The Munk Debates Podcast - Be it resolved: America is on the brink of civil war

Episode Date: September 22, 2022

The United States has long been admired as the world’s most stable and enduring democracy. However, many experts now believe there is a growing and real risk the country could plunge into civil war. Deep political divisions, weakened institutions, racial unrest, allegations of voter fraud, and partisan news coverage are eviscerating social cohesion and political compromise. Red and Blue America are separated by more than ideology; their disagreements are about basic fundamental values that are in irresolvable conflict. The key pillars of a functioning democracy have been destroyed, and the country is courting a period of sustained violent unrest. Others argue that predictions of widespread civil conflict are overblown. Civil Wars require cohesive and large geographical fighting blocs. So called “red” and “blue” states like Texas and California are not nearly as homogenous as pundits claims (46.5% of Texans voted for Joe Biden). Protests, battles, and blockades are a much more likely scenario than a descent into full scale civil war. And finally, the widespread belief that an overwhelming number of Americans support political violence is factually incorrect, and promoting this narrative is dangerous. Those who prophesize the demise of US democracy must remember that conflict can escalate from misperceptions of the intentions of rival groups and stoking fear can lead to actual violence. Arguing for the  motion is David Blight, award-winning civil war historian and the Sterling Professor of History and American Studies at Yale University. Arguing against the motion is Akhil Reed Amar, American constitutional and legal scholar and the Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science at Yale University QUOTES: DAVID BLIGHT “Until we find a way out of the straight jacket that the undemocratic Senate and the electoral college holds over us, we are on a collision course with more and more elections like 2020.” AKHIL REED AMAR “While we are deeply divided, in every state there are shades of purple. And that means there is less likely to be the sharp geographic divide of the sort that characterized the 1850s” Sources:  CNN, Fox News, CBC, HBO, PBS The host of the Munk Debates is Rudyard Griffiths - @rudyardg.   Tweet your comments about this episode to @munkdebate or comment on our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/munkdebates/ To sign up for a weekly email reminder for this podcast, send an email to [e-mail].   To support civil and substantive debate on the big questions of the day, consider becoming a Munk Member at https://munkdebates.com/membership Members receive access to our 10+ year library of great debates in HD video, a free Munk Debates book, newsletter and ticketing privileges at our live events. This podcast is a project of the Munk Debates, a Canadian charitable organization dedicated to fostering civil and substantive public dialogue - https://munkdebates.com/ Senior Producer: Ricki Gurwitz Editor: Reza DahyaBecome a Munk Donor ($50 annually) to get 72-hour advanced access to the full length editions of Friday Focus and Munk Dialogues. Go to www.munkdebates.com to sign up. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

These statues have to come down. It's always been a pandemic of the unvaccinated. The problem now is it's a pandemic of the willfully unvaccinated. Falling birth rates are good. They're good for our planet. They're good for our societies. We're not responsible for the escalation with Russia. We're not the ones who invaded Ukraine.

I don't think it's fair to portray people of color as victims. It is a very dangerous time in American politics. Welcome to the Monk Debates. Every episode we provide you with a... civil and substantive debate on the big issue of the day to arm you, the listener, with enough information to make up your own mind. Today's debate, be it resolved. America is on the brink of civil war. The rigid refusal by lawmakers to compromise underscores the disturbing findings of one's study on democracy in the U.S. data from the Center for Systemic Peace finds the U.S.

no longer technically qualifies as a democracy. The U.S. military preparing for a war right here in these United States. They're reportedly learning guerrilla-style warfare tactics to combat potential homegrown threats and potentially overthrow an illegitimate government. At this point, we're living under corporate and medical fascism. This is tyranny. When do we get to use the guns? No, and I'm not, that's not a joke. I'm not saying it like that.

literally where's the line? How many elections are they going to steal before we kill these people? Hello, I'm your moderator, Rudyard Griffith. While many experts now believe there is a growing and real risk that the United States could plunge into civil war, they point to deep political divisions, weakened institutions, widespread racial unrest, and allegations of voter fraud, all ignited bipartisan news coverage and the eviscerating effects of social media. The key pillars of a functioning democracy, it is being contended, have been destroyed in the United States. And the country is courting a period of sustained violent civil unrest. Here's Republican pollster, Frank Lutz.

The moment that the truth doesn't matter, the moment you can create alternative fake facts, not just fake news. But when you start to get at that core of what allows us to communicate with each other, allows us to do business with each other, allows us to make sacrifices for each other. If you lose the facts and you lose the truth, that becomes impossible. And then you end up like Russia. More optimistic political observers argue that predictions of widespread civil unrest in the United States are being overblown. Civil wars require cohesive and large geographical fighting blocks, whereas so-called red and blue states like Texas and California are not nearly as homogeneous as many punitive.

would claim. For those who prophetize the demise of U.S. democracy, we all must remember that conflict can escalate from misperceptions of intentions of rival groups and stoking the very fears of civil discord can lead to actual violence. On this episode of the Monk debates, we debate the big issue of this moment. Be it resolved. America is on the brink of a civil war. Arguing for the motion is David Blyte. He's award-winning Civil War historian and the Sterling Professor of History and American Studies at Yale University. Arguing against the motion is Akiel Reid Amar. He's a political constitutional and legal scholar of international reputation and acclaim and the Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science at Yale University.

I'm very much looking forward to today's debate. This really is one of the hot topics out there. There's a lot of concern, frankly, about the state of American democracy, the effects of the Trump administration on your political institutions, but more importantly, the polarization, the tribalism that's emerged in America over the last period of time. And will the center hold or is America at risk of descending into widespread political, social, and economic disorder? Opportunity to have this conversation. with you, with your considered knowledge and understanding of American institutions and political traditions, it's just a privilege indeed. So thank you. As per debate convention, we are going to

ask you, David, to begin our debate. We're going to kick it off with opening remarks. So I'm going to put two minutes on the program clock and turn this conversation over to you. Thank you very much for inviting me and thank you to my dear friend and colleague Keel Amar for joining this with me. I will hold that the United States is on the precipice of civil disorder, if not indeed, on the precipice of civil war itself. If by civil war we mean amassed armies or even the result of some kind of regional secession, I do not believe we are on the brink of any sort of. of regional secession or the amassing of armies. But I do believe we are on the brink of civil disorder, rooted in a kind of media apartheid in this country and a good deal of constitutional

dysfunction and even what one colleague in the law school here at Yale calls constitutional rot. I do believe we have divided into essentially two countries. American tribalism has many forms. But if we are two countries, one of those countries believes that we barely averted an overthrow of democracy, and the other believes that we just saw last year a kind of brazen perversion of democracy

and massive electoral fraud. One believes that the other side is an existential threat to its interest, and so does the other side. I do believe we have a serious problem in this country of trust in institutions. And what we are experiencing is, not unlike the 1850s, although I do not believe historical parallels are ever direct, we are experiencing not merely a distrust in institutions,

but a kind of death of persuasion. Nobody persuades anybody anymore. We only rarely have forums, and usually those are very civil like this one, done by academics or sometimes journalists, where some degree of persuasion may occur. But we are at risk of constitutional disillusion because of undemocratic aspects of that constitution, which can lead to and already has degrees of civil disorder in society that can lead to violence. David, thank you for that. Excellent.

And I'm frightening opening statement. So we've got a lot to unpack here. Akeel, you're up next with your opening statement. You're arguing against our motion today, be it resolved. America is on the brink of civil war. let's hear your opening remarks please well thank you so much for having me it's such an honor to be with my dear friend and colleague david blight i so respect him and he's done me the great service of basically handing me the debate because he he's agreed in his opening statement that we really

aren't quite on the brink of civil war with the emphasis on on war and he talks about constitutional rot i think there is um rock going on that's a long longer-term process and one as to which metaphors of brink may not be quite the most apt one that the rot can be a very long-term corrosive process. So it's not quite being on the brink or the precipice. And he's, I think, said disorder is on the horizon, if not already here, that isn't quite war. He's mentioned the 1850s and he's such a great expert on the 1850s. He's an extraordinary historian. I do think there's some profound differences between that era and the current one. And he himself said, you know, history doesn't quite ever repeat itself perfectly. Of course,

he knows that as a very sophisticated historian. Here are two or three of the biggest differences that are, I think, relevant today. One, the amount of regional polarization was much more significant in the 1850s. Here's an aha fact for the audience. Abraham Lincoln, got not a single popular vote, not just electoral vote, not a single popular vote, south of Virginia. Whereas today, we are red and blue, we're deeply divided, but actually in every state, there are shades of purple. And that means that I think there's less likely to be a sharp geographic divide of the sort that characterized the 1850s. Second thing is, because we did have a civil war, maybe possibly some of us have learned something from that. And,

and that might actually help us. The folks in the 1850s looked back at the founding, which was a successful secessionist movement, and they thought, oh, we can do that again. Whereas now I think most Americans, even those in the Southland, think this was a big mistake, not all, but most. And finally, because we're having this conversation right now,

I'm actually cautiously optimistic that talking about the problem may make it better rather than worse. Now, talking about the problem can be self-affirm. filling. If I think there's going to be a war and you think there's going to be a war, then we both start to arm up and then we see each other arming up and and then actually even though neither of us wanted one, maybe war happens because each of us thought that was going to be and the other guy was going to start it. Contrary wise, that would be self-fulfilling discourse of doom and gloom. But a self-refuting discourse might be because wise people,

voices are warning us that things are not good. We hear that. We hear, each other and we each take a step back. So it's possible that this discussion will actually be part of the solution to some of the problems that David has identified and I'm sure we'll continue to identify. Thank you so much. Okay, great opening statements from you both now in opportunity for rebuttals. So David, a couple minutes on the clock here for you to react to Akeel's opening remarks. Well, all well said, Akeel. I may not share, though, your confidence in our better angels right now, merely because we are having this debate. I would argue actually that the fact of our Civil War,

the massive presence of that event and its transformations and secession itself, which of course precipitated the Civil War, looms perhaps too large over us. And so we therefore say, well, that can never happen again. There isn't going to be any regional secession again. You're right about that. a group of contiguous states that would form some kind of new confederacy really doesn't even exist. But the thing we most risk here is the long term corrosive, to use your word, process

by which our constitutional practices, our constitutional norms, even our very knowledge of civics, is slowly perhaps dissolving. In order for any different, democracy to work. And this is all debatable, I know, but it takes at least three things. Free elections and peaceful transfer of power. That's one. Second is respect for and practice of liberal rights of free speech and assembly. And the third is broadly put, the rule of law. How are we doing with all three of these? Now, we are. We are. not doing very well with free elections and peaceful transfer of power. We are now in the midst of an investigation of what clearly was an attempt at a coup, a rather hapless attempt at a coup

to overthrow the 2020 election. And I know we will debate this richly, I hope, that our Constitution itself is in some ways the problem. It's several undemocratic features, namely the U.S. Senate and how it is formed, two representatives from each state, etc., allowing for a degree of minority rule in the government, which we are now holding at bay only slightly. And of course, the second is the electoral college. Were it not for the electoral college, Al Gore would have been president, Hillary Clinton would have been president, and there would be a seven to two majority liberal or in some way, leaning liberal set of justices on the U.S. Supreme Court.

So I do share some of your concerns about whether the 1850s applies today. There are aspects of it, I believe that do, and I'll come back to that. There are aspects that do not. But I do think we are experiencing a disillusion of our constitutional process slowly but surely year after year. and unless we reform it, we are on the course of civil disorder. Thank you for that rebuttal. Akeel, your opportunity to do the same. You can react to David's opening statement or what you've just heard now.

So in some ways it's worse than what David suggested, but I think in a lot of ways it's better. Here's how it's worse. I do think that Donald Trump, and I've always thought that Donald Trump poses a distinct and unique threat, perhaps even an existential threat, and not just to the American constitutional project, but to world stability, if we wanted to be apocalyptic, the very existence of the world. I've never underestimated that chaos and mayhem that he might be capable of reeking upon not just America, but on the world.

But that's different than a systematic threat to our constitutional order. I don't think actually any of the other leading Republicans opposes that. me, cars on the table, not support them in various ways. I happen to be a Democrat, but I don't think Tom Cotton poses the same threat, or Josh Holly, or DeSantis, or Ted Cruz, or Lindsay Graham, or even Kevin McCarthy, Pickyer, leading Republican. And Donald Trump was willing to do whatever it took, had he been able to get away with it, I think, to preserve himself in power. and I don't think that's true more generally, and here's why I don't. It's not actually in the leader's interest to actually push it to that extent. And Donald Trump doesn't always think

about his long-term enlightened self-interest, but I do think the other politicians do. They actually sense an opportunity actually to undercut Trump in some ways to succeed him. But apart from that, the electoral college isn't great, but it's not the stuff of civil war. It's not even the stuff of civil disorder, a constitutional rot. It's not perfect. I'm one of the leading critics of it. It's not great, but it's possible to win in the electoral college, but only while losing the popular vote.

But you have to come pretty close, even in the popular vote. There's a skew, but not a big one. Senate's not perfect. I've been a critic of it, but again, it's a two or three point skew, and that would change if Puerto Rico became a state or D.C. became a state. So I don't think that these are the stuff of civil war or civil disorder. they are sensible things for us to talk about, possible constitutional reforms. We've managed to make do with them for 200 years.

I don't love them, but I can live with them, and I think we all can. Thank you, Akil. Okay, my opportunity now to join this debate and think up questions that are top of mind for our listeners. And, David, let me start with you. And maybe we can just begin by painting a bit more of a picture for the audience as to what, in your view, this kind of acute civil disobedience, you know, courting that ominous phrase of civil war. What in your view would this look like? How would it take shape? I want to hear the journey from now into this kind of moment in your view. I don't think I'm putting words in your mouth here of

kind of political and democratic rupture. Well, I think. think the big fear is that we could possibly face increasing numbers of elections, state level and especially federal level, or the side that loses does not accept defeat. Democracy dies when one side cannot accept defeat, when both sides consider the other side winning an existential threat to their existence. Now, we may have constitutional norms that hold in this process or we may not. All Donald Trump needed in 2020 was above 43,000 votes in three or four disputed, well, they weren't disputed, three or four states that he tried to dispute. If indeed they were able to install electors in Wisconsin, in Pennsylvania, in Michigan,

in Arizona next time around, and we had a similar election, or a Democrat, might win by, seven or eight million votes. And yet in those states, the electors are so determined by the Republican Party to deliver for their candidate, then we would have not merely constitutional rot, we would have a constitutional crisis. And how many times will the left in this country? Let's just say the Democrats accept elections where we know that they were in part determined by voter suppression, by gerrymandering, by this local process, legal process of installing electors or installing election officials over time. Gerrymandering is a real problem.

It's the practice of drawing voting districts in a way that creates unfair advantages for whoever happens to be drawing the lines, which does sound mundane, but the results can be significant. Gerrymandering is partly responsible for giving Republicans such an edge in the House of Representatives. At what point will the Democratic side of this

rebel and say this is not acceptable? That doesn't mean they would do it with violence, but they might do it in such a way as to render this democracy really worse than dysfunctional, all but non-existent. We do not have in this country real majority rule. We really don't.

And as long as that is the case, we keep running the risk, election after election after election. I don't have as rosy a view of the U.S. Senate or perhaps of the electoral college as does Akeel. Now, I know, Keel, you don't have entirely rosy view. And I'm all with you on the attempt to get enough states to agree to give their electors 100% to the winner of the popular vote.

I'm all for that. But until we find a way out of the straitjacket that the undemocratic Senate and the Electoral College holds us, I think we're on a collision course with more and more elections like 2020. Thank you, David. So, Akil, I want to you to respond to David's key or core argument here. It's one, I think, shared by many. listeners, which is the demonstrable fact that there are tens of millions of Americans right now, your fellow citizens, who simply believe that the last election was, quote, stolen, that

Joe Biden is an illegitimate president. This is unprecedented. Why isn't that a clarion call, a ringing alarm bell, that something is different this time? and that talk of being on the brink of civil war, of mass civil disorder, it's no longer conjecture because the kindling is there. There are millions of people who have opted out effectively of the processes and traditions and structures of elections and the peaceful transition of power from one regime, one administration to the next.

Well, let's talk about the glass three quarters full rather than one quarter empty. You say there's a lot of disaffection and there is. The last election had more people participating by voting than ever before in American history. And that's in absolute numbers. And in percentage terms, actually, participation is up rather than down. I'm the Democrat and Democrats complain about voter suppression, but more people vote in the South now, for example, than in my lifetime. And you say, or one could say, look, there are a lot of people who believe bat shit crazy.

That's a technical political science term, bat shit crazy stuff about who won and didn't win in the last election. That's true. I think there's a problem on both the hard left and the hard right. It's a little bit asymmetric. I think they're slightly more powerful cooks on the right than on. the left and David is worried about whether people on the left are going to accept the outcome of elections in which there were more votes on our side but the other fellow wins well those are the rules they don't love the electoral college but it's not you know the worst thing in the

world because those are the rules and you change the rules you change the game people weren't trying to rack up the most popular votes in 2000 or in 2020 for that matter or 2016 they were trying to win in certain key states. And had, for example, George Bush in 2000 been trying to rack up the popular vote, he would have had a different strategy and racked up more votes in Texas. For example, and Al Gore would have played it differently as well. And so I was very disheartened when my side got more popular votes, but lost in the electoral college. But that's the rules of the game. That's the rules of the game for the Senate as well. There are ways that these things could be reformed. David said, earlier comment, well, people aren't listening to each other. That is a problem. But sometimes

you don't have to persuade lots of people. You just have to persuade a few, a few Republicans. You see, crossed over and Joe Biden is president of the United States because they did on the Supreme Court. You know, John Roberts crosses over in the Obamacare case, and no other Republican does, but John Roberts is enough, or Anthony Kennedy is enough. He crosses over on issue after issue. So sometimes you don't have to persuade everyone on the other side, just enough people in the middle and of goodwill. And since we're talking about the Supreme Court, at least I am, totally different than the 1850s when the Chief Justice of the United States was basically a ridiculously pro-slavery person who actually was also a proto-secessionist, Roger B. Taney.

Today, your Supreme Court, you may not like them, you may not love them, but they are not supporting a kind of massive civil unrest. They're basically well-trained lawyers who are are not radicals. They're more conservative than I would like net net. So we don't have these kind of combustible materials to the extent that's being suggested. Other criticisms that were put forth, gerrymandering, for example, the fundamental problem is not actually a drawing of district lines for partisan advantage. The fundamental problem is when you have single member districts, the urban party will actually historically be unrepresented because there's a thing called clustering. A lot of people live in cities and they win overwhelmingly there. And so they

end up getting fewer than their fair share of their proportionate share of the votes in the legislature. That's true in New Zealand. That's true in England. That's true in America. The Electoral College today is leaning two percentage points, three percentage points toward the Republican Party, but no more than that, and that might change in future years. That's not the stuff of a constitutional crisis. that just means my side has to, you know, actually work a little bit harder to win. And if they start saying it wasn't legitimate because we got more votes and the other side won, oh my gosh, you know, we should repudiate that kind of thinking, David, rather than encourage that, because civic education, constitutional education begins with understanding what the rules of the game are.

And the rules of the game are not, have never been simple majoritarian. I might like to move the system more in that direction, but those aren't the rules of the game if you know the Constitution. I think we need to move those rules in that direction or trouble lay ahead. Keel, let me give you one 1850s parallel, just for the heck of it. Tucker Carlson, granted, not my favorite commentator nor yours, but he has advanced with quite some popularity in a highly produced documentary film, this idea of the replacement theory. That is that Democrats and the left are bringing in all kinds of,

all kinds of new immigrants from the third world. And as Tucker Carlson puts it, they're bringing in more obedient voters, quote unquote, from the third world to replace white people. An unrelenting stream of immigration, but why? Well, Joe Biden just said it, to change the racial mix of the country. That's the reason to reduce the political power

of people whose ancestors lived here and dramatically increase the proportion of Americans newly arrived from the third world. In political terms, this policy is called the Great Reparlemies. the replacement of legacy Americans with more obedient people from far away countries. Yes, that's a racist, white supremacist theory. It has great traction out there. How is that different? If it continues to get traction from what Southern slaveholders and their apologists were arguing in 1860.

Now, Carlson hasn't turned this into a secession argument because he doesn't have a clue how that would actually happen. I grant you that. But I do think we're dealing. now with ideological divisions in America where there's not only no persuasion, we aren't even understanding the other side's theories and ideology because we don't even pay attention to it. I think we are living in an apartheid of information that is dangerous. Hi, Rudyard Griffiths here, your host and moderator. I have a favor to ask you, please consider becoming a monk member. Membership is free and you get access to a series of great benefits, including a 10-plus-year

library of some of our best debates, dialogues, and podcasts. You also get a free monthly newsletter featuring the debates that we're watching around the world. And you get a specially curated Friday weekly Monk Members Only podcast that focuses on the big international events and trends shaping our world. All of that, again, free at W. www.munkdebates.com. I hope you'll consider joining and becoming part of our community. Now, back to our program. So, Akeel, let me come back to you on another thing that is top of mind for a lot of our listeners

tuning into this debate right now. Our resolution today, be it resolved, America, is on the brink of civil war. We are marking the one-year anniversary of the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol. The nation today has witnessed a grave breach of its democratic traditions. For the first time in American history, supporters of the losing presidential candidate forcibly disrupted the official counting of electoral votes. Many people point to that event as a, more than just a harbinger, as a kind of, as a watershed, as an event where American citizens turned on their own democracy and its institutions. and did so with violence and with the intention to stop the electoral college from allowing the peaceful transition of one administration to the next. So what's your take on how we should interpret that? Is it simply a one-off? Why isn't it now a dangerous precedent?

something that is revealed to millions of fellow Americans who believe that the current Biden administration is illegitimate, a legitimate way to express their displeasure, their anger, their outrage at the state of American democracy today. Is violence now legitimized by January 6 and the actions that took place over a year ago? No, on the contrary. So my friends in Canada might be freaked out by. of the invocation of millions. But of course, you know, a million here, a million there, that's still less than 1% of America given 350 million people. So there's a percentage of people who, again,

I'm using a strict political science term, are bad shit crazy. But take a look at the leaders. Which leaders have actually, in a full-throated way, endorsed the January 6th riot? Which governors, which senators, which house members? Okay, there's Marjorie Taylor Green and maybe three others. But the others actually deny it. But the stuff of civil war is when leaders actually think it's in their interest to actually openly champion this stuff.

And that's not what's happening in America. Okay. Now, you say, well, there's replacement theory, ideology, and apocalyptic concerns directed at fellow Americans. Now, let's look at some history. More, a higher percentage of people of color are voting now than ever before in American history. And now that's freaking some folks out, okay? But that's because we're moving in the right direction rather than the wrong direction.

Since you mentioned actually the time of year, what we are commemorating at this time of year is not the capital riot as if that were Guy Fawkes Day or July 4th or something like that, Independence Day. We commemorate this year, at this time, and every year, MLK. And actually, lots of Republicans, you know, celebrate MLK. Tim Scott is a black person from South Carolina who's the senator of the United States. Go figure their former governor is Nikki Haley, who is a woman of color. So more people of color than ever before on the Supreme Court, you know, in a public life and voting. Very few people actually endorsing openly and publicly in a full-throated way what happened on January 6th. lots of condemnation of it.

The senators who were doing mischief in the vote count on January 6th actually were grandstanding, but there was never a serious threat that actual leaders of the government were going to somehow say these fake electors were really the real electors. We didn't come close to any of that because you don't have leaders, apart from Donald Trump, you know, willing to profess this nonsense. Now, Trump, I repeat, is unique and a threat. He's the threat that we need to focus on and rot more generally, yes, and constitutional illiteracy more generally. Yes, yes, yes. But when you actually study the Constitution, as I do every day, you see us in the long run, even now, basically getting better rather than worse. And if we can somehow make it past Trump in 20 years, oh, I think actually my side will have actually the demographic. majority if we can persuade Hispanic Americans that we offer something better than do our friends in the Republican Party, precisely because some of the things that Tucker Carlson is saying

demographically will come to pass. California is already among newborns, majority minority, and other states will follow. Roger, if I may. Yeah, please come in. Look, there's no question demographics are on the side of the Democratic Party. or liberalism, if you want to call it that. However, it is not the gangster Donald Trump that worries me most.

What worries me is the refuse that's left over in his party. He doesn't have to, and he can fade by next year. He can go away and buy more golf courses by two years from now and just fade away. But the kinds of authoritarianism that he represented has a foothold now, a strong foothold in one of America's two political parties. What I fear most is the possibility that Trumpism, when he's gone, and he may be gone sooner than we think,

nevertheless survives within the Republican Party, not unlike a lost-caused culture survived in France after the Franco-Prussian War. If Trumpism, if this idea that liberalism, this idea that pluralism and multiculturalism in America is taking the country away from these people to such a degree gets a foothold, already has a foothold, but becomes the essence of America's second political party, then I don't see how we can avoid a certain degree of civil disorder over this. There are only two Republican elected officials openly supporting the investigation of the January 6th attack on the capital. The rest of them have just taken a hike.

they've just gone silent or they attack it. That's a very dangerous situation. Any Republican out there who wishes to run for office now, statewide, state level, or national, just can't support the January 6th investigation. That's not a functioning democracy. It may function to the degree that we get a brilliant report out of that committee that somehow persuades a small majority of this country to keep them out of power next time around.

Okay, we might be able to point to that and say, well, something worked, but it didn't work you very well. Do you want to come back on that, Akil? Here are some new things that are being identified as the real problem, catastrophic problem. So one is the... general problem with the Republican Party. I do think it's a huge problem. As it's a two-party system,

strongest two-party system, the most emphatic two-party system in the world. And when one party is not really responsible to govern, that's a big problem. And the Republican Party is actually, in some ways, the dominant party in America, if you look at state and local elections, as well as the federal election. Yeah, they don't have the House, the Senate, the presidency, at this nanosecond, but they still have most state governments, and they control the Supreme court, I'm going to come back to that. And there is a huge problem in the Republican Party. And that's why it's important that Donald Trump lost, and he lost the popular vote twice, and they've lost the national popular vote, seven of the last eight times. And future politicians will notice that because they want

to win and they will make adjustments. So where are the better angels of our nature coming from in the Republican Party? They're going to come from corporate America. And they are because corporate America actually, you know, does not favor disorder, civil war. So let's take the Southland. The two top 50 corporations in America that are headquartered in Atlanta, not Fortune 500, Fortune 50, are Coke and Delta Airlines. Now, you and I are Lincoln lovers, and we know that Lincoln almost lost re-election. The war wasn't going so well.

He thinks he's going to lose as late as late August 1864. he ends up winning because Atlanta falls, he gets that famous telegram, you know, from Sherman, Atlanta as ours and fairly won. Let's talk about Atlanta today. Let's talk about the fact that Georgia has two Democratic senators and one of whom is an African American, Warnock. But Coke and Delta Airlines filed briefs in the United States Supreme Court on behalf of same-sex marriage in the Obergefeld case. Wow, wow, wow, because they are trying to bring themselves into the 20th century and the 21st century because Atlanta wants to be a world-class city.

It wants to host the Olympics. It doesn't want to actually wallow in lost-cause stuff because that's not good for business. And the Republican Party has been supported by a bunch of business interests who will not find it in their interest to pander to all this crazy stuff because actually

liberalism in various ways diversity is good for global business. Global brands like Delta Airlines and Coca-Cola, who are an increasingly part of the New South. Thank you. Akiel, this has been a fascinating debate. Let's go to closing statements now,

that your opportunity both to kind of sum up your key arguments, make any last poke or foray at the key ideas that your opponent has brought up. Akeel, as per tradition, you're going to go first in our closing statements. So let me put a couple minutes on the clock and turn the program over to you. So I don't want to give David a poke. I want to give him a peck, a peck on the cheek, a kiss on the cheek, because he's my dear friend, and he knows so much, and I've learned so much from reading his extraordinary work. I'm so proud to be his colleague.

And truthfully, we've agreed, on the resolution itself, I think we're actually in agreement. More generally, I think our diagnosis, I think he's being a bit more pessimistic. I'm being a bit more optimistic. but our fundamental diagnosis is rather similar. There is deep rot in our system. There are many things that need to be reformed. There's profound constitutional ignorance that will in the long run be the death of us.

Not enough people are listening to folks on the other side. They're siloing themselves in their own little informational bubbles. And in the long run, that will be a huge problem. I do want to say, I do think the green shoots, the causes of probe include the United States Supreme Court, and our courts generally behave themselves very well in the last election. Republican appointees from Donald Trump joined with Democrat appointees and saying this steel nonsense was just that nonsense.

So I think our Supreme Court is actually pretty solid, and it's Republican-dominated, and it's actually, I think corporate America will not find it in its interest to support craziness and chaos. and disorder. And in the long run, the demographics, I think, do favor us, that is folks on the left, because we are the world, and people from around the world will continue lawfully to come to the United States. And if the Democratic Party listens to them and actually moderates its position on certain issues, it can win or win back Hispanics and be the ruling party in America and

and incentivize the Republicans to be a responsible alternative potential ruling party. Thank you, Akeel. Well, as per debate tradition, David, we're going to give you the last word in this important conversation we've been having today. Our motion, be it resolved. America is on the brink of civil war. Bring home this debate for us. Well, I do want to thank Akeel.

And I want to say I have Akeel's latest book, The Words that Made us, America's constitutional conversation right here in front of me. No one understands how the U.S. Constitution is a result of ferocious debate, an argument, quite like Akeel does, especially in that first half century, when there was no guarantee this thing would work at all. But we need a new debate about that. We need a new ferocious debate over this Constitution, unless and until we find a way to reform the U.S. Senate. And I know how hard that is. But how how to Do we get around the fact that we simply do not have majority rule in the Senate? It's a 50-50 Senate now, but the Democrats represent 56.5% of the American electorate and

Republicans represent about 43.5%. And those numbers probably are going to widen even further. How long can that be sustained? And last point I guess I want to make is, I honestly believe we have reached a point And it's okay. It's part of what democracy is, but large swaths of America hate the other swath. Truly. Loat them. Fear them. Not only don't trust them, but truly hate them. We're only going to solve it if it's at all possible by creating, like Madison belief, a structure, a structure that can contain us. and I fear that what is holding us together is this Constitution, but it's not working. Maybe Section 1 of the 14th Amendment is still somehow loosely holding us together.

Elements of the Bill of Rights are still holding us together. The judiciary, Akeel, is right on that, to some degree, can still hold us together. Republicans can pass egregious voter suppression laws in some states, and there's the occasional federal judge that will turn it down. But if that is all that's holding us together, it's a struggle to know how we continue to do it on this basis. So you don't solve hate. Humans hate, they do.

That's why we have constitutions. That's why we have a rule of law. But we have to make this rule of law work better. otherwise way beyond Donald Trump, way beyond his gangster government, we have a dysfunctional constitutional system under which we're living. Thank you, David, and thank you, Akeel. This, you know, again, is just one of the hottest topics out there. It elicits stridently different points of view and positions that are often, you know,

incoherent precisely because of their stridency. So the fact that you two have approached this with such civility and substance, bringing your kind of immense learning and understanding of the constitution of how actually American government and processes work has just been a privilege for me and for the monk debate community. So on behalf of all of us here, thank you so much for coming on the program today. Hey, thanks for having us. Thank you. And David, such an honor. Well, that wraps up today's debate. I don't want to thank our participants, David and Achille.

They certainly gave us a lot to think about. We'd love your feedback and reflections on this debate. Please send us an email to podcast at monkaddebates.com. That's MUNK Debateswithan S.com. Also a reminder that you can access our free weekly Monk members-only only podcast that comes out every Friday looking at the big contemporary events, issues and ideas that are shaping our world. This pod is free for you by.

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