Ken Burns

Well, October came and went, and then November broadcast came.

And in the middle of it, there were a couple half-hearted, this is woke, sort of superficial dismissals.

It was really clear that the people, the authors of two or three of these things had watched maybe 20 minutes of the thing.

This is a film, by the way, that suggests that the American Revolution is the most important event in world history in the last 2,000 years and that, oh, by the way, a guy I'm sure you've never heard of named George Washington is the person most responsible for our success and the creation of our country.

Somehow, because there were women in it and somehow because there were, oh, my God, black people in it and somehow because they were Native Americans and there were other people from other countries who were engaged in this world war in addition to a revolution.

and a bloody civil war, that somehow this is woke.

And then you realize, where is the wokeness actually?

Is it in the litmus test of one side of what it should be?

And that's what it is.

Wokeness is just a litmus test that is fearful of the truth.

And it occurs in both ends of the spectrum.

And in fact, I don't think they're ends.

We discussed this before, a third of...

Bernie's supporters stayed home, a third voted for Hillary, and a third voted for Trump.

So you've got a circle here in which the far left and the far right are often much closer than we would think.

um not uh be pretty transformational i don't want to say i agree you know for a couple of different times in a couple of different positions standing in very different political ideological places the republican party has been the most successful political party on earth in a lot of ways in the last 50 years is the most successful third party

I always like to remind people.

Yeah, exactly.

Started it, by the way, in a schoolhouse in Ripon, Wisconsin, in 1854, with one platform out of the demise.

Yeah, I know.