Episode 70 – The Future of American Democracy: A Conversation with Cass Sunstein

[0:00:00 Peniel] Welcome to Race and Democracy, a podcast on the intersection between race, democracy, public policy, Social justice and citizenship.

[0:00:22 Peniel] Today we are pleased to be joined by Professor CASS Sunstein, who is currently the Robert Walmsley University professor at Harvard University. He’s the author of numerous books, including my favorite Nudge, improving decisions about health, wealth and happiness with Richard H. Taylor and he’s also senior counselor at the Department of Homeland Security. Professor CASS Sunstein, Welcome to Race and Democracy.

[0:00:51 Cass] Great pleasure to be here

[0:00:53 Peniel] now. Um I want to talk to you about a number of different things, including the contemporary state of our democracy. American democracy. It’s been such an amazing last 18 months. But really the last 12 or 13 years I’m working on a new book where I make the argument that this period is a period of America’s third reconstruction. Um You worked in the Obama administration from 2000 and 9 to 2012, the first term as administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. Uh And you also served on the President’s Review Board on intelligence and Communications Technologies and on the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Board. I want to ask you about your role in government and sort of how it translated from your role as a very eminent academic and law professor, especially constitutional law scholar. So yeah, I want to start there. How was it shifting those roles from being an academic

[0:02:00 Cass] uh to really being part

[0:02:02 Peniel] of the federal government in the Obama White House. And really how did you tell, tell our listeners? How did you get that gig? How did you get to the Obama White House?

[0:02:11 Cass] Thank you for that. So President Obama was professor Obama for many years and he was my colleague at the University of Chicago Law school. And he was a friend. And I remember telling him one day as he was standing outside a book store, he was probably in his young thirties. I said, you know, you should be president someday. And he kind of smiled as if that was, you know, what was I drinking about when I was on Marine one? He invited me on Marine one, which is the small helicopter that the president gets to uh fly in. I said, did you ever think when you were at the University of Chicago that we’d be in Marine one? And he said, CASS you told me, don’t remember Outside the Star. I was flabbergasted that he remembered that. And I said, well, the fact that you were going to be president, that was obvious. But the idea that I would be in Marine one, that’s that’s the big surprise. So he was a friend and we talked about the constitution and about law and about what government should be doing. And when he was elected, my uh first choice really was to run that office. The office of Information regulatory affairs. It’s not a very public or famous office. It’s not the kind of job that you know, gets the front page of the newspaper. But you have a chance to do more good I think in like two weeks in that job than in anything else, at least that I could think of because it overseas civil rights regulations, it overseas regulations involving our environment involving health and safety, involving poverty, involving food safety involving a very large number of things. And you can subject to the direction of the president, you can move the apparatus of government in one or another direction. So I thought that would be high honor. And actually strongly begged him to have that job and he thought you want that job. And I said, I really want that job. And he said after multiple discussions, okay, go for it. And and basically don’t screw it up. Um and my personal relationship with him made that possible. Uh the adjustment for being a professor to that was bigger than I would have expected. So I had studied no Environmental Protection and Civil rights and the constitution and these issues including this office, the Office of Information, regulatory Affairs studied for decades in those topics for decades. But I felt I was learning like drinking water from a fire hose, that the practicality of government was something that I really didn’t see clearly. And I just had to learn from people who had been there for five years, 10 years, 20 years about problem solving rather than about theory. And there are all these agencies with acronyms, DOJ people, No means the Department of Justice. CQ is the Council on Environmental Quality and there are DPC is the domestic policy council and people would refer to these entities with their initials and I would have to pretend I knew what they were talking about. But it turned out that all these entities were core partners and I would have to know exactly what they did and what their role was and the role of moving the government, let’s say to do something about prison rape or to do something about poverty. That was that was really new to me and I was dependent on the kindness of strangers.

[0:05:44 Peniel] Now give us an example if you would about how, how the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, for example, impact civil rights. Because you talked about regulations, you talked about the DoJ and Environment in what way and and during your time overseeing that office, what were some examples of progress, but what were some challenges and setbacks as well?

[0:06:09 Cass] Okay, 11 example is prison rape. So there is a law that congress enacted optimistically called the prison rape elimination act. And that law doesn’t mean anything really until their regulations issued by the Department of Justice, which do something about prison rape. And this is a problem of race. It’s a problem of poverty. It’s a problem of sex. And President Obama really wanted that law to be made meaningful by a regulation from the Department of Justice. What people don’t generally know is if the Department of Justice is going to issue a regulation, it might involve what discrimination is on in terms of race. It might involve what discrimination is on the basis of sex or in this case it’s the prison rape elimination act. It sends it over, so to speak, to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. And it can’t become binding or anything. That means anything until that office says it’s ready to go. And the office typically has up to 90 days to get it in shape and get in shape means make sure it’s legal, make sure everyone else in the government who has something to say about it thinks that it makes some sense and to make sure that it’s going to produce the benefits that’s supposed to produce and to ensure it’s consistent with what the president wants to happen. So when that rule came over from the Department of Justice, it’s it’s been a long time. So I’ll tell you a fair bet. Um, there were people inside the government, including the Department of Homeland Security who thought it wasn’t ready for prime time. Some of them thought it should be stronger than it was. Some of them thought that it should make more adjustments for the diversity of detention, let’s call them detention facilities that the US has, including prisons and things that are quite prisons. And some institutions like the Department of Homeland Security said we have our own ways of dealing with prison rape and the Department of Justice weighs just aren’t suited to. What for us is sometimes a two or three days stay. And so what the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice did was argue. And what the President of the United States told me to do was mediate the argument and get the rule out. And there were many legal disputes between those two departments and they didn’t go to court. They just had to be thought through. And there were policy disputes between those two as well. And that meant that we had to work really hard to get everyone on the same page. And in the way on that one, I would act as a mediator as a as a listener and try to figure out what was being said that was really forceful on one side or another. And then once everyone said, you know this is fine or even this is good, then it’s ready to issue. And then the president says Cast finally got it done and then it becomes binding law. All credit really goes to Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security in that case who did superb work. But there had to be someone who basically listened to their disagreements and tried to figure out how to how to resolve them in a way that both both of them thought was reasonable.

[0:09:34 Peniel] Now when you look back upon your time in the Obama administration. Um and really just those eight years, Are you surprised especially um with what occurred subsequently about the pushback that President Obama and that administration got really from multiple sides. So I’m thinking not just uh the birther movement and the tea Party movement that gave rise to trumpism and Maga or at least helped animate and energize those forces. But also from the left. I’m thinking about in a lot of ways. I think what’s extraordinary about those years is that it also generated or at least was generated parallel alongside of it was black Lives matter. Um The rise of Aoc Bernie Sanders. So I’m thinking of a very sort of progressive at times, even radical left um That in 2000 and eight it seemed as if Obama had captured all of that energy um and was able to sort of sort of galvanize uh, into the biggest popular vote in american history up until that time. What were you surprised about the response uh to the administration?

[0:10:47 Cass] Absolutely astounded. And I think I understand somewhat in retrospect though, I am completely astounded and I wasn’t real time about trump and the right. Uh and I can talk about that with conviction on the left, I feel puzzled and I’m just not sure what to think so on the right. Uh I thought that Obama was one of, and I think this was one of the greatest presidents we’ve ever had and I’m hopeful that he’ll go down in history that way that he had the most important social legislation that is the Affordable Care Act. Since the 19 sixties had the most important economic legislation, the Dodd frank financial reform since the 19 thirties had the most important environmental policies ever, really had the most important anti smoking policy ever. He did more on civil rights in multiple ways than anyone, at least since johnson. And he did a lot about poverty to contract poverty, including in some ways that really subtle, I got to be involved in a few of those. And he did that all without tanking the economy. And indeed he was, the economy was on the precipice. And probably his greatest achievement, I think, was to save the country from going into a depression. And I saw in real time his agility and a combination of speed and wisdom that never seen in any leader was almost um you know, almost unimaginable how he could make all these decisions so fast now, on the right, I would have thought that they would have thought, well, he’s not our guy, but he did a spectacular job and he’s not a socialist, he didn’t, you know, nationalized the banks. He resisted a lot of the stuff that senator Sanders wanted and he showed a kind of circumspection and moderation that we respect at the same time, that he did all this stuff, some of which we don’t like. So I would have expected a very modest, heartfelt but modest pushback from the right trumpism. I just didn’t see coming. And uh, the racism, the viciousness, the savagery, the disrespect. For truth. I just couldn’t imagine that in our country. I could imagine certainly people thinking the affordable care act is a bridge too far or Dodd frank isn’t so good or the environmental stuff wasn’t the right time for that. I can get all of that. I can think that some of the anti poverty stuff, the Obama administration did. People weren’t thrilled about that. But the, the viciousness and the, uh, I’m not sure how to describe it. The George Wallace is, um, maybe that emerged. I just couldn’t imagine that coming into our country and I still am flabbergasted by it I expected. And this is really a confession of my own absence, oppressions that trump would be a lot like Bush too, but more a show person and a cheerleader than Bush to was and that he would be maybe a tick or two to the right on some things or tick or to the left on some things. I didn’t see that at all. And what’s happened to the Republican Party that, that I didn’t expect. And I say that even with the fact that as a one time and now again, Washington person, I have friends in Congress who are republicans and whom I quite like and who at least behind closed doors are not vicious and not savage. Okay, so that I didn’t expect that the left is really, really interesting and I say, I’m not sure what to think about that. I completely get the idea that right now we want more, what’s the right word? Uh let’s just use a bland word progressive action than the Obama administration did. So, I completely get the idea and I’m part of the biden administration, very honored to be that the fact that biden has come out of the gate with some things that Obama didn’t do. I completely get the idea that biden is doing the right thing. I kind of regret that Obama didn’t do some of those things. Yeah, I

[0:15:10 Peniel] want to keep I want to hold you to that thought right there, Professor Sunstein, because I think that because this is a great conversation. I think that’s exactly it. I think that in 2009, especially the 1st 100 days in the midst in the midst of that economic collapse, uh, in the midst of two raging wars, um and with the popular vote total that uh President Obama um received about maybe 353 or 365 electoral votes. He won 31 states first democrat to win indiana in a two way race. It’s

[0:15:42 Cass] LBJ.

[0:15:43 Peniel] Um I think people wanted the new deal, you know, and I think they expected. I remember uh my own disappointment at the inaugural address in 2000 and nine, um which really contrasts with the inaugural address that just occurred in 2021. But I I expected um more expected FDR and I have tremendous admiration for President Obama. Absolutely. But I expected more and I think people were disappointed that there wasn’t the articulation of a grander, bolder vision about american democracy, one that was rooted in social justice and racial justice. We’re using the term anti racism right now coined by uh Angela Davis many many decades ago, but recently made more popular. Um but I think people were disappointed about that. They were disappointed, uh economic elites weren’t held accountable. Um and they were really disappointed in the president’s real inability to forthrightly talk about race. And I think that that’s probably the biggest irony of the Obama presidency. And certainly by 2015 16, he did very eloquently talked about mass incarceration. By 2015 he had these extraordinary speeches. But I think early on, I think people that’s part of the disappointment, at least

[0:17:10 Cass] it’s a completely great question. And I know there was widespread disappointment and I just don’t know how to think about it. And I’m also, um, possibly biased because, so I should admire or President Obama, which is, you know, it’s partly personal, partly gave him my job, but to put him in the, you know, the most favorable light. Um, he was dealing with what was about to be a depression. So the fact when I got to Washington and I guess late 2000 and eight, all the stores were closed. It looked like a different country, much worse than under covid 19 really where it’s temporary stuff and we know we’re going to get back on our feet. It looks like the country is falling apart. And the numbers that Obama president elect saw was much worse than that looked like the bottom was falling out. So number one thing he wanted to do was make sure the economy didn’t collapse. The number two thing he wanted to do was to get the affordable Care Act passed and that he saw, I know as a matter of social and racial justice, not just as a kind of technical thing about healthcare, so consistent with some of the things that both martin Luther King junior and Malcolm X emphasised the idea of getting health care and seeing that as a right is important for everyone and for people of color and people who are struggling economically, disproportionately, people of color that was really essential to him. And he had his eye like a laser on those two things. And then there are a couple other things, one of which is climate change, that he thought we kind of got to do something about this because the planets at stake. And I think he thought maybe particularly because of his skin color and the fact that um, he had taken some pretty tough blows. He was in a way

[0:19:12 Peniel] he

[0:19:13 Cass] to go there early. Maybe. I haven’t talked to him about this would have been a problem for the affordable Care Act, the effort to prevent a depression, the financial reform and climate change stuff. He wanted first to deal with that

[0:19:33 Peniel] stuff. You know, I think that even when I read his memoir, which only goes up to 2011 promised land, really extraordinary book over 700 pages and it really gives you, I think it’s the best presidential memoir you know, really that I’ve ever read read. Uh and it gives you a really good idea of how he views race, american exceptionalism, all these different things. Um Do you think that President Obama and the Obama administration is somebody who was there and really throughout your, you know, there for the beginning, but also the end in terms of your at the D. O. D. 16 4017. Um Do you think he underestimated the Republican Party? And do you think that that underestimation um in terms of the evolution of the Republican Party from sort of maybe the big tent Republican party of Eisenhower, which even then was different from the historic GOP of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln and anti slavery and abolition. But certainly the big tent of the 19 fifties Cold War Republican Party which had a mix of sort of um small c conservative supply side economics. Um you know, Cold War um really Cold War liberals in the context of uh you know, big L liberalism uh sort of sort of american Postwar liberalism, even if they were conservative. Do you think he underestimated the Democratic Party and its evolution? Because certainly that party, when we think about it in 2021 is a much different party from uh, in certain ways from the party of even Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan.

[0:21:17 Cass] I think it’s fair to suggest he underestimated there. What’s the right word? Intransigence and overestimated their willingness to listen to the force of the argument? And I say that recognizing there are lots of different republicans out there, there are lots of people who listen to arguments. There are lots of people certainly behind closed doors and sometimes in front of an audience will say, you know, this was right or this is right, even though it’s not the standard republican idea. I do think in retrospect, I’m thinking, have you been there early that on the Affordable Care Act, we really thought we could get some republican support and we worked hard for a long time to try to get it and make accommodations. And President wanted it to be bipartisan, and I don’t know what they were doing. I don’t know if they were playing a game or whether they were acting sincerely, but in the end couldn’t get there. But the Republican unwillingness to participate in what was originally a Republican idea that is the affordable care act grows out of Governor Romney’s work in massachusetts, that we didn’t see that coming. And I certainly didn’t see it myself. I’ve been surprised since I’ve been in Washington at times in the last months, uh, that good people who might know on the Republican side are capable of things that let’s just say are not good things.

[0:22:53 Peniel] All right, So let’s shift to the President in a way and I want to um, shift to the President by by still talking a little bit about the past. I think one of the interesting aspects for me as somebody who lived through the Obama administration and really the election of 2000 and eight had a chance to meet Senator Obama in boston in 2007. Um is the extraordinary uh inspiration that his campaign um amplified in young people. There was a huge increase in voter turnout. Um The whole notion of civic activism and being part of small d democracy, being proud to be uh an american and thinking about it very very optimistically that we could tackle these big ideas and big challenges of racism and poverty and what was going on in the international arena. I want to fast forward to 2020 and in a lot of ways I think one of the interesting juxtapositions of this period uh sort of Obama and trump and black lives matter one and two is that in 2020 with the pandemic uh and the George Floyd um protests, we’ve seen, you know, the largest social movement in american history, 15 to 26 million americans come out in support of Black Lives Matter racial justice. But really connecting that to these larger issues of what sometimes people call intersectional justice, connecting it to the environment, connecting into immigration, connecting it to police brutality and the maternal health outcomes of black women in latin X and asian americans. So so many other things. What do you think about this time in terms of the state of our democracy? Um when we think about the optimism at times coming out of these mass protests and demonstrations, but also clearly the the anger and at times we saw violence uh and you know, both from law enforcement. At times we saw uh violence in the streets. Uh most of the demonstrations were overwhelmingly peaceful, of course. But what do you think about are the state of our democracy? From your vantage point?

[0:25:09 Cass] I think it’s so interesting. I think you nailed it that under the campaign, let’s say of Senator Obama. There was a kind of joy part of so many people, in a sense that something is happening that is electric and promising. And I

[0:25:26 Peniel] was one of them.

[0:25:27 Cass] You will be both.

[0:25:29 Peniel] And

[0:25:31 Cass] and it seemed like it was, you know, Kennedy, the best features of Kennedy, but much even in in multiple ways. And that had, and I can tell you in the early days in the Obama White House, um, it seemed, you know, it seemed magical that uh, lots of colours Malcolm X said once in the speech, you probably know this, Turn around, look at yourselves, you’re 1000 and one different colours. That’s that’s what it was like in the Obama White House. And people were so uh determined, but with a small hell, and, and that was unique, what we’ve seen recently. Um, it seems from the standpoint of this observer, it doesn’t have the kind of innocent joy, It has a kind of determination, a sense of need, sometimes a sense of desperation, hope is there for sure, and sometimes joy, but it feels a little, it has a kind of, oh my God, and it, you know, someone has been murdered and then you’re doing something about, um, one murder, surely, but also murderers that go back, you know, centuries and that are not too in the last year, you’re not smiling, you might be thinking something’s afoot, that’s going to be good and this is going to turn this around, but it has more i defer to you on this. But just as Observer has, uh, more and more a sense of, uh, here we are, this is going to stop. And if people are, in some sense, some deep sense together, it has exhilaration and hope in it. But it’s not, it’s more complicated. Obama was after Bush, not after trump. Yeah. Um, it feels like this, as you say, there’s a sense of everyone matters. Uh, and each one of us has to do something because if we don’t, no one will, and during the Obama time it didn’t, it didn’t have that feel. So to the extent that there’s something really large happening in our country now. And there’s a good argument that it is, it’s that so many people think everyone matters. Remember when biden was elected, I thought, what am I going to do? I have this good, happy academic life? Am I going to go to Washington? And I thought the first sentence I ever typed as a kid. I was probably 11. Was that was the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country. It’s sexist, but it came to my head that was the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country. I don’t know where that came from. Was that the World War Two? The other was the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog. And that seemed less relevant.

[0:28:36 Peniel] But

[0:28:36 Cass] I think all of us well, all isn’t right, but a lot of people who are attuned to long standing and current horror are thinking now is the time for Everyone could come to the aid of their country, whether it’s by talking to someone or by joining a protest or by objecting to something that maybe you’ve lived with for a long time.

[0:29:02 Peniel] Yeah. The quote I’m thinking of is not only dr King’s fierce urgency of now, which then Senator Obama used on his way to the presidency in 2000 and 78 but also dr King at the march on Washington said on Wednesday august 28th 1963. Now is the time to make real the promise of american democracy, which is a line that always stays with me. You know, I think um uh 111 aspect of the evolution of Barack Obama and I don’t know if you you caught this too, was and I’m writing about this now, there’s a striking juxtaposition between the young senator Obama’s 2000 and four Democratic National Convention keynote speech, which is so exhilarating and the optimism that he he really invokes in that speech and then his 2020 virtual speech at the Democratic National Convention from philadelphia where he’s really talking about democracy being imperiled and you know what I think is so I think both speeches in certain ways are beautiful, but I think what is so poignant is that for there’s 46 million black people in United States, so many of them living disproportionately below dot dot dot in terms of whether it’s the poverty line, all negative social and economic indicators, overrepresented and underrepresented in all positive right? And what’s so poignant about the latter speech and not just the we are not red states or blue state speeches that I think it actually comes much closer to the the not just the black experience but the experience of being in America for people who’ve been on the margins, you know, where he’s saying, look, we’re going to have to struggle voter suppression is happening. There’s all this anti democracy, our democracy is in peril, but we have to continue to fight and believe. Um, so I don’t know if you caught that in terms of, you know, from 2000 and 4 to 2020 just the evolution. And I think in a way, um, Obama, the older Obama recognized in deeper ways. Um, some of the systemic challenges that we face. Uh, and and the fact that we all have to come together to speak about them and sort of claire with clarity and honesty and conviction. So it wasn’t just hope. He was saying, look, we’re really in trouble,

[0:31:25 Cass] right? I think that I think you’re completely right the 2000 and four speech. I remember it well, because he was my colleague, he was a professor and now he’s going to give this speech at the Democratic National Convention. And I was so scared I thought, you know, which of my colleagues could give a speech like that. They can teach a law school class because they speak in front of a large audience. I was worried for him. And then when he did what he did, I saw it in real time. You know, it knocked me out. I was just watching it by myself. I cried. But I also felt here’s this guy, a normal guy who can give a speech like that and that was more than inspiring. But as you say, it was a little bit like an effort to paint a picture in the hope that you can make it so by painting it. So I bet in 2004 I haven’t talked to about this. He was at least to some extent alert, I’m sure to social division and the fact that red states and blue states really aren’t the same. But if you paint a picture of a certain kind, you know, in any place, in a friendship and a family, you can make it more like itself as you paint it. Um, but in 2020 you know, especially having seen trumpism, which I’m confident I haven’t talked about this, but I’m confident he did not see that coming, at least not in that form. Uh, you have to acknowledge some things that you may be new or maybe you certainly knew but that they wouldn’t be front and center in your statements to the american people and the problem of racism and the problem of deep division is something that President Obama and I will always refer to him as President Obama even if my current boss is President biden who is also president. President Obama uh, is very keenly alert to I think he saw it and felt um uh informed by it in ways that have have marked his conception of our country which he loves but whose let’s say enduring somewhere between struggles and horror. Uh that’s more visible to all of us really than it would have been I think in 2000 and nine,

[0:33:57 Peniel] what can people do now in terms of hopes of democratic renewal? You know, small d democracy, There’s so much voter suppression, there’s so much hyper partisanship um and not just at the federal level, but at the state, regional local levels. Politics has really become um completely transformed on one level. But as a historian, I can tell you, it’s it’s very very similar to reconstruction error. Politics in the whole United States has become the reconstructed South. And that battle between Reconstruction and redemption, Reconstruction meant abolition, democracy and black citizenship and dignity and redemption meant a resurgence of, of white supremacy in the South. Um what can we do right now? Because these things are becoming so clear. I think the last 18 months has given the entire nation in the world it’s best public education on matters of race and democracy ever. You know, there’s just been more people tuned in. More people, both inspired but also angry, desperate hopeful all of it. We’ve seen it all. Um, what can people do now too to really um, you know, Lincoln talked about binding the nation’s wounds. What can we do?

[0:35:14 Cass] There’s a book about change called switch from about 10 years or so 10 years or so ago, which, which has various things that all of us can do. And one of the ideas is shrink the change so. And the basic idea is, if you have a problem, let’s call it racism or poverty or, uh, police, uh, misconduct. Let’s have a light word. Um, you can’t solve any of those three, at least none of us can as individuals. But there’s something maybe you can help move toward. So you can maybe in the community in which you live do something. It might be symbolic, but we live by symbols as Oliver. One will home said, well, you might put, you know, black lives matter on your front lawn. My family did that. That’s not a huge deal, but it drinks the change or you might, uh, participate civically in something to see the outpouring of political activity in the presidential race that we just emerged from was almost unbelievable to see people who have basically no means doing something to make sure they vote and get other people to vote and to see people who are, you know, celebrities who basically haven’t been in politics ever thinking I have a civic responsibility, I’m going to use my voice. Uh if we shrink the change in terms of maybe a local election, getting behind somebody, if there’s one person who’s struggling in some way that might involve politics directly or indirectly, if we can help that person, if there’s a local police department where there’s someone is really good who needs an encouraging word, or maybe more than that, or someone who is not so good, who needs to be called out held accountable, even if it’s only through one person’s voice that shrinks the change. My wife of public official right now likes to say, you can’t change the world, but you can change someone’s world and each of us today can show uh kindness or indignation about something and and that can change someone’s world.

[0:37:41 Peniel] Alright, my final question is um about hope. We’ve been talking somewhat about hope and certainly President Obama famously uh invoked hope and change on his way to the White House in 2000 and eight. Are you feeling hopeful about the state of american democracy right now and and the country’s future?

[0:38:01 Cass] I’m feeling very, very hopeful, combined with trepidation. So the hopefulness comes from the outpouring of uh positive action on the part of people from all walks of life in the last, let’s say, three years. I’ve never seen anything like it. I guess when I was a kid in the sixties, there was something like it, but I wasn’t wasn’t looking a whole lot, I was too young for the for it and it’s different now. It feels more focused than at least the sixties in retrospective Well, to the stand that was focused on the Vietnam War was focused, but otherwise it seemed a little undifferentiated. This has racial injustice, it has poverty, it has climate change, it has environmental justice, something which unites race and economic status and health and environmental quality puts them all together. I’ve never seen anything like that, and to see what President biden has been able to do. I think people didn’t expect it and to get stuff done in a short time. That’s extremely hopeful. And to see most americans applauding and at worst, intrigued and curious. That’s a really hopeful sign. I do think that our country has received a kind of lesson that we didn’t want to receive. Uh, maybe a number of people knew it was it was possible, but uh but many didn’t. And that is to see that some of the worst stuff in our country really could seize power and I don’t don’t know what to say about president trump in particular. I’m not sure what animates him in particular, but trump is um had a kind of, I think the right word of savagery that goes back to certain uh parts, let’s say of american culture and I can’t um avoid when I think of the this contemporary cloud, let’s call it. Uh thomas jefferson saying about slavery when I think that God is just I tremble for my country. I think all of us after the last few years, uh, we might be trembling a bit where we were trembling before. Um and that’s combined with a sense that uh, there are hopeful signs that maybe or something we’ve never seen before as well.

[0:40:35 Peniel] All right, we’ll end it on that positive note of hope. We’ve been talking with CASS R. Sunstein, who’s the robert, Walmsley University professor at Harvard University, the author of numerous books including the World According to Star Wars, which came out in 2016. He’s also senior counselor in the Department of Homeland Security. Currently, I really enjoyed this. Thank you so much for joining us.

[0:41:03 Cass] It was a great pleasure. Thank you.

Thanks for listening to this episode and you can check out related content on Twitter at Peniel Joseph. That’s P-e-n-i-e-l  J-o-s-e-p-h and our Web site, CSRD.LBJ.utexas.edu and the Center for Study of Race and Democracy is on Facebook as well. This podcast was recorded at the Liberal Arts Development Studio at the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Texas at Austin. Thank you.