Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Democracy in a divided House

Democracy in a divided House
Getty Images

Ali Noorani is the Program Director of U.S. Democracy at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. He leads the investments to strengthen democracy through our Trustworthy Elections and National Governing Institutions grantmaking.

Kevin McCarthy’s 15-ballot journey to the U.S. House speakership in January of 2023 was, to some, a testament to political coalition building. This subset of political punditry believed the many concessions McCarthy made to far-right lawmakers was the way one needed to manage today’s political factions. Others, in fact, thought the far left should play the same brand of hardball and exact their own set of ruthless concessions next time there was an election for a Democratic speaker.


Yet, in spite of McCarthy’s machinations, some 269 days later, eight members of the Republican conference, representing 1.8% of the nation, broke with their party to oust him from the speakership. Through his painful coalition building, McCarthy believed he had found a space where disagreement led to compromise. Instead, his willingness to look for common ground gave license to conflict entrepreneurs who only became more extreme and eventually brought down the House.

The result is that our nation is lurching toward another government shutdown, risking programs, services, and support of Ukraine’s fight against an authoritarian invasion, further eroding trust in our democratic institutions. Laura Blessing, a senior fellow at the Government Affairs Institute at Georgetown University, told The Washington Post, “We are watching a very small number of folks from the House Republican conference have an outsize role in promoting a lot of congressional dysfunction and fiscal dysfunction. This is a move for volatility and not a move to pass legislation.”

Why did we get here?

Over the last couple of decades, political actors have spent billions of dollars to deepen polarization within our society. As a result, our differences have shifted from ideological splits to what Lilliana Mason accurately describes as, “an emotional type of polarization that cannot be explained by parties or issues alone.”

A major contributor to the affective polarization that dominates our politics and defines our tribes has been the way in which religious, racial, and other social identities are increasingly linked to one party or the other. Mason explains that with identity-based politics, “the passion and prejudice with which we approach politics is driven not only by what we think, but also powerfully by who we think we are.” The upshot, she concludes, is that “the ‘otherness’ of ideological opponents, more than issue-based disagreement, drives liberal-versus-conservative rancor.”

This all leads to a level of tribalism that creates the political space and incentive structure for a fringe group to exert an outsized influence. It plays into the othering of ideological opponents in ways that intersect with religious, racial, and other social identities — and prevents the political compromises that are necessary for governing the diverse, messy realities of a country with 330 million individuals.

Where do we go from here?

In “ High Conflict: Why We Get Trapped and How We Get Out, ” Amanda Ripley describes this dynamic as one where conflict entrepreneurs weaponize identity politics and tribalism to garner media attention and votes in order to amass political power. The solution she posits is to find “conflict disruptors,” those whose identities are still broad enough to bring together different sides of a debate. Encouraging politicians and citizens alike to reject the narrow parts of their identities on display in party politics is a challenge, but it starts with recognizing that finding narrow zones of compromise is the only way for our democracy to function.

To begin, we need to establish incentives for political moderation that do not require one to change their party identity. From the groundbreaking work of One America Movement with a range of faith communities or the painstaking efforts of Care Lab to build relationships among key staff on Capitol Hill, we know this will not happen quickly and success will rely on a combination of structural and cultural factors.

It remains to be seen whether any Republican can win the speakership and wield the gavel in ways that disrupt conflict and recognize a shared political community. What they concede, to whom, in order to earn 218 votes will determine their approach to leadership. But this is not just a Republican problem. If our politicians continue their march toward performative, high conflict, more and more of our fellow Americans will find extremism increasingly appealing — and, in the worst case, an onramp to political violence. If our new House Speaker can manage small steps back from high conflict, we have a chance of once again feeling like we are part of a shared political community. There is a lot at stake for all of us, regardless of which tribe we consider our own.

This piece was original published by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation

Read More

From Vision to Action: Remaking the World Through Social Entrepreneurship
assorted notepads

From Vision to Action: Remaking the World Through Social Entrepreneurship

Social entrepreneur John Marks developed a set of eleven working principles that have become his modus operandi and provide the basic framework for his new book, “From Vision to Action: Remaking the World Through Social Entrepreneurship," from which a series of three articles is adapted. While Marks applied these principles in nonprofit work, he says they are also applicable to social enterprisesand to life, in general.

PART TWO

PRINCIPLE #4: KEEP SHOWING UP. It has been said that 80 percent of success in life is showing up. For social entrepreneurs, this means continuing to stay engaged without dabbling or parachuting. Like a child’s toy windup truck that moves forward until it hits an obstacle and then backs off and finds another way forward, social entrepreneurs should be persistent—and adept at finding work-arounds. They must be willing to commit for the long term. I found that this was particularly important when working with Iranians, who tend to view the world in terms of centuries and millennia.

Keep ReadingShow less
Ten Things the Future Will Say We Got Wrong About AI

A team of

Getty Images, Dragos Condrea

Ten Things the Future Will Say We Got Wrong About AI

As we look back on 1776 after this July 4th holiday, it's a good opportunity to skip forward and predict what our forebears will think of us. When our descendants assess our policies, ideas, and culture, what will they see? What errors, born of myopia, inertia, or misplaced priorities, will they lay at our feet regarding today's revolutionary technology—artificial intelligence? From their vantage point, with AI's potential and perils laid bare, their evaluation will likely determine that we got at least ten things wrong.

One glaring failure will be our delay in embracing obviously superior AI-driven technologies like autonomous vehicles (AVs). Despite the clear safety benefits—tens of thousands of lives saved annually, reduced congestion, enhanced accessibility—we allowed a patchwork of outdated regulations, public apprehension, and corporate squabbling to keep these life-saving machines largely off our roads. The future will see our hesitation as a moral and economic misstep, favoring human error over demonstrated algorithmic superiority.

Keep ReadingShow less
When Democracy’s Symbols Get Hijacked: How the Far Right Co-Opted Classical Imagery
brown concrete building under blue sky during daytime
Photo by Darryl Low on Unsplash

When Democracy’s Symbols Get Hijacked: How the Far Right Co-Opted Classical Imagery

For generations, Americans have surrounded themselves with the symbols of ancient Greece and Rome: marble columns, laurel wreaths, Roman eagles, and the fasces. These icons, carved into our government buildings and featured on our currency, were intended to embody democracy, civic virtue, and republican ideals.

But in recent years, far-right movements in the U.S. and abroad have hijacked these classical images, repackaging them into symbols of exclusion, militarism, and authoritarian nostalgia.

Keep ReadingShow less