We’re back after our summer break and catch up on what’s happened to American democracy while we were on hiatus.

Michael Berkman, Chris Beem, Candis Watts Smith, and Jenna Spinelle are back after summer break to discuss the January 6 committee hearings, which we previously teased as “democracy’s summer blockbusters.” Did they live up to the hype? Did they change public opinion — and does that matter?

We also discuss the January 6 hearings and the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago in the context of democratic pedagogy, or behavior that helps us learn what it means to be good democratic citizens. Finally, we discuss some of the summer’s primary elections and what to expect in the general election this fall.

NBC News poll on threats to democracy as the most important issue facing the country

Episode Transcript

Michael Berkman From the McCourtney Institute for Democracy at Penn State University. I’m Michael Berkman.

Chris Beem I’m Chris Beem.

Candis Watts Smith  I’m Candis Watts-Smith.

Jenna Spinelle I’m Jenna Spinelle and welcome to democracy works. Welcome back, everyone. Hope you all had a nice summer and hopefully got to read some of those books that we recommended to you in our last episode of our last season. And now here we are, it’s the start of a new school year, a new semester. And we’re just going to take some time to catch up on what’s happened in the world of democracy over the summer, and maybe some of the things that we’ll see as we head into the midterms and other things related to that. But to start things off here, we talked a lot. In our last episode about the January 6 hearings, they were just about to start when we were recording last time, I referenced an article I saw that they were going to be our democracy summer blockbusters, and we talked about some of the implications of that. So just wondering what you all thought of, of the hearings, and maybe how what you saw over the summer compared to what you were expecting to see it the last time we talked?

Chris Beem Well, let me just say, initially, that they were very different from what I expected. I was expecting a typical congressional hearing, with, you know, Congress, representatives being more interested in their own personal aggrandizement than anything else. And I expected it to be kind of choppy and kind of bland as television. And it was none of those things. I was very surprised and impressed at how well organized, it was how everyone was committed to a common objective. And what good television it was, they actually brought in, I think, a producer from ABC. And so everything was orchestrated, and made for really powerful television, I think. I mean, I thought it was much more effective than I thought, than I expected it to.

Michael Berkman Yeah, well, I agree with everything. Chris is saying that I found them riveting. I was not surprised by how much they had turned up. Because I think a lot of it it leaked out previously, for people that were following closely, it was clear that they had a lot of information. And it became pretty apparent quickly, I thought that they were doing this in a sort of traditional investigative manner and talking to lots and lots of people talking to a lot of people who were sort of, you know, not the top tier people, not the main targets, but people in the offices people, you know, around the principles, younger people that have, you know, an entire career ahead of them. So I wasn’t I was really surprised by how much came out, I was, you know, gratified, I think to see how well they presented it, and to see that, you know, Pelosi strategy of denying Republicans the opportunity to put, you know, just flame throwers onto the committee had had been effective. And I think it was showing Americans that Congress can work. And despite the claims that are frequently made, that there’s nothing bipartisan about it, I think it was actually pretty bipartisan. I can’t think of another case where a leader of the majority party, or committee chairman of the majority party, gives over so much authority and FaceTime and prominence to a member of the other party, which is exactly what they’ve done with Liz Cheney, where they’ve made her the de facto leader of the committee.

Candis Watts Smith  I think one of the things that stood out to me, I was trying to decide if it’s like, oh, is this like bipartisan? Or is it non partisan, and so far as the issues at hand about maintaining legitimacy, and, you know, making sure that the processes of, you know, passing power and ensuring elections do what they’re supposed to do? It has nothing to do with Republicans or Democrats. And I think that the way that it was set up really highlighted that that actually, it takes everyone on both sides of the aisle are all involved, that we that unless we have these processes, none of us are going to get the policies that we think, you know, we think should be implemented. I don’t know. I really thought that there was kind of a almost a non partisan orientation toward, you know, the way that people talked about you know, What did the frame is want? What was intended? who’s allowed to do what you know? And that has nothing to do with Democrats or Republicans? It has everything to do with democracy.

Michael Berkman Yeah, that, you know, it had me thinking of shows we’ve done in the past, we’ve talked about the notion of democratic pedagogy and the idea of sort of teaching Americans communicating to Americans why our democracy works, as it does, and why different procedures and processes and institutions do, what is it they do, and, you know, if you watch the hearings carefully, you were getting really some lessons in, for example, how you are supposed to object to an election result. You know, there are democratic ways to say that you think there’s something unfair about the election. And then when these processes when these courts or whatever the case may be, are expired, or have been when those opportunities have been expired, then it’s over. And anything else is sort of outside of the bounds of legitimate forms of action. And I think it’s useful for Americans to see that and to get and to learn about that. And I think even in the micro sense of, you know, I thought it was fascinating to hear from Cassidy Hutchinson, the extent to which a 26 year old is essentially, you know, so close to the seats of power, and that is how Washington works. Washington to many people is actually run by 20 Somethings who are willing to work for almost nothing in order to be close to the you know, seat of power and work their way up. And Cassidy Hutchinson was in on everything, and there are a lot of Cassidy Hutchinson’s running around. But even beyond that more to talk about, you know, this is not the way we’re supposed to be doing things. And this is the way we are supposed to be conducting ourselves. I think it was just useful to hear.

Chris Beem I mean, I’ve heard people talk about this pedagogy thing. And I’ve heard people talk about making a case for history and all that. And I don’t think that is at all, or was at all the objective of the hearings, the fundamental objective of the hearing was to counter the Trumpian narrative about those events. And so their objective was to call out every claim that Trump made about January 6, to be a lie, and to show that in the show it through testimony and everything else. And so in some sense, it’s your right, Candis, it was completely bipartisan. But in another sense, it was completely partisan, because it was all focused on, you know, what Liz Cheney has said, has been her fundamental objective, which is keeping Donald Trump out of the presidency in that regard, I think, because it was that specific and that direct and that unifying? I think it was, that was part of the reason it was so effective.

Michael Berkman Well, it’s Congress, they’re running under a very tight schedule. And I mean, clearly, there are huge gaps in the story they’re telling, because they are fixated on undercutting the big lie. And so I think, first of all, that undercutting the big lie is a important and essential democratic function. Because, you know, we had Jim Piazza on the show, we know, we know, the damage to democracy that can be done, when the outcome of a fair election is challenged and not accepted. We’ve talked about that. We’ve seen it so undercutting that, showing that there were procedures and processes for determining whether there was a problem in the election, that those processes exist, that they could be used, that they were exploited, and that then they went into violence, because that’s what happens. But, you know, had they had more time had they not been operating under the assumption which they are operating under that as of January 1, they could be disbanded. Right, then they would have looked into, for example, what happened with the police? You know, I mean, that is, to me, kind of a big question about January 6, was the entire police response, the lack of any kind of response, the under staffing, that was clearly the air the so we know, there’s all that too, and they’re not focusing on it? Well, they mentioned patient focus on Trump as sort of public enemy number one that doesn’t allow them to look at the full role of, I would say, large parts of the Republican Party throughout the country.

Candis Watts Smith  So I think, you know, we kind of step back. I think one of the things I think that I hope that people note is that there are a lot of things that happen between the first Tuesday in November and January 28. I’m not really sure that most people knew. You know that most people know all of the things that could happen. it right that at the end of that Tuesday, the election is over, but it requires 1000s of people to do the right thing in order to ensure that, you know, the person who is elected, it takes the seat of power, right, as, you know, the nation’s, in this case, the nation’s, you know, Representative as the president.

Michael Berkman And I think they’re also telling us what to be wearing what to be watching for about. I mean, you know, I remember the day because it was so powerful when the two women from Atlanta who had been alleging workers whose lives had been essentially ruined, but Well, you have to appreciate that Steve Bannon, his entire project, is to make sure that’s repeated over and over and over in forthcoming elections. And, you know, it’s people that follow them accordingly, it’s to know our brown metal this year is going to an organization that is committed to trying to make sure that elections are run fairly, and that that kind of harassment doesn’t occur, because it’s coming. And it is deeply, deeply disruptive to a democracy. So I thought they were doing really important work and highlighting this. And we, you know, are they gonna be able to stop it next time? I don’t know, there will be legislative outcomes, I’m sure having to do with maybe the electoral Count Act or something that come out of this. But mostly, it’s just going to be people paying attention to what’s going on and caring and recognizing that, that this is a problem.

Jenna Spinelle Right. And that gets to I think, this question of, you know, who was paying attention? And how much did it matter? How much did it change public opinion, where there’s been polling that comes out? And you know, that had that has come out since the hearings, you know, indicating that any changes were kind of at the margins? And that, you know, public opinion, by and large, does not seem to have shifted a whole lot as a result of these hearings? What do you all make of that? How much does it matter is even a change at the margins, something to celebrate here, or maybe enough to counteract some of those more dire situations that that we’ve been talking about?

Michael Berkman So I think this is a very hard thing to pull on. And I also think it’s very hard to figure out the effects of January 6 hearings versus everything else that’s going on. I mean, keep in mind that just shortly after those hearings ended, there was a search warrant on Mar Lago and there have been other things that have happened again, and we keep track of that all kind of come together, you know, the hearings, I don’t know that the right place to look for the effect of the hearings is necessarily on the mass public. First of all, there’s a contingent of the Republican party that’s never going to change in their thinking about it. It clearly seems to have had an effect on some elites, it also has, I think, led many senior Republicans to think that Trump is vulnerable. And that sniff of vulnerability can lead to all kinds of possible consequences and outcome. I also think, you know, you have seen some shift in public opinion. So you know, there’s an NBC News poll that just showed that, that threats to democracy is now seen as the greatest problem, the most pressing problem, I would need to see that out of other polls before I really, you know, want to accept that that’s the first thing on people’s minds doesn’t usually seem to be but, you know, you think about January 6, and along with everything else that’s happened. Maybe there is a kind of shift starting to happen, at least among some.

Candis Watts Smith  I disagree, and part about elites versus the public. And the reason why is because I do think that it’s important to know whether a significant portion of the population was convinced that the big lie was indeed a lie. That because, you know, in the case of let’s say, Watergate, the reason why Republicans abandon the precedent was because they recognized that it was going to be a loss for them because the public was willing to hold the President accountable for wrongdoing. And in this case, I think what we’re seeing by the poll numbers not moving very much is that there’s a significant portion of the public who is not willing to hold Trump accountable for his part in January 6, and in his part for normalizing absurdity around the issue of election fraud. And, you know, so for me, I think that what that means is, is that if the public is not willing to move, then that means elites, especially elected officials, have no incentive to do something different and instead have Have the cover of saying that will our constituents care about election fraud, and we are doing all of the things that we’re doing under the cover of election integrity. So, you know, I actually was more concerned about the shifts in the way the public was thinking and talking about the 2020 election more than like the nitty gritty of the committee hearings itself, because I think that, you know, elected officials are single minded seekers of reelection, and that they don’t have an incentive to do something different. We should not expect them to do anything different. I mean, and now we’re seeing like all sorts of people coming out of the woodworks who want to have a say in elections that don’t need to have a say, sheriffs, and you know, if you guys recall, talking to Miriya Holman earlier this year, in the past season, these guys are like, you know, they’re not close to the median voter. I’ll say that. And so, you know, I think that we are seeing ourselves in a very dangerous position, despite all of the evidence that has come out about January 6, and the events leading up to it, and now the issue at Mar a Lago.

Michael Berkman Yeah, I think it just gets very hard to figure out what’s affecting what and this election because roars so forgetting all about Dobbs way, has had a, I think, profound effect. In some places. What happened in Kansas, should have like blown everybody’s mind this summer. I mean, Kansas was always actually more of a pro choice state than its surrounding states. I mean, it has abortion services, significantly more than the states around it have had, however, you know, the turnout increase in Kansas, the fact that independents who couldn’t vote in the primaries came out in Kansas, you know, I think we saw an example of what can happen when abortion is on a ballot, without any kind of partisanship to muck it up. You know, it’s just a straight up or down vote, you don’t get that very often in very many places. But there are other elections, too, that have gone on this year that have seen some clear upticks and democratic registration and democratic enthusiasm that I think is going to have a profound effect on the elections, probably more so. Then, oh, what’s going on with Trump, which has just been a whole bunch of stuff. But you know, in terms of like those Senate candidates, it’s, I mean, clearly the case that these more purple states, the fact that the Republican primary electorate is so conservative, and, you know, lurking in the background, of course, is the fact that the court is going to take this case about the independent state legislatures. You know, I would assume that they took the case, because they’re going to, they’re going to make a major ruling on that. It’s going to empower state legislatures. And we’re going to have all kinds of troubles. I don’t think January 6, take care of any of that. But it has set the stage and it’s important for it to have done that, say, look at what happens. And we have to be careful because it’s going to happen again.

Candis Watts Smith  For me, just kind of watching the Wyoming primaries, I think not just the Wyoming primaries, but these past primaries, insofar as only two of the 10 House representatives that were Republicans that voted to impeach Trump will be returning in any shape way or form. Four of them lost their primaries, four of them chose not to run, including the other Republican on the January 6 committee. And you know, the thing about Liz Cheney is that, you know, she voted with Trump 93% of the time. So this right, like her outstaying has everything to do with just you know, it’s not about policy, right? It’s not, right. It’s It has everything to do about power. It has everything to do about preserving the power of an otherwise shrinking minority, and preserving that perspective.

Michael Berkman

But I think, though, that what’s kind of being missed a little bit is that Donald Trump has incredible control of the Republican Party. There’s no doubt about that. But he’s also kind of a loser. You know, I mean, he won that 2016 election, and then in 2018, he lost a house in the Senate, and then a 2020. He lost the general election. And then in the special election, I think he can pretty much be credited with losing the two Georgia Senate seats, through his behavior, giving the Senate over to the Democrats. And from what Mitch McConnell has been saying he’s about to do it again. Big As if his insistence on bringing on some of these sort of cultish supporters of his. And, you know, after a while, these kinds of defeats are going to are going to rack up, I think, I mean, you know, he also has a remarkable ability to control large numbers of people. So maybe he’s just gonna pull off all kinds of stuff. But I’m struck by how unsuccessful he’s been since beating Hillary Clinton, and how much he’s actually bringing the Republican Party Down, even as it becomes more and more homogenous, in its kind of effort to impose a sort of anti democratic regime on the country.

Candis Watts Smith  Yeah, but I mean, just thinking about his legacy in terms of, let’s say, the Supreme Court, just that is gonna be with us for decades. And so I don’t know, um, and thinking about this business of, you know, the fact that we’re talking about election integrity and an election fraud, like this conversation has now been normalized, it has been completely normalized to discredit elections, that is a legacy that’s gonna, that’s going to last for a long time, the legacy of potentially turning to violence, right. I mean, like, that’s been like a verbal, you know, a gurgling, you know, underlying legacy across the, you know, US history, but, you know, it’s bubbled up. And so yeah, I just, I find that kind of those two ideas juxtapose just kind of a little mind blowing.

Chris Beem We just have to acknowledge that this is the core of what’s going on. This is a group, a demographic group that is shrinking in numbers and power and seeing that happen, and is unwilling to let that happen naturally, or through the process that exists. So you know, it is this is, what happened on January 6, was a reaction among white people to the fact that they were losing their cultural establishment, cultural, political, economic establishment. And everything you’ve seen, since then, is only reinforcing that idea. And I think that’s why you’re going to in that sense, this is a very predictable state of affairs, people, groups do not give up power willingly or quietly. And the more they see the changing status quo as a threat, the more likely they are to find extra political means for addressing it. And I don’t and until they add, they that frame of reference, that objective is clearly identified as having lost as having been no longer even in any way viable. It’s going to continue. And that’s what I think, is going to sustain this for decades.

Michael Berkman The whole Mar-a-Lago raid, you know, this too, will have very bad repercussions going forward, because the strategy immediately has been to utterly discredit the Justice Department and the FBI, both of whom would we would expect to be and not to mention the judges, but both of which would be expected to be heavily involved in any kinds of problems with elections going forward. But like everything else, they have been painted as completely partisan, mean that the switch in how people see the FBI is one of the most remarkable things, the Republican opinion on the FBI. This is basically an organization of conservative white men who are interested in law and order. This is a conservative organization, that even Democratic presidents have felt a responsibility to hold on to these Republican leaders of it. It’s just being completely and totally trashed. And this sort of this is the opposite of democratic pedagogy. This intentional destruction of Americans confidence and faith in governing institutions means they can’t believe that I’m gonna believe a thing that comes out of it. They are completely then unable to operate, you know, as accepted and legitimate organizations. And this is really problematic. And, you know, some senior Republicans caught on to this, I thought pretty quickly, and we’re trying to say, Hold on, hold on. But you know, as has we’ve been talking about Trump’s control over the party is pretty absolute. And he made it clear that we were just that they were just going to trash daylights out of Merrick Garland and the FBI. Ray, I don’t even know his first named the director of the FBI.

Candis Watts Smith  So I mean, for me, living a little bit on Twitter, the whole kind of, you know, people notice immediately, right, it’s like, well, You want to defund the police after Mar-a-Lago? Right? And but I think it just kind of just goes to show that ideology is not an exercise and logical thinking necessarily, right? And that consistency is it makes it too rigid. And so here people can just kind of decide, well, we like policing and we like law in order for you over there, but not for us over here.

Chris Beem I just think it um, it’s just so simple. It’s if you do anything that Trump doesn’t like, you are de facto unAmerican, unpatriotic, you’re no, you know, and you’re the enemy. It’s that simple. It’s the only other thing I want to say about that is just how it distinctive and unique, these this kind of identity politics is. It is striking to me how people who are Trumpian are go out of their way to make sure you know that. Right, they have flags, they have not just bumper stickers, but huge things across the back of their pickup saying, you know, let’s go Brandon or Trump 2024. It’s like, this is at the core of who they are. And so the prospect for them giving that up or walking away from it. It’s not like a typical politician or typical policy position or typical partisan identity, it goes to the very core of who they are, and giving it up would be a disaster for them personally,

Jenna Spinelle We have seen the Democratic party or some portion of it, or democratic donors investing in far right candidates in primary elections when they’ve been successful by and large at doing that the idea I think being that yes, as you all, as you were saying before, that these fringe candidates are not electable in a general election. And there’s also people saying that Democrats are playing with fire, and they might not like what’s going to happen, or what could happen as a as a result of these decisions. And these investments, it’s wondering where where you all come down on this,

Michael Berkman I’m less bothered by some than some, you know, so most of those, which, in many races with not a whole lot of money, but in others, because you know, you don’t have to spend a lot of money sometimes on a political ad, because everybody else will shoot it out if it’s provocative enough, or whatever. But mostly what they’re doing is saying, for example, with Mastriano, here in Pennsylvania, he stands for this, this, this and this, but then it’s the Republican primary voters that go ahead and vote for him. It’s not the Democratic primary voters that are voting for him. So I’m not sure why it’s on the Democrats, that Republican primary voters are voting for these people. I guess it could come back and bite them, I suppose. But you know, if I’m looking at this from the perspective of a Democratic candidate, I want to run against the weakest candidate, how was that anything new? It just how is it new? I mean, which I’m not sure I understand what’s so wrong about?

Chris Beem Well, I mean, what’s wrong about it is that you are arguing that everything these people are doing is a threat to democracy, and then you’re turning around and supporting them. They’re not supporting them, you seem to get it and trying to get them the nomination. And then what happens? You know, I mean, I think it is, it’s clearly playing with fire. And I mean, there is something to be said, for moral consistency. That’s all. I mean, I understand it’s in a beanbag. And that, you know, you want to create the most favorable electoral climate for yourself. But, I mean, as we saw in Pennsylvania, you know, Fetterman had a stroke two days before the primary things can happen. It’s just, I mean, it’s clearly is playing with fire. And I also think there’s a dubious moral quality to it as well, I’m not going to lose sleep over it. But I think you need to say that that’s what it is.

Candis Watts Smith  You also have to have, like the strategy would also have to include a major get out of get out the vote component.

Michael Berkman Yes, I mean, they have a responsibility to try to win that election. Once they do that.

Chris Beem A greater responsibility, what happened to their responsibility?

Michael Berkman The Bureau was basically running ads that were completely truthful. Yeah. To Republican voters saying this guy. Mastriano is a Christian nationalist, who wants to take away abortion rights, was in was in Washington on January 6, still hasn’t accepted the result of the outcome, whatever else he had to say about him, all of which was true. And then Republican voters said, yeah, that’s our

Michael Berkman I don’t think it’s that they didn’t do their homework. I think that they were saying, Yeah, that’s our guy and most people are voting probably Memories know exactly who they’re voting for. You don’t tend to get people in primaries because it’s only party don’t know anything about who they’re voting for. That’s who they want it. Now, you know, now we get to see, are they weak?

Jenna Spinelle Well, we will see, I suppose in a few months how these decisions play out in the general election. We are almost out of time here. I think we’re gonna have to leave it there. Unless anyone has any parting thoughts to add or anything you wanted to bring up that we haven’t yet talked about?

Candis Watts Smith  I suppose the only thing that I have to say is that elections are not light switches. They don’t just swing the pendulum back to where it was, you know, prior to the election, or it doesn’t just swing from Republican to Democratic to Republican, that there are, you know, major changes that happen that can shift where the path of that pendulum swing is. And as you know, you two were just saying, like, the norms that existed six years ago, 10 years ago, 20 years ago, many of them are gone. And it’s difficult to create new norms, or at least ones that are healthy. And so I do think that we have to be really attentive and treat the norms that remain very preciously. Yeah, yeah.

Chris Beem I completely agree with that.

Michael Berkman Yeah, once norms are gone, they’re gone. And they’re very, very, very difficult to restore.

Jenna Spinelle Well, we will have more to say about all of these things, I’m sure over the next couple of months and certainly leading up to and after the election. We are back on our normal schedule of episodes every Monday through December. So excited to bring you great semester of new episodes. So for the democracy works team, Michael Berkman, Chris Beem, Candice Watts-Smith. I’m Jenna Spinelle. Thanks for listening.