This is Democracy – Episode 155: Voter Intimidation

This week, Jeremi and Zachary talk with Wendy Davis and Eric Cervini about their perspective on voter intimidation, and their lived experience with the "Trump Train" incident in 2020.

Zachary sets the scene with his poem, "I Knew We Had Arrived".

Wendy Davis represented the 10th district in the Texas Senate from 2009 to 2015. She was previously on the Fort Worth City Council. Wendy Davis was serving as a surrogate for the Biden-Harris campaign and was present on the bus when the Trump Train harassed its occupants. The October 30 attack barred her from campaigning for herself and for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris when the Biden-Harris campaign decided to cancel scheduled events due to safety concerns. The former Texas state senator and 2020 congressional candidate remarked that the bus incident was further evidence of a rising temperature in American politics, and that she had never experienced this kind of intimidation before in all the many campaigns she’d run and opposed. After the October 30 attack, Davis considered speaking out about her experience but did not immediately come forward because she feared for her safety.Dr. Eric Cervini is an award-winning historian of LGBTQ+ politics and culture. His first book on queer history, The Deviant's War, was a New York Times Bestseller, an Editors’ Choice, and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in history. It won the Publishing Triangle’s Randy Shilts Award for Gay Nonfiction and was voted the “Best Read of 2020” at the Queerties. As an authority on 1960s gay activism, Cervini serves on the Board of Directors of the Harvard Gender and Sexuality Caucus, and on the Board of Advisors of the Mattachine Society of Washington, D.C., a nonprofit dedicated to the preservation of gay American history. His award-winning digital exhibitions have been featured in Harvard’s Rudenstine Gallery, and he has presented his research to audiences across America and the United Kingdom.