The Vermont Conversation with David Goodman VTDigger

Harvard professor Steven Levitsky is the co-author of the 2018 international bestseller, “How Democracies Die.” It’s a book that President Joe Biden has cited often.In it, Levitsky and fellow Harvard professor Daniel Ziblatt documented the rise of authoritarian movements and the decline of democracies around the world. But Levitsky was still shocked when Trump supporters launched a violent attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.He thought it wouldn’t happen here.The Jan. 6 insurrection inspired Levitsky and Ziblatt to look at why American democracy has receded so quickly. They have a new book, “Tyranny of the Minority,” that seeks to answer this question.Steven Levitsky is the David Rockefeller professor of Latin American studies and professor of government at Harvard University. Levitsky also did not expect that he would witness a crackdown on civil liberties on his own campus and on universities around the country. "These were overwhelmingly peaceful protests, and we get an extraordinary wave of police repression and the arrest of 3600 peaceful protesters,” Levitsky said. “And I think what terrified me the most was there was a consensus ... in the mainstream establishment that this was OK. It was appropriate. Because a national narrative had emerged that these protesters were violent, that they were chaotic, that they were antisemitic, that they were pro-terrorist. It was overwhelmingly not the case. But that justified the repression."Levitsky argued that colleges have long tolerated peaceful student protest but that today’s students were being unfairly subject to a “Palestine exception.” During the past month, he tried to mediate between student activists and Harvard’s leaders to ensure that students were not punished for speaking out. His efforts failed when Harvard suspended five undergraduates and placed at least 20 more on probation, including barring 13 seniors from graduating in late May.Levitsky says the national erosion of democracy has been accelerated by "the fact that so many mainstream politicians are willing to set aside any commitment to democracy in order to get ahead, to continue their political careers and pursue their political ambitions. That was a terrifying lesson."Lebistky insists that democracy is threatened by minority rule, which is enshrined in the U.S. constitution and institutions like the Electoral College, which is "biased towards sparsely populated territories, and this is allowing the Republican Party to govern without winning national majorities. And when that partisan minority is an increasingly authoritarian party, watch out. We now have a set of institutions that are protecting and empowering the authoritarian minority party."

Are the kids all right? This question is foremost on the mind of parents, educators, and young people themselves. Students today are still grappling with the lingering effects of the covid pandemic, during which their schools closed and their education continued alone — or in many cases, their education and development stalled. Significant covid-related learning gaps continue to pose a challenge for many students. As graduation and summer approaches, the Vermont Conversation wanted to hear from students in their own words about their lives, concerns and challenges. We spoke with four high students from around Vermont, all of whom volunteer with Up for Learning (https://www.upforlearning.org/), a nonprofit that brings together youth and adults to transform education with a focus on equity and justice. The student guests are: Auishma Pradhan, a junior at South Burlington High School who is a member of the Winooski Antiracism Steering Committee; Harmony Devoe, a freshman at Harwood Union High School, who was recently named Vermont’s first Youth Poet Laureate (https://www.waterburyroundabout.org/education/6ttkxmrofez6pxr4nzq0lvxr2pys0m); Jacoby Soter, a sophomore at Bellows Free Academy in St. Albans who is a student member of the Maple Run School Board; and Mea Ree Jan, a junior at Winooski High School and the Center for Technology at Essex who is also a member of the Winooski Antiracism Steering Committee. The students made clear that the problems of the world do not stop at the school house. Failed school budgets, racism, and Israel’s war in Gaza were top of mind for many of them. Soter said the effects of covid on learning “is honestly much bigger than the actual covid crisis that was two years long. We're going to be feeling this for the next 10 years.” He said he sees a “disconnect between (students) that were that were able to have people in the house and help them with covid learning and everyone else. …There are a few kids who are really thriving and excelling socially, emotionally and in their academic career, and then there is everyone else who is really far behind.” Among the problems Soter sees are an increase in vaping and substance abuse that contribute to “behavioral problems inside school and many students not feeling safe around their peers because of those behavioral problems.”

“Imagine one day you receive a letter in the mail that informs you that a large energy company is planning to build a massive pipeline through your property. That surveyors will be coming out soon. That they have the legal right to do so, whether you like it or not, because this project is in the 'public interest.'" That’s how journalist Jonathan Mingle (https://www.jonathanmingle.com/) describes the letter that people in rural Virginia received in 2014 from Dominion Energy, one of the biggest power companies in the country. Dominion was planning to construct the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, which would carry natural gas over some 600 miles. What happened next is not how most David vs. Goliath stories end. People in the rural communities organized, mobilized, and fought back. The battle raged for six years until the pipeline was canceled in 2020. Jonathan Mingle tells this dramatic story of climate change and resistance in his new book, “Gaslight: The Atlantic Coast Pipeline and the Fight for America's Energy Future. (https://islandpress.org/books/gaslight#desc)”Mingle, who lives in Lincoln, has traveled to distant corners of the world to chronicle the impacts of climate change and those who are fighting to stop it. In 2015, he published "Fire and Ice: Soot, Solidarity and Survival on the Roof of the World," about his travels to the former Buddhist kingdom of Zanskar in northern India. He wrote about what is happening as Himalayan glaciers dry up and drought spreads.Mingle has also reported on Vermont’s struggle to fund its rural schools (https://www.sevendaysvt.com/news/finances-threaten-local-schools-such-as-lincolns-can-towns-afford-to-lose-them-32345662) and about how the July 2023 floods showed that Vermont is not immune from climate chaos (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/13/opinion/floods-vermont-new-york-heat-climate-change.html?searchResultPosition=2).“This idea that you could somehow escape the impacts of climate change is a delusion,” he said about Vermont’s recent experience with flooding.Mingle said that the people who fought and won against the Atlantic Coast Pipeline demonstrated that “the most overlooked climate solution is solidarity. And we're going to need it to adapt to climate change.” 

Nicholas Kristof has been an eyewitness to some of the most iconic political and social transformations of modern times. As a reporter and columnist for the New York Times for the last four decades, Kristof has been telling searing stories about revolutions, genocides, and the impact of global inequality. His work has garnered the top prizes in journalism, including two Pulitzer Prizes. The first was in 1990 for his coverage of the Tiananmen Square protests in China that he shared with his wife, reporter Sheryl WuDunn, the first Pulitzer awarded to a husband-wife team. They have also co-authored five books.Since 2001, Nick Kristof has been a regular op-ed columnist for the Times. His powerful dispatches about the genocide in Darfur earned him a second Pulitzer in 2006. The former head of the International Rescue Committee said that Kristof's coverage saved hundreds of thousands of lives in Sudan. Kristof has now written a memoir, "Chasing Hope: A Reporter’s Life." He tells the story of growing up on a sheep and cherry farm in rural Oregon, and then attending Harvard and Oxford. He continues to focus his reporting on human rights, global health, poverty and gender inequality. In 2021, Krsitof left the Times to run for governor of Oregon, but his foray into politics was cut short a few months later when the Oregon Secretary of State ruled that as a result of living and working out of state for years, he did not meet residency requirements. He returned to his job as a columnist for the New York Times.Despite reporting from some of the world’s grimmest places, Kristof remains stubbornly optimistic. “One thing you see on the front lines is that there has been a real arc of both material and moral progress. And that has left a deep impression on me,” he said. “Side by side with the worst of humanity, you end up encountering the best.”Kristof has seen authoritarian regimes up close, only to come home to see authoritarianism creeping into American politics. Is he worried about the fate of democracy in the U.S.? “It's not a binary question, but a spectrum,” he replied. “I don't think that the U.S. will become North Korea or China or Russia. But could we become Hungary? Or could we become Poland under the previous government? I think absolutely. I worry about political violence ... The DOJ, the military could all be heavily politicized, the civil service. I worry about all that. I don't think that I will be sentenced to Guantanamo. But could there be real impairment of democracy, of governance of freedoms? Absolutely. And I know I've seen that in other countries.”Kristof continues to report on human rights abuses and repression, but he insists that he is guided by hope. “I think despair is sometimes just paralyzing, while hope can be empowering.”

Annelise Orleck did not expect that protecting her students would result in getting assaulted and arrested. Orleck (https://faculty-directory.dartmouth.edu/annelise-orleck) is a professor of history and the former chair of Jewish Studies at Dartmouth College. On May 1, Dartmouth President Sian Beilock called police (https://vtdigger.org/2024/05/08/dartmouth-administration-faces-fierce-criticism-over-protest-arrests/) to break up a peaceful student protest on the Dartmouth Green. The students were protesting Israel’s war on Gaza and calling on Dartmouth to divest from companies that support Israel’s military occupation. This was one of many such protests (https://vtdigger.org/2024/05/01/vermont-conversation-campus-protesters-speak-out-in-solidarity-with-gaza/) sweeping college campuses.New Hampshire state troopers in full riot gear arrived with armored vehicles in response to the Dartmouth students. Orleck joined other faculty and community members to stand between the police and students. The 65-year-old professor was body slammed to the ground and was one of 89 people arrested. Two reporters for the campus newspaper were also arrested, provoking national outrage from press freedom groups (https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/05/07/metro/new-hampshire-dartmouth-college-protests-journalists-arrested/).The police assault of Professor Orleck made national news (https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/03/us/dartmouth-professor-police-protests.html) and the videos went viral. Orleck was charged with criminal trespass and temporarily banned from portions of Dartmouth’s campus. The ACLU of New Hampshire issued a statement (https://www.aclu-nh.org/en/press-releases/aclu-nh-statement-demonstrations-unh-and-dartmouth-college-campuses) saying, “Use of police force against protestors should never be a first resort. Freedom of speech and the right to demonstrate are foundational principles of democracy and core constitutional rights.” Dartmouth President Beilock apologized in a letter to Dartmouth students (https://www.thedartmouth.com/article/2024/05/beilock-college-president-apologizes-for-community-harm) on May 7, “No one, including me, wanted to see heavily armed police officers in the heart of our campus… I am sorry for the harm this impossible decision has caused.”Orleck has been a professor at Dartmouth for 34 years and is a renowned historian of labor, women’s issues, and Jewish history. She lives in Thetford Center.

College campuses around the country have been rocked by protests against Israel’s war on Hamas, which has claimed the lives of some 35,000 Palestinians, according to health officials in Gaza. Students have established tent encampments and are calling on their universities to divest from companies that support the Israeli occupation. Some universities have cracked down on protesters. Since encampments began at Columbia University on April 17, over 1,000 students have been arrested around the country, and numerous students have been suspended.In Vermont, protesters have formed encampments at Middlebury College, University of Vermont and Sterling College. Both Middlebury and UVM students are demanding financial transparency and calling for their institutions to divest from Israel. Among their other demands, UVM students are calling for the cancellation of the commencement speaker, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Middlebury students are calling for their school to bring students and academics from Gaza, where many universities have been destroyed. In response to student demands, UVM leaders met with protesters and agreed to disclose its endowment investments and discuss the commencement speaker. Leaders of both institutions have so far permitted the protests, though students told me they worried about potential disciplinary consequences. Erica Caloiero, the vice provost for student affairs at UVM, told VTDigger that tents are a violation of university policy (https://vtdigger.org/2024/04/29/as-uvm-pro-palestinian-encampment-enters-2nd-day-protestors-call-for-action-at-commencement/) but that the school is working with students “to make sure that temporary structures exist in a way that is safe and allowable.”Middlebury College released a statement saying, “As an educational institution, Middlebury values and encourages free expression and the peaceful exchange of ideas—including peaceful protest.”On this Vermont Conversation, we hear voices from the student protest encampments at Middlebury and UVM. Middlebury senior Joshua Glucksman is due to graduate in a few weeks but said he can’t think about that. “Every single university [in Gaza] has been rendered dysfunctional by the ongoing Israel campaign of genocide,” he said. “There's no way that in my privilege as a student at Middlebury College, graduation is on my radar right now.” “It just is inconceivable considering the amount of damage and destruction being done right now in Gaza, especially in my name for the perceived idea of Jewish safety, that Israel is waging this genocidal campaign,” said Glucksman, who is Jewish.“This has been the most powerful three days of my career at Middlebury College,” said senior Oliver Patrick. “I feel like I have grown as a person, as an organizer, as a leader, more than I have in my last three years here. But that can't take away from the very serious fact of why we're here, which is that last night, missiles killed children in Gaza. And our university is complicit with that.