(dramatic music) - "Somehow we've weathered and witnessed a nation that isn't broken, but simply unfinished."

Many Americans see democracy as a birthright that will always prevail, that the Great American experiment is a work in progress.

Others warn us that democracy's on the ropes, that Ronald Reagan's shining city on the hill has lost its luster.

So, which is closer to the truth?

Joining us to talk about that is our distinguished bipartisan panel, Amanda Carpenter, writer for the non-partisan organization, Protect Democracy.

Matt Lewis, columnist, podcaster, and author of Filthy Rich Politicians.

Deval Patrick, former governor of Massachusetts, who's now the co-director of the Harvard Kennedy School for Public Leadership.

And Daniel Ziblatt, Harvard professor and co-author of How Democracies Die and the Tyranny of the Minority.

And we're so, so, so honored to have you all with us.

- [Deval] Thank you.

- Okay.

Now, in recent past, we're told that every election is the most important election of our lifetime, and democracy's hanging in the balance and we have to save it.

I'm going to start with you because we want to get perspective on how serious the threat really is, right?

So I've heard you say, or I think one of your friends said it, that we've been treating democracy like it would tolerate limitless abuse- - Without breaking.

- Right.

- Right.

- So is it breaking or is it broken, or what is it?

- I think it has, well, first of all, thank you for having me.

- Oh, we're so happy, yes.

- I'm honored to be with your other guests here today.

I think we have been treating it carelessly for some while, and it feels close to breaking, but it's not just because of recent events.

I mean, think about it.

We have the hyper-partisan gerrymandering which has been going on for a long time.

We have the amount of money that influences politics and policymaking.

We have voter suppression of various types and kinds that went into effect in many states 15 minutes after the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act.

And we have broad and deep non-participation by eligible voters.

I mean, I often say we have two challenges facing our democracy today.

One is how to make it function, but the other is how to make it meaningful.

How to make people feel like they actually have a stake, not just in election outcomes, but in what they ask of their government to do to help them help themselves.

- So does that translate into breaking or- - It translates, for me, into an appreciation that democracy is inherently fragile.

That in a functioning democracy we get the government we deserve.

And if we don't engage, if we sit back and just watch it go by, and if we let the tinkering abide without dealing with it, then we will get a democracy that isn't actually responsive to the citizens it's meant to serve.

- Daniel, you and your co-author, Steven Levitsky, saw the crisis in democracy, and you responded by writing a book How Democracies Die, one of the most important books in this era.

And yet I was interested to read that even you were shocked by the insurrection that thwarted the peaceful transfer of power, and that you have been sort of undone watching some of what's been going on.

Now, we have a friend of the show, you know him probably, Yale professor Timothy Snyder, who wrote on tyranny, and he says we are sleepwalking toward dictatorship.

Is he right?

- Well, I think there are real sources of resilience in American democracy, we shouldn't overlook those.

So I think we should talk about those as well.

But what is certainly true is that American democracy has experienced what political scientists call Democratic backsliding over the last 10 years.

So there's an organization, Freedom House, which ranks democracies all around the world, gives them a score of zero to 100, 10 years ago, the US according to Freedom House, had a score of 93, which put it in league with Germany, Canada, Great Britain.

Today it has a score of 84, which puts it at the same level as Romania, and two points behind Argentina.

So the fact that that's shocking to us, I mean, it should tell us something.

And so you may think, well, how can this possibly be?

Well, what Freedom House looks at are things such as an attempted thwart of a peaceful transfer of power, efforts to suppress the vote or reforms that at least have the effect of suppressing the vote, and violent threats against election officials.

When those kinds of things happen, then Freedom House gives you a downgrade in your democracy score.

So we didn't expect this to happen.

The purpose of our book written back in 2018 was to point to the kind of warning signs and to say that this kind of thing has happened elsewhere in the world, and that it could happen in the US.

We didn't quite expect that it would happen so quickly.

Nonetheless, as I said at the outset, there are sources of resilience, and there's many ways in which American democracy is stronger and will fight back against these threats, but the threats are real.

- All right, we'll get to the good stuff a little bit later.

Amanda, there are people who were like, what's the big deal?

We've been through major challenges, civil war, world wars, sweeping societal change, acts of terrorism, and we've survived, we've prevailed.

I mean, the Wall Street Journal editorial board wrote this piece about, of course our institutions are going to hold, and they're so confident.

Are you that confident?

- Well, no, I'm not.

I mean, I think we are in a uniquely dangerous moment now because there already has been great damage done to our institutions.

I have a Republican background, I used to be a communications director to Senator Ted Cruz.

And so when I talk to a lot of my Republican and Conservative friends, there's a tendency, this isn't a secret, to downplay the insurrection because it ultimately wasn't successful in disrupting the peaceful transfer of power.

And there is this sort of haughty conceit that you see some places like the Wall Street Journal editorial board in saying, well, Donald Trump will be contained, if he were reelected, he'll be contained by these institutions.

And I think if you just do a hard analysis of what has actually taken place, those institutions are clearly battered and clearly weakened right now.

Because if you look at the four main quote, unquote, guardrails that are expected to hold an authoritarian president or someone who could be a threat to the system, if you look at those four institutions, first, you would look at Congress, their power to cabin the president.

Well, if there were an authoritarian to come to power in America, particularly from the Republican side of the aisle, if you look at Donald Trump's first term, we've had two impeachments where that party has failed to hold him accountable or impose any serious consequences on that.

So you can't expect them to suddenly cabin that power in a Trump second term.

Then secondly, you would look at the courts.

You can see the courts, they just made the drastic decision to give him absolute immunity for official acts.

What those official acts are, to be determined still to this day.

And then you look at the third constraint, and that would be the civil service.

And you look at the plans developed, the executive order that he attempted to impose in the final days of his presidency to purge the civil service, that is a day one promise to institute in a second term.

And then finally, the last guard rail are our elections, which yes, are still holding, but those were under tremendous assault, not only from the legal community, but physical force in the end because the insurrection was an attempt to stop the legal process to certify Joe Biden's presidency.

And so if you look at those four things, they have been tested in severe ways.

And yes, they are still holding today, but could they take a second term?

And those are the conversations that I think we need to be having.

And these aren't partisan conversations, these are the guardrails that keep all Americans safe, that protect all our freedoms, and ultimately our right to disagree with each other and exist in peace and harmony.

- Matt, I want to bring you in at this point because, let me first get an off the top line from you about where you think the democracy is in terms of the state of how serious things are.

- Well, like Amanda, I come from a Conservative background, I still consider myself a center-right person.

And I have to tell you part of being a Conservative is wanting, properly understood, I should say, is wanting to conserve the good things about Western civilization and wanting to conserve liberal democracy.

And so for a long time, I think conservatives were worried about things like debt that could topple liberal democracy or even social engineering.

How much change is too much?

How much could we take?

Will gay marriage, for example, which used to be very controversial, is no longer, will that somehow undermine institutions and the role of the family?

And I think Conservatives were very worried about that.

And I think at the time, progressives seemed to be saying, well, look, America's resilient, we can handle all this change.

Don't worry about it, it's not fragile.

And then today though, I think, it's the exact opposite.

It's actually the political right today, it seems to me, that is saying America's resilient, you can throw anything at her, don't worry about it.

And look, who knows?

It's sort of like if you told me that there was just a 10% chance that we could lose this great experiment, that is too dangerous.

If you told me I was going to get on an airplane and there's a 10% chance it might crash, I wouldn't get on the airplane.

- Right.

- So that's kind of where I think we are.

And just because it hasn't toppled yet doesn't mean that the next thing won't do it.

I think that, God forbid, if we ever lose this country, it will probably be via accretion, not some one moment, but a process that we've been living through now for many years.

- You're somewhat of an expert on the whole subject of toxic partisan polarization.

And I know you talk about that a great deal.

I don't think people are going to be surprised to know that back in the 1990s, Republicans saw Democrats negatively but it was like 12%, it wasn't a big deal.

And now I think we're up to 67% where it's gotten so vitriolic sort of so quickly.

And the flip side is obviously true, that Democrats are not exactly big fans of Republicans very often.

So talk about the damage that you think that's really done because it's a very key factor.

- Yeah, when I graduated college in 1998, it was only about 12% of Republicans who had this partisan animosity who viewed Democrats as being bad or evil.

Actually, Republicans had lower partisan animosity back in the late 90s than Democrats.

But both Democrats and Republicans, it was relatively low, now I think it's above 60%.

And you have to think, what kind of society do we have when something like 60% of Republicans view Democrats in such a negative light?

And again, this is a bipartisan phenomenon, and the Republicans won't date Democrats, Democrats won't date Republicans.

And I think it helps explain our political situation.

A while back when it was Donald Trump versus Joe Biden, people would say, how did we end up with these two guys, these two old guys running against each other?

And look, I think part of it is just this tribalism that comes from partisan animosity.

If you believe the other side is evil and they're trying to steal your country, then you're going to circle the wagons and rally around a guy, even though maybe he's been convicted of multiple felonies, maybe he's been found civil liable for sexual assault, he's your guy because after all, these evil, horrible people are coming to take your country.

And of course a similar phenomenon existed at the time, like, how could Democrats support this Joe Biden who obviously has problems, he's certainly lost a step, maybe isn't fit to be president?

Well, if you believe that Donald Trump poses an existential threat, you're willing to look the other way, maybe, about some of your own deficiencies.

And so I think it helps explain a lot of the mess we are in.

- Governor, you had already mentioned that you think we have a two-prong problem which is to get democracy to function again.

And in some ways, I think this is actually more important which is that people sort of have lost their faith.

I mean there's this, why does it matter to my life?

You see where it ranks in terms of issues, in terms of what people care about.

On the other hand, when people really are presented with what it could mean to their lives, then they understand.

But when did we start to go off the rails?

- I have been worried about this for some while because I think in part, the language is failing us, the conversation is failing us.

We ask about democracy in a conversation with us, and we all know what we're talking about.

It means something to us.

It's an abstraction to an awful lot of people.

Barney Frank, I once heard describe government, the best description I've ever heard, as the name we give to the things we choose to do together.

Democracy, in my view, is the name we give to how we make those choices.

So the question of whether to vote or not, or for this candidate or that candidate, seems to me to invite a question, really a debate, about what is it we want government to do for us?

And for an awful lot of people who feel themselves strong partisans, frankly, on both sides, they haven't felt like government was actually responsive.

I think this is part of the, I will give Donald Trump this credit, don't come at me, everybody.

(audience laughs) But when you think about what are portrayed as, the term is grievances, but the wounds, the hurts of white working people, rural people, the economic uncertainty, the social isolation, the despair is measured by things like suicide rates or addiction rates, we were talking about this outside, it's the same thing Black and Brown people in cities have been worried about and anguished over for a long time.

And the notion that our leaders or so-called leaders are making it seem like we are choosing one wound over another, one hurt over another, is in that long list of false choices we are presented all the time.

You got to hate the members of one party to be a member in good standing of your own.

You got to hate the wealthy to care about social justice or issues of poverty.

You have to hate business to be a social justice advocate or crash the economy to save the planet.

I mean, all of that.

Hate police to believe Black lives matter, you know?

- Right.

- We get it over and over and over again.

The good thing and the hopeful thing is that as I meet people who are not in politics, they actually see right through all this, and they're discouraged by politics and political rhetoric.

And frankly, they, not terms I've heard used but the way I would describe it, the failure of our rhetoric to actually speak to them and hear them, so they check out, they tune out.

And that's why I say dealing with the challenge to our democracy, which is how to make it meaningful, how to make it actually responsive, is as big a challenge as how to make it function.

Does that make sense?

- You think I'm going to argue with you?

No.

Professor Daniel, we were talking a little bit about how we got here, some of the factors, and you say that one of the culprits is our very own Constitution, and another are folks you call the assassins of democracy.

What's that about?

- Well, first on the assassins.

So I agree with the point democracy is about collectively making decisions.

One of the key ingredients for that though is that the participants accept the rules of the game.

- That's right.

- And so if we look back historically, when democracies get into trouble is when at least one of, if you have two parties, one of the parties, major party, doesn't accept the basic rules of the game, it's hard for a democracy to endure.

And so what this means very concretely is to be a politician committed to democracy it means you have to accept elections, win or lose, and you have to not use violence or use violent rhetoric in trying to gain power or to hold onto power.

Those are the two cardinal rules of democracy.

If you have major politicians violating those rules, it's very clear, 1930s Europe, 1960s, 1970s Latin America on the far right and the far left.

When you have politicians violating those basic rules, then democracy gets into trouble.

Another key ingredient though in this is that very often, and this is also something we really discovered looking at the history of democracies getting into trouble, is very often you have mainstream politicians who are a problem.

And these are what sometimes people we call the semi loyalists.

These aren't the people attacking the Congress building, these are people inside the Congress building who talk out of both sides of their mouth, who excuse violent rhetoric, excuse violent behavior, who either don't comment on it or don't condemn it.

Democracy requires that mainstream politicians condemn this kind of behavior, because if they don't, then democracy gets into trouble.

So that's the answer to the second part of your question.

You also asked about the Constitution.

- I did.

- Yeah, so very briefly, certainly our Constitution's a source of strength of our democracy.

But one of the reasons it has been so successful, it's an old document, it's the oldest written Constitution in the world.

The reason it's been so successful is over the last 250 years, we've constantly worked to improve it, we've constantly worked to make it more democratic.

All of the great amendments of our Constitution, the 14th amendment, the 15th amendment, the amendment to give women the right to vote, these things required hard work to make our Constitution more democratic.

And there's this kind of curious development that's taken place over the last 50 years.

We've sort of forgotten that that's what we're supposed to do.

And there hasn't been any major effort to make our Constitution more democratic over the last 50 years.

And I think that's part of the reason we're in this situation that we're in.

- Amanda, I mean, what's your take on all of this?

- Yeah, I mean, there's so many thoughts running through my head sitting between these two brilliant people.

I mean, when you were talking about how the conversation about democracy is essentially about how we produce better outcomes for each other, what I was thinking about is how truly it has become a tribal sport in which people view their party as a team, right?

I'm on the red team or I'm on the blue team.

And one of the failures why I think we're at this unique point is in part of what the professor also said is there has been a failure among leaders to distance themselves from bad faith actors.

And that has been ratcheted up in such aggressive ways.

And yes, people can blame social media, but I'm also very influenced by the work of my former Bulwark colleague, Sarah Longwell, who does tons of focus groups.

And what she has observed really, really heavily over the past few years is what she calls the Triangle of Doom.

And it's this locked triangle of a conversation between elected leaders, their sympathetic media, and the voters.

And there's this locked conversation, we're so siloed that we're not talking to each other anymore.

And so there's this radicalization that goes on.

So I think that is a big part of it.

And it's unclear how that triangle gets broken in a positive way so that we can talk with each other about how to produce better outcomes rather than just beating the other team.

- I'm so struck by Amanda's point about the rhetoric.

There are rules of democracy, and some of them turn out to be unwritten, right?

Decorum, restraint, respect, honor, kind of old fashioned ideas.

But it turns out they are critical for collective decision-making.

So I just want to second Amanda's point.

- Well, thank you, sir.

We'll keep up the norms and the honor and all that good stuff.

- And now we have a video clip.

Matt, this is for you.

Morning Joe's Steve Rattner used one of his famous charts to capture partisan toxicity, I keep using the word toxicity.

We want to look at that clip right now and get your reaction on the other side.

- So under the theory, One Consequence, is that as people have moved into their corners, they move further away from each other and become more hostile to each other.

And these numbers are actually really incredibly dramatic and actually incredibly depressing when you think about it.

So if again, you go back to the early 1990s, you can see that members of both parties, most of them did not view the other party unfavorably, only a small percentage viewed the other party unfavorably.

20% to 30% for Democrats, about 10% for Republicans.

And then you can see this extraordinary climb up here to where now between 50% and 60% of both parties viewed the other side extremely unfavorably.

And so this is a lot of the hostility.

And then if you look at some other kinds of questions, is the other party close-minded?

Is it dishonest?

Is it unintelligent?

If you look even at immoral, if you look at lazy, you would find significant increases over this time period on both sides in terms of how they view the other party.

- Yeah.

- Matt?

Yeah.

- Well, first of all, just stunning.

From the late 1990s, I think 1998 was the low point of partisan animosity.

And as you noticed there, Republicans actually had lower partisan animosity than Democrats back then.

And just precipitous increase, just an amazing steep climb to where we are now where 60% or something like that do not like, trust the other team.

And that's a word that I heard Amanda using, and I think it's very appropriate.

1998, which I think was the low point of partisan animosity, that's the year I graduated from college, that's also the year that Cal Ripken Jr., this will sound like a weird transition but stick with me here, Cal Ripken Jr.

broke Lou Gehrig's consecutive game streak.

And I recently showed my kids some video of that moment.

And if you go back and watch it, what's amazing about it is if you look in the stands, you will see people dressed like me.

That doesn't happen today.

If you go to any baseball game, it doesn't have to be a playoff game, it doesn't have to be a big game, everyone nowadays wears the jersey.

At an Orioles game, it's going to be orange, everyone's wearing orange.

Back in 1998, the average person in the stands was wearing a green polo shirt or a white polo shirt.

And it really made me think, what has happened?

Now, some of it may just be that Major League Baseball wants to make money selling jerseys.

But I think it's just something about the team and tribalism.

And if you look at Donald Trump starting in 2015, 2016, everyone's wearing those red hats, those rallies, everyone dresses alike.

I think there's something to this about this tribalism, and I think it started in 1998, again, people dress normal, now they're wearing the team uniform to the rally, to the baseball game.

I think that that says something about our country.

And maybe it requires somebody smarter than me to do a PhD paper or something, a thesis on this.

But very clearly, personally, I think that it has replaced religion, that politics and this political team has in many cases replaced very deep held beliefs that once upon a time probably united us as much as anything.

- I think that part of this what you're talking about is this whole, COVID exacerbated it, but this sense of belonging to something and wanting to feel like you're part of something and it's a form of community, really.

And I think people, it's been a long time since we really sort of all pulled together for the collective good.

And I think that's what we're seeing when you see, I mean, half the country are wearing those red hats at this point.

So a lot of folks feel better doing that and feeling like they are part of- - Look, I just want to add one caveat to this.

Polarization itself is not necessarily a problem.

Politics is supposed to be about people fighting over things they disagree about.

Having strong beliefs isn't a problem.

So that's what democracy is.

It's people disagree, they have a vote, they come to a decision and then they move on.

The problem is when polarization turns into this different form of polarization where there's this deep animosity, fear, distrust of the other side.

And that's, I think, really the turn.

So parties aren't a bad thing, the fact that people believe in things really strongly isn't a bad thing, it's when you fear the other side.

Because when you fear the other side, to link this back to the point about honor and these unwritten rules, when you fear the other side, then you will go to any means necessary to stop the other side from gaining power.

You'll try to steal election, you'll attack a congress building.

So this fear leads directly to assaults on democracy.

- Governor, you did grow up on the south side of Chicago, and your mother traced her roots back to, it's my understanding, slaves in Kentucky.

- [Deval] Mm-hmm.

- And you quickly demonstrated that you were like the poster person for the American Dream.

And you went to good schools and you really were illustrative of how when you give people, no matter where they're from, you give them a chance, you give them the opportunity, they generally will rise to the occasion.

And yet, we're living in a country right now where that American Dream is being threatened by historic levels of wealth inequality and also the demise of unions, although they are making a bit of a comeback.

That's another factor in how this undermines the common good.

- Well, I was thinking about growing up on the south side of Chicago when you were talking about community.

Because when I was a kid, every child was under the jurisdiction of every adult on the block, right?

So you messed up down the street in front of Mrs.

Jones, she'd straighten you out.

And then she'd call home so you got it two times.

And I think what those adults were trying to get across to us was that in a community, you have some responsibility for each other, you look out for each other, you are in the custody of each other.

And I think the other lesson was that, and every one of us learned this from our grandparents, we're supposed to do what we can in our time to make things better for those who come behind.

So when I have heard, and I'm going to sound partisan but I'm going to fix it.

- Okay, good, yeah.

- So listen closely.

- We like that, please do.

- When I was first becoming conscious of politics and political rhetoric, I would hear Conservatives talk about how what made a story like mine possible was strong family support and personal responsibility and resilience and self-control, and I understood exactly what they were saying, exactly.

But we also had food when we were hungry and housing we could afford, right?

We had great teachers even in those public schools on the south side of Chicago who prepared and invested in our advancement and success.

We had loans I could afford to pay back when I went to college and a weighting towards scholarships rather than loans, that has changed.

We had an economy that was growing out to make a place for me when I was ready, not just up, and a bus or a subway to get me there and home again safely.

My point is, government has always had a role, not just in my life, but I think historically in enabling the American Dream.

And I think the American Dream is absolutely essential to our narrative, our national narrative.

This is one of the things I loved the emphasis on in the Democratic Convention this year.

And I think having that debate about how much government contributes to enabling the American Dream is a perennial debate we should have.

What do we want government to do and not do?

That is right.

But the notion that government has no role in helping us help ourselves is just not something I think most people, except including my friends who are Republicans, if you will, in the old way, not today necessarily.

And frankly not even, I think even Trumpists get that at some level, it's just not in the conversation anymore, which is incredibly frustrating to me.

- Daniel, something that really struck me again when I was going through the research for this broadcast was a statement by Senator Mitt Romney, which he made, I think in the Atlantic initially, that a very large portion of the Republican party does not believe in the Constitution.

Now again, we've got half the country kind of cheering, not him on, but cheering that party on.

And yet, what does that say to you in terms of the threat level?

- Well, again, I think we have to be committed to renewing and improving and reimagining our Constitution at all times.

And one of the curious features of our Constitution, because it's such an old Constitution, is that it was designed in a way for series of compromises and concessions at the founding that overrepresented low population density areas.

Which over time has meant rural, originally small states eventually sort of became low population density areas, rural areas.

And so today we live in a democracy where more so than any other democracy on earth, it's very possible for the minority view to dominate over the majority view.

And what that does is it gives, the loser of the electoral college vote can win the presidency.

We're the only democracy in the world with an electoral college, actually.

- Yes.

- The Senate, often the majority of senators don't represent a majority of Americans.

Now, each of these things, you might say, well, we need some of these to protect, or filibuster, which isn't something not in the Constitution, in the Senate, which requires super majorities to pass any law.

Each of these things on their would make us exceptional.

But what's distinctive about the US is that they're all layered on top of each other to such a degree that it's actually very hard for majorities to actually win.

And so there's, I think, and this comes back to the point about what is democracy supposed to do?

It's supposed to deliver to citizens.

If you look at public opinion polls on a whole series of policy questions, an overwhelming majorities of Americans who support more robust gun control, who support abortion rights, who support more aggressive efforts to deal with poverty and inequality, but our institutions thwart that majority.

And when this happens over and over again, there's increasing dissatisfaction in the sense that our system's not delivering.

And if it doesn't deliver, people begin to become disengaged and they don't trust in the system.

So I think that's part of the kind of moment that we're in that the Constitution itself, unless it gets reformed, unless we do the hard work as we've done in the past, there's a great American tradition of this, we need to re-embrace this tradition of improving our Constitution or we're going to continue to struggle in the kind of moments that we're in.

- Well, Daniel, you've set up this question for Amanda, which has to do with another part of the guardrail, the framework of democracy.

And that is the Supreme Court, which this past term handed down rulings on abortion and has been accused of being out of step with the mainstream.

But again, this is something that people see and it's like, well, how is this democratic?

How are they sort of foisting this on us?

And what's the answer?

- Well, I think I have an interesting perch in that my sort of perspective on why the long-running conservative movement has been successful in sort of achieving these policy outcomes through a place like the court is because they do recognize what the professor was talking about in that the strength is in these institutions to be able to play the long run in confirming judges.

Because if you look at the popular vote, Conservatives are not set up to win that long term and so they're depending on things like the electoral college to maintain that kind of majority system.

And so what becomes sort of interesting about that is that the thing that is beautiful about democracy, but also frustrating, is that it is messy.

It does require people to continue participating in the system in good faith.

And so when people don't get the policy outcomes they want because of these institutional frameworks that do work for a rural majority that does not reflect that popular vote, it does get very frustrating.

But why I think we're in this moment has a lot to do with people saying, well, I don't want to do that work.

It's messy, it takes a long time.

Reform, why can't we just elect people and get what we want?

And that's where you get to this identity framework, right?

So it's making me think about, well, why don't people participate in the system?

Well, no, I can just be a MAGA Republic and I'm going to be this or that, and that becomes your identity, right?

And so- - It's a shorthand.

- Yes, it's a shorthand.

And so, I'm sort of coming at this from the perspective of I have all my old Republicans friends in my ear.

It's like, how can you be a never Trump Republican?

How can you give up on the Republican party right now?

And so I always turn around to them and I say, well, how can you be always Republican no matter what?

Because if you are always this party, if you're always Democrat or always Republican and you have no lines, then you'll end up in a terrible situation, which I think that many people realize we're in.

And so if you look at something like the Democratic Convention, you saw Republicans saying, you know what?

Maybe my Republican identity isn't the most important thing right now.

And I think that is a very positive change that gets people to work within a system, even when you may not get the policy outcomes you want because those are the things we actually need to do to have common ground.

- Matt, you trace your conservative roots, which include being pro-life and strong defense, back to a rural blue collar upbringing.

Your father was a prison guard and he took you to the polls when he went to vote for Ronald Reagan.

And so that's kind of where you got started thinking about your ideology, obviously.

Republicans think that, a lot of them think that Democrats are the greatest threat to democracy.

I mean, we hear it all the time.

And I want to know how do you sort of work that part of it out for yourself?

- Wow, this has been so tough.

Amanda was just talking about like, I'm part of, or I was part of this conservative movement full of friends.

But over the past nine or so years, what I've come to learn is that there were a lot more people in my movement who weren't necessarily committed, maybe they went along with the Reagan speeches and nodded their heads, but they were not committed to the Constitution, they were not committed to the rule of law, they were not committed.

Or maybe they were at some point when they thought they had the majority, and now that they've seen the country start to change, they've given up on it.

But whatever the case is, it depends who's your team, right?

I'm all for being a team player, but my team's not the Republican party, my team's America.

And so it's like in Christianity they say, who is your neighbor?

I think right now the question when it comes to this country is like, which is your team?

Are you more committed to a party or are you more committed to country first?

- Thank you so much, Matt, for what just what you just said.

I just wanted to add a couple things that come to mind.

I was governor in Massachusetts, which is described or thought of as a reliably blue state.

In fact, there are more unenrolled independents in Massachusetts than there are registered Republicans and registered Democrats combined.

People don't buy 100% of what either party is selling.

- Right.

- I used to think that the political dynamic in Massachusetts and elsewhere was Democrat, Republican, I don't anymore, I think it's inside or outsider.

And I think that's true all over the country.

I think people are just not buying the boxes that our political rhetoric puts us in.

None of us fit in a box as far as I can tell, I certainly don't.

And I think it is just frustrating to an awful lot, this is back to part of how we make democracy meaningful again.

Because the democracy we all envision as I've been listening to it, is a democracy that leaves room for persuasion.

Where you can have a point of view, it might be different from my party's point of view, but you might actually be able to get me.

Or you might be able to get me to think and understand how you arrive at your point of view so I am less threatened by it simply because it comes from the mouth of someone who describes himself or herself as members of a different party.

I do think we can get back to that because as I said in some of the work we've been doing in this project called Shared America around the country, there is a real appetite for that.

I think you've probably seen that in Project Democracy as well.

But we're still hungry for finding a way to each other across some of these differences so long as we don't have to first say, I accept 100% of what you're saying, in order to have a conversation.

- Well, again, you've just set up, I was going to mention Shared America, because you're kind of like the leadership czar.

I mean, you're involved in all these initiatives that are trying to train leaders and prepare leaders to be more effective communicators and really meet people where they are, right?

- Trying.

- Okay, and you will succeed.

Just run off a couple of characteristics of people who feel like they're outsiders and you're trying to bring them in.

What do those folks have to have?

- Well, one, I think they have to have humility.

I don't think we often see in leaders, maybe I'll make it more personal.

I felt when I first dipped my toe in that political leaders were heroes.

They had to have all the answers, they had to know everything, they had to know everybody and remember everyone's name, which I could not do.

And I found that what was particularly powerful were the leaders who said, listen, I have a strong point of view, but what's yours?

There might be a better way to get to the outcome we may share, let me hear yours.

So humility I think is incredibly important.

I'm interested in leaders with real conviction, kind of a compliment to that.

We see an awful lot of folks who want to have these jobs but not necessarily do them, right?

- Really?

- They want to keep the seat warm.

It's the promotion, it's like accumulating political capital is an end in itself in the view of some, but you don't get stuff done unless you spend political capital.

So I'm interested in the leaders who are willing to lose, who are willing to put stuff on the line.

These are some of the things we're working on.

And I see this leadership, this is really the point, very active in local communities.

- That's right.

- In community-building that is happening in communities often not about politics, it's about trying to get this or that fixed or the new playground or a playgroup that makes sense for, it's community-building.

And there's real leadership there whose stories need to be amplified, I think, to remind us we still have it in us to bring those sorts of skills right into politics for the good of us all.

- That's part of, we're now in the solutions section, we just sort of segued into this.

And Daniel, at the end of the tyranny of the minority book, you list prescriptives to democratize democracy.

What's at the top of the leaderboard?

- Well, we have a proposal of 15 ideas.

Some of them are more feasible, some of them are less feasible.

Some require Constitutional change, others don't.

We looked around the world to see what other democracies have done to partly help generate this list.

And what we see is that we're the only democracy in the world with an electoral college.

I think the electoral college often generates the weird outcomes where the loser of the election wins, but it also contains within it lots of room for monkey business between November and January, as we saw in 2021.

And there's the possibility of this happening again in 2024.

So eliminating the electoral college, this is something that's been attempted throughout American history.

And the most recent serious effort was in the 1970s where it passed the super majorities the house and the Senate, passed the house, and the Senate came up for a vote in the Senate.

The Chamber of Commerce was in favor of eliminating it.

The AFLCIO, Richard Nixon, the American Bar Association, there was incredible consensus about this.

And it was thwarted by some filibusters in the Senate.

So this is one thing that I think could, but that's a far reach.

I think in the more immediate run, I think there are things such as protecting voting rights.

And so the basic protection of voting rights.

H.R.1, which was a bill that was in front of Congress a couple years ago could very well be in front of Congress in 2025, this is something that to secure voting rights, protect voting rights, limit campaign outside funding, and to try to deal with the problem of money in politics.

So that's another big thing.

Another proposal on our list is term limits for judges.

We're the only democracy in the world without either a retirement age or term limits for our national judges.

This leads us into the situation that we're in today.

And so I think this is something that's increasingly on the agenda.

This may too also possibly require Constitutional amendments.

So I could go down the list, but the kind of red thread throughout all of this is given our system that has this overwhelming bias towards political minorities, which again, we need to protect the rights of political minorities, we think we can tilt our system a bit more in the direction of majority.

So any institutional reforms that make it easier for majorities to speak and to govern are, in my view, a good thing.

- All right.

Well, I'm going to add one for you, Amanda, which is civics.

And even George Washington and James Madison apparently had a dream about starting a national university that would draw on different backgrounds, kids from all over, different perspectives, which of course never happened.

And our track record is self-evident about civics and what's happened to it.

And the US Chamber of Commerce says that as a result, 70% of Americans cannot pass a simple civics quiz.

They can't tell you how many branches of government there are, they can't tell you how many Supreme Court justices there are.

They can tell you, 13% of them, that Judge Judy is on the Supreme Court.

(audience laughs) - Might not be so bad.

Considering what happened.

All right.

- Not saying anything.

So civics, is this not something that we could probably do a better job with?

- Yeah, sure, but I'm not going to take a stab at all the great teachers we have.

But an important part of civics is participating in the process, and our democracy really does depend on a vast volunteer network.

And one of the most important things that my organization does, Protect Democracy, is find ways to make it safe for people to continue to participate in that process.

Yes, through protecting voting rights, but also protecting people like poll workers, they don't come under assault and slander from bad actors in the system.

We represent a lot of clients in the aftermath of people who were impacted by the conspiracies and lies so that there are consequences for that.

And so I think a lot of people were dejected after the 2020 election because there were so many bad faith attacks.

But the work is continuing to be done to make sure that there are consequences imposed on that.

But just one other part about the work at Protect Democracy and how I think it informs this discussion is that it's been a really unique experience for me coming up as a conservative, working for conservative senators, working for conservative media outlets, but now coming to this moment where I can work with people who I don't agree with.

We're nonpartisan, but cross ideological.

That means we actively look for people who disagree with each other to find ways that will strengthen and protect the system.

And I think it's a model for how we need to get to know each other beyond partisan identities.

We all love to have our signs in the windows and nod to people, this is what I believe and who I am, but sometimes you have to go beyond that and get to know the person first.

So I think that just on an individual community level, we all need to make a commitment to try that.

- Boy, that's hard work.

- It is hard.

- Yeah.

Triangle of Doom, I don't know, it sounds very- - I think that's why national service is so important, to tell you the truth.

- [Jane] Yeah.

- We don't know each other.

And the opportunity to work alongside folks whom you don't know, who may come from a different background, different region, different way of thinking but doing something meaningful, not just sitting around in a circle saying, let us get to know you, but actually working alongside folks, I think can be incredibly impactful and help us kind of give each other just the benefit of the doubt, just a breath.

- Go ahead, Daniel.

- Yeah, and I would just add to this.

I mean, solving practical problems that are often non-ideological create the need for further cooperation.

- That's right.

Small actions.

- Yeah, and so I work on European politics, I study European politics.

One of the ways that the European Union was created was very small levels of cooperation between the Germans and the French after World War II.

They cooperated in the negotiation of steel, tariffs, and so on, and just these very practical, small areas of cooperation, the zone of trust expanded.

And that's the way that polarization is overcome often.

- Matt, I want to talk about something, you've already sort of touched on it with, I'm for America first, basically, and trying to sort of shake these partisan labels.

Jennifer Rubin from the Washington Post wrote a piece about the fact that if we actually subscribed to centrism, and theoretically could knock out a lot of the extremism and polarization.

And what that means, it doesn't mean sort of being in the mushy middle, what it means is drawing, again, different perspectives and recognizing that wisdom comes from all different places.

Good ideas come from all different places.

And trying to integrate that.

And it's obviously what Amanda's organization does as well.

Talk about that a little.

I mean, you've sort of, you're smiling, I think you've thought about this sort of thing.

- Well, look, yeah, I mean, I think if you have an attitude that is introspective and also just appreciates that no one side has a monopoly on wisdom, that you're less likely to maybe go down the extremist route anyway.

And I do think maybe civics education can help.

I have to say, as a conservative, as someone who comes from that conservative background, so many of the solutions are things that I would've really rejected out of hand years ago.

We were talking a second ago about national service.

That's the kind of thing that I would've thought, number one, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

10 years ago, I would've said America has a pretty good track record.

Our two-party system has kept extremists out.

We have an incentive for mainstream candidates and national service is going to be something maybe that would be used to indoctrinate Americans.

And who's to tell them you have to sign up and join, whether it's the military, it seemed to be infringing on personal liberty and freedom.

And today though, looking at America, you could see a really good case to be made that those concerns maybe do not outweigh the benefits that would come from us doing some a year or two, whether that's military service or something else, Peace Corps, something like that.

And there are a lot of issues that I've kind of had second thoughts about.

One maybe is frankly requiring people to vote.

That's something I would've been vehemently opposed to a few years ago.

But if everybody in America, this is the one thing that you got to, pay taxes, die, and now you also have to vote.

I think we would've better outcomes, more moderate, and I think we would probably be better off.

- Daniel, we're out of time.

I sort of feel like I want to apologize to everybody and I'd love to keep going, but we can't.

But I'm going to end with you because we did start this show with a quote that you have in your book which is from the former National Youth Poet Laureate, Amanda Gorman.

"Somehow we've weathered and witnessed a nation that isn't broken, but simply unfinished."

You have two daughters, Talia and Lila.

I'm going to ask you sort of a variation, when they're your age, how hopeful are you that we're going to be in a better place with our democracy?

- Well, it's hard to top Amanda Gorman, giving her the last word.

But I do think that the reason we quoted that in our book is that that captured the idea that American democracy is an ongoing project.

That it isn't finished and it's never been finished and it never will be finished.

This is an ongoing project to improve our democracy, to adapt it to changing circumstances.

And I think, as I said at the beginning, I think there are sources of resilience in America, and these sources of resilience are our capacity for renewal and self-renewal.

And a lot of it takes place at the local level and local communities and organizations like the organizations we've been hearing about today.

And it's in those places where American democracy has revived itself in the past, and I think there's the potential for it again as well.

And I mean, I have to be optimistic.

I think we do risk the potential over the next five years or so to go through a real rough patch.

But I think overwhelming majorities of Americans, the good news, that I'll maybe end with this, the good news is overwhelming majorities of Americans are pluralistic, tolerant, embrace the core tenets of liberal democracy.

Our political institutions just don't reflect that.

And that's what we have to work on.

- Well, on that note, we're going to wrap up with still more good news because we always end this show to try and give people a little bit of hope, a silver lining moment, which this time was inspired by you, Governor Patrick, because I heard you say in an interview that true participatory democracy isn't about party insiders.

It's about grassroots, bottom-up community-building.

And that's the story of the feisty, courageous women of the Suffragist Movement who fought fiercely, tirelessly, for the right to vote.

Captured in an electrifying Broadway musical called SUFFS, their odyssey reminds us that progress is always possible, never guaranteed.

(lively music) ♪ Mr.

President hear our cry ♪ Mr.

President hear our cry ♪ We the women of the country ♪ We the women of the country ♪ We the women of the country ♪ We demand to be heard ♪ We demand to be heard ♪ We demand to be seen ♪ We demand to be seen ♪ We demand equality and nothing in between ♪ ♪ Equality ♪ We demand to be heard ♪ We demand to be heard ♪ We demand to be known ♪ We demand to be known ♪ We demand a voice of our own ♪ We demand an amendment ♪ We demand an amendment ♪ We demand ♪ We demand an amendment ♪ We demand an amendment We're grateful to our extraordinary guests for their insights and inspiration, and to you out there for joining us today.

Until we see you back here next time, from the Frederick Gunn School in the other Washington, Washington, Connecticut, for Common Ground, I'm Jane Whitney.

Take care and keep marching.

♪ Equality and nothing in between ♪ ♪ Equality ♪ We demand to be heard ♪ We demand to be heard ♪ We demand to be known ♪ We demand to be known ♪ We demand a voice of our own ♪ ♪ We demand an amendment ♪ We demand an amendment ♪ We demand ♪ We demand an amendment ♪ We demand an amendment ♪ I've never felt so alive ♪ I realize I'm not alone anymore ♪ ♪ I feel a part of something bigger than me ♪ ♪ Something bigger exploding open ♪ ♪ I feel my world about to change ♪ ♪ I want to feel it change (light music) (bright music)