What Next | Was Democracy Voted Out?

Slate News

Slate Podcasts

News, News Commentary, Politics

4.6 • 6K Ratings

🗓️ 4 August 2025

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Belief in democracy was, until quite recently, taken for granted in America. But what if democracy is less a static noun, and more of a dynamic ideal we (could be) working towards? Guest: Osita Nwanevu, contributing editor at The New Republic, columnist at The Guardian, author of “The Right of the People: Democracy and the Case for a New American Founding.” Want more What Next? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen. Podcast production by Ethan Oberman, Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme, and Rob Gunther. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	We've grown up surrounded by beauty ideals that promised confidence, but often delivered shame.
0:05.5	In a special episode of a millennial mind, I sat down with Nicola Adams to explore how appearance-based
0:11.3	compliments and body talk shape our self-worth without us realising it. In partnership with the
0:16.9	Dove Self-Esteen project, we unpack the tools to change the conversation for
0:21.1	ourselves and for future generations. Listen now and download the free body confidence journal
0:26.4	at Dove.com forward slash Y2K.
0:36.2	If there's one thing, I think, every person in America, left, right, and center can agree on at the moment, it's this.
0:45.9	Democracy has a real problem.
0:51.8	Some people think we have too much democracy, some folks too little.
0:56.0	But Osita Nguanevu, who just wrote an entire book on democracy, he sums up democracy's
1:01.9	problem with one word.
1:04.8	Cynicism.
1:05.6	Cynicism.
1:06.3	I would say.
1:07.2	Cynicism, yeah.
1:08.3	I feel like democracy has a really bad PR problem. Evidently it does, because the people
1:14.2	who say they're opposed and are kind of winning right now. The evidence that democracy's opponents
1:21.1	are winning right now is everywhere. Like, you may have seen that YouTube show surrounded in your
1:27.2	feed, the one
1:28.3	featuring the journalist Mehdi Hassan. He's sitting in the middle of a circle of 20 far-right
1:33.2	conservatives. One by one, they debate him. It went poorly.
1:38.3	And a general Francoist. Well, yeah, I am a General Franco supporter. He was awesome. He was so
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 16 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Slate Podcasts, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Slate Podcasts and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.