Jed Purdy on Democratic Renewal
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 17 November 2022
⏱️ 48 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
American democracy might look healthier in light of last week's midterms, but there's still a lot of skepticism across the political spectrum about how it's doing. From the right, would-be authoritarians cast doubt on elections and on the very idea of liberal democracy. But even those who reject this authoritarian impulse are frequently uncomfortable with the messiness of democratic politics, instead preferring an anti-politics of technocratic decision-making.
Jedediah Purdy, a law professor at Duke Law School, wants to defend democracy from its critics and its skeptics. In his new book, “Two Cheers for Politics: Why Democracy Is Flawed, Frightening—and Our Best Hope,” he argues that democratic renewal is both desirable and, most importantly, possible. Lawfare senior editor Alan Rozenshtein sat down with Jed to talk about the book, get his thoughts about the state of American democracy, and chart the path toward a healthier democratic future.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The following podcast contains advertising. |
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| 0:14.0 | That's patreon.com slash law fair. |
| 0:18.0 | Also, check out LawFair's other podcast offerings, |
| 0:22.0 | rational security, chatter, law fair no bull, and the aftermath. |
| 0:29.0 | It's connected with quite a radical idea that we can set the terms of our own shared life |
| 0:39.0 | and have some control of the path that we take into the future, |
| 0:45.0 | which is inevitably set for each of us in really deep ways by these collective decisions. |
| 0:50.0 | And so that idea becomes nothing, but some people choosing on other people's behalf |
| 0:56.0 | or some people doing things to other people if there's not a threshold of political equality |
| 1:04.0 | among the decision makers, the citizens. |
| 1:07.0 | And we could start by thinking of that at a minimum in terms of process rights |
| 1:13.0 | and I think process rights are really the hard core of it, voting, speech, etc. |
| 1:20.0 | I am Alan Rosenstein and this is the LawFair podcast, November 17, 2022. |
| 1:28.0 | American democracy might look healthier in light of last week's midterms, |
| 1:32.0 | but there's still a lot of skepticism across the political spectrum about how it's doing. |
| 1:36.0 | From the right, would be authoritarians cast doubt on elections |
| 1:40.0 | and of the very idea of liberal democracy. |
| 1:43.0 | But even those who reject this authoritarian impulse are frequently uncomfortable |
| 1:47.0 | with the messiness of democratic politics, instead preferring an anti-politics |
| 1:52.0 | of technocratic decision making. |
... |
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