(soft music) - Coming up next on this special Independence Day edition of "Arizona Horizon", a conversation with longtime political consultant David Axelrod.

Also tonight, how classical writers on moral authority inspired the lives of early American leaders.

And we'll hear about a model constitutional convention made up of law students from around the country, stories and more next on this special edition, "Arizona Horizon".

- [Narrator] This hour of local news is made possible by contributions from the friends of PBS, members of your PBS station.

Thank you.

- Good evening, and welcome to this special Independence Day edition of "Arizona Horizon".

I'm Ted Simons.

David Axelrod is the former senior advisor to President Obama and current political analyst for CNN.

Earlier this year, Axelrod head headlined a local series on democracy at work.

He joined us on Arizona Horizon to offer his perspective on the state of politics in America.

David Axelrod, good to have you here.

Thank you so much for joining us.

- Thank you.

- You bet.

I got a lot of questions for you and a lot of big questions.

- [David] All right.

- None bigger than this.

I mean, considering everything going on right now, the landscape, the political landscape especially, do you see democracy in America in peril?

- Well, Ted, I think democracy all over the world is being challenged.

And, you know, we should remind ourselves that democracy was never a gift.

Democracy was a project, and we were warned right from the beginning by the founders of this country, that it would require constant vigilance to make democracy work.

And now our democracy is being tested and our institutions are being tested.

And ultimately it'll be up to the American people to insist that this experiment goes forward.

- And again, you look back at World War II, the greatest generation, World War I, all these things where the country got together even to beat the depression, the country got together to get things done.

Are we still capable of doing that in this country?

- Well, it's a really good question.

And you know, the greatest generation profited, and we as a country profited from the fact that regardless of where they came from or what their political views were, they fought side by side to protect freedom and saved the world from fascism.

And I think that that cooperation flowed into our politics as well.

Look, I think the problem we have today is that we have become a social media society.

We have algorithms that tell social media platforms the thing that will keep us online.

And their great insight is, the thing that keeps us online is anger, is outrage, is aggrievement, are conspiracy theories, and they don't care whether you're right or left, or they just find that, and they shove us into these silos in which our views are always affirmed, but not always informative.

Everybody outside the silo is menacing, is alien, is an enemy, and it destroys the social fabric and it's destroying our politics.

- Is there any way to get out of those silos?

- Well, I think that that requires some awareness and effort on the part of people, first of all.

And you know, I think we have to be aware of what's happening to us.

That we are essentially being programmed by our social media sites, by our choices in cable TV, to go to the places where our prejudices are entertained in politics.

And it's very, very dangerous.

I mean, you know, can we overcome it?

I think we can.

I have to believe we can.

But do I know the path exactly?

No.

And am I certain?

No, - I asked the questions because we can't even agree on a pandemic.

We have a health pandemic, a worldwide health pandemic, and we can't even agree on how to fight that.

We can't agree on whether or not Vladimir Putin is doing the right or wrong thing in Russia.

And whether or not we should, I mean, those were basic things that should have been relatively clear.

- Should have been.

- They're not.

- Yeah.

- Can they become more clear?

- Well, you know, I mean, again, I think the answer is can they, yes.

Will they, we will see, I think most of the country, most of the country understands that Vladimir Putin is a tyrant, understands that Alexi Navalny was a hero, and that, that what happened to him was an unbelievable outrage.

And that the Putin's invasion of Ukraine was not genius as President Trump suggested, but was villainy.

I think most of the country understands that.

But there are these cleavages that, you know, again, social media and politicians who mimic it have found, you know, people after 20 years of war were tired of sending all this money overseas for what they consider military adventures.

And it's clouded people's feelings about supporting Ukraine when we have all these needs here and it's fodder for demagogues to exploit.

- Yeah, you know, speaking of Navalny, apparently he read your book.

- Yeah.

- And he enjoyed your book.

- I was so moved when I learned that I had no idea.

And this Kerry Kennedy, one of the Kennedy family, released a letter this weekend, this past weekend, in which he noted that he had read my book and the Kennedys were inspirations to me.

And he recalled some of that, the passages in that book.

Yeah, I mean, I don't have anything to say other than that.

I'm overwhelmed by the idea that a man that great would have taken time to read my book.

- As far as politics are concerned, handicap what's gonna happen in November.

What do you see this far out?

- Well, I think you're gonna have a race between Donald Trump and Joe Biden.

I think that's pretty clear right now.

Unless there are some unpredictable events.

But they would have to be events outside of politics that would take one of them, or both of them off the playing field.

But they are well on their way to being the nominees of their party.

So we're gonna have a rematch, and I think it's gonna be very close.

I don't think it can be anything but that because we're so polarized as a country and how it turns out, stay tuned.

I don't have a prediction on that.

- So nothing parachutes in, no convention fights, no last minute turnarounds.

- I think that's fantasy.

I think even if Trump is convicted, I'm not sure that the convention in Milwaukee will turn away from him.

And there are party rules that bind delegates.

So, you know, it's very, very clear Donald Trump is in control of the Republican Party.

And as for the Democrats, I've said from the beginning that if Joe Biden wants to be the nominee, he will be the nominee.

There's loyalty to him.

And at this point, I think people are more focused on the task of defeating Trump than they are of unseating Biden.

I don't think that's the major discussion within the Democratic party.

- Last question before you go, Congress.

Will there be a change in leadership either way, either house?

- Well, I think the Republicans in Congress, in the House are doing their best to see to it that there will be a change because they're so inept.

But I also think that redistricting in New York and a few other places favors Democrats.

And what I would predict is that Democrats will take the House.

And I think that Democrats gonna have a hard time holding onto the Senate because they have more seats at play than Republicans.

And three of them are in states that Donald Trump carried in 2020.

And it's very, very hard to overcome that.

So they may, you know, the two remaining Senator Manchin has left Senator Tester in Montana, and Sherrod Brown in Ohio are masterful politicians, great public officials.

If anybody can resist the tide, they can, but it's gonna be difficult.

- Yeah, stay tuned indeed.

David Axelrod, good to have you here.

- Pleasure to be here, thank you.

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- A new book by Jeffrey Rosen, president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, looks at what the pursuit of happiness really meant to the nation's founders and how that phrase became the foundation of our democracy.

Jeffrey Rosen joined us on "Arizona Horizon" to share what he found when researching the ideas that influenced the country's founders.

Jeffrey Rosen, welcome to "Arizona Horizon".

It's good to have you here.

I enjoyed your book immensely.

I mean, "The Pursuit", this was one of the best books I've read in a long time because of my interest in the stoics and moral philosophers, ancient moral and how it transcribes from then to now.

You wrote about how it translated from then to the Founding Fathers talk.

Why did you get started on this?

- It was this unexpected COVID reading project.

I noticed that Ben Franklin, when he made a list of 13 Virtues for daily living, had used this book by Cicero I'd never heard of.

And I saw Jefferson used the same book, "The Tusculan Disputations" for their core understanding of happiness.

Not as feeling good, but being good.

Not pursuing pleasure, but pursuing virtue, an unfamiliar definition of happiness.

I thought I better read the Cicero book.

I read other books on Jefferson's reading list.

I spent a year doing this and it kind of just changed the way I think about how to be a person and also a good citizen.

- Did it attract you immediately or was it something you had to dive into a little bit?

- Definitely had to dive into it and to get the vibe, I would say, of all the books together and their connections and the basic lesson and how they resonated with the eastern wisdom traditions.

And it was definitely a process, but it was so fulfilling.

It was really the most fulfilling, meaningful reading I've ever done.

- It really, I mean just in my own experience with the stoics and things like that, it's just fascinating how self-help from so far ago and so long ago works today.

- It really does, and all of our current literature of mindfulness and wellness and wholeness and all that sort of stuff goes back to these ancient lessons that are at the core of the ancient wisdom traditions.

And they all have to do with controlling the only thing that we actually can control, which is our own thoughts and actions.

That's such an empowering message and it changes the way you live.

- You mentioned Ben Franklin and he did have this daily self-improvement program, including a chart where every day he would like what, just mark off certain things that he wanted to avoid, but he couldn't help.

How did that chart, I mean, a daily chart on self-improvement?

- This is amazing.

I actually tried this Franklin system with a friend a couple years ago 'cause a rabbi recommended it.

It was translated into Hebrew by a Hasidic rabbi in the 18th century.

And the system says that every week you focus on a different virtue, prudence, temperance, industry, and you put an X mark next to the virtue on the day you've fallen short.

So we tried this and like Franklin, it's incredibly depressing 'cause there are all these X marks all over the place.

But it makes you focus each day on how you've been, how self-controlled, how self mastered, and you try to do better.

It's a really interesting project.

- And again, you mentioned virtue and the title of the book is "The Pursuit of Happiness".

And we all think we understand what the pursuit of happiness means, but the pursuit of happiness from the founders, I think a lot of people would be surprised.

- It's completely unfamiliar and counterintuitive, but very powerful.

Today we think of happiness as feeling good, let it all hang out.

You do you then it was self-mastery, self-improvement, getting a better character, fulfilling your best self so you can serve others.

And that idea that we really have a responsibility to just be better every day by cultivating habits of self-improvement was the key about what they thought of as happiness.

- Difference between virtue and short-term pleasure.

- That's the key difference.

It's the marshmallow test.

Instead of having two marshmallows right away, if you wait, you can have three later.

And that impulse control was really the core definition of virtue for the classical people.

Temperance, prudence, courage, justice, it all has to do with impulse control.

- And moderation and sincerity.

You had all of these as chapters in your book.

You also had little sonnets before the chapters.

These are things what you wrote to help remind, what was that all about?

- This was an unusual practice, but it was fulfilling.

So I would read from the classic wisdom every day, watch the sunrise.

And then just to sum up the lessons, I found myself writing these sonnets, summing up the core reading.

It seems very weird, but then I saw that Alexander Hamilton did the same thing.

Phyllis Wheatley, there's something about the literature that makes you wanna condense it in a clear balance form, and that's what I did.

- Yeah, and again, "The Pursuit of Happiness" is a title.

The pursuit of happiness is obviously a goal for lots people, I thought Jefferson's quote about boredom being the most dangerous poison of life.

That's pretty heavy stuff.

- My mom gave me the exact same advice.

She would always say, if you're bored, it's your own fault.

And when I saw Jefferson said it to his daughter, I knew she was right.

- So the impacted the founders greatly.

This kind of thinking, these kinds of pearls of wisdom.

- It profoundly affected their daily lives.

And also their philosophy of government.

The most striking thing is how much time they spent trying to use their time better.

And they made schedules and they would get up early and they'd make lists of the books they read.

And when they didn't read, they beat themselves up.

They were constantly talking about their anxieties for not being good enough people.

And they drew this profound connection between, we can't be good citizens unless we first are good people balanced in our own mind.

Unless we can find tranquility in our own constitutions, we won't find it in the constitution of the state.

It was really, really surprising.

- Wow, wow, and that formula worked then obviously to great success.

We're here because of it.

Does it work today in social media?

24/7 news guy cutting you off in traffic.

Can I be historic with a guy cutting me off in traffic?

- You gotta be, it's the only thing that you can rely on just to keep, you know, stop losing it.

But the question of whether in an age of social media we can maintain this tranquility is profound.

James Madison wasn't sure the experiment would work, but he believed that a new media technology, the broadside press, would allow reasons slowly to diffuse across the land.

'Cause people would read the Federalist papers and elevate themselves.

Obviously it's not the age of X and Facebook and a world where impulse control is punished and immediate gratification is rewarded, is not the founder's world.

- And again, and we're running outta time 'cause I could talk to you forever about this, but when did that change?

Was it the sixties and seventies when feeling good kind of surpassed being good?

I mean, what happened?

- The sixties and seventies were crucial, as you say, that changed the popular understanding of happiness and pop culture and then came social media in the nineties and it just sped things up exponentially, and here we are.

- Yeah.

Last question.

What do you want folks to take from this book?

- I hope they'll be inspired to read more themselves.

It's so fulfilling and meaningful to read.

Just the practice of that deep reading and then applying it in their lives.

It changed my life and I'm an evangelist for the ancient wisdom that inspired the founders.

- Well congratulations on that and congratulations on the book.

It was a great read, Jeffrey Rosen and "The Pursuit of Happiness".

Thank you so much for joining us.

- Thank you.

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- ASU's Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law recently brought together law students from all around the country for a model constitutional convention with students acting as state delegates.

We heard more about this event from Stefanie Lindquist, she's executive director of the Law College's Center for Constitutional Design.

A model constitutional convention.

What are we talking about here?

- Well, it's a simulation, the first of its kind actually.

And if people are familiar with Model UN, which many high school students do and college students do, it's very similar to that except it's never been done before.

So this is the first effort of its kind in the United States to bring students together from all over the country to basically debate amendments to the US Constitution.

- So basically become a founding father.

- [Stefanie] Exactly, yeah, exactly.

- And five constitutional amendments and part of this event.

How does it all work?

- Yeah, so each state is able to propose an amendment to the Constitution and there's two delegates from each state.

So we invited, we had a very rigorous application process and we ended up inviting a hundred students.

They're law and undergraduate students to come to ASU.

Each is assigned a state and two, as as I said, each two delegates from each state and each state could propose an amendment to the constitution.

We are also what we call seeding the convention with some amendments that had come out of the National Constitution Center that had a project there to identify some sort of bipartisan amendments that might work.

So the students are gonna debate those, but then they're also representing their states and proposing their own amendments that go through a committee process or vetted through a committee process and then debated on the floor of the convention.

- Was gonna ask if the amendments had already been decided and here's your amendment, go to it.

Or I wouldn't mind doing X, Y and Z.

It sounds like a little bit of both.

- Exactly, well, they're able to research and decide what amendments they want.

What does that generation of students want the constitution to look like?

And so we wanted to give them free reign to decide what proposals they wanna bring to the floor.

They have to debate these proposals according to the very rigorous Roberts rules of order.

- [Ted] Yes.

- And we have a world, really a nationally famous parliamentarian there to help the students work through those rules.

- I got three days of debating.

Three days of all this stuff, huh?

- [Stefanie] That's right.

All over Memorial Day weekend.

- And the goal is, again, to learn about constitutional change, reform, amendments, the whole nine yards.

- That's right.

I mean, as you know, Ted, the Constitution has not been amended since 1992.

And incidentally, the idea for this project actually came because the amendment, the 27th Amendment was actually advanced by a college student.

- [Ted] Interesting.

- Yes, who identified an amendment that James Madison had actually brought to Congress as part of the Bill of Rights, but it was never ratified.

- Yes.

- And so in 1992, he wrote a paper at the university or before 1992, a paper at the University of Texas saying this should be now ratified.

And so a college student actually did change the Constitution.

And so we wanna show the world, show the nation that students from all backgrounds, all ideologies in our even polarized world, can come together to change the Constitution.

- Well, with that in mind, I would think that negotiating skills, the art of compromise, I mean this is a great example, I would think would be a great example for these kids.

Not only to look at and understand, I call 'em kids, they're probably not, some of 'em aren't such kids anymore.

- [Stefanie] Yeah, that's true.

- But I mean you learn this is a great way to learn about those things.

- Oh, we think it's a magnificent learning opportunity and we're so pleased it's taking place at ASU of course we're doing it because we had a generous donor who enabled us to fund all these students to come, it's very expensive.

- [Ted] Yeah.

- To fund them, to come together.

And we hope that lasting friendships are made here, that a new generation of leaders are made here.

And that students learn that indeed they can change the future of their country if they so choose through constitutional amendments.

- And you mentioned Robert's rules of order.

I mean, it's not gonna be a pie fight here.

I mean, we're gonna have people behaving themselves.

- Absolutely.

- And figuring things out.

- Absolutely, and there are rules of their decorum that they have to follow.

And they have a certain limited time on the floor to debate amendments, to speak to an amendment as they did in 1787 when our founding fathers did come together.

They've elected their own president, vice president and secretary, as did the founding fathers.

We have a George Washington.

- [Ted] Alright.

- And so it is modeled in some ways after the 1787 convention.

- Yeah, and you mentioned this, but I want to emphasize overcoming political division.

Do you see, I mean, in this day and age, is it gonna overcome political division or are we gonna see hardened blocks in there just like we see in just about every other facet of life?

- Well, that remains to be seen.

- [Ted] Yes.

- I'm very hopeful the students that we selected to come are some of the most enthusiastic, well-rounded, impressive people.

- How did you pick the students?

- We had an application process.

They had to tell us why they wanted to come.

We looked at their transcripts, we looked at their letters of recommendation just as if they were being accepted at a university, for example.

And it was really based upon the way they described their interest in the convention.

Most of them talked about the need for compromise in our country.

- [Ted] Yeah.

- And how focused they were on coming to the convention to find compromise with their fellow delegates at the convention.

We will have a little documentary made about it so people can find out what the students did.

And of course we'll publicize what amendments they finally proposed.

And we hope to in the future, do this on at least, you know, an every other year basis.

- I'm really surprised this hasn't been done yet.

I mean, it sounds like everyone wants to, did not have to wear a wig or anything, but everyone wants to be a founding father and figure out what they were doing back there.

And Phil, okay, last question.

What do you want the kids, the students, the young people, call 'em what you will, to take from this?

- I want them to take from it, first of all, an understanding of the complexity of constitutional amendments and the Constitution itself.

It's a simple document, relatively speaking, only 7,500 words.

But making an amendment that can gain sort of the commitment of, and by the way, it's a 75% vote for this amendment for these amendments to be adopted.

So they really do have to compromise.

- [Ted] Yes.

- So learning that, learning how to draft these amendments, but more importantly, learning how to negotiate, learning how to stand up and speak to an amendment and to make a persuasive argument to the fellow delegates as the founders did, right?

In 1787, learn leadership skills.

There's chairs of all the committees, we have, you know, leaders of the convention itself.

And so they're gonna learn leadership skills, compromise skills, and I hope they make really lasting friendships.

Those friendships can give rise to coalitions in the future that could really have impact here.

- Sounds like a great networking opportunity.

- Absolutely.

- And they can learn how difficult it is to change the constitution, which is one of the reasons why it doesn't happen very often.

- Exactly, they're gonna learn that.

And they're from more than 70 universities around the country.

- Fantastic.

- So boy, they're gonna meet people from South Dakota to California to Florida, to Texas to Maine.

It's really wonderful.

- It's Stefani Lindquist again, O'Connor College of Law on the model Constitutional Convention, good luck.

- Thank you.

Thank you.

- And that is it for now.

I'm Ted Simons.

Thank you so much for joining us on this special Independence Day edition of "Arizona Horizon".

You have a great evening.

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