How do we heal? A Conversation w/ Lawrence Douglas

Good Law | Bad Law

Aaron Freiwald, Managing Partner of Freiwald Law and host of the weekly podcast, Good Law | Bad Law, is joined by Professor Lawrence R. Douglas, of Amherst College, to have a follow-up discussion on the current state of our politics, the integrity of our electoral system, and Professor Douglas’ most recent publication, Will He Go? Trump and the Looming Election Meltdown in 2020. Aaron and Lawrence discuss the aftermath of the 2020 election and analyze Will He Go. Where do we as a country go from here? Is there really hope for the future?

In today’s conversation, Lawrence and Aaron touch on a multitude of issues: toxicity, checks and balances, truth and basic facts, voter suppression, federal and state politics, and more. How has the 2020 election and the Trump presidency impacted our political system? Will there be lasting damage? Aaron and Lawrence discuss the lawsuits, the allegations, the conspiracy theories and what affects these have had on American’s view of our democratic process. Will Biden be “bootstrapped” by the unraveling of “normalcy”? Lawrence and Aaron explore this and more as they talk about cynicism, our current media environment, the upcoming Georgia run-off election, baseless claims of fraud and election interference, and contemplate just how bad things are and will be.

Lawrence R. Douglas is the James J. Grosfeld Professor of Law, Jurisprudence and Social Thought at Amherst, as well as the Chair of Law, Jurisprudence, and Social Thought. He is a graduate of Yale Law School, Columbia University (M.A.) and Brown University (A.B.) and is the author of seven books, including The Memory of Judgment: Making Law and History in the Trials of the Holocaust (Yale, 2001) and The Right Wrong Man: John Demjanjuk and the Last Great Nazi War Crimes Trial (Princeton, 2016), a New York Times “Editor’s Choice.” Professor Douglas’ commentary and essays have appeared in Harper’s, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Los Angeles Times; and he is a regular contributor to the Times Literary Supplement and The Guardian (US), where is a contributing opinion writer.

Some of Professor Douglas’ courses touch directly on the substance of his research while others are “a bit further removed;” they all however are interdisciplinary in terms of both the materials read and the questions explored. His teaching asks students to see law not as a narrow system of rules, but as a complex system that serves to constitute and maintain ordered patterns of social life.

Listen now!

To learn more about Professor Douglas, please visit his bio page here.

To check out Professor Douglas’ most recent book, Will He Go? Trump and the Looming Election Meltdown in 2020, please click here.

Host: Aaron Freiwald

Guest: Lawrence R. Douglas

**Please note: During the conversation, Biden’s winning margin in Pennsylvania was incorrectly stated. President- elect Biden won Pennsylvania by approximately 80,000 votes and Michigan by some 150,000 votes.

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