Democracy, It Works: A Midterm Postmortem with Katie Harbath

Has democracy been saved? Did it need saving in the first place? Can we finally feel hope again? We almost don’t know what to do with all this hope. We recorded this the morning after the midterms, running on very little sleep, and called up Katie Harbath, who was up just as late as we were. Katie was one of Facebook’s first employees in Washington and spent a decade building its approach to elections, which means she had a front row seat when everything went bananas in 2016. She writes all about it in her new book, Disrupting Politics: A Front Row Seat to the Collision of Technology and Democracy. We talk about what was different this time, who was working behind the scenes to keep things from falling apart, how James Talarico won Texas by talking to people who disagree with him, and why AI influencers are the thing keeping her up at night now. Get your copy of Disrupting Politics here. Join our newsletter community here. ORDER The Parisian Heist here. Visit our lovely sponsors here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices