The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart - America 250: History vs. Mythology with Annette Gordon-Reed and David Blight

Episode Date: June 17, 2026

As America prepares to celebrate its 250th anniversary, Jon is joined by Yale historian David Blight and Harvard historian Annette Gordon-Reed to examine the battle being waged over our national story. Together, they explore why origin stories matter to nations and individuals, discuss how a fuller understanding of American history challenges national myths, and consider how we can continue to aspire toward our founding ideals even as we reckon with our failures. Plus, Jon answers listener questions on Trump at 250, the Knicks, and Taco Bell, hopefully for the last time. This episode is brought to you by: GROUND NEWS - Go to https://groundnews.com/stewart to see all sides of every story. Subscribe for 40% off the Vantage Subscription only for a limited time through our link https://groundnews.com/stewart INCOGNI - They can’t harm you, if they can’t find you! Use code stewart at the link below and get 60% off an annual plan: https://incogni.com/stewart MAGIC SPOON - Get $5 off your next order at https://magicspoon.com/tws SHOPIFY - Sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at https://shopify.com/TWS Follow The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart on social media for more:  > YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@weeklyshowpodcast > Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/weeklyshowpodcast > TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@weeklyshowpodcast  > X: https://x.com/weeklyshowpod   > BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/theweeklyshowpodcast.com Host/Executive Producer – Jon Stewart Executive Producer – James Dixon Executive Producer – Chris McShane Executive Producer – Caity Gray Producer – Brittany Mehmedovic  Producer – Gillian Spear Video Editor & Engineer – Rob Vitolo Audio Editor & Engineer – Nicole Boyce Music by Hansdle Hsu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the weekly show podcast for John Stewart. It is Tuesday, June 16th, year of our Knicks, 2026. Oh, I don't know if you hear in my voice in any way. It's a little something called life, a little something called hope. You know what? I'm going to say something before we get into the show. The Mets can suck all year. I don't give a fuck.

Do what you want. Come and last, have a payroll of $500 million. I really don't give a shit. It doesn't matter. You know what? You've been granted amnesty. You have a waiver. All my other teams, you have a waiver. The 53-year drought, boy, did we have. I know you're sick of hearing about it probably. But 7th Avenue, 10th Street, my wife, my son, Robert Smigel, one of his sons, we stood there in the heat, staring at the side of a building. projecting the game, it was just one of the most wonderful experiences of my sporting life to just be in the city and feel the hopes and fears and ups and downs and adrenaline and negativity followed by just an absolute explosion of joy. And I have to give one, along with like

NYPD, NYFD, Sanitation Department, the people who project. Check it out. There was one dude, two guys actually, MVP's of the Seventh Avenue watch party, they had an igloo cooler. And in that cooler was the most delightful mix of snacks and drinks. I don't know where these angels came from. They had uncrustables. They had those little blue bell cheese fucking pucks that you unwrap

margaritas, beers, water, and just every now and again they would dip into it and somebody would like poke you on the shoulder and go cheese? He would cheese you during the game.

It was the most incredible. And for some reason and he showed this early, he had a Ziploc bag, a pretty good size Ziploc bag, filled with 12 hard boiled eggs. Now, I don't know if that was his Seder supply that he's preparing for next year or if he's got an egg salad thing. But just with all these delightful snacks and beverages, he had this thing.

And I just thought, what a ridiculous, ridiculous thing to actually consider to bring to this tailgate party in the middle of New York City. But I'm telling you three quarters of the way through the fourth quarter when the tension got. the highest. He broke out this bag of eggs and people in the crowd responded to them like he was passing out free Nick's T-shirts from a T-shirt gun. Egg me, egg me! He would throw the egg, people would catch them on a scoop, on the stoop and eat them. It was the most brilliant, it was the coup de grace of his entire refreshment regime that he had brought out there. And so sir, sirs, I salute you, you anonymous heroes. Beautiful.

It was just a, it was a beautiful moment. And that is how I will commemorate that day. But it paled in comparison to, you know, obviously martial arts fighting on the lawn of the White House to celebrate the 250th. So I thought, why not for this show today? Let's talk about the nation's 250. 50th birthday and why this has all become so controversial as to who owns our history, who doesn't own our history, what is our real history? And so who better to do that?

And you know, these are always my favorite episodes, historians. I just love historians. They've done the work. And all we get to do is ask them the stories and they have them at their beck and call. And so we're going to get to them. These are two of the best, two of the best historians out there. Ladies and gentlemen, as we move into the celebration of our nation's 250th year, we are honored to have with us today two just widely revered experts in the study of the history of this great country, Mr. David Blyte, Sterling Professor of History at Yale University, and Professor Annette Gordon-Reed, Carl M. Loeb University professor at Harvard University. So it's the entire conversation is a Yale Harvard off. I want to ask you, David, I'll start with you.

You know, perhaps nothing embodies sort of the absurdity of the moment that we're having right now in that our 250th celebration, we have two competing visions of it, even within our own government. We have the America 250 celebration, which is a, I guess a bipartisan group. nonprofit, established 10 years ago through Congress to come up with events. And suddenly we have the Freedom 250, which was formed by the Trump administration, for their vision. What does that say in your mind, Professor, about the moment that we are in? Well, it's just one more measure of how divided or polarized we are.

one of those efforts is, I think, at least an attempt at real history, that is some complexity, some nuance, some ambiguity, the conflicts as well as the triumphs. The other one is propaganda. The other one is using history in the service of a political moment. It's history in the service of the present. And it's a very partisan effort. It isn't just being. done by the White House, though, of course. The White House has had many, many enablers here, not least of which is the Heritage Foundation and other think tanks. In fact, the Heritage Foundation has basically become the White House's history department. So those two visions, if you like, are two different ways to do history. They're very, both are very old. Yes, propaganda,

not a new form. No, not a new thing, not a new thing. Annette, what, you know, It brings up the interesting point. What is the importance of a nation's origin story? And why do ideologues or partisans work so hard to control it? Well, I think we look to origin stories in the same way we look to our own origin stories. We say, where were you born? What did you grow up? You meet somebody and you say, where are you from?

If you say, I'm from Texas, that tells people they think, rightly or wrongly, a lot about me. If you're from Brooklyn, it tells you about you. So I think we take ourselves and we look at the nation and we sort of meld them together and say, how did this country get started? Because it's going to tell us something fundamental about who we are. And we've always done this. And your first question about the polarization, I mean, history is inherently political because there's a battle about how people are supposed to think about themselves. So one person will tell an origin story that they think is all uplift.

and not truthful, and I think that that's what David is getting at there, because it's something that makes you feel good in the present. And at the same time, on the other hand, you could say, well, I want a truthful story. I really want to know what happened in the past so that I can have a much more nuanced, as you said, story, a more realistic story. Now, what I face is that I write about slavery and I write about Jefferson and very difficult topics. there are people who don't want a truthful story about all of that. They want something that's a feel good. And sometimes it makes you feel good and sometimes it doesn't. But you have to have both of those things to have the kind of complexity that makes real history. David, what is

the damage of a truthful story? Why is that so resisted? I mean, and that brings up a good point. And there's something in there also about people lie to themselves as well. It's not just about, You know, so I imagine for a historian, that's even a very difficult thing to tease out that you can read, you know, the difference between sort of journalism being the first draft of history and history and how you tease out. Are these people lying to themselves? Are they lionizing themselves? But why would that be so resisted? Well, because it, because narratives are always in conflict. And when a powerful historical narrative, a series of stories, exhibitions in museums, great historic sites get somewhat reinterpreted. It can disorient people. It can dislodge them from the pleasing, pleasurable, familiar narrative. You know, most human beings, let's face it, we're all a little bit part of this, want to live in a kind of chosen

narrative. We'd all like our grandparents to be heroes. Our great grandparents, we can really make heroes if we didn't know them. You know, we always, everyone's always looking for the perfect ancestor, you know, as long as I don't have to know too much about them. And, you know, I mean, we, that's the, and that's what your origin stories. I'm with you, man, yeah, no. Origin stories are self-made. Who are we?

Well, let us tell you. And, and also, I mean, origin stories are tricky. We can't live without them. Every culture does it. Every church does it. Every institution does it, every country does it, always has. But they're tricky. Mark Block, the great French historian killed in the Holocaust.

He had a little piece of an essay he entitled, The Idol of Origins. And he said, well, beware. As soon as you find your origins, well, then that origin has an origin. And then that origin has an origin. And watch out, you don't really fully know the origin unless you look deeper, deeper, deeper. So the trouble with history is that it can dislodge us from the comforting story we'd like to be living. And that's part of what's happened here in the last, let's say, two decades, really, it predates Trump, where the American right has become so concerned about some of the great changes in how we've interpreted, narrated American history,

everything from race to gender and many other issues have gotten the, all worked up because there was a comfortable narrative of this country. There always has been. And it got quite dislodged, not because, as a Trump executive order said, we were trying to tell everybody nothing but shame about America. That's nonsense. Right. It's not what we do. It's just because we've learned how to tell the complexities of history. And it turns out most people want that. Oh, they definitely do. I, I would. I, would be sure of that. And is that what you've seen that over time, you know, the fact that you're dealing with tricky issues of slavery and race and those kinds of issues, is that is the dividing

point here that the effort is to create an origin story of the country that's more singular and more reflective of maybe a Christian origin story or a nationalist origin story that's more homogenous and that because you're dealing in the complexities of race or, as David said, gender, things that don't fit as easily, that's where the pushback comes. And have you felt that pushback grow? Oh, yes, definitely. I mean, the last from the revolution and the historiography of slavery, in particular in the 40s and the 50s, and ever since then, that goes along with the civil rights movement. I mean, history, we asked different questions of the past, depending upon what's going on, And once we started changing laws and getting rid of segregation, all those kinds of things

of transforming America, you go back and people start looking at history in a different way, asking different questions. And I think, as David is suggesting, this is a reaction to all of that. There are people who want to put the genie back in the bottle. I want to rewind the tape and say, no, let's go back to a more comforting narrative, mainly because perhaps they want to go back to a more comforting country. You know, a country that a sort of 1950s, you're 1940s country and everybody idolizes, but that's a time when, you know, people went to separate bathrooms. People, you know, women couldn't get credit cards.

I mean, all these things, there's a lot that goes along with this nostalgic vision of history. And that is a nostalgic vision of the present. And so that's what's really frightening about it. It's not just about a complaint about history. It's a complaint about where we are now, the kind of country we have become in the the past 50 or 60 years. So is the idea in that if they feel like they can control the narrative of the past, they can control the future?

Exactly. I mean, the thing is, this is who we are. And the push for originalism, the idea we have to go back essentially to, it's always the 1789 Constitution, 1787, 1789 Constitution. It's not the post-Civil War one that gives us the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendment. but let's go back to the original. And that is back in a time when, you know, black, there was a strict racial hierarchy, a gender hierarchy,

and we can't do anything past what those people thought at the time. And that's, you know, that's a complaint about history, but it's also a complaint about the new society that America has tried to make in the late 20th century in the early 21st century. John, yeah, David, go ahead. We live in the country that is essentially held together by the 14th Amendment. Section 1 of the 14th, birthright citizenship, due process, and equality before law.

Right. That's right before the Supreme Court as we speak. We were reinvented by the 14th Amendment, and we still live under it if we can hold it. You know, what's at stake here is more than just history. It's the social order. I mean, it's this idea that if you let these crazy left-wing historians and university, alter the national story that fifth graders learn, eighth graders, tenth graders, and college students, the social order could fall apart.

Family values could fall apart. And look, it's one of the reasons the right is so exercised about gender, because that is a relatively new challenge to the nature of history, if you like. But it's ultimately here a question of who controls the social and cultural order. or history is always at the center of that. It's always the first problem. Absolutely. I mean, and the 14th Amendment basically animated by the Declaration of Independence that gives us a creed that says all men are created equal.

And the progress of America since that moment has been try to realize that. And that's why you have this attack now, even in some ways on the declaration as a creed, saying, as a sort of creed for Americans saying, no, America. is not just a country about a creed. It's a country about, you know, a race. It's about religion. It's about something that doesn't have that inclusive and compassing thing. So the Declaration and the 14th Amendment, talking about equality, has been a target for people who want a different vision of what the country is about, a white nation.

Look, the algorithm is killing us. The algorithm, the way that it incentivizes, the hostility and weaponizes, it. ideology and all the, it just, it's, it's not right. But the antidote, the antidote is information. And that's where ground news comes in. Ground news, it's this website nap. It's designed to give readers a better way, an easier way to navigate the news. It pulls together every article about the same news story from all outlets all over the world and puts them in one place and not, not incentivized for like the worst, most hostile, most partisan, in take. It tells you

where it's coming from. You can see starkly in black and white how these different organizations and algorithms are manipulating the information that we get. They show you how reliable the source is and who's funding it.

Who's funding it? Follow the money. Know who's behind the headline. Oh, who is this Rupert Murdoch fella? He seems delightful. Hmm, he seems to have a somewhat pointed view of the world. I'm telling you, man.

The Nobel Peace Center has even mentioned that Ground News is an excellent way to stay informed. Noble Peace Center. That's, I think, the one that Trump started. I think it's the 3D prints Nobel Peace Prize is just hands them out. The platform's independently operated, supported by its subscribers, so they stay independent, and they stay mission-driven. They don't get sucked into this slot. If you want to see the full picture, go to Ground News.

They can help you through the noise and get to the heart of the news. Go to groundnews.com slash Stewart. Subscribe for 40% off, the unlimited access, Vantage subscription, discount available only for a limited time. And this brings the price down to like $5 a month. That's groundnews.com slash Stewart or scan the QR code on the screen. I'm fascinated by the idea that by telling the stories of diverse populations, why do you think they view that as degrading to our national history

and not something that is more remarkable about our national history in terms of where we've come? I mean, you've studied Douglas, maybe the best scholar on Douglas. You know, reanimate him for a moment. Would he be astonished by the progress made or disappointed that we're still litigating the very same structural issues that he litigated? Both. No, he would both.

Damn you and your nuance? Oh, I know. These historians are always saying on the one hand, on the other hand, but truly, Douglas would be astonished at some of this progress, but he'd be disgusted. Uh-huh. He'd be, oh, Lord, he'd be disgusted at this attempt to erase all of that progress that has been made. A best way to understand that is Douglas gave a very important speech in 1869, right at the point of the passage of the 15th Amendment, the voting rights amendment. He called it the composite nation.

It's one of the most beautiful expressions you would ever read. And note to date again, this is 1869. It reads like a multiculturalism manifesto, you know, from a school system in the 1990s. Woke. Yeah, no, yeah. Douglas was woke. I think what people would agree. Douglas was woke.

The dude was in the pluralism. And the speech expresses this beautiful, you know, crazy quilt of America. And in the middle of it, he stops. He takes up the great present issue of that moment. And he makes the case for Chinese immigration. Chinese immigration was becoming a huge issue, especially from the West. Right. And there's Douglas saying, get ready, America, they're coming.

And they got a 3,000-year-old civilization with stuff we never thought about before. Yes, they have alien language. Yes, they have alien religion. But, man, these are amazing people. Get ready for them. And anyway. But even that, though, think about that, though. That moment in history, at 1869, Douglas says that.

And what are the two things that occur, only? almost right after that. Right. There is the birthright citizenship case about a Chinese immigrant. Exactly. But then the second thing is the South reinstates. Takes back the country. Takes back.

Right. Reanimates the very thing that created the progress that Douglas is talking about. It's the single most hopeful moment of Douglas's life. Yes. And he never, John, he never gave that speech that I could find after about 1871. It was falling apart, right? Yeah, I was doing research for a book and found my great, great grandfather's name on a voter list in Texas in 1867. Oh, goodness.

And it was amazing. And then I thought, then I got sad because I realized what's going to happen in a couple of years. Yeah. Texas is going to, I mean, all this stuff is going to be rolled back and he's going to be put back into a state of near, not chattel, but near chattel, almost as base. had of slavery. I mean, that time period, stripped of rights and so forth. And is the idea that the right would like that moment erased from the record or deemphasized? What is the purpose of it? And Annette, you face this. I mean, again, when we talk about Douglas with David Blight, but also Sally Hemings and Jefferson with Annette Gordon-Reed.

I mean, your scholarship on that unparalleled. So is that an analogous historical figure in terms, do they want that relationship erased? Well, you know, when I was working on this subject, it occurred to me that I think a lot of it, when I listened to people, it has to do with this question of a white nation. If somehow a person who is a symbol of the country had seven children with a woman who is not purely white, then what does that say about the country as a white nation? I mean, an actual literal founding father here of not just white people, but of people who were black and who has descendants who still identified themselves as black. So a lot of it is just, it's the,

it's a vision of themselves and the vision of what they want the present to be, to sort of situate the past to sort of, you know, put us on the path to getting to a place that is comfortable to them. And that is one where whites are in ascendancy and people of color or lower down or people who are discriminated against. I want to ask you about the process of that because, you know, David, you brought this up earlier, that idea of woke and diversity being a buzzword about this has, we have to take woke out. You know, I think Trump did the executive order restoring truth and sanity to American history. And it was all about removing any idea of woke.

The idea being that the left or the elites are so focused on issues of. race or gender or those kinds of things. But those, the people that were under those discrimination policies, they didn't create those distinctions. They had to live under them. The idea of obsession with race or gender doesn't come from those who suffered under it. It was the ruling class that defined those groups. Well, that's true.

No question. Black folk didn't write the pro-slavery laws. Black folk didn't write. Or define themselves as something different. They weren't part of the self-definition of being chattled by any means, of course. Now, maybe whether the right wants total erasure, there are many different parts of the right, as you well know, John. And some of them would say, oh, they just want to talk about emphasis.

You know, they don't want to lose Jefferson in the story of Sally Hemings. And that could tell us ours on that. They don't want to lose Abraham Lincoln in the stories of the complexities of how emancipation actually happened. They don't want to lose George Washington in the story of how the American Revolution was won and how bloody it was and how difficult and contingent it was and how they almost didn't win and so on and so on and so on. There are parts of the right who really are white nationalist. And I've learned this, I guess I'd say the hard way. I recently challenged Kevin Roberts, the president of the president of Heritage Foundation. Yeah, yeah, I challenged him to have a debate and we ended up doing an hour and 10 minute podcast.

Really? Oh, yeah. Yeah. And look, we said two rules. We were going to be civil. And, sorry, we really tried. We did all right on that one, mostly. and we were going to stay in our lane because Kevin is a historian.

His Ph.D. in history from U.T. Austin, and his dissertation was on slavery in Louisiana, and it's not bad 25 years ago. And he's also one of the architects of the new right, which is that Project 2025, and what they want in the future and has been on record as saying he wants the future to be Trumpism. Absolutely. And some of these executive orders come right out of Project 2025, verbatim language. Right. They were written over at Heritage Foundation.

Many of them. But Kevin and I stayed in our lane as historians. We tried to be civil. And by and large, it didn't work. Really? Well, we did remain civil. I was his host. I couldn't do, you know. Wow. I've been in that position. I bet you have. Yeah, you've interviewed a few people. It works out better than other times. You've interviewed a few people you'd like to kick that. I'm sure. Probably correct. Is that safe to say? What was, what did you think, do you think he's being disingenue? then, what was his, especially if he's written, you know, a dissertation on slavery in Louisiana. I mean, surely he understands the complexity of it. Is he now being disingenuous for a purely political project?

Sometimes he is. I'm totally convinced of that. He can read off, you know, 12 talking points for the Trump White House in two minutes. He's very good at that. But often the disingenuity, if that's the right word, comes when they start cherry picking, when they start saying, well, there was this one exhibit at the African American History Museum that said this, that should not have said, or there's that art museum over there that suggested that sculpture has something to do with scientific racism, which sometimes it does.

But they will pick out a single cherry-picked example somewhere and say, you see, the whole damn institution has gone to hell with a bunch of liberals and radicals. They confuse anecdote with data. Absolutely. Annette, in your experience, because the Sally Hemings thing was a very different situation in that there was a real denial of the reality of it. Their position there wasn't cherry-picking emphasis. It was, no, that's not true.

None of those folks descended from Jefferson and Hemings. It's just not, you're lying. Well, yeah. I mean, it was denial for the reason that I was suggesting before that there was an image of Jefferson as almost the personification of America. In some ways, that's not a crazy thing. That's one of the reasons he's an interesting figure for me because you can write about so much in American history through his life about slavery, race, politics, foreign policy, all of those things. And so he was a hero to people in a particular way. And they had sort of a personal identification with him. And they didn't want to lead that behind. But I do want to say something about the museum. One of the interesting points that's happened here is that during the president's first term, I believe it was in the first term, he visited the museum. And he was very complimentary of it. Yeah.

I mean, he thought it, you know, it was an uplifting story. And then it changed after, I don't know, what is the Heritage Foundation or the new, the new, the project that they put in place had to sort of alter the way they thought about these kinds of things and all of a sudden it becomes this cherry-picking that you're talking about. What could be more inspirational than that museum? It's just odd to think that people didn't see that as a story of the bad and the good talking about, it's sort of a progressive understanding of things are getting better and better

as you go up the floors. And so it's exactly something that was. was made to in lots of ways to honor America, not to be critical of it. Oh, yeah. Not at all. Is the reason it was the hottest ticket in Washington. Right. Absolutely.

Because people do really want to know. My experience is people really want to know the truth and can handle it. And that was right at the beginning of his first term. I think that was like February 17 or something. But they hadn't really been fighting the culture wars to win yet. I mean, to really win. now they are but why do they think why would you think that a more nuanced version of the history of this country is something to win or that that's part of a culture war is the idea that

if we acknowledge the complexity of it we owe a debt to those who suffered is it is it about if if you do acknowledge that there was explicit racist racist or exclusionary policy that built so much of the equity of this country, if you acknowledge that, are you then saying, and now there is a debt to that acknowledgement? Absolutely. The thing is to say that black people, it's usually black and white. It's much more complicated now in lots of ways with other minority groups. The idea is nothing happened to you. The disparities that we see in health care and education and wealth, all of those things, it's because you have not pulled yourself up by your bootstraps.

Nothing has happened to you. And if you tell a story, if you tell young people, wait a minute, you know, when Annette Gordon was a little girl at 6th, when she went to the doctor, she had to go to a separate waiting room that was much smaller and didn't have, you know, the accrued also the other side of the white one or if you had to sit in the balcony. If you talked about all those things and that they happened to, you know, people, millions of people over the years, then you do owe them a debt. You do feel sympathy for them. And the lack of this notion that you shouldn't have empathy for people or sympathy for people is a big part of their thinking because they really don't like the idea of social programs of any kind of responsibility that people have to try to alleviate those circumstances. So it's a way of saying, you know, we don't, you know, we don't have any responsibility. The society has no responsibility for the legal impediments that we're.

were put upon people for many, many decades. You guys are familiar with the internet. You've been on the internet. You probably have a computer. You probably have a, it's probably on your phone and those kind of things. You probably think, oh, look at me, looking shit up, looking things up. I like to look things up. I like information.

I like surf in the web. But I don't know if you realize this. Somebody, somebody out there is checking you out. It's gotten to the point you don't even think about it until all of a sudden you have that moment of, is this tracking everything? that and everywhere that I am going and doing. And it's just a wonderful moment of paranoia that we all feel. And then we think to ourselves, well, oh, I'm just helpless.

I'm helpless because I want to buy crocs. I would certainly not want that information to be out there, but I have to do it. And I'm going to do it on Amazon and all. But you're not helpless. Here's why you're not helpless. Our sponsor. our sponsor, Incogni, they're the game that makes you not be helpless to all this.

Here's the thing. When you're on the Internet, man, you are a mark. They're data brokers, companies that find the information that you've put on there or that they're tracking, whatever, and they sell it to other companies or scammers. Incogni can save the day. They can remove your info from these data brokers who aggregate it and they sell your information.

information. You can buy your crocs in peace. And look, you and I both know they are not. It's not an attractive shoe. They're not a sponsor of this program. So I can tell you this. They're, to be honest with you, they're not even that comfortable. Incogni removes your info from the data brokers. The less data brokers have on you, the harder it is for scammers to get you. Go to incogni.com slash Stewart. Use code Stewart for 60% off. Incogny helps wipe yourself from the internet. They can't harm you if they can't find you. Click the link in the description to claim you 60% off and get your personal data off the market incogny.com slash steward.

What's so interesting about that to me is so I think about it, and maybe this is far afield, but I think about globalization and what it has done to the sort of the center of the country in the manufacturing base. And, you know, working class whites, I would say, are the primary victims of that kind of job loss, right? It's very common in this country to say the policies that were instituted destroyed that the economic prospects

for those folks in that part of the country. It led them to deaths of despair. It brought out a lot of different vices and those kinds of things. and we're going to take policy measures to repair that damage. We're going to levy tariffs. We're going to do various things to try and alleviate the suffering that occurred from the policies that were put in place. Isn't that the exact story of racially exclusionary policies? Why is that in any way a controversial issue?

issue. Well, okay, good question. I mean, I grew up. I'm taking this class. I'm doing this. Well, you get an A already. All right. Done. But, you know, I grew up in an autotown, Flint, Michigan. I grew up in an automaker family. That white working class Midwest, that's where I'm from. So there's no question. Democrats lost that white working class, and Republicans gained major portions of it because of globalization, because of loss of jobs, because of sending jobs abroad and on and on and on, no question. But what's also happened in that process is they have taught that white working and a whole lot of other people to distrust institutions like universities, distrust institutions like great museums, distrust this whole apparatus that Annette and I are just

two small parts of the practice of history, the practice of academic, the creation of academic knowledge. And we got surprised by that. And this is where the left has to take at least a look in the mirror and realize that for years we were being distrusted and didn't really even know it. And we forgot that only about 47% of Americans ever even go to college, any kind of college. And the slight majority of this country never sets foot on a college campus, even for a football game because they can't afford it. So, you know, we lost touch in some ways. We made our creation of knowledge obscure in many ways, although many of us for years and years, and Annette was the spearhead of this because of the Sally Hemming's case. And that took time to convince Monticello and the country of its true.

truth. Right. But there's a resentment there because of its truth. Well, that's true, too. There's a resentment towards Annette or towards you for even bringing up that truth. Telling us the painful stories. That's right. Don't tell us those painful stories. Make us feel good again. And it makes me feel like it's a battle over who the real victims are. And now the white working class is saying, no, no, no, no, it's not the woke that are the victim. It's us. Yeah. We're actually the victims. Yeah, yeah. Well, there's the racial story that's involved in this as well. I mean, the white working class, you know, beloved of news organizations, so forth, the diner stories and so forth. Sure. They represent, they're seen as representing real Americans in some ways. And this is sort of a way of saying that black people are kind of not real Americans.

Well, explicitly so. Even the heritage Americans. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And the truth is, most African-American people are descended from people. people who came here in the 1700s, in the early 1700s. You know, so we would certainly be people who have a history here for very, very, you know, for centuries. And yet we're not real American. So when you think about when people are told that the government, and that's the other thing that they, if not only mistrusting universities, the government is the problem.

So we're an industrialized country that doesn't have a social welfare system anywhere like that it approaches anyplace else. in Europe, in our sort of people who have comparable types of societies. And so, and that as social scientists suggest, is because of the racial question here, is that people don't want those people, those people's children or those people to have, you know, to be helped in any way. And so it's very much a sort of a heritage Christian nationalist kind of understanding of who belongs in this country. But at the core of it, is it resource guarding because I think you see in summer, I mean, I'd say that only because I have dogs.

I'm going to say because you have a dog. I have a dog. So I'm always thinking cognitively like, oh, they resource guard. And in some ways, is that the resentment of, you know, you hear that a lot. If we weren't spending money on these immigrants and the health care, my life wouldn't be hard. But we're certainly not the only country with a complicated history. Oh, not at all.

Not at all. Talk to the Russians and the Germans. Right. Yeah. Well, but, you know, we do have something a little peculiar on them, and that is, you know, talk to common Russians about progress. They might ask you what the hell that is, you know. Talk to whatever generation of Germans about progress. But Americans have this, I don't know if it's DNA in the water, in the air, wherever it all comes from.

there's this it's it's an american mythology it's deep in american mythology for exceptionalism yeah this place has to be about progress and these messy complicated conflicted difficult histories are are disrupting that progress are showing us that oh my god well look our job has been for years and we and actually we're paying the price for some of our victories. I mean, I think so, and I wonder if a net doesn't... You're talking about victory progress in terms of civil rights and those kinds of things. It's breeding resentment in other groups. Yes, but even writing the new histories. I mean, both of us here came of age with the transformations

of the subject of American history. Race was the big subject for both of us, but many others. You know, the rewriting of the history of American foreign policy, the rewriting of the American West because of the explosion of scholarship on Native American history. And sometimes, you know, maybe we did go overboard. Maybe we did stop studying the presidency. When you say overboard, do you mean in terms of painting it as a story of pure negative impulse or a colonizer versus victim in that way? Well, to some extent that. And if I hear one more student in a seminar uses the term settler colonialism for just everything they want, I will stop them because there are other ways into American history. Right. But I think it's more than just, you know, shame or whatever.

No, that's not, I'm talking about just the explosion of the new histories. I mean, there's so many new histories. We are so pluralistic. Annette, do you see that as well? Do you see a kind of excess in in the scholarship because it it feels like it's never excess if it's just if people are just exploring those histories as long as there are other options to be studied you know if a college only offered you a narrow slice of very specific colonialist victim histories but it it sounds like we're expanding the palette yeah I would you know I would you know depart from David, a little bit on this because I think it's basically comes down to the sort of cherry picking that we're talking about before, that people come and they go to a university and they

find some class that they think is crazy and say, this is what people are being taught. Right. Judges by its title, usually. By title, and people would say, you can't take Shakespeare anymore. There are no classics. And, you know, I went to Dartmouth. And people would make these complaints about, you know, what's not there on the curriculum. But they're all that you're. traditional things were there. It's just that they weren't focusing yet on that. So I think, I think it's more people being upset because they don't want other people. They don't want those kinds of things available at all, even though what they want is still there. That's the

point. They don't want it available at all. It's a food court. And just because you've introduced Panda Express and empanadas doesn't mean you can't still go to McDonald's. Exactly. It's all still there. But it's the expansion of it is frightening. Yes. I mean, when people come to something that you, you're not used to this, you're used to the very things that you always went to, and now you have all these alternatives. And, you know, it's Starbucks, you know, I, you know, I want my coffee, but I'm resentful that other people are getting the no-whip, fappuccino, whatever. But you can have those things if you want them. You can tell it's around lunchtime for all of us. Right, right, right. Exactly. And all the analogies now are going to be.

All the food. food related, but it's all taken as an attack. What are the ways, you know, so let's think about, you know, there are countries, obviously, with even more complicated. South Africa is a great example. And now there's this real renaissance and nostalgia for apartheid South Africa, Rhodesia and those kinds of areas. You see it on social media and all these other things. Why is there a nostalgia for that? And did South Africa's truth and reconcerns, Commission's help bridge a gap to ease that? What's going on in these other complicated histories?

Well, there have been many, many different attempts at truth and reconciliation, truth commissions of various kinds. In fact, we did a conference comparing all those at Yale some years ago. There are many different efforts, and they're very difficult to do, and they're all rooted in their own cultures and their own histories. But thank God that the world is at least attempted to do this. in many different, from India to Germany to South America, South Africa, you name it. Nostalgia for past, it's a human urge.

You know, nostalgia for the British Empire when, you know, for some, not just Brits. They're Americans who are Anglophiles and may yearn for, I don't know, some time in the history of the British Empire. They better not look at some of those wars the British fought in Africa or even. India. Sure. It's going to get ugly. Or amongst themselves. Or amongst themselves.

I think sometimes there's this feeling that if it was just homogenous, there wouldn't be issues. But human beings will always find a way to divide ourselves. Oh, yeah. And if you can go back to, well, if it was just this anglicized version of Christian nationalism, and you're like, right, but whose version of it? And suddenly you're back in the Protestant Catholic Wars. You're back into the 100 Years Wars.

You know, you're back into a whole other era of violence and division, just based on different characteristics. Sure. I was teaching in Germany 30-some years ago, and I showed Ken Burns' film series on the Civil War. All dubbed into German, by the way. It was weird. Anyway, a German student came up to me and said, why isn't you Americans think that anything that happened to you was the greatest, the biggest, the bloodiest? And he said, if Americans ever heard, of the 30 years war, and I said, no, probably not. I'm sorry, but they probably haven't. It's a big country. You know, we don't do comparison that often. But we should do more. But, you know, the burden is still on us. It's still on us historians to make what we do clear, to translate what

we do. And I think, well, you've got two historians here have been attempting to do this for years and years and years, to reach out to real people who read books, you know, the public, to write in ways that are not only accessible, but good narrative, based on deep research, but good narrative. And historians lost touch with some of that over the years, the revolution in social history, the revolution in this kind of method, that kind of theory. But there's a real movement now. I think it's an interesting, in fact, this conference I'm running. here right now is all about this, to take history to the public, take good history to the public, whether it's in museum exhibitions, in our books, in lectures, tell the big complicated stories.

I like to eat things in bowls. Bowls, bowls, all types of bowls. Do you ever see that Leslie Jones rap from S&L? Bowls, bowls, bowls. It was about that, I think it was the song. 80 Brian. I'm a back home ball or something like that. I hope this is not a digression. I think bowls are probably the best receptacle by which man has created to eat things out of. Good enough for my dog, it's good enough for me.

And my favorite thing to put in bowls, I'm not telling you anything you don't already know. Serial. I love a nice cereal. And I'm telling you something. I used to eat it. all the sugary stuff and always felt like, you know, I felt like Superman for like seven minutes and then a crash that makes you question why God ever put you on this earth.

My point is that Magic Spoon makes healthy cereal. You can still eat it out of a bowl, but you won't get that crazy up and down. 13 grams of protein. No sugar. Zero. Five grams of net carbs per serving. comes in great flavors, fruity, frosted cocoa, cinnamon crunch. Come on.

What's better than a bowl? What's better than cereal? What's better than Magic Spoon? Nothing. Look for Magic Spoon on Amazon or at your nearest grocery store. And there are plant-based versions of the cereal, too. Even vegans get to feel like they had a childhood. You'll find vegan options at Whole Foods.

Or get $5 off your next order at MagicSpoon.com slash TWS. That's Magic Spoon. dot com slash tw s for five dollars off you know june t's coming june 19th and people may not know but you you played a crucial role in i'm embarrassed to even say when i was younger going to school i had no idea of that the significance of that date this you know we are taught the emancipation proclamation and that's kind of the end of it there's an emancipation proclamation and uh after that we were good and then there was a little all kerfuffle and maybe the 60s.

Somebody here wrote a book on that. That's what I'm saying. So, you know, Annette, that's coming up. Is that, what was your process like in bringing that story more to the public forefront and getting the acknowledgement of it from a government that's resistant to that kind of acknowledgement? Well, it was a pandemic book. Oh, that's the idea.

If you don't leave the house, yeah. If you don't leave the house. All right. You get a lot of writing done. Fair enough. I was there in Manhattan and only going out to Central Park for breaks and so forth. But, you know, I thought that I could tell the story of Texas and this day through my family's story. So, and that's, I think that is David's point about making things accessible.

People like stories about other people, you know. And that was the hook to try to do it. I hadn't thought that the government, I hadn't thought that there would be. a national holiday. There was another woman who's responsible, Opal Lee, who's more responsible for all of that. But the timing was good. And, you know, I worked on it and got it out. And it was a way to try to get people to think about not just the Emancipation Proclamation, but also to think about how African Americans in Texas and other places, in some ways liberated themselves by leaving the plantations and were responsible for, in some ways, for their own freedom. I thought it would be, this was sort of a celebration of human rights that people in the country could just say, this is just a milestone.

It's not the end of everything. It didn't end slavery. It didn't end the whole thing. The slavery ends with the fight. But it's a marker for people to latch on to. Can I ask what the response is, because I'm curious sometimes, the standard historian framing, and you brought up Ken Burns, is you're studying this other period and you're looking for all the source material and you're sorting out who might have been lionizing themselves, self-aggrandizement, who is, how are they manipulating the details of the events versus your story about, through the lens of your family in Texas, where it's a much more personal story. I would imagine harder to refute through the lens of intentional attacks.

Yeah. Well, I think it's difficult because I don't write about myself. It's much easier to write about other people and other people's families because, you know, it's just you're too much into it. But by the same token, these are my impressions of my past. And so people can't, and this is what I think. People can't come and say, that's not how you felt. you know, watching Billy Jack.

That's not how you felt when you saw those movies. By the way, one of my favorites, I think that informed. You know a lot about people which side of the town they were empathizing in Billy Jack. If you know people that watch Billy Jack and you know which side they're empathizing on, it tells you a lot about where their politics are. Oh, those movies, I try to explain it to my kids. They were the best. In my town, my little East Texas, you know, very, very conservative town, all of these people

were just whipping in, you know, in favor of Billy Jack and his compatri or something. Wait a minute. Are you the same folks? Do you understand what this is about? Do you understand what this is about? I'm coming at this very differently. I was a high school teacher when Billy Jack came out. Oh, Billy Jack.

Man, that was hot. I don't know how many times I saw that with students. Yeah. But you tell those kinds of stories and people relate to them. And then you give them history, and then it becomes a part of the whole thing taken together. You hope that they learned something. It's a different way of doing it. I want to ask you what's somewhat confusing about, for me, about this 250th celebration is one of the things that, you know, we were always taught about was this idea of American exceptionalism.

And that American exceptionalism was about the creed. It really was about the declaration of independence. and all men are created equal and that is what's separated. And to go back to blood and soil feels like an admission of defeat. It feels like we're then saying, actually, we're not exceptional. We're not a shining city on a hill. We're just like every other nationalist movement in the history of the world. So why wouldn't the right embrace what truly is exceptional about the country, this creed so difficult to achieve, but certainly worth the pursuit?

Annette, what do you think of that? Well, a lot goes along with that if you believe in the creed. I mean, and there have always been a segment of Americans when, you know, those words were written and when Jefferson said them and we could, we don't have time to go into him on all of this. But there were always people who disputed that notion. And the Civil War in the South explicitly rejected it in, you know, the cornerstone speech. We don't believe those things. Jefferson was wrong, essentially, what they say. So we've always had that some percentage of people.

Tell me what the cornerstone speech is, because I'm not familiar with the cornerstone speech. Alexander, the vice president of the Confederacy wrote a speech basically saying that the cornerstone of the new southern society they were making was the idea that the African race was not. not create it equal to white race. And he calls out Jefferson and says, basically, they were wrong. They believed, you know, essentially necessary evil, but they believed that slavery was a wrong thing. And we don't believe that. We believe that that is the natural state of African Americans. Right. To be in slavery. And yet somehow, somehow in the early 1900s, it became about states' rights, as I might understand it. Yeah. Well, because at some point when racism becomes, they understand it's a dirty word,

in some way, you have to say, no, it's not. And they know they were wrong. Right. People know they're wrong. They come up with some kind of explanation for what it is they're doing. And it is the tariff. You know, you kill 600,000 people about the tariff. Right. It's like, no, I don't think so. So the notion changes. Especially when the cornerstone speech exists when it's on record. Yeah.

On record. And it was just the beginning. I mean, every secession resolution told the world of the states that seceded told the world they were seceding to protect a racial system a labor system and by the way that was a slave labor system but john back to your creedal your creed question i think it's crucial here it's absolutely crucial the creeds were dangerous the creeds are dangerous that declaration of those four first principles life liberty pursuit of happiness and the doctrine of consent and the right of revolution, they're dangerous. And nobody appropriated them quite as vigorously, forcefully, hopefully as did black Americans eventually. And the whole abolition movement. Annette and I were just doing a teacher institute together in Philadelphia

about the Constitution. And she heard me on this. But if a person goes and just reads the declaration today, which we'll be hearing endlessly in the next week or two. Stop and look. Jefferson spent more words, and so did the whole committee that wrote it, defending the right of revolution than they did of the other natural rights, almost as though life and liberty and consent were givens. But that right of revolution, you're going to overthrow a monarch, you're going to overthrow a government, they spent 22 lines of the declaration justifying that as a human right. Those are dangerous creeds, but you're right. We all own the creeds, and why doesn't the right want to embrace the creeds a little more?

Well, they do to their own purposes, but those creeds were dangerous, too. Depends on who gets to use them. They've seen how people have used them, as you were saying here, the first people who file petitions, freedom suits, all of those things are African-American people who said, wait a minute, we've created this country. And that is an exceptional thing. I mean, to go from a monarchy to a republic. Right. In this modern world, that's a big deal. And it damn near didn't work. And it almost didn't work. And it was contingent at every stage. Exactly. It was contingent at every stage. And so when you see the people who have used this, Black people have used it, women used it in Seneca Falls, 1848, gay people have used it.

Labor movement. Labor movement used it, said, the right to strike. All those things come out of this notion of the creed. And so if you don't like those things, if you don't want to see a racial hierarchy leveled, if you don't want equal rights for women, if you don't want labor unions to be able to collectively bargain, if you don't want immigrants. I mean, the creed was used to teach people who came to the country. These are the things, these are the American founding documents.

And if you believe these things and you support this, you are an American. If you don't like those people, those ideas, then you're going to be against it. The creed, as David said, is very, very dangerous because of who, in history shows, who has used those things to make a different place for themselves. Is it the success, then, of the creed? that and the people that have used that as a fulcrum to to elevate themselves to their natural, unalienable rights is the success of that what animates the backlash always. You know, we talk about kind of the idea of, well, let's look at Germany.

So Germany tries to reckon with its past and they create laws that you can't deny the Holocaust and all these other things. And, you know, people view it as this is a successful way. of facing up to a difficult past, but nothing has animated in Germany right now more than the far right. Yeah. I was just in Berlin a week, two weeks ago, John, I'd give a lecture at American Academy, and I spent some time in central Berlin. When do you guys have office hours? All I'm hearing about is June, man. I'm down here doing a speech. I'm over here signing a book. Come on. Yeah, yeah. Well, it's June, man. When do they come in for the office hour? It's June.

All right. I'll accept it. June is every academic's favorite month. In fact, I've always wondered why if God had all that power, why didn't you create two Junes? I want two Junes. Anyway, but Germany has, in central Berlin, in three, at least great museums, and of course the huge Holocaust Memorial, has faced its past, time, has faced its past nationally. more than any other country. And they had the most difficult path to face.

But that's because the world made them do it. The world was looking in on the Cold War made them do it, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et no one came from outside to force Americans to face their past. We have to do it through our politics. We have to do it through history, which makes it a political fight, as well as a scholarly fight and a history fight and a teaching. fight. And what we're in now is a whole new level of that. I mean, but there's never been an executive branch presidency take on the entire practice of history, museums to universities,

etc., like what has happened. Certainly not in this country. I mean, it's been done. And not in this country. Oh, yeah, it's been done in other autocracies. Yeah, that's right. And that's exactly what's been done in the past year. And we are, we are catching up. We are trying to figure out with our own resources how to fight back. And we are fighting back. Are you heartened in any way? Annette, are you heartened in any way by sort of the small acts of defiance of that? Well, any act of defiance is heartening to see people doing things to stand up against it. Because as we've been saying, I mean, American people, most American people don't want a whitewashed history. And there are people who are standing up to say, you know, local school boards

against book banning and so forth. It's pulling people out who don't. normally participate in these kinds of things. And that's what it's going to take. It's going to have to take people saying we don't want to live in Hungary. Hungary didn't want to live in Hungary. Right. And, you know, after a while. And this is, our great thing was you were able to think and to say what you, you know, say what you think about things. I've said on many, you know, advisory committees and so forth recently in meetings at museums and places, and people are scared to say stuff or wondering about, can we say this? Oh, yeah. And frightened to put their funding at risk. I mean, it's a funding issue as well. Yeah, I'm never, you never in all years have, you know,

I heard people act like that. It's used to, when we grew up. Oh, there's self-censoring going on everywhere. It's like, it's censoring from the top in places like the National Park Service, where I'm located right now and other federal agencies. But here's one good sign. But here's one good sign. and I think Annette knows about this. On September 26, John, there's going to be a day or a weekend. And there's a whole coalition of organizations, the major history associations, the association of local history, all kinds of historical associations, museums, and so on, have come together, and a lot of them are at this little conference I'm hosting.

It's going to be a day they're calling, we want more history. We want more history. and it's going to be a challenge. It's not the snappiest type of. No, it's not. I wasn't on a committee that created it. We want more history. I would take the word want out of it.

Americans always want, want, want, want, want, you know. But it's going to be a day when every little, every small museum, every historical society is going to be challenged. What are you going to do today to fight back against this attempt to control how we get to know our history? I think in the long, I mean, there's a lot of. damage being done. And I am not terribly hopeful about this, but it's very hard to take over a country's history, teaching of it, writing of it, representing it, when it's been pretty free for a long time. They're not going to win this one in the long run. They're going to do a lot of damage along the way. But I don't think they win this in the long run.

And it's a political question. The question is, what do citizens do. Absolutely. I mean, historians, we can do things, but as we do things as historians as citizens, but other people, this is about voting. It's about who's in power. And the American people have to take control of that. Well, it's so interesting you bring that up in that because it is when you look at the battle plan to take control of that, there's the historical aspect. But there really is almost more importantly, the voting aspect than when you see them rip out the pillars of of the Voting Rights Act, or to suggest, and I'm really not sure how this is,

that it's okay to gerrymander for ideological and partisan gain, but not. And if those are synonymous with race, too bad. And if districts that are, you know, majority, minority lose their ability, not to have minority representation, but to have their voice matter within their cohort. That's the interesting thing that they're not just attacking

in one area, there are tentacles. Oh, yeah. This is a full force, widespread, well-coordinated. Does Roberts admit to that, David? You know, when you were having your debate with him, I'm curious how he would frame the difference between Creed and blood in soil as historian. Or does he brush over it because the project,

it takes, you know, precedence over everything. No, no, he wants to speak about creeds. He is a Christian nationalist. He's a Catholic Christian nationalist, and those labels matter to him. He used to run a small private Catholic school, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. How does he square that with the American creed? Good question. I tried to get him to respond about separation of church and state, and he changed the subject.

So, you know, that's what they do. But you see, the far right wants the creeds, and they tend to talk about them by talking about how much we, the left, liberals, scholars, have soiled those creeds, have misused those creeds, have twisted those creeds, have called the abuses of those creeds a shame on the country, and on and on and on. They go on the attack immediately, rather than to just step back and calmly say, you know, we're all part. of those creeds, all of us. And if we didn't have that separation of church and state, we may have blown apart by now. Right. And we may again. They're very selective.

And is there any acknowledgement that any project of this kind of exceptionalism is going to, if it wasn't a battle, it wouldn't be so exceptional. Exactly. If the attempt to create what's happening wasn't hard, well, everyone would do it. Look at every major religion in the world that founds itself on creeds. It ends up fighting. Right. It ends up having schism after schism, breakups, Protestant Reformation, and on and on, and on.

It's the same if a creedal nation has set itself up to violate the creeds. Because, you know, we don't obey all the Ten Commandments either. But you have to have the aspiration. Yes. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yes. And that's America as an aspirational country.

Without that were nowhere. Yes. Without that was nowhere. I mean, how can African American people, how can any group of people who have been discriminated against in this country that has the history that we have without thinking about the notion of aspirations? And even, you know, not even people who've been oppressed necessarily. You have to aspire to something. Exceptionalism is problematic. I have no question about that.

But the idea that you don't see what an enormously important project it was for the fact. of a country based on Republican, Democratic Republicanism versus a monarchy. Right. And to include words that people have used over the years to make a place for themselves in it. That is, it's an exceptional thing. And it's something you should be proud of and we should be trumpeting. Don't you think, Annette, this is one of the reasons some, I hate to racialize anything, but sometimes people, white people, are surprised when they encounter black patriotism.

When they encounter, you know, black folks wanting to take back the flag. take back the declaration. Oh, absolutely. You know, because they say, well, wait a minute, why would you do that? Because it belongs to us. We've been here forever, right? And I mean, in some periods of times, it was frowned upon for African Americans to celebrate the Fourth of July from whites because they thought that this was, it was provocative. You're claiming these rights of themselves. Well, Douglas himself made that famous speech about, you know, what is the Fourth of July? Rhetorical masterpiece, right speech, oh boy. But it really is, you know, it reminds us that aspiration is the fuel of progress.

It's the catalyst that drives it forward and it's always been present. And the thing that I think, and maybe this is a nice place to kind of wrap it through is, what happens to a country when it begins to take its exceptionalism as birthright and not as a project worthy of constant iterative, and edit and aspiration. Decadence. Yes. Degeneracy.

Yes. And, you know, maybe they would become a Roman Empire that may begin to collapse with gladiators. I mean, I'm just saying, you know. Well, that would never happen here, sir. The idea that on the lawn of the people's house, half-naked men would grapple seems absurd. No, you know, John, I'm sure you know this. But in all those centers out there that are studying democracy, there are all kinds of these, and they do indexes. The United States is now in that middle zone of democracies that are falling back into autocracy by any measure.

Yeah. Any measure. Softly and otherwise. Yeah. No, you're absolutely right. And it's happened so quickly in a very surprising rapidity. Well, it's happened over a long period, but it's hitting us quickly. There's no question.

Right. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. One of the great bulwarks against that slide is the work of fabulous historians. And I thank you both just for the incredible work you both do and the fact that you help build that wall that is protective against those kinds of things. David Blight Sterling, Professor of History at Yale University, Annette Gordon-Reed, the Carl Loeb University professor at Harvard University. Guys, thank you so much for joining us today. Really appreciate it.

Thank you, John. Thank you for having us. That's great. Thanks. Folks, we've all got great ideas rattling around our heads about businesses. But if you got a business idea and you want to make some dollars, there is a company that can help you make that pipe dream a reality. And that Shopify, all the dumb ideas that I have rattling around in my head,

I can use Shopify to make a reality. It's the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world. It's actually 10% of all e-commerce in the United States. Shopify is the commerce platform behind that. So you can't go wrong. And it's easier to get on than Shark Tank. What are you doing? You're waiting for Shark Tank, aren't you?

I know what you're doing. You're sitting at home and you're thinking, I'll tell that Kevin O'Leary off. I'll tell him what I really think of him, Mr. Wonderful, Mr. Not So Wonderful, give him a nice solid knuckle sandwich when he tells me my thing's a loser. No, don't even worry about that.

Shopify is the thing that will help you elevate your business. this idea and make it a success. You don't need him. Stupid Kevin O'Leary. Why is he always on television and movies? I don't want him. Around. Don't like him.

Sorry, that was aggression, but the important thing is this. Shopify, you don't even need that dude. Takes care of all of it. Helps you become a success. It's time to turn those what-ifs into with Shopify today. Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at Shopify.com slash TWS.

Go to Shopify.com slash TWS. I could talk to historians all day. I can tell. Like, I think to the point where like, I think they're like, dude, I, office hours are over. But you keep getting A's in all these classes. Whenever we have a professor on, they're like, you get an A. You get an A. And yet, stunningly, when I was in college,

I didn't get any of those. A plus? No, none of it. I don't know what the hell happened where suddenly I was like, oh, knowledge. I think that's fair. I feel like college is kind of wasted on young people who don't have the same impression of like, oh, my God, I get to just learn from these people. That's insane. It is interesting that the view on the right is that, you know, these colleges are indoctrination centers of this left-wing, you know, bias and all that.

But my experience with college students, because I have two of them, is that overwhelmingly, the ethos at college is not indoctrination, but how am I going to get a job? Yeah. How am I going to meet a partner? How am I going to get drunk? Like, overwhelmingly, college is not these hotbeds of indoctrination. Yeah, it's almost like they're being disingenuous when they say that. Well, Jillian, I didn't want to say it in that way. They're like, look at these college students with all their ideology.

I'm like, I would love for you to turn that mirror on yourself, bro. Turn it on yourself, bro, because really, they're just looking to score some gummies. It's not that hard. It's not that serious. And they're all like everywhere you look. And I'm like, I've met some of these STEM students. Dude, they wouldn't, they're literally just like, I can't believe they gave me 20 pages of problems.

What the fuck is happening to my life? Yeah, they're just like cold brew all night in the library trying to make it through. Wait a minute. I just noticed, Brittany. Yes. You're rocking the Stevie Nix. What? What happened there?

Taylor Swift went to the thing and they all designed their own shirts and they've exploded. Exploded everywhere. Knicks puns. It's all Nix puns. I know. It's so fun. I saw the New York Philharmonic has a shirt out. That's Philharmonic.

Really? Yeah. That's funny. I imagine Nick it. night should be jumping on this. That's a good one. Nickelodeon. Oh my God, they got to rebrand that for next year.

Nick's at night. Let's go. Just to be clear, I did not make this myself like she did. Now, do they have they, are they already selling those? Absolutely. Yes. Like multiple places are just. Yeah.

I did overnight this, but yes. Why is it that I can never catch that lightning in a bottle? You know, she effortless. Taylor Swift is effort. She just thinks, oh, you know, I'll have a fun little thing with my friends, Hime, and we'll put some shorts on. And the next thing you know, it's probably a multi-million dollar business. And I'm still literally in the living room with my wife going.

I'm telling you the crumple, if you make a dog bed for dogs, you throw it down, it changes the topography every time. We call it the crumple. Sharks, I'm offering you 10%. It's going to happen. Who wants to get on the floor with me and make some money? It's effortless for her. It's crazy. It's ridiculous. It is effortless.

Did you guys watch the, how did you experience the festivities of the New York Knickerbockers? I just watched at home and then actually like. Did the streets explode outside your apartment? Yes. So that's what I did. I like when I was getting a little optimistic near the end. So I actually put my TV on mute and I opened up the windows so I could just hear the reaction. You felt that.

That's what I wanted to do is feel the city. Yeah. And then after, after it ends. I went out on the street and I took my dog on a walk and we got to see everybody celebrating and stuff. That's great. That's so awesome. How did your dog handle? I was going to say, I was like, that sounds like a great story except.

He's like, we're walking towards the loud noises. Right, right. I don't know why we're doing that. Oh, look, Roman Candles, my favorite. Yeah. Brittany, did you, did you pop outside as well? I stayed awake this time. Nice.

And we did. I ran outside when there was like five. minutes left. There's like a pizza place near me that had like screen set up and it was wild. But the best part was, the TV was on delay. So we kept just refreshing our phone to see. And so we saw that they had won. And we were like, they won. And then like fireworks. It was so cool. Just a wonderful night. Yeah. You know, Smigel was the one who, I was saying, you know, where are you going to watch? You're thinking about maybe Madison Square Garden or something like that in the house. He goes, I got to tell you, I want to. I want to. I was. You know, I was going to be. I was. I was going to tell you. I want to. I was. I was. I was. I was. I was. I was. I was. I was. I was want to feel the city. Yeah. And it sounded so like, and I was like, yes, feel the city. That's what we want. And so that's what we did.

We went down there. You were in the streets. Well, they showed you on the broadcast. Yeah, that wasn't cool. That was, yeah, that was bad. I was like, stand out there. I just looked up and a second. It was like, hey, oh, I don't know.

You were the Spider-Man meme. Right, right. I don't know what's happening right now. Hey, feel the city would be a good T-shirt, John. Feel the city. I like that. Yeah. Get on it.

You know what else? What if the field of city shirt doubled as a crumple and you can make it and you throw it on the floor? Brittany, what do the people want to know this week? All right. First up, John, after 250 years, is it fitting or disturbing that Trump is president? Oh, God. It's fitting or did? Wait, what?

Fitting. It's not fitting. This is, it's true. Trump, as president, is not befitting of a country. We just talked about this grand experiment. of exceptionalism, of a creed that a people must strive morally and aspirational to get to. And now we're just a subsidiary of Trump enterprises. It's he can't be the guy at the 250.

It's such the wrong. You know what it reminds me of? We're like a long running show, like a Broadway show. Yeah. We're like it's 250 years of cats. But now instead of like the big stars that were there, now is. just like, from Summerhouse, that's where we're at. We're at the replacement level reality TV star taking over a hallowed institution.

And the audience is on their phones. And the audience is on their phones going like, I remember when I saw this with Matthew Broderick, it was great. It was great. And now this guy doesn't even know how to say. Ticket sales, done the toilet. Yeah, no, done. Okay. Next.

Next. John, are you going to replace the Knicks picture above your door with a picture of the 26 team? I would, you know what? I would love a companion to that. You have the space looking on it now. Yeah. I love that picture so much because that is, it's when I fell in love with that team. You know, Willis Reed and the magical coming out after, you know, hurting his life.

leg and hitting two quick jumpers, you know, to lead, you know, the Knicks to, I mean, he went out of the game after that, but he sort of inspired the team. And Bradley and DeBuscher were just these unbelievable, they were the great like corner, you know, Bradley from the corner just popping them. And Walt Frazier was a magician and Dickie Barnett. And just those were the teams that I fell in love with them. Then they ended up adding Earl the Pearl and winning again in 73. But that team just represents like I just love the city so much and I love that and that team just felt so representative because it wasn't also like back then it was will chamberlain and like you know the celtics dynasties and all that shit and uh my first ever game at the garden was a double

overtime playoff game nick celtics my brother and i went so cool yeah yeah and and nicks were getting the doors blown up it's funny it's a very similar kind of game they're getting the doors blown off in the first half and then fraser just came alive and they tied the game went into overtime double overtime these were the jojo white celtics dave callans and all those guys and uh havelcheck i think who wasn't playing but yeah just it just the best and and in the heart of the city you know just it's just such a special there's none of the like madel medallans bullshit there's none of the like where oh they're the new y'y York Knicks, but they play in a swamp somewhere near exit 16W. It was in the city. You could take

the subway there. You could walk outside and feel this. It's that thing. Smigel was saying, felt the city. Whenever you went to the garden, you felt the city. Just fantastic. Were you courtside for that game as well? Oh, yeah. No, they put me right. I was, I was right next to the stars of the day. Yeah, I'm not even sure. I mean, I think I might have gotten altitude sickness at that game. The rafters are real. Like, I don't know. Raffters are real, baby. up there, yeah. Yeah, but they are, as they say about the rafters, they are real and they are spectacular. Yes.

All right, we got to get you a picture to go up there. Yeah, yeah. What else we got? Final question in the trilogy of Taco Bell questions. Oh, God. The people want to know. They really do. Chipotle or Taco Bell?

Oh, please. How is this even a question? Chipotle. Hey, well, you want me to just scoop it out of a bucket for you? Hey, hey, come on in here. What do you want? A bucket of chicken or you want a bucket of beef? Or maybe I could give you a bucket of black bean mush that we decided to add whatever

fucking ridiculous ghost pepper spice they put in there. Like, it's brutal. Yeah. I don't like to eat out of buckets. I like to see some work. I like some origami. I want to see, I want to know that a craftsman that. that an artist now to be fair they probably do use buckets i just don't see that part the real mistake

of tripotle is putting the buckets you see it you're walking right down the street with them you're like you want to add to this bucket or you want to edit this bucket let me get my ice cream scoop and you're watching them also do the like portion training yeah where they're like give me to half scoop and the thing let me get them the thing of rice and then like you know there's there's a lot of manipulation that goes on. I like to, I don't want to see the work. I want to see once the piece of paper becomes a swan. That's all I want. I want to see the swan. I don't want to see the folding. I definitely don't want to see the folding. Yeah. Fantastic. How they get in touch with us, Brittany? Twitter, we are weekly show pod. Instagram threads, TikTok, Blue Sky. We are weekly show

podcast. And you can like, subscribe and comment on our YouTube channel, the weekly show with John Stewart. Boom. Do it. Thanks again. As always, producer Brittany Mehmedevic, producer, Jillian Spear, video editor and engineer Rob Vitola, how does work cut out for him today. Audio editor and engineer Nicole Boyce, had her work cut out for it today. And our executive producer is Chris McShane and Katie Gray. Thanks so much, and we'll see you next week.

The weekly show with John Stewart is a Comedy Central podcast. It's produced by Paramount Audio and Bus Boy Productions. BetMGM, an official sports betting partner of the National Hockey League, has everything you need for 2026 Stanley Cup playoff action. Hockey fans in Canada can place live bets every game during the quest for the cup. Create same game parlayes, take player props,

and place futures on the 2026 Stanley Cup champion. Check out BetMGM original bets. Hockey markets you can't find anywhere else. And it's not just about what you can do on game day. The BetMGM app has improved its first line this season to include instant withdrawals. Download the BetMGM app and enjoy the NHL Stanley Cup playoffs like never before.

Betmgmgm.com for terms and conditions. 19 plus to wager. Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have any questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connects Ontario at 1866-531-260 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. BetMGM, an official sports betting partner of the National Hockey League, has everything you need for 2026 Stanley Cup playoff action. Hockey fans in Canada can place live bets every game during the quest for the Cup. Create same game parlays, take player props, and place futures on the 2026 Stanley Cup champion.

Check out BetMGM original bets. Hockey markets you can't find anywhere else. And it's not just about what you can do on game day. The BetMGM app has improved its first line this season to include instant withdrawals. Download the BetMGM app and enjoy the NHL Stanley Cup playoffs like never before. Betmgm.com for terms and conditions. 19 plus to wager. Ontario only.

Please play responsibly. If you have any questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connects Ontario at 1866-531-260 to speak to an advisor, free of charge. BetMGEM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. Found Podcasts.