CHAUTAUQUA — Democracy is not guaranteed.

“It is the hardest of human undertakings, because it requires us to see each other not as rivals, but as neighbors,” said Jon Meacham, presidential historian and Pulitzer Prize-winning author.

Meacham gave his thoughts to an Amphitheater audience Thursday at Chautauqua Institution as part of theme “The Future of History.” He said the founders of the United States made it really difficult to get anything done in the U.S., because they believed in the worst of human nature, and U.S. citizens have done everything possible ever since to prove the founders right.

Meacham noted that he is not a Republican and not a Democrat. He said he helps President Biden, he is George Bush’s biographer, and he has been seen on MSNBC. He is not in the middle either.

“I don’t think any political organization has a monopoly on truth,” he added.

A democracy, he said, is the fullest expression of everyone, that is at once thrilling and terrifying.

“But one of the things we have to remember is that if you’re not getting what you want, that doesn’t mean democracy isn’t working. It might mean that that’s exactly what democracy is supposed to do,” the author said.

American politics, he noted, is where factions contend against each other where there is a loss of ground, then progress, then another loss. So the present and the future of history Meacham believes is that Americans have to tell a story that preserves the possibility of prosperity, progress, and justice.

Meacham will be the first to tell one that the Constitution, the filibuster, and the Supreme Court are not perfect. History is not a referendum, but rather a choice, he noted. People elect a president, and citizens want him to be a superhero. Americans, he said, then will get upset because the elected official doesn’t fix everything, but there has to be reasonable expectations.

According to assembly.chq.org, Meacham is one of America’s most prominent public intellectuals, with a depth of knowledge about politics, religion and current affairs. Meacham is the author of multiple New York Times bestsellers, including The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels, which examines the present moment in American politics and life by looking back at critical times in U.S. history when hope overcame division and fear. In 2020, he released His Truth Is Marching On: John Lewis and the Power of Hope, an intimate and revealing portrait of civil rights icon and longtime U.S. Congressman John Lewis.

His latest book, And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Experiment, will be published in the fall of this year. A contributing editor at TIME, Meacham also writes “The Long View” column in The New York Times Book Review, in which he looks back at books that speak to our current historical and cultural moment. He served as Newsweek’s managing editor from 1998 to 2006 and as editor from 2006 to 2010. In 2020, Meacham released two podcasts with the History Channel: “Hope Through History” and “It Was Said.” Narrated and written by Meacham, season two of the critically acclaimed “Hope Through History” podcast explores some of the most historic and trying times in American history, how the nation dealt with the impact of these moments, and how we came through these moments a more unified nation. “It Was Said” tells the stories of those crucial words, taking listeners back to inflection points ranging from the McCarthy era to our present time through the real-time rhetoric that shaped and suffused America as the country struggled through storm and strife. Named a “Global Leader for Tomorrow” by the World Economic Forum, Meacham is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a fellow of the Society of American Historians. He is a distinguished visiting professor at Vanderbilt University where he holds the Rogers Chair in the American Presidency.

“Let’s build and not hate,” he added.