Documentarian Ken Burns says glossing over the “dark and bloody” realities of America’s past doesn’t heal the country—it sharpens the divisions people feel today. Speaking July 5 on NBC’s “Meet the Press” with Kristen Welker, Burns argued that the founders’ id
Ken Burns doesn’t believe America’s arguments are new. He believes they have a long memory.
In a July 5 appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press” with Kristen Welker. the filmmaker—known for reshaping how audiences watch U.S. history—said tendencies in history books and collective memory to “sanitize” the American Revolution magnify the divisions of the present moment. He warned that when people avoid the uglier parts of the story. the nation loses a more honest understanding of who it is and where it’s going.
“What do these stories say red. white and blue?” Burns asked in the direction of the cultural exercise of looking back. His point was blunt: revealing how “dark and bloody” the Revolution was would not shrink the significance of the era’s ambitions in Philadelphia in 1776 and then. 11 years later in 1787. during the Constitution.
“It doesn’t. Those ideas are made even more impressive because of the improbability of the struggle, the odds against success.”
He also described the way events across U.S. history seem to “rhyme” with the current moment. Burns pointed to “a continent-wide pandemic,” “a debate over vaccinating soldiers,” and “a failed invasion of Canada” during the founding era—stark parallels that, he said, sit underneath today’s fractures.
“We are really divided,” Burns said. “But we were way more divided then, way more divided during the Civil War, way more divided during the Vietnam period.”
His description of modern polarization landed like a diagnosis: divisions today are a “mile wide but an inch thick,” and he argued they need a different kind of reminder—one that brings people back to what they share.
“It takes a good story to remind people of the things that we share in common.”
That framing extended into his views on power itself. Burns argued that the founders would have been disappointed by what some see as the nation’s increasing authoritarian turn, but not surprised by the impulse.
“I think if the founders came here. they would not be surprised at all that somebody was seeking more authoritarian power. ” Burns told Welker. “They would be abjectly disappointed that Article I. the legislative branch. had abdicated so much of the power. because that’s what they thought would be the bulwark against the inevitable thing.”.
Burns also placed blame for today’s emotional climate on people who, in his words, are “keeping us alive to our grievances.”
“It is in the interests of authoritarians to keep people uneducated, distracted by conspiracy and superstition,” he said, adding that the nation already has “the recipe” for a healthy democracy—yet has instead been pulled toward “shiny objects of superstition and conspiracy and us versus them.”
Before the founding of the United States. Burns said. the concept of a “citizen” in the way Americans recognize it today didn’t exist. Society, he said, was organized into rulers and subjects. Against that backdrop. he described the founding as something with “biblical” implications—rooted in the idea that all people are created equal and that they are “masters of their own destiny.”.
Burns pointed to Thomas Paine and quoted Paine’s “Common Sense,” where Paine wrote: “Not since the time of Noah do we have a chance to remake the world.”
Burns described that idea of destiny as a plan to create a place where people can repeat “We hold these truths to be self-evident.” He said those truths “aren’t self-evident” and “they’ve never been tried,” but that the founders’ attempt was “what we’re going to try.”
He called the role of the citizen the “highest office in the land,” saying it was a deliberate choice the founders made to diminish the power of authoritarians and “those who choose violence.”
In his telling, the system offers a kind of internal ignition switch—an ability to reduce the fuel behind anger and mistrust.
“We have a system here in which we have at least the recipe to pull out the fuel rods of anger and distrust and hatred. ” Burns said. “The question is for Americans right now. as we approach this glorious moment. 250 years. the oldest democracy on Earth: ‘Do you want to continue to cook with that recipe. or do you — can you be. as authoritarians always do. convincing you it’s better if everything’s ordered or that our story is only one people and not other people?’”.
The thread running through his remarks is reconciliation—not as sentiment, but as a choice that history makes possible. Burns ended with a belief that America’s story is about “an unbelievably wide variety of people” who “improbably come together,” and that unity over violence is still within reach.
“We have a chance to sort of reconcile this,” he said. “And why not take the path of reconciliation rather than the drama, the needless drama of further disunion, and dissipation and violence perhaps? And you just — we don’t need to choose it.”
Ken Burns Meet the Press Kristen Welker American Revolution U.S. Constitution Civil War Vietnam democracy authoritarianism citizen Thomas Paine Common Sense reconciliation