The Loyal Opposition

Mary Kate Cary is a former White House speechwriter for President George H. W. Bush and a lecturer at the University of Virginia, where she teaches Democracy Out Loud a course on great American speeches. In this episode, Cary explores the long, complicated friendship and rivalry between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, tracing their relationship in three acts—from collaborators on independence, to bitter political opponents, to reconciled friends through letters late in life. She reflects on how their disagreement shaped America’s two-party system and the tradition of peaceful transfer of power. Drawing on her own career as a bipartisan commentator and teacher, Cary argues that principled disagreement—rather than hostility—is essential to a healthy democracy.

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Transcript

Michael Lee: [00:00:00] When we disagree is a show about arguments, how we have them, why we have them, and their impact on our relationships and ourselves. Ever notice how presenting facts to someone with strong beliefs makes them dig in even deeper? You tell your girlfriend she forgot your anniversary, and she finds 10 reasons why you're actually the forgetful.

One. Welcome to the Backfire Effect where correcting misinformation, disinformation can paradoxically strengthen false beliefs. Researchers, Brendan Nhan and Jason Reer discovered this phenomenon while studying. Political misconceptions when presented with factual corrections. People just didn't resist the new information.

They became more entrenched in their original incorrect beliefs. The stronger someone's ideological commitment, the more likely facts were to backfire. Our brains treat challenges to our beliefs like physical threats. This isn't about intelligence or [00:01:00] education. Highly educated people can be especially susceptible because they're better at constructing sophisticated arguments to defend their positions.

Think about the friend who can rationalize any questionable dating choice with impressive psychological theories, or the colleague who turns every performance review into a philosophical debate about metrics. The backfire effect shows up in intimate relationships too during couples therapy, for example.

One partner might present a timeline of events that proves their point only to watch the other person reconstruct an entirely different narrative from the same facts. When Galileo presented evidence that the earth orbit of the sun, many scholars didn't just disagree, they became more committed to geocentric models developing increasingly complex explanations for planetary motion.

So how do we navigate this minefield? Do we just abandon facts altogether? Research suggests that gentle narrative approaches work better than confrontational. Fact checking stories that allow [00:02:00] people to reach conclusions for themselves prove more effective than direct correction When discussing contentious topics, whether it's politics or whose turn it is to take out the trash.

Creating psychological safety matters more than being right, at least at first. Questions often work better than statements, and acknowledging uncertainty in our positions can lower somebody else's defenses make some concessions. The backfire effect reminds us that changing minds requires more than just good evidence.

It requires understanding the emotional and identity stakes involved in being wrong. I'm Michael Lee, professor of Communication and Director of the Civility Initiative at the College of Charleston. Our guest today on When We Disagree is Mary Kate Carey. She's a former White House speech writer for George HW Bush, and she now teaches at the University of Virginia, Mary Kate Carey.

Tell us an argument story. 

Mary Kate Cary : Well first of all, thanks for having me. I'm, I'm thrilled to be here. So I, as you mentioned, I teach at [00:03:00] the University of Virginia and one of my classes is called Democracy Out Loud, and that is the 25 or so greatest speeches in American political history. And I have started videoing those to put them on a larger digital platform.

And so this is not something that I studied as a speech writer. I, I wrote for clients for years and never looked at the history of great speeches. So it's been a fascinating journey for me, and I think I'm learning more than the kids are. But anyway so one of the 25 speeches is Thomas Jefferson's 1801 inaugural address.

And I am gonna do a presentation on that that will go out digitally. And as I was learning about that, I read this, this book David Rubenstein, it's out on, on the bestseller list right now called the Highest Calling. And David Rubenstein goes around and interviews all these historians about some of the presidents, and one of them is Gordon Wood Uhhuh, and Gordon Wood is a Jefferson specialist and Gordon [00:04:00] Wood's big book.

I, I was drawn in by this conversation he had with with Rubenstein. And then I went and read the, the rest of the story and it's called Friends Divided. It's by Gordon Wood, and it's this story of this crazy disagreement between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson that affected both of them for decades of their lives.

And I thought maybe we could talk about that today because I can't get it out of my head that this happened so long ago and how did we not all know about this? And so if that's useful, that's what I was gonna talk about. But yeah, this is 

Michael Lee: such a, such a powerful disagreement. There's this, there's this.

Kinda a weird nostalgia for a peaceful American past before elections got dirty. Mm-hmm. And then the election of 1800, in which I, as I recall, off the top of my head. One of them was called a bastard brat of a scotch peddler. As Hamilton got drug into it in the press of the day it was ugly.

Concluding with it was really ugly [00:05:00] inaugural dress wear. Jefferson allegedly trying to keep the peace as we are all Republicans. We were all federalists. And so why does this one stick in your head? 

Mary Kate Cary : So, so the way that I've sort of approached it is that it's, it's almost in three acts, this, this disagreement that they had.

And, and, and so the first act is that Jefferson's Young, he's only 26. He, he runs for office here in Virginia and he writes his first major political work, which was called A Summary View of the Rights of British America. That same year, he gets invited to the first Continental Congress, but he's sick and he can't go.

So he sends the summary view as sort of, you know, almost like a hostess gift. You know, I can't make it. But here's, here's my summary view. John Adams reads it. He's at the first Continental Congress and he says Hey, I now know I've got a fellow radical. I'm in the north. He's in the south. I've got my guy in the [00:06:00] south now.

A few years later as the second Continental Congress, Jefferson and Adams both can attend. Adams is chairing something like 25 committees, totally busy. He's older. He takes young Jefferson under his wing as sort of a protege and says, Hey, could you help me on this one committee? I need you to draft a committee report.

The committee report is the Declaration of Independence. And so they work on it together and that becomes the beginning of their, this storied friendship that they both are committed to independence for the colonies, one in the north, one in the south. And sure enough, as you know, you know, it gets signed and you know, the revolution begins a few years into the revolution.

Adams leaves for France to be we didn't have ambassadors then. They were commissioners. Jefferson gets sent to France too, and that further cements the friendship that they're both in France, you know, running around Paris, having a good time. Next thing you know, George Washington gets elected, [00:07:00] calls Adams back from France and says, I want you to be vice president.

The two of them get elected. She, Jefferson then gets named First Secretary of State by by George Washington. Jefferson comes back from Paris and now they're in the cabinet together. Jefferson and Adams. Adams is Vice President, Jefferson, secretary of State, and it starts, it starts going downhill fast. So that's the sort of the first act is this, this friendship and the beginning of the nation and how they both believed in, in independence for the colonies.

Michael Lee: Some historians have talked about there being kind of two rival foundings that we can sort of loosely attribute to Jefferson and Hamilton, one being a Democratic founding. In the sense of the Declaration of Independence, right? Mm-hmm. All people should have the right of self-government and the, the, the powerful term equality, which is in that document, et cetera.

And, and Jefferson [00:08:00] sounds like really wrote the vast majority of what you call the committee report. And Ben Franklin and Adams and a few others had some hand in. Taking out some language and changing some language. But Jefferson's Pen is really powerful on the declaration. But then there being a kind of counter democratic founding too with the Electoral College, with Hamilton and others suspicion, especially in the Federalist Papers.

About factions and wanting to make sure that faction canceled out faction and really not wanting democracy is almost used as a kind of evil term in some of these. So we have this Jeffersonian founding and this counter counter majoritarian founding. Where does Adams fit into all this? Where does this dispute between Jefferson and Adams that you're sketching out fit into this idea of the two foundings?

Mary Kate Cary : Well, I, I think you're exactly right that, that Hamilton and Adams were on one side and Jefferson was on the other in that first cabinet, and Hamilton and Adams saw a very strong federal government. [00:09:00] Jefferson and Madison saw a more decentralized. That was the beginning of the name Democratic Republicans.

'Cause they were the decentralized type. And eventually Jefferson ends up resigning from the cabinet because he finds this, it's so difficult to navigate that they were all against him and that he and Madison thought that it, it shouldn't all be about a very strong, powerful government. They had just come away from a mono, a monarchy.

And it made sense to them that that's not what we wanted anymore. So. So now there's two months to go before the next election. Jefferson has resigned from the cabinet and he decides to run for the campaign for President in 1796 as a Democratic Republican against Adams, who's now head of the Federalist.

And is like you're saying, a very ugly race. Very heated. And in those days, the electoral college, the rule was if you were the second place finisher, you became [00:10:00] vice president. And so Adams wins and Jefferson becomes his vice president, even though they're in opposite political parties. Thank God that has now been fixed.

I really don't think we would want Kamala Harris being Donald Trump's vice president right now. Yeah. Or any number of other people. You wouldn't want Nixon being Kennedy's vice president, you know? So thank God we fixed all that. Yeah. It became rather 

Michael Lee: dramatic when John C. Calhoun was in the VP chair as well in the 1820s.

Mary Kate Cary : See, so thank God that's been fixed. And so, so as you can imagine, their relationship cools even further during the vice presidency of, of Thomas Jefferson and Adams' first administration as president. And the country became very divided and there were a lot of people who were hoping these two founding fathers would sort of reconcile and get back together.

But, but it didn't happen. So now it's 1800. He's been vice president for four years. Not particularly happy about it. He runs again as the Democratic Republican, even more contentious election. As you were [00:11:00] saying, like people think it's unprecedented now, how ugly the elections are, right? It was, that one was really bad.

1800 and and it, it, it echoed this, the Federalist painted Jefferson as a threat to democracy and the republican Democrats painted Adams as completely unpopular and his policies were a disaster. It sounds kind of similar to what we just went through anyway. Long story short they go to 36 ballots, Jefferson wins on the final day.

And the K, the, the, the nation was only 11 years old at the time, and it was the first time that a president who was not a Federalist got elected. And so he was the first to speak up against federal ideas. And have this disagreement of maybe there's another way. And that really became the beginning of our two party system in this country.

And that's the one I can't get out [00:12:00] of my head. Of the bravery it took to stand up to everybody else, all the other founders except for Madison, I guess. And, and say there's, there's another way we can go here. And I, I, I keep going back to that and I can tell you more, but that sort of act two is this, this rivalry really splitting into two and how it affected their lives. 

Michael Lee: This is fascinating as you, as you go through this three act history of these two, and I'm reflecting on what us and we all know about Adams and Jefferson. Adams really strikes me as thinking through our modern kind of tribal lens.

Adam seems more consistent. He's an easier character to parse. In a sense he seems convicted. He is, he is not an ENS slaver. He is one of the very few who kinda borders on abolitionism amongst the founders. There are a few others, but he is like Franklin, but he is first among [00:13:00] many and then he practices his principles in a way and is talking about this quite vociferously with Abigail Adams.

Who was contributing to the cause and 

Mary Kate Cary : mm-hmm. In any 

Michael Lee: case, he seems like he has a set of convictions and he acts on those convictions and many of those convictions show up in our founding documents. End of story, that simple view. I know. And, and he doesn't 

Mary Kate Cary : get much credit for it. You know, he's, he's, there's not a monument to John Adams, right.

In Washington, you know, like there is to Jefferson. And pushing back 

Michael Lee: on that a little bit, I mean, but for the Alien and Sedition acts true, there was a little problem there happening through his presidency. So maybe my simple narrative is. Is actually a little bit BS as I'm spelling it out. But anyway, Jefferson is far more vexing in the sense of, you know, he's writing the Declaration of Independence.

When the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bans, just connect them to another. He is writing it with assistance from an enslaved person, and very shortly thereafter, he is writing a runaway slave. Ransom notes right in newspapers saying that an artful nave, as he calls it, has run away and [00:14:00] will be lashed when this person is caught and come home and offers a reward for it.

And then, you know, practice doesn't seem to practice his principles either because he doesn't free any of the people he enslaved after he is when he is dead. And his will not to mention the entire of the Hemmings, his family at Monticello. So. What do you, as you think about Jefferson and you're drawn to thinking about Jefferson's words, his deeds, his politics, this dispute, how do you make sense of this guy?

Mary Kate Cary : He is, he is clearly very conflicted. There's a lot of contradictions to, to Jefferson I would say. And that's part of, you know, everything that goes on at UVA. There's a lot of con conversations about. The good side and the bad side, and we can learn from both sides. You know I, I do think that, that, you know, when, when you look at his, his inaugural address in 1801, he, he, it does feel like he is offering an olive branch to John Adams.

[00:15:00] And, and, and I never saw that before when I've read it in the past. 'cause I didn't know this backstory, Uhhuh. And so, you know, the famous line that you, you quoted a minute ago we're we are called by different names, brethren of the same principle. We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists. That's the most famous line in the speech.

But there's also. One that is. But every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. And boy, do we need that Nowadays, you know that people who disagree with you, it goes to Reagan with his sort of 80 20 rule. People who disagree with you are not your moral enemy. You can disagree and still agree to the same principles.

And so there's some great lines in in the inaugural address, and I think a lot of them have to do what was, what was going on in his life at that moment because it. The day he gave the inaugural address, Adams left town at four in the morning on inauguration day and was the first president not to go to his successors swearing in, I mean, there was only George Washington before him, [00:16:00] but still that that was quite a statement to not go to Jefferson's swearing in and, so I think Jefferson got the message loud and clear. And so a lot of the stuff in the inaugural address, I think is aimed at Adams and trying to, you know, work it out. They go for years. This is sort of Act three. They go for years. Not speaking. He, he does the inaugural address. Nothing happens. And then Abigail Adams starts, sends a few letters to Jefferson sort of breaking the ice.

Benjamin Rush, who was a physician in Phil Philadelphia. Thought he would tell each of them how much the other one loved them and, and that maybe they would make up and they believed him and they both started writing again, matchmaking Ben Rough end up writing something like 150 letters back and forth, all of which have been preserved.

Really came together at the end of their lives and became friends again. And I think that extending the olive branch. In the inaugural address that began, this sort of reconciliation [00:17:00] has become a tradition in other inaugural addresses. You saw it in Lincoln's second inaugural. Mm-hmm. You saw it in John f Kennedy's inaugural.

You saw it in Bush, the way Bush 43 reached out after Al Gore's. That whole fight with Al Gore. He commended him for ending the election with Spirit and Grace. And so, so, so sort of my takeaway on all of this was that not only did they set up sort of the peaceful transfer of power between two parties, but this idea of having the guts to stand up for an adverse political view and lead the loyal opposition.

That, that is huge in our country now, and it, it all started with these two people and that a friendship and a disagreement can change the course of a nation. I will say it's affected me in my own life, in, in hindsight, looking back. I didn't know about all this but in my own life. I wrote a [00:18:00] column at US News and World Report for almost a decade.

Mm-hmm. Every other Saturday with the son of a Kennedy speech writer. Hmm. And he was obviously a Democrat and I'm a Republican and we went back and forth every other Saturday with our views. I I, after that I started a, a podcast called Bipartisan. Which was that's a great title with, yeah.

Nice little play on words. And that was with a bunch of Clinton's Clinton and Obama speech writers, Uhhuh, where we would take the news of the day and look at it from different points of view. And then this last semester, I co-taught a class here at UVA called Election 2024 with a Democratic colleague, and we did it from both points of view.

So I'm, I'm a big believer in, disagreeing over policy, but yet being members of the loyal opposition and that, I think it all goes back to this disagreement that I can't get out of my head. 

Michael Lee: Yeah, you're, you're really pushing this, the, the genre of the inaugural address, which Lincoln talks about with malice towards non and [00:19:00] charity for All right.

Binding up the nation's wounds. Correct. But doesn't mean not disagreeing. In, in the way you interpret it. And so what's what's fascinating to me too as you as a listen, and I wanna ask you about this, is you said that you, you're practicing speech writer then obviously writing at a very high level in American politics and then analyzing politics with others who disagree with you, and including other speech writers.

And then, and then now as an academic, you're teaching the history of the thing that you used to practice at a high level and learning things about the craft. Perhaps you, you didn't know ahead of time. So what is it like to, to have practiced something where you're writing speeches and you're writing in a framework that encourages you to say, we are all Republicans or we are all federalists.

In other words, this is, this is like the, the tip of the spear of this genre. Like, this is what the genre is about, is saying this one thing. Like you would say, you know, the person who who is recently deceased actually lives on and all of us at eulogy, right. There are just the kind of moves you make if you're gonna do the waltz.

It sounds [00:20:00] like this. What's it like to learn the history of the thing that you practiced after you practiced it? 

Mary Kate Cary : Well, it's, it's it's a great question 'cause I I fell into speech writing. I had a string of writing jobs that I didn't realize. Gave me the skills of a speech writer, which are you know, persuasive, fact-based writing on a deadline catchy for television in someone else's voice.

Mm-hmm. I had all these different jobs that taught me that, but then all of a sudden they offered me a job as a speech writer and I said. Speech writer, I've never done anything like that in my life. Why would I start with the President of the United States? And they said, oh, you'll be fine. And so I was this junior speech writer for George HW Bush.

And, and so I never took a class in speech writing 'cause I didn't realize that's where my life was heading. Right? I never studied speeches, I just sort of fell into it. And so then once I started doing it, I loved it and thought, man, why didn't I, why didn't I do this earlier? And. When I, when they first came to me at UVA and said, would you, would you ever consider teaching speech writing?[00:21:00] 

I said, well, how do I teach something that nobody ever taught me? Right? And they said, ah, I think you'll be all right. You'll be, you'll figure out a way. You'll figure it out. And and I, I have figured it out, but it's been fascinating to go back in history now and see these speeches because all I did for 20 years was.

Plug away writing for my clients who needed a speech for the next, you know, state of the industry speech or something like that, and go back and learn. All this history has been a great second chapter in my life, and I, I absolutely love it. 

Michael Lee: We've spent a lot of time talking about Jefferson's words in the, in the, the summary that you brought up in the declaration and of course in his, in his inaugural address.

Evaluate Jefferson as a writer, what sticks out? 

Mary Kate Cary : I would say he is very, very good at doing what we call writing for the eye, which is you know, in today's world, be magazine writing term papers, things like that. As you can tell, you know, the summary of the summary view on the rights of the British, [00:22:00] the Declaration of Independence, I would argue his inaugural address is written.

It got published, first inaugural address ever published in newspapers and so that people could read along and. It is written for the eye. It's not written for the ear, and there's long words, long sentences, a lot of semicolons things you don't see in speeches. And in a speech you only have one chance.

People have to hear it the first time and understand in a, in a academic piece, you can read the paragraph three times until you get it. And so it's a totally different style of writing. I would say Jefferson was not known as an orator. Adams was actually supposedly a better order. Jefferson had a, a thin sort of nasally voice, and he read word for word because he was writing for the eye.

And so I think Jefferson was one of the best writers in American history, but not one of the best speech givers. 

Michael Lee: Mary Kate Carey, thank you so much for being on When we Disagree. 

Mary Kate Cary : Hope you [00:23:00] enjoyed that. Thanks for having me. 

Michael Lee: When we Disagree is recorded at the College of Charleston with creator and host Michael Lee.

Recording and sound engineering by Jesse KZ and Lance Laidlaw. Reach out to us at When We disagree@gmail.com.