With Meghna Chakrabarti Iconic journalist Dan Rather reflects on American character and patriotism in this time of polarization. He’s with us. In his 40-plus years as a newsman, Rather has seen America cleaved and healed, again and again. How do America’s current divides compare? How can we come together? Guest Dan Rather, anchor of the CBS Evening News from 1981 to 2005. He was with CBS News for 44 years from 1962 to 2006. Author of "What Unites Us: Reflections on Patriotism." (@DanRather) Interview Highlights On how today's political climate compares to that of 1968 Rather, at the '68 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, was in the middle of a scrum where security guard blocked his access to a Georgia delegate. "There is a what I call a 'bloodline' running between 1968, and the tumultuous years that had engulfed the nation for much of the 1960s. It's worth remembering that in the 1960s, not only were we a deeply divided nation over the [Vietnam] war, but we were deeply divided over race. We'd had the assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King, Robert Kennedy. We had race riots in the streets. We were a troubled nation during the decade of the 1960s, which sort of came to a climax of sorts in 1968 at the Democratic convention. "But while there are similarities to 1968, this is a different time, a different era in the ongoing history of our country. Some of the divisions — for example, divisions over race, which has always been deep and a dangerous divide in the country — are similar to what we were going through in 1968. But I do come around to it: It's a different time, different era, a different generation with a different government. So while there are comparisons to the 1960s and particularly, as I say, the climactic period around the summer of 1968, it would be a mistake to overemphasize, I think, those similarities. "The one thing that we as a people went through in 1968 that we're going through again now is basically the question, can we hold it together? Can we hold the country together? Can we stand united? Can we agree on enough core principles and core values of the country to hold ourselves together? And it was an open question in 1968, and it's an open question today, which is one reason that I originally did the hardcover book, 'What Unites Us,' and one reason I wanted to put this paperback edition out, to talk about ... the book is not meant to provide answers, but the hope is that we can start a conversation about our core values — just to name two, the rule of law and the right to vote. But there's dissent, and a free press, inclusion, empathy, a belief in science and knowledge, public education — all of these are values that I think the overwhelming majority of Americans agree on. But we're in a period, as we were for some of the time, in the 1960s where we have national leadership that seeks to exploit our differences, put the concentration on our differences, rather than on what unites us."

"The one thing that we as a people went through in 1968 that we're going through again now is basically the question, can we hold it together? Can we hold the country together?" Dan Rather

On what we learn from the 1960s "The basic lesson we learned in the 1960s is listen to one another and try to find common ground. An attitude that goes along these lines: Listen, you and I may disagree over a hundred things about policy and political leanings, but can we find one or two things on which we agree on common ground and work on that. A simple example might be that you may live in a small town and some people are Trump supporters, some people are Trump haters, some people are somewhere in between. So there are big differences, even in a small town. But if somebody says, 'Well, listen, the Little League baseball park needs to be redone and remodeled, can we agree on that?' And you agree on something simple as that. Everybody gets together and starts to repair the Little League baseball park. The next thing you know, they're talking to one another, laughing with one another. It seems simple, but those small steps can be enormous in our effort now, and I think it's a desperate effort now to hold ourselves together and agree on what unites us." On whether or not common ground even exists now. The fear is that folks' core values are so divided these days, finding the middle might be nearly impossible "I understand, because I have any number of people who contact me in various ways, including on programs such as this, who express that point of view, and I simply smile and take a deep breath and say, 'I respectfully disagree.' I do think that we are dealing in a different era. ... Demographically the country began changing drastically with the passage of the Immigration Reform Act of 1965, which did away with biases against certain people immigrating to the country. From the time that passed, as a result — it was in the wake of the civil rights movement, the 1960s, that we passed the Immigration Reform Act — from that time forward, we began changing really drastically and continually demographically at the country. "One of the main ways it is different here in 2019 than it was during the 1960s is that we are a richer mix of religion, race, ethnicity, and that has caused a lot of fear in people. There are any number of people who say, 'Look, it's not the America of my grandfather and grandmother, not even the same as it was during my parents' time.' And it's caused by fear. And I think this is a very important point: This fear is being exploited by any number of political leaders. including, I'm sorry to say and there's is no joy in saying it, the president of the United States.

"They emphasize what divides us. And they've been successful in playing upon that fear, exploiting that fear, for their partisan, political and ideological advantages at the disadvantage of the country." Dan Rather on U.S. political leaders