The case for optimism about American democracy (Vox Conversations podcast)

How worried should we be about the state of democracy?

Democracy panic is its own genre of journalism at this point, and for good reasons. After the last five years, it’s impossible not to worry about the future of democracy, not just in the US but across the globe.

Is the sort of democratic decline we’re seeing in places like India and Hungary and Brazil a glimpse of our future? And if it is, are we prepared for it? I reached out to CNN’s Fareed Zakaria to discuss exactly how worried we should be.

Zakaria, whose most recent book is called Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World, is uniquely positioned to answer these sorts of questions. Back in 1997, he wrote a now-famous essay in Foreign Affairs called “The Rise of Illiberal Democracy.” What he saw then was a form of reactionary populism sweeping across the democratic world, and virtually all of the trends he spotted have only intensified since.

We talk about how we got here, the failures of liberalism, why the Republican Party has become an existential threat to our constitutional system, and whether Democrats are capable of rising to the challenge. I also ask him for reasons to be optimistic in spite of all the disturbing signs.

You can hear our entire conversation (as always, there’s much more) in this week’s episode of Vox Conversations. A transcript, edited for length and clarity, follows.
Interview: 

https://www.vox.com/vox-conversations-podcast/22586955/vox-conversations-fareed-zakaria-the-state-of-global-democracy