In Conversation: Gluing Back the Pieces of a Broken Democracy

Tom Hudson is the Vice President of News and Special Correspondent for WLRN. He hosts and produces the Sunshine Economy and anchors the Florida Roundup in addition to leading the organization’s news engagement strategy. Most recently Hudson was the co-anchor and managing editor of Nightly Business Report on Public Television, and the nationally syndicated financial television program “First Business.” He has served as a member of the adjunct faculty in the Journalism Department of Columbia College Chicago and has been a frequent guest on other TV and radio programs as well as a guest speaker at universities on communications, journalism and business.

David Litt, a speechwriter for President Obama from 2011-2016, is the New York Times best-selling author of Thanks, Obama: My Hopey Changey White House Years. Since leaving the White House, he served as the head writer and producer for Funny or Die‘s office in Washington, with a focus on improving youth turnout in the 2018 election, and is currently developing a sitcom based on his life in D.C.  In Democracy in One Book or Less: How It Works, Why It Doesn’t, and Why Fixing It Is Easier Than You Think (Ecco), David Litt argues that the democracy in which we live in today is different—completely different—from the democracy in which were born into. Poking into forgotten corners of history, translating political science into plain English, and traveling the country to meet experts and activists, Litt explains how the world’s greatest experiment in democracy went awry. Yet despite his clear-eyed assessment of the dangers we face, he remains audaciously optimistic and offers a blueprint for restoring the balance of power in America before it’s too late. Kirkus Reviews called it “A pleasure to read, even in its darkest moments, and refreshingly optimistic about the future of the republic