Dan Vallone: The History Wars Are Not What They Seem

This episode is brought to you by nineteen twenty three on Paramount plus. And Taylor shared in his new original series in nineteen twenty three, the Dutton’s confront challenges. Including the end of the first World War, America’s Industrialization, and the start of the Great Depression. Helen Miron and Harrison Ford star in the new original series nineteen twenty three, now streaming exclusively on Paramount plus head to paramount plus dot com to try it free.

Welcome to the Bulwark podcast. I am Mona Charron sitting in for the vacationing Charlie Sykes who is enjoying a very well deserved vacation. We are very fortunate to be joined this morning by Dan Malone of more in common. I’m very, very interested in the data that more in common have produced in their new report, which is relevant to the culture wars. Without further ado, let me introduce Dan Malone, who is the U.

S. Director of Moren Common And Dan, thank you so much for joining me this morning, and thanks for this great report. And so why don’t you just set this stage a little bit by telling our listeners what more in common is and what kind of work you do?

Sure. It’s great to be here, Mona. I really appreciate the opportunity to speak with you. I’m happy to. So more in common is a non partisan research and nonprofit.

And we work as part of an international initiative. So there are more in common groups in the US, UK, France, Germany, and Poland. And we launched about five years ago with a focus on understanding polarization, social division, and what can be done to try and bring our societies back together in ways that enable us to actually make progress on our common challenges and seize opportunities that are in front of us. And we primarily do large scale public opinion research. We do a lot of focus groups.

And so in America, for example, we are probably best known for a report that we released in twenty eighteen called Hidden tribes, a study of America’s polarized landscape. And that was based on a very large national survey where we identified something called the exhausted majority, speaking to the fact that actually, although we feel so intensely divided and our politics is, in fact, in many ways, divided, there is this majority of Americans who are looking for something different, who are more open to compromise, more open to seeing positive elements in their political opponents and working towards our common values and goals.

I think it’s fair to say that probably a fair number of listeners to this podcast would consider themselves to be in that exhaustive majority, although speaking only for my self now. I don’t feel like I have the luxury of being exhausted. You know, you have to go forward, you have to keep fighting, and stay strong. What’s special about your group. What really makes these results pop really stand out is that you don’t just ask people what they think.

You ask them what they think the other side thinks. And this is so revealing. So you did this about a few years ago, I remember where you know, you asked Republicans, how many Democrats they thought were radical leftist or whatever, and you got, you know, a certain number of responses, and it was completely wrong, and how many Democrats thought Republicans were rich and etcetera. But let’s turn now to this most recent survey because you do that here and you’re tackling One of the very fraught matters in our politics, namely how Americans feel about teaching our history two kids. And this has become so fraught.

So partly because and I loved this phrase in your report. You talked about the conflict entrepreneurs, you know, who make money and get clicks by stirring up animosity and spread falsehoods and so on. But let’s just start with an example of what some of these conflict entrepreneurs do. Let’s play a clip from Tucker Carlson.

If you wanted to destroy a country, if you really wanted to plow its fields under with salt, you would teach kids in school to hate their own country and to hate one another based on the color of their skin. That’s happening everywhere all of a sudden. No one seems willing to do anything about it. Senator Josh Holly of Missouri is going to try. He’s proposed something called the Love America Act.

He will require every K-twelve school and school

district that gets federal funding to ensure the students read the nation’s founding documents. Alright. So that’s Tucker Carlson and of course Josh Holly, eager to jump on this bandwagon. And one of the things that they claim is that they’re gonna introduce legislation to make sure that kids learn about our founding documents, presumably because they believe that Democrats are trying to teach kids to hate their country. And so, you know, one of your results was you asked do you agree or not with the following statement?

All students should learn about how the declaration of independence and the constitution advanced freedom and equality. And what you found is that Republicans guess, only about forty five percent of Democrats would agree with that. Whereas in fact, ninety two percent of Democrats believe that that’s something that they want to see taught. So talk to us about that a little bit.

Sure. And that’s a great finding and it’s kind of stunning on its face. Where, again, overwhelmingly nine out of ten Democrats support that statement, feel very positively towards the declaration of independence and constitution and yet Republicans are fairly convinced that believing in the declaration of independence in the constitution is a minority viewpoint among Democrats. And You’re just speaking to that clip, the strategy of conflict entrepreneurs is not particularly complicated. It’s take an isolated viewpoint that is far outside of the mainstream and present it as if it is the majority viewpoint of whatever group you’re trying to target.

And then the second piece is amplified as sensitive to red, and make it seem as if this is not just an extreme viewpoint, but it is an extreme viewpoint that is part of a movement that is tacking something foundational or deeply valued by one’s own group. Again, that has happened for many, many years. It’s not it’s not new. It’s not complex. But it is effective.

And our report tries to expand our understanding of why is this working and what can we do to stop it? Because as our data shows, there’s so much more common ground in terms of how we wanna see our we talk, but we just don’t see it. And we are convinced the other side holds wildly divergent views from us and that they are a threat to us. And happy to go in further on any of those points, but I feel like connecting the conflict entrepreneur strategy to the data that we’re trying to showcase leads us to the solutions part of the report where we’re really trying to figure

out how do we push back on those entrepreneurs and build on our common grounds. Right. So here are a few more. I mean, it’s maybe hard to sort of absorb this with audio rather than seeing it right in front of you, but I’m gonna do my best because these are so interesting. So here’s another one that you ask people.

In learning about American history, students should not be made to feel personally responsible for the act of earlier generations. K? Republicans thought that only forty three percent of Democrats would agree with that. Actual number of Democrats who agree eighty three percent or we don’t need to be ashamed to be American. Similarly, Republicans thought that if only forty two percent would agree and seventy one percent agree.

And then you also talk about the perception gap on the other side. So First, let’s listen to another clip. This one is from Robert Reich. The so called party of free speech. Is now going after academic freedom.

A host of Republican controlled states have passed or are gearing up to pass bills, the ban teaching, the role race, has played in the history of American politics, policy, and law. Conservatives love the term critical race theory. Against the nation’s tragic racial history, they don’t want students to know calling it indoctrination or brainwashing. Leaving aside just for now, some of these efforts that are going on at the state level because there are some that are really worrisome where, you know, legislatures are passing these overly broad like Florida passing these overly broad laws that really do limit the way teachers can teach about issues like race. But here’s some more data.

So here’s the statement, and we’re gonna talk about how many people agree or disagree. Martin Luther King and Rosa Park should be taught as examples of Americans who fought for equality. Democrats thought that only thirty eight percent of Republicans would agree with that. The actual number, ninety three percent. K?

Another one. It is important that every American student learn about slavery, Jim Crow, and segregation. Democrats thought only thirty two percent of Republicans would assent to that The actual number, eighty three percent There’s a huge, huge perception gap here.

And it’s very true that these reception gaps are not a phenomenon restricted to one side or the other. This is everybody. And I think you mentioned our earlier report, and just to circle back to that, in twenty nineteen, we released our first perception gap report. And in that report, we asked questions about a range of issues. We covered immigration, policing, climate change, attitudes towards then president Trump, attitudes towards gun control.

We asked about a very long list of different kinds of political issues. And we found that on on average Americans held fairly large perception gaps about their political opponents in terms of what they actually believe But in twenty nineteen, interestingly, what we found was that the magnitude of perception depth. So how large or how inaccurate somebody was about their other side was different across different segments of the population. And basically, what we found is that the more politically engaged someone was either as a Democrat or a Republican, be less accurate their understanding of the other side was. Mhmm.

So interesting. So

the least politically engaged Americans had a perception gap on average about half the size as the most politically engaged. And that’s true on both sides. In this study, in twenty twenty two, on the history wars, what we find is that everybody has large perception gaps. That wherever they’re consuming information, wherever they’re trying to form their opinions about what Republicans and Democrats believe about teaching history, it’s wrong. And it’s wrong in the same way.

So Democrats, again, across the board, kind of feel like Republicans most we want to teach a history that entirely kind of, you know, whitewashes, the history of slavery, of racism, of any kind of injustice. And Republicans only want to elevate kind of a purely American exceptionalist kind of history. Whereas Republicans feel that Democrats only wanna teach a history of shame and oppression and the failures of the country. And neither of you is accurate. And it obscures actually the large amounts of common ground that we share in terms of teaching both.

Right? Looking both critically at our failures and celebrating the achievements, and framing it as an overall story of progress, which is what most Americans feel should be how we teach history.

Yeah, it’s so important that you highlight this because, look, if you base it on the statements of some of the activists, It certainly can seem that those extreme, you know, interpretations of American history prevail. I mean, you do hear people on the left kind of constantly stressing our foyables, our sins that we were conceived in sin as a country and can never transcend it. And on the right, you do get, you know, these projects. And and certainly Trump was part of this when he was president of, you know, only wanting to teach children to indoctrinate them really to say, you know, we wanna teach them to love their country instead of saying we wanna teach history honestly, which means, yes, there are absolutely things to be proud of, and there are also things to be ashamed of, and that’s life. You know, that’s honesty.

Yeah.

Absolutely. And on the website, we include audio clips because we did focus groups on this topic because to your point, It’s really helpful when you actually hear Republicans and democrats talk about this because one of the conditions that enables conflict entrepreneurs to be so successful in ripping us apart is that we actually don’t often talk to people who have a different ideological viewpoint. We don’t hear their actual views all of the complexity that people convey their ideas. Right? When you actually talk to somebody, you get out of the meme and kind of Twitter, expressions and you hear them say, well, you know, on the one hand, this, on the other hand that and I’m just thinking about this one Democrat that we were doing a focus group with named Chandra, and this statement came up about whether students should be made to feel guilty or disempowered by the actions of prior generations.

And she’s so emphatic. No. Of course not. They should I think she uses the exact word. They should never be made to feel guilty.

What they can do is learn from the past and try to make the future better. And that’s something that you would hear from overwhelmingly most Americans but it’s just not part of the national dialogue in the history wars.

People love what’s next. The big new thing that everyone has to have. But how do you fight through the idea ending silos barriers and endless meetings? With Smartsheet, just lay out the perfect process, then grab the best people and resources, automate tasks, and meet every change with flexibility, everybody together delivering great work and ready for what’s next. Visit smartsheet dot com forward slash power your process.

This episode is brought to you by KPMG. At KPMG, innovation is the go to state of mind. Their visionary thinkers and advanced technology help you see beyond the now, uncover new insights, and turn them into opportunities. KPMG can help you leverage the value of data and drive transformational outcomes through innovation. To

explore their thinking, go to k p m

g dot u

s. Because the way people get their news, you know, as we know so well is very siloed and people are getting it from Facebook or whatever and they’re and they’re getting a very curated version of reality. It is possible for, you know, politicians to exploit this. So Mike Pompeo looks like he’s about to launch a campaign for president. And he’s making education a signature issue, which is interesting.

I mean, you know, he was former military, former secretary of state, but this is his, apparently, his big issue. And he is not framing this as, you know, we need to all come together and find our areas of agreement done. He’s okay. Here’s what he said. I I don’t have the audio, but I’m just gonna read this quote.

The most dangerous person in the world is Randy Weingarten. It’s not a close call. If you ask who’s the most likely to take this republic down? It would be the teachers unions and the filth that they’re teaching our kids and the fact that they don’t know math in reading or writing. So there’s a lack of agreement and subject verb agreement in that sentence.

But never mind. The fact is, look, I I have a lot of problems with teachers unions. I really do. And I think they have really not been a force for progress in many ways, but this is so extreme. Who’s gonna take this republic down, he say?

And he talks about teaching filth.

Wow. No. And it’s I mean, it’s apocalyptic language. And that’s again textbook conflict entrepreneur approach. And it’s why does it work?

In the report, we do highlight that although there is a overwhelming common ground, we don’t see it. And the second factor is we are also so charged in terms of negative viewpoints towards our political opponents. So seven in ten Democrats and Republicans feel like the other side is racist, brainwashed, and hate — Yeah. — and it’s the same number only about one in ten Democrats and Republicans feel like the other side is humble kind. And so that high level of what social psychologists call affective polarization, it does prime us to see the other side as a threat So when somebody makes this kind of statement describing a particular group that has a strong ideological orientation, you know, is is associated with the democrats in this case.

As a threat, it does feed into that feeling that many Americans have that the other side is actually a threat to the survival of the nation or at least the survival of the nation that they value. It brings out the worst of us because it pushes us to a trench back into our most extreme ideological identity It makes us unwilling to see the complexity of views that the other size has. And, unfortunately, it also leads people to give a lot of money to groups that are filmmaking division and not support the groups that are actually trying to elevate and build on the common ground.

You

know what else struck me reading your report? Is that these people who are attempting to sort of use the culture wars, the history wars, in particular as a lever for political power. I mean, they never actually talk about, like, initiatives to help the schools. You know? Like, let’s get involved in our local school and let’s go examine the curriculum.

And if we have any issues with it, let’s reform the curriculum and let’s all, you know, talk about this as communities. I mean, it’s more like, click this button, send me money, you know, and that’s the end of it. If we were to get people in communities like mine, I live in Northern Virginia. Right? There are people on both sides of these history wars in my community but we never come together and have a discussion about the curriculum.

Actually, respond to that. And then I want to ask you something else though, about the actual reforms at the state level, but respond to that if you would. Yeah. And I think it speaks to something that we touch on in the report a bit, but it’s

also as a part of the broader context, which is, one, we actually have a genuine crisis in education as a function of the the pandemic about large amounts of learning loss across the board. Every state is grappling with really significant challenges in terms of how do we ensure that we’re preparing our students to to succeed and thrive in the 21st century and how do we address the negative impacts of the pandemic? So this is actually a moment when it would be a good thing for public policy makers and the public to really think and elevate the importance of education. And unfortunately, it’s not being done in a really thoughtful manner. In the national conversation, I think, and we’d be happy to talk about.

There’s lots of states doing really interesting work red and blue around actually kind of making education better. But it obscures, like, we have a really significant opportunity and need to address this and it’s not being given anywhere near the amount of attention and resources because so much attention, so much money is going to these more polarizing efforts that are presenting the most fem views as as threats to the country. And the other the other second piece about education that I think is also tragically lost in this conversation is that actually, we’ve gotten a lot better. So the Fortum Institute, which is a, you know, a very thoughtful education, think tank, various diversity reviews in their teams, they have done reviews of state standards for years. And in twenty twenty one, they published a comprehensive review of all of the state standards on civics and US history.

And they had done one previously in twenty eleven looking at US history. And across the board, what they find is a story of progress. We still have a long ways to go. History and civics are for a lot of reasons still kind of underdeveloped from a standards and curriculum standpoint in a lot of cases. But overall, what they find is that states are doing a better job of trying to embrace the complexity of our history, teach students with rigor and with authenticity about what happened and how to learn from it.

And that the states that are exemplifying this, it’s not a liberal or conservative thing. The five states that they scored as highest in their twenty twenty one review are Alabama DC, Tennessee, California, and Massachusetts. So there’s a lot that is happening out there that we can build on But unfortunately, it’s getting kind of washed out by the history wars. What

Shopify says you can sell anywhere. I mean it. Hold up. Just got a new sail. Whoa.

Shopify doesn’t mind if you’re at sea level. Or on top Whether you’re

selling carabiners or crop tops, start selling with Shopify today and join the platform simplifying commerce for millions of businesses worldwide. This is possibility powered by Shopify. Sign up

for a free trial at shopify dot com slash offer twenty two. Shopify dot com slash offer twenty

two.

Coffee and cold season is here. Introducing Regalamax throat care. Rikula’s most powerful drop yet. It’s the best of Swiss nature wrapped around a powerful liquid menthol center for maximum relief from your worst cough and sore throat. Maximum nature for maximum relief.

Try the new Regalamax now available in the cold and cough aisle. Regalam.

It’s in

our nature.

So you

said a minute ago that there are really good state initiatives or certain states that are doing good things. Were you referring to those or were other things that you wanted to highlight that could be models for how to do this well. Yeah, sure. I mean, I think just in the last couple of years, both Massachusetts and Indiana, have adopted

kind of new standards, new Indiana passed and new law requiring certification in a more rigorous way for all of their students and adopted new standards. They have a robust community engagement through a task force to try and build out these standards so that everybody felt like their voices were heard in terms of how should we teach our history and our and and civics. And it’s, again, it’s it’s not perfect, but it is one of those success stories that Tufu people know about And it’s an example of what we can still do even as the kind of intense polarization is is playing out in the national debate. A lot of states are still finding ways to make progress, and it’d be better if we were resourcing and supporting those efforts even more

robust. Do you have a sense of how we’re doing compared to other countries? Look, it’s always

hard

for a country to confront the ugly aspects of its history. And there’s no country on Earth that doesn’t have ugly episodes in its history that it has to either confront or deny or whatever. Do you have a sense of where we are compared to other places? It’s such

a great question. And more in common, we do have the benefit of we learn from our colleagues in across Western Europe. And so I don’t I don’t have any data to support this per se, although you’ve done surveying work that is somewhat comparable across these countries, but there’s a few points. One, I actually think America does a better job on talking about, thinking about, and even wrestling with the issue of, in our context, race and history and the present. As polarizing as that conversation seems to be and as imperfect as people feel challenged and having conversations about that, I actually think that we do a better job and we’ve gotten better at it over the decades.

And I think that relative to other countries, I’m just thinking about Germany, for example, where in many ways, they’re having these conversations now because they welcome so many refugees in the twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen crisis. They’re having these conversations now about how do we contemplate national identity when we have a diversity of background in origin countries. Right? Many other countries actually haven’t had to wrestle with these issues or have chosen not to in as robust a way as America has. And again, I think we’ve it’s always been a challenge in our own country.

But we have gotten better at it. It’s hard to see that story of progress. But when I look at, when I listen to the dynamics in the other countries that more in common is a part of, I think that there’s a lot that we can point to to say we are getting this better and that the next generation the next generation continues to find new ways to figure out how do we have these hard conversations across different lines of difference. How do we reconcile historical failures with our present? I was actually just thinking about, you know, I started my career in the army.

And just recently, Fort Benning, for example, put in markers to acknowledge that a soldier was lynched at Fort Benning in the what worked together that he had actually signed up to Gill and Fight in World War two and was lynched on base. And it was overlooked for basically sixty years or

covered up or

covered up. And I love the Army. I think the Army is one of the best institutions in the country about the world that figure out how do you bring together people of so many diverse backgrounds and build a cohesive identity that’s able to go out and do incredibly hard things. I’m proud that we we look at this and we say, yeah, we’re going to acknowledge this. We’re gonna try and make ourselves better because if you look at Russia showed that the China’s so many autocrats can’t even contemplate the idea that there’s any imperfection in their own history.

They have to kind of absolve any wrongdoing in order to have this false story of dominance and power. And America says,

no. We’re gonna try and learn from our past because we are committed to making the future better. So this is such a deep point, and I just wanna like underline it with marker, you know, because I think there’s a tremendous fear on the right that acknowledging our errors, acknowledging our his history of racism and even, you know, genocide against Native Americans and other things that we have done will diminish patriotism and will make us a country where as Tucker Carlson put it, you know, we’re teaching kids to hate the country or despise the country. But in fact, if you are teaching our past sins alongside the fact that we have transcended that and are always seeking to be better, that we are honest about ourselves and also our, you know, of course we have tremendous achievements as well, that that is a source of patriotism, that you’re patriotic exactly because you live in the kind of country that can be honest and can see the bad as well as the good. Bad is a source of pride.

I am so grateful that my grandparents, in some cases, great grandparents came to this country. I’m grateful every day that I was born here and not somewhere else. And that is the way millions of people around the world still feel people who are willing to risk everything just to come to this country. So why we have an immigration problem is that people want to be here.

Absolutely. No. And I think that that’s when you talk to most Americans, they express that pride that actually this is something that we should be able to do together and actually celebrate our willingness not even our willingness that we are committed to trying to make our future better, and that involved is learning from the past, learning from where we failed, learning from where we’ve succeeded, and not imposing upon anybody to today feelings of guilt or or disempowerment, but really encouraging folks to say like, we’re going to learn from this and and you’re gonna go out and try and do a better job. Right? Making the world incrementally better year after year is is something that I think has kind of profoundly American.

And in queued up with patriotic?

Yeah. I completely agree. Well, Dan, this has been a great review, and I recommend to all of our list listeners that they look up more in common? Is it more in common dot org dot com? How do people find you?

More in common dot com or they can

look at the most recent report at history perception gap dot u s.

Okay. Fantastic. Well, thank you so much for joining us today. It was really interesting, and thanks for the work you’re doing. It’s so important.

Thank you, Mona. I really appreciate the conversation. Okay. Take care.

You’re

worried about the economy. Inflation is high. Your paycheck doesn’t cover as much as it used to, and we live under the threat of a looming recession. And sure you’re

doing okay, but you could be doing better. The afford

anything podcast explains the economy and the market detailing how to make wise choices on the way you spend and invest. Afford

anything talks about how to avoid common pitfalls, how to refine your

mental models, and how to Think about how to think. Make smarter choices and build a better life. Afford anything wherever you

listen.