Dayton Days Ideas and Insights

In November 2022, we invited Kevin C. O’Leary, director of Saving Democracy, to join us. Saving Democracy seeks to build a pro-democracy coalition from Liz Cheney conservatives to Bernie Sanders progressives and will conduct educational “deep canvassing” in selected congressional swing districts, focusing on the nation’s democratic tradition and individual liberty in a constitutional democracy. They plan to ask the business community to use the power of their political donations to reward political leaders who are committed to democracy. A research fellow at the Center for the Study of Democracy at the University of California, Irvine, O’Leary also teaches in the Political Science Department at Chapman University. He is the author of Saving Democracy: A Plan for Real Representation in America (2006) and Madison’s Sorrow: Today’s War on the Founders and America’s Liberal Ideal (2020).

In May 2022, we invited Shayla C. Nunnally, professor and head of the Department of Africana Studies at the University of Tennessee, to join us. We asked, what challenges related to social and political mistrust might we expect when attempting to engage a diverse citizenry in collective action and public deliberation?

In October 2020, we invited Johann N. Neem, a history professor at Western Washington University, to join us. He is the author of Creating a Nation of Joiners: Democracy and Civil Society in Early National Massachusetts (2008), Democracy’s Schools: The Rise of Public Education in America (2017), and What’s the Point of College? Seeking Purpose in an Age of Reform (2019).