Arianna Huffington, author of Third World America, speaks during the Women Deliver Conference on June 7, 2010, in Washington, D.C.
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There is a significant portion of the country that feels exactly that way, and for that reason they are telling pollsters that they plan to vote for Republicans this fall. Would you recommend otherwise?
I would recommend otherwise. First of all, I completely understand the anger and the frustration. I have written a lot in the book about the Tea Party movement. I think to dismiss the Tea Party movement as racist is completely to misunderstand its foundation. Sure, there are racist elements in every part of society. But what is different here is that this is a movement grounded in anger at the way that our Establishment — the political establishment, financial establishment — has basically undermined the American way of life and the American dream. And that's the heart of the anger. So having said I understand the anger, it doesn't make any sense to vote for people who have no solutions beyond extending the Bush tax cuts and challenging Social Security.
Why do you think that the uprising you see in politics right now, in protests, in rallies, is coming mostly from the right and not the left? Is there a route you see to building a more progressive side?
I see the route to building a movement around solutions. It doesn't have to be progressive. It can be a movement around solutions. What we have now is not a movement around solutions. It is a movement around anger. And I think the main reason it is on the right is because Democrats are in control of the House, the Senate and the White House. Many people who would be on the other side are actually defending what the Democrats are doing because they are very worried about the possibility of Republican victories in November. But you know, those cards have already been dealt. The cards for the midterm election were dealt a long time ago. And the priority now has to be on how do we do the right thing in Washington, and how do we do the right thing in state capitals and rebuild communities with individual decisions and not-for-profits that are sprouting up everywhere.
Is there still time for the President to get on the right side of these issues before he faces re-election?
Oh, absolutely there is. But it has to be a kind of single-mindedness and a sense of urgency. And it has to be recognizing the yearning in people to come together. There is a real yearning. That's a yearning that the President understands, that he addressed in speeches going back to 2006 in his "Call to Renewal" speech. Tapping into that yearning is going to be an incredible source of creativity and of solutions for rebuilding the country. That American spirit of can-do. You see it everywhere. It's so inspiring.
Is your message that America will become a third-world nation?
I think that we have a choice to make. At other moments in our history, whether it was after Pearl Harbor or when the Soviets launched Sputnik, we rallied. The President captured that American spirit when he kicked off his Educate to Innovate campaign, which I feel is one of the best things the Administration is doing. He said this nation wasn't built on greed, it wasn't built on reckless risk; it was forged from stronger stuff. He understands that. He can speak to that.
But at the same time, and this is in a way an even more important question for us, because we can only ask elected officials to do so much, and it is not in our control whether they do it or not. So that is why I am saying at the same time, What are we doing? What is each one of us doing? How do we come together? How do we self-organize to solve problems?