We Need You: An Open Letter to U.S. Democracy Organizations
ACLU — American Civil Liberties Union
Brennan Center for Justice
Campaign Legal Center
Common Cause
Demos
Fair Fight Action
FairVote
LDF — NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund
League of Women Voters
Public Citizen
Reclaim the American Dream
Rock the Vote
And other democracy and voting rights organizations
Dear democracy, voting, and civic engagement organizations:
I write to you as the concerned father of three small children. The events of the past two years compel me to think a lot about their future. Specifically, what kind of country will they grow up in? Like you, I view the attacks on U.S. democracy — led by Donald Trump and the far right — with increasing alarm. I’m writing to you in my capacity as a private citizen and not as a representative of any organization, company, or political party.
Can you all to come together, pool your resources, establish an unprecedented grand coalition, undertake mass mobilization, and lead us to rebuild U.S. democracy?
As organizations focused on democracy, voting rights, and civic engagement, you know the issues. You know what far-right extremists are doing, how well organized they are, and what the stakes are if they succeed. In no particular order: extreme and racist gerrymandering; voter suppression measures, including roll purges, reduced polling station hours, and restrictions on mail-in voting; enabling state legislatures to reassign a state’s electoral votes regardless of the population’s wishes; adopting violent tactics and threats; replacing local election officials with Trump loyalists; and embracing white supremacy. The list goes on.
These are not the actions of a political movement that respects democratic norms in a representative system. Whatever the Republican Party has been in the past, it has now become the vehicle for a proto-fascist social movement committed to one-party rule, based on “The Big Lie” that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump.
The peaceful transition of power is an essential component of a stable democracy. We now see how fragile it is. By fomenting the insurrection of January 6, 2021, Donald Trump and other far-right leaders shattered that norm. While the January 6 insurrection failed, it also showed us that our political landscape has fundamentally changed. There is a credible argument to be made that anti-democratic forces will try again in 2024, with more coordination and discipline. It appears that January 6 was a dress rehearsal. New York Times journalist David Leonardt recently argued compellingly that “America’s anti-democratic movement is making progress.”
We need an even more compelling opposite force: a pro-democracy movement that is as united as the extreme right, deeply committed to exposing lies and subversion, and focused on leveling the playing field for free and fair elections.
I believe that we now find ourselves in a situation where ‘small-d’ democratic reforms must come from a mass social movement more powerful than the extreme right. Describing what makes transformational presidencies successful, political scientist Corey Robins writes,
What each of these presidents had at their back was an independent social movement….
Each of these movements had their own institutions. Each of them was disruptive, upending the leadership and orthodoxies of the existing parties. Each of them was prepared to do battle against the old regime. And battle they did.
Social movements deliver votes to friendly politicians and stiffen their backs. More important, they take political arguments out of legislative halls and press them in private spaces of power. They suspend our delicate treaties of social peace, creating turbulence in hierarchical institutions like the workplace and the family. Institutions like these need the submission of subordinate to superior. By withholding their cooperation, subordinates can stop the everyday work of society. They exercise a kind of power that presidents do not possess but that they can use.
If Joe Biden’s presidency is to be transformational for voting rights, it needs a social movement pushing for reform. The U.S. public needs you now more than ever.
Your organizations have accomplished great things and stand for grand principles. As a concerned citizen, I humbly appeal to you to come together and form a grand coalition to build a mass movement dedicated to democracy.
Is it possible to convene a grand conference; develop a coordinated leadership strategy; build key connections with and between stakeholders; mobilize your respective constituencies under a common set of demands; lead us to march in the streets; canvass neighborhoods; organize boycotts and donation campaigns; bring public pressure to bear on key legislators and influential private actors; and work with local organizations to build a ground-up, grassroots movement that unites diverse constituencies under the banner of democracy, fair elections, and public accountability?
I sincerely hope the answer to that multi-faceted question is “yes.” While I recognize that your organizations are doing great work independently, we now need something more to counteract the cancer that threatens our democracy. What I’m asking you for is a major scaling-up and coordination of your efforts. I believe that what you could accomplish together would be greater than the sum of your parts.
Without such a social movement, I fear that authoritarian rule by a ruthless far-right movement is in our future. I don’t want the United States to become a place where political violence and threats thereof are commonplace, where elections are mere public theater with predetermined outcomes. This is not a future I want for my children.
So please step up. Come together with your commitment, expertise, resources, and leadership. We need you.
Sincerely,
Patrick Finnegan
Saint Paul, Minnesota
Patrick Finnegan is a writer, editor, and consultant based in Saint Paul, Minnesota. He is a graduate of the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School of Public Affairs.
