Evan McMullin on Rebuilding Our Democracy [07-25-19]

This is Larry Lessig, and this is the third season of the podcast Another Way. The subtitle for this season is POTUS 1. Our effort to frame a commitment to fundamental reform and to get the candidates running for president to accept it. And so, from that perspective, this week's guest might seem like an odd choice. Evan McMullen was a name unknown to most Americans until August 2016, when he announced an independent bid to stop Donald Trump from being president. A conservative himself, many people thought the election would be so close that losing Utah, which is where Evan is from, would mean the end of Donald Trump's candidacy. But since 2016, Evan has been a strong advocate for principled conservative reform and for a movement that resists Donald Trump. Now, my aim in this podcast is to avoid, as much as we can, a focus and obsession, an unhealthy obsession on the president, and to explore instead the possible common ground that we might strike with a movement, with that movement, a conservative movement for reform that all Americans could rally around. That's the topic of this episode. Stay tuned for the content. Okay, so welcome, Evan McMullen. I'm so grateful that you would take some time to talk to us, as my pleasure. I've explained we in this podcast are trying to think about what the future of reform could be in America for this democracy. And it's been a central tenant of this inquiry that reform has to be something that people on the right and the left could come to agree upon, not necessarily the politicians in Washington. I don't think there's any common ground to be found with Mitch McConnell on the idea of reforming this democracy, but I do think that people outside of Washington, on the right and the left, really do have a genuine desire to find a way to get a democracy that feels like it's representing us again. And that's the conversation that I hope we're going to have a chance to. I know we're going to have a chance, have a chance to engage in this podcast, but I think it's important to make sure that people kind of know how you got to the place that you got and the lead up to the important role that I think you're playing right now in creating a kind of conscience for a part of the American populace that's taking seriously the challenges of democracy. So you have a kind of unusual career leading to the point in 2016 that you would decide to run for president. You had, you know, I think, one of the most valuable kinds of religious experiences where as a Mormon, you spent time in Brazil doing Missionary work, which I think is one of the most edifying parts of that practice, because so many people become exposed to parts of the world which otherwise Americans are completely oblivious to. And so that broadens and I think deepens one's understanding of the commitments necessary to make a society work. Well, when you came back from Brazil, how did you feel that that experience had changed the way you thought about the challenge of standing up a republic in America?

Yeah, you know, Well, I think the. The biggest impact. One of the biggest impacts that my time in Brazil had as serving as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints was that it taught me to serve something greater than me. And I had already sort of had that in my blood beforehand. I had already anticipated for quite some time serving the country in some regard, but then to go for two years. And that was at a time, of course, I'm dating myself by saying this. There wasn't email. Email was just starting to happen at the very end of my time in Brazil. And there were very strict rules about when you could be in touch with your family. So I would only be in touch with my family on the phone at least two times a year, once for Christmas and once for Mother's Day and otherwise writing letters when I had time. But the point is that it was a time in which I could and was expected to focus on other people instead of myself. But as service goes, you end up finding yourself when you are focusing on others. That's sort of the strange beauty of service, is that you learn more about yourself. You find the value of yourself. You learn more about who you are as a person in the service of others. I found. So that was important. I also learned the kinds of things you learn when you travel and spend time abroad, which is that we have our way of doing things here in the United States, the big things and the small things that works or doesn't work. And other countries have their way of doing things, and they can also work or not work. And there are good ideas from elsewhere in the world and bad ideas from elsewhere in the world. And you just sort of. It broadens your perspective on the universe, of the human experience and of. Certainly the people are governed and hopefully govern themselves. And I think that was part of my experience in Brazil and other early travels in my life.

So where in Brazil were you?

I was in Porto Alegre, which is a large city in the southern part of Brazil and in its state, which is Rio Grande do Sul, and in the southern half of that state. So I was at the southern tip of Brazil.

Yeah, That's a really vibrant part of the democracy movement in Brazil. They have a really amazing participatory budgeting process that happens in Porto Alegre, where ordinary people are brought into the decision for how to allocate the resources of the budget, and has become a focal point of people thinking about how to change public participation in democracy. But this idea of discovering, you put it very nicely, discovering yourself through serving others, I think that's what inspires many people to think about how we could broaden the opportunities for service in America generally. I mean, obviously, people who go and serve in the military experience this as they. You know, it's obviously a very hard commitment, physical commitment, mental commitment, especially if you get put into active service. But in that process, they begin to think of themselves and their relationship to the republic differently. I think that's why many people are thinking like, is there a way to encourage people to engage in service that's not necessarily related to the military? And obviously, people do that privately through things like Latter Day Saints, but people are thinking, how can we bring that more into government?

Yeah, I think that it's such an important part of our. Our political discourse these days. And, yes, a lot of people are talking more about that and, you know, service in the military or in the Central Intelligence Agency, which is sort of where I went on to serve our country. That's one. Those are two ways to serve, closely related. But there are so many other ways to serve. You can serve through Teach for America and, you know, so many other ways to serve the country. You can do it through. Through the government or privately, but I think that there are tremendous personal benefits to it, but also benefits to the country. When people serve in the military or when they serve and Teach for America, or they serve through other platforms, they meet other Americans from different walks of life, and they share a common purpose that is bigger than themselves and. And it brings us together as a nation. Those kinds of experiences brings, again, people from different walks of life, different religious backgrounds, different ethnic backgrounds, different experiences in America based on where one comes from, but brings them together again for a common experience, but one that is driven by a higher cause. And I think that's important. I would like to see more of that. I would like to see somehow a greater opportunity for national service in the country that could help maybe break down some of the divisions that we're facing today that are serious challenges in our democracy.

I think that people, when they experience that experience of working with people who are different from themselves, you know, Liberals confronting conservatives. You know, I grew up in the kind of Kentucky part of Pennsylvania, so I have this very rich sense of, like, living in. I live in Brookline, but living in the Cambridge area of Massachusetts, where, you know, as my son said, there's only Democrats here. And, you know, it's kind of true, there's a certain worldview. But I think of that worldview against the background of a very different worldview that I had growing up. I think the experience of people working together with people who they think of as very differently and then discovering that, you know, in a sense, we're citizens first before we're Republicans or before we're Democrats. We citizens first. If we can practice that, it really changes the character of engagement. We see that with juries, for example. You know, jury service, of course, is important for the defendant on a jury that you take it seriously and you make a judgment about whether he or she is guilty. But what we know is after somebody served on a jury, they're more likely to volunteer in a political campaign. They're more likely to vote. They're more likely to show up to a town meeting because they've had this experience of being a citizen and doing a common project for a greater good that they like. You know, it turns out we like engaging in that, at least some of the time, not all of the time. Right.

And I would say that, you know, that all of that's very true. I agree with it. And I would add one piece to it, which is that we have such strong commonality across humanity that is often overlooked. And those experiences of national service, they do bring out the. The sort of citizen level commonality that is so important. But there is another, I think, even more foundational level in which that commonality is found. And it's that we are all human. And that's another lesson learned for me from my travels during my service with the Central Intelligence Agency and as a missionary and as you know, in other roles, is that as humans, we have much more in common than we do indifference. I have, especially during my CIA service, I met all kinds of people around the world, all kinds of people. People who I would. Everyone from Islamists trying to attack our country to good people fighting for democracy around the world. I mean, I got to sort of see it all, and it allowed for me to peel a lot and sort of understand the human condition at a more basic level. That taught me that there is so much commonality there that we can build on and use to sort of solve a lot of problems, whether they be national security or otherwise.

Yeah. So let's talk about this other very distinctive, I guess there are fewer CIA agents than there are members of the Mormon Church, but very distinctive experience. So you joined the CIA just before 9 11. Obviously, 911 kicked that whole enterprise into a higher level of engagement. And then you spent a significant amount of time in various parts of the world, including the Middle East. What you did is obviously classified, and nobody can talk about the specifics of it, but it's been characterized as an experience where you were engaged in a process of trying to forge a common understanding among, based on whatever particular problem is, among people who are very, very different. Now that, you know, when I was originally, when I originally heard, you know, I didn't know about you before you ran for president, and I thought no one did. Yeah. Well, I think your parents might have met my mother, but I think many wonder, well, what is it in your experience that makes you think that you might actually, you know, have a reason to be president? I was really struck with this part of your experience. Like it might be harder to get, you know, people in the Middle east to sit down and come to some understanding, but not much harder than, like, getting Mitch McConnell to sit down and come to common understanding with Democrats in the Senate. So was that the character of your experience, or how would you, in the general form, describe what you did and what you did? Well, in that context, yeah.

Well, you know, my job as an operations officer, a large part of my job was to recruit penetrations of Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups and penetrations of foreign governments who were hostile to us, to the United States of America. And so that's what I spent most of my time doing. And then there, you know, there was another set of responsibilities that had to do with running covert operations that were designed to help protect the country from threats from terrorist organizations or hostile countries. But the recruitment, recruiting penetrations or sources in those foreign entities required, at least my way of looking at that job required that I found common ground with people who sometimes had done evil things or were. Had evil associations in my view, or whose lives were just more complex and difficult and different from mine. And so I learned that even in those difficult situations that I guess. Let me speak more directly about this. Recruiting a penetration of Al Qaeda meant sitting down, face to face with someone, first of all, finding them and then being able to get in front of them and try to convince them that they should abandon their allegiance to a terrorist organization and instead help us destroy that terrorist organization. And, you know, they got to the Point they reached where they were for a reason, you know, associated with the terrorist organization. There are many reasons why they get there. It could just be, you know, it's for the same reasons that some people join gangs, or maybe they're true believers and they wanted to join those people and they're truly committed to the cause. Those people are harder, certainly harder to recruit those people. But there are lots of other people who sort of end up in that position for reasons that are less clear and less ideologically driven. And their commitment is a lot lower and they can be persuaded. So anyway, that's a much bigger story in conversation. But the point is that it taught me that even in the most unlikely of scenarios, you can find common ground with someone on a human level. And going back to the missionary experience, frankly, that's a lesson that I first learned then. And just the commonalities, the common experiences, the common hopes and desires and insecurities and anxieties we have as a part of the human experience. And so I learned that in Brazil. And then while I served with the Central Intelligence Agency, employed that knowledge and found that it was effective. It was an effective way to approach my work in the Central Intelligence Agency. And I think, yes, I carry that forward now to my work now. I mean, first of all, I have never been able to get my head around, even though I've been working in politics since now, early 2013 in American politics, and working directly as a full time sort of effort on my part. And I've never been able to buy into this idea that people who are Republicans are the enemies, are the enemy of the Democrats, or the Democrats are the enemy of the Republicans. I fought the real enemy and saw who the real enemy was. And we are not each other's enemy. But more than that, or just as much as that, I know that there is much more that brings us, that unites us than divides us. Now, sometimes we don't recognize that. I acknowledge that fully, but I reject the notion that there isn't still much more that unites us than that divides us. And even in the worst, you know, even in the worst situations where, you know, we have. There are a lot of people in the country now that are advocating for simply un American ideas. But I think even with those people, those people aren't lost. We shouldn't consider them lost. I think it's a danger to write them off. It's not in the interest of the country. But I also think if you sit down with those people, most of them, not all of them, but most of them, you know, can we can build common ground and bring them along and bring the country along, even in very challenging circumstances.

Yeah. So, okay, you had the experience of facing, as you put them, real enemies. It's a nice way to think about it. And then we have these constructed enemies in the context of politics in America, which is rivals or opponents. Opponents, yeah. But let's take it to the moment when you created your own opponent in the context of your own. You were a Republican before, right?

I've been a registered independent for as long as I can remember.

That's great.

But I always, I was a part of the Republican machine, I suppose, and served most recently as the chief policy director for the House Republicans and previous to that as a senior advisor on national security issues. Also in Congress, I had always voted and donated to only Republicans. But you know, this isI'll just interject this. As I moved around the country for school, for grad school, undergrad and things, you know, you go get an updated driver's license and you usually have the opportunity to register as a Republican, a Democrat or unaffiliated or something else. You know, I've always considered myself a conservative and again, up until 2016, had only supported in any way Republicans. But there was something always that prevented me from registering as a Republican when I would have the opportunity to re register in any new state in which I was living. And I'm not sure exactly what that was. I think it has something to do with the fact that I already have a family and I already have a religion and I have friends. I just never felt the need to say, in addition to all that I have that defines me, I am also going to brand myself in such a permanent or semi permanent way as a member of a political party. Not to say that I wouldn't do it at some point, but I just, I never quite felt comfortable with it. And so as long as I can remember, there may have been a brief time when I was newly an adult where I registered as a Republican, but as long as I can remember, I've been actually independent or not unaffiliated.

Okay. So coming up to 2016, obviously, Donald Trump becomes the nominee. To the surprise of many, there's a very strong Never Trump movement in the Republican Party or among conservatives. And then I guess it's in the beginning of August, August 8th, I guess you make the announcement that you're going to run against Donald Trump. I think it's first really important to place in context that that was a dangerous decision to make. You know, I mean, obviously, CIA agent. In the Middle east, you've been exposed to dangerous circumstances, but in America, it was also a dangerous thing to set yourself up as the person who potentially was going to deny Donald Trump the presidency. Because I think when people did the numbers and they looked at where the Electoral College was likely to come down under a close election, if you had succeeded in denying him Utah, that could have been it. And if that was it, there would have been a lot of Republicans out there who were looking at you as the man who defeated their great hope. I mean, that must have been part of what you were reckoning with.

Yeah, you know, it was. But you're right, that's a very big deal, and it would have been a very big deal had it happened. And I hear what you're saying.

But.

But I'll tell you that I feel so strongly, Larry, that the President is a true danger to the Republic, that I wouldn't that any, you know, unpopularity on the right or, you know, any sort of negative repercussions, no matter what they might be, could not have persuaded me otherwise and didn't. And to be honest, I haven't spent much time even thinking about them. I love this country. I love what it. I love its values, which are aspirational and in which we've had success at times reaching more closely towards them, and other times we failed miserably. But I deeply love this country. And I've, you know, I've put everything, I've put my life on the line more times literally than I can remember for this country and for what it stands for in my mind, which is, you know, the liberty and equality of all Americans and of humankind, beyond, you know, even. It's a broader cause, even beyond, you know, our state here in the country. But those things are so important to me that I haven't, and I didn't, and I haven't spent a lot of time second guessing what I did because of the risk that you just detailed, which is truly significant intellectually. I listened to that and I say, yes, that's a big deal, and yes, there would have been many millions in the country who would have been quite upset by that outcome and, and would have blamed me for it. But I believe that Donald Trump, it's not just a campaign slogan. I think there are many people out there who heard me say during the campaign that the now President Donald Trump was a threat to the Republic, and I think they thought it was a campaign slogan. After all, they've heard other Trump opponents in the Primaries say things about him like that, and now they're supporting the president. Well, for me, those things were not a campaign. They were not campaign slogans. They were a warning, and they accurately described my motivation. And I love this country enough that if I see a true threat to it, I'm going to do anything I can.

So we start on common ground there. Absolutely. I love this country, too. I love the way you put it. I love the aspirational character of this country, recognizing again, as you put it, our success and times we've failed miserably, both with liberty and equality. Both of those ideals, which are baked into the Constitution as amended, have had great moments of inspiration and great moments of failure. But what I've really been struck by, and what I'm keen to hear a little bit about from your experience, is, of course, there've been what I think of as these truly brave, principled conservatives, Bill Kristol, Max Booth, people who've had principled reasons to oppose the president have not wavered in their opposition, as opposed to people like Ted Cruz, who characterized the president much the way you did, and then bingo, now he's his best friend. I mean, that kind of behavior is the sort of thing that gives politics a bad name. Because what do you believe in? If you can say, on the one hand, the things that Ted Cruz said about Donald Trump, and on the other hand, defend him mightily as the president, I mean, okay, you'd sell anything, and that's exactly what that demonstrates. But these conservatives have not done that, and you've not done that, obviously. But in the context of building that campaign, and, you know, after the Access Hollywood tape came out, there was a real chance you were going to win Utah. You must have had many other people who were not quite as vocal or not quite as public in their opposition, but who express similar ideals to you, and we're encouraging you. So is there a way that you would characterize the conservative right that would help those of us on the liberal left have a better view of them? Because, quite frankly, it is astonishing how few like you there are, given how abominable this president is. You know, if this were George Bush, it's arguable. I mean, you know, there are things to like about the guy. At least he deferred to knowledge and listening to people and, like, tried to understand whatever his capabilities were. But I don't understand the ambiguity around this president. And yet the number of Republicans who have not been willing to stand up and say, hell no is really terrifying. So can you help us believe that there are more, or at least that it's a more complicated story than it feels like to us.

Yeah, well, first of all, I would say that. But understanding the right now is. It is complicated and it's a tapestry. I mean, it' sthere are different groups within the right, the Trump right, the anti Trump right. There are nuances all over the place, and there are all kinds of different motivations in the mix. And it's just a complicated. It's a complicated tapestry. But I would say that I also am disappointed by what I see happening on the right. I think I've made that clear over the last few years. But I would say this. There are a lot of people on the right who. I'm not talking about people in Washington, members of Congress or elites, intellectuals, that kind of thing. There are a lot of people across America, Republicans, conservatives, who for a long time had depended on Fox News, for example, for their news, and increasingly Internet outlets that were less established, less well established, and in many cases far less legitimate. And they had sort of gotten their news from these sources. And then along comes Trump, and they don't like a lot of what they see. But these news outlets that they had been depending on during the Obama years are telling them that, you know, Trump is, Trump is okay, Trump is going to do good things. Trump is worth their vote and their support and their dollars and all of that. And, you know, Trump continues to do things that they think aren't quite right, that maybe offend their sense of morality or decency. But these media outlets, new and traditional, continue to tell them on the right that Trump is okay and that these things are unfair to Trump and, you know, whatever they tell them, and yet their sense of decency and their moral compass tells them that something is not quite right. Well, they've had a hard time marrying those two things up. And so what a lot of them have done is simply tuned out. They've just tuned out. They've even people who I would say are, you know, former Marco Rubio or Mitt Romney or Senator McCain, Republicans who are no fans of the president, they have largely tuned out. They don't pay attention to the President's tweets. They're not watching CNN or Fox, certainly not msnbc, because that's just not their chosen. That has never been their chosen network. Although, you know, interesting things are happen happening where certain never Trump elements sort of are more vocal on that network now, including myself, but they've tuned out. And so the good news about that is that if you can get to them with information, it influences them and they're willing to listen to it, but it's hard to get to them and at scale. And so that's the challenge right now. But I'm speaking of regular Americans out there, conservative Republican Americans out there who are generally, you know, they've tuned out and they're generally supportive of the President, but they don't love this situation. But then, you know, we could turn our attention towards leaders in the Republican Party and so called intellectuals in the conservative movement. And I say so called because as much as we talk about Republican members of Congress who have failed to stand up and to, in my view, uphold their oaths, which is, which includes defending the Constitution, you also have a set of so called intellectuals on the right who have been very intellectually dishonest in these years in order to protect their ability to earn money doing what they do. And they've seen their audiences slip away from them. And in order to maintain their audiences and their source of income, they've had to fall in line with the President. And you know, so there are sort of profit incentives for some of this that end up being very destructive to the health of the conservative movement. And then you have, you know, members of Congress who have had an early chance to stand up to the president in the 2015 and 16 presidential race. And they, and you know, at first they sort of dismissed the President as unserious and then they became annoyed by him and then they feared him. And then they saw opportunity in him. But they had an opportunity to stand up to him early on and they chose not to take it because it would be once they realized that he was a danger, they were afraid of him and couldn't no single person had the power to stand up to them. And they weren't going to do it together for a variety of dynamics and reasons, including cowardice, but they didn't do that. And they told themselves, look, if he won't win, but if he does win, we'll be able to control him. Which was sort of laughable even then because if you're not willing to stand up to one of many primary contenders in the Republican nominating process, what makes you think you'll be able to do it when he's president? But now they're in this situation and it's fun to not fun. It's interesting to sort of track this development. And I think people should spend a lot of time researching and sociologists perhaps and explaining sort of how this developed because it has the potential to be and is already dangerous. It could become much more dangerous. It has in other countries, but these kinds of compromises of people and of political movements. But now we find ourselves in a situation in which Republican leaders have failed to speak truth to Republican voters for so long that they own the president, they're a part of it, and they now, especially as we approach another election, depend on his success for their success. And so they, you know, they're now, you sort of see guys like Lindsey Graham or Marco Rubio, others who opposed the president, who spoke honestly about the president years ago, now supporting his reelection. It's because they now they own this. And it's hard to extract yourself from that kind of compromise over time. And so they now depend on his success for their success, which they now hold above their oaths, which they now hold above the interests of the country. Lindsey Graham boldly and plainly saying in the New York Times, look, if you don't want to get reelected, you're in the wrong business. Well, that's true. I mean, we want our elected leaders to be sort of incentivized by the will and opinions of the people, but they're also there to lead and they make certain commitments as a part of that leadership. And that's actually what should come first, is their oath, oaths and their responsibilities to the country. And they're abandoning that, sadly. But anyway, I could talk all day about this. It's complicated.

Yeah, the one part that I clearly thought about, but the second part I want to flag, I mean, obviously the media is an incredibly important part of this because we've become, or at least a certain generation, like people my age and older are so focused in still cable media and cable media has become so polarized. And if you, you know, as Obama said about two months ago, if you watch Fox News, you live on a different planet from if you read the New York Times. And there's a certain sense in which that's true. I just read on Reddit, one of the top stories on my feed was of movement of kids to use the parental controls to block access to Fox News for their parents. They protect them from the suicide anyway. But the other part that I really hadn't thought about, but it's so obvious is the incentives, the corruption that's produced by the market incentives for these conservative so called conservative pundits. Because if you live in a world of these media depending on you being reliably in their position and you start deviating from that, you're not interesting to them anymore. And of course, that subtle form of corruption. Nobody ever sort of sit down and thinks, okay, I'm gonna sell my soul for another shot at a Fox News. But you can easily see how they shape shift and morph into the position they need to be because they see the reaction they get from the host and that. When I was a kid, I was a conservative. I was the youngest member of a delegation to the 1980 Republican convention. I was a real believer. I read Bill Buckley. Those felt like people with real ideas. You couldn't imagine Bill Buckley in a world like today, looking at this part, I mean, George Will is in that genre. He's of that age, right? And you see how he's reacted to this. And I think that's the measure of the kind of integrity of that. I don't believe in those views anymore, but I believe in the integrity that they were motivated by. So that's a really important part of the dynamic. Okay, now I want to push a pause on this part of the conversation because we're obsessed with Trump, and I think it's just boring, ultimately, because let's imagine tomorrow there was no Trump, an election, or whatever you want to imagine, but there is no Trump. And we're talking about rebuilding our democracy, and we're talking about all of us rebuilding our democracy. What's interesting from your experience is you've been in context and had conversations with people who are motivated to be more reflective, more principled, because they're obviously not doing what they're doing because of the return for what they're doing. When we think about those people or that part of the conservative movement, where do you think we might find common ground on the issues of democracy reform? So, you know, the things that are most important to what I think of as reformers in the democracy movement are, you know, crony capitalism, the corruption that's caused by the way we fund campaigns. So the same corrupting dynamic as you sit as a congressperson spending 30 to 70% of your time dialing for dollars, but you're calling a tiny fraction of the 1%. So just like the commentators on Fox News, you learn to say exactly what you need to say to get the money from that tiny fraction of the 1%. How can you then lead once you've learned to be sycophants to one particular set of interests? So we think of that as a fundamental flaw in our democracy. I think a lot of people think of the gerrymandering as a terrible flaw in our democracy. A lot of people are worried that the Electoral College, not so much the electoral College itself. But the way in which winner take all makes it so that only certain states matter, the swing states. And those states don't represent America. They're older, they're whiter, their industry is like 19th century industry. That's another dimension, the suppression of votes, which doesn't happen so much in places like Utah, but certainly happens in other parts of the country.

It's a huge problem.

It's a huge problem. Those are the dimensions of reform. And I just wonder where you think if we had a strategy for building common ground, where you think we could make progress quickly and where you think the harder parts of that horizon might lie.

Yeah, no, it's such an interesting question and an interesting time. I think in part because of, of my experience overseas with the agency, I tend to look at the situation. I have a hard time viewing American politics in a partisan way. And I do it because we're living in a time of great polarization in the country. And so yes, I'm not sort of naive to the realities of partisanship. It's a huge problem. But I also see developing in this country a democracy movement. And in the same way I we might look at sort of efforts in Georgia right now. A democracy movement in Georgia. I see the.

You mean the republic or the state? Cuz there's one happening in both the

republic and the state actually, you know. Yeah, fair point. But you know, I view, I believe that our republic, our democracy is under threat right now by forces, by foreign and domestic forces that seek to destroy it and other countries. I mentioned Georgia a moment ago and many others face challenges like that. They also involve a Russian element. They've opportunistic corrupt leaders, that kind of thing. It's actually familiar. It's familiar to many of us in the national security world. And we face those challenges here in the United States too. And so most people don't sort of of see it the way I do. Exactly. But I see the response to that in this country as a rising democracy movement that in the immediate term includes anti Trump, anti Trumpism Republicans. It also includes the center of American politics, true centrists, and then liberals and progressives. I think on the further end of that spectrum, on the left and on the right, in my view, you start to get away from a true commitment to liberty and equality. But I do see in this country forming the political, the partisan cleavages shifting a bit, the alliances shifting, the coalitions that form the Republican and the Democratic parties and sort of the independence base shifting. And in that, that shift I see the Emergence of a democracy movement that includes elements of different past political coalitions in the country, represented by the Republicans, Democrats, and the independent movement. And so that's what I'm very excited about these days. And that's a source for me of great optimism that I see a recognition shared by people in this movement, in whether they come from the right or the left or the center, that our democratic republic is under threat and that we've got to a protect it from the immediate challenges it faces, which are clear and real, but also improve it. That the best defense sometimes is an offense, and that it's not enough to simply say that we need to hold the President accountable for welcoming foreign interference in our 2016 election, and we need to do that. That's critically important, and I'm a big proponent of that. But that's not enough. We actually need to improve our system of self government. The parts of it which are democratic need to function well, need to function democratically so that the people are able to choose their own leaders and hold them accountable. And so there are all kinds of reforms, which I just wanted to make that broader point. But. But I think in terms of reforms, I see tremendous, traditionally speaking, bipartisan opportunity among Americans. Not necessarily not party leaders, not political operatives, but among real Americans out across the country. And I actually don't like that term real Americans. We're all real Americans, but I'm talking about American across the country who just want to see government work well and fairly and want to make sure their voices are heard. I think you mentioned gerrymandering. There's a tremendous opportunity, I think, to advance reforms for independent redistricting commissions. As you know, and as your audience well knows, you know, there was progress made that in 2018. And despite setbacks that of course occur, I think there's tremendous energy in that space. Also, ranked choice voting. That's something that I'm also very excited about. In addition to gerrymandering, what's interesting about

ranked Choice is that Utah's Republican Party has used ranked choice forever as a way to choose its own leaders. You know, so many people think this is a Democratic idea, but it actually has nothing to do with one party or another. It's just a way to make sure that the winner represents a majority, as opposed to just whatever faction happens to be on top of in one particular counting. But let's try to be precise about what we think we're aiming for. So you have started an organization, Stand Up Republic. I take that word, Republic very seriously. The framers conceived of a republic as a representative democracy. That seems to me to point in a very clear direction. We need a democracy that is representative. And what representative means is that every part is playing its representative role and that some people shouldn't have more power than others because we've rigged the system to give that benefit. So gerrymandering is one way we rigged the system. We seem to be in agreement on that.

Indeed.

I think we also would be in agreement that you shouldn't be, like, screwing around with the rules to make it harder for your political opponents to vote. Absolutely.

Voter access is a big problem. Speaking of Georgia.

Speaking of Georgia, the state of Georgia. So I think that's another place where representative helps us see what's really valuable here. The part that, you know, I think we've. We've. I don't understand why, but we found it hardest to get conservatives to jump on the bandwagon with, is the way we fund campaigns. Because, you know, obviously, if you have a system, seems to me obvious, you have a system where members are taught to pay attention to 150,000Americans, namely, the people funding their campaigns, and they spend half their time sucking up to those people. Those people have more power in our political system because of that. They're not equal in our political system to, you know, other people, because they're not. The other people are not funding their campaigns. Finding a way to fund campaigns so that we're all represented equally. Like, you know, one idea that was Gillibrand was on our podcast, and she's talking about the Democrats don't like to use the word voucher, but I can, with an independent, I can use the word voucher. Democracy vouchers, where we give every citizen vouchers to help fund campaigns. That would change the dynamic. So representatives were interested in all voters, which, you know, in a democracy, in a republic, is the sort of thing that we should think about. What do you think about the funding issue? How do you. When you think about the problem, where is this on the list?

Yeah, well, I am concerned about money and politics. I'm concerned about the way, frankly, the roles that lobbyists play in their money, in the process, where you have sort of a lobbying firm donating lots of money to, for example, a member of Congress who has happens to have an influential role on a committee, maybe a chair, and then the influence that comes from that. I mean, it's not just campaigns. It's also once officials are elected and sitting in their positions, the role of money also continues. And I think, as I've seen That up close and in person, working in Congress. And so, yeah, look, I am concerned about that. I haven't yet gotten to the point where I'm supportive of public funding for campaigns. What I would rather see is limitations on outsized. The ability of people to contribute to campaigns in an outsized way that sort of then nullifies the influence of the typical voter. So that I think is. That would be where I would focus at this point at least. But I certainly am sensitive to the need for the democratic parts of our process of our representative government to actually represent the people and for that representation to be equal. Essentially the spirit of the one person, one vote idea. But I haven't quite got to the point where I think where I'm comfortable with public funding yet. But I understand the goal of that. I simply want to make sure that for the average voter out there, that their voice is not overrun by interests that are financially overpowering. But I will say this, Larry. I think that money matters in politics a great deal. And it's certainly the first. Dollars matter a lot where they can. It's hard to actually, and I know this from personal experience, it's hard to actually enter a race even because the low threshold for viability, even from a financial perspective, can be very challenging for someone who isn't independently wealthy for a variety of. Of reasons. But I also think that dollars only go so far and that still I believe that despite challenges with money and politics, which I think there are plenty of reforms that need to happen, ideas are still more powerful than dollars. But as long as people can reach a basic threshold of viability, and so you could potentially explore how to. How to help people get to that point of basic viability and then perhaps the rest, they're on their own. But it's complicated. But I am sensitive to the corrupting influence of money in our politics. No doubt about it.

I'm trying to drill down a bit about what the resources resistances. So is it the word public funding? I mean, because let's think of vouchers as a kind of rebate on the taxes that all of us are paying. Like all of us. I'm not talking about income taxes. I'm talking about all taxes. All of us pay at least $50 to the federal government in taxes. And let's say that we just send that first dollar fifty back. Richard Painter, who was the ethics czar in the Bush administration, as written a really fantastic book, no Taxation Without Representation, and he argues in favor of vouchers. And the basic argument he makes is that we're not represented right now, so why should we be taxed? And the only way we should be taxed is if we're represented. And the only way we can be representatives, we all are funding campaigns because right now the people who are represented are the people, the 150,000 who are funding campaigns. But if we thought about it as going to send back the first money you send in so that you can get a Congress that represents you. And once that Congress is there, then, you know, they can legislate on taxes or whatever else. But we know that they're worried about you, not about their funders. Is that a better way to think about it than, you know, these kind of words, public funding, which evoke, I think, you know, big government liberalism in a way that is scary to.

Yeah, you know, I tend not to be too tricky triggered by terms like that. I think my question would more be around not being 100% sure that that's the best way for people's funding to end up supporting candidates. I mean, I like the idea of people being able to say directly, I'm going to support candidate X and then donating to that campaign.

But that's what the vouchers would do, right? The vouchers would give you the ability to take that $50 or $100 and give that $50 or $100 to candidate X.

Yes.

It's not the government deciding, it's you deciding, you deciding.

But it's again, it's through a process, through a government run process.

Well, like they hand you a coupon. So like Seattle does this right now.

Yeah, I know Seattle does it.

Yeah. So in the sense, you know, it's certainly the government in the sense that the government's making the funds available. But from that point on, unlike the presidential public funding system, which I know that you would know a lot about, because when you were running, I'm sure that this was an issue like, do you think about participating where the government decides how much everybody gets and then writes a check for that? That's not what this is. This is purely bottom up driven funding. Is that the kind of idea that a conservative could be closer to liking than?

Yeah, well, I think the voucher idea is one that is more likely to gain conservative support than. Than other approaches to public funding of campaigns. But you still have a situation in which the government is deciding how much to allocate to campaigns, period. And rather than sort of a truly sort of bottoms up response to any political environment, which is one that exists now in terms of an Individual saying, you know, I'm going to directly, the government gives you a $200 voucher and you decide what to do with it, that's one thing. But it has decided how much it's going to allocate from public funds to that process. Whereas currently someone can just directly say, this is how much I want to give, and it's a little more organic of a response to any political situation.

Yeah, I think this is one of the concerns that I have about some public funds funding advocates is that some people are talking about making public funding the exclusive mode of funding. And what I fear when you talk about that is the government has an incentive then to fund at such a low level to protect the incumbents because, like, you know, incumbents have an obvious advantage. So if you say the only way to fund a campaign is public funding, and, oh, by the way, the only funding you get to run for Congress is $100,000, that's a pretty good way to make sure that the incumbent in Congress has no real challenger. So, yeah, I think there's a worry that you would drive out this more organic, but I think that some people, the way I think about it is complimenting the organic. So you wouldn't be restricting anybody necessarily. You would be more like making it possible for a wider range of people to be represented in the funding who right now can't. I mean, you know, I'm sure you spend a lot of time with people who could easily afford to write a check for $50,000 or $100,000 or even $100, but the average American finds it really hard to imagine giving $100 to a political candidate. I mean, the average American doesn't have $400 if they, you know, if they have a health care crisis. So I think that the real question for me is how do we make sure that a wider range of America is represented in the funding process? Because we obviously see for all the corrupting reasons that you identified with the media and this too, that that process is incredibly important.

Yeah. You know, look, I think all of this, this voucher idea is. I mean, it's an interesting one and it's one that warrants, I mean, it's, as you pointed out, being used in Seattle. And, you know, it's worth further exploring. I think I'm most open to it sort of impacting the threshold of viability. Right. So you have plenty of good people out there who could run and be tremendous leaders, but because they're not independently wealthy, they can't even get to the threshold of viability for financial reasons. And you sort of need money to raise money, you know, and so it's, you know, I'm, I'm sympathetic to an idea that perhaps we need to find a way so that more people can participate as candidates, which could involve some sort of potentially voucher solution. But I think in my view at that point, it probably shouldn't go beyond that point of. And we need, we would need to make a judgment about what that point of financial, that threshold of financial viability is. But it should be just enough. It's like seed funding for a campaign. It's the basic funding. And if your ideas are resonating in the marketplace of ideas, then you should be able to take it on your own from there.

Yeah, but this brings us back to, I think, a really nice way you were framed, framing it before. I think of it as the question of who are you dependent on? And we want to make sure you're not dependent on the wrong people. You're not dependent on the Russians, you're not dependent on the 0.01%. You're dependent on the public. That's what a democracy, that's what a representative democracy is. So I agree, you could tune this system so that at every stage candidates felt an independence from improper influence. And that should be the objective. I'm not so much interested in worrying about whether speech is too loud or too quiet. I'm not worried about equalizing the speech market. I don't even know what that means. I'm worried about making sure representatives feel sufficiently independent that they can make a judgment that they believe is in the public interest as opposed to, to in the interest of the people they know they need to please in order to get the large contributions they need to go forward.

Yeah, I hear that and I think it's, you know, it's another piece of this is simply limiting the role for high dollar vehicles, whether they be super PACs or others. And look, I'm, I'm someone who helps lead a super PAC and I help run a 501C4 which is a nonprofit that is able to get involved in elections. And my organizations do that with the purpose of defending our democratic ideals, norms and institutions. Small D. Democratic norms, ideals and institutions. And that's, you know, we do that because that is our system right now and that's what we need to do. But I do understand and am sort of think favorably about the idea that, you know, maybe we should not. Those types of organizations should not be able to have as much influence. But right now, most of those organizations, and plenty of them exist, are very partisan and are on the right and the left. And many of them tend to be ideologically motivated. So they're helping to pull the parties apart and towards ideological extremes. And we're sort of in the middle trying to counter that. But in sort of a perfect world, you might lessen the amount of influence and the fundraising ability of organizations like these, which again, most of them are ideologically bent and usually further out on the political spectrum.

Yeah, no, and they really wrecked the parties because they have more power than the parties. They do. And that's a devastation for a democracy because parties, well functioning parties that are thinking about platforms for a party that are long term packages of policies are essential. And when you get these single issue super PACs that say the only thing that's important is like lower taxes, or the only thing that's important is health care for all, even though you might be in favor of lower taxes, you might be in favor of health care for all, those begin to distort fundamentally the opportunity of representative democracy.

Well, absolutely. And those outside organizations, and again, sort of an honest disclaimer, I help run a couple of them. Although not, you know, it' syou know, our mission is unique, but. Absolutely. The typical outside organization right now is more empowered than it's ever been. They can raise unlimited amounts of money. They apply ideological purity tests to our elected representatives. That prevents our elected representatives from reaching bipartisan compromises that are critical to a stable country.

Yeah.

And so because of that, now we're caught in this loop of sort of wave elections in which, you know, we lurch from one end of the political spectrum to the other and policies done by one administration are overturned by the next, and we have unclear policies on even things as important as healthcare. And that's a big problem. And I think because of all of this, we're seeing the destabilization of our country. And of course, foreign adversaries see that and say, oh well, this is the weakening of America. We can stoke these divisions that are brought on, I think, largely by these outside organizations now exerting tremendous influence over the parties and over our elected officials. They can stoke all of that and make it worse. And they have.

This is one of the points that Richard Painter makes so brilliantly in his book, which is, you know, if you're a conservative and you're, you know, there was a time when conservatives were worried about foreign influence, influence, Soviet influence. Now we have Russian influence, but Soviet influence. And when the Supreme Court says in Citizens United, that corporations can spend unlimited amounts of money in elections. Painter says, well, whose money is that? Corporations are global entities. And you might say it's the American branch of a corporation. But if it's a huge part, as Chinese or huge part is. Is, you know, Mexican, then obviously the influence is not just American, it's foreign. And the idea that we open this channel of foreign influence into our elections and support it, wrap it in the First Amendment, is really astonishing. Yet that's exactly what we've done.

Yeah. And there's sort of the corporate angle of that, but there's also the 501C4 angle of that. Again, you know, a nonprofit that is empowered to engage in. In elections, to get itself involved in elections. Those organizations can raise foreign money, but they're not allowed to use that foreign money in elections. But that's a completely naive way to think about it, because funding is sort of fungible. If you're the NRA and you receive money from the Russians, you can't use that money for campaigns. But now you have more money. That money from the Russians frees up other parts of the budget that you can use in campaigns. And so it's just sort of this ridiculous construct that, yes, leaves our politics at risk to foreign interference.

Okay. One other area I'd love to know where you fit or where you stand is the Electoral College. So obviously, the strategy that you were deploying in 2016 was a strategy that depended, in a certain sense, on the existence Electoral College working the way it would work if there had been a close election. And you could have taken. Is it eight or six. Six electoral votes. You're speaking to Utah, specifically Utah's votes, and put them someplace else. You could have thrown it into the House, which would have given the House the chance to pick among three candidates the president. Or you could have, you know, at least denied Donald Trump a victory. That's a function of this election. Electoral College. The Electoral College has two components that I think are important to think about. One is constitutional, the fact that it's not proportional, because every state gets electors equal to the total number of representatives plus the total number of senators, which means, like states like Wyoming get a significant higher number of electors per capita than a state like California. So that's one feature or bug, depending on your view. The other feature or bug is the fact that all but two states allocate their electors to the winner of the popular vote. So if you're in California or here in Massachusetts, a million people voted Republican, but there was not a Single elector that voted for Donald Trump or in Texas, you know, a huge number of people, percentage voted for Hillary Clinton, but not a single elector got to vote for Hillary Clinton. So the fact that we don't have proportional allocation does two things. It silences those minority people in those states. They don't feel any real reason to participate. But I think the more interesting thing that it does is make it so candidates don't care about non swing states. You don't need Utah. Nobody's going to waste time in Texas or in California. If you're a Republican, you're not going to waste time in Texas because you won Texas. If you're a Republican, you're not gonna waste time in California except to raise money because you know, no matter what you do, you're not gonna get a single elector from California. So Texas and California don't matter. New York doesn't matter. Massachusetts doesn't matter. Ohio matters. Where it used to matter. We'll see where it is in 2020. Florida matters. Michigan matters. Swing states matter. But swing states are not America. The Framers never had a conception of swing states when they created the Electoral College. So I wonder, when you look at this and think about, well, what would be a right way forward, what's the way you think we ought to move forward? Is it national popular vote? Is it more proportional allocation of electors? What's the solution to this?

Yeah, well, I certainly understand the frustration on this issue, especially after in recent years we've had two elections where the popular vote winner hasn't been ultimately elected president through the Electoral College. So there's certainly a lot of frustration there. And I understand that. I look at the Electoral College as an institution that is not performing its intended role in our system of self rule. And so if you read Federalist 68, you understand that it had a purpose which was sort of to be a check on the power of the majority. And I actually think that's an important check, candidly, because I'm worried about the same things that the framers articulated at that time, which was the rise of a demagogue, the rise of foreign influence in our government. They were very prescient in and sort of anticipating our time, but also they faced these challenges back then, but they're every bit as relevant today. When I look at the Electoral College, the thing that concerns me most is that electors are not really independent. They're not empowered the same way the Framers wanted them to be empowered. There are laws now that sort of limit how they can cast their votes when they come together in December to do that and requiring them, for example, to vote consistent with the popular vote in their state. And you're more of an expert on these legal issues than I would be. But I frankly would like to see those challenged in court. I question the constitutionality of it.

Well, in fact, we are challenging them. We have a case in Washington where we're defending electors who voted their conscience and they were fined a thousand. And we will have a cert petition in the United States Supreme Court to get the Supreme Court to consider the question.

Excellent.

Because whatever side you're on on this, whether you defend the Framer's view or you reject the Framer's view, the one thing certain is the Supreme Court needs to resolve this before there's a constitutional crisis around it. In 2016, I was very close to a group that was trying to advise electors about their constitutional rights. And our view was, as you've articulated, that they have a right, constitutional right to exercise judgment. And so if their judgment is, you know, that Donald Trump is not qualified to be president, they should be able to exercise that. So many of them believe they didn't have that right because the laws say they don't have that right.

It is their purpose. It is their purpose. And that's, you know, if the Electoral College had performed its. Its true purpose, then we very well may not have a President Trump in office now. Now, admittedly, that would have, you know, there would have been a lot of challenges. You know, there could have been perhaps even violence. We have a president who said that he wouldn't accept the results of the election even if he lost the popular vote outright and Hillary Clinton had won the Electoral College as well, or it had worked out in some other way. He was already saying he wasn't going to accept the results of the election. And there were plenty of people ready to believe that somehow he had been robbed of the presidency, even if he had not won it in any sense, either through the Electoral College or in any other way. Indeed, that's the only way. But that's the problem with the Electoral College that I most think needs to be solved. I do think that there's an important role for the Electoral College to play. There's tension between democracy and liberty, and sometimes the majority of any populace, the majority of this republic, has an idea about something that's just darn wrong, and that is an infringement upon basic, fundamental human rights, natural liberties of us. And I think that we have a system of checks and balances in this country. And I think The Electoral College serves as a check on the power of the majority, and I think it's an important one. But provided that the Electoral College serve that role. And right now, I don't think it is.

Yeah, they don't conceive of themselves as that. And there's a real question whether we could get to that, and if we could, whether that would would be a good thing. But we ought to figure out what it is. Of course, in 2016, if the electoral College had voted against Donald Trump, they wouldn't have had to be thinking of themselves as voting against the majority. They could have thought of themselves as voting with the majority. They could have thought, you know, the majority has spoken. 3 million more people have said, Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump. I'm going to vote consistent with the majority, because I think that's what makes sense in this republic, that under the conception of the framers, would have been perfect, legitimate for them to do. But most people, most of those electors didn't think they had that right.

Or they could have said that this is a dangerous demagogue who clearly is under the influence of a foreign and adversarial foreign power. And this is exactly the type of person our body was set up to prevent. And so they could have done that. So that's sort of how I approach the Electoral College and sort of of really the most compelling piece of it for me. I understand also this idea that, look, there are a set of 10 or 11 swing states, and ultimately they decide who is elected president, and the candidates campaign in those states and in those states alone. And that's a problem, too. That's not ideal at all. I do question also, though, if we went to a national popular vote, would it Simply switch what 11 states those are? You know, would it become another set of a dozen states that are the most populous, for example? The most populous. And that's where general election candidates would spend their time, most of their time. And you'd see, you know, very little time spent in the middle of the country. And the other thing I worry about if we went to a national popular vote is that I worry that we could end up in a situation where states in the middle of the country who are less populous get to the point where they're so disenfranchised that we have real serious challenges in the union. And I really worry about that. The process now incentivizes general election candidates to try, at least to some degree. Yes, there are the swing states, but I do think it incentivizes them to appeal. Yes, Even beyond those swing states to build a coalition in America that is more unifying than I think would be the case if we were running on a popular vote system.

Well, in 2016, 99% of campaign spending was in 14 swing states, 95% of campaign events, and I think the only reason 5% wasn't was because they were in New York and California where they were raising money. So what the swing states do to the middle of the country I think is really important. There are a couple swing states that we think of as middle of the country. States like Iowa is a swing state, Colorado used to be a swing state, not so much anymore. But I think these are really important questions. If you had a national popular vote, would it just mean the big states mattered? I don't think it would because, you know, a vote's a vote and if I'm a campaign manager for a candidate and I think, geez, you know, we could go to Nebraska and get votes much cheaper than we can in Los Angeles. Let's spend our money in Nebraska and get votes in Nebraska and not worry so much about Los Angeles. That might make sense. I mean, we ought to think about that. The other thing that I think it's

hard to tell what that impact would be.

We don't know. The other thing we don't really haven't really thought through, I don't think people have thought through is of course voting rules right now are state driven. The Constitution gives Congress a clear rule over Congress, but it's not clear its role over the president, setting standards for voting for the president. So you might have a race to the top or the bottom, however you want to think about it. So like, you know, New York could decide 16 year olds get to vote and all of a sudden, you know, 5 million more new Yorkers get to vote, because I don't know what that number is. But you know, the point is 5 million more or whatever the number is, get to vote in New York because New York has moved in that way, while Utah only allows 18 year olds to vote. So we have to work those things, things out. But I think what this all points to is we have a real question in America about how we elect our president. And we ought to resolve that. We ought to figure it out in a way that people on the right and people on the left, people in the center and people on the coast can come to terms with. Because right now it's a real source of frustration and anger. And we've done the numbers. There's a 30% chance right now, going forward, that we're going to have presidents elected without the popular vote in this next election, there's a 60% chance that Trump wins again without the popular vote. And I think that people are going to become increasingly frustrated with this system if they feel like in a democracy, the majority doesn't win. And that's a real problem. We have to come to some real resolutions.

Yeah, it is. Yes, it will. It will be a tremendous challenge if he again wins the Electoral College and fails to win the popular vote. The bigger that Delta is, that popular vote Delta is between him and his leading opponent, the more challenging it will be politically for the country. Again, I wonder about a world in which what would Democrats. How would Democrats feel about the Electoral College if it had done its job? You know, if it had done the job that it was, you know, if it had served its purpose, the purpose that it was set up to serve. In this case, I think it's clear, you know, you read the Federalist 68. It couldn't have been a more direct description of Donald Trump, you know, in terms of what the Electoral College was intended to prevent. It really couldn't have been. And so if the Electoral College, even taking sort of a textbook example of what it was set up to prevent, if it isn't serving that purpose, you know, what purpose is it serving? But I think it should serve that purpose. And I wonder how Democrats would feel about the Electoral College if it had served its intended purpose in that case and the president had not. Donald Trump had not become the president because the Electoral Colleges had played the role that it was designed to do.

Yeah, it's not just the Electoral College, it's also the Republican Party. Because, of course, if the Electoral College had voted against Donald Trump, whether to throw it to the House by voting for somebody like Kasich or voted for Hillary Clinton, it would have been Republicans voting against Donald Trump. And I think many people would have said, wow, there's a lot of integrity. You know, it's like the moment when Hamilton announces his support for Jefferson and people are like, I'll be damned. To use the words from Lyn Emanuels, I'll be damned. Hamilton's on your side. The idea that Republicans had voted against Donald Trump and denied him the presidency, that would have been a real moment of unifying, of course, in the Republican Party, I think there would have been blood, but that's a separate matter. Evan, I'm so grateful for the time, time you've given. Just, let's end with, is there hope here? What's your optimistic take on where we are 10 years from now when we look back at what we've just gone through?

Well, my true take is that we have a tremendous opportunity to emerge stronger than ever as a country. Our system of self government, our democratic republic has the opportunity to be strengthened by the challenges we're facing now. Of course, we have to work for it, we have to fight for it, but we are doing that. And the results, although they come more slowly than we want them to come because we have, generally speaking, elections just every two years. But we are seeing the work of the democracy movement, this new democracy movement in the United States have an impact. Protect our democracy, ensure a separation of powers, at least on a greater level than we had when Trump was originally elected, supporting, you know, a change in power in the House of Representatives that now ensures that the president is held accountable by at least one chamber. Reform initiatives are advancing across the country, whether they be gerrymandering reform or ranked choice voting or others. I mean, this is an exciting time for yes, we're facing tremendous challenges to our democracy, but we're also making tremendous advances in improving and strengthening it. And this is a fight right now and we have to have it. And as I've said many times, it's not enough simply to defend our democracy, but we must strengthen it, we must improve it, we must make it a, a better example of self rule. And I think reforms like gerrymandering reform and ranked choice voting and automatic voter registration, I think these things and other ideas that some of which we've discussed today are being discussed more frequently and are being advanced by you and many others and organizations like mine and gaining a lot of energy across the country and yes, among conservative voters too. You know, I look at Utah, for instance, example, you know that the Republican Party in Utah uses ranked choice voting has for a long time. There are a couple there's now a pilot program in the state in which cities can draw on receive funding from the state to pilot ranked choice voting in municipal elections. So two are doing it now and there are another several that are considering it. And there's, you know, there's growing momentum and some of the of the chief proponents of ranked choice voting in Utah are conservatives. There's a former chair of the Utah Republican Party who's one of the biggest components of ranked choice voting. And certainly I count myself among those on the conservative side who are passionately in favor of ranked choice voting. So anyway, I think it's an exciting time and yes, we face a lot of challenges and disappointments, certainly on the right with our elected leaders and they're acting to stifle our democratic processes. But among actual voters out there, people who, regular people who are out there working and hoping that government serves the interests of the people and of the country, it's not hard to sell them on many of these reforms that they recognize as being fair or right or empowering to them and that bring the potential of incentivizing a different kind of leadership, a more unifying kind of leadership. Leadership that is driven by evidence based policy making, which has greater potential for being unifying and lasting and constructive than this sort of ideological purity test approach that we have now.

Yeah, I agree. Evan's group is Standup Republic. Is that the URL?

That's right, yeah. Standuprepublic.com that's right.

So you should join and sign up. I get regular emails which are edifying because when I read them, I don't feel isolated. Even though our politics are very difficult, I feel energized to think about a possibility of a movement that unites us. And that's what we're seeking here.

Indeed. And Larry, I want to thank you too for all the work you're doing and focusing on this as you have for so long. I greatly appreciate it.

Thank you. So. Thanks very much. This is the end of our episode.

Thank you.

So that's the end of this episode of Another Way. Stay tuned later in the season for other conservatives who are also going to address this question of possible common ground, including my friend Richard Painter, who was the ethics czar for George W. Bush and a board member of Equal Citizens. And I'm also hopeful we'll convince the great John Pudner, who is the founder of Take Back Our Republic, which has been a critical movement on the right for rallying people to democratic reform. As listeners of this podcast know, and as people who've known my work know. Though I am myself a liberal, a progressive, I don't believe democratic reform or, or the reform of this republic will happen in any other way than finding a movement that can unite people on the right and the left to this fundamental fight. And I am more convinced today than I have ever been that that movement is out there and that in the states, if not in Washington, D.C. there is support for the kind of change of Washington that would make it possible for our government, government to work. That, at least, is the theory. These podcasts are produced by equalcitizens.us. you can find us on the web at equalcitizens us. And find this podcast at equalcitizens us anotherway. There's a place on that page to share the podcast and to give us feedback and your ideas. Please do both. And please share this podcast broadly. Whether or not the philosophers can resolve the question whether a tree falling in the woods when no one hears it creates any sound, we're pretty sure that a podcast that is not shared does not produce any change. Many of the ideas discussed in this season of Another Way are also discussed in a new book that is being published this fall. Written by me. The book is titled they they Don't Represent Us. You can as in you definitely should pre order one of these books or 50. It's totally up to you@hc.com representus HC as in HarperCollins, not Hillary Clinton. HC.com representus thanks so much for tuning in. Stay tuned next week for another episode of Another Way. This is Larry Lessig, Sa.