Julian E. Zelizer at Roosevelt House
Thursday, April 3, 2025
6:00pm — 7:00pm ET
Roosevelt House at Hunter College, NYC
Partisanship is a dirty word in American politics. If there is one issue on which almost everyone in our divided country seems to agree, it’s the belief that the intense loyalty within the electorate toward Democrats and Republicans is the source of our democratic ills—division, dysfunction, distrust, and disinformation. The possibilities that responsible partisanship can offer were at the heart of an important intellectual tradition that flourished in the 1950s and 1960s, one which was institutionalized through a sweeping set of congressional reforms in the 1970s and 1980s.
Julian E. Zelizer’s In Defense of Partisanship reimagines what partisanship might look like going forward from today. A new era of party-oriented reforms has the potential to pay respect to the deep differences that divide us—simultaneously creating a more functional path on which two responsible political parties compete to shape policy while still being able to govern.
Julian Zelizer will be in conversation with Jelani Cobb, Henry R. Luce Professor of Journalism and Dean of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and staff writer for the New Yorker.
Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College
47-49 E 65th Street, NYC
Partisanship is a dirty word in American politics. If there is one issue on which almost everyone in our divided country seems to agree, it’s the belief that the intense loyalty within the electorate toward Democrats and Republicans is the source of our democratic ills—division, dysfunction, distrust, and disinformation. The possibilities that responsible partisanship can… more
Roosevelt House at Hunter College, NYC