American Democracy | Munk Debates

Andrew Sullivan

"In terms of our liberal democracy and constitutional order, Trump is an extinction-level event."

Andrew Sullivan is an Oxford graduate who received his PhD from Harvard University. He has written extensively on a wide range of topics, including the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, civil liberties, the legalization of marijuana, human rights and the future of media. A practicing Catholic, he has challenged the Church's position on gay life in his books and television appearances on shows such as “Real Time” with Bill Maher.

Sullivan is a contributing editor at New York magazine, blogger, author and a popular source of provocative and astute political and social commentary.

From 2000 to 2015, Sullivan chronicled almost every major political and cultural moment on his blog, The Dish. During those 15 years, at Time Magazine, The Atlantic and independently, he helped legitimize the digital medium by publishing an incredible 250 to 300 posts a week.

Sullivan joined New York magazine as contributing editor in 2016, covering politics and culture. Also in 2016, Sullivan announced he was working on two new books: Keeping the Faith, a spiritual memoir about the future and meaning of Christianity in the 21st century, and a 30-year retrospective of essays, reviews and posts, entitled Thinking Out Loud.

Sullivan was The New Republic’s youngest editor-in-chief, was named editor of the year by Adweek and received multiple National Magazine Awards. He also worked for Time Magazine, The New York Times Magazine and served as a senior editor for The Atlantic.

Sullivan was an early activist for gay rights. His books Here Comes the Groom: A (Conservative) Case for Gay Marriage, published in 1989, and 1995’s Virtually Normal: An Argument about Homosexuality set the agenda for the gay rights movement for two decades.

E.J. Dionne Jr.

"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., from Fall River, Mass., holds an undergraduate degree from Harvard University and a D.Phil. in sociology from Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar.

Dionne started his career at The New York Times in 1975, covering state, local and national politics, and also serving as a foreign correspondent, reporting from more than two dozen countries, including Paris, Rome and Beirut. He joined The Washington Post in 1990 as a political reporter and, since 1993, has been writing a column for paper that now appears in more than 240 newspapers.

Dionne 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. He is also a senior fellow at The Brookings Institution and University Professor in the Foundations of Democracy and Culture at Georgetown University.

He is also a regular political analyst for MSNBC, NPR’s All Things Considered and ABC News’ This Week.

Together with Tom Mann and Norm Orenstein, Dionne is a co-author of the book One Nation After Trump: A Guide for the Perplexed, the Disillusioned, the Desperate and the Not-Yet Deported, which will be published by St. Martin’s Press on September 19.

He has written six other books and has edited or co-edited seven. His Why Americans Hate Politics won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and was a National Book Award nominee.

Dionne lives in Bethesda, Md., with his wife, Mary Boyle. They have three children, James, Julia and Margot.

Kimberley Strassel

What we're witnessing here is the return to old-fashioned politics […] This is about a big, fat, beautiful negotiation.

Kimberley Strassel is a member of the editorial board for The Wall Street Journal. She writes editorials, as well as the weekly Potomac Watch political column.

Ms. Strassel joined Dow Jones & Co. in 1994, working in the news department of The Wall Street Journal Europe in Brussels, and then in London. She moved to New York in 1999 and soon thereafter joined the Journal's editorial page, working as a features editor, and then as an editorial writer. She assumed her current position in 2005.

Ms. Strassel, a 2014 Bradley Prize recipient, is a regular contributor to Sunday political shows. She is the author of two New York Times bestsellers: "The Intimidation Game” and “Resistance (At All Costs).”  

An Oregon native, Ms. Strassel earned a bachelor's degree in Public Policy and International Affairs from Princeton University. 

Newt Gingrich

"Trump’s election is a tremendous opportunity to tear down the walls of big government, liberalism, and elitism and set the path for a bold new direction that is once again guided by the will of the people."

Newt Gingrich is a former Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, bestselling author and Time magazine’s 1995 Man of the Year. He’s best known as 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 40 years.  

Gingrich received his bachelor of arts from Georgia’s Emory University and a master’s and doctorate in modern European history from Tulane University in New Orleans. Before his election to Congress, he taught history and environmental studies at West Georgia College for eight years. 

As an author, Gingrich has published 40 books, including 17 fiction and non-fiction New York Times bestsellers. His latest book, published in June, is Trump and the American Future: Solving the Great Problems of Our Time. He is also the author of a series of historical fiction books, including Gettysburg and Pearl Harbor.  

Gingrich has founded and chaired several policy think tanks, including American Solutions for Winning the Future and the Center for Health Transformation. Today he is the chair of Gingrich 360, a full-service American consulting, education, and media production group  

He is married and has two daughters and two grandchildren.