Hello and welcome to our Making of the US President webcast. In our MOOC, for the past three weeks, we've been investigating the history of presidential elections in America. Just two days ago, Americans elected Donald Trump as their next President. For the next hour or so, we'll be discussing this historic event by talking about American History. Our MOOC team is here, we're delighted to welcome our audience here in Edinburgh as well as via the webcast. Thank you for joining us and please do take part in the conversation. Please tweet us with your comments and questions on Twitter, we are @MAKINGPRESMOOC. So one of the questions, of course, that we've all been thinking about is the place of Donald Trump in American History. Within our discussion forum, there's been a lot of insightful, interesting reflection on the issue of historical parallels for Donald Trump, his victory in 2016. For some people, there are no real parallels. David Alexander Walker wrote this, "there has never been an election in US history like the one of 2016 or any presidential candidates like the ones we have just had." For others, there are some parallels and people in particular have been talking about populism as a way to think about Donald Trump. So what do we think? Are there historical parallels or do we see the Donald Trump victory, the Trump phenomenon, as a rather unprecedented phenomenon in American History? >> So usually, when I hear journalists say that something is unprecedented, I say that's nonsense and I think of twelve examples from the 19th century that provide some kind of weird analogous sort of situation. In this case though, in sort of thinking about this panel and what's happened in the past 48 hours, I've been really hard pressed to find an example of an election that really does serve as a good analogue for this in which you can find the things that are similar, you can look at the surprise in 48 where the polls were wrong and people, but you can only stretch that analogy so far. I really do think there's something really unprecedented about this election, which caused me to question the whole premise of this entire MOOC, because we were trying to provide historical context for this election. But I think we're actually in some ways, we've reached a point with what happened on Tuesday night where I'm not quite sure I can draw upon what's happened to provide some context which is enormously disarming, but I think that's where I am at the moment. >> Well, that's very cheerful, David. I think the closest parallel, historically, and I don't think it's terribly a good one, but I've read it a lot in the recent days, is Andrew Jackson. Although, there's certainly a parallel in terms of hair, for Andrew Jackson and Mr. Trump, but Jackson actually had a record of achievement, dubious achievements to be sure, but he'd actually held office and exercised governmental authority prior to becoming president of the United States. There are parallels in terms of his election and representing the popular will, and things like that in a kind of ground-swell of popular opinion. Having said that, Jackson was much better prepared for the presidency than Trump. Mr. Trump is without exception, I think and I think this is a safe statement based in fact, the least qualified person ever elected president of the United States in terms of the things he's done prior to becoming, prior to election. So in that sense, I do think we are in uncharted territory. I don't know if you have anything to add, Fabian. >> I think I'll provide a moment of precedence which actually, I think should give all of us pause for thought. And that is if I'm looking at the election that I treated in the MOOC, 1968, there was a moment in time when one of the vice presidential candidates and this was the vice presidential candidate of George Wallace who actually also in our discussion forum has been compared to Trump, but that's not the comparison I want to make now. But George Wallace, one of, initially, the most successful third party candidates in American history. And in early October 1968, he introduces his vice presidential candidate, a man by the name of Curtis LeMay. Curtis LeMay had been the head of the strategic bomber command. And LeMay is asked how he would, so in October 1968, LeMay is asked how he would deal with the situation in Vietnam with the intractable war in Vietnam. And he answered, he said, well, I would use everything at our disposal to achieve victory and the reporters followed up and they said, does that include nuclear weapons and LeMay said, yes. Yes, it does. And even though Wallace tried to stop him, because he knew that wasn't a good idea to talk about that. LeMay kept on confirming that yes, he would indeed consider using tactical nuclear weapons to end the war in Vietnam. But in 1968, the result of that was that up until that point, George Wallace had been predicted in the polls to run as high as 20% of the popular vote. After that disastrous press conference, George Wallace's poll numbers dropped never to recover. Now, Donald Trump has at several times during this election campaign speculated quite wildly about the use of nuclear weapons, among other things to end the threat by ISIS. I don't know how you use a nuclear weapon against a bunch of terrorists, but there you go. Donald Trump speculated wildly on that and like other outrageous statements in his campaign, this one was like water off a duck's back. No one cared. Did his poll results suffer as a result of speculating about nuclear weapons? No, they did not. And I think that tells us not only something about Donald Trump who could always be as outrageous as he wanted in the campaign and it didn't dent his numbers. That also unfortunately tells us something about our attitudes, our society's attitudes today towards nuclear weapons. It does seem like at least in their sort of miniaturized form they have been accepted as appropriate weapons, appropriate military weapons in warfare and I think that should really give us, I mean, this new attitude in comparison to what it was before should give us pause for thought. >> I just wanted to add and to follow up on Frank's comment about experience coming into the White House. Every person who's been nominated by a major party in the past 200 years has either had government experience, often phenomenally detailed and nuanced government experience or military experience or both. And Trump is the first person to either occupy the White House or even be nominated for major party who doesn't have one of those two things. And I think in terms of projecting whats going to happened over the next four years, one of the ways in which we've always looked to try to make sense of that is what they have done in the past that will give us insight into what they will do in the future. And clearly, there is a large segment of the American populus more than 50% of the electoral college that thinks they want somebody who doesn't
have those kind of experiences or has a different set of experiences that makes them qualified for the White House. But it's going to be very hard, I think one of the things that's very hard for us is he doesn't have that track record that we can look to to sort of anticipate what he is going to do once he is in office. >> Thank you. In fact, both Andrew Jackson and George Wallace were people who have been mentioned in our discussion forum as well about potential parallels, maybe imperfect, but with certain parallels with Trump. Shall we? >> They were both white supremacists, as well. >> Yeah, that's one of the themes talking about Jackson, a popular outsider who oppressed minorities. is how Liz characterized it. Some questions here in Edinburgh? Questions, comments? >> Incoherent ramblings are acceptable, also. >> Wait for the mic, though. >> Shall we go first with, there are quite a few comments, maybe first Simon here. >> So in terms of parallels, this isn't the first time a president has won the vote without the popular vote. Has there previously been much of a push for reform of the system? Or do you think there will be more of one now, seeing as this is, is this the fifth time a president has won without the popular vote? >> It's the fifth time that it's happened. There's usually, I don't know, there's a push for reform, I mean there's usually a great deal - and the last time it happened was in 2000 with George W Bush - There's usually a lot of people who supported the other candidate, remark on this and suggest reform is necessary, as happened in 2000. There hasn't been a serious attempt to change that system, it must be said, in part because changing the Constitution is very, very difficult. Also in part because the Electoral College sometimes can, there's an irony here, and I talked about the Electoral College in the 1800 section of the MOOC. The United States is not a democracy. And this was demonstrated on Tuesday night. It's a federal republic. And the Electoral College is meant to mediate between the kind of unbridled will of the people - and the people who framed the constitution were very skeptical about direct democracy, in part to prevent, I should say, the election of demagogues. And, indeed, going into Tuesday night, I thought it more likely that Secretary Clinton would possibly win as a result of getting a victory in the Electoral College, but not winning a majority of the popular vote. And indeed, the opposite occurred. So occasionally, this comes up, but it usually dissipates within a few weeks. And it always comes up amongst those who've lost the election. >>And also, maybe just adding to that because of course the Electoral College is based upon the principal that the votes are measured state by state, then by the same token I think you would then also have to look at senatorial elections. Why two senators per state? Why two senators per state in which there is a very small population as compared to California, for example? So I think if you started there, you would probably have to take the system apart. And I think there is probably no real interest in doing that. >> I think, as my colleagues have pointed out, there are some profoundly undemocratic structures in the American Constitution in terms of actually representing the voice of the people. The other problem with reforming it is reforming it requires the consent of the people who won. And so they obviously have a clear incentive for keeping the system the way it is. The people who are in Congress, the people who are in the Senate, the people who are in power in the state legislatures, they are happy with the system that they've got, in large part. >> One writer I would add is Mr. Trump in a tweet, which is his preferred method of communication, condemned the Electoral College in 2012. So perhaps this will be high on his list of priorities as far as things he wants to achieve. >> Okay thanks. So, another question, I think there was a question over there. I mean back in 2000, it was in some ways surprising how little discussion of reform there was. Even though that was full of controversy, that aspect actually didn't attract so much attention. So we'll see what happens this time. >> So NBC reported that some top generals are looking for some way of seeing if they can avoid following Trump's orders if there are some that are incredibly immoral or that they disagree with. Is there any precedent to this in American history? >> I got saddled with this one. I mean, basically what I would say is simply that there is particularly the possibility for soldiers to disobey orders that are immoral. So yes, that would theoretically be possible. Has that been done a lot? No. >> I can think of one time. There's the thing that happened between 1861 and 1865, where there were lots of officers in the US Army that decided not to obey the orders of the elected commander-in-chief. And there were consequences to that. What that means for Civil War round two, I'm not going to anticipate. My expertise is in the past, not in the future. >> Thank you. There was a question actually from Twitter, which I think is quite a challenging question, from Stephen Oliver, who noted that he was struck by difference between how results unfold during election night in the US compared to in the UK. Obviously the time difference meant that a lot of us didn't get a lot of sleep on Tuesday night, but he was thinking about this difference about the way election results are called rather than counted in the US. Anybody have some thoughts there, yeah? >> Well to me one of the sort of major differences, and I say this as somebody who's only moved to the UK four years ago, one of the major differences having seen a few UK elections and lots and lots of US elections is that under British law, they're not really allowed to comment, the press isn't allowed to comment on the election on election day. Whereas the American media because of the first amendment comments all the time on election day, makes predictions and what they think is analysis and they fill the air time with what's going on at the polls. Whereas British media I think by law say that the weather is sunny and polls are open. And then they basically don't say anything until the actual election results are announced. Whereas American elections have this very long tradition of calling elections usually as soon as the polls close in some states they announce who they think won that state. In some states you can do that pretty easily. You can call California two years before the election and know whose going to win California. And obviously the time zone question obviously also makes a difference because the election is really spread over a number of, it's 51 different separate elections being run simultaneously not one election being run. >> Although one thing that I noticed the other night and have noticed since 2000 in that election controversy is that the American media, while they certainly call elections during the national election in a way that the British media do not, they've become more conservative. I mean, the other night, they were really, really reluctant, I mean it took a long time for them to call North Carolina and Georgia when it was obvious - and Florida - when it was obvious that the results in those states were obvious to anyone who was watching it that was even barely numerate, like myself. So they've become slightly more reluctant to call things, at least by their own standards, than they used to be, but not by comparison with the British. And the other thing is, one thing that was really interesting this time, and it's been developing over the past several election cycles is, early voting is much more important. And so millions of people cast their votes in the weeks before election day, especially in a place like Florida. In other places that was not the case. For example, Pennsylvania does not allow early voting. So the voting process is so prolonged now that the media could not keep quiet that long I'm sure. >> Yeah, and thinking about calling Florida, I think a large part why they didn't call Florida early Tuesday has to do with 2000. For those of you who remember 2000, I was living in Florida at the time, and they called that election while I was watching on TV at 7:30, or something, they called Florida for Gore. And I said, oh the election is over, I'll be able to go to bed early tonight. And then obviously then they sort of pulled back the call a couple hours later and then they switched back and forth the state three or four times before the night was over. I think the apprehension of not making the call wrong again and all the consequences that obviously played out in 2000, I think is factored into some being a little bit trigger-shy on Tuesday night or Wednesday morning about calling states before they were absolutely sure. And then I think on Tuesday night we also noted what happened in 1980 when the whole election was called and Carter conceded to Reagan very early in the evening, even while voting hadn't concluded in all of the country. So, it's different from how it used to be and it used to be quite dramatically early sometimes. So, are there other questions here? Right, there's a question right over here. >> I may be being foolishly optimistic, but, could Trump's victory be actually the sort of death knell or the death croak of American conservatism, or at least in its current form. Given that, if you look at demographics, I think the millennial vote this year was, if that was all that was counted, it would be a landslide victory for Clinton, and also the trend generally in America is towards secularism and atheism is the largest sort of growing religious group. And given that Christianity's the sort of heartland of Republicans, could this be the sort of the last gasp, the last victory they have? Or am I being foolish? >> So, I think all of us are apprehensive to predict the future because our expertise is in the past. I think there were some people who were looking at the race before Tuesday who thought that this might be the end of the Republican Party as we know it. There was some debate in the media that Trump's campaign might have been so divisive within the Republican Party that there was going to be this split in the Republican Party between the religious conservatives and the sort of nationalists and the financial conservatives. And that the Trump Election or that Trump's failure in this election would sort of result in the fracturing of the Republican Party. And obviously, his victory on Tuesday changes all of that. I think that the sense in which the Republican Party was in a last gasp that some people were talking about before the election, I'm not quite sure we can say that anymore. >> And I think perhaps saying that I don't know how unprecedented this is, but what strikes me with Trump is that, of course, we'll have to see how he behaves towards and with the party. Whether he cooperates with the party or not. I mean, it strikes me that he is, much more than any other candidate that at least I can remember, not indebted to anyone. He's not particularly indebted, financially, to big donors. He's not indebted to the Republican Party. Most of the establishment of the Republican Party had dropped him. So, is he going to basically try to reign unencumbered? We don't know. But so, I mean, I think his relationship to the Republican party is really up in the air. Which I think then also means that the consequences for the Republican party of this election are also still up in the air. As good as they may feel about themselves right now. >> I qualify what you said just slightly, Fabian, by saying he's not going to reign because he's not a monarch. And this may be a shock to him. In answer to your question which is an excellent one, I mean there was kind of some optimism built into that I think. I'd say two things. Demography seems to be on the side of the Democratic Party, although many people had placed a lot of faith in that demography on Tuesday, and it wasn't quite realized. There's a more ominous interpretation, which it may be the death of American conservatism, as you've defined it, which is perfectly reasonable. We have to ask what may replace it? And one possibility is that we saw a rather virulent expression of white nationalism, and we could have a conservative party in the United States which is dominated by white nationalists. And I think that would be - we haven't had that since the 1870s and 80s which is something David is an expert in - and that would be a ominous development indeed. >> Thank you. It does connect with the theme of our MOOC in an interesting way because we've been trying to look at kind of big elections, turning point elections. So it's kind of interesting to wonder whether we've just gone through an aberration as some people on the discussion forum have suggested or whether it's some kind of turning point. In fact the last election that the MOOC looked at, in 2008, it felt like a turning point at the time and maybe there are questions now: what's happened in 2016, does mean that 2008 has a different significance as well. It's really interesting of course, the way in which the party ran away from Trump, many of them. I mean, it's hard to think of precedents for that. In 1964, there were Republicans, some Republicans who distanced themselves from Barry Goldwater, such as George Romney, the father of Mitt Romney. But, not in nearly the same numbers, or nearly with the same clarity that has happened this year. So there's something interesting going on. Maybe there's still that emerging Democratic majority thesis which some people see has maybe been challenge by what's happened in 2016 but maybe as you say demography suggests something different. >> I mean, maybe just a point that I wanted to make is that the election, of course, that I dealt with in the MOOC, 1968, I mean the Democratic Party fell apart. It sort of managed to, towards the very end, to pull together on behalf of Hubert Humphrey, once he managed to put a little distance between himself and the views of Lyndon Johnson on Vietnam. But, I mean, basically the Vietnam war tore the party apart. So I think in that sense, I mean, of course there are precedents for parties temporarily also falling apart, and then gelling again afterwards. >> Although the institutional power of the two-party system is incredibly strong, so starting a new party is very, very difficult to do. It's more likely that, as happened after 1968 with the Democrats, the Republicans, who are going to be riding pretty high at the moment at least, may reform in some way. And the institutional Republican Party will be taken over by something else. >> Thank you. Another question here There are lots of questions. We could be here for a while. >> That's fine. I've no plans for this evening. >> That sounds great, so shall we go, first of all, just over there. >> Yeah, I was just wondering what you think. Basically, do you think that the American election was more a reflection of something big happening in America or just part of the world system. I mean, if you look, the Brexit vote's happened, there's extremist right-wing governments coming in all across Europe at the moment. So do you think that Trump's election is more to do with America being different, or part of a changing world system? >> I would definitely, I think that's an excellent question, and I think you probably have the same premise that I do too that this is indeed. Yes, there are specific American reasons for this election, but what I think is much more significant, and much more worrisome is, Trump with his Brexit, and then Brexit Plus, and then Brexit Plus Plus Plus. It sounded ridiculous, but it is not entirely, I think there is really something to it. I think it's no coincidence that Farage, even though Trump supporters had no idea who this man was who was coming on stage. But there is a ground swell of sort of populist, in some countries definitely fascist, reaction, I think, to the forces of neo-liberalism and globalization. And it is no coincidence that the first people who congratulated him were Farage in this country, Wilders in the Netherlands, Marine Le Pen in France. And I shudder if I think of the next elections that are coming. First will be the rerun of the presidential election in Austria, with a far right candidate very well in the running, then it will be the French elections, the Dutch elections, there will be German elections next year. So, there is plenty, we know, I mean, Hungary, in the Russian parliament they jumped up and cheered for Donald Trump's election victory, so very good company, I would say. And it's definitely, I think, the comparison with Brexit, right down to the moment where I thought when I saw Trump first reacting to the result, he looked about as puzzled as Boris Johnson looked after the successful Brexit vote. Sort of like, oh my God, what am I going to do now? But, yes, I do think these are forces that we share across the world, that are definitely not isolated to the United States, and that are not exceptionalist within the US. >> Yes, if Tuesday proved anything once and for all, it's that American exceptionalism is a nonsense. Critics of the United States see it as exceptionally bad, admirers see it as exceptionally good. American exceptionalism, a phrase coined by Stalin, it should be said, is nonsense. And political candidates in the United States must subscribe to it, but it's just not true. >> So another question, maybe George and then over here, and then there as well. >> It seems to me that, from what you've said, how this is unprecedented, and the lack of qualifications and experience for this President makes him quite unusual. He is the most dark horse candidate we can imagine in American History. I do wonder, I want to flip this around a little bit and take it a little bit lighter. Has there been any instances of a President being elected and turning out to be a lot less conservative or progressive than previously expected in their policies and in their actual governing? >> What about your guy, Robert? >> Well, I mean, in some ways that happens quite a lot, doesn't it? And it's part of the nature of the presidency, as well, that within the American political system, there is a sense often in the UK and other countries that the American President is so powerful, and yet, the American President is clearly powerful, but he has to work with other people, as well. And that whole process means that there's always a significant difference between campaigning and governing. But the American political system places a particular spin on that. So it's, in the end, not uncommon for a President in office to be different from the President on the campaign trail. >>Do you have any examples in mind? >> I can, okay, I have an example which is probably not an example that means anything to anybody except for the five people at home who are familiar with this election. In 1848 - what's wrong with 1848? It's an important election. Zachary Taylor ran for President, a person who had no political experience. As far as we know, he did not vote until 1840, the first person he voted for was himself, for President of the United States. Which is not a bad thing, place to start. A person who had been a career military man, he had fought in the Mexican War. He was from the South and everyone thought he would support Southern positions on the expansion of slavery, and when he takes office, he doesn't. He supports California being admitted as a free state. And then he promptly dies, but there's somebody where people had expectations about who he was based on his biography. They don't actually have campaigns in the 1840s the way they have today, so they didn't actually get to interrogate him the way that we do candidates today, but people's expectations and what he was like in office were fairly different. >> Sorry David, 1848 is easily one of my top 58 Presidential elections. As a certain musical says winning is easy, governing is hard. And Jefferson, for all his rhetoric, pretty much maintained the Hamiltonian fiscal program and a lot of the Federalist agenda after he was elected. So in answer to George, that would be an example. I think Fabian's got one as well. >> I think I'm going to take it into the 20th century, if I may. And I'm thinking, two that I'm thinking about, particularly also in relation to foreign policy are Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. Richard Nixon came with the reputation of being an anti-communist fire-eater, and he was the one who committed the nation to detente with the Soviet Union and with China. Ronald Reagan confirmed in his first administration, again, the reputation of being an anti-communist fire-eater. And then he was the one who walked with Mikhail Gorbachev and almost, almost negotiated all nuclear weapons away at Reykjavik, because he felt he could do business with Mikhail Gorbachev. And then, of course, we must think about that very often, because, to come back to our jobs as historians, that very often, historically, Presidents get reinterpreted. So rather than saying that they come into office and they commit to a different policy and you can readily see it, it is often when we look back. There is the reconsideration of Eisenhower, the reconsideration of Nixon, reconsideration of Ronald Reagan. And, once upon a time, I thought it couldn't get any worse than George W Bush. >>And it's a part of the American political process that candidates are, because of the nature of the primaries, they start off being more ideological and more to the extreme. When they get to general election, they become more moderate, and then when they take the White House, the general trend is for them to be even more moderate, because they have to actually govern. But that's the trajectory we see in most modern elections. >> Thank you. Let's go for the question right here. Thinking about Reagan and Nixon, I think that's kind of true domestically as well as in foreign policy, but yeah, another question. >>So there was a lot of discussion in this past election about the redrawing of the electoral map and how Trump won because of the Rust Belt. Is this is something similar to the southern strategy in the 60s and 70s, that instead of appealing to the south's racial sensibilities and now going after the fears of uneducated white voters? >> Yeah, I think this is an interesting one. And there has been, well Trump himself talked about the silent majority and people talked about the silent majority being supportive of Trump, which creates real connections with that period in American history and the support for Richard Nixon back then. So it's a different part of the US involved, but quite a few of the issues around that do seem to be similar. I mean, thinking about Richard Nixon, I think, even though people talked about, a silent majority, the people who really connected with those issues of cultural resentment and so on, still actually seem to be something of a minority. And Nixon's appeal was in the end quite different, about solving the Vietnam war and then bringing peace, detente as Fabian was saying, and with this domestic agenda as well, that's kind of what then got him reelection. With Trump it seems to be a little bit different in that sense, and that seems to be more reliant on those issues. >> I remember in the last two weeks of the election, Trump was making lots of campaign visits to Wisconsin and to Michigan. And I think most political commentators were baffled by this because these had been traditionally solidly blue states, and they thought, why is he going to these places that he can't win. And obviously he was lot more clever than people were giving him credit for, or his internal numbers were much better than the polling that the rest of us were looking at, because the polling that the rest of were looking at didn't give him much of a chance in those places and Tuesday showed differently. And I think they spoke to a dissatisfaction with globalization that is, I think, very profound among a certain segment of the American populous. In the Rust Belt, which isn't always, has very, I think deep parallels, with what was going on in earlier periods. >> Yeah, I think maybe the other common denominator, but I think David already said it, one of the common denominators is resentment. Exploiting resentment, whether it is about being left behind by globalization and neo-liberalism, or whether it is resentments towards ideas of desegregation in the 1960s or the 1970s with a southern strategy. >> Secretary Clinton's infamous remarks about the basket of deplorables are very interesting, because people focused on the first part of that statement where she said some of Trump's supporters - now, where she got into trouble is when she said half, I'm not sure that trouble was necessarily justified - were kind of motivated by bigotry and so on. But the second half of that statement was quite profound, and quite a profound analysis of the electorate, where she said actually there are people who've been left behind by globalization and the changes in the economy and so on. And I heartily commend that statement to you, it's worth reading. And what became clear on Tuesday night is that she lost places where those people who've been left behind, the second basket if you will, which she said she needed to reach out to, and we need to be concerned about, tended to vote for Mr. Trump. And it wasn't just - so in that sense the map was redrawn, Robert, a little bit - it wasn't just in the obvious places of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan etc. I was looking earlier today at the electoral map of California, and it's very, very interesting. So the coast voted overwhelmingly for Mrs. Clinton, but inland areas, the Central Valley and so on, which could very, in many ways, are analogous to those places in the midwest, voted for Mr. Trump. Now they were outvoted in California, of course, but, I think the electoral map, may be being redrawn, but it's happening in very subtle ways. And if you look even on a state by state or county by county basis that's revealed. >> Thank you. So, maybe another question just here, and then we've got lots of questions, we'll go over there as well. >> If I may return briefly to the Electoral College. In 2000 actually, there was quite a lot of surprise that we had a candidate who won the presidency without the popular vote. And I believe what was mentioned quite a lot back then, was that it was the first time in more than a century that that had happened. So we seem to be seeing or the trend as it stands is thrice in the 1800s and then not at all in the 1900s, and now twice out of the last five presidential elections. Do you have any thoughts on why we're seeing that trend in such a unique way now. >> Really good question. Interestingly though, if we look at the other times, so once was in 1824, and 1824, we can kind of throw out because there are multiple candidates, and it was a complicated election that isn't really analogous. But the other two times in the 19th century were very close together, in 1876 and 1888. So what struck me is that the bunching of, if we take these two, they've happened relatively close together. I don't know what that means, except that it was something that occurred to me in terms of a significance. Yet, and David might be able to comment on this better than I can, that period in the late 19th century was a period of great dissatisfaction with the electoral system. You can comment on that, but the, in terms of the occurrence of it, the pattern is interesting. >> So, yeah, 1876 is a very, sort of complicated election, and I'm hesitant to draw deep comparisons between that one and this one, other than the fact that Florida, like in 2000, seems to have been a particular point of contention in all three races. I'm not quite sure what that says about Florida, but that was an election in which you've had voter irregularities in four different states where it was entirely unclear who won those states, accusations of voter fraud, intimidation, ballot rigging, all kinds of shenanigans. And the result was in some ways a political compromise about who ends up in the White House and what kinds of policies they would implement, and then everybody realized at the time that that was not a standard election, that was not the way the politics should work, but it did sort of broker a truce, at least for the time being. The one in the 1880s that Frank mentioned, that's a case with Grover Cleveland, there's always that weird place you look at in the chronology of presidents where Grover Cleveland's president, and not president, and president again. And that's the case where he actually sort of wins the popular vote three times in a row, but only wins the Electoral College twice. But the thing about the Electoral College and reforming it, is I think everybody knows what the rules are of the game going in. So, it's a weird system, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense, it's not very democratic. But both parties, I think, fundamentally sort of buy into what the rules are of the game before they play it. So it's, I think that's part of the reason why there hasn't been more effort to reform it. >> Sorry, it does only happen when the electorate is very evenly divided. It only happens in very close elections where the electorate is very evenly divided. >> I mean that was just exactly the point that I wanted to make. I think we live in an era where the electorate is very evenly divided and so sometimes that ends up with, you know, the popular vote and the Electoral College going the other way. >> One of the advantages of the system, and I hesitate to try and speak up for the Electoral College right now, is that when, given the electorate is often evenly divided, it tends to amplify the win of the victor. So even if you don't win, a good case of this would be 2012 when President Obama won. He won by 4% but he won by a very significant margin in the electoral college, and in terms of legitimacy and governing that can be an advantage. >> Thank you. We'll maybe go for another question. Maybe another way in which - there may be some questions over here too - I guess another example of how the Electoral College can magnify things is also 1980, that's the election that I took on in the MOOC. There's a sense that this was a moment of great landslide for Reagan, but he only narrowly got more than 50%. I mean, it was partly because there was a third party candidate in Anderson, nevertheless, what was in some ways not such a huge victory turned out to be quite a significant victory in the Electoral College. So, some questions? There was a question over there? Questions over here? >> Yeah, so in both parties you see an anti-establishment almost revolution within the party. The Democrat party has obviously better contained this. But does that have many historical parallels where both parties leading up to the elections almost have an anti-establishment revolution within them? >> That's an interesting question. I suppose this connects with this theme of populism, which is what a lot of people have been talking about when they think about 2016 from a kind of a historical vantage point. So, what do we make of that? >> Well, I mean, I think in part it has to do with what Frank already mentioned about the stability of the two party system, which also means, one of the consequences is, that both parties are extremely big tents, and accommodate within themselves very, very different factions. Just to give you one example you know from the 1980s, David Duke, former grand wizard of the KKK in Louisiana once ran as a Democratic candidate for the presidency, then later he ran as a Republican candidate for the presidency, so that shows you a little bit what kinds of streams, what kinds of extreme streams, parties can contain. Of course, ever since we have widespread, and by now ubiquitous primaries or caucuses, is there at least theoretically a greater chance for anti-establishment candidates to carry the election? If I may come back to the example I used in 1968, one of the important, in March of 1968, one of the important political earthquake events is that the sitting president, and this was completely unprecedented, the sitting president, Lyndon Johnson, almost loses the first primary in New Hampshire to a what you might call a, he really wasn't an anti-establishment candidate, but if you're challenging and winning against the sitting president then you are by definition anti-establishment, and that was Eugene McCarthy. And then you know you get those, after that the president, the sitting president, declines a chance to seek reelection at the end of March and then it seems like the process is thrown more open and it's Eugene McCarthy running in the primaries against Robert Kennedy. Yet, and that of course to us would seem weird today, the one person who doesn't run in any primaries, Hubert Humphrey, the sitting vice-president, he doesn't contest any primaries, yet in the end he is the party's candidate, and the reason was because only twelve states held primaries in 1968. So now, theoretically, there is a better chance, but I think you're right, there are still ways and means in which the party can contain those anti-establishment insurgencies. But, at least arguably, in terms of principal and process, this is becoming more difficult. So, we don't see that that much in history. >> So going back to the nineteenth century where I live. Before we have primaries, parties pick candidates. And so you don't have outsiders getting nominated, because what the convention was was the party insiders getting together in a smoke-filled room and picking who they wanted to nominate. So you don't have outsider candidates, you can't have outsider candidates, because the people who are in charge of the process are the people who are insiders. And so when people in the 19th century wanted an outsider, they actually had to go outside of the two party system to do that. Thinking about populism, we can think of both 'small p' populism - whether Trump's a small p populist or not, I have no idea - but you also have 'big p' populists in the 19th century. In 1890s we actually had a Populist party, the People's Party, which begins as a response to a rejection of the two party system where they say neither of these parties are adequately meeting our needs, we have specific needs in the People's Party as farmers that neither the Democrats or the Republicans are responding to them. And what happens with the Populist party in some ways is that they get co-opted by the Democrats. The Democrats end up in 1896 nominating the same guy as president as the Populists do. And the Populist Party sort of dies when the Democrats decide that there were good ideas in the Populist Party that they were going to accept and Republicans take a handful of other ideas from the Populist Party and the Populist Party then ceases to exist. So the way the structure works tends to minimize the power of third parties, and I think that's true even today. >> So we have maybe another question over here, and then just there. >> So when Trump emerged from the primaries everyone was talking about the crisis in the Republican Party, but that seems to be more of an elitist crisis than a voter crisis among the Republican voters. Whereas, in the Democratic Parties, if we go back to the electoral vote, it seems to be a potentially larger crisis for the Democratic Party, which no one really anticipated. Because if you look at the white votes, Trump only won that bit 1%ish higher than what Romney did. Thus, it seemed that perhaps Clinton picked up a few more white millionaires and white academics in California, whereas a large part of the labor vote that has traditionally been a backbone of the Democratic success and that they have largely taken for granted, switched, rather surprisingly, towards Trump. So, how do you think that will affect the Democratic Party going forward and might this be a new lasting change? >> So some thoughts about, Fabian you have some thoughts about the Democratic party? >> Okay, I'll just try, okay. Now I'm not speaking as a historian, quite obviously, because again, this is more about predictions. But I think what we're seeing, and again I'm linking it back again to things like Brexit and what we see going on across the industrial and the industrialized world, is that I think it's largely a failure of left wing movements in general. They have, you know, most left wing parties have become neo-liberal parties. The Democrats are probably you know, by now, the prime exponents of free trade and liberalization, which has led to large scale outsourcing of jobs in these areas. And yes, it is understandable that those people feel like they have been left behind by the Democratic Party. I mean, it was, after all, it was President Clinton, it was Clinton's husband, who negotiated NAFTA, which, for better or for worse, Trump exploited to great effect by saying, look, all the Mexicans are coming here, and all our jobs have gone to Mexico. What the hell is going on? And of course, I mean, he is advocating very simple solutions, building walls and getting the jobs back. He doesn't say how he will do it, but it certainly sounded like at least he was cognizant of the problem, in a way that it seemed Clinton was not. So, but I think it is a large-scale failure of left wing parties to respond to this crisis, which is there with us, not only in the United States, but also across Europe. >> Excellent question. One thing to bear in mind in the American context is that the working class is not only white. We've heard a lot, especially in the past few days, but actually throughout this election about the white working class. And that's an aspect of the working class of the United States, and perhaps the predominant population group for now, but the working class is also Latino and African American and Asian American as well. And those groups tended to vote Democratic in the most recent election, and presumably will continue to do so, especially because, I think Mr. Trump and his campaign have stored up a real problem for Republicans where Latinos are concerned. And they are, of course, the fastest growing ethnic group in the United States. Whether that favors the Democrats in the long run, if the Democrats don't come up with policies, because people don't vote simply because of their ethnic identity or their class. But, so there's, you've put your finger on a challenge the Democrats face. But demography may favor them in the longer term. >> Thank you. So, another question, just there, but meanwhile, I think, David, you have a Twitter prize for, you've been nominated for the best start to an answer, "going back to the 19th century where I live". I guess I should really say going back to Nixon land. But it doesn't work in quite the same way. >> No, Nixon land is actually a nicer place then the 19th century. The 19th century is a pretty ugly place to live. I'm actually very glad I live in the 21st century. We have good plumbing and electricity and Internet and stuff. So, I'm. pretty happy here. >> You're going to lose your nomination >> That's fine. I intellectually live in the 19th century, but I'm very happy to do it in the 21st. >> So, the question, yeah. >> So, earlier today and yesterday, the Washington Post was arguing that because of Trump's kind of corporate empire and the connections within his family to what he does in the business world, he's facing a conflict of interest that's totally historically unprecedented. And I guess I was wondering if you think that that is true or not? >> That's interesting, isn't it? Because thinking about Trump as unprecedented, and then he's unprecedented in lots of different ways. >> Yeah, so usually the way that wealthy presidents, which is most of them, deal with that in recent memory is they put it into a blind trust, and they say, they let somebody who's not them and not a member of their family run whatever financial interest they have, and they are supposedly able to sort of distinguish themselves as a financial person and as President. Trump, obviously, it's very hard, because his buildings have his name on it, and it's hard to say I'm not paying attention to the building with my name on it, that's five blocks from the White House. And I think he's said he's not planning on divesting himself of all these interests, and I think he says he's going to let his kids run it, which is a substantial break, I think, with recent practice about how President's have dealt with that. What, if anything, those people who are critical of Trump can do about those conflict of interests? That's a remarkable question, which I do not have a good answer to. Frank does, though. >> Thanks, David. >> You were the one reaching for the microphone. >> I had a comment about conflict of interest, not an answer to your question. Go back to the 19th century. Mr. Trump seems immune to questions about conflicts of interest and complexity. Where his, well, complexity. I would say this isn't unprecedented, every single President who owned slaves had a conflict of interest in dealing with that question - we are back to the 19th century in that way - which was most of them in the first half of the 19th century. Not all, but most. And so, this isn't unprecedented, and arguably those men took decisions which were directly in their financial and personal interests where slavery was concerned. >> So, let's get some more questions. Here in the room, there's a question from Simon via Twitter talking about - >> He's cheating he's sitting right there. >> You can ask the question. >> Do you want to ask the question? We need the microphone. I mean, there's still a lot of speculation, there's lots of speculation, of course, about the Russian government and its role in American politics. Is that something new? Are there parallels? So, Fabian. >> Well, and I mean, at least the Russian government today has confirmed that there have been these contacts to the Trump campaign. It is, undoubtedly not unprecedented, it landed, for example, it landed the Clinton reelection campaign, I mean the Bill Clinton reelection campaign, in hot water when there was the question of whether Chinese businessmen, although resident in the US, but whether that was improper with companies in China, that they had given money to the Trump campaign. So it was hotly debated then. Again, with Trump, it doesn't seem like it has touched him very much. He clearly seemed to be happy with the support, implicit and explicit, that he received from Russia. He clearly seemed to be happy to work on the assumption that there will be a great male friendship between him and Vladimir Putin. He seems to be saying, again, that this is man with whom I can do business. Reminds me a little bit of Berlusconi and Putin, who apparently spent some great time together. And I do think, I mean, quite apart, I mean, from being sarcastic about this. I do think what we are going to see with this is that effectively the United States will switch to supporting, implicitly or explicitly, the Assad government in Syria and the Russian policy there, as long Assad and Russia commit themselves to also, at least on the side, bomb and contain ISIS. So, I think we are going to see more of an alignment between Russia and the United States in the near future. >> That wasn't what I wanted to comment on, but I will comment on that. I mean, I share Fabian's apprehension about that, if apprehension is the right word. I'm not entirely sure he's going to find it as easy as that though, because the foreign policy and defense establishments of the United States, while the President has incredible control over them, he - and some day she - will find the bureaucracy difficult to deal with. So re-orienting American policy after basically 70 years of skepticism about Russia might prove more difficult. That isn't what, I wanted to address your question, Simon. Because, of course, as somebody who lives in the 18th century, unlike David, I was immediately struck - you thought 1848 was fun - By 1796, when revolutionary France attempted to intervene in the US presidential election, and demonstrated a clear preference for Thomas Jefferson, and Jefferson lost that election in part because of the French intervention and the public selected John Adams instead. So it's not unprecedented. >> And the other thing that's not unprecedented is US involvement in other people's elections. That is a phenomenon that's very prevalent in the 20th century in, you know, in Iran, in the Congo, in all of Latin America, all over the world, so you know, what's fair play, I guess. >> Yeah, I read a tweet today, and I'm not endorsing this - retweets are not endorsements - that said congratulations United States, you spent the past 70 years picking strong men in other countries, now you've got one of your own. >> Let me just also, maybe slightly the other way around. In 1968, so I'm also returning - I live in the 20th century, and actually in the 21st as well, so I live here and now - but in 1968 you had a slightly different case where one of the presidential candidates was instrumentalizing another country to at least potentially pull an October surprise and boycott the election. And that was, of course, Richard Nixon, who sent his confidant, Anna Chennault, an anti-communist Chinese businesswomen, to the South Vietnamese embassy to strongly suggest to the South Vietnamese that they should stall in coming to the negotiating table in Paris, which had been prepared by the United States and North Vietnam, and that they should stall because they could get a better deal under Richard Nixon. And of course they do stall. We don't know what kind of impact that had. We know that Huberty Humphrey was catching up in the polls, and we know that that catching up, then, of course, did not give him an election victory. So, whether that had any impact or not, we don't know but it is another precedent of, you know, a candidate working with a foreign government quite blatantly. Unfortunately, I mean, Lyndon Johnson at the time knew about this but because he had bugged the South Vietnamese embassy, which of course was not a particularly friendly act, he couldn't really go public with his information at the time. >> So a question just here, please. >> Correct me if I'm wrong, but in terms of the House, the Senate, the Governors, and the Supreme Court, I don't think the Republicans have had this much power since 1928. Are we wrong not to have commented on this? And going forwards what sort of containment strategy do we have for Trump? >> Thank you, Frank. Thank you. >> I don't whether we were wrong or not. We were responding to the questions posed, so thank you for yours. The best containment strategy, if containment is what you would like to see, are the elections in two years time, on November 6 2018, the mid-term elections. President Obama briefly had control of the Congress during his first two years, and when he lost it he found it much more difficult to govern. The most effective check will be, that the Democrats can have, would be to win the House or win the Senate or both in 2018. Winning the House back is going to be tough. The Senate's a possibility, although the Senate electoral landscape looked much better for Democrats this time than it will in two years time, but one third of the senate will be up for re-election in two years time, and if Mr. Trump oversteps the bounds of propriety, as far as the public is concerned, there's an opportunity there. Between now and then, however, you're right. He's in a position of very, very strong, he's in a very, very strong position to implement his agenda - which is as yet unclear, frankly - in the next two years. >>I would only add to that, and maybe we're getting partisan here but, oh well. Those people who are advocating for or trying to look for ways to limit Trump's authority and ability to implement his policies, inasmuch as we know what those are at this point, say maybe donate money to groups like the American Civil Liberties Union in case he tries to implement waterboarding again, something he's been talking about. Or maybe Planned Parenthood if he's making moves against abortion rights or other things he's talked about. So there's the courts as a means of sort of limiting the impact of federal policy, of challenging executive orders, that kind of thing, and organizations that are taking steps to do that. Other than the courts, there's not really a mechanism within government to sort of limit what he's doing unless there's a fight within the Republican Party, which is not impossible I guess given the state of the Republican Party at present. >> So thank you, we have some other questions. Yeah. >> Hi, Michael Moore stated that Trump was, both a creature and a creation of the media. So, what role did you see the media taking this election that they didn't take last election, past previous elections, or are there any similarities in the course of American history? >> That's interesting, and one of the themes in the MOOC has been the change in nature of political communication over time. >> So one of the things that's happened in the Republican primaries in the last three cycles, really, is there's always been early in the primaries some outsider candidate that rose very quickly in the polls, somebody who had no government experience, who very briefly gets popularity and then crashes and burns, and then by the time the main election rolls around an establishment Republican gets the nomination. So if you look at the past three or four Republican primaries, I think that's the case. And I think a lot of people in the media looked at Trump and thought he was one of one of those. They didn't take him very seriously when he first announced. They didn't take him very seriously early on when he looked like he was getting lots of support. And I think they saw him sort of as a comic figure and were willing to, sort of, not treat him very critically as a consequence of that. And then it was only I think later in the nomination process, when it appeared that Trump was actually going to win, that I think lots of the media said, jeez, we totally miscalculated who this person was and what kind of attraction people would have to him and how long he would stay in the process. >> It's worth observing, Devin, I mean, you asked for other historical analogues that President Obama received a huge amount of very, very favorable media coverage, especially in 2008, much to the frustration of his then opponent Secretary Clinton, who felt that he did not receive appropriate scrutiny and was receiving unfair and overly favorable media attention. The tone of the coverage that Mr Trump received was a little bit different, as David suggested, because he was treated initially as a bit of a side show carnival act, frankly. But he was very, very good for ratings and very, very good for clickbait and everything else. And so it was in the media's interest. But, in terms of a historical parallel, Robert's right, in each of the sessions of the MOOC we looked at the role of the media to some extent in our sessions and different time periods, but the most immediate parallel that strikes me, in terms of the media's role in the present election or the just completed election, would be 2008. >> Maybe just also to add that, of course, what we also must not forget is that Trump already was, had a media persona. And he played to that media persona as best as he could. I mean, he was already through his reality show, he was a well-established media persona. So he wasn't quite the unknown quantity that some other candidates were. And yes and then he pleased the crowds and he pleased the media by saying outrageous things basically every day. >> Yeah, candidates struggle to establish their name recognition when they're starting out, and he came - you're absolute right, Fabian - with name recognition, his name on all these buildings, but also that TV persona. >> Thank you, let's see if there are more questions here. There's a question, yeah, right there. >> So what do you think about these protests that are happening right now? I mean there's nothing you could do, he's President, but do you see them as useful or has that happened before in American history? >> So, that's interesting, yeah, protests being sparked by an election. >> Yeah, in 1860 in South Carolina they had some protests! And those were consequential. Yeah, I'll leave that there. >> 50% of the electorate voted. So Mr. Trump was elected by 25% of the American people. I don't know who's protesting. It's impossible to know at this stage, until the Trump regime starts to arrest them, I suppose. I don't want to say they didn't vote or not. But let's assume they are representative of the public at large, in which case half of them didn't vote. I would quote what Mr. Obama said over the weekend: "don't complain, vote". So, it would have been much better if the protests, and again, I'm making an assumption here and I recognize that may not be fair. Would that everyone who was eligible to vote had voted on Tuesday, rather than protested on Wednesday. >> Maybe another parallel might be in this country the anti-Brexit protest. Again, I mean, the point very clearly being that supposedly - I mean, so the media tells us - that people woke up the next day and said I didn't vote for this. Well, then you better damn check where you make your mark. So I would also say, I mean, if we subscribe to the democratic process then we can't just say, oh, now I don't like the result, now I'm going to start a revolution. >> There was nothing untoward about the result. I mean, even the anomalous, occasional thing that happens of him losing the popular vote. I mean, nobody except for Mr. Trump was suggesting that the election might be rigged. And it is ironic that the man who feared that it would be rigged actually won in the Electoral College without a majority of the popular vote. But nobody, there don't seem to be serious questions about the legitimacy of the election itself and the way it was conducted. And some people are very, very unhappy with the outcome. We may or may not have sympathy with them. Whether the protests, I suppose, Alley, become a movement will be interesting, I suppose. But I'm not sure they'll have any effect, though we may sympathize with some of the frustration that people are feeling with the result. >> So the conversation obviously could continue, and it is going to continue in the days, weeks, months ahead. And obviously for historians, in the many, many years ahead. In fact, on Twitter, two of our course participants, both Yakira Kellman and Amal Palin raise the question of how historians of the future are going to analyze and interpret what's happened in 2016. Obviously that remains to be seen. Maybe that's something the four of us will try to do in four years time. for the Making of the President MOOC in 2020. But meanwhile, thank you very much for joining us for this session, for all your comments and questions. As usual, our conversation continues online within the MOOC, but meanwhile, thank you. [APPLAUSE]
