Clashing ideologies about the meaning of democracy in America are no less harrowing than the events of January 6. Journalist Bill Moyers, a 30-time Emmy Award winner, shares his views and concerns in the new PBS documentary “Preserving Democracy,” airing tomorrow. Moyers speaks with Hari Sreenivasan alongside historian Kathleen Belew – who also appears in the film – about the insurrection and the danger of a recurrence.
Professor bellew you have researched extensively
how white power movements in the united
states how they basically intersected
with politics how powerful they’ve been
at times and how
seemingly weak at other times
what is the reason
why there seems to be a resurgence now
so in addition to many contextual
factors that we face today ranging from
covet to economic crisis to black lives
matter protests to all of these things
that act as push factors for activists
to enter these groups we’re also living
through a sort of cyclical relationship
with vigilante and white power activity
if you look back through the long run of
american history the uh peaks in clan
and other groups similar groups um in
pixar memberships align more
consistently with the aftermath of
warfare than they do with any other
factor more consistently than
they align with poverty immigration
civil rights gains economic distress
populism any other number of
explanations that we might test out
don’t hold up as well as the aftermath
of war
now it turns out that that phenomenon
cuts across simply people who have
served it’s not just about returning
veterans although returning veterans and
active duty troops have played an
outsized role in escalating the violent
capacity of white power groups over time
but what we find is that all of us are
more violent in the aftermath of warfare
that measure goes across men and women
across age across who did and did not
serve in war so there is this moment of
opportunity after warfare that these
groups capitalize on in order to recruit
and radicalize now we are now
in the aftermath of the longest war
our latest longest war as one historian
has called it
the war in afghanistan and what we’ve
seen is a very prolonged sort of combat
where the people
fighting this war have come home
um and been largely not acknowledged
within our culture we have not watched
coffins draped in american flags coming
home we have not followed the war on
television the way we did in prior
combat so what does that mean are we
going to see a sort of delayed
uh surge that then peaks all at once are
we going to see all of these people come
together in peak we don’t know but
certainly we are in the middle of a
rising ground swell and certainly we are
experiencing one of these historical
peaks
bill do you think that
there is
any scenario
where
the forces from within the united states
seem
to be more powerful in
destroying the union than forces from
outside
by that i mean not just
questioning the veracity of our
elections
uh
suppressing the rights of people to vote
i mean these are these are not things
that an external force is foisting upon
us these are things that we are choosing
right now
to
change
the nature of what we consider democracy
yes
one of the
presidents who experienced backlash
grover cleveland wrote a letter to a
friend of his and said the great ship of
democracy
like other vessels
may be sunk
by the mutiny of those on board and
that’s where the danger has always been
the shay’s rebellion the secession of of
of the south didn’t come from abroad it
came from people who want to keep
slavery and keep and want to destroy the
union and and we still have we these are
secessionists by other means
and they really don’t like the union i
don’t cover my wall in
nice wallpaper paintings i covered in
clippings i i keep the clippings taped
to the wall and the clippings are
astonishing our constitutional pricing
is already here the shining city on a
hill is ready to ignite america is
closer to civil war than any of us would
like to believe cia advisors says
democracy on the edge on and on
it’s frightening
trump is systematically laying the
groundwork to steal the 2024 election
trump’s next coup has already begun
republicans are erasing decades of
voting rights gains before our eyes in
assaults on democracy state law makers
target the courts georgia republicans
purge democrats from county election
boys we receive these in the media in in
bits and pieces we see them in segments
but they constitute a critical mass of
change determined by people who want
who want to take this country back as
they say take it back from people of
color take it back from progressives
take it back from
advocates of civil rights equal rights
and it’s very very dangerous i think
that’s absolutely right and i wish that
there was a feature on twitter or tiktok
or somewhere where people get their news
um that where it’s just you reading
these headlines because it’s the
aggregation of all of these stories that
really sounds the alarm and you know one
question i get asked a lot because i’m a
specialist in in the violent extremist
part of what we saw on january 6
is about you know relative amounts of
danger but you could subscribe to every
story about say the proud boys and only
be reading a tiny fraction of the
problem because it’s not just that it’s
the entire groundswell of white power
and militant right activity plus the
attack on voting rights plus the chain
of command issues and national guard
units which we’ve also seen and things
like the south dakota governor sending
the national guard
under the funding of a private donor to
do border enforcement um in in ron
desantis call for a non-national guard
state militia quote unquote for florida
um
and we see those sovereignty struggles
mirrored in groups on the extreme right
that don’t recognize the federal
government or any authority higher than
than the local sheriff we’re at a crisis
point that just boggles understanding i
want to play a clip from the film that
talks about
how
a coup is still possible let’s take a
look
january 6 is now a fact of our history
if it was possible to have a failed
coup on january 6th it’s also possible
to have a successful coup it sounds very
simple but it’s a huge change democracy
if it is anything at all
it is losers consent people who lose
leave
and they try again next time
trump still hasn’t really conceded the
2020 election what the 2020 election
revealed was that the rules that govern
this are very loose and very and rely on
norms of self-restraint and forbearance
once you discover how to steal an
election it’s hard to unlearn that
lesson and so that’s why i think looking
forward this is one of the greatest
risks facing our democracy
we have had hearings we’ve had
investigations we’ve had a number dozens
of arrests of people who were involved
yet
absent from that are any of the elected
officials
who
gave support to this uh helped plan it
um
what do you think
that says
if there is such a carve out so to speak
professor baloo i’ll start with you
i think this is where we see the sort of
two goals of the process
of accountability really articulated
because we have to pay attention both to
the individuals who committed violence
on january 6
and to the sort of planning mechanisms
accountability questions especially
among our elected officials
my hope is that that is what the january
6th commission will be able to begin to
deliver perhaps the lawsuit
by the attorney general can begin to
deliver some of that information
but what we have to ask is when we have
that information
what kind of dent can we make in the
false narrative that has now been so
thoroughly
circulated in the body politic and i
think this goes back to a bigger
question about the long history of white
supremacy in the united states
we are
by far
not the only nation that struggles with
white supremacy racial violence racial
injustice and incomplete articulations
of democracy there are many other
countries who have faced these issues
but we are very unusual
in how little we have done to have a
real national conversation about that
shared history and you can see this
appearing across the political spectrum
i mean i think even the slogan make
america great again is at its bottom an
argument about history who america is
what america is when we were great can
greatness be achieved again these are
historical arguments that require us to
have an idea of the shared legacies that
we bring into the present moment and
these deep histories of anti-democracy
illiberalism
conflicts about sovereignty and power
all of those conversations have to
happen for all of this
to get resolved because that public
opinion needle can’t move until we
confront some of these problems this is
what i think fuels the division and
polarization that is is the real issue
here well i’m not
a pessimist i’m not giving up on
democracy
i i deal with the we all deal with the
bad news the anecdote i don’t know if
it’s true or not but the story is told
that in the middle of the waterloo
campaign uh napoleon said to his uh
his uh his valet if if if if the news
from the front is
good do not wake me if the news from the
front is not good wake me immediately
you want to hear the bad news i want to
hear the bad news that’s why i do the
journalism i do not because i love
dwelling in in the bad news but i
believe in informed people who know the
difference between a lie and the truth
are the are are the people who are going
to save us and that includes republicans
and that includes democrats this
includes independence we need a mass
mobilization to save the constitution if
i if i can put it that way that’s why
this fight that professor lewis so
eloquently written and talked about is
important to recapture the discussion
and debate of history so that we look
and see ourselves for what we’ve done
wrong at the same time we look and see
the brave men and women who fought to
change it and we can imitate them in
many many ways that goes for lawyers it
goes for journalists it goes for
everyday people down where what their
main contribution is to stand in line
and long on a long cold morning and vote
that’s what we need in this country is
to instill to invigorate to challenge
with the whole idea of what democracy is
it’s about us it’s about you and me if
we can do that and see the elements that
are threatening it
we’re going to be
okay the film preserving democracy airs
on pbs stations on january 6th
professor kathleen blue bill moyers
thank you both
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