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The Focus Group Podcast
S6 Ep48: Heather Cox Richardson: America's 250 Great (and Awful) Years
01:07:43
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- [00:01]
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- [01:00]
Heather Cox Richardson
America has always, in every single year that has existed, been great and done great things. And America has always, in every single year it existed, been awful and done horrible things in the sense that, you know, our government reflects people and people are going to people.
- [01:22]
Sarah Longwell
Hello everyone, and welcome to the focus group podcast. I'm Sarah Longwell, publisher of the Bulwark, and This week it's Fourth of July. But it's not just any Fourth of July. It's America's 250th anniversary. In a normal time, that would be a great unifier and could help bring people together around some of our lofty national ideals. But it's no secret that the Trump years have complicated a lot of people's relationship with patriotism. And some polling, like a recent Fox poll, showed that 27% of Democrats considered themselves proud of the country, compared to 83% of Republicans. But at the same time, 61% of Democrats considered themselves extremely or very patriotic. Gallup also found recently that A record low 58% of US adults say they are extremely or very proud to be an American. The number for Democrats has basically fallen off a cliff during both Trump terms. So we're setting out to explore the complicated feelings people, particularly Democrats, are having about America during the Trump years. So if you're having a tough time, I hope you come out of this discussion feeling seen. As my friends and the Democratic Party say, my guest today is pretty good at staying hopeful. Heather Cox Richardson, author of Letters from an American on Substack. It is one of my favorite substacks. Heather, thanks for being here.
- [02:48]
Heather Cox Richardson
Such a pleasure to be here, my friend.
- [02:51]
Sarah Longwell
It's so fun when you're here. I had a question. I was looking back at when the bicentennial was, and I missed it by just a smidge, but you might have been like 10, 8. I don't know. I don't wanna. I don't wanna do it. But do you remember the bicentennial?
- [03:04]
Heather Cox Richardson
Truthfully, I can't do the math myself. I was born in 62 and that was 76, so I would have been 13.
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Sarah Longwell
Okay, so 13. So do you remember it?
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Commercial Voice
Oh, yeah.
- [03:13]
Heather Cox Richardson
Oh, yeah. So remember I. I was. When I was young, I lived in quite a rural area. So we didn't do the big, you know, we saw the tall ships, but only online. Although I have an interesting tall ship story for you if you're interested. But, but we certainly were paying attention to what was going on around the country. I had been paying close attention to Watergate, even as a young kid. So I was very conflicted about how to approach 76. But, you know, there were the reenactors, which were interesting themselves. There were the focus on the bicenten minutes on tv. There was the idea of people celebrating the Declaration and so on. So we did all that. And then actually that day was cloudy, where I live on the coast of Maine. And we spent the day with friends. I hate to say this, but actually painting, creosoting, a deck. And then we had some kind of a cookout. And my friends and I actually set off fireworks that night. And the guy that I grew up with, like a brother to me, actually got caught by one of the fireworks and got pretty bad burns. Second degree burns, not third degree burns. But ever since then I have had a real fear of fireworks. So there you go. There was the Fourth of July in 1776 for Heather Cox Richardson in 1776, in 1976. 1976.
- [04:39]
Sarah Longwell
There you go, 1976, perfect. That sounds like a. Right up to the getting, to the getting burned by fireworks. That sounds like a very traditional American Fourth of July. But considering that it was the bicentennial the 200th anniversary of America's founding, was there like a vibe like, do you remember people feeling celebratory? Do you remember people feeling proud? Were there think pieces in the newspaper about America's complicated history, or was it a pretty straightforward celebration of the United States?
- [05:11]
Heather Cox Richardson
Well, do remember that I was 13 years old and in a very rural area. But that being said, even at the time, I remember there was a lot of conflict. You know, we were just coming out of Watergate. It was not clear what the future was going to look like, to some degree, my earliest memories were the Vietnam War, which was not really far in the rearview mirror. There were changes coming and good changes as well as bad changes, right. So in 1975, you get Bruce Springsteen hitting the charts and being on the COVID of both Time and Newsweek on the same week, which is USA Pardon
- [05:45]
Sarah Longwell
me for Born in the USA oh,
- [05:47]
Heather Cox Richardson
you are so cute, my young friend. Born to Run, of course. Yes. So there you go, Born to Run. And that came out in 75. August in 75. And he hits the COVID of the Time in Newsweek. It was clear, if you were paying attention to music, certainly that we were entering a new era. Then you've got the rise of Jimmy Carter in Georgia and the support that he has with musicians down there and so on. So you had this tension. And that's one of the things that I actually wanted to point out talking to you is that I think when you look back, everyone remembers the rosy stuff, right? You do it in your own life. You also do it in your country. But the truth is that every 50 years, there is always tension in the United States. And Curiously, at these 50 years intervals, sometimes the tension is higher than it is in other times, not because of that anniversary, but simply because of where those dates fall. So you have the 20s, 26, right, 1926, when the country is deeply divided between those people who are succeeding in the new economy of the, you know, the Republicans in the twenties, but the farmers and the laborers and people of color who are being left behind. And then in 1876, you've got the real problems of the American south in that period of reconstruction. People also forget that it's just about the time of the Fourth of July, really. It's about the. Between the second and the third. That news comes back east of the Battle of the Little Bighorn and the destruction of Custer's 7th Cavalry, George Armstrong Custer's 7th Cavalry. And people are like, what's going on here? So there is always. You can point to tensions in those periods, even though they're the parades and they're the barbecues and so on. You know, American democracy is never a straight shot to, you know, cherry pie and roses.
- [07:50]
Sarah Longwell
I'm glad you set it up that way because I want to delve into the complexity of what I'm hearing from voters, because we have been asking voters now for several weeks just. And I want to say we start every single focus group. Everyone that I do, we do three to four a week, and we always start the same way. How do you think things are going in the country. That is just the opening question. Sometimes we'll ask, if it's state specific, we might ask how things are going in their state as well. And this time we did a similar version where we basically asked people, how do you think things are going in the country considering we're at our 250th anniversary? And what you got back was just a real mix of emotions, even when we were sort of asking people, do you feel proud to be an American or do you feel negatively about being an American? People were pretty mixed on that. I want to wrestle with that today. The complexity of. Of America and how we feel about it, especially during an anniversary. But before we get to the voters, I want to get your reaction to a clip from John Ossoff a few days ago at a rally in Georgia that I could not have loved more, in part because it feels like it speaks directly to this tension for voters and articulate. Articulates it really well. Let's listen.
- [09:07]
John Ossoff
Americans aren't a race. We're a people united not by ethnicity, but by shared conviction. And that is what makes us exceptional and a beacon to the world. Just think 250 years on what the founders would see if they visited us today.
- [09:44]
Heather Cox Richardson
But wait.
- [09:46]
John Ossoff
They would see that slavery had been abolished. They would see that Americans without land and then women's, and then the descendants of slaves had secured voting rights. They would see that our science and discovery propelled human knowledge to unimaginable heights and that those 13 colonies had grown into a superpower that defeated. Defeated the Nazis and Communism. They'd see a pluralist democracy, people of all colors, descended from every point on earth, stitched together out of many nations into one. But they'd also see a nation that at the height of its wealth and power, fell into the very traps they most feared, devouring itself in bitter conflict between warring factions captured by special interests. And they'd see a faithless president exploiting this rot to pursue the absolute power they overthrew.
- [10:48]
Sarah Longwell
What do you make of Ossoff there? Like, not only does he do the USA chants, which I love. You read my book. But in the book I do he. The reason I'm so impressed by this is this gets at something that I think is really important to Americans, which is they love America like they are of America. And so they like actually a. A pre. Not a president, but a candidate or a leader who reminds them of the good stuff while not sugarcoating or shying away from the hard stuff. And I just felt like he really caught that tension better than I've seen any politician do in quite some time.
- [11:31]
Heather Cox Richardson
I agree with that. And, you know, just. Just by the way, I am of the understanding that he writes his own speeches.
- [11:38]
Sarah Longwell
He does write his own speeches, but
- [11:40]
Heather Cox Richardson
there's a longer story behind that. And one of the things that I've really encouraged people to do who are in leadership positions is to. To tie the problems of today to our history in the sense that, you know, and one of my big role models is Abraham Lincoln, who did the exact same thing rhetorically that Ossoff is doing, saying, hey, we have these great principles in the Declaration of Independence, and look what we have done with them. You know, we've. We've had this incredibly successful run, and yet that is being challenged in Lincoln's day by a small group of elite Southern enslavers who are trying to destroy those principles. And Ossoff is doing the same thing. And the trick to that, then, is not only identifying that and calling out what's going on in the United States today, but making people understand that that's the reason gas is expensive. Like, it's not that you can either have cheap eggs or you can have a democracy. They're all the same story. And that I think Assoff is doing very, very well. But he is not the only one. Zoran Mamdani has been doing it incredibly well as mayor. His speech about the victory of the Knicks was. You know, I think we'll be teaching that speech in years to come. It's only eight minutes long and was just absolutely beautifully done. But you're also seeing it among the. A lot of western figures. Jason Crow in Colorado, Rob Sands and Josh Turek in Iowa, certainly Tina Smith in Minnesota. You know, this idea that we're really reclaiming American democracy and taking strength from it to combat those who would destroy it in our era, I think that's the story of this moment.
- [13:29]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah, I agree.
- [13:31]
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- [13:58]
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- [14:01]
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- [14:30]
Sarah Longwell
I want to get into voters because I could talk about this with you for a long time, but let's get into the voters and then we can circle back and talk more about this. But like I said at the top, the Trump administration is really complicating a lot of people's relationship with patriotism and America at the moment. So I want to start with some of the Democrats who feel downright ashamed of the country right now. I was in Canada a few weeks ago and I was like, please don't let any, Like, I don't want to be identified as an American because I just think, like, I'm just so ashamed of our behavior as a country and like, the hatred and just like the just vitriol towards our neighbors.
- [15:10]
Democratic Voter 1
I think before this last election, I still had a lot of hope that there were a lot of Americans who maybe just didn't have the privilege to take the time to educate themselves. And now watching the things that Trump is doing and his cronies and the fact that, like, anyone still supports that has given me, like, a complete, like, existential crisis with, like, who I thought Americans were and what we stood for.
- [15:37]
Sarah Longwell
I'm embarrassed to go to other countries for trips or to talk to other people from other countries, but because our country is run by a dictator that all he does is crime.
- [15:49]
Democratic Voter 2
My family's from Jamaica. That's everybody's favorite place to go for vacation, right? But, like, actually living in Jamaica, seeing what it's like to actually deal with life as a Jamaican, a lot of people, not just from Jamaica, from the West Indies, from around the world, an American citizenship is gold, and it still is to this day. So from that perspective, I do take that seriously. At the same time, my reason for not being proud to be an American right now, I think, is because it's not really about the President. It's more. So I do think that Americans don't realize how privileged they are.
- [16:23]
Democratic Voter 3
I feel like I've been ashamed to be an American for, since I was maybe in college. You know, I, I backpacked through Europe during, you know, the Iraqi war and Afghanistan conflict. And, you know, I really got a worldview at that time as like a 22 year old kind of lesson, you know, from people I met from around the world that really kind of shaped my thinking. It's horrible what is done to people, you know, in this country every day. But it's been like that pre Trump. It's just magnified now. And, you know, it's like, that's why I'm always going to vote for change.
- [17:15]
Democratic Voter 4
Especially, like, with the Fourth of July coming up and the 250th anniversary, it's going to be a struggle for me, especially because my entire family, my closest friends, are all the opposite of me. And so it's like my husband and I kind of are the outsiders trying to decide what we can and can't say without causing a battle. It frustrates me. Like, we go to a concert and all of a sudden the last song is Proud to be an American, and everybody stands up and, you know, puts their heart on their. Or their hand on their heart. And my husband and I are looking at each other saying, we just can't do it in today's environment. Just not feeling it.
- [17:57]
Sarah Longwell
A lot of times when I was growing up, it was kind of just like, okay, like, it's the Fourth of July. You have to put on, like, red, white, and blue, and you have to go to a parade. But now I'm like, I'm not. I'm not putting on red, white, and blue. I just don't feel. I just don't feel like I can do it and mean it in any sense. This is the bummer part of the. Of listening to the voters, because. And I got to say, as somebody who also grew up, I. I also grew up in a small, rural town like you did. But mine, I was in central Pennsylvania.
- [18:26]
Heather Cox Richardson
I know, because I read your book.
- [18:28]
Sarah Longwell
That's. But you know what? Somebody did single proud to be an American at every fair. And there were the town fireworks that the fire department would put on that. You get really bummed out if you couldn't go because it was raining. And I grew up with a very, like, firm sense of America being good just based on where I grew up. I grew up around. And granted, it is deep Trump country now, and it had always voted Republican, but now it is even. The numbers of voters have really climbed in the Trump era. I think one of the reasons I was never attracted to the Democratic Party as, like, a young person is I felt like they didn't like America as much as I did or as much as I wanted people to like America. I always was like, look at how great America is. And I still feel that way, except I totally am with these guys that I have been in no mood to celebrate America's 250, none I am a. I am a. I am a this. I'm the audience for the 250, and I cannot feel what I want to feel about the country right now. And I guess, what do you think the difference is between sort of patriotism and, like, being proud of the country? Like, are those different things? Are those the same things? Because I would still say I'm pretty patriotic while not feeling particularly proud of the country at the moment. And I'll just say this last thing, which is, I think America electing Trump a second time did real psychological damage to people who thought maybe even a little bit. I knew we could. This could happen, but I. I really hoped there was enough in there to keep this from happening again. And the fact that Trump was elected a second time after trying to overturn an election, I do think it's. It's cratered people's sense of who we are, at least at the moment.
- [20:24]
Heather Cox Richardson
I think I'm a little bit further along that spectrum than you are in the sense, you know, when the Obama Presidential center opened a week or so ago, I don't know when it was somebody, I read somebody saying, you know, how could the same country that elected this man elect Donald Trump twice? And my first reaction was, well, the same country didn't. In the sense that when you think of the way that voting has gone in the United States, certainly, really, since the 1980s, but. But, you know, 1988 and the arrival of talk radio and then 1996 and the arrival of Fox News Channel, we have create. Created a population that is not operating in the real world. And so when I think about this country, I think about that larger problem with the fact that we are no longer based in reality for a significant number of the people who live here. And that's one of the things that you and I are combating. That's why we're here and why we do what we do, at least in part. But in terms of patriotism in this moment, you know, one of the real changes we've seen since the 1980s, I think, is that people have ceased to believe that it's there, that it's their government, that they have become subjects in a sense, rather than citizens. And the reason that I'm actually quite excited about the 250th this year and feeling quite patriotic about it is because Americans are rediscovering that, you know, we never had a perfect past, and we've never had a perfect present. What we have had is moments of time when people put skin in the Game and said, I don't like the laws about voting, so I'm going to change them. Or I don't like the laws about taxes, so I'm going to change them. Or I don't like the way we're dealing with foreign affairs, so I'm going to change that. And I think you're seeing that again now in a big way. But part of rethinking what it means to be proud to be an American and what patriotism means is refocusing not on the idea that, you know, America's always great. Because here's a news flash. America has always, in every single year that has existed, been great and done great things. And America has always, in every single year it existed, been awful and done horrible things. In the sense that, you know, our government reflects people, and people are gonna. People, they're both good and bad. The trick for us as a country is to make sure we establish the guardrails and the mechanics of a government that is good more than it is bad. And if we remember that and remember that the real heart of America is, like Ossoff said, that commitment to a set of principles, then we can work around the bad stuff and work to make a better country. And I look around me and I see, in a way that I have not seen in my lifetime, my really conscious lifetime, American people stepping back up to the plate. And that is how you change the direction of a country, I think. And so I actually feel quite good about it. I was actually, before we talked, I was actually pulling out not just my flag, but all the sort of flag accoutrements that have accumulated as gifts over the years that I've never flown before or never put out before. And this year, I will.
- [23:42]
Sarah Longwell
You're inspiring me, because I know you're right. It is so much of it. And again, this is the thesis of my book in a lot of ways, which is, yes, people have light and dark in them, and leadership can make a huge difference in terms of what is pulled out of us. And we do. I think that's the trouble with Trump, right, Is it feels like he's pulling the worst instincts of people out. He's taking all the bad stuff and he's shining a spotlight on that. And the question is, this is what I liked about what Ossoff was doing, is to say, no, let's shine a light on the good parts. Let me try to bring out the best in us. Because I do think that is the hunger that Americans have right now. They do still love their country. And what it stands for, but they just understand that it is coming nowhere close to meeting its aspirations as stated. And that can get sort of soul crushing, because what you want to be is. Is moving forward. But you're so right, and you always. You always hit on this point, and I always appreciate it when you do that. The best way for Americans to rediscover their love for America is to participate in making America the thing that you want it to be.
- [24:53]
Heather Cox Richardson
Yes. And I think that one of the things that really jumps out in this moment is that that doesn't only mean getting involved in politics, although, of course, it means getting involved in politics. And, you know, I'm always excited when I hear people say, well, I ran for the school board. I'm on the school board now. I'm, you know, I'm volunteering in this sort of an organization, that sort of an organization. But, you know, I was talking to a woman, I guess about a year ago now, who said, you know, I started getting involved in this school, this group in my town, and it was involved in some kind of social reform, and I don't know what. And she said, and I realized that I really needed to know more than I did, and that if I was really going to make a difference, I needed to be a lawyer. So I've gone back to law school. And that sort of sense that you are contributing to your community and that your community is pushing you to be a bigger person and possibly a better person than you were before, that's the kind of mentality that I think a great leader can bring out. And the comparison I would make to something like Ossoff, and I'm always careful about doing this because I don't want people to say, oh, she says Ossoff or somebody is like some great hero in the past. But, you know, when Abraham Lincoln was trying to convince people to stand against those elite enslavers who were completely advocating for the idea that black Americans should never have rights in the United States. And it was a deeply racist country. America was a deeply racist country then. The thing is that Lincoln would go to these audiences that were full of people heckling him, and he would say, you know, he would sort of, in good humor, sort of push back on them their comments about how he just wanted a black wife or whatever. And he would say, either we believe that people are equal or we don't. And if we don't, it's only a question of time until you're not going to be equal either. But if you believe that that let's tear up the Declaration of Independence. Let's go to the statute books where it's written and you know, because in the frontest piece of them, it's not itself a law, and tear it out. Do you want to do that? And when forced to recognize that the positions they were taking were actually in, you know, against the principles of the country, we actually have speeches where the people are recording those speeches, have the audience yelling, no, no, don't do it. Don't do it. And that ability to remind people of what the United States of America is supposed to be. That's what our leaders should be doing now. And a number of them are. Ossoff's not the only one. When that happens, as you say, they call us to our better nature.
- [27:34]
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- [28:01]
McDonald's Advertiser Assistant
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- [28:03]
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- [28:08]
Sarah Longwell
kind of like him.
- [28:09]
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- [28:10]
John Ossoff
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- [28:11]
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- [28:12]
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- [28:30]
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- [28:32]
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- [28:33]
Sarah Longwell
Let's keep going here. There were a lot of folks in these groups who were sort of higher on America as a long term proposition, but are deeply conflicted about this moment. Let's listen.
- [28:47]
Democratic Voter 1
I still have hope that this is
- [28:48]
Sarah Longwell
not forever and that people who did vote for this, like a large portion are like, oh, okay, like finally coming around. I feel like this is absolutely a dark chapter, but I like to think of it as just a chapter and
- [29:04]
Democratic Voter 5
that
- [29:07]
Sarah Longwell
the ideals of our country are still there in the background and that we will get back to that.
- [29:15]
Democratic Voter 6
I'm embarrassed that there are people that don't believe in news and science and education, but I have hope. And when I show up to protest and when I see the amount of people that are fighting for democracy and our freedoms and change. The hope is where I'm at with it because I know it's just a small group of people that are not feeling this way. But what I'm really embarrassed about is the government portion. Not necessarily the common man. It's the government that has put us in a position of pitting against each other, which has been going on forever and a day like even, you know, Roman times. It is. It's a proven method of dividing and conquering and power and rich and money. But the most people still feel that it's worth the fight for democracy to save democracy.
- [30:23]
Commercial Voice
When you see the things that were happening in like, you know, Minneapolis with ice, that does not make me proud. And I think that. But when you go to perhaps other countries and they know you're from the United States, that's a reflection of you being from the United States. And I'm not proud of that. I'm also not going to let Donald Trump live in my head and negate all of the things that I think have been really great about our country.
- [30:50]
Democratic Voter 3
The term American's been co opted, the flag's been co opted. It's disgusting what we're seeing. However, while the country's always had problems and the system's not the greatest, I think it's up to us, it's up to voters.
- [31:06]
Democratic Voter 7
I think I could go back to being proud to be an American, but that doesn't mean I have to be proud to be one at the moment. I think the way that we've alienated so many of our allies and our behavior towards thinking, oh, we're gonna take Greenland and then we're gonna take Cuba and this is next, and, and none of that makes me proud. I would just as soon not be associated with this country now. But that's not a permanent, permanent thing. At least I hope it's not.
- [31:34]
McDonald's Advertiser Assistant
I feel like we, we all go through like a phase, whether it's a point in our maturity or a point in our lives where we kind of look at America and we're like, oh, we're the bad guys. And maybe we have some, some times in our lives where like, oh, we're the good guys or we're not doing that great or we're the bad guys. I feel like all of us here might agree that we're kind of in that phase now as a nation of we feel like we're the bad guys and we're making all these mistakes and harming communities inside and outside of our country. There's been different periods where we felt good or bad about it. And I think a lot of where that comes from, for me at least, is we're proud to be an American because the promises that we're told in history class or through the Bill of Rights or Declaration of Independence, and through the promises that our nation is providing to us, but when that's juxtaposed against the reality of the situation, that patriotism fades away once we kind of see the fuller picture of it,
- [32:35]
Sarah Longwell
I just think these, these Americans really highlight to me something I hear all the time. You can hear this sense of, no, I believe in America and this thing we're doing. I'm just so frustrated with where we are now. And I. But I also believe we can get through it. And I don't know about you, but when you go out and you talk to your readers or you get emails from your readers, do they say the phrase to you, you help keep me sane?
- [33:00]
Heather Cox Richardson
Constantly.
- [33:00]
Sarah Longwell
Constantly. Right. That's the one we get the most. And I, I. There's something interesting in that. It's one, there's something about the world right now that feels like it's been turned upside down for people, right? They feel like they're understanding of who we are as a country and what our values were has been turned upside down. And they feel like somebody's up there saying, the sky is purple. And we're like, no, it's blue, it's blue. And they're like, thank God somebody still thinks it's blue. And they also see the same things that I do. And I think that people come to us because they are trying to feel like both a sense of, tell me that what I'm seeing isn't crazy, and also maybe tell me it's going to be okay or help us formulate a plan to get out of this. And so what is your advice to people for staying sane as we claw our way through this particular moment?
- [33:49]
Heather Cox Richardson
Well, I think we just talked about it. You know, find your people and find something to do so that you feel as if you're contributing to the survival of democracy. But remember that democracy is the system of government that is a deeply human enterprise, and that is people's ability to determine their own futures, whatever that looks like to you. So to the degree you are helping other people learn to read or make it through the end of their life or get their grocery shopping done, that too is part of contributing to a community that is going to create this kind of a government. So what I say to people is, stay involved in politics to whatever degree you can. But it's okay to garden, it's okay to find people to build community. That's actually all of it is actually working to build a stronger democracy.
- [34:47]
Ozempic Character
Yeah.
- [34:47]
Sarah Longwell
And I also think the extent to which you can fight back against the soul sickness of now and like, people finding things in people to love and that make you reinvest and love the country can be a big part of that. But, you know, one thing that I look to you for is there's kind of nothing new under the sun like what I love about history. And I have a renewed appreciation for history in some ways because of you being able to sort of bring to us in the these moments to say, hey, not only have we been in places, dark places before as a country, but here's how we got through them. That has been deeply helpful for me to be like, okay, humans are going to human. You said this earlier. And we just have an obligation to fight through this. And we can look to history to say we've been in some really dark places before and we've gotten through it and, and, and found better outcomes. And so that just gives me a lot of hope. That is what you do with history, right? That, I mean, I don't want to put words into your mouth, but professionally,
- [35:53]
Heather Cox Richardson
I, I study the importance of ideas in changing society. Other historians study other things. But what really always jumps out to me, especially in hard times, is that nobody knows what tomorrow is going to bring. You know, when people say to me, that's it, it's all over, we're done. It's like, how do you know that we don't know what tomorrow is going to bring? And there's so many game changers out there. I mean, you look, for example, at the Iran war that Trump declared. I mean, and we could go into great detail against, you know, about what happened there. It seems to me, again, I can't see the future, but it seems to me that there's very little that anybody could have done to turn the world more quickly toward renewable energy than have Trump invade Iran and lose the Strait of Hormuz. And that was a twist I didn't see coming. So I think about the people who, in times that looked really, really dark, stepped forward and said, listen, I'm putting everything on the line here. Whether it was my husband's people who volunteered for the civil in summer of 1862, which was virtually a death sentence, one of them didn't come home. Or people like my mother signing up to fight World War II in 1943, you didn't know it was coming, but they were willing to put their skin in the game to make sure it came out the right way. And, of course, that's exactly what the founders did with the Declaration of Independence, you know, saying, we're going to give this a try and we really hope it works out. It's an extraordinary leap of faith, but it's those leaps of faith that have actually expanded American democracy through people like Fannie Lou Hamer, for example. And I will say that when you look back at the past and it always, as I said, you know, it always looks better when you look backward. If you were living through the second Civil Rights movement, what you saw in the news and what you internalized was Bull Connor ordering the fire hoses, turned on children, and you saw the bombings and so on. But when people think about the Civil Rights movement now, they don't think about Bull Connor so much as I think about Ralph Abernathy or Dr. King or Amelia Boynton or some of the leaders of the movement who made things turn out right. So I think people tend to forget just how fraught it is to try and move that ball, that democratic ball, forward. One of the things that I always think about, and this is a weird leap, but I was writing a piece once on the great crash of 29, and I'm like, I don't want to write about the crash. Everybody writes about the crash. I thought, oh, I write about the night before the crash, the way people were living the night before the crash. And I knew that the economy was completely unstable and that it was all going to be going. But I wanted to see what they did the night before. And the New York Times was all about. It was the opening of the opera. And so people are in their fancy clothes and they're covering the opera, and, you know, everything is glitzy and beautiful. It's the great miracle, right? This economy is booming and it's great. And there's a little tiny article in the New York Times about a man who died by suicide that night because his business had failed and he couldn't deal with the fact he was a failure, and so on and so forth. And it has always stuck with me because I. Even when I read it, I was like, no, no, wait one more day and you will see that you are not alone and you can be part of the rebuilding. And I always think about that when people say, that's it, it's over. And I'm like, like, no, you just gotta hang on One more day because you don't know what's going to happen in that next day.
- [39:27]
Sarah Longwell
That's so interesting. I, I, the cynical part of me is like, or at least you would have had company in in your misery.
- [39:35]
Heather Cox Richardson
Well, the way the article was written, it did suggest that he felt he was a business failure and even having company in that might have made a real difference in his life.
- [39:43]
Sarah Longwell
No, I agree. Yeah, that's right. Well that's what they say, right? Misery loves company.
- [39:47]
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- [40:17]
Sarah Longwell
I want to pivot to a more hopeful note because even when these voters were conflicted, people in the focus groups absolutely had a degree of pride in America, even if it didn't take the form that a lot of our usual fourth of July celebrations take.
- [40:31]
Democratic Voter 8
Let's listen.
- [40:32]
Democratic Voter 9
The thing I'm proud about is that when my parents came in 1976 to the United States, there, there was very few people of color. There's mostly white in Boise, Idaho where I grew up. And he, my father built a life and became, he was a professor at the university and rose through administration. And to think that even given that time that that was something he could do and that was people would accept because that was, you know, environments primarily Caucasian, very limited minorities and for him to be able to do that. So I'm proud of at that time that that happened.
- [41:12]
Democratic Voter 8
The only thing I can say that I am proud of is with technology there seems to be, there's less of forgetting the stories from like America's history that aren't good. So like the bomb, the movement bombing and that happened in Philadelphia in 1985. Like I feel like there's been more education on that in the past couple of years because of technologies. I actually had like a post that went viral on threads posting about it, the learning about the history of gynecology and how that progressed and how like black women were tested on for. It's something that, you know, was talked about when I was younger and it seemed kind of like a myth and now it's More spread and more like put out there. So I feel like I'm proud of the fact that we aren't forgetting the stories, whether they're good or bad.
- [42:01]
Democratic Voter 5
I was raised by my great, great, great grandmother. She was born in 1898. She was 80 years old when I was born. She is literally one generation from slavery. Literally. Her mother was a slave. She was a sharecropper. My great uncle was on the balcony when Dr. King was shot. He marched with him and sell. So I have a very complicated relationship with how I'm proud of America. I, I can't say that I am proud of America because of the perspective and the family history that I have and the things that I know, you know, and that I was, that I was taught and I saw firsthand as a child. So I'll say this. I. I'm proud that I can do certain things, but I'm more proud of the stock that I came from to fight for me to do those things.
- [43:18]
Democratic Voter 10
There's definitely a lot of different movements and yeah, things that are mainly from the people in the US that I have been proud of. Especially like the queer movement and I think, you know, the push for authenticity and the pushes for freedom, like the women's suffrage movement. I used to be super proud of our, like, scientific community in America. And it's still pushing out good things, like we have the COVID vaccines and stuff, but definitely like this administration has negatively affected that a lot and the whole economy has too. But like when Obama was in office, I felt so proud to, of being American. Like, we were pushing for more environmentally friendly things. We're pushing for things to protect our environment. We were pushing like, you know, Obamacare. I was super. You know, it wasn't perfect, but like when Obamacare came out, like, that was something that took a lot of my stress levels away at the time and definitely, you know, was something in the right direction.
- [44:20]
Sarah Longwell
So. So we had, when we asked this, you know, well, what does make you proud? The stories were so long that we could only include a few of them here because people really talked a lot and they. Even the one that you could hear. Although, I gotta tell you, you ready for this? We cut this part of the clip just for time, but the woman who was talking about her being raised by her great great grandmother and she says, my great uncle is Ralph D. Abernathy. Do you all know who that is? For those that don't know, he was Dr. King's right hand man. So that's who that woman was that was talking.
- [44:52]
Heather Cox Richardson
I Marked that you sent me the clips to read. And that really jumped out to me, what she said, because to me that's America. It's people working to make things better. And that one of the things that I think when I talked about the loss of agency is it feels to me like a lot of what we have done, certainly in the modern day curriculum that the radical right is trying to push is erase that agencies. So instead of saying, hey, we're Americans, we have a can do spirit, we, you know, we innovate, we take care of our, you know, of our people, all those things. Instead, when people look at the United States from within, they see our government and they don't like the things the government is doing. And by the way, I think that goes all the way back to the Vietnam War. But one of the things that I think is so exciting about this moment is ordinary people saying, you know, I'm proud of the fact my people came from wherever and built lives or that my people fought so that I would have the right to vote or that I could get a credit card. And that to me is what America really is, is the ability of people to fight, to expand the principles that were articulated in the Declaration of Independence to include more and more people. And if you use that lens on American history, which by the way is very much the lens that we would have used until, you know, really recently, probably the 1990s, all of a sudden you can be embarrassed about the fact that that ability to get out there and change the world also meant the rise of the kkk, the rise of neo Nazis, you know, the destruction, the extraordinary destruction of environmental resources and the countryside and so on. You can look at that and say, yeah, that's what's great about America.
- [46:46]
Sarah Longwell
I found these very heartening because they were, everybody told their immigrant story or their descendant story or the things that they built or their families built, or just the things that the country had done well. And you, you realize that even among people who are feeling very down right now, how deeply embedded American identity, whatever that means to different people, like whatever their story of America is, is still sitting there. And when you tap into it, it, they feel really good about it. And that, that part was nice. So we also asked these focus groups about what kinds of things they wanted to see done for America to rebuild from the Trump era. And let's listen to what they said.
- [47:27]
Ozempic Advertiser
I think we need to have accountability. That I think that's the biggest thing. Like we, we constantly say, oh, you know what, what's going on Right now is illegal, but then nothing happens. Like, nobody's held accountable for what they're doing. Or it's so slow to happen that basically, like, yeah, it might be illegal, but they do it anyway because who's going to stop them because the. The law is so slow? Or, you know, the. The upper courts are on their side, so they're. Even though it's written, it means nothing. And the only way that we're going. I'm going to be able to look back at all of this and say, hey, we're in a better place, is that, like, people have to be held accountable for the stuff that they're doing, or else what's the point of law?
- [48:19]
Democratic Voter 11
I'd be more proud of the country if I could see that the country is really working for the common, everyday person. So rather than like, the richer get richer and the poor get poorer, you know, anyone and everyone has access to medical care. You know, if you get a car accident, you're not going to want to wobble away out of fear that you can't afford it, like, it's going to put you in debt.
- [48:41]
Sarah Longwell
I think we need to close some loopholes, like the age limit for the president. Anybody who's running for the president, we need to cap the age limit. Even being a Democrat, I felt like Biden was too old, Trump is too old. We need to cap an age limit.
- [48:59]
Democratic Voter 8
There's.
- [49:00]
Democratic Voter 12
I don't know where it came in, and I know they've always been there. But the presidential pardons, we need to start there and get rid of those. And a lot of them, before they leave office in the 11th hour, are pardoning people, and we don't hear about a lot of them. But start there. I don't understand that. If we've convicted somebody of a crime, they've been found guilty. That's the last chapter in the last
- [49:27]
Heather Cox Richardson
page of the book.
- [49:27]
Democratic Voter 12
You don't get to rewrite that book just because you like the guy or the girl or, you know, they've contributed to your campaign.
- [49:35]
Sarah Longwell
So, Heather, I talk with my guy, jvl, all the time on the Secret podcast. We sort of have this ongoing argument about what we're gonna do to push ourselves out of this time.
- [49:47]
Democratic Voter 12
Right.
- [49:47]
Sarah Longwell
And so if a Democrat is elected, what are they gonna do to make sure that this moment never happens again? And he tends to go for stuff like expanding the Supreme Court, you know, adding D.C. statehood, prosecuting the crap out of the Trump administration, which I'm super on board with. But what do you want to see done in a post Trump world to help sort of propel us forward. Tell me what your pitch is for the post Trump future.
- [50:12]
Heather Cox Richardson
So I'll give you my, my, my small pitch, if you will. And then the bigger pitch, the small pitch is we gotta get rid of Citizens United, we gotta get huge money out of politics, because that will make it easier then for new and different people to enter politics, even before you get to the place of elections, where after the June 30 decision of the Supreme Court, we've got yet more money flowing into politics. And remember, we get the overturning of this, of Citizens United in 2010, after the American people have elected Barack Obama, and with this real push away from the focus on Congress and on widespread voting and toward a unitary executive, which we're seeing play out here. So the first thing I'm going to do is wave my magic wand and get rid of Citizens United and big money in politics. That being said, accountability, I'm going to pull a Trump here. 600%. We need to have 600% of accountability. Because I maintain, first of all, the lack of accountability for the Confederacy is one of the country's original sins in its second founding. But also that if Richard Nixon had gone to trial, he didn't even have to get convicted. If he had gone to trial, I do not think think we would have had the Iran Contra affair, I do not think we would have had weapons of mass destruction, and I do not think Donald Trump would have run for the presidency because we would have established that nobody is above the law. So part of that accountability means getting rid of the decision in Donald Trump versus the United States in which the Supreme Court overturned the entire principle of the Declaration of Independence and said that, in fact, we were not all equal before the law, that one animal was more equal than all the other animals and was not going to have to answer for crimes committed as part of his official duties, which is absolutely contrary to everything this country has ever stood for. So those are my first two things. But the larger picture here is that we have let the machinery of American democracy rust to the point that it no longer represents the American people. And we're going to have to have some pretty big reworkings of those things, 100% on board for having a bigger Supreme Court, regardless of who is in charge of it, because we haven't expanded the Supreme Court since 1869, and we have a lot more people in it now, and we have a lot more, you know, a lot more circuits and a lot more need for More people who can handle more cases. So aside from the political makeup, which by the way also needs to be adjusted because right now it does not represent the American people, it's been packed with right wing extremists that's going to have to be addressed. But not just the that. We have the issue of the Electoral College, which was never supposed to be winner take all. It was set up to be representational. It's one of the big beefs I have. One of the big beefs I have with Thomas Jefferson is that he realizes in 1796 that if in fact the Virginia delegation votes winner take all, he would have won in 1796. So he gets them to do it in 1800. And very quickly we get the imposition of winner take all in the Electoral College. James Madison says, you can't do this. We need to amend the Congress Constitution. But anybody who gets in office under that system doesn't want to change it. Then we cap the electoral college in 1929 when it becomes clear that there will be more and more representation in Congress from the cities rather than the countryside if there is not a cap, if Congress doesn't cap it. And so we end up with a cap that really privileges people who live in the country versus who live in the city. We got a fix that. We got the problems now with the advent of high rises in cities and the establishment of certain states that are way bigger than others because of that ability to build vertically as opposed to horizontally. We now have a case where two senators represent all the people in California and two senators represent all the people in Idaho. Something's got to be done about that. And I'm not suggesting I have the answers. We also, of course, do have to have the, you know, new states added simply because of the number of people in places like Washington D.C. but in the big picture, a democracy cannot survive if people feel they are not represented by the people in power. And what we have now is a system where our Supreme Court has been confirmed by people who represent far fewer than the number of people who voted against those individuals on the court. We have presidents who are getting elected and put in office even though they have lost the popular vote. We have. Even when things are incredibly popular, like the idea of common sense gun safety regulations, even though huge numbers of people want that, it can't be passed in our current system. We have to fix that system or people will lose faith in democracy. And when they lose faith in democracy, the only, you know, you're looking either at violence from the state to Keep those people down or you're looking at a revolution. And. And as a good conservative like yourself, Sarah, I don't believe in instability in a society. And so those of us who call ourselves conservatives, and obviously I'm playing with that word a bit there. Should want to have a stable society. And in order to do that, we gotta fix the Supreme Court, we gotta fix the House of Representatives, we gotta fix the Electoral College, and we gotta fix the Senate. Other than that, it's a pretty easy job.
- [55:51]
Sarah Longwell
Boy, with only four minutes left, I'm trying to decide how much of that I take on. This is maybe the one sort of pushback I would offer, which is I'm not reflexively for expanding the court. I'm open to the discussion about what we do about. And I'm aggressively interested in the discussion about what we do with, like, a lot of our sclerotic institutions that I think a bunch of us jumped early on to say, well, we need to defend American institutions without over time realizing that a lot of these institutions actually really did. Did need to be reformed and that the American people wanted it, and that's why they keep hiring Donald Trump, is they do want something different. But in terms of representation, I'm with you 100%. I also think these are sort of big, intractable problems. Like, I don't know how you're going to get around two senators for Idaho and two senators for California. I mean, I'm always. I've always thought if we could just send 200,000 Californians to Montana, we can start to even this bad boy out. But I'm not sure we're going to get it to change the other way. Sometimes I worry that we spend a lot of times on solutions or a lot of time and energy on solutions that are probably not going to happen structurally for some of the structural things you're trying to correct for. And so I'm always trying to think about what can be done, like, what, what realistically. Because people are like, well, we got to get rid of the Electoral College. And I'm like, okay, that is just not gonna happen.
- [57:20]
Heather Cox Richardson
But how about if we made it representational again, as it was always supposed to be?
- [57:24]
Sarah Longwell
Tell me, so would we need 60 votes in the Senate to make that happen?
- [57:28]
Heather Cox Richardson
I'm in the process here of selling it to people who say we have to keep them the way they've always been. And if you came back to them and said it was supposed to be this way and they changed it for political advantage, would people say, oh, okay. Cause that's then our candidates would have to go to more than six states every season. Which makes me crazy because I'm like, so you live in Mississippi, you don't matter. You know, you live in Massachusetts, you don't matter. They should have to sell themselves everywhere, which they would have to if they were representational.
- [58:03]
Sarah Longwell
I used to, I think just coming up as a, as a young conservative, you're sort of the electoral college as a way to, to protect minority minority from, you know, the majority tyranny. Always made sense to me as I've gotten older, I have becoming and, and as a, as now somebody who like is deep inside cross tabs and looks at the states, everything, I'm like, this is insane. It actually is an insane process now. Like the idea that if your vote is in whatever, Tennessee, it doesn't count or if it's in California and, and as a result people participate less and they don't educate themselves as much because they're like, wow, well, I've gotta spend a billion dollars in Pennsylvania is crushing our political system to live this way. That being said, I also don't look at that as one of the reforms that I think gets done. I just, I can't see a path for it.
- [58:55]
Heather Cox Richardson
My practical ones were the first two.
- [58:57]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah.
- [58:58]
Heather Cox Richardson
But I think that there is a larger point here. And I do wanna point out that one of the reasons we're in the mess we're in is because the Republican Party between 1889 and 1890 recognized they couldn't command the popular vote. So they wanted to hold. And that's how we got the addition of six new states between, in 12 months between 1889 and 1890, we get north Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Wyoming and Washington, all so that they will be able to hold the Senate. And even at the time there weren't enough people in those states. And I'm not suggesting we take that statehood away from them, but the idea that we couldn't possibly acknowledge the fact that Washington D.C. has more people in it than some states in the United States and thereby make it a state. We say it's not possible, but you know, I think you swing for the fences in this part of our lives.
- [59:47]
Sarah Longwell
Now you're speaking my language though, because this is, I am a big reformer, I believe we need reform. But I was sort of making a joke about moving Montana. But you want to play constitutional hardball like Republicans do. First of all, I believe in D.C. statehood. I live here, I would like representation.
- [60:02]
Heather Cox Richardson
Curiously, I did not before Trump.
- [60:05]
Sarah Longwell
Oh, really? Why?
- [60:06]
Heather Cox Richardson
Because I hadn't examined it very closely at the time. And I sort of thought, you know, I love that it was set up historically to represent the entire country. And then I realized you could have those federal spaces and continue to have it, get representation.
- [60:19]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah, but why not? Due to California. Northern California and Southern California is a state or Central California. It's three different states. I mean, I think that people often think of reforms in terms of taking stuff away, like make it. But you can't do that. But I think you can add things and you can let these states make those choices.
- [60:39]
Democratic Voter 8
Is.
- [60:40]
Sarah Longwell
And sometimes I think we're not being creative enough. Everybody kind of jumps to the same three or four things that are tough to do. But I think that there's other things that haven't been. I mean, people are like, wow, California is its own, you know, big economy. And I'm like, okay, well then still operate as an economy, but give yourself. I mean, I don't know. There just seems like there are ways to do that. If we were thinking critically, I would
- [61:02]
Heather Cox Richardson
make it even more simple. I and I. This is easy for me to do because I'm virtually innumerate, but there have to be mathematical formulas nowadays to be able to say this is how we guarantee in the Electoral College, for example, that these people are accurately represented. And I don't know what those are, believe me, I don't know what those are. But we have to be thinking creatively about adapting the machinery of government to the modern era or risk losing the faith of American people in the fact that their government represents. And it's not just about the federal government, by the way, although it really plays out in elections and so on, when in federal elections, by having districts that are so huge now, people don't feel like they have any relationship to their congressperson. I mean, I live in a really small state, so I actually know my Congress people. And that's the way this system was designed to be so that, you know, I've never had to go to one of them, but if there were an emergency, I would actually know where to go. I know where there are offices are. I recognize them on the street. You can't do that in California or Illinois or Florida or Texas. And that lack of relationship of individuals in now these giant districts of more than a half a million, sometimes more than three quarters of a million people, that's something that we could find a way to remedy. I don't know what it is.
- [62:30]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah, the state of Southern California that has its own two senators, its own governor and its own, own, you know, government that people could know.
- [62:39]
Heather Cox Richardson
California could have a lot more states. I mean, that's the other thing we could. And we're only brainstorming here because I think there are very strong historical reasons not to do this. And, and even today reasons not to do this. You could just say a state in the United States of America is going to be million people. And so all of a sudden New York City becomes boroughs that are states. I guess I'm not suggesting we do that, but there will be ways.
- [63:05]
Sarah Longwell
No bad ideas in a brainstorm. Look, and then I'm gonna close out and let, let just do a quick some sound from how pumped people were about the World Cup. But the real, the real America 250 is everybody being excited about the World Cup.
- [63:17]
Heather Cox Richardson
You're not wrong on that, actually.
- [63:18]
Sarah Longwell
No, I know, I know it said
- [63:20]
Heather Cox Richardson
a lot about America and about who we like to think of ourselves as. It was great. It was great watching people discover the Waffle House, you know?
- [63:30]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah, it is, it. It's when you can see your country through someone else's eyes, it reminds you of the things that you love about it and like, why it is fun. But I just, just to put a point, a point on our discussion or a pin or whatever, America is a story of reinvention, constant reinvention. And I think that, that the idea that we should look back in protection is wrong. We should look forward with a mind and an eye toward building and what can we do? That's why for me, thinking about the practical limitations of some of the ideas that keep getting thrown out because I worry that we expend energy on them and then when they can't happen, we start to feel like democracy is non responsive as opposed to looking for the thing, things that could actually get done so that people can remember how democracy can be responsive. I do think that one of the reasons I tend to have such an optimistic valence around America is I was a gay person that was coming out in 2005 when Massachusetts became the first state to say gay marriage was okay, to legalize gay marriage. And then from 2005 to 2013, I was an advocate, a conservative advocate for gay marriage or Republican advocate for gay marriage. And I did a lot of work in that space. And I watched, I talked to Christians, whatever, and I watched everybody change their mind. I just, I watched it. I lived it. I sat there and watched cranky old people go, yeah, I don't care. Actually, it's fine. You kids go have fun. You love each other. That's nice. I watched Will and Grace happen. I watched the cultural change and I watched Ellen say, yep, I'm gay. And then I watched the courts and like, I watched the activism and I watched the communications style change go from it's a civil rights issue, which actually kind of didn't work, to like, it's a love issue and a human issue that did work and did resonate and brought people out of the closet so that they could advocate for themselves to the people that they loved and who loved them. So. And then I, it just. And then look, we got to the courts and then eventually it went through the legislature. Like, I just watched this happen. I just watched it happen. I just lived through it. I got me one of those gay marriages. And so. And, and I was part of it. I was part of. Because we would always say, when people be like, how dare you be a gay Republican? We'd be like, well, you know, if you're not at the table, you're on the menu. And so somebody's got to be in the room with these Republicans being like, no, I'm here too. Because if there's no Republicans who are gay in the room, people can be like, well, we can just ignore this issue. And so I just, I felt like I watched America figure out how to reinvent this thing and I feel like we can do it again on these other parts.
- [66:18]
Heather Cox Richardson
You know, you said something key there, though. One of the things that really jumps out about the movement you're describing is it was strongly bottom up. You know, it was exactly that. It was people talking to their neighbors and their family members. And it was watching it happen. And instead of sort of saying, well, we'll get the courts to do this or we'll get the Congress to do this instead, sort of doing, we're going to flip, force those people to do it. It was one of the most bottom up movements we've had since World War II. And look at the difference. Look at the change in attitudes. It was just absolutely dramatic.
- [66:59]
Sarah Longwell
It is. And this is why, again, I wrote the book because it was about persuasion. Like, I lived through a persuasion effort and an education effort and a human effort effort. And I believe we can do a version of that with democracy. And I believe we have the tools like they gave us the tools to do it. The founders did. We've got it. And so I'm going to end on this high note. We're going to listen to the sound from the World Cup. But I guess in close, I love talking to you every time Because I do feel, even when as optimistic as I am, and as much as I think about building and pushing forward and reinventing ourselves through the prism of the values that anchor us and like returning to them over and over to draw inspiration, I can still, right now, listening to voters, I can feel bleak about things, but I always feel energized talking to you the same way I feel energized if I, like, pick up the Federalist Papers. Like, I'm like, yes, no, we've been here before. We know how to do this. We've got the tools. We can go do this.
- [68:01]
Heather Cox Richardson
Remember that when the founders put down on paper what they believed in, they started with natural law. We hold these truths to be self evident. You know, by the time Lincoln comes along, it's a proposition. But what they say is these are the laws of the universe, that people have certain unalienable rights. They have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And they have a right to construct a government that protects those things. Those are immune. And so anytime you get to feel like it's not going to happen in the United States, we could absolutely lose our recognition of those things. But if in fact, the founders were right, and I actually think they did reflect human nature with that statement, those are laws, and those laws are going eventually to direct our society once again. And you just have to believe that.
- [68:57]
Sarah Longwell
And I do, I do. And one of the ways we're gonna get this there is by listening to voters enjoy the World cup of it all. Let's listen.
- [69:07]
Democratic Voter 13
I'm loving watching people with the World cup find joy in connecting with Americans. That has actually brought me a lot of joy. I'm watching what's happened in Boston with the, the, the tartan army and the Scotland and, and everywhere they go and they're posting about the food and their love of ranch. Like, to me, that has taken me away from the insanity and be like, when it comes down to it, it's the people, okay, and not the politics that are the fabric of our country. And the politics are obviously broadcast, quote, unquote, across the pond. But when you get common everyday folks together and they share and they, they give you a caption into their life, joy can be found. And it is really, it's been just, that has been so. It was unsuspect, unexpected joy that came out of that. I'm proud of that. We, as a individual, you know, communities rolled out the welcome carpet. We're not afraid of these people who are actually immigrants coming and visiting and spending money I live in a tourism drink driven city, you know, so to me we welcome everybody as like that's how our, our economy survives.
- [70:27]
Democratic Voter 5
The fact that Waffle House has bridged the gap between countries is hilarious to me on so many levels. But I like that it's the people. Yeah, it's definitely the people.
- [70:38]
Democratic Voter 9
I was actually nervous for people to be coming here with all of the ice, you know, all these ice people in all these major cities were where a lot of these games were being played out. Like these people are taking their lives in their own hands.
- [70:55]
Sarah Longwell
There was a lot more, but we're out of time. Heather Cox Richardson, you're the best. I love having you on. Thanks for giving all of us hope. Any last words from you before we wrap here?
- [71:07]
Heather Cox Richardson
Yes. Thank you, Sarah. It's always a pleasure. And happy 4th of July.
- [71:11]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah, happy 4th to you too. Good luck, America.