The U.S. at 250: The case for reckoning and rebuild, with Ian Bremmer

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2:11Ian Bremmer:We have something to celebrate, and that is that we have been successful for 250 years with this most unlikely human experiment. And to fix it, we're going to have to change a bunch of things, but you still come together. Patriotism in this country is having the courage not just to say I love my country, but having the courage to publicly say when your country is f***ing up. That's what patriotism is. And we need patriotic Americans to do precisely that now because it matters. That's Ian Bremmer, political scientist, president of the Eurasia Group, and advisor to business leaders and political leaders all around the globe.

2:55As we head toward the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States, I wanted to talk with Ian about the state of brand America at a time of intense disruption. Just before we started recording, Ian got an impromptu call from U.S. Senator John Ossoff, as if to underscore his deep contacts. In this episode, Ian argues that Americans are in a revolutionary mood right now and that that is a positive. He critiques the wealth divide in the U.S. and the opportunity lapses, and he certainly has no great love for President Trump. But his advice to businesses and to all of us, it isn't partisan, it's practical.

3:34And it will get you thinking about what the U.S. needs to extend its great experiment another 250 years. So let's get to it. I'm Bob Safian, and this is Rapid Response.

3:50I'm Bob Safian. I'm here with Ian Bremmer, president of Eurasia Group and host of GZERO World on PBS. Ian, welcome back to Rapid Response. Good to see you, Bob. It's been a while. Yeah. So we're nearing the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, July 4th, United States of America's 250th birthday, celebrations, festivities gearing up. But it's also a moment of intense change, technological, economic, political. I'm eager to get your assessment of the health of the U.S. at 250 years old. I mean, judging by record high stock market, things seem quite rosy. Is that the right barometer to look at?

4:31It would be bad if that was the only barometer you were looking at.

4:34Ian Bremmer:I mean, look, I think most Americans aren't sure what their country stands for. We now lionize, even worship money in this country more than any other thing. In my view, that's pretty far from what is sustainable. It's also making people angrier. It's making certainly people feel much more stressed and anxious about themselves, their future, their kids. As a political scientist, of course, I think the fact that American power continues to be projected globally in ways that other countries cannot certainly matters. We've got the best entrepreneurs. We got the best universities. We got these extraordinary market returns, technology, defense, all of that stuff.

5:33Ian Bremmer:But that's not, I mean, when you're in your deathbed, that's not what really matters to you in terms of your life and your history. And it's also not the reason why I think a lot of Americans care so much about their country. So I think we need to go bigger than that. Hmm. Things like, you know, trust in the U.S. dollar, English is the default language, the primacy of U.S. entertainment and music and global culture, like all this evidence that America's impact and appeal remains predominant. But the U.S. brand where it stands is not quite as stable as it as it might look if you just talk about those things.

6:18Ian Bremmer:Other countries in the world don't trust the United States. I mean, you talk to the Europeans and they'll tell you how angry they are about the way the US has treated them on trade, on Greenland, on Ukraine. I was with the Japanese recently, high-level officials, and they told me they felt like we've extorted them in their trade deal and demanding$550 billion of investment in the US or else, and we get to decide where it goes. They don't. It's on and on and on. I mean, countries around the world certainly understand American power, but the United States is not respected around the world and is not viewed as dependable.

7:06You have talked about this for a while. This is not just what's happened in the last year or so with, you know, with the second Trump administration, but this is sort of a trend that's been ongoing.

7:18Ian Bremmer:You're right, Bob, that this is something I've talked about for well over a decade now. And there are structural aspects that have nothing to do with the president. The idea that the United States would just be the architect of global free trade. is something that now most Americans reject. And they want to see industrial policy, support for manufacturing, insourcing at home. The United States no longer supports the kind of leadership and burden sharing militarily with other allies around the world. They want those countries to spend vastly more on their own defense. The U.S. does not want to have the kind of comparatively open borders and immigration regime that many from around the world benefited from.

8:11Ian Bremmer:Certainly when my grandmother came over here at the beginning of the 20th century. So all of those things are different and they are different for Democrats and Republicans across the political spectrum. Having said that, there has been an acceleration with a second Trump administration, the way that he has prioritized the actions of the executive over the last year, the Iranian war that has been a staggering mistake, the biggest of his administration. And yet he ran on ending these wars, on being a peacemaker. It's important to recognize that there's a difference as we think about the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States between these structural changes that will persist and these these issues that are unique to Trump's unfitness as a leader.

9:15The limited pushing back against some of these things that Trump has been doing, both within his party and from other institutions, is that is that historically significant?

9:31Ian Bremmer:I think it's significant, but it's also significant that we do have real checks and balances which persist from a market perspective. CEOs have been pretty quiet. Right. But, you know, when Trump does things that are clearly illegal, an independent judiciary eventually stops him. We've seen that with the tariffs, for example, used for ostensible national emergency concerns on countries around the world. And the Supreme Court took its time to hear the case and rule on it, but struck it all down. And now just, you know, Trump is saying that they're going to see if they can find a way not to have to pay the money back that they've already collected, which of course, again, was illegal.

10:21Ian Bremmer:So they will appeal it and they'll fight it. But they'll lose. And I consider that pushback. It's pushback from an independent judiciary that still exists in the United States. There's pushback when ICE engages in brutal excesses on the ground in Minnesota and is forced out by CEOs across the board and by local politicians left, right and center. And I can give you so many more examples of this. And courage is contagious. And Trump's clearly engaging in a lot of political revolutionary activities in that he wants to end checks and balances on the executive and he will fail. That doesn't mean that that's the end of political revolution in the United States.

11:16Ian Bremmer:We've we had one with FDR. FDR failed at some things that were excesses like packing the Supreme Court. But he succeeded in other things like creating an administrative state that helps allow for the creation of infrastructure in the country that built a working and middle class. And, you know, the reality is most Americans today believe some form of a political revolution is necessary. That is why you got Trump. And it is why you will have in the future more and more political leaders like Trump in their anti-establishment sentiment, though not hopefully in their excessive authoritarian impulses, in their excessive kleptocracy personally, and in their policy incompetence.

12:14Ian Bremmer:Those are things that are more unique to Trump, but they do not reflect or represent the anger, the anxiety, the demand for change, the revolutionary impulse that, let's remember, Bob, actually made the United States an independent country to begin with 250 years ago. But Jim Vande Heide-Axios has argued that like media tends to overstate the polarization in America. You know, there's more common ground than anything else. Do you buy that or is there is there something else that's sort of driving this today's revolutionary spirit? Oh, I buy that there's a lot of common ground among Americans when you get them in a room and you make them actually have a beer, have a burger.

12:57Ian Bremmer:I mean, they talk to each other. They like each other. Their algorithms destroy that in the same way that when people are walking on the streets, they like each other and you put them in cars on a freeway and they don't. Right. I mean, I get that. But most Americans believe that the United States has become a two tier system and that if you have access and money, the American dream works for you. And otherwise, it doesn't. that I grew up in the 70s and the United States in the 70s was one of the most class mobile countries of the advanced industrial democracies. In the last 40 years, it has shifted to becoming one of the most stagnant in terms of class mobility.

13:48Ian Bremmer:The best predictor now of class outcomes in the U.S. today compared to every other OECD economy is how wealthy your parents are. And that is something that most Americans oppose. There's a great deal of opportunity in small and medium enterprises, creating your own business, building it. That is what I've done from scratch that I would have had a very hard time doing in any other society. And I thank the country. I'm very grateful for what the United States stands for in that regard. But I have seen that become far, far harder. And also, very importantly, that is very visible to people. And it's visible to people in a few different ways.

14:36Ian Bremmer:It's visible because people have been self-separating more. They're in more gated communities. They're in more environments, whether it's clubs and institutions that do not intermingle the way they used to. So that's one. Number two, they're spending much more time online. And so they're sorted algorithmically to people that are much more like them. And they also see the kind of life that they're supposed to have, that the CEOs and the billionaires and the influencers have or pretend they have. And they feel very inadequate compared to that. And then they also experience the corporatization of day-to-day life where every aspect of what you see and experience, companies are able to squeeze micro-targeting to get more money from those that can afford to pay it.

15:35Ian Bremmer:And so your experience in air travel, your experience in hotels, your experience at Disney World, your experience anywhere you might go as an American has become maximally segregated on the back of the people that can pay the absolute most and the people that can't. And that makes most Americans pretty pissed off. It feels kind of un-American. So yeah, I think that there's a lot of agreement among most Americans that the system that presently exists is captured by powerful, networked wealthy people. And most Americans don't like that. And AI is, you know, creating its own wedge, right? I mean, it's this revolutionary tool that disrupts the world of work and an extraordinary wealth generating mechanism that is accelerating this economic disparity.

16:31So AI is interesting.

16:33Ian Bremmer:Social media definitely accelerated that insecurity and anxiety. AI, of course, everyone that uses it, it's just blowing smoke up your ass. No matter how bad your idea, AI is very self-affirming in a way that clearly parents would recognize as bad, right? Like you need kids to understand that most of the things are hard and that they can fail and not all their ideas are good ones and there are consequences of screwing up and then you try harder. AI does not do that because AI is programmed to maximize engagement and for you to like it. So what AI is doing to society is very deeply dysfunctional, but it might not increase anxiety.

17:25Ian Bremmer:It might actually move in the other direction and just increase false consciousness and, you know, narcissism and other things that will not serve us well as a society, but may not drive this specific thing that we are thinking about. Now, on the other side, there are a lot of people that are gonna have their jobs changed and perhaps displaced. When I see Jamie Dimon, who is, you know, of the American CEOs that are not tech CEOs seems to be the most like forward thinking on this, say, look, I mean, in 10 years, in 20 years, you know, you're gonna have all this wealth and people are gonna be working like, you know, half time, so three and a half days a week as opposed to five.

18:19Ian Bremmer:And isn't that great? Well, it would be great if we had a society like Europe where people aren't only thinking about how they can maximize wealth and instead had a broader view of well-being that included family and community and institutions. If we define ourselves by nothing but our work and our network. If we define ourselves and if we worship money in the markets, again, if we go back to the question you started this with, which is that, well, the market's doing great, so it doesn't mean America's doing great. America's in trouble if that's where we're heading. So, I mean, there are so many business leaders that I talk with, American business leaders, who refer to Europe as a museum, where there is nothing we could possibly learn from Europe, because they don't have productivity, they don't have efficiency, they don't have growth, they don't have entrepreneurialism, their tech is crap, all of that.

19:14Ian Bremmer:And yet, from a social perspective, from a civic engagement and morality perspective, actually a lot of European societies in very different ways, the Nordics in their way, the Spaniards in their way, but they actually have a much better shot of adapting to what AI means for humanity than the United States presently does. Even though the Americans are absolutely in the lead in using AI to drive wealth and innovation and all the rest, which we need, which we need. Ian's snapshot of America at 250 years old isn't simple, even though each point he makes is logical. AI is dysfunctional, yes, but we need it, yes.

20:07So how do we reconcile those things? And what sort of revolution might America be moving towards in 2026? We'll talk about that more after the break. Stay with us.

20:46Talk to either one of them. Creative planning was built to fix exactly that. One integrated team of tax professionals, estate planners, investment specialists, all coordinated by a dedicated wealth manager who sees your full financial picture and keeps every piece working together. Proactive tax efficiency, estate strategy, investments all under one roof. Creative planning, where wealth works together. Learn more at creativeplanning.com slash mastersofscale.

21:43It takes about 10 seconds to find. Just search Rapid Response wherever you listen to podcasts and hit follow to make sure you never miss an episode. I hope to see you there. Humans will never be more intelligent than AI. There's going to be two types of companies. Those are great at AI and those that went out of business because they weren't.

22:04Ian Bremmer:How do we build a future that is human-centered? I'm Rana El-Khoyoubi and on my podcast Pioneers of AI we answer that question and so many more as an AI scientist, entrepreneur and investor I know what it takes to build AI that works for everyone every week I sit down with the pioneers shaping our future and we take you behind the scenes of the AI that's transforming our lives find Pioneers of AI wherever you tune in

22:41Before the break, political scientist Ian Bremmer outlined some of the challenges facing the United States on its 250th birthday. Now we talk about what he's hopeful about, the revolution that he thinks the United States needs in 2026, and the role that tech and business play, plus the defiant way he plans to celebrate on July 4th. Let's jump back in. you've talked about how the the most important new global leaders aren't countries they're they're technology companies in a lot of ways is there some stability that that provides because they're looking out like oh they need a healthy population and a healthy marketplace and a healthy open trade or or is it i don't know is it is it scary is it dangerous where where where's the balance on that?

23:31There's no balance yet.

23:33Ian Bremmer:And, you know, governments exist, at least in principle, to take care of citizens and defend citizens, while companies are not. They have many different stakeholders, their shareholders, their workers, their customers. But very infrequently, will they really think about the responsibility to society at whole. And one of the big problems I have with a lot of these technology companies is how socialist they are. I mean, they're very capitalist when they make profits, but whenever they're responsible, directly responsible for social ills, suddenly they're not capitalist anymore. Suddenly it's like, oh, no, no, no, The government should pay for that or you should pay for that or your kids should pay for that, but not us.

24:36Ian Bremmer:Why are you suddenly scared of capitalism? I mean, like we need our technology companies to be capitalists when they have negative externalities and costs that come directly from the products that they are developing. and that they are putting into the ecosystem. And this was just as true for the oil companies and carbon as it is for the cigarette companies and tobacco smoke, as it is for AI companies and society at large. So if you're an AI company and you're spending tons of money on compute and data centers and energy, you should be prepared to invest in similar ways in community, in helping people who are transitioning from the job market of the old to the job market of the new?

25:36Well, I mean, they're not.

25:38Ian Bremmer:So, I mean, should they? Ideally, that should be the role of the government. And you want a government that effectively regulates so that the companies don't have to do things that they are not actually structured to do. Because they're not good at it, right? They're not good at it. They're short-term. They focus on, you know, they've got market cyclicality and they've got fundraising rounds that they need to prioritize. And they're always talking their book and all of this stuff, right? And so we've got three sorts of governance out there. We've got the American system, which is great for entrepreneurs, but where the private sector essentially pays for and captures the regulatory environment, the government.

26:24Ian Bremmer:You've got the Chinese system where the government actually captures the private sector. And so they determine what the private sector can and can't do, who they're gonna fund, which sectors are strategic, which aren't. And then you've got the European system where the government is an independent arbiter that really is trying to regulate in favor of society. Now, here's the issue, that the former two drive a lot more growth and you need growth to pay for the things that the European system wants to actually do for society. The first two also happen to be where AI is dominant. You'd be much more likely to get a series of regulations that would be safer for society.

27:10Ian Bremmer:With a European style system, you're much less likely to get the AI that would drive it in a European style system to begin with. So we're stuck in this weird situation in America where the technology companies are essentially self-regulating and self-governing at this point. And I think this is gonna be an essential driver of politics in 2028 and the campaign coming up. But another two and a half years of this, given how fast AI is moving, is going to be very, very disruptive and will create reactions in society that I don't think technology companies will like. I don't want this this 250th birthday not to have any presents or cake.