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Support for this podcast comes from Is Business Broken, a podcast from BU's Mayrotra Institute that explores

questions like, why are executives paid so much? Do they deserve it? Listen wherever you get your

podcasts. I'm Megna Tachrobardi, and this is the Jack Pod, where on-point news analyst Jack Beattie helps us connect history, literature, and politics in a way that brings his unique clarity to the world we live in now.

Hello there, Jack.

Hello, Megna.

We are at episode 93, your headline for today.

How health care can save the Democrats and democracy.

You have me intrigued. Tell me more.

Well, there's recently been some good debate in the invaluable bulwark. And the debate has been, what can

stop authoritarianism? I mean, what, you know, what, not just in the short term, this

is going to be bad enough, but over the long term, because if 40% of the country, the electorate, is ready to, you know,

give up on democracy and back a Trumpian authoritarianism, that's even under a Democratic president,

that is a constant, it's a shadow over democracy. What can change

that? Well, one side of the debate says, win elections, because they'll be in power and

they'll be able to keep the authoritarianism at bay. But the other view is that, no, that's not going to be enough.

And as JVL on the bulwark puts it, a plurality of Republican voters needs to stop choosing authoritarianism.

You've got to somehow win them around.

For the long-term health of democracy, they just can't continue

to feel, well, we need to have, you know, another Trumpian cycle of presidencies, of people in

office. And, of course, time is running out. Supreme Court heard the voting rights case. It looks like it's going to go down.

...