Each autumn, Austin becomes a temporary commons for American political life, as the Texas Tribune Festival gathers candidates, former officeholders, and policy voices under one roof for its sixteenth year. This year's roster — spanning Democratic Senate hopeful James Talarico and former Georgia Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene — reflects the event's enduring conviction that democracy is tested and clarified not in isolation, but in encounter. In a season when campaigns are hardening into final arguments, the festival offers something rarer: a stage where opposing visions of the country must s