Use Your Footprint for Democracy: David Pepper
August 17th, 2023
“The attack on democracy is everywhere, and it's anchored in states.”
David Pepper is a lawyer, writer, political activist, and former elected official. He served as the Chairman of the Ohio Democratic Party between 2015 and 2021. He’s the author of several books, including the excellent how-to guide: Saving Democracy: A User’s Manual for Every American. We discuss how every one of us can use our personal footprint to lift democracy.
The forces attacking democracy are doing so in order to keep their minority worldview locked in. All Americans – and not only in swing states – are on the front line of democracy because the battle is waged in local government and state houses. Unsurprisingly, these very undemocratic and rigged state houses render broken and corrupted government. All state and local races should be contested.
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Credits:
Host: Mila Atmos
Guest: David Pepper
Executive Producer: Mila Atmos
Producers: Zack Travis
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David Pepper Transcript
Mila Atmos: [00:00:00] We're so excited to share that we've been officially nominated for a 2023 AAP Golden Crane Podcast Award. We're so honored to be in the running. Thank you all for listening every week, and thank you to the Asian American Podcasters Association for their consideration. The winners will be announced on August 30th, so stay tuned!
Mila Atmos: [00:00:27] Welcome to Future Hindsight, a podcast that takes big ideas about civic life and democracy and turns them into action items for you and me. I'm Mila Atmos.
We believe in practicing democracy as a way of life -- and we've had a wide range of conversations about pro democracy reforms like open primaries, ranked choice voting, running for something and citizen ballot measures. We've also had more philosophical conversations about our obligations as citizens and the virtues of a healthy democracy. All of these conversations are illuminating and hopeful, but there is no doubt that there is an asymmetry of effort between the pro-democracy and anti-democracy forces. We know it will take all of us to jump in and participate to make a difference. And so today we are doing a deep dive into what it means for everyday citizens like us to make saving democracy a part of our personal mission.
Our guest is David Pepper, a lawyer, writer, political activist, former elected official and adjunct professor. He has served as the chairman of the Ohio Democratic Party between 2015 and 2021. And in that role, he was engaged in numerous fights and extensive litigation over voter suppression and election laws in the Buckeye State. He's the author of several books, including Laboratories of Autocracy, and most recently, the excellent how-to guide, Saving Democracy: A User's Manual for Every American. Welcome, David. Thank you for joining us.
David Pepper: [00:02:11] Thank you. Great to be with you.
Mila Atmos: [00:02:14] The common wisdom is that America is the strongest democracy in the world, it's unshakable. And despite January 6th and the indictment of the former president, what we see playing out in politics today is just extreme
disagreement on how to govern between the two main parties. But you argue -- and we agree -- that democracy is inherently unstable and always at risk. In fact, and we hear this all the time, of course, we're engaged in a battle for democracy itself. Tell us what this actually means and how it should inform our actions.
David Pepper: [00:02:49] Yeah, thank you. I think that we've kind of been living in this post 1960s post Voting Rights Act, almost privileged, view that democracy is just automatically stable and intact. And that view is not our own country's history. We've seen democracy under attack throughout our history. It's been imperfect. And then every time it kind of rose to being better, it was assaulted very quickly. That's how we got Jim Crow following the Civil War and Reconstruction. History of countries all over the globe are similar, that democracy is very easy to undermine and subvert. And if someone is intensely doing that, it can succeed unless the pro-democracy see that for what it is and actually fight very hard for it. And so, you know, the broader observation of my book is that especially the most recent iteration since Obama was elected, there are forces that are attacking democracy, uncomfortable with a diverse majority leading this country and doing everything they can to undermine democracy, to keep their worldview locked in, knowing it would lose in a healthy democracy. And the other side really hasn't seen that. And so the other side until very recently assumed democracy was sort of safe, has focused largely on federal elections and swing states, while the other side has used state after state to undermine democracy. And the reason that side is succeeding, even when the pro-democracy side feels good about certain federal election wins, is because the side for democracy has not really understood the battle for what it is, and therefore has not waged the battle in a way that I think ultimately will be successful. So my books are together, sort of a wake up call. Here's what the battle is really about. It's about democracy itself. Here's how the other side is fighting it at the state level, where democracy is shaped and undermined if it's in the wrong hands. And so here's how we have to adjust all that we are doing to fight back for democracy, which means a much broader battle that we undertake and rebutting as much as we can, and rebuffing as much as we can, the other side's state-based battle for democracy.
Mila Atmos: [00:04:55] Right, Right. Well, as you just explained, in this battle, there are two combatants with different strategies. And of course, the pro-democracy side, as you said, has until recently not really recognized the battle for what it is. And so therefore, the anti-democratic forces are always playing offense at all levels, like you said, in state
elections, local elections, federal elections also. But meanwhile, the pro-democracy party focuses on federal elections in federal election years. So why is this mismatch of efforts an unmitigated disaster, as you describe it?
David Pepper: [00:05:31] Well, you know, I use the soccer analogy in my book. I have a nine year old and a six year old. They both play soccer and they enjoy it. But they would understand the problem immediately, which is if one side is always on offense, kicking at the goal again and again and the other side isn't on offense and often doesn't even play defense where the other side is, which is in states. To use my analogy, the side on offense is going to win. The pro-democracy side is starting to figure this out and catch up, and my goal is to keep going and grow that that effort much bigger. But when one side is literally using statehouses, let's go back to the soccer analogy, as their front line kicking, at the goal again and again; whether it be voter suppression or gerrymandering or the abortion bans, no exceptions, that don't reflect at all the viewpoints in these states and they keep shooting it. If we're not even at that state level trying to block the goal, they're going to score. And if when they score, all we do, and this is too often what we do, is say, "well, they scored. Dobbs. They scored." Clearly, they scored when Dobbs changed Roe v Wade, for example, and got rid of it. If all we do is say after losses like that, "well, we need more US senators to stop all this," it's the equivalent of saying in that soccer game, if only we had a better goalie, we'd win. And the whole point of my book is to say they're on offense all the time. We often aren't even playing defense. Many of the people shooting at us or these goals, to go back to the analogy, they're not even being contested. In the next election. We're leaving half of these seats in some states uncontested, so we're not even playing defense. We're going to keep losing no matter how strong a goalie we might find in the US Senate or Congress, we're going to keep losing until we go to where the battle is, which is in states and we start blocking their shots where they're taken at the state house level and we go on offense for once. So that's sort of, it's a losing strategy when you see what they're doing. If you only think it's about federal swing states, which is not -- again, this is not just the pro-democracy side. It's not just Democrats. This is how the national media covers it all, as well. The whole frame of US politics right now kind of blinds itself to the fact that the far right's attack on democracy is in states, in statehouses, in the other offices that can play a role there, like state supreme courts and statewide officials. And until we all see that that's what they're doing, we are again, we're the side on the
soccer field, never on offense, and half the time not even on defense. That's a losing proposition.
Mila Atmos: [00:08:03] Yeah. Yeah. Well, you argue that the antidote is that we all have to get in it, and not just the politicians who are running, but everyday people. I love this. One of the things that you say in the book is that we need to include saving democracy as part of our personal mission statements. And that's so powerful. Of course, we at Future Hindsight, believe this very deeply. In fact, that's why I started the show. And one of your first items of business is to re-engage voters. So not only to register voters, but also to persuade them that voting is something you can do. And I think a lot of people feel helpless here. So how can everyday people use their footprint to do this work with intention? And I love the example of Ebony DeLoach.
David Pepper: [00:08:44] Yeah, well, let me take a step back for one second because I want to tell people why it's so important that every one of them use their footprint. I think that narrative that we've described of federal swing states being where all the whole battle is, is totally disempowering to almost every American because they don't live in one of those swing states. So they think, well, democracy is collapsing. What a tragedy. But since I don't live in the places where it's being determined, there's nothing I can do. And the message of my book is actually the attack on democracy is everywhere and it's anchored in states. And the front line is local government and state house. So whether you're in Oklahoma, where more than half of the districts aren't even being contested, or you're even in New York State where because New York wasn't a swing state, turnout was too low in '22 and that cost the US House. Or you're in Ohio where the voter purging is horrific, in Cleveland and in Cincinnati. Or you're in Georgia. I don't care where you are in America, if you're not in a swing state, you're still on the front line. And so not only do I want you to use your footprint to lift democracy, know that doing so, wherever you live, you are playing a role. The false narrative that's only about a few federal swing states makes people think, well, if I don't live in Pennsylvania and Georgia, I don't really matter in the battle for democracy. So the first thing is, know, whoever you are listening to this, whatever state you're in, you're on the frontline of democracy and the other side sees it as a frontline. They are engaging everywhere. And we too often tell our folks basically engage in a swing state. If you're there and if you're not in a swing state, send your money to a US Senate candidate in a swing state. That's the role you need to play. And so what I'm saying is, no -- you are on the front
line. You can do so much. And this gets to this mission statement and footprint. We all have a footprint of influence in this world. Some very large, like your podcast, and you know, all the noise I make on social media. Some not as large, but all of us, it's a significant footprint. And my theory that you saw in the book -- and I think data backed this up -- we use only a sliver of our footprint, maybe a big toe and a small toe to lift democracy. We give a little money, some of us, although most don't, to a few candidates we like. And some of us, although very few of us, actually volunteer for campaigns late in the cycle. And for the most part, that's almost all that anyone does. And that's more than almost everyone does because it's political, it's partisan. And we also don't have this broader vision of democracy. When I say use your footprint to lift democracy, I'm telling you that beyond the slivers I just talked about, everything you do in this world once you see the democracy at stake, almost all of it can be used to lift democracy. I'll just go through examples. You mentioned Ebony DeLoach. She basically used her network of friends and family, multiple generations, to interact and engage voters in her community in the broader Cincinnati area. Multiple generations. She got her 20 year old kids to work at it to engage their entire networks to make sure they were voting in an election coming up. They didn't just go to a party or a campaign, and ask for who's a list of voters I should talk to? They said, actually, the people who will most listen to me are the ones in my footprint of influence my friends, my family, my neighbors, my fellow churchgoers. And that's who we'll talk to. And it's an incredibly powerful way to actually get people to show up and engage in democracy who often are not being engaged by candidates or parties. And her work got more young people to show up, her family's work. So using the social part of your footprint to push for democracy, explain why voting is important. Support candidates you like. If you really drill down to everyone you know and everyone you interact with, it's an incredibly powerful part of your footprint. And she's the example in my book of what everyone could do, which is long before an election starts, start engaging in a systematic way with all the people you interact with. If you have kids who are 20 somethings, oh my gosh, perfect. Because a lot of young people are not voting. If you have connections or you are directly part of urban areas with low voter turnout, you are right where we need to be. So talk to your friends, your neighbors, you know, folks who show up at the rec center or the library. If you're on a nonprofit board, let's say, or you volunteer at a nonprofit, a food bank, a homeless shelter, my gosh, if you could convince that homeless shelter or that health clinic to actually engage everyone they serve, to also be registered, to also get the required voter ID, to sign up for an early vote list; all nonpartisan activity, by the way, so
they can do it. That little connection you might have to that nonprofit could lift so many people into democracy. And the reason I bring all these examples up is because I think once people hear the examples, they think, "Oh, I could do that. I do volunteer at that food pantry. I do volunteer at the homeless shelter. I don't think they're registering voters there. They should be." So basically, and I have diagrams in the book, as you know, and I also have a website called SaveDemocracy.us. You can go to it and you can print out a footprint I give you that shows you once you start listing out all the things you do, you will see there are so many possibilities that you can lift democracy by engaging disenfranchised voters, running everywhere, et cetera. So there are endless possibilities once you see that you're on the front line and that it matters. And once you actually drill down and look at all the things you do in life way beyond your traditional political involvement.
Mila Atmos: [00:14:28] Oh, 100%. These examples are so clear in how everyday people can get engaged, right, because like you said, sometimes people think -- or very often people think -- it's outside of them. And it exists in another state, almost like in a different universe. So speaking of elections and voting, in my mind, one of the most important aspects of elections is accountability. And you talk about that a lot in your book. We vote people into office or re-elect them when we agree with their platforms and service, and we kick people out who are not truly representing us. But of course, not a lot of us vote. So sometimes that doesn't work, or we're gerrymandered, and all those things. In a world rife with gerrymandering and other tactics of voter suppression, accountability is scarce. And I'm thinking here about the example of Bryan Hughes in Texas running unopposed. He authored the six-week abortion ban. So how is it that he ran unopposed, first of all, and how can we build an infrastructure that values running everywhere, so we can get accountability back into politics?
David Pepper: [00:15:31] Well, as you know from reading my book, I'm obsessed with this topic. Gerrymandering is the original sin, and it's doing so much damage. And I never want to understate how problematic it is. But we do even more damage when we choose to reward gerrymandering by not running everywhere. The damage done is so much worse when 50% of the Tennessee Republicans in that state house were not opposed last November. Of course, they're going to kick out the two Justins if they don't even fear any opposition in the general election. And the only thing they fear is a primary. And your example of Senator Hughes in Texas, and it goes broader than him,
the authors of the abortion bans in Mississippi that led to Dobbs in Texas. That was one of the most high profile ones that led to that whole lawsuit mechanism that was so horrible and lawless. The one in Ohio, the abortion ban in Ohio, that sent the ten year old rape victim to Indiana because she was not allowed to get care in Ohio, even as a rape victim. And she was only ten years old. None of the authors of those bans and those states faced an opponent in the next election, even though those laws were deeply unpopular in those states and led to controversy. When you see that they're not even opposed, think about the mindset of that official. My gosh, I passed the most extreme law. It turned the country's politics upside down. It got national attention. But where I live, I didn't even have someone knocking on a door in my community for the entire campaign, even explaining that I did it. There wasn't a single article about an opponent explaining what I had done. When I went through the parade, everyone waved at me because I'm the friendly neighbor. They don't even know that I passed that because no one's running against me. We are rewarding and fueling extremism when we let extremists run with no accountability. And again, why is it such a crisis of unopposed districts? Because we have come to believe that unless you're running in a swing office that impacts the federal Congress or presidency, it really doesn't matter if we don't run there. We have allowed not running in all these places to become business as usual. And so we have an infrastructure that basically says, "Oh, if you're running in a swing area for a House or Senate seat, we are going to get you every dollar we can. You're going to be famous, you're going to get all the attention in the world. But if you're running against that guy who wrote the abortion ban in Ohio or Texas or the woman who wrote it in Mississippi, because you're in a tough district in a state that doesn't meet our standards, we don't even care that you're running. You won't get any help from us. You won't get any emotional support from us." And some of us will say it was a waste of money to give to you at all, which is said all the time. So of course people aren't running when the infrastructure literally says to them, We don't value you running, whatsoever. So a couple chapters of my book are all about how do we create an infrastructure that begins to value running everywhere that says that the person running against Senator Hughes in Texas, or the Mississippi or Ohio State reps who pass those bills, how does it say to them through words, through support, through other types of assistance, "you're a hero for running. You're a patriot for running, your running itself, even if you don't win, is as valuable form of public service as anyone could do, because we're at a time where democracy is attacked by the very person you're running against." There are new efforts. There's a grassroots infrastructure building that is really getting smart about how
to support and recruit and help people running everywhere. And it's starting to work in some places. There's things happening in Ohio that I think are good for the future. There's an effort called the States Project who is helping convince people, "hey, adopt that Pennsylvania State House, adopt that Michigan State house. Put your money there. Don't just give to a famous US Senate candidate. Take some of your money and give it there. It goes further." And the good news is it's starting to work. So we have to just scale it up in a big way. So there's infrastructure that's building to say to people, we care that you're running in these tough places, we respect it, we celebrate it, we support it, but we have to take that infrastructure and build it up very big and very quickly. It doesn't get solved overnight, but build it over time so that our future mindset is not, "Wow, it was amazing someone ran in that place." It should be switched to "wait. We didn't run somewhere. What's wrong with us?" We have to have the default be we run everywhere, every time. We hold extremists accountable, wherever they are. And the damage, again, being done by not doing that is we're not winning races that we probably could win. And even in the many races that we probably couldn't win, we're allowing extremists to basically become more and more extreme and there's no accountability. So that's the downward spiral of Iowa, Indiana, states that voted for Obama, Missouri, a state that voted for Clinton. The downward spiral in part is occurring because we're not even contesting these places. So the only battle happening is who can be more extreme. So, we can win more, if we contest more. But even beyond winning more, the accountability will help bring some sanity back in a lot of places that are losing it quickly.
Mila Atmos: [00:20:56] 100%. Well, just for the record here, we did have Daniel Squadron on from The States Project. And so that was a really wonderful conversation. And, you know, you just talked about extremism, basically flooding the airwaves and becoming more extreme because there is no other countervailing voice. And you mentioned this in your book. One of the reasons that Americans are not necessarily aware just how much democracy is truly in danger is because elected Democrats don't appear to be fighting for it, not only in these state elections that are uncontested, but on the national level. When the John Lewis Voting Rights Act failed in the Senate, or the very slow response and the repercussions for January 6th. So when it comes sort of the meta messaging on this from the top, how can an everyday person get engaged here in their communities when they talk to each other about being pro-democracy?
David Pepper: [00:21:51] So I appreciate you picking up on this chapter in the book on messaging. And one of the key pieces, as you mentioned, is meta message. And the meta message is the message that you communicate not by the words, but by the actions. It may be by the tone of which you are using to describe what's happening. The words are being said in a way that doesn't feel as urgent as the words are in the actual moment is. Who expressed these words in a way that woke up America? The two Justins in Tennessee. They were fighting and all of America, they got famous overnight. Same with Mallory McMorrow in Michigan. Same with Wendy Davis in Texas. That's the kind of fight, that's the kind of passion, that I think says to people, "oh, we're not kidding. This is serious. This is urgent." At one point, the Texas delegation left Texas a few years ago because of a voter suppression bill. That's what I'm talking about. When we engage too politely, using the typical rules like letting the filibuster stop us. Politely. "Oh, sure. Chuck Grassley and Josh Hawley. We'll let you filibuster voting rights." And we don't even make you stand and make the argument for days at a time. We're just going to go home for the weekend. To the American people, that's a message of "it must not be that bad, because if democracy were truly under attack, you'd stand up and fight." You'd do what Frederick Douglass did when he said, "you got to bring the thunder and lightning sometimes." And so I worry that too often, while many are saying the right words, you know, it took an entire year to even call the vote in early '22 around the voting rights bills that you referenced. If you are urgent about democracy, you don't wait a year on that. It's your top priority. You say from the very beginning, hey, you say it to Democrats and Republicans, you want something done on infrastructure. Well, we're not going to do it until we also protect voting rights in all these states. To bring it up after all the other stuff was done and then call a vote in January, have the vote lose, and never bring it up again the entire second year, all the way through the lame duck, knowing that Republicans were going to take over the House. That signaled, I'm worried to many Americans, who can't make sense of which side is right, "Well, it must not be that bad because they didn't fight as if it was that bad. Because if it was that bad and you really thought democracy was under attack, you would have been defending it with passion from the moment you saw the voter suppression and gerrymandering coming in early '21." Joe Biden would have given his speech, which he gave not in early '22. That speech should have been given in May of '21. And so if you don't bring urgency, I think you're communicating that it's not as serious. That's demotivating to your own voters because they don't think you're fighting for them. But it also says to the swing voters, well, they're saying one thing, they're doing the other. It must not be that bad. Their
words must not be as real as they're saying because they're not acting like it. And by the way, this goes also for another example, meta message. We had an insurrection on January 6th. It's been three years. We are used to, as a country, when people break the law, there's some accountability that comes quickly. We take it seriously. We don't wait three years for other crimes. So the meta message that's been left by this very slow approach to holding the people at the top at least accountable for January 6th has basically been a message to the world: It couldn't be that bad because if it truly were an insurrection, there would have been much more action taken far earlier on. So I think a meta message is a really important thing to consider as you're fighting for things as serious as democracy, the rule of law, and a peaceful transition of power. And too often our meta message has not been consistent with our words.
Mila Atmos: [00:25:52] Yeah, it's been very difficult, like you said, to fully understand why, if democracy really is in danger, we're not doing more, and pro-democracy forces aren't fighting harder.
Mila Atmos: [00:26:06] We're taking a quick break to share about a podcast that should be right up your alley. It's called Best of the Left. And when we come back, we'll talk about how you can be an effective pro-democracy messenger without fighting with your far right uncle. But first, best of the left is unlike anything else out there because it's all about curation rather than creation. Jay Tomlinson has been producing the show since its inception and uses his years of experience to shape each episode in ways that dive deeper and bring out more details on topics than is usually possible from a single source. Each episode focuses like a laser on a different topic, allowing deeper coverage than any one show is capable of. With a deep catalog of episodes, Best of the Left has effectively created an archive of the progressive movement over the past decade and a half. The power of curation is in the bringing together of a variety of voices that combined become greater than the sum of their parts. The show doesn't just curate news and opinion, but also activism, so listeners can turn information into effective advocacy. For instance, the show recently covered something that I've been curious about: the wellness economy and the deepening alienation being felt in response to consumerism in place of community. But if you only have time for one episode, make it their milestone 1500th show in which Jay sets aside his normal curation format and instead lays out as many of the smartest ideas he's had, or come across, in all his years
of thinking deeply about politics. It's definitely worth your time. As you'd expect, you can follow Best of the Left anywhere you get your podcasts.
And now, let's return to my conversation with David Pepper.
Mila Atmos: [00:28:00] I wanted to ask you a question about messaging in the everyday because there are people who disagree with you very loudly all the time and you want to be polite, but you want to be pro-democracy. So what have you found works best when it comes to pro-democracy messaging in everyday conversations so that you can push back and not just be like, "Oh yeah, January 6th wasn't a big deal." You know, nobody talks about it.
David Pepper: [00:28:24] So when it comes to the elections, I mean, my advice is, one, we got to get our own people re-engaged in all the ways I talked about. And we have to appeal to people who are more in the middle and we have to do both to win. Do I sit around and argue with a very conservative uncle? I don't spend a lot of time on that. It's not really going to get me anywhere. I like my uncle, but I don't need to get into some argument at dinner party trying to convince him that his MAGA view is wrong. I mean, I'm just not going to do that. We're not going to win each other over. The good news though, is there's more of us than them. Polling shows, and this is one of the key insights, I hope in the book is, the side that cares about democracy generally... Most of its positions in life and in politics are majoritarian majority view positions, whether it's a woman's right to choose, common sense gun reform, deal with climate change, a middle class based economics, a general belief against things like gerrymandering, being opposed to book bans. So no, whatever conversations you have, know that those positions are actually the majority viewpoint in almost every state, usually the strong majority. Go back to Joe Biden's State of the Union address. Almost everything he talked about, strongly supported. That's why they shouted him down at one point. They knew what he was saying made them look really bad. So I would say more broadly, know that those issues that we care about are actually majoritarian viewpoints. Never lose sight of that as you're communicating. And if someone is adamantly opposed to them, they're probably on the side of 30%. If you don't win them over, that's fine. We can still win. The other advice I'd give people, if you're really getting into a campaign and you need to win over some voters who are, let's say, more in the middle. Number one, we have to motivate our own voters. Never lose sight of the fact that simply
reminding people to vote is not a message. We need to motivate people, which means showing them the stakes of what happens if they vote or don't. It really mattered in their lives, and it's not that different with these more sort of, let's say, less political or middle of the road voters. But my advice here is not to spend that much time in high level debates about democracy. They probably think, you know, both sides aren't that perfect on this. And each side gerrymanders, you'll go down rabbit holes over rabbit holes of both sides, and everyone's gerrymandering, and everyone's doing something with voting, and all that. The inevitable consequence of these very undemocratic and rigged statehouses is broken government, corrupted government. Not just corrupt as in bribery, and that happens all the time, but corrupted public service. The MO of these places like Ohio, like all these red states that are gerrymandered... you remember how Brett Favre was, I'll say, allegedly, to keep us out of trouble, giving TANF money meant for poor folks to volleyball courts. That's the MO of state houses. They are giving our public goods because we can't hold them accountable because of gerrymandering, because we don't run against them. They give away our stuff and our power and regulatory power to the private interests that pay the money. So whether it's for-profit schools that turn out to be scams in Ohio or private energy companies that we pay for with higher energy bills or tax cuts at the top that people at the lower end pay for through less service, worse schools, or higher taxes. Everything in these statehouses is basically taking from the public good and giving it to the private. That's how they operate. And why does that matter when it comes to messaging? Because somewhere in every state I can show you disastrous public outcomes that are a result of the raiding of our public goods. That's what I would talk to people about. And when Democratic candidates have succeeded in tougher states one way or another, that's what they've campaigned on. In Michigan, it was Gretchen Whitmer saying fix the damn roads. They haven't fixed infrastructure for a long time. They've given away too much money. And we're all driving around on roads it costs us money, because we keep running into potholes, and ruining our windshields or something. In Kansas, it was Laura Kelly, the Democratic governor, now second term, saying, Sam Brownback ruined our school system and I'm going to fix it. In other states it will be there's only school four days a week because they've so defunded schools, they can't even afford to have it on Fridays. So what I would say in those conversations is don't talk about the high level battle over democracy as much as what are the outcomes that even in a rural district, people will find unacceptable, that will stress them out around their dining room table, that are a natural outcome of broken statehouses. And again, one of the clearest examples for me is anywhere where you're
down to four days of school a week, I have -- again, I have younger kids -- that's education problem, but that's a personal family crisis. What do we do with our kids on a Friday if we're both working and child care is too expensive? That's a family crisis that a trickle down version of corrupted politics in these states has led to. So really, find the outcomes in your neck of the woods that are indefensibly poor and talk about those as much as you can. And that's how a lot of people have won elections in tougher places.
Mila Atmos: [00:33:26] You are talking about state houses and the failures of poor governance, basically. So in Ohio, you had a special election on August 8th. Of course, this is exactly the kind of thing that you write about in Laboratories of Autocracy. So the vote on the ballot is Issue One, about constitutional amendments. What is that really about?
David Pepper: [00:33:47] In many ways, Issue One is almost the perfect summary of all that we've talked about being attempted to be implemented through a constitutional change. They know they're in the minority. They know the people of Ohio are pro- choice. They refuse to live in a world where that majority gets its way. They know there's a ballot initiative coming in November where there would be a vote on whether or not in the Ohio Constitution is a protection of a woman's right to choose. Just like Kansas. And the polling is somewhere in the high 50s. Rather than accepting the majority will on that, basically what they're doing, just like they do with gerrymandering, is rig the rules of how we amend the Constitution itself. Raise the threshold to 60%, that they basically know will probably make it so that that abortion resolution, an amendment, cannot pass. Their goal is to subvert democracy enough to lock in a minority worldview that otherwise would lose. And they know it will lose. And some people say to me, David, that's a pretty major charge you're lobbing their way. Well, that's what Issue One is. Issue One is literally a cynical effort sneaking into an August election after the other ballot initiative began to gain momentum, to change the rules, to subvert democracy enough from how it's worked in Ohio for 100 years to make it so that majority will cannot have its way. It would be one other step in the move away from a healthy democracy and towards... Again, they don't want to end elections. They want to have the process of elections go. They just want to play with the rules enough, so even if the majority is against them, they still win. And they've done that very well with gerrymandering. And now their hope is to do it. Even when the voters come together through direct democracy, they still want to have a situation where even when in the
minority, they still win. In many ways it's horrible, but it's a perfect encapsulation of how they're thinking and here's the biggest problem. This is why this is a national election and not just Ohio. This is not dreamed up in Ohio somewhere. Everything I've said about statehouses is part of a national operation. ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council, and other right wing think tanks, they see the opportunity to run their agenda through statehouses for all the reasons I've described. And so they aren't just letting it happen one at a time. This is coordinated. The same laws are passing all the same states, the same approach to voter suppression. And if it works in one place, this is why I call my book Laboratories of Autocracy, they study it and learn from it, and bring it elsewhere. So every state where citizens can vote directly, that is a threat to the statehouses they've hijacked through gerrymandering, that are passing agendas way out of tune with the people of these states. So if they can get the people out of the equation by raising the standard in one state, they'll do it in as many states as they can.
Mila Atmos: [00:36:43] Right. Right. It's a prime example for suppressing the vote, essentially not for this election, but for the next election, and then going forward.
David Pepper: [00:36:52] And in the near term, it's about abortion access. But this will suppress the majority from being able to change things when it comes to gerrymandering, lift the minimum wage. This is a way to basically lock out the majority view of Ohioans on all these issues, that a state house that's actually been named the most corrupt in the country, would do the opposite of what Ohioans want done on all these issues. So they don't want the majority weighing in and counteracting what they're able to do through gerrymandered, unaccountable districts.
Mila Atmos: [00:37:21] You argue actually that precisely because of the power in these statehouses, blue states should be laboratories of democracy. So what does that look like? What's the first thing -- if you're a blue state -- that you should do?
David Pepper: [00:37:34] You know, I would say actually do what Michigan and Minnesota started doing this year. Michigan and Minnesota, because we won the Minnesota Senate, the Michigan Senate, Michigan House last November. Great wins, counter cyclical wins, which that's part of that grassroots infrastructure I talked about. It's starting to work. They, with their new power, went to town on progressive laws, including voting laws, going forward. And one of my frustrations that I get into the book
a little bit is there are a lot of Democrats that haven't done that. And so we still have old, not so friendly laws in states like New York or Massachusetts. Now there are people pushing for it. There are some changes. I know they passed recently, but every blue state needs to be a pristine pro-democracy state when it comes to early voting, dropboxes, no fault early voting, automatic voter registration, things like that. One, because it means that turnout will be higher and more reflective of the people in those states, and that's good for democracy. But two, every Republican state knows exactly which Democratic states are not doing this stuff. And when we push for these things in Republican states and I did this when I was chair of the Democratic Party, the first thing they say to me is, "well, New York State doesn't do that. You're a hypocrite. We're doing better than New York State. We're doing better than Massachusetts." And on some of these issues, it's actually true. So when blue states are not themselves living by the highest standards of good pro-voter laws, that's used as a battering ram against reforms in other states, and there's an immediate effort to do both sides on this all. By the way, there's also real consequence. New York's arcane voting laws are one of the reasons, combined with the fact that New York isn't thought of as a swing state. Turnout was too low last November, much lower than a lot of other states. And all of a sudden we arguably lost much of the majority of the House because of a bunch of Republican congressmen who won because of low Democratic turnout. So we end up hurting ourselves as well when we're not living up to these standards. So we have to call out and fix laboratories of autocracy and all the ways we've talked about and more. But blue states really should be laboratories of democracy. And when a blue state does something good, you know, Washington State and Oregon have been very good about drop boxes and early vote, much higher turnout because of it. They should be used as best practices that all the other states do. There's not fraud in those states. There's not a problem. It's just good for voting and good for voters. Colorado has drop boxes all over the place. People use them. It's convenient. It's good for voters. We should use those as best practices and all the other states should adopt those models in their state can great credit. They didn't waste any time once they had power, locking in these types of reforms in the last legislative cycles. Everyone needs to do that.
Mila Atmos: [00:40:32] Hear, hear. So I feel like we really have to talk about the example of your ancestor, Rhoda Denison Bement. She was a suffragist early on, and she never was able to see the fruit of her labor. And I feel like, you know, when we talk
about the long game, tell us a little bit about her and her story and how she stayed committed.
David Pepper: [00:40:54] Sure. My mother loves that I open my book with this great, great, great grandmother of mine, because since I was a young boy, my mom has talked about, frankly, a long line of feminist advocates in my family. But she was sort of the matriarch of it all. She did not have a meta message problem either, by the way. She was so fiercely an advocate of abolition while she lived in Seneca Falls before the women's convention, she actually was kicked out of her original church, which was an abolitionist church, because she was so fiery about abolition. She was, I think, tried by the pastor for conduct unbecoming a woman, found guilty, and kicked out of that church. That that led her to move down the street to the church where Seneca Falls actually happened. So she was there. She spent her whole life fighting for abolition and women's suffrage. She died, I think, in the 1880s or so. And so the point of my story is she spent her whole life fighting for suffrage. That wouldn't come for decades until after she passed away. She was in her early 40s at Seneca Falls. The teenagers at Seneca Falls also would not see suffrage. Only the teenagers when she passed away probably saw women's suffrage when it came about early in the 20th century. And the point is they understood what we need to understand. The battle for democracy is a long battle. John Lewis understood that. Rhoda Denison Bement understood that. Suffragists understood that. We have to see it that way. And seeing it that way, I think, is a far healthier way to view it. You will wage it more effectively once you see that it's a long battle. It's our nation's battle. Plan accordingly. Judge your success accordingly. And how do you not fight it? She and John Lewis and others, they didn't stop working after our November election and wait a year and a half to get fired up again for the next election. In that long battle, that would be a completely losing strategy, wouldn't it? They knew it was all the time, full time, year after year. It means you may have to work harder. It may mean, as the footprint model shows, you work differently. You use far more aspects of your footprint than you ever do for politics. But it also means you can make progress in good and tough times. My best example of this in recent memory is Stacey Abrams. She understood the long battle for Georgia's democracy was way beyond each federal cycle, and she fought the battle endlessly, relentlessly. And she knew progress was being made when no one else did, because she was measuring how many more registered voters are there. How many voters in rural Georgia voted for her? A black woman running for governor in '18, She got it close enough that she stood
up the night she didn't quite win. And she said we made progress because she knew that she was in a long game. And even though she didn't win, the progress was being made. And two years later, when Georgia went blue with two Senate candidates, we all figured out she was right because she engaged in a long game for 20 years. And that's my hope, inspiration for people who in the very short term may feel like they're stuck in a red state. But in your long game, if you're in Oklahoma right now, you're not going to be blue next November. But if you contest all races but ten, versus but 50, that's progress in the long game. If the cycle after that, you're contesting every single one, and the margin's getting closer because you were knocking on doors and registering voters, you're making progress in your long game, like Stacey did in Georgia when no one thought it could be blue. So once you see long game, my hope is you start to act in a way that you're building towards that long game year after year and you're basically locking in your progress and always building upon it. Right now, with a short game mindset, we literally take apart almost our entire infrastructure for a year and a half after the big races. We don't take stock in, and build from it. We go dark; we disappear; we start up again. That's how you lose in the long game. To put it differently, Steve Bannon doesn't take a break. In December, Karl Rove didn't take a break after Obama won in '08. He went and tried to win statehouses in '10, and it worked. We have to have that kind of same long game, relentless pursuit of it that never takes time off, but also always is seeing that we could be making progress through good times and bad. And her story to me, she happens to be my great, great, great grandmother. But her story almost perfectly captures the people who viewed this as a long game and ultimately succeeded because they knew that's exactly what it was.
Mila Atmos: [00:45:27] Right. So we talked a lot already about the things that we should be doing, and we now really have the frame how democracy truly is in danger and that we need to be in it for the long haul. What are two additional things everybody can do in this moment to bring laboratories of democracy to life?
David Pepper: [00:45:46] I'd say. One. So a lot of my book is for non partisan activity. So if you're not involved in the Democratic Party, and that's a whole lot of people, and you don't want to be, that's fine. But you care about democracy, which I hope you do, use your footprint -- again in the book and my website, Savedemocracy.us, drill down and figure out even if you're not that partisan and you don't like that stuff, still use your footprint to lift democracy in all the ways that you can and I've talked about, I provide
examples of -- and there's so many ways. Number two, if you happen to be partisan and you're involved, the biggest, most obvious low hanging fruit, I believe on the Democratic side, if you are partisan, is organizing precincts. The unit of politics that is the most at the ground floor. It's called different things in different states, wards, precincts, whatever. But it's a geographic region, the smallest region where normally it's 3, 4, 500 voters. And there is someone elected in every state to be the precinct captain or the precinct executive. You're officially elected. That's part of the democratic process of the party. Republicans do the same thing. What I would say to you if you're more partisan is: own the precinct. You decide today as part of your commitment to be for democracy, that forevermore when that candidate knocks on the door in your neighborhood with a week to go, that's not the first time they've heard from us. That's the last of many interactions that you had because you're the precinct captain who took ownership of your precinct. You have a street leader on every street. You have an apartment leader in every apartment. When someone new moves to your precinct, you welcome them and you make sure they're registered and you talk to them about how in your precinct everybody votes. And you pay attention and you vote early and you make sure they have voter ID. Own your precinct. And so if you're not currently the elected precinct leader and no one is, run for it. If someone is there and they're not really owning it, tell them you'll help them. And the reason I bring this up is almost no one does this. We are knocking on doors with weeks to go saying how urgent it is. And this is back to meta message. But we haven't knocked on the door for the first, you know, 22 months as if we care at all. The way we change that if 20, 30, 40, 50% of people in this country took ownership of their specific precinct, things would change overnight when it comes to turnout and messaging. But for the most part, this is completely not done except for the most organized parties. That's one really low hanging fruit that doesn't take some massive investment by national parties, although that would help. It takes individual people deciding "from now on I'm owning this precinct and the hundreds of people in my precinct are going to hear about democracy for me and the team I'm putting together, all the time." That would change outcomes. It would change turnout and on and on. So those are some of the things that I would say you could do right away, wherever you are in this country.
Mila Atmos: [00:48:53] Excellent. Very good advice. Here's my last question. Looking into the future, what makes you hopeful?
David Pepper: [00:49:01] That's a great question. You know, I wrote my book as quickly as I could because I actually am hopeful right now, even though there's a lot of darkness when it comes to democracy, there's a lot of threats. There are a lot of risks. We all know that. At the same time, if you heard what I said early on, they work very hard to hide their extremism that they know would cost them elections. That's why they need to change the rules. 60% gerrymandering. They know their extremism is deeply unpopular. Mitch McConnell knows that. That's why he told Lindsey Graham, don't bring up a national abortion ban at the Senate. We will lose, if you do. Here's the bad news for them: their extremism is not hidden anymore. Dobbs made it painfully clear to so many Americans what their extremism looks like. The ten year old rape victim going to Indiana made it clear. They tried to hide that story because they know that looks terrible. That is terrible, that that's extremism, unhinged that 10% or fewer of Americans agree with. Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump in a downward spiral in their primary, being more and more extreme. Statehouses engaging what they're doing every week somewhere. Their extremism is no longer hidden. And that turns out to be one heck of an opportunity, as bad as it is, for us to be the contrast. And we began to be that contrast last November. That's one reason why not a single secretary of state candidate running in a swing state on their side, that was an election denier, won. They were too extreme and people voted against them and they lost even in states where they won other seats, like I think Nevada. They lost their secretary of state race. They lost in Arizona. Kari Lake lost in Arizona. They're too extreme right now. And when that extremism is exposed, they're losing. Again, we picked up the Michigan and the Pennsylvania State houses. Once people see it for what it is, we have an opportunity. We also are seeing grassroots infrastructure building like Daniel Squadron States Project that helped win those Pennsylvania, Michigan, Minnesota bodies, the state House and state Senate. So the opportunity in the next couple of years is take that contrast, their extremism, and run that contrast. But don't just do what we did in '20 where it's Biden versus Trump, and that's the only place we run that contrast. Run it down all the way through the statehouse races and below, even local, because that's how you win, not just a battle for the presidency, which is the old swing state mindset. That's how you pick up the Arizona State House while winning the presidency, through Arizona. That's how you pick up seats in Ohio. That's how you do what we did in Pennsylvania, Michigan. Take the contrast. Take this grassroots infrastructure that's building and run really hard, doing all the things in the book I talk about on a democracy schedule, not a federal swing state schedule. And all of a sudden we have an opportunity, I think, to have a long
winning streak for democracy going forward. Just to close with the optimism, the winning streak is building. It started with last August in Kansas, a decisive victory for for pro-choice forces. It continued with those secretary of state races and the federal races and the state House races in November. It rolled into April with the Wisconsin Supreme Court race. And my hope is that that when people listen to this, it continued in the August special election in Ohio, so that extremism fully revealed is actually losing again and again and again in a counter cyclical way. And that's the opportunity of all of our lifetimes to keep that winning streak going through '23, '24 and beyond. That's why I'm optimistic. If we all do the right things and see the battle for what it is.
Mila Atmos: [00:52:35] Well, you have just given me a lot of hope. I love your enthusiasm for democracy and your passion for getting us all engaged. Thank you so much for joining us on Future Hindsight.
David Pepper: [00:52:47] Thanks so much for having me. Honor to be with you. Mila Atmos: [00:52:50] David Pepper is the author of the excellent how-to guide,
Saving Democracy: A User's Manual for Every American.
Next week on Future Hindsight, we're joined by Anne Nelson. She's an author and lecturer in the fields of International Affairs, Media, and Human Rights. Her most recent book is Shadow Network: Media, Money, and The Secret Hub of the Radical Right, which investigates the web of fundamentalist organizations and oil barons and their mission to take over the levers of American government and beyond.
Anne Nelson: [00:53:26] The other thing that they do very well is go into critical districts. A year, year and a half in advance, and the Leadership Institute will set up shop to start recruiting and training local candidates and campaign workers and really sowing the seeds for the elections to come.
Mila Atmos: [00:53:46] That's next time on Future Hindsight.
Have you checked us out on Instagram yet? We've got a bunch more tips to help you build your civic action tool. Follow us on Instagram @FutureHindsightpod to get special updates, episode clips, and everything in between.
This episode was produced by Zack Travis and me.
Until next time, stay engaged!
The Democracy Group: [00:54:18] This podcast is part of the Democracy Group.