Preserving Democracy: Pursuing a More Perfect Union

The January 6 Capitol Riots revealed that democracy is more fragile than many realized. Historian Joanne Freeman and journalist Jelani Cobb discuss the ongoing conflicts American democracy faces in the aftermath of those riots.

Follow the pursuit of democracy from the Revolutionary War through recurring cycles of civil rights progress and backlash, the 2021 Capitol riot and beyond. Explore the impact of voter rights and a civics curriculum on engaged and informed citizens.

Representative Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) Discusses January 6, 2021 with Margaret Hoover, host of PBS' "Firing Line with Margaret Hoover." He explains that in the days before the deadly riot at the United States Capitol, he was getting death threats and other threatening messages that directly targeted him.

Experts discuss one of American democracy’s biggest vulnerabilities: race relations. This isn’t solely a contemporary tension within our democracy; it’s been present since the founding of the country, then a young nation deeply invested in the slave trade. Racial divisions were written into American laws; racial violence was tolerated.

The U.S. wasn’t the first democracy, nor is it the first nation to have issues with it. Struggles are inherent to the democratic process, experts explain, and America is at a critical turning point. “Very few countries have had stable democratic rule for a long time,” says Princeton Historian David Bell. “Democracy can be very fragile.”

Experts discuss the extraordinary tool of accountability voting can be. But for a long time in America, that right was only available to a select group of people—and this was by design. The ability to vote was and is one of the most powerful non-violent tools citizens can use to change their everyday lives. “The fiercest fights of our history have been to keep other people from voting.”

“Mobs trying to overturn democratic elections are not necessarily new in American history, but it has happened enough that we have to realize it's a symbol of a problem with democracy,” says Columbia University Eric Foner. “Or, a problem with people accepting the legitimacy of everybody having a say in our political democratic system.”

President George Washington famously warned against forming political parties, cautioning the nation in his farewell speech as he left office. He predicted that they would sew divisions within America that foreign enemies could manipulate or take advantage of. Today, experts warn of the increasing danger of political parties not immediately accepting election outcomes.

India, Brazil, Poland, Hungary, Hong Kong, and other states throughout the world have in recent years seen an erosion of democracy as populist leaders take control of countries, both through elections or sometimes through violent coups. “You've seen countries that had tentatively reached towards democracy after the fall of communism, most importantly, Russia, which have fallen back."

Experts discuss how the American Revolution united the states against the common enemy of the British monarchy, versus how Abraham Lincoln’s election and the Civil War brought our democracy and the nation to its brink. “They didn't claim that Lincoln hadn't really won and had stolen the votes,” says Eric Foner. “They just said, we don't accept this.”

As new levels of connectivity impact and distort political conversations and participation, experts examine how new media and social media are changing politics and journalism as we know it. “Conflict and upheaval and even violence, I think, go hand in hand with a kind of lawless informational space where people don't really know the same truth,” says Johns Hopkins Historian Lilliana Mason.