Marshall here. Welcome back to the Realignment.

We're in little more than two weeks from the Minterms. I thought this is the perfect time for a

self-aware episode on the topic of democracy. Today's guest is Shady Hamid, who is a senior fellow at the Brookings

institution. He has a new book out, the problem of democracy, America, the Middle East, and the

rise and fall of an idea. Speaking of realignments, the significance of the word democracy has shifted

over the past 20 years. It's gone from the centerpiece of US Foreign Policy in the Middle East to

a ultra-fraught culture-war term post-Trump. Its conversation is focused on the intersection of

democracy's challenge at home and abroad, informed by Shady's focus on the Middle East.

Before we get into the episode, I'd like to shout out our super-cast subscription offering,

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soccer and my bonus to ask me anything episodes. A huge shout out to the Realignment sponsor,

Lincoln Network, without any further ado. Here's our conversation with Shady Hamid.

Shady Hamid, welcome to the Realignment. Hi Marshall, thanks for having me.

I spent some time prepping for this show because this is a fascinating topic. We're going to go

to democracy abroad, democracy at home. I was trying to find the perfect opening question.

I decided I'm just going to cheat and ask you the book title. What is the problem with democracy

and the context of your work? Yeah, great question to start with. For me, this is the fundamental

question of our political moment and it is the problem of democracy. So to speak, which is

what do we do when democracy produces bad outcomes? Usually when I say bad in this context, I use

scare quotes because part of the problem is we don't agree on what a bad outcome even it is.

...