Heather Cox Richardson on America’s Vibe Shift
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Home to the Rachel Maddow Show, Morning Joe, The Briefing with Jen Psaki, and more voices you know and trust. MSNOW is your source for news, opinion, and the world. Learn more at ms.now. what Americans really are doing in this moment is recovering their agency, remembering that they don't want to just watch an image of what it means to be a president, that actually there is joy in the creation of a community that is safer. There's joy in the creation of getting your college degree. There's joy in the creation of a new business or of a stable family or of health. And that joy of creation and creating a government that reflects those things, that's a vibe shift.
Hi, everyone. If you make a list of the people you admire most, and then you ask those people who they admire most, chances are extremely high that this week's guest is at the top of that list. Heather Cox Richardson is the voice of this moment, not because of how loud she screams. She never screams. about the excesses or the horrors, but because of the meticulous way she lays brick on top of brick on top of brick to remind us of our story, our history of flaws and our identity at a time when Donald Trump is trying to erode and erase all three. I find her essential at every turn, but especially this one in which Trump's base seems so hardened that his brazen corruption and theft from them and the American people
doesn't seem to faze them to say nothing of his audacious attempt to claim without evidence that his 2020 defeat was due to fraud and interference. So without any further ado, because I have a million questions for her, this is The Best People.
What is Heather Cox Richardson’s view on why Americans are “recovering their agency” and how does she define a ‘vibe shift’?
And this is our first ever Back for a Third Conversation three-peat guest, Heather Cox Richardson, historian, podcaster, and writer of one of the biggest substacks in the country ever. Hello, my friend.
Such a pleasure to be with you again. And you're very generous, but the people who matter in this moment and the ones that I represent are just ordinary people. I promise you.
But you ask 10 ordinary people what they read first and it's you.
Well, I think that that is a reflection of the fact that my project is really different than many people who are out in the media in that I came to this from teaching. Like my agenda is to protect democracy. It's not any of the other agendas that you might find out there. And so I just reflect back to people what they are shining on me.
I want to ask you how you keep the faith and if you ever feel yours waver.
The way you keep the faith, I think, is by having a profound belief in American democracy. And I do. And I want to point you to the Declaration of Independence because when the founders of what was going to become the United States of America produced that document, they start with the idea that they hold these truths to be self-evident. And that's not simply a well-phrased turn of an idea there. What they are saying is that they believe there are the laws of nature and of nature's God, they put those in that introduction as well, that say people have certain natural laws under which they function. And among those, not all of them, but among those are certain rights, including the right to have a say in your government and the right to determine your own future.
And if you really believe that that's what humans gravitate toward, that in fact that is a natural law or the law of nature's God, it's a question of getting to it, not a question of whether or not it's a real thing. And I actually really believe that. My experience in life has been that what human beings want is the ability to determine their own future. Not all of them, but the vast majority of us. And if you believe that's what we're working toward, we are going to win. The question is whether it's going to be in an hour, you know, in five years, in 40 years or in a new millennium.
One of the things that I think I attach to as sort of a former political operative was that at that time, about a third of the country was with them. A third of the country was against them and a third of the country didn't know how they felt about that idea.
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Chapters
3 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–1:52
2
What is Heather Cox Richardson’s view on why Americans are “recovering their agency” and how does she define a ‘vibe shift’?
1:52–48:18
3
How does Richardson explain the historical roots of partisan media and the conservative movement’s long-term strategy?
48:18–58:33
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from The Best People with Nicolle Wallace
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