Stacey Abrams on Her New Novel and the State of Democracy

GOLODRYGA, HOST: Well, as Ukraine battles to protect its democracy, Activist Stacey Abrams is continuing her quest to make democracy stronger here in the U.S. Most Americans are only just now turning their attention to the 2024 election, but for Abrams, she’s been laser focused on it, and all elections. And her mission to make voting more free and more fair. Abrams is clearly passionate about voting right. Her big 2020 push in Georgia famously paid off big for the Democrats.

But what you may not know is that she’s also a prolific fiction author. She’s written more than a dozen books, including romance novels. Her latest book is called “Rogue Justice.” And Abrams sat down with Christiane late last week here in New York.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Stacey Abrams, welcome back to our program.

STACEY ABRAMS, AUTHOR, “ROGUE JUSTICE” AND FORMER DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE FOR GEORGIA GOVERNOR: Thank you for having me.

AMANPOUR: You know and I’m sure many people have asked you, but you are one busy woman as a public servant for so, so long. How do you get time to write novels?

ABRAMS: Writing, for me, is just as important as anything I do. I try to balance my life so that I am tackling the issues I care about for multiple perspectives, and writing is one of those ways I get to think about issues, investigate them, kill off people I don’t like. Lots of fun.

AMANPOUR: Do you have sort of political visions when you’re killing off the people and things that you don’t like?

ABRAMS: I would say it’s more vaguely cathartic than anything. But the point, for me, is there are questions, there are issues that are out there, and through writing, I get to spend time investigating, I’ve got an excuse to go down rabbit holes and learn about topics that may not be salient to my day job, but are important to who I am as a citizen and who I am as a thinker. But it’s also an opportunity to really investigate the outer reaches of possibility.

AMANPOUR: And essentially, sort of, I don’t know, critique or, as you say, investigate policy through what you write even in fiction?

ABRAMS: Absolutely. I began with writing romantic suspense. I’ve written nonfiction. I’ve written children’s books. I’ve written legal thrillers. But my mantra is, I want to be curious, I want to solve problems, and I want to do good. And writing helps me think about all of those pieces, especially areas of interest that don’t naturally occur.

You know, in state politics, you’re not often thinking about the FISA Court. You’re not deeply concerned with cyber threats abroad, but it does implicate what happens in the State of Georgia, it implicates what happens to democracy if we are not thinking about these issues. The conversation about the Supreme Court is always relevant.

AMANPOUR: Right now, you’re not an elected office, but you have just been appointed an endowed chair for race and black politics at Howard University in Washington, D.C. And in announcing this, you said, we are at an inflection point for American and international democracy. How do you define that?

ABRAMS: Democracy is incredibly resilient, but we ignore the fact that it is also deeply fragile. If you look at the decimation of democracy at the hands of autocrats, if you look at what’s happened in Hungary, and in Poland, if you look at the questions that are pervading conversations about elections that are ongoing now. We know that democracy only exist as a construct, and we have to fight to keep it.

The challenge is, we can become so jaded about its existence or its inability to be perfect that we forget that we have to protect it. And for me, the conversation that we have to have right now is, how do we grow the next generation of defenders of democracy? How do we arm them, not only to defend it here in the United States, but how do we have a broader conversation about the international status of democracy? As you know, we have seen a decline in democratic states worldwide. I was recently privileged to observe the elections in Nigeria. There were deep issues there but there was also such a deep passion to hold on to democracy, which is fairly new. And we have to sustain the democracies we have, we’ve got to shore up those that are weak, and we’ve got to reclaim them where we’ve lost them.

AMANPOUR: What should young people, the younger generation, learn from what you did? First of all, having lost those two major, you know, government — gubernatorial races and yet, putting your energy into the same passion and the process at a time when, even in the United States, the democratic process is being incredibly infringed.

ABRAMS: Voter suppression is not new, and it is not done. And so, part of my responsibility is to articulate both what the problem is but also demonstrate the solutions. I did stand for office twice, and it’s important, I think, to try to secure the jobs that have the greatest impact. But not getting the job does not exempt you from doing the work. And the work of protecting democracy, the work of expanding democracy belongs to all of us. As a young student at Spelman College years ago, I signed up people to vote. Now, I’m trying to protect that very right. And for me, these are of a piece. I can be a candidate for office, but I am always a citizen of not only the United States, but a citizen of a global democracy that requires protection.

And when I think about the young people I’m going to get to work with, my job is to show them that, yes you may lose something, you may not get the thing you seek, but that does not exempt you from doing the work that needs to be done. And even more, it creates opportunities that you didn’t see.

When I didn’t win the 2018, I did not imagine the full consequences, but I knew I had the responsibility to keep acting, to keep pushing. And so, I was able to scaffold organizations that have helped defend democracy and build our census and do work to secure good public policy.

AMANPOUR: And for you, what were the full consequences?

ABRAMS: Not winning —

AMANPOUR: Yes.

ABRAMS: — means a lot. It meant that my — that the governor was able to pass even more voter suppression legislation. He was able to ignore the needs of our citizens. But the larger construct was that we were also able to elect two U.S. senators who had the ability to help secure judgeships and secure leadership that guided us through what could have been a tumultuous consequence to our previous president. We were able to secure Electoral College votes, that changed the leadership of this country, and that, I would say, has had international impact. As we address what’s happening in Ukraine, I shudder to think what would have been had we not had President Joe Biden in office.

And so, there have been both domestic and global consequences to being able to stand up and defend the right to vote, and more importantly, turn out voters.

AMANPOUR: Staying in the global arena, it is said that had Donald Trump won a second term, he’s own people say this, he might have pulled the United States out of NATO, like he did out of the Iran deal, out of climate, et cetera. What do you think that would have done for the United States and for the world, given what you’ve just talked about, the existential war over Ukraine?

ABRAMS: I cannot engage in what ifs, but I will say this, the U.S.’s presence in NATO has been vital to the defense of Ukraine. But it is also, I think, part of a larger narrative of watching the European states that are a part of NATO come together. Watching countries that, for years, we’re a bit standoffish about NATO. Decide that they did need to protect themselves and protect their counterparts. But we’ve also seen a rallying around the necessity of democracy and the reviling of autocracy. And I think those were all absolutely essential, and would not have been possible had we not elected Joe Biden as the president in 2020.

AMANPOUR: We were just talking about the importance of securing voter rights under threat, as they are. Right now, it’s being said and is being said that the right-wing or however you want to describe them, the Republicans, whatever it is, are trying a second round and this time, a stealth round of even further trying to restrict voting rights. Is that something that enough people are aware of? Is it stealth? Will they be successful?

ABRAMS: They’re doing it in plain sight but because it doesn’t look identical to what we’ve seen before, we discount its effectiveness. The earlier iterations of voter suppression sought to stop the votes of entire classes of people.

The last few elections that we’ve had in the United States have been elected on — people have been elected on the margins based on the Electoral College. Hillary Clinton lost her election by roughly 78,000 votes across a number of states. Joe Biden won by 42,000 plus votes across about four states. The margins are what matter.

And where Republicans have been incredibly intentional — I wouldn’t say stealth, I would just say they’ve been surgical, is that they have reduced the likelihood for so many of those communities that showed up in 2020 and 2022 to show up again in ’24. And so, we should be clamoring to stop the 130 bills that have been moving through state legislatures because voter suppression is not still on the move and it is very effective.

AMANPOUR: I want to get back to your book and I want to get you to read a passage.

ABRAMS: OK.

AMANPOUR: If you could read a passage, attack during the election.

ABRAMS: Yes. Who’s the disgruntled American? Avery asked. Unknown, but he is connected with the private defense industry overseas. Armies for hire. Have militia, will travel. The word is out that he intends to attack during the election, hoping to inflict maximum carnage when our country is at its most polarized. A brilliant plan. I’ve used similar techniques for regime change.

Avery felt a bit nauseated by his easy admission. You shouldn’t brag about overthrowing governments, Major. You’re not a child, Ms. Keene, the world doesn’t organize itself. Power players do.

AMANPOUR: So, it’s kind of like what we’re seeing on the battlefield right now.

ABRAMS: Yes.

AMANPOUR: The warlord, you know, Yevgeny Prigozhin and the Wagner Group, Erik Prince of Blackwater. What are you trying to instill in people with this passage? Because it is, obviously, about trying to interfere with elections again.

ABRAMS: Again, we have a very antiquated and sometimes healthian (ph) view of the way the world works. But today, private armies make decisions. Militias are waging war in Ukraine. And we have to understand the decentralized nature of power, but we also have to understand how much power has now been vested in those who have no obligation to answer to anyone, and that’s what democracy.

Democracy creates responsibility, it creates authority, but it also creates consequences. And what Avery is really understanding in this passage and in this conversation is that she has a responsibility too. She may simply be a law clerk, but she is understanding who is actually moving the pieces, the chess pieces, of power, and she’s got to figure out how she can take one of those pieces off the board.

AMANPOUR: What would Avery do about the current crisis? I mean, we’ve heard the chief justice, John Roberts, who’s had to come out publicly and persuade the American people that they can trust the ethical moral compass of the Supreme Court, as you’ve got these allegations and investigations into Clarence Thomas, who is accused of having been remunerated by pretty rich backers. What should happen?

ABRAMS: So, Avery works for a Supreme Court justice who very much held true the notion of ethical obligation. He found a very labyrinthine (ph) way to work around it because he believed in the moral court.

What I think Avery will do as a private citizen, not through her job as a clerk, is demand that Congress take action. We cannot expect people to do right simply because they should, the reason we have laws is to enforce our ethos and to demand better. And I think Congress needs to take action and actually put in place ethical standards that we could hold every justice to so that Americans can trust our courts.

AMANPOUR: And back to the real world, in 2020, there were a lot of Trump approved, nominated, judges and a lot of Republican state election officials who stood up and did the right thing. Georgia had, obviously, you know, a case study. There’s a telephone call in which the president is asking the state representative to find him X number of votes. And there’s a law — you know, a legal case coming against that. How do you think that is going to play out?

ABRAMS: I believe that the determination of Republican voters who are likely to cast their ballots for Trump will not necessarily be — it won’t be adjusted based on the outcome of this case unless there is an actual criminal indictment that has a consequence by election time. But taking a step back from that, I think it’s important that while we are pleased that no one committed a crime on the side of state leaders, not committing treason is an insufficient ground to celebrate. That should be our expectation. And what I worry about is that the previous administration so lowered our standards that we celebrate basic decency.

We should be pleased that people do their jobs, but we shouldn’t be celebrating and venerating folks simply because they didn’t commit a crime. I didn’t commit a crime every day. You didn’t. And it’s important for us to reset our standards so that our expectations of greatness is that you actually affirmatively do good, not that you don’t flexibly do wrong.

AMANPOUR: What do you make of the current — certainly it appears that the two elderly gentlemen representing each of the main parties, the GOP, Donald Trump, President Biden for the Democrats, are the candidates again? Obviously, the president is running for reelection. But these are pretty elderly gentlemen going at it again. And I just wonder what you make of the culture wars, certainly, that the right side of the — you know, like DeSantis and others are trying to ride those coattails to the White House and whether you think, on the other hand, they’re probably not equal, but the far-left, the progressives on the left want to try to move Biden into their corner as well?

ABRAMS: I think it’s important, the asymmetry you described. It is very different to have activists who use their capacity as citizens to call for action versus governors who through authoritarian behavior impose belief systems that demonize and undermine fundamental parts of who we are as a nation. And so, I believe the asymmetry in power —

AMANPOUR: Including women’s rights?

ABRAMS: Exactly. So, I think asymmetry of power is very important, and this false equivalence must stop. That said, I am proud of the candidates that we have on our side. I’m proud of President Biden and the work that he has done. I think it is highly likely that we will see a reducs of 2020, and I will do my part to ensure we had the outcome of what we had in 2020.

AMANPOUR: The African-American community like they were mobilized in 2020 similarly mobilize, do you think?

ABRAMS: I think we will see turnout that is sufficient to when, but we have to work at it. Every election is about reminding people the consequences not only of inaction but of the actions of the other side. And I believe that African Americans, like every community, that is affected by leadership, wants what’s best for our community and for our people and for our children and our futures. And I think we have to have conversations across the board, across racial divides, across political divides. Because the issue is, who will be the better leader for our nation moving forward? And I think the leader we have today is the leader we need tomorrow.

AMANPOUR: And so, what about Stacey Abrams? Are there more books? Is there yet another sequel? I know you’re on the road trip for this one, but is there more about Avery coming out?

ABRAMS: Yes. Avery will have a third novel. She is not done yet. And I am very excited to continue to write her stories. I have written a few children’s books that are going to be — continue to come out. And I’m going to keep doing what I can. I will always —

AMANPOUR: Running for office?

ABRAMS: I will always be involved in politics. It’s not my focus for now. And I said earlier, my mantra is, be curious, do good and solve problems.

And so, I’m going to look for ways to do all those things.

AMANPOUR: And reminding, of course, that your mother was a librarian.

ABRAMS: Yes.

AMANPOUR: What was her mantra to you growing up? I mean, is it she and the libraries that energized you as a novelist and a writer?

ABRAMS: So, my mom was absolutely adamant that we read as much as we could. My father, who was dyslexic and didn’t learn to read until he was in his 30s, used to tell us stories. And so, my parents helped me really learn to love both the writing of stories, the reading of stories, but also using fiction to investigate the world around me.

AMANPOUR: Fantastic. Stacey Abrams, thank you so much indeed.

ABRAMS: Christiane, it has been an honor. Thank you for having me.

AMANPOUR: Thank you.

(END VIDEO TAPE)