My guest tonight is a Pulitzer Prize-winning
presidential historian whose latest book
is called The Soul of America:
The Battle for Our Better Angels.
Please welcome Jon Meacham.
-♪ ♪ -(cheering, applause)
-Thank you. -Welcome to the show.
Thank you, sir.
You have an interesting role as a writer
and as a presidential historian.
You just look at the history of presidents.
Is Donald Trump unprecedented?
Have you ever seen anything like this?
-Are we overreacting? -We're not overreacting.
And he's sort of "precedented."
Uh, we have seen various elements
-of dema... of demagogues, -Uh-huh.
of people who have wanted to blow up the conventions,
have done the wrong thing. who valued hope over...
-valued fear over hope. -Right.
Which is what this president's about.
But to treat him as if he is a unique creature
is almost to give him superpowers
that we shouldn't endow him with.
That's an interesting point. Do you think, though, that maybe
he doesn't... it's not that we're giving him superpowers,
it's that he lives in an age where he has superpowers?
Like, you know, some of the presidents
you talk about in the book, and some of the leaders,
like McCarthy, for instance, who was a senator,
we see similar traits to Trump, but they didn't have Twitter,
they didn't have mediums that helped them connect
-with as many people. -The thing I would...
This is not a book about... or an argument
about, hey, let's relax, because we've been here before.
-Right. Right, right. -It's, let's get to work,
learn from what we've done before,
and press forward.
If you hadn't been used to a printing press,
or if you hadn't been used to radio,
or you hadn't been used to television--
hey, it's the information superhighway,
-the paper's coming. -Right. Right, right.
You know, uh, more than 140 characters.
But the speed of communication has exacerbated.
-Right. -Trump has exacerbated.
Damn near everything, uh, come to think of it.
But, you know, we had a president in Andrew Johnson
during Reconstruction,
who opposed the 14th and 15th Amendments,
who vetoed civil rights legislation.
He wrote in a state paper
that people of color were genetically incapable
-of self-government. -Right.
So not exactly a great moment, you know? He's not on Rushmore.
Uh, and even the guys on Rushmore made mistakes.
My argument is that we have to find a way
to protest, to resist, to heed our better angels,
because no era's perfect,
and yet we've pushed on to a more perfect union.
When you talk about The Soul of America:
The Battle for Our Better Angels,
you're speaking about Lincoln--
-the quotes that Lincoln, -Yes.
that Lincoln famously said about our better angels,
looking for the best in us as human beings--
do you think that that's America's journey,
is constantly trying to be better than it actually is?
In the soul of Amer-- in Hebrew and in Greek
the word "soul" means breath or life,
so it's a philosophical idea, it's a religious idea--
there's room for Dr. King,
and there's room for the Klan.
In every era is a battle between our best impulses
-and our worst impulses. -Right.
And even at our best,
we've barely gotten to 51% on the good side,
but we have gotten there.
And the tragedy of the era, right now,
is that the person who is at the center of our national life,
who in many ways has taken over.
This is the world's longest hostage siege, you know?
He owns our mind space, you know.
He's just, you know, I feel as though
we're chained up in a garage,
and no one can hear our cries.
But I think they ultimately...
I like how you say this in this, like, the most chill voice ever.
"I feel like we're chained up in a garage
and no one can hear our cries."
It's, uh, yeah.
We go to WASP school for that.
Uh, it's great. It's great.
There's a, there's a little room at Brooks Brothers
-where we practice. -That's hilarious.
Um, so...
There's a picture of George Bush to look at.
It's really great.
Uh, so-- and he is, he is at the center of the culture
in a, in a destructive way, really.
When you look at America's history, though,
and you say it's to learn
-from previous presidents, -Yep.
it's to learn how America overcame those moments
of populism and demagoguery,
do you sometimes think that maybe it would be best served
to not look at American history for Trump,
to maybe look at countries
-where they've had dictators -Sure.
-that started out as a democratic leader -Sure.
-and then molded the country into something else. -Sure.
Th-There's, unquestionably, global elements here.
And unquestionably, he would,
I think, welcome dictatorial powers.
The-The thing about the American experiment though,
is the Constitution was designed
-for just this kind of moment. -Right.
That's why we should take some heart in--
It would have stunned the founders
that it took till 2016 to get someone like this.
The checks and balances were there,
the document itself,
Hamilton was very good on this when he wasn't rapping.
Uh, you know, he had a day job.
I don't know. You have to tell the kids that.
You know, he wasn't just a rapper.
Uh, the idea was that appetite
would counteract appetite,
ambition would counteract ambition.
And we have these checks and balances.
Right now, the presidency is not a force for good.
Congress, far too often, takes a dive on this.
But the press is doing a good job,
the people are doing a great job.
Whether it's the activism on Florida,
whether it's the activism on women,
the shootings, the gun control,
on the whole host of issues.
And Amer-- progress in America and in the world
has come when the voices of protest
that are far from power
have intersected with a presidential moment
and where the powerful have heeded those voices.
And we've just got...
You've got to have the voices rising
-in a chorus-- to torture this metaphor. -Right.
-This is a Guantanamo metaphor right now. -Right, right, right.
For-for the voices to rise,
and ultimately, it carries the day.
Women have not voted yet for 100 years.
Marriage equality's not three years old.
In my native region in the South,
people of color 50 years ago could not vote.
And yet we've created a country that,
even for all of Donald Trump, people...
What is our immigration issue?
-People want to come here. -Right.
And that's a good sign, because it shows
that America is still a place that people want to come to.
But at the same time,
Donald Trump is slowly turning it into the place
that people don't want to come to anymore.
Well, he's-he's doing what he can,
but he's...
-(laughs) -Yeah, there's no doubt about that.
But remember, Trump thinks of us
not as a country, but as an audience.
And I think one of the things we have to do
is remind ourselves
that, in fact, we were a country
-before we were taken hostage -Wow.
in November of 2016.
And I don't think you've had Saint Augustine
-on the show recently. -No.
-Okay. But... So, I'm gonna throw a quote at you. -No.
Saint Augustine once wrote that a nation--
it's the best definition of a nation I've ever heard--
is a multitude of rational beings
united by the common objects of their love.
It's a wonderful phrase.
"A multitude of rational beings
united by the common objects of their love."
So what do we love in common?
-Traditionally, Americans love fair play. -Uh-huh.
Equality of opportunity, not of outcome.
A chance, as Lincoln said,
to rise up by your own labor.
And when we listen to those voices, guess what?
We get stronger.
And this is not a partisan point.
I've voted for Democrats. I've voted for Republicans.
I will continue to if Republicans survive,
uh, the next couple years.
But we have managed to grow stronger
the more generously we've interpreted the notion
-that we're all created equal. -Right.
That's a historical data point.
The world... My friend Fareed Zakaria likes to point out
the world's largest air force is the United States Air Force.
Do you know what the second one is?
The United States Navy's.
-We're doing just fine. -We're doing just fine.
That's a nice way for us to think about it.
We're doing just fine.
But we might die tomorrow.
Thank you so much for being on the show.
The Soul of America is available now.
Jon Meacham, everybody.