Greetings. This is Bill Moyers, and I'm here to see if we can step out of our Stone Age brain for a few minutes while we talk about politics. What's that? You're insulted? You don't have a Stone Age brain? That's what you think. As you're about to hear, part of us is perpetually plasticine.

Our roots wind back two and a half billion years to hairy-faced ancestors with thick hands and short stubby fingers

wrapped around big clubs that will carry them from the cave as they head out for another day

of hunting and gathering.

It's true.

There's a little bit of the primitive in all of us, and more than a little bit in many of us.

And that's why Rick Schinkman is sitting across from me at this very minute.

That's right.

Rick Schenckman, the historian, editor and publisher of the

indispensable website, History News Network. That's where I often begin my day after, of course,

checking in with Bill Moyers.com. History News Network is rich in the perspectives of the past

that help us see more clearly the politics of the present. Rick Schimpman is a scholar

of the American voter. In 2008, he published a book title, Just How Stupid Are We, Facing the Truth about

the American Voter? And now, as another presidential campaign unfolds like a runaway circus parade,

his new book couldn't be more timely. Jot down the

title, Political Animals, How Our Stone Age Brain Gets in the Way of Smart Politics. Rick Schinkman,

welcome to our show. Thank you. Glad to be here. Were you surprised, have you been surprised,

that Donald Truck has been so able to play on the

fears of the American voter? No. You know, I was really shocked by the popularity of Bernie Sanders,

but when Donald Trump came along down that escalator back in June at Trump Tower, and he started

talking about the outsider, basically these

Mexican immigrants who were coming across the border without proper papers.

...