Warren Buffett and Bill Gates Declare America Is Already Great
Jeffrey Goldberg from The Atlantic interviewed Warren Buffett and Bill Gates on the “state of humankind, and about the future of American democracy.”
Goldberg describes how both men are optimistic about the future, but “appear[ed] to doubt” Trump’s rhetoric and policy. When Goldberg asked whether they believed America needed to be made great again, Buffett nearly jumped out of his chair: “We are great! We are great!”
On the state of the democracy, Buffett explains, “[America] survived civil war, world wars, the atomic bomb, and the Great Depression. We survive. We’ve been gotten through a lot in this country. The truth is, we’ve got something that works, and the fact is it works and has kept working. It took us 150 years to get the 19th Amendment, but things gets better. We’re an aspirational country in a sense, and this country has a mechanism that allows aspirations to work their way into society, with a lot of fits and starts.”
Gates added that while democracy endures, “politics goes back and forth.” Gates explains how “expectations exceed what is being delivered” with healthcare and it caused “frustration.”
“Democracy is going to go back and forth on lots of and lots of issues,” Gates comments. “But things like scientific progress, or inventing new vaccines, or helping teachers be better – those things will be enduring assets, for the U.S. and for the world.”
Read the full interview here.
