Democracy Works

The last time Cynthia Miller-Idriss was on the show, we discussed how political extremism was making its way to the mainstream through a variety of channels. This time, we're looking at how misogyny and gender-based violence have become mainstream and the implications for our democracy. Miller-Idriss write about this trend in her new book, Man Up: The New Misogyny and the Rise of Violent Extremism. The book draws from her work studying political violence and extremism, but also from her experience as a female public figure who regularly receives death threats and misogynistic comments directed at her. We talk about both in the interview, as well as organizations that are working to address the crises among American men and boys. For those local to Penn State, Miller-Idriss will present a lecture on Man Up and sign copies of the book on Thursday, October 23 at 6:30 p.m. in 114 Welch Building. The event is free and open to the public. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Summer is typically a quiet time for higher education but this summer has been anything but quiet amid funding cuts, lawsuits, and questions about the value of American colleges and universities.Our guests this week are part of Stand Together for Higher Ed, a new nonpartisan movement of university faculty and staff focused on building collective power to uphold the core values of higher education. Kathy Roberts Forde is a professor of journalism at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Mark Pachucki is associate professor of sociology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and co-author of the university's Mutual Defense Academic Compact (MDAC) resolution. Ford, Pachucki, and their Stand Together for Higher Ed colleagues spent the summer talking to faculty and staff from universities across the country about what they can do to defend their institutions amid ongoing attacks and threats from the federal government. They don't have a quick, easy answer but they do have a plan for how people across campuses come together to share how higher education impacts our everyday lives.Is this approach enough? Chris Beem and Candis Watts Smith disagree on the value of Stand Together's approach and discuss their differences at the end of the episode. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

For our final episode of the season, we present a conversation with Ben Rhodes recorded at in Washington, D.C. at the end of May. Democracy Works is going on summer break. We'll be back with new episodes in September!The Democracy Group's first live podcast recording featuring foreign policy expert and fellow podcaster Ben Rhodes  in conversation with Kamy Akhavan of Let's Find Common Ground and Stephanie Gerber Wilson of Freedom Over Fascism about America’s place on the world stage and how the health of American democracy impacts other democracies around the world. They also discuss how podcasting can shape messaging and narrative in a fractured media environment. About Ben RhodesRhodes is a writer, political commentator, and national security analyst. He is the author of the New York Times bestsellers After the Fall: Being American in the World We’ve Made, and The World As It Is: A Memoir of the Obama White House. He is currently co-host of Pod Save the World. His work has also been published in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and Foreign Affairs.  From 2009-2017, Rhodes served as a speechwriter and Deputy National Security Advisor to President Obama. In that role, he led the secret negotiations with the Cuban government that resulted in the effort to normalize relations between the United States and Cuba.To learn more about each of the featured podcasts, visit the Shows page at democracygroup.org/shows. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In a rebroadcast from 2023,  we discuss how to meet the demands that democracy places on us without sacrificing our own personal mental health in the process. Many of us can conjure moments when politics made us feel sad. But how often do those feelings translate into more serious forms of depression or other mental health issues? And if politics does make us depressed, what do we do about it? Christopher Ojeda has spent the past few years exploring these questions and joins us this week to talk about the relationship between depression and democracy. Ojeda is an assistant professor of political science at the University of California Merced and author of the forthcoming book The Sad Citizen: How Politics Is Depressing and Why It Matters, which will be released in June from the University of Chicago press. He visited Penn State in 2023 to give us an early glimpse of this important work on the relationship between democratic engagement and individual mental health. We discuss how to meet the demands that democracy places on us without sacrificing our mental health in the process. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Jeff Sharlet, a Dartmouth writing professor and author of The Undertow, shares insights from his deep dive into the far-right movement. He likens it to a black hole, examining the normalization of fringe ideas and the rise of war churches blending faith with militant politics. Sharlet discusses how empowerment narratives and historical fascism are interwoven in the MAGA ideology, revealing the complexities of identity and grievances within the movement. His recent exploration into the manosphere highlights the troubling intersection of social critique and misogyny.

From fights over masks and vaccines to the loss of social connection, the year 2020 accelerated many of the trends that were already happening in America and created new obstacles for the country to overcome. In his book 2020: One City, Seven People, and the Year Everything Changed, sociologist Eric Klinenberg takes on a journey back to that year and everything that happened in it through the eyes of seven New Yorkers, one from each of the city's boroughs.Klinenberg, who recently delivered the Colloquium on the Environment lecture for the Penn State Sustainability Institute, joins us on Democracy Works to discuss how the pandemic accelerated political polarization and distrust in institutions in America and what we can do to repair that damage before the next pandemic or other major crisis comes our way. The book and the podcast interview allow us to see 2020—and, ultimately, ourselves—with clarity and empathy. Klinenberg is the Helen Gould Shepard Professor in the Social Sciences and director of the Institute for Public Knowledge at New York University. He is the author of Palaces for the People, Going Solo, Heat Wave, and Fighting for Air. He has contributed to The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Rolling Stone, Wired, and This American Life. He recently visited Penn State to present the 2025 Colloquium on the Environment for Penn State Sustainability; watch his lecture here.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Last week's Wisconsin Supreme Court election put a spotlight on state-level politics and the way that national politics can influence what happens in the states. But there are a lot of other developments happening at the state level that you might have missed. We catch up on what's happening with Alex Burness, a reporter who covers state and local democracy and criminal justice issues for Bolts.As the name suggests, Bolts covers the "nuts and bolts of power and political change, from the local up." The topics we cover in this episode include:Felon disenfranchisement and mail-in votingMail votingThreats to election administratorsState-level Voting Rights ActsWe also discuss how national politics are shaping decisions that state legislatures make — even when those decisions appear to go against policies that people in a state overwhelmingly support. For more on this dynamic, check out our episode with Jake Grumbach on his book Laboratories Against Democracy: How National Parties Transformed State Politics.Learn more about Bolts Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Cory Doctorow coined the term "enshittification" to describe how tech platforms have eroded over time. According to him, the process goes something like this: First, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die.Doctorow joins us in a collaborative interview with News Over Noise to discuss how enshittifiation has affected our ability to find information, engage in deliberative democracy, and more. We also discuss what coalitions are necessary to push back against enshittification and how science fiction can help us imagine a more democratic world.Doctorow is a science fiction author, activist and journalist. He is the author of many books, including The Lost Cause, a science fiction novel of hope amidst the climate emergency, and The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Production.Doctorow's blog, PluralisticDoctorow's lecture on enshittification  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

As the lead investigator into both the 2017 racist riot in Charlottesville and the January 6 insurrection, Tim Heaphy has a unique perspective on the cynicism and anger that also fueled Trump’s return to the presidency. All three events, both the violent protests and the peaceful and lawful decisions made at the ballot box in November 2024, reflect an increasing lack of trust in institutions among a growing number of Americans. He reflects on his work and where we go from here in the book Harbingers: What January 6 and Charlottesville Reveal About Rising Threats to American DemocracyHeaphy joins us to discuss the divide between people who trust the system and people who don't and make the case for why a disengaged citizenry is the biggest threat to American democracy. We also discuss his reactions to the first few weeks of the Trump administration and the pardoning of people convicted in relation to January 6.Heaphy served as the U.S. attorney for the Western District of Virginia from 2009-14. His previous experience included clerking for Judge John A. Terry of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals and working for the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Chris Beem, McCourtney Institute for Democracy managing director and research professor of political science at Penn State, talks with author Jonathan Rauch about why the current crisis in American Christianity is also a crisis in American democracy.In his new book Cross Purposes: Christianity's Broken Bargain with Democracy, Rauch (a lifelong atheist) asks what happens to American democracy if Christianity is no longer able, or no longer willing, to perform the functions on which our constitutional order depends?In the book and in this conversation, Rauch encourages Christians to recommit to the teachings of their faith that align with Madison, not MAGA, and to understand that liberal democracy, far from being oppressive, is uniquely protective of religious freedom. At the same time, he calls on secular liberals to understand that healthy religious institutions are crucial to the survival of the liberal state. This episode is the third in a series of discussions Chris has hosted about religion, liberalism, and democracy. The first was with journalist Tim Alberta about the evangelicals and the MAGA movement; the second was with political theorist Alex Lefebvre about the role of liberalism in our daily lives. Those episodes come together in this conversation with Rauch. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.