How Tiny Acts Rewrite History
with Sharon Mcmahon
APPLE PODCASTS | SPOTIFY | YOUTUBE
Ever thought about how a single person can change the course of history? Sharon McMahon, a teacher who shifted gears to become a leader in nonpartisan political education, dives deep into this question. She brings to the table a conversation that's not just about politics and history, but about how we can all make a real difference.
Subscribe on Patreon for just $2
Unlock early access to shows and exclusive merch with our Patreon. Become a Humanity Archiver today.
Sharon’s insights serve as a beacon for those looking to make a tangible impact in today’s politically charged atmosphere. Here’s what we cover:
Why Libraries Matter More Than Ever
Fostering Curiosity: Sharon emphasizes the magic of libraries. They're not just buildings with books; they're launchpads for curiosity and learning.
Building Connections: It's in libraries where we connect dots, from past events to current issues, shaping informed citizens.
Making History and Government Engaging
Lessons from Current Events: Sharon shares her secret sauce – using today's news to make government and history lessons come alive.
Beyond the Classroom: She stresses the importance of learning outside the traditional setting, encouraging a hands-on approach to understanding politics.
The Challenge of Extremism and Online Negativity
Critical Thinking as a Shield: Facing the tide of online extremism and negativity, Sharon underlines the need for critical thinking and open dialogue.
Action Over Echo Chambers: It's easy to get trapped in an online bubble. Sharon pushes for real-world activism that leads to tangible change.
Everyone Can Make an Impact
Unique Contributions: Sharon believes that activism isn't one-size-fits-all. Everyone has something unique to offer, and every small action counts.
The Power of Philanthropy: Through stories of giving back, she illustrates how philanthropy can transform lives.
A Look Back to Move Forward
Learning from the 1970s: Sharon touches on historical milestones like the Pentagon Papers and leaders like Nixon and Lincoln, drawing lessons that resonate today.
The Complexity of History: Recognizing the flaws and achievements of past leaders helps us navigate the present and shape a better future.
Takeaways for Aspiring Change-Makers
Libraries are key to sparking curiosity and making meaningful connections.
Engaging with current events can bring history and government lessons to life.
Facing online extremism with critical thinking and constructive dialogue is crucial.
True activism requires stepping out of online discussions into real-world action.
Political engagement doesn't have a set formula – everyone's contribution matters.
Small acts of kindness can lead to significant societal change.
Understanding history in all its complexity is vital for informed citizenship and political engagement.
Sharon McMahon's insights remind us that rewriting history isn't about changing the past. It's about understanding our role in the present and taking action that shapes the future. Whether through education, dialogue, or philanthropy, we all have the power to make a difference. Let's start today.
-
Jermaine (00:01)
I am here now with the great Sharon McMahon. I'm so glad to have you on the Humanity Archive podcast. Welcome, welcome, welcome to the show, Sharon.
Sharon McMahon (00:12)
It's my pleasure. So happy to be here today. Thanks for inviting me.
Jermaine (00:16)
Yeah, no problem. I really appreciate you. I appreciate your content. I've been a huge fan of your work for a long time and the way that you frame your content around this kind of non nonpartisan government and forming of the public and engaging of the public in such a way where people can come together and actually have a dialogue and That really resonated with me because I kind of see myself in that right the content that I put out. I really
No matter what I'm talking about, my end goal is to always connect to the humanity of whoever it is out there. So you've kind of had this fascinating and amazing rise in your career. You have this transition where you went from teaching at one point, I think you're kind of posting family photos and inspirational quotes on your Instagram. And then you kind of have this viral success. And it turns into this huge brand as America's government teacher. When the awards for your podcast, you have this.
Sharon McMahon (00:49)
Mm-hmm.
Jermaine (01:14)
great philanthropy, which I want to get into later. And I just kind of want to know what was that like for you? What were the moments of self doubt or fear? Like how did you navigate from your career as a teacher to where you are now?
Sharon McMahon (01:28)
Well, thanks. Thanks for that. I appreciate that. And I just want to say that I really appreciate your content too. I mean, we met on Instagram because I, I don't even remember who found whom first, but I have appreciated your content for a long time as well. And I really love seeing what you have to post. And I regularly learn things from you and I direct people to your account all the time. And I just really love the work that you're doing. So kudos to you.
And by the way, I don't know if the general public is aware of exactly how much work goes into producing content like the type you make, but it is extremely labor intensive. People just think like, oh yeah, it's like a picture and a paragraph. The hell it is. You know what I mean? Like it is extremely labor intensive to produce quality content, which is why most people are posting about, you know, celebrity fashion.
Jermaine (01:58)
Thank you.
Sharon McMahon (02:27)
or you know just gotcha journalism. It is extremely labor-intensive so I want to tell you that I see how much work you put into your content and I want other people to know that it is extraordinarily labor-intensive. The vast majority of which is unpaid. You're creating a tremendous amount of free value for the general public and I see it and I know exactly how much work it is so I appreciate you.
Jermaine (02:28)
Absolutely.
Sharon McMahon (02:57)
that you're doing and I know I benefit from it. I'm better for it and I know others are too. So kudos to you. In terms of, yeah, oh, it's truly, I mean it sincerely, it's a lot of work. And this podcast is a lot of work. It's a lot of work to interview people and it's a lot of work to produce the narrative episodes that you produce. It's a lot of work to write a book. Like all of this is a tremendous amount of labor that the average person has no idea how much work goes into it.
Jermaine (03:04)
Yeah, thank you.
Yeah, it's a labor of love though, isn't it? I mean, if I didn't love what I do, it'd be very difficult to put the hours in, behind the scenes, I think that people only see the surface, they only see what you put out, they don't see the hours. That goes into it, they don't see, as we were talking about before with my book, I wrote 400 and some odd page book in 10 months. I mean, I've got just books all around me, I've got hours put in, and I definitely...
Sharon McMahon (03:30)
Mm-hmm.
Jermaine (03:55)
love talking to someone like you who knows what that's like, who appreciates that, not only putting out the content, but then trying to engage and make connections with your audience, with your fans, trying to engage in true, real dialogue with people and make an impact. So, you know, that's what I'm about. It's not about the value and money for me or anything like that. It's about value and connections and a legacy of informing people and giving people wisdom and knowledge that can enrich their lives. And hopefully...
Sharon McMahon (04:08)
Mm.
Jermaine (04:23)
you know, transform the world in some way.
Sharon McMahon (04:26)
I love that. I love that. I know we've spoken before about our shared love of libraries. And I know that I would I would not be who I was today had I not had free access to the public library that was near my house had my parents not been like, yeah, go hang out at the library, please do. You know, my parents were not the we didn't have money when I was growing up. My dad was my mom stayed home and my dad was a, you know, worked in the trade.
and there were times when my parents were on public assistance and we loved to read at my house but they didn't have money to take me to Barnes and Noble and buy ten books a week but I could definitely walk to the library and check out as many as I could carry home or some when I got older I would take the bus to the bigger main public library and spend all afternoon there and come home with a backpack that I could barely you know like the bus stop with several
like, you know, almost, I basically need like a small handcart to pull behind me, you know, to like, carry all the books home, like, oh, I know, it's gonna be a slog to get up the hill to my house. And I know that the public library was really, really instrumental and transformative in your life, too. So the groundwork for I think both what we both do is free access to the public library.
Jermaine (05:32)
Hehehehe
Yeah, it's a beautiful thing. I mean, how do you think that the library or what connections can you make? I mean, I would think that the curiosity of going after information, fact finding that has to have some kind of connection to those days where young Sharon was dragging that card around full of books, right? So how do you think that connects to what you do now?
Sharon McMahon (06:03)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
And I love the that you brought up curiosity because that's what the library lets you have. When you go to buy books, when your money is on the line, you have to be a lot more sure of your purchase, right? You have to think I definitely want to read this. Or even if you're being, you know, even if it's wishful thinking, you think you want to aspire to be the person who would read this book. You want to be the person that has it on your shelf or the coffee table.
there is much more ability to just follow a whim.
and to go down a rabbit hole that you didn't even realize you were interested in because it's free to take the books home. And then when you go home, I did this so many times I can't even count. I would flip through the books and find the sections that interested me and I would read those sections. But I never felt the pressure to, I must read every single word of this book because I have to get the value for my money. If the book ultimately only had a few pages or a few pictures that was interesting to
Jermaine (06:58)
Yes.
Sharon McMahon (07:21)
found that to be valuable and all of that created this repository, this storehouse of knowledge that builds on each other that begins when you are young and you are you know your brain is still very malleable and you learn how to make these kinds of connections of like oh
I remember that from this other thing that I was reading. I can't tell you how many tangents I went on at the public library. It ranged from like, yeah, exactly. Ranged from like, oh, you know what? Wilderness first aid. That is, how do you, like if you get pinned under a boulder, how do you live through that? You know, like am I going to go buy a book on wilderness first aid when I'm 11? No.
Jermaine (07:51)
Yeah, that's the funnest part.
Sharon McMahon (08:11)
that was like even remotely interesting. And I remember checking out all these books on first aid. Why that was a topic for me. I don't know. I don't work in any kind of medical field. I could tell you how to apply a tourniquet though. If your arms if your arms trapped under a boulder, you know, the list of topics that I just went on random tangents of. I'm not even necessarily using all of
Jermaine (08:27)
Yeah!
Ha ha ha.
Sharon McMahon (08:41)
for inquiry and connections and being able to see like what you do being able to see how all of humanity is linked throughout time and space in these really interesting ways and uncovering those connections between people and history that ended up being one of the topics that I found the most interesting. Did you know that this person knew that person?
Jermaine (08:52)
LinkedIn Connected, yes.
Sharon McMahon (09:12)
You know, like don't you love those kinds of connections where you're like this person knew that person in history because that's not how it's often presented in history books.
Jermaine (09:18)
Yeah.
It's kind of like the real life Easter eggs, right? When you're watching them and you're kind of like looking in like, oh my God, that connection there, right? So there's so many stories like that, or things that overlap. And like you said, it's really is about finding connections. And you know, when you go in a library, it's kind of like you're a detective, you're searching, you're seeking, there's a fun to it. And it's curiosity fuel the library. It was kind of like, you know, I just turned 40, but I mean, so the.
Internet wasn't so much of a thing, it was kind of coming into play, but not like it is now. So it was almost like getting dropped into the internet except everything's organized, right? And so you could, like you said, go down those rabbit holes, you can get lost in the aisles, you could learn anything you want. And that's very inspiring. I know that's definitely influenced my work as far as, and I've thought about this and the foundation of it all is curiosity, right? It's not what you know, but what you're willing to learn. And even...
Sharon McMahon (09:57)
Mm-hmm.
Jermaine (10:17)
to have that humility to want to learn more, to say that I don't know as much as I think I know so I can always go seeking and finding knowledge. And I think that applies to any field, right? Whether you wanna learn about how to put a tourniquet on or whether you're trying to learn about the government and how it operates and what you can do to try to affect change in the world. And so definitely for you, I'm very interested to know again,
Sharon McMahon (10:20)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm.
Jermaine (10:48)
you know, where did this interest in government come from? And, you know, this transition for you in terms of, you know, out of that teaching career, you know, into this more public landscape, you know, where you have all these followers and, you know, what that responsibility feels like, you know, what, you know, are your feelings of, any feelings of self doubt? Are you just super confident getting on there? Because one thing I like about your content is that you're very vulnerable, right? You're on there.
Sharon McMahon (10:50)
Mm-hmm.
Mm.
Jermaine (11:15)
putting on your makeup, you're just kind of kicking it with the people, right? And I think that's what really resonates with people from your content, right? They feel like they're just in the living room with you, just having a conversation with one of their friends. And I think that's how you've been able to build this very robust community of governors, as you call them. So, you know, just tell me about that transition and what that felt like for you. Was it overwhelming? Did you ever have any, you know, imposter syndrome or, you know, what has that been like?
Sharon McMahon (11:23)
Mm.
Mm.
Mm. Mm-hmm.
Well, my interest in government really started when I was about 12. And again, I mentioned that my parents were not well off. And so I got a paper route. And I wanted to make my own money. And at the time, like, my local newspaper would pay a 12 year old to do that. And I made $72 a month, which is a lot still a lot of money for a 12 year old. You know, like, do you give your 12 year old a $72 a month allowance?
Jermaine (12:09)
Yeah.
Sharon McMahon (12:13)
But I worked for it. You know what I mean? I got up at five o'clock in the cold Minnesota freezing winter and walked a couple miles delivering newspapers. Well, this was before phones and there's literally nothing else to do except surreptitiously read the newspaper. So I would, you know, like you couldn't let the people that you were delivering the paper to know that you had read their paper. You had to like carefully refold it and, you know, and get it ready to be put in their front door.
Jermaine (12:37)
Mm-hmm.
Sharon McMahon (12:43)
So I started just reading the newspaper and that you know local events current events things like that started becoming interesting to me when I Got to be a teenager. I did a ton of babysitting and I saved my babysitting money to buy a subscription to Newsweek magazine and Again, it was just interesting to me current events became very interesting to me And we started getting Newsweek in the mail and my mom was like what the heck is Newsweek?
Why would
So I continued getting Newsweek for a long time and I you know sent in the little card changing my address when I would move to a new place in college and I remember when I finally graduated from college and got a job I was making $26,000 as a teacher
But somehow I found it in my budget to start paying for a subscription to two magazines, two periodicals that I had loved for a long time but were very expensive. So I would check them out of the library but you can only check out past issues, you can't check out the current issues. So I always coveted The Economist and Foreign Affairs or Foreign Policy magazine. Like those are those were like, oh but it's like $72. You know like it was so much money.
Jermaine (14:23)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, not cheap.
Sharon McMahon (14:36)
So when I finally graduated from college I started getting you know even more magazines delivered to my house Because I was interested in these topics and then when I started teaching I My very first teaching job where I was making $26,000 a year was with in a program for students who had chronic
truancy and delinquency issues. They were children who were involved with the criminal justice system. And most teachers would not, you know, like that's a job that you like try to get out of as quickly as possible. That ended up being a student population that I loved working with. Students who had struggled in school.
Jermaine (15:13)
Yes.
Sharon McMahon (15:25)
for whatever reason. There's a huge variety of reasons why students have trouble coming to school, have trouble with law enforcement and have trouble succeeding in school.
There's a big variety of reasons. But one thing that I found was highly effective at connecting with students who had traditionally had very poor experiences with the educational system was current events. They loved talking about current events. If you could show them a news clip or even bring up on the overhead projector a slide of the front page of the newspaper or you know I later subscribed to the newspaper and
and be like, front page of the paper is a story about Bob. Why would Bob be on the front page? And being able to connect what we were seeing today with things that had happened in the past with, you know, like why is this a story today? Well, here's why. Because in the past this thing happened and this is why it matters now.
That ended up being that and a few other things, but that is one of the ways that I found
that I could get students to connect to the material rather than it just being a boring recitation of like the colonial period was 1750. You know, like that's boring. Don't make me memorize the dates of the colonial period. I'm not interested in that. If you, if I'm a 16 year old student with law enforcement breathing down my neck to come to school, you know what I mean? Um, but
Jermaine (16:44)
Yeah.
Not at all.
Sharon McMahon (17:02)
If we can make it about something that is actually happening in the world that might impact their life, then it's a different story. So that just became sort of the foundation of my teaching career. I went on to teach in the DC area. I taught with I taught I co-taught with a special educator. I ended up working a lot with students who had who received special education services and they were integrated into a general education classroom. But.
that was that they are often students who also have poor experiences with education. They don't feel successful. They don't feel like they can get good grades. They don't feel as often. I'm not saying this is 100% true, but they often have trouble feeling as successful as their peers. But this
entrance this entry point into talking about history and government has always been very successful for me. So it turns out that adult humans are exactly the same. It turns out that adult humans are the same as adolescent humans when it comes to learning about topics that they have traditionally found boring. Go ahead.
Jermaine (18:05)
So you.
most of us don't know anything either about the government. I think I'd read a Pew Research survey. I mean, you see these surveys come out and it's like 80% of the US population doesn't, they know nothing about their governments, right? So I think that, I don't think that it's people don't wanna know about their government, but it's that they weren't taught in a way that is engaging or that was successful for them. I think, and it is very interesting to kind of see your trajectory, right?
Sharon McMahon (18:29)
Yeah.
No.
Jermaine (18:43)
You know, when you were talking about being a kid and getting these newsweeks, I'm thinking of like an 11 year old Sharon, you know, is this outlier, like, you know, other kids are playing sports or whatever they're doing. And you're kind of sitting reading about the government and then that kind of escalates. And then you're getting the economist and foreign affairs magazines as you're, you know, going into college and then you become a government teacher. And I can really connect the dots in your content and the way that you present yourself in terms of just having this.
Sharon McMahon (18:50)
Mm-hmm. Uh-huh.
Jermaine (19:11)
kind of profound empathy, right? Which it seems to me started very young and then kind of transitioned into you're working with these kids who a lot of people had given up on, right? And when I see you online and the way that you engage with the public, you get into some heated topics, right? And you're still empathetic with people. You're still trying to cultivate a dialogue to where, even if people are on polar opposites, right? Black and white, you know, this or that.
Sharon McMahon (19:21)
Mm-hmm.
Mm.
Jermaine (19:39)
You're trying to bring people together and get them to see that we have something. And if we can only find one thing in common, we can start there, right? And we might not agree on everything, but we can still come together and have a dialogue because that is what democracy is about and that is what America is supposed to be about. And if somebody doesn't choose these higher ideas, who will? Because there's already so many people in the echo chambers on either side who are garnering so many people.
Sharon McMahon (19:44)
Mm-hmm.
Jermaine (20:05)
to the extremes, but I feel like though there's more people that are within the extremes, then those louder voices would have you believe because those are the ones who get the most attention. So, I mean, how has that been for you to kind of be this voice of reason amongst the chaos? I mean, you've been doing this, especially for a while when the voices were super loud, like back in 2020, just so much extremism online, especially the kind of Twitter energy.
Sharon McMahon (20:29)
Mm-hmm.
Jermaine (20:35)
of things and I mean how has that been for you kind of staying grounded in your ethos, you know, which is to bring people together.
Sharon McMahon (20:39)
Mm.
You know, it is a skill that I cultivated from years in the classroom. Most good teachers would rather have students who are able to think critically, but who arrive at a different conclusion than the teacher themselves has arrived at. That is a skill that teachers value and they would much rather have you write a compelling essay with a thesis that they ultimately disagree with, but that is well proven.
regurgitating, parroting some stuff they found on Wikipedia. You know what I mean? Like that's actually that's not interesting. So in order to create that type of critical thinking in a student group, you have to have differing opinions.
You can't think critically if everybody's like, yeah, I agree. I agree with that. That's not critical thinking. In order to be able to critically think about anything, you have to consider other viewpoints. And most Americans today would say, yeah, nobody critically thinks anymore, but most people are unwilling to look in the mirror when it comes to that topic. They're very willing to surround themselves with information they already agree with, and they're too often want their children
Jermaine (21:37)
Exactly.
Mm-hmm.
Sharon McMahon (22:03)
information they agree with and thus the children do not learn to think critically they only learn to parrot a list of pre-prescribed thoughts and beliefs that say what the parents or the school or whatever wants them to hear. So it's a skill that I think is so important to be able to hold space for diverging viewpoints because ultimately that is more valuable to me.
Jermaine (22:04)
Mm-hmm.
guess.
Sharon McMahon (22:31)
than getting somebody to be like, yeah, Sharon, I agree with that.
I would much rather have an honest conversation where you have a different opinion than I do because guess what? I can learn something from that. Even if we disagree, I can learn from that disagreement. I'm not learning anything by you being like, yeah, that's right. Okay, great. You know what I mean? If I bring you to my way of thinking, that's fine. But ultimately I feel like I am made better. That sort of mentality of like iron sharpens iron.
Jermaine (22:35)
Yeah.
Absolutely.
Sharon McMahon (23:05)
dialogue about diverging viewpoints, that's far more interesting to me intellectually than just people all echoing the same, you know, the same five talking points. So doing it online is
in some ways very similar to doing it in a classroom but it's also somewhat different in that in a classroom you have the chance to create a classroom community and a classroom culture. As the adults in the room you're in charge of what happens in the classroom. You tell the students what's acceptable and what's not. You enforce the consequences if things are getting out of hand. A classroom is very
Jermaine (23:27)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Sharon McMahon (23:51)
You are 15, sir, and I'm in charge and you are not, right? And that's actually how it's supposed to be. Somebody needs to be in charge and it should not be the 15 year olds. That is not the case with adults in the wild west of Beyonce's internet. That is not how that works. And, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. And sometimes...
Jermaine (23:52)
Yes.
Mm-hmm. Need that structure.
Yeah, gunslinging opinions.
Sharon McMahon (24:16)
I do get the opportunity to really think about things from a new perspective of like, oh, you know what? I had not thought of that. And one of the reasons that I value that so much is because there are people in my community from such a huge variety of different backgrounds. We're talking about like members of Congress all the way to people who work in, you know, who are preschool teachers.
you know people who are like I'm a dentist or I am an attorney for you know Raytheon but they're just the breadth of experience of people that I would probably never have access to otherwise uh that is super interesting to me and so I absolutely love having a community that has such a wide range of people
But it also does open you up to not just criticism. I think everybody who's on the public facing on the internet knows that criticism will occur. But it opens you up to literal danger, threats. Yeah.
Jermaine (25:16)
Yeah. How do you deal with that? Because yeah, there's people that don't agree, politics, I mean, there's wars that people feel so strongly about. There's issues that are affecting people's lives in very powerful ways. And, you know, things that they say don't talk about at the holiday get together because you might end up in a fist fight with your great uncle, right? Because like these things are, I mean, these are our lives at stake. You're talking about things that affect us every day. So like how...
Sharon McMahon (25:38)
Mm-hmm.
Jermaine (25:44)
How do you deal with like the most negative, right? Because that can be hard, right? Sometimes there's times I don't even wanna deal with the comments section. I mean, I like, cause I'm never gonna retreat from because I feel like it's important for me to engage with people to a certain degree, not to where it's gonna take me out of my mission or the integrity of what I'm trying to do. But it could be easy to get lost down that rabbit hole of negativity. So have you faced that at all? And how do you deal with that?
Sharon McMahon (25:46)
Mm.
Oh yeah. Yeah, well, it's like I, you know, I like to bring this up that arguing online is not activism.
That's not what real activism is. I'm not saying no activism can exist online. I'm saying arguing in the comments is not activism. I am not gonna be 99 on my deathbed being like, dang, I wish I had argued with more strangers on the internet. That's not gonna be my life regret, right? So I try not to get into giant arguments with strangers in the comments section on the internet. But when you're talking about legitimate
Jermaine (26:31)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Sharon McMahon (26:53)
threats like last week somebody said to me when are you when is your death so your children can be left orphans and then in the they sent me a DM saying that they hope I have my throat slit
So we're not where it goes. It goes way beyond just, you know, like you're stupid and ugly. It goes way beyond that into like wishing for somebody's death or telling them that they should kill themselves. That is a that see that doesn't happen in your well-ordered classroom. You don't have 16 year olds saying that to you. Right. So there that is when it gets to be really, really challenging.
Jermaine (27:08)
Wow.
No, not face to face.
Sharon McMahon (27:38)
And sometimes you absolutely like the internet does feel vulnerable. It does because you don't know who's watching.
And you don't know, you know, like in a classroom, you do know those kids. You can get to know them. You can look up and see like, where does this person live? Who are their parents? But you, Oh, I had him last year. You can ask your friend, your teaching colleagues, do you have any ideas about Jermaine? I'm not sure what's going on with him. He hasn't been here in a while. But there are ways that you can address situations, but on the internet, you don't even know who these people are.
Jermaine (27:51)
Mm-hmm.
Sharon McMahon (28:15)
And so it does feel vulnerable sometimes. And that can be very discouraging for people to do this kind of work because the vulnerability feels like it takes such a toll sometimes.
Jermaine (28:18)
Yeah.
Sharon McMahon (28:35)
And also, you know, I know we've talked about this before, the hate content that is produced on these extreme ends of the political spectrum, the super far right leaning hate content that is full of conspiracy theories and absolutely wackadoodle ideas and the far left hate content that wants to police every word out of your mouth and tell you that you didn't say it right or you're not talking about X enough.
Jermaine (29:02)
Mm-hmm.
Sharon McMahon (29:05)
they're going to these people who have like Instagram accounts about how to bake cookies and telling them that they need to be talking about bald eagles more or you know whatever like things that are like what are you even like this is not my content I make cookies you know what I mean like the thought policing on the far left and the conspiracy theories on the far right
Jermaine (29:15)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Sharon McMahon (29:29)
That pays. It pays so much money, Germaine. It is very discouraging how much money they can make. Like I'm talking tens of millions of dollars. I'm not even talking about like a little 1k brand deal. No, no. I'm talking about tens of millions of dollars some of the people in these spaces make. And it can be very discouraging.
Jermaine (29:33)
It does.
And they don't even believe half of them what they, you know, some of them switched from the left to the right or from the right to the left just to get into, I mean, so no, you only see what they put in front of you, right, but a lot of these people are just making money, they're churning out money to really tap into people's most basest emotions, right? And get them, I mean, yeah, that's, it's, I mean, hundreds of millions of dollars are being made versus conversations like this versus pages like yours versus.
Sharon McMahon (29:55)
Mm-hmm.
Totally. Yes.
Mm-hmm.
Jermaine (30:19)
And I have very strong opinions on my page about certain things. Uh, and I tend to share a more critical history because I feel that we've gotten a very monumental history of gotten the statues we've gotten the presidential libraries, but I'm still always trying to be accessible and leave room for dialogue, never shutting anybody out. Um, who's willing to have a dialogue. But I think that's, you know, that's rare when you're talking about political things or things to do with history or the connect to the present.
Sharon McMahon (30:27)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Jermaine (30:49)
You know, as you said, if you're talking about cookies or something or, you know, you're kind of, you know, you talked about vulnerability and I was thinking like there's some guru out there who would be like, vulnerability is your strength, right? If you're one of those people who are speaking in generalities, you're not really going to have to so much, you know, think about that. But when you're talking about things where politics are involved, that's where, you know, things can definitely, it's a different kind of space to navigate.
Sharon McMahon (30:52)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Jermaine (31:16)
You know, there's responsibility in that with making sure that you're putting out factual information. But, yeah, on the one hand, it's, you know, it'd be easier sometimes just to kind of pick this extreme side and just spew out that information. It requires really no thought. It doesn't require that critical thinking about looking in the mirror and examining of yourself and questioning your beliefs and challenging your own presuppositions and assumptions. And so,
Sharon McMahon (31:32)
Mm-hmm.
Jermaine (31:42)
You know, I don't find a whole lot of examples and I think that's why I resonated so much with your content. Cause there's not a ton of examples on the internet. I mean, there's a lot of writers and things that do it, but on the internet, uh, who have, you know, these followings, you know, I'm not saying that's not the norm, right? It's usually either this side or that side period. Um, I don't know if you've kind of noticed that as you've navigated the online.
Sharon McMahon (31:49)
Mm-hmm. Sure.
Yeah, totally. Oh, yeah, absolutely. And I think that's my community has become kind of unique on the internet because this viewpoint doesn't.
it doesn't pay money in the way that being on the far left or the far right pays money. And I'm not, I'm not, again, I'm not complaining. I'm not, I'm not saying that you can't earn money on, you know, in this space. I'm just saying like, nobody is writing me $20 million check, right? To be like, just say that everybody that there's a deep state and they drink the blood of
Jermaine (32:21)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Sharon McMahon (32:45)
or whatever it is. It's a unique space to be operating in and I do think that it attracts a certain type of person but you know by and large it can be very challenging because we have become accustomed to following people who validate our already held beliefs.
That is
Jermaine (33:07)
Mm-hmm.
Sharon McMahon (33:37)
that makes them that creates a little bad feeling in their brain where they're like what I thought you were better than this do you know what I mean like if you ever if you ever had that experience
Jermaine (33:46)
Yeah, I've got that. Yeah, because I mean, I think people, I'm definitely more of a progressive thinker, but there have been some things that I posted that aren't, they're not in line with this kind of orthodoxy of progressive thought or anything, right? I'm like, because I'm always questioning, I'm always, so there's a little more nuance in my views other than just like, I know Jermaine's gonna say this, like this predictability in, if you're kind of leaning on this farther.
Sharon McMahon (34:03)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Jermaine (34:15)
Left or right, you know platform and mines more nuanced. It's more gray You know, but I think there's been some people definitely I've seen in the comments where people were disappointed Like I can't believe you didn't say it this way or you didn't speak up for this particular thing, right? But I'm like no, I'm ever evolving person. I'm a human I'm learning I'm not gonna agree with everything that you agree with You know, hope you still follow me But you know if not that really speaks to your inability to have a dialogue and hey
Sharon McMahon (34:25)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Jermaine (34:44)
I'm opening up where you don't agree, you can try to change my mind. I want to hear what you have to say, but just to cut somebody off, you know, that's the opposite of the kind of platform that I'm trying to create. You actually said something earlier that kind of stuck in my mind, right? You said that arguing on the internet often gets mistaken for activism. And that's something I really agree with. I think activism, it's about.
Sharon McMahon (34:48)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Jermaine (35:11)
Tangible change it's about getting out there and making a difference in the real world. It's world. It's about organizing and mobilizing and Arguing on the internet. It's usually an echo chamber, right? It's people venting Sometimes they're learning but it lacks that direct Impact, you know getting out in the street the community meetings getting on the front line where real change happens and so I think of course online discourse has its place, but we can't confuse it with the
Sharon McMahon (35:22)
Mm-hmm.
Jermaine (35:41)
kind of hands-on gritty work of true activism, the sweat and the tears. And, you know, that's the real struggle. And I think, you know, something else that I wanted to talk to you about is kind of this, what I would call political hobbyism. You know, people who might donate five bucks, who, you know, get online and argue a little bit and just kind of just very softly engage. How do we get people?
Sharon McMahon (35:42)
Mm-hmm.
Jermaine (36:09)
Or, you know, are you thinking about this as you're trying to engage your audience? Like how do we get people to really engage in this kind of democratic experience, uh, experiment and, you know, really get into a more robust form of, of politics, you know, getting off the sidelines, not just throwing that five bucks out there and kind of, you know, sitting back and watching things from the sidelines, is that something you think about and what, what ways do you think that we can engage people in that way?
Sharon McMahon (36:18)
Mm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely. I think it's important to be politically engaged. But...
I think right now the dominant narrative either is you are into politics and you're an activist and like you said you're going to the meetings and you're doing the organizing and you're going to the marches in the rallies and you're doing the voter signups and you know like all the things you're calling Congress you're doing all these all the things either you're that person or you're not.
Jermaine (37:05)
Mm-hmm.
Sharon McMahon (37:10)
It's one or the other that America tends to be a very black and white country. Maybe you've noticed this, Germaine, like we, it's all or nothing. You're either Democrat or Republican. You're either, you know, you are this or that. And the rest of the world, generally speaking, sees things. Uh, and I, you know, I'm, this is broad over generalization, but there's a lot more room for nuance in other cultures. And there are good things about black and white thinking. It's decisive. It, you know, America has achieved some cool stuff.
Jermaine (37:14)
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
Sharon McMahon (37:40)
in part because of our culture. But I like to encourage people to think about instead of either assuming the identity of I am a political person, I am an activist, thinking like I either need to be myself or I need to be Fannie Lou Hamer.
You know what I mean? Like people think it's one or the other. Either I'm dedicating my whole life to this and I'm speaking at the conventions and I'm doing all the things, or I work in the emergency department. Either I teach preschool, or I am running for Congress. They think it's either one of those things. And there is so, yes.
Jermaine (38:01)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. And that can put way high expectations to where you don't wanna engage. Cause you're like, oh my God, I can never aspire to that. Just let me sit back and kind of kick my feet. You know, I'm never gonna be that. So yeah, so that's discouraging.
Sharon McMahon (38:30)
Right. Yes. I can't be her. Right. Right, it's discouraging if you feel like I can't dedicate my life to doing this. I actually went to college to be a surgeon. And I have important work. I approach this from the perspective of everybody has important work to do.
and we should not allow ourselves to be distracted from our important work.
And some people's important work is being in Congress. And some people's important work is being a teacher. And some people's important work is working at the Social Security Office. And some people's important work is working on the internet. We should not allow ourselves to be distracted from our important work, because all of our labor is needed and necessary to improve society. What good are we if everybody is running for Congress
surgery. That's not a society I want to live in, right? Like we need everybody's skills and everybody's important work. And there is one way that everybody can be involved. And there is not one prescribed way. I can't tell you what your specific way to be involved is, but nobody can do everything, but everyone can do something. And chances are good that you have
Jermaine (39:54)
I love that.
Sharon McMahon (39:58)
And I'm talking specifically to the listener here. Chances are very good that there is a topic that you feel especially passionately about.
that there is something that is just like kind of gnaws at you inside. Maybe it's child hunger, maybe it's education, maybe it's environmental protection, maybe you care deeply about civil discourse, maybe you care really so much about making sure that people have, you know, fair housing, access to job training, whatever it is that you feel especially passionately about.
I firmly believe that those things are given to you for a reason.
that is the topic that you are meant to have an impact on. Because we're not all FDR, right? We're not all mustering the, marshaling the resources of a vast federal government to create like, let's do this and now this and let's fight the Nazis and let's create jobs. Most of us will never ever, ever even aspire to be that person. But if we take whatever it is that we feel especially strongly about, and we
Jermaine (40:50)
Thanks for watching!
Sharon McMahon (41:07)
choose that as the thing that we try to move the needle on. Even just a little bit. That labor is needed and necessary if you care deeply about making sure that kids have breakfast in the morning.
or they're not going home over the weekend hungry. They don't go home to food insecurity. And you try to move the needle on children in your community, not having food insecurity. Nobody should lay their head on the pillow at night being like, well, I didn't do enough. That is actually incredibly important work. That child could then grow up to be somebody who impacts the world in massive, massive ways. But if we don't help them now,
Jermaine (41:39)
Absolutely.
Sharon McMahon (41:52)
be that person. So that's how I tend to think about encouraging people to engage with the world is don't be distracted from your important work and the issues that you care about were given to you for a reason. When you feel strongly about something you are inspired to work on it and don't be discouraged that your small actions don't completely
Jermaine (42:16)
Yeah.
Sharon McMahon (42:22)
wipe out child hunger in a month.
many things require a significant amount of work and struggle to see progress and don't discount the idea that your contribution is not making progress. Sometimes it might take a while to see what your progress is but if we look back on history and we see the cumulative concerted struggle and effort of our ancestors we can now turn back and see like dang look at what they
But guess what? It took tens of thousands of people, decades to achieve that. We need to let go of this idea that it's like one great man or woman who's going to come save us. No, no, that is not how it works. Right? Yes, we can look back and be like, Yes.
Jermaine (42:59)
Yeah.
Absolutely.
That's how history was taught for a long time. The great man theory, this whole theory, the great man theory of history, you know, just this one guy, this one president, this one warrior who rose up from the ranks and, you know, spread the empire, you know, that, and, you know, I think people resonate with that, but it's again what we talked about, about just having such high aspirations. If you reach anything below that, you feel like you're not doing anything at all. And so, yeah, that's not a good way to...
Sharon McMahon (43:21)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Jermaine (43:42)
to look at things, I don't think.
Sharon McMahon (43:44)
No, and then what it does is if we know that like, okay, well, I'm an I'm a nurse.
I'm not the next president. I'm not interested in that. It almost allows us to just sort of check out and not feel like we need to be part of the solution because we're not the great man, in air quotes, or great woman that the world's waiting for. I'm no Martin Luther King. I hate, what if somebody's like, I have such massive social anxiety I could never even introduce myself in a class. I couldn't even say two fun facts in sixth grade.
Jermaine (43:57)
Mm-hmm.
Yes.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Sharon McMahon (44:19)
mean so I can never be that person if we allow ourselves to always wait for somebody else to fix it then we are not contributing to the progress of humanity and we all have an important role to play
Jermaine (44:34)
and you talked about.
You talked about important work and I just kind of wanted to go back to that because I've been amazed by your philanthropy as a part of your platform and you know, you're raising millions of dollars, you're changing so many lives. You know, you talked about being a teacher. My parents are teachers and we know that is a career that is noble and intent, but it's lacking in zeros and so you're helping teachers with these teacher grants and I just want to know, is there a particular story?
Sharon McMahon (45:00)
Mm-hmm.
Jermaine (45:07)
that deeply moved you or maybe even brought you to tears, like, you know, in this philanthropy work that you're doing.
Sharon McMahon (45:13)
Mm, mm.
so many of them. I mean, I moved to tears regularly. And it is really vulnerable to cry on the internet because you know that there are people out there taking screenshots of your sad face and making fun of you behind your back. You know what I mean? You know that's happening. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. But that's what I mean by refusing to be distracted from your important work. If I allowed, you know, myself to just spend all my time worrying about if I'm going to be a
Jermaine (45:28)
Yeah, make a meme out of you like a...
Sharon McMahon (45:44)
So there have been, there was one woman in particular, we've raised over nine million dollars in the last three years for a variety of things, there's one woman in particular who, oh thank you, thank you, one woman who who's co-worker, she had a co-worker who was in her 60s and the co-worker had cancer and had gone through cancer treatment and they worked at Starbucks.
Jermaine (45:55)
Random applause, that's a beautiful thing.
Sharon McMahon (46:11)
This woman was in her 60s working at Starbucks and as a result of her cancer treatment, she had lost most of her teeth. And so wore a mask at work even when it wasn't a requirement to do so to hide the fact that she didn't have teeth. And your insurance is probably not going to pay for that.
We could spend a whole separate podcast talking about the issues with dental coverage in the United States. It's not like it's how the how dentistry became separate from medicine is a very, very interesting topic that we don't have time for today. But chances are good. There is nobody who is able and willing to just pay for that for you. You might be able to get dentures, but they're still expensive. Right. And they may or may not work for your specific situation.
raise money to help this specific woman fix her
smile so that she felt like she could participate normally in society. She felt removed from society. She felt like she couldn't be a normal person at a workplace and also she felt like she couldn't retire. She was in her 60s working at Starbucks because she didn't have the resources to even fix her you know her own dental issues. So that's the type of thing that like the woman being able to
Jermaine (47:40)
Yeah.
Sharon McMahon (47:46)
that is life-changing for somebody. It's way more than just I paid this bill which can really change somebody's life of course but
We all know how important being able to interact with another person, look in somebody's eyes, smile at them, speak normally, how important that is, that human connection. It's so important for us and we don't, I don't even think any of us unless we've been through the situation can understand what it meant to this person to be able to have that issue that nobody else was going to address
woman who nominated her co worker for help. And this, you know, this woman was such a everybody loved working with her. She was kind of this grandmotherly figure. And the Starbucks employees didn't have enough money to pay for this situation. Because it's a lot of money. But collectively, a million people do.
Jermaine (48:41)
Yeah, they don't make a lot.
Sharon McMahon (48:48)
Right? And so that is the that's the that's the beauty of doing things doing the kind of work that I do is you can give $5 to something that you then feel directly improve somebody's life and you can see the type of collective impact that together we can have. And I don't want people to just think about that monetarily, although that is important, but that collectively that's also the type of change we can make when it comes to government.
Jermaine (48:49)
Yeah.
Sharon McMahon (49:19)
you know, societal progress, that your small your $5 can help this woman, but also your small amounts of activism in your community, all of our all of our efforts aggregated do make a big difference. And it's a it's a very tangible illustration of that.
Jermaine (49:36)
Absolutely.
Yeah, I
Enough, but sometimes, I mean, it speaks to your point that is enough, right? If other people collectively are doing that, that can turn into a whole lot of money that can help a whole lot of people or help a few people in a very major way. And I appreciate that about you and what you've been able to do. But I do want to switch gears just a little bit because I would be mad at myself if I let you leave here and didn't talk about at least a little bit of history because you are a fellow history lover and you have this amazing docu-series.
Sharon McMahon (50:13)
That's right.
Mm-hmm.
Jermaine (50:36)
on your podcast, I've listened to some of your mayhem, the 1970s, you never knew series. And you know, you got this backdrop of the Vietnam War and civil rights struggles. And you know, it's a time in American history where there's this collective cry for justice and equality and it's reaching a crescendo. And there's these societal rifts and rich activism. And I just kind of want to know for you, what is a story?
or some things you've learned about the 1970s that surprised you or shocked you or you were like, wow, I didn't know this one.
Sharon McMahon (51:08)
Mm-hmm.
There's so much, oh my gosh, I mean, maybe you experienced this when you were in high school too or college that the 70s tend to really be glossed over in history curriculum because we spend so much time talking about the Civil War in first semester and so much time talking about World War Two in second semester, you know, two worthy topics, of course, but we just don't, we kind of run out of time.
in the 60s and then like it now it's May we just we kind of run out of time to talk about the 70s which were an extremely consequential decade and one of the things I come back to all the time are the Pentagon Papers where I am just like you have got to be kidding me I the Pentagon Papers okay so
Jermaine (51:48)
Yeah.
Tell me more, because I haven't heard of this.
Sharon McMahon (52:06)
The United States was involved in Vietnam for a very long time before we even really let people know that we were involved in Vietnam, right? Our involvement in Vietnam goes back to the 1950s and we were not directly fighting a war yet. But JFK was, you know, involved in Vietnam and we were.
kind of keeping it under wraps. We were lying to people about what we were involved in Vietnam. Well, once the Vietnam War really started heating up and the tide of public opinion began to turn against involvement in Vietnam, where the draft was taking, you know, tens of thousands of young men to Vietnam to fight for a cause that many of them did not feel was a valiant one.
going to Vietnam to fight against communism when this does not represent any kind of existential threat to the United States? You know I don't think you can argue that Hitler was not an existential threat to the United States. He was. And so you know what I mean? He was never gonna stop at what he was never gonna be like well I you know I got the Netherlands that's all I needed. No. Hitler was an existential threat to the United States but it's really
Jermaine (53:18)
Mm-hmm.
Sharon McMahon (53:26)
was an existential threat to the United States. So so many people, my dad included, went to Vietnam. My dad enlisted in the Marines when he was 17 years old. Okay. 17 years old, did two tours in Vietnam in the Marine Corps, which is the, you know, they're the dudes, they are the boots on the ground in Vietnam. They are the people.
Jermaine (53:28)
Absolutely.
Sharon McMahon (53:51)
you know, getting dysentery in the jungle. That's literally who they are. My dad later died of his combat related illness from Agent Orange exposure in Vietnam. So what we were asking people to do was truly
The American public was unprepared to hear. They were unprepared to hear the types of orders that these 17-year-old boys were being given. Things like take out this entire village, including the women and children, kill them all, and light the entire thing on fire.
Those are the types of orders that we were being given and in part because it was very much guerrilla warfare. The Viet Cong did not have clearly marked uniforms where it was very unlike Germany, where it was very easy to see who we're fighting. Like we're going to line up our tanks here, you line up your tanks there, we're going to send in some airplanes, we're going to shoot at each other, we're going to have some boats.
in terms of who are we fighting, who is the enemy. It really seemed like a fight against evil. That's how it seemed. And so when people came home and they had the ticker tape parades and you know like it seemed like we truly had done the job of liberators. Whereas that was not the case when it came to Vietnam. Well
To make a long story short, Germaine, the Pentagon commissioned a report of the entire US involvement in Vietnam. And they commissioned this report. Specifically, they wanted this little committee of people, and specifically this one man, to work on it.
And he did, he worked on it. It morphed into this 900 page long history of the United States involvement in Vietnam, including all of the ways that the US government had lied to the American public. All of the ways that the CIA had been involved, et cetera. Well, eventually,
Jermaine (55:56)
Wow.
Wow.
Sharon McMahon (56:14)
it became clear that the government was going to, you know, was never going to release these papers that it was meant to be. They were classified, that nobody was ever going to see the, you know, these were not going to see the light of day. And there was one man in particular who felt like I cannot let that happen. I cannot let all of this work just
waste and that man was a man named Daniel Ellsberg who then decided I am going to surreptitiously make a copy of this 900 page document documents plural
He enlisted the help of his children and went to the office building of a buddy, and they're secretly making copies of the Pentagon Papers. And his kids are helping to staple, and they're trimming off the classified designation at the top of the papers. And he contacts.
Jermaine (57:10)
No.
Sharon McMahon (57:22)
The New York Times and says, I have some things you might be interested in. And it takes The New York Times a while to vet. Is this guy serious? Is this real? It takes them a while to decide like we're actually, yeah, we're going to start running.
running a report on the Pentagon Papers. And eventually they did. They began publishing these, what were classified documents in the New York Times. And let me tell you, Richard Nixon, not happy. Richard Nixon, not happy that the New York Times is publishing what looks like negative information about the United States government. Most information was not even about Richard Nixon. You know, like he, he was not the primary decision maker.
decades leading up to Vietnam. Yes, he was the vice president for a while, but not the most of Pentagon papers actually don't even implicate him. But he nevertheless did not like that this was, you know, being published and that it was making the US government look bad. So he actually, um, again, I don't want to, I don't want to take too long telling this story, but this case he told the New York Times you need to we're going to sue you. You need to stop publishing this stuff. It went to the Supreme Court.
And this and the long story short.
Multiple dozens of newspapers get in on this as an injunction came down to say, you stop publishing these classified documents. Another newspaper would step up. Here comes the Washington Post being like, we'll take the next installment. And as these as an injunction would come down saying, you stop publishing these papers, another newspaper would step up and publish the next installment.
Jermaine (59:08)
Smile.
Sharon McMahon (59:13)
in newspapers publishing the Pentagon papers while Daniel Ellsberg in an effort to shut him up
The Nixon administration sent the CIA to break into the office of his of his psychiatrist in an effort to try to dig up dirt on him that they could try to blackmail him with of if we can get his pay. Yes, if he could get his patient records, then we could say, oh, he's being treated for depression. He's being treated for mental illness. This guy's crazy. We can try to discredit him.
Jermaine (59:35)
Yeah, Nixon was known for that.
Sharon McMahon (59:51)
this or we're going to release your you know psychiatric records. Ultimately Daniel Ellsberg finds out that when he is speaking at an event that the CIA had plans to assassinate him.
and ultimately they did not end up going through with it for a variety of reasons, but he has remained a very vocal critic and I won't tell you everything that happened when it comes to the Pentagon Papers because again it's a long story, but that to me
is an example of when people are like, well, the government has never been more corrupt. It's never been more terrible. I'm you know, I all you got to do is point to Richard Nixon and it goes far, far beyond Watergate, which was a separate issue. Then, then breaking into sending the CIA, there was a separate story altogether. So
Jermaine (1:00:41)
Yeah.
Yeah, he tried to dig up dirt on Shirley Chisholm too, I think. If I remember, I was writing about that in my book. So he's really using the government in this way as an extension of his nefarious purposes. I mean, you had the clueless with the milk lobby and, you know, all these things to cover his not only cover his own tracks, but to discredit people. Yeah. So it's like a worst case scenario of how somebody who doesn't have the best interests of the American people at heart empower.
Sharon McMahon (1:00:54)
Oh, yes. Yep. He'd
Mm-hmm.
Jermaine (1:01:19)
and the extent that they can use that power to shut people up or even, you know, that, I mean, this guy was about to be killed, right? So, I mean, it goes very deep and disturbing when you look at, you know, how power can be corrupted and you, especially if you will, the power of, you know, the U.S. government. So that's a, yeah, that's, that's a story to raise your eyebrows for sure.
Sharon McMahon (1:01:19)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. It definitely is. And again, that is a super duper high, high level overview of what the Pentagon Papers was. But that's just one story of the types of things that were happening in the 1970s.
Jermaine (1:01:54)
Yeah.
Yeah, I think the one I watched this documentary the other day, and this is kind of more counterculture. I don't know if you've seen it on Netflix. It's called Wild Country. It's insane. It's a thousand to the story of this guru. His name is Osho and his followers take over this small town in Oregon. It's not just some kind of peaceful hippie community. It's like a full on cold scenario. And they start busing in homeless people to manipulate local elections so that they can kind of take over like the politics of this town.
Sharon McMahon (1:02:19)
Mm.
Mm-hmm.
Jermaine (1:02:27)
And, you know, it's kind of like to me a microcosm of just the craziness of the 70s kind of dialed up to 11, right? And, you know, this group has their own armed security force, like a private army right in the middle of small town America. So the people of the town are freaking out, like, because all these people are coming in from, you know, all across the nation by the thousands. And the manipulation, you know, within this code is off the charts because this is a very charismatic leader and he's at the heart of it all.
Sharon McMahon (1:02:34)
Mm-hmm.
Jermaine (1:02:55)
And you know, there's so backdrop of free love and then it spirals into this platform bioterror attacks and wiretapping. I mean, it's all this stuff is there in the story of power and control and people seeking this utopia, you know, and just the wild, wild country is the name of the documentary. It's kind of like the wild, wild seventies, right? There's so many of these different stories that you can find. So I think kind of tapped into something with your like, let's go ahead and do this docu series on the seven. I feel like you could do like.
Sharon McMahon (1:03:02)
Yes.
Mmm. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Yes.
Mm-hmm.
Jermaine (1:03:23)
100 episodes if you want to do it. Just gotta keep this going on forever.
Sharon McMahon (1:03:25)
Totally, totally.
or it rang a very faint bell but I was busy doing other things at the time and I was not paying careful attention to what was going on with the Nixon administration.
Jermaine (1:04:06)
Yeah, well, I could talk to you all day. I know we got to start coming to a close, but I have a question I have to ask because you talk a lot about presidents. You have a series that I watched on Andrew Jackson, which was fascinating, but I want to know for you, who is your GOAT president, your greatest of all time president?
Sharon McMahon (1:04:11)
Hmm.
Mm-hmm. Mm.
Hmm. I mean, I here's the thing people always ask this question I feel like everyone is obligated to say Lincoln right because he achieved incredible things consequential things that Continue to matter today. And so that is I mean, there's no question that Lincoln is right up there amongst the The greatest presidents of all time, but here's something that I think that a lot of people don't think about Lincoln Is that?
when it came to
Um, you know, he definitely made some mistakes, especially when it came to native Americans. He's not a flawless human being. There's no president that we can look back and be like, flawless 10 out of 10, you know, like we're all we're we they're definitely, especially when it comes to native American issues, things that Lincoln did wrong. There were things when it came to some of his ideas about colonization of like, you know what the emancipated slaves can't just live amongst us.
Jermaine (1:05:14)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Sharon McMahon (1:05:29)
There are some ideas today that would be like, that's real problematic, buddy. Things of that nature. But of course he achieved some really, really consequential things. But one of the things that I think is interesting about him, number one, is that the Republican Party was extraordinarily progressive. We think about today the Republican Party being conservative. But if you think about progressivism being this concept of wielding the power of the federal government to empower the people of the state, and the people of the state of
Jermaine (1:05:49)
Mm-hmm.
Sharon McMahon (1:05:56)
improve the lives of citizens, if that is the model of progressivism, if that's like what we think of LBJ wielding the power of the federal government, that is what the new Republican Party was doing. Imagine today any political party being like, listen, y'all owning all these guns is bad news. You can't own them anymore. We're going to take them away from you.
Jermaine (1:06:24)
Yeah.
Sharon McMahon (1:06:27)
Taking away somebody's what they viewed as private property, enslaved people, taking away enslaved people and saying you can't own this anymore and your entire manner of livelihood is now no longer going to exist. That is radical societal change. That is power that no president has wielded since.
Jermaine (1:06:32)
Mm-mm.
Sharon McMahon (1:06:53)
in an effort to improve lives of citizens. So that to me is always very interesting to think about exactly how progressive we're talking here. But one of the other things I think is interesting is during the Civil War.
We recruited a lot of mercenaries to fight for the Union. We went to Europe and we were like, Hungarians, get in here, we can use your help. Germans, Scottish, Canadians, who you got? We need assistance over here. And I think it's really interesting that Lincoln allowed for a very high degree of pluralism inside the...
Union Army.
If people were, you know, observed kosher dietary restrictions, that was acceptable. If they needed to have Saturdays off for religious observance instead of Sundays, that was acceptable. There was not this sense of everybody needs to be a Protestant Christian, you guys. Okay. That's how we roll here in the United States. Protestant Christians only. He was very tolerant of a variety.
Jermaine (1:07:59)
Mm-hmm.
Sharon McMahon (1:08:08)
of religious practices, cultural practices, and again I'm not saying he did everything right and gets A pluses on everything, but I think that's an aspect of his leadership that is overlooked today. That his respect for pluralism is something that we don't often see. I don't often see that talked about.
Jermaine (1:08:31)
Yeah, I'd have to say Lincoln too. And for me, it's because it's a study in deep contradictions, but also this idea of a life of transformation. As you said, I mean, he had the court amendment where he was almost willing to perpetuate slavery forever. You had the execution of the Dakota Sioux. You had his racist views that you could speak to. All things on his record. But for me, it's about this.
remarkable metamorphosis, right? It's moral evolution is what I look at. It leads to the emancipation of millions that strikes a chord in my heart. And then he's steering the government. I mean, come on, we're talking about, of course, the civil wars, 620,000 or so deaths. I mean, this is, what is it? The Revolutionary War, World War I, II, Korean War, like Spanish War, all combined within this war on American soil.
And like, can you imagine the stress, right? You see those pictures of Lincoln where he goes into office and he's looking like this kind of sprightly young lawyer. And then he comes out, he's looking just like, you know, he's the father of father time. And then, so even though I curate a more critical history, I always try to remember that it's not like a blunt instrument, right? It's not chemotherapy. You should destroy everything in your path, right? You can critique.
Sharon McMahon (1:09:38)
Mm-hmm.
Jermaine (1:09:54)
linking with precision, but also recognizing the capacity for the growth, the capacity for redemption. And that is how we can also see ourselves in the story. I think that unfortunately, we've seen like this big shift from this very monumental history, the statuesque history where you can't say anything negative against people too. Now it's very, very critical to the point where people won't recognize the
Sharon McMahon (1:09:58)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Jermaine (1:10:21)
uh, you know, the, the better parts of Lincoln, you know, the better parts of his nature. Um, yeah, the contributions that he made, right? So I'm always trying to be careful that I don't fall into that trap, uh, myself. And, you know, that's definitely, I, again, I cultivate somewhat of a critical history, but Lincoln's always kind of my example that I use of like, you know, he's a flawed human being, uh, but in some ways he was able to rise above his times. I mean, in a lot of ways he was able to rise above his times. Cause if he only went with the times, you know, he'd just.
Sharon McMahon (1:10:24)
The contributions they made. Yes. Right. Yeah.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Jermaine (1:10:51)
went along with his views that he had in the beginning, and he wouldn't have transformed over time.
Sharon McMahon (1:10:53)
Yeah. Right. He was also willing to risk incredible unpopularity. He was willing to be unpopular. And that is something. Yeah.
Jermaine (1:11:05)
assassination even. I mean, of course he got assassinated, but even before that, I don't even remember how many assassination attempts. I mean, there was a whole cabal against him or her. You know, this group in the South. Yeah.
Sharon McMahon (1:11:12)
many assassination attempts. Yes, obsessed with assassinating him.
Yes, yes, willing to be tremendously unpopular, facing incredible home life difficulties, like the death of his son, his wife has severe mental illness and is not seen in public for years and spends all her time upstairs at the White House talking to their dead son. He himself was prone to such depression. I'm sure you know this, that there were letters that he wrote to his friends being like, please
times out of the house or I'm going to use them on myself. He had tremendous mental health issues himself like the depression that he suffered from and I think that also to me makes it even of course I'm sad that his child died etc I would never wish that on anybody but it it makes his personal transformation even more noteworthy that in you know in in spite
of his incredible depression, in spite of the death of his child, in spite of his wife's serious mental health issues, in spite of his unpopularity, in spite of people constantly trying to kill him, you know, in spite, in spite, in spite, in spite. He still had the moral courage to do what he felt was the right thing and so many of us would have just taken our ball and gone home.
Jermaine (1:12:41)
Beautiful.
Absolutely. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And I was trying to think in terms of ending this, a quote that kind of I feel like applies to you and reminded me of this quote that says, the difference between patriotism and nationalism is that the patriot is proud of their country for what it does and the nationalist is proud of their country no matter what it does. The first attitude creates a feeling of responsibility
Sharon McMahon (1:13:10)
Mm.
Jermaine (1:13:14)
The second, a feeling of blind arrogance. And I think that your approach to engaging people with politics, government, and the fabric of America, I find truly inspiring. I think that you're not just educating, but you're cultivating that sense of responsibility, of accountability, of understanding. And I think it's a love of America rooted in what it does and not a blind allegiance. And so...
Sharon McMahon (1:13:17)
Mm.
Jermaine (1:13:40)
I think your work then fosters a true patriotism and informed and thoughtful connection that encourages active and responsible citizens. So I appreciate your work so much. Everything that you do, it's well earned. It's well earned. Thank you. Well, I appreciate you coming on the show, Sharon. Thank you so much.
Sharon McMahon (1:13:50)
Thank you. That's very high praise. Thank you. That's very high praise coming from you. Thank you. It's my pleasure.
Jermaine (1:14:04)
All right, well, we will see you. Thank you.
Sharon McMahon (1:14:07)
Yes. Okay. Do you need?