This week, Paul Stekler returns to the podcast to discuss the government shutdown and the media’s response to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Zachary delights with his absurdist poem, “Golden Toilet Sank the Titanic.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Paul Stekler is an acclaimed documentary filmmaker and founder of the Center for Politics and Governance at the LBJ School of Public Affairs. His film work includes \u201cGeorge Wallace: Settin’ the Woods on Fire,\u201d \u201cLast Man Standing: Politics, Texas Style,\u201d two segments of the \u201cEyes on the Prize II\u201d series on the history of civil rights, \u201cLast Stand at Little Big Horn\u201d (broadcast as part of PBS’s series \u201cThe American Experience\u201d), \u201cLouisiana Boys: Raised on Politics\u201d (broadcast on PBS’s \u201cP.O.V.\u201d series) and \u201cGetting Back to Abnormal.\u201d His films have won two Peabody Awards, three duPont-Columbia University Journalism Awards, three Emmy Awards and a special jury prize at the Sundance Film Festival. Stekler has a doctorate in government from Harvard University, where his work focused on Southern politics. He previously was a political pollster in Louisiana while teaching at Tulane University. His writing has appeared in the Texas Observer, Texas Monthly and the International Documentary Association\u2019s magazine, among other places, and in the book, \u201cKilling Custer,” co-written with novelist James Welch. Stekler was named film school Mentor of the Year in 2014 by Variety magazine.
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This week, Paul Stekler returns to the podcast to discuss the government shutdown and the media’s response to it. Zachary delights with his absurdist poem, “Golden Toilet Sank the Titanic.” Paul Stekler is an acclaimed documentary filmmaker and founder of the Center for Politics and Governance at the LBJ School of Public Affairs. His film work includes \u201cGeorge Wallace: Settin’ […]","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","episode_type":"audio","audio_file":"http:\/\/podcasts.la.utexas.edu\/this-is-democracy\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/17\/2019\/01\/01-19-01-29-This-is-Democracy.mp3","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"29.46M","filesize_raw":"30886321","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":""},"tags":[175,174,173,172,169,92,177,98,171,176,170],"categories":[],"series":[2],"class_list":{"0":"post-524","1":"podcast","2":"type-podcast","3":"status-publish","5":"tag-both-sides","6":"tag-fake-news","7":"tag-first-amendment","8":"tag-free-speech","9":"tag-golden","10":"tag-media","11":"tag-paul","12":"tag-paul-stekler","13":"tag-shutdown","14":"tag-stekler","15":"tag-toilet","16":"series-this-is-democracy","17":"entry"},"acf":{"related_episodes":"","hosts":[{"ID":301,"post_author":"10","post_date":"2019-01-15 11:25:23","post_date_gmt":"2019-01-15 17:25:23","post_content":"I am a child of the global transformations that re-made societies in the last century\u2013war, migration, nation-building, and mobility through higher education. All of my research, writing, and teaching seeks to explain these transformations\u2013their diverse origins, their contradictory contours, and their long-lasting effects. My scholarship is therefore an extended inquiry into the workings of power at local and international levels, and the interactions across these levels. Like other historians, I treat power as contingent, context-dependent, and often quite elusive. Like practitioners of politics, I view power as essential for any meaningful achievement, especially in the realms of social justice and democratization.\n\nMy hope is that my work will reach a broad and diverse audience of citizens. Scholarship cannot substitute for real-lived experience, but I believe it can enhance our contemporary understanding of the choices we confront in the allocation of our resources, the structuring of our communities, and the judgment of merit. In this framework, international, transnational, and global history should contribute to better thinking about current international, transnational, and global problems. I am a proponent of historical and political studies that are broad, compelling, creative, and, ultimately, useful. We should research with Monkish rigor, as we write (and lecture) with novelistic flair.\n\nResearch interests\nThe formation and spread of nation-states; the emergence of modern international relations; the connections between foreign policy and domestic politics; the rise of knowledge institutions as global actors.\n\nCourses taught\nInternational History since 1898; The Past and Future of Global Strategy; American Foreign Relations\n\nAwards, Honors\nRecognized as one of \"America's Top Young Innovators\" by Smithsonian Magazine; Class of 1955 Distinguished Teaching Award, University of Wisconsin","post_title":"Jeremi Suri","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","post_password":"","post_name":"jeremi-suri","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2022-06-02 13:27:50","post_modified_gmt":"2022-06-02 18:27:50","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/podcasts.la.utexas.edu\/this-is-democracy\/?post_type=speaker&p=301","menu_order":0,"post_type":"speaker","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"}],"guests":[{"ID":350,"post_author":"57","post_date":"2019-01-15 13:17:58","post_date_gmt":"2019-01-15 19:17:58","post_content":"Paul Stekler is a nationally recognized documentary filmmaker whose critically praised and award-winning work includes George Wallace: Settin' the Woods on Fire; Last Man Standing: Politics, Texas Style; Vote for Me: Politics in America, a four-hour PBS special about grassroots electoral politics; two segments of the Eyes on the Prize II series on the history of civil rights; Last Stand at Little Big Horn (broadcast as part of PBS's series The American Experience); Louisiana Boys: Raised on Politics (broadcast on PBS's P.O.V. series); Getting Back to Abnormal (which aired on P.O.V. in 2014); and 2016\u2019s Postcards from the Great Divide, a web series about politics for The Washington Post and PBS Digital. Overall, his films have won two George Foster Peabody Awards, three Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Journalism Awards, three national Emmy Awards, and a special jury prize at the Sundance Film Festival. See a brief summary of his films on American polities here. Watch a career reel of his films here.\n\nDr. Stekler, who was RTF Chair from 2010 to 2017, has a doctorate in Government from Harvard University, where his work focused on Southern politics. He previously was a political pollster in Louisiana, while teaching at Tulane, and was the founder of Center for Politics and Governance at UT\u2019s LBJ School of Public Affairs. His writing, on subjects like Hollywood blockbuster films, the greatest Texas documentaries, American politics and politics as depicted in documentary films has appeared in the Texas Observer, Texas Monthly, the International Documentary Association\u2019s magazine, among other places, and in the book, \u201cKilling Custer,\" co-written with the late Native American novelist James Welch. Stekler was named film school Mentor of the Year in 2014 by Variety Magazine.\n\nStekler\u2019s films have all been broadcast nationally on PBS, on POV, the American Exoerience, Frontline, and as specials. He\u2019s also been an Executive or Consulting Producer on a number of documentaries including Margaret Brown\u2019s Be Here to Love Me, Peter Frumkin\u2019s Woody Guthrie: Ain\u2019t Got No Home, Karen Skloss\u2019 Sunshine, and Keith Maitland\u2019s The Eyes of Me.\n\nHe also played in New Orleans' only working bluegrass band, Wabash, weekly at the Maple Leaf Bar in the 1980's.","post_title":"Paul Stekler","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","post_password":"","post_name":"paul-stekler","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2022-03-08 15:55:35","post_modified_gmt":"2022-03-08 21:55:35","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/podcasts.la.utexas.edu\/this-is-democracy\/?post_type=speaker&p=350","menu_order":0,"post_type":"speaker","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"}],"transcript":"
\u266a (guitar music) \u266a
\nIntroductory Voices Together: This is Democracy. A podcast that explores the interracial, intergenerational and intersectional unheard voices living in the world’s most influential democracy.
\nJeremi Suri: Welcome to our new episode of \u201cThis is Democracy.\u201d. Our topic today is the recent government shutdown and the continuous debates over that and a possible future shutdown as well as the border wall. And we have with us, a returned guest. One of the few people who’s really been so good we wanted to bring him back. My colleague and friend and pioneer of radio, television, and film, Paul Stekler. Welcome Paul.
\nPaul Stekler: Glad to be here. Good morning.
\nJeremi Suri: Good morning. Good to have you on this morning. Before we turn to Paul while he sips his coffee and I sip my coffee, we have Zachary Suri’s poem. Zachary.
\nZachary Suri: My poem today is titled “Golden Toilets Sink the Titanic.”
\n\u201cI woke up in a quarter of everything was closed. Just left in the December snow to rust,
\nOn TV, he bartered and assaulted and cussed,
\nAnd people went to sleep peeing their pants for thirty-five days,
\nAnd the headlight every morning ran in plain block letters: golden toilets sink the titanic
\nAnd all the world went manic, All the shows were spreading panic,
\nRefreshing CNN every five seconds at school. Soup kitchens filling,
\nGloomy miss of bored federal workers spiking porn use in the Greater DC metro,
\nAnd yet every refreshed tab reminded us specific to Atlantic
\nThat day that golden toilets sunk the Titanic,
\nAnd small allowances of 5.7 billion were demanded
\nAnd Nancy, Nancy to him handed cubes of beef bouillon and a BLT sandwich
\nAnd SNL that weekend ran a newsreel, a reel from World War II,
\nCause everything was too real, the month golden toilets sunk the titanic,
\nAnd no one really remembers how it ended, ahead of hollow cave caved
\nAnd no one was really surprised
\nThree weeks, cold cheeks against the winter storm gigantic
\nBut still everyone wondered how golden toilets could sink the titanic\u201d
\nJeremi Suri: (laughs) That is wonderful, Zachary. What is the message of your absurdist poem?
\nZachary: Well, just how absurd the entire shutdown was. And the way that the media was able to impart to all of us the absurdity in a way that hasn’t before. And it didn’t legitimize the way the others did. And just how the frustration that Trump had with that.
\nJeremi Suri: Sure and the frustration we as citizens had, right?
\nPaul Stekler: Yeah
\nJeremi Suri: Well Paul, how do people in the media think about a crazy moment like this? How did they approach this?
\nPaul: I think they approach it as great story. You know, I get the sense of the media loves this. And it doesn’t make me feel great.
\nJeremi Suri: (laughs) Why do they love it?
\nPaul: Because it’s controversy, it’s conflict, because it’s something to talk about. It has the same people every night on every cable station yakking about stuff and saying the same things. It’s (deep breath) kind of like the campaign, you know, why was Donald Trump on TV every night? You know, no matter what he’s, you know, rambling two hour speeches were like because people were watching. You know, so anything he does, no matter how nutty, you know, draws an audience. You know while so people suffer and the government shuts down. And the two sides plot to be able to win, you know, win the news cycle. The media just loves it. It’s kind of like it’s, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s not very positive thing if you look at it overall in terms of health of the country.
\nJeremi Suri: Right. It becomes a Nancy versus Trump. Nancy Pelosi vs Trump phenomenon.
\nPaul Stekler: Yeah and it’s someone winning or losing. We all lost. Yeah, so it\u2019s kind of like, this is very temporal sort of stuff. The Republicans had shut down in 2013, you know, that was roundly criticized and people thought it was terrible, and they went on to win the elections in 2014. So if anybody thinks this particularly has an impact they think is going to have. Maybe or maybe not. You know, whoever wins the news cycle, doesn’t win the next election. It’s, like I said, it’s all depressing.
\nJeremi Suri: Yes, yes. Do you think that some of the stories that were done, especially on NPR and throughout the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal of the federal workers themselves? Do you think there was some public enlightenment and understanding that?
\nPaul Stekler: I suppose, they were good stories, they were stories that needed to be told. The sense that I get though is the tribal divide we have right now is, you know, really coloring, the way everyone seems to think of this stuff. You know if you hate Trump, you’re listening. If you love Trump, you’re not listening.
\nJeremi Suri: Right.
\nPaul: And saying it doesn’t make any difference. Sure, the stories were great.
\n[05:00]
\nYou know, they were needed to be said. What they’re larger impact was, you know it’s hard to say, but that’s what the media ought to be doing. You know, doing things where it was the actual impact of these policies.
\nAnd it’s the same sort of thing going down to the border, and finding out that the mayor of McAllen says, “We don’t need a wall. Chaos is not happening. There’s not a crime wave down there.” One of the things that I’ve never felt scared when I was down in McAllen. You know I have a feeling that wall supporters don’t, don’t listen. You know, one of the only interesting things that I’ve been hearing post shutdown is that you know, the greatest supporters of the wall are in Wyoming and Michigan. (laughs)
\nJeremi Suri: Far away.
\nPaul Stekler: You know and none of the congressmen on the border actually support the wall.
\nJeremi Suri: Right.
\nPaul Stekler: So it’s– you know when is this an actual issue on specifics. And when is this an issue on ideology. And it seems like it’s an issue on ideology.
\nJeremi Suri: Right.
\nPaul Stekler: Right.
\nJeremi Suri: So we have a new feature for this podcast. We have a number of students who in anticipation of our discussion have recorded questions for Paul. The first one is from a student of ours named Justin Bindell. And if we could play his question?
\nJustin Bindell: Major media outlets such as CNN and Fox News displayed the government shutdown timer, which recorded the number of day, hours, minutes, and seconds of the shutdown as lasting. My question is what effect does this have on each outlet\u2019s viewer base? Is it intended to strike fear into the public? Is it meant to represent how long Trump can remain firm to his border control policy? What are the implications of this timer, and what emotions from our society is it intended to arouse?
\nJeremi Suri: Paul?
\nPaul Stekler: None.
\nJeremi Suri: None. (laughs)
\nPaul Stekler: No it’s just a media thing. It’s kind of like, you know like… (chuckles)
\nI don’t think it has any impact at all. It’s kind of like what’s something clever that a producer puts on–
\nJeremi Suri: Right.
\nPaul Stekler: This side of thing. If it’s on Fox it’s, how many days will the democrats, you know, force this on us? If it’s on MSNBC, how many days can the president do this insane thing? And otherwise, does it have any impact? I doubt it.
\nJeremi Suri: Yeah. I think for me and some of the people I spoke with, but again we’re coming at this of course with one point of view. It did have this sense of like a Doomsday clock. Did you feel that way Zachary?
\nZachary: Yeah well I think also it was meant to just– I think it was interesting yeah how it was used in different outlets. Because I think in some outlets it was like, “Oh well–“, I think on CNN and more liberal news sites it was like, “Look at how crazy it is, it’s 35 days.” And then on others I imagine it wasn’t as prominent.
\nJeremi Suri: Right.
\nZachary: So.
\nJeremi Suri: Right.
\nZachary: I don’t– I don’t really think it had that much of a strong–
\nJeremi Suri: Right. Right.
\nWhat should the media do Paul? What would you want them to do to better educate the public about the border and about the shutdown.
\nPaul Stekler: (sighs) You know, in terms of the border I’d like to see more coverage. You know, but like I said it’s, it’s not so much that I have a problem with the media. The media is audience driven. You know it’s interesting I was watching cable a lot, you know, during the shutdown to try to glean you know whatever happened that day. And what I began to notice, I think I was watching MSNBC a lot because I like Brian Williams.
\nJeremi Suri: Mm-hmm.
\nPaul Stekler: You know, he’s one of the few cable people that isn’t yakking and telling me stuff that I already know.
\nJeremi Suri: I agree.
\nPaul Stekler: And I’m talking about both sides. You know (laughs) they have the same people on every night saying the same thing.
\nJeremi Suri: Right.
\nPaul Stekler: It’s literally the same experts.
\nJeremi Suri: Right.
\nPaul Stekler: I think they were on call. They were like living in the basement of MSNBC.
\nJeremi Suri: (laughs)
\nPaul Stekler: You know what should the media be doing. The [inaudible 08:39]. It’s not so much what the media should be doing, it’s is anybody listening anymore? I mean I think we talked about this before when I was on the show. You know, Bill Bishop wrote a book called the “Big Sort” back in 2004, which is probably one of the most seminal books on politics.
\nJeremi Suri: Yes.
\nPaul Stekler: it’s not specifically about politics it’s about the fracturing of America into niche groups in terms of religion, in terms of marketing, in terms of political beliefs. That was 2004. Is anybody listening anymore, you know across the divide. You know, and if nobody is listening then it doesn’t make much of a difference what the media is doing. You know, so it’s not so much, you know do I love the media? Is it fake media? I mean they’re doing the job that they’re doing. And, you know, more stuff on the border that especially as a Texan, you know, or at least the faux-Texan–
\nJeremi Suri: (laughs)
\nPaul Stekler: You know would be great because–
\nJeremi Suri: Yeah.
\nPaul Stekler: You know I’ve done lots of filming on the border (laughs) and it never felt, you know, like it was really dangerous out there.
\nJeremi Suri: You didn’t find caravans of enemies coming at you.
\nPaul Stekler: No no no. And there were places like over by Big Ben, where exactly would you put this wall?
\nJeremi Suri: Right.
\nPaul Stekler: You know, this is all like to a large extent, you know, silliness.
\nJeremi Suri: Right.
\nPaul Stekler: It’s not so silly because of the implications in our politics. I think the lager problem is, are we ever going to get passed this. You know it’s kind of like, you take a look at the shutdown. And you take a look at our budget process, if there is a process.
\n[10:02]
\nJeremi Suri: Hmm.
\nAnd just looking at where this is going and the inability of Congress to do anything, you know besides score political points, where is this going? You know, or is this just rushing us into a, you know, a world where China, you know, employs us to be able to do work for them. I think other countries, you know, that have more of a centralized control (chuckles) or you can call it more of a dictatorial control or whatever, look at us and they go, “Huh?”.
\nJeremi Suri: Right. Right.
\nPaul Stekler: You know it’s kind of like as the West falls apart in terms of politics, you know call it Brexit, call it Yellow Jackets over in France, or whatever, this is really disturbing in terms of what the future is like.
\nJeremi Suri: No it’s a good point. I was talking to a group of visiting Chinese officials yesterday and there were making this particular point. On the topic of fake news, which of course is related to this, much of what we hear about from the border and some news outlets [inaudible 10:54] of course fake news.
\nPaul Stekler: Right.
\nJeremi Suri: We have another question. This is from Ally [inaudible 11:00] I believe. I hope I pronounced her name correctly. Ally I apologize if I didn’t pronounce your name correctly. Let’s hear Ally’s question.
\nAlly: I’ve recently seen a lot of hateful news on social media from both the left wing and the right wing concerning the need for a government shutdown over President Trump’s border wall. Many of the articles I find are full of fake news that are being used by both sides of the argument. So here’s my question to you, does the first amendment’s freedom of speech justify and protect the fake news scene on social media?
\nPaul Stekler: (sighs) You know… as somebody who doesn’t do social media very much because of this–
\nJeremi Suri: (laughs)
\nPaul Stekler: You know, of course the first amendment protects this. You know, I don’t want to do a both sides sort of thing. Okay Fox News is pathetic.
\nJeremi Suri: Right.
\nPaul Stekler: Okay I mean I can give you an example of this. Back in 2008, I did a program for FRONTLINE for the about the Obama vs McCain race. It’s a really good, you know, really good program, “The Choice”. I spend a lot of time trying–
\nJeremi Suri: I went back and watched it after you mentioned it last time. It was excellent.
\nPaul Stekler: Yeah (chuckles) and I think I mentioned last time, Fox News did their election special, and half of it was about two guys who went to college at the same time as Obama who were from Indonesia who might have been terrorists. And I’m watching this and I’m going, “What?”.
\nJeremi Suri: Mm-hmm.
\nPaul Stekler: You know this is like crazy.
\nJeremi Suri: Right.
\nPaul Stekler: You know, now they’re [inaudible 12:17]. You know when we talk about fake news, Fox News is beyond Mars on this. Okay that said, they’re fulfilling their demographic. That’s what they want to hear, whatever that is.
\nJeremi Suri: Right.
\nPaul Stekler: Okay. And the Republicans have been much worse than the Democrats in terms of this stuff. But the Democrats are following suit. You know it’s kind of like… again I can’t get worked up on this fake news stuff okay. I think it’s fed by people’s ideological tribal instincts so whatever. The bigger problem is what’s going on in society. And quite frankly we are not solving any of our problems.
\nJeremi Suri: Right.
\nPaul Stekler: You know this is like, you want to solve the border? Okay, compromise.
\nJeremi Suri: Mm-hmm.
\nPaul Stekler: Okay there’s plenty of agreement in terms of need for security. You know, needs for more judges down there. Needs for more facilities so you know the kids are not put in cages. Okay. You know and needs for border patrols. Okay this is all agreed by people. Okay, and nobody can sit down and think about this because it’s like who’s going to win the news cycle? Who’s going to win the next election?
\nJeremi Suri: It does seem to me Paul, that as historians right, both you and I recognize I think that we’ve gone through these kinds of rough media moments throughout our history. The late 19th, early 20th century, if you think about what urban media looked like with viral newspapers run by parties. And it does seem to me that the solution is not of course restricting the media, just the opposite. But the solution is, when members of the public, particularly a new generation–
\nPaul Stekler: Mm-hmm.
\nJeremi Suri: Look for an alternative source that actually provides good problem solving news.
\nPaul Stekler: Right.
\nJeremi Suri: Do you see that happening?
\nPaul Stekler: Um. Can I continue my doom and gloom?
\nJeremi Suri: (laughs) You can!
\nPaul Stekler: You know, as newspapers begin to go out of business. You know, as people begin to cut down the people who are actually covering policy, you know, is this getting better or is this getting a lot worse? I mean I would fear that in the future, unless all you’re doing is reading the New York Times and the Washington Post and listening to NPR I guess, you know who exactly is doing in depth news? I mean we live in Austin, Texas you know look at the coverage of the legislature you know compared to what it was 20 years ago, in terms of the bureaus. You know, is the only solution The Texas Tribune? You know, it does a pretty good job. Okay, but is that the solution to this? Having you know–
\nJeremi Suri: But that’s what I was thinking about. The Texas Tribune, which is a non-profit that provides, I think even those who have a different set of politics would say, you know pretty in depth fair coverage of what’s going on. And you think of what NPR does–
\nPaul Stekler: Sure.
\n[15:00]
\nJeremi Suri: And the way NPR subscriber base has increased quite a lot actually in the last few years. Those seem to be good signs to me.
\nPaul Stekler: And what if you live in Kansas? I mean what if you live in Wyoming? I mean we’re not liable to have Texas Tribunes in those places. You know we have a, you know, this is Austin, Texas. We have people with a lot of money, you know who are willing to back something like this up. You know, there’s a difference between Austin and most parts of the country. Our public radio and public TV stations are supported to a much larger extent here you know, then other parts of the country. You know so sure, we’re living in a bubble over here which is great. What do you do if you’re in Lubbock?
\nJeremi Suri: Right.
\nPaul Stekler: You know? At least you’re in Texas and you get some of this stuff. So I think this is again– you know I used to live in New Orleans where I started making films and where I did politics. You know The Times-Picayune is down to three days.
\nJeremi Suri: Yeah.
\nPaul Stekler: And it’s fairly pathetic. And you know a lot of the people who work there ended up working in that paper that comes out of Baton Rouge that tries to pick up, you know the slack. But I mean, what it leads to is less coverage. How much coverage is there about what our legislature does?
\nJeremi Suri: Mm-mm.
\nPaul Stekler: You know not that much considering how important it is. You know and we have lots of coverage on fake news and the border and all this stuff but quite frankly what’s going to affect your life in a much greater extent is are we actually going to fund public education?
\nJeremi Suri: Right.
\nPaul Stekler: You know, you want to lower property taxes, you know but not increase the money that goes into public education guess what’s going to happen?
\nJeremi Suri: Right, right. Well what about though, what we did see in the early 20th century and again in the mid-20th century, public efforts to create public funding for these organizations.
\nPaul Stekler: Mm-hmm.
\nJeremi Suri: I mean, NPR and PBS are not that old in fact right.
\nPaul Stekler: Sure.
\nJeremi Suri: And in the early 20th century there was the effort through the city manager system through urban reform to create, again, factual news sites for people.
\nPaul Stekler: Mm-hmm.
\nJeremi Suri: And it’s actually not that expensive right. If states wanted to fund this they could couldn’t they?
\nPaul Stekler: Sure. (sighs) Yeah but I guess again this goes back to the whole fracturing of American society. You know, public television you know as the product of the great society.
\nJeremi Suri: Right. Lyndon Johnson.
\nPaul Stekler: Well you know, a lot of the reforms that you’re talking about in the early 20th century are the product of the progressive movement. Okay, do you see anything in the United States right now that would indicate to you that there is any kind of unanimity possible to be able to do these kinds of initiatives, at least publicly? You know, I don’t. And–
\nJeremi Suri: Hmm.
\nPaul Stekler: You know, it’s kind of… you know I keep thinking what exactly would it take for somebody to get elected that could actually be a unifier? Is unification even possible anymore?
\nJeremi Suri: Hmm.
\nPaul Stekler: You know, maybe it’ll take some type of catastrophe, you know, where all of a sudden people would stop thinking about, you know, why they hate each other. And figure out that, you know, if they don’t like each other we don’t do some things specifically, you know, together. You know, then doom and gloom is really going to happen. A Great Depression or a World War II.
\nJeremi Suri: Right.
\nPaul Stekler: And I don’t wish that or anything.
\nJeremi Suri: Right, of course.
\nPaul Stekler: So sure those things are great Jeremi but are they liable to happen, you know, from a public entity when a public entity doesn’t have that kind of–
\nYou know you take a look at our government right now, it’s– as long as you’ve got one more vote than someone else, you can force through things.
\nJeremi Suri: Right.
\nPaul Stekler: You know, like Obamacare came through without a single Republican vote.
\nJeremi Suri: Right.
\nPaul Stekler: You know, the tax cuts came through, I don’t think with what, two or three Democratic votes?
\nJeremi Suri: That’s right.
\nPaul Stekler: And what’s going on with the courts right now you know, is like antithetical to the way the court system has worked in the past. Forcing all these people through on party align votes, on Supreme Court votes. You know, where there’s almost no crossing. This is not healthy for Democracy.
\nJeremi Suri: I guess what I’m trying to get at Paul is, how do we get beyond this division at the surface when we also know there is a lot of unity beyond that right? Most Americans believe that climate change is a problem now.
\nPaul Stekler: Right.
\nJeremi Suri: Not that representatives don’t believe that, they believe that. The vast majority of Americans wanted the government open. In fact, the Senate voted 100 to 0 open before Trump decided to change his mind, based on what he saw on right wing television and radio.
\nPaul Stekler: Mm-hmm.
\nJeremi Suri: So it’s not that there isn’t a consensus out there, and I’m not sure if the consensus out there is any less strong than what it was 40 years ago. It’s a problem of people in the media, your world, not getting that story out and not bringing people together around that.
\nPaul Stekler: You know, but again I agree that most people believe in climate change. Most people believe we shouldn’t have had a shutdown. Okay, but if you actually took a look at what’s important to people–
\nJeremi Suri: Hmm.
\nPaul Stekler: Especially for Republican voters, they might have tended toward that but they didn’t want to vote that way.
\nJeremi Suri: Right. Why not? Why not?
\nPaul Stekler: Because I think the partisan tribalism is more important than the specific issue. You know, the truism you know when I was in graduate school learning about you know, political participation and political behavior, was that if I liked Jeremi then I assume that Jeremi’s positions are closer than mine. Okay, that’s more important than my issue positions.
\nJeremi Suri: Right.
\nPaul Stekler: And I think that, you know, as we split and my partisan leanings are based a lot on the fact that I hate you, then I’m against whatever you are for.
\n[20:03]
\nJeremi Suri: Right, right.
\nPaul Stekler: So how do you actually get any kind of consensus on issues where people actually genuinely agree? You know, I don’t know. I just don’t know.
\nJeremi Suri: Right, it sounds like you need a figure that people like, even if that figure is not in their tribe.
\nPaul Stekler: Yeah, some sort of a transformational figure. You know… and if I had to invent that in a laboratory right now, I’m just not that quite sure who that would be. What that would be.
\nJeremi Suri: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Zachary what do you think about this?
\nZachary: I think there needs to be more young people in politics and in the media. And that’s one of the important parts that’s being left behind in politics today. That they’re focusing on what’s going on right now in Washington and when people butt heads, its big stories, but I think it’s more important to focus on educating young people on how media covers things and on fake news. But also on how they can get engaged in politics and the media.
\nJeremi Suri: Mm-hmm. Paul on that point, do you see a difference on how young people consume media versus how middle aged and older voters consume media. Besides obviously the young people use more social media.
\nPaul Stekler: (laughs)
\nJeremi Suri: But do you see them– does the evidence so far show that the young people are as tribal as the older consumers?
\nPaul Stekler: Well as a decidedly un-young person–
\nJeremi Suri: (laughs)
\nPaul Stekler: I have no idea. And I think that you know, obviously the numbers show that fewer people are watching you know, the old mainstream ways of being able to do the news.
\nJeremi Suri: Right.
\nPaul Stekler: (sighs) And they’re using more social media. I was thinking about this in terms of unification, and I’m not going to use Beto O’Rourke as sort of like the model for the future okay, but he was able to you know, increase youth turnout.
\nJeremi Suri: Yes. Yes.
\nPaul Stekler: Okay now, at the same time not doing much in terms of like Latino turnouts and having a game plan for traditional, you know, democratic constituencies. Okay, why was he able to do that? It was partially social media, and partially, you know, personality driven. You know, if you actually ask, you know, people, you know, what does Beto O’Rourke stand for? Good luck. He stands for, “Wow I really like him.”
\nJeremi Suri: Right.
\nPaul Stekler: You know, now is that the model for young people in the future? Someone who seems positive, who looks good, you know and can feel your pain in a way that is a little less fake than President Clinton.
\nJeremi Suri: Right.
\nPaul Stekler: You know, I don’t know. Now that may be the way of the future, which is not issue driven at all.
\nJeremi Suri: Right.
\nPaul Stekler: Okay and somehow they go, “Can’t we reason this out?\u201d
\nJeremi Suri: Right.
\nPaul Stekler: I don’t know. You know, in terms of young voters, you know, it was nice to be able to see, you know, young voters actually voting in numbers closer to their numbers in society in Texas in the last election. You know, will they make a big difference in politics in the future? I mean people are tending to say that younger voters are more liberal than voters in general. You know, that they have much more liberal social views. You know, so I guess if you are a Democrat that makes you happy. I don’t know what that means in terms of actual specifics, in terms of harder issues because not everything is a social issue.
\nJeremi Suri: But I wonder how different that is, and maybe this is a good historical and optimistic question to close on. It does seem what you’re describing–
\nPaul Stekler: Mm-hmm.
\nJeremi Suri: Sounds a lot like people who were drawn to Theodore Roosevelt in the early 20th century. Or Franklin Roosevelt. There are a large number of people who know this literature well. Who said, you know, I like Franklin or I like Theodore, I don’t always like their policy but I like them. And then I think of someone who you’ve covered better than anyone else, Ann Richards. It strikes me, a lot of people who liked Ann Richards didn’t actually know what her policies were.
\nPaul Stekler: Right.
\nJeremi Suri: Right.
\nPaul Stekler: You know, I suppose. I mean Ann got elected in part because Clayton Williams blew the race. I mean if Clayton had actually left the State for the last month he probably would have won. You know, and they liked her a whole lot and she lost to George W. Bush who was also a very likable candidate.
\nJeremi Suri: But she did serve, you know, full term as governor of Texas.
\nPaul Stekler: She did. She did. You know it seems like sort of, you know, the [inaudible 23:57] you know, your politics.
\nJeremi Suri: (laughs)
\nPaul Stekler: You know, now that it gets further and further away. You know, Teddy Roosevelt was, you know, president during a Republican dominated period of time. You know Republicans wanted no part of him and they put him on the Vice Presidential thing. And then all of a sudden got their worst nightmare when McKinley got killed.
\nJeremi Suri: Right.
\nPaul Stekler: And you know, Roosevelt came in because of the Great Depression. You know so, a lot of times people are brought in, you know, in different reasons and they rise to the moment. You know so, again who know? It’s kind of like, anything can happen. You know, like the South Pole might melt tomorrow and all of a sudden the United States is underwater. And we have to all, you know, get together over in Kansas, you know, under a unifying leader.
\nJeremi Suri: (laughs)
\nPaul Stekler: I don’t know.
\nJeremi Suri: (continues laughing) Well I think Paul, in your inimical way (laughs)
\nPaul Stekler: (laughs)
\nJeremi Suri: You’ve given us (laughs)
\nPaul Stekler: Hope for the future. (laughs)
\nJeremi Suri: A lot to worry about, but also a sense that things are going to change. I do think what you captured so well, and you always do, are the ways in which it’s really not about the media, it’s about all of us as consumers of the media.
\nPaul Stekler: The media is a reflection of who we are.
\n[25:00]
\nYou know, as I think the other way around, so.
\nJeremi Suri: Absolutely. Well Paul thank you for joining us. Thank you for joining us all of you listeners for this episode of “This is Democracy”.
\n\u266a (music) \u266a
\nSpeaker 4: This podcast is produced by the Liberal Arts Development Studio and the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Texas at Austin.
\nSpeaker 5: The music in this episode was written and recorded by Harrison [Lum-kee 25:26]. And you can find his music at Harrison[Lum-kee 25:29].com
\nSpeaker 6: Subscribe and stay tuned for a new episode every Thursday featuring new perspectives on democracy.
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