It has been nearly one month since Donald Trump was grazed in the ear by a bullet in an assassination attempt at his Butler, Pennsylvania, campaign rally. It was a moment that, however briefly, caused a pause in the vitriol and polarization that has become commonplace in American politics.
For Neil Gorsuch, associate justice of the Supreme Court, it was also a moment that illustrated just how important it is for Americans to understand how the U.S. government works. On Tuesday’s show, he joined Megyn to discuss his new book Over Ruled and what he thought after learning about the attempt on Trump’s life.
Civility and Civics
Justice Gorsuch was nominated to the Supreme Court by then-President Trump in January 2017 to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia. He was confirmed by the Senate that April. He told Megyn he joins “all Americans” in being “deeply concerned with the state of our public discourse” – especially in the wake of the violence against Trump. “We all need to learn how to do better,” Justice Gorsuch said.
That can begin, he said, with a return to basics in the classroom. “I think one of the things that can kind of help us get there is maybe just learning a little civics again,” he shared. “We need to learn civility all over, but we also need to learn how our government works and how we can make change through it.”
Megyn noted that studies show some 50 percent of Americans cannot name a single member of the Supreme Court, and Justice Gorsuch said the problem goes far deeper than that. “They are not teaching civics anymore in our schools. There are only six states that have a full-year civics curriculum in high school,” he explained. ” We have college students who can’t name the three branches of government and 60 percent of Americans apparently would fail the citizenship exam… And that exam is not difficult.”
The ‘Gift’ of U.S. Government
In the justice’s view, those who better understand the U.S. system of government can better appreciate the “gift” that it is. “Daniel Webster called what happened to this country a ‘miracle’ and that it took 6,000 years of human history for people to be able to come together and say the people, through a democracy, can rule themselves and do so wisely and peacefully together,” he explained. “He said ‘miracles do not cluster’ and don’t expect what happens here to happen again or easily.”
That sense of gratitude and awe may largely be lost today, but Justice Gorsuch believes it must be instilled once again. “I just think sometimes we take for granted what we’ve been given and we don’t understand it well enough,” he concluded. “I do think if you could get some of that back, it would help us move forward.”
You can check out Megyn’s full interview with Justice Gorsuch by tuning in to episode 856 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s Triumph (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.