29. The Big Questions Facing American Democracy | Tocqueville Talks 2026–27 Preview

What are the biggest questions facing American democracy—and how can universities create spaces where they are seriously debated?

In this season-opening episode of Tocqueville Talks, Tocqueville Center Director Brent Nelsen and co-host Beth L'Arrivée preview a year of conversations about democracy, American history, religion, foreign policy, artificial intelligence, elections, and the culture wars.

The 2026–27 season begins with two Furman alumni who have gone on to positions of international leadership: Alexander Stubb, President of Finland, and General Joshua Rudd, Director of the National Security Agency and Commander of U.S. Cyber Command, in a conversation about America and the world.

As the United States approaches the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, Harvard historian David Armitage comes to Furman to examine the Declaration, its political meaning, and its influence far beyond the United States. Armitage is the author of The Declaration of Independence: A Global History.

The season then turns to some of the central questions shaping American public life: Furman's Baptist heritage and the place of Baptists in America; the 2026 midterm elections; the American Revolution in South Carolina; the governance of artificial intelligence; women in the American church; and the relationship between religion, culture, and democracy.

The episode also previews a conversation between sociologists James Davison Hunter, whose landmark Culture Wars helped give Americans the language they still use to describe conflicts over culture and public life, and Christian Smith, a leading sociologist of religion.

Along the way, Brent and Beth discuss Battlestar Galactica, AI and political life, American political rhetoric, the Declaration's place in world history, and why disagreement itself belongs at the center of a serious liberal education.

Topics include:

• The biggest questions facing American democracy

• America and the world

• Alexander Stubb and General Joshua Rudd

• America's 250th anniversary

• David Armitage and the Declaration of Independence

• The global influence of the American founding

• Furman's Baptist heritage

• Religion and American public life

• The 2026 midterm elections

• The American Revolution in South Carolina

• Artificial intelligence and democratic governance

• Battlestar Galactica, technology, and politics

• Women in the American church

• James Davison Hunter and the culture wars

• Christian Smith and the sociology of religion

• Civil discourse and intellectual disagreement

• The role of universities in democratic life

At the heart of the season is a question central to the Tocqueville Center's mission: Can we learn to engage serious disagreements on their own terms—and pursue truth beyond partisanship?