c-span3. >> coming up today on c-span, house speaker nancy pelosi holds her weekly briefing at 10:45 eastern. the ceos of robin hood and reddit join for a hearing on the recent stock price increase involving gamestop. the senate banking committee meets to examine the economic recovery during the coronavirus and that might. that is followed by a house ways and means subcommittee hearing on the tax services available to use for free during the pandemic. on c-span3, legal scholars testify about the supreme court's caseload and the emergency rulings it makes for cases that don't appear on the court's regular docket. coming up in an hour, historian david reynolds discusses his

biography of abraham lincoln and how he unified the country after a divisive election. at 9:00 a.m., national economic resolution center professor david dinkin and arthur brooks on political polarization in the u.s. ♪ host: last february during his state of the union speech president donald trump awarded the nation's highest civilian honor, the medal of freedom to nationally syndicated radio host rush limbaugh, who had just been diagnosed with stage four lung cancer. rush limbaugh died of that disease yesterday. he was 70 years old. good morning, it is washington journal. welcome to the program. credited with saving am radio stations and creating modern talk radio, inspiring the creation of fox news.

revered by millions and reviled by many millions more, we like to talk about the impact rush limbaugh this morning. the political and media impact in our first hour of the program. if you are a republican use (202) 748-8001, democrats use (202) 748-8000 four independence and others (202) 748-8002. if you are texting (202) 748-8003. on twitter we are @cspanwj. rush limbaugh has been a palm beach resident for 25 years or so. he has done his program for palm beach for many years. this morning they write the dominant voice in conservative broadcasting for decades, he arguably paved the way for the rise of fox news. along the way he became a

political force in conservative politics as republican candidates courted his support. he did it largely from a studio on royal palm way. the palm beach coast. on our homepage at c-span.org we have linked to another -- a broadcast through the years that we covered with rush limbaugh. the tweet from c-span yesterday from mike pence. representative mike pence -- rush limbaugh first appeared on this network during the democratic national convention in 1992. >> has this been a windfall for you? >> absolutely, i have a theory about all of this, about talk shows and relationships with host and their programs have with people in the electorate. every time there is a major

issue like the pay raise. talk radio because of the ability to concentrate on it immediately is generally attacked in fashion by the print medium as being irresponsible, uneducated windbag reactionary who gets people worked up into fiery motions. that is dangerous. i disagree totally with that. i think markets rule things. i don't think there is one talk show host in the country who could start from ground zero and work people in a frenzy and get them to do what he wants to do in large enough numbers. i think emotion from the people has to be there. one of the reasons accordingly that the talk format would be the direct involvement of the audience is people have become more and more interested with the ability to express their opinion about these issues.

and because they think that may have some impact, there are more desires of getting involved. they are more interested in what is going on. the marketplace is responding to their desires. we see this campaign the way formats on television talk shows are being changed really accommodates the talk radio way of doing things. i think it is good because it is people lead. host: that is rush limbaugh in 1992. he died yesterday of lung cancer at the age of 70. we are talking this morning about the impact on politics and media. limbaugh shaped politics in media, the headline in the wall street journal today. conservatism, it was the most listened to radio talkshow in the u.s. reaching more than 20 million listeners on 650 affiliates as of the end of

2020. they also write this, a proponent of american exceptionalism, the idea that the founding of the u.s. was fundamentally different from that of other nations. he often criticize politicians that rejected that notion. the u.s. is the first time in the history of the world where government was organized with a constitution laying out the rules with an individual supreme and dominant. it is what led to the u.s. becoming the greatest country ever because of the least people to be the best they could be in a 2013 show criticizing vladimir putin and president obama. nothing like it has ever happened. criticized by detractors for advancing his political opinions, he writes to the journal that it was frequently in hot water for writing must about minorities, feminism, and racial issues. let's go to calls and hear first

from dana on the republican line, good morning. caller: rush limbaugh did tell the truth, he did not hold back. that's what bothered most of the people like you talked about. it did bother them. i listen to them for a long time. he was a very smart guy. he dumb things down for a lot of people and he told it like it is. yesterday was my last day on twitter. i have never seen so much hate on a platform in my life. i just can't believe it. the hatred in this country, especially on twitter is unbelievable. the best thing you guys can do -- there's a lot of people you get in contact with. the guy did a lot of things in

life. some people don't like that. that's the way i feel about it. host: next up is dylan in north carolina. you are on the air, go ahead. all right, to -- you are on the air. caller: i'm sorry, sir. i wanted to reiterate a point dana made from california how literally rush limbaugh was one of the biggest icons on the republican side of the spectrum since andrew breitbart. from what i have seen on twitter the past 12-16 hours, it has been horrifying how the left is supposed to be the tolerant party. when rush limbaugh died they just completely go for the neck.

i just really think rush limbaugh was one of the best things that has happened to the right wing part of the spectrum since andrew breitbart. he pushed the people on the right to enrage the liberals. i really agree with what he stood about. host: to the independent line, your thoughts on the impact in politics and media of rush limbaugh? caller: to all fellow americans, this is on-topic and off-topic. i was trying to understand some things. i'm hearing some things and wanted to state some things. this country is founded under

the united states of america. under the bible. one nation, under god. the bible is utilized and it is utilized under oath. many americans put their hands on the bible in many circumstances when they are in the courts. we are talking -- host: we are talking about rush limbaugh this morning. his impact on politics. caller: good morning. my condolences to the limbaugh family. i started listening to rush right when he started. he sometimes could be a real tool. i didn't agree with everything he said.

he had the right to speak it. he gave people the courage not to be afraid. that's what freedom is all about. i was very sad when justice ginsburg died. they are great americans. what is rare is he was friends with a lot of liberals in his personal life. they were friends, they found common ground. sadly that is what is really lacking today. if you are friends with someone on the opposite side you are shamed. it really has to stop. i hope we could do some self reflection in this country about what it means to have freedome and the right to say it.

i did agree with american exceptionalism look at texas right now. we do need to take responsibility and be prepared to take care of ourselves. that resonated with me anyway. thank you for taking my call. you have a blessed day. host: let's hear from chris on the democrats line. caller: the thing about rush is this. i have listened to him since the 1990's. i'm very liberal. i listen to people like rush limbaugh is you have to understand what other people think. it is hard to go to family dinners with your brother-in-law who listens to rush all the time and says he is the greatest thing since sliced bread. russia says 220 million people a month that i, -- rush says to 20

million people a month that i hate and want to destroy religion, kill christmas. he repeated this stuff every single day of his miserable life. when the right wing talks about how much hate there is on twitter for rush, find someone out there who is talking three hours a day to 20 million people saying you hate freedom. you would hate that guy too. my dad was in vietnam. he flew over 200 missions. he voted for obama. according to rush, my father hates america, he hates the military. he would daily say that democrats are hoping for more deaths of american soldiers so they could attack bush. he spohn that the entire right-wing machine which has led to people like sean hannity, laura ingraham, glenn beck. if you listen to halley car and that is where you get you nor

news -- your news, it would make sense. this stuff they say about me, my family, and my friends is insanely hateful. host: you kept listening to rush limbaugh even though you have a strong opinion against him? what kept you coming back? you said you wanted to find out how the other side thinks. you pretty well know how the other side thinks. what kept you dialing back in every day? caller: it changes week by week. if you listen to right-wing radio, the attacks on the capital was apparently the speaker of the house's fault. that theory spreads across white right -- right-wing media. when they talk about texas, the right-wing media machine is simply going on the attack saying it is the green new deal.

it is important to understand where they are coming from. if you'll make arguments or discuss things with people you have to know what they believe. host: thanks for calling this morning. this is a tweet from rush limbaugh's brother following the death of rush limbaugh. he said "i'm not ready to speak but i'm so proud of my amazing, loving brother. thousands of you have shared how much he meant to you. my brother was the real deal. i can't describe how sad i am but also how proud i am of my big brother. i love you and adore you. from page of the "washington times" this morning. pioneering voice of conservatives dies at 70. the formative voice fell silent when talk radio host rush limbaugh died from lung cancer. they say he virtually created the position of term term of -- of conservative talk media.

he was an architect of the modern right and a very wealthy man. from his golden microphone and studio in sunny florida his often humorous and almost as often controversial three-hour weekday show delighted conservatives and infuriated liberals. yesterday president trump was on fox news after the death of rush limbaugh. here's what he had to say. mr. trump: i am and it is a great honor to do so. when we give the medal of freedom it was an incredible night. we gave it during the state of the union address. half the room went crazy. the other half of the room knew he should get it. it was special and he was special. >> what was last time you spoke with rush limbaugh? mr. trump: i called him to find out his fight was very

courageous. he was very sick. the diagnosis was something that was not going to be be in. you wouldn't know it. he is married to an incredible woman who every time i spoke to him, he would tell me how great she was. she took such great hair -- care. he was fighting until the very end. he was a fighter. >> while you were in the white house, how did you view how he either carried on your message or chose to agree or disagree with the policies you had? mr. trump: you just touched on sean hannity, whose incredible. what do you think, someday? he would say rush is irreplaceable.

he had an audience that was massive. he would get up and would just talk. he wouldn't take phone calls were people would call him every two minutes. he would just talk for two hours, three hours. that is not an easy thing to do. i once asked him do you study for the show? he said i studied very hard. he was a fantastic man, fantastic talent. people whether they loved him were not respected him. they really did. host: media matters for america headline from their peace after the attack on the capitol. one day after a pro-trump bob storm the capitol he blamed the attack partly on so-called

antifa instigators. some of his fellow conservative talk radio hosts have downplayed the actions. dismissing calls to condemn the violence. asking you this morning on the political media impact of the career of rush limbaugh. (202) 748-8001 for republicans, (202) 748-8000 for democrats, all others (202) 748-8002. this is william in middletown, connecticut. an exceptional experiment, some will never respect is power and ability to speak to conservatives. i begin listening 20 years ago. i was understanding the conservative point of view. he was divisive, bigoted, and largely responsible for the racial divide. he pedaled hate with hypocrisy.

chris in atlanta, he was the first person to say the coronavirus was a democratic attack. lives are what made him rich. he was one of the greats. love for his god and his country, he stood for truth and justice. he will be greatly missed. i would love and condolences to his family. christopher said not the greatest voice conservatives had to advocate but you can't deny v-shaped modern-day talk radio and what eventually became podcast. let's hear from philip in los angeles, republican line. caller: how are you today? host: fine, thank you. caller: living in los angeles it is hard to be conservative and expressing your opinion. right now what rush limbaugh really did was the media,

education, much of our culture was dominated by the left. rush limbaugh was a silent voice , a minority voice. away way we can express ourselves. rush limbaugh was a giant. i don't know if we will come up with a replacement. it is a shame what is happening to our culture. a lot of it has to do with the left. thank you. host: fort wayne indiana, wes is next. caller: good morning. rush limbaugh was a good speaker. he could influence people. i listen to him on the radio early in the 1990's. he was a dangerous man, just like president trump. he talked about god and the bible and all of that. in eight years, president obama

did zero. he said i hope he fails, i would say what is this guy talking about? is the president fails, the country fails. a lot of people can't think for themselves. whatever somebody tells them is what they do. he was a dangerous man for this country, no doubt. that is what i wanted to say, thank you. host: this is margaret in kansas, democrats line. caller: i was shocked when i first listen to a whole show of rush limbaugh. it really threw women under the bus. it depressed me to know that relatives of mine would listen and my brother, who had daughters, what is that comment about people who have to squat

to pee? what is that? it is so horrible. i know he's on his fourth wife and he was making his money. if you are intellectual and you hear these really horrible hatreds. when you broadcast something, if you don't have editors, there is free speech but there is a responsibility. if not, you wind up like kittler in germany, just propaganda. it is very sad when people sell out for this money. we used to be more educated. it is really sad. an example of one of the saddest things to hear in this country. i hope advertisers would get

smarter and not promote this sort of hate. breitbart, you could do that. alex jones. you need to turn off that stuff and get educated. what is wrong with people? we won't keep going as a country if we just go on this propaganda. thank you. host: this morning from another radio host, mark davis from dallas, texas. rush limbaugh's greatest gift is the headline to his opinion piece. he writes those of us that do talkshows for living get a stage for a few hours a day. rush made the decision early on that there were things worth fighting for. he was going to do just that. on the local show in sacramento, the new york, then the national spotlight. he knew there would be two kinds of reaction. he never allowed the second two dim his appreciation. he knew the harsh retorts from the left and the evidence of his effectiveness. why would liberal media bother

to denigrate someone who did not matter? kathleen's in massachusetts on the independent line. go ahead. caller: good morning. i'm sure rush limbaugh was a great guy to have a beer with. he was the opposite in the 1980's of howard stern. donald trump was on howard stern show many times. of course i'm sorry and feel empathy for his family. i was very feminist in the 1980's. he referred to us like commie liberals. these were quotes. abortion, he would use the term modern-day holocaust.

during the aids epidemic he would refer to so derogatory in that period. aids was the rock hudson disease. he made fun of women. there was one thing i said yesterday that was over the moon. i guess people used to call him. it was a national football person. he said something -- he joked, it is all in jest. take that bone out of your nose. then he said what he wanted. where is the decency? i'm sure he was a fine guide to go out with. you can get on the airwaves and have this sense -- the rest of

you guys, that is all i have to say. sure, he helped the republican party. he pitted one against the other. i feel sorry for his family. that is all i have to say. it makes me cry that they are making such a hero out of him. he didn't invent anything, he didn't hear anything. i'm sorry for the people that love him. that is all i have to say. host: larry sends us this text from new jersey, rush limbaugh's impact on politics will continue to be destructive and hurtful for years to come. rush was were flushing late and politically incorrect. liberal media since yesterday have been cherry picking anything he said during the last 30 years that could cast a negative slant.

rush limbaugh perpetuated a fraud for years. people drink the kool-aid and it is why we are divided as a nation right now. this one says i listen to rush occasionally. he was always respectful. on our democrats line, this is marsha. caller: when i heard about rush limbaugh passing yesterday i didn't have any sort of feelings about that. as a middle-aged woman growing up, i never had problems with racism, too much. rush caused a lot of that. just like jim jones and hitler's , there's a lot of people that really liked him and both of those guys he knew just what to say.

when you have that group of people that want to hear that kind of stuff, there are so many. that is why he became so popular. people who are in the media, on tv, work for everybody. white, black, whatever. that is all i have to say about that. host: on a republican line, good morning to sid. first of all i would like to send my condolences to the limbaugh family. i never listen to the man. he was a racist, zenith, all you have to do now is look at january 6. thank you so very much. host: this is ralph, hi there. caller: thank you for the

washington journal. i'm a worker from upstate new york. limbaugh since he was on the air , it was basically the same show. he would just talk to himself through a microphone. his listeners who he referred to as dittoheads were just background noise. he was very powerful. he influenced a lot of people. people would listen to him all day driving and then go out against their own economic interests. on the whole he did have a lot of impact. he just talked to himself three hours a day, five days a week. i thank you for your time. host: it was just over a year ago which turned out to be president donald trump's final state of the union address. the president during that speech pointing out and awarding rush limbaugh the medal of freedom. mr. trump: here tonight is a

special man, beloved by millions of americans who just received a stage four advanced cancer diagnosis. this is not good news, but what is good news is that he is the greatest fighter and winner that you will ever meet. rush limbaugh, thank you for your decades of devotion to our country. [applause] pres. trump: and rush, in recognition for all you have done for our nation, the

millions of people a day that you speak to and that you inspire, and all of the incredible work that you have done for charity, i am proud to announce tonight that you will be receiving our country's highest civilian honor, the presidential medal of freedom. i will now ask the first lady of the united states to present you

with the honor. please. >> thank you, rush! [applause] [end video clip] host: the state of the union speech, february 4 last year. rush limbaugh died yesterday, of lung cancer. from "the washington post," although his democratic critics derided limbaugh listeners as

uneducated and easily read, dinner heads -- dittoheads were found on average more informed than listeners of npr, and more likely than c-span audiences to have college degrees. set atop the new york times bestseller list, his first book set for six months. an energetic embrace of individual rights -- i believe in the individual, less government. that god placed man in a position of having dominion over nature, and that racial relations will not be enhanced, or prejudice in limited, by government edict. also in that piece, a background on the launch of his career. they write that mr. limbaugh became a journeyman deejay, flitting from station to station, sometimes as rusty sharpe, sometimes as christie. in 1979, having concluded he was never going to get to the big time, he quit radio.

he returned home to take a job with the kansas city royals as director of group sales. after five years in baseball, he found a position as a news and opinion announcer at a kansas city station, but he was fired for becoming too partisan in his commentary. in 1984, a station in sacramento offered him a talk show. far from leaving his dj years behind, mr. limbaugh modeled his new program after the basic format of top 40 radio, replacing songs with listener phone calls. but otherwise retaining the elements of what had been radio's most alluring programming -- jingles, rock bumpers, snippets of songs that let listeners in and out of each segment, teases of what was coming up after the ads, and constant self-promotion. his daily dicing of california politicians, spiced with comedy routines and news updates, packaged with pop tunes, was an instant hit.

a couple comments on texts -- this one is from dana in los angeles. rush limbaugh was successful for 30 years. all the hate you here this morning proves that. i always thought educated people avoided the hate speech. prayers for strength and comfort for his family, as responsible as anyone for the divides, a self-serving loudmouth who became wealthy appealing to the worst of the human condition. influencing candidates for the last 40 years. michael and portland, oregon. he divided us. rush limbaugh was the fractured mirror, and we wish him well wherever he now journeys. but pray he turns his gifts to healing and bridging come of tying together things now riven that he helped wedge apart. this is doug in wilmington, north carolina. >> good morning to everybody out there. i would like to say, rush

limbaugh assumed to room temperature for that what he always used to say about those when they passed away. so i take great pleasure in saying that about that despicable man. i am not the first want to point this out. the divide that he caused in this country. if you listen to any am radio in any town now, it was not just rush limbaugh. now it is just line after line of hosts pretty much saying democrats are evil, democrats are unpatriotic. if you criticize a republican president, you are unpatriotic. but it is time for us to criticize any democratic president. one of the things that would didn't surprise me that she used to say he was the a pitta me of virtue and morality. and i always found that laughable because even when it came out -- he doesn't say that anymore because he had his trip

to the dominican republic, he came out being a drug addict and all that, and people were oak, that's ok, he is just one of ours. we love his message and he's a great guy and he is a christian. even though he has been married four times and everything else -- he is like a televangelist on the radio. his sheep make him rich just like a televangelist. i'm glad he's gone. i think he is the one that got this divide going, and he got rich off of it. host: mike in susquehanna, pennsylvania, republican line. caller: great, thank you. thank you for c-span. i admire your patience. you take republicans and democrats and independents altogether. i just want to talk about, the

encyclical -- just to compare, listen to this. the best way to dominate and control over people is to spread despair and discouragement. even under the guise of defending a certain value. i pray for rush limbaugh, and this is the future of our planet. it is open borders. just think about this. i'm living in a house right now that costs $3000 a year to heat. $3000. i could be living, or we could build gigantic cities in better climates. my neighbors are all doing the same thing, pumping, pumping, pumping, using energy just to stay warm. maybe we could design a city for a billion people, and have the

world work for those people. host:'s up is durham, north carolina. allen, hello there. caller: good morning, c-span. i have kind of a love-hate type thing. the thing that bothered me, the thing that was good about him was the fact that i am a conservative, a person of color, and a lot of what i didn't like about him, dealing with conservatism is that he didn't explain about how people of color contribute, from lincoln all the way up to today, what we contribute to this country, as far as politically, as well as our intellect, he always just never would discuss that, even in his books. that really bothered me. plus, he he was partisan. in a time that we negotiate, you watch the movie lincoln, it was

always about, even when the emancipation, getting their freedom for the slaves, lincoln basically negotiated his way to giving this, giving that in order to get the votes that he needed, for the benefit of the people. rush didn't like that, it was either/or. he put democrats against republican, and that was terrible. and the character of this president. the character of this president was terrible, and this man had the ability -- exceeds my graphics -- something that he could sell to you, and it stinks. everything that trump did, this man would say that it was ok, and it was not. it was terrible character. what i appreciate about rush again was his heart. he did some good things for police men, especially for the military, the people who contribute to this country and

give their life or give their limbs. he did good things for them. host: let me ask you, as a listener of rush limbaugh, do you think a personality like rush limbaugh come on the radio for as many years as he was, given the nature of his show, made it -- made a candidate like donald trump in evitable in the republican party? caller: yeah, he boosted the guy up. the guy is good. like me, i watch all the news and then i would listen to him. this guy would put spin and make you believe anything. i would watch certain things, listen to his show, and i was like, how in the world did you come up with that? and it was wrong. but those people drank the kool-aid, and that is what bothered me. that's what bothered me a lot about him. and again, and a lot of times i tell people, listen to people that you don't even like to listen to. if you don't like conservatives, listen to hannity and listen to

these guys. why? because you need to know how they think and what they are telling other people. host: you are the second caller this morning who listened to rush regularly and mostly don't agree with his views. do you still listen to other conservatives on the air? caller: yeah, because i want to have conversations about what i don't like about what they do, especially when it comes to people of color. they don't believe that it is systematic racism. it is. i'm a conservative. i try to explain -- i have a lot of white friends, a lot of people who truly love me and i love them. not all white people are prejudice, benny -- but many of them have biases. i have biases. we have to deal with them by interacting with one another. let me explain to you really quick and then i have to go. her black history, i listen to

james baldwin and william buckley debate. that is the type of stuff that we need to have to be able to debate. because he trounced william buckley. why? because of the personal things that -- host: what year was that? what year was that debate? caller: i think it was 1955 or 1963. you should bring it up on c-span. host: we have it in our video library? i appreciate that. thanks for calling in. this is the national review and their tribute this morning to russell about. "farewell, rush limbaugh, a voice like no other. they write that the man on talent -- with talent from god returns. rush hudson limbaugh the third,

a joy on burly, one transcending the airwaves that for generations and then some carried his special and enthusiastic voice which daly spoken propagated words of common sense that instructed mostly -- mostly there was verbiage trolling hubris -- humor list liberals and castigating the enemies and inspiring conservatism. they consummate patriot, happy warrior, and a man of shtick and humility who day in and out over decades informed millions who connected with him in such numbers, has passed away after a long and brutal battle with cancer. his death comes with no surprise, but it deserves our reflection. from the graceless and the grave . that is from national review. the press secretary was asked about the death of rush limbaugh

yesterday. here are some of your comments? [video clip] >> have spoken in the past, and his condolences go out to the family and friends of rush limbaugh, who of course have lost him today. i don't know that i anticipate a statement from the president, but i can certainly pass on his condolences and expression of support for the family. [end video clip] host: a couple of comments on social media. rush limbaugh's ideology was the same as donald trump's over the years, summing up his impact on the world of politics. he never offered solutions, was just against things. on facebook, he had and everything in sight into the world of politics. he got under everyone's skin at one time or another and never let us forget that he was first and foremost an entertainer.

the left hates him. he broke their news monopoly. this one says i'm a lifelock democrat but was always in love with talk radio. when rush came on in 1988, i was hooked. it was never about hate, as many liberals claims. it was about thoughtful, vigorous debate, and i was enriched by it. greg in denison, colorado, democrats line. caller: i just wanted to say thank you for c-span. you guys did a fantastic job. i have to admit, with the last caller, i really do believe that this is where donald trump was born. he comes from this type of background, blame everything on everyone else, you are right, everyone else is wrong. that is the way rush was on his radio show. always degrading women, and dominion over nature, that one really gets me. what is that supposed to mean?

i think we are seeing, with climate change and everything right now that we have been destroying this earth for far too long, and mother nature is bad and she's going to get even. thanks for taking my call. host: noni is in graham, texas. you are on the air. caller: good morning. i want to send condolences first to the family come and people need to know that rush was extremely generous to both sides of the aisle. he gave a lot to democrats, getting them into drug treatment programs, alcohol programs, into helping them with suicide issues. everything -- cancer treatment. this man did a lot, and he put millions of dollars and raised millions of dollars, gave millions of dollars out of his own pocket for anybody that needed it at that time.

he would call these people. he did not wait for them to come to him. he called them and he kept it private. he did not have to advertise his goodness. people don't like his politics, that's fine, that is their business, but other people did. the people that didn't like it, have no right to come on here and criticize him the day after his death, when you know that some of these issues that are on your program right this minute are going to get back to that family. he has a large family, and nobody seems to remember that. it is just throw the crepe out there and let everybody hear it. it is ridiculous and it is disgusting. it is disheartening, and this program needs to stop. you don't have to be politically correct, you don't have to be mean and bullish and aggravating and just senseless. you are stupid, you're idiotic,

and you have no grace for anybody's life. i have heard this from months. every time somebody dies on the right, the democrats have to come in and start saying disgusting things online. the things they are calling him. it is going straight to his family. it needs to stop. host: nonie in texas. rush limbaugh, his last appearance on this network was in 2019 at the turning point usa event, and it was his introduction on donald trump. [video clip] >> controversial? who could oppose it? somebody says i want to make america great again. why is that controversial? why in the world is that controversial? then somebody says we ought to be america first again. why is that controversial? why do people oppose america first? why do people oppose making

america great again? i will tell you why. the people who think make america great again is not good think that it is a throwback to 200 years ago america. they think that it is code for taking america back to the days when it was manifestly unfair, racist, sexist, bigoted, homophobic. it is not that. make america great again is let's restore the principles of the founding. america great is based on solution and submission that america is the solution to the world's problems. it is not the problem. the left in america, the left around the world thinks america is the problem, and we are not. when america leads, winner america triumphs, when america prospers, the world does greater than ever. [end video clip] host: rush limbaugh died yesterday at the age of 70 from

lung cancer. this is the new york times. rush limbaugh, top radio fours, died at age 70. his popularity had a profound effect on the media landscape. dozens of right-wing talkers cropped up on local radio stations, emulating his divisive commentary. "there is no talk radio as we know it, it just doesn't exist without rush limbaugh." i would even make the argument there is no fox news or even some of the other opinionated cable networks. in the limbaugh lexicon, advocates for the homeless were compassion fascists. women who defended abortion rights word -- were seminar sees. he called global warming a hoax and cruelly imitated michael j fox, who has parkinson's

disease. he mocks the deaths of gay men by playing dionne warwick's "i'll never love this way again." he continued to make homophobic remarks. in 2020, he said americans would be repelled by a guy kissing his husband on stage. on twitter, saying that rush was reviewed by all the racists, homophobes, and terrorists in rage -- in range of his hateful etiquette. from the minority leader in the senate, mitch mcconnell -- rush limbaugh was a generational media trailblazer. he gave voice to millions of conservative americans who in the mainstream media have not even tried to represent. his impact is impossible to overstate. may he rest in peace.

next is josephine in livingston, new jersey. good morning. caller: good morning. let me say i will express sympathies, but did i like the man? no, i could not say that. in 1988 when the fairness doctrine was removed, that is when rush limbaugh came on radio. keep in mind the man never went to college. according to his mother, he flunked out of one course and a half and he was out of college. keep in mind it did not -- he did not serve in vietnam. his grandfather was a judge and his father was a lawyer. his attack on women were on relentless. his fear -- he moved to florida? why? remember, he came out of new york. as far as radio was going. it is sad that his memory will always be known, and also times

when he spent time in the lincoln bedroom, when he was reviewed by george h.w. bush. but george h.w. bush give him access to the radio waves of the military. every day he was listens to because of george h.w. bush, so he had a built-in audience. but sadly, instead of being a person -- i hear people saying he did so much good. but the mouth is a powerful instrument, and if you don't use it for good, karma comes back to people. it is said that he died for some people, but sadly not for me. he did too much hate and the world. thank you. host: tim in oklahoma, republican line. caller: thank you. i just want to say, i am disappointed in all the hate going out this morning. over a death of tamia patriot.

i just think rush limbaugh was a patriot, good for republicans, and the roasting like this today is just to me totally embarrassing. he was just a good guy. host: to be clear, we are not roasting him. our segment is to hear from you, your thoughts, as well as everybody else who calls in the program. i understand what you're saying about other people's content, but our intent is a conversation about the political impact, the media impact of rush limbaugh. caller: at the same time, you are doing a good roasting. i will leave it at that. people see what it is. people see how it is, and you are having more -- even the republicans that were against him than they are saying, the

man passed away, give him a break. host: appreciate your opinion. this is the opinion of the wall street journal this morning. talk radio host popularized conservative ideas and policy. they say in recent years with the rise of more acerbic competitors, limbaugh took on a more exasperated tone. he also moved to the trump right on issues such as trade. immigration and foreign policy. but unlike others on the talk radio right, he kept his sense of humor and rarely let anger drown his fundamental optimism about the united states. his great strength was never to take himself too seriously. and bought new he was an entertainment -- entertainer, not an intellectual or politician, and he said so many times. it was popular because he was superb at his craft and represented traditional american values at the dominant call -- that the dominant culture too often means. from pennsylvania, good morning, sir. democrats line. caller: how are you?

he reminded me of a modern-day albert gantry. he isn't a good place now. i guess it is a little warm down there, but it really burns me up when he got the award that i guess it was the dedication of something on television, and here is a teske airman in the same audience who should have gotten the award, and he gives it to -- president trump gives it to rush limbaugh. you know, they just really -- i am sorry to see him go, but from 12:00 to 3:00 in the afternoon, i listened to thom hartman, and i would lever -- i would never listen to russian ball. i listens to him if you time, what i could not stand his hateful dialogue. he seemed like a modern-day elmer gantry to me. host: philadelphia on the

independent line, good morning. caller: good morning, sir. the whole thing is about the con, the neocons. the whole thing is a con artist. three con monty, that is what it was all about. even if you had a college degree, my mother used to say, having all this education, but no common sense. the whole party turned his way. look at donald trump and the rest of them. you have what, maybe seven out of the whole republican party worth two cents? this is ridiculous. you got these people like jim jones, following people right into the grave. have a good day. host: one more call with mike on the republican line in baltimore. caller: good morning. host: good morning morning, mike. caller: i just want to leave my comment out there for everyone. how are we saddened by a bigot, openly misogynistic man who sowed hatred and fear?

there are no tears and sadness here. it should be joyce and because this man has caused nothing -- it should be rejoicing because this fan man caused nothing but fear and hatred. host: focusing on a brand-new book about avraham lincoln, we are joined next by historian david reynolds, to talk with us about his new biography of the 16th president, and lessons learned from that turbulent time in office. later, more about the ways to heal the political divide in the country. our guests are the national conflict resolution senator david dink and, and arthur brooks, ♪ >> 117 congress includes over 60

new members. this group includes first-generation immigrants, television reporters, and former college and professional athletes. watch our conversations with new members of congress all this week. tonight we feature freshmen members who have backgrounds in conservative activism including michelle fishbach, diana harshbarger, and stephanie weiss. watch interviews with new members of congress tonight at 8:00 eastern, online or listen on the c-span radio app. sunday on question-and-answer, author and history professor talks about his book the sword in the shield. the revolutionary lives of malcolm x and martin luther king jr. >> he starts talking about using nonviolence as early as 1965, after the los angeles rebellion

to paralyze cities to leverage nonviolent civil disobedience to transform american democracy. malcolm x calls for the same thing at the march on washington. he wanted the display of civil disobedience that would be muscular enough to end the racial status quo in the united states. >> sunday night at 8:00 eastern. >> "washington journal" continues. host: david reynolds is distinguished professor at the city university of new york graduate center. he is the author of the new biography on abraham lincoln. abraham lincoln gets a lot of books written about him. he pointed out in your book that some 16,000 books have been written about our 16th

president. what prompted you to write yours? guest: thank you for having me this morning. my book is what i call a cultural biography. i believe that everyone of us is so much determined by our immediate culture, our social group. our family's cultural background. also in the larger culture as well that intersect with our lives. it has never been done with lincoln before. he had many biographies that traces life from day to day. nothing that ever expands out to the culture that was constantly seeping into his consciousness. shaping him.

he in turn became an effective politician came back and shaped it. the interchange, which i consider really valuable, i think our most innermost beliefs and thoughts are really profoundly shaped by the culture that we live in. that's exactly what distinguishes my book from any other book on lincoln. host: your book points out that lincoln was the first president whose family lineage was really formed by two parts of the country. followers of different faiths and traditions. tell us more about that? guest: a lot of people back then thought the civil war was a battle between two civilizations.

the northern one settled by the puritans. the southern ones by the cavaliers. it was the puritans versus the cavaliers. it was literally said by many newspapers, these civilizations will never get along, even after the civil war. lincoln traced his lineage on his father's side back to early new england. he did know exactly what planter was his grandfather because there was illegitimacy of the family. it was definitely a wealthy virginia planter. so in a sense he had both the puritan and the cavalier within him.

yet he did not want to separate those strands. he didn't even like to talk about that. he didn't like to talk about secessions. he wanted unity. even though he is very curious about both sides of his lineage it derive certain qualities from both sides. later on after his death he was recognized as the great combination of the puritan and the cavalier. getting the sense of owner of moral justice. host: that aspect of being both the cavalier and puritan as you

pointed out having northern and southern boot -- routes was a conflict he had to live with throughout his presidency. guest: i think his being from both sides, he was born in kentucky, a southern sedate and moved to indiana. illinois and the time was a northern state. he was positioned to open his mind up to the south and the north. a position to be compassionate. we live down south at this time, we would own slaves as well. he was originally from the south. he did not completely reject it. it made him a real centrist.

his feelings were very much against, morally against slavery. that was his puritan side. he had the sense of terrible injustice. at the same time it was an outrage to the other side and the slaveowners. host: this is an image from your book. the crockett almanac in 1839. by this time abraham lincoln is 30 years old. the crockett almanac, the life and manners in the backwoods. we hear a lot about the myth of abraham lincoln growing up on the frontier. how was he influenced culturally by his life? guest: he learned how to what i called tame the wild. the terms out -- turns out he

was a very good wrestler. he was a very tough man even though he was very wiry. he learned how to handle people very easily both in physical fights -- he did not like to fight. the crockett almanac's the kinds of violence he encountered on the frontier. the big humor in the crockett almanac was how many eyeballs could you gouge out of your opponent? lincoln was raised in kentucky. there were so many one eyed people where they were trying to chop off your ear or gouge out an eye. he had a huge fight, he didn't want the fight but it was kind

of stage between him and a super tough guy. the fight basically came to a draw because the guy cheated in this fight, armstrong did. lincoln got so much admiration. the fact that he stood up to the sky and probably beat him although technically it was a draw. in a way it is taming the wild. with the civil war he had a wild situation and he managed to tame it. in a very intelligent and determined way. i think the frontier really shapes him in that sense. host: professor david reynolds, his new book is able: abraham lincoln in his time. he has been awarded the lincoln prize.

congratulations, david reynolds. we will open up our phone lines to hear from you. for those of you in the eastern and central time zones (202) 748-8001, not on a pacific, we will get to your calls momentarily. we called him really the first fully american president. guest: fully american in the sense that he does derive from strong southern traditions. strong northern family traditions. we even have quakers -- he called his background a quaker. he had that middle atlantic. the quakers settled mainly in the middle atlantic states. he had a comprehensiveness that

in a sense does make him more truly american. he became close to african-americans. does another element of his character. he lived in a neighborhood where there 21 african-americans. he had a certain breath that gave him -- that made him more truly american than previous ones. you have john quincy adams, this boston intellectual. andrew jackson, this tennessee slaveholder and on and on. washington was a virginia slaveholder. his range qualifies him as being

the first truly american president. host: do you think his desire to resolve conflict, these frontier fights and actions in the civil war, do you think this animated his career as an attorney, an early politician and his run for the presidency in 1860? guest: he was really helped in his thinking by being a lawyer. he was involved in over 5000 law cases. he had a mind that was extensive enough to identify what his opponent was going to say so he knew how to answer the opponent. law becomes one more way of expansiveness.

just as he had personal expansiveness in his background and just as he was able to tame the frontier lifestyle. he was able to tame a lot of law cases because of that capability. it expanded to his politics as well. at the beginning he used this rhetoric where you call people names and it was very nasty. when he was in his late 20's, that kind of destructive language just isn't working. it got him close to a duel. he said that is the wrong way to approach things. i will use logic and region. -- a reason. he did from then on.

malice towards none, the power of language. language doesn't hurt or wound, it heals. host: the subtitle of your book is abraham lincoln in his times. i want to ask you about abraham lincoln in these times. the words and images were summoned by the current president, joe biden during his inauguration. what you listen to some of the things joe biden said here and tie this back to the words of abraham lincoln. president biden: we must end this uncivil war that pits red against blue, conservative versus liberal. we could do this if we open our souls instead of hardening our hearts. if we show a little tolerance

and humility. and if we are willing to stand in the other person's shoes just for moment, stand in their shoes. here's the thing about life. there's no accounting for what faithful deal you. someday when you need a hand or other days when we are called to lend a hand. that is how it has to be. that is what we do for one another. if we are this way our country will be stronger, more prosperous, more ready for the future. host: hearing some of the echoes of abraham lincoln's words with malice towards none and charity towards all. guest: words, particularly words from a leader matter a lot.

what kind of language do you use. the reason we quote lincoln all the time is his words were worth feeling. he could've easily demonized those blank slaveholders are so evil. he never characterized his enemies in a sense like that. he was always reaching out to all americans. and to marginalized americans as well. language really counts. one language is attitude. he was extremely humble. he would make fun of himself all the time. how ugly i am. he was a jokester. he would have them come into the white house and they could meet

the president. they would line up for hours. he called on the public opinion bath. that kind of democratic outreach. not just to people who were in his own frame, to the other side as well. that is what made him great. host: we have calls waiting, let's go to daniel in pennsylvania. caller: like you have said there have been many books written about mr. lincoln. i've never heard any comments about his buddy and close friend , the copious correspondence between he and karl marx. i read that karl marx encouraged

him in his quest for the war against the state. would you comment on that please? guest: karl marx admired lincoln. he found him one of the few men, one of the few leaders she said that were both great in their power but also good. sometimes people can be very powerful but not be very good. he both had goodness and greatness. karl marx, they didn't become close friends. in germany, karl marx was writing about the american civil war and about lincoln. usually he prays lincoln.

there were military decisions that were made. he prays the emancipation proclamation. he gave lincoln one of the highest compliments in calling him powerful and good. basically a good person. host: george is up next and marilyn. good morning. caller: good morning. it is a marvelous book. i went to lincoln college. that was the first college named after lincoln before he was president. i think your book was just marvelous. what do you think lincoln would do in today's situation with what is going on? guest: lincoln lived in a very divided time.

they ended up forming two nations. the south believes they had their own constitution and their own president, congress, everything. lincoln never looked upon them as a second -- separate nation. that is part of his greatness. he said we are one nation together here. today he would've said we are all american people. we cannot be enemies of each other. he positioned himself in the center, may be left of center slightly. if you are anti-slavery you were slightly left. he never even pushes antislavery to such a degree that he would alienate southerners totally. he would never say bad words about southern slaveholders.

he said i disagree with the institution of slavery. he would try to make his language heal and not wound. host: you write about the role of alexander stephens as the vice president of the confederacy, he was abraham lincoln's colleague in the house of representatives years earlier. you write that in response not once did lincoln waver from his belief in the wrongness of slavery. not once did he lose faith in the sanctity of the union. many of those around him were willing to compromise on principles that provided a firm backbone. he demonstrated an unyielding adherence to the demonstration of slavery in the face of politician who wanted to sacrifice this to save the union. those over the years who argued the civil war could've been avoided if a solution to the crisis had been reached

beforehand, some 200 efforts of compromise were proposed. all proved futile. those failures of compromise harden lincoln towards a military victory in the end? guest: all the compromise involved some kind of compromise whereby the south would get to extend slavery into the western territories a little bit. the constitution and lincoln believed slavery's ok where it is. it cannot be extended into the western territories. a lot of people were willing to say who cares? every slave state that you had, you increase the representatives.

they had the eye on taking over cuba and mexico. lincoln said no i'm not going to allow any compromise on that. the second thing he wasn't going to compromise on was the united states had fourth in the south. he said in his first inaugural the forts belong to the united states. that is our property. he wasn't going to bend on that. when south carolina took over fort sumter he said you've attacked federal property. that's when he called up 75,000 troops and you had the civil war. you had four years of civil war in which 750,000 americans died by killing each other.

they died by disease. terrible bloodbath. host: next up is stephen in washington, good morning. caller: first off i wanted to say i love c-span. secondly, i'm going to buy your book. it sounds great. what would lincoln think about trump today, what would he say to trump supporters? you feel that biden is taking a lincoln-esque route by not mentioning trump in the state of the union speech or his town hall on cnn? by not demonizing his supporters and his obvious opponents, enemies like ted cruz, lindsey graham. thank you very much. guest: the way biden handled the impeachment trial, the senate

will decide. he made his own point clear. but having done that, he didn't get terribly involved in a day to day basis. that's the way lincoln would have handled the situation. there are a lot of controversial situations politically in his time that he kind of shied away from getting involved in. if you got involved seriously, he could've poured gasoline onto the fire. president trump still had a lot of supporters. there are a lot of supporters on that side. biden i think is correct and not in any sense demonizing others. i'm trying to do as much for the

people who don't support me, didn't support me as those who did support me in the election. that's the kind of outreach that lincoln had. lincoln said we cannot be enemies, we are americans, we have to be friends. unfortunately the civil war broke out. that was fundamentally his attitude. host: later andrew johnson became the first president to be impeached. address the relationship between abe lincoln and andrew johnson. guest: johnson was from tennessee and had once owned slaves. he became dedicated to the union. tennessee still had enslaved people and johnson was governor. even though he was from the south he was loyal to the union.

back then it was the party convention that shows the vice president. i don't think if it were up to lincoln himself he would've chosen johnson. andrew johnson frankly in the end was a white supremacist. he also happened to be an alcoholic. he showed up when he was inaugurated, he was totally plastered and could not handle the ceremony and had to sit down . he ended up by really botching the reconstruction. he acted like a white supremacist. he was eventually impeached. he was within one vote of being convicted. he wasn't convicted but he was impeached. even with johnson, lincoln, andrew is basically -- he and i differ on a lot of points.

he is basically not an alcoholic, i have high hopes you will succeed in everything. he did not know johnson would be president so quickly. no one knew that lincoln would be assassinated on april 14, 1865. at which point johnson takes over. if lincoln lived, i'm sure he would've lived in a much more fair way. andrew johnson ultimately did not handle african-americans in a fair way. host: let's hear from dawn in north carolina. caller: i was just wondering if mr. reynolds has found any research relevant to the assassination, and its impact on

reconstruction and the mixed heritage of his mother. is there anything you discovered in the czar of russia's impact on stopping to help lincoln and his cause to stop arms coming into support the south? host: david reynolds. guest: that is interesting. a lot of weapons, you are right were bought by the senate house from abroad. however, there was a barricade of boats, northern ships that

actually prevented a lot of that stuff. the north tried to stop supplying weapons to the south. the south had to get them from somewhere. a lot of those weapons did come from abroad. the weapons in the north really were quite primitive. the machine gun was just coming in. they were so expensive to produce, they lost hundreds of dollars. muskets were these more old-fashioned guns were cheap to produce. the main weapons in the north and the south were muskets which took 20 seconds or 30 seconds to load. rapid firearms -- you did have a

repeating rifle toward the end of the war that could fire seven rounds. it was drawn out. these battles were drawn out. people on both sides were loading their rifles in gettysburg, about one third of the rifles were found to have been misfired. they were in the battery -- heat of battle. a lot of bullets get stuck in the muscles. a lot less technologically sophisticated then let's say warfare is today. i'm not sure if that goes to your question at all. you also mention some kind of corruption. there was a lot of corruption with contractors selling flour instead of gunpowder.

host: we are talking with david reynolds about his new book. we welcome your comments, calls, texts. (202) 748-8000 for those of you in the eastern and central time zones. (202) 748-8001 mount pacific is . how did he develop his writing and storytelling abilities? guest: he did that because even though he had less than one year of school, some primary school and a little bit of junior high school. it is nice to go to school. it is nice to feed your own mind

and learn by yourself. he spent so much time just reading. he loved to read poetry. poetry is the kind of language that focuses feeling admitting -- and meeting. it also expresses feeling. he loves shakespeare. he would memorize poems not to impress people. he said drinking makes me feel flappy and undone. he didn't like cocktail parties. he loved poetry. every once in a while he would come out with a poem that he had on his hard disk, meeting his head -- meaning his head. he said the poems not to impress anybody. yum! most it to himself.

he was channeling the language because it shakespeare said it so well. the gettysburg address is very short, around 272 words. it concentrates america into the idea of human equality. we are all equal. it also defines the american government. it channels so much of america into almost a poem. the speaker before him, edward everett, went on for two hours talking about dual enrollment, cromwell, the civil war. it went all over the place.

lincoln comes out with this poetic statement about america. he said you much -- she said that you said much more in two minutes then i said in two hours. host: i think yours is the first lincoln book i read that talks about this. these are some dirty jokes abraham lincoln used alike. guest: he said if i collected some of my jokes, you would have to hold your nose because of the stench. host: ralph waldo emerson, a thinker back then, said lincoln is the one example we have of someone who has a whole range of experience from the highest it with shakespeare and the opera down to the really lowest.

he had this incredible cultural range. even though he had barely any education. he was always feeding his mind with the high literature and also telling jokes. the jokes got him in touch with the common, everyday people. he loves to tell jokes and tell stories. next up is geraldine in georgia. thanks for waiting. caller: good morning. listen, several years ago it was i making this comment but i

would like to ask you a question about this. i know lincoln wanted to colonize slaves after the civil war. to say that lincoln freed the slaves, i don't know what he did. could you help me understand? what did he do as far as slavery? guest: thank you for that great question. there's a book called forced into glory and said lincoln was a racist. they took down the statue of lincoln in boston. they are changing the name of a high school in san francisco. getting rid of the name abraham lincoln. supposedly he was racist.

he was not racist whatsoever. he said a few things early on. he was saying i never supported black people voting or serving on juries. he had to say that early on. illinois had the worst black laws of any state in the union. if you are a free african-american and you tried to enter the state, you had to leave within 10 days or pay a heavy fine. lincoln was trying to navigate this. he didn't say i'm never going to support black people voting. he did become the first person to support the vote and

citizenship for african-americans. when you think about him and his attitude toward race, for a while he supported colonization. that was the idea of emancipating blacks to liberia or elsewhere. this was a prominent point of view people from thomas jefferson, munro, jackson. even on the part of martin delaney, a radical black activist who believed in emigration. because of discrimination in america, african-americans should actually move elsewhere. lincoln was not alone. he saw how impossible that was. nothing ever came of it. it was ridiculous. he came to a point where he

turned and issued the emancipation proclamation, which freed the slaves in the south. these rebellious states. he was working toward the 13th amendment. that was all about the passing of the 13th amendment at the end of the civil war. it is emancipated -- that is what lincoln wanted above all. after that was passed he said publicly it is time for african-americans to have the vote. the black people who have met him personally, frederick douglass, sojourner truth, martin delaney came out of there and said this man is the least prejudiced white person we have met. he is the least prejudiced white person we have met. we have to take books like the

one i mentioned earlier. what i do in my book is i contextualize these views on slavery and race in their context. that's the only way you can understand them. host: a high school changing its name, a statue coming down, how do you feel about those moments? caller: i think it is wrong. that statue was funded by african-americans in 1876. the injection to the statue shows the chains have been broken. he's looking up to lincoln and the emancipation proclamation, which lincoln was holding in his right hand. it is really about the rising up

, the emancipation, the freedom. people object to the statue. lincoln is not standing on an equal level. that is not the way to view that statue. this is a statue about rising up slavery. the instrumentality that president lincoln played -- he was a statue funded by african-americans primarily. it is just wrong to remove the statue. host: paul in arizona, hello. you are on the air. we will move to greg in cleveland, tennessee. caller: thank you, sir, thank

you for your time. i agree totally about removal of the statues. from what i understand, when people are speaking about abraham lincoln being a racist, it is much more towards native americans. the execution of 38 native americans in the dakota wars. once i read an article about that and saw all lincoln did to try to save as many of those men is he could. he was really trying to do the best he could for the native americans also. if you feel at the south as being somehow punished by senator lindsey graham. host: how so? caller: south carolina started the war, there had to be bad karma and some kind of curse. maybe the south is still being cursed and that is why we have lindsey graham.

host: do you want to address the first point on his comments about the native americans? caller: it is true that the largest mass hanging occurred under lincoln. minnesota had massacred quite a few people. 313 native americans were brought to trial. lincoln very carefully went over each case very intensively. he was absolutely sure 313 were going to be hanged. he carefully went through and said the only ones that really committed provable atrocities were age 38.

he got 264 native americans and prevented them from being hanged. to just say he was a racist because he supervised the hanging of native americans is wrong. that is just wrong. the sioux's were treated very unfairly. lincoln used his lawyer to say where was the real massacre? he very carefully went through the records. you cannot dismiss him as a racist on the point of view of that. about lindsey graham, i'm not really quite sure what to say. lindsey graham is appealing to a conservative base.

how would lincoln feel about that? i know that lincoln as president did not try to appeal to -- he angered some people in his own party because he tried to reach out to everybody. i'm not sure i see lindsey graham doing that. lincoln even angered some republicans back then the republicans were the liberals and the democrats were the conservatives. he angered -- some republicans were being more stridently appealing to the base. host: shortly after joe biden was elected in mid november he had a piece in the washington post that is headlined

channeling lincoln's ideological balancing act will lead biden to success. in his day, i want to show our audience a video of that. this is from gettysburg college. the famous tightrope walker. guest: he is from france. he went overnight. forward, backwards, he had a night in chains. why was that difficult? he had to shift his weight in the wind a little bit. host: what was the balancing act abraham lincoln had? caller: he was attacked from the

right by conservatives as being like what today would be called beyond black lives matter. behind aoc, everything. compared to a guerrilla or whatever. he was attacked there. he was attacked from the left for being too slow on slavery. he talked to people and said look, i hate slavery as much or as more as you do. we are involved in a war here. if we lose kentucky, we will lose the war. i have to be cautious and stay on my tightrope. think of me has him, if i were

going across with a wheelbarrow that contained the whole american future, would you say go left? go right? no, you would allow me to stay right in the center. that is the most effective way to deal with a divided house if you are a leader. stay as close to the center and be as compassionate to the other side as possible. host: do you think joe biden will follow that? guest: i'm hoping he does. so far he has avoided inflammatory language. he has also created the health care for all, socialized medicine. people call him a socialist and everything. the right wing kind of tags everybody as a socialist and antifa.

he is more of a moderate. he angers some people on the far left. i think you should really stick to his moderation. host: we will go to larry in fort worth, texas. caller: i want to ask you a little bit about john wilkes booth. do you know if he had slaves or not? the reason why he killed the president, was he assassinated for it? i don't know as much about it besides he killed the president. guest: john wilkes booth was from marilyn. a very popular actor in the north and the south. almost like brad pitt, who was a pretty guy, he was called the handsomest man in america.

he was very famous acting formally. he was a total white supremacist. he hated the fact that lincoln -- she was a right-wing guy that thought -- that lincoln was this horrible radical. as a famous actor, he knew how to get into the theater. he killed lincoln in the theater. he was allowed in the back of the theater. people knew him. he went into the booth where lincoln was sitting with his wife. he gave his card, john wilkes booth and he went in and shot lincoln in the back of the head. then he jumped on the stage.

he thought lincoln was going to bring a complete racial reversal and was a real bad guy and also very vulgar. that is why he killed abraham lincoln. host: a comment from a viewer says this, i am a retired law professor in california. when i was in law school i was friends with rob coles, the great-great-grandson of thomas jefferson. he was white, dna has since shown he has black family. our viewer says lincoln was on his mother side from an illegitimate grandfather from a wealthy v.a. plantation family. any dna studies on lincoln? did he have a background, too. ? caller: there has been no revolution about dna. some people in his own day made

that claim. that he was hardly african-american. there is no dna proof of that. there was illegitimacy on the part of a virginia landowner. we just don't have the concrete evidence. i wouldn't go completely out of the picture. we just cannot say for sure. host: next is dennis in washington. caller: thank you, very much. with this immigration bill that president biden is coming out with, abraham lincoln says that immigrants are the heart and soul of this country. even those who are brought here against their will. also i would like to make a statement about ulysses s grant.

you could give him equal credit or more credit than abraham lincoln for keeping the union together. if it wasn't for ulysses s grant at the battle of shiloh, the union army would've been dissolved. there is no way the union would've won. guest: he was very tolerant of that she wasn't like some people who didn't like catholics. lincoln would be the very first to agree with you. he called grant my goal dog. it is just a win-win. you may not win every battle. he is just not going to give up.

he won't be like mcclellan or some of these other more timid generals. grant did not give up, absolutely. lincoln would totally agree with you. sherman too was a very aggressive general as well. absolutely. for sure. host: let's go to our caller in south carolina. caller: i appreciate c-span so much. i wondered if mr. reynolds, whose book i am really looking forward to reading would answer a question for me? it was interesting to hear that john wilkes booth found abraham lincoln vulgar. a comparison between the firing

line spokesman and rush limbaugh, what a change there has been. what a change there has been. it wondering if you feel as i do that the men who are upfront in the republican party whether as media spokespeople or politicians themselves, the majority of them seem to gladly accept vulgarity. look at our last president. my feeling is that they allowed themselves to become very dumb down. intellectually, spiritually, and culturally. i find that very offensive. host: thank you, kevin reynolds, any thoughts? guest: even with what we said

earlier, it is possible the first inaugural, the second inaugural, they were almost poetic. he didn't use voluntary in his language. he didn't use nasty language. he didn't use name-calling. stephen does listen. lincoln used to be an alcoholic, which is ironic because lincoln never drank it all. unfortunately, douglas was an alcoholic. even then, lincoln made a joke. he said i once worked in the distillery down in kentucky. he didn't even say no, i don't drink.

dublin's was someone you really used -- douglas said it will be a white man's government forever. he used the n word. lincoln never used that kind of language. host: i just want to read some from your book about that. one of lincoln's remarkable statements in the second inaugural address describes the religious views of the north and south. they both prayed to the same god, the prayers of both could not be answered and that of neither has been answered fully. these deceptively simple words contain a world of religion wisdom. each side was convinced of god's favor. very few participants in the war could detach themselves from their convictions to grasp the

paradox lincoln perceived. northerners and southerners were going at one another's throats with similar prayers on their hearts and similar hymns on their lips. lincoln in the second inaugural made a dramatic move beyond destructive partisanship. final thoughts on that and your book? guest: too many people today and in his day said it is on our side. it is on our political side. lincoln could've said that because he could say they are bunch of devils. they are praying to the christian god, we are praying to the christian god. he had such an expensive -- evangelicals today should realize that a lot of them are

praying to the same god. to take that leap and really identify compassionately with the other side. it becomes a way of thinking about god and seeing all powerful -- being a just god, yes. his justice will work out. we have to do what we believe is right. also to be thinking of -- very openly with malice towards none and charity to all host: congratulations on the leg and prize from the gettysburg college. the book is "abraham lincoln in his time." thank you for being us -- being with us. we will continue our

conversation and we are watching the bridging the current political divide. we are joined by steven dinkin and harvard university professor arthur brooks to talk about their solutions to tackling political colorization, that is next. ♪ >> today, the house financial services midi hearing on the recent volatility in the stock price of gamestop and decisions by some companies to restrict trading of the stock. when it says include robin hood ceo -- citadel ceo kenneth and melvin capital management ceo gabrielle. and financial analyst steve gill. watch live today beginning at noon eastern on c-span online at

c-span.org or listen on the c-span radio app. >> looked to be on c-span two has top nonfiction books and authors every weekend. coming up saturday at 8:00 p.m. eastern, a discussion on the book "now one." steve and contributor cynthia -- the american enterprise institute john with his book "after the people voted." he is interviewed by author and former editor in chief of the texas review of law and politics. at 10:55 p.m., the author of a book about how women brought --

watch on c-span two. >> president biden's nomination for attorney general before the senate judiciary committee on monday for his confirmation hearing, watch our live coverage at c-span and c-span.org or listen live on the c-span radio app. >> washington journal continues. a student next on washington journal, we are joined by arthur brooks, professor at -- author of the book "love your enemies. -- "love your enemies." thank you for being with us this morning. guest: thank you. host: we are hope to be joined by steven dinkin from the national conflict resolution center. can you hear at this morning? guest: yes. host: we solved our technological divide.

let us talk about the political divide. we will start with arthur brooks in terms of political polarization. if you look at our current state of polarization, how far back do you trace this and what are some of the social factors that have driven us to the point where we are now? guest: everybody knows it is bad and the truth is that most people dislike it. any 3% of americans say they hate how divided we have become as a country. that does not mean that they are doing what they need to do to make it go away. they do not like it. the reason why is because it is not historically something that in the united states is our equilibrium. it is not like where we like to be. you have to go back to the 19th century to find this kind of political polarization that we see for example in congress and the dissimilarity that we see in the ideologies between the parties. we also see it socially in alarming ways. one in six americans have stopped talking to a family member because of politics.

44% of americans are strained from a family member many because of politics. when you see numbers like that, you see a really big and growing crisis in american society. it has a lot of roots in the social roots. they are economic roots to it. the good news is that we have gone through periods like this and they do not persist. it is going to take leadership, citizen action for us to bring our country back. host: we are going to talk about the civil war and you look back at the civil war with fear and horror. the same question to you in terms of how we got to where we are now. guest: there is a long history of polarization in our society and currently, there are issues both political and economic and other issues that are driving this. politically, what is happening in our society is that there has

been redistricting that has occurred across our communities so that political leaders and congress, individuals that are representing various districts because of gerrymandering, and sometimes 80% of a district as either democrats or republicans, so that representative does not need to really cater to the middle, they have to focus on either the political side of the democrats or the republicans. and then economically, what has happened over time is that the extreme of wealth, the shrinking of the middle class, so you have a very wealthy community and the poor. it is very divided. and most importantly, is the lack of civil society that we find currently. robert putman, a sociologist, talk about it in his book.

what happened in our society today is that people are not engaging, we are not going to our churches, our synagogues, we are not engaging in our civic clubs, like the rotary club and because of that, there is not an opportunity for us to engage with one another and that is the critical element of what a democracy is about. host: arthur brooks, coronavirus has exacerbated those things that stephen talked about, not being able to be together in those social situations, but pre-pandemic anyways, there was a lot of problematic experiences in america in the types of activities, the types of things we purchased and the places we went. what has happened to that? absence outside of the pandemic, why are those common experiences no longer seemly with us -- seemingly with us? a guest: what people are doing

is like gets together with like increasingly. you find neighborhoods that are less mixed socioeconomically. you see fewer people who know others who either went to college or who do not go to college. or people who do not know anybody who went to graduate school. when you get that sort of society going on, you will see consequences of that. people are not going to understand each other. polling shows that people from different socioeconomic groups have a wildly inaccurate understanding of people who are not in the groups. define that a conservative, they tend to think -- you find that a conservative, they tended to -- they tend to think that 40% of liberals are lgbtq. we find democrats think that 40% of republicans and conservatives earn more than $250,000 a year. these are wildly inaccurate

because people do not know and they do not know because they are not around other people. that really has been exacerbated not by the coronavirus epidemic, but the financial crisis, which has ongoing patterns of both behavior and the impact on society, and it usually takes about 20 years after a financial crisis, which is not an ordinary recession, but after a financial recession clears before you see wealth attribution go back to where it was. there is not a government on the planet that will solve this. macro economically, we will not know how to solve the problem of unequal, asymmetric growth. there has to be populism and the populism leads to the leadership that we have seen politically, which then stimulates a fear and anger and hatred in the people who are already quite separated from their sisters and brothers in their country. host: before bridging a big divide, a political divide, you said something that, if we -- we

do not need to agree, we just need to learn to agree to disagree better. guest: this is an important point because i do not believe in agreement. agreement does not actually lead to excellence. the competition of ideas is the secret to great companies and good communities and healthy churches and vital families for that matter. where everybody agrees, you get groupthink and groupthink leads to weakness. the proverbs say that iron sharpens iron, but for good ideas, you have to have cooperation, you have to have respect, you have to have love as a matter of fact. love, which is the will of the good of the other, that is what we need. i do not believe that we need to disagree less, we need to disagree in a way that is constructive, which is the american way. that is what we have lost and that is what steven and i have talked about. host: steven dinkin, you are a columnist, but you are president

of the and crc. this is a big conflict. -- of the and crc. what is the resolution? guest: is an ongoing challenge. we are dealing with the most challenging issues in our society. and finding the path forward is the key and we began as a mediation organization where we look at ways through communication strategies and conflict resolution strategies to come to a solution. our focus is on communication and how to navigate through these challenges using these communication strategies. the key is to engage in the dialogue just as arthur is saying. it is critical that we have that discussion. let us disagree, but let us engage in a discussion. we work a lot on college campuses where we are working with young leaders and what we are finding is that these young

leaders are staying in their own sidelines. they just communicate with the people that look like them, so they might be in a club, a sorority, and what happens is they just remain in those circles and it is like aiden -- like an echo chamber. they hear the same ideas over and over again. what we are trying to teach through the art of inclusive communication is how to navigate through these differences and how to talk to someone that looks different than yourself and how to do that in a respective way. go ahead and disagree, but engage in the conversation. that is what is critical. as engaging in the conversation veered host: steven dinkin, national conflict resolution center president. arthur brooks with us, author of the book "love your enemies." we are talking about efforts to bridge america's political divide. the phone line for you, (202)

748-8001. that is for republicans. (202) 748-8002 for democrats. -- (202) 748-8003 for democrats. (202) 748-8002 for others. we just divided the lines. i want to ask you about the role of the media. a comment from journalists and bernard goldberg from fox news and cbs and with real sports. he said this about about the role of the media in the current political divide. he said for the next four years or as long as joe biden as president, there is a near 100% chance that you will not hear one good word about him from fox news but not one good word. the business model -- people do not tune in to fox to hear anything good about biden or any political democrat. there has been no difference in the past four years when liberal channels like cnn and msnbc did not have a kind word offer about trauma. he might think that president biden will do thing -- one thing

in four years, but trump might have done something that progresses at msnbc might have supported. bipartisan media outlets is the bottom line. dividing americans is what brings in ratings and money. arthur brooks, we will start with you. guest: he has been astute about these things for a long time. he is not wrong. there is a business model that says we have to make money. c-span is a bit different. it is a product -- it is a public service from cable. the networks are required to meet a bottom line. they have a for profit business model. the truth is that getting people fired up to scratch their domain dash line pathways gets them addicted. when people are addicted -- they will tune in.

i am not saying anything is especially radical or surprising for that matter. what we have seen is the extent to which this can make vast money laden empires in media. what can we do about that? the answer is that all of us can protect ourselves. in the same way that you want to protect your children and yourself from highly addicted to substances, you do not want to be in communities where people are dealing with drugs, we can get away from the median net feeling that is going on in the -- that starts with people standing up to the outrage industrial complex. by the way, we will have callers call in saying that they watch washington journal, people call in on one line and trash the people on the other line. that is wrong. if you want to make progress, what you need to do is turn off the outrage industrial complex, the part with which you agree. that is the way to do it. if you want america to be better, you had to stand up or your own fight.

you cannot and sold the other side into agreement. you need to exert discipline over your own habits and criticize the people with whom you are. and then you can start to be a solution to the problem. host: steven dinkin, do you think there are too many channels in terms of outlets for people to feed those habits? guest: the more opportunities that we have to hear different perspectives, i had this conversation with arthur the other day and it is -- the issue is, how do you turn off these stations because it is so pervasive. everywhere we look in society, and the media, we are hearing these voices. it is really easier said than done. if we can develop discipline to be able to focus on media that is more neutral, that it has a more centrist objective,

perspective, i think that is critical. but it is also really incumbent on the media itself to really take ownership and to change the way that they are portraying the news. i think it takes a whole society to move forward. so the media itself has to take responsibility to change their current state of affairs. host: what other forms are you putting out this message? places to talk to other people about your efforts? guest: we started an initiative in southern california, it is called a path forward. a couple of years ago, there was a tragedy in our community, there was a shooting at a synagogue where individuals died from that shooting and it was a tragedy. and that was a few months after

there was another shooting at a muslim mosque. we are really struggling as a community on how to address this issue and so we brought people from around the country, leaders who experienced similar issues in their own community, and we asked them, how do we overcome this issue? what is the path forward? and they said the key is that people need to show up people need to feel empowered as citizens and engage in conversation and the result of that in san diego, we set up a series of community circles, restorative community circles, a number of trainings that we are doing to bring people together from all facets of this community. the idea is that people who do not look like themselves, who do not normally communicate with themselves, all of a sudden, they are in a circle dialogue talking about a very challenging issues and we teach them how to do that in a respectful way. similarly, we started a national dialogue on very contentious

issues. it is trying to bring voices together in a series of dialogues trying to retrace in essence the public square where people are having these critical discussions. host: arthur brooks, asking people to be engaged after the most recent election, some 74 million people who said they were engaged and many of those folks will say, we were engaged and we felt like our vote was not counted. how do you address the disconnect? guest: that is almost inevitable. we see this all the time in local elections, state elections, the national election. we had people contesting the legitimacy of national elections in the past. this is not the first time this happened. even in recent history. the way this can die down, the way that the bad feelings can die down as if the current administration, who legitimately won the election, the way they can bring people together as by

trying to govern in a truly bipartisan way, to make sure that the president of the united states is exerting moral persuasion over the house and the senate saying, we want you to bring forth legislation that brings other people to the table. that means not trying to run the table with only democratic objectives. i realized that they tend to want to do that. i understand how the incentives are in line. that is a mistake if we do not appeal from the current moment. we will always have people on the fringes who are whingeing about the unfairness -- who are trashing the other side, where making a fortune on cliques and followers or money or votes by saying the other side is evil. what we are trying to get is the mainstream of the american public, the 90 plus percent of americans who do not hate their neighbors. and who do truly love somebody with who they disagree politically. some build up more trust so people -- that they are not

bearing ill will, they do not want to hurt me. president biden has the vast local opportunity that i have seen in my adult lifetime to heal the nation by doing exactly what steven and his organization are doing with the national conflict resolution center have been doing for decades. he can do that with the presidency of the united states is such an exciting opportunity. host: arthur brooks is taken with us. we go to a call, dan in independence, oregon. democrat. caller: glad to talk to. i disagree because i am a democrat. -- when we work with republicans, they think we do not care. what i suggest is get rid of the filibuster. go back to the secret vote. get rid of the republican party with any lawful means possible.

puerto rico and washington states and pack the supreme court. if you guys think you can convince me otherwise, please do. thank you very much. host: do you want to take a shot of that? guest: i probably can't convince this caller because he is in the 7% who can see how divided we have become. he wants to use -- to take over the country and outlaw the other party. i disagree with that. i think it is not the country we want to live in for it i want to live in a country where people disagree. i want to live in a country with people disagreeing with me. i want to live in a country where i do not get 100% of what i want. i want to live in a family where i do not get 100% of what i want. that does not make me weird, it makes me mainstream. what i would suggest with affection to this caller is to think about, do you actually believe that those cursive -- those coercive means, that they

will not come back and hurt you when the swing goes the other direction, republicans get power. once you change all of the rules, the rules are not going to work for you, but in this democracy, where we do not tend to stay on one side permanently and there are surprises in the -- it will come back to hurt you too. host: to the republican line to help from bill in massachusetts. welcome. caller: hi, how are you doing? this is the other side. number one, when the election is stolen and all of the things like dominion voting, mail-in ballots, and republican party is not allowed to speak their point of view, so we can never have a republican's point of view now. it is not allowed in america. and you heard that on the network. they are going to have it where

a republican now cannot ever win as a president again because they are going to do the same thing. that is communism right now. you just said, i do not know who said it, that they won the election fair and square. after every presidential election, why can't we have -- and let a check who was alive, who was dead, who was in there state that they voted in, who was allowed a legal or illegal immigrants. host: bill in the republican line. steven, do you want to respond? guest: i embrace the frustration, the anger, however, using words like the other nitwit and so forth, that is what is currently so challenging in our society. it is how we communicate in such

-- what we need to do is stop the dehumanizing of others and stop assuming that they have underlying motives. what we need to do is really have a discussion where we are not making those types of assumptions. we cannot just believe from a democrat or republican situation, be a one party system . other countries have one party systems, but in the united states, we have a multiparty system. by having a multiparty system, it allows us to hear different perspectives and by having these types of perspectives and discussions that can be done in a way where it is a civil type of engagement, we can learn from each other and move forward as -- we are dealing with a very challenging issues right now as a society. we are dealing with the climate,

we are dealing with economics -- economic tragedy. we are seeing what is happening across our society. these are challenging issues that need very sophisticated solutions and we are not going to be able to do it if it is just the democrats having one voice and the republicans having another. it is the debate that have been in our communities that is going to bring us -- host: a question from joplin. are either of you or your organization working with elected leaders -- to help diffuse the stream of messaging? you cite examples? -- can you cite examples? guest: i was the president -- i was dedicated to working with people in both the democratic and republican parties, working with people that were trying to wield the course of power where

it was not appropriate. one of the key things we talked about, the regional why i wrote "love your enemies." you cannot insult people into agreement. it is the most impractical strategy ever. furthermore, it is an immoral strategy and so far that there are people in your life that you disagree with politically and when you are saying those things about the other side, you are trashing the people that you are loving -- that you love and condoning that behavior against people that you love. it is our problem. i work with politicians to coach them and to how they can hold a better country with more unity, with more happiness and with more prosperity. steve is making a good point about what we had to as a country, which is we need to take on big problems in the world. the united states is the most important country in leading the world toward solutions to our global problems.

this is a fact. this is not just an opinion. and because we are the most powerful country, we have the most leverage over all of the parts of the globe. if we are not united in trying to take on our own problems, the world will not have the leadership it needs. global prosperity will fall, american prosperity will fall, and that will hurt us all. this is basically cutting off our noses to spite our faces so that we can win a political victory over relatively small issues in the broad scheme of things. host: let us go to albany, georgia. guest: -- caller: good morning gentlemen. i am a physician and an academic here at emory university. i deal with entered a similarity -- i deal with interdisciplinary issues dealing with health care. i am very interested and delighted for this segment

because i appreciate the fact that you have dual c-span. brian has done a fabulous job with you and the staff and the gentleman who was a longtime host. the power and leverage that we do have as human beings to create a common value as this is how we do have a soul of joy and happiness. having to teach young people who have come to dedicate their lives to this continuum, i believe though that when we see what we really have, but we have in georgia, i lived in boston in

terms of matriculating through harvard and columbia and then georgetown and then i was overseas with an international research group in paris. i think i have a good understanding -- and having to teach young people right now. we do have common values. common values that we need to come on. i think the country facing these common values are going to face them. and i think we have young people who are living real life. i am in my 60's. my husband, 70's. i have young people, my two sons and daughters who are in their 30's and 40's, so i thing i have a good understanding. young people right now i think have the true authentic understanding. you two gentlemen i assume are in my general age group. so we have lived in a country where we have had a core value

that we know has not been equal. this is just a fact of the matter. it has nothing to do with politics. it is the framing of policies that was put into law. this gentleman, a president, the lobbying group. i have been on the board of many foundations and organizations that lobby, so i understand there is in fact a point of view that comes with lobbying. right now, with regard to education, our rural communities here in georgia do not have broadband. they do not have modern facilities. i roll with the residents. we keep talking about this divide, but when i see poor people, i do not see black or brown or a white poor person. i see a person who is struggling

to create a family, who therefore cannot give their family the means. i am a black person and my children are black. host: i am going to let you go there. appreciate your comments. gentlemen, if you both want to respond to that, go ahead. guest: i think the concept of shared values is absolutely critical in our society. that is what is the base of our humanity. when i talked about initially the mediation process, when we begin a mediation process, when we bring two adversaries together, the first things that we do is we try to find common ground. no matter that they have different perspectives or they are so angered and frustrated, we begin with really a mutual topic where they have shared commonality and shared values. inevitably, we find those shared

values. i think that is a critical starting point. we are teaching that. as you mentioned about the future generations, the young people in our society, they are the future. what we are doing is training dialogue ambassadors. you can have conversations around very challenging issues, but what they are finding in these discussions is there really are shared values no matter how different the perspective is and there is still some sense of commonality and we can focus on that. host: arthur brooks? guest: one thing to point out is the caller was talking about divisiveness. little differences lead to big polarization and we need to look

for common values. she mentioned that she talked about my former position as a lobby institution. that is flat-out a mistake. it is the same kind of organization. when we can't even get something like that right, when you see something you might disagree with so you impute a kind of organizational status to it as though somebody were making money because of their opinions about that is a problem. that is a polarizing point of view right there. that is the essence of the kind of problem we have in america today, not giving the benefit of the doubt, even through proper information about what we are trying to do here. host: let's hear from mark in huntsville, alabama. welcome, democrats line. caller: i actually called in on the independent line. host: ok. caller: i am listening in and

eileen -- by the way, i appreciate c-span. you guys do a great job. but i lean to the last caller. the first caller talking about doing away with republican policies. no. that is not make any sense. the caller had negative comments, derogatory statements. was not making sense. i think part of the problem is when we get to what i consider to be truth. so for example, what is happening in texas. had a winter storm that passed through. the truth is with regards to what happened is the officials, whether it was the utility company or the elected officials, they just did not prepare well. they did not winterize equipment. it led to havoc. instead of telling the people, hank, this is -- hey, this is

what happened, this is what we are working with, they don't all of the negativity on renewable resources. it is bad for the country. the governor goes on to a local station and he actually tells the truth on the local station in texas, but then he goes to a network like fox news and says renewable energy is the problem, blah blah blah. we are not trying to go against biden. these are the kinds of things that aid and abet and what we are having, the problem we are having. people can handle the truth. with the young lady, the lady who just called, she was looking at people in lines. that is really what matters most in my opinion. i tend to lean towards the democratic side, but i voted democrat and republican when

i voted in alabama for joe shelby. for sessions, i voted against him. host: mark, i will let you go. to paraphrase the famous quote, can america handle the truth? the caller pointing out the situation in texas. guest: it is a good point. i completely agree with everything this caller has said, especially the idea you would have a natural disaster like what we have had that led to all kinds of problems with the electrical grid and then to try to use that misfortune, which included a pretty substantial loss of life, to make partisan points. it is just such a waste. and to the extent we are trying to use the coronavirus epidemic as an opportunity to get people to vote for democrats or republicans, we are trying to use ongoing world problems. everything from the social

backlash we are getting constantly about all of these problems that we see in the news to war, everything in between, to say, i guess you should vote for my side or the other side. to score points on the basis of human misery is just a disgrace and an unforced error. that is the kind of thing we should all be fighting against. but once again, how can we fight back? the answer is not by fighting back against the other side. moral courage is not about disagreeing with the other side. it is about disagreeing with your own side and defending the people with whom you disagree when it is appropriate to do so. that is real moral courage, and that is the kind of thing that will help leverage and maybe even start to change things. host: getting to the truth of the dispute, whether it is a marital dispute or a dispute between two different political points of views about getting to what the truth is. guest: i think that is absolutely critical.

we are really in a battle at this moment. there is this confluence of events that is really putting us in a very precarious situation. on top of the pandemic and the feeling of the crisis now, we are in the post-political election period where there is a sense of polymerization. so we talked about social media and its outreach complex. i mean, that is one critical factor, but the other factor that is exacerbating the situation is this lack of transparency from our political leaders. the problem is that the political leaders really have the bully pulpit and have the ability to basically weaponize division. so if there is lack of transparency from our political leaders and we are also facing the challenges of social media and media in general as a

society, we really are in a battle to find the truth and to find solutions to these problems. we have to double down in order to achieve that. host: next up is bill in hazelwood, missouri, on the republican line. caller: yes, thanks for taking my call. i have enjoyed both speakers. a couple points. one is, mr. brooks, why do you have that awful drawing next to your head? it is certainly distracting. i have no idea why you would put it there, but maybe you can explain that. the other issue i would like to point out is from a gentleman -- is, gentlemen, we are way past you, both of you. we are so diverse, so against each other, it is unbelievable. contrary to what you guys are saying, a lot of conservatives right now, we read "the new york

times" daily. i watch cnn and msnbc because they are my favorite channels. i do not watch fox news. that is a fact. a lot of conservatives do that, but nobody wants to recognize that. the fact of the matter is we have a different value system. mr. brooks is trying to hide where you are really coming from. the key issue we have is the democrats want to solve issues by coercion. republicans don't. we don't need to to solve problems. i think mr. brooks knows that because he mentioned it specifically. i would like to thank you for everything, and get rid of that poster, mr. brooks. thanks. host: art criticism aside, would you like to respond? guest: i am actually not sure where the caller thinks i am coming from. i have been a registered independent for a long time and my own particular views tend toward a have a very strong support of the free enterprise system by regulation and the

morality of society. that celebration of the free enterprise system more than anything else, simply trying to set up an economy that is full of opportunity and entrepreneurship that is fair. i am not sure what he is assuming but there is a great deal of assumption about all of us. when you hear somebody talking, espousing a position, you look at where they are coming from. you can attend to impute a lot of their opinions to them. that is the thing. a professor at harvard university, you make a lot of assumptions on the base of that. or the president of the institute, you make a lot of assumptions based on that too. that is one of the problems we need to get away from. by the way, what is behind me is one of the great catalog artists. i realize the caller did not like it, but from a selfish

perspective, it makes me happy. host: all that matters but good miami, florida -- all that matters. miami, florida. caller: yes. i appreciate both speakers talking to how you can bridge the gap by finding common values. but quite honestly, i have tried that. i am in a situation. i have an identical twin who is texting me links to right-wing news, espousing fake news, fake elections. i have a son who believes far -- i don't know right, what it is, but illuminati. that is a group of people who control the world. host: steven dinkin, you

probably hear a lot of this. guest: we do here a lot of issues of how to really engage with someone who has such a different perspective, and it is compounded by the fact that it is a family member. we often deal with issues, especially around the holidays when people are at the dinner table and start engaging in provocative discussions and everything just really erupts. in those types of situations, perhaps maybe to step aside, to take a deep breath, and maybe take a break and not have that discussion on the dinner table, but maybe have it at another moment when you are in a private situation. when you are dealing with a family member, it is so critical to maintain the essence of the

family and not to sever those relationships over differences of belief, no matter how challenging those are. i think the essence of the family is so central. to address that situation, it is very challenging. host: writing this morning about the presence of online groups, these various online groups, locally, angry, emboldened mobs are here to stay. qanon fuel storming of the u.s. capitol brought into focus the reality shaping our internet communities. they say that some said they were hungry for emotional connection joining these groups and eager to participate in an insular culture with its own language, customs, and rules which seemed to promise them a special truth that outsiders would not understand, and when

their plans began to take hold, they withdrew by the grand impact of their collective action, feeling like they had taken part in a revolution. are these types of groups part of the problem, arthur brooks? guest: for sure. the fringes are part of the problem in general. what you find is the people, they are in an alienated culture, where there is an epidemic of loneliness, which our wonderful surgeon general under president obama and now again under president biden, has written a great book on loneliness where he talks about the epidemic of loneliness in our society. when people are lonely, this is what i work on in social sciences. i teach a class on happiness at the harvard business school. i talk about this all the time, the epidemic of loneliness. it threatens all of us. especially where social media is degrading the quality of our relationships right and left, people will turn to these media

and will affiliate with groups and identify with people that are really not helping them. they will crowd out the relationships we create, and that is one of the most polarizing forces in our society today, in our politics today. the work that steve does with the national conflict resolution center is important because it uses a model of reconciliation between human beings and scales it up to what we can do. there is a lot to be sent to the idea that america is like a couple of rocks. we treat each other with contempt and roll our eyes and express hatred when we should simply express disagreement. the key point is this that steve is bringing up and the lonely people tearing us apart at these fringes that they demonstrate as well, there is a long study that was run, a harvard adult development study that looks at people over an 80 year time span

from when they were in college to after they died and their kids and grandkids. what led to the happiest people and the patterns of people that had the happiest lives. the conclusion of the study is five words, happiness is love,. . if you are not -- happiness is love, full stop. my kids voted differently than me and my wife. my parents and my wife's parents have different politics or had very different politics than we did. you cannot let that get in the way of your love and relationships because only by doing is making yourself unhappy and you are exposing yourself to these forces that are really bad for you. and ultimately, as you just saw in the things you read and what we all observed about what is going on in the country today, really bad for the country as well. guest: i think we have to really define what the fringe is, and what is happening is the fringe is gaining undue weight in our

society. what we alluded to before is that in essence, 60%, 70% of our society is really in the center. i think of it as concentric circles. in the center, we have individuals that are both democrat and republican and they have shared values, but it is really the 10% on the very fringe that really have these extremist views, both on the left and the right. but it is through social media and these other factors that give them such a loud voice that it seems like they are really mainstream. but in reality, they are not mainstream. it is the centrists that are really carrying the country forward we have to begin to understand that these voices really are on the fringe, and we have to push out that noise. host: we will go to jade in illinois, democrats line. caller: good morning, men. thank you for c-span.

i am over 80 years old, and i remember the good times. my question is for mr. dinkin. i think the carrying of the cell phone has interfered with family life forget he mentioned something about people not joining the american legion. they do not have time to do that. they are on the phones all the time. they are keeping track of everything their children do. we joined organizations when our children were teenagers and younger. we had time to do that. the other thing is the news media. i wish you two gentlemen were on the mainstream news media. we need more education and discussions and critical thinking. there does not seem to be any critical thinking going on. we need reporters like walter cronkite. so the mainstream media, they

gave mr. trump a lot of free time because he was creating business for them, and that was the wrong thing to do also. really, do you think the helicopter parenting is really causing people not to be inbound in the community? also, we have poor, poor people running for public office. host: thanks for your comments. steven dinkin, do you want to respond? guest: modern technology really has its advantages and disadvantages. the cell phone has really created a lot of issues in terms of people just being absorbed in their phone and not engaging in conversation. on the other hand, people are using the phone to access news. during this time of the pandemic, i had the great opportunity to have my adult children back in our house.

what we do every night is we have dinner around the table and talk about times gone by. i don't think people are having family dinners around the table. but that is really the moment where we say put your phones away, let's have a discussion, let's talk about the issues of the day. and i think we have to create situations in our lives where we can put the phones down and have the conversation that starts really at the dinner table. host: to margaret, delray beach, florida. hi there. caller: good morning. actually, your last caller stole my thunder. i am so in agreement with that, and i would even give a little example. the caller that actually took the time out to insult mr. brooks' art. i am 59, so i am not 80, but i

feel like i am on board with her because i think when you mentioned love my everybody is in my mind. but literally, i don't think you can blame politics because a lot of these politicians are older. i am a roman catholic. i believe in god. i believe in the golden rule, do unto others. i was raised, family of 11. i was raised and raised my children the same way, to say it is better to have a street angel and a house double. people have lost the ability to have just common courtesy and morality and treat people in such a way that you do not vilify the victory all that we hear. i did not allow my children to have cell phones in high school. it was a big point of contention between my husband and i, but i believe it started with something as simple as that and i use this example.

when i was raising my children and someone came to our house, i always brought my children out. they had to greet the person, whoever was entering the house. i remember the flip phones and the blackberries where if you were standing facing someone and speaking with them, you would no more have turned away from them midsentence to speak to someone else, yet 99% of the population fuse no problem at all looking away, looking to their cell phones, disengaging. i believe someone mentioned dehumanizing. i believe the dehumanizing started in a small way because you stopped treating people as if they were people. once that door opens, human nature is such. host: i will let you go there. arthur brooks, if you would like to talk to some of the comments she mentioned. guest: margaret is great. margaret and i agree on everything. what are the odds? two fiftysomething catholics

agreeing on everything. but still, a good point. our society -- again, it is easy to get on the problem of technology with screens and personal devices and especially social media. the problem is basically this. here is how i look at it as a social science and how it bears on the conversation i've had. what we want his true human connection. what we want is love. we are built for love. anything that is a substitute for actual human connection, anything that is a substitute for friendship and for family, anything that is an electronic substitute for the relationship we created, it is bad. it is bad for you. anything a complement to that is bad. people are binging on social media. there is a neurotransmitter in the brain that we create when we get icons and such. when we are locked down because of the pandemic or just in

general before that, we are praising this neurotransmitter, so the result is we turn to inadequate in the tronic substitutes. it alienates us from each other. and radicalize us as politically. it makes us lonely, not happy. we need to emancipate ourselves. we need to declare independence. what i would like for every c-span viewer to consider now is go on a cleanse, a social media cleanse for a couple weeks. think about this as a little lent, even if you are not religious at all, and see how much better you feel and see how much less you hate the people with whom you disagree. it might change your life. host: caller, two more. we will go to catherine in kansas, democrats like. caller: hi. thank you for taking my call. i joined this tv show in the late, so if this question was brought up already, i apologize. but as far as healing the political divide in our country,

i think there is one very simple solution. it would not heal all of it, but it would go a very long ways. we know what type of influence politicians have on our lives and over us and stuff. the likes of josh katie, josh hawley, ted cruz, lindsey graham, and anybody else that as far as i am concerned are perpetuating this big lie about election fraud, they need to come out and say, because we all know they know that the election was fair and that biden won. we've got so many people in america that really, really believe he is an illegitimate president, he should not begin there. and now it from his back in the media still propagating that. that is creating a huge divide in our country. they need to come out and speak and say, yes, it was free and

fair, and stop this. host: thanks, catherine. gentlemen, can i get in this with one comment on my text from frank in coconut creek, florida. he asked a question about facebook and twitter. he said your work is currently important. i am a libertarian who leans conservative, but it seems the left does not want to debate anything. he asks, do you think facebook and twitter helped or hurt the effort to encourage debate? steven dinkin, we will start with you. guest: we are talking about social media again. the problem with facebook and twitter and some of the other social media outlets is that people can say things in a form of entity miti. -- anonymity. it emboldens them to say messages you would not say if you saw the person face-to-face. so i think we have to be very careful when we use social media

and realize that there really is a person on the other side. and take a moment before you tweak your message or you post something on facebook. think about the impact of what you are about to say because there is someone on the other of the line who is going to be impacted. that just foments the type of polarization we are currently seeing in our society. host: arthur brooks, you already called for. take a social media cleanse, but what about the organizations themselves, the facebook or twitter, to help bridge the divide, to allow more freedom of expression but also keeping in mind the divisiveness sometimes that that causes? guest: i think that the organizations themselves will find better ways going forward. i am a bit of an optimist, i have to say, or at least i am hopeful that organizations will find better ways to have these

technologies complement our lives as opposed to substituting for the relationships, which i mentioned before is the underlying social problem behind the political polarization. that we are crowding out the relationships and substituting technologies for them that nationally radicalize us and bring in bad feelings where there should be good feeling. but i think young people are increasingly using the technology more responsibly than people who are older than they are. i see per luminary data in my line of work that shows people over 30 years old use social media less responsibly than people who are 20 years old. that makes sense. with the advent of the telephone, when it was really ubiquitous across most households, the first generation of those people come and they spent way more time on the phone than people later. we have to learn how to use these technologies. and the companies themselves will learn how to make the technologies better complementing our lives as opposed to crowding out important parts of our lives.