What Does it Mean to Be an American?

About this episode

Jon and Ben Rhodes discuss the narrative of American identity through significant political speeches and their implications.

Jon sits down with our own Ben Rhodes to talk about how American leaders tell the story of who we are — and who they think we should be — through the speeches they give. The two go through the seminal speeches Ben selected for his new book "All We Say," discussing their power for good (Frederic Douglass on human rights) and evil (Alexander Stephenson on the "moral truth" of white supremacy), and their own memories of writing presidential addresses for Barack Obama when the stakes were highest.

People in this episode

Host: Jon

Guest: Ben Rhodes

Topics covered

• American identity
• political speeches
• historical context
• leadership
• human rights
• white supremacy

Keywords

• American leaders
• seminal speeches
• political narrative
• Barack Obama
• human rights
• white supremacy

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: All We Say

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