Who can . The group of leaders who swerve the most praise this week are the military brass. In a remarcable act of leadership for people who work under the president , all five of the heads of the armed forces independently issued statements unequivocally denouncing racism and bigotry. Maps because the military has been the institution that has most successfully integrated the most diverse population. Perhaps it remains an oldfashioned place where a sense of honor standards and value still holds. The military chiefs have shown why they still command so much respect in the country. Americas other elites should perhaps take note. For more go to cnn. Com fareed and read me Washington Post column this week. Lets get started. In the wake of the charlottesville rally and attack last weekend, the new yorker published a fascinating frightening article entitled is america headed for a new kind of civil war. The reporter talked to experts and tame to startling conclusions. What is going on in america . How did we come to this. Joining me now the reporter of that new york article. Shes a contributing writer for the new yorker. Com. Angela is a cnn political commentator. Mark lilla is a professor of the humanities at columbia. Roy blunt jr. Is an author, humorist and former reporter. He spent his form a tiv years in the American South and that region continues to be somewhat of a muse for him. Hes written book after book about it. Mark let me start with you. Steve bannon is out of the white house but his intellectual influence steeem the to still dominate. In a sense he says i agree with the thesis of your book which is as long as the left plays identity politicsdesh he said bring it on. It does appear donald trump whether he has him in the white house or not is still listening to steve bannon because that is the strategy theyre pursuing. If steve bannon says it works for him im inclined to agree with him. Hes someone who knows his business. Identical politics in this country really means two things. On the one hand, it means a focus on understanding our social problems. And understanding any problem in america you need to understand identity. But when it comes to addressing those problems, identity politics as a strategy has been disast disasterous. Because rather than establishing a connection between those affected by the problems and those who may be unaware of them or unaffected, you into ed to build a bridge between people. Youre saying when blacks say these are black issues, whites dont feel like they connect to them. Well its even worse than that i think in some of the more radical Identity Group the. They say you must understand me and my problems and you canned understand me because youre not me because you dont belong to my group. Thats a trif inerrific turnoff people and a missed opportunity to build a bridge and to see that there are certain principles and certain experiences that we share in this country. Its an opportunity to gain allies, and identity liberals keep shooting themselves in the foot. The problem is identity politics has been played by non liberals as well. In a sense, the right has always played with some form of identity politics just white. Thats what all the dog whistles about race have been, reagan starting his campaign in philadelphia, mississippi. You think about the war on drugs, when the tea party rose for the first time and they started talking about lets take our country back. You think about donald trump saying make America Great again. What makes america not grate. He announced that mexicans were drug dealers and rapists so its very clear anything other is wrong or bad. Its damaging the country. I was initially nervous about what you would say about identity politics and i couldnt agree with you more about building bridges. I think the challenges is when im forced to say the issue in a way that digestible to you that means im uncomfortable. Where is the bridge where we can have a dialogue where we are fostering dialogue. I think for me as a africanamerican person i find myself on the defense. Im so often in the minority. Its a minority view from a minority person you assume is angry. Theres so many hurdles to overcome. Your point is find those issues that unite, economic ish y eus. Its even more than that. The for example im not a black male moat arists. I will never fully understand what its like to be in a situation where you look in the Rearview Mirror and see the lights going. However, i am a citizen and i understand what it means not to be equally protected under the law. And if you put the experience under a principle we all share, then people can identify. But if you say that you cannot understand my experience because of your background, youre inviting people to close the door. So robbin, this gets to the, seems to me the fundamental issue in your article, which is we seem to be so far apart. We seem to be so far apart as a country. Of what ive been struck by in h the last few days is the stunning degree of support for Donald Trumps position after charlottesville, the very high support for maintaining every confederate monument. These are 70 range for republicans, 80 depending on how you ask the question. And that gets to your article. Is this gulf so wide you think and the basis of that reporting we really are in for a new kind of civil strife, if not civil war . Well, i think no ones talking about the kind of pitch battles along neat geographic lines. What people are talking about is lointensity contact with sporadic violence which results in call out the National Guard and challenges political authority. I think youve seen a number of conditions in this country that get far beyond identity politics but a emerge from it. No middle ground, no Meeting Place to resolve it. Its the weakened institutions such as the courts, and its the abandonment of the higher moral ground by leadership. Its the legit mization of violence as a means of engaging in discourse or resolving disputes, that there are a lot of things that are very worrisome. I am a child. I went to college in the late 60s, and early 70s per during the period of the Civil Rights Movement and antiwar movement. United states has in the past had a process of selfcorrection through the courts or through legislation, we got back on track. Whats worrisome now is that you find that the leadership in the country is not taking that higher moral ground and is fanning the flames are polarization. The firing of steve bannon is not going to get us beyond this moment in history beyond the with dwooiftneivisiveness. The problem is the because of the kind of support we see by so many behind donald trump this is something thats going to be with us for quite a while. Roy, how much of this is the south . How much of this is the fact that we have never completely come to terms with that i think about it because when people say there are some similarity what the germans dealt with their past. Partly because its clear modern interpretation that hitler and all the nazi were bad terrible evil people the. You will never find a statue to them. There is am bilens about robert e. Lee. Yeah. Well robert e. Lee was a symbol. The south not just the south but the whole country seemed to need somebody after of the civil war. The civil war was a horrible sordid carnage. It was just a horrible thing. The more you read about it, its just disgusting, that war. So they put up statues. The statue in augusta, georgia that says carved on it no nation rose so white and fair, none fell so pure of crime. This is like standing out in the corner saying we never did anything wrong. Its embarrassing. The its ludicrous. The so me id love to take them down. Robert e. Lee was a living statue or recently deceased statue that was supposedly pure. Never earned a demerit at west point. He was a much more complicated man than held up to be. When we come back i want to come back to this issue that Robbin Wright raises which is how much political conflict and strife are we in for, going forward. Its an american favorite on top of an american favorite, alice. Its like Labor Day Weekend on top of the fourth of july. Hotdogs. Get your favorites on top of your favorites. Only at applebees. Get your favorites on top of your favorites. Four seconds on the clock, championship on the line. Erin the sharpshooter shanahan fakes left. Shes outside of the key, she shoots. She scores uh. Yes, erin, it is great time to score a deal. We need to make room for the 2018 models. Relive the thrill of beating the clock. The volkswagen model year end event. Hurry in for a 1,000 apr bonus and 0 apr for 60 months on a new 2017 jetta or passat. Whats going on here . Um. Im babysitting. Thatll be 50 bucks. You said 30 dollars. Yeah, well it was 30 before my fees, like the dogsitting fee. And the rummage through your closet fee. Who is she, verizon . Are those my heels . Yeah yeah, were the same size. In shoes. With tmobile taxes and fees are already included, so you get four lines of unlimited for just 40 bucks each. And now get zero down on the hottest smart phone brands like samsung galaxy. More reasons why tmobile is americas best unlimited network. Booking a flight doesnt have to be expensive. Just go to priceline. Its the best place to book a flight a few days before my trip and still save up to 40 . Just tap and go. For the best savings on flights, go to priceline. This inot this john smith. Smith. Or this john smith. Or any of the other hundreds of john smiths that are humana Medicare Advantage members. No, its this john smith. Who we paired with a humana team member to help address his own specific health needs. At humana, we take a personal approach to your health, to provide care thats just as unique as you are. No matter what your name is. And we are back with Robbin Wright, angela and roy blunt jr. Mark i want to come back to you to ask about again going forward. It does seem as though the trump strategy right now is go to your base, and play this game of white identity politics. Will it reinforce a kind of die hard opposition on the left . What should the left do . Your book is written as you put it as a once and future liberal. You dont want them to play identity politics but what do you do if the other side is . The first thing you have to recognize is that it works for them and doesnt work for us. But beyond that, i think whats important here and it showed up in Robbin Wrights article is theres some glu missing in this country. Something that keeps us together. Its not so much were at loggerheads but drifting apart. There once used to be a democratic vision, Democratic Party vision, a liberal vision of what we stood for as a nation, what made us citizens, how we could Work Together in a political way on the basis of solidarity and equal protection. Then there was a reagan view, the res government, the better. By ourselves in families and churches. Good luck to you. That vision was destroyed by donald trump. He destroyed reagans party, now Neither Party and neither ideology. In a sense youre saying liberals never had a response to reagans. Thats right. Reagans was antiliberal. The legitimacy of helping each other out. And by retraining, they made a tactical mistake, i think. I dont think many people have a sense and i dont think democrats have a sense of what their vision of the future was is. I mean if you listen to the rhetoric of jfk or fdr or reagan, you very quickly get a sense of what kind of world they wanted to create. We dont have that. Without a national narrative, without ideologies that even bring parties together, we become like elementary particles flying apart. Thats when trouble starts. How do you bring the democrats or the country together . Well i think first obviously, as a democrat, at least someone who votes democrat, i disagree a little bit. The i think recently they introduced a plan that leads more into economics which is a more unified principle. I think there is a struggle when youre known to be a big tent. There are a lot of different interests you have to cater to. I think historically democrats have struggled to figure out what is that sweet spot. Were different and i like we can appreciate differences. The only path forward, i think, it to begin to tell the truth about our history. Its one that is troubled. Its one that is challenging, full of conflict and full of hypocrisy. Until we can embrace what that narrative is, as uncomfortable as it might be for some. That seems to be a recipe for more conflict, because as we tell that history, there are a lot of people who will say thats not my history and as roy blunt was saying, youre politicizing it, or i just feel like youre going to get a backlash. Well, we havent we havent resolved many of the issues that surfaced during the civil war including how do you ensure people of color not only Voting Rights but equal rights so there are a number of haunting questions that still have to be addressed. The 14th amendment is still deeply divisive in this country. One of the things striking about parties is if you look at the period run up to the civil war, you saw the de vicinity grags and the democrats dividing into northern and southern. There are some kind of uncanny parallels and haunting questions that this nation has not moved together to try to resolve and it plays out in this issue of statues, how ironic, pieces of steel. You covered this in 1960s. It seems Robbin Wrights articles suggest what we might end up with is another period like the late 50s and 60s where you had deep political divisions, some violence, kind of conflict that didnt seem like it could be mediated. What seems similar and what seems different . Well i was living in the south then, and you had the majority white people were on the wrong side, and so were the majority of the governors and the police. But, you had the national level. In the white house, we had kennedy and johnson and they were pretty good. But now we have all the way to the top, its on the wrong side. I mean weve got a president who cant tell the difference between nazis and antinazis. Thats very unsettling. Very confusing and encouraging to the nazis. In some ways, its more indefinite and scarier now, i think. People i dont want to get into shooting, but there was lots of that in Civil Rights Movement and lots of guns out there now. We have to leave. Thank you all. Next on gps from charlottesville to spain. Cars and trucks used as weapons. How we shall think of this new tactic of terror. Pcountries thatk mewe traveled,t what is your nationality and i would always answer hispanic. So when i got my ancestry dna results it was a shocker. Im everything. Im from all nations. I would look at forms now and wonder what do i mark . Because im everything. And i marked other. Discover the story only your dna can tell. Order your kit now at ancestrydna. Com. Never stop never over your head. She needs to go to college. I dont know how well do it. Never stop til we get there til we get there thats why at comcast were continuing to make4 7. Our services more reliable than ever. Like technology that can update itself. An advanced fibernetwork infrustructure. New, more Reliable Equipment for your home. And a new culture built around customer service. It all adds up to our most Reliable Network ever. One that keeps you connected to what matters most. Almost 16 years ago, 19 terrorists high jacked four planes, crashed them and killed 3,000 people in the process. Today, for now at least, terrorists seem unable to weaponize planes so have turned to other vehicles, cars and vans, weve seen it in france, united kingdom. Now in spain. These are less deadly for sure but still able to meet the aims of these criminals and t terrorists. Joining me now Cnn National Security analyst peter bergen. What is the big picture, what was your reaction to watching once again a vehicle used . Fareed, since 2014 weve seen 14 of these vehicle attacks in the west. Theyve killed 129 people and just a School Shooters learn from other School Shootings and try and copycat them they try to copycat them and obviously, as you referenced, the 9 11 attacks required a great deal of training, money and time. The kind of attack we saw in barcelona doesnt require in a. When you look at these attacks does it appear to you its fair to say these guys cant do something more spectacular, thats why theyre doing these . Is this sort of the weapon of the week, most convenient way to do something . I agree. The because as you look at what unfolded in barcelona, they blew up a bomb that didnt succeed in doing what they wanted. They had fake explosives. They used vehicles to ram. This is not the isis directed trained finance attack we saw in paris where everybody was armed and well trained. Bombs. The killed 130 people. So this, from what we know right now looks like an isis inspired attack. Isis has claimed the attack was soldiers of the caliphate. That is a formulation when theyre not actually directly involved other than an inspirational way. Thats what this looks like. The Obama Administration warned as isis was losing ground, territory and money in syria and iraq, it would start there would be a wave of terror attacks particularly returning isis warriors going back to europe. Has that played it several out and is this one of them . Yes and no. The yes, the french said earlier this month theyve had 271 militants return from iraq and syria. T so there is a concern about foreign fighters coming back over the last several years but that concern is reseeding now because so many are now dying in place on the battlefields of ir 0 rock and syria. What does one do about this kind of attack . Is it the new normal . And i guess relatedly who are those people . I think it is the new normal. Its not just jihadi terrorists. We saw of course in charlottesville and right wing extremists killing somebody. Protecting against the attacks is impossible because theres so many potential targets. You can protect obviously very high profile events, very symbolic target you but then run into the problem you protect those and there are a lot of others to go after. The really, the key is peers and family members. Again and again when Law Enforcement looked at this the people who know the most about radicalization and plot planning are peers and