A Conversation with Norm Eisen
Listen to the full episode:
Time Codes:
04:56 The fragility of democracies past
06:20 An alliance under profound threat
08:38 Threats against a NATO ally
09:45 A dawning awareness is underway
12:45 The West must learn from its mistakes
14:55 Appeasement never works with an autocrat
17:05 We’ve faced down tyranny before
20:15 Vote!
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Appeasement Never Works With A Dictator
Norm Eisen is a man in constant motion. His personal and professional stories are uniquely powerful testaments to the turbulence of our world, both in terms of history already made and history currently being written, and the individual’s ability to shape the outcomes.
His personal story, which includes his parents’ flight from Europe in the face of the rise of the Nazis, to his eventual return to the country of his mother’s birth to serve as U.S. ambassador to Prague, is nothing short of amazing. His professional career is no less impressive: He has served as President Obama’s ethics czar and the U.S. ambassador to the Czech Republic; he was special counsel to the House Judiciary Committee during the first impeachment and trial of Donald Trump; he has founded legal and watchdog organizations including Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), and Democracy Defenders. He is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute in Government Studies and chairs their Anti-Corruption, Democracy, and Security project; and he is the author of several books, including “The Last Palace: Europe’s Turbulent Century in Five Lives and One Legendary House.”
Norm is a democracy defender par excellence and a leading light among those using the law to reign in the Trump administration. Some of the high-profile legal cases he’s been involved in this year alone include defending the former Olympic canoeist David Hearn, who was hit with federal felony and vandalism charges in the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool case; Trump’s mail-in ballot order aimed at curbing mail-in voting; the antitrust case against the Paramount-Warner Brothers merger deal; and lawsuits against the $1.8 billion so-called “slush fund” tied to the U.S. Department of Justice.
In all of his work, Norm brings his deeply held principles of democracy, accountability, and transparency to bear, and he does it with an inspiring, sunny optimism, and the best of the American “can-do” spirit.
In his conversation with WOW, he recalls the darker chapters of his family history and the lessons he drew from this. He talks about the importance of the transatlantic alliance and the multiple threats it is facing today. And with a big-picture view, he reminds us that the U.S. has survived its own very dark moments and come out the other side, and that we can do so again today, through peaceful and considered concrete actions and a willingness to learn from our own mistakes.
Comments, questions, suggestions? Get in touch, we’d love to hear from you: hello@thewow.world