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Speaker 1: Is the war of all against all. It's this constant

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Speaker 1: reality show. But his reality show is our reality. People

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Speaker 1: fought at Lexison, conquered at Yorktown, so that reason and

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Speaker 1: deliberation would at least have a chance against force and accident.

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Speaker 1: Despair is a sin, Cynicism is a sin. Democracy has

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Speaker 1: to deliver or democracy doesn't survive. This is Gavin Newsom,

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Speaker 1: and this is John Meachum.

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Speaker 2: John Meacham, thank you for joining us today on the podcast.

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Speaker 2: This weekend seemed to me a perfect distillation of our

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Speaker 2: political life. You had the super Bowl halftime show, Bad Bunny.

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Speaker 2: We then had this alternative programming with Kid Rock, Turning

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Speaker 2: Point USA, and it's interesting.

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Speaker 3: I was turning on.

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Speaker 2: I get my blog every morning of headlines, and I thought,

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Speaker 2: just read these headlines and get your reflection. It says

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Speaker 2: how the NF lost America at halftime. Next headline, it's

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Speaker 2: exactly why halftime show is exactly what the left wants

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Speaker 2: America to look like. The anti American super Bowl halftime

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Speaker 2: show should be a wake up call to real Americans.

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Speaker 2: Those are just some of the headlines this morning. Reflecting

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Speaker 2: on Sunday's events, how do those events shape your thinking?

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Speaker 2: About the world we're living in at this moment, and

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Speaker 2: how should we look at them through the prism of

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Speaker 2: so much of the work that you've done as an

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Speaker 2: historian that has been chronicling events dissimilar and not dissimilar

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Speaker 2: to those we're experiencing today.

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Speaker 1: Well, thanks for having me, Governor. I think one of

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Speaker 1: the things that we have to deal with is politics

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Speaker 1: and culture have become so entwined. And that's a newish thing.

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Speaker 1: It's not entirely new. But the notion that we would

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Speaker 1: have had a debate about the halftime show in the

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Speaker 1: Reagan of years is a little crazy, right, interesting. So,

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Speaker 1: and that's actually what the forty fifth and forty seventh

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Speaker 1: president wants. No American president, and I'm very careful when

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Speaker 1: I say something's unprecedented. It's against my business model. So

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Speaker 1: when I say it, you know, pay attention. No American

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Speaker 1: president has ever had the grip on the mind share

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Speaker 1: of the country, and it's part of his strategy. It's ubiquity,

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Speaker 1: it's exhaustion. I feel guilty because I fall prey to it.

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Speaker 1: I get I'm not sure what to react to every day,

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Speaker 1: and so sometimes I just think I'm going to stay

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Speaker 1: in the nineteen fifties, right, or the eighteen fifties or

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Speaker 1: the seventeen fifties. But that's the strategy and we can't

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Speaker 1: fall prey to it. Because men hit Omaha Beach, people

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Speaker 1: took risks in the underground railroad, people fought at Lexison

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Speaker 1: conquered and at Yorktown, so that, as Alexander Hamilton said,

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Speaker 1: reason and deliberation would at least have a chance against

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Speaker 1: force and accident. And to me, that's whether it's the

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Speaker 1: Super Bowl or ice or these lies about the election,

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Speaker 1: which we should talk about, because I think that's a

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Speaker 1: genuinely unique thing we have to deal with. It's about

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Speaker 1: reason and deliberation versus raw force and accident, and we

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Speaker 1: have a choice to make. We haven't been invaded by aliens, right,

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Speaker 1: This is part of who we are. One of the things,

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Speaker 1: with all respect to democratic politicians, that I resist what

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Speaker 1: I hear is a lot of your colleagues around the

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Speaker 1: country will say this isn't who we are. Well, of course,

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Speaker 1: it's who we are. Just what matters is what is

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Speaker 1: fifty one percent of us? You know, And that's where

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Speaker 1: I think our tension has to be is not thinking

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Speaker 1: that this is a ninety ten question, it's a big, complicated,

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Speaker 1: disputatious democracy. You govern a state that would what be

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Speaker 1: the fifth largest economy or something?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, fourth today, fifth next year with India's rise. But yeah,

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Speaker 2: size of twenty one state populations combined put it in perspective.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, so it's vast and it's uneven because and you

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Speaker 1: know you you all have don't have proportionate power because

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Speaker 1: of the way the constitutional structure was set up. But

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Speaker 1: that's the system we have. And one of the things

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Speaker 1: I think we're learning. And I say that, I say

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Speaker 1: this is a centrist. Look, I'm George hw Bush's biographer.

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Speaker 1: You know, I know I look really radical. My fashion

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Speaker 1: sense comes from Fred McMurray and my three sons. Right,

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Speaker 1: So exactly, you know, a member of the squad that

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Speaker 1: said I am a constitutionalist, not because the Constitution is perfect,

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Speaker 1: but because it was, in fact the best they could

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Speaker 1: come up with to keep a really complicated, even then

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Speaker 1: a complicated now even more complicated populous together obeying a

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Speaker 1: social covenant, which is that we respect each other because

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Speaker 1: it's in our interest to If you respect me, I'm

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Speaker 1: more likely to respect you. And it's against human nature, right,

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Speaker 1: it's a lot. You know, democracy is about give and take,

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Speaker 1: and it's a lot more fun to take than to give.

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Speaker 1: The point is that just enough of us give so

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Speaker 1: that we have this path forward.

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Speaker 2: Jo when you say it's not who we are as

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Speaker 2: sort of an observation, perhaps atque critique and clap back

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Speaker 2: to some of the the you know, utterances that people may,

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Speaker 2: including members of my party, you mean that historically, I

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Speaker 2: mean democracies us and we're We've always been messy.

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Speaker 3: You talk about fifty one percent? Is that?

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Speaker 2: Is that what you mean ultimately that we are We're

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Speaker 2: both and we're complicated. You talk about Jackson and the cruelty,

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Speaker 2: the competency both, and I mean this notion that's a

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Speaker 2: messy me.

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Speaker 3: We're messy entirely.

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Speaker 1: I'm sure you're a better person than I am. That's

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Speaker 1: not hard, So don't get cocky. But I know that

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Speaker 1: if I do the right thing fifty one percent of

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Speaker 1: the time, that's a hell of a good day. And

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Speaker 1: I don't have that many of them. And a democracy

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Speaker 1: is the fullest manifestation of all of us. You know,

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Speaker 1: we're celebrating, commemorating the two hundred and fiftieth, but Here's

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Speaker 1: what I think is as true as anything. We've really

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Speaker 1: only been a multi racial democracy since nineteen sixty five. Right,

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Speaker 1: we're sixty years you know, we're sixty five years old.

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Speaker 1: We're not two hundred and fifty years old. So so

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Speaker 1: how you know, I think about if you look like

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Speaker 1: the two of us, it's been a great two hundred

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Speaker 1: and fifty years. If you don't look like us, it's

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Speaker 1: been a little rougher. And so that's not to say, oh,

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Speaker 1: the past is terrible, let's cancel it. It's not that

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Speaker 1: what we have to look at the past, you know,

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Speaker 1: I think not with a censorious heart or with a

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Speaker 1: kind of mindless celebration, But we look at in the eye.

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Speaker 1: We realize that there were competing forces, Our appetites and

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Speaker 1: ambitions shaped us, and yet just enough of us, at

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Speaker 1: critical points fought for independence, achieved the end finally, the

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Speaker 1: end of slavery, undid legalize, Jim Crow, defeated Hitler, stood

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Speaker 1: against Soviet totalitarianism, and it wasn't foreordained. But just enough

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Speaker 1: of us. And so the question now really is will

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Speaker 1: just enough of us say that this authoritarian adjacent administration

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Speaker 1: and this movement that is more about I think identity

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Speaker 1: and power than any actual ideological or policy agenda, will

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Speaker 1: that prevail.

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Speaker 2: How proximate is it to prior times in our history?

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Speaker 2: I mean we are also prone. It's never been like

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Speaker 2: this before. And I mean, imagine you clap back on

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Speaker 2: that pretty aggressively.

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Speaker 1: I do. I think whenever you say clap back, I

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Speaker 1: think about Speaker Pelosi at that State of the.

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Speaker 3: Union, ripping up the state the speech.

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Speaker 1: Oh god, yeah, Speaker Pelosi is like if Napoleon had

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Speaker 1: worn the Manolo Blonis, right. I mean, she's incredible, incredible woman.

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Speaker 1: I do whatever she says because it's easier to say

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Speaker 1: yes quickly.

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Speaker 2: Trustful, you have no idea. Remember you're talking to here.

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Speaker 2: I'm sitting up in my chair right now.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I know. So here's my confession. Where I was

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Speaker 1: wrong and where I think I'm right. For the first

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Speaker 1: four years almost exactly, I thought President Trump was a

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Speaker 1: difference of degree but not kind. That is, from six

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Speaker 1: to fifteen to twenty, almost everything he did. I mean,

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Speaker 1: the behavior is horrible, but in terms of discernible public action,

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Speaker 1: you could find it. Ar that's Huey Long, that's George Wallace.

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Speaker 1: You know, you could sort of place it and it

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Speaker 1: was recognizable that changed in what I call the unfolding

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Speaker 1: January sixth. It's not just January sixth. It was the

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Speaker 1: fake electors. It was the durability of the lies. It

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Speaker 1: was the attempt to manufacture a crisis that Since we're

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Speaker 1: going to dork out for a second, i'll throw this

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Speaker 1: out at you. If Mike Pence had not done what

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Speaker 1: he did, you know, the plan, as they said, was

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Speaker 1: to create so much chaos that the House would have

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Speaker 1: to make the decision if Trump had prevailed in the

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Speaker 1: House in twenty twenty one, What do you do if

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Speaker 1: you have a constitutionally sanctioned remedy for an illegal result? Right?

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Speaker 1: I mean, how do you? What do you do? And

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Speaker 1: what is what I think is a particularly virulent and

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Speaker 1: it's going to prove to be particularly stubborn legacy of this,

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Speaker 1: of this movement of Trump and and President Trump and

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Speaker 1: the MAGA, is this distrust in elections whose results you

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Speaker 1: don't like. If you think historically Dams didn't do it

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Speaker 1: in eighteen hundred, Andrew Jackson in eighteen twenty four hashtagged it.

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Speaker 1: He branded it a corrupt bargain, but he came back

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Speaker 1: to Nashville and ran again. Nobody stormed the capitol. Douglas

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Speaker 1: and Breckenridge didn't do it in eighteen sixty. Richard Nixon

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Speaker 1: didn't do it in nineteen sixty. Hubert Humphrey didn't do

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Speaker 1: it in nineteen sixty eight, Jerald Ford didn't do it

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Speaker 1: in These are infinitesimal elections. And of course, most famously,

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Speaker 1: our friend Al Gore didn't do it in two thousand

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Speaker 1: and So that is a difference not of degree, but

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Speaker 1: of kind. And it is about the social covenant, right,

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Speaker 1: It's about you accept rules, and you accept when you

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Speaker 1: lose because you trust the arena and you trust that

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Speaker 1: the next time you might prevail. And when that gets broken,

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Speaker 1: when that trust is gone, which is what President Trump

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Speaker 1: wants to do, right. He wants us fighting about the

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Speaker 1: super Bowl. He wants us just battling constantly, because his

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Speaker 1: view of the world is Hobbsian fundamentally. I don't think

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Speaker 1: you know it's that it's the war of all against all.

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Speaker 1: It's this constant reality show. But the problem is, of course,

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Speaker 1: as you know better than anybody, his reality show is

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Speaker 1: our reality.

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Speaker 3: You look back.

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Speaker 2: I mean, you're as a historian and you've made the

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Speaker 2: point about being a centrist and made the point about

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Speaker 2: work you've done with the Bush family, notably George H. W. Bush,

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Speaker 2: and I want to go back to that in a moment.

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Speaker 2: Have you found yourself because of Trump to show more

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Speaker 2: of your bias or do you feel your objectivity is

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Speaker 2: still whole, meaning you are analyzing the facts. They may

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Speaker 2: come through the prison or the lens which we see

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Speaker 2: them as a little bit more partisan, but that they

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Speaker 2: are more still in your objectivity as an a story.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, so I have a slightly different view of this

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Speaker 1: than a lot of historians do. I'm basically a biographer,

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Speaker 1: and so I paint portraits, and so if you'll stick

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Speaker 1: with this metaphor with me, But when you paint a portrait,

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Speaker 1: you do it according to the light that's streaming in

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Speaker 1: the window. So any story you tell in retrospect will

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Speaker 1: be shaped by the time in which you find yourself.

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Speaker 1: I have become much more And President Biden was a

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Speaker 1: friend and I helped him when I when I could

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Speaker 1: not on policy. I pay plenty of taxes, I'm good.

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Speaker 1: But I believed that and believe that he was a

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Speaker 1: constitutionalist and that the journey toward a more perfect union

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Speaker 1: and the arc of a moral universe were in better

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Speaker 1: hands in his obviously than the once in future incumbents.

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Speaker 1: That said, I think it's fascinating that basically kind of

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Speaker 1: Bush forty one even Reagan Republicans are now more center

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Speaker 1: or even quasi center left because of the way the

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Speaker 1: world has moved, they haven't. It's like what your predecessor,

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Speaker 1: Ronald Reagan said. He didn't leave the Democratic Party. The

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Speaker 1: Democratic decritic Party left him. And in many ways, I

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Speaker 1: do think that I don't want to be overly grand

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Speaker 1: about this, but I feel that to who much is given,

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Speaker 1: much is expected. I've been incredibly fortunate in my life.

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Speaker 1: I was born a citizen of the United States of America.

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Speaker 1: I'm a boringly heterosexual, white, Southern male Episcopaalian. You know,

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Speaker 1: I'm good, right, And so I think if you don't

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Speaker 1: call them as you see them, what's the point, right?

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Speaker 1: If in this moment you are one is not willing

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Speaker 1: to say, you know what, a creeping authority, creeping to

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Speaker 1: galloping authoritarian in the White House, plague on the oldest

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Speaker 1: of American fears. If you're not willing to stand up

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Speaker 1: against that, what are you willing to stand up for.

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Speaker 2: And as you paint that sort of trying to paint

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Speaker 2: that picture as you described in that light, which I

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Speaker 2: appreciate the visual and being a biographer not just in

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Speaker 2: a story. In that context, how important is it to

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Speaker 2: have some the temper of time, meaning to reflect not

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Speaker 2: in the moment, in the hot take, but looking through

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Speaker 2: the lens of history and having perspective, as my mom

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Speaker 2: would say, seek first to understand before you're understood, to

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Speaker 2: avoid the punditry.

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Speaker 3: I think, as you're painting.

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Speaker 1: Picture, that's a great question I see. I hugely admire

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Speaker 1: people who have the guts like you to go into

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Speaker 1: the arena. I may not agree with everything people in

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Speaker 1: the arena want to do, but I've never been on

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Speaker 1: a ballot, right, And I think that what used to

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Speaker 1: simply be a journalistic impulse to be kind of like

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Speaker 1: Beavis and Butt heead just to kick people in the

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Speaker 1: shens because you could, which was journalistic until the iPhone

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Speaker 1: and then everybody became that. One of the things I

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Speaker 1: say when I'm lucky enough to give commencement speeches, which

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Speaker 1: I love to do, and you're really addressing the grandparents

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Speaker 1: because the kids are hungover, and this line has never failed.

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Speaker 1: I say, just because you have the means to express

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Speaker 1: an opinion quickly does not mean you have an opinion

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Speaker 1: worth expressing quickly. Nice, and I really do think I

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Speaker 1: got out when Musk bought Twitter. I got off everything.

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Speaker 1: I am much more healthy in a mental way. I

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Speaker 1: don't follow the minute to minute, and headlines in history

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Speaker 1: just don't move in tandem. And the great examples of

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Speaker 1: this are Harry Truman, who left Washington with a twenty

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Speaker 1: percent approval rating, but by nineteen seventy everybody wanted to

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Speaker 1: be Truman, George hw Bush thirty nine percent of the country.

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Speaker 1: Only thirty nine percent of the country wanted him re elected,

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Speaker 1: but he died a kind of hero of the republic

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Speaker 1: because people saw Sometimes another little metaphor here, sometimes you

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Speaker 1: can't really see a mountain until you get farther far

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Speaker 1: enough away from it. Nice and I really believe that,

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Speaker 1: And I think it's really important to say, which I

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Speaker 1: think is true, that Ronald Reagan, George hw Bush, George W. Bush,

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Speaker 1: John McCain, and Mitt Romney could not be nominated by

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Speaker 1: this Republican party, and why that doesn't force my Republican

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Speaker 1: friends I call them Peter Malar Republicans, right, they're on

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Speaker 1: the driving range. Why that doesn't lead to more of

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Speaker 1: a coherent plan of action, I don't really understand. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I understand the raw facts of it. I remember when

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Speaker 1: this first started happening in twenty sixteen. I was at

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Speaker 1: a dinner with a southern governor and small state, and

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Speaker 1: he said, you know, when you're the governor of a

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Speaker 1: state this size, you know every precinct in the Republican

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Speaker 1: primary just happened. And when the results started coming in

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Speaker 1: the Republican presidential primary on Super Tuesday in twenty sixteen,

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Speaker 1: he thought there'd been a computer error because these precincts

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Speaker 1: that had had one hundred, one hundred and fifty voters

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Speaker 1: had five hundred and six hundred.

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Speaker 3: Wow.

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Speaker 1: And it was because Trump, as he was then, had

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Speaker 1: activated these folks. And so Trump was telling a story

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Speaker 1: that was resonating to me. The central work of someone

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Speaker 1: like me is to tell a story that can compete

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Speaker 1: with a narrative that is fundamentally about not about that

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Speaker 1: is fundamentally not about recognizing and living into the Declaration

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Speaker 1: of Independence, but about exclusion and walls as opposed to bridges.

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Speaker 2: So that's the great challenge, and you reflected it in

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Speaker 2: your opening comments. This this shakanaw of Trump twenty four

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Speaker 2: to seven, dominating the news, dominating our conversations, dominating him.

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Speaker 3: And we began on sports.

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Speaker 2: I mean, the idea that we have a president who's

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Speaker 2: showing up with this exception curiously didn't show up at

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Speaker 2: the super Bowl, but has shown up in every other

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Speaker 2: sporting venue to sort of highlight as dominance.

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Speaker 1: Uh.

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Speaker 2: In terms of the conversation, I mean, how do we

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Speaker 2: start to reflect then? I mean, is it more than

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Speaker 2: the sort of this the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary

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Speaker 2: of that declaration?

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Speaker 3: Is it more than those those those values?

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Speaker 2: Should we situationally find ourselves engaged day to day? I mean,

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Speaker 2: how do you where do you find I mean, you've

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Speaker 2: you've been challenged with You've show up on morning you know,

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Speaker 2: Morning Joe consistently and you're sort of stuck in the

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Speaker 2: headlines of the day trying to frame it in historical ways.

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Speaker 2: But for the rest of us, perhaps you know what,

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Speaker 2: what's is there a vice counsels their perspective that you

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Speaker 2: can offer at this moment, and how you confront what

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Speaker 2: is so often lies, misrepresentations, omissions, and historic deviants.

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Speaker 1: So one thing, this is pure punditry. To answer your

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Speaker 1: question after saying I don't do punditry anymore, one of

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Speaker 1: the did you see the New York Times story about

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Speaker 1: Senator britt from Alabama.

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Speaker 2: I've been she's she's been interesting. I've watched her for

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Speaker 2: some time. She's actually very very interesting, an interesting political character.

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Speaker 2: I've had her on my bingo card. Is one of

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Speaker 2: the rising stars in the Republican Party before she showed

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Speaker 2: up in the counterprogramming of that State of the Unit.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, so if you haven't seen it, take a look

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Speaker 1: at it was over the weekend, and it was insofar

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Speaker 1: as there's a leading indicator of something of these kinds

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Speaker 1: of Republicans, the lead of the story is and so

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Speaker 1: it only came from one person. Was the senator from

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Speaker 1: Alabama sitting in her car texting, so who's the source

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Speaker 1: to her staff who she'd seen that terrible picture of

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Speaker 1: an Ice agent with a little boy and a spider

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Speaker 1: Man backpack being put into a car, and she wrote saying,

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Speaker 1: let's find out about this, and that a Senator from

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Speaker 1: Alabama feels comfortable enough receiving let's be honest. The cultural

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Speaker 1: approbation of the New York Times tells you something, right,

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Speaker 1: it means that and now I'm just speculating, but it

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Speaker 1: means that maybe some fundraisers, maybe some donors are beginning

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Speaker 1: to think, you know, what we got to think beyond

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Speaker 1: the next thirty six months. You know, every day that

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Speaker 1: passes President Trump's interests and the interests of Republicans who

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Speaker 1: are going to be out of ballot again get a

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Speaker 1: little farther apart. So the power of that picture, of

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Speaker 1: that news picture tells you something. And that and so

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Speaker 1: Senator Brett is willing to tell a story about herself,

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Speaker 1: which is that she thinks that perhaps this is going

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Speaker 1: too far. That's a story. And one of the hard

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Speaker 1: things about and what I think is in a self

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Speaker 1: solisistic way, I think this is important for what people

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Speaker 1: like me do is so much of our public life

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Speaker 1: is about a kind of common assent. Right, It's about

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Speaker 1: an ethos, And the ethos at our best has been

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Speaker 1: one in which we obey the rule of law. If

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Speaker 1: we don't like the laws, we try to change them.

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Speaker 1: We are trying to live into the declaration. We have

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Speaker 1: to amend the user's guide the Constitution. We do it.

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Speaker 1: But that's been and imperfectly, but it's kept just going right,

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Speaker 1: It's kept the experiment worth defending. The story we have

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Speaker 1: to tell because there has to be one, right, is

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Speaker 1: ever harder for the lived experience of younger people. Right.

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Speaker 1: So if you know, you and I think are about

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Speaker 1: the same age. So you and I grew up we

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Speaker 1: didn't fight in World War Two, but our grandfathers did.

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Speaker 3: Right.

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Speaker 2: Uh?

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Speaker 1: Are you know I grew up in the South adjacent

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Speaker 1: to I. You know I knew John Lewis. You know

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Speaker 1: we we could. We had a tactile connection to the

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Speaker 1: greatest moments in American history, the defeat of fascism, the

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Speaker 1: defeat of Jim Crow. But if you were born in

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Speaker 1: the twenty first century, what have you got? You've got

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Speaker 1: September eleventh, the failure of the intelligence about weapons of

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Speaker 1: mass destruction, the Great Recession, a biographically interesting but historically indispositive.

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Speaker 1: Obama presidency. You've got COVID, You've got Trump, You've got

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Speaker 1: January sixth, and in something that you'll appreciate that I

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Speaker 1: don't think everybody and people who don't have kids, little

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Speaker 1: kids at this point can appreciate. For more than twenty

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Speaker 1: years now, we have explicitly told our children, by our actions,

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Speaker 1: not our words, that we can't keep them safe in schools.

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Speaker 1: We do duck and cover drills, not because of a

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Speaker 1: foreign foe in Moscow, but because of what happens here

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Speaker 1: and one of the two places you're supposed to be safest,

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Speaker 1: your home and your school. So why would you trust

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Speaker 1: the grown ups to do anything. That's why the story

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Speaker 1: matters so much? Is telling the story. The most important

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Speaker 1: thing this country, I would argue, ever did was fite

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Speaker 1: the Second World War. But we barely did right. The

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Speaker 1: Second World War began on September first, nineteen thirty nine.

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Speaker 1: We got in fully on the twelfth of December nineteen

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Speaker 1: forty one. We didn't declare war on Germany until Germany

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Speaker 1: declared war on us. We were literally dragged at the

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Speaker 1: last minute into the most important thing we ever did.

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Speaker 1: And so that's not to say, oh, weren't they terrible,

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Speaker 1: and boy, we would do it better not to say

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Speaker 1: that at all. It's to say that if they were

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Speaker 1: imperfect and they got there, then in our imperfection, we

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Speaker 1: can too.

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Speaker 2: It's interesting when you talk about the Party leaving Reagan

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Speaker 2: and reflecting on his journey as a Democrat labor leader

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Speaker 2: to the Ronald Reagan we know today the Ronald Reagan

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Speaker 2: and I happened coincidentally today to be in the old

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Speaker 2: Reagan mansion here in Sacramento. So the spirit of Reagan

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Speaker 2: very alive in the walls surrounding me. But I will

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Speaker 2: never forget. And it's been a speech that's been shown

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Speaker 2: millions of times now over the course of the last

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Speaker 2: few months, particularly with all the anxiety that we're experiencing

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Speaker 2: on the streets in sidewalks, that anxiety that showed up

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Speaker 2: in the New York Times with that text from Center

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Speaker 2: of britt and that is he ended his presidency and

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Speaker 2: chose one speech and talked about Lady Liberty's torch. He

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Speaker 2: talked about, you know this, this the notion of newcomers,

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Speaker 2: and that you know this this sort of you know,

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Speaker 2: remarkable speech about pluralism and what defines America and makes

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Speaker 2: us unique. Now we have obviously what appears to be

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Speaker 2: an invasive species Donald Trump in relationship to that, but

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Speaker 2: what you just painted was a picture of this, you know,

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Speaker 2: of frustration of people that have not experienced what you

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Speaker 2: and I have friends with our grandparents and experienced more

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Speaker 2: of this historic project that obviously Ronald Reagan was a

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Speaker 2: big part of as well. And it doesn't it make

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Speaker 2: then more sense that there was a Donald Trump, someone

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Speaker 2: who's going to shake the machine, someone is going to

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Speaker 2: scratch the record, someone that was going to challenge those

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Speaker 2: institutions that are failing our kids. Institutions that I know

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Speaker 2: are us, they're reflective of us, but institutions that are

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Speaker 2: failing a.

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Speaker 3: Generation of people.

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Speaker 2: People are stuck a thirty year old not doing better

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Speaker 2: than his parents for the first time in American history.

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Speaker 2: That populism that's not just from the far right Donald

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Speaker 2: Trump and Trump is, but reflected very much in Bernie

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Speaker 2: and AOC and our politics on the left. It doesn't

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Speaker 2: explain a little bit more of that, And isn't it

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Speaker 2: more fair to consider Trump and trump Ism in that

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Speaker 2: light than necessarily a deviancy from more traditional Republican values

433
00:28:43,120 --> 00:28:44,959
Speaker 2: or the more conservative values.

434
00:28:45,840 --> 00:28:50,400
Speaker 1: I think, Look, I totally understand how this happened, as

435
00:28:50,440 --> 00:28:54,000
Speaker 1: you just laid it out. It would surprise the founders

436
00:28:54,000 --> 00:28:57,840
Speaker 1: that it took this long. By the way, they were

437
00:28:57,880 --> 00:29:02,000
Speaker 1: fully ready for this. Abraham Lincoln's first speech and first

438
00:29:02,040 --> 00:29:05,400
Speaker 1: public speech in eighteen thirty eight was about you know,

439
00:29:04,960 --> 00:29:09,120
Speaker 1: if the Constitution and the Declaration are ever undone, it's

440
00:29:09,160 --> 00:29:12,520
Speaker 1: going to be not because of a foreign foe, but

441
00:29:12,600 --> 00:29:17,000
Speaker 1: because of a towering genius of a tyrant who might

442
00:29:17,080 --> 00:29:21,400
Speaker 1: might come along. I don't want to I don't think

443
00:29:22,040 --> 00:29:27,040
Speaker 1: that Trump represents a deviancy from the American story. I

444
00:29:27,040 --> 00:29:32,240
Speaker 1: think you represent an extreme manifestation of there are legitimate

445
00:29:32,280 --> 00:29:37,719
Speaker 1: cares and concerns obviously to deal with, or it wouldn't

446
00:29:37,760 --> 00:29:45,880
Speaker 1: have happened. The question is can you Can you deal

447
00:29:46,000 --> 00:29:52,120
Speaker 1: with the underlying issues that have led to this manifestation

448
00:29:52,520 --> 00:29:58,800
Speaker 1: of fear, an ease, distrust. Can you do so? But

449
00:29:58,960 --> 00:30:01,760
Speaker 1: do so within a rule law and with a devotion

450
00:30:01,960 --> 00:30:11,000
Speaker 1: to a principle that has endured not fully applied, but

451
00:30:11,760 --> 00:30:17,360
Speaker 1: we've never fully walked away from it either. And is

452
00:30:17,360 --> 00:30:19,920
Speaker 1: it going to be Is our public sphere going to

453
00:30:19,960 --> 00:30:26,200
Speaker 1: be about raw power and force or can it be

454
00:30:26,320 --> 00:30:34,120
Speaker 1: about solutions and genuinely changing people's lives? I don't think

455
00:30:34,360 --> 00:30:38,000
Speaker 1: and I know you don't think this. These kind of

456
00:30:38,040 --> 00:30:45,160
Speaker 1: performative crackedouts are they changing? Is that bringing manufacturing back?

457
00:30:46,320 --> 00:30:49,400
Speaker 3: You know, numbers suggest it's not no period.

458
00:30:49,800 --> 00:30:55,560
Speaker 1: So I'm not looking I'm not particularly partisan. I just

459
00:30:55,680 --> 00:31:04,640
Speaker 1: think that if we if people like you don't find

460
00:31:04,640 --> 00:31:09,600
Speaker 1: a way to address the cares and concerns of people

461
00:31:10,600 --> 00:31:15,760
Speaker 1: who do not see the path to prosperity. And when

462
00:31:15,760 --> 00:31:18,120
Speaker 1: you don't see a path to prosperity, remember this is

463
00:31:18,120 --> 00:31:21,920
Speaker 1: not just about democracy, it's about democratic capitalism. If you

464
00:31:21,960 --> 00:31:25,000
Speaker 1: don't have faith that your work will be rewarded and

465
00:31:25,080 --> 00:31:30,000
Speaker 1: your family will do better, why would you support the

466
00:31:30,040 --> 00:31:33,959
Speaker 1: infrastructure of a system that you don't believe is going

467
00:31:34,000 --> 00:31:39,959
Speaker 1: to deliver for you. Democracy has to deliver or democracy

468
00:31:40,320 --> 00:31:44,680
Speaker 1: doesn't survive. And there's always been this is Aristotle route

469
00:31:44,680 --> 00:31:48,320
Speaker 1: about this, There's always been the middle class is the

470
00:31:48,400 --> 00:31:54,760
Speaker 1: key to any kind of durable republic because only when

471
00:31:55,120 --> 00:32:00,520
Speaker 1: you have a belief that rules should be followed, but

472
00:32:00,680 --> 00:32:05,040
Speaker 1: you can benefit from the system that has rules, that's

473
00:32:05,040 --> 00:32:07,400
Speaker 1: the only reason you do it. Otherwise you race to

474
00:32:09,560 --> 00:32:15,600
Speaker 1: disruptive movements. And I was thinking, I'm doing a book

475
00:32:15,600 --> 00:32:22,760
Speaker 1: on Eisenhower right now, and it's so interesting to read

476
00:32:23,400 --> 00:32:26,720
Speaker 1: he spent an enormous amount of time trying to get

477
00:32:26,760 --> 00:32:29,640
Speaker 1: the Republican Party of the nineteen fifties to support what

478
00:32:29,800 --> 00:32:33,600
Speaker 1: was then called mutual security, which became it was the

479
00:32:33,680 --> 00:32:37,320
Speaker 1: Marshall Plan in the fifties it was mutual security, it

480
00:32:37,320 --> 00:32:43,720
Speaker 1: became USAID president and he had there's this great scene.

481
00:32:43,760 --> 00:32:46,520
Speaker 1: There was a senator from New Hampshire named Styles Bridges

482
00:32:47,120 --> 00:32:49,600
Speaker 1: who was very much in that. They were about twelve

483
00:32:49,680 --> 00:32:56,680
Speaker 1: to fifteen deeply conservative senators and the senator McCarthy. It wasn't.

484
00:32:56,760 --> 00:32:59,000
Speaker 1: One of the reasons Ike was so slow to take

485
00:32:59,040 --> 00:33:03,080
Speaker 1: on McCarthy is it wasn't just him. He had other

486
00:33:03,240 --> 00:33:05,520
Speaker 1: votes and so nothing would have happened. It was a

487
00:33:05,560 --> 00:33:09,960
Speaker 1: one vote margin in those years, very divide and senate.

488
00:33:10,840 --> 00:33:13,600
Speaker 1: But there's this and he taped it actually, so we

489
00:33:13,640 --> 00:33:17,040
Speaker 1: have an audio of Eisenhower trying to talk this senator

490
00:33:17,040 --> 00:33:20,880
Speaker 1: from New Hampshire, this deep conservative, into supporting mutual security.

491
00:33:21,840 --> 00:33:25,480
Speaker 1: And his argument was, why if you're a if you're

492
00:33:25,520 --> 00:33:28,520
Speaker 1: a nation, if you're a people, and you're trying to

493
00:33:28,520 --> 00:33:32,719
Speaker 1: decide between communism and the free world, why wouldn't you

494
00:33:32,760 --> 00:33:34,040
Speaker 1: throw a little money their way?

495
00:33:35,320 --> 00:33:35,520
Speaker 2: Right?

496
00:33:35,600 --> 00:33:38,600
Speaker 1: Why wouldn't you instead? Do you know how much? You

497
00:33:38,680 --> 00:33:40,320
Speaker 1: know how much more expensive it's going to be to

498
00:33:40,360 --> 00:33:47,160
Speaker 1: send the army. And so it was this insight that

499
00:33:48,480 --> 00:33:55,200
Speaker 1: you have to deliver conditions that enable that pursuit of happiness,

500
00:33:55,720 --> 00:33:59,800
Speaker 1: and if you don't, then you get political chaos. And

501
00:33:59,840 --> 00:34:00,720
Speaker 1: that's where we are.

502
00:34:02,680 --> 00:34:03,720
Speaker 3: And I love that. It's interesting.

503
00:34:03,760 --> 00:34:08,080
Speaker 2: The frame mutual security a much more effective frame in

504
00:34:08,120 --> 00:34:10,960
Speaker 2: contemporary political terms than USA.

505
00:34:10,760 --> 00:34:16,439
Speaker 1: I d he hated. Eisenhower explicitly said, do not call

506
00:34:16,520 --> 00:34:21,120
Speaker 1: this foreign aid. It's not that, it's mutual security.

507
00:34:22,480 --> 00:34:24,680
Speaker 2: And you talk so you. I mean, it's remarkable. You've

508
00:34:24,680 --> 00:34:27,120
Speaker 2: got a book that you're you're working on. Eisenhower comes

509
00:34:27,120 --> 00:34:30,280
Speaker 2: out next year. You just you're coming out next week

510
00:34:30,920 --> 00:34:34,040
Speaker 2: with this new book, America Struggle, which I don't want

511
00:34:34,040 --> 00:34:36,240
Speaker 2: to forget about because it reflects.

512
00:34:35,800 --> 00:34:37,359
Speaker 1: What books I ever.

513
00:34:37,520 --> 00:34:42,080
Speaker 2: Xerox Okay, best book I ever xerox. Well that six

514
00:34:42,120 --> 00:34:45,160
Speaker 2: people know what xerox means. You're seem going to be

515
00:34:45,160 --> 00:34:48,960
Speaker 2: talking about faxing things. Welet's America's struggle.

516
00:34:49,080 --> 00:34:51,080
Speaker 1: Let me to get my landline just a second.

517
00:34:51,440 --> 00:34:52,280
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly.

518
00:34:52,880 --> 00:34:57,440
Speaker 2: I look two hundred and fifty years not the Constitution,

519
00:34:57,920 --> 00:35:00,680
Speaker 2: two hundred and fifty years ago, the declaration some independence,

520
00:35:00,719 --> 00:35:03,719
Speaker 2: and you talk about this operating system, you talk about

521
00:35:03,719 --> 00:35:08,600
Speaker 2: the mission statement, mission statement being what was printed by

522
00:35:08,960 --> 00:35:12,759
Speaker 2: not just Jefferson, but that guy Adams, who's often forgotten

523
00:35:13,480 --> 00:35:16,000
Speaker 2: in this conversation two hundred and fifty years ago, talk

524
00:35:16,040 --> 00:35:19,759
Speaker 2: to me a little bit about what you've xeroxed in.

525
00:35:19,760 --> 00:35:23,600
Speaker 1: This pad your God say so. About seven eight years

526
00:35:23,640 --> 00:35:25,560
Speaker 1: ago I wrote a book called The Soul of America,

527
00:35:26,120 --> 00:35:29,680
Speaker 1: and it was my reaction to Charlottesville. And my argument

528
00:35:29,880 --> 00:35:32,000
Speaker 1: was that you know, and soul in Hebrew and in

529
00:35:32,040 --> 00:35:35,680
Speaker 1: Greek brings means breath or life. So when God breathed

530
00:35:35,719 --> 00:35:39,120
Speaker 1: life into man and Genesis, that work we translated his soul.

531
00:35:39,360 --> 00:35:41,560
Speaker 1: When Jesus said, greater love hath no man than this

532
00:35:41,680 --> 00:35:43,680
Speaker 1: than to lay down his life for his friends, that

533
00:35:43,719 --> 00:35:46,440
Speaker 1: could mean soul. So it's the vital thing that sets

534
00:35:46,520 --> 00:35:50,080
Speaker 1: us apart. And to me, the soul is not holy

535
00:35:50,120 --> 00:35:52,960
Speaker 1: good or holy bad, but an arena of contention. It

536
00:35:53,040 --> 00:35:55,200
Speaker 1: is for me, it is for you, I think it

537
00:35:55,239 --> 00:35:58,160
Speaker 1: is for the country. So you have these forces, you

538
00:35:58,200 --> 00:36:02,560
Speaker 1: have doctor King, you have the clan. It's just and

539
00:36:02,600 --> 00:36:05,200
Speaker 1: we just fight it out again and again and again.

540
00:36:05,280 --> 00:36:08,640
Speaker 1: And it is a perennial struggle. There will never be

541
00:36:08,800 --> 00:36:12,120
Speaker 1: There's never been a once upon a time in American history.

542
00:36:12,360 --> 00:36:15,080
Speaker 1: There's not going to be a happily ever after right,

543
00:36:15,120 --> 00:36:18,640
Speaker 1: there will always be more work to be done, and

544
00:36:19,200 --> 00:36:26,600
Speaker 1: so the Declaration is really scriptural. And it's interesting that Jefferson,

545
00:36:26,640 --> 00:36:30,160
Speaker 1: who was a described attacked as a French atheist, which

546
00:36:30,160 --> 00:36:33,279
Speaker 1: when you think about is kind of redundant in its

547
00:36:33,320 --> 00:36:37,799
Speaker 1: political days, he actually saw that, he saw that what

548
00:36:37,960 --> 00:36:40,919
Speaker 1: he was doing. He gave his the desk on which

549
00:36:40,960 --> 00:36:44,480
Speaker 1: he'd written it, sort of his laptop. He gave it

550
00:36:44,520 --> 00:36:51,160
Speaker 1: to a granddaughter, saying that this is taken on sacred dimensions,

551
00:36:51,480 --> 00:36:57,440
Speaker 1: and nobody. The fact that we celebrate two hundred and

552
00:36:57,480 --> 00:37:01,480
Speaker 1: fifty to the Declaration as opposed to Constitution has a

553
00:37:01,520 --> 00:37:05,080
Speaker 1: lot to do again, forgive the geekiness, but you called

554
00:37:06,080 --> 00:37:09,799
Speaker 1: has a lot to do with Lincoln. Thomas Jefferson never

555
00:37:09,880 --> 00:37:13,799
Speaker 1: had a better friend than Abraham Lincoln, who at Gettysburg

556
00:37:14,840 --> 00:37:18,200
Speaker 1: the middle school. Remember, the battle of the Civil War

557
00:37:18,520 --> 00:37:23,480
Speaker 1: was about the meaning of the constitution, secession, division of power.

558
00:37:24,360 --> 00:37:28,200
Speaker 1: What does Lincoln do at Gettysburg. He jumps over seventeen

559
00:37:28,239 --> 00:37:33,799
Speaker 1: eighty seven and goes to seventeen seventy six, founded not

560
00:37:33,960 --> 00:37:36,480
Speaker 1: on the proposition that well, here's a bill of rights

561
00:37:36,520 --> 00:37:38,839
Speaker 1: and here's we the people or we the state. He

562
00:37:38,960 --> 00:37:42,120
Speaker 1: just jumps all the way back and says, no, that

563
00:37:42,160 --> 00:37:47,919
Speaker 1: we became a people because of this principle. And in

564
00:37:48,040 --> 00:37:53,760
Speaker 1: that moment, really the declaration is elevated in a way

565
00:37:53,800 --> 00:37:58,080
Speaker 1: that continues to shape who we are. So in the

566
00:37:58,080 --> 00:38:00,959
Speaker 1: middle of World War two, Franklin Roosevelt goes to open

567
00:38:01,000 --> 00:38:04,840
Speaker 1: the Jefferson Memorial and he talks about we are fighting

568
00:38:04,840 --> 00:38:07,840
Speaker 1: a war for the Declaration of Independence, Doctor King. The

569
00:38:07,920 --> 00:38:10,320
Speaker 1: key part of the sermon at the March on Washington

570
00:38:10,880 --> 00:38:14,160
Speaker 1: is all men are created equal right. It is a

571
00:38:14,239 --> 00:38:19,920
Speaker 1: scriptural maxim and Lincoln also said about it that it

572
00:38:19,960 --> 00:38:25,359
Speaker 1: would be forever a reappearing stumbling block to any kind

573
00:38:25,440 --> 00:38:28,480
Speaker 1: of tyranny. And so what I wanted to do with

574
00:38:28,520 --> 00:38:31,960
Speaker 1: the book xerox I had a student asked me, by

575
00:38:31,960 --> 00:38:36,440
Speaker 1: the way, Blintz a Vanderbilt, how do we used to

576
00:38:36,440 --> 00:38:39,600
Speaker 1: do student newspapers? And I said, well, we would print

577
00:38:39,600 --> 00:38:41,560
Speaker 1: out the columns and then we'd cut them and we'd

578
00:38:41,560 --> 00:38:44,239
Speaker 1: paste them. And she said, oh my god, that's where

579
00:38:44,280 --> 00:38:50,480
Speaker 1: cut and paste came from. So now, hello, Middle Age.

580
00:38:50,880 --> 00:38:53,600
Speaker 1: This is a gat So the Soul Book. This is

581
00:38:53,640 --> 00:38:58,880
Speaker 1: the chorus of voices from the first summoning of the

582
00:38:58,960 --> 00:39:02,600
Speaker 1: Virginia House of birds is all the way through Steve

583
00:39:02,680 --> 00:39:08,560
Speaker 1: Levitski at Harvard warning about authoritarianism. These are the original voices.

584
00:39:09,000 --> 00:39:13,480
Speaker 1: So and to me the central voice is Frederick Douglass.

585
00:39:15,840 --> 00:39:18,880
Speaker 1: Imagine what it took for a man born into enslavement

586
00:39:18,920 --> 00:39:23,560
Speaker 1: who'd escaped to say, in the face of Dred Scott,

587
00:39:23,840 --> 00:39:26,359
Speaker 1: I for one, do not despair of this republic. The

588
00:39:26,360 --> 00:39:28,840
Speaker 1: fiat of the Almighty let there be light has not

589
00:39:28,960 --> 00:39:33,799
Speaker 1: yet spent its force. Imagine what it takes for him

590
00:39:33,800 --> 00:39:36,600
Speaker 1: to say that.

591
00:39:36,640 --> 00:39:39,360
Speaker 2: It puts u this moment where a people are feeling

592
00:39:39,440 --> 00:39:43,160
Speaker 2: anxiety and despair and hopelessness and perspective. What is I

593
00:39:43,200 --> 00:39:45,320
Speaker 2: mean as you look back, you talk about rule of

594
00:39:45,400 --> 00:39:48,520
Speaker 2: law a lot and you know, bring a plate. I mean,

595
00:39:48,719 --> 00:39:50,399
Speaker 2: you can think of the founding fathers, the best of

596
00:39:50,760 --> 00:39:53,840
Speaker 2: you know, Greek democracy, the Roman republic, three co equal

597
00:39:53,840 --> 00:39:57,319
Speaker 2: branches of government, popular sovereignty. Going back to this notion

598
00:39:57,400 --> 00:40:00,480
Speaker 2: of the rule of law, I've been critical, you know,

599
00:40:00,719 --> 00:40:03,080
Speaker 2: Ian Brenner others have used the phrase, is now the

600
00:40:03,160 --> 00:40:06,719
Speaker 2: rule of don a supine congress and no longer co

601
00:40:06,840 --> 00:40:08,239
Speaker 2: equal branches of government, et cetera.

602
00:40:08,320 --> 00:40:10,520
Speaker 3: I mean, what do you you know? You talk about

603
00:40:10,600 --> 00:40:11,920
Speaker 3: lighting democracy on fire?

604
00:40:11,960 --> 00:40:14,960
Speaker 2: And you not your words, but as some have described

605
00:40:15,040 --> 00:40:19,240
Speaker 2: January sixth and how Trump tried to direct this country,

606
00:40:19,239 --> 00:40:21,840
Speaker 2: at least from my perspective in January sixth. But we

607
00:40:22,239 --> 00:40:26,759
Speaker 2: move now into the two undred fiftieth anniversary of that declaration,

608
00:40:28,000 --> 00:40:32,800
Speaker 2: so much of our history is being rewritten, quite literally erased.

609
00:40:33,000 --> 00:40:38,080
Speaker 2: Books being banned were censoring historical facts. You've seen libraries,

610
00:40:38,520 --> 00:40:42,319
Speaker 2: teachers gag rules what they can say, teach, corporate gag

611
00:40:42,360 --> 00:40:45,480
Speaker 2: rules as well in many respects. On DII, quote unquote,

612
00:40:45,520 --> 00:40:48,480
Speaker 2: Anti woke let said, how do you reflect on all

613
00:40:48,520 --> 00:40:50,880
Speaker 2: of that and unpack all of that? How do we

614
00:40:51,160 --> 00:40:55,600
Speaker 2: maintain this mythology that binds us together? Which is so important?

615
00:40:55,719 --> 00:40:57,399
Speaker 2: And I think as Democrats we need to talk more

616
00:40:57,440 --> 00:41:03,000
Speaker 2: about at the same time, you know, we're honest about

617
00:41:03,360 --> 00:41:05,919
Speaker 2: that history as we now move in to celebrate later

618
00:41:05,960 --> 00:41:06,799
Speaker 2: this summer.

619
00:41:06,920 --> 00:41:12,000
Speaker 1: I look forward to seeing how you do it. Good

620
00:41:12,080 --> 00:41:16,080
Speaker 1: luck to you. Yeah, I have a feeling this is

621
00:41:16,120 --> 00:41:19,319
Speaker 1: not the first time you thought about this question. It

622
00:41:19,400 --> 00:41:24,600
Speaker 1: is about you use a really important word, which is mythology,

623
00:41:25,200 --> 00:41:31,120
Speaker 1: and it unfortunately people think it means something made something false, right,

624
00:41:31,200 --> 00:41:35,920
Speaker 1: But a myth is the story we tell and the

625
00:41:35,960 --> 00:41:40,080
Speaker 1: most one of the most interesting parts. Did you watch

626
00:41:40,239 --> 00:41:42,760
Speaker 1: or read the Carnee speech.

627
00:41:44,000 --> 00:41:46,520
Speaker 2: I was with him twenty minutes before he gave it

628
00:41:46,600 --> 00:41:47,160
Speaker 2: in Davas.

629
00:41:47,440 --> 00:41:51,040
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, yeah. To me, the most interesting, one of

630
00:41:51,040 --> 00:41:53,520
Speaker 1: the most interesting parts of that speech is how honest

631
00:41:53,520 --> 00:41:56,480
Speaker 1: he was about exactly the kind of question you're asking,

632
00:41:56,960 --> 00:42:02,040
Speaker 1: which is, there was a fiction and we agreed to right.

633
00:42:02,160 --> 00:42:05,760
Speaker 1: We agreed that we were going to be this western country,

634
00:42:05,800 --> 00:42:09,440
Speaker 1: and yes there were it was imperfect, and but we

635
00:42:09,600 --> 00:42:16,800
Speaker 1: decided that this was the kind of the imaginative infrastructure

636
00:42:17,520 --> 00:42:20,680
Speaker 1: of how we were going to be. And that's what

637
00:42:20,719 --> 00:42:25,799
Speaker 1: we have to do. And it is very clear that

638
00:42:26,200 --> 00:42:31,000
Speaker 1: President Trump and possibly his would be successors are really

639
00:42:31,040 --> 00:42:35,160
Speaker 1: really good at this. I think about that wall now,

640
00:42:35,320 --> 00:42:42,799
Speaker 1: the colonnade, the White House, where which is this? I

641
00:42:42,800 --> 00:42:45,960
Speaker 1: mean to say, it's it's it's like a fun house mirror.

642
00:42:46,280 --> 00:42:52,279
Speaker 1: Is just the white do justice to it? But I

643
00:42:52,320 --> 00:43:00,000
Speaker 1: think I might begin the story with it is true

644
00:43:00,000 --> 00:43:06,000
Speaker 1: true that we can either be we the people or

645
00:43:06,920 --> 00:43:13,640
Speaker 1: I the powerful. Right, that's it nice? And we the

646
00:43:13,719 --> 00:43:19,040
Speaker 1: people means that all of us have skin in the game.

647
00:43:20,280 --> 00:43:22,480
Speaker 1: And what's the old rule? Even if you get a

648
00:43:22,480 --> 00:43:25,000
Speaker 1: donor for five dollars you want them because if it

649
00:43:25,120 --> 00:43:26,960
Speaker 1: changes their psychology.

650
00:43:26,960 --> 00:43:28,120
Speaker 3: Absolutely, yeah.

651
00:43:28,280 --> 00:43:34,479
Speaker 1: Yeah. And what we've seen is that there is an

652
00:43:34,719 --> 00:43:40,440
Speaker 1: the absolutest tendency of the current incumbent in the Oval office.

653
00:43:41,840 --> 00:43:44,600
Speaker 1: He's made that he's actually made this story kind of

654
00:43:44,640 --> 00:43:50,400
Speaker 1: easy to tell because the counter story, the counter story,

655
00:43:50,480 --> 00:43:54,279
Speaker 1: is that this is not just about sorry, this is

656
00:43:55,200 --> 00:44:03,680
Speaker 1: my colleague, this is not The future cannot simply be

657
00:44:03,840 --> 00:44:08,480
Speaker 1: about the person whose name is on the ballot, right,

658
00:44:08,520 --> 00:44:12,120
Speaker 1: it has to It's not about me, it's we, you know,

659
00:44:12,160 --> 00:44:15,920
Speaker 1: whatever the phrase would be. But the first three words

660
00:44:16,800 --> 00:44:20,960
Speaker 1: of the Constitution are absolutely vital in this. It is

661
00:44:21,040 --> 00:44:24,759
Speaker 1: in fact, we the people, in pursuit of a more

662
00:44:24,800 --> 00:44:29,200
Speaker 1: perfect union. And that should be empowering to people, I

663
00:44:29,200 --> 00:44:34,680
Speaker 1: would think, because if it's one person, that means they're

664
00:44:34,719 --> 00:44:36,480
Speaker 1: three hundred and twenty nine million to the rest of

665
00:44:36,600 --> 00:44:40,440
Speaker 1: us who are on the outside looking in. And I

666
00:44:40,480 --> 00:44:43,240
Speaker 1: think that's where i'd start. I would start. The story

667
00:44:43,760 --> 00:44:50,040
Speaker 1: is that Governor Morris, the Committee and drafting and the Constitution,

668
00:44:51,080 --> 00:45:00,080
Speaker 1: in that wonderful preamble, articulated something that was beyond the

669
00:45:00,760 --> 00:45:03,600
Speaker 1: Patrick Henry, by the way, when he attacked the Constitution,

670
00:45:04,520 --> 00:45:09,120
Speaker 1: actually said by what rights? Did the framers say, we

671
00:45:09,280 --> 00:45:13,719
Speaker 1: the people, it's we the states and Henry he just

672
00:45:13,760 --> 00:45:17,880
Speaker 1: didn't he didn't get it right. Interesting guys in Philadelphia

673
00:45:17,960 --> 00:45:25,640
Speaker 1: did that there was a kind of mythic union. Andrew

674
00:45:25,719 --> 00:45:31,160
Speaker 1: Jackson said, the Constitution does not form a league, but

675
00:45:31,239 --> 00:45:37,600
Speaker 1: a compact. It's a covenant and it's about having each

676
00:45:37,600 --> 00:45:38,240
Speaker 1: other's back.

677
00:45:40,440 --> 00:45:43,239
Speaker 2: This notion of citizenship, I remember, I think it was

678
00:45:43,360 --> 00:45:46,440
Speaker 2: Brandeisho said in a democracy, the most important office is

679
00:45:46,520 --> 00:45:49,239
Speaker 2: office of citizen. This notion that we have agency, we

680
00:45:49,280 --> 00:45:52,000
Speaker 2: can shape the future. We're not bystanders. Imagine it's viewed

681
00:45:52,040 --> 00:45:54,480
Speaker 2: in that that spirit of we the people, this knows

682
00:45:54,520 --> 00:45:58,120
Speaker 2: the founding fathers. How is that the antidote at the

683
00:45:58,200 --> 00:46:00,239
Speaker 2: end of the day, I mean, we the people to

684
00:46:00,440 --> 00:46:03,520
Speaker 2: the citizens and the fear of the anxiety someoneys are feeling.

685
00:46:03,600 --> 00:46:07,799
Speaker 2: Is that give you some optimism at this moment, in particular,

686
00:46:08,719 --> 00:46:12,879
Speaker 2: that this time is not different, that people are rising up,

687
00:46:12,920 --> 00:46:16,640
Speaker 2: that these voices are being shared and heard and we're

688
00:46:16,640 --> 00:46:20,320
Speaker 2: inspiring one another. Why are you a little more sober

689
00:46:20,360 --> 00:46:20,920
Speaker 2: and cynical?

690
00:46:21,640 --> 00:46:23,760
Speaker 3: No, where's your temperature right now?

691
00:46:24,520 --> 00:46:27,719
Speaker 1: I'm not cynical, I think, and I'm not cynical because

692
00:46:28,000 --> 00:46:33,440
Speaker 1: of the of the historical frame. Four years before I

693
00:46:33,600 --> 00:46:42,879
Speaker 1: was born, we lived in my native region under functional apartheid. Right.

694
00:46:43,239 --> 00:46:48,960
Speaker 1: So on March seventh, nineteen sixty five, John Lewis and

695
00:46:49,000 --> 00:46:51,560
Speaker 1: Oseiah Williams led that march across the top of the

696
00:46:51,560 --> 00:46:54,680
Speaker 1: Pettest Bridge. Anyone who has not been to the Pettest

697
00:46:54,680 --> 00:46:57,280
Speaker 1: Bridge must go. It's like going to a Mahall beach

698
00:46:58,800 --> 00:47:04,279
Speaker 1: and walked into peaceably a line of state troopers and

699
00:47:04,360 --> 00:47:14,720
Speaker 1: possemen asking that the fifteenth Amendment of the Constitution be again.

700
00:47:14,920 --> 00:47:18,640
Speaker 1: They weren't asking anything new, They were asking us to

701
00:47:18,840 --> 00:47:22,520
Speaker 1: live up to to fulfill what we said we would do.

702
00:47:24,000 --> 00:47:29,680
Speaker 1: And when is that speech written by Richard Goodwin when

703
00:47:29,719 --> 00:47:32,560
Speaker 1: Lyndon Johnson said, I speak tonight for the dignity of

704
00:47:32,640 --> 00:47:37,359
Speaker 1: man and the destiny of democracy, and that there are

705
00:47:37,400 --> 00:47:40,399
Speaker 1: moments in the life of a nation where they form

706
00:47:40,440 --> 00:47:43,520
Speaker 1: a turning point in man's unending search for freedom. So

707
00:47:43,640 --> 00:47:46,400
Speaker 1: it was at Lexingdon conquered, So it was at Appomatics.

708
00:47:46,440 --> 00:47:51,440
Speaker 1: So it was last week in Selma, Alabama. That was

709
00:47:51,480 --> 00:47:55,600
Speaker 1: twenty minutes ago, right, And it feels like you know,

710
00:47:55,640 --> 00:47:57,960
Speaker 1: and you see it on you know, Ken Burns does

711
00:47:57,960 --> 00:48:00,920
Speaker 1: it And it feels is because it's black, and it

712
00:48:01,000 --> 00:48:10,479
Speaker 1: feels more remote nineteen sixty five, yeap, and so if

713
00:48:10,920 --> 00:48:14,400
Speaker 1: if And by the way, right the night the nineteen

714
00:48:14,480 --> 00:48:17,480
Speaker 1: sixty four Civil Rights Act, which the Republican nominee of

715
00:48:17,520 --> 00:48:23,040
Speaker 1: the party that year opposed. Now seeing polling shows the

716
00:48:23,080 --> 00:48:26,719
Speaker 1: sixty four Civil Rights Act is seen as more important

717
00:48:26,760 --> 00:48:30,759
Speaker 1: than I think it's. Right before the Kennedy assassination and

718
00:48:30,880 --> 00:48:36,319
Speaker 1: right after the dropping of the bombs in World War Two.

719
00:48:36,360 --> 00:48:41,359
Speaker 1: I mean, the public seized the significance of that. What

720
00:48:41,440 --> 00:48:46,040
Speaker 1: was it a seventy six day filibuster, right, right, So

721
00:48:46,280 --> 00:48:51,120
Speaker 1: none of this is easy. And so I you know,

722
00:48:53,880 --> 00:48:58,239
Speaker 1: John Lewis was willing to die, you know, and I

723
00:48:58,320 --> 00:49:03,400
Speaker 1: get tired by when I'm watching him NBC. That's ridiculous, right,

724
00:49:04,239 --> 00:49:07,920
Speaker 1: people shed their blood for you and me, And so

725
00:49:08,239 --> 00:49:11,200
Speaker 1: I think, despairs. This is going to sound preachy, but

726
00:49:11,280 --> 00:49:16,040
Speaker 1: I say it about myself. Despairs a sin. Cynicism is

727
00:49:16,080 --> 00:49:19,680
Speaker 1: a sin. It's not up to us to be to

728
00:49:19,800 --> 00:49:24,600
Speaker 1: despair or be cynical. It's self indulgent.

729
00:49:26,320 --> 00:49:26,799
Speaker 3: I love that.

730
00:49:27,440 --> 00:49:29,160
Speaker 2: I just I'm reflecting now in the year of my

731
00:49:29,239 --> 00:49:32,839
Speaker 2: birth nineteen sixty seven Black skuinn Mary Whites, and over

732
00:49:32,880 --> 00:49:37,600
Speaker 2: a dozen states in this country, overwhelming opposition publicly, and

733
00:49:37,640 --> 00:49:41,440
Speaker 2: then the infamous Supreme Court decision which or more importantly,

734
00:49:41,480 --> 00:49:45,520
Speaker 2: the power of individuals like Richard Loving and Mildgrid Jeter

735
00:49:45,920 --> 00:49:47,919
Speaker 2: that had the courage of their conviction to fight that

736
00:49:48,600 --> 00:49:51,840
Speaker 2: Loving versus State of Virginia overturning those laws, not overturning

737
00:49:51,840 --> 00:49:54,920
Speaker 2: public opinion, though at the time overturning laws.

738
00:49:55,239 --> 00:50:00,920
Speaker 1: Well, And to talk about another one of your predecessors,

739
00:50:02,120 --> 00:50:08,960
Speaker 1: how different would America be if Earl Warren had not

740
00:50:09,120 --> 00:50:15,359
Speaker 1: become Chief Justice. And here's how close that was, right,

741
00:50:17,160 --> 00:50:21,520
Speaker 1: fred Vincent become at chief Justice dies unexpectedly I don't

742
00:50:21,520 --> 00:50:26,560
Speaker 1: think he was sixty, and Warren was still got He

743
00:50:26,600 --> 00:50:30,600
Speaker 1: had I think some months to go on his term,

744
00:50:31,800 --> 00:50:34,680
Speaker 1: and so Eisenhower wasn't sure he would want to come

745
00:50:34,719 --> 00:50:37,800
Speaker 1: and do the chief would want that job at that moment,

746
00:50:38,560 --> 00:50:43,520
Speaker 1: And but Warren ended up saying yes, if Eisenhower doesn't

747
00:50:43,520 --> 00:50:47,279
Speaker 1: become president in nineteen fifty two and Robert Taft had

748
00:50:47,360 --> 00:50:52,680
Speaker 1: or Adlete Stevenson had, I don't think Warren becomes Chief Justice.

749
00:50:53,760 --> 00:50:57,240
Speaker 1: And the great story of the death of Jim Crow

750
00:50:58,640 --> 00:51:03,719
Speaker 1: doesn't begin in Congress, doesn't begin with a president. It

751
00:51:03,760 --> 00:51:08,520
Speaker 1: begins with the Supreme Court and the war in court,

752
00:51:08,560 --> 00:51:13,320
Speaker 1: which the reaction to which shapes us unto this hour. Right,

753
00:51:14,360 --> 00:51:19,960
Speaker 1: But this is a chancy contingent thing, and you never

754
00:51:20,040 --> 00:51:22,000
Speaker 1: know whether it's going to be Article one or Article

755
00:51:22,000 --> 00:51:24,320
Speaker 1: two or Article three that's going to make it happen.

756
00:51:25,400 --> 00:51:31,239
Speaker 1: So it absolutely is. What's thrilling and terrifying is I

757
00:51:31,280 --> 00:51:34,040
Speaker 1: agree with you, it's up to us. And that's kind

758
00:51:34,040 --> 00:51:36,320
Speaker 1: of thrilling because it's up to us. And then on

759
00:51:36,360 --> 00:51:38,239
Speaker 1: the other hand, it's like, oh shit, it's up to us.

760
00:51:38,400 --> 00:51:42,080
Speaker 1: You know, why can't someone come save us? But no

761
00:51:42,120 --> 00:51:44,640
Speaker 1: one's going to do that, right, there's not going to

762
00:51:44,719 --> 00:51:47,880
Speaker 1: be Forton Bross is not coming. We've got to do it.

763
00:51:49,320 --> 00:51:49,759
Speaker 3: I love that.

764
00:51:49,880 --> 00:51:53,400
Speaker 2: By the way, I have pulled out of dusted off

765
00:51:53,600 --> 00:51:55,680
Speaker 2: when I first became Governor Warren's desk.

766
00:51:56,080 --> 00:51:57,480
Speaker 1: We found it, Oh wow, did you.

767
00:51:57,680 --> 00:52:03,120
Speaker 2: In a storage facility about miles away? And I remind people,

768
00:52:03,160 --> 00:52:05,520
Speaker 2: I mean it goes to the books you've written. I mean,

769
00:52:05,560 --> 00:52:08,960
Speaker 2: in the complexity of this human expression experience. I mean

770
00:52:09,160 --> 00:52:11,719
Speaker 2: it's the same guy was interning the Japanese as well.

771
00:52:12,680 --> 00:52:17,480
Speaker 2: You know, it's messy, like little humility, grace.

772
00:52:17,960 --> 00:52:26,239
Speaker 1: Oh my god. And there's a there's a scene from

773
00:52:26,400 --> 00:52:31,080
Speaker 1: nineteen forty eight. Maybe it was a little late, there

774
00:52:31,200 --> 00:52:35,560
Speaker 1: was a there was a kind of a post war apology.

775
00:52:36,880 --> 00:52:36,960
Speaker 2: It.

776
00:52:37,280 --> 00:52:39,720
Speaker 1: Ultimately he became in the eighties because of the nineteen

777
00:52:39,760 --> 00:52:42,120
Speaker 1: eighties to do at the federal level. But there's a

778
00:52:42,160 --> 00:52:45,319
Speaker 1: scene where a young actor who was a big new

779
00:52:45,400 --> 00:52:50,320
Speaker 1: deal fair dealer named Reagan actually gives a speech attacking

780
00:52:50,360 --> 00:52:58,080
Speaker 1: the internment of the Japanese in southern California. No, I

781
00:52:58,120 --> 00:53:02,320
Speaker 1: think that there's my other favorite story about war and

782
00:53:02,440 --> 00:53:04,759
Speaker 1: is you know, he had no middle name, and he

783
00:53:04,800 --> 00:53:06,920
Speaker 1: asked his father why. He said, I couldn't afford one.

784
00:53:10,880 --> 00:53:13,200
Speaker 2: I love it, and I can't afford to let you

785
00:53:13,239 --> 00:53:16,560
Speaker 2: go John without just talking a little bit about Biden,

786
00:53:16,600 --> 00:53:21,120
Speaker 2: because you know, it's not and it's it's frankly, it's been.

787
00:53:21,000 --> 00:53:21,960
Speaker 3: A little upsetting to me.

788
00:53:22,040 --> 00:53:26,440
Speaker 2: And how quick my Democratic colleagues and you know, not

789
00:53:26,600 --> 00:53:29,759
Speaker 2: my consultants, but other pundits and consultants of the party

790
00:53:29,800 --> 00:53:32,000
Speaker 2: say well, we just need to let's stop looking at

791
00:53:32,040 --> 00:53:35,319
Speaker 2: the review mirror talking about Biden. Accept so much of

792
00:53:35,320 --> 00:53:37,680
Speaker 2: what we're talking about is in the review mirror though

793
00:53:37,719 --> 00:53:39,840
Speaker 2: we began more contemporary terms with Trump.

794
00:53:40,640 --> 00:53:42,640
Speaker 3: But I do want to reflect. How do you?

795
00:53:42,800 --> 00:53:46,080
Speaker 2: I mean, there's not a lot of distance, and you

796
00:53:46,120 --> 00:53:50,239
Speaker 2: obviously you have You've noted your own subjectivity as it

797
00:53:50,280 --> 00:53:54,000
Speaker 2: relates to your relationship with President Biden. And I have

798
00:53:54,360 --> 00:53:57,360
Speaker 2: my subjectivity that I wear on my sleeve. I openly

799
00:53:57,920 --> 00:54:01,680
Speaker 2: advocate for his policy successes and his character.

800
00:54:02,440 --> 00:54:03,400
Speaker 3: What how do you? What do you?

801
00:54:03,480 --> 00:54:06,120
Speaker 2: Where do you think he starts to land? And when

802
00:54:06,120 --> 00:54:09,880
Speaker 2: do you start to land more favorably in historic terms?

803
00:54:09,960 --> 00:54:13,839
Speaker 2: Meaning when do people sort of open up or we

804
00:54:13,960 --> 00:54:17,160
Speaker 2: just you know, is this this just evolves organically?

805
00:54:18,320 --> 00:54:22,200
Speaker 1: I think about this a lot, and I thought you're

806
00:54:24,200 --> 00:54:26,680
Speaker 1: I thought you were a stand up guy. Uh, and

807
00:54:26,840 --> 00:54:33,879
Speaker 1: watch that with with admiration. So here's what right, Here's

808
00:54:33,920 --> 00:54:36,719
Speaker 1: what I think. Uh. And I've told him this. So

809
00:54:40,360 --> 00:54:46,760
Speaker 1: the legacy question will be I think a key factor

810
00:54:46,920 --> 00:54:50,120
Speaker 1: in how that turns out is about the twenty twenty

811
00:54:50,160 --> 00:54:59,440
Speaker 1: eight election. Right, So does does the Maga moment? Does

812
00:54:59,480 --> 00:55:06,560
Speaker 1: this become a twelve year chapter in which President Biden

813
00:55:06,840 --> 00:55:16,239
Speaker 1: is the Trump slayer in twenty twenty But then, and

814
00:55:16,320 --> 00:55:21,400
Speaker 1: I would argue it is somewhat Shakespearean. It's certainly Greek.

815
00:55:21,760 --> 00:55:27,560
Speaker 1: What happened to him. The forces that led Joe Biden

816
00:55:28,640 --> 00:55:33,120
Speaker 1: and enabled him to overcome and endure amid tragedies that

817
00:55:33,200 --> 00:55:37,560
Speaker 1: would put the rest of us in the ground from

818
00:55:37,640 --> 00:55:40,880
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy two forward, from the loss of his wife

819
00:55:40,920 --> 00:55:46,400
Speaker 1: and daughter, to the loss of his son, to aneurysms,

820
00:55:46,480 --> 00:55:54,440
Speaker 1: to the political ups and downs he endured and we

821
00:55:54,520 --> 00:55:58,040
Speaker 1: all have, as the French said, the vices of our virtues.

822
00:55:59,080 --> 00:56:02,120
Speaker 1: And I think that he genuinely believed he was the

823
00:56:02,160 --> 00:56:08,400
Speaker 1: only person who could be Donald Trump. I don't necessarily

824
00:56:08,400 --> 00:56:11,520
Speaker 1: think that was true, but as a sort of as

825
00:56:11,560 --> 00:56:15,560
Speaker 1: someone who makes his living looking at either dead people

826
00:56:15,640 --> 00:56:17,480
Speaker 1: or old people and trying to figure out why they

827
00:56:17,520 --> 00:56:20,560
Speaker 1: do what they do, I understand it. The forces that

828
00:56:20,640 --> 00:56:25,560
Speaker 1: got him to the pinnacle kept him from stepping away

829
00:56:25,600 --> 00:56:28,480
Speaker 1: from it. I don't think it was love of power,

830
00:56:28,680 --> 00:56:30,960
Speaker 1: I really don't. I don't think it was the helicopter

831
00:56:31,080 --> 00:56:35,280
Speaker 1: or the airplane. I think it was that what Joe

832
00:56:35,280 --> 00:56:40,279
Speaker 1: Biden does is he endures, and I think that was

833
00:56:40,400 --> 00:56:44,960
Speaker 1: the key thing there. But if this becomes a twelve

834
00:56:45,080 --> 00:56:53,120
Speaker 1: year chapter, then President Biden becomes the sane island between

835
00:56:54,520 --> 00:56:59,960
Speaker 1: the two Trump terms. If magaism in some form is

836
00:57:00,160 --> 00:57:06,000
Speaker 1: ratified again in twenty twenty eight, it becomes a harder

837
00:57:06,040 --> 00:57:07,120
Speaker 1: case to make for Biden.

838
00:57:08,960 --> 00:57:14,000
Speaker 2: It's interesting, how concerned and just with limited time are

839
00:57:14,080 --> 00:57:24,080
Speaker 2: you about the midterms election integrity? About this, you know,

840
00:57:24,760 --> 00:57:31,160
Speaker 2: this anxiety that appears very real evidence abundant demanding voter

841
00:57:31,320 --> 00:57:36,600
Speaker 2: rolls as conditions for removal of ice. In Minnesota, we're

842
00:57:36,640 --> 00:57:40,520
Speaker 2: in litigation on that same subject matter. We talk about

843
00:57:40,560 --> 00:57:44,600
Speaker 2: the Japanese interment. First time I met this mass man,

844
00:57:45,320 --> 00:57:48,640
Speaker 2: Greg Bavino, it was at a little tokyo in Los

845
00:57:48,680 --> 00:57:51,479
Speaker 2: Angeles at the Democracy Center as a sacred site, where

846
00:57:51,520 --> 00:57:55,240
Speaker 2: we were in turning the Japanese when Rigan made that

847
00:57:55,360 --> 00:57:59,760
Speaker 2: speech in southern California, to see what happened with what

848
00:57:59,840 --> 00:58:03,680
Speaker 2: I have coined, more of the rigging, the response to

849
00:58:03,680 --> 00:58:07,680
Speaker 2: that with Prop fifty, the mid district mid decade rather redistricting,

850
00:58:08,560 --> 00:58:12,040
Speaker 2: so many things around. Won't say voter id necessarily, but

851
00:58:12,160 --> 00:58:15,720
Speaker 2: component parts of what this administration is trying to do.

852
00:58:15,800 --> 00:58:21,680
Speaker 2: How worried are you about our institutions holding and the

853
00:58:21,720 --> 00:58:25,400
Speaker 2: success of free and fair elections in twenty twenty six,

854
00:58:25,720 --> 00:58:26,960
Speaker 2: let alone twenty twenty eight.

855
00:58:27,800 --> 00:58:31,720
Speaker 1: So You've linked two questions that I think are vital,

856
00:58:32,000 --> 00:58:35,040
Speaker 1: and I think, given what you do all day, you'll

857
00:58:35,080 --> 00:58:39,880
Speaker 1: appreciate this. I hope this is not about the durability

858
00:58:39,960 --> 00:58:44,920
Speaker 1: of democracy. Is not about institutions, It's about the people

859
00:58:45,600 --> 00:58:51,520
Speaker 1: in them. It's not about the courts. It's about judges, right,

860
00:58:51,600 --> 00:58:55,000
Speaker 1: It's not about the election system, it's about registrars in

861
00:58:55,080 --> 00:58:59,560
Speaker 1: secretaries of state. It is about people, and that's why

862
00:58:59,720 --> 00:59:04,280
Speaker 1: the stories matter. Do you want to be Mike Pence

863
00:59:05,080 --> 00:59:07,680
Speaker 1: who stood up? And anyone who says I have liberal

864
00:59:07,680 --> 00:59:10,240
Speaker 1: friends who say, why do you praise him? He just

865
00:59:10,280 --> 00:59:13,520
Speaker 1: did his duty? That's not They are not someone who's

866
00:59:13,560 --> 00:59:15,800
Speaker 1: ever sat in the Oval Office and been yelled at

867
00:59:15,800 --> 00:59:20,200
Speaker 1: by a president, right, And I know that seems sort

868
00:59:20,200 --> 00:59:25,959
Speaker 1: of facile, or but anybody you know this. I once

869
00:59:26,000 --> 00:59:32,440
Speaker 1: went into UH at the moment of my I've been

870
00:59:32,440 --> 00:59:35,120
Speaker 1: waiting for since I was six years old with President Biden,

871
00:59:35,600 --> 00:59:40,560
Speaker 1: and he brought me in the Oval office. The sunlight's

872
00:59:40,600 --> 00:59:44,400
Speaker 1: coming in the dust motes, I can smell FDR cigarettes.

873
00:59:44,920 --> 00:59:47,680
Speaker 1: You know, this is the great I've been waiting for this. Right,

874
00:59:48,000 --> 00:59:50,760
Speaker 1: I sit in the chair that Bobby Kennedy sat in

875
00:59:50,840 --> 00:59:53,240
Speaker 1: during the missile crisis, and President Biden asked me a

876
00:59:53,320 --> 00:59:55,640
Speaker 1: question and I started, I get real the question was

877
00:59:55,680 --> 00:59:58,640
Speaker 1: and I started talking and it was blah blah blah

878
00:59:58,720 --> 01:00:02,000
Speaker 1: blah blah. It was better angels blah blah blah. The people.

879
01:00:02,200 --> 01:00:04,640
Speaker 1: I didn't make a goddamn bit of sense, and so

880
01:00:04,680 --> 01:00:08,160
Speaker 1: I found you stop. This is a true story. And

881
01:00:08,280 --> 01:00:11,640
Speaker 1: later that day we were in the dining room, you know,

882
01:00:11,640 --> 01:00:14,520
Speaker 1: down the little hall, and I was feeling guilty about this.

883
01:00:14,640 --> 01:00:17,720
Speaker 1: I'd taken the President of United States has limited time, right,

884
01:00:18,520 --> 01:00:20,800
Speaker 1: So it was just the two of us, and I said, President,

885
01:00:21,080 --> 01:00:22,960
Speaker 1: I want to apologize to you. You asked me a

886
01:00:23,040 --> 01:00:25,080
Speaker 1: question back there, and I just didn't make any sense

887
01:00:25,120 --> 01:00:29,920
Speaker 1: at all. Now you're a politician. What you say at

888
01:00:29,920 --> 01:00:33,240
Speaker 1: that point is anything you say is so important that

889
01:00:33,360 --> 01:00:35,880
Speaker 1: I'm just grateful you're here, right, that's what you say?

890
01:00:36,360 --> 01:00:39,440
Speaker 1: You know what Biden said? He said, that's okay. It

891
01:00:39,480 --> 01:00:44,000
Speaker 1: happens a lot in there. That terrible, which means, yeah,

892
01:00:44,040 --> 01:00:48,760
Speaker 1: you didn't make a goddamn bit of sense. Okay. Anyway,

893
01:00:48,920 --> 01:00:51,840
Speaker 1: So what do you want to be if you are

894
01:00:51,880 --> 01:00:55,560
Speaker 1: an election official? I just the story I would want

895
01:00:55,600 --> 01:01:00,640
Speaker 1: you to think about is you will be honored it

896
01:01:00,760 --> 01:01:01,800
Speaker 1: beyond the grave.

897
01:01:02,520 --> 01:01:02,919
Speaker 3: Mm hmm.

898
01:01:03,880 --> 01:01:12,320
Speaker 1: If you do the right thing, and the grave is certain,

899
01:01:14,040 --> 01:01:16,440
Speaker 1: Donald Trump's approval is not.

900
01:01:19,120 --> 01:01:19,600
Speaker 3: I love that.

901
01:01:20,240 --> 01:01:23,080
Speaker 2: And because I can't help myself, we could end there.

902
01:01:23,480 --> 01:01:27,640
Speaker 2: But you brought up Bobby Kennedy. And if you look

903
01:01:27,680 --> 01:01:31,680
Speaker 2: behind me, there's various parts of this shrine in front

904
01:01:31,720 --> 01:01:35,560
Speaker 2: of me, all things Bobby sar shreiver. Uh.

905
01:01:35,800 --> 01:01:37,040
Speaker 3: I'm a fan of the sixties.

906
01:01:37,040 --> 01:01:39,680
Speaker 2: The vernacular sixties is a picture of Bobby and my

907
01:01:39,760 --> 01:01:43,520
Speaker 2: dad right here. Yeah, when my dad was campaigning for

908
01:01:43,560 --> 01:01:47,360
Speaker 2: state Senate. Bobby was out here. Literally a few weeks later,

909
01:01:47,920 --> 01:01:51,280
Speaker 2: he his life was taken. So I think about the

910
01:01:51,280 --> 01:01:55,040
Speaker 2: sixties and and the vernacular sixties solving for ignorance, you know,

911
01:01:55,080 --> 01:02:00,040
Speaker 2: poverty and disease, this this you know, this spirit I

912
01:02:00,080 --> 01:02:03,320
Speaker 2: had to find those days. But also the tragedies, the setbacks,

913
01:02:03,320 --> 01:02:06,760
Speaker 2: the travials that were obviously south even and well established,

914
01:02:06,760 --> 01:02:11,880
Speaker 2: their assassination, and so much despair and distrust and obviously war.

915
01:02:12,000 --> 01:02:12,560
Speaker 3: That shaped it.

916
01:02:13,160 --> 01:02:19,600
Speaker 2: How do you reflect on that time in relationship to

917
01:02:19,720 --> 01:02:22,880
Speaker 2: this moment and the moment that we were just discussing

918
01:02:23,440 --> 01:02:25,000
Speaker 2: moving forward in the moment.

919
01:02:25,040 --> 01:02:29,000
Speaker 1: It's a great question. I find hope in this because

920
01:02:29,560 --> 01:02:32,320
Speaker 1: if you think about nineteen sixty eight, as you just mentioned,

921
01:02:32,800 --> 01:02:38,960
Speaker 1: so centric, so it begins with Ted Jean McCarthy's already

922
01:02:39,000 --> 01:02:45,240
Speaker 1: running against LBJ nearly upsets him in New Hampshire. Senator

923
01:02:45,320 --> 01:02:47,959
Speaker 1: Kennedy gets in the race on March sixteenth, so late

924
01:02:49,680 --> 01:02:54,320
Speaker 1: March thirty first, Johnson gets out of the race, and

925
01:02:54,400 --> 01:02:58,000
Speaker 1: that morning Doctor King delivers the Sunday Sermon at Washington

926
01:02:58,120 --> 01:03:01,320
Speaker 1: National Cathedral. He offers the best definition of democracy and

927
01:03:01,440 --> 01:03:04,480
Speaker 1: that I've ever heard, which is, I can never be

928
01:03:04,520 --> 01:03:06,280
Speaker 1: what I ought to be until you are what you

929
01:03:06,360 --> 01:03:08,439
Speaker 1: ought to be. You can never be what you ought

930
01:03:08,440 --> 01:03:10,200
Speaker 1: to be until I am what I ought to be.

931
01:03:10,520 --> 01:03:12,760
Speaker 1: That's the way God's universe has made. That's the way

932
01:03:12,800 --> 01:03:16,479
Speaker 1: it is structured. Four days later, he shot to death

933
01:03:16,520 --> 01:03:20,880
Speaker 1: in Memphis. Six weeks after that, Senator Kennedy's killed. Six

934
01:03:20,880 --> 01:03:24,560
Speaker 1: weeks after that, the Chicago Convention disintegrates into chaos and violence.

935
01:03:24,920 --> 01:03:30,120
Speaker 1: On election Day nineteen sixty eight, Nixon narrowly defeats Humphrey.

936
01:03:30,600 --> 01:03:35,280
Speaker 1: But something we forget George Wallace won thirteen point five

937
01:03:35,320 --> 01:03:38,560
Speaker 1: percent of the vote and carried five states in nineteen

938
01:03:38,600 --> 01:03:43,880
Speaker 1: sixty eight five states in the electoral College, and so

939
01:03:44,600 --> 01:03:48,840
Speaker 1: why didn't we Oh, and my father fought in Vietnam.

940
01:03:50,040 --> 01:03:54,720
Speaker 1: Forty six Americans on average died a day in Vietnam

941
01:03:54,760 --> 01:04:00,480
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty eight, not wounded, not died. So why

942
01:04:00,520 --> 01:04:05,160
Speaker 1: didn't we fall apart? Then? Right? And I'm very soft

943
01:04:05,200 --> 01:04:10,560
Speaker 1: on President Nixon on this front. He governed from the center.

944
01:04:13,280 --> 01:04:17,720
Speaker 1: EPA proposed a healthcare plan Obama would never have opposed

945
01:04:17,920 --> 01:04:20,360
Speaker 1: proposed it was too far the live. He was Andrew

946
01:04:20,440 --> 01:04:25,360
Speaker 1: Yang before Andrew Yang right, proposed to guaranteed income goes

947
01:04:25,400 --> 01:04:33,080
Speaker 1: to China, and had the capacity too. When he broke

948
01:04:33,160 --> 01:04:36,760
Speaker 1: the law, he followed the law. He had a sense

949
01:04:36,760 --> 01:04:44,840
Speaker 1: of shame. And I think a lot of the reason

950
01:04:45,240 --> 01:04:51,600
Speaker 1: things didn't end in a more serious way was that Nixon,

951
01:04:51,800 --> 01:04:57,080
Speaker 1: for all of his manifold faults, believed fundamentally in the

952
01:04:57,120 --> 01:05:00,960
Speaker 1: things we're talking about about the Constitution, about we the people.

953
01:05:01,280 --> 01:05:05,680
Speaker 1: And I'm not praising him beyond measure, I don't think.

954
01:05:06,240 --> 01:05:09,240
Speaker 1: But I've thought a lot about why why did we

955
01:05:09,280 --> 01:05:13,680
Speaker 1: come out of the sixties as a country that was

956
01:05:13,720 --> 01:05:18,320
Speaker 1: still together? What do you think? I mean you've thought

957
01:05:18,320 --> 01:05:21,960
Speaker 1: about this? If you look at sixty eight, it's a

958
01:05:22,040 --> 01:05:26,160
Speaker 1: totally plausible thing to think that sixty nine and seventy

959
01:05:27,720 --> 01:05:33,240
Speaker 1: are not happy times. Do you think that? Do you

960
01:05:33,960 --> 01:05:35,080
Speaker 1: Why do you think we endured?

961
01:05:35,840 --> 01:05:39,000
Speaker 2: It's the question I posed to you as an historian

962
01:05:39,000 --> 01:05:42,240
Speaker 2: to really reflect on, and it's the right question. I'm

963
01:05:42,920 --> 01:05:46,680
Speaker 2: that decade fascinates me for all the reasons you're brilliantly

964
01:05:47,200 --> 01:05:49,880
Speaker 2: just laid out, But this I think it's also you know,

965
01:05:49,960 --> 01:05:53,120
Speaker 2: the context of you know, what we didn't get a

966
01:05:53,200 --> 01:05:55,720
Speaker 2: chance to talk about, and I'm sensitive time. You know,

967
01:05:56,000 --> 01:05:58,160
Speaker 2: in the spirit of Scripture too, you know, on earth

968
01:05:58,200 --> 01:06:01,080
Speaker 2: God's work as truly our own. This notion that we

969
01:06:01,120 --> 01:06:03,320
Speaker 2: are all bound together by a web of mutuality, this

970
01:06:03,440 --> 01:06:07,920
Speaker 2: notion of the commonwealth, and this capacity of resilience and

971
01:06:07,960 --> 01:06:11,400
Speaker 2: our ability to live together and advance together across differences,

972
01:06:11,400 --> 01:06:13,680
Speaker 2: and we were able. That was expressed in so many

973
01:06:13,680 --> 01:06:15,840
Speaker 2: of those leaders at the time and imbued I think

974
01:06:15,880 --> 01:06:18,600
Speaker 2: in the action of so many of us citizens that

975
01:06:18,600 --> 01:06:21,840
Speaker 2: that you know, senses were alive, and his immune system

976
01:06:21,960 --> 01:06:27,640
Speaker 2: was woken up and and organized and came together and

977
01:06:27,720 --> 01:06:31,400
Speaker 2: so look, it's it's the one thing I for people

978
01:06:31,400 --> 01:06:34,280
Speaker 2: that despair about this moment, I think it's so important.

979
01:06:34,880 --> 01:06:37,720
Speaker 2: This conversation to sort of reflect on the fact we've

980
01:06:37,720 --> 01:06:41,000
Speaker 2: been there before is distinctive and unique are these as

981
01:06:41,040 --> 01:06:43,680
Speaker 2: this moment is and the unique characteristics that define a

982
01:06:43,720 --> 01:06:47,400
Speaker 2: guy who is obsessed with power, dominance and aggression, who

983
01:06:47,480 --> 01:06:52,760
Speaker 2: doesn't believe in empathy, care and compassion necessarily, But to

984
01:06:52,920 --> 01:06:55,920
Speaker 2: reconcile the fact that we have again agency and we

985
01:06:55,960 --> 01:06:58,720
Speaker 2: can shape the future set of before. We're not by

986
01:06:58,760 --> 01:07:01,280
Speaker 2: standards in this world. And I think that's to me

987
01:07:01,400 --> 01:07:06,520
Speaker 2: the most I think significant lesson looking back and what

988
01:07:06,760 --> 01:07:09,360
Speaker 2: I think we're experiencing. There's the lessons we're experiencing on

989
01:07:09,400 --> 01:07:13,520
Speaker 2: a daily basis in Minneapolis and cities across this country.

990
01:07:13,520 --> 01:07:15,920
Speaker 2: I think people are waking up and it gives me

991
01:07:16,040 --> 01:07:20,000
Speaker 2: a lot more confidence that we'll be celebrating the three

992
01:07:20,120 --> 01:07:23,920
Speaker 2: hundredth anniversary of the Declaration Independence, and you'll be on

993
01:07:23,960 --> 01:07:25,480
Speaker 2: your three hundredth book.

994
01:07:25,640 --> 01:07:29,760
Speaker 1: John Misch, I'll be long gone, my friend.

995
01:07:29,680 --> 01:07:34,720
Speaker 2: At this pace, At this pace, author of America's Struggle.

996
01:07:34,760 --> 01:07:36,640
Speaker 3: Best Way to Buy It is in bulk.

997
01:07:39,840 --> 01:07:43,960
Speaker 2: And coming soon to a bookstory near year Eisenhower in

998
01:07:44,000 --> 01:07:45,880
Speaker 2: the Military Industrial Complex.

999
01:07:45,920 --> 01:07:47,600
Speaker 3: I don't know what's your subtitle. You don't even have

1000
01:07:47,640 --> 01:07:48,000
Speaker 3: it yet.

1001
01:07:48,040 --> 01:07:49,960
Speaker 1: I didn't have a subtitle yet. I'll tell you one

1002
01:07:50,000 --> 01:07:52,560
Speaker 1: damn thing. It is awfully long. My first men. I'll

1003
01:07:52,640 --> 01:07:56,160
Speaker 1: leave you at this. My first draft of bi biography

1004
01:07:56,160 --> 01:07:58,920
Speaker 1: of George H. W. Bush was about twelve hundred pages,

1005
01:07:59,520 --> 01:08:04,080
Speaker 1: and Barbara Bush that she said, Sweetheart, I wouldn't read

1006
01:08:04,080 --> 01:08:09,960
Speaker 1: twelve hundred pages about They cut like butter. Governor, go

1007
01:08:10,120 --> 01:08:11,320
Speaker 1: get them. You're doing great.

1008
01:08:11,880 --> 01:08:12,600
Speaker 3: Appreciate you.

1009
01:08:12,640 --> 01:08:13,880
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for coming off on