How democracy survives
Introducing, a special series on how we get through this
Hard to escape the feeling that the wheel of history is spinning around us, right now, faster than any time in decades.
Last week, we saw the most powerful person in the world voluntarily relinquish that power so as to give democracy the best fighting chance.
And yet democracy’s survival is far from assured.
A former president who attempted to overturn the last election could very well still win in November. He openly plans to consolidate the power of government under his direct control and wield it against his enemies. We witnessed the first assassination attempt on a president or presidential candidate in decades. The Supreme Court has granted the president unprecedented immunity from accountability for his actions. And it’s only July.
Everything I wrote earlier this year on why democracy should still have the upper hand remains true: above all, the pro-democracy coalition is a majority and we’ve learned to talk about authoritarianism.
But the unpredictability feels, I have to admit, somewhat overwhelming. We don’t know what is going to happen.
So in this critical late summer we’re going to try something a little different from our usual regular analysis. Welcome to a standalone series, every Tuesday, with various experts exploring different facets of the same question — how does our democracy survive?
To be clear: this isn’t about probabilities — no one knows how likely it is that U.S. democracy endures or dies. Instead, over the coming weeks we’ll explore what survival looks like in a forward-looking sense. Both if Trump wins and if Trump loses. In the short term. In the long-term. What does it take to rebuild Congress, repair our civic fabric, and get to the point where each election no longer feels existential?
(All of the pieces in this series will live here. If you’d like to opt out of emails for these, just click here and uncheck the box next to “How Democracy Survives.”)
The democracy playbook
Before we get into the various possible futures, I want to be clear: we already know some key ingredients for survival. Things like the following. These tend to be the deciding factors between democracy & authoritarianism.
Don’t let the pro-democracy coalition fracture. This is the overarching lesson from history, around the world. When a diverse and cross-ideological coalition puts aside differences on politics and policy to defend democracy, democracy tends to survive. If that coalition fractures — often on some policy or strategic or ideological issue — democracy tends to die.
Accountability brings non-recurrence. Accountability — the baseline democratic process that constructs a record of wrongdoing, pursues deterrence through consequences, rebuilds prescriptive norms of acceptable behavior, and generates shared narratives — is foundational to democracy. In every context, it is key to preventing the recurrence of future abuses.
Protect norms and the rule of law. Democracy depends on the bedrock not just of law, but also norms — the “soft guardrails” of forbearance and conflict resolution that allow us to work together in spite of our differences. Defending democracy requires upholding the rule of law and norms of political conduct even when it’s hard — or when others fail to do the same. (Note: these are not static things, but rather evolving and adapting structures that help us peacefully coexist in a changing society.)
Don’t acquiesce in advance. Autocracy, around the world, is a flimsy thing. Dictators and their supporters are often overwhelmingly outnumbered and outmatched by the people they seek to oppress. So they rely on something called “anticipatory obedience” — a collective decision to not resist or contest. To obey in advance. The best way to resist dictatorship is to simply not do that. And instead come to the aid of those attacked by the authoritarian.
Democracy requires hope. Authoritarians thrive on fear, anger, vindictiveness and division. Because when we are afraid for our safety and the safety of those we love, we are more likely to turn against each other — or to the false reassurance of strongman rule. To defend democracy you have to believe in it, to trust in its ability to deliver a better world.
So now we’re going to play some of those out. What does it look like for these key ingredients to come together right?
Stay tuned.
This is much bigger than this election — or any one of us
As existential as this election feels, don’t equate the survival of our democracy with the winner of an election. It is not lost forever if a candidate with an authoritarian agenda wins, nor is it forever saved if the other prevails.
Think back to similar pivotal moments in history.
It took decades after the Revolutionary War for it to be clear that the Framers’ democratic experiment, however imperfect, would even survive past infancy.
The Civil War was the darkest and bloodiest chapter in our history, but it led directly to one of our democracy’s finest hours: Emancipation and the Reconstruction Amendments. Yet in turn, that victory was sabotaged by Jim Crow and segregation. Until, almost a century later, the Civil Rights Movement finally delivered on the promise of multi-racial democracy.
Only one out of the 300 attendees at the Seneca Falls Convention lived long enough to see the passage of the 19th Amendment (and she was unable to vote, bedridden at age 91).
History is long and uncertain. This is way bigger than Trump. According to most experts, democracy around the world has been in decline since about 2007. Sure, Trump has accelerated the decline in the U.S. But democracy's survival will require much more than one election.
When we launched Protect Democracy in 2017 — inspired by Freedom to Marry, which shut down once marriage equality was achieved — we thought we might be able to declare "mission accomplished" once an aspiring autocrat no longer sat in the oval office. But, at the advice of experts on democratic backsliding, we quickly realized that the mission is generational. It’s going to take us a while.
Still, things are turning fast and what happens in this pivotal year will have long-lasting effects.
So let’s keep one eye on the critical work in front of us and one eye on the horizon.
More next Tuesday, when we’re going to hear about what needs to happen for a free and fair election this year. What are the key vulnerabilities and critical junctures that we need to protect?
Until then, I’ll leave you with the song I keep humming this week. The “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” written by abolitionist and suffragette Julia Ward Howe in 1861. A moment in history that makes this one seem eminently survivable.
Go ahead, give it a listen. Good defending democracy music.
The truth is marching on.
I appreciate that Christians want to reclaim their religion, but be advised that this music does not inspire pro democracy for me and my secular friends. In fact one friend won't subscribe because they are concerned you might be part of a misinformation campaign. Christians claim to patriotism overlooks the hurt some of us have encountered and becomes a dog whistle that triggers a response to reject, not embrace, the coalition of diverse ideas. I will be unsubscribing from this newsletter.