How Do We Unite Americans? | Interviews

Welcome to Office Hours. I'm Georgia Howe with The Daily Wire. Today, we sit down with former congressman and former governor of the state of Louisiana, Governor Bobby Jindal. Governor Jindal's new PragerU video is titled What Unites Americans, where he discusses the ideas behind the greatest unifier of people that the world has ever seen, the United States of America. He argues that no matter your ethnic origins, adopting the American idea is what makes you fully American, not the color of your skin. Let's jump right in. Governor, thanks so much for joining me. Georgia, thank you so much for having me. It's a great privilege to be here with you. One of the key messages in your video is if you adopt the American idea, you are fully American. How would you describe the American idea? Well, sure. Well, first of all, Georgia, as Americans, and think about this, this is what's so great and unique about America. It really doesn't matter whether you trace your ancestors generations ago to the Revolutionary War or your ancestors came here more recently. We can all be fully American. It really is about embracing our history, our values, and our ideas. A great definition of the American idea, there was a radical preacher, an abolitionist preacher, Theodore Parker, who preached about the American idea. He may have been the first to really write and preach about this, about having three components. The idea that all of us are created equal, all of us have these inalienable rights, and all of us should have the opportunity to develop these rights. Now, that used to be common sense. That used to be bipartisan. That used to be non-controversial. Unfortunately, the radical left is trying to redefine not only America's history, but the definition of what it means to be an American. We used to believe in this ideal of a colorblind society. We used to believe in an aspirational society. Many of us still do. The radical left wants us to believe, however, that we are defined more by the color of our skin, and that comes before assimilation. That comes before unity. That becomes before our identity as Americans. I think that's highly corrosive. It's historically inaccurate, and it's not what we are as Americans. I've noticed, particularly in the past five years, but really I could trace it back to almost my entire adult life, the shift we've had from being proud to be patriotic, being proud of American values, to kind of being ashamed or having it be a political statement to even fly an American flag. You've been in politics for a couple decades now. You've probably seen this progression. Can you point to any memories or specific maybe points in time that you thought were like the seeds of this when you first started noticing this? Absolutely. Look, I'm old enough. I remember when political correctness first started appearing on our college campuses, and that was decades ago. It was before anybody understood what woke meant. It was before critical race theory had really become popular. There was this idea, however, that you shouldn't say certain things, especially on college campuses. Everybody kind of made fun of it, and it really marked a turning point for the left. The left used to appeal to America's conscience. The left used to champion minority rights and free speech and open debate. You think about what Martin Luther King was trying to accomplish. He was trying to appeal to America's conscience to say, America, live up to your ideals. You're not being consistent with this idea of freedom for all. He was exactly right. The left in the 90s especially, with the advent of political correctness, really abandoned that idea of debate and free speech and minority rights, and instead really embraced this idea of condemning America. It was really more about condemnation, not persuasion. I think you go forward from there. You see, in recent years, the Democratic Party has become convinced that they're entitled to permanent majority rule. They believe that demographics is destiny. They believe that because of the changing demographics of America, they inevitably are going to be a majority, so they don't need to bother trying to persuade other people, and they can simply condemn other people. I think that's not only a mistake, but I also think that that's truly dangerous for America. I've long said this. Look, I think America is the greatest country in the history of the world, but I also think our greatest vulnerabilities are from within. Look, I think we need to deal with the rising China. I think we need to deal with Iran. I think we need to keep an eye on Russia, but the reality is I think America can beat any external opponent. We've done it throughout our entire history. What really concerns me are these internal divisions, these internal threats, this idea of the far left. There used to be a common consensus. Whether you're a Democrat or Republican, you embraced patriotism. You embraced a strong military. You embraced this idea of a free market society. Now, we might disagree about tax rates. We might disagree about how much the federal government should spend. We might disagree about things like that. Now you're seeing much more fundamental disagreements about the proper role of government in society, about the relationship between the individual and their government. I think certainly you can trace it back at least some decades with this idea that the left was no longer interested in free speech and open debate, and instead was more interested in dividing and condemning anybody that disagreed with them. You know, in your video, you talked about appealing to the American conscience, and then at some point it flipped to saying, oh, the American conscience is dirty and bad. You need to retrain the American conscience, which was a big shift. Well, Georgia, you're exactly right. Look, think about this. I mean, the left is trying to teach us that the American Revolution was all about preserving slavery, which is absolutely ridiculous. They're trying to teach us that a revolution that was really about advancing freedom and individual rights was the exact opposite. Even modern day historians strongly have condemned and critiqued this view. The modern left would try to have you believe that America's history, and remember, this is a country that's given more protection, more opportunity for minorities than any other country in the entire world, in the history of the world. The left would try to teach you that not only is America corrupt today, but it was founded on a corrupt premise. Look, America's not perfect. No society comprised of human beings will ever be perfect, but every generation of Americans has tried to create a more perfect union. The history of America is a history of a country born in freedom that has now worked out the decades to expand that freedom to include more and more people. No, we're not perfect, but we're always striving to make our country better every single year, and that's really our responsibility. I want you to think about this. My parents came to this country like so many others. They came from halfway across the world decades ago, and they came legally. They followed the rules, but they came here at a time when there was no internet. There were no cell phones. They'd never been on a plane before. They didn't know anybody in Louisiana, and yet my mom was pregnant with me. My mom and my dad came with just a couple of dollars in their pocket halfway across the world, leaving behind all of their family and friends. The reason they came was for the American dream. It wasn't because they knew there was no guarantee when they got here. This is what they just knew in their bums. They knew there was freedom here. They knew that once they got here, they would have the opportunity to work hard, get a great education, and they knew that their kids could have a better quality of life than they had had. That's what they wanted. They didn't come for a government program. They didn't come for a guaranteed anything. It was a quality of opportunity, not a quality of outcomes. That same American dream still inspires millions of people all over the world who look to America as the example of what you can accomplish when you have freedom, when you have opportunity. Our founding fathers got it right, and that's what the left completely misunderstands about America. This is more than kneeling during the pledge. This is more about disrespecting the American flag. Those are all awful things. This is more than that. This is the left saying they disagree with the idea, the founding idea of America. Well, it's interesting that you brought up the left feeling entitled to future immigrants because your family moved here for an American dream. Of course, millions of immigrants come here with that same idea. Yet, statistically, we see that immigrants oftentimes will vote Democrat or they will pursue more left-wing ideology. What is attractive about that ideology to immigrants if they came here to pursue the American dream? Well, a couple of things. One, the good news is I think that's changing. You saw certainly in the last presidential election, President Trump did far better than a lot of experts, the so-called experts predicted, with Hispanic and other voters. He did extremely well. You look at Rick Scott in Florida. You look at the Republican performance in the border counties down in Texas, many counties in Southern California as well, many precincts down there. You see that Republicans are doing better. Look, I think ultimately the Republican message will be a more appealing message as long as we continue to emphasize policies that help everybody. For example, policies like school choice, where parents get to decide the best education for their child, knowing that every child learns differently. Because a lot of times, the kids trapped in the failing schools are disproportionately low-income, minorities oftentimes are the children of immigrants. If we emphasize pro-growth policies, we're the party to lower taxes, more opportunity, wealth creation. We're the party that says, we don't care what your last name is. We don't care the color of your skin. We want people that are willing to work hard, get an education, and contribute to our society. Our message to immigrants that want to come here the right way, that want to come here legally, that want to assimilate, want to learn English, want to work hard, want to get a job, that believe in freedom for other people, including religious liberty, is we want you to be a part of the American dream. We want you to help us build that more perfect nation that I was talking about before. Let the Democratic Party talk about redistribution. Let them talk about racial silos. Let them be the party that's all about stagnation and higher taxes and more government as opposed to growth and more opportunity. But I think that when you look at certain immigrant populations, you look at folks coming from Venezuela, you look at people coming from Cuba, you look at folks coming from other countries where they're fleeing socialism, they're not coming to recreate the conditions in America that caused them to leave their home countries in the first place. I think it's incumbent upon conservatives on the Republican Party to make that pitch, make that policy presentation and persuade those immigrants. Democrats aren't interested in persuasion. The left is more interested in condemnation. We should be the party of persuasion saying we believe in universal principles, conservative principles that are open to all, that are willing to assimilate, willing to work. I will say this, there's a lot of talk about immigration, not enough talk about assimilation. A lot of people have that debate about what's the right number. I believe in securing the border. I believe in immigration that makes America stronger. You can't do that without assimilation. It is so important. My parents came here, they were coming to be American. I've said this before, I'm tired of all the hyphenated Americans. Why is it Asian American and this American? We're all just Americans and we should be proud of that. I shouldn't say just, we're all Americans and that's a wonderful, beautiful thing. I think a lot of Americans see the problem and they feel like they want to get involved and help improve it, but they don't know what they should do. What should an average citizen do to help bring our country together? Look, that's a great question. As conservatives, we don't think government is the solution to all problems. We believe that locally based, community based organizations are oftentimes the most effective way to help build and strengthen our community. It's not that you've got to be a working politician or even working government. There is a proper role for that. I'll talk about that in a minute. For example, we all need to be involved in our faith communities. My family, we're very active in our local church. Our kids are active in the youth group. We're active. We've donated before to various charitable efforts, whether it's soup kitchens, whether it's hurricane relief efforts. We can do our part in our local communities. We can't solve every problem. That's not government's role either. What we can do is help our neighbors. I don't mean literally only your neighbors. Yes, help your neighbors. Go check on, we tell people down here, if you've got an elderly neighbor that needs help during a hurricane, go check on them. If you've got a neighbor that needs help during the heat waves, check on them. We happen to be a Christian family, but whatever your faith, go get involved in your house of worship. Be involved in your community that way. Secondly, there are things we can do. I think education is a great equalizer in this country. Your circumstances of your birth, your zip code shouldn't determine your outcomes as an adult. The more we can get involved, whether it's a charter school, a Christian school, a parochial school, your local public school, whatever it is, get involved. With these COVID shutdowns, we've seen a lot more parents get involved, being opposed to the teaching of critical race theory in their child's classrooms, getting involved in trying to get their schools reopened so their kids can go back to school and learn instead of being isolated at home in these so-called virtual learning environments. So I think education is critically important. There are many other local social and community organizations, and everybody can pick their own. Maybe it's a men's club, a women's club, maybe it's a rotary club, whatever your choice. There are all kinds of organizations. When I was growing up, kids used to go to the YMCA. Moms and dads used to go to rotary clubs and lion's clubs, chambers of commerce. The point is this concern is we believe in these decentralized community-based, faith-based organizations, and we all need to be active in those instead of just living in our isolated communities. On the political level, we all also have a responsibility to inform ourselves about these issues and get involved. One of the things that was so, to me, was just so inspiring was seeing the moms and dads show up, and even when the school board members and the bureaucrats didn't want to listen to them, demanding that they reopen those schools, demanding that they not teach this CRT nonsense to their kids. Look, the teacher unions, the schools don't belong to the teacher unions. The left is beholden to the teacher unions. The right has got the freedom to stand up for all parents. And you're seeing a lot of parents that weren't politically active before, some of whom weren't conservative before, being attracted by this message now. But get involved. You don't have to run for office if you're called to do that. Great. You can still show up to the school board meetings. You can still contact your school representative. Well, your advice reminds me of something my uncle said when I asked him the same question of, you know, what should you do to get involved? And he just said, be a good neighbor. He said, strong families make strong neighborhoods. Strong neighborhoods make strong cities. Strong cities make strong states. Strong states make a strong country. And so the best thing you can do is start with a strong family. Anyway, we're out of time, but where can people find you online to follow what you're doing? Well, if they go to bobbyjindal.com, they can certainly find out more about not only the PragerU, and I'm very, very grateful that folks can find out. I do a lot of op-eds and speak on short videos there all the time. I do want to close. I want to commend what you just said. That is exactly right. And look, it all starts with a family, and that's the cornerstone. There's no American society without it. I know some folks think it's all about profits, all about politics. It really comes down to strong families, and you got to start there first. So I think that he had it exactly right. I couldn't have said that any better. Governor, thanks so much for coming on. Georgia, thank you for having me. And that's the end of today's Office Hours. Make sure to tune in next week for our conversation with a new PragerU presenter. I'm Georgia Howe. Thanks for tuning in.