thing. Sometimes it's interesting to have a conversation with a congressman and someone who's on the DNC and someone who's a journalist. But I think in those cases you do want to identify people and let the viewer know this person isn't simply saying what he or she believes, he or she is constrained by elective office – when people see the representative or the senator, they kind of know right away that, oh, this isn't quite someone just giving his opinion, this is someone thinking about what he's saying because he's got voters. And the same is true obviously for someone who's on the DNC or works for a campaign or is paid by a particular interest group. So I'm in favor of disclosure.
I guess personally I find it more interesting … I have no problem with a Clinton person and a Trump person arguing with each other. You can learn a lot from that by what arguments they use and how they answer to each other. But I think it is probably healthier to have a Clinton person and a Trump person, back in the campaign, or a Democrat or a Republican, now, from the hill, and then have a separate discussion with two or three commentators – conservative, liberal, moderate, whatever – who don't have a stake in it and who don't have to be careful about what they say. Who can say, look, Mitch McConnell, I probably agree with him on 80-90 percent of the issues. I hope he's a successful majority leader of the senate. But a couple weeks ago I said I thought he was foolish when he shut down Elizabeth Warren. I don't work for Mitch McConnell. I can say that. But if you have Mitch McConnell's spokesman on, he's not going to say that."
You were introduced today … one of the superlatives used in your introduction today was that you were one of the "key public intellectuals" of our era. During the Surrealist movement they had Andre Breton who would decide what Surrealism was – who was, who wasn't a Surrealist. For conservatism for a long time it was folks like William Buckley. Do you think that role still exists in conservatism? Should it?
"I don't think it really exists. I'm not sure it ever existed as much as people now say. Buckley tried to do it. He had to make the argument. He had to say, look, the Birchers are wrong. It wasn't just that he could snap his fingers and expel people from a movement.
Look, it's a free country, and I'm always for erring on the side of, let people speak, let people make up their own minds about who they like. I, myself, wouldn't participate in some conferences where certain people might speak. I don't want to be on a panel or a platform with an anti-Semite or a bigot of some kind. But that's a separate issue. I'm pretty libertarian in a way on this. I think, on the whole, it's a healthy thing that you can't just snap your fingers and kick people out of movements and that there's a little more diversity. That people can show up from nowhere and become well-known even if they don't have credentials, as they say. I mean, a lot of the health of America is that it's an open system and a bottom-up system. We pay the price for the sometimes – a little bit of wackiness. But I think on the whole it's a good thing."
Following up on that. The idea that you have to make your argument, right? This year, maybe for the first time ever, the National Review came out against the Republican candidate. You came out against the Republican candidate. George Will came out against the Republican candidate. And just about every newspaper in the country, in fact, came out against the Republican candidate. And he, nevertheless, prevailed. What role do you see, right now, for the conservative intellectual in the current ecosystem?
"Well, first of all, people should say what they believe. They shouldn't try to find a role. And we have differences among ourselves, a lot of conservative policy types and commentators and intellectuals. I think you've got to call it as you see it. I think you can't think of yourself as a team player. And I would say, particularly if you are a conservative Republican, Trump will do some things that you'll applaud – the nomination of Judge Gorsuch – and you should applaud them. But he'll also do some things that you probably won't like, and I think it's very important to say that. You can't just tell yourself, well, gee, he's on my team so I'm just going to support everything blindly. Because then you end up … the great advantage one has if one is an independent person – an intellectual who's not part of the team, not paid by the team, your future doesn't depend, hopefully, on whether the team at present likes you or not – is you can hopefully steer things in a better direction. You can correct and check the bad things Trump may try to do, the foolish things he may try to do, and support the good things.
I think actually it's an exciting time for conservative Republicans. It's an exciting time for liberals too, after the surprising loss of Hillary Clinton. The good news is it's a very volatile, fluid, unusual moment. The bad news is those moments can also be dangerous, because things can go off the rails. We have a president who's a little bit different from a typical president – much less cautious and more reckless, I would say. But I think it's very important to call it like you see it."
Jordan Fischer is the Senior Digital Reporter for RTV6. He writes about crime & the underlying issues that cause it. Follow his reporting on Twitter at @Jordan_RTV6 or on Facebook.
