Episode Details

Hedrick Smith is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of bestselling books The Russians, Who Stole the American Dream? and many others. Over the course of his nearly 60 years in journalism, he’s interviewed some of the biggest politicians and power brokers on the national and international stage. Now, his reporter’s curiosity has led him to places like Sioux Falls, South Dakota and Hartford, Connecticut to report on efforts to end gerrymandering, remove money from politics, and fight corruption through grassroots organizing.

Smith joins us this week to talk about what he learned from these organizers while filming his latest project, a documentary called The Democracy Rebellion: A Reporter’s Notebook with Hedrick Smith that will air on PBS this January. He says that the grassroots are not nearly as polarized as politicians and political insiders, as evidenced by the fact that many of these pro-democracy ballot initiatives passed with large bipartisan majorities.

Smith also reflects on the state of the media today and why grassroots movements can’t seem to capture the attention that horse race politics do. It’s part of the reason why he’s still out there pounding the pavement as a reporter and getting out of his home in Washington, D.C. to meet people doing the hard work of democracy every day.

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Additional Information

Hedrick’s website, Reclaim the American Dream

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Interview Highlights

[8:26] How did the story of democracy reform come onto your radar?

It’s a great story nobody else is covering and that’s always interesting to me. I wrote a book some years ago called, Who Stole the American Dream? that was really about how we got to the terrible economic inequalities we have today, and to the dysfunctional political system we have today. And as I went around the country giving talks about that, people said, “What are we going to do about that?” or “Do you know about this?”And I began to discover there was a lot more going on around the country, at the grassroots, at the state level, and it was totally being ignored by Washington.

[10:20] What motivates the grassroots organizers you met?

They’re, they’re angry that democracy doesn’t work right. They don’t feel as though their votes count, they don’t feel as though Washington listens to them. You look at poll after poll and it says lobbyists have too much power, corporations have taken over, Washington, they’ve captured the congress, and our system is broken.

[18:14] How should organizations strike a balance between making changes through ballot initiatives and longer-term political reforms?

There is a sense that reform as an issue is something people are looking for candidates to advocate is certainly front and center now. It’s coming, though