E5: America's Great Divide

FRONTLINE: Film Audio Track | PBS

FRONTLINE

Pbs, Tv & Film, Wgbh, Documentaries, Frontline

4.8 • 2.3K Ratings

🗓️ 14 January 2020

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

FRONTLINE begins its 2020 election year coverage with a two-part, four-hour documentary series investigating America’s increasingly bitter, divided and toxic politics. From veteran FRONTLINE filmmaker Michael Kirk and his team, America’s Great Divide: From Obama to Trump draws on revelatory new interviews with key political and cultural figures, as well as an unparalleled archive of in-depth broadcast reporting across two presidential administrations, to offer crucial context for the current moment. Part One traces how Barack Obama’s promise of unity collapsed as increasing racial, cultural and political divisions laid the groundwork for the rise of Donald Trump. Part Two examines how Trump’s campaign exploited the country’s divisions, how his presidency has unleashed anger on both sides of the divide, and what America’s polarization could mean for the country’s future.

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to the audio version of the frontline documentary,
0:03.5	America's Great Divide from Obama to Trump.
0:07.0	Here is episode five.
0:09.0	Here's Donald Trump in a 1980 interview with Rona Barrett.
0:13.0	For some people, the ultimate goal in life has been becoming the president of the United States.
0:19.0	Would you like to be the president of the United States?
0:22.0	I really don't believe I would, but I would like to see somebody as the president who can do the job.
0:27.0	Why wouldn't someone like yourself run for political office who have all the money that you possibly need?
0:32.0	You've accomplished a great deal even though you are only 34.
0:35.0	Why wouldn't you dedicate yourself to public service?
0:38.0	Because I think it's a very mean life.
0:40.0	I would love and I would dedicate my life to this country.
0:44.0	But I see it as being a mean life.
0:46.0	And I also see it that somebody with strong views and somebody with the kind of views that are maybe a little bit unpopular, which may be right, but maybe unpopular.
0:55.0	Wouldn't necessarily have a chance of getting elected against somebody with no great brain but a big smile.
1:01.0	And that's a sad commentary for the political process.
1:08.0	Over the decades, as Donald Trump watched and waited, the prospect of becoming president would grow.
1:15.0	Just as the nation was becoming more and more divided.
1:19.0	It is time to heal America.
1:22.0	Bill Clinton ran against braided politics in both parties.
1:25.0	And a leader must be a united, not a divided.
1:28.0	George W. Bush said he was a united, not a divided.
	...

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