“Show me the incentive, and I’ll show you the outcome,” Berkshire Hathaway Vice Chairman Charlie Munger used to say. In my new memoir, THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR: FROM JFK TO TRUMP, I write that the outcome we see in today’s public arena is because there is not much incentive for forging the kind of consensus that founded and built our Republic. And without consensus, instability, radicalization, and politically inspired violence make it harder to keep the Republic. You can watch my episode of Inside Politics (@NC5) here: newschannel5.com/videos/plus… In THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR: FROM JFK TO TRUMP, I paint portraits of the presidents I worked with, tell stories about what I saw behind the scenes, and recount the lessons I learned about American politics and our country’s future. THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR is out now from @PostHillPress. You can use this link to order: simonandschuster.com/books/T…

I believe it takes fighting fire with fire, I write in the epilogue of my new memoir, THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR: FROM JFK TO TRUMP. Since social media is the root of the problem, social media must be part of the solution. I do not mean trying to defeat one’s opponent by adopting an even more extreme position or even coarser language. Instead, use social media messages to attract into primaries more voters who prefer candidates who want to govern instead of those who think their job is done when they finish their speech. Today, as few as 5 percent of the registered voters—mostly those attracted by the extreme left or extreme right—choose primary winners, leaving those who prefer a candidate who wants to govern with no one to vote for in the general election. The unpleasant truth is that “if your political views are center left or center right—and a majority of us have such views—your vote doesn’t count,” Sen. Ben Sasse said. “You are in the majority in the middle, and you are left out.” You can watch my episode of Clean Slate with Becky Magura here: pbs.org/video/lamar-alexande… In THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR: FROM JFK TO TRUMP, I paint portraits of the presidents I worked with, tell stories about what I saw behind the scenes, and recount the lessons I learned about American politics and our country’s future. THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR is out now from @PostHillPress. You can use this link to order: simonandschuster.com/books/T…

As I write in my new memoir, THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR: FROM JFK TO TRUMP, Alex Haley was a friend and a frequent guest at the governor’s residence when we lived there. Our children knew him well. He told them stories from ROOTS. Then, they either read the book, or we read it to them. It is true that ROOTS has a few violent scenes, but the passage of Africans to America was violent. We wanted our children to know the truth of our country’s history—all of it, not some of it, overcoming the bad as well as celebrating the good. We wanted them to learn about the Confederate generals as well as the Union soldiers, the lack of civil rights, and the eventual winning of civil rights. We don’t believe in canceling part of our history. We wanted our children to understand that the American Republic has never been a perfect union but that its greatness is that it has always struggled to reach noble goals. As the former NAACP chairman Ben Hooks told his students at the University of Memphis, “We’ve come a long way, but we have a ways to go.” For Alex’s part, his favorite saying was, “Find the Good and Praise It,” which is the title of my chapter about our friendship. He especially liked to say that to people who were busy finding things wrong with his country, America. It was a powerful message coming from the grandson of slaves who wrote THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MALCOLM X and ROOTS. In THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR: FROM JFK TO TRUMP, I paint portraits of the presidents I worked with, tell stories about what I saw behind the scenes, and recount the lessons I learned about American politics and our country’s future. THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR is out now from @PostHillPress. You can use this link to order: simonandschuster.com/books/T…

“I have never had three boys as fast as they are. Run one hundred yards,” the Vanderbilt track coach said to me one day in 1960 as I was exercising on the university track. I did. “10.1 seconds. Remarkable,” he said, looking at a big stopwatch. “Why don’t you be the fourth?” The next year our 440-yard relay team set a school record. (I have always thought that Coach Herc Alley fudged my time to recruit his fourth runner.) Running track taught me this lesson: join a team with people better than you are. I’m in the center, back row. Courtesy of Vanderbilt University.” This is an excerpt from my new memoir, THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR: FROM JFK TO TRUMP, where I paint portraits of the presidents I worked with, tell stories about what I saw behind the scenes, and recount the lessons I learned about American politics and our country’s future. THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR is out now from @PostHillPress. You can use this link to order: simonandschuster.com/books/T…

I talked with @beckymagura on her @PBS show about how to “tame the social media algorithms in our Digital Democracy” that polarize our country so that our children will be able to grow up having actual conversations with one another and be able to discuss things about which they don’t agree. In the epilogue to my new memoir, THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR: FROM JFK TO TRUMP, I write about how adjusting to changes in methods of communication is not a new skill. Five centuries ago, the Catholic Church feared that the first printing press would create books too dangerous to put in the hands of people. Since then, we have learned to live with radio, telephone, movies, and television. Now the worry is that social media will destroy our Republic—and, if it does not, artificial intelligence will. We will just have to learn to live with both. In THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR: FROM JFK TO TRUMP, I paint portraits of the presidents I worked with, tell stories about what I saw behind the scenes, and recount the lessons I learned about American politics and our country’s future. THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR is out now from @PostHillPress. You can use this link to order: simonandschuster.com/books/T…

Thank you to Brittany Tarwater (@WVLTBrittany) for the wonderful conversation at @MaryvilleC about my memoir, THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR, and to the attendees and Neighborly Books for making the evening special.

During my conversation with Mitch Daniels (@purduemitch) on The Future of Liberty podcast, presented by @Liberty_Fund, I enjoyed the opportunity to discuss the rise of "Digital Democracies," the end of two-party competition, and how it's pushed people to the extremes. You can watch the full episode here: thefutureofliberty.org/episo…

I recommend four Great American Storytellers (plus, upon the recommendation of George Will, Jon Meacham, Ken Burns, and others), the stories in my memoir, which made its debut on the New York Times Best Seller list last month. Featured: - ROOTS by Alex Haley | @doubledaybooks - FRANKLIN AND WINSTON by Jon Meacham | @randomhouse - THE PATH BETWEEN THE SEAS: THE CREATION OF THE PANAMA CANAL, 1870-1914 by David McCullough | @simonschuster - THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN by Mark Twain | Charles L. Webster And Company - THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR: FROM JFK TO TRUMP by Lamar Alexander | @PostHillPress In THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR: FROM JFK TO TRUMP, I paint portraits of the presidents I worked with, tell stories about what I saw behind the scenes, and recount the lessons I learned about American politics and our country’s future. THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR is out now from Post Hill Press. You can use this link to order: simonandschuster.com/books/T…

In chapter 41 of my memoir, THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR: FROM JFK TO TRUMP, I describe how the year 2008 ended four decades of vigorous two-party competition—Tennessee soon became one of forty states in which one political party controlled the governorship and both houses of the legislature or had enough power to block vetoes from the governor of the other party. In other words, Tennesseans are among the 80 percent of Americans who live in a state where the minority party does not have a meaningful voice in government, according to the Wall Street Journal. In his memoir, Senator Everett Dirksen wrote that his practice was to adopt a “tentative position” on an issue from which he would then proceed to find a solution among competing views. That skill made Dirksen the most powerful legislator of his time—although it attracted criticism for being unprincipled. “One of my principles is flexibility,” Dirksen would reply. Dirksen might not survive in today’s “Digital Democracy,” which rewards politicians who stick to extreme positions to raise money and win primaries. There is not much reward for those who work in the problem-solving center, adjusting their initial positions until they agree. It should come as no surprise, then, that there is not much market for consensus. You can watch my conversation with Jonathan Martin (@jmart) at @PoliticsProse Bookstore at the Wharf here: piped.video/watch?v=W8bkgSyR… In THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR: FROM JFK TO TRUMP, I paint portraits of the presidents I worked with, tell stories about what I saw behind the scenes, and recount the lessons I learned about American politics and our country’s future. THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR is out now from @PostHillPress. You can use this link to order: simonandschuster.com/books/T…

It was a delight to sit down with John Seigenthaler, Jr (@JSeigenthaler) at the @tnstatemuseum this past weekend to talk about my new memoir, THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR: FROM JFK TO TRUMP. You can watch the full conversation here: tnmuseum.org/videos/videos/l… In THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR: FROM JFK TO TRUMP, I paint portraits of the presidents I worked with, tell stories about what I saw behind the scenes, and recount the lessons I learned about American politics and our country’s future. THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR is out now from @PostHillPress. You can use this link to order: simonandschuster.com/books/T…

In Chapter 49 of my new memoir, THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR: FROM JFK TO TRUMP (now available online and in bookstores), I write about inviting myself for a ride on Air Force One with President Barack Obama. The White House had announced that on Friday, January 9th, 2015, the President would travel to Tennessee. I had just become chairman of the Senate’s education and health committee, and I wanted a chance to talk with him about fixing the “No Child Left Behind” law, simplifying the cumbersome federal college aid application form (FAFSA), and speeding up getting medical miracles into patients’ lives. Even though Republicans had won majorities in Congress, the Democratic president would have to sign any new law. And in his first few years, Obama had been hard to work with in a bipartisan way. On that plane ride, I asked the President not to draw lines in the sand while I was negotiating a bill to send K-12 school decisions back to states. In exchange, I told him I would not bring him a bill that he couldn’t sign. At lunch that day, our conversation kick-started the process of enacting the 21st Century Cures law the following year, which helped lay the groundwork for dealing with the Covid crisis. Obama called the law we worked on together to fix “No Child Left Behind” a Christmas miracle. It took a while to get to know Obama well enough to work with him, but I found him to be good to his word. Even though I disagreed with the President’s liberal views, I figured that the people had elected him and elected me, and they expected us to work together when we could to get a result when we could. In THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR: FROM JFK TO TRUMP, I paint portraits of the presidents I worked with, tell stories about what I saw behind the scenes, and recount the lessons I learned about American politics and our country’s future. THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR is out now from @PostHillPress. You can use this link to order: simonandschuster.com/books/T…

I 𝘢𝘭𝘮𝘰𝘴𝘵 met Dwight D. Eisenhower, too, which would have added one more story to my memoir about working with twelve presidents, THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR: FROM JFK TO TRUMP. In July of 1957, the summer before my senior year at Maryville High School, I was one of 96 Boys Nation “senators” ushered into the White House Rose Garden. (There were 96 of us instead of 100 because Alaska and Hawaii were not yet states). Ike walked out of the Oval Office and spoke to us. He was just as I had imagined: big smile, erect posture, pleasant manner, commanding presence. To me, he was just as much a war hero as a president because this was only 12 years after the end of World War II. After he spoke, the President walked back into his office, so I wasn’t able to do what Bill Clinton did at the 1963 Boys Nation when he maneuvered to the front of the line to have his photograph made with President Kennedy. I guess that’s one more example of why Clinton won the race to become the first president of our generation—and I didn’t—which I write about in Chapter 31 of my memoir. You can read the @FreeBeacon's review of my memoir here: freebeacon.com/culture/life-… In THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR: FROM JFK TO TRUMP, I paint portraits of the presidents I worked with, tell stories about what I saw behind the scenes, and recount the lessons I learned about American politics and our country’s future. THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR is out now from @PostHillPress. You can use this link to order: simonandschuster.com/books/T…

I had a wonderful discussion with former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels (@purduemitch) on The Future of Liberty podcast, presented by @Liberty_Fund, about my new memoir, THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR, the constitutional responsibility of the Senate and Congress, and the importance of decorum for those in public offices. You can watch the full interview here: thefutureofliberty.org/episo…