America Needs a Civics Lesson | How to Fix It with John Avlon

hey all welcome to how to fix it I'm John avlon journalist author former Congressional candidate former CNN anchor and analyst now running this podcast with the bull workk on how to fix the problems that face our country it's always seemed to me that we spent far too much time fixating on our problems and not enough time talking about possible solutions areas where we can agree Common Ground we can build on and that's the purpose of this podcast there are questions about the durability of our democracy and whether our ability to communicate across our divisions has

been degraded perhaps even to the breaking point that raises the question of what can we do to strengthen our democracy what can we do to work together again that requires a common set of facts and that's where Civics education comes in study of what it require means to be a citizen of a democracy the responsibilities as well as the rights and that's why I'm joined today by Richard hos the former president of the Council on Foreign Relations author of many books including the current the bill of obligations 10 habits of good Citizens We're talking at

a time uh of enormous transition um a few days from the anniversary of the January 6th attacks uh and just a few short weeks before Donald Trump reassumes the presidency and the purpose of this podcast is to focus on Solutions not simply to fixate on problems something I think we do too much of in media and politics but to shift the conversation towards how to fix it how to make things better something that seems especially urgent in what to many of us seems like a time with enormous amount of storm clouds on the horizon for

American democracy which brings us to the question of civics education how much can we try to rein culate these Traditions these Democratic Norms these virtues these values uh which have eroded uh I've always believed Richard that America is the first nation in the history of the world founded on an idea and not a tribal identity and one of the things that means is that we are uniquely dependent on unifying stories as a nation and it's why tribal politics are so uniquely dangerous to our nation I I want Richard first of all welcome for thank you

for joining us but I wonder as you look at the challenges we face today with Donald Trump about to resume to resume the presidency um how much do you think Civics education can be a corrective to what seems to many folks the degrad of our democracy well Lots there to unpack John and it's good to be with you uh as well uh Civics education is incredibly important I would say reinstituting it in our high schools middle schools colleges uh ought to be a priority indeed if I had my way you wouldn't be able to get

a diploma from a high school or a college without a a serious Civics course but all that said and as important as it would be it's not a near ter term solution or fixed anything it's an investment in our future uh it would gradually kick in the results of it as for example young people took Civics had their then the the option of voting hopefully they would vote hopefully before they voted they would see the importance of getting uh informed in the course of learning Civics there would be uh information literacy taught they would have

a better idea as to how to get informed what are trusted sources and the light but again this is not a a near-term fix to what El's American democracy this is the sort of thing like renewed Public Service opportunities that would overtime kick in and be uh be positive but it's not going to help us deal with the debt saling uh next month the purpose of your book and you feel there's a great deal of urgency behind it is that as someone who's focused on foreign policy working in the Bush Administration a former Republican now

independent is that you came to feel that really the greatest threat to America is not a foreign policy crisis per se but the dangers of America impling from within and and you list I should say in the the book of obligations a list of 10 obligations they're beinged get involved stay open to compromise remain civil reject violence value Norms promote the common good respect government service and then promote the teaching of civics um obviously the the rejection of political violence is something that maybe in the past didn't need to be said but here on this

anniversary of January 6th with the expectation that the incoming president will pardon the people who attacked our Capital uh at his behest in part because they did not accept the results of an election that he lost that does seem to raise the question of how can we get respect for our Democratic Norms back how can we create that common currency of communication and and Civic literacy um why I want to stay focused on Solutions but what went wrong um only 24% of students a decade ago were able to pass basic proficiency levels in Civics and

education did we stop investing in it or did we stop valuing Civics as a culture to such an extent that people can get spun around the axle around a lie and and attack our Capital lots of things happened and what's interesting about it the more I dig into it there wasn't a concern anti- Civics movement it wasn't that a bunch of people stood up and said we got to get Civics out of the classrooms it was a little bit like musical chairs uh when the music stopped and we started saying you have to have a

chair for stem and A Chair for this or that Civics didn't have a lot of backers behind it I think a lot of people wrongly concluded it was something of a luxury or or in any case not a necessity oh yeah we can learn Civics other ways we don't need to teach it so I think that was a big part of it I think the the loss of uh the hold of traditional media and the growth of social media cable AM FM satellite what have you uh meant that a lot of places began to traffic

in information without certain uh I'll be generous standards or editorial uh principles yes and the uh and the like so I think we've had a degradation of our information culture the backdrop to all that happens in the political space and then our classroom rather than doing more our classrooms started doing uh less and that became a I think that's that's a pretty toxic combination so we're at the point now you know every my my the phrase I use is you know I I care as much as you or anybody about the the the budget deficit

I worry about the Civics deficit that we're essentially graduating and bringing into adulthood a generation of Americans who simply don't know the basics as you correctly said this is a country founded on an idea well what happens when we stop teaching those ideas when we uh yeah when we no longer uh can hold our elected politicians to account to certain Norms if we're not familiar with the Norms so we've got a real problem uh and then the question is how do we how do we change this how do we change this momentum and I assume

that's what we'll talk about given that you're you've got the word fix in your title that that's the purpose of this and that's where I want to go because it's it's a little scandalous right I we've seen a degradation of patriotism some people feeling discomfort uh celebrating America that's a problem predominantly on the left but the alternative facts uh being presented on the right further erods this and there is no genie in the bottle problem with media but I was so struck by one quote from the president of John Hopkins in your book who said

our curricula have abdicated responsibility for teaching the habits of democracy I mean that that is Stark and it does seem like something close to a suicide Packa if we don't take steps to change that so let's talk about what we could do to fix that okay um let's start with Congress there are a number of bills uh that have been put forward by Chris Coons John cornin Angus King um and yet one of those bills you point out says that they're not going to order the Secretary of Education to do anything uh so which of

the bills put forward do you think have Merit and how would how would it work to sort of mandate or refund Civics education well ideally it would happen nationally uh because the whole concept of civics is a national concept so the idea would happen at the state level or the local level is to some extent contradictory there ought not to be a notion of civics in Alabama that's different than the notion in California or Colorado in some ways it it defeats the purpose that said at the the federal level you've got a couple of problems

John one is federal f funding of Education uh is small it's it's not the principal driver of Education funding in this country say for middle schools and high schools that's much more state and local at the college and university level again a lot of our funding is is private and and independent and then to the extent you get Federal funding uh you don't have a consensus on what Civics ought to be anded I I was stunned by a the the preamble to a piece of legislation that I think you're alluding to one of the bills

that's been sitting there says nothing in this act can be construed as favoring a national Civics curriculum I read that and said Gee forgive me call me madcap but I kind of thought that was the purpose uh so what is the purpose then I mean obviously the Senators care enough to elevate it but so what's the mechanism is it purely just incentives via funding well if that's the case it wouldn't be the worst of all worlds if the federal government gave funding it second best would be the federal government gave funding I me first best

you have funding for a serious Civics curriculum since we can't agree on that then you'd have Federal funding for civics to be taught for teacher training for civics in the classroom and so forth and then it would be up to States and others to to spend that money and I think my own view is it would be spent wisely in some places not in others so then it would be a fault to governors in many cases and then parents I mean uh parents you know who stood up and went to Schoolboard meetings to express views

about history and so forth well I would love to see parents coming to school board meetings and arguing for a serious Civics education at some point we're going to get the education we deserve rather than necessarily the education we uh we uh we want so uh like a lot of things in this country the answer may not come from the top down it may have to come from the the ground up there's also by the way at the University level we got what 4,000 colleges and universities in this in these United States there's nothing preventing

these schools with enormous uh endowments from instituting a Civics requirement there's nothing from stopping these schools these major universities the ivy league and a lot of other prestigious schools from doing this uh from from devoting the resources doing the teacher training developing the curriculum there's nothing stopping parents who are shelling out large sums of money for junior to go to these uh these schools from demanding it and say hey if I'm going to spend all this money on getting and supporting my kid to get a ba or or BS or something why not require uh

Civics you wouldn't let him graduate if he couldn't read or write or use a computer why is it any better that you're letting him graduate or her graduate not prepared to meet the obligations of of American citizenship so I actually think parents have been missing an action teachers and faculty have been part of the problem in many schools but my sense is given a lot of the difficulties at the federal level particularly since someone like you is now not sitting in Congress if you had been there you could have fixed it uh then I think

it's um we may have to look for Governors uh you the old Brandy dictum that states are the Laboratories of democracy I've come around to that somewhat reluctantly here but when I when I talk to Governors I think there's a lot of interest in that level what I'm hoping is certain states begin it and then we have something of a race to the top rather than a race to the bottom so you're describing uh I mean I I appreciate the the brandise reference I always love a good brandise reference um but the idea that this

is could be grass Toops and Grassroots U is it really a matter of sort of patriotic philanthropy uh as well as as Governors leaning into it and if so what groups I mean there organizations like Gilder lman which I think do an extraordinary job Gilder lman by the way from what I can see in in this space is really good you've got the national Constitution Center whose website is a really it's a real treasure chove of uh teaching materials so you go you can find things out there it's very decentralized uh one thing that would

help would be a more centralized movement I think at the moment the whole is less than the sum of its parts you got various groups and organizations pushing it Here There and Everywhere but it hasn't come together as a uh a critical as but that but that you're talking about things that yeah over time could and I believe will um M make uh make make a difference we should say there's also I Civics which is is run by the uh son of former Justice uh ok Conor J Connor but I I really do think that

you know this is something where people can step up and start to be the change they want to see particularly if they're in a position to to of leadership in their universities from a donation standpoint from a board standpoint uh Etc yeah I agree and um don't get me started on this subject uh but I would say a lot of America's foundations are not meeting their shall we say obligations to use my favorite words uh I would think there'd be few higher priorities than to get this right here we are we're what 18 months away

from our 250th anniversary uh this this country of ours and you'd have to be something of a cockeyed Optimist to to say well in 250 years or even 50 years you're confident we're going to have a working productive viable democracy that's in part what is actually motivating me I mean we're we're setting up we're heading into the 250th anniversary of the country and I remember the bicentennial uh barely dim dim lit corners of my memory but I remember there were things like Schoolhouse Rock and and there there were actually Public Service uh geared towards kids

that made teaching about Civics and patriotism uh cool or at least accessible uh and we haven't had anything like that in decades have we no we haven't but there's things percolating out there geared to the 250th I've been involved in any number of conversations uh two people I know are creating a coral work uh to be sung by choruses performed by chuses All Over America based in part on this book on the bill of obligations and the idea they've theyve they' commissioned original music and the idea is to get this performed in hundreds and hundreds

of places around America m in schools high schools colleges churches you name it in the run up to the 250th uh I did a documentary with PBS based on the book and then we did learning resources you mentioned I Civics so I think there's a lot of things beginning to perate you know as I go around the country talking about this I get a lot of head-nodding people know there something wrong what you and I are talking about it wouldn't shock a lot of people they know uh that we have been derel uh in in

in not systematically what's the word kind of nurturing our our norms and our our uh Traditions so I'm hoping actually that the 250th in the next 18 months that becomes a little bit of a what a ring point it galvanizes some action but you do point out one of the places that ought to be opening up their wallets which are foundations we've got uh this know through our tax exam status we've made it very easy for a lot of uh these places to accumulate enormous wealth you now have individuals who have accumulated enormous uh wealth

as recently as over the last year or two what better use would there be I have I'm hard hard pressed to think of it than to help develop a national curriculum develop you know put money into teacher training and then make it help implement it in classrooms around the country so anyone who's got you know real resources in their wallet I hope they're listening to us and I expect either one of us would be happy to uh to talk with them well this really is though I mean if we are not teaching students how to

be good citizens of a Democratic Republic understanding that that requires to the whole point of your book not just rights but responsibilities then we're swing the seeds of our own degradation if not destruction I mean that that's the stakes and so the idea that this has been on the back Bur um I think that's what's led to our current inability to have a civil constructive conversation as a country it's one of the things uh New Jersey is the first state I believe to introduce a requirement for information literacy to teach high schoolers interesting you know

how to how to for example navigate the internet how do you how do you recognize a fact and distinguish it from an opinion how do you know something that's actually being paraded around as a fact but isn't what new what are the what are the qualities of newspapers that you can trust or websites that you can trust as opposed to those that you cannot that kind of a curriculum I would think ought to be in high middle schools and high schools in all 50 states well Governors and state legislators can make that that happen that's

that's not even a Civics curriculum that to me is a component of one or pre Civics because we want our we want citizens to be invol involved we want them to go out and vote but as Jefferson would say and it's too bad he couldn't join us today but if Jefferson were here he would have said the most important thing for citizenship is to be informed well that's something schools can do we can help you know make people well give them the skills to get informed that is a that's a that's a doable uh there

that's a doable task some of the other things by the way I know you're you're focused on fixing it what about the people every Sunday or Saturday or Friday who preach why can't they stand up on their pits and say look we all have strong views about X or Y but nothing nothing nothing justifies using violence to advance those views so here are people who have moral Authority why can't they lend their moral authority to denouncing and delegitimizing political violence that would help that's something that people can do so you know the T my point

is simply that to fix American democracy there's something that religious leaders can do educators can do parents can do political figures can do Foundation heads can do there's there's work to be shared here but uh but everyone's gonna have to you know to get involved that's the essence of of a democracy of course uh is we all have responsibilities as well as rights um one of the challenges um at at putting forward a kind of any kind of unified curriculum especially if it's decentralized with people stepping up and funding it is as you describ in

the book uh sort of the the the the current condition of of history as a battlefield right as an extension of the culture wars where you've got the 1619 project versus the 1776 project and then there's the question of what's the unifying fact-based version of American History week in advance now I can say we should have Ken Burns films all aired in in every American High School and that would do just fine for me but but how do you depolarize that debate so you can put forward a unified vision of American history that includes the

good the bad the ugly but still says that look uh we're a great country and and you have responsibilities as a citizen of this this country well uh as you might have expected I've given more than a little thought to this so let me let me tell you an experience I had I was years ago the US Envoy to Northern Ireland spent three years trying to do that and then about a decade later just over a decade ago now was 2013 I was brought back by the principal political parties the of Northern Ireland the five

part parties that were in the local assembly and they asked me to help them deal with some of the intractable issues that were still bedeviling the Region's of politics and the most significant was their inability to deal with quote unquote the legacy of the past essentially The Narrative of the three decades of political violence known as the troubles and at the end of the day I didn't really succeed so let me just you know Park that for a second but one of the things I learned in this was I was trying to get them to

create a museum of the history of the troubles and it was exactly the issue you just raised course you had one tradition essentially a Catholic tradition as opposed to a Protestant tradition uh and the question was how could you present something that would be broadly acceptable so it wouldn't add to the division but rather it would be healing and the conclusion I came to is there were certain things you could put out there documents dates events and that would those just happen those those were universally accepted what you couldn't do was insist on a single

interpretation of history and what you had to H allow were competing interpretations of of history and I think that's essentially the recipe for this country that there would be certain documents the Articles of Confederation the Constitution The Federalist Papers certain Supreme Court decisions and descents certain speeches uh farewell addresses by some of the presid res inaugural addresses what have you so you'd have things that everybody would be exposed to certain dates certain events things happen now we may have different interpretations of why the Civil War happened okay so let people read different interpretations the the

the mainstream interpretation about slavery minority interpretation then have debates in in classrooms I think the idea is not to impose a single architecture or view of American history but rather expose people to the documents expose them to the facts and expose them to competing views that to me would be a pretty good approach I you know I'm going to go deep cut here on you but uh in George Marshall's uh the former General Secretary of State uh Nobel priest prize speech he talked about the difficulty of of having uh grown up in the south in

the aftermath of the Civil War and having two different interpretations and part of his argument was we need to have a unified interpretation of the Civil War so it's not different in the South than it is in the north um obviously these things are intention but that's part of getting people comfortable with Civic debate again um here here's an idea that might be able to square the circle and and you you mention the fact that I just recently ran for congress uh uh here in suffa county and I I was really uh one of the

things that heart gave me a lot of Hope was I would mention this idea that I I first mentioned uh when I had the honor one of the great honors of my life actually speaking at the naturalization ceremony of Mount Vernon and uh anyone's done this or gone to a naturalization ceremony it is one of the most moving hopeful things you could ever possibly participate in and my grandparents are immigrants so it's extra meaningful for me um although that's a common American story but um put forward this idea and I'd say this on the campaign

Trail people would nod and say look every graduating high school senior should be able to take and pass the same naturalizations test that new citizens do it's just a set of facts it's not a complicated test it's not a difficult test it doesn't deal with interpret ation it's just basic common currency of communication basic facts about the structure and history of our country um uh I wonder what what you make of that idea well again uh you know I might want to tweak it uh but the idea that everyone like in an AP course or

whatever course would be expected to be able to pass a test that raise certain issues uh absolutely and I think it's important to understand as we used to say when we were kids how a bill becomes a law the structure of the uh federal government then the federal system and and so forth uh I think knowing the basics of American democracy are important again I why I'd also want exposure to some of the basic uh writings and and documents uh I'd also love to have debates in classrooms I think debates are great things by the

way uh in education because one you get up to speed on a subject you go back to Source material and then at halftime you switch sides and that to me is really valuable because it teaches empathy for opposing points of view and one of the things I like about that is obviously it breeds some tolerance into our into our uh culture into our so Society so I like the idea of a fact test approach but I want the process to also include debate uh in the classroom look I I think the importance is fact-based debates

right and and that unfortunately that does not go without saying in in an era on a return of of alternative facts presumably to our national discourse but the great thing about a debate if it's properly moderated is that you get to have a point of view but you got to back it up you got to bring the receipts you got to have facts on your side doesn't mean that there's any uh you know pure and simple truth but you know that's that's a discipline that we're seem to be lacking in Congress for God's sakes exactly

it's a discipline but also you got to back up your facts two other things though I like about debates one I just alluded to that in the course of the debate you could be asked to take the opposite point of view and that would force people in many ways just to expand their thinking and I think that would be healthy second of all you're allowed to challenge people in debates without the fear of cancellation and that also is necessary we've got to we've got to reintroduce culture in our classroom where it's okay to go against

the grain uh I hear from too many young people that there's now uh almost self-censorship in the classroom that they're frightened to say certain things for fear that they will pay a price for it socially and and so for so we need to create safe spaces in in our classrooms or or remove the idea that there are any safe spaces in society but people can actually just say what they want and not live in fear of microaggressions well that's the ultimate safe space where every space essentially is pretty open and we need to rein reintroduce

that and that you can and should challenge people if they say something that you believe is at variance with the facts or they say present something as a fact when actually it's an opinion and you say well you're entitled to your opinion but that's an opinion not a fact that's the kind of conversation we want to we want to have and I can't think of a better subject matter than this one uh you know it's so ironic and you know this better than anybody when you go back to the founding of this country uh debate

and all that was so Central uh to to what to what was created uh two and a half centuries ago and we seem to have somehow lost the thread uh today history is a debate That Never Ends but particularly in democracy we need to know our history um I I want to one other bit of legislation that's been proposed that you discuss in your book this is sort of the learning by doing School uh which is U returned to some form of Public Service maybe it's an exchange for full forgiveness of of college debts um

but the idea that you get people out of their respective cultural Bubbles and you start working together and something that has a Civic component it's not just the military it's the Park Service maybe it's working in local government you know hospitals uh talk about that as a piece to this puzzle it is a piece it's you the obligations I talk about in the book eight are obligations that really individuals have to do things like uh respect Norms reject violence get informed go out and vote put country before party or person those are personal things those

are individual but two are matters of public policy one we've been talking about how to get Civics in our schools the other's Public Service uh and you mentioned you're right the military is one but there's dozens and dozens you know I remember the Peace Corp uh Vista and things like that inside it's difficult to get it done at the federal level because spending is under such pressure but it is possible to get it done increasingly at the state level California has become the uh probably the leader in initiating various types of new Public Service one

of their things a climate Corp was then adopted by the White House probably about a year ago for for n you know as a national program and well and you're right it should be incentivized you pay people to do it employers could say hey we are more likely to hire you if you have say two years of experience here in the same way that they give veterans uh preferences uh instead of having unconditional loan forgiveness I would have much preferred President Biden to have had conditional loan forgiveness yes and this would have been one of

the conditions that you do uh that you do public service and what I like about this is this country now is so siloed and you grow up in a red County and a red State and you go to this church and you listen to this radio station and you watch this cable station and you don't meet anybody who isn't like-minded well that is dangerous and what we need to do is bring back ways in which Americans come to meet Americans who are different and if we do that then I think it creates a backdrop uh

where again we have a much better chance of avoiding violence and we have a much better chance of hopefully reaching some some compromises so if I could think of the two public policy fixes to use your word one is civics the other is is is is public service and again I've talked to any number of Governors about you know looking at what California and some other states are doing Westmore is interested in Maryland yes as well and piloting programs and again it maybe you can get then get private sector support or individuals can support it

doesn't just have to be tax you know resources gleaned from taxes but I I think this has tremendous uh appeal and tremendous potential again it's not an instant fix it won't help us next month or next year but we need to invest in our future and the two single best things I know are Civics and public service I I I think I I couldn't agree more at the risk of sen that we've got an on men Corner going on here but but it really is you reap what you sow and uh and and and these

are not TurnKey but they're absolutely essential for restoring some stability and sense of civic responsibility back to citizenship um and they're also they're also doable you know we're not talking about uh The Impossible Dream here the two things we're spending most of our time talking about we can do these things as a country and again we'll have to decide you know where the resources come from and where the pushes but I actually think there's a tremendous role here for the private sector from wealthy individuals from foundations if Government proves unable to do this which certainly

at the federal level it's likely to uh and a lot of and it may happen more in some states than others and I actually think there's tremendous uh not just opportunity but to use my favorite word obligation of others to step up and and the foundations and corporations and individuals this should be this should be a priority for their civic mindedness and uh God knows we need it we do and and look the other thing is to the extent all these these these initiatives help remind us there's more that unites us than divides us uh

there should be and there is in fact some significant bipartisan support for these ideas so this is something we can get done even in a polarized political environment if there is the will which is of course is The X Factor but before we go um I I uh you quote you you were a I should say your trajectory you were sort of moderately anti-vietnam more liberal you became a conservative uh sort of uh worked in in the first Bush Administration admired Margaret Thatcher but you quote Jimmy Carter and his inaugural address in the introd ction

and obviously Jimmy Carter just passed 100 years old his his funeral services will be held in the coming days um and I want to read you a quote because it really struck me in terms of what it says about our time and the challenges we Face Carter said in his anal address our nation can be strong abroad only if it is strong at home and we know the best way to enhance freedom in other lands is to demonstrate here that our democratic system is worthy of emulation Richard we just reelected a man who tried to

overturn an election on the back of a lie that led to attack on her Capital um he won the popular vote this time uh there are no signs that Democrats are acting the way that his supporters did certainly President Biden has struck entirely different tone than the one that President Trump did four years ago but that leads to some folks to feel a degree of Civic despair about the example our nation is setting and certainly there are autocratic Rivals around the world that want to diminish the idea of democracy and diminishing American democracy is the

fastest way to do it how much are you personally worried about the example America is setting for ourselves and around the world and and do you have faith that these kind of fixes can help restore that example over time let me say a couple of things uh I love that quote of Jimmy I should also full disclosure uh I worked for Jimmy Carter uh in 1979 and 80 just to show how old I am in the Pentagon uh and i' got got to know him better actually over the years uh since uh I think he's

right you know I never thought we were very convincing when we sent diplomats like me around the world preaching to people about uh democracy the the strongest democracy tool we had was uh power of example and if we showed that American democracy worked and it went hand inand with a thriving economy trust me others would want to be more like us and if we and when we showed that American democracy was not respecting rights uh or or wasn't producing good Economic Policy we did damage to uh to it is a uh a model I think

the best thing we often did John is we fixed our problems one of the greatest things we ever did to promote democracy around the world was the Civil Rights Movement H wasn't that we didn't have real deep-seated problems years of course we did of course we do but the fact that we were willing and able to address them through the courts largely through nonviolence through the law what a powerful message about democracy and we've expanded rights for people of color or or or women and so forth that that's how you it's it's it's de it's

foreign policy by example rather than foreign policy by talking point so I I agree and the question is coming back to what we've been talking about we've got to get back to that and events like January six set us back it makes it uh difficult for us to to preach events like the Iraq War make it difficult for us to sell others they should act with restraint uh events like the 20078 uh financial crisis undermine our ability to tell people to act responsibly econom economics you know I once wrote a book uh with with the

the title foreign policy begins at home and it and it does uh so Jimmy Carter's uh right we're going to have tests over the next four years my I'm a little bit more upbeat than some others in part because I think we're already beginning to see it there'll be divisions in in the administration and between the administration and the outside and even though you've got one party control of the White House the Senate the House of Representatives and you've got a supreme court that tilts their way my sense is there will be enough divisions that

there might even be a degree of checks and balances and we still have the power of the private sector we have the power of the media civil society and so forth so uh you know one ought to you know keep hope and more important stay involved the biggest the biggest mistake people who care about democracy could make would be to give up uh democracy is is a process and I think you double down if you're worried about it you get more involved rather than uh let uh at the end of the day you know this

look you're example of it it can't be a spectator sport democracy is uh you've got to be all in I I think that's exactly right and for those folks who are tempted to lean back and to sort of try to put their heads in the sand for the next four years don't be defiantly optimistic lean into it be more engaged not less that doesn't mean you need to make yourself crazy every day but I'm reminded always of that quote from one of my political Heroes Daniel moan who said uh do I apologize for defending a

less than perfect democracy I do not find me a better one Richard hos thanks for joining us on how to fix it thank you John and uh stay in the arena my friend I will you too take care [Music]