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- [00:04]
A
Welcome to how to Fix It. I'm John Avlon. Now, if you've watched or listens to this show over the last two years, you know my deep belief that we need to spend more time focusing on how to solve the problems we face rather than just endlessly fixating on the problems themselves. Now, that's what's always motivated me as an author and historian during my recent run for Congress. I and of course, over my career as a journalist. Too much of our civic debate is centered around our divisions, as deep and dangerous as they are. Too little time is spent dedicated to figuring out how we can empower citizens to find common ground rooted in common sense and actually make progress together so we can do our part to reunite the United States of America. Now, today I'm announcing I'm wrapping up my run here at the Bulwark after two years, but how to Fix it is going to go on. We're going to have an exciting announcement about a new partner in the coming weeks. And in the meantime, you can always follow my substack and social media handles on Avlon for updates as I heads down finishing my next book, Theodore Roosevelt's Guide to Life, which will be out next year. But right now, I can't think of a better episode to bring you as our closing episode with the Bulwark than this interview because it's about the essential virtue that seems in too rare supply these days. Talking about courage. Ry Barcott is a US Marine co founder of With Honor. And in his new book, Courage Can Save Us, he looks at profiles of current members of Congress, both on the left and the right, people who are willing to buck their party to reach out, show courage and independence. It's a profile in courage for our time. So now, Rod Barcott, welcome to how to Fix It.
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B
Great to be on. Thanks, John.
- [01:56]
A
So this book, your second is sort of a profiles and courage look at 10 people who serve in politics who've had military service, five Republicans, five Democrats. Tell me why you decided to write this book now.
- [02:12]
B
Yeah, thanks, John. I co founded with a few good friends of ours, involved, Elliot Ackerman and K. Khalil Bird and many others with honor about eight years ago, really as a, as an instrument to trying to fix the massive problem of polarization and particularly as it manifests in the Congress by helping to elect the next generation of veterans in particular, but also folks that had served. And so I'd been at this with the best hours of my life for the last nine years. I also realized that I love writing. I Got that from my parents. My mom's an anthropologist. My dad was a sociologist. They love books. And it'd been 15 years since I had written my initial book. And I wanted to document this moment in time, which I think is a particularly perilous moment, as you cover repeatedly in your extraordinary show, but do so in a way that can particularly connect with younger Americans that are not feeling particularly partisan themselves, that are confused about perhaps about the direction that the country's going. And. And to highlight a number of individuals that I think are truly extraordinary that have exhibited a degree of noteworthy courage in an environment that most people assume just has very little of it and frankly, does have very little of it in our public life. So we've worked as an organization with many, many folks over the years. We've evaluated over 2,000 veterans that have run. We support a group of about 50. I selected five from each side that are currently serving and then. And then basically walked with them, went to many of their hometowns, tried to understand where their courage, which I define as a decision, it is a specific choice. It's not instinctive. It's a decision to serve something that is larger than yourself. Where did that come from in moments of pressure? And for all of them, it goes back to their upbringing and their initial decision to serve, to put their life at risk by serving in the United States military. For many of those, it was after September 11, but for two, it was prior September 11. So that was really the genesis of the book. I started about three years ago and then started racing to get it out right before America's 250th, which. Which we're delighted to be doing well,
- [04:38]
A
and it's an important story. And, you know, the folks you cover are people like, you know, the current New Jersey Governor Mikey Sherrill, Todd Young from Indiana, Senator, Senator Mark Kelly, Governor Wes Moore, Congressman Fitzpatrick, Dan Crenshaw, Seth Moulton, John James, Don Bacon and Jared golden, all really interesting, compelling figures in their own right. And in many, but not all cases, you say sort of members of the 911 generation. I wonder, though, when you. When you distill it all down, each has their own FASC story and journey, and some are major political figures or rising political figures in our nation's firmament. What is the connective tissue you found? What is the unifying narrative behind all their interesting differences?
- [05:22]
B
Yeah, well, I really view it as courage that they have found it in their own intestinal fortitude and in this case, typically, moral courage, the putting of one's reputation, sometimes their Integrity at risk. To stand for something oftentimes that is unpopular and take the arrows that come with is not easy. And so that is what I looked for, the manifestation of that. Folks that were trying to do the right thing for the most part, it doesn't mean everybody's perfect and this is a high pressure environment. But then also individuals that, that, that I knew. So the connective tissue really is around this idea of courage. I think we need a lot more of it. I do believe that it can save us. It's a strident claim, but I think that it is a source of salvation for our country and for individuals. Why? Because at the end of the day, it is about service. And as you, as you've covered, as you yourself have done throughout your life, but also have covered in this show, fewer and fewer Americans have that connective tissue of serving the country in any capacity, whether that's in nonprofit work, military, federal civilian service, state service. By most estimates, less than 2% of Americans are serving in either the military or in federal civilian service. Like AmeriCorps, things of that nature. And, and the experience unites you in a powerful and profound way and a way that enables you to at least understand and respect differences across the country.
- [07:13]
A
And that's the unifying force and the cohesion that comes. You write beautifully about your friendship and mentorship with David Gergen in particular, who sort of challenged you, decried the decline of members of the military serving in Congress and thought that was contributing to the polarization. And indeed, I believe those numbers have doubled since. Since With Honor was started. But what's interesting to me is that you are drawing the explicit connection between somebody's courage under fire, grace under fire, their courage in military, but their courage in public service at a time when that does seem to be atrophying. People forget perhaps that John F. Kennedy's book Profiles Encourage was about unpopular stands,
- [08:01]
B
most of whom are like, faded into obscurity. Fascinating thing. I mean, the book is now 70. It'll be 70 years old this fall, and we'll be doing an event at the JFK Library. It was also the book that really started me on this kind of journey. I read a copy of it in David Gergen's personal library. Had this incredible experience of an independent study with him on speechwriting. I didn't get into his class, and so I pitched him and said, hey, could I just study speechwriting with you? And he said, sure, come to my. Come to my home book library and read the books. And the incredible thing about that was Many things. But most incredibly was that he took notes in all of the books over the years that he was in the White House advising, you know, four different presidents from four different parties. So, so I not only was reading Profiles in Courage, and I think, you know, the second book was, you know, like Peggy Noonan's, you know, Testimony, but I was reading his notes from when he was in the arena and, and then re. Engaging with those texts together with them every, you know, every week would sit down and basically talk for 45 minutes. So it was an extraordinary experience. And Kennedy's book, I think, is. Is really commendable on this, again, because they were. They were individuals that took real risk and paid, in many cases, significant cost and consequence for that. The book that I've written, it has an important distinction, which is that I've written it while individuals are actively in office. That was largely because I've been able to develop some trust and deep relationships with. With individuals. It creates an opportunity for a lens into this moment in time. It also creates a lot of challenges as a writer because I'm trying with this book to be accurate and true. And accuracy and truth is that is. Is that all humans are flawed.
- [09:58]
A
That's true. You make a great point that courage is not meaning being perfect. Courage matters because we're not perfect. I think you said you got it.
- [10:06]
B
And, and, and in this case, I'm working with sitting electeds. Many of them are still in the arena. And, And I'm writing chapters that they have approved of, but that try to give the fullness of their character. So I focus on the moments when they stepped up, not necessarily certain moments when maybe they didn't live up to what they would have liked to have done in a particular instance.
- [10:34]
A
Well, and perfect's never on the menu, but this is a moment where we're calling out for courage. Don Bacon has stood up to his party. He is retiring, but a distinguished American, you know, really stood up to his president on Ukraine, in particular, Dan Crenshaw, Republicans stood up to Tucker Carlson, just lost a primary in part because of that fight. And yet others like Wes Moore and Mikey Sherrill are, you know, governors and are rising stars who some people look to as a possible future president.
- [11:11]
B
Yeah, and by the way, John on the west piece was interesting for me because I went into the book planning to write principally about his. His decision to not support a movement, to create a study around reparations. And I do discuss that in the chapter. But one of the things that most stands out to me about his, his courage in political courage was that when he first ran for office, his advisors were all basically telling him, don't run on the platform that you want to run on, which is addressing childhood poverty. Why? Because kids that are poor don't vote. And frankly, you know, oftentimes their parent, and it's usually a parent, single parent, struggling to make ends meet also isn't that politically engaged. But it was his North Star, and he stuck to it and he still sticks to it. And I. So, so, so there are many moments throughout this book where the. It was a surprise to me. It was something that I didn't realize that I've tried to, to, to surface. But at its core, it's saying, listen, I. When, when everybody is telling me the. Do the opposite thing, but when I know it's the right damn thing, I'm gonna, I'm gonna. I'm gonna, you know, damn the torpedoes and go for it.
- [12:30]
A
That's also about understanding the unique light that you one has to bring to the world. If you get caught off from that authenticity, you're never going to be able to shine on your deepest level. And that's a form of courage, I think, to your point, that people don't always look to, but it's also the opposite of courage often is conformity, particularly in politics. And you write really eloquently in places about the ancient Greek and Roman republics. And you write, history suggests that great civilizations such as ancient Greece and Rome are rarely undone by conquest alone. More often they erode from within, weakened by corruption, internal strife, and civic decline. Now, obviously, that's an echo to what we're dealing with today, and it resonates deeply with me.
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B
Well, well, yeah. And John, I shared with you, I revisited your extraordinary book on Washington's farewell this morning with my son. And one of the things that you write in your first chapter that he picked up on, and I did as well, was that, you know, Washington's farewell address, of course, identified partisanship as a great threat, but it also identified our debt and foreign wars and wow, we are in a moment with all three, all three coming together.
- [13:46]
A
We are. And that's why I do think it's not too much to sort of talk about every generation having a rendezvous with, with destiny and that it is our responsibility to step up and that courage is directly connected to the common good. It's not just. You make a distinction, courage and bravery, which I find fascinating, which is basically that courage is, is not simply what we do in the moment. It's the choice that's right.
- [14:12]
B
And, and that it is that bravery can be self serving, but courage is always serving something larger than yourself. That's how I, that's how I, I define it. Some can argue about it. It comes from the stoics and the, and the ancient philosophers. And that's, you know, stoicism really put courage as the first of the four virtues. You know, that it's the virtue that kind of hinges the other three together.
- [14:40]
A
That's right. And you write about, you know, Admiral Stockdale and you know, and James Mattis and other sort of military figures who've, who've absorbed stoicism. And each of the virtues are reflected in their own way by the figures you profile. But I want to talk about the incentive structure that we've gotten so terribly wrong in our politics. We're showing integrity, we're pursuing the common good, where exhibiting courage isn't just table stakes, but it's that it's really remarkable because of the pressures to conform in a partisan way. And what you look to as the solutions to fix that, obviously with honor is dedicated to that principle. But why are we seeing the atrophying occur now? Et cetera. A perilous pace.
- [15:26]
B
Yeah. In many respects our politics and our media, our, our information landscape discourages courage. It discourages rewards, particularly in Congress. Following the herd, conforming to the, to your party. Keep your head down. There's a saying among members, you know, hope, vote no, but hope yes. Oftentimes, you know, in the halls or when I'm talking with members trying to see if they want to make a crossover vote, they'll say something like, well, you don't really need me. If you really need me, come to me. But if you don't really need me, I'm just going to, you know, vote with the tribe here. You know, why does that occur in this environment? And really what can we do about it as an organization? One of the things that we try to really focus on are primary races, in particular on the political arm of the organization because vast majority of our districts are safe districts. That's gotten worse now with this historic mid cycle redistricting which is such a cancer. But they're safe districts. The elections of course depend on the primary voters. Primary voters are generally a sliver of the electorate. They're often the most ideological of the electorate. And what we found is that it's the area, especially when there's an open seat and you know, in some of the races that we're in right now, Democratic Republican seats, you have 10, 11 different candidates running. Nobody knows any of them. None of them are really raising a lot of money. So you can, you can sometimes help get a decent person through that will be more governance minded. There's a trade off that I think is embodied by this kind of Clippy saying now, but is really true. And that is, if you get into this office, do you want to be a show horse or a workhorse? Dan Crenshaw in his chapter put it a different way. He said, do you want to be someone or do something? It's very difficult to do both. His chapter's unique in the 10, not only because he lost his primary race, but because he was the member that was most able to try and essentially do both to have a major communications platform. In his case, there were only two other electeds in the entire United States who have a larger following on their podcast, Ted Cruz and Gavin Newsom. So he had this very large following, but he was also trying to be a serious legislator on issues that he cared deeply about. And as his example illustrates, it is very difficult to do that these days. And so I don't think there are obvious solutions, and I'm happy to go kind of deeper into this piece. But what we try to do as an organization is help change some of the incentives be there for individuals when they take a tough vote. And it gets pretty quiet. And it often does. I mean, especially these votes where you're crossing party lines, it gets pretty quiet. I mean it. And it can get pretty quiet with your, your friends and family and the people that you care most about.
- [18:49]
A
And that's part of the, the tragedy here, right? Because Congress was set up to work where people vote their conscience and their common sense and cross party lines to solve common problems. But it's the lack of competitive districts that certainly is a driving factor. And the other one is, as you point out, you know, at the midpoint of the 20th century, service was a given. You had enormous amount of connective tissue in terms of the experiences people had across partisan and regional lines. And I wonder what you think about national service. New national service norms. Pete Buttigieg campaigned on them in one cycle. Wes Moore is doing a pilot, but you know, and an expanded version of national Service. You mentioned AmeriCorps earlier as a expanded vision of service, but I wonder what you think about that as a way of rebalancing the scale towards those sort of unifying experiences.
- [19:41]
B
I really, and I like how you cover this as well as civic education in your programs. And one of the early priorities of Our organization successful so far has been to expand JROTC units in public high schools across the country. We're now up to about 4,000, about doubled in the, in the last few years with, with a large focus of the, this coalition of veterans, about 50, about a dozen in the Senate and about 38 in the House. So I view civic education also as part and parcel to getting more Americans to a path of service which I believe is not only good for the country, it's good for those individuals. It's good for this crisis of purpose that we're, that we face as a, as a country. There have been a lot of attempts to expand voluntary national service. Somebody that I respect on our advisory board once referred to it as like the Marshall Plan. You know, it gets evoked a lot as a part of a solution. I think it gets invoked a lot because it can be part of a solution. And it's one of these remarkable 8020 issues. There are not many 8020 issues anymore, but this is one of them where conservatives and liberals think alike. There's high degree of interest in service among even the most ideological of conservatives, what folks refer to as a MAGA conservatives. So the idea has a concrete following. So why can't we do more about it? AmeriCorps as a whole engages about a hundred thousand young Americans. When DOGE came around this last year, one of the really misguided decisions, I think that doesn't get a lot of airtime is that they said they were not going to cut the individuals that are on their year of service. But then an email went out and eliminated those positions. Then they had to contest it and the courts essentially rolled back that decision. But that discourages obviously young Americans who by the way are taking basically poverty rate wages. It's about $20,000 a year. One of the critiques of the program is that that makes it less accessible for lower income Americans to serve. So there have been mistakes. It hasn't gotten the attention it deserves. I think that there could be a real window. I do think that it could be across party lines. I know it can be. We're in a moment in time, obviously where the technology displacements are significant. The fear is even larger, I think, and a lot of young people are feeling that pressure. In particular, I was with a group of computer scientists that, you know, graduated within the last year and they haven't found a job.
- [22:34]
A
This is one of the interesting things is I think, you know, as we deal with AI and the disruptions that will put provide in the economy, the argument for national service gets stronger, not weaker, because you're giving people job experience and an opportunity to serve while they find their way.