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Seated at the tables we have a very special deal lots of seats in the first couple of rows so if you're interested in moving up in the closer particularly to me um we would encourage you to come up to the crash but if you don't that's okay too it's a good policy Um so I just wanna wish everybody a good morning it's Tuesday for those who feel like they've been here for two weeks um it's been an incredibly power pack um friends uh and we appreciate all of the time and energy that you spent as the sessions my name is Michael crab and I'm proud to serve as first vice chair of the J C P a and I'm pleased to be introducing and thank you We will be introducing in moderating today's session on waging a democracy the American Jewish community has benefited from a strong and healthy democracy because of democracy for the Democratic system strives to guard against discrimination that too often targets racial religious and ethnic minority communities liberal democracy is currently under directs our political system like many democracies around the world is experiencing a turbulent moment with the Divided and with many of the hard fought out in public policies that our network has helped to shape it in its history it's all too easy right now to despair and yeah America has been through worse and emerge stronger for it in 19 92 Francisco beyond the famously rode in the end of history that we're nearing the end point of mankind's ideological revolutions and the your universal is Asian of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government the question was not is democracy and trouble but rather is it's you Embrace it inevitable many of us go to the state of our democracy for granted we assumed like the guy on a that are divine Democratic institutions has stood the test of time and would survive the arc of history I doubt many of us would have expected that the freedom House the highly respected watchdog of democracy worldwide would tell us in two thousand eighteen a quarter century later and I quote democracy is under assault and in retreat around the globe a crisis that has intensified as Americans but my Democratic standards a road at an excel Case today at jcp a two thousand 19 we will be focusing on community relations field to call for civic engagement when jc penney was founded in 75 years ago it was this very model that power to bring the strides in civil rights and health America come closer to living out his own ideals as a liberal democracy today's politics require the same commitment to discuss current challenges and opportunities before the 100 sixteenth Congress and to help us better understand some of the current issues facing our Democratic institutions and to guide us in some Actions that we can take we have two esteemed speakers with us Benjamin with us is a senior fellow in governance studies at the brookings institution where he is research director at public law and Co director of the Harvard las truman's project on law and security he's also cofounder of the law fair blog but needed booth done is President and chief executive officer of the leadership conference on civil and human rights and was previously principle deputy Attorney general and head of the civil rights division I think us Department of Justice until January twentieth two thousand 17 jc pa have a special affinity with the leadership conference as we helped to found it and having made active member for the past 70 years you can read the full bios on your app and before we begin uh I would just like to do some housekeeping for those who are going to Capitol Hill um your luggage if you bring it on the bus will return to the dropoff location on the bus at 3 PM and if you have earlier flights Can bring your luggage into the capital as long as you don't have sharp objects in your bags uh and if you have any other arrangements that you might wanna make please see coffee uh but this point excuse me if you do bring your luggage on to the bus the bus will be back at 3 PM uh note earlier no later uh let's begin by asking our speakers to spend a few minutes outlining the major priorities that they and their organizations are working on if you have questions uh after we have some questions uh internally please hold them and we'll have a q and a after uh each presenter has spoken so We'll start with you a great um thank you so much and uh it's really always an honor for me to be before jc pa uh as you said there are history between leadership conference basically goes right back to its founding uh when in 19 50 uh Jewish leaders after American leaders labor leaders really came together out of the notion that the fight for civil rights could be won by one group alone but we need to be waging coalition at that time in our country's history but most relief been around voting rights and the fight for voting rights the fight to stop And a leading and feeling about the Americans in the South uh jcp a play not only incredibly important foundational role in the fight for voting rights but has continued to be a partner and we will talk about voting rights today because as things change sometimes uh we're still in a pretty massive struggle to ensure that everyone's right to vote um is protected so uh and then I haven't had a chance to in staging an excited to do it um so for the leadership Conference right now I came in to uh leadership conference in June of 20 17 at a time where I felt like as a coalition of more than 200 National selling rights organizations we were just in rapid response mode and kind of responding five times a day to the latest and assault on civil rights that was coming from the administration on any number of communities of leadership conference represents and that is no way to build power or to win over the one of the things that we did was really honing in on Wow we care deeply about specific issues that are germane to the bread the wellbeing of our communities like criminal Justice reform and educational equity the fight to ensure our you know healthcare for our for everyone and these kinds of issues immigration and women's rights that because of the great rotation on some of our core Democratic norms and principles and institutions that have been really the forum for uh couldn't um working through and Fancy writes that without a focused on um the democracy bucket of the issues that we were not gonna be able to win any advances on anything else and so I have been really focused for the last couple of years on the fight for voting rights and uh to ensure that we can fight voter suppression and I can talk a little bit about what that is look like um recently uh the fight to ensure a fair and accurate census I always say the census is like one of the least sexy little rights for shoes and yet it is so foundational to our democracy and governs how not only how ethan Dollars of federal money gets allocated to communities around the country but it is also the basis for uh for reimbursement in the House of representatives and then becomes the basis for redistricting in 20 21 and we will live with the consequences of the 20 20 count for 10 years as a country and there are grave threats to the census not the least of which is that the administration has decided to include a citizenship status question in the sense is for the first time uh it is since 19 50 and we can talk about that and then I'll The fight for freedom works which is a fight that is um often feels incredibly contentious it's around specific nominees but there are many groups in the coalition that do not take positions on nominees and yet uh I think that there has been a pretty single minded focus from civil rights opponents on reconstructing the courts in a way that it's okay um and it has not Ways to shoot Say that we're not part So but in a way that you know the courts affect everything they have been the most significant backstop to some of the most egregious excesses of any presidential administration support a separation of powers but certainly for this one and yet the courts are game quite swiftly with people who had an out of line with the prior Republican and Democratic administrations have problem or stream use nominees you're going before the Senate judiciary Committee and refusing to say that around their support of education was correctly decided nominees who are you know holding anti treatment of giving speeches that are you know deeply anti lgbt queue uh writes in the like and For us at this moment with the attacks on the free press with the attacks on the federal judiciary with the attacks on the sunsets in the weapon eyes Asian of legislation of some of our core Democratic institutions um that is really where the civil rights community has been unified about galvanized around even as we do advocacy to advance criminal Justice reform or to support uh in advance educational equity and the like and I can talk a little bit more but that's kind of the theory of change with that bringing Great thank you um there is exactly one place in the constitution of the United States that uses quotation marks All right one of the least studying provisions of the constitution doesn't have a major set of law review articles around it a scholarship over the years and it doesn't have uh a lot of judicial precedent around the either uh the words that are surrounded by politicians and the constitution and read as follows I do solemnly swear or affirm that I will faithfully execute the office of the President of the United States and will to the best of my ability preserve protect and defend the constitution of the United States Um these are first the words of the presidential of um and When you talk about waging democracy we have this idea that uh in a democracy was in elections democracy loses and rule of law institutions I am that we have built a system That uh actually imbedded the sort of Madison and idea that were uh you know uh wonderful people will not always be at the hell right uh and here's the problem that is actually nonsense um the reason the same games Madison who wrote that in life and statesmen will not always be at the helm also the route the words of the presidential oath into the constitution with quotation marks around that Specified the specific thing that he wanted people to have to swear is that in fact civic virtue and matters and civic virtue one of the fundamental elements that holds the democracy together now there's a catch phrase that we use in the trump era to describe total absence of civic virtue and it's uh we call it warm busting or you know people fret about norms and that's a very polite what is saying uh that they don't Even the integrity of somebody's both um Talk about a very specific passage of test that the President of the United States said um that I think buying is together a lot of the anxieties that people have about the state of democracy and it's linked to this question of whether you can actually trust somebody to have sworn that oath in a serious way and actually mended or even understood it so this is a Comment the President made and uh to a radio station W m Al um a little more than a year ago in which he was venting frustration about the fact that he has discovered that he's not allowed to direct the way the Justice Department behaving with respect to investigations and so it's a little bit of extended passages on the oakland ul Jimmy I'm just gonna read it to you he said but you know Kind of thing is because I am President of the United States I'm not supposed to be involved with the Justice Department I'm not supposed to be involved with the Fbi I'm not supposed to be doing the kinds of things I would love to be doing and I'm very frustrated anybody I look at what's happening in the Justice Department why aren't they going after Hillary Clinton with her emails and with her dossier and the kind of money it's very discouraging to me I'll be honest I'm very unhappy about it that the Justice Department isn't going maybe they are but you know this President and I think you understand this as President you're not supposed to be involved with that process but hopefully they Something and then some point maybe we are gonna have it all out and there's a lot packed into that passage I wanted to tease out a few things first of all donald trump is is not an honest person but there is a subject about which he never wise never and it is on the motion of state he's out when he says he's upset about something it's because he's upset about something he's actually not really capable of so doing Is on the motion of reaction to things so first of all it's interesting that he calls this the saddest thing that he's not supposed to be directing the conduct of the Justice Department right he he aspires to be directing the content conduct of the Justice Department he aspires to be telling the Fbi to investigate and who does he want the Fbi to investigate his political opponent right that is the aspiration the saddest thing Is that he can't tell me is the in the Justice Department to go after this political advocates They insist on investigating his conduct and the conduct of his friends so this is a very old idea of Justice it shows up in book one of plato's Republic it is the argument the implant that sucker cases responding to uh a guy named polly marcus in uh opens the conversation by suggesting to solve a case that the definition of Justice is rewarding friends and punishing enemies and that is exactly the vision of Justice that donald trump is reflecting here and he is suggest That it shouldn't be and inside of that it isn't within the role of the President to implement that view of Justice through the Justice Department and the Fbi which is the saving instrumentality of power I want to suggest that that's an idea we should take extremely seriously um that it in fact binds together an enormous amount of the conduct of the President in office from Prevail on the Fbi director to do his bidding to removing the Fbi director when he didn't use his fitting to attacking on a ongoing public basis you turney general for correctly refusing himself from a particular investigation in which the President had a specific interest to finally firing the attorney general for the specific reason that can be done that and replacing him with his Style um the fundamental challenge to democracy in the country right now is people who don't believe in the faithful execution of the laws as specified in the presidential vote and are being pretty open about that fact Thank you Benjamin um I think when we talk about threats and challenges to our democracy it's agreeable that we're going to be talking about the subject of politics and elections uh the administration uh but one of the things that needed that you mentioned that I think our members struggle with my no I do um is the question of the media and how we get our information um right now we have a media that is unabashedly polarized and we also have a It's under attack at the same time and in our community relations jobs um we want to be able to discern the information that we're getting and act on it and act on it responsibly and so one of the challenges we face is how we get our information where we get our information and how those institutions are also under the same pressures and threats so I wonder if uh if you have Benjamin can talk a little bit about the media where you get your information how you take that information and corroborate that because when we act on a local level We're contacting other uh ethnic religious groups that were contacting our elected officials we want to be talking with them on subjects and having authoritative fact based arguments and that's what J cat focuses on issuing content to our communities that is fact based and letting those people decide how they want to approach it but how do you gather your information what do you suggest for our members Well I mean I think that it's hard to imagine it is I know there are folks from camp pine alter conflict days where it was one person on Tv and there was a sense that uh it was like a trusted source that was credible that had the kind of moral standing to deliver information and we're just in a completely different world and I don't think we're ever returning back to that world we um to me you know of a piece with the issues that we've already mentioned here probably one of the greatest challenges we face is the attack on the truth and uh And the amount of various platforms that are able to spread this information um you know deep fakes and you know I don't even know what those were a few months ago but this is you know we're gonna see it really leading up into the 20 20 election where literally you can recreate a very uh possible video of the candidates saying things in their voice that has been entirely janette and the research shows that even if you claw that back and say that this is a lot that it is actually the imprinted on people's minds and has you know it's a conscious influence I mean this is Kind of stuff where we haven't really figured it out and um there's a lot of people working on these issues I get my news I mean on twitter uh I get my news from a lot of different sources uh and I requires more discretion on the part of folks that are making news to understand like you know do you just diversify your new sources I still read in your times I still listen to not only locating I mean the Washington post but I'm also on twitter looking at like all of the different things that and I'm deliberately will follow folks who don't share my political views because it is very easy to be surrounded uh I I mean this is the thing is on twitter and said and then you are getting the news of the folks that you decided to follow and so it was very easy to create your own bubbles around the stuff and if you had to be intentional about reaching out and understanding like what is it that other people consume I go on Tv but quite honestly I don't watch it and um and I should probably say that but it is a little bit dry and cable to me um can drive me crazy uh but I will go on it because I understand that a lot of people especially right now are watching cable news They're you know they're watching their channel according to his B it has become so politicized and polarized but I am overall I think that we can make those decisions to to kind of curate the media that want I think there's a real concern around what is truthful what is there we have a President who is who is you know really sad on lines and has been propagating lies yesterday is lying about how many people were at his rally in El paso like all face line about passing in the Stadium that actually you know which has a miracle scientific number of seats um and this is you know And and so it's something I'm to the media to point out where this is happening but there's uh there's a lot of media that is also feeding on it and then you know for the leadership conference we've also been doing a lot of advocacy with facebook and other platforms around the wool that these social media platforms play in spreading disinformation and it not regulating when does information particularly in the context of elections is actually been used to prey on our vulnerability of racism and targeting black voters spreading disinformation uh very turf In a very targeted ways there's meaning I can't answer this question uh you know there's a lot there's a lot of thinking and work that's being done in it but I think that we we are in a little bit of a struggle for truth and propaganda is often a very core tenet of the you know the push towards authoritarian zone has aligned by the trends that we've already talked about your own stage Benjamin were fax refundable to you uh suggested our members waiting Video the media question his struggle with a lot um because I am both a producer here ed a law fair and so it's a multiple times a day publication now uh I'm also having a relationship with them and they say um I am also a former Washington post editorial writer and select for the come out of mainstream media and a very traditional sense But also left it because I had started off air because uh there were things that you couldn't do in conventional publications like very deep dives on on uh certainly legal questions with what led us to drive to start law fare in the first place so I had a foot in all worlds and that's I'm largely agree with what they need to just seven um I think we are in a protracted and extended struggle of for the authority Define the truth and whether truth is defined by things that we would call fats or whether truth is defined by the will of the loudest and most charismatic and uh individuals around um and you know why I Know what the answer to the question what's the right way to consume me it is but here are a few guideposts anyone who will show you their work is worth enough taking seriously um You know a serious uh news operation will will always try to tell you how they know what they know and um I was struck by this when when Jim comi was fired um I had this sort of moment where I had to kind of decide whether I was gonna tell you some stuff that I knew and I decided to do it and I called up Mike Smith from the New York times and I asked him uh My office I have some information for you so you come by my office and we have a very long conversation which he recorded um and the daily podcast eventually ran lengthy excerpts of that recording so that's one way you can tell how they knew what they were reporting but another thing you did that I just think is a really interesting we know into how serious people got it fast you know Somebody with a public name that but he had no idea what I was telling him the truth and some went he just handed me a pad of paper and said can you draw me a map of cummings office So I did and Michael to this day tell you he was not testing me he was just trying to um he was just trying to get a sense of contour and features of the story we were talking but of course he was testing me because that's exactly what he should have been doing in that situation and if you look at the New York times is reporting about that period period right around the fire and there are no errors in it there's no there they haven't had to run any corrections the President says it's all fake news but there are no facts in it that are that anyone has successfully challenge because they Actually bothering to do the work and so figuring out who the people are who were actually bothering to do the work really matters and one of the ways that we have doing that it's a crude way but it actually works in a distraught kind of way is brands the reason large numbers of people are reading law fair right now much to my surprise is that we have a Of actually doing the work doing real legal analysis and getting things right there are certain brands that you trust you come to trust more than others uh and I actually think that's a good thing that brandnew quality if you're seeing something on a site that you've never heard of before fire reporter uh writer who you've never heard of before that actually think evening this radical when adam eyes people you know environment that actually should tell you something why is this somebody who is saying Incredible things who have never heard of before and then eventually this name will be in something to some of you but not to others than the louise mentioned bubble burst eventually right um and there's a lot of those people that it's worth being skeptical of them every time thank you I'll ask one more question and then we'll open the floor for questions um we have recent midterm elections and uh we have a presidential election coming up and we've got a new Congress our members are going to be The Hill today and uh one of the things I know that we think about the J C P a is what challenges are facing the new Congress and the Supreme court uh that really continue to put democracy under pressure what can we do besides voting of course um to uh understand and to make a difference in to help the new Congress at uh to uh do what it can to stave off some of those pressures start All right all right so let's let's have a little Frank talk about the new Congress uh it is not going to pass any significant legislation If we're lucky it will not shut down the government right that's the level like basic appropriations basic uh you know maybe we get some authorization bills but basically the legislative task of this Congress is to keep the doors up Activity of the Congress that that is going beyond that is not going to be legislative it's going to be in the oversight and investigations of Department um here is the bad news uh actually start with the good news um the good news is that there is some pretty talented people uh who are involved in this and um uh you know in particular both at a chef and a lighter comings or are and very badly or there's serious people um and Some of them particularly chef has uh a real running head start as a result of uh the prior work uh activities that that that Committee has been involved in for the last couple of years um they have cleared and staff they have people who are in a position actually to do serious work here the bad news um the bad news is that the muscle memory of congressional series congressional app uh investigation is pretty seriously atrophy and The tradition of serious bipartisan investigation is one that has not kept up with itself uh over time and so the um the important no it's not actually clear to me anyway that Congress is an institution we all that well positioned to play the role that we're kind of expecting of it uh what can people do uh first of all you know if you Don't demand this of Congress institutional e it won't maximize this variable Congress really maximize as one variable uh and it's the principal thing that is demanded of it at any given time and so the I think the question is shouldn't really realistically we should focus our demands of Congress for a serious oversight process and that's just realistically what we're likely to get over the next couple of years the court on the courts are a little different um because of They're not all that responsive to political pressures by design and so when you confirm large numbers of judges uh you bacon a certain degree of how come over a protracted period of time I don't really get those very much to do about that to be honest I think that's that's a depending on where your politics is that's either hostile or benefit of the current environment that we're gonna live with for a while and um and you know I'm not sure other than uh you know If one is inclined to be disapproving of that set of than two outliers and outcomes and I'm not sure there's much to do about that other than elect different senators and elect different presidents So um so I I do this work and I'm really glad that you all are headed to the hell um I uh I think that there are different opportunities for I think the oversight function is a key one because we're really such as been no oversight for the first two years of the administration where congressional Republicans um abdicated their responsibility um to be a robust body of separate providing for community to separation of powers and so the oversight agenda is really important that's how you call Cabinet secretaries in China justifying Russia also denounced the balances we didn't have on we have them now in the House and it's not a small thing I gotta tell you for the work that we're doing everyday to be able to have a Secretary ross come in and talk about the census to have circadian meal some come in and have to answer questions about separation of families and the fact that we still have hundreds of kids in detention centers who uh you may never see their parents again and and that the Justice Department and she has no clue about who is in uh who is in these detention facilities to be able to haul you know uh um Whatever funding you watched that spectacle and as far as that demean the Justice Department on Friday call and to justify it and the more investigation what is response has been on and on and on that stuff was simply not so that is a big deal so like you know go in lean in on that but I actually have a slightly different view about um I own you know no believer that Congress is this great actor of the smaller however that said there are bills that are in Congress that will make it through the House will go nowhere in the side but that are Really important numbers for informing the agenda at the presidential right we want candidates to be talking about the real issues that are truly at stake we saw in November of 20 eighteen so will rights voters you know expanding the franchise by the largest uh by the largest amount since the passage of the voting rights act in Florida an amendment form scoring voting rights to people with felony convictions that stuff is percolating around the country there are uh Passage of a passage of automatic voter registration bills in bipartisan ways and States across the country and brought in general that is actually uh heart and personal of a major omnibus bill that will not pass the Senate H arlen I testified in Congress on it two weeks ago but it is about confronting money in politics the rules of our system a lot of folks as civil rights folks we do a really nice job of focusing in on policies specific issues but when the kind of root of our structural democracy is being attacked this is something that It is always understood about the focus and the needed focus on the courts on the little power on these structures that ultimately will define how many policy issue that's played out there our bills right now there are message bills as we call them but they are important markers that will inflate their building off of that kind of States the momentum in the States that is you know a more constructive and productive um momentum and laying them on there for what we ultimately want to see federally uh and we'll You know and that needs to inform really the kinds of debates that are happening in the next two years leading up to the presidential election so I would say a gentle one is one I would say yeah before it's look it is a bleak bleak picture given the makeup of the Senate obviously I'm assuming uh particular perspective as a single person who cares about civil rights there is no question that the way of their being made right now is deepening devastating to civil rights enforcement but the reality is we can't sit back and yes people have to vote for their further you know in Senate elections but we also as I said our plan asymmetrical warfare on actually And to preserve the independence and they can do sharing uh you know there are in their society and the heritage foundation and our action pac has been spending tens of millions of dollars for the last 30 to 40 years intent on remaining the federal judiciary there is been no it kind of confusion of funds or strategy um on the Progressive side and almost the right side to actually have a fair fight when you have folks in Alabama saying that they don't want to be in the Senate that the Alabama Senate election in 20 Eighteen 20 eighteen 20 17 saying we don't want to like Roy Moore avoided we care about the Supreme court there is a different kind of understanding on the grassroots about the importance of the courts so we can't sit back and wait for the next opening and there could very well be a vague another vacancy the summer's Supreme floor and say let's just like hang back is nothing we can do there's a lot of work that we're doing in need to do more of to actually educate ourselves and our folks about why people need to hear about the court so if you care about criminal Justice reform you have to care about the courts if you care about immigrants rights you have to care about the courts if you care about fighting Antisemitism and hate you have to care about the courts because everything you care about is going to self out and so that's where I think there is a lot of active work to be done now and it's about organizing um but it's building towards a longterm kind of understanding obviously be realistic about you know the so what I'm taking away from both of your comments on that question is in the absence of serious progress on legislation in this Congress uh it doesn't mean that we as community activists and uh community People shouldn't be talking about this legislation we should be consistently keeping this legislation and the bills that are important to us top of mind in the media with our elected officials because as you say these are message uh bills that give um Congress and understanding of what's important to the electorate going into the presidential election so we should not we should not feel discouraged if we don't get legislation pass that uh A signal to us to stop talking about it most legislation takes more than a Congress to pass uh a lot of legislation takes many congresses to pass and Uh period of divided government particularly polarized environments like this one where you know the the venn diagram overlap between the Senate and the house's is pretty much of a slimmer ais not a period in which you should expect large amounts of legislative productivity which is not to say that the legislative activity in one House isn't important for messaging or or or longer Um political cultivation of of coalition three reasons this would be a good point to open up for questions I think tammy has a microphone if anyone has questions Neil yeah I probably don't need to promote that so uh you have one anyway so It's good that I'd like to ask you to comment on The issues that have arisen where the newspaper yesterday uh about congresswoman homeowner and uh How is some of the tensions Then that are created and rising sense of antisemitism on the left and uh often in the form so the can take Israel off uh statements how's that gonna impact the coalition uh thank you hit on and then you know stood the test of time for almost 70 years so um I will say that I have been deeply concerned about antisemitism and the rise of hate from since you know the 20 16 election where are we headed up the civil rights division we enforced and process Hate crimes and bullying uh you know preventing bullying in schools which is often the early as form of um of these issues and the reality is that a rise in antisemitism in ance in the salon a phobia anti lgbt q hey um is we are in a surge of the Fbi because given numbers too and we all know that hate is vastly under reported uh bullying in schools is vastly under reported and yet even with those statistics or spinning very significant search uh and his Case of directly attributable to the president's own words we also saw charlottesville play a player out and then you have a conversation among you know some of the women's March I understand you guys had a have a session about that um uh and the concern that you know with the lamar yesterday everyone probably knows with um with the subject the topic is around a Brown what is when officials can have a critique of American foreign policy towards Israel like his that antisemitic what is crossing the line she apologize for it and all of that and for the leadership conference I Say I am really distressed about the fissures that that um are kind of being laid there um in this conversation it has not I will say though for on a practical level uh prevented us at all from working in coalition on really important issues on the issues that we've been talking about but it's not not ignoring on we just don't you know used to be it was a simple answer for the leadership conferences we don't engage and inform policy related matters but you know the conversation on issues uh around meeting Antisemitism and this is definitely kind of um when when I know that like rabbi customers speaking with michelle barber about voting rights and he's getting heckled or when um there's a critique of uh a Muslim activist for talking about human rights violations uh in the West Bank and this is a deeply this was a very difficult conversation I don't think we can run away from it but I will also say that in my own practical work the one thing that we're seeing Right now is a level of solidarity and coalition that is being expressed in a way that I think doesn't always happen and part of that is because of how under attack uh and how kind of have been the go opportunists the attacks from the President begins all of our communities and so to me being able to come together on these key issues with core organizations that have been long in the spite that have been long about building code To get things done I have not felt at all that that work has stopped in fact I just felt I only really kind of really um get more and more energize in the last uh two and a half years and so I think we have to be honest and acknowledge uh um these issues and inflame them out but I also think that there is a lot more than it's bringing organizations together um in this time as we fight some of the greatest attack Democracy and some of the grace of tax on the most vulnerable among us if you other questions concerning I need to burn city um so um so I have written and argued that our democracy some fundamental ways and the time that our institutions of democracy and reflecting from who so long time Republican and is now an ever chopper as uh argue that we're really in a period of risk um do you share that view that that our fundamental Democratic institutions are at risk now what would it look like for there to be a fundamental lack of democracy and for us to sort of lose Are putting in the democracy if that's actually something that might have Uh I guess how I'll take a crack at that I think the answer to that is of course right so if you say what would it look like if liberal democracy where really a risk well would look like major political figures not promising to respect the results of elections chad it would look like uh as the example that I gave you the beginning of major political figures stating openly and behaving openly as though it is appropriate and normative Lee can That was down at a government to use the instrumentality of power to protect themselves from scrutiny and go after their political enemies check it would look like uh a systematic effort to uh boom barbed the population with disinformation and propaganda check it would look like I can't go on like this for a long time you if you asked in the abstract what a series of attacks that would actually threaten democracy look like in his stable democracy you would answer A whole bunch of things that we are in fact seeing playing out uh all at the same time a lot of raise a different one that does not get talked about very much and I have to be a little bit careful about how I talk about it um you would expect to see People who are in power ginning up mobs against people who are not um the President United States tweets about individuals in a fashion design to run their lives um talk about two of them in particular um two career Fbi officials Peter struck and lisa paige uh As well as a career Justice Department lawyer bruce of work it is unprecedented like literally in a nn technical sense without precedent for the President of the United States should be individually attacking career government officials on an ongoing basis in a fashion designed to cause people to attack them to render them on employable to cause To do things to them you would expect to see that if you were in Venezuela and democracy is under threat that's what nicolas maduro with us right So if the question is what would it look like if the institutions of democracy were facing some degree of threat in this country look around um now it doesn't answer the question that I think is latent in your question which is how a much bret is it under right is it are we looking at a situation that is a sort of early stages of decay um that should be a warning sign to all of us who are we looking at a side we get over the bricks or You know the floorboards are are rotting away and we're just kind of waiting till we all fall through the basement I don't think we know the answer question um it feels to me a little earlier stage than that to be honest um but for those of you who never read gosh the milk um so yeah show is uh seriously thoughtful guy um and um A few years ago he's a he's a political scientist and a few years ago developed what was then a highly counterintuitive faces um which heroes this occasion about which is that the conventional fugal wisdom right that once you have a consolidated democracy it cannot backslide into a non Democratic state is wrong and that there is a lot of polling data in a lot of consolidated Democratic countries yeah actually is from Italy from Germany um that It is growing anti Democratic sentiments in highlight consolidated democracies He wrote this before Poland before hungry before the rise of the athlete and before donald trump all right there's a lot to be said for what gosh I calls the Democratic consolidation pieces and where we are on a spectrum of possible Democratic consolidation I do not purport to know by the way I don't wanna wait till we fall through the floor boards to figure out the answer to that question I would want to be the person who Uh is later understood to have been a chicken little because we all actually mobilized on the basis that the sky is falling and we bought an insurance policy and by the way the President makes fun of the phrase insurance policy which uh pete struck or lisa page sent in a text to the one I stand by that friends there's a whole corner of the of the fever swamps Where people believe that I direct the insurance policy conspiracy because I used the phrase on law fair ones um I wanna be the person who said let's get some insurance policies in place let's actually do that work and then by the way the House never burned down I don't regret my homeowners insurance just because I've never had to file a claim I wanted to take a second to I mean I think that the um I sometimes refer to this period of the boiling of the frog because sometimes you are in it we can't see that it's like death by don't actually is death by a thousand cuts and yet there are so many danger signs and alarms and I you know numerous times in the last year felt like we were at this like constitutional weiner the Red line that we were passing and what it means and what we're gonna do when I think about this though um Some degree of perspective which is uh we are at a very dangerous point in our democracy where we could just be kind of watching the boiling of the fraud on our watch but I think there are a lot of people in this country that are um they never thought of themselves as activists they didn't see themselves as like kind of abstract and little law thinkers that they are watching this stuff play out in their own um in their own lives or watching you know how the news talking about it and the like and they you know they are increasingly engaged in whether it's local A National fight to save their democracy and how they see their own kind of actions playing a part and I think that is a really important thing to happen but I also think it's important to recognize that for a lot of folks in this country our democracy has never worked and that there are four institution and look at kind of modern day voter suppression and the long history of systematic voter suppression and denial of Democratic rights to African Americans and the long history that that we have Regard um I hate it is also important for us to understand and in this moment um there are many votes and communities in this country for whom democracy also has not worked and that the strains that are being placed on the kind of increasing veteran towards authoritarianism is placing that much more of a toll that this is being part of our long history and since our founding and so we can't just dick contextualize the current moment we find ourselves and it's why we have to play the long game but it's also live the only thing that is ever made a difference in making Progress in this country is through these kinds of crises and moments his been the goodwill and good conscience of Cuba eat standing up against all odds in the face of you know on a lot of tremendous forces and saying in refusing to allow the status quote a stand and refusing to allow the battering of American values as kind of as much as they've been promises um being more so than realities but trying to give meaning to them and fighting that and so I am you can't be a civil rights lawyer without being deeply hopeful and deeply awful person I think you guys go on the Hill than organizing your local community Organizing your um in your religious music organize where you can but that we can't stop at the end alice we have to go forward about what is it that we're doing in this moment and who which of cloning us wants to say that we were sitting on the sidelines and this moment in history when we are really uh paid kind of a time where we could be redefining what this country is who we want to be what kind of America we deserve a longterm kind of inclusive country one of That is we all share that responsibility and in a really kind of basic way um and I do think that there is a renewed energy around these issues but if we aren't kind of following through or we somehow become complacent of the forces are too great against us that's when we will literally be boiling a frog and I think you know what there's a lot of reasons to have hope about what is driving the animating activism right now but it is incumbent on Just to kind of carry that forward well in um when you listen to the warning signs that Benjamin was listing and we sit and we jump over and we're cynical about that I think the danger is to accept that as uh being okay and if we take the comments that you've made about the responsibility of Congress and the hope for farmers that its oversight function is properly deployed then uh back to david's question and to be honest very um perhaps At that point uh liberal democracy wins out here aren't we done we've done our job I don't I don't pay attention to Congress that you all will be sorely disappointed I'm not trying to like look at your state legislator or look at the local school board elections look I mean there are the stuff that gave me hope is the fact that like voters in 20 eighteen came out to vote for a really aggressive ambitious democracy agenda they were voting for independent redistricting commissions that were voting to have a slew of democracy reforms the stuff was not Capturing the public's imagination but I think people have seen what's happened in the last two years and are increasingly agitated about the state of our democracy and that's not that's the strength of democracy is the voice of the people we have time for one more question uh we do not have time for one yeah review um I want to thank anita Benjamin Courage and uplifted I'm not sure um and then really by the end of the Thank you very much











