Welcome to Democracy-ish. I'm Danielle Moody.

And I'm Wajatley.

And we are so excited to welcome on to Democracy-ish for the very first time, although I've had the pleasure,

wonderful pleasure of interviewing Eli Merritt before.

But, Wash, I will turn it over to you for your movie phone intro.

I've been waiting so long.

Eli Merritt is a political historian at Vanderbilt University, where he

researches the ethics of democracy and the interfaces of demagogues and democracy. He is also

the editor of How to Save Democracy, Inspiration, and Advice from 95 World Leaders, as well as the curse of demagogues,

lessons learned from the presidency of Donald J. Trump.

And you can read him on Substack, on his newsletter, American Commonwealth.

Eli, thank you so much for indulging me and my immaturity.

I look forward to doing that every week.

And Daniel just tease me up really well.

But you're the perfect guest for this moment because first of all, you call a spade of

spade, which is what I really appreciate.

And you've been calling the presidency of Donald Trump demagoguery for the last few years.

You've written about it, Los Angeles Times, Main Street Press, you've taught about it, you've written a book on it.

And you seem to understand like we do that our democracy is in a fragile moment. And it seems

that Donald Trump and the MAGA movement are actively attacking it. And I look at what's

happening with Tennessee. Let's start

with Tennessee. A quick refresher for those who are not in the news is that the Tennessee

...