Goldman Sachs Talks

US Sen. Doug Jones, Author of Bending Toward Justice

US Senator Doug Jones of Alabama discusses the 1963 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, his work in pursuing convictions against two of the perpetrators decades later and his efforts to find middle ground in American politics.

On the rise in white supremacy in the US: “What I think has happened in the last couple of years is that there’s a lot of dog whistle politics out there, in which there is not condoning, but the lack of real fervent condemnation of a lot of these hate-filled acts. And I think that that’s giving rise to a lot of problems that we see now.”

On the state of American politics: “I think the role of moderates to be played now and in the presidential race is to effectively provide an avenue to govern, because you cannot govern from the extreme right or the extreme left. You’ve got to govern more in the middle. Our constitutional government was set up to foster disagreements, but to be able to work through those disagreements for the betterment of everybody.”