No Democracy Doom, Friends! Reasons for Determined Optimism
By Anna Galland and Sarah M. Williams
It’s been a bleak winter for democracy in the US. The past week marked a painful loss in the fight to enact urgently-needed federal voting rights legislation. We still don’t have full accountability for the architects and instigators of the January 6th insurrection. And one of our country’s two major political parties has been taken over by a faction that denies the legitimacy of the 2020 election, and is waging a major multi-front campaign in the states to make it easier to overturn future election results.
That’s all grim news, for sure, and we’re among those hurting over real setbacks. But we’re not embarrassed to remain determinedly optimistic. We draw strength from the collective strength, winning strategies, and momentum in our own movement’s history — including recent history.
We actually know a lot about how to defeat the faction that wants to entrench permanent minority rule in the United States. Just last year, we experienced an essential big win when a broad and united coalition beat back Trump’s attempts to overturn the election. That coordinated, consistent effort remains in many ways an important playbook for what we need to do now. We’ve been warming our hands over the memory of that skillful work during this cold winter, because it so crisply demonstrates what we need to do — and what we can do — to successfully defend our democracy and build a country where everyone can thrive in the coming months and years.
Let’s not forget what happened then: in the weeks between the election and the inauguration, as Trump tested various guardrails to see which might give, a wide range of voters, organizers, leaders, and strategists coordinated closely and stepped up. They shared information, synchronized smart public messaging, supported energized grassroots activations, shined a light on election officials’ actions in key states, and moved together in advancing a determined strategy to ensure Trump would actually leave the White House. Black women and other women of color played leading roles across key networks and cohorts in this effort.
Institutions and others with megaphones worked in unison, to a remarkable extent, and stuck to our coordinated messages. Tough mobilization decisions, like when national organizers should amplify the call to hit the streets, were made with extraordinary care and discipline. Though there was of course healthy debate over the course of those weeks, groups and individuals stayed largely united in denying oxygen to what could have been a self-fulfilling prophecy of a MAGA coup. We collectively managed to not yank defeat from the jaws of victory.
It all added up to a remarkable demonstration of what a democracy-building coalition will need to prevail in the years to come. We focused on shared values and a common goal, despite many divisions, differing opinions, and sometimes competing priorities within the broad coalition. We identified a unifying narrative and message and stayed disciplined in getting it out. We respected the leadership of organizers at the state level, not allowing national leaders to swoop in or presume to know better. We built alliances and coordination across geography, ideology, and institutional walls.
Obviously the moment we are in right now is different. Renewing democracy in this context — as we pick up the pieces after losing, for now, a major push for federal voting rights reform, and with a big midterm election looming — isn’t as much about preserving a clear national win as it is about finding our way to new wins. But once again, we’ve got to stay steady and not let this current context rattle us. We’ve got to remember this was always going to be a long haul; there’s not a quick and easy path to forging an inclusive multiracial democracy and an economy where so many more of us can thrive.
Longer-ago history has lessons too. Organizers worked for years before the Senate, over fierce opposition from Southern Democrats, passed the first voting rights bill. For those of us who have wanted to advance social programs on par with what FDR achieved, it’s helpful to remember that he had a margin of 196 Democrats in the House and 23 Democrats in the Senate to move his agenda forward. With Democrats today having only the slimmest of margins, it’s extraordinary what we have been able to advance. With help from the work of outside movements, we have delivered relief to Americans during a pandemic via the American Rescue Plan; rejoined the Paris Accord to address the climate crisis; implemented broad vaccination efforts; secured a once-in-a-generation investment in the infrastructure required for clean water, internet, and better transportation; and appointed talented, honest public servants at all levels of government and the courts that reflect communities across America.
And we know what to do to shore up democracy further. As we did in 2021, we’ll need to stay unified across our usual coalition lines and always be inviting others to link arms with us. Invest and dig in further at the state and local level. Organize and support the leadership of powerful advocates trusted by their communities. Prepare for a massive round of voter engagement and education.
Most of all, we need to shake off any lingering fantasy that our country’s multi-layered crisis could be settled with a few door knocks or phone shifts, or one election cycle. The work of forging community and civic renewal is the work of our lifetimes.
In the near term, the political right wants to build a narrative of inevitability that the democracy reform project is dead; that Democrats will lose in the midterms; and that Trump or DeSantis will be president in 2024. If we feed that, then shame on us: we’re playing right into their hands and giving up without a fight.
As an angry faction in our politics is mounting a quasi-permanent insurrection, we need to be in our own durable state of spirited, courageous, and determined democracy-building. We have so much going for us! In 2020, seven million more people voted to move the country forward. New leaders from different communities stepped up to take action. Young people voted in record numbers. Postal workers delivered ballots despite the sabotage of the USPS, and election workers counted them despite, in some places, in-their-face threats of violence. President Biden was inaugurated in 2021 because we didn’t give up on each other, or on the idea of a country that can deliver for its people.
A thing about despair is that it can be kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy. “We’re going to lose the democracy” becomes, indeed, losing the democracy. Let’s not feed that despair cycle — it’s not helpful, and history shows how we can prevail. So if you’re rocked by this winter’s democracy news, take a moment to catch your breath. Check in on friends and colleagues. And then we hope you will dive right back in. Spring is coming — and we know how to stick together and win.
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Sarah M. Williams is Co-Founder and CEO of Propel, which invests in innovators, change-makers, and entrepreneurs building a democracy and economy that works for the many, not the few. Propel’s work includes the Propel Democracy Forward Fund, a charitable fund that helps strengthen democracy. She was named one of Inside Philanthropy’s 100 Power Players in 2021.
Anna Galland is a national organizer, strategist and nonprofit leader, and previous Executive Director of the grassroots group MoveOn Civic Action. She is currently a Pritzker Fellow at the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics, and a Senior Democracy Fellow at Propel.
