tv Charlie Rose PBS November 11, 2016 12:00pm-1:01pm PST
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. >> rose: welcome to the program. on election day, we turn not to the results of the election, but we turn to the challenge facing the next president. america's challenges. we talk to walter isaacson, jeff greenfield, kurt anderson, cokey roberts and dorris karyns good win. >> we see hit sitting here on monday is enormous gaps between men and women, between whites and not whites, between rural and urban, between college educated and noncollege educated. and our last abc poll there were 97 points difference between white evangelicals an people who do not identify with a religion. so these are great fissures in the american society. >> the degree to which every idea logical stripe can have
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it's own version of reality reinforced on television, on radio, by the internet is not going to change. -- once said history is about change, those who resist it and those who-- and the resistance to modernity all the way through both the muslim world, now to europe, now to the united states is a major trend of the 21st century. >> so much of the theory about how political parties work, even in this age, i think it's just thrown in to a-- the idea that it's not just that trump engendered a hostile take over. i don't think there was a single member of the governing wing for imbut it's also that none of his policy positions f they happen to coinside with the republican party, it's about accident. >> one of the most important things is to make the american people believe again that people in political life can do things that will make the country better. >> rose: america's future after the election. when we continue. funding for charlie rose is provided by the following:
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>> and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and information services worldwide. captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. >> rose: theodore roosevelt once said this country will not be a good place for any of us to live in unless we make any reasonably good place for all of us to live in. the 2016 presidential campaign has challenged this country's sense of unity as perhaps no other campaign it was an election defined by both some progress and some unprecedented controversy. the race marked the first time a woman, hillary clinton secured a major party's nomination for president.
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donald trump's unexpected candidacy roiled the republican-- party and ignited sharp emotions along the idea ddz loll spectrum and brought bitter divisins that plague our country and how they might inflawns or collective future. an esteemed group of panelists joins me to consider how this election might shape this nation's legacy. from boston, presidential historical dorris kearns good win, in new york, with me walter ice akson of the aspen institute. jeff greenfield of "politico" and pbs newshour weekend. curt anderson, host of wnyc studio 360 and cocky roberts of abc news. i make this point, we are doing this on monday afternoon before the nation votes on tuesday. we do this not knowing who will be elected president, but we do this in the spirit that the problems and the challenges are the same for whoever is
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lengthed. we have significant challenges. it is an important time, and i have asked these people to come here and think about the future regardless of who hell the oval office. i begin with walter isaacson. tell me where you think we are, walter and whoever the new president is, what are the lists of challenges that he or she face. >> you know, one of the things that happened now is that for really the first time in our history, our parties are so idealogically dividerred it used to be the the liberal republicans or conservative democrats or whatever. and you didn't develop a partisan bitterness to the other side. i think we have demonized the other side in politics, and that's going to be the thing that has to be healed. you know, it really does demand saying okay, i'm going to try to do, you know, a team of rivals at dorris would say or whatever. and i just think that the other thing that we're seeing now is a
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rise of pop lism that has become sort of a poisonous angry populism. we've seen populism since andrew jackson to the present. >> but it is a different populism than we have seen in europe coming out. >> one of the weird things, in 1968 all across europe and the united states you had the nothings of from the-- now from hungary to the czech republic to france, to england, to the united states, you have a populist and sometimes nativist resolt-- revolt. >> but it's not just partisan divisions am we see sitting here on monday is enormous gaps between men and women, between whites and nonwhites, between rural and urban. between college educated and noncollege educated. and our last abc poll, there were 97 points difference between white evangelicals and people without do not identify
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with a religion. so these are great fissures in the american society right now. >> and i think they may have one common element which is they are in some sense perhaps not racially but the others, between those who were comfortable in the new world and those who are not, with people who are riding, surfing this new world and people who are feeling drowned by it. they may be feeling drowned by everything from racial resentment to cultural dislocation to the fact they have been left behind economicically. but that sense that they have been left behind, i think, helps explain in part why throughout this campaign they were so immune to the normal kinds of information that would have driven them from a guy like donald trump. >> that's why it is so imperative for leadership to speak out and convince them that you are listening. >> one of the pieces of leadership that can happen, and i can see the minority of the republican party who were not donald trump supportedders, the jeb bushes, the mitt romneys of
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the world, a good number of conservative intellectuals and columnists who have, among other things, adhered to a reality-based version of the world. to me that's the greatest shock and fear i have about what this campaign has shown us. and what isn't going to be healed tomorrow or the next day. is this sense that people are entitled to their own facts. that my version of reality is my version of reality, because i want it it to be. and we have had a candidate, í5that is dona trump, who has-- who has dined off that. who has served that. who has legitimized that to an extent i didn't really imagine was possible. this is not an all together new thing am he didn't create it it but he has made it an acceptable posture. that i don't, i can have my own version of the truth. >> the piece of tape where he says something and he says he didn't say it. >> it it doesn't matter. >> rose: let me go to dorris
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karyns, dorris-- cearns, have considered and continue to consider the position of presidential leadership. so what is required and is it possible to heal these divisions that everybody has spoken to? >> well, i think one of the most important things, show, is to make the american people believe again that people in political life can do things that will make the country better. i mean you've got this changing america, as people have said. a lot of people are frightened by the change, by the pace of the change, by the changing minorities getting more power and numbers than eventually than the-- are going to have, there are answers to these things but it will depend upon the people of the country believing that politicians can make a difference. and that's what is lost. when you hear some people say that democracy, 20% of young people think democracy is not a good thing or more people are pessimism about the future of our country, remember winston churchill people declare democracy is the worst form of government but it is better than
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all the others tried. you neat a politician to be a merchant of hope, to mobilize the country, to do the massive investment, to do something about the inequality, the squeezing middle class. but we have had gridlock for such a long period of time. we are looking at politicians, that is one of the reasons trump won. because pem didn't like politicians. they lost their faith in them. but won the republican nomination. and so you have to show be able to instill again, and i think going to other people whoever wins, is able to reach out to the other side, show that congress can work again and not be in gridlock just to so it can begin to develop that sense that the country can make its own future. that's what we lost. in a country like america, that was always the dividing sign of us, that we could make things better. think about fdr. when he runs it's that middle of the depression. it's horrible. much worse than anything is now, but happy days are here again is the sign because he is con tablingon. this election has produced a con tablingon of pessimism and we have to turn it around to our
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normal american optimistic once again. >> rose: jeff greenfield is shaking his head. i done know it if is he poips or screptic. >> i am pessimistic, thinking of fdr, when he came in the country was ready to let him do pretty much everything. if he wanted to be a dictator, randolph hearst said please, go ahead that is 180 degrees from where we are now. one of the reasons i'm pessimistic is that come january, whatever the makeup of the senate is, try to imagine either the new president or the new congress crossing the line, given the pressures on them from their base, is to me to create almost an illusion. in other words, i know what the words are that everybody thinks they ought to say. but the minute that the base of the republican party says to their leadership you've betrayed us before, we know what russia is telling us. the minute that, if somebody wants to cross party lines to
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the democratic side and the sanders warren wing says no, no, no, now you are a corporate centrist. >> rose: like they said in the campaign. >> the difference between where the parties were and where they are now and the belief that the d that's why i'm a poips.ong but >>-- a pessimistics. >> i hate to agree. >> the firs time for everything. >> not that i hate to agree with you, i hate to agree with that set of facts but it's true. and you know, yes, we're past mitch mcconnell saying that his goal is to have barack obama defeated. and maybe he and paul ryan and hillary clinton will sit down together. i think she certainly if she's elected will reach out to them. i don't think there is any question about that. >> rose: she's hinted at that. >> but first of all, paul ryan is under attack by his own party. and the senate is very much up in the airment and it's very
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hard to see people being willing to risk their own political lives, in order to do the right thing for the country. >> rose: how did we come to these deep divisions. was it because show that the congress became polarized and fed off of this. and you had gerry mannedderring and all of that, and redistricting. >> is that the essence of it. >> part of it. >> rose: they are worried mainly about their primary rather than general elections, they didn't have to be moderate, they had to be more extremists. >> let me say something about cokey's dad, i grew up in new new orleans where his dad was the congressman. he had to represent a big district with whites, blacks, suburbanites and labor and somebody else. he was somebody that was able to pull together in the early '60s civil rights acts and everything else. and after he and then your mother held that seat, they redistricted it. and they had a sort of a gerry manned erred district. >> while she was there.
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>> a gerry manned erred district that was all on the leftment and a suburban district all on the right. and you got, i think, david duke and you got people went to jail. and that type of thing detroysed the by part san. >> that example also shows you, bob livingston who was the person from the suburban district which had been a third african-american before the jerrymandering. so he voted for the martin luther king holiday, open housing, all kinds of things. and you could say to the white people without were very conservative in his district t was david duke's legislative district, you know, look, i've got to do. this i have all these constituents. then it became all white, it pushed him much farther to the right. and will talk about that. and so that is what has happened. the left has become pushed to the left, the right pushed to the right. they don't speak to each other. they don't know each other. they don't live in washington. >> rose: they come in on tuesday. >> the only thing, can i say
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something on behalf of optimistic. because expectations are so low right now, that i think we have to remember that these problems were created by people. we created those kinds of reapportionment things. we can have different kinds of reapportionment the next time the census comes around am we created a campaign finance system where money is poisonous. we can change that. weather or not the leaders are going to be able to mobilize public sentiments on the side of both of those things to be changed is another question. but i think even doing little things, the media will be so happy. suppose hillary does start meeting with republicans right away. suppose she says like lyndon johnson did, i will have every single republican to the house to the white house in the first six months of my presidency. there will be such a sense of happiness at the perception that maybe it will sort of flood the reality to a little degree, or at least give a little bit to it. we have to hope. we can't just assume we're not going to do this. and one reason. her.t have my
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>> well, then let them say that in public. let the invitations go out and let them say i'm not going. and let's see what the american people feel about that. there is still a dignity to this office of the presidency that we have to hold on to. if it is made known that invitations have come, every sunday you have a sporting event, have people over, you drink with these guys, and they don't come, let's put a list we're all old enough at this to table, to be nostalgic for the time in louisiana and in washington when it was different. well, the thing that is never going to be changed, i don't believe, and can't be changed by an act of political will is how the media are different today than they were a generation or two ago. the degree to which every idea logical stripe can have its own version of reality reinforced on television, on radio, by the internet, is not going to change. so i don't-- you know, unless in
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some implausible way americans just stand up and say no, we're going to return to the fair consensus era, i don't think so. i think we're cooked on that, in that way. >> you can drive this point, i think, i guess at the end of this we'll all be headed to the hemlock. but facts are facts. >> inauguration day 2009, as robert draper i think recounts, a group of republicans and conservatives met at a washington steakhouse and said what are we going to do. they said we're not going to give him anything. and in the face of that obstructionism which at one point the democrats thought would help them as dorris outlines. the republicans win two mid-term sweeps. >> and so from the point of view of how this plays out, civility is a sign of weakness to turn john kennedy on his head. the people who now are in control, and people like norm ornstein and mann have argued this is asymmetric, while it's
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true it's both parties but it is more on one side. that if the republicans see that on the congressional level they have succeeded by do wag dorris thought would not be-- no, we're not going to cooperate. we're not going to sit down, he's an il legitimate president, i-- i would love to believe, you know, if aaron sorkin could write the next six months i would have some hope. but i don't see them-- . >> rose: west wing two. >> i don't see the mechanism and maybe before this hour is over, somebody can convince us. >> rose: that with is what i want to figure out. >> how do we do this. >> rose: is there a way? >> and then the question is, as we have been thinking for the last year, and days and hours about the possibility of a trump administration, i have often thought well, if that were to happen, would the democrats remaining-- if they controlled the senate or didn't, would they show behave differently than the republicans in a similar position. would they not be obstructionists am i don't think we can bet on that. >> to. >> would they suddenly say okay,
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yes, we'll confirm your supreme coulter nominations, president trump. i don't think so. i think it is a new-- it is a new situation. now again, you know, nothing, it doesn't need to last forever but these yownd lying media conditions which-- which give great incentive to people on the extremes to remain on the extreme. >> are included all together. >> yeah. >> well, the way out of this, which dorris can talk to, i think is almost impossible. but every 50, 75 years it happens. which is some major realignment. i mean it happened with the teddy roosevelt and taft and a split in parties and a progressivism. you have a real hunger in america among, you know, republicans of the sort of established school of republicans and some centrist democrats. this is wacky.
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and i just, i haven't been able to figure out how it happens, but shom reassignment of parties. >> in great britain for a long time. >> but you are-- walter, you are involved with organizations that are very central to that goal. and that is the one place that i do see some hope. is that there are now several institutions that are really working to try to punish people for not coming together as opposed to. >> i know you haven't been yet, but hang in, walter. and i think that the-- and i do think that there are some voters who are fed up with the fact that nothing is going on. >> sure. that's what we always hear. >> aha!, ripples of hope, ripples of hope. >> look, here i go again as ronald reagan might have said to me. i think if you asked the country, do you want bipartisanship, do you want a cooperative political system, the overwhelming majority will say yes. they even say yes, they would like to see a new political
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party. but people also say they want to exercise more watch documentaries and eat broccoli. the-- maybe there is, there are people who, i respect, who do think at this point the disaffection may be sufficient that some kind of new political force can emerge. >> that new political force is called women, by the way. yes, because women. >> how can women-- . >> rose: make a difference in leaders. >> in legislative bodies, they do come together and we have lots of data on this. much more than men do. >> rose: because they listen. >> because they cooperate with each other. they particularly do on issues having to do with women, children and families, but on other issues as well. they talk to each other. they listen each other, and they behave. >> rose: was it you that once famously said that covering-- it's good that you were the mother of a two year old because it helped you cover the senate. >> right. >> all right.
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the other thing that affects us. >> i think she's right. look at the numbers of women who vote are greater than men, the numbers of women graduated from college are greaterring, going to med school, going to law school. so if those collaborative qualities that women have shown by having to meet demands of family and working life, et cetera, and if they get more into politics, then maybe there is-- that's one of-- you have just given me another ripple effect. >> i'm glad. >> the interesting thing too, as i travel around the world from china to europe to russia, they're all asking us, what has gone wrong in america. that's their. >> you know, there's something jeff said earlier which resonated with me talking about the world. which is drew feus once said, history is about change, those who resist it and who. >> add the resistance to modernity all the way through to muslim world, to europe, to the united states is a major trend of the 21st century. >> rose: the resistance to modernity.
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>> you know-- globalism. >> rose: beyond radical islamic. >> i think brexit is part of it. >> rose: globalism. >> i think some of it, a lot of it has to do with technology, and the fact that the whole world is being affected by technology at the same time. and you know, it's like the industrial revolution where everybody had to leave the farms and go to the cities or go across the ocean. and everything that they had done was no longer valued. home manufacturer, particularly, which of course was women's work. and it was incredibly disruptive to use the modern term. and that's what has happened, the technology. so with people not having the kinds of jobs they used to have, not having the kinds of lives they used to have, and combine that with the cultural changes and the demographic changes, they look around and say i don't recognize my life. >> and i actually.
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>> but thras' the important thing. >> so in an effort to fiepped some optimism a few months ago, i asked one of the key economic players in obama's first term, all right, i'm giving you a magic wand. what do you do with the 50 year old displaced field worker. and he says i qunt do anything for that person. his kids can i did something with, if we have an apprenticeship program, they use the community colleges like in germany, an other places, i can do something for people. but the people in late middle-aged displaced are going to have lips lesser than they had, because the new jobs, and he was right, if you want to tell a displaced 55 year old steel worker, i have a great job four, you will a home health care aide to a 780 year old incontinent women for barely the minimum wage, that won't be hopeful. >> the first thing you want to do is is that guy right or are there some things you actually could do beyond the kind of
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pietys of retraining. one of the thing the democratic party owns is for 25 years they have been telling people yeah, you lost your job but we'll retrain you. >> it it is a big cultural challenge. >> rose: part of that is because of technology. >> it's all technology. >> rose: not only the displacement but also, you have to learn skills that have to do with maij. >> and there may be fewer jobs. we have not faced that aspect of technology and oughtomiization. >> we have not discussed this in a political way, not that the machine overlords may take over. but this time it may be different. >> you don't have any data points that show that though. >> can we look backwards for a minute. >> rose: i promise we will come to you. >> this is the exact right question, but what always surprises me is that there are more and more jobs and we have seen this in the numbers recently where we have enormous amount of jobs for people to train for. >> i think those are displacement. but i don't think the to the 58
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number of jobs ever sends since the weaving machines came in in the 1840sk people have been saying there would be unemployment and we're not seeing it. >> i hope that's correct. >> there is also to what jeff was saying there is the point of the next generation, the children, the sons of the manufacturing workers who were displaced feed to be convinced. and it's a cultural challenge, that being a nurse is not a woman's job solely. >> rose: dorris, yes. >> i just wanted to follow up with cokey said. i think the industrial revolution does give us a parallel to some of the fears we have today. think of it then, as we said, people are moving from the farms to the city, lots of immigrates are coming in from abroad. the paises has speed up that people feel we don't know the country any more, all the technological changes is taking place with telephones and telegraphs and there was populism and anxiety and demi gods as a result of that. eventually that got channeled
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into the progressive part of the republican party and teddy roosevelt and change took place in a rational way and things began to feel better so now we have a similar situation with the technological revolution w the globalization, people feeling the country is changing beyond what it wants it to be doing, fear of all that. you still have to believe, leadership show if it gets mobilize canned channel the fears and anxiety nas a positive direction. it was just as bad at the industrial revolution, those changes were as big as the changes we're feeling are to us now and yet we show managed to move through it. >> at the beginning of 209th sents ree, when was that. >> late 19th century, beginning of the 20th century, look, there were strikes in the cities. there were ri ots in the cities, hunger strikes, marchs. the unions were just beginning to make their way, and there was lots of immigration, and lots of resistance, immigration coming in from abroad and people were losing their whole sense of belonging to themselves on a farm. the gap between the rich and poor had suddenly emerged.
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people are seeing millionares when before the richest people were some doctor on a hill in your own little farmtown it was hugely disorienting and disrupting and yet show it it got channeled through leadership, through the party structure into positive. >> i mean they are feeling it again. >> you sort of have to live through it. and so you get, you know, the next generation and next generation. and i really do think that's the big hope. >> another hopeful data point f you look at all the polling that goes on, people under 45, and certainly people under 35 and 30, this great polarization between i can't deal with modernity and the new face of america, and i can, is not there. >> right, also we're talking about a majority mine sort population. you know, that is a huge change. i mean i live in montgomery county maryland t used to be the whitest of white suburbs t is now minority majority. and you know, you have a very different america for young people. >> so put this on the table as
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well. because you know, one of the things that i have actually sympathy for the political classes, the nature of what they are dealing with. so you start with the mobilization, leading to up world war ii, starting in 1940, through 1973, 74ee. we had the greatest economic expansion and growth is groodly, ever, annual growth was 4% a year. so if you came out of that, everything was better every year. >> the christmas club, you put some more money in. you know, the home was affordable. and now. >> if you were a white man. >> granted there were people left out, absolutely. but that partly is why we are talking about that disaffected class. so since 1975,i think the annual growth rate over the last four years is much more like 2 3ers. and how does a political leadership talk to a disaffected group when in fact what you are going to tell them if you are honest is we can't have that again. >> rose: but it's also why they have a new term called the
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new formal. the new formal is the 2% is not 4%, nobody thinks it's going to be 4% in the near future. >> basically and in 1974, because you pick that day, it's sort of when two things happen. personal computers come into existence and basically the internet, starts to spread. the networking affect. and so not only do you have a slower growth rate but for some people, it's really, really good. >> some people it's bad. >> that's what was meant at the beginning. and the thing you were talking about around the world, between the people who were riding this new world, and i would think to be candid, pretty much everybody in this conversation is comfortable with this new world. and people who have felt overwhelmed. >> and we haven't talked about what this election cycle has done to and within the republican party. now are these fissures that will be papered over quickly, or are they, is it a major coming apart. just look at the history speaking about globalization of trade. i mean until five minutes ago, the republican party was a free
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trade party. >> as was hillary clinton. >> as was hill-- hillary clinton, exactly. >> so what now? and how does the reconsolidating republican establishment in the legislature and elsewhere, how did they feel about trade now? how do they feel about free trade or trade deals. >> all the conversations about trade go to the question of jobs. that's what it is about. those people are-- against trade, are believing that trade and trade as it is practiced today means amendments-- means the loss of jobs. >> except for. >> also except when you talk about the people who are comfortable with modernity, and technology, they realize their jobs come from being part of a global market. >> and our experts are the fastest growing part of our economy. >> but they don't say i can buy cheap stuff at wal-mart now so i'm happy to have no job. >> it it was about immigration, trade. >> and sort of the idea of
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globalization. >> but that's the other place the republican party has got to figure itself out, is on immigration. what trump has done in terms of alienating hispanics might just bury the republican party. i mean what we have seen is this incredible, wonderful turnout of hispanics in the last, over the early voting period. >> it is a significant factor in this election. >> and we expect tomorrow that it it will also be very high. and you know, this is-- this is the right reaction to somebody being offensive to you. go vote. and go say i am going-- with my vote, i will show you what i think about that. >> and how long do you think. >> and you look at 2012, when the republican party understood, it seemed, that they had to break out and reach out to the immigrants because that's the future, and that show this took a it away from it right now. >> rose: go ahead. >> can i just make one other point it was said before, like
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montgomery county used to be all night and is now more diverse, the more we get people living in diverse areas, the more that they brush up against fellow citizens, the more they are willing as we've seen to open up acceptance, to gays and lesbians in a way that they hadn't before. because they know them, they see them. then that whole brexit idea that people were just live income places where the others were the others. and as we become more diverse, as we are seeing now 234 florida, north carolina and other states, then you've got to hope that show that desire and that fear of the other will lessen. and that has always been the critical thing about america. >> maybe what we need is a new land grant program, like lincoln established where you take mirl to these rural areas, instead of 160 acres, give them low interest loans. >> that is actually not crazy. >> we are looking at populism and china where there is a great tension between urban and rural. and the people from the rural
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areas want to come into the urban areas to find a job. you have more party control there, and more state control there. but they have some of the same kinds of tensions. >> yeah, the interesting thing is when things happen like this globally. and then you get sort of this yearning for the outside. and even, i have read the bully pullpit and love it. in some ways teddy roosevelt facing this exact same type of period, almost doesn't it as an outsider. talking about a square deal for the american people. and that's where i think something that donald trump may have done for us, which is maybe outsiders, especially very wealthy outsiders can, you know, howard schultz, whatever, can say why not me, why not me. and it it could possibly open the way to new people coming in. >> i think politically that is a really important point. i have for some reason went back and red a once famous play called state of the union. and the hero of that, spencer tracee is a businessman, he
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built the airplanes that won world war ii and they want him to run for president and he winds up saying i paid for this microphone, i'm not going to speak your cliches. but the idea of an outsider who bothered to inform him or herself of the issues and reached across party lines and talked in a way, that is the alan sorkin fantd see. >> that is the howard schultz status. >> rose: is that where ronald reagan got that phrase, because you remember in new hampshire. >> either that or. >> we were wondering that too. >> maybe it was a hell of a coins dense, i don't know. the point about 2 is i think walter is right. the impulse, i thought in some ways that the whole trump phenomenon was like a holly woods liberal fantasy turned on its head. the outsider. >> it is all warren batey 1998 film. >> it is speaking truth to power but in a way no rational person might recognize as true, there is something about that impulse that drove him as close as he may have gotten to this job. >> and it it is a quite
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wonderful american moment to think about that. i mean whatever happens, you know, we are making history here. and the notion that somebody can come from the outside, with every newspaper in the country with the exception of two, well, you count the ku klux klan, three, against him, all of the. >> and being close at the end. >> and all of the intelligence here of conservative writers and all of that, against him, and the former presidents of the republican party and all of that, and still be so revered and so close to being president, its if not president, i think that tells you something-- . >> rose: what does it tell you. >> it tells you that the people actually do govern, the people rule. >> and are yearning for an outsider. >> in democracy is sntd all it's cracked up to be. >> rose: so the question was. >> i will just point out that you took donald trump, in a different form, you had
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something, that was like someone i know said about her, we could have had a great life if only he had been a different person. and in some sense, with trump, you know, there is wisdom there. >> actually donald trump has always said look, i didn't create this movement. this movement was there, and i went and enabled them to sort of see something in me, as their carrier. >> there is no question that people feel the political system let them down. a lot of the people who supported mr. trump. and it has. i mean it hasn't answered the needs of a lot of those people. and yet i still just worry about the idea that we need to look outside. i mean why can't we hope that somebody who cares about politics and has been a state legislature and maybe been in the military, and comes in to public office, that the political system can produce the people we want.
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otherwise we're just undoing the idea that politics is an honorable vogues so that i still think we have to look atn somebody who cares about politics. >> is there a way-- . >> rose: is it a belief in public service rather than simply seeing politics as a place for ego aggrandizement. >> exactly so. and maybe they have been in public service in a different way. than just in politics or electoral office. but at least they believed in doing that. and i still think, and i remember cokeie, you said this a long time ago, that the fact that people are not going into public service and politics now who were in the military in the same numbers that they were after world war two and the korean war means we don't have that sense of a common mission, that people have already accomplished by being in e military that they are binging too public life. maybe there is national service that has to happen. there are things we can do. we just condition give up with that. i don't think we can give up on the political system and just hope sor some white guy to come in. >> it is always leadership, isn't it? >> in the ends t is. >> rose: leadership may come from the grounds up, but in the end, it's somebody who has new
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ideas and grabs the reigns of leadership. >> the followers have to let them lead. >> exactly. >> have we been in a time before when leadership has been challenged so advice erhally and immediately. that is what i was talking about about fdr's, you know, first days. when everybody said come on, you know, we have to pull together because we're in trouble. even going back, just one small example, so the bitterrist supreme court fight we have had in my memory was clarence thomas, 1991, 55 democrats in the senate. >> here is the point, here is the one thing that the democrats never even thought about, filibustering. it wasn't done. no-- they could have easily not-- at that time, 25 years ago, the thought of using that weapon in that way was literally unthinkable. >> uh-huh. >> and now it's the way we govern. >> or don't govern. >> there are so many things we discovered in this cycle and lately since then, that oh, that
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wasn't done yet. it wasn't unconstitutional, it wasn't legally permissible but that wasn't done. and so much of what has been said in this presidential campaign. well, that's just not done. you know, and we have stepped over so many lines. >> well, you know, i always hate to put too rosie a glass on the past. you know there were lots of things that were done. in fact, the house of representatives used to be able to filibuster. and on the war of 1812 they were filibustering against the war of 1812 and the only way it ended was when someone through a spit ons across the room and it made an enormous noise and probably was thoroughly disgusting and everybody stopped talking. >> let me ask you there. >> we also are witnessing parallel to what we are finding in our politics, i will previce-- preface it by saying in a conversation with president obama i quoted hip as saying look, we have the finest
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military, the best economy, the best science, the best technology, but all of that may not get us there because our politics are so broken. >> one of may favorite journalist james fallows a couple of years ago, looking at the issues of are we in decline. most of our constitutions are strong but our political system is the single businesse impediment to moving on. >> the academy is strong. military is strong business is strong. >> yeah. >> i have a lot of-- young people, i think the young people can come in and fix this. >> women and young people. >> yes, women and young people, you all can go home. because they are so diversement and that's the way the country always renews it self s through wonderful waves of immigration, of people coming in from everywhere, and with new ways of
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looking at things and a deep affection for this country, that they feel very strongly about. and i think that's our great hope, is the continue yuses ways of immigrants. >> how what happens if they are disaffected what happens to people. >> that means a generation goes, we go. >> so the people. >> all of us go. >> all right, well eventually i assume that's right. >> but could you have a popu list party. >> have a populist party that splits off and we say that these are the angry, disaffectedded, populist. >> and that's the tea party. >> you have three parties, if that were possible. you would have the reality based peat, and the-- not that sanders isn't reality based am don't want to get into that, twitter. but you have a left wing party, a right wing populist party and the middle.
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>> and the hillry clinton party. >> paul ryan, hillary clinton party. >> rose: let me go back to america. is the 21s century not america's sent ree because of the rise of china and the rise of asia and. >> the president said, we have everything going for us. and by the way, even unemployment is low, our science is great 689 we're creating new ways-- editing the genome, we are inventing all sorts of new things that will change everything. and our politics has gotten in the way. it's almost because the structures of politics have fallen apart. the notion of political parties has lost control. and the notion of the senate being the senate has lost control. >> the notion of political parties. >> that to me is one of the 12r58 lessons of this campaign is that so much of the theory about how political parties work even in this age, i think it has just been thrown into a-- hat. the idea it is not just that trump endangered, intended a
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hostile takeoverment i don't think there was a single member of the governing wing of the that's right that was for him, but none of his policy positions, if they happened to coinside with the republican party, it's by accident. the guard rails or the trip wires that normally you would have thought of would have stopped this, like if george wallace had been the leading candidate in 1972, the democratic trip wires would have stopped them. >> we sort of had that on the democratic side which is at the dnca cording to the hacked emails, said okay, let's try to help get this thing done and with hillaryment and that was actually a good thing that is what a party should do. >> i agree. >> bernie sanders. >> i know bernie sanders, is he no donald trump. >> dorris. >> i think the important thing is, i think what we're on to something important. which is the parties need to reestablish control, if they need anything at all, having some sense of influence on the nominating process. i mean it all happened because pie guy teddy roosevelt in 1912
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when he wanted to beat taft who had the party delegates behind him because is he the sitting president, he introduced this all let the people vote and a primary system happened. for a long period of time, they came back in again. and yet the superdelegates still represented as they did on the democratic side the party on the democratic side holding some power. republicans made a decision some years ago, four years ago that they were going to reduce the number of is up delegates and have to vote like their state voted. i think we need to think about do we really want 9 primaries. i know this doesn't sound democratic but do we want the party leaders, if they are going to try and get consensus, anything at all to have more control when the decision is made as to who the nominee isment and in 1912, when this fight got so vitriolic between teddy and taft, "the new york times" wrote an editorial and said if this is our first experiment under this new primary system we hope it's other last. this is a mob, people from abroad must be looking at us and blushing at what we appearing to
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be. and it could be written today. >> since 1968 and 1927 is when this were democratic small d democratic primary system emerged. the same time the very same time that the decline in faith, in institutions began unabated. i don't think those are. >> and all three, per fblg 120r78. >> so the point about the decline of faith and institutions also a global thing, i mean in england you great britain you were not supposed to have referenda and pure democracy am things were supposed to be done in parliament. now they are fighting that out. >> now they are finding out, who controls things in great britain, is it parliament, which is the way constitutional says, or is it the sort of referendum like primaries. >> i just think it is so central. there was one little data, peeses of information. so if i'm write about this and i
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think i am. so last year was the hottest year on record. that's not opinion, it doesn't tell you why. climate change, who knows what. it turns out that either a significant minority ar mo jort of trump voters do not believe that last year was the hottest year on record. which is one step saying so. >> it happens all the time. there is a lot of data that shows that the more you show people data, that says that vaccines do not cause autism, the less they believe it. and we just are living in that world at the moment. because people have very strong views. >> they are entitled to their own facts. >> rose:-- you ren fight eled to your own opinion but not your own facts. >> but what do we make t it is a related fact that in this election, for the first time since polling began, college educated whites are voting-- are, the democratic presidential candidate is winning college educatedded whites. hmmmm. is that because college educated
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people are more able to see the empirical truth than noncollege educated. >> you want to put that on twitter. >> bring it. >> although i do think to talk about twitter, the notion anonymity and being able to say really brutal, bullying thing as nonmusly did not exist in society. >> that's what happened in our politic this season too. >> right. >> it wasn't anonymous t was said in ways pub inn public. >> and not in a dog whistle way. >> it is dog horns. >> i also. >> i thought the notion that one of the trump people, when they were asked well, comey said there was nothing in the emails. and they said on the record, yeah, but it damaged her. now you know, there was a time maybe a political-- you would say it privately. >> yeah, we know it wasn't-- but it hurt. >> in terms of this getting to the party leaders, it is not going to happen. i mean you don't put the
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toothpaste back in the tube. and the more that you have democracy, the the more that you have democracy. and. >> who chaired the democratic convention in 1968. >> from connecticut. >> senator from connecticut. >> no, i'm talking about your mom. >> 76y, my mom. >> yeah, my father was platform chairman. >> that is when the the-- 68y to 72ee. >> i think in this point cokie warning about nostalgia is very useful. because back then, the idea that the nominee of the democratic party had never contested in a primary and just sailed in on the votes of leaders, that was not considered a good thing. that was considered a bug. >> hubert hum friday, right. >> rose: let me break in, we have had in the last several years, you know, more conflict between law enforcement and african americans.
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now whether it's more or we just know more about it, but here is a racial conflict and we just had eight years of an african-american president and yet there seems to be, you know, a rising of that tension at that level. are we making no progress? >> oh, sure we're making progress, again, you know, i think we do more about it. and i think that what is happening is in police departments around the country, that there is a lot of effort. >> a lot of these police departments where they have this happen, the police cheaf is african-american. >> right. >> and i think there's a lot of realization of this. an people making an effort to educate police departments and the citizenry. and there's a lot of good will around this even though it is-- i think are you going to a bad patch on it. >> i think what it has done also is caused us to reexam in the legacy of flag rant. >> that is a good thing. >> the great accomplishment of
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civil rights as great as they were were legalistic accomplishments. i half century later we're still working on it and i think it it is hugely a matter of we are aware of it because everybody has a cam are in their pocket. and this is a good thing, a painfully good thing about technology. >> the documentary on o.j. simpson, one of its most important points to cokie's one is it documents going back through at least the 40see, the incidents where african-americans were killed by los angeles police without account ability. in fact, that is one of the explanations to what happened in the o.j. case. so the idea that i agree with you in an age when everybody has a smartphone, we see it more. but the idea that this has been a rising phenomenal i think is belied by the facts. >> but i think it's important that we know it. >> yeah, and good may come out of that, the fact that we know and recognize it. >> during the business about the police brutality and mr. trump said to the african-americans, things are worse now than ever, worse than 60, 70 years ago. that's simply not true.
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not only are these events that have been going on in the city probably happened before without account ability but more importantly, worse than before blacks had the right to vote, worse than when they were discriminated against in the south and they couldn't go into a bathroom on the street. we have to not let this shadow of what we imagine is happening overtake the reality of what is tully happening. >> you could argue, you could argue that big city governments has failed to address some real simmering problems. >> he said the inner city has a problems of education, of mobility, of wealth, of everything together that makes it hard to deal with the city's problem. but things are certainly better than they were. >> and nobody has benefited more from the reduction, the astonishing reduction to violent crime in america in the last 25 years. nobody has benefited more than african-americans. >> what he was saying when he said that, you have never had it worse, he said that inwhite communities. and he said it in poor white communities. and look, you and i and to some
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degree you, you are younger, grew up in the-- we know exactly-- jim crow south, we knew whats that what. that was somebody saying you're still better than them, that is what that was. >> and the notion that this brought out racism in our society that this campaign, were you allowed to play on racial hatred, that to me is the most shocking and depressing thing about this campaign. >> rose: one of the questions being asked is that show the campaign legitimized the nativist and some of the worse elements. >> yes. >> that's the part of the republican part. >> that is most shocking, that schtha is what i mean by the 2reu7 wire. >> adds also against women, legitimized 250e8ing about race and women, the course in dying a you lads 5u8 of that come out and people might have been feeling it internally but they can say it public leigh. every night we see it, on the internet, that is a lasting impact. that is one of the places i feel pessimistics about. >> it is not just violent but
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that she doesn't vay stamina, the whole business of women are weak. >> and they are nasty if they are argumentative. >> right. >> this campaign has given political correctness a good name, i want to go back to saying are you not supposed to say those things because you know, shakespeare taught us, we become the mask we wear, and so if we are not-- if we just say no, even in locker rooms, we n't say that about blacks, about women, then we are better society. >> really good point. because political correctness, we could all kriet our examples of oh my god, too much political correctness. but there is a question of civility, de sensee and that don't throw that baby out with. >> we are erasing the line of cultureness appropriation an kaling people by wretched, awful names that is not political correctness, it is de sensee. >> whale it may be true that in the 19th century terrible things were said against each other in party structure t wasn't on television every night
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so that young kids could hear it. it wasn't on the internet t want-- mi grand children have heard things in this last campaign that i wouldn't even want them to foa about until they reach will much older age. >> that is a consequence we cannot measure at this time. >> dorris, we are out of time, i just want to says i'm with you, i'm an optimist, we are saul thee problems, and challenges, and i suspect more because of some sense our belief in the power that of the individual and the power of the tools that we now have, even though these are problems that are very real and problems that are very-- we've been unable 20 solve and it seems we are in some ways on the ascendancy, i'm with you. thank you walter. >> thank you. >> great speaking to you. >> thank you, kurt. >> we'll see you next time. thank you for joining us. now more about this program and earlier episodes visit us online at pbs.org and charlie rose.com.
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