Jon Meacham's warning to those in power

Summary

Podcast Episode Summary

Podcast: Settle In with PBS News
Host: Amna Nawaz
Guest: Jon Meacham (Presidential historian and author)
Episode: Jon Meacham's warning to those in power
Date: March 31, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Amna Nawaz sits down with renowned presidential historian Jon Meacham to discuss his latest book American Struggle and the current state of American democracy. The wide-ranging conversation traverses history, presidential legacies (particularly Joe Biden and Donald Trump), the pivotal role of the “less-engaged” majority, sources of hope amid political division, and the enduring complexity of the American experiment—culminating in a reflection on America’s approaching 250th anniversary.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The State of American Democracy: "Enemies" vs. "Opponents"

• Turning Point for the Nation ([01:27])

  • Meacham argues America faces a vital choice: remain a constitutional order with space for rivals and opponents, or descend into a regime where those with opposing views are treated as enemies.
  • Quote:

    "The fact that you want a rival or an opponent instead of an enemy is an important difference." (Jon Meacham, [01:40])

• Role of the Less-Engaged Majority ([04:03], [04:19])

  • The fate of democracy may hinge on those not deeply politically engaged—the silent majority who can determine whether America leans toward “total war” politics or constitutional balance.
  • Quote:

    "The politically engaged have rendered their decision...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." (Jon Meacham, [04:43])

Presidential Power, Norms, and War

• On Executive Power and War ([05:38] – [09:41])

  • Meacham discusses the evolution of executive power, particularly in foreign policy, illustrating how the presidency has grown far beyond the founders’ intent by relying on norms rather than formal declarations.
  • On war powers:

    "We haven't declared war since the Second World War... 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." (Meacham, [09:21])

• Trump's Grip on National Direction ([05:49])

  • The nation's path is heavily shaped by what goes on in one individual’s head, referencing Donald Trump.
  • Quote:

    "Really the only thing that's really important in determining the broad direction of the United States of America at this hour is, is what goes on in Donald Trump's head." (Meacham, [06:19])

From Hope to Caution: Lessons from American History

• Hope vs. Optimism ([10:25])

  • Meacham distinguishes hope (the opposite of fear) from optimism, reiterating hope for America’s continued moral progress.
  • Quote:

    "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... But the same country that did away with Jim Crow created Jim Crow." (Meacham, [10:27])

• Cycles of Reform and Regression

  • Meacham reflects on the back-and-forth of American progress—the same nation that extends freedom sometimes also represses it.
  • Surprise at continued division following Biden’s election and the persistence of election denialism.

Presidential Legacies: Biden and Trump

• Biden’s Struggle—A Matter of Character ([18:51])

  • Meacham characterizes Biden’s decision to run for reelection as a classic tragedy: the resilience that defined his career also blinded him to the need to step down.
  • Quote:

    "What in one season was admirable resilience became, in a different season, a blindness to reality." (Meacham, [25:41])

• Long-Term Historical Judgment ([21:37])

  • True judgment of a presidency takes decades, as seen with Truman and George H.W. Bush.
  • Calls for careful analysis of legislative impact, not just politics.

• Advice to Those in Power: The Perils of Strength ([27:37])

  • Warning: “If you're strong in one season, you're going to be weak in another. And so one of the reasons you have a rule of law is so you even it out.”
  • Reiterates the importance of a legal and constitutional order:

    "All of human history says that if you're strong in one season, you're going to be weak in another." (Meacham, [27:45])

The Nature of Progress: Stories, Voices, and How We Remember

• Complexity—Not Just Heroes ([27:37])

  • Meacham’s new book integrates voices from all sides, not just “the best of us”—acknowledging both the inspirational (Frederick Douglass) and the shameful (George Wallace, Strom Thurmond).
  • Debate with President Biden—whether "this isn't who we are":

    "Mr. President, it's exactly who we are...it's just we manage, at our best, the worst instincts." (Meacham, [30:49])

• Presidential Power and "Surprising Their Base" ([33:07] – [36:02])

  • Great leaders use their unique position to challenge and surprise their followers—Nixon going to China, Reagan with the USSR. Meacham suggests Trump hasn’t used his “unprecedented” political capital to forge such a transformative legacy.

Immigration, Nativism, and History Repeating Itself

• America’s Persistent Immigration Anxiety ([36:32])

  • Historical perspective: from the Alien and Sedition Acts to the 1924 national quotas, cycles of nativism and restriction repeat.
  • Quote:

    "When people say, this isn't who we are in immigration, they don't know anything, right?" (Meacham, [36:32])

• Complex Global Changes, Populist Responses

  • Populist responses to economic dislocation are real, but blaming immigrants is a simplistic—if politically effective—answer.

Hope for the Future: The Younger Generation

• Students Offer Optimism ([40:48])
  • Meacham finds his college students at Vanderbilt surprisingly hopeful and open to argument.
  • Memorable story: A student first challenges the “enlightenment” of the Declaration of Independence, then, after reading Frederick Douglass, applies nuance to Jefferson’s actions.
  • Quote:

    "Younger folks are in fact more open to reason and deliberation. Right. Give them evidence, make a case... They haven't ossified yet." (Meacham, [44:46])

Remembering at 250: Active, Not Passive

• Remembrance as a Call to Action ([47:09])
  • Drawing from religious tradition, Meacham frames America's 250th anniversary as a period for "active remembrance”—celebrating complexity, facing realities, and choosing better.
  • Quote:

    "Remembrance is not passive but active... you are revivifying something. You are recreating a reality. You are making something alive again." (Meacham, [47:09])

  • The nation’s 51% best self is “a heck of a good day.”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Political Identity:

  “Just because someone wins an election does not make them king. Right. That's not what the American system is supposed to be.” (Meacham, [16:35])

• On the Story of the Country:

  "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." (Meacham, [16:26])

• On Human and National Flaws:

  “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.” (Meacham, [31:19])

• On Student Openness:

  "Too many of us have picked a team. We have a jersey, we have all our gear... [but] they are curious and they are open to argument. And I think that's remarkable..." (Meacham, [45:33])

• On America's Ongoing Narrative:

  "What do we want the next section of this book... in 20 years, what do you want to be in it? And is it a chronicle of autocracy... or is it perhaps where we were... when the Senate came up with an immigration bill...? That's a deal." (Meacham, [32:10])

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Important Segment Timestamps

• [01:27] — Meacham on division, political “total war,” and the difference between enemies and rivals
• [04:03] — The silent majority, “less-engaged” Americans’ role in democratic survival
• [05:38] — Expansion of executive power and the implications for war-making
• [10:25] — Hope vs. optimism; historical pattern of moral advancement/regression
• [18:51] — Biden’s legacy: resilience becomes tragic flaw
• [27:37] — The importance of humility and warning to those in power
• [36:32] — The recurring immigration/nativism cycle in American politics
• [40:48] — Anecdote about teaching and student openness to nuance
• [47:09] — The 250th anniversary as a call for active remembrance and humility

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Tone and Takeaway

Meacham’s tone is thoughtful, nuanced, and gently cautionary—balancing realism about American faults with guarded optimism about the country's future. He underscores the necessity for humility in power, the importance of wrestling with complexity, and the imperative to remember America’s flawed but ongoing story as citizens prepare to write its next chapters.

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Recommended Reading from Meacham:

• Frederick Douglass’s 1876 oration in memory of Abraham Lincoln ([41:20])

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Prepared for listeners/newcomers: this summary captures the substance, style, and spirit of Jon Meacham’s timely, moving conversation on American historical cycles and the enduring possibility of renewal.

Transcript

[A]

Hi, everyone, it's Amna Nawaz. Welcome to another episode of Settle In. Today we're talking to Pulitzer Prize winning presidential historian and best selling author Jon 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 gonna wanna 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 Jon 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 we. What words do you use to describe where we are right now as a nation? How would you describe it?

[B]

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 arrival 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, and say, you know what? We don't have enough confidence in any one person, any one party and any one interest to run everything. Absolutely. And we want a democracy. We want checks and balances so that we have the capacity to amend, 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, is undercut.

[A]

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 rapidly paying attention, really. Which would you would put at the majority?

[B]

Because we are. Because everybody who's politically engaged, Let me put it this way, everyone who's politically engaged knows what they think, right? There are not a lot of, hmm, maybe 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 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.

[A]

Can I ask you, as we sit and talk here, did you foresee another war on the horizon? Did you see the US Starting this war in Iran? You did not?

[B]

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 to 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, is what goes on in Donald Trump's head. Now pause for a second and think about it. That's a sentence, by the way, 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, 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, is 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.

[A]

You mean formally, officially, through Congress. We haven't done that formally. We've authorized use of force in a number of nations.

[B]

Yeah. 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.

[A]

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 at 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?

[B]

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 both the tone and the chaos of the first Trump 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. President Biden's 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, 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 mistakes 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 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 North Star. And that manifests itself in an infinity of ways. The deaths of the two people in Minneapolis should not have happened.

[A]

Renee Goode and al credit the 2U citizens you're talking about.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. 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 to, but I think it makes the point. You know, the old line about, you know, in school, you know, when people are having food fights or paper fights or whatever, and people. The teacher says, you know, it's always good until it's all. It's all fun until somebody gets an eye put out.

[A]

Yeah, right.

[B]

I mean, that. That sort of classroom thing. The politics of Trumpism is, let's be honest, it's entertaining. I don't think there's any. I don't think there should be any doubt about that. 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 Hofstadter wrote about this in the paranoid style in American politics, that if every day is an existential struggle, then politically you remain almost hyperactive. Right.

[A]

You're constantly in a state of struggle, a state of war. Right. There's always a mission.

[B]

Right. 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 Soul 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. 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. Right. That's not what the American system is supposed to be. And I think that's the story that has to be told.

[A]

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 reelection. 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've advised him on his speech, 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?

[B]

So the first answer before I blather on is I'm not sure. Just be honest. I think that it's. It's to some extent. I think we're all still working through that, and we can't be certain yet. Right. Presidency. My friend Michael Beschloss, our friend Michael Beschloss likes to say it takes 20, 25 years to be able to assess a presidency in historical terms as opposed to journalistic ones. And I think that's true. It was true for Truman, it was true for George Herbert 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. And 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 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.

[A]

That's why we're talking to you, though,

[B]

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 a 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 at. 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. 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 NewsHour could do it. Here's an assignment.

[A]

This is not how I thought this conversation would go, but please, go ahead.

[B]

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, that's what we're to answer the answer the question you ask. Precisely. Someone's gonna have to sit down and do that. You know what did.

[A]

Because that's how we'll start to see impact and legacy.

[B]

Exactly. Exactly. That's where governance. So to figure out, we know the political impact. What we don't know right now is the governance one. And I use President Bush Sr. As an example here. Right. 39% of the country voted for him to be reelected. So, 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 Persian Gulf. You had the Americans with 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.

[A]

The program most people know is nobody. I should say. Yeah, yeah.

[B]

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. But. And, and I think I have a pretty good sense. I think my theory, as I articulated to you is right. I really do, that over time, you

[A]

believe the impact of his administration and leadership because.

[B]

What in one season was admirable resilience became, in a different season, a blindness to reality. And that's again, we could spend the rest of the afternoon talking about Aristotle and Shakespeare and how a tragic flaw, how that unfolds, but I don't think it was for ill motive at all.

[A]

Well, how about this? We'll sit back here in about 15, 18 years and see if you were right or not.

[B]

You'll be here. I will Blunt. I'll be long gone, but okay.

[A]

Well, let me ask you this on a more personal note, too, because 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. 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

[B]

at it this way now, this is very therapeutic. Thank you. This is.

[A]

Tell me how you feel, John.

[B]

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. 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 saying. And will there be a prescription at the end of this month?

[A]

I'm not licensed for that. No, sorry.

[B]

I love psychopharmacology. 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 manner, to use a phrase from the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, for all of its manifold sins and wickednesses, for all of that it has in extremists 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. To our baser instincts. And the baser instincts are the rule of the strong. Parenthetically, 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 weak in 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 got George Wallace. You have Alexander Stevens, vice President, Confederacy, who said, the Confederacy is founded on the great truth that the black man is inferior to the white man. Strom Thurmond in 1948, broke away from Harry Truman because Truman seemed too 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. A primer on the best we've been and the worst we've been. And then now we have a decision to make. What do we want the next section of this book, if there weren't 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 unnuanced 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 he could, but I bet he could.

[A]

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

[B]

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 mindshare 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 Alger Hiss, who was guilty. Chased Alger Hiss. Right. Was a red baiter, not McCarthy esque, but within the same county. And yet he opens up the most populous 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 in a 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 seeks world domination. And by May 1988, he is literally in Red Square playing with babies. Right? And if a Democratic president had tried to do that, it would have been much more complicated.

[A]

He's saying President Trump has political capital that he's not using.

[B]

He has not spent in a way

[A]

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 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.

[B]

How.

[A]

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?

[B]

It's of a piece, right? So we start. And let's be clear here. We start. This is a perfect one where 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 and 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. And it favored existing groups.

[A]

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?

[B]

Yeah, I guess they would argue that. I mean, it's. It's. It's a useful. It. It's a real issue, but it is also a useful trope, right? I mean, when you're talking about a. Something as broadly complicated as globalization, as a world that has become as small as it possibly, you know, 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, that's this, this is the great reality of the time. And again, the American nation state that, that I've spent so much time, you know, 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.

[A]

How much of what you hear from your students today because you get to interact with college students on a regular basis at Vanderbilt? How much of what you hear from them on all of these topics, whatever questions they ask, whatever thoughts they have, how much of that surprises you?

[B]

They are more, they're more hopeful than I would have thought given. Yeah, they are.

[A]

May I speak with them, please?

[B]

Yeah, it is, yeah. Yeah, 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 100 people and 50 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 cruising along and a young woman raised her hand and said, I don't agree that the Declaration of Independence was an enlightened 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 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 Freedman'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 in 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 stepchildren. 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 assigned 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, if, 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, he was just doing what he had to do. Frederick Douglass said. I said, my work is done. I'm out of here. Right. So I, 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.

[A]

Curious any about a lot of these things, right? Yeah.

[B]

Right. And there is a cur. I guess that. Thank you, that's the right word. They are curious and they are open to argument. And I think that's remarkable, given their, 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.

[A]

It makes me think of something a dear friend and family member says, who's actually a therapist in her profession. Maybe that's what I. But she always talks about, 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.

[B]

I love this, and I'd like some more Klonopin, if that's possible.

[A]

Well, look, 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 approach 250 now, how do we think about this balance between who we are today, celebrating the achievements of the Founding Fathers, recognizing where we've fallen short and the work as yet to be done? I mean, 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

[B]

an act of remembrance. And remembrance is not passive but active. Right. And I draw this point from my religious tradition. I'm an 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. Ask thy father and he will tell thee thy 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. Whether it's the Passover story or the New Testament story and other traditions have the same same point 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 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.

[A]

Well, here's to more good days than bad days ahead. Jon Meacham, I know it's not probably what you set 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 Democracy, Dissent 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. Thank you so, so much.

[B]

Thank you for this. Do I get any Ken Burns DVDs?

[A]

You get a tote bag. You get a Ken Burns dvd. Yeah, absolutely. Viewers like you, anything.

[B]

Thank you.