Barack Obama

I'd get my ass kicked.

They do seem to be rallying around the maple leaf.

Yeah, look, I mean, I think the way I describe it, America has always had warring narratives.

A lot of American history is a war of ideas.

Right.

And I gave a speech – probably my – the speech that is closest to my heart that I gave throughout my presidency was the speech I gave on the 50th anniversary of Selma, the march on Selma over the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

And I talked about that clash being as important as –

Gettysburg or Appomattox.

You've got on one side John Lewis and a ragtag band of Pullman porters and maids and clergy and a couple rabbis and college kids.

And they're marching from one side and on the other side you've got folks with billy clubs on horseback and fire hoses and dogs and all that.

And

What John Lewis represented was the narrative that says we the people means just what it says.

That we hold these truths to be self-evident.

That all men are created equal.

And on the other side was the fact of slavery and conquest and hierarchy and domination and if you didn't have property you didn't vote and women weren't involved and

And that was always part of America, too.

Right.

And the question has always been, can we pull off this experiment in which people are showing up from all over the place?

They're not tied together by blood.

They don't necessarily worship God.