Adam Ruins Everything (2015–…): Season 3, Episode 5 - Adam Ruins America - full transcript
Adam lets his freedom flag fly by examining why America doesn't have higher rates of social mobility. He then uncovers the flaws within our constitution and examines our country's progression and regression.
Mm!
Oh, it's finally here,
the best day of the year,
Independence Day!
Hiya, Unc!
Oh, happy 4th,
Lady Liberty.
Oh, those amber
waves of grain
- are looking marvelous.
- Thanks.
I picked 'em
straight from
- the purple mountain's majesty.
- Mm.
Looking forward to your
big speech tonight, Uncle.
Oh, thanks, Johnny Appleseed.
It'll move you
to your core.
Get it?
How are them
decorations coming, Rosie?
Think it'll be ready
on time?
We can do it, Uncle.Great.
This'll be the best
July 4th spectacular
Americatown
has even seen.
There will be fireworks,
hot dogs,
apple pie, denim jorts!
Dang,
I love America.
It's the most fair, democratic,
perfect country on Earth!
Actually...
America is far from perfect,
and believe that it is
just makes things worse.
It's okay, everyone.
I know this guy.
Ol' Uncle Sam's got this.
Listen, Adam, I'm fine
being a day player
on your little show,
especially since it
qualifies me
for Actors Union
health insurance.
- Mm!
- But!
You can't come
to Americatown
and ruin America.
Sorry, Unc.
This country's gotta stop
believing its own myths
and start facing the facts.
My fellow Americans,
I'm Adam Conover,
and this is
"Adam Ruins Everything."
♪♪
*ADAM RUINS EVERYTHING*
Season 03 Episode 05
Episode Title: "Adam Ruins America"
I don't have time
for this, Adam.
It's the 4th of July
and my schedule is packed.
I've got a car wash
meet-and-greet,
a mattress store photo-op,
a hot dog eating contest...
And I have to finish
writing my big speech
for the Americatown
Independence Day Holiday
Blowout Extravaganza!
Oh, how exciting.
Everyone's working
really hard to make it great,
and no one wants you
to ruin it.
Ah, you see them?
They're living
the American Dream.
Here, a little hard work
can take anyone
from rags to riches.
I was born with one leg
and no money.
But I worked hard.
And now, I'm a billionaire!
I could buy all the legs
I could ever want.
Sorry, Unc, America hardly
has the highest rates
of upward social mobility.
In a ranking
of 24 countries,
we came in 16th.
How can that be?
The truth is,
if you're poor in America,
no matter how hard
you work,
the deck is completely
stacked against you.
Being poor in this country
is actually incredibly expensive.
If you're living in poverty,
you have to spend more
on daily necessities,
'cause you can't afford
to buy in bulk.
Wow, now I can
keep my butt clean
in all my vacation homes.
What a deal!
You know, if I pull apart
the double ply,
it's actually
two for one.
What a deal.
And if you have
a lower income,
you have to spend a larger
portion of your budget
on basic necessities.
Up to 70%
of a poor American's income
is spent on food, housing,
and transportation.
After they cover
their basic expenses,
on average,
low-income Americans
who only make
$15,000 to $20,000 a year
are left with just
one dollar a day.
No, I shouldn't splurge.
And that doesn't just make it
harder to get by day to day.
It also makes it harder
to save money
so you can live more
comfortably in the future.
Well, if people need money,
why don't they just apply
for a credit card?
Or get a loan...
That's how I paid
for my last three wars.
Well, that's a great idea.
Except that to open
a bank account
or credit card,
our financial institutions
require that you already
have money or good credit.
Wait, so in order
to build credit,
I need a credit card,
but I can't get a credit card
unless I have good credit?
And if you can't save,
even a small,
unexpected expense
can have disastrous
consequences.
Right now,
46% of Americans
say they couldn't afford
to pay a surprise bill
for just $400.
Oh my God, my bike!
That's how I get to work,
and if I can't get to work,
then I can't buy
another bike.
Curse this vicious cycle!
He seems lazy.
The fact is,
poverty in America
is almost impossible
to escape without help.
No... Johnny Appleseed?
What happened?
I got bankrupted
by my medical bills.
Turns out an apple a day
doesn't keep
the doctor away.
This isn't right.
These are Americans.
They deserve
the American Dream,
not this nightmare.
Well, ironically, the reason
they can't achieve that dream
is because we all believe
in it too strongly.
A survey found
that 70% of Americans
believe that poor people
can make it out
of poverty on their own.
Be the change you wanna see
in your can, my friend.
Because we believe
in this myth,
we are far less willing
to raise taxes
or fund social programs
than other wealthy nations.
And as a result, we have
far greater inequality.
Right now,
43.1 million Americans
live in poverty,
while the richest
three Americans
have more wealth than
the bottom 160 million combined.
We have to fix this!
Oh, well, there's a lot
of things that could help...
Affordable housing,
free public college.
And I know we can do it
because we have the best system
of government ever devised,
given to us
by the Constitution,
the most perfect
founded document
the world has ever seen.
And we just so happen
to have a copy
in the Americatown Museum!
Oh, I love museums!
But the Constitution
is far from perfect.
What?!
You can take
that kind of talk
to the filthy Commie Museum!
You have one
of those, too?!
Grr!
The Americatown Museum...
The perfect place to find
inspiration for my speech
and some peace and quiet.
Oh boy,
I love museums!
Adam, shush it
and show some respect.
We are in the presence
of the Constitution.
Well, I've got a right
to free speech,
so I'm gonna say it.
Our Constitution
kinda sucks.
What?! No!
The Constitution
is exceptional.
It's extraordinary.
It's...
unimpeachably perfect.
Ah, yes, Americans talk
about the Constitution
as though it's an almost
religious moral authority
guiding our nation.
I carry this in my pocket
out of affection
for this document.
It's our most important
document.
It's where we all started.
The Constitution is the best
political document
- that's ever been written.
- Dang straight.
I got a Constitution
lower back tattoo in the '90s
and I've never regretted it.
Oh, that's a lot.
The truth is,
our Constitution
is far from perfect.
Even Thomas Jefferson
would agree
that all this
Constitutional worship
is ridiculous!
What?!
Why would he say that?
He was a founding father.
Well, maybe that's why
he knew it wasn't perfect.
He knew about all
the compromises
they cobbled together
in its very messy,
very illegal creation.
In 1787
the founding fathers
were tasked with amending
the Articles of Confederation.
Which was thelaw of the land
at the time.
But instead of doing that,
they decided
to unilaterally discard
the entire system
of government
and replace it
with one of their own.
All in favor of exceeding
our lawful authority
and doing whatever
the hell we want,
raise your hand. What?!
And getting all the states
to ratify a brand-new
Constitution wasn't easy.
So the document they wrote
included a lot
of un-democratic compromises,
especially when it came
to the question of slavery.
The founders actually had
the opportunity
to end slavery
in the Constitution.
But then the slave-owning
states wouldn't have signed on.
So, to get them on board,
they made some
unforgivable compromises.
Gentlemen, why are we
letting this tear us apart?
Most of us own slaves.
They wrote in
the Rendition Clause,
which required free states
to return escaped slaves
to their owners.
And they gave slave states
extra political power,
which made it
far more difficult
to abolish slavery
in the future.
As a result, slavery became
so entrenched in our society,
that the only way to
abolish it a century later
was to fight the deadliest
war in our nation's history.
We'll just ignore
this problem for now,
and we'll all die before we have
to deal with the consequences.
Hear, hear!
So, how could you call
this document perfect?
Its imperfections literally
tore our country apart,
not to mention the fact
that it didn't guarantee
rights for all citizens,
didn't guarantee equal
protection under the laws,
and didn't even let
black citizens or women vote
for another century.
None of these basic features
of our democracy
were given to us
by the founding fathers,
which is why celebrated
Supreme Court Justice
Thurgood Marshall
said the Constitution was...
But wait!
You're forgetting
that in their infinite wisdom,
our founding fathers
gave us the power
to amend it.
Amendments allow us
to alter the Constitution
and improve it.
Actually,
our amendment process
is so unnecessarily difficult,
that almost never happens.
Short of calling a whole new
constitutional convention
to rework
the entire document,
to pass an amendment,
two-thirds of Congress
has to agree to it,
and then it has
to be ratified
by three-quarters
of the states.
If just 13 states don't agree,
the amendment is dead.
That means it's possible
for less than 5%
of the population
to thwart the will
of the entire nation.
Maybe that's why we haven't
been able to pass
a new amendment
in the last quarter century.
Well, we can't just go changing
the Constitution willy-nilly.
That would be mayhem! Nope!
It would be normal.
Other countries,
and even our own states
do it all the time.
France changes
their constitution
every two years.
And the grand old state
of Georgia
has completely rewritten their
state constitution ten times.
I can't believe I have FOMO
'cause of France.
Dang it!
I had no idea
our constitution
was so restrictive.
It certainly
is, and that's why
we have to jump through
so many hoops
in this country
to make any progress.
It's Georgetown University
law professor,
Louis Michael Seidman!
Are you leading a tour?
- Would you like to join it?
- Yes!
All right, then!
America's reverence
for the Constitution
gets in the way of having
the kind of debates
that this country needs.
The words are so ridiculously
hard to change
that we end up inventing
creative ways around them.
For example, did you know
that the only reason
we have civil rights laws
in this country today
is because of the way
that judges
interpreted the Commerce Clause?
Instead of having
recent discussion
about issues like abortion,
affirmative action,
voting rights,
net neutrality,
we end up
debating the intentions
of a bunch of dead
old white men
who knew nothing about
the way the country is today.
Madison likes
my way best!
No, he likes my way!
I've been dead for 200 years.
Make up your own minds!
And while disregarding
the Constitution seems radical,
it's actually as American
as denim jorts.
Thomas Jefferson thought
the Louisiana Purchase
was unconstitutional.
The framers never would have
recognized FDR's New Deal.
Why, even Abraham Lincoln
signed the Emancipation
Proclamation
freeing the slaves,
and that was unconstitutional.
The truth is, if we didn't
ignore the Constitution
from time to time,
United States
would still have slavery,
and most of it would
still be part of France.
Ooh, you musty old
piece of paper!
I can't believe
I got a tattoo of you!
Watch it, Uncle!
There are still some good
things in the Constitution.
We just need to stop
treating the Constitution
like it's the final word
in every political discussion.
We don't need the founding
fathers' permission
to make America better.
You're right.
America's not at its best
when we look to the past.
It's when we fix the problems
in the present.
That's what my
speech will be about!
Even when it's hard,
America always moves
in the right direction...
Forward.
Actually,
after the Civil War,
we took a giant step
backwards.
I guess it wasn't
bolted on.
Hey, America, let's talk
about the word "America."
If you live
in the United States,
you're probably used
to using that word
to describe this.
But we here
in the old US-of-A
sometimes forget that we don't
have a monopoly on the word.
For many people
around the world,
"America" actually refers
to all of this.
Now, this is a show
written in the U.S.
that debunks misconceptions
common in the U.S.
and largely speaks
to a U.S. audience.
So, in some cases,
our use of "America"
as a stand-in
for the "United States"
is appropriate.
But in others,
it's a little more complicated.
Like in our segment
on the true story
of Christopher Columbus,
in which we said, quote,
"Columbus
was an incompetent buffoon
who never even set foot
in America."
Now, it is true
that Christopher Columbus
never set foot in
the United States.
But as many of our fans from
Latin America pointed out,
he did visit Haiti
and the Dominican Republic.
So, as they use the word,
he actually did set foot
in America.
For those fans,
the fact that we forgot
the word's additional meaning,
actually made
our statement wrong.
So, in the future,
we're gonna do better
to remember that we have
a global audience,
and be more deliberate about
our language.
But hey, we can all still agree
that Columbus
was an asshole, right?
Good.
Fine, Adam, maybe America
isn't absolutely perfect.
But we always correct
our mistakes and move forward.
Like after the Civil War
when we ended slavery.
And of course, that didn't
fix everything right away,
but we kept progressing
towards equality.
Actually, there was
remarkable progress
right after the Civil War,
followed by
a terrible backslide.
And strangely, that's a history
we almost never tell.
But I'm going to, right now!
The Civil War
marked a massive change
in American life.
Just years before,
the entire economy
was built on the backs
of four million people
enslaved as property.
Then, the North won the war
and everything changed.
The 13th, 14th,
and 15th Amendments were ratified,
ending slavery
and promising new rights.
With the protection
of the government
and the new right
to pursue education,
own property, and participate
in elections,
freed black Americans
were able to assert themselves
and advance in society.
Black Americans put forth
the first
state-based
civil rights legislation,
and thousands became
politicians.
By 1877,
16 African Americans
had even served in Congress.
Remarkable, considering
that was just ten years
after the end of slavery.
This period was known
as Reconstruction,
and the years 1867 to 1877
marked one
of the greatest periods
of civil rights progress
in American history.
That's incredible! Yeah, it was.
But then we let all
of that progress disappear.
The war was over,
but the forces of white
supremacy in the South
weren't finished fighting.
So they regrouped
to suppress black progress
using terrorism.
Terrorism? Ha.
There weren't any terrorists
in the 1800s.
Yeah, there were.
During Reconstruction,
the Ku Klux Klan
and their allies
launched deadly riots
to scare black citizens
away from voting
or organizing.
They set buildings
on fire,
assassinated
political leaders,
and massacred more American
citizens than Al-Qaeda
and ISIS combined.
If that's not terrorism,
what is?
This is horrific.
Adam, the government
must've stepped back in
and stopped them, right?
Well, in the early 1870s,
President Grant sent
troops into the South
to confront the Klan
and to enforce
the rights guaranteed
in the new amendments.
But America was tired
of fighting,
and political will
to continue soon dwindled.
So, in 1877, the troops
were withdrawn.
Wait, so they just let
the terrorists win?
Yes, we did.
And without government
enforcement,
white ex-Confederates
were able to reinstitute
new systems of oppression
and brutality.
They instituted poll taxes,
literacy tests,
stationed racist thugs
at polling places,
and even passed racist
statutes like vagrancy laws
that made it illegal
not to work.
And the sentence
for breaking these unfair laws
was forced labor.
Sound familiar?
No! It's just slavery
all over again!
To some degree, yes.
But that's not
the glorious history
America likes to tell
about ourselves.
This is Christy Coleman,
CEO of the American
Civil War Museum.
You know, most of us
were taught
that after Lincoln
freed the slaves,
it took a century
of slow progress
for black people
to gain civil rights.
But the truth is,
by the 1960s,
we weren't passing laws
giving black people new rights.
We were just finally
enforcing the ones
that had been promised them
100 years earlier.
But why don't we learn
the real history?
Because the first textbooks
about this era
were written by white
Confederate sympathizers.
They painted Reconstruction
as a time when black people
wreaked havoc over the South
because they couldn't handle
their new freedoms.
And this narrative
was solidified
in the American consciousness
through pop culture.
The wildly popular 1915 film
"Birth of a Nation"
depicted illiterate,
uncouth black men
taking power in southern states
during Reconstruction.
And in the 1930s,
"Gone with the Wind"
became one of the most popular
books and movies in America,
with its story of
a romanticized Dixie plantation
where the slave owners
were gentle and kind.
Slaves were happy to be there
and Reconstruction
was a disaster.
Not only did this dangerously
false narrative
let Americans stop caring
about protecting
black people's rights,
we also never did anything
to make up for the decades
of economic inequality
caused by slavery.
The truth is, we were on a path
towards progress
after the Civil War.
And then we chose to slide
horrifically backwards.
That's terrible.
How could we have let
all that happen?
Oh, our country is
backsliding again right now.
White supremacy
is on the rise.
And the 2013
Supreme Court decision
to gut the Voting Rights Act
makes it easier
for state and local governments
to suppress the voting rights
of Americans of color.
No! We're supposed to learn
from the mistakes
of our past.
This country
is the worst.
And that's what Americatown
needs to hear
at this year's Independence Day
Holiday Blowout Extravaganza.
Uncle, no!
Don't give up on America.
There are still so many things
that make it great!
It's more than just jorts!
So I said, "Honey, you think
you've got problems?
I've got four million tourists
a year crawling up my butt."
What do you want?
Uncle, you're not gonna
go up there
and give
some depressing speech
about how America's terrible,
are you?
After everything
you just told me,
you bet I am.
Look, we tell a lot
of myths about America.
But the biggest one
is that America's
the best country in the world.
It's called the Myth
of American Exceptionalism.
But the truth is that,
like any country,
America has problems,
some pretty big ones,
in fact.
But that doesn't mean
that America's not capable
of doing great things.
It means that we have
to recognize
that we do the greatest things
when we admit
we're not perfect.
Keep that applause going
for Americatown's own Uncle Sam!
You're right.
Thanks, Adam.
Hello, Americatown!
So...
My big speech.
America is...
♪♪
I want America to be
a great nation.
But you don't achieve greatness
by pretending to be great.
You achieve it by admitting
you suck sometimes,
and then you work
to do better.
And only then,
after we shed the myth that
America was born perfect,
can we truly do what
the founding fathers intended...
Strive to achieve
a more perfect union.
Oh, thank you.
Thank you so much.
Hey, Adam? Yeah?
You gotta pay for that display
you broke in the museum.
Oh, right, sorry.
Could you spot me?
It's a first draft.
Okay, this is a...
This is a first draft
of your animated self.
Oh, wow! What do you think?
I mean, it's animation.
We can do anything.
Just e-mail Stephanie
with what your request is
and we'll make you
look that way. I do like it.
You run the American
Civil War Museum in Richmond.Yes.
So what do you try
to get across,
you know, someone's coming
to your museum,
what's the most important
thing you want them to know
about the Civil War
when they leave?
It matters for everything
they live
in their life right now.
Three very important
Constitutional amendments happened
because of this war.
We have the 13th Amendment
abolishing slavery.
You got the 14th Amendment
with equal protection
under the law
and citizenship definition.
And then the right to vote
is extended, right?
Yeah. I mean, that's huge.
The nation will spend
the next hundred years
fighting to actually
implement what was passed.
That's the wild thing
is those amendments
and those laws were passed
and they weren't enforced.
You know, as complex
as this history is, it's...
What's remarkable to me is that
there's always been people,
always been people
choosing,
in the words of Dr. King,
to bend the arc of justice.
Yeah. Right? Because
they do believe
in what the nation
really can be.
Do you still have
that optimism?
Because,
what we're talking about
in this episode is how
there was a huge backslide
after Reconstruction
was abandoned.
And we connect that
to today, that in many ways
it feels like
we're backsliding
on some of the gains we've had
over the past decades.
And we're trying
to make that point
that history is
an inevitable.
During periods
of great progression
and expansion of rights,
there are always those
who feel threatened by that.
And so there is almost
an immediate...
It's like, think of
a rubber band, right?
You're stretching
the rubber band.Yeah.
You're stretching,
you're stretching.
And then it snaps
back on you, right? Yeah.
But it never is as tight
as it was before
when it starts
stretching even further.
Yeah. And that's kind of how
American history is.
We have these periods
of great progress.
We snap back
really hard fast,
sometimes extraordinarily
violently.
And so the snap back, yes,
feels really bizarre.
- But it's essentially the same force
- Yes.
- That's in play.
- The thing that we've seen before?
Right, so they'll have
their moment,
and then
the expansions continue
until there's a completely
different model.
Well, thank you so much for coming here...
- Thank you!
- To talk to us about it.
- It's a pleasure.
- It's been wonderful.
- Thank you.
Oh, it's finally here,
the best day of the year,
Independence Day!
Hiya, Unc!
Oh, happy 4th,
Lady Liberty.
Oh, those amber
waves of grain
- are looking marvelous.
- Thanks.
I picked 'em
straight from
- the purple mountain's majesty.
- Mm.
Looking forward to your
big speech tonight, Uncle.
Oh, thanks, Johnny Appleseed.
It'll move you
to your core.
Get it?
How are them
decorations coming, Rosie?
Think it'll be ready
on time?
We can do it, Uncle.Great.
This'll be the best
July 4th spectacular
Americatown
has even seen.
There will be fireworks,
hot dogs,
apple pie, denim jorts!
Dang,
I love America.
It's the most fair, democratic,
perfect country on Earth!
Actually...
America is far from perfect,
and believe that it is
just makes things worse.
It's okay, everyone.
I know this guy.
Ol' Uncle Sam's got this.
Listen, Adam, I'm fine
being a day player
on your little show,
especially since it
qualifies me
for Actors Union
health insurance.
- Mm!
- But!
You can't come
to Americatown
and ruin America.
Sorry, Unc.
This country's gotta stop
believing its own myths
and start facing the facts.
My fellow Americans,
I'm Adam Conover,
and this is
"Adam Ruins Everything."
♪♪
*ADAM RUINS EVERYTHING*
Season 03 Episode 05
Episode Title: "Adam Ruins America"
I don't have time
for this, Adam.
It's the 4th of July
and my schedule is packed.
I've got a car wash
meet-and-greet,
a mattress store photo-op,
a hot dog eating contest...
And I have to finish
writing my big speech
for the Americatown
Independence Day Holiday
Blowout Extravaganza!
Oh, how exciting.
Everyone's working
really hard to make it great,
and no one wants you
to ruin it.
Ah, you see them?
They're living
the American Dream.
Here, a little hard work
can take anyone
from rags to riches.
I was born with one leg
and no money.
But I worked hard.
And now, I'm a billionaire!
I could buy all the legs
I could ever want.
Sorry, Unc, America hardly
has the highest rates
of upward social mobility.
In a ranking
of 24 countries,
we came in 16th.
How can that be?
The truth is,
if you're poor in America,
no matter how hard
you work,
the deck is completely
stacked against you.
Being poor in this country
is actually incredibly expensive.
If you're living in poverty,
you have to spend more
on daily necessities,
'cause you can't afford
to buy in bulk.
Wow, now I can
keep my butt clean
in all my vacation homes.
What a deal!
You know, if I pull apart
the double ply,
it's actually
two for one.
What a deal.
And if you have
a lower income,
you have to spend a larger
portion of your budget
on basic necessities.
Up to 70%
of a poor American's income
is spent on food, housing,
and transportation.
After they cover
their basic expenses,
on average,
low-income Americans
who only make
$15,000 to $20,000 a year
are left with just
one dollar a day.
No, I shouldn't splurge.
And that doesn't just make it
harder to get by day to day.
It also makes it harder
to save money
so you can live more
comfortably in the future.
Well, if people need money,
why don't they just apply
for a credit card?
Or get a loan...
That's how I paid
for my last three wars.
Well, that's a great idea.
Except that to open
a bank account
or credit card,
our financial institutions
require that you already
have money or good credit.
Wait, so in order
to build credit,
I need a credit card,
but I can't get a credit card
unless I have good credit?
And if you can't save,
even a small,
unexpected expense
can have disastrous
consequences.
Right now,
46% of Americans
say they couldn't afford
to pay a surprise bill
for just $400.
Oh my God, my bike!
That's how I get to work,
and if I can't get to work,
then I can't buy
another bike.
Curse this vicious cycle!
He seems lazy.
The fact is,
poverty in America
is almost impossible
to escape without help.
No... Johnny Appleseed?
What happened?
I got bankrupted
by my medical bills.
Turns out an apple a day
doesn't keep
the doctor away.
This isn't right.
These are Americans.
They deserve
the American Dream,
not this nightmare.
Well, ironically, the reason
they can't achieve that dream
is because we all believe
in it too strongly.
A survey found
that 70% of Americans
believe that poor people
can make it out
of poverty on their own.
Be the change you wanna see
in your can, my friend.
Because we believe
in this myth,
we are far less willing
to raise taxes
or fund social programs
than other wealthy nations.
And as a result, we have
far greater inequality.
Right now,
43.1 million Americans
live in poverty,
while the richest
three Americans
have more wealth than
the bottom 160 million combined.
We have to fix this!
Oh, well, there's a lot
of things that could help...
Affordable housing,
free public college.
And I know we can do it
because we have the best system
of government ever devised,
given to us
by the Constitution,
the most perfect
founded document
the world has ever seen.
And we just so happen
to have a copy
in the Americatown Museum!
Oh, I love museums!
But the Constitution
is far from perfect.
What?!
You can take
that kind of talk
to the filthy Commie Museum!
You have one
of those, too?!
Grr!
The Americatown Museum...
The perfect place to find
inspiration for my speech
and some peace and quiet.
Oh boy,
I love museums!
Adam, shush it
and show some respect.
We are in the presence
of the Constitution.
Well, I've got a right
to free speech,
so I'm gonna say it.
Our Constitution
kinda sucks.
What?! No!
The Constitution
is exceptional.
It's extraordinary.
It's...
unimpeachably perfect.
Ah, yes, Americans talk
about the Constitution
as though it's an almost
religious moral authority
guiding our nation.
I carry this in my pocket
out of affection
for this document.
It's our most important
document.
It's where we all started.
The Constitution is the best
political document
- that's ever been written.
- Dang straight.
I got a Constitution
lower back tattoo in the '90s
and I've never regretted it.
Oh, that's a lot.
The truth is,
our Constitution
is far from perfect.
Even Thomas Jefferson
would agree
that all this
Constitutional worship
is ridiculous!
What?!
Why would he say that?
He was a founding father.
Well, maybe that's why
he knew it wasn't perfect.
He knew about all
the compromises
they cobbled together
in its very messy,
very illegal creation.
In 1787
the founding fathers
were tasked with amending
the Articles of Confederation.
Which was thelaw of the land
at the time.
But instead of doing that,
they decided
to unilaterally discard
the entire system
of government
and replace it
with one of their own.
All in favor of exceeding
our lawful authority
and doing whatever
the hell we want,
raise your hand. What?!
And getting all the states
to ratify a brand-new
Constitution wasn't easy.
So the document they wrote
included a lot
of un-democratic compromises,
especially when it came
to the question of slavery.
The founders actually had
the opportunity
to end slavery
in the Constitution.
But then the slave-owning
states wouldn't have signed on.
So, to get them on board,
they made some
unforgivable compromises.
Gentlemen, why are we
letting this tear us apart?
Most of us own slaves.
They wrote in
the Rendition Clause,
which required free states
to return escaped slaves
to their owners.
And they gave slave states
extra political power,
which made it
far more difficult
to abolish slavery
in the future.
As a result, slavery became
so entrenched in our society,
that the only way to
abolish it a century later
was to fight the deadliest
war in our nation's history.
We'll just ignore
this problem for now,
and we'll all die before we have
to deal with the consequences.
Hear, hear!
So, how could you call
this document perfect?
Its imperfections literally
tore our country apart,
not to mention the fact
that it didn't guarantee
rights for all citizens,
didn't guarantee equal
protection under the laws,
and didn't even let
black citizens or women vote
for another century.
None of these basic features
of our democracy
were given to us
by the founding fathers,
which is why celebrated
Supreme Court Justice
Thurgood Marshall
said the Constitution was...
But wait!
You're forgetting
that in their infinite wisdom,
our founding fathers
gave us the power
to amend it.
Amendments allow us
to alter the Constitution
and improve it.
Actually,
our amendment process
is so unnecessarily difficult,
that almost never happens.
Short of calling a whole new
constitutional convention
to rework
the entire document,
to pass an amendment,
two-thirds of Congress
has to agree to it,
and then it has
to be ratified
by three-quarters
of the states.
If just 13 states don't agree,
the amendment is dead.
That means it's possible
for less than 5%
of the population
to thwart the will
of the entire nation.
Maybe that's why we haven't
been able to pass
a new amendment
in the last quarter century.
Well, we can't just go changing
the Constitution willy-nilly.
That would be mayhem! Nope!
It would be normal.
Other countries,
and even our own states
do it all the time.
France changes
their constitution
every two years.
And the grand old state
of Georgia
has completely rewritten their
state constitution ten times.
I can't believe I have FOMO
'cause of France.
Dang it!
I had no idea
our constitution
was so restrictive.
It certainly
is, and that's why
we have to jump through
so many hoops
in this country
to make any progress.
It's Georgetown University
law professor,
Louis Michael Seidman!
Are you leading a tour?
- Would you like to join it?
- Yes!
All right, then!
America's reverence
for the Constitution
gets in the way of having
the kind of debates
that this country needs.
The words are so ridiculously
hard to change
that we end up inventing
creative ways around them.
For example, did you know
that the only reason
we have civil rights laws
in this country today
is because of the way
that judges
interpreted the Commerce Clause?
Instead of having
recent discussion
about issues like abortion,
affirmative action,
voting rights,
net neutrality,
we end up
debating the intentions
of a bunch of dead
old white men
who knew nothing about
the way the country is today.
Madison likes
my way best!
No, he likes my way!
I've been dead for 200 years.
Make up your own minds!
And while disregarding
the Constitution seems radical,
it's actually as American
as denim jorts.
Thomas Jefferson thought
the Louisiana Purchase
was unconstitutional.
The framers never would have
recognized FDR's New Deal.
Why, even Abraham Lincoln
signed the Emancipation
Proclamation
freeing the slaves,
and that was unconstitutional.
The truth is, if we didn't
ignore the Constitution
from time to time,
United States
would still have slavery,
and most of it would
still be part of France.
Ooh, you musty old
piece of paper!
I can't believe
I got a tattoo of you!
Watch it, Uncle!
There are still some good
things in the Constitution.
We just need to stop
treating the Constitution
like it's the final word
in every political discussion.
We don't need the founding
fathers' permission
to make America better.
You're right.
America's not at its best
when we look to the past.
It's when we fix the problems
in the present.
That's what my
speech will be about!
Even when it's hard,
America always moves
in the right direction...
Forward.
Actually,
after the Civil War,
we took a giant step
backwards.
I guess it wasn't
bolted on.
Hey, America, let's talk
about the word "America."
If you live
in the United States,
you're probably used
to using that word
to describe this.
But we here
in the old US-of-A
sometimes forget that we don't
have a monopoly on the word.
For many people
around the world,
"America" actually refers
to all of this.
Now, this is a show
written in the U.S.
that debunks misconceptions
common in the U.S.
and largely speaks
to a U.S. audience.
So, in some cases,
our use of "America"
as a stand-in
for the "United States"
is appropriate.
But in others,
it's a little more complicated.
Like in our segment
on the true story
of Christopher Columbus,
in which we said, quote,
"Columbus
was an incompetent buffoon
who never even set foot
in America."
Now, it is true
that Christopher Columbus
never set foot in
the United States.
But as many of our fans from
Latin America pointed out,
he did visit Haiti
and the Dominican Republic.
So, as they use the word,
he actually did set foot
in America.
For those fans,
the fact that we forgot
the word's additional meaning,
actually made
our statement wrong.
So, in the future,
we're gonna do better
to remember that we have
a global audience,
and be more deliberate about
our language.
But hey, we can all still agree
that Columbus
was an asshole, right?
Good.
Fine, Adam, maybe America
isn't absolutely perfect.
But we always correct
our mistakes and move forward.
Like after the Civil War
when we ended slavery.
And of course, that didn't
fix everything right away,
but we kept progressing
towards equality.
Actually, there was
remarkable progress
right after the Civil War,
followed by
a terrible backslide.
And strangely, that's a history
we almost never tell.
But I'm going to, right now!
The Civil War
marked a massive change
in American life.
Just years before,
the entire economy
was built on the backs
of four million people
enslaved as property.
Then, the North won the war
and everything changed.
The 13th, 14th,
and 15th Amendments were ratified,
ending slavery
and promising new rights.
With the protection
of the government
and the new right
to pursue education,
own property, and participate
in elections,
freed black Americans
were able to assert themselves
and advance in society.
Black Americans put forth
the first
state-based
civil rights legislation,
and thousands became
politicians.
By 1877,
16 African Americans
had even served in Congress.
Remarkable, considering
that was just ten years
after the end of slavery.
This period was known
as Reconstruction,
and the years 1867 to 1877
marked one
of the greatest periods
of civil rights progress
in American history.
That's incredible! Yeah, it was.
But then we let all
of that progress disappear.
The war was over,
but the forces of white
supremacy in the South
weren't finished fighting.
So they regrouped
to suppress black progress
using terrorism.
Terrorism? Ha.
There weren't any terrorists
in the 1800s.
Yeah, there were.
During Reconstruction,
the Ku Klux Klan
and their allies
launched deadly riots
to scare black citizens
away from voting
or organizing.
They set buildings
on fire,
assassinated
political leaders,
and massacred more American
citizens than Al-Qaeda
and ISIS combined.
If that's not terrorism,
what is?
This is horrific.
Adam, the government
must've stepped back in
and stopped them, right?
Well, in the early 1870s,
President Grant sent
troops into the South
to confront the Klan
and to enforce
the rights guaranteed
in the new amendments.
But America was tired
of fighting,
and political will
to continue soon dwindled.
So, in 1877, the troops
were withdrawn.
Wait, so they just let
the terrorists win?
Yes, we did.
And without government
enforcement,
white ex-Confederates
were able to reinstitute
new systems of oppression
and brutality.
They instituted poll taxes,
literacy tests,
stationed racist thugs
at polling places,
and even passed racist
statutes like vagrancy laws
that made it illegal
not to work.
And the sentence
for breaking these unfair laws
was forced labor.
Sound familiar?
No! It's just slavery
all over again!
To some degree, yes.
But that's not
the glorious history
America likes to tell
about ourselves.
This is Christy Coleman,
CEO of the American
Civil War Museum.
You know, most of us
were taught
that after Lincoln
freed the slaves,
it took a century
of slow progress
for black people
to gain civil rights.
But the truth is,
by the 1960s,
we weren't passing laws
giving black people new rights.
We were just finally
enforcing the ones
that had been promised them
100 years earlier.
But why don't we learn
the real history?
Because the first textbooks
about this era
were written by white
Confederate sympathizers.
They painted Reconstruction
as a time when black people
wreaked havoc over the South
because they couldn't handle
their new freedoms.
And this narrative
was solidified
in the American consciousness
through pop culture.
The wildly popular 1915 film
"Birth of a Nation"
depicted illiterate,
uncouth black men
taking power in southern states
during Reconstruction.
And in the 1930s,
"Gone with the Wind"
became one of the most popular
books and movies in America,
with its story of
a romanticized Dixie plantation
where the slave owners
were gentle and kind.
Slaves were happy to be there
and Reconstruction
was a disaster.
Not only did this dangerously
false narrative
let Americans stop caring
about protecting
black people's rights,
we also never did anything
to make up for the decades
of economic inequality
caused by slavery.
The truth is, we were on a path
towards progress
after the Civil War.
And then we chose to slide
horrifically backwards.
That's terrible.
How could we have let
all that happen?
Oh, our country is
backsliding again right now.
White supremacy
is on the rise.
And the 2013
Supreme Court decision
to gut the Voting Rights Act
makes it easier
for state and local governments
to suppress the voting rights
of Americans of color.
No! We're supposed to learn
from the mistakes
of our past.
This country
is the worst.
And that's what Americatown
needs to hear
at this year's Independence Day
Holiday Blowout Extravaganza.
Uncle, no!
Don't give up on America.
There are still so many things
that make it great!
It's more than just jorts!
So I said, "Honey, you think
you've got problems?
I've got four million tourists
a year crawling up my butt."
What do you want?
Uncle, you're not gonna
go up there
and give
some depressing speech
about how America's terrible,
are you?
After everything
you just told me,
you bet I am.
Look, we tell a lot
of myths about America.
But the biggest one
is that America's
the best country in the world.
It's called the Myth
of American Exceptionalism.
But the truth is that,
like any country,
America has problems,
some pretty big ones,
in fact.
But that doesn't mean
that America's not capable
of doing great things.
It means that we have
to recognize
that we do the greatest things
when we admit
we're not perfect.
Keep that applause going
for Americatown's own Uncle Sam!
You're right.
Thanks, Adam.
Hello, Americatown!
So...
My big speech.
America is...
♪♪
I want America to be
a great nation.
But you don't achieve greatness
by pretending to be great.
You achieve it by admitting
you suck sometimes,
and then you work
to do better.
And only then,
after we shed the myth that
America was born perfect,
can we truly do what
the founding fathers intended...
Strive to achieve
a more perfect union.
Oh, thank you.
Thank you so much.
Hey, Adam? Yeah?
You gotta pay for that display
you broke in the museum.
Oh, right, sorry.
Could you spot me?
It's a first draft.
Okay, this is a...
This is a first draft
of your animated self.
Oh, wow! What do you think?
I mean, it's animation.
We can do anything.
Just e-mail Stephanie
with what your request is
and we'll make you
look that way. I do like it.
You run the American
Civil War Museum in Richmond.Yes.
So what do you try
to get across,
you know, someone's coming
to your museum,
what's the most important
thing you want them to know
about the Civil War
when they leave?
It matters for everything
they live
in their life right now.
Three very important
Constitutional amendments happened
because of this war.
We have the 13th Amendment
abolishing slavery.
You got the 14th Amendment
with equal protection
under the law
and citizenship definition.
And then the right to vote
is extended, right?
Yeah. I mean, that's huge.
The nation will spend
the next hundred years
fighting to actually
implement what was passed.
That's the wild thing
is those amendments
and those laws were passed
and they weren't enforced.
You know, as complex
as this history is, it's...
What's remarkable to me is that
there's always been people,
always been people
choosing,
in the words of Dr. King,
to bend the arc of justice.
Yeah. Right? Because
they do believe
in what the nation
really can be.
Do you still have
that optimism?
Because,
what we're talking about
in this episode is how
there was a huge backslide
after Reconstruction
was abandoned.
And we connect that
to today, that in many ways
it feels like
we're backsliding
on some of the gains we've had
over the past decades.
And we're trying
to make that point
that history is
an inevitable.
During periods
of great progression
and expansion of rights,
there are always those
who feel threatened by that.
And so there is almost
an immediate...
It's like, think of
a rubber band, right?
You're stretching
the rubber band.Yeah.
You're stretching,
you're stretching.
And then it snaps
back on you, right? Yeah.
But it never is as tight
as it was before
when it starts
stretching even further.
Yeah. And that's kind of how
American history is.
We have these periods
of great progress.
We snap back
really hard fast,
sometimes extraordinarily
violently.
And so the snap back, yes,
feels really bizarre.
- But it's essentially the same force
- Yes.
- That's in play.
- The thing that we've seen before?
Right, so they'll have
their moment,
and then
the expansions continue
until there's a completely
different model.
Well, thank you so much for coming here...
- Thank you!
- To talk to us about it.
- It's a pleasure.
- It's been wonderful.
- Thank you.