Original subtitles

[marching band music playing]

[man chuckling]

Mm!

[imitating gunshots]

Oh, it's finally here, the best day of the year,

Independence Day!

[woman] Hiya, Unc!

Oh, happy 4th, Lady Liberty.

Oh, those amber waves of grain

are looking marvelous.Thanks.

I picked 'em straight from the purple mountain's majesty.

Mm. [laughs]

[man] Looking forward to your big speech tonight, Uncle.

Oh, thanks, Johnny Appleseed.

It'll move you to your core.

Get it? [chuckles]

How are them decorations coming, Rosie?

Think it'll be ready on time?

We can do it, Uncle.Great.

This'll be the best July 4th spectacular

Americatown has even seen.

There will be fireworks, hot dogs,

apple pie, denim jorts!

Dang, I love America.

It's the most fair, democratic, perfect country on Earth!

[cannon firing]

[Adam] Actually...

America is far from perfect,

and believe that it is just makes things worse.

[crowd gasps]It's okay, everyone.

I know this guy. Ol' Uncle Sam's got this.

Listen, Adam, I'm fine being a day player

on your little show,

especially since it qualifies me

for Actors Union health insurance.

Mm! But!

You can't come to Americatown

and ruin America.

Sorry, Unc. This country's gotta stop

believing its own myths and start facing the facts.

My fellow Americans, I'm Adam Conover,

and this is "Adam Ruins Everything."

[whistling]

♪♪

I don't have time for this, Adam.

It's the 4th of July and my schedule is packed.

[eagle screeches]

I've got a car wash meet-and-greet,

a mattress store photo-op, a hot dog eating contest...

[gasps] And I have to finish

writing my big speech for the Americatown

Independence Day Holiday Blowout Extravaganza!

Oh, how exciting. [chuckles]

Everyone's working really hard to make it great,

and no one wants you to ruin it.

Ah, you see them?

They're living the American Dream.

Here, a little hard work can take anyone

from rags to riches.

I was born with one leg and no money.

But I worked hard.

And now, I'm a billionaire!

I could buy all the legs I could ever want.

Sorry, Unc, America hardly has the highest rates

of upward social mobility.

In a ranking of 24 countries,

we came in 16th.

[sad trombone]

How can that be?

The truth is, if you're poor in America,

no matter how hard you work,

the deck is completely stacked against you.

Being poor in this country

is actually incredibly expensive.[bicycle bell rings]

If you're living in poverty,

you have to spend more on daily necessities,

'cause you can't afford to buy in bulk.

[chuckles]

Wow, now I can keep my butt clean

in all my vacation homes. What a deal!

You know, if I pull apart the double ply,

it's actually two for one.

What a deal.

And if you have a lower income,

you have to spend a larger portion of your budget

on basic necessities.

Up to 70% of a poor American's income

is spent on food, housing, and transportation.

After they cover their basic expenses,

on average, low-income Americans

who only make $15,000 to $20,000 a year

are left with just one dollar a day.

No, I shouldn't splurge.

And that doesn't just make it harder to get by day to day.

It also makes it harder to save money

so you can live more comfortably in the future.

Well, if people need money,

why don't they just apply for a credit card?

Or get a loan-- that's how I paid

for my last three wars.

Well, that's a great idea.

Except that to open a bank account

or credit card, our financial institutions

require that you already have money or good credit.

Wait, so in order to build credit,

I need a credit card, but I can't get a credit card

unless I have good credit?

And if you can't save,

even a small, unexpected expense

can have disastrous consequences.

Right now, 46% of Americans

say they couldn't afford to pay a surprise bill

for just $400.[bicycle bell rings]

Oh my God, my bike!

That's how I get to work, and if I can't get to work,

then I can't buy another bike.

Curse this vicious cycle!

[scoffs] He seems lazy.

[dog barking]

The fact is, poverty in America

is almost impossible to escape without help.

No... Johnny Appleseed? What happened?

I got bankrupted by my medical bills.

Turns out an apple a day

doesn't keep the doctor away.

This isn't right. These are Americans.

They deserve the American Dream,

not this nightmare.

Well, ironically, the reason they can't achieve that dream

is because we all believe in it too strongly.

A survey found that 70% of Americans

believe that poor people

can make it out of poverty on their own.

Be the change you wanna see in your can, my friend.

Because we believe in this myth,

we are far less willing to raise taxes

or fund social programs than other wealthy nations.

And as a result, we have far greater inequality.

Right now, 43.1 million Americans

live in poverty,

while the richest three Americans

have more wealth than the bottom 160 million combined.

[gasps] We have to fix this!

Oh, well, there's a lot of things that could help--

affordable housing, free public college.

And I know we can do it

because we have the best system of government ever devised,

given to us by the Constitution,

the most perfect founded document

the world has ever seen.

And we just so happen to have a copy

in the Americatown Museum!

Oh, I love museums!

But the Constitution is far from perfect.

What?!

You can take that kind of talk

to the filthy Commie Museum!

You have one of those, too?!

Grr!

[sighs] The Americatown Museum--

the perfect place to find inspiration for my speech

and some peace and quiet.

Oh boy, I love museums!

Adam, shush it and show some respect.

We are in the presence of the Constitution.

[angelic singing]

Well, I've got a right to free speech,

so I'm gonna say it.

Our Constitution kinda sucks.

[laughing] What?! No!

The Constitution is exceptional.

It's extraordinary. It's...

unimpeachably perfect.

Ah, yes, Americans talk about the Constitution

as though it's an almost religious moral authority

guiding our nation.

I carry this in my pocket

out of affection for this document.

It's our most important document.

It's where we all started.

The Constitution is the best political document

that's ever been written. [Uncle Sam] Dang straight.

I got a Constitution lower back tattoo in the '90s

and I've never regretted it.

Oh, that's a lot.

The truth is, our Constitution

is far from perfect.

Even Thomas Jefferson would agree

that all this Constitutional worship

is ridiculous!

What?! Why would he say that?

He was a founding father.

Well, maybe that's why he knew it wasn't perfect.

He knew about all the compromises

they cobbled together in its very messy,

very illegal creation. [snapping]

In 1787 the founding fathers

were tasked with amending the Articles of Confederation.

which was thelaw of the land at the time.

But instead of doing that,

they decided to unilaterally discard

the entire system of government

and replace it with one of their own.

All in favor of exceeding our lawful authority

and doing whatever the hell we want,

raise your hand.What?!

And getting all the states

to ratify a brand-new Constitution wasn't easy.

So the document they wrote included a lot

of un-democratic compromises,

especially when it came to the question of slavery.

The founders actually had the opportunity

to end slavery in the Constitution.

But then the slave-owning states wouldn't have signed on.

So, to get them on board,

they made some unforgivable compromises.

Gentlemen, why are we letting this tear us apart?

Most of us own slaves.

[overlapping agreement]

[Adam] They wrote in the Rendition Clause,

which required free states to return escaped slaves

to their owners.

And they gave slave states extra political power,

which made it far more difficult

to abolish slavery in the future.

As a result, slavery became so entrenched in our society,

that the only way to abolish it a century later

was to fight the deadliest war in our nation's history.

We'll just ignore this problem for now,

and we'll all die before we have to deal with the consequences.

[all] Hear, hear!

So, how could you call this document perfect?

Its imperfections literally tore our country apart,

not to mention the fact

that it didn't guarantee rights for all citizens,

didn't guarantee equal protection under the laws,

and didn't even let black citizens or women vote

for another century.

None of these basic features of our democracy

were given to us by the founding fathers,

which is why celebrated Supreme Court Justice

Thurgood Marshall said the Constitution was...

But wait! You're forgetting

that in their infinite wisdom, our founding fathers

gave us the power to amend it.

Amendments allow us to alter the Constitution

and improve it.

Actually, our amendment process

is so unnecessarily difficult, that almost never happens.

Short of calling a whole new constitutional convention

to rework the entire document,

to pass an amendment, two-thirds of Congress

has to agree to it,

and then it has to be ratified

by three-quarters of the states.

If just 13 states don't agree, the amendment is dead.

That means it's possible

for less than 5% of the population

to thwart the will of the entire nation.

Maybe that's why we haven't been able to pass

a new amendment in the last quarter century.

Well, we can't just go changing the Constitution willy-nilly.

That would be mayhem!Nope!

[shrieks]It would be normal.

Other countries, and even our own states

do it all the time.

France changes their constitution

every two years.

And the grand old state of Georgia

has completely rewritten their state constitution ten times.

I can't believe I have FOMO 'cause of France.

Dang it! I had no idea

our constitution was so restrictive.

[man] It certainly is, and that's why

we have to jump through so many hoops

in this country to make any progress.

It's Georgetown University law professor,

Louis Michael Seidman! Are you leading a tour?

Would you like to join it?Yes!

[gasps] All right, then!

America's reverence for the Constitution

gets in the way of having the kind of debates

that this country needs.

The words are so ridiculously hard to change

that we end up inventing creative ways around them.

For example, did you know that the only reason

we have civil rights laws in this country today

is because of the way that judges

interpreted the Commerce Clause?

Instead of having recent discussion

about issues like abortion, affirmative action,

voting rights, net neutrality,

we end up debating the intentions

of a bunch of dead old white men

who knew nothing about the way the country is today.

Madison likes my way best!

No, he likes my way!

I've been dead for 200 years. Make up your own minds!

And while disregarding the Constitution seems radical,

it's actually as American as denim jorts.

Thomas Jefferson thought the Louisiana Purchase

was unconstitutional.

The framers never would have recognized FDR's New Deal.

Why, even Abraham Lincoln

signed the Emancipation Proclamation

freeing the slaves, and that was unconstitutional.

The truth is, if we didn't ignore the Constitution

from time to time,

United States would still have slavery,

and most of it would still be part of France.

Ooh, you musty old piece of paper!

I can't believe I got a tattoo of you!

Watch it, Uncle!

There are still some good things in the Constitution.

We just need to stop treating the Constitution

like it's the final word in every political discussion.

We don't need the founding fathers' permission

to make America better.

You're right.

America's not at its best when we look to the past.

It's when we fix the problems in the present.

[gasps] That's what my speech will be about!

Even when it's hard, America always moves

in the right direction-- forward.

Actually, after the Civil War,

we took a giant step backwards.

[crash]

I guess it wasn't bolted on.

Hey, America, let's talk about the word "America."

If you live in the United States,

you're probably used to using that word

to describe this.

But we here in the old US-of-A

sometimes forget that we don't have a monopoly on the word.

For many people around the world,

"America" actually refers to all of this.

Now, this is a show written in the U.S.

that debunks misconceptions common in the U.S.

and largely speaks to a U.S. audience.

So, in some cases, our use of "America"

as a stand-in for the "United States"

is appropriate.

But in others, it's a little more complicated.

Like in our segment on the true story

of Christopher Columbus, in which we said, quote,

"Columbus was an incompetent buffoon

who never even set foot in America."

Now, it is true that Christopher Columbus

never set foot in the United States.

But as many of our fans from Latin America pointed out,

he did visit Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

So, as they use the word,

he actually did set foot in America.

For those fans, the fact that we forgot

the word's additional meaning,

actually made our statement wrong.

So, in the future, we're gonna do better

to remember that we have a global audience,

and be more deliberate about our language.

But hey, we can all still agree

that Columbus was an asshole, right?

[chuckles] Good.

Fine, Adam, maybe America isn't absolutely perfect.

But we always correct our mistakes and move forward.

Like after the Civil War when we ended slavery.

And of course, that didn't fix everything right away,

but we kept progressing towards equality.

Actually, there was remarkable progress

right after the Civil War,

followed by a terrible backslide.

And strangely, that's a history we almost never tell.

But I'm going to, right now!

[snapping]

The Civil War marked a massive change

in American life.

Just years before, the entire economy

was built on the backs of four million people

enslaved as property.

Then, the North won the war and everything changed.

The 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments were ratified,

ending slavery and promising new rights.

With the protection of the government

and the new right to pursue education,

own property, and participate in elections,

freed black Americans were able to assert themselves

and advance in society.

Black Americans put forth the first

state-based civil rights legislation,

and thousands became politicians.

By 1877, 16 African Americans

had even served in Congress.

Remarkable, considering that was just ten years

after the end of slavery.

This period was known as Reconstruction,

and the years 1867 to 1877

marked one of the greatest periods

of civil rights progress in American history.

That's incredible!Yeah, it was.

But then we let all of that progress disappear.

The war was over,

but the forces of white supremacy in the South

weren't finished fighting.

So they regrouped to suppress black progress

using terrorism.

Terrorism? Ha.

There weren't any terrorists in the 1800s.

Yeah, there were.

During Reconstruction, the Ku Klux Klan

and their allies launched deadly riots

to scare black citizens away from voting

or organizing.

They set buildings on fire,

assassinated political leaders,

and massacred more American citizens than Al-Qaeda

and ISIS combined.

If that's not terrorism, what is?

This is horrific.

Adam, the government must've stepped back in

and stopped them, right?

Well, in the early 1870s,

President Grant sent troops into the South

to confront the Klan

and to enforce the rights guaranteed

in the new amendments.

But America was tired of fighting,

and political will to continue soon dwindled.

So, in 1877, the troops were withdrawn.

Wait, so they just let the terrorists win?

Yes, we did.

And without government enforcement,

white ex-Confederates were able to reinstitute

new systems of oppression and brutality.

They instituted poll taxes,

literacy tests,

stationed racist thugs at polling places,

and even passed racist statutes like vagrancy laws

that made it illegal not to work.

And the sentence for breaking these unfair laws

was forced labor.

Sound familiar?

No! It's just slavery all over again!

[woman] To some degree, yes.

But that's not the glorious history

America likes to tell about ourselves.

This is Christy Coleman,

CEO of the American Civil War Museum.

You know, most of us were taught

that after Lincoln freed the slaves,

it took a century of slow progress

for black people to gain civil rights.

But the truth is, by the 1960s,

we weren't passing laws giving black people new rights.

We were just finally enforcing the ones

that had been promised them 100 years earlier.

But why don't we learn the real history?

Because the first textbooks about this era

were written by white Confederate sympathizers.

They painted Reconstruction as a time when black people

wreaked havoc over the South

because they couldn't handle their new freedoms.

And this narrative was solidified

in the American consciousness through pop culture.

The wildly popular 1915 film "Birth of a Nation"

depicted illiterate, uncouth black men

taking power in southern states during Reconstruction.

And in the 1930s, "Gone with the Wind"

became one of the most popular books and movies in America,

with its story of a romanticized Dixie plantation

where the slave owners were gentle and kind.

Slaves were happy to be there

and Reconstruction was a disaster.

Not only did this dangerously false narrative

let Americans stop caring

about protecting black people's rights,

we also never did anything

to make up for the decades of economic inequality

caused by slavery.

The truth is, we were on a path towards progress

after the Civil War.

And then we chose to slide horrifically backwards.

That's terrible.

How could we have let all that happen?

Oh, our country is backsliding again right now.

White supremacy is on the rise.

And the 2013 Supreme Court decision

to gut the Voting Rights Act makes it easier

for state and local governments to suppress the voting rights

of Americans of color.

No! We're supposed to learn

from the mistakes of our past.

This country is the worst.

And that's what Americatown needs to hear

at this year's Independence Day Holiday Blowout Extravaganza.

Uncle, no! Don't give up on America.

There are still so many things that make it great!

It's more than just jorts!

So I said, "Honey, you think you've got problems?

I've got four million tourists a year crawling up my butt."

[laughter and applause]

What do you want?

Uncle, you're not gonna go up there

and give some depressing speech

about how America's terrible, are you?

After everything you just told me,

you bet I am.

Look, we tell a lot of myths about America.

But the biggest one is that America's

the best country in the world.

It's called the Myth of American Exceptionalism.

But the truth is that, like any country,

America has problems,

some pretty big ones, in fact.

But that doesn't mean that America's not capable

of doing great things.

It means that we have to recognize

that we do the greatest things

when we admit we're not perfect.

Keep that applause going for Americatown's own Uncle Sam!

[cheering and applause]You're right.

Thanks, Adam.

[cheering, applause continues]

Hello, Americatown!

So...

My big speech.

America is...

♪♪

I want America to be a great nation.

But you don't achieve greatness by pretending to be great.

You achieve it by admitting you suck sometimes,

and then you work to do better.

And only then,

after we shed the myth that America was born perfect,

can we truly do what the founding fathers intended--

strive to achieve a more perfect union.

[cheering and applause]

Oh, thank you.

Thank you so much.

[sighs]

Hey, Adam?Yeah?

You gotta pay for that display you broke in the museum.

Oh, right, sorry.

Could you spot me?

[woman] It's a first draft.

Okay, this is a--

this is a first draft of your animated self.

Oh, wow!What do you think?

I mean, it's animation. We can do anything.

Just e-mail Stephanie with what your request is

and we'll make you look that way.I do like it.

You run the American Civil War Museum in Richmond.Yes.

So what do you try to get across,

you know, someone's coming to your museum,

what's the most important thing you want them to know

about the Civil War when they leave?

It matters for everything they live

in their life right now.

Three very important Constitutional amendments happened

because of this war.

We have the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery.

You got the 14th Amendment

with equal protection under the law

and citizenship definition.

And then the right to vote is extended, right?

Yeah.I mean, that's huge.

The nation will spend the next hundred years

fighting to actually implement what was passed.

That's the wild thing is those amendments

and those laws were passed and they weren't enforced.

You know, as complex as this history is, it's--

what's remarkable to me is that there's always been people,

always been people choosing,

in the words of Dr. King, to bend the arc of justice.

Yeah.Right? Because they do believe

in what the nation really can be.

Do you still have that optimism?

Because, what we're talking about

in this episode is how there was a huge backslide

after Reconstruction was abandoned.

And we connect that to today, that in many ways

it feels like we're backsliding

on some of the gains we've had over the past decades.

And we're trying to make that point

that history is an inevitable.

During periods of great progression

and expansion of rights,

there are always those who feel threatened by that.

And so there is almost an immediate--

It's like, think of a rubber band, right?

You're stretching the rubber band.Yeah.

You're stretching, you're stretching.

And then it snaps back on you, right?Yeah.

But it never is as tight as it was before

when it starts stretching even further.

Yeah.And that's kind of how American history is.

We have these periods of great progress.

We snap back really hard fast,

sometimes extraordinarily violently.

And so the snap back, yes, feels really bizarre.

Yes.But it's essentially the same force

that's in play.The thing that we've seen before?

Right, so they'll have their moment,

and then the expansions continue

until there's a completely different model.

Well, thank you so much for coming here...Thank you!

...to talk to us about it.It's a pleasure.

It's been wonderful.Thank you.

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