#1609 Joseph Ellis Returns

but he's been available now, in his retirement, To be an occasional guest on these podcasts, and i'm thrilled to have him. You know We do have to talk a little bit about donald trump and the clear and present danger, and I know that some of our listeners hate that a listeners who are conservative and and and are Somewhat sympathetic to the mega movement, and and b people who are just tired of it. Do we have to talk about this ever again? And I apologize, but Here's why you have to talk about it. Former president trump has said in his long, careful interview with time magazine His primary evidence he's talked about what he would do if he could do it If he's re-elected.

that includes rounding up 12 million or more undocumented workers and putting them in camps camps And then deporting them, perhaps another muslim or an attempt at a muslim muslim, ban Retribution against his political enemies, dismantling the deep state as he understands it. Uh, you know, these are things that either it's just bluff and maybe it is, Or he means it, and I think it's somewhere in between some of both. but if you believe, as a historian, if you're joe ellis and you and you've spent your life writing about how the struggle to build a more perfect union, to build a constitutional structure with checks and balances and separation of powers and guardrails, and that the founding fathers were worried about a time when there would be Kind of runaway demagoguery amongst the people and certain leaders, then you can't not look at this. I mean, how can you think that that what president, former president trump represents is benign or harmless if he's intending to dismantle? carefully created constitutional norms?

So it's a dilemma. I don't want to talk about this. I I've been saying in all of my public lectures and in the things that i'm writing that it's not about trump. It's about the rage, the grievance, the frustration, the sense that change is coming too hard, too fast, And that the reaction is an inevitable reaction, and that we should be, we should try to understand and we should try to respect Even that which we find really bewildering. and so I don't want this to be like trump bashing, But he demands it.

Alas, I don't want this conversation. Joe ellis is too important to lose in that sector. So as soon as we talked a little bit about that, we got on to the founding fathers adams, jefferson, washington And it became, in my opinion, even more interesting. And of course, if you ask someone as eminent as joe ellis to be on the podcast, You have to let joe ellis be. joe ellis.

He's great. If you haven't read his books, I would suggest that you start with passionate sage about adams. Or, if you're, if jefferson's your guy, then read american sphinx. I'm in that one. I'm in the preface.

I helped to touch off some of his thinking about it. Uh, not necessarily in a good way. at an event in worcester, massachusetts, at the american antiquarian society long long ago, We worked on a ken burns film together. He's still writing. Uh, he's, he's.

he's a wonderful storyteller. He is passionately Patriotic, loves this country, Wants us to thrive. He's skeptical about everything, Including his own guy, john adams, and he's just a delight to be around. And so if, even if, if some part of of the conversation today rubs you slightly the wrong way. Just stay with it, because he's so interesting and he has.

you know, he's deserved His eminence. he he earned every bit of his eminence And i'm just delighted to be able to call him my colleague and my friend. The theme is america 250 and at the end we really talk about it. You know, you can't understand this country unless you understand the founders. You can't understand this country, unless you understand that they were people like other people with strengths and weaknesses.

You can't understand america 250 unless you understand the primacy of race, the agony of race in american history. You can't understand this country If you don't understand that the founders didn't intend the constitution to be forever They intended to be for a while and it would be replaced by a more perfect instrument, as people realize that it has strengths and Weaknesses, that in some ways it straightjackets the country and that it perpetuated some really problematic structures, for example that even the puniest little states like wyoming, alaska, north dakota, vermont, get two senators and California, with 50 million people, gets just two senators. So what a day. i'm exhausted now, and i'm delighted to have this role to be able to bring to you So many interesting perspectives by such extraordinary Thinkers, writers, pundits, Lovers of this country, of which I consider myself one. So let's go to the program.

Thanks everybody.

Hello everyone, it's clay jenkinson, the day after donald trump's acceptance speech at the republican national convention in milwaukee. Just this introduction to the conversation. I had a couple of weeks ago in june With joe ellis, the great historian of the early national period. joe and I are talking in a series of conversations about the founding vision of the united states and how it is played out over the course of american history, and We both agree. Of course, that the 35 words at the heart of the declaration of independence Are, in a sense, the mission statement for the very utopian dream Of america.

we discussed all of this and we're trying to sort of Gauge the strength and health of the republic over time, you know, Jefferson and john adams died on the 50th anniversary of the declaration of independence. In 1876, the country celebrated, but it was just at that moment that they learned that george custer had more than 260 of his men had been wiped out. I remember the centennial, the bicentennial of the united states in uh 1976, the time when we were reeling from not only watergate and vietnam, but also the church committee hearings that showed that the united states was complicit in the In coup d'etat and and assassination plots in central and south america. We weren't exactly a cheerful, Self-satisfied, optimistic nation in 1976, and we certainly aren't in 2026, and that's really the burden Of our conversation. to try to say this is not unique.

We've been here before, america is always Becoming and never finished. and that thank goodness for thomas. Jefferson, setting the goal So high, setting the standard at such a high pitch, that we will always Feel compelled to measure ourselves against the dream That he, particularly among the founding fathers, articulated for us. So anyway, that's the context. Joe and I will be speaking again soon, and now we will have more information, because between the time of that conversation and today, The biden presidency has effectively collapsed because of the perception that he might be too old for the job.

president Trump was nearly assassinated. in pennsylvania, The republican national convention has occurred, as I record these words, near coeur d'alene, idaho. We are really bracing ourselves for What will probably be one of the most chaotic political seasons of our lifetime. So let's go to the program.

Hello everyone and welcome to this special edition of listening to america. I am delighted to bring back to this conversation My friend joe ellis, one of my favorite people in the world, great historian, winner of many prizes, still writing in Retirement, living at an undisclosed location in vermont.

I think that you want to start with, and that is What's the mission statement of the united states? Boy, that's a biggie. Um,

Thank you, You do this. if we do this, the democratic party will lose the south for the next 30 years. well, that was 60 years ago and um, and the southern strategy of nixon, um Allowed for the capture of the former confederacy by the republican party and at that point it stopped being The uh party of lincoln. and in that sense, I think that donald trump isn't an aberration. He's a continuation of a trend where the race issue, Especially, is viewed differently Than lincoln viewed it at some point.

here We're gonna have to head back to a guy who's who you knew or know very well and you portrayed for many years. I think that he is the author of the magic words of american history that lincoln referred to in the gettysburg address, uh.

When he officially declared that the war was about slavery, not just about states rights. um, But those are the magic words that i've memorized. We hold these truths to be self-evident. that all men are created equal. that they are endowed by their creator Certain, inalienable rights.

that among these rights are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. that to secure these rights, Governments are established among men, Deriving their just powers from the consent of the government. What those words mean? And the argument over what those words mean is to some extent the argument at the core of our current presidential election. We are we're going to decide to go forward or go backward, and that sounds like a prejudicial version, But it's really not in the sense that I acknowledge that there's a significant portion of the american electorate That really for honest reasons, deeply felt reasons, wants to go backward.

and in this election, One thing I wanted to get in right away is I encourage everybody To vote, but to vote for one of two candidates, trump or biden. One of those two men will be the next president. a vote for any of the third party candidates is a wasted vote, And so those supporting biden and those supporting trump Know what they want to do, and i'm really talking to a lot of the voters who haven't decided, Especially among younger voters, and encourage them in this atmosphere that's full of misinformation, Loaded with lies, to try to find out the truth about the records of both men.

to say something like that. It's easy for a citizen to say You know a low information american who? You got some schooling but doesn't really know much. You know a great deal about all of us and you are saying this election on the 5th of november 2024 Is the most important of your lifetime. explain that my lifetime starts in 1943.

people no longer get their news from a few a few sources who filter it. they get through their Their cell phones and the whole informational atmosphere is saturated with misinformation. Exaggeration lies. three generations of americans have grown up without any Any sense that they had a social or civic obligation to serve? I'm in favor of mandatory national service, not necessarily military service, but in some, some capacity Environmental, whatever, so that the electorate that will be voting in this particular election is is troublesome to me.

um, And all I can say is, between now and november, those of you who haven't decided To really find a source of information you trust and make your judgment accordingly. All right.

widespread episode of violence and chaos?

But that really means once you become a dictator and dictators then assume control of the levers of power, etc. Etc, etc. right now. I think it would be difficult for trump to take the oath of office. But of course he will.

but the oath of office requires him to pledge allegiance to the constitution of the united states. trump doesn't believe in the rule of law in the same way that biden does or.

it's going to be very difficult for any president to Force them to do things that they believe is are unconstitutional.

Thank you, Welcome back to listening to america. i'm talking with my friend. Dr Joseph ellis, now living in an undisclosed location in vermont joe.

and I gave you a sort of mixed answer. And but basically now, if you were posing that same question to yourself, what would your answer be?

I've never been profiled. Uh, i've, I don't believe i've ever been discriminated against. so there's that i'm also a citizen, and as a citizen I have a certain response to Things that are going on in the country. and then i'm also a historian. I'm not a historian of your Caliber, but i'm a historian too, and I know a great deal about the founding generation and the sort of founding ideals of america.

And so, as you know, We have to. we have to try to figure out what weight to give things and how to balance these different people that we are. Because, as a person who's centrist but slightly left of center, i'm deeply worried about the future. As a historian, you know, our attitude is almost certainly supposed to be. well, You know, don't overestimate the drama of your own times.

There have been difficulties through history, perspective and context. but here's the thing about this. everyone says about trump, you know, The problem is you take him literally, but not seriously. you need to take him seriously, but not literally what he has said, and in the time magazine interview and in other interviews, was that he would Round up, put into camps and deport 12 million or more people. He calls illegal aliens.

Can he do that? I doubt it. Will he try? Maybe, but he, he might try, but I don't think he can do that. He says that he will get retribution, that that it would, that he has the right now, after what he's gone through, To go after his political opponents and to use the fbi and the judicial system to try to damage them or jail them.

He might try that. I don't think that he will be able to do that. Do you?

I think that he would like to be The autocrat, the unitary president, who can do more or less what he wants. He has said that openly many times. our system held the guardrails held. I don't think they held by much In 2020. imagine if the people who stormed the capital had ar-15s.

Or imagine if they've gotten a hold of mike pence. imagine if they'd gotten a hold of nancy pelosi. I don't know what would have happened, but that could have been a much, much worse day than it turned out to be so. So here's the question. i'll throw it back at you.

i'm worried. i'm deeply worried, especially because now trumpites, including republicans who know way better, Are echoing his distaste for the judicial system, are saying that it was a sham trial, or saying that the fbi has been politicized, Or saying that you can't trust our government due process anymore. That's very, very dangerous thinking. It's one thing for trump to talk that way. It's a very different thing for others to talk that way, and I don't know what kind of kool-aid they're drinking, But they know better.

they know better than to do that. We know what trump says he would do. We also know that he probably can't get away with much of that. But even the things that he can get away with Are not in keeping with your idea of separation of powers, due process checks and balances, Norms, you know, living within the norms of peaceful transitions of power, and so on. I think the best case scenario, if he wins, is four more years of chaos.

I think that's.

That's, that's really a big lie, but the bulk of the republican party has bought into that. I think The Elusive way to put it is we'll be in for a difficult four years where the fabric of the republic is.

It's not as if he's some mystery coming out of nowhere. It's very Problematic, because we both believe that elections matter and if the american people want to elect such and such a person, They have that right to do so as long as it's a election on fair terms and so on.

I can tell you who wins the american revolution. I can tell you who won the superbowl last year, but I can't tell you how it's going to play if trump wins. I can tell you, if he doesn't win, how it's going to play. It's going to play like january 6th all over again.

One of the mistakes, I think, that the left has made is to demonize them and to and to call them yokels and rubes and idiots and so on. Whatever you might personally think of of them that they are a voting bloc And they're upset, they're filled with rage. They feel that they have been ignored. They feel that they've been belittled. They feel that they have been condescended to that.

They've been told that they're not politically correct, That their their entertainments are, are, are sneered at by satirists, and so on. They've been in a bad mood for a long time And they've been in a really, really bad mood lately. and they have a right to vote and they have a right to prevail, if They can prevail. So how can we take their grievances? Their anxieties, their frustrations, their fear of change seriously And yet also believe that what trump represents is a clear and present danger to the american system.

Well.

It's kind of ozzie and harriet america, and i'm not using that term frivolously. You really can't make history go backward, And the history of all political movements that see the future in the past is short-lived. What's the name of the party in the 19th century? The know-nothing, know-nothings. Yeah, The know-nothings.

they were against my ancestors, the irish and the catholics and all immigrants. then we let you in. Yeah, they, we got in anyway. And can you imagine, can you imagine, when my family arrived from ireland in the wake of the irish? Uh, you know, famine, and they landed on an island which was named alice island.

After you, they thought this this has got to be a great place here, you know, and um, Uh, but that's the irish. I have a german side too. But, um, i'm concerned. i'm worried, We're already an inflection point. That's what we've been saying all throughout this interview.

We were we'll run a risky course. But in my heart of hearts, I believe the principles that we established at the founding and The vision that linked that, uh, lincoln had and that before him jefferson had. lincoln was really mouthing jefferson, Saving jefferson from himself. in some ways. That's right.

And, uh, that um, you can't turn those things around. I can tell you from one one thing. I taught at mount hollyoak college and all women's college for a long time They're coming, baby. you try to stop that. that genie is out of the bottle.

and just take a look at the american athletic, the american Team that's going to walk into paris in two weeks. olympic team. Yeah, our olympic team, It's the most multi-racial team in the world, and that's the reason we're going to win more medals than anybody else. It's a society that now draws from the strength and the ability and the talent of all of its members, regardless of their race or their gender. That's what makes us so strong, as well as immigration, which you know.

Most of these people are not taking jobs that others want. they're taking jobs They won't do although I think we do have a serious problem on the mexican border. No doubt about that, but that we're becoming a society in which women and all people, regardless of Race, who are talented and notice in the entertainment industry and the sports and sports or athletics Talent and ability, is transparent. It's obvious. You know, um, like, if you can run the hundred and nine, seven and somebody else can only run it in ten, two, You're going to get on the team and guess what?

take a look at every team in the national basketball association, the national football association, Including all the football teams in red states like the sec. Everybody in the audience not everybody, but a bulk of the audience are all trump voters, but they're voting for teams. They're usually over half african-americans. Um, you're not going to be able to end that, and uh, I mean you're not going to be able to change that.

He's told us that he has in mind retribution. He's told us that he wants to have mass deportations, that he tried to have a muslim ban, and so on. So it's not as if we're making this up. He. he has told us what he is and what he wants to do, and he has millions of people Who may not want all of that, but they like him better than the alternatives, and we get that.

But but i'm trying to make sure that we respect them, Even if we disagree so profoundly with them. Part of this is fear, isn't, isn't it? So much has changed. This has been a time of breathtaking technological change, social change, change in gender. I mean 20 years ago People didn't understand that gender was a construction the average american.

Most of us didn't. and now we have a very different idea of what gender is. There's a more fluidity about it. The same sex marriage has come. We have gay preachers.

We have gay professors. I can remember when we used to say, a gay teacher in a school was going to be a sexual predator. Well, it turns out that's not true at all. And so on. so lots of change has come, And some of this change Hits head on some deeply received biblical truths that people have had for centuries, and so many people are bewildered and fearful and And sort of beside themselves with not knowing.

How do you adjust? And I think many honest people feel that the browning of america Is a threat. we used to have a narrative of america, you know that narrative that, uh, columbus bumps into the new world, and then comes jamestown and the pilgrims, and they have initially So-so relations with natives, but soon the natives have to be pushed aside. And then there's the frontier movement and conestoga wagons and the beaver trade, and so on. You know, you know that narrative, and that narrative was a eurocentric, Largely triumphalist narrative, a self-satisfied narrative about america in the world and and how we became this 50 state, As stephen ambrose used to say, sea to shining, sea Republic, you know that narrative, that's the narrative you grew up listening to, and since the cultural revolution of the 1960s, the women's movement, african-american studies, Chicano studies, the rise of american indian, The aim movement and american indian rights, that the story has become immensely more complex.

It's not a simple tidy, triumphalist narrative anymore, And we have to adjust to that, and it's no longer tidy and it's no longer so optimistic, It's no longer so self-serving. And and because of that, because it's so much more problematic as a narrative than it ever was, There are people that just want to reject it and wish it would go away. Can't take us back to a simpler time when we can still believe that laura ingalls wilder, even though they were Squatting on indian land out there in kansas, but that they were american heroes. You see my point that we lost that narrative because now it's so much more complex, and you've been part of that. Patricia limerick has been part of that.

Richard white has been part of that. the great minds of the country have said folks, It's not as simple as you thought. jefferson may have been a great guy, but he was a racist. folks, It's not as simple as you thought. You know, andrew jackson was maybe our first democratic president, but he also had the trail of tears.

I think that now we're all sort of Disenchanted with the narrative, because it's not, as it's not as fun as it used to be.

Blind to the Negative side. my whole thing. This is this is really important. you Did That. you've got to be able to hold two ideas in your mind at the same time.

I think f scott fitzgerald said that was a measure of intelligence And i'm not prepared to endorse the old.

Imperialistic, white, racist view of it all. on the other hand, on the other, the founding was an extraordinarily Successful moment in global and america, certainly american history and the values embedded at that time and the creation of a republic. uh, Where power resides with people rather than with kings and god and people with divine information. that that was a major achievement, That greatness and failure coexist. Okay, that and that the founders.

I mean, you've read my book on adams Adams. adams, you know, has got a lot of bad qualities to him. I mean Washington is going to disappoint you here and there, and jefferson's really going to disappoint.

I went to the college of william and mary and I was taught the state's rights, theory of history and all that kind of stuff. The founders themselves are not gods. They're imperfect human beings. The founding was in a truly extraordinary moment in the history of western thought, But they failed to achieve the full implications of the american promise, And that is only now beginning to be delivered by the society. But that the coexistence of greatness and failure.

That's what history is. Have you ever met a perfect human being in your whole life? Well, only you.

and every time We make that leap, whether it's reconstruction in the 1870s, late 60s and 70s, or The civil rights movement of the 50s and 60s, or the gender movements and and and so on, that that are going on now, Every time we move closer to that ideal, There is resistance and resentment, and anxiety and pushback. and that's part of how it works, isn't it?

It's like a roller coaster ride, and every major step forward on the Civil rights front generates a reaction. and in some sense we're going through the fourth or fifth how many, how you count? Uh, chapter in that story. you earlier had said, you know, what's the and there is no narrative in america. Well, there is.

that's the narrative. Um, And you know jefferson's words are a convenient way to say what the promise is. um, But that the failures that Accompany that and the ways we have to step back is the central theme in american.

They maybe they impact some students and they, you know, help create some phds, and most publication doesn't really Have much of a splash, But you've had it. your books are crossover books, And one of the things you've told me before is that you write to pass muster with the severe academics, But to be available to intelligent people who are not academics, and that's a genius. That's. you've talked about how you crafted your prose style, That you you're always thinking about the reader when you're writing, that you're not writing Dull monographs with tedious scholastic arguments and so on. you've moved the needle, and that has to give you great satisfaction.

and I said, Yeah, that paragraph took three days exactly. And you're right. My audience is not purely academic. I want to satisfy their scholarly standards, But they're. my audience is the kind of students.

I taught intelligent, bright, interested in history and know nothing, And the ability to tell a story. I don't know how you get that, but I don't know. But somehow when I was Thinking of leaving yale because I just didn't, I wasn't happy there in graduate school, c van woodward, historian The greatest story, great man, greatest story talked me into it and I said well, professor woodward, I, I just don't know as much as all these guys from princeton, all this stuff. I didn't even major in history as an undergraduate major in philosophy. and he said, you're right, joe, They know more than you do, but you can learn what they know, you know something they can never learn.

I spent the last 50 years trying to figure out what it was, But I think it has something to do with tell a story. Let me go back to jefferson.

so jefferson understood all this. He also said you need to have rituals of national renewal, including tearing up the constitution from time to time.

You should have changed this constitution in basic ways of. you should do away with the electoral college. You can revise the senate. There's all kinds of things that need to be done, but it's impossible to do from within.

the cotton gin gave slavery a whole new front. jefferson thought native americans would somehow just Move out of the way and that there wouldn't have to be indian wars and there wouldn't have to be all the violence and trails of tears and so on. He's always thinking of a magical solution to the fundamental problems of america, and someone like washington, or adams for that matter, thought No, that's not how it works. You're gonna have to sit down and hammer this stuff out. jefferson's mind operates best at a very high altitude.

Both sides in the civil war thought they were fighting principles of thomas jefferson, right?

So he's, he's a genius at that kind of thing, too.

the second thing and that's a magic about jefferson. I've never understood it. the second thing is, the one person who actually Nailed jefferson right to the wall was abigail adams.

John had nothing. john saw the letter months later and said i've recently been made aware of this. I have nothing to say about it whatsoever at this time. It's abigail who who tells him the truth and she loved him because they met and spent a lot of time in paris.

your constitutional theory is no good. So she's lecturing Our one of our best political thinkers on constitutional interpretation. and then she says and by the way, The serpent that you cherished, meaning james calendar, came back to bite, you didn't he? I mean, yeah, he must have winced for weeks after that letter. and then the greatest first lady in american history, by the way.

That's the first place to begin.

this is the greatest letter ever written And it's the way in which the friendship, finally, you know, completely recovers, that is recovered there.

and jefferson usually said the weather has been great here and my crops are looking pretty good. I've got these grandchildren.

Say what's he thinking on the day that he's retiring, a day like all days 32 degrees fahrenheit.

now, that's maybe a misreading of jefferson.

They wanted to embrace those values and and they're smart to try to do that, or wise and trying to do that. But in the end they have to reverse the american flag, and that's not what anybody else would do, and of course.

and if you think you can govern yourself in the 21st century with an 18th century instrument, You're just joking completely agree. d that the bedeviling Central problem of american life and there have been lots of them. But the central problem has been race. it begins right off the bat. it's bedeviled us ever since we thought.

every time we think we have come to terms with it and Remember when obama was elected and so many people believed we were now in a post-racial Era that problem has been central to everything and it doesn't go away. And you can despise the 1619 project and all that if you want. But the fact is, race is fundamental to any understanding of our, of our history.

so they were all in both of those counts, but the people that Embrace that are themselves correct and calling attention to the centrality of race as an abiding presence And racial prejudice as an, as a permanent layer right beneath the surface of american society.

? One possibility was to call the bluff of the carolinas in georgia and say okay, If you, if you're not going to sign on, go thy ways. But we're not going to, we're not. we're not embedding slavery into the constitution of the united states. Gouverneur.

Morris felt that way, James wilson felt that way, even madison, to a certain degree, felt that way, and yet they succumbed and we've been held hostage.

All they had to do was vote against it, and you would have had to have the articles of confederation remain The government of the country. and, by the way, the articles of confederation are exactly what the confederacy adopted in 1861. I don't even think we would have won the war before that. you needed the southern states to support the revolution and you needed southern states to support The constitution. and and think of it this way, too The 19th century Abolitionists, or mostly quakers, say they should have simply let the south, you know, go, let him go.

There were voices that said, call their bluff. There were voices. Let's take two examples of revolutions, three other two other examples. In france, they do attempt to implement the full implications of their agenda, the radical agenda. What do you get?

you get the guillotine and napoleon. in russia? They do the same thing. What do you get? you get the firing squad wall and stalin, or lenin and stalin.

the deferral of that agenda? Was, in my judgment, a great act of political leadership on their part. And the people like washington and for a while madison are saying the only way we can end slavery Is where the federal government can't empower to make domestic and foreign policy. The irony is. the only way to make sure you don't get that is to insert this issue of slavery into the debate.

So the and this is one of lincoln's points slavery, where the word slave is never used in the constitution at all. And most of them thought most of the meaning. people like washington, madison, adams Although jefferson and adams were not present, as you know They thought that we could begin to end slavery in 1808. We would get through the time when republics are most vulnerable in their, in their adult, in their early Years, and that's the year that slave, that the slave trade will end. But once that happens, we can seriously address frontally this issue.

That's what they thought they were doing. They weren't abandoning the issue, but they were deferring the issue, and I think of that as an act of political leadership rather than political failure agreed.

one is The key date, in my opinion in this discussion on this issue is 1793, the invention of the cotton gin.

These are just nails in the coffin, but abolition is dead already.