The Post-Partisan Forum
Topics (in reverse chronological order) with links to download the slides
Unless announced otherwise, Forums occur 10:00-12:00 the first Saturday of every month at the Secular Hub, 254 Knox Ct, Denver
Reforming SCOTUS Without Constitutional Amendments
4-Jul-26
With over a decade now of extreme decisions and ethics lapses by the conservative justices, SCOTUS has lost majority support among Americans. Decisions to gut the Voting Rights Act, strip federal agencies of their regulatory power, and grant sweeping immunity to the President demonstrate that the Roberts Court has embraced what social scientists would call a reactionary agenda. Their refusal to abide by even the modest ethics standards established for Congress, and their use of the shadow docket to impose monumental decisions upon Americans without explanation, reveal that these justices no longer feel beholden to the People. Not surprisingly, we citizens have noticed the new tenor of the Court. Polls show that 58% of us no longer consider the Court politically neutral — including 54% of Republicans.
Recent columns by NYTimes Jamelle Bouie urge us to realize that we do not have to accede to this unpopular remaking of our society. Tracing how judicial overreach has been repeatedly beaten back by Congress over the past two centuries, he has listed several reforms that the people can impose upon the court--without Constitutional amendment--to stop its erosion of our rights and democratic institutions. His recommendations go far beyond the "court packing" that many of us have heard about. If there is indeed a "Blue wave" during the next two election cycles, we citizens should consider which of these proposals make sense and then strongly pressure the new Congresses to enact them. Join the Forum this month to discuss the possibilities of pushing through such an crucial course correction for our democracy.
No-paywall links to the Bouie's articles:
SCOTUS is Corrupt...Here's What We Do: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRzS61buXkQ
Who Will Stand Up to SCOTUS: https://tinyurl.com/f55uehj5
SCOTUS Doesn't Own the Constitution: https://tinyurl.com/5azwvj9p
Escaping the Two-Party Doom Loop
6-Jun-26
Recent mid-cycle gerrymandering has pushed American democracy to a new low. Only 15 out of 435 House seats are now competitive, so few office holders have real doubts about reelection. In this environment, extreme partisanship leads citizens to tolerate blatant opportunism by their own party, because blocking the other side has become the overriding priority. Safe seats have eroded the incentive to serve the broader public, so that many Americans no longer believe Congress represents them. Recent polling shows 67% of voters feel neither Republicans nor Democrats adequately represent them, and 62% say the two major parties do such a poor job that additional parties are needed. Yet voters struggle to punish House members for nonperformance because voting against an incumbent feels like handing power to the enemy.
As an antidote to this mess, scholars have proposed a reform that goes far beyond independent redistricting commissions: proportional representation. No need for a constitutiona amendment—Congress can instead just repeal the 1967 Uniform Congressional District Act and adopt multi-member, proportional districts under its existing authority in the Elections Clause. Proponents argue this change would open the door to new parties, curb extremism, and strengthen incentives against corruption.
Join us at this month’s Forum to explore how proportional representation might work in practice and to debate whether its promises hold up. For a preview, you may wish to read or listen to Ezra Klein’s interview with Lee Drutman, author of Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop, available without paywall at https://tinyurl.com/38vpchhj.
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The recent wave of mid-census redistricting has left many Americans feeling that our country needs to start examining how to bolster—even restructure—our democracy soon if we don’t want to lose it. Along that theme, you might be interested in the link below to an column by NYTimes’ Jamelle Bouie that discusses how we would best pursue what some Democrats are calling a “Project 2029”.
Bouie's column argues we can’t respond to the changes wrought by the current administration by simply restoring what existed before. What's needed instead is a reconstruction: a coherent democratic vision that’s ambitious enough to match the revolutionary intent of those now in power.
These thoughts provide the perfect context for considering Drutman's notions. Proportional representations would be not just a technical fix to gerrymandering, but instead one step in dismantling of the two-party doom loop that makes democratic control of our representatives nearly impossible. Bouie sets the table; Drutman fills the first plates. With future Forums, we will hopefully be able to consider the full menu.
Bouie “Project 2029 done right”: https://tinyurl.com/6djyph4a
Using AI to Understand Human Stupidity
4-Apr-26
Serious thinkers have been pondering human stupidity for centuries. Some describe it as mental laziness, while others see it as a capitulation to group pressure and hierarchy. There's even a school of thought that views it as a manipulative means of amassing power.
At this month's Forum, your facilitators will step through several of these theories. We'll then share how we're using AI to generate the podcasts and graphics we plan on using for our course on stupidity, to be taught next month through DU's OLLI program.
As always, we'll lave plenty of time for discussion, during which we'll ask whether AI can present the various theories of irrationality clearly enough to help the ordinary person avoid leading what Socrates called "the unexamined life."
A sneak peek of the materials is available through
this video [https://www.postpartisan.network/s/Course-Intro-Video.mp4] or
this audio deep dive [https://www.postpartisan.network/s/Stupidity_Is_More_Dangerous_Than_Evil.m4a].
THE AI APOCALYPSE IS COMING: HERE’S WHAT IT WILL LOOK LIKE
7-Mar-25
AI agents in U.S. corporations already outnumber human workers 80 to 1.
Very few people realize how quickly professional jobs are being automated.
Our political system neglected to defend the blue-collar workers when automation and trade threatened their livelihoods over the past 30 years.
How much further social uproar will we inflame when AI eliminate 95% of white collar jobs over the next five years?
Can American democracy survive such stress?
At the next Forum, we’ll present what AI agents are, who’s promoting them, the risks they pose to society, and the solutions experts are calling for.
We’ll finish by considering what we as citizens can do to ensure this major economic transition works for the benefit of all, not just a few oligarchic billionaires.
For those who want a quick briefing before we meet, consider these podcasts & videos (listed with the policy solutions they suggest):
How Fast Will A.I. Agents Rip Through the Economy? (https://tinyurl.com/2n74jnav) - Create apprenticeship programs for workers & graduates displaced by AI
Tariffs Can’t Save Workers from AI: https://youtu.be/zHeMJesLlqg - Pace AI like we throttle medical research
AI Agents Jumped Their Creator’s Guardrails : https://youtu.be/OMb5oTlC_q0 - We need “trust architectures” as to keep society safe
Some presentations suggesting our fears are overblown:
AI Is Not Improving Productivity: https://youtu.be/UXK-LJ1VoDs
Calm Down About Claude Code: https://youtu.be/MdY2qLFV6F4
One in series of excellent videos about how to re-orient your career in response to AI:
Prompting' Just Split Into 4 Skills: https://youtu.be/BpibZSMGtdY
We’ll meet at 10:00am Saturday March 7 at Secular Hub (JH’s sister humanist chapter), 254 Knox Ct (near 6th & Federal).
The Nazi Brownshirts:
Any Parallels to Today?
7-Feb-25
During Germany's Weimar Republic, economic collapse and political chaos left many men desperately seeking order, employment, and belonging. Hitler's SA offered day wages and purpose in exchange for violence against rival parties. These "Brownshirts" suppressed opposition, intimidated intellectuals, attacked the press, and created a pervasive climate of fear.
Scholars describe today’s America’s "aggrieved entitlement"—men raised expecting privileges who view others' equality gains as personal loss. In this climate, DHS hastily recruited ICE agents, advertising the chance to do violence against "enemies", likening immigration enforcement as a battle against a foreign adversary (New York Times, 2025). Analysts claim ICE has transformed from an enforcement agency into a paramilitary force, "scooping people up off the streets" (Fox 9, 2025). The administration has directed ICE to raid Democratic-controlled sanctuary cities with thinly veiled threats of "chaos and violence" until municipalities "cooperate" (BBC, 2025).
At February's Forum, we'll ask: How similar are today's ICE agents to the Nazi Brownshirts—or is this comparison sensational hyperbole? History shows democracies grow vulnerable when economic crisis, institutional weakness, and polarization prevent unified defense of democratic norms. Do those who value liberal democracy need to heed the warning signs and act while our institutions can still resist authoritarian consolidation?
At the Forum, we tackle questions that unite Americans across the political divide. This month, we ask: Why should we do about taxes?
When billionaires like Buffett, Soros, and Gates publicly decry an unfair tax code, something's clearly broken. Meanwhile, our national debt and debt service costs are spiraling—making the current system not just unfair, but unsustainable.
But before we can demand reform, we should understand the problem. We'll explore three key questions: How unfair is the current tax system to the middle class—and can we quantify it? How did we end up with our current mess? How much time do we have before federal deficits trigger a crisis?
For answers, we'll dig into The Triumph of Injustice by UC Berkeley economists Saez and Zucman—a political history examining the rise of tax avoidance, modern tax havens, and the disappearing contributions of the wealthy ([summary here]). To set the tone, we'll also watch wealthy podcasters laugh about how they avoid taxes and "stick it to the little people" (skip to 1:41:30 here).
Armed with some facts, we can then debate what levels of taxation Americans—red and blue—should demand from our government.
U.S. politics are beginning to change dramatically, creating reasons for hope. The current administration has slipped to only 40% approval (Nate Silver’s poll average, 28-Nov). The independent and minority voters that elected it are starting to drift back to the opposition party. Morale among House Republicans is sinking, and GOP insiders warn that more mid‑term resignations are coming and put their narrow majority at risk (Yahoo News, 24-Nov).
It’s chaos, but history has shown that starting with periods of great turmoil, the America system has often taken great strides in synthesis and reform. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s fascinating resignation speech contained many points that sounded like leftist populism. She even railed against the “political-industrial complex,” accusing corporations and party elites of betraying the American people.
A few days later, several of her points were echoed—perhaps unintentionally—by Cory Booker in an interview with NYTimes. Put their statements side-by-side, and the overlap reveals that compromise and collaboration between Red & Blue is now possible. Both sides are calling attention to affordability, corporate influence, and dysfunction in our political system.
So…as the definitions of conservative and liberal start to blur, can we, the people, take advantage of the political class’s uncertainty? Can we get our representatives to focus at last on numerous policies that a super majority of Americans have long supported?
In this month’s Forum, we’ll use AI to combine the messages from MTG and Booker to synthesize a third way for Americans to consider. We’ll discuss how we voters can and should start nudging, even pushing, our representatives into a red-blue collaboration to break the logjam we’ve had in Washington over the past few decades.
Political scientists increasingly view our nation's drift towards civil war as the result of rural frustration over economic opportunity and structural exclusion. Rural populations view those of us living in the metropole as culprits who have undermined their way of life and stolen their futures. They feel that democracy no longer grants people outside the urban core a voice or dignity and thus decided that nihilism and violence are the only languages that will be heard.
Such analysis poses a host of pressing questions:
Is the urban elite truly responsible for rural decline?
Why does that decline continue?
How should we address the causal conditions in order to avoid a crisis?
Is there time for reconciliation before our country falls over the brink?
Charlie Kirk’s assassination has turned America into a hall of mirrors where we’ve forgotten how mirrors work. Critics who spent years calling for him to be “canceled” are now being canceled for cheering his death, while supporters who defended his right to offend are demanding that others be fired for offending his memory.
An even sadder comedy is watching officials weaponize the very institutions Kirk spent his career critiquing. Federal agencies are policing social-media posts with near-Soviet zeal, the State Department is reportedly yanking visas over tweets, and the Pentagon is “addressing” employees who mock a private citizen’s death—all in the name of a man who warned that government overreach was destroying America.
This spectacle exposes fractures in our democracy that demand scrutiny. At our next forum, the conversation will probe four urgent paradoxes:
How is it that gov’t agencies suddenly stifle speech by corporations and citizens despite 1st Amendment protections?
How could so many America corporations drop their aspirational values the moment they became financially risky?
Why do both camps remain so easily manipulated by simple us-versus-them messaging?
What happens to democracy when economic incentives systematically drive us to betray our cherished principles?
Join us to dissect these contradictions and share strategies for helping Americans see ourselves clearly, recover humility, and step back from this destructive theater of the absurd.
10:00 am Saturday July 5, 2025 @ The Hub
Arguably, America’s political crisis is not a problem of a single party or a particular politician but something deeper. We lack an narrative about our future that’s inspiring enough that Americans will unite, work together, and make it real.
A new generation of aspiring leaders claim they have a narrative that will steer the country in the right direction. Yet they encounter such criticism and resistance from traditional political forces that they feel locked out of the national process.
This month’s Forum seizes upon 33-year-old Zohan Mamdani’s defeat of Andrew Cuomo who is twice his age in the New York city mayorial primary. We’ll ask two vital questions:
· “Does the next generation have a message that can turn this country around?” and, if they do,
· “Can younger politicians overcome the old guard’s grip and place their message on the national stage?”
We’ll start the forum by summarizing a few recent articles, which should give even people who are new to politics plenty to offer as we examine these questions:
NYTimes / NYC Mayoral Race: the message that Mandami used to defeat Curomo
The Nation / Why Bernie Endorsed Mandami: a vital alternative to the billionaire establishment
Ezra Klein / Sarah McBride: how the left lost its focus on the issues that everyday Americans worry about
NYTimes / David Hogg Exits DNC & TruthOut / Hogg Explains Why Dems Losing Voters: how party old-guard stifles new energy
DeepDive / The MAGA Coup: how the Tea Party took over the GOP, but still didn’t solve the problem
Use the link above to download the materials for this event
Will a New Generation of Leaders Save America?
June 7, 2025
American liberalism faces a governance crisis: despite controlling major institutions for decades, progressive policies have failed in many ways to deliver the outcomes Americans need. Housing remains unaffordable, infrastructure projects stall, and bureaucracy frustrates both reformers and citizens.
In response to the Heritage Foundation's "Project 2025," numerous reform "Project 2029" proposals are emerging from think tanks and academics—each offering different visions for America's future. Over the coming months, the Forum will examine these diverse "Project 2029" proposals, evaluating them for reasonableness and their potential to bridge our nation's red-blue divide.
We begin with Klein & Thompson's scholarly bestseller, "Abundance," a critique of present-day liberalism from the left. The authors, both respected policy analysts, argue that recent decades of liberalism gave us a government that has "forgotten how to build the things that people want." Their academic analysis urges removing the barriers erected by past liberal agendas so we can have more housing, more education, more innovations, "more of everything."
Join us for an introduction to this influential work where we will consider the strength of its evidence and the value of its proposed solutions.
At the Forum, we strive for balance and synthesis between viewpoints from the left and right. We begin each session with an AI-generated summary designed to be fact-based and fair to both perspectives—part of our ongoing exploration of how artificial intelligence can enhance civil policy discussions. Those who are curious about this technology are invited to stay afterwards for a brief demonstration
“From Scarcity To “Abundance” -- Re-Orienting Liberalism"
May 3, 2025
The current upheaval in the U.S. government and erosion of civil rights has left many of us wondering how grassroots opposition movements were organized in other parts of the world. Cursory research reveals that they required considerable labor. However, before getting discouraged, people should realize that AI and social media have recently combined to streamline the process. Now a handful of people can accomplish what used to require dozens of volunteers.
Join our May Forum to learn about two examples of how resistance movements that succeeded in locations as disparate as Taiwan and Serbia. Once we have outlined their playbooks, we’ll examine how online democracy platforms such as Polis and large language models can automate the grunt work those two movements had to invest to launch their campaigns. Before breaking into discussion groups, we’ll consider:
· What would an AI platform for democracy look like in mid-2025?
· How might such a platform break the political gridlock of recent decades?
· How can AI facilitate planning, content, recruitment, and funding?
· How would citizens collaborate to build this platform?
We'll envision an artificial intelligence app made by the people and for the people, then discuss what would be the likely next steps for implementating such a system. Never has launching a pro-democracy campaign been easier, so this session may provide new hope to many.
Using AI to Organize An Opposition Movement
March 1, 2025
We see America as now paralyzed across many divides: political, religious, racial, regional. Yet there is one question that unites people across ideological categories. Perhaps it indicates what the real conflict between us must be: Are our institutions fundamentally broken?
Over the past five decades, trust in American institutions has withered. Polls consistently show that confidence in organizations designed to serve and sustain public and democratic life, including government, courts, science, media, and higher education, has waned significantly. Into this climate of distrust, emerges "brokenism" - a new framework for understanding America's deepening divisions that transcends traditional left-right politics. Brokenism suggests our key political divide isn't between conservatives and liberals, but between those who believe our institutions can be reformed and those who believe they must be rebuilt from scratch.
During this month’s Forum, we'll examine how this framework could create political opportunities for greater national cohesion that transcend the two-party system, allowing new coalitions to form around rebuilding rather than merely reforming. To ensure our discussion remains grounded in real world patterns and democratic values, we also consider warnings from first-hand observes about how populist movements can exploit institutional dysfunction to enable authoritarian takeovers in Russia and Eastern Europe.
In case you'd like to read up on these topics before our discussion, we have a compiled resource of readings and posted them to https://tinyurl.com/2j2t6mef.