Lessons from Charlottesville and January 6

As the lead investigator into both the 2017 racist riot in Charlottesville and the January 6 insurrection, Tim Heaphy has a unique perspective on the cynicism and anger that also fueled Trump’s return to the presidency. All three events, both the violent protests and the peaceful and lawful decisions made at the ballot box in November 2024, reflect an increasing lack of trust in institutions among a growing number of Americans. He reflects on his work and where we go from here in the book Harbingers: What January 6 and Charlottesville Reveal About Rising Threats to American Democracy

Heaphy joins us to discuss the divide between people who trust the system and people who don't and make the case for why a disengaged citizenry is the biggest threat to American democracy. We also discuss his reactions to the first few weeks of the Trump administration and the pardoning of people convicted in relation to January 6.

Heaphy served as the U.S. attorney for the Western District of Virginia from 2009-14. His previous experience included clerking for Judge John A. Terry of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals and working for the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia.

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Chris Beem
From McCourtney Institute for Democracy at Penn State University. I'm Chris Beem.

Candis Watts Smith 
I'm Candis Watts Smith.

Jenna Spinelle
I'm Jenna Spinelle, and welcome to Democracy. Works this week, we are talking with Tim Heaphy, who is the lead investigator of both the 2017 riot in Charlottesville and the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol. So he has a very unique perspective about both of those events and how they relate to one another, and what they say about the condition of American democracy. So we'll get into all of those specifics in the interview, but I think it's also worth noting that a lot of what Tim says, particularly his prescriptions for how we move forward, are part of a bigger theme that we've seen emerging with several guests over the past couple of months

Candis Watts Smith 
So first, I want to say again that this is a person that we definitely needed to talk to. Um, so you know, he was the chief investigative counsel to the House Select Committee on January 6, and also hired by the city of Charlottesville to do an independent review of the events in in that city in 2017 and I'm I'm pointing to this because he's very different from Eddie Glaude and also from Lisa Silvestri. But among those right, there seems to be a theme about who is responsible for our democracy, and there among them is a clear recognition that elections are neither the beginning nor the end of our responsibility as democratic citizens. So Professor Glaude, you know, says we are the leaders we've been looking for. And, you know, Professor Silvestri also in piece by piece, talk about the work that each of us have to do, no matter how small, to use our talents and our skills to improve our communities and connect with one another. And today, you know, we have Tim Heaphy, who's like we are. The Calvary institutions are not going to save us, though they're important and can be reformed in important ways, but there is a need for people to care, to participate and to engage, and if they don't, then we will get the backside of democracy.

Chris Beem
Yeah. I mean, I there's, there's an old metaphor of citizens being parents at the pool. And it comes from Michael Schudson, and he says that, you know, most of the time, parents are able to just kind of hang out, read a magazine, talk to their friends, have another gin and tonic, whatever, right? But if stuff gets bad, the parents are ready to jump in the pool and and with everything that entails. So they're they're paying attention, but they're not paying all their attention until it's required. And it's hard not to see this as a time where the parents should be in the pool. And it it does seem like, you know, it's not hard to think that we would, we could use more of that, not just from scholars and attorneys, but from all of us. 

Candis Watts Smith 
Yeah. I mean, for me, I think him use, you know, saying history is an audience is really important, I think especially now, because we in my lifetime, in my lifetime, I can remember 911 as being point in a point in time when there was very much a we will never Forget this. Will not forget the lives that have been lost. We will not forget the sacrifices. We cannot forget how we got here and but the same cannot be said for many of the other major events in our history that have happened since how like? What is our recognition of the millions of lives lost during COVID? It's almost like that didn't even happen. Um, you know, just not, not like, I mean, there are many people who are personally affected by that. I don't mean it by that way. I just mean it's not something as a society to as a society. And then there's January 6. In many ways, we're seeing a very quick perversion, an erasure of history. So you know, there's the who won 2020, presidential election, the war in Ukraine, and who started it, banning books, and all of these kinds of things are happening, and there are other moments in history where the reality of the moment is really disregarded, but we can always return to documents like the ones that Tim Heaphy has created that allows us to circle back and say, All right, what can we learn from this? So I'm simply just saying that I think it's really important that even if we are not ready as a society, to learn from the many insights that he offers through these through both looking at Charlottesville and January 6, that they are there now for us to have, and that is an a significant contribution.

Candis Watts Smith 
Well, and This is what you expect of a well run responsible democracy, right to to do these kind of investigations to find out what really happened. And you know, it is, it is not incidental that the two events that you brought up well more than that, actually, that about which there is no apparent unity, have been partisan, right? I mean, you know what we're talking about in the war Ukraine. I mean, I don't know what, how your neurons are firing such that you think it is correct to say that you crave started the war. I mean, I don't think there's anything even remotely sensical, let alone defensible about that, but when you talk about COVID and January 6, you're also talking about events that are seen very differently, and because of that, I think it's very important. I mean, it just, it's just making a point that precisely because our common commitment to knowing the truth is deeply compromised right now, that makes it all the more important for people like Tim Heaphy to to go out there and do the kind of work he's doing. 

Jenna Spinelle
And I think that Tim does a nice job of laying out both of these events and some of those parallels that that the two of you were mentioning in the interview, and we also talk about some of his prescriptions for how we move forward. So let's get to the interview with Tim Heaphy. 

Jenna Spinelle
Tim Heaphy, Welcome to Democracy Works. Thanks for joining us today. Thanks. 

Tim Heaphy
It's my pleasure. Jenna.

Jenna Spinelle
Lots to take away from your new book, Harbingers, what January 6 and Charlottesville reveal about rising threats to American democracy. We will dive more deeply into both of those events, but before we do, I want to talk about something that you write fairly early on. This might even be in the introduction or the first chapter, but you write that a disengaged citizenry is a more insidious threat to democracy and more destructive than a crowd of angry rioters. I wonder if you can talk a little bit about where that idea come from, and maybe when that thought came into your process as you were working on these events, or maybe as you've been reflecting on them since.

Tim Heaphy
Yeah, I appreciate that. Yeah, that is sort of the central thesis of the book. You're asking this sort of ultimate question right away, which I appreciate you know, both Charlottesville and January 6 started as events that were motivated by a single issue, but each metastasized really to become broad forums for Anger at institutions. Right? So Charlottesville started about a discussion about Civil War statues and whether the community was going to leave them up or take them down. But unite. The riot was about lot broader than statues. It was really about race. It was about history. It was about a lot of people, white supremacists, feeling threatened by sort of the evolution of of of government and and its priorities. Capital started as an event focused on the election, but similarly, it really spread. A lot of people there were motivated by frustration like government over COVID restrictions, or some of the same motivations as folks in Charlottesville. So Well, I think those two events. Share is, is that the fundamental division in United States now is no longer between left and right, but rather between those who who have faith in institutions and those who are just skeptical about the efficacy of those institutions, government, media, higher education, even science. So it's a long preface to the answer to your question. You can have a couple of different reactions if you are one of those anti Institutionalists or one of the people that has lost faith in institutions. Anger or apathy. Anger is what we saw in Charlottesville and at the Capitol, and frankly, that's sort of easier to manage, or easier to respond to, or apathy, and to me, that's a lot more insidious and harder to combat. I worry that there are a lot of people in this country with sort of lost faith in those systems who don't charge the capital. They just disengage. They just don't they don't vote, they don't educate themselves, they don't talk to their neighbors. They just, they sort of stop caring and participating, and that gives out size authority to people with perspectives that are not quite as sort of mainstream or or for the common good. And that worries me. So the bottom line of the book is, fight apathy, right? Stay engaged. Democracy comes down to people willing to raise their hand and do the right thing. We need, all of us need to do that if we're going to protect this thing called democracy.

Jenna Spinelle
So let's, let's talk a little bit about Charlottesville. Specifically. I know that the events of mid August of 2017 are certainly most in in the the nation's conscience. I think we can all recall the images from the unite the right events that happen, of course, the tragic death of Heather Heyer, who was attending the events that day. But you write about two other events that kind of led up to this. One was in May of 2017 and one was in July. So how, in some ways, it seems like the the mistakes or the failures or the things that went wrong from those two kind of set the stage for an even, you know, even bigger set of things to go wrong when we got to August.

Tim Heaphy
Yeah, that's exactly right. So there was a series, there were a series of events over the course of the spring and summer of 2017 that are in an important context to appreciate what happened on August the 12th in May, there was a spontaneous unpermitted march with torches at night to the least statue that Richard benzer and Jason Kessler, the ultimate organizers of unite the right, quickly organized and caught everybody in Charlottesville by surprise. Like I said, no permit had been filed. No one expected this. And when it happened, it was it prompted a really strong reaction, negative reaction, for most people who live in Charlottesville. How could this happen, and why weren't we more prepared? And where did these people come from? Then, on July the eighth of 2017 there was an actual permanent event by the permit was obtained by the numbers of the Ku Klux Klan chapter in North Carolina, and they wanted to have an event that was focused on the statues right at the base of Jackson statue, since it was permitted, and since there was anger at The May event that prompted a huge community outlaw and, frankly, an overwhelming crowd of anti racist I wouldn't call them counter protesters, because it really wasn't a protest. It was just a lot of people came out to sort of express their strong opposition to the hateful speech of the Klan and law enforcement essentially did with the duty bound to do, which is try to create a zone so that these these racists could exercise their right to free speech. Well, first amendment compels that, but that the protection of the Klan created in real time, real anger among the large crowd of of anti racist gathering once clan left sort of protected by this, this gauntlet of law enforcement. There was some skirmish between law enforcement and the crowd, the anti racist counter protesters, including the deployment tear gas. So there was this very strong negative community reaction to the heavy handed law enforcement response to the crowd on July 8, which then in turn informed more of a passive response in terms of preparation for August the 12th. There was some hesitance about law enforcement sensitive to the criticism from the July event to sort of be immediately too aggressive. It's hard, not the only reason, the part of why they took a very passive approach to protecting community safety on August the 12th was the was the reaction to the deploying of tear gas on July. So all these things, as is always the case, one thing influences another, and you have to really. Sea loving collectively to understand what happened and unite the right in Charlottesville in August. 

Jenna Spinelle
I know that you you talk to people from all sides of this issue, and you try to talk to as many different people as you can. Not everyone was was cooperative as you maybe would have hoped they would be. But I wonder, I guess, how, how open to reflection or to understanding their role. And some of the things that went wrong were the various groups you talked to, whether it was law enforcement, whether it was counter protesters, who maybe were, as you were saying, distrustful about law enforcement or thinking that, you know, they're sort of giving the KKK or whoever passed, like, how open were people to hearing about their role and maybe how things didn't go as smoothly as they should have?

Tim Heaphy
Yeah, that really varies, frankly, by individual. You know, there were some people in the sort of progressive, anti racist community that opened up and expressed their frustration. Others were very skeptical of me. I was a former prosecutor hired by the city, and therefore they was very wary of sort of trusting me and the process. So it really varied in terms of individual approach to the review and to your question, readiness to kind of learn from their own actions law enforcement, I was pleasantly surprised at how many of the line men and women of law enforcement were critical of their own agency. I spoke to a lot of officers who said, you know, we were, we were put in a terrible position by this crazy plan, right? We wanted to do more to protect public safety, but were essentially told not to, and they were frustrated with that. So so the sort of weariness of line officers to come forward and criticize the operational planning was a big part of of what we were able to find. And then city officials, like, I'm pretty critical of the city council for trying to move the rally, as opposed to accept the clear First Amendment precedent that they had to accommodate this hateful speech, you know, varying degrees of acknowledgement of their own. Maybe Miss misplaced priorities. The city eventually apologized to the community after my report was issued, the city manager did that, and I think that was a very helpful step in terms of healing and going forward, I'll just say, as a final point here is that I don't know that the city's over this, that it's been now, you know, seven over seven years, And in some ways, we're still a very divided community in Charles so there's still a lot of raw emotion about it. I sense that every time I talk about these events, and I'm sensing that when they talk about the book, you know, it blew the lid off of a lot of underlying problems in our community that are justifiably now getting attention, but haven't been fixed, and there's still a lot a lot of animosity that that has generated. So we have a ways to go, or I can say where we've learned from and incorporated the lessons talks about,

Jenna Spinelle
Let's move on to talking about January 6 and your work there. So you were the chief investigative counsel to the House Select Committee on the January 6 attack. So talk, talk about the difference between a select committee and a full commission, something like the 911 commission. How are those bodies different, and how, if at all, is their their aim and their work different? 

Tim Heaphy
it's a good question. The 911 commission was not a congressional body, but was created by law that was an independent structure that was a group of experts, bipartisan or non partisan, that was tasked and funded by Congress, but but outside of the congressional process, and they did a great job in evaluating the facts and circumstances that gave rise to 911 that was the original proposal with respect to January 6, and there was a deal worked out between Republican and Democratic members tasked by the leader and speaker. But unfortunately, when that agreement was sort of brought to the floor for a vote, the Republican leadership changed its mind and decided to oppose the creation of a commission, a 911 independent commission. Speaker Pelosi, at that time, still believed some kind of fact gathering effort in the wake of January 6 was important, so she and the Democratic majority in Congress created a select committee. So that is a congressional committee, but it's limited to its scope was to investigate the facts and circumstances of the attack on the capital, and it was finite. It ended at the end of that Congress. So I started working for the select committee in August of 2020, One, knowing that the committee would sunset very end of 2022, so that gave us sort of a really abbreviated 16 months or so to get our work done, because we knew that we were going to sunset at the end of the Congress. Now our select committee was a little bit different than most, because it was bipartisan. We had seven Democrats and two Republicans. Initially, Leader McCarthy proposed five Republicans as the as the resolution creating the selected committee contemplated, but two of the five were actual material witnesses to the events, Jim Jordan and and Scott parody, I believe, were proposed as original members, and they, in the view of the speaker, couldn't be involved in the investigation because they were directly involved in the events that were the subject of the investigation. So the speaker rejected those two. Was willing to accept the other three. Republicans Leader McCarthy said, No, if you're not going to accept our slate of five, we're not going to participate at all. And then Cheney and Mr. Kinzinger came forward and were willing to serve. And they were appointed by the speaker Republicans, who were appointed by the Democratic leader, which gave the committee a bipartisan composition of seven Democrats.

Jenna Spinelle
There's this idea that you know leaders, whether it was Kevin McCarthy and Mitch McConnell, they thought that the Supreme Court would take care of Trump. The court thought the voters would take care of it. So there was this like he was the can that kept getting kicked down the road, so to speak. There was a sense of like he's someone else's problem to deal with. I wonder if, if that came up at all in your work, or if that kind of sentiment rings true based on your experience.

Tim Heaphy
Yeah, I mean, there's a chapter in the book that quotes Eric Holder, who's, you know what my friends and role models, it says, there, there is no cavalry coming. I mean, the former Attorney General said those things in a tweet right after the President Elect won the Republican nomination, basically saying we can't wait for for some institution to ensure that President Trump goes away, that if it's going to happen, it has to be real people in the voting that did not happen. So it was not, I can't say it was. The goal for the committee was not to make him go away, and the goal of the committee was to tell the story of what happened the path led to his and others criminal conduct. But the overall goal was driven by the facts and an attempt to in a very credible way that, again, would stand up to the scrutiny tell the story and to me, the consequences politically. All were they may I thought they would fall differently, but I still feel like the investigation was guided by fidelity to the facts.

Jenna Spinelle
Yeah, and you bring up Eric Holder, there is a good segue into talking about democratic reforms. Eric Holder is one of has been one of the leaders on the movement to end gerrymandering. You also write about ranked choice voting and campaign finance reform and more cultural things like media, literacy, civics, education, these. These are all things that we've talked about a lot on the show, as you might imagine, from a podcast about democracy. So rather than kind of going through them one by one, I guess my question is more, how many, how much of this stuff did you know when you were working in and for the government before we started writing this book, because I'm wondering if there's, there's a disconnect between the kind of reformers who are out there trying to push these things forward and the people who are closer to the government.

Tim Heaphy
Yeah, I can't say I did think much about these issues in the middle of the January 6 investigation or otherwise. I mean, both the Charlottesville, England, the work on the Capitol attack, were so consuming, it was really a day to day effort just to gather facts, identify which them are most relevant, how they fit into the broader narrative. It wasn't until after I finished the Gen six investigation, I had a little bit of time to reflect that. I started zooming out from them and trying to draw these parallels and and when I see that, that anger at institutions that we talked about, I actually think there's, there's some legitimacy to the to the lack of faith in our government's ability to solve problems. I too, am frustrated with that, and when I look at the reasons for that, I think, unfortunately, the rules are designed right now to protect incumbency much more so than to create a climate in which there's constructive discussion or compromise. You know, I live in the 50. District of Virginia, which is gerrymandered to be a very Republican meaning district, even though I live in Charlottesville, much like State College, you know, progressive liberal college town, it is my district very, very difficult for any Democrat to win because of the way it's drawing. And it's same thing happens in safe democratic districts that are drawn to be safely Democrat as a result of that and gerrymandered system, you want to weigh news if your COVID is outflanked to the extreme, if there was someone more conservative or more liberal, and that discourages people listening to each other talking about hard issues and compromising, and when you add on top of that, the incessant flow of special interest money that, again, largely goes to incumbents, it just makes it really difficult for those systems. This happens both in Washington and it happens in state legislatures. Makes it very difficult for those those legislative bodies, to really work to solve problems with gun violence and immigration and climate change and all these really pressing issues that we have. But I understand anger at the system. I understand that cynicism and we can't wait for government to heal itself. That's why I turn the book to these more organic solutions. That's what it's going to take. Because, again, the rules, though, don't facilitate real reform is in our with our elected officials, we don't share information among law enforcement agencies very effectively. We've got lots of Intel coming in through different systems, not really aggregated or consolidated. I think the FBI puts real restrictions beyond the requirements of law on their ability to do anything with information that they obtain through open sources. They have a terrible history of violating civil liberties and free speech, and they've reacted to that by essentially telling their agents, hey, less information you see online is sufficiently specific and credible to open a preliminary investigation, you can't do anything with it. So if somebody posts a photograph of himself with AK 47 saying, January 6 is like 1776.

Jenna Spinelle
So Tim one of the first things that President Trump did when he came back into office was to pardon everyone who had been convicted of a crime related to January 6. Now you know the things these people were convicted of and this day better than maybe most anyone else out there. So what? What did you make of the pardons and what are the the ramifications of this action that that President Trump took?

Tim Heaphy
Yeah, so Jenna, there's a range of culpability among the 1500 or so people convicted of crimes at the Capitol, everything from misdemeanor trespass or disorderly conduct to seditious conspiracy, the use of force to try to overthrow or interfere with the lawful function of government. I thought and hoped that there would be some principled line drawn along that spectrum of culpability. But that was not the case. The President treated them all the same, from the misdemeanant to the seditious conspiracists, they all were pardoned. And look, I think it's a terrible message. I think it's undercuts the rule of law. If you accept, as I do, that criminal consequences can deter bad behavior, then the excuse of criminal behavior arguably encourages bad behavior. And my fear is that for these 1500 people and for others similarly motivated, they feel like there's a backstop or a Get Out of Jail Free card, and that is going to really be a threat to the rule of law going forward. So I think it was a horrible idea. I'm very disappointed.

Jenna Spinelle
Yeah, you mentioned the rule of law there. Just now, can you just explain what the rule of law is? That's a term that's often thrown around, but very rarely do people take the time to stop and talk it through more thoroughly.

Tim Heaphy
It's a good and an important question and worth revisiting. The rule of law is principle that our society to protect the common good requires adherence to rules, and those rules apply equally to everyone. Right? You have to wear a seat belt because that keeps you and other people say you cannot commit acts of violence against your fellow citizens, like there are these immutable standards that are way beyond politics that we rely on to live in a democracy, and that requires people who pay attention to enforcing those rules, and when those rules start to be accepted or start to be way. In certain circumstances are only applied to some and not other people in our society, then it undermines confidence, and it also threatens our democracy. It's a fundamental bedrock of our democracy, that we're all the same under the law, and again, when you excuse certain conduct and criticize others, then that is inconsistent, and that's why it's such a dangerous situation.

Jenna Spinelle
What are opportunities for, for pushback here? What can the other parts of of government do? Are there things that can happen outside of the the three branches of government to try to act as as a check on some of these actions?

Tim Heaphy
Yeah, there have already been a lot of lawsuits filed challenging some of the steps that the President has taken. He issued an order, for example, eliminating birthright citizenship. It is in the Constitution that if you are born in the United States, you are a citizen, and a federal judge in Seattle has already enjoined enforcement of that new rule. I think some of what new administration is doing is clearly unconstitutional or unlawful, so lawyers bringing lawsuits will be part of preserving the rule of law and adherence to those standards on a more micro level, though. Jenna, I think the danger here for people that may be listening to this is to get cynical and throw up their hands and say, you know, it just doesn't matter if I vote or if I pay attention. They're all the same. Washington's broken, and they withdraw from civic life. That That, to me, is more of a threat to democracy than an anger right spasms of violence like we saw at the Capitol or back in Charlottesville. It's really imperative that Americans who are tasked with preserving democracy do their part, and that's everything from participating by voting, educating themselves, talking to their neighbors and their classmates and the people in their circles to try to share experience and find things that connect us rather than divide us. We're a divided country, but we share common values, and if we focus on that, and I think democracy is fine, so I encourage everybody to run toward the problem, not away from it, and take it personally, to preserve democracy.

Jenna Spinelle
Yeah, going back to that idea of a disengaged citizenry that that you bring up in your in your book, right? One, one last question to bring some of this back to your book. You know you also talk about the divide is not left versus right, but those who believe the system is working for them and those who believe the system is not working for them. So how? How, if at all, do you think that some of these changes that the Trump administration impact that divide? Because I think that the rhetoric around it is that we're making these changes to cut the waste from government and give people the impression that the system is working better for them, when in reality, that might not be the case necessarily.

Tim Heaphy
Look, I think there's a good reason why a lot of people are cynical about the efficacy of government. There are lots of examples of how our elected officials are really not focused on the pressing issues of the day, because the system is designed to preserve incumbency because of the way our districts are drawn, and campaign money flows largely to incumbents. So I get the cynicism, and I think some attempt to attack that makes sense. I'm not seeing that being attacked, though, right? No one's talking about changing gerrymandering or eliminating the pervasive flow of special interest money into campaign, right? Those are bedrock causes of the dysfunction. Instead, we're talking about eliminating the Department of Education or foreign aid. I mean that, to me, is not going to address that fundamental problem of why is it that our elected officials are not addressing gun violence or climate change or immigration. Some people are going to cheer these changes. Other people are going to be directly affected by them. Other people are just going to be angry because they are disinclined to support anything that this president does. So I'm not seeing any steps taken that are going to address that core issue of division of insider outsider. I think it's only going to exacerbate that sort of disconnect between those two groups.

Jenna Spinelle
Well, this, this book is a is a great reminder, like I said at the at the very, very beginning, to hear from somebody who's been in the trenches on this stuff, rather than just somebody who's kind of studying it from the the 10,000 foot view. So thank you for your work on on those two commissions, and thank you for writing the book and joining us to talk about it.

Tim Heaphy
It's been my pleasure. Jenna, I appreciate it.

Chris Beem
Tim Heaphy, at the core, he says that what. Unites these two events, and for that matter, other events, is that there's this split in our country, and he insists that that split is not properly seen as partisan. Rather, he thinks it's between two group of people. One group believes in institutions, political, governmental institutions, and the other does not, and that that's where we are, and that that lack of faith on the part of this group of Americans extends not just to government, but to basically every institution that has any power. So it extends to the media expense, extends to higher education, education in general, and even even science. And so he thinks that is the issue that we need to address.

Candis Watts Smith 
I think that he's on to something, watching people both on the left and the right. I mean, so for example, as you all well know, I am a university administrator, and there is, you know, like a call for an endowment tech, but it's on the right and the left, you know, the anti vaccine thing can be in, like, high end lefty places and places on the right, you know, there we can go on and on, on each of these dimensions. I think that there is something to be said about that kind of that split. And I personally am starting to feel like a conservative. For decades, I have outlined to my students all of the ways in which, you know, here's what the Constitution says. It's, you know, all of the ways that we genuflect to the Constitution. Like, let's look at some of the details and we like outline, many of the features that are not Democratic, that are not fair, that allow the states to do all sorts of weird stuff to its citizens, how vague the document is. There's all these things we can go on and on right. And now I feel like, and of course, like for me, I'm pointing those things out for us to be critical and for us to be critical thinkers around like, well, what is it that we're trying to get and where are we trying to go? But now I feel like things are being flipped, where it's like, well, let's just get rid of it.

Chris Beem
I mean, this raises a question for me about Heaphy's book.

Chris Beem
You know, he is very clear that he thinks we need to all commit to listening to each other, to mutual respect, to being committed to our democracy and being engaged in our government. And you know, that's a point of view, right? And, and it's not like he's in he's alone in saying that. And so I just, I'd love to ask him, What makes you think this is going to work, and what makes you think that that your objective? How do you make sense of that objective with what he himself in the book recounts in terms of Republican behavior. So I don't know what this means in terms of what Democrats should be doing, but I am, I am completely unpersuaded by the idea that what we all need to do is just get together and show some neutral respect, because that's precisely what we don't have, and I think we're a long way from it. And as long as, as long as the these are the housing days for the Republicans, we ain't going to get it either.

Candis Watts Smith 
So, I hear you.

Chris Beem.
Kind of hard not to that was a rant. 

Candis Watts Smith 
One thing I think might be, um, an important step to take is, like, what, like, that analysis that you've offered is what we can see, like, who's in the game, right? So there's like, Democrats doing their thing, and Republicans like doing their thing. And then I think if we like open the window blind, like the other blind, window blind, there would be 77 million Americans who are eligible to vote who did not. And so there is a group of folks who are sitting on the sidelines. And I think that one of what I'm getting, of what Tim is saying, and I think that we would all agree that this is true, that if more. People were involved. And I think that one of the things that Tim is saying, which I think that we would agree with, is that having more people in the system is better. And what he argues is that we see people who are rioting, and we are seeing people who, you know, who are rioting and angry, and then we see people who are apathetic and disengaged, and those folks who are apathetic and disengaged are just as if not more dangerous, because we are not getting their voices accounted for in the system. And that means like, let's say presumably, those people are kind of like, I'm not, I mean, I'm somewhere in the middle. They're like, they have many cross cutting attitudes and identities that could go a little bit this way and a little bit that way, if those people participated, and we know that representatives incentives are to respond to people who they think are going to participate, then we would have an entirely different calculus, right? Like we'd have a different set of variables in, you know, incorporated into that incentive, into that incentive structure. So yes, we see people acting really crazy, but to his point is that when there is an increase in apathy, that air gets sucked up by extremists, and that air gets sucked up by people who just want to disrupt, and not people who are thinking, let's say about I cannot even believe I'm saying this like reform and incrementalism. So I see where you're coming from, but I do think that there's what we can see, like the actors on the ground that we talk a lot about, but that I think there is a group that we are not accounting for, the people that we don't see, that are on the sideline. And I think, I think that's part of his theory, is that if more people were involved, we might be able to get better outcomes in a system that requires people to do their part.

Chris Beem
I mean, you know, it's like an alcoholic who you know isn't ready to stop drinking, you know, until you get to some recognition that this is a problem then and and that that behaviors have to change, it's, it's hopeless to be talking about healing. And if anything, there's something, you know, imprudent about pushing healing too soon, right when, when you're not, when you're not in the condition to have it. Now, I mean, you could argue that, you know, we're never going to be there, you know, and so we have to start somewhere. And maybe that is what you want to say. But what I would argue is there are better or worse conditions, and right now, I don't know how much worse it could be, versus us to talk.

Candis Watts Smith 
So, you know, like when would be a good time and and, you know, we can debate on timing, but I do think that there is something to be said about coming to a shared set of facts. Whether people take that to be their truths is different. But I don't think that you would disagree that we're going to have to come at some point. And a lot of what Tim hapes work is is about offering a shared set of facts, maybe for history, that we can come back and think through and look at our patterns and look at our weaknesses and perhaps even do something about them?

Chris Beem
Well, you know, part of the I don't know, reflects the the time in which we find ourselves. It is, it is not obvious or simple or straightforward, and it's also, you know, scary. And so all of that makes, I don't know, a completely legitimate answer, but what you said also speak to the fact that you're typically more generous person than I am and that so it's good that we're going back and forth, but I also think it's good that, you know there are there are people like Heaphy who are taking their experiences. Is that are directly relevant to these questions and and trying to point to not only the similarities with the problem, but the similarities with respect to what do we do and and that is a that is a that is a significant service, especially for right now. So from the McCourtney Institute for Democracy, I'm Chris Beem.

Candis Watts Smith 
I'm Candace Watts Smith, thanks for listening.

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