The Democracy Group

More than ever, civic learning is needed to ensure each and every person across this country has the necessary tools to engage as members of our self-governing society. However, schools are also a growing part of the culture wars. According to a 2022 National Education Association Survey, nearly half of schools reported challenges teaching about race and racism and practices related to LGBTQ stude...

CPF Director Bob Shrum joins Sir Lindsay Hoyle, Speaker of the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, for a discussion on how the United Kingdom Parliament operates and the special relationship between the United States and the UK. They discuss the powers of the Speaker of the House of Commons, how elections and political parties work in the UK, and advice to students who want to get involved in...

By any measure this has been a momentous week for global politics. President Biden’s surprise  trip to Kyiv , his  “freedom” speech  in Warsaw, the visit of China’s top diplomat to Moscow, and  Vladimir Putin’s decision  to suspend Russian participation in the last remaining nuclear arms treaty with the U.S. are all signs of deepening big-power tensions.  This coincides with the first anniversary...

"WHEN TWO ENEMIES ARE TALKING, THEY'RE NOT FIGHTING." When Daryl Davis was ten, he didn’t understand hate yet. But then he was the only black scout in a parade to honor Paul Revere’s ride to Concord, when he began getting hit by bottles. It was then that he formed a question in his mind that he’s spent much of a lifetime answering: “How can you hate me when you don’t even know me?” Failing to find...

Why has it been over a decade since an incumbent senator was successfully primaried in a regularly-scheduled election? Which Senators might be vulnerable to a primary challenge in 2024? What are the primaries that merit watching? How will changes in the Democratic presidential primary schedule play out? How should the Republican Party consider changes it might make to the way it nominates presiden...

Octavia Abell is the co-founder and CEO of Govern For America, which describes its mission as bridging the gap between governments and emerging leaders to build a pipeline of diverse and dynamic public sector talent. We discuss the power of public sector workers to be agents of change, whether that's public policy on climate or streamlining the process of getting a birth certificate. Government ca...

America’s Constitution was meant to unify the new nation and help avert a civil war over the thorniest of divisions: slavery. Oops! In retrospect, that charter proved much too ambiguous, lending itself to both proslavery and abolitionist causes. In this season’s premiere, historian Liz Varon discusses the deep roots of polarization in the United States — with Will, Siva and an auditorium full of t...

In this week’s episode of Politics In Question , Rachel Lears joins Julia and James to discuss how filmmaking can help us understand how people make political change happen. Lears is an award-winning documentary director, producer, and cinematographer. Her film Knock Down the House (Netflix) won the U.S. Documentary Audience award and the Festival Favorite award at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival....

Farai interviews senior news writer and founding staffer at The Trace, Jennifer Mascia on the recent shootings in California, and what's going wrong with gun regulations in the US. Then, she speaks with the President of the American Psychological Association, Dr. Thema Bryant on how to identify individuals who are prone to committing acts of domestic terrorism, as well as how affected communities...

Independent voters make up more than 40 percent of the voting public. But you wouldn’t know that from media coverage, which focuses almost exclusively on red versus blue. Independents are often overlooked or seen as wishy-washy. Our guests on this episode say that’s a big misconception.  In this show we look at a group of voters, including many young people, that is making up a growing slice of th...

Currently, over 7 million people are under some form of carceral supervision in the United States–from custody to bail to probation. For our final episode, 70 Million reporter Mark Betancourt moderates a conversation about the role we, the public, play in creating and sustaining the matrix of incarceration as it exists today. He’s joined by Cornell professor Peter K. Enns, author of the book Incar...

How much news is too much? Or not enough? News Over Noise, the new podcast from Penn State's News Literacy Initiative explores that question and offers guidance on how to consume news that enhances your participation in our democracy without becoming overwhelmed by all the noise on social media and the 24/7 news cycle.  News Over Noise co-hosts Matt Jordan and Leah Dajches join us this week to dis...

Michael Walzer is an emeritus professor at the Institute for Advanced Study. He was also a longtime editor of Dissent . He is the author of many books including the classic of political philosophy Spheres of Justice . His most recent book is called The Struggle for a Decent Politics: On “Liberal” as an Adjective . Key Highlights Introduction - 0:45 What is Liberalism? 3:53 Liberal Democracy - 11:4...

In this week’s episode of Politics In Question , Julia and Lee kick off a new year by considering what the House Speaker election says about the Republican Party. What is going on with the GOP? Is the Speaker's race an example of healthy factional fighting? Or is it a sign of Republican disarray? How does the Republican infighting differ from recent debates within the Democratic Party? And what is...

Want to know one of the most exciting and innovative ways to find common ground? Get people out of their political bunkers and move them beyond rigid polarization in our divided nation. Consider local grassroots efforts, such as the one we profile in this podcast episode. Journalist Simon Montlake of The Christian Science Monitor tells us about  his reporting  on a lively grassroots effort in nort...

Two years after the attack on the U.S. Capitol, Farai interviews Dr. Barbara F. Walter, Rohr Professor of Pacific International Relations at the University of California, San Diego, and author of the New York Times bestseller, How Civil Wars Start, on the serious threat factionalism poses to American democracy. Then, Farai talks to former FBI agent, counterterrorism expert, and Associate Senior Vi...

For the second anniversary of the violent attacks on the U.S. Capitol, we spoke with Sandra Garza, a clinical social worker, veteran, and partner of Private First Class Brian Sicknick, a U.S. Capitol Police officer who died of injuries sustained during the insurrection on January 6th, 2021.  Ms. Garza shares her experiences attending the House Select Committee hearings and what more needs to be do...

Steve Phillips is the host of the Democracy in Color podcast and the author of How We Win the Civil War: Securing a Multiracial Democracy and Ending White Supremacy for Good . We start off a new year of civic engagement and fighting for democracy with a conversation about his political leadership, thought leadership, and coalition building. The Confederate Battle plan of never giving an inch, ruth...

Hedrick Smith, Pulitzer Prize-winning former New York Times reporter and editor and Emmy award-winning producer/correspondent, has established himself over the past 50 years as one of America’s premier journalists. His best-seller, “Who Stole the American Dream” is a startling and revealing portrait of the past 30 years of U.S. political and economic history, hailed both for its compelling stories...

Ana Sofia Palaez joins The Great Battlefield podcast to talk about her career as a food and culture writer and co-founding the Miami Freedom Project where they are working to organize the Cuban community in Miami. Additional Information The Great Battlefield Podcast More shows from The Democracy Group Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collectio...

2022 was another year of COVID-induced anxiety with widespread worries about democracy, polarization, climate change and threats to democracy. But in this new year special Richard and Jim say we have reached peak fear. America may well be calming down and headed towards a new sense of normal. Our co-hosts throw caution to the wind with a series of fresh outside-the-box forecasts for the twelve mon...

We continue our Best of 2022 episodes with an  episode from the When the People Decide podcast, hosted by Jenna Spinelle. Learn about the basics of the ballot initiative, the history of how it caught on in the United States, and the pros and cons that she will explore throughout the series. A campaign in Michigan to end partisan gerrymandering in 2018 is part of a legacy of ballot initiatives dati...

We continue our Best of 2022 episodes with an  episode from the Village SquareCast podcast, hosted by the Village Square. How do societies respond to great demographic change? This question lingers over the contemporary politics of the United States and other countries where persistent immigration has altered populations and may soon produce a majority minority milestone. Or where the original eth...

We continue our Best of 2021 episodes with an  episode from the The Bully Pulpit podcast, hosted by Bob Shrum and Mike Murphy For the 2022 Trojan Family Weekend, CPF Co-Directors and veteran political strategists Bob Shrum and Mike Murphy have a balanced and witty conversation about the latest political headlines. They discuss Joe Biden's administration, the state of the Democratic and Republican...

We continue our Best of 2022 episodes with an  episode from the Our Body Politic podcast, hosted by Farai Chideya. Our Body Politic celebrates its 100th episode. Host Farai Chideya reflects on some of the show’s most impactful moments of news and political coverage over the past two years with OBP regular contributors Karen Attiah, columnist for the Washington Post and Tiffany Jeffers, associate p...