Protect Democracy’s Ian Bassin: Freedom Is Still Up to Us episode artwork

EPISODE · Aug 8, 2026 · 58 MIN

Protect Democracy’s Ian Bassin: Freedom Is Still Up to Us

from The State Of Belief · host Interfaith Alliance

Is the chaos of today’s American politics accidental? Not at all, according to Protect Democracy Executive Director Ian Bassin. This week, he tells host Rev. Paul Brandeis Raushenbush about the seven-point playbook of modern authoritarians - and how to counter it. Ian also describes the three "d" strategy to attack democracy: Deceive, Disrupt, and Deny. He also shares a Protect Democracy resource for understanding and defeating this strategy, the Executive Override Report, available at protectdemocracy.org/DDD August 11th is National Poll Worker Recruitment Day,  and the website Powerthepolls.org contains a wealth of information about getting involved, hands-on, in our electoral system – and our democracy. More about Ian Bassin You may recognize Ian’s name from a powerful Ted Talk titled, How to spot authoritarianism — and choose democracy. He’s a former White House counsel and 2023 MacArthur Fellow, and Founder and Executive Director of Protect Democracy, which works to defeat authoritarian tactics and build a stronger, fairer democracy. Protect Democracy partnered with Interfaith Alliance to produce a moving series of advertisements promoting the message “Choose Love, Not Ice”, and the article co-authored by Ian Bassin and Paul Brandeis Raushenbush is titled, We Need A New Great Awakening. The State of Belief host Rev. Paul Brandeis Raushenbush is President and CEO of Interfaith Alliance. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Protect Democracy’s Ian Bassin: Freedom Is Still Up to Us

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