Democracy reform in 2025 and beyond

The results of the 2024 election — from Donald Trump's victory to the failure of democracy reform efforts like ranked-choice voting and citizen-led redistricting — took some in the pro-democracy movement by surprise. How could voters make decisions up and down the ballot that would weaken democracy? Scott Warren argues that it's because "democracy" has become too closely associated with the Democratic Party. He laid out the case in a Stanford Social Innovation Review article published shortly after the election and joins us on the show to talk about it.

Warren is a fellow at the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University. He is currently leading an initiative focused on exploring, researching, and convening a pro-democracy conservative agenda in the US, with a short-term focus on election trust. He founded the civics education organization Generation Citizen and led the organization from 2009-2020.

In the interview, Warren discusses how Generation Citizen's funding change after Donald Trump won the 2016 election and how he and his colleagues at SNF Agora are traveling across the country to bring conservatives into the democracy reform movement. Finally, we discuss how to talk about democracy in a way that resonates across the political spectrum — the subject of a Democracy Takes piece Warren wrote with Lilia Dashevsky.

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Jenna Spinelle
From the McCourtney Institute for Democracy at Penn State University, welcome to Democracy Works. I'm Jenna Spinelle. Happy New Year, everyone. I hope you all had a fantastic holiday season and are ready to hit the ground running for 2025 and everything that it will bring. We're going to kick off the new year with bit of an inside baseball conversation about democracy reform and the future of democracy reform and the prospect of a second Trump administration. I had the opportunity to talk with Scott Warren, who is a fellow at the SNF agora Institute at Johns Hopkins, and has written several pieces about how the democracy movement should be thinking about a second Trump term and some of the changes that it might need to make to meet this new reality.

Jenna Spinelle
Scott spent about a decade running an organization called Generation citizen, which is focused on civics education, and he talks about how that work changed after Donald Trump was elected in 2016 and how, in his opinion, over time, the democracy movement came to become more and more closely aligned with the Democratic Party and some of the problems that that has caused, and he has some ideas for how to claw some of that back and really create a democracy movement that is representative of all political views and a range of ideas across the political spectrum. So I hope you find this conversation simulating and perhaps a little challenging to start the new year, and we will be back with the full team for a new episode in the next couple of weeks, but for now, I hope you enjoy this conversation with Scott Warren.

Jenna Spinelle
Scott Warren, welcome to Democracy Works. Thanks for joining us today.

Scott Warren
Great to be with you. Excited to excited to have this conversation.

Jenna Spinelle
Yeah, so you, a couple of weeks ago, not long after the 2024 election, wrote a piece for the Stanford Social Innovation Review called a reckoning for the pro democracy community. There's lots to get into in that piece, but before we do, I wonder if you could just talk a little bit about your background and how you got into democracy work in the first place.

Scott Warren
Yeah, so I'm currently a fellow at the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University, which is an institute dedicated to strengthening democracy and really bringing practice and research together. My own background for about a decade, I ran a youth civics education organization called Generation citizen, which was all about getting young people to care and participate in politics through getting civics back in the classroom and starting even beyond. Before that, I really got interested in democracy issues through growing up abroad. 

Scott Warren
My dad was in the State Department, and so I had the unique opportunity to observe a lot of emerging democracies. I observed the first truly democratic elections in Kenya's history, in 2002 was in Ecuador during a coup. In 2005 was in Zimbabwe in the midst of violent runoff elections in 2008 and in those experiences, realized the power when democracy works and people feel like they have a voice in the process, and the fragility of it when people feel like that their voice doesn't matter, and how quickly democracy can erode. I was in Kenya during violent election. The I was in Kenya in the aftermath to elections in 2007 which did not go well, and there's widespread violence in the streets. And so I ran this, this civics education organization, for about a decade.

Scott Warren
And, you know, left for a variety of reasons. I enjoyed the work, but but wanted to make sure the organization was sustainable and get into broader democracy issues, and so landed, landed at agora. And I will say a few things in terms of how I got into my current strand of work. I have recognized in the democracy space that there tends to be a little bit of a siloization and almost a silver bullet contextualization of how to save democracy. Some of this is just how nonprofits work, but sort of saying, Oh, if only we had ranked choice voting, if only we had less money in politics, If only more people voted, then democracy would be saved. And obviously the answer is much more complex than that. But with that in mind, we got through agora about 40 folks together in early 2022 to have a candid, off the record conversation about what was working and what wasn't working in the quote, unquote, democracy reform space.

Jenna Spinelle
So first of all, when you were at Generation Citizen. And this maybe leads to the point that you were just about to make. But can you talk about how your work changed after the 2016 election? You know, you just mentioned realizing the fragility of democracy or the potential for democratic erosion. I think a lot of people in the US, particularly funders and philanthropically minded folks sort of had some of those same realizations about what, what, what could or was potentially happening in the US, and decided to put their money towards reversing it or coming up with solutions.

Scott Warren
Generation Citizen was started in 2009 it was, it was difficult at the beginning to get people to pay attention to us. So we'd say, Oh, we're all about educating young people to be active and engaged citizens. It the response tended to be a well, there's other more pressing issues out there. Democracy is fine. Obama's in office, you know, things will things will move along. And then after the 2016 election, all of a sudden for us, you know, money, money rolled in our budget, I think, tripled in a year's time. And the democracy space really fermented in the US now. So part of that, I think, is, you know, there was a there was a recognition that having someone like Donald Trump in office could be a threat to democracy, and we need to do something about it. I think the insidious part of that is a that didn't happen overnight. Our democracy has been, has been faltering for a while, and also as it comes to the democracy ecosystem, it's not the most sustainable or efficacious if the response is in reaction to a specific leader, rather than in favor of a broader democratic culture. And so I think that that looking back, great that the organization expanded, great that the democracy ecosystem got a lot more traction, not as great that it seemed to be primarily in reaction to Trump's elections.

Jenna Spinelle
And then one last point of clarification, can you say more about what you mean by the democracy ecosystem? You know you and I know what that means, because we are in these rooms all the time, but for listeners who maybe don't spend as much time in these particular weeds as you and I do.

Scott Warren
It's a good point, because I think sometimes the democracy ecosystem practitioners can be a little bit more more insular. I think the goals of the democracy ecosystem could be refined as initiatives or interventions that focus on strengthening civic participation so getting more people to participate in the process reforming democratic institutions. And so that might be things like changing the structural ways that people vote. When you hear about ranked choice voting, when you hear about proportional representation, I might consider that reforming democratic institutions and then also improving civic culture. And that piece I might, you know, put in the bridge building ecosystem that's emerged. So, I mean, I think in a short way of saying it's, you know, how do you get more people to participate? How do you change the ways that people participate, and how do you create a better system in which people actually get along with each other better? And so that ecosystem, and it shouldn't be political in nature, partisan in nature, I should say, but rather about improving the Civic fabric of our country. 

Jenna Spinelle
I mean, it shouldn't be partisan. And in fact, you know, many organizations in this space say that they are non partisan, or see their mission as non partisan. But I think what you found in this 2022, agora meeting was that that wasn't actually the case when it came to the people who were in the rooms or at the table, kind of making these decisions and working on these projects. Yeah,

Scott Warren
I think so. We had this meeting in 2022 and tried to get a very diverse group of practitioners, scholars, organizers, in the room to talk about what was working and what was it working in this space. And it did turn out, you know, despite, I don't know if it was our best efforts, but cites some efforts that about 90 95% of the people in the room leaned on the left or were ideologically progressive. 

Scott Warren
I think that part of this is because of the point that I was just making about how this emerged in the aftermath of of 2016 and I think the thing that I do want to just say as a challenge is that you know, over the last, I mean, especially over the last 12 years, I do think that you know that there has been more of a threat to democratic institutions from one side of the aisle and and, you know, ostensibly from Donald Trump that said, the only way that the space can function is if you have a, in this country's case, a. Two party system, in which you have multiple people at the table pushing for strengthening our institutions and not equating a better democracy with progressive policy goals.

Scott Warren
And I think that that's one of the challenges that that I've seen recently, is to say, you know, we want more informed participation. We want better civic culture. We want less polarization. Fine, if you start getting into issue areas and equating, you know, how we might talk about specific policy outcomes with democracy, is when it can get a little bit more more precarious. And that's what I was starting to see in some of the movement too.

Jenna Spinelle
Yeah, and so you and your colleagues at agora, then, I think, built on that and made some more deliberate efforts to get out across the country. I think that's maybe a secondary problem here, is that much of this work tends to be concentrated in DC, New York and Chicago, right? So getting out to other parts of the country, and what were some of the things that you heard once you sort of got out of your own proverbial echo chamber.

Scott Warren
One of the things that we did following this 2022 meeting is, is we were approached by a few organizations that that were more conservative, our street Institute, AI, and they, they sort of said, you know, what would it look like to have this specific conversation with with folks that are conservative. So So Republicans and conservatives that care about democratic institutions, but historically but not been part of this pro democracy community. So we had an initial convening and and it seemed like there was interest. It was same sort of formula where we had scholars and practitioners and former members of Congress and administration officials in the room, all conservative talking about democratic institutions. 

Scott Warren
And so we said, from there, you know, let's, let's, you know, push this out and make it a broader initiative. And so over the course of 2024 we convened in 12 different states across the country on small convenience of about 20 to 30 folks, election officials, administrators, civic leaders, all conservatives, all Republicans, the specific goal that we articulated, which was proxy for broader trust in institutions, which is, how can we form or preserve or continue a movement for conservatives to trust elections? Because obviously that's been been a challenge in recent years. And so we went to the combination of swing states, Wisconsin, Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, and some some deeply red states, to Wyoming, Kansas, Idaho, Utah. And what was interesting was, I think a few things came out of it. One, we found a lot of conservatives that really wanted to have this conversation. And the conversation was, not, do you like Trump or not, which is where I think a lot of these conversations can can start and end. 

Scott Warren
But more, how can we really build trust in institutions and voting amongst conservatives, and there was a lot of interest in having that conversation. The other thing that I think really sparked an interest being outside of DC, New York, Chicago, the urban areas, is just a frustration people have with how nationalized and federalized local politics have become. And so when we're in Wyoming, there are very specific issues that are facing people in Wyoming, you know, housing affordability, but they were frustrated that a lot of their constituents are talking about issues like undocumented immigrants coming over the border and voting, which is just not an issue in Wyoming. But the more that national politics pervades everything, the more challenging this becomes. 

Scott Warren
They also have challenges with how the left talks about issues of democracy, which we can get into too, but to the point that I was making them saying we care about democracy, the left's making it about partisan politics. Where do we fit in? And a lot of these folks, I think, had a hard time figuring out where they fit in politically as well.

Jenna Spinelle
Let me ask you about this idea that of democracy being aligned with the left and with progressive policy this, you know, the phrase was all over, you know, MSNBC and in other media outlets of democracy being on the ballot, right? It was a Democratic Party talking point. I believe Kamala Harris used it in her ads. And so talk about, I guess, to the extent that you can like, why Democrats thought that that would be an effective messaging strategy, or where that kind of synergy came from, and then maybe why, if, for the folks that you talked to, that that wasn't as as effective.

Scott Warren
So I think the the strategy comes from, you know, it's a proxy for. Uh, you know, Trump being a singular threat to democratic norms in our in our democracy and and post January 6, the bringing that back up, bringing the fact that that that he is threatened retribution, that he's threatened to politicize the judiciary. And so I think that there's, there's validity to that. I think the challenges with it as a talking point are a few fold one. I think this is actually a big one too. There's been a lot of research that demonstrates that that people actually don't vote on democracy. Issues front and center, this is taking place in countries around the world. They've done, you know, different, different studies and interventions on this, and it's just not front centered. So I think even you saw in this election, a lot of people said, well, you know, we voted based on how expensive milk and eggs had gotten. That because of democracy. From a strategic perspective, I think that there's, there's a fault line there. From a broader principled perspective, I think the challenge is, you know, it did become proxy for democracy. Became politicized. And so for folks on the right, it became seen as, oh, they're using this issue as a stand in even if you think Trump's a threat. 

Scott Warren
And then the other challenge is that Democrats, and I want to distinguish, because I think it's really important between the pro democracy community and the Democratic Party, because I don't think they should be one in the same but Democrats and I'm not both sides in this, because invoking and inserting and fermenting insurrection is not the same as as other behavior, but have engaged in, you know, in anti small d democratic behavior, whether it's propping up more right leaning Maga candidates in primaries so that they can, you know, that they can win, whether it's using language like voter suppression in states like Georgia, where the evidence has not been found to be the case.

Scott Warren
I mean, you know, honestly, and this was an election thing, but, but we're talking the morning after President Biden pardoned his his son, and that's the type of thing that's going to galvanize the right in the sense of saying, you know, you said that, that you wouldn't do this. You said that you were fighting for democracy, and now you're putting, you know, policy outcomes above, you know, democracy issues. And so I just think it becomes whether or not you believe that Trump's an existential threat, I think one. It's not effective strategically, but to just sort of, it ferments in this, this notion that democracy is a standard for policy priorities, rather than than democracy itself.

Jenna Spinelle
So the kind of or one counter argument to that that I often hear, I'm sure you do too. Is that really what we mean when we're talking about democracy is multi racial democracy, or equitable, inclusive democracy, right? And anytime that you even gesture toward or try to bring in, you know, conservative leaning folks, it's seen as like that, as a barrier or an impediment to moving toward multiracial democracy. It's like there's just this, this, whether explicit or implicit, this idea that, like you're bringing racism into it, or you're bringing white supremacy into the conversation. And there's just no room for that if the goal is to, you know, keep pushing toward a fully inclusive, multi racial democracy. So I guess, I I'm sure you've been in rooms where this conversation has happened as well, like, what? What do you say to that that you know any, any effort to broaden the net comes at the expense of progress on other fronts.

Scott Warren
I mean, the first thing I look at is just the changing demographic rates in the 2024 election, and so you had a lot more racial diversity in terms of turnout for Republicans and support for Trump. And so I just don't think that that strategy holds true. I think even if you put that aside. And I mean, I think that part of it is that, you know, many racial groups do not want to be, nor are a monolithic and care about a whole host of issues. And so I think that's part of it. I think that there is it is it is a challenging endeavor to figure out how to ensure that this multiracial democracy survives and thrives. The research I've read is that there's never been a democracy in the history of the world where you had one racial group that was the majority become the minority, which will happen with white people in this country in the next few decades, and for that democracy to thrive. So I do think that that's a legitimate concern in terms of, how do you how do you actually ensure that democracy works? I guess my response to this is, if you believe that conservatives are less amenable to talking about issues of race and democracy, the answer is not to not invite them into the room. The answer is to have. Complex conversations about what it actually means to move forward, and I think that that is even more urgent given the results of the 2024 election, where I think Democrats probably essentially made a bet that some of these racial demographics would keep voting for them because they're Democrats, as opposed to actually addressing the issues at hand. And so I think that there are legitimate concerns with how Republicans, in recent years have addressed issues of racial equality. But if you believe that the best way to actually address that is to have those folks in the room.

Jenna Spinelle
And speaking of having folks in the room, this is a bit of a two part question. The first part is that, is it fair to say that you know, from 2016 up until you know this, this most recent election, the main conservative voices in the democracy ecosystem have been the kind of Never Trump Republicans. You know, I'm thinking about at the at the national level, people like Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, and then there's, you know, governors and others on, on down the line. But is, is that fair to say, or am I perhaps selling it short, that it was, it is limited to this kind of Never Trump coalition.

Scott Warren
I think publicly, yes. So I think publicly, those, those Republicans, have been those on most vociferously talking about the threat to democracy that Trump poses, I think, and there's a space for that so, so I think that that's the other thing. I just want to know that there's a space for that conversation. And so, you know, the work that the Chinese and the kins and jurors have done, I think, fills a much needed void, and they've been courageous in many ways. And there's a space for conservatives and Republicans that that don't necessarily want to carry that mantle, or don't feel like it's effective to carry that mantle and and still want to be seen as fighting for the contours of our Republic. And so that's, I think, that that's that's an important distinction to make, whereas things sometimes folks on the left can be like, if you're not vocally against Trump, you're not for democracy. And I think that's a little bit of a problematic.

Jenna Spinelle
I think, and this gets to my the second part of the question, especially now that with, you know, Trump winning again, it feels like any momentum that the Never Trump movement had it, like the wind is out of those sails, like that ship is gone, like it's, you know, that, I mean, they may still have, you know, media power or cultural power in some way. You know, people are gonna still keep subscribing to the bull work. I'm sure Adam Kinzinger is still gonna go out and give speeches and, you know, all of that kind of thing. But I think that that that other group that you were talking about, it feels more important than ever to try to figure out how to reach folks who, yeah, maybe Trump supporters, or maybe just don't even really want to engage with the nationalization of politics that we were talking about earlier. 

Scott Warren
I think that that's true. I think, I mean, I think it's going to be a challenge, and we'll continue some of that work, because I think that part of you know, what we're doing is, is there, you know, is there a way to to think about what a different kind of conservatism or Republicanism looks like, I think, to your point, at least for the foreseeable future, you know, that's that's not the case at the national level. But, I mean, I'd say a few things. One, I just think it's a it's a fact that and this, I mean, there were a number of statistics that demonstrated that, you know, I think in Pennsylvania, it was more people that cared about democracy as their primary issue voted for Trump than Harris. I say that just for the sense of it's just not the case that, you know, if about 50% of the electorate voted for Donald Trump. That that percentage of people doesn't care about democracy. Some of them might have a different conception of what it means. A lot of them probably just thought, as we were talking about that there's other issues that matter more. And I just say that that's important, because I think if we demonize and just say, Oh, this is, you know, half the country doesn't care about democracy. What are we going to do? This is who we are. It's just, it's a little tricky. But yeah, I think the folks that we're working with within the contours of the Republican Party, I think that there are some folks that we're we're working with that are going to see you know that, that there's no path forward for them. 

Scott Warren
Some of the folks that have been working on administering elections and have been through hell and back, um, might, you know, not, not think that this is the party for them. I think that you are going to have others that say, you know, we are conservatives. We care about conservative policy ideals, and we're going to, you know, fight really. Locally, or push locally, and push from from the inside out to try to ensure that these, these institutions, are front and center in our party. I don't know how easy or difficult that will be, but I do think that you can't write off half of the country right now. It's just not an effective strategy. 

Jenna Spinelle
As I was, you know, reading your work, and even just as we've been having this conversation, I've been thinking a lot about the Heterodox Academy, which I think is trying to do something similar within higher education, you know, and really pushing for viewpoint diversity and bringing in a lot of different voices and opening up the conversation, I realized that it's not exactly the same as as the democracy ecosystem. I've been thinking a lot too about, like, you know, media outlets like the free press and others that, again, have this sort of heterodox approach. I wonder if there are elements of those movements, of, you know, trying to really not focus so strongly on the left, right partisan divide, but really talking more about ideological diversity and those kinds of things. I wonder if there are lessons that we can take from these other movements that are happening in other parts of our society.

Scott Warren
Yeah, and a big fan of what those groups are trying to do of of what heterodox University, it's funny. Actually, the the head of heterodox, John Tomasi, actually taught me political theory of my freshman year at Brown. So maybe there's, there's some through line there. I The university is an interesting analog here, because I think that there's a lot of needed conversations happening about what ideological diversity looks like in white in some ways inclusivity looks like when we're talking about folks with, with, you know, having different perspectives on on issues to have ideological diversity. I'm, I'm teaching a seminar at Hopkins right now, a first year seminar called democratic erosion. And so it's looking at countries around the world and this new form of democratic erosion that's happening. And one of the most rewarding parts of what I'm up to right now is actually this class, because there is ideological diversity within the class, and the students are modeling in an effective way how to listen to each other. 

Scott Warren
And one of the interesting things I will say is that I have noticed that amongst students on the left in those classes, and this is something that's been reported widely, so it's just a microcosm here is that sometimes there's a little bit more apprehension from their perspective of not saying the right thing of their friends, shaming them if they don't articulate viewpoints in the right way. And so I think that this is something you know that has occurred more on on the political left in recent memory, and as an issue is that there is, there can be these purity tests where you have to think or say things in the right way. I saw some of this in in the nonprofit sector when I, when I led generation citizen, there was sort of a an orthodox way to talking or thinking about the work. And so I think in the democracy space, same thing that you need to, you know, I think I've been in too many conferences, and I'm sure you have, where there's a not really debate, because you don't have folks that think differently, and we're not modeling pluralism in an effective way. 

Scott Warren
And so this notion of how do you think about pluralism, which is going to be really hard in an intense political environment where there might be policies that are pushed out by the administration that that threaten people's livelihoods in different ways, to also model pluralism in society, whether it's in universities, whether it's the workplace, whether it's the democracy space. That's really heard, but I think it's really necessary, because the more that people go in their camps, the more difficult it's going to be to actually get somewhere productive on the other end of this, right?

Jenna Spinelle
Well, and that gets back to something that we started with at the beginning of our conversation. This, like, you know, Silver Bullet idea that is, as you said, not unique to democracy work and democracy funding. It's kind of a broader nonprofit mentality of like, if, yeah, we only had this one reform, this one change, this one cultural change, whether it's cultural or structural, I guess I wonder if now is a good time to maybe move away from that, or kind of rethink some of that. You know, this reform alone can fix democracy, kind of thinking that we've been in for the last number of years, ideally.

Scott Warren
I mean, I do think that this is, this is, it's not fundamentally a funding problem, but I do think that there's this push for, you know, if you're running an organization and trying to raise dollars, then with that comes this. Well, I need to articulate. Why this organization and intervention is so needed. I mean, we did this a generation citizen, where it would be like we need to make the case for how important civics education is. And so you start, sort of, you know, diving in, on, on, on that premise. And I think civics education is really important. Structural reforms to democracy might be really important. So I, I very much agree with with the concept that we need to stop the silver bullets. I actually, I don't 100% know how to make that happen, because I do think that, I mean, one way to make that happen is, like, more consolidation within the democracy ecosystem. 

Scott Warren
So there's, you know, like less organizations tried to, trying to elbow their way their way forward. I do think it's a little bit of a mindset shift of recognizing that this is all gonna that this is all gonna take a long time. So 100% agree that we need to get away from that. I do worry that the the incentive structure is such in which it will be difficult to to do that. But I mean, if you just look at the evidence. I think, for example, in like, I think ring Choice Voting is interesting, but there's been huge challenges to that movement in recent years, especially at the ballot box in 2024 and there's just no way of saying that, that alone will, you know, solve all the challenges that the primary problem will solve our challenges. 

Scott Warren
And so just even acknowledging that, and maybe that's like, part of what I'm trying to argue with, to some point too, is just having some intellectual humility with, like, all of the work that we're doing in this space, because a lot of what we've been doing hasn't really worked. And so if we just take that as a premise, which is difficult for people to do, maybe there's some good that comes out on the other end as well.

Jenna Spinelle
Yeah, yeah, no, I think that's that's a great point. I want to close here by talking about messaging. So I think one of the reasons that the democracy ecosystem is so insular in some parts, because it's really hard to talk about these things to people who aren't already bought in in some ways. And I think you were. You wrote another piece. I'm forgetting the the co author, so, so please say that when you talk about it, but yeah, about like, how to talk about these things moving forward, to reach people who, yeah, might think that not. Might think that who, who feel that the the economy or immigration or other issues are their top concern, and would rank democracy, you know, seventh or eighth on a list of the top 10 things that motivate their votes and political behavior and decision making. 

Scott Warren
Lily and I wrote a piece in democracy notes that talked about the communications part of it. So one, one critique, just to start out, is, and I say all this lovingly, I guess because there's, there's, there's a lot of folks that are working very hard in this ecosystem. But there was a lot of focus on trust in elections leading up to 2024, and and, you know, necessarily so. But I was in a lot of conference calls or a lot of listservs where folks would send along talking points on how best to talk to people about elections or issues of democracy that were very clearly based on polling and not really based on talking to real people. 

Scott Warren
And so this is something that having, you know, worked with folks across the country and tried to think about some of these, these issues of trust in elections. We talked to a lot of real conservatives and Republicans that were saying, you know, this is what resonates. That's sort of how we got to, you know, to realize that the democracy framing itself, the democracy word choice itself, was was problematic. So one thing I would just say on the messaging is that we got to, like, we got to get out and talk to folks. So I think that that part is, is, is really important. The second piece is, I mean, the point that we were trying to make in, in in the article, was that people are not equating democracy with anything to do with their quality of life. And I think that this goes to the like, Okay, I might not be a big fan of Trump. I think what he did on January 6 was problematic. I can't afford groceries, and so I don't have the luxury to put issues of democracy front. And second, this is also something that that has happened in countries around the world, which is, which is why, from a strategic perspective, I'm still a little confused why Democrats use the democracy is on the ballot. 

Scott Warren
But if you look at countries like El Salvador, where bukele took power and sort of used that the influx of gangs as ways to consolidate that power, a lot of people were like, yeah, he's infringing on our rights, but we have more security now, and so I just think that this how you tie in having basic, you know, democratic rights and responsibilities with quality of life is something that that we have to do. I don't, I don't 100% know how to do that. I think a lot of it is conversations with folks to really understand what democracy means to them and what it means to them at the at the at the local level. I think it is bringing in that, that pluralistic perspective, into the conversation. And so this is, I guess I would say, like, this is the challenge for the democracy community. We're not saying, like, here are the messaging points to really demonstrate how to make democracy an issue that ties to people's everyday lives. 

Scott Warren

We just know that we need to do that, and the way to do that is to talk to people in communities. And I think that that's, I think, coming out of 2024 a lesson that I'm taking, which I'm still not 100% sure that the democracy community is taking I mean, we're like, we're weeks out, so we'll see. But just is the importance of of really listening deeply, rather than sort of like coming at it right away and saying, like, Okay, I have this silver bullet solution. I know what to say. I know what to do. We need to act that. There does need to be a little bit of okay, like, let's figure out what's been working and what's not and and actually, you know, be be responsive to what people want, rather than talking about what we think people need. 

Jenna Spinelle
And that leads into the last thing I wanted to ask you, which was so that your piece has been out for a couple of weeks, I just wonder what the reaction has been, I know that the National Conference on citizenship is coming up next week as we record this, that's maybe the first time that a lot of the folks we've been talking about will be together in person since the election. But, yeah, I wonder, um, what what feedback you received, and to what extent you think the the messages or the things you're putting out there might be starting to sink in?

Scott Warren
Well, I've been grateful to get a lot of positive feedback from people. I will say, if people didn't like it, they might not tell me that. So there might be, there might be conversations happening behind closed doors, because I do think that there is, from what I'm getting, there's a little bit of this strand of, you know, how much are we doubling down on quote, unquote resistance versus engaging with with others? And I think that people are probably still, you know, feeling it out. And I think that that's all going to be tougher once, once policy starts coming through, through the pike. 

Scott Warren
And so people have said that the message resonates. Willie and I are also organizing an upcoming call, we'll be talking about some of the messaging and actually bringing conservatives on. And have gotten a lot of interest in that call. And so it does seem like there's a good amount of we actually have to understand how folks are thinking about these issues in a different way. So that's been that's been good to hear, whether that leads to changes and in strategy, I don't know. I think it's too early to tell, and I probably wouldn't be taking my own feedback if, if, if I was expecting folks to have new strategies by now. So yeah, the feedback, the feedback, has been invited. I'd actually welcome folks that have you know, challenges with, you know, how we're how we're posing this, but you know, there might be conversations behind closed doors that I think probably echoes some of what you said. A, you know, like Republican Party has demonstrated that it is, you know, captured by an authoritarian leader. B, that they're not, they're not serious about, you know, thinking about some of these, these, these race issues. And I think what I would just respond to that is, is, from a strategic perspective, if you want to be effective right now, I'm not 100% sure how to, you know how to do so without, without talking to folks on different sides of the aisle.

Jenna Spinelle

Yeah, well, we will link to both pieces, the Ssir piece and the democracy notes piece of listeners. I know our listeners are very passionate about democracy. Some are in the democracy ecosystem. Some are maybe just more observers, but yeah, hopefully folks will read it and get in touch and keep this conversation going. Scott Warren, thank you so much for your time today.

Scott Warren
Thanks, Jenna. It was great to be on.

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