Election Special: A Historian and Futurist Debate 2020

Open to Debate

Education, Society & Culture, News, Government, Politics

4.5 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 5 November 2020

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this special post-election podcast – amidst record mail-in voting, lawsuits, social unrest, and partisan polarization – we’re asking a simple question: Was the 2020 run for the White House as unprecedented as we might think? Those in favor of the motion often point to the tech influence, and Silicon Valley’s hand in everything from echo chambers to political advertising to conspiracy theories. Those against often nod to America’s track record of polarization. In 1860, after Abraham Lincoln’s electoral win, for instance, seven states decided to secede. It would be hard, some say, for even 2020 to compete with that. And so in this podcast, Intelligence Squared U.S. brings you those two perspectives: One focused on the past, and one focused on today’s tech, and its future. Amy Webb, CEO, Future Today Institute Amy Webb is among the nation’s leading futurists and founder and CEO of the Future Today Institute. She is an adjunct assistant professor at New York University's Stern School of Business, a nonresident senior fellow at Atlantic Council, and author of “The Big Nine: How the Tech Titans and Their Thinking Machines Could Warp Humanity.” Michael F. Holt, History Professor, University of Virginia Michael F. Holt is a professor of American History at the University of Virginia. He is the author of six books, including the award-winning “The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party and By One Vote: The Disputed Presidential Election of 1876.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Remember when you were so brand conscious you queued for hours to get the latest pair of trainers
0:06.0	in the cold and wet? Why waste time and money when you can get branded fashion,
0:11.3	sports and footwear online at M&M Direct? We've got all the big brands at low prices
0:16.6	and always up to 75% off RRP. What's more M&M don't do discount codes, flash sales or ask
0:23.2	for your mother's maiden name before you get a great deal? What's not to like? M&M Direct,
0:28.5	tap the banner and shop now. I think this moment in time is different. This election at a very,
0:34.4	very macro level is different because people feel much less certain than they have in a very,
0:41.1	very long time. The polarization today is not unprecedented, but Democrats around the country
0:48.8	threatened to raise armies of union army veterans. They said we can get a hundred thousand men
0:56.0	and we'll march on Washington and use force to make sure that the children is sworn in.
1:12.5	Hi everybody, this is John Donovan and I want to say something about this moment that we're in,
1:17.2	by which I mean November 3rd, 2020, Election Day and the hours and days that have followed it.
1:24.2	Have we ever lived through anything like this before with things like record, mail-in voting and
1:28.9	uncertainty about the polls now and social unrest in the atmosphere and all of this polarization
1:34.7	and all of this in the middle of a pandemic where we have to be using technology to vote in a way
1:38.7	that we never have been before? Can we say that this is an election without precedent? So that's what
1:44.9	we're going to be looking at today. I'm going to be bringing to somewhat competing perspectives on
1:48.9	whether in fact the 2020 U.S. presidential election was unprecedented. We're going to have one
1:54.0	perspective that looks at it from the point of view of past history and the other one that's
1:58.0	going to be looking at it from the future. Well, not really from the future, but we're going to be
2:03.5	hearing from a futurist who will give us perspective that I don't think you're going to have heard
2:09.3	before. So just a reminder, you can listen to all of our series by visiting us online at IQ2US.org.
	...

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