BONUS: From Nation State to Empire State
The Intercept Briefing
The Intercept
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 5 October 2018
⏱️ 45 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Most analysis of Donald Trump’s election to the U.S. presidency in 2016 focuses on immediate causes and, of course, its effects. In a recent speech, NYU history professor Nikhil Pal Singh took a longer historical view, sketching three arcs of U.S. history that have yielded the durable commitments to racism, militarism, and unequal class power that have sharpened over the past two decades.
Considering the historical development of the United States as an empire-state, rather than as a nation-state, he argues, is essential to understanding what it has meant, and what it might mean going forward, to bend the future toward greater equality and justice – both in the United States and in its relationship to the wider world. He argues that the election of Trump and the failure of Hillary Clinton may be the clearest signals yet, of the decline of U.S. empire. Rather than a cause for pessimism, he says, this moment is an opportunity to enliven a new politics and begin a new story — but only if we are honest about our past.
Singh is the author of "Black is a Country" and "Race and America’s Long War." He is also the founding co-director of NYU’s Prison Education Project. This speech was delivered on September 26th at the Lensic Theater in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The event was sponsored by the Lannan Foundation, which granted Intercepted permission to share it with our audience.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm Jeremy Skahill coming to you from the offices of the Intercept in New York City, |
| 0:06.4 | and this is a special bonus episode of Intercepted. |
| 0:17.2 | Most analysis of Donald Trump's election to the US presidency in 2016 focuses on immediate |
| 0:24.3 | causes and of course now the effects. |
| 0:28.6 | The last week I had a chance to do an event with someone who has been on the show a couple |
| 0:32.4 | of times, NYU professor, Nikhil Paul Singh. |
| 0:36.1 | He's the author of the book's Black as a Country and Race and America's Long War. |
| 0:41.6 | He's also the founding co-director of NYU's Prison Education Project. |
| 0:47.1 | This was an event in Santa Fe, New Mexico, sponsored by the Lannan Foundation and it was |
| 0:52.7 | held that the historic Lensic Theater. |
| 0:56.2 | As I sat in the audience listening to Nikhil's incredible historical speech, I thought I have |
| 1:03.7 | to share this with our Intercepted audience. |
| 1:07.2 | Taking a longer historical view, Nikhil stretches three arcs of US history that have yielded |
| 1:14.6 | the durable commitments to racism, militarism, and unequal class power that have sharpened |
| 1:22.2 | over the past two decades in this country. |
| 1:25.8 | Following the historical development of the United States as an empire state, rather than |
| 1:30.6 | as a nation state, he argues that it's essential to understanding what it has meant and what |
| 1:36.1 | it might mean going forward to bend the future towards greater equality and justice, both |
| 1:42.5 | in the United States and in its relationship to the wider world. |
| 1:47.7 | The election of Donald Trump and the failure of Hillary Clinton may be, Nikhil argues, |
| 1:54.4 | the clearest signals yet of the decline of US empire. |
| 1:59.0 | Rather than a cause for pessimism, Nikhil argues that this moment is an opportunity to |
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