Between the Headlines Justin Ahn

"Those who are standing up for democracy, and defending the rule of law, and committed to working across party lines — those are the kind of candidates we want to support," says Joel Searby. He is the National Political Director for the Renew America Movement, which supports candidates who defend democracy and reject extremism.

Searby left the Republican Party in 2016 because of Trump's divisive rhetoric. He hopes to create viable alternatives for conservative voters, regardless of candidates' party affiliations, so that they are not represented by politicians who propagate conspiracy theories and inflammatory polemics. He says, "In my conservatism, there's a lot of room for both compromise and compassion."

He discusses the importance of coalitions that draw from across the political spectrum, describing how he worked with the left wing to expand voting rights in Florida in 2018, and now supports Evan McMullin's independent senatorial campaign in Utah. He calls for legislators and citizens to focus on areas of common ground and shared priorities.

"We believe that environmental threats are big, but the power of well-organized community groups is bigger," says Mireille Bejjani, who is the Energy Justice director for Community Action Works. Mireille has years of experience organizing communities to achieve policy changes.

She adds, "We work side by side with everyday people to confront those who are polluting and harming the health of our communities. We partner with those who are most impacted by environmental problems [...] and we train them with the know-how they would need to make change in their own backyard."

Mireille shares her strategies and process when facing an environmental threat, some stories of emerging victorious by remaining persistent through a taxing dispute, and her vision for building more environmentally friendly communities.

"In order for a system of self-government to work, it required an informed and engaged citizenry," says Julie Silverbrook, a constitutional scholar who works for iCivics, a platform that provides civic education resources for teachers and students. She explains how civic education fosters a public perceptive to current affairs, how iCivics reaches its audience effectively, and how schools can incorporate civics curriculums. She also gives us a bite-size civics lesson, giving insight into the Constitution, the courts, and the breakdown of deliberation in government.

Matthew Graham is a political scientist at George Washington University who studies the public's role in keeping politicians accountable. He said that this ability is severely compromised by political polarization, which minimizes voter choice and raises the cost of supporting democracy, as well as a general lack of unawareness about current affairs. 

He noted, "If the same person is the same person is your enemy in every single debate, then you never practice compromising with them, you never learn to respect them, and ultimately you just let problems simmer the way that we've seen happen so frequently in the past few decades."

This episode continues an ongoing series on democracies in decline.

Anais Marin is the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Belarus. She says, "The atmosphere I would describe now as one of fear and impunity for abuses against internationally recognized human rights."

Anais describes how peaceful protests against President Alexander Lukashenko's rigged election victory were repressed through torture and arbitrary arrests. She breaks down Belarus' illiberal institutions, dynamics of civil society and mobilization, and the international response.

According to Anais, this situation is an important case study for how an authoritarian government seeking to retain power can suppress democratic freedoms. Additionally, since recording this interview, Belarus has cooperated with Russia to invade Ukraine. 

"If we reach a place where state legislatures and the U.S. House are beyond the reach of a majority of voters, we have a really dangerous, undemocratic situation on our hands," says David Daley, a best-selling author and leading expert on partisan gerrymandering.

David explains how gerrymandering has become more potent in the last decade, with more precise and partisan maps than ever before, telling the story of the Republican REDMAP redistricting operation. He also explains how gerrymandering contributes to political polarization and a lack of fair representation. Then, he shares some solutions to gerrymandering, like multi-member districts. He offers some hope with stories of grassroots organizers who achieved meaningful progress with anti-gerrymandering ballot measures.