joining me is dorian warren, richard cohen, president of the southern poverty law center and omar farrah, the staff attorney for the center for constitutional rights. thanks for being here. dorian, i want to start with you. i was suggesting occupy or the panthers, in part because i want to ask if you're the american state, so not me or you, but if you're the american state, what does it take to move someone from just being in a position of exercising their freedom of speech to being considered a threat to the state itself? >> what does it take to be considered a threat is the othering of the other person and that usually always means people of color. so if we look at the whole history of our country and enthusiastic of violent lynchings by white supremacists, you add up all those numbers and they far outweigh any kinds of murders or activity from black people, from muslims because those folks are othered. they're not considered americans and not given the benefit of the doubt. so those people are automatically considered threats when white supremacists like bundy, who has a record of whi

. >> joining me now, tara dardell, and dorian warren, international and public affairs at columbia universitys a thing lefties say all the time. oh, it's an oligarchy, oh, you know -- but this was, there was real empirical work done here by these two professors who really went through these policy cases. this isn't just them sitting around theorizing. they're matching outcomes to public opinion. and that sentence has haunted me since i read it. zero predictive impact. zero predictive impact. meaning, what you think doesn't translate at all. and the question, dorian, is like, does that mean in some fundamental sense, that we are just not a democracy? >> that's absolutely right. and thank you for highlighting cutting edge research from political scientists. i really appreciate that. >> that's my game. >> yes, exactly, we are an oligarchy. it doesn't mean we're not also a democracy. the two might be compatible uncomfortably, but, yes, i want to correct one of your definitions of oligarchy. you just said, rule by the few. it's rule by the wealthy few, the rich few. >> it's not just like is people