Keen On America

How to fix American democracy? It’s a question that, over the last couple of years, we’ve been addressing in my Bertelsmann Foundation supported How To Fix Democracy show, now its fifth year. And it is, of course, also a subject much addressed over the years on KEEN ON. My guest on today’s show, Meredith Sumpter, has also given the subject of fixing American democracy much thought. Sumpter is the President & CEO of FairVote, a non-profit dedicated to making American democracy more democratic. And as she explains, this can be most effectively done through Ranked Choice Voting (RCV), a practical reform of the electoral system that can radically revitalize American politics.

Meredith Sumpter is an executive leader and builder of innovative organizations and movements that drive value for people. As President and CEO of FairVote, Meredith is working to advance a more functional and representative democracy that delivers for every American. FairVote is a nonpartisan organization that researches and advances voting reforms including ranked choice voting and the Fair Representation Act. Ranked choice voting has become the fastest-growing voting reform in the nation because it empowers voters and rewards candidates and elected officials who can win majority support. Previously, Meredith was CEO & President of the Board of the Council for Inclusive Capitalism, a global community of CEOs committing their organizations to actions that demonstrate value creation with sustainable and inclusive business practices. The Council expanded from 25 to 570+ corporate and investor CEOs during her tenure, taking 780+ measurable actions tied to the UN SDGs. She was CEO of the separate Coalition for Inclusive Capitalism, which convened leaders across private, public, and civic sectors to launch market-relevant reforms. Meredith has a track record of leading multi-stakeholder initiatives at executive levels with systemic impact. This includes the Just Transition Framework for Company Action, the first private-sector guide for companies, investors and policymakers to advance environmental and social goals with transition tied to market indicators, and the Pension Fund Coalition long-term value creation template mandates for use by asset owners and asset managers in public equity and private markets investment contracts. Bringing people together to solve problems and expand opportunity is a central theme in Meredith’s work. She has held an advisory position at New America and Harvard University, where Meredith convened public sector leaders with national research experts on innovative reforms to advance democratic resilience including with AI and governance, health equity, social justice, and economic opportunity. Formerly, Meredith was Head of Research & Strategy at Eurasia Group, a global geopolitical advisory firm. She oversaw the research platform and advised industry leaders and investors on global politics and 21st century drivers of trade, disruption, and growth. Her 20+ years of experience in business, strategy, policy, and analysis spans multiple sectors and regions. Meredith has worked in the US Senate and as a US diplomat and government official in Beijing, where she advised two US ambassadors and analyzed politics, economics, and security issues for policymakers. Meredith has appeared on major networks including Bloomberg, CNBC, MSNBC, BBC, Fox, PBS and CNN. An advisor to boards, she values engaging people and regularly speaks at industry and global conferences. Originally from Alaska and now residing in Virginia, Meredith enjoys a rich life parenting four children with her husband Ryan.

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

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Andrew C.M. Cooper is the author of the new book, The Ethical Imperative: Leading with Conscience to Shape the Future of Business. He is also an Associate General Counsel and Head of Patent Acquisitions at Meta. While he didn’t write The Ethical Imperative as a Meta person, it is still intriguing that one of Zuckerberg’s lawyers should be writing a book about corporate ethics, especially since he told me that corporations “should be in the business of social engineering”. But I’m not convinced. In my opinion, the business of social engineering should come from government. The ethical imperative of corporations is serve their investors & customers; while the ethical imperative of government is to serve their citizens. All else is business school happy talk.

Andrew Cooper is an internationally recognized executive leader and apologist for compassionate business practices. He led as a history-making first Millennial and Black executive to serve as General Counsel of UPS Airlines, the world’s largest logistics airline with over 20,000 employees in 220 countries. Cooper’s team was essential to the success of Operation Warp Speed, the United States’ pandemic vaccine relief effort. Cooper helps organizations regain and retain high performance through leadership transformation.

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

It’s ironic that Keith Teare, editor of That Was The Week newsletter, just spent two idyllic weeks in Europe, enjoying the Paris Olympics and London theater. Because his first newsletter on his return to the United States asks if “Is Europe Dying?” and suggests that innovation on the European continent has been killed by the regulatory bureaucratic state. More ominously, Keith argues, United States isn’t far behind Europe in the anti innovation regulation of state bureaucrats like the FTC Commissioner Lena Khan. So if we don’t watch out, Keith warns, we will soon be reading That Was The Week editorials asking if America is dying.

Keith Teare is the founder and CEO of SignalRank Corporation. Previously, he was executive chairman at Accelerated Digital Ventures Ltd., a U.K.-based global investment company focused on startups at all stages. Teare studied at the University of Kent and is the author of “The Easy Net Book” and “Under Siege.” He writes regularly for TechCrunch and publishes the “That Was The Week” newsletter.

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

Keen On is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

We are living in interesting political times. A month ago, the Presidential election appeared over. Today, however, it appears as if it’s barely begun. So in my conversation today with the prolific columnist David Masciotra, I asked him if he glimpsed the outlines of a “Harrisist” ideology behind the avalanche of Kamala memes on TikTok. Is the Harris excitement simply a repeat of the Obama mania from 2008, or has something fundamentally changed over the last fifteen years? Then, of course, there’s Trump and his weird cult of fake masculinity. What does the wrestling-mania of the Republican party tell us about the fate of young men in 2020’s America? And how can progressive patriots like Bruce Springsteen make the American left great again?

David Masciotra is an author, lecturer, and journalist. He is the author of I Am Somebody: Why Jesse Jackson Matters (I.B. Tauris, 2020), Mellencamp: American Troubadour (University Press of Kentucky), Barack Obama: Invisible Man (Eyewear Publishers, 2017), and Metallica by Metallica, a 33 1/3 book from Bloomsbury Publishers, which has been translated into Chinese. In 2010, Continuum Books published his first book, Working On a Dream: The Progressive Political Vision of Bruce Springsteen. His new book, Exurbia Now: Notes from the Battleground of American Democracy, was published by Melville House Books in 2024. Masciotra writes regularly for the New Republic, Washington Monthly, Progressive, the Los Angeles Review of Books, CrimeReads, No Depression, and the Daily Ripple. He has also written for Salon, the Daily Beast, CNN, Atlantic, Washington Post, AlterNet, Indianapolis Star, and CounterPunch. Several of his political essays have been translated into Spanish for publication at Korazon de Perro. His poetry has appeared in Be About It Press, This Zine Will Change Your Life, and the Pangolin Review.

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

Keen On is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

What do Hum, Hitler’s People and The Hypocrite have in common? They are all recommended new books from KEEN ON’s best read regular guest, Los Angeles Times book critic Bethanne Patrick. As usual, she recommends six books, but - whether you are looking for a magically realistic novel about the Dutch resistance to Nazism or new non-fiction on Putin’s Russia or the Scopes Trial - they all offer great late summer reading.

Bethanne Patrick maintains a storied place in the publishing industry as a critic and as @TheBookMaven on Twitter, where she created the popular #FridayReads and regularly comments on books and literary ideas to over 200,000 followers. Her work appears frequently in the Los Angeles Times as well as in The Washington Post, NPR Books, and Literary Hub. She sits on the board of the PEN/Faulkner Foundation and has served on the board of the National Book Critics Circle. She is the host of the Missing Pages podcast.

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

Keen On is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Last month, we were in western Virginia talking to the pioneering regenerative farmer Joel Salatin about how American can fix itself one bite at a time. Today we are on the other coast, in western Oregon, talking to another regenerative farmer, Mimi Casteel. In contrast with Salatin’s Polyface Farm, Casteel’s beautiful Hope Well vineyard focuses on the production of wine. And yet, as Casteel explains, she and Salatin share a faith in the regenerative role of the soil in reinventing American agriculture. This is the first part of a two part conversation with Casteel. Next week, in a KEEN ON America interview, she talks more expansively about her love of American nature and her responsibility, as a citizen, to pass it on to future generations of Americans.

Mimi is the daughter of Ted Casteel and Pat Dudley, co-founders of Bethel Heights Vineyard. Growing up working in the vineyard and winery, Mimi gained such an appreciation for the industry that she promptly left home after high school. Armed with a BA in History and Classics from Tulane University, Mimi spent the next year working in various National Forests across the west. Her adventures fueled her passion for studying botany, forestry, and ecology. Mimi earned her MS from Oregon State University in Forest Science, and spent the next several years working as a botanist and ecologist for the Forest Service, living in the backcountry. She could never get past the longing for the vineyard, and working with the vines. Mimi returned to Bethel Heights in 2005, along with her cousin and childhood best friend Ben to take the helm as second generation winegrowers and owners. In 2015 Mimi left Bethel Heights and began her Hope Well journey, building an island of biodiversity and resilience on her own 80-acre farm, growing grapes for others to support the farm, and making wines to give a voice to the process of regeneration. Firmly convinced that moving from conventional to regenerative agriculture on working lands is the most powerful tool humanity has to reverse climate change, the mission of Hope Well has been to help spread the word by example, one farm at a time. 2020 changed everything. In 2020 the climate delivered a clear personal message that there is no time left for a one-farm-at-a-time strategy to address the climate crisis. In 2021 Mimi made the hard decision to move Hope Well, the wine, the sheep, the chickens, the children, the philosophy, the entire ethos, to a much smaller, integrated farm that allows for the time and personal capacity to do the work that needs to be done now, building strategies and networks that can transform agriculture on a global scale while there is still time.

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

Keen On is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

In Nineteen Eighty-Four, which he wrote in 1948,George Orwell imagined the “Ministry of Truth” to be the central institution that Big Brother used to reinvent reality and make war on the recent past. Three quarters of a century later, Steve Benen, the Emmy award winning producer of the Rachel Maddow Show, revisits Nineteen Eighty-Four and sees the Republican party as a reincarnation of Orwell’s Ministry of Truth. In his eponymous new book, Benen argues that the raison d’etre of today’s GOP is to wage war on both reality and the recent past. Ontologically and historically, then, today’s Republican party has literally become Orwellian - a particularly chilling reality given that almost half of the American electorate will vote for Republican candidates in November.

Steve Benen is a producer on MSNBC's The Rachel Maddow Show and the author of The MaddowBlog. Benen's articles and op-eds have appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Monthly, The American Prospect, Salon.com, and other publications. He's also been a guest on several radio and television programs, including NPR's Talk of the Nation and MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann. For his work on TRMS, Benen has received two Emmy Awards, and he's been nominated for three more.

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

Keen On is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

As author of the authoritative three volume Third Reich Trilogy, Richard J. Evans is probably the most respected scholar of Hitler’s Third Reich in the world today. And his latest book, Hitler’s People, is an attempt to make all-too-human sense of Nazi lieutenants like Goebbels, Himmler, Eichmann and Streicher. It goes without saying of course, that these men were all monsters. But Evans is also interested in the human qualities of these Nazis. What he discovers, he told me, are ordinary middle class German faces lurking behind the masks of mass murderers. Any of us could have been on of Hitler’s people, he seems to be warning us. And in a contemporary age in which the murderous Nazi cult of racism and violence is creeping back into mainstream politics, Evans observations about the ordinariness of evil are particularly jarring.

Richard J. Evans is one of the world’s leading historians of modern Germany. He has served as Regius Professor of History at the University of Cambridge; president of Wolfson College, Cambridge; and provost of Gresham College in the City of London. He has received the Hamburg Medal for Art and Science for cultural services to the city, and the British Academy’s Leverhulme Medal and Prize, awarded for a significant contribution to the humanities or social sciences. In 2000, he was the principal expert witness in the David Irving Holocaust denial libel trial at the High Court in London, subsequently the subject of the film Denial. His books include Death in Hamburg (winner of the Wolfson History Prize), In Defence of History, The Coming of the Third Reich, The Third Reich in Power, The Third Reich at War, and The Pursuit of Power: Europe 1815–1914, volume 7 of the Penguin History of Europe. His most recent books are Eric Hobsbawm: A Life in History and The Hitler Conspiracies: The Third Reich and the Paranoid Imagination. In 2012, he was knighted for services to scholarship.

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

Keen On is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

In her new book, Freeman’s Challenge, the Harvard historian Robin Bernstein reveals the early 19th century origins of America’s for profit prisons. Telling the tragic story of William Freeman, an Afro-Native teenager guilty of what she calls the “terrorist” act of killing a white family, Bernstein simultaneously explores the origins of America’s first for profit prison in Auburn, NY. As she explains, there was and there still is an intimate connection between American incarceration and American capitalism - a chilling nexus which, for Bernstein, represents the import of slave “economics” into the for profit prison system.

Robin Bernstein is the Dillon Professor of American History and professor of African and African American studies and studies of women, gender, and sexuality at Harvard University. She is the author of Racial Innocence: Performing American Childhood from Slavery to Civil Rights.

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

Keen On is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

In an America riven with both civic discord and ignorance, how can we nurture a next generation of responsibly informed citizens? That’s the all important question Lindsey Cormack addresses in her new book, How to Raise a Citizen. There are no magical tricks to learning how to be a good citizen, Cormack says, no clever shortcuts or miraculous new technologies. Instead, it’s up to all of us to take responsibility for giving our kids the necessary knowledge to understand the workings of our democratic system. And that all begins at the local level, she insists, where the real business of American democracy gets done on a daily basis.

Lindsey Cormack is an associate professor of Political Science and Director of the Diplomacy Lab at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey. Her first book, Congress and U.S. Veterans: From the GI Bill to the VA Crisis investigates the differences between legislative efforts and lip service paid to veterans by members of the US Congress. Her second book, How to Raise a Citizen & Why it’s Up to You to Do It, aims to reinvigorate multigenerational political discussion and governmental know-how after examining the somewhat dire state of civic education in the United States. She earned her PhD in Government from New York University and is raising a daughter on the Upper East Side. She currently serves as the Secretary for Community Board 8 in Manhattan. Her research has been published in Political Behavior, Congress & the Presidency, Legislative Studies Quarterly, Political Science Research and Methods, American Politics Research, Politics & Policy, Politics Groups & Identities, Politics & Gender, The Journal of Gender Studies, Energy Economics, The Legislative Scholar as well as in popular outlets including the New York Times, The Washington Post, FiveThirtyEight, ProPublica, Roll Call, The New York Post, NBC News, the LSE USCentre, and The Hill, and more. She created and maintains the digital database of all official Congress-to-constituent e-newsletters in the DCinbox Project.

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

Keen On is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.