The subject I'd like to talk about today
is the United States beyond Donald Trump,
or a little bit more precise,
America is becoming progressively progressive.
I'm not kidding you; it's really happening.
Lady Liberty is looking down on Ellis Island,
the famous place in New York Harbor
where millions of Americans arrived in a new homeland.
The first waves of immigrants came, of course, from Europe:
England - for example - Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands,
and, for example, Germany.
This is a German family,
and this gentleman arrived in 1885, in New York
and became a very successful businessman, Friedrich Trump.
Yes,
the grandfather of the president of the United States.
And he became a successful businessman.
He ran a hotel and a brothel
for gold miners on the West Coast.
So food, booze, and sex made the Trump family rich.
And that's no fake news, I'll tell you.
(Laughter)
Welcoming all these newcomers
was a matter of principle for the United States.
It became a nation of immigrants.
It became the core of the success of America.
And you have to wonder,
What would Lady Liberty think
about the president's sometimes nasty discussions about immigration?
Let's read from the inscription on the statue:
"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses,
yearning to breathe free.
I lift my lamp beside the golden door."
That's the principle; that's the optimistic message here.
But Lady Liberty may be not so happy with the discussions nowadays
with the president talking about rapists and criminals,
and I quote the president saying,
"You wouldn't believe how bad some of these people are.
These aren't people. These are animals."
A little perspective here:
The Statue of Liberty was built around 1870.
The United States had about 50 million people at the time.
Germany, the home country of the Trump family -
and the other bigger European countries as well -
had about 40 million people.
Fast forward.
Germany doubled in population - a little over 80 million now.
The United States grew from 50 to 330 million.
It made the USA truly a superpower -
militarily, economically, and culturally.
And this TED Talk, maybe, is part of this;
I mean, it's an American initiative, after all.
So Mr. President, talking about immigrants,
if you want to know what made America great,
here's your answer:
the success of America would have not been possible,
America would never have been great
without all these newcomers.
One thing President Trump does not like about immigrants:
once they become citizen -
and he wants to prevent these folks from becoming citizen,
but, you know, a lot of them do become citizens -
most of them vote for Democrats.
So, these immigrants are part of a more progressive America,
part of my story about a more progressive America.
One of the - what I call in my book -
silent revolutions that shape a new America.
Take Colorado.
This is part of this story, this state, one of the Mountain States.
Colorado is very successful.
It made the switch from the 19th to the 20th century -
cowboys and gold miners -
up into the 21st century,
with a highly educated population, rapid population growth,
and very successful.
And immigrants are part of this success story of Colorado,
but one third of Denver's population, for example, is from Latino descent.
Another thing - Colorado simply ignored
the wishes and opinions of conservative politicians in Washington,
and they were one of the first states to officially legalize marijuana.
One day you go to jail for simple possession,
the next day you can buy it freely.
And my wife and I traveled for about a month in Colorado,
I mean, these dispensaries -
in Holland, we call them coffee shops -
dispensaries are all over the place, truly.
Another example of progressive thinking in the state of Colorado -
and you see it in more states: Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico -
inmates training wild horses.
Isn't that interesting?
The approach is totally different than what we've seen in the past.
It's a different approach
in the war on crime we saw, for example, in the 90s.
And these criminals truly learned something they never learned before:
being patient, being caring, being gentle.
If you're not patient, caring, and gentle, you will never tame these wild horses.
And these guys generally grew up
without patience, without caring, without gentleness.
And these projects in various states, Colorado being one of them,
are extremely successful.
The ultimate goal is trying to get recidivism down,
make sure these folks do not commit more crimes
and end up back in jail,
and they are successful.
Recidivism is way down for the people who ran this program.
You have to realize
that the prison population in the United States
doubled in the last 25 years.
Republicans and Democrats signed on to the gospel of "tough on crime" -
I mean, lock them up and throw away the key.
That was the idea.
Prisoners were humiliated, and prison terms were extremely long.
You have to ask yourself,
Does this prepare criminals for a safe and good return into society?
70% end up committing crimes again and end up in jail again.
So it's a failing system.
And to be honest, folks, President Bill Clinton signed -
this was President Clinton. I lost him -
in 1994, signed a crime bill,
a crime bill because of the crack cocaine epidemic in the US,
and a crime - here it is - and a crime epidemic as well.
Bill Clinton now deeply regrets this crime bill
because it created a generation of incarceration.
It ruined hundreds of thousands of lives of inmates and their loved ones.
And right now, we see a totally different approach.
President Barack Obama started a process of new legislation,
and he used the shift in public opinion in the United States,
a different way of thinking when it comes to the justice system -
more support for rehabilitation efforts, better living conditions.
Thousands of prisoners, mostly nonviolent, have been released earlier.
It's truly a new way of thinking;
it's one of the silent revolutions I write about.
And interestingly,
this initiative by Barack Obama was endorsed by President Trump.
And he deserves praise for supporting this effort,
the First Step Act to give people a second chance.
And it's highly unusual
to have consensus in Washington between Democrats and Republicans.
Listen to Donald Trump.
(Video) Donald Trump: This landmark legislation
will give countless current and former prisoners a second chance at life
and a new opportunity to contribute
to their communities, their states, and their nations.
Who wants to come up?
Charles Groenhuijsen: And it's true, and as I already said,
it's already in effect
and a lot of states are probably going to follow the federal government.
It's a modest first step,
but it does make life slightly better
after a long period of harshness and humiliation for prisoners -
a new way of thinking with broad support among the American population.
This is one of those silent revolutions that creates a new America.
"We the people," folks,
the famous first words of the US Constitution,
they are essential in this transition.
Changes do not start -
The changes I just described
do not start in Washington or state capitals.
We the people make change, and they truly have a long wish list.
On top of their wish list - climate change.
And there's a lot to worry about when it comes to climate change.
We talk about it all the time, and rightfully so.
But if you look at the situation in the US right now,
there's a broad alliance of citizens, lobby groups,
climate activists, and CEOs of big companies
who say, "Enough! We have to do something about climate" -
a highly unusual coalition.
180 CEOs of big companies,
like Apple, Amazon, Bank of America, and General Motors,
sign on to this new approach.
This is unprecedented and makes me hopeful.
And yes, President Donald Trump cancelled the Paris Accord,
he got out of Paris Climate Accord,
but at the same time,
this coalition of citizens, states, and CEOs:
"Mr. President, where you fail, we fill in.
We the people want really another America, and not your America, Mr. President."
That's going on all over the place.
This is unprecedented.
Another huge change - and you probably know about it -
I mean, eventually, the United States legalized gay marriage.
I've lived in the US for 23 years.
When you'd said to me 15, 20 years ago,
"Charles, you know, by 2015, we will have gay marriage legalized,"
I would have said, "You're nuts. It's not going to happen."
And it was a tough fight.
I remember 2004.
George W. Bush was running for reelection
and pushed for a constitutional amendment,
saying marriage is between a man and a woman
and that's it.
The very same year,
the state of Massachusetts
was the first state to legalize gay marriage,
and from then on, state after state legalized gay marriage.
Not the people in Washington brought about the change.
No, the people in states, we the people made the change.
Up until 2015,
with the landmark decision of the Supreme Court saying,
"Yes, nationwide legalization of gay marriage,"
a huge victory for the gay movement,
and a blistering defeat for Republicans and evangelicals -
they lost.
The movement for gay marriage was unstoppable -
we the people won.
Another one.
We're not there yet when it comes to gun control,
but there are some facts that can make you cautiously optimistic.
Public opinion is soundly in favor of more strict gun laws, really.
The clear majority of the United States and American people want it.
Republicans and President Trump want the opposite.
I mean, President Trump made promises and he didn't live up to them.
The gun control lobby is strong, folks.
And we see the same thing we saw with gay marriage,
and we saw it with immigration, for example,
and the climate crisis -
a broad coalition saying, "We want something else."
There's a statement by 145 CEOs saying we need change.
Let me quote from their statement.
They say, "This is a public health crisis that demands urgent action.
Gun violence in America is not inevitable;
it's preventable."
And a great example of this switch among, you know, CEOs is Walmart.
You may remember El Paso, the summer of 2019,
terrible shooting with 22 people killed, 24 injured.
Shortly after the shooting,
the CEO, Doug McMillon, of Walmart came out with a statement
and he said, "This is - "
And he was talking about their gun sales, the sales of ammunition.
They make a lot of money on selling this stuff.
And he said, "The status quo is unacceptable."
Imagine - this is Walmart.
They've 5,000 stores nationwide, and primarily in rural areas,
and rural areas are mostly Republican territory.
And this guy says this is unacceptable,
we have to change the way we deal with this issue.
Also, still a long way to go when it comes to inequality -
rich and poor.
Top managers in US companies
made, in 1965, about 20 times as much as the average worker,
which is considerable difference, right?
Right now, it's more than 300 times the amount the average worker makes.
In the last 10 years, federal minimum wage hasn't been raised.
Homelessness is up.
And more and more people and more and more millennials
primarily say, "Enough. We have to change this."
There is a force for change.
When I did the research for my book,
I came across a piece of research that really stunned me.
They looked at zip codes,
and they looked at life expectancy in various zip codes:
what's the longest living
and what's the shortest living ZIP code in Chicago.
Well, this is clearly, of course, a difference between rich and poor, right?
In the rich zip codes,
people live, on average, 30 years longer
than in the poorest zip code -
30 years difference.
And again, a lot of people say, "Enough!"
I want to share with you two more big developments in the US,
and both seem to be bad news for Republicans.
First of all, decline of religion.
It's not a very popular subject.
Most people don't want to talk about it, but we have to talk about it.
Between 6 and 10 thousand churches closed every year;
particularly millennials, young people, leave the church in droves.
They don't want to be a member.
They don't like the institution of the church.
They leave religion. They're no longer religious.
And this is important politically
since we have seen in the last 30, 40 years
of very powerful alliance
between Republicans on one side and white evangelicals -
black churches is a different story -
between Republicans and white evangelicals.
This powerful political alliance brought us Ronald Reagan;
George Bush, the older George Bush; and George W Bush;
and it brought us Donald Trump.
Trump would not be in the White House without the support of white evangelicals.
And their numbers are declining rapidly.
Let me show you a couple of books that came out about this phenomenon.
So yeah, if you want to do some reading here:
[The End of White Christian America];
another one - The Fall of the Evangelical Nation;
or this one, R.I.P. G.O.P.
GOP is the Republican Party.
And look at the subtitle here:
"How the new America is dooming the Republicans."
And full disclosure -
Stan Greenberg, who wrote this,
is a democratic pollster who used to work for Bill Clinton.
But I think his numbers are quite compelling, actually.
This is a huge development, politically very important.
Another one - immigration and diversity.
There's a widespread misconception
about what people, American people, think about immigration.
People tend to think most Americans want less immigrants.
No, it's not true.
Yes, one-third of America wants less immigrants -
you can look it up in Gallup.
One third says, "Let's keep it the way it is,"
and one third says, "Let's bring in more people.
We are a nation of immigrants, after all."
So that's different than a lot of people think.
I want to show you - I don't have graphs and maps except this one.
What you see here, top right -
the darker a state,
the higher the percentage of people from minorities,
and the darkest color of blue is 50+ percent minority.
That's in 2014, with a number of states, particularly in the south.
If you look bottom left, that's the situation in 2040,
and the other one on the right at the bottom, 2060.
If I were a Republican, this would keep me awake at night
because minorities, folks, vote predominantly Democratic.
We've seen it all along, and even in the last elections,
2018, midterms,
and in 2016, presidential elections.
Yes, minorities do vote progressive on average.
So if their numbers increase, the Republicans lose votes left and right,
particularly on the right of course.
The question is, of course,
Why did the Republicans miss, eventually, the exit to the 21st century?
They're more or less stuck in the 1980s.
And I can show that clearly by these pictures.
This is a collection
of newly elected Republican members of the House of Representatives,
elected in the midterm elections in 2018.
Look at the diversity here, folks.
So we have, on the bottom left, a guy with an eyepatch;
(Laughter)
and we have on the bottom right, a woman - yes! a woman,
white middle-aged, but still.
Same picture, Democrats newly elected - that looks quite different, does it?
So this is the difference between the two parties as we speak, folks:
top left, 20th century; bottom right, 21st century.
And you can ask yourself, I mean,
"Do the Republicans simply ignore all this change,
or do they have some kind of a counter-attack?"
Yes, there is a counter-attack, and this is part of the counter-attack:
The radical left and the socialism goes mainstream -
Fox News.
They blame the Democrats
for being radical and being socialist and everything -
the surge in socialism.
And I want to play a little clip with this guy, Glenn Beck.
He is one of the famous conservative talk show hosts in the United States,
and he was interviewed by another guy, Sean Hannity.
Oh, this doesn't look totally right.
And they were talking about the rise of socialism.
And Sean Hannity asked Glenn Beck, you know,
"What's the antidote? What can we do about this rise in socialism?"
And Glenn Beck says, "Well, I'm not really sure,"
but listen what he says after that.
(Video) Sean Hannity: What's the antidote?
That's what I wanted to ask you.
Glenn Beck: I don't know if there's an antidote.
But I will tell you this.
If the Republicans don't win in this next election,
I think we are officially at the end of the country as we know it.
We may not survive even if we win, but we -
CG: We may see the end of the country as we know it - isn't that interesting?
Apparently, their system and their, you know, their way of thinking,
way of doing things is quite vulnerable.
What about Donald Trump?
I mean, he plays the same tune, in a way.
He's also talking the same words.
Listen to Trump saying, also, the end of the country as we know it.
Listen.
(Video) Donald Trump: they want to destroy our country as we know it -
not acceptable.
It's not going to happen.
CG: So will he succeed?
His supporters, ladies and gentlemen, like to see him on Mount Rushmore,
you know, among George Washington,
Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abram Lincoln.
His opponents say, "Well, rather not."
His supporters are sure he's going to be reelected in 2020.
His opponents have the "Lock him up" slogan ready.
I haven't talked a lot about the election.
But it's important to suppose Donald Trump gets reelected -
it's not impossible.
You have to realize
that the developments I just described for you
are not going to stop.
Yes, progress will slow down, but it will not stop.
It's hard to predict what will happen,
but that will be my prediction.
I was talking to an optimistic Democrat the other day,
and he said, "Charles, you know what?
Eventually, maybe 5 or 10 years from now,
we'll look back on all this nonsense and say,
'Donald Trump was the best thing that ever happened to me.'"
I'm not sure, but it could be.
The younger generation, folks, the leaders of tomorrow
will not take no for an answer.
They will be - these Millennials and Generation Z -
they will be, rather sooner than later, the new ruling majority.
That's the perspective we have.
And yes,
it could be the end of the country as we know it.
Conservatives hate it;
progressives can't wait to see the end of the country as we know it.
We also see the end of the Republican Party as we know it.
And finally and fundamentally,
eventually, we're going to see the end of Donald Trump as we know him.
Let's make America great and Lady Liberty proud again.
Thank you very much.
(Applause)