Give freedom and the Constitution some good P.R.
Democracy needs a boost. Being humble and shy won’t work any more.
Too many Americans have lost or are losing faith in democracy.
63% of Americans say they have little to no confidence in the future of the U.S. political system.
Only about a quarter of us are satisfied with how our democracy is working.
An eye-popping number think the system is broken and are okay with a leader who “breaks the rules.” (See the Washington Post for more.)
One report noted there’s a “significant segment of the [U.S.] population that may be willing to embrace or accept the cause of authoritarian figures if and when it is in their partisan and political interests.”
For almost a decade now, several right-wing figures in America have intentionally eroded public trust in free and fair elections and encouraged political violence.
Far right Christian nationalists and authoritarian sympathizers here at home are “very skillful at ... framing and branding and messaging…,” said Anne Nelson, author of Shadow Network: Media, Money, and the Secret Hub of the Radical Right. “And they do this time after time, on every front.”
The solution? Progressives, moderates, and pro-democracy Republicans should set up a Democracy War Room to spread and defend democracy across America – a strange sentence to write. Treat democracy like any policy issue that needs constant attention—with a full-throated, well-funded campaign behind it.
A national branding and advertising effort would remind Americans of our ideals, values, and common ground. It would diffuse the authoritarian strategy to divide people. It would detonate and mitigate disinformation from spreading, if not be believed.
“Democracies have often been reticent to assert the value of their own governance system, leaving authoritarian powers to fill the resulting vacuum,” counseled in a report by the National Endowment for Democracy. “In order to retake the initiative, democracies need to ‘play the winning hand they have’ and articulate a positive vision of democratic principles…”
Elevating the values of freedom, equality, and justice of course won’t be cheap. But the good news is that of a majority of Americans say they still support our core democratic values.