Democracy Works

In about a dozen U.S. states, the only people who can vote in primary elections are those who are registered with a party. Republicans vote in the Republican primary and Democrats vote in the Democratic primary. This leaves out independents, who make up a growing share of the electorate. This week’s guest argues that’s problem for democracy. Jeremy Gruber is the Senior Vice President at Open Primaries.  He is a lawyer, writer, and internationally recognized public policy advocate who has helped enact more than 60 state, federal and international laws and regulations. He joins us to make the case for why all primaries should be open, and how our democracy will be stronger because of it. But what happens to the parties in an open primary system? We’ve talked on the show before about the role they play as gatekeepers in our democracy and revisit some of that discussion in this episode. ICYMI, we are holding an event at the National Press Club on October 22. It would be great to meet some of our listeners in the area. More information at democracy.psu.edu/dc. Finally, thank you to our brand new sponsor, Penn State World Campus. Learn more about Penn State’s online The Master of Professional Studies (MPS) in Psychology of Leadership degree at worldcampus.psu.edu/leadership. Additional Information Open Primaries website Interview Highlights [6:10] How do open primaries work? Every state has different election laws, and in most states the primary election, which is the first round of elections that voters have an opportunity to participate in is often times in most cases run by the parties. Even though the tax payers pay for the elections and you, as a voter, experience those elections the same way you do as the general election, the parties are the gate keepers of the primary elections, and they can decide who can and can’t participate. In a closed primary state, only members of the parties may participate in the primary. In an open primary state, Independents, unaffiliated voters, can participate in the primaries. In some states, like California, Washington, Nebraska, they have a nonpartisan primary system where the parties don’t run the primaries. The state runs the primaries the same way it runs the general election. [8:35] How many states have open primaries? 38 states have some form of open primary, and that can vary state by state. Most of those states have a traditional open primary,  where you as Independent choose a ballot line. Not every primary election in those states are necessarily open, but at least some of the elections are open to unaffiliated or Independent voters. 12 states have a completely closed primary, where only members of the parties may participate in the primary election. [12:15] How does a state moved from a closed to an open primary? There’s generally three ways that primaries have been opened in various states. The first is through ballot initiative. California, for example, adopted a top two nonpartisan open primary via ballot initiative. Second is is through legislation. Pennsylvania’s legislatures is currently considering an open primary. And finally there’s the parties themselves, because the Supreme Court has ruled in a very important case called that the parties have an absolute right to open their primaries to Independent voters if they choose, without any act of a state legislature or any other body, for that matter. [13:49] How does an open primary impact voter participation? Open primaries are about enfranchising voters. With 43% of the registered voters being independent, simply allowing them to vote is a critical and perhaps and most important outcome of open primaries is letting every voter vote in every election. Studies have looked at traditional open primary states versus traditional closed primary states have certainly seen an increase in voter participation. [17:40] What role should the parties have? Parties are going to, to exist, and they do play a role in helping put out the views of their members, and organizing voters and sharing information. There, there’s all kinds of value that, that parties have and they’re important to a functioning democracy. The question is not whether, should there be parties or not? The question is, what is the role of the parties? When parties play a gatekeeper role, they are changing the relationship between the voters and their democracy. And when parties start to play a gatekeeper role, voters start to lose their power. They start to lose their choice in a democracy, and they start to lose the ability to vote for who they want to in every election. Parties should compete in elections. They should participate in elections, and they should put forth candidates in elections, and all the valuable things that parties do. But parties shouldn’t decide in a functioning democracy, who can and can’t vote. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. 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We bring you special episode of Democracy Works this week that’s all about impeachment. Michael Berkman takes the lead on this episode and talks with Michael Nelson, the Jeffrey L. Hyde and Sharon D. Hyde and Political Science Board of Visitors Early Career Professor in Political Science and affiliate faculty at Penn State Law. Michael and Michael discuss the constitutional framework for impeachment and what the Framers had in mind when they set it up. They also discuss how impeachment is a unique cooperation between the three branches of government, where the inquiry launched last week against President Trump is likely to go, and what it all means for our democracy. We recorded this episode on Friday, September 27, 2019. Everything we talk about is accurate as of that recording. Episode Highlights [1:20] Impeachment in the Constitution [2:35] “High crimes and misdemeanors” [6:21] Impeachment in the Federalist Papers [10:30] Impeachment vs. “beyond a reasonable doubt” in criminal law [11:25] The role each branch of government plays in impeachment [12:15] Separation of powers [15:30] The rules of the Senate, and how those rules change [19:03] John Roberts and Supreme Court [21:40] What could an impeachment proceeding look like? [23:30] Political motivations for launching an impeachment inquiry [24:53] Why the Ukraine phone call is important to democracy [28:10] Comparing Trump to Nixon Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Immigration is one of the most complex issues of our time in the United States and around the world. Enforcing immigration law in the U.S. involves a mix of courts and executive agencies with lots of opportunities for confusion, miscommunication, and changes in approach from administration to administration. While these things are nothing new, they take on a new dimension when the lives of undocumented immigrants and asylum seekers are at stake. Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia, Samuel Weiss Faculty Scholar and Founding Director of the Center for Immigrants’ Rights Clinic at Penn State Law in University Park, is an expert in immigration law and joins us this week to discuss how discretion, checks and balances, and the rule of law figure into immigration enforcement — particularly in the Trump administration. Her new book, Banned: Immigration Enforcement in the Time of Trump, includes interviews with former immigration officials and people impacted by the Trump administration’s immigration policies. This episode is a nice compliment to our conversation earlier this year with Jan Egeland, chair of the Norwegian Refugee Council, about the politics of immigration. Additional Information Shoba’s book Banned: Immigration Enforcement in the Time of Trump Our interview with Jan Egeland of the Norwegian Refugee Council  Interview Highlights [6:15] How does the law define immigrants and asylum seekers? Immigrant refers to someone who is seeking admission to the United States permanently. Non immigrant is a label we use to apply to someone seeking admission to the U.S. temporarily. For somebody who is without an immigration status, that person might be labeled as undocumented.  However, the status is constantly changing. It’s possible for someone to have entered the United States without papers or cross the border and too many years later be a U.S. citizen. In terms of where asylum seekers fall into the mix, that’s also a little complicated because you could be in a lawful status and apply for asylum. You could also be undocumented and apply for asylum. [8:50] How much discretion exists in immigration enforcement? There are a lot of different ways that the law can be enforced. It can be enforced to arrest somebody, interrogate, place somebody in detention, or place somebody in removal or deportation proceedings. So that might be how immigration enforcement happens on an individual level. And then there are these macro decisions that can be made about immigration enforcement. For example, if the enforcement arm of the Department of Homeland Security, one arm is known as Immigration Customs Enforcement, issues a policy that applies to a whole class of people. So one difference that I’ve seen with this administration is that there is expanded enforcement. Not so much in terms of the resources the government has to enforce the law, but in terms of who is being targeted for immigration enforcement, where, how, and why. [13:35] What agencies are responsible for enforcing immigration laws? DHS is a large cabinet level agency. It does not house only immigration, but it does house three main immigration functions. One is called Customs and Border Protection, or CBP. They’ve been in the news a lot this past summer, too. They are responsible for enforcement at the border. They also have responsibility for short-term detention. They are the first people that an asylum seeker might interact with if they arrive at the border and they are expressing a fear. ICE, or Immigration and Customs Enforcement, is another enforcement arm and it is responsible for investigations, long-term detention of immigrants and families, as well as the actual or physical removal of non-citizens. USCIS, or US Citizenship and Immigration Services, for many years was dubbed as the customer service agency. Until recently, had nation of immigrants in their mission statement. And is responsible for processing applications for asylum, green cards, citizenship. So you can imagine if the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing, there’s a lot of room for um, lack of coordination, or discord. [19:00] Where does the rule of law fit in here? Compassion has always been a- a key component in our immigration system, and discretion is very healthy and necessary because of the limited resources that I just described earlier. I think of compassion and discretion together as the rule of law.I think any discretionary choice made at the macro level, by an administration for example, or a federal agency, or at the micro level towards an individual or a family, should favor the non-citizen. Discretion is a powerful sword, and how it’s used really matters. That’s one reason we’ve seen a breakdown in the rule of law. [22:54] What’s the argument for moving immigration enforcement out of the Department of Justice? As it stands, the immigration court system is in the justice department. This is a- a bit unusual if we were to compare it to what we think about courts. In that way, immigration courts are not real courts. The federal rules of evidence don’t apply, the judges are not truly independent, they’re not article one judges, they are employees of the Department of Justice. The volume of cases they have to handle are astronomical compared to your federal court judge. In fact, one immigration judge in San Francisco has analogized immigration cases as doing death penalty cases in traffic court. And there’s a lot of pressure to be compliant with directives from the attorney general. And these directives can sometimes undermine independence too, even though we do have a regulation that favors and supports judicial independence. So there have been many calls over the years, but in particular in the time of Trump, for there to be an immigration court that is independent, that is free of the Department of Justice, where judges can truly act independently. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Today we’re bringing you a bonus episode from Out of Order, a podcast produced by the German Marshal Fund of the United States. Out of Order is a podcast about how our world was, is, and will be ordered. How do we save democracy, rule of law and global cooperation? Why do some people not want to? Much-maligned experts try to come up with answers here. The Out of Order podcast brings together different international experts from the German Marshall Fund of the United States and beyond to talk about politics, economics, technology and everything else that might help us understand our disordered world. With election season ramping up and political divisions on display, two veterans of U.S. politics — Margaret Carlson, columnist at The Daily Beast, and Mitch Landrieu, the former mayor of New Orleans and founder of E Pluribus Unum — joined Out of Order for an insightful conversation on the state of U.S. political discourse, how society became so fractured and where some solutions might be found. Above all: Is there a way out of this mess? You can find Out of Order at gmfus.org or wherever you listen to podcasts. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Larry Diamond joins us this week to talk about the threat China’s model of authoritarian capitalism poses to liberal democracy in the United States and around the world. Economics drives politics, and it’s easy to admire China’s growth while looking past things like increasing surveillance and lack of respect for norms and the rule of law. We’ve wanted to do an episode on China for a long time, and we are very excited to have Larry Diamond with us to discuss it. China plays an integral role in his new book, Ill Winds and he’s studied the region and its politics for decades. Larry is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. For more than six years, he directed the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law at Stanford, where he now leads its Program on Arab Reform and Democracy and its Global Digital Policy Incubator. He is the founding co-editor of the Journal of Democracy and also serves as Senior Consultant at the International Forum for Democratic Studies of the National Endowment for Democracy. Additional Information Larry Diamond’s book, Ill Winds: Saving Democracy from Russian Rage, Chinese Ambition, and American Complacency Interview Highlights [6:15] How does China pose a threat to liberal democracy? China is increasingly trying to become, I think, the dominant power in Asia, the dominant economic, power in the world, the technological leader of the world, and, the geopolitical shaper of the future direction of the world. China is becoming more authoritarian even neo-totalitarian  with its social credit system, it’s intense repression of religious and cultural minorities, its tightening repression and concentration of power under Xi Jinping and it’s domineering claims to the South China Sea and other Asian countries buying up ports and, and infrastructure and frankly politicians as well. I think all of these trends have gone from being concerning to being alarming. [11:24] Why might other countries find China’s model appealing? I think what appeals to people around the world, our public opinion data show, is China’s rapid economic growth, not it’s suppression of religious freedom, freedom of expression, the internet and so on. There’s no way you can sell that to ordinary people as an appealing model, that they want to live under themselves. But the allure is that, somehow, if countries can achieve China’s rapid economic growth and if China can downplay, minimize or mask, which it is certainly trying to do, the intensely authoritarian and in the technological elements I’d say, Orwellian aspects of it’s increasingly authoritarian rule, then that model can be appealing to people around the world because people want to get rich fast, like China did. [14:10] How is China trying to control the narrative about how it’s perceived? One of the most alarming elements of China’s rising international profile is its accelerating efforts to project sharp power, not the soft power of open and transparent persuasion to it’s culture and it’s model and it’s institutions, but the sharp power of disinformation, deception,  coercion, bribery, and penetration of the political and civil institutions of open societies to try and shape the narrative about China. To censor any mention of the dark side of what it’s doing and where journalists and professors are increasingly under rigid monitoring and ideological control. They don’t want people to know about any of this. [23:12] Are western democracies prepared to deal with these threats from China? I think it’s very hard for Americans to get their arms around this, and there are a lot of people who sincerely have a more benign and sympathetic view of China and think those of us who are ringing these alarm bells now are not new cold warriors. We don’t want a Cold War, we just want a fair, balanced, and transparent set of relations, trade relations, political relations, based some minimal degree of respect for the international rule of law and the human rights and privacy of our own citizens. [26:20] Will the protests in Hong Kong impact how the west perceives China? I think we’re really reaching a crunch point now on Hong Kong, as the world wakes up to the desperation and passion and commitment of the more than two million people in Hong Kong who’ve come out at one time or another to protest for democracy and against Beijing’s encroachments on the civil liberties and rule of law that, um, have made Hong Kong a distinctive part of the Chinese, firmament. I think the world is waking up to how serious the situation is. I think the real question now is to what extent ordinary Americans in a variety of institutions that have never found the need to worry that China might be a threat or that China might be seeking to compromise the integrity of our values and institutions. People in local government, state legislatures, universities, the mass media, think tanks, businesses, whether they are going to come to a sufficiently clear-eyed, knowledgeable, and resolute understanding of the rising risks coming from relations with the Chinese Communist Party state, and insist on educating themselves about these risks. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Pennsylvania is one of several states trying to ensure fair congressional maps are drawn after the 2020 Census. As we say in the episode, redistricting is one of democracy’s thorniest problems. It’s easy to say you want a  map that’s fair, but far more difficult to determine what that actually looks like. The Keystone State received a new congressional map in 2018 following a decision from the state Supreme Court. However, that was a temporary fix designed to counter partisan gerrymandering that occurred after the 2010 Census. Since then, several groups have been working to implement a more permanent change for the next map drawing in 2021. One of those groups is a bipartisan Redistricting Reform Commission chartered by Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf. Penn State’s Lee Ann Banaszak, a professor of political science, was part of that commission and joins us this week to talk about how they tackled the question of fairness, and what they learned at public hearings throughout the state earlier this year. Following in the footsteps of states like Arizona and California, the commission recommended that Pennsylvania create an independent 11-member citizens’ commission to develop maps that would be submitted to the legislature for approval. The Pennsylvania House State Government Committee will hold a public hearing on the commission’s Sept. 18 at 9 a.m. in the Irvis Office Building in Harrisburg. One more thing: We are hosting an event at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday, October 22 and we would love to meet our listeners in the Washington area! The featured speaker is Penn State’s Abe Khan, the guest on our very first episode. He will be discussing the “Renaissance of the Activist Athlete.” More information and registration at democracy.psu.edu/dc. Additional information Redistricting Reform Commission report Our interview with the Committee of Seventy’s Chris Satullo Draw the Lines PA Fair Districts PA  Interview Highlights [7:09] Why is redistricting important to democracy? In our electoral system, we elect people via a process of voters in a district vote for one person in that district. In the course of setting up those districts you determine a lot of how that legislature looks. What you have now in some places are the people who are being elected selecting their voters instead of voters selecting who’s going to represent them. And so the issue is one of representation on the one hand and also of kind of the democratic process of who’s making the decision. [8:20] What are some of the factors that go into drawing a fair map? The one that people think about most often is equal population, which means that each district is approximately equal size based on the most recent Census. Another important measure is compactness, which means you don’t want to draw districts that have unusual boundaries. One of the most famous examples of this is Pennsylvania’s “Goofy kicking Donald Duck” district that existed prior to the state receiving a new map in 2018. The Voting Rights Act provides representation as another important factor to consider, which connects to communities of interest. Communities that share the same interest and they should as much as possible be represented by the same individual. [11:15] How did Pennsylvania’s redistricting commission gather public opinion? There was a website where individuals could both answer questions and provide written statements if they wanted to, upload documents. Wee also ran an online survey that people could provide feedback on. And we also reached, tried to reach out extensively to different populations to make sure that we were really hearing all voices. [12:20] What did you learn from the public hearings? Uniformly, people were concerned about the way the re-districting process affected the way democracy works in Pennsylvania. That is, they were concerned that the current re-districting process created difficulties for voters, created difficulties for candidates and really depressed both turnout but also increased the mistrust of the legislature over the long term. So we heard a lot of those sorts of statements from people who engaged us in the public hearings. There was a sense that incumbents were determining their re-election and that that was not democratic or a word we heard a lot was “fair.”  I think all of that kind of led to an increased mistrust or distrust of the process. [18:12] Did you hear any differences in the concerns across partisan lines? There were a few differences but what amazed me was the degree to which there was uniformity. Among the ordinary citizens there was general agreement that the process was problematic although they might see different parts of the process as problematic but that the process currently going on is problematic.  And secondly, there was uniform support for the idea of an independent Commission somewhere in that process. There are different parts of the process that people have concerns about so I do think there are Republicans who had concerns about the most recent re-districting by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. I think they saw that as problematic. But in terms of creating a normal process by which re-districting could occur, I think there was actually quite a lot of agreement that having an independent Commission somewhere in that process would be good Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. 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Last week, we heard from Aaron Maybin about the ways visual art relates to his conception and practice of democracy. This week, we are going to look at the relationship between art and democracy through the lens of music. Music has always been political, but what that looks like changes based on the culture. Joining us to unpack it is Adam Gustafson, associate teaching professor of music at Penn State Harrisburg. As you’ll hear, Adam is a certified music nerd who thinks deeply about how artists and the music they create influences politics and culture. He’s written about Prince, Ella Fitzgerald, and Aretha Franklin — just to name a few. In this episode, we talk about everything from disco to bluegrass to EDM and how collaborations between artists and fans coming together at concerts counter some of the narratives we hear about polarization in our lives. We also look at how the ways we consume music has changed — or not — the statements that musicians make through their art. Additional Information Adam’s articles in The Conversation Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You might remember Aaron Maybin from his time on the football field at Penn State or in the NFL. These days, he’s doing something much different. He’s an artist, activist, and educator in his hometown of Baltimore and talked with us about the way that those things intersect. Celebrities and philanthropists often want to help places like Baltimore, but do so without understanding the needs of the local community. Aaron is in an interesting position because he can talk the talk and walk the walk. To him, organizing is about much more than weighing in on the latest Twitter outrage or showing up at a protest to take a photo for Instagram. The real work begins once the cameras go off and the attention fades away. Aaron has a really unique— and really inspiring — perspective that might change the way you think about places like Baltimore. A huge thank you to WYPR in Baltimore for letting us use their studio for the interview. Additional Information Aaron’s website Art-Activismbook Interview Highlights [6:25] How did you transition from athlete to activist? From the beginning,  my work here in the city of Baltimore wasn’t always a big priority for me. I’m so appreciative of everything that the game has given me in my life, what it’s given my family. But I think that I’m prouder now of the work that I’m doing and the impact that I’m having in people’s lives and on my city in general. I’m proud of then that, that anything that I ever did as an athlete. [8:41]  How does teaching fit into your art and activism? I was doing art workshops and programming at schools all across Baltimore starting in 2009. By 2010, 2011, I realized how naive I was as like a 20-year-old  coming into the League thinking that like this contract I’ll get will be enough for me to fix all the problems in my city. It sounds crazy to say, but when you’re that young and ambitious you’re really ignorant enough to believe that you’re gonna be able to do that yourself. So I said, “All right, I’ve got to find a school, one school, that I can plant myself in and actually hammer out this curriculum and see over the course of a year, two years, you know, what we can accomplish with the same group of kids over an extended period of time.” [14:45] What’s the difference between organizing on social media and the deeper-level work you try to do? If there’s a topic that’s trending, everybody wants to weigh in on it. But at the end of the day,  how much do you really think this tweet is getting you? Not much unless you are actually showing up to meetings and getting boots on the ground and staying informed about what’s going on. [20:33] Do you think that someone needs to be part of a community to affect the greatest change in one? I do think that a person that’s going to create the greatest change is probably going to be a person that comes from there. You know, and that’s not saying that great ideas can’t come from outsiders, bcause sometimes you can get too isolated in your bubble. But I think that too often the people that are in positions to make the decisions that really affect the lives of the people that live in these areas, the constituents that truly need to be represented. [36:40] What does democracy mean to you? To me democracy is a beautiful idea, but it’s an idea, and with any idea you have to work constantly, constantly to manifest it. And even once some of that work is done and you feel like progress has been made, the beauty of democracy is we have to go back and we have to continuously self evaluate and see if we’re on the right side of history. And I think that um the more that we have a true understanding of what democracy is um the better Americans we’ll all be. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

From Pizzagate to Jeffrey Epstein, conspiracies seem to be more prominent than ever in American political discourse. What was once confined to the pages of supermarket tabloids is now all over our media landscape. Unlike the 9/11 truthers or those who questioned the moon landing, these conspiracies are designed solely to delegitimize a political opponent — rather than in service of finding the truth. As you might imagine, this is problematic for democracy. Democracy scholars Russell Muirhead and Nancy Rosenblum call it “conspiracy without the theory” and unpack the concept in their book A Lot of People Are Saying: The New Conspiracism and the Assault on Democracy. Russell is the Robert Clements Professor of Democracy and Politics at Dartmouth. Nancy is the Senator Joseph Clark Research Professor of Ethics in Politics at Harvard. As you’ll hear, the new conspiricism is a symptom of a larger epistemic polarization that’s happening throughout the U.S. When people no longer agree on a shared set of facts, conspiracies run wild and knowledge-producing institutions like the government, universities, and the media are trusted less than ever. This is not one of our optimistic episodes, but it’s one worth listening to. Additional Information A Lot of People Are Saying: The New Conspiracism and the Assault on Democracy A look at the science of conspiracy theories from The University of Chicago’s Big Brains podcast Interview Highlights [5:30] What is the new conspiracism and how does it differ from what we’ve seen in the past? Nancy: In the past we’ve had conspiracy theory. That is an explanation that works the way any explanation works which is in terms of evidence and dots and patterns that often try to make the unbelievable believable and the unconceivable conceivable. What we have now is conspiracy without the theory. That is the two things have become decoupled. And we have claims of a conspiracy that come without the dots, without the patterns, without the evidence, without the argument. [6:23] When did you begin to see this pattern emerge? Russell: As scholars of parties, we-we kind of take an interest in conspiracism and conspiratorial thinking. Parties were-were thought of as conspiracies before the idea of a legitimate opposite took hold. That’s how parties were-were conceived. We began to notice that um, that today’s conspiracism involves are assertion, like a one-word accusation like rigged, onstead of an effort to carefully explain the world as it is. It’s more of an effort to impose um, a kind of unreality and idiosyncratic understanding of the world on others, rather than to describe the world as it is. [10:24] What’s the goal of the new conspiracism? Russell: Often, the goal is certainly not to equip us to really understand our world so that we can navigate our way, you know, control you might say our fate more successfully. Classic conspiracism starts with something in the world that many people have hard time understanding, like the September 11 attacks. If you look at Pizzagate on the other hand, what is that trying to explain? It doesn’t take a world that’s hard to explain and make it more understandable. It takes a world that’s shared, that’s transparent and makes it one that is very disorienting, confusing, and disempowering. Nancy: The validation of these claims has nothing to do with argument or evidence or dots or patterns. It has to do with the number of followers. And that, I think that explains part of the importance of social media for this kind of conspiracism. It’s obvious that it increases the scope of it and the speed of the spread of these things. But these Tweets and Facebook likes and so on actually allow you to measure that a lot of people are saying this. [14:46] What is epistemic polarization and how does it relate to conspiracy? Russell: Epistemic polarization bears on whether we think something really happened, or didn’t really happen. It gets at the basic factual question of how many people were there on the Washington mall on that particular day of the inauguration? And once we can’t even agree on the most elemental aspects of our shared reality, it starts to become really hard not just to compromise, it becomes really hard even to disagree intelligibly with each other. [19:13] Is there an opportunity for things to go in a different direction? Russell: One of things that Nancy and I think is really crucial is that people who really care about politics understand that this, this force the new conspiracism which might seem to help their cause really ends up destroying it. We’re hopeful that if we can reveal how, how universally destructive this is, people will understand that t’s not friendly to any cause, and that partisan officials will be more courageous in standing up to it. [22:20] What role does the media play in spreading conspiracy? Nancy: I think that what’s important about social media for this kind of conspiracism is, is just the numbers of people who like and retweet and tweet, because it’s what gives, it’s a form of political participation that gives them gratification and it gives validation to these crazy claims. I will say that there are some studies that show that it’s not just social media, that we shouldn’t put all of our emphasis on it and trying to explain what happens. That Fox News for example has enormous audiences, and enormous audiences of people who aren’t necessarily paranoid and conspiracist or even going along with this stuff. And insofar as this is the news they get, or insofar as this is the discussion or the news that goes on in local, you know channels, where most people still get their news, through these things. It’s, dangerous and unstoppable so long as these privately-owned corporations that find that their profits go up when they do this. [28:05] Can common sense serve as a counter to the new conspiracism? Russell: If I say, looking back to the dawn of democracy, and Thomas Payne in his essay is that, you know modern democracy was founded on this conviction that the, that they might say, you don’t want to use the word common sense, the epistemic capacities of ordinary citizens are sufficient for, for them to understand the world in a way that equips them to make good decisions. We believe that this basic capacity is, we, we share the faith that is widely distributed across the entire population, and, and that it can prevail. And so we really do want to call on people to use their common sense in responding to things that seem too fabulous to be true. They just very well might be untrue. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

We are back with new episodes this week, and we’re starting with an interview that we recorded in New York City earlier this summer. David McCraw is the Deputy General Counsel of the New York Times and author of Truth in Our Times: Inside the Fight for Press Freedom in the Age of Alternative Facts.The First Amendment and a strong Fourth Estate are essential to a healthy democracy. McCraw spends his days making sure that journalists can do their work in the United States and around the world. This includes responding to libel suits and legal threats, reviewing stories that are likely to be the subject of a lawsuit, helping reporters who run into trouble abroad, filing Freedom of Information Act requests, and much more.Additional InformationDavid’s book: Truth in Our TimesInterview Highlights[3:30] There was a lot of speculation about the future of the First Amendment after the 2016 election. How are things holding up today?We have a free press if the people want it. It really, in the end, depends on having an engaged citizenry. Donald Trump has talked about changing the libel laws. That doesn’t really worry me a lot. I think it’s a long process, and it’s probably not going to happen. What really is important is whether people, average voters, are going to make use the free press we have.[5:00] How often does someone threaten a libel suit vs. actually filing one?It’s a really important point, because when we talk about libel, it was originally intended to fix people’s reputations. Somebody says something about you that’s untrue, hurts your reputation, you go to court, you get that fixed. And, that really hasn’t changed much. We get a lot of threats. Not a lot of threats, but we get threats. We get very few lawsuits. But, those threats are really designed to use litigation, the threat of litigation, to get us to say something other than what we think should be said to the American people.[6:28] How does the New York Times v. Sullivan case impact press freedom?At the end of the day, Times versus Sullivan is really, a fairly simple concept. And that is, a publisher has a right to make a mistake. That if a publisher gets something wrong, and actually, even if that statement hurts somebody’s reputation, that person, if that person’s a public figure or public official, can’t win a libel suit unless the person can prove that the statement was made with actual malice.[10:40] Where does social media fit into this picture?One of the things that I find very curious about the President is that, in the recent years, when he’s been involved in libel suits, it’s because he’s been sued. And, he’s been sued for things he’s said on Twitter. When he starts criticizing the libel laws, he’s completely lining up on the wrong side of the ball. He should be siding with me, because he needs those defenses.[13:45] Tell us about the letter you wrote to Donald Trump’s lawyers in October 2016.We published a story in which, two women claimed that they had been inappropriately touched by Donald Trump many years earlier. The story happened right after the controversy over the Access Hollywood tape. Donald Trump, then a presidential candidate, had appeared at the debate on a Sunday night and defended his reputation and his conduct towards women. This story followed that. They had posted their demand to us online.I knew that we were going to post our response online. And so, while I do think I followed exactly what the law says in these situations, and summarized it accurately, it was pointed. And, it was pointed in part because I don’t like to be threatened. It was pointed in part because I think people expect us to stand up.[17:20] What work do you do with Freedom of Information Act requests?The Freedom of Information Act was signed into law on July 4, 1966 by Lyndon Johnson. And, Michael Schudson at Columbia has a great book about the rise of the right to know, which details this and other parts of the history of that concept, the right to know. But, that was the heart of it, that the public has a right to know what the government’s up to. And, that includes getting documents. What we’ve seen since then is the law being gnawed away until it’s taken much much away from what one would expect to get when filing a FOIA request.[21:15] Civil servants are often painted with a very altruistic brush. It seems like that might not be the case here.I had this epiphany at the beginning of the Obama administration when I was invited to go to a conference of FOIA officers and speak, therefore, meeting a lot of people I’d written angry letters to. And, it’s a lot easier to write angry letters to anonymous people when you don’t know what they look like. Now, you’re in a room with a bunch of them.They were conscientious. They didn’t have the resources, and they didn’t have the power to do what needs to be done. What’s interesting is, as I’ve gone around and talked about this with people from other countries is, a country like Mexico actually has an office that overrides agencies, so that it takes it out of the political process, and some independent agency’s deciding. And, other governments, other countries have that same sort of setup.[27:33] What should people to do protect the First Amendment moving forward?At the end of the day, what I’m really interested in is, seeing an American public that listens to things they disagree with, read things they disagree with, and make discerning judgment. That’s a long ways away from where we are now. It’s hard because there’s so much information out there. But, to me, that’s the only real check is that, people are going to make wise decisions about policies because they’ve made wise decisions about the information they’ve chosen.Somebody wrote to me, and the email started out with the ominous words, “Why did you write this book?” And, I assume that’s an email that’s going someplace whereas, a sensitive author with thin skin, I don’t want to know. But, it wasn’t. She was right. She’s, “Why did you write this book? Because you should be writing for young adults.” And, that’s really an important point. We need to start much earlier in helping children understand how to read and how to discern, and how to evaluate sources.Tthe analogy I use is that, the Internet is to information what the Las Vegas buffet is to eating. You walk in, and there’s just incredible choices. Some of them are really bad for you, but they sure taste good for awhile. And, we just need to have people who say, “I’m not going to hang around the dessert table of cable news, and make my entire diet that.”  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.