Mihir Desai

There could have been an election in Brazil where there was not a peaceful transition to power.

And instead, we had a peaceful transition of power in Germany.

We had a coup that was averted in Germany.

We had a pretty remarkable set of losses for election deniers in the U.S.

We had Russia.

I don't think anybody would have thought they would struggle as much as they've struggled.

And we've had, I think in China, the manifestation of what is so difficult about authoritarianism.

So in the larger sweep of history...

I think the greatest crisis of our time is about authoritarianism.

And it's not time to celebrate, but it is a time to feel good about people coming to terms with how problematic authoritarianism is and how valuable democracy is.

So I feel better than I felt a year ago about that situation.

Not like high fives all around or anything, but a whole lot better than I felt a year ago.

I do think, though, that there's something special about the really authoritarian impulse as opposed to the anti-democratic impulse.

Let me try to distinguish between those two, right?

The authoritarian thing is the strong man, strong woman thing where they really don't care about elections.

They don't really care about even vaguely democratic processes.

That's what I really worry about.

We should also worry about what you're worrying about, which is...

Just this battle on the front lines of why the U.S.

is not a more democratic country because of gerrymandering, because of the Senate, because of lots of things.