Much as the nation was stunned by the violence and mayhem at the U.S. Capitol in January, the assault was not unprecedented or unpredictable. Siva and Will — together with their University of Virginia students — reflect on what happened.

The attraction to violent far-right extremism often begins with innocent online chatter before it’s fed by degrees — and algorithms, says Cynthia Miller-Idriss, a sociologist and education expert who tracks such groups.

Government by the people can’t work without getting reliable information in the hands of the people. So when disinformation artists hijack the media, democracy itself is put at risk. On this debut episode of Democracy in Danger, political historian Nicole Hemmer joins hosts Will Hitchcock and Siva Vaidhyanathan to explore the roots of the powerful right-wing media in America, and their influence on Republican politics. How did the party of Abe Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt become the house of Trump and Breitbart?