This is Democracy – Episode 314: Reflections on 2025, Lessons for 2026

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Intro: This is Democracy, a podcast about the people of the United States, a podcast about citizenship, about engaging with politics and the world around you. A podcast about educating yourself on today’s important issues and how to have a voice in what happens next.

Jeremi: Welcome to our new episode of This Is Democracy.

This is our first episode of 2026. That’s exciting, Zachary, isn’t it? Yes.

Zachary: New year.

Jeremi: New Year, new possibilities. It’s always good to turn the page. Today we are going to not review 2025. That would take hour upon hour. And in a sense, everyone’s doing that, so we don’t need to repeat what others are doing.

What we’re gonna do is talk about some of the impressions, lessons, uh, insights, um, feelings, even vibes from 2025, uh, that we’ve thought through. That we’ve discussed on this podcast in our substack and elsewhere. And, uh, we’re gonna talk about what we think those impressions and experiences mean as we open this new year.

As we open this year. Uh, still in a world of tumult. But also a world of possibility. The challenges are certainly great, uh, but the possibilities remain real and we’re gonna talk about those today. Uh, and of course I’m joined, uh, by our co-host, uh, Zachary. Siri. Zachary, did you have a good holiday?

Zachary: I did, yes.

Jeremi: It’s nice to be back, back at work, isn’t it?

Zachary: Yes.

Jeremi: So, uh, Zachary, you have, um, a snippet from the great George Orwell that you wanna read, and, uh, we are both big fans of Orwell’s work, as are I’m sure many of our listeners. Orwell was a fiction writer, an essayist, a journalist, uh, and, and left a legacy not only of insightful.

Analysis about society, but also just good quality writing, writing that still speaks to us of the importance of words and how we use our words. So I’m gonna turn it over to you. Tell us maybe a little bit about the passage and uh, then you can go ahead and read it.

Zachary: Yeah. So this is a section from, uh, can Socialists Be Happy, uh, by George Orwell.

It was an SA published in 1943, I believe, in the left wing British newspaper. Um, the New Statesman. Um, and, uh, this to me is an essay that I’ve been coming back to a lot, uh, the last few months. I found myself reading a George Orwell essay pretty much every night before I go to bed. Um, I think,

Jeremi: I hope everyone does that.

Yeah, I think his normal behavior,

Zachary: I think his voice is, uh, particularly relevant in this moment. Uh, especially his unwillingness to tolerate nonsense from anyone, uh, and his sort of unflagging commitment to humanity. In, in world events. Uh, and this is a section that I think speaks to that, that maybe I hope also offers us some words of consolation, uh, and maybe also put some fire, uh, behind this as well.

This is, uh, of section again from Can socialists be happy? The inability of mankind to imagine happiness except in the form of relief, either from effort or pain, presents socialists with a serious problem. Dickens can describe a poverty stricken family tucking into a roast goose and can make them appear happy.

On the other hand, the inhabitants of perfect universes seem to have no spontaneous gaity and are usually somewhat repulsive into the bargain. But clearly we are not aiming at the kind of world Dickens described, nor probably at any world he was capable of imagining. The socialist objective is not a society where everything comes right in the end because kind old gentlemen give away turkeys.

What are we aiming at, if not a society in which charity would be unnecessary? We want a world where Scrooge with his dividends and tiny Tim with his tuberculous leg would both be unthinkable. But does that mean we are aiming at some painless, effortless utopia? At the risk of saying something, which the editors of Tribune, sorry, Tribune was the paper it was published in May not endorse.

I suggest that the real objective of socialism is not happiness. Happiness hither two has been a byproduct, and for all we know, it may always remain. So the real objective of socialism is human brotherhood. This is widely felt to be the case, though. What is not usually said or not said loudly enough.

Mens up their lives in heartbreaking political struggles or get themselves killed in civil wars, or tortured in the secret prisons of the Gestapo. Not in order to establish some central heated, air conditioned, strip lighted paradise, but because they want a world in which human beings love one another instead of swindling and murdering one another, and they want that world as a first step.

Where they go from there is not so certain, and the attempt to foresee it in detail merely confuses the issue. Nearly all creators of Utopia have resembled the man who has toothache, and therefore things happiness consists in not having toothache. They wanted to produce a perfect society by an endless continuation of something that had only been valuable because it was temporary.

The wider course would be to say that there are certain lines along which humanity must move. The grand strategy is mapped out, but detailed prophecy is not our business. Whoever tries to imagine perfection simply reveals his own emptiness.

Jeremi: There’s a lot in that passage, Zachary. What, what’s going on there?

What is Orville saying?

Zachary: Well, I think first of all, at a surface level, he’s answering his question, can socialists be happy? Really with the answer? No. Um, but I think it’s why, why? It’s more complicated than though, I think what he’s saying is that what happiness is is something temporary and fleeting. Uh, a feeling of community or a feeling of, uh, contentment or joy that only exists, uh, in contrast to the drudgery of everyday life or the injustices of everyday life.

Um, and I think that’s very relevant for, for all of us who have celebrated holidays in the new year, in the last few weeks. Um, I think that’s probably something a lot of us have felt, not just this year, but in past years as well. Um, and I think he’s als what he’s also saying is that, uh, there’s danger. In seeing or seeking or defining your political program based on some perfect or idealized version of how the world should be, because human beings have limited imagination and the only way we can really imagine a perfect world.

Is as one that is simply a continuation of all of the creature comforts and a universalization of all of the creature comforts of our world. Um, and so I think oral is really urging is for us to respond to inhumanity with humanity and to see injustice. Not as something that must be, um, completely eliminated to see, uh, to see pain and suffering, not as something that can ever be completely eliminated, but instead to see those as things that must be responded to.

Not necessarily with a positive universal vision of what, of what the future must be, and we must all work to, but actually with a human feeling of brotherhood, as he calls it, with a commitment to fighting for justice, but not any sort of sense or promise that justice is ever going to come immediately in the present or in the future.

Jeremi: Right? Justice is the aspiration more than the achievement

Zachary: right

Jeremi: now. Responding to Inhumanity with humanity. I think we all know what inhumanity is, right? And unfortunately, we were just talking about this before we, we started the recording. Uh, this was a year, maybe not with more inhumanity than other years, but certainly with a fair share of inhumanity.

Um, and one, one can think about, uh, the murders, the cold-blooded murders, assassinations of, uh, a legislator and her, uh, husband in Minnesota. Followed a few months later by the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Uh, we can think also of the assassination that occurred of a insurance executive this year and, and many others.

Uh, just this was a murderous year where extremists of one kind or another used excessive on un uh, un unacceptable illegitimate violence, uh, against individuals. Uh, of course there was mass violence as well. Thousands and thousands of deaths in Ukraine and elsewhere. Um, we saw also the violence and inhumanity of deportations within our own country.

People being seized off the street sometimes when they had gone to a, um, immigration hearing that they were invited to, seized from a court. Uh, when they had come voluntarily to, uh, appear, uh, believing that they were getting, um, legal access to our country, but instead being in a sense kidnapped and often.

Deported to a country that he never had any connection to. Uh, El Salvador, Sudan, uh, things of that sort. So, so there was plenty of inhumanity, uh, and plenty of inhumanity with all kinds of political stripes attached to it, uh, in all kinds of places. So I think we know what Inhumanity is and we know what Orwell’s referring to there as himself being a child of the revolutions of the 1930s and, uh, wars of the 1940s.

Um. What is humanity? What, when, when, when Orwell encourages us to respond to inhumanity with humanity, to not simply respond an eye for an eye, to not simply respond to the murder of our guy by murdering their guy. Uh, what, what does he, what do you think he means? Because I think that’s the hard part here, Zachary.

What do you think he means?

Zachary: Well, I think what he’s saying, um, particularly when he talks about. Brotherhood. He says, the real objective of the socialists is human brotherhood. Um, the real objective of socialism is human brotherhood. He says, I think what he really means is that the, the true usefulness of ideology or political programs of any stripe.

And particularly from his perspective of left-wing ideology, um, is to push us towards, uh, humanity, to, to, to encourage and goad people to fight for their fellow human beings. I mean, the examples he gives are people tortured in the secret prisons of the Gestapo or getting themselves killed in civil wars.

All of things he, he witnessed, uh, in his life. Those are. Those are examples of people who really aren’t dying for ideology, but dying for humanity. The ideology is secondary. It’s a tool. It’s something they’re using to push towards that. I think really what he’s saying is that the most important thing is not to lose sight.

Of the fact that our politics and our societies have to aim at something higher than, as he puts it, replacing a toothache with the absence of Right.

Jeremi: Right. Or replacing one tyranny with another tyranny, which is what he thinks socialism had become in his time.

Zachary: Right. Or was at risk of become.

Jeremi: Right. Right.

And, and those who don’t know his history, it’s worth just stating Orwell had been involved in the, uh, fight against fascism in Spain. And became deeply disillusioned with the socialists who were in many ways leading the anti-fascist fight for becoming, uh, in their own partisan work, a tyranny of their own against the tyranny, the horrible tyranny.

They were, they were fighting. I, I think there were examples maybe to help us, uh, from this year describe what humanity in response to inhumanity is. There were examples we saw of this one that certainly moved me and I think moved you even more, Zachary. Was the experience of, uh, the hostages, uh, hostages in, um, Israel, uh, Israelis who had been taken hostage brutally by Hamas.

Uh, some of them held hostage for more than two years. Uh, and the release of those high hostages, uh, in many ways, uh. Their experiences once released. Um, I know you had the opportunity to talk to a few of these former hostages yourself, Zachary. My impression is that they, after being released from this nightmare-ish horror that I cannot even imagine, um, it’s not that they.

Wanted to forgive Hamas. They certainly didn’t. Uh, there’s nothing that says we have to forgive the people who do horrible things to us, but they also, it seems to me, became voices against more violence and voices for peace. Is is that right?

Zachary: Yeah, I think that’s, that’s true. I think one of the things that’s been really moving to watch is to see those individuals who survived captivity in Gaza come out and, and, and either speak for peace or for an end to hostilities in the region or.

Uh, to or, and or to go out into the world and speak about their experience and speak against that kind of violence. Um, often it has taken the form of very political statements or protests in Israel against the current government or, uh, in less political ways. You know, traveling around the world and just sharing their ordeal with, with audiences.

And I think it’s something very powerful to think about someone who’s gone through. Uh, that kind of experience. And then it’s not only willing, but excited to, and committed to talking about it. And I, I think that that kind of human connection Yeah. Someone who’s experienced something horrible and is willing and wants to share it, that kind of human connection is part of what that humanity is.

Jeremi: It, it reminds me in some ways of, of watching from afar. And reading of the lives of people like Eli Viel. Yeah, Nelson Mandela. I mean, these are larger than life figures in some ways, although actually Eli Viel was a figure of very small stature. But these are individuals intellectually and in their image of they’re larger than, larger than life, but in some ways, like these former hostages, they were ordinary people who had suffered the unthinkable and then came out as voices, not a vengeance.

Not of revenge nor of forgiveness, but voices of finding a common brotherhood and sisterhood in our response to the horrors that we’ve experienced. Yes.

Zachary: Yeah. I think it also reminds me a lot of, some of the activism we’ve seen from students and parents after school shootings in the United States. Yes.

The parents of Sandy Hook in particular.

Jeremi: Yes.

Zachary: I’m thinking of people

Jeremi: and Uvalde.

Zachary: Right, and Uvalde people who have become committed. Not, not to political or polemical statements, but to real policy change. Yeah. And to sort of not refusing to let their friends, family, children be forgotten. I think that has been really moving to watch.

And I, I think that kind of space where ordinary people, um, who’ve suffered immensely, actually speak about their experiences instead of having it filtered through political or ideological. Um. Uh, frameworks, I think is, is, is really powerful in our world. And one of the few things that I think can break through a lot of the, uh, partisan noise that we live with.

Jeremi: You know, I think as you speak, there’s a real insight in that. I mean, I think one of the real elements of, of humanity, what humanizes an inhumane situation, what I think Orwell is referring to, and, but he’s criticizing among socialists and fascists is the depersonalization of things.

Zachary: Yes.

Jeremi: Uh, it’s, it’s, it’s easy to support a cause.

That kills a lot of people when you don’t think about the people you’re killing. Right? But what these former hostages have done is they’ve brought out, it doesn’t matter what your political position is on Israeli politics or on Middle East politics, they remind you of the individuals and the suffering that cannot be justified.

Right.

Zachary: But also just I think, uh, the complexity of what it, what it means to be a human being in the course of these, uh, world events. And I mean, one thing that that struck me speaking with former hostages is the, their description of how difficult it was to organize themselves or to speak and get along with others.

Yes. And such other hostages and such.

Jeremi: Yes.

Zachary: Tight. Quarters. Um, that was not something I’d ever thought of, but that sort of human complexity of the situations

Jeremi: totally,

Zachary: uh, is, is so startling. Um, and I, I, I do think, um, in a very different context, that’s what Orwell does so well in his, and in all of his essays.

It’s, I think what makes his writing powerful to me right now, or what speaks to me about it. I mean, his most famous essay probably Shooting an Elephant, he describes basically the entire network or reality of. Imperialism, British, uh, British imperialism in Southeast Asia simply by one personal experience he had as a police officer.

And it’s, it’s,

Jeremi: and the self-doubt.

Zachary: The self-doubt, right? And also just sort of capturing the emo, the complex emotions that drive someone to make a decision that in hindsight, they regret. I think those are, that, that, that’s I think what a lot of political decisions, a lot of human mistakes, A lot of.

Conflict in our world comes down to, and it’s the hardest thing to capture

Jeremi: and, and I think it’s our obligation. And one of the lessons from 2025, if I might say, is to avoid the effort to oversimplify what social media encourages. Encouraging us to find the good guys and the bad guys and to recognize without apologizing for.

Uh, unacceptable behavior, illegal behavior, uh, immoral behavior, recognizing that in many cases, um, people are driven by complex experiences and motives. As you were speaking of the hostages, I was thinking of so many, uh, immigrants to the United States who have now been swept up by ice. Um, many of whom actually did break a law.

Maybe they came on a student visa and overed. Maybe they came on a tourist visa at overstate, but then they’ve lived here for 10 years, 12 years. They’ve raised a family, they’ve worked diligently, and the reason they didn’t go back to their country, this could be true for our great grandparents, Zachary, the reason they didn’t go back was not because they wanted to break a law here, but because they were afraid to go back and face persecution or face abject poverty.

Um, so are they people who broke a law? Maybe. But should they be deported for that as criminals? That’s, that’s a complex story, right? And we should avoid these simple, simple categories. Um, I think about that at universities too. As a, as a professor, as someone watching at my university, university of Texas and elsewhere, major changes in controversy swirling around everything we do.

From discussions of diversity to curriculum, to hiring, to leadership, to funding, you know, um, one doesn’t have to believe that universities were perfect. They certainly weren’t. To also believe that there’s something that needs to be saved and preserved in academic freedom, an open inquiry. And, uh, we become oversimplified and polarized.

And are you for DEI or against DEI? Well, I’m both. Are you, uh, for, um, people being free to think and speak as they wish, uh, or are you for protecting people from facing antisemitism? anti-ISIS, Islamophobia and things of that sort. Well, um, for both of those too, right? I mean, these are, these are complex issues we have to navigate.

And I think 2025 has taught us, and I have a sense a lot of people coming out of 2025 realizing this, that the simple categories are not the realities, the complex realities, uh, we, we face. Uh, may, maybe one of the lessons from Orwell that you’re teaching, taking us to is not only to personalize, to understand the individuals who are affected by big ideas, but also.

To move beyond labels. Right. Uh, Orwell’s not only attacking the socialist party, he’s attacking the label.

Zachary: Yeah. Right. I think that’s right. I, I think also, uh, as you said, the, the, the. As someone who’s also at a university campus, I think the hardest part about the way that universities are being talked about and the worst part about how they’re being talked about, uh, on, on both sides, uh, in international discourse, uh, is, is the sort of insistence on labels, as you’ve said, the insistence on, on making every academic question.

One of are is this DEI or is this anti DI is this is this anti Right.

Intro: Right.

Zachary: Instead of focusing on, uh, complexity. And I think, I think if there’s one hopeful. Hopeful thing that I think we can take out of this moment for universities is that, uh, I think for, I think a lot of the sort of. Urges to grasp for labels.

The urge for simplification is actually rooted in a genuine frustration with the lack of complexity, if that makes any sense. Yeah. I think we’re taking, people are taking, um, frustration at academic environments that don’t allow for complexity or don’t allow for certain perspectives to be heard and actually doing the exact same thing and turning them into oversimplified labels and, and, and talking about universities in oversimplified ways in response.

But I think the urge or the frustration that’s there. Is is very genuine.

Jeremi: Yeah. Well this is sort of replacing a toothache with a toothache, right? Yeah. They’re, they’re, they’re recreating, they’re mirroring the problem that they saw by doing the exact opposite. I think that’s definitely happened. Um, I don’t know if you agree.

I think that we, and I said this before in our podcast and in many other settings, um, I think we went too far with certain elements of DEI. Demanding, you know, diversity statements from people in a kind of McCarthyite way, loyalty oaths to diversity. And I think we went too far. Um, but I think now the response to having gone too far is going much too far in the other direction, to the point where now diversity has become a dirty word for some people.

And you’re not supposed to, uh, assign. Work that points to perhaps the critical and not savory parts of our history, um, that that’s overreacting in the other direction. That’s mirroring, that’s a toothache for a toothache. Uh, if you’re against, um, preference for one direction, there shouldn’t be preference in the other direction either.

And, and I think, I think one of the lessons we have to learn is that if we’re not attentive to complexity, all we do is just, uh, swing the, the spectrum back and forth. It’s like a seesaw. Rather than progress. So, so that brings us to, I think, the theme we wanted to close on, which is community. Um, I, I think one of the real, um, outcomes of 2025 is I’ve seen this with my students, with my colleagues around the country.

I’ve seen this with all kinds of settings I’ve been in. People seem to be returning to community. They seem to have found in many cases that the world and the lives they were living. Online and elsewhere, we’re not satisfied. Clearly people are still living in those ways. Uh, but there is, there does seem to be a return to community and, um, I don’t know.

It might be worth talking about that. I think that’s been an important part of your experience also. Right, Zachary?

Zachary: Yeah, I think so. I, I think one thing that is important to, to remember though, uh, that, that I think, or well worn stuff, is it’s not the, the, the danger is not replacing a toothache with another toothache.

What he’s talking about is the danger of replacing or thinking that happiness, or that the answer is in replacing a toothache with the absence of a toothache. That I think part of the problem is that a lot of attacks on universities and in the last. 10 years, both from both sides. Um, were really aimed at replacing a problem that they saw that had some truth to it.

Trying to just simply eliminate the

Intro: problem. Yeah. Yeah.

Zachary: Whereas the real solution and the really important thing that I think is, is, is missing or needs to be strengthened on college campuses and in all aspects of our society, um, is something positive. It’s the kind of bonds of community, the bonds between people, the willingness to have open and frank conversations about hard topics.

That’s what we should be focusing on. It’s not, it’s not about, you know, it’s not about trying to replace the toothache with the absence of a toothache, just end the toothache. It’s about trying to actually provide some sort of positive program in the opposite direction. It’s not. Utopia, but it’s like action.

It’s actions that we need to be doing instead of, instead of, um, simple boxes we need to join.

Jeremi: And, and that’s exactly why we do this podcast. Right? It’s, it’s exactly, uh, for that reason. So, so what does it mean then people, I mean, everyone is now saying that, right? Viewpoint diversity. More open conversation, civility, but people talk about it more than they actually do it.

What does it actually mean to do it? What are some examples that we can close on, some hopeful examples from 2025 that can take us into 2026?

Zachary: Well, that’s not an easy question to answer, but I think that, um, you know, the kinds of conversations that. That people are able to, to have in this model, um, don’t happen by, you know, insisting or artificially, uh, looking for V viewpoint diversity.

I think they happen with a sort of willingness to actually be frank and honest. Yes. And to, to be offended, but not, not see that as grounds for shutting down discussion. It’s a willingness to, it’s a willingness to be open. To other viewpoints that you might even find grossly offensive. It’s a willingness to listen to ’em at the very least.

Jeremi: Yeah.

Zachary: And to engage with those people as human beings.

Jeremi: And, and I’ve come to conclude, Zachary, that actually the way to do this is not to say, okay, we’re going to have an open conversation or viewpoint diversity. It becomes artificial in that sense. Yes. It’s creating a culture for that. Yes. It’s, it’s honestly what I strive to do in the classroom, in my professional settings, in my work.

Uh, I don’t know if I succeed, but it’s certainly what I strive to do, what I’m doubling down on, which is, um. Cultivating a sense, a healthy skepticism toward any orthodoxy, which hopefully open space then for nothing to be sacred, but everything to be respected if it’s serious. So a serious idea should not be condescended to, but it shouldn’t be taken as an orthodoxy.

That is beyond question, and that allows us then to take. Complex ideas such as, you know, the defense of the state of Israel or the defense of the stateless, uh, in areas that are occupied by Israel. Take these difficult problems and recognize that neither side has a monopoly of truth. And open the space where it is encouraged for people to ask hard questions.

It doesn’t happen in one conversation. It happens in a culture that you create in a classroom, in a work setting. In your scholarship, in your public persona. And, and I think 2025 showed us, first of all, how hard it is to do that. It showed us how hard we need to work on that. And, and I think it did give us some examples, uh, of this.

Um, I, I think we saw from certain religious leaders an incredible openness, uh, and cultivation of that kind of culture. Uh, this, this year, I think of the bishops and others who spoke out. In defense of immigrants, but didn’t speak out in defense of open borders. They weren’t talking about opening borders, they were talking about the humanity of immigrants.

Um, I think of all the teachers I’ve witnessed, I work with a lot of teachers around the country, um, who have, who have done this in their classrooms. They’re unsung heroes. They don’t get, this doesn’t get talked about. I’ve seen this also with law enforcement officers build trust in their local communities.

You know, this is happening every day. We just don’t focus on it because we don’t value it enough, but it’s actually the story that we, we, we should focus on. I think it’s what is happening. In many parts of our universities, it’s not always happening and sometimes it’s missing, uh, but it is happening in many parts of our universities.

Yes.

Zachary: Yeah. And I think it happens, uh, at its best when you put students in an environment to be around people who are different from them. I think what we’re talking about really is not just forming community or strengthening community like in and of itself, but forming and strengthening heterogeneous community.

How do you deal with, uh, being in a place, being together? Working towards some common goal, whether that’s education or you know, law enforcement in the case that you mentioned, or you know, teaching in a classroom. How do you work towards a common goal when everyone comes with a very different perspective?

Jeremi: Yes.

Zachary: And some of the people who are in that room don’t wanna be in the room with the other people.

Jeremi: Yes.

Zachary: And I think, I think part of it is, is a willingness and an, and an openness. To talking to other people, but also just a basic recognition that whether we like it or not, you know, we are in the same room.

Yes. We have to get along.

Jeremi: Yes. I think that’s, I think that’s absolutely right and I think that might be, gives us the, the proper, not close to this episode, but the proper opening to 2026, finding more ways. To create a culture, a space, an assumption of, as you said, and those are fireworks outside of our door here.

Uh, as you said, Zachary heterogeneity, difference of viewpoint, um, and encouraging conversation, repeated conversation. Uh, my frustration has been that many people who know this don’t take the time to do this. All of us as leaders. All of us as individuals and communities should do more to reach out to talk to other people, not just for one conversation where we want to hear multiple points of view, but to build a culture of conversation across points of view.

And we should resist what I think is happening in too many places, including sometimes at universities where people are separated, one group versus another. Categorize in one way. Will you go in one major will be people thinking this way in another school, people thinking this way. No, we need to actually.

Build true bridges and talk across communities and make that part of our daily culture, the way we, the way we operate. And I think we can do that. I think we’ve seen examples of that, and I think we now know why we need to do that. So that’s a kind of lesson from 2025. It’s an impression that can carry us into 20 20, 26.

And I’m, I’m optimistic about that. You have to be hopeful about that. Do you share my hope and optimism?

Zachary: Yeah, I think so. I, I think, um. You know, what you’re really talking about is, you know, tearing down the silos a little bit and, you know, letting, letting people who maybe wouldn’t interact before interact and, and listen to each other.

And I think, you know, that’s the purpose of the podcast. That’s the purpose of, of so much of what we do. And I think, um, for a lot of people, it’s become the only option now.

Jeremi: Yep. Yep. So keep listening to our podcast and listen to others. Keep subscribing to our substack. And, uh, we love when people email us as they often do with suggestions for guests and topics of poor

Zachary: complaints

Jeremi: or complaints.

Send the complaints to Zachary Siri. Um, uh, we are so fortunate to be able to do this, to have these conversations somewhat so as Zachary’s heard me say this, that I miss it when we don’t do it. Uh, and, uh, we will continue through this year. So thank you for joining us, uh, for a new year, and thank you in particular for joining us for this episode of This Is Democracy.

Intro: This podcast is produced by the Liberal Arts ITS Development Studio and the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Texas at Austin. The music in this episode was written and recorded by Scott Holmes. Stay tuned for a new episode every week You can find This is Democracy on Apple Podcast, Spotify and YouTube.

See you next time.