Searching For America Podcast
An outsider’s view from inside the USA
with award-winning foreign correspondent and anchor Robyn Curnow
“As a South African living in the American South, I’m trying to understand the U.S.A. and the political choices my neighbors are making.”
“The 2024 Presidential Election will be the first time I vote in America. The first time I ever voted was for Nelson Mandela in South Africa’s first democratic election.”
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Think
America
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School
Feel
Think America Conversation Kids School Feel
Military
Soldiers
Country
People
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Different
Military Soldiers Country People Leader Different
Politics
Know
Experience
Policy
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Politics Know Experience Policy Voters Mean
“I think Harris is going to swing it and that doesn’t mean she’s going to win, but she transformed the campaign very quickly.”
-Julian Zelizer, Professor of History, Princeton University
“I think it’s extraordinarily difficult for foreigners or even Americans who live in their own ecosystems to actually understand what’s going on.”
John Sipher, CIA Station Chief (ret)
“They’d be absolutely befuddled, right?”
Jerry O’Shea, CIA Station Chief (ret)
“We have lost all tolerance for complexity.”
Josh Clark, Head teacher, the Landmark School.
“My neighbor has a big sign that says ‘Farmers for Trump.’ There’s a huge sign downtown that basically says ‘F&*k Biden,’ right across from the church.”
Leyla Santiago, UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media. Fmr. CNN correspondent
“Most people want to come to the United States to try to work. None of them said, ‘I want to go to America to get benefits.’”
-Lynsey Addario, Pulitzer Prize winning photojournalist, NYT & National Geographic.
“Too often this gets oversimplified - that MAGA movement and people who support Trump are idiots. It’s simply not true.”
Kevin Sullivan, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, Washington Post.
“They will settle for a candidate who seems to dislike the same people they dislike.”
Jason Kander, Fmr, Secretary of State, Missouri (Dem.) Capt, US Army Reserves (ret.)
“There’s a lot more to being a soldier beyond just wearing the uniform or carrying a gun.”
Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling, US Army (ret.)
Searching for America
In my search for the real America - that elusive soul of the U.S.A. - I’ve come to realize, via miles traveled and steps walked, that the sheer size of this country makes it almost impossible to pin down a single description of America or its inhabitants.
The landmass is so huge and geographically and culturally diverse that I’ve barely visited a fraction of the places I want to see in the decade I’ve called Atlanta, Georgia, my home.
As an outsider, with a global perspective, I am not weighed down by the baggage of family history, politics or a sense of place.
That’s why I started this podcast. I want to understand the choices Americans are making, and why.
Good conversation, listening and understanding another person’s point of view (without necessarily agreeing) is the key to reinforcing the political centre.
With the Presidential election looming, I’ve been struck by how many Americans feel unrepresented by the politicians and two political parties that dominate this gargantuan landscape. The words ‘politically homeless’ are thrown about a lot to describe a large chunk of the electorate.
Here in the South, and I know across the country, there are millions of good Americans who want the best for this country, who are dismayed by the loud extremism from the right and the left, and who want to mend fences with fellow Americans after years of division.
I hope to help decode the choices Americans are making and what they are thinking.
There is so much noise from the extreme left and right that ordinary, good American’s voices are being drowned out by a loud minority.
These are complicated times, and this is a large country, and the only way I know how to make sense of it all is by talking and listening to as many people as possible.
~Robyn