Jon Meacham's warning to those in power

Hi, everyone. It's Amna Navas. Welcome to another episode of Settle In. Today, we're talking to

Pulitzer Prize-winning presidential historian and best-selling author John Meacham. He has a fabulous

new book out called American Struggle, which looks back at historical texts and speeches to tell us

more about who we are today. But we had a fascinating conversation. We got a little deep

sometimes, too. He reflected back on how he thinks today about the presidency of Joe Biden and what

his impact and legacy could be. He also shares the one piece of historical text that he thinks

every single American should read. You're going to want to check this out. And he also talked about

why he's still hopeful today and where he finds hope as America marks 250 years. So, Settle In

and enjoy my conversation with John Meacham. Listen, before we talk about history, before we talk

about your books, before we talk about how we got here, I want to talk about where we are right

now at this moment as a nation, because as you and I have spoken, as we say a lot, even at

PBS News and NewsHour, we talk about unprecedented times, these moments of great division about

uncertainty and fear in our culture right now. But you are immersed in this. So, what words do you

use to describe where we are right now as a nation? How would you describe it? It's a vital turning

point between a constitutional order. One road is a constitutional order that may not give us everything

we want, but preserves an ethos in which we can see each other not as enemies, but as rivals and

opponents. And the fact that you want to rival an opponent instead of an enemy is an important

difference. I worry that we are almost too far turned toward the enemy, at least the politically

engaged are. One important point here is a majority of the country isn't as wrapped up in

this as we are. And I don't mean that just in terms of following it obsessively. They're not

actually engaged in politics as total war, which so many people are, but a dispositive number of

American voters are. And so the trick here, the choice between that road of a total war or a

constitutional ethos, which I think is where we are right now, the fate of that decision, the fate of

that turn may well depend on people who are not as invested in the struggles of the day,

but who tune in, recognize the significance of the struggle and say, you know what, we don't have

enough confidence in anyone person, anyone party, and anyone interest to run everything absolutely.

And we want a democracy, we want checks and balances so that we have the capacity to amend

to the capacity to compromise, not simply for the virtue of compromising, but most of human

history tells us that if you and I recognize each other's inherent dignity and the

validity of each other's views, we are a lot more likely to stay within a covenant, within a

civil society, and actually create that more perfect union. If we only see each other as enemies

who have to be destroyed, then the point of the Constitution is undercut.

It's interesting, though, it sounds like you're saying the future or health of our democracy

could rest much more on people who are not the most politically engaged, the ones who have not

been more rabid than paying attention to this really, which would you put at the majority?

Because everybody who's politically engaged, let me put this way, everyone who's politically engaged

knows what I think, right? There are not a lot of, hmm, many President Trump is,

we should give him all the power. You know, there aren't many people or on the other side,

there aren't many people in Maga land saying, yeah, you know what, having a Democratic president

for four to eight years would be good for purposes of balance. You know, that's not a sentence

you hear much, right? But so therefore, what we have to, I think, the stories we have to tell,

the point of talking about history, the point of talking about the lessons of the past,

which may feel remote, but in fact, is not, is to get people to observe the

urgencies and the complexities of the present and render a decision. And the politically engaged

have rendered their decision, right? There's not a lot of, on the one hand, on the other hand.

And so, and there are a lot of people who are in that potential cohort, who can make a difference.

And so, those are the people I think we should be talking to.

Can I ask you as we sit and talk here? Did you, did you foresee another war on the horizon?

Did you see the U.S. starting on this war in Iran? You did not. No, no, no. And if only because,

not because I thought there was an inherent virtue in the executive branch, but I didn't,

it felt to me as though the isolationist impulse was the non-interventionist impulse.

To give them credit, was so strongly embedded in the base of support that propelled the president

of power twice. I thought that was a controlling interest. And it turns out that, as he said to the

New York Times a month or so ago, really the only thing that's really important in determining

the broad direction of the United States of America at this hour is what goes on in Donald Trump's

head. Now pause for a second and think about that. But it's true, right? I mean, the point of

the Constitution, as conceived, was not to have a king because the founders, let's really dork out

here. The founders did not act in a vacuum, right? They were in the late 18th century,

and they were not somehow lifted out of history to create this country out of nothing.

They were Englishmen. They were intimately familiar with the history of what was the old world

in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. And what had that world been shaped by? Autocracies,

wars of monarchies, wars of religion, wars of conquest that used religion. And so the point

of, in many ways, of the late 18th century, of that political revolution that the American

experiment really embodies was, let's take the affairs of nations away from the whims of a single

person. And let's at least try to entrust them to the clash of interests of the many.

That was the point. And for all sorts of reasons, as we can discuss, beginning with Jefferson

buying Louisiana, running all the way through the splitting of the atom, the executive branch

of the United States has grown inexorably as a tough word, but I think that's the right word,

has steadily grown, let's say steadily, has steadily grown to the point where

because of the way powers have developed, and because of the habits, the extra constitutional

habits, the, you know, people say they don't like norms or the norms seem sort of boring.

But in point of fact, what President Trump's doing in Iran, interestingly, is drawing on a set of

norms that aren't quite explicitly spelled out, but have developed as part of our custom

that presidents can exert force in this way. We haven't declared war since the Second World War.

You mean formally, officially through Congress. We haven't done that. We've authorized

use of force in a number of nations. Yeah, we have. But, you know, if you are, if you were a young

American in Korea or Vietnam or the Persian Gulf or Iraq or Afghanistan, the distinction between

an authorization of force and a war probably didn't make much difference to you.

Well, let me ask you this because a lot of folks who read the Soul of America a few years ago

walked away, myself included, feeling pretty good about who we are as a country. I think,

because you went through all these critical moments in American history and really pointed out how

as Americans, we have tended to choose our better angels over the worst impulses as the arc of

American history unfolds. And as we sit here now and everyone's trying to figure out what the

heck happens next, I have to say in speaking with you and in hearing you talk about the state of

our democracy and what's a stake or how it changes or how it doesn't, you sound a little bit more

pessimistic than you did back then. Is that fair? I think it is. I think there's a difference between

optimism and hope, right? Hope is the opposite of fear. I am still full of hope that we can

construct a present and a future commensurate with the aspirations of the Declaration of Independence

and the country that abolished slavery and preserved the union and extended suffrage and did

away with Jim Crow, but the same country that did away with Jim Crow created Jim Crow, right?

The same country that extended suffrage, denied suffrage, the same country that abolished slavery,

protected slavery. So it's never fully light versus dark. I thought after Charlottesville, after the

both the the tone and the chaos of the first trunk term, I thought the country would say,

you know what? We wanted to send a message to the establishment, the world as it's taken shape

since really since the mid 1960s has not been commensurate with our cares and concerns.

So get it together. I thought that message had been sent and that people having sent it

would realize that the messenger was now actually causing more harm than good. And in 2020,

that was proven right. So in 2020, I thought, okay, my argument was correct. You know,

President Biden has been elected. There's a certain return of gravity. And I mean that both

in the physical sense, but also in the metaphorical sense. We were serious again.

As ever, history confounds us. Human nature confounds us. Because in the midst of that return

of gravity was the introduction to shift metaphors of a particularly devastating virus into the

body politic, which is the denial of full free and fair elections if you don't like the result.

And so the undermining of trust in the ways in which the will of the people is expressed

was something I didn't foresee. And the durability of that lie. And what it enabled the president,

the former president and current president to do, which was to keep that 30, 35% of the country

that would follow him anywhere, he kept them fully engaged. And then the other 14.9% or so

for various circumstances, including mistakes made by the Democratic Party and the stakes made by

the then incumbent president. Let's be honest. Managed to create again a

dispositive number of folks who wanted to send a message again. And so in that sense,

was I surprised? Yes, I was. The argument in the soul of America and the argument of this

current book is, is not that there's ever a final victory. It's that there can be provisional

hours of hope, of constructive public action, of a moral application of our conviction that the

Declaration of Independence should in fact continue to be our our North Star. And that manifests

itself in a, you know, an infinity of ways. The deaths of the two people in Minneapolis

should not have happened. That was a projection of force domestically

for largely performative political reasons. And it has real world consequences. And what I say to

my Republican friends, and I live in Tennessee, so that's redundant, is, and this sounds

facile. I don't mean it too, but I think it makes the point. You know, they'll line about

you know, in school, you know, when people are having food fights or paper fights or whatever,

and the teacher says, you know, it's always good until it's all fun until somebody isn't

put out, right? I mean, that that's where it's classroom thing. The politics of Trumpism

is, let's be honest, it's entertaining. I don't think there's any, there's, I don't think there

should be any doubt about that. It's, it's enveloping his supporters see every day as a struggle

against an enemy. It elevates. It infuses daily life with the highest of stakes. Richard

Hofstetter wrote about this in the paranoid style in American politics that if every day is an

existential struggle, then you politically, you remain almost hyperactive, right? You're constantly

in like a state of struggle, a state of war, right? There's always a mission, right? There's

not, you're right. And someone's always coming after you, right? And I just think that the point

of the country, and I tried to make this point in the sole book and in this book, the country at

its best is one in which, as Alexander Hamilton said, we enable reason and deliberation

to take a stand and perhaps prevail against force and accident, right? Hamilton said that was what

the Constitution was about, was about could we prove that a group of human beings could

take a step back, could observe human nature for what it is, could construct a government to take

account of our appetites and our ambitions to try to channel our aspirations and do so with the

power of reason and deliberation as opposed to force, which is the default position, right? Or

accident, which is someone happens to win a battle and therefore they're king.

Just because someone wins an election does not make them king, all right? That's not what the

American system is supposed to be. And I think that's the story that has to be told.

Can I back it up a little bit? Because before we talk about some of the implications of what we're

seeing now from this Trump administration, you mentioned feeling like, okay, we've reached

gravity. Again, there's some gravity here when President Biden won the election and then being

surprised when President Trump won re-election. And I wanted to ask you because I'm not sure I've

heard you talk about this in this way, but it's worth noting you're close to President Biden. You've

called him a friend. You've called him an American hero. You advised him on his speeches.

Understanding there were a lot of other forces at play, the pandemic, as you mentioned, and a lot

of other things happening in the country bubbling up for a generation at least. How do you look back now

on what President Biden as a leader and his administration did or didn't do that also helped

to get us where we are today? And not just the decision to run again, right, which has been called

into question and examined a dozen different ways, but also maybe not going after some of the

officials from the first Trump administration, the way some Democrats wanted them to. How do you

look at that now? So the first answer before I blather on is I'm not sure, just beyond. I think that

it's to some extent, I think we're all still working through that, and we can't be certain yet,

right? President, my friend Michael Bachelors, our friend Michael Bachelors,

likes to say it takes 20, 25 years to be able to assess a presidency and historical terms as

opposed to journalistic ones. And I think that's true. It was true for Truman. It was true for

George Hubbard Walker Bush, and it's going to be true for President Biden. So a couple of things.

One is on the personal side. What happened with President Biden and choosing to run again

was in many ways a classic tragedy. And I mean it this way. The personal characteristics

that enabled Joe Biden from 1972 until 2020 to survive and even ultimately thrive amid immense

personal tragedy and remarkable political setback and stasis, right? Those characteristics

prevented him from stepping away. I do not think, you know, I would bet the mortgage on this.

I don't think President Biden was clinging to power because he wanted an airplane or because

he loved power so much. It was a result of his resilience, his determination to keep moving,

no matter what, and not ever surrendering. And he's believed that he was the person who was the

catcher in the rye, if you will, between the country and President Trump. And he was wrong.

But this is from Greek tragedy through Shakespeare. This is a fundamental human drama.

The characteristics that propelled him to the pinnacle of power prevented him from doing what he

needed to do to step away from it. And so now that's a biographer's point of view, right? That's

what I do. That's why we're talking to you though, John. In the broader sense, your question about

the administration. I have a colleague at Vanderbilt, Josh Clinton, who ran these numbers.

And don't hold me to them precisely, but they're directionally true. There were something

like 70 elections around the world in 2024. And in not a single one, did an incumbent ruling party

add to its strength, which was the first time that's ever happened in recorded election history.

So there was a global phenomenon, largely because of the inflationary impact of money we spent

after during and after the pandemic. The president was seen as President Biden was seen as having

moved too far, quote unquote, to the left. I think when you sit and sift through that, it's a more

complicated story, but that was a factor of they tried to take advantage of what they could

of a moment, because that's what you do in politics, right? I don't have a sense yet. In fact,

I was just hoping someone would do this. So maybe the news network could do it. I was here's an

assignment. I think it'd be interesting. But please go ahead. Yeah. There you go. But see if

you like the idea. I think somebody should sit down and look at those three or four big pieces of

legislation that the president, President Biden passed and see what has survived and what hasn't.

Look at the infrastructure bill, look at the American Rescue Plan, look at the, what was the

inflation reduction act? They all had weird names. And what of the politics? Because that's what it

is. That's what we're to answer you. The answer to the question you asked precisely, someone's

going to have to sit down and do that. You know, what did because that's how we'll start to see

impact and legacy. Exactly. Exactly. That's where governance. So to figure out, we know the political

right impact. What we don't know right now is the governance one. And I use President Bush

senior as an example here, right? 39% of the country voted for him to be reelected. So 61% of

the country wanted him out. But then you look at the governance and you had the conditions for

a balanced budget in the 1990s. You had a limited and effective operation in the version Gulf.

You had the Americas Disabilities Act. You had the Clean Air Act. You had significant stuff.

That's not all that interesting. The other thing about the other Bush, which got very little

attention in real time, but which is arguably one of his two or three most important achievements

was the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. There are 20 million people alive today

because in 2003, George W. Bush took steps to combat HIV AIDS in Africa.

The program, most people know it's no one should say. Yeah. Yeah. And almost nobody knows about that.

So it's just these are big complicated questions. Do I wish that history had turned in a different

way? Do I wish President Biden had made different decisions in his last two years? Absolutely.

But I think not bud and I think I think I have a pretty good sense. I think my I think my theory

as I articulated to you is right. I really do. But over time, you believe the impact of his

administration. Because because his what in one season was admirable resilience

became in a different season a a blindness to reality. And that's again, we could we could spend

the rest of the afternoon talking about Aristotle and Shakespeare and and how a tragic flaw

is how that unfolds. But I don't think it was for ill motive at all.

Well, how about this? We'll sit back here in about 15, 18 years and see

if you were right or not. You'll be here. I will want to be I'll be long gone. But okay.

Well, let me ask you this on a more personal note too because I we talked a lot about your book

when we did a live event together, which was fascinating and anyone who is interested should

absolutely go out and read it. It's called American Struggle. But what you did in this book is go

back and revisit, right? Texts and pamphlets and speeches and all the texts from those same

moments in history that you've examined and written about in the past. And I wonder just from a

personal motivation from your standpoint, why do it that way? Were you personally in search

of something else? Like something you might have missed or some reason to keep believing? What was it

that made you say, I'm going to go back and look at it this way now? This is very therapeutic. Thank

you. This is how you feel. This is great. This is betterhelp.com. I love this. That's a great question.

Was I in search of something? What I was really in it. I don't I don't think so. I think what I

let me tell you what I was doing and then you tell me what you hear. What I hear you say,

and will there be a prescription at the end of the cycle? I love psycho pharmacological.

I want to tell this story, right? The story we talked about a minute ago. I want to tell a story

about a country that for all of its amenities, a phrase from the Anglican Book of Common Prayer,

for all of its manifold sins and wickednesses, for all of that, it has inextremists and in the hour

of decision, fought fascism, created a middle class, undone segregation and slavery, and has attempted

to create an ethos of democratic capitalism that enables us to live lives of prosperity and purpose.

That is the country that for almost 50 years, I have believed in, thought about, lived in,

written about, and I don't want that country to surrender itself to our baser instincts.

And the baser instincts are the rule of the strong. Apparently, I would say to those who are

in power now, be very careful because all of human history says that if you're strong in one

season, you're going to be weakened another. And so one of the reasons you have a rule of law is

so you even it out. So here was one more way to tell this story. And that was to call on the people,

to call on the raw materials and let them bear witness for good and for ill, right? This isn't just

Frederick Douglass, right? You've got George Wallace. You have Alexander Stevens,

vice president of the Confederacy who said the Confederacy has found it on the great truth that

the black man is inferior to the white man. His strong thermon in 1948 broke away from Harry

Truman because Truman seemed to liberal on civil rights. He'd integrated the military.

You have illiberal voices as well because that's also who we are.

You ask about president Biden. One thing that we have a running debate about

is he likes to say when something terrible happens, this isn't who we are.

I for years have said, Mr. President, it's exactly who we are. He doesn't believe it, right? He

thinks this is an aberration. I think this is totally within character. It's just we manage to,

at our best, we manage the worst instincts. Of course, it's who we are. Of course,

this country is a mix of good and bad and light and dark because we are, I mean, you may not be,

but God knows I am. And so I wanted to say here is a collection of voices that while incomplete,

if you read this book, you would get, I think, I think you would come away with a

primer on the best we've been and the worst we've been.

And now we have a decision to make. What do we want the next section of this book,

if there were one in 20 years? What do you want to be in it? What do you think would be in it?

And is it a chronicle of autocracy? Is it a chronicle of a nuanced anti-immigrant sentiment?

Or is it perhaps where we were even 20 years ago, 15 years ago,

when the Senate came up with an immigration bill that would have secured the border and created

a process for a line for undocumented folks to get in line for citizenship? A bill that existed

both under George W. Bush and under Barack Obama. 20 minutes ago, right?

That's a deal, by the way, just to point something out. If President Trump wanted a Nixon to China

moment, pass that bill. The immigration bill. I don't know if you could, but I bet he could.

Why do you say that? Why do you think that would make such a difference for him?

It moves his immigration rhetoric forever from nativist baiting to constructive legislation.

And that's one of the things, since we're being therapeutic,

it's a fascinating historical thing, right? Donald Trump.

Because no one, note this well, okay? Because I don't say this much.

It's against my business model to say something is unprecedented.

But no American president, no American president has ever had the grip on the political and cultural

mind share of the United States of America. FDR didn't, Lincoln didn't, Ronald Reagan didn't.

He has a, it's not an unlimited fund of political capital, but it's a lot. And he hasn't taken it out

to shift metaphors for a spin, right? And great American presidents

tend to be the ones who surprise and challenge their base. Nixon being the great example, right?

Nixon going to China is, Nixon began his national career as an anti-communist hunter,

chased out your his, who was guilty, chased out your his, right? Was a red baiter,

not McCarthy-esque, but within the same county. And yet he opens up the most populist communist nation.

If I had said to you in 1948 that Richard Nixon was going to open diplomatic, open relations with China,

you would have said that's crazy. Ronald Reagan had some of the greatest anti-communist

credentials in the history of American politics. He starts out in 1981 saying press conference,

his first press conference after he was inaugurated, that the Soviet Union reserves unto itself

the right to lie to cheat to steal and seek world domination. And by May 1988, he is literally in

Red Square playing with babies, right? And if a Democratic president tried to do that, it would have

been much more complicated. So, by Trump has political capital that he's not using-

He has not spent- In a way that could build a real legacy. That's your advice to him,

to do something surprising, and immigration you think is the way to do that.

Because I'll also point out, you know this better than- than most here, we have had

real chapters in American history, in which we've seen this or some version of this

in the way of the nativist language and the mass immigration deportation efforts.

I know you don't like to use the word unprecedented, but how different is what we're seeing today

from those chapters of the past? It's of a piece, right? So, yeah, we start- and let's be clear here.

We start- this is a perfect one where it's- it ebbs and flows. When people say this isn't who

we are in immigration, they don't know anything, right? We start with the alien sedition acts, right?

We start with giving the president the power to deport people. 1798, okay? So, this goes back to

there. The Chinese Exclusion Act in the 19th century. In 1924, we so severely limited by national

quota immigration, you know all this, that that was the regime that was in place, that the Roosevelt

administration chose to follow when we were dealing with refugees from Nazi Germany. And it

wasn't undone until 1965. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 is one of the most important

parts of the great society that nobody talks about. But for 40 years, we basically said we only want

people from countries who have already sent us people, right? And it favored existing groups.

And to be clear, there are a lot of people today who argue that was the right- quote-unquote

right immigration system, that that's what we should return to, right? Yeah, I guess they

argue that. It's a useful, it's a real issue, but it is also a useful trope, right? I mean,

when you're talking about something as broadly complicated as globalization, as a world that has

become as small as it possibly ever has been, there are dislocations. There are people who cannot

make a living the way they made a living. Their sense of being, their sense of belonging,

their capacity, as I said, to live lives of prosperity and purpose, those means have gone away.

Is that the fault of people crossing the border for a better life? I don't think so,

but it's a heck of an easy argument to make, right? And so, and this is a global phenomenon,

right? I mean, this is going on around the world, and I'm not dismissing the cares and concerns of

those who are suffering because of a globalized economy that has because of capitalism,

because of market forces has sought less expensive labor around the world. I mean, this is the great

reality of the time. And again, the American nation state that I've spent so much time writing

about, thinking about, hasn't come up with a very coherent or compelling answer for those who have

been disoriented and displaced by that broad shift. And so, that is a, that's a serious question,

immense implications, and it requires the best kind of thinking and policy making.

And the political culture we have at the moment is not wildly conducive to the best political

thinking and policy making. How much of what you hear from your students today? Could you get to

interact with college students on a regular basis at Vander Hill? How much of what you hear from them

on all of these topics, whatever questions they ask, whatever thoughts they have? How much

for that surprise is you? They are more, they're more hopeful than I would have thought, given

yeah, they are. May I speak with them please? Yeah, it is.

It is, though, they have a sense that things are really,

now they self-select, right? So, you know, is this a broad thing? But my favorite pedagogical story

is this, five, six years ago, maybe a little bit more now. I was in a class and probably a hundred

people and fifty, somewhere, a lot of people. And I was kind of on a, I won't say autopilot,

but I was talking about how the Declaration of Independence was the fullest manifestation of

the enlightenment impulse toward moving from hereditary power to elective power.

And I was, you know, cruising along. And a young woman raised her hand and said,

I don't agree that the Declaration of Independence wasn't enlightened to document because it didn't

include me speaking as a woman, it didn't include black people, it didn't include Native Americans.

So how can you say that's enlightened? Totally fair. I said, well, I didn't say it was enlightened,

but it was an enlightenment era. But, but here's what I want you to do. And I asked them to go read

Frederick Douglass's eulogy tribute to Abraham Lincoln, delivered in 1876 at the dedication of

the Friedman's monument on Capitol Hill. First monument entirely funded by the formerly enslaved.

And I commend that to everyone listening as well. Frederick Douglass, 1876,

oration and memory of Abraham Lincoln. It's the most profound meditation I've encountered on

the nature of democracy and in some ways the nature of biography. Because he says in it that

Abraham Lincoln was preeminently the white man's president. We were merely his step children.

He was cold, tardy and indifferent to abolition. He tarried long in the mountain. Great phrase.

But in the hour of final decision, he proved to be the critical figure in the

liberation of my race. And to judge him for what he failed to do is to not is to miss the point

of what he did do. And so I signed that to the class. And next class, I was moving on to

the Louisiana Purchase. So I was giving a quick fill on the Louisiana Purchase, which was,

and I said, you know, if Alexander Hamilton had been president and had tried to buy Louisiana

under the terms with the power that Jefferson assumed, Jefferson's head would have exploded. He

would have opposed it because you're always against executive power unless you have it.

And the same young woman raised her hand and said, I think you're being too hard on Jefferson.

And I said, what do you mean? She said, well, you know, he was just doing what he had to do.

You know, Frederick Douglass said, as in my work is done, I'm out of here, right? So I tell that

story because it's part of why this book exists, actually. What I have found is that younger folks

are in fact more open to reason and deliberation, right? Give them evidence, make a case.

They haven't ossified yet, right? Too many of us are ossified. Too many of us have picked a team.

We have a jersey. We have all our gear. We've already invested in the gear. We're not going to get

new gear. But they have a lot of these things, right? Right. And there is a cure. I guess that

thank you. That's the right word. They are curious and open to argument. And I think that's

remarkable given there. Again, their lived experience is if you were born in the 21st century,

the public sector has not covered itself in glory. So the fact that they're open to argument

gives me hope. It makes me think of something a dear friend and family member says who's actually a

therapist in her profession. Maybe that's where you get it. But she always talks about looking

backwards with forgiveness and looking forward with wisdom. In other words, if you apply the wisdom

you have today and try to look backwards with it, you're going to get frustrated and you're going

to get angry and you're going to get resentful. But if you try to use that as wisdom that you pull

forward to your future self, that's how you make it productive. Now we're really getting into

therapy territory. I love this. And I'd like some more clod of them.

If that's possible. Well, look, we are we're approaching a major moment for this nation that you

have spent so much of your career examining and trying to make sense of for the rest of us as we're

approached to 50 now. How do we think about this balance between who we are today

celebrating the achievements of the founding fathers, recognizing where we fall in short and the

work as yet to be done? I mean, how do you how do you at this moment look at that and whether

it's a celebration or more of a call to action? Well, it's an act of remembrance and remembrance is

not passive but active, right? And I draw this point from my religious tradition, I'm a

Episcopalian, but it comes straight from the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, right? Moses

said remember the days of old remember the years of many generations as thy father and he will tell

the elders and they will show thee. And one of the most obeyed commandments ever is when Jesus said

do this in remembrance of me. And remembrance in that sense is that when we tell a story

when we in Christian terms say the mass, right? When when whether it's a Passover story or

the New Testament story and other traditions have the same same point.

And in those words, in those actions, you are revivifying something, you are recreating a reality,

you are making something alive again. And what this kind of patriotic hour

or enables us to do is to tell a story and to make that story not remote but real. And I think

its power comes not in its alleged simplicity but in its inherent complexity. And

that's again, that's the way I am. We're all fallen frail and fallible people. And if we can do

the right thing 51% of the time, that's a heck of a good day. And I think the country should be

seen the same way. Well, here's to more good days than bad days ahead. John Meacham, I know it's not

probably what you said out to do, but I always feel better after I get a chance to talk to you.

I feel better after reading your work. The new book is out now called American struggle,

democracy, descent, and the pursuit of a more perfect union. I'm so grateful to you for taking

the time to chat with us today. Thank you so, so much. Thank you for this. Do I get

do I get any Ken Burns DVDs? You get a tote bag. You get a Ken Burns DVD. Yeah, absolutely.

Viewers like you anything. Thank you.