The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – The Hidden History of American Democracy: Rediscovering Humanity’s Ancient Way of Living (The Thom Hartmann Hidden History Series) by Thom Hartmann

Episode Date: July 26, 2023

The Hidden History of American Democracy: Rediscovering Humanity’s Ancient Way of Living (The Thom Hartmann Hidden History Series) by Thom Hartmann https://amzn.to/46XCtGC America’s most popular progressive radio host and New York Times bestselling author Thom Hartmann paves the way to saving our democracy. In this powerful, sweeping history and analysis of American democracy, Thom Hartmann shows how democracy is the one form of governance most likely to produce peace and happiness among people. With the violent exception of the Civil War, American democracy resisted the pressure to disintegrate into factionalism for nearly two centuries, and now our very system of democratic elections is at stake. So how do we save our democracy? Hartmann’s newest book in the celebrated Hidden History Series offers a clear call to action and a set of solutions with road maps for individuals and communities to follow to create a safer, more just society and a more equitable and prosperous economy. About the Author Thom Hartmann is a progressive nationally and internationally syndicated talk show host. Talkers Magazine named him America’s #1 most important progressive host and the host of one of the top ten talk radio shows in the country every year for more than a decade. A four-time recipient of the Project Censored Award, Hartmann is also a New York Times bestselling author of more than thirty books, translated into multiple languages. He was born in Michigan and retains strong ties to the Midwest, although he has lived in many regions. He now lives on the Columbia River in Portland, Oregon.

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, folks. It's Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com, thechrisvossshow.com. There's my opera opening, ladies and gentlemen. I don't know why you guys still like that thing after all these years. But welcome to the big show.

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The big LinkedIn group over there for all that as well. And then we're trying to be cool on TikTok. And guess what? It's not working because we're old and smart. I don't know. That was kind of rude. Why did I say that about the TikTok people? Anyway, guys, we have an amazing returning guest on this show.

He's been on the show five different times before. This is his fifth actually engagement. I believe according to Saturday rules, we have to either award him with a robe or a really shitty ceramic cup. So we'll see if we can't figure if we can find one around the house here uh tom hartman joins us for the fifth time on the show again and he's got his latest uh brilliant book out it's called the hidden history of american democracy i've been trying to find democracy hidden here for the past few years um let me let me recut that the hidden history of american democracy rediscovering humanity's ancient way of living and this is

part of is the tom hartman hidden series uh and you can get this uh july 18th 2023 this came out and uh as i mentioned you can see all the different uh i think the last four books that we've uh interviewed Tom on the show. Just order up. He's got a whole ton of books that are a quick read, and they're awesome. Tom Hartman is a progressive nationally and internationally syndicated talk show host. Talkers Magazine named him America's number one most important progressive host and the host of one of the top ten talk shows in the country every year for more than a decade.

A four-time recipient of the Project Censored Award, he's also a New York Times bestselling author with more than 30 books. Holy crap-a-moly. They've been translated into multiple languages as well. He was born in Michigan and retained strong ties to the Midwest, although he has lived in many regions. He now lives in the Columbia River region in Portland, Oregon. Welcome to the show, Tom. How are you? Hey, Chris. I'm great. Thanks so much for inviting me.

Thanks for coming. We certainly appreciate it. It's an honor to have you, as always. We'll just keep doing this until we're 100. How does that sound? I don't know. Sounds like a plan. You keep doing the show? Yeah, I'll keep doing this man i'll be in that rocking chair and probably half out of my mind alzheimer's and they'll be like what are you doing chris i'll be and they'll be like and then you can just go um so give us a dot com so people can find you on the interwebs please sir uh probably the best is hartman report dot com which is my daily rant or tom.tv th.TV, which is all about the radio and TV show.

There you go. And your YouTube is a lot of fun, too, as well. Yeah. There you go. So what motivated you to want to write this latest book? You know, I've wanted to write this book for a long, long time because there are so many myths about American democracy, about what the founders had in mind, what the framers intended when they wrote the Constitution,

what democracy is, where it came from, how it came about in North America 240 some odd years ago, that I just, for a long, long time, I wanted to lay this stuff down into a book and finally had an opportunity to do it. There you go. I'm halfway through reading the Federalist Papers for the first time. Is the Federalist Papers?

Yeah, it's deep reading. That thing's long. Holy crap. Yeah. It makes the Constitution look like I don't know, one of those short things. It was Hamilton and Madison. It was a series of newspaper articles that they published over about a

year and a half in 1888 and early 1889 to to convince people to vote for the constitution at the ratifying convention so they did a pretty good job they did i'm at the part where they talk about how maybe uh if the military budget gets too high it might become a burdensome on society and budgets and stuff of the common people and i'm kind of like didn't we just approve 700 billion anyway uh give us a 30 000 overview of the book and uh let's get in some of the deets well i think one of the one of the really interesting things that i learned when i was researching this book is that um you know we have this idea that

democracy is this weird thing this this unique invention that some slick uh thoughtful uh you know white european came up with and said hey i've got an idea let's do this you know it white European came up with and said, hey, I've got an idea. Let's do this. It was Jesus, right? You know, the argument is typically that it was Greece 3,000 years ago. And then the Romans 2,000 years ago. And in fact, you know, our American democracy is not based on either the Greek democracy, which was a relatively pure democracy. You didn't elect representatives. You had to have 6,001 people

show up for a vote. And it was like jury duty. It was kind of a lottery. And the people that didn't show up when their name was called were called the idiota, which is where we got our word idiot from. Whereas the Roman Republic, you know, they had a Senate. Yeah, we have a Senate, but that's about the only thing that's in parallel. They rapidly turned into basically tyrannies. But it turns out that, first off, democracy is the default mode of human beings and all other animals. There was a study that was published in Nature back a little over a decade ago by two British scientists, Conrad and Roper, arguing that we have anthropomorphized the animal kingdom, that we, in fact, we call it a kingdom. We think that animals are organized like old European society, where you've got an alpha animal that

runs the show and tells everybody what to do. And they said, you know, that's nonsense. What you're going to find is that most animals, all social animals, actually make decisions, group decision-making through voting, through a democratic process. That yes, there are alpha animals, but the only thing, the only choice that they have above all else, or above all others, is the first choice of a sexual partner, of mate. And that comports with Darwin's theory of natural selection, you know, passing along the strongest genes. I should add that to my Tinder profile. There you go.

And so they published this, and James Randerson and a couple of other scientists decided to put it to the test, and they observed a herd of red deer in a forest near the University of Essex and there were three watering holes nearby. And the question was, you know, how did the deer decide when to go to the watering hole? How did they decide to go, you know, which one to go to? And what they found was that they'd be out there grazing and then over time, the various animals would start pointing

their bodies at one of the three watering holes. And when 51% of them were pointing at one particular watering hole, the whole herd would just go, you know, off, off we go to that watering hole. And so I called up Kent Rock Conrad, you know, one of the,

one of the scientists and said, you know, what happened when you published this result? And he said, Oh, we heard from everybody. He said, you know,

the bug guy called, you know, an entomologist. He said, you know, we're working with balls of gnats. You see, in the summer summer you see a ball of gnats you know and they're they're in the air and then they kind of zoom over three feet to the left and then they go off you know how do they how do they know to do that you know and there's no you know alpha gnat uh it turns out

that with every wing beat they do slow motion photography and discover this with every wing beat each gnat is voting and when more than 51% of them move three degrees to the right, the whole ball and ants moves three degrees to the right. Same thing with fish, with schools of fish, the same thing with fish, with birds, with flocks of birds. So democracy, it turns out, is the default mode for all animals that are social animals. And there's only a very small percentage that are not, number one. And we're animals, and we're social animals, so democracy is our default mode. And when you look at societies that have had multiple thousands of years without conquest, without interruption, which is not

European society. We were conquered 3,000 years ago, or Europe was conquered 3,000 years ago by the Celts, then 2,000 years ago by the Romans, and then 1,000 years ago by the Catholics. But when you look at societies that have had literally thousands and thousands of years to do trial and error experimentation about the best way to live, what you find is that the vast majority of them are governed democratically. And most of them actually are also quite egalitarian. They do not allow for massive accumulations of wealth or horrible poverty. And so then the question is, you know, how did this start, you know, here in the United States? Where did this idea come from? And, you know, we're often told, well, it was, you know, rich, or not rich, it was, you know, smart white guys from Europe. You know, it was the Greeks

or the Romans. And as I said, our democracy wasn't based on the Greeks or Romans. Actually, then when you puncture that bubble, then people come along and say, well, you know, it was the Enlightenment philosophers, you know, Thomas Hobbes and John Jacques Rousseau and John Locke and Montesquieu and Diderot. And it turns out, yeah, you know, those guys were major influences on most of the founders and the framers of the Constitution. But where did they get their ideas? And that's where it gets really interesting. And I was just fascinated doing the research for this book that back in the early 1700s, the French trappers had made deep inroads into the eastern part of the

Midwest, you know, the Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, the western Pennsylvania, New York State, and brought with them the French missionaries, the Jesuits. And the Huron tribe uniquely accepted them, welcomed them, in fact, and traded with them. And they taught the Hurons French, and the French taught them democracy. Go ahead. I was going to say casinos. Yeah, right. That came later.

And so the French fathers, these priests, these evangelists, started in the 1720s, started writing basically an annual letter to Europe about their experience living among the savages. And they told these fascinating stories about how democracy worked among the Hurons. And these became these annual letters that persisted for about 40, 50 years, became major bestsellers, first in France, and then across the rest of Europe. They were translated into multiple languages. And another phenomenon was going on at that time in Europe as well, particularly in France, which was called salons, where wealthy women with large houses would invite a guest speaker, a famous person, to come in and speak to the local intelligentsia and the barons and the lords and ladies and whatnot. And that would then provide fodder for days of discussions afterwards. And so all of the wealthy women of France wanted to have one of these Hurons come

over and talk to them. And the Hurons spoke French. And so the French missionaries organized several trips where they took Huron leaders over to France and they participated in these salons and they were just openly disparaging of the French aristocracy, of the French class system, of the great wealth and great poverty that they saw around them. You know, they just, you know, gave it to them. And it turns out, you know, John Locke references one of these salons in a footnote in one of his books. Dennis Diderot attended one. He was Jean-Jacques Rousseau's best friend. Rousseau was knowledgeable about them. Thomas Hobbes may have even known something about this, although he was writing earlier than most of this. And so it turns out that the way that the idea for democracy made

it to many of the founders, not all of them, because Jefferson, Adams, and Franklin in particular knew the Indians really, really well. Jefferson's father was a mapmaker and he traveled around Indian territory and Virginia for, you know, for Jefferson's whole entire life and used to bring his son with him. And he spoke multiple Native American languages and the Native Americans used to stay at Shadwell at the family farm frequently. But for the ones who didn't know about, you know, who had didn't have personal intimate contact like Franklin, you know, Franklin spent 30 years of his life as the U.S. envoy to various Native American tribes. For the people who didn't know that, it was the Enlightenment philosophers, particularly Rousseau and Locke, who transmitted that idea to the founding generation here in the United States. So it went from the Hurons, who had developed it

over 10,000 years of trial and error, to France, and then from France back to the colonies, and then the colonists were like, oh, this is a great idea. Let's do what these European Enlightenment philosophers are suggesting. There you go. That's how we got our democracy. Just another thing is France surrendered to us. Oh, wow. Okay.

Too soon. Hi, Voxers. Voss here with a little station break. Hope you're enjoying the show so far. We'll resume here in a second. I'd like to invite you to come to my coaching, speaking, and training courses website. You can also see our new podcast over there at chrisvossleadershipinstitute.com. Over there, you can find all the different stuff that we do for speaking engagements, if you'd like to hire me, training courses that we offer, and coaching for leadership, management, entrepreneurism,

podcasting, corporate stuff. With over 35 years of experience in business and running companies as a CEO, and be sure to check out chrisfossleadershipinstitute.com. Now back to the show. So, you know, I had Thomasomas e ricks on the show i think it was uh i don't know if you're familiar with him uh thomas e ricks he wrote first principles what america's founders learned from the greeks and romans and how that shaped our country

and he he pitched that whole uh thing about he's a pulitzer prize winning journalist he's written a lot of books about history and so i i was I was interested in what you were saying about how this comes from that era and not so much the other thing. Well, the Greeks and Romans had the earliest known examples of attempts at self-governance. And, you know, they deserve a lot of credit for that. And, you know, but, you know, Aristotle or Socrates, rather, I mean, you know, he participated in the rebellion of the 300 and of the 30. I mean, he helped bring down the Greek democracy. And the Roman Republic, you know, it was a great experiment while it lasted. But it didn't take very long for the Caesars to become Caesars as opposed to what we would call a president or something like

that. So yeah, we did learn a lot from them, but I think the really essential ideas were more grounded in the Iroquois Confederacy, frankly. There you go. I'm going to have to read up more about that. I think I remember seeing something about the salons years ago and how they would go. And I think it was like, you know, it was basically like the early housewives of Beverly Hills. And they just want to see how hot the Indian guy was. It was like an early bachelor's. No, I'm just kidding. Well, you know, two of the people who were real common participants in these French salons were Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin.

Oh, there you go. It's really interesting to read the film for, you know, hopping into bed with these women. There you go. It's really interesting to read the film for hopping into bed with these women. There you go. I mean, I think Benjamin Franklin, man, he got around, didn't he? I don't know. He did. He did. He was quite the dandy.

He was quite the dandy. You know, it's funny because I'm reading the Federalist Papers, and it's so interesting to see the intent. And then the, I mean, depending on when I was in 2024, you could call it the final product. Oh, so there's that. But it's interesting to see, you know, what they were thinking, what they were looking at. And, you know, they talk in Madison and them talk about, you know, all the different variances of what you're talking about, where they were taking and pulling. Okay, well, this worked and this didn't work.

Now, you called the book in the title The Hidden History. Is this what we're talking about, The Hidden History, or why did you choose to call it that? Yeah, most people have no idea the stuff that you and I just talked about. Yeah. So, yeah. I mean, they just think Columbus showed up and went, hey, man, let's kick it here for a while,

and then all of a sudden you had pavement. So there you go. I think that's pretty much what most people whose education has failed them today has fallen now one of the things you build in the book is um it in celebrating uh the hidden history series it helps offer a call to action and a sleight of solution for uh road maps for individuals and communities to create safer, more society? How can we save our democracy? You know, the Civil War, you know, we're kind of in that polarized state right now. Everybody's, you know, looking at memes and living in those echo chambers,

and we can't seem to find the middle. And, you know, a lot of people feel if we don't learn to get along as Americans, we're going to, it's not going to work out well. I don't know what that means. It was like Ben Franklin's famous statement around the time of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. If we don't hang together, we shall surely hang separately.

What is the line he said to his reporter to say to him when they came out? She says, do we have a democracy or do we have a She said, we're full of them, haven't we? And he we and he said it's a republic ma'am if you can keep it as long as you can keep it there you go um anything else you want to tease out about the book um you know it's it i think it's so important that people learn these facts and they learn about the true essence of their history well in the in the spirit of uh you know democracy is our

natural state and therefore whatever the majority of the people, you know, within the context of the rights of individual humans, whatever the majority of the people want is what we should have. The fourth part of the book is 20 some odd proposed solutions for our democracy. And all of them are things that poll above 50 percent and all of them are things that most other countries have you know voting as a right rather than a privilege a national health care system that's inexpensive and covers everybody and does a good job a national educational system where you've got high quality primary secondary and college that's all very inexpensive, a strong social safety net, a strong social security system, Medicare, those kinds of things. And yet we don't have those because in 1976 and 78, five Republicans on the U.S. Supreme Court legalized political bribery, then five other

Republicans on the Supreme Court doubled down on that in 2010 with Citizens United. And so, you know, now we've got, as Jimmy Carter said to me seven years ago, he said, America is now just an oligarchy with political bribery as the operating principle of America. We need to fix that. We need to do something about that. These Republicans on the Supreme Court have done really serious damage to our democracy and, frankly, put it at risk. Definitely. And you wrote about that in your book. You came to us on January 27th, 2021, The Hidden History of American Oligarchy, Reclaiming Our Democracy. And I love that book. I've referenced it to a lot of people because you really surmise in that book, you know,

Citizens United and all these things that aided us uh i mean what are your thoughts after all that with you know all the stuff that's coming out with the court you know pretty much uh being owned by billionaires well you know in 2010 when when the when the when the five republicans on the court voted to fully legalize political bribery both by billionaires and by corporations they were simultaneously voting to allow their own bribery both by billionaires and by corporations they were simultaneously voting to allow their own bribery yeah yeah and then they started putting their hands out yeah hey we we made this great law now uh can we get a boat trip uh yeah buy my thing you know it it it's just astounding like i i think like most americans thought that there was some sort of you know federal like federal judges they had some sort of, you know, federal judges.

They had some sort of ethics, rules, or they would behave in such a way. Well, there is a law. There is a federal law that requires them to make certain disclosures, but they just ignore the law. And the problem is that, I mean, who's going to prosecute them? You know, the Department of Justice prosecutes them, and they appeal it to what? The Supreme Court. Yeah, and the Supreme court decides whether it's uh ruling on you know like it's it's the most insane thing ever like we always live with this checks and balances bullshit and and then all of a sudden it's like wait these guys are running the country now you know you're you're seeing the weirdness you know yeah i think i think right now what's

going on in israel is really you know their recent decision, for those watching years from now, the recent decision to limit the power of the Supreme Court. I don't know. Maybe we need that. But, you know, seeing what's going on there, authoritarian rules where Bibi is under investigation. And, you know, that looks like something that could happen two or three years from now. Yeah. I mean, he's been indicted for bribery and corruption. And so, hey, if you're the leader and you've been indicted for bribery and corruption, what do you do?

Blow up the court system. Yeah. You don't want to get prosecuted. Definitely. You know, we had Michael Waldman on the show. I'm not sure if you're familiar with him. He wrote the book, The Supermajority, How the Supreme Court Divided America, just a few weeks ago. I haven't read his book, but I'm familiar with him. He wrote the book, The Supermajority, How the Supreme Court Divided America, just a few weeks ago. I haven't read his book, but I'm familiar with him. A great book.

He talks about, I guess he was on Biden's commission or the White House commission for deciding, I don't know, a think tank on the Supreme Court, but it was limited. They couldn't make any recommendations. It was like, I don't know, they just sit around and talked about it. It's kind of interesting. I guess he put all the cases before it. I think Biden is afraid of seeming to politicize the court. I'm sorry, that horse left the barn years ago. You know, and I think we've talked about with you on your prior books,

we've talked about a lot of authors on the show about Betsy DeVos' organization, Center for National Policy, and her father in their 40, 50, 60-year run to stack the court and stack the what's the voting school? The Electoral College. The Electoral College.

Pretty interesting. What a game. The dog finally caught the car. Now the dog is trying to figure out what to do with it. Of course, we're trying to figure out what to do with it as well. Well, it's going to be real interesting. The 2024 election is going to be real interesting because you've got a lot of seriously pissed off women out there. Yeah. And you've got a guy who wants revenge.

It's interesting to me. As I'm listening to the federalist papers and talking, you and I about democracy, you know, we have a guy who can take office, just like Bibi Netanyahu in Israel, who's currently under multiple criminal investigations and more pending probably in the next two weeks. And he can literally take office without any, there's nothing blocking him from taking office. And certainly I'm kind of surprised,

I shouldn't be, that florida guy governor isn't doing as well but i mean he's kind of weird looking um and acting yeah well the only prohibition on on taking political office in the united states is having been convicted of sedition you know so you know had they impeached trump or had they or if jack smith charges him with sedition and actually gets a conviction, then Trump won't be eligible to run for office. But otherwise, you know, I mean, you know, Eugene Debs, who is Bernie Sanders's hero, you know, was a conscientious objector to World War One and Woodrow Wilson threw him in prison and he ran for president from prison and got over a million votes. Did he really? Wow. Yeah. So it's entirely possible for Trump to ran for president from prison and got a million votes. Did he really? Wow.

Yeah. So it's entirely possible for Trump to run for president from jail, even as long as he's not, you know, as long as he hasn't been convicted of sedition. Yeah. And then, I mean, and I, you know, I think I heard someone talking about this. And basically you have to count on the House and Senate to impeach him to get him back out. And you're just like, well, we missed the first two times. Like, what the fuck? Yeah.

You wonder if Mitch McConnell is kicking himself for that. You know, because he organized the let's not kick them out thing. Yeah. I love the intertwining of the history of the chess match when you see everything going. Although, I hope I love it. I guess we have to see how it turns out. I'm just kind of glad that I'm old because if it does go bad, then, you know, I'm just one of those senior citizens sitting around going, well, it was a nice run while we had it. Yeah.

Anyway. I worry about the generation coming up. I mean, they're going to inherit a world that is going to be a real challenge. And most of them don't really understand democracy. Like I talked to a lot of young people and I game a lot with young people. I hear what's going on in the background. Fox News is usually playing 24-7.

My nephew and other people, they're watching Fox News. They're getting all of their political education from memes on social media. And I'm like, go read the the constitution go read the federalist papers go go understand what this is about and then a lot of them my understanding you know they're not really into capitalism anymore and they're like hey we kind of like socialism can we just get free handouts yeah yeah it's kind of interesting i was watching go ahead i was watching a guy today

i i think he's a vc or something but he was talking about how in all the other countries around the world, they've gone back to the office, and there's low office vacancy rates around the country, but we haven't. And I was sitting there thinking in my mind, what's the driving force of that? Are we just fucking lazy Americans, which we kind of are? Well, I think America is a much larger, which we, you know, kind of are? Well, I think, you know, America is a much larger, geographically, physically, a much larger country than pretty much any other major democracy in the world, and with a much lower population density overall. So, you know, in Belgium, or in Germany, or in France, I lived in Germany for a year, you know, people

commute to work by hopping on the train. I mean, they've got really, really good public transportation systems that are very inexpensive and super efficient and very clean and nice. And we don't have that here in the United States. So instead, people have to drive for a half hour, an hour to get to work, you know, each way. So it makes a lot of sense, you know, telecommuting, working from home here, whereas it may be completely unnecessary in Amsterdam or in Frankfurt or in New York City for that matter, although in New York City, apparently they've got a lot of empty office space, but it may not be because a lot of people live out in the suburbs. Yeah, that makes sense though. Yeah,

I'm glad you said that. That makes logical sense because I was trying to, I was like, yeah, what is going on with that? And, you you know we see challenges with the gen z and and all that stuff uh any new books that you have on the horizon that you're working on anything you want to tease out i am i am uh i'm thinking about the next hidden history and the last one in the series being the hidden history of the american dream you know where where this whole idea of a middle class came from and how it built up and how it got knocked down by Reaganism. Although the last book, The Hidden History of Neoliberalism, kind of talks

about that. So I'm still debating it. Definitely. So give us the audience a final pitch for your book to pick it up. It's The Hidden History of American Democracy, Rediscovering Humanity's Ancient Way of Living. And it's available wherever you find books.

Any book outlet or bookstore, you can find it. There you go, folks. Wherever fine books are sold, stay away from those alleyway bookstores because you might get mugged in them. Thanks, Tom, for being on the show. We really appreciate it again. Thanks for inviting me, Chris.

It's great to see you again. Thank you. And thanks, my audience, for tuning in. Go to goodreads.com, FortressCruzFast, YouTube.com, FortressCruzFast, LinkedIn.com, FortressCruzFast, and stalk us wherever we are on the Internet. thanks for tuning in. Go to goodreads.com, FortressCruzFast, YouTube.com, FortressCruzFast, LinkedIn.com, FortressCruzFast, and stalk us wherever we are on the internet. Thanks for tuning in. Be good to each other.

Stay safe, and we'll see you guys next time.