Al Gore

But it's important to learn the lessons of previous periods of time when nations have become entranced by a demagogic leader promoting autocracy.

because it's not just Germany in the 30s.

It's happened repeatedly.

And again, nothing compares to the Nazis.

But all of them have tried to control the way their people think.

and limit the distribution of ideas that they felt were harmful to their triumph of the will, to their design to accomplish what they really wanted to do.

And our founders understood that the lust for power

is in its own orbit.

And as one of our founders wrote, the appetite increases with the eating.

And what they had seen in their study of Rome and Greece and all of the monarchies that they were so angry at because of their experience with King George, they distill that into a unique fear of power being sought for its own sake.

And when that's connected to a desire to convert questions of truth into questions of power, that's really the foundation of self-government and representative democracy.

And that's what's being attacked right now in a comprehensive way.

Project 2025 and all of those who use that and other ideas associated with it as a kind of a blueprint for what they're trying to get done in a hurry.

It really should inspire all of us to stand up and use our voices as Americans to save the spirit of America, to save the essence of our American experiment.

I think we will, by the way.

First of all, I think it's important to note the relationship between collective reasoning, which our founders assumed that we would be able to use as our principal tool for self-governance, the relationship between our capacity for self-reasoning and fear.

Fear is the enemy of reason.

And during the time of our founding, Thomas Paine communicated that very clearly.

And at one point said, we gotta get this Constitutional Convention going because there's an absence of a general public fear.

And once one arises, we may lose this opportunity, a window of opportunity to have the Constitutional Convention.