Amid the rubble, shoots of democratic renewal

In the most black-swan election of our lifetimes, the politics of resentment and strongman rule rose to the apex of American power. As a result, our democracy is in danger of being degraded to a flimsy veneer overlaying autocratic and kleptocratic rule. As President-elect Donald Trump said, the intent is to fix the system “so good you’re not going to have to vote.” But if democratic backsliding is the political story of our time, it’s not the only story. Shoots of democratic renewal have been appearing amid the rubble of our broken norms, institutions and connections to one another. I think of them as “countertrends to the politics of resentment” and count five of them, though there are surely more beyond my scope of vision. First, consider the “left behind” communities that have been setting aside dysfunctional political scripts to rewrite their stories. James and Deborah Fallows have made this local renaissance their beat. They report on places like Columbus, Mississippi, which is reviving its economy through high-wage businesses development and innovative schools, and fostering a culture of equality through public art.

Rather than looking toward a Great Leader to rescue them from phantasms of carnage, they tackle their real challenges. John Fetterman rode this wave to his 2022 Senate victory, proclaiming, “Twenty years ago I came to Braddock (Pennsylvania) to start a GED program, and I’ve spent these last two decades fighting for these forgotten communities, because ... every place matters.” Second, there’s the steady spread of democratic innovations through which regular citizens gain a meaningful voice in public decisions while nurturing a healthier working relationship with officials. In New York City, for instance, participatory budgeting (a year-long process through which communities decide how a portion of public funds are invested) is at work in 29 of 51 city council districts and investing nearly $30 million annually.

John Fetterman

The results are updated libraries, upgraded playgrounds, better lit and safer streets, and engaged citizens willing to accept the defeat of their favored project because they experience the process as fair, which is what democracy requires. Meanwhile, citizens assemblies (random samples of citizens convened for extended influential deliberations on solutions to public problems) have gained more traction in other parts of the world. But there is growing interest in the US and given they are close cousins to our New England town meetings, they are enough in our DNA to keep catching on.

Third, like antibodies to authoritarian infection, an ecosystem is emerging to help the nation address the toxic polarisation and dysfunctional public discourse that has been dividing and conquering the people and strangling the democratic process. This includes the 500-plus organisations in the ListenFirst Coalition; the growing Solutions Journalism Network; applied research outfits like the nonpartisan More in Common, Berkeley’s Othering and Belonging Institute and Johns Hopkins’ Agora Institute; and a budding Tech for Social Cohesion coalition. The body politic is far from healthy but some treatment has begun.

Fourth, while several public opinion trends threaten to weaken democracy (cratering public trust, deepening partisan animosity, wavering commitment among the young) there are some democracy-friendly ones as well. The Democracy Perception Index, for instance, found the number of Americans wanting more democracy increased from 36 percent in 2020 to 46% in 2023. A 2021 Pew study showed 79% favoring democracy-deepening innovations like citizen assemblies. And in a 2023 survey by More in Common, 72% agreed that Americans have a shared responsibility to “engage with people who are different from us.”