Jimmy Panetta talks about authoritarian power and the existential issues facing democracy.

Bradley Zeve here. For this week’s cover story, I caught up with Rep. Jimmy Panetta, D-Carmel Valley, to talk about the state of the union in these highly partisan, rancorous times.

When he first ran for a seat in Congress in 2016, he envisioned serving alongside Hillary Clinton in the White House. While he won that first race and has been re-elected four times since, he has served in a time where the old norms no longer exist. 

“The problem with our Constitution,” Panetta told me, “is that we have relied on these norms, these precedents, these standards, now realizing that’s all they are. And therefore, it’s up to individuals to enhance them and to make them stronger. But as we’ve seen, individuals can also make them weaker. And this is why it’s important that we lean in now more than ever.”

National nonprofit Project Democracy has extensively written about the “Authoritarian Playbook,” which identifies seven core tactics used by the leaders around the world to dismantle democracies from within. Those include capturing the courts, spreading disinformation and scapegoating vulnerable communities.

Many policy wonks believe that we’ve passed through all seven of those portals. What’s Panetta’s take?

“Based on what this president and the sycophants around him in his cabinet are doing, the problem is, is that he’s allowed to bypass the checks and balances,” he says. “That’s what I think we’re in the middle of this fight because we have a [Republican-controlled] Congress that absolutely placated the president, abdicated its rule and been complicit in these steps that this president has done toward its authoritarian rule.”

The cover story is a question-and-answer with Panetta, touching on topics such as his campaign donations from the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, Proposition 50 and what keeps him up at night.

Panetta was animated throughout our discussion, deeply concerned about the breakdown of decorum in Washington, DC, but seemingly hopeful. You can read the story in the Weekly, in print, or online here. I hope you enjoy it.