The 250-year experiment: America’s birthday

Summary

---

The 250-Year Experiment: America’s Birthday

Economist Podcasts – July 3, 2026
Host: Jason Palmer (The Economist)
Guests:

• Robert Guest – Deputy Editor, The Economist (London)
• Rebecca Jackson – Southern Correspondent (Atlanta)
• Daniel Knowles – Midwest Correspondent (Chicago)
• Aaron Braun – West Coast Correspondent (audio dispatch)
• John Fasma – Senior Culture Correspondent (audio dispatch)

---

Episode Overview

In this special Independence Day episode, The Economist reflects on the state of the American “experiment” as the United States marks its semiquincentennial—250 years since its founding. The discussion explores the health and resilience of American democracy, the recurring tensions over immigration policy, and the global impact of American culture. The panel brings historical perspective, contemporary reporting, and (occasionally) birthday-appropriate levity as they ask: Has the American experiment succeeded, is it failing, or is it simply evolving in new ways?

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The State of American Democracy at 250

[03:30–09:18]

• Divergent Perspectives on Democratic Health

  • Optimism (Robert Guest): Despite visible threats to democratic norms—referencing a president “who shows the least respect for tradition… and has a tenuous relationship with reality”—he notes that "the institutions are holding up reasonably well." The system’s durability echoes the uncertainties of the founders, suggesting America’s battle-tested mechanisms remain intact.
    • Quote (Robert, 03:43):

      “It’s lasted 250 years. It’s battle tested. I think it'll last the next two and a half.”

  • Pessimism (Daniel Knowles): Cites recent Supreme Court rulings (notably on birthright citizenship) as alarming, implying growing judicial willingness to grant excessive executive power.
    • Quote (Daniel, 04:31):

      “That seems to me a real, real threat... I am really pessimistic.”

  • Middle Ground (Rebecca Jackson): Focuses on the erosion of electoral competitiveness due to partisan gerrymandering and weakening of the Voting Rights Act, worrying that Americans with minority political views are increasingly disenfranchised.
    • Quote (Rebecca, 05:01):

      “In the upcoming midterms, there will be very, very few competitive congressional races ... Americans whose views are different... basically no longer have a voice in our democracy.”

• Executive Power: Norm or Aberration?

  • Discussion of recent Supreme Court decisions expanding executive powers (e.g., ability to fire independent agency heads) and the dangers of precedent.
  • Concerns over whether these powers, once expanded, can be contained by future administrations—a blending of optimism (the system will ‘spring back’) and pessimism (‘the toothpaste doesn’t go back in the tube’).

2. Division and the American Psyche

[09:18–13:18]

• Culture Wars and Memory

  • Rebecca draws a contrast between federal efforts to "whitewash" history about slavery and the Civil Rights movement (notably via executive order to censor negative depictions) versus proactive remembrance in local communities, such as Montgomery, Alabama’s transformation into a center for civil rights memory.
    • Quote (Rebecca, 09:41):

      “In Montgomery ... Bryan Stevenson ... has basically transformed the entire downtown of the city into a museum or monument to slavery and racial terror ... It’s making tourism boom and is allowing them to revive themselves in a kind of astonishing way.”

  • Debate over whether attempts to restrict critical teaching of history can succeed, with points about the decentralized American education system and grassroots activism (e.g., local school boards).
    • Quote (Rebecca, 11:55):

      “MAGA has become a grassroots movement ... We've seen groups like Moms for Liberty put tons of resources... into electing people who do want to whitewash this kind of history ... And so I think you do see a lot of changes happening from the ground up. And I think that is quite scary.”

    • Quote (Robert, 12:22):

      “Is it different, though, from what you see in other countries? ... you go to somewhere like Russia and there’s lots of people who remember Stalin fondly...”

• How the World Sees America

  • Daniel highlights growing international disbelief or fear regarding American political dysfunction; Robert balances this by emphasizing America’s enduring pre-eminence in culture, technology, and military.
    • Quote (Robert, 13:41):

      “America is going to remain the preeminent technological power, the preeminent power producing innovation, one of the preeminent cultural powers and the preeminent military power in the world for some time to come... It is the power you cannot ignore...”

3. Immigration: A Perennial Pendulum

[16:34–28:41]

• Historical Context (Erin Braun Dispatch)

  • The US has always oscillated between welcoming newcomers and periods of harsh restriction, from the Chinese Exclusion Act (1882) to the quota system (1924), to the liberalizing Immigration and Nationality Act (1965).
    • Quote (Aaron Braun, 21:09):

      “These churches and the borderlands inspired cities and states to enact sanctuary policies of their own, policies that have recently put them at odds with the federal government...”

  • Today’s cycle is again restrictive, with headline policies: border closure, wall-building, mass deportations. Yet, history hints these periods are often temporary.

• Contemporary Reporting

  • On-the-ground impacts (Daniel):
    Armed ICE raids evoke scenes of militarization, wrongful detentions, community trauma (children teargassed at parades, erroneous roundups of US citizens).
    • Quote (Daniel, 22:31):

      “A whole bunch of armed, militarized border patrol officers did a rappelling raid down into an apartment building and lined up 100 or so people outside in handcuffs, many of whom turned out to be American citizens ... It all happened again even more dramatically in Minnesota in January...”

  • Regional differences (Rebecca): In the South, enforcement is quieter but more pervasive, leading to political rethinking even among Latino Republicans and business owners. Immigration enforcement is changing political allegiances.
    • Quote (Rebecca, 24:10):

      “We were talking to lots of Latinos... who basically are horrified by the Trump administration's immigration enforcement. The fact that they're picking up grannies rather than the rapists they promised to. And that is really changing the politics in the region.”

  • Policy and Assimilation:
    • US immigration still generous for family reunification, severely limited for economic migrants. The system is slow, outdated, and “capricious.”
    • Rise of nativism and Christian nationalism has led to renewed anti-Muslim sentiment, even calls for deportation of Muslim Americans.
      • Quote (Rebecca, 27:22):

        “There’s this question of who is really American and who deserves to be American. ... several congressmen are actively calling on the country to start deporting Muslim Americans. And so ... using immigration enforcement as a tool of punishment for people living in America also feels new to me, and perhaps that will be more lasting.”

    • Assimilation mechanisms remain strong, especially relative to European counterparts, but “populists and haters” can undermine this.

4. Exporting America: Culture as Soft Power

[28:41–36:37]

• Historical Trajectory (John Fasma Dispatch)

  • From uncertain beginnings, US cultural exports—literature, film, fast food, music—have become global staples. American music, particularly, has world-shaping power, with US innovations in jazz, rock, and hip hop foundational to global pop culture.
    • Quote (John Fasma, 30:30):

      “...it’s music in which America has had the biggest cultural impact. The blending of European and African influences in America created jazz and blues, which created rock music. Hip hop spread from the Bronx to every corner of the world...”

  • America as an “assimilation machine”—anything and anyone can become American. The country’s talent for marketing boosts global reach.

• Current State of American Cultural Influence

  • Rebecca: Pop culture, e.g., country music, is thriving worldwide—“people in London and... Singapore singing Morgan Wallen.”
  • Robert: While America’s share on platforms like Netflix is shrinking due to rising global competition and cultural blending (K-pop, Japanese games), no country can match America’s long-term influence.
  • Daniel: The global streaming ecosystem also exposes Americans to more global culture than ever—“a positive trend.”

• Personal Favorites: What Is America’s Greatest Cultural Export?

  • Rebecca: Ice cream sandwich—democratic, accessible, and emblematic of American invention.
    • Quote (Rebecca, 34:02):

      “The ice cream sandwich represents everything that is amazing about America... cheap enough for kids to buy, for factory workers, for immigrants... really anyone could afford it.”

  • Daniel: Folk music—especially protest songs and figures like Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan, asking if hard times might lead to a new folk revival.
  • Robert: American satire—highlighting Mark Twain’s blend of humor, brevity, and social critique.
    • Quote (Robert, 35:19):

      “Freedom means that you own everything that you're ever going to do or be or create. That's wonderful. And there's no equivalent of that from Britain.”

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On American Institutions’ Resilience:
  • Robert Guest (04:31):

    “It’s lasted 250 years. It’s battle tested. I think it'll last the next two and a half.”

• On Judicial Danger:
  • Daniel Knowles (04:31):

    “That just seems terrifying that four out of nine Supreme Court judges decided that the President can apparently just go against the plain text of the Constitution with an executive order.”

• On Whitewashing History:
  • Rebecca Jackson (09:41):

    “This attempt to erase history, filter out the bad... Last year, Trump issued an executive order... to censor any kind of information that cast a negative light on America's history.”

• On the Assimilation Machine:
  • John Fasma (31:19):

    "More than any other country on earth, America is an assimilation machine. Anything and anyone can become American."

• On American Satire & Liberty:
  • Robert Guest (35:19):

    “You remember that bit in Huckleberry Finn where Jim... says, ‘Yeah, I'm rich now because I own myself and I'm worth $800.’ ... freedom means that you own everything that you're ever going to do or be or create. That's wonderful.”

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

• Opening and theme framing: 01:06–03:30
• State of democracy panel: 03:30–09:18
• Culture wars, collective memory: 09:18–13:18
• America’s global image: 13:18–15:01
• Immigration history and policy (dispatch): 16:34–22:20
• Current immigration enforcement and politics: 22:20–28:41
• Exporting American culture (dispatch and panel): 28:41–36:37
• Personal favorite American exports: 33:48–36:37

---

Tone & Closing

The episode strikes a balance between clear-eyed analysis and cautious optimism. While the panel is sober about America’s current crises—democratic erosion, polarization, immigration backlash—they resist total declinism, stressing the country’s enduring capacity for renewal and global influence. Memorable cultural references (from Huckleberry Finn to Cheez Whiz) add levity befitting the “birthday” theme, even as the outlook remains complex and contested.

---

Summary prepared for listeners seeking the essence of the conversation without the full episode.

Transcript

[Connect Industrial Intelligence Platform Announcer]

Imagine the merging of trusted intelligence into a unified experience. Imagine collaboration amongst teams and across continents. Imagine an empowered ecosystem designed to deliver actionable insights that inspire growth and sustainability. That's the power of the Connect Industrial intelligence platform to help you see further Innovate faster, accomplish more. That's the Connect effect. Learn [e-mail]

[Rebecca Jackson]

today's markets move fast. Get the insights you need in 10 minutes with the Barclays Brief, a new podcast from Barclays Investment Bank. Through sharp dialogue and scenario based analysis, our leading experts analyze key market themes each week. So whether you're managing a portfolio or leading a business, the Barclays Brief podcast can help you make smarter decisions today. Stay sharp, Stay brief. Find Barclays Brief wherever you get your your podcasts.

[Jason]

The Economist. Hello and welcome to a special birthday episode of the Intelligence Taking a hard look at America as it turns 250. This is a big one, not just the word semiquincentennial, which I promise only to say once it's big, because America seems, to use common economist parlance, to be at a crossroads. The founders worried that the American experiment they'd devised would soon collapse into disorder, tyranny. And here we are, a quarter millennium later, in another time of deep anxiety. Virtue is under threat. Talk of decline is in the air. Public life is scarred by division. So the Economist has gone to town on the anniversary. This week's print edition is filled with thoughtful essays and deep analysis of that experiment, and we here in the podcast department have soberly put on our birthday hats and done some reflection too. Consider when the Republic was barely 50 years old and a French aristocrat named Alexis de Tocqueville undertook what must have been one of America's first road trips. The brilliant, insightful, kind of timeless resulting book is what my colleague John Prideaux relied on when he repeated the journey for our new series, Tocqueville Road Trip. Make some time to crisscross America today as seen through that lens, and John and the cast of Checks and Balance out later today will be looking at the separation of powers across the branches of government, another Founding Father preoccupation that's worth examining now. But here today I'm going to be joined by three colleagues to chat through three narrowly defined facets of America then and the state and the resilience of its democracy, its perennial fits of policy on immigration and its undeniable status as a mammoth exporter of culture. So in our London studio is our deputy editor, Robert Guest. Down the line in Atlanta, we have our Southern Correspondent Rebecca Jackson, and in Chicago, Daniel Knowles, our Midwest correspondent. Hi, everybody.

[Robert Guest]

Hey.

[Daniel Knowles]

Hello.

[Rebecca Jackson]

Hey, it's great to be here.

[Jason]

Now, I want to start with a big question, perhaps the biggest question, and one for all of you to get started. How would you characterize the state of American democracy as it stands 250 years in?

[Robert Guest]

I think it's in better shape than it looks. There's obvious stuff you can see. We have the president who shows the least respect for tradition, for the law, who's enriched himself more than any other president in history, and who has a very tenuous relationship with reality. But so far, the institutions are holding up reasonably well. I mean, only this week, the Supreme Court said to him, you think you can abolish birthright citizenship, but it's there in the Constitution. No, you can't if you're going to be pessimistic. You say they also reaffirmed his power to sack a bunch of people within the government. But you're looking at the back and forth. I think a lot of this would have been familiar to the founders. They would have said, yeah, it's a difficult project, but it's lasted 250 years. It's battle tested. I think it'll last the next two and a half.

[Daniel Knowles]

I feel profoundly pessimistic about American democracy and the birthright citizenship ruling, unlike that being a source of optimism as it is for Robert. For me, that just seems terrifying that four out of nine Supreme Court judges decided that the President can apparently just go against the plain text of the Constitution with an executive order. That seems to me a real, real threat. And that's one of an awful lot of things. So I actually disagree with Robert. I am really pessimistic.

[Rebecca Jackson]

I'd say I fall somewhere in between the two of you. I think that from my perspective, one of the things that has scared me most recently is the fight over redistricting that we're seeing playing out across America. This spring, another massive Supreme Court ruling was that the court curtailed the reach of the Voting Rights act, which for decades had put constraints on politicians who wanted to rig the maps entirely in their favor. And basically now what we're seeing is that both Republicans and Democrats are in this, what we're calling, you know, sort of an arms race to the bottom. And one of the reasons that I'm most worried about the fate of democracy is that in the upcoming midterms, there'll be very, very few competitive congressional races. And that's not because there isn't disagreement on and policy, but it's because the districts will be drawn so carefully that candidates basically become shoe ins. And so that means that Americans whose views are different from those around them, say a Democrat in rural Georgia, a Republican in Boston, basically no longer have a voice in our democracy.

[Jason]

So at the mention of the Constitution and a kind of erosion of what perhaps the Founding Fathers intended here, let's talk about the power they placed in the Executive. In article number two of the Constitution, the president was vested with a great deal of power and it's been co opted by one person by now in a way that we think we haven't seen before. Do we think that is the new norm in the way that redistricting is the new norm, or is that something you think America can walk back from?

[Robert Guest]

I think clearly they can walk back from it. One of the ways that the system is being tested at the moment is, and this is maybe something that the Founding Fathers got wrong, I don't think it really occurred to them that you would have A someone as personally immoral in the top job and B, that he would have the kind of hold over his party that the current incumbent does. Now that's quite a rare coincidence, but there are constraints there. He's term limited. He'll be gone in two and a half years. I think it's unlikely in the near term future that we would have someone else who was both as bad and at the same time despite that was able to maintain the cult like hold over his own party. So this is something that should spring back quite sharply after the next presidential election.

[Rebecca Jackson]

Robert? I agree with that. I mean, I think if you look at J.D. vance or Marco Rubio, the two people most talked about as the front runners in the Republican Party for 2028, clearly neither of them command that kind of cult like following that Trump does. I think. On the other hand, you can't talk about Article 2 this week without looking to Monday's Supreme Court decision in Trump v. Slaughter, which basically gave the president in the short term authority to fire the FTC chair, but more broadly gave him control over roughly two dozen government agencies that were, I guess, once considered to be independent. Even if culturally and politically we'll be able to roll back some of the president's power, I think the more it becomes enshrined in the legal precedent, the harder that will be.

[Robert Guest]

America's been in much worse places before. They had a whacking great civil war in the 19th century and that was much harder to recover from, although eventually they did. The Great Depression was probably worse. The period of trying to deal with segregation and get rid of that was worse. And all these things have led to renewal. And I think looking at Trump today, an awful lot of this is bound up in the unusual personality of one man. And that man is extremely unpopular. It is abundantly clear that his party's going to lose the House in the midterms this year, which will put a constraint on him, quite possibly loses the Senate as well, although that's much more touch and go. And I do think that if things carry on the way they are at the moment, when you come to the next presidential election, whether it's Vance, whether it's Rubio, the country will want a change and the system allows the voters to demand that and get it.

[Daniel Knowles]

I think all of what Robert just said is true. And yet a number of precedents have been set here that any president will want to use and perhaps sometimes should use. But I just don't think the toothpaste goes back in the chew when it comes to presidential power.

[Jason]

But when it comes to power being handed over to an eventual Democratic administration eventually, the issue, it seems to me, has a lot to do with the sort of zero sum nature of American politics now, not working on the American project together, but only working against the other guy. Rebecca, you've been doing some reporting on the state of division in the nation. What's your take on that?

[Rebecca Jackson]

Yeah, I mean, Robert, you mentioned the Civil War and fights over segregation. And that's particularly vivid in my mind this week because I was just down in Montgomery, Alabama, and I'm writing a piece for the paper this week for our July 4th edition that looks at the contrast between what they're doing there and what's happening in Washington. And I think one of the starkest things that I'm seeing just in the rhetoric coming out of the Trump administration is this attempt to erase history, filter out the bad. Last year, Trump issued an executive order that was titled, I think, restoring Truth and Sanity to American History, and called on basically all these federally funded institutions to wipe out, to censor any kind of information that cast a negative light on America's history. And interestingly, in Montgomery, Alabama, which was the cradle of the Confederacy, a place where there used to be more slave trading depots than churches. And also the place where really the civil rights movement came out of the city, is dealing with things extremely differently. And it's sort of a rebuke Duke to Washington right now. I was there last week, and Bryan Stevenson, who's the head of the Equal Justice Initiative, has basically transformed the entire downtown of the city into a museum or monument to slavery and racial terror. And that, interestingly, has transformed the city economically. It's making tourism boom and is allowing them to revive themselves in a kind of astonishing way. What we're coming to is this clash. How does America see itself? In recent polling that we reported on this week, Democrats and Republicans, there's a huge gulf in how patriotic they feel. And I think part of that is coming from a sense that we just see this country, its past and its future really differently.

[Robert Guest]

I completely agree with Rebecca that the attempts by the Trump administration to whitewash history are reprehensible, but they're also risible. They're not going to work. The federal government doesn't control the schools. There's also the entire cultural industry, Hollywood, academia. When Trump does something like this, it almost enhances people's desire to argue about this and to highlight both the bad things and the good things of history. His lasting legacy on our understanding of history is going to be about as long lasting as the little bits of guilt that he super glues to the marble in the Oval Office.

[Rebecca Jackson]

Robert, I think there's certainly some truth to that, but I think it also discounts the fact that MAGA has become a grassroots movement across the country. Right. School boards are in some ways sort of ground zero for that. We've seen groups like Moms for Liberty put tons of resources and effort into electing people who do want to whitewash this kind of history to the school boards, to the county commissions. And so I think you do see a lot of changes happening from the ground up. And I think that is quite scary.

[Robert Guest]

Is it different, though, from what you see in other countries? You go to somewhere like Russia and there's lots of people who actually remember Stalin fondly. You go to China, Mao is still a national hero. You go to Britain, there's lots of people who can't remember who Churchill was.

[Rebecca Jackson]

But Robert, isn't that quite scary to compare America to Russia and China?

[Robert Guest]

I mentioned Britain as well, and I used to live in Japan and, you know, the sort of understanding of what actually happened During World War II there is pretty skimpy. I think you have unrealistic expectations if you think people are going to have a historian's level of understanding of history. But I think basic things slavery existed, it was terrible. Segregation existed, it was terrible. I think it would be extremely hard to stamp out some degree of knowledge

[Jason]

of that along the way there. Rebecca mentioned this question of how does America see itself? I'm sort of wondering how the world sees America in this moment, when all of this dysfunction is on display.

[Daniel Knowles]

I've been thinking about this a lot, actually. Last year I went to visit some friends in Canada and turned up and all these Canadians were asking me, why would you go back to America? Why haven't you left? Place seems a disaster that when you come back across the border, you talk to people. Certainly in the Midwest, there's barely an awareness of how angry people outside are.

[Robert Guest]

Look, I travel around the world all the time, and so I'm under no illusions as to how upset people are about the current administration. But if you step back for a moment, America is going to remain the preeminent technological power, the preeminent power producing innovation, one of the preeminent cultural powers and the preeminent military power in the world for some time to come. And so people will continue to pay attention to it. And people's moods do change depending on what they're seeing in the news. I'm old enough to remember the transition from George Bush to Barack Obama happened, and you saw views of America flip dramatically in a positive direction. And even according to some polls, people didn't just have a more favorable view of American democracy and American culture under Obama than they did under Bush. They actually had a more favorable view of the American landscape, which obviously had not changed. So I think if you're looking at the underlying thing about America is it's the power that you cannot ignore that produces lots of good things and lots of bad things, and that it will continue to evolve and people will continue to engage with it, which is just not something that you can say about most other countries.

[Connect Industrial Intelligence Platform Announcer]

Everyone treats summer like it owes you happiness. Long days, pool parties, your best life on a loop. So what does it mean when you feel worse? The summer blues are real. It's why summer is one of the busiest stretches of the year for people starting therapy. Grow Therapy is here for all the moments when you decide you want more. More support, more clarity, more tools. GROW connects you with thousands of high quality licensed therapists across the US offering both virtual and in person sessions, nights and weekends. The therapist you want takes your insurance on. Grow grow accepts over 125 insurance plans. Sessions average $21 with insurance and some pay as little as $0 depending on their plan. Visit growtherapy.com acast today to get started. That's growtherapy.com acast growtherapy.com acast availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan.

[Optum Announcer]

Healthcare can feel complicated. That's why Optum uses technology to connect the people and processes that make healthcare easier, more affordable, and more effective. We're making it clearer for you to know exactly what your benefits cover and to help you better manage your health. We're coordinating care between your doctors and your technology. We believe better, simpler health care is always possible. That's healthy optimism. That's Optum. Visit optum.com to learn more

[Jason]

now. One way in which America continues to evolve is in its attitudes towards migration. Before we go on, I'd like to play you a little dispatch from Aaron Braun, our West coast correspondent.

[Aaron Braun]

Americans have been arguing about immigration since the country's founding. In his first message to Congress as president in 1801, Thomas Jefferson insisted it was too difficult for newcomers to become citizens.

[Jason]

Shall we refuse the unhappy fugitives from distress? That hospitality which the savages of the wilderness extended to our fathers arriving in this land, shall oppressed humanity find no asylum on this globe.

[Aaron Braun]

Alexander Hamilton, his rival and an immigrant himself, actually favored restrictions.

[Robert Guest]

The safety of a republic depends essentially on the energy of a common national sentiment, on a uniformity of principles and habits, on the exemption of the citizens from foreign bias and prejudice.

[Aaron Braun]

This debate over how welcoming America should be is woven into the very fabric of the country. We've seen it resurface again and again as new waves of immigrants have arrived on America's shores. The first big influx of immigrants came to America between 1820 and 1880. Most were from Northern and Western Europe. Nearly 2 million Irish people arrived during this time, driven from their homes by famine.

[Connect Industrial Intelligence Platform Announcer]

By summer of 1848, East coast newspapers first published accounts of gold in California.

[Aaron Braun]

Around the same time, California's gold rush lured Chinese migrants to the West Coast. Animosity towards Chinese laborers grew, and in 1882 the Chinese Exclusion act was the first law to restrict immigration to America based on race or nationality. A second wave came between 1890 and 1919, when more than 18 million people arrived, mostly from Southern and Eastern Europe. Many of these new Americans came through Ellis island, and they settled mainly in industrial cities.

[Rebecca Jackson]

By 1920, close to 15 million of them had crossed the Atlantic. They often found themselves living in desperate conditions, with housing in the cities becoming more and more crowded.

[Aaron Braun]

Then more backlash, more suspicion. New legislation closed the door to would be Americans. In 1924, Congress enacted a strict quota system that would limit immigration for the next four decades.

[Robert Guest]

It is a proud privilege to be a citizen of the great republic, to hear its song sung, to realize that we are the descendants of 40 million people who left other countries.

[Aaron Braun]

Americans like to describe their country as a nation of immigrants. That phrase was popularized in the 1950s by then Senator John F. Kennedy.

[Robert Guest]

I think it is not a burden, but a privilege.

[Aaron Braun]

His successor in the Oval Office, Lyndon Johnson, would sign the Immigration and Nationality act in 1965. That law ended the quota system and established America's modern immigration regime. Over the next century, the share of immigrants from Latin America began to grow. The introduction of refugee protections in the 1980s meant asylum seekers fleeing violence in Central America started arriving at the southern border, but many were turned away. And so church leaders in Arizona and California took inspiration from the activities of the underground railroad.

[Robert Guest]

And so we began to smuggle folks across what we thought was very secretively, and that gave birth to the sanctuary movement.

[Aaron Braun]

These churches and the borderlands inspired cities and states to enact sanctuary policies of their own, policies that have recently put them at odds with the federal government.

[Jason]

The Justice Department is now suing New

[Rebecca Jackson]

York City over its sanctuary, is suing

[Robert Guest]

Los Angeles, accusing city leaders of blocking federal immigration enforcement.

[Aaron Braun]

Over the last 250 years, American attitudes towards immigration have shifted from openness to exclusion and back again. Right now, America is in the midst of yet another backlash. The border is closed, the wall is being built, detention centers are full, and visas are hard to come by. But an optimistic reading of American history suggests that immigration restrictionism is only temporary and that the country's Hamiltonian impulses will again give way to its Jeffersonian ones.

[Jason]

Now, Daniel, I want to start with you. You've been covering protests in Minnesota and ice deportations this year. Talk us through what that has been like. What's really stuck with you?

[Daniel Knowles]

It was very intense. I remember coming back to Chicago from a reporting trip in October when the big deportation effort was getting going. And I remember these helicopters flying over my house and it feeling like a trip I did time ago to Kabul. Then there was this huge, intense reaction to it. People started taking immigrants into their homes, delivering food to people, and then people got shot. Countless people got beaten up. Children at a Halloween parade got tear gassed. A whole bunch of armed, militarized border patrol officers did a rappelling raid down into an apartment building and lined up 100 or so people outside in handcuffs, many of whom turned out to be American citizens, none of whom turned out to be the gang members they were supposed to be. And that it all happened again even more dramatically in Minnesota in January. You had two American citizens very much peacefully protesting, gunned down by agents of the state, and then denounced by America's leaders as domestic terrorists. There was then a pullback from the brink of it, that the administration has changed its tactics. But the real sense that this immigration policy is also a domestic politics policy, that it's a way of remolding America into a more conservative, perhaps whiter, perhaps less diverse kind of place, I think that's what an awful lot of people felt.

[Jason]

And, Rebecca, how do you see this playing out on your beat in the South?

[Rebecca Jackson]

Immigration enforcement looks very different in the South. In Republican states, local police and jails are very willing to cooperate with the federal government. Most immigration arrests actually happen in cities in red states. So places like Miami and Houston are picking up way more people than Minnesota, San Francisco, Boston. So you haven't seen the kinds of clashes that Daniel's describing. Generally, I'd say things have been much quieter, and that in itself is causing problems here, too. Back in March, Robert and I took a trip to the southern border in Texas, and we were talking to lots of Latinos there who basically are horrified by the Trump administration's immigration enforcement. The fact that they're picking up grannies rather than the rapists that they promised to. And that is really changing the politics in the region. We talked to a lot of people in the construction business and people who were ardent Republicans who basically were saying that the extent to which Trump was making it impossible to run their businesses because they were just coming to construction sites and picking people up, meant that their politics were changing. These were people who are actually considering voting for Democrats or just sitting out the election come November.

[Jason]

And in her piece, Erin mentioned again this narrative of pendulum swinging, of this being cyclical. I wonder if that is the view we should take about immigration this time around. What's your view on that, Robert?

[Robert Guest]

I think that some things today are fundamentally different from how they were in Jefferson and Hamilton's day. So transport technology has changed. You can basically get to America from pretty much anywhere in the world in a day. That means that because wages are spectacularly higher in America than they are in most places, and it's a really nice place to live, an awful lot of people would want to come there if they were allowed to. America, like all other rich countries, needs to have some kind of way of regulating who comes in the future. And voters everywhere are pretty keen that they have some say. And what happened under Biden until he reversed course is similar to what's happened in parts of Europe that you had a situation where a lot of people were coming through the asylum route, and that just meant country didn't have capacity to find out whether that was true or not. Whether they really were fleeing persecution and then they just disappear into the labor market.

[Daniel Knowles]

America, very much more so than other rich democracies, has an immigration system that is quite generous to relatives. You can bring your parents or your sisters and brothers. You can sponsor them to move here in a way that I don't think is true in many other countries and actually exceptionally difficult for economic migrants and becoming more. Also, the system is incredibly slow. Even if you qualify, it's capricious. It still works in physical paper. I can tell you that from personal experience. I kind of worry that, such as the division in America and the inability of Congress to get anything done, that even with a political pendulum swinging, it's going to be hard to create that rational immigration system from anybody, really. And so it's going to remain this argument about who is an American and who deserves to to be here that I fear is not going to go away even with a big political swing.

[Rebecca Jackson]

I think also when thinking about potential policies going forward, I think it's important to recognize that the political overton window has just shifted so dramatically. This week I'm reporting on anti Muslim sentiment that's coming out of Texas and being nationalized. And one of the things that struck me most is that in this conversation, which I think is born out of the Christian nationalist movement, there's this question of who is really American and who deserves to be American. And part of that is that several congressmen are actively calling on the country to start deporting Muslim Americans. And so I think using immigration enforcement as a tool of punishment for people living in America also feels new to me, and perhaps that will be more lasting.

[Robert Guest]

Fundamentally, the American system for assimilating people is still very robust. And you can see that with a comparison of ethnic Somalis who settle in Minnesota with the ones who settle in Sweden. The ones in Minnesota are much likelier to have jobs and to learn the local language. And that's because the American labor market is just much more welcoming to people than most European ones are. So the country's ability to make people belong is still there. It's nonetheless possible for populists and for haters to spoil that.

[Jason]

Okay. Having discussed the people coming into America who to come into America, I'd like to shift focus a bit to what's coming out of America, broadly, the export of American culture. For that, let's hear from our senior culture correspondent and friend of the show, John Fasma.

[John Fasma]

Sinclair Lewis won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1930, the first American to do so. He writes the new language American, said the Swedish Academy's secretary in presenting the award. He asks us to consider that this nation is not yet finished or melted down. It is still in its turbulent adolescence. American authors of Lewis era and before were anxious about whether there was even an American culture worth writing about. Mark Twain made his argument on the page, writing in the American vernacular, but he was the exception. Henry James, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald and others escaped to Europe to work. Those days are long gone. Americans have since won 12 more literature Nobels. The same is true in other cultural fields. The Lumiere brothers were film pioneers, but Hollywood built the modern film industry.

[Rebecca Jackson]

Here we've been stuck in this pint

[Robert Guest]

sized town for nearly a month. It's enough to drive a guy goofy.

[John Fasma]

Gourmets may turn up their noses at fast food, but you can still find the golden arches in more than 100 countries, with other chains including Burger King and KFC not far behind.

[Aaron Braun]

Oh, pizza guy's here.

[John Fasma]

Pizza was invented in Italy, but America made it a global phenomenon.

[Rebecca Jackson]

But you know, we were thinking about you. You know, we ordered the Joey special.

[Robert Guest]

Two pizzas.

[John Fasma]

But it's music in which America has had the biggest cultural impact. The blending of European and African influences in America created jazz and blues, which created rock music. Hip hop spread from the Bronx to every corner of the world. Contemporary music is unimaginable without American and specifically African American influences. Our panelists will discuss the reasons behind this cultural dominance. But I'd like to get the ball rolling by offering two of my own theses. First, more than any other country on earth, America is an assimilation machine. Anything and anyone can become American. And second, America is really good at advertising and marketing. It not only makes a lot of great books, music, food and so on, it gets people to want to consume them.

[Jason]

Let's start with the first of John's discussion points there. America as assimilation machine. What do you reckon to that?

[Rebecca Jackson]

I think one thing that's important to recognize is that people like us obsess over politics and what's happening in Washington. But most Americans are paying much more attention to culture. And I think that's true outside of America too. I don't think that we've seen such a dramatic shift in the way that foreigners view America's cultural exports. One example of this is that just being in the south, I have to mention country music. Country music has exploded both across America, but also across the world. And it's kind of hilarious that you have people in London and in Singapore singing Morgan Wallen A bro country guy coming out of Nashville, Tennessee. And I think that that is still extremely potent regardless of what's happening in the Trump administration.

[Robert Guest]

We ran a cover story recently pointing out that the proportion of Netflix shows and pop songs that people were listening to around the world was kind of a lot less American than it was before. And I think this is partly because other parts of the world have been copying the American ability to take influences from everywhere. They've taken not just American stuff, but you see K pop bands with Thai singers in them. You see Japanese video games incorporating bits of Chinese folklore. But that said, there's still no country that compares with the US in terms of its cultural influence over the long term around the rest of the world. And that has contributed as much to people's sense of fun.

[Daniel Knowles]

I think the Netflix thing is really interesting in that one of the things that surprised me most living in America the past five years, is how much British television is consumed by Americans. And so the broader platform thing, Robert's completely right. It's both spreading American culture overseas, but it's also making Americans more exposed to the world. I think that's entirely positive.

[Jason]

Now, clearly, from the basis of everything that's just been said, this is all changing very fast. But for the moment, we can rely on quite a long history of American cultural exports. And we have asked you to come with your personal favorite, your number one American cultural export. Rebecca, start with you.

[Rebecca Jackson]

Okay, well, I thought this conversation was a little bit too high brow, so I have decided to go a little bit more day to day and I will say the iconic ice cream sandwich.

[Daniel Knowles]

Amazing.

[Jason]

Okay, why?

[Rebecca Jackson]

First of all, I just think the ice cream sandwich represents everything that is amazing about America. I looked into where it came from. It turns out that street vendors started selling it in New York City in the late 1890s for just a penny. And it was a food that was cheap enough for kids to buy, for factory workers, for immigrants. Really, anyone could afford it. Almost a decade later, the Chip Witch, which is a chocolate chip cookie version, was invented in a sweet shop owner's basement in Brooklyn. And I will say, I think that is now my go to gas station ice cream and it should be yours too.

[Jason]

Other brands are available. Daniel, what did you bring forth?

[Daniel Knowles]

I picked folk music. Cause I've been listening to a whole bunch of Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan and stuff recently, which is kind of new to me. But Pete Seeger is a big old communist, but the way he sung about America, it's quite inspiring. And built on protest movements. And Dylan, too, and so many other folk singers coming out of Minnesota. There were these protests sung by Massive Attack and Tom Waits, of all collaborations you can imagine, but also by Bruce Springsteen. So I'm just kind of interested. Is there gonna be a new protest folk revival in response to these hard times?

[Jason]

Didn't have you down as a folk guy, Daniel. But so it goes. Robert, what have you got?

[Robert Guest]

I think I'll go for American satire. I think it's a wonderful statement of the anti authority, anti royalist tendency that's been there in America since the start. And if you compare someone like Mark Twain with Dickens, right. Twain is funnier. Books are shorter. They get to the point they have rollicking adventures. And he comes up with some really profound lines. You remember that bit in Huckleberry Finn where Jim, the runaway slave, is asked, have you ever been rich? And he thinks about it and he says, yeah, I'm rich now because I own myself and I'm worth $800. And that's not just a satire of slavery. It's a really profound statement about liberty, that freedom means that you own everything that you're ever going to do or be or create. That's wonderful. And there's no equivalent of that from Britain.

[Jason]

Nice. Very good. I was joking with the producers before we got started here that I was going to say my favorite cultural export was Cheez Whiz, which at least two of you should be familiar with. It's a processed cheese food product. Turns out I can't call it a cultural export because it doesn't get exported.

[Robert Guest]

Thank God you say that, but you

[Rebecca Jackson]

haven't tried Cheez Whiz.

[Robert Guest]

I don't want to, because at least

[Jason]

to the UK because there's so little actual dairy in it that to call it Cheez Whiz is like false advertising. So it's really hard to find. Rebecca, Daniel, Robert, thank you very much for sharing all of your insights and for bringing some cultural exports and for helping us celebrate America's 250th.

[Daniel Knowles]

Delighted.

[Robert Guest]

Thanks very much, Jason. Thanks, everyone.

[Rebecca Jackson]

Thank you. And happy fourth of July.

[Jason]

Like I said at the beginning, we been very busy over here in preparation for America's big birthday. So let me suggest you head over to the Economist Insider, our video series that takes you behind the scenes of our newsroom. This week, our executive branch of Zanny, Minton Beddoes, Edward Carr, Charlotte Howard and John Prido ask whether the Republic is in a revolutionary moment with the Trump administration testing the constitutional guardrails its founders built. Has the American experiment failed? Or are declinists underestimating the Republic's capacity for renewal? If you're a digital subscriber, insider is already included in your subscription, and if you're listening for free, you can watch extended clips via the link in the show Notes. That's all for this episode of the Intelligence. The show's editors are Chris Impey and Jack Gill, our deputy editor is Sarah Larnyuk and our sound designer is Will Rowe. Our senior producers are Henrietta McFarlane and Alize Jean Baptiste, our senior creator. Our creative producer is William Warren and our senior development producer is Rory Galloway. Our producer is Anne Hanna and assistant producer Kunal Patel. With extra production help this week from Eleanor Sly and Katie Peterson, we'll all see you back here tomorrow for the weekend. Intelligence this week a visit to the Enhanced Games where sporty doping is encouraged and where you can indulge in a far wider grifter industry of dodgy body enhancing drugs. Step right up and see you there.

[Optum Announcer]

Healthcare can feel complicated. That's why Optum uses technology to connect the people and processes that make healthcare easier, more affordable and more effective. We're making it clearer for you to know exactly what your benefits cover and to help you better manage your health. We're coordinating care between your doctors and your technology. We believe better, simpler healthcare is always possible. That's healthy optimism. That's Optum. Visit optum.com to learn more.

[Robert Guest]

Did you know that passive fixed income ETFs only capture about 50% of the US public bond market? But with JP Morgan Asset Management's active fixed income ETFs, we can help you capture 100% of the US public bond market and explore twice as many opportunities. Visit jpmorgan.com getactive to learn more. JPMorgan Asset Management is the brand name for the asset management business of JPMorgan Chase Co. And its affiliates worldwide. This communication is issued by JPMorgan Distribution Services, Inc. Member of FINRA.