While publicizing his PBS show, Need to Know, which covers the economy, the environment and energy, health, national security, and culture relating to the 2012 presidential election, Jeff Greenfield sat down with me to discuss the state of politics today and how it relates to the past. Mr. Greenfield has covered the subject for several networks over his long career, which, incidentally, afforded him five Emmys. He was touted as “the best in the business” by the Washington Journalism Review for his media analysis.
Greenfield worked for Robert Kennedy in the 1960s and discussed the differences between that time and today.
The Democratic and Republican parties of the 1960s were not the same parties they are today. Those of us who became inspired to “do all that we possibly can” for the country and give instead of take, are now part of the AARP generation. The 1960s was a decade that changed many lives, but to today’s generation it is just a chapter in their history books.
1968 and Robert Kennedy
“I remember saying at the time about 1968, ‘It’s going to be a year that’s going to be hard to explain to our children,’ because so much happened in so many different places,” Greenfield confided.
“I guess the influence Robert Kennedy had on me was how I think about politics and how I think about issues. He just never settled for the obvious first answer,” Greenfield stated, and that is how he has conducted his own career. Several times Greenfield stressed that we should not “romanticize the past.” Robert Kennedy not only ingratiated himself to the disenfranchised young population, but he also appealed to a much older crowd. There was something within him that captivated many different segments of society, but also alienated them from him as well.
Greenfield explained, “At different times (Robert Kennedy) managed to annoy people across the political spectrum. He would go to college campuses in 1968, which was not uncommon for politicians, and he’d tell them why he was against student deferments for the draft and they would not like that. He’d say, ‘Well. You get them. Look who doesn’t - poor whites, blacks, browns, Indians. You guys are protected because you’re in college because your parents have the money, or whatever, and these folks don’t. And if you want to talk about what’s fair, that’s not fair.’
“Watching the way he dealt with these kinds of issues was really important to me [in my journalism career], as I would go out and cover candidates and try to figure out what kinds of questions to ask or what kind of facts really drove issues. What are we really talking about here? How does your answer compare to the reality on the ground? What haven’t you thought about? That’s how [RFK influenced me].”
Stirring Excitement and Inspiring the People
“In the last election, Barack Obama stirred up tremendous excitement,” Greenfield commented while discussing the energy and enthusiasm generated by RFK in 1968. “Now I’m not comparing him to Robert Kennedy, but again you have to figure out that that was a time when things were falling apart in a lot of ways. Things were getting more turbulent. The war was escalating, the protests had become much more intense, the black communities in several dozen communities summer after summer were exploding into violence, and college campuses were seeing unprecedented turbulence.”
Four years ago many people compared Obama to RFK, however for some there has never been the same enthusiasm surrounding a candidate than what the country experienced in ’68. Greenfield remarked, “You can’t take somebody from an era of half a century ago and ask why isn’t he around today, not to mention the fact that he was the brother of a martyred president. It’s very misleading to ask why there isn’t anyone like that today.”
Even though he was on the other side of the political spectrum, Ronald Reagan garnered a lot of excitement and influenced a new generation to become politically involved. According to Greenfield, “There are people today who look back at the 1980 campaign and say ‘that was what got me into politics.’” Reagan was a kind of pied piper in the same way RFK was, and both men managed to inspire a large number of people, not only to vote for them but also to get involved.
Polarization in the United States
The country today is very polarized and there is a gridlock that seems to be strangling Washington, D.C. “The very start of this (2012) campaign, and certainly the past number of years, have become very gridlocked in the sense the Republican party has become so adamant in its opposition to Obama, and they’ve succeeded politically. I thought that they might pay a price for this,” Greenfield claimed.
Then he harkened back to other times in the history of the country when it was polarized by different issues. “I wasn’t politically active in the McCarthy era, but certainly it was a period when powerful people were accusing [people] of treason, doesn’t sound like a particularly pleasant experience. Or in the 40s and 50s when Southern politicians routinely used the kind of racial politics that [today] you cannot imagine anybody doing that.”
Jeff Greenfield
Jeff Greenfield is impressive in his ability to look objectively at political situations. While he cautioned about “romanticizing the past,” there was a calm demeanor about him and a unique way of looking at society, past and present.
Need to Know airs on PBS.
