Bipartisan Coalition Convened to Formulate and Advance Short- and Long-term Responses to These Threats
NEW YORK – On July 23, leading thinkers from across the ideological spectrum joined hundreds of Americans for a day-long summit, Autocracy in America: A Warning and A Response. The past few weeks have made it clear that there is an urgent need to focus on the autocratic threat to our nation. Leading legal, political, and academic experts were motivated by their shared confidence in the American experiment, and in the capacity of the American people, to transcend this challenge as they have transcended others throughout history.
The event was co-hosted by Principles First, State Democracy Defenders Action and Democracy Forward, in partnership convening co-chairs Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Ty Cobb, Norm Eisen, Bill Kristol, Heath Mayo and Skye Perryman.
Speakers included George Conway, John Dean, Charlie Dent, Keith Ellison, David Frum, Nancy Gertner, Bob Kagan, Allegra Lawrence-Hardy, Dahlia Lithwick, Sarah Longwell, J. Michael Luttig, Joanna Lydgate, Sarah Matthews, Norm Ornstein, Michael Podhorzer, Asha Rangappa, Jen Rubin, Olivia Troye, Joe Walsh and Maya Wiley.
The day-long series of panels was preceded by a press conference. Included below are select quotes from the conference co-chairs and panelists. If you would like to learn more about the conference or to be connected with the speakers, please reach out to marion@statedemocracydefenders.org.
Select Quotes from Autocracy in America: A Warning and A Response
“This is an anti-autocracy conference because autocracy is what we are looking at if Donald Trump comes back to the White House. I know there are many Americans who feel this might be exaggerated, even after MAGA tried to overthrow the government. In my line of work, this is called a coup attempt, and somehow a lot of people have forgotten about this. Project 2025 is a recipe for mass chaos, abuses of power, and dysfunction in government. We don’t have to succumb to the horrors of authoritarianism. We can stop this before it starts if we are informed of the stakes and best strategies for democracy protection.”
– Ruth Ben-Ghiat, scholar on fascism and authoritarian leaders, conference co-chair
“We have come together to face an existential threat to our democracy. One that comes from within our country and the likes of which we have not seen in modern times. This is not a partisan issue. It is something that concerns patriotic Americans across the political spectrum. But in recent days, there is also renewed hope that democracy, as it so often has in our history, can rise to the moment and vanquish this autocratic threat. This optimism, and commitment to meet this threat, is exemplified by the organizations that have come together today.”
– Norm Eisen, former Ambassador to the Czech Republic, Obama White House ethics counsel and Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, conference co-chair
“Project 2025 is a dangerous piece of propaganda that sets goals and objectives which, if successful, would undermine the very fabric of who we are as Americans. Its tentacles reach every aspect of our lives. We must be vigilant, we must be aggressive, and we must defeat its proponents at the ballot box.”
– Allegra Lawrence-Hardy, civil rights litigator
“It does scare me in a second Trump term to think about who will be staffing him. You’re not going to have people like Olivia Troye who push back and say ‘No, we can’t do that.’ You’re just going to have sycophants who will do and say whatever he wants and, as Olivia noted, he wants to fire tens of thousands of civil servants to install these Trump loyalists to carry out his mission… That is what the threat of a second Trump term is and why I am so scared because I don’t think you are going to have him surrounded by people of good character who will help curb his worst instincts. It’s just going to be a bunch of yes men and women.”
– Sarah Matthews, former Deputy Press Secretary to President Trump who resigned after the January 6th attack on the Capitol and later testified before the January 6th Committee
“The conservative movement, for a long time, was rooted in the fundamental liberties of the Constitution, on the fact that we should have a limited government. The government shouldn’t be telling us how to worship or how to pray at all. So the idea that we flip that concept on its head is just disturbing to me, and un-American.”
– Heath Mayo, founder of Principles First, conference co-chair
“Democracy is in crisis and freedom is truly on the brink. What is clear is this is not about one moment, one election, one candidate, or one office holder, but about an extreme, far-right movement that must be countered. We know in our work that the difference between bullies and fascists is that fascists have a plan. And we have seen this plan – whether through Project 2025 or through engineering a Supreme Court that has essentially coronated a former President who has been convicted of crimes with monarch-like authority. We must continue to use every legal and regulatory tool the Constitution provides to fight back against anti-democratic efforts seeking to wield political power and strip our freedoms.”
– Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, conference co-chair
“The key question going into November is whether or not – and this is the message this conference is trying to get across – is to believe that this is an election as profound as any since 1860 about where this country is going.”
– Michael Podhorzer, former political director of the AFL-CIO and Fellow at the Center for American Progress
“Autocracy only happens when we the people don’t get together and say ‘No, you won’t, this is not over, this is not happening.’ We have every ability to stop it if we stop allowing people to be barred from the ballot, we start addressing that DEI is about a plural democracy, and if we start saying to everyone that we know exactly what’s at stake.”
– Maya Wiley, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights