Transcripts For KQED Charlie Rose The Week 20161126

Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications rose and so you began how . You know, its the way we govern. Rose is it luck at all or is it Something Else . To have a little bit more control. Rose what is the object lesson here . The whole world is being affected. Rose tell me the ssks of the moment. We begin this week with a look at the news of the week. Here are the sights and sounds of the past seven days an alleged isis plot stopped in new york. Officials say the suspect actually tried to join isis overseas and then returned new york, expressing support in recorded conversations for an attack. Rose Water Cannons are turned on dakota pipeline protesters. Hundreds of pipeline protesters tried to push back a blockaded bridge last night. At least one person was arrested. Rose a Deadly School bus crash in chattanooga. Almost three dozen students aged kindergarten to fifth grade were on board the bus when it crashed. Our thoughts and our prayers are out to the family expr the students who were involved. Mr. Trumps office has become the busiest Employment Office in the country. One thing that trump clearly enjoys is just the intrigue around this. Breitbart is the altright platform. Hail, trump hail our people hail victory in a meeting with the new york times, trump said, of course, i disavow and condemn them. Conyay west has reportedly checked into a Los Angeles Company can and is reportedly under observation. I mean, the majority, if not everybody in the grandstands were holding up a 7 wishing me luck. Wow. There was a huge shift today. Bird, bird, bid rose america celebrates thanksgiving. The president is about to name the National Bird and pardon both of them. Congratulations applause yay bird, bird, bird, the word rose as we celebrate our First National holiday since the election, america remains with many challenges and in many cases deeply divided. So want question is where does the country go from here . I brought together a panel on the eve of the election to talk about just those questions. Here are historian doris kearns goodwin, Walter Issacson of the apten institute, Jeff Greenfield of pbs, Curt Anderson of npr, and Cokie Roberts of abc news. I think if you ask the country, do you want bipartisanship . Do you want a cooperative political system . The overwhelming majority will say yes. They even say yes, theyd like to see a new political party. But people also say they want to exercise more, watch documentaries and eat broccoli. laughter how they behave in the voting boothing has not yet borne that out. Maybe there is there are people who i respect who do think at this point the disaffection may be sufficient that some kind of new Political Force can emerge. That new Political Force is called women. Yes, because women hooray rose how can women make a difference as leaders . They do, in legislative bodes, they do come together, and we have lots of data on this, much more than men do. Rose because they listen . Because they cooperate with each other. They particularly do on issues having to do with women, children, and families, but on other issues as well. They talk to each other. They listen to each other, and they behave. Rose was it you, cokie, that once famously said that covering its good you were the mother of a twoyearold because it helped you cover the senate. Right. laughter well, the other thing that affects us i think cokie is right. Look at the number of womens who vote are greater than men. The number of women graduating from college now are greater, going to med school and law school. If the collaborative qualities women have shown meeting the demands of family and working life, et cetera, and if they get more into politics, maybe there is youve just given me another ripple of hope. Im there. Oh, good, doris, im glad. Rose the interesting thing as i travel around the world from china to europe to russia, theyre all asking us, whats gone wrong in america . Thats the question. Theres something jeff said early theyre resonated with me, it was once said, history is about change, those who resist it and those who like it. The resistance to modernity, all the way through to the muslim world, europe, and now the United States is a major trend of the 21st century. But its the resistance to modernity . You know, globalism but beyond radical islamism . Cosmopolatism i think brexit is part of it. Rose globalism. A lot of it has to do with technology. And the fact that the whole world is being affected by technology at the same time. And, you know, its like the Industrial Revolution where everybody had to leave the farms and go to the cities or go across the ocean, and everything that they had done was no longer valued. Home manufacture, particularly, which, of course, was womens work. And it was it was incredibly disruptive to use the modern term. And thats whats happened with technology. And so with people not having the kinds of jobs they used to have, not having the kinds of lives they used to have, and combine that with the cultural changes and the demographic changes, they look and around say, i dont recognize my life. I actually but, you see hold on doirs, ill get to you. One second. In an effort to find some opt mitch a few months ago i asked one of the key economic players in obamas first term, im giving you a magic wand. What do you do with the 50yearold displaced steel worker . And what he said is, i cant do anything for that person. His kids i can do something with if we had an apprenticeship program, use the Community Colleges the way they do in germany other and places, i can do something. But people in late middle aged who have been displace read going to have lives less lesser than they had because the new jobs and he was very candid about this, he said if you want to tell a displaced 55yearold displaced worker youre going toon a home health what is the responsibility of government to that person . Its a lot. But the first thing they have had to figure out is that guy right or are there some things you actually can do beyond the pieties of retraining. One of the things the Democratic Party owns is for 25 years theyve been telling these people, yeah you have lost your job in the steel industry, but well retrain you. No, its a big cultural challenge parent of that is because of technology. Its all technology. Rose the displacement, but also youve got to learn skills that have to do with that youre not familiar. And there may be fewer jobs. We have not faced that aspect of technology and auto missation. We have not discussed this in a political way, not that the machine overlords are going to take over, but this time it may be different, that the we dont have any data point that show that, though. Its amazing can we look back let walt finish. I know you cant see it so its hard. The exact right question but what always surprised me is that there are more and more jobs and weve seen this in the numbers recently but are they jobs people are trained for . No, i think theres a displacement manufacturing jobs the number of jobs ever since weaving machines came in, in the 1840s, people have been saying there would be unemployment. And were not seeing it this year. I know, and i hope thats correct. It may be different this time. Rose full employment. To who jeff was saying, the next generation, the children, the sons of the manufacturing workers who are displaced need to be convinced and its a great cultural challenge to do so, that being a nurse is not a womans job solely. Rose doris. Let me get doris in. I just wanted to follow up what cokie said because i think the Industrial Revolution does give us a parallel to some of the fears we have today. I mean, think of it then, as you said, people are moving from the farms to the city. Lots of immigrants are coming in from abroad. The pace of life has sped up so much people feel we dont even know the country anymore, all this technological change has taken place with telephones and telegraphs. And yet eventually there was populism and anxiety and demagogues as a result of all that. And yet, eventually, that got channeled into the progressive part of the Republican Party and Teddy Roosevelt, and change took place in a rational way, and things began to feel better. So now weve got very similar situation with the technological revolution, with the globalization, with people feeling the countrys changing beyond what it want to see it doing, fear of all that. Theyve still got to believe that leadership somehow, if it gets mobilized, can channel those fears and anxieties into a positive direction. We did it it was just as bad at the Industrial Revolution. Those changes were as big to those people as the changing were feeling are to us now. And yet we somehow manage to move through it. I agree with that. I still think when was that . Late 19th century, beginning of the 20th century. Look, there were strikes in the cities. There were riots in the cities purpose there were hunger strikes. There are marches. The unions were just beginning to make their way felt. And there was lots of immigration and lots of resistance to immigration coming in from abrawld. And people were losing their whole sense of belonging to themselves on a farm. The gap between the rich and the poor had suddenly emerge people are seeing millionaires where before the richest people were some doctors on hills in your farm town. It was hugely disoriented and disrupting and somehow got channeled through leadership, through the party structure, into positive form and were feeling again. You sort of have to live through it. So you get, you know, the next generation and the next generation and i really do think thats the big hope which leads to another hopeful data point. If you look at all the polling that goes on, people under 45, and essential people under 35 and 30, this great polarization between i cant deal with modernity and the new face of america and i can, is not there. Were also talking about a majority minority population. That is a huge change. I mean, i lived in mongomry county, maryland. It used to be the whitest of white suburbs and its now minority majority. You have a very different america for young people. So put this on the the table as well because, you know, one of the things that i have actually sympathy for the political classes, the nature of what theyre dealing with. So you start with the mobilization leading up to world war ii. Starting in 1940 through 1973, 74. We had the greatest economic expansion and growth broadly ever. I think annual growth was 4 a year. So if you came out of that world, everything was better every year. You know, the christmas club, you put some more money in. You know, the home was affordable. If you were a white man. Granted, there were people left out. Absolutely. But that partly is why were talking about that disaffected class. Since 1975, i think the annual growth rate over the last four years has been much more like 2 . And how does a Political Leadership talk to a disaffected group when in fact what are you going to tell them if you are honest is, we cant have that again. Rose but, its also why they have a new term called the new normal. Its not going to be 4 . Nobody thinks its going to be 4 in the near future. Basically in 1974 you picked that date its when two things happened personal Computers Come into existence and basically the internet starts to spread, the networking of things. Not only do you have a Slower Growth rate but for some people its really, really good but for some people its bad. Thats what i meant at the beginning and the thing you were talking about, around the world, between the people riding this new world, and i would think to be candid, pretty much everybody in this conversation is comfortable with this new world. And people who have felt overwhelmed. And we havent talked about what this election cycle has done to and within the Republican Party. Now, are these fissures that will be papered over quickly or a major coming apart. Speaking of globalization, the issue of trade. Until five minute ago the Republican Party was the free trade party. As was hillary clinton. As was hillary clinton, exactly. Afs was every president since herbert hoover. And what now . How does the reconsolidating republican establishment in the legislature and elsewhere, how do they feel about trade now . How do they feel about free trade or trade deals . Its unclear. Rose all the conversation cans about trade go to the question of jobs. Those people against trade are believing that trade and trade as it is practiced today means a means the loss of jobs. Except for new orleans. Except when you talk about the people comfortable with modernity, into technology. They realize their jobs come from being part of a global market. E Fastest Growing part ourare economy. But they dont say, i can buy cheap stuff at walmart now, so im happy to have no job. Right, right, but it was about immigration, trade. Rose and sort of the idea of globalization. But thats the other place the Republican Party has got to figure itself out is on immigration. What trump has done in terms of alienating hispanics might just bury the Republican Party. I mean, weve seen this incredible, wonderful turnout of hispanics in the last over the early voting period. Rose it is the significant factor in this election. And we expect tomorrow is will also be very high. Rose latinos. This is the right reaction to somebody being offensive to you go vote and go say, im going to, with my vote, show you what i think about that. And how long do you think it will take and you look at 2012 when the Republican Party understood, it seemed, that they had to break out and reach out to the immigrants because thats future. And then somehow this took it away from it right now. How long im sorry. Rose go ahead, doris. I can make one other point . It was said before Montgomery County used to be all white and is now more diverse. The more we get People Living in diverse areas, the more that they brush up against fellow citizens, the more they are willing, as weve seen, soopen up acceptance to gays and lesbians in a way that they hadnt before. Its because they know them. Thee see them. Then the whole brexit idea, people were living in place wheres the others were the others, and as we become more diverse, as were seeing in florida, north carolina, and other states you have to hope somehow that desire and that fear of the other will lessen. And thats always been the critical thing about america. Maybe what we need is a new Land Grant Program like lincoln established where you take millennials and movie their coffee house houses and bookstos into these rural areas, instead of 160 acres give them lowinterest loans. Give them starbucks. Thats actually not crazy. Rose we are look, at populism in europe and in china where there is a great tension between urban and rural and the the people from the rural areas want to come into the urban areas to find a job. You have Party Control there and more state control there. But they have some of the same kind of tensions. You know, the interesting thing is when things happen like this globally, and then you get sort of this yearning for the outsider. And even ive read the bully pulpit and love it there some ways Teddy Roosevelt facing this exact same type of period, almost does it as an outsider talking about a square deal for the american people. And thats where i think something that donald trump may have done for us which is maybe outsiders, especially very wealthy outsiders, can, you know a howard schultz, whatever can say, why not me . Why not me . And it could possibly open the way to new people coming in. I think politically that is a really important point. For some reason, i went back and read a oncefaims play called state of the union, and the hero of that, spenlser tracy, is a businessman. He built the airplanes that won world war ii and they want him to run for president and he winds up saying, i paid for this microphone. Im not going to speak your cliches. But the idea of an outside who are bothered to inform him or herself of the issues and reached across party lines and talked in a way thats the aaron sorkin fantasy, but theres something to. Bring people together than divide. Rose is that where Ronald Reagan composite that phrase . You remember in New Hampshire maybe it was a hell of a coincidence. I dont know. laughter but the point of it is, i think walter is exactly right, the impulse i thought in some ways the whole trump phenomenon was a hollywood liberal fantasy turned on its head its warren battalionys 1998 film. Its speaking truth to power in a way no rational person might recognize as truth. But there is something about that impulse that drove him as close as he may have gotten to this job. Actually, it is a quite wonderful american moment to think about that. Whatever happens, were making history here. And the notion that somebody can come from the outside with every newspaper in the country, with the exception of two well, if you count the ku klux klan three against him and be close at the end. And all of the intelligencia of conservative writers and all of that against. Against him. And the former president s of the Republican Party, and all of that, and still be so revered and so close to being president , if not president , i think that tells you something about what does that tell jew it tells you american the people actually do govern. The people rule. And there is a yearning for an outsider. And a democracy is maybe not all its cracked up to be displt question was im sorry, go ahead. I was pointing out, that you took donald trump in a different form, you had something really special. Like someone i know said about her late husband, we could have had a great life if only he had been a completely different person. laughter in some sense with trump, theres wisdom there. Rose actually, donald trump has always said, look, i didnt create this movement. This movement there was and i went and enabled them to sort of see something in me as their spear carrier. There is no question people feel that the political system has let them down. A lot of people who support immediate trump. And it has. I mean, it hasnt answered the needs of a lot of those people. And yet, i still i just worry about the idea that we need to look outside. I mean, why cant we hope that somebody who cares about politics and has been a state legislator and maybe been in the military and comes in to public office, that the political system can produce the people we want. Otherwise, were just undoing the idea that politics is an honorable vocation. I still worry about looking as an outsider. I think we have to look at somebody hocares about politics but comes out maybe comes from a military background is it a belief in Public Service rather than simply seeing politics as a way for ego aggrandizement . Exactly so. And maybe theyve been in Public Service in a different way than just in politics or electoral office. But at least they believed in doing that. I still oong and i remember, cokie, you said this a long time ago, that the fact people are not going into Public Service and politics now who were in the military in the same numbers they were after world war ii and the korean war means we dont have that sense of a Common Mission that people have alreadia accomplished by being in the military, that theyre bringing into public life. Maybe theres National Service that has to happen. There are things we can can do. We just cant give up with of on that and i dont think we can give up on the political system and just hope for some white horse guy to come in. Rose its always leadership, isnt it, doris it may come president ground up, but in the end its somebody who has new ideas and grabs of reins of leadership. But the followers have to let them lead. Rose exactly. Have we been in a time before when leadership has been challenged so viscerally and immediately . Thats what i was talking about, about f. D. R. s, you know, first days. When everybody said, come on. Weve got to pull together because were in trouble. Even going back just one small example. So the bitterest Supreme Court fight we had in my memory was clarence thomas, 1991. 55 democrats in the senate. Bork. I think worse than bork. Heres the one thing the democrats never even thought about, filibustering. It wasnt done. And they could have easily knocked that nomination upon but at this time, 25 years ago, the thought of using that weapon in that way was literally unthinkable. And now, you know, its the way we govern, or dont govern. But there are so many things we have discovered in this cycle and lately, since then, oh, that wasnt done yet. It wasnt it wasnt unconstitutional. It wasnt legally impermissible, but that wasnt done. As so much of what has been said in this president ial campaign. Well, thats just not done. And we have we have stepped over so many lines in that way. You know, i always hate to put too rosy a glass on the past, you know. There were lots of things that were done. In fact, the house of representatives used to be able to filibuster, and on the water of 1812 they were filibustering against the war of 1812, and the only way it ended was when someone threw a spittoon across the room and made an enormous noise and probably was thoroughly disgusting and everybody stopped talking the war of 1812. Rose let me ask you this. Go ahead, doris. Are we witnessing parallel to what were finding in our politics ill preface this by saying in a conversation with president obama i quoted him as saying we have the finest military, the best economy, we have the best science, we have the best technology, but all of that may not get us there because our politics are so broken. One of my favorite journalists, james fallows, a couple years ago, was looking at the issue, are we in decline, most institutions are strong and can fix this, but our political system is the single biggest impediment to moving on. Rose the academy is strong. Military is strong. It would be helpful business is strong. Well, i have a loat of faith in the young people. I think the young people can come in and and fix this. Women and young people. Yes, women and young people. You all can go home. laughter rose well all be on the island. Because they are so diverse. And thats way the country always refuse itself is three wonderful waves of immigration, of people coming in from everywhere and with new ways of looking at things and a deep affection for this country that they feel very strongly about. And i think thats our great hope. Rose here is a look at the week ahead. Sunday is the abu dhabi grand prix. Monday is the day Congress Returns from its thanksgiving recess. Tuesday is the day the worlds oldest living person celebrates her 117th birthday. Wednesday is the 84th annual Rockefeller Center Tree Lighting in new york city. Thursday is the day the nominations are announced for the critics choice awards. Friday is the 36th annual john lennon tribute. Saturday is the annual running of the sanities in baltimore, boston, and chicago. And here is whats new for your weekend the weknd releases a new album. The annual Hollywood Christmas parade steps off on hollywood bfl oboulevard on sunday. And warren beatty, lily collins, Matthew Broderick and annette ben regular in theaters with the romantic comedy rules dont apply. Well, hello thats marlin may havey. What the hell is she doing here . You said you wanted the girl with the two ends . Yes, Marilyn Monroe ah rose thats charlie rose the week for this week. From all of us here, we hope youve had a great thanksgiving with loved ones and family. Im charlie rose. Well see you again next time. Rose funding for charlie rose has been provided by brought to you in part by viewers like you, and you, and you, and you. Ha, ha thanks so much youre very kind. Hey both what . Come over here the cat in the hat is about to appear hes whizzing over to whisk you away on a fabulous journey today hes coming and now hes arrived in the thingamajigger the thing that he drives hes a cat and hes oodles of fun with his hairy helpers, thing 2 and thing 1 yoohoo whoa woohoo