Hello, I'm Jeffrey Rosen, president and CEO of the National Constitution Center,

and welcome to We The People, a weekly show of constitutional debate. The National Constitution

Center is a nonpartisan nonprofit charted by Congress to increase awareness and

understanding of the Constitution among the American people. Today on we The People, we're sharing a great conversation

from an event hosted by the National Constitution Center

in the spring in Coral Gables, Florida.

The question we asked of our panelist was, is the First Amendment enough in today's

world of Twitter, disinformation, and polarized media?

The guests were journalists, Kimberly Atkins store of the Boston Globe, David French of the dispatch,

Ellie Belchie of MSNBC, and the legal scholar Larry Kramer, president of the William

Flora Hewlett Foundation.

Enjoy the show.

So I'm going to jump right in with the topic that Doug framed so well,

is the First Amendment enough? Or is Larry Kramer just asked

as we were walking up here, is the First Amendment too much.

And the focus of this panel is social media and whether we are living in James Madison's worst nightmare.

So in Federalist 55, Madison said,

in all large assemblies, of any character composed,

passion never fails to rest the scepter from reason.

Even if every Athenian had been Socrates,

Athens would still have been a mob.

The entire Madisonian Constitution is designed to slow down deliberation so that passionate

...