We the People America 250: Country at a Crossroads - Part 2

Tanya Cushman Reviewer: Peter van de Ven He has refused his assent to laws the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. He has obstructed the administration of justice. He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislatures. He has cut off our trade with all parts of the world. He has deprived us, in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury. In every stage of these oppressions, we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms, our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. Nine years ago, in 2017, on July 4th, 2017, NPR did something that it does every year. National Public Radio, NPR, every year, they have their broadcasters read the Declaration of Independence on air, in full. In 2017, NPR also posted the Declaration online. They just posted the whole thing, unedited, in a long series of tweets. This is an annual tradition for NPR, this is how they mark the country's birthday every year. You know, they're re-familiarizing all of us with the words that launched our national bid for independence. And not just the opening lines that we all know so well, not just, you know, when in the course of human events, not just, "We hold these truths to be self-evident," but they did all the words in the Declaration of Independence. The full indictment. Because that's what our Declaration of Independence is. It is an indictment, enumerating the crimes of a tyrant. So, NPR posts it, and they have their staff read it every year. But in 2017, when they did it, that was Donald J. Trump's first Independence Day as President of the United States. And that year, when NPR did its annual recitation, just like they do every year, fans of our new president heard those words, or read those words online, and they thought it was an attack on Donald Trump. Real headline. Quote: "Some Trump supporters thought NPR tweeted propaganda. It was the Declaration of Independence." Outraged responses to the Declaration as language that day included this: "So, NPR is calling for revolution. Interesting way to condone violence. While trying to sound patriotic, your implications are clear." Or this one: "Propaganda is all that you know how to do? Try supporting a man who wants to do something about the injustice in this country." And also, this is great, just because it's so pathetic. Please stop. This is not the right place. Try Canada? The president's supporters were really quite upset. Upset enough that when CNN wrote up the Fuhrer, they had to put it in a clarifying headline that said, "No, NPR was not trying to start a revolution." I don't know if any of you guys ever read Matto blog, which is the blog online for my show. It's written by Steve Bannon, who's been on my show staff from the very beginnings, one of my best friends. And he has since created a whole running series on all the times Donald Trump and Donald Trump's supporters, upon hearing just basic core American principles uttered out loud, assume that those principles are anti-Trump criticisms. - They are. - They are. - They are. - They are. - They are. - They are. - They are. - They are. - It is funny and obvious, but it's also like really a very bullseye analysis, right? Of the biggest question facing our country on our 250th birthday. Because one of the core principles of our country, the core principle that led our forebears to found this country, is that we fight tyrants. That's who we are. Not just we don't like tyrants, or we have a good analysis of tyranny being bad, but we fight tyrants and we've done it from day one. It's what we do. It is the whole reason that we exist. Earlier this month, you might remember, first week of this month, we observed the anniversary of D-Day. When Antifa, or rather the American military, launched the largest seaborne invasion in world history. American soldiers pouring out of those landing craft into hurricane force torrents, Nazi bullets and artillery shells. And they forced and forced and forced their way up those beaches at Normandy at unimaginable cost. So they could liberate France. So they could ultimately liberate all of Western Europe. So the fascists could be defeated. We talked about this on the show, on my show a little bit right after, on the Monday after the anniversary. But I'd like to show you some of how that anniversary was marked. This was Decatur, Alabama this year. June 6th, D-Day vets fought fascism. This is how it looked in Dallas, Texas. Honored D-Day vets resist fascism. This is how it looked in Vancouver, Washington. Vets beat fascism, we can too. Hampton Falls, New Hampshire. D-Day heroes equals the OG Antifa. Lake Mary, Florida. World War II vets first anti-fascists. Raleigh, North Carolina. D-Day heroes fought fascism. And this is Los Angeles. Honored D-Day, fight fascism at home. Literally hundreds of communities this month, taking up that message. Americans in our DNA, our foundational value. The thing that makes America a place. The fact that, the thing that makes Americans Americans is that we fight fascism, we fight tyrants. We did it back then, we do it still now. We just passed the anniversary of the very first No Kings protest. That huge crowd that came out right here in Philly. Look at that. That was you guys. Philly. Philly was the flagship city for the first No Kings Day protest, which will go down as yet another seminal date in the history of fighting fascism in Philadelphia. And of course, Philly was the flagship, right? Philly was the city where we first said No Kings 250 years ago. By the third No Kings Day protest in Philadelphia, Philly was the city where we first said No Kings. By the third No Kings protest in Philadelphia, Philly was the city where we first said No Kings 250 years ago. You know, all this this raucous rabble-rousing is going to alienate the people that we need. It's going to alienate the people who we think of as moderates or moderate voters. The argument goes, right, that if all the opposition to Trump has to, if what the opposition to Trump looks like is people, you know, yelling in the streets and impolite signs, then middle of the road, particularly older, white Americans, right? Grandma's not going to want anything to do with that. So stop being alienated. To which, to which the correct answer is, ask grandma. But to which I would also say, have you actually taken a look at Americans protesting lately? Because protests right now in this country have all sorts of people at them. But I take particular joy in seeing the number of people who are protesting. I take particular joy in seeing the number of people who are protesting. I take particular joy in the fact that a lot of our protests right now are pretty reliably filled with cotton tops, with white haired people who I can tell you are not at all alienated by the impoliteness, who are not at all alienated by the protesting and the shouting. They are joyous and jubilant and fearless and very often funny. In Los Angeles, 94 trips around the streets. Minneapolis, Minnesota, now you made Grandpa Matt. Younger generations, we hope and fear from them, and we learn from them too, but honestly, don't sleep on our elders right now. We fight tyrants in this country, and the older you are as an American, the more you might know how to do that. So Ali talked earlier about Selma, Alabama, the site of violence and moral triumph. continue. And that means Americans can plan for that now. Americans can organize for that now. And, you know, if you've ever thought of what you would have done had you been around and alive during the civil rights movement, here's your chance to show it. So we are in the middle of a really radical effort in this country to, I believe, try to get rid of our constitutional republic. And specifically to get rid of the multi-racial democracy that our constitution is supposed to protect. That attack has included a concerted focus on Black Americans, on trying to hurt Black Americans. On his first day, in office, Trump declared war on diversity efforts, not only in government, but also in institutions he has no control over. Institutions from law firms to private businesses to schools of every stripe. He immediately started firing some of the highest profile Black public officials in government. Almost all of the highest profile Black public officials in the government. When he and his top campaign donor, Elon Musk, started getting rid of huge swaths of the federal government, they targeted their cuts disproportionately to hit agencies that disproportionately had higher numbers of Black workers. There has been a rule in place since 1965 that bans federal contractors from discriminating on the basis of race, color, sex, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, or national origin. Federal contractors cannot discriminate. That rule has been there since 1965. When Donald Trump's first full day in office, he rescinded that rule. Less than a month later, Trump administration announced another rule change. And I have talked about this a few times in public, and I can tell from the reaction every time I talk about it that people think I'm leaving something out. That it can't really just be what I'm saying, but I swear to you it is. Less than a month after rescinding the rule about federal contractors being able to discriminate, he rescinded another rule. He rescinded the rule about federal contractors being able to discriminate, he rescinded another decade's old rule. The rule that tells government contractors they cannot have segregated facilities. Trump rescinded that. So segregated facilities are okay. Under Donald Trump, the federal government is no longer enforcing the Fair Housing Act, which since 1968 has made it illegal to refuse to rent to someone or refuse to sell a house to someone on the basis of their race. And he did all of that before the hardline conservative majority on the Supreme Court, including all of Trump's appointees, voted to end the Voting Rights Act. He did all of that before that. In Justice Elena Kagan's dissent in the voting rights case, she said that that court majority ruling will likely cause the largest reduction in the voting rights case in the United States. Proclamation almost immediately follows in 1863 and then in 1866, the 13th Amendment. And they have to figure out what to do to make this country to try to get to that declaration. And they do this incredible thing. They stitch this country together in a way that is imperfect, but that brings us closer to that goal. They finally go back over the first constitution and pull this promise of equality from the declaration to include the Equal Protection Clause in the 14th Amendment. The word equal does not appear in our constitution before 1868. So the story of our, like we're missing all the good stuff, all the good bits, right? Yes, the beginning, you know, the war and the fighting of tyrants and all of the work that went into the formation of the country and across the square, you know, the guys sitting in the room writing, you know, the constitution in the heat of the summer and the whole thing, you know, you've seen Hamilton, you know what it's all about. Um, but, but are we going to give up these other moments? Are we going to give up this second founding after the Civil War? And we live in the country of the second founding. We don't actually live in that first one. We live in the country, the accumulated country that comes after the second founding. More with Rachel and constitutional law expert Sherrilyn Ifill next. We need to pull together and make sure that we, the people, come together as one unit, and, and, uh, demonstrate what this country is all about. The other thing that I have my eyes on with the court, particularly with these voting cases, is that if, if I were a despot, say, um, and I wanted to, um, nullify, uh, nullify, uh, nullify, or ignore, or steal the results of the next election because I didn't think they were going to go my way, what I would prioritize, hypothetically, I would prioritize making sure that the elections were chaotic, um, and making sure that they seemed a little dodgy, and with the court's ruling in this voting rights evisceration, we saw the states rush to literally throw away votes. Yeah. From voters who had already cast votes in ongoing elections, to cancel elections that were already underway, to create enormous chaos, chaos. In some states right now, people are voting when it is not at all clear what districts they are voting in. But that chaos is because they're rushing through these changes in order to, um, attack black political power, and they're doing it very close to the election. So we've got the incredible precarity and scapegoating of refugees. Yeah. And I think what we've got is the court intervening to problematize the elections in the face of a despot who I think wants to make sure that they don't seem legit. Go. I agree with you about the elections. All the things the court has said in the past about you can't change things, you know, close to an election, and yet they did Louisiana versus Calais, so, I mean, it's whatever they say it is. And, yeah. But, yes, I believe that there will be efforts to try and intimidate voters in this election. I think we should expect to see some effort to try to bring National Guard members out to the polls. I think, you know, Trump also has kind of, um, you know, itinerant supporters who like to make mischief as well, and I think they will be part of this. We have seen already the seizing of ballots. We have seen that the Trump administration now has instructed the United States Postal Service that they are not to deliver ballots from those states where those states have not turned over their voter data to ICE and to the federal government. And that is, of course, being litigated. What will the Supreme Court do with that? I mean, I don't know. So I think we are facing some very, very serious challenges, and that's why I was so distressed at the low turnout in the primary. I don't think we get more than one shot at this. I, I, the bleeding is just too much. And the only way to stop the bleeding is to get control of the only potential branch of government we can get control of this year, which is Congress. And that when that control happens, when that control happens, Congress has to begin immediately to move on Supreme Court reform. And I say this because, and I can tell you, I can tell you, I, I was not a big, like, you know, add justices to the Supreme Court person. I wasn't. I sat on Biden's commission on the Supreme Court. I did think we needed ethics reform. I did think we needed many other elements of reform. But I was a little hesitant on the, on the personnel changes. This is not legitimate, what is happening right now. This is not law. This is not law. And so I still, um, respect the institution. We should remember that there's nothing lawless about adding justices to the Supreme Court. The Constitution has that power. I mean, the, the, excuse me, wait, I'm gonna get it right, the Congress has that power because people are trying to convince us that it's like this crazy, terrible, lawless thing to do. And it's not. We haven't always had nine justices. We've had six. We had eight. McConnell wouldn't let, uh, Barack Obama fulfill that seat. We had eight. Nobody cared, apparently. So they don't, it doesn't have to be nine. And as long as there is a process for doing so, we need to reform that. We need an ethics code. We need to change the way we do Supreme Court confirmation. That whole process is, is trash as well. So I think, I think that there's a lot of work to be done and that's the work of democracy. That's the citizenship work. And I say this now because you are going to have elected officials. There's elected officials that you voted for who are gonna be very hesitant about Supreme Court reform. And it's gonna be your job to pressure them to use the power that they have to save this country. And so I remind people that we were founded a second time. We will need to be founded a third time. And it's on us. And that's the exciting part. Yeah. And the founders and the framers of the new iteration of American democracy, if, if we are willing to do it, there's nothing that stops us from doing it. And so that's the opportunity of this moment. We hit 250 and then we needed to restart again. And and so that's the work that is before us. Sherilyn Ifill is the former president of the Legal Defense Fund. She is now at Howard University Law School. And you are one of my. Great heroes. Thank you so much. Coming up, we take audience questions, including one from a teenager who asked what her generation can do. Starting now to strengthen American democracy. All right, we're back. I'm here with the great Ali Velshi and Jen Psaki to finish out tonight's event. The three of us are. I have a lot of feelings about taking your questions. We're supposed to be excited, but we are both excited and other things. Let's start right here. Hi, my name is Margaret Wells from right over the bridge in Haddon Township, New Jersey. Great. And my question is for Jen. What are the most effective strategies for challenging factual disinformation when objective evidence is overridden? Great. It's openly rejected by a highly loyal political base. How do we break through echo chambers to reestablish a shared sense of reality? Good question. What a great question. I'm going to start with this. I still think facts are the best antidote to lies. And I think part of it is how you frame those facts and how you tell the story of what those facts are. Because I think it doesn't work. Listen, I worked in the federal government. I worked for two presidents. We love a fact sheet. We love it if it's 75 pages. That is not how most people are consuming information. So I think part of it is how it's being packaged and how it is being used as a means of bringing people into the story of something and not just spitting out data points to them, if that makes sense. I also think that, and I don't think any of us are, but nobody should be fragile about the formats through which we're communicating. Right? It doesn't require the facts only being in a piece in The Economist. It is okay if you go on Instagram and do a video because you know who's listening to you? Probably you more than even us, your neighbors and people in your community and people who trust you and know you and sharing what the facts are there. Because the other piece I would say that I have learned and I very much believe in is that it depends on the voices who are delivering the information is also very important. And so valid voices, trusted voices, yes it's Sherilyn Ifill, yes it's Josh Shapiro, but it is also each of you to your neighbors and your friends and your cousins. and your brothers and remember the power of that too it's it's all of that yeah and the only thing I would add to that is just show your work you know if you're going to be talking to somebody about something and you've heard them tell you a story or tell you something that you know is not factually true when you want to go back to them with the facts show them where you got the facts you know you don't need to like have the book in hand but you can show how you got to the book you can show a screenshot you can show whatever you do I just feel like transparency and helping people be more literate about the sources of their information not only makes you more trustworthy in what you're saying but it also helps people learn to do that themselves yes hello hello I am 17 years old and I live in society hill welcome anybody excellent um I recently went on a service trip to New Mexico and I came in contact with these refugees at this building where the parents learn Arabic and the children do like everyday activities like you would normally do at a summer camp and I saw this one girl in particular she was particularly quiet so my job was to kind of just like be around you know talk to her make sure that she feels included and we somehow got on the topic and she goes Molly I'm scared and I said what are you scared about like we're at like the summer camp type of thing there shouldn't be anything you're scared about whether it's like a roach or something stupid and she goes no I'm scared that I'm going to be sent back and I said sent back where and she says no I'm going to be sent back to Syria and then I'm not going to be able to get back and hearing that as a 17 year old who is more of an empath than apparently some of my peers um I see that I almost started crying I sat there and I hugged her and I just was wondering as somebody who knows that they're going to be the next generation of the government somebody who's going to be holding this government together pretty soon um I was wondering if you had any advice for any of us even as somebody who can't even vote yet what should we be doing before we reach that age where we're going to have to inherit this government she's doing it she's doing it yeah you're doing exactly what you're supposed to be doing being here asking us that question you're doing it but you hugged her that's what Rachel was just saying if someone feels like they're the other hug them they are your neighbor they are your people that must have done something very important to her to say I'm scared someone here is thinking about keeping me safe because I think once you start thinking about something the road between thinking about it and doing something is very short at that point you're ready this I hope you grow up faster than science allows and and take over the government thank you that's amazing I would just add I mean never lose your empathy I mean people who are twice three times four times your age in government the best public servants are empathetic they care about the people they represent they care about the things they're working on and empathy is the greatest driver of excellent governance and excellent public service so keep that story in your heart and don't change that part of who you are as you're kind of in ambitiously moving forward in the world anybody else want to vote for Molly for president thank you so so so so so much for coming tonight it is our privilege and our honor to be able to look you in the eye and say thank you for watching MSNOW thank you for supporting us thank you for coming out tonight let's do it again sometime thank you so much it's been a great night thank you so thank you so so so so much for coming out tonight thank you so much for coming out tonight thank you