Support for this episode comes from the University of Chicago people, argue about anything and everything, but when we argue about human rights, though there is a lot at stake, there's a new podcast out of you, Chicago about human rights, is called entitled. Co hosted by lawyers. Tom Ginsburg, Claudia Flores, they'll use their expertise, advising governments across the world on all sorts of human rights issues to explore, I rights matter and what's the matter with rights, the show launches later this summer subscribe wherever you get your podcast from CAFE, welcome to stay too I'm prepared. it's this moment. That is not just about police brutality. I dont think, and it's not just about the pandemic and the feeling that the government has in a kind of said, our economies More important than your life, but really combination of hey wait a minute. This is supposed to be a government of the people by the people and for the people. Why

all the money moving upward? Why is it the people, the top we're getting all the protection? You know why, as our president, getting away with whatever it seems he wants to do. Why is the Secretary of state doing the same? Why is the attorney general doing the same this moment giving voice to that anger, that's Heather Cox Richardson, she's in american history, professor at Boston, college and the author of me, books about race, power and labour from civil war to the present. Her latest is how the south one the civil war oligarchy. Democracy in the country, we fight for the soul of America Professor Richardson, is also the writer of a popular daily newsletter letters from an american which seeks to contextual eyes today's political events in the long arm of american history, today she joins me to discuss the history of racism in America, the danger of false political images

and why were at a critical inflection point in our country's history? That's coming up stated. This question comes from twitter user martini, composer hybrid. I have a question about it: possible jury for Officer Chauvelin, what challenges in finding an impartial jury, given that everyone has seen the video thanks, hashtag ass, pre, less good question martini, compose and one that lorry struggle with all the time in high profile cases. There probably aren't too many people the jury pool in Minneapolis, specifically in Minnesota, generally or repayment anywhere in the country where large the people have not seen the video of officers. and putting his knee into the back of the neck George Floyd and killing him. So it's not just the fact.

So many people have seen the video people in the Europe will have seen the video belatedly, but perhaps more importantly, is the fact that probably a lot of people have made up their minds about the evidence not having seen everything and they probably prejudged the guilt of one or more officers having made up their minds, which is reasonable if you're, an ordinary citizen, whereupon cast her, because I have a pretty intense view that, in the event, is pretty strong in favour of guilt on one of the main officer and aiding abetting criminal liability on the part of the other officers- is I've been discussing and add, and I have been discussing on the insider podcast. For that reason I probably wouldn't be a good member of the jury because of the things I have said about the case already. That said couple things you would be surprised, that there are people in the world who, due to news out and dont, know all the precise details of what's going on and again the most important Craig it is not whether not someone has seen the video but whether not someone can be fair and at least give the impression to the court.

The lorries for both sides that they can be fair and impartial and keep an open mind. It's difficult In a case like this, I imagine you gonna go through a lot of yours and ask a lot of questions and engage in a very, very significant and rigorous, why dear to make sure they have report consisting of people who have convinced the court and the parties that they can be fair, Also, some precautionary measures, the cat, can dismiss anyone for cause if they think that the Jura, canopy, fair and. He's themselves have what are known as peremptory challenges where they can strike jurors because they think they might not be able to be fair to their particular side. remember this will be a sensational and highly watched trial if there is it the trial or multiple trials, but there have been other key, like. This is well the case against us. Simpson the case against the officers. connection with Rodney King beating thereof. At a time in America, cases that are, as sometimes people call them case of the century or case of the decade enjoy pools, are convened. An juries are

did from them is a challenging. Yes, can it be done also yet I remember when we debating back at the beginning of my time as United Attorney, where cleat shake Mohammed and his cohorts, We tried in an american civilian court. We privacy advocated for it to be in the southern district of New York. Thinking. a sensational trial that would have been and whether or not you find anyone in New York or elsewhere, who didn't have a feeling about nine slash eleven and what are not ksn was responsible and even though, at the end of the day, the case went to the military commission at Gitmo. We were pretty confident that, notwithstanding has sensational, that would have been that the law would have permitted a proper jury to be selected where they could be fair, challenging of course, doable. Yes,. This question comes from twitter users, a career she ask as an esquire. Praetor, in light of recent events, what are your thoughts on changing the way the HIV is selected? Could the

ye be elected as part of general elections every four years, hashtag ass pre- so that's you know, interesting it's a pretty radical change for a lot of reasons given picture of a federal government is not radical. I guess about what happened in the states in virtually all states the New Jersey and maybe one or two others. As you know, from listening to and Melldrum attorney, general of states are elected directly by the people and that sometimes can cause tension between The chief law enforcement officer of a state and the governor of the state, but is an independent entity, an independent agency in most states like it is in New York and a lot of other places provides a measure of distance and arms length investigations and certain of civil actions and criminal. Executions from the executive of the state and the attorney general has around base of power in their own constituency and their own accountability that separate from the executive of the state now that's a mile that works in the states now standing my agreement?

spirit of your question about so many things have gone wrong and so many disappointments, though we ve had in Bill bar it becomes, I think, a little unworkable, even if you could cause a change to be made, which would be very, very, very difficult to have an attorney general of the United States of America independently, acted for some of the only to people who are independently elected by the entire country are the president and the vice president, and to do something further, I think, would be very difficult principally for the following reason, although there may be other reasons as well. Although I agree- and I said this million times, and I write about this in my book- that law enforcement needs to be independent Regional needs to be more independent from the president than any other cabinet officer and I believe that with all of my soul and heart and being in that's what makes the Justice Department Special in one way to do that, I suppose is to have that person be independently elected, even if that was no, if that were possible to do which I kind of On the other hand, there are things where you want turn in general and the Justice Department. To be honest,

page as the executive branch and the White House, not with respect to. the visual prosecutions of individual people, whether their cronies of president adversaries of the president or things like that. But for the job- does this document which by the way, includes the FBI The d, in all sorts of other law enforcement organisations, is the protection of the homeland and to keep us from terrorism and to enact policies of a uniform throughout the country and though, that independence has been breached by this president and by this intervention, what's happened the past? Also, it's really important for purposes of national security, for the energy and the president to be in sync now better ways of accomplishing that are making sure you pick the right president who understand those principles days away from individual prosecutor oil decisions and also that this

confirmation process of the HIV provide another check imbalance to make sure that someone who is thought to be too close to the president or will not carry out their function independently, knock. It confirmed those checks and balances are proven to be imperfect. Those norms are proven to be imperfect, but still on balance, I think it's a better way of going about it, then something right. like independently electing the HIV sign for short break statement.

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I protests in the wake of the death of George Floyd, Professor Heather, Richardson. Thank you so much for taking the time and joining us on the show how its pleasure. So I begin with the same question of everyone. Lately, how are you markedly well. Actually, in my life is not all that different now than it is in on any normal summer day I hole up on the coast a maiden right, which is precise, see what I'm doing now we'll see anybody normally saw not seeing one now you have no concentration issues, given all the news. Well remembered. This is kind of, I won't say my happy place. I don't like what's going on, but what I do is to take a look at a great amount of material and try to reduce it into something this comprehensible. So in a way my work has become my entire life, but you know That's why I wonder this profession, so concentrations No, not particularly that's good Falada people. Listening, probably were envy. You see you

Professional title is historian, but you have done I've yourself as a translator, you said I am a translator. What does that mean? What precisely that really. So you know what I think it's funny about. What historians do is we're trained, of course, to look for the larger patterns in society in a what what changes society? What moves it forward? What creates change an all? have ever done in my career is try to look at a large body of material that represents a society and a certain moment and say: oh wow, look there's the path that I see here now. What I was not trained to do was to it for the present and what I never expected to do was to do it for the present, but in all of those skills have and out to come in very handy right now. So what I feel like I'm doing is translating for people who don't have that thirty five years of experience, looking at large bodies of material in saying oh here's, the pattern and taking it for them in doing that with today's news. So you know

sort of what I've ended up doing over this last. You know eight or ten months for people nowadays, but I do still write history in my spare time because how and why society This change is really a central question for any of us in this present moment in America or anywhere else at any other time. So you conscious of a translator. You also in your twitter profile, referred here as a budding curmudgeon. Why Why? Why why why buddy and when will you achieve actual curmudgeon status? Okay, so that's it story? All of all of the social media stuff is really a great story for somewhat of my age. It was, ever my idea either to get onto twitter or to Facebook. That was my students in one. I taught a class on comic books a number of years ago on the history of comic books and it turns out that the university I work has just a phenomenal collection of comic books who knew- and so I thought a class on them and on how they are really social commentary. And yet it was a small.

Ass and we worked together. Incredibly, while they were great group, is of great group of students, and I used to make comments in class as I often do and they were like. Oh, you really should be a social media. You really should be on social media like you're right, I'm too old, and they, finally, one of them. I remember the day it was April. Fourth came into my office and she said you're not leaving this office. Until you sign up for twitter and facebook- and I said well I'll- do that I promise I'll do that, but I need to get home right now. Has my daughter's birth in she said. Perhaps you didn't hear me. I said you couldn't leave this office until sign up for twitter and Facebook. So if you look yours It says that I signed up on April. Fourth, I remember the year, but I didn't use them and finally, one of my students- I still remember him as well a great guy, we're still in touch used to joke about the fact that they always knew they were in trouble in class. When I came into said: ok, you guys are in real trouble today because I am in a dangerously good mood and so that he insisted had to be my first

tweet, which, if there's any history about you, will see. It is something like look out twitter, I'm in a dangerously good mood today, but they all As you know, whenever I growled about something I would say, oh just don't pay any attention to me, I'm just a curmudgeon, so they they sat there with me and wrote that twitter, by, and I never mean I thought that I wouldn't drop it after the class, but somehow has become who I am and and and I keep it they're kind of in memory of all the great students I've had over the years. But I think that today, The irony is that, for now anyone who wants to study the from presidency, I think, is tar presidential library, if there is one will this be the big twitter feed right, aren't hunters. most important papers. This president, isn't it astonishing that some what we are now doing is by tweet at first. I really objected to it now

so sure you know. Maybe it's it's a kind of a media sea between people and politicians and President's said hasn't been there in the past, but you know I remembered first going. I am so tired of doing history by tweet, but you know maybe it's a good thing so much running the country between various before something that should be considered. so, let's get to this moment in time where we can on Monday June. Eighth and I note that, because things change every day- and I will make sure people understand that the time that we're talking this that were in a while. We still have a pandemic of global pandemic, causing a lot of harm and death, and we have massive protests, not just in this country, but in other countries as well over issues of racism. Police brutality. Are we actually at an inflection point in american history? Ah, I would say yes and hears why

because we are at the end of a particular political period. That is really since the Democrats and after put through a series of new laws that created an activist government in the nineteen, thirty seven eighteen, Fortys and after Dwight Eisenhower, picked it up and made a part of the mainstream republican platform of nineteen fifties. They're here been a backlash against? what was then known as the liberal consensus. That is the idea that the government has a role to regulate business and to provide a basic social safety net and promote infrastructure that was really widely spread in the night. That idea was widely spread in the nineteen thirty in the nineteen, forty on the nineteen, fifty in the nineteen sixty seven nineteen seventies, but the backlash against that really took hold in the nineteen eighties, and we are seeing now the combination of that. The idea that, in fact, the government has no role in either regulating business or promoting a social safety net or promoting infrastructure that those things should be privatized or not done at all and that's gone

so far. I think that we have come to a backlash against that and it happens that the combination of this deadly pandemic, which has fallen out of the new cycle in a lot of ways and that's really a problem. The attack on Mr Floyd, as well as Brianna Taylor and all the other many people who have died at the hands of of police, those two things, combine, really to give a voice to a lot of people. Who believe- government is no longer working in their best interest here in Amerika. I'm what's happening internationally is perhaps the same story, but perhaps a different one, but here in Amerika it's this moment is not just about police brutality. I dont think, and it's not just about the pandemic and the feeling that the government has you no kind of said our economies more important than your life, but really The combination of hey wait a minute. This is supposed to be a government of the people by the people and for the people why?

all the money moving upward. Why is it the people, the top or getting all the protection? You know why, as our president, getting away with whatever it seems he wants to do. Why is the Secretary of state doing the same? Why is the attorney general doing the same this moment giving voice to that anger. Now. The real question, though, is what's gonna happen. the next several months we ve had a lot of in the past, when people took to the streets and anger and then didn't follow it up and that's really. What I'm gonna be watching is what are the concrete steps that people are taking to create systemic change as opposed to simply voicing their anger, the Stomach change or other kind of significant change, always require some kind of the can catalyst or can happen without a catalyst like a pandemic or protest. I systemic change happens when the people who run the system begin to change, and there are, I think, cosmic catalysts that create that. I would argue

there have been four major changes throughout american history that have created a huge changes in society and the way we interact with our government you're, the first in the we nineteenth century was when people started a Euro American started to move west and that created a crisis for democracy and from that crisis. Mark or sea, we get the first activist government under the Republican Party in the eighteen. Sixty people always forget that it's the Republicans who create national taxation and income taxes and actually create a government that works to provide education and provide a basic social safety net for people. We get that and then in the eighteen he's in the eighty nine bees and into the nineteen arts we get in

realization and industrialization once again forces this? If you will come to Jesus moment where people say what is the government supposed to be doing in order that we get the progressive era and then, in the middle of the twentieth century, we get the rise of internationalism and the very real fear of nuclear war and the idea that the world literally could end tomorrow and that once again, rates in America? What we need is a liberal consensus. Now we ve got a different crisis. Then it's a unique crisis in american history and that's the rise of what appears to be a wanna, be dictator and one again, Americans are coming to the wall and saying what is our government supposed to be and what is it supposed to be doing Interesting. Is the historian to look at these major changes and that's where the cosmic luck but Society change without those shore mean, if you look at really the backlash against the new deal and Eisenhower's middle way. This liberal consensus that happen not because you know protesters took this

streets in the in the nineteen sixties and said we have to change things. It happened after the Goldwater campaign of nineteen sixty for when Goldwater Right said were obviously can change things in the streets, so we're gonna have to do it by taking over school boards and that's precisely what they did quietly and almost insidiously changed our government. So was taking notes. As you were speaking- and I want to be clear, you should third major change was in the mid twentieth century. with internationalism and the fear of nuclear war and just makes right in MRS. The fourth major change was what I would suggest ass. Looking at this from a large perspective that the fourth major major crisis- and let me say here that one am suggesting is what you are asking about: was changes in government, so when I'm too king about these crises, I'm talking about crises of government, certainly Americans have had other crises in the past that I'm not mentioning in a little things like world wars, but what I'm sick

testing is the fourth major crisis of government has been when we see, as we are seeing in the press in the present that our garden else really does exist and that we ve got the problem of the rise of the wanna, be dictator and Donald Trump. I think this moment will go forward as one of those four major crises in the american government that I'm gonna find a floating but just crises, but to sort of major change follows crisis you're, not including on the list of those few, for you know what happened to the Vietnam WAR and people's lack of trust in institutions or what, gate for the great society or any of those things. No, I'm not I'm, I'm putting those in the larger backlash against the liberal consensus after their nineteen fifties and therefore I think we

dig down into that. If your interested alot of people say in a, why would this moment be any different? Now then, the movement after the nineteen sixties and what I would say about that is that, after the the movements of the nineteen sixty is one of the things it didn't happen to the degree that would have required to have happened for change is the people who were making those demands in the nineteen sixties tended not to go into politics. They tend to leave politics to the Goldwater rights who did in fact take over the system controlling the system really matters. We will, after all, that in the sixtys it was not a liberal who got elected. It was Richard Nixon, that's correct! Let me ask you a question because lots of people you know seek find historical parallels, real historians like yourself, but also I'm sure historians, people who read history in the papers, wrong to say that there is a parallel One sixty eight in the current day. So

lots of people are looking. I note that sorry are you know. A lot of people are looking for. The saying: oh yes, the it where basically reliving sixty eight, but it's very important to remember that what there Looking for when they make us parallels is to say you know, unrest in the streets really helps reactionary forces. Look it elected Richard Nixon and its important. Remember that Richard Nixon was not in office in the midst of all those protests, and what we have right now is a system mean in a situation where the person and in power is overseeing those protests in the third year of his presidency, or is it the fourth year? I can't remember at this point so I think that what's different here is that the unrest is against somebody in power. In that case, was l b J lead. Reactionary backlash to put Nixon in power, I should I see. And I will not accept this

the nation of my party for another term as your approach, but we have opposite situation nowadays, in that the person who is has created this situation and who is currently in power is the one that that this, this movement is he's going to take out not entirely sharp articulated that but it matters that the President, who is in power the person against whom these this unrest is happening, as opposed to it being somebody who is riding on the outside into the white. on this kind of chaos. Is it or silly to try to draw the right. Parallels between the time we're living in and other periods, Peter Baker of your times? Is I guess of the show said we started this year thinking it was another one thousand nine hundred and ninety eight cuz of impeachment, and then we moved one thousand nine hundred and eighteen with the pandemic, and then we thought, maybe it's another one thousand nine hundred and twenty nine throw that on top of nineteen eighteen,

great depression. Now we're talking about nineteen sixty eight. Should we be sitting around talking about how similar or different I'm is to other years is useful and or not will. Let me go back first of all You started this and how people are responding to it. I think it is very real that Americans are traumatized. We are going through major crises, one on top of each other, and that does in fact create a really hard situation for an awful lot of people. So I think it important in that way to recognise that what we're going through is extraordinary and hard for an for a lot of people. That being said, one of the things that historians are very vague, He used to sang and am very fond of saying, is that history doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes, and what historians do is they look? They study society and it doesn't really matter for this principle. What society their study I mean they could be studying. You know workers in southern France or icelandic fishermen,

it doesn't really matter what you're really studying any time you try and look at the history of a population is to see what creates change like what Stresses honest society mean that society either moves in one direction or in another, and to that end We can learn an awful lot by looking at the pandemic of nineteen eighteen or the depression we can look at those things and say: oh look on These circumstances, american society did these things. Because of this, and one of the reasons that historians argue is what I see as being crucial in the depression, for example, might be something very different than what one my colleagues does. That's fine. That's exactly we should be doing is arguing about what creates change. But in that sense it is very important to look to the past and say: oh yeah, you know when the depression hit this was going on and it really mattered that, for example, after are sent Elinor to talk to the bonus mergers rather than the army. The way Hoover had because it created this kind of good will in the media. That sort of look

and it really matters which we cannot do is say, oh because this happened in nineteen eighteen, the same thing is gonna happen in twenty twenty, so I'm gonna ask you more directly what you think will happen and that this is one of those moments to get where we will get change. Number five largely I'm guessing. Depends on what happens in five months to hold the wax friends onto the next presidencies is discontinued, be present trappers it, President Biden, but before we get to that, there is a feeling that the protests about George Floyd and the others is different. This time that is more widespread than in lots of communities where you would not have expected. Protests and marches, particularly them the pandemic, you are getting them and there to be an opening of the mind in love, ways are we haven't seen before, not after Eric Garner, not after some of the other tragic cases where young black on armed men were killed by police, do you agree that this is different and it feels different, and if so, why do you think that is. yes, I do believe that and discuss them.

Do something? I was saying earlier, one of the things that interests me when you study historical change is when people decide. Something really is different that since a circular argument, but it's really not in the sense that you know not put too fine a point on it, but please brutality against African Americans and all people of color is absolutely nothing new. I mean you and I could sit here and off the top of my head. I could give you case after case after case we go over all of America history is always they are so why it, sir times do a large section of the population, maybe even a majority. The population stand up and say that matters to us because it has managed to him ten years before that or fifteen years before that. So why now it's my sense that when People do that. It's because they can see in the

views of a minority population, the reality that they could be? Next I mean there is such at some level. There is a sense that things have gone so far off the rails, that you can no longer say. Oh well, you know he shouldn't, been doing acts. You have to say the system itself is corrupt, and when that happen, then. Yes, we get systemic change and that's what it feels like to me. The fact that so many people are showing up and sing enough is enough. I dont think there simply protesting the horrific down we have seen around us and, let me just say an older woman. The loss of people who were my children's age just kills me every time they look like the people who use sit around my kids, my dining table, you know chatting after school and adjust. It looks like my own children, every single time I see like Brianna, Tallard Taylor, who's, the same age as my eldest son. I think that is simply about them any longer. It's about the whole system and its a system with which people who are

necessarily themselves on the line. White people I can say this system also involves me and when that happens, we get a major change if you think there's anything to the the theory that one way in which the corona virus in the pandemic has caused people in this moment to be awakened to this kind of reality. For so many black people in this country and I heard a couple people mentioned this- I'm wondering what you think: lots and lots of people are home people can rely on their commute and running. The office and having all sorts of social engagements going on to turn away from avert their eyes from the reality of what happened in Minneapolis. People are home people are paying attention. People of the news on all the time threatening to the theory that that that has caused lots, more people to focus on this and not be able to ignore it. I have happened if we were in regular times. I think that's part of it, but I also think that one of the things

the corona virus really exposed was this argument that we have heard for so long that you know the people we really need to protect insist. Haiti. Is the makers right, the people at the very top, the wealthy guys who know how to run society and what really became clear was. This economy that seemed stable to a lot of people. Obviously, economists and historians had our doubts but see stable was really very unstable and at the people, who really mattered, where the essential workers and all the same, The idea that that we, in a pass laws in Congress that that continue to protect people, the top, even though it was the bus drivers and the sanitation workers who were keeping us all alive. I think really hit people, especially people who now realise that they were not part of the essential workers or part of the top, and that some the system had left them behind and there's a lot of people. I think you're upset about the inner at home.

has the Koran virus but also whore upset at this new look at the economy and saying wait a minute if it wasn't never that stable and really we ve gotta make some changes in it, because it's not serving us very well and certainly not serving while the people who were keeping us alive. And this really terrifying moment, this episode is brought, you buy fender football is back and the best bet. Can make is downloading the fan dual sports book app, it doesn't matter if new to gambling or an old pro fan, dual has something for everyone, and as an official sports partner of the NFL. You know your bet, you're, safe, there's, also never been a better time to use. Fan do because right now, you'll get up to one thousand dollars back. If your first bet doesn't, when you can even too the small wager into a big payday with the same game. Parlay that just sign up with a promo code spy fi to place your first bad risk free on fan, dual sports book Download fan dual today. Twenty one plus and present in Slovenia, first online real money, wager only refund

She does not withdrawal side credit that expires in fourteen days. Restrictions apply, see terms at sports booked out, fan. Dual dotcom gambling problem call one eight hundred gambler go back to something in your twitter bio, where you say you're killing me here and now it's good, it's good stuff. I study the car cross between image in reality in America, especially in politics. What does that mean? Well, here's a story. What that means is that I have always been fascinated by the difference between the way the world looks and the way the world really is, and this really jumped May I was many years ago I was actually waitress in Accra, homer and I was waiting as on the floor and I was the only person on them or who was not an event article Christian, and they most dammit? ass. They hated Democrats, my colleagues, They loved Ronald Reagan. It was in the eighties- and you know I remember looking around-

but the many of them who were not even living hand to mouth I mean they were. They were impoverish. Somebody was bringing home a new baby at one point and their literally was no food in their house. So we opened the restaurant in the in the off hours and cooked for them, so they have some food to bring home to the family and with the New Bay, aunt em there remember sitting there listening not sitting there cooking listening to this conversation talking about how much they hated the Democrats and how much they loved Ronald Reagan and thinking. This is just bizarre. You know the, The idea that you are actively hating the party that seems like it's going to be helpful to people like you who are working forty hour weeks and can make ends meet, and yet your demonizing that party and supporting the party was doing just the opposite, and that was the Euro is actually had taken time off a graduate school, because I thought I really the stuff doesn't matter that much. I ought to get into the world and see what it's like, and I remember looking around them thinking. How do you get to a point where, you believe really something there.

On its face is if you look at the facts, is not an ultra sayin? I I went studied mythology for a while, and then I ended up in history are trying to look at how people, especially politicians. Of course, we all do it. the way, but how politicians can manipulate imagery in order to get people to do things that are really not in their interest and that's obviously, wherever ended up so in the last, Couple of weeks we ve seen a lot of images on our tv screens and on our computer screens. that reflects something. I wonder what you think about them. Do they reflect reality or do they reflect some distortion? Most notably obvious? People talk about the snapshot. That is the picture of that officer, Derek Chauvelin, with his knee pressed into the back of the neck of George Floyd with his hands in his pocket. almost nonchalant is an image. Reality is an example of image actually being reality in the country once

Reason is to my understanding is a real image of the universe. The young woman took that video and it was a startling, startling video. I think I'm just the cash Ass, the sheer casualness with which that man choked out the wife Another human being was mind boggling. I think, but speaking a larger level, one of the things that America has always had going on, I think every maybe every political system does is control for how people think about things. In this, obviously one of it's always driven politics from the very beginning and always George Washington, a dictator, or is he a man of the people, but we I have seen the attempt to control the political narrative in a really really big way, since the nineteen. Fifty surprised that since nineteen fifties and of course, since two thousand sixteen with ie or before two thousand, doesn't sixteen

we see insertion of foreign actors in the attempt to control the way Americans think about things. It's really become a battleground on which our pull our politics is fought, and I think he would not see the kind of attempts of people like the president, but also worn actors to change the political narrative if they didn't think it was enormously important. So the question right now is who is controlling Matt, and one of the things that is important is the fact that a lot of Americans now are pushing back on false imagery on on the ability of people to say whatever, to construct whatever kind of narrative. They want to construct one of the things but I found really disturbing about the impeachment hearings. Was it became clear to me that a number of the republican senators and representatives were really not at all trying to conduct interviews or to try to get at the truth of anything that was happening, but where

actually looking simply for sound bites said they could then transmit into some sort of a video or onto the Fox NEWS Channel Entity and control the narrative and to control the way people thought about things and that He was a new law in our political discourse, so the real right now is which side is gonna win. Are we going to have a victory for people who actually care about the facts on the ground entity, and put some kind of, a real lands on was happening in America. Or are we going to fall back? into the narrative, spend that we have lived with really since the nineteen fifties and really dramatically, since the nineteen eighties end, even more dramatically since the two thousand teens in America at that, I think, is really the major battle that is on the table right now. Let's talk about that. We have a president for thank you arguably say compared to his predecessor care more about image of a reality than anyone we ve ever had led the cat and he has, as you everyone does in politics. he's trying to control the narrative through imagery, and we have that other snapshot that you know.

Live indelibly in people's minds of Adrian BAR, clear Park outside the White House and in the President walking over holding up a Bible not reading we're not praying not offering any kind of conciliatory words or thoughtful words to the people. Or to the black lives matter? Movement or anything else, holds up the Bible Photoshop literally clearly just for the image. I have two questions. How do you think he is doing for his own purposes and trying to control the image, and the narrative And then, second, what would real presidential leadership look like at this time will first I'm gonna get all historically excited here. I'm sorry about that. I was the Gulfy we're in this really fascinating moment, and it's not the first time we ve been in this moment in Amerika. You can also see we're doing the same in the eighteen nineties and that's where the image no longer meets the reality, for so many people that their crying foul and then

as a historian is fascinating because we like images, we like narratives that are tidy and easy, and one of the things that has been so powerful really since the rise of Reagan is this image of the individual taking on a behemoth state that is destroying opportunity and the great We have, of that was Hino, one thousand nine hundred and seventy seven. When STAR wars came out with Luke Skywalker taking on the empire. You know it's no accident that happened right before Ronald Reagan. SAM gets put into the White House that image that we have destroy the state, because its destroying the individual has really been innocent. Mfa mythological image its day Goliath, its Jesus some affair sees its Daniel taking on the wilderness, it's all those things wrapped up together and reckons like that. You know republican voters really liked that image on foot. I didn't, and be reality. It's never been reality and now, under the Trump administration, we are seeing that way,

of image to the political narrative, to the point that people going. You're, not gonna. U year, you're a threatening sources. Eddie you're, threatening my health care, you're, threatening the environment you're threatening our lives, especially after the corona virus, reveal the The federal government was not planning to do anything to help regular Americans deal with this deadly pandemic. Lotta people have seen for a long time at their narrative was real, but now Oh really were seeing a lot of people who had bought into it. Look at it and say no. This is absolute, not a reality and is painful is reality. Is my life depends on paying attention to reallocate again. So when you see Trump standing there holding that Bible, you can see exactly what doing. He is a master of narrative he's also by the way, a very, very good speaker, which most people are not willing to give him credit for, because he could so many. reality, but people.

Recognized that it's not reality and when that mask is torn. This is a great quest You started with you now. Is this a different moment? What I always say about that? As you know, I don't know, what's going to happen tomorrow, I don't know, what's going to happen in an hour and and in this administration, things happen constantly to the point that we're all exhausted But I will say how do you put this genie back into the bottle How do? How do you go back to a world where Americans say oh, never, mind we're cool. You know don't see that happening. You know I can't predict what is is going to happen, but I think, I can go on the limb and say that is not going to happen. No, it's interesting what you just said, which paints a pre optimistic picture that suggests people are seeing through the false image. and not being fooled with there's a lot of people who say does No time as much as now where people are not sure it's true and what false- and I guess you requested-

who are the people who are seeing through the false imagery, the present retains a very significant, although still minority level, of support hovering around forty percent. is there anything that you think will cause his supporters as opposed to other people who are on the fence, but his supporters to see through it now now their dreadful out transport are lost, but you know: there's always a population that lost in every in every time in history, for whatever reason they're going to cling to their belief system. That Never how a movement is is born or dies is from those true believers on the side. In the end, this is not original. For me, people been studying what they call true believers now for a very long time. Certainly since one thousand nine hundred and fifty one You described that belief system, the trumps supporter belief system. What is it well if he, if you can hold on for a second, I want to go back to something different that you just said, and that is at this when so many people dont know what is true and what is not true and that's something different than a narrative. What you're talking about there is a distant

nation that is being thrown at us quite deliberately. First of all by people who embraced the tactics of russian descent, nation or other disinformation systems that are designed. to throw so much crap at people that they finally just drop their and say I don't know, I don't care just just somebody take care of this and they walk away. That's a really dangerous situation, but asked for more people believe now then have in the past. You one of the things as a historian that always jumps out of me. As I hear this constantly people saying God it's never been so bad. It's never been so bad. I'm sorry pay attention for thirty five years. Yes, it has been people just worth paying attention before the fact that people are now paying attention to systems of different relation to the deliberate construction of a narrative calling out wise. I mean the Washington Post had a piece. On the number of times that attorney general, William BAR lied in an interview yesterday. We would not have seen that even two years ago, so I

this moment as something very different. Now in terms of the true believers that question you just ass. This is surely the heart of what I've been doing in my work recently and one of the things that I find absolutely fascinating and my ideas about it came really from studying Eisenhower. When I wrote my book about the the Republican Party because eyes I was really into a book called true believer by air coffer. An aircraft Alongshore met in San Francisco, and he was being the rise of Hitler and Mussolini and again, of course, everybody was during the rise of Hitler, was selenium. Nineteen forty seven acting fifties, and he said this is stupid. You know who care How do you know about Hitler? Mussolini? That's the wrong place to start looking and by the way, I'm paraphrasing. He didn't say this is stupid, but that was suggested it and said is that every generation has plenty of Hitler's and but they don't come to power, the real to look at is: why does a population it here to people like this and blue

seem to a position of power. So he tried to take a look at what you could do to create a population that would accept a dictator and what he just got. was a number of phases and what those phases war was first of all to take a population that has been destabilized in some way, either religiously or culturally or politically. Feel that it is no longer of significance. The way it had in the past. You find those people in UK Vince them that they should be important, that they it's not, that the world has moved on without them and they haven't changed, but rather that somebody has stolen that significance from them and then you have to find one to blame for the fact that they have lost their significance and ass Offer said, and certainly other propagandists have in the past, said who that person. Is our who those people are doesn't matter at all. You just have to have somebody to hate, that's how you, but you bind a group of people together and then what You have found given them somebody to hate. Then you have to promise that you can fix it

that you have a leader who can take that situation and will stored, you to power, and then you have to stop abusing those others in order that well that their marginalized, but second of all that you want your followers to start to treat those people badly and the the really important discovery by hoffered or development by half her when he talks about how important psychologically it is two people to start abusing others, because once they ve done that in order to justify I in their own minds their own anti social behaviour. They have to go ahead and say: well, it isn't that I did something wrong. It's a bat and deserved it, and once you have got people, lying in Tibet is extremely difficult to get them to say. Oh no, wait a minute. I was wrong for talking that way about minorities, for beating up that guy, for it she that woman out about job because they

have to admit that they are complicit, and once you have gotten to that point, that group of true believers as he calls it almost never be swayed because it's not simply that their treating somebody else badly it since they are complicit in it and that kind of behavior ratchet up until at the far end you get. The construction of a gas chambers is I offer, was looking at an you know. One of the great things about J K, Rollings Harry Potter books, was dead she recognized that system and you can see it in her creation of Beatrix, the strange who the more that Voldemort abuses, his followers, the tighter she clings to him, and this is really classic pattern. Abuse of relationships that the more abuse somebody in doors the more they cling to bat abuser, because they have become complicit in some ways in that relationship. So who are they

True believers for tromp, it's the people who have bought in and who have demonized their fellow Americans and they been told it So really, since nineteen, seventy, when facing the the mid term elections of nineteen, seventy, I really Nixon and his speech writers and his advisers advised him to create an and them the way he had hinted at in nineteen sixty eight and really in that that midterm election when you get the increasing demonization of you know that the Republicans law and order Republicans against them, the others and that's become a staple the republican Party. Since nineteen, Andy, and now those true believers are really wedded to it. You know it its remarkable, how one can sort of parts out all the ways in which you can have true believers follow a movement that goes in the wrong direction and then you have someone, I trump Seems to have done a lot of things that, following the pattern of that behaviour, as you have described my guesses,

with no study of history with no particular playbook with no explaining to him what those phases are, what do you make of of that that he intuitively has been able to put himself in a position of power, as you say in a country and in a world where there are always, you know certain kinds of people, demagogues or charlatans, but they typically Duncan put into power. What what do you say about his his skill when one thinks it fascinates me about? Ah Donald John Tromp? Is that he's not a pilot should he never has been, but what use is a salesman. So he gives people what they want to see, he mirrors back to them- and this is this- is one of the region the historian. I have found it so fascinating is because he has mirrored so very well. What the Republican Party after it was taken over my movement, conservatives told their followers that they want it

So in that sense he is mirroring back to the base of the Republican Party, what they want to see, but as for his rise and one of the things that people don't point to when they talk about his success in the primaries is a glitch that's built into the republican primary system, and that is that, and this is on this- is really in the weeds political history stuff that really, probably nobody cares about a mix of people like me, but when we talk about how the Democrats after nineteen sixty eight reworked their primary system to give more control to people on the ground, and then there's fights nowadays about super delegates which itself is it isn't resting on a long story? The republican party? Also I made some major changes to their primary system and they were in the service of it. They tried to make it look very popular. What they did is a front loaded. of their primaries in low information states and the reason for was they believed that this would enable them both to look as if they were giving more say to the people on the ground, but also

control about who those front runners would be. So the idea was that you would be able to put your primaries in states where a republican voters would tend to vote for people who had name recognition. That's why, for example, we get you Bush looking like he was going to be the candidate in two thousand and sixteen because he was theoretically the one who had named recognition, if you remember back than he had had re scared of money but done very little with the expectation that he was going to go ahead and do well in the early primaries what they weren't prepare four was for some other candidate to come from outside, with even greater name recognition. At the moment I think, when the Republican Party got blindsided into ending up with a Donald Trump rather than with a job bush, and that sir, you know that, piece of Loch that I don't think nobody saw coming, including for the record Donald Trump himself, so what the Republican Party. Now it's done cleared is unclear to a lot of erstwhile Republicans also so so what is it is it? Just? A reflection of

which is a reflection of that. You know what his base wants, or is it something else? Well, that's a sixty four thousand the question right, you know that so fruit forever. Ever since I wrote about the Republican Party and people said, oh, it's dad it's going to die, it's going to die and I kept saying no, it's not going to die and it's not going to die because the system that you know that's very deeply ingrained system, both culturally, but also the mechanics of a political party and because its ideology is in fact very important there to the american DNA. Now you know was I write about the fact. It's not gonna die. I'm afraid that what we ve got right now is a reactionary right wing party, and one of the things that has impressed me over the weekend in terms of seeing change is the fact that Mitt Romney who's, the senator from Utah now, of course, was out in the streets with the protesters he's doing that, of course, because Trump is not put were in among a lot of people from you talk, but also this struck me as being a moment that you could point to. As looking like a split in them

I'm working party before the twenty twenty election people. Finally saying this is really not who we are. So what is the real working party now I think it's very much up for grabs. What what it is. Do you think, further to what Mitt Romney did the statements made by general matters and others show a real break em in been other times in the past, where there has been a particular conservative vertical, Republican, not a lot of examples, but a few were they have broken with president or criticise a president, and people would say, will settle there's gonna be real rift within the present. after that person, and nobody follows that person's lead. You think here we are five months before the election. Would you predict their economy significant, more breaks from from Republicans actual power. I would expect more breaks yes from people of actual power, congressmen and congressmen, women you mean no. I mean that that's itself an entire discussion. I think that's what we're

see that matters is more and more breaks from voters saying you know we don't want any part of this more things from the Lincoln Project, more again, pray You're on the public narrative saying you: are you a republican? This is not your father's Republican Party stood for an that's really gonna matter in terms of the election of twenty twenty, which I knows, what everybody else is focused on in terms of whether or not that's what that's going to do to the Republican Party. That sing that I keep looking at sorry historian. Here is one thousand eight hundred and eighty four, when the Republican Party had become corrupt, that a number of really prominent Republicans, including Theodore Roosevelt, who was nobody at the time and Henry Cabot Lodge a senior who was maybe a little bit more than nobody, but not much, and on fighting Bob LE fall it who again was a young man that nobody was paying much attention to actual I'm complained about the party but did not leave it came back and in the election of eighteen. Eighty for a number of Republicans jumped ship and we became known as the mugwumps. But what

Dan, was that the Republican Party looked at the fact it had basically lost in space and from that, after one thousand eight hundred and eighty four you get. The reform of the Republican Party into the Progressive party that it became under Teddy, Roosevelt and Lodge fighting Bob. So is this going to be the moment when the Republican Party tosses overboard the reactionaries the way they tried to do in the eighteen nineties, I am not convinced either way, but I do think it could be either become the moment which the party reforms or could be the moment in which the Republican Party hives, often becomes a reactionary white Supremacist Party and something new rises in its place I will tell you the original theory of the Republican Party that that the government should help people at the, item to create a social web in which everybody is intertwined, economically and socially, is very much part of the American DNA and stands quite separate than the democratic DNA which tends to see the world as the haves and the have nots, and we need both if the republican Party

disappears. Tomorrow, have every expectation that there will be the rise of a new party based at least loosely on the old republican theory. So my fear is that a strong views about the president that, even if even a doll trump users and even if he loses by a significant amount. Any. if he does leave peacefully That does not mean there will a wholesale repudiation of trump and frumpy in style and frumpy in politics and vision because lots and lots of people will still learn from his alleys. One term success that that's awaiting to power in the same way. Arguably the fact that Sarah Palin that was a hot mess and become something of a laughing stock remains a precursor to trump. Due to share that concern totally. You ve put your finger on it, and this is one of the things that that I worry about with these protests, and I hate it

like a concern for all, but this needs to be translated into the mechanics of the system. Here. The same people are out on the streets need to be running for office, need to be registering people to vote and again because this is my thing need to be. Changing the public narrative that says, if you want to be a good american you'd, aren't going to do it by you know, making a gazillion dollars and screwing over all your workers, but rather by creating healthy safe, just communities that offer everybody equality of opportunity, and that systemic change. That is not about a single election. About a societal change, suppliers I've been asking the historian, who tend to be backward looking to predict into the future. Back to the protests that are going on and the calls for change and police departments and in dealing with systemic racism when you think are the by the possibilities of of what happens in the coming months and years. I love you just trail. I hope what

possibilities. Wow I was, I was a narrow it, but I want to. I want to give you a lot of running room, in other words, look I guess, on the one hand, this spectrum right, on the one hand, everyone it, s in a new country opens up and people freely, and move on, it doesn't seem like that will happen. It seems like it is I said, and will I know the base minimum of change will come to pass. But I wonder what you think will happen. Given your sense of the sweep of history, So we have a change in the presidency, and this and continues and people can can you to be ensured. and they dont forget what kind of things would you expected to change in the country and in the Democratic Party, for example There was in a semi want, isn't haiku form right before rhyming couplets? That's fine, too, so, first of all the usual disclaimer historians or profits of the past, not of the future, so

I will do the best I can with this, and I will say, as you know, I'm in eternal optimist, but I do not share your optimism that everybody is going to continue to stay engaged, and that is one of the things that I plan to be dedicating the rest of my summer, too, is trying to keep people engaged. because power does not give up its own power easily Nobody ever says: oh yeah, you're right. It would be morally better for me to pay my workers more, I'm sorry, I shouldn't say, never, there's always an example of one or two people who do it. Power never gives up its privileges easily and they have to be forced to do it now. For do it not by revolution, are not a big fan of guillotine the streets, because for many reasons, but I that's one. Another question were narrative comes in, you know to say, listen. This is why it is worth your while to do this because acts. This is good for us all, because why that

kind of narrative change, I think, is really what drives systemic change. So what could come from this moment one of the things that I like to say, as you can completely change society and, eighty years, if you want to you, know you, you start to talk to the children who were born today about what the world should look like when they become adults and in a ten years you have done whatever you want with it, where I would start. If you, let me be in a bid to the emperor the unit, is I would start with the laws that are so dramatically concentrating wealth upward into one of the things that you see again and again in american history. Is that we get profound reform when people have enough money? You know it's easy to say I can let my neighbour some stuff so long as I can feed my kids and, as we know, every single chart, since nineteen eighty one has shown wealth concentrating remarkably up in the upper even one percent, but higher than one percent of american society. So personally, it seems to me that that's the first thing to take on its economic justice in America, but from man. You know that

all kinds of things that I would like to see. Personally, I would like to see some version of the new deal, but the new deal not centred on ahead or a normative nuclear family, but rather a new deal centred on communities, because that whole moment of thinking that one man one other slash husband would take responsibility for his wife and children was never really anything, as I say, but imagery so I can we do it now we can do anything we want. The question is and we sustain the popular will to do that and generally once things get a little better. It's awfully tempting for people to saying you know that was good. I did my part and now I'm gonna. U know binge watch a tv show and that's that's not how we're gonna get systemic chain this country so near? Among other things, people are saying as a protest as they March is a phrase does become widely recited and that is defined the police. So let me ask you this humming asking this question

What historically have been effective political slogans, what have been ineffective political slogans and how do you judge the defined the police as a slogan policy, not a fan about word a much I'm a much bigger fan of reform the police. Even now I mean such basically the same thing about it. generally slogans. That work are ones that the ordinary person not paying a lot of attention to the news is not gonna find frightening and that's a case where defined the police honestly on its face, sounds like we're. Gonna, take away all money from all police forces and were all just gonna. I don't know what you know trying police each other. It sounds. It sounds completely unworkable. What it's actually means? Yes, what it actually means is to restore police funding, to commensurate levels with our funding, for education and for housing and for all

other things that have been thrown into the lapse of the police as we have cut those funding budgets so that police have had to take over all those different categories and to me it is frankly a no brainer if you look at the percentage of municipal budgets and go to the police force as opposed to education and housing and all the kinds of mental health care that we need to have to have a safe population, it simply a dishonest math problem, but to say Deef The police, I think, conveys to people who are not willing to dig deeper something that they will fall and sort of utopian and and and frightening they'll. Look. I've had decisions about about this with my kids over the last couple of days, something interesting or people who are not spending all their time. Listening to the news and reading behind what the phrase means, coming out of the mouths of a lot of people slogans are so meant to be someone catalyze people and are supposed to you a lot of information, even though their short and if they do it in a way

Quite a lot of additional reading and exploration and googling then, He doesn't convey what it supposed to convey. Exactly, words matter so much in the way people react to words matter so much. You know one of the said that I love to do when I teaches talk about flags and one of the ways that you, you start a movement in one of the first you need to do when you started movement is to make sure people understand who you are. So you generally carry some kind of cloth that or some kind of sign that shows that you're, one of the good guys if you will and those flags, if their popular flags fora for grass roots but tend to be incredibly simple, so that people can so them or draw them themselves and one of those cases where you're kind of making a slogan with a word as opposed to with the flag, and you don't want I have to say. Oh yes, you have to draw zigzag here. You have to do this and you have to do this. You want to be. You know just an x on a piece of paper in a way only only done done with words and that's one of those

words that I don't feel like D Fond accomplishes woody What do you make of the images of people who rightly angry and concerned about Do the world taking certain monuments and statues. It's one thing to bring down statue Robert E Lee, depending on what your point of view is theirs, Majorian and footage of people in in taking down a statue of a former slave owner and slay trafficker. Then, in Philadelphia was, I think, the painting over of a mirror, of the former mayor their mayor result, as is, free and does it matter is that something that bothers you? How do you think about that? and by what standard are former significant historical figures, to be judged. What first vote you said something very sad if it might be some, you take them rapidly. Depending on your point of view, I am I disagree with that. I think that confederate monument- need to come down anywhere there on any kind of public proper.

that's my view, tends to perceive to be clear. That's my view also well Actually, again, I'm I'm I'm not this. To me. This is an So no brainer, but I'm gonna qualify, something else that you said in. But the reason for that is that these guys try to destroy the country. I mean, can you name it? angle, other country where there's been a rebellion, killed you now at this point, six hundred thousand People, customers, five billion dollars and, and we put up monuments to it. Like you know, these were the good guys. This is this. Is this is crazy? I mean it's almost you know national suicide to say: oh yeah, let's honour the people who try to destroy our nation. I it's it's crazy to me that anybody would think it's ok. to use those symbols in any place that is owned by or control by, the federal government full stop. Those suckers need to come down. Now that being said, then we

Do you have something different and I'm not going to speak it all the whatever's happening in other countries, because I'm in America Nest and I'm I will obviously be on bad ground if I try and make any judgments about what anybody else is doing. But the question of monuments or plaques or paintings. To other figures, seems to me to be more problematic in the sense that you know we're talking a great deal now about people's rights. Actions are white people generally reactions to two black rights over the course of american history. But you know the issue Women's rights is nearing dear to my heart and, if we start to take, down monuments to founders and are our previous politicians who are massage monistic. I do we have just wiped out our entire history and vat is problematic in the sense that you know it did happen. These people did exist, I'm all for

textual rising these things, and I have to confess I dont remember anything about Mayor Rizzo. Maybe you should know that has had a statue in the first place, I'm not saying we have to keep these things. We need to have discussions about them, but I am against wholesale purging of our history uncle monuments, simply because, frankly, I dont think any of them can stand. Scrutiny If we're going to erase all of them were. What are we left with? Never being said, frank in a way the fights over statues. Really obviously about modern day politics, because people Don T to learn their history from statues They tend to learn their history from books or from teachers or from any number of places, and we could do an awful lot simply putting more money into the public school system and having people say that Mayor Vienna whomever was a racist, jerk.

Worrying about it and look. There's a statue isn't a crazy that they put that up in the nineteen thirty, because I thought that was a good thing. So Taxation really would help a lot, but not for the confederate statues. I want all gone are here, you of racism and bigotry towards a black people in this country, I've seen a good number of prominent Republicans mother tongue, but a few who knows search as if it's a defence to all things going on in the country today and twenty twenty a reminder very proud reminder: the Republican Party free the slaves over a hundred fifty years ago. as if that is reason why Republican should be voted for now and is used as a you'll against the Democrats as a historian. Will you? What do you make of that kind of a slogan on the part of Republicans in twenty twenty? It's just

stupid judiciously, but about you must have seen the merry tweeds tweed threads. I've done on this thing on this topic. Kevin and cabin crews do yeah yeah. I mean first Let me start with the Republicans: did not free the slaves, the slaves free, the slaves? You know they walked away from enslavement from human enslavement. Of course, the Republicans in Congress and certainly President Lincoln codified, that end of our human enslavement, except in cases of crime in America, but the whole idea that this was done to people who I don't know. What were they were they sitting around waiting and, of course not they voted with their feet and walked away from the places that they'd been enslaved so that whole construction first of all is stupid and it takes away agency from the people on the ground other obvious thing, of course, is that the parties have switch sides, the ideologies of changed truthfully. It's got to the point where, every time I hear that I won't engage any longer because its clearly

just designed to be a gas lighting waste of time. You know once again will go through how, in fact, the Republican Party had a problem with the rise of movement, conservatives in the nineteen fifties and then the nineteen sixties. It was very clear in nineteen sixty four that very Goldwater managed during his kin pain only to pick up the state of Arizona from which he came and the five deep sorrow states. So a nineteen sixty eight when Richard Nixon is running, he's gotta figure out some way to go ahead and cobbled together some kind of a coalition, and so he reaches out I'm fermented South Carolina says if your vote, you know you voted for, bury Goldwater quite publicly. If you'll join me, I won't back federal intervene to stop desegregation answer sermon joins the Republican Party very publicly at that point, and we get the rise of would be known as the southern strategy. This is not like you down Grant I mean literally Lee Atwater put it in incredibly crude terms in power

and we also have Kevin Phillips is very, very important book, the emerging republican majority, and when she says you know, if we just double down on this strategy and on track to grab Catholics and democratic Catholics into our coalition over issues of social, traditional ism which, by nineteen seventy became the issue you of abortion, then we ve got a majority for the future. I mean this is like this is nothing new, but every time I see person needs, and I won't even say the name, because I'm not gonna give him free press needs to feel like he's important again here. pops up on twitter and says the Republicans free the slaves and was the Democrats who enslave enslaved people well, yeah. Ok, shit, Sherlock, but it's over now and the parties that was a hundred and fifty years ago, and things have moved on its a toll, straw. Man argument that is really really tired. Letter from an American has a real

robust following is a shortly before we started one of your most fancy. My is my editor at can off Peter gathers trees, prized at how how many people want to read what you write on a basically daily basis about what's going on the world floored, but that being bad. My entire career has been based on the idea that people really do want to know their history, and they want to know facts and facts are not always positive. By the way you know, there's theirs idea that somehow, if you tell people, you have a history of american politics, somehow it's a feel good story. It is not a feel good story, but it's a real worry in a way you know for many years I said the people, you know somebody really ought to be doing this and everyone sang yeah whatever and going on doing whatever kind of media they were doing. I did not intend to start writing these. It is the other thing that's interesting about them is they are very much a collaborative effort

they started simply because my readers asked started. Ask me questions and I started answering them and then sing. I knew I had you know my my count. My follower account was going up by thousands every day, so it's interesting moment, because I feel like one again. We are seeing a moment when people really are valuing facts and the concepts of the enlightenment that you really can reach an agreement based on on a factual examination, the world but also we're looking at a new momentum media where people the ground or saying? That's not what I want to read. I dont want to see something: that's an inch deep. I really want to have some understanding of what's going on end and there ending at and it just happened happened that I completely inadvertent away happen, be the person who was there listening when they started to ask and started to answer questions it's really almost entirely as if it's one my classrooms brought to the screen. This question you're gonna get for me. How do people sign up well

Do these on Facebook, on my professional facebook page that people can follow, but I also have a substantial newsletter again. I'd never even heard of a newsletter, and it was my readers who insisted that I have one Heavy Cox, Richardson DOT, some stack dot com, Professor Heather cartridges and there's four join me. Thank you for all your work figure for educating folks before to everything. The right going forward? Thank you very much is a real pleasure my conversation with Heather Cox Richardson continues for members of the cafe insider community. Insiders did an estate in content, the exclusive weekly part? asked I composed within Milgram recordings Weekly notes and more to get a free to trial tete, a tete that comes lash insider, that's capita, come slash. Insider So I want to end with a reminder I saw on Twitter over the last few days.

this week, actor and Drummer John Gallagher Junior reminded us the story that is unfortunately as relevant today as when it happened. Twenty years ago, back in two thousand Bruce Springsteen. As you all know, what am I all time favoured people and performers was set to perform a man son, ten nightstand, Madison Square Garden in New York City to close out his tour, the previous February. To three or old Amadou Dielo, a black vendor. An immigrant from guinea, was standing outside his apartment building you remember this. He was unarmed and returning from a meal when he was shot forty one time, with semi automatic weapons by four Nypd plainclothes officers. They claimed stuck his wallet for a gun. Nineteen of those bullets hit the ILO and he died there in front of his home. the officers later claim that he match the general description of a serial rapist For a year earlier, the officers were charged, they went to trial but were acquitted on all the time just that year in Atlanta Bruce Princeton

maybe you two song american skin forty one shots which was an ode to the ILO and Morning Cry for the black and brown lives taken by police violence. The boss sings lines like this, and Jim it was considered back then controversial, scandalous, even a few days before Springsteen's, first knighted image, Sixteen months after the olives killing the present Europe's cities largest police Union, Patrick Lynch, who still around call for a boycott of spy. steam show's over the song, not only that Then? You are sitting here with Giuliani and then please, Commission, Howard safer, also condemned the song, the present it in Europe.

After the fraternal order, a police when even further and call Springsteen a dirt bag and other profundities. I will not repeat for you today, Mr Diaz, more mother Korea to the ILO said she took the songs, assign the people cared about her son. Why This anger towards a man who sing a song dedicated to somebody who shouldn't have been killed or gas To sum up, like this quote, the fact that it may be, Nypd, so mad tells us about. Why they are doing what they are doing right now, question our authority and become our enemy? matter. If you're, famous, rockstar or citizenry, demanding reform, end quote you may have seen some of the clips of another representative group of people, as per the police union, decrying the way that the police have been treated and spoken about over the last number of We have also seen over the last couple of weeks com. Videos of police brutality, we ve,

you stories of black people killed on the street in their cars, even in their own beds, and we ve seen new forms of protest and political change. All around us Springsteen by the way, did not stop playing Americans. Forty one shots. In fact he pleaded at every single one of the ten concerts at Madison Square Garden. and more recently, on March twenty third, twenty twelve a month George Zimmermann, kills seventeen year old trail on Martin in Florida. Springsteen play that song again dedicating trade on Morton Protest for the protection of black lives continue all over the world, and citizens continue to push for Joe this inequality would go. of that, there are no more new names to which we dedicate Springsteen's american skin Please see the show notes to this episode for links to.

innovations. You can support that fight for black lives and our collective fight for justice and equality will that's it for this episode of stay tuned thanks again to my guest, Heather Cox, Richardson. If you like what we do rate and review the show an apple pie casts or wherever you listen. Every positive review helps new listeners find the show and when your questions about news politics, injustice, tweet them to me, a pre Ferrara with the hashtag Aspirin or you can call and leave me a message at six hundred and sixty nine, two hundred and forty seven, seven thousand three hundred and thirty, eight that's six thousand six hundred and ninety two for priests or you can send an email to stay tuned at cafe, dot com stay tuned is presented by cafe. Executive producer is Tamara, separate. The senior audio producer is David, Tadich or, and a cafe

Billy David Kerr, Lander SAM, overstating Calvin, Lord no as alive and Jeff justifies our music is by Andrew Dost. I'm prepared statement.