When the Soviet Union dissolved, the triumph of liberal democracy seemed so assured that some political scientists famously dubbed it “the end of history.” Yet, three decades later, history marches on while many of our political institutions have remained moored in place, creating a disjuncture that threatens the future of democracy.
In this episode of Common Ground with Jane Whitney, we feature a panel of preeminent thinkers who discuss the battle between autocracy and democracy, analyze the evolving landscape, and offer strategies for Americans to safeguard our Republic.
GOVERNOR DEVAL PATRICK
When two bombs detonated near the finish line of the 2013 Boston Marathon, killing three and injuring more than 250, Deval Patrick, then governor of Massachusetts, assembled the city’s leaders but, instead of asserting his dominance and issuing orders, asked each official “How can I help?”
A civil rights attorney in a city historically tarred by bitter and violent racial, political and law-enforcement schisms, Patrick’s collaborative approach brought Boston’s often feuding power centers together, helped the city find a new spirit of unity and showcased his natural tendency to build broad coalitions, especially during crises.
The embodiment of the American dream, Patrick grew up poor on Chicago’s South side in the 1950s. He escaped the inner city when a middle school teacher referred him to A Better Chance, a national nonprofit that develops leaders among gifted minority students. It enabled him to attend Milton Academy. Harvard College and Law School followed.
Like his friend President Barack Obama, Patrick’s political philosophy grew out of the tension of that schizophrenic childhood - the predominantly white, affluent prep school outside of Boston and his racially segregated, working-class Chicago neighborhood. His message of unity and reconciliation was defined by efforts to encourage people to “turn to each other instead of on each other.”
Patrick began his career as a civil rights lawyer for the Legal Defense Fund before leading the civil rights division at the Justice Department under Bill Clinton. A clear underdog when he entered the 2006 Massachusetts gubernatorial race, he ran a grassroots campaign and was elected the first black governor in state history, only the second black governor in the country.
The co-director of the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard Kennedy School, Patrick decries that the American dream he lived is increasingly out of reach. “I have felt for some while, deep gratitude for my own American journey, coming from poverty … I’ve had the range of life and leadership experiences that I’ve had, and I have been concerned about the accessibility of that dream for fewer and fewer people in more and more places,” he told The New York Times in reflecting on his rags-to-riches story.
AMANDA CARPENTER
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When Amanda Carpenter, a political commentator, advisor, and speechwriter, emerged as a prominent critic of Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign, she quickly became the target of a smear campaign alleging an affair with her boss, Senator Ted Cruz, who was then Trump’s primary opponent.
Undeterred by the mudslinging, Carpenter's convictions only strengthened. “I am trying desperately to be a writer and commentator who will show my conservative perspective, but do it in a way that is open and honest,” she in 2018 told Refinery29, a digital media website. “Honesty is the thing that is missing. And it’s because too many people have gotten caught up fighting for their ‘team.’”
Carpenter began her career as one of those batting exclusively for the Republican team, making her mark as an outspoken writer for conservative outlets, such as Human Events. She then served as the national political reporter for Townhall.com before joining The Washington Times, where she penned the "Hot Button" column. She then became a senior staffer to Jim DeMint, the former U.S. senator from South Carolina, and finally to Senator Ted Cruz, both of whom were outspoken leaders of the effort to radicalize the Republican party. She now is a writer and editor at Protect Democracy, a cross-ideological nonprofit organization committed to countering authoritarianism and fostering more resilient democratic institutions.
While many Republicans have reconciled with the GOP’s reformulated party apparatus, Carpenter continues to sound the alarm about Trump’s authoritarian tendencies and their implications for the future of American politics. “Going forward, all GOP candidates, from those running in the biggest, most expensive races to the ones in the smallest Podunk places, will have a choice to make,” she wrote in her 2018 book, Gaslighting America: Why We Love It When Trump Lies to Us. “Will they endorse and mimic the sleazy but effective precedent Trump set in his stunning 2016 win, or will they risk sticking their necks out to demand something better for America?”
Raised by a single mother in Montrose, Michigan, a small town northwest of Flint, Carpenter initially envisioned a future in softball and earned an athletic scholarship to Tri-State University. During her freshman year, she pitched every game, setting a National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics record for the most innings pitched in a season. After injuring her shoulder, she turned to other competitive pursuits, first joining her college’s debate team and eventually discovering a passion for political journalism.
daniel ziblatt
To save democracy, we must “democratize democracy!”
So says Daniel Ziblatt, one of the leading authorities on coups, power grabs and election subversion. As a Harvard University political scientist, he has studied the patterns by which authoritarians dismantle democratic institutions and now warns that American democracy is teetering.
The director of Harvard's Center for European Studies, he is the coauthor with Steven Levitsky of How Democracies Die, which The New York Times recognized as one of the most influential books of the Trump era. Published in 2018, it became an essential guide for our times as it provided a standard to identify authoritarian leaders.
Ziblatt and Levitsky's latest book, Tyranny of the Minority, which was released last year, explores the authoritarian trends identified in their earlier work and seeks to explain how American democracy has unraveled so quickly. “Societal diversity, cultural backlash and extreme-right parties are ubiquitous across established Western democracies,” they write. Yet, in recent years, only in America has a defeated leader attempted a coup, and only here does the prospect exist that this coup leader could once again become the nominee of a major political party.
The book's final chapter offers 15 bold proposals for democratic reform, ranging from abolishing the electoral college, to weakening the filibuster, ending lifetime tenure for Supreme Court justices and reforming the Senate to make it more proportional to each state’s population. Ziblatt urges readers not to acquiesce to the undermining of our democracy but to actively support constitutional reform – even though he acknowledges it’s a Sisyphean task.
Matt Lewis
Matt K Lewis, the conservative Daily Beast columnist, frequent TV talking head, and outspoken critic of the “Washington swamp,” argues that most American politicians are corrupt.
A product of the internet revolution, he began his career as a blogger who made early use of the megaphone provided by digital platforms and earned renown by focusing on how to reform the right and politics at large.
Unlike many Washington insiders who grew up with privilege, Lewis was shaped by his humble upbringing in rural Maryland, where his father worked as a corrections officer. He recalls his father taking him to the polls in 1980 and explaining why Ronald Reagan needed to be president—a moment that solidified his identity as a Reagan conservative.
Today, Lewis continues to share his Reaganesque perspectives through his weekly YouTube series and podcast, "Matt Lewis and the News,” which he describes as a blend of honest political commentary, media criticism, and cultural analysis, all infused with a dose of humor.
His latest book, Filthy Rich Politicians, which was published last year, delves into the outsized role of wealth in Washington and the growing disconnect between Washington elites and the people they serve. “Rich people get elected, and people, when elected, tend to get richer,” Lewis writes. “Over time, it has gotten worse.” He attributes this widening gap to factors like insider trading, lucrative book deals, and the influence of lobbyists, with family members and friends often benefiting from paid positions as campaign or office staffers.
“In the last four decades, the gap has demonstrably widened between politicians and ‘We, the people,’” Lewis notes. Today, the average member of Congress is now 12 times wealthier than the typical U.S. household.
In his earlier work, Too Dumb to Fail: How the GOP Betrayed the Reagan Revolution to Win Elections (and How It Can Reclaim Its Conservative Roots), published in 2016, Lewis argues that the charade on the right is not just harmful to conservatism, but to America as a whole. He criticizes the conservative movement for being overtaken by “empty-headed talking point reciters, rookie politicians who’ve never managed anything in their lives, media clowns such as Donald Trump, dim bulbs in tight pants or short skirts, professionally outraged shout-fest talking heads and total political neophytes.”