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Major Garrett and David Becker open The Big Truth, half a love letter to democracy and half a warning about its ailing state, with a bit of speculative fiction about the ways a contested election could destabilize the country, rend states apart, and ultimately lead to a national divorcethat is, a second American civil war. The great cleaving could be closer than we think, the authors write. But while they were putting pen to paper, they struggled a bit with the hypothetical. We asked ourselves, Are we being too dramatic? Garrett told me, reflecting back on the period. Hell, I feel now like we were unduly restrained.

Garrett, chief Washington correspondent for CBS News, and Becker, executive director and founder of the Center for Election Innovation & Research, followed that line of inquiry with me in an interview, which has been edited and condensed for clarity, ahead of their September 20 book release. Democracy, they told me, has become existentially endangered by Donald Trumps baseless claims of election fraud. And while both men laid out various ways the country could be fought back from the breach,Becker also said that their optimism is being fundamentally challenged right now. (The authors arent the only ones concerned: Democracy Challenged is how The New York Times put it on Sundays front page.) Ive been someone who people dont want to invite to parties lately, Becker said. Because Im a little bit depressing.

Vanity Fair: I want to begin on a high note. You write in the book that you harbor deep, but not debilitating fears about the future of American democracy. What gives you cause for optimism? Why arent the concerns debilitating, since so much of what you describe here is pretty frightening?

Major Garrett: What gives me optimism is the longevity of our country. We have stared into abysses before and pulled back from them. I know thats an overused metaphor right now, and I know there have been barrels upon barrels of either ink or the digital equivalent spilled asking when America will pull back from the current abyss. So the question persists. Why are you optimistic? Well, 100,000 people in 2020 signed up to be poll workers for the first time, jumping into a breach of a situation that was not familiar to them. Not because they were going to get paid, not because they were going to be lionized in their community. Not because they were going to get a promotion. But because it mattered at a very basic civic level of accountability and participation. And Im gonna bank our countrys future on their optimism.

Now, having said that, I know some of them didnt get what they bargained for. They didnt sign up thinking that they would be harassed, followed from their polling place to their cars, or people who train them and who they look up to being harassed, threatened, and the like. So its a wobbly moment, and Im not going to suggest to you it isnt a wobbly moment. But I have an innate, enduring confidence in the American experiment. And that American experiment is having oxygen breathed into it in a way that to some is unfamiliar, but I believe is deeply strengthening. The concepts and the language we have always used around democracy are now being applied. And people are at the table, because theyve been elected to be at the federal level in ways we havent seen before. Thats not easy, but its real, and that participation and that visibility and that representation, in the modern sense, sends signals to people long underrepresented that this is actually real. And the notion that they have a stake in that reality is much more tangible. Does that please everyone? No. Does it get it closer to what we have long aspired to and said we believe in? Yes. And I believe my optimism is rooted almost entirely in that.

David Becker: Yeah, I have a similar thought. We are in a perilous moment in American democracy. And it is easy to focus on those who failed to stand up for democracy when given the opportunity, and we do in the book. But whats also sometimes somewhat harder is to note the large numbers of people who have stood up, and often at great personal peril to themselves, often at great political peril to themselves, often at physical peril to themselves and their families. To do the right thing, to stand up for an election. That was the most transparent, secure, and verified election in American history, even when their candidate lost. And that is in the best tradition of American democracy. And we havent had to see many people courageously stand for that in the past, because it was never a question with candidates and their supporters about whether or not they would accept the results of elections.

Threats to democracy, stress tests on the electoral processobviously, nothing new. You write about several of them: 1876, 2000. What was different about 2020? And, obviously, looking forward at the challenges were facing in 2022, 2024, and beyond?

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We Have Stared Into Abysses Before and Pulled Back: Looking for Flashes of Hope as Democracy Frays - Vanity Fair