Richard Haass

Richard Haass presents a plan of action to safeguard our democracy, outlining duties for every American. He is president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations and author of The Bill of Obligations: The Ten Habits of Good Citizens. 

Transcripción

Richard Haass (00:00):

We'd never let somebody graduate from school if they couldn't read or write or count. Why do we think it's somehow acceptable to let them graduate from high school or college not understanding why democracy matters? One of the reasons American democracy is in the rough shape it's in is we haven't invested in it.

Ted Roosevelt V (00:19):

Welcome to Good Citizen, a podcast from the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library. I'm Ted Roosevelt. Today's guest might be an expert on how to be a good citizen. Richard Haass is a veteran diplomat who served under not one, not two, but four presidents. He spent 20 years as the president of the Council on Foreign Relations, and though he's best known for his work in international affairs, he's turned his focus back to American civic life with his latest book, The Bill of Obligations: the 10 Habits of Good Citizens. Haass finds American democracy eroding from within, and while he thinks we should be worried, he offers a plan of action. It involves civility, and character, and compromise, and maybe not surprising, it starts with us. I'm excited to share this discussion with you. So Richard, thank you very much for joining us today. It's a real pleasure to talk to you.

Richard Haass (01:13):

Well, it's good to be with you and given the technology, it's amazing that I'm with you.

Ted Roosevelt V (01:20):

So I want to start with your recent book. You said your reasoning for writing "The Bill of Obligations: The 10 Habits of Good Citizens" is that American democracy in our country is at risk. And I guess I want to start there because we are holding free elections. We continued the tradition of peaceful-ish transfer of power. There's reasonable transparency. The rules of the land are being enforced, maybe slower than people would like. Our capital markets still seem to be working for the most part. So is America really in trouble?

Richard Haass (01:53):

It's a fair question and the answer is we are in some trouble. The question is where do we go from here? I don't take issue with everything you said. On the other hand, we did have a serious bout of political violence and we continue to see threats mounted against officials and judges. We continue to see signs of political dysfunction where all sorts of necessary legislation doesn't have a chance of getting passed, not because of the merits, but because of the politics. And then we don't know what comes after this election. There's the question of the 75 day-period between election day and inauguration day. I don't think you need to have an overly active imagination to think that there could be real difficulties. To me, American democracy is fragile, it's valuable, and we haven't been investing in it in the sense that we haven't been reminding people or teaching them of its value. A lot of younger people haven't seen democracy deliver, so I just enter this period with a degree of concern that I've not had before and I think there's grounds to have it.

Ted Roosevelt V (03:06):

One thing that stood out to me while reading your book was the emphasis on protecting our country. And it made me think about the Oathkeepers and some others on the far right who use the military oath of enlistment as justification for their actions. That oath says, "I solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic." And while you might disagree on the means to achieve that goal, you both share that fundamental belief in the importance of protecting our nation. Is there something to that commonality?

Richard Haass (03:42):

First of all, it's an oath to the Constitution. It's not an oath to an individual. And I would simply say what happened on January 6th, a lot of those people or all those people, if they were on your podcast, would say, Hey, I'm a patriot. And my view is, I have two reactions to that. One is patriots don't violate the law. They don't use violence in pursuit of political ends. If their ends are so worthy, why don't they sell themselves? Why do they have to resort to violence? And then Ronald Reagan famously said, he supports patriotism, of course, but then he added an important modifier. He said, it must be informed patriotism. So it's not enough for individuals to go out and do whatever they want under the banner of patriotism that they attach to themselves. It's got to be informed and it's got to be operating within the legitimate political systems and organs of the state. And if they don't like the rules, they don't like the laws, then there's ways to change them through legislation or through legal challenge, but not through destroying property or attacking innocent individuals.

Ted Roosevelt V (04:47):

Let's go there because your first obligation in The Bill of Obligations is be informed. But a couple of weeks ago we had David Maraniss, the associate editor of the Washington Post on this podcast, and I asked him a question about the fourth estate, and his response surprised me, given his history in journalism. It was that the fourth estate doesn't exist anymore. While he recognized in the past there were too few sources of information, he would argue, now there are too many sources of information. So I'm curious, given the current media landscape, whether it's TikTok, one-sided cable news shows, how do you think about being informed in that current media landscape?

Richard Haass (05:27):

I know David Maraniss and what he said is interesting. There's more access to information in less time with greater ease than at any other moment in human history. And the problem is that there's also more access to misinformation. And I don't know about your computer, but mine doesn't come with yellow post-it notes that says, read this and believe this, but ignore that.

Ted Roosevelt V (05:50):

I wish it did.

Richard Haass (05:51):

Yeah, I wish it did too. But there's a couple of practices that would help. One by the way, they do it in New Jersey, they do it in several countries in Europe, is you teach information literacy. You would basically say, Hey, it's gotten more, not less difficult. So here's how you navigate it so it becomes part of a civics education. And then there's other things. I mean, if either one of us got a terrible diagnosis from our doctor, the first thing we'd probably do is get a second opinion. Okay, so why don't we teach people about second opinions? So if you listen to Fox, why not then listen to something that has a different ideological emphasis, M-S-N-B-C or what have you or understand in the Wall Street Journal, which I think is one of the world's great newspapers, what's the difference between the news page and the editorial page? So the idea that a big chunk of young people get their quote-unquote "news" from TikTok is frightening. There's no editors there, there's no quality control. So again, I come back the idea that we want to encourage people to follow certain best practices. I actually think if we teach people to read, write, do math, how to get on computers, why is it any less important than we teach them how to navigate a really crowded, complicated information and misinformation landscape.

Ted Roosevelt V (07:10):

What's interesting--and this relates to your third obligation of staying open to compromise-- is that with all these different sources of information, it leads people to think that they're working with Truth with a capital T because they keep getting reaffirming information in their media cycle. And when you're dealing with capital T-Truth, and this happens on both sides of the aisle, frankly, it makes compromise harder. It creates a zero sum mindset in politics. But it wasn't always like this. Richard, I get the sense that when you began your career, there seemed to be more room for compromise and it didn't center on this idea that if one party won, the other one lost. Why do you say compromise is so important to our democracy?

Richard Haass (07:57):

It's important because people come into the political marketplace with different points of view. The only way to get lasting legislation or laws on the books is for people to meet halfway, to come out of the end zones, if you will, and meet on the playing field. So that's one good thing about compromise. It's the only way I know to get things done where a significant majority of the country, Democrats and Republicans and independents alike, will buy into it. The process of compromise also can be a learning experience. It can be a way of improving things, but mainly to me it's the only way I know to get things done. If you refuse to compromise, you often end up with nothing and rarely is nothing better than something. By the way, I make the third obligation-- it's not "compromise," it's "stay open to compromise." And I admit on occasion it may be better not to compromise.

(08:47):

There may be such a matter of principle that you say, no, I've got to draw the line. And my view is that may be so, may be justified, but at least think it through and make sure that if you do refuse to compromise you're better off. Somewhere along the way, I'm not sure when it was, "compromise" became a dirty word and somehow it got associated with selling out or being unprincipled rather than pragmatic and getting things done. And one of my goals, I'd like to resurrect the word. I'd like to make it a respected idea that to compromise is to be a grownup, willing and able to accomplish things rather than someone who can't be trusted, who's selling out. But I also think it's going to take political leaders standing up and making the case. If you're going to take the risk of compromising, even of quote-unquote "doing the right thing," then you've got to explain it. Because there'll be people who won't see it that way, who'll be angry or frustrated, and if you don't want to pay a price for your compromise, then again I think you've got to go out there and sell it.

Ted Roosevelt V (09:50):

A lot of the components of your bill of obligations are attributes that I would've historically associated with grownups or leaders, whether it's being able to compromise, being able to adjust your position or, as your number four obligation is, remain civil. These are sort of standard things that you would expect from your leaders in the country and yet we don't see them anymore or we see them less and less. And I wonder if you think this decline in civility is cyclical or if it's a secular process that ebbs and flows over time and that there are natural counter forces that will pull it back.

Richard Haass (10:30):

The honest answer is, I don't know. I could be sanguine or blithe and say it's cyclical and if we just wait long enough, civility will return in spades. I just don't know how long of a wait it's going to be. The best way to make the case for civility is for people to model it. Arguments don't get better because you make them ad hominem or you browbeat other people or call 'em all sorts of names. You're unlikely to reach common ground with someone to whom you behave uncivilly. I also think that Americans meet one another less often now. We're increasingly living in our silos, in our churches, in our neighborhoods, or we watch this or that channel or listen to this or that station. So we're kind of hanging out with like-minded people. When you meet people who are very different, you've almost got to act civilly in order to break the ice. But again, you end up thinking almost that in schools now we've got to teach a little bit of character. One thing I like the idea is for schools to have much more in the way of debate. I think debating can be a good discipline. You learn the issues, you learn how to present the case, you learn how to listen, but also you learn that civility can be valuable.

Ted Roosevelt V (11:47):

I believe that a country's narrative, often tied to the founding story of a country, creates the shared values that become the very glue that keeps the nation together. That's especially true in a multicultural democracy and that we're in a point in time where we're reevaluating the founding story of our country and for good reason in a lot of ways. But I think there's also a decline in a shared understanding of what it is to be an American right now so that when we hold up certain characteristics even and certain values, there are no red lines anymore or at least they've diminished. Does that resonate with you? Do you think that's part of the problem?

Richard Haass (12:30):

Not only does it resonate with me, but you articulated it extraordinarily well. I couldn't improve on it. This was a country founded on an idea and the idea was "Americanness," and it was based upon certain values, commitment to certain rights, in particular, people are created equal and they have equal opportunity. I think often we haven't lived up to it, God knows. And to me the challenge is to recognize that and say how do we do better? How do we make equal opportunity not just a slogan but a reality? And it's one of the reasons I focus so much on public education, but that becomes to me the best single tool. But I agree with you and I think we don't teach Americanness and what we think it means at our peril. That's why I'm so insistent on civics education. We never let somebody graduate from school if they couldn't read or write or count.

(13:20):

Why do we think it's somehow acceptable to let them graduate from high school or college not understanding why democracy matters? This to me ought to be an essential component of education. One of the reasons American democracy is in the rough shape it's in is we haven't invested in it. Perhaps the principal investment we could make is having a serious civics component to high school and college education. And the goal can't be to impose a single view of history, but people ought to be exposed to critical facts and events and to different schools of thought and so forth. But I don't think this is impossible, but I do think it's necessary.

Ted Roosevelt V (14:05):

I want to talk about the 10th obligation, but before I ask you about it, I'm curious about the ordering of the obligations. The Bill of Rights are sort of, I think, commonly thought of as ordered based on prioritization, which is not true. How did you order the obligations when you pulled them together?

Richard Haass (14:23):

I thought being informed was the single most important, that we have a political system that's a republic, and the only way to make good choices through voting, through holding people accountable, is to be informed. It's even more important than the second obligation, to be involved, because as much as I want Americans to be involved, I first want them to get informed. The next what, five or six---compromise, civility, rejecting violence, valuing norms, promoting the common goods and so forth. These were things that we could all do in our personal lives and that's why I clustered them. And then the last three are somewhat different. Respecting government service---I wanted to promote the idea of the best and brightest going back into government and rather than disparaging government, I wanted people to respect it and where they didn't like it, improve it. The last obligation in some ways is the summary of the first nine, the idea that you put country before either party or person. That to me is the summary obligation and that what we want to avoid are individuals who put themselves or their party before the welfare of the country. And look, the best way to get more people to put country before party or politics is for us to vote for people who put country before party or person. We get the democracy we deserve. It may not be the one we want or need, but we get the one we deserve.

Ted Roosevelt V (15:54):

I really struggle with how we got to the point where this obligation that you talk about, put country first, seems so intuitive and yet it is so difficult for our politicians to do it today because part of the problem is that they're going to lose their office. But I would hope that that would be a small price to pay for your country.

Richard Haass (16:21):

Look, ambition can be a wonderful thing, but ambition could also be a terrible thing. And I'm a great believer in you play to win, but you also play by the rules. The umpire makes choices and you accept the umpire's calls of strikes and balls, safes and outs. But I'm a conservative and conservatives believe in institutions and we believe in precedent and we believe in rules. And I worry that latter day Republicans are no longer conservatives. That increasingly they favor agendas that are more absolute and they're not as concerned about precedent or institutions and the like. And I worry about "the ends justify the means" and the absolutism of modern republicanism.

Ted Roosevelt V (17:09):

Where do former day Republicans find themselves today? I mean, where do they live? Are they just without a home?

Richard Haass (17:18):

Yes sir, we're in the political wilderness. I've left the Republican party and I'll support individual Republicans when I agree with them or individual Democrats when I agree with them, and I just fight for policies I believe in. But I think it's tough. I think it's tough for Republicans who are---forget about Rockefeller Republicans, let's just call them moderate Republicans. Republicans like Eisenhower, Ford, even Nixon---minus the legal excesses--- Bush 41, elements of Bush 40. This is traditional Republicanism. This is the Republicanism I came of age and it had certain precepts: a modest government role in the economy, a great believer in the private sector and trade, respect for privacy and so forth. Well, this Republican party has really turned on all those. So I think the honest answer is there's no solution for what you might call the moderate Republican predicament right now.

Ted Roosevelt V (18:15):

I'm just curious how important you think the shift on globalization within the Republican party is to this change in the Republican party, that globalization is no longer considered a positive, that free trade across borders is no longer considered a positive.

Richard Haass (18:32):

Well, the opposition to free trade we now see in both parties. It's enough to make you question the value of bipartisanship. Both parties, I would argue are deeply wrong when it comes to trade. I would also argue they were both deeply wrong in Afghanistan and I've got a long list of issues. So bipartisanship isn't the panacea. Many seem to think it is, but the answer to this is not to act unilaterally. The answer to this is not to become an isolationist. It's to build new and better institutions or forge coalitions of the willing and able who will help us deal with these very real international challenges. It's happening at a time of global issues from pandemics to climate to the emergence of new technologies. So the world has become an incredibly dangerous, dynamic place. Its ability to affect us profoundly has rarely been as obvious it is now. And suddenly we're developing real, what, doubts about whether we want to be a part of it, as if these two oceans that surround us are moats. We're kidding ourselves. I worry that the United States is increasingly losing its reputation for reliability and leadership just at a time our interests in the world call out for that.

Ted Roosevelt V (19:46):

The other side of this coin is something I've heard you discuss in other interviews, which is that the decline in American institutions, the decline in threats to American democracy is not an American problem. It's a global problem because of the role that the United States has played globally. Can you talk about why the 10 obligations, while they happen in the United States, have a profound impact not just in America but across the globe?

Richard Haass (20:13):

I always thought the best way to promote democracy around the world was not by preaching to people. I always hated when they gave us those talking points at the State Department. It seemed to me kind of arrogant or worse. The best thing you do to promote democracy is to showcase it here and show that it delivers politically. It delivers rights, it can correct its mistakes. That's the best way to advertise democracy. And if we do that, people all over the world will want some of it for themselves. I think every society has a balance of rights and obligations. If you think about it, an authoritarian society is one that has an imbalance, it's all obligations. It's all the things you owe the state. And I think the challenge for democracies is to get the balance correct. We've lost that balance. We've gotten too hooked on rights, on what we're owed, and not enough about our obligations to one another or to this country of ours. But I don't think that's unique to the United States. And I think every society struggles with this balance. And what we're seeing though, over the last two decades, there's been a pretty profound secular shift in the direction of authoritarianism. The balance or imbalance between rights and obligations has moved away from rights. And we're seeing this around the world where freedom is in a certain degree of recession. So I actually think we have failed to sell democracy. We've done a real disservice to the rest of the world.

Ted Roosevelt V (21:43):

Do you think, and I'll limit this question I guess to democracies in the world, but maybe if you want to expand it, you can: Are there universal obligations of citizenship or are they very dependent on cultural and societal contexts?

Richard Haass (21:57):

I think virtually everything that I'm writing about applies to democracies. It doesn't quite fit when you're talking about authoritarian systems because individuals don't begin from the premise of certain rights, unfortunately, that they're not allowed to be informed. They're only allowed to be involved in certain ways. They don't get to decide what's the common good. So I think it's very different in a non-democratic authoritarian society. But not to fight your question, I think that most of this fits pretty well with democracies, even though, yeah, there'd be a little bit of tailoring given the norms and given the historical traditions, but most of it would fit.

Ted Roosevelt V (22:35):

How did writing this book change your outlook on the country?

Richard Haass (22:40):

Look, the reason I went about all this is I'm worried. I do think that our democracy is worth saving, both for itself, for what it's delivered to the American people, but also for what the United States has delivered to the world. So I want people to avoid either extreme of being, "ah, don't worry, Americans always get it right." And then the dark side, "this is hopeless. Nothing good can come of this." And I don't feel either. And the reason I wrote this, the reason I wanted to kick off something of a national conversation on this, the reason I spend as much time on it is I really do think what we have is worth preserving, but it's going to take some work. Well, we have lost our way. And by the way, I think a lot of Americans get that. I actually think people know that the train is off the rails and we can then debate about how it got there. We can debate about how to get it back on, and that's the conversation I want to have. But that's why I wrote it, is I feel passionate about it, but it's not gonna fix itself. And I think we ignore it at our peril. I've never been a great fan of the ostrich.

(23:53):

I don't want to just stick our head in the sand. I want people, again, to get informed and get involved. And I do think it's fixable and I think it's worth fixing, but like most things in life, to slightly switch metaphors, it's not self-correcting. Good things just don't happen by themselves. There has to be agency here. And that's what I wanted to create a sense of urgency around agency.

Ted Roosevelt V (24:17):

I've noticed lately that it's---maybe controversial is too strong a word, but it's increasingly unusual to hear people say that they're a proud American. I mean, it used to be sort of a given that somebody would say, I'm a proud American. Of course I'm a proud American. That was something to be proud of. And you mentioned earlier before we started recording that you're in New York and there are a number of progressive schools in New York where I think that that is an unpopular sentiment in schools today. Do you feel like the pride in our country gets sort of washed away by this overly critical analysis of where we've had missteps along the way?

Richard Haass (24:58):

I've done a lot of interviews over the last year and a half since I did this book. It's the first time this question's come up, so I'm going to tap dance and stall for a second. But you're right, you hear it less than you used to. I could think about why for a couple of reasons. It gets back to the civics issue. We haven't done a good job of telling our story, and my hunch is we pay a real price for not having a comprehensive set of knowledge of history. A lot of people have also focused more on what's wrong rather than what's right. I also think if you're younger, it hasn't been a great 20 years if you're a younger person. Think about it: over the last 20 years, you've had 9/11, you had the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, massive investment, not much to show for it to say the least.

(25:48):

A lot of Americans lost their lives, a lot of trillions of dollars. The 2007-8 mortgage crisis, the recent inflation. We've had Covid, disrupted lives. Looking at democracy, they would say, I can see what our democracy does to me, not so obvious what it's doing for me. How do we get back to the point not where people have to be persuaded, but where people volunteer and say, wow, I'm so glad I was born in America. I'm so proud of what we're doing. There's no place I'd rather be. And by the way, people are still voting with their feet to come here. This still is a country, for all of its flaws, a lot of people around the world would much prefer to be in, whether it's the rights, political rights or economic opportunity or religious freedom. But I think, again, we don't do a good job of teaching. We don't give people perspective, so people don't see the good. And if you leave things to social media and the rest, by and large, those with agendas are much louder. And most people are motivated by negative agendas. So people hear the critics, they hear people who rightly or wrongly are dissatisfied, but there's very few people standing up saying, "Well, actually, yeah, it's not perfect, but let's not lose perspective." I don't hear a whole lot of them.

Ted Roosevelt V (27:02):

Richard, thank you so much for chatting with me today. I think your book, the Bill of Obligations, is a very important book for everyone to read. I think you're spot on to say that we need to be proactive to protect our democracy and protect our institutions, and you give a very clear set of guidelines in terms of how everyone can do that. Thank you very much for writing the book and for chatting with us today.

Richard Haass (27:28):

Ted, thank you for having me on, and thank you for your podcast. It's an oasis of a thoughtful, civil---if I can use the word civil---conversation.

Ted Roosevelt V (27:40):

Thank you, Richard, for this comprehensive and really invaluable conversation. It's incredibly important to recognize that we do not only just have rights as Americans, but also duties to the country. We really just scratched the surface here. So please pick up The Bill of Obligations: The 10 Habits of Good Citizens to read more, and please consider sharing this episode with a friend and leaving us a review. Good Citizen is produced by the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library in collaboration with the Future of StoryTelling and Charts & Leisure. You can learn more about TR's upcoming presidential library at trlibrary.com.