My Interview with Condoleezza Rice
Is democracy on the upswing, and what does it even mean to compromise?
“When I was a child in Birmingham, we couldn’t go to a restaurant or a movie theater because we were Black, and so when you know America’s story as an American, you can go out into the world and say, ‘America is here, not because we’re perfect, as a matter of fact, we’re incredibly imperfect, but because every day we get up and we try to put another brick into the foundation of democracy, and every day, we try to extend we the people just a little bit more.”
I recently had a chance to sit down with former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, whose perspective on the United States is unlike anyone else’s. She grew up in segregated Birmingham, Alabama, and went on to get a PhD in Political Science, became the White House National Security Advisor, Secretary of State, and she now serves as director of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. (And if that weren’t enough, she speaks multiple languages and is a concert pianist.)
I’m sharing a clip in today’s post. For the full interview, click here.
Interesting to hear Sec’y Rice’s perspective on things. She seems to acknowledge the importance of history, the bedrock of the separation of powers, the value of diversity, equity and inclusion and America’s responsibilities as far as the rest of the world. Wish she would be more outspoken about these things as they are being dismantled; or to use her analogy, as the bricks used to build democracy are being pulled away, one by one.
Just watched the clip of and had to share some stream of conscience thoughts. Planning to watch the full interview during lunch today.
It's fascinating to hear Dr. Rice speak after growing up during a time when she was often portrayed as a villain of democracy within the Bush administration. While I wasn't particularly interested in politics when she was in power and didn't align with either party, the administration seemed uncaring about the sacrifices they demanded for invading Iraq, and then tanked the economy in 2008. Obviously I do not blame her as an architect of either of those things, but she was part of that team.
My distaste for politics in general back then definitely came from a lack of civic education. For context, we are talking about a Northern California public school that often touted itself as great for quality education, graduating high school in 2003. I never even learned the meaning of the word "civics" until well into adulthood! We had history class every year, but other than some confusingly compressed general curriculum, we only had one semester about government structure in our senior year. Not having that foundation earlier on made American history much harder to understand, which made me tune out. I never got the point of history class and often expressed my frustration that it seemed like a waste of time - maybe people liked learning it out of curiosity, but its relevance was never explained. It is now so obvious how important it was, and I think most of my classmates missed the point.
High school government class was taught by the football coach who doted on the football players and was hard on anti-war students who expressed concerns about Iraq, making those kids justify having an opinion at all. I remember several weeks when the teacher let everything go off the rails pretending a "debate" was happening while jocks called names and threw objects at students who spoke against the Bush administration, and the teacher would just sigh and shake his head with a smile. Once a student left in tears from the bullying and got reprimanded for leaving without permission. I don’t remember learning much of anything in that class, but I do remember clearly how much the teacher talked about loving Hotel California by the Eagles for some reason. I’ve discussed this with friends and found out that this is not unique, many other schools had “government” class taught by the football coach. So strange. Civics was clearly a low priority as Sharon rightfully warns in the interview. And I don’t see public school education improving anytime soon.
Dr. Rice's thoughts on compromise sound great in a vacuum, but come on - she's part of a political party that has full control of the government and has shown zero interest in getting the minority party's voice represented. How can you expect the minority party to want to compromise when they don't have anything to gain from it?
That said, her point about removing cameras from some processes is intriguing. We all know what she means: those performances where people on committees demand yes/no answers from folks with nuanced stories to tell, mugging with furrowed brows as though this isn't a rehearsed confrontation engineered for a viral moment. Transparency is necessary, but maybe a written record would provide the same transparency without the corruption toward internet fame?
It was also interesting when Dr. Rice talked about democracy being a long process of building institutions brick by brick... I know she was talking about foreign governments but, hello? What about what her party is doing with those bricks right now? And her concern is that people can't have a civil conversation about the dismantling of those institutions with one party having all the power and the other left quibbling about which bad options they have to choose from? Ugh!
Anyway, good morning 🐣