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America's forever war, with Nick Bryant
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The American experiment is failing. Division, mistrust and misinformation are now the country's defining characteristics. The storming of the Capitol, the prosecution of Donald Trump and battles over gun rights and abortion raise the spectre of further political violence.
We often hear that these events are unprecedented. On the contrary, author and journalist Nick Bryant suggests that the hate, divisiveness and paranoia we see today are in fact a core part of America's story. His remarkable new book is titled 'The Forever War: America's Unending Conflict with Itself'.
Follow Will Kingston and Fire at Will on social media here.
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Transcript
Introduction and Political Landscape
00:00:19
Speaker
G'day and welcome to Fire at Will, a safe space for dangerous conversations. I'm Will Kingston. Lennon memorably said that there are decades where nothing happens and there are weeks where decades happen. We are recording this episode on the 22nd of July, 2024, a mere 12 hours after Joe Biden announced he would not seek reelection for the presidency and a touch over eight days since Donald Trump miraculously dodged a bullet.
Introduction of Nick Bryant and Historical Context
00:00:49
Speaker
It certainly feels like we are living through a decade-long week. It feels unprecedented. In fact, that word has been used perhaps more than any other in discussions about modern American politics.
00:01:03
Speaker
America's extreme polarization, the populism, the political violence, the surrealness of it all, is framed as some deviation from a historical norm where America was a shining city on a hill, the exceptional country inevitably progressing towards becoming a more perfect union. My guest today, journalist and author Nick Bryant, has shattered this myth in his new book, The Forever War, America's Unending Conflict with Itself. Nick argues that our understanding of America is based on false narratives and self-validating folklore
00:01:39
Speaker
The roots of the country's modern day malaise are to be found in its troubled and unresolved past. According to Nick, what we are seeing is not unprecedented. American politics in 2024 does not represent a wild deviation or a loss of innocence. Rather, it is firmly in keeping with a historical pattern. Nick, welcome to Fire at Will. Well, it's great to be here. Thanks for having me on. It's a pleasure to have you on. I know that you've just come back from the UK in the last 12 hours. As you told me just off air, a presidential dropout is all the the energy kick that you need.
Political Violence in America: A Historical Analysis
00:02:17
Speaker
We'll get to that. Let's go for the the other historic event of recent times, and that was the the recent Trump assassination attempt. This may sound a bit dark, but you really couldn't have asked for an event that reinforced the themes of your book or promoted it quite as
00:02:33
Speaker
powerfully as that attempted assassination would have been your reflections on what you saw in Pennsylvania and and its aftermath. Well, political violence is a continual thread, really, of the American story. I mean, not many people remember this, but the first speaker of the House of Representatives, a guy called Frank Muhlenberg, was the victim of an assassination attempt that failed. Donald Trump's great populist hero, Andrew Jackson, back in 1835, he was visiting Capitol Hill. A guy approached him with two pistols. Davy Crockett was one of the congressmen that came to his rescue.
00:03:09
Speaker
you know We've had four presidents who've lost their lives so as a result of of the actions of government. Abraham Lincoln, of course, just after the end of the Civil War, James Garfield, William McKinley, and of course, most recently, John F. Kennedy. And then, of course, there have been the near misses. FDR was almost killed just before his inauguration in 1933. Harry S. Truman was the victim of assassination attempt just opposite the White House. ah during his presidency jfk was targeted by an assassination attempt during the presidential transition before he took office a guy had a a car bomb that he was gonna drive into his limousine but decided the last minute to pull out because he saw that jfk was there with his wife and two kids so this is a really sort of familiar ah storyline in the american narrative and as so often during the trump years i found myself using that forward for formulation it's it's shocking but it's not surprising
00:04:03
Speaker
Every country, I imagine, could point to some form of political violence in their past. To what extent is this an American phenomenon, and to what extent is it just a sad reflection on human nature? Yeah, I think it is one of those ways in which America is exceptional. Sure, other countries have had political violence, but not to the same extent, really, as ah America, certainly not an advanced democracy. And while it was really interesting at the end of the 1960s, which was a particularly violent decade, of course, you had the assassination of JFK, you had the assassination of his brother.
00:04:35
Speaker
robert kennedy yeah the assassination of martin luther king malcolm x was killed george rockwell who's the head of the american nazi party he was killed as well and then the base johnson decided at the end of that decade that he wanted to try and undertake a quest for understanding as to why it was that america did seem prone to political violence and he appointed a group of academics to to try and study this problem is the first time it had ever been done. And they came out with some really interesting conclusions. They said that there was a an aspect of vigilante justice that stemmed from the frontier wars when America was expanding westward. The suppression of Native Americans, the suppression of Mexicans. Racism was often at the heart of political violence. There were a lot of racist pogroms throughout American history. One thing they touched on was that America was founded on a revolutionary ideology, a violent revolutionary ideology. They celebrated on July the 4th, the War of Independence Against the Britain.
00:05:27
Speaker
America came into existence as the result of violent struggle. And they said that created a sense of legitimate violence, of of glorious violence indeed. On January the 6th, many of the insurrectionists actually chanted 1776 as they ah invaded the capital because they really saw themselves as patriots rather than seditionists acting in the spirit of the American Revolution. And what they also said was that America tends to be very forgetful about the extent of political violence. partly because it contradicts that sort of grand narrative of American history that they are the chosen people, they are blessed by God, that America is the new Jerusalem. And that positive sense of American exceptionalism blinded them to this negative aspect of American exceptionalism, the prevalence of political violence throughout its history.
Myths of American Exceptionalism
00:06:16
Speaker
And my understanding is, as a kid growing up in Birmingham, you very much bought into that shining American exceptionalism narrative.
00:06:24
Speaker
Tell me when did that start to change for you? Yeah, I speak of in the book of how I used to look up at this beautiful mosaic that was in a really grotty setting in my hometown of Birmingham in the West Midlands. um It was this mosaic showing a very handsome young man. He was addressing a multi-ethnic crowd. He was stood in front of this gold blob that looked like the Ark of the Covenant. And that gold blog was the presidential seal. The crowd included Martin Luther King and that handsome young man was John F. Kennedy. It was a memorial that had been set up in the shadow of the Roman Catholic Cathedral in Birmingham to celebrate his life. It was in a horrible underground area that was accessible only by these tunnels that almost always spelt of urine. But it was... it was
00:07:04
Speaker
Absolutely fixating for me and i had this fixation with the canada's i was fast and i was fast and i was fast and i was like i got a missus of american liberal hero and as i came to study kennedy in more depth i realize there was a dark side of camelot and i focus particularly on his civil rights record which is supposed to be the hallmark of kennedy's liberalism he's always portrayed as champion of the struggle for black equality of a politician who was central in the, end of segregation in the American South. But if you look to his record more closely, Kennedy was very pragmatic. He really regarded civil rights as a as a political irritation rather than a moral issue to champion. He was very late in the day to proposing a thoroughgoing civil rights legislation that did end up ending segregation in the South. But at that time, the Democrats were split between a a liberal side in the North, a segregationist side in the South. Kennedy was trying to straddle those two divides in his party.
00:07:59
Speaker
And he was very cynical in his handling of of civil rights. And that was when I started to think, well, if I've been taught a kind of mythic history about Kennedy, then maybe I've been taught a mythic history about America as well. Why do the myths endure? ah Because people want to believe them people really do want to believe this grand narrative of advancement and progress that, as you said in the introduction, America is always moving towards a more perfect union, which is a phrase that used to be used a lot by Barack Obama words from the preamble to the Constitution.
00:08:31
Speaker
And it's a seductive storyline where there is an American dream where. People can improve their standards of living and improve their kids standards of living by, by working hard and, and getting it getting on. But you know, it's Donald Trump showed in, in 2016 when he said the American dream is dead. So many Americans.
The Gerontocracy and Political Figures
00:08:53
Speaker
Believed him they no longer believe that their kids would have more abundant lives than they did and and in many ways Donald Trump's victory in 2016 was an affront to so many people because it seemed to contradict so many beliefs that they had about America, but what I argue in the book is is that donald trump is as much a product of american history is abraham lincoln is jeff k is fdr is ronald reagan as barack obama or joe biden it's just the the bits of american history that tend to contradict that narrative of progress and advancement.
00:09:27
Speaker
I do want to go deeper on some of those themes from the book, but just before we do, I'd be remiss not to ask you about the recent news about Biden and him dropping out of the race. One of the questions that historians will ask is how did America reach a point where a clearly declining octogenarian could be in the position in the first place? He's of course not alone. There are several members of this gerundocratic ruling class in America. How has this gerundocracy emerged? Well, it's interesting that an 81-year-old president has really been pushed out by ah House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who was 82 when she stepped down and faced this similar accusation that America had become a gerontocracy. I mean, Donald Trump is 78 years old. Mitch McConnell, who's the Senate minority leader, will step down eventually at the end of the year. but
00:10:16
Speaker
ah He's in his early eighties, you know on both sides of politics. There is this gerontocracy. Kamala Harris is being seen as a youthful candidate, but by historical standards. She isn't really that young. I mean Kennedy was in his early 40s when he became president. I think Barack Obama was 47. George W Bush was younger. Lyndon Bays Johnson was younger. Richard Nixon was younger. You know, how do we end up here? Well, Biden said he'd be a transitional figure. He would be a bridge to the next generation. But I think one of the reasons he stuck around but because he feared that his vice president, Kamala Harris, could not win ah the election. And I think it took an awful lot of persuading.
00:10:54
Speaker
to shift him from that position. And of course, if it hadn't been for the disastrous performance against Donald Trump in that first televised debate, then, you know, he would be clinging on. But I think there were two key moments for Biden which persuaded him that he should continue to run. I mean, one was the midterm elections in 2022. I think the Democrats did better than expected. If they'd have had a bad ah midterms, if there had been this red wave that was predicted sweeping the country i think they would be strong calls back then for bern to step aside.
00:11:27
Speaker
And similarly, he gave a very strong State of the Union speech that day. I don't know what he had for breakfast, but my goodness me, he was on fire that night. And I think if he'd had a bad night then, if he'd have shown what he did in the debate, which was a man who was really struggling, I think there would have been very loud calls for him to step aside them. But it was that third crucial moment, obviously, within 15 minutes of the presidential debate. I think it became clear to many Democrats that he could not be their party's presidential nominee. Well, you said that it took some convincing that Kamala Harris could be a credible nominee. And I think it looks like if you take opinion polls, a lot of Americans need convincing as well. Can she change perceptions about her in time for the November election?
00:12:11
Speaker
ah Look, I think she'll have problems in the Rust Belt. I think that's where she's probably the most vulnerable. I mean, I think that was the strongest rationale for Joe Biden seeking reelection, ah that he was a candidate that could appeal to these three crucial states that will probably decide who wins. And those states, of course, are Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. ah The Trump campaign will seek to portray her as this kind of liberal Californian. They'll say that she's the boarder czar that was appointed by Joe Biden to sort out the mess at the southern border and made it worse. I think they'll ridicule her. I think there's a risk that they'll dog whistle, that they might even be blatantly a racist. But arguably, that could work in her favor. I mean, Kamala Harris could be the candidate that kind of brings out the worst traits in Donald Trump. Not traits that are off-putting to the MAGA base, the MAGA brethren, but traits that are off-putting to the wavering voters in those crucial key states that will ultimately decide this election. And many of them, of course, are suburban women. So that might be her Trump card, as it were, ah that she may well bring out the worst traits of Donald Trump. You mentioned the Rust Belt there, and yeah J.D. Vance is a fascinating figure who's come out of the Rust Belt. He wrote a really popular book, Hillbilly Elegy, on his upbringing in the Appalachian Mountains and and has done good since then. Talk to me about J.D. Vance and why he was chosen and potentially the impact he will have on this campaign.
00:13:36
Speaker
Well, Trump said to him um that he was the candidate who he thought would bring him success in those three key states. The Rust Belt states, he's seen as something of a Rust Belt whisperer. He doesn't come from either of those states, but he comes from Ohio, which is a Rust Belt state with a with a similar vibe. He speaks the kind of language of of Trumpism now, at least, in a slightly more intellectual and cerebral way, but with similar themes, slamming the Wall Street elites.
00:14:08
Speaker
reviving the tradition of American isolationism, saying he doesn't really care what happens in Ukraine. That's a kind of Trumpian theme. And many people regard J.D. to balance, of course, as a kind of Trump with a brain that he kind of intellectualizes a form of Trumpism that has appeal to those Rust Belt voters. So that's what he brings ah to the ticket as far as Trump is concerned and the sense of generational renewal as well. He's a millennial, the first millennial ah to appear on a major party party ticket.
Class Divide and Democracy's Challenges
00:14:37
Speaker
But it it speaks of the direction of travel of the Republican party and how Donald Trump has succeeded in making the party of Ronald Reagan the party of Donald Trump.
00:14:44
Speaker
I mean, when J.D. Vance first emerged as a result of the success of Hill Billialogy, which is a brilliant book in which he was quite sneering at times of the people he'd left behind in the in the in the Rust Belt. He spoke of Trump as an idiot. Privately, he said he might be America's Adolf Hitler. But now, of course, he's become a Trump impersonator. And it shows that to get on in the Republican Party these days, you really need to, as Donald Trump put it when he campaigned on J.D. Vance's behalf in Ohio, you really need to kiss Donald Trump's ass. It's interesting, isn't it? Because the Republicans have undergone a transformation, but at the same time, so i have the Democrats. The party that was once the party of the workers is increasingly the party of college educated inner city elites. So both parties have almost inverted over the last 30 years. It is the story of modern American politics. As you look forward, which party do you think will be able to manage that inversion
00:15:38
Speaker
better Which party do you think will be more at home with their their new base? How do you see it playing out? Well, it's interesting. I mean, in the seven and the last eight presidential elections, the Democrats have won the popular vote. But of course that doesn't matter given the electoral system relies on winning key States and winning in the electoral college. This kind of weird mechanism that the founding fathers came up with really to thwart the popular will. There's always been this idea that demography favors the Democrats because it was felt that as America moved to becoming a majority minority nation.
00:16:10
Speaker
the democrats would be the beneficiary but it hasn't proved to be as simple as that donald trump has made inroads with the latino and hispanic vote donald trump has made certain inroads with the african-american vote as well it's the republican party doesn't look at the moment like it is going to be the kind of white nationalist party that some people thought it might become under the leadership of of donald trump so i think it's very much in play i mean joe biden did actually managed to win a lot of white working class voters in the last presidential election that was the reason why he won barack obama won a lot of white working class photos in in two thousand and eight even without milwaukee which is a very african american city with a lot of african american voters in it you would have one wisconsin so it's complicated and
00:16:57
Speaker
You see definitely, though, an educational divide opening up in American policy. It's in a class divide. There is this perception amongst many ah voters who would, in previous generations, have naturally voted Democrat to be more suspicious of a Democratic Party, which they believe has come to be too woke, as they would see it, and sneering of white working class voters, and I think that's always been part of the appeal of Donald Trump. They see him as a fellow victim of elite snaring. The class divide that you just mentioned is really interesting. We spoke to Batia Angasagan on the podcast quite recently, who's come out with a really fascinating book, effectively arguing that class has become the dividing line in modern American politics and culture.
00:17:45
Speaker
Interestingly, America, at least, the folklore suggests that it was was established almost in response to the class-based aristocratic society in the United Kingdom. Is this class dividing line that is emerging in American politics, is this new or is this another one of your your themes that you would point to that actually has echoes in the past of of of America? Well, American democracy was certainly seen in the early days as a kind of elite enterprise, a kind of close shop. I mean, the founding fathers and the people who set the democratic rules really regarded it as the preserve of white men of property. They really didn't like the idea of the popular will. They came up with mechanisms like the Electoral College to thwart it.
00:18:34
Speaker
The U.S. Senate was another mechanism designed to empower the minority rather than ah the majority. ah It was counter-majoritarian, and that's been the sort of system ever since. You know, you did have this expansion of democracy under Donald Trump's great hero, Andrew Jackson. It became much more of a mass democracy. But in the early days, the founding fathers were very worried about what they called an excess of democracy. The word democratically was used as a slur. They didn't put the word democracy in the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence because they were slightly worried about its implications. They really did see it as a kind of aristocratic pastime and that democracy in America should be a close shot. I can't recall exactly the line in your book, but you say that American democracy isn't necessarily that healthy at the moment, and and but at the same time, it it was always a quasi-democracy in the first place. It wasn't that healthy to begin with. When did that myth
00:19:31
Speaker
start to emerge of America being this bastion of democracy. where When did that start to to change? Well, I think even in the early days and even in this kind of slightly narrow form of democracy, they were very proud that they had replaced a system of hereditary privilege and the power of a king. And that set them apart from most European nations at the time. So I think there was that pride in the beginning. I mean, this idea that America was sort of Blessed by the Almighty wasn't really an idea of the founding fathers, it was an idea more of the pilgrim fathers. The Constitution actually was forced at a time when America was going through one of the more secular patches of its history. The founding fathers were very keen to make sure there was a divide between church and state. So that kind of messianic sense of American exceptionalism didn't take hold at the vette very beginning. It emerged over time.
00:20:25
Speaker
I think it's also worth pointing out that division was very much the default setting in those early years of the Republic. Victory over the British brought about independence, but it didn't bring about an instant sense of nationhood. That took about 50 years to get a really cohesive sense of of national consciousness. But again, that, of course, ruptured very violently in the Civil War, fought over the question of slavery and then after the Civil War, when America kind of came back together, segregation was the price of national unity. so you know The division and the extreme polarization that we've seen today is really another sort of continual thread of the American story. so How do you reflect on the threat to democracy line that the Democrats are using with respect to Trump in 2024?
00:21:10
Speaker
Look, I really do think that Donald Trump is a threat to democracy because he's proven himself to be a threat to democracy on January 6, 2021, when he incited his supporters to to march on the Capitol in an attempt to prevent the certification of an election that he had clearly lost. I mean, there was no evidence found of any fraud. Even his Justice Department under William Barr couldn't find any evidence of of fraud. None of the legal cases that he was bringing resulted in in legal victories. I mean, this was a clear cut victory
Authoritarianism and Presidential Power
00:21:41
Speaker
by Joe Biden. And for Trump to question it and refuse to a peaceful transfer of power was was an attack on democracy. you know Similarly in 2016, he
00:21:52
Speaker
Even in victory, he defamed democracy by suggesting that Hillary Clinton's three million vote victory in the popular vote was fraudulent. Again, no evidence was found of that. He actually appointed a presidential panel to look into it, and they couldn't find any evidence of any ah wrongdoing. So he's repeatedly defamed democracy, and on January the 6th, he attacked democracy. So the line that he does pose a threat to democracy doesn't strike me as hyperbole. You suggest in the book that the allure of the strongman or the authoritarian, again, isn't something which is unique to the current period. It actually runs throughout American history. Talk me through that. Yeah. I think that's one of the surprising things that people often forget is that a lot of the heroes of the American story have often displayed quite authoritarian tendencies. I mean, Abraham Lincoln is the classic example. He broke the constitution in order to save the union. I mean, he closed down a lot of critical newspapers trampling all over the first amendment rights.
00:22:45
Speaker
the Emancipation Proclamation, which promised freedom for enslaved people again. ah That was blatantly unconstitutional. I mean, it was a good thing to do, but it was blatantly unconstitutional. He suspended habeas corpus, which is the right of sort of due legal process. ah FDR, another great liberal hero in the American story. One of the biggest applause lines he got during his inauguration was not when he said, the only thing we have to fear is fear itself, is when he suggested that he might have to alter the balance of the Constitution and take up wartime powers in peacetime. And of course, throughout his presidency, he was often criticized for acting like an American dictator. I mean, not least when he tried to pack the Supreme Court with new appointees because he ah was being thwarted by the Supreme Court as he advanced his legislative agenda. But the crucial point is, Will, that
00:23:35
Speaker
yeah FDR kept on getting reelected. He violated the unwritten norm and the unwritten rule that presidents should only serve two terms. That was a ah precedent set by George Washington that ah FDR decided to ignore. But again, he kept on getting reelected. America's showed that they'd like that kind of strong man leadership. And I think that's That's a key thing to take, is that Americans have always liked a strong man, and they have tended to punish those perceived as weak and frail. and In recent history, that's Jimmy Carter. In recent history, that's George Herbert Walker Bush. In recent history, that's Joe Biden. and I think it's one of the reasons he stepped aside. You mentioned FDR there, and it's worth noting that
00:24:20
Speaker
There are claims also from the right about threats to democracy. This isn't just a left-leaning talking point. yeah My understanding of more recent American history is that FDR was responsible for dramatically expanding the scope of the administrative state, and some on the right would kind of more conspiratorially call it the the deep state. How does that administrative state play into the story and is it a fair concern of the right that there is this administrative layer that almost operates underneath the democratically elected legislature and executive of the day.
00:24:56
Speaker
Well, FDR certainly expanded the power and the writ of the federal government dramatically. you know Curiously, before FDR, not many journalists wanted to cover Washington because not much went on. It was sought. They preferred to be in New York. But ah FDR made Washington the focus of action. He made the White House the focal point of action. you know During the war, he he tried to increase his in control over the US military as commander-in-chief. He tried also to increase his power over the economy in ways that had never been seen before in the American history. and When Harry S. Truman took over, he, too, again, increased the power of the White House and sought to increase the the powers of the presidency. in that and That became the kind of Cold War norm.
00:25:38
Speaker
Arthur Schlesinger, who wrote the great book The Imperial Presidency, was often seen as a label that attached itself to the Nixon administration when it was a label that he intended to attach to the presidency as desired by the founding fathers. you know there There was always a strong presidency. And indeed, you know there's been a lot of bipartisanship around the strong presidency just so just as long as it's their party that happens to control the presidency at the particular time. And in recent times, you know obviously, there are lots of conservatives who've who've seen a conspiratorial aspect to that. And again, conspiratorialism is something that we can trace back to the fanny days of the republic as well.
00:26:14
Speaker
I want to get to the hot button American political issues, guns, race, abortion, all that sort of stuff. But before we move from democracy, because it is the talking point of modern politics, are there practical ways that America can strengthen its democracy, or is it in some respects too far gone? Yeah, I mean, it's always worth remembering that America didn't really become a fully fledged universal suffrage nation until 1965 with the passage of the landmark Voting Rights Act. And finally, African Americans in the South could vote unhindered. Up until then, there have been all these mechanisms to stop them voting like literacy tests, where they'd be asked these ridiculous questions like how many bubbles are in a bar of soap, but almost
00:26:57
Speaker
Immediately, as the ink on that legislation was drying, attempts started again to stop people from voting. and I think that's one key way that America could revive its democracy, is to actually encourage people to vote. I was never a great fan of compulsory voting, which is what happens obviously in Australia. but There is certain american intellectual is not like you jay zion for instance who's just read the book but saying america should have compulsory voting it would, and this polarization will certainly limit the polarization because you have to battle for the the middle rather than the extremes to rev up your base i'd like to see states stopping people from,
00:27:38
Speaker
ah stop making attempts to stop people from voting by limiting early voting, for instance, or or limiting the number of polling stations. I mean, one easy thing that America could do is to have its elections on a Saturday. At the moment, they're held in the week, of course, and for some people, especially people who are poorer, it's harder to get time off work. So there's all sorts of ways in which America could revive its democracy and encourage people to vote, as Barack Obama once put it. America is the only advanced country in the world that tries to stop people from voting. Yeah, compulsory voting is something that I've done a 180 on in recent times, probably not ideologically in favor of people being forced to do most things. But I think this is one where the end justify the means. I totally agree with that. I mean, I always think that, you know, you've got a right not to vote.
00:28:28
Speaker
your voting right is not to exercise that franchise at all. And of course, the Australians will say, well, we don't compel you to vote, we just compel you to turn up and you don't have to vote. But, you know, I've always thought that, you know, it sort of infringes on ah on a sense of personal liberty. I've always thought Australia has quite a lot of rules that those rules are kind of quietly, quite meekly abided by strangely in a country that sort of prides itself on its rebellious nature and its sort of anti-authoritarianism. I think that's a myth as well. But no, I do think that ah compulsory voting is is really useful, especially because it's ah it's a guard against polarisation. And it does encourage politics to be for in the centre ground rather than on the extremes. I can't resist taking up that little thread there about Australia. And it's something which I hadn't considered until what you just said there, that this is ah another country where perhaps
00:29:23
Speaker
its founding myths, irreverence, larrian anti-authoritarianism the the laid-back, lucky country. is now at odds with what we see in reality. And I think maybe the response to COVID was one example where where the myth came headlong into reality and people were very surprised by that. Maybe this opens up a broader question of how do you think about the way that these sorts of founding myths impact the way people live their lives? And then what happens when these sorts of founding myths of countries seem to clash with the actual reality of living in that country day to day?
00:29:59
Speaker
Well you can get anger and rage i think that's what happened in 2016 when a lot of people especially after the financial crash in 2008 and the great recession as it was called in america and it was just called that the gfc in australia i think people just got very angry and bitter. that they were not enjoying the fruits of the American dream in the way that they had always been promised. And I always thought that was Trump's strongest card in 2016 when he said the American dream is dead. I thought that was the line that resonated and that's why those
00:30:38
Speaker
derelict factories and those empty plants in the rust belt became such echo chambers for his slogan, make America great again. And the genius of that slogan in many ways, Will, was that he never specified when America was great. So people could conjure up rhythms in their mind when they thought that America was enjoying halcyon days. And for some that was in the 1950s and some that was the early 70s before automation came in and started decimating so many American industries. Yeah, I think the problem One of the big problems with myths is when people realize that their reality doesn't match the myth and then you get anger and then you get rage and and then you get the sort of politics that we've got in America today.
00:31:20
Speaker
I spoke with Douglas Murray on the show on this very topic not so long ago, and he said very possibly the same story can be told about the United Kingdom today, where that those values of a stiff upper lip, quiet resolve, resilience, those sorts of values that are stereotypically British, perhaps aren't as noticeable today when you look at it through the lens of, for want of a better word, wo woke. culture It's a very interesting story, which I think is playing out in a lot of countries, the cognitive distance between what you think the country is and in the way the kind country actually behaves. Well, Brexit in many ways was the transatlantic cousin of of Donald Trump's victory in 2016. They both happened in the same year. And I think to a same certain extent, they were both based on the same thing, which was a ah sense of nostalgic nationalism. You know, a Brexit slogan could easily have been, make Britain great again.
00:32:10
Speaker
you know It was this idea that Britain could be the rural Britannia nation, the the great nation, as many people saw it, that had ruled
Polarization: Economic and Political
00:32:19
Speaker
the waves. and you know There was an element of that in in Brexit for sure, um a kind of imperial kind of yearning almost. and you know Trump tapped into some something similar in 2016, and it's why that slogan, Make America Great Again, became so resonant and reverberant. There's a nice little line in the book, I think referring to one of your previous books, actually, which may play into this. And that was, in recent times, the missing middle in the economy is mirrored by a missing middle in politics. I thought that was an intriguing little statement. Explain that to me. Yeah. Well, it's a sense that ah income polarization has gone hand in hand with with political polarization and has been a driver of polarization on the political front.
00:33:03
Speaker
you know There were times in American history where the fruits of a successful economy were more evenly shared. I mean, the classic example was the 1950s when so many Americans across the board, it didn't matter what demographic group or what income bracket you came from, you saw very significant improvements in your standard of living. But from the 1970s onwards, that wasn't so much the case. I mean, automation decimated so many jobs in the Rust Belt, literally. Jobs done by people were done by machines in the reagan years you saw big discrepancies opening up between executive pay and shop floor pay a lot of sort of um conservative thinking in corporate news.
00:33:48
Speaker
ah sorry, corporate boardrooms was all about the maximization of shareholder value rather than what had traditionally been a sort of, in the 1950s and 60s at least, more of a civic responsibility to the country as a whole. So you saw a lot of outsourcing of jobs, a lot of offshoring. These big, big differences between what executives were being paid and what low paid workers were being paid. And I think that fueled a lot of rage. And one of the great sort of successes of Donald Trump in 2016 was to say, it's not machines that are taking your jobs. It's China that's taking your jobs. it's It's immigrants from Mexico that have taken your jobs to to turn that into a message that was more nativistic. And I think that was one of his ah successes in 2016 to become
00:34:34
Speaker
a working-class hero as somebody who is a billionaire himself. The interesting thing there is that Biden has pretty much adopted the same policy settings when it comes to China and a lot of the same policy settings when it comes to foreign trade as Trump has. So that now seems to almost be bipartisan. Yeah, I think that's one of the interesting things. And again, it's something that we see throughout history is how these kind of demagogic populists like Trump emerge and how they end up influencing more moderate politicians. We saw it in the Depression era with the demagogues of the Depression, as they were called. People like Huey Long and Charles Coughlin, they were very populist, they were very anti-Wall Street in their policies. And an FDR ended up sort of changing the character of the new deal as a result. There's called the second new deal, which was far more worker friendly, whereas the first new deal had been far more Wall Street friendly. And Donald Trump's another classic example of that. I mean, Joe Biden by nature and inclination would be a free trader, but Donald Trump's made it very hard to be a politician in America at the moment and support free trade. You know, Biden has been very tough on China, as you say, and that again,
00:35:44
Speaker
It's partly because Biden ideologically is opposed to China and and wants to ensure that America remains the the preeminent nation in ah in the world and in the Indo-Pacific. But it has been influenced as well by but Trump's policies. You don't get the bellicose rhetoric from Biden, but you get very tough policies, which are Trump-esque. So yeah, ah figures like Donald Trump can really shift things, not just in terms of rhetoric, but in terms of policy as well. Let's turn to some of those contentious policy topics. I'll start with abortion. There is enormous cultural gaps between different American communities, between different American States. To me, it would seem sensible that abortion should be a state issue because the way that people would think about it in Alabama would be different to California. I think you may have a slightly different take on it. What is your take on on the abortion issue and how it is viewed from a judicial viewpoint?
00:36:39
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think there should be a constitutional right to abortion wherever you live in America. And it's one of the ways now the response to Roe versus Wade, which obviously allows states to make this determination. It's it's a way in which the kind of red, blue state division in America is actually being codified into law. And you're actually getting two Americas, ah not just kind of in vibe, but actually in law. And I do think women should have reproductive rights wherever they live in the United States. And the settings that came as a result of Roe should be applicable nationwide. And there is broad support for that. I mean, as in many of these are contentious areas, there's not really a 50s split on this. I mean, it's quite a significant majority in favor of those kinds of reproductive rights. So I would much prefer to see
00:37:29
Speaker
a nationwide right to abortion. But again, it goes back to these divides that are inherent from the beginning and the fact that we continue to argue over similar things. I mean, the the debate over who should ultimately have control, the state or the federal government, has been raging ever since the the founding days of the republic. The concept of of textual originalism comes into play here with the basic idea being that you try and interpret the constitution by ah thinking about what the intent of the drafters of the constitution was. That was used as one justification why Roe was seen to be bad law by those judges. and No, I mean, Ruth Bader Ginsburg herself, the great liberal champion of the
00:38:15
Speaker
Supreme Court didn't think that Roe was the most watertight precedent. I mean, that's true. But I think when it comes to originalism, it literally falls down the first historical hurdle. You've got a situation right now where the Supreme Court have really become super legislators. They exercise a level of power. which the founding fathers never anticipated they would. They really saw the judiciary as the the third branch of government, which would be way behind Congress and the presidency. Indeed, they thought Congress would be more powerful than the presidency and that the Supreme Court would be a distant third. They never intended the Supreme Court to be supreme. so The very idea of originalism in which the Supreme Court now exerts so much influence and so much authority would be anathema to the founding fathers. Another area that it does hold sway is in gun laws. I believe the now more popular interpretation of the Second Amendment that it gave individual gun rights to people, that in your view is not what the original interpretation of the Second Amendment was. Explain to me the the alternative view.
00:39:30
Speaker
Well, the alternative view was always the the settled view up until 2008. It was only in 2008 the Supreme Court ruled in the Heller decision that the Second Amendment was the basis for individual gun rights. In all the previous Supreme Court decisions on this, they'd regarded the Second Amendment as a collective rights that applied not to individual gun owners, but to state militias. and That was really the intent of the founding fathers. They wanted to give the states a protective mechanism so that the federal government would be not be too overbearing and would not have a standing army. They enshrined the rights of militias, and that was the intention of the Second Amendment. It was assumed that they'd have guns because virtually everybody did back then.
00:40:14
Speaker
And so that was the interpretation that lasted up until 2008. Indeed, the Second Amendment was ah became known as the as the forgotten amendment because it just didn't seem applicable anymore. But the NRA mounted this very successful campaign that went back really 50 years to try and make the Second Amendment the basis for individual gun rights, and they succeeded. in 2008 but that was historically anomalous up until that point the legal community certainly until the end of the sixties have been almost unanimous in its view that the second amendment pertain to malicious rather than individual god is it now and i'm solvable problem for the united states
00:40:58
Speaker
The problem with guns, well, I mean, there's the right to bear arms is enshrined in so many state constitutions that even if you change the constitution or change the meaning and reverted the meaning back to the original meaning, you know, you'd still have that state protection for individual gun ownership. And now, of course, the country is just awash with so many guns. And for many you know gun owners, owning a gun is seen as a bit of a nephew to the left. I mean, one of the reasons why the AR-15 is so popular is because it's the gun that most Democrats want to ban. But I'd make another point, which is you know we tend to regard the Republicans as the kind of villains of this piece. It's worth pointing out that one of the reasons why there isn't more stringent gun controls in America is because the the Democrats felt traumatized by this issue. And many Democratic senators come from rural states who often opposed gun controls.
00:41:44
Speaker
the assault weapons ban that was brought in under Clinton for 10 years was widely seen as the reason why the Republicans won such a dramatic victory in the 1994 congressional bit terms, what was called the Republican Revolution. And the idea took hold that to advance gun controls for the Democrats was suicidal, electorally. And even a barack Obama in the early days of his presidency did not make gun control a priority issue. And again, it spoke of this democratic hesitancy around the issue of gun control. You know, Republicans have been the ones that have been the main opponents of gun controls, but at crucial time, Democrats have also blocked the path of substantive legislation.
00:42:27
Speaker
There was a question that was going through my mind as I read your book and you wisely cover it off towards the end and that is basically given that America has always been riven by political violence, by a quasi-democracy, by all these systemic problems that you go through, how has it been so successful and how does it continue to be so successful?
America's Economic Success Amidst Dysfunction
00:42:56
Speaker
Answer your own question for me. Well, there have been key moments where the country has functioned very well. I mean, the New Deal was a classic case when you know FDR kind of
00:43:07
Speaker
saved American capitalism, arguably saved American democracy, arguably saved democracy worldwide, and you saw sort dramatic economic growth. In the post-war years, you saw dramatic economic growth. The American economy can function even when politics is is dysfunctional. Some of the things that divide America are actually the things that have propelled its growth, not least immigration. I mean, it's hard to American. that America would be the successful nation it has become today without the influx of so much talent and so much energy from aboard people who came to America because they believed in the American dream as that has given America an incredible animating power, even as the question of immigration has often split the country. So there is an extent to which America is politics proof. And even in this moment where the politics just seems so so crazy and unhinged, you know, American economy is still doing very well.
00:44:02
Speaker
I really like that line. There's an extent to which America is politics proof. It's similar. I've often thought about America continuing to succeed in spite of itself. And I think it speaks speaks to that. And I think that logically. Follows to ask you to look forward and I'll give you a 20-year time horizon. What is your outlook for America over the next 20 odd years? Oh, look, i'm I'm a historian. I'm not a clairvoyant. And um I think it's hard to predict what's going to happen in two days time as as has been shown with the dramatic events that have been unfolding before our eyes.
00:44:35
Speaker
Look, I mean, I think that's a way of asking the Civil War question, isn't it? I mean, is America inevitably going to face a civil war, given that its polarization is so chronic and so extreme? and And here again, I mean, I just cite the example of history. I mean, sure, there was this terrible rupture in the middle of the 19th century, the the American Civil War, in which tens and tens of thousands of Americans lost their lives. But, you know, America since has had a lot of muscle memory when it comes to functioning despite its divisions.
America's Divided State and Future Prospects
00:45:09
Speaker
I don't see the same geographic divide that led to the Civil War in the 1860s. I don't see the same single issue divide. I think America has
00:45:20
Speaker
differences over a multitude of issues. And ironically, that ends up having a kind of dampening effect. Even though we speak continually about the red and the blue state divide, it's always worth remembering that red states have a lot of big blue blobs. I mean, just look at Texas, one of the deepest red states, you know, most major cities of a democratic like Dallas, Austin, and, and Houston. So The conditions aren't the same as they were in the 1860s, but although I don't see America ever reaching, or certainly not in the immediate term, ending up in civil war, I don't see it reaching a state of civil peace either. and I think that's the problem. It seems perpetually to be in this state of chronic division, and I don't see it in the near short or even medium term.
Nick Bryant's View on America and Conclusion
00:46:05
Speaker
how it gets beyond that. You say at the start of the book that a love affair with America has been one of the defining features of your life. And given what you've just said in that answer, my question is, do you still love America in the same way that you did as a young man and in Birmingham? I love it very deeply. It's a more complicated life. It's a love based on lived experience of living in a country where, you know, gun violence It used to sadden me no end. i mean One of the reasons we got out of the country was because we really didn't want our kids to grow up in a country where they knew why they were doing the shooter drills at schools. We always said we'd leave when the kids understood why they were crouching under the desks and turning off the lights and pulling down the blinds. and you know It was because of the threat of gun violence and schools across America conduct these drills on a regular basis.
00:47:00
Speaker
That saddened me no end. And and while I ah deeply love America, and a country I fell in love with as a teenager, it filled me with a lot of sorrow as well. And it didn't seem like the best place in the world to bring up our kids. And that's something I think as a kid, I would have thought it would be. And as for democracy, and I just don't regard it as the beacon anymore. you know To me, it resembles more of a dumpster fire. And that, again, is something I say with with a very heavy heart.
00:47:32
Speaker
Point of words to end on, Nick, the book is wonderful. It is ah a, I think it's fair to say a revisionist take on American history. And it, I think illuminates so much of what we are seeing today through the lens of the past. And it's wonderfully entertaining as well. If you want to just sit down and spend an afternoon with it, i strongly recommend everyone goes out and gets it. Thank you very much for writing it and thank you for coming on today. Well it's been an absolute pleasure on ah on a day that is just drenched in history to be talking about the American history that goes back so many years. Thank you so much for your kind words about the book and thanks for having me on your podcast.