Description:
How to Save Democracy is a collection of 423 instructive quotations derived from the First International Summit for Democracy.
Brief description: Eli Merritt is a historian at Vanderbilt University who has written political commentary for the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Seattle Times, USA Today, Chicago Tribune, and Philadelphia Inquirer, among other news outlets. He writes a newsletter called American Commonwealth that explores the origins of the United States' political discontents and solutions to them. Trained in history, ethics, medicine, and psychiatry, he has served on medical ethics committees at Vanderbilt and Stanford. His academic specialties are ethical leadership in democracy, the intersection of demagogues and democracy, and the politics of the founding era of the United States. He is the editor of The Curse of Demagogues: Lessons Learned from the Presidency of Donald J. Trump and the author of Disunion Among Ourselves: The Perilous Politics of the American Revolution. Find Eli online at elimerritt.com and elimerritt.substack.com.
Review Quotes:
The forces of authoritarianism, both at home and abroad, are staging a concerted assault on democracy, one of the most aggressive attacks on freedom that we have experienced since World War II. From the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol to the brutal Russian invasion of Ukraine, the enemies of democracy have made their objectives plain. Americans and others around the world must join forces to protect democracy, and reading How to Save Democracy is a good place to start to fight back.
---James Risen, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Last Honest Man: The CIA, the FBI, the Mafia and the Kennedys--and one Senator's Fight to Save Democracy
At a time when democracies around the world are under assault, How to Save Democracy reminds us that ethical leadership and moral courage form the backbone of democracies that survive and thrive. Unsparing in cataloging the challenges and threats confronting democracy today, this book is a source of hope and inspiration for all who care about preserving and strengthening our democracy.
--Nancy-Ann DeParle, assistant to the president and deputy chief of staff for policy for President Barack Obama (2011-2013)
We have all heard--certainly after Jan. 6, 2021--that we cannot take democracy for granted. But what does that mean in practice? As Eli Merritt shows in this slim, powerful volume, it means enacting and defending a specific set of human values and ensuring that there is accountability whenever those values are attacked. By quoting today's world leaders on the importance of democracy, Merritt has performed an invaluable service: to hold the powerful to their word, while holding the rest of us--the people--responsible for protecting the best system of government yet devised.
--Jesse Wegman, member of the New York Times editorial board and author of Let the People Pick the President