Our constitutional democracy is threatened. What’s going on?

Conversations about the survival and renewal of liberal democracy

In this video, recorded on October 29, 2022, we take a closer look at the authoritarian challenge confronting liberal democracy in the U.S. and abroad. In the U.S., a frighteningly large share of the people appear to have abandoned a core commitment of democracy: the willingness to lose a free and fair election. Internationally, in many countries "strong man" governments have substantially replaced what were once thriving democracies. How do we understand the causes of these threats? How do we respond?

In this video we begin shaping a central argument we will make throughout the series: that our shared values and commitments are more fundamental to our democratic society than our agreements on the mechanism of power; and that these shared value commitments, organized into a statement of our *social covenant*, should guide us when the plain text of the Constitution does not. The concept of a social covenant will be central to our strategy for revitalizing democracy for the 21st Century.