Earlier this week, more than 120 citizens filled the Fitler Club ballroom to listen to and engage with Dan Pfeiffer, host of the podcast Pod Save America, author of Battling the Big Lie: How Fox, Facebook and the MAGA Media are Destroying America, and White House aide and communications director during the Obama presidency.
The purpose of the event: Discuss putting truth back into politics, government, and the discourse around them. NBC10’s Lauren Mayk interviewed Pfeiffer onstage, starting off with a question about the recent Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade.
He replied, “For the first time in American history, the Supreme Court took away a constitutional right … There were millions of people who woke up on Friday morning with the right to make a decision about their own body, and, by that afternoon, they no longer had that right. This is unprecedented in U.S. history.”
What are the implications of the Dobbs v. Jackson ruling for other American rights?
“Three weeks ago, it would have seemed insane that the Supreme Court could revisit the seven-year-old decision to say that marriage equity is a right. They may [reverse] it, despite 75 percent of Americans not wanting them to.”
Pfeiffer’s vision of American democracy is one that is representative of the population and based on fact — not an echo chamber, conspiracy theories, or impulsive, viral mistruths.
“My argument is not that we need to engage in the same tactics … We need a way to communicate with voters on their terms. We can do this through truthfulness and factual information.”
He said, “The right wing had a two-part strategy on how they built their megaphone. Part one: They spent decades persuading Republicans they can’t trust the media. Part two was to create an alternative system, their own bubble, hermetically sealed … in Fox, Breitbart, The Drudge Report.”
“My argument is not that we need to engage in the same tactics … We need a way to communicate with voters on their terms. We can do this through truthfulness and factual information.”
He proposed a reframing of the American conversation around common sense and majority opinion, such as those on gun control and abortion.
He suggested learning more about the progressive local candidate incubator Run for Something, whose founder, Amanda Litman, the Citizen recently hosted as part of a pre-primary election event. Pfeiffer also offered hope for a less divided future.
“My take on American politics right now is that America is actually getting more united. In the population as a whole, there’s a growing population that’s progressive, pro truth, pro science, pro democracy. We need to get rid of an extreme minority that is willing to engage in radical violence to maintain their power.”
A full video of the conversation with Dan Pfeiffer
Photos from the Citizen Book Club event
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