good evening, from los angeles. i'm tavis smiley. ripple effects in both directions across the atlantic have piqued the interest of many american voters who are finally starting to pay attention to the elections in britain and in france. tonight, we'll sort it all out with gary yooununge, editor at large for the "guardian." and author of a powerful new book, "another day in the death of america." we're glad you joined us. journalist gary younge in just a moment. ♪

>> and from contributions from pbs station. from viewers like you. thank you. ♪ snot ♪ ♪ ♪ >> always a pleasure to catch up with gary younge ed tord alt large for "the guardian" newspaper. he's been tracking the rise of the far right and the far left, in the recent elections, in europe and in america. and the epidemic in his text, "another day in the death of america. "good to have you in los angeles. >> thank you for having me.

>> let me start across the pond and we'll come back to the text here stateside. the french elections, what do you make of the interim outcome? it's not quite over yet. marine le pen comes in second, not first. >> that's right. first of all, there's the le pen factor. i studied french. i studied in france. when i was 15, and following a school exchange, i went out to visit one of the kids that i was become friends with. second day i was there, he came in with tears in his eyes and he said i couldn't have a black man in my house. it was more traumatic for him and that for me. i was kicked out of the house. hadn't done anything. this was my summer holiday. i had to wait for my mum to send me some money. that year, '84, le pen's father

gets 8% of the vote. and the whole of france is what on earth has gone on? what's happened? 8%. then, you fast-forward 33 years and his daughter, marine le pen, is on about 22%, 23%, and people feeling like, whoa. she didn't win. she didn't win. and she probably won't win the second round. and we really dodged a bullet. and you get a sense, i think, from those two stories, of all the far right in europe, which is now factored in the mainstream ideology in europe, it's like arsenic in the water supply. it's in there and it's hell to get it out once it's in there. and it has a foothold. now, i don't think it's a dominant foothold. i don't think that we're in a very volatile time, brexit, trump, you don't want to make too many predictions. it's unlikely that she will win the second round.

because france still has in living memory and hard in the consciousness the experience of fascism on its soil. nazi germany and so on. but nonetheless, it's not going anywhere and that's troubling. and in that sense, in the sense that the hard right is on the march, holland, britain, france, germany, to a lesser extent, i think one way of understanding it for americans is to say that everywhere has a trump. and actually, in many ways, trump is a late comer to this party. this has been going on for a while. and in that extent, america is -- america is not exceptional. in fact, this is where we are, right now. although, what is exceptional is that he won the whole thing.

one could mange comparisons to him and silvia berlusconi, a businessman. the other thing about this election that was interesting was while the centrist candidate -- the center left candidate, in france is the socialist party, but it would be more like the democratic party. while their vote collapsed, melson, hard left, he did really well. >> sounds like bernie. >> most european countries have a bernie. france, germany, to a lesser extent. britain, with corbin. grease, portugal. and so, you have these two countervailing responses to the anxiety around neoliberal

globalization. >> is it enough in it wasn't enough to save off a trump victory here. is the other approach, the other alternative enough? >> not yet. no. not yet. and in a few places it's done well. portugal and greece, it's done well. but i think what's important, in this moment, where there's a lot of despair everywhere, is to -- at least to realize that there is a response out there. and it is gaining an audience. it hasn't broken through yet in many places. but for people who think what is going to stop this? there is energy out there. and it's finding its place. >> you mention britain and brexit a couple times now. let me jump from france to written. so, terreheresa may wants early elections. she is trying to shore up her

support, so she can engage the brexit conversation the way she wants to. talk about what you expect to happen there. >> with the same caveat about volatility, i would expect that she would -- she will probably win the election. and i think -- this election is not going to make a lot of difference to the substantive issue. britain has decided to leave the european union, it has nothing to negotiate with, actually. before, it would say, if you don't do that, we're going to leave. but once you're out the door -- and it's about to find out what a small country is. they used to say the sun never set on the british empire. you know, my importantparents, barbad barbados. they had british passports. that's not the country that we live in anymore. scotland may leave. so, we should look -- should be looking out for scotland.

the other thing to look out for, and i don't know how this is going to play out, is the fortunes of the labor party. you have to imagine that bernie won the nomination. then, imagine how that played out. with elements of the party trying to play him. sniper him. bernie's short comings, which did exist, being on full display. how he might have done. and if he had then lost to trump, what the conclusions might have been. and so, in britain, jeremy corbin took over the labor party. they spent a year trying to undermine him because he's left-winger. to dismiss him, to claim that he was helpless. they forced another election. and he won with an even greater majority. and chances are, it might not be

enough to fade off. labor might do quite poorry. you spend a year fighting with your own people, things right not go so well. and he's not infallible. he's made mistakes. and the other thing to catch out for is how well or badly the labor party do and what conclusions are drawn from that. >> it's fascinating to have conversations with you, gary, who study the elections around the world, to see the parallels, the similarities to differences how it's done here and there. and what you find, as you've said, there's a trump everywhere. there's a bernie everywhere. there's somebody in the middle everywhere. there are -- the similarities are just mind-pentagboggling to sometimes. >> i watched this election.

i spent months in a small down in indiana called muncie. >> i'm from 30 miles away from there. >> i was in muncie, middletown, they called it. i was watching the election through brexit eyes. i had just been through this. every time -- trump couldn't possibly win. people couldn't -- i was like, you know, never say never. and before you start talking about this new normal, let's think about what this old normal was. muncie lost a quarter of his manufacturing. a whole lot of jobs. you know, a beautiful -- i had a great time there. the people were very warm. but they were struggling. and in many ways, it looked like, when it come through, the story of the election, which was turnout was do. if white working class in

muncie, switched to trump, and not by much. they had voted for obama twice. and the margins in the wealthy of muncie went way up. that seemed like kind of the story of the country, in a way. >> yes. i talked to a number of my friends, back in my home state of indiana. and in othther parts of the midwest. and they were telling me months before this election ever happened that trump was going to win. so much was being in the right place and seeing at ground zero what was happening. sometimes on the margins. in new york and l.a., we don't get it. we think hillary's going to win. but you're not in the middle of the country to see what -- yeah. >> it really did -- both of those elections in different ways, really broke up to me the kind of -- the floors in a journalistic culture, which is too white, too coastal, too rich, and therefore, too

disconnected. and therefore, after a while, believes s its own assumptions. it makes assertions. and on the basis of assertions, the conclusion, which forms the basis for assertions. and there's no response for getting out there and actually talking to people. but that, in the absence of that, you know, reality will intrude. and when it intrudes, it will intrude in kind of a -- you know. in a very obscene manner. that was the same for corbin. when corbin won the labor party. when the left -- this is ridiculous. obviously, not to a large number of people who voted for him. let's go find out what they think. and if i had a criticism of the media, not necessarily the american media, but certainly, whatever it is, it's that they

have to escape their own -- the trap of believing that they really know what's going on. >> it's arrogance. the only word that you didn't put on your list, with rich, and white, and -- arrogant. there's an arrogance in our business that we don't want to face. and so, i said it a thousand times on this show. not just an arrogance. but also, we know there's greed. just greed, that we make money coming and going. you make money building trump up and you try to make money tearing him down. it's how the business works. you have been doing this longer than i have. let me get to the text. i want to get your perspective of what's happening around the globe. "another day in the death of america: the cronicle of ten, short lives." i don't know if i read a book that was framed in the way you

framed the chapters. say about what you did and why you did that. >> the book is based on a simple and real ly brutal statistic. every day in america, seven children or teens are shot dead. i decided to pick a day at random and find out who the kids are. most of them pass without much mention. either locally and certainly not nationally. and so, i spent two years finding out who these kids were. their preachers, their teachers, their parents, anyone who would talk to me about them. and each child is a chapter. and i go through the day. and introduce you to each child, the circumstances of their death and whether issues surrounding their death. and i go into that, too. >> did you see the film "footbell station," the oscar grant story?

when i got your book, that movie came to mind. the movie, as you recall, put us in his space. >> yeah. >> we spent the day with oscar grant, until he was tragically killed by the police in oakland. >> yeah. >> and so, i thought about that as a parallel to this book and the way you did it, which is to take us what this day is like for that child and give us a sense of who that person was. to your earlier point about these children, our children, passing without much fanfare, notice or attention, what does it say about how we value or don't value the humanity of our own children? and i ask that, gary, because we are so fond of saying the children are the future and every politician stands on a platform and talks about the children are the future and all that. when kids be the shot seven to ten a day, and there's no outrage about that, it says to me about how we disregard the humanity. >> i couldn't agree more. and one of the things i say when

i talk about the book, in no other western country would this book be possible. this is a uniquely american thing. i don't think american parents are any worse than parents in the world. i don't think american kids are any worse than any kids in the world. something else that is going on that can be fixed if you want to fix it. it's not a book about gun control. i make that very clear in the beginning. it is a book about what happens when you don't have gun control. and one of the things i said to people who haven't read the book that want to commend me with the constitution, i say to them, do you love the constitution more than you love kids? do you love the second amendment more than you love kids and your interpretation of that amendment? because i'm british. i'm not going to argue with you about the scripture of your constitution. you need to talk to me about how we keep these kids alive.

and it was -- it was stunning to me, writing the book, the degree to which the black parents in the book -- so, ten kids got shot dead that day. seven are black. every black parent in the book that i spoke to, when i asked them, did you think this could happen? to a person, they would say, well, yeah. i thought it could happen. you know? the mother in dallas of samuel, audrey, she said, i didn't think it would be him. i thought it would be his brother. the father of gary anderson in newark, said, you're not doing your job as a black parent if you don't believe your child can be shot dead. i am british but i lived in america for 12 years. and my kids are american. african-american. my wife is african-american. and first of all, there was a

realization, my son would be 6, 7 at the time, that i was carrying that around with me, too. in the back of my mind. secondly, that how, in 2002, i interviewed maya angelou, just after the 9/11 attacks. and i asked her about those. and she said, i don't want to be dodgey, but we've been living in a state of terror for several hundred years and this was a hate crime the and i thought it was a clever thing but i didn't fully understand it. when i was writing this book and thinking that all of these parents are walking around in the gap, having this fear. having this anxiety, wanting to just keep their kids alive in working-class black neighborhoods in particular, but not exclusively. and then, i understood what she meant. >> that is an arresting question, that you have, and continue to pose to your

critics. i want to go back to. do you love the constitution more than you love your children? do you love this document more than you love your babies? when you pose that question, what kind of responses are you getting? >> well, they really don't want to talk about these kids. they want to talk about their rights. >> sure. they avoid the question? >> they do. they avoid the question. or what they attempt to do is talk about parenting. and there is -- there is a -- the easiest and reflexive place for people to go with this issue is to blame the parents. and to say that, you know, the constitution is, you know, is a sacred document. and you know, when people are bad parents, you know, that's not the fault. the second amendment.

what i get from that is a chronic lack of empathy. not these are demographically socially economically different, is they're worse than me. they say this could never be me. and that's an entirely different pop situati proposition. >> last week on this program, we had the filmmaker, jonathan ridley. and ridley and i had a conversation. we've gotten social commentary about that conversation. i've been listening to what people are saying. he hit a nerve last week. and part of what ridley said that hit a nerve, was the same thing you just said. there is a lack of empathy in our society. talking to him about his work, specifically his work around this documentary on the 25th anniversary of the uprising here in l.a. during that conversation, he

makes note of the same thing you make note of now. there is a radical lack of empathy in our society. i give him a chance to unpack that. i'm fascinateling to get your take because ridley and i are americans. we're born and raised here. you are not. but you studied america and lived here. from your vantage point, when you see this radical lack of empathy in our society, and tell me what you see. >> first of all, i see segregation. >> okay. >> and my experience of reporting from certain areas of any city, is that there are bits of cities that nobody comes out and nobody goes to. they are korchronically isolate areas. areas of the south side of chicago. every city has them. and that geographical proximity means nothing. you can live in chicago and not

know anything about the lives of many of your fellow chicagoans because they're over there. and sometimes over there is only three or four blocks away. that's one element to this lack of empathy. another, i think, is with the disintegration of news sources, people are getting their information from very different places. some people are talking about -- are fixated on michael brown and the cigarellos and other people are talking about black lives matter and what's going on with the ferguson police department. and therefore, the common conversation you need to have, not to agree, but to understand. okay, that's where you're coming from. i see. there's been times when the point of this country, when i've been to the nra or convention or

to a republican meeting or the republican convention, and i've had conversations with people who are working off entirely different -- not just the odd story or two. but an entirely different narrative about how we got here. you know, the source of the crash in 2008, was something to do with african-americans and housing and not to do with goldman sachs. and finally, i think that people want easier answers, than exist. so, one thing that happens with this book, it's a book about ten children and teens who got shot dead one day. and some people want to know, how many were in a gang? and i want to say, well, you know, they're still kids. they're still kids. and by the way, being in a gang,

it's not like they paid dues and hand out membership cards. they want to know, are they worthy? >> yeah. >> -- to have been killed or unworthy? >> that's the wrong question. >> the entirely wrong question. you know, one of the boys who dies in the book, the first comment after the story says, you know, what was he doing out so late? i would not let my kids out that late. you have to ask the parents. then, you find the parents and you find that, that night, they had a family night. they drank cocoa. they watched "we're the millers," played uno. samuel bradman decides to walk his friend three minutes back to his house. and in that time, he got shot. but you have this assumption below the line, first comment, i

want -- his mother knew where he was. she couldn't save him. the book is called "another day in the death of america: a chronicle of ten, short lives." brilliant text by gary younge. that's our show tonight. thank you for watching. as always, keep faith. ♪ for more information on today's show, visit tavis smiley at pbs.org. >> i'm tavis smiley we'll have a conversation about the push of american politics to the far right. that's next time. see you then. ♪

♪ ♪ >> and my contributions to your pbs station, from viewers like you. thank you. ♪ ♪

. good evening from los angeles. i'm tavis smiley. it was three years ago when the people of the flint, michigan were poisoned by their own water supply. tonight we'll get an update from the front lines of that struggle. then, someone who has been fighting for clean water on a global scale. he is the eldest son of the famous beatle john lennon. we are glad you joined us, coming up right now. ♪