This is Democracy

In today's episode, Jeremi and Zachary discuss how U.S. universities are changing, delving into shifts in campus political culture, administrative growth around DEI, viewpoint diversity and ideological siloing. They also discuss the financial and policy pressures such as federal research funding cuts, visa changes for international students, and endowment taxes, and what exactly these changes mean for teaching, civics education, and the role of universities in public life.

This week, Jeremi and Zachary speak with Dr. Daniel Hummel to address the claim of the US as a "Christian Nation" by many of its citizens, and how this notion relates to our democracy.

Dr. Daniel Hummel is the director of the Lumen Center in Madison, WI, and a research fellow in the History Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His research and writing are on American evangelicals, theology, politics, and culture. His most recent book is: The Rise and Fall of Dispensationalism: How the Evangelical Battle Over the End Times Shaped a Nation. He has also written about similar topics for Christianity Today, New Lines Magazine, and the Washington Post.

This week, Jeremi and Zachary interview Brown University historian Dr. Omer Bartov about his book, Israel: What Went Wrong?, written after October 7 amid his efforts to understand Israeli society, media narratives, and the war in Gaza informed by his visits to Israel in 2024.

Dr. Omer Bartov is the Dean’s Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Brown University. He is the author of many important books, including: Anatomy of a Genocide: The Life and Death of a Town Called Buczacz; Tales from the Borderlands: Making and Unmaking the Galician Past; and most recently, Israel: What Went Wrong?.

This week, Zachary and Jeremi speak with UT Austin professor Lorinc Redei about Hungary’s recent election, in which longtime prime minister Viktor Orbán was defeated by opposition leader Péter Magyar, and what may come next.

Lorinc Redei is the assistant dean for undergraduate education and an associate professor of instruction at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. He is from Hungary and an expert on the politics of that country, policy-making in Europe, democratic backsliding, and international relations.

This week, Jeremi and Zachary host historian Mark Peterson to discuss his book, The Making and Breaking of the American Constitution: A Thousand-Year History, and to rethink the Constitution as a long-evolving relationship among people, government institutions, land, and written instruments rather than a single 1787 text.

Mark Peterson is the Edmund S. Morgan Professor of History at Yale University.  He is the author of three major books: The Price of Redemption: The Spiritual Economy of Puritan New England; The City-State of Boston: The Rise and Fall of an Atlantic Power, 1630-1865; and, most recently, The Making and Breaking of the American Constitution: A Thousand-Year History.