In this episode of Democracy Works from The McCourtney Institute for Democracy, the team discusses democracy’s many doomsayers and how to heed their warnings for the future without falling into despair.
Podcast: On democracy's doomsayers
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When Democracy’s Symbols Get Hijacked: How the Far Right Co-Opted Classical Imagery
Jul 08, 2025
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.
As a student of both Classical Civilizations and Public Policy, I’ve seen this trend firsthand. Online spaces and political rallies now bristle with distorted classical references: Spartan helmets on protest gear, Roman eagles on alt-right banners, and phrases like molon labe (“come and take them”) lifted from ancient Greek battles but weaponized for modern culture wars.
This isn’t accidental. Extremist groups deliberately lean on classical symbolism to project legitimacy and historical grandeur. Their goal is to link their movement with notions of strength, order, and Western identity – often coded with racial and cultural exclusion.
The far right’s fascination with the ancient world has deep roots. In the 1920s and ’30s, Benito Mussolini drew heavily on Roman imagery to build Italian Fascism, adopting the fasces (a bundle of rods and an axe once carried by Roman magistrates) as the regime’s primary emblem. Nazi Germany followed suit, celebrating classical sculpture and architecture as models of supposed Aryan purity, while denouncing modern art as “degenerate.”
Today’s extremists borrow these same visual cues. The January 6 Capitol riot showcased Spartan and Roman symbols among the flags and homemade shields. In Charlottesville, at the 2017 Unite the Right rally, white nationalists marched with fasces emblems and the Roman acronym SPQR, the historic motto of the Roman Republic. White nationalist groups like Identity Evropa and Vanguard America continue to embed Roman eagles and Greek statuary into their propaganda materials.
The strategy is clear: these symbols evoke a sense of timeless authority and noble struggle. They suggest a connection to ancient civilizations that are popularly, but often simplistically, viewed as the cradle of democracy and Western greatness.
And that brings us to an uncomfortable truth: this hijacking is made easier by the way mainstream American culture has mythologized the classical world for decades.
For many Americans, Greece and Rome have long been portrayed in a sanitized narrative: Athens as the pure birthplace of democracy, and Rome as a republic of virtuous citizens. Our civic buildings mimic the Parthenon and Pantheon. Our textbooks focus on Athenian voting rights and Roman legal codes, often skipping over the less flattering realities: slavery, imperialism, patriarchy, and political collapse.
By flattening classical history into a story of unbroken democratic virtue, we’ve created a blind spot. Extremist groups exploit this by framing themselves as heirs to an imagined tradition of Western strength and purity.
Take the Spartan obsession, for example. In reality, Sparta was a militarized society that depended on the mass enslavement of the helot population and engaged in routine violence to maintain social order. However, modern far-right groups latch onto a Hollywood-inspired version of Sparta: all heroism, all warrior ethos, with no historical context.
The same goes for Roman imagery. The fasces, which in the U.S. have long symbolized unity and civic authority, are now appearing on hate group banners to signal authoritarian power. Even the Latin motto SPQR, originally an emblem of citizen governance, has been stripped of context and repurposed for modern nationalist signaling.
So, how do we respond?
First, educators have a critical role. As a classics student, I’ve learned that understanding Greece and Rome means wrestling with contradictions: innovation and oppression, civic ideals and systemic injustice. Middle and high school teachers, as well as university professors, should present the classical world in its full complexity—not as a golden age to be uncritically admired. Students should leave a unit on Athens knowing not only about democracy, but also about who was excluded from it.
Second, policymakers and civic leaders must be mindful of how they use classical symbols today. While classical architecture and symbolism remain fixtures in public life, their deployment must be accompanied by an awareness of how extremists are attempting to reframe their meaning. Civic leaders should refrain from using these images in ways that inadvertently echo extremist aesthetics, particularly in campaign materials or public art.
Third, online platforms and moderators play a crucial role. Just as we flag hate symbols and dog whistles in other contexts, there should be an awareness of how classical imagery is being used in far-right propaganda. This doesn’t mean banning every Roman eagle, but it does mean being alert when such symbols appear alongside calls to violence or exclusion.
Finally, the general public needs to approach classical imagery with more historical literacy. The solution isn’t to erase Greece and Rome from our civic identity, but to study them with clear eyes. When we understand their full history, including their flaws, failures, and complexities, we rob extremists of the ability to manipulate these symbols unchallenged.
The classical world was never monolithic, and neither is our democracy. Both are complicated, diverse, and constantly evolving. If we want democratic symbols to remain tools for inclusion rather than division, we need to reclaim them from those who would distort the past to undermine the present.
Bennett Gillespie is a student at Duke University and a council member of the Duke Program in American Grand Strategy. He is also an intern with the Fulcrum.
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The B-2 "Spirit" Stealth Bomber flys over the 136th Rose Parade Presented By Honda on Jan. 1, 2025, in Pasadena, California. (Jerod Harris/Getty Images/TNS)
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Is Bombing Iran Deja Vu All Over Again?
Jul 07, 2025
After a short and successful war with Iraq, President George H.W. Bush claimed in 1991 that “the ghosts of Vietnam have been laid to rest beneath the sands of the Arabian desert.” Bush was referring to what was commonly called the “Vietnam syndrome.” The idea was that the Vietnam War had so scarred the American psyche that we forever lost confidence in American power.
The elder President Bush was partially right. The first Iraq war was certainly popular. And his successor, President Clinton, used American power — in the former Yugoslavia and elsewhere — with the general approval of the media and the public.
But when the younger Bush, Clinton’s successor, launched wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Vietnam syndrome came back with a vengeance. Barely three weeks after the U.S. attacked Afghanistan on Oct. 7, 2002, famed New York Times correspondent R.W. Apple penned a piece headlined “A Military Quagmire Remembered: Afghanistan as Vietnam.”
“Like an unwelcome specter from an unhappy past,” Apple wrote, “the ominous word ‘quagmire’ has begun to haunt conversations among government officials and students of foreign policy, both here and abroad.”
“Could Afghanistan become another Vietnam?” he rhetorically asked. “Echoes of Vietnam are unavoidable,” he asserted.
Over the next 12 months, the newspaper ran nearly 300 articles with the words “Vietnam” and “Afghanistan” in them. The New York Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times ran articles mentioning Iraq and Vietnam at an average rate of more than twice a day (I looked it up 20 years ago).
The tragic irony is that President George W. Bush did what his father couldn’t: He exorcised the specter of “another Vietnam” — but he also replaced it with the specter of “another Iraq.”
That’s what’s echoing in the reaction to President Trump’s decision to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities. We’re all familiar with cliches about generals fighting the last war, but journalists and politicians have the same habit of cramming the square peg of current events into the round hole of previous conflicts.
Trump’s decision to bomb Iran — which I broadly support, with caveats — is fair game for criticism and concern. But the Iraq syndrome cosplay misleads more than instructs. For starters, no one is proposing “boots on the ground,” never mind “occupation” or “nation-building.”
The debate over whether George W. Bush lied us into war over the issue of weapons of mass destruction is more tendentious than the conventional wisdom on the left and right would have you believe. But it’s also irrelevant. No serious observer disputes that Iran has been pursuing a nuclear weapon for decades. The only live question is, or was: How close is Iran to having one?
Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, told Congress in March — preposterously in my opinion — that “Iran is not building a nuclear weapon.” On Sunday, “Meet the Press” host Kristen Welker asked Vice President JD Vance, “So, why launch this strike now? Has the intelligence changed, Mr. Vice President?”
It’s a good question. But it’s not a sound basis for insinuating that another Republican president is again using faulty intelligence to get us into a war — just like Iraq.
The squabbling over whether this was a “preemptive” rather than “preventative” attack misses the point. America would be justified in attacking Iran even if Gabbard was right. Why? Because Iran has been committing acts of war against America, and Israel, for decades, mostly through terrorist proxies it created, trained, funded and directed for that purpose. In 1983, Hezbollah militants blew up the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon, killing 63. Later that year, it blew up the U.S. Marine barracks, also in Beirut, killing 241 Americans. In the decades since, Hezbollah and other Iranian proxies have orchestrated or attempted the murder of Americans repeatedly, including during the Iraq war. It even authorized the assassination of President Trump, according to Joe Biden’s Justice Department.
These are acts of war that would justify a response even if Iran had no interest in a nuclear weapon. But the fanatical regime — whose supporters routinely chant “Death to America!” — is pursuing a nuclear weapon.
For years, the argument for not taking out that program has rested largely on the fact that it would be too difficult. The facilities are too hardened, Iran’s proxies are too powerful.
That is the intelligence that has changed. Israel crushed Hezbollah and Hamas militants and eliminated much of Iran’s air defense system. What once seemed like a daunting assault on a Death Star turned into a layup by comparison.
None of this means that things cannot get worse or that Trump’s decision won’t end up being regrettable. But whatever that scenario looks like, it won’t look much like what happened in Iraq, except for those unwilling to see it any other way.
Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.
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Conspiratorial Thinking Isn’t Growing–Its Consequences Are
Jul 06, 2025
The Comet Ping Pong Pizzagate shooting, the plot to kidnap Governor Gretchen Whitmer, and a man’s livestreamed beheading of his father last year were all fueled by conspiracy theories. But while the headlines suggest that conspiratorial thinking is on the rise, this is not the case. Research points to no increase in conspiratorial thinking. Still, to a more dangerous reality: the conspiracies taking hold and being amplified by political ideologues are increasingly correlated with violence against particular groups. Fortunately, promising new research points to actions we can take to reduce conspiratorial thinking in communities across the US.
Some journalists claim that this is “a golden age of conspiracy theories,” and the public agrees. As of 2022, 59% of Americans think that people are more likely to believe in conspiracy theories today than 25 years ago, and 73% of Americans think conspiracy theories are “out of control.” Most blame this perceived increase on the role of social media and the internet.
But these headlines misunderstand the crisis: belief in conspiracy theories is not on the rise. Dr. Joseph Uscinski, an expert on conspiracy theories at the University of Miami who has tracked their prevalence and effects for close to two decades, finds no increase in levels of conspiratorial thinking. Others echo his findings: a study by Uscinski and researchers from the US and UK found no increase in conspiratorial beliefs in the US (or in six European countries, for that matter) from the 1960s through 2020. For instance, only about 5% of Americans believe in Q-Anon, and positive feelings towards Q-Anon have not increased since 2018. In fact, belief decreased rather than increased in most of the conspiracy theories examined. Most conspiracy theories pop up and burn out quickly. Those that take hold for a number of years are the exception.
What is growing is the link between believing in conspiracies and justifying or committing violence against particular groups or political opponents. A 2024 study found that between 2012 and 2022, the correlation between support for political violence and conspiratorial thinking tripled in magnitude–– but researchers don’t know why. Researchers do know that “fringe” conspiracy beliefs––less popular beliefs held by more homogenous groups––tend to correlate more strongly with political violence. Specifically, Holocaust denialism and false flag theories (conspiracies that suggest that attacks or events were staged by one group and pinned on another, such as that school shootings are staged by professional actors) are particularly strongly correlated with support for political violence. Experts suggest that this growing link is perhaps due to violent people more often turning to conspiracies to justify their violent actions. Committing violence may not be such a leap for Holocaust deniers who are already willing to entertain violent thoughts outside the mainstream. Meanwhile, violent individuals might believe they are justified in acting on false flag conspiracies when those beliefs are normalized and amplified by political ideologues–– as with assertions that the FBI perpetrated the January 6th insurrection.
Conspiratorial thinking doesn't make people violent. Instead, it directs violent people towards particular targets, channeling violence against groups like Jews, Muslims, and the LGBTQ+ community. The 2017 Charlottesville protesters, decrying “Jews will not replace us,” echoed the Great Replacement Theory and Jewish world domination conspiracies. Conspiracies have also become a justification for militant Accelerationists, a group that advocates destroying economic, political, and societal systems to hasten the downfall of societies and rebuild them in their image. In the 2018 Tree of Life Shooting, the assailant killed 11 congregants because he believed the synagogue was systematically bringing in immigrants to replace White Americans. Additionally, as seen in the examples above, attitude generalization causes prejudice against one group––say, from a conspiracy theory focused on Jews––to increase prejudice towards other groups, such as Asians, Muslims, and the LGBTQ+ community.
Encouragingly, some successful interventions are emerging. Promising new research had people who believe in conspiracies discuss their beliefs with artificial intelligence, large language models. Participants knew they were interacting with AI, and yet the interaction reduced belief in their chosen conspiracy theories by 20%, with the effect lasting at least two months. This debunking even spilled over into participants’ belief in other conspiracies, leading to a general decrease in conspiratorial thinking. That makes sense: conspiratorial thinking is more of a belief system (i.e. blaming secret plots spearheaded by elites or malign groups to explain events in opposition to evidence presented by bodies of experts), rather than a belief in just one conspiracy. Interestingly, receiving information from an AI bot may work better than human interventions, because believers feel judged by people, get defensive, and dig in. With an AI bot, they can ask for and receive facts without the emotions that come from feeling attacked. This might cause participants to be less defensive, perceive less bias, and use more analytical thinking.
Additionally, researchers found that having one to four strong social connections reduces the likelihood of supporting or engaging in political violence. Work in other areas of targeted violence suggests that family intervention encourages change in these beliefs. Methods such as these could prove effective for changing the minds of those who believe in conspiracy theories and keeping those who hold violent conspiracies from taking the next step into action. Combined with this promising new AI intervention, there may be a real chance to blunt the impact of conspiracy theories on targeted groups.
Dalya Berkowitz is a Senior Research Analyst in the Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, focusing on targeted and political violence in the U.S. She has an MA in Security Studies from Georgetown University.Keep ReadingShow less
U.S. President Joe Biden speaks at the Economic Club of Washington, DC September 19, 2024 in Washington, DC.
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Illness, Presidents, and Confidantes
Jul 02, 2025
Ever since the reality of President Biden’s mental and physical decline has been made public, ink is being spent, bemoaning that the nation was at risk because the President was not fit to make crucial decisions twenty-four hours a day.
Isn’t it foolish that, in a constitutional republic with clear separation and interdependence of powers, we should rely on one human being to make a decision at three in the morning that could have grievous consequences for the whole nation and the world? Are we under the illusion that we must and can elect an all-wise, always-on, energizer-bunny, superhero?
No matter the age of our elected president, as corporeal beings, they can suffer from the stresses of the role, or other common stresses, just like the rest of us. Because we insist on an image of a perfectly in-control leader, those around the president are cued to mask the boss’s problems under the guise of political loyalty or international stability.
U.S. history is full of examples of Presidents with medical conditions, often masked by their loyalists. The effects of Woodrow Wilson’s significant stroke were hidden from the public, as was Kennedy’s Addison disease and chronic back problems. Franklin Roosevelt’s declining health was masked prior to his election to a fourth term, in which his poor performance at the crucial Yalta Conference after WWII had grave consequences. He died just 82 days into that term. Other U.S. presidents had serious medical conditions that were kept from the general public. This is also true of other world leaders like Vladimir Lenin and Mao Zedong.
These all-too-human realities become huge ethical issues for the inner circle that is trying to maintain their leader’s public profile, as well as very real governance issues. Only in retrospect do we recognize the huge risks or damage incurred by reason of the inner circle, and at times, members of outer circles like the press, keeping this information carefully guarded.
The norms regarding a staff protecting a political leader are so powerful that appealing to the national interest is apparently insufficient to change behavior. It is in such cases that laws are needed to require the desired behavior.
In 1994, in my book The Courageous Follower, I wrote:
“Though serious illness can strike at any age, it is more common as people grow older. Senior leadership positions tend to be filled with older, more experienced people. Thus, illness among leaders is more common than we think…It can be extremely dangerous to allow leaders to make high-level decisions, perform critical negotiations, or engage in taxing events when their physical and mental processes are impaired by illness, pain, or medication.”
One of the dilemmas of the U.S. system of governance is that our Constitution requires the highest bar imaginable to remove a president no longer capable of performing their duties. Fewer all-or-nothing laws are needed to account for the realities of a president who needs weeks to recover from an accident or severe illness or is, by all reasonable standards, in cognitive decline. Let Congress work through a reality-based and politically acceptable way of dealing with these intermittent or slow-moving but irreversible events.
An effective law would address both the president (or other senior members of the administration) and those closest to them (their inner circle of counselors), who also must swear allegiance to the Constitution and the law. We have sensible protocols for when the president or other high-ranking officials go under anesthesia for a number of hours. We need sensible middle ground rules between that and the 25th Amendment.
The onus must fall equally on those designated as forming the president’s official inner circle as well as on the president. Taking a step back to the 3 a.m. phone call, a similar rule is needed when the president is awakened and still collecting their full cognitive capacity. The 3 a.m. call we most worry about is presumably an act of war, pre-emptive or defensive. In an age of hypersonic weapons, the window for that decision is less than thirty minutes.
Acknowledging this, no one expects the constitutional power to declare war by Congress to be applied. However, the least we can do is manage the risk, similarly to an ill or diminished president making the decision on their own. I know this goes against the grain of the buck stops here, but it is a prudent adjustment to the reality of the world we have created and the continued vulnerabilities of our leaders, young and old, in that world.
Medical reports on the president should require at least two qualified physicians reporting under oath. Reasonable limits can be placed on this to protect the individual leader’s dignity. If we are going to have a presidential system with so much power aggregated in the office, we now have clear evidence that we need to alleviate the conflict of loyalties experienced by private physicians and confidantes with legislation that requires, under oath, truthfulness by qualified observers.
Ira Chaleff is the author The Courageous Follower, and To Stop a Tyrant: The Power of Political Followers.
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