Most conservatives don't see themselves as opponents of democracy — they see a democracy that has drifted from the values that make it legitimate. On this episode, Aaron Ross Powell talks with Scott Warren of the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University and Morgan Ramsey-Elliot of ReD Associates about their Liberalism.org essay "Can Democracy Survive if We Stand on Different Foundations?" and the ethnographic study behind it, for which researchers embedded for weeks in conservative communities in Wyoming, Michigan, and South Carolina. They discuss why "save democracy" messaging so often fails to land, the moral foundation of faith, family, freedom, and place against which these citizens judge their institutions, how everyday encounters with institutional failure erode trust from the local level upward, and the harder work of building institutions that people standing on genuinely different moral foundations can still recognize as legitimate.
Further Reading
Can Democracy Survive if We Stand on Different Foundations? — Scott Warren & Morgan Ramsey-Elliot, Liberalism.org
Faith, Freedom, Family, Place: An Ethnographic Study of Conservative Americans' Relationships to Democracy — SNF Agora Institute & ReD Associates
Faith, Freedom, Family, Place (interactive study site) — ReD Associates
Trump's Democrats — Stephanie Muravchik & Jon A. Shields, Brookings Institution Press
More from Liberalism.org
Conservative Values, Trust, and the Prospects for Democratic Renewal — Emily Chamlee-Wright
Guest Profiles
Scott Warren works on democratic resilience and civic engagement, and co-authored the ethnographic study Faith, Freedom, Family, Place.
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Morgan Ramsey-Elliot leads ethnographic research on political culture, and co-authored Faith, Freedom, Family, Place.
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