Want to Save American Democracy? Then Care About Starbucks Workers’ Union Victory
Democracy starts in your daily life.
It’s common wisdom these days that American democracy is hanging by a thread.
The efforts by Republican-dominated state legislatures across the nation to pass voter-suppression laws, the now intensified gerrymandering that has historically enabled Republicans to consolidate political power with a minority of votes, the events of January 6, the details of which unfold on a daily basis, revealing the intense and very real machinations that nearly de-certified the presidential election, triggering the national chaos of constitutional crisis — these developments and more should, for any observer paying even cursory attention, shine a bright light not just on how fragile our democracy is, but also just how intensely under assault it is.
America is full of haters of democracy, and they have power.
Last week’s special issue of The Atlantic, devoted to studying American democracy in crisis, detailed these many and powerful threats to a government by, for, and of the people. Barton Gellman’s harrowing and already much-discussed piece “January 6 Was Practice” spells out the concrete prospect of this threat playing out, writing,
“The next attempt to…
