WEBVTT - America At Risk 0:00:11.800 --> 0:00:14.600 Good morning, peeps, and welcome to bok F Daily with 0:00:14.720 --> 0:00:18.200 Meet your Girl Danielle Moody. Recording from the Home Bunker, 0:00:18.360 --> 0:00:21.320 So friends. At the time of this recording, we are 0:00:21.400 --> 0:00:24.800 still on indictment watch for Donald Trump. But regardless of 0:00:24.800 --> 0:00:28.760 whether or not we see the indictments later this week, 0:00:29.040 --> 0:00:35.599 next week, or beyond, what is really amazing, and by amazing, 0:00:35.640 --> 0:00:42.400 I mean absolutely breathtaking, is the fact that Republicans, particularly 0:00:42.400 --> 0:00:44.919 those in the House being led by Kevin McCarthy who 0:00:44.960 --> 0:00:49.200 led I used that in air quotes, are just hell 0:00:49.360 --> 0:00:54.560 bent on staking their career, staking the parties, staking their legacy, 0:00:54.840 --> 0:00:59.160 on defending Donald Trump. You have Kevin McCarthy sitting down 0:00:59.560 --> 0:01:02.720 for views and saying, you know, this is something that 0:01:02.760 --> 0:01:06.640 happened seven years ago. He used his own money. And 0:01:06.720 --> 0:01:11.959 I'm just like, dude, you are sitting down as a 0:01:12.120 --> 0:01:19.319 speaker of the House talking about your presidential candidate who 0:01:19.480 --> 0:01:25.399 is twice impeached, using his quote unquote own money to 0:01:25.840 --> 0:01:32.320 pay a porn star hush money. How do you justify this? 0:01:32.480 --> 0:01:35.600 But you see, the thing is, particularly with reporters, and 0:01:35.640 --> 0:01:39.200 this is why I get so consistently pissed off with 0:01:39.319 --> 0:01:43.360 the way that these people are allowed to just have airtime, 0:01:43.760 --> 0:01:47.480 no real questions, no real pushback, no real follow up. 0:01:48.840 --> 0:01:50.800 If I were a reporter and I'm sitting down with 0:01:50.880 --> 0:01:54.400 Kevin McCarthy and he offers up this, oh it was 0:01:54.480 --> 0:01:57.520 seven years ago, and the statue of limitation and blah 0:01:57.600 --> 0:02:01.320 blah blah, and he used his own money. I'm saying 0:02:01.360 --> 0:02:06.559 to you, Speaker McCarthy, regardless of Donald Trump, like, let's 0:02:06.600 --> 0:02:10.920 say you're right, and we actually need to go through 0:02:11.080 --> 0:02:16.160 the legal process in order to recognize or find out 0:02:16.760 --> 0:02:21.680 if in fact your assertion is correct. One you claim 0:02:21.760 --> 0:02:23.760 to be the law and order party, but it seems 0:02:23.800 --> 0:02:26.720 that with every time that there is a member of 0:02:26.800 --> 0:02:29.959 your party that is caught up in legal woes, you 0:02:30.000 --> 0:02:32.640 actually don't want to see the legal process through and 0:02:32.760 --> 0:02:36.600 feel like there should be some way to sidestep. Someone's 0:02:36.600 --> 0:02:39.799 political affiliation has nothing to do with whether or not 0:02:39.960 --> 0:02:43.799 they have broken the law. Right, So I'm confused about 0:02:43.800 --> 0:02:48.160 your assertion on one hand. Around let's say your party's 0:02:48.560 --> 0:02:51.400 desperate desire to quote unquote lock her up as it 0:02:51.480 --> 0:02:54.960 pertained to Hillary Clinton, which had no factual evidence or 0:02:55.040 --> 0:02:59.000 basis thereof, because if it did, wouldn't have Donald Trump 0:02:59.400 --> 0:03:03.519 have tried a case or pushed his Department of Justice 0:03:03.560 --> 0:03:07.120 to investigate. I mean, he had both Jeff Sessions and 0:03:07.280 --> 0:03:09.760 Bill Barr and neither one of them opened up any 0:03:09.760 --> 0:03:13.760 type of investigation into Hillary Clinton. And he claimed that 0:03:13.840 --> 0:03:15.600 she needed to be locked up, and that was the 0:03:15.600 --> 0:03:18.240 first thing that he was going to do. So if 0:03:18.320 --> 0:03:22.560 Hillary Clinton can sit for in a eleven hour browbeating 0:03:22.600 --> 0:03:25.760 committee hearing, surely Donald Trump can go through the legal 0:03:25.800 --> 0:03:28.640 process and then when he comes out, you know, maybe 0:03:28.840 --> 0:03:31.840 innocent and found to be innocent and victorious On the 0:03:31.840 --> 0:03:35.120 other end, wouldn't that be the process that you'd want 0:03:35.120 --> 0:03:39.640 to go through? Just sit there and wait. Also, following up, 0:03:40.160 --> 0:03:44.000 you claim to be the party that cares about family values. 0:03:44.560 --> 0:03:48.080 So let's put all the hush money and illegal payments 0:03:48.160 --> 0:03:53.160 and campaign finance stuff aside. Donald Trump is a married 0:03:53.240 --> 0:03:56.520 man who slept with a porn star. How does that 0:03:56.640 --> 0:04:02.440 align with the party's family values? And just wait, I'm 0:04:02.480 --> 0:04:08.800 so confused about why these easy moves and questions can't happen. Similarly, 0:04:10.160 --> 0:04:14.800 you had over the weekend, Mike Pence give an interview 0:04:14.800 --> 0:04:18.479 on ABC. Now. Mike Pence is the weakest of the 0:04:18.520 --> 0:04:21.600 week I mean, honestly, he makes Kevin McCarthy look like 0:04:21.720 --> 0:04:25.640 Arnold Schwarzenegger back in his prime during you know, total recall. 0:04:26.160 --> 0:04:28.719 I just aged myself. But nonetheless that was a good movie. 0:04:29.640 --> 0:04:33.960 But Mike Pence sits down with ABC and you know, 0:04:34.040 --> 0:04:38.279 talks about how this legal mess with Donald Trump is 0:04:38.400 --> 0:04:41.160 just you know, a political witch hunt, and I'm thinking 0:04:41.160 --> 0:04:46.120 to myself, dude, you wouldn't get into your own fucking 0:04:46.200 --> 0:04:51.640 vice presidential motorcade on January sixth, So can you speak 0:04:51.680 --> 0:04:54.839 to why you decided not to get into your motorcaid 0:04:54.880 --> 0:04:58.479 because it has been reported that you were one afraid 0:04:58.880 --> 0:05:01.559 to get into your motor caden, two because you didn't 0:05:01.600 --> 0:05:03.640 know where you would be taken and who was driving 0:05:03.680 --> 0:05:06.760 the car. What did you mean by that? Right, if 0:05:06.800 --> 0:05:10.960 those assertions are true? And also, Mike Pence, you bring 0:05:11.040 --> 0:05:14.039 up the fact that the district attorney should be dealing 0:05:14.120 --> 0:05:16.400 with quote unquote, you know, a crime wave that is 0:05:16.400 --> 0:05:19.520 happening in New York City. But that's actually factually untrue 0:05:19.760 --> 0:05:24.039 because we have data here pulling out the receipts showcasing 0:05:24.160 --> 0:05:27.080 that New York's crime has actually been on the decline. 0:05:27.120 --> 0:05:30.240 But if you look at places like Florida, which is 0:05:30.320 --> 0:05:33.520 ruled you know, with a heavy hand by Ron De Santis. 0:05:33.600 --> 0:05:37.200 And you look at places like Ohio that just you know, 0:05:37.279 --> 0:05:41.080 gave up a Senate seat to a Republican JD Vance. 0:05:41.560 --> 0:05:43.719 You look at those areas and their crime wave is 0:05:43.720 --> 0:05:46.719 way higher than New York City. So what is the 0:05:46.800 --> 0:05:49.760 talking point about New York City's crime wave that actually 0:05:49.800 --> 0:05:56.120 doesn't exist? And just wait, I just don't understand why 0:05:56.240 --> 0:06:00.760 we allow Republicans to hijack a microphone whatever the fuck 0:06:00.800 --> 0:06:03.520 they want, not to be asked any type of follow 0:06:03.640 --> 0:06:06.000 up questions, and that these reporters don't show up with 0:06:06.040 --> 0:06:09.200 any of their fucking homework done. I don't get it. 0:06:09.440 --> 0:06:12.039 So when we think to ourselves that our democracy is 0:06:12.080 --> 0:06:15.120 hanging on by a threat, it isn't just because of 0:06:15.160 --> 0:06:18.720 the likes of Donald Trump. It isn't just because of 0:06:18.800 --> 0:06:23.280 the grifting criminal last Republican party right. It isn't just 0:06:23.440 --> 0:06:27.719 because they are a bunch of white supremacists, evangelical Christo freshist. 0:06:28.240 --> 0:06:32.640 It is because we have a media that wants more 0:06:33.760 --> 0:06:38.279 to do with access than they do accountability. They want 0:06:38.279 --> 0:06:40.279 to be able to get these people in the chair 0:06:40.360 --> 0:06:43.919 for their ratings, but not actually hold them responsible. For 0:06:44.000 --> 0:06:46.159 any of the hot shit that comes out of their mouth, 0:06:47.080 --> 0:06:52.919 and that is just unthinkable, particularly looking at the last 0:06:52.960 --> 0:06:56.279 seven years and think to yourself, did you fucking learn anything? 0:06:57.440 --> 0:07:00.320 And clearly by the last several interviews in the last 0:07:00.320 --> 0:07:04.599 several years, the answer is no. Coming up next, friends, 0:07:04.640 --> 0:07:08.840 I'm very excited to welcome to woke f Daily Ellie 0:07:08.880 --> 0:07:13.000 Merrit whose new book How to Save Democracy. It has 0:07:13.000 --> 0:07:16.880 been released now, and he's also going to be talking 0:07:16.880 --> 0:07:20.760 about the twenty twenty three Summit for Democracy, which will 0:07:20.800 --> 0:07:24.240 be taking place on March twenty ninth, And you'll learn 0:07:24.440 --> 0:07:28.080 more about the twenty twenty three Summit for Democracy in 0:07:28.120 --> 0:07:35.640 our conversation that is coming up next, folks, I am 0:07:35.760 --> 0:07:39.600 very excited to welcome to woke f Daily for the 0:07:39.760 --> 0:07:43.400 very first time doctor Eli Merritt, who is a political 0:07:43.440 --> 0:07:47.600 historian at Vanderbilt University and writes a newsletter for substack 0:07:47.680 --> 0:07:53.440 called American Commonwealth, and is the author of a new 0:07:53.480 --> 0:07:58.160 book entitled How to Save Democracy. I am very excited 0:07:58.200 --> 0:08:01.680 to have you here because, as you know, Eli, I 0:08:01.800 --> 0:08:06.880 spend probably way too much time having conversations about our democracy, 0:08:07.080 --> 0:08:10.760 about whether or not we have the ta merit, you know, 0:08:11.040 --> 0:08:13.480 to save it because I think that we're spending a 0:08:13.480 --> 0:08:17.160 lot of conversation and a lot of time right now wondering, 0:08:17.280 --> 0:08:20.800 pontificating on do we think it's really at risk? Is 0:08:20.880 --> 0:08:23.760 this over you know, close to two hundred and fifty 0:08:23.840 --> 0:08:28.440 year project. Can it really crumble under the weight of 0:08:29.080 --> 0:08:34.520 one incredibly bad presidency? And you know this force called Trumpism? 0:08:34.520 --> 0:08:39.200 And Magadam, I want to start off with asking you 0:08:39.240 --> 0:08:43.959 know what has alled you to believe that our democracy 0:08:44.280 --> 0:08:49.160 is currently at risk? At stake? It's good to be 0:08:49.200 --> 0:08:51.280 with you, to start with, thanks for the work you do. 0:08:51.880 --> 0:08:55.120 I think you've already made some important allusions to what 0:08:55.240 --> 0:08:58.120 was a wake up call for me. And you know, 0:08:58.160 --> 0:09:01.320 I'm on my second career. I practice psychiatry for twenty years, 0:09:01.320 --> 0:09:05.520 and only in twenty and eighteen, after witnessing in a 0:09:05.600 --> 0:09:10.040 somewhat traumatic way like others, the presidency of Trump, did 0:09:10.080 --> 0:09:12.959 I begin to feel acutely that our democracy was at 0:09:13.040 --> 0:09:16.040 risk and that really set me about. I was already 0:09:16.040 --> 0:09:18.200 researching a history book at that time, but that set 0:09:18.280 --> 0:09:22.720 me about deep research into demagogues and that you can 0:09:22.800 --> 0:09:24.800 use a lot of terms for Trump, but the most 0:09:24.840 --> 0:09:29.520 significant from the perspective of researching and understanding what happens 0:09:29.520 --> 0:09:33.880 to democracy is the demagogue. Democracy in the Western tradition 0:09:33.920 --> 0:09:36.280 at least was born in Athens and the fifth century BC. 0:09:36.440 --> 0:09:38.800 And so at the same time was the word demagogue. 0:09:38.840 --> 0:09:40.520 That gives us an idea of what we're dealing with. 0:09:41.400 --> 0:09:45.559 And so, as I researched in history but also watched Trump, 0:09:45.800 --> 0:09:49.480 I saw in real life this phenomenon that's well documented happening, 0:09:49.960 --> 0:09:52.880 and that is something happens in the political system, so 0:09:52.960 --> 0:09:55.640 that we allow a demagogue to become a head of state. 0:09:56.600 --> 0:09:58.840 And that's bad enough, as we all know, dude, simply 0:09:58.840 --> 0:10:02.559 to the divisiveness, fear mongering and hate mongering and racism 0:10:02.600 --> 0:10:06.600 and xenophobia, which is characteristic of demagogues. But then something 0:10:06.720 --> 0:10:10.280 bad happens. Once a demagogue gets the power of the presidency. 0:10:10.840 --> 0:10:14.040 They convert. It's well known in history. You just get worse. 0:10:14.200 --> 0:10:19.959 All principles are power corrupts. Absolute powercrupts. Absolutely. So all 0:10:20.000 --> 0:10:23.600 of this happening, and then the Republican Party already had 0:10:23.600 --> 0:10:25.720 its problems, shall we say, but it got much worse 0:10:25.760 --> 0:10:31.040 with Trump. So democracy is fragile. Human beings are fragile. 0:10:31.120 --> 0:10:33.560 So yes, we have to do what you stand up 0:10:33.600 --> 0:10:35.880 and do every day is fight hard for a democracy, 0:10:36.480 --> 0:10:39.800 and it starts with understanding actually how democracy works. I 0:10:39.800 --> 0:10:42.480 thought five years ago I understood, and I started to studying, 0:10:42.480 --> 0:10:45.720 and I'm still studying and learning new things about democracy 0:10:45.760 --> 0:10:50.640 every day. So we our democracy is categorically at risk. Now. 0:10:50.679 --> 0:10:53.720 We have de Santis Rising, who I will just people 0:10:53.760 --> 0:10:56.160 can use an invective or whatever they want, but he 0:10:56.280 --> 0:11:00.400 is practicing something down to political science to be constitutional ball. 0:11:00.760 --> 0:11:03.439 That is his stock and trade. He's good at it, 0:11:04.040 --> 0:11:08.760 and unfortunately, even when it's constitutional hardball, it is a 0:11:08.800 --> 0:11:12.839 harbinger of worse forms of authoritarianism. So there's a lot 0:11:12.880 --> 0:11:15.439 to be done, and we just need to get more 0:11:15.440 --> 0:11:18.640 people involved in the fight and kicking one corner of 0:11:18.679 --> 0:11:21.840 democracy to work hard on. That's what I've done. What 0:11:22.120 --> 0:11:27.480 has really been troubling me is trying to put into 0:11:27.600 --> 0:11:32.760 context the perfect storm that we find ourselves in. Right. 0:11:33.000 --> 0:11:36.560 I often talk on Woke af about the late author 0:11:36.600 --> 0:11:40.600 Octavia Butler, who wrote the series Parable of the Sower, 0:11:40.679 --> 0:11:44.400 Parable of the Talents and Impowable of the Sower. You 0:11:44.520 --> 0:11:49.080 open up into this dystopian American present, it's actually the 0:11:49.080 --> 0:11:50.839 time that we're living in now. She wrote it in 0:11:50.920 --> 0:11:54.160 nineteen ninety three, and it opens up in the twenty twenties, 0:11:54.640 --> 0:11:58.240 because it seemed the twenty twenty seemed thirty plus years 0:11:58.280 --> 0:12:02.160 into the future. And what she surmises in this science 0:12:02.200 --> 0:12:07.240 fiction novel is that this perfect storm of economic calamity, 0:12:07.280 --> 0:12:11.800 climate change, and arise in white Christian nationalism was going 0:12:11.880 --> 0:12:16.400 to overtake America. She was writing science fiction, and I 0:12:16.520 --> 0:12:20.680 see her as a soothsayer, somebody that was actually able 0:12:20.760 --> 0:12:22.960 to read the tea leaves and put it into a 0:12:23.000 --> 0:12:28.319 fictational context. And we're living in that future that she imagined. 0:12:29.920 --> 0:12:35.720 What do you see as the perfect storm that has 0:12:35.800 --> 0:12:41.120 allowed a figure like Trump to go from the margins 0:12:41.160 --> 0:12:45.800 of the Tea Party and birthsm right Birthism. What I 0:12:45.960 --> 0:12:50.480 like to remind people is what Booie Trump into the 0:12:50.600 --> 0:12:54.880 political stage. He was a reality TV star, hiring and 0:12:55.000 --> 0:13:01.520 firing people on NBC. Right Barrocco Obama, the first African 0:13:01.559 --> 0:13:07.280 American president, becomes president birthsm The Tea Party is born 0:13:07.440 --> 0:13:09.880 out of that, and at the time it stays on 0:13:09.920 --> 0:13:14.520 the margins. What is it do you see that allowed 0:13:14.559 --> 0:13:18.680 it to move from the margins to the mainstream and 0:13:18.840 --> 0:13:25.000 now become the absolute cancer on our democracy that it is. Yeah, 0:13:25.040 --> 0:13:28.840 that's a very good question, and you know, there's a 0:13:28.880 --> 0:13:31.000 lot of factors, but it is important to zero in 0:13:31.160 --> 0:13:34.240 on some of the most important of those factors, and 0:13:34.559 --> 0:13:37.960 to pick one. It is very clear to me that 0:13:38.400 --> 0:13:40.920 Donald and so many other people who have looked at 0:13:40.960 --> 0:13:43.720 it from this perspective, that Donald Trump is a direct 0:13:43.720 --> 0:13:47.720 descendant of Russia Limbaugh. And less importantly it's still importantly 0:13:47.760 --> 0:13:52.360 New Gingrich but Rush Limbaugh. Under the Reagan administration there 0:13:52.440 --> 0:13:56.400 was the abolishment of the fairness doctrine in media. Rush 0:13:56.480 --> 0:14:01.600 Limbaugh became this cancer, absolutely pernicious cancer that you're talking about, 0:14:01.640 --> 0:14:04.080 and that's in the late nineteen eighties. So this has 0:14:04.120 --> 0:14:06.400 been growing, so to speak, in the Republican Party for 0:14:06.440 --> 0:14:10.440 some time. So I think the irresponsibility and lack of 0:14:10.520 --> 0:14:14.280 ethics that we have in our media is profoundly important 0:14:14.320 --> 0:14:18.480 in this whole process of Trump coming about. And I 0:14:19.440 --> 0:14:21.680 guess a couple of months ago written about that on 0:14:21.720 --> 0:14:25.680 my subject that you brought up American Commonwealth pointing to 0:14:26.320 --> 0:14:29.520 three causes of the rise of Trump, and one is 0:14:29.520 --> 0:14:33.560 the loss of ethical codes within the media, and another 0:14:34.040 --> 0:14:37.360 is the failure of our education system to I don't 0:14:37.400 --> 0:14:41.120 blame the people for voting for Trump. Actually, I blame 0:14:41.200 --> 0:14:43.840 all of us for having such a terrible educational system 0:14:43.840 --> 0:14:47.680 when it comes to education about democracy and civics. But 0:14:47.840 --> 0:14:52.640 the most important and the most addressable is actually in 0:14:52.680 --> 0:14:56.440 the early nineteen seventies, we reformed our presidential nominating system 0:14:56.920 --> 0:14:59.560 from a system which had checks and balances to prevent 0:14:59.640 --> 0:15:03.920 someone like Trump from being nominated in the national Convention, 0:15:03.960 --> 0:15:08.520 the Republican national Convention. We've gone from indirect primaries to 0:15:08.640 --> 0:15:13.360 direct primaries, and I hold that one thing to be 0:15:13.440 --> 0:15:18.760 the most responsible if we understood more deeply that democracy 0:15:18.880 --> 0:15:22.040 is first and foremost about the will of the people 0:15:23.160 --> 0:15:27.080 and voting. But that's not all it is. Direct democracies 0:15:27.080 --> 0:15:30.840 throughout history have been demonstrated to implode. So that's why 0:15:30.920 --> 0:15:35.000 representative democracy and republican forms of government are far more superior. 0:15:35.480 --> 0:15:38.600 The Greek democracy lasted about one hundred years really, or 0:15:38.920 --> 0:15:42.400 maybe one hundred and eighty, and the Roman republic, much 0:15:42.400 --> 0:15:46.360 more sophisticated form of government, lasted almost five hundred years. 0:15:46.440 --> 0:15:49.920 So we reformed our presidential nominating system, and so in 0:15:49.960 --> 0:15:53.120 both of the parties, the conventions cannot stop a demogogue 0:15:53.200 --> 0:15:56.440 or authoritarian because their hands are tied behind their backs. 0:15:56.680 --> 0:15:59.160 So I would keep democracy in our primary system, but 0:15:59.160 --> 0:16:03.120 I would probably have the people elect the delegates, and 0:16:03.200 --> 0:16:06.800 the delegates go to the convention and pick candidates after 0:16:06.840 --> 0:16:10.880 selecting the platform, so that the president has to follow 0:16:10.920 --> 0:16:13.520 the party platform, not the president come in as Trump 0:16:13.600 --> 0:16:17.000 did destroy the party platform and completely take the entire 0:16:17.040 --> 0:16:21.120 party by hostage. So those media and the presidential nominating 0:16:21.160 --> 0:16:24.880 system I hold accountable for Trump's entry into the White House. 0:16:26.360 --> 0:16:29.600 I love where you started as well, which is a 0:16:29.720 --> 0:16:33.920 broken education system. Right. I'm a former educator. I worked 0:16:34.280 --> 0:16:37.520 as a first and second grade early childhood educator, and 0:16:37.560 --> 0:16:39.800 that I moved into education policy when I went to 0:16:39.840 --> 0:16:42.000 work on the Hill. And the thing that I have 0:16:42.080 --> 0:16:46.600 consistently said is that if you want to disrupt democracy, 0:16:46.880 --> 0:16:51.480 you create an under educated citizentury. We're seeing this play 0:16:51.520 --> 0:16:55.160 out with the Santists that you mentioned you before. De 0:16:55.280 --> 0:16:59.720 Santis is gutting Florida's curriculum, which was pretty much trashed 0:16:59.760 --> 0:17:02.880 before four In rankings. If you look at the way 0:17:02.920 --> 0:17:06.520 that Florida ranks as a public school K through twelve 0:17:06.600 --> 0:17:09.480 education system, it is hovering in the thirties and in 0:17:09.520 --> 0:17:13.159 the forties, right, particularly if you go into math and 0:17:13.320 --> 0:17:17.200 science and writing and what have you. He's doing even 0:17:17.240 --> 0:17:20.359 worse to drive the good teachers out of the classroom, 0:17:20.400 --> 0:17:23.640 to make people fearful so much so that they're covering 0:17:23.720 --> 0:17:27.760 up books right in their classroom for fear of criminalization. 0:17:28.480 --> 0:17:33.480 When you see a Desantist who, in my opinion, is 0:17:33.600 --> 0:17:40.199 much more maniacal eli than Trump is at all. But 0:17:40.480 --> 0:17:45.520 yet the media is normalizing de Santists and the actions 0:17:45.560 --> 0:17:48.040 that he's taking. I'm seeing headlines in the New York 0:17:48.040 --> 0:17:52.280 Times and the Washington Post and other credible outlets that 0:17:52.320 --> 0:17:55.080 are talking about, let's get inside the mind of Ron 0:17:55.160 --> 0:17:59.320 de Santis, Right, what democrats can learn from Ron De Santis. 0:18:00.440 --> 0:18:04.840 Does that trouble you more so than Trump to think 0:18:05.080 --> 0:18:08.720 that maybe the media hasn't learned anything over the last 0:18:08.720 --> 0:18:12.879 seven years. Well, you're saying a number of things, and 0:18:13.400 --> 0:18:18.800 one there, you know, is that the media has for decades. 0:18:18.840 --> 0:18:23.080 It's not a recent phenomenon intended towards sensationalization. And that's 0:18:23.119 --> 0:18:27.520 happening with regard to the Santis a bit like you know, 0:18:27.600 --> 0:18:30.399 Trump became the darling of the press for very different reasons. 0:18:30.400 --> 0:18:33.480 To Santis has becomes darling of the press, and I 0:18:33.520 --> 0:18:37.359 think the press needs to exercise more critical thinking about 0:18:37.400 --> 0:18:39.960 de Santis, And I'm thinking of doing some writing, you know, 0:18:40.080 --> 0:18:44.480 about him that is not hyperbolic or there will be 0:18:44.520 --> 0:18:48.000 a little alarmism in it. But I think a big 0:18:48.080 --> 0:18:52.320 question a lot of people's mind is I mean, plenty 0:18:52.359 --> 0:18:55.160 of people, every one of the Democratic Party and some 0:18:55.240 --> 0:18:58.720 people in the Republican Party probably don't want to Santis 0:18:58.800 --> 0:19:01.439 or Trump. But the question on a lot of people's 0:19:01.480 --> 0:19:03.119 mind is, will wait a minute, if we had to 0:19:03.200 --> 0:19:06.280 choose one, who would you choose? Because the idea behind 0:19:06.280 --> 0:19:08.080 Trump is, yeah, he's dangerous, but he's a bit of 0:19:08.119 --> 0:19:10.399 a bumbling idiot, is the way people think about it. 0:19:10.880 --> 0:19:15.119 And DeSantis, however, is smart and firm and sharpens his 0:19:15.240 --> 0:19:19.960 arrows and moves forward. I feel very nervous about both 0:19:20.000 --> 0:19:23.240 of them, certainly, and but Trump is already a proven entity, 0:19:24.480 --> 0:19:29.159 extremely dangerous, extremely unpredictable. The Santis I feel very nervous 0:19:29.160 --> 0:19:33.200 about as well. But at least he has some history 0:19:33.240 --> 0:19:35.960 in his past of being a true constitutionalist, believing in 0:19:36.000 --> 0:19:40.240 the Constitution, and so one important thing to recognize is 0:19:40.280 --> 0:19:43.280 he is playing to the base right now That's another 0:19:43.400 --> 0:19:45.760 challenge or problem we have with our primary system is 0:19:45.800 --> 0:19:48.800 when someone liked de Santis comes out, he has to 0:19:48.880 --> 0:19:52.360 play to the base, and that's what he's doing. Certainly, 0:19:52.640 --> 0:19:55.359 I think DeSantis has the ability, and I don't know 0:19:55.400 --> 0:19:58.919 whether any internal ethical gyroscope to come board to the 0:19:58.920 --> 0:20:02.200 middle if he does in the Republican nomination. So I'm 0:20:02.240 --> 0:20:03.840 not sure if that was your question or what you 0:20:03.880 --> 0:20:06.600 were looking at. But I don't want to pick either 0:20:06.640 --> 0:20:09.439 of them for the Republican nominee. But if I had 0:20:09.480 --> 0:20:12.359 to pick one, I would prefer to Sciantists, you know, 0:20:12.440 --> 0:20:14.280 And there is a risk in the future or something, 0:20:14.320 --> 0:20:15.639 you know, all that power I could go to his 0:20:15.760 --> 0:20:17.600 head and things could get more chaotic. You can have 0:20:17.600 --> 0:20:21.240 a terrible economic procession like you're describing. Society could explode 0:20:21.240 --> 0:20:24.280 into chaos, and he could become more authoritarian. I think 0:20:24.280 --> 0:20:27.840 it is a risk. But Trump, I just can't. I can't. 0:20:28.280 --> 0:20:30.600 He would be my last person on the planet, I think, 0:20:30.680 --> 0:20:34.240 to become the Republican nominee. I mean, I don't want 0:20:34.280 --> 0:20:37.240 either of them either, you know, Neither of them to 0:20:37.359 --> 0:20:41.119 me are bode well for our democracy, bode well for 0:20:41.200 --> 0:20:44.280 people of color, for queer people in this country. For women, 0:20:44.760 --> 0:20:52.000 I think that they both present an existential threat. Where 0:20:52.040 --> 0:20:55.639 I want to pivot now is to the Summit for 0:20:55.760 --> 0:21:00.560 Democracy and to your book and Save Our Democracy. You 0:21:00.680 --> 0:21:05.160 have inspirational quotes and figures of ninety five leaders for 0:21:05.280 --> 0:21:09.359 us to look at and kind of glean inspiration from. 0:21:09.600 --> 0:21:12.040 Talk to us about you know, how you went about 0:21:12.119 --> 0:21:16.199 choosing these folks and why they should be models for 0:21:16.400 --> 0:21:21.080 how we look to save our democracy. Yeah, and so 0:21:21.440 --> 0:21:24.439 it's called how to Save Democracy, Advice and Inspiration from 0:21:24.520 --> 0:21:27.720 ninety five world Leaders. And as you said, they're all 0:21:27.760 --> 0:21:30.520 derived from the First Summit for Democracy, and we're approaching 0:21:30.520 --> 0:21:33.879 at the end of marks the second Summit. And what 0:21:34.000 --> 0:21:37.480 happened for me and pulling together this book of quotations 0:21:38.040 --> 0:21:40.119 is as we you and I've been talking about a 0:21:40.119 --> 0:21:43.320 lot today. I'm constantly trying to learn more about democracy. 0:21:44.119 --> 0:21:46.879 So at the end, at the end of December of 0:21:46.880 --> 0:21:50.040 twenty and twenty one, I began to listen to some 0:21:50.119 --> 0:21:52.359 of the speeches. Many of them are only five minutes, 0:21:52.440 --> 0:21:55.840 many go up to ten minutes, and I just really 0:21:55.840 --> 0:21:58.080 found out I was really learning quite a bit about 0:21:58.119 --> 0:22:01.880 democracy that I didn't understand, and very from leaders from 0:22:01.920 --> 0:22:05.159 all across the country, and really the most inspiring remarkably 0:22:05.200 --> 0:22:10.680 to me quotations are those that come from the leaders 0:22:10.920 --> 0:22:16.000 of small island democracies in the Caribbean and some other island. 0:22:16.080 --> 0:22:18.720 Democracy was fascinating. You know, there's a hard side in 0:22:18.720 --> 0:22:21.320 the soft side of democracy, and it seemed to me 0:22:21.400 --> 0:22:24.639 that the only folks willing to talk about democracy from 0:22:24.680 --> 0:22:27.400 the perspective of the soft side were these again, these 0:22:27.640 --> 0:22:30.720 leaders of island democracies, and they would talk. They would 0:22:30.760 --> 0:22:33.080 say important things like, you know, have you better get 0:22:33.160 --> 0:22:35.920 up and defend our democracy because there is no other 0:22:36.080 --> 0:22:39.600 system of government which stands there for us, inviting us 0:22:39.640 --> 0:22:42.720 to come in in pursuit. And these are all small 0:22:42.800 --> 0:22:47.919 quotations from the book Pursue Self Realization, self actualization, the 0:22:48.000 --> 0:22:52.760 pursuit of human fulfillment and dignity. So I started off 0:22:52.800 --> 0:22:55.000 trying to learn more about democracy, and after I'd listened 0:22:55.040 --> 0:22:56.880 to If You, I did begin to hear some real 0:22:56.880 --> 0:22:59.840 poetry and some of the quotations. I would say, half 0:22:59.840 --> 0:23:02.520 of them are quite poetic and beautiful to read, and 0:23:02.640 --> 0:23:05.400 the other half that aren't as poetic, they still provide 0:23:05.400 --> 0:23:08.920 instruction or warning. There's a section about threats and menaces 0:23:08.920 --> 0:23:12.520 to democracy. And I've always been someone who has found 0:23:12.640 --> 0:23:17.040 reading personally to be quite therapeutic and helpful to me, 0:23:17.200 --> 0:23:20.479 finding my grounding and my strength and my courage to 0:23:20.520 --> 0:23:24.959 speak up against conformity. The quotations and speeches by Lincoln 0:23:24.960 --> 0:23:27.840 have been important to me. Very important also is the 0:23:27.880 --> 0:23:31.240 speeches and writings of Martin Luther King. What's the name 0:23:31.280 --> 0:23:35.240 of the wonderful book of his collections, a Testament of Hope. 0:23:35.560 --> 0:23:37.679 I mean, everyone should have a Testament of Hope at 0:23:37.680 --> 0:23:40.359 their bedside along with this new book here called How 0:23:40.359 --> 0:23:45.560 to Say Democracy. But no, it's really beautiful. I mean 0:23:45.800 --> 0:23:47.760 we all need all the help we can get, both 0:23:47.760 --> 0:23:52.480 from the maybe three perspectives, figuring out how democracy works, 0:23:52.480 --> 0:23:54.520 figuring out what we can do, and then finding the 0:23:54.600 --> 0:23:58.240 inspiration to get involved. That's one of the most important 0:23:58.280 --> 0:24:01.119 messages of the summits end of the book is to 0:24:01.640 --> 0:24:03.520 get involved. But I do know when you say that 0:24:03.560 --> 0:24:05.520 to people, they think, well, I'm busy and I don't 0:24:05.520 --> 0:24:08.679 really know how if somebody wants to know, you know, 0:24:09.119 --> 0:24:12.480 how do you begin possibly to get involved with democracy work. 0:24:13.440 --> 0:24:15.760 I think the best way is to just start learning 0:24:15.760 --> 0:24:18.480 about democracy. Just don't really assume that you know and 0:24:18.600 --> 0:24:21.680 understand what democracy is, whether it's through some well selected 0:24:21.720 --> 0:24:24.520 YouTube videos or a book like this or another book, 0:24:24.760 --> 0:24:27.960 just start to dive in and understand democracy more deeply. 0:24:28.000 --> 0:24:30.840 And I think that's the only way I began to 0:24:30.840 --> 0:24:33.720 found my direct to find my direction was by being 0:24:33.720 --> 0:24:37.560 curious and wanting to understand how democracy works and what 0:24:37.640 --> 0:24:40.120 the heck is going wrong with ours now, what needs 0:24:40.119 --> 0:24:42.159 to be done to fix it, and then what tiny 0:24:42.200 --> 0:24:45.119 thing can I do to be helpful. I think that 0:24:45.240 --> 0:24:49.400 the scariest thing about the moment that we're in, both 0:24:49.400 --> 0:24:53.119 in this country and globally, because what we're seeing globally 0:24:53.200 --> 0:24:57.320 is a rise in fascism and a rise in authoritarianism. 0:24:57.359 --> 0:25:00.520 You can look to Hungry, you can look to Italy, 0:25:00.640 --> 0:25:04.960 you can look to Brazil. Thankfully, you know, elected a 0:25:05.040 --> 0:25:08.000 person that believes in democracy, but then we watched as 0:25:08.119 --> 0:25:13.320 they did a insurrection two point zero. And so what 0:25:13.400 --> 0:25:17.560 I think is really startling about this moment is that 0:25:18.520 --> 0:25:22.000