Latest / FROM THE INSIDE OUT by BETH ARNOLD / #60 WHAT DOES AMERICA STILL PROMISE

Transcript

#60 WHAT DOES AMERICA STILL PROMISE · FROM THE INSIDE OUT by BETH ARNOLD

• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: Hey y'all.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: Pull up a chair.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Beth Arnold, and this is from the Inside Out, where American life, politics, and memory meet as we tiny specks in the cosmos try to make sense of it all.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's September 17th, and I'm reading a special piece today.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: What does America Still Promise?
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: And what are we willing to defend?
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: It began in June when my eight-year-old grandson Arnold was here for a visit.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: Our 250th anniversary was coming the next month, and we were in South Carolina, one of the original 13 colonies.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Revolutionary war history was surrounding us, and I wanted Arnold to begin learning about who we were as a nation and how we got here.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: To see it and feel it, to understand it palpably with revolutionary soldiers hiding from the British in swamps with the alligators and snakes.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: We were reading books about George Washington and King George and the swamp fox Francis Marion and Paul Revere.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: But I thought, what is Arnold actually learning about this country from today's example?
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: What country will he inherit from us?
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: By June 2026, Trump had the machinery of government churning with un-American, undemocratic policies that were absolutely horrifying.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: On June 25th, the Supreme Court cleared the way for his administration to end temporary protected status for roughly 350,000 patients and 6,100 Syrians, leaving them vulnerable to deportation.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: These were people who had been allowed to live and work here legally, many of them for years.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: Suddenly the government was telling them that protection could simply disappear.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: It made me sick.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: And Congress had just handed the administration another$69.5 billion for immigration enforcement.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: Money for ICE, border patrol, detention, arrest, transportation, technology, and the machinery needed to carry Trump's mass deportation policy through the rest of his term.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: Federal immigration agents were already operating in unmarked vehicles, often masked or without obvious identification, bringing the government's crackdown straight into American neighborhoods.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: American Gestapo.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: Then there was the Justice Department's Orwellian-sounding anti-weaponization fund.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: It had actually been created in May and was supposed to receive$1.776 billion to compensate people who claimed the federal government had improperly targeted them, Trump allies, of course.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: Lawmakers were openly fighting over whether taxpayer money could end up going to people who participated in the January 6th insurrection and were convicted for it.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: We all saw what happened on January 6th.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: We all saw our Capitol attacked and ransacked by a mob after Trump told the crowd, we're going to walk down to the Capitol and I'll be there with you.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: He had pardoned nearly 1,500 people who'd been charged or convicted in connection with January 6th, except for 14 convicted defendants whose sentences he commuted to time served and had ordered the remaining pending cases dismissed on the day he was inaugurated, January 20th, which was bad enough, but paying them for it?
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: This was insane.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: What was happening wasn't a collection of unrelated outrages.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: The same question kept appearing in different forms.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: Who gets protected by the government?
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: Who gets punished by it?
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: And who gets to use its enormous power for himself?
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: And America is hardly alone.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: Look at what's happening across Europe.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: On September 6th, Germany's far-right alternative for Germany, AFD, won a staggering 43.8% of the vote in the state election in Saxony Unhalt.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: Its biggest victory ever.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: In France, Marine Le Pen has already begun her campaign for the 2027 presidency.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: Right now she is leading in the polls, with roughly a third of French voters saying they would support her in the first round.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: In Italy, Georgia Maloney's Brothers of Italy is already in power, while an even harder right party is gaining ground.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: Spain's anti-immigration vox is growing too.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: The radical right is learning how to move from the fringes into the mainstream, election by election, grievance by grievance, until ideas that once seemed beyond the pale begin to look normal.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: That is the warning for us.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: Democracy doesn't usually disappear all at once.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: People get used to things.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: They accommodate them.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: They decide maybe it isn't so bad.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: And then one day they look around and realize how much ground they've already lost.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: Heather Cox Richardson wrote Sunday about Dario Amode, the head of Anthropic, warning that artificial intelligence is advancing faster than our ability to control it.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: His answer is for democratic countries to work together first, to set rules, slow things down, and protect themselves, and then somehow reach agreements with authoritarian countries like China and Russia.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, he is counting on democracies to be strong enough to act together and then strong enough to deal with governments that may have no interest in playing by the same rules.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: Which may be ours since Trump is basically saying full steam ahead with AI.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: On Monday, Trump dismissed calls for more AI guardrails as a quote, sick conspiracy, unquote, that would help China.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: As usual, anytime dollar signs are flashing in front of Trump, he jumps like a big old bass taking the bait.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: The Trump family is heavily invested in AI and related technologies.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: Donald Trump Jr.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: and Eric Trump joined a financial firm called Dominary Holdings to help raise over$1 billion for massive tech projects like data centers and crypto ventures.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: With a shove by Russell Voigt and the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025, Trump is pushing the United States in an authoritarian direction.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: We may need democracy more than ever to control private power, set limits, protect the public, and deal with countries that do not share our values, just as we are weakening it at home.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: That's one of the reasons I wrote a modern declaration.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: We have to protect our democracy now because we're going to need it for what comes next.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: In season one, episode four of the Netflix documentary, The American Experiment, Maya Jasinov, author of Liberty's Exile, says, There's all kinds of ways in which America's own governing institutions just do not suit the country that we live in now.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: A modern declaration.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: A free people do not worship the past.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: We meet the moment and answer it.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: A great nation doesn't hide from its past, but looks at it, learns from it, and has been made better by that past, says Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, Lonnie G.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: Bunch III, who has just been driven from his position by the authoritarian Trump administration's goal to change or erase American history.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: Bunch is stepping down at the end of the year.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: A modern declaration.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: America was not born innocent.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: It began by declaring a truth it was not yet willing to obey.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: Another quote, and this one from Vice President Al Gore.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: The American Revolution was truly a key turning point for all of human history.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: A modern declaration.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: The American Revolution did not end the argument over power.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: It began it.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: It is brutal.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: It is ugly, says historian Nathaniel Philbrick, framing the American Revolution as a violent, deeply divisive civil war that forced the early citizens to define the very nature of their new national identity.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's a struggle within ourselves for the very soul of who we are.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: A modern declaration.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: Because the question comes back to every generation.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: Not only what did they mean in 1776, but what do we mean now?
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: Republican senator and Trump loyalist Ted Cruz said, Why do millions of people from all over the world come to America?
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: Because here anybody can become anything.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: A modern declaration.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: This is a pivotal moment to choose who do we want to be.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: Are we for some of us or are we for all of us?
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: says Delaware Senator Lisa Blunt Rochester.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: A modern revolution.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: It belongs to all of us, or it belongs to none of us.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: As you can see, we're still answering the same questions today.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why I wrote a modern declaration.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: Our founders understood that the American experiment was not finished, that it would continue to evolve over time.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: I wrote it in the style and urgency of our original beloved declaration to pay homage and to follow our history.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: I matched its architecture because the same categories absolutely still apply.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: Truths, purpose of government, promise, grievances, enablers, charge to the people.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: But I updated the content to what is real and true now, what we're up against, what we believe, and what we demand.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: I wrote it because democracy is not self-executing.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: Citizenship is not spectatorship.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: No president is a king, no office is a throne, no citizen is a subject.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: I wrote it to inspire us and unite us, to give us hope.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted all of that together in one little book.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I chose the size deliberately to make it feel like a revolutionary era pamphlet and to be used in the same way.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: Carry it with you in your pocket or handbag.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: Share it, pull it out with your friends and argue and discuss.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: Remember who we are and what our nation stands for because we're not going to let anyone take that away.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: A modern declaration designed by my dear friend and producer Ralph Luffler and edited by James Morgan is now published and available.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: You can a modern declaration designed by my dear friend and producer Ralph Luffler and edited by James Morgan is now published and available.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: You can find it in or order it at your local bookstore or order it from Amazon.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a link in my piece.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: Please buy it and after reading, leave an honest Amazon review and please share this piece and the book with others who care about our country.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: It is again time for us to meet the moment of tyranny that Donald Trump and his regime are imposing on us and that the Republican Congress and Supreme Court of the United States are going along with.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: Ignite this conversation.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: The midterms are coming.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: Well, guys, thanks for pulling up a chair and listening.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: If this piece stayed with you, I hope you'll share it.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: And if these essays have been meaningful to you, consider becoming a paid subscriber.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: From the inside out is an entirely reader supported publication, and your subscription helps sustain this work week after week.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, from one tiny speck in the universe to another.