Adam Jentleson and Ellie Mystal discuss the structural issues they say threaten how we govern, and the solutions they believe are within reach.

The battle over the fate of American democracy has heated up in the past few months, as pundits and political leaders spar over issues of accountability and reform. 

Much of the conversation has revolved around what some consider immediate threats: state legislatures seeking to curtail voting, disinformation campaigns warping the electorate,  disgruntled voters storming the U.S. Capitol. 

This week's guests on the Crosscut Talks podcast — Kill Switch author Adam Jentleson and Nation magazine  justice correspondent Ellie Mystal — are concerned about those issues, but they have focused their attention and considerable passions on more long-burning threats coming from within the government. 

In this conversation with Slate's Dahlia Lithwick from last month's Crosscut Festival, Jentleson and Mystal discuss why the U.S. Supreme Court and Senate have long undermined any sense of true democracy in the United States, what can be done to fix them and why now is the time they must be fixed. 

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Credits

Host: Mark Baumgarten

Event producers: Jake Newman, Andrea O'Meara

Engineers: Chi Lee, Resti Bagcal, Viktoria Ralph