Michael: What if the most important political act you can perform isn't casting a ballot in November, but showing up to a town planning meeting on a Tuesday night? Or even just volunteering to help clear a local park trail? It sounds almost absurd, right? Kevin: That does sound absurd. My entire civic education was built around the idea that voting is the cornerstone of democracy. You’re telling me I should be more worried about the local garden club than the presidential election? Michael: Well, that's the provocative question at the heart of the book we're diving into today: Democracy in Our America: Can We Still Govern Ourselves? by Paul W. Kahn. And he makes a powerful case that, yes, maybe we should be. Kevin: And this isn't just some pundit. Kahn is a top-tier constitutional law professor at Yale. He’s the kind of guy who clerked for a Supreme Court Justice. But what makes this book so unique, and why it's been called a 'Tocqueville for the 21st century,' is that he grounds all this high-level theory in his own small town. Michael: Exactly. He spent 25 years in Killingworth, Connecticut, watching American democracy either thrive or wither right in his own backyard. And to understand his surprising prescription—this focus on local volunteering—we first have to understand his terrifying diagnosis of what’s gone wrong on the national stage.

Kevin: Okay, so what is the national disease that makes volunteering at the town bake sale the supposed cure? Michael: Kahn argues that American politics has taken what he calls a "pathological turn." And he starts with a fascinating confession. He says the 2016 election was a massive wake-up call for political theorists like himself. They had spent decades building these elegant theories of liberal democracy, assuming everyone was committed to the basic rules. Kevin: And then reality came knocking, very loudly. Michael: Very loudly. Kahn says their theories completely failed to predict the rise of a populist figure like Trump, or the deep, angry divisions in the country. He puts it bluntly: "The lesson of 2016 to scholars was 'get real.'" Kevin: What does 'get real' even mean here? Weren't they paying attention to the country outside their university offices? Michael: Well, Kahn's point is that they were focused on the wrong things. Many scholars blamed everything on economic inequality. And while Kahn agrees that's a huge problem, he says it doesn't explain the whole picture. The fundamental issue, he argues, is a change in our beliefs, our values, and how we see the world. Our politics have become less serious and more entertaining. Kevin: It’s become a spectacle. A reality show. Michael: Precisely. And that has led to what Kahn calls a "civil cold war." We're not just disagreeing on policy anymore. We live in two different Americas, a "red nation" and a "blue nation," with no sympathy for each other. And when politics becomes entertainment, the goal isn't to persuade; it's to get a reaction. To get outrage. Kevin: That feels incredibly true. The angrier the headline, the more clicks it gets. Michael: And Kahn takes this to a very dark place. He notes how Trump's rallies, with chants of "Lock her up!", functioned as a form of mob entertainment. Then he drops this absolutely chilling line: "Lynchings, too, were once entertainment." Kevin: Whoa. That is a heavy, heavy comparison. He's saying our political outrage is just a modern form of that same dark impulse for spectacle? Michael: He's saying that when you strip away the substance and just focus on the performance of anger, you're treading on very dangerous ground. It erodes the shared reality and mutual respect that a democracy needs to function. It's like our political information diet has become all sugar and no nutrients, and it's making the entire body politic sick. Kevin: Okay, so the nation is deeply, pathologically ill. I'm with you so far. But this is where I get skeptical. If the problem is a national "civil cold war," how can a small town in Connecticut possibly be the answer? It feels like bringing a Band-Aid to a gunfight.

Michael: That is the perfect question, and it's the brilliant pivot the book makes. Kahn says, let's stop looking at the abstract national picture for a moment and look at the concrete, lived reality of a single town: Killingworth, Connecticut. Population 6,400. On the surface, it's an American dream. High income, great schools, low crime. Kevin: Sounds lovely. So what's the problem? Michael: The problem is that this national sickness is a virus, and it's infecting even idyllic places like Killingworth. Kahn gives this incredible example of a local Facebook group called 'Killingworth Stompin' Ground.' It was started by two women, a Democrat and a Republican, just to share community news—you know, lost dogs, school events, that sort of thing. Kevin: I think every town has one of those. Michael: Exactly. But by the 2017 local elections, it had descended into chaos. People were using what Kahn calls a "Trumpian style" of personal assault. The founders were getting threats. People were showing up at their houses. The co-founder Amanda Brackett was eventually driven out by baseless accusations of racism. The group, which was meant to build community, became a place of "intolerable division." Kevin: That's fascinating. So the same online toxicity we see nationally is playing out over, what, zoning permits and school budgets? Michael: Yes! National polarization was displacing local common sense. People weren't neighbors discussing a local issue anymore; they were soldiers in a national red vs. blue war. And this is where Kahn delivers his core, controversial thesis. He says the antidote to this poison isn't found in Washington. It's found in the very fabric of a town like Killingworth: its tradition of volunteerism. Kevin: Okay, unpack that. What does volunteering have to do with political polarization? Michael: Kahn tells this wonderful story about a 132-acre site called Parmalee Farm. The town bought it, but the official plans to develop it failed twice. So it just sat there, unused. Then, a resident asked if she could start a community garden. A local contractor volunteered to clear the space. That small act sparked a movement. Volunteers built a sugar shack for making maple syrup. The Lions Club converted an old shed into a pavilion. They built trails, rebuilt stone walls, and installed restrooms. They created a vibrant community hub with almost no town money. Kevin: That's a great story. A real feel-good moment. Michael: It is. But he contrasts it with another story. During a tropical storm, the town's new, young emergency management director, a volunteer, got overwhelmed. He struggled to communicate, alienated other volunteers, and then quit in the middle of the crisis, saying he wasn't getting paid. It shows the erosion of that volunteer ethos. Kevin: But this is the controversial part, right? The part that gets people fired up. Kahn is saying this kind of volunteering is more important than voting. That feels wrong. My vote is my voice. Michael: And Kahn would say, yes, your vote is your choice. But it's a choice you make in private, once every couple of years. It doesn't teach you anything. Volunteering, he argues, is a practice. It's the "school for character" where we actually learn to be citizens. When you're on the volunteer fire department or the library board, you have to work with people you disagree with. You have to persuade, compromise, and take responsibility for a shared outcome. Kevin: You have to build what he calls "political friendship." Michael: You got it. You don't learn that by pulling a lever in a booth or mailing in a ballot. You learn it by showing up, working together, and caring for a common project. That, for Kahn, is the real, foundational act of self-governance.

Kevin: So the big, profound insight here is that we've been looking for democratic renewal in the wrong place. We're waiting for a great leader or a perfect policy from Washington, but Kahn is arguing the real work is messy, local, and unglamorous. It's about rebuilding the muscle of self-governance, person by person, town by town. Michael: Exactly. And Kahn's call to action isn't to run for president. It's to find one local thing. Join the library board. Coach a kids' team. Help at the town cleanup day. He quotes the original Tocqueville, who said, "By dint of working for the good of one’s fellow citizens, one finally picks up the habit and taste of serving them." You build the appetite for citizenship by doing it. Kevin: It’s a powerful shift in perspective. It moves the responsibility from "them" in Washington to "us" right here. And it leaves you wondering... what's the one small, local thing you could do this month that would be a more meaningful act of citizenship than just arguing on the internet? Michael: A question for all of us to think about. This is Aibrary, signing off.