August 19, 2020 • 62 mins
Enough already! As if a pandemic, looming economic disaster, racial and civil unrest, and political division weren’t enough, there is talk in some circles about a second civil war. Clearly we're in uncharted territory. Is it possible that what we learned all those years ago in high school history and government classes might come in handy after all? This week's guest, Steve Steinbach, current high school history and government teacher and former trial attorney, looks back at our past, examines our present and gives his take on what might lie in our future. Spoiler alert: all is not lost.
At the end of the episode we talk about the poem Let America be America Again, by Langston Hughes. Though it was written in 1936, it couldn't be more relevant if it had been written today. Here's a link to the whole poem:
https://poets.org/poem/let-america-be-america-again
Connect with us on Instagram:
@anewnormalpodcast
The theme music is Fragilistic by Ketsa
licensed under CC BY NC ND 4.0
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Obaidul Fattah Tanvir (00:00):
What we are witnessing now is making a
history.
Kelley Lynch (00:03):
Maybe it's kind of like the making of sausage.
One of those things that none ofus wants to see, except for
Cindy, Cindy, have you hadenough of living through history
yet?
Cindy Sealls (00:18):
I think I've had a lifetime in the last eight
months because I've livedthrough what seems to be headed
towards another greatdepression, the possibility of a
contested presidential election.
Although I have lived throughthat before, not like this, uh,
the civil rights movement withpeople protesting for that, the
(00:42):
protest against police brutalityin the sixties, the political
polarization of the 1850s andthe 1960s.
And now the possibility orbelief among some that we're
headed toward another civil war.
All at the same time.
Kelley Lynch (01:03):
You forgot the pandemic.
Cindy Sealls (01:05):
Oh, and all this other stuff.
I forgot all about that.
It's like, I can't even rememberall this stuff.
(01:28):
[inaudible] Hi, I'm Cindy seals.
Welcome to a new normal apodcast about how we're adapting
to life during the pandemic andwhere we go from here.
Our guest today is SteveSteinbach.
Steve has been teaching ushistory and American government
to high school students for thepast 15 years before beginning
(01:51):
his teaching career, Steve spentover 20 years as a trial lawyer,
litigating civil and criminalcases.
We asked Steve to put on hissepia colored glasses to help us
see this country and this momentmore clearly.
We hope that looking back athistory might offer lessons
about how we can work togetherrather than tear each other
apart.
(02:12):
Steve Steinbach welcome to thepodcast.
Steve Steinbach (02:15):
Great to be here.
Cindy Sealls (02:17):
I guess my first question or first kind of
statement is these times thatwe're going through right now
are very unusual, extraordinarytimes of having a health
disaster, a lot of politicaldissension and just a bit of
(02:39):
racial unrest to top it all off.
One of the big issues has beenthis, this idea of trying to
control the spread of the Coronavirus, the public, having to
wear mask.
And how can there be this muchcontroversy over something that
seems so simple?
Steve Steinbach (03:03):
Yeah, that's a, that's a fascinating question to
start with because you wouldthink it would be simple.
Um, I actually, I would say thiswas a couple months ago when,
um, some of the communitiesacross the country were thinking
about whether it postmasterrequirements or not.
I listen pretty carefully to acity council debate that was
(03:25):
going on in a smallish town inthe country, uh, that happened
to be online.
And I heard some veryinteresting arguments.
People saying requiring masks isagainst freedoms, guaranteed in
the constitution to act like theChinese government.
If we don't respect individualrights in this country, we'll
(03:46):
end up burning ourselves down tothe ground, like what's going on
in Venezuela.
And since we've had lots of, youknow, lawsuits from bars and
gyms and churches over closures,those are understandable, I
think, to most people becausethey involve dollars and cents.
You wouldn't want your businessclosed if you can somehow run it
safely.
But we've also seen individualspurposely defy mask orders-
(04:10):
oppose them politically, butthen defy them once they've been
mandated, which affects, youwould think.
An individual's own health andalso the health of those he or
she interacts with.
So what's going on here?
I started to think, how can weexplain this?
Um, so I stepped back and Ithink it's important to give
(04:32):
people who feel this way, and itcould be you and me or our
listeners who feel this way,what's a good what's the
underlying justification here.
More.
I thought about it.
Two fundamental principles Ithink are coming into play.
The first is Liberty andwhatever one thinks of the mask
debate Liberty is obviously anexceedingly important principle.
(04:55):
We, none of us want the policebarging into our homes in the
middle of the night withoutwarrants.
Um, none of us want thegovernment to say what religion
we should practice.
None of us want the governmentto tell us how to raise our
kids.
And so Liberty, and I say, thisis as a citizen, as well as
someone who's studied history,Liberty is a bedrock of our
(05:17):
country and it goes all the wayback to the Declaration of
Independence.
But like with all rights, thequestion arises, where do you
draw the line?
When is government action toomuch?
When does it cross the line andinfringe on our liberties?
And when it comes to the rubberhitting the road like that,
(05:39):
people don't always agree.
I remember a generation ago, butbefore your times, I'm sure that
, there was a debate overwhether seatbelts could be
required and you still hear fromtime to time, people who ride
motorcycles complaining aboutlaws that require them to wear
helmets and more the controversyover Obamacare.
(05:59):
Can you force me, can thegovernment force me to buy
health insurance if I'm healthyand I don't want to spend the
money.
We had these kinds of debatesall the time.
What is helpful sometimes is tothink of that when we talking
about the government imposingthings in this country, at least
in theory, we are thegovernment.
I mean, we, the people makedecisions, the majority through
(06:23):
our elected representatives, butwe also, at the same time, know
that the majority can actoppressively against
individuals.
And so I think the debate overmasks reflects a really
important, larger tension in thecountry's history.
And that's the importance ofliberty and the constraints
(06:43):
placed on individual Liberty bycollective action.
The second thought I have aboutthis mass controversy has to do
with another important coreprinciple and that's federalism.
And that's a distinctive and avery important factor of
(07:04):
American government.
The idea that we have localcontrol.
And that's something that wouldstrike, I suspect, a Chinese
visitor, or even a Frenchvisitor to our country, as
somewhat bizarre that so muchpower is held not by the
national government, but byStates and by local entities.
In fact, you know, there's 50States.
(07:25):
We all know that, but there'salmost 90,000 local government
entities, everything from schoolboards to health, public health
authorities, to your watercommissioner.
And normally that's good.
We want local control overeducation.
The same laws couldn't possiblyapply to city dwellers and
farmers.
(07:47):
And all of this allows us toexperiment.
If something works in Wisconsin,we'll copy it.
If it doesn't work, you know,well, that was Wisconsin's
mistake.
We don't have to get trapped.
And then, you know, because wethink differently in this
country, people in Nebraskadon't have to have the same laws
as people in Massachusetts.
So all of that is really healthyand an important feature of our
(08:09):
country, but it leads to greatpotential for chaos.
And we can all recall, you know,10, 15 years ago, Hurricane
Katrina, who was in charge?
Was it the national government?
Was it FEMA?
Or is it the state?
Is it new Orleans?
And there was a lot of chaos andtragedy as a result of that
(08:30):
confusion.
And so I read something inAtlantic magazine, which I
haven't verified, but I assumewas accurate that there are more
than 2,600 state local andtribal public health agencies
and departments in this country.
That's 2,600 different sourcesof decision making about COVID
(08:54):
and masks and quarantines andeverything else.
And, uh, I think, you know, youcan see the recipe for chaos
there, which we've seen play outover the past few months.
Sorry, long winded answer toyour question, but I think the
debate at bottom over masks rereflects really important
principles.
(09:15):
Tensions over liberty andfederalism, which are ordinarily
good values, but they're playingout in a life and death context,
which is at a minimuminteresting and beyond that can
be very important to people'slives.
Cindy Sealls (09:42):
Are these times that we're living through now,
are they any different?
Are there other extraordinarytimes in the past that can
inform us about how this is allgoing to play out ultimately?
Steve Steinbach (09:53):
One way to think about that is to go back
to January 1st when you'repopping the champagne or
whatever.
I doubt if there's anyone thatyou were talking to at the time
who predicted what we've beengoing through the six or seven
months after that.
(10:13):
I mean, this has been anextraordinary year and if you
kind of go over events one byone, none of them are
unprecedented.
I mean, we started, if you thinkabout how we started the year
with impeachment it's hard toremember that way back in
January.
But you know, we've had thatbefore.
(10:33):
We've had two presidents gothrough impeachment trials,
Andrew Johnson and 1868 and billClinton in 1999.
So that we've been there, donethat.
COVID, we've read a lot aboutthe 19, 19 Spanish, uh,
influenza, which some peoplethink originally originated in,
(10:55):
in Kansas of all places.
The Spanish virus, you couldhave called the Kansas virus,
but in any event, it resulted intens of millions of deaths
worldwide and in the UnitedStates, 600,000 or so.
So in that sense, the pandemicis not brand new to this
country.
We've had a remarkable economiccollapse in the year 2020.
(11:20):
That's not new either.
You can all remember 2008.
And, then far more significantlyin 1929, the great depression
begins with the stock marketcollapse.
The past few months havewitnessed extraordinary events
involving civil rights.
Demands for racial justiceconcerns about police injustice
(11:43):
that were precipitated by thedeath of George Floyd.
That hearkens us back to thecivil rights era of the 1950s
and the 1960s in this country.
And then, you know, cross yourfingers, knock on wood, there is
the possibility of a contestedpresidential election this fall.
(12:03):
And if that happens, not thatanyone should wish for that, but
if that happens, that would befar from a first we've had
contested presidential electionsas early as 1800, a very
significant contestedpresidential election in 1876.
We know that 2000 Bush versusGore went to the Supreme court.
(12:24):
So all of this has happenedbefore in that sense.
What's truly extraordinary isthat all of this is going on at
the same time.
Generations from now, whenpeople have my job teaching
United States history, I thinkthey're going to be devoting
considerable time to the year2020, because all of this is
playing out also in the context,which we'll get to I suspect of
(12:45):
polarization and governmentdysfunction and all of these
crises at once.
I mean, it can be overwhelmingto read the newspaper, to watch
something on television, and itgives rise to legitimate
concerns among people of goodfaith about whether the country
can survive all of this.
Are we on the verge of anational crack up?
(13:08):
Will the center hold, or are wepotentially facing some kind of
defining crisis?
Cindy Sealls (13:34):
Does looking at history, Give us any insight
into where we are today and howwe can find a way forward?
Steve Steinbach (13:45):
Well, you're, you're talking to someone who
teaches history.
So, I have a vested interest insaying yes to that.
Um, but yes, this is I think theanswer, but a qualified yes,
because history is backwardlooking and historians are the
last people who could predictthe future.
Maybe I shouldn't say lasteconomists aren't very good at
(14:07):
it, or they'd all be all bewealthy.
And as I said earlier, no one atthe start of this year could
have predicted anywhere near thepotential crisis as we currently
face.
So, I may be the last person tosort of say where all this will
lead, but, and that, I thinkraises a good question.
So what's the point of history?
(14:28):
Why do we even study or talkabout the past?
It's not like when we have acrisis, we dig out our history
textbooks and say, okay, here'sthe recipe.
But there are some uses of ahistorical perspective in
thinking about our current orany difficult times.
(14:48):
To some extent, I think we dolearn from history and not maybe
in the classic sense that thosewho don't learn from history are
condemned to repeat it, thatkind of thing.
But we do earn, um, we arespeaking today, uh, in the midst
of the 75th anniversary of thebombings of Hiroshima and
(15:11):
Nagasaki.
And I think it's fair to saythat we as a nation, we as a
world community, again, knock onwood, had learned some lessons
from that.
And that may be at least oneexplanation as to despite the
potential terrors of all thesenuclear weapons that they have
(15:31):
not been deployed for 75 years.
The economic crisis of 2008 andthe current economic crisis,
we've learned some lessons fromthe great depression.
The federal reserve is much moreskilled about liquidity and
money supply than it was in the1930s.
(15:51):
And so in that sense, we'velearned some lessons.
I think history can also give ussome comfort, some sense that
we've been there before we'vebeen in worse or difficult times
and we've gotten through them.
We can talk about some exampleseventually.
So that helps in terms ofperspective.
(16:14):
And I think history or the studyof history or thinking about
history can help us reveal ourstrengths, our strengths as a
nation, what Lincoln called ourbetter angels.
And so, while history is not aroadmap to how to solve all our
problems, um, it does help putour problems in perspective in a
(16:36):
way that actually couldencourage us to be better and to
deal with the problems at hand.
Cindy Sealls (16:45):
You spoke about history and the importance of
that.
And one of the issues is thatpeople don't believe the history
that they're reading or theybelieve different narratives.
There's, there's differentnarratives of what, about what
history says or who wrote thehistory and whether we should
believe that history.
(17:05):
How do you figure out even as ahistorian, what to believe, what
is truth or what is true andwhat, or what is not true when
you read history?
Steve Steinbach (17:16):
Well, that's a really important perspective to
bring on any discussion ofhistory.
There are certain facts andcertain truths.
The declaration of independencewas in 1776.
But that there are a host ofperspectives on history and what
(17:38):
constitutes history.
We're constantly being exposedto the voices of people who have
not played a big role inpresentation of our country's
history.
And so what goes into the makingof history, the narrative of
history, those can be verycontroversial.
There's no question in thatsense, you know, there is no
(18:02):
perceived or agreed uponhistorical truth, which
complicates the use of historyin any sort of discussion of the
past and thinking about how thataffects the present.
No doubt about that.
And I think the question youraised is of particular concern
(18:22):
in recent times because we seeit even in our own, current
events.
Setting aside the history of thepast, what's going on just on a
day to day basis.
There is a sense out there, andthe sense may be accurate that
people have different truths anddifferent facts.
(18:48):
And all of that very much hasled to polarization in this
country and complicates, forsure, the sense of how we can
examine the past in order tohelp us with the present.
N o d oubt.
(19:15):
It's important to the extentpossible to agree on at least
what happened.
Whether what happened was goodor bad is subject to debate.
Of course, whether I'm a statueof someone new participated in
events in the past should remainor not can be a matter of
(19:35):
opinion.
But what that person did and thecontext in which that person
operated should be less at leastof a struggle factually.
And that's what historians tryto clarify.
Let me, let me think about itthis way, I've heard it said
it's not simply in Covid timesin the past few months, but even
(19:57):
in the past few years, thatwe're on the verge of some sort
of new civil war.
That we had a civil war, andwe're about to do it again, um,
you know, red versus blue, orhowever you want to, however you
want to characterize it,liberals versus conservatives.
And so, when you think aboutsomething like that, one
(20:22):
response is to actually thinkabout the civil war, which this
country flawed from 1860 to1865.
And without too muchcontroversy, one can come up
with some elements that led tothat civil war and then one can
ask or do we have similardivisions nowadays?
(20:45):
So if you put yourself back the1850s, there were in this
country, fundamental geographicdivisions between the Northern
States and the Southern States.
There were fundamental economicdivisions between the Southern
economy based on enslaved labor.
Not that the Northern economywasn't because of banking and
(21:10):
shipping and insurance, but to afar lesser extent.
There were fundamental moraldivisions between the
slaveocracy and theabolitionists, for instance, and
there were fundamental politicaldivisions between the
pro-slavery Democrats and the,well, it's not quite fair to say
(21:30):
anti-slavery Republicans, butthe Republicans at least didn't
want the expansion of slaveryinto the territories.
So you had geographic economic,moral, and political divisions,
and they all perfectly alignedwith each other and for decades
and decades, going back to theconstitutional convention, the
political process had beenunable to bridge the divide over
(21:53):
this single issue.
So all of that resultedobviously in a civil war.
I think you would be hardpressed defined those sort of
geographic economic, moral, andpolitical divisions that aligned
so perfectly to bring aboutcivil or number two in our time.
(22:16):
And just a couple otherthoughts, what also made civil
war possible back then is a lackof a strong central authority.
The States had far more powerthan they do now.
A lack of a sense of nationhood.
The people were far more loyalto their individual States than
they are now.
(22:36):
And the fact that those States,those political entities already
existed and could form a sort ofnew rival power base to the
United States government.
All of that, I think helpsexplain why the constitution
broke, why the country went towar against itself.
(22:58):
It led to 750,000 deaths, butalso 4 million Americans
becoming free.
So one can debate whether thatwas good or not, but what one
can't really debate or the sortof forces that led to the civil
war.
And then you and I may differ,or others may differ on where we
(23:24):
go from here, but at least myconclusion from that is for all
our current divisions in thiscountry, we are nowhere close to
what we went through in the1850s.
At least I believe in at least Ihope.
But that's maybe one again inthe long winded way that we can
(23:46):
focus on what happened.
And then we may disagree on whatit means, but there's a little
sort of core of, of a sharedhistorical fact, um, that that
can be useful in sort ofassessing where we are at.
Despite my own sense that we'renot on the verge of a total
(24:13):
rupture, there's plenty ofreasons to be worried about the
state of our democracy.
I mean, to state the obvious,nothing lasts forever.
Franklin Roosevelt in his firstinaugural address says This
great nation will endure.
It will revive and prosper.
Well, it's all due respect thatname necessarily.
So just cause we've lasted 230something years under the
(24:36):
constitution doesn't guaranteeyou will last 230 more months.
That's one of the lessons ofhistory that nothing lasts
forever.
And one could paint regardlessof your perspective, and you
don't have to be a Republican ora Democrat or a liberal
conservative or socialist.
One could paint some verytroubling concerns about our
(24:58):
current sort of politicalcrisis.
We have pretty extreme partisandivisions within this country.
I don't think we're at the Northversus the South.
Um, but we are dividedfundamentally by ideology.
About half of the country thinkswe should have a bigger
government.
And about half of the countrythinks we should have a smaller
government and never the twainshall meet.
(25:22):
Um, and that's reflectedobviously in blue and red
States, but it's reflected inurban areas versus rural areas.
It's reflected in whatneighborhoods we live in and
what schools we send our kidsto, what news sources we read or
watch who our friends are, whowe choose to marry.
People have debated the cause ofall of this, but politically we
(25:45):
are very divided.
There's no denying that.
And I think there's no denying,as a result of that.
There are some pretty importantissues that are piling up bread
and butter issues likeinfrastructure, most of which
was built during the New Dealand lots of which is falling
apart before our eyes.
(26:07):
I'm not sure that's a partisanissue.
Um, but to the extent that we'repartisanly divided, it's harder
to address that issue.
Social security, because ofdemographic changes unconnected
to liberals or conservatives,people are living longer, there
are fewer workers.
(26:28):
Social security is projected torun out of money.
We have to deal with that.
It's hard to deal with that in apolarized divided government.
The national debt I just checkedthis morning is now$27 trillion,
$81,000 per citizen.
And that doesn't count yourmortgage or your credit card or
(26:49):
your student loan debt.
And then there are other issuesout there, even, you know, maybe
tougher guns, climate change,inequality.
And then just like, why couldn'twe thought about the pandemic?
We're going to be askingourselves the same things about
down the road about why weren'twe more prepared for artificial
(27:12):
intelligence or geneticengineering or cloning.
And so there's a concern that ifour political system is
polarized and divided andbroken, that we won't be able to
address these sort offundamental problems of the
future.
And I don't want to pile on, butbeyond that, even though we've
(27:32):
been divided in the past,there's some wild cards out
there and you have to ask, willthey make things differently?
There are lots of guns and lotsof private paramilitary groups.
There is a very strong centralstate authority system.
We've that recently in Portland.
(27:53):
We have the social media, whichis stirring up dissent and
discord.
And as we talked about earlier,to some extent, there is a
breakdown of what is, what istruth.
And so all of that, I don't meanto sound alarmist.
In fact, my own view is moreoptimistic than what I've just
(28:13):
sketched, but it's caused, Ithink to be fair, a good number
of people to lose faith in oursystem, both our democratic
system of self government andmaybe our economic system of
market capitalism.
And you can see that in booktitles that are, you know, on
your shelves, assuming we evergo back to a bookstore or a
(28:35):
library, How democracies die,The death of truth.
Why nations fail?
Can it happen here?
I mean, those are all titles.
You don't have to read the booksto get the gist and you can see
it in public opinion polls aboutthe loss of faith people have in
either our parties or ourleaders or the mainstream media
(28:56):
or the economy.
And so, yeah, country's dividedand all of that is reason for
concern.
Cindy Sealls (29:19):
Your view is more optimistic despite all of those
concerns that you have, give us,you know, your optimistic
viewpoint.
Steve Steinbach (29:30):
At the end of this, it may seem like a little
tail wagging a great big dog,but I am cautiously optimistic,
I think for a couple of reasons.
First, and maybe this is becauseI teach American government, I
remain a believer in ourpolitical system.
Not everyone believes in thatpolitical system, but I still
(29:52):
have am of the view that thevast majority of Americans do.
That's our constitution, checksand balances, separation of
powers, our political liberties,freedom of speech, the right to
vote, the right to serve onjuries.
(30:14):
I have faith in ourinstitutions, Lord knows not
every day and not all the time,but especially our courts, u h,
especially our press.
One of the things this countryhas had historically are
defining elections, u h, wherethings c hange for a generation.
(30:38):
I'm not predicting that, but wehave gone through back and forth
and back and forth.
I mean, what, we've gone fromBush to Clinton back to Bush,
back to Obama, and now Trump.
So we've had a generation ofoscillating, but it's very
narrow m ajorities, but we'vealso in this country, had a
landslide defining elections,which h ave given us enough of a
(31:06):
percentage majority that thingsactually can change.
And I guess, deep down andpeople can certainly disagree
with me here.
Um, especially given ourhistory, but deep down, I have
faith in the basic goodness ofwe, the people, not everyone,
not all the time, but at leastmost of us, most of the time
(31:29):
trying.
So these may not be normaltimes, but I think we'll get
back to normal times or at leastI want to believe that.
Or at least I hope I'm notwrong.
The second kind of reason I havefor optimism is because I teach
United States history.
And the more you think aboutwhere we are, the more you can
(31:51):
say, we've been here before wehave had periods of intense
political partisanship andgridlock.
The 1790s people don't talkabout 1790s very much.
Our country was brand new.
Hadn't even had its 10thbirthday yet and we had such
fundamental divisions betweentwo political parties, neither
(32:13):
of which had been conceived whenthe constitution was written.
The Federalist party, which wasin control of the government and
the Republican party, thedemocratic Republican party.
We had such divisions in the1790s that Congress led by the
Federalist and Federalistpresident, John Adams passed
something called the Seditionact, which criminalized
(32:36):
criticism of the government.
Criminalized it to the pointwhere leading political
opponents from the Republicanparty were prosecuted and jailed
for their dissent overgovernment policies.
I mean, those were intensepartisan times.
There was genuine doubt whetherthe country would survive the
(33:00):
contested election of 1800.
This was long before the Supremecourt started emphasizing the
importance of freedom of speechand the right to disagree with
your government.
And we've had partisan divisionsin the 1820s and the 1850s,
obviously, leading to the civilwar.
(33:21):
The 1880s, lots of very in ablue state red state kind of
equivalent.
You could predict which Statesin the 1880s were going to vote
Democratic and which States weregoing to vote Republican.
And, you know, it always camedown to just a handful that
swung the balance of power, avery closely divided partisan
(33:45):
nation.
And then, you know, you'vementioned already the 1950s and
the 1960s people who lived therein 1968, thought the country was
falling apart with theassassinations of Martin Luther
King and Robert Kennedy and theviolence at the Chicago national
convention and the racial unrestin the country.
(34:09):
And we've also had other crisesthat have looked insurmountable
slavery, the civil war, thegreat depression, segregation,
Vietnam, Watergate, and back toFDR.
Despite all of that, we'vesurvived, we've endured we've
prospered.
(34:30):
And so when you look back at thespan of American history, you
can say to yourself, and again,I realize not everyone would
agree with this, but I think atleast I say to myself, we have
not without struggle, obtainedmore Liberty in this country.
And we have, not withoutstruggle, attained more
(34:52):
equality.
We've never had a religious war.
We've never had a military coup.
We've never fallen intoauthoritarian or dictatorship.
We've always elected ourleaders.
We've always had peacefultransitions of power.
Nothing is inevitable.
(35:12):
Nothing is inevitable.
The past doesn't guarantee thefuture, but at least if history
is any guide, I think we'll getthrough this.
And once again, I hope I'm notwrong.
Cindy Sealls (35:40):
There's a narrative out there in some
circles that American studentsare being taught to hate America
as a U S history and governmentteacher.
What do you say to that?
Steve Steinbach (35:55):
I think, honestly, if you look at your
own individual lives and youwere to, you know, say the story
of yourself, you'll be proud ofcertain things you had done and
not so proud of others.
All of us are flawed creatures.
And I think to some extent youthat's what, how you have to
(36:15):
view American history.
You can teach it through a lensof pure evil, we've done
nothing, right?
And you can teach it through theopposite lens to glorify the
founders and minimize problemsin American history.
And I think in the end, eachperson draws its own their own
(36:38):
opinion.
And as a teacher at least, Iview, some people disagree with
this, I view my role asproviding enough information for
students to draw their ownconclusions.
But I just don't think it does aservice to the past, to glorify
(36:59):
American exceptionalism or tospend your whole time condemning
our failures.
Cindy Sealls (37:14):
America has long been known as the melting pot of
the world that has beenperceived as the source of our
strength and our prosperity.
Now it seems that some peoplebelieve that diversity is a
liability to our country.
(37:34):
What do you think about that?
Steve Steinbach (37:35):
Yeah, let me think about that in terms of
immigration and then a littlebit more broadly.
Immigration is long, long, longbeen a divisive issue in
American history.
Way back in the 1790s, whichI've mentioned, one of the
things that we did at the sametime we passed the Sedition Law
(37:58):
was to pass something called anAlien Act, which was
specifically aimed at people whoa re coming from France, who w
ere i n our country.
We've had attacks on IrishCatholics, 1830s.
I mean, physical attacks as wellas attempts to exclude or
attempts to prevent them frombecoming citizens 1830s t o the
(38:20):
1850s.
And there were anti-immigrationsocieties formed in the late
1800s in the early 1900s.
Congress passed, in the 1880s,the Chinese exclusion act, which
prevented any new immigrationfrom China and also made it
(38:41):
impossible for any Chinesealready in the country to ever
become citizens.
We expanded that in the 1920s toinclude Asians of all
nationalities, not just theChinese.
In the 1920s, we pass a veryrestrictive immigration law that
gave great preference to peoplefrom Northwest Europe and made
(39:06):
it almost impossible for anyonefrom Southeast Europe, much less
than the rest of the world toenter the country.
Some of that changed in the1960s, but we've been fighting
immigration battles for ourentire country's history,
because there, I think thisdivide that isn't going to be
magically solved as to what thisnation should look like.
(39:31):
I do want to say one other sortof bigger picture of thought
here.
This goes all the way back andthis is a little, maybe too much
political theory, but all theway back to the, when people
were trying to structure ourgovernment, the constitution and
set up a Republic.
A Republic is basically in ahole where will people govern
themselves through electedrepresentatives.
(39:52):
Well, how do you do that?
And traditionally the thoughtwas, well, you can only be a
Republican.
Everybody's kind of like has thesame values.
Everyone in my community is sortof like me and we can all get
along and do the right thing andthen we'll have a successful
Republic.
But that's not what our countrywas and that's certainly not
what our country is.
(40:13):
We have all kinds of differentviewpoints.
Um, think about religion, a hostof different organizations that
people believe in and belong to.
And so very early on, JamesMadison, one of his Federalist
essays, sort of turn things ontheir heads and said, no, the
(40:37):
best way to run a country hasnot.
If everybody thinks alike on asmall scale.
The best way to run a countryhas is big picture and have so
many different disagreements andpoints of view that no single
majority can emerge.
We have so many differentreligions that you're not going
to have one religion outlaw theother and you can do the same
(41:00):
thing with sort of economics andpolitical viewpoints.
Now that's a theory, obviouslyit didn't help us avoid the
civil war, but it does kind ofgive us some comfort that we can
disagree about lots and lots ofthings in this country, but can
still live together within asystem that's built or designed
(41:25):
to take that into account.
Cindy Sealls (41:42):
There are concerns on the right and the left about
a slide into authoritarianism.
Can you speak to that concern?
Steve Steinbach (41:55):
I mean, what would an authoritarian
government look like?
It would essentially, it wouldbe a system where the government
pretty much told people whatthey could and could not do as
opposed to at least in theorywhat our government is.
We, the people, tell thegovernment what to do.
(42:15):
Um, and to get a little bit morein particular, you would be
talking about a government thattakes away individual rights, or
maybe certain points of view aresuppressed.
And all of that accompaniedthrough force.
I mean, you know, you can seethis in many other nations
around the globe.
(42:36):
Will we come to that point?
Um, let's hope not.
What can we do to not come tothat point?
I think, and as I said before,nothing is inevitable, but I
think we've done the best we canin terms of setting up a system
that makes that difficult toachieve, because we have lots of
(42:58):
different power centers in thiscountry.
We have States that push backagainst the national government
and vice versa.
Um, we have courts that tell ourelected leaders, they cannot do
certain things.
They want that courts that tellthe majority of us voted for
something.
(43:18):
No, that's inconsistent with ourfundamental liberties.
We have a free press that, youknow, maybe maybe divided and
may not be universally loved,but speaks truth to power.
We ourselves speak truth topower when we vote, when we
(43:42):
serve on juries.
So all of those areinstitutional answers.
None of that has to lastforever, but as long as those
institutions remain and we doour best as citizens to keep
them healthy, there's little bitmore reason to see a silver
(44:04):
lining in what might otherwisebe viewed as a dark cloud.
Cindy Sealls (44:13):
Another common narrative is that we are more
polarized than we have been in along, long time, if that is
true, how can we move forward ifso many of us are on the
political extremes?
Steve Steinbach (44:34):
Well, I think first, it helps to, um, kind of
put things in perspective, Ithink.
I would at least view what'sgoing on now on both sides as
this is almost in terms of abell curve, where there are
certainly extremes about theextremes are less numerous in
(44:56):
terms of, you know, the amountof actual support they have,
then maybe the airtime that theyget.
And where there is still, in themiddle of the bell curve, the
bulk of, some concerned peoplegoing through some very
difficult times in terms ofCOVID in terms of the economy,
in terms of our dividedpolitics, but for the most part,
(45:20):
committed to the sort of corevalues that have defined the
nation, as opposed to whateverthe goals or fears of, of the
extremes might be.
And I think it's important orhelpful to sort of, if you place
yourself somewhere on thatconcern middle to think what can
(45:44):
I do or what should we do to, tosomehow pull ourselves together
to get through this and to makesure that neither extreme is
victorious.
And part of that is, you know,from a history government
teacher, it would be nice tospend more time and more effort
(46:07):
in this country on civicseducation.
I get it.
Math is important, so isscience, but we have devalued,
sadly, our discussions and theamount of time we spend in the
classroom on these importantquestions, which ultimately I
think we need to governourselves.
(46:28):
I think it's also important forpeople in the middle who are
worried about extremism ofeither side to reach out and try
to understand the views ofpeople who disagree with them.
There's some practical ways ofdoing that.
You can force yourself to readtwo different points of view.
Read the Wall Street Journal andthe New York times every day, or
(46:50):
watch MSNBC and Fox back andforth.
Actively seek out people youdisagree with politically and
have conversations with them,try to find common ground.
Another sort of thought is, Ithink, the more you delve into
issues, they're much harder andthey're much more complex and
they're gray, not black andwhite and those two things.
(47:13):
And so trying to, even if youhave a profound point of view,
and maybe even if you end up atthat profound point of view,
you're better off, I think,trying to analyze the weaknesses
of your position and where otherpeople are coming from, and
maybe focusing a bit more oncompromise.
(47:35):
Thomas Jefferson said once ahalf of half a loaf is better
than no bread and so keeping anopen mind on issues as opposed
to sort of knee jerk, I knowwhat I think.
I know t hey're dead wrong.
To think of people w ho disagreewith you as adversaries and
(47:56):
opponents, good words, u m, andnot enemies, bad word.
We shouldn't have enemies inthis country.
We should have good faithadversaries.
And then I guess my finalthought as a teacher of all this
stuff, talking to kids inclassrooms is that if we truly
(48:19):
believe what it says at thebeginning of the constitution,
we, the people, now you canargue that that's a fiction, et
cetera, but if we truly believeit or want it to be reality,
even if we kind of think itmight be a fiction, we are the
people we are the government.
And that means all of us areobligated to read, to volunteer,
(48:43):
to contribute, to participate,to serve on juries, to vote.
It's our government and justlike it's our home and our
family, our school, we shouldtry to make it the best we can
through our own hard work.
Cindy Sealls (49:00):
Well, Steve, thank you so very much for speaking
with us.
Steve Steinbach (49:04):
Thank you for asking me and more importantly,
thank you for doing your podcast.
Kelley Lynch (49:20):
Hi guys.
It's nice to all be togetheragain.
Finally.
(49:24):
Hey there.
Speaker 4 (49:25):
Hello.
Kelley Lynch (49:27):
Cindy finally got her history episode.
Cindy Sealls (49:30):
U m, yes.
And what I love about history ishow it can inform us about where
we've been and where we might begoing.
Like we've been discussingimmigration for centuries
because James Madison was theone who said, no, we don't want
a homogeneous country whereeverybody thinks the same and
(49:53):
believes the same, but what willmake this place better and
special is that people have allkinds of beliefs so that no one
particular belief a scends overanother, which is just mind
blowing to me to know that thatwas, that discussion was so long
ago.
Obaidul Fattah Tanvir (50:11):
And it's, it's, it's fascinating that
talking about the fact and theperspective, that was very
interesting.
And I like this example ofimmigration in us, the law is
kind of the fact and this ideaof, you know, inviting
(50:32):
immigrants from all of the worldis kind of a perspective.
Cindy Sealls (50:37):
It reminds me of the poem, let America be America
again, written by LangstonHughes in 1936.
And even though few people atthat time were experiencing the
promise of America, he continuesto believe that America can be
(50:59):
what it says it is, you know,and that was the whole thing of
let America be the dream thedreamers dreamed, let it be that
great strong land of love.
Where never Kings connive ortyrants scheme,that any man be
crushed by one above, Oh, let myland be a land where Liberty is
(51:19):
crowned with no false patrioticwreath.
But opportunity is real.
And land is free.
Equality is in the air webreathe.
We have not lived up to thoseprinciples, but there's hope,
you know, b ut let America bewhat it's supposed to be.
(51:39):
It hasn't been that yet, butlet's keep working at it.
And I think that's the beauty ofAmerica that we can just keep
working at it.
You know, don't give up, we havea lot of different kinds of
people we're g oing t o makethis experiment work.
(52:00):
And I, I wish that Americanswould see all Americans.
You know what I mean?
Where i t's, it's not AfricanAmericans, European Americans,
Chinese Americans, MuslimAmericans, we're Americans.
You know, I w ish that we wouldsee each other more like that.
Kelley Lynch (52:22):
And that, that goes with the whole idea of, of
immigrants.
And everybody should learn tospeak English.
Everybody should assimilateeverybody should.
I mean, that's kind of what theconservatives have said.
Cindy Sealls (52:37):
I'm not saying that.
Kelley Lynch (52:38):
You're not saying that?
Cindy Sealls (52:39):
So what, what they're saying is I want
everybody to be arose and itshould be a red road.
I'm saying I want everybody tobe whatever flower they are,
because that's what makes thegarden look beautiful.
Exactly.
You have to, every flower haslike, people say that flower,
(53:01):
you got to work a lot with thatflower, but I want all of them.
That's what makes the gardenbeautiful.
And nobody's ever going to say,man, I wish all the roses were
red or all the two lips wereyellow.
No!
Obaidul Fattah Tanvir (53:14):
I think that this, this goes against the
very basic idea of America.
You know, it's a land ofopportunity.
And also it's a place whereeverybody can come with their
(53:35):
own culture.
And from that creates a newculture.
This is not meant to bedisrespectful of the country.
You know, you don't have ahistory, you don't have a
history.
(53:56):
You have like 300 years andthat's in a, you know, in a
cosmic level, that's likenothing.
Well, I mean, even compared toIndia, Bangladesh, I mean, how
long we have a history of 4,000years.
So, so what I'm trying to say islike, since you are not anchored
(54:21):
to any one concept or any oneidea, because you don't have a
history, you don't havesomething to go back to.
Kelley Lynch (54:29):
I love that idea that we just,
Obaidul Fattah Tanvir (54:33):
We just haven't, it's a fresh start.
Speaker 1 (54:36):
It can actually be realized
Speaker 6 (54:39):
It's a fresh start, a second chance.
And so you start from scratch
Speaker 1 (54:46):
To me, that is why America has been so successful
because these, all of thesedifferent people came from all
of these different countrieswith different mindsets about
how things should be in acountry.
And they came over here.
Now, people were here, we'lladmit people were here.
(55:06):
However, I will say this.
They took each of these peoplewho sat down and wrote all of
these different constitutionsfor the different colonies and
the different States and thecountry were coming.
They were bringing theirknowledge of a prior system that
they kind of liked, but theywere going to tweak it so that
(55:28):
it was a little better.
And they took some of the nativeAmericans ideas about how, how
their culture was and wrote thisconstitution.
And that to me is the beauty ofit because you, like Tanvir
said, it's exactly right.
They don't have to say, well,you know, we always did it this
way, so let's keep doing it thisway because they don't have it.
Cindy Sealls (55:52):
There it's a blank slate.
It was a blank slate.
Let's write this thing the waywe think a government should
function, a country shouldfunction.
And the beauty of thatconstitution is because they
made this Congress and becauseCongress changes every two
(56:13):
years, Congress can change.
And then the Senate has to bereelected that you're always
going to have a change ofpeople, including the president
who are making the laws of thecountry.
So the laws that we started offwith look totally different than
the laws now that is the beautyof it.
(56:36):
And Tanvir is actually so rightabout that.
Obaidul Fattah Tanvir (56:40):
Yeah.
I feel that your system is kindof a living system.
This is a living breathingorganism because you are
adapting to the changingenvironment, changing situation.
But whereas in our case, most ofour laws are that from the
British colonial rule and thenrevised in 2000 or something
(57:05):
like that.
So we are kind of stuck in thepast, but your system is
designed in such a way that yourespond to the changing needs of
the country, changing needs ofthe people.
Yeah.
In the journey, sometimes it maybe bad.
(57:26):
It may be good.
You cannot expect always to win,but in the end, because of the
system, it will have a betterresult.
Kelley Lynch (57:38):
I think it's a really, it's such a positive,
definitely what we are.
And I think a lot of us can feelwhichever side.
I mean, unfortunately there aresides and whichever side people
are on, they can feel thatAmerica has really gone off the
rails.
(57:58):
But I think that view gives areal sense of hope and the
promise that we have as acountry,
Cindy Sealls (58:11):
Like you said, it is an organism, they created
this living organism.
And the, what could happen withthat is just, I think,
unimaginable to us, if we liveup to our creed, All men are
(58:33):
created equal.
You know, if we lived up tothat, we treated people and in
our country like that, andpeople around the world, I just
can't even imagine what couldhappen with the whole world.
Kelley Lynch (58:50):
It would be like a beacon.
It would be actually like what Ithink we like to imagine
ourselves being, you know, theguy on the, with the, the white
horse, the white hat, I think wemight, could actually be that,
um, that hope and that lightthat we like to think that we
(59:10):
are for the rest of the world.
Cindy Sealls (59:13):
We won't be perfect.
Nothing's perfect.
We'll make mistakes.
We'll do things that weshouldn't have done.
But if we do them and we say,you know, we thought that that
was a good idea, but that wasnot a good idea.
And we're very sorry about that.
And we're going to makerestitution for it to whatever
country, to whatever group ofpeople, you know what I mean?
Because that, that is what weshould be doing as human beings.
(59:36):
And since a country is nothingbut a collection of human
beings, it's not, you know,that's all we are.
That's all a country is, that'swhat you do.
You just, okay.
You know what we, that was notthe right thing to do.
We apologize.
We're very sorry.
We're going to make restitutionfor that.
And you know, you think peoplewouldn't forgive us for that?
Kelley Lynch (59:58):
I think some people think of that as
weakness.
Cindy Sealls (01:00:02):
Think of what, what takes more strength when
you're wrong and you know,you're wrong.
What takes more strength to justtry to ignore the fact that
you're wrong and never doanything, or to go to that
person and say, you know what,I'm really sorry.
I should not have said that Ishould have not have done that.
Would you please forgive me?
What takes more strength?
Obaidul Fattah Tanvir (01:00:22):
That takes a lot of courage to admit
that you're wrong and you'rewilling to fix it.
Cindy Sealls (01:00:30):
Think of the example that would set for other
countries.
You know, if the quote, unquote,greatest country in the world
admitted that we did things thatprobably caused major problems
in other countries, and that wewere willing to admit it and to
try to make restitution inwhatever way those countries see
(01:00:51):
fit.
Tell us what to do.
How can we make this better foryou?
Because of our mistake.
Unfortunately, I don't thinkit's going to happen, but
Obaidul Fattah Tanvir (01:00:59):
I wish we had that.
Kelley Lynch (01:01:00):
It was a nice dream.
I was enjoying the dream and thevision.
It was so different than thecurrent feeling, which is of
being an agreement up on it.
Cindy Sealls (01:01:10):
I'm not giving up on it.
Kelley Lynch (01:01:12):
I think it's a beautiful vision.
Obaidul Fattah Tanvir (01:01:14):
Really.
It starts from there, it startsfrom one point and it spreads.
That's how it is.
What is collective wisdom?
It's individuals wisdom togetheron the right path, right
direction.
That's it.
That's what we need.
It's true.
This gives us this.
This pandemic actually gives usa chance to redefine our path or
(01:01:40):
our objective or our goal andstart all over again.
Kelley Lynch (01:01:52):
Thanks for listening.
We hope you enjoyed the show.
Remember to subscribe, and we'dbe really grateful if you scroll
down in your feed, click on thestars, write a review.
If you've got some time andfollow us on Instagram at a new
normal podcast, you'll be gladyou did.
(01:02:14):
I'm afraid next week.
My gig continues.
So we're going to be off againnext week, but we'll be back the
following week with a mysteryguest.
Can't wait either.
It's a mystery even to me.
So we'll see you in a couple ofweeks.
(01:02:37):
All right.
Bye.
Bye.
What we are witnessing now is making a
history.
Kelley Lynch (00:03):
Maybe it's kind of like the making of sausage.
One of those things that none ofus wants to see, except for
Cindy, Cindy, have you hadenough of living through history
yet?
Cindy Sealls (00:18):
I think I've had a lifetime in the last eight
months because I've livedthrough what seems to be headed
towards another greatdepression, the possibility of a
contested presidential election.
Although I have lived throughthat before, not like this, uh,
the civil rights movement withpeople protesting for that, the
(00:42):
protest against police brutalityin the sixties, the political
polarization of the 1850s andthe 1960s.
And now the possibility orbelief among some that we're
headed toward another civil war.
All at the same time.
Kelley Lynch (01:03):
You forgot the pandemic.
Cindy Sealls (01:05):
Oh, and all this other stuff.
I forgot all about that.
It's like, I can't even rememberall this stuff.
(01:28):
[inaudible] Hi, I'm Cindy seals.
Welcome to a new normal apodcast about how we're adapting
to life during the pandemic andwhere we go from here.
Our guest today is SteveSteinbach.
Steve has been teaching ushistory and American government
to high school students for thepast 15 years before beginning
(01:51):
his teaching career, Steve spentover 20 years as a trial lawyer,
litigating civil and criminalcases.
We asked Steve to put on hissepia colored glasses to help us
see this country and this momentmore clearly.
We hope that looking back athistory might offer lessons
about how we can work togetherrather than tear each other
apart.
(02:12):
Steve Steinbach welcome to thepodcast.
Steve Steinbach (02:15):
Great to be here.
Cindy Sealls (02:17):
I guess my first question or first kind of
statement is these times thatwe're going through right now
are very unusual, extraordinarytimes of having a health
disaster, a lot of politicaldissension and just a bit of
(02:39):
racial unrest to top it all off.
One of the big issues has beenthis, this idea of trying to
control the spread of the Coronavirus, the public, having to
wear mask.
And how can there be this muchcontroversy over something that
seems so simple?
Steve Steinbach (03:03):
Yeah, that's a, that's a fascinating question to
start with because you wouldthink it would be simple.
Um, I actually, I would say thiswas a couple months ago when,
um, some of the communitiesacross the country were thinking
about whether it postmasterrequirements or not.
I listen pretty carefully to acity council debate that was
(03:25):
going on in a smallish town inthe country, uh, that happened
to be online.
And I heard some veryinteresting arguments.
People saying requiring masks isagainst freedoms, guaranteed in
the constitution to act like theChinese government.
If we don't respect individualrights in this country, we'll
(03:46):
end up burning ourselves down tothe ground, like what's going on
in Venezuela.
And since we've had lots of, youknow, lawsuits from bars and
gyms and churches over closures,those are understandable, I
think, to most people becausethey involve dollars and cents.
You wouldn't want your businessclosed if you can somehow run it
safely.
But we've also seen individualspurposely defy mask orders-
(04:10):
oppose them politically, butthen defy them once they've been
mandated, which affects, youwould think.
An individual's own health andalso the health of those he or
she interacts with.
So what's going on here?
I started to think, how can weexplain this?
Um, so I stepped back and Ithink it's important to give
(04:32):
people who feel this way, and itcould be you and me or our
listeners who feel this way,what's a good what's the
underlying justification here.
More.
I thought about it.
Two fundamental principles Ithink are coming into play.
The first is Liberty andwhatever one thinks of the mask
debate Liberty is obviously anexceedingly important principle.
(04:55):
We, none of us want the policebarging into our homes in the
middle of the night withoutwarrants.
Um, none of us want thegovernment to say what religion
we should practice.
None of us want the governmentto tell us how to raise our
kids.
And so Liberty, and I say, thisis as a citizen, as well as
someone who's studied history,Liberty is a bedrock of our
(05:17):
country and it goes all the wayback to the Declaration of
Independence.
But like with all rights, thequestion arises, where do you
draw the line?
When is government action toomuch?
When does it cross the line andinfringe on our liberties?
And when it comes to the rubberhitting the road like that,
(05:39):
people don't always agree.
I remember a generation ago, butbefore your times, I'm sure that
, there was a debate overwhether seatbelts could be
required and you still hear fromtime to time, people who ride
motorcycles complaining aboutlaws that require them to wear
helmets and more the controversyover Obamacare.
(05:59):
Can you force me, can thegovernment force me to buy
health insurance if I'm healthyand I don't want to spend the
money.
We had these kinds of debatesall the time.
What is helpful sometimes is tothink of that when we talking
about the government imposingthings in this country, at least
in theory, we are thegovernment.
I mean, we, the people makedecisions, the majority through
(06:23):
our elected representatives, butwe also, at the same time, know
that the majority can actoppressively against
individuals.
And so I think the debate overmasks reflects a really
important, larger tension in thecountry's history.
And that's the importance ofliberty and the constraints
(06:43):
placed on individual Liberty bycollective action.
The second thought I have aboutthis mass controversy has to do
with another important coreprinciple and that's federalism.
And that's a distinctive and avery important factor of
(07:04):
American government.
The idea that we have localcontrol.
And that's something that wouldstrike, I suspect, a Chinese
visitor, or even a Frenchvisitor to our country, as
somewhat bizarre that so muchpower is held not by the
national government, but byStates and by local entities.
In fact, you know, there's 50States.
(07:25):
We all know that, but there'salmost 90,000 local government
entities, everything from schoolboards to health, public health
authorities, to your watercommissioner.
And normally that's good.
We want local control overeducation.
The same laws couldn't possiblyapply to city dwellers and
farmers.
(07:47):
And all of this allows us toexperiment.
If something works in Wisconsin,we'll copy it.
If it doesn't work, you know,well, that was Wisconsin's
mistake.
We don't have to get trapped.
And then, you know, because wethink differently in this
country, people in Nebraskadon't have to have the same laws
as people in Massachusetts.
So all of that is really healthyand an important feature of our
(08:09):
country, but it leads to greatpotential for chaos.
And we can all recall, you know,10, 15 years ago, Hurricane
Katrina, who was in charge?
Was it the national government?
Was it FEMA?
Or is it the state?
Is it new Orleans?
And there was a lot of chaos andtragedy as a result of that
(08:30):
confusion.
And so I read something inAtlantic magazine, which I
haven't verified, but I assumewas accurate that there are more
than 2,600 state local andtribal public health agencies
and departments in this country.
That's 2,600 different sourcesof decision making about COVID
(08:54):
and masks and quarantines andeverything else.
And, uh, I think, you know, youcan see the recipe for chaos
there, which we've seen play outover the past few months.
Sorry, long winded answer toyour question, but I think the
debate at bottom over masks rereflects really important
principles.
(09:15):
Tensions over liberty andfederalism, which are ordinarily
good values, but they're playingout in a life and death context,
which is at a minimuminteresting and beyond that can
be very important to people'slives.
Cindy Sealls (09:42):
Are these times that we're living through now,
are they any different?
Are there other extraordinarytimes in the past that can
inform us about how this is allgoing to play out ultimately?
Steve Steinbach (09:53):
One way to think about that is to go back
to January 1st when you'repopping the champagne or
whatever.
I doubt if there's anyone thatyou were talking to at the time
who predicted what we've beengoing through the six or seven
months after that.
(10:13):
I mean, this has been anextraordinary year and if you
kind of go over events one byone, none of them are
unprecedented.
I mean, we started, if you thinkabout how we started the year
with impeachment it's hard toremember that way back in
January.
But you know, we've had thatbefore.
(10:33):
We've had two presidents gothrough impeachment trials,
Andrew Johnson and 1868 and billClinton in 1999.
So that we've been there, donethat.
COVID, we've read a lot aboutthe 19, 19 Spanish, uh,
influenza, which some peoplethink originally originated in,
(10:55):
in Kansas of all places.
The Spanish virus, you couldhave called the Kansas virus,
but in any event, it resulted intens of millions of deaths
worldwide and in the UnitedStates, 600,000 or so.
So in that sense, the pandemicis not brand new to this
country.
We've had a remarkable economiccollapse in the year 2020.
(11:20):
That's not new either.
You can all remember 2008.
And, then far more significantlyin 1929, the great depression
begins with the stock marketcollapse.
The past few months havewitnessed extraordinary events
involving civil rights.
Demands for racial justiceconcerns about police injustice
(11:43):
that were precipitated by thedeath of George Floyd.
That hearkens us back to thecivil rights era of the 1950s
and the 1960s in this country.
And then, you know, cross yourfingers, knock on wood, there is
the possibility of a contestedpresidential election this fall.
(12:03):
And if that happens, not thatanyone should wish for that, but
if that happens, that would befar from a first we've had
contested presidential electionsas early as 1800, a very
significant contestedpresidential election in 1876.
We know that 2000 Bush versusGore went to the Supreme court.
(12:24):
So all of this has happenedbefore in that sense.
What's truly extraordinary isthat all of this is going on at
the same time.
Generations from now, whenpeople have my job teaching
United States history, I thinkthey're going to be devoting
considerable time to the year2020, because all of this is
playing out also in the context,which we'll get to I suspect of
(12:45):
polarization and governmentdysfunction and all of these
crises at once.
I mean, it can be overwhelmingto read the newspaper, to watch
something on television, and itgives rise to legitimate
concerns among people of goodfaith about whether the country
can survive all of this.
Are we on the verge of anational crack up?
(13:08):
Will the center hold, or are wepotentially facing some kind of
defining crisis?
Cindy Sealls (13:34):
Does looking at history, Give us any insight
into where we are today and howwe can find a way forward?
Steve Steinbach (13:45):
Well, you're, you're talking to someone who
teaches history.
So, I have a vested interest insaying yes to that.
Um, but yes, this is I think theanswer, but a qualified yes,
because history is backwardlooking and historians are the
last people who could predictthe future.
Maybe I shouldn't say lasteconomists aren't very good at
(14:07):
it, or they'd all be all bewealthy.
And as I said earlier, no one atthe start of this year could
have predicted anywhere near thepotential crisis as we currently
face.
So, I may be the last person tosort of say where all this will
lead, but, and that, I thinkraises a good question.
So what's the point of history?
(14:28):
Why do we even study or talkabout the past?
It's not like when we have acrisis, we dig out our history
textbooks and say, okay, here'sthe recipe.
But there are some uses of ahistorical perspective in
thinking about our current orany difficult times.
(14:48):
To some extent, I think we dolearn from history and not maybe
in the classic sense that thosewho don't learn from history are
condemned to repeat it, thatkind of thing.
But we do earn, um, we arespeaking today, uh, in the midst
of the 75th anniversary of thebombings of Hiroshima and
(15:11):
Nagasaki.
And I think it's fair to saythat we as a nation, we as a
world community, again, knock onwood, had learned some lessons
from that.
And that may be at least oneexplanation as to despite the
potential terrors of all thesenuclear weapons that they have
(15:31):
not been deployed for 75 years.
The economic crisis of 2008 andthe current economic crisis,
we've learned some lessons fromthe great depression.
The federal reserve is much moreskilled about liquidity and
money supply than it was in the1930s.
(15:51):
And so in that sense, we'velearned some lessons.
I think history can also give ussome comfort, some sense that
we've been there before we'vebeen in worse or difficult times
and we've gotten through them.
We can talk about some exampleseventually.
So that helps in terms ofperspective.
(16:14):
And I think history or the studyof history or thinking about
history can help us reveal ourstrengths, our strengths as a
nation, what Lincoln called ourbetter angels.
And so, while history is not aroadmap to how to solve all our
problems, um, it does help putour problems in perspective in a
(16:36):
way that actually couldencourage us to be better and to
deal with the problems at hand.
Cindy Sealls (16:45):
You spoke about history and the importance of
that.
And one of the issues is thatpeople don't believe the history
that they're reading or theybelieve different narratives.
There's, there's differentnarratives of what, about what
history says or who wrote thehistory and whether we should
believe that history.
(17:05):
How do you figure out even as ahistorian, what to believe, what
is truth or what is true andwhat, or what is not true when
you read history?
Steve Steinbach (17:16):
Well, that's a really important perspective to
bring on any discussion ofhistory.
There are certain facts andcertain truths.
The declaration of independencewas in 1776.
But that there are a host ofperspectives on history and what
(17:38):
constitutes history.
We're constantly being exposedto the voices of people who have
not played a big role inpresentation of our country's
history.
And so what goes into the makingof history, the narrative of
history, those can be verycontroversial.
There's no question in thatsense, you know, there is no
(18:02):
perceived or agreed uponhistorical truth, which
complicates the use of historyin any sort of discussion of the
past and thinking about how thataffects the present.
No doubt about that.
And I think the question youraised is of particular concern
(18:22):
in recent times because we seeit even in our own, current
events.
Setting aside the history of thepast, what's going on just on a
day to day basis.
There is a sense out there, andthe sense may be accurate that
people have different truths anddifferent facts.
(18:48):
And all of that very much hasled to polarization in this
country and complicates, forsure, the sense of how we can
examine the past in order tohelp us with the present.
N o d oubt.
(19:15):
It's important to the extentpossible to agree on at least
what happened.
Whether what happened was goodor bad is subject to debate.
Of course, whether I'm a statueof someone new participated in
events in the past should remainor not can be a matter of
(19:35):
opinion.
But what that person did and thecontext in which that person
operated should be less at leastof a struggle factually.
And that's what historians tryto clarify.
Let me, let me think about itthis way, I've heard it said
it's not simply in Covid timesin the past few months, but even
(19:57):
in the past few years, thatwe're on the verge of some sort
of new civil war.
That we had a civil war, andwe're about to do it again, um,
you know, red versus blue, orhowever you want to, however you
want to characterize it,liberals versus conservatives.
And so, when you think aboutsomething like that, one
(20:22):
response is to actually thinkabout the civil war, which this
country flawed from 1860 to1865.
And without too muchcontroversy, one can come up
with some elements that led tothat civil war and then one can
ask or do we have similardivisions nowadays?
(20:45):
So if you put yourself back the1850s, there were in this
country, fundamental geographicdivisions between the Northern
States and the Southern States.
There were fundamental economicdivisions between the Southern
economy based on enslaved labor.
Not that the Northern economywasn't because of banking and
(21:10):
shipping and insurance, but to afar lesser extent.
There were fundamental moraldivisions between the
slaveocracy and theabolitionists, for instance, and
there were fundamental politicaldivisions between the
pro-slavery Democrats and the,well, it's not quite fair to say
(21:30):
anti-slavery Republicans, butthe Republicans at least didn't
want the expansion of slaveryinto the territories.
So you had geographic economic,moral, and political divisions,
and they all perfectly alignedwith each other and for decades
and decades, going back to theconstitutional convention, the
political process had beenunable to bridge the divide over
(21:53):
this single issue.
So all of that resultedobviously in a civil war.
I think you would be hardpressed defined those sort of
geographic economic, moral, andpolitical divisions that aligned
so perfectly to bring aboutcivil or number two in our time.
(22:16):
And just a couple otherthoughts, what also made civil
war possible back then is a lackof a strong central authority.
The States had far more powerthan they do now.
A lack of a sense of nationhood.
The people were far more loyalto their individual States than
they are now.
(22:36):
And the fact that those States,those political entities already
existed and could form a sort ofnew rival power base to the
United States government.
All of that, I think helpsexplain why the constitution
broke, why the country went towar against itself.
(22:58):
It led to 750,000 deaths, butalso 4 million Americans
becoming free.
So one can debate whether thatwas good or not, but what one
can't really debate or the sortof forces that led to the civil
war.
And then you and I may differ,or others may differ on where we
(23:24):
go from here, but at least myconclusion from that is for all
our current divisions in thiscountry, we are nowhere close to
what we went through in the1850s.
At least I believe in at least Ihope.
But that's maybe one again inthe long winded way that we can
(23:46):
focus on what happened.
And then we may disagree on whatit means, but there's a little
sort of core of, of a sharedhistorical fact, um, that that
can be useful in sort ofassessing where we are at.
Despite my own sense that we'renot on the verge of a total
(24:13):
rupture, there's plenty ofreasons to be worried about the
state of our democracy.
I mean, to state the obvious,nothing lasts forever.
Franklin Roosevelt in his firstinaugural address says This
great nation will endure.
It will revive and prosper.
Well, it's all due respect thatname necessarily.
So just cause we've lasted 230something years under the
(24:36):
constitution doesn't guaranteeyou will last 230 more months.
That's one of the lessons ofhistory that nothing lasts
forever.
And one could paint regardlessof your perspective, and you
don't have to be a Republican ora Democrat or a liberal
conservative or socialist.
One could paint some verytroubling concerns about our
(24:58):
current sort of politicalcrisis.
We have pretty extreme partisandivisions within this country.
I don't think we're at the Northversus the South.
Um, but we are dividedfundamentally by ideology.
About half of the country thinkswe should have a bigger
government.
And about half of the countrythinks we should have a smaller
government and never the twainshall meet.
(25:22):
Um, and that's reflectedobviously in blue and red
States, but it's reflected inurban areas versus rural areas.
It's reflected in whatneighborhoods we live in and
what schools we send our kidsto, what news sources we read or
watch who our friends are, whowe choose to marry.
People have debated the cause ofall of this, but politically we
(25:45):
are very divided.
There's no denying that.
And I think there's no denying,as a result of that.
There are some pretty importantissues that are piling up bread
and butter issues likeinfrastructure, most of which
was built during the New Dealand lots of which is falling
apart before our eyes.
(26:07):
I'm not sure that's a partisanissue.
Um, but to the extent that we'repartisanly divided, it's harder
to address that issue.
Social security, because ofdemographic changes unconnected
to liberals or conservatives,people are living longer, there
are fewer workers.
(26:28):
Social security is projected torun out of money.
We have to deal with that.
It's hard to deal with that in apolarized divided government.
The national debt I just checkedthis morning is now$27 trillion,
$81,000 per citizen.
And that doesn't count yourmortgage or your credit card or
(26:49):
your student loan debt.
And then there are other issuesout there, even, you know, maybe
tougher guns, climate change,inequality.
And then just like, why couldn'twe thought about the pandemic?
We're going to be askingourselves the same things about
down the road about why weren'twe more prepared for artificial
(27:12):
intelligence or geneticengineering or cloning.
And so there's a concern that ifour political system is
polarized and divided andbroken, that we won't be able to
address these sort offundamental problems of the
future.
And I don't want to pile on, butbeyond that, even though we've
(27:32):
been divided in the past,there's some wild cards out
there and you have to ask, willthey make things differently?
There are lots of guns and lotsof private paramilitary groups.
There is a very strong centralstate authority system.
We've that recently in Portland.
(27:53):
We have the social media, whichis stirring up dissent and
discord.
And as we talked about earlier,to some extent, there is a
breakdown of what is, what istruth.
And so all of that, I don't meanto sound alarmist.
In fact, my own view is moreoptimistic than what I've just
(28:13):
sketched, but it's caused, Ithink to be fair, a good number
of people to lose faith in oursystem, both our democratic
system of self government andmaybe our economic system of
market capitalism.
And you can see that in booktitles that are, you know, on
your shelves, assuming we evergo back to a bookstore or a
(28:35):
library, How democracies die,The death of truth.
Why nations fail?
Can it happen here?
I mean, those are all titles.
You don't have to read the booksto get the gist and you can see
it in public opinion polls aboutthe loss of faith people have in
either our parties or ourleaders or the mainstream media
(28:56):
or the economy.
And so, yeah, country's dividedand all of that is reason for
concern.
Cindy Sealls (29:19):
Your view is more optimistic despite all of those
concerns that you have, give us,you know, your optimistic
viewpoint.
Steve Steinbach (29:30):
At the end of this, it may seem like a little
tail wagging a great big dog,but I am cautiously optimistic,
I think for a couple of reasons.
First, and maybe this is becauseI teach American government, I
remain a believer in ourpolitical system.
Not everyone believes in thatpolitical system, but I still
(29:52):
have am of the view that thevast majority of Americans do.
That's our constitution, checksand balances, separation of
powers, our political liberties,freedom of speech, the right to
vote, the right to serve onjuries.
(30:14):
I have faith in ourinstitutions, Lord knows not
every day and not all the time,but especially our courts, u h,
especially our press.
One of the things this countryhas had historically are
defining elections, u h, wherethings c hange for a generation.
(30:38):
I'm not predicting that, but wehave gone through back and forth
and back and forth.
I mean, what, we've gone fromBush to Clinton back to Bush,
back to Obama, and now Trump.
So we've had a generation ofoscillating, but it's very
narrow m ajorities, but we'vealso in this country, had a
landslide defining elections,which h ave given us enough of a
(31:06):
percentage majority that thingsactually can change.
And I guess, deep down andpeople can certainly disagree
with me here.
Um, especially given ourhistory, but deep down, I have
faith in the basic goodness ofwe, the people, not everyone,
not all the time, but at leastmost of us, most of the time
(31:29):
trying.
So these may not be normaltimes, but I think we'll get
back to normal times or at leastI want to believe that.
Or at least I hope I'm notwrong.
The second kind of reason I havefor optimism is because I teach
United States history.
And the more you think aboutwhere we are, the more you can
(31:51):
say, we've been here before wehave had periods of intense
political partisanship andgridlock.
The 1790s people don't talkabout 1790s very much.
Our country was brand new.
Hadn't even had its 10thbirthday yet and we had such
fundamental divisions betweentwo political parties, neither
(32:13):
of which had been conceived whenthe constitution was written.
The Federalist party, which wasin control of the government and
the Republican party, thedemocratic Republican party.
We had such divisions in the1790s that Congress led by the
Federalist and Federalistpresident, John Adams passed
something called the Seditionact, which criminalized
(32:36):
criticism of the government.
Criminalized it to the pointwhere leading political
opponents from the Republicanparty were prosecuted and jailed
for their dissent overgovernment policies.
I mean, those were intensepartisan times.
There was genuine doubt whetherthe country would survive the
(33:00):
contested election of 1800.
This was long before the Supremecourt started emphasizing the
importance of freedom of speechand the right to disagree with
your government.
And we've had partisan divisionsin the 1820s and the 1850s,
obviously, leading to the civilwar.
(33:21):
The 1880s, lots of very in ablue state red state kind of
equivalent.
You could predict which Statesin the 1880s were going to vote
Democratic and which States weregoing to vote Republican.
And, you know, it always camedown to just a handful that
swung the balance of power, avery closely divided partisan
(33:45):
nation.
And then, you know, you'vementioned already the 1950s and
the 1960s people who lived therein 1968, thought the country was
falling apart with theassassinations of Martin Luther
King and Robert Kennedy and theviolence at the Chicago national
convention and the racial unrestin the country.
(34:09):
And we've also had other crisesthat have looked insurmountable
slavery, the civil war, thegreat depression, segregation,
Vietnam, Watergate, and back toFDR.
Despite all of that, we'vesurvived, we've endured we've
prospered.
(34:30):
And so when you look back at thespan of American history, you
can say to yourself, and again,I realize not everyone would
agree with this, but I think atleast I say to myself, we have
not without struggle, obtainedmore Liberty in this country.
And we have, not withoutstruggle, attained more
(34:52):
equality.
We've never had a religious war.
We've never had a military coup.
We've never fallen intoauthoritarian or dictatorship.
We've always elected ourleaders.
We've always had peacefultransitions of power.
Nothing is inevitable.
(35:12):
Nothing is inevitable.
The past doesn't guarantee thefuture, but at least if history
is any guide, I think we'll getthrough this.
And once again, I hope I'm notwrong.
Cindy Sealls (35:40):
There's a narrative out there in some
circles that American studentsare being taught to hate America
as a U S history and governmentteacher.
What do you say to that?
Steve Steinbach (35:55):
I think, honestly, if you look at your
own individual lives and youwere to, you know, say the story
of yourself, you'll be proud ofcertain things you had done and
not so proud of others.
All of us are flawed creatures.
And I think to some extent youthat's what, how you have to
(36:15):
view American history.
You can teach it through a lensof pure evil, we've done
nothing, right?
And you can teach it through theopposite lens to glorify the
founders and minimize problemsin American history.
And I think in the end, eachperson draws its own their own
(36:38):
opinion.
And as a teacher at least, Iview, some people disagree with
this, I view my role asproviding enough information for
students to draw their ownconclusions.
But I just don't think it does aservice to the past, to glorify
(36:59):
American exceptionalism or tospend your whole time condemning
our failures.
Cindy Sealls (37:14):
America has long been known as the melting pot of
the world that has beenperceived as the source of our
strength and our prosperity.
Now it seems that some peoplebelieve that diversity is a
liability to our country.
(37:34):
What do you think about that?
Steve Steinbach (37:35):
Yeah, let me think about that in terms of
immigration and then a littlebit more broadly.
Immigration is long, long, longbeen a divisive issue in
American history.
Way back in the 1790s, whichI've mentioned, one of the
things that we did at the sametime we passed the Sedition Law
(37:58):
was to pass something called anAlien Act, which was
specifically aimed at people whoa re coming from France, who w
ere i n our country.
We've had attacks on IrishCatholics, 1830s.
I mean, physical attacks as wellas attempts to exclude or
attempts to prevent them frombecoming citizens 1830s t o the
(38:20):
1850s.
And there were anti-immigrationsocieties formed in the late
1800s in the early 1900s.
Congress passed, in the 1880s,the Chinese exclusion act, which
prevented any new immigrationfrom China and also made it
(38:41):
impossible for any Chinesealready in the country to ever
become citizens.
We expanded that in the 1920s toinclude Asians of all
nationalities, not just theChinese.
In the 1920s, we pass a veryrestrictive immigration law that
gave great preference to peoplefrom Northwest Europe and made
(39:06):
it almost impossible for anyonefrom Southeast Europe, much less
than the rest of the world toenter the country.
Some of that changed in the1960s, but we've been fighting
immigration battles for ourentire country's history,
because there, I think thisdivide that isn't going to be
magically solved as to what thisnation should look like.
(39:31):
I do want to say one other sortof bigger picture of thought
here.
This goes all the way back andthis is a little, maybe too much
political theory, but all theway back to the, when people
were trying to structure ourgovernment, the constitution and
set up a Republic.
A Republic is basically in ahole where will people govern
themselves through electedrepresentatives.
(39:52):
Well, how do you do that?
And traditionally the thoughtwas, well, you can only be a
Republican.
Everybody's kind of like has thesame values.
Everyone in my community is sortof like me and we can all get
along and do the right thing andthen we'll have a successful
Republic.
But that's not what our countrywas and that's certainly not
what our country is.
(40:13):
We have all kinds of differentviewpoints.
Um, think about religion, a hostof different organizations that
people believe in and belong to.
And so very early on, JamesMadison, one of his Federalist
essays, sort of turn things ontheir heads and said, no, the
(40:37):
best way to run a country hasnot.
If everybody thinks alike on asmall scale.
The best way to run a countryhas is big picture and have so
many different disagreements andpoints of view that no single
majority can emerge.
We have so many differentreligions that you're not going
to have one religion outlaw theother and you can do the same
(41:00):
thing with sort of economics andpolitical viewpoints.
Now that's a theory, obviouslyit didn't help us avoid the
civil war, but it does kind ofgive us some comfort that we can
disagree about lots and lots ofthings in this country, but can
still live together within asystem that's built or designed
(41:25):
to take that into account.
Cindy Sealls (41:42):
There are concerns on the right and the left about
a slide into authoritarianism.
Can you speak to that concern?
Steve Steinbach (41:55):
I mean, what would an authoritarian
government look like?
It would essentially, it wouldbe a system where the government
pretty much told people whatthey could and could not do as
opposed to at least in theorywhat our government is.
We, the people, tell thegovernment what to do.
(42:15):
Um, and to get a little bit morein particular, you would be
talking about a government thattakes away individual rights, or
maybe certain points of view aresuppressed.
And all of that accompaniedthrough force.
I mean, you know, you can seethis in many other nations
around the globe.
(42:36):
Will we come to that point?
Um, let's hope not.
What can we do to not come tothat point?
I think, and as I said before,nothing is inevitable, but I
think we've done the best we canin terms of setting up a system
that makes that difficult toachieve, because we have lots of
(42:58):
different power centers in thiscountry.
We have States that push backagainst the national government
and vice versa.
Um, we have courts that tell ourelected leaders, they cannot do
certain things.
They want that courts that tellthe majority of us voted for
something.
(43:18):
No, that's inconsistent with ourfundamental liberties.
We have a free press that, youknow, maybe maybe divided and
may not be universally loved,but speaks truth to power.
We ourselves speak truth topower when we vote, when we
(43:42):
serve on juries.
So all of those areinstitutional answers.
None of that has to lastforever, but as long as those
institutions remain and we doour best as citizens to keep
them healthy, there's little bitmore reason to see a silver
(44:04):
lining in what might otherwisebe viewed as a dark cloud.
Cindy Sealls (44:13):
Another common narrative is that we are more
polarized than we have been in along, long time, if that is
true, how can we move forward ifso many of us are on the
political extremes?
Steve Steinbach (44:34):
Well, I think first, it helps to, um, kind of
put things in perspective, Ithink.
I would at least view what'sgoing on now on both sides as
this is almost in terms of abell curve, where there are
certainly extremes about theextremes are less numerous in
(44:56):
terms of, you know, the amountof actual support they have,
then maybe the airtime that theyget.
And where there is still, in themiddle of the bell curve, the
bulk of, some concerned peoplegoing through some very
difficult times in terms ofCOVID in terms of the economy,
in terms of our dividedpolitics, but for the most part,
(45:20):
committed to the sort of corevalues that have defined the
nation, as opposed to whateverthe goals or fears of, of the
extremes might be.
And I think it's important orhelpful to sort of, if you place
yourself somewhere on thatconcern middle to think what can
(45:44):
I do or what should we do to, tosomehow pull ourselves together
to get through this and to makesure that neither extreme is
victorious.
And part of that is, you know,from a history government
teacher, it would be nice tospend more time and more effort
(46:07):
in this country on civicseducation.
I get it.
Math is important, so isscience, but we have devalued,
sadly, our discussions and theamount of time we spend in the
classroom on these importantquestions, which ultimately I
think we need to governourselves.
(46:28):
I think it's also important forpeople in the middle who are
worried about extremism ofeither side to reach out and try
to understand the views ofpeople who disagree with them.
There's some practical ways ofdoing that.
You can force yourself to readtwo different points of view.
Read the Wall Street Journal andthe New York times every day, or
(46:50):
watch MSNBC and Fox back andforth.
Actively seek out people youdisagree with politically and
have conversations with them,try to find common ground.
Another sort of thought is, Ithink, the more you delve into
issues, they're much harder andthey're much more complex and
they're gray, not black andwhite and those two things.
(47:13):
And so trying to, even if youhave a profound point of view,
and maybe even if you end up atthat profound point of view,
you're better off, I think,trying to analyze the weaknesses
of your position and where otherpeople are coming from, and
maybe focusing a bit more oncompromise.
(47:35):
Thomas Jefferson said once ahalf of half a loaf is better
than no bread and so keeping anopen mind on issues as opposed
to sort of knee jerk, I knowwhat I think.
I know t hey're dead wrong.
To think of people w ho disagreewith you as adversaries and
(47:56):
opponents, good words, u m, andnot enemies, bad word.
We shouldn't have enemies inthis country.
We should have good faithadversaries.
And then I guess my finalthought as a teacher of all this
stuff, talking to kids inclassrooms is that if we truly
(48:19):
believe what it says at thebeginning of the constitution,
we, the people, now you canargue that that's a fiction, et
cetera, but if we truly believeit or want it to be reality,
even if we kind of think itmight be a fiction, we are the
people we are the government.
And that means all of us areobligated to read, to volunteer,
(48:43):
to contribute, to participate,to serve on juries, to vote.
It's our government and justlike it's our home and our
family, our school, we shouldtry to make it the best we can
through our own hard work.
Cindy Sealls (49:00):
Well, Steve, thank you so very much for speaking
with us.
Steve Steinbach (49:04):
Thank you for asking me and more importantly,
thank you for doing your podcast.
Kelley Lynch (49:20):
Hi guys.
It's nice to all be togetheragain.
Finally.
(49:24):
Hey there.
Speaker 4 (49:25):
Hello.
Kelley Lynch (49:27):
Cindy finally got her history episode.
Cindy Sealls (49:30):
U m, yes.
And what I love about history ishow it can inform us about where
we've been and where we might begoing.
Like we've been discussingimmigration for centuries
because James Madison was theone who said, no, we don't want
a homogeneous country whereeverybody thinks the same and
(49:53):
believes the same, but what willmake this place better and
special is that people have allkinds of beliefs so that no one
particular belief a scends overanother, which is just mind
blowing to me to know that thatwas, that discussion was so long
ago.
Obaidul Fattah Tanvir (50:11):
And it's, it's, it's fascinating that
talking about the fact and theperspective, that was very
interesting.
And I like this example ofimmigration in us, the law is
kind of the fact and this ideaof, you know, inviting
(50:32):
immigrants from all of the worldis kind of a perspective.
Cindy Sealls (50:37):
It reminds me of the poem, let America be America
again, written by LangstonHughes in 1936.
And even though few people atthat time were experiencing the
promise of America, he continuesto believe that America can be
(50:59):
what it says it is, you know,and that was the whole thing of
let America be the dream thedreamers dreamed, let it be that
great strong land of love.
Where never Kings connive ortyrants scheme,that any man be
crushed by one above, Oh, let myland be a land where Liberty is
(51:19):
crowned with no false patrioticwreath.
But opportunity is real.
And land is free.
Equality is in the air webreathe.
We have not lived up to thoseprinciples, but there's hope,
you know, b ut let America bewhat it's supposed to be.
(51:39):
It hasn't been that yet, butlet's keep working at it.
And I think that's the beauty ofAmerica that we can just keep
working at it.
You know, don't give up, we havea lot of different kinds of
people we're g oing t o makethis experiment work.
(52:00):
And I, I wish that Americanswould see all Americans.
You know what I mean?
Where i t's, it's not AfricanAmericans, European Americans,
Chinese Americans, MuslimAmericans, we're Americans.
You know, I w ish that we wouldsee each other more like that.
Kelley Lynch (52:22):
And that, that goes with the whole idea of, of
immigrants.
And everybody should learn tospeak English.
Everybody should assimilateeverybody should.
I mean, that's kind of what theconservatives have said.
Cindy Sealls (52:37):
I'm not saying that.
Kelley Lynch (52:38):
You're not saying that?
Cindy Sealls (52:39):
So what, what they're saying is I want
everybody to be arose and itshould be a red road.
I'm saying I want everybody tobe whatever flower they are,
because that's what makes thegarden look beautiful.
Exactly.
You have to, every flower haslike, people say that flower,
(53:01):
you got to work a lot with thatflower, but I want all of them.
That's what makes the gardenbeautiful.
And nobody's ever going to say,man, I wish all the roses were
red or all the two lips wereyellow.
No!
Obaidul Fattah Tanvir (53:14):
I think that this, this goes against the
very basic idea of America.
You know, it's a land ofopportunity.
And also it's a place whereeverybody can come with their
(53:35):
own culture.
And from that creates a newculture.
This is not meant to bedisrespectful of the country.
You know, you don't have ahistory, you don't have a
history.
(53:56):
You have like 300 years andthat's in a, you know, in a
cosmic level, that's likenothing.
Well, I mean, even compared toIndia, Bangladesh, I mean, how
long we have a history of 4,000years.
So, so what I'm trying to say islike, since you are not anchored
(54:21):
to any one concept or any oneidea, because you don't have a
history, you don't havesomething to go back to.
Kelley Lynch (54:29):
I love that idea that we just,
Obaidul Fattah Tanvir (54:33):
We just haven't, it's a fresh start.
Speaker 1 (54:36):
It can actually be realized
Speaker 6 (54:39):
It's a fresh start, a second chance.
And so you start from scratch
Speaker 1 (54:46):
To me, that is why America has been so successful
because these, all of thesedifferent people came from all
of these different countrieswith different mindsets about
how things should be in acountry.
And they came over here.
Now, people were here, we'lladmit people were here.
(55:06):
However, I will say this.
They took each of these peoplewho sat down and wrote all of
these different constitutionsfor the different colonies and
the different States and thecountry were coming.
They were bringing theirknowledge of a prior system that
they kind of liked, but theywere going to tweak it so that
(55:28):
it was a little better.
And they took some of the nativeAmericans ideas about how, how
their culture was and wrote thisconstitution.
And that to me is the beauty ofit because you, like Tanvir
said, it's exactly right.
They don't have to say, well,you know, we always did it this
way, so let's keep doing it thisway because they don't have it.
Cindy Sealls (55:52):
There it's a blank slate.
It was a blank slate.
Let's write this thing the waywe think a government should
function, a country shouldfunction.
And the beauty of thatconstitution is because they
made this Congress and becauseCongress changes every two
(56:13):
years, Congress can change.
And then the Senate has to bereelected that you're always
going to have a change ofpeople, including the president
who are making the laws of thecountry.
So the laws that we started offwith look totally different than
the laws now that is the beautyof it.
(56:36):
And Tanvir is actually so rightabout that.
Obaidul Fattah Tanvir (56:40):
Yeah.
I feel that your system is kindof a living system.
This is a living breathingorganism because you are
adapting to the changingenvironment, changing situation.
But whereas in our case, most ofour laws are that from the
British colonial rule and thenrevised in 2000 or something
(57:05):
like that.
So we are kind of stuck in thepast, but your system is
designed in such a way that yourespond to the changing needs of
the country, changing needs ofthe people.
Yeah.
In the journey, sometimes it maybe bad.
(57:26):
It may be good.
You cannot expect always to win,but in the end, because of the
system, it will have a betterresult.
Kelley Lynch (57:38):
I think it's a really, it's such a positive,
definitely what we are.
And I think a lot of us can feelwhichever side.
I mean, unfortunately there aresides and whichever side people
are on, they can feel thatAmerica has really gone off the
rails.
(57:58):
But I think that view gives areal sense of hope and the
promise that we have as acountry,
Cindy Sealls (58:11):
Like you said, it is an organism, they created
this living organism.
And the, what could happen withthat is just, I think,
unimaginable to us, if we liveup to our creed, All men are
(58:33):
created equal.
You know, if we lived up tothat, we treated people and in
our country like that, andpeople around the world, I just
can't even imagine what couldhappen with the whole world.
Kelley Lynch (58:50):
It would be like a beacon.
It would be actually like what Ithink we like to imagine
ourselves being, you know, theguy on the, with the, the white
horse, the white hat, I think wemight, could actually be that,
um, that hope and that lightthat we like to think that we
(59:10):
are for the rest of the world.
Cindy Sealls (59:13):
We won't be perfect.
Nothing's perfect.
We'll make mistakes.
We'll do things that weshouldn't have done.
But if we do them and we say,you know, we thought that that
was a good idea, but that wasnot a good idea.
And we're very sorry about that.
And we're going to makerestitution for it to whatever
country, to whatever group ofpeople, you know what I mean?
Because that, that is what weshould be doing as human beings.
(59:36):
And since a country is nothingbut a collection of human
beings, it's not, you know,that's all we are.
That's all a country is, that'swhat you do.
You just, okay.
You know what we, that was notthe right thing to do.
We apologize.
We're very sorry.
We're going to make restitutionfor that.
And you know, you think peoplewouldn't forgive us for that?
Kelley Lynch (59:58):
I think some people think of that as
weakness.
Cindy Sealls (01:00:02):
Think of what, what takes more strength when
you're wrong and you know,you're wrong.
What takes more strength to justtry to ignore the fact that
you're wrong and never doanything, or to go to that
person and say, you know what,I'm really sorry.
I should not have said that Ishould have not have done that.
Would you please forgive me?
What takes more strength?
Obaidul Fattah Tanvir (01:00:22):
That takes a lot of courage to admit
that you're wrong and you'rewilling to fix it.
Cindy Sealls (01:00:30):
Think of the example that would set for other
countries.
You know, if the quote, unquote,greatest country in the world
admitted that we did things thatprobably caused major problems
in other countries, and that wewere willing to admit it and to
try to make restitution inwhatever way those countries see
(01:00:51):
fit.
Tell us what to do.
How can we make this better foryou?
Because of our mistake.
Unfortunately, I don't thinkit's going to happen, but
Obaidul Fattah Tanvir (01:00:59):
I wish we had that.
Kelley Lynch (01:01:00):
It was a nice dream.
I was enjoying the dream and thevision.
It was so different than thecurrent feeling, which is of
being an agreement up on it.
Cindy Sealls (01:01:10):
I'm not giving up on it.
Kelley Lynch (01:01:12):
I think it's a beautiful vision.
Obaidul Fattah Tanvir (01:01:14):
Really.
It starts from there, it startsfrom one point and it spreads.
That's how it is.
What is collective wisdom?
It's individuals wisdom togetheron the right path, right
direction.
That's it.
That's what we need.
It's true.
This gives us this.
This pandemic actually gives usa chance to redefine our path or
(01:01:40):
our objective or our goal andstart all over again.
Kelley Lynch (01:01:52):
Thanks for listening.
We hope you enjoyed the show.
Remember to subscribe, and we'dbe really grateful if you scroll
down in your feed, click on thestars, write a review.
If you've got some time andfollow us on Instagram at a new
normal podcast, you'll be gladyou did.
(01:02:14):
I'm afraid next week.
My gig continues.
So we're going to be off againnext week, but we'll be back the
following week with a mysteryguest.
Can't wait either.
It's a mystery even to me.
So we'll see you in a couple ofweeks.
(01:02:37):
All right.
Bye.
Bye.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.