CBH Talk | Rebuilding American Democracy: The Path to a Functioning Government

According to legal scholar and former White House official K. Sabeel Rahman, American democracy faces a crisis that goes beyond elections, polarization, and partisan division. In his urgent new book, Remaking the State: A New Blueprint for American Democracy, Rahman argues that the health of our democracy depends on rebuilding the institutions of government themselves. 

Taking aim at both the top-down model of the traditional administrative state, as well as efforts to dismantle government altogether, Rahman centers his consideration on what it takes to make government genuinely responsive to the public it serves. Drawing on his experience as one of the Biden administration’s top regulatory officials, he asks us to reconsider not simply how much government we want, but what we want government to be.

Join us for a timely discussion about government power and capacity, inequality, public trust, and what rebuilding the machinery of American democracy might look like. New York Times economics reporter Talmon Joseph Smith leads the conversation.