Kind: captions
Language: en
the war continues after the battle's end
this is something that's hard for
Americans to understand our system is
built with the presumption when War is
Over when we signed a piece of paper
everyone can go home
that's not what happens
the following is a conversation with
Jeremy Surrey a historian a UT Austin
this is the Lex Friedman podcast to
support it please check out our sponsors
in the description and now dear friends
here's Jeremy sorry
what is the main idea the the main case
that you make in your new book Civil War
by other means America's long and
unfinished fight for democracy so our
Democratic institutions in the United
States they are filled with many virtues
and many elements in their design that
improve our society and allow for
Innovation but they also have many flaws
in them as any institutions created by
human beings have and the flaws in our
institutions go back to a number of
judgments and perspectives
that people on the 17th 18th and 19th
centuries had and those flaws have been
built into our institutions and they
continue to hinder Innovation and growth
in our society three of the flaws that I
emphasize in this book are flaws of
exclusion
the ways our institutions exclude people
not just African Americans many
different groups the ways our
institutions also give power to certain
people who have position rather than
skill or intelligence or quality
and third in most of all the ways our
institutions embed certain myths in our
society myths that prevent us from
Gaining the knowledge we need to improve
our world in all of these ways our
democracy is hindered by the false
reverence
for institutions that actually need to
be reformed just as we need to highlight
the good elements of them that's really
what my book is about and then the myth
the the false reverence what are we
talking about that so there's a way in
which uh we believe that if we love our
country it's somehow wrong to criticize
our institutions I believe if you love
your country you want to encourage your
institutions to get better and better I
love my University where I work but I
want it to be better we have many flaws
I love my family but I'm constantly
telling family members how they can be
better that's what true knowledge
leadership is about not just
cheerleading what's the Counterpoint to
that because uh The Other Extreme is a
deep
all-encompassing cynicism towards
institutions
so for me I like the idea of loving
America which seems to be sometimes a
politicized statement these days
that you believe in the ideals of this
country that seems to be uh that seems
to be either a naive or a political
statement the way it's interpreted so
the flip side of that having a healthy
skepticism of Institutions is good but
having a complete paralyzing cynicism
seems to be bad absolutely both are a
historical positions what I try to do as
a historian is work in between those
spaces The Virtue is is in the Middle
Ground For Better or For Worse and uh
what we have to recognize is that our
institutions are necessary there's a
reason government exists there's a
reason uh our Union was created that's
what Abraham Lincoln was heroically
fighting for uh so we have to believe in
our Union we have to believe in our
government and we as business people as
intellectuals we have to be part of the
solution not the problem but that
doesn't mean uh just ignoring the Deep
flaws in our institutions even if we
find personally ways to get around them
what really worries me is that there are
a lot of very intelligent well
well-intentioned people in our society
who are figured out how to live with the
flaws in our institutions rather than
how to use their skills to correct the
flaws in our institutions there's folks
like uh somebody that lives next door to
me Michael malice is an anarchists
um philosophically maybe more than
practically just sort of August of that
position
um it's it's an interesting thought
experiment I would say and
so if you have these flaws as
institutions one thing to do
as the Communists did at the beginning
of the 20th century is to burn the thing
down and start in you and the other is
to fix from within one step one slow
step at a time what's what's the case
for both from a history perspective sure
so historically there has uh always been
an urge to burn down the institutions
and start again start with a blank slate
uh the historical record is that almost
never works because what happens when
you destroy the institutions you gave
the example of the Bolshevik Revolution
when you destroy the institutions all
you do is in the jungle that's left
behind you give advantages to those who
are the most powerful institutions
always Place certain limits upon the
most powerful in the jungle if you go
back to the Jungle the most powerful are
actually going to have the most
influence and most control so the
revolutionaries who are usually the
vulnerable turn out to then be the
victims of the Revolution and this is
exactly what we saw with the French
Revolution with the Russian Revolution
so the record for that is not a great
record there still might be times to do
that but I think we should be very
cautious about that the record for
working through institutions is better
record now what we have to be careful
about is as we're working through
institutions not to become bought into
them not to become of those institutions
so what I've written about in this book
and in other books my book on Henry
Kissinger for example is how it's
important when in an institution to
still bring an outsider perspective I
believe in being an inside Outsider and
I think most of your listeners are
inside Outsiders they're people who care
about what's going on inside but they're
bringing some new ideas from the outside
I think the correct statement to say is
most of the listeners most people aspire
to be inside or Outsiders
but we human nature such that we easily
become Insider Insiders so like uh we
like that idea but the reality is
and I've been
very fortunate because of this podcast
to talk to certain folks that live in
certain bubbles
and
it's very hard to know when you're in a
bubble
that you should get out of the bubble of
thought
and that's a really tricky thing because
like yeah when you're whether it's
politics whether it's science whether
it's uh
and and any Pursuits in life
because everybody around you all your
friends you have like a little Rat Race
and you're competing with each other and
then you get a promotion you get excited
and you can see how you can get more and
more power it's not it's not like a dark
cynical uh Rat Race it's it's fun that's
the process of life and then you forget
that there you just uh collectively have
created a set of rules for the game that
you're playing you forget that this game
doesn't have to have these rules you can
break them this happens in the uh like
uh in Wall Street like the financial the
financial system everybody starts to
like collectively agree on a set of
rules that they play and they don't
realize like we don't have to be playing
this game it's tough It's really tough
it takes a special kind of human being
as opposed to being a
anti-establishment on everything which
also gets a lot of uh attention
but being just enough anti-establishment
to figure out ideas how to improve the
establishment this is such a tricky
place to operate I agree I I like the
word iconoclastic I think it's important
to be an iconoclast which is to say you
love ideas you're serious about ideas
but you're never comfortable with
consensus
and I write about that in this book I've
written about that actually a lot in the
New York Times too I I think consensus
is overstated
as a as someone who's half Jewish and
have Hindu I don't want to live in a
society where everyone agrees because my
guess is they're going to come after
people like me I want to live in a
society that's pluralistic this is what
Abraham Lincoln was really fighting for
in The Civil Wars but the Civil War was
really about and what my book's about
which is that we need a society where
institutions encourage as you say
different modes of thought and respect
different modes of thought and work
through disagreement so a society should
not be a society where everyone agrees a
Democratic Society should be a society
where people disagree but can still work
together that's the Lincoln vision and
how do you get there I think you get
there by having a historical perspective
always knowing that no matter what
moment you're in and no matter what room
you're in with really smart people there
are always things that are missing we
know that as historians no one is
Clairvoyant and the iconoclast is
looking for the things that have been
forgotten the silence is in the room
and also
I wonder what kind of skill what kind of
process is required for that kind of
class to reveal what is missing to the
rest of the room yeah because it's not
just shouting with a megaphone that
something is missing because nobody will
listen to you
you have to convince them right it's
honestly where I have trouble myself
because I often find myself in that I
kind of classic role and people don't
like to hear it you know I like to
believe that people are acting out of
Goodwill which I think they usually are
and that people are open to new ideas
but you find very quickly even those who
you think are open-minded once they've
committed themselves and put their money
and their reputation on the line they
don't want to hear otherwise so in a
sense what you say is the bigger than
even being an iconoclast that's being
able to persuade and work with people
who are afraid of your ideas yeah I
think the the key is like in
conversations is to get people out of a
defensive position like uh make them
realize we're on the same side we're
brothers and sisters and from that place
I think you just raise the question it's
like a little it's a little a little
thought that just lands and then I've
noticed this time and time again
just a little subtle thing and then
months later it percolates somewhere in
the mind it's like all right well that
little doubt
um because I also realized in these
battles when dip when especially
political battles
people often don't
have folks on their side
like that they can really trust
as a fellow human being to challenge
them that's a very difficult role to be
in and because in these battles you kind
of have a tribe and you have a set of
ideas and there's another tribe you have
a set of ideas and when somebody says
something Conor to your Viewpoint you
almost always want to put them in the
other tribe as opposed to having
truly listening to another person that
takes uh skill But ultimately I think
that's the way to bridge these divides
is having these kinds of conversations
that's why I'm actually
again optimistically believe in the
power of social media to do that if if
you design it well but currently the
battle rages on on Twitter well I think
what you're getting at which is so
important is uh storytelling and uh all
the great leaders that I've studied some
of whom are in this book some of whom
are not right whether they're
politicians social activists technology
technologists
um it's the story that gets people in
people don't respond to an argument
we're trained uh at least in the United
States we're often trained to argue uh
you're you're told in a class okay this
part of the room take this position this
part of the room take this position and
that's helpful because it forces you to
see different sides of the argument but
in fact those on one side never convince
those on the other side through argument
it's through a story that people can
identify with it's when you bring your
argument to life in human terms and
someone again like Abraham Lincoln was a
master at that uh he told stories uh he
found ways to disarm people and to move
them without their even realizing they
were being moved
yeah not make it a debate make it uh
tell a story
that's fascinating because yes one some
of the most convincing politicians I
don't feel like they're arguing a point
they're just telling a story
and it gets in there right
that's right that's right when we look
at what zielinski has done in Ukraine in
response to the Russian invasion and I
know you you were there on the front
lines yourself
um
it's not that he's arguing a position
that persuaded us we already believe
what we believed about Russia
but he's bringing the story of Ukrainian
suffering to life and making us see the
behavior of the Russians that is moving
opinion
around the world
well the interesting stuff sometimes
it's not actually the story told by the
person but the story told about the
person right and some of that could be
propaganda some of that could be uh
legitimate stories which is the
fascinating thing the power of story is
the very power that's leveraged by
Propaganda to convince the populace but
the idea one of the most powerful ideas
when I traveled in Ukraine and in
general to me personally the idea that
President zielinski stayed in Kiev in in
the early days of War on everybody from
his inner circle to the United States
everybody in the western NATO everybody
was telling him uh and even on the
Russian side I I assumed they thought he
would leave he would Escape right and he
didn't
um from foolishness or from heroism I
don't know but if that's the story that
I think United a country and it's such a
small thing right but it's powerful it's
the most basic of all human Stories the
story of human Courage the courage and I
remember watching uh his social media
feed on that and he was standing outside
not even in a bunker standing outside in
Kiev right as the Russian forces are
attacking and saying I'm here
and this minister is here and this
minister is here we're not corrupt we're
not Stooges of the Americans who told us
to leave we're staying because we care
about Ukraine and the story of Courage I
mean that's the story that you know
babies grow up seeing their parents as
courageous right it's the most natural
of all stories and that's also the
stories for better awards that are told
throughout history yeah uh because
stories of courage and uh stories of
evil those the two extremes are the ones
that are kind of it's a nice mechanism
to tell the stories of Wars
um of conflicts of struggles all of it
yeah yeah the tension between those two
and the reason I believe studying
history and writing about history is so
essential it's because it gives us more
stories
uh the problem with much of our world I
think is that we're confronted by data
we're confronted by information and of
course it's valuable but it's easy to
manipulate or misuse information it's
the stories that give us a structure
it's the stories where we find morality
it's the stories where we find political
value and what do you get from studying
history you learn more stories about
more people
yeah I'm a sucker for courage for
stories of Courage like uh I've I've
been in too many rooms I've often seen
too many people
sort of in subtle ways sacrifice their
integrity and did nothing and people
that step up
uh when uh the opinion is unpopular and
they they do something where they really
put themselves on the line whether it's
their money where their well-being I
don't know that gives me hope about
Humanity
um and of course during the war like
Ukraine you see that more and more now
other people have a very cynical
perspective of it that's saying oh those
are just narratives that are constructed
for propaganda purposes and so on but
I've seen it with my own eyes there's
Heroes out there both small and big so
just regular citizens and leaders one
set of Heroes I learned about writing
this book that I didn't know about that
I should have are uh more than one
hundred thousand uh former slaves who
become Union Soldiers during the Civil
War which is an extraordinary story we
think of it as North versus South white
northern troops versus white Southern
troops there are as I said more than a
hundred thousand slaves no education
never anything other than slaves who
flee their plantations join the Union
Army and what I found in the research
and other historians have written about
this too is they become some of the most
courageous soldiers uh because they know
what they're fighting for but there's
something more to it than that it's it
seems in their stories that there there
is a Humanity a human desire for freedom
and a human desire to improve oneself
even for those who have been denied even
the most basic rights for all of their
lives and I think that story should be
inspiring to all of us as a story of
Courage because we all deal with
difficulties but but none of us are
starting from slavery that's really
powerful that that that flame the
Longing For Freedom can't be
extinguished through the generations of
slavery so that's something you talk
about there's some deep sense in which
uh while the war was about in part about
slavery
it's not
the slaves themselves
fought for their freedom and they won
their freedom I don't think it's a war
about slavery I think it's a war about
freedom because if you say it's a war
about slavery then it sounds like it's
an argument between the slave masters
and the other white guys who didn't want
slavery to exist and of course that
argument did exist but it wasn't it was
an argue it was a war over over Freedom
especially after 1863 into the second
year of the war when Lincoln because of
War pressures
uh signs Emancipation Proclamation which
therefore says that
um the Contraband the property of
Southerners I.E they're slaves will now
be freed and brought into the Union Army
that makes it about about Freedom
already the slaves were leaving the
plantations they knew what was going on
and they were going to get out of
slavery as soon as they could but now it
becomes a war over freeing them over
opening that opportunity for them uh and
and that's how the war ends that's
really important right and that's where
we are in our politics today it's the
same debate it's why I wrote this book
uh the challenge of our time is to
understand how do we make our society
open to more freedom for more people
so let's go to the beginning
how did the American Civil War start and
why so the American Civil War starts
because of our flawed institutions the
founders uh had mixed views of slavery
but they wanted a system that would
eventually work its way toward uh
opening for more people of more kinds
not necessarily equality but they wanted
a more open democratic system but our
institutions were designed in ways that
gave disproportionate power to slave
holders in particular states in the
union through the Senate through the
Electoral College through many of the
institutions we talk about in our
politics today therefore that part of
the country was in the words of Abraham
Lincoln holding the rest of the country
hostage
for a poor white man like Abraham
Lincoln born in Kentucky who makes his
way in Illinois slavery was an evil not
just for moral reasons it was an evil
because it denied him Democratic
opportunity
why would anyone hire poor Abe to do
something if they could get a slave to
do it for free
an economy of effort of opportunity for
him had to be an economy that was open
and that did not have slavery
particularly in the new states that were
coming into the Union
Lincoln was one of the creators of the
Republican party which was a party
dedicated to making sure all new
territory
was open to anyone who was willing to
work any male figure who would be paid
for their work Free Labor Free Soil free
men basic capitalism Southerners
southern plantation owners were an
aristocracy that did not want that they
wanted to use slavery and expand slavery
into the new territories what caused the
Civil War to clash and our institutions
that were unable to adapt and continue
to give disproportionate power
to these southern plantation slave
owners the Supreme Court was dominated
by them Senate was dominated by them and
so the Republican Party
came into power as a critique of that
and Southerners unwilling to accept
Southern Confederates unwilling to
accept that change
went to war with the Union
so who was on each side the union
Confederates
what are we talking about what are the
states how many people
uh what's like the the demographics and
the Dynamics of of each side the union
side is much much larger right in terms
of population I have about 22 million
people uh and it is what we would today
recognize as all the states uh basically
uh north of Virginia the south is the
states in the south of the Mason-Dixon
line so Virginia and there on South West
through Tennessee so Texas for example
is in the Confederacy Tennessee's in the
Confederacy uh but other states like
Missouri are border border states and
um the the Confederacy is a much smaller
entity uh it's made up of about nine
million people plus about 4 million
slaves and it is a agricultural economy
whereas the northern economy is a more
industrializing economy interestingly
enough the Confederate states are in
some ways more International than the
northern states because they are
exporters of cotton exporters of tobacco
so they actually have very strong
International economic ties very strong
ties to Great Britain the United States
was the largest source of cotton to the
world before the Civil War Egypt
replaces that a little bit during the
Civil War but all the English textiles
were American cotton from the south and
so uh it is the southern half of what we
would call the eastern part of the
United States today with far fewer
people it's made up the Confederacy is
of landed families wealth in the
Confederacy was land and slaves the
northern United States is made up
predominantly of small business owners
and then larger Financial interests such
as the banks in New York
and what about the military who are the
people that picked out guns what are the
numbers there so the the union also
outnumbered a Confederate by far but
it's a really interesting question
because there's no conscription in the
Constitution uh unlike most other
countries our democracy is formed on the
presumption that human beings should not
be forced to go into the military if
they don't want to most democracies in
the world today actually still require
military service the United States is
very rarely in its history done that
it's not in our constitution so
um during the Civil War in the first
months and years of the Civil War
Abraham Lincoln has to go to
um the different states to the governors
and ask the governors for volunteers
so the men who take up arms especially
in the first months of the war are
volunteers in the North in the South
they're actually conscripted
and then as the war goes on the union
will pass the conscription acts of 1862
and 1863 which for the first time and
this is really important because it
creates new presidential powers for the
first time Lincoln will have
Presidential Power to force men into the
army which is what leads to all kinds of
draft riots in New York and elsewhere
but suffice it to say the Union Army
throughout the war is often three times
the size of the Confederate Army what's
the relationship
between this uh no conscription and
people standing up to fight for ideas
and the Second Amendment a well
regulated militia being necessary to the
security of a free state the right of
the people to keep and bear arms shall
not be infringed
we're in Texas yeah yes so what's the
role of that uh in in this story the
American population is already armed
before the war
and so even though the union and the
Confederate armies will manufacture and
purchase arms it is already an armed
population so uh the American
presumption going into the war is that
citizens will not be forced to serve but
they will serve in militias to protect
their own property and so the Second
Amendment the key part of the Second
Amendment for me as a historian is the
well-regulated militia part the
presumption that citizens as part of
their civic duty do not have a duty to
join a national Army Prussian style but
are supposed to be involved in defending
their communities
uh and that's that's the reality it's
also a bit of a myth
um and so Americans have have throughout
their history been gun owners
not AK-47 owners but gun owners and gun
ownership has been for the purpose of
community self-defense the question
coming out of that is what does that
mean in terms of do you have access to
everything uh Antonin Scalia even
himself asked this question on the
Supreme Court you know he said in one of
the gun gun cases uh you have the right
to defend yourself but you don't have
the right to own an Uzi
yeah you don't have the right to have a
tank I don't think they'd let you park a
tank Lex in your parking spot right I
looked into this I think I think there's
a gray area around tanks actually I
think you're legit allowed to own a tank
oh you really I think that like somebody
look into somebody told me but I could
see like that because it's very
difficult for that to get out of hand
right right okay there may be one guy in
a tank that you could be breaking laws
in terms of the width of the vehicle
that you're using to operate
um anyway that's that's a hilarious
discussion but starting to make the case
speaking of AK-47s and rifles and back
to Ukraine for a second one of the
fascinating social experiments that
happened in Ukraine at the beginning of
the war is they handed out guns to
everybody rifles and crime went down
which I think is really interesting
yeah
I hope somebody does a kind of
psychological data collection analysis
effort here to try to understand why
because it's not obvious to me that in a
time of War if you give guns to the
entire populace anyone who wants a gun
it's not going to especially in a
country who has historically suffered
from corruption not result in robberies
and assaults and all that kind of stuff
there's a deep lesson there now I don't
know if you can extend that lesson
Beyond wartime though right that's the
question what happens after the war I
mean my inclination would be to say that
can work during war but you have to take
the guns back after the war
but they might be very upset when you
try that's the problem no that's
precisely the problem that that's
actually part of the story here I mean
what happens after the Civil War after
Appomattox in 1865 is that many uh
Southern soldiers go home with their
guns and they misuse their weapons uh to
quite frankly shoot and intimidate uh
former slaves who are now citizens this
is a big problem I talk about this in
the book in Memphis in 1866 it is former
Confederate soldiers and police officers
and judges who are responsible for
hundreds of rapes uh within a two-day
period and destroying an entire
community of African Americans and
they're able to do that because they
brought their guns home but underneath
underneath the issue of guns there is
just the fundamental issue of
hatred and inability to see uh other
humans in this in this world as having
equal value is another human being what
was the election of 1860 like that
brought Lincoln to power so the election
of 1860 uh was a very divisive election
we have divisive contested elections
from 1860 really until 1896. the 1860
election is the first election where a
republican is elected president that is
Lincoln but he's elected president with
less than 40 percent of the vote because
you have two sets of Democrats running
Democrats who are out to defend the
Confederacy and everything and then
Democrats who want to compromise but
still keep saying slavery uh most famous
Stephen Douglas who argues for
um basically allowing each state to make
its own decisions popular sovereignty as
he called it um and then you still have
traditional Whigs who are running that
was the party that preceded uh the
Republican party so you're four
candidates Lincoln wins a plurality
Lincoln is elected largely because uh
the states that are anti-slavery or
anti-expansion of slavery are not a
majority but they're a plurality and the
other states have basically uh
factionalized and so they're unable to
have a united front against him was the
main topic a hand slavery I think the
main topic at hand at that time was the
expansion of slavery into new
territories into new territory right it
was not whether to abolish slavery or
not Lincoln is very careful and its
correspondence is clear he wants no one
on his side during the election to say
that he's arguing for abolitionism even
though he personally supported that what
he wants to say is the Republican party
is for no new slave territories did he
make it clear
that he was for abolition no he was
intentionally unclear about that
what do you think he was throughout his
life was there a deep
because that takes quite a vision like
you look at society today
and you it takes quite a man
to see that there's something deeply
broken where a lot of people take for
granted I mean in modern day you could
see factory farming
is one of those things that in a hundred
years we might see is like the torture
of the mass torture of animals could be
uh could be seen as evil but just to
look around and wake up to that
especially in a leadership position uh
yeah was he able to see that in some
ways yes in some ways no I mean the
premise of your question is really
important that
um to us it's obvious that slavery is is
a horror but to those who had grown up
with it who had grown up seeing that it
was hard to imagine a different world so
you're right Lincoln's imagination like
everyone else's was limited by his time
I don't think Lincoln imagined a world
of equality between the races but he had
come to see that slavery uh was horrible
and historians have differed in in how
he came to this uh part of it is that uh
he had a father who treated him like a
slave
and you can see in his early
correspondence how much he hates that
his father who is a struggling farmer
was basically trying to control
Lincoln's life
and he came to understand personally I
think how horrible it is to have someone
else tell you what you should do with
your labor not giving you your own your
own choices but Lincoln was also a
pragmatist this is what made him a great
politician he wanted to work through
institutions not to burn them down
and he famously said that uh if he could
preserve the union and stop the spread
of slavery by allowing slavery to stay
in the South he would if he could do it
by eliminating slavery in the South he
would if he could do it by buying the
slaves and sending them somewhere else
he would his main goal what he ran on
was that the new territories west of
Illinois that they would be areas for
free poor white men like him not slavery
what do you learn about human nature if
you step back and look at the big
picture of it that slavey has been a
part of human civilization for thousands
of years that this American slavery is
not a new phenomenon
I think history teaches us a very
pessimistic and a very optimistic lesson
the pessimistic lesson is that human
beings are capable of doing enormous
harm and brutality to their fellow man
and woman and we see that with genocide
in our world today
dead human beings are capable with the
right stimuli the right incentives
of of enslaving others I mean genocide
is in the same category right
uh the optimistic side
is that human beings are also capable
with proper leadership and governance of
resisting those urges
of putting those energies into
productive uses for other people but I
don't think that comes naturally I think
that's where leadership and institutions
matter but leadership and institutions
can tame us we contain we can civilize
ourselves you know for a long time we
stopped using that verb to civilize I
believe in Civilization I believe
there's a civilizing role Lincoln spoke
of that right so did Franklin Roosevelt
the civilizing role that government
plays education is only a part of that
it's creating laws minimal laws but laws
nonetheless that incentivize and
penalize us for going to the dark side
but if we allow that to happen or we
have leaders who encourage us to go to
the dark side we can very quickly go
down a deep dark tunnel see I believe
that most people want to do good and the
power of Institutions if done well
they encourage and protect you if you
want to do good
so if you're just in the jungle
the so from a game theoretic perspective
you get punished for for doing good
so being extremely self-centered and
greedy and even violent and manipulative
can have from a game theory perspective
uh benefits but I don't think that's
what most humans want institutions allow
you to do what you actually want which
is to do good for the world do good for
others and actually in so doing do good
for yourself
institutions protect that natural human
instinct I think and what you just
articulated which I think the historical
record is very strong on is the classic
liberal position that's what liberalism
means in a 19th century sense right that
you believe in civilizing human beings
through institutions that begins with
education kindergarten is an institution
laws uh and and just basic habits that
are enforced by Society
how do you think people thought about
the idea
how do they Square the idea of all men
are created equal those very powerful
words uh at the founding of this nation
how do they square that with slavery
for many Americans saying all men were
created equal required slavery because
it meant that uh the equality of white
people was dependent upon others doing
the work for us in the way some people
View Animal labor today and maybe in 50
years we'll see that as a contradiction
but the notion among many Americans in
the 17th 18th century and this would
also be true for those in other
societies was that equality for white
men
meant that you had access to the labor
of others that would allow you to
equalize other differences
so uh you could produce enough food so
your family could live equally well
nourished as other families because you
had slaves on the land doing the farming
for you this is Thomas Jefferson's world
so it's like animal farm all animals are
equal but some are more equal than
others that's right and I think that's
that's still the way people view things
yeah right I don't know if that's a
that's a liberal position or it's just a
human position that um
that all humans have equal value
just on the basic level of like of
humanity
but do we really believe that I we want
to I don't know ourselves I don't know
if our society really believes that yet
and I don't know exactly I mean it's
super complicated of course
um when you realize the amount of
suffering that's going on in the world
where there's children dying from
starvation in Africa and to say that all
humans are equal well a few dollars can
save that life and and instead we buy a
Starbucks coffee and we are willing to
pay 10 50 100 000 to save a child our
child like uh somebody from our family
and don't want to spend two dollars to
save a child over in Africa right so
there's and uh I think Sam Harris or
others have talked about like well I
want I don't want to live in a world
where we'd rather send two dollars to
Africa there's something deeply human
about saving those that are really close
to you the ones we love so that like
hypocrisy
that seems to go attention with the
basic ethics of alleviating suffering in
the world that's also really human
that's also part of this ideal
of all men are created equal it's a
complicated messy World ethically it it
is but I mean I think at least the way I
think about it is so what are the things
even within our own Society
where we choose to do something with our
resources that actually doesn't help the
lives of many people so we we invest in
all kinds of things that are often
because someone is lobbying for them
this happens on both sides of the aisle
this is not a political statement right
rather than saying you know if we
invested a little more of our money
really a little more we can make sure
every child in this country had decent
Health Care
we can make sure every child in this
country had what they need needed to
start life healthy
and that would not require us to
sacrifice a lot but it would require us
to sacrifice a few things
yeah there's a balance there and I also
noticed the passive aggressive statement
you're making about how I'm spending my
money you know me too spending it a
little more wisely
I I you know I like to eat nice meals at
nice restaurants uh so I'm I'm as guilty
of this as you are
I got a couch and that couch serves no
purpose it looks nice though no it's so
nice it's a nice looking cow so it's
actually very clean I got it for
occasional Instagram photos to look like
an adult okay
because everything else in my life is a
giant mess
what role did the ideas of the founding
documents of this country play in this
war the war between the union and the
Confederate States
and the founding ideas that were
supposed to be unifying to this country
is there is there interesting tensions
there well there were certainly tensions
because built into the founding
documents of course is slavery and
inequality and women's exclusion from
voting and things of that sort uh but
the real Brilliance of Abraham Lincoln
is to build on the Brilliance of the
founders and turn the union position
into this into the defense of the core
ideas of the country so the Confederacy
is defending one idea the idea of
slavery
Lincoln takes the basket of all the
deeper ideas and puts them together
three things the war is about for
Lincoln and this is why his speeches
still resonate with us today you know
every time I'm in Washington I go to the
Lincoln Memorial
it's the best Memorial the best Monument
I think in the world actually and
um there are always people there
reading Gettysburg address and the
second inaugural Lincoln had two years
of education yet he found the words to
describe what our country was about
better than anyone and it's because he
went back to these founding values three
values we already talked about one
freedom
that uh and freedom is is actually
complex but it's also simple
uh the simple Lincoln definition is that
freedom is the right of each person to
work for himself
or herself which is to say it doesn't
mean you own your own company but it
means you control your labor
and no one can tell you you have to work
for a certain wage
you might not have a job but you decide
you decide right you can see where that
comes from his own background as a poor
man right so freedom is control of your
own labor
second democracy government of the
People by the people for the people the
government is to serve the peoples to
come from the people
and then the third Point Justice and
helping all human beings
he at the end of his life as the Civil
War is ending he never declares that the
South should be punished his argument is
that we shouldn't apologize for their
misdeeds but that all should be part of
this future he's not arguing for
consensus he's arguing for a society
where everyone has a stake going forward
so Justice democracy Freedom those are
those those are the gifts I talked about
the flaws in our system those are the
the virtues in our system that our
Founders coming out of the Enlightenment
planted and and Lincoln carries them
forward he gives us the 2.0 version of
them
so a few uh tangent questions about each
of those so one on democracy
um people often bring up the United
States as a democracy it's a republic
um that it's representative is there
some interesting tensions there in
terminology or is
um yeah can you maybe kind of expand on
the different versions of democracy
um so the philosophy of democracy but
also the Practical implementations of it
sure the founders intended for us to be
a democracy this argument that they
wanted us to be a republican sort of a
democracy is one of these made up myths
um they believed that fundamentally what
they were creating was a society very
few of which had existed before a
society where the government would be of
the People by the people for the people
that's what they expected right that's
what I meant so the legitimacy of our
government was not going to be that the
person in charge was of Royal Blood
that's the way the Europeans did it or
did the person in charge had killed
enough people Allah gang is gone or that
the person in charge uh was serving a
particular class it was that the person
in charge the institutions were to serve
Serve the People they adopted Republican
tools to get there
because they were fearful appropriately
of Simply throwing every issue up to the
masses democracy is not mob rule
democracy is where you create procedures
to assess the public will
and to act in ways that serve the public
without harming other elements of the
public that are not in the majority
that's why we have a constitution and a
Bill of Rights and at that for their
time the founders did not believe that
women should be part of this discussion
that they were not capable they were
wrong about that in their time that's
how they thought we've of course changed
that they believed you had to have
property to have a stake we don't
believe that anymore so we can argue
over the details and and those 50 years
from now will criticize us right for the
way we think about these things but it
was fundamentally about this is the
radicalism of the American experiment
that government should Serve the People
all people so democracy means of the
People by the people for the people and
then it doesn't actually
give any details of how you implement
that because you could Implement all
kinds of voice and I think what we've
learned as historians I think what the
founders knew because they were very
well read in the history of Rome and
Greece was that democracy will always
have unique characteristics for the
culture that it's in
um
if coming out of the war against Russia
Ukraine is able to build a better
democracy than it had before it's never
going to look like the United States
is I'm not saying it's gonna be worse or
better a culture matters the particular
history of societies uh matters uh Japan
is a vibrant democracy I've been there
many times uh it it does not look at all
like the American democracy so so
democracy is a set of values the
implementation of those values is a set
of practical institutional decisions one
makes based in one's cultural position
so just the link on that topic is there
if you do representative you said like
you know democracy should not one
failure mode is Mob rule
so you should not descend into that not
every issue should be up to everybody
correct okay so you have a
representation but you know uh
Stalin
similarly felt that he could represent
the interests of the public he was also
helping represent the interests of the
public so that's a failure mode too the
if if the people representing the public
become more and more powerful they start
becoming detached from uh from actually
being able to represent or having just a
basic human sense of what the public
wants I I think being of the People by
the people for the people means you are
in some way accountable to the people
and the problem with the Communist Party
of the Soviet Union this was already
evident before Stalin came into power is
the same problem the Communist Party of
China has today which is that you have
leadership that's non-accountable
well let me go then to one of the other
three principles of freedom because one
of the ways to keep government
accountable is the freedom of the press
so there's a the internet and on the
internet there's social networks and one
of them is called Twitter I think you
have an account there people should
follow you and uh you know recently
people have been throwing around
recently for a while the words of
freedom of speech uh just out of
curiosity uh for tangent upon a tangent
uh what do you think of freedom of
speech as it is today and as it was at
that time during the Civil War after the
Civil War throughout the history of of
America so freedom of speech has always
been one of the core tenets of American
democracy and I'm near absolutist on it
uh because I I think that people should
have the right to speak uh what what
makes our democracy function is that
there is always room for quite frankly
people like you and me who uh like to
disagree and have reasons to disagree so
I am against almost all forms of
censorship the only time I believe in
censorship is if somehow an individual
or a new newspaper has stolen the
Ukrainian plans for their next military
movements in the next week you should
not be able to publish that right now
maybe after they act but criticism
opinion interpretation should be wide
open now that doesn't mean though that
um you have the right to come to my
classroom and start shouting and saying
whatever you want yeah you have the
right on the street corner to do that
but my classroom is a classroom for my
students with a particular purpose sorry
about that from last week I'll never do
it again
I'm really sorry it's okay it never
happened you know we get drunk so the
people who don't know your your
professor UT Austin is just it's nearby
so sometimes I I get a little drunk and
wander in there I'm not the only one is
that you I didn't even know it was you
okay
um so the point is that free speech is
not licensed to invade someone else's
space and and I also believe in private
Enterprise so I think that um
you know if if if I owned a social media
Network I don't
it would be up to me to decide
who gets to speak on that Network and
who doesn't and then people could decide
not to use it
if they don't want to use it but there's
uh so yes that's one of the founding
principles so oftentimes when you talk
about censorship that's government uh
censorship so social media if you run a
social media company you should be able
to decide from a technical perspective
of what freedom of speech means but
there's some deeper ethical
philosophical
sense of
how do you create a world where
every voice is heard of the People by
the people for the people that's not a
that's a complicated technical problem
when you have a Public Square how do you
have a productive conversation where
critics aren't silenced but the same
time Whoever has the bigger megaphone is
not going to crowd out everybody else so
I think it's very important to uh create
rules of the game that'll give everyone
a chance to get started and that allow
for guideposts to be created from the
will of the community which is to say
that we as a community can say We Can't
Stop people from speaking but we as a
community can say that in certain forms
we're going to create certain rules for
who gets to speak and who doesn't under
what terms but they can still have
somewhere else to go so I'm I believe in
Opening space for everyone but creating
certain spaces within those spaces that
are designed for certain purposes that's
what a school does so I will not bring
someone to speak to my students who is
unqualified it's not a political
judgment the rules at a university are
where an educational institution you
need to have the educational credentials
to come speak about artificial
intelligence I'm not going to bring some
bum off the street to do that right we
have certain rules but that bomb on the
street can still in his own space or her
own space can still say what he or she
wants to say about artificial
intelligence this is how newspapers work
when I write for the New York Times They
have an editorial team the editorial
team make certain decisions they check
facts and there's certain points of view
they don't allow anti-submitted comments
right you're not going to be able to
publish an anti-semitic screed whether
you think it's true or not true in the
New York Times but that doesn't prevent
you from finding somewhere else so we
allow entities to create certain rules
of the game we trans we make transparent
what those rules are and then we as
Citizens know where to go to get our
information what's what's been a problem
the last few decades I think is it
hasn't been clear what the rules are in
different places and what are the
legitimate places to get information and
what are not yeah the transparency seems
to be very critical there even from the
New York Times I think there's a lot of
skepticism about which way the editorial
processes lean I mean there's a public
perception that it's especially for
opinions it's going to be very
left-leaning in the New York Times and
without transparency
about what the process is like about the
people involved you all you do like
conspiracy theories and and the general
public opinion about that is going to go
go wild
and uh I think that's okay for the New
York Times people can in a collective
way figure stuff out like they could say
okay New York Times uh 73 of the time is
gonna lean left in their head they have
like a loose estimation or whatever uh
but for a platform like Twitter it seems
like they're it's more complicated now
of course there should be rules of the
game but I think there's um
maybe I want to say a responsibility to
also create incentives for people to do
High effort empathetic debate
versus throwing poop at each other yeah
I think those are two slightly different
things so I agree
I think that my view is that the failure
of Facebook and Twitter and others and
in recent years has been that they have
been completely untransparent about
their rules so what I would think would
make would Advance us
is if they had a set of rules that were
clear that were consistently followed
and we understood what they were
that would also tell us as consumers
how much what the biases are how to
understand what's going on it seems like
I might say that since Elon Musk is
taken over Twitter it's been arbitrary
and who's thrown off and who's not
thrown off who's and that's that's a
real problem arbitrariness is in some
ways the opposite of democracy but
there's also a hidden arbitrariness
in uh
interpretation of the rules so for
example
what comment incites violence
that's really really difficult to figure
out to me like there's a gray area
obviously there's very clear versions of
that but if I know anything about people
that try to incite violence they're
usually not coming out and clearly
saying it they're usually kind of dog
whistling it and same with racism and
anti-Semitism all of that it's usually
dog whistles so like and they usually
I have fun playing with the rules
playing around the rules so it's a it's
a gray area same with uh June covet
misinformation what's misinformation
right I agree and some of these are
age-old problems our legal system common
law has been struggling with what is
incitement to violence since the first
Supreme Court decisions in the 18th
century right so so you're absolutely
right but I will say this there are
certain things that are clearly
incitement to violence I'll give you
very clear examples uh I'll just make it
personal right my wife is an elected
official here in Austin there have been
people who put things up on Twitter
calling for her to be hanged or calling
for her to be attacked that's incitement
of violence when you specifically call
for violence against someone I agree
there's a lot of other stuff where it's
a gray area but we could start
if we're applying these rules
yes by getting that material off of
these sites so some of that is a problem
of scale too but the gray area is still
a forever problem that we may never be
able to solve and maybe the tension
within the gray area is the very process
of democracy but saying like we need to
take our country back
is that excitement of violence I don't
think that I think we need to take our
country back just that no
but then you know because I might say
that I might say we need to take I say
that all the time I go again I walk
around drunk just screaming at everybody
I know you wanted it wants to take you
back exactly I was very confused and my
messaging needs to work but let's let's
go to the January 6th example right to
say hang Mike Pence that's insight into
violence yeah to say go get Nancy
that's incitement to violence yeah yeah
it's very clear I again I don't think
that's the big problem the big problem
is the gray area but yet
uh and the other problems just how to
get how to technically find the large
scale of comments and posts and so on
that are doing this kind of clearance I
mean don't ask me those questions well I
have to say some of that is motivation
some of that is vision and some of that
is execution so for example just to go
out briefly on a dark topic
um something I've recently became aware
of is you know
Facebook and Twitter and so on people
post uh violence on there like little
like videos of violence child porn
um some of the darkest things in this
world and to find them at scale is is a
difficult problem
and to act in it aggressively is a
difficult problem but uh that
I think
part of this motivation like saying this
is a big problem we need to take this on
we need to uh find all the darkest
aspects of human nature that rise and
appear on our platform and remove them
so that we can create a place for like
for Humanity to flourish through the
process of conversation but it's just
hard it's just really hard when you look
at like millions of posts trillions of
interactions it's wild what's like the
amount of data but where we are now with
with social media seemed wild and
impossible five years ago right yes I I
actually what frustrates me is I think
they're people who have politicized this
issue in unnecessary ways everyone
regardless of their politics should
support what you just said investing our
money
maybe grants from uh the federal
government in AI skilled people like you
figuring out ways to get violent videos
yeah off of there that that shouldn't be
political
well some of that also requires being
transparent from a social media company
perspective and transparent in a way
that really resists uh being political
to be able to be transparent about your
fight against these
uh evils while still not succumbing to
the sort of the political narratives of
it oh that's tricky but you have to do
that kind of and I think walk calmly
through the fire because that's that's
what Twitter feels like if you're being
political is it it's like a firing squad
from every side you know as a leader you
have to kind of walk calmly right and
and that is where we need a new
generation of people who will have
diverse politics but will stand up
against that right I mean that's the
lesson from after the Civil War is where
progress is made the war doesn't solve
problems of hate where progress is made
is where you have local leaders and
others who stand up and say we can
differ but we're not going we're going
to stop calling people from certain
backgrounds monkeys which was a common
thing to do at that time Jews are still
called monkeys in certain places right
uh people have to stand up while still
maintaining their political differences
several hundred thousand people died oh
what made this war such a deadly War
it's extraordinary how many people died
more than more than half a million and
this was without a single automatic
rifle without a single bomb it was
mostly in hand-to-hand combat which is
to say that these 600 000 or so people
who died they died were the person who
killed them was standing within a few
feet of them
uh that's really hard most of the
killing that happens in Wars today is
actually from a distance it's by a drone
it's by a bomb it's by a rocket or by an
you know an automatic weapon and just to
make this even more focused uh to this
day the deadliest day in American
history was during the Civil War
September 1862 in Antietam more than 22
000 Americans uh kill one another
uh hand to hand uh there hasn't been a
day that deadly in American history
since then that's amazing considering
the technological changes what was in
the mind of those soldiers on each side
was there conviction for ideas was it
did they hate the other side I think
actually they were fighting out of fear
what we what we know from Reading their
letters what we know from the accounts
is that yes their their ideas that are
promoted to them to get them to the
battlefield they believe in what they're
doing but here it's the same as World
War one and I think the civil war in
World War One are very similar as Wars
you are in these horrible conditions
you're attacked and you have the chance
to either kill the other side and live
or die
and you fight to live and you fight to
save the people next to you uh what is
true about war what is both good and
dangerous about it is you form an almost
unparalleled Bond
with those on your side this is uh the
men underarms scenario right and and
that's where the killing goes and it's a
Civil War which means sometimes it's
brother against brother uh uh quite
literally and what it teaches us
is how human beings can be put into
fighting and will commit enormous damage
and that's why this happens it goes on
for four years and just the extensive
research you've done on this war for
this book uh what are some some of the
worst and some of the best aspects of
human nature that you you found like you
said brother against brother
that's pretty powerful
they're both right so the level of
violence that human beings are capable
of how long they're able to sustain it
the South should not have the
Confederacy should not have lasted in
this war as long as it did by the end I
mean they're they're starving and they
keep fighting
so the resilience in War of societies
and
um the power of hate to move people
what are the bright sides uh you see in
Lincoln and Grant who I talk about a lot
in the book as well Ulysses Grant you
see the ability of empathetic figures to
still Rise Above This in spite of all
the horror Lincoln went to visit more
soldiers in war than any president ever
has
often at personal Peril because he was
close to the lines and he connected it
wasn't propaganda there weren't always
reporters following him he was able to
build empathy in this context
and I think as I said war is horrible as
it is often gives opportunities to
certain groups so African-Americans
former slaves are able to prove
themselves as Citizens Jews did this an
enormous number in World War II Henry
Kissinger I wrote about before he really
only gets recognized as an American he's
a German Jewish immigrant he's seen as
an American because of his service in
World War II so the bright side of this
is that often in the case of War on your
own side you will let go of some of your
prejudices
Ulysses Grant has a total transformation
he goes into the Civil War and
anti-semite and a racist he comes out
with actually very enlightened views
because he sees what Jewish soldiers and
what African-American soldiers did
what's Ulysses Grant's story what uh
what do you learn from him was he a hero
or a villain of this War I think he's a
hero uh though he's a flawed hero as all
heroes are
um he's a man from Ohio and Illinois who
uh was a really a failed businessman
time and again
um and uh had an ability to command
people in War uh where did this come
from he was a clear communicator and an
empathetic figure he tended to drink too
much but he was the kind of person
people wanted to follow they trusted him
and so in battle that became very
important and the second thing is he did
his homework and he had a sense of the
terrain he had a sense of the
environment he was operating in and he
was ruthless in pursuing what he had
studied so he turns out it battles as
like Vicksburg and elsewhere to actually
undertake some pretty revolutionary
maneuvers and then he figures out that
the advantage now is on his side in
numbers and he just poundsly pounds him
to death similar what the United States
does at the end of World War II with
Germany and Japan he comes out of the
war Grant does he's a believer in Union
he wants to protect
um former slaves and other groups and he
tries to use the military for that
purpose he's limited and then as
president he tries to do that as well uh
right now we still use many of the laws
that were passed during Grant's
presidency to prosecute insurrectionists
so the 900 or so people who have been
prosecuted for breaking into the capital
and attacking police on January 6. those
insurrectionists they've been prosecuted
under the 1871 anti-clu Klux Klan law so
that's a big accomplishment by Grant and
we still benefit from it the problem is
Grant was not a great politician unlike
Lincoln
he didn't give good speeches he wasn't a
persuasive figure in a political space
and so he had trouble building support
for what he was doing uh even though he
was trying to do what in the end I think
were the right things what was the role
of the KKK at that time so the Ku Klux
Klan is formed at the end of the Civil
War by Confederate Veterans first in
Tennessee in Pulaski Tennessee and then
it spreads elsewhere and there are other
groups that are similar the red shirts
and various others these are veterans of
the Confederate Army who come home
and are committed to continuing the war
they are going to use their power at
home and their weapons to intimidate and
if necessary kill people who challenge
their Authority not just African
Americans Jews Catholics various others
they are going to basically protect the
continued rule of the same families who
own the slaves before in post-slavery
Tennessee and post-slavery South
Carolina and when we get to voting
they're often the groups that are
preventing people from voting the white
sheets and the ritual around that was
all an effort to provide a certain
ritualistic legitimacy and hide identity
though everyone knew who they were oh so
that that whole brand that whole
practice was there from from have you
studied the KKK it's history a little
bit I have and there are a number of
other historians who have too so I've
used their research as well I'm kind of
curious I have to admit that my
knowledge of it is very kind of
caricature knowledge I'm sure there's
interesting stories and threads because
I think there's there different
competing organizations or something
like that of course within the United
States and I feel like they through that
lens you can tell a story of the United
States also of these different they're
often business associations I mean
there's a lot of work showing that
they're actually people join the KKK for
the reasons I just laid out but also
because it was networking for your
business you gained legitimacy in the
area that you that you were in so this
these were
Community groups that were formed to
help white business people they helped
white sheriffs get elected what we have
to understand today is when we're
debating policing this history matters
enormously right I I have nothing
against police my cousin one of my
closest relatives just retired from 25
years in the New York Police Department
thank God he survived I have deep
respects one of the best public servants
I know but what we also have to
recognize as we respect police officers
is that for many communities
in our country they know this history
and the KKK in the 1870s and in the
1930s you look at any KKK organization
as I have in my research and you find
the police Chiefs or the KKK members the
local police officers local judges
because it was how you became police
chief so the these groups infiltrated
some of the main institutions in our in
our nation I don't even think they
infiltrated I think they were part of
those institutions the deeper question
today in the 21st century is uh one how
much of that is still there and how much
of the history of that reverberates
through the institutions and I'm making
the latter point that it's not there
that much now but people remember it
well and some people would even say it's
not there at all that there is not
institutional racism or policing
uh but if if that's the case then you
can also say that if there is not direct
institutional racism there what is it
the Echoes of History still have effects
of course and that and that's and that's
really important in that we have to take
that seriously that's not an excuse for
people then saying nasty things about
the police but it is what we have to
recognize look I'm Jewish and there are
certain
um elements of Russian Behavior today I
see in Ukraine that reverberate with the
history of how my grandparents dealt
with pogroms in Russia right even though
what Putin is doing in Ukraine might not
technically be a pogrom that history
matters and how I view these issues and
and that's a reality yeah I had I went
to 7-Eleven recently
and uh uh what did I eat ate one of
their salads
I'm sorry I love 7-Eleven I'm sorry it's
one of the cells and got like terrible
food poisoning oh I was suffering for
like four days and now I can't I love
seven I love going to 7-Eleven late at
night in sweatpants and just I escaped
the world I'm listening to an audiobook
and now every time I pass that salad for
the rest of my life I would have hate
for that salad so history matters even
if the salad is no longer have any bad
stuff in it it's probably the lettuce or
something whatever
um mostly for humor's sake but I'm also
giving a a kind of metaphor that
um history can have an individual and a
large-scale society effect on on human
interactions both the good and the bad
if you actually recommend to me offline
uh books on the KKK they'll be really
happy there were a few mentioned in in
the in the footnotes in my book here and
also in part because I also want to
understand the white nationalism white
supremacists uh Christian supremacists
of Christian nationalism all those
different subgroups in the United States
and also around the world I'm a bit
my mind has been focused on some of the
better aspects of human nature that it's
nice to also understand uh some of the
darker aspects
um let me ask you sort of a personal
question for me do you think it's
possible
do you think it's useful to do a podcast
conversation with somebody like David
Duke
or somebody
this was somebody that everybody knows
so it's not like you're giving a
platform to to somebody that's a hidden
um
member of the KKK or like uh it's sort
of putting a a pretty face on some dark
ideas but everybody knows and so now
you're just exploring you're sitting
across the table maybe not in his case
um maybe somebody who's an active KKK
member sitting across from a person that
literally hates me
Flex I think that's fascinating too I do
too I I think uh so long as what you are
doing
is not boosting someone so taking an
obscure figure
and making that figure now famous yes uh
but if it's someone who's already
Infamous yeah and it helps us to
understand them and as so long as your
effort
is to ask them tough questions which you
do right you don't you don't give them
all the questions in advance you don't
have limitations on what you can ask so
long as it is a real interview not
pablum then I'm for it what I'm what I'm
against is a softball interview that
allows someone to sound reasonable when
they're not uh but the way I've seen you
do this when you've had figures like
that I won't name who I have in mind but
when I've seen that is I I think that's
I think that's useful because honestly
uh the historian and me and the citizen
in me wants to understand
um my my Jewish grandfather always was
the the first to be against any effort
to suppress anti-semites because his
view was he wanted to know who they were
and he wanted to know what they thought
so he could be prepared
and I also see like perhaps as a
historian
you may be able to appreciate this kind
of thing that's probably how you see the
world but
there's several ways to see a human
being like Vladimir Putin is an example
one is a political figure that's
currently
doing actions on the world geopolitics
internally the politics of Russia but
there's also that human being in a
historical context
and collecting information about that
person in the historical context is also
very valuable so you could see
interviews with Hitler
in uh 39 40 41 as being very bad and
detrimental
to all that is good in the world but at
the same time it's important to
understand that human mind how it uh how
power affects that mind how power
corrupts it how they see the world
absolutely absolutely I would be all in
favor and maybe he will if Vladimir
Putin would sit down with you absolutely
I I don't think you're boosting someone
like that when you ask them tough
questions in fact I think that's what we
need to do those sorts of figures tend
to insulate themselves from tough
questions so just to restate I I am for
the Lex Friedman interview of uh those
sorts of figures I am not for the puff
piece on Fox and Friends uh where they
just come on and they're asked oh isn't
it tell us what you think of this tell
us what you think of that yeah so but
there's a balance there because
a lot of people that interview somebody
like Vladimir Putin all they do is
heart-handing questions they often
demonstrate a lack of knowledge of the
perspective of the Russian people and
the president there's not an empathy to
understand that this is a popularly
elected uh you can criticize that notion
but this is still the area that
represents the beliefs of a large number
of people and they have their own life
story they see the world they believe
they're doing good for the world and I
don't
um that idea
seems to not permeate the questions and
the thoughts that people say because
they're afraid of being attacked by the
people back home fellow journalists for
not being hard enough well maybe I think
that's probably true I think in my
experience with interviewers is that a
lot of them are really lazy you're not
which is why I like talking can I just
say okay this is not you saying it can I
just rant
if you're sitting across from Xi Jinping
from Vladimir Putin you you you should
be fired if you have not read like at
least several books on the guy the the
surprising lack of research that people
do leading up to it right so you need to
be a historian or a biographer you need
to be the kind of person that writes
biographies or histories before you sit
in front of the person not uh
not a low effort journalist and it's so
surprising to me that I think they're
probably really busy and it's probably
not part of the culture of the people
that do interviews to do deep deep like
investigative you need to be the kind of
person that lives that idea like see it
as a documentary that you work on for
three years kind of thing anyway that uh
of course some journalists do do that
and they do that masterfully and that's
the best of Journalism but I think a lot
of the times when the questions are as
you said uh out of touch with the
society that person that person is
leading it's because the interviewer
hasn't taken the time and I understand
uh you can't be an expert on every
subject but you can do what you do right
you read my book to prepare for this you
look things up you had a sense of the
person you're talking to and you put the
time in to do that this is what I always
tell my students right the secret to
success in anything is outworking other
people be more prepared right what you
show is like an iceberg it's the tip of
the iceberg right is what what people
see it's all the work that goes on below
the surface and if you work hard enough
which I aspire to do at the end of the
day just like an animal farm you'll be
like the horse boxer and slaughtered
unjustly by those that are much more
powerful than you because you'll be
happy when you're slaughtered you have
lived for the right idea and history
will remember you fondly okay uh what
about Robert E Lee so he's the
Confederate generality that you
mentioned yeah uh was he a hero or
villain to me he's a villain many people
treat Robert E Lee as a hero and one of
the points I make in the book is we have
to rethink that and it's very important
for our society because Robert E Lee
pops up all over our society names of
schools names of streets and he also
embeds and justifies certain behaviors
that I think are really bad Lee was a
was a tremendous General he had the
weaker side and he managed to use
maneuver or secrecy and Circumstance to
give himself so many advantages and win
so many battles he should have lost so
in terms of the technical generalship uh
he's a great General but Lee at the end
of the war never wants to really
acknowledge defeat what he acknowledges
at Appomattox is that his soldiers will
have to leave the battlefield because
they have not won on the battlefield but
he refuses to do what Grant asks him
which is to help sell his side on the
fact that we're going into a post-war
moment where they don't have to see
themselves as losers but they have to
get on board with change real leadership
is convincing people who follow you that
they have to change when they don't want
to change Lee refuses to do that he says
to Grant I quote this in the book he
says to granted Appomattox if you want
to change the South you have to run your
army over the South three or four times
he's not going to do anything he's not
going to help and uh he becomes a figure
who people rally around and in the rest
of his life and even after he dies so it
is as if
at the end of World War II
Hitler had been allowed to just retire
and he didn't go back into politics but
yet he was there and he continued to
have meetings with former Nazis and
people would rally around the idea of
bringing back or going back to Hitler's
ideas think of how harmful that would be
Lee played that kind of of role after
the war and I think it's one of the
problems we have now I don't think we
should continue to Revere him because it
justifies too much of what the
Confederates stood for
and that's the difference that you
highlight between World War II and the
Civil War that in the case of Hitler
there was there was a there was an end
to that war there's a very distinctive
clear end to that war and you also uh
make the case that World War II is not a
good example not a good model of a war
to help us analyze history it's given
Americans the wrong idea what war is
because World War II ends as most wars
don't end World War II ends with a
complete defeat
of the German Army and the German
society and the near complete defeat of
Japan
and where both sides in different ways
except defeat
what I'm pointing out in the book is
that most wars don't accept with one
side don't end with one side accepting
defeat and uh generally the war
continues after the battles and this is
something that's hard for Americans to
understand our system is built with the
presumption when War is Over when we
sign a piece of paper everyone can go
home
that's not what happens I mean Civil War
is a special case it's especially a
strong case of that because the people
that fought the War is still living in
that land that's exactly right and in
this case some of them are leaders also
many of them become the leaders of the
very areas that they were leading before
uh and I think that's another lesson
here too that we did undertake after
World War II though in a flawed way we
had a Nuremberg system we did prohibit
at least Nazi leaders from coming back
into power we made an exception for the
emperor in Japan but we generally
followed the same rule uh in Japan
whereas in the United States
as I point out many of the leaders of
the Confederacy first of all don't
surrender they flee to Mexico
then they come back after they lose in
Mexico a second time they come back to
the United States and they get elected
to office
uh the guy who writes the election laws
in Texas Alexander Watkins Terrell most
people don't know this even in Texas he
was a confederate general fled to Mexico
so he committed treason by joining the
Army of Maximilian emperor of Mexico who
was put in power by Louis Napoleon after
Max Millions defeated Alexander Watkins
Terrell comes back to Texas runs for the
state legislature and then writes the
election laws it's crazy can you make
the case for that that that's a feature
of the American system not a bug that
that is an implementation of justice
that you forgive that you don't
persecute everybody on the other side of
the war maybe and I think that's a good
feature in terms of lower level
individuals but I think a bad feature of
our system is we do allow
elite figures who have committed
wrongdoing we give them many ways to get
out of punishment you are more likely to
be punished in this Society if you do
something wrong and you're not an elite
figure then if you're on a leader there
should be a proportional like
forgiveness should be equally
distributed across and it's not yeah and
it's not
but we could change it we could fix that
how do we fix that but how do how do we
fix that what I think was argued at the
end this is one of the really important
things about studying history you learn
about ideas that were not pursued that
could be pursued today uh at the end of
the Civil War there was there was an
effort to ban anyone who was in a
leadership position in the Confederacy
from ever serving in federal office
again that's the third uh element of the
14th Amendment it's in the 14th
Amendment the 14th Amendment Clause 3
says that if you took an oath of office
meaning you were elected to office
you're an elite figure
and you violated that oath you can still
live in the country you can still get
rich but you can't run for elected
office again yeah and that what we we've
never really
uh implemented that is it obvious that
everybody who's in a leadership position
on the Confederate side
is a bad person for the future of the
United States
or is that just a safe thing to assume
for the future of the nation I think
it's the latter you know maybe people do
things for all kinds of reasons and
sometimes they have regrets
that's also why we have the pardoning
capability you could pardon someone
individually if they show you that that
they've changed yeah and it would only
create fairness because right now let's
say Lex you take out a huge huge loan
and you don't pay your loan back that
will go on your credit
and you won't get a big loan again
you don't get to say
just give me another chance you're gonna
have to prove
I think about holding public office in
the same way
if you've violated your credit rating on
that you should have a much higher road
to go to prove to us that you should be
back in office
foreign
how did the War end
in quotes
uh what was the so you said and you make
this case in the book that in some sense
the elements the tensions behind the
Civil continue to this day but
officially how did the war end so
officially the war ends at Appomattox uh
in uh the early spring of 1865 when uh
Grant has pretty much smashed Robert E
Lee's army Appomattox Courthouse is a
small town in Virginia and the two men
meet and uh their as their portraits of
this as a painting of it we have in the
book and Grant and Lee signed a paper
which basically allows lead soldiers to
leave the battlefield and leave with
their sidearms to go back home that's
pretty much
the end uh Jefferson Davis who's the
president of the Confederacy goes into
hiding he's later captured uh and then
not convicted uh but there's no formal
settlement in the way there is at the
end of World War II where uh they meet
in Yokohama Bay the US and Japanese
leaders in China this is not that
so what stands out to you as brilliant
ideas during this time and actions to of
Lincoln Abraham Lincoln so I mentioned
that his values I think a number of the
things that he does that are quite
extraordinary first
um in emancipating the slaves now the
slaves were freeing themselves but
Lincoln recognizes that he needs more
labor in the Union Army and he
recognizes that there's still a lot of
resistance
uh and what he does is he makes the case
for freeing the slaves based on the
argument not just of the moral value of
that but based on how that will benefit
the north he's able to convince
non-abolitionists to pursue abolitionist
policies uh that by serving their own
interests but he's basically saying by
1863 or 64 is I can ask for more white
soldiers or I can bring in former slaves
would you like me to take your son or
would you like me to put in it's the
same thing Franklin Roosevelt does
during World War II he says we need to
build more planes and more tanks and I'm
sending all the soldiers off to Europe
I've got this African-American
population in the South wouldn't you
like me to move them up to Chicago so we
can win this war and build things in the
in the factories so so Lincoln uses the
war
to move the country forward morally even
if at times he's convincing people by
using other other reasons and I think
that's great politics I guess that's one
of the components of great leadership is
uh is is do the right thing for the
uh wrong reasons
or publicly sounding wrong reasons yeah
find ways to move people what we talked
about before different stories move
different people so you can tell
different stories he tells one set of
stories to the religious leaders who are
abolitionists and a different set of
stories to the New York bankers
and that's leadership you tell different
kinds of stories to move people to a new
to a new position the other thing
Lincoln is is is really brilliant at is
uh managing the international side of
this so one of the real dangers for the
union is that the British will come in
on the side of the Confederacy the
Confederates expected the British
because again the Confederates were
selling all their cotton to Britain and
they knew that the British leadership
first of all was very happy to work with
slave holding societies even though they
didn't have slaves and number two that
they believe the union was getting too
strong and threatening the British in
Canada so there were many reasons the
British might have gone in with the
Confederates Lincoln mixes
um sticks and carrots with the British
he threatens them and if and when the
British actually tried to send diplomats
to negotiate with Southerners he
interdicts that he basically initiates a
quarantine of the south on the other
hand he reaches out to them
and tries to show that he wants better
relations and makes the argument that
they will actually benefit more from
having the industrial capability of the
Union on their side so he's a very good
diplomat
he is considered to be one of the great
presidents in the history of the United
States
are there ways that he failed is there
things he could have done better so he
failed in the ways that most great
leaders fail
which is that he had a terrible
succession plan
his uh vice president who I spend a lot
of time on in the book Andrew Johnson
who is probably our worst president ever
uh Andrew Johnson had no business being
anywhere near the presidency Andrew
Johnson was the only Southern senator
who did not secede and so even though he
was a Democrat Lincoln wanted to show
that he was creating a Unity ticket when
he ran for reelection in 1864. this
happens today right so he put someone on
as vice president who he didn't even
like but who he thought was politically
useful problem is when Lincoln was
assassinated
this guy took over Andrew Johnson was
drunk at his own inauguration the guy
was a true drunkard he was not prepared
to lead in any sense intellectually
politically and he was against most of
the principles Lincoln was for
and the irony is that when Lincoln is
assassinated in April of 1865 Andrew
Johnson takes over and he has all the
War Powers Lincoln had
uh that was not good Planning by Lincoln
and we can look back on it now and say
even though Lincoln is the first
president who was assassinated uh he
should have known that there were people
coming for him it wasn't inevitable that
he'd be assassinated but he should have
had a backup plan for who would take
over hopefully someone who was capable
of doing the job and Andrew Johnson was
not capable so for me for a person if I
were to put myself in in Lincoln shoes
or anybody any leadership position she
was
it is difficult to think about what
happens after my death after I'm gone
right to plan well at the same time
if you care about
your actions to have a long-term impact
it seems like you should have a
succession plan that continues on the
path yeah it continues to carry the
ideals that you've implemented
so I'm not I'm unsure why people don't
do that more often like I wonder how
much Vladimir Putin spends percentage of
time
per day thinking what happens after he's
gone to help flourish the nation and the
region that he deeply cares for I wonder
and the same as for other presidents
Donald Trump Joe Biden uh they might
think politically like how do I
guarantee that a democrat or a
republican but do they think like
um Visionary for the country I don't
know I wonder I think that's very rare
and I think uh what I understand from
the literature among business people who
talk about this a lot right is what ends
up happening is you become so powerful
you assume you're always going to be in
power you convince yourself of that you
convince yourself that the end is far
away and of course for Link in the end
could have been far away he was healthy
he was only in his 50s he could have
lived a lot longer
but it also it ended fast as it could
and and my understanding is that most
Americans don't prepare their Wills in
Estates and it doesn't matter whether
they're rich or poor they they assume
things are just going to go on because
it's not fun to think about this yeah
but I feel like it's freeing like you
know what I did which is interesting
before I went to Ukraine I recorded a
video I set up a whole thing where I
record a video like what happens if I
die I record a video to release I gave
my uh brother access to my passwords to
so that and I gave them instructions
you're not allowed to look at this but
please publish this after if I die and
you know that made me uh it sounds silly
and ridiculous but uh that made me feel
free
to do the best thing I want to do
it's like it's a it's a liberating so
like I guess that's for your will but
also like do the best possible damn job
you can I feel like as a leader having a
plan what happens if if not if you fail
if you die if you um
or or you lose some of the um some of
the power some of the momentum that is
driving you currently that there's going
to be a handoff where you will still and
you will still be remembered as a great
man or a woman that but you identify one
of the other problems right which is one
of the other reasons why someone like
Lincoln or certainly Henry Kissinger
doesn't create a successor because
you're afraid they're going to steal
your passwords you're afraid they're
gonna steal the power from you that's
true you had to find someone your
brother hopefully who you could trust
but let's just be clear I love my
brother but he's a troll so uh so
there's a feature on the past on
whatever password manager I may or may
not use uh and this is there's a bunch
of services like this it's interesting I
don't know if you you know about I've
learned about all this uh is you can
have them request access and it's going
to wait 30 days before it gives them
access so it's kind of has this um
built-in trust okay uh trust padding uh
but it's interesting I mean to me on
that aspect is just to have a plan in
all aspects of life this is for
leadership in your private life
like what happens
to not just your will and your wealth uh
your wealth or whatever but what happens
to other stuff like social media and all
that right in this Digital World
anything you care about if you wanted to
live on and that's the problem but if
you
unless you can devise
a technical solution like that you have
to give someone power now yeah and
that's the tricky thing I mean uh
democracy is a kind of Technology you
kind of have to figure out how to do it
correctly how to have how to have that
power propagate and especially during
war how you get everybody together into
this war-mongering mood or and then how
do you how do you like come come down
from that and just relax precisely so in
some sense that's
well there Johnson that was the the
problem is is the over centralization of
power it was the over centralization of
power but it was also that Lincoln
had a designated successor who was going
to do and tried to do everything that
ran against what Lincoln was doing and
it set the country back we went forward
at the end of the Civil War and then we
went backward
more so than we would have if there had
been a new election because if there had
been a new election there still would be
reason for that person running even if
they were on the other side to try to
find some compromise positions Andrew
Johnson inherited power
with very few limitations on how he used
that power Congress wasn't even in
session
and so this became very directly a
problem because Andrew Johnson started
pardoning Southerners allowing them to
come back into power
so we had like a few months where he
just went wild yeah
it's it's giving the car keys to someone
who's not prepared to drive but decided
that they're going to do what they want
with the car for a while
all right
is there any level to which power
corrupted Lincoln a war president yes I
do think there are some areas and I
think that even though he was a great
president if not our greatest president
maybe one of the greatest figures of the
of our history
um he was flawed uh one is his problem
of succession but also
I think Lincoln uh over invested in the
power of the presidency he came to
believe too much
in the role of one man
and not in creating a more balanced
approach to governance and that's a
function of War that's where war is
dangerous War has an inherent
centralizing power in a democracy
and that is dangerous because even when
you have the best of people running a
war
that gives them a lot of power to make
decisions yeah how do you come down from
that I see that was the landscape Putin
currently yep it's a war how do you come
down because uh
Ukraine and everybody anybody in the war
kind of especially if you're fighting
for the ideal of democracy
it seems like war is anti-democratic it
is so how do you come down from that
what's the interesting mechanism of I
mean some of it is leadership you have
to be like a George Washington type
figure be able to walk away from Power I
think you gave the answer right there
yeah you need to walk away from power or
you need to be forced to walk away from
Power historically one of the things
that democracies have tended to do when
they have a chance is to vote out of
office the Victor in the war think about
Winston Churchill
Roosevelt is elected to his fourth term
when he's still in the war it's not
clear that he would have been elected
again let's say he lived on because
there is a sensibility that the person
has become too powerful in this role and
that they someone else should now step
in someone else who's also not a war
president but has other interests so
let's hope Ukraine wins this war
um zielinski should then step down
or someone else should be voted in it
will be dangerous if he remains
president let's say he wins somehow and
a true Victory which is just
hypothetical
he should not be he should be praised
maybe given a nice Villa
um but someone else should take over
because the problem is that he's going
to have too much power
and honestly he's going to be too out of
touch with what the country needs after
the war
what do you think would have happened if
Lincoln had lived that's the sort of
counter factual view of History it's an
interesting question that probably you
think about a lot this is a lot what
would have happened if you didn't get
assassinated it's a reasonable question
because it was not inevitable he'd be
assassinated right he could have had
more protection that night he had
invited Ulysses Grant to go to the
theater with him and Grant and his wife
didn't go if they had been there there
would have been more protection for
Grant so he would have had at least
double the the security there
um so there are many ways in which he
might not have died I think it still
would have been a difficult transition
but I think there were a few things that
would have been better first of all
Lincoln would not have pardoned all of
these Confederate leaders and allowed
them to come back into Power Lincoln
also would have been a better politician
at holding his Republican Coalition
together
and I think Lincoln was more committed
to empowering former slaves and others
so we still would have had a lot of
conflicts but I think what would have
been a degree of difficulty was doubled
or tripled because
um Lincoln was was removed and the
opposite came into Power with Andrew
Johnson so you don't think there's a
case you made the Andrew Johnson was
turned out to be
a bad decision but the spirit of the
decision is the correct one no I think
it was a terrible decision because you
should never put someone one step away
from enormous power who's not prepared
oh in that sense yeah so uh in essence I
got it but but the the other the spirit
of the decision meaning you put somebody
who's in a
represents a very opposing Viewpoint
than you well I'm for that so long as
that person is on board with some of the
basic values that you're pursuing and
that person is capable of doing the job
well do you think that was obvious to
him that Andrew Johnson was not capable
of doing the job yes okay it's in the
right I mean everyone recognized that
but it made sense I mean what Lincoln
has to be praised for is in the midst of
a war
when at that point he was not doing well
the war was not going well he ran for
re-election he didn't try to postpone
the election he didn't try to do
anything yeah and and so he needed all
the help he could get when running and
so he wanted to have someone on there
who looked like a Unity candidate who
could appeal to some Southerners uh so
it made sense from a political point of
view
uh but it created a really big problem
and
um there were people who said he should
have removed Johnson as soon as he was
elected and in retrospect he probably
should have how gangster is that to
during a war still run the election
yeah it's it's extraordinary I mean he
Lincoln believed in Democratic Values he
also believed he would win but he knew
it was not guaranteed yeah and it's
interesting for for people don't know
this the reason we have mail in
balloting in the US is because of that
so
um
almost what uh I think it's almost a
million uh
Union voters are away from their homes
and so how do they vote as soldiers as
nurses they vote by mail the poster post
office delivers their ballots that's why
we have mail-in balloting
what about the other kind of factual
question of what what would have
happened if Confederate States won the
war the Confederate States had won the
war you would have seen I think a
separate country
and the South you would have seen two
countries and that Confederate country
would have been a smaller country but it
probably would have been able to defend
itself because it would have actually
gotten much richer than it was it was
poor at the time but through its cotton
trade and other things it would have
been recognized by Great Britain by
France by other societies and you would
have seen
um a southern Republic I don't think you
would have seen that southern Republic
dominate the continent the union had the
men and people and had the resources
but you would have seen a rival Republic
to the United States in the South do you
think they had interest to dominate the
continent to take over the the union
they had a foreign policy they had a
plan many have written about this they
had plans many Southerners did of
expanding into the Caribbean
which was actually more feasible they
did not have the Personnel to occupy so
much territory going out west if you
think about the amount of land that had
to be covered but they had the nautical
capabilities in Naval power and the
money
um to dominate islands in the Caribbean
and those islands were important for
their trade so there were many
Southerners who wanted to take control
of Cuba wanted to take control of Haiti
and the Dominican Republic and so you
probably would have seen Southern
Warfare in those areas
from a counter factual history
perspective can you make the case
that secession would have been created a
better world like if we're sitting today
and do Back to the Future thing that's a
session in this context if we put aside
the the suffering and the loss of life
in the war that we would be in a better
world today just look into a political
climate or and can you also make the
case that actually this outcome of the
Union winning the war is the better one
I think the union union victory is by
far the better outcome because I think
what you would have had otherwise is you
would have had a slave Republic in in
the South that would have encouraged
slavery in other parts of the world
would have exported slavery and would
have necessarily been hostile to many of
the positive changes that occur in the
union the movement toward Progressive
reforms creating cities with health
codes and public education and many of
those things public education really
develops in the north as a way of
training workers who are being paid to
be better workers in a factory there's a
reason you don't educate slaves because
if you educate slaves they'll Rebel yeah
so don't you think there'll be a huge uh
pressure from the north to about slavery
anyway it would but I think the South
could have survived without another War
I mean I think the way that slavery
would have would have ended in the South
if it didn't end with the Civil War it
would have been with another War
I guess the deeper question is is it
better to work through your problems
together or is it better to get a
divorce
I think in this case it was better to
work through the problems not even
working through them together it's
better to work through the problems
where one side has the resources to
incentivize you to work through the
problems rather than leaving you on your
own to go your own to go your own
Direction I think the argument against
the union winning would be the argument
that would be made by those who believe
they suffered from Union power later on
so you could argue if you're a historian
of Native Americans
uh if you're historian of the
Philippines You could argue some of the
areas where this newly United Nation
coming out of the Civil War was able to
use its power to spread its influence it
would have been harder for the union to
do that uh if the union had to deal with
a rival to the South
so as a historian the union won
to which degree are the people from the
union there is now the United States the
writers of the history
that that color the perspective of who's
the good guys and the bad guys so this
is such an interesting question because
I like how you take every question I ask
and make it into a better question
that's a deep I deeply appreciate it
I'll ask every time I ask some
ridiculous question and you go that's
really interesting because they're
really good questions they're thoughtful
questions you know actually the best
questions are not the simple ones right
so um
foreign
the Axiom is that the winners write
history yeah and that's usually the case
right most of the history I learned
about Ukraine when I was growing up was
written by Russians it was Russian
history of Ukraine uh most of the
history of Europe has been written by
Germans and French and and British
citizens right I mean so usually it's
that way and for the most part our
history has been written from a sort of
Northeastern point of view but it's very
interesting the history of the years
after the Civil War that I focus on in
this book has largely been written by
the losers because the union and its
legacies and I grew up in New York so
I'm growing up as a legacy of that right
those were individuals who wanted to
write about what happened long after the
Civil War when the north got rich all
those beautiful buildings in New York
all that wealth in New York it's 1880s
90s it's The Late Late 19th centuries
the Gilded Age and that's what
Northerners want to write about right
because there's Glory there the 20 years
or so after the Civil War the years that
really count 1865 to 1880 or so uh those
years are ugly it's messy and so who
wrote about them Southerners wrote about
them and they wrote a story that was
about uh Northern Carpetbaggers and
corrupt African Americans uh and this is
the story that Americans learned until a
few years ago I've gone around the
country talking about this book and the
number of people have told me they never
learned this basic history because they
grew up in Chicago not because they grew
up in Texas because they grew up in
Chicago and the story they were told the
Civil War ended oh now let's talk about
the Chicago World's Fair in 1893 and how
Chicago is coming of age as this great
City we don't like to write history in
our country that's not about Glory I'm
all for the greatness of our country but
you become great by studying your
failures as well as your successes
and that's a real problem we have and I
would love to see a kind of humility
from uh from a history perspective one
of the things that always surprised me
just coming from the Soviet Union to to
the United States as you've I think
spoken about
is the perspective on World War II yeah
and who is the critical component of
winning the war obviously in the Soviet
Union uh it's a Great Patriotic War it's
you know uh the Soviet unions are the
ones that suffered and often actually
don't emphasize the suffering they
emphasize the glory that they defeated
this huge evil but then you listen to
the United States perspective on this
and it's almost like the the I mean
there's several ways of phrasing it but
basically the United States won the war
without the United States it would be
impossible to win the war there were the
turning point there were the the last
there were uh one of my last my
everything that that song uh um my first
my last my everything so so that and I'm
sure I wonder what what growing up
in uh maybe after war in in Britain I
wonder if there's history books written
there that basically saying they could
also make a pretty strong case that
Britain was Central to the turning point
you could really make a strong case that
like Churchill and Britain uh were like
the turning point of the war that the
that they're responsible for some of the
first failures major failures of Hitler
from a military strategy perspective but
uh that's interesting to look at that
very recent history from very different
perspectives and it's the same problem
with the Civil War we want to tell the
story of the Union winning the war and
then everything is good yeah and it's
not the way it's not the way it worked
um what I'm really trying to get at is
uh when you love your country you have
to study the failures because by
studying the failures that's how you
improve yourself and that's where you
see where where real courage is it's
actually that Lincoln failed for so long
that makes him a great president he lost
more battles than he won but he learned
and he got it right in the end same with
Ulysses Grant I don't want generals I'm
just echoing Lincoln here I don't want
generals I don't want leaders who think
they're going to get it right the first
time because they're never going to get
it right the first time you never get it
right the first time in an AI experiment
right it's those who can work through
failure learn from failure and we as a
society have to start doing that better
we have to not just trumpet the
successes let's talk about where we
failed as Republicans as Democrats as
Independents and let's move forward from
there in recent years have been a kind
of
movement of highlighting some of the
hypocrisy sort of highlighting the
racism the fact that many of the finding
fathers were slave owners that kind of
thing uh sort of highlighting from the
current
uh ethics of our world uh showing that
many of the people involved in the war
on each side were evil uh what do you
think about that perspective on history
I think it's super valuable I think we
should expose the the gap between ideals
and practice but that doesn't mean we
should throw away the great people who
are also Hypocrites because everyone
I've studied is a hypocrite I'm a
hypocrite I think I'm a pretty good
father luckily my son is an even better
mother but uh uh the parts of me there I
mean I often find myself telling our
children to do things that I didn't do
right yeah but they're smart and they
recognize that and they learn something
from that so let's not cover over
the hypocrisy but let's not throw people
away for being hypocritical here's my
view of Thomas Jefferson which is
similar to my view of Abraham Lincoln
right these are incredibly insightful
thoughtful people who added so much to
our country
but they also created flawed systems
and one of Link one of excuse me
Jefferson's flaws was even though he saw
all the evils of slavery he was a
terrible farmer and he could not imagine
living the lifestyle he lived without
slaves he could never work his way out
of that but that doesn't make the
Declaration of Independence less
valuable in fact it makes it more
valuable there's more that we can learn
from that and to me
on the hypocrisy side many of the people
that participate in cancel culture and
these kinds of movements
that call everything as racist and so on
sometimes they're highlighting uh
properly the evils in our current
Society
but the hypocrisy they have is not
realizing if they were placed in Germany
in the 40s if they were placed in the
position of being a white Christian
during slavery at the fighting of this
country they would do the same thing
they would do the evils that are not
criticizing most of them is that it
takes a truly heroic human to think
outside to be aware of all the evils
going on Assad
around you and take action it's easy now
on Twitter to call people as racist
what's hard is to see the racism when
you're living in it and your well-being
is funded by it yep I think that's right
I think to analyze ourselves and look
honestly in the mirrors very hard I also
think I make this point in actually all
of my books
um the real and it's an Eli visel point
that a lot of the evil in our world is
the evil of silence and just looking
away
and and one form of that on Twitter is
just hitting like
yeah uh it's it's a cheap way of
pretending you're you're doing something
that's important right after the Civil
War there's all sorts of bad stuff that
happens I talk about it a lot there
always are people there who could stop
it
most people are not responsible for the
bad activities but most don't do
something to stop it
and when I say do something I mean
really do something yeah really and
that's it's also to push back and
pushback
silence on Twitter is not what Eli
Rozelle was talking about
so sometimes silence on Twitter is the
courageous action because you wait and
think and learn and have patience to
truly understand the situation before
you take actual action not participate
in the outrage crowds on Twitter the
hysteria of cancellation what's hard to
do is to speak up when everybody else is
silent right that's what's hard to do
right and to speak up against those who
you thought were on your side yes
exactly good luck to those on the left
who speak up against the left uh and the
same good luck to those on the right who
speak up against the right
it's a lonely place it's a it's a
painful place that's why walking in the
center is tough you get attacked by both
sides yeah so it's a wonderful wonderful
uh journey and you know what what's
interesting to me uh and what I learned
writing this book every book is a
journey what I learned in this in the
laboratory of this book right
was a lot of those figures who do stand
up
uh even in their own lifetime they don't
get the accolades they deserve but they
make a difference and that that's maybe
not enough Comfort uh because you want
to see benefits in your own lifetime but
I think it really matters and many of
the figures I talk about were not even
well known in their time so you can make
a difference you do impart something
small in the universe that can grow into
something better and we shouldn't forget
that yeah that's why I admire a boxer
the horse I will work harder even if he
gets sent to the slaughter by the evil
pigs
you're on Orwell today I love how much
recently I mean uh animal farm is one of
my favorite my favorite books I've been
recently I've just I'm rereading 1984
now uh it's been politicized that book
in general yeah but to me it's a love
story it is a love story that there's uh
the like love is the like it's a story
of an oppressive government it's a real
estate and uh the nature of Truth being
manipulated by wartime so on but the the
Beacon of Hope in the human heart that
pulls you out that wakes you up in a
world like that is a love of another
human being it's Transcendence I totally
agree my understanding you would know
better than I would is that it's now a
best-selling book in Russia again 1984
yeah it's actually being downloaded more
there was a piece on NPR I heard about
this actually yeah yeah well I hope it's
because they're looking for love that's
what I was just gonna say hopefully not
in all the wrong places
hey there's no such thing as the wrong
places but that's that's my opinion I'm
the one that showed up naked and drunk
to your classroom I still surprised that
with you
I was wearing a wig I'm sorry uh quick
pause uh can I take a breath
and we're back uh John Wilkes Booth
assassinated Abraham Lincoln in his
diary as you write in your book he wrote
about Lincoln our country owed all her
troubles to him and God simply made me
the instrument of his punishment the
country is not what it was
uh what was the idea of the country that
John Wilkes Booth uh believed in he
talked about this country that just
constantly being repeated in his writing
for John Wilkes Booth and many other uh
people who were close to the southern
part of the country and the Confederacy
they believe the country should be a
democracy for white people abounded
democracy and uh Booth was horrified and
we have to empathize with it not
sympathize but recognize how how strange
it seemed to him that all of a sudden
those who were slaves were now Soldiers
with guns
and he was particularly offended when he
saw in Washington DC a group of
African-American Union Soldiers holding
Southern prisoners of War
and um the world was turned upside down
for him democracy for him he believed in
democracy but democracy for white people
and that justified uh mistreating black
people for him
it's a country means uh white white
people yeah and and I don't think it's
that different from
um and white Christians white Christians
yes yeah he was not arguing for Jewish
emancipation either
um I I I don't think that's really
different from what we've seen in the
20th century for people who justify
ethnic cleansing or genocide
uh let's go to the you know the extreme
example of Hitler again uh that we've
talked about before
his view was actually he he claimed he
wanted a democracy for Germany he wanted
a democracy of the right Germans and he
wanted those who he saw infecting and
mongolizing the society out that's in
essence what John Wilkes Booth thought
the scary thing is those kinds of ideas
you can put a pretty face on them like
you don't have to use and maybe Hitler
didn't until the war started or even
parts of the war make it so clear that
you just want the certain kind of
Germans that have made Germany a great
nation to be the people that are running
that nation and other people who are not
truly interested in it don't hold the
interest of the country at heart like
they should go elsewhere where they can
flourish also is wonderful but like the
good Germans uh they've built all these
amazing things which should give them
the power and not to the others and you
can put a bunch of Flowery language
around that precisely it's the argument
that's made all the time today against
immigration
that the wrong people are coming into
our society it's ironic because it's
often made by those who themselves are
immigrants history teaches us that those
who have arrived as immigrants are no
more likely to like those who come in
fact they might be against the next
group for just this reason because they
think they're the right group can you
describe to me if it's useful at all to
know the difference
if there's a difference between white
nationalism white supremacists
and uh Christian nationalism
is there an intersection between them
I've heard these terms used oh
separatism too right that
um is there interesting distinction that
permeated that history that's the last
today I think um there's a long history
in the United States of a belief in
white supremacy and it's not unique to
the United States we actually inherit
this from Europe uh and white supremacy
is is the belief that uh for whatever
reason those with lighter color skin uh
usually of northern European extraction
uh are superior have more rights or the
better people to make decisions all
sorts of things and it's an aesthetic
judgment as much as it is a political
judgment and that gets embedded in our
society right we inherit that
um Christian nationalism
is the presumption that it's not just
your race but now it's also your
Christian belief and that is actually
relatively new there are little pieces
of that in our history but but many of
those who are white supremacists even
those in the Confederacy are not
Christian nationalists because they
don't agree on which kind of
Christianity and they don't view those
who are from a different denomination of
Christianity of being good Christians
there isn't this big tent Christianity
in the 19th century
um this notion that there is one
Christian Nation and that we're all part
of it that's actually really a 20th
century creation it precedes the
Evangelical movement but it's been made
even more popular but it would not make
sense to a Confederate to say we're a
right white Christian Nation it would
make sense to say we're a white
Protestant Nation because they didn't
consider Catholics good Christians or a
white Presbyterian Nation
um and so that's that's something new
and I think with particularly dangerous
about this notion of Christian
nationalism is it creates this false
history saying we've always been
together as Christians that's always how
we've denied I defined ourselves and
that's not accurate well one interesting
thing so I recently talked to
uh uh left leaning or maybe a far left
political streamer Named Destiny uh
Stephen Burnell I don't know if you're
familiar with him he uh he does uh live
streaming debates with people it's very
passionate I've heard of this my
students have told me I'm not actually
my students are always up on the most
hip things yes that is no the funny
thing about him he's already considered
like a boomer he's already the old
streamer because he's been doing it for
10 years he's not the cool kids anymore
anyway he goes into some difficult
political territory and he actually had
a many conversation with Nick Fuentes
and he says I mean uh some of it is
humor but some of it is pretty dark uh
hard-hitting sort of criticism is he
says that anyone who claims to be a
Christian nationalist asks them if they
would rather
have a million people who are atheists
from Sweden who are white come or if you
would rather have a million uh people
from Africa who are Christian come and
the the truth comes out that this is a
very surface level this kind of idea of
Christian nationalism is still
underneath it is a deep racism uh like
hate your toes black people I think
that's I'm sure that's right I'm sure
that's right that's the sense I got into
it does not seem to have deep kind of uh
yeah like historical context to it it's
just it's just a different a rebranding
of the old kind of hate what I think is
important though in drawing this
distinction and why it really matters
beyond the history of it is someone like
Lincoln
quotes scripture all the time the second
inaugural is filled second inaugural
address the Gettysburg Address filled
with Biblical references
but he does it in a way that's not
Christian nationalist because he's using
the text to bring people together he's
using it as a fable of humanity
and you could say he's not open to
Islamic thinking he's ignorant of the
Islamic world but as a Jew I'm a Jew
reading and studying Lincoln I know he's
a Christian but I don't feel excluded
from his rhetoric
because I share that Bible
we have different views but I I don't
feel excluded it actually brings people
together the Christian nationalist
approach that we've seen in the 20th
century and especially in recent decades
is intended to divide people
it excludes Jews
it excludes Christians who don't
interpret Christianity their way and and
to say that's what we've always done is
an entire Distortion of our country
and it also hides why this is so
dangerous
insofar as Christianity matters to our
country it should be in the way Lincoln
uses it as a set of common texts that
many of us resonate with knowing that we
have different rituals and different
understandings not as a way to exclude
people and not as a cover for racism
which is what it is it's kind of
interesting that you could talk about
I've talked to a lot of people Muslim
folks uh Jewish folks Christian folks
there's a way to talk about religion
that's inclusive and then that's
exclusive I mean it's just been of these
I've been listening to a lot of these
Interfaith conversations and they're
awesome
they like celebrate the beauty of each
religion they banter and argue with each
other about details and so on but like
it feels like love like it feels like
anybody from any of those religions uh
would feel welcome at that party yeah
and I think that's possible
can you tell me about the disputed
election of 1876 so this is fascinating
the 1876 election is one of many
elections we've had some recently that
are intensely controversial uh and
they're controversial because they're so
close
they're controversial because it's not
always clear who's won
in 1876 uh Samuel Tilden the governor of
New York who's running as the Democratic
candidate wins more votes across the
country
so everyone knows he becomes president
right wrong he doesn't become president
because in three states South Carolina
Louisiana and Florida it's very very
close
and even though Tilden has more total
votes if he loses those States the
electors in those States all of which go
to the winner of the state would
actually make Rutherford B Hayes the
Republican candidate president in all
three of those States you also have
Republican Governors who have just lost
but are still the people who have to
certify the election
all three states say that hey is one
even though it's very close and disputed
so Hayes has one more electoral vote
of course the Democrats won't accept
that and so we go into February that the
inauguration was done in March not in
January we go from November to February
without clear agreement on who the
president is in the end there's an
agreement that they come to a deal which
is where the Democrats will accept Hayes
as president in return for Hayes doing
all the things the Democrats want in the
south
and so in essence you have a deal made
that one side will get all its all it
wants while allowing the other side to
have the figurehead
and so in a certain way this marks a
moment when the Confederacy wins
for example Hayes has to agree to pull
out all federal force from the south
which means there's no protection for
fair elections going forward and you'll
see in States like Mississippi uh the
number of African-American voters will
Decline and not recover again until the
late 20th century so that's what that
election does and from 1876 until 1896
we have a series of Elections that are
very close it happens also
in 1888 that the person with the most
popular vote loses that's Grover
Cleveland who loses to Benjamin Harrison
um and again we'll have the same issue
where there's a dispute and so what that
election shows us 1876 1888 is that our
election system and the problem of
having an electoral college really
complicates things and makes it harder
for us to come to any kind of consensus
any kind of agreement on who's won an
election super important for today
because most of the 20th century we
don't have close elections so it doesn't
matter when we come to a world today
where our elections are very close our
system is not well designed to deal with
those issues do you draw any parallels
uh with our time and what are some key
differences there's been contested
elections uh Florida Florida
with Al Gore and there's been just
contest election after contested
election and of course most famously
recently
uh with the the contested election that
led to uh January 6th so I think uh a
couple of parallels and a couple of
differences one parallel is that when
you have close elections uh the losing
side is never happy
it's a myth
that when you have a close election the
other side just accepts it and it's not
that doesn't happen and we need to be
attentive to that and ready for that
January 6th actually should surprise us
not because it happened but because it
hadn't happened before
um people who lose a close election are
never happy and they always think that
something has been done that's one
parallel second parallel is elections
are violent
we have this myth that our elections are
peaceful no there's always violence
involved in one way or another violence
in either trying to prevent people from
voting or violence and preventing people
from preventing people from voting right
elections are not uh peaceful walks in
the park and that's why most countries
have a centralized system to manage
elections and provide protection for
people uh we need to think about that a
lot of people don't vote because they're
afraid
they don't want to take the time but
they're also afraid that they're going
to anger someone or that they're going
to be seen as politicizing an issue
differences uh in 1876 there was fraud
in the election uh there were people who
voted two three times one of the things
the Ku Klux Klan did is it prevented
black people from voting and that it
helped white people go to multiple
voting booths
uh and this was quite common in the
1880s if you went to vote uh here's how
it would happen in a place like Chicago
or New York the union boss from your
factory would come and get you at the
factory
give you lunch get you drunk and then
drive you from one voting booth to
another and give you a ballot that you
would bring in and just and he would
watch you deposit that ballot
sounds pretty nice not gonna lie I take
that right so that's a difference that
that is not how our elections work now
one of our Great accomplishments has
been to eliminate virtually all the
fraud in our elections how have we done
that by creating safeguards
um it is very difficult all the evidence
we have is that the minimal fraud that's
occurred in elections or onesies and
twosies and it's never in the last 20
years had any big difference in the
outcome of Elections so that's a that's
a big difference and then another big
difference I think is that um in that
time the Democrats and Republicans are
on the opposite sides of where they are
now and that that changes everything
right so the Democrats then are the
party of the Confederacy the Democrats
are the party of exclusion the
Republicans are more the party of
economic expansion
uh and the Republicans are the Big Ten
party were reversed today do you think
uh because there's much less election
fraud
now like you described
uh one of the lessons we want to maybe
learn from that is that doesn't actually
have to be election fraud for either
side to claim this election fraud it
seems like it's more and more common and
it seems to me that in 2024 election in
the United States if a republican wins
that would also be uh
just maybe just as likely as as uh
um if uh if a Democrat wins that there
would be
nuanced claims of election fraud
because it's become more and more
normalized I think what the what this
history shows is that our election
system makes it easy for people to claim
fraud because it's so unnecessarily
complex
first of all we don't have a system
where the person who gets the most votes
is necessarily the winner so that
already creates one problem second
problem is everything I taught about
this in the book is controlled at the
county level
so what happens with Haze until then in
1876 is you have one County official who
says they think one person one another
County official thinks says the other
person won there's no centralized system
uh it would be as if we allowed every
airport to control safety in airplanes
our airplanes would not be safe our
airplanes are safe because the FAA and
the national Transportation safety board
have strict Universal guidelines for
what makes for a safe plan and therefore
our planes generally don't fall out of
the sky our system is very complex it
has complex rules and has too many
people who have authority in too many
different places complexity makes it
easier for someone to make an argument
that the wrong thing has been done we
should simplify the system in Brazil
they had a very close election
and uh it's very hard for bolsonaro who
lost that close election to claim there
was fraud because there's a central
Authority run by the Judiciary that
counted the votes and it's just simple
it's not about which states it's not
about who the county officials were did
he claim or no he has not acknowledged
that he lost right so to push back on
your on your statement undefeated
Monopoly and risk because anytime I lose
I walk away claim claiming there was
fraud and cheating involved and I refuse
to believe otherwise I just think that
uh
accusations of fraud is a narrative
that's disjoint from the reality of
whether there was enough yeah yeah I
agree but I think we make it we we make
it a little easier for that narrative
sure by having a complex convoluted
system and I wonder if there's other
improvements that take us into the 21st
century that allow for electronic voting
there's all kinds of improvements that
are seems our system is dragging their
feet on uh ranked just voting all that
kind of stuff let's make this clear we
claim to be the greatest 21st century
democracy and we still vote like the
19th century we're not even in the 20th
century most people when they went to
vote they actually like you know checked
a box and put a piece of paper in a box
right I mean that's not 21st century we
can move millions of dollars maybe
billions for you Lex in bank accounts
from from our keyboard thank you for
from our keyboards billions of rubles
billions of pennies pennies uh why can
we move money safely and not vote in the
same way yeah and at the same time so
there's security there in the movement
of money and then there's the actual
engagement most of us depending on your
age demographic uh click like on
Facebook or Twitter or Tick Tock uh tens
of thousands of times a year uh I think
I think this kind of mechanism
constantly and a like is a vote so
you're constantly voting voting voting
voting we love voting we love giving our
opinion on that stuff it just seems
obvious that uh gamifying this system
which is essentially what the election
is making it fun to be engaged in
different issues and there's also be a
case
um no I don't understand these things
deeply but it always seemed to me that
issue-based voting
should be the future it seems like too
complicated to vote for singular people
versus on ideas which you know on
Twitter we don't necessarily vote for
people we vote for ideas if you like a
tweet or not you like it and so on
um that too seems to be like a
possibility for improvement well there's
certainly a way to improve polling we
could measure public opinion better we
still pull as if we're in the early 20th
century they still actually call people
it's amazing to me I was talking to one
pollster they uh will call a hundred
people and get one person but they still
do that that makes no call landlines
right uh yeah well they try to get cell
phones too they but they do call
landlines but one could create a system
that would be far better in the way
you're describing it seems to me Lex to
actually assess what people like and
don't like
so your book your work in general your
perspective on history is uh I would say
at least from my perspective
non-partisan thank you yeah you do
exceptionally good job of that uh
despite the attacks and the criticisms
that said you personally just the way
you speak my judgment and you can push
back on this I think you leave lean left
in your politics on the political
Spectrum maybe you can push back on that
can you make the case for either
perspective on your own personality as a
fan of yours that uh that you do lean
left or you don't lean left I think it
depends on the kinds of issues we're
talking about I do tend to lean left on
the social and cultural issues yes so
I'm a Believer a firm believer uh I
didn't believe this when I was younger
I've come to believe that uh people
should choose their own lifestyle and
that we should get out of the way I'm a
Believer deep believer as a father of a
20 year old woman that my 20 year old
daughter should have the right to make
any choice she wants with her body
uh and if she were to get pregnant at a
fraternity party at College uh she
should have the right to decide whether
to have a child or not so on those
issues that would code me left left of
center uh I'm actually reasonably
conservative on fiscal issues
I don't think we should spend money we
don't have
uh I'm skeptical I've long been
skeptical of cryptocurrency and things
like that I know some of your listeners
will disagree with me this part is part
of my own ignorance of cryptocurrency
but I'm conservative lowercase C and the
way I think about fiscal issues I worry
about that
I am a believer that there are certain
areas where the federal government
should play more of a role
and there are other areas where things
should be left to the localities and so
sometimes that can code me one way or
another but I think I sound sometimes a
little more left or Center because on
the social issues like definitely well
that because well I mean there's other
explanations not to be grilling you too
hard no it's fair uh because you're also
an exceptionally uh respected and
successful professor in the University
system where sometimes there is a lean
towards the left and the other aspect is
I think your viewpoints on Trump
uh where you're a strong critic yes
Donald Trump yes
and I guess the question I want to ask
is you as a historian does that color
your perspective of History
can you do you ever catch yourself where
maybe your uh criticism of Donald Trump
might affect how you see the Civil War
like as you were completely diving in
and looking at the Civil War are you
able to put aside your uh sort of the
current day political viewpoints no I'm
not I think we have to be honest that
none of us are objective we strive to be
nonpartisan I really liked when you said
that because I think it's an aspiration
no one is objective we all have our
biases you know some people like
chocolate some like vanilla and it's
just that's just the reality right and
um as far as I know there's really hard
it's very hard even to biologically
explain that and so
um my view
is that what a good historian what a
good scholar does I don't care what the
field is is you're self-conscious of
your biases
and you try to recognize them as you're
doing your research
and you make doubly certain that where
your research seems to reinforce your
biases that you actually have the
evidence to make that argument
but I still believe even doing that that
someone with a slightly different
perspective might read the same evidence
in different ways that's what makes
history vibrant
so I I wrote this book in part as I say
in the introduction because I was
self-critical watching Trump and the
things I quite frankly find deeply
dangerous about Donald Trump and about
what happened on January 6th and I found
I had not thought deeply enough about
the roots of that in our society
because I don't believe Trump or any one
figure creates these kinds of movements
that come out of a deeper history uh
just a small side tangent I do believe
your work is non-partisan but it's also
funny
that there are a lot of people on the
right that would read your work and say
that you're partisan and I think I think
the reason that can happen sometimes not
strongly though I think you do a really
good job uh is like certain the use of
certain words also uh that I try to be
cognizant of that I try not to use words
that trigger people's uh tribalism it's
kind of interesting so you have to be
also aware of that maybe when you're
writing history when you're writing in
general is if if you're interested in
remaining you can put on different hats
you can be carefree and just stay in
your opinion of criticizing Donald Trump
or or Joe Biden uh or you can be
nonpartisan deliberately and that takes
skill probably and avoiding certain
triggering words and to me it's about
choosing your battles right so I tried
to write
because I want everyone to read and I
actually think people on the left and
right have a lot to learn from this
history so many people have said to me
around the country this is history I
wish I had known before
um but there are moments when I use
words that I know are controversial
because I'm trying to show there's a
fact base behind them so white supremacy
does exist I've had people say I don't
think that's I think that's a
politically correct term or it's a woke
term it can be used in the wrong ways
one should not go around calling
everything one doesn't like that uh but
the Confederates were white supremacists
and I use that word because I think it's
an accurate descriptor and we need to
recognize that that is a part of our
history but that does trigger some
people and because that that language is
used to mean other things currently so
the the Press will take on certain terms
like white supremacists then label
everybody white supremacist uh like a
lot of people that basically are in the
right or something like that they use
this outraged language and that actually
ruins the ability to use the language
precisely exactly for historical that's
exactly right that's exactly but you do
have to unfortunately we do have to no
actually people disagree you might
disagree with this but I I tend to try
to avoid like take on the responsibility
avoiding that language
um like if the Press is using a certain
kind of language I try to avoid it yeah
what might what I try to do is sometimes
avoid it but where I think the language
is necessary yeah to be precise but also
to contextualize
so I don't call the confeder all
Confederates white supremacists but I
point out where white supremacist ideas
have influenced them
right and I point out where certain
individuals are doing things that
resonate with that but I'm against these
kind of blanket labels and categories
and you also have to speak about Vice
supremacism in that context in a nuanced
way so people use white supremacist
without thinking what that means and
they just use it as a slower word like
this evil person but white supremacist
is also just an ideology that a lot of
people have believed throughout
Supremacy what a white
black Supremacy whatever Supremacy uh
believing that some people are better
than others some group is better than
another and there's been Nations built
around these kinds of ideas and a lot of
human history is built around those
ideas it's not just evil people believe
in this we in in the United States of
America believe this kind of ideology is
not productive it's unethical but those
ideas have been held by a lot of people
and not like Fringe groups right uh but
majorities of Nations right I'd say the
same about anti-semitism
and there are many people who are not
anti-semites but don't recognize that
they're carrying around or promoting
anti-semitic ideas or anti-semitic myths
is the thought that's been held by a lot
of people and you need to be convinced
out of it
um that that requires conversation and
being empathetic
it's not just calling somebody
anti-semite and you're evil because if
you've ever said something that's kind
of a dog whistle against Jewish people
you have to be open-hearted to that
these These are ideas that you have to
contend with that that you have to
um ultimately I think
Heal The Division behind those ideas by
having empathetic conversations with
people as opposed to again throwing poop
I just like saying poop all right oh I
got a challenge for you
given that you uh
have been an outspoken critic of Donald
Trump
can you say one thing you like and one
thing you don't like about Donald Trump
and perhaps can you do the same for our
current President Joe Biden one thing
you like when you think you dislike so
it's harder for me to do the one thing I
dislike because there's so many things I
dislike but the one thing I like uh
about uh Donald Trump
um
he believes that um
America
should be a better country he I disagree
on what he thinks it should be but he's
not someone he's not a declinist he's
someone who believes the world could be
made better I disagree with what he's
trying to do I disagree with how he's
trying to do it but I like the fact that
he thinks it can be better his whole
argument for himself is that he can make
things better I don't think he can but I
think things can be made better so I
like the second half of that sentence
when he says I can make things better
take the eye out I like that can be
better because there are too many people
on the left and the right
who think that the you know that we
can't make things better we have to
accept them as they are or they're
getting worse uh I I think a world
without hope is horrible and I think
what he has offered his followers is a
kind of hope so underneath his message
is an a kind of optimism for the future
of this nation yeah it's a narcissistic
optimism but it's still an optimism yes
that that he he's promising that if you
elect him again he will make things
better
and I think people need to be told and
we need to believe that we can make
things better so that part I accept and
I reject those who say
we can't make things better my whole
historical career is about showing that
history gives us tools to make things
better
so I like the idea of trying to make
things better and giving people hope and
reason to believe that things can be
better what's the main thing you dislike
about Donald Trump I I think he has uh
no concern or care for the welfare of
anyone other than himself
so assuming I'm a basic human psychology
perspective
and I I think he doesn't even care about
his children I think he's just I think
it's it's him I think he's gone into a
rap and Holly might not always have been
this way I did watch him a long time in
New York City when I was growing up in
New York and I think he's been in this
path and I think it's an extreme it's a
clinical kind of narcissism
so do you when you analyze presidents
and you've written about presidents you
don't just look at policies and so on
you look at the human being of course
you have to
leadership is about human being policy
matters it's one part of the equation
but it's not the only part what about uh
Joe Biden uh what do you like and what
do you dislike about so what I like
about Joe Biden is in contrast to Trump
I think Joe Biden really right now in
his career
sees his role as The Shepherd of
democracy he really believes that it's
his role as president to make our
democracy more stable
and more vibrant I think he really
believes I think that's why he's doing
what he's doing right now and he comes
from that system the political system
that basically the the process of
democracies he's worked there for many
decades it's all he's done yeah that's
all he knows that he and he wants that
to propagate For Better or For Worse and
he's not an extreme Democratic partisan
at all he's actually he's actually a
pretty middle-of-the-road guy on most
issues um some people don't like him for
that but I think he is about he is about
democracy
um what do I dislike about Biden I think
he does not have the capacity
right now to provide the language and
the public discussion of where our
country should go
he doesn't have a he doesn't have a
language to inspire and build
enthusiasm for the future
that'll probably be one of my I mean
because I'm a sucker for great speeches
and so for me that's definitely a thing
that stands out for several reasons one
in a time because we've been facing so
many challenges like the pandemic
it just seems like a like to me it seems
like an easy like layout
there's so many troubles we're going
through that just require a great
unifying president or the great like
just if I were to speak uh candidly
about kind of the the speaking ability
of Obama for example Obama would just
destroy this right now both on the war
in Ukraine on the pandemic all of it the
unified there's a hunger for unification
I believe maybe people disagree with
that because they've they've I think
people have become cynical in that the
divisions that we're experiencing are
kind of already really baked in they're
really they're really planted their feet
but I don't think so I think there's a
huge hunger maybe a little bit of a
quiet hunger for a unifier for a great
unifier I agree I agree and I think
what's what a great speech does is it's
like a great piece of music or poetry it
helps you see something in yourself and
feel something you didn't feel before it
doesn't overcome all different I don't
think that speeches are unifying but I
think what they are is they're
mobilizing and you can mobilize people
to the same mission with different
points of view
do you think Trump derangement syndrome
is a medical condition
um also is there such thing as uh Biden
derangement syndrome what I mean by that
I said it's a it's a funny kind of
question but why are people so deeply
outraged
seemingly Beyond Reason at their hatred
or support of Donald Trump but hatred in
particular I've seen a lot of friends
and people I respect
like lose their mind completely yeah
so I'm not sure it's a medical condition
or not because I'm not a medical doctor
so I you know my kids say I'm the wrong
guy in the doctor I'm I'm a doctor so
let me take you from here no uh P the
fact that you get the doctor sign after
getting a PhD is a ridiculous hilarity
to me hilarious ridiculous so as as the
wrong kind of doctor I'll say I'm not
going to comment on whether it's a
medical condition but I do think you're
on to something
um I think there is a way in which
um these men become
touchstones of anger and there's all
kinds of anger and anxiety that people
have
and I've seen this in other historical
periods you you Center it on one person
uh in a way that's John Wilkes Booth in
Lincoln
he actually didn't have a personal beef
with Lincoln
it was that all the things he feared
were were manifest uh in that and I
think that's an old story and then it's
made worse by social media
and the way we're bombarded and it's
it's like
it becomes a drug I mean they're people
I know who hate Trump or Biden so much
and just watch them
it's not that they don't watch them it's
that they do watch them right and it's
just sort of and it triggers you and and
you get hateful and then you feel like
you've done something by shouting out
your hate or typing in and and so I
don't know if it's a derangement
syndrome I think it's a it's a way in
which our energy gets channeled and
expressed in totally useless ways yeah
that's an interesting psychology which
reminds me I need to explore that
because I've noticed that believe it or
not it's easy for me to believe but
there's people watching this right now
who really hate me
and they're watching because they hate
me they hate the way I look the way the
way I speak the mumbling the all of that
and they're still watching and I'd like
to say that as I nervously try to
explain myself I like to say that that's
not a productive way I get it
I understand there's a kind of because
because I
what is it it's this is it the same
psychological effect when you see a car
crash and you keep staring yeah it's
some kind of thing that pulls you in
totally but I feel like it's that
feeling what this is probably slightly
different but you kind of want to you
want to maybe feel something and there's
an anger in you already frustration from
day to day life life is hard and you
just want to channel that anger towards
something but I just the internet really
makes that easy for some reason and it
makes sense of your life that's the
problem it it for people whose lives are
chaos
hating you and blaming you gives order
to their lives yeah if it makes you
happy please continue
it seems to bother you though doesn't it
yeah I hate of any kind not towards me
just the people because I I think about
them and I I tend to think that most
people are amazing human beings and that
have a capacity do great things in this
world and so I just think
that's not a productive way of being
like psychologically for anything
whatsoever everybody has quirks that you
can hate but you just focus on the
really positive stuff and you celebrate
that stuff and that feels good that has
a momentum to it I guess the hate has a
momentum to it too and that's what I'm
trying to highlight if you follow the
momentum of hate that's going to maybe
feel good in the short term but it's not
it's gonna fuck you over more and more
in your life and that's you have to be
cognizant of that as you interact with
the internet I agree with everything you
said but I think people who do things
that are influential and serious there
always are some people who hate them
I suppose that but I wanted to show the
difference between philosophical
disagreement that borders on hate and
like uh what's called like hate watching
where you just which is what I would say
TDs is which is your almost enjoying
how much you hate this person you're
sitting in their hate and you forgot you
lose all reason you lose everything Your
Capacity to think as an individual to
empathize with others use all of that
you're in this muck of hate and you and
it somehow it helps you make sense of
this particular difficult moment in your
life but otherwise it just it seems like
a shitty way to live but disagreement
definitely I like disagreement but I
guess what I'm saying is and I and I
think this is your message too right is
that um don't let the fact that people
don't like you or even that some people
hate you stop you from doing the right
thing think about how you can perhaps
trigger them less but don't stop what
you're doing I I see too many this is
why I bring this up too many of my
students too many young very talented
people who are afraid to take risks
because they're afraid that someone will
hate them and that can't get in your way
uh the reality is most people or there
will always be at least one person
that will get they will have you back
and they will support you and just focus
on them as long as you're doing the
right thing uh focus on them for the
strength but in general I'm exaggerating
here but because most of the time 99 of
people are supportive on the Internet
it's just something about the human
psychology
um really stands out to you when
somebody criticizes well it's easy on
the internet this is historically
different from where we were before and
as a society it's very easy now to say
hurtful things to people and not have to
even deal with them looking at you in
the face one of the things that one of
the things that encourages politeness is
the fact that we're looking at one
another
and I don't I we are naturally
programmed not to want the other person
to be to react to us in certain ways but
when we don't see their face
it's very easy to say all kinds of
things uh let me actually comment on
that point there's a lot of people on
the internet that say that I don't uh
sort of push back on points or criticize
people or ask the hard questions enough
first of all oftentimes I disagree with
that assessment but also
I don't think you guys realize how hard
that is to do when you're sitting with a
person
I don't care about access I don't care
about them being famous just on a basic
human level it's really hard to ask a
hard question
from a place of except when I'm sitting
here you see me really ask me no this is
a super fun I mean when there's
brilliant people like you there's
nothing to push back on that's it that's
that's that's easy but there's a basic
human thing
uh that doesn't I think it's almost
easier to be a journalist like
journalists do this well where they they
don't have a empathy for the person
they're just asking the hard questions
uh so where were you at this time last
night because that's very suspicious
it's in contradiction to what you said
and they're just doing factual stuff and
it if you actually truly have a
conversation within the human being you
empathize it's very difficult uh because
they have a story they have a vision of
themselves that that they're the good
person and to call somebody a liar while
having empathy basically imply that
they're a liar that's damn damn hard uh
so anyway but I'm I'm well set I agree
trying to figure this thing out can you
make the case that the January 6th
storming of the US capital is the big
deal and can you make the case that it
is not a big deal
I think the case is overwhelming that it
was a big deal and I opened the book
with this before going back to the end
of the Civil War because I think it
echoes that moment
um you had a group of people who
um literally tried to stop
the peaceful transfer of power
and were intending and his overwhelming
evidence of this if they had caught the
vice president or the Speaker of the
House
to do bodily harm to them or to kidnap
them so this was a coup d'etat that is a
definition of a coup d'etat when you try
to capture and prevent elected officials
from doing their job that's a huge deal
that had happened before in our country
in States I talk about this in Louisiana
in Tennessee and places like that after
the Civil War but it never happened in
the capital that's a huge deal that is
if I might say that's like third what we
would think of as third world behavior
in our society and no offense to those
from other parts of the world I'm just
trying to make a point is how we see
that as happening somewhere else not
here that's a big fucking deal
uh the case that is not a big deal
I guess the case to make there is that
they didn't succeed
the case that is not a big deal is not
that their intentions were not bad I I
don't see how you can Define defend
their intentions the cases uh that the
case there's not a big deal so they're a
bunch of clowns
and uh yeah they broke in uh but in the
end once they got in there they didn't
know what to do which is true
and so you know I think a professional
couplotter would say these were the
amateurs
and that they had no real chance of
succeeding because once they got into
the capital they had no plan what to do
next what were they going to do you know
steal stapler from Nancy Pelosi's office
they didn't seem to have a plan and what
ended up happening they they left the
building would that that would be the
case that's not a big deal because their
intention was not to overthrow their
intention was to protest because if the
intention was to overthrow would be much
more organized I think the evidence is
pretty overwhelming that they intended
to to stop they were there to stop the
certification of the election they were
there to prevent Donald Trump from
having to leave office they just didn't
have a good plan this was the Keystone
Cops
so you're saying there is some POS like
statistically some possibility that this
would have
succeeded at halting the basic process
of democracy you could imagine a
scenario where it might have if they had
gotten lucky sure if they had if they
had caught the vice president
but what could have if they caught the
vice president they couldn't go on and
certify then he has to be there yeah but
don't you think that would resolve
itself through police action and so on
my question is how much how much is this
individual Hooligans
and how much of this is a gigantic
movement that's challenging the very
fabric well it's not a gigantic movement
but it was a small coup d'etat that
could have actually made the transition
much more difficult was there a scenario
where Donald Trump stayed in office
legitimately no but was there a scenario
where they created a great deal of chaos
that further undermine our democracy
actually yes here's how it would happen
right they capture Pence right they
either kidnap him and try to Ransom him
or they which is what they were trying
to do with the Michigan governor
governor Whitmer or they kill him and
then Donald Trump says okay well there's
no vice president so you can't certify
the Senate would choose someone else to
be vice president but Donald Trump says
no that's not legitimate I think it's
possible Donald Trump would say
something like that absolutely
I disagree with you he said that morning
that Penn should not certify he said
that morning but there's a difference
between sort of Twitter rhetoric no no
he said it at a rally sure rally
rhetoric and there is a threshold it
feels like a big leap he asked people
around him in the Oval Office how he
could make that happen he tried to get a
new person appointed attorney general
who would do that he tried to find legal
justification for it I I think the
evidence is overwhelming that Trump was
supportive of efforts after the election
didn't go the way he wanted to keep him
in office
and and whether that's legally
actionable and whether one thinks that
means he's a bad president or not isn't
a matter of opinion but facts are facts
yeah I just wonder if it's possible for
him to have stayed president in this in
this kind of context you know he seems
like a heated just like you said
elections can even be violent uh they're
they're heated people are very upset
when Donald Trump won the presidency in
2016 I was in Cambridge Massachusetts
uh the amount of anger
uh I was just get the energy I was
getting from people I mean that I if if
there was any way to channel that anger
I think people would be in trouble but
let's but let's anger yeah I agree with
that and that is right and elections are
violent as I said but this is different
this this is the person in the office of
the presidency using the power of the
presidency to try to stay in office to
imperil people's lives to distort our
government on a scale we had not seen
before and and these are not opinions of
mine we have the documentary evidence we
have the testimony from people about
this we can differ over what you think
of his presidency as a whole
we can differ over whether you think he
should be held legally responsible those
are matters of opinion but the facts are
he sat on January 6th watched it on TV
did not send ever
ever did he ever send any protection for
Congress that is his job
and throughout asked continue to ask how
this could the certification could be
prevented to you that's not incompetence
that's malevolence absolutely
if I watch my children
getting harmed and I don't do something
about it I'm watching it and in fact I
take action that tries to help those who
are doing the harm you would not just
say I'm an incompetent president you
would apparent you would say it was a
negligent parent and you'd call parental
support to take away my children
I was troubled by the way the Press
covered it that they politicized the
crap out of that
um
and not not just the Press but also
Congress itself it just seemed like
impeachment and all this that just
seemed to be a kind of circus that
wasn't interested in in democracy or
non-partisanship
I don't so it's very difficult for me to
see the situation in with clear eyes
because it's been colored by the Press I
got it's very difficult for me to know
what is even true
members of Congress
including our members of Congress from
our district and others right
their lives were threatened
they've been traumatized
I have a lot of students at least a
dozen who are staff members
more than half are Republicans
part of what traumatized them
was that the president did not do his
job to not protect them yes as a child
would be traumatized not only if harmed
by someone but if Mom and Dad don't do
everything they can one of the things
that makes people feel safe is they know
their parents they know their personal
Authority can't always keep them safe
but they want to know the person's
always trying I agree with you that
they're listen I'm a I'm somebody that
believes in this kind of idea of family
especially people I work with that that
to me is a high ideal to protect but
that's a little bit different it's his
job that's a little bit different than
protecting democracy those are two
different things protecting the your
employees and protecting democracy is an
ideal no you could say he didn't protect
either but I think the criticism that he
didn't protect the employees is one
thing but the employees in this case are
the ones carrying out democracy so it's
like saying the general who doesn't
protect his soldiers is maybe not
protecting his employees he's also not
protecting the war effort right it is
his that the people we're talking about
the people who are actually doing the
work of democracy at that moment the
most basic function of democracy which
is certifying votes
and their lives with I I I'm telling you
I had I had students one who works for
Senator Romney for example who spent
hours in a closet
hearing people outside looking on her
phone when is the president sending
people to protect us so we can do our
job and she was not happy with the way
the election turned out but she was
there to do her job because she believes
in democracy to serve as the senate in
the Senate's rule what should have
Donald Trump done without turning him
into a different human being he should
have immediately
it the just as we were watching things
get breached the moment they had that
the members of the house and the senate
had to evacuate their respective
Chambers he should have immediately gone
on TV and Twitter and every space he
could and tell his supporters to leave
and say what he never said
this is Un-American what you're doing
this is unacceptable we never use those
words this is Un-American this is
unacceptable I am completely against
anyone storming the capital like this go
home now please or you can use his own
language but tell him to leave yeah and
immediately as soon as we know he was
watching for hours and we have testimony
from his own daughter from Ivanka saying
she tried time and again to get him to
say something earlier on and he didn't
he watched it
he can still criticize
all the politicians he can criticize
everyone he wants but he should have
told him to leave all you should do in
that moment is basic a protecting
democracy protecting the capital Leaf
tell them to leave and do everything he
can to find any kind of force he can
give to go protect the capital
I wonder how difficult it is to lose a
presidential election
it's happened so many times we know I
understand that but it's uh
especially when like what is it you know
uh 80 million people vote for you or
like some like millions and millions and
millions of people vote for you it's
crazy it's crazy this democracy thing is
crazy George H.W bush yeah won a war in
the Middle East right he had 90 approval
rating and then a year later lost the
election to someone Bill Clinton he
thought had none of the experience he
had someone didn't have he believed
didn't have the right moral character
and Bush did everything he could to help
the next president get started well and
they became good friends yeah George W
bush
if didn't love Obama
that's considered one of the smoothest
transitions George W bush ordered every
single person in his administration to
do everything they could to help the new
admit that's that's what a leader does
yeah humility is one of the things I
admire in leaders
well that felt heated
speaking of which uh can you just Linger
on how how do you think we can heal the
divide in this country do you think it's
possible there feels to be a strong
Division I think we can heal the Divide
I think
um as you said there's so many
opportunities with new technology to
bring people together just as we're
using it to tear them apart
um I I have the best job in the world
because I get to teach so many students
uh of 300 in my class in the spring in a
U.S history class and what I found with
my students is they're mostly not
Democrats or Republicans
they mostly care about the same things
every one of my students seems to care
about climate change
I thought you're going to say Tick Tock
but okay yeah second second to that
climate change you know and and I think
they um
I think they offer a a new future for us
and here's what I'll say as a historian
we go through cycles of division and
cycles of less division less
partisanship one moment when it seems
people agree too much on the mainstream
encourages people to go to the extremes
when people see the extremes they want
to come back to the middle and that is
where my students are most of my
students want uh lower inflation
they agree with Republicans on that but
they want more more to be done about
climate change they're they're in the
middle on these issues and and I think
giving them more more opportunity so
what's the best way to heal our
divisions honestly
get the old men out and the young women
and men in because they ultimately don't
have that same division in them like
deeply baked in not only that they they
were they they find it disgusting in the
way you and I do yeah that's true what's
the right way to have conversations I
mean just just to stay on that with
people on the left and the right
uh yeah I mean I don't know how often
you practice this you care about
politics how often do you talk to people
who um who voted for Trump or who are
Republicans it's hard I try but it's
hard 75 of people I talk to
are not those people do you have people
who are trying to support it in your
extended family
Thanksgiving no I don't in my extended
are they are they no longer
no longer in my family yeah
I have taken them out of the photos yeah
you just erase yeah I do uh but I know P
I have friends yeah who fall into that
but it's it's still a minority of my
friend group so I want to you know be
clear that I'm not as good at this as I
should but I think we do have to reach
out but but I also I I'm less interested
honestly in
re-fighting old battles with old dogs
I'm more interested in finding ways to
get a new crop of people
educated and involved and engaged
without imparting the same the same
partisanship on them so I I will support
I mean this I have to I will support and
encourage especially any student of mine
but any young person who is smart has
good ideas I don't care whether I don't
ask whether a Democrat or Republican and
I have given money to some young
candidates who are not Democrats
um so that that's the way I I think it's
it's a generational change
and I think it's reaching out uh and
trying to
get people to see beyond partisan
divisions who are in their 20s and teens
rather than that's why we do our podcast
that this is democracy Zachary and I do
that my son and I because we're exactly
that you will never hear an episode
where we take one side or another our
goal is to explain the issue whether
it's uh the challenges of democracy in
China
or it's climate change or whatever it is
or its memory of war in our society and
to explain the issue and then offer
people an optimistic pathway that's on
either one side nor the other so
actually to push back a little bit on
young people I do see that uh this is
the exhaustion with the sort of
partisanship but I've also and this I
think is the case throughout history and
I see it now especially in the in the
teenage years
especially if I'm being asked with boys
there's a desire for extremism in
various directions all kinds of
extremism like just extreme
awesomeness or extreme anything just
extreme and F the man that tries to make
me behave this kind of energy and that's
why you can take any ideology basically
any extreme ideology stops being
exciting whether you're a Marxist or a
communist you're not just going to be
like for socialized health care you're
gonna be like no no no no let's go full
hammer and sickle yep I'm gonna wear red
and then the same with the white
supremacy or uh just a red pill this the
way you you see you the way you see
Society the way you see the world the
extremism is there and part of that it's
kind of uh to steal that perspective and
it can be productive that energy if it's
controlled and especially if we have
institutions that keep it a little under
like control one of the criticisms I
have with with a lot of people have I
I'm I'm actually much more moderate than
that criticism of universities as they
give a little too much power to the 18
year old who just showed up with their
Marxist like books and so on and they
they want to burn the whole thing down
that's beautiful but the whole process
of the universities get different
viewpoints educate uh more make that
person's Viewpoint more sophisticated
complex nuance and all that kind of yeah
I think you're right but I think that's
more talk than action in my experience
there is especially among young men
you're absolutely right there is a
valorization of the tough guy
because most men 18 and 19 are still not
fully comfortable in their masculinity
however they're going to Define it and
so a way of of Performing that is being
extreme in one way or another and and
I've definitely seen that but I think
it's it's more often than not rhetoric
and actually
there's a very strong power of peer
pressure and Conformity that works on
young people and the positive side of
that now is the peer pressure among them
is not to join one party or the other
it's to say this is this is terrible
look at how our parents are screwing
things up and they're right and I think
we can lean into that and get a lot of
positive creative action uh out of that
on universities you brought this up a
few times and and I think we have to be
careful I think you and I agree on this
um it's not that universities are free
of bias the universities especially
large universities whether it's UT MIT
Yale whatever we're talking about right
uh they're large complex Empires
and most universities people in the Arts
tend to be a little left of center at
self-selection
those in engineering tend to be pretty
much in the middle and those at Business
Schools tend to be right of Center
and so I think we need to be careful not
to to generalize
um you know at the University of Texas
there's as much influence from the
business school and the athletic
department as there is from the
humanities uh so it's not a left-leaning
campus and that's also true at at Yale
you have the School of Management and
you know you have a huge uh medical
school right people who are very
professional uh and less political on a
lot of these issues so so I think we
have to be careful I think there's
certain pockets of things
but some of that you're never going to
avoid right Engineers are always going
to be the people who hey now what do you
I'm sure who who who want to generally
find some objective measure and avoid
political interpretation right they want
to find their objective measure I'm
surprised of how most people in like
robotics don't seem to they're afraid of
humans they run away from you precisely
precisely and and the Arts people are
always going to be more touchy-feely and
the business people are always going to
like markets I mean my own personal
opinion on this is uh this is just me
talking
yeah and it's I don't know if it's
grounded in data but just my own
experiences it seems a lot of the things
that people criticize about universities
comes from administrations from the
bureaucracies the faculty and the
students are even with biases are really
interesting people and all of their
different I wouldn't call them biases
but different perspectives add to the
conversation it's the administrator too
much of course you need just like with
institutions you need some but too much
it becomes too heavy-handed and
um somehow that has been getting a
little bit out of hand at a bunch of
universities just too much too much
Administration and I don't know what the
mechanism is to let to make it more
efficient but that's been always a
struggle maybe the public criticism is
the very mechanism that makes
universities the administration smaller
absolutely we have we have those issues
and off you can also say Athletics has
gotten out of control sure yeah
like you said you co-host a podcast with
your son Zachary called This is
democracy what it's been
has a million question I can ask but uh
just that pops the memory what's been a
challenging or maybe an eye-opening
conversation you've had on it
oh we've had a lot of eye-opening
conversations our most recent episode
um is an episode on the German right as
as I'm sure many of your your listeners
know there was a group uh called the
reichberger I think they still exist in
Germany they were actually led by a
former German Prince uh and
um they had been planning to assassinate
the bundes counselor and we're
organizing all sorts of other efforts
they do not believe that the current
German government is legitimate they
think the last legitimate government was
the Nazi government they see the whole
post-war period is illegitimate this is
the German far-right correct and we had
on uh a member of the German bundestag
of their Parliament who's been involved
in the investigations or in the
oversight of the investigations and
talking with her about the depth of
these issues and the challenges they
face in Germany it's certainly not a
huge part of German Society but it's a
significant number of people probably
more than 20 000 people who are part of
this
um to me brought home
how much of what we thought was the past
is still in the present and I think
that's a recurring theme in our in our
show and our show is optimistic it's not
about woes to the world it's actually
about taking issues we take a topic each
week that's in the news we go back to
understand the history and we then use
that history to make better policy to
talk about how to make better policy
today and in this case it was clear that
even in Germany there's a lot of
Unfinished work in explaining to people
and helping those for instance in the
former East where a lot of this group
has its support
why this government is legitimate why it
operates the way it does and addressing
their concerns it it was strikingly
similar to some of the problems we have
in our own yes that there's a Far Right
movement in Germany so you look at all
different parts of the world as well we
do we we did an episode recently on uh
China on the effects of zero covid and
the protests in China uh we've done a
number of episodes on the war in Ukraine
our our role each week is to have on
either a policy maker a scholar or an
activist who can help us understand an
issue and get Beyond partisanship so
what's been eye-opening are some of the
details but what's also been eye-opening
honestly is how easy it is to have a
nonpartisan conversation
it's not hard
uh we open every episode with a poem
that Zachary writes he writes an
original poem I'll brag on my son he's
the youth Poet Laureate in Austin right
now and he writes a poem on each topic
what's the style of poetry usually you
know he's dark is he no he's usually
he's he's often ironic ironic like with
a bit of humor yes okay and he likes
word plays so he's not like a rebellious
dark uh teenager that's just no he's a
creative know-it-all
strong words he would probably disagree
um but what's interesting I was like
you're the you know it all oh no
we do have a lot of followers uh and
most of them comment on him they don't
comment on me so I'm the junior partner
you're the Yoko Ono of the partnership
correct I'm scared but what I will say
and this is a really optimistic thing
that I deeply believe if you frame
things properly you open with a poem you
open with questions not with partisan
positions uh even when we have someone
on who's a known Republican or Democrat
we can have a very non-partisan
conversation I mean of course we get
criticisms but we're almost never
criticized for being uh partisan one way
or the other it's not hard to do this
you just have to make an effort to avoid
the the partisan claptrap that we can
all fall into focus on the humanity what
is your brilliant popular son Zachary
taught you about life
always taught me so much in his 18 years
as has our daughter who's 20. two things
stand out he's taught me that um a new
generation has so much to offer
and I don't just mean because he's smart
and engaged as our daughter is too I I
also mean that you realize when you have
a child
that even though you're doing the same
things with them they see the world
differently and legitimately and it
reminds us that the world can be seen
legitimately in different ways
and it's not that he and I disagree on
major political issues it's actually the
small stuff that he sees differently
like in the details you see that you can
have a very different perspectives
exactly you have a very way different
way to draw to create a painting of the
same scene and then the other thing he's
taught me
um is as I said about the Poetry the
importance of the Arts I've always been
a a lover of the Arts but it had always
been in some ways parallel to my
historical scholarship we need to do a
better job of integrating as as as the
Greeks did right the Artistry all the
things we do we separate them as
disciplines but they're all deeply
connected this is what I like about your
podcast honestly is that you integrate
all these things you'll have people on
with AI you'll have a guy doing arm
wrestling you have all these things
together right and it's it's that these
worlds come together
and there's a lot to gain by bringing
the Arts and the sciences and all this
together it's an obvious thing to say
but we forget yeah and it somehow it
becomes bigger than the individual Parts
um what gives you hope about the future
you looked at especially with this book
and just such a divisive
part of our history and the claim the
idea that you carry through the book
that that division still permeates our
society so what gives you hope I try to
end the book on a very hopeful note
because I am hopeful I'm hopeful that
these divisions were made by people and
can be unmade by people I do not believe
that what I describe in this book The
Division the the hate that we see today
as well I don't think it's inevitable
I think it can be actually corrected
quite easily
and corrected easily by addressing the
challenges in our institutions the ways
in which this history has been embodied
in our institutions even though we're
different
and uh through our own recognizing of it
the gift of the last few years I don't
care whether you're a Democrat or
Republican the gift of the last few
years is that we've been able to see the
horror around us and once you see the
horror you can do something about it
what's dangerous is when the horror is
there and you don't see it and it's
hidden it's been unmasked I don't care
where you stand I think I I I probably
spoken in about 25 30 cities about this
book every audience I've asked how many
of you have been shaken by the last four
to five years and everyone everywhere
has raised their hand
that's a gift that's Consciousness
raising I grew up in a time in the 1980s
uh when we were concerned everyone was
apathetic that was what was was being
said we had lower vote voter turnout
than we have now people didn't seem to
care
my students when I was a young person
I'm still a young person I was a very
young Professor in the early 2000s my
students all wanted to work for banks
they just wanted to make money the best
students wanted to go work for Goldman
we're not in that world anymore there's
been a Consciousness raising
knowing there's a problem naming the
problem gives us a chance to fix the
problem
and I think that's where we are as a
society now young people are excited to
to solve the problem do you think the
individual
like if the young person is listening to
this do you think the individual has
power in this absolutely I think the
individuals a huge amount of power now
there's a demographic reason we've got
all these old people who held on too
long look at the president look at
Senate and look at any any institution
and they're all we're reaching a
demographic Cliff unlike China we have a
large population that's coming up
so there those who are watching now who
are in their 20s they're going to get to
move into leadership positions much
faster than their parents did let's go
just yeah so that's one and then the
second thing is just what we're doing
here I mean social media when used
properly gives a platform to young
people
you know they don't have to go through
the New York Times Like I Do Right
this is why I do the podcast with my son
find other ways uh you reach millions of
people
and and this can be done you don't need
to wait for the old guys to give you the
check mark that it's okay
just uh put on a suit get a haircut and
start speaking nonsense into microphone
and uh yeah well also I mean have a very
neat place
that's why I love you uh all right
Jeremy you're an incredible human being
thank you for talking once more time
thank you for writing this important
book I I hope you keep writing and uh I
hope to keep uh talking to you because
you're The Shining Beacon uh of
political hope I have here in Austin
that would get uh that we get to enjoy I
want to thank you for having me on and
thank you for your show I think what
you're doing is is so important and uh I
really deeply respect what you do
thanks for listening to this
conversation with Jeremy Surry to
support this podcast please check out
our sponsors in the description and now
let me leave you with some words from
Abraham Lincoln
nearly all men can stand adversity
if you want to test a man's character
give them power
thanks for listening and hope to see you
next time