Introduction

 Tulaine: Our guest today, Ken Himmelman, believes that our country’s stories unify us. They give us an idea of who we are and what we are trying to do together.  Ken is the former executive director of the Center of Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School, where he helped train a generation of public leaders. He’s currently building a new initiative surrounding American democracy and community engagement.

Ken recognizes that American democracy is in a very vulnerable state, at a key inflection point. He doesn’t shy away from stating that we are very close to falling off the ladder. Yet, he’s hopeful. He reminds us that to save democracy, to evolve and grow democracy, to meet its promise, citizens and leaders have to roll up their sleeves. My hope is that this episode encourages you to do just that! 

An Increasingly Divided America

Tulaine: Leadership is certainly one place where you often hear [that] it’s never been as hard, the other place where you hear [that] it’s never been as bad is the state of democracy in the US, right? That’s definitely not true. 

I’ve sort of felt like, well, maybe this disruption is just because we’re navigating change. We don’t really have systems or organizations that are built for the level of diversity and variety that actually exist in this country. And that’s some of what I think is happening, but what do you think is driving this disruption that we’re dealing with now?

Ken: I think there are a number of longer term trends. I definitely think that diversification of our society is one of them. I think there’s something about this kind of demographic shift that people have been seeing coming and are experiencing in different ways, and it makes them afraid, especially people who have been in the majority and have held power. I think the loss of economic opportunity for people over a period of time… I do think our income disparity, where people feel less and less able to keep up with their lives, is just a really fundamental fact for so many Americans. And so when you start to add these things up, they compound in all these different ways. And truthfully, I don’t think democracy has delivered well for a lot of Americans, you know? And so they kind of shrug their shoulders and are like, “What are you talking about? I could engage in more democracy, but look who’s benefiting from that. It’s just a small group of people who are creaming things off the top.” And again, if you think about it from a system perspective, systems have a tendency to self-organize in that way, right? Where over time resources tend to aggregate at the top. And it takes a force of some sort to redistribute that and to restructure that. And so I think a lot of forces are at play that are pushing us to this kind of historical period. There’s a reason why, you know, countries of 330 million people that are ethnically, linguistically, [and] culturally as diverse as we are will struggle to stay unified, in different ways. But I think that is our challenge and I think it is going to need all of us to come together to try to meet that challenge. 

Mythic Architecture

Tulaine: What is mythic architecture? 

Ken: Well, I guess the way I think about it is – and this goes back to my literary training – but, I noticed, [and] I’m certainly not the only person who’s ever noticed this, but I definitely noticed that some of the greatest stories in our cultures are actually retellings of other stories. For example West Side Story is a retelling of Romeo and Juliet, which itself is a retelling of a Greek myth, Pyramus and Thisbe. You know, lovers from different families who are unable to realize their love together. And so [taking] that mythic foundation of the story and then adapting [it] to the modern context is a very powerful way of reminding ourselves who we are. I think societies need those stories. And that’s what literature does, right? Or a great movie. It kind of taps back into something that is more foundational than the actual story itself. And that more foundational thing is the mythic side of it. think also that, in an age where religion has become less central for many people – certainly not for everyone, but for many people – finding the stories that give us meaning is very, very important. So I just think as in literature, so in our cultural life, in our social life, we need to be reminded of what those foundational stories are. They really matter. 

Ken’s Research

Tulaine: I know that you have been talking to people around the country about what America means to them and getting a sense of where America has hurt them, broke their heart, what their greatest hope is for America. And I wonder if you would share, Ken, some of what you’ve been hearing as you’ve been having conversations with people from very different parts of the country. 

Ken: We ran a little research project at Harvard with Governor Patrick leading the charge. I think we heard a lot of things that you and I’ve already already referenced. There’s a lot of mistrust right now in elite institutions and politicians in the political parties, maybe even more than [in] the governing bodies. [And] everybody is mistrustful of the media. Everyone thinks social media is having a negative impact, that was almost uniform. 

One of the things that really struck me was, to go back to this idea of unity, is that people talked about not wanting to be pulled into conversations that are trying to get them to agree. They weren’t as interested in bridging their differences around opinions. They were much more interested in coming together to do shared work. I think that one of the summaries that I really liked was people are looking for unity, but not unanimity. So, to your point about the melting pot, it’s not a singular story. And that’s in part the mistake, right, is that we’re trying to say [it is]. Because in that environment, there can only be one in ascendance. And so then we’re going to fight over whose is the story. And I think what’s more interesting is, and what you kind of hear when you talk to people, is what are those things that cut across our stories that are unifying? Because I do think those things are there.

The other thing we heard without any particular direction [was] when you ask people, what are the concepts or the values that you associate [most] with being American, almost across the board people said freedom. That was almost, uniformly, the top answer that people gave. And then the other two, I thought were very interesting. One was an opportunity, that was the other one that was really high on the list. And the third, and this is very interesting, was equality. Talk about an aspirational, right? But I think even people who said we haven’t lived into it yet still said it’s an important feature of what it means to be American.

Desire for Connection and the Emergence of Online Communities

Tulaine: What you’re saying, if I’ve got it right, is that there is a desire across identity to be in community [and] to not be forced to sign on to something you don’t believe, but to still have relationship with people who live and look differently from you?

Ken: Yeah, I think people do want that. And I think related to that was a clear sense that people experience that, or feel that it is possible to experience that, much more at a local level. They talk about neighborhoods, they talk about their community, however they define that. You can sort of get the sense that it was a geography that they could understand. And they talked about family a lot. You know, there’s a lot of focus on family. But I do think, you know, that the sort of the research on this is pretty clear, and I think this is sort of echoed. You know, people… because it’s so hard to make ends meet, people are just working all the time. And so they don’t have a lot of time for engaging in civic life. 

I think that the opportunities to engage in civic life have eroded very dramatically over the last two generations; we know that, you know, a lot from the social science research. And of course, the shift to moving into online communities is profoundly affecting everything that we’re doing, and certainly it’s affecting the next generation. I mean, one of the, one of the data points as we were pulling research together was, you know, I think it’s something like 57% of Gen Z and Millennials, find more community online than they do in real life. 

And so, like, you know, I mean, it sounds worse to me because I’m a middle aged guy, but like, you know, I don’t know that it’s necessarily worse. I just think it’s different and it’s really different. And so like, we have to think much more creatively about what are the ways in which we can find to connect people and to lift up those stories from those communities and those local levels where people are coming together to do things? You know, I just think we need to… we need those models to tell us, [to] remind ourselves about who we really are, because that’s what we’re trying to become. 

The State of Democracy 

Tulaine: It’s like the dignity of the station [the presidency] has been challenged and weakened. I’m curious, do you think that could ever be regained? Is it worth trying to rebuild that dignity, or is it maybe, is that a passé notion? Like, does it not really even matter that much?

Ken: Oh, I think it does matter. I mean, think there’s no question: in any environment, moral leadership matters. That doesn’t mean that leaders who do that sort of thing [mocking opponents or behaving childishly] aren’t successful. There’ve been far too many examples in the past. We know that it happened here, but it happened to [an] even worse effect in other places. So people with terrible intentions can get into these places, and whether they’re degrading the standards or the norms or whether they’re actually restructuring the laws to negative effect, I think that’s always an inherent risk around leadership. But I believe profoundly that we have a collective responsibility to think about leadership differently and to try to hold our leaders to a different standard. 

You know, I do think in the case of Trump, the sort of mannerisms and the way that he does things… There is something about the iconoclasm that he’s bringing to what he’s doing and saying that is a big part of what I think people do appreciate about him. It’s his willingness to push back or to ignore a set of standards and a set of norms that people just instinctively feel have not served them, in their experience. You know, “Okay, fine, everyone’s going by these norms but meanwhile, like, my life is still terrible,” you know?

And so the idea that he’s the hand grenade that they’re throwing at the system, I kind of have always understood that part of him, you know, the bully, the… other things. I don’t think there’s any room for that, I don’t think there ever has been, and I don’t think there ever should be. I just don’t think that’s something you can compromise on, honestly. So I do think we have to come back to reestablishing those norms because you also realize [that] so much of our country is not based on law, it’s based on norms. And when people are willing to shatter those norms, it’s a first step down a very slippery slope. 

I don’t know if you read Rachel Kleinfeld’s report on Five Strategies to Support American Democracy, but it’s an outstanding paper. She’s done a lot of research on countries that have slipped into a more authoritarian kind of model. And [she says] the U.S. is at high risk right now. I don’t think we should be naive about how slippery, in fact, that slope is. As healthy, in some ways, as our democracy has always been, it is definitely being tested right now. 

The other thing she points out is that these authoritarian figures often use the democratic structures and rules to their own advantage, right? They’re elected, fairly. They, once they get in, they use processes of nominating judges or changing laws or using things that they can use [and] they erode the norms that we’re accustomed to, right? All of those things are about degrading the democracy. And then, in a moment, you didn’t think it was possible but all of a sudden, in a moment, you’re there. So I think that’s kind of the context that she sets. 

She [also] lays out a couple of different ways to combat that. She feels very strongly that just voting more is not the answer. As much as that matters in a general sense, that is not going to fix what is going on right now. There has to be a much more strategic countervailing force here around moderation on the political side, and around… you know, she talks a lot about needing to find that narrative again. She does reference that, about how important that is, [to have] a shared vision that is rooted in local action. And I think that’s really important, especially in a country like ours. Like we can’t just come up with a national strategy and everyone’s going to buy into it. But I think the most important thing that is implied by her report is we have to engage. Like, as citizens, we have to engage in our society. That is what democracy requires

Creative work and Social Impact Work

Tulaine: Did you find that as you were writing this book that it impacted your social impact work? 

Ken: I mean, I do think so. I think the thing about creative work, at least for me, and I tend to gravitate more towards the writing side of creativity, I’m not a musician, I’m not a visual artist… but I do really love to write. And I think for me, writing has always been deeply associated with thinking. And the thing about writing creatively is it pushes your imagination in ways that are really different from what you experience in a more, let’s say, traditional kind of academic or business type setting, where it’s much more about getting things, you know, done or proven or whatever. Literature is about possibility. And so I just think it helps preserve a certain kind of mindset.

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