Unfinished work from that set of democratic changes led to the Civil Rights Movement. Instead, many Americans with different interests brought about social and political reforms that revitalized the social contract and enabled the so-called American Century of the 1900s. What followed was not the death of democracy. State-sponsored violence enforced these elements. These rulers curtailed electorates, harassed and repressed opposition parties, and created and regulated racially separate-and significantly unfree-civic spheres. Leaders of the eleven states of the Old Confederacy founded stable, one-party authoritarian enclaves under the “Democratic” banner. Meanwhile, as historian Robert Mickey explained: Anarchist bombings and the assassination of a president elevated political violence. Serious movements for communism and anarchism threatened the country’s democratic foundations. Company-controlled militias controlled their workers with tools such as an armor-plated vehicle mounted with machine guns known as the “death special” with legal support from the Supreme Court. Politicians were openly bribed, and legislation was bought. During the 1890s in an era known as the Gilded Age, which was the last period of polarization as vast as today’s, America faced even greater troubles. Severe polarization is rapidly narrowing the available solution sets. A political stalemate with increased criminal and political violenceĪmerica is in a vicious cycle, and it is speeding up.States run by one political party whose control is upheld by violence.Stable states run by one political party where voters cannot alter politics.Insufficient Tactics: activities that are crucial to hold democratic ground but that will not alter the trajectory
Strengthen accountability to reset norms on what behavior is legal and acceptable.Build a broad-based, multistranded, prodemocracy movement around a positive vision concretized in locally rooted action.Engage the left in defending democracy by making it deliver.Reduce the social demand from the right for illiberal policies and politicians.Enable responsible conservatives to vote for democracy.The rise in political violence against key, targeted groupsįive Strategies with concrete tactics to alter the current disintegration.How polarization is enabling antidemocratic action.The playbook already underway at the state level to undermine democracy.International markers of American democracy’s swift decline.democracy, democratic decline in many states has accelerated despite Democratic control of both chambers of Congress and the presidency at the national level. And for those on both sides of the aisle for whom these voting measures are proxies for partisan preferences they believe will save U.S. America’s democratic decline has accelerated despite record numbers of people, minorities, and swing voters voting.
These efforts are necessary-but not sufficient. They are pouring time and money into getting more people to vote, particularly minorities and swing voters, to win back democracy. Other organizations and philanthropists already understand the danger America is in. Moreover, the country’s age means that much of what are presumed to be laws and institutions are, in fact, simply norms. Many of the laws that form institutional guardrails were written poorly in the aftermath of the Civil War, with loopholes that are easily challenged given a lack of precedent. democracy provides resilience-but Americans should not expect too much from the country’s historical strength. Rachel Kleinfeld is a senior fellow in Carnegie’s Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program, where she focuses on issues of rule of law, security, and governance in democracies experiencing polarization, violence, and other governance problems. Their destructions of their own democracies have been supported by pluralities or majorities of their citizenries, whose polarization leads them to back policies that harm democracy to ensure their side prevails. However, since the end of the Cold War, most democratic failure globally has been caused by elected governments using legal methods, such as gerrymandering and technical rule changes, to derail democracy. Many Americans view this moment with concern, but their worry is measured: America’s system is creaky, but the world’s oldest democracy has strong institutions and will pull through. Without such momentum, the country faces a democratic setback potentially as serious as the ones already occurring in India and Hungary (both now ranked only “partially free” by Freedom House) and the nearly one-hundred-year reversal that occurred following America’s Reconstruction era. The moment requires a step-change in strategy and support.
DemocracyĪmerican democracy is at a dangerous inflection point. The Need: A Massive Infusion of Strategic Support for U.S.
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