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- [00:02]
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- [00:59]
Jen
You teach at the college where Charlie Kirk was assassinated.
- [01:03]
Greg Jackson
I now get to see all sorts of hot takes that I know are demonstrably wrong.
- [01:08]
Jen
I think silence by white folk like you and me is capitulating to the
- [01:14]
Greg Jackson
fascist violence, the fake news that we just talked about.
- [01:17]
Jen
I want to be careful, though, here when you say fake news, that's something that Trump uses a lot. So, Michael, are you a Trump supporter? Are you?
- [01:27]
Greg Jackson
So, Goodness, where do I start with this?
- [01:35]
Jen
Joining me today on IHIP news is Greg Jackson. He is a historian and host of history that doesn't suck podcast and author of a new book, been There, Done that. Professor, how are you today?
- [01:48]
Greg Jackson
Doing all right yourself?
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Jen
Fantastic. You, in your new book, you argue that America's problems at the moment aren't unprecedented. Make the case for my listeners who read the news every day and feel like this is like an abusive shit show, that this isn't the worst it can be.
- [02:07]
Greg Jackson
Absolutely. Look, as I state right out the gate, I am not saying that things are copacetic. What I am saying is that we tend to romanticize the past and we lose sight of the fact that a liberal democracy requires constant fights. And it has been constant fights. And so I go through over a century of American history, taking this from the 1790s up to 1900, regaling you with tales of fake news of contested elections and political violence that I think will make most people's hair stand on edge.
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Jen
So is your purpose of that to let people know that if we are engaged and if we participate, it can hold.
- [02:52]
Greg Jackson
Yes. In fact, that's what I drive to in the conclusion is that, look, what I've encountered as I've traveled the country, as this. As my career took this odd turn. I'm a university professor, right? Like, let's start there. I have a PhD. I'm a tenured history professor. And then my podcast, history that doesn't Suck, it blew up. And the next thing I know, I'm touring the country. I'm getting to speak with people that I otherwise never would have met. And the question I get at Q and A after Q and A is, are we at the end? Is this falling apart? That's what drove me to say, I'm going. I'm going to do a deep study, put my historical skills to use, and really interrogate the question. And this book is the product. And what I came away with as I stared into the deepest, darkest abysses of our history was the realization that our institutions are stronger than we tend to think they are in the moment, and that our better angels, if I can use a Lincoln phrase, do tend to come out of the woodwork. That's what we've had happen over our course of 250 years. But that isn't a Pollyanna. Everything's going to be okay. The message is that those better angels do have to show up. And what I want to demonstrate is that previous generations have fought similar battles. And the point to that is, isn't to say, oh, so everything's great, but rather to say, look, you've won these battles before, right? If we personify America, Uncle Sam is in the ring. He's fighting an old contender he's beaten before. So this lack of hope, that cynicism is my biggest fear, Jen. Cynicism is what will kill the Republic. So that's what my point is. I'm not here to say, everything's easy, everything's fine, don't sweat. I'm actually saying, yes, sweat it. But you're strong enough for this. That's the point.
- [04:38]
Jen
You read, you write in your book about political violence kind of being baked into this country's history, and I completely agree with that. And you teach at the college where Charlie Kirk was assassinated. So when politician. When politicians clutch their pearls and say, this is not who we are, historically, we have been a country that, at least in my lifetime, and you know, my parents, that values the profits that gun makers make over safety of its citizenry. We value the profits that health insurance companies make over the treatment of somebody with cancer. We really have a, a violent history, whether that violence is active, meaning an active shooter that shoots somebody or passive. The passive bigotry of, of not standing up for sick people and standing up to corporations. There's a real reckoning. Think Trump's kind of like late stage Versailles stuff. It's really exposing to the electorate that you're talking about that's looking for hope. Like, we're starting to diagnose what a lot of the problems are that during the 90s or the early 2000s, we were kind of on cruise control. Especially if you're a white person and you make pretty good money, politics didn't really affect you much. We're all starting to be open our eyes a little bit to these problems that have been simmering that perhaps prep the psychological soil for fascism too take hold. And as you see, as you're a professor and you see this administration attack universities and attack education, are you concerned about those attacks and other universities that have capitulated and bent the knee to this regime?
- [06:28]
Greg Jackson
So, goodness. Let me start with your. Your pointing out, as I rightly do, in, in my book, violence that is rampant in our history. Yeah, yeah. And that is one of the big takeaways I, I got from this book, which pushed me into political thought. Obviously I do that already for a living, but I ended up going far deeper than I expected to. Which that's the mark of a good book. Right?
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Jen
Yeah.
- [06:58]
Greg Jackson
It takes you places you don't mean to go. I feel like I really faced down just how violent our species is. And I did come with more faith in liberal democracy, in that I believe even with our many episodes of violence, and this is not to say that any of it's acceptable, this is the hard thing that we need to be able to grasp is that progress. And in doing better than otherwise. Churchill. Right. Democracy is the best, or, excuse me, the worst form of government, apart from all the others. Right. This, like, acknowledgement of the imperfection that is there. And, you know, I, I went into the Baltimore riots in my book, this instance where Jeffersonian Republicans literally murdered Federalists because they disagreed over a war declaration and, you know, tortured them, held their eyeballs open after beating them senseless and dripped candle wax on them and convinced themselves they were doing this patriotically. Right. That's the sort of thing I do want Americans to realize that's in us, that's in our ability to, to do, even with our, our institutions, our ideas, as great as they are, that human nature is still there. So we, we have to look to Those better ideals, as you mentioned. Yeah, I teach at Utah Valley University. My career has been built here. My wife teaches here. This is my community. And I was not on campus that day. I was actually writing as it happened. And that for, for being an event I was not at, it sure has impacted my life. You know, our entire campus community feels it. And again, the fake news that I, I discuss in my book, well, I now get to see all sorts of hot takes that I know are demonstrably wrong by members of, of the media. I'll say, probably wouldn't be members of the media.
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Jen
Like what, what's an example of a take that's demons. Demonstrably wrong? So my viewer. And I know, yeah, you know, I'll
- [09:18]
Greg Jackson
go ahead and name one. Candace Owens. And I couldn't, I couldn't even begin to, Well, I don't want to begin to be honest, to list the things that, you know, the clips that, that get sent, but you know, incorrectly identifying people in roles that they don't have. The, the. Well, I said I wouldn't, I'll stop there. But you know that these have very real impacts. So,
- [09:51]
Jen
you know, what strikes me most about the brutal murder of Charlie Kirk is that nobody that loves him or supports him is speaking out against gun violence. They're speaking about everything else, but they're not speaking about the thing that killed him, which is America has a crazy gun problem. And it's very unique to us. And it's amazing to me that we all witnessed such a brutal murder on the phone and not his wife. Nobody in politics that he worked with, nobody in Turning Point, not one person mentions the senseless gun deaths. And what a disservice does that do to Charlie Kirk. But to all of the other people who have been killed senselessly because we value the profits of the gun system and all of the, the profiteers that make all of these guns, we value their profits more than we do other human beings. So much so that we all saw somebody get murdered who I completely disagree with almost everything Charlie Kirk said. I found him to be racist, I found him to be homophobic. I found him to be a religious bigot of the highest order. But I don't think he should have died. I don't think he should have been brutally murdered at that age, at any age. And he, nobody will speak to the fact of what really kills him. And that's just in this, in this era of Trumpism where we've ushered in all of this anti intellectualism that nobody can really peg what really killed this guy. Utah State University should not have had a gun on campus that day, period.
- [11:37]
Greg Jackson
Well, Jen, you know, this is, I mean, again, this is kind of exactly why I've written this book, is I want to facilitate better conversation. I want Americans to, to realize that we've got to be able to talk across the aisle. And I know that might sound like a platitude, but for, for each side to tell themselves how much they agree with each other, that doesn't move the needle. There's got to be, there's got to be that discourse that, that happens. And moreover, you know, the, the idea that this stuff is unique, that is, that is the thing that I want to take to task. And, and that I have, that this sort of violence is there, that the fake news that we just talked about, I mean, this example in and of itself.
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Jen
I want to be careful, though, here, when you say fake news, that's something that Trump uses a lot.
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Greg Jackson
Yeah.
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Jen
And he uses that to dismantle expertise and to dismantle facts. He's weaponized that phrase. And so you define when you say fake news, what you're referring to.
- [12:44]
Greg Jackson
Yes, I'm referring to intentional misinformation. That's how it's defined by the New York Times. That's how it's defined by scholars. And I state that clearly in chapter one. And that's specifically why I do not label James Masson Alexander Hamilton's complete slams against each other. They're gross misrepresentations of each other in their newspapers as fake news because they believe, Believed it. So arguably, we could say that, that many of the things a lot of us call fake news today are not that we need to know the intent, like libel and slander. So that's where I come down on that term.
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Jen
Yeah.
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Greg Jackson
Also, it's not a new term, as I get to in chapter eight. Fake news has at least been in existence since 1894. That's when it first showed up. 1894.
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Jen
That's what gets me about a lot of this stuff is how painfully unoriginal. A lot of stuff that Trump says make America great again was first coined by Ronald Reagan. You're saying fake news was coined in the 1800s. A lot of his playbook and a lot of Stephen Miller's speeches are eerily reminiscent of Hitler or Joseph Goebbels speeches just translated from German to English. The hunting, you know, his campaign promise if he's going to get rid of the enemy from within. And now he is launching a lot of McCarthy era style red scare tactics of getting the speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, to ask Congress for an additional $350 billion in funding to fight communism within the United States of America. A lot of this stuff has already been tried and defeated and yet these morons are trying it all again. And as far as you talk about talking to people across the aisle, I'm not really interested in doing that with people that triple trumped. Now, if somebody voted for Mitt Romney who I disagreed with, I wouldn't have any problem sitting down and talking to somebody who voted for Mitt Romney three times because Mitt Romney was a decent person. The dehumanization, the murders of Renee Good and Alex Preddy, the deporting of people that are immigrants to countries that they have no affiliation with, making a place called Alligator Alcatraz. The dismissive nature of trans people, of gay people, of black people, of immigrants is so abhorrent to me. I don't want to sit down and talk to these people. Now. This is where we differ. They want to call me a libtard and they hope that I die or move out of the country. I don't wish them ill will. I hope they have health care. I hope that they have can send their kids to a school where their kids don't have to do active shooter drills. But I don't want to sit down and talk to these people because I think they're fucking crazy and I think they're in a cult. I think these people are cooked. I think you. They've morally broken themselves so much that I think the best way to communicate with them is positive policy that impacts their lives.
- [15:52]
Greg Jackson
I. Look, it's that, that's an entirely fair take. I'm not saying that, you know, we all. Again, I. None of my answers are simplistic. They really aren't. I'm not saying everything's hunky dory and I'm not saying that if we all just sat down and had a good chat we could have a kumbaya moment and feel good and hold hands. No, in fact, my whole point is that we have violently, viciously disagreed with each other. We've lied to each other. The lies state in the election of 1828 were so bad they literally put Rachel Jackson in the grave, for God's sake.
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Jen
But, but here's, here's, here's where I, I think we need to discuss. Yes, these things happen in history and we can go and it's, and it's good to know and it's comforting to know we overcame them. But we have a, a monster at the door at the gates right now. And it is materially affecting Americans lives right this very moment. And to not identify it as the, the savagery that this regime is doing seems dismissive of the people that are experiences, the very abuses that this administration is purposefully extolling on them because of their desire for recreational cruelty and to plunder the country. And so I think that in order to get through this, we have to, with very clear eyes, call it what it is. Fascism, as clear eyed as we possibly can. Recreational cruelty, bigotry, homophobia, Christian nationalism. And we have to be explicit because I have found when I experience anxiety and there's something I don't know, the not knowing makes me even more anxious. And so knowing things, knowing what we're up against is so important. And while this interview has been great, you've tiptoed around identifying in clear terms what we're up against and what Trump is and what, what has been ushered into America right now. And I think that we all have to be explicit in calling it what it is. Otherwise it's just a passive form of gaslighting.
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Greg Jackson
Interesting. So my mind goes to Paxton's anatomy of Fascism. The foremost scholar on fascism. He makes a few points. Again, historian, academic. Well, I don't want to dance, but I definitely want to get meaty here. He points out that a number of the things that we identify with Fascism, basically a form of extreme national. I always think it's, it's valuable to define these sorts of things. Right, right. So fascism itself, itself, my working definition of that is that is a form of extreme nationalism. It glories in blood and military conquest.
- [18:57]
Jen
Check. Check.
- [18:58]
Greg Jackson
That it doesn't have a, a clear economic policy.
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Jen
Check.
- [19:05]
Greg Jackson
It will do whatever's in the good of the state cult of personality with a one party system. And so those are, those are all factors. And this is where, Jen, I, I feel like perhaps, and I want to put words in your mouth, tell me if you think I've got you wrong. I think you're speaking like we're past 1933 and I'm saying we're not, that we're past the Acerbo Law. If we go with the Italy comparison,
- [19:32]
Jen
I'm saying we're in the epicenter of it. And I think that he is making moves right now to intervene in the last guardrail that we have, which are these midterms that are coming up. And he is making moves. He has already been talking about having ice at polling places. Well, who did Brett Kavanaugh rule that ICE could harass with impunity people that look suspicious or had accents. The Kavanaugh rule, which is systemic racism. So I'm very concerned that we have three branches of government and two of the three have capitulated to the executive branch. I'm very concerned for the safety of my black and brown fellow Americans, particularly those that might have an accent, that can legally vote, that are going to try to go vote, especially when we've seen somebody who's just murdered yesterday in Maine by this regime. A guy was pulled out of his car, shot in the head with his three year old daughter. And so I would say we're at the epicenter of all of that stuff right now. And so forgive me, dangerous people of fascism.
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Greg Jackson
So, yeah, when I say, when I say past 19, I'm not trying to
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Jen
like, I know that you what, what my listeners are looking for on my show.
- [20:50]
Greg Jackson
Yeah.
- [20:51]
Jen
Is hard hitting acknowledgments as to what we're up against. And I, I appreciate so much that we, our history has been violent and, and for black people, I would argue they've lived in a fascist America for a very long time. Well, when we, what we saw happen to Renee Good and Alex Preddy was new for white people to see, but that was not new for black Americans to see the state arbitrarily execute somebody.
- [21:22]
Greg Jackson
Sure. 50, 000 lynchings in the Reconstruction era. Yeah, I, I take, I take your point.
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Jen
Yeah. And I feel like we're escalating to such a place right now that we all have to sound the alarm bells about how important this next election is because it is the final guardrail. Because he's surrounded by a bunch of dipshits, morally rotten, corrupt dipshits. And there's no other way to dance around it. I'm not trying to be cute. I'm not trying to be patronizing to them. That's what they are. This is not America's best foot forward. These are all people that have failed forward that he intentionally. And I've had Timothy Snyder, Ruth Ben Guyot and Jason Stanley, all historians and experts in fascism, on this podcast and they've all rung the alarm bells about all of the steps and machinations that Trump and his army of obsequious sycophants are colluding to do right now. And I think that all roads look to trying to rig the election so that he can in power because their dream, these guys, is to make the United States a Christian nationalist nation.
- [22:35]
Greg Jackson
And my argument isn't to dismiss the concerns that you have, Jen. It's to point out that as extreme as this moment feels, what I'm saying is that Americans have felt that extremity generation after generation. And there is value, very meaningful value to us understanding that that pressure is more the norm than abnormal. Because this is, you know, as James Madison tells us in Feralist 51, that men are not angels, that power is a constant thing that, that nefarious actors will reach for.
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Jen
I think what I'm not getting from you, that is kind of unsettling.
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Greg Jackson
Okay.
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Jen
Is any critique of Trump in this regime, as a historian, as some, I'm just not seeing that. So, Mike, are you a Trump supporter? Are you?
- [23:36]
Greg Jackson
I. I'm not.
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Jen
Okay.
- [23:37]
Greg Jackson
And I will, I'll tell you candidly, I, I have been very nonpartisan in the history that I put forward. Not in a dance around way. To me, it's highly disciplined. It is.
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Jen
Do you think that's helpful to be nonpartisan now, as a white person, that when we see all of these immigrants and marginalized people, LGBTQ plus people under attack, don't you think that's the time for us to stand up and use our privilege and our microphones in the most vociferous, helpful way we possibly can?
- [24:08]
Greg Jackson
I think that as a professor, that being a voice that the, that the middle is. That is still unsure.
- [24:23]
Jen
What is the middle?
- [24:25]
Greg Jackson
Well, it's not like center left and center right disappeared, Jen. They. This right.
- [24:33]
Jen
But what is the middle with. Here's. I agree in, in 10 years ago, we had that. But right now, as we're seeing a man who has abysmal approval rating, something in the low 30s. There's been zero investigation of the murders of Alex Preddy, Renegade, or any of the other people that have died in ICE custody. 0. They have done all of this stuff with impunity. Trump is talking about the SAVE act, which would disenfranchise millions of women and their ability to vote. In my home state of Oklahoma, women have lost their right to abortion care, and some are dying because they're unable to have a private procedure with their OB gyn. So these issues are existential right now. They're not for me. And pardon the pushback, but I think that these conversations are important and healthy. The middle, I agree, is a place where somebody with your skin color and my skin color and our income can sit because it hasn't affected us yet. But if you think about what Trump will come for, his people tried to kill Mike Pence. They built a Gallow and a noose. And he was white Christian, Republican, Trump, ass kisser extraordinaire. And they chanted, hang Mike Pence. So I believe this moment we're in is existential. And I think silence by white folk like you and me is capitulating to the fascist violence. And I don't think it's helpful. And I think we all, as Americans, whether it's me with you on this podcast, or people in our families or people in our social circles, this is not a middle. The middle is a luxury that your complexion offers you. This is a time to stand up and fight with every American against these injustices and encourage each other to, to turn out so that it is too big to rig because there is so much suffering right now. Black and brown communities, LGBTQ plus communities. And my, my moral compass is with them.
- [26:49]
Greg Jackson
So. Goodness. Where. Where do I start here with this. Thank you. I appreciate your passion and I think we agree more than you might be thinking. But yeah, I think we probably do have some disagreement here as well. I think that it's valuable to have those who are fighting vociferously and I also think that it's valuable to be able to build trust. As an expert. Yes. You know, being, being able to say, look, I want to lay out the history for you, to let you be able to see what's happened without telling you what conclusion you're supposed to make. I've been in the classroom for over a decade and have.
- [27:40]
Jen
You don't think it's objectively true that the government shouldn't arbitrarily deny people due process and kill them?
- [27:46]
Greg Jackson
Of course, where we are.
- [27:49]
Jen
You know what I mean? Like, I think that, I think that that's just where we are and it does a disservice to not call it out. And I, I don't know if you're fearful because of the university that you teach at, and I'm sure it's probably pretty magalining in Utah. It's as red as it gets. And I understand those people because I grew up.
- [28:11]
Greg Jackson
Yeah, UVU is. I mean, it's a university. I, I want to read over, read into that. We have faculty of, you know, every different sort of persuasion you can imagine. It's a very welcoming community.
- [28:27]
Jen
Well, I just, I thank you for your time today and I just hope that as we all have microphones and I'm so proud that your podcast has blown up and then you're willing to offer people hope. I also think we have to offer them our unconditional support, especially the most marginalized among us. And I say this to you as an atheist who has never had any religion in my life, I feel a moral calling and sharing this earth with other human beings to stick up for the most marginalized. And those people happen to be the scapegoats that this fascist regime is using to distract from the plundering that they're doing with all of our systems right now. And so I encourage you to go watch my episodes with your colleagues Ruth Ben Ghiat, Jason Stanley and Timothy Snyder, because they're really experts in this and sound the alarm bells as to what we're up against, which is scary, but it's also therapeutic to know the truth of what is exactly happening right now. And the people that we need to advocate for the most are the very people that this regime is bullying.
- [29:35]
Greg Jackson
Well, thank you. I'll be happy to give that a listen. I also think that you will find, and I don't mean this in a change of mind sort of way, Jen, I think you'll find chapter seven very interesting. That is the chapter in which I walk through the Supreme Court decisions that lead Mike Pence to, excuse me, Supreme Supreme Court decisions and congressional decisions that lead Mike Pence to say on January 6, I don't have the power to count these votes. That history, I think, is really important for Americans to understand. And that's what I seek to calmly explain. So I think that if you dive into that, you may see you're going to walk away thinking, okay, maybe there's a little.
- [30:28]
Jen
I walk away from that thinking, J.D. vance is a million times more corrupt than Mike Pence.
- [30:33]
Greg Jackson
I mean, walk away from my chapter, not January 6th.
- [30:36]
Jen
Right, I know, I know. But I'm just saying, the one clear understanding, the one thing Trump Learned from Trump 1.0, is how to be better at self preservation. He learned to not have a Mike Pence. He learned and he got somebody who Peter Till was able to buy. So think about how morally rotten J.D. vance is. He said Trump was America's Hitler, opioid, an opiate for the masses. And then he does a complete 180 and Trump humiliates him every single day, made him the fraud czar. I mean, in a completely humiliating move. So I have zero faith right now in the institutions because these corrupt men are upholding them.
- [31:12]
Greg Jackson
But I'm not faith in them or any of that. What I'm trying to say is that we have a history that tells us these sorts of things have happened before and they contain lessons for how we approach it. In the present. And that's what my hundreds of pages lay out.
- [31:32]
Jen
Okay. I hope, I hope that, that there is a Mike Pence style person that exists in the Trump regime that upholds because I love this country and I think it's beautif and I think it's full of so many beautiful people. So I hope that your premise is true. I just, I don't trust these people at all. I think this is something different.
- [31:52]
Greg Jackson
And I'm not asking anyone to trust any regime or politician. I'm asking us to trust the people. I'm, I'm encouraging us to be engaged. So I do want to be very clear as, as we wrap up, I get the impression you might mistakenly think I'm somehow writing an apology letter or an approval thing. No, I'm trying to very clearly, starkly say this is what we've done in the past. These are things that we've gone through, we've overcome them, we can fight them today. And I deliver it. Yeah, I'm a very measured person in my words, but I think you're going to find a lot of precision and scalpel cutting that you'll enjoy.
- [32:30]
Jen
I like it. All right, have a great day. Thank you.
- [32:32]
Greg Jackson
You too. Thanks.
- [32:45]
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