Our democracy facing 'biggest test ... we've ever been through,' Donna Brazile says at CSU

Warning that we’re facing the “biggest test I think we’ve ever been through as Americans,” longtime political strategist and commentator Donna Brazile said Americans need to overcome the divisiveness before us to save our democracy.

It’s really that simple, Brazile said Tuesday afternoon at Colorado State University.

“Democracy can’t survive if we just believe it’s about red and blue,” she told an audience of about 300 people in the Lory Student Center’s Main Ballroom. “Democracy can only thrive if we believe it’s about the best ideas, it’s about listening to each other, respecting one another, believing that we are all legit, we deserve some dignity and respect.”

Brazile, 64, was delivering the keynote address for the fourth annual Gather – Conversations to Inspire event, sponsored by Women and Philanthropy. Her talk was billed by organizers as “an exploration of the Thematic Year in Democracy through a female lens.”

Brazile shared dozens of stories about her experiences growing up as a poor child in a large Black family just outside of New Orleans in the segregated South. She drew from stories of a great-grandmother who grew up in slavery, the message and assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., and the Catholic faith she and her mother share.

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“One of the things that I enjoy most about growing up at this hour, this time, is that I’ve gotten a chance to see a lot in my day,” Brazile said. “I came of age during the Civil Rights Movement. And, in large part, the reason I decided to get into politics and to serve is because I saw people who were willing to march, who were willing to risk their lives by going out into the streets into the public square demanding they have a say in their own lives.

“That’s the right to vote; to have a say in your own lives.”

As a political strategist, Brazile worked on the campaigns of 10 presidential candidates, including Jesse Jackson and later Walter Mondale in 1984, Dick Gephardt in the 1988 Democratic primary and as campaign manager for Al Gore in 2000, becoming the first Black woman to direct a major presidential campaign. She has been involved in the campaigns of 55 U.S. congressional candidates and twice served as acting chair of the Democratic National Committee.

She has done campaign work in 49 of the 50 United States.

“The only state I’ve never been to is Montana,” she said. “I’ve been watching ‘Yellowstone’ preparing myself.”

Brazile’s talk was filled with one-liners like that, drawing laughter and applause throughout from an audience consisting primarily of CSU faculty, staff and other community members. At one point, responding to a question from CSU President Amy Parsons about what advice she would give students who will be voting in their first presidential election, she asked first-time voters in the audience to stand up. Only two people did, drawing a loud round of applause.

Brazile reminded them of the importance of their vote, noting that the 2016 presidential election was decided by just 77,000 votes and the 2020 election by just 44,000, “the Electoral College being what it is.”

She has taught for 31 years, the past 22 at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., and is the current chair of the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board, a U.S. government partnership offering outstanding students, teachers and professionals educational and cultural exchange programs throughout the world.

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Brazile is best known these days for her work on television providing political analysis on ABC News after previously serving in similar roles on CNN and Fox News.

Speaking this past Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” Brazile suggested the U.S. Supreme Court’s delay in ruling on Donald Trump’s claims of presidential immunity is bordering on election interference.

“I said Sunday on TV it was election interference by not hearing this case earlier,” she said.

That’s in sharp contrast, she said, to the quick ruling the Supreme Court gave in 2000, when the outcome of the presidential election between Gore and George W. Bush could not be determined until it ruled on the counting of contested votes in Florida. That decision, Brazile said, was handed down within 48 hours of the justices hearing arguments.

Brazile’s political preferences are well known. She shared concerns about protecting the reproductive rights of women since the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and frequently reminded the audience that as recently as 1980 women couldn’t get a credit card in their own name.

She opened her talk Tuesday noting that she came to Colorado “when you were red, I came here when you were purple, and I’m going to keep coming until you are a deep, deep blue.”

Yet she continues to be criticized by those in her own party for working with George W. Bush on Hurricane Katrina recovery efforts and later praising the president’s response that was blasted by others, she said.

“I decided to work with George Bush, and let me say something to all of you good, faithful liberals, progressives, moderates, conservatives, whatever: I was condemned because I decided I wanted to help the president of the United States. I was condemned, I was blackballed … I couldn’t go to this convention, that convention because people were more invested in calling George Bush a racist than actually helping those who had been stranded, and through no fault of their own, couldn’t get back on their own feet.

“I decided, not just in the interest of the people, the Gulf Coast community, my family and my country, to put aside my partisanship.”

She spent three years working with the Bush Administration on behalf of those people in her hometown, she said.

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That’s what democracy is about, she said. Not which party wins or loses.

“You ain’t going to get perfect on either side,” Brazile said. “You ain’t going to get perfection. Yet it’s better than anything else.”

She went on to cite the fears of one of our nation’s founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin, about Americans’ ability to keep the democratic republic they established.

“Part of the problem called democracy and why it requires us is one of the missing ingredients is trust,” she said. “And if we lose that, what I also came to say, then we are going to indeed have to figure out what other form of government we might wish to live in. We’ve got to restore trust. We’ve got to believe the best in each other. Yes, we’re going to have our cynicism and our skepticism and our oh my God, OK. But you know, you get over it. But we become stronger, and maybe we can start planting those seeds for the 21st century.

“Maybe we can reimagine the future. Maybe we can stand as one even as we are divided, knowing that division hasn’t always destroyed us.”

Reporter Kelly Lyell covers education, breaking news, some sports and other topics of interest for the Coloradoan. Contact him at kellylyell@coloradoan.com, x.com/KellyLyell and  facebook.com/KellyLyell.news

This article originally appeared on Fort Collins Coloradoan: Democracy facing 'biggest test' ever, Donna Brazile says in CSU talk