As protests continue throughout the U.S. in the wake of George Floyd's death, we've been thinking a lot about comparisons to the Civil Rights era and whether the models for demonstrations created during that era are still relevant today. As we've discussed on the show before, public memory is a fuzzy thing and we're seeing that play out here amid discussions of how peaceful protests should be.
Our guest this week is uniquely suited to speak to questions of civil rights and civil unrest. Clarence Lang is the Susan Welch Dean of Penn State's College of the Liberal Arts and professor of African American Studies. He is a scholar in African American urban history and social movements in the Midwest and Border South. He is the author of Grassroots at the Gateway: Class Politics and Black Freedom Struggle in St. Louis, 1936-75, and Black America in the Shadow of the Sixties: Notes on the Civil Rights Movement, Neoliberalism, and Politics.
In addition to his scholarly work, Lang also has a personal connection to what's happening right now. He grew up on Chicago's South Side and a family member who was a police officer. He's a humanist at heart who believes that our country can pull together and overcome these trying times.
Black America in the Shadow of the Sixties
Between The World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
A list of podcasts about racism and inequality from the Bello Collective
The ongoing struggle for Civil Rights
School segregation then and now
What neoliberalism left behind
This episode was recorded on June 2, 2020. It was engineered by Jenna Spinelle, edited by Jen Bortz, and reviewed by WPSU News Director Emily Reddy.
We are working on an episode about the social and democratic context for the protests taking place around the U.S. after George Floyd's death; we'll have it for you on Monday. In the meantime, we are going to share a few episodes from our archives that we hope can provide context for our current moment.
One voice we want to lift up during this time is Aaron Maybin, a former Penn State and NFL football player who is now an artist, educator, activist, and organizer in Baltimore, which is where we interviewed him in August 2019.
Maybin has been a tireless advocate for Baltimore's black community long before protests over the death of George Floyd hit the city. His work will continue long after the protests end — whenever that might be. He believes that the hard work of democracy happens when the cameras and outsiders go away and community members can be empowered to fight for the change they want to see. He also seeks to move people through his art and his work as an art teacher in some of the city's most underfunded schools.
His perspective is worth listening to, or perhaps even revisiting if you've already heard it, as we all make sense of what's going on and how we can do our part to confront structural inequalities and racism in the U.S Learn more about Aaron's work on his website or by following him on social media:
Finally, our colleagues at the Bello Collective also put together a list of 20 podcasts that confront racism in America. You can find it here.
This is another episode that we recorded in our final days together in the office before COVID-19. However, the topic is just as relevant — if not more so — in our new reality.
The topic is free speech and our guest is Stephen D. Solomon, Marjorie Deane Professor at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at New York University and founding editor of First Amendment Watch. He is the author of Revolutionary Dissent: How the Founding Generation Created the Freedom of Speech.
Stephen lays out how the Founding Fathers, particularly James Madison, thought about free speech, free press, and the freedom to assemble. The ways we communicate have changed drastically in the past 250 years, but the concerns about protecting the free expression of ideas remains the same.
We also discuss free speech on college campuses and how social norms around speech can be just as powerful as laws in place to protect it. It's too soon to tell how the virtual environment will impact this dynamic, but it will be interesting to watch as colleges prepare for whatever the coming academic year has in store.
Defending the First Amendment and the Fourth Estate
Jonathan Haidt on the psychology of democracy
Today we're bringing you a special episode produced by Nicole Gresen, our intern on Democracy Works during the spring 2020 semester.
Nicole spoke with Bob Buckhorn, who was mayor of Tampa, Florida from 2011-2019, about the role that mayors have played during COVID-19 and how they have to put partisans allegiances aside during times of crisis. As Bob says, people look to mayors for empathy and solidarity in the face of uncertainty — whether it's a natural disaster or a pandemic.
Bob also talks about his history in politics, which began not long after he graduated from Penn State. Under his leadership, Tampa became known as a city on the rise for startups and economic development. Though he's no longer mayor, he continues an active role in the city's government.
Nicole graduated from Penn State in May and is currently pursuing career opportunities in digital media. We really appreciate all of her help behind the scenes on the show over the past few months and wish her success in her career.
These days, it can feel like some politicians are working against experts in public health and other fields when it comes to actions surrounding COVID-19. There's always been a tension between populism and expertise, but our media landscape and strong partisan polarization are pushing that tension to its breaking point — or so it seems, anyway.
As with many issues we've covered on this show, there's more to it than meets the eye, and we are digging into the relationship between expertise and democracy this week in a collaborative episode with our colleagues at Penn State's Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences. The Huck Institutes produce The Symbiotic Podcast, a show that explores how scientists are collaborating in new ways to solve complex global problems.
In this episode, you'll hear Symbiotic Podcast host Cole Hons and Democracy Works host Jenna Spinelle in conversation with Taylor Scott, associate director of the Research-to-Policy Collaboration, and Democracy Works host Michael Berkman. We discuss how organizations like the Research-to-Policy Collaboration seek to promote engagement between researchers and legislators and what both groups can do to make the relationship stronger. We also talk about why expertise is important in a democracy and what happens when it is undermined.
Don't forget, we are still taking questions for the second annual Democracy Works listener mailbag episode. We'll read your questions on the show and choose three submissions to win Democracy Works mugs.
Submit your question here.
Research-to-Policy Collaboration
Does Congress promote partisan gridlock?
How conspiracies are damaging democracy
Michael Mann's journey through the climate wars
This episode was recorded on May 6, 2020. Thank you to Cole Hons of The Symbiotic Podcast for engineering the recording session. The episode was edited by WPSU's Mark Stitzer and reviewed by WPSU News Director Emily Reddy.
As if the COVID-19 pandemic wasn't enough to deal with, the World Health Organization says we're now in an infodemic alongside it. We've seen this play out as misinformation and conspiracy theories move from digital to mainstream media and cast a shadow of doubt about information coming from the government and public health experts.
Our guests this week have been tracking China's role in this infodemic and argue that Beijing is taking a few pages out of Russia's playbook for interfering in the 2016 U.S. election and its broader efforts to undermine democracy around the world. Jessica Brandt and Bret Schafer are part of the Alliance for Securing Democracy, which tracks online information manipulation through its Hamilton 2.0 dashboard.
Early on in the pandemic, they saw an uptick in tweets from Chinese diplomats and embassies that were amplifying conspiracy theories about the virus's origin and casting doubt on information from the World Health Organization and other official sources. The goal is not necessarily to have people believe these claims, but to stir up enough doubt to discredit democratic norms and institutions.
If you enjoy this episode, we recommend checking out the Out of Order podcast, produced by the German Marshall Fund of the United States and part of The Democracy Group podcast network.
Finally, it's time for the second annual Democracy Works listener mailbag episode! In a few weeks, we will record an episode answering your questions before we take a summer break. Send us your question about democracy and we'll answer it on the show, plus you'll have the chance to win a Democracy Works mug.
Jessica and Bret's article on China's COVID-19 disinformation efforts
The Democracy Group podcast network
Listener mailbag question submission
Protecting democracy from foreign interference
How conspiracies are damaging democracy
This episode was recorded on April 28, 2020. It was engineered by Jenna Spinelle, edited by Jen Bortz, and reviewed by Emily Reddy.
COVID-19 has exposed longstanding racial and economic inequalities in American life, which is evident in the fact that communities of color are being hit the hardest by both the medical and the economic impacts of the virus. Our guest this week argues that now is the time to empower those communities to have a stake in building a better future for themselves and making our democracy stronger in the process.
Our guest this week is K. Sabeel Rahman, president of Demos and co-author of the new book Civic Power: Rebuilding American Democracy in an Era of Crisis. He is also an associate professor of law at Brooklyn Law School, where he teaches constitutional law, administrative law, and courses on law and inequality. His last book, Democracy Against Domination, won the Dahl Prize for scholarship on the subject of democracy.
Rahman argues that the old ways of thinking about and participating aren't working for under-represented groups. His book lays out a framework for how to make democracy reform more inclusive and how to balance liberalism and democracy by making institutions more representative of the communities they serve. The book was written before the pandemic hit, but feels even more relevant today.
After the interview, you'll hear an ad for Future Hindsight, one of our fellow podcasts in The Democracy Group podcast network. The show's new season on misinformation and democracy launches Friday, May 15.
Civic Power: Rebuilding American Democracy in an Era of Crisis
It's time for the second annual Democracy Works listener mailbag episode! Send us your question about democracy and we'll answer it on the show.
Civic engagement, social distancing, and democracy reform
Doing the hard work of democracy in Baltimore
The ongoing struggle for civil rights
This episode was recorded on April 16 and May 5, 2020. It was engineered by Jenna Spinelle, edited by Jen Bortz, and reviewed by Emily Reddy.
This episode was recorded before COVID-19 changed everything, but many of the themes we discuss about public opinion polling and the importance of trust and facts to a democracy are perhaps more relevant now than ever before.
We talked with Michael Dimock, president of the Pew Research Center, about how the organization approaches polling in a world that increasingly presents competing partisan visions of reality.
Trust in the media and government has been declining for years, if not longer, and may be exacerbated by COVID-19. What's more concerning for democracy, Pew's Trust Facts, and Democracy project found, is that our trust in each other is also declining.
People don't trust their peers to use good judgement when comes to evaluating information or making political decisions — especially when it comes to people from the opposing political party. Polling done as part of Trust, Facts, and Democracy found that about 60% of adults said they have little or no confidence in the wisdom of the American people when it comes to making political decisions.
What does that mean for democracy? Dimock doesn't shy away from talking about the grim realities of our current political climate, but does offer a few glimmers of hope from the Trust, Facts, and Democracy work.
Pew's Trust Facts and Democracy project
After the Fact podcast from the Pew Charitable Trusts
The McCourtney Institute for Democracy's Mood of the Nation Poll
Democracy is very much a group activity. Inside, we come together to debate, discuss, do the work of government, and make laws. Outside, we protest and hold rallies. But much of this is not possible. Social distancing presents a tremendous challenge. In this episode from The Democracy Group podcast network, we look at the barriers and the opportunities as we all deal with the COVID-19 pandemic.
“COVID, the pandemic … has really brought to bear not just the inequities and the inequalities, but also the necessity to have a much more active sense of democracy as a verb — democracy as an action that we can all be part of.”
-Juleyka Lantigua-Williams, 70 Million
Richard Davies
Co-host, How Do We Fix It?
@DaviesNow
Mila Atmos
Host, Future Hindsight
@milaatmos
Juleyka Lantigua-Williams, Founder and CEO of Lantigua-Williams and Co.
Creator and Executive Producer, 70 Million
@JuleykaLantigua
Carah Ong-Whaley, Associate Director at James Madison Center for Civic Engagement at James Madison University
Co-host, Democracy Matters
@CarahOng
Lee Drutman, Senior Fellow at New America
Co-host, Politics in Question
@leedrutman
From Maine to California, people across the country have gathered at their state capitols over the past few weeks to protest stay at home orders issued by their governors in response to COVID-19. Protest is a hallmark of any democracy, but what happens when doing so comes with health risks? What is motivating people to take to the streets? How should media organizations cover the protests, and how do the people protesting feel about the media?
Joining us this week to explore some of those questions is Chris Fitzsimon, director and publisher of States Newsroom, a collective of nonprofit news sites that cover state politics in many of the places where the "reopen" protests have occurred. Fitzsimon talks about what his organization's reporters have observed on the ground and the challenges that states face in deciding when to lift stay at home orders and restart economic activity.
We also discuss how this movement came together and whether it might have staying power beyond the immediate concerns related to COVID-19.
Visit ratethispodcast.com/democracy to leave a rating or review for Democracy Works.
The McCourtney Institute for Democracy is starting a virtual book club! Our first selection will be How Democracies Die by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt. Join us for online meetings May 20 and 21. Visit democracy.psu.edu/book to learn more and RSVP.
COVID-19 exposes democracy's tensions
Tracing the past, present, and future of protests
How the Tea Party and the Resistance are upending American politics
This episode was recorded on April 22, 2020. It was engineered by Jenna Spinelle, edited by Chris Kugler, and reviewed by Emily Reddy.
We are part of The Democracy Group, a network of podcasts that examines what’s broken in our democracy and how we can work together to fix it.