“The number one tool that autocratic actors have is not voter suppression or gerrymandering. It’s making you feel alone and isolated.” — Skye Perryman
Three years ago, the president and CEO of Democracy Forward Skye Perryman came on the show to wonder what our kids will one day ask us about what we did to confront authoritarianism in America. Now she returns with an answer in the form of her New York Times bestselling Ordinary People, Extraordinary Times about how Americans can reclaim their power, fight for freedom, and reimagine democracy.
Her diagnosis is pretty dark. Reminding us that America joined the list of backsliding democracies in 2021, Perryman warns that this descent into authoritarianism is rapidly accelerating. But her central argument inverts the gloom. Hopelessness is a feature, she reminds us, not a bug of our extraordinary times. So, rather than voter suppression or gerrymandering, the number one tool that autocratic actors have is making us feel alone and isolated.
Thus her call to agency. She prescribes seven actions including what she calls “information sobriety.” We don’t all have to do everything, she says, but everyone needs to do something. She ends where we began three years ago — with the kids. Skye Perryman dedicates the new book to her son as a way, I suspect, of telling him what she has been doing to confront authoritarianism in America. Ordinary people in extraordinary times, indeed.
Five Takeaways
• A Generational Threat. America joined the backsliding-democracies list in 2021 and the slide is accelerating — with a Supreme Court reversing rights and thirteen presidential libraries sounding the alarm.
• Neither Adjunct Nor Partisan. Clinton and Abrams blurbed — so did Michael Steele. The standard is conduct, not party: “he can’t jail journalists for what they report. He can’t kill Americans in the middle of the street.”
• Is It Evil? Previewing this week’s Susan Neiman episode: judged by deeds, “I’m with you there” — but label acts, not every individual. And no backsliding democracy has U-turned without truth and accountability.
• Hopelessness Is a Feature, Not a Bug. The autocrat’s best tool is isolation, and doomscrolling is the trap perfected — it feels like engagement and works like sedation. Stop spiraling. Pick up a shovel.
• Everyone Needs to Do Something. Information sobriety, community over despair, and a creed of proportion: we don’t all have to do everything. Democracy begins at your front door — and the book is dedicated to her son.
About Keen On America
Nobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen.
Website: https://keenon.tv/ Substack: https://keenon.substack.com/ YouTube: https://youtube.com/@KeenOnShow
Buy Ordinary People, Extraordinary Times: penguinrandomhouse.com
Chapters:
00:00:30 Introduction: three years later, extraordinary times
00:02:02 What’s extraordinary? A generational threat
00:03:17 The blurber question: partisan or principled?
00:05:16 The backsliding list: accelerating since 2021
00:07:36 “That’s just democracy”: the MAGA argument answered
00:10:13 Is the Trump movement evil? Previewing Susan Neiman
00:12:31 Hopelessness: a feature, not a bug
00:14:49 Action one: stop spiraling, pick up a shovel
00:15:59 Action two: achieve information sobriety
00:17:46 News versus commentary: where disinformation begins
00:20:05 One day everyone will have always been against this
00:21:47 What does “fight” mean for people with lives?
00:23:28 The kids’ corner: democracy begins at your front door
00:25:18 An optimistic book for dark times