We can still save democracy from conspiracies
A FEW TIMES IN MY CAREER, I HAVE GENUINELY FEARED FOR MY LIFE.
In Arkansas, I posed as an ultimate fighter at a cage match and challenged anyone in the audience to take me on. When my fake ex-boyfriend volunteered, we engaged in some heavy petting, triggering a near riot. The crowd—including some recently paroled prisoners with swastika tattoos—erupted in homophobic slurs and started hurling metal chairs at us. Had I not ducked into a trapdoor and out an escape tunnel, I think the crowd would have beaten me senseless.
Moments like that are frightening. Today, though, I’m truly terrified—for the survival of democracy itself.
A year ago, I spoke out publicly for the first time in my own voice because I feared that our pluralistic democracies were at risk of
