Greetings all. Sending along a new conversation with Michael Waldman, the President and CEO of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law.
The Brennan Center has become one of most important institutions in the broader pro-democracy movement here in the United States, and I’m pleased that Michael, an old friend, was able to stop by and share his insights with us.
Here’s a bit more about the Brennan Center from its website:
The Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law is a independent, nonpartisan law and policy organization that works to reform, revitalize, and defend our country’s systems of democracy and justice.
The United States is in the midst of a great fight for the future of constitutional democracy. The Brennan Center works to build a nation that is democratic, just, and free for everyone. We are committed to the rule of law. We work to craft and advance a transformative reform agenda of solutions that aim to make American democracy work for all.
The Brennan Center has built a distinct model to advance legal and policy change:
We’re a think tank, conducting rigorous research to identify problems and craft transformative solutions.
We’re an advocacy group, fighting in court and working with elected officials to advance legislation.
We’re a communications hub, shaping opinion by taking our message directly to the press and public.
Now, the vital safeguards and checks and balances that underpin democracy are under attack. Amid harsh assaults on immigrants and communities of color, today’s politics are polarized and Congress paralyzed. We know this: The best response to an attack on democracy is to strengthen democracy.
While we cover a lot of ground in our discussion the part that will be of most interest to many in our community is Michael’s response to my questions about how we can ensure that we have free and fair elections this November. Here is some of what he said:
We emphatically can have free and fair and secure elections in 2026. We’re going to have to fight for it and make sure it happens. The thing to remember is our election system across the country has had enormous pressure on it in recent years. You think about it, the pandemic, threats of violence, actual violence. A deluge of disinformation, all of those things. But election officials from both parties in states and counties, law enforcement, civic groups, the business community, people banded together. And in fact, if you look at 2022, 2023, and 2024, for all the pressure, the elections were actually fairly uneventful. The system held. They were accurate. They were secure. So in a lot of ways, we know what to do to run elections in this country.
Now, of course, what’s new is for the first time in American history… the federal government itself and the president is waging a concerted campaign to undermine the elections. That’s just never happened before. We know what Trump is trying to do. He has his plan. We have our plan. We have ways to push back and stop the things. And part of what we need to do is not get overly alarmed and scared by things that just aren’t going to happen.
And…..
And it’s worth just saying this out loud – because I get asked this every once in a while. Presidents cannot cancel the elections. The elections are in the law... states run elections. There are going to be elections. That’s that. Just like presidents cannot run for a third term. That’s clear too, but Trump is not canceling the elections. People should not worry about that.
The risk, of course, as you say, is that they throw up so many dust clouds of doubt to undermine people’s faith in the process, to demobilize people so they don’t vote, or to make people not really sure who won or what the outcome is.
This is an important and timely conversation with one of our moment’s great warriors in the fight to preserve rule of law and our Constitutional order. Get it when you can and keep working hard all - Simon
Biography - Michael Waldman
Michael Waldman is president and CEO of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law. A nonpartisan law and policy institute that focuses on improving systems of democracy and justice, the Brennan Center is a leading national voice on voting rights, money in politics, criminal justice reform, and constitutional law. Waldman, a constitutional lawyer and writer who is an expert on the presidency and American democracy, has led the center since 2005. He was a member of the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States in 2021.
Waldman was director of speechwriting for President Bill Clinton from 1995 to 1999, serving as assistant to the president. He was responsible for writing or editing nearly two thousand speeches, including four State of the Union and two inaugural addresses. He was special assistant to the president for policy coordination from 1993 to 1995.
Waldman is the author of The Supermajority: How the Supreme Court Divided America (Simon & Schuster, 2023). The Supreme Court’s 2022–2023 term, he argues, was the most consequential in decades, with decisions such as Dobbs, Bruen, and West Virginia v. EPA reshaping American politics. Waldman explains how the Court has gained so much power over Americans’ lives with so little connection to the public will. He shows the supermajority’s dangerous reliance on a newfound, radical “originalism.” He traces the similarities between this Court and its most activist and controversial predecessors. And he offers a path forward. Kirkus Reviews called it “a damning account of a Supreme Court gone wildly activist in shredding the Constitution.” Jane Mayer of the New Yorker called The Supermajority “nothing less than a public service.”
Transcript - Simon Rosenberg And Michael Waldman (2/11/26)
Simon Rosenberg:
Welcome everyone, Simon Rosenberg back with another terrific event today. Joining me is an old friend, and I'm really glad he could take the time to be with us today, Michael Waldman. Michael, welcome.
Michael Waldman:
Great to be with you, Simon.
Simon Rosenberg:
Michael is the President and CEO of an organization with a great name, which is the Brennan Center for Justice. I've always loved that name and its aspiration. And Michael, just for those who don't know about Brennan and your work, can you give us a little bit of background? Brennan has become sort of a super muscular player in this moment with the threat to our democracy. And I'm just really glad that we're going to talk about what you do and some of your thoughts about where we are. So just let's start — talk about what Brennan is.
Michael Waldman:
Yeah, absolutely. So the Brennan Center is a nonpartisan law and policy institute. We work to strengthen, to reform, and when necessary, to defend the systems of democracy and justice. So they work for everybody in this country. We were started thirty years ago, I wasn't there then, by the family and the clerks of Justice William Brennan when he left the Supreme Court. He was the great liberal justice on the Supreme Court. We're affiliated with NYU Law School, although we're not part of the university. And we are in there fighting every day to make our democracy better. And we really do believe we are in a great fight for the future of American democracy right now… that quite a bit is on the line. We've got now a staff of about 190 people very focused on all the abuses of presidential power — we're focused too on looking forward at what kind of reforms we can make to make sure we don't get in a situation like this again, but right now emphatically we're very focused on making sure the 2026 is free and fair and secure.
Simon Rosenberg:
Lots to cover there. I mean, what I love about your website is that it says your mission is rule of law. It's hard to imagine that this has become so essential to the American journey right now. How do you think this fight for rule of law is going? I mean, give your assessment of the landscape right now.
Michael Waldman:
I think in a lot of ways, it is one of the signs of hope and light right now. We're in our two hundred fiftieth anniversary, as you know, as a country. And at the time of The Founding, Thomas Paine in Common Sense, the pamphlet that helped really kindle the revolution, Paine said that in America the law is king. And that was a meaningful statement for him… this adherence to the rule of law, this idea that we are governed by laws was from the very beginning of the country and it was actually part of why they created the country in the first place. And obviously it's not always been followed. And certainly it hasn't been followed, especially, you know, if you're economically disadvantaged or a person of color, there are many injustices and imbalances in our system. But the idea that the law applies and applies to everybody has been really an extraordinary strength.
Along comes, of course, Donald Trump, who flagrantly and with abandon, chooses the illegal route when he has legal routes available to him. I mean, the tariffs is just one example. There are many lawful ways a president can impose tariffs if they think it's a good idea. He chose the illegal route, which is claiming it's a national emergency and that he has unilateral power to act. One of the real points of hope this past year has been the extent to which the courts, and especially the trial courts, judges appointed by Democrats and by Republicans, have stood up. There have been something like 160 separate rulings, probably more now, blocking or blunting or in some way repudiating the illegal power grabs from the administration. The challenge, as you know, is the higher up in the federal court system you get, the Supreme Court being the most obvious example, the more ideological it is, in a lot of ways, the more partisan it is, and we're going to see whether they are willing to stand up too. But the rule of law, and our shared commitment to it, is actually one of the guardrails that still is standing strong.
Simon Rosenberg:
It's really important the way that you described this because I think there are many things we've learned in the last year. But one of them is that federalism has been more of a bulwark against autocracy than we perhaps understood or anticipated. And certainly the lower courts, as you pointed out… the way I describe it is they're acting as if rule of law is in place even if the White House isn't. The enormous range of victories and the number of victories… we've had a lot of the Democratic attorneys general on here to talk about their work and their success. It has been remarkable about how much at the lower court level this is all held. I think it's something we need to talk about more in the pro-democracy movement because we are all faced every day with the failures. We need to be celebrating more of the victories and I think to build on those victories in order to go get more, and I agree with you about the success of the lower courts.
Michael Waldman:
You mention federalism which is interesting because, you know, I think liberals progressives over the years were more skeptical of federalism, more skeptical of the idea that you didn’t want centralized power. There’s an entire system of state constitutions and state courts out there that’s another bulwark, another area of protection. To give you one example, 49 of the 50 state constitutions have stronger protections for voting rights than the U.S. Constitution does. And you know, our mission is to get them to act that way. But this is a whole other system outside the reach of Donald Trump or anybody else honestly in the federal government where there are more avenues, as those state attorneys general know, more avenues to protect rights and promote equality.
Simon Rosenberg:
So let's talk about the elections. There's a lot of concern. Trump obviously, you know, tried to overturn the 2020 election. He’s already attempted this––
Michael Waldman:
He’s still trying to overturn it.
Simon Rosenberg:
[Laughs.] He's already attempted to overturn it, or whatever he's doing. Right. And so, this is not a hypothetical. This has already happened. When people ask you about your thoughts about how we keep the elections free and fair in ‘26, what's your response to that?
Michael Waldman:
We emphatically can have free and fair and secure elections in 2026. We're going to have to fight for it and make sure it happens. The thing to remember is our election system across the country has had enormous pressure on it in recent years. You think about it, the pandemic, threats of violence, actual violence. A deluge of disinformation, all of those things. But election officials from both parties in states and counties, law enforcement, civic groups, the business community, people banded together. And in fact, if you look at 2022, 2023, and 2024, for all the pressure, the elections were actually fairly uneventful. The system held. They were accurate. They were secure. So in a lot of ways, we know what to do to run elections in this country.
Now, of course, what's new is for the first time in American history… the federal government itself and the president is waging a concerted campaign to undermine the elections. That's just never happened before. We know what Trump is trying to do. He has his plan. We have our plan. We have ways to push back and stop the things. And part of what we need to do is not get overly alarmed and scared by things that just aren't going to happen.
Simon Rosenberg:
Well this is an important conversation because one of the things I talk about at Hopium a lot is that we have to be operating on sort of parallel tracks. The first track is we have to win the election by as much as we possibly can — to make the ability for there to be a manipulation of it harder. And if there's an overwhelming turnout for Democrats, and we win these races by huge margins, it just becomes much harder for them. And we can't for one moment take our eye off the ball on that part of our mission. And the good news is, I know you work for nonpartisan organization––
Michael Waldman:
I was just going to say, I need to say that our mission is not to elect Democrats, it's to give the voters their chance to elect whoever they want.
Simon Rosenberg:
I understand, I understand. And what I'm saying is that the good news is that we've had election after election after election that have all worked, right? Unchallenged… so we're actually going through, the election just isn't in November. It's been happening over the last year and we've had uncontested results happen again and again of elections of all kinds all across the country.
Michael Waldman:
Look, Trump is not trying to overturn the results of the 2024 election because he actually won that one. Even he recognizes that.
Simon Rosenberg:
[Both laugh.] So, what do you think is possible? And what are you concerned about what he actually could do as opposed to sort of the imaginary stuff that he might do? And what are you working on to bolster and strengthen our resilience against whatever is going to come?
Michael Waldman:
So there's a number of streams of work that we're all focused on. First of all, he is trying to use the federal government in inappropriate and often unlawful ways to exert personal control over the election system. He, for example, issued an executive order last March, basically purporting to take over the election system, requiring people to produce a passport, not even a birth certificate, but a passport to register to vote using the federal form and other things as well. We and others went to court. And the courts blocked it. The court said, and this is something that's highly relevant to this moment right now… states run elections, Congress has a legitimate role under the constitution passing laws about elections, presidents have no role.
And that's going to be a theme over and over again. We have a federalist system, but presidents are not really part of it. And so he's tried to use these executive orders. They're also pushing Congress to pass this legislation that you know about called the SAVE Act. It's actually coming up for a vote, you know, as we're speaking this week. Again, it passed the House of Representatives a year ago, and now it's being brought up in a slightly different form this time. That would require people to produce a passport or a birth certificate to register and thus to vote. And the Brennan Center's research shows that at least 21 million Americans don't have ready access to those documents. And that doesn't even count married women who changed their name and it might be different than on the birth certificate, or their voter rolls and all that other kind of stuff. Again, remember, the Senate blocked the SAVE Act, and Senator Schumer has said once again, it is dead on arrival and it's going to take work.
But again, we're urging people to speak out and let their lawmakers know they need to block the SAVE Act again. It would be the most egregious restriction on voting we've ever had from Congress in our country's history. Usually Congress, when it acts, it acts to protect voting rights around the country… so there's all of that.
There are threats to election officials that we're seeing as a real risk. These are unsung heroes, as you know, all over the country. These are not glamour jobs. They're facing all kinds of threats uh and and intimidation and quite honestly the use of the justice department in a bunch of different ways including the the unconscionable raid on the Fulton County, Atlanta, Georgia election office, and we now know that the basis for it was a collection of debunked conspiracy theories, which some magistrate judge thought was a good idea to issue a warrant. I think that's as much to intimidate election officials in other places, too, to say, if you run the election and we don't like how it comes out, we will come after you with badges and guns. So there's things to do there. We're doing everything at the Brennan Center from trainings for lawyers for state governments and counties all over the country on how to deal with demands from the federal government for information that might or might not be appropriate.
Law enforcement actually can play an important role here. There's a group that we created along with the R Street Institute, which is a conservative group, and others called the Committee for Safe and Secure Elections. It's half law enforcement and half election officials because, you know, law enforcement, even a lot of them are politically very conservative, but they don't want disorder. And so on Election Day in 2024, beat cops in all fifty states were carrying pocket guides. One hundred thousand were printed — state by state, saying how to protect elections, how how to protect the polls and to stop intimidation. It's an interesting thing — if you think about it, so much of the conspiracy theories, but so much of the debate then was around vote-by-mail, which was expanded so greatly because of COVID. It doubled in the number of people who were doing it because they needed to for safety, and then they liked it because it was more convenient. But it was vote by mail. And in 2024, our worry was that there would be challenges to the certification of elections when somebody had had won, and there would be officials who refused to certify, which didn't happen, but that was the worry.
This time it's all about data. You've got the federal government hoovering up data from the states. The Justice Department has asked I think 48 states to produce data with the sensitive voter information, their entire voter files, to go to the Justice Department. They've sued a bunch of states. A bunch of courts have ruled against them, have said, no, states, you don't have to do this. Why do they want all this data? It's not entirely clear, but at least part of what they're doing is they're going to try to use it to say, look here, there really are all these people on the rolls who shouldn't be on the rolls, and push states to purge their voter rolls. That's going to include purging a lot of eligible voters, so all of these and courts have said no and states have said no.
So in each one of these strategies there's a pushback. Some will be more successful than others, but emphatically, there is every reason to think that when the election is done, that we will say, oh, you know, that went better than we feared. It was a normal election in terms of how it ran, but not thanks to Donald Trump, who's doing it to make sure that doesn't happen.
Simon Rosenberg:
Well, I think your big point here… that there's been tremendous pressure on the system and it's been resilient and successful now for many years… is really important, right? Because people have learned how to fend off challenges to the integrity of the system successfully. I think there's great pride when you talk to people in the states for having overcome the challenges that have been thrown at them.
And we also know that Trump is capable of having irrational fantasies about his power and his capacity to do things. He imagined himself now to be the acting president of Venezuela, for example. Some of this stuff… Michael, and I’d love your reaction to this, as Timothy Snyder called it, to get people to obey in advance, meaning that if they believe the elections are not going to be free and fair, then there isn't any reason to work on them, participate in them, vote on them. It creates a vicious cycle where people lose faith in the election process and therefore turnout goes down and our democracy is weakened. And it certainly seems like that was part of the intent of the Bannon statement last week, which was to sort of freak everybody out so that everyone's saying, there aren't going to be elections and what do we do? Part of your argument is, well, of course that's going to be part of their strategy. But we have to remember just how resilient this has all been.
Michael Waldman:
And it’s worth just saying this out loud – because I get asked this every once in a while. Presidents cannot cancel the elections. The elections are in the law... states run elections. There are going to be elections. That's that. Just like presidents cannot run for a third term. That's clear too, but Trump is not canceling the elections. People should not worry about that.
The risk, of course, as you say, is that they throw up so many dust clouds of doubt to undermine people's faith in the process, to demobilize people so they don't vote, or to make people not really sure who won or what the outcome is. And it's an interesting question because, as you know, Simon, as a political strategist, it's always a question in every election of, well, does calling attention to the risk of voter suppression demobilize people? Does it become its own form of voter suppression? And usually, there's kind of a balance. And the closer you get… you really don't want to overdo it because you just don't want people who are low proclivity voters or you don't want people to get scared unnecessarily.
I think it's quite interesting right now. People are so angry about what they see happening… in the last two weeks, especially… you know, last summer, the Brennan Center put out a report that we said we were connecting the dots and made the case that there was a systematic effort by Trump and the administration to undermine the elections. And, you know, there's always a question of, well, are you over exaggerating? Now they're just saying it out loud and they're doing it on all these fronts. It's like he's like a villain in a James Bond movie. Now I'm going to do this. Now I'm going to do that, Mr. Bond. Trump says he wants to, quote, nationalize the elections to help his political party. Steve Bannon, as you said, said we're going to surround the polls with ICE, you know, masked ICE agents.
All these things are happening and they're being articulated by the people doing them. Nakedly partisan and nakedly political in an effort to help themselves politically. And that becomes a mobilizing thing for voters. So it may be that this is a different year in the same way… that some communities who have had the experience of having to fight for their voting rights don't get demobilized because they know what’s at stake and they know they're being targeted. I mean, that's a much broader group of the electorate now than just, you know, Black voters in the South or something like that.
Simon Rosenberg:
Well, and I think that one of the things I just throw out for you, based on my experience the last few years working on the ground with campaigns all across the country, is that the other kind of bulwark we have that I think isn't talked about enough is the early vote. And the reason I say that is that — by the time Election Day comes, we've had in many places two to three weeks of people voting without incident. There is this momentum around the idea that, well, what do you mean the election is you know, problematic? I mean, everyone's voting, everything is fine…and that, you know, one of the things that we should be thinking about together, all of us who want to have free and fair elections, is the importance of getting people to vote early.
Michael Waldman:
And celebrating it.
Simon Rosenberg:
And celebrating it. As an affirmation––
Michael Waldman:
I think that's a great idea. I mean, look, think about it, we had elections in New Jersey, California, New York City and Virginia and Georgia and other places, some of them quite high stakes. And Donald Trump was president. This was four months ago, whatever it was, shrieking all this stuff then, and nothing happened. ICE did not occupy the polls. One thing to think about is that every two years, there are groups like True the Vote. And these are election deniers before Trump. And they always say, oh, this year we're going to mobilize a million people to go to the polls. And twelve people show up. And I think that there is a they want to look a lot bigger than they are, a lot scarier than they are. And I think you're right that we understand when Election Day was just one day, there was sort of a civic ritual. Your parents take you into the voting booth with a lever and all that stuff. But we have those civic rituals now too. I think this year, Voting early is going to be a significant thing, especially in immigrant communities where people are worried about going out.
And I think vote by mail or in drop boxes, too. I mean, the real challenge, as you know, is that in so many immigrant communities, citizens are afraid, as well as everybody else. And people are not going out. They're not going shopping, not congregating in ways that are really sad and really crushing. And and you don't want that to happen as a group phenomenon around the election
Simon Rosenberg:
I'll just say two things about this… you know, before I founded Hopium in the 2022 cycle I launched a campaign called Vote On Day One which was encouraging people to vote on the very first day. And what happened… what people didn't really understand [was] the mechanics of all this stuff works. Because for many people, they just vote on Election Day. And as you pointed out, the elections have made it far easier for people to vote in recent years by extending the early vote window in many places, by creating easier access to vote by mail. And so I think one of the things, Michael, you should think about and your coalition should be thinking about is some kind of campaign to promote early voting.
In a way that has not really been promoted. I mean, in 2024, we had this vote-on-day-one campaign all across the country. And, you know, the national Democratic Party did not have an early vote message. They were not telling people to vote early as a strategy, as a way of preventing making it harder for them to manipulate the election on Election Day, because, as you know, historically, a lot of the people who've studied election interference, the core scenario was something that would happen on Election Day in large urban areas that would distort the vote. Well, if that's the case, then we have an obligation both from your side… you just want elections to work well, but also from my side to encourage, you know, large early vote in this election.
And I think what's happened is that we have seen people getting used to now using these other mechanisms to vote. So this is pushing against an open door, right? To your point, what we learned in 2022, 2023 and 2024 is the story of large early vote then becomes this virtuous cycle where people see other people voting. It's giving them permission structure and social pressure to vote too. In a midterm election, that's going to matter when there's lower turnout. We need to have a robust vote in this country as a matter of a strategic intent for the good of our democracy. Regardless of what party you're in. I'll just say one last thing… on your point [that] the elections have taken place. We just had in Minnesota last week, 4,000 precinct caucuses happened all across Minnesota. The first step of the endorsement process in a caucus state. It’s this obscure process that is not common in the US, but it is still around. There was no interference from any outside organization. They had record participation even in the freezing cold in the middle of all the trauma that has happened in Minnesota.
So we just had an early test of 2026 election, the very early stages of people participating, very high turnout, no interference. Everything came off without a hitch. And, you know, that's a good sign to your point… even in those conditions with ICE roaming around, there was no interference with the early stage parts of the 2026 election.
Michael Waldman:
And folks should remember that voting early, if you're voting in person early, it's counted on Election Day. You know, I do worry over the long haul… the phenomenon [that] the results are one thing on Election Day, and over time, the ballots come in and then maybe there's a change. I think that this [is an] understandable thing, and especially in states like in the Mountain West and West where so many people are voting by mail. I think it's it's inevitable, but I think it's something that the election deniers are manipulating… saying aha look it's all being stolen out from under our noses, you know, and I think for those of us who do care about trust in elections, that's a long term challenge.
Simon Rosenberg:
I vote early in person, right. For all the reasons you just described… I like to vote in person. I think I'm just used to it. And to your point, I know that there's not going to be any delay in the counting. I would encourage people that if you're thinking about this and what your own role can be, voting early in person is really the best way, I think, to help ensure a free and fair election in terms of that aspect of the game.
Michael Waldman:
We should never tire of saying elections are secure all these ways, vote by mail, all these things are secure and have been shown to be over and over and over again.
Simon Rosenberg:
Yeah, and so anything else before we go? I mean, you work on so many issues at Brennan. Is there anything else that's sort of front of mind that you wanted to share?
Michael Waldman:
Well, the one thing I'll just say, and I know these are the kinds of things you think about, we should all be doing everything we can to make sure that these elections are free and fair. And secure. But we cannot be content just playing defense year after year after year.
There's a tremendous discontent in the country. There's an urgent need for a new, modern, revived agenda of reform. It's after moments like this that you get the opportunity to have reform. It doesn't always happen, but that's when it happens. And we need to be thinking now and talking now about what we do to strengthen democracy as well as all the other things that need to happen. Because I do think that to the public… what matters is not only what you're against, but what you're for. And so we at the Brennan Center have a series of agendas and solutions that we've begun to develop and put out. We did one a couple of weeks ago on corruption, which is a very top issue, as you know. Everything from campaign finance reform, which, as you know, has been a long time hobby––
Simon Rosenberg:
I know. We go all the way back to that to 1993, Michael.
Michael Waldman:
Right, but also everything from ethics laws that actually apply to the president of the United States, a new government ethics agency, and something that is really urgently demanded by a lot of people — which is an end to stock trading by members of Congress. And something we put out for us, at least for the first time, understanding the magnitude of the corruption that we're seeing. I think there should be a constitutional amendment to take away the power of a president to make corrupt pardons. There's a bunch of different ways to do it, but as you know, that has just become an engine of corruption. It was something they borrowed from King George III way back when, but it needs fixing now. So we need to say yes to things and have an aspirational agenda on these issues to take to people as well.
Simon Rosenberg:
Let's have you back in a few months and let's go dive into that. I wrote a piece in 2024 in the New Republic, in February, calling on Democrats to embrace a big muscular reform agenda. We know from polling that [for] young people and independent voters, the issue of corruption and the perception that this city, Washington DC is corrupt, is a top two, top three issue. This is not on the periphery of our politics. This is at the very center of political discourse in America.
And I agree with you. I mean, speaking as a partisan, one of the things I'm about to put out is, and it's interesting for you to hear what I'm about to say, is that there's a lot of talk about affordability in health care and how these are the issues really driving things. But there's now an enormous amount of polling data showing that threats to democracy and corruption are of equal import to voters and particularly for Democratic voters — for the audience that's available to the Democratic Party.
And I think that one of the things we have to continue to work on, or I want to continue to work on, on my side, Michael, as you speak to everybody, is that we have not leaned hard enough into this idea. I mean, the way I talk about it is that we can be warriors for the middle class and proud patriots who are defending our democracy, liberties, and freedoms. These are not at odds with one another. And it's not a distraction. It’s an “and” not an “or.” And I want the Democratic Party to be seen as a party of proud patriots who in a time of challenge for their country have risen up, as we've seen millions and millions of people do all across the country, to fight for this country and for our foundational liberties and freedoms. And I'll send you some of the stuff I've written — that I hope our aspiration over the next ten years is to create a new birth of freedom here and everywhere around the world. That we have to connect the pro-democracy movement to this foundational value of freedom and liberty in a way that gets us out of the kind of consultant speak around, you know, ACA subsidies and affordability.
And there’s a huge opportunity here, I think, that is nonpartisan, frankly, around this pro democracy frame for us to develop very muscular language a muscular agenda for what that would look like. And so I’d love to have you back, as you guys flesh this out, I’d love to have you back in a few months to give us an update on that because I’m with you a hundred percent. We're in total agreement that this is an enormous opportunity — also for younger Americans to reconnect to sort of the founding principles of this country. To relearn them. As Jefferson always said that every generation would have to relearn these fundamental values for themselves and interpret them themselves. It's come under duress and under a terrible tragic moment. But our goal now is to take this tragic moment and turn it into something far better in the years to come. And so we'd love to have you back to talk about that in a few months.
Michael Waldman:
I’d be very happy to, and you and anybody else who’s interested in what we’re doing on all of this… we have a newsletter called The Briefing. It comes out every week. I write it. And it can be a way to keep up on the fight around voting and around our democracy.
Simon Rosenberg:
Listen, thank you. For those of you who don’t know, Michael and I met in the War Room in 1992. It was an incredible experience. Remarkable people there. And Michael, I’m proud of what you’ve been able to do at Brennan, not just in leading it, but to make it into something that is… in a moment of crisis for the country, you guys have really stepped up in a powerful way. And I’m just really grateful as a fellow patriot here in the United States. So thanks for being with us today. And thanks for your continued leadership.
Michael Waldman:
I appreciate that. We all appreciate that. And thank you and your community for keeping the hope alive.
Simon Rosenberg:
We're trying, man. Listen, thanks, everybody. This was a great conversation. Please like it, share it… if you're new to Hopium, however you're seeing this, please subscribe. And you know, as Michael said, we've just got to put our head down and keep fighting. This is a fight worth having, and let's go get it done. Thanks everybody.
