100 Years of 100 Things: Partisanship & Inaugural Addresses

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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. Now we continue our WNYC centennial zeries, 100 Years of 100 Things. We're up to thing number 59, and it's kind of a twofer for these polarized times, and with Inauguration Day coming up, it's 100 years of inaugural addresses and 100 years of partisan politics. We're doing it this way because our friend Julian Zelizer, the Princeton history professor, has a new book called In Defense of Partisanship. That's right, In Defense of Partisanship, though he has a certain kind of partisanship in mind. Let's jump right in.

More fully, Julian Zelizer is a historian at Princeton University, a CNN political analyst and NPR contributor, and best-selling author and editor of 25 books on American politics. Again, his new one is called In Defense of Partisanship. Professor Zelizer, we always learn things when you come on. Welcome back to WNYC.

Professor Julian Zelizer: Thank you. It's always nice to be back.

Brian Lehrer: People may be surprised to learn that your book opens not with a quote from George Washington or James Madison or someone like that, but from Larry David on Curb Your Enthusiasm. I pulled the clip. Larry is about to have an extramarital affair with the actress Cady Huffman. They're making out in her dressing room and then Larry notices something and asks--

Larry David: What's that?

Cady Huffman: What?

Larry David: Is that Bush?

Cady Huffman: Yes.

Larry David: You got a picture of Bush in your dressing room?

Cady Huffman: Yes.

Larry David: You're a Republican?

Cady Huffman: Yes, Larry, I'm a Republican.

[music]

Brian Lehrer: The tuba signifies that Larry is turned off and the lovemaking does not proceed. Julian, why'd you start the book with that?

Professor Julian Zelizer: [chuckles] Because I think that scene in my mind always captures just how much people dislike partisanship and think of it as only a negative thing, and that's a great joke where it even affects intimate relations. That reflects all the polls that people don't want their kids to marry someone from the other party and in the book is an attempt to recapture what parties have been able to do well, what partisanship has offered American democracy, and to try to outline a kind of partisanship that doesn't reflect the total disgust that often comes as expressed in a scene like that.

Brian Lehrer: Part of your premise, then, is that there was a form of responsible partisanship or even bipartisanship, and you'll tell me if you think those things are different, that people look back nostalgically on that span from the 1930s through the 1950s, or depending on what you're looking at, through the 1980s. There's a lot of our 100-year timeline baked in right there. Can you describe that idea, responsible partisanship? Is it the same as bipartisanship, and explain how you believe it was practiced 60 to 90 years ago?

Professor Julian Zelizer: Yes, I mean, there's two different versions. In the 1950s, a lot of liberals were frustrated with bipartisanship. They said bipartisan deals and agreements in closed smoke-filled rooms in the 1950s and 60s where Southern Democrats and Republicans were basically aligned, it stopped progress in all the big issues of the day, and that the party leaders were too beholden to these bipartisan cabals on Capitol Hill.

Then, responsible partisanship meant party leaders, leaders who actually listened to a majority of the party, party leaders who enforced discipline in the party and didn't allow these autonomous committee chairmen in Congress to basically do whatever they wanted on issues like civil rights. Fast forward to today, I think we have a different need. Responsible partisanship means strong parties where parties are united and disciplined, but they adhere to certain guardrails.

They think party leaders about how to govern, they think about the health of democratic institutions, and they basically contain how far they're willing to go even as they're having very tough fights against their opponents. That's the kind of responsible partisanship I think we're in need of today. That will still reflect the differences of the country, which are very real in Washington.

Brian Lehrer: Right. When you talk about the 1950s and some Democrats or some liberals or progressives of that era were frustrated by bipartisanship, maybe we should remember that today is Martin Luther King's 96th birthday, January 15th. The holiday is next week, but today is the actual birthday. He was always frustrated by centrism with its lack of real forward motion towards civil rights, right?

Professor Julian Zelizer: Oh, absolutely. I mean, if you look at most civil rights leaders in the '50s and '60s at the height of the movement, they were extraordinarily upset and frustrated and disappointed with the way in which the parties then often watered down the choices that voters make, that the Democrats in their mind wouldn't take a firm stand for civil rights, which they believe that a majority of the country would support. For them, bipartisanship was something that had to be broken.

Civil rights leaders like King wanted stronger parties that would stand for something and that would make sure the outliers in the party or fiefdoms of conservatism weren't allowed to rule the roost. It's a very different era, although that's what I started my career studying. Today, when everyone's very nostalgic about bipartisanship, I instantly think about these Republicans and Southern Democrats who weren't exactly favored for that kind of politics many decades ago.

Brian Lehrer: Chapter two of your book is called How Did We Get Here? Now we'll go back even more than 100 years, as that chapter opens with Woodrow Wilson before he was president saying the US Needed strong centralized parties like in England, he referenced England, to deal better with modernity. That was in the 1880s, you tell us. What was happening in the United States in the 1880s that Woodrow Wilson thought the country was not, at the time, handling well?

Professor Julian Zelizer: Well, we were dealing as a country with all kinds of big problems and challenges. Industrialization, urbanization, immigration, all these issues were creating immense pressures on cities and even rural areas. There was a sense among some thinkers and political leaders that the government was not being responsive enough to these challenges, and part of the problem was our political system's so disjointed and there's so many different levels and layers of power, something had to hold it all together. Even within a party, people were doing very different things. It was so divided.

For Woodrow Wilson, he was one of the prime thinkers on this. He looked to England and he argued we need a parliamentary system, which meant coherent parties where the President and the party on Capitol Hill worked in unison and were able to push through programmatic agendas and pass them that deal with all these kinds of issues. He spent a lot of his career, frankly, working on this and even as president tried to implement it by working with the Democrats on the Hill very closely.

Brian Lehrer: Extolling the virtues of strong parties was quite the opposite, though, of what Washington or Madison would have said at the founding.

Professor Julian Zelizer: It's true. I mean, the founders didn't like parties, didn't want parties, they feared faction and division, and were very worried about one party being dominant over the other, but the thing is, it didn't last very long. I mean, they create a Constitution, and a lot of the Constitution's designed to break up parties, but we have political parties right away, and they reflect differences in the country. Somehow they have to be expressed, and parties and a two-party system have become the way in which we do that.

Brian Lehrer: If the country adopted Wilsonian partisanship to any degree, did it have good or bad or mixed results?

Professor Julian Zelizer: Well, we don't get a parliamentary system. Wilson himself moves toward an idea of party where the President is the party leader, which for much of the 20th century is how reformers think of it. I think it's not really something that takes hold. Wilson tries it, but the story of the 20th century is the opposite. It's parties that are internally divided. It's political processes that make it hard for party leaders to act with a lot of force.

It's not until the 1970s, especially in Congress, that you actually start to see a strong centralized party system take hold where the party leaders have a lot of procedural, financial, and cultural capital in the House and Senate to move their caucus in one direction or the other. How have the results been? It depends who you ask. I do think parties have shown the ability to express the differences in politics and fight them out, and when one party is strong and one party has power, even though the moments are brief, they often can pass huge agendas that normally we just don't see getting done.

Brian Lehrer: How different do you think it really is in practice to have the kind of system we have that you were just describing in which the parties are divided within themselves? We certainly see that today in both parties, right? The Freedom Caucus wing of the Republican Party almost just prevented Mike Johnson from being elected speaker of the House again or getting that continuing budget resolution passed. The Democrats have their progressive faction and more center left faction, compared to an actual parliamentary system where there are actually more parties that are smaller.

Since that's what Woodrow Wilson was comparing the United States to, and I guess you've studied it, so does it come out any different, better or worse?

Professor Julian Zelizer: Well, let me say two things. One is I think the divisions today are much less than they were decades ago. Even with Freedom Caucus and MAGA Republicans versus some other Republicans, generally the parties are pretty united. You look at roll call votes on Capitol Hill, there's not huge differences. Similarly with the Democrats, there is a progressive wing, but overall, again, you just don't see big splits. You don't see one party voting with the other significantly very frequently, so we still have pretty united parties.

In terms of the comparison with parliamentary systems, that I'm not convinced by. I think parties are very healthy and partisanship is very-- it has been very important in American democracy, but I'm not sure a parliamentary system would be much easier. You can look at other countries and you see many parties often creates as many problems and as much gridlock as we have in the two-party system. I think there's different versions of partisanship, none are perfect, but ours is not necessarily lesser than the parliamentary systems.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, if you're just joining us, this is a twofer episode in our 100 Years of 100 Things series, 100 Years of Partisan politics leading up to our hyperpolarized present day and 100 years of presidential inaugural addresses with Inauguration Day coming next week with an eye on partisanship in those. Our guest is Princeton historian Julian Zelizer, whose new book is called In Defense of Partisanship. Now I'll start to weave in some of these inaugural address references, but listeners, if you want to weigh in, 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692.

If you lived through any time before the 1990s, let's say, and we'll get to the '90s and Newt Gingrich and partisan divides that maybe started us on the road to the modern era then, or maybe it was even in the '80s under Reagan, but if you lived any time before the 1990s, was there a golden age of bipartisanship or responsible partisanship in American politics as you look back on it now, 212-433-WNYC, as an oral history call-in in the context of this 100-year history segment, or do you see the past in those relatively cooperative terms at all and for better or worse? 212-433-WNYC.

About today, would you speak in defense of partisanship as Julian Zelizer does in the title of his book, or not so much? 212-433-9692, call or text. 212-433-9692. As we start now to weave in some of those inaugural address references, and Professor Zellizer, part of what these clips-- what makes them newsworthy is that you say inaugural addresses tend to be very nonpartisan, unifying in tone after the election year partisan battle. Here's a clip from one that you cite as an exception. It's President Franklin Delano Roosevelt as he begins his second term in his inaugural address in 1937.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt: I see millions denied education, recreation, and the opportunity to better the lot of themselves and their children. I see millions lacking the means to buy the products of farm and factory, and by their poverty, denying work and productiveness to many other millions. I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished, but it is not in despair that I paint that picture for you. I paint it for you in hope because the nation, seeing and understanding the injustice of it, proposes to paint it out.

Brian Lehrer: FDR in 1937. I don't know if that's the exact stretch that you had in mind, but Professor Zelizer, why'd you single out that inaugural address as especially partisan?

Professor Julian Zelizer: Well, it's just, I mean, obviously, it sounds like a call for the nation to see both the problems that the country faced, and he's acknowledging those problems still exist but also promising to fix them. Here's a president who built an entire first term around the premise that the government would be central in American life and that the Democratic Party was going to expand the government as it did to deal with all sorts of problems immediate as a result of the Depression, but also long term that Americans were struggling with.

Here in the inauguration, he's making very clear that 36 in some ways is a mandate to do more. Again, he's acknowledging the challenges that lie ahead, but it in the end becomes an inaugural address centered around the premise of Democratic politics in the early to mid-1930s. That was a very important political move that would define the Democratic Party for decades to come.

Brian Lehrer: Next one that you cited, and we'll jump ahead to 1965 from FDR to LBJ, President Lyndon Baines Johnson, after his landslide victory over Republican Barry Goldwater.

President Lyndon Baines Johnson: Justice requires us to remember when any citizen denies his fellow saying his color is not mine or his beliefs are strange and different. In that moment, he betrays America, though his forebearers created this nation.

[applause]

Brian Lehrer: Again, I don't know if that's the exact stretch you had in mind, but why'd you single out President Johnson's speech there as especially partisan?

Professor Julian Zelizer: Well, it's all context. He had just taken on Senator Barry Goldwater. Johnson ran his re-election really embracing liberalism and what he had done for civil rights and his promise to pass policies such as Medicare. He had really gone after right wing conservatism and argued that it was misguided. He's really finding himself in tension with some Southern Democrats as well, who are the principal roadblock to further civil rights legislation.

Here is a inaugural address where he stands proudly for a liberal philosophy, and in that inaugural address, he'll actually root his vision in the founding in an American covenant, he argues, that supports what he's doing. If you're living and listening to this after this election where Johnson decimated Goldwater, where it looked like what was right wing conservatism at the time, including opposition to civil rights, was really on the defense finally, here's an inauguration speech that is full of political fire and making clear Johnson gets the mandate of the election, Johnson understands the message, and I think suggests this is not over.

He is going for much bolder legislation the years ahead. That's how I hear the speech, even if, again, it's not explicit in talking about Democratic politics.

Brian Lehrer: Listener writes in a text, "I grew up in the '60s and '70s. What I don't remember is a party that's based around denial of reality and embracing outright lies the way MAGA does." Another listener with an oral history text writes, "I'm a 65-year-old white woman. It was less partisan in the past because both sides were almost 100% white men. They could agree to compromise because ultimately they were never going to be adversely affected personally by any of the decisions they made, regardless of party," writes that listener.

Also on this track, or maybe with a different conclusion, is Desiree in Park Slope. Desiree, you're on WNYC. Thank you for calling in.

Desiree: Good morning, Brian, and to your guest. I'm sorry, I've forgotten your name. I wanted to piggyback, yes, on that-- [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: I'll just say it for everybody, Princeton history professor Julian Zelizer. Go ahead, Desiree.

Desiree: Hello, Professor Zelinger.

Professor Julian Zelizer: Hi there. How are you?

Desiree: I wanted to piggyback, actually, on one of the texts that you just read about it being all white men, or at the very least, all white probably wealthy men in the past, or at least men of a certain status. I had three points. The first is partisanship is how the minorities get heard. If we did not have a Democratic party and a Republican party, or at very least, a progressive party and a conservative party, a lot of the progressive changes that have happened in the United States would not have happened. Suffrage, civil rights movement, gay rights movement, et cetera.

The second point that I wanted to make is that the United States is not more divided than it's ever been. That's not possible. We had slavery, we had Jim Crow. There are other eras where we were definitely more divided. We just didn't have access to the everyday person's thoughts and feelings. If they had similar thoughts to a MAGA, you would never know it unless you met them in a bar or grocery store or a church or whatever. Now they can just from their home get on the Internet and tell you all their thoughts and feelings.

I don't believe that people are more divided. I think we just have more information about what people think. I think that when 45 was in office last time, it gave people permission to share those thoughts more freely, and I think it's going to be worse now that he's 47. Those are the three points that I wanted to make. Then, finally, I wanted to say party platforms. The thing that I never hear discussed in the media when we talk about partisanship is the platform.

If you have a platform and the people in your party are not adhering to that platform or don't believe in that platform, why are they in your party? We talk about far right Democrats. What is the far right Democrat? What is the far left Republican? Do you see what I mean? Anyway, those are my thoughts. Thank you for hearing me.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you, Desiree. Really interesting stuff. Professor Zelizer, where would you like to enter?

Professor Julian Zelizer: Well, there's a lot of points between the emails and the caller. I'd say number one, the critique of bipartisanship that she made at the beginning is the critique I'm talking about in the '50s and '60s. It wasn't that there weren't differences. It wasn't that everyone easily reached agreement. It was that a lot of voices were simply left out of the political conversation, and that was the frustration of civil rights leaders. That's why they wanted parties that actually stood for something, and they'd rather have a contentious system that reflects the tensions that were very real rather than just pretending they weren't there.

I think that's just as true today. Parties become a mechanism for these voices to enter into mainstream American politics. Republicans would argue the same, that ultimately a lot of President Elect Trump's supporters who weren't in the political system have found a way in through the Republican Party. I think parties serve that purpose. She's right, we've always had a divisive country. One of the differences is today they line up neater with the parties than they did in the 1950s and '60s, as our ongoing example, where the parties were divided and the divisions weren't exactly red and blue.

Today, they're much more red and blue. It's partisan polarization is where those divisions are unfolding. Finally, on one of the issues you raised earlier, in terms of both disinformation and where Republican politics are, I do talk about hyper partisanship, and I define that as a partisanship without guardrails, meaning partisanship where there are no boundaries as to what processes are fair game, including the election system itself, and what words are okay to use. I think we have seen a hyper partisanship in recent years, which is what people are reacting to.

The caller's comments on bipartisanship I think are quite important and reflect something we just forget today in this endless nostalgia and yearning for bipartisanship all the time.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. Listner writes, "I think when Tip O'Neill was the speaker, there were arguments," this is when Reagan was president, "but both parties would share a drink at the end of the day." Relevant to that, next in the clips that you drew our attention to of more partisan presidential inaugural speeches, we zoom ahead to 1981 and Ronald Reagan's inaugural address after defeating Jimmy Carter.

Ronald Reagan: In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem.

[applause]

Ronald Reagan: From time to time, we've been tempted to believe that society has become too complex to be managed by self rule, that government by an elite group is superior to government for, by, and of the people. Well, if no one among us is capable of governing himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else?

Brian Lehrer: Why'd you cite Reagan's first inaugural as especially partisan in your eyes?

Professor Julian Zelizer: Well, I mean, in the same way that LBJ in '64 is defending what the Democratic Party had come to embrace, a lot of it, not the Southerners, but the Northerners, including his administration, was this defense of government, a belief in the role of government in ameliorating social problems, building on FDR in '36. Reagan in this is outlining something very different.

It's one of the most memorable lines in inaugurations because it's essentially a policy prescription that the Republicans are going to revolve around right through today, meaning that government is a problem, that markets are superior to government, and ultimately part of politics is trying to curb the power of government through tax cuts, deregulation, and more in American life. To say that in 1981, where we're a little over a decade from the 1960s, is a fundamentally powerful and provocative political action. It was connected to where he wanted to move and did move the Republican party during the 1980s.

Brian Lehrer: Based on these clips that you drew our attention to spanning the 1930s to the 1980s and thinking also about today, have we been having basically the same central debate in American politics, at least on domestic issues, for 100 years over the role of government in trying to bring about less inequality versus the sanctity of individualism and dismissing the structural underpinnings of inequality?

Professor Julian Zelizer: Yes. I mean, I think yes and no. I do think that's been a basic argument that we keep going through, and the Democrats gradually became the party that was supporting this idea of government as something we need more of and something that plays a big role in stabilizing the economy, in preventing some of the worst problems that emerge from a market based economy, and even helping the economy. The government is actually important to markets, and Republicans, yes, at least in the last few decades, same argument about individualism and state and local power. Yes, we go through that.

The no is it has lots of variations. There's lots of issues within that that become important in some moments and not in others. Since the 2000s, same sex marriage, for example, became a big question. That was not part of the debate decades ago. Yes, I think what you're touching on, if you step back, if you listen to these, there are some fundamental fault lines that we have been fighting about for a long time and will continue to do so in the future.

Brian Lehrer: We're in our 100 Years of 100 Things series, segment number 59, which is a twofer for these polarized times, and with Inauguration Day coming up, it's 100 years of inaugural addresses and 100 years of partisan politics with Julian Zelizer, the Princeton history professor who has a new book called In Defense of Partisanship. As we continue to move toward the present, when we come back from a break, looks like James in Sunnyside has an interesting call about the '90s as pivotal in this regard. James, you're up next right after this.

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC as we continue with 100 years of inaugural addresses and 100 years of partisan politics with Julian Zelizer, Princeton historian and author of the new book In Defense of Partisanship. James in Sunnyside, you're on WNYC. Hi, James.

James: Hey there. How's it going? My point was about Newt Gingrich. I felt like in the '90s, Newt Gingrich was the singular person in 100 years that changed American politics with the most impact, and he brought the idea that there was a no-go negotiation. There was either all or nothing on every item. They brought up morality. There was the blue dress scandal in the White House, which they talked about a lot, and they wouldn't allow bills to go through.

All of that time, they were still following up on the Jesse Helms and Andres Serrano-- the terrible art that the feds were funding and they wanted to eliminate all that. While that was all going on, the buildup to Al-Qaeda and Bin Laden and 911 were cooking, and no one was watching that because we were so distracted about the morality of the Democrats and how terrible they were at that time. I think that that started to be the point of why people became so polarized, is that he would never let anybody go.

He was the one that closed the government down for the first time that I knew about, and then that became like a device to defeat the other side, which I think happens often now as a threat.

Brian Lehrer: Good memory on all that stuff, the blue dress from the Clinton Monica Lewinsky affair, the art of Serrano being pilloried in a culture wars kind of way by Republicans at that time. James, you may not know, but Professor Zellingzer, our guest, wrote a previous book called Burning down the House about Newt Gingrich and the rise of the modern Republican party in the '90s. Right, Professor Zelizer?

Professor Julian Zelizer: That is true. I mean, I try to outline the impact that Gingrich had in the '80s already before he becomes Brian Lehrernd then when he becomes Brian Lehrert being one of the real pioneers, not the only, but certainly one of the key leaders in what I've called today hyper partisanship, what I talk about in the new book. I think he's the beginning of a trajectory from the 1980s and '90s where that's when procedures, basic procedures, routine parts of government become subject to partisan battle, such as funding the government.

Gingrich also introduces the idea of a say anything style where you don't have to worry really about eroding relations on Capitol Hill or in Washington. Then, you go to the Tea party in the 2000s and 10s, which take things even further, and it culminates with Trump. If you see a line connecting Newt Gingrich in the '80s to Trump in his first term right through today, you see just how a Republican Party really radicalized, changed dramatically, and changed the meaning of what partisanship was in the United States by creating such an extreme and, I would argue, destabilizing version of it.

Yes, the '80s and '90s are very important, understanding the roots and foundations of today.

Brian Lehrer: Although I think Mike in Jersey city remembers the '80s and '90s a little more positively than the last caller. Mike, you're on WNYC. Hi there.

Mike: Oh, thanks, Brian. Not to start off on a really negative note, but you know, guys, I'm 66 years old. I remember these times quite clearly, okay? It's like the call letters on WNYC should be changed to W1984. Simple case in point, Newt Gingrich specifically resigned before the impeachment proceedings against Bill Clinton. Okay? You guys, professor of history, et cetera, telling me all about that stuff, it's simply false. The tagline that's been going on during this segment is the Republicans and the Southern Democrats in the '50s.

In the 1950s, Dwight Eisenhower sent troops in to integrate a school, okay? In fact, I remember a NPR correspondent was one of the students. How you say these things, it doesn't make things better. Disinformation like that makes things worse. Now, regarding what I wanted to really call about, Ronald Reagan never controlled the House of Representatives during the 1980s and yet passed all sorts of legislation with the assistance of Southern Democrats. Okay? Although I guess the guys in this call just say with the assistance of racists. Okay?

Dan Rostenkowski was one of, if not the key player in passing the 1986 tax reform to which many people attribute a lot of prosperity. In the 1990s, you had Bill Clinton's plan after he got his clock cleaned in the 1994 midterm elections, decided to go into what was called triangulation, okay, in which he distanced himself from both parties. The result of that was that he and Newt Gingrich-- and I didn't like Bill Clinton until I saw what followed him, and I've come to appreciate him more, I've got to say.

He and Newt Gingrich and Bob Dole, to a lesser degree, all worked together to pass a whole lot of really great legislation and in fact, balanced the budget by the end of the decade. In addition to the fictional description of history that I've called to object about, I think this is wrong headed. Okay? I think the real issue, and maybe that's what you mean by hyper partisanship, is what I would call gollum of partisanship, when people in one party or another decide that all that matters is who has the precious, as it were, and not what's actually getting done or not getting done.

Brian Lehrer: Mike, thank you very much. Well, and keep calling us. Professor Zelizer, what do you think about that critique of the premise and the particular memories of the '80s and '90s?

Professor Julian Zelizer: Well, it's an interesting comment. I don't agree with that. I'd say in terms of the 1940s, '50s, '60s, the idea you had a conservative, a coalition of Southern Democrats with many, many Republicans, is just true. You can look at roll call votes, you can look at archives, you can look at any account of the period taken then. It wasn't some big mystery. It wasn't up for debate. Yes, President Eisenhower does send in troops, but many Republicans on Capitol Hill were working hand in hand on a regular basis with Democrats like James Eastland in Mississippi to make sure that no civil rights bill came up for a vote.

When there are breakthroughs, when someone like Senator Everett Dirksen In 1964, a Republican leader, joins forces with Northern Democrats to break the filibuster, it's notable because he's breaking with many members of his party, just as it was notable for Lyndon Johnson to break with the Southern Democrats.

The 1980s and '90s, of course, bipartisanship and partisanship are not totally binary, but if you asked many Democrats on the Hill what they thought of Ronald Reagan, even though there were moments they did work with him, like on taxes, in part because they felt pressure and unable to fight on that issue, that was why they joined hands, they fundamentally disliked much of what he was doing. They stood against him. The House of Representatives was a kind of barrier against conservatism.

House Democrats under Speaker O'Neill, Tip O'Neill, who's from Massachusetts, undercut Reagan as he tries to cut Social Security benefits. The same in the 1990s. Yes, there were moments of interaction and cooperation, but there were also very bitter fights, including the one that leads to the longest government shutdown that we had. Finally, I think in terms of Republican politics since then, I just think when you have a party willing to not raise the debt ceiling and threaten to send the nation into default over budget cuts or go after the integrity of the election system as we saw in 2020, that's a different kind of partisanship than we see from Democrats.

I have a very different read, and I just want to add, this isn't simply theory. This is based on decades and decades of what we have learned collectively as scholars, journalists, and a nation

Brian Lehrer: Another listener texts, "Don't forget Barry Goldwater's comment that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice." Does that come up in your book about partisanship?

Professor Julian Zelizer: Well, I mean, I do think that era of Republican politics had complements to the liberal Democrats I'm talking about. Yes, I mean, Goldwater was actually expressing frustration with his own party and the problems of watered down democracy. I do think that quote is important, and it's also important as a starting and launching point for what I believe Gingrich and future Republicans really institutionalize.

Brian Lehrer: The last chapter of your book is called Toward a Responsible Partisanship circa 2020s. I see you also have an article in The New Republic called Partisanship Has Worked For Democrats Before, It Can Again. This last question in our sort of twofer 100-year segment, 100 years of partisanship, 100 years of partisan inaugural addresses, is your responsible partisanship concept about everyone's interest or helping the Democratic Party?

Professor Julian Zelizer: No, it's about everyone's interest. I think if we have two very strong parties and a Republican Party that reflects everything that came out in this election but does it in a way where there is stability in our election system, in our legislative system, that's a good thing. I would argue that President Elect Trump, he does practice hyper partisanship, but he's very effectively used the power of party, certainly in his first term and since, to advance his agenda. I don't think this is about Democrats. It's about why partisanship is important, but it's about how to do this in a way where we don't destroy ourselves piece by piece.

Brian Lehrer: In our last 20 seconds or so, what will you be listening for in this context when President Elect Trump gives his second inaugural address? The first one got known as the American carnage speech.

Professor Julian Zelizer: I think this address, I'm listening to the signal of what are the two themes or three themes that he is going to emphasize as the governing agenda for the GOP in the next year or so. What is he going to talk about that he sees as the uniting issue for Republicans? I think that will then flow into what we see in Capitol Hill.

Brian Lehrer: That is our segment on 100 years of partisan politics and 100 years of partisan inaugural addresses with Professor Julian Zelizer from Princeton, who's also a CNN commentator and an NPR contributor and author of the new book In Defense of Partisanship. If you want to see Professor Zelizer in person, next Wednesday evening, January 22nd, from 6:30 to 7:30, he'll be in conversation at the New York Historical Society with Margaret Hoover of PBS's Firing Line.

See the New York Historical Society's website for tickets. That is a ticketed event. Let's see. That web address is nyhistory.org if you're interested in that. Professor Zelizer, this has been so interesting. Thank you so much.

Professor Julian Zelizer: Thanks for having me. Bye-bye.

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Thanks for listening today. Stay tuned for Alison.

 

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