Transcripts For CSPAN2 David Sokol Adam Brandon America In

CSPAN2 David Sokol Adam Brandon America In Perspective October 14, 2022

My name is Spencer Chretien at im director programs that Freedom Works, we are excited to have you here for this book party which most American Perspective, written by david sokol and adam brandon, and thanks to those joining us online on the live stream, this book covers a lot of ground and we are excited to have this discussion tonight. Adam and david have been pounding the pavement to spread the message of American Perspective but tonight we hear from both of them on the same stage. Before introduce you to our colleague steve moore i want to remind you all that you have pen and paper on your chairs which you can use for questions for the q and a portion of the program tonight. I want to help set the stage for this discussion by sharing some polling we commissioned on the American Dream because that is fundamentally what the book is about. We work with scott raz mucin to find that 58 of americans say they feel proud to be an american, 65 said they would rather live in a system in which everyone has equal opportunity to succeed and some people end up successful, the definition of meritocracy. Only 24 per for a system where the government insures everybody experiences roughly the same outcome. That is the good news but there are some concerning findings. The threats to the American Dream which is a theme of this book, only 37 agree that america is a strong force for good in the world, only 24 are very confident that we have as a nation the ability to fix the problems we face and 42 believe americas best days of come and gone. We are looking forward to exploring these issues more fully tonight and in the future as we continue to place america in perspective. I want to say we are excited to be joined by Emily Jashinsky will modify the discussion, shes culture editor at the fairless and host of federalist radio our. She previously covered politics as a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner and before the examiner emily was spokesperson for Young Americans foundation, interviewed leading politicians and entertainers and appear regularly as a guest on major tv programs. Emily also served as director of the National Journalism center and host of the hills weekly show rising fridays, visiting fellow at independent womens forum originally from wisconsin a graduate of George Washington university but i want to introduce our colleague steve moore who is senior economist at Freedom Works. Steve communicates our vision for a progrowth economic agenda and conducts plenty of original economic analysis. Youve probably seen him on tv, probably read his columns. Without further ado here is steve moore. [applause] hello, everybody. It is a privilege to be here for this unveiling of this great new book. My first thoughts about this, what is it about omaha, nebraska that creates so many amazing business lines. You talk about warren buffett, joe ricketts, and david sokol hailing from nebraska. Tell us what the secret is about that area of the country. This is such a welltimed book given the kind of economic massacre going on in this country, the fact that weve gotten so many of these policies that are supposed to be advancing the American Dream but are achieving the opposite. We are depleting the American Dream, peoples economic prospects by the growth of Big Government policies, almost as if President Biden has done the opposite of what you suggest in this book and what is really so exciting to me about this book is it is not just a recitation of all the problems we have. We all know we have problems, people on both sides of pennsylvania avenue. This morning the United States Senate Passed another 200 billion spending bill, can you think of anything dumber than right now spending more money and passed in a bipartisan way. Congress men and senators need to read this book as well. I am appreciative that you guys wrote about immigration because immigrants are part of the American Dream, they are the people who come to this country literally with nothing and show prove the American Dream is still alive and well. We see hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people come into the country every year with nothing and really strong evidence that the American Dream is alive and well and we went through these, weve lived through these periods we feel despair, the country is in the wrong direction, we lived through the 1970s with runaway inflation and malaise and felt like americas place in the world had been diminished and every one of these instances that has proven to be not true. America has always prevailed, we will prevail again but this book American Perspective that is the map, the gps map of how we retrieve the American Dream and american greatness. It will happen, i feel very confident but i hope everyone reads this book. You and i have worked together for 5 or 6 years and built this incredible activist organization with several million activists around the country who believe in freedom, believe in free enterprise, believe in liberty. Im concerned about the poll results of young people, they dont have the same appreciation for the greatness of america, i want to see this book put in libraries, and schools so that younger people can read this and learn from it. Congratulations on a great book, america in perspective, thank you to cspan, and who do i turn it over to . Thank you so much. [applause] my pleasure to be here. Thanks for hosting me and a conversation im sure will be lively and enlightening because the book certainly is. I can say it is moving and includes so many helpful arguments with a sense of moral clarity missing from organizations. We will dive right in. Speakers authors, the chairman and ceo founded three companies today. Chairman and ceo of med american energy, and he continues with berkshire hathaway, march 2011, to manage his family business, a member of the executive committee, the Horatio Alger association distinguished american, he has chaired a dozen charitable or community boards, thank you so much. [applause] we are joined by davids coauthor, adam brandon, president of Freedom Works who joined in 2,005 in the press department and moved into a management role, responsible for setting the priority of Freedom Works including the Free Foundation and activism effort and two Political Action committees, he has been quoted by fox news, the wall street journal, the new york times, washington post, forbes and the hill. He is not in a suit like he is now he can be found watching the cleveland browns. Sorry about that. Welcome. [applause] because omaha was getting so much love, John D Rockefeller came from my hometown. To our first question, the same for both of our guests and it is simply, why did you decide to write this book. Couldnt put a business person in this setting. I want to acknowledge a couple other authors here, many i have been missing. Steve moore, michael pack, in addition to the documentary michael did, Justice Thomas in his own words, they issue a terrific book that summarizes in his life the other 30 hours of interviews they did on video. I got to live the American Dream. My dad when he was a kid was all about the American Dream, lived in rural nebraska, lower income, todays standards people would say you are poor but we didnt know that. I heard constant encouragement. You got to get a degree, what degree you will get needs to create and work on it. On sundays he would pass out clippings in the newspaper about successful businessman and women, not only what they did with their career, what they did in the community with their philanthropy. To me it was part of who we were but i got involved with the Horatio Alger association which celebrates people pulling themselves up from their bootstraps and creating life in america, and provide scholarships to scholars and over the last 18 months or 18 years ive been involved with Horatio Alger scholars get the American Dream, these are kids whose background makes every one i have ever known they did not have a tough upbringing compared to these kids, they were not just poor but parents killed each other, drug addicts, kids that live in thrown away containers to get through high school. Every one of them they believe in the American Dream, the questions i often get when i meet with scholars is how come the kids we go to school with dont seem to believe in it anymore and those two things motivated me, that and the fact that less than 15 of Public Schools teach civics. Wasnt an option when i was a kid. Half the Public Schools in america, American History as an alternate class, you dont have to take it. Young people today, i cant blame them when they read the papers, the mess we are getting into, they dont have the opportunity to learn so hopefully this book will give an opportunity for people in a balanced way to understand. You say you are a browns fan but your socks scream packers, had to point that out. I am from wisconsin. Go ahead, adam. The reason i wanted to write this book goes back to the first notes. You write a book theres the moment you take your notes and throw them in a folder and what am i going to call this folder . America in perspective. You start gathering other notes. That was the reason the working title which was the final title, American Perspective goes back to taking all these stories, what david and his experience and my own family, no one in my family has ever taken at public, a lot of us dream to but when you look at these stories is similar to people who come to this country and for hardship they experienced. Every Great American story is about persevering and having hardship and having failure and having to reinvent yourself and every weather to sports athlete or Business Owner everyone with a common american story, you start looking at our history thats not something that happens today, this has happened from the founding of the nation. When you put those trials and tribulations in perspective a pretty incredible story and too often we focus on the negative and what is driving people apart and not the basic dna that unites americans. This is the most successful multiethnic country and global history period. Amazing when you think about in light of thousands of years of human civilization. If you think of it that way this country has had some rough edges, some real tragedies but these basic values, meritocracy, rule of law that allowed us to reinvent ourselves time and again and we are at one of those difficult times we are doing a gut check moment looking a lot of different institutions and if you keep our history in perspective what we have been through it is a map for how we move forward. Theres a commonality in what both of you said. On the one hand students arent learning the basics of American History and on the other hand what they are being taught is devoid of perspective. I will start with you on this question. I wonder how you think these legitimate threats to the American Dream, whether it is our system of higher education, inflation, any of these economic problems, how can you talk to people who are really suffering while balancing that with the message they re getting from every cultural institutions in america is somehow irredeemable . The topics we touched on in what i was raised with is the concept of the American Dream and too often the concept of the American Dream was told it is a better car than your parents drove, bigger house than your parents had. When you think about in that light that means the American Dream is about material goods and material approach. What i believe it is is larger than that. It is about that freedom to dream, that freedom to chase whatever your heart desires and however you want to build your future and the economic prosperity, that is a byproduct of when we chase our dreams. Host what do you think of that . Part of the problem with all this negative if you will attitude is we lost the ability to communicate as a society. It goes back to the fundamentals we discussed in the book, the Founding Fathers spent a lot of time talking about consensus. Took a great deal of time to decide on 75 approval, 2 thirds for impeachment, the filibuster 60, they very much understood, the whole reason we have two senators per state but representation in the house, they did not want areas of the country to overwhelm everybody else and they knew that would be possible, large cities, rural areas. These are things you can read about in their letters back and forth. A government of we the people requires consensus. They understood we can elect people based on plurality of votes but we can unselect them. We the people control the process and it is on consensus, and thats the biggest mistake . One of the only multicultural bowl countries that ever been successful being multicultural. And turn ourselves back into tribes where we attack each other, create this myth we are systemically racist society but we are not, we are humans. We made a lot of mistakes. What other country went to war with itself and sacrificed 7 of its population to stop the scourge of slavery . That consensus building, last week, one of the most disturbing things i heard the United States president saying, stood behind a podium in massachusetts and said the Supreme Court turned me down, Congress Wont pass what i want, i will do it myself. That is russia. That is china. That is a lot of places. Irrespective of the issue, if any republican president said that i would be just as appalled but that is where we are today. Weve got to get to where we communicate. We find consensus. We dont have happy with it. The constitutional amendment that 3 quarters of the states have approval, if that is all it was. That is what we build upon. We dont go back to that if we think Supreme Court should be part of the office of the president or something those checks and balances that were put in 246 years ago have been incredibly effective. They get in the way of one of us decides we should get our way all the time and that is appropriate. Do you have something to add . What we talk about in the book, success and you mention slavery and i love the story we talked about, Nigerian Americans, when you look at the Nigerian American experience, most successful subgroup in the population. How can that be, if you have this legacy, this other group of recent arrivals doing so phenomenally well. What that shows is the power of folks arent born here that come here and take full advantage of the opportunities to chase their dreams and that shows me the strength of america and what the country has to offer. So it is a continuum through history of these opportunities they are providing folks here. This is an individual that came from nigeria. Made an enormous fortune by working hard and being very smart. When i asked him about we were together fishing and what do you think of america being systemically racist . He said i am from nigeria, it is absurd. Your country was formed by western europeans who on balance were white and for a great period of time that was how the country existed and then you morphed into this multicultural melting pot. He said if you want to see white privilege, you want to see black privilege come to nigeria and try to start a business. His point was that is not to say theres necessarily systemic racism in nigeria but it has been a black nation through its existence and the notion that just because that is the case you are systemically racist is absurd and that is from nigerian. I shared this story with adam, in northern mexico reporting on the board recently there was a group of haitian migrants that was gathered almost at the gate of the border, one of the haitian migrants, from venezuela and chile, not necessarily from haiti, why they would risk sleeping on the streets huddled outside the border from outside the gate and he said the American Dream and turned to the others, dozens of haitians around him and they started saying the American Dream, the American Dream is alive in other parts of the world which is highlighted by this book, very powerful stories, very powerful anecdotes and i wanted to ask both of you if you have a favorite story from the book that illustrates why america is best kept in perspective. My favorite story, how many of you in this room have heard of Robert Smalls . Everyones hand should be up. This guy should be on the 20 bill was Robert Smalls was a slave, he escaped, commandeered a boat, freed himself and a bunch of others, came up north, convinced lincoln to allow blacks to fight in the civil war, became a multimillionaire, found that the

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