After the Insurrection: Assessing American Democracy

Music Charlotte Tate From the Rohatyn Center for Global Affairs at Middlebury College, this is New Frontiers. I’m Charlotte Tate, the associate director of the Rohatyn Center. In this episode, host Mark Williams sits down with political scientist Bert Johnson to discuss the January 6 insurrection and the state of American democracy today. CROWD CHANTING Bert Johnson My first reaction, like a lot of people, was one of anger. When I lived in Washington, I felt like every time I walked past the Capitol or the White House or the Supreme Court building, it was a great privilege to see these monuments to democracy that people all over the world don't get to see every day. And to see that invaded by this force was deeply upsetting. Mark Williams When Donald Trump ran for the presidency in 2015 and ran on a populist campaign, political scientists who had studied populist politics in other countries took note, I was one of them. We'd seen how populism transformed the political landscape in various countries, polarizing polities, undermining governing institutions and debilitating political parties. As the 2016 election approached, it wasn't clear if the United States could escape the kind of turmoil and democratic debilitation that populism had brought to other countries and which Trump's campaign gave signs of bringing to America. As things turned out, America didn't escape. Donald Trump's time in office culminated with his supporters waging a violent assault on the US Capitol to overturn the results of the 2020 election, a majority rule, and stop the peaceful transfer of power to Joe Biden. What are we to make of the January 6th insurrection? What does it tell us about ourselves as Americans and the state of our democracy? And with another presidential election approaching and an indicted Donald Trump the likely Republican candidate, how might our parties, courts, and justice department act in ways that could safeguard democracy or threaten it even more? To get objective answers to these questions, I turned to Bert Johnson–a professor of political science, expert on American politics, and a faculty fellow at Middlebury’s Rohatyn Center for Global Affairs. I asked Bert what he was doing on January 6, 2021, and what his initial reaction to the insurrection were. Bert Johnson Well, that's a good question. I'd like to start with a story and I'd like to back us up even farther to 1994 when I was living in Washington, DC, right after graduating college and working at a consulting firm there. And there was this momentous election in 1994. And on election night, I remember watching the returns come in and I lived in an apartment right on Capitol Hill, and I saw this massive change happening out there in the country. There was it seemed like turmoil all around the country, people getting defeated for office Republicans winning elections. And it was quite clear that the Republicans were going to take over Congress for the first time in decades. And I turned off the TV, walked out my front door and went to the Capitol and went around to the front of the Capitol and all was peaceful. It was brightly lit. I looked out onto the mall to the Washington Monument and there was not a sound. And then I heard a little bit of a sound behind me and I turned to see who was there. And it was a young couple who had gone up to the steps of the capitol to make out. And I thought to myself, this is gonna be alright. Things are gonna be fine. We just had an election, we had a transfer of power. Things will be fine. The country will go on, the rules and norms of the democracy will continue. And I went back to my apartment. Now, fast forward to January 6th where you started this off, and I couldn't help as I watched from Burlington, Vermont, in my house, those people storming up the very steps that I was sitting on that night in 1994, to engage in this violent insurrection. And at the time, of course, I like, like everybody else thought, what in the world has happened here? And particularly what changed between that night in 1994 and that day in 2021? And that's what we're puzzling over. Mark Williams At that time as you watched it unfold, how did you process what you were witnessing? How did you make sense of what was happening at that point? Bert Johnson Well, I think my first reaction, like a lot of people, was one of anger. And to see that was deeply upsetting. So that was my initial reaction. I think it took me a little while to get back into the shoes of a scholar to think about it in terms of, okay, well what are the precursors, the causes, and what are going to be the consequences of this momentous event? So, I felt a very personal connection and was horrified to see what was taking place. Mark Williams Now, as a student of American politics, would this kind of uprising against democracy in the United States have surprised the Bert Johnson of 2016, 2017, or was it something that Bert Johnson could have foreseen happening in the U.S.? Bert Johnson There's sort of two ways to answer that question. One is, if I think back to the election of 2016, there’d been violent rhetoric in part of the campaign. There had been rallies where Trump had essentially called upon his supporters to eject people violently. What did surprise me in 2021 was how kind of a wink and a nod at election rallies in 2015 and 2016 turned into essentially a full throated call by Donald Trump to march over to the Capitol and show them who's boss, essentially. I think that sort of overt effort by the part of the President of the United States to overturn an election, that's really surprising to me. And I would say also that it is surprising to me that the Capitol was capable of being breached by a crowd of 2000. Mark Williams Well, what do you take away from the insurrection? What do you take away first as an American, and then what do you take away as a political scientist? Are the takeaways different depending on which hat you're wearing? Bert Johnson Well, I think as an American one has to react emotionally to some of these things. And as a scholar we try to react impassively. So I guess there is a bit of a difference there. One thing to remember is that the vast majority of Americans, whether they were Republicans or Democrats, were not engaging in lawless violence that day. And I think that's important to remember, especially for people who want to blame Republicans or Donald Trump or whoever. It's not all Republicans. But as a political scientist, I think one thing that concerns me is not only when there is violence like that, but when that violence is condoned and tolerated by leaders who are willing to say, well, it wasn't that bad. That I think is a perilous step for a democracy. Mark Williams To my mind, January 6 reflected a clear, but misguided rejection of democracy in that those who stormed the Capitol had been led—quite deliberately—to lose faith in our democratic system, in elections and the legal system, and in the peaceful transfer of power. For me, what January 6th clearly showed was that even here in the US democracy was fragile; it can be lost, shattered. And this democratic backsliding — this erosion of faith — didn’t start on January 6th. It’s been a long, gradual process of confidence erosion. I wanted to know what Bert thought about this, and what might have caused so many Americans to lose confidence in our democratic procedures. Bert Johnson So that's a good question because a lot of people who study American politics have long viewed America as exceptional, for a lot of reasons. We've had institutions, for example, that have been in place for hundreds of years and seem not to have changed that much relative to institutions of other countries. So that might make us feel less vulnerable to institutional change. But you're also right to suggest that these changes have been a long time coming, particularly there's been a decline in trust in government. And that decline in trust in government has actually broadened to a decline in trust of large major institutions in this country that started in the 1970s and just has continued trending downward ever since. So that's fertile ground for populists who want to blame somebody for things that are going wrong. So that is one element that has contributed to the rise of populism and the skepticism about democratic institutions. Mark Williams What about parallels, if there are any, between the United States and threats to democracy here versus threats to democracy in other contexts? Bert Johnson I think I see a lot of parallels. And one of the things that people who study comparative politics are debating, as you know, is what causes the democratic backsliding that we've seen. And the factors that people name, like unscrupulous leaders, like racial and ethnic divisions, like economic inequality, boy, you know, check, check, check. The United States has all of those things. And my hunch would be, it's a lot of these things. They do seem to be happening here as they are elsewhere. Mark Williams I've been struck by something. And that's that as more and more information comes out, it seems clear that the January 6th insurrection was just part of a broader multi-front effort to overturn the 2020 election. There were court challenges that went through legal means. There was pressure put on state election officials, there was pressure put on the vice president. There were calls for states to decertify their own election results after they had been certified. There were efforts to stop counting the electoral college votes, and of course, even the scheme to recruit fake electors to the electoral college. And all of these actions were aimed to deny majority rule in the presidential election. What do you make of the scope of all of these efforts? Bert Johnson I think it is remarkable how many efforts there were and how many different angles the Trump coterie, I don't even want to call them the Trump administration, because of course many in the Trump administration even opposed these efforts. But the Trump group to, as you say, mobilize fake electors, try to convince elected officials at the local level to find votes as one Trump phone call, put it, it's a shocking amount of activity. But I think the special counsel in this case, Jack Smith, is wise to focus on these other kinds of things. To focus on the conspiracy, to focus on the fake electors, because in the public mindset those things are more squarely criminal than a speech which could be classified as free speech. Mark Williams Well, let's shift gears a little bit. As of this recording, special prosecutor Jack Smith has indicted Donald Trump three times on federal charges. First in Florida for the theft of secret, highly classified government documents. Second in the superseding indictment. Again, in Florida, classified documents case alleging obstruction of justice, and finally on charges of conspiracy to defraud the United States and obstruct an official proceeding, meaning the counting of the electoral college votes, and to deny Americans their constitutional rights, meaning the right to have their votes that were cast actually counted. Now, this third indictment was levied in Washington, and it's related to the January 6th insurrection and other efforts to overthrow and annul the election. Do you have any thoughts on the indictments as they stand? Not as they relate to party politics per se, but as the indictments might relate to American democracy? Bert Johnson This calls to mind a survey I took a few months ago from an organization called Bright Line Watch. This is an organization that focuses on potential democratic backsliding in the United States. And they periodically survey who they call experts, political scientists and observers of politics about various issues. And one of the surveys asked experts point blank, do you think Trump committed crimes in the documents case? Do you think he committed crimes in the January 6th case? And then in a separate set of questions, they asked, do you think Trump should be charged? And do you think charging Trump in these cases would be a threat to democracy? And it occurs to me that it is possible to answer yes to all those questions. It is possible that yes, Trump committed crimes, yes, he should be indicted. And yes, a charge and a trial could represent a threat to democracy because I think it could cause serious instability. We will see going forward what results from this. But storm clouds are looming on the horizon when the person who looks likely to be the Republican nominee for president is under indictment and is running a campaign where he's trying to tear down the institutions that he sees as a raid against him. And that I would say his followers also see as a raid against him and a raid against them. Mark Williams Institutions that underpin democratic governance in the United States. Bert Johnson Absolutely right. Like an independent justice department, independent judges, you know, the right of people to have their votes counted. All of these things are quintessential elements of our system. And because he sees them as his enemies, he's willing to tear them down. Mark Williams I was just going to ask you, what we might expect in election season where one of the candidates from a major party is running as an indicted citizen, perhaps in the midst of a trial even. Bert Johnson Right. And I think that could be dangerous. What I think is the best case for democracy is not necessarily that Trump get convicted and thrown into prison. What the best case for democracy is that he be thoroughly discredited. Now that's hard to do, and it's not clear that these indictments have moved anybody who is on his side off of his side. Mark Williams I found Bert’s assessment both intriguing and alarming. Considering the questions he’d been asked to entertain: Did Trump commit crimes? Should he be prosecuted for those crimes? And could prosecuting him threaten US democracy? If it’s really possible to answer all these questions affirmatively, was it safer then, not to prosecute the former president? Would that alternative be the best way to safeguard our democracy? I put this question back to Bert. Bert Johnson The alternative is more dangerous. And that's why I said you can answer yes to all those questions. He should be prosecuted. Because if you don't prosecute him, then it's a signal that this is all right. That if you're the president of the United States, then you're above the law. You can do things that other people can't. Mark Williams It’s the Nixon argument. Bert Johnson That's right. If you're the president, it's not illegal. Right. Well, that's not the way America is. That's not the tradition that was established when George Washington stepped down after two terms. Mark Williams That’s not the law. Bert Johnson And that's not the law. We have to reinforce the rule of law applies to everybody, even if they're the former president of the United States. So yes, the alternative is worse, but it puts the justice department, Jack Smith, in a very difficult position of having to thread this needle of not saying that this is permitted in the United States, but also trying not to disrupt the electoral system in such a way that democracy is further under threat. So I think that this is partly why his indictments read the way they do. I would urge everybody if they haven't read the indictments to read those indictments, they are narratives. It's called a speaking indictment. He's trying to teach whoever's reading the indictment something about what happened. Mark Williams And it's not written in a way that is off-putting to an educated reader, to an interested reader. Bert Johnson Right. He is writing it in a way that is trying to anticipate some of the arguments that Trump's supporters might make. This is a vendetta, this is nonsense. This is all about punishing free speech. He's trying to respond to each of those points within the indictment itself. And he no doubt will at trial as well. Mark Williams Bert, what do you think it says about the state of American democracy that one of the main political parties might actually nominate and keep supporting a candidate who's charged with and perhaps convicted of committing felonies? Bert Johnson That's dangerous. I would say that one of the things that did happen in the 1970s, along with a erosion of trust in government, was that the parties became more the creatures of activists than the creatures of party elites. There was a series of party reforms in the 1970s as a result of a disastrous 1968 Democratic national convention. We might remember that from Chicago. But as a result, the parties became more beasts that went to the whims of the activist base, rather than the particular elites that you might think were in charge of the parties. Mark Williams The guys in the back room… Bert Johnson Smoke-filled room. Yeah, so those folks lost a lot of power. And the people who gained power were the people on the ground, the activists, the passionate people. You're not passionate if you are a moderate, typically. You're passionate if you're on one extreme or the other. And we've seen this in both parties most recently, particularly the Republican party. Those passionate activists are the ones that are in charge. The other thing to point out is that there have been, not a lot, but a significant number of respected Republican leaders who have pushed back on Donald Trump and the anti-democratic tendencies that surround him. Liz Cheney, Secretary of State Ensberg in Georgia, Governor Kemp in Georgia, Governor Ducey in Arizona, Mark Williams Adam Kinzinger, Bert Johnson Adam Kinzinger. There are people like Governor Phil Scott of Vermont who have repudiated Trump quite directly. And I think it's important to say that there are Republicans out there who are committed to democracy and are doing their best to try to support it. Now, there are also people who don't seem to share those commitments. But I think it would be too broad of a brush to paint the entire party with Trumpism, even though Trumpism has a pretty solid grip on it right now. It looks like. Mark Williams What's happening at the presidential level isn't the only thing that I think has negatively affected US democracy or American's faith in our democratic system. There are two other things I'd like to get your thoughts on Bert. One is the Supreme Court, and the other is what's going on at the state and the local levels of government. So let's start with the Supreme Court. For some time now Americans have been, I think, losing confidence in the Court for various reasons, and there's been increasing talk on the need to reform the Court either by restructuring it or imposing a code of ethics on the justices, or perhaps both. Can you speak to us a little bit about why confidence in the Supreme Court has fallen so low, whether the restructuring and the code of ethics ideas have any merit, and what steps the Court might take to help ensure that American democracy continues? Bert Johnson Well, in a way, what has happened to the Supreme Court is what has happened to the rest of us democracy. Judges and justices have become political footballs in a way. When they get nominated, there's a political battle over whether they should be confirmed. And when they're on the Court and issue rulings, there's a political battle over what those rulings mean and what they should be. And starting in the late 1960s and early 1970s, right around the same time that everything else in American politics was changing, if you followed judges' decisions and you've separated them out by whether they were nominated by a Democrat or Republican president, turns out those judges' decisions were quite predictable based on which president appointed them a Democrat or Republican. Mark Williams Are you speaking of judges or justices? Bert Johnson Both, although there's more data on federal judges because there's more of them. So the real evidence is with federal judges. But the same can be said about the Supreme Court. So when that kind of predictability sets in, and it becomes quite clear to the public that whatever the Court's going to rule on abortion depends upon which president named the most justices, that's going to erode confidence in an institution that is at least claiming to be the impartial umpires. Well that doesn't strike you as particularly honest when it's quite predictable how the umpires are gonna rule based on which team stadium they're playing in. I guess there's the analogy. So I think that is one of the reasons why trust in the Court has gone down. Mark Williams Could you give examples of that predictability? Bert Johnson Chief among them is the Roe v Wade overturning, but there are others. It can seem, sometimes, like–affirmative action, there's another one that just recently was issued; gun rights; Bush v Gore going back to the 2000 election–so it can seem like the die is cast before the arguments get made before the Court in some of those high profile cases. Mark Williams Are there things that the Court could do that could help safeguard the continuity of democracy? That could increase its perceived legitimacy? Bert Johnson I think what John Roberts is trying to do sometimes may be the right idea, which is to rule narrowly whenever possible. He tried to do this in the Dobbs case on abortion and failed to muster a majority on his side. So he wound up writing for himself, but he advocated for a very narrow scope of that ruling. And I think that's the kind of thing that would help preserve the Court's legitimacy, is if they didn't take steps to sweep away decades worth of precedent. I think they could establish an ethics code, that would help. But the other thing I would say about the Court, before we leave the Court, is that I would advise those who are on the Democratic side to be cautious about completely revamping the structure of the Court or advocating revamping the structure of the Court… Mark Williams The idea of being to increase the number of justices from nine to… Bert Johnson To 15 or to limit terms or something like that. I think those kinds of disruptions to an institution that has existed in its current form for over a hundred years and some form similar to its current form for hundreds of years, that's destabilizing and that can be harmful to democracy in ways that are unpredictable. Mark Williams Now, what about the state and local levels of government? If we look at what's going on inside the state governments, do we see any indications of democratic backsliding there? And if so, are these minor instances or are they major ones? Bert Johnson I think we definitely see instances of democratic backsliding at the state and local levels. And one of the interesting features of American politics that is not appreciated is the distinction between the way in which institutions can be manipulated at the state and local levels versus the national level. We don't see institutional change very much at the national level. Most of the institutions are in the Constitution and it's really hard to change the Constitution. But when institutions get easier to change, easier to alter, we see more of that happening to the benefit of whoever happens to hold power. And particularly recently, because Republicans have had solid, sometimes super majorities in a lot of state legislatures, we've seen that happening in state legislatures. We've seen in places like Wisconsin, the Republican legislature limiting the power of the Democratic governor. We've seen that happen in North Carolina as well. There are attempts to do it in Arizona now that there's a Republican legislature and a Democratic governor. And since 2013 when the Supreme Court relaxed the Voting Rights Act, we've seen increasing attempts to limit and constrain voting rights in various states, voter ID laws, limitations on drop boxes, things like that. So these institutional manipulations, they're just easier at the state and local level. And so that's why we see more of them. Mark Williams And in your opinion, they reflect less enthusiasm for full participatory democracy? Bert Johnson I think so. I think the limitations on voting are definitely in that category. I think the limitations on gubernatorial power that seem to only limit Democrats, or one side, that's part of it too. One of the things that's been part of the decline in trust over time is that for institutions that are easier to change, sometimes the only thing holding back changes in those institutions are the trust in those institutions and the norms against institutional change. And because of the erosion of that trust and those norms, we're seeing more change than ever at state and local institutions. Mark Williams Yes. And it's a nationwide phenomenon. By that I mean it's spread across the country in various regions. Bert Johnson Right. And you'll see this is another characteristic of the state and local level–innovation somewhere has the capability of just spreading elsewhere. Mark Williams Yes, there’s the copycat effect. Bert Johnson And there are interest groups out there that bridge state boundaries and can take a piece of legislation that was introduced in Arizona and say, “Oh, this worked here, let's go introduce it in Ohio.” Mark Williams Around the world, democratic, political systems have come under increasing stress. In many countries, democratic governance has already given way to autocratic rule, and a number of analysts, including some in US Intelligence circles, have warned that America’s own democracy could head down a similar path. I wanted to know what Bert thought about this general trend of democratic backsliding and what steps scholars have suggested which might help preserve democratic rule. Bert Johnson It’s interesting to think about what the literature says about this, because the literature talks about lots of different possible causes: unscrupulous leaders, racial and ethnic divisions, polarization, economic inequality. And so ways to address democratic backsliding are gonna have to address some of those things. Now, those are not easy things to address, and they can't all be addressed at once. But one place to start is polarization. And what we know about polarization in the United States is that there's this toxic partisanship that seems to exist and be consistent with a layering of identities on top of each other. So what I mean is your ethnic identity, your religious identity, your geographic identity, all is consistent with your party identity in the United States. And that didn't always used to be the case. You know, in the 1950s and 1960s, you might live in a big city and be a Republican and feel perfectly not out of place. But these days, if you live in a big city, you're probably surrounded by Democrats, whether you're a Democrat or Republican. If you're living in a rural area, you're a Republican. And these overlapping layering identities, this is something that the political scientist Liliana Mason has studied a lot and has found that it leads to this really toxic partisanship that isn't really about issues. It's about identity. Feeling very negatively about the other side, whoever you may see them as being. So if there's a way to create more crisscrossing identities, you create an environment like the political scientist David Truman used to talk about 70 years ago that involves cross-cutting identities. That is a positive step. Well, I may not agree with this person on politics, but she and I share this interest in this other thing. And so I can still relate to her. If we can do that, that would be a plus. Mark Williams Do you think that the state that we're in right now has anything to teach the country about democracy? And by that I mean, when I moved to this state some decades ago, I believe it was governed by a democratic governor who was replaced by a Republican governor, who was replaced by a Democratic governor who was replaced, I think, by a Democratic or Republican governor. It's gone back and forth and back and forth; most of the time the governors have been fairly popular regardless of party. And at the national level, the electorate typically goes democratic, but it's an electorate in this state that doesn't seem to have a problem voting for Republicans to run the state in terms of who sits in the State House and being governor. Is there something happening in Vermont you think that might be transferrable or could provide a set of lessons for those interested in preserving democracy and, sort of, normal democracy at the national level? Bert Johnson Well, I think the Republicans who've been leaders of Vermont recently, Phil Scott, currently governor, and then two governors before him, Jim Douglas, they have been fiscally conservative, relatively moderate Republicans. So they fit the state pretty well, especially considering that voters of Vermont seem to want a balance between Democrats in the legislature who want to spend a lot of money addressing social problems versus the fiscal conservatism of governors who want to put the brakes on that because they're concerned about taxation. I think that balance is the key to why Vermont turns out the way it does. And I do think there's something terrific about taking my classes to the State House in Montpelier and having conversations with Democratic politicians, Republican politicians, and Progressives–we have a third party in Vermont–who can all get around a table and have a jovial conversation with one another. I think that's intangible, but that is almost the most important thing that we want to be able to model, for everybody but certainly for our children, having conversations with people we disagree with and not having a shouting match. Mark Williams And still striving towards the greater good. Bert Johnson That's right. Mark Williams Still striving for the public good, the greater good, making compromise along the way to get there. Mark Williams Can we circle back to January 6th for just a bit? I'm curious, how do you view January 6th now as opposed to when it happened? And has distance and more information changed your assessment in any way? Bert Johnson That's an interesting question. In a way, we've had a lot of details filled in by the January 6th committee and the indictments, so we have more knowledge of exactly what happened. I think its implications are still somewhat unknown because we haven't had the next presidential election. And that's why I think this is going to be a risky year for American democracy as we move through this presidential campaign. It could be that January 6th was an anomaly, it was a one time thing. There have been instances of political violence in the US in the past, many times over hundreds of years, and this could just be one more of those instances or it could be a turning point. And I'm hoping it's not. Mark Williams A few days ago I saw the results of a March 2023 Quinnipiac University poll, in which 67 percent of respondents said that they believed American democracy was in danger of collapse. And 48 percent thought that there could well be another capital insurrection in the United States. Response? Bert Johnson One of the interesting polls that I saw was not too different from that about a year ago in the New York Times, and it asked people whether they saw democracy as being under threat. And a similar percent–70 percent, 75 percent–said that yes, they thought democracy was under threat. But when you asked them specifically, Republicans felt like the threats to democracy were coming from Democrats; 75 percent of Republicans felt like, oh yes, Democrats are a threat to democracy. Joe Biden is a threat to democracy. Nancy Pelosi is a threat to democracy. And of course, Democrats are saying the same thing about Donald Trump, the Republicans, and so on. So one of the important other questions to ask is, “Whether you think democracy is under threat or not, do you have faith in democracy?” Let's cultivate faith in democracy, and then let's try to convince our opponents that we are not trying to put democracy at risk. I think both of those things are hard to do, but I think they're important. Mark Williams Do you think that the republic is safer and more secure today than it was back on January 6th, 2021? Bert Johnson I think it is because I think the person in the White House is no longer trying to overthrow the government. But again, I do think we are in a position of being at risk in the next year, year and a half. And I think it's incumbent on all of us to be vigilant about that risk. Mark Williams Finally, for anyone who's listening to this podcast and who's concerned about American democracy, what can they do as individuals to bolster the prospects of democracy's endurance? Bert Johnson One thing that's important to remember is that there's this literature, and the name for the literature in political science is democratic backsliding. But that almost conjures up an inevitable image of sliding down a slope, like a slippery slope. And one thing to keep in mind is that this is not necessarily a linear process. We're not inevitably doomed to move away from democracy. Just as historically, we have not always been the perfect democracy. There have been times in this country's history, many times, where we have not lived up to our democratic ideals. So let's get away from thinking that anything is inevitable. The other thing to remember is that many times in our history as a country, there have been brave people whose names we don't always know, who have stood up and done the right thing. And the right thing could be a small thing, could be contributing in a way, it could be building something in your community–rebuilding that trust that we've lost in the last few decades, I think is really important. And we all have a role to play in that. Mark Williams Well, this was a very fascinating discussion. Bert Johnson, I'm so happy that you made time to stop and visit with us. And thank you for sharing your thoughts here on New Frontiers. Bert Johnson Thanks for having me. Srivats Ramaswamy A native of Minnesota, Professor Bert Johnson now lives in Burlington, Vermont. A health enthusiast, he is both a vegetarian and an avid runner. In fact, he enjoys competing in ultra marathon contests, and just this past summer ran two separate 100 mile races: one in Colorado and the other in Finland. Outside of the classroom, students might bump into him hiking the trails, running in the woods, or buying a Diet Coke at the campus convenience store, Midd Express.