I know. Not a lot of time off. Usually its a monday or a friday. It feels like youre getting 30 years often. Now its like phil says, 15 minutes. Heres a sparkler, go out back. The parking lot in secaucus, light it, come back in. Were happy to be here. Love being here. And for Washington PostDavid Ignatius and Pulitzer Prize winner, soul of america, jon meacham. Author of the bestselling book the soul of america the battle for our better angels. Happy Ash Wednesday, everybody. Happy Ash Wednesday to you, too, and make sure we keep the easter bunny in easter. Or whatever. However this goes. I dont not sure. July 4th. So this is actually i mean, seriously. I i understand that, like, Hallmark Cards or something invented mothers day. If anybody were to invent a holiday for the soul of america it would be this day. The fourth of july. So very nice of Thomas Jefferson and the whole gang to be thinking of you ahead of time here. It was big. Big. Very generous. The message that so many people are driven to such despair over the latest trump outrage that its very easy to forget instructions i mean, forget of our founders, but instructions from the founders of the modern conservative movement. Like bill buckley. Who said, im not going to be troubled by truths arrived at, at the latest ballot box. Yesterdays you know, at yesterdays ballot box, Charles Krauthammer always told people, dont lose your head. Stay calm. There is an apocalypse de jour every year. Lets keep our head down and keep our eyes on the prize. Thats basically the message of your book along with the fact that, this battle between our better angels and some of the worst instincts that our country has had, its been going on for about 240 years. Absolutely. I mean, the founding we celebrate today was one that, yes, the Continental Congress adopted the de eed declaration jefferson wrote the most important were all created equal and included in that sentence at the time and the story of the country has been the slow, bloody, often tragic, often painful but ultimately successful attempt to widen that definition. To me, thats the story of the country. You can say thats sentimental or wiggish or whatever, but it also has the virtue of being true as a simple matter of fact. Our immigration issue is that people want to come here. Right . I mean, theyre coming to the border. Were not doing very well by them once theyre there in some cases but by and large, this National Experiment in individual liberty, which was a vital shift in the whole structure of the west, in the 18th century and moving forward, this idea that we had the power to determine our own destinies. Not a king, pope, prince or prell prellit is what drives the people who are, in fact, so involved, so engaged with every twist and tweet of the current era. And how interesting, David Ignatius, that we keep talking about a wall to keep people out. John kennedy at the height of the cold war said for all of democracies failures, weve nerve her to put up a wall to keep our people in. And, in fact, now we have donald trump talking about putting up a wall to keep people out, but also, though, not just illegal immigrants. Unfortunately, refugees who trumps own government said add 63 billion to this countrys economy per decade. Joe, july 4 is a day that reminds me that donald trump doesnt own patriotism and he doesnt determine the fundamentals that we hold on to tight today when we think about what july 4th means. America has been the dream of the world, because of the freedoms that weve had as a country, the generosity weve had as a people, our ability, because we were strong to come to the aid of others. Our values that led us to do that, led us to make commitments to be open. The phrase we often use to describe the america that we all grew up in is the shining city on a hill. Uhhuh. This image of this Great Republic with its wealth, its tolerance, its generosity. We have a particularly ungenerous person whos our president now, but todays the day when we, i think, transcend a particular occupant of the white house and think about what the country is about and really why its still so strong even in this crazy tumultuous period were living in. The question i would have actually for you given that youve recently wrote about this, is that, you know, we just heard david talking about the fundamentals that we hold tight. Jon meacham talking about the soul of america and the fact that we are seen worldwide as the dream of the world, although that is changing. You are hearing abroad a different definition of what america looks like, given this happened. So i guess my biggest question to you is, while i understand you cant get ahead of yourself, you cant get ahead of your s skis, overraeact, become shrill or get caught up in it, do we stand by and just wait for this to pass by, or fight for the fundamentals that really make us who we are . Like the children. Separated from their parents at the border. Or the truth, that the president twists every day. Or flies in the face of. And if we do fight, what does that look like . Well, first of all, again again, i keep going back to Charles Krauthammer, but Charles Krauthammer in famous commencement address in 1993 delivered to his alma mater at the university said, dont lose your head. There is an apocalypse du jour every few years. Dont lose your head. Keep it down and do your hard work. You know, what do you do . Unions have had a pretty rough month, but they should look back to a guy who and i know socialists have always sort of used this phrase, but i think a guy named joe hill was wrongly convicted of murder in utah. I think it was in 1915, and one of the last telegrams he sent was, dont mourn. Organize. And so you ask me what democrats should do. Its what ive told republicans what they should do. Or americans. What independents should do, if they want to win elections. You organize. You keep your head down. You knock on doors. You put yard signs in your neighbors yards, and these days you make new facebook friends. You talk to your friends in your neighborhood. You ask them if you can drive them to vote. And i think what may happen and sort of by Natural Selection, something i was telling mika happened in 1994 when i showed up in washington. I said, you know, all of us that got elected at time, it was so long ago, the Republican Party would fax us messages every day. We were supposed to read. Id tear them up and go out and deliver the message that i thought was relevant. I met a guy named jack metcalf from washington state, who was an older gentleman. Shared very little in common with me, except for the fact that when we first met he goes, oh, yeah. I i tore those things up, too, and you had a Natural Selection from northwest florida to to, you know, the Great Northwest all across the coun y country. These certain people in 1994 who got elected. Ive got a feeling that were seeing that with the democratic party. Whether you have somebody whos extraordinarily progressive in queens or you have somebody in the midwest, a democrat who gets elected as a, you know, a woman whos a retired air force pilot. Uhhuh. Yeah. Its sort of the good problem to have if youre in the majority. An ideological heterogeneous coalition. Everybody doesnt agree on everything and has big, broad divisive views about issues. Thats what happened to the Republican Party after 2010 when it took over a lot of territory. It became very internally conflicted, because people didnt agree on everything. Similarly, if democrats find themselves back in the majority theyll have a lot of blue dogs back, moderate democrats that will be a very important wing of that party that are going to need to be reconciled. Not all progressive socialists. Progressive socialists dont want to reckon with. Dont want to hear that. No. To the extent, probably my biggest problem with the r a complete lack of faith in american institutions and the constitution itself to bind and constrain aspiring autocrats and zealots. Right. Its proven very effective so far and we dont really look at and understand and accept and be thankful for the institutions that were bequeathed to us by a group of individuals who believed mankind could not be perfected, was flawed, ambitions needed to be channeled and everyone that followed, bolshevik, all did the opposite and all failed for a reason. In this, which we probably should rename the Charles Krauthammer hour of power, i recall a column that he wrote. He was a trump skeptic. Deeply. Deep deep trump skeptic. Talked about all the terrible things that were happening, and it was, again, borrowed from his mcgill speech. Dont lose your head. And he went through. How the courts had responded to trumps abhorrent behavior, how the bureaucracy responded, congress responded, the media responded and went down the list and ended by simply saying the system lives. And i do think that we have seen for too long when george w. Bush was in power, democrats believed the constitutions being shredded. When barack obama in power, republicans believed the constitution is being shredded. When donald trump is empowered, the constitution is being shredded. Im joking, kids, but there is a feeling that constitutional norms are being endangered, but regardless but theres a fact. Theres a fact. Regardless, still, we have no evidence that our system, that the madisonian system of checks and balances are not great enough to endure even four years of donald trump. No. Not at all. None whatsoever and thats why oftentimes youll hear not just, is that the constitution is at risk, but american democracy itself is at risk of collapse under donald trump, which is a bit hyperbolic, i would say. Are there antidemocratic things he does on a daily basis, yes. Are his attacks on a free press extremely corrosive to democracy and fact and this whole idea now people really are entitled to their own facts . Yes. All of that is really troubling. Whats also really troubling and this is a lesson we take from the founding of the country is that leadership matters. There were people who stepped up and did the right thing at the time, and you see that now, but those people are being thrown under the bus in the Republican Party. Jeff flake couldnt run for reelection because he had the audacity to stand up to donald trump. Mark sanford, also the audacity to stand up to donald trump voted out of office because there was a woman running against him who was seen as more protrump. The question in the Republican Party right now is, where are those leaders . Is there a place for them . I believe that is a crisis. It doesnt look like it right now. And it never does, but i do think the crisis actually is with the future of the Republican Party. The future of the conservative movement, and just for those out there that would say that we have become hyperbolic at time, im reminded of a donald trump quote from last year where he said that madisons system of checks and balances and the United States constitution was archaic and let me get this quote exactly right. A bad thing for the country. If that doesnt suggest, mika, a well, autocratic impulses that do need to be checked every day. And i think that is the difference where i think i finally figured out the difference between you and me on this. Because, you know, i understand that theres a lot of overreaction to this, and theres a lot of the world is coming to an end descriptions of what weve got. Stick to the facts. Constitutional norms are being challenged. Right. Thats a fact. Thats not a feeling. Its a fact. Its happening every day. And we have to cover it and we have to stick to the facts. I think that there is a sense of lost value in who we are and what this country stands for, and jon meacham, throw it to you, because i dont think we can really pinpoint where were at right now. I dont think we have nailed it down. Are there any parallels in history that you can draw from or how would you describe exactly what is happening here . I think its the most perilous moment for the kinds of democratic norms and constitutional norms that were talking about in, really since reconstruction, id argue. Andrew johnson, became president after fords theater, people believed there might be a second civil war, because he sided with his native southerners in the battles of a reconstruction. Its a period we lose, because people tend to skip from lincoln to fdr, really, and keep moving. But that was a period where things felt calamitous. We had just come through a great struggle. It was not at all impossible that the United States might end up looking more like central or south america with several different confederacies. We know were a coast to coast continental nation, but they didnt know that. So i think thats where we are. You have to go back pretty far. On the resistance and the krauthammer ode, absolutely deserved, i believe you dont lose your head. Obviously, i believe that the history is something that gives us a sense of proportion of whats going on. The resistance, marching, the protesting is absolutely essential, because the country has only moved from strength to strength when voices far from the centers of power have ultimately attracted the attention of those in power. And thats true on the left, in terms of left, broadly put. In terms of suffrage. In terms of civil rights. In terms of gay rights. Its true on the right. Because what was 1980, if not a remarkable achievement of a populist conservative movement, relatively far from the eastern establishment. So Ronald Reagan became this force, because he had been listening to these voices, Reading National review on those trains all of those years, because he wouldnt fly in the 1950s. He would spend all of his time on trains reading conservative books. And so that was a lonely place to be, and then he becomes president. So there is this american drama about the dynamics of power, and its absolutely essential, if people feel strongly, as so many do, that this particular president poses a unique threat to do everything they can to oppose it. Thats absolutely the american way. Thats what in many ways what is the American Revolution that we commemorate today if not the greatest act of resistance in western history . And, David Ignatius, you look at the marches, and compare them to a lot of the marches that were going on in the 1960s. Where chaos reigned, and throw a Little Buffalo springfield out there for you. Young people carrying signs, mostly saying, hooray for our signs. A lot of times the march was sort of an end to itself to what they wanted, or to what actually, what was a result of it. That has not been the case in the age of trump. We had the womens march and i remember when it was happening. I said, okay. That okay, i guess, but you better be getting phone numbers. You better be getting email addresses. You better be getting information, again, going back to organizing, because theres this i think theres a misperception about barack obama that he was lebron, and he was this extraordinarily gifted candidate, which he was, but you looked at that guys organization and the team he put together politically, they were killers. Like they kept their heads down. They organized. They executed. They won. And that is unfortunately the antithesis, unfortunately for Hillary Clinton of their operation. A group that didnt visit wisconsin. Didnt take polls and remained too insulated. Barack obama was as good as the technical side of politics as he was, to be honest, bad at a lot of the people side of it. He just was a person who didnt like to wade into that crowd, and very little of the bill clinton, you know, embrace people style. On the fourth of july, i think with jon meacham about how this story begins, and i think of the phrase, we the people. Thats the consecration, really. This is our country. We get to decide what we want it to be like in the future, and these elections coming up, the midterms, the 2020 elections are important not just because of donald trump and his policies but because of what theyll tell us about us as a country. What do we want . We, the people, get to decide, and my biggest fear is that the noise machine that often comes out of the white house, the attacks on folks who are trying to provide as Accurate Information as they can will end up overwhelming that wonderful democratic process where we, the people, try to make good decisions. Thats what i hope people will fight against. When people come out in demonstrations, thats good, so long as its not too exclusionary, it doesnt separate people from each other. The tent has to get bigger, more people have to come under it. We, the people have to kind of pull it together and make it work. Quickly, noah . The extent to which i agree exactly with mr. Meacham. To the extent we have seen the left cry fascism is a failure to appreciate the extent to which the system has worked. To which congress has imposed sanctions on russia that the president had not choice to fulfill. To which the courts blocked his original order to halt immigrants, immigration from muslim countries. To which weve seen these institutions that are designed to respond to a potential authoritarian respond as such and to which americans are organizing and running for Political Office because they have faith in that Political Office. All indications that fascism is far away from american shores. It didnt happen here yet and i think we dont appreciate that enough. Thats the argument. Well continue to have that here in a civil way. Still ahead. I agree with that one. Still ahead this morning, oscar nominee alan alda is standing by. A new project featuring fascinating voices from very different corners of American Life. Still, they share a unique trait in common. We have that. Well be right