United to Preserve Democracy

Historian Benjamin Carter Hett and author of "The Death of Democracy: Hitler's Rise to Power and the Downfall of the Weimar Republic," is a leading expert on fascism, the alarmingly rapid decline of German democracy, and Hitler's rise to power. In this video, he discusses the future of American Democracy and the lessons we can learn from history.

Join us for an insightful conversation on democracy, the rule of law, and the future of America! This event, hosted by United to Preserve Democracy and the Rule of Law, features a discussion between Benjamin Carter Hett and democracyFIRST Executive Director, Jordan Wood. 🔍 What You’ll Learn: ✅ The biggest threats to democracy in the U.S. and globally ✅ How history helps us understand modern democratic decline ✅ What Americans can do to protect democracy and the rule of law

Richard Primus works with constitutional law on the state level as well as the federal level. He has helped state governmental agencies, nonprofit organizations, His writing has appeared in many leading law reviews as well as in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Politico, The New Republic, and Foreign Affairs. Opinions of the justices of the US Supreme Court have cited his scholarship.

The United to Preserve to Democracy and the Rule of Law speaker series event is a conversation with Harvard Professor Daniel Ziblatt and former Pennsylvania Congressman Conor Lamb. The event is co-sponsored by DemocracyFIRST and was recorded in Harrisburg, PA.

Daniel Ziblatt is a historian, expert on democracy, and the author of four books, including How Democracies Die (2018), co-authored with Steven Levitsky, a New York Times best-seller and described by The Economist magazine as “the most important book of the Trump era.” In 2023, he published Tyranny of the Minority, also with Steve Levitsky. The book is an analysis of American democracy in comparative perspective, also a New York Times bestseller.

This United to Preserve Democracy and the Rule of Law event, sponsored by democracyFIRST, features Jason Stanley. Stanley is a Professor of Philosophy at Yale University and the author of How Propaganda Works and How Fascism Works.

Anne Applebaum is a staff writer for The Atlantic and a Pulitzer-prize winning historian. She is also a Senior Fellow at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and the SNF Agora Institute.

This United to Preserve: Democracy and the Rule of Law event, sponsored by democracyFIRST and features Jonathan Alter, an award-winning author, political analyst, documentary filmmaker, columnist, television producer, and radio host. The moderated discussion with Montgomery County Commissioner Neil Makhija.

On Wednesday, October 9th, democracyFIRST hosted an event with former House GOP Conference Chair Liz Cheney and former Trump White House aides Alyssa Farah Griffin, Cassidy Hutchinson, and Sarah Matthews about the historic threats facing American democracy in 2024 and the importance of a broad cross-partisan coalition united to protect the future of our republic, Constitution, and the Rule of Law.

Barbara F. Walter is one of the world’s leading experts on civil wars, violent extremism and domestic terror. She is the author of five books and dozens of articles on these subjects and is a contributor to CNN, MSNBC, ABC, NBC, the BBC and the PBS NewsHour. She has written for The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Time, The New Republic, Reuters and Foreign Affairs.

She is a permanent member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a TED2023 speaker. Her most recent book on civil wars, New York Times bestseller “How Civil Wars Start and How to Stop Them,” was named the best book of the year by The Times (UK), and one of the best books of the year by the Financial Times, Esquire and Prospect Magazine. The New York Times Book Review called the book “Required reading for anyone invested in preserving our 246-year experiment in self-government.”

Historian Timothy Snyder and author of the books "On Tyranny" and "On Freedom" is a leading expert on fascism and the threat authoritarians pose to the future of American Democracy and the Rule of Law. In this video, he discusses the future of American Democracy and alarming rise of Authoritarianism with Timothy Snyder and Stephen Marche. 📌 Join us for an insightful conversation on democracy, the rule of law, and the future of America! This event, hosted by United to Preserve Democracy and the Rule of Law, features a discussion between Timothy Snyder—author of "On Tyranny"—and Stephen Marche. Recorded in Kalamazoo, Michigan, this event is co-sponsored by DemocracyFIRST.

🔍 What You’ll Learn:

✅ The biggest threats to democracy in the U.S. and globally

✅ How history helps us understand modern democratic decline

✅ What Americans can do to protect democracy and the rule of law

Ruth Ben-Ghiat is a Professor of History and Italian Studies at New York University. She writes about fascism, authoritarianism, propaganda, and the threats these present to democracies around the world.

Her most recent book, Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present, looks at how illiberal leaders use propaganda, corruption, violence, and machismo, and how they can be defeated.

She writes for CNN, The Economist, The New Yorker, The Washington Post, and The Atlantic. She has appeared in many documentaries about dictators and threats to democracy, such as Netflix’s How To Become a Tyrant and PBS’s The Dictators’ Playbook.