Grading America's First 250 Years: America, Actually with Astead Herndon

I'm Kara Swisher, we're off for the holiday today, so we have an episode of America

“actually with a stead herndon for you in this episode, a stead talks with historian Heather”

Cox Richardson about America's first 250 years and how the U.S. is facing its biggest

stress tests since the Civil War. Oh joy, so you enjoy. So we are 250 years into this American experiment and I'd say it's going okay. I give us like a C+. The Declaration of Independence, the women's rights movement, the image of basketball or the iPhone, all good, slavery, colonialism, income inequality, unequivocally bad. But what's going to determine the next 250 years of America?

And how do we write a new social contract that can give us the democracy we deserve? That's this week on America, actually. Let's dig in!

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Joining me now is Heather Cox Richardson. She's a historian and professor at Boston College, but you probably know her from a very popular sub-stack letters from an American and her YouTube channel. I am excited that Heather is joining us because she's going to help us think about not only the future but how the past connects to it. Thank you for coming. It's such a pleasure to be here. I appreciate that. I wanted to kind of start by looking at your work as I was preparing for this.

I was reading about how you've argued that the country has basically reinvented itself every 80 to 90 years from the founding to the civil war to the new deal. I wondered how you thought

“about those reinfinctions. What forces shaped them and are we in the reinvention period right now?”

Well that's interesting. I'm not sure I've ever used the words reinvention because the way I think about it is that any country has to deal with new challenges all the time and because we had set out at our foundation a series of principles that at the time were quite limited by who they covered but were expansive in terms of what they could cover. We have managed through our history to address new challenges like Westward expansion, like industrialization, like globalization,

like the advent of nuclear weapons to expand American democracy to more closely adhere to those foundational documents but to expand as they took on new issues. So are we in a moment like this now? Absolutely. Now what forces shaped these kind of shifts in the country? If we, I don't know if it's reinventing the right word but if we think about those moments where we face new challenges, how do we must erupt that kind of creativity and what are the seeds that we should be looking for right

now? So there's a whole lot embedded in that question and one of the places that I want to start with

art. They come from new languages and new clothing styles and sculpture and all sorts of new ways to envision the world for our imaginations and we could talk about the late 19th century for example

“and how extraordinarily creative that time was and so forth. But those ideas I think come from there”

but that's not enough. I think when you see reinvention, you see Americans reaching back for their stories, for their traditional history and the places that they can see other Americans having exercised their agency to make those traditions, our best traditions come into law or at least come into practice and especially poignant time for us to be talking about this. My April 12th, Hungarian voters put a super majority of opposition figures to Victor Orban into power in their

parliament and they will of course have a different prime minister. One of the things that they appear to have done is to have reached back to Hungarian history and said listen, we might disagree with each other about immigration and about finances and so on but we can agree that we care deeply about our country and we must start there with people who are trying to build our country rather than tear it down. And that really hit a chord for me because that is precisely what the

Republicans did when they formed in the 1850s. It's precisely what the populists and the Democrats did in the 1890s when they organized against the robberbearance and then included the progressive Republicans. It's certainly what we saw in the 1920s and the 1930s what we saw in the 1950s

“and I think what we're seeing in the United States again today. I wanted to ask about today,”

you know the premise of this show is kind of to try to take Trump out of the center to see the country beyond the lens of him but kind of baked into that question as whether he is like an aberrant malign piece on American politics or is reflective of a system and we're going to have to live with Trumpism for maybe longer than even the individual person. So Trump is very clearly the outcome of at least 40 years of right wing rhetoric that has been adopted by the Republican

Party that laid the groundwork for a man to come in and essentially get rid of the dog whistles and call to the sexists and racists who had ended up sliding into the Republican Party really

after 1965 in the Voting Rights Act to basically create sort of a libertarian small government

elite in the Republican Party that depended on the votes of those racists and sexists to stay in power. But what he did was he sort of flipped the script. He nodded to the establishment Republicans who wanted the tax cuts but he empowered the racists in the sexists and the American firsters and so on and so he is very much a product of that you know that that moment but he is also something different because by empowering them what he did is he turned a democracy in

not just to an autocracy but to a personalist autocracy. It's sort of in a way a step beyond fascism that we can talk about but you know he is. He is a autocracy. Yes so the idea that he wants all the power but he also wants the power not for his party and not for even his cronies but for himself but he's certainly a product of that 40 years. Now there's a bigger question as I say embedded in what you said and that is is the United States of America's system so deeply flawed

to begin with that we were waiting for a Trump and to that I would say no. I would say that we many of us dropped the ball after really after the 1960s and the 1970s and the idea that we had

finally managed to create a new kind of American government that was premised on reality rather than

on the previous images of American life and by that I mean that it was a government that recognized the worth of individuals. It didn't necessarily protect individuals the way the principles of that government suggested they should but it recognized their worth in a way that the government before 1965 and before the great society under L. B. J. had not done and so for a lot of people they thought oh we're on this trajectory toward a liberal democracy that is in fact going to recognize the

worth of you know disabled Americans and elderly Americans and so on and as a result we stopped focusing on the importance of democracy and of liberal democracy but what that did is it enabled the radical right to step in and give people a sense of a national narrative that made their agency

“feel deeply important to them. They were the ones protecting America in a way that people like”

me weren't because the immigrants are taking your job because folks are coming in and represent

a kind of imminent threat. That's right and you know one of the things that I always

jumps out to me is Lauren Bobert the representative from Colorado on the morning of January 6 2021

protecting America and one of the things that I think Trump has done for us since his uh

you know retaking the out of office in January 2025 was to make it clear that our democracy and the guardrails of our democracy that so many people believed couldn't be challenged and Trump just tore them up and with that a lot of people who sort of assumed the guardrails were there are stepping into the fray and saying okay I didn't think I was going to have to get involved in politics but clearly I do and here I am and that kind of engagement in protecting

American democracy is the sort of thing that as I say we've seen in the past 1850s, 1890s and so on to reclaim that democracy and crucially make it a just to new conditions that are currently

challenging it like in our lifetimes, the internet, graphic change, artificial intelligence,

“things like that. I mean I think your point is very important because it lays out”

the you know Donald Trump may have not been inevitable but he did kind of he was succeeding on the ground and Republicans have been telling for a long time. I wanted to ask about nationalism specifically you know it's sometimes feel as if Democrats or American liberals can be running from the shadow of America because sometimes feel like a little awkward about embracing a positive story in about America. I wanted to ask about that like it's some of what the right has been

able to do in terms of seizing the flag and draping themselves in it been made easier by a liberal

distance from it even though I know that's not how you come to your work. It's sometimes has

felt as if Democrats haven't been willing to you know drape themselves in red white and blue or tell a positive story about America like some Americans want them to. Okay that's two broader brush I think and I want to be careful with the word Democrats because in this moment of course when as many Americans identifies being independence as identifies Republicans or Democrats

“it's important I think to look at the American population as a whole. And in that case I think”

one of the things that you are identifying is the 1960s and early 1970s and the broad-based opposition to the Vietnam War meant for a lot of people that the trappings of that war the American flag and so on had taken on negative connotations and that was something by the way that the radical right grabbed hold of and really ran away. So there is that for sure but I want to be careful to say that you know if you look at what Donald Trump and the radical right is doing now is trying

to reach back for a pass that was perfect and that's an authoritarian and even a fascist move. The idea that somehow there was a perfect pass back there and I was like to say what? Yeah yeah yeah I sat on the road too. When people say when people say they're looking back to make America what it once was I say name me the time. Yeah like like the date like it was February 2nd like 1954 yeah yeah you know because because there is no perfect past but there is

“also no exclusively negative past because humans are gonna human that's what we do and what I”

love about America is that I think the story of America is the struggle of people who have not been included in the promise of America to expand that those principles to include more people. So if you think about democracy as being a process rather than a place or a time that there was a certain kind of achievement you recognize that what Americans have done to each other and to others is horrific in our past. We have done horrible things but other Americans have stepped in

to try and mitigate that trouble and to move the ball forward. Yeah and that is as important story I think as the the horrors and one of the things that I really hope that we can reclaim is a recognition of the clear view of our past both of the horrors of it and yet also those people who have said we as human beings don't have to live like this and we're gonna make the situation better. It's also a view I think it's based in reality I mean when I think about my travels across

the electorate people ask me is the story of America as polarized there as as entrenched as we sometimes say in political world and you can kind of say both sides of the core and I could raddle off a whole bunch of wild stuff that's happened and people throw in you out of rooms and slur or this or that but you also to your point have people who care in the middle of that have people who support you in the middle of that have people who connect with you across demographic

types and differences and then individuals that I think often can tell a very positive story about the country as well. So both of those things exist right next to each other. The last question I would ask you is really about your work and as we kick off to a little game

250 years is there is there a piece that you think will have the most relevance for going forward

is there something that you look back to and you say hey uh uh this clause this thing this is what I think will be the kind of key for our efforts of perfection moving ahead. Get any strength address interestingly I'm surprised. Why? Because the you know and I'm having the obviously I'm a big fan of the declaration because it establishes the foundation of American democracy even though the country was not a democracy at the time the idea that she must be treated equally before the law

have a right to the equal access to resources and to have a right to have a saying your government

“that's what a democracy is right so that is crucially important but with the the getty spark”

address Lincoln I think emphasized you know think about it four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal you know when the the founders put in the declaration they said these are self-evident truths by Lincoln's time he's saying it was a proposition and it's being tested and that I think is really the heart of what it means to be an American is that

there is this proposition that it is possible to create a nation that has the principles that

the founders put down on paper but that principle is always going to be a proposition and he says

listen we're here to honor these men who died in this horrible battle to try and and make that

“proposition come true but there's really nothing we can do more than what they did to make that happen”

and the proposition that he actually explains at the end of that speech is that government of the people by the people for the people shall not perish from the earth that to me is the marching orders if the declaration is the is the plan the getty spark address is the marching orders I like that framework because it speaks to the unfinished work and the work of to be done going

ahead okay Heather I would love to do an exercise with you and rethink how we should talk about

our historical founding documents but like any good history lesson we're going to need some classroom tools so hold on a moment. Support for the show comes from Odo running a business is hard enough so why make it harder with it doesn't different apps that don't talk to each other introducing Odo it's the only business software you'll ever need it's an all-in-one fully integrated platform that makes your work easier CRM accounting inventory e-commerce and more and the best part

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businesses have made the switch so why not you try Odo for free at Odo.com that's Odo.com Support for the show comes from Odo running a business is hard enough so why make it harder with it doesn't different apps that don't talk to each other introducing Odo it's the only business software you'll ever need it's an all-in-one fully integrated platform that makes your work easier CRM accounting inventory e-commerce and more and the best part Odo replaces multiple expensive

platforms for a fraction of the cost that's why over thousands of businesses have made the switch so why not you try Odo for free at Odo.com that's Odoo.com Did you know sales teams spend about 50% of their time on admin work instead of selling that's where pipe drive can help a simple intelligence CRM tool for small and medium businesses smart automation strip away manual work so you can focus on selling while AI features flag stall deals and tell your

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seated next to a whiteboard where we are going to write a founding document together thinking about America's next 250 years what can we take from things like the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence what things aren't in there that might make us a better democracy

going to be a jerk here because I'm a historian so we don't have to write this now but we have to have

a prologue explaining you know we the people when in the course of Norman you've been events

“or anything. You know I do still remember from schoolhouse rock I think I should just we the people”

in the morning before we're far from you dear and established us this what is it insured to mess their tranquility? The reason I'm being such a jerk about that is because I think the key one of the key things in this moment is to make sure we we grab the idea of agency of every day people having agency so so in terms of values they got to have a say in their government they got to be able to vote so we got to protect them. Let's start there we the people.

But but we have to make sure that they have a free that everybody has a free and fair vote. Yep one person one vote. Yes for real like can you write that in really big letters for real this time? Seriously. Okay not messing around. You know I have this on my list also because I was thinking about things like the electoral college and Jerry Mandarin and even how the Constitution you know says that Congress shouldn't infringe on someone's right to vote but in our new

founding document we're going to get people an affirmative right to vote one person one vote and making sure we're leading from that place of equity. Okay so we'll start with that another next thing I want on there is we must protect the environment. Okay that feels like a fundamental governmental role. And I don't care what language you use that with I don't just mean we're protecting you know the Grand Canyon I mean that we have to have clean air clean water and we have to take

care of the climate. I was thinking what about public funding of elections you know like thinking about something that could get money out of politics or things that I hear about all the time I'll put that one as part of my list. Yeah definitely getting money out of politics. Funding how about you next? Education. What do we want to say about education like that's

“that is part of the government's fundamental role with the public education things like that?”

And I'll tell you why it's we had a fundamental public education and we could actually argue about what ages that goes to but the reason that that matters in a foundational document is because if you think about democracy a democracy depends on an educated populist it just has to have one and one of the ways that our democracy has been hamstrung is by the destruction of public education so this is not like saying you know this is not a luxury which is one of the ways that the

radical right has framed it. It's actually a necessity in democracy to have robust public education for everybody. Yeah I think that's a great point. I mean when I talk to again where people bring their cynicism into government a lot of times the roots of that are in poor public education about people thinking as if government and cities or in rural places have not provided

their first function. So let's put that on there and that will of course is going to cut deeply into

the whole right-wing voucher movement which is designed to destroy public education and which is getting real teeth in a number of Republican dominated states. Well how do you present there has been a movement to privatize? We know the Department of Education things like that but to your point it is something I hear about a lot in terms of government providing that role. Can I say maybe a little bit of a controversial one? I was thinking like you know since we have a age floor

for president at 35 I could get down with an age ceiling particularly out of the last couple of years something like maybe 80 for things like Supreme Court president or congress. What do you think about that? I'm less keen on having a year a year because people are so different what I like is the idea of having terms a certain number of years. We can return women for sure. Well not term limits

“for in the Supreme Court because remember there were de facto limits when they set up the Supreme”

Court because you used to have it or we had to ride the circuit. Can you explain that a little more for folks who don't understand that? So literally you had to ride a horse to the different or get an carriage or whatever which was no picnic to the different courts and so judges used to be young because you didn't want to have to ride around on a horse to do all this stuff and until we get

World War II and the incredible ease of transportation and of really good medical care both being

in national government and being on the Supreme Court was generally a pretty young person's game because you wouldn't you know you weren't going to fly home to California every every night. Right right you were constrained by the by the means of getting around itself. And by your own health terms but let's do terms of Supreme Court we all agree on that. Supreme court give me give me give me what more for you health care health care. Now what does that look like? It is when we think

about the government's role or in kind of establishing a new social contract. Are we talking about

I think people should have basic health care and and I want to be really clear about this. These

are not things that I personally I mean yes they are in a way they are things that I personally want people to have. But you're talking about a foundational document so I'm building a document

“that will protect American democracy. And one of the ways that you weaken a country you should”

make people sick. I mean I'm sorry but that's just like rule number one you want to really hurt a population make sure mothers die in childbirth where are we right now mothers are dying in childbirth. The last one I will add and I'm interested in your thoughts of here. It's somewhat based on my own experience. I did city year national service program and I really think a year of national service change my life personally. I would be in favor of a year of national service for young people.

Two years. Two years. Okay. I only do not. Because well because I used to be, I mean used to be. I am a college professor and it really takes think about you into school think about freshman year. Yeah. Like a lot of people are spending at least half that freshman year getting used to dealing with people they don't like or figuring out whether they like to drink or whatever

and they're really not hitting their stride until March of their first year. So you want to give

them a full you want to let them screw around for a year and figure who they are. And then you want them to have a year where they can get their feet under them. I hear that because I certainly didn't really know what I was doing until about that March time. It's the same. Is there anything else you would add to our list? Probably, but I want to point out something that lists that we just wrote looks extraordinarily like the list that Theodore Roosevelt put together in in the early 20th

century to protect American democracy. So this, you know, one of the things that gets me about the moment where in is people who have been sort of sidetracked by our construction of American politics since the 1980s, look at a list like that and says, oh, it's far left. This is so far from being far left. It was actually proposed by a Republican more than a hundred years ago on the grounds that not of individual rights, which he was less into than people are today, but on the grounds

“that to preserve American democracy, you must have these things. What's what we call this document?”

Oh, that's a good question because what kind of a document is it's not really a declaration of independence? So you got it? Manifesto. Manifesto. Yeah. Manifesto works well too. Can we just can we just manifesto? I like manifesto. Let's definitely do this. This is the America actually manifesto. There you go. Thank you so much for joining us today and we really appreciate your time. Have a great rest of your day. You too. Thanks for having me.

America actually will be in your feeds every Saturday with an interesting interview in culture or politics. You can also watch these episodes on the Vox YouTube channel. Just go to youtube.com/vox or click the link in the show notes. The best way to support this show is by becoming a Vox member. Members get a bonus segment on Patreon every week and they make our work possible. Go to vox.com/members to join. This show was edited by Kasha Brassalian, fact checked by Esther Gim and mixed by Shana Mahoney.

Christopher Snyder is our video editor and Koon Nui is our senior art director. Our executive producer is Christina Valis and our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder, additional support from Miranda Kennedy, David Tadishore and Nisha Chittal. I'm Aesthet Herndon and this is America actually. Support for the show comes from Odo. Running a business is hard enough, so why make it harder

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