4.4 • 13.5K Ratings
🗓️ 16 January 2021
⏱️ 9 minutes
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"The Soul of America" author Jon Meacham argues President Trump's demagogic assault on U.S. values will eventually be corrected with the aid of America's "better angels."
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0:00.0 | You're listening to Comedy Central. |
0:02.5 | Ow! |
0:04.0 | My guest tonight is a coolant surprise winning |
0:07.0 | presidential historian whose latest book is called |
0:10.0 | The Soul of America, the Battle for Our Better Angels. |
0:13.5 | Please welcome John Meacham. |
0:15.5 | Welcome to the show. Thank you, sir. You have an interesting role as a writer and as a presidential historian. |
0:32.5 | You just look at the history of presidents. Is Donald Trump unprecedented? |
0:39.5 | Have you ever seen anything like this? Are we overreacting? |
0:42.5 | We're not overreacting. He's sort of precedented. |
0:46.5 | We have seen various elements of demagogues, of people who have wanted to blow up the conventions, |
0:54.5 | who have done the wrong thing, who valued hope, over valued fear, over hope, |
0:58.5 | which is what this president's about. But to treat him as if he is a unique creature |
1:07.5 | is almost to give him superpowers that we shouldn't endow him with. |
1:11.5 | That's an interesting point. Do you think though that maybe he doesn't... |
1:15.5 | It's not that we're giving him superpowers that he lives in an age where he has superpowers. |
1:19.5 | You know some of the presidents you talk about on the book and some of the leaders, |
1:22.5 | like McCarthy, for instance, who is a senator, we see similar traits to Trump, |
1:26.5 | but they didn't have Twitter, they didn't have mediums that he helped them connect with as many people. |
1:31.5 | The thing I would... This is not a book about or an argument about, |
1:34.5 | hey, let's relax because we've been here before. |
1:37.5 | Right, right, right. |
... |
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