The Ezra Klein Show

Avik Roy advised Mitt Romney’s 2012 campaign on health care, ran the policy shop on Rick Perry’s 2016 campaign, and then worked for Marco Rubio after Perry dropped out. So Roy’s Republican credentials are pretty solid. But he’s aghast at the direction his party has taken in recent years. The question Roy asks of conservatives today is a profound one: what is it you’re seeking to conserve? Under Donald Trump, he fears Republicans are fighting to conserve the idea of America as a fundamentally white, Christian country. “Trump showed me that white identity politics was the dominant force driving the Republican grass roots,” Roy told the Atlantic.Roy, who recently founded The Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity, believes conservatism believes is bigger than that — and in this podcast, he explains why, even as he clearly details the difficulties the movement faces moving beyond white identity politics. We also go deep into healthcare, a subject Roy and I have been arguing about for years. A few other topi