You said recently in
a speech
that if
we keep having these terrible differences
that we have, we will destroy each other.
We have to find a way
how to live together.
I spoke to one of the Republican
candidates, former Governor
Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas,
who said to me,
give the candidates a chance
to talk about the issues
that Americans are concerned about.
Let's use appropriate language.
Let's be clear
that we have differences of policy,
but that doesn't always make
the person on the other side
an evil person or somebody
that doesn't love our country.
Do you think the Republicans
will coalesce
around that kind of message?
No.
There's no evidence that that's where
their head is at right now.
Now, that doesn't mean that that's
not attainable over time.
You know, look, I.
It wasn't
that long ago
that I got a lot of Republican votes.
It wasn't that long ago where
John McCain was the Republican nominee
and actively shut down
a speaker at a town hall
who was saying that I was an
illegal alien bent on imposing
Sharia law on the United States.
And there are still a bunch of folks
who are more politically conservative
than I am on social issues, on
economic issues, but who I consider
good people, thoughtful people
who I learn from
and who I enjoy conversations with.
And so the polarization
that we've seen in
our national politics is not
identical to
what's happening on the ground.
But what is true is that partly
because of
where people are getting information
these days,
the siloing of of information.
If you are watching Fox News,
I've said this before,
if you're watching Fox News or
following on some right wing radio host
or getting Facebook feeds
within that bubble,
your reality is different
than if you read The New
York Times or watch
your program.
And
when when people are getting such
fundamentally different facts
or what they think
to be facts
and their worldviews are so skewed
and in a
one direction or another,
and it's very hard for democracy to work.
So there's the reason
why I've been spending a lot of time,
both in the foundation and in other work,
talking about these problems
of misinformation,
not just the kind of misinformation
that we see Putin engaging in,
in in the Ukraine situation, not just
during election time,
but just this constant demonization
of the other side,
making people fearful of each other.
And unfortunately,
I think that's going to be
a problem that gets even more pronounced
with the advent of A.I.
and deepfakes and all these challenges.
And we want to talk about that a lot with
with the leaders
in the second part of this program.
And I just wanted to ask you
before I got to them finally race.
You're the first black president
when Trump was elected
somebody who used to work for you
and now is an analyst.
Van Jones said white lash.
It was the white lash against
a black presidency.
Do you think the white lashes receding?
And I guess combined with that,
how do you interpret two candidates
of color?
Nikki Haley,
former governor of South
Carolina, Tim
Scott, Senator of South Carolina,
who is saying that Obama wants to keep
essentially race as part of the
of the equation,
a part of the
you know, the conversation again.
And you have
you don't believe that
that everybody has an equal chance
in the United States
no matter what their color?
Well, look,
I won't comment on
what Republican candidates say.
I'm not running. So they can
say, hey, they can
find other ways to occupy their time
I think race has always been
the fault line in American
life, in American politics.
That's not original to me.
I think any observer of America
would say that
I and by the way,
that historically has not sort of been
a one sided partizan issue.
My favorite president, Abraham Lincoln,
did an awful lot
to advance the cause of freedom.
And conversely,
the Democratic Party was
where the Dixiecrats resisted
civil rights and progress for years
and imposed Jim Crow.
So
it is something that
America has had to grapple
with for centuries.
I think we have made real progress and,
you know,
although I was always skeptical
that by election
somehow signified a post-racial America.
If you look at any speech
I gave throughout my presidency,
I was always someone
who reminded the country of the progress
that was possible.
That was my brand.
That's part of the hope and change thing.
But what I've also always said about
hope was it can't be blind hope.
It can't be a willful ignorance
to our history.
We reckon with our history.
That's how we then
get better.
That's how we perfect our union.
You know,
in the same way
that Germany got better
when it looked squarely
at what happened
during World
War Two and came to terms with that.
And that's part of why
it is a
thriving, stable
and increasingly diverse society.
And, you know,
that's part of the argument that I think
all of us,
not just in the
United States
or in Europe,
but around the world,
have to come to terms with
humans, have a strong desire
to coalesce,
particularly during
times of stress around tribe,
clan, race,
you know,
whatever our religious preferences are.
And politicians
have a good way of exploiting that.
And if we don't resist it,
then we're going to have problems.
And by the way, it's
not just that
that us them
dynamic is not just around race.
I would argue that in the United States
and I suspect in Europe
as well, changing gender roles
have have fueled at least
as much of a backlash
as the racial backlash
that's this enormous fear
among
men and of those
who like the traditional structures
and hierarchies and patriarchy
get very
nervous when you have women suddenly
being outspoken
in thinking that they should have
the same rights and power as men do.
And when you have people
of different sexual orientation saying,
I'm here,
I want a seat at the table,
that has been very threatening.
And there's one last ingredient
that I'd be remiss if I didn't mention.
I do think there's an economic
element to our democracy
that we have to pay attention to.
Our democracy is not going to be healthy
with the levels of inequality
that we've seen generated
from globalization, automation,
the decline in unions,
obscene inequality.
You think about news of the day.
Generally, we're not talking
about news of the day,
but right now we have
a 20 for our coverage,
and I
understand it, of this submarine,
the submersible
that that tragically is right now
we've lost at the bottom of the sea
at the same time right here
in just off the coast of Greece,
we had 700
people dead, several hundred migrants
who were apparently being smuggled
into here.
And we've made news, but it's not
dominating in the same way.
And in some ways
it's indicative of the degree to which
people's life chances
have have grown so desperate.
It's very hard to sustain a democracy
when you have such massive
concentrations of wealth.
And so part of my argument has been that
unless we attend to that,
unless we
make people feel
more economically secure, and we're in
taking more seriously
the need to create ladders of opportunity
and a stronger safety net
that's adapted to these new technologies
and the displacements
that are taking place around the world,
if we don't take care of that,
that's
also going to fuel the kind of
mostly far right populism But it can also
potentially come from the left
that is undermining democracy because
it makes people angry and
resentful and scared.