James Lankford Explains How Lawmakers Have A Responsibility To Ease Divisions In The United States

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Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) spoke at a Congressional forum on Wednesday about the division in the United States.

Transcript

00:00Okay, you got one more?

00:01I've got one more.

00:03And for those of you in the room that don't know, you have a new book out.

00:07Turnaround, America's Revival, has been widely praised by notable figures like former Secretary

00:13of State Mike Pompeo, former Congressman Trey Gowdy, for its thoughtful reflection, humor,

00:18and inspiration.

00:19In it, though, you address the divisiveness our country is experiencing.

00:24What responsibilities do elected officials have to ease the division in our state and

00:29country?

00:30We do have responsibility on that.

00:32Thanks.

00:32I don't want to put that question on the net, so thank you for that.

00:35The book I put out actually came out two weeks ago, and it is called Turnaround, America's

00:39Revival.

00:39It's something I've been writing for three years.

00:42It's not recent.

00:43This is, as you can imagine, my time is pretty limited on things.

00:46It's been on the plane.

00:47It's been weekends when I've been home, and I would say to my wife, I'd go into a study

00:51in our house, and I'd say, going into the coal mine, I'll come out of the coal mine when

00:56this chapter's done, and just keep working on it, and just keep chipping away on it.

01:00And then it's just come out.

01:03It's really two things that are here.

01:05One is, it's a challenge to us as Americans to say, stop voting for people and think they're

01:10going to do it.

01:11And I don't mean just follow their word.

01:13I mean, do everything.

01:14I have so many people that I've talked to who say, I elected that person, they're going

01:17to take care of it, and I don't have to do anything.

01:19It's like, that's not America.

01:20We all are engaged in our church, in nonprofits, in local communities, volunteering at our schools.

01:26The reason America's been so strong historically is because every American has an opportunity

01:30to be able to serve their fellow Americans in practical ways, and we do it.

01:34At the moment we sit down and say, I elected those people, they'll do it.

01:39Mike Neal, he'll take care of all that.

01:41At the moment we do that, then we begin to get weaker, and we wonder what just happens.

01:47It's because we, the people, sat down.

01:52And so a big part of my encouragement is, find an area that God is giving you a passion

01:57for, and go volunteer.

01:59Go get engaged.

02:00Go participate in that.

02:02Go find that.

02:02And I give a lot of Oklahoma illustrations, including some from Tulsa area, to be able to

02:06talk about here are things that I've seen in the past on it.

02:09One of them is from Sperry.

02:11I'll let you just read the book sometime to be able to read that story.

02:13One of them is the Big Ten Ballroom that's in North Tulsa, but I've got multiple different

02:18illustrations.

02:19I would say, here's where people actually engaged.

02:21They saw something and they wanted to be able to get engaged.

02:24So I tell some of the stories from American history and from us currently, by the way,

02:29because I think we have the opportunity as a state to be able to set the example for

02:33the rest of the country.

02:34The second part of the book really focuses in on what I would say is the theme of, you

02:39know they can't hear you when you yell at the TV, right?

02:43We have become a nation that our signature emotion is anger.

02:49I've yet to meet somebody that can tell me they make their best decisions when they're

02:55angry.

02:57We don't.

02:59But we're becoming a nation that every day we want to be angrier than we were yesterday.

03:04And there's plenty to be angry about.

03:06I get that.

03:07But just riling up our anger doesn't solve the problem.

03:09We talk a lot in our staff about there's a right thing to do and a right way to do it.

03:16We have to do both of those.

03:17We talk a lot as a staff to say, if there's a fire, pour water on it, not gasoline.

03:24But right now you get social media clicks and you get praise and you end up in the 24-hour

03:28news at night if you are the loudest, angriest person in the room.

03:32That may help them get social media clicks.

03:35It doesn't help us as a country.

03:37We don't need that right now.

03:39We need to solve our problems.

03:41And that involves bringing the dialogue up and the volume down and trying to be able to

03:46figure out how to be able to resolve this.

03:47So I do, I'm quite frankly pretty blunt with us to say what can we do to actually start

03:53to be able to work this out.

03:54And I lay up some very practical ideas on that personally.

03:58For me, and it's funny because I made a joke about some of the protesters that are out

04:04front, I don't mind sitting down with people I disagree with.

04:07I just don't.

04:08If they want to work towards a solution, okay, you're my fellow American, you're my

04:12fellow Oklahoma, you're a neighbor.

04:13You see a problem, I see a problem.

04:15I want to be able to hear you out.

04:17Let's figure out how we actually resolve this.

04:19But when it's just all about how loud can we yell at each other, we still don't have time

04:22for that.

04:22I've got a lot of other things I can do.

04:25I don't have time to have people yell at me.

04:26Plus, no one's ever convinced me by coming and yelling and cursing in my face.

04:31No one's ever moved me.

04:32I've never once said, you know what, you're so smart, I should think like you.

04:35I've just never said that to someone screaming and yelling in my face.

04:39So I don't find that helpful for me to be able to do that to someone else because I

04:42assume that they're the same like I am on that to be able to do it.

04:45So for me, and as funny as it sounds, I had a book released at a think tank in

04:51Washington D.C. called AEI, and at that book release, we literally had protesters that

04:56showed up in the crowd to be able to scream and curse at me in the crowd.

04:59And I had to say to the organizer of the panel, I was like, I promise I didn't hate these

05:03people.

05:03But this is exactly what I'm talking about is the problem right now.

05:07We're all so angry that we won't actually sit down and be able to work stuff out.

05:13We, the people, have to sit down and resolve the hard problems.

05:18And I think we can.

05:19We're Americans.

05:20We're known for solving the hard things.

05:22Lots of other countries around the world, and I've listed some of those out, that they

05:26see a problem and go, it's just always going to be that way.

05:28We, as Americans, say there's a problem, we should fix that.

05:31So I say to us, let's set the example as Oklahomans.

05:36We see the problem.

05:38If the country is growing out of control in our anger, then why don't we set the example

05:44for the rest of the country?

05:45Why don't we sit down with people we disagree with?

05:48Instead of saying them and us, why don't we actually start working that out?

05:53I don't think that's too radical of a concept.

05:56That's what we have done in the past.

05:57That's what we should do again.

06:01Anyway, thank you.

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