A Conversation with Dr. Jenny Pribble

Meet Dr. Jennifer Pribble, a local expert on fascism and authoritarianism. She works at the University of Richmond as the Professor of Political Science and Global Studies:

…Her research focuses on issues of Latin American political economy, social policy, and democracy…Her political commentary has been featured in the New York Times, the Washington Post, NPR, CNN, and elsewhere. Jenny recently began work on a new project that investigates the rise of new right parties in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Spain. Jenny received a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2008.

Spurred by the ongoing threats to American democracy, Dr. Pribble launched the grassroots group Democracy Circle RVA after President Trump’s second inauguration. Her goal was to share her knowledge and move people to act in response to the Trump administration’s corroding effect on our democracy. Her movement started with meetings of friends in her house and evolved into packed-to-the-gills community events.

In April 2025, Democracy Circle RVA hosted “Where’s Wittman? A Town Hall In Absentia for Virginia’s First Congressional District” to foster a discussion for citizens concerned about Trump’s immigration crackdowns, federal funding cuts, and Wittman’s abysmal town hall track record.

During the event, Dr. Pribble had the following to say about Democracy RVA:

“We’re a group of friends and neighbors, a loose-knit organization…A lot of us have experience in political organizing, but decided this time we wanted to be engaged very locally with our immediate neighbors. I think what unites us is a real concern about attacks on rule of law, attacks on democratic institutions, and challenges now with due process.”

Another packed Democracy Circle RVA gathering was “Virginia Healthcare Under Attack: Exposing the Costs of Rob Wittman’s Vote for the “Big Beautiful Bill.” A group of constituents listened to a panel of experts who addressed how the Trump administration was dismantling America’s public health infrastructure. A community conversation about various public health issues followed. “Democracy Circle RVA and its allies hope to put Virginia in a safer public health position through advocacy and engaging with our communities,” said Dr. Pribble.

“A conversation with PoliSci Prof Jenny Pribble”

More recently, Dr. Pribble participated in a fascinating discussion with Salaam Bhatti, a public interest lawyer who’s running to unseat Congressman Rob Wittman. In A conversation with PoliSci Prof Jenny Pribble, she presented an informative and detailed overview of “democratic backsliding.” This was followed by a viewer Q&A.

On democratic backsliding:

So hybrid regimes are regimes that are not fully authoritarian, nor are they fully democratic. They sort of combine elements of democracy with elements of autocracy. And oftentimes the way you arrive at that kind of a regime is through a process that we call democratic backsliding.

Democratic backsliding in the U.S. began at what political scientists like Dr. Pribble call the “subnational level”:

…the path to autocracy at the national level in the United States definitely began at the subnational level. So, we have…a number of red states that have been engaged in a process of democratic erosion at the state level or what we would call the sub-national level. And so it plays out in very similar ways. Like a state elects an autocratic governor. The governor captures the acquiescence of the state legislature. They start to attack bureaucrats, they curb civil liberties, they attack elections at the state level. That’s possible in federal systems.

How can we survive authoritarianism?

Dr. Pribble shared advice for overcoming authoritarianism:

And what I know from those regimes is that what was absolutely necessary for surviving authoritarianism and eventually bringing democracy back was…dense and deep community…at the very local level with self-help groups and knowing your community and reaching out to your community and ultimately organizing with your community to resist authoritarianism.

The key is community building. Dr. Pribble said that “civil society plays a really important role in resisting authoritarianism” and by that she means groups and organizations outside formal political institutions, e.g., churches, universities, and PTAs. If anything can help us resist democratic backsliding, it’s organizing in those types of spaces.

According to Dr. Pribble, “I would say the lower courts and just like your average civil society group has been the key elements of pushing back against this backsliding that we’ve seen since January of last year.”

She also pointed out the importance of a unified opposition as well as our ability “to identify autocracy for what it is…Call it by its name and [be] willing to work together to work inside of a really difficult competitive environment.”

Dr. Pribble noted that “we need to re-engage with our communities. I think we need to talk to our neighbors. I think we need to know our neighbors. I think we need to find the tools to have hard conversations with our neighbors…And I think if we could do that, we could start to remove some of that emotionality of the polarization.”

In short, healthier communities=more resilient democracies. As Bhatti observed, “It’s almost like the universal teaching of loving your neighbors is coming manifest here.”