Dismantling Democracy

(dramatic music) >>The American system of democracy is still very much an experiment. >>Democracy has been somewhat discredited. >>That system, it is the most successful democratic system the world has, I think, ever seen. >>I experienced the American dream. There's no other country in the world that I could create from nothing where I am today. >>This isn't the land of the free. That hasn't been the experience of many people. (bombs booming) >>There is an existential threat in the world right now. >>We're facing one of the great ideological battles of our time. >>Global democracy really depends on a strong American democracy. >>What democracy looks like! >>The way that democracies die today is not the way it died 50 or 60 years ago. We usually think about a violent takeover or seizure of power. Today, the dominant way in which democracies die is much more subtle. >>Really populists rise to power through elections. (crowd cheering) >>It's not easy. Democracy is hard. >>We have to fight for it every day. >>We have to pay attention. We have to take a stand. We cannot assume someone will do it for us. >>If this system continues without reform, I think there is a very real possibility of violence and potentially a split in the United States. >>Don't shoot! >>White lives matter! White lives matter! (intense music) (upbeat music) >>The United States didn't invent democracy. In fact, the word never even appears in the U.S. Constitution, although the concept is there. Phrases like "We the people, "in order to form a more perfect union" certainly suggest the participation of all. Democracy is now under the microscope, largely because its health and survival in the United States is in question. Is it even practical that a 200-year-old system can still thrive today? >>American democracy means our rights as Americans to be able to choose. >>That we have a choice. >>Giving the voice to the people. >>We can vote and have some say in what our government is trying to do for us. >>The majority rules. >>Democracy is a story that's been told to the people that they have influence in who's ruling them. >>A government, by the people, for the people, as the Constitution says. >>Freedom to do whatever you want. I mean, without breaking the laws. >>After World War II, democracies were on the rise across the globe. Yet many experts say, over the last two decades, the democratic form of government has been in decline. Today, democracy faces complex challenges that test the effectiveness of a government of, for and by the people. >>Well, it depends on how far back you wanna go. The birth of democracy occurred actually in ancient Greece. >>Only the patricians were the ones who were able to participate. So they were people who owned land. They tended to be educated. They had far more wealth than the average citizen. They got to vote on each issue that came to the forum. >>You have to go a long time though, really, before you start to see democracy as we know it today. You begin really to see that in 1607 with the landing of the first permanent English settlement at Jamestown. Now, of course, they're still ruled at that point by the English monarch, but the seeds were planted for representative government. 1776, then we formally break away from the English monarchy after winning The Revolutionary War. And what you see then is the beginnings of what we call American democracy. >>We really didn't have a true democracy until 1965, until the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which allowed black people to vote. The United States is a unique country. The founding of our nation was a miracle in history. And America really began with a revolution of ideas that was every bit as important as the revolution we fought with muskets and bayonets. >>I think that's an interesting thing in America, and it reflects the fact that we're born out of an idea and not a nationality or ethnicity or religious group. >>When we think of the risks in bringing this country alive and the revolution of the incredibly radical idea of we do not want kings and queens to be in charge of us. >>The signers of our declaration committed treason when they affixed their names to that document, and they knew it, they joked about it. They were extremely aware that the likelihood of their success was rather slim, but the importance of what they were doing was so magnificent they had no choice. >>That revolution of ideas, it started, number one, with a principle that our rights don't come from government. They're not crumbs to be given by the monarch, by kings or queen, to be given or taken away at whim. Instead, America began was a remarkable proposition, that our rights come from God, that they're given to every human being. Every man, every woman, every child has rights from God. (soft guitar music) >>Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence, "We hold these truths," plural, "to be self-evident "that all men are created equal, "that they're endowed by their creator "with certain inalienable rights. "And among these rights are life, Liberty, "and the pursuit of happiness." The interesting thing is that Jefferson enumerated truths, and put equality as the first truth. We are a nation that a little bit uniquely has set out a single principle as our moral north star, the equality principle. And so the civil rights discussion all comes from the foundational value. The notion of equality as our north star was articulated when that really meant white men who owned property could participate. Women didn't have rights. African Americans were held as slaves. Jefferson's notes on the state of Virginia, he put the subject of Native Americans/Indians in the chapter on flora and fauna, not on human beings. So there was a real dehumanization of Indians at the time. He basically was making a proclamation about every human being. He didn't, he wasn't thinking about women. He wasn't thinking about African Americans. Thank goodness he had the ability to articulate a principle that was better than he was able to live at the time. >>Each colony had their own form of representative government. Following the American Revolution, the original 13 colonies formed a formal republic with the adoption of the U.S. Constitution. >>We have a republic, we're blessed to have a republic. A republic is a government where you have elected representatives. You don't have pure democracy, pure democracy, like happened in the Greek city states and Athens is where the people vote on everything. A republic instead, the people have the sovereignty, the people have the authority. We have a democratic system, but we elect representatives to go and represent our views, represent our principles, represent our values. >>The Founders understood that a pure democracy is incredibly dangerous to the minority. It leads to either the tyranny of one individual, which, of course, they had escaped from when they gained their independence from England, but also it can lead to the tyranny of the mob and the tyranny of the majority. That leaves the minority with no voice whatsoever. So the beauty of the Constitution was that it preserves the rights of the minority, and most importantly, the rights of the individual. >>At the Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franklin leads the convention, and they ask him, what have you done? He says, "We've created a republic, if you can keep it." >>A lot of people in the world don't have an opportunity to meaningfully participate to select their leaders. The framers wanted to create a small-d democratic country where people would have the opportunity to select their leaders and have a voice in policymaking. >>Republicans emphasize republic, that we are a republic, and it's not just because they may be named in a similar way. It's because they believe that democracy is indirect, that it's important to have people who study the issues and who make those decisions on our behalf. On the other side, Democrats tend to emphasize democracy or democratic, and again, not just because the names are similar. They tend to want broader participation. They do believe that average people should contribute to the governing of their own system and their own lives. That's not to say that one is better than another. And I always tell people, we have a democratic republic, small-d capital R. We have aspects of both systems. And for the most part in American history, they've been melded together well. >>That system, it is the most successful democratic system the world has, I think, ever seen. And it serves fundamentally to protect our rights. >>So why do we need government? Is it here simply to count numbers, print money, and fight wars, or are there other broader, more fundamental things that government should provide? The Constitution says its purpose is to secure the blessings of liberty. So what does that even mean? The American example has endured not because its original design was flawless, but because successive generations sought to improve and adapt it when necessary. >>Fundamentally governments are supposed to provide economic opportunity, equality of opportunity for people, make sure that people have equal opportunities for education, for healthcare, for a decent life. It doesn't mean the government is providing equality of outcome. This is not socialism. It means that you've got a regulatory environment, which is meant to be fair. You've got an umpire. The government is calling balls and strikes. You've got a system of an independent judiciary, a rule of law, and if people break the rules, they're going to be punished for it. They're not allowed to make the rules in a way that unfairly advantage them over you. I experienced the American dream. I grew up in the projects, and now here I am running this big multinational company that I started, I started with no money, and now we have 200 people and offices all over the world. There's no other country in the world that I could have been born with the lack of access and wealth that I had and create from nothing where I am today. That is by any, any metric the American dream. But I have to be honest, it's getting a lot harder. >>The Statue of Liberty known the world over as a symbol of freedom and promise. "Give me your tired, your poor, "your huddled masses yearning to breathe free." (film roll rattling) >>So this isn't the land of the free for everybody. That hasn't been the experience of many people, you know, in the history of this country. >>If you take a nickel or dime from your pocket and look at it, you'll see the words e pluribus unum from many, one. In other words, it's the idea that many people come together to make a nation, but does many mean everyone? Unfortunately it didn't begin that way in the United States. >>When we started, we started imperfectly. >>As far as whether it was perfect or not, it was absolutely perfect, as long as you were an established, propertied white male and in some states, a member of a certain religion. Now, if you weren't in those categories, it really wasn't very pleasant at all, but who cares? The right people were governing. I was being satirical. >>In the United States, the American project has never been one of freedom. It starts with the slaughter of indigenous people, the taking of their land, the enslavement of African people after they were kidnapped from the continent. >>We declare it's about equality, but we then declare in the Constitution that a slave is worth 3/5 of a person. >>This is a country that was founded on settler colonialism, and then the infrastructure of the country was built by enslaved Africans. >>We fight a civil war to get rid of slavery. We put equality into the Constitution. We guarantee freed slaves the right to vote, but we say women don't get the right to vote. Okay, then 70 years later, we changed the Constitution so women get the right to vote. And then 40 years after that, we grapple with school desegregation, that equality can't mean separate but equal. It has to mean we are together as one people and all are entitled to be recognized equally for their human dignity. >>So to say that America is the land of the free is just, you know, it's just not true for so many people. We've seen a retrenchment, you know, in recent years with voter suppression, with mass incarceration, with police brutality against black and brown civilians. >>When we can walk around this country and not think we're gonna get shot by the police, or we can afford housing and all these other things, that's when I think freedom will come for everyone. >>Redlining, gerrymandering, voter access, and other forms of disenfranchisement leave many citizens feeling frustrated and even betrayed. Our governing system is built on the importance of voting and the rule of law. So if people perceive that system as unfair, the result is cynicism, or worse, inaction. >>So red lining is where developers, city councils, et cetera, would draw lines around neighborhoods with a red pen. And then within that boundary, those were areas that were considered low value. And these were procedures implemented during Jim Crow that sought to keep African Americans from living in white neighborhoods and also to deny them economic prosperity, which is not a topic that I learned in high school or even college as a history major. >>Today, we can see much evidence of inequality, inequality in wealth, racial gaps. We've made a lot of progress toward the goal we set out for ourself in our very first foundational document, but we still have a long, long way to go. >>One aspect that's important in the United States is the role of money in politics and the role of inequality. We've gotten to a point in recent decades where our politicians care much more about those who can finance their campaigns than they do the voters who elect them. Money always buys influence, but money buys influence in American politics in a way that is so egregious and so naked that voters are ceasing to believe that politicians represent them, that their vote means anything. >>Many people believe that money is the root of so many problems facing democracy today. Does $1 have more say than one vote? It begs the question, how powerful is your one vote if it's up against billions of dollars from special interest groups? >>You know, when it comes to money and politics, nobody in their right mind would design a system we have right now. So right now we have these things called super PACs. >>PAC stands for a political action committee. They provide a way for groups of people, corporations, labor unions, and others to raise and spend funds to influence politics. Now, this creates an avenue for powerful interests to act collectively, often without public disclosure. Citizens United versus the Federal Election Commission was a consequential 2010 Supreme Court decision. It opened the floodgates for super PACs and big money to influence elections. Voters who lose faith in the system often feel the need to take matters into their own hands to create change. >>And in a great many races, there's more money spent by super PACs than by the candidates themselves. So if you end up in any big race, there are super PACs typically on both sides. You know, you hope that the super PAC who is supporting you says something vaguely that resembles what you believe, but it's illegal for you to talk to them. It's illegal for you to discuss messaging and substance. So you don't do that. It's an idiotic system. >>Campaign finance is a major issue facing our elections. We don't want undue influence, certainly not foreign influence, on our candidates and on our elections. I don't think we've found the way to resolve this. Elections cost money. They absolutely do. And any solution has to take that into account, that candidates need to be able to pay for their election efforts. I don't think that we figured out how to do that effectively. >>The whole world is watching! The whole world is watching! >>Most people in this country don't even have $400 in savings, you know, and yet we have this class of elite, hyper-capitalists that are now running, not only financial systems that are detrimental to most people in this country, but also running the government. >>When democracies fail, I mean, you think about extraordinary economic depredation, people losing everything, worse than the Great Depression in the United States, and as a consequence willing to vote for options that would be considered beyond the pale in just about any society. >>Populism is one of those terms that gets thrown around a lot. Its roots really grow out of a sense of insecurity, economic insecurity, cultural insecurity, and a sense of anger against the ruling class. Populism is fundamentally about playing to people's fears and by doing so also sort of claiming that a leader has a direct contact with that base, that therefore he or she represents the popular will. And when you have that, there can be no opposition. Populism really has a very dangerous antidemocratic connotation when you just stick to that definition. (somber piano music) Really populists rise to power through elections. >>You know, Hitler was elected in a democratic election. >>Hitler came to power through two elections. The people voted him in essentially. >>But the thing is once they get a foothold, they take ever kind of increasingly authoritarian measures, to become entrenched. >>Big caveat at the beginning, we are not saying the United States is anything like Nazi Germany, and we're certainly not comparing the president to Hitler, but we do think there's some important lessons from the German case. >>They have a plan, a project, a vision that doesn't include any source of questioning their power. The leader claims to represent more immediate demands of the people or immediate fears of the people, but also in doing so, they tend to promise that they'll deliver certain things and policies unrealistically, that can be whether a wall on a border. It can can be rolling back freedoms. It can be putting a chicken in every pot as we heard at one time in the United States. >>The Republicans predict the day of two chickens in every pot, two cars in every garage, ad the abolition of poverty everywhere in America. >>Now populism isn't necessarily bad in and of itself, but history proves that a lot can go wrong. When divisiveness associated with populism creates an us versus them component, mob rule or overzealous leadership often dissolve democracy into authoritarianism. >>Authoritarianism is the opposite of democracy in a nutshell. You disregard the rule of law, and instead, it is the rule of one. >>Juan Linz was a Spanish political scientist who was born in Weimar, Germany, and grew up in Franco Spain and spent a good part of his career studying how and why democracies died. And he spells out in a very influential book in 1978 what he calls a litmus test for authoritarian behavior. We try to distill a more clear set of indicators from his book. The four that we point to are one, either a rejection or a refusal to play by democratic rules of the game. >>Do you make the same commitment that you will absolutely, sir, that you will absolutely accept the result of this election? >>I will look at it at the time. >>Second one is not accepting the legitimacy of one's political rivals. >>Hillary Clinton, crooked Hillary Clinton, She's really crooked. (audience booing) >>Third is show a willingness to withdraw or violate the civil liberties of opponents, including in the media. >>CNN is fake news. I don't take questions from CNN. John Roberts of Fox, let's go to a real network. >>And the fourth is condoning or encouraging violence by your supporters. >>Knock the crap out of him, would you? Seriously. (crowd cheering) Okay, just knock the hell. I promise you I will pay for the legal fees, I promise. I promise. >>And so what the litmus test is about is an effort to identify and to help citizens identify figures who are not fully committed to democracy and identify them before they come to power, and say, "Okay, this guy is showing some "of the warning signs of an authoritarian." World War II or 9/11 give presidents much, much more room to maneuver in concentrating and abusing power. >>In 1933, hunger, homelessness and unemployment plagued the nation. People were eager for a strong leader and real change. Many found hope in President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. At the time, some believed we'd be better served by a dictatorship. Famous supporters included William Randolph Hearst. This American publisher felt the national situation could be remedied by a dictator. He went so far as to write and produce a film called "Gabriel Over the White House." In it, fictional president Judson Hammond dissolves Congress and raises his own army. >>Mr. President, this is dictatorship. >>I believe in democracy, as Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln believed in democracy. And if what I plan to do in the name of the people makes me a dictator, then it is a dictatorship based on Jefferson's definition of democracy, a government for the greatest good of the greatest number! >>Historian Jonathan Alter in his book, "The Defining Moment" reports that FDR saw the movie in advance and actually suggested a few changes of his own. He then wrote to Hearst, explaining how he thought the film would help the country. >>When you don't have a democratic system, when you have an authoritarian ruler, even someone who wants to be benevolent, a benevolent dictator has a way of not being that benevolent as time goes on. And you know, the old line that power corrupts and absolute power corrupt absolutely. I'd much rather entrust the rights and freedoms of the people in America and people across the world to the people themselves, to their ability to hold elected officials accountable and to remove them from office if they're implementing bad policies that aren't working. >>For the first time in history, a president of the United States is reelected for a third term. >>We had for about 150 years a strong norm of two terms in the presidency, the term limits. The fact that presidents cannot run for a third term was never written down in the U.S. Constitution. It was an act of forbearance, of self-restraint. FDR blew through that norm, destroyed that norm, such that we had to write it into the Constitution. You know, many people would justify it because it took place amidst a dual crisis of World War II and the Great Depression. >>And the enemies struck in America. And in the cause of freedom, he offered himself for a fourth term. >>My conscience will not let me turn my back upon a call to service. I will with God's help continue to serve with the best of my ability. >>On December 31st, 2019, China reported several cases of unusual pneumonia in Wuhan, a highly-populated port city. Months later, COVID-19, the novel coronavirus, hit the United States with a vengeance. The virus, beyond the illness it caused, also exposed weaknesses not only in the United States, but in many other nations. Throughout the pandemic, a microscopic virus cast a glaring spotlight on national preparedness, struggling leadership, inconsistencies in news reports and social media sensationalism. It left many wondering if democracy is a system built around social interaction, can it adapt to the challenges of a pandemic? >>It's going to be our Pearl Harbor moment. It's going to be our 9/11 moment. >>I'm a wartime president. >>As far as democracy is concerned, we, the people suddenly found ourselves sheltering at home, with either lost jobs or suddenly risky work environments, all the while facing a presidential election. Voting is crucial for democracy. As the outbreak spread, it caught up with several states hosting primary elections. The risks were first exposed in Ohio, Arizona, and Wisconsin. The other states quickly examined their ability to hold voting in a manner different from what they were used to. Guidelines about social distancing and sanitizing made normal voting methods challenging or impossible. Several states pushed back primary dates or instituted mail-in ballots. Logistics weren't the only issue. How does a candidate effectively run a campaign on screen instead of in person? As desirable as democracy is, unforeseen circumstances like poverty, war, or in this case a global pandemic, stress an already stressed political system. What protections can prevent a bent system from breaking? >>Mail-in ballots for voting? >>I think mail-in voting is horrible. >>But you voted by mail- >>It's corrupt. >>In Florida's election last month, didn't you? >>Sure. I could vote by mail, because I'm allowed to. >>Despite the fact that Trump is clearly by far the most authoritarian president in orientation that we've had in the history of the country, he's constrained massively. He's constrained by his own cabinet. He's constrained by separation of powers. He's constrained by media. He's constrained by the bureaucracy, which slow rolls, if they think he's doing something they don't like. His ability to create an authoritarian regime in the United States is functionally zero. But the ability of the elites in the United States to work together to help ensure that larger and larger numbers of Americans are not part of the political franchise, that the institutions don't work for them, that's something we're getting very good at. (upbeat music) >>Voting is a hallmark of democracy in America, but voter participation is at best inconsistent. Voter turnout varies significantly, depending on the type of election, the names on the ballot, and even the weather. According to Pew Research Center, the U.S. trails most developed countries in voter turnout, ranking 26th out of 32 countries. Democracy depends on participation. So what happens if you don't? If one person doesn't vote, it probably won't change the outcome, but you're giving up your voice to someone else. The real question is this, how many people can withdraw from the system before democracy topples? >>Is voting something that's important to you? >>Yeah, it is. >>Do you think it's important to vote? >>Absolutely. >>Definitely. >>It is very important to me. >>People of our hue died for that right. >>Voting is the democracy. If you don't vote, you don't have a democracy. >>I think it's a very important part of our society. I just haven't completely made the decision if I will do it or not. >>Whoever's gonna be in office is selected in, not elected in. >>Okay. >>I believe in the system that we have. And I've seen it work more than not. >>We've all heard excuses for not voting. Maybe you've even said some of these things. I don't have time. I didn't register to vote. I don't have an ID. I don't even know who's on the ballot. There are no good choices. My vote doesn't matter anyway. The system is rigged. I just don't care. We asked a few people on the street if they vote. >>Do you think your vote counts? >>Yes. >>Kinda. >>Wanting to be in a state that's a swing state versus like a state like Maryland. No matter what, it's gonna vote Democrat. You want your voice to count, but some places I kind of feel like maybe it doesn't. >>I come from a Republican state, and there are just too many times when I feel like, does my vote count? But I do feel like the Electoral College needs a little looking at as far as advocating for more of the people. And I know there are lots of pros and cons on both sides of that. >>Well, I think the Electoral College is stupid. I think it needs to just be thrown out honestly. >>I think that if we were to get rid of the Electoral College, that's not the only issues we'd have to deal with, regarding our election system. >>I know the Electoral College is like a big issue, but I mean, I think that was kind of put in place by the Founders to, you know, basically keep people from doing stupid things. >>A nation that has a near universal franchise, but where so many people voluntarily choose not to participate, we'll have to, we'll have to invent a new term for that. 'Cause democracy doesn't really explain a form of government where so many people voluntarily choose not to participate. And it's also something that infuriates me about efforts to disenfranchise folks. When there are so many people who choose not to participate, why would we make it harder for people who want to participate? >>There's voter suppression laws, voter identification laws, which put up hurdles to the ballot box, that make it difficult for people on the margins to access them, that it ends up being a large number of people. >>You should entice people to vote, rather than crippling them from voting. >>One person and you get one vote. >>You know how many IDs that you can vote in the state of Alabama? 17, I figure out of 17 IDs, you can come up with one. >>The only legitimate sounding argument that you can make to make it harder for people to register and harder to vote is that you're combating fraud. But every serious study of it in the United States suggests that incidence of fraud are very, very low, that fraud is not a real problem. That it's an invented problem. It's basically window dressing for what is in effect a project of disenfranchisement. >>It's funny to hear some dismiss the notion that there is voter fraud by saying, "Oh, it's so minimal." Well, any voter fraud you wanna deal with. I mean, that has to do with the integrity of our elections and the integrity of our government. So obviously we wanna find whatever ways we can to minimize voter fraud. I don't think we figured it out. It's been shown that voter ID efforts, which I think make good common sense, but it's been shown that they have very little effort on suppressing voter fraud. And they do not, by the way, have an impact on suppressing voter turnout fortunately, but I think we're going to have to continue to look for ways to preserve the integrity of our electoral system. We want as many individuals to be involved in our electoral process as possible. >>Democracy is complicated enough when we know who the players are, but with new technologies, we see more sources of information, more dissenting opinions and more confusing data than ever before. It's been discovered that sometimes outside forces work to influence our decisions. >>We know that in past elections there have been cyber attacks, in particular, there was hacking by the Chinese of both political campaigns in one of the previous elections, but the content wasn't released. >>In her book, "Cyber-War," Dr. Hall talks about Russian interference in America's 2016 election. >>What escalated in 2016, in the hacking area was the release of content and released the content selectively across a critical month in the election in a way to changed the media dialogue. >>We are learning more about the hack into the Democratic National Committee. >>The latest emails released by WikiLeaks suggest the top officials at the Democratic National Committee planned to undermine Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign. The Sanders campaign had- >>There were multiple, systematic efforts to interfere in our election, and that allegation deserves the attention of every American. >>Russia's interest is, I think, to demonstrate that democracy doesn't deliver. They wanna demonstrate that their system may be best for not just themselves but for others and to prevent people on the outside from challenging their own autocratic system. >>United we stand, divided we fall. While some blame politicians for our deep divisions, we all share the blame. We too stoke the flames of our discontent. When party activists and polarized voters can't find common ground, arguments in some cases lead to violence. >>We have to be worried in any country about hyper-partisanship. Hyper-partisanship is, again, I think toxic to democracy. The country will fail if they move to hyper-partisanship over country. >>A democracy weakens when people can no longer talk to each other in a reasonable fashion and reach compromise about key issues. We're there. We're right there. >>We are perhaps in one of the most polarized partisan eras, at least in our modern history. >>By all means, the lack of civil discourse is an international problem. I think what's unusual is that in this country, there was always a tradition of political discourse where people could disagree civilly, not think the same way, not stand for the necessarily the same things, but still could come away with compromise. I traveled to Sri Lanka in 2009, and one of the things that really struck me about traveling there was that compromise was viewed as something that could get you killed, that compromise was seen as weakness. >>You know, hyper-partisanship suggests that you put party over country. Citizens organize themselves in order to govern or to pursue their agenda, their interests. You can't simply have 320 million people just independently out there. But if it crosses a line where it's only about gaining power, and it's not about your country, and you are fighting the other party as if they're the enemy and not fellow Americans or fellow countrymen or women. >>This us versus them is nothing new. It's been happening since the beginning of our presidential contests. Andrew Jackson, his wife ended up dying, because the allegations against him were so horrendous that they're thought to have literally killed her. It's happened throughout history, but I think since Obama ran for president, we have seen an absolute change. And we have seen this effort not to just disagree on policy perspectives, but to demonize one's political opponent. >>Parties aren't in the Constitution, but in the Federalist Papers, Madison and others wrote about factions, plural, and that factions could be a positive, because they could, the power of one faction could check against another faction becoming too powerful. I bet if you asked the framers to predict about political parties, I think they would have predicted that by now we would have a lot of parties. I think that they would be surprised that we've had two dominant political parties, essentially since the mid-1850s. >>And in fact, President Washington worried openly about what he called factions, but he meant parties. He worried that political parties would divide the country, that it would tear it apart. >>Political scientists talk about negative partisanship as a phenomenon in which we not only disagree, we disagree sharply, and we attach to that sharp disagreement an active dislike of the person on the other side and the party on the other side. It's now true that Republicans aren't particularly happy if a son or daughter comes home and says, "I wanna marry a Democrat." And the reverse is true. Democrats aren't particularly happy to have a son or daughter come and say, "I wanna marry a Republican." So in that environment, if you have high levels of attack and you have appeals to anger and prejudice and fear, you're playing on an existing disposition that already says, "I don't much like those "on the other side." >>Partisanship, the polarization, the extent to which both parties now represent coherent ideologies and that if you are a liberal, you're almost certainly a Democrat. And if you are conservative, you're almost certainly a Republican has collided with our compromise and consensus-based political institutions to create gridlock and frustration. >>There is no doubt that we disagree on many issues, and we should continue to disagree. I'm not remotely saying we should avoid debating the big, important issues of the day. It's perfectly fine for us to have disagreements on substance, but it doesn't need to be angry. It doesn't need to have the vitriol we see, sadly the hate we see. That's a very hard thing to change. >>I think a lot of the stress we're seeing in the federal government at least is tied to the fact that our institutions, the Senate, the House, some would say even the presidency itself aren't quite equipped to handle the kind of politics that have developed in this country over the last two decades. We got this polarization between the right and the left. Red states, blue states, folks on all different spectrums. And it's like, who can bring that all together? 'Cause we've got very different values, and you know, people are voting those values. >>And we've always been polarized. I mean, there's always been groups, but that it's not been quite so strident and so vicious sometimes with each other that we can kind of start to mend some of those and go back. >>I think our two-party system is broke right now, because of it's a matter of who wins. It's not a matter to be in a consensus and making things work. >>A lot of the division going on. At once we had unity. >>The soul of the country is kind of at risk here and the polarization. We just seem to be arguing more and more with each other. And the whole point of the Constitution of the Founding Fathers was that we work together to get stuff done. And now we're working against each other and not getting much done. >>People always laugh at that study that came out of Stanford right after Trump was elected indicating that the average Thanksgiving dinner in America was diminished by about 20 minutes, because so many people got into fights about Trump and politics. I suspect that the Thanksgiving dinner probably takes even less time today or doesn't happen at all in lots of households and lots of families. This is a bad sign. You know, when division goes to the heart of families and pits brother against brother and sister against sister, and we remember that from the Civil War, then I think you're on the precipice, and we may well be on the precipice. (somber piano music) >>You know, these authoritarian leaders make easy targets out of already marginalized communities that are often hated, and political leaders will often play this blame game, very effectively often, and the public is often pretty gullible and looking for simple solutions. >>If you appeal to a group of people through their fears, in some unconscious way, you're saying, "Yeah, lead with that. "Lead with your fear. Absolutely do that." Aren't we responsible, especially if you're in a position of leadership to remind people there's another way to look at this? >>And Americans aren't used to thinking of fascism, something that happens far away. We have to be ever alert to it, because after World War II, particularly never again, never again. Do not even allow this to get a foothold. Don't allow it to get traction. If God forbid their banners ever unfurl from our buildings, it'll be too late to protest then. So you gotta nip it in the bud. >>It is a bit like the frog slowly getting cooked in a boiling pot, because of course they don't come after the Jews first. First they talk about sort of the handicap people that aren't able to contribute to the economy the way they should. It's a while before you get full-on Aryan supremacy and Nazism, as we now all talk about it with the Holocaust in our history books. >>Jews will not replace us! Jews will not replace us! >>We dehumanize them. We basically remove the fundamental starting point, the necessary starting point to begin to address our own issues of immigration, our own issues of national and self-identity, because we have put them at a level below us. And we've seen this increasingly, whether it's in places like the protests in Charlottesville, this sense that those that are not like us, those that are not native born are somehow inferior. >>Post-Charlottesville, there are plenty of people I spoke to who said, "This isn't something more "than ugly parts that have always existed "coming to the floor." Then I spoke to other people who are very much part of the community in Charlottesville who said, "This is finally a glimpse of reality." I spoke to other people who said, "This is absolutely a snapshot of what we're becoming "of our own worst behaviors that we're descending into." I don't know which of those many interpretations is reality. But I think it revealed at a minimum that we as a country are struggling right now to define why we are in the state we're in. There's a lot of dislocation. There's a lot of alienation it seems that people are feeling. >>We are facing a challenge that really no other democracy has quite confronted historically, which is the fact that a once electorally and socially dominant majority is losing its majority status, only 50 or 60 years ago filled all the top rungs of our country's social, political, cultural, economic hierarchies to lose that majority. As late as 1994, whites were well over 70% of the electorate. In 2014, they were 57, 58% of the electorate. In another decade, they're going to be less than 50% of the electorate. And so what we're seeing in part is a white reaction to increasingly diverse and increasingly racially egalitarian society. >>You know, I think I'm trying to say, "What is America about?" Are we a nation of immigrants and folks that bring everybody in and welcome everybody in? Are we folks that kind of want to say, "This is ours, and nobody else can be here"? >>More people who have been hiding their kind of racist views, now feel more comfortable speaking out about it, and you see a lot more oppression of minorities and stuff like that than you would see even like five years ago. >>It's the idea of getting rid of people that don't look like you. Setting them aside. They have no real value. They contribute nothing, which are all lies. >>People seem to be rather apathetic. In other words, as long as their lives are not affected, as long as they can live comfortably day to day, they don't realize the long haul. They don't realize the big picture. They don't realize where we are going, where we might end up. >>We're a nation of immigrants. The Native Americans might not think of it that way, but largely we're a nation of immigrants. And it's the multiculturalism which ought to be a wonderful, strong point of the country. I mean, you know, the Statue of Liberty was all about that, but we've lost that sense. >>As the authoritarian impulse reasserts itself globally, and global commitment to democracy seems now to be on somewhat shaky ground, I've been thinking a lot recently about the American commitment to democracy, where it comes from, and how, if the circumstances were right, it might slip away. >>There is an existential threat in the world right now between democracies and authoritarian nations. For much of the 20th century, the democracies have been advancing and authoritarian nations have been dwindling. And the pressure toward more democratization seemed like completely natural, and it was gonna continue. What we're seeing in the United States is evidence of a global trend, where authoritarian nations are on the advance and democracies have been a little bit back on their heels. But I still believe that the democratic model is the best. It's the best match for the aspirations of people, natural people everywhere. >>A Harvard professor Sam Huntington, he talked about waves of democracy, and that in fact waves go out and waves come in. And I think we're at that moment where this wave is receding a bit. The first half of the century, we had a wave of democracy. And then there's a period right after World War II we saw a wave of democracy. We obviously had then receding waves just before World War II, and then we saw some in the 1960s. Beginning in the early 1970s through the 1990s and into the two thousands, we saw the third wave of democratization. We hear about the end of history after the Cold War, that it was inevitable that democracy was successful, that it was triumphant. I think the biggest danger to anybody in anything you do is complacency. And it wasn't as if autocracy went away or that instinct in human beings toward autocracy and a strong firm grip at the top went away. I think we got a bit complacent, and we have to manage the expectations during this third wave, so people don't turn to more extreme measures who tell them, give them easy answers to very tough problems. >>And Ronald Reagan put it best when he said, "Freedom is never more "than one generation away from extinction." We don't pass it down to our children in the bloodstream. It has to be fought for. It has to be understood. >>Headquartered in our nation's capitol since 1941 is an organization that tracks democratic liberties around the globe. Freedom House conducts research in advocacy, on democracy, political liberty and human rights. The organization's annual Freedom in the World report assesses each country's political freedoms and civil liberties. Each country is given a freedom score. >>We're deeply concerned at Freedom House about the fate of democracy in the world, and about the challenges and the perils that democracy finds itself in today is something that's vitally important. So there's no question that America is a robust democracy, and we can't forget that. But our scores do indicate an erosion of U.S. democracy that has begun about seven or eight years ago. And this has to do with a number of different factors, questions about corruption, rule of law, the equal treatment of minorities. >>I think our democracy at the moment is not stable. I think we're not as aware as we should be on what we stand to lose, how much we take for granted the notion of freedom, freedom to be able to say what we want, to have the opinion that we want. Are we as Americans aware of how significant that is to a meaningful life? Choice, not being afraid to say what you believe. >>What would you say about the stability of the democracy? >>I think it's no longer a democracy if an autocrat has it in his hands, that the democratic principles upon which this country was founded are eroding right now. >>So the CIA would not assess America as a stable democracy? >>I think, well, given the polarization of the country as well. There's just tremendous political instability here, which is consuming the government now, and it's not able to take care of the issues that it needs to address, whether it be on the domestic front or the national security or the foreign policy front. So, yes, I think there's a real question about the stability. >>And if we lose faith in that system, then we have to be content with whatever comes along, and literally anything could come along. >>"The Handmaid's Tale" takes place in Gilead. It is a totalitarian regime, fundamentalist run by men in which women are considered property of the state. Is there a chance that something like Gilead could happen here? >>When I was a little kid, my dad used to say to me all the time, "When we faced oppression in Cuba, "I had a place to flee to. "If we lose our freedom here, where do we go?" >>For over 200 years, the American democracy experiment has continued, largely because each successive generation took steps to improve it. The question today is whether we the people are up to this pressing task. It's up to us to decide if democracy survives as a leading force in the world or is relegated to a footnote of history. E pluribus unum, out of many, one. It means that work happens not only in Washington D.C. but also with each one of us. We the people work together to form a more perfect union, but are we up for the task? Together we decide. Next on "Dismantling Democracy," we'll look at democracy around the world. It's not one size fits all. As nations struggle to build identity, fight for rights and take their place on the global stage, we'll compare their democratic journey to ours, from China's thriving economy to protests during the Arab Spring. We'll discover more about each nation's democratic success, struggle and future. (dramatic music) (chiming music) >>VPM. >>A UVA Center for Politics series.