With many people feeling that democratic norms are under attack in the United States, both the power of the American voter to shift policy and a robust election infrastructure are greater than the public might believe, two noted observers of the political scene said in an April 16 discussion sponsored by the Rockefeller Center and Dartmouth Dialogues.
“Is democracy going to be salient in the next series of elections? The answer is yes. Democracy is going to matter to people. Civil rights are going to matter to people at the moment they feel actually threatened,” said New York Times columnist, author, and podcaster Ezra Klein.
And despite the deep political divisions in the U.S., a belief in the rule of law and the resilience of democracy is key to the outcome of the 2026 and 2028 elections, said Heather Gerken, president of the Ford Foundation and former dean of Yale Law School.
“People are letting themselves be talked into the idea that the election will be stolen, that we can’t do anything about it, then it’s totally vulnerable. This is just wrong. It is a pretty sturdy system. There are a lot of protections in there. So just to say to everyone, keep calm, and move forward with the election system,” Gerken said.
But if the Democratic Party wants to regain power at the federal level, it will have to radically adjust how it talks and listens to voters, and actually deliver on policies that the American public says are important to them, Gerken and Klein told the audience of 220 at the Top of the Hop, with 180 watching online.
The discussion on the future of American democracy, part of the Law and Democracy: The United States at 250 speaker series, was co-sponsored by the Hopkins Center for the Arts, the Dartmouth Political Union, the Office of the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and the Office of the Associate Dean for the Social Sciences.
Russell Muirhead, Robert Clements Professor of Democracy and Politics and co-director of the Political Economy Project, moderated the event with Grace Wilkins ’26, a member of the Dartmouth Political Union.
While the Democratic Party had success in the 2018 midterm election and the 2020 presidential election, “what failed is what Democrats did when they won back power. It was what happened in ’22 and ’24 that led enough of the country to say, let’s give the Trump guys a chance again,” said Klein, co-author of the 2025 bestseller Abundance that analyzed some of the failures of government.
The Democratic Party, Klein said, has been so focused on process that it overlooked how it could more quickly effect positive outcomes in affordability, health care, and the economy. Saddled with an aging President Joe Biden who, over his term, seemed increasingly diminished as a public presence, the party neglected to vigorously sell such achievements as the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021.
“Communicating with the American people is not an annoying thing you have to do around the crucial work of governing. It is part of democracy. So, yes, you have to deliver, and you have to be seen delivering,” Klein said, citing New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani as a politician who, although still early in his career, has continually and successfully interacted with the public through social media.
Should the Democratic party swing to the left or the right or the center? Klein said his answer to that was, yes to all. Build a bigger tent. Realize that campaign tactics that work in one state may not work in another.
“The uncomfortable reality is that Democrats know how to win elections in New York. They know how to win them in California. They have to relearn how to win them in Nebraska,” Klein said.
Gerken said she could not think of any sector “where the advice that you need to build a bigger tent is not true, and I would say that on both sides of the aisle.”
As a legal scholar and teacher, Gerken said that while at Yale she told her students to give her the facts of a case, and then argue the case from different positions.
“That is really good training. It allows lawyers to do a little bit better job of avoiding polarization. And I would say judges have done a better job of avoiding polarization than almost any other branch” of government, Gerken said.
In her experience, people across the political spectrum are all involved in preserving American election integrity. “I think there’s a way in which people, especially in a progressive bubble, get themselves wrapped up into thinking that something terrible is going to happen. And it’s a war against the other side. But there are a lot of people who care deeply about having our election system function, and they are working out there,” Gerken said.
In response to questions from the moderators and the audience, Gerken and Klein also discussed how to institute campaign finance reform and eliminate gerrymandering. Both found the Electoral College to be problematic, and Klein also favored terms limited for Supreme Court justices.
Toward the end of the discussion, Gerken rallied to the defense of American colleges and universities after a student asked about a new report from Yale on waning public trust in higher education.
Gerken said she is not speaking for Yale, but emphasized, “Universities are magic.”
The American system of higher education, which has long drawn people from all over the world to study here, is “one of the incredibly rare places in the United States where people who disagree with one another actually interact day to day and are forced to not just talk together, but live together. I think sometimes people forget that,” Gerken said.
When people criticize American universities, Gerken said, her first question is, “When was the last time you had a conversation with someone with whom you radically disagree? When was the last time you were in a classroom where someone was pushing you on your belief? When was the last time you read a book that you disagreed with? That’s what universities are built for.”
After the discussion, Catie Stukel ’24, who is a first-year student at the Geisel School of Medicine, said the talk was exciting. “The beauty of an institution like Dartmouth is that it allows you to step into these spaces and engage with such phenomenal, renowned speakers in such an amazing way.”
