Manny’s: Can American Democracy Survive Today’s Polarized Politics?

American democracy is in trouble. At the heart of the contemporary crisis is a mismatch between America’s Constitution and today’s nationalized partisan politics.

This mismatch makes the U.S. acutely vulnerable to an authoritarian movement emerging in the contemporary Republican Party, which has both the motive and the means to exploit America’s unusual Constitutional design.

Come learn about the challenges facing American democracy – and potential pathways out of the present crisis – from Eric Schickler, Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley, who will draw from his new book, co-authored with Paul Pierson, Partisan Nation: The Dangerous New Logic of American Politics in a Nationalized Era (University of Chicago Press, 2024).

The framers of the U.S. Constitution hoped that the system they designed would prevent intense and durable partisan polarization, and political analysts long believed the Constitution had in fact become a solid bulwark against it. Today, however, we need to ask: Can our constitutional order function effectively amid this polarized politics? Can it even survive?