Brian Lehrer on Productive Discourse
Notes from America with Kai Wright
WNYC Studios
4.4 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 28 February 2022
⏱️ 49 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Democracy won’t work if we can’t talk to each other. So how do we do it across the cultural and political divides? WNYC’s own Brian Lehrer has hosted his syndicated show for over 30 years. Find out how a Raegan-era repeal changed the course of his career.
Companion listening for this episode:
The Method to Tucker Carlson’s Madness (5/3/2021)
History suggests we shouldn’t laugh off what’s happening in right wing media right now. Plus, profiting off of racism is a business model as old as the news.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | What do you think is the most annoying, overused term in the political conversation today? |
| 0:07.3 | Um, I'm not really in the politics friend. All eyes matter. I feel like both the terms |
| 0:13.8 | pro-life and pro-choice have become super politicized and somebody was actually pro-life. |
| 0:19.6 | They'd be also interested in the well-being of the child after they're born, like paid parental |
| 0:25.3 | leave, health care and stuff. Karen, people just thrown it around when it actually was meant |
| 0:30.8 | to describe a very particular type of white woman and now people just use it for anything, |
| 0:35.6 | cancel culture or being canceled. There's no nuance. It moves the focus from the victim who |
| 0:41.5 | suffered this terrible thing. I guess the word facts because like nowadays people twist the truth |
| 0:46.8 | and redefine what a fact is. So like how are you supposed to know it's actually true or not? |
| 0:56.8 | Welcome to the show. I'm Kai Wright and tonight we're going to talk about how we find that |
| 1:01.4 | elusive truth together and really more than that how we exchange ideas, period. |
| 1:07.8 | President Biden will deliver his state of the Union address this week. I suspect he'll repeat |
| 1:12.6 | an argument that seems to have become the principle of his public life, that the world is locked |
| 1:19.2 | in a fight between autocracy and democracy. And certainly this weekend that fight is a literal one |
| 1:25.4 | in Ukraine. But one basic assumption of democracy is that any society can hash out its differences |
| 1:32.1 | without violence using words and thoughts and debate. And I don't think I'm making any bold |
| 1:38.8 | statements when I say that feels like a near impossibility in the United States lately. |
| 1:45.6 | There are many structural problems in our democracy. It's never been designed for full participation |
| 1:50.9 | actually or even majority rule. But even if we fix those design issues, there's still this other |
| 1:58.6 | fundamental challenge, the difficulty of having productive public discourse. I mean even among |
| 2:05.5 | those who largely agree, it's often hard to get past the signifying and the throwing around of |
| 2:12.8 | meaningless stock phrases like you heard at the top of the show, which then leads a lot of people |
... |
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