Deval Patrick on “America’s Famously Short Attention Span”

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: What do you do to keep minds focused? Because you’re talking about epochal change. This isn’t just about playing around at the edges, this is about a whole new era, a whole new great society, a whole new, I don’t know, basis for America. It’s about changing America. Do you really think that elected leaders and the people have the stomach to gut this out to the end?

FMR. GOV. DEVAL PATRICK (D-MA): I think — first of all, almost every time I hear Mary Berry speak, it sends a shiver of just pride and respect for her insights. And I think one of the things she thinks about and I do as well is our famously short attention span in the United States. I think, frankly, that’s something that our current president understands better than most, and he continues to dangle the next shiny outrage out there which we all then turn to. But it’s a phenomenon in this country that every once in a while, America reinvents herself. She reexamines what being an American means, what this notion of freedom made possible by equality, opportunity and fair play demands of us, not just in government, but also of business, of civil society of individual citizens. That’s what we have to be about right now. That is what I want the Democratic Party to be about, and that’s what I want our nominee and the campaign, and more to the point, the administration going forward to be about. Sometimes that’s going to be a complete redo of it (ph), and sometimes that’s going to be some important reforms of systems. But all of these issues, the pandemic, the excessive use of force by police, the jobs issues, they are all connected and they must be addressed comprehensively if we want America to be true to what we say we believe.