(TRANSCRIPT OF INTERVIEW)
Madison Aument: You did speak about Reconstruction tonight, so I want to touch on that. Talk about what lessons you feel are most urgent right now. We're a year into, a little more than a year into, the second Trump administration. You were writing when he was president the first time. So what do you think is urgent now that has maybe changed from , I guess, Trump one?
Jamelle Bouie: I think what is maybe most urgent now, and to think about a lesson you can draw from Reconstruction, is the urgency of, like, holding people accountable for genuine wrongdoing. One of the things you see throughout the Reconstruction period, the difficulty with upholding former Confederates accountable, federal leaders accountable, people who've done violence accountable. And I think what we're witnessing now is the fruits of a failure to hold people truly accountable for law breaking in the first term, certainly for January 6. Obviously, a lot of people went to jail for that, but no one in political leadership really experienced any serious consequences. And I think that, looking forward from now, there are all kinds of figures who, if they aren't, if there isn't a clear, you don't clearly show that actually breaking laws results in you facing legal consequences for it, then all of the dysfunction and all of the bad trends that are coming out of this are just gonna gonna rear the ugly heads again.
Madison Aument: Since you blend so much historical analysis with writing your columns, I'm wondering how you decide to lean more into history versus, like, tapping into the 24/7 news cycle. Is there a process you have?
Jamelle Bouie: There isn't so much a process. I have some of it, or a lot of it, is simply a product of just, I spend all my time, like, reading a lot of history, a lot of academic history, and so it's what's in the forefront of my mind. It's the case that, especially when it comes to writing about the law, kind of, there's a lot of, there's a move towards a greater emphasis on history when thinking about the interpretation of laws, which lends itself to when I'm, when I'm writing about laws or Supreme Court decisions or what have you, to leaning on history. But I do think, on just like a very basic level, that there is the events that ever, the things that are happening in the moment, it's hard to explain without reference to, without reference to American history and to the American past, when, you know, in Trump's second 100 days, they were saying that this was the most productive presidency since FDR. It's useful to know something about FDRs first 100 days, and for parsing that claim for readers, like, is this a, is a, is this the case, and B, why should you not understand what's happening now the way we talk about FDR first 100 days. So a lot of it is a product of just the things that they're saying, and they themselves are alluding to the American past. So that opens the door for a nerd like me to be like, well, you know, I've read 3000 pages about this, so let me talk about it a bit.
Madison Aument: You know you're maybe more conversational in tone on social media. How do you balance having this, like, more formal column with your social media presence?
Jamelle Bouie: Yeah, I suppose I think of the social media presence as being much more provisional than the column. Like, I don't perceive a post on a social media website as representing either my, like, most coherent thoughts or most structured thoughts, or even what I particularly actually think. It's just sort of, this is a straight thought that I'm throwing out there. Sometimes it clearly isn't, but most of the time it is, whereas the column is, it's, it's the place where I'm just doing my actual thinking out loud and trying to structure it and trying to put it in a way that will, will, be a bit more enduring.
Madison Aument: Yeah, I'm interested in that because I don't know that that's the way people view social media. This is often the problem for me. Yeah. I mean, how do you deal with that? Does it complicate your work as the columnist?
Jamelle Bouie: I don't think it complicates the work as my work as a columnist. I think it just means people get mad at me a lot.
Madison Aument: Yeah, I don't want to, like, hammer this point home so much, but how do you deal with the disconnect, like, as a just a person?
Jamelle Bouie: Yeah, I turn off my phone.
Madison Aument: Okay, that's all I needed to hear.
Jamelle Bouie: I just, I just log off.
Madison Aument: Okay, yeah, well, you were very generous with your times. Thank you very much.
Jamelle Bouie: It's my pleasure.