WEBVTT 00:00.120 --> 00:04.919 Despite this week's successful passage of the Senate's bipartisan infrastructure bill, 00:04.920 --> 00:08.669 Washington, D.C. is still a polarized city. 00:08.670 --> 00:12.989 But its author, George Packer, recently explained to Judy Woodruff the divisions more 00:12.990 --> 00:17.039 broadly in our nation are greater and deeper than we may realize. 00:17.040 --> 00:21.509 Pecker argues the pandemic has exposed rifts in America among regions, 00:21.510 --> 00:26.069 races and classes. That's the focus of his new book, Last Best 00:26.070 --> 00:28.800 Hope America in Crisis and Renewal. 00:30.210 --> 00:33.209 George Packer, welcome back to the News Hour. 00:33.210 --> 00:38.099 The book, as we said, last best hope you start with the premise 00:38.100 --> 00:42.809 that America's government failed all of us last 00:42.810 --> 00:47.729 year on so many levels, but especially by not protecting Americans 00:47.730 --> 00:49.679 from the from the pandemic. 00:49.680 --> 00:51.329 Who is to blame for that? 00:51.330 --> 00:56.279 It starts with President Trump, who from the beginning 00:56.280 --> 01:01.259 seemed more interested in using the pandemic to advance his own political 01:01.260 --> 01:06.260 interests, to divide Americans, to turn us against each other over 01:06.510 --> 01:10.769 things that shouldn't have been debatable, like mask wearing simple things. 01:10.770 --> 01:12.719 I think the bureaucracy failed. 01:12.720 --> 01:17.459 The Centers for Disease Control famously failed at what is supposed 01:17.460 --> 01:21.959 to be able to do, which is coming up with a test that could allow us to trace 01:21.960 --> 01:24.299 and control the pandemic. 01:24.300 --> 01:29.099 But really, the failure goes all the way through our society because the pandemic 01:29.100 --> 01:33.599 showed such deep divisions, both between red and 01:33.600 --> 01:38.189 blue Americans, between regions, between classes and races, 01:38.190 --> 01:42.659 we found that we are now divided into two categories essential and 01:42.660 --> 01:47.399 nonessential workers, which means those who have to go to work 01:47.400 --> 01:51.479 in the middle of a of a plague and may get sick and those who can sit at home in front of 01:51.480 --> 01:55.979 a laptop. And so it became a sort of soldiers 01:55.980 --> 01:57.639 and civilians in wartime. 01:57.640 --> 02:02.189 And you go on George Packer to to argue that every 02:02.190 --> 02:06.689 country needs a narrative, to explain who 02:06.690 --> 02:11.189 it is, to understand what it's as you, I think, say is 02:11.190 --> 02:15.869 its moral identity. And you talk about how the political identities 02:15.870 --> 02:20.369 that used to be there for decades that broke roughly into Republicans, Democrats is 02:20.370 --> 02:25.079 now split into four different disparate groups. 02:25.080 --> 02:29.639 Just in brief, I know I'm asking you to condense the whole book, but 02:29.640 --> 02:31.229 what are those four groups? 02:31.230 --> 02:34.379 Right. So we all know that we are divided at red and blue. 02:34.380 --> 02:38.879 Every election shows us how deep that that division is really into two 02:38.880 --> 02:43.379 countries. But I think red and blue are themselves fractured 02:43.380 --> 02:47.489 and have been more and more over the last, say, 30 or 40 years. 02:47.490 --> 02:51.929 I call them Free America and Smart America, which are 02:51.930 --> 02:56.930 sort of the elite narratives that shaped the Republican and Democratic parties. 02:57.060 --> 03:00.299 Free America is Reaganism. It's the free market. 03:00.300 --> 03:04.739 It's low taxes. And that became Republican orthodoxy 03:04.740 --> 03:07.349 for decades. Still is, in a way, at the top of the party. 03:07.350 --> 03:11.819 Smart America is more Bill Clinton's America, Barack Obama's America, the America, 03:11.820 --> 03:16.289 the professional class of the educated who believe that if you go to 03:16.290 --> 03:21.149 the right schools and get the right degree and work hard, the the modern 03:21.150 --> 03:23.699 world is yours, that globalization will work for you. 03:23.700 --> 03:28.589 You'll be among the winners. Real America, I think, is a rebellion against 03:28.590 --> 03:30.509 free and smart America. 03:30.510 --> 03:33.269 That's a phrase Sarah Palin used in 2008. 03:33.270 --> 03:38.270 And to me, it means the America of the white Christian heartland, 03:38.430 --> 03:42.359 the people who work with their hands in small towns and rural areas, that who Palin was 03:42.360 --> 03:45.089 talking about. And that became Trump's base. 03:45.090 --> 03:49.559 And in a way, real America has displaced free America 03:49.560 --> 03:51.989 as the motor of the Republican Party. 03:51.990 --> 03:55.109 The at the top of the party, you still hear free market ideas. 03:55.110 --> 03:59.789 But the real energy of the party is with nativism, I think, and with 03:59.790 --> 04:03.869 anti-immigration anti free trade feeling, which I associate with free America. 04:03.870 --> 04:06.119 And finally, just America. 04:06.120 --> 04:10.769 On the left is also a rebellion from below, a generational rebellion 04:10.770 --> 04:15.299 by younger people against what they see as the hollow promises 04:15.300 --> 04:19.319 of progress that the meritocracy of their parents gave them. 04:19.320 --> 04:23.969 And instead, it's a dark view of the country as trapped in a caste system 04:23.970 --> 04:26.399 for centuries. That hasn't really changed all that much. 04:26.400 --> 04:28.559 And progress is something of an illusion. 04:28.560 --> 04:33.239 And you write about how each one of these groups in a way fulfills a different aspect 04:33.240 --> 04:37.799 of our needs as a country, but how they also are very much pitted against each other. 04:37.800 --> 04:40.619 How do you see this playing itself out? 04:40.620 --> 04:43.499 And what what do we as a country do about it? 04:43.500 --> 04:46.199 Yeah, I think all four of them in some ways are dead ends. 04:46.200 --> 04:50.669 They create winners and losers and they are as exclusive 04:50.670 --> 04:52.769 as they are inclusive. 04:52.770 --> 04:56.609 My narrative is what I would call equal America. 04:56.610 --> 05:01.610 It goes back to Tocqueville's idea that the the defining 05:01.650 --> 05:06.179 quality of Americans is what he called the passion for equality, the desire 05:06.180 --> 05:08.069 to be as good as everyone else. 05:08.070 --> 05:12.569 And today, inequality has become so pronounced that 05:12.570 --> 05:17.549 I think it's at the heart of a lot of the social conflict we see when equality 05:17.550 --> 05:21.449 is denied, it produces endless conflict in this country. 05:21.450 --> 05:25.979 So I think the fracturing into those four narratives is largely the 05:25.980 --> 05:28.649 result of decades of growing inequality. 05:28.650 --> 05:33.229 So I think there are two. The ways in which we can begin to at least govern 05:33.230 --> 05:38.179 ourselves in a way that we failed last year, one is by creating conditions 05:38.180 --> 05:42.709 of equality for more Americans, and that's largely about economics 05:42.710 --> 05:47.299 and and policy. The other is by reacquiring 05:47.300 --> 05:51.919 the art of self-government, which is a skill that you can lose and that we have lost. 05:51.920 --> 05:56.920 And that is more about our role as citizens with a shared sense of responsibility. 05:57.560 --> 06:02.539 And in the book and in fact, on a note of urging Americans 06:02.540 --> 06:07.459 to find ways to see each other to to connect, 06:07.460 --> 06:12.109 to engage with each other in ways that we don't 06:12.110 --> 06:15.319 see very much of right now, except maybe at the local level. 06:15.320 --> 06:17.719 I think in a way it has to start at the local level. 06:17.720 --> 06:19.939 National politics is so poisoned. 06:19.940 --> 06:24.559 But if Americans are almost required to face one 06:24.560 --> 06:29.179 another as fellow citizens on some level, like through national service or 06:29.180 --> 06:34.159 through civics education, they may discover 06:34.160 --> 06:38.749 that even though they still deeply disagree, they can they can imagine a country 06:38.750 --> 06:40.879 in which the other still has a role. 06:40.880 --> 06:45.319 Right now, it's as if each group sees the others as an existential 06:45.320 --> 06:47.209 threat that has to be eliminated. 06:47.210 --> 06:52.210 And that's a terrible formula for a country that is going to continue 06:52.340 --> 06:54.769 toward a breakdown of our democratic 06:54.770 --> 06:59.479 way of life. And George Packer, having watched American politics or American 06:59.480 --> 07:04.219 life as long as you have, do you think that's a message that can get through? 07:04.220 --> 07:07.849 I have been a little more hopeful this year than in quite a long time. 07:07.850 --> 07:12.349 We have begun to emerge from the pandemic through the 07:12.350 --> 07:17.350 miracle of the vaccine. And we've also avoided 07:17.540 --> 07:22.219 four more years of an authoritarian presidency that instead Joe Biden, 07:22.220 --> 07:26.989 with all of his weaknesses and the strangeness of this accident of history 07:26.990 --> 07:31.609 that puts him in the White House seems to understand that equal America, 07:31.610 --> 07:36.079 treating Americans as all deserving the same chance through policy 07:36.080 --> 07:40.699 and through his rhetoric, he seems to know how to do it, how to speak to us in a way 07:40.700 --> 07:42.589 that doesn't divide us. 07:42.590 --> 07:46.369 There will be people who don't like him. There will be people who think he's not going 07:46.370 --> 07:51.049 fast enough or far enough. But at the moment, I think Biden turns out to be 07:51.050 --> 07:54.679 what the country needs, and I wish him all the best. 07:54.680 --> 07:59.239 George Packer, his latest book, As of Last Best Hope America 07:59.240 --> 08:01.159 in Crisis and Renewal. 08:01.160 --> 08:03.019 George Packer, thank you very much. 08:03.020 --> 08:04.020 My pleasure.