 All right. Well, hello everybody. Welcome to this virtual book talk presented by New America and the political reform program at New America, which is the part of New America that thinks about how our democracy might work a little bit better. And today I'm super excited because we have some of my very favorite political scientists to have the conversation that we are all thinking about, which is how much of a threat is our democracy under right now. And we have an incredibly timely book by Suzanne Metler and Robert Lieberman called Four Threats to American Democracy. The book is called Four Threats, The Recurring Cracies of American Democracy. And we all, so we have Robert Lieberman, who's a professor of American institutions at, or sorry, Suzanne Metler, who's a professor of American institutions at Cornell University. Robert Lieberman, who's the Krieger Eisenhower Professor of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University. And then with us today we also have two esteemed discussions. We have Megan Ming Francis, who's an Associate Professor of Political Science at Johns at the University of Washington, and Dee Dee Quo, who's the Associate Director for Research and the Senior Research Scholar at the Center on Democracy Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford University. And I'm Lee Drummond, Senior Fellow in the Political Reform Program at New America, and I'll be moderating this event. So I want to get it started with Suzanne and Robert to tell us what are the four threats and how have they recurred throughout our political history. Okay, thank you so much, Lee. And we're absolutely delighted to be here. Thank you for welcoming us to New America. And we're so happy to have this kind of have the opportunity to have this conversation with Dee Dee and Megan and you as well, Lee. So yeah, it's a blessing and a curse, I think, for Rob and I to have written a book that, you know, you've described as timely. You know, of course, we all want to write a book that is timely, except for the two of us, I think this means that we're not getting much sleep these days because, you know, the book went off to press, and we already had some concerns about American democracy. And I think our concerns have been growing as this year has gone on. And, you know, we find ourselves talking and we're thinking about the present through the lenses of the election of 1800. The conflict that was brewing in what became known as Bloody Kansas in the 1850s, leading up to the Civil War, and in North Carolina of 1898. So, so we're somewhat what plagued by now what we've been learning about history. We started out a few years ago, talking to each other about is American democracy really in danger, you know, in some fundamental ways. I think, you know, political scientists are always concerned about the health of democracy and lots of scholars of American politics for the past couple of decades have been writing about danger to democracy from government not being sufficiently responsive to citizens views about what public policies they would like to see adopted and that kind of thing. But a few years ago we began to worry about more fundamental things. And we almost felt like we didn't have the language for how to think about this. And, you know, from the outset it seemed to us that most people around us were saying well of course the United States is fine democracy is not fundamentally in danger. This is the world's oldest constitution the country's been through a lot, and while the founding and and the early period, we're very anti democratic in some ways that the country has enjoyed democratic development democratization over time, and it came not easily through this long slow development, but that we've seen real progress and we've reached a point where the United States is is really quite democratic and so we're not going to be sliding backwards from that. But Rob and I were really curious about earlier periods in time, when Americans were very concerned that democracy as it had been developed up until that point was in danger of sliding backwards of backsliding or deterioration, rather than becoming more robust. And so, in seeking a language for how to think about this we started learning from our comparativist colleagues those who study the rise and decline of democracies around the world, and we learned from them that there are four known threats to democracy. So the first is political polarization high and rising polarization, where politics and society become organized as us versus them, and at least one of the two sides is fighting a battle that they think of as necessary to fight at all costs, never mind the cost of democracy. The second threat is called conflict over who belongs who's a member of the political community, what is the status of people in different groups, and often these conflicts are over a race or gender ethnicity. Particularly, they can become particularly pernicious, when they go back to some formative ripped in the founding of the country and a group that's excluded. So what we've found is that in the United States, the status of African Americans has been a source of conflict over who belongs time and again. And then economic inequality when it is high and rising can endanger democracy and the reason why is not that the 99% rise up and have a revolution, rather it's that the most affluent and powerful industries try to lock down their power, because they are afraid that, you know, according to the majority of democracy that they stand to lose a lot if lower middle classes gain more political power and institute higher taxes and a more generous welfare state and so on. And then finally the fourth threat is executive aggrandizement, meaning the concentration of power in the top political leader. And in the United States the presidency has become more powerful since the 1930s, and both parties have contributed to that. Presidents of either party have left the powers in the White House a more extensive than they found them for the next inhabitant. So what we find when we look back through earlier periods in American history is that in fact American democracy has been fragile time and again these threats have emerged and and made the system vulnerable. When even one threat was present, as was the case in the 1790s, it was almost the undoing of the nation we were on the verge of having civil war secession and after just a decade in place the nation could have come to a hasty end. And when three threats converged in the 1850s, it led to the civil war. And when three threats converged in the 1890s, it led to the disenfranchisement of millions of African American men, and that lasted for the next 60 years. Today, for the first time in American history, we have the convergence of all four threats at once. So we think that this is a dangerous situation. It doesn't mean that we are destined for democracy to die, but it does mean that it's a time to be vigilant. Now I'll turn it over to Rob. Thanks Suzanne and let me add my thanks to Lee and New America and DD and Megan for sharing this conversation. So as Suzanne said, what's really alarming right now is this convergence of four threats. And the challenges that that poses for democracy. When we talk about democracy in the book what we mean is a system of representative government that promotes accountability between citizens and and office holders. There are four things for pillars of democracy that make this kind of system work and we can track over time, the ways in which these threats in various combinations have harmed or challenged these pillars. And very quickly the four pillars of democracy are free and fair elections, the ability to hold elections that are are decisive. And that are that have broad voting rights. The rule of law the idea that law applies equally to everybody and that being in office or holding power does not allow one to evade the law. The idea of a legitimate opposition the idea that if you and I disagree about something that we can be antagonist or opponents in a political argument, but we don't become enemies whose goal is to vanquish one another. And finally what we call the integrity of rights, the protection, the widespread protection of the rights that are fundamentally necessary to make democracy work, particularly civil liberties civil rights and voting rights. And for each of these pillars we can identify and we identify in the book, his ways in which these pillars of democracy were harmed in the various historical periods that we that we look at. The political free and fair elections came under threat repeatedly in the 1850s in Kansas, when repeated elections were marked by fraud and violence. In the 1890s when elections were again marred by violence and in one instance that we describe in some detail in the book, followed by essentially a coup d'etat in the city of Wilmington, North Carolina in 1898. In which a legitimately elected city government was was overthrown by force by the force of arms by white supremacists. And then even again in the 1970s and the Watergate episode which is another one of our periods where President Nixon was able to use the power of the presidency and the tools of presidential power to undermine the integrity of or to try to undermine the integrity of the elections. The rule of law similarly has come under threat in a number of these periods. In the 1850s in the 1890s again in the run up to the Civil War, and in, and in the disenfranchisement of African Americans in the 1890s beginning in the 1890s at the end of reconstruction, and, and the violent overthrow of legitimately elected governments. Repeatedly the legit the idea of legitimate opposition waxes and Wayne so in the 1790s as the, the same founders, the same men who wrote the Constitution and created the system of government stepped into offices under the Constitution. They divided into teams who had very different visions of what the future of the country should be and what kinds of policies the national government should pursue. And those teams immediately set on each other, not just as political opponents but they saw the other each saw the other side as a mortal threat to the future of the country. They proceeded to attack each other in that way through the media newspaper wars and, and, and even legislative means such as the alien institution acts. And finally, the integrity of rights. Clearly, the right civil rights voting rights have not moved in a, in a, in a uniformly forward direction over time, but they've gone back and forth and the best example of that in our historical cases again is the. Disenfranchisement of several million African American men at the end of reconstruction. Today, with the confluence of all four threats which is happening really for the first time as Suzanne said in American history. Again, all four of these pillars of democracy are under assault. We hardly need to outline all of this to anyone who has been paying attention. But just to run through them quickly, clearly, free and fair elections are under the most immediate threat that I think probably most of us can recall in our lifetimes. We're all worried about how the 2020 presidential election is going to play out, given voter suppression efforts that seem to be underway, given the attacks on the Postal Service and the idea of mail and ballots in the middle of a pandemic and given system at what seem like systematic efforts to undermine the legitimacy of the election, even in advance. The rule of law has been under assault for years, certainly in the Trump presidency. With the president's brazen attempts, mostly successful to evade the law. The idea of a legitimate opposition, the idea that Democrats and Republicans might have different ideas or different views, but are sort of share the same stage in the same platform and the same ultimate goals. That idea seems to have which, which was a sort of familiar way of conducting American politics for a long time it seemed in the middle of the 20th century. That seems to have completely disappeared. And you see each side, trying to press for partisan advantage, even if it means trampling over democratic process and democratic procedures. You see arguments about this playing out right now with the fight over replacing Justice Ginsburg on the Supreme Court. And finally, the integrity of rights clearly under attack, voting rights for a number of years have been challenged in the United States. So a quick glance at the contemporary scene underscores our fears and our conclusion that democracy in the presence of these four threats is really under serious challenge today. So we need to take that threat very seriously. So let's expand the conversation to our discussions here. I want to start with DD. Great. Well, first of all, congratulations to Robin Suzanne for this fantastic book. It was a pleasure to read and it was instructive to remember that American history has been beset by existential crises in the past. It was also useful to know that these compromises often sacrificed some other values, whether it was liberal values, racial equity, rule of law, etc. So Suzanne notes that the identification of the fourth threats draws on comparative literature and ultimately Robin Suzanne conclude that the confluence of the four crises doesn't bode well for democracy and I just wanted to first note that this is part of a global trend that I think deserves a little more attention. In a recent report on global populisms that we released at Stanford we examined the rise of populism throughout the West populism is an sort of thin ideology that says society is composed of two groups first the pure people and the corrupt elite, and that politics should express the general will broadly construed of the people. So the danger of populism today it's contemporary manifestation is that it brings a coherence to the fourth threats that Robin Suzanne outline of polarization inequality executive and inclusion or belonging, because it provides an explanation for some of them, i.e. it says, we are unequal and we have questions about identity, because the elites are conspiring against the people. And then it uses this as a pretext to engage in some of the other threats, i.e. polarizing the electorate even further and dismantling the formal institutions of democracy through executive aggrandizement. The danger here is that since the cold war ended we have no serious threat to democracy in the form of authoritarianism the way the 1930s the chapter on the 1930s and you had, you know, real bread and butter fascists in the United States. We don't necessarily have that today but we instead have a coherent little d democratic worldview among populists that you can use democratic institutions to achieve a liberal outcomes. And empirically in the past 10 years or so the erosion of democratic institutions has often been either sanctioned or unnoticed by the public at large. It often happens sort of behind closed door among elite politics and politicians. So in polarized environments in particular people have become more likely to say that they're fine with manipulating the rules in order for their parties to win. So I won't go into a lot of detail about the rise of the far right but suffice it to say the far right is a powerful force that has emerged across the West and Western Europe and in the United States. And there's now a template for using a liberal means along the lines that Rob just spelled out and this template capitalizes on grievance politics of those left behind by globalization. As well as identity politics and is a sort of nationalist and racist response to increasing levels of diversity and integration. So without a full throw to defensive democracy per se in the form of a political settlement that Robin Suzanne outline in the conclusion. This seems increasingly unlikely given the retreat of the liberal international order and any number of rising authoritarian threats geopolitically. So you're likely to continue to see leaders come to power with loose democratic commitments. Before threats the book argues that political settlements should not sacrifice some liberal values for others. But I'm curious about what kind of positive protections these political settlements can offer, and how they might be used to strengthen and support a new era of democracy globally in the near future. Do you want us to respond. Yes, yes, yes, absolutely. You should absolutely respond. Well, I'll start. I mean, first of all, thanks, Dee Dee for those really penetrating comments and I think appreciating the setting of the United States in comparative context is that's one of the things that we hope to accomplish in the book and we've learned an enormous amount from from Dee Dee and others, especially our colleagues Suzanne colleagues at Cornell, Ken Roberts and Tom Popinski amazing comparative comparative scholars about the ways in which these trends that have challenged democracy elsewhere in the country are are are also threats in the United States and we those of us in American politics have tended to sort of think about the United States as a sort of hermetically sealed case. You know, it's actually subject to the same political forces that challenge other democracies and our friends would say to us, you know, just alarming things, especially after the 2016 election, you know, like, you know, democracies come and go. We had a good run in the United States, you know, or, you know, start to catalog for us all the other places in the world where legitimately elected Democratic leaders had proceeded to hollow out democracy and move countries toward a non democratic and illiberal state status in Turkey and Hungary and Venezuela and so on and so forth. So those insights actually are really important to us and I think fueled a lot of what we tried to do in the book. The, the, that we don't really take up the populism as a concept in the, in the book, but there's a lot of affinity between populism that Dee Dee describes around the world, and the sort of tension in the book between the the progress or lack of progress and democracy and the protection of liberal liberal society since a lot of the these democratic settlements revolve around, you know, the promotion of illiberalism particularly race, particularly regarding race, race is really the vector for populism in the United States. And one of the things we note over and over again is the way politicians, elite politicians, especially politicians who represent wealthy interests are able to use racial division and scare tactics in order to create a coalition. That's an example of what happened in North Carolina in the 1890s, for example. And so that's, that is, that's sort of the American flavor of this global challenge. Maybe I'll just get a little bit more quickly to this. Yeah, Dee Dee, thank you so much for your comments. And, you know, we just really appreciate being engaged in conversation with comparativists like yourself. I think that the conversation among scholars of American politics is often so hermetically sealed from consideration of the rest of the world, we just, you know, we have had the luxury of studying only the United States and rarely thinking about it in comparative context. So I think that we tend to have the assumption that danger to democracy would mean something like there are tanks in the streets, and the military takes over, or, you know, the president sends Congress disbands Congress. And so it would be something really dramatic. And we don't think that's about to happen. And so therefore why are we having a conversation about danger to democracy. And what we've learned from the comparativists is that those kinds of dramatic, you know, in a moment kind of loss of democracy experiences are something associated more with the early mid 20th century, whereas the latter 20th century to the present what's what has become much more common is democratic deterioration or backsliding that happens more gradually, where some pillars of democracy may remain intact, but others may seriously erode. So you end up with a system that can be called competitive authoritarianism, for example, usually elections are still held. They may not be free and fair according to the criteria that we would think should be part of them. But there are still elections, and yet the rule of law becomes hollowed out, the integrity of rights is hollowed out, and so on. So by thinking with those lenses, it helps us to then begin to think about the United States in a more nuanced way. And I think you know one of the things we're really trying to do in the book is to take this this term of democracy which we often don't define scholars of American politics we treat it as kind of a warm and fuzzy idea that you know we're all supposed to be in favor of what we're trying to do in the book is to think about well, what does democracy actually mean and what are its features and then how can we assess whether each of those is remaining intact, and we're becoming more robust, or deteriorating. And we do that we try to do that in each of the different periods. Megan I know you have a lot to say. Yes, hi everyone. So, hello from Seattle the West Coast pretty early over here. I'm really excited to have this conversation today. And I really want to thank Rob and Suzanne for this incredible book. And, as Lee said in his opening comments, a very timely book in a scary way. It struck me as I drove today to school where I'm actually at right now that things have actually gotten a lot worse. Right now than when you guys were actually writing the book perhaps in terms of kind of where we are in terms of threat to democracy in my opening kind of comments I want to pose two questions. One about the 1890s, a chapter in terms of backsliding of the 1890s, and then another comment question about the Black Lives Matter protests and race and black citizenship today. So for the first, for those who have not read this book hold on we pulled this up here because I like a prop, please do get it and read it. I think I found the entire book really fascinating, but specifically the 1890s because it strikes me that so much of what is happening now in terms of lessons about how to deconstruct in some ways democracy, as well as how to rebuild it are actually in this period of 1890 that has everything right it has labor organizing, it has a height of black political activism, and then the end of that. And so I guess my questions about the 1890s, because I think that there is so much here and I plan to actually use the chapter and future forces. But what is this the 1890s specifically teach us about the importance of enforcement institutions to undermining democracy as well as to, as well as to amplifying and or to strengthening democracy. And I'm thinking here, I mean in part I've been thinking a lot in the past month about enforcement institutions to rights making in part because of actually a conversation that I had with story and warrants and thinking about knock on wood what might be possible in the Biden administration and how do we, and how does the left perhaps actually protect some of the games that are actually been had. And it strikes me that in the 1890s period that one of the things that happens here is in terms of carrying down specific parts of the act of 1870 as being an important part to undermining and eroding democracy during this time. It also strikes me, you guys know of course some of my work as well as colleagues of both yours at Hopkins and Cornell work on prisons and policing. And so I'm thinking here, also about in terms of rights, especially the role of enforcement mechanisms around policing and prisons and obviously in the contemporary environment around around ice and undermining democracy. And I'm thinking as well as we come out of the 60s of course, what are different types of enforcement mechanisms such as those around workplace discrimination, and, and different types of enforcement mechanisms that have actually kind of that have actually protected you. So again, this question is just about the role of enforcement mechanisms, and how you're thinking about democracy. Secondly, I want to, I've been kind of trying to put in and putting your book and the argument of your book and conversation, and thinking about the Black Lives Matter protests of the spring and summer of this year. And so just to kind of a comment and then a larger question about citizenship here. And so we know that of course, black people have a circle use protest and both it's non violent and violent forms as a means of emphasizing the nation's failures and demanding demanding that the state honors constitutional and political promises. And this respect in so many ways George Floyd's murder and Breonna Taylor's murder in particular has become a call for racial justice movement, because they so clearly highlight the compounding ways the state has harmed its own citizens. A system of predatory capitalism that has left millions unemployed and underemployed and a criminal punishment system that kills with impunity and abandoned men of public institutions public officials and public policies. A transactive American democracy that have repeatedly failed to better the lives of black communities. Violent policing was of course part of the kindling but an entrenched system of institutional racism and executive disregard and the flames of fire. So I kept thinking about the challenges that this poses in terms of your argument of the book as well as the present moment for black people. The challenges in so many ways. For me at least as being a scholar of black politics and the black political experience. There's a lot of takeaways of course from the book, but it seems that one of these takeaways kind of addresses the question that has always been at the crux I feel like as a black political experience which is reformer transformation. And in these five political moments through these four threats and I'm coming out of this and I can make, I can, I can, I can write a report or write a paper about how this book in so many ways proves the need for political transformation that reform is not enough that in so many ways that if I believe Melvin Rogers who argues that black people are perpetual losers in American democracy and if I believe Juliet Hooker who argues that there are fundamental fundamental limits of liberal democracy's ability as an institution to deal with certain types of injustice. That's in terms of what what possibilities are possible within this system. And kind of the question that I feel like it's been a lot of our minds in terms of the summer risk can black lives matter inside of US democracy. And it seems that a lot of people are coming out especially some of us have already been there but it seems like a lot of people are coming out of the summer with that like know that the Constitution needs to be rewritten that that institutions that have been in place that there's that this progress that can be made but that's always limited, and it always is always a type of pushback. So, I guess in terms of kind of this question about what does, I guess, in terms of what types of deep, deep structural reforms are necessary to address the deep denials of citizenship rights that black people have endured in this country. Relatedly also I know I pulled more than two questions here. Is this perhaps a moment for what some have called the third reconstruction that unlike the first reconstruction and unlike the second reconstruction that perhaps at least protesters demands for what, for what they want and what is possible is more expansive than ever before. Yes, I will end there more and more than specific questions I guess it's like meditations and and without. Okay, I'll start out here. Thank you so much Megan these are fabulous comments that are going to give us a lot of food for thought that which we can probably only begin to to ruminate now. Really glad you're focusing in on the 1890s because we also find that the story of the 1890s to have a lot of similarities to today so three threats were present then polarizers. In the South use conflict over who belongs specifically they use white supremacy. As a strategy to for their political ends. So, which isn't to say that, you know, they weren't white supremacists they certainly were, but they were also using it very strategically on and these are Democratic leaders in the south, who were, you know, tended to be a lot of the business elites and the leaders in society, white leaders, they were using it to try to get whites who had strayed lower middle income whites who were bearing off toward the populist party to come back into the fold, and to give them the chance to once again become the dominant party. And what these Democrats in the 1890s in the south did not want was to have to compete. They didn't like having to compete. I mean, frankly, you know, they managed to have, you know, they had been advantaged for a long time by the three fist compromise. This is gone after the Civil War, then in even after reconstruction ends. There are, there really is the beginnings of a healthier democracy nationwide including in the south and African Americans are continuing in many states to really run for office at pretty high rates and to vote at pretty high rates. And at that point, the, the white Democrats decided we've had enough of this we need to shut this down, enough with having political opposition. And so they stage a coup in Wilmington, North Carolina. And so the whole story of this in the book and then if and in this coup they kill hundreds of African Americans in the city that was really a symbol of the, you know, rising black middle class and where African Americans were in all sorts of positions in city government. They, at gunpoint made those people resign from office they, they drove people out of town who are the leaders. And then in the months that followed, they instituted in the state of North Carolina, and then the taxes and literacy tests disenfranchising African Americans. And we focus in on this story in North Carolina because it brings out into the open the dynamics that happen more quietly in states all over the south. And this region becomes disenfranchised African Americans become disenfranchised and once people have lost political power, then in turn they lose civil liberties and civil rights, and it lasts for 60 years. So, this is the settlement that comes out of this period of 1890s, it's a settlement that restores racial hierarchy in the south. And, you know, in terms of enforcement mechanisms, it's, there is such a lack of them you know there had been the effort I mean earlier Republicans in the north had been trying to stand up for the voting rights of blacks in the south, but they were by the early 1890s. The party was becoming more divided over that and and really was focusing on other things. And so they missed an opportunity to really strengthen their power to do that. And at the time you get to the Wilmington coup, President McKinley, Republican president, African Americans in Wilmington appeal to him for help, they're pleased for help, and he ignores them entirely. And, and then as you know all of these states are setting up disenfranchisement laws, you have President Theodore Roosevelt simply looks the other way and then Taft, he really sanctions it and says well there's an element of the population that really shouldn't be voting. And so, even the opposition, the seeming opposition party doesn't stand up to the Democrats at that point in time. And so, there's really a lack of enforcement mechanisms. And, and, and so that's, you know that that makes it really difficult and the consequences of backsliding at that point are egregious and long lasting. I'll just, I'll just add, first of all, thanks for those tremendously provocative and interesting comments. Megan. I think, I think one of the things that we, I guess we could say learn I think we already knew this but one of the things that becomes really apparent when you line up these episodes together is that race and conflict over belonging and the boundaries of citizenship and the boundaries of membership in the political community is really a constant force in American politics, even when, even in the periods where we don't, you know, market as being central, right. So politics isn't where where where it doesn't necessarily overlap with partisan divisions or polarization. So in the 1790s, for example, there was no, you know, there were, there were these two partisan groupings the federalist and the, and the Democratic Republicans. There was this agreement across the board between federalists and Republicans about slavery or the status of, of slavery or of enslaved people in the country, right. But still, the resolution of the crisis over the 1800 election depended on the three fifths compromise which gave disproportionate extra power to the white slave holding south. Right. If there were no three fifths compromise Adams would have won reelection and the whole Jefferson Burr conflict that we know about from the musical would never have happened right. So, so, and then that disproportionate power of the south really sets off as, as, as Suzanne just said, through the entire 19th century that affects the way the country develops the way the party system develops and the run up to the Civil War reconstruction. So, that's that. So we kind of liken that conflict that tension in American democracy to a sort of underground reservoir that can be tapped and is tapped frequently and from time to time but not always by by political leaders for whom it's useful, right, whether it's in the conflict over slavery or in the conflict in the 1890s is Suzanne just described. I'm also really glad Megan that you mentioned the first and second reconstructions because we often felt that we were writing the book we felt that you know this is a what a 250 page book we felt like there was a thousand page book trying to get out. You know, where we would have dealt not only with these episodes of democratic challenge but of these two. Really, these are the two great democratizing moments in American history, the first and second reconstructions, right. So there's another side to the coin that we that we didn't write about. I think they're I think they're instructive because you see the sort of dialectic push and pull of movements to democratize and then these forces which push back on democratization. The question about, you know, structural reforms of the third reconstruction is not something we really have an answer to I mean I think structural reforms are really hard, you know, we know that features of the constitutional order like the constitution equal representation in the Senate bias the system in a lot of ways that we're seeing that we're reaping the benefits or detriments of that right now right. I think it's really unrealistic to think right now about, you know, amending the Constitution to get rid of the Electoral College, for example. I think, which isn't to say that we don't need thorough going transformation of the democrat order. It's just hard to see how you achieve that I think the focus has to be on these features of democracy that we've pointed to right we can observe we can see free and fair elections being undermined, we can see the rule of law being undermined we can see free and fair elections being taken away. And I think that's where our attention has to has to be focused. Because one of the things we know from history is that turning back polarization. And these are the threats of this sort of macro level is just really hard. Just one last quick thought about the Black Lives Matter movement or the resurgence of that move with this spring and summer. And if there's anything that gives me maybe a little ray of hope, which I think we're all desperately looking for just, you know, even this week. It's the extent and depth and breadth of the way that movement has unfolded over the summer. You know, it's happening marches and protests and actions are happening and you know this, you know, you can educate us on this better than anyone Megan. This is that you wouldn't necessarily expect. Excuse me involving people that you wouldn't necessarily expect and you know, does this mean maybe that we're ready for a third reckoning with this sort of, you know, founding flaw in in the country. I mean, I think there's a lot of conflict and a lot of politics and a lot of back and forth and who knows what between here and there but I think is there an opening now for a different kind of conversation about some of the issues that you brought up. We can hope so. Keep the conversation going. Didi I know you have a bunch of thoughts about the role of political parties in both sustaining and maybe not sustaining democracy. Yeah, I, first of all, I have loved the conversation so far Megan those were really wonderful comments and I, this is sort of a follow on to Megan's question. What is the role of just the public in some of the stories and episodes that you describe there in their role especially in resolving some of the crises of democracy. We know not only through the story of the United States but all other democratic countries that democratic reforms and progress are typically initiated and sustained by citizens not just by elites who are like yes I'll happily redistribute political power now. Outside of crises and wondering what it is that sustains democracy sort of in the in the down times and how well can citizens actually get what they want from their governments without protesting today. 2019 was a year of protest around the globe Erica Chenoweth says that nonviolent mass movements are the primary challenges to governments today citizens basically have no recourse or little recourse through the ballot box and through sort of typical politics and in fact protests have increased as turnout across the world has declined I guess with 2018 being sort of an exception in the United States. These protests of different proximate causes that many of them are born of discontent with the poor performance of democracy. Sometimes it was the corruption scandal at the national level sometimes it's the lifting of subsidies food subsidies oil subsidies. Sometimes it's austerity politics like cutting social benefits. This summer there have been massive protests about fraudulent or delayed elections, and also about COVID responses by governments. But I think what they reveal is that the intermediary linkages between citizens and governments have really broken down since the rise of sort of the neoliberal era, or the end of the Cold War when there is this consensus that democracy and capitalism are good. And then not much is done to nurture democracy. We know that parties from the book are more preference or more responsive to the preferences of the wealthy, but there's also new research about the hollowness and the weakness of mainstream parties in general that over the past 30 or 40 years they no longer serve the integrative functions that they used to to fairly find local and state parties these days, and they have privileged parties have privileged governing responsibly, i.e. through generating economic growth or through technocratic decision making, rather than governing responsively so in other words responsibility over management of things like the economy has taken precedence over being responsive to the demands of citizens and this is something that Suzanne also mentioned at the beginning of this talk. So my question is, does rebuilding democracy, I see that, you know, structural changes maybe not possible although that's something that I think would be fascinating to talk about for the remaining time. But does rebuilding democracy, if it doesn't involve institutional reform, which I, which it might and maybe liberal democracy is very limited in the ways that Megan discussed, but does it at least involve repairing intermediary linkages between citizens and leaders to do that we know that on Friday night when Ruth Bader Ginsburg died Act Blue raised $100 million is that right it was double their best day ever and is this the way we have to participate with parties now just writing checks like there has to be more to democracy than that and I'm wondering what you think. Great, thank you. It's, it's a great question and it's, it's you know it's it's not a question that we really address head on in the book so you know I'm going to be kind of reflecting on it now in light of you know the kind of patterns in the book. I, you know I'm inclined to say it is true that the hollowing out of political parties has been really problematic and that I think comes to a surprise as most people to most people because you know we hear about partisan partisan polarization. And you know so parties are strong at some level, well they're strong in Congress among leaders they're strong partisanship, and then individuals have a strong sense of partisanship, but parties as organizations that have members at the grassroots level that participate and have a that kind of linkage you're describing have become really weak. And, and then there have been, you know, some, some replacements for them. And here I'm drawing on work by people like Alex hurdle Fernandez and theta scotch pull. Looking at the Americans for prosperity and the Koch brothers groups etc, which actually seem to be very organized and to, you know, raise a lot of money and have kind of taken the place of the Republican Party, in many ways. The Republican Party has also been advantaged and I mean, I think, you know, both Didi and Megan you probably have a lot to say about this and know a lot about this so so feel free to to jump in on it. But have been the Republican Party has been advantaged by active groups among its constituencies. So, by gun groups gun owners groups that are very organized at the local level and then really brought together through the nra through evangelical organizations and their pro life band, and, and other organizations whereas Democrats that used to be very strong through labor unions, that's become much weaker, and there's not really something replacing that so for the Democratic Party. You know, there's been great losses over time and I think that you know it's very sobering when you for Democrats, I think if you look at the political map over time over the past couple of decades, many states that used to routinely elect Democrats don't anymore. States like Arkansas, Tennessee, Missouri, Louisiana, etc, sending you know Democrats to Congress and and being swing states in the Electoral College that's long gone. And so I think that for Democrats is important, you know, think about why that is. And I think, you know, as you say, Didi rising frustration among Americans I mean we know that if you go back to the 1950s and 60s when people were asked these classic questions on surveys about do you trust the federal government in Washington to do what is right most or all of the time. Two thirds or three quarters of Americans would say yes. It's now about one in five. When people were asked questions about do you think public officials care about people like you, again, it was the vast majority of Americans who would say yes, now it's about one in five. So I mean there's, and this has been a vibe, something that cuts across Democrats and Republicans has been declining confidence in government, though particularly on the Republican side. And I think that helped to fuel Trump's rise in 2016 among people who felt very alienated from government and felt that it really wasn't there for them. And then I think it you know makes it increasingly difficult for us to engage in collective action and and and for people to figure out a way forward. So just add a few thoughts to all of what Suzanne just said. I think another feature of contemporary polarization is the real, you know, division of not just elites political leaders elected officials but the general public into this sort of us versus them, non overlapping camps or teams. So when, when, when, when, at least when Suzanne and I were in graduate school you guys are younger than, than we are so I don't know what you got taught but, but you know we used to, we used to think about the American public in particular as characterized by what what political scientists would call cross cutting cleavages that is you would be people are members of different groups that don't necessarily overlap with each other. You're a professional group that people you work with the people live with or go to church with or socialize with or pursue your hobbies with are all different kinds of people. Those increasingly worth we find that those kinds of groupings among the public have collapsed on into a single dimension so that the people you go to school with and work with and live near and so on and so forth are likely to be other people who are just like you and share your orientation in your beliefs. And as one little piece of evidence about of this that we cite in the book. There's been a survey question asked periodically been infrequently over time in public opinion surveys about, you know, would you be upset if your son or daughter married person from the opposite political party, right the way like my grandmother would worry about marrying outside the faith right. You know, and in the 60s. Most people didn't care. Right. But when that question was repeated just a few years ago a majority of people said yes I would be upset if my son or daughter brought home someone of the opposite political party so partisanship has become part of our social identity, rather than just a sort of some total of our attitudes and affiliations. And that, and then and then partisan competition becomes this sort of sport between teams as Francis Lee the political scientist describes it and this teamsmanship drives parties to try and win at all costs. And whether whether or not they observe democratic rules or norms. And that that sort of fuels this kind of dynamic so. Yeah, the parties have been hollowed out as organizations but Americans have also sorted themselves into these groupings that make that kind of competition more likely and more pernicious. And the work of that. I think the role of the balance between the president and the Congress comes into play here because increasingly, you know polarization creates gridlock gridlock means frustration for people on either side of the political spectrum. And presidents find themselves stymied because Congress won't do anything. And presidents are increasingly. This goes back to these point about populism presidents are increasingly sort of frustrated in their ability to pursue their programs and keep their promises and are are tempted and encouraged to try unilateral ways of governing. So the growth of presidential power on top of polarization creates this very dangerous situation that leads to this kind of populist cascade that DD was describing a few minutes ago so there are a whole bunch of things and this this, it really is is one of our core points is that it's the layering on top of each other of these threats. You know, along with these other friends that you guys have both have both pointed out that that that really leads to what we see as a dangerous situation. Megan I know you have some more thoughts. Yeah, no, this is. This is great. I'm going to try to be quick because I have some other ones too if there's extra time. But you guys know, a lot of what I often think about is around political American political development is not just in terms of kind of top down but also bottom up right and so wanting to think about how the American state is constructed through contestation in terms of citizens who are oftentimes at the margins of society, and how citizens on the ground can contest and then perhaps shift institutional structures. And in some so many ways driven by believe that is precisely during these unsettled moments when institutions are not responding to the demands of citizens which can provide an opening for bottom up protest disrupt and reshape top down structures. And so I guess my question here is one about the role of social movements in particular in the transition area or the in between moments in between these five moments that you focus on right and so for me I'm thinking about kind of. And I know this is a question that I'll get from students when I assign this which is, how do we spin out of these of these of these moments, what leads to the waning of these of these moments. And how do we like move out of them is there isn't that organized people on the ground lead to us spinning out of these different moments. And in part obviously here I'm thinking about if it is true and I believe that it is that we right now in this contemporary moment, I have a confluence of four of the four threats. I'm trying to think about how do we get out of them. What is the role of social movement for kind of getting out of the present circumstance. And at the same time and this is this is just kind of an asterisk addendum. I am also persuaded right by say to buy my colleague Chris Parker by the tarot. Who argued that in a lot of ways the Republican Party has become a movement party. I obviously my work is focused on one type of social movement right and this is where the black freedom struggle. I am fully aware that social movements also exists on the other side. So I guess I'm just curious about how you can see of social movements in your work and in amplifying and are undermining democracy. Okay, I'll start. The answer is we'll be waiting for you to write the book on this. No, I think we don't have coming out of our book, we don't really have a systematic way of thinking about social movements. And I think it's a really interesting question. I think across all of the periods we discuss, there's a lot of movement activity in these periods, and, and some of it is progressive, and some of it is, is not some of it is the movements of people who worry that their heritage and their way of life is being taken away. That was, you know, certainly there was plenty of that in the 1850s, and there was lots of that in the 1890s. And you know, some of it really mobilized by political elites, you know, in Wilmington, the Democrats helped to organize these paramilitary groups of white supremacists. So I'm not, I'm not sure about, you know, what to say about the relationship between either democratic backsliding or democratization in these specific periods. And certainly political leaders would point to the social movements they didn't like, and say they were dangerous to democracy, and you know that begins with none other than George Washington. I mean, it's, it's amazing how George Washington really saw anyone who was being critical of the policies of his government as being an insurrectionist. So he viewed the whiskey rebellion this way, and he himself led troops led 15,000 troops gathered from four states the militias of four states into Western Pennsylvania to try to put down this insurrection of the whiskey rebels, these, you know, poor farmers who were upset that they had to pay this tax on distilled spirits as part of Hamilton's financial plan. And, you know, it was, I kept thinking of this summer when events were going on in Portland because in Pennsylvania, the local officials were all opposed to the federal government sending troops they kept saying this the governor was saying it, the local members of Congress were saying it do not send troops do not overreact that would be overreach. Hamilton is convinced it's the thing to do. And, and ultimately gets Washington to go along with that. They get to the site of the whiskey rebellion, and the rebels have already fled into the frontier, they're not there anymore the leaders are gone just found up a few people they don't know much evidence against them and ultimately they arrest two people and finally Washington pardons them. But you know that was just the beginning of in the 1790s, a lot of ways in which the federalists tried to repress dissent of any kind, including from like the new Democratic Republican societies that were forming. And so, you know, I guess I would love to hear your reflections Megan on if you see some patterns or, you know, a broader kind of framework that you might see making sense across these periods and you probably don't have an answer for that now, but down the line would be great to hear that. Yeah, no I totally agree I'm waiting for Megan's book to pick up where we leave off. No, but I think I mean I think a couple of things. I think if we had, if we had written the thousand page book and thought about the flip side the democratizing movements the two reconstructions, alongside these episodes of Democratic threat, we might have a clearer and more coherent analytical story about social movements. So I would like to think more about that and have a maybe longer different conversation about that but I the other thing I want to just mention is, you know, Suzanne just described the government's response to the whiskey This is a pattern that we noticed throughout our, our, our periods is the government reacting to this kind of movement activity that they regarded as a challenge with violent repression, right this is not just social movements as sort of adjunct to other kinds of liberal democratic political participation, right. So we opened the 1930s chapter with a story of the bonus army, these poor bedraggled World War one veterans who come to Washington in 1932, asking that the government advance a payment of a pension that was supposed to be paid to them sometime in the 1940s and they said, we're jobless and hungry. Now, we need the money now why should we have to wait until 1945. And they protested peacefully and they set up these sort of camps around the city, and we're eventually cleared out by the army Douglas MacArthur and Dwight Eisenhower and George Patton led the army against these poor jobless veterans in the in the in the capital. A couple were killed by a couple of the veterans were killed by the not by the army but by the DC police. So, you know you see the Kent State the massacre of Kent students that processing students at Kent State in 1970. So this pattern of democratizing movements of one kind or another being met with violent resistance is is there as soon as you think about it but I don't think it's what we expected to find when we set out to write the book. But it is, it is a disturbing pattern and I think one that we have to take seriously. I want to move the conversation a little bit forward and current thinking, and I really would love to get everybody to weigh in on. I think what I'll try to try to bring together some, some of the questions we've been hearing some my own questions here. You know, so we're, we're in this incredibly volatile intense moment, leading up to the election. And so part one of this question is, is, what do you all think the next few months are are going to look like. And, you know, the follow on question is, and then what, you know, we are seeing a tremendous call among democratic activists that Democrats, if they should get the trifecta in 2021 that they should use that power. They should use that power to add DC, maybe some others as a state, maybe add justices to the Supreme Court, which they would say would would be necessary to protect voting rights and, you know, and protect against minority rule. Or, and others are saying well that's just going to escalate things further. And, you know, so, what do you all think informed by your historical understanding of American politics. So, you should start with with Robert and Susan and then move on to DD and Megan. Wow. Well, one of the next few months look like I mean I think that's, that's incredibly worrisome and it seems to be getting more worrisome by the almost by the hour. You know, I think that can we have a, are we, are we going to have a free and fair election in the United States in six weeks. I think the path to that is very narrow and very precarious, right. And we've all heard and we can spend plenty of very, very likely night near scenarios about what election night and the weeks after election night look like. I think that's very worrisome that we end up with a very, you know, an election of questionable legitimacy in which the president will use his, I won't say authority but his power and the tools at his disposal to come up the works to stop the clarity of election results and to cheat his way to a second term. Right. I think there are a lot of ways that can happen. I think that's incredibly worrisome. And if that happens, you know, I don't think we have a script for what happens after that. You know, then are we on the road to one of these competitive authoritarian regimes that Suzanne alluded to earlier Turkey or hungry or something like that. You know, then I think the movement question becomes really serious. Right. And how we can convert the, the, the bottom up politics that has bubbled in the last six months into something that's really going to restore democracy in the United States I think that becomes a serious question. I think the, the, the, you know, if, if that nightmare scenario or one version of that nightmare scenario doesn't come to pass. You know, and let's say Biden wins the election and the Democrats retain control of the House and take control of the Senate. You know, then I think it's a real question what should the Democrats do. You know they have this moment when they could actually really reform things in some pretty significant ways that we just mentioned add seats to the court. There are some states that are going to be reliable democratic states, you know, Puerto Rico and Washington DC. But that leads to a question that's always sort of the devil do a democratic advocates and that is when an anti democratic party, and I think, you know, Steve Levitsky and Daniel simple I have argued pretty persuasively that the Republicans have become an anti democratic party. The anti democratic party takes these actions and plays as they call it constitutional hardball. What is the pro democratic opponent to do to do we do they play hardball back and do things that would be recognized will be seen as democratically illegitimate by the other side, in the interest of democracy well that's a kind of slippery ethical quandary. It's hard to know what to do and I think you know I think you I think you're right that Republican Party has become a movement party the Republican Party has become an anti democratic party whereas the Democratic Party. You know, will Rogers once said I don't belong to an organized Democratic Party I'm a Democrat that still rings true. I think there will be a healthy debate inside the Democratic Party about what to do but that just highlights the sort of asymmetry of the situation. Right, the Republicans have no scruples about moving this direction, whereas for the Democrats it'll be hard, and I think rightly a hard decision. Okay. Yeah, I'll add a few thoughts here. I'm very concerned about these next few months. And I think the reasons to do so have been accumulating I mean, the danger of free and fair elections it's just amazing that if you go back just a few years, Americans, the vast majority of Americans both parties had high confidence in our elections that they were free and fair elections, and the unraveling of that in a short period of time is really striking. And so, you know, there were concerns mounting as a voter ID laws are being adopted. As the Voting Rights Act had become weaker and after the Supreme Court decision about it and then Congress hadn't acted to strengthen it again. But then Trump comes along as a candidate and starts talking about fraud in elections. Well, you know, anyone who studies this carefully is found it's not a big concern and contemporary American elections to have fraud. And yet, that began to undermine Republicans confidence in elections. And, and then with, you know, learning that there was Russian interference in 2016, and then that Trump was asking Ukraine for interference in 2020 have made Democrats have more and more and now here we are in the midst of a pandemic, and mail in voting is being disparaged. And on and on, I mean, it seems like every week there is some new danger that is being presented to the election, that's either a form of suppressing votes, or discouraging voting, or danger that votes will not be counted, or that the outcome will not be trusted. And, you know, all of these things are concerns. And, you know, you can certainly envision a situation where, you know, apparently a lot more Democrats want to do mail in voting than Republicans and on election night, it could be that in some states based on the votes cast that day, that it will appear that Trump has done, but there will be the anticipation of many more votes coming in over the next week that were mailed by election day that were mailing ballots. But Trump made a clear victory, and, you know, or, I mean, that's one of many scenarios that could lead to a great crisis around the election. There was a lack of legitimacy and things being thrown into the courts. I think, you know, one of the reasons why the Republicans are rushing to fill the Supreme Court seat was articulated by Senator Ted Cruz who said, we can't have more votes coming out of the Supreme Court. We need to have a new justice appointed there, in other words, so that this litigation will go in the direction of the Republicans. It's a, you know, kind of real effort to make sure that the courts are on the side of Republicans in the election. So really treating the courts as very political and endangering the concept of free and fair elections. I think all of that is a great concern. So how we get from here to November and November to January, I think it's as going to be as challenging as the election of 1800 was. And then, you know, I'll leave it to the others to take these other questions about where do we go beyond that if Democrats did manage to win to do well in the election. I am scared I can tell from sort of everybody's expressions in response to what Robin and Suzanne were saying that I think we're all just very nervous about the next few months I think it's just going to be a heightened sense of anxiety, a lot of action from the election to try to delegitimize the election and the result before it even takes place. I think that we will can try to ensure a free and fair election by at least making sure everyone has an opportunity to turn out to vote somehow. You know, Trump wins. I don't really know what happens next time pessimistic and I don't think it's productive to necessarily go there if Biden wins though one thing that I want to push back against Rob about. As the Democrats historically pay play hardball necessarily it's not really their their way, but I do think that it would be useful to reframe everything in terms of reforming and improving our institutions you know we want to live in a country with majoritarian institutions not counter majoritarian ones. We want clean and nonpartisan election administration like every other advanced democracy in the world. We want less power in the hands of a highly malapportioned upper chamber of the Senate, like every other advanced democracy and changing these systems is not constitutional hardball. It is democracy it is aligning our values, which are ancient with modern democratic values, and a lot of other democracies have done that New Zealand, Japan, Taiwan in the 1990s there's a period of real reform spirit in bringing democracies to bringing institutions to the modern era. So I would really love it if some faction of politicians could articulate guiding democratic principles and bright lines. And the final thing I'll say which is maybe a little optimistic about of Trump wins is that in places where the far right has been elected to power, or has come close. It's gone very badly. So the Freedom Party was elected to power in Austria and just embarrassed itself with a series of scandals and is no longer in government. The Lega won Matteo Salvini's party in Italy, and has was not able to form a coalition government and ultimately has not been able to And in France when Marine Le Pen of the National Front, which is called something different now came close to winning the parties erected a sort of cordon sanitaire to insulate the country from her winning, winning office. So I think that if Trump does win, he either governs so poorly that there is an effective backlash, or you really start to see leaders stop compromising and start articulating what our values are actually going to be. So I feel like a lot have been said I have been over here, nodding, shaking my head saying yes that's right. I guess what I'll add to this is I'm like, I think my fellow panelists here incredibly worried about the future. I like to the point in which like it has been now for many days I wake up just nervous about what the day is going to bring it has seemed like this summer has been a punishing summer it seems like it has not ended it seems we are going into this fall and it's been just unrelenting. I will say that I think that one of the good things if there are any good things for me at least as somebody who spells right for a very long time that our political institutions are deeply racist, that at least in terms of what has been really interesting, in my opinion about the administration, it is as many people as many journalists have said, he said the quiet things out loud and and hasn't just been him, it's been an entire administration and a whole host of Republicans who we suspect it would like sacrifice democracy in this country for their own political gain, but then they just made that completely clear. And so I think for me in terms of making it like being very transparent about the stakes about like about in terms of people's individuals political maneuverings in this moment. And I have felt that there has been a lot of people who I respect politically who have tried to hold the middle and try to be a political and or neutral. There doesn't exist anymore. I think like now and hopefully the last few years have been a time for you to figure out where you actually stand on these issues right in so many ways the spring and summer protests have been the culmination on that right that like there's systemic racism you either stand on the side of where you're going to address this and the racism or you're part of the problem. There is no more room because people's lives are in danger. And I think for me as somebody who teaches courts and I've obviously like we're not you guys have touched on courts throughout this discussion so far. But I've always I mean oftentimes you're like oh Megan like he's just like a reality TV president, and he just like has a big following, but I'm like, I've always been no. The judiciary has changed dramatically, like the most in terms of modern presidency under Trump, and he's like just done it so quickly. And so for many people, especially those who are on the far right, he has given them a new schedule judiciary. And so like everybody's up in arms as they should be, as they should be about the passing of Ginsburg and the Republican response to that. And it has been, I mean, it, the institution has shifted. Most of the reason why cases went to the Supreme Court is right because of the conflict at the circuit court level. But like what happens when all the judges are like Trump appointees at the circuit court level what happens when the night and the fourth agree I right like that's scary. But in terms of so I'm worried about this election I think the thing that gives me in terms of what Rob touched on the thing that gives me hope and I remain hopeful is the protest and as well as the activism that I see I, in terms of, I have never seen this, at least in my lifetime, this number of people being active calling email and getting their students getting their family members to get to be registered and get to the polls and people becoming politically active I just I. So that is giving me excitement and hope. Now what is giving me pause and giving me worried everything that I see out there right now. In terms of what happens afterwards in terms of I, you know, I, I Trump and or Biden presidency, I think you fight, even if it's Biden still I think you fight on every corner. I think that part of what has been so successful about Trump administration is in terms of the development of deep enforcement mechanisms, right in terms of bolstering ice bolstering the police police unions, etc. Right bolstering the Supreme Court he has been an institution builder even if we don't like to believe he has been set. And the left needs to like close right and get to it. So, I'm not sure at all what's going to happen, but like listen here, we can't stop fighting because this is a lot. All right, so we've got a bunch of questions here I'm going to try to wrap a couple together. Yeah, there's a couple questions about the media about technology and their role in, you know, potentially accelerating or mitigating a crisis. And in particular, Robert and Suzanne be interested in in the historical role of the media and technology I mean that the media has changed from pamphlets to mass newspapers to magazines, television, radio, I mean, the media has always been changing, you know, what what role do you think changing and changing who controls it what what role do you think changing media and technology have to play in the kind of weakening or strengthening of democracy, both historically. Well, it was really striking to us how political leaders would use technology, new technologies across our time periods and how they would use the media. So, we go back to the 1790s like right out of the gate, the partisan media is created in the United States, and it is created by none other than the the framers and the founding fathers who, you know, themselves might have previously been like, you know, we're all going to govern by consensus, etc. So, you know, there is a national newspaper of the government of the Federalist that was the sort of the Federalist mouthpiece so then Jefferson and Madison, create their own newspaper in order to have an opposition voice articulated and they start, you know, writing anonymous op-eds and then Hamilton does for the Federalist paper where they're just tearing each other to shreds. And this continues and and, you know, I think we're very aware of how today we have partisan media, you know, epitomized by Fox News and talk radio, etc. And how different that is from the middle of the 20th century when people tune into the three major networks and heard very kind of middle of the road sort of news. And, and when the fairness doctrine was, you know, still in place as it was until the mid 1980s. There was actually the exceptional period in the United States in that there were these standards of investigative journalism, and not a partisan media. But if you look back previously, the more typical experience was to have a very partisan media that was often really driving polarization it was certainly used in the, not only the 1790s, but 1850s, 1890s to drive polarization. So I don't, you know, I think that and then as well, certainly the media can be used to try to encourage democratic participation and active and informed citizenship. So, you know, I think that it can be, I mean, I'm tempted to say it can be neutral. And it depends upon who uses it and toward what ends. Rob, do you want to weigh in? Yeah, no, I don't have much to add. I mean, I, one other historical moment where this becomes important is the 1890s where one of the first targets of the white supremacists militias in Wilmington is it's the daily record is that the name of the papers is in the black owned newspaper. And I think the first black owned daily newspaper in the country. Their offices are burned down as one of the first salvos of this rebellion in Wilmington. So the media is a target and the sort of and recognized as a tool or a weapon of the other side, right. So as Suzanne said this partisan echo chamber like media environment is not new and in fact has been with us for a long time. You know, I think there is something to be said for the newer media technologies that make that make these partisan narratives and alternative facts, if you want to call them that sort of spread with incredibly rapid speed and people to combine and get together around alternative narratives very quickly and at very low cost, I think that's something new but again, even that kind of, kind of division in attitudes and outlooks that's fueled by the media is not new I mean Richard Hofstadter the great American historian wrote in the middle of the 20th century about what he called the paranoid style, which is this sort of, you know, conspiratorial cast of people talking about American politics that was he documented widely shared when that essay first appeared I think in the 1950s. So, you know that that foreshadow is the sort of Q and on kind of mentality that seems to be prominent in some quarters now so so these, this is a, it's an old pattern. But that doesn't mean it's not something to be concerned about. So, we're bad out of time so I want to give everybody a lightning round chance for final thoughts before I do that I want to mention that if you want to buy the book and you absolutely should because not only is it incredibly informative and timely but it's also wonderfully written I must say that the narrative of these incidents really, really comes together quite nicely so it's not it's not one of these like boring academic books that you're going to like fall asleep during you actually actually really enjoyed reading it. And so you can buy that buy the book under the answering section in the Q&A and the link is also available on the event page in our New America website. Alright, so lightning round final, final thoughts like, you know, 20 seconds, 30 seconds. Anybody have a final thing that they want to get in. Yeah, I'll say something and I'll say something that that kind of adds to what Rob was talking about earlier when he was talking about race. I was really struck in looking at contemporary public opinion poll data I mean these days conflict over race is paired with polarization. And in the Republican Party, which has become an increasingly white party relative to the diversity of the population, whereas the Democratic Party has pretty much kept has pretty much reflects the diversity of the population Republicans have are scoring higher over recent decades on racial resentment scores. Whereas, when you look at Democrats, Democrats have moved away from those attitudes where they were very similar to Republicans back in the 1980s, they've now become more embracing of equality. So it's a time of both peril and promise, we could come through this period of crisis to democracy in a way that restores racial hierarchy as has happened in some periods in the past. It's also possible that this can be a democratizing moment. And I'm heartened to think that I think there are more Americans today than ever before who actually embrace the ideals of equality. I think it's part of why we're so polarized, but it also means that there's a lot at stake here, and there's the promise for really moving forward. Well, with that optimistic note, let's hope the 2020s are a decade of promising political transformation. So thank you all read the book, think about it, and, and let's get to work. We've got a lot of work to do to strengthen our democracy.