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As difficult as this is to remember, 2021 began with a sense of political optimism in America, with Joe Biden's victory in the presidential election followed by the two surprise wins in the U.S. Senate runoffs in Georgia. But the Democratic "trifecta" (White House, Senate and House) has delivered only limited results, and the drawn-out sabotage by Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema has left many frustrated, dispirited or disillusioned. But not everyone and not everywhere. In fact, that high-level betrayal has only motivated some people more.

Even as things grew darker, with the widespread assault on voting rights and the manufactured backlash over "critical race theory," the public simply doesn't believe that racism is just a Marxist hoax. In fact, most people understand that it's real, and support teaching actual history, even if that's not always comfortable. Even in deep-red Wyoming, an anti-CRT bill was voted down, after one of just seven Democrats in the state legislature called out its provision that "The teaching of history must be neutral, without judgment," saying, "I'm Jewish, and I cannot accept a neutral judgment-free approach on the murder of 6 million Jews in World War II."

RELATED:Right's attack on "critical race theory" goes back decades but media hasn't noticed

"His fight inspired enough members to vote it down," tweeted Amanda Litman, co-founder of Run for Something. "It matters to elect fighters in every state, no matter how red. You never know who will make the difference!" This outlook so central to the mission of Litman's organization echoes what David Pepper told me in a recent interview: "Democracy must be protected in every state, every year, in every office that has some lever over democracy."

And democracy itself is the basic issue, as political scientist Mark Copelovitch noted recently. "On every issue, the median voter doesn't want the policies the GOP is selling," he tweeted, offering supporting data. "Eventually, your positions get so extreme that the one option left is restricting democracy. We're there now."

The Democratic establishment may still be struggling with denial about the seriousness of the attack on American democracy, but Run for Something, Litman's group, absolutely isn't. Our democracy is hanging by a thread, and the urgency of their work shows it. Run for Something has always been focused first and foremost on local and state legislative races, where the battle to preserve our democracy is most intense, and on the long-term goal of building political power where others have not. They primarily seek to elevate and support progressive candidates under age 40, especially those from under-represented groups. In terms of geography, Run for Something supports promising candidates wherever they happen to be, departing from the Democratic Party's typical narrow focus on identifying "electable" (i.e., moderate or centrist) contenders in swing states and swing districts.

In Its recently-posted 2022 strategic plan, the group's focus on protecting democracy has only intensified. RFS notes its 2021 focus on school board and election administration races and adds, "We're working to recruit and support candidates for local election administration roles in key districts across the country because these are the positions that will determine whether or not democracy survives past 2024."

Anyone who wants to join that fight should be energized by what Run For Something is doing. I recently spoke with Amanda Litman about the group's history, values and strategies, as well as how it actually functions on the ground. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

So what specifically does Run for Something do?

Run for Something recruits and supports young, diverse progressives who are running for local office all across the country.

Who do you reach out to and who reaches out to you?

We specifically are looking for people 40 years old or younger who are running for things like city councils, school board, library board, state legislature the real building blocks of democracy.

You don't endorse everyone who vaguely matches those criteria, do you? It's a long process, and the term "progressive" is amorphous. What specifically are you looking for?

We make sure we're engaging with people who share our values. We define progressive really broadly, because we work in so many states and with so many kinds of offices. We're looking for people who are pro-choice, pro-equality, pro-tolerance.

Run for Something started in January 2017, around the same time as the Women's March, Indivisible, Swing Left and Flippable a moment when a lot of people recognized a need to do things differently. What was the motivation in common with those other organizations, and what was distinctive? And how has that developed since then?

All those groups started around 2017 or 2018, and many of them were created in response to [the election of] Trump. For us, that was not really the goal. We weren't a "resistance" group. We were trying to build democratic infrastructure and trying to meet people who are looking for a way to fight back, an entry point into elected office. But only 3% of the people who sign up with us and actually get on the ballot mention Trump as the reason they're running. It was the water people were swimming in, but it wasn't the bait.

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I think now, a lot of the groups focused on the federal level I would find it very difficult if I were doing federal work. But it seems clear that locally, the work around state legislatures, city councils, school boards and library boards is a way you can both make meaningful progress and help stop the absolute worst.

In your 2022 strategic plan you write, "Our work is long-term and strategic; we don't pivot from cycle to cycle. Instead, we're always deepening our efforts, refining our program, and prioritizing as the moment requires." Talk about how you conceive of that long-term strategic work, and how that has evolved.

So we think about time horizons in terms of success: We expected most first-time candidates we worked with to lose. It's really hard to run for office the first time out. That 42% or so of the folks we work with do win is great, and we're proud of that. But we think about this in terms of long-term power-building for someone to run and win, or run and lose, is a way for them to galvanize a community.

RELATED:Democracy vs. fascism: What do those words mean and do they describe this moment?

We also think about this in terms of geographywe're willing to engage in races where most people aren't. You know, that's often a controversial thing, but we think it matters to give Democrats in Kansas or Montana or Idaho or wherever they are a chance to make their voice heard. We know that campaigns are a way to build political power. Even if they lose, it brings new people into the fold, they update data, they engage in the issues. And as we think more long-term, the people we work with now, in their first race for city council or school board, could one day be members of Congress or governors or president. So that's how we think about the long tail of our work.

That sounds very similar to the perspective David Pepper offers in his book "Laboratories of Autocracy." He talks about the importance of fighting for democracy everywhere and of having a long-term perspective. People who run in unwinnable races are the real heroes, he says, because they reach people who wouldn't be reached otherwise and make future victories possible. But at the same time, you have limited resources, and winning now is important to encourage people and create momentum. How do you deal with that tension?

I think there's always tension between the problems and the urgency of the moment and the long-term vision, but we have tried to balance the two and name the tension, broaden the tension, try to take advantage. We note that sometimes those come into conflict, but also that we're working with our values here. Sometimes you make short-term sacrifices to benefit the long-term vision.

RELATED:How the states have become "Laboratories of Autocracy" and why it's worse than you think

Pepper characterizes the two parties as having very different approaches to politics. Democrats view it as a battle over elections, assuming that democracy itself is intact and stable, while Republicans are battling against democracy itself. So that leads Democrats to focus more on swing states and districts, while Republicans are fighting democracy everywhere continuously, which gives them a significant advantage. It seems to me that Run for Something doesn't necessarily share that assumption that democracy itself is intact and stable, so you're more capable of seeing the battle clearly.

I think that's absolutely right. Democracy is in danger. We see this in the fights for school boards, in the fights for local election administrators, in the fights for secretaries of state. If you control what kids learn, if you control how people can engage with government, if you control the experiences they have with government, you get a chance to determine the kinds of citizens they grow up to be.

Along the same lines, your 2022 strategic plan says, "Democrats don't have a branding problem. The government has a branding problem. Democrats are the party of government, and right now, people hate government. We have to elect good people who actually produce results, talk about those results non-stop, and restore some faith in this system." Can you cite some examples of what that looks like in practice?

Yes. I think it's really hard to imagine this on the federal level, because of Congress, but on the local level you've seen some really meaningful stuff. So the Berkeley City Council, for example, ended single-family zoning for housing and got the police out of traffic enforcement. The folks who led that include Run for Something alumni Rigel Robinson and Terry Taplin.

In Florida, Anna Eskamani, a state representative outside of Orlando, has been helping folks navigate the broken unemployment system, making sure that 50,000 Floridians get access to the benefits they deserve. She's doing town halls and Twitter chats, and answering DMs late into the night. She's going door-to-door, she and her team are deeply engaging with folks, not just about government services, but making sure they know that she is fighting for them. We're seeing this over and over again.

In Harris County, Texas, Lina Hidalgo, the county judge, has changed the way the county budgets, ended cash bail and re-organized the way they do flood relief, disaster relief. That makes people's lives better. And she is one of the first executives in Harris County [with 4.7 million residents, the third most-populous county in the nation] to hold bilingual press conferences. It's about how information is managed, which is really important if you want to communicate with voters where they are on the issues they care about, both about what you're doing and about making sure their government experience whether it's at the library, at the DMV or at City Hall, or getting their license at the county clerk when they're getting married is seamless and enjoyable.

Those are great examples. To what extent do you share those examples with others in your network, so there's a collective learning experience?

It's a big part of what we do. Every person we endorse in 2022 and this has been true for three or four years gets connected to someone we endorsed in a previous cycle. So the college student who ran in 2018 will get connected to the college student who ran in 2020, who will then get connected to the college student who's running in 2022. We also connect people across the types of positions, so that we have a cohort of school board members and a cohort of county executives. We're able to play matchmaker in that regard.

You've always had a local focus. But you're intensifying that this year, according to your strategic plan, with a particular focus on school boards and election officials. What past lessons and achievements on the local level stand out for you, and how do you bring more attention to these races, which have traditionally been neglected?

For us, these positions are everything. For us, these positions are foundational to democracy. What kids learn determines what kind of citizens they grow up to be, what kind of elections are actually run determines how citizens can participate. It really matters to have good people in these offices.

We know that, in no small part, because the other side is putting so much time and money into recruiting and supporting candidates for those positions. Steve Bannon is going on his podcast every day and asking people to run for local office. In the top of the QAnon forum, you see "run for office, run for city council, show up at your school board meeting." Oath Keepers and Proud Boys are dedicating their efforts and refocusing their priorities on local positions. That's because they know that's how you can win and just a little bit goes a long way. Then you get to control structures and how people can engage, and you get to limit who can engage. And all of a sudden or not all of a sudden, over the course of decades you have long-term sustainable power, for better or for worse.

So for us, these positions are the heart and soul of democracy, and we want to make sure we are fielding as many good candidates as possible, while we still have a chance.

When it comes to these races, conservatives have ready-made narratives to draw on, so there's an imbalance for our side, along with the problem of dealing with the confounding flow of disinformation. What resources do you share with the people you're supporting to help them push back?

We are not focused on solving the media ecosystem problem. What we're trying to do is make sure that candidates we're working with are empowered to knock on as many doors and connect with as many voters one-on-one as possible, because we know that the disinformation is less effective and the lies don't stick when you know the person. Like, obviously Jane Does is not a lizard person she comes to my house, I know her. I see her in the grocery store. That kind of personal relationship between candidate and voter can help defend against disinformation. We have to make sure that the candidates are doing so in every possible race, we need to do that door-knocking and contacting as efficiently as possible.

So what is the process like for people who approach you as prospective candidates? Your strategic reports says you had recruited more than 90,000 people to consider running for office, as of the end of last year. Most of those people don't end up running, so what do they get out of the process? And what do you get?

So we are now up to 106,000 young people who are in our pipeline. You sign up on our website, you need to tell us about running for office and you join a conference call where we answer your basic questions about running. We then have a one-on-one with one of our volunteers, who are trained to answer a basic number of questions, as well as to learn a bit more about you, the potential candidate. You're then admitted to the Run for Something program. Every day, you're going to get emails and text messages and updates sharing things like how to file and get on the ballot, new trainings that we and our partners are running, opportunities to apply for an endorsement, materials on how to set up a campaign plan, how to write a budget and how to set your win number.

Once you've officially gotten on the ballot, you can apply for our endorsement. There's an additional application: We want to see that plan, we want to see a budget, we want to know how you're going to get from A to Z. We do rigorous background checks. We want to make sure that what you're telling us and what you're telling voters are the same. And then we do a review with someone on the ground in that state to give us some political confidence. Every person who applies for endorsement goes through a review and then we make some decisions.

What happens once they're actually endorsed?

Endorsed candidates get to work one-on-one with our regional staff, who will help figure out what they need. Maybe they need to have the state party answer their emails. Maybe they need training, maybe they need someone to run a funder pitch past, maybe they need a boost of confidence before a forum. We track our endorsed candidates through Election Day, and connect them with previous endorsed candidates to get mentorship. We recommend them to the press and other organizations for potential endorsements, and to help raise money and get volunteers. And then endorsed candidates are who we consider our alumni. It's a soup-to-nuts experience.

What about the role of active volunteers? Are you recruiting, and if so, what's involved?

If you go to our website you can sign up to volunteer. The best, most important thing we need is more people to help us stream through the pipeline. No special experience is needed. We'll tell you how to interview for information, and coach you on that conversation. It's really a joyful volunteer experience. We also have a way for you to volunteer if you have special skills and want to use them to support a candidate. You can apply to join our mentorship database. If candidates need a website developer, a content creator or a public policy expert, if they submit a specific question, we'll reach out and see if you're available to help them.

What new wrinkles have you introduced for this election cycle?

Basically we're deepening the way we run our program, trying to be more thoughtful. We're especially thinking about programs for folks who're often underrepresented in government, so that means women of color, Black women specifically, Native American candidates, Latinx candidates, people with disabilities, candidates who are neurodiverse, rural candidates. We're trying to make sure we are as expansive as possible, and providing the support that people need, not just what makes us feel good.

It stood out for me that Kansas is one of your top-tier states, because Democrats' lack of outreach to rural voters and rural states is something I've written about. I interviewed Jane Kleeb about her book "Harvest the Vote," for example. So tell me what you're doing in Kansas, and what can be learned from what's happening there?

RELATED:Democrats can reclaim rural America and Jane Kleeb wants to show them how

Kansas has a Democratic governor, which I think people forget. So it's possible for a Democrat to win statewide in Kansas. We've seen a ton of organic interest out of that, and it's been a place where we know especially around the suburbs that there are exciting, interesting young Democrats who want to get engaged and want to be heard.

I think Kansas is a really good example of a state where the Republicans went too far, and people pushed back. That's how we got Laura Kelly elected governor [in 2018], and without a ton of infrastructure. So we are trying to make sure we're working with folks on the ground, that we're working with our candidates and our alumni there, trying to support them. Over time, and we don't expect to do this overnight, but maybe over the course of the next 15 years if democracy survives long enough we can make Kansas the kind of place where we can win.

That reminds me of the "50-state strategy" Howard Dean tried to pursue when he was Democratic Party chair. How do you see the party organization now, and how can it be improved?

Right now the Democratic Party is deeply oriented around a presidential battleground structure. It's a big problem, for any number of reasons, not the least of which is that we have a Democratic governor in Kansas and a Democratic senator in Montana, but without the kind of infrastructure to support them we know that the "top of the ticket" isn't going to engage as meaningfully. That really hurts those candidates' chances.

Even in the presidential battleground states think about a state like Pennsylvania the places where Joe Biden really ran up the score versus the places where we needed to flip state legislative seats weren't necessarily the same. Those maps didn't overlap strategically, and counting on the top of the ticket to do all the work for everyone else really harms everyone. The president's job and a House member's job and the governor's job is to win. Their job is not to bring everyone else along with them. We shouldn't fault them for that, but as a party, and as donors and activists and operatives, we need to think expansively and make sure that we're working as a whole.

You've actually demonstrated the "reverse coattails" effect the ability of down-ballot local candidates to help the whole ticket. Talk about that.

We did some research, and we've done it now twice in different iterations, to prove out our theory that competing locally helps support folks nationally. We found that in a district where Democrats had not previously competed, simply tabling a full slate of Democrats for state legislature increased turnout and performance at the top of the ticket by anywhere from 0.6% to 1.3%. That's really meaningful, especially when you look at margins of victory in some of these battleground states.

In your Teen Vogue op-ed, you wrote that there are many reasons young people aren't rising to the top of the political system, including structural barriers that can only be solved within government. But you argue that some can be solved through activism as well.

A lot of state parties don't consider young people to be viable candidates because they don't have enough access to wealth. That's especially true for young women of color, which unfortunately makes sense. Young people do not have enough access to wealth. They're a poorer generation. Parties are operating from a place of scarcity, so they're trying to make sure that they take what they consider to be safe bets.

We also know that a lot of these positions are not not well-paid, if paid at all. It's really hard to do if you have young kids or you don't have a full-time job. It's hard to do without the support structures older folks might have. That doesn't mean it's impossible, it just means it's harder. That's one of the reasons we build community among our candidates, because we know otherwise it gets really lonely.

What's the biggest challenge that you see in the year ahead, for Run for Something specifically and for Democrats and progressives as a whole?

Not getting distracted by the flashy things. The biggest challenge for Democratic funders, activists and operatives is keeping our eyeS on the prize. It's going to be really hard, knowing that some of the Senate races are going to draw a lot of attention and some of these congressional races are going to suck up all the oxygen. But where the real fights are that matter is in ensuring that we are holding on and stanching the bleeding.

I also think we sometimes get lost in our head about the idea that "Democrats need a single message!" "Democrats need a bumper-sticker slogan!" I think that misunderstands how people consume information. Messenger and message are not two distinct things.What someone says and who is doing the saying are equally important. In fact, the "who" is maybe more important than the "what," because it comes with all the preconceived notions of who they are: Do they like me? "Do they care about me? Do they understand me?

When Joe Biden says something and AOC says the exact same words, it's received very differently. I want Democrats to focus on how we can localize these fights. How can we not get distracted by things that go viral on Twitter or the need for a bumper-sticker slogan, and really fix our shit at home.

Finally, what's the most important question I didn't ask? And what's the answer?

I would say the question I'm getting the most recently is, "How do I stay optimistic? Am I optimistic at all?" I have to say yes. I think that democracy is at a breaking point. If we can get through the next couple of years, the next three years, then the next five years after that are going to be unbelievably good.

I think the leadership we are cultivating, the talent that is rising, the folks who are taking charge of the cities and counties and state legislatures now are going to be amazing national leaders who are willing to take on tough fights and who know how to win them. We just have to get there. We have to go through some rough years, and then make it out on the other side.

Continued here:
The future of democracy: It might be a lot brighter than you think - Salon

FINALLY. HERES A BOOK that every university administrator should read. Every director of every staff member at a knowledge institution. Every teacher, curator, archivist. Everyone with a stake vested or vesting in education and culture.

The story that Ronald J. Daniels and his two co-authors, Grant Shreve and Phillip Spector, tell in What Universities Owe Democracy opens on three stages at once. In the preface, the curtain rises on March 1939, as the family of Danielss father is escaping from Poland. This is some six years into Adolf Hitlers reign in neighboring Germany and six months before the Nazis would invade the country from the West and the Soviets on the same day from the East. During the 12 years between Hitlers rise in 1933 and Germanys surrender in 1945, Canada admitted only 5,000 of the millions of Jews fleeing the Holocaust. Antisemitism was rife in the Canadian government at the time: one immigration official, asked how many Jews would be considered for entry, gave a now infamous response: None is too many. Only five members of Danielss family were admitted.

In the introduction, a few pages in, the curtain also goes up in the heart of Eastern Europe but now in January 2019, as Daniels is speaking with the great Hungarian archivist and historian Istvn Rv. Viktor Orbn, Hungarys bigoted prime minister, is in the final stages of closing and expelling Central European University, which will flee if a thing the size of a university can flee to Vienna that November. Orbn has murdered my institution, Rv tells Daniels. He has ripped it from its historic and geographic context, and stripped it of its identity. The CEU, founded by Hungarian migr billionaire George Soros, is but one symbol of free speech and free inquiry now banished from the country. For more than 10 years, Orbn has been cracking down on the media, the academy, the judiciary every bastion of independent thought and has directed particular venom toward immigrants and minorities.

The reverberations of 1939 in 2019 are one thing. Daniels completed the book, as he states in the conclusion, mere weeks after the putsch organized by the American president and revanchist Republicans in Washington, DC, in January 2021. The soundtrack, if a book can have a soundtrack, is the shouting and breaking glass the sound of flagpoles snapping and gallows for the vice president being hammered together at our Capitol building, just 40 miles south of where Daniels serves as the 14th president of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. That soundtrack was being played over the television, radio, and social media networks of the American right as What Universities Owe Democracy went to press, broadcast and rebroadcast to the applause of Trumps faithful followers and, increasingly, of Republican Party leaders, the newest antiheroes in our global timeline of deadly even murderous intolerance.

None is too many Daniels quotes the line. His book is a call to action, written with an urgency that was originally seeded, he tells us, in 2017, a time when so many of us were becoming increasingly concerned about the various threats posed to liberal democracy in America and beyond. The studious indifference that his birth country showed to his fathers family and to the humanitarian crisis of the Holocaust the time for accepting that sort of thing is over. The Trump name appears in the index only a few times, but the entire index could be named after him the Trumpodex just as university buildings are named after donors. The threat of Trump and his anti-democratic ilk hangs over Danielss book like the morning fog over the Danube.

There are about 4,000 institutions of higher learning in the United States. These liberal arts colleges, community colleges, public and private research universities, and online institutions teach approximately 20 million students and employ some 1.5 million faculty. They receive on the order $40 billion in research funding annually and existential benefits from federal and state tax policies and subsidies. Indeed, as Daniels points out, almost all of these institutions have been nurtured over the long history of the United States as vital establishments where reason and fact are venerated, and in the course of their individual histories they have become intimately and ineluctably bound to the project [] that is liberal democracy.

Now it is time, as the threats to democracy proliferate, for them to give back. Daniels tells us how. Four of the key functions American higher educational institutions have been developing over time launching meritorious individuals up the social ladder, educating citizens for democracy, creating and disseminating knowledge, and cultivating the meaningful exchange of ideas across difference need to deepen and accelerate now. In some sense the book is a long memorandum on university letterhead (To: Society; From: Ron Daniels; Re: Avoiding the Next, Likely More Fatal Putsch) and the calls to action come, correspondingly, in four sections. Each part gets its own chapter; each chapter addresses one of the essential functions the university plays (and must play more of) in civic life.

Danielss first chapter American Dreams: Access, Mobility, Fairness is a call for universities to end legacy admissions everywhere and to recommit, on a massive basis, to federal financial assistance to all students in higher ed. This is half what universities owe democracy and half what society owes universities, but the next three battle cries more closely fit the title. Colleges and universities receive students precisely as they are on the cusp of assuming the responsibilities of citizenship, Daniels reminds us. We need to remember that most college freshman are just four years away from having been eighth graders. He finds himself desolate about the civic literacy of his students. The second chapter (Free Minds: Educating Democratic Citizens) asks our institutions to teach more about the art and science of democratic citizenship even to implement a democracy requirement for graduation. As the value of factual knowledge seems to erode in our public square, the third chapter (Hard Truths: Creating Knowledge and Checking Power) calls upon universities to publish more knowledge of all kinds that is from the outset shareable and reproducible. The fourth chapter (Purposeful Pluralism: Dialogue across Difference on Campus) asks universities to reimagine and reconfigure student encounters (on campus and off) and to welcome rather than cancel vigorous debate around all of our burning social and political issues.

The university should brook no difference in obligation, he writes, from that which is borne by other key institutions the elected branches of government, the courts, media, and the vast political bureaucracy at a time when liberal democracy is under profound stress. Daniels is concerned with the future of the university but not only the university. Elevating the role of our 4,000 educational institutions, but also, by extension, our 35,000 museums and 120,000 libraries, Daniels is explicit about the quasi-constitutional responsibilities the new checks and balances that these institutions should be fulfilling. In particular, the responsibility of universities to step forward in defense of facts and expertise is greater than ever.

Given the repeated stress (especially in the third chapter) on learning lessons from the experiences of Hungary, Poland, Russia, and Nazi Germany, its worth invoking another brave Hungarian alongside Istvn Rv and George Soros. Concerned in the 1920s and 30s with the dark ideas taking hold across much of Europe, Karl Mannheim, a Hungarian scholar working in Germany, declared that ways of thinking modes of thought could not be adequately understood as long as their social origins [were] obscured. [I]t is [] one of the anomalies of our time, Mannheim wrote in Ideology and Utopia (1929),

that those methods of thought by means of which we arrive at our most crucial decisions, and through which we seek to diagnose and guide our political and social destiny, have remained unrecognized and therefore inaccessible to intellectual control and self-criticism.

This anomaly becomes all the more monstrous, he emphasized, when we call to mind that in modern times much more depends on the correct thinking through of a situation than was the case in earlier societies.

Like Danielss father, Mannheim managed to escape Germany, but the methods of thought he identified took hold there, feeding directly into what became, in historian Daniel Goldhagens memorable words, the hallucinatory ideology underlying the Nazi genocide. Deploying explanatory tools from Mannheims sociology of knowledge, Goldhagen examines, in his best-selling 1996 book, Hitlers Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust, how Nazi Germanys newspapers, books, radio, and film media and virtually all of its educational, cultural, and social institutions propagated a fantastical, demonological, apocalyptic, psychopathic, and insane worldview and moral culture, pumping these ideas relentlessly for years into all 65 million residents of the Third Reich. To Mannheim, other sociologists, and migr philosophers, the only way an entire society could militate so effectively against truth and science was first to have its key institutions its universities in particular gutted of courage and independence.

Thus, it is not without alarm that one reads about how our universities have regressed and been absent from these conversations, how the project of reinvigorating their critical role has never seemed more urgent. For those interested in the history of education and the role of the university in American public life, there is much to chew on in Danielss book, including excellent information about calls to action from previous days like the Progressive eras Wisconsin Idea or the 1947 Truman Commission Report (It is essential today that education come decisively to grips with the world-wide crisis of mankind). There is also useful commentary on more recent critiques by the likes of Thomas Kuhn and Bruno Latour.

Despite its lack of overt references to Trump, this is a book that has come steaming out of the cauldron of January 6. The author is the president of a major research university that makes major contributions to the world, including the peerless COVID-19 dashboard that is updated every day by its medical school a paragon of public service during a worldwide pandemic. While the book has an international scope, its focus is here. While the book takes us touring through history, its focus is now. The insurrection at the Capitol building may have failed, Daniels warns, but the forces that fueled it have not left us. The threats are real. The generations before us saw them; the generations that will follow us are likely to see them again. The time to act, as he says, is nigh.

Peter B. Kaufman works at MIT Open Learning and is the author of The New Enlightenment and the Fight to Free Knowledge (2021).

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In Defense of Facts and Expertise: On Ronald J. Daniels's What Universities Owe Democracy - lareviewofbooks

Russias war on Ukraine has built an unprecedented level of unity and geopolitical decisiveness across the Atlantic and among democracies around the world. This is the precise opposite of what Russia had intended. Russia has worked to sow discord within democratic countries and between allies for years through its information operations, often portraying the West in disarray and as weak supporters for their global partners.

The past couple of weeks have shown the opposite. The United States, NATO and the EU are fully coordinated and providing era re-defining support for Ukraine, a country defending itself from an invasion that seeks to deter Ukraine from its path toward democracy and a system free of corruption. Moreover, the invasion is finally motivating Europeans and Americans to free their countries of Russias influence in their information, energy and financial sectors.

Across Europe, the war has inspired a commitment to democracy, and it has forced through tough political decisions that seemed impossible a week ago. Perhaps in the United States, the war will also inspire a true reckoning across the political spectrum, beyond the Biden administration alone.

The West is proving Russia wrong. As the Alliance for Securing Democracy noted, in the lead up to the invastion of Ukraine, Kremlin-linked social media accounts falsely asserted that Western countries need a war, misrepresenting the motivations and interests of the U.S. and Europe, and in the case of France, amplifying voices calling for the country to leave NATO. Russian state-backed media outlet RT also pushed the narrative that Ukraine is isolated and without supporters, depicting Ukrainian President Zelenskyy as helplessly bemoaning that Ukraine has been left alone.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The West was at Putins table, passionately working for diplomatic resolution. Putin launched the invasion in the middle of the U.N. Security Council meeting on paths for de-escalation (torpedoing the diplomatic option in practice and symbolically). Then, the U.S., with Europe, UK, Canada, Japan, South Korea, and other democratic partners, put in place the most unified and severe economic sanctions that could have been foreseen. The coordinated move even targeted the Russian Central Bank, which President Putin uses as a war chest.

Contrary to worst expectations, even far-right French politicians denounced the invasion. And rather than leaving Ukraine to be overrun, individual European countries and the United States are not only providing Ukraine with weapons, but the European Union for the first time in its history is providing EUR450 million for military assistance.

Russias war on Ukraine has pushed Europeans to make foreign and domestic policy decisions not seen in a generation or more. Germany, which until last week had stood by 1970s principles of economic partnership with Russia and hope for political change through trade, halted the completed, but not yet operational, Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline to Russia and committed to beefing up defense spending to EUR100 billion, more than doubling spending from last year. This turnaround includes a commitment that Germany will meet the NATO target of spending 2% of GDP on defense one that Germany previously seemed unlikely to reach any time soon.

The transformative and consolidating effect of Russias invasion is also directed inward. Weak policies on Russia for decades have hinged on openness to Russias influence, in the energy sector in Europe and in the financial and information sectors worldwide. The EUs announcement of a ban on Russias state-backed outlets, expected transition away from Russian energy, and severe economic sanctions on Russia despite likely fallout on European economies show the dramatic turnaround in Europes vulnerability to Russia influence. The Biden administration also announced a taskforce that will seek to identify ill-gained assets of sanctioned Russian oligarchs in the U.S. and the West.

As the war continues, Europe has already taken steps that for decades have been pushed but seemed impossible. The question remains how much of this introspection and foundational support for democracy will also extend to the far corners of the U.S. political establishment. Before the invasion, Fox News star commentator Tucker Carlson participated in spreading the idea that the United States and its allies were the main driver in the current escalation with Russia. Former President Trump called President Putin a genius, though he has walked back these comments in recent days.

Will Americans across all corners of the political spectrum follow their counterparts in France and Germany and do what is essential but seemed politically impossible just days ago, cutting off autocratic tendencies and weaknesses? Russia is forcing a reckoning for all democracies to stop anti-democratic erosion, one that Russia itself has seeded across societies. It is the moment to prove Russia wrong and heal what has been broken at home. If Europe so long denounced as slow and unambitious can do it in a weekend, so can the United States.

Kristine Berzina is a senior fellow and head of the geopolitics team for the German Marshall Funds Alliance for Securing Democracy. She wrote this column for The Dallas Morning News.

Find the full opinion section here. Got an opinion about this issue? Send a letter to the editor and you just might get published.

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How Russias invasion of Ukraine strengthened democracy around the world - The Dallas Morning News

The Pennsylvania State Capitol. Photo by Ad Meskens, CC BY-SA 3.0

Democracy Starts with Us

The Pennsylvania legislature is among the largest and highest paid in the country. Unfortunately, democracy is not measured by how many state and federal representatives we have, or even by how much we pay our representatives. It is what they do. Pennsylvanias full-time legislators in the House met 69 days, and Senate members only 52 days, during the last calendar year. True, some of their time was spent in travel to the Bahamas, for off-site discussions, but we need to do better.

Pennsylvanias essential role in the founding of our country earned it the nickname, the Keystone State. Thats a lot to live up to. Our state legislators have a decisive role in democracy, but we have the most important role. Democracy starts with us; we select our representatives to act for us. Make your preferences known.

Now is a great time to meet with our representatives to understand redistricting, gerrymandering, the Electoral College (win without a majority of total votes), foreign interference and new voter ID laws. Thats our responsibility. We have to understand the issues, tell our representatives what we think and be sure our representatives understand. For example, we can discuss under-resourced cities, gun-violence, the pandemic and mask mandates, school inequalities, the health of our natural environment, unionization and voter suppression.

The mid-term election in 2022 is very important. Yes, we hold our politicians accountable for democracy, but we have the most important role.

Carl Evensen,Ferguson Township

Benninghoff and the Blame-Game

State House Majority Leader Kerry Benninghoffs op-ed in Thursdays CDT is a prime example of using a non-partisan issue, the Ukraine invasion, for partisan purposes.

Representative Benninghoff writes about the importance of Pennsylvanias natural gas resources in a global energy market that is in the throes of dramatic geopolitical change. Fair enough. Unfortunately, he omits any mention that Pennsylvania is already the natural gas producing state with the lowest taxes in the industry. Strangely, he goes on to blame the Democrats and the Wolf administration for a failure of leadership, even though Pennsylvania is the second largest producer of natural gas in the country, following only Texas, which, by the way, levies a 7.5% extraction tax, to Pennsylvanias 0% extraction tax (instead, PA charges an annual impact fee for every gas well thats drilled, resulting in much lower revenues).

But in the most egregious and blatantly self-serving portion of his piece he blames our state and federal leaders for policies that will embolden Vladimir Putin.

Nice try, Mr. Benninghoff, but your reasoning is full of gas and your argument doesnt hold water.

Ronald Filippelli,State College

Business Tax Reductions Dont Create Jobs

A common false narrative, pushed by Republican politicians, is that reducing an employers income tax will lead to job creation. Not true.

The theory is that employers, upon learning that their tax liabilities are being reduced, will be so overjoyed that they will rush right out and hire a bunch of additional people.

Aint gonna happen.

Employers, altruistic as they might be, do not hire more people just because they can afford to. They hire more people when they need them to meet an increased demand for their products or services.

This erroneous theory, called supply-side economics or trickle-down economics, has been around for a long time, at least since the Reagan Administration (hence the alternative term Reaganomics, which George H. W. Bush called voodoo economics). It was repeated twice by the Bush-43 Administration and again by the Trump Administration. The historical data shows that the promised jobs creation never occurred in any of those four cases.

And there is no reason to expect it should have.

Of course the tax reductions left more after-tax profits in the business coffers. What did they do with the extra money? They increased dividends to shareholders and retired treasury stock, both of which enriched the investor class. They also, quite likely, returned some of it to the very politicians who provided them with the tax reduction in the first place, in the form of campaign contributions. (Could this have been the intent all along?)

But they did not create jobs.

Ed Satalia,State College

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Letters: Democracy Starts with Us; Benninghoff's Blame Game; False Narrative of Business Tax Reductions - Statecollege.com

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, The War and Peace Report. Im Amy Goodman.

Antiwar protests are continuing in Russia. A local monitoring group says over 5,000 people were arrested by police across 69 Russian cities Sunday. This comes as part of a sweeping crackdown on civil society and the press. Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a new law to impose jail terms of up to 15 years for spreading so-called false information about the military or its activity in Ukraine.

The prominent independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta said it was removing its reporting on the invasion because of censorship. The papers editor, Dmitry Muratov, was one of the recipients of the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize just a few months ago. In a message to its readers, the paper said, quote, Military censorship in Russia has quickly moved into a new phase: from the threat of blocking and closing publications (almost fully implemented) it has moved to the threat of criminal prosecution of both journalists and citizens who spread information about military hostilities that is different from the press releases of the Ministry of Defense, unquote.

On Thursday, independent Russian channel TV Rain went off the air, with its staff walking off set saying No to war. Non-Russian news outlets, including CNN, ABC, CBS, Bloomberg and BBC, have moved to limit their activity in Russia.

This comes as Russia becomes increasingly economically isolated. Visa and Mastercard have become the last corporations to cut or, the latest corporations to cut or reduce ties to Russia.

Were joined now by Ilya Budraitskis. He is a Russian historian and political writer. Hes the author of the award-winning book Dissidents Among Dissidents: Ideology, Politics and the Left in Post-Soviet Russia. We last spoke to him from Moscow in February. He has since left Russia.

Welcome back to Democracy Now!, Ilya. If you can talk about the crackdown on the protests and the press? Again, at this point, I think its over 13,000 people have been arrested across Russia for protesting.

ILYA BUDRAITSKIS: Yeah. So, in fact, were entering the new political reality in Russia for now, because all the previous, lets say, laws of game, theyre not working. And if before, just months, two months ago, you could be arrested for the participation in the street demonstration and just spent some days in prison or pay some fine, for now if youre arrested or if you just spread some information which is different from the official point of view, you could be imprisoned for years. And that is the new situation. Thats a new level of risk for the protest movement in Russia. And, of course, those people who just yesterday came to the streets of the main Russian cities, they are extremely, extremely brave, and I think they should be a part of the heroic part of the history of the global antiwar movements.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about who the people are who are protesting and how much information is getting out about these protests all over Russia right now, despite the crackdown on the press?

ILYA BUDRAITSKIS: So, most of those people, they are young people. Theyre, lets say, some students or just young people under 25. And unfortunately, those part of the population which actively oppose the war is very, lets say, limited in terms of generations and in terms of access to information, because, as probably was told already in your programs, in Russian official media the picture of reality, the picture of what is happening in Ukraine, is totally different. Its like an alternative reality. Theres no images of bombings of the Ukrainian cities. There is no even any true information about the actions of the Russian military units in Ukraine. So, in fact, most of population have, unfortunately, a very wrong understanding of what is really going on there. So, those who came to these protests last days, they mostly get their alternative information from some social media which are still accessible in country or from the, lets say, alternative oppositional websites, which most of them which are now blocked, but you still can access them using the VPN and so on.

AMY GOODMAN: The significance of Dmitry Muratov, who won the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize, his newspaper, Novaya Gazeta, saying theyre just not going to report it because of the censorship?

ILYA BUDRAITSKIS: Yes, absolutely. So you have a new situation with the censorship. And as you know probably, even the term war or the term invasion, theyre described as the disinformation or the fake news in Russia, and you could be according the new law just adopted by the parliament couple of days ago, you can be imprisoned up to 15 years for the distribution of such disinformation. Yes, so, and already we have criminal investigations on people who not just write something in this way, yeah, but even repost some news on social media which call this war a war. Yeah? So, the situation

AMY GOODMAN: War or invasion, you cant use those words.

ILYA BUDRAITSKIS: Or invasion, yes, you also cant use the term invasion. You can use only the term special military peacekeeping operation. And also, you cant spread any alternative information of the losses of the Russian army, and you only can use the official information from the Russian Ministry of Defense. And the difference between these numbers, so if you look on the numbers reported by Ukrainian side and the numbers reported by Russian side, they are so different, so different from each other. So, just couple of days ago, Russian Ministry of Defense first time officially recognized that around 500 Russian soldiers already died in Ukraine. So, on Ukrainian sources, you have the information that more than 7,000 Russian soldiers already were killed. And, of course, you cant continue this censorship for a long period of time, because all these soldiers who already died in Ukraine, all these Russian soldiers, they have their relatives, they have their families in the different areas of Russian Federation. And, of course, this is starting to form some different point of view among some part of the Russian people.

AMY GOODMAN: Are people hearing the pleas of Ukrainians? Like on Friday, President Zelensky appealed to Russians to stage protests over Russian forces seizure of Europes largest nuclear power plant, Zaporizhzhia. Now thousands of Ukrainians are fleeing that area. Then youve got the Ukrainians telling the Russian mothers to come pick up their soldier sons in Ukraine. Are you hearing these pleas? Are they hearing in Russia?

ILYA BUDRAITSKIS: Unfortunately, as I said before, the access to the information is very limited. And I think that this address by Zelensky also was distributed only around those who have this access to the alternative information, to that sort of social media.

AMY GOODMAN: Ilya, we dont have much time, and I want to get to a few points. Sanctions, the effect of these sanctions on the people of Russia, the population?

ILYA BUDRAITSKIS: Its already huge. Its already huge effects. It will lead to the collapse of, lets say, the middle class in Russia. It will lead to the, lets say, to the destruction of the future for I dont know millions of young people in the country. And it will lead to the social catastrophe. And I am not sure that the current leadership of Russia can manage the social catastrophe and rule the country in this

AMY GOODMAN: And so, do you think this will lead to a settlement? In the 10 seconds we have, or in the minute that we have, do you think this could lead, press Putin to settle with Ukraine?

ILYA BUDRAITSKIS: I dont know, in fact, because we see that his decisions are quite irrational, quite irrational.

AMY GOODMAN: Irrational.

ILYA BUDRAITSKIS: And we cant discuss it in the, lets say, rational way.

AMY GOODMAN: Have you been shocked by what has taken place?

ILYA BUDRAITSKIS: Of course. Of course, as millions of people in my country.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you think the protests will continue?

ILYA BUDRAITSKIS: I hope so, despite of the very, very brutal, very aggressive pressure that we have from the top.

AMY GOODMAN: Did you flee because of whats taking place?

ILYA BUDRAITSKIS: In fact, I dont want to talk about it much.

AMY GOODMAN: OK. Ilya Budraitskis, I want to thank you so much for being with us. Ilya Budraitskis is Russian historian and political writer, author of Dissidents Among Dissidents: Ideology, Politics and the Left in Post-Soviet Russia.

That does it for our show. Check our website for jobs. Im Amy Goodman. Stay safe.

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Russian Crackdown on Dissent Intensifies as Over 13,000 Arrested for Opposing Ukraine Invasion - Democracy Now!