Summary: This episode originally aired on June 15, 2016. We will be back tomorrow with a new episode of the Federalist Radio Hour. Yuval Levin, editor of National Affairs, joined The Federalist Radio Hour to discuss his new book, “The Fractured Republic: Renewing America’s Social Contract in the Age of Individualism.” Levin explained why baby boomers are so nostalgic about the way America used to be and the frustration with the present moment. Levin’s book walks through the America of the 20th century and how it’s isolated from the rest of American history. “The country that came out of World War II was an incredible cohesive and unified version of the United States, very usually so,” he said. “Almost immediately after the war that began to break down.” One lesson conservatives can learn from 2016 already is that they have had the wrong impression of the Republican electorate. “Donald Trump has just run roughshod over all those litmus tests,” he said. “The idea that the Republicans electorate is a highly conservative voting base strikes me as a mistake that’s analogous to the mistake social conservatives make about the country at large.” Levin discussed the areas that both political parties are blind to, and how our fragmented national life can play to its strengths within it’s diversity and decentralization. // //
