The United States of Narcissism? Speaking of Democracy's Worst Enemies

Written By Guest User

January 25, 2022 | Author Tom Nichols on the risk Americans present to our own democracy

“If we believe democracy has failed us,” writes author and scholar Tom Nichols in his latest book, Our Own Worst Enemy, “we should first ask ourselves whether we have failed the test of democracy.”  

In this Purple Principle episode entitled “The United States of Narcissism,“ co-hosts Rob Pease and Jillian Youngblood ask Nichols why many Americans seem to be enthusiastically failing that test recently.

 A longtime Soviet Union—then Russia—expert, Nichols points back to the US’ triumph at the end of the Cold War as a tipping point from civic seriousness toward national narcissism– an event he likens to winning the lottery. “And anybody who's followed the history of lottery winners can tell you,” Nichols observes, “winning the lottery never goes well”

Without the seriousness of the Soviet threat, Americans became increasingly self-absorbed and—in Nichols’ telling—no longer fulfilled by the hard, often dull work of democracy itself: engaging in civic groups and local governance, staying informed, and voting with real purpose for serious candidates. 

By contrast, Nichols argues, earlier generations of Americans had a fundamental respect for American principles. He recalls that his often bigoted, working class father never said a biased word toward President Barack Obama. “He had too much respect for the Office of the President and the Constitution.”

The bleakness of 1970s’ industrial decline initially turned Nichols into a young, Reaganite Republican, setting him on the path of Russian language and history study to understand the necessity of a strategic air command post in his hometown of Chicopee, MA. However, by 2018, Nichols believed that same party was no longer taking international security threats seriously enough. “We were the first to defect from the Republicans,” says Nichols of he and numerous other security experts, “because we were primarily concerned about national security and about putting the nuclear codes in the hands of an unstable sociopath.”

Not one to shy away from bold statements when based on solid evidence, Nichols has seen what lack of freedom means in today’s Russia and other autocratic nations. As a result, he’s issued an urgent plea in this latest book, Our Own Worst Enemy, for Americans across the political spectrum to re-embrace civic values, abstain from biased media, and resist the siren call of autocratic solutions.  

Join us on The Purple Principle for an impassioned discussion on the imperiled values of civic engagement and democratic governance with Dr. Tom Nichols, Professor of National Security Affairs at the Naval War College and author of the new Oxford University Press book, Our Own Worst Enemy: The Assault from within on Modern Democracy.

Original Music by Ryan Adair Rooney

SHOW NOTES

Our Guest

Tom Nichols: Twitter, Faculty Page, The Atlantic

Buy his latest book: Our Own Worst Enemy: The Assault from within on Modern Democracy


Additional Resources

Find us online!

Patreon: patreon.com/purpleprinciplepodcast

Twitter: @purpleprincipl

Facebook: @thepurpleprinciplepodcast

Instagram: @thepurpleprinciplepodcast

Sign up for our newsletter: https://bit.ly/2UfFSja 

Transcript

Tom Nichols

The book is about why we ourselves have become so toxic to our own democracy…
Robert Pease (co-host)

That’s our special guest Tom Nichols, noted author, scholar, and columnist. He’s got some strong opinions…

Tom Nichols

I was dispirited by the Democratic party circular firing squad that is one of their key skill sets.

Jillian Youngblood (co-host)

…but thoroughly researches all sides of the issues…

Tom Nichols

When you write it's your responsibility to go find the voices that discomfort you: that would be the best argument against your own case…

Jillian Youngblood (co-host)

…both as a scholar and—until 2018—a national security advisor on the Republican side.
Tom Nichols

We were the first to defect from the Republicans because we were primarily concerned about national security and about putting the nuclear codes in the hands of an unstable sociopath. 

Robert Pease (co-host)

Join us today on the Purple Principle with Dr. Nichols, professor at the Naval War College. His latest book, Our Own Worst Enemy, places a good amount of blame for our weakening democracy on average citizens, “we the people,” for downplaying civic values and responsibilities. I’m Robert Pease.
Jillian Youngblood (co-host)

And I’m Jillian Youngblood, co-host here and executive director of the civic engagement group, Civic Genius. Pretty much all ears today with just enough voice for an engaging discussion with one of the most expressive writers and uniquely positioned political commentators in the US. 
Robert Pease (co-host)

A working class kid who grew up near a major military command post in the ‘60’s and ‘70’s, Nichols has become a noted scholar of the Soviet Union and Putin’s Russia, he’s also consulted for the Department of Defense and taught at a number of prominent schools including Dartmouth and the Harvard Extension.
Jillian Youngblood (co-host)

We started the interview by asking Tom why his latest book emphasizes his  pretty ordinary—if not downright humble—beginnings back in Chicopee, Massachusetts.

[Enter Interview]

 

Tom Nichols

I think it was important to tell people that, you know, I have not been an observer of changes in America from the top of an ivory tower or, you know, a comfortable suburb or whatever. I mean, I grew up in a blue collar family in a blue collar town. And so I think I understand some of these issues kind of at the ground level. My hometown was—is actually, I shouldn't say “was” my God: it's still there—when I grew up there, it had two major industries, which was textiles and manufacturing and the other was a giant air force base. And it's nestled in near Springfield, Mass. on the Connecticut River. And it's maybe about a half an hour—40 minutes—from the University of Massachusetts. But as we used to like to say, it was “about 40 minutes and a million miles.” I mean it was just—it was not a college town; it was a working town. My parents were working folks: Depression era, both high school dropouts; intelligent—but not educated folks. Avid readers, very involved in community stuff. And that's where I grew up. 
Jillian Youngblood (co-host)

Yeah, I think it's a really good backdrop to your work. And you tell a really touching anecdote about your dad and what he said, observing the Obama-Romney campaign in 2012. Could you tell us a little bit about your dad's politics and what he said on that day?

Tom Nichols

Sure. You know the book is about why we ourselves have become so toxic to our own democracy: that our behavior as citizens has become so corrosive to our own democracy and to the principles of a civic and liberal republic. I brought up my dad not as some model of civic virtue, but to point out that my dad was, in fact, a bigot and, you know, old school, white working class, misogynistic guy with some, you know, pretty backward racial attitudes and yet he had a fundamental respect for the constitutional system in the United States. My father, who grew up dropping racial epithets and telling race jokes, never spoke that way about Barack Obama because no matter what else he thought Barack Obama was the president of the United States. And you just didn't do it. And toward the end of his life, he really surprised me. We were watching an Obama campaign rally. And of course my dad and I are both from Massachusetts and we both liked Mitt Romney. And I turned to my father and I said, “I don't think Romney's gonna pull this off dad.” I said, “It's kind of—this guy's pretty hard to beat. I think it's over.” And my father just nodded. He looked at Obama and he said, “He's a good man. They're both good men. We're going to be fine, no matter what happens.” That's part of what I'm writing about is that that we can get to a point where we're able to say that we have nominated good people, and that the other folks have nominated good people with whom we disagree. I keep thinking of John McCain saying, you know, “No, ma'am. He's a good family man with whom I have disagreements.”

[Archival Audio-Sen. John McCain]

Jillian Youngblood (co-host)

You had some formative experiences with civics and government working for local government, including I think at a pretty young age— you talked about helping people, who were mainly men at that time, sign up for unemployment benefits. And these were people who really wanted jobs. Did that help shape your early political thinking?

Tom Nichols

Yeah. The backstory there is that I was working my way through college. And so my mom had mentioned that the new mayor was a really good guy, and a young guy. And so, you know, with all of the sort of self-possession of a 19 year old, you know, I walked in and I said, “Hi, you know my mom and so-and-so…” She was an alderman on the city council and they knew each other socially. And I said, “Hey, I'll come in between my work hours and I'll help out.” And so he said, “Sure, you just can't talk to your mom about city business because, you know they're the enemy, right? I mean they're the city council, I'm the mayor we don't share.” And I agreed to that, and I never did, in fact, rat out city business. And the first thing he did was put me on a task force that was closing the biggest employer in town. And so that really did affect my politics because I was 19 years old. And I was sitting in a little office and men that were old enough to be my father and my grandfather were coming in and I was handing them forms and stuff. And they were saying, “I don't want forms. I want a job. I just want to go back to work.” It actually—you would think that this would have—at 19 or 20—made me a bleeding heart liberal. The fact—I mean, it was like a Bruce Springsteen song, you know? They're closing down the tire factory and the old guys are walking through the gates and I mean, it was just like right out of a Springsteen album instead of Nebraska you could have called it Chicopee. 
[Archival Audio - Bruce Springsteen]

Tom Nichols

Like I sat in on the negotiations between the company and the unions and I walked away from this not thinking well of unions, who basically were like, “We don't care what, we just want to make tires in the snow, in a hundred year old factory,” and the company saying, “Well, that's not going to happen.” You know, this is 1980, nobody's buying American cars and nobody wants to buy these tires. And so that next year I was a Reagan voter. If you want to understand how a young 20 year old in 1980 votes for Ronald Reagan, you have to have lived through the ‘70s. You have to have seen all that. Because what I wanted was someone who was optimistic about getting us out of this kind of gritty, gloomy horror that I grew up in called the 1970s. There was disco. And what, you know, I mean, my God…
Jillian Youngblood (co-host)

Just problems really all around.

Tom Nichols

The decline. The Soviets, I keep saying 1977, the Soviets could have had us, missed that window.

[Archival Audio - Disco music]

[Exit Interview]

Robert Pease (co-host)

We’re speaking with the noted author Tom Nichols on his latest book, Our Own Worst Enemy, and the formative experiences behind it. Such as interning for the mayor’s office in working class Chicopee, Mass. just as the town’s major employer was shutting down.
Jillian Youngblood (co-host)

Which had Tom handing out unemployment forms to economically shell-shocked men from the community at the tender age of 19. 

Robert Pease (co-host)

And living near an important US air base set him on a course to be a Russia scholar and a Cold War national security Republican before breaking with the party during the Trump administration.

[Enter Interview]

Tom Nichols

My hometown for a time was Strategic Air Command-East Coast. We were a nuclear bomber base. The B-52s used to rattle my mom's china going over the house. I mean it was cool when I was a kid and we could ride our bikes up to the base and watch these giant bombers going—because they were also flying missions directly to Vietnam from there. But then it was not cool when you got a little older and you went, “Oh, uh, now I know why they're doing this…” And realizing that the beautiful little country road you drove up through the local mountains had a nuclear command post in it. And so I started studying more Russian and trying to figure out exactly what those bombers at my hometown were doing. And this created a different kind of politics for me that also pushed me toward being more conservative because I was a Cold War Reaganite in that sense. I later became among the never-Trumpers: the national security Republicans. We were the first to defect from the Republicans because we were primarily concerned about national security and about putting the nuclear codes in the hands of an unstable sociopath. And so that had a big effect on me and I worked—I had a very typical career track after that; I learned Russian, I went to grad school at Georgetown, I consulted for the Pentagon and CIA, and I spent a lot of time going back and forth to the Soviet Union and then to Russia. And it made me very aware of what it would look like to lose your freedoms. 

Jillian Youngblood (co-host)

Right. And your book begins with some advanced praise from the Russian chess master and political dissident, Garry Kasparov, who warns that taking freedom and democracy for granted is a fatal mistake. 

[Archival Audio - Garry Kasparov]

Jillian Youngblood (co-host)

How did you come to know Kasparov?

Tom Nichols

We met kind of by the magic of the internet because we both found ourselves being kind of an overlapping pro-democracy arguments. I reviewed Gary's book on Russia. And that started to overlap with those of us again in the national security community who were warning that democracy in America was in trouble. And Kasparov was starting to warn that, you know—from what he knew about Russia—democracy in America was in trouble as well. But at the beginning of the Trump years, after I'd been doing a lot of writing about this, Garry sent me an autographed chess board. So sometimes when people see me on television, they say, “What's that chess board behind you?” And I keep it as an inspiration because it's a chess board from Gary that says, “Keep up the good fight.”

Jillian Youngblood (co-host)

That's a very cool memento. I'm so interested in this. I run a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization called Civic Genius, and we're dedicated to overcoming polarization.

Tom Nichols

[laughs] How’s that going?

Jillian Youngblood (co-host)

[laughs] You know, it's just like faster than I ever expected.

[laughs] You know, we see a big divide. When we look at polarization, we see one of the major and growing divides is among people with different levels of educational attainment. And there's, you know, growing disgusted—distrusted institutions, growing distrust in experts, educated people. Can you talk about how you think that this whole question of how we think about experts can inform how we think about polarization?

Tom Nichols

I'm really glad you asked this because it's a really good question. And I think education is where people misunderstand the polarization in America. And I tried to write about this in the new book—in Our Own Worst Enemy. I think people on the left in particular say, “Well there's polarization because we're educated and smart and the people on the right are uneducated and dumb.” Okay, there is some of that. But make no mistake about it: there are plenty of uneducated Democrats who nonetheless are not enemies of the democratic system of government. The underlying problem is—to me anyway—less one of what people know, than whether or not they feel respected. What you get are middle class—usually men who make plenty of money, but who feel that because someone's a writer at a magazine—I mean I get this all the time now—you're looking down on them and you are disrespecting them and therefore you are the enemy; your education and the job you have because of that education is a mark of being a social enemy. I mean, it is really amazing that, you know, someone who has a lot of power on their local town council, they're a restaurant owner or a small business owner, they're worth well into six figures, and they're practically sending death threats to some 25 year old who's writing for The Atlantic or the New York Times or the New Republic saying, “You're the enemy you're destroying my country. You have all this power.” And I think the internet and social media brings those two cultures—which always existed, right—the kind of the campus culture and the kind of the middle American culture—and it forces them into a tight proximity with each other. A friend of mine summed it up beautifully. He said, “So what you're saying is the town-and-gown tensions of every college town in America are now the whole country...”
Jillian Youngblood (co-host)

But do you have a quick prescription for how we push back on that dynamic? Is it like everyone needs to get off social media to begin with?
Tom Nichols

Well, yeah. I mean, I think, you know, when all of the revelations about Facebook—people ask me, “How should we regulate Facebook?” And my answer is “You can regulate Facebook anytime you want, by not getting your news there.” That's a big start right there. You know, it's like when people ask about how we regulate fast food joints so that people don't become obese, I'm like, “Well, you can always regulate that by not going there. That would be a good start, too.” But I think the other problem is generational. I’m sorry when I was a kid—I’m “sorry not sorry” as we say on social media—when I was a kid, the evening news was 28 minutes, delivered in soothing, authoritative tones by older white men. Well, now the news is sometimes a pretty hearty discussion with a very diverse group of people who are really going to piss off older white men. And that's just the way it goes. I mean, I've had that moment myself; I've turned on the TV and said, “This kid just got out of college! Why is this an argument?” Shaking my fist, like, you know, Grandpa Simpson, “Nah, you kids don't remember!”

[Archival Audio-Abe Simpson]

[Exit Interview]

Jillian Youngblood (co-host)

Great insight there from Tom Nichols on changes in our media and demographics with a fist-shaking assist from Grandpa Simpson. 

Robert Pease (co-host)

In discussing US polarization there’s nearly always mention of hatred boiling up on the right, but maybe not as much mention of what Nichols is calling the lack of respect from the left for the right, and for traditions—however flawed—that those on the right might value.

Jillian Youngblood (co-host)

Cable news runs on ratings but also on emotion. For Fox opinion shows, that emotion is usually contempt for “the libs,” while on MSNBC it’s often disdain toward the right.  
Robert Pease (co-host)

Our most recent guest Sarah Longwell of the Republican Accountability Project captured how that polarity connects and conducts between the two ends of the political spectrum… 

[Archival Audio-Sarah Longwell]

Sarah Longwell

As crazy as the Republicans are being—January 6th, everything else—it can feel a little far away from people: like they're not experiencing an insurrection at their house, but their kids are in school and they are worried about what they're being taught and it can feel close. But they don't understand the pronoun situation and they don't wanna get in trouble. And also when people say—it's like, they're like talking about “birthing persons.” They're like, “What alien-speak is this? Is ‘mother’ not an okay word anymore? What is this crazy place we're living in?” And that feels very immediate to people. That feels like they're living in a world they don't understand.

Robert Pease (co-host)

For many Americans—middle-aged and older—this new world is not only more complicated but also more self-centered than the decades where Americans were somewhat united by Soviet threat. That’s a theme detailed by Tom Nichols in this new book, Our Own Worst Enemy, and in our discussion.

[Enter Interview]

Tom Nichols

Well, you know, the Cold War kind of imposed a seriousness on us, just by virtue of the existence of the Soviet Union. I think for younger voters, it's hard to remember that we usually begin presidential elections—or early on in the process—saying things like, “Is this someone you would want in charge of the nuclear button?” That was just part and parcel of every election: that the president was the commander in chief, that we were always 26 minutes away from Armageddon, that there were literally tens of thousands of nuclear weapons ready to go on 10 or 15 minutes’ notice. In the book, I quote Andy Bacevich—who I agree with about almost nothing most days—but Andy had a great point when he noted that ending the Cold War for Americans was like winning the lottery, and that anybody who's followed the history of lottery winners can tell you winning the lottery never goes well, it ruins your life. Reagan vs. Carter: that was a serious argument about the direction of the country. Reagan vs. Mondale: that's the last time you get a really serious foreign policy ad. And, Rob—I'll just describe that for two seconds and then I'll get off this soapbox. Older folks will remember that the Republicans actually ran an ad about “the bear in the woods”—representing Russia. And they said, “Some people think the bear is friendly. Others are worried that the bear is dangerous.”
[Archival Audio -“Bear in the Woods” Ad]

Tom Nichols

And that was the Republicans saying, “Can you trust Walter Mondale to be tough with the old men and the Kremlin?” And I think that, again, the end of the Cold War was like, “Ah, okay, we won. Everything's cool.” You know, now we can complain about the economy in increasing cycles of complaint about our rising living standards.

Robert Pease (co-host)

We really admire in the book how you showcase some of the best writing and thinking from both the left and the right. And we were wondering, was that a conscious balance?

Tom Nichols

That's just who I am. That's how I write. When I worked in the Senate for the late John Heinz of Pennsylvania—a moderate Republican from a big Northeastern state—I always tell folks that I was a Republican staffer and I had my own subscriptions to The Nation and Mother Jones. And people would come by my desk and the offices and ask “Dude! What are you, the office commie? What’s with the pinko stuff?” I said, “I wanna know what the other guys think. I want to see what the best argument against what I think looks like.” And I think that's also years of being a scholar that—you know, when people ask “What's a PhD really do for you?” one thing a PhD does for you is it makes you write a book called your dissertation, where a big part of that process is to go out and marshal the best arguments you can for why you are wrong.

Robert Pease (co-host)

Yeah, important lesson for any writer. And speaking of great writers, Tom, you also reference in your book the great W.B. Yeats poem, “The Second Coming.” It has that great line, “the center cannot hold.” A year ago we did a couple of episodes on the hundredth anniversary of the publication of the poem. So we want to play you a clip from the Notre Dame film and Irish studies professor Bríona Nic Dhiarmada. She’s conveying all that was going on in the world at the time that Yates wrote that poem.

[Archival Audio - Bríona Nic Dhiarmada]

Bríona Nic Dhiarmada

It was just after of course, 1918, the end of the First World War. You had upheaval all over the world, particularly in the British empire that was beginning to come apart at the seams. You had the Bolshevik revolution. And that was something, again, that Yeats really, really was taken aback by. And he foretold only horror and totalitarianism and murder.

[Enter interview]

Robert Pease (co-host)

Yeah. So objectively speaking, things seem like a little bit worse in the world when Yeats wrote “The Second Coming” then right now, but is that where we're headed? Because we just objectively can't really assess situations anymore?

Tom Nichols

Well, I think the center is always a hard place to be because it's not dramatic enough. It doesn't provide enough psychic income for people on the edges: on the far left on the far right. The fringes are attractive because they're dramatic and heroic and they give meaning to your life. And that's when you can say to yourself, “I'm not just working at a department store. I am uncovering pedophile conspiracies,” or, you know, “I am not just the assistant manager of a retail outlet. I am solving social justice and creating a new world of equality,” instead of saying, “I'm just doing the hard work of keeping a democracy going every day, by being informed and voting,” which people just don't find fulfilling enough; they think it’s beneath them.
Robert Pease (co-host)

Yeah. Well, we have a few centrists in the country left—13 House Republicans who voted for infrastructure who are getting a lot of flack from the rest of the party and also Senator Sinema and Manchin getting a lot of flack from the more progressive wing of the Democratic party. How do you feel about the position of those centrists and were you encouraged at all by the passage of infrastructure, including 19 Republican senators supporting it?

Tom Nichols

I'm very heartened by the passage because we are way overdue for reinvesting in, you know, everything from roads to airports. I just went through LAX yesterday—please rebuild it soon— but I was disheartened by the insanity of the process that surrounded it. I was dispirited by the Democratic Party circular firing squad. With that said, I also thought—predictably enough—the bulk of the Republican Party declared all of this to be “socialism,” a word that no one in the Republican rank-and-file understands. Having spent my life studying the Soviet Union in Russia, I think I'm within my professional sphere of expertise to tell you that I think I know what socialism is and I've seen it up close and this is not socialism. So I'm glad it happened. I think it's good. Do I think it's going to hail a period of bipartisanship? Not in the least. I think those Republicans now have targets on their backs.

Robert Pease (co-host)

Yeah. Well, speaking of targets on their back, primaries are coming up relatively soon. I believe you very publicly left the Republican Party and you're an independent now. Most of our listeners are independent or unaffiliated voters and most of our elections are decided in the primary. So what's an independent to do? What's the more important primary in your estimation, the Republican or the Democratic side?
Tom Nichols

I think that depends where you live. I lived in Rhode Island, and a few years back, there was a Democratic primary coming up where I thought there was a pretty good candidate and a pretty bad candidate. And since my state allows it, I registered as a Democrat for a day and I voted in the Democratic primary because I thought, you know, we just deserved a better choice. What I really want to say to people out there is “vote in the primary, whatever it is,” because right now we are getting insane general election choices because the only people that vote in primaries are hyper-motivated partisans in the first place. The place where you can really have an outsized impact is if you show up in large numbers and vote in the primaries. Republicans have understood this; they primary each other, you know, they primary the people they think are the weak sisters out of their party, pretty hard. Democrats just don't show up for this stuff. And yes, it's a bit of a hassle for you. You have to go figure out how to register. Oh dear God. You know, you'll have to go online and find out whether or not you're registered to vote and which party you're registered to vote in and who's running in the primaries. Well, you know, if you care that much about democracy, do it.

Robert Pease (co-host)

I'm sure you have a few Russian friends who would envy that. So our final question, we ask all of our guests to show a bit of purple. In your case, since you're an independent, could you point to a particular Democrat and a particular Republican—either living or dead—that you have particular respect for and you wish could be around to make an impact going forward here?

Tom Nichols

My first mentor in politics was the state rep I worked for, who was a Democrat. And he is still alive and we talk regularly and we get together. And, you know, I mentioned him in the book: Ken Lemanski, a Catholic, working class Democrat from my hometown. I didn't always agree with him, but he treated me, you know, both as a friend and as a mentee. And I have great respect for him. The Republican that I miss the most of course is John Heinz, who I worked for and who died tragically while I was working for him. And I think if there had been more people like John Heinz in the Republican party longer, the course of history could have been changed because he was the kind of Republican I think most people today would think of as a centrist and a principled person.
[Archival Audio - John Heinz]

[Exit Interview]

Jillian Youngblood (co-host)

A lot of great stuff there from Tom Nichols, author of Our Own Worst Enemy. And a bit of Senator John Heinz: the centrist, low-ego, Pennsylvia billionaire who tragically died in a 1991 plane crash.
Robert Pease (co-host)

Huge thanks to Tom Nichols today for the conversation and for another great book. He’s one of the really sharp social and political observers out there, and a gifted writer as well. Here’s one of my favorite bits from the introduction, “After surviving multiple global conflicts (including the Cold War), after defeating oppressive institutions like slavery at home and totalitarianism overseas, it seems the only challenges democracies cannot overcome are peace and prosperity.”
Jillian Youngblood (co-host)

Or a passage that resonates with my work at Civic Genius: “Democratic decline today is more subtle and gradual. It is also more dangerous, because it comes from within and from our own choices rather than being imposed by force from the outside.”

Robert Pease (co-host)

Again, Dr. Tom Nichols’ new and highly-recommended book is Our Own Worst Enemy: The Assault From Within on Modern Democracy. It’s published by Oxford University Press. There’s more info on our Purple Bookshelf at purpleprinciple.com.

Jillian Youngblood (co-host)

Next up on the Purple Principle Podcast, we’re talking to another skilled communicator, but one well-known from other channels of communication—meaning the cameras at CNN and the microphones at Sirius XM. 
Robert Pease (co-host)

Our guest will be Michael Smerconish, the articulate, independent, firmly-grounded presence on these mainstream networks and on his own platform, Smerconish.com.  

[Archival Audio - Michael Smerconish]

I think that this nasty tone, which used to be national, and then maybe on a state politics basis, has now seeped into the local discourse, all the way down to school board or local municipal elections. I think there have been a number of nasty exchanges at school board meetings pertaining to masks or vax policy. And they're probably driving reasonable people right out of the discourse.

Robert Pease (co-host)

Reasonable people are always welcome here at The Purple Principle, we hope you’ll join us for that discussion, support us on Patreon or Apple Premium, and head to ratethispodcast.com/purple to review us in your favorite podcast player. We’re gearing up for a series on state level polarization against the backdrop of the 2022 primaries and your support is crucial to research and interviewing for those episodes.

Thanks for listening to the Purple Principle from the entire team here: Alison Byrne, Senior Producer for Audience Engagement; Kevin A. Kline, Senior Audio Engineer; Michael Falero, Associate Producer; Dom Scarlett and Grant Sharratt, our very able Research Associates. Original music composed and created by Ryan Adair Rooney. The Purple Principle is a Fluent Knowledge production.

Guest User
Previous

Voice of Reason for Independent Minds: Talking Media & Polarization with CNN's Michael Smerconish
Next

Wait, I’m Not the Crazy One! Sarah Longwell, Conservative Watchdog of Republican Sanity