On a cool, cloudy evening in Los Angeles, the 2025 PEN World Voices Festival launched in the newly opened Glorya Kaufman Community Center at the Wende Museum, a space dedicated to interrogating the ideologies of the past. With Cold War artifacts lining the adjacent galleries and a standing-room-only crowd, the night’s theme—Is It the End of the World As We Know It?: A Playbook for the Times—felt not just timely, but eerily prescient.
The symbolism wasn’t lost on anyone: Here, amid the relics of authoritarianism, was a conversation about the possibility of its return—not abroad, but here at home. Ben Rhodes (After the Fall), Peter Hamby (Good Luck America), and Lynn Vavreck (The Bitter End) discussed the moment and how Americans might respond.
On the decline of democracy
Ben Rhodes, former Deputy National Security Advisor under President Obama and author of After the Fall, didn’t mince words. “Autocracy doesn’t announce itself,” he said. “It arrives slowly—through disinformation, the hollowing out of institutions, and a sense of despair that makes people stop believing anything can be done.”
Drawing from his years studying political backsliding around the world—from Hungary to the Philippines—Rhodes warned that the U.S. is not immune. In fact, it’s following the same well-worn pattern. He described the current moment as one in which truth is contested, civic faith is low, and narrative control has become a political weapon.
That assessment was echoed and reinforced by Lynn Vavreck, a UCLA political scientist whose work focuses on voter behavior and electoral norms. Co-author of The Bitter End, Vavreck brought empirical depth to the conversation, noting that polarization isn’t merely a cultural issue—it’s become structural. “We used to talk about campaigns as competitions of ideas,” she said. “Now it’s identity against identity. When partisanship becomes your identity, facts don’t move you. Emotion does.”
She added that democratic decline doesn’t begin with violence; it begins with the subtle erosion of trust in the process itself—a process that plays out on screens, not battlefields.
Media has shifted from being a tool for informing the public to a weapon in a cultural and political war.
On media’s role in the crisis
Peter Hamby, a former CNN reporter and now the host of Snapchat’s Good Luck America, spoke about the role of media—especially digital platforms—in shaping this precarious environment. He criticized legacy outlets for failing to meet younger audiences where they are, and for clinging to both-sides framing long after one side has abandoned democratic norms.
“The platforms people use now—TikTok, Snapchat, YouTube—don’t reward nuance,” Hamby said. “They reward clarity, conflict, virality. And that has consequences for how people understand politics, especially young voters who’ve never known a ‘normal’ political era.”
Hamby emphasized the role that disinformation and media manipulation play in exacerbating the political divide. “The internet didn’t just change where people get their news. It changed what they think news is,” he said, pointing to how social media platforms are designed to foster conflict and outrage, which in turn deepens polarization.
“Media has shifted from being a tool for informing the public to a weapon in a cultural and political war,” Hamby added, underlining the growing challenge of rebuilding civic trust in an era of fragmented, platform-driven information.
Hamby emphasized that while legacy journalism often aims to “report the news,” younger audiences crave context. “They don’t want just what happened,” he said. “They want to know: What does this mean? Why should I care? And who benefits from this narrative?”
His remarks added a crucial layer to the conversation: If truth is fragmented and distributed algorithmically, how do we mount a defense?
What’s in the playbook?
Despite the bleak diagnosis, the evening wasn’t defeatist. Each speaker offered strategies—if not for restoring what’s lost, then for building something more resilient in its place.
For Vavreck, the first step is understanding how the political system really works, including its vulnerabilities. “There’s power in knowledge,” she said. “Democracy is fragile, but it’s also repairable—if we understand how it works, and how it’s being broken. If we understand how campaigns exploit fear and identity, we can begin to resist that manipulation.”
Rhodes spoke to the need for storytelling—clear, compelling, value-driven narratives that counter authoritarian fear-mongering. “Authoritarians tell a story: ‘You’re under threat, and I’m the only one who can protect you,’” he said. “We have to tell a different story: one about dignity, agency, and solidarity.”
Hamby pushed for creative, intentional media engagement. “If we don’t show up in the places where people get information—especially young people—we’re conceding the future,” he said. “We need to experiment. We need to be bold. And we need to stop pretending the old playbook still works.”
Democracy is fragile, but it’s also repairable—if we understand how it works, and how it’s being broken.
Why this conversation, why now?
PEN America Los Angeles opened the 20th edition of the World Voices Festival not with literary celebration, but with a reckoning—because this moment demands one.
Is It the End of the World As We Know It? wasn’t just a provocative title; it was a challenge. As free expression, civic trust, and democratic institutions come under mounting threat, PEN America’s mission—to unite writers and readers to celebrate the power of the written word —must evolve into something even broader: a defense of the civic fabric that makes those freedoms possible.
Holding this conversation in the Glorya Kaufman Community Center at the Wende Museum, surrounded by the material history of closed societies, underscored the stakes. The museum’s Cold War collections are a reminder that repression doesn’t just live in the past. It begins with silence. With fear. With distraction. And with stories that go unchallenged.
By convening voices from politics, journalism, and academia, PEN America Los Angeles asked not only what we are up against—but how we can respond with clarity, creativity, and courage. This wasn’t just the start of a festival. It was the start of a fight for the future.
Want more? Explore the panelists’ work:
- After the Fall by Ben Rhodes
- The Bitter End by Lynn Vavreck, with John Sides and Chris Tausanovitch
- Good Luck America, hosted by Peter Hamby
