Report From The Medved Class Colloquium

Although a self-described “punk liberal activist” during our days at Yale, Michael Medved did a right turn after 1969 and is now widely known as a conservative author and media figure.  On September 2, after his daily 3-hour talk-radio show, he took a half-hour break then joined over 100 interested classmates for the fourth in our series of Class Colloquia, this one being “A View from the Right,” one conservative’s look at the current state of politics.

Here is a recording of Mike’s presentation and responses to the Q&A.

Michael began by observing that this year’s election reminds him of Nixon vs Humphrey in our senior year.  He sketched some parallels:

• Everybody agreed things were terrible – the War, the riots (1,000 buildings burned down in Watts 1965), 2:1 people saying the country was on the wrong track
• A “happy” candidate and a “grumpy” one (Humphrey:Biden and Nixon:Trump)
• A Democratic candidate who generated less excitement than his primary challengers (Humphrey:McCarthy/Bobby Kennedy and Biden:Sanders/Warren)
• A Democratic coalition with more energy on the left, restricting the candidate’s ability to move to the center to win unaffiliated voters
• Everyone saying “This is the most important election ever,” but a sense that the system is broken

And some differences:

• This time we have an incumbent running as if he weren’t, and the focus of both campaigns is on him, rather than the issues
• The media are virtually all partisan, with hardly a “Cronkite” figure to be seen anywhere

Mike thinks this year will also be close, with the worst-possible scenario another 2016: Trump wins the Electoral College while losing the popular vote by millions. Though rejecting the “Never Trumper” label (“Never is a long time …”), Mike believes another 4 years of Trump would be deeply injurious. He concluded his remarks, however, with this optimistic comparison to 1968: “However this craziness sorts itself out, America will go on.”

Michael posed three pressing needs for the country:

• Presidential electoral reform (not abolition of the Electoral College, which requires Constitutional amendment that just won’t happen, but sensible moves away from the current “winner take all” system)
• Collaborative bipartisan progress on immigration reform, and
• Restoring balance on the media landscape

He then responded to a range of questions from classmates, such as:

• Have the two political parties simply lost the ability to nominate reasonable candidates?  We also need changes in the the whole campaign process.  Campaigns should start much later (other countries do it in 4-6 weeks). When conventions, rather than primaries, actually chose candidates, there was  a better chance of candidates that really represented the whole party rather than the extremes.
• Will Trump refuse to step aside if he loses? No, there are plenty of “guardrails” against that, but he might contest the results, which would prolong the agony.
• What does Biden have to do to win?  Show that he’s sharp, show energy, and express support for the police, who in spite of recent problems are still among the most favorably-regarded by the American people…

…and for Mike’s analysis of many other factors that could shift the balance in the next 60 days, and even on November 3 and after – watch the video!