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sundays booktv brings you the latestonfiction books and authors. funding for c-span2 c-sm these television companies and more including charter communications. >> charter is proud to be recognized as one of the best internet providers, and went just getting started building 100,000 miles of new infrastructure to reach those who need it most. >> charter communications along with these television companies supports c-span2 as a public service. >> it's interesting tos me that here we have a hot august night and we weren't quite sure what kind of attendance we're going to get tonight, but i'm quite impressed by the turnout. and a little curious as to why what i suspect part of the reason why there's a turnout such as this is that two people who are being represented on the state you tonight by the

executive directors of the center and that's presidents carter and ford, who demonstrated that you could be a decent, honorable person and still hold feist all this in the land, and i think there's not just simply a nostalgia for the idea of these honorable people being present, but a recognition that in some sense our republic requires it. secondly, theyy, demonstrated a real ability for civic friendship and for personal friendship, even though they were bitter political rivals in9 the 1976 residential election. after their presidencies they became very close friends. i was telling paige earlier in the day my favorite exhibit here in the museum is the funeral, president ford'st funeral, and president carter's speech at the funeral which is just profoundly moving. it's a really beautiful speech and just such heartfelt

delivery, and some sense of hope on its own right. well, without i'd'd like to introduce our two guests tonight. go to start on my far right, you're far right, gleaves whitney was executive director of the gerald r. ford presidential foundation, and should be familiar to most of you. and if you look at your flyers you can see the biographies of both our speakers. and i should point out that this is at best a kind of thumbnail, sort of accomplishments of both of them. i spent some time in preparation for this googling, ms. alexander, just a staggering list of accomplishments and achievements. really incredible experiences.

next to a gleaves is paige alexander visit chief executive officer of the carter center, and she contacted us a while ago and told usnd that she would ben grand rapids and like to get together and we immediately saw the opportunity and said well, it with the putter on our state we should definitely be putting her on our stage. well, late august, what were? lo and behold it has worked. so thank thank you, page,g to grand rapids and welcome to the ford museum. we're thrilled to have you here. i would like to begin two nights panel with just a few comments and then going to ask questions of paige and gleaves and they will take it over for the most part. it is a concerning lyrical moment i thinkmo most of you knw in our country today if you look at some of the polling data that we have, a majority of americans

believe that were already in the middle of a civil war in this country. it is a cold civil war but a civil war nonetheless. a majority of people who had voted to eat reelect president trump in 2020 believe that their state should secede from the country. 41% of biden voters believe that the country should divide different states. so the sort of thing that led to the first civil war, acts of violence, talk of secession, all of this has been renewed once again. a poll done by the harvard university established half voting age americans under the age of 30 think that our democracy is failing. another survey found that 46% of

americans believe the future civil war is likely in this country. 43% feel it's unlikely, and 11%% we not sure. almost half of americans believe some sort of civil war is likely in this country. and i think one of the things that we are dedicated to is to keep that from happening if we possibly can. if we study history spain in the 1930s you will know ugly those kinds of civil wars can be. and trust in our institutions are at historic lows. i haveph a graph here about trut in government to do what is right.t. it is lower now than it was during the depths of watergate and vietnam. it's one of its lowest rates ever since we've been polling such stuff. so failing institutions, concerns about violence, concerns about this 237 year experiment in democracy falling apart seems to be a very big

part of the day. that's can of what we're going to talks about is the sorts of things we need to pay attention to, to try to hold this together. whatever else is case the 237 year d sustain democracy is quie a remarkableev achievement. something we would like to reserve. so with that, i'm going to begin asking questions of our panelists and paige i like to ask you first pick one of the things the carter center does a lot of is election monitoring. but then a lot of it in foreign countries and sad to say starting to happen in this country. in the wake of the 2020 elections americans have become both more aware of and concerned about how we run our elections in this country. what are theff sort of difficulties that we face in terms of trying to figure out how we can have elections

accepted broadly among the populace?? >> thank you, jeff, thank you all for being here. i think might of it of air-conditioning, i promise you from georgia we did not bring this hot weather. it's part of the reality of the world now. but the 2020 the 2020 d ofof the day with the safest mot secure elections the u.s. has seen. almost every state in so with the paper at the end of day but the other systems in place. that is one of those stories that doesn't get out there because there are other stories that take up space. but when we look at this, i started at the carter center. gleaves and i s started in our position in the summer of 2020, and i've been living in amsterdam so i like overseas, came to georgia to take the job. i'm from atlanta originally, but i landed on june 1 and if member

june 1, 2020, georgia was a hotbed of covid. so ied landed from europe. that a flattened the perfect icon of the plane cdc says have you been to iran are china? i'm surprised that your question but okay, and a drive down the street in atlanta as a week and after the murder of george floyd. i see the aftermath of the protests. i get to my parents' house and i see washington where i lived for 25 years the tear too gass. and i thought how am i going to go over to the carter center, 113 different electionss? in 40 countries when i think we're going to have an issue in the united states? so-called president carter and said i want to talk about how we do this overseas. if were not willing to hold a mirror to ourselves and figure out if we are doing it right. so we have now look at what are some of the similarities overseas and we need to think about in the u.s.?

how to rebuild trust back in election process works we do independent observing and monitoring in 40 different countries, different elections. we are doing in today in zimbabwe as we speak. we have 98 observers look at the elections in zimbabwe so fast-forward, 2020, and at 2022, we did in georgia, arizona, a a little bit here in michigan, north carolina. we are actually started to look at this at home because i think it's important that independent nonpartisan observation is easy to walk into a foreign country with a carter center shirt on a people . oh, the internationals are here. but when you walk into georgia with the carter center shirt on it kind of says something very particular, and especially because we wore blue which we should not have worn blue. i didn't realize that the color had been usurped while i was living inar europe. apparently you can't wear blue or t red and less -- so doing ts

and a nonpartisan way is one of the reasons why we want to have conversations, so bipartisan and nonpartisan say, how can we build trust in an election process? so people feel that when they are casting their vote is encountered. there are no little men in the machine changing the bow, , that it is encountered a properly. that's one of the ways from 2020 moving forward we started looking at how doth we build bak that trust. >> so difficult to do. >> that is. >> how do you build back that trust?t? >> i think shining a light on things is always the best way to do it. i' you're able to say this, i had forgotten when i went in in georgia and a vote of the first time, i started believing the stories i heard that there was a qr code, it's all that there was. like how to know that qr code was real?

what i did realize, i didn't remember until i voted the second and the third time because we had a few runoffs that year, that, in fact, when it showed on the screen, what it was, that was my actual ballot and printed it out with a qr code. on my actual ballot wasn't there so i could quite voted for when i stuck in the pallet reader. so i thought well, that's we have to remind people. like it'sli not that when your d was checked it wasn't checked properly or that some of these machines are not working. there's a paper trays and so that's why risk-limiting audits, which is something we did in georgia, to count to make sure actually the qr codes matched the paper winners. so if we have to do that to build back trust w we will. it's a lot of effort but i think it's important. i think went to shine a light on it. people have to understand when you go in and vote how those votes are counted. >> so gleaves your historian.

have we gotten into this moment and how does this moment compared to other sort of crisis moments in american history tranthree great question, , jef, thank you. but first i want to say, express my appreciation just as jeff and paige have so many of you come to join this conversation. we're going toc- have q&a afterwards that i want to audience, arzu audience as well as you hear in the auditorium, really appreciate the discussion i hope we have moving toward this evening in due course. just a little background statement here before i directly answer your question. paige and i were talking about this earlier today. you know, we are involved. you and i are really lucky, fortunate to be involved in work that's more thanan just a job. kind of regard as a civilizationalkn mission. we have this opportunity and we talk a lot at the ford presidential foundation about

the fact that ignorance of democracy, perhaps this one of the most, the greatest dangers to our democracy. it's a shame when the two things happen. it's a shame when people, first of all, don't even believe that they have a voice in our democracy, so why bother? why would they bother to get involved? why would they bother to vote if they don't feel they have a voice in the first place? that something some of the work from our colleagues over at the presidential museum have been doing a great job of empowering people so they have a voice and then they feel motivated to get involved, engaged, and that begins the long and romantic and wonderful adventure of learning about this democracy and their role in it. and their capacity foror citizes to make changes that are needed to respond tone the things they need to see to make their lives work better and to make our communities work better. >> so historically, we had some,

of course very tense times in american history. i don't think this is the worst. let's get this out. wewe had a civil war between 1861-1865 in which he did come to blows. serious, serious decades of squandered opportunities and tension, especially as we moved west. we could not resolve the issue of whether slavery would be taken west as we grew. so how are we growing today? think about it. there's a little bit of an analogy there. we are opening our borders. we have accepted a much more diverse population and we've ever hadad in her history, which presents great opportunities and great challenges. the debates that are about those opportunities do echo some of the things we heard in the 1850s, the 1840s when you have a know nothing party. you had these the nativist parties that wanted to kind of

cocoon ourselves as americans and keep anybody else out and excluded. i don't think that's an option anymore. i think we're at a point in our debate, of course we want controlled immigration. of course. but emigration we're going to have jerked its in the nature of our country. that would be for example, and historical analogy that i would say come from previous times. also presidential elections. let me tell you, folks. 1800 between adams and jefferson and aaron burr those were so colorful and interesting. i mean, we are boring by comparison, as a say in texas i gear and dam you there's a lot more interesting in those days. the tensions. you had those days that were really stoking the fires of the federalists hating the democratic republicans and vicee versa. lies repeated. with thomas jefferson and add in

supervising the production of these articles that were blatant lies. we've had some rough times. the 1960s which and just old enough to remember a bit of. [laughing] >> you got a good laugh with that whisper that's right. that's right. the in 1960s were reallyy interesting because what i remember, well, i had a brother who graduated from the air force academy and so he was flying in the vietnam era. back in as a way of riveting your attention when there's lot of civil unrest, a lot of antiwar protest. that was a time of great protest. the college of which youma had d main burn down for example, 1970, whether was a lot of destruction. we worry about seattle and portland and some of the things that happen. ladies and gentlemen, i think a lot of you also remember the 1960s, if i i could say, and we remember there was a lot of

unrest. we had three prominent americans assassinated for pete's sake. now, a lot of people are predicting the kindsro of rough passage that we had been as we enter this new period, but as a historian there's a lot of factors akin to this. i'll just mention one thing briefly. we underestimate the impact for couple things but one of want to mention right now. that great recession of 2008, 2009, that expose so much of the inequality in our country. the people feeling that you had the finance sector was kind of, they were manipulating things and ripping off the rest of the country andso teletubbies sweetheart deals and no one goes to prison and that kind of thing. i think 2008, 2009 you look at what happened in and use of course the tea party movement come out. use occupy wall street, never the twain shall meet there. remember how tense that was just

11 years ago? and then after that of course you have bernie sanders, you had the populist movement bernie sanders on the left and donald trump on the right. remember what happened in michigan. everybody in michigan in 2016 during the primary, on the democratic sidee to one? bernie sanders. jefferson, jeff and i would talk but this yesterday, a fair fight. if the clintons have not been so much in control of the process, bernie sanders what it had a good possibility of being our president. he certainly was the nominee for the democratic party at the time. and then of course trump coming down escalator and her country has never been the same. populism has arisen in in a d populism is also not new. that's because historians here. put this in perspective. we have populism in 92 with pat buchanan and ross perot. we have populism back in 68 with a george wallace. we have populism back in the 1930s with huey long. this is not new. we should not be shocked that

this happens. this periodically happens in american history when the average person, the average guy, she's got thehe shaft, she's got the shaft and it's hard to raise a family, it's hard to get a job. it's hard to get ahead. >> one of the things if you study populist movements in american history is they tend to arise when there is great skepticism about the so-called elites. that's the term that we hear thrown around quite a lot. the elites and perception that the elites, whoever they are, are corrupt and that they are running this country to their own advantage and not to the advantage or the interests of the average american. what do you think of those kinds of claims? do you think there is a kind of coterie of elites who are running things to the own interests? >> historically as you point out populism happens when people

feel that they are otherwise not being heard. andes it becomes a popular movement, but it's a popular than against an existing incompetent, usually. so what populism tends to do is empower people, but only certain people, only the people that you can plug into that pain, that dopamine, that that person needs to feel that the voice is finally being elevated and heard. so when you put that on, in many cases rural america, coming from atlanta, which is kind of an island of blue in a sea of red, you know what happens outside a big city. so the populist, populism and the populist movement happens because of that. i would say that what concerns me about populism is what can be the hollowing out of our institutions and our liberal democracy. because iff the only argument yu

have is that i don't like what they're doing, then you have started othering people like that's the other side does that. we are the united states of america and if you're supposed to have actual liberal democracy where people believe in institutions, , they believe in checks and balances and executive power and our representatives, judicial. and if you start hollowing out those institutions enjoy not left with much as i think that's what concerns me most about populism. we see it in europe. certainly saw it in the netherlands. use people are just sort of of anger,to this vein and youav have to find ways to talk. at the end of the day i ceo of the carter center but also a wife, mother, a daughter. there are other places i can have conversations with people that are not just about politics or are not just about the carter

center. you've got to find ways to this conversation, otherwise you just entirely other your neighbor. i think that's what we're running into right now. >> so gleaves, , how do you thik the relationship between ford and carter might provide, for example, what time was just talking about? >> even though jeff which may, i swear i did not tell him to pitch a softball. [laughing] >> i think i'm up for a raise. >> were going to have fun. oh, my gosh, where do you begin with this very interesting relationship between governor carter and vice president and then president ford? i think that they have modeled what so many of us need these days. if you look at a relationship that began a little rough, remember they were fierce rivals

as they come as governor carter went through the primary process in the democratic party and emerged as a candidate. he sharpened his attacks on president ford, and some of them we were justni talking earlier tonight. example.e one let's just get one out. because i'm a historian i like to pop, i like to pop preconceived notions. let's take the debate what president ford can remember were president ford stumble and he said there is no soviet domination of eastern europe. how many of you remember that? you go upstairs, as one of the beautiful things about jerry ford is that every academia, every week this comment everything that showed a vulnerability, it's up there in that museum, and when his cabinet and when the people around them would say why would you have these expressions of your weakness there? he would always say because history matters. people need to know the truth. .. would take advantage of that.

but let's just say for the record, is a little sidebar here. governor carter would take advantage of that. president ford had recently been to the vatican and met with >> the vatican and met with pope paul vi, and he had also been behind theth then-iron curtain countries. h and he had spoken to people in these countries that were directly impacted by the soviet empire. what he meant to say -- can you still hear he? [inaudible conversations] >> okay. we're having a mic issue. >> there you go. >> okay, thank you. what he meant to say was that there is no spiritual domination of the soviet empire over eastern europeans and, of course, he was vindicated by '799, '80, '81 when you had solidarity, youue had people, te velvet, you know, beginning of the velvet revolution. this is something that paige can speak to because she was in

prague in those years around 1990, '92. we were talking about that earlier. so that's an important correction or at least adjustment to make.at but, of course, governor carter going to take advantage of that thfaux pas. now, they go through, of course, a very close election. president ford is down more than 20 points, a 25 points in the polling. and in the campaigning it looks like he doesn't have a chance. he crepes and claws his way back, you know, to -- at one point one gallup poll actually shows him with the lead a week before if the election. alas h are, he did not have enoh time because the polls were going back and forth. and on tuesday when they voted, governor carter won. and from that point on, governor carter was very, very gracious. do you want a lump in your throat? do you feel a little emotional

ally flat right now? if let me tell you what'll give a lump in your throat. you go upstairses, and there are three places where governor carter, now-president carter, speaks about his friend gerry ford. and one of the most famous, of course, is on january 20th, 1977, when president carter has been sworn in and he's now giving his inaugural address. and one ofof the first things he does is he says i want to thank my predecessor, president ford, for doing so much to heal our land. he stopped his inaugural address upstairs. he stops, he pivots, president ford stands, they shake hands. one of the most beautiful moments in our lifetime. the president ford -- former president ford thankss him, sits back down, and you can see carter sort of collecting himself. now fast forward to 2007.

fast forward to the moment when president carter is giving the eulogy for his friend, and president carter at sort of the climax of the eulogy says i cannot think of a better way to talk about my friend gerry than to repeat the words that i repeated so many decades ago. i want to thank, carter clutches, you can tell he's fighting. he says iwa want to thank my friend for doing all he did to heal our land. this iteration is really what with a great political friendship is about. president carter said -- this may be your line, paige, but i love this line. president carter and president ford were on stage together and they were asked about their friendship. and president carter said of all the former presidents, we have the best friendship of any of

them including adams and jefferson. [laughter] think of what they overcame. how did this happen in paige can speak beautifully to this as well. but it happened because at at the core of both of these human beings was a heart of gold, a sterling character, unshakable integrity, a sense of fair dealing and decency and integrity that would take them through all their public life and their private lives x. this is what allowed them to become friends. they knew, they knew they could trust each other. it wasan never -- there's anothr little display up there, and i know you've seen it. but it's about the post-presidency. and president carter is interviewed. we have the interview. go to his museum. see it up there. joel and brooke will give you a first class tour. and president carter is asked, well, did you have any serious

differents with president ford? -- differences with president ford? president carter said, no. fundamentally, i don't have anyi major disagreements with my decision president ford made as a president. and this helped explain, you know, president y ford was known to deregulate, you know? thern federal government had a t ofad rules and regulations backn the early and mid '70s when he tarted to deregulate. carter picked right up and then reagan became the president and took all the a credit. [laughter] the deregulation actually started -- [inaudible conversations] yeah, absolutely. of thingsre a number where president carter showed respect. and president carter is keeping president ford in all the briefings, you know? inin monthly briefings. in fact,t, he said to the formee president whenever you're in washington, d.c., and president ford would goo back to washingn a lot to speak and teach in the classroom, and and also he was a member of american enterprise institute. whenever you're back, you're

welcome to have lunch with me in the white housewh at any time. and this wonderful friendship arose. and i think here i want paige to pick it up because she can tell the next installment of an airplane trip and what happened during the post-presidency. >> right. well, to bring this back to modern day, you know, we're in thee muddle of debate -- middle of debate season. tomorrow night, i can't -- tonight. >> tonight. >> so when -- [inaudible] having been taped or if you're thwatching it, remember that president carter, governor carter and president ford when they were on stage, president carter always said my distinguished opponent's view is, and he always said the words mymy distinguished opponent. that was the civility between them even when they were running against each other. and so that just gives you a basis for understanding when two running for the highest

office in the land, there's a way to do it with civility. and and president carter tells ap interesting story -- an interesting story that when ann a war sadat died, he -- president carter, president ford and president nixon were on the planee together to go to the funeral, and they said it was incredibly awkward. and he said is but he and president ford started talking andy hours went by and they didn't stop. and they just continued the conversation. and from that point on, 1983 on, they did 25 events together. president carter was here, president ford was down in atlanta. and it's because they respected each other and they knew that their post-presidencies were going to -- what defined them was also very much going to be their post-presidencies. they both had fairly limited concerns. i came, i was here last summer and we hadn't met yet, and a

couple of my colleagues were with me, and i said, well, let's run across to the museum is. i'd really like to see the ford museum. i said if reese whitney is here, please let him know the carter center is here. so we started making our way through, and we stopped right at the election. we got stuck sucked away -- sucked away and started talking, and i went back today so i coulded see what happened after the election are. [laughter] i kind of knew but not entirely, and toen have an opportunity to see also what president ford did and what he put forward as his persona was just very much in line with what president carter did. you know, we were joking earlier, you were talking about how president ford grew up. and, you know, impoverished, you know, a mother who ran away from her husband, his father, you know, you just didn't do back then.. and i was, like, yeah, but my guy was a peanut farmer.

[laughter] he didn't wear shoes until he was 8 years old. so you realize they both came from very similar backgrounds, villages, maul towns -- small towns and then they had the highest office in the land. and they took that to mean something after they left office. and that's -- so we're trying to emulate that, and i wish we could seett a little bit more of that in america right now. they really set a standard that we're continuingnu to try to lie up to. >> we are committed to that. and our two institutions -- we are committedar to that, and our twor institutions are committed to that, and this is why, you know, we signed on to a wonderful initiative of the carter center for candidate principles for integrity, good elections, elections of integrity, fair elections. and paige can address that more. but ior do want to say about tht a plane trip, it was awkward until nixon left that that

park -- [laughter] once nixon left -- [inaudible conversations] [laughter] >> once nixon left the is the seating area where presidents ford and carter were, then everything calmed down, and they could the t reassume because nin was kind of dominating. target our foreign policy and all that kind of stuff. but the other thing we need to say here is that in that friendship that was forged, we're also -- so many commonalities that they discovered about each other. just looking at the family structure, you know? if three boys and one girl, both of them. service in the navy. you know,ing they had a whole lott of things in common that they took pride in. i mean, both very evolved in their episcopalian church, the carters very involved in their southern baptist church you know, they just enjoyed a lot of the same things together. hay connected as people. they connected as people. and that also a meant that the first ladiess connected. and everybody in this room, of course, knows betty's story the,

you know, about, first of all, the breast cancer and the revolution she achieved in women's history almost single-handedly in the fall of 1974 when she made it safe for women in our society to talk about breast cancer at the dinner table. it was that boo subject in public -- taboo subject. a lot of awkwardness about the -- at the cup dinner. after betty ford's or interviews, c "60 minutes," "newsweek," and, of course, mrse firste lady of georgia and as e first lady of the united states was interested in the issues of people with mental health problems, disease. finish and struggles. and of course, then during the can carter administration it came out that mrs. ford had these addictions. and that was the second thing that -- you know, all of a

sudden she made it possible for people, p for families -- can think of the families that needed to talk about the addictions that were destroying their families. of all the families that would change because now there could bee an honest conversation about these things. again, mrs. fored -- ford and mrs. carter counted op each other in that conversation, they became very close. and that's why they'd go back and forth, they always had something to work on and talk about. >> that and mental health issues, much like addiction, thisas country's gone through an opioid crisis is, people talk about that now, but they weren't. forty years ago, that was not a conversation. the same thing with mental a illness. when people are having a mental health crisis, one of us became -- she workeded so hard to destigmatize the conversation, but it wasn't until covid where it really became destigmatized because parents could talk about it with their children, with parents going through it, erldly were

going through it. and so i think both of them were trailblazers in the way thatwa just in the 21st century we're now seeing these are conversations you can have at the dinner table and conversations that were supported -- both men had very strong wives. they also had very strong the mothers. and i i think that conversation was something that was allowed to happen in their households that weren't necessarily allowed in, you know, my grandparents' or parents' households at the time. >> and i think that's a really good description of how their friendship evolved and why it evolved the way it did. if the politics is about something different than partnership. so you kind of drew our attention to things that they already had in common. the politics in some ways is about discovering goods that you can pursue in common if with eachi other. for a lot of people, that seems what's missing in our political moment, is finding

people on both sides of the aisle who are willing to identify goods that can be pursued in common with each other. do you think that the world was different for them back then? were they con fined to those kind oft things that transcendd just party interest or self-interest? if has our moment kind of devolved into just this conflict of what is good and what is right in. >> you know, that's a, that's a tough one because i think that day and age was very different than where we are now. and is with social media and people's ability to sort of exist in an echo chamber now of what they want to hear, you didn't have that back in the '70s and '80s, you know? you picked up a newspaper, you talk to your. [inaudible] , you weren't bombarded constantly with have you seen this story east by e-mail or -- either by e-mail or facebook or news, so their commonality existed because we had limited

bandwidth to the information that we had. and so that, you know, was not fiction. i mean, it was really -- facts were facts, and everyone accepted the fact for what was presented to them. but now there's so many facts out there that it's hard to tell what is fact and what's fiction. so i think back to those conversations about being able to pick up the phone and call someone and have a conversation versus just forwarding an e-mail or just click activism where you're saying, oh, this is an interesting issue, i want to make sure i get involved with that and sign up for this list of events. once that happens, those are all the events you're going to hear movingot forward. you're not going to hear anything on the other side. and so to have the commonality the of whether breast cancer, addiction, mental health, you find a weakness and then you talk about it together as opposed to finding a weak whatness and just digging in. so i think it's just a hard time

to compare right now from a -- because we listen to what we've listened to. it's part of the joys of being so socially connected and able to reach out to people. it comes with -- it's a curse as well. >> i so -- [laughter]r] i sow -- so is agree with that. you know, paige, i think a lot about how our society has changed because of social media. my wife, you know, has been in media for 40 years, her whole career. we talk about this kind of thing a lot at the dinner table. and if you look at, say, a bell curve of our society and, you know, sort of the hump of the bell, the center ax a sis there, we're sort of where most people are -- thehe axis. but look at a the tail if you look at the surveys of what happened to our population. you know, you want short tails on. the bell curve. that means people way out in the

extremeses, you want them really short. and what has happened in the last 10 is, 15 years? statistically, those tails have gotten really long. and that means we have extremists out there that are virtually unreachable. and why did this happen? if because, extremists now is have a voice through social media, as you just said -- >>th yeah. >> -- that no extremists in human history have had before. and that -- [inaudible] for this historian about something that is that the unprecedented. think about that. you know, extreme its were just the quaint, you know with, uncle at your -- >> yeah. >> -- you know, at your thanksgiving dinner and didn't do muchh harm. yeah, that's uncle ted, he's just being uncle ted. whereas now they can reach millions of people. and so i like to look at our work, what you're doing at the carter and what we're doing at the ford. and if you look at that a hump, you've got the tail finish we're notoi going to reach those focus

on the left and the right at the extremes. but there is a zone in there. it's not in the heart of the bell, but it's sort of on the margins but not out there at the tails. those are the americans who have worth a reaching and saving and pulling in the to the norms of our culture, to the amazing history that we have, the redemptive country that we have tohe find that they do have a voice that counts. and the election integrity that you all is are done so much good work on, to fight for that and believe in it. so that's my little sociology lecture tonight. i just think that, you know, we have to be clear about where we do have agency and make a difference. and bring those folks on the margins in. >> so your wonderful suggests that there's still a rather largee consensus among the population of this country that transcends a lot of the political divisions, what's the

nature of that consensus? if you think about there being this kind of middle in the country, what are thehe things that seem to matter to people, thatm they agree on? >> sadly, i think they agree to disagree more than anything else that's out there there the right now. the political polarization just has otherred the the other side. so again as i said is, i take it as, you know, i'm ceo, but i'm also a wife, a mother, a daughter. there are, considers, you know, i have with kids in school, you can find space where you can find that conversation. i think at the end of the day everyone's voting our pocketbook. they're concerned about whether it's their taxes, whether it's medicare, whether it's social security. people are going to vote that. so how do you have a conversation around that? well, the politicians don't. they just, like, bury that. and it becomes a non-policy

discussion. and so -- they find areas that are sort of on the extremes. oh, i heard that -- [inaudible] little men in the voting boxes changing my vote. so par of the candidate principles that we're working on together, and if you looked it up, it's called principled candidates.org. and you can see having candidates say that they're going to adhere to the civility of the election, that regardless who winsing you know, they can to be pursue legal, you know, battles up until a certain point, they're going to adhere to the results. and, you know, we had this in georgia when you had stacey abrams who did not necessarily concede the election are, but she signed the candidate principles and brian kemp signed it. so we knew when we had that election, we would be able to say we signed it.

our secretary of state signed it. we had 60 candidates throughout the u.s. and that wasas just when we launched kind of right before the election. and now we're going full on with, you know, the ford, with the carter center, with the baker institute, with the due cane institute. all of this is we want to hold -- as they said in their cnn op-ed last year, people want their politicians to be held accountable to be an adult. and so i think as issues come out, they will get raised during this campaign season. but it's the watching for the tail wagging the dog. i want to get to that squishy middle. like, again, not straight in the middle, but on the side is. because there arela people who votedwo one way in the last election and won't do that again and vice versa. just sharing fact ifs, educating people, making sure they understand about their, you know, vote, their vote. and i don't know if you were

going to ask about voting, you know, voting issues, but there are 10,000 election yours dicks in the united states, 10,000 -- jurisdictions. and in georgia itself we have 15 is 9 counties, second only to texas, and 159 counties that have different election rules. some close at 7, some close at 6, some have drop boxes, some don't. it is really -- besides how you vote with the actual ballot when you walk in, all the systems are the same. but people feel disenfranchised that they can't access it because, oh, when i was in macon, i voted this way, and i could vote after work until 7:00, but apparently you can't do that in saw van. that it's i wonderful that it's decentralized and states is have the ability to do it, but it's also a curse because without that centralization you don't have control. and in 40 countries that we work

on, there's a central election commission. so you know when people are misbehaving. you know thatyo they're to blame and election commissions can hold themst accountable. that's just not the way it works in the u.s. good news is you can't hack every election across the united states at the same time because they're allim so different. the bad news is you -- some of them can get hacked, and they could be important ones. and people can't vote as easily as they should be able to. and so those are things we have to actually pull together and make sure people understand how do you vote in your neighborhood, how that happens, how your voice can be heard. >> that's a really interesting point, youin know? just the mechanics of holding an election. and in the united states, the time, place and marry of elections is dictated by the states, not the federal government. so you'd have to have a constitutional a amendment. >> right.ge >> to change something like that. so givenatat the unlikely threat that a there'll ever be a constitutional amendment on that, how would the carter

center and their actions kind of operate in all of these different jurisdiction cans that you have to operate with? ii mean, how could you possibly cover allth that territory? >> well, i think president carter and president ford started together with the federal election -- federal -- >> yes. >> -- reform commission. and they came up with some suggestions. and so this was 2004? and is so haba -- h hava, help americans vote act, was i put in place -- put in place. but it took 18 years before they actually started putting federal funding into it. the reality is states can't necessarily afford to do all of this on their own. and is so, you know, there's seven states that a don't even have a civics curriculum in the united states. so if you're starting at the lowest level as elementary school students and there's no required civics curriculum and

henn the state the only puts in5 cents per student for civics, 50 credits per student for s.t.e.m., and s.t.e.m. is important, but at the end of day, it's 5 creditses for civics. it's not going to have you raising is citizens who understand how vote ving works or understands how democracy works. so when they get to voting age and, you know, arizona, i'll use that as an example. when -- [inaudible] county, people heard about that, cyber ninjas came in because they wanted to recount the ballot. people were worried about what happened in arizona. they took all the machines off property, out of maricopa county to -- now they can't use those machines anymore because they went outside the building. no one knows what might have happened. they've got millions of dollars now that maricopa residents are

going to have to pay to actually bring those machines finish to get new machines that are safe and a secure. so when you have got a state that's responsible for running it own elections and you don't have the federal funds between 208we and 20222 -- 2018 and 202, $1.3 billion in federal funds was pushed into the elections because it was covid, because they were worried about did the russians hackss the 2016 electi. $1.3 billion. between 2022and 2024, they only put in $70 million. is so where does that lead e? that leaves dark money coming in to try to help elections. but if the federal government's not going to take responsibility for it which is, again, what president ford and president carter suggested in 2004, how's this going to get paid for? it comes down to the state budget. they have to decide between education and voting. it comes down to dark money, you know, who's paying for training

election administrators, election officials? we had money to do that, but we've gotten vilified in the press that we're using chinese pies to train people how to do -- spies to train people how to do elections in polk county. so it's worrisome to figure out how you run an election in a way that the states have control, but they're also supported by the feds. >> so these hongstanding -- longstanding structural issues, i think, are quite concerning because we don't seem to be able to get a handle on just a couple things. president ford in interviews after -- well, it was when he was working on hava, he would say the two things that rip off the american voter are gerrymandering and money overwhelming congressional districts fromgr the outside whh is mccain feingold, right? that would be to account for the latter. >> yeah. >> but the former, the

gerrymandering, think about it.i president ford liked to think of our country as having balanced populations in every congressional district so the voters would hear a full airing of the issues. the safe seats just keep growing and growing, which is what has happened in our democracy. then that means more and more americans have sorted themselves but likely, and they are not hearing the full debate. and that a really does rip off the voter because the voter doesn'tdo really have a choice. i mean, in california you might have, what, 20 million people, say 25 million people are voting, and 13 million are votingot for one candidate. 12 million maybe are voting for the other, but they don't hear the full debate. and if that is what hurts them. and president ford was perennially worried about that. we've got to change our habits in this country structurally.

>> well, i think we'd like to have some time for the audience to ask questions as well. so if you would like to ask the question, please raise your hand and we'llll bring you a microphe so that you can -- people on zoom can hear you as well. >> thank you very much for a very inspiring discussion. so inspiring that remembering the '60s, i get even teary when you talk about it. [laughter] but it's not enough to just go back and say things were better, or it's not enough to go back and say things used to be worse. where is the hope today in our current situation? >> my last question -- [inaudible] >> okay. we'ree going to try to end on something hopeful. i think the hope is people care about democracy and people care about voting. we have more people voting, younger voters coming out because they know that their voice will be heard. so the fact that people care

about this, i think, is very important. i'll also say ambassador susan page is here from the if universityty of michigan and isn our board. when she was ambassador, she said she had this wonderful comment she made july 4th overseas. she said even though our democracy is self-evident, it is notel necessarily self-enforcin. and so we can't take advantage of what we have, we actually have to participate in it. i think people are realizing that now, and that's great, you know in talk to a high schooler who doesn't think, yeah, i should vote. this is climate, like, climate, you're killing the world. usually it's my kid telling me everything we did wrong. my generation is ruining the world for them. but it means they're going to get out and participate. that's why i'm hopeful. oh, good. i think mine just died. >> and we've been really lucky, professor, in this community to have a number of members op our board of trustees here at the

foundation who are committed to education. i'm thinking of people like doug devos, peter -- hank meyer who's in thein audience, others who who are really concerned. they do understand that one of the greatest threats to democracy is ignorance of democracies or not having a voice in that democracy. i'm proud of the efforts of my predecessor ises here at the ford presidential foundation who have done so much to bring 10, 123,000 kids a year -- 12,000 kids ar year through our museum and make sure they are aware of how our democracy works. yes, the mechanics, but more importantly, it's people at the end of the day. people of character at the end of the day that makes a democracy and the leadership necessary to be part of that democracy work. so i have a lot of hope in the rising generation whether it's the devos learning center and our curricula there, whether it's through the world

leadership forum, the director of that effort for the college students and young professionals and then the continuing education. ngyou all are lifelong learners. you will talk to your grandkids, you'll talk to your neighbors. i see the hope right here. so did i flatter you enough? [laughter] >> if i could abuse my position here just briefly to address your question, and it goes back to something we were talking about earlier, democracies are inherently fragile systems of government. they're incredibly difficult to operate. precisely because they're fragile, they're also resilient. if youy, look at american histo, you'll see all these periods of rye sis, but those periods of crisis always end up generating this real resiliency in the public. i still have hope in the resiliency of america and americans. i think we have a nasty habited of bouncing back from our own

mistakes. >> just to address the issue of hope you spoke to, in michigan, you may not be awar of, in the last five years partial truly based on grassroots efforts which started in the grand rapids area, created ap a independent redistricting commission for our legislative districts in the state. and as a result of those efforts, our legislature now more closely reflects the democratic, republican guide in our state than it had in the past when gerrymander eking was till the rule of the day. still the rule of the day. >> one thing, one thing on that because gerrymandering is, you know, the united states is so is interesting because our election officials, most of our election officials are actually elected to office. they're partisan to begin with,

from the very beginning. so you've got secretaries of state that are republican or democrat, that they have also done a very nonpartisan job on the elections themselves. ilv mean, some of them have been outspoke. en about the safety and security of to 2020 election were republicans in georgia, brad after especially pirger saying, you know, this is the how the vote went. in arizona you had, you know, we saw people speaking out. the gerrymandering is something thatat two-thirds of americans that are polled, two-thirds of americans don't believe in political processes on redistricting. but 50% of americans don't understand how else redistricting can be done. so i think michigan's done it in a really interesting way that is different than northt carolinas undertaking, for example, now. so i think there are models that can be used, and i would like to see the u.s. learn from itself. >> [inaudible]

[laughter] >> first of all, i thank you for your -- [inaudible] and second thing is i have a mission. i am the -- [inaudible] 50 years ago. so basically, i just -- [inaudible] wake up, america. [inaudible] but the freedom -- [inaudible] >> is there a question? >> [inaudible]

>> okay -- [inaudible] the question. >> yes. so -- [inaudible] can you tell me why -- [inaudible] >> thank you for your question. > [inaudible] >> i think if you read about those instandses -- instances that you've mentioned, you'll find that in certain places it looks nefarious. but if you actually watch the entire video, you can see those were not hidden ballots. so it's hard, and i'm happy to have a conversation with you afterwards, but, you know, i know -- i believe in what you saw and what you believe in.

it's just something different than the -- [inaudible] or what i think. but i'm happy to talk to you afterwards. >> and i'd just add i think there have been -- correct me if i'm wrong, 6 a 5 court cases which have sort of indicated that the system worked -- >> and recounts. >> not to say that there aren't problems. it's not to say that ther' is some fraud. but the scale of the fraud was not great enough according to these court cases to have overturned an election. >> yeah, yeah. there were 13 improperly cast ballots that came out of the georgia election, and that's what -- after three recounts. so, you know, there's human mistakes that happen. so next question. >> i hear the term democracy being used over and over again but rarely the term republic. and i was always taught that the united states was a republic. not a democracy.

i wonder if the panel could address that and clarify that forr us. >> i love that question. that's an excellent -- because it is historically accurate. our founders, actually, were afraid of democracy, and so they contained the democratic element. if you look at sort of the nature of constitutions, they can either, you know, is have a monarch call or authoritarian element, they are have an aristocratic element, a democratic element, and there are a more monarchical element. in article ii of the constitution, they gave the presidency a little more power than they originally entered the debates because they counted on george washington being the president. frankly, it came down to the a character issue of george washington. they gave the more aristocratic element to the supreme court, the senate, you know, the 6-year terms, and they contained the democratic element in the house of representatives. so you had a mixed form of

government, a mixed constitution in which all of the interests that would arise in these different elements would counter each other. and that was a republican form of government. also you had the representative element because, remember, so many republics in the ancient world were much smaller. and as result of that -- as a result of that, people could go and talk to each other from if far-flung areas when riding a horse was what was far flung. once you got to the united states in the modern era, the area covered is so huge you have to have representative government in this republic, this constitution. in fact, we had a constitutional republic technically. so you're absolutely right, thank you for a great question. >> that's a good answer. [laughter] >> but you know what? the political philosopher up here -- [inaudible] professor paul let. paul let's.

>> it's a complicated story because that's really the debate, whether we were actually creating a republican form of government or not, and critics of the constitution kit sidessed the -- criticized the document for not being you havely republican. and the argument you can see or hear, be careful what you wish for, many federalist nine hamilton argues that the big innovation in american politics in the signs of representation, they understand how representation works. and we think about it, that's an enormous innovation in political life that you have especiallitive government. and then madison argues in federalist ten that -- [inaudible] of representation requires ap a extended republic. the constitution saying this could only work on a small scale. and madison says if you look at all these republics in the past,

these phrases, they are short in their lives as they are -- [inaudible] and that's what he's trying to avoid. and he thinks the way to avoid that is to extend the government over greater territory and more people a greater population. and then solve the problems through representation. >> and that's the federalist papers or and also a song in hamilton. [laughter] my hope is that maybe the next generationan lynnup manuel wille federalist papers. >> and i've just got to say speaking of hamilton, speaking of the federalist papers, here's your homework assignment. i hope everybody goes home and reads federalist one, written by hamilton,mi where hamilton talks about the virtue of moderation. it's an excellent little overview how -- of how our

constitutional a republic should work. and if it sets the stalling for the following 84 federalist papers. but moderation should be the guiding principle. that's right, of the federalist papers and and of the discussions that are going to arise around this constitution. how we'reve going to live togetr peaceably. that's a homework assignment. i'm going to ask you next time the. [laughter] >> but the other part is apparently to learn something about this taylor swift person. [laughter] >> question over there -- >> what time is it? yeah. in fact --ac [inaudible] [inaudible conversations] >> she had a question too. >> yeah. >> i've work with with the as a

polling places for a number of years as chair person, and i always looked for absentee ballots as being the place where with you could make mischief. and i think people keep talking about recounts when the issue seemed to me to be that people who shouldn't have been able to vote might have voted and that the mischief was in last minute rule changes, and nobody seems to address that. recounts seem to be ridiculous after a while. but those switches bothered me. >> yeah. i think switching mid election season is something that is difficult. so let me give you anecdotally what i saw because when the carter center was asked to be the nonpartisan observer in the georgia elections in 2020, i was in stanton county which was won by trump by 76%. in fulton county, which is the largest county in georgia, and dekalb county, the second

largest county. so i watched the recounts in each of these places. one of the things with the ab a seven tee ballot, so being in this small county in north georgia, i watched them counting the absentee ball otts -- ballots because this was a democrat and a republican sitting at a table, which i'm sure y'all had here, and they would hold upal the ballot and they would look because someone always would write in peps for president or the absentee ballots looked a little different. so there there always a had to be a discussion between the two, you know, what was intended by this. but the difference is that in georgia when absentee ballots were mailedin many if, don't forget we all have a secret ballot, and if you don't want your personal information being there. so it was the georgia bureau e of envelopes that would actually look at the signature on the envelope, open -- and if the signature was verified, they would open the envelope, the envelope would go one place and

absentee ballot would go another place so it could be counted. so you did separate it. then there was the question of i want to see signatures. so that became a rally cry. how do we know the signatures were valid? how do we know people could really vote? those envelopes were kept separately by the georgia bureau of investigation so you could determine that everyone who was counted here actually hadte a matching signature. and so i think the signature match isna a big deal. i think whether or not someone was actually registered at that address with that signature is done ahead of time. and then the votes are counted. so when you havee a recount, you're looking at it separately. but i think the rule changes are very difficult. but i know in georgia our absentee ballot even during covid was not necessarily that high that it would, you know, couldch have changed the electin if anything funny had happened. but i watched how these things were counted specifically. >> [inaudible]

[inaudible conversations] >> documentary -- [inaudible] >> we can have that conversation later. let's get to some of the other questions. >> can we move forward a little bit? [inaudible conversations] >> yeah. >> i would like to take this opportunity to thank our panelists and thank paige so much for coming to grand rapids. [applause] >> we're here in a special place that commemorates the importance of zora neale hurston and the role that she has played and continues to play in identifying eatonville as a rate area destination. now, this street, east kennedy

boulevard, originally was a part of the road system called the old apopka highway. so during the time of zora neale hurston. she was born in 1811, died in 1960 -- 1891, her parents brought her to' tonville when she was basically a toddler. so in the early 1900s this roadway e now called east kennedy boulevard was actually the old apopka highway. it was the link between northeast if orange county, maitland and northwest orange county, apopka. and so the road itself is a historic roadway. now, we're in a space e that looks at lot different from modern eatonville or eatonville of the day. in fact, this is a space that really hearkens back to what we call old florida. and we are standing in a place

where zora neale hurston is known to have done some of her writing. you know, at a certain point she came back and forth to eaton ville, and at times when she did stay here, we call this tuxedo junction. it's actually located right on the shore, so to speak, of the lake. it is a place, as i say, that sheds known to have -- she is known to have done some of her writing. now we're at the matilda mosley house museum. and we are here because matilda mosley, known as tillie, was zora neale hur on the tees -- hurston's best friend as a child. she was a direct descendant of the founder of the town of eaton theville, clark, especially in a place like florida in the south.

the porch is, it's a social gathering place for family and friends. and here we actually are stationed or positioned in the porch. who you see -- what you see here is, it really represents the's sense of zora neale hurston as a folklorist, she was the writer of the literary classic their eyes were watching god, but she's also an anthropologist, and what you see in this photograph is actually collecting folk here materials. and this home, i think, reps -- represents a kind of tying of the bow because you have a family, a founding family. you had the connection between the childhood friendship of zora neale hurston and tillie had and

maintained throughout adulthood. so you had that social interaction combined with the establishment of the town as an incorporated municipality, the first incorporated african-american -- [inaudible] in the united states. and you have the writer, the genius in sor rah rah neil hurston that makes and establishes eaton theville as a literary destination for readers or around the globe. ♪ >> weeknights at nine eastern, c-span's encore presentation of our 01-part series -- 10- part series books that shaped america. c-span if partnered with the library of congress which expored -- explored key pieces of literature. tonight we feature zora neale hurston's 1937 novel, their eyes were watching god. our guest is tiffany ruby patter soften, professor of history at

vanderbilt university and author of sor rah kneel hurston and the history of southern life. watch c-span's encore presentation of books that shaped america week mights at nine eastern on c-span or go to c-span.org/books that shaped america to view the series and learn more about a each book featured. >> all of this month watch the best of c-span's q&a. on sunday journalist and historian craig e fairman anizes presidents in his book, author in chief, sunday night at 8 p.m. eastern on c-span's q&a. you can listen to q and a and all of our podcasts on our free c-span now app a. ♪ >> weekends on c-span2 are an intellectual feast. every saturday american history tv documents america's story thes. and on sundays, booktv brings you the latest in nonfiction