Thomas Ricks: Politics, as Seen from Aristotle to Trump

“And so I remembered from college: When you’re facing a problem that seems deeply puzzling, go back to fundamentals, go to first principles. So I took Aristotle’s Politics off my shelf, my old college copy, and reread it in the context of the election of Donald Trump.”

On January 5th, Thomas Koenig was joined by Thomas Ricks to discuss his latest book, First Principles: What America’s Founders Learned from the Greeks and Romans and How That Shaped Our Country. Mr. Ricks is a journalist and author specializing in military affairs and national security. He was part of Pulitzer Prize-winning teams at both The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post and is currently a Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security. In this interview with Mr. Koenig, Mr. Ricks discusses how ancient Roman and Greek philosophies can inform contemporary politics, how the Founders were influenced by these philosophies, and the policy changes he supports after having explored these ideas in First Principles. This interview was conducted one day prior to yesterday’s events at the United States Capitol.

A video of the conversation is available on YouTube.

Hi, I’m Tom Koenig, and I’m joined today by Pulitzer Prize winning author, Thomas Ricks. Mr. Ricks, thanks so much for joining us.

You’re welcome.

So we’re here today to discuss your new book, First Principles: What [America’s] Founders Learned from the Greeks and Romans and How That Shaped Our Country. So, Mr. Ricks, I want to start with a pretty straightforward question: What made you write this book?

The election of 2016. Sometimes people don’t know where books come from. I can tell you very precisely that about four years ago, I woke up on the Wednesday after the presidential election of 2016, and I went down to my library. And so I don’t understand what just happened: why the people of the United States elected Donald Trump as president, and what that says about the country.