Gary Hart on Preserving the American Republic

Air Dates: February 13-19, 2023

Authoritarian impulses are rising in the United States and around the world. Gary Hart argues that the very ideals of America’s founding–including a commitment to the will of the people–can redeem American democracy and keep the light of freedom burning for all the world to see.

Hart is a former United States Senator, strategic advisor, teacher, author and lecturer. He is the president of the business advisory group at Hart International, Ltd.  Hee serves as chair of both the International Security Advisory Board of the U.S. Department of State and of the Threat Reduction Advisory Council at the Department of Defense. He is also chair of the American Security Project, as well as co-chair of the US-Russia commission. Previously, Hart was co-chair of the U.S. Commission on National Security for the 21st-century, performing the most comprehensive review of national security since 1947, predicting terrorist attacks on America, and proposing an overhaul of U.S. national security structures and policies for the age of terrorism and post-Cold War new century. Hart represented Colorado in the U.S. Senate from 1975 to 1987 and was a candidate for his party’s nomination for President in both 1984 and 1988. During his time in the Senate, Hart served on the Senate Environment Committee, the Budget Committee, the Intelligence Oversight Committee, the Armed Services Committee, and was an original founder of the military reform caucus. Hart is also widely recognized as among the first to predict the end of the Cold War. He was a founding member of the Board of Directors on U.S.-Russia Relations, a co-chair of the Council task force which produced the report “America Unprepared—America Still at Risk,”in October of 2002, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He was also a member of the National Academy of Science task force on Science and Security. Hart is the author of twenty books, including “The American Republic Can Save American Democracy” which was published in 2022. Hart has been Visiting Fellow of All Souls College, a Chatham Lecturer, and a McCallum Memorial Lecturer at Oxford University, a Regents Lecturer at the University of California, and a Global Fund Lecturer at Yale University.

On this episode of “Story in the Public Square,” Hart discusses his new book “The American Republican Can Save American Democracy,” the rise of authoritarianism in the U.S. and how it has placed American democracy in jeopardy.

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