The twenty-first semi-annual Munk Debate pits award-winning journalist E. J. Dionne, Jr. and influential author and blogger Andrew Sullivan against former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Newt Gingrich and bestselling author and editor Kimberley Strassel to debate the current crisis of American democracy.

“Our country is now as close to crossing the line from democracy to autocracy as it has been in our lifetimes.” — E. J. Dionne, Jr.

It is the public debate of the moment: is Donald Trump precipitating a crisis of American democracy? For some the answer is an emphatic “yes.” Trump’s disregard for the institutions and political norms of U.S. democracy is imperiling the Republic. The sooner his presidency collapses the sooner the healing can begin and the ship of state righted. For others Trump is not the villain in this drama. Rather, his young presidency is the conduit, not the cause, of Americans’ deep-seated anger towards a privileged and self-dealing Washington elite. Trump’s disruption of politics as usual is what America needs to start the process of restoring democracy by the people, for the people.

E. J. DIONNE, JR. is an award-winning journalist and political commentator who appears regularly on MSNBC, NPR’s All Things Considered, and ABC News’ This Week. He is currently a William F. Bloomberg Visiting Professor at Harvard University, with a joint appointment at the Harvard Divinity School, the Harvard Kennedy School, and Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Dionne is also a senior fellow at The Brookings Institution and University Professor in the Foundations of Democracy and Culture at Georgetown University.

E.J. Dionne's profile page

Andrew Sullivan is one of today’s most provocative social and political commentators. A former editor of The New Republic, he was the founding editor of The Daily Dish, and has been a regular writer for The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, Time, Newsweek, New York magazine, The Sunday Times (London), and now The Weekly Dish. He lives in Washington, DC, and Provincetown, Massachusetts.

Andrew Sullivan's profile page

Newt Gingrich is the former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, a New York Times bestselling author, and Time magazine’s 1995 Man of the Year. Called “the indispensable leader” by the Washington Times, he was the architect of the Contract with America, which led the Republican Party to victory in 1994 by capturing the majority in the U.S. House for the first time in forty years. Under his leadership, Congress passed welfare reform, the first balanced budget in a generation, and the first tax cut in sixteen years.

?

As an author, Gingrich has published twenty-three books, including thirteen fiction and non-fiction New York Times bestsellers. Nonfiction books include his latest, A Nation Like No Other: Why American Exceptionalism Matters, as well as To Save America: Stopping Obama’s Secular-Socialist Machine. Gingrich is also chair of the Gingrich Group, a communications and consulting firm that specializes in transformational change, with offices in Atlanta and Washington, DC. In addition, he serves as a member of the Defense Policy Board and is on the Terrorism Task Force for the Council on Foreign Relations. He founded and chaired several policy think tanks, including American Solutions for Winning the Future and the Center for Health Transformation.

Newt Gingrich's profile page

KIMBERLEY STRASSEL is an author, journalist, and member of the Wall Street Journal editorial board, where she writes editorials and the influential Potomac Watch political column. Strassel is the author of the national bestseller The Intimidation Game: How the Left is Silencing Free Speech, and appears regularly on a range of political television programs, including Fox News Sunday, CBS’s Face the Nation, and NBC’s Meet the Press.

Kimberley Strassel's profile page