Kalb Report: Burns calls 2020 one of four great U.S. crises
The United States in 2020 finds itself in the midst one of the four great crises of its history, documentary filmmaker Ken Burns told moderator Marvin Kalb July 27 in the first virtual “Kalb Report.”
The triple threat of the coronavirus, the ensuing economic collapse, the racial reckoning of the Black Lives Matter movement, all overseen by ineffectual and counterproductive White House leadership, he said, has put the nation in a calamitous situation that ranks with the Civil War, the Great Depression and World War II.
“We find ourselves in a hell on Earth of our own making,” he said. “All of the things we have taken for granted are no longer there.”
Some people worry that the American experiment in democracy may have ended.
Certainly 1968 was a difficult year for American democracy, he said. But there’s a big difference compared to today. In 1968, there was a sense that government institutions were valid, regardless of what happened.
“No matter how many bombs went off, no matter how many body bags came back, no matter how many leaders were assassinated, even the most venal of our politicians still adhered to a kind of set of rules,” he said. “But there’s a sense now that the playbook has been thrown out, and it’s anything goes.”
In its place, he said, are government conspiracies, deep states, disrespect for institutions and “a kind of narcissistic acquisitiveness” that have upended normal democratic procedures.
And yet, as in those other crises, Burns sees the possibility of hope that the country will pull through.
“I think this reckoning has the possibility of delivering us on the other side,” he said, “whenever that may be. And please, may it be sooner rather than later.”
Burns, the Emmy award-winning documentarian, has produced 36 films about American history that have explored everything from the Civil War to jazz to the Statue of Liberty to the Vietnam War to baseball.
Speaking from his home in Maryland, Kalb talked with Burns, sitting in his New Hampshire home, often on a split screen produced by the National Press Club’s Broadcast Operations Center. Livestreamed on the Club’s website July 27 – and still available there [ed. note: and below] -- it will be aired nationally on Public Television stations.
Personal v. collective freedom
History may not repeat itself, as the old adage goes, Burns said, but, as Mark Twain is accredited in saying, “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes.”
America has two important “rhymes” throughout its history, he said. One is the conflict between personal freedom and collective freedom. Some people say that free Americans cannot be forced to wear masks. But people who believe in collective freedom know that if everyone wears a mask, the pandemic would not be as bad as it is today. That’s collective freedom.
The other “rhyme,” is race relations, starting with the “original sin” of slavery," which still “chains us to our past,” he said. Exploring race relations permeates just about every documentary he has made. Throughout American history, he said, African Americans have had to live in fear and repression that belie the credo of “All men are created equal” that many hold up as the basis of American exceptionalism.
“Something happened when George Floyd was murdered,” he said. “I am stunned at the tenacity of this, where people are just saying ‘enough. We cannot live this lie of the American dream.’”
Facts shrink the divide
The American people are not that far apart, Burns said.
Everyone decries "the media,” he said, but the quality of journalism in The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal is exceptional. The major network news reporting follows the standard journalism code of ethics.
But there are those in the media who have decided that dividing people is good for profit, he said. Too many people are not getting the straight story. “If you can manipulate the media to your point of view, and your people only hear what they want to hear, why would you care about the truth?”
Get the facts, he said, “and then, all of a sudden, you’ll find the difference between the guy who is diametrically opposed to you politically, and what you believe begins to shrink. And in that shrinkage, is the possibility for the communication, and the possibility of the reasonable compromises that are at the heart of our democracy, that have fled. And so, let us, among good people of all political persuasions, vow to ourselves, right here and now, we will not let this experiment go.”
An inspiration for the times: John Lewis
Asked who he thought should be an inspiration for this time, Burns said John Lewis, the civil rights leader who became a House member from Georgia. Lewis, who had been beaten by Alabama state troopers while leading a march for voting rights in 1965, had been known as the conscience of the Congress. Burns said he had worked often with Lewis.
“He understood,” Burns said. “And just remember, as the rest of us are quarantined, literally and figuratively, he ran towards the problem. I ask everybody to wonder whether you are part of the solution or part of the problem.”
At the same time the program was livestreamed, John Lewis’ body was about to lie in state at the Capitol.
The production was overseen by National Press Club President Michael Freedman, who co-created the series with Kalb 26 years ago and serves as executive producer. This marked the 101st program in the multi-award-winning series.
The Kalb Report is a joint project of the National Press Club Journalism Institute, University of Maryland Global Campus, the George Washington University School of Media and Public Affairs, Harvard University’s Shorenstein Center, the Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Oklahoma, and the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland. It is underwritten by a grant from Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation, and Maryland Public Television serves as the presenting station for national distribution.