hello, new york. thank you for joining us live at town hall in new york city for this very, very special edition of why is this happening. he is incisive, he is big hearted, he is very, very, very smart. and admitted, he s taller than you expected. please give a warm welcome to my friend, my beloved colleague, msnbc s chris hayes. thank you. hey. oh, stop. stop it. how are you? good. thank you. thank you, thank you, thank you. thank you. sit down, sit down. thank you. that s extremely kind. i hate attention and positive feedback. that was a really hard 20 seconds for me. thank you for cutting it short. it s amazing to be here in my hometown of new york city. i got some family here. so tonight, we re going to talk about democracy. and that word, we probably talk more about democracy in the last four, five years than i had in all of my time before that. like, even that as a topic seems weird. we all know, america is a democracy. there s a certain kind of history you re taught
that is tonight s hello, new york. thank you for joining us at townhall for this very special edition of why is this happening. he is talk, he is smart, please give a warm welcome to my colleague, msnbc s chris hayes. thank you. hey, oh, stop. how are you? good. thank you. thank you. sit down, sit down. thank you. that is extremely kind. i hate attention and positive feedback. that was a really hard 20 seconds for me, so thank you. it is amazing to be here in my hometown of new york city. i ve got some family here. so, tonight we are going to talk about democracy, and that word, we have probably talk more about democracy in the last four or five years that and all of my time as a journalist before that. even that as a topic seems a little weird. america is the democracy and there is a certain kind of history your talk that is a certain part of american civic culture, deeply, almost kind of civic religion which roughly goes to the following. the founders rebelled against t
done, but it s very hard to get americans into this idea of a second war in europe in just several decades later, and then pearl harbor happens, and we re in, and we defeat fascism. right? [laughter] go, yes! that s basically the story. and that story also masks exactly the same thing. that is masked in those other moments, from the country s founding to the trail of tears and jackson to the creative of u.s. empire in the pacific by theodore ruth about. which is can what democracy is and whether it s good. whether what we actually do want is for all of us collectively, as individuals with sovereign rights of ourselves, collectively coming together to transfer that sovereignty into a collectively that decides as a democracy how we will mark our faith.