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This week, my column takes the form of a Q & A with former U.S. Rep. Dick Gephardt.

Congressman Gephardt and I have been friends for many years. He was one of the stars of my generation growing up in St. Louis in the post-World War II years, and we were proud to see him become a very popular leader of the Democratic Party and to hold that position for more than a decade. Dick was not only House Majority Leader, but was a serious candidate for president.

I decided to get Dick's views on what I consider some urgent questions for our democracy:

Q. You were the Democratic leader in the House of Representatives for 14 years ending in 2003. It was a time that began with cooperation and then turned to confrontation. What happened?

I was Democratic Leader in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1989 to 2003. When I started as Leader in 1989 there was positive collaboration in Congress between Republicans and Democrats. A high point was in 1990 when Congress worked in a bipartisan way with President George H.W. Bush to cut the federal deficit in half, culminating in balancing the budget with President Clinton in 1999. In fact, we had a budget surplus in two years after achieving balance.

This era of cooperation and collaboration began to change in 1994 when Republicans won back a majority in the House for the first time in 40 years under the leadership of Representative Newt Gingrich. Gingrich deserves credit for winning back that majority after such a long period, but his style of politics was based on negative messaging and campaigns that often featured very negative personal messaging against candidates in TV ads.

American political campaigns through history have often featured vicious personal character attacks because politics is a substitute for violence. It is that because political campaigns are a contest over which candidate will be given the power to govern for a period of time. In an authoritarian governance regime, the one person in charge asserts power through violence and threats of violence. In 1789 our Founders created a Constitution which has its main purpose causing power sharing between 3 branches of government. In 1789, our Founders had a radical idea that had never been tried before in human history聽鈥� that the people could govern themselves. The underlying assumption of the Constitution is that governance of, by and for the people would be successfully accomplished by all 3 branches of government being able to work together and cooperate to fashion accepted problem solutions for the best interests of the American people. The ability to do that began to diminish from 1994 forward to today.

Q. Even though a partisan Democratic leader, did you have Republican friends in the House, and could you count on their word?

A. When I was Democratic Leader I had many positive personal relationships with many Republican members of the House and the Senate. In that era, most members were willing to put country over party and self, which allowed compromises to be struck around many controversial important issues. Disagreement abounded within both parties and between the parties for sure, but there was a willingness to listen to one another, learn from one another and often agree on a compromise, even though often the compromise was less than optimal. In a word we were able to disagree better than is often the case today.

Q. North Carolina is the latest state to approve a mid-decade gerrymander to rig the system so that Democrats will lose seats. Is this the beginning of a time when we鈥檒l have perpetual gerrymandering to favor the party in power?

A. The recent actions in various states to do mid-decade gerrymandering to favor one Party or the other are very worrying. For some time, partisan gerrymandering aided by computer technology has swept the country, leading to most seats in the House being only Republican or only Democratic. In those seats, only the primary election is important. This whole trend makes the possibility of Congress working together to reach needed compromises remote or impossible. My greatest worry is that the American people will understandably give up on self-government and opt for authoritarian governance because self-government is dysfunctional.

Q. What are some of the other strategies the MAGA crowd is likely to employ as we head into the crucial 2026 elections?

A. In addition to mid-decade gerrymandering, I am worried that the Administration and MAGA will refuse to accept the election results in 2026 if the Republicans lose their majority in the House or Senate. One strategy for that would be for red-state governors to refuse to certify Democratic winners because of alleged fraud. In addition, Republican House and Senate leaders may refuse to seat Democratic winners because of alleged but unproven fraud in their elections.

Q. What, if anything, can Democrats do to meet this challenge?

A. Regarding the gerrymandering mess: I believe Democrats should work to get states to stop allowing state Legislatures to gerrymander and put in place bipartisan citizen commissions to draw the lines for Congressional and state legislative districts. As to the threat of refusing to seat Democratic winners on specious allegations of fraud聽鈥� there is no solution other than taking the question to the courts.聽

Q. Do you think that massive demonstrations such as those on No Kings Day will have an impact on the election?

A. My belief is that citizen demonstrations are an important part of American history, dating back to the American Revolution up through the Civil War, the suffragettes' effort to win the right to vote for women and then the civil rights movement to win civil and voting rights for minorities. All of those efforts succeeded over a long period of time and were testaments to the proposition that democracy is based on 鈥渃onsent of the governed.鈥� I see 鈥淣o Kings鈥� demonstrations through that historical lens. They enable millions of citizens to communicate their opposition to certain recent actions of the federal government.

Q. With all that鈥檚 going against the Democratic Party, how do you assess its chances to win in 2026?

A. Despite all that the Administration and Republicans are doing to ensure that they maintain a majority in Congress in 2026, I am optimistic that the Democrats can win back a majority in the House 鈥� and maybe even the Senate. There is a long way to go, so predictions a year out are tough, but polling now indicates a large majority of Americans think the country is on the wrong track.

If that poll result persists over the next year, the chances for a Democratic win in 2026 are increased substantially. If that happens, all of the attempts by Republicans to prevail in an election that they actually lose will fail 鈥� as they did in the Presidential election in 2020.