What Next | Was Democracy Voted Out?

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4 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 4 August 2025

⏱️ 28 minutes

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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

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0:00.0	If there's one thing I think every person in America, left, right, and center can agree on at the moment, it's this.
0:15.8	Democracy has a real problem.
0:21.8	Some people think we have too much democracy, some folks too little.
0:25.9	But Ossita Nguanevu, who just wrote an entire book on democracy,
0:30.6	he sums up democracy's problem with one word.
0:34.7	Cynicism.
0:35.5	Cynicism.
0:36.3	I would say.
0:37.2	Cynicism, yeah.
0:38.3	I feel like democracy has a really bad PR problem.
0:42.5	Evidently it does, because the people who say their poses are kind of winning right now.
0:48.9	The evidence that democracy's opponents are winning right now is everywhere.
0:54.6	Like, you may have seen that YouTube show surrounded in your feed, the one featuring
0:58.6	the journalist Mehdi Hassan.
1:00.5	He's sitting in the middle of a circle of 20 far-right conservatives.
1:04.6	One by one, they debate him.
1:06.8	It went poorly.
1:09.0	And a General Franco's support.
1:09.7	Well, yeah, I am a General Franco supporter. He was awesome. He was super cool, quite frankly. Because the whole thing- And you don't believe in democracy. I don't believe in democracy. What are you doing here? This guy, Connor, was the one who really went viral. We may have to rename the show because you're a little bit more than a far-right Republican. Hey, what can I say? I think you can say I'm a fascist.
1:29.0	Yeah, I am.
1:33.5	Absolutely.
1:38.3	We're in a place where, you know, I certainly had taken for granted before I started this book.
	...

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