Documentarian Ken Burns told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that on the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, he believes Americans are worried about the country lasting another ten years.

KEN BURNS: It’s such a wonderful and fortuitous accident. The now started ten years ago, more than ten years ago, when we were finishing up our series on the Vietnam War. And I was looking at a map of the central highlands, and I thought, Maybe this could be the British moving west on Long Island towards Brooklyn. Maybe we can do – despite the absence of photographs and newsreels – maybe we can do the Revolution. So I spoke up, and I said, We’re doing the Revolution next. No idea that it would come falling close to 250, come at a place where Americans are so anxious about the future. Will there be another 250 or another ten years, you know? I think that that kind of existential, fraught moment gives us an opportunity to allow the story of the American Revolution, the complicated story of the American Revolution, to help us understand. I mean, history is our best teacher, and it can be a helpful guide for everybody, no matter your disposition, political orientation, age, whatever it is. History can be an incredibly important way to digest the present and then figure out what your response is and – and to imagine a future together.

Here’s the full conversation:
RealClearPolitics Videos