Democracy in Danger: Recent Episodes
UVA Media Lab
All over the world, liberal democracy is getting turned upside-down. Autocratic leaders are using populist appeals, the partisan media and the power of their offices to short-circuit deliberation and consensus. They flout the rule of law, unleash the police on their own people, suppress dissent and attack voting rights. So what can you do about it?
Join hosts Will Hitchcock and Siva Vaidhyanathan on Democracy in Danger — a show that puts the illiberal turn in context. Each week Will and Siva, both University of Virginia professors, are joined by leading thinkers to discuss serious threats to government by the people: from the dark web and media disinformation, to climate change, economic inequality and violent extremism. Help them save democracy, and make it work better.
New episodes post on Wednesdays. Subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts and tweet us your thoughts @DinDpodcast.
In this second follow-up to “No Good Reason,” we offer Siva’s full interview with Karen Kurotsuchi Inkelas. She was a teenager when she first learned that her parents and their families had been incarcerated during World War II. It was part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s dubious policy of confining Japanese Americans on suspicion of disloyalty. Inkelas reflects on her parent’s experience and the marks it left on her own life.
India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, is an unabashed autocrat. He has jailed political opponents, gone after Muslims with violence and hateful rhetoric, and dismantled checks on his power. So what explains Modi’s continued popularity? As some 600 million Indians head to the polls, we explore this question with political analyst Radha Kumar. She discusses what it would take for democratic renewal to take root in the world’s most populous nation, and what the past might portend for her country’s future.
In this follow-up to last week’s show, we offer Will’s full interview with Greg Robinson, about Japanese confinement during World War II. Robinson, a historian at the University of Quebec, has studied that tragic chapter and its implications for us today more deeply than just about anyone.
After the Empire of Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, a racial panic took hold over the United States and its leadership. And President Franklin D. Roosevelt — otherwise known for the progressive policies of his New Deal — approved the mass removal and confinement of Japanese American families, on scant evidence of disloyalty. Our team discusses this shameful chapter in U.S. history, and its legacy, with a daughter of two erstwhile internees and one of the world’s foremost students of the era.
After a fraudulent election in August 2020, Belarusian riot police cracked down on massive protests. Then demonstrators started vanishing. Many of them would be tortured in custody. But a determined group of activists struck back, outing the names and faces of bad cops. We speak with one of those activists on this “Power of Many” rebroadcast. Plus, Emily explains how Russia’s mercenary Wagner Group, alive and well with Belarusian support, continues to destabilize democracies in far-flung places.
Félix Maradiaga spent more than 600 days in a jail in Nicaragua. Held in solitary confinement for most of that time, he faced beatings and constant interrogation. Why? Because he stood up against the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega. Since 2007, Ortega has dismantled checks on his power. In 2018, his police cracked down on mass protests, killing some 300 demonstrators and bystanders. Today, Maradiaga lives in exile and campaigns against the use of arbitrary detention in his native country and around the world.
In 1829, the abolitionist David Walker published a stunning, poignant appeal to “to the colored citizens of the world.” He urged them to fight against a system of racial slavery and oppression, and to expose that system’s moral bankruptcy. Walker’s plea has since taken shape in the work of some of America’s greatest thinkers, like W.E.B. Du Bois, James Baldwin and Billie Holiday. On this episode redux, a political philosopher reflects on their ideas, their art and their struggles against resignation.
Argentina’s new president is a libertarian populist and, by his own account, an anarcho-capitalist. To tackle his county’s deep economic troubles, Javier Milei wants to dismantle state institutions, implement severe austerity measures and strip protections for workers. He also wants to outlaw abortion. But in a country with a strong tradition of organized labor and women’s movements, so far he has sown mainly chaos. We speak with a journalist and a sociologist who say Milei’s methods are madness.
Last September, Vote.org and other advocacy groups saw a massive spike in new voter registrations on a one-day nationwide drive. The main reason: Taylor Swift, who has been urging fans to get political. But can she — and other celebrities — move the needle on core matters of social justice, and maybe even save democracy? As usual, we turn to the experts. By which we mean three teenage girls. Plus phenom sociologist Tressie McMillan Cottom keeps it real on this play-it-again-worthy episode from our archives.
Last May, protestors took to the streets in Pakistan to support Imran Khan, the populist prime minister tossed from office and into the slammer. Now, in a rebuke to the military and political establishment, voters put more candidates from Khan’s circle in parliament than from any other party. But they fell short of a majority last month in an election marred by vote-rigging. Siva speaks with an anthropologist in Karachi who parses the state of Pakistan’s politics and its prospects for real democracy.
Last year, there were 645 mass shootings in the United States, according to the Gun Violence Archive. In the latest major tragedy, at the Kansas City Super Bowl parade, one person was killed and 22 others — half of them children — suffered gunshot wounds. But here’s something you may not know: since then, there have been another 26 mass shootings. Historian Andrew McKevitt and sociologist Jennifer Carlson join Will for a conversation about the history, politics and economics of America’s deadly gun culture.
This season we’ve adopted walls as our loose theme, and architectural historian Louis Nelson joins Will and Siva to help frame the idea. At the University of Virginia, wavy brick walls enclose beautiful gardens. But as Nelson explains those walls once served a more sinister purpose. Drawing on this lesson from the past, our guest and hosts grapple with the meaning and function of walls in a democracy — along borders, in cities and in people’s hearts and minds.
Before the Chinese Communist Party came to power in 1949, Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists played a key role in fighting the Japanese during World War II. In the decades after, China’s role as an ally to the West was largely erased from its domestic politics — and all but forgotten everywhere else. Lately, Chinese leaders are revisiting “the Good War” and reframing that past to serve new interests. On this Season 8 debut, Harvard scholar Rana Mitter reminds us that history is always about the present.
In 1829, the abolitionist David Walker published a stunning, poignant appeal to “to the colored citizens of the world.” He urged them to fight against a system of racial slavery and oppression, and to expose that system’s moral bankruptcy. The essence of Walker’s plea has since taken shape in the work of some of America’s greatest thinkers, like W.E.B. Du Bois, James Baldwin and Billie Holiday. Political philosopher Melvin Rogers reflects on their ideas, their art and their struggles against resignation.
Ahead of some key state elections this year, Vote.org and other advocacy groups saw a massive spike in new voter registrations on a one-day nationwide drive. The main reason: Taylor Swift. The pop star has been urging fans to get political. But can she — and other celebrities — move the needle on core matters of social justice, and maybe even save democracy? As usual, we turn to the experts. By which we mean, of course, three teenage girls. Plus, phenom sociologist Tressie McMillan Cottom keeps it real.
After a fraudulent election in August 2020, Belarusian riot police cracked down on massive protests. Then demonstrators started vanishing. Many of them would be tortured in custody. But a determined group of activists struck back, outing the names and faces of bad cops. We speak with one of those activists for a new segment called “The Power of Many.” Plus, Emily explains how Russia’s mercenary Wagner Group, alive and well with Belarusian support, continues to destabilize democracies in far-flung places.
Coming at you live from Light House Studio’s Vinegar Hill Theatre in Charlottesville, our fair city: Emily and Siva welcome Jennifer Weiss-Wolf and Samhita Sunya to the stage, as part of the Karsh Institute’s Democracy360 forum. Sunya, a cinema expert, and Weiss-Wolf, a pioneering advocate for women’s rights, discuss the power of film and print media to shape global feminism. From Bollywood to Ms. magazine, we look at why the women’s movement and its representation matter for the health of a society.
For eight years, the nationalist Law and Justice Party has ruled Poland. It set about taking over public media, the courts and cultural institutions, while tightening restrictions on abortion and immigration. But this month Poles said, “Stop.” Voters turned out in record numbers and delivered a rebuke to extremism, electing a centrist coalition to run the government. We welcome feminist scholar and activist Agnieszka Graff to discuss this remarkable turn of events and what lies ahead for her riven country.
In the 1930s, truckers in Minneapolis went on strike to protest their precarious working conditions. When things got violent, FDR stepped in — and the truckers won. New York Times writer David Leonhardt says this story demonstrates the importance of organized labor to the vitality of the American dream. Today, that dream of a “better, richer, happier life” is in doubt, as inequality grows and progress wanes. Live from the Texas Tribune Festival, Leonhardt makes a case for how to turn the tide.
Poets, painters, novelists, musicians — it turns out they are as crucial to sustaining self-government as politicians and pundits. In a wide-ranging conversation, our hosts speak with English professor Steve Parks about the likes of Walt Whitman, Woody Guthrie, Sinéad O’Connor and the Malian singer Fatoumata Kouyaté. What does their art have in common? Spoiler: an affective sense of democracy. Plus, Parks shares our plans for a new segment on international activists. We’re calling it “The Power of Many.”
New season, new questions, new people! This fall, UVa historian Emily Burrill joins our team to fill in for Will while he’s away. Emily chats with Siva and Will about what’s coming up in Season Seven. We’ll be delving into the relationship between expressive culture and democratic practice, putting on a couple of live shows and — of course — serving up our bread and butter: the knowledge you need to help save the rule of the people.
Let’s face it. Sometimes you can’t stand your neighbor’s guts. Problem is, contempt for people who think differently from you is the death knell of democracy, says writer Anand Giridharadas. He set out in search of the lost art of persuasion, and found it: among activists, cult-deprogrammers, political organizers and deep canvassers. Giridharadas shares what he found and offers some advice on how to talk to your friends — and enemies. Catch up and gear up for a new season of the show, beginning Sept. 6.
The 75th anniversary of Israel’s founding was met in May with another round of bloodshed. As the Islamic Jihad fired rockets from Gaza, the Israeli military responded with brutal airstrikes, killing civilians. Meanwhile, thousands have taken to the streets in Israel — to little avail — protesting the authoritarian moves of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. We revisit our conversation with one Palestinian and one Israeli analyst for some context on these events in a land of much promise and meager hope.
Manasseh Mathiang was twice exiled from his homeland. Once: as a child fleeing a bloody civil war. A second time: as an activist helping to build a new country before running afoul of the authorities. His crime? Singing for freedom and justice in South Sudan, where the government promised democratic reforms and delivered oppression instead. Still, Mathiang and fellow creators continue their struggle for peace — through art, comedy and, when need be, protest. Give this music-filled episode a second listen.
The civil rights movement was a huge leap forward for voting rights, yet one big part of the electorate remains largely on the sidelines: the poor. Legal scholar Bertrall Ross points to low turnout among the bottom 20 percent of American earners as an insidious form of voter suppression, all but guaranteeing their interests won’t be served. And he offers some ideas on how to get political campaigns to bring in new voters. We also check in with Nevada’s secretary of state on this encore episode.
Early in 2017, millions of women marched in solidarity to oppose Donald Trump’s inauguration. In a small Texas county, meantime, a growing network of like-minded ladies found each other — and began meeting in secret. One scholar followed these women as they became improbable, undercover champions of civic engagement while keeping their activism hidden, from their husbands, families and neighbors. We revisit their story and ask what it says about the politics of silence as well as the silencing of politics.
Catch up this summer on what you’ve missed. Today, legal scholar Jedediah Purdy joins Will and Siva to talk about the people and the law. Can Americans transcend gross inequality, neoliberal ideology, and the “politics of nihilism” taking root among their leaders? Looking to Frederick Douglass for inspiration, Purdy thinks so. His says citizens need to reimagine and rebuild the body politic — to rule themselves at last. It may be a crapshoot, but it’s one a free people can’t afford to let pass.
This May, the 75th anniversary of Israel’s founding was met with another round of fighting. As the Islamic Jihad fired rockets from Gaza, the Israeli military responded with brutal airstrikes. Meanwhile, thousands have been taking to the streets in Israel to oppose the authoritarian moves of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Two analysts — one Palestinian, one Israeli — offer some context on these events. And they try to imagine the shape of real democracy in a land of much promise and meager hope.
Law enforcement is among the most undemocratic institutions in America, says New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie. And the effect this has on communities of color is especially stark. Bouie visits Will and Siva’s class for another live recording with their students, to discuss police brutality, the country’s culture of violence, and the shifting ground of racial oppression in U.S. history. How citizens experience government, he says, depends a lot on what they look like and what levers of power they hold.
After Elon Musk bought Twitter and fired most of its staff, the platform seems to be floundering, if not imploding. Traffic is flagging, major news outlets have abandoned their handles, hate speech is on the rise. And yet, Twitter remains one of the easiest ways to speak out in public. Media scholar Meredith Clark doesn’t know if Twitter will survive, but she does know it’s a repository for a remarkable history of antiracist activism. Hear how she is working to preserve that archive, and why.
Manasseh Mathiang was twice exiled from his homeland. Once: as a child fleeing a bloody civil war. A second time: as an activist who returned to help build a new country but ran afoul of the authorities. His crime? Singing for freedom and justice in South Sudan, where the government promised democratic reforms and delivered oppression instead. Still, Mathiang and fellow artists of the Anataban movement continue their struggle for peace — through music, murals, comedy and, when need be, protest.
The civil rights movement was a huge leap forward for voting rights, yet one group of the electorate remains largely on the sidelines: the poor. Legal scholar Bertrall Ross calls low turnout among the bottom 20 percent of American earners an insidious form of voter suppression, all but guaranteeing their interests won’t be served. And he offers some ideas on how to get political campaigns to court new voters. We also speak to Nevada’s new secretary of state, who defeated an election denier.
This time on the show, we bring you a tale of two struggles. In Ukraine, a 16-year-old living just miles from the Russian border does what she can in the face of missile strikes, power outages and daily trauma. And in Estonia, an exiled Russian activist works to oppose Putin’s war and help refugees escape the conflict. Where democracy is most in danger, they teach us, joy comes from standing up for yourself — and for others.
The end of federal protection for abortion rights has led to a patchwork of state and local laws banning and even criminalizing healthcare choices that women continue to make every day. Amy Hagstrom Miller, founder and CEO of Whole Woman’s Health, visits Will and Siva’s class to discuss the implications of these developments for her work, as she combats a culture of shame and stigma around abortion. She says it’s time to look for change beyond the judiciary — and to get men caring about reproductive justice.
As many as a quarter of U.S. residents are foreign-born or the children of immigrants. Since the country’s founding, newcomers have made and remade the United States every generation. And yet debates about immigration policy are deeply fraught, highly cyclical and often coded in racial animus, says legal scholar Amanda Frost. America’s pathways to citizenship have gotten narrower in recent years, even as they face constant fire. It’s a problem, she argues, that political leaders shouldn’t ignore.
America’s Constitution was meant to unify the new nation and help avert a civil war over the thorniest of divisions: slavery. Oops! In retrospect, that charter proved much too ambiguous, lending itself to both proslavery and abolitionist causes. In this season’s premiere, historian Liz Varon discusses the deep roots of polarization in the United States — with Will, Siva and an auditorium full of their students. The Union may have survived, Varon tells us, but its bloodiest war still echoes.
The high court’s conservatives insist that strict readings of the U.S. Constitution have compelled them to strike down popular policies like abortion rights and campaign finance limits. Well, legal expert Christopher Sprigman has some news for these robed rogues. Buried in the law of the land is the key to reining in the federal judiciary. All Congress has to do is act, he says. And all the people have to do is demystify the courts. Join us for our last rebroadcast of the 2023 winter break.
We’ve never been a podcast about “Democrats” in danger. But in the United States, one political party epitomizes the antidemocratic moment. Donald Trump’s influence may be waning, but many Republicans remain devoted to his style, intent on suppressing the vote and hostile to racial justice. After last week’s debacle in the House, we bring you an episode (one more time!) that takes a hard look at the GOP — with help from a former Republican congresswoman who has dared to call out the former president.
A consummate G-man, J. Edgar Hoover led the FBI for four decades, becoming one of the most influential figures of the 20th century. Demanding rigor, loyalty and stealth from his subordinates, he worked closely with presidents of both parties, but his own views were steeped in conservative ideas on religion, race and anticommunism. As new details emerge about the present-day investigation of Donald Trump, we revisit a conversation with historian Beverly Gage — about Hoover’s imprint on the agency’s culture.
Let’s face it. There are times you can’t stand your neighbor’s guts. The problem is, contempt and disgust for people who think differently from you is the death knell of democracy, says writer Anand Giridharadas. Over the last few years, he set out in search of the lost art of persuasion, and found it: among activists, cult-deprogrammers, political organizers and deep canvassers. Giridharadas shares what he learned and offers some advice on how to talk to your friends — and enemies — this holiday season.
Two years ago, on the heels of mass protests, Chileans overwhelming agreed: they needed to draft a new constitution. This September, faced with an up-or-down referendum on one of the most progressive governing charters in world history, they balked. What went wrong? Political theorist Camila Vergara breaks down the breakdown in her country’s efforts to scrap a political framework dating back to the ruthless dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, who took power in 1973 in a U.S.-backed coup.
Devin Chandler, Lavel Davis Jr. and D’Sean Perry were returning from a field trip with their classmates when their lives were cut short. The gunman who killed them has been identified as another student on the trip. Our hosts and producers sit down together to mourn and make sense of yet another tragedy too close to home. And they ask: Where do we go from here — as a school, as a town, as a society?
The United States hasn’t overhauled immigration policy since the 1990s, even though most Americans agree the system is failing. And for thousands fleeing violence in Latin America, the consequences of inaction in Washington are treacherous. Will and our colleague Debbie Kang speak this time with a scholar fighting for asylum cases to get a fair shake, especially for women and LGBTQ applicants facing gender violence. With a backlog of nearly 2 million petitions, it’s a mammoth task.
A consummate G-man, J. Edgar Hoover led the FBI for close to 40 years, becoming one of the most influential figures of the 20th century. Demanding rigor, loyalty and stealth from his subordinates, he worked closely with presidents of both parties, but his own views were steeped in conservative ideas on religion, race and anticommunism. Historian Beverly Gage considers Hoover’s legacy and helps us ask: Can the bureau he built effectively investigate a former president — and protect the republic?
Pollsters in Brazil had Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the comeback candidate, leading by as many as 14 percentage points in the presidential election. But neither top nominee won a majority this month, sending citizens back to the polls for a historic runoff. And democracy itself is on the line. Incumbent president Jair Bolsonaro has waged war on reality, sowed division on social media and attacked the press. We check in with one of his targets, journalist Patrícia Campos Mello, ahead of the Oct. 30 rematch.
The U.S. Constitution is an 18th-century straitjacket. It’s almost impossible to amend, it gives outsize power to small states, and its meaning is subject to the whims of unelected and increasingly intransigent judges. So what’s new? Well, you might be intrigued to learn on this episode just how America might wrench itself out of that morass, short of trashing the Constitution altogether. With the 2022 midterms on the horizon, our two guests offer up a few ideas — some new, some as old as Athens.
The high court’s conservatives insist that strict readings of the U.S. Constitution have compelled them to strike down popular policies like abortion rights and campaign finance limits. Well, legal expert Christopher Sprigman has some news for these robed rogues. Buried in the law of the land is the key to reining in the federal judiciary. All Congress has to do is act, he says. And all the people have to do is demystify the courts — stripping them of an imperious aura they’ve too long enjoyed.
In January 2017, millions of women marched in solidarity to oppose Donald Trump’s inauguration. But in a small Texas county, a growing network of like-minded ladies found each other — and began meeting in secret. Communications scholar Emily Van Duyn followed these women as they became improbable, undercover champions of civic engagement while keeping their activism hidden, from their husbands, families and neighbors. We ask what their story says about the politics of silence and the silencing of politics.
We’re back! Legal scholar Jedediah Purdy joins Will and Siva to help launch a new season focused on democracy, law and the people. Can Americans transcend gross inequality, neoliberal ideology, and the “politics of nihilism” taking root among their leaders? Looking to Frederick Douglass for inspiration, Purdy thinks so. His new book urges readers to reimagine and rebuild their body politic — to rule themselves at last. It may be a crapshoot, but it’s one a free people can’t afford to pass up.
Public schools are ground zero in the battle over American civic life. Teaching history is under attack, book banning is on the rise, and leaders in red states are legislating homophobia in the guise of protecting children. Historian Natalia Petrzela locates the roots of such political backlash in cultural upheavals of the 1960s that continue to play out today, amid a climate of discontent mixed up with pandemic anxieties. With kids heading back to school this month, we revisit our recent education episode.
President Biden’s recent covid diagnosis is a reminder that the country is not out of the pandemic woods yet. As new variants crop up and infection numbers spike, the demand for remote working and learning will remain. But as many as 120 million Americans lack consistent, high-speed internet. This time we revisit our show with media scholar Christopher Ali. He says the broadband divide isn’t just an economic problem but a threat to democracy itself. Hear why he thinks internet access is a vital public good.
Just as FDR and his allies were crafting the New Deal, a retired Marine named Smedley Butler came forward with a shocking revelation. Powerful business interests, Butler alleged, were plotting to overthrow the U.S. government. Inspired by the rise of fascism in Europe, the conspirators had sought Butler’s aid. Little did they know, decades of fighting for American imperialism had left him disillusioned, so he blew the top on “the Business Plot.” As the Jan. 6 hearings heat up, we revisit this bizarre tale.
There are more firearms — nearly 400 million — in the United States than people. Hundreds of them were on full display at a pro-gun rally in Virginia, in 2020, where a group of strange bedfellows met in praise of the Second Amendment. On this replay, we revisit that story, and our interview with historian Carol Anderson. If you thought the right to “bear arms” was about individuals carrying weapons, or even about letting militias defend a free state against foreign invasion, think again.
Coming to you live this week from the American Political History conference at Purdue University, it’s our season finale. Will and Siva speak with three historians — Liette Gidlow, Derek Musgrove and Thomas Zimmer — about the past, present and future of government by the people. Our guests ponder the Jan. 6 hearings, D.C. statehood, social mobilization and the structural problems of the Constitution itself. Did America’s founders sign democracy’s death warrant at its birth?
In recent years, American politicians seem to be getting tougher about internet oversight. But it remains unclear whether Washington has the will to regulate big tech companies and the platforms they control. This week we hear from Sen. Mark Warner, a Democrat, and former Rep. Barbara Comstock, a Republican, live from the University of Virginia’s celebrated dome room. They see hope for bipartisan action on Capitol Hill — to protect users and free speech alike. Siva reflects with guest-host Danielle Citron.
Russian forces have pulled back from around the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv. They’ve left the country’s second largest city, Kharkiv. But farther east and south, the fighting has intensified, and the civilian death toll is mounting. How will this war end? What will remain of Ukraine? And are European powers doing enough to punish Russia for its devastating invasion? Journalist Peter Pomerantsev — recently back from covering the conflict for the Atlantic — helps Will and Siva parse a complex picture.
Newsrooms are shrinking, hedge funds are buying up local papers and clickbait is shaping more and more what you know about the world. What the heck is happening to the news business — and what does this spell for the future of democracy? Journalism professors Jay Rosen and Nikki Usher say the internet isn’t all to blame: Journalists, they argue, need to get more creative about who they reach, what they cover and how they fund their work.
After a surprising leak, Americans have seen a draft Supreme Court opinion that would undo the right of women to terminate their pregnancies. At issue in this case out of Mississippi: a near-total ban on abortion that ignores Roe v. Wade. A final ruling is expected next month before the end of the court’s term. This week, we replay a conversation with journalist Rebecca Traister. She says establishment Democrats failed to ensure the healthcare needs of poor and marginalized people — and to defend democracy.
Entering the United States without permission is a crime. But should it be? This time on the show, we hear from a couple of lawyers who have been fighting to decriminalize unauthorized immigration. They say federal law unfairly targets Latin Americans — locking up hundreds of thousands of migrants who cross America’s southern border, costing billions of dollars each year. Plus, Will speaks with a University of Virginia historian who has helped make the case that those laws have patently racist origins.
Education is our subject this week. You’ve heard all about attacks on the teaching of racism and slavery, about the banning of books on the Holocaust and gender identity, about Florida’s “don’t say gay” bill. Public schools are ground zero in the battle over American civic life. But this is nothing new, historian Natalia Petrzela says. She locates the roots of such controversies in the cultural upheavals of the 1960s that continue to play out today, in a climate of discontent muddled by pandemic anxieties.
A critical Supreme Court decision in the early 1970s galvanized white evangelicals and set them on a path to outsized political influence in America. Roe v. Wade? Nope: Green v. Connally. This more obscure ruling two years before, in 1971, really got the religious right fired up, says historian Anthea Butler. That case stripped segregated academies — often religious schools — of their tax-exempt status. This week, Butler examines the racism, money and power behind a movement’s claims to moral authority.
When Evan Mawarire draped himself in his country’s flag six years ago, he didn’t know the video he was about to make would put his life in danger — and help topple a dictator. His forefathers had fought for Zimbabwe and for that flag. But now, Mawarire says, it “felt like a fraud.” Over four decades, Zimbabweans had suffered crushing economic woes and political oppression under President Robert Mugabe’s rule. Mawarire recalls that tumultuous time and its fallout with Siva and guest-host Emily Burrill.
Besides all but banning abortions, GOP leaders in Texas are limiting what students may learn about slavery, they’re sidelining transgender athletes, they’re allowing citizens to carry guns unlicensed, and they’re making voting harder rather than easier. This week we replay for you the story of a teacher in Dallas who says those education reforms hurt classrooms and democracy. Plus, two historians speak Texan with Siva and guest-host Allison Wright of VQR, as they cover all those other divisive measures.
During the Cold War, U.S. taxpayers funded the huge investments that gave Big Tech its jump-start. And so Silicon Valley was born amid a peculiar blend of hypermasculine, militaristic libertarianism and 1960s countercultural values. Now the titans of the tech industry seem enthralled with visions of a post-democratic society driven by algorithms more than actual human connection. Historian Margaret O’Mara joins Will and Siva to ponder what it will take to tame the beast Americans created half a century ago.
The United States is “backsliding,” says Kevin Casas-Zamora, head of a Sweden-based think tank that assesses the health of democracies around the world. And it’s the first of two key warning signs that, political scientist Barbara F. Walter argues, could lead America unexpectedly into a second civil war. The other sign: the coalescing of a powerful political party around identity rather than ideology. Walter spells out her case for why Americans should be very worried and what they should do about it.
Last December, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a Mississippi case that could hurt women across the country. At issue is a near-total ban on abortion that flies in the face of the landmark Roe v. Wade decision a half-century ago. Conservative justices could overturn abortion rights in America by the end of the court’s term. This week, journalist Rebecca Traister argues that establishment Democrats have failed to protect the healthcare needs of poor and marginalized people — and to defend democracy.
The post-9/11 “forever wars” — in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere — claimed a million lives and cost the United States $8 trillion over two decades. But what about the costs you can’t count? As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine rages on, we flash back to an episode we did with Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Spencer Ackerman, about the fallout on the home front from the war on terror. Ackerman says the enterprise was built on lies and has disfigured America’s political culture.
Just as FDR and his allies were crafting the New Deal, a retired Marine named Smedley Butler came forward with a shocking revelation. Powerful business interests, Butler alleged, were plotting to overthrow the U.S. government. Inspired by the rise of fascism in Europe, the conspirators had sought Butler’s aid. Little did they know, decades of fighting for American imperialism had left him disillusioned. So Butler blew the top on “the Business Plot.” Journalist Jonathan Katz helps unearth this bizarre tale.
Jane Lytvynenko hasn’t slept much in two weeks. From her home in Toronto, she is watching Russian troops invade and bombard her native Ukraine, threatening loved ones and friends. And it’s rattling her nerves. But through all that, Lytvynenko, a freelance journalist, remains hopeful. Siva speaks with her about the failures of world leaders to stand up to Vladimir Putin. Plus, we revisit a couple of interviews from last year that help add context to the conflict.
There are more firearms — nearly 400 million — in the United States than people. Hundreds of them were on full display at a pro-gun rally in Virginia, in 2020, where a group of strange bedfellows met in praise of the Second Amendment. Also on the show, historian Carol Anderson breaks down the sordid history of the right to bear arms in America. If you thought it was about the “individual right” to carry weapons, or even about militias defending a free state against foreign invasion, think again.
Virginia recently adopted progressive new voting measures championed by Democrats. Then the people rewarded Republicans, putting the levers of state government back in GOP hands. Now a new chief executive, Gov. Glenn Youngkin, is railing against the discussion of systemic racism in public schools and rolling back covid restrictions. Still, Del. Sally Hudson is focused on the positive: an increasingly diverse legislature, plans to weaken corporate influence in politics, and new checks on gerrymandering.
As many as 120 million Americans lack consistent, high-speed internet access — a problem that remote working and learning during the pandemic has made painfully clear. Media scholar Christopher Ali says it isn’t just an economic problem but a threat to democracy itself. And while the rural-urban divide is well known, Ali tells Will and Siva, poor, densely populated areas are also drastically under-served. Do Americans have the will to treat internet access as a public service rather than a consumer good?
We launch Season Four this week on familiar turf: autocratic shenanigans right here in the United States. Join Will and Siva for a conversation with Ohio writer and politician David Pepper. His new book tells the sordid tale of how state legislatures across the country get slammed with unpopular bills. On everything from voter suppression efforts to “Stand Your Ground” laws, right-wing lobbying groups are flooding the policy pipeline so hard and so fast, the opposition can’t keep up.
Given a real choice, people everywhere would take a shorter work week over bigger salaries, consume less to live more and seek mutual flourishing rather than plunder their natural resources, says economic anthropologist Jason Hickel. In our final replay of the winter break, we revisit his idea of “degrowth.” Hickel says the core tenet of capitalism — insatiable expansion — is holding humanity hostage. And if we don’t fix that, he argues, we won’t save the planet, never mind democracy.
The Democrats have come up short on President Biden’s spending package, failing to deliver $555 billion for renewable energy that climate advocates say was direly needed. This week we dust off an episode on the relationship between good government and climate policy. Science journalist Kendra Pierre-Louis says better individual choices won’t really address the looming ecological crisis. She argues instead for international reparations and a wholesale shift in social norms, including a healthy dose of shame.
This isn’t and never has been a podcast about “Democrats” in danger. But in the United States, one political party epitomizes the antidemocratic moment: Republicans remain devoted to a corrupt leader, intent on suppressing the vote and hostile to racial justice. This week, after GOP politicians simply ghosted the Jan. 6 commemoration in Congress, we’re replaying a show that takes a hard look at their party — with help from a former Republican congresswoman who has dared to call out former President Trump.
Jamelle Bouie and Nicole Hemmer return to the show this week for a special conversation looking back on the siege of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 — and looking forward at the prospects for democracy in the post-Trump era. Both the country’s political leaders and the media, our guests say, have been reluctant to embrace a rhetoric of emergency to define the moment. And as lawmakers investigate the attack, the window is closing on enacting genuine reforms to ensure voting rights and fair elections.
As the first anniversary of the assault on the U.S. Capitol approaches, we recall the media misuses that presaged that moment. Internet giants like Facebook, Google and Twitter aren’t just part of the disinformation problem — they are the problem, author Nina Jankowicz told us back in Season One. She examines Russian efforts to meddle in other countries, turning the tools of democracy against itself. While the stakes are high, Jankowicz says, stronger regulation and better education are within our grasp.
When Narendra Modi became India’s prime minister in 2014, he promised economic growth and relief from the corrupt and calcified Congress Party. Instead, Modi has stifled dissent, championed Hindu nationalism, undermined democratic institutions and assailed India’s Muslim minority. Last spring and summer, on his watch, the coronavirus delta variant took a devastating toll. Now omicron is rearing its head. Will Modi oversee yet another catastrophe? With that in mind, we revisit this episode from Season Two.
The drumbeat of war is sounding at the doorstep of eastern Ukraine. In Poland, desperate migrants from the Middle East and Afghanistan had to flee from tear gas and water cannons. And Hungary’s right-wing dictator is cracking down on any hint of dissent. Liberated from the grip of authoritarian rule 30 years ago, Eastern Europe has become a tinderbox — and a headache for U.S. diplomats. Two seasoned experts on the region discuss the latest on these dilemmas, and what America’s role in solving them might be.
Myo Yan Naung Thein had to be smuggled out of his country last spring or face certain torture and death. A leader in Myanmar’s pro-democracy movement, Naung Thein worked in the National League for Democracy, the party of deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Now in exile in the United States, Naung Thein shares his gripping tale, and explains why he thinks the Burmese military regime is losing.
A wave of extraordinary protest came to Cuba in July. Thousands hit the streets to call for more civil liberties, cheaper food and better health care, in a nation whose leaders for decades have defended socialism, at least in words. This week, NYU scholar Ada Ferrer brings some historical perspective to the circumstances in her native country, and our producer considers the island’s uncertain prospects for homegrown activism unafraid of repression and political transformation free of American interference.
Mexico’s murder rate has tripled in 15 years, even as the country enjoys a robust multiparty electoral system, a growing economy and a vibrant civil society. That mixed fate is common across Latin America, as the region struggles to overcome its colonial past and face the problems of the present: violence, inequality and agonizing migrations. Sociologist Gema Kloppe-Santamaría says there is common ground on which the Americas, together, can build a better future. Listen back to this episode from the spring.
Four years after far-right demonstrators came to Charlottesville, Va., victims of the mayhem are suing the rally’s organizers. At the core of their federal lawsuit is the 19th-century KKK Act — and thousands of texts and social media posts shared on the dark web. This month two media experts joined us for a conversation about the trial, taped live just a mile from the courthouse where jurors are weighing the facts. Here’s an edited version of that show, the first in our series on democracy “hot spots.”
So many of the wedge issues covered in our series on “some fine states” were on full display in Virginia’s nail-biter of a governor’s race: education, abortion and the election system itself, to name a few. Missing from both campaigns, say Will and Siva, was much substance. Join our intrepid hosts as they wrap up this miniseries with a conversation on what Republican Glenn Youngkin’s victory in the Old Dominion means for democracy in America. And more — a brief national history and the tale of two Buffalos.
This week our “Florida” show features the inspiring story of Desmond Meade’s struggle to right the ship of his life — and his fight to sail the Sunshine State into a future where ex-felons get another shot at political engagement. A MacArthur genius and the director of the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, Meade is working to get citizens who have served out their sentences their civil rights back. He just got his last month. Listen to a full version of his interview with our producer, Robert Armengol.
Political analyst Susan MacManus calls Florida the most complex and difficult swing state to win. And many assumptions about how voters vote, whether based on age or ethnicity, go to die in the Sunshine State. Florida is getting younger and more diverse, and it’s pushing the needle on democracy — in both directions. Hear how activist Desmond Meade helped enfranchise more than a million new voters, even as his state’s Republican-controlled legislature has limited how and when Floridians cast their ballots.
Something weird is going on in Mesa County, Colo. Images, passwords and copies of raw data from election equipment mysteriously turned up online over the summer. Then Mesa’s elections clerk vanished, only to resurface weeks later, claiming she had uncovered fraud — in a county that Trump won handily. This week, investigative reporter Emma Brown of the Washington Post breaks down this bizarre case from Colorado. It fits a national playbook designed to undermine the 2020 election and faith in voting systems.
Last year, Virginians approved a redistricting commission that was supposed to bring an end to gerrymandering. But this month the commission broke down while trying to decide on statehouse districts, and the process appears headed to the Virginia Supreme Court. Meanwhile, citizens in the Old Dominion are heading to the polls next month to elect their first governor of the post-Trump era. We talk state politics with former Del. David Toscano and Brian Cannon, who championed the redistricting reform effort.
Besides all but banning abortions, GOP leaders in Texas are limiting what students may learn about slavery, sidelining transgender athletes, allowing citizens to carry guns unlicensed, and making voting more difficult. This week a teacher in Dallas explains why those education reforms hurt classrooms and democracy. Plus, we hear from two historians about all those other divisive measures... Join Siva and guest-host Allison Wright of VQR as they speak Texan in this first of a series on state-level politics.
American democracy is supposed to come with a warranty: equal opportunity, social mobility, the promise of success with hard work. But the fabled Dream is fraying. In fact, journalist Eduardo Porter says, it was never sold as advertised. This week we’re replaying an episode that speaks to the current impasse in Congress over social spending. To mend a tattered republic, Porter tells Siva and Will, we need “a new idea of America,” made from policies that address wealth inequality across the social spectrum.
In 1905, Austrian baroness Bertha von Suttner won the Nobel Peace Prize, which she had helped convince Alfred Nobel to establish. Largely forgotten among antiwar activists, she was an outspoken critic of efforts to make combat merely less brutal. Today, Yale legal scholar Samuel Moyn finds inspiration in Suttner’s story for his own provocative stance against the logic of “humanizing” war with technological innovations like drone strikes. He says we’re only making conflicts more frequent and longer-lasting.
Listen to Siva’s full conversation with Haiti expert Laurent Dubois, co-director of the UVA Democracy Initiative. Dubois narrates the early history of slave revolt in the French colony of Saint-Domingue, the founding of Haiti and the country’s history up through a brutal intervention of the U.S. Marines in the early 20th century. This past, he says, helps put into context the current crises in Haiti, where conflicting models of political and economic autonomy have been in tension for 230 years.
In 1791, the people of Saint-Domingue threw off the yoke of slavery and revolted against their French masters, eventually founding a new nation with the radical promise of universal freedom: Haiti. Then came the hard reality of a world-system that would plague the country with debt, discord and military interventions, including a 19-year occupation by the United States. Three scholars — Marlene Daut, Laurent Dubois and Robert Fatton — help us consider Haiti’s burdened past and its echoes in the present.
It’s hard not to see shades of Saigon in the frenetic evacuation of Kabul last month — and wonder why U.S. leaders seem not to have learned from bungled foreign wars and nation-building efforts. In this second part of a series reflecting on the debacle in Afghanistan, Will and Siva speak with two historians of the post-Vietnam era. They shed light on the grandiose and self-interested visions America has tried to realize abroad and ask what hope there may be for a future of soft power and humanitarian goals.
The “forever war” in Afghanistan claimed 243,000 lives and cost $2.3 trillion over two decades, ending with the chaotic withdrawal of U.S. troops last week. But what about the costs you can’t count? In this first of a series on lessons inscribed in America’s foreign military ventures, Will and Siva speak with Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Spencer Ackerman about the fallout on the home front from the war on terror. Ackerman says the enterprise was built on lies and has disfigured our political culture.
Well, it’s our final rebroadcast of the summer... For the one million young people who have grown up in the United States undocumented, feeling like they really belong here remains a dream deferred. This time, we hear from two of them living in limbo. Plus, legal scholar Amanda Frost unearths the unsettling stories of Americans who have had their citizenship taken away — because of their politics, their race and even because of whom they choose to marry.
Srdja Popovic was 16 and playing guitar in a goth-rock band when Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic came to power. A decade later — after a series of brutal civil wars — Popovic and a few friends launched a resistance movement that grew to tens of thousands and helped topple a reign of terror. What can the secret of their success say about all the protests we see going on around the world today? Popovic shares his story, his principles and his hopes, in this rebroadcast of one of our favorite episodes.
We’re doing something a little different this time — swapping feeds with one of our sister shows. On this episode you’ll hear Atlantic staff writer Anne Applebaum, author of “The Twilight of Democracy.” She spoke last February with Penn State’s McCourtney Institute in a live lecture plus Q&A with the hosts of “Democracy Works.” Applebaum discusses the Republican Party, the Cold War era, and why she believes economic inequality and democratic erosion are not as closely linked as some people think.
Last month the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a pair of Arizona laws limiting voter access to the polls, emboldening Republican-led states to pass restrictive measures that discourage election participation. As scholar Carol Anderson explained in Season One, such laws hark back to America’s long history of disenfranchising minorities. She says the core safeguards of the 1965 Voting Rights Act are unraveling — even as citizens across the country keep fighting to protect the kernel of democracy: their ballots.
After a violent crackdown on protestors, Donald Trump posed for a photo-op with a bible in front of a church. A year later, a federal judge has tossed most of the civil complaints against the former president. But the image remains telling. Today we replay our interview with religion scholar Matthew Hedstrom on the ideology of Christian nationalism and its harder-core variety, dominionism. Hedstrom says a muscular resistance to pluralism — not ideas about piety — lies at the core of this belief system.
When we launched this podcast a year ago, we made it clear we weren’t going to produce a show about “Democrats” in danger. But in the United States, one political party epitomizes the antidemocratic moment: Republicans remain devoted to a corrupt leader, intent on suppressing the vote and hostile to racial justice. This week, we wrap up Season Two with a hard look at the GOP — with help from a historian, a political scientist and a former Republican congresswoman who has dared to call out President Trump.
Narendra Modi became India’s prime minister in 2014, promising economic growth and a respite from the corrupt and calcified Congress Party. But Modi’s Hindu nationalism has hardened along with his will to govern. He has stifled dissent, taken over almost every government institution and adopted policies that are hostile to Muslims. Now India is reeling from a devastating surge in covid infections and deaths. Where did Modi come from? And can he be stopped? A historian and two journalists offer some answers.
Three pillars hold up autocracy in Russia, journalist Masha Gessen says: media control, sham elections and downright terror. But the opposition movement spearheaded by imprisoned activist Alexei Navalny has struck at the heart of all three. Gessen explains how — and measures the power of democratic aspirations in a country struggling against corruption with hope, against the past with visions of a happier future.
Ukrainians took to the streets twice in 10 years to defend their fledgling democracy. The first time, it seemed an election might be stolen. Then the government broke a pledge to bring the country closer to the European Union — and the people pushed back. Now Ukraine is mired in conflicts with separatists in the east and with Russia over its hold on Crimea. But even as Putin wages war on this former Soviet republic, the long-term outlook for Ukraine is strong. Harvard historian Serhii Plokhii explains why.
In Germany, like much of Europe, the antidemocratic forces of the far right have been gaining ground, even as chancellor Angela Merkel has kept extremism at bay in her own coalition, with often shrewd and at times brave politics. As she prepares to retire, can she cement a legacy of benevolent pragmatism and keep her country’s noisy fringe from coopting the opposition? Two experts on German politics help us explore Merkel’s legacy and what it means for the rest of the European Union — and the United States.
Citizenship determines who is in and who is out, who has a voice in a democracy and who doesn’t. But for the one million young people who have grown up in the United States undocumented, feeling like they really belong here remains a dream deferred. This time, we hear from two of them living in limbo. Plus, legal scholar Amanda Frost unearths the unsettling stories of Americans who have had their citizenship taken away — because of their politics, their race, even because of whom they choose to marry.
As states prepare to redraw their congressional districts, some will benefit from the prison-industrial complex: There are more people behind bars in America than in any country, and inmates are disproportionately Black and Latino. This week we’re replaying an interview about mass incarceration with Yale historian Elizabeth Hinton, who says minority communities suffered disproportionately from successive “wars” meant to save them — from poverty, from crime, from drugs — but which criminalized them instead.
Mexico’s murder rate has almost tripled in 15 years, even as the country has enjoyed a robust multiparty electoral system, a growing economy and a vibrant civil society. This mixed fate is common across Latin American democracies, as they struggle to overcome a past marred by U.S. imperialism, and face the problems of the present: violence, inequality and agonizing migrations. But, says sociologist Gema Kloppe-Santamaría, there is common ground on which the Americas, together, can build a better future.
Most top carbon-emitting nations, like the United States, are wealthy democracies. Yet climate change is hurting poor countries first and destabilizing their societies — with rising seas, more frequent hurricanes and harsh droughts, leading to mass migration. Science journalist Kendra Pierre-Louis says buying an electric car won’t help much. What we need, she tells Will and Siva, is far more than good individual choices: a wholesale structural shift, international reparations and a healthy dose of shame.
The toxic waste that seeps into rivers taints everything downstream, spoiling lakes and oceans, killing flora and fauna, altering the air we breathe and raining back down. Information works the same way, media scholar Whitney Phillips says. Fueled by human passions, falsehoods permeate the mainstream media, undermine trust and hurt vulnerable people most. To untangle this trash, she argues, we need to think ecologically, too: looking not only to coders but faith leaders, teachers, even healthcare workers.
When law professor Danielle Citron began exploring the scourge of online harassment, especially of women, what she found was disturbing. Virtually undeterred, stalkers would share intimate details about their targets, post nude photos without consent and threaten rape. This kind of behavior is enabled by the same Wild West approach to cyberspace regulation that permits so much of our personal data to be harvested and abused. What’s at stake, Citron says, is not just our privacy online, but our civil rights.
Srdja Popovic was 16 and playing guitar in a goth-rock band when Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic came to power. A decade later — after a series of brutal civil wars — Popovic and a few friends launched a resistance movement that grew to tens of thousands and helped topple Milosevic’s reign of terror. The secret of their success? Nonviolence, Popovic says. Today he leads an organization that supports pro-democracy activists all over the world. Hear him share his story, his principles and his hopes.
Like many of you, we were shocked and horrified by the killings at Atlanta-area spas last week — reminding us once again that nativist ideology in America is nothing new. Historian Erika Lee, who testified on hate crimes again Asian Americans before Congress in the wake of the massacre, walked Will and Siva through this sordid past on a show we produced in Season One. This week, we’re interrupting our regular schedule to bring you that episode.
Given a real choice, people around the world would take a shorter work week over bigger salaries, consume less to live more and seek mutual flourishing rather than plunder their natural resources. The problem is, says anthropologist Jason Hickel, the idea of a “degrowth” economy has never been on the ballot. Instead, the core tenet of capitalism — insatiable expansion — is holding humanity, and democratic ideals, hostage. The stakes can’t be higher, he argues: if we don’t fix that, we won’t save the planet.
The U.S. Constitution is clear: every person counts. But in a country with a sordid history of voter suppression, tinkering with the decennial census has become the latest trick for undermining majority rule. And the usually mundane rite of enumeration was politicized like never before when President Trump tried to exclude undocumented immigrants from the census. Dale Ho, director of the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project, explains why that’s detrimental to the proper functioning of government. And illegal.
Over the last 25 years, college tuition has almost doubled. Meanwhile, America’s K-through-12 education system has only become more fractured — with acute disparities in standards and resources at different schools sometimes just miles away from each other. But UVA president Jim Ryan has hope that with creative solutions across the board, learning can be democratized, and democracy itself enriched in the process. Hear what he has to offer Siva and Will — and the tough questions their students have for Ryan.
American democracy is supposed to come with a warranty: equal opportunity, social mobility, the promise of success with hard work. But the fabled Dream is fraying. In fact, NYT journalist Eduardo Porter says, it was never sold as advertised. From the beginning, the myth cheated people of color and poisoned working-class solidarity. To mend this tattered republic, Porter tells Siva and Will, we need “a new idea of America” — made from policies that address wealth inequality across the social spectrum.
Brazil is cursed. Or so it would seem, says media studies scholar David Nemer. Every three decades over the last 100 years, an authoritarian government rises to power. And the results are disastrous. Under Jair Bolsonaro, the “curse of the thirty years” continues, with covid deaths mounting and Brazilian institutions buckling. Find out what’s going on and what hope remains for democracy in South America’s largest country.
In a largely unregulated social media ecosystem, a curious mom looking for info about vaccine mandates in public schools can end up feasting on the internet’s most insidious — and outlandish — conspiracy theories. Stanford researcher Renée DiResta joins Will and Siva to grapple with the tangled web of QAnon, antivaxxers and more. If the Jan. 6 riot in Washington is any indication, what starts in chatrooms doesn’t stay in chatrooms. And the real-world consequences of the virtual Wild West can be disastrous.
Remember Silvio Berlusconi? Sex scandals, shady deals and a cult-like following marked the former Italian prime minister’s lasting grip on power. It’s a playbook with a long history and a troubling appeal nowadays, says NYU historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat. On our first episode back from the winter break, she walks Will and Siva through the characteristics of political strongmen — and the lessons they offer for American democracy in the post-Trump era.
After such a wacky month in America, is there any question democracy is still in danger? Yeah, we didn’t think so either. Will and Siva are back with Season Two and a whole new lineup of guests. Listen to our trailer for a taste of what’s in store. We’ll bring you stories from the trenches of democracy around the world, interviews on climate change and economic inequality, a primer on QAnon... and much more. So keep that thumb on our feed: our first show drops in just a few days.
President Biden has said he wants to move quickly to address racial injustice in America. But as historian Leah Wright Rigueur told us last summer, that remains a tall mountain to climb. She calls the U.S. a “failed state” that has always fallen short of its promise of equality. But she also saw hope in the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020 — and the possibility of transformation. Listen to this repost and look for new shows next week.
Among the more troubling kinds of iconography embraced by the mob that swarmed the U.S. Capitol earlier this month were symbols of the White Power movement. Historian Kathleen Belew traces an unbroken line from far-right militias operating largely under the radar since the 1980s to this very moment. Give this episode from September another listen.
Still reeling from last week’s turmoil in Washington? Yeah, same here. We thought it would be a good time to bring you a rebroadcast of last September’s show on violent extremist groups and their recruitment strategies. What draws young people into the toxic universe of far-right groups that pine for a white ethno-state? The temptation to hate often begins with innocent chatter before it’s fed by degrees — and algorithms, says Cynthia Miller-Idriss, a sociologist and education expert who tracks such groups.
The Confederate flag flew inside the U.S. Capitol this week, a feat not even Robert E. Lee achieved. Egged on by President Trump, a violent mob laid siege to the building, bringing death and mayhem, and temporarily halting the work of Congress to certify Joe Biden’s victory. Siva and Will — together with their University of Virginia students — reflect on what happened. Much as the nation was stunned, these acts were not unprecedented or unpredictable.
It’s been a long year: A tiny virus laid us low, protests over racial injustice erupted across the country, climate change loosed record-setting wildfires and hurricanes, and citizens voted in one of the most fraught national elections ever. So what did 2020 reveal about the state of democracy in America and across the world — and what will come in its wake? In this live recording for our season finale, a panel of experts helps Will and Siva break it all down and build it back up. Where do we go from here?
President Trump is calling for recounts and crying voter fraud while the Biden transition team roars to life, laying the groundwork for action on key issues like climate change, the pandemic and economic reignition. But our guests this week say America’s democratic institutions will continue to buckle if political leaders and citizens alike don’t take bold action to strengthen — and alter — them. Join Will and Siva for an election wrap-up and a look ahead with commentators Jamelle Bouie and Dahlia Lithwick.
Last month we learned that 545 immigrant children remained stranded in the United States, separated from their families: casualties of the president’s hard-nosed stance on immigration. And yet, despite all the tough talk and draconian policies, Trump’s administration hasn’t deported people as aggressively as his predecessor. So as Americans head to the polls this week, what should they make of this legacy, and what hope is there for a more humane future? Political scientist Elizabeth Cohen has some answers.
Amy Coney Barrett’s appointment to the Supreme Court on the eve of a presidential election has raised questions about Congress’s duty to check the power of the judiciary. Risa Goluboff, dean of the UVA Law School, offers Will and Siva some judicial — and judicious — history, and weighs the future. What will Justice Barrett do to the Supreme Court? How will it change her? And what’s with all the turtles carved into the court’s building? Well, Goluboff says, the pace of justice is slower than you may think.
Kate Manne argues that contempt for women is not a bug but a feature of Donald Trump’s politics. She says this helps explain why “masculine” issues — like the military, gun rights, law enforcement and border security — have drowned out health care, education, climate change and food protection. Manne, a philosopher at Cornell, also tells Will and Siva how such misogyny is refracted in the “himpathy” afforded to male perpetrators of sexual violence, and internalized not only by men but many women, too.
Fascism. We know what that looked like in 20th-century Germany and Italy: dictatorship, genocide, war. But can a creeping enthusiasm for authoritarianism in the 21st century — in democracies like India, Hungary and even the United States — be called “fascist”? Yale philosopher Jason Stanley thinks so. Not only that, he tells Siva and Will, but democracies are especially susceptible to fascism. Find out why.
In less than a week, Donald Trump told Americans not to let coronavirus “dominate” them, spread falsehoods about the flu, and told a violent hate group to “stand back and stand by.” These are just the sort of statements that make him a demagogue, says Texas A&M rhetorician Jennifer Mercieca. This time, Mercieca helps Will and Siva make sense of the president’s penchant for inflammatory language. How has it overshadowed the public sphere for five years, and what does it say about the state of our democracy?
When Phil Howard lived in Budapest, he watched as Hungary’s fledgling democracy was polluted with polarizing stories spread online. It’s a phenomenon now threatening political discourse everywhere, and recent tweaks meant to improve social media policies and algorithms, he says, amount to “a drop in the bucket.” But find out why Howard, a professor of internet studies at Oxford University, thinks we need more social media, not less; and how machine learning and big data might be democratized for good.
In 1890, Mississippi adopted a new constitution that offered a blueprint for Jim Crow. It all but banned African Americans from voting, erecting a charade of roadblocks: poll taxes, literacy tests and other targeted assaults on the franchise. As historian Carol Anderson explains, such laws blocked Black citizens from polling booths for decades. And today, she says — as the core safeguards of the Voting Rights Act unravel — Americans keep risking their lives to protect the kernel of democracy: their ballots.
Charleston. Tree of Life. Christchurch. All these deadly attacks have some grim details in common — their death tolls were massive... white-power ideology fueled their architects... and they only seemed to be the work of loners, according to historian Kathleen Belew. Join Will and Siva as Belew traces the unsettling history of anti-government militias since the 1980s. Often misunderstood in this story, she says, is the deadliest act of domestic terrorism on record in America: the Oklahoma City bombing.
What draws young people into the universe of toxic far-right groups that pine for a White ethno-state? The temptation to hate often begins with innocent chatter before it’s fed by degrees — and algorithms, says Cynthia Miller-Idriss, a sociologist and education expert who tracks such groups. They work through a mix of alluring aesthetics, direct appeals in social media and online gaming, even in old-fashioned flyers on college campuses. But, Miller-Idriss has found, the path to extremism can be disrupted.
Internet giants like Facebook, Google and Twitter aren’t just part of the disinformation problem — they are the problem, according to author Nina Jankowicz. Her new book, “How to Lose the Information War,” details Russia’s efforts to meddle in the affairs of other countries by turning the tools of free speech against democracy itself. In this interview, Jankowicz makes clear the stakes are high, but the solutions — regulation and education — are within our grasp.
Join Will and Siva as they explore, with Jankowicz’s help, how the Kremlin has refined a concerted program of disinformation and cyber warfare to divide citizens in Estonia, Ukraine, the Czech Republic and other former Soviet satellites. Is this stuff really any different from age-old propaganda campaigns used by many governments? She thinks so.
America incarcerates more people than any country: nearly a quarter of the world’s prison population. And U.S. inmates are disproportionately Black and Latino. How did we get here? Yale historian Elizabeth Hinton argues that minority communities suffered from successive “wars” meant to save them — from poverty, from crime, from drugs — but which criminalized them instead. She joins Will and Siva for a poignant discussion about the past and future of policing and mass incarceration in the United States.
Leah Wright Rigueur calls America a failed state. As a polity, she says, the United States has failed black people, falling short of its promises of equality and justice. This summer's protests are a dramatic diagnostic of that failure — the latest in a long history of wake-up calls. But this is also, perhaps, a transformative moment, a sign of hope. Rigueur, a Harvard historian and public policy expert, discusses the importance of heeding black protest, black politics, and black demands for reparations.
Donald Trump has called Mexican migrants criminals and rapists, vowed to build a “beautiful” wall along the southern border, and presided over traumatic family separations among asylum seekers. But nativist ideology in U.S. politics — and policy — is nothing new. Immigration scholar Erika Lee walks Will and Siva through America's spotty record as a nation of immigrants, from the Naturalization Act of 1790, which barred nonwhite people from becoming citizens, to the Trump administration's Muslim ban in 2017.
The U.S. Constitution guarantees religious freedom, but also freedom from religion — an idea that rankles many white Evangelicals who would like to see America remade in their own image of Christianity. Religion scholar Matt Hedstrom speaks with Siva and Will about the ideology of Christian nationalism and its harder-core variety, dominionism. Arguably, Hedstrom says, it’s not traditional religious piety but a muscular resistance to pluralism that lies at the core of this belief system.
Populist regimes are gaining ground across the world, and perhaps nowhere have the consequences been more dramatic than in Brazil. Under the chaotic leadership of president Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil has become a major hot spot in the coronavirus pandemic. In this episode, Will and Siva talk to historian Federico Finchelstein about the rise of populism in Brazil and elsewhere in Latin America. For someone who grew up during Argentina's Dirty War, these current populists trends echo fascist regimes of the past.
Government by the people can't work without getting reliable information in the people's hands. So when disinformation artists hijack the media, democracy itself is put at risk.
On this debut episode of Democracy in Danger, political historian Nicole Hemmer joins hosts Will Hitchcock and Siva Vaidhyanathan to explore the roots of the powerful right-wing media in America, and their influence on Republican politics. How did the party of Abe Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt become the house of Trump and Breitbart?
Hemmer takes Will and Siva back to a little-known conservative radio host who supported Barry Goldwater in the 1960s, tracing the information tactics developed back then all the way to the illiberal politics of today’s alt-right movement.