Laboratories of Autocracy: The David Pepper Interview
Gaslit Nation
Gaslit Nation
4.7 • 4.1K Ratings
🗓️ 5 October 2022
⏱️ 48 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
David Pepper has witnessed Ohio devolve into an electoral autocracy where extreme Republican gerrymandering ensures that the results of the state elections are pre-determined. This is happening across the country in so-called red states, which are in reality voter suppression states or Republican hostage states. Pepper explains how we got here, what can still be done about it, and his list of reasons and strategies to fight like hell. For more on Pepper's work, check out his book Laboratories of Autocracy: A Wake-Up Call from Behind the Lines and his website LaboratoriesOfAutocracy.com.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hello, everyone. Welcome to Gaslit Nation. It's Andrea. I am joined today with a wonderful |
| 0:14.3 | guest. But before we get to that, I want to remind everyone, the Gaslit Nation is running a couple |
| 0:19.3 | of contests. The first one is the Get Out the Vote contest where we're calling on our listeners to tweet at Gaslit Nation, at Gaslit Nation on Twitter, and let us know what you're doing to get out the vote this year in these all important midterm elections. |
| 0:34.8 | And from the responses we receive, we'll select a handful of folks to come on |
| 0:38.9 | the show and hang out with us and do a big episode where we process and look back on this make |
| 0:46.2 | or break at election for our democracy and come together and support each other. We did this in |
| 0:51.5 | 2020 and it was a lot of fun. so we're going to be doing it again in |
| 0:54.8 | 2022. And then the second big contest is the Gaslit Nation Halloween extravaganza, where we're going |
| 1:02.7 | to do a radio play submitted by our listeners. So we're going to select a winner from the |
| 1:07.9 | submissions we receive and produce it into a creepy, crawly radio play, |
| 1:13.4 | summing up how we all feel, basically, living through these really strange times. |
| 1:18.1 | Your writing prompts can be anything from the scary monster that is posh Trump or, you know, |
| 1:23.5 | what's in Trump's basement in Marlago, Jared and Ivanka, just have fun and let loose. |
| 1:28.1 | The deadline to submit your radio play is October 20th, and you can do it by setting submissions |
| 1:33.5 | to Gaslit Nation at gmail.com. That's Gaslit Nation at gmail.com. Now, our guests for today is |
| 1:40.3 | the wonderful David Pepper, who is an essential follow on Twitter. David Pepper is a lawyer, |
| 1:46.5 | writer, political activist, former elected official, an adjunct professor, and he served as the chairman |
| 1:52.9 | of the Ohio Democratic Party between 2015 and 2021. In that role, he was engaged in various fights |
| 2:00.7 | and extensive litigation over voter suppression and election laws in the Buckeye state. |
| 2:06.4 | Stemming from that work, David appeared in All In, the documentary highlighting Stacey Abrams' nationwide fight for voting rights. |
| 2:14.4 | He has written four novels that bridge real world politics and fiction, including a |
| 2:19.6 | simple choice. His first novel, The People's House, earned praise for having predicted the Russia |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Gaslit Nation, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Gaslit Nation and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.