The 2024 Presidential Election and Democracy
Osher Lifelong Learning Institute

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We will be meeting during the run up to the election, about the time when the candidates will be determined. It will almost certainly be President Biden vs. Donald Trump who is running for a second term. This election is unusual since Trump has made clear that he will use his power as president to 'get even' with those who thwarted him when he served as President from 2016 to 2020 and to make vast changes in the federal bureaucracy and how it works. He has put forward plans for unilateral action against many he considers enemies and has said that he would be "dictator for a day" to get certain policies put in place. For many, these unfolding events seem to be an unprecedented threat to American Democracy and there is much fear that our democracy will be undermined. We will look at this threat during the period it is playing out. We will talk about democracy and how it is best understood and the guidelines that make it work. We will also spend time reading and talking about the constitution and one of the most important guides to the constitution, The Federalist Papers, written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay. We will try to use our understanding of democracy and its founding text to assess (and perhaps predict) what the 2024 election will bring. There will be reading of important democratic texts as well as current material on our ongoing politics. We will try to understand and come to reasonable assessments of the ongoing electoral issues in light of the history of our country and the mode of government and democracy it values.