The New York Times Magazine 49largely unwilling to speak out publicly — and
having them in many cases on the same ticket.
And that means something that we have not
seen enough of in the last couple of decades,
which is real political sacrifi ce. It means that life-
long Republicans have to work to elect Demo-
crats. And it means the progressives have to set
aside a slew of policy issues that they care deeply
about so that the ticket is comfortable to right-
wing politicians. And we’re nowhere near that,
neither in the Bush-Cheney network nor in the
Democratic Party. Having talked to a number of
Democratic elected politicians, I can tell you that
we are nowhere near Democrats being willing to
make those kinds of political sacrifi ce. But that
is what is needed.
Longwell: Republicans have to lose elections,
and the Democrats have to build a suffi cient
pro-democracy coalition, one that spans from
Liz Cheney to Liz Warren, to defeat this author-
itarian version of the Republican Party. My
criticism of Democrats is this: I’ve always been
focused on the national debt. Big issue for me;
real defi cit hawk over here. I still care, but I now
have higher-order concerns because I think
American democracy is at stake. If you believe
that the Republican Party is the existential threat
that we have all just laid out, and I agree that it
is, then the only thing to do is win elections and
defeat antidemocratic Republicans.
And right now, this insane authoritarian
party appears poised to kick Democrats’ butts
in 2022. Why? Democrats keep putting forward
unpopular ideas. We’re being told they’re popu-
lar, but they’re not. Voters weren’t interested in
‘‘transformational change’’ from the Build Back
Better plan. They wanted Covid under control.
They wanted gas prices to be lower. They don’t
want runaway infl ation. Even voter ID is pop-
ular — and I’m not saying you should run on
voter ID, but there needs to be a sense among
Democrats of, how do we reach the swing voters
on the center-right that do think the Republican
Party is going too far? Why aren’t they talking to
Republicans from the beginning about how to
put together a voting rights bill that could pass?
Ifi ll: I agree with you that the big tent is the way,
but I’m skeptical that we get there on the kind
of logical proposals that in the past might have
attracted a coalition. Going back to the voting
bill: The summer of 2021 was devoted to giving
Joe Manchin a chance, which he requested, to
shop to Republicans a more modest and prag-
matic bill, which did include voter ID. We real-
ized that that’s what people like. I think we’re at
a point right now where the off er of the sensible
deal does not seem to be the kind of thing that
people are prepared to coalesce around because
of just what you described. There’s a kind of a
madness in the air. There’s a kind of a decadence.
But can I ask — because I rarely get this oppor-
tunity and Ben is here — I’m wondering, what
do you see? Are there avenues to get in to the
party that you have known and to tap into some
remaining moral integrity and vision of people
who are in that party?
Ginsberg: Your question does point up the prob-
lem. I’m not at all in lock step with the current
Republican Party, but I’m as close as many on
the left get to interacting with a partisan Repub-
lican. We are so polarized that the diff erent sides
just are not talking to each other at all. It seems
to me that if there is an avenue that’s going to
work, it has to be that we all swallow hard and
again start talking to people with whom we really
don’t agree, and maybe think we don’t respect,
to see if there is common ground. We need, as
a country and as individuals in communities, to
take the really diffi cult step of fi guring out how
to start having those conversations.
Longwell: Part of what has changed is that Repub-
licans have decided that it’s no longer important
to be tethered to the truth. Even if Republicans
don’t explicitly repeat Trump’s lies about the
2020 election, they help add credibility and fuel
to his claims by auditing elections and pushing
bills under the guise of ‘‘election integrity’’ even
though there’s no evidence of widespread voter
fraud in 2020. Just ask Trump’s attorney general,
Bill Barr. You guys know who is most worried
about democracy being under attack?
Mason: Republicans.
Longwell: Republicans! There’s a good CNN
poll on this that asks, do you think American
democracy is under attack? 46 percent of Demo-
crats said ‘‘yes,’’ 46 percent of independents said
‘‘yes’’ and a full 66 percent of Republicans said
‘‘yes.’’ That’s because Republicans labor under
the delusion that the 2020 election was stolen. So
they are the most concerned about democracy.
The people who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6
thought they were fi ghting for democracy.
So ‘‘democracy’’ can be kind of an opaque
term for voters. The public doesn’t really care
about democracy the way we are talking about
it in this conversation. And one of the reasons I
reach for politics as the best solution is that there
has to be a lever by which we defend democracy
by winning elections.
Mason: One possible scenario is that we are just
in the middle of this very bumpy part of a very
necessary road that we have to drive down. And
ultimately, we might get to a better place, to a
smoother part of the road, or the wheels fall off
the car, right? We just don’t know what’s going
to happen now because we’re in the middle of
it. It feels totally chaotic because it is chaotic.
And Trump’s presidency allowed us to see that
for the fi rst time.
I fi l l : Something that we underestimate, that
Trump sold, he sold a kind of freedom. Those
rallies, you know, ‘‘punch him in the face,’’
‘‘grab women by the P’’ — what he off ered is:‘‘You know how you’ve been in these meetings,
and you’ve been wondering whether to call the
person Black or African American, or felt uncom-
fortable making a joke that might seem sexist?
You don’t have to worry about that anymore. Just
be you, man. Just be you.’’ He sold that. And that
was incredibly attractive.
Mason: On the other hand, we’ve never explic-
itly talked about equality in a productive way
without also encountering violence. True multi-
ethnic democracy is an elusive goal, and it’s not
clear that we know how to get there.
Anderson: What is so scary is that, you know,
what generally happens is that if you have a com-
mon enemy, it causes a coalescence among these
disparate groups. Covid-19 was that common
enemy, and instead, you saw greater fi ssioning
between folks, greater division with this com-
mon enemy that has killed almost one million
Americans. We couldn’t pull it together. We
couldn’t rally around. We couldn’t agree on basic
facts. That fi ssioning tells me how in trouble we
are. I worry greatly about our democracy because
where we should be able to see us coming togeth-
er, instead of a ‘‘we’’ moment it is an ‘‘I’’ moment.
And we’ve got to get to the ‘‘we.’’ We have got to
get to the ‘‘we.’’
Homans: I wonder, though — is there a ‘‘we’’?
I’ve been thinking about this, watching the war
in Ukraine, which, besides bringing the matter
of democracy’s global health to the fore, has so
clearly centered on the question of how nations
defi ne things like cultural identity, sovereignty
and an agreed-upon history — and what they
defi ne them against. Are Americans anywhere
close to having a shared answer to that question
themselves? Have these events changed your
thinking at all about the fragility — or resilience
— of democracy, or suggested any lessons we
should apply to the United States?
Levitsky: I think it’s too early to tell. This is pre-
cisely the sort of issue that should bring our lead-
ers together, as it has in most Western democ-
racies. It certainly is good to see many leading
Republicans taking a strong stance against the
Russian invasion, but I am skeptical that the
MAGA faction will come around in any serious
way. And given the extremism of the Republi-
can base, it’s hard to imagine many Republicans
giving Biden the support he needs. In short, I’d
be mighty pleased if Russian militarism helped
bring our parties together, but I’d also be some-
what surprised.
Homans: Is there any reason to think there’s an
alternative to the very bumpy road ahead that
Lily talked about?
Levitsky: The crossroads that American democ-
racy is at right now are pretty damn close to
unique. I mean, we are on the brink of some-
thing very new and very challenging. So it is not
easy to fi nd solutions, best practices elsewhere;
the creation of a truly multiracial democracy is
uncharted territory.Democracy
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