Democracy Under Pressure: What History Tells Us

 | Historians Elizabeth Hinton, Joanne Freeman, and Beverly Gage sit down with CT Public's Lucy Nalpathanchil to ask: what does the past actually tell us about democracy under strain right now?

Drawing on centuries of American history, they explore how democracies have been tested before, what we can learn from those moments, and why understanding the past has never felt more urgent — whether you're a history buff or just trying to make sense of today's headlines.

Recorded live at New Haven Museum as part of America 250: Democracy at a Crossroads, presented by the International Festival of Arts & Ideas.

Featuring:
Elizabeth Hinton, Professor of History, Black Studies, and Law at Yale University
 Joanne Freeman, Professor of History and American Studies at Yale University
Beverly Gage, John Lewis Gaddis Professor of History at Yale University
Moderated by Lucy Nalpathanchil, CT Public
 
#America250 #DemocracyAtACrossroads #ArtIdea2026

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Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:04

Welcome to Great Art, Big Ideas, presented by the International Festival of Arts and Ideas. I'm Tiffany Hopkins, curator of this year's ideas series for the festival. In this episode, titled Democracy Under Pressure, What History Tells Us, we explore democracy, power, and resilience with three of America's most compelling historians. This program is part of our America 250 Democracy at a Crossroads series, supported by Connecticut Humanities, Connecticut Public, and the New Haven America 250 Commission. It was recorded live at the New Haven Museum as part of our 2026 ideas series. Joining the conversation are historians Elizabeth Hinton, Joanne Freeman, and Beverly Gage. This conversation is moderated by Lucy Nalpathanchel of Connecticut Public. And now here's Democracy Under Pressure, what history tells us.

SPEAKER_10 0:58

It's a pleasure to be in this room with all of you. Again, this is a kickoff to the 31st annual International Festival of Arts and Ideas. And it's such a great time to be here with these three badass women historians. Have you ever been introduced that way to panel? No, but I really like it. So I want to let you all know that we're going to be in conversation for about 40 minutes or so, but then we're going to turn it over to you. So please don't be bashful. If you have a question that you'd like to ask one of these uh excellent historians, we'd love to hear from you. I wanted to just do a brief introduction, uh, starting with Beverly Gage, the John Lewis Gaddis Professor of History at Yale University, where she focuses on 20th century U.S. history. And she has a new book, This Land Is Your Land, a road trip through U.S. history that offers an on the road, behind the steering wheel retelling of 250 years of U.S. history, starting at Philadelphia's revolution era historic sites and ending at Disneyland in the 20th century California dream. Now, on the occasion of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, her book makes the case for exploring and reckoning with all 250 years of American national history. And she received the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Biography for her book, G-Man, J. Edgar Hoover, and the Making of the American Century. Please welcome Beverly Gage. The book examines federal law enforcement programs beginning in the mid-1960s that transformed domestic social policies, expanded policing in low-income communities, and facilitated the dramatic expansion of the U.S. prison system. Her second book, America on Fire, The Untold History of Police Violence and Black Rebellion since the 1960s, won a Robert F. Kennedy Book Award and offers a new framework for understanding police abuse and the systemic repression of black people and other people of color in post-civil rights America. Both books were named New York Times notable books. Elizabeth, welcome to this conversation. And Joanne Freeman, professor of history and American studies at Yale University, specializing in early American politics and political culture. Freeman is deeply committed to public-minded history, co-host of the popular podcast Backstory. She's a frequent speaker, commentator, and historical consultant, whose work has appeared in major media outlets, including PBS. And her Yale online course, The American Revolution, has been viewed by hundreds of thousands of people worldwide. Her award-winning first book, Affairs of Honor, National Politics, and the New Republic, explored political combat during the founding era. Her second book, The Field of Blood, Violence in Congress, and the Road to Civil War, examines physically violent clashes in the House and Senate and how they shape the nation. Joanne, thank you for being here with us. So that again speaks to the fact that you're all baddies. And the fact I think that there are people in this room, including me, that want to hear from people like you, historians, as we think about this moment that we're living in. And so I wanted to actually ask the audience from with a show of hands, how many of you came today because you wanted to feel better? So no pressure, esteemed panel. But you know, one of my uh prior conversations with Joanne, you know, I I was telling her that, you know, historians are it's almost like you're becoming psychologists. This this talk therapy that's helping either make us feel better or this idea that this context might help us not lose hope. So I wanted to start with that idea of your role as historians. How do you see that role today and how has it changed? I'll start with you, Joanne.

SPEAKER_02 5:29

Okay. Um I have to say, as a historian who focuses on early America, things like the Constitution and the really the creation of the nation. Um, I always feel like an extra charge of responsibility as a historian in this moment. And as a teacher and as someone who engages with the public, it becomes I don't want to say tricky, but you have to think really hard about what you want to say and what it's going to communicate because of precisely where we started. Because people want to understand the frame, the historical framework for where we are and where we've been, which are both responsible for getting at where the heck we're going. Um, so as a historian in this moment, I I have become a lot more um modern-minded, I guess I would say. You know, I'm a I'm a person who loves to be in archives. I'm an archive rat. I can no longer be an archive rat. I really am dedicated to uh talking to folks because I feel like one of the um essential aspects of this moment that in one way or another is going to help us get past it is us. Is we, is is how we choose to come together. So um that might not be the most historian-ish thing I've ever done, but history certainly teaches the power of the people united.

SPEAKER_07 7:00

I think on like the broadest, most general sense, you know, history helps us understand how we got to where we are in the present. And of course, you can go back 10 years, 100 years, tons of years to help put yourself and the questions that you have about the world around you in a much kind of longer process folded over time. I think that there are, you know, I'm uh I um got my PhD in in 2013. And I and since I have kind of like entered into the academy, I think there's been a lot of changes. One has to do with social media, and I think historians are now, to Joanne's point, really beginning to speak more to the public than just their historians, which I think um had been a tendency in the field, um, not exclusively, but for some time. And I think in in this moment, um, the charge is even more urgent because uh there is a concerted attempt to um uh to erase history. Sorry, I hope everybody heard me, um, to erase history or to suppress certain aspects of US history. And that is, you know, part of a larger political project. So those of us um who want to make sure that uh those aspects uh of our history that are being intentionally suppressed right now, you know, don't get lost. I think that's um that's kind of put like a fire behind many of us to sound the alarm on um on these things and to make sure that, you know, that that a narrative of US history that some people want to tell becomes more complicated by things that actually, you know, what actually happened.

SPEAKER_01 8:52

Well, um I was thinking a lot about 2026 in the last couple of years. Um, I think before a lot of people who were not historians were necessarily thinking about 2026 because it seemed like it was going to be a moment of reckoning, uh, a moment hopefully of some level of celebration, but certainly a moment of engagement with these big questions. And um, I wanted to explore both as a historian and also as a citizen what seemed to be a deep ambivalence about what to do about a moment like this. Uh, do you want to celebrate the United States in 2026? Um, if so, what are you looking for? How do you understand what we have been, uh, where we are, and which pieces are worth engaging? So uh that's really the reason that I wrote this book. Um, this book is premised on the idea that you can know your history in all the ways that Elizabeth and Joanne are saying, really understand American history and all of its complexity, um, and still say that you love your country, that patriotism and descent are not different categories. Um, it's also intended to give a way to mark this moment that is um a little bit different from what's going to be coming down in Washington. So it is a journey, and I mean that in a literal sense, through all 250 years of American history as a series of road trips that people can go on to historic sites in order to kind of find your own way to relate to the history of this country and hopefully learn some things along the way, and maybe even do it not just sitting alone in a room, but with your family and with your friends and in some broader civic collective that's engaged with these questions. Um, so that's the way that I've thought about being a historian. It was particularly fun for me because I'm really a historian of the 20th century. And so this was an excuse actually to go back to 1776 to revisit the 18th and 19th century and to try to think about the very broad trajectory of American history in a way that actually historians don't get to do all that often. We're all writing our little niche subjects and talking about the things that we know. So I'm hoping that in this moment uh people can be curious about the country. I could say lived in an age in which a lot of people think they already know everything about everything, or are only uh encountering people who agree with that. But uh I hope this is a moment of curiosity as well as reckoning.

SPEAKER_10 11:43

Oh, a couple of things to unpack. So this uh moment of commemoration can be also tribal contemplation. Oh, yeah, I remember 10, but as a mother, so I was thinking about um again, uh time of commemoration, but also time of contemplation. But we know that history is complex, but we are living in a time where of oversimplification, where um, you know, certain people don't want to acknowledge the bad with the good. So, how do we have those kinds of conversations? Because it's not easy and it can lead to tension. Wondering who wants to take that one. Joanne or Beverly?

SPEAKER_02 12:24

Uh I I can start us off. Um, I think about this a lot because when you write about all capital letters, the founders, um, that is a big question, right? How do you talk about them? How do you write about them? How do you understand them? And there are people who um just sort of lift them up as demigods, uh, and other people who won't acknowledge anything that they've done. Then and the middle ground is the useful ground. Um, and you know, well, I I always do this. I've quoted this in front of Beverly before, but I'm gonna do it again because if you can quote a founder, it's always useful. Um, John Adams uh was asked a lot by people who uh in when in his old age, he lives a long time, and people, strangers, would write him letters and say, tell us about this or tell us about that, tell us about the writing of the declaration. And they were awestruck, and they were writing to him with the assumption that he was a great man. And what he said over and over and over again was we're not any better than you are. We made mistakes constantly, and not only that, but it's irresponsible to think that we're better than you are, because if you think that, then the whole American project is going to be in a downhill moment from the founding on, that it'll never meet that again. So for you to be in your own time evaluating your own time and deciding what works or what doesn't work, don't put us on a pedestal. Now, to have a founder say that is a highly useful thing, I will say, as a historian. Um, but it makes a really important point, um, which is we a lot of us, and not just with the founders, put American history and people within American history on a pedestal because it's really clear that they achieved some things, and we don't credit or consider their failures, their mistakes, the things that John Adams said, you know, he writes one letter where he says, We made mistakes in 1776, 77, 78, 79. It's like we get it, John Adams. But you you cannot understand where we've been and and where we are, uh if you don't understand the struggle of how we got here and the mistakes that were made, and the gaps and the losses. The people of our history were struggling sometimes in ways that were admirable, sometimes in ways that were not. But if you erase that and just throw confetti and you know, throw balloons up in the air, you are actually erasing the content of how we got here, which means we can't get to somewhere better because we can't, we don't fully understand where we are now. Elizabeth's nodding.

SPEAKER_07 15:20

Well, okay. I so I I I apologize because I might scoop you a little bit because I actually want to bring in your book here. Um, I think when you think about these like contradictions and how to make sense of them, I think the founders are like exemplar of that, and especially Thomas Jefferson. You know, like how do we think about the person who um penned this amazing, beautiful idea of all people being created equal, was also, you know, this like vast slateholder with 600 slakes. And there's a moment where do you speak with Jane Kamensky, who is the sorry, who is the um, she heads the Jefferson Foundation. And, you know, she says to Beverly, uh, we know we shouldn't think about it as an either or, but a both and upset. So we have to be able to think about how we hold, you know, the contradictions that are at the heart of our mystery together and make sense of them. I was not enthusiastically because to Joanne's point, I think one of the things that we have not to wow is really address um the darkest, uh most oppressive and exploited foundational aspects of this country's history in the genocide of Native American people, in the enslavement of people of African descent, and uh the patriarchy and gender hierarchies that, of course, have defined all of these hierarchies right together that defined American society historically. And um, we haven't fully dealt with any of those things. And as a result, now really as a nation dealing with them. Um, now we are in this place where they're all being threatened together because they're vulnerable. You you don't even know our own district. I think the last thing I'll say about that, um, I think some of the work that the civil rights lawyer Brian Stevenson has done this is really good and illuminating because, you know, he's talking about this in the context of slavery. And he says, look, you know, like you can't go to Germany without being confronted and having to reckon with the Holocaust. And you can very easily, you know, travel around the southern United States and not really have to deal with the fact that many of the places that you literally are, are um, you know, forced labor camps, are our plantations. And so um, you know, I I think it's also telling that, you know, the moment when we were beginning to have those conversations as ever before, you know, the so-called racial reckoning of the summer of 2020 when systemic racism, which is something that scholars have been trying to um not so successfully commute, you know, um get the American public to grasp, were finally being kind of used as buzzwords, and people were beginning to understand the way that racism was embedded in American institutions and the way that inequality and the legacies of the sword pool exclusion continue to um to shape outcomes, to plague us, to haunt us. And and that is the moment when, you know, we really uh began to see a concerted backlash against having these conversations, against uh what people were calling critical race theory, you know, anything that was really trying to look at the history of exploitation and exclusion in the US. Um, so that's really, you know, that's the key. We have to we have to figure out how we can uh reckon with the good things that we should celebrate that brought us here while at the same time really dealing with um the darkest parts of this nation's history.

SPEAKER_02 19:08

I just want to add to that with a little point, and that is um I was around uh during the bicentennial, and I was old enough to know what was going on. And one of the things that happened in the historical world of that period, the books that were being written and the um public sites that were being created, was that you had people's stories being added to our national narrative that hadn't been there before. So you had African Americans being added to the revolution, you had women being added to the revolution, and Native Americans being added to the revolution. And all of these stories were being brought into the national narrative in a way they should have been forever, but hadn't been before. And sadly, we're at a moment where those are the precise things being stripped away, which is why these kinds of moments are such reckoning moments. You use that word. They really are moments that should force you to think about where we are, because you can see people trying to tell you a variety of different stories, and you have to think about what stories are being told.

SPEAKER_01 20:13

Everly I have a bicentennial story too. It's the story that opens this book. So I was four years old at the bicentennial, and my parents, my parents forced me to dress up as a peanut and march in a bicentennial parade because they were supporters of Jimmy Carter. And Jimmy Carter was a peanut farmer. And so I can remember this little leg as a little sandwich board peanut costume, and it was really uncomfortable, but I also remember it as the first moment in my childhood when I had some glimmering that I was in something called history, right? That I was connected to this thing called a nation, that there was history and it went back and it went forward. And I, of course, mostly thought about how itchy this costume was, but um, it is a really important moment. And I and I hope that in a less itchy sense, that we are still going to have young people who have some variation on that uh here for the 250th. Lucy, you asked earlier about how many people would come here to feel good. And I think actually the most feel-good thing about American history, weirdly, in this moment, is that so much of it has been so bleak and so violent and so contested and so full of conflict, all of which I think really tells us that we are not, first of all, we are actually not, I'm just gonna say it, in the worst moment of history. Um, we're really not. We can talk about all the really bad moments, but um but more than that evolved comparative sense. Uh really looking at history is Reminds you of all the people who got the count before you who stood there at moments of great difficulty, since this is the 250th will say, about the nation, uh, were working on imperfect information, imperfect alliances, the odds seemed daunting, and yet persevered, and yet spent a lot of time thinking about how to transform the country, how to come up with better visions of the future, how to understand what was happening. And so uh this book is in part a story of those people. Um and I think that what we have to know about our own time, it seems simple, but I think it's important, is that we're just in history too. Uh we're in history. History doesn't go only in one direction. History is about visions and struggles and contests and violence. And it has been that way since 1776. Um, and we're gonna now. So it's not a goal net to sort of stand apart and throw hands and say, you know, the worst things are happening, there's no hope, because history is cool of people who made different choices than that. And we are the beneficiaries of many of those justice.

SPEAKER_10 23:10

I wanted to call out this quote, Beverly, in your book. He wrote, empathy is essential if you want to understand history and if you want to understand America. And I was thinking about how empathy can maybe be hard for some people to wrap their their um arms around because this is also a moment where we're seeing a rollback of rights, laws being broken, corruption being normalized. So I guess how do you reconcile those things with this idea that you know we we do need to be more open-minded to understanding where we've come from to understand where we're going to be headed?

SPEAKER_01 23:51

Well, I think the first distinction is that empathy is not sympathy. Um, empathy is really the ability to imagine another person's perspective, to try to understand it, uh to figure out where they're coming from, and then to make your own judgments about that. Um, I spent uh more than a decade of my own life as a historian writing a biography of J. Edgar Hoover, uh the FBI director. And I will tell you, it was not because I thought he was such a great guy. Uh, but what made it interesting, and I think what made it valuable was to take that leap, in this case, into the mind of a historical figure, uh, try to figure out how he understood the world. Uh, because in that case, this is an enormously important, influential person. If you just dismiss him as a kind of one-dimensional villain, uh, if you don't make that leap to try to understand, then you're not going to understand how power works. You're not going to understand uh why things happened as they did. And I think that we are in a similar situation now. Uh it doesn't mean that you have to um love all of your fellow citizens, and it doesn't mean uh that you certainly have to support all of your elected officials, but I think uh not having curiosity about where some of the forces and trends and worldviews that we're seeing, many of which are so problematic, not having curiosity uh about what those worldviews are, how they make sense to the people who hold them. Uh, I think just an easy at a profound disadvantage.

SPEAKER_02 25:32

Joanne, you had a thought about empathy, thinking about about empathy and the and um the response to what you were saying. I I'm not normally the person who sounds more pessimistic than everyone. And I won't say as a historian, like this is the worst it has ever been, because you never say best or worst as a historian because you're always wrong. But that said, I think individual things that are happening in this moment have happened before. So the things that are happening at this moment are not new, uh but the the conjunction of them, the fact that they're all together and that there is an administration that is not so fond of democracy in an open kind of way, to me, that makes this moment distinctive. And they're sort of anti-empathy in a way, right? And to me, and you're right, empathy is not sympathy, but empathy is humanity, right? The fact that we can acknowledge each other as people, even if we don't agree with each other. I mean, if you go all the way back, um, the founding era folk said, okay, well, whatever we're doing here is grounded on debate and compromise. Now, we haven't always been very good at compromise, but um, the idea that we ought to be able to come together and debate in one way or another, when we can't do that, that's chipping away at part of who we are. And part of that desire to do that has to do with at least the recognition that this person is a person, this person has a right as well as you do, and that you can and should be able to engage in conversation at least on some level. And we're we're not at that moment right now, among the other things that are problematic about this moment.

SPEAKER_10 27:19

Elizabeth, what do you think about that?

SPEAKER_07 27:22

I mean, I to me it seems like that I, you know, I wish, um, I guess I'm less in I think I think I have a sense, and history does somewhat give us a sense of of what the project that is happening right now. I wish that the people that were in power were more empathetic uh and thought about what the consequences are of many of their decisions that seem, um, at least, you know, from the president's perspective, really to be driven by um, you know, a quest for more money and profit at the expense of, you know, I I wish that they could actually think, what would it be like uh to be separated from your parents in a detention facility? What would it be like to be uh incarcerated in a warehouse that was meant for um, you know, goods to go in the marketplace that that human beings are being slated for? What does it mean when you are um a woman who might not have um access to healthcare, socioeconomic resources to make a choice about what you do with your body that's just been taken away? What does it mean um that, you know, uh a right to vote that is supposed to be like foundational to it to a democracy, right? That that people fought for uh for decades, um, you know, is is now little awake. And and so I so I I think that the empathy is we do need more empathy, but we need to understand, we we need to have a better sense of and put ourselves in the position of people who may seem very different from us or may, you know, I think part of it is that we exist in this country in our little bubbles or little echo chambers, and we're you know, usually uh interacting with people that come from similar backgrounds as us, and we don't really think about or know what it what it might be like for somebody else. And that does go both ways. But part of it to Joanne's point is thinking about how do we break down those barriers and also how do we make it, how do we make known um, you know, what's really going on. Fritz seems like we have no idea because there's a concerted effort to prevent us from understanding or knowing what the conditions are like in the um, you know, the call detention centers, but they're prisons uh for migrants. We don't know what's going on. You know, public officials are supposed to have access to that information and they're being denied it. We don't know. Um, we can't hear from the people that are experiencing the see about like what helped lead to the abolition of slavery. And that is when enslaved people's narratives, their stories, their voices actually began to be um, you know, brought into the public square and people began to understand what slavery was really like and not the narratives that you know Southern elites were telling other people about what the institution was. So, you know, part of it is that we are silo, and until we can begin to break those barriers or think about how the most marginalized people's stories and experiences in this country can become something that uh, you know, that the public has access to, it's gonna be very difficult to be able to cultivate that epic because you don't know what that experience looks like. I don't be in life. I I don't know. I'm a scholar of incarceration. Uh so I get it and I have very good sense of the horrible uh conditions in this nation's prison system and the horrible conditions that are in the prison system right here in Connecticut. That gives me a sense of what it might be like. But I don't I, you know, I can't imagine um what it's like or fing you to be incarcerated in a migrant detention facility or be separate under cannons or to be, you know, detained and beaten uh by ICE agents.

SPEAKER_10 31:24

Thinking about how sense of community, how people understand where they're coming from, and have a sense of belonging. Everly you traveled all over the country for your books. I mean, you've probably encountered lots of different people that you can encounter in haven areas. I'm wondering, can you share some of those um interactions with us and you know maybe as a uh a guide for each one of us to go back into our communities and have conversation with people who may not be of um background?

SPEAKER_01 31:55

Well, I was mostly traveling and going to historic sites, and so a lot of the people that I talked with were people who had already self-selected into being curious enough to either be working at or hanging out with, going on a tour at um sites like that. So I would say one heartening thing was how much uh curiosity and real interchange there is out there, and how many people are trying on really a grassroots level to tell stories about history that are not just about kind of local boosterism, though I have no problem uh actually with local boosterism in its place, but uh trying to tell stories about things that their own community has suppressed or missed, trying to tell stories about the ways that their community's tale uh sort of fits in with the story of the nation. Um, one thing that surprised me actually as I was writing the book. So each chapter in this book is both a place and a moment in time. There are 13 different chapters, 13 different places, and it moves chronologically. Each one captures some period of American history in which uh an important set of dilemmas arose and in which people both in the United States and around the world looked to that place to say, what is America all about? Is it going to survive? You know, is this a good place or is this a terrible place? And would look to these, to these local communities. And one of the things that I found over and over again that surprised me a little bit, actually, as a historian, is how often I was looking at uh historically a relatively small group of people in a relatively modest place who decided that they were gonna try to change the world. One of my favorite examples of that is um the trip that I did up the corridor of the Erie Canal in upstate New York. So if you know the song from Albany to Buffalo. And what's remarkable about that is it's filled with these tiny little towns and small cities, not places that most people say, you know, I my top priority, my bucket list is to go to Peterborough, New York, uh, which has, you know, a few hundred people living there, I think, even today. Uh, but what's amazing about that is that in the 1840s and 1850s, uh, those places were filled with people who went there to be around other people who were thinking about how to transform the country. Uh, the two most notable political movements to emerge from that region, it was a real hotbed of abolitionism. So Frederick Douglass is living there, John Brown is living there, Harriet Tubman is living there. Uh, and then it's also uh one of the places that gives us the early women's rights movement, Seneca Falls, another teeny little place, but Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony and others, and they were neighbors, right? These are just people living in little towns. Peterborough was important because um a man named Garrett Smith was living there. And Garrett Smith was uh essentially one of the billionaires of his day, one of the richest men in the United States. He's living in this little town, and he decides that the best thing that he can do with his money is to help fund some of these nascent causes that are uh trying to transform the country. Um so I think that might actually explain a lot of why all those people moved to that region. Um because when the rich guy is there and he's gonna fund your newspaper and your meeting houses and all of that. Um, so it takes lots and lots of different kinds of people to be in these, uh in these moments, in these movements, but often they are really things that are happening or at least start in communities among neighbors and then spread out from there.

SPEAKER_10 35:49

Joanne, you talk a lot about community and the power of the people. Um, if you watch uh Joanne YouTube series, uh a few thoughts for those who can't sleep. So what would you like to share, Joanne?

SPEAKER_02 36:01

Sure. Yeah, I I I always have a hard time being self-promotional, but um a lot of nights during the week, sometime around 10 or 10:30, um right literally right before I'm going to go to bed, um, I give a few thoughts for those who can't sleep. And that's actually a wonderful segue because what I wanted to say about community was, and I I wanted to start actually with this room, is that you are all here in a spirit of curiosity together, wanting to learn together. And in a sense, by being here, this becomes a kind of community that you're here in a joined spirit. And in this moment, community is so important in so many ways. So, number one, we sit at home. I mean, even me, like, you know, uh live streaming, and I should say it's on my YouTube channel. I always forget to say where people can find it. It's on my YouTube channel.

SPEAKER_07 36:56

Um, I they signed your YouTube channel.

SPEAKER_02 36:58

Oh, well, yeah, I think it's Joanne Freeman 1755, which is when Alexander Hamilton was born. So I think um, but you know, even I am sitting on my couch by myself talking into a computer screen. But there are a thousand people who appear every time I do it and who already feel like a community because they come together, they have questions, they recognize each other in one way or another. So, in a moment when we all in one way or another are feeling uncertain or nervous or afraid uh or confused, community becomes enormously important because we're so alone so often. So that's one way. Another way is, as I suggested before, the way forward is together. And history shows that change, big change, comes from the bottom up, not from the top down. So whatever we do going forward, wherever we want to be going forward, that's going to come from us. That's going to come from we, the people. So community matters in a really concrete way on that level as well. And then also in a really pragmatic way, in a moment with things are so uncertain, it's a really fine thing to know the people around you so that you can turn to them if you need something or have questions for something. There are so many ways, historically and practically and emotionally, in which community is so important right now. And oddly enough, and I am not a technologically gifted person, but you know, Zoom allows us to get together in ways that we otherwise couldn't. And as goofy as that sounds, uh actually, based on the fact that someone here applauded my beaming on at, you know, 10 o'clock at night and talking means you know, it allows you to connect with people. And in this moment, connecting with people really matters.

SPEAKER_10 38:56

We reached that point in the program where we want to hear from you. So if you have a question for our amazing historians, um, if you could just we'll have a mic come to you. If you could just say your first name and uh make sure you keep your uh question concise so that we can fit a lot in before the end of the program.

SPEAKER_00 39:15

Okay. Um, thank you all. I'm really enjoying this talk. Um, one of the things that I worry about is how we will repair the institutions that have been so degraded in the past 10 years. And I'm just wondering if history offers any um lessons or models uh for how we might fix what's been broken.

SPEAKER_01 39:35

I'll jump in on that. I think one of the lessons of history is that it doesn't sit still for very long. And if you look at the history of the 20th century, let's say, because that is the period that I know best, what people thought the world was in the 1930s uh in the United States, in the midst of the Great Depression, right? They were sure that capitalism was falling apart, that uh this was maybe never going to be fixed. And then within 20 years, uh you actually have one of the most prosperous, stable uh periods of American history in which inequality is actually declining. That's very rare in history, uh, particularly American history, for that to happen. Um, and so I think one of the things that you see is that in moments when you're back on your heels, you're not in power, uh, you're in a moment of difficulty, it's really important to be making plans for and envisioning what it is that you want to come next. So in the 1920s, right? The 1920s are an incredibly bleak period for uh progressives in this country. So the Ku Klux Klan, World War II kind of, I mean, World War I ruined progressivism. Uh, the Ku Klux Klan became one of the most powerful forces in American politics in the early 1920s, uh, was one of the dominant forces in the Democratic Party in particular. It is a moment of anti-immigrant reaction of a very powerful sort. Uh, 1924, you see, immigration restriction enacted. Um, and so a lot of people who a decade or two earlier had had all these visions of a different America are sitting there in the 1920s thinking, wow, we're being crushed. Some of them went into exile in Europe, famously. Uh, but a lot of people stayed here and started to think, okay, some point there's going to be a crisis, there's going to be a change, there's going to be a shift. And when that comes, we need to have plans in place for uh how we're going to say, look, this is the way forward. And so I think one lesson that history teaches is that it's often at the moments when you feel the most disenfranchised, when you are uh kind of the furthest removed from power that can be generative about what kind of world you want. And change is going to come. Events keep happening, even if you just think about the last couple of years. I mean, how many things happened that nobody was expecting pandemic is a big one, right? In my lifetime, 9-11, another. Uh, and of course, uh certain uh pivotal elections that uh came along and surprised everyone. So things are gonna keep changing. Um, and I think now is the moment to not only think about rebuilding, you know, let's go back to what was, but uh to take this breaking and think, what do we want to preserve about what was once there? What do we want to rethink? What do we want to remake? I think that's true for universities. Um, I think it's true for government institutions. And so, um, and this is the moment to be doing that work.

SPEAKER_02 42:52

I just want to add a brief point to that. And that is um, I think that all of us, certainly in the course of my lifetime, I now understand democracy in a different way than I've ever understood it before. And I value it in a way that I didn't before because I didn't think about it. It just existed. And related to our the various institutions that are being undermined, along the lines of what Beverly just said about this being a moment that can inspire us as to what comes ahead, we are now and will continue to understand the things that are being undermined better than we ever have before, because we didn't think about them before. So as we're feeling loss and as we're feeling the erosion around us of things that we took for granted, we absolutely now is the moment to think about what we'd like, where we can be better. And we're going to be better equipped to do that because we are experiencing the loss and the confusion and what happens when all of the things that we took for granted are eroding around us. As unpleasant as much of this moment is, it's teaching us our. Lot of things and we should take advantage of those lessons. Another question?

SPEAKER_08 44:07

Have a less.

SPEAKER_04 44:10

Yes, my name is Joe, and my question sort of follows up on the last one. Uh one of the most disturbing things, in my opinion, about what's going on now is the uh handing over executive uh having handing over the authorities, the executive branch uh is manifested by the Supreme Court decision, even in it because in for just about everything. Uh another thing that really bothers me was that our country still isn't completely uh a democracy. I mean they have issues with this uh redistricting issue, which is a serious problem. All the electoral college, everybody knows about that.

SPEAKER_05 44:54

So my question is can we move forward? Can we break out of this and return to a normalcy without changing the constitution?

SPEAKER_07 45:03

Elizabeth, so that that builds off of the last uh question actually really well, and I can get in some of what I wanted to say. But yes, and I think, you know, like what for seeing is there's a unitary executive, but then also uh judiciary with the Supreme Court and the the power of this actually uh, you know, essentially the court has changed the constitution in many ways without having to go through a formal ratification process. Um I will say, you know, on the one hand, to one of Bappuet's earlier points, you know, democracy has always been in question here. And I would argue that the US has never been a democracy, that this is something that we've aspired to be, and that it's a principle on which this nation is founded on it. We've never really reached it. Um but I I to what Beverly and Joanne just said, I think it is tight, you know. This moment now gives us an opportunity to think differently about that, to think about what this country can be and should be, to think about how to make institutions work better for more people and for us. Um and so I hope that is kind of part of the way that we reflect on this moment and move forward. But it's also it's it's gotta be active. So I've been thinking a lot, you know, and this might be a little blooming, but to the to the part question, I mean I I I expect that um, you know, I'm gonna be working for the rest of my life to hopefully maybe um help us get to the place in many ways that we were um, you know, in 2020. Um and part of that work ahead and is, you know, being in community, having these conversations, having epithy. But I think it also requires us actively to think about how do we educate, how do we, how do we expand knowledge, how do we include different forms of knowledge into these conversations? How do we think about, you know, training uh the next generation of movement lawyers who are gonna be able to take on um these policies that are being eroded and be enacted at this moment? How do we train the next generation of organizers to be able to um, you know, like go out there and mobilize people? So these are the these are the questions that that I've been thinking about. And it's not, it's not something, and history shows us this, right? That's just gonna kind of like happen. We just like sit back, things are gonna get better. Um, it's gonna take struggle, it's gonna take what sweaty tears, you know, it's gonna take hard work and labor uh to do it. But, you know, to the prior plane, I believe I am, I am ultimately optimistic. And, you know, I recognize that I might not see it in my lifetime, but I would leave that out of this, um, we are going to get to a better place. I have to believe that because so much of what motivates me, even in my approach to history, is thinking about, you know, like how how can we live up to the beautiful ideals of this country um that are truly revolutionary and beautiful? How do we actually live up to them? And how can I contribute um in a way that might be so that my great-grandchildren or great-great-grandchildren might be able to live in that world? And I think, you know, I think about my ancestors, I think about the black freedom struggle, and I think that's always kind of fit the approach. You work for the future, not necessarily to um to to bear the fruits of that later within your own lifetime. And I'm feeling that and it more than ever uh in this moment and thinking about what we'll work ahead.

SPEAKER_06 48:50

My name is Rhea, and uh something I have often thought about is the tension between the federal government and state governments throughout American history and when that tension has produced benefits for the larger pup population, and when that tension has produced uh regression of rights. And I'm wondering if you have any thoughts currently about the role of the role that states might play in our institutions.

SPEAKER_01 49:20

Well, I'll say very quickly, Elizabeth and I had uh shared a graduate advisor named Eric Foner, who was a historian of the Civil War and Reconstruction. And I remember one of the first things he said to uh in one of my graduate classes was anytime someone talks about states' rights, nobody believes actually in states' rights. People believe in states' rights when they think states' rights are gonna produce the outcome that they want. And people like the federal government when they think the federal government's gonna produce the outcome that they want. Um, so now political theorists would say that's not true. We feel very passionate about these things. But I think one of the interesting things that is happening in our moment um is a reversal of the political valence of who's work, who's who's looking to which institution to be helpful, right? So for a long time, uh liberals and progressives were investing a lot in the Supreme Court as a center for their uh their hopes and their strategies. I think uh a lot of them have turned against it. Now, the right is very invested in the Supreme Court as the place that's going to produce that. Um, so I think this changes all the time. And the same thing with uh with states. Of course, the phrase states' rights really evokes Southern secession. It evokes resistance to the civil rights movement. Um, but during the progressive era, it was also true that the states were often called, you know, the laboratories of democracy or places of experimentation. And so I think a lot of people are looking to that legacy now. Um, but I think, yeah, all of these are sort of shells uh that reflect our political makeup and also what we what we make of them.

SPEAKER_02 50:59

I want to add to that because if you go all the way back to the creation of federalism, go back to the constitutional convention, that's basically why the constitution was was created and ratified, because people were terrified of a a big national something. So, national, that word does not appear in the original constitution. And the idea that there would be a division that some power would be national and some power would be on a state level, that made the power of this new government more palatable to people. And the assumption was it's always going to be compromised in one way or another. It's always going to be going back and forth. You know, it was a deliberate gray area when the Constitution was created. So over time, for some of the reasons that Beverly said, but just generally speaking, that becomes an area where politics happens, right? And that means different things in different moments. I have to say, I mean, very often in current days, part of me, I feel like my brain has two parts. So there's historian brain that looks at this question and is like, how interesting. You know, federalism is being renegotiated. And then there's citizen brain, which is like, ah. Um, but but it but it is part of a longer tradition. And we're watching, in a sense, why federalism felt so important at the time.

SPEAKER_10 52:25

I think we have time for two more questions. So we've got a mic runner here.

SPEAKER_08 52:30

Um Hi, my name is Mary Lou. I would like to give a shout out for our courts. I think many of our courts are doing things. The fact that uh the Kennedy Center is now, again, the Kennedy Center is a miraculous thing to have happen. Uh, thank you. Um, but the other part of this uh is not just the courts. I don't understand what it is that the our president has to hold over so many people that they are making decisions that seem to me to be ridiculous in terms of how they've always believed. Do you discuss this at all among yourselves?

SPEAKER_07 53:09

You know, okay, here's how I'll here's what here's what I'll say in kind of like a broader sense. I think that one of the big tensions or questions in American history has been um, you know, is is the United States a multiracial democracy or is the United States a white Christian nationalist republic? And I think that there's a kind there the what what the way that I read it, um, you know, there's a kind of combination of people who are, as I mentioned before, like trying to use the money, use the the federal government as like a way to make money and have done so very successfully. And there are also people who are aligned with that vision who also, you know, believe in a moment of great demographic change um in this country, uh, that, you know, the United States is a white Christian nationalist republic. And, you know, the way to do that is to take rights away from people and to um, you know, mass deport people, mass criminalize people, mass detain people. Um, so, you know, I I think among many um scholars and my crew, you know, like that's one of the ways, you know, that's the conversation that we're that we're having.

SPEAKER_02 54:22

We're also getting a real life moment by moment um demonstration of why checks and balances matter, right? That when you have a Congress that just says whatever, and courts, which appear to be in one pocket and not another, and a president who wants supreme power, here's our moment, right? So, you know.

SPEAKER_07 54:44

But also, yes, the court, like think. I mean, right now, think goodness for the courts. Some of the courts, the district courts. Well, right, the district courts.

SPEAKER_02 54:53

Right, well, the rule of law. One of the foundations of democracy is the rule of law, and many courts are standing for that.

SPEAKER_09 55:02

We're out of time. Please join me in thanking Joanne Freeman, Elizabeth Hinton, and Beverly Gage to the Festival of Arts and Ideas.

SPEAKER_03 55:18

Thank you for listening to this episode of Great Art, Big Ideas, presented by the International Festival of Arts and Ideas. If you like this series, make sure you subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. And you can show your support by making a donation at artidea.org slash donate. The International Festival of Arts and Ideas thanks the hundreds of individuals whose support is foundational to our work, as well as our marquee sponsors. Yale University, the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven, the City of New Haven, the State of Connecticut, and the Seedlings Foundation. We are also grateful for the leadership support of the Sassafras Foundation, Roslyn Milsteenmeyer and Jerome Meyer, and Alexander Clark. Credit goes to audio editor Nike Connors, our stage manager, Genevieve Peters, and our production manager, Kelsey Carboni. Other members of the media team include Quinn Bassett, Cliff Baird, and Dante Houghton. Thank you for listening.