The shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida happened around the same time Democracy Works launched in 2018. In fact, one of the first episodes featured students who organized a march event in State College, Pennsylvania. At the time, we thought it would be fantastic to get David Hogg on the show. 

Six years later, he's finally here to talk about what his life has been like since that fateful day in February 2018 and his work to change gun policy at the state and federal level. Hogg also discusses his new project, Leaders We Deserve, which helps young people run for elected office. 

Finally, we discuss youth voter turnout and waning enthusiasm for Donald Trump and Joe Biden among young people ahead of November's election.

Heather McGhee made her career in pushing for economic policy changes at the think tank Demos. But she couldn't help but feel that something was missing from her work. So she embarked on a cross-country road trip to understand what's at the heart of what ails America's economy and our democracy. The result is her book The Sum of Us, which she joins us to talk about in this episode. 

In the book, McGhee explores what we lose when we buy into the zero-sum paradigm—the idea that progress for some of us must come at the expense of others. She details how public goods in this country—from parks and pools to functioning schools—have become private luxuries; of how unions collapsed, wages stagnated, and inequality increased; and of how this country, unique among the world’s advanced economies, has thwarted universal healthcare. 

Finally, she offers examples of how this paradigm is changing in communities across the country when people work across differences to achieve a shared goal. 

At the beginning of the episode, we reference our conversation with Rhiana Gunn-Wright, one of the architects of the Green New Deal.

Cassidy Hutchinson, and aide to former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows whose testimony captured the nation's attention in the January 6 Congressional hearings, joins us this week to discuss her time in the Trump administration and her new role safeguarding American democracy. 

Hutchinson was faced with a choice between loyalty to the Trump administration or loyalty to the country by revealing what she saw and heard in the attempt to overthrow a democratic election. She bravely came forward to become the pivotal witness in the House January 6 investigations, as her testimony transfixed and stunned the nation. In her memoir, Hutchinson reveals the struggle between the pressures she confronted to toe the party line and the demands of the oath she swore to defend American democracy.

Hutchinson's memoir, Enough, was published in September 2023 and is a New York Times bestseller.

If there's one thing that people across the political spectrum can agree on, it's a sense of discontent with the current state of American politics. This week, we explore the origins of that discontent and why it's damaging to democracy. Our guest is Matthew Rhodes-Purdy, an assistant professor of political science at Clemson University and one of the authors of The Age of Discontent: Populism, Extremism, and Conspiracy Theories in Contemporary Democracies.

Rhodes-Purdy and his co-authors argue that the most successful populist and extremist movements of the past 20 years have focused largely on cultural grievances, rather than on economic discontent. The book outlines what they describe as  the troubling implications of discontent on the long-term compatibility of liberal democracy and free-market neoliberalism. 

Looking at case studies from around the world, the authors imply that democratic states must renew their commitment to social regulation of markets and to serve as conduits for citizen voice for  democracy and market economies are to survive.

We've talked about social media a lot on this show over the years — usually focusing on algorithms, echo chambers, polarization, and the other ways it's damaging to democracy. This week, however, we hear a different take from V Spehar, who has more than 3 million followers on the TikTok account Under the Desk News. 

V built a reputation providing recaps of the daily news for an audience who might not consume news anywhere else. The Under the Desk News audience is politically diverse and V talks about some of the conversations that happen in the comments section. V's also seen how social media can bring people together in real life and encourage people to become civically informed and engaged.

Check out V’s new podcast, American Fever Dream. 

Cynthia Miller-Idriss, one of America's leading experts on the far right, joins us this week to discuss what draws people to political extremism online and offline — and what we can do to combat it. 

Miller-Idriss is the director of the Polarization and Extremism Research and Innovation Lab (PERIL) at American University and author of the book Hate in the Homeland: The New Global Far Right. As you'll hear, PERIL takes a public health approach to preventing violent extremism and provides tools and resources to help communities create resilient democracies. 

In the interview, Miller-Idriss discusses how extremism and political violence are linked to our desire for community. This dynamic means that extremist ideas can pop up in seemingly innocuous places from martial arts groups to online wellness communities. She says understanding this dynamic is key to moving people away from extremist spaces and into constructive communities.

Miller-Idriss visited Penn State as part of the Mellon-funded Sawyer Seminar exploring the theme, "Birthing the Nation: Gender, Sex and Reproduction in Ethnonationalist Imaginaries."

As a Democracy Works listener, you probably follow politics pretty closely. And we're going to go out on a limb and say that many of the people in your life do, too. But what about everyone else? People who casually keep up with political news or maybe tune iit out entirely. 

Scholars Yanna Krupnikov and John Barry Ryan argue that America might not be as polarized as we think because the media and political observers over-index on people who are deeply invested in politics at the expense of those who are not as engaged. They call this phenomenon "the other divide" and it's the subject of their most recent book. Krupnikov and Barry Ryan join us on the show this week to share their research on levels of political involvement and how it translates to media coverage.

As Candis Watts Smith says at the end of the episode, we hope that this conversation will inspire some epistemic humility. 

Krupkniov is a professor of communication and media at the University of Michigan. Barry Ryan is associate professor of political science at the University of Michigan. They are the authors of The Other Divide: Polarization and Disengagement in American Politics.

Chris Beem talks with journalist Tim Alberta about the role that Evangelical Christians play in the Republican Party — and what that means for the future of American democracy.

Alberta is a staff writer at The Atlantic and author of the books The Kingdom, The Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age  of Extremism and American Carnage: On the Front  Lines of the Republican Civil War and the Rise of President Trump. He's also the son of an evangelical pastor. 

This conversation covers both books and how the evangelical movement and the Republican party have been corrupted. They also discuss the role that religion should play in politics, and Alberta's answer might surprise you.

The past few years haven't been easy for election officials and their teams. They had to pivot during the pandemic and face ongoing threats that have resulted in unprecedented staff turnover. This turmoil brings more scrutiny of errors that occur when people make honest mistakes. 

Despite these challenges, Tammy Patrick, CEO for programs at the National Association of Election Officials, is confident that the tens of thousands of people charged with election administrators across the country this year will deliver free, fair, and secure  elections. She's also optimistic about their ability to rise above threats and uphold their commitment to democracy.

Patrick has been working in the election administration space since 2003, most recently as the Senior Advisor to the Elections Program at Democracy Fund. Focusing on modern elections, she works to foster a voter-centric elections system and support election officials across the country.

In this conversation, we dive deeper into what's in store for election workers this year and how Patrick and her team are helping them prepare to stand up against everything from misinformation campaigns to threats of physical violence.

Happy New Year! We're starting off 2024 with a conversation about finding hope in politics. We often hear from listeners that our show brings feelings of hope, and this episode is no exception.

Rep. Derek Kilmer of Washington state joins us for a discussion on the Building Civic Bridges Act, a bipartisan bill that would provide funding for service projects aimed at bridging divides and reducing political polarization. We also discuss his work on the Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress, which invited experts like Danielle Allen and Lee Drutman to discuss reforms including multi-member districts and increasing the size of the House of Representatives.

It's hard to listen to Kilmer without feeling at least a little hopeful about where politics might go in the coming year. We hope this episode will help you start 2024 on a good note.

For our final episode of 2023, we revisit some of our episodes from throughout the year and reflect on what's in store for democracy in 2024. We talk about:

• Mental health and media consumption
• Bureaucracy and the prospect of Project 2025
• The Republican party and threats to democracy

Plus, we share some recommendations of the books and TV shows we loved in 2023. Recommendations include:

TV: For All Mankind, Fargo, The Gilded Age, and Slow Horses

Books: The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War by Jeff Sharlet; Coming of Age in Mississippi by Anne Moody, Why We Did It by Tim Miller

Thank you to all of our listeners for another great year. We'll see you in 2024!