What Does Donald Trump’s Re-Election Mean for Pro-Democracy Organizations and Advocates?

Illustration: iStock/mathisworks

In the wake of former President Donald Trump’s re-election to the White House and the surprising margins of his victory, reckonings abound not only for the Democratic Party, the future of identity politics, celebrity culture, and elites, but also for a newer society. Group: Pro-democracy community.

The vaguely defined pro-democracy community has been growing, especially since Trump’s first victory in 2016. Its goals aim to be non-partisan and focus on strengthening civic participation, reforming democratic institutions, and improving civic culture. Examples of field members include organizations that promote civic education, advocates of ranked-choice voting, and those who seek to address polarization through bridging initiatives; These are all vital cogs in American democracy that need repairing.

But today, this pro-democracy movement urgently needs to re-evaluate its strategies and tactics. No matter who wins the presidential election, the vision of strengthening and revitalizing the country’s civic fabric remains fundamental. But the popular vote shows that a majority of American voters reject Democrats’ message that Trump is at best a threat to democracy and at worst a potential dictator.

I joined the pro-democracy ranks in 2009 when I co-founded a civic education nonprofit. Generation Citizen. The organization aimed to encourage active and engaged citizens by reintegrating civics education into the K-12 school curriculum, but for the first seven years it was incredibly difficult to get anyone to take us seriously. A prominent educational leader told me that our best strategy would be to get students to focus on international issues, meaning that democracy is safe and stable on the state side. This is what happened to the orthodoxy under President Obama.

Everything changed in 2016. Suddenly the most popular intervention in the city was civics education; Our budget has grown from just under $1 million a year to over $4 million, and funders have pushed us to expand into rural communities. Simultaneously, the pro-democracy community began to gain traction. Funders and organizations have realized that the American democracy we take for granted could be eroding and that investing in more engaged citizens could spell the end of Trump and his politics. But the rationale requires consideration: The foundations of democracy were weakening long before Trump’s election, and the fact that Trump’s election was necessary to shore up the community suggests that the community is more focused on preventing Trump’s power than deepening civic culture and institutions.

I left Generation Citizen at the end of 2020, proud of my leadership, but tired and burned out. I wanted successfully organization transition to engage in new leadership and new kinds of democratic work. I landed here Stavros Niarchos Foundation Agora Institute A center at Johns Hopkins University dedicated to strengthening global democracy through strong civic engagement and informed, inclusive dialogue. In early 2022, I convened a bipartisan, off-the-record meeting of democracy advocates eager to identify what works and what doesn’t in the industry. Although the conversation was cordial and paved the way for future collaboration, several attendees later shared the same clear feedback: About 90 percent of the room was progressive, and if we were serious about revitalizing democracy, we needed more conservative voices.

With this perspective in hand, I designed a project in collaboration with the centre-right think tank R Street Institute. conservative agenda for democracy attempt. Over the next two years, we brought together hundreds of Republicans from across the United States to explore ways to strengthen democratic institutions in the long term and rebuild confidence in elections as a short-term goal.

Many on opposite sides of the political spectrum reacted with shock (“Are there pro-democracy conservatives?”) and judgment (“Are you working with Republicans?”), but the project has been both rewarding and important. I traveled to purple states like Wisconsin, Arizona, and Georgia, and deep red states like Wyoming, Idaho, and Kansas, and learned from Republicans who were worried about the state of the republic and believed Joe Biden had won the 2020 election. and although they were concerned about the state of their party, they were still proudly conservative in their political ideology. I continue to believe that a true, functioning democracy requires functional political parties, and the Republicans I met are essential to making that happen.

Today, instead of pursuing the same anti-Trump agenda that motivated the pro-democracy community in 2016, the community needs to reckon with the fact that Trump, his policies, and his rhetoric have not been rejected but instead have been embraced by many. . To this end, it is imperative that the field approaches its work with deep humility and introspection. In that spirit, and without assuming we have the answers, here are four pieces of advice that I believe can help the process and ultimately yield better results.

1. Listen before you act. This may seem trite in the aftermath of the election, but the pro-democracy community needs to wake up to the fact that its strategy is not working. Yes, many young people are receiving civics education, many Americans are participating in efforts to reduce polarization, and many communities are working together to solve problems at the local level. But election denialism continues both sides of the corridor, polarization deepensand institutional trust keeps falling.

In 2016, a slew of new organizations dedicated to maintaining democratic barriers, persuading Americans to run for office, and advocating for electoral reform emerged to tackle a clear challenge: Trump. This time the challenge is trickier: Americans show a lack of faith in democracy. Instead of jumping into action and producing silent solutions, we should stop and listen to the people on the ground. Rather than quickly designing solutions, we should really try to understand how people of all political ideologies think about democracy right now.

2. Call balls and strikes. Since former President Trump is a Republican and he and his party have led what are objectively the most outlandish challenges to democratic norms, opponents naturally tend to align with the Democratic Party. President Joe Biden’s statement is as follows:Democracy is at the ballot boxThe phrase “” repeated by Democrats in the United States made this clear.

The pro-democracy community cannot fully align with the Democratic Party to maintain and increase its credibility. Indeed, the Democratic Party has engaged in its share of questionable behavior, without the equivalent of denying election results and inciting riots.

Regardless of which political party is involved, it is the duty of the pro-democracy community to speak out when behavior and discourse violate democratic norms. For example, President Biden in 2021 in the name The Georgia election bill, SB 202, is “Jim Crow 2.0” for its goals of voter suppression. Evidence In the 2022 midterm elections, 98.9% of voters reported no problems voting, while 95.3% reported a wait time of less than 30 minutes, indicating that the bill led to increased turnout and confidence. Meanwhile, Democrats across the country Supported candidates who rejected the election in the primaries to give their candidates a better chance in the general election. The pro-democracy community should have called out the irresponsible rhetoric surrounding the Georgia bill and accused Democrats of electioneering contrary to basic democratic principles.

Addressing violations of constitutional norms that threaten American democracy will remain important in the new Trump era, but it will be critical for society to distinguish between potentially harmful policies and actions that actually constrain those norms. This will be incredibly challenging. But there is a difference between mass deportations in every respect. legaland ending birthright citizenship it won’t be constitutional. The pro-democracy community needs to be careful when associating policies they dislike with democracy rather than behavior that challenges democratic principles.

3. Diversify the rankings. Similarly, the progressive bent of the pro-democracy community has contributed to an excessive amount of groupthink; like-minded organizations are talking to each other about ways to address the lack of faith in democracy among individuals they rarely interact with. . For example, it often relies on research and surveys to discover the best ways to talk to conservatives about democracy issues.

The doctrine that organizations should not design interventions without involving the people affected by the interventions underpins international development. But in the case of US democracy, organizations often try to persuade people who are less trusting of democracy without actually interacting with them.

It may be uncomfortable, but the pro-democracy community needs to diversify its ranks to include conservatives and individuals who voted for Trump.

4. Go local. The most effective way to engage in politics is at the local level. But unfortunately the local has become national. Many in the pro-democracy community focus all their efforts at the federal level, without engaging at the state and city levels.

While the federal sphere may seem like a depressing partisan swamp, exciting work is being done at the local level. Organizations like this Trust in Civil Life We find and finance studies that connect individuals and civil infrastructure. Appalachian region of KentuckyIt will allow them to rebuild collectively after the 2022 floods and civil agriculture In Northern Michigan. city ​​of Bend, Oregon got engaged at a citizens meeting to explore community approaches to homelessness and cities like Boston We use participatory budgeting to allow citizens to have input into how public dollars are spent. Democracy is being renewed and revitalized at the local level.

It’s a cliché to say that the solution to America’s problems lies within its own society. But one way advocates can combat challenges to democracy is by organizing and participating in local politics themselves. The process can bring both a sense of perspective and a needed break from national work.

While these approaches are not solutions in themselves, they provide some starting points for effective action. My hope is that the pro-democracy community meets this unprecedented moment with humility and introspection rather than magic solutions. The playbook of 2016 will not work in 2024. It’s time to listen first.

Read more stories Scott Warren.