The Second Annual Democracy Awards

This podcast is part of the Democracy group.

Okay, well, we don't have a theme song, Adam, but we want to welcome you and our listeners to Our Democracy Awards 2020. This is the second edition of the Democracy Awards. As regular listeners know. This is part two of our recap. We did just a sort of talking recap, a regular chatty recap in our last episode. But now we want to have the Democracy Awards, which, Adam, have been called by reputable authorities the best of both the Razzies and the Oscars. Because we, the Razzies, of course, give awards to the worst movies of the year. We give awards to the worst democracy offenders of the year. And the Oscars, the golden statues, go to those that uphold the art of cinema. And we are going to give out some awards to those who uphold the heart of democracy.

Yeah. And, Jason, I just want to say that today I'm wearing my nice pandemic sweatshirt, and I feel really. I shaved today. And so I really presented myself nicely for the presentation of these prestigious awards.

Oh, I'm in full black tie, Adam. But listeners will never be able to prove that. You'll have to take my word for it. Okay, here's how this is going to work. We've got a handful of good awards. We've got a handful of bad awards. We've got one so. So award, and we're going to go through them with the award show is going to bounce back and forth. We don't want to just start with all bad, and we don't want to just end on a sour note either. So we're going to bounce back and forth. So the first award that I want to announce, Adam, I'll announce the award, and you announce the winner is the Pushing the Movement Forward award. So tell us what group, what state, what group of voters really pushed the movement forward for you in 2020?

Well, I think that in terms of the most consequential moment for pushing the movement forward in 2020 was the successful ballot initiative campaign in Alaska to implement a nonpartisan top four primary with ranked choice voting for the general election. You know, passing ranked choice voting in a traditionally red state, a quirky red state, but in a red state nonetheless is a big deal. It's a big deal for the movement. When we can expand these popular reforms in blue states and red states, it's going to be a consequential talking point moving forward as we try and expand ranked choice voting. It's. We can show very concretely that it's not just Democrats who want to improve our democracy. But as we know, Jason, it's voters of both parties, and especially in the case of Alaska, those who don't affiliate with a political party who are disgusted with the status quo of our system and want to help design and create a system that really does reflect all voices and promotes citizen equality, as our group's name, Equal citizens, suggests. So, you know, as listeners know from, from my interview with the folks on that campaign, it was a really remarkable campaign that they ran, Jason, in a pandemic. They filed litigation, they gathered signatures, they ran the digital campaign in a pandemic, and they still won on a wonky subject like ranked choice voting. So I gladly, gladly, gladly give this pushing the movement forward award to the Alaska ballot initiative campaign that introduced top four primary nonpartisan primaries and ranked choice.

Vot. Great.

So next award, Jason, is putting democracy over politics award.

Who does that go to?

Yes, it seems like important one.

It does. So this award goes to the legislative body and voters that most clearly put their partisan interests aside and did something good for democracy, and that is the Virginia legislature and the Virginia voters with respect to gerrymandering reforms. And the reason is that when Democrats came into power in Virginia for the first time in a generation, the maps had been gerrymandered badly in that whole southeastern corridor, right? Virginia and North Carolina and South Carolina badly gerrymandered against the Democrats. Well, Democrats finally have a trifecta. They have the opportunity to stick it to the Republicans. Just do the reverse, right? They're gonna hold all three chambers in, in the gerrymandering year or in the day gerrymandering year, My goodness, the redistricting year. And what do they do, Adam? Do they just gerrymander right back or do they put democracy over politics? They chose narrowly to put democracy over politics. The Democratic controlled legislature in two straight years passed an amendment to enable an independent commission to do the redistricting beyond partisan control that then went to the voters in November. The voters ratified it. And this is, you know, that moment. I point to Virginia, I give them the award with pleasure. Because when people say, aren't the parties equally bad? Doesn't everyone, doesn't every politician of any party just always do what's in their interest? I point to the Virginia legislature and I point to those noble Democrats and Republicans who said, okay, enough is enough. It's time we put down our arms. No more gerrymandering here. Even if it wasn't the Democrats interest this time, it would be in the Republicans interest some other time. And they finally, including the Voters ratification by the voters said enough is enough. So that is the biggest democracy over politics moment that I saw in 2020.

But yeah, and Jason, just very, very quickly, Jason, I should just say that like that didn't happen in a vacuum, right? That there were amazing reformers like Brian Cannon and his group down there and countless citizens who stood up and made the Democrats do it. So it did take good faith on the politicians efforts, but it also was a team effort in terms of it required the reform movement to hold feet to the fire and give those Democrats the political capital to make good on that promise to end gerrymandering. So, you know, this really was a movement victory as well as kind of giving up partisanship. So it really was just kind of exciting moment on all ends of this event.

Yes, but the stage, we need a large stage to get all the people here that would be jockeying for space. But we have another D in a P award. That was democracy over politics. This is democracy in a pandemic award. This is another positive award. Who saved democracy in a pandemic, Adam?

Well, talk about a big stage. But I'm gonna have to say that all of the activists in the democracy reform community and in states across the country that expanded vote by mail laws across the country, that before the pandemic, countless states had extremely restrictive policies around who could vote by mail. Activists, democracy reformers, ordinary citizens, sympathetic legislator, legislators all came together, did what had to be done. I mean, big shout out, for example, to the Vote at home institute, Amber McReynolds and all the people in states across the country that really did the hard work that, you know, unless you're super plugged in, you'll never see it. You'll never see the news stories, you'll never see the countless hours on the phone in the state houses, in zoom meetings advising the politicians about how best to implement these things or the expansion to vote by mail. Okay, so Jason, the next award goes to the democracy heroes. Who should get that award?

Well, related to what you were talking about with the folks fighting to expand vote by mail, you know, the folks who administered vote by mail as well as the folks who administered in person polling, you know, this is a large award. We need a really big stage. But all the poll workers for mail voting and in person voting, the election officials, the usps, the degree of difficulty for this last election, as we talked about on our previous episode, was super high. And by and large, you know, the rank and file. And I say that with the utmost admiration. Right. Rank and file here as really the people we needed. And they stepped up individually, they stepped up as a group. You know, they've gotten lots of praise in lots of quarters. They're gonna get the Democracy Hero award from us here at this award show because, you know, we couldn't have done it without them. Right. That's just a fact. Without people of good faith putting their health, taking precautions, but put it candidly, putting their health on the line, putting their community first. That we just. It's great to see happen. It was more transparent than ever. So we got to see it happen on camera, on Twitter, online. They were really all, to a person doing an absolutely heroic job. This democracy needs to be saved every election. And they saved it here for us for sure. And so those are the heroes in aggregate. I wanted to shout out and give an award as well to some democracy nerds too. The people that really got in deep and explained democracy to the public this year. I want to say a few of my favorites, Adam. And then you can give your democracy Nerd awards. I say with the utmost admiration the trio of folks that wrote excellent books, the first real group of books in a long time to come out and take on different aspects of the Electoral College and the Electoral College reform. Alex Keyssar wrote an incredible history of the Electoral College called why do we still have the Electoral College of Reform efforts. Ned Foley wrote a remarkable book called Presidential Elections and Majority Rule, explaining why the current system of the Electoral College is really inconsistent with the vision of majority rule that the framers had. And then Jesse Wegman at the New York Times editorial board has been writing fantastic editorials all year about the Electoral College and about democracy. But he also wrote a terrific and very readable book called Let the People Pick the President that is about why we should let the people pick the President and not this quirky system of unequal votes in the Electoral College. And then my Audio Visual Nerds award, Slay the Dragon. Fantastic, fantastic documentary about the efforts to take on gerrymandering in, especially in Michigan, but also in the Supreme Court case that became Rucho profiling. Different groups of folks just, you know, there were a lot of really, really good documentaries about democracy this year. Larry Lessig was in the swamp, which we also should shout out to hbo, but. But nothing against the swamp. They should get lots of awards, too. But in terms of. Of digging into the issues and being on the ground, I really, really like Slay the Dragon and hope that if you haven't watched it, you have a little time over the holidays. Give Slay The Dragon or any of these wonderful books. A read. Adam, who are your favorite democracy nerds of the year?

Yeah, I mean, one more thought about Slay the Dragon is that for years we've had these documentaries about how broken our democracy is or kind of the reforms, but they've all been. I mean, this isn't necessarily an insult, but not necessarily the most cinematic quality. It's not something I would expect to see at a movie theater. But Slay the Dragon was one of the first documentaries about the subject that you and I kind of live and breathe every single day that I just was enthralled by in terms of the quality, the cinematography, the everything about it was so Hollywood esque. And, you know, part of that is just because the stories that were told were Hollywood esque. The effort of Katie Fahey and voters, not politicians in Michigan, slaying the dragon against all odds in Michigan really does make for a heck of a narrative. So shout out to that. What I want to shout out is my good buddy and friend of this podcast, Dave Daly, wrote a great book called Unrigged that really chronicled and captured the reform movement pre pandemic. We did a podcast with him a few, you know, handful of months ago about his book, but really kind of he what he embedded with some of the reform movements and then, you know, really gave a real vivid illustration and brings the reader into those reform efforts and about how they won and just gives col to this vibrant democracy reform movement that we are a part of. So highly recommend that.

Totally. Okay, that's a lot of optimism for this podcast and we should say we're going to come back to even more good things and more positive awards. There was a lot of good, right? It was a bizarre year. But as always, democracy moves forward. There's great people doing great work and we wanted to highlight that. We will highlight more. But now, Adam, we're going to flip the switch to the Razzies. We're going to give, you know, we're going to give out some tough awards now and we hope people take it seriously and they want to go from the Razzie category to the Oscar category. They want to be a hero and not a villain. The first award, Adam, which I want you to give, this is a controversial one. This is a difficult one. But this year's first negative award is. What in the world is the Public Thinking Award. Who does that go to?

Well, this was, this was a tough one, but I have to give it to my fellow voters here in Massachusetts for rejecting the ballot initiative. To implement ranked choice voting. Severely disappointed in my fellow Massachusetts residents. But you want to know something, Jason? It was an awfully hard campaign, and those who are fighting for it gave it every, every bit of effort that they possibly could to try and pass ranked choice voting in Massachusetts in the midst of a pandemic. You know, the reformers did everything they could. I thought they had a great chance. They did come within, you know, less than 10 points. But ultimately it didn't pass and, you know, very, very disappointed. And it certainly sets the movement back a bit for ranked choice voting. It would have really been an amazing moment to have it passed in Massachusetts and Alask in 2020. But again, Jason, the fact that Alaska passed ranked choice voting in a red state saved the day. And so the movement for ranked choice voting is not dead, but it was a little bit set back by Massachusetts not passing this reform. So I give the what is the public thinking award to my fellow Massachusetts

residents and to all those. There are 1,875,712 people who can accept this award. 54.8% of the Massachusetts electorate. On question two, Adam, if any of those want to collect their award, it's an ignominious honor. But if you voted no and want to collect the award, I don't know, email us. Maybe we'll give you some sort of email certificate or something. But, you know, there's a lot of people, sadly, eligible for that award. It just, you know, it goes to show it's a hard movement. Right. We take it for granted here. We try to explain why ranked choice voting and these methods are so critical to ensuring the health of our democracy. But in the media landscape, it's so difficult to connect with people, especially in the midst of a pandemic. I agree. The campaign was really great. They got historic amount of signatures even in the middle of a pandemic. The momentum is there, but they couldn't get it over the finish line. And I blame those 1.8 million voters. Adam, they get the Razzie award.

I think with some more public education, we'll get them around to our view here. You know, again, I think the pandemic really hurt, but, you know, kudos to the reformers for that campaign. They really gave it their all. They really inspired me despite the outcome.

Jason. That's right. Okay, you get to announce our next one. It's a mouthful.

All right, Jason, so the next award, as you said, is a mouthful. It's the most ludicrously hypocritical asterisk Even in a year with a president who consistently railed against voting by mail, while he consistently votes by mail. Jason, who's the winner of that one?

Yeah. So let's explain this award, right? There's lots of hypocritical politicians on democracy, Adam, you know, democracy and ending corruption and all that. And that, you know, politicians at least tend to pay lip service to that. And so there's lots of hypocrisy here. But we wanted to pick a politician who raised hypocrisy to really historic levels, of course, even in a year and with a president who raises hypocrisy to practically an art form. Right. Practically a raison d', etre, if you will. Right. By consistently railing against vote by mail. Indeed, creating this incredible partisan split on the trust of vote by mail. Meanwhile, the president himself essentially exclusively votes by mail. Right.

Jason. Jason, it's absentee balloting.

Okay?

He was, he was voting absentee, not by mail. Very different.

I got it.

Very different.

Right. So. But that was secure for some reason. And yet I believe, Adam, there is something even more hypocritical than that. And that is the immortal moment, the moment that in many ways summarizes so many of the Trumpists attitude toward voting in this year. The immortal moment when Wisconsin speaker of the House Robin Voss, we're going to give him the award by name, went outside on an election day that he basically overruled the governor and forced an election in early April, a spring election in Wisconsin, which was a presidential primary, along with many state and local elections, including an open seat on the. Not open seat, but a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. He forced that election to go forward in early April despite the challenges of the pandemic. Meanwhile, he comes out, he gives an interview, Adam, in full ppe. Literally. He looks like he's in Outbreak or something like that in the movie Outbreak. He's got the doctor, the purple suit on, he's got the face mask, and he assures voters it's perfectly safe to go vote. Right. As long as you, I guess, you know, got, you wear your hazmat suit.

You wear a hazmat suit and then it's safe.

Right. As long as you wear your hazmat suit. And we just assume, I guess, all the millions of Wisconsin voters had hazmat suits that they were willing to put on to just go tick a box and something that could easily have been postponed. But that, that was just such a hypocritical moment. It deserves an award because as you said, Adam, in the in the pre show, it really, it encapsulates so much of the bizarre attitude to Republicans in the middle of this pandemic, which is rather than rising above politics and saying, we are in the middle of a dangerous pandemic, people, let's do everything we can to make voting safe and secure and fair and accessible for everyone. They said hold a vote in the middle of a raging pandemic, make people go in person, force people to run up against the vote by mail deadline that some people may not even be able to make. And we know it. Yeah, sure, why not? It's only democracy that's at stake, right? Meanwhile, I myself as the speaker, are literally in a full hazmat suit because of how dangerous it is. And that really is just, you know, in many ways, that's the scandal of some of what happened in the lead up to the election here. You know, we talked about a lot of good, including civil servants and rank and file of both parties here, and they did. And in states with histories of not great election administration, they ran some of the best elections that they've had. We have to shout that out. But on the other hand, this political show that look how wonderfully safe it is. We don't need to make any accommodations, Go vote in person. Don't worry about. It's so, so ludicrous. States and localities don't need any more money to run this election. It's just so ludicrous. And nothing exemplified it better than our friend and award winner, Robin Voss.

I mean, Jason, I have to say, watching that video even now, just, it's like, it's like you're in a fever dream. It doesn't feel real. So regardless, Jason, let me actually announce the next award because I think you're the perfect one to give it here. And it's the biggest opponent of the voters award.

Yeah, Jason, who gets that? So we, you know, this was a tough one. There were several opponents of the voters, but I think especially when it comes to litigation and threats, I think we have to award this to a combination of folks in Texas. Right. I think we need to call up Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general, to accept the award on behalf of his fellow Texans. But also the Texas political machinery, Governor Abbott, the judges on the Texas Supreme Court, the judges on the fifth Circuit Court of Appeals judging cases from Texas. They were one of a handful of states, Adam, not to expand vote by mail in the wake of the pandemic. And indeed, their record on enabling voting in the pandemic is atrocious. And then of course, there's the Texas Supreme Court suit after the election. So basically, from the time the pandemic sets in, here's what's happening with our friend Ken and our friends in Texas. First, when people sue to say that there has to be vote by mail for everybody in the middle of a pandemic, Ken Paxton not only says no, but he says that he will prosecute anybody who claims that fear of COVID is an excuse, is an illness to vote by mail. So you risk going to jail if you are unwilling to stand in line in person. And then people sue and they notice, as we've been involved in, Adam, that Texas permits voters 65 and older to vote by mail without an excuse. Well, isn't that age discrimination? Plaintiffs say, and AG Paxton and his team say, no, absolutely not. They oppose it tooth and nail and enforce some of the most restrictive vote by mail laws in the country. And then that works its way up to the federal appeals court, the fifth Circuit, which agrees and buys a crazy theory and very, very restrictive theory and very restrictive interpretation of the 26th Amendment, which creates some bad law. So even if it weren't just confined to Texas, now it's percolating out to the federal courts and getting these really bad court opinions that Ken Paxton is delivering on the nation. And then in the run up to the election, of course, he famously has this ridiculous policy of having dropboxes in one location per county, right? Whether the county has 2,000 people or 2 million people, only one Dropbox. I mean, fighting over dropboxes, opposing dropboxes in the middle of a pandemic. What could be more ludicrous, right? But our friend Ken wasn't done. That's the thing about award winners. You have to really work hard for it to win an award winning. So the election comes. Donald Trump wins Texas, and the litigation post election is ongoing. The President has no real way to get to the Supreme Court. So what does our friend do? He sues four other states. Does he care that the suit is ludicrous? No. Does he care that even his highest Supreme Court lawyer in his state won't put his name on it? Of course not. Does he care that the suit will be immediately laughed out of court? Why would he? He's Ken Paxton. He's an award winner. That's what you do when you want to win this award. So he brings this case to the Supreme Court. It gets slapped down unanimously four days later. But of course, the President had his hopes on it, and the media focuses on it. What will Ken do? To top this in 2020 run. Right. I mean, between the pandemic and the drop boxes and the suit in the Supreme Court, he really had quite a year of being an absolute opponent to democracy. Basically, anytime there was major litigation involving democracy, you look on one side of the V and there's people fighting for voting rights. You look on the other side of the V atom and there is Ken. That is what makes him a champion here.

It's persistence.

Persistence, exactly.

It gets you the word. And I should say that an honorable mention to this award could very well be. And was the Trump post election litigation team as a biggest opponent of voters. But maybe because they were so absurdly bad at what they were doing, they just couldn't quite edge out Ken Paxton.

And maybe we should do it like the Golden Globes, Adam, and say that Ken Paxton and Texas and his friends in Texas in general were the biggest opponent of voters in the drama category. Right. They were serious and effective. Whereas the Trump litigation team, they win it in the musical or comedy category. Right. They just sort of provided a little bit of light comedy that nobody actually took seriously.

But we're still dangerous. Still dangerous.

Yeah, somewhat. Somewhat. That's all. So. Okay, Adam, let's flip it. Let's flip back to a positive award. The positive award that we're going to give this time is a save the movement award. Because sometimes there's really key moments for some of these democracy reform initiatives and some of these sub aspects of democracy reform. And there was one that you found, Adam, who wins this award.

Yeah, I mean, I think hands down this goes to the voters in Colorado for saving the National Popular Vote interstate compact in that state, the legislature had adopted or entered into the compact. For those of you who don't know, it's a compact that agrees. The state agrees to award its electoral votes that select the president to the winner of the national popular vote instead of the winner in that particular state. And it only goes into effect once the states that are equivalent to a majority majority of electoral votes or 270 currently enter into the compact, which would guarantee that the winner of the presidential election would be the winner of the national popular vote. And so the legislature in Colorado passed or entered into this compact, and then opponents of the national popular vote put it on the ballot to repeal that entry into the compact. And so the voters had the option to override the legislature to remove Colorado from the compact. But the voters stood up, Jason. It was, it was. We were very worried about it, Jason, about whether or not like we had no idea what was going to happen. And if these, you know, the people who are against the National Popular Vote had succeeded and Colorado voters had voted to repeal the entry into npv, it would have really set back the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact movement. In other words, the movement to reform the way we elect the president. Because Colorado was one of the first, quote, unquote, swing states to enter into the compact. A real monumental achievement for those of us fighting to reform the way we elect the president. And so if they kind of reneged on the entry, that would have really set back the movement, and it would have really stopped momentum and put us in a position where there's just no path to getting the equivalent of 270 electoral votes as part of the compact by 2024 or 2028. But Colorado voters said, we want to reform the way we elect the president, and they voted to keep the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact Agreement in place in Colorado. So kudos to them. That was a really, really big win. And it was a win, frankly, Jason, that got very little coverage. I wish it would have gotten more coverage, but the fact that a quote, unquote, swing state, although admittedly swings more blue now, but a swing state nonetheless wants to reform the way the Electoral College works, or, sorry, reform the way we select the president, it's a very big moment for the future of democracy. So, Jason, any thoughts on this? You were pretty involved in some of the discussions there, although we didn't get involved on the ground there.

No, I mean, it's well deserved. That was a critical win. And congrats to everybody involved.

Okay, so this next one, you know, you may have some ideas of who could win this award. And so you can think to yourself, who's the best, most deserving person for this award? It's the biggest Roadblock to reform award. And now take a second to think who deserves this, because there may be some contenders here, but there really can only be one deserving winner. So, Jason, who's the one deserving winner of the biggest Roadblock to Democracy Reform Award?

Mitch McConnell, Republican senator from Kentucky. I'm not going to say a lot more. We've talked to him about him a lot on this podcast. We should direct people to our website, GiveJoachance us, if they want to hear why the Georgia runoffs are so important to get Mitch out of the Senate Majority Leader position so that democracy reform can move through the Senate. His entire career has been committed to entrenching minority interests, entrenching big money interests, entrenching political Power over all else. He had another remarkable year, Adam. He's basically Walt Disney at this point. Every time he's alive, he's just going to win an Academy Award. Keep doing what you're doing, Mitch, if you want to keep winning these razzies. That's all we've got to say. I don't think we need to spend any more time on the person that our boss, Larry Lesig, calls the Dark Lord. This award goes to Mitch McConnell now and always.

And I should just say this is his second year winning an award, so congrats.

Well, of course. Of course, if he's living and breathing, and we're living and breathing, Mitch is going to win this award as long as he's still in the Senate, which sounds like he will be for another six years since he just won reelection in Kentucky. Okay, let's move on from Mitch. I don't like thinking about him. This is a medium award. It's not really a Rousey. It's not really an Oscar Atom. It's the bare minimum award. So this is an award you're going to give it, but it's an award given to someone who is not a democracy hero, but does do the bare minimum to safeguard democracy. Who does this go to?

Yeah, and I should say this is really the bare minimum of preserving a democracy award. And ultimately, Jason, it goes to the Republican officials in some certain swing states, like the secretary of state in Georgia, Raffensperger, and the legislatures and governors in these red states that Joe Biden won, like in Arizona, and also legislatures in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan who did not override the will of the people. And especially in Raflisberger's case in Georgia, who actually pushed back on some of the claims of voter fraud and certified the results. And look, I really mean, this is the bare minimum war. This is not praising them outside of the fact that they did their job, that they were expected to do, to fulfill their obligations in their office to preserving our democratic system. But nonetheless, in an election where that was a question, Jason, which is where we are. But it wasn't actually clear whether or not these officials would do their job and uphold the duty of their office to, you know, allow for a peaceful transfer of power, they still did the bare minimum. So congrats to them. I don't know if it's a celebration or if they should be disappointed, but they did the bare minimum. Jason, thoughts?

That's right. I think the award here, it should be like a fast food, you know, gift certificate or something. It's like if you're hungry, it'll feed ya. It's not gonna be great. You're not gonna love it. But, like, you know, it's nutritional. It will give you the energy to move on. That's what these. These folks did. I also should point out that on our envelope, which we, of course, we do have sealed envelopes verified by, you know, a major accounting firm, our friend Raffensperger, whose name is extremely difficult to know, spell and pronounce, written on the envelope, which I won't say who wrote the envelope, is grossly misspelled, I believe on our envelope, he is referred to as Raf Stenberger. There is, in fact, in his name, no T or B. It is Rafin Sperger if you actually want to try and pronounce the real thing. So we want to get it right on the award. Brad, again, if you want to accept, email us. Mrrafin Sperger. You are free to accept the bare minimum award if you would like.

Okay, I got this next award. You ready, Jason? All right. This award is the biggest threat to democracy since. Question mark, Question mark, Question mark. It seems like the Academy wasn't quite sure what to put here, but clearly the award goes to somebody who has been the biggest threat to democracy since. Well, it's debatable. So who does that go to?

So this is an award that goes to Donald J. Trump. Obviously, we couldn't leave him out. We didn't want to do an entire episode just talking about him. Goodness knows we've spent enough brain cells thinking him, but we thought that the most productive way to think about this. Obviously, he's a villain here and he gets a razzie. The most productive way. And we've mused about this on other episodes, so we'll keep the discussion short, but is to think about, you know, what. What. How abnormal Trump is and what scale of the threat he is. How big should this award be? And that's why we left the question mark. You know, my own view is, as we've talked about a little in other episodes, that he is really, really abnormal because he's so out of step from the way that we think about democracy in 2020, including the way that some people in his party think about democracy in 2020. I mean, the Michigan House speaker just a couple of days ago, who is no hero, right? He doesn't even really get the bare minimum award. He gets the, like, you are not attempting a coup award or something like that. But even he recognized, finally, that what Trump was asking for was a literal coup, right? And what he said in his note to the public was, where does it end? If politicians just get to question results with no evidence and no reason, just because they want to have won, then where does it end? No party will ever give up, ever, in an election ever again. And then we just resort to raw political power. And when that fails is raw force. And nobody wants that. That's caveman stuff. And so, you know, Trump in sort of encouraging that is a really unique threat to democracy. On the other hand, I don't want to leave out the people who obviously would win the razi section of these awards in prior generations and who really institutionalized policies that, you know, were apartheid in America up until the 1950s or 60s. Right. The people like Bull Connor and Strom Thurmond and George Wallace, who were governors and officials in Southern states who implemented policies that thankfully are beyond unthinkable in this day and age, that didn't allow huge swaths of the electorate, African Americans, namely, to register to vote, to cast a vote. They were using extrajudicial means like lynching, to threaten violence and terrorize populations and indeed kill thousands of black Americans. I think we have to say that Trump is. He doesn't wreak that kind of violence and that kind of institutionalized and legal havoc in the way that the segregation era Southern Democrats did. So I guess that's what we should put in our award and inscribe it to him. But, boy, that is bad company for the president.

Yeah, I think that regardless of where you put the question marks, the point here is it's not great company. And the effects of the delegitimizing of elections is just gonna be with us, I think, for a while. We talked about this on our last episode, Jason, about the effects of all of the havoc that Trump has wreaked and wrecked on our economy, or not economy, on our elections. You know, it could have really long standing effects. I mean, we just haven't had a situation where the incumbent not only refuses to leave the office, but but makes wild claims about the election was stolen through this vast conspiracy that I guess now includes the Republican appointed Supreme Court and Republican officials across the country and everybody else. But regardless, you know, it's so absurd, it's hard to believe, but the damage is certainly done. And so maybe we can leave it up to you to put up the question marks, the dear listener. But certainly Trump has earned this award.

That's right, he did. But we don't want to end on that note, Adam. We want to end back on the Oscar section on the best of the year, the Encouraging Signs Award. This is an award and we'll do some stuff looking at in 2021, but signs in 2020 that augur well for the future. 2021 and beyond. You wanted to talk about a couple. It's linked to the presidential election, I think, but you can go wherever you want with this award. Tell me what your encouraging signs were.

Well, I mean, I think that listeners of this podcast know that we like to be forward looking and somewhat optimistic or at least believe in the possibility of reform. And I think that there were multiple areas where we could point to where, you know, it really does show encouraging signs moving forward. But the one I want to focus on is on the 2020 presidential election. You know, on the one hand, our system survived it. We talked about this last time, but also, you know, specifically about the Democratic primary. I mean, longtime listeners will know that we were heavily, heavily, heavily involved in the Democratic primary this year to try and get the Democratic candidates to talk about democracy reform and commitment to passing democracy reform as a day one priority if elected. And we got almost all of the major candidates, including one Republican, Bill Weld, to agree to that and to, you know, we held these fora across New Hampshire where we sat down and talked with presidential candidates for a full hour, sometimes longer, with our good friends at Open Democracy in New Hampshire. And we really did a wonderful job with these, the candidates, getting them on record. And that's a sign of, I think, remarkable progress is that the top tiers of the Democratic Party and again, some Republican officials were not just willing to have that conversation about democracy reform, but willing to do so in a really deep and thoughtful way and commit to prioritizing it if elected. The one person, Jason, who never agreed to do anything with us to have the conversation and really never even talked about democracy reform was Joe Biden. And of course, Joe Biden ultimately won the primary and of course the presidential election. But the biggest change is that Joe Biden, although he never really brought it to the campaign trail and it never got a lot of coverage, he did ultimately commit to passing an H R1 like package and to make it a priority. We've alluded to this before, but even Joe Biden, who didn't talk about it a lot in the early stage of the primary, once, once he kind of won it all, once he won that primary. And it was, I think it was in July maybe, I forget the exact date, he suddenly released a press release and said that he would prioritize it. And that's a remarkable achievement. Now what he can do is going to be vastly limited by Mitch McConnell and the potentially Republican held Senate. But that is an encouraging sign of progress. And so this is one award for Joe Biden. But he has the opportunity, I think, Jason, to win many, many, many more awards next year. In fact, we'll break the rule and give him multiple awards next year on these award ceremonies if he can make good on his promise to pass some democracy reforms, whether maybe by executive order or if he can negotiate a package that can get through the House and Senate to really firmly reform the way we hold elections in this country. If he can do that, he's in store for many, many more awards. This guy has a promising future for the equal Jason's year end awards. But it's up to him, Jason, to earn that. And it's up to all of us to force him to earn it. And I think that's my takeaway from 2020.

That's right. I think that's a really good way to end it. As always, we're at an inflection point. It seems like we always are. But that's because the future is uncertain and the past is already written. Right. And you know, we made progress this year. There's encouraging signs. I agree with you. I hope that we can keep the momentum going. People want it, our nation needs it. Okay, so with that, let's retreat to the post show. Let's retreat to the Elton John party from these Democracy Awards 2020. Adam, it's been a good year to recap with you, strange year, but I'm proud of the progress we made. I'm proud of the progress the movement's made. I'm bummed at the Razzies. I'm bummed at Mitch McConnell and his friends winning some awards. But we, we soldier on, listeners, thanks for your support and Adam, we'll talk to you soon. Happy New Year.

Absolutely. Happy New Year to you too. Look forward to another year of fighting the good fight with you. This has been another episode of another way. We'll see you all the New Year.