Political experts examine America’s divisions heading into 2024 election

Geoff Bennett:

All this year, Judy Woodruff has been exploring the country's deep political, cultural, and social divisions. Her reporting is part of a prime-time special airing tomorrow night here on PBS.

And for that, she recently sat down with noted thinkers to talk through their concerns heading into another contentious election year.

Here's a preview of that conversation, part of her ongoing series and special airing tomorrow night, "America at a Crossroads."

Judy Woodruff:

A few weeks ago at the Lincoln Cottage here in Washington, where the 16th president spent time during the Civil War and where he conceived of the Emancipation Proclamation, I gathered a group of respected thinkers to talk through our divisions at this moment.

They were former federal appellate Judge Michael Luttig, a conservative stalwart, Vanderbilt political historian Nicole Hemmer, who has studied and written about the conservative movement, and former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, who now teaches leadership at Harvard.

Welcome to all three of you.

And I want to begin with you, Judge Luttig, and just this basic question. We have been reporting on America's divisions. Given that, how concerned are you right now about this country?

J. Michael Luttig, Former Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge: Well, Judy, I'm gravely concerned about our country today, certainly more concerned than I have ever been in my lifetime.

All of a sudden, it seems that we Americans don't agree on anything at all. We certainly don't agree any longer on the principles and the values on which this country was founded. We don't even any longer agree on America's democracy and whether democracy is the greatest form of government in the world and indeed in all of civilization.

Nicole Hemmer, Vanderbilt University:

I share that sense of concern.

There have been many times throughout U.S. history that Americans have clashed over basic values, over the meaning of democracy. Abraham Lincoln himself said we all use the word democracy, but, in using the same word, we don't all mean the same thing.

But I think it's this idea that maybe democracy itself needs to be abandoned that gives me the most pause, because it's the sense that maybe none of this is worth preserving, maybe none of this is worth defending that is shared by, it seems, sometimes a growing number of people in the country, and, more importantly, that there is a political party that seems at least curious about where that idea might take them.

And that, that skepticism about democracy, attached to a vehicle of institutional power that's something we should be really concerned about, especially given the outbreaks of political violence that we have seen in recent years.

Judy Woodruff:

And, Governor Patrick, what's your perspective as someone who served in elective office for a number of years? You have been in the political arena.

Fmr. Gov. Deval Patrick (D-MA):

It's — I share the concerns and the gravity of concerns that my friends here have described.

It's amazing how it feels it has declined so rapidly since I left office in early 2015, because, at that time, it seemed to me there was still an appetite for the kind of governing that said you didn't have to agree on everything before you worked together on anything at all.

I still think that appetite exists in regular people. I think that our politics have become so performative now, radical for attention's sake. And the danger, of course, is that that leadership is internalized by lots of people. You mentioned the issue of political violence. The language is careless, and the actions that are taken, including up to January 6, are pretty scary.

But I will say this. I think we have two interrelated challenges to our democracy. One is how to make it function, right, how to make the rules and the systems straightforward, so that you can get registered, stay registered, vote, have that vote counted. The hyperpartisan gerrymandering, the amount of money in our politics and policymaking, all of these have solutions. There are good ideas out there, lots of people working on them. They are important.

But there's another challenge. It's not the same. And I think this is the one I feel like we have been touching on. And that is how to make our democracy meaningful, meaning, how is it that folks feel like the democracy delivers for them?

J. Michael Luttig:

Judy, the governor is, of course, correct.

Our politics today is poisonous, and it's eating away at the fabric of our society. Today, for a number of reasons, I attribute this in no small part to our political leaders and to our political public officials, because it's in their best political interests, if you will, to portray Americans as enemies of each other.

And there's far more that we share and agree upon as Americans even today than there is that we disagree over.

Judy Woodruff:

Nicole, when I hear Judge Luttig refer to political leaders who want there to be dissension among the public, I mean, that's something that has — maybe there's been a strain of that throughout our political history, but that's truly come to the fore in recent years.

And you have looked at this, haven't you?

Nicole Hemmer:

I have.

And it's one of those things that I think sometimes gets confused when we talk about polarization. We talk about polarization as though it just describes the political landscape that we're in. But polarization is actually a tool of politics, right? It's something that political leaders can use to both tear down their opponents and to drive their base closer to them.

It's something that we saw in the politics of the 1990s. Newt Gingrich, as speaker of the House, saw polarization as a powerful weapon. He circulated rhetoric that talked about Democrats as disgusting and evil as a way of having voters recoil against this group, seeing them as enemies, rather than opponents.

Judy Woodruff:

And, Judge Luttig, when you and I spoke a few months ago, you talked about how, as long as there is still a body of belief out there among our elected officials that the 2020 election was not legitimate, that it was stolen, that our democracy isn't safe.

J. Michael Luttig:

No question, Judy.

In my congressional testimony, I included many allusions to the Civil War in this country. I believed at that time — and this was a year-and-a-half ago — that we were perhaps on the cusp of a literal civil war.

I would say that we are that much closer to a literal civil war today than we were a year-and-a-half ago.

Geoff Bennett:

That conversation continues tomorrow night at 9:00 p.m. Eastern/8:00 p.m. Central on PBS with the one-hour special "America at a Crossroads With Judy Woodruff."