We’re Taking Patriotism Back with Heather Cox Richardson

Summary

Episode Summary: "We’re Taking Patriotism Back with Heather Cox Richardson"

Introduction

In the July 1, 2025 episode of We Can Do Hard Things, hosts Glennon Doyle, Abby Wambach, and Amanda Doyle engage in a profound conversation with renowned historian Heather Cox Richardson. The episode delves into the concept of patriotism, its historical evolution, and the ways it has been co-opted in contemporary American society. Richardson offers a meticulous analysis of patriotism's transformation, exploring its roots post-World War II and its current misrepresentation in today's political landscape.

Reclaiming Patriotism

The discussion begins with Amanda Doyle addressing the problematic use of patriotic symbols by groups that perpetuate division and oppression. Wearing a flag adapted to include the Pride symbol, Doyle expresses her frustration with individuals who misuse symbols like the "Don't Tread On Me" flag to convey exclusionary and oppressive messages. She challenges Richardson to explain how patriotism, originally a unifying force, has been hijacked by factions that promote treasonous ideologies.

Historical Context and the Liberal Consensus

Richardson provides a comprehensive overview of the post-World War II "liberal consensus," a period when Americans broadly supported government intervention to regulate businesses, provide social safety nets, and invest in infrastructure. She highlights that this era fostered a sense of community and equality, transcending political party lines. However, she points out that Republican businessmen and racists opposed these measures, advocating for individualism and minimal government interference, which laid the groundwork for the current misappropriation of patriotic symbols.

The Cowboy Myth and Its Realities

At [12:11], Amanda Doyle emphasizes the myth of the independent cowboy, drawing parallels to contemporary figures like Elon Musk who project an image of self-sufficiency while relying heavily on government support. Richardson elaborates on this contradiction, explaining that historical cowboys depended significantly on federal resources and communities, debunking the lone individualist myth that has been perpetuated to undermine collective government efforts.

Wealth Redistribution and Political Manipulation

Richardson traces the origins of the misconception that government intervention equates to socialism. She explains how, since the late 19th century, efforts to redistribute wealth through taxation and social programs have been framed as threats to individual prosperity. This narrative has persisted, evolving from post-Civil War resistance to Reconstruction and the Department of Justice's enforcement of equal rights, to the Reagan-era rhetoric against government regulation and taxation.

Contemporary Implications and Reclaiming Community

The conversation shifts to the present, where Richardson observes that the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few has been masked by rhetoric that blames marginalized groups for economic disparities. She draws historical parallels to the late 19th century, illustrating how wealthy elites have consistently resisted wealth redistribution by demonizing collective support systems as socialist threats. This manipulation has led to a fragmented sense of patriotism, where symbols like the American flag are no longer universally representative of national unity.

Vision for a Reclaimed Patriotism

Richardson envisions a renewed patriotism rooted in community, equality, and collective well-being. She advocates for ordinary people to reclaim symbols of patriotism by emphasizing the value of communal support systems such as education, healthcare, and public infrastructure. By fostering a collective identity that prioritizes mutual aid and equal rights, Richardson believes America can overcome the divisive misuse of patriotic symbols.

Personal Reflections and Call to Action

Glennon Doyle shares her emotional connection to patriotism, reflecting on her experiences representing the country as an Olympian. She expresses gratitude for Richardson's efforts to redefine patriotism, which helps her reconcile her personal sacrifices with a broader, more inclusive national identity. The hosts emphasize the importance of community, art, love, and other elements that sustain individuals and empower collective action against authoritarianism.

Conclusion

The episode concludes with Richardson highlighting the power of collective action and cultural expression in reshaping national identity. She draws inspiration from historical movements that successfully expanded democracy and redistributed wealth by fostering inclusive communities and challenging entrenched power structures. The hosts reaffirm their commitment to supporting such endeavors, urging listeners to engage actively in building a more equitable and unified America.

Notable Quotes

• Heather Cox Richardson [07:16]: "The idea that we have ceded the images of American patriotism to people who appear to hate most of the people in our country is a real problem."

• Amanda Doyle [04:20]: "This is my problem right now. Every time I see some disgruntled old white man with a Don't Tread on Me flag, I just want to scream from the core of my being."

• Heather Cox Richardson [30:36]: "What was patriotism is now rebranded as socialism."

• Glennon Doyle [47:37]: "I think it's so important that not only are you using your voice, but you're giving people the real information."

• Heather Cox Richardson [51:43]: "That's exactly right. And that's also how we have managed to expand democracy in the past."

Key Takeaways

1. Historical Misappropriation of Patriotism: Patriotism has been historically co-opted by factions opposing government intervention and social equality, transforming it into a symbol of exclusion rather than unity.

2. Role of Government in Promoting Equality: Post-World War II government policies aimed at regulating businesses and providing social safety nets fostered a sense of community and equality, which has been undermined by ideological shifts advocating extreme individualism.

3. Myth of the Independent Individual: The romanticized notion of the self-sufficient individual, epitomized by the cowboy myth, ignores the communal and governmental support systems that have always been integral to American society.

4. Economic Redistribution as Patriotism: Efforts to redistribute wealth and provide social services have been wrongly labeled as socialism, obscuring their foundational role in fostering a cohesive and equitable society.

5. Reclaiming Authentic Patriotism: A renewed sense of patriotism should focus on community support, equality, and collective well-being, moving away from divisive and exclusionary interpretations.

6. Empowerment Through Collective Action: Building inclusive communities and challenging entrenched power structures through art, education, and mutual support are essential for redefining and reclaiming patriotism.

Final Thoughts

We Can Do Hard Things successfully navigates the complex interplay between patriotism, history, and contemporary politics with Heather Cox Richardson. The episode serves as a clarion call to listeners to critically examine and reclaim the true essence of patriotism, fostering a united and equitable American society.

Transcript

[Glennon Doyle]

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[Abby Wambach]

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[Amanda Doyle]

Welcome to.

[Heather Cox Richardson]

We Can Do Hard Things. Today we are doing a very hard thing and a very timely thing and a very important thing in this American moment, which is we are taking back patriotism. Patriotism as a concept from the people who have lost their privileges to call themselves Patriots. They have lost their privileges. Okay? We are the fucking Patriots now and we are going to tell you why. Heather Cox Richardson is a professor of history at Boston College and an expert on American political and economic History. She is the author of seven books, including the award winning how the South Won the Civil War and her latest, the New York Times bestseller Democracy Awakening. Her work has appeared in the Washington Post, the New York Times and the Guardian, among other outlets. Her widely read newsletter, which Pod Squad if you don't know about Letters from an American, please know that tons of us every single morning are reading Heather Cox Richardson's letter that she writes every single morning about the state of our country, how to understand it, and what the hell we should do next. You should just register for that thing and you can also listen to it. If you don't want to read it, you can listen to it, which is what I do on podcasts. We'll link to all this. She reads the letter each day. Listen to this episode in which we ask Heather Cox Richardson, the democracy defender Heather Cox Richardson that millions of people are listening to every morning to understand what the hell is going on in this country and what to do about it. Where we ask her the question I've been wanting to ask someone for a very long time, which is this. And I don't mean to put too fine a point on it or to be too nuanced so that we don't understand, but my question is what? In the most strenuous terms, the fuck? What the fuck? Heather Cox Richardson. What the fuck?

[Amanda Doyle]

Before we start this conversation about patriotism, I would like to explain what I'm currently wearing.

[Heather Cox Richardson]

Please do.

[Amanda Doyle]

Heather Cox Richardson, this is in honor of our conversation today. I am wearing an adaptation of the American Revolution Gadsden Don't Tread On Me flag, which has the Pride flag overlain on it.

[Heather Cox Richardson]

Because.

[Amanda Doyle]

This is my problem right now. My problem right now is that every time I see some disgruntled old white man with a Don't Tread on Me flag, I just want to scream from the core of my being. This is what I want to say to them. I want to say, when I beg of you, whence were you trod?

[Heather Cox Richardson]

Okay, because.

[Amanda Doyle]

There has been nary a trot in your general direction for a while now. And when I see that, I assume to myself that that person is more of a treader than a tredee. And I think that this is something that is happening a lot to people. Because I was scrolling recently and I saw someone post something that made me very sad. And it was this. It was when I walk by a house with an American flag, I assume that the person is a fascist.

[Heather Cox Richardson]

I do too.

[Amanda Doyle]

I think it's this like horrible, ironic tragedy that we're in, that we have somehow seeded these ideals, these representations of who we are to the people who would use them to oppress, instead of what the original meaning was of these notions. And so this is what we would love to talk to you today because you are so good at uncovering the story under the story and the real history of things to understand. How do we get to a place where patriotism itself has been co opted by people who support treason in the most literal sense? And how do we get back to a place, if we can, if we should, to be able to reclaim and harness patriotism for those of us who would like to fight authoritarianism in this historic moment? And that is a lot to ask of you. So where do you think we should begin on that?

[Guest Speaker]

So, first of all, amen. You know, the idea that we have ceded the images of American patriotism to people who appear to hate most of the people in our country is a real problem. And it would be a lovely thing for us to call those symbols back and to use them for what they were intended to be used for. Because in a way, it's easier to explain how to get that back, I think, than it is to explain how we got to where we are. But I'll give it a shot. If you would like me to.

[Glennon Doyle]

Please.

[Amanda Doyle]

I would really like you to.

[Guest Speaker]

And that is, if you think about coming out of World War II, virtually everybody in America believed in what was called the liberal consensus. And that was the idea that the government had a role to play in regulating business so that people couldn't force their workers to work for pennies, or couldn't injure them on the shop floors, couldn't just pour pollutants into the waters and into the sky. The government should regulate business, and it also provide a basic social safety net. So if you were disabled or elderly or a child whose parents had died, or somebody who'd just fallen on hard times, the government had an interest, all of us had an interest, in making sure that you could survive and thrive until you were able to survive on your own, or maybe you would never be able to do that. So the government should regulate business and provide a basic social safety net, but it should also invest in infrastructure. Roads and hospitals and schools and airports and electricity and running water, the things that some people in America enjoyed, but not necessarily everybody. And it wasn't fair to those people who didn't enjoy those things to be left out. And it also meant that they couldn't become the people that they should be if they were busily having to go get their own water, which when I was growing up as a kid, we actually used to have to go get water for a number of our neighbors. Takes a lot of time, and it's not necessarily as safe as safe drinking water. And then finally, the government should protect equal rights for everybody. And those ideas belonged to everybody. They were Republicans, Independents, Democrats. Basically everybody coming out of World War II believed those things. And how to get back to that has a lot to do with the images of World War II, I think. But what happened is there were a number of people who didn't like those ideas. Especially Republican businessmen didn't like the idea of government intervention in their businesses and any kind of regulation, and they didn't like the taxes that were required for a basic social safety net, but they were really upset about regulation. And racists in the American south and west didn't like the idea that the government was going to try and enforce equal rights among racial and ethnic minorities and religious minorities and religious traditionalists didn't like the idea that women were going to have equal rights. They believed that women should be subordinate to men. There aren't very many of them. But they began to say that to be a true American, you needed to be an individual, an individualist man who pushed back against a government that was essentially socialistic or communistic. Because, remember, this is the Cold War, and that actually has a long history in our country of believing that if black and brown people vote, that is a form of socialism. It's not related to actual socialism, but that's the argument. And they began to say that in order to be a real American, you essentially had to be a cowboy. You know, the image of the American cowboy takes off in the 1950s with all the Westerns on TV and with Barry Goldwater, and later on, Ronald Reagan's gonna pick it up. The idea that a true American just is an individual on his own. He's hardworking, he wants nothing from the government, carries a gun, gonna protect his women folk. And that's true Americanism. But the trick is, that was never real. Even when the image of the cowboys in the 1860s, they depended very heavily on the US government, and about a third of them were men of color, which people tend to. And that idea that to be an American, you need to be a lone individual without that liberal consensus government that so many people liked took over. First a faction of American politics, which then took over the Republican Party and now has taken over the US Government in this desire to destroy that government that the rest of us enjoy and think is a really good idea. In fact, the majority of us think it's a good idea. So that idea that suddenly, or maybe not so suddenly they have become the heart of America is I think, how we got here. But it's also crucial to remember that it has always been a myth. There was never that independent individual in a government. The people in America have always depended on communities, on each other, including the cowboys. So one of the tasks we have before us is not simply to say let's move this image of the independent, really former Confederate offstage, but really let's recenter the American understanding of our lives on the communities that are real as opposed to that myth. And I think you can see this right now in politics where you have members of the administration trying desperately to insist on things that we all know aren't true because reality favors the kind of world that I'm talking about.

[Amanda Doyle]

And the myth of the cowboy is so huge because even the cowboy's existence depended on the federal government.

[Guest Speaker]

Right.

[Amanda Doyle]

Can you talk a little bit about that? Like they sold the cows to the federal government. I mean, it reminds me of like the Elon Musk of this moment, which is independent make your money self starter who makes, what is it, $8 billion of federal tax money. It's wild. So like even that predication on stay out of our business. But you are the reason that we have a business goes from cowboy to now.

[Guest Speaker]

Absolutely. And you know, the funny thing that you just picked up there is part of that ideology is because we, these independent individuals who now are defined as white men, are the center of American life. We're the only people who matter. The government should help us, which is, you know, sort of counterintuitive as opposed to, you know, we're independent. We don't want that help. It's because we are the centerpiece of America. We're the ones who should get help. It's a really contradictory image there.

[Heather Cox Richardson]

So what is happening right now? What are we seeing now that is the co opting of this? What's the new symbol? False symbol for independence? How did it all get backwards in a way that people can see it now playing out in our politics?

[Guest Speaker]

Well, you know, that's such a great question because don't you feel like we're watching this? You're seeing a bunch of people in the administration who are there because of who they are, because they're white men who look like they're playing the part. I mean, literally, this administration is full of people who are TV stars, they're from the Fox News Channel or they're people whose background is in the media, but they're playing a part that doesn't fit reality. And this is one of the things just fascinates me right now is that reality is sort of knocking at the door and saying, you know, you keep talking about this government being intrusive on your lives, and you keep talking about how we have to cut everything. And, you know, this is what your language is. But the reality is people like the National Weather Service and they like Medicaid and they like Social Security and they like education, and they like clean air and clean water, and they actually like being decent to each other. And one of my big projects is to remind people that the United States has always, always been a nation defined by its communities. The government can say all at once that one guy is running things, but that's never been the case. The unpaid labor that people provide, the fact you give sugar to your neighbor, the baby clothes economy. I like to think of it as that economists actually look at the bartering that goes on in our communities and they have a number and a schedule for it. But, you know, when I had my third child, I finally, when she was three, said, thank you all so much for your baby clothes. I would like to buy an article of clothing for my baby because so many people had given me girls clothes. I'd only had boys clothes before. All of those things are the reality of how the world works and we can reclaim it the same way that it was part of our society really dramatically in the 1930s, 30s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, and of course before that. But you know, in that era, if you had said, I'm just going to see how rich I can make a few guys, they'd have thought you were ill.

[Glennon Doyle]

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[Abby Wambach]

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[Glennon Doyle]

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[Guest Speaker]

I have a question for you. Can I ask you guys something?

[Heather Cox Richardson]

Yeah.

[Amanda Doyle]

Yes.

[Guest Speaker]

So one of the things that I find fascinating about your work is it feels to me like we do the same things. That is we name things. And once people name things, they can act on them. Is that fair, do you think?

[Heather Cox Richardson]

Yes. I mean, that's what we're doing, we're trying to do here. It's a great honor for you to compare our work. Actually, that feels really amazing to me.

[Guest Speaker]

Well, it's the same thing. It's just different landscapes. You know, you're the internal landscape and I'm the community landscape, if you will. Although there's a huge amount of overlap.

[Heather Cox Richardson]

What do you think about that, Amanda?

[Amanda Doyle]

I mean, I think that's right. I think also another comparison, if I can be so bold as to make it, is taking the story we're being handed that is packaged and branded and very strategic and digging three layers underneath and saying what is this? What's actually happening here and who are the players that packaged this and why did they do it this way and what's really happening? Because I think, especially in this moment where I think about this, so many people have internalized patriotism as something that is so deeply connected to their self identity. You know, when I look at the large swaths of this country that are willing to, you know, enact a coup on January 6, who deeply believe this and have internalized it so much, I think that there is something so powerful there and it's not by accident. The people who manufactured this messaging know that that is something that people feel so deeply. And what makes me so sad about it is that I don't even think it's an incorrect belief system. It's, as you say, when false history and story makes a terrible outcome, it's the perversion of something that feels right towards the wrong end. And so I guess what I am craving to connect is this idea of even. And what happened in New York is so interesting in this way, but the way that so enslavers can't enslave people anymore, this is a big deal. Then when the federal government comes in and says, no, we're going to enforce the rights of these people to vote, to go to schools, et cetera, that is ironically interpreted as a transfer of wealth. I mean, forget the transfer of wealth that was happening for hundreds of years with the stealing the labor from enslaved people. But can you connect that to now? Because I feel like there's so much happening, there's so much that started post Civil War through Reaganism that is really for the benefit of a small number of wealthy industrialists and people who want to make money to convince us that people who don't deserve to have things are stealing our wealth and our opportunity and are a bunch of socialists.

[Guest Speaker]

I can. It's one of the reasons I'm fascinated with the late 19th century is because this is when we articulated an ideology that suggests exactly what you're saying. And one of the things that I'd like to point out here is that between 1981, when Ronald Reagan takes office, and 2021, when President Joe Biden takes office, more than 50 trillion with a T dollars went from the bottom 90% of Americans to the top 1%. All the same time that the people arguing for the system they were putting in place insisted that they were fighting against communism and the downward redistribution of wealth. So even as the upward distribution of wealth is happening, they're screaming about the fear of a downward distribution of wealth. And you've seen this in New York immediately after the primary victory of a man who identifies as a democratic socialist.

[Heather Cox Richardson]

You.

[Guest Speaker]

You're seeing people on the radical right screaming about communism and socialism and radical left and so on, even though his platform is not that far out there. At the same time that they are trying to push through law in Congress that will dramatically exacerbate the movement of wealth upward, which, again, we know most Americans don't like. Okay, so what happens is, if you go back to the cowboy period, the reason the cowboy period becomes important in the late 19th century as a symbol is because during the Civil War, there are two major things that happen in terms of the way ideology is going to develop. One is, of course, that the Republican Congress, the Republicans control Congress during the Civil War, writes and then puts off to the states for ratification the 13th Amendment to the Constitution. That is, we end human enslavement in the United States, except as punishment for a crime. And that's a really big deal. I always like to remind people that that's still hanging out there. So you get the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, and the dramatic change that that's going to bring in black rights in the American South. And that's gonna play through the 1868, when Southern states begin to pass the black codes that essentially remand black Americans to a form of quasi slavery. In 66, writes the 14th Amendment, which is going to be ratified by 68 and put in the Constitution in 68. And what it says is the federal government is going to protect equal rights in the states. The 14th Amendment is a really big deal because it says, we are going to make sure that the rights that are guaranteed in the Constitution at the national level are also going to be enforced at the state level. And then in 1870, when a number of Southern states developed these groups of people who attack their black neighbors, the people who organizes the Ku Klux Klan, that's who they are when they do that and try and terrorize their black neighbors. The Congress creates the Department of Justice. And the Department of Justice is the federal arm that comes to the Southern states and says, we're going to enforce equal rights in these states. So the Congress does that. It provides black rights, but at the same time, people always forget this piece of it. In 1861, the Republican Congress invents nationals taxation for the first time in our history, including the income tax. So for the first time in our history, there is a link between who gets to have a say in our government and what effect that's going to have on people's pocketbook books. That's going to be enormously effective. Because what happens is when you put those two things together, after the establishment of the Department of justice and the 15th amendment guaranteeing the right of black men to vote, the people in the south who really objected to black rights, the former Confederates, because not all white people, by the way, disagreed with this. A lot of white people really hated the elite enslavers. And they're like, sure, I'm willing to work with my neighbor here. We don't read as much about them as people feared them, at least at the time, because it looked like there was going to be a multiracial coalition that could take shape across the south and crucially across the west. But in 1871, after this system goes into place, these former Confederates start to say, oh, we had no problem with black rights. We never had a problem with black rights, which is complete crap, by the way. It is complete crap. But they're like, the issue is never black rights. That's never been a problem. We're cool with that. The issue is we don't want these poor, uneducated field hands and domestic workers to have a say in how our money is spent. Because what they're going to do, and this is really before they're talking a lot about black office holding. What they're going to do is they're going to elect politicians who want their votes. And so they're going to give them stuff. They're going to give them schools and roads and hospitals, which by the way, would also be used by the poor whites. It's one of the reasons there's concern about a multiracial coalition. They're going to vote for those politicians who will give them those things. And the only way you can pay for those things is by levying taxes on people. And the only people in the American south who have any money are the white guys who own the property. And this, they say, is socialism. Now we're not going to have international socialism as a sort of fear mongering thing until after the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917. But in America in 1871, the word socialism becomes used not as an economic system so much as a political system in which poor people get to vote. And if poor people get to vote, they're gonna vote for things to show that they don't wanna be poor people anymore, like educations. Or in the American south after the Civil War, you know, one of the really big line items in a state budget or was arms and legs and eyes because people had lost so many of them during the war. They're gonna vote for that stuff. And the people who have money are gonna have to pay the taxes for that. And that, they say, is a redistribution of wealth. And that is the exact same argument that those people who wanted to overturn the liberal consensus made in the period after World War II in America. And it really didn't get teeth. People are looking at them like, what are you talking about? We have a house, we have a car. We don't live in packing boxes the way we did during the Depression. We're not eating out of garbage cans. We think this is fabulous. What are you talking about? Brown versus Board of Education, 1954, in which the federal government protects the rights of black children to a public school education. And Eisenhower uses the federal government to enforce that. Immediately, that faction of people who want to destroy the liberal consensus begins to say, see, we told you. We told you that if you let there be this powerful government, the next thing it was going to do is it was going to redistribute wealth from white people who are paying the taxes that keep the federal bureaucracy and the military capable of enforcing desegregation in the schools at places like Little Rock. In 1957, we told you that if you had this government, it was going to use your tax dollars to. To help black people and later brown people, and later women who wanted to work outside the home and later religious and gender minorities. And that formula that letting ordinary people have a say in their government by definition is going to mean a redistribution of wealth. And therefore by definition is socialism is what's taken over the country today.

[Heather Cox Richardson]

Ah, okay, so what you are saying is what was originally patriotism, what we all agreed on after World War II, which is just some version of we should try for equal rights, we should consider everyone's needs. We should have some social network such as hospitals. We should aim for that. What was patriotism is now rebranded as socialism, right?

[Guest Speaker]

Bingo.

[Heather Cox Richardson]

That's what's happening right now. So when you hear socialism, what you're usually hearing is a word that they are now making everyone afraid of what was originally the tenants of being an American.

[Guest Speaker]

Not originally necessarily, but after World War II.

[Heather Cox Richardson]

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[Glennon Doyle]

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[Abby Wambach]

Lost is a new podcast about who gets to be a mother and control of young women hidden behind the veil of faith. When Roe v. Wade was overturned, host TJ Raphael set out to do a story about maternity homes and adoption narrative pillars for anti abortion advocates. This started a three year reporting journey full of shock, frustration and revealed a story that's never been told. Between 1945 and the early 1970s, families shipped their pregnant teenage daughters to maternity homes and forced them to secretly place their babies for adoption. And in hidden corners across America, it's still happening. At Liberty University, there is a secretive facility called the Liberty Godparent Home. The home says it will support unwed mothers. But in reality, many of the young women feel trapped inside a system that's forcing them to give up their children. Follow Liberty Lost on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of Liberty Lost early and ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus.

[Amanda Doyle]

We should go to originally now too, because this is also helpful to understand the repackaging as in like opportunity for all. You know, rising tides lift all boats is socialism now is like the equal access is a problem because we need to have less equal access so that the people who have the most can keep the most is like the post World War II. And that goes on through Reagan and that goes on through on a trajectory to where we are now. Can we go back to the original patriots? I mean, these people were insane. These people decided even though they would be killed, they would like this was signing their death warrants to sign the Declaration of Independence, no doubt. And it was foolhardy. I mean, they. They were taking on the biggest military force in the world and they were scrappy as hell. So like, what were they so angry about to be willing to sign their death warrants? And what parallels because I find them fascinating, do you see to what they were so angry about to now?

[Heather Cox Richardson]

And can we tie it to the taxation with that representation piece? Because I'm starting to be really pissed about paying my fucking taxes, I gotta tell you that. Like, why am I paying taxes right now when women are not being represented, when my brown neighbors are not being represented, when my black neighbors are not? Why am I paying taxes? Can we talk about that?

[Guest Speaker]

Yeah. So I think that's a really interesting way to get into where we wanna be today. Because to me, you know, one of the things I think you people do is I think of it like when you have a slinky that's all tangled up with yarn, you kind of gotta untangle em. And if they're still all tangled, neither one of them's any good. But if you can put them. I always think of it as kind of like putting them in little lines. It's easier to grapple with them. And one of the things that I find very helpful about thinking about this moment is thinking not sort of about what's Congress doing this minute, what's the Senate doing? What's the Senate parliamentarian doing? You know, I do have to think about all those things. But to start with, why do we need a government? What is a government supposed to do? And what do we Want our country to look like it's a big country, so it's going to look really different. But what is our ideal country? Do we want it to be a country where a few people tell the rest of us what to do? Some people want that. Do we want a country where we all have a right to be treated equally before the law, to have equal access to resources, including. I'm going to throw education in that. But health care and the tools that you need to survive in the 21st century and where everybody has a right to a say in their government, because you could argue about any of those things. And for me to start there feels a lot healthier than sort of trying to unravel how we changed the National Institutes of Health over time. Because that's complicated. All right, so if you go back to the founders, the people who wrote the Declaration of Independence, and I love that you said that, Glennon, because it floors me that in the space of, you know, I think it's a dozen years, they go from, oh, we're good subjects and we love the king, to pledging their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor to each other and to a document that is going to change the world? Because it was a hell of a leap. It really was a hell of a leap. Because what they were saying in that moment, and people have said it later, better, but what they were saying was that human beings. And of course, they're defining the human beings largely as white men and sometimes just as white men of property, but human beings have a right to equality in their government. And then, of course, that principle could be expanded and has been expanded and could be expanded more by the way people play with different ways. You know, should natural resources have equal rights? If you're gonna pollute a stream, shouldn't the stream have a say in it? I mean, that's not something that's really on our table now. But you can think about ways in which the right to have a say in your government, because you are affected by that government, could be expanded even beyond where it is now. So in that moment, what they said was that no human being has the right to order everybody else around, that there are really essentially two ways to look at the world. Again with the caveat that they're thinking about men and almost exclusively white men in this period. But there are really two ways to look at the world. Either some people are better than others and have the right to rule. And therefore, by definition, one person is better than everybody else and has the right to be king and by the way, the king in George III had more guardrails around him than Trump is trying to get right now. So either you look at the world that way or you say no, that if you take the country or a country back to its primary functions, everybody who lives in it should have a say in how it's run. So again, this revolution was really limited in terms of who got to benefit from those changes, but those principles were absolutely expandable. So you look at Abraham Lincoln, who was pushing back in the 1850s against an oligarchy that's trying to take over the country. The elite Southern enslavers had taken over the presidency and the Senate and the supreme court, and by 54, they had managed to get a law they wanted through the House of Representatives. And they were going to make enslavement national from that period. And in that period in the 1850s, a number of people said, listen, we don't agree with each other about finances or immigration or internal improvements or any of those things, but we can agree that that is not the government that we want. We want to continue to have a say in our government and make decisions according to the guardrails that the framers of the Constitution set up. And then Abraham Lincoln articulates that as a government that works for everybody and not just for a very few people. And literally he goes out to Southern Democrats who are racist and support enslavement when he's doing the Lincoln Douglas debates in Illinois and the southern part of the state, and they're like, ah, you know, and they're saying all this racist stuff and we don't want to change this system that we've got. And he keeps saying, okay, then let's tear up the Declaration of Independence. Because either you believe in it or you don't. And if you don't believe in it, if you start to say, well, black Americans shouldn't have rights and Chinese Americans shouldn't have rights, because people tend not to realize that that was part of the discussion as well. But in California, Chinese people had fewer rights. Mexicans had fewer rights. Indigenous Americans had fewer rights. In Massachusetts and New York, Irish immigrants had fewer rights than native born Americans. And he said, well, if we're gonna start creating these lists of who gets to be where, let's just do it. And when we do that, you have to understand that it's only a question of time until somebody starts taking away your rights. And with that, even people who did not like their black neighbors said, you're right and we can get on board that and every time we have made a major leap forward in our country and the way we understand what it means to be an. We have recognized that the Declaration of Independence's principle that we're either all equal or we are all not, that either all of us have rights or none of us have rights, is central to who we are. And that's what happened thanks to the Civil War, but also to some degree, thanks to World War I, but also thanks to World War II, where everybody participated. And then they came back and they said, you know what? We just fought fascism and we fought Mussolini and we fought Hitler, and we're supposed to be living in a democracy. And they're literally blinding a veteran who has come back from the war and getting away with it. This sheriff did this in the South. This is not democracy. And that's when we got the expansion of rights after World War II, and we got the true American belief that to be an American meant that you supported a multicultural community. And you saw Frank Sinatra doing that famous video about. I guess it was a film at the time saying, you know, no religious discrimination in my country. And Superman saying that very famous poster in which he said, hey, kids, you know, if you hear anyone talking down someone because of their race or religion, tell them that's un American. We are multicultural. He doesn't use that word, that idea, really, you guys are probably younger than me, but that was the premise of so much of popular culture in the 1960s, 1970s. And then, of course, that comes slamming into the takeover of the Republican Party by that faction trying to get rid of the government that protected a social safety net and regulated business and protected civil rights and promoted infrastructure. And now that alternative backlash vision has dominated our culture and has created this incredibly angry group of people who believe that they really represent America, but the vast majority of us still thinks the other way. And again, one of my projects is to remind people of that and to say, hey, you want to be on the right side of history? You shouldn't be standing with Hitler and the Confederates. You should be standing with Abraham Lincoln and Fannie Lou Hamer. That's good.

[Heather Cox Richardson]

When you are dreaming up how we recreate that movement, which I hear you saying was often people need some kind of common enemy in order to unite. It sounds to me like the Americans united against the common enemy. That was fascism outside of our boundaries. Now it's fascism inside our boundaries that is ruling us. What does it look like now when you're envisioning this and laying in bed and doing your Heather Cox Richardson thing. What does it look like?

[Guest Speaker]

Just so you know, me laying in bed doing my Heather Cox Richardson thing involves being sound dead asleep. My head hits that pillow.

[Heather Cox Richardson]

Good for you.

[Amanda Doyle]

You're doing something. You can still sleep.

[Guest Speaker]

Yeah, well, I don't. You know, it's. Cause I don't get a lot of sleep. So it's. I'm down and out. So that vision for me is the same as it has always been throughout our history. It's ordinary people speaking up and saying, I don't want to live in a country where men in masks throw my neighbors into an unmarked van, or even people who aren't my neighbors. That's not the world I want to live in. I don't want to live in a world where our educational system falls apart because people don't want to allow teachers to teach reality. You know, I don't want to live in a world where we don't honor science, where we step up and say these things are important to us. And I think that for a long time, and for a lot of people, they felt that way, but they sort of thought there were good enough guardrails that. And I think you see this in. There's been a number of interviews recently with a man who was a participant in the Department of Government Efficiency. And of course, all that rhetoric about how the government is wasteful, we're going to get rid of waste, fraud and abuse and so on. And he was one of the people who said, you know, I went in and it's actually not really very wasteful. It actually probably should be funded more effectively because everything has been so thoroughly cut to the bone. And that, I think, is what a lot of people are seeing now that they'd been listening or not really even paying that close attention to what was happening in the government because it just seemed like it was bubbling along fine and they didn't realize that we could lose the things that we had built since World War II. And as you're watching that be destroyed and losing the things that you care profoundly about, whether it's cancer research or education or USAID or one of the big things I care about is the public lands and the National Weather Service, the noaa, which oversees the National Weather Service, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, people thought that would always be there. And we're losing it and starting to say, hey, just a second here. Because us articulating what we want for America to be, which is the most profound form of patriotism, you know, your country is yourself, us articulating that will force politicians to acknowledge that maybe not the ones in office now, but the ones up and coming, and they will help us to create that world. So when I think about what we should do or what I can do, it's being out there and doing the exact same thing you all are doing, except in a different sphere. Encouraging people to remember their agency, to remember their voice, and to insist on the world they want to live in, not the world somebody else is imposing on us.

[Glennon Doyle]

It makes me think a lot about my time. I don't know if you know this, but I played soccer for our national team for many years. It makes me kind of emotional because I've had such a complicated relationship with the flag and the idea of patriotism for all of these kind of retirement years. The first term of Trump and now this one. It's like, as you're talking, I am desperate for a country. That is what you are saying. And I think so many of us are. And I think it's so important that not only are you using your voice, but you're giving people, like, the real information. Because just because they have, for now, may have co opted the flag and the word patriotism and doesn't mean it will always or necessarily always be that way. And I think that I want to express my gratitude to you because it's making me feel less ashamed of the time that I spent representing this country and donning the American flag as an Olympian. And that, yeah, that is what I want. That is what I was representing. Patriotism is what we make it and how we can embody it. And I think that that's it. That's all I'm gonna say. I have no question.

[Heather Cox Richardson]

I know.

[Guest Speaker]

Well, you know, you think of the no Kings protests. People were waving flags everywhere. And, you know, I 100% think we should have flags out, think we should be wearing flags, think we should be talking about not just this moment, but our great heroes in the past who did the right thing and stood for the kind of community I'm talking about, which is not some modern thing. Throughout our history, what made America function was working together always. And the fact that we have erased that, not only, I think has corrupted this moment, but I think it makes it harder for people to envision a future. Because how do you create a government that only serves a very small fraction of its people and continue to function in the 21st century? And you can't, you know, we need childcare. We just need childcare and those sorts of things. We have to reclaim our past. I Think in order to be able to envision our future and then it becomes fun.

[Heather Cox Richardson]

Before we let you go, this is going to be an oversimplification, but I'm trying to learn from the right in terms of really describing things in like a third grade level. Right. Because, well, I was a third grade teacher. So this is not out of the blue, but it also seems really important in messaging. Is it an oversimplification that in many arenas, as we're in this late stage capitalism moment, where so much of what used to be distributed among us is concentrated now to a few men, as capital is concentrated to a few men, everyone begins to suffer because they don't have what they used to have. And the men at the top have to explain that suffering to all of us in a way that does not lay the blame on them, which is the most obvious thing in the world. And so what these men do in every arena is in order to obscure what they are doing, they turn us against each other 100%. They say it's the women, it's the brown people, it's the immigrants. And this just reiterates over and over again, the Ku Klux Klan and ICE have a lot of similarities. Right now it's just different masks. But isn't that what we are saying, that capitalism has. The game has changed and now all the wealth is in a few, the hands of a few, and that has got to be exposed because people are suffering. And so what they do is they turn us against each other. And what we have to do is resist that lie, turn towards each other and point back at them where the real blame is and take back our power.

[Guest Speaker]

Yes, that's exactly right. And that's also how we have managed to expand democracy in the past. So that's obviously what happened in the 1850s and in the 1930s. But the piece I always like to look at is the 1890s, because in so many ways we are mirroring what happened in the 1890s. Now with the second Gilded Age and the articulation among a very small group of very wealthy people of why they should in fact be able to have everything. Just like in the present, where you have a number of people like Peter Thiel articulating why he or he or Elon Musk should have everything. You had the same thing in the robber baron area when you had people like Andrew Carnegie talking about why it was a good thing for the rich people to have everything. And you also had the abuse of workers and attacks on immigrants and certainly attacks on black and brown Americans and indigenous Americans and so on. There are many, many parallels. And yet, even though it seemed like the world was lost in the 1890s, there was what you could call a revolution in the way Americans thought and in their retaking of the American government. So what happens is that as that wealth concentrates, and I will say there is some way in which it's a little bit of easier, period. Because politicians don't deliberately lie. That is, they don't really understand Keynesian economics. They don't understand all the things that we do in the present. So until about 1920, politicians say heinous things, but they're honest about it. They don't say, I'm gonna protect your job at the same time they're firing you. You know, there's a level of honesty in the 1890s that you don't see in the present. But what happened was that enough Americans began to look at the world in which they were living and to say, this is not what we fought for in the Civil War. This is not our idea of democracy. And they began to have alternative methods of communication. We get this explosion of newspapers, different language newspapers. There are hundreds of black newspapers. People start writing poetry. They start using new kinds of music and new kinds of art and new kinds of clothing, and they start painting in new ways, and they start to think about the world in new ways. And as they start talking about how important people are and how important ideas are, and as they start to put that in the public sphere, more and more politicians start to pay attention and start to say, you know, you're right. We really shouldn't give all the good stuff to a really few people. And as more and more people who were not previously included in politics become involved in politics, including women who are starting to get educations after the Civil War and who begin to work in settlement houses where they try and sort of file off the hard edges of industrialization for the immigrant communities in which they live. They start to keep statistics, and they start to say, you know, we really need to have garbage inspectors. We really need to work on cleaning up our communities, because people are dying, and they're dying in horrible ways, unnecessarily, because of things like the fact they're adding chalk and formaldehyde to milk, or the fact that they are literally painting candy with lead paint. And they start to articulate that and to say at that point to their husbands, you need to vote for people who are going to take care of this mess. And as Democrats start to pay attention to the world and want reforms and want laws that are going to make it possible for individuals to work hard and rise, which is, after all, the heart of the American dream. They start to attract voters. And when that happens, young Republicans start to look at the political landscape and say, crap, we better get on board. That too. And throughout the period from about 1888 to the turn of the century, you can see both political parties starting to try and cater to the people who want a better distribution of wealth. And the reason I mentioned those Republicans saying, we want a piece of that, too, one of those key people was Theodore Roosevelt. So when he is in office, beginning in 1901, he begins really to push the same things that people like Grover Cleveland had pushed. The changing of the laws and the cleaning up of the cities and the provision of education. And he starts to talk about health care, universal health care, and trying to create a government that works for ordinary Americans. And it is so popular that by 1912, there are four major candidates running for president, and all four of them are running as progressives. So when I think about this moment and the extraordinary frustration of people across every category, including wealth, by the way, there are plenty of extraordinary wealthy people who also say, we gotta fix this system. And I look at the different ways in which people are creating communities around new kinds of social media, around new newspapers, new new languages, new art, new clothing, new music. I see that same kind of reordering of American society. And it's gonna be a hell of a fight, because those people who are trying to push back against that new world are entrenched. But one of the things that always gives me comfort is, you know, the Armory show in New York, I think it was 1913, which is sort of thought of as this major, major change in American art, because it's when you first start to get the real abstraction of art to look like something other than representational art, it's a really big deal. But it's not like people woke up in 1912 and said, oh, here's a great idea. I'll paint a nude descending a staircase as motion. They started doing that in the 1870s, and it took a long time for people to experiment and for new ideas to catch on. So that by the time somebody said, hey, let's have the Armory show, they were ready. And I feel like we are in that period of experimentation and try this and try that, and we will eventually be able to create a new democracy that is better than the ones we've had before.

[Heather Cox Richardson]

I'm so grateful that you're saying this because it's making me think of everything we've been talking about with what we want to do with our platform next. And we talk incessantly about we are going to double down on the fight once a week. We are going to be talking to someone like you. We're going to be helping people know how to show up and fight for a better world, a better community, a better family, all of these things. And the next episode, every week, is going to be about the things that make life worth fighting for. We're going to double down on art, we're going to double down on love and romance and nature and land. Because concentrating on those things is what keeps you alive enough to fight. If you forget what makes life worth living, that's the fuel. And it makes me think of the dudes who the whole time we thought we were winning, were at tables planning so that they were ready for this moment. That's why it's moving so fast. That's why Project 2025, they never let up. They were planning every day. And so this art, these clothes, these speeches, this, all this stuff, we are going to keep doing it so that when our moment comes, we are readier than they were this time.

[Guest Speaker]

And that's how you create change. You know, one of the ways that I think it's important to think about all this and what you just said with relation to the government is there is wealth and there is cash and we want a wealthy society, and a wealthy society is a society that's got education and people are healthy and there are roads and there's open space.

[Amanda Doyle]

Due process.

[Guest Speaker]

You know, we address climate change and due process and. And all those things that create a community in which individuals can become who they should be, who they want to be. You can take all those pieces and you can turn them into cash. You can sell off the public lands, you can get rid of education, you can do all of those things and create dollars, money that then somebody can take and put in a bank account somewhere. But what I think we are trying to do is to say, stop with the cash and let's work on the wealth and invest in that. And that is the art and the music and the education and the books and the public lands and the due process.

[Heather Cox Richardson]

Heather Cox Richardson, we are so effing grateful for you. Just back at ya. If you ever need an IV sent to you so you can keep going, whatever the hell you need, you call us. We are in your corner.

[Glennon Doyle]

I'm so glad that you do what you do every Day because it's chronicling your brain. Like your brain is important. And I want to keep your brain alive for long.

[Amanda Doyle]

Your brain is a source of great wealth to us.

[Glennon Doyle]

It is.

[Guest Speaker]

It is.

[Glennon Doyle]

It's an asset.

[Guest Speaker]

I say that because somebody asked me to write an autobiography, and I thought I did.

[Glennon Doyle]

Yeah.

[Guest Speaker]

Like, if you want to know how my brain works. The only thing that's unusual about the letters that I sort of feel like I should call out is that I have never talked about certain members of my family. And anybody looking at that would say she's had to create figures elsewhere. But that's literally because my natal family has asked me not to write about things that are very important to them, which seems fair to me. But other than that, man, you got it all right. Those letters.

[Glennon Doyle]

Amazing.

[Heather Cox Richardson]

That's so good, Heather.

[Glennon Doyle]

Thank you.

[Amanda Doyle]

Democracy Awakening is a book that everyone needs to read. I mean, it's just the meticulousness of recording exactly how we got here and just the offenses that in the deluge of this chaos and corruption that I just were blips on our radar. Everyone needs to read it and remind ourselves of all the reasons to not only to remain outraged and and remain hopeful at the same time. It's required.

[Heather Cox Richardson]

Pod Squad, we're going to leave in the show notes everywhere where you can find Heather. I recommend it. What I actually listen to, as I said in the introduction, Heather reads her letters into a podcast that you can listen to. And it's usually about, like, 10 minutes. And if you're looking for ways to stay absolutely keenly informed in a way that does not make your nervous system want to shoot to the moon, Heather is the one to do that. So we'll help you find that after the show. Heather, thank you so much. We're going to invite you back every Tuesday.

[Amanda Doyle]

Perfect.

[Guest Speaker]

It was lovely to talk to y' all.

[Glennon Doyle]

Thank you so much. Bye. POD Squad.

[Heather Cox Richardson]

If this podcast means something to you, it would mean so much to us if you'd be willing to take 30 seconds to do these three things. First, can you please follow or subscribe to We Can Do Hard Things? Following the POD helps you because you'll never miss an episode, and it helps us because you'll never miss an episode. To do this, just go to the We Can Do Hard Things show page on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Odyssey, or wherever you listen to podcasts, and then just tap the plus sign in the upper right hand corner or click on follow. This is the most important, important thing for the pod. While you're there, if you'd be willing to give us a five star rating and review and share an episode you loved with a friend, we would be so grateful. We appreciate you very much. We Can Do Hard Things is created and hosted by Glennon Doyle, Abby Wambach and Amanda Doyle in partnership with Odyssey. Our executive producer is Jenna Wise Berman and the show is produced by Lauren Legrasso, Allison Schott and Bill Schultz.