Heather Cox Richardson

And that is the idea that we are all working together to achieve something as a country.

And

You know, again, one of the things the radical right did really brilliantly after 1960, there's a famous article that comes out in 1960 addressed to politicians saying, stop talking about democracy and stop talking about, you know, the values of community and making sure everybody's got a shot at the American dream and all that, because we all agree about that.

Republicans and Democrats agree about that.

So stop with that.

It's a waste of your time and money.

Instead, work at putting together coalitions.

So basically, the traditional Republicans and the traditional Democrats listened to that and started to just try to nail together coalitions.

You know, we'll give you a bridge and we'll give you, I don't know, a new hospital or whatever.

Transactional, yes.

It was the radical right who said, we are going to defend individuals to make them able to take on the empire, able to, you know, tying into all those tropes of literature and sort of mythology that said, you're going to matter to us.

Your vote matters for something way bigger than you are, something that is the United States of America, sometimes something that is God.

You matter.

And

One of the things that I try and do and that I think we all should be trying to do more is recognizing that the values of humanity, the idea of self-determination and the idea that you get to create a government that allows you to have the freedom, and by freedom I don't mean a lack of government so much as government protections to enable you to get an education and have health care and so on, so you can become whoever you want.

is actually a profoundly moral and a profoundly,

principled thing to do.

And you think about all around the world where people are in the streets fighting for their right to vote, for example, or the right to have a say in their government.

And then in the United States, people saying, I'm not going to bother.

We need to get more of that.