Transcript for "The Value of Democracy" with Dr. Karthick Ramakrishnan
Join our host Don MacPherson and Dr. Karthick Ramakrishnan as they discuss how democracy has enabled Americans to thrive over the last 240+ years. Dr. Ramakrishnan shares his “only in America” story, talks about how the United States, despite its challenges and problems, is a land of opportunity, and why democracy is an important reason for these opportunities.
Dr. Karthick Ramakrishnan has served in leadership roles that span academia, government, public policy, and philanthropy. He is currently a resercher at the University of California, Berkeley and director of AAPI Data, a nationally recognized publisher of demographic data and policy research on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. He is also Strategy Lead for the Americas at School of International Futures, and Senior Advisor at States for the Future.
This season of the podcast is in collaboration with Starts with Us. Starts with Us is an organization committed to overcoming extreme political and cultural division. Check them out at startswith.us.
Karthick Ramakrishnan: If you really get people to pause and think and ask about how do we build a better society, it is not about me getting my way or my party getting its way, it’s being solutions-oriented and use critical-thinking skills and to have the free exchange of ideas, and then be better-engaged citizens.
Don MacPherson: That is Karthick Ramakrishnan. Born in India, Karthick and his family moved to the United States when he was 12 years old. He’s gone on to become a political scientist and researcher at the University of California, Berkeley. He joined 12 Geniuses to discuss the value of American democracy.
My name is Don MacPherson, your host of 12 Geniuses. Heading into any election season can be divisive, and this year won’t be an exception. That’s why 12 Geniuses has partnered with Starts With Us on this season to help you navigate the upcoming election. Each expert guest provides critical insight to help listeners practice better habits when confronted with the election season rhetoric and discourse. The goal of this season is not to sway your vote, but rather to help you make informed decisions when you step into the voting booth.
In this episode, Karthick and I discuss the American dream and why democracy is critical to making the American dream possible. We go on to discuss the Founding Fathers and why America’s democracy has been so enduring. We finish by talking about how American democracy, with an active committed electorate, can last another 250 years. In addition to his role at UC Berkeley, Karthick Ramakrishnan is director of AAPI Data, a nationally recognized publisher of demographic data and policy research on Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders. He previously served as executive director of California 100.
Thank you to Starts With Us for their collaboration on this series. Starts With Us is an organization committed to overcoming extreme political and cultural division. Check them out at startswith.us.
Karthick, welcome to 12 Geniuses. Why don’t you start out by telling us about your journey to America. You came here when you were 12 years old. What was that journey like?
Karthick: Yeah. Well, thank you for having me. I am an immigrant to America. I’m what many sociologists would call part of the 1.5 generation here, which is I’m an immigrant, but I came at a time where I had spent part of my life in India, part of my childhood there, but then also the rest of my life really, first in Canada, and then the U.S. So, I came to the U.S. when I was 12. Prior to that, I actually moved to Canada when I was 10. I was born and raised in India until the age of 10. I grew up in South India, in Bangalore, which is often referred to as the Silicon Valley of India. It is a tech capital now. Back then it wasn’t. I was there in the 1970s through the mid-’80s.
It was known as the Garden City of India. And you still see some of these neighborhoods with a lot of trees and cooler weather, but it’s congested and heavily urbanized now compared to before. We moved to Canada and then the U.S. in search of opportunity as, I think, many immigrants do when they come to the United States. But at the time, we had concluded that we would be better off, or my parents had concluded that the next generation, that their children would be better off in America than staying in India.
Don: Were you even thinking about your future when this decision was being made because being 12 or 10 or 11, that’s probably not top of most people’s mind.
Karthick: Well, things are different in India. I mean, I still remember going to school. I mean, I’ll say that this is the middle class to upper middle class in India that we’re talking about in terms of my family background. But still, probably even back then, you’re talking about people maybe in the top quarter of the income distribution. So, it’s not the very elite in India. The kinds of education we got, I mean, school was serious. I mean, we had graded exams starting in first grade. I remember being ranked in my class, starting in first grade. So, the competitive nature of the education system and thinking about these high-stake exams, we had that awareness. I had that awareness starting in first grade.
Don: What does the American dream mean to you? Or how do you define the American dream?
Karthick: This is a rich question, right? The American dream is something that is, I think, very individual and personal to a lot of people. But it is also part of the founding of this country, right? Now, that said, it is a little complicated because part of the founding of this country was the instance of people fleeing religious persecution in England. That’s an important part of that story as a haven for refugees, if you will, right? People who felt oppression where they were and wanted to come to a new place to start anew and to have the freedom to be. That is just a powerful animating feature of what America is about. It’s complicated because there were Native Americans here. And so it was not a land that was free of people. At the time, you had a lot of these philosophers that talked about the state of nature and just thought of Native Americans as part of nature.
They didn’t own property, and therefore we could do whatever we wanted in this country. So, that’s the complicated part. But still that animating spirit is one of seeking freedom and the ability to thrive and to be who you are. That is true even today. It is seen as a land of opportunity, and a lot of it is because of the freedom and the ability to free yourself from a lot of the traditional constraints, say in Europe, that kept society and the economy from doing as much as it could. That was not necessarily the case in America — that you could write new rules and you could do new things. And that’s why even today when you look at entrepreneurs in America, this is why you see so many immigrants as entrepreneurs. That is part of the American dream.
Now, we need to make sure that that American dream is not just about the immigrant mindset, but something that is also true for people born in the U.S., whether you are the descendants of the Mayflower or the descendants of slaves. That’s part of what makes America so dynamic is to be able to hold different things together at the same time. That possibility, that sense of freedom, but also the sense of history and obligation and making things right when we’ve done things wrong.
Don: Is the American dream unique?
Karthick: First of all, America was the place, right? So, we moved to Canada for a couple years, but America was the ultimate destination because of the educational opportunities here or the economic opportunities, the sense of freedom. But Canada is another country that is very similar to the U.S. It’s similar in the sense that it has tremendous diversity by race, by religion, by immigrant origins, and a significant native population, right? But Canada’s not this kind of multicultural heaven either. When I moved to Canada when I was 10, I spoke… We learned English in India in the sense that it was the medium in which we learned anything, right? I went to an English medium school, but I spoke English with an accent.
And part of the assimilation process when I got to Canada was learning to lose my accent. And that is not a painless process. I don’t want to glorify a place like Canada, but Canada does have a commitment to multiculturalism, which I think is important and important to pay attention to. And a lot of that commitment to multiculturalism comes from the fact that you have Quebec, which is a French-dominant or French-speaking province. And so they’ve come up with all sorts of accommodations to make sure that they respect people of different cultures, and certainly people who speak French as opposed to English.
In addition to Canada, I would say, so in my travels and experiences and research, Australia is another country where you have a fair number of immigrants from Asia, from India, for example, that go there for educational opportunities and economic opportunities. And it’s a fairly open society. Now, all of these countries — the U.S., Canada, Australia — have all had their histories of closing their borders and being exclusionary, and then opening up again and closing up again. So, it’s something that’s actually common to these anglophone countries, right? These are all former British colonies. And I think that’s also helped my integration and the integration of so many Indian-Americans in the United States, in Canada, in Australia, and certainly in England is not only the fact that many of them speak English or go to school learning English before they come here, but there’s something about these Anglo American societies that are built with a purpose of assimilating people changing over time.
I mean, one of the things you’ll notice about the English language, American English, Canadian English, Australian English to some extent is that it changes over time based on who comes into the country, the kinds of foods they bring, the kinds of clothes they wear, the kinds of music they produce. You get a new kind of melting pot like phenomenon in each of these countries.
Don: And I think that makes us stronger.
Karthick: Yeah, absolutely. There’s a political philosopher, or a political scientist, Rogers Smith, who wrote this book called Civic Ideals, and what he says is that America has had essentially two major strands in what animates its politics and its social movement activity. One are all these civic ideals that you see in the Declaration that you see in the Constitution, right? Those are our noblest ideals. America, unlike most European countries, was built on a set of civic ideals. So, if you look at our nationalism, at least one major strand of that nationalism is a nationalism that is built on the idea, right? The idea of freedom and the idea of democracy and self-governance. And so that’s not a country whose nationalism is based on a religion like Christianity or a country whose nationalism is based on a race like Japan, right?
That is something very different about America, historically speaking, and that remains true to this day. At the same time, you also have this strand of ethnic nationalism and religious nationalism that sits in sometimes an uneasy tension with that. So, you had people fleeing religious persecution, but they were Christians. And in many of these colonies, they were trying to create a kind of religious utopia or community where they landed — the city upon the hill, which is great when you want to build a strong community where everyone is united and sharing a certain purpose and sharing a certain identity, but, almost inevitably, that changes and you start to get diversification.
And so then we need to figure out how are we going to get along? And thankfully, the U.S. has figured out, say, between Protestants and Catholics, how to get along better than what they figured out in England. But there are times where those things flare up. I mean, so if you talk about Protestants and Catholics, even before the concerns of today, say, the concerns about Mexican immigration or Central American immigration, the big concern in the mid-1800s was the “problem of Irish immigration,” and what Catholics would do to American society. In fact, if you look at part of the reason why we have such a strong public education system was because of the anxiety that many Protestants had about the growth of Catholic schools, and making sure that you had a more secular education that was not bound by any one religion. The tension flares up from time to time because there are those who feel that change is happening too fast or there are these unfamiliar people, and we need to either prevent more diversification or slow it down to allow assimilation to take place.
A lot of people don’t realize this — there’s all this talk about assimilation and Mexican-Americans or Latinos need to learn English. Well, first of all, most Latinos, if they’re born in the U.S., they speak English soon after they learn how to talk. And that’s the majority of Latinos in the U.S., by the way. But even if you’re an immigrant, there’s a consistent pattern, by the third generation, not only are people English dominant, they tend to forget their native language. There’s a saying from a sociologist, Alejandro Portes, that America is the graveyard for languages.
Don: Yeah, I think we get over this, actually. I think we move past immigrants as being the enemy. And you are right, we are moving too fast. Life is moving too fast. Change is moving too fast. But it’s technology and some social change that people are really having a difficult time getting a grip on. And the identifiable enemy is immigration. It’s not appropriate, but it’s where people are turning their heads right now because we can’t get a hold of, or we can’t slow down the technological innovation and some of these social changes. All around the world, I think right-wing leaders, strong leaders on the right are promising, “Hey, I’ll stop the change, or I’ll slow the change. We just need to stop these immigrants from coming in.” And that’s not the solution.
Karthick: Yeah. I mean, later on, we’ll talk about California 100 and this initiative that I led. In the course of doing that work, a lot of that work is about futures work about foresight. And I can say a little bit about what I learned as a scholar, as a practitioner in policy. I learned a lot during the two and a half years when we did that. Trying to understand the future, you also gain a deep appreciation of history in the kind of historical moment that we’re in. So, you hit the nail on the head, right? So, we are going through what many call the fourth industrial revolution, right? Yeah, the first industrial revolution, that was like early industrialization in England, and then you had later Industrial Revolution, right?
So, basically go from the mid-1800s to the late 1800s. That’s the second industrial revolution. A lot of people talk about the technology revolution with the rise of semiconductors and computing as the third industrial revolution. And now in the fourth industrial revolution, it’s the information economy, but especially now in hyperdrive when you talk about artificial intelligence and gene editing, right? Blurring a lot of the boundaries that we’ve taken for granted, not only for decades and centuries, but maybe even millennia; striking at the core of what it means to be human.
Don: Yeah. I think we’re in a position of designing our own evolution as a species, and that’s bigger than another Industrial Revolution. And a lot of people can’t get their heads around it. So AI, we have AI anxiety. You talked about gene editing. Yes, we can cure diseases by editing our genes, or many diseases will be eradicated because of that. And don’t even get started on quantum, the potential of quantum. In my opinion, we are evolving as a species, and a lot of people can’t get their heads around that…myself included.
Karthick: Absolutely. These kind of moments can be exciting moments, but they can also produce a tremendous amount of anxiety and, quite honestly, social dislocation, economic dislocation. So, I came to the U.S. when I was 12, went to high school in central Massachusetts, and then I went to Brown University for my bachelor’s degree. I still remember the first class I took was on religious life. I remember just fascinating looking at the rise of different religions and the role that religion plays in different societies. And one of the things I still remember is this notion of what they call anomie, A-N-O-M-I-E, right? And that’s the sense of losing a sense of meaning, right? That is a tremendous threat that we as individuals confront as well as societies, right?
And religion is there in part to give people that sense of larger meaning. And this threat of anomie is especially strong. People looked at it in the course of industrialization and urbanization, in Europe especially. But even in the U.S., you go from agricultural farm-based village economies to big cities. You show up to the big city and you need to find your place in that big city. Religion is part of it and nationalism is part of it too, that gives people a sense of purpose and gives people a sense of stability when there’s all this instability going around, right? And so, yes, we are at that moment. It doesn’t always end beautifully, but it might end okay. But the transition and the journey is often painful, and that’s what we’re experiencing now.
So, the work of foresight, which is, think of it as strategic planning to the next level, is to get people comfortable with conditions of high volatility and high uncertainty, right? And you just look in the last five years, we’ve had so many conditions of uncertainty and volatility that have manifested themselves, including COVID, for example, or war in Ukraine, or the war in Israel-Gaza right now. We are going through this phase of volatility, and part of it can be explained in terms of America, maybe no longer being the only superpower, and then you have the rivalry with China and with Russia and all these other things coming into the mix.
So, there is that kind of geopolitical context that matters. But this fundamental, whether you call it an industrial revolution or a phase in human evolution, thinking about humans and technology, that is creating so much disruption that people are looking for something they can hold on to that can give them a sense of stability and meaning. And the people who are providing the answers might not be the ones that are ultimately providing the solutions. But people are desperate right now to have that sense of stability and meaning.
Don: I want to bring us back to democracy and ask you what your definition of democracy is.
Karthick: Democracy is a system where the people decide, right? Rule by the people as opposed to rule by a monarch or rule by elites. Now, in the context of the U.S., you have direct democracy. Like in California, Washington state, many western states have systems of direct democracy that sit alongside representative democracy. So you can put up a question and the people decide.
Don: These are the propositions?
Karthick: Propositions, right. So, you get to write law in many of these states, or even the constitution in many of these states. You can amend the Constitution through ballot propositions. But the dominant form of democracy that we have in the U.S. and many other parts of the world is representative democracy, right? Where you elect a set of people and you expect them to reflect your wishes, but you also expect them to use their best judgment and skills to make the right decision.
And then you will have some regular interval to vote them out of office. Now, nothing in this definition of democracy says anything about parties. And in fact, when the founders came up with our version of democracy, they did not have the language to talk about parties. The closest you see in The Federalist Papers is talk of faction, right? Already you were seeing that there were some differences of opinion that were emerging, but there was nothing in the form of a party. But then, subsequently, parties arose. And this is a really fascinating story when you look at it, when you ask, “How did political parties come about?” And turns out that they came about in Congress. That’s where the political party system first started. Because you had these members that had their…
You had the federalists and anti-federalists, but they weren’t parties. They had a general orientation. It was when they had to come together to pass laws, and they found that, you know what? There’s a certain set of people that consistently feel like they’re voting in the same way across issue areas. And so you started to see the formation of parties, the Jeffersonian Republicans, for example, as the start of the party system. Back then in America, democracy was an elite affair. You need to be a white male owning property to participate. And even then, a lot of the decisions were being made in Congress. Where you saw a lot of what happens in democracy was in that representative body. Later on, with the rise of the mass party system, Andrew Jackson is part of that, Martin Van Buren, and then it continues after that is, as they expand the vote, the franchise, you start getting parties out in the electorate, right?
And parties develop platforms. They develop identities. And so a lot of democracy, which is not only about the ability to vote people in and out, but to have competing choices, comes about and it gets structured over time with the political party system. That’s a system that we have for the most part. There are places in America local elections, including in many of these Western states where local elections or non-partisan elections. You do not have a party label that is attached to the person. And so then people try to use other ways to figure out who they’re going to vote for if they don’t have a party label to figure out where you might stand on an issue.
Don: Yeah. It seems to me that the parties were created for efficiency sake, and now we use them exclusively for efficiency and to use them really to decide for us or think for us. And that’s where things get a little dangerous. And so maybe that’s a jumping off point to your opinions around why American democracy has been so enduring. Today (the date this interview was recorded) is July 2nd. We’re going to be celebrating the 248th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence in a couple of days. And that’s remarkable. So, what do you account, or what do you attribute to America’s enduring democracy?
Karthick: Yeah, there are a few factors at play here. One, you can look at the genius of the founders in terms of thinking about how they want to design something that can serve the immediate purpose they had, which is to build a stronger government. So this goes beyond the Declaration, right? You look at the Constitution, right? Build a constitution that overcomes a lot of the limitations that they found with their first attempt at this kind of confederacy arrangement. And so, part of the strength of democracy is building stronger institutions than just a loose collection of states trying to figure something out and having a very weak national government. But having that imbalance with thinking about states and the importance that states play, right?
Federalism is part of that story of what has made American democracy resilient over time, even though, at times, federalism has been a problem as well in terms of oppressing people and suppressing human rights within particular states or in an entire section of the country. But federalism has been one of those safety valve mechanisms where you don’t put all the power in the federal government, but you don’t put all the power in state government either. So, it’s that balance that has helped our country stand the test of time. Or, at least our political system, stand the test of time. But you also have what they call civil society. This is de Tocqueville when he comes to America in the early 1800s. He comes from France. He thinks he wants to understand American democracy, especially for what it could mean for France.
And instead of paying attention to the formal institutions, he is really struck by all of the robust voluntary associations and civic life in America, and all of the different clubs, the religious institutions that make democracy work at the local level. And so that’s an important part of the democracy story that very few people talk about. Because when we think about democracy, we think about voting and we think about political institutions, and we don’t often think about religious associations. I mean, Robert Putnam, Bob Putnam wrote that Bowling Alone, which I think got us to take those associations more seriously. But a lot of that attention seems to have gotten away. And this is where I think technology comes in too, right? When you look at virtual communities, are they the same as the bowling leagues and the Rotary clubs and the chambers of commerce?
Yeah, maybe some pieces of it. But often what you’re seeing now, if you can have these things like support groups, absolutely. But what you’re finding in online communities is what you’re also finding more generally in our media landscape, which is strong polarization by ideology and kind of centralization, right? You have a few big players that are really, if not controlling, at least channeling a lot of the information flow that happens. And we’re creating, or at least we see the conditions for really strong social divisions that are hard to bridge now. For example, if you look at the media landscape, news media is an important part of democracy. And when you look at the thousands of newspapers that have gone out of business in the last two decades, that has been a challenge for our local democracy because now citizens don’t know what’s going on in city hall. They don’t know what’s going on in county government.
And even in the places where those newspapers exist, most of the news content is national news and some state news, right? And when you have strong partisanship at the national level and the state level, that does very little to tell you what kind of problems need to be solved at the local level.
Don: I want to ask you about the flourishing of Americans because I believe personally that we live in a world of abundance. You live in a world of abundance. I live in a world of abundance. Not every citizen in the world does, but we are on the precipice of creating abundance for all — all 8 billion people. That’s what I truly believe. And I believe democracy is critical and has been critical for creating this abundance or this flourishing of Americans, flourishing in Western Europe, and throughout the world. Why is it that democracy has been so critical to creating this abundance?
Karthick: You make a passionate plea for it, and I think it has a lot going for it. But there are people in this world, leaders, and even countries that have different theories about how you get communities to thrive. If you look at the model in China, for example, you can call it communism, but largely it’s state-controlled capitalism. And so you have a lot of restrictions both on the business side of things as well as on individual liberties. But the bargain seems, to me, it seems to be that if you’re able to pick up the trash, if you’re able to keep the cities clean, I mean, this is the Singapore model too, right? That if you’re able to provide these things, like people don’t need to vote, they don’t need to decide who their leaders are. If you just provide people what they need and maintain social order, then you don’t need to worry about the political system and to allow democracy to happen. So, for a while-
Don: Yeah, I don’t disagree, but let me just push back a little bit because abundance might mean affluence, and I’m really more interested in flourishing, which is you have a place to rest your head, you can go to school if you want to go to school, but you have choices around who you are, freedom to choose. I think that’s a really, really important and critical part to America’s success and democracy’s success as opposed to China or maybe others, some other countries who have done well financially around the world.
Karthick: Absolutely, yeah. It’s good that we’re like digging into what does it mean to thrive and what does it mean to flourish, right? Is it just about meeting those basic needs or even those higher-end needs?
Don: We should be beyond that. I know, in 2024.
Karthick: Yeah. But even say those higher-end needs, some people might think of those luxuries, but what you are pointing out too is the ability to choose is a fundamental aspect of what it means to flourish, right?
Don: Yes.
Karthick: And so, yes, if that is in the definition, absolutely you need to have a robust democracy in order for that to happen. Now, it doesn’t mean, right? So, even in the democratic system that we have, part of the reason why we have representative democracy is that people might not be the best suited to decide on everything. For example, what should the interest rate in the United States be? It’s not clear that you and I are best situated to make that decision. But that’s one of the big debates we’re having right… Well, we’re having it to some extent. But one of the big debates we saw certainly with President Trump when he was in office is how much should you have bureaucracies that are insulated or independent of representative democracy or popular control. And that we thought that we had the answer for close to a century, right? We went through the Great Depression, it’s like, take the punch bowl away from the politicians. Do not allow them the ability to manipulate interest rates because then you’re going to get to economic disaster.
I think certainly having, I would say individual freedoms, yes, but a big part of American democracy that de Tocqueville talks about is also our sense of obligation to each other. It’s not just the freedoms. Because if you have freedoms without any sense of obligation and commitment, then it just becomes a free-for-all. You don’t really build a robust society when you do that.
Don: Yeah. And democracy is a contact sport. It has to be a contact sport. There has to be responsibility, there has to be duty involved in there. It’s not like watching television where it’s one directional. It has to be two directional or multi-directional.
Karthick: Yeah. It is not a spectator sport, and it is not something that you cast your ballot and you’re done and you just walk away, right? It does require people’s engagement. The thing I would say, and I think you mentioned we’re at the 248th year. In two years, we’ll be at the 250th. So, a lot of people are thinking about, how do we commemorate American democracy and what it’s meant. I’m thinking about the next century, the next 250 years, right?
Don: Same.
Karthick: Yeah. And what I would say is, so this is an idea of had, I would say for about four or five years now, and I’d love to just mention it here in this podcast. And if there’s anyone whose game to do something about it, I would love to find not just a partner, but any and all partners. I have this as it’s beyond the kernel of an idea now. It’s germinated. The seed has germinated, but I need to find investors, I need to find partners. And it’s this idea of thinking about a companion document to the Declaration of Independence, and to think about a declaration of intra-dependence.
Don: Oh, I like that.
Karthick: Right?
Don: Talk more about this.
Karthick: This notion of intra-dependence, the Declaration of Independence was heavily built on John Locke and liberal theory from Europe. That’s where that comes from. And it just swept aside anything about native knowledge and this sense of community and interdependence between each other. A lot of it is about property and contracts. I’ve got my piece, and society will be better off if everyone has their piece, right? And then you have Adam Smith with the invisible hand. Everything will work out. And we’ve known for a while that everything doesn’t always work out. You have negative externalities like pollution. You have other things like, yeah, especially say with climate change, there are things each individual might do where society gets harmed as a result.
But we haven’t had this notion of intra-dependence, and that’s something that has been foundational to native societies, not just in the U.S. but elsewhere. It’s also been fundamental to so many European traditional cultures. This notion that our fates are interlinked. This, to me, came up powerfully during the pandemic. The reason why I have to worry about being sick is not just what happens to me, but the fact that I might get you sick and that you might die, right? That notion of intra-dependence. You see that in terms of our planet. We would love to just grow as much as possible and not worry, and maybe blame other countries that are not doing enough to address their pollution targets. But we only got one planet, at least for now. I don’t know how many people are going to be living on Mars. So, we have to figure this out.
But I say this as a companion document because, of course, that individual liberty and freedom is core to what it takes to succeed and thrive. But if you don’t have that sense of intra-dependence, that’s when you potentially devolve into individual selfishness and not at all about the kind of community that you’re building. So, that’s my hope, and I hope that we can be future-looking and that we can be authors of our future, right? Think like the founders, they were futurists.
Don: Without a doubt.
Karthick: They didn’t know what America would look like 20, 30, a hundred years from then, but they did the best they could to create a system that could bring the best out of all of us. And I don’t think it disrespects those founders at all. In fact, it follows in that tradition for us to think about, how do we, and especially given the technological changes that are going on, how can we build the next version of our democracy that we can be proud of and that can serve our children, our children’s children, and future generations to come?
Don: I love that. Let’s end on this — where do you see America’s democracy being most vulnerable?
Karthick: I’ll still go with the fourth industrial revolution here, right? Our information environment is both fragmented and polarized and also disconnected from the day-to-day lived experience of people in the communities where they live, where they work, where they recreate, where they go to church. And that is worrisome because when you don’t have that fundamental set of bearings about what are the problems that we face, but what are the solutions that we need to have, when we don’t have the ability to have that problem-solving mindset and working with people no matter what their backgrounds or beliefs might be, that makes it very difficult. America has, for centuries, had this reputation of being very pragmatic, very solutions-oriented, and not being so stuck on ideology that you think you know all the answers.
But now we have a media environment, and not just what’s on television or radio, but a lot of it what’s on our screens, where we can just be in our own little thought bubbles and feel like what’s most important is to maintain the boundaries of our tribe, as it were, as opposed to solve our problems. That is what I see as the biggest threat to our democracy. The second-biggest threat I would say is not the threat of authoritarianism as people marching in with tanks, it’s the quiet authoritarianism, which is, “I will solve your problem so you don’t need to get involved.” This is where I think investing in our young people is so important. And, hopefully, then they can teach us how to be better. And I say this with a couple of kids in high school, as they grow older, there’s this temptation that just starts getting hard at setting your ways and thinking that you’re right.
And so the critical-thinking ability, the ability to negotiate and compromise is so important. And that’s one thing, I’ll say. We just did a survey at AAPI Data. It’s a virtual think tank that I built over 10 years ago. We just did a survey on education opinions among Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. So, a lot of people might think, oh, Asian Americans, they think about education in terms of the hard skills that you learn and the kinds of good jobs that you will get. And certainly, those things matter, that comes out in the survey data. But what also ranks very high is the critical-thinking skills, the free exchange of ideas and becoming a more engaged citizen. That made me very happy and I felt reassured that at least with that segment of the population that I identify with, and it’s the fastest-growing racial group in America, but I think this is true more generally.
If you really get people to pause and think and ask about how do we build a better society, it is not about me getting my way or my party getting its way, it’s being solutions-oriented and use critical thinking skills and to have the free exchange of ideas and then be better engaged citizens.
Don: This is a great place to stop. Thank you for your time, and thank you for being a genius.
Karthick: Thank you for having me.
Don: Thank you for listening to 12 Geniuses. In the next episode of this series on the 2024 election, I interview retired U.S. Marine Corps, Colonel Vance Cryer. Vance and I discussed the true threats to American democracy. He points out the obvious foreign adversaries like China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran, but it’s the tools these enemies are using to delegitimize American democracy that might be the most surprising part of our conversation. If you are learning from and enjoying the podcast, please share it with others who might find value in it, and please consider rating the show on your favorite podcast app. Thanks for listening, and thank you for being a genius.