Featured
We discuss the work of governors across several states to defend the rights of their residents. GovAct serves as an innovation hub for policies on democracy, public health, and reproductive rights.
We discuss the investments to foster civic participation on college campuses, voter behavior among young people, and getting ready for the midterms.
We discuss the concept of deliberative representative democracy by ordinary citizens, which means representing and being represented in turn.
We discuss grassroots organizing, voting rights for U.S. territories and First Nations, and the state of elections in Georgia.
We discuss how our everyday choices to resist, organize, and act collectively can stop authoritarian takeovers. Feeling powerless does not mean that we’re actually powerless!
We discuss the role of schools to form effective citizens in our democracy. It’s necessary to prioritize the teaching of our history and our government.
We discuss the dangers of book bans and censorship, the power of civic action on the local level, and the intersection of libraries and human rights.
We discuss orienting our personal choices toward the collective in order to make the changes in the systems that organize our world.
We discuss how being pro-democracy is a big tent coalition. In fact, it is our national identity.
We discuss the building blocks of narrative power and the strategies to succeed in changing hearts and minds.
We discuss the complexity of gun violence in the United States and the reality that strong gun laws save lives with Emma Brown, the executive director of GIFFORDS, an organization whose mission is to save lives from gun violence in America.
We discuss how AI can both serve the public interest and advance the goals of our democracy, despite the misgivings about the current state of AI.
We discuss how AI can both serve the public interest and advance the goals of our democracy, despite the misgivings about the current state of AI.
We discuss Practical Radicals: Seven Strategies to Change the World—a guide for a new generation of activists seeking not just to understand power, but to build it.
A fair, humane, and orderly immigration system should think of the US as the top destination for top talent from around the world, as well as a beacon of hope. Changing the law to give permanent legal status and a pathway to citizenship would fix the current failed immigration system.
We discuss how the everyday voter can make strategic political campaign donations just like a billionaire with Brian Derrick, the co-founder of Oath.
We discuss the unavoidable intersection between our capitalist economy and democratic governance, and how their relationship plays out through campaign finance and other political transactions.
We discuss how the struggle for transparency is really a struggle for the soul of American democracy with Miranda Spivack, author of Backroom Deals in Our Backyard: How Government Secrecy Harms Our Communities and the Local Heroes Fighting Back.
We discuss the basics of organizing and the fruits of that work. Michael reminds us that “organizers organize organizations.”
We discuss the enduring power of protesting and the significance of the Ferguson uprising in the long arc of the Black liberation movement.
We discuss the importance of shifting our mindset to one that is infused with hope. Positive change comes when we choose hope. Though nobody can fix it all, we can all do something and make an impact. Sharon reminds us that if something is worth doing for everyone, it’s worth doing for one person.
We discuss how ungoverning is the equivalent of a bull in a china shop. We have already seen the destruction of many institutions and many functions of the administrative state, but we don't yet know how much there is still to come.
We discuss the long history of vigilante democracy in the US and its return in our current politics. The playing field is currently tilted in favor of these vigilante policies, but blue states can level the playing field by playing constitutional hardball. David reminds us that the American people have beat back movements to use vigilante power to enforce a reactionary agenda time and again.
We discuss how out of date immigration laws are and why the only cure is comprehensive immigration reform from Congress. In the face of rising arrests and deportations by ICE, this is the perfect episode to remind us that we still need immigration reform.
We discuss how certain radical acts of justice by everyday people challenge the legitimacy of the criminal system and form the underpinning of a new collective legal thought, demosprudence. Collective understanding of justice and safety is changing away from the concept that justice equals cages.
We discuss deliberative polling as a way to assess the will of the people and then to make it consequential. This is what democracy is all about.
We discuss the main goals of copaganda: narrowing our conception of safety and threat, constantly warning us that those harms are increasing, and telling us that the solution to our fears is more investment in the punishment bureaucracy.
We discuss how multisolving is a way to address the multiple issues that are currently facing our democracy at the same time, ranging from pollution and sustainable energy to civil rights and collective governance.