As we turn the final pages on a tumultuous 2021, all this week The Fulcrum will share a year-end series of guest commentaries from a distinguished group of columnists on the current state of electoral reform and what we may expect in the upcoming year.
Moore is executive director of the National Association of Nonpartisan Reformers.
Americans are tired. Yes, we’re tired of the pandemic, but I’m talking about something deeper, structural and core to our nation’s identity. Our collective malaise is rooted in the frustration and dissatisfaction that borders on despair we feel when we hear the words like “politics,” “government” or “vote.” We are tired because we feel like things are getting worse, our elected officials don’t care, and we are powerless to fix the situation.
Politics, it seems, has an acute sense of irony. Despite the many issues that divide us, it is this profound sense of demoralization on which voters of all parties agree. Regardless of income, education, race, gender, geographic location or party affiliation, an increasing number of voters look upon the American democracy with disappointment. This is not the republic we ordered.
The good news is: Change is coming.
A renewed sense of civic duty, purpose and honest-to-goodness excitement percolates in communities throughout the country. In every state of the union, from the harbors of Maine to the Missourian plains and from sunny California to the Alaskan frontier, American voters (even the tired ones) have declared an end to the business-as-usual, politicians-and-lobbyists-first style of government. In living rooms and Zoom meetings across the country, people are convening around shared goals, making connections with like-minded friends and neighbors, and catalyzing those relationships and their pooled resources into making structural reforms that benefit our democracy as a whole.
Four years ago, the National Association of Nonpartisan Reformers was born at one such convening. Leaders from several of the most prominent organizations focused on democracy reform gathered together in good faith with a shared vision and recognition of what was happening throughout the country. We believe that a more fair and competitive election system will not only strengthen our democracy but will also improve the responsiveness and credibility of the two major parties. We favor a robust competition of numerous political parties and independents and a level playing field on which that can occur.
Today our association has nearly 50 members, including organizations that are leading the way for pro-voter structural reforms like open primaries, ranked-choice voting, approval voting, anti-corruption measures, independent redistricting, and measures to close the loopholes and get money out of politics. We strive to convene the thought-leaders of the democracy reform movement, connect our members to one another and the resources they need to do their work more effectively and efficiently, and enable our members to catalyze their effort into positive, meaningful change for their communities.
As we move into 2022, we are launching new initiatives to promote these goals among our members. “Reformers Unite!” is a monthly education and networking series to help connect organizations and campaigns on common issues and in geographic regions. “Reformers Lead” is a masterclass series designed for executives and organizational leaders interested in honing their leadership skills. We are also refreshing our dues structure to ensure more organizations can join and benefit from membership in our association.
Why this is important: America can’t afford to be on autopilot; it demands our attention and our focus. The democracy of the United States has been a model for the rest of the world because of the diligent men and women who have shepherded it through history with grace, grit and persistence. I encourage you to become a member of NANR and join the family of democracy reformers your grandchildren will read about in their history books.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio delivers a keynote speech at the 62nd Munich Security Conference on Saturday, Feb. 14, 2026, in Munich, Germany.
Marco Rubio is the only adult left in the room
Finally free from the demands of being chief archivist of the United States, secretary of state, national security adviser and unofficial viceroy of Venezuela, Marco Rubio made his way to the Munich Security Conference last weekend to deliver a major address.
I shouldn’t make fun. Rubio, unlike so many major figures in this administration, is a bona fide serious person. Indeed, that’s why President Trump keeps piling responsibilities on him. Rubio knows what he’s talking about and cares about policy. He is hardly a free agent; Trump is still president after all. But in an administration full of people willing to act like social media trolls, Rubio stands out for being serious. And I welcome that.
But just because Rubio made a serious argument, that doesn’t mean it was wholly persuasive. Part of his goal was to repair some of the damage done by his boss, who not long ago threatened to blow up the North Atlantic alliance by snatching Greenland away from Denmark. Rubio’s conciliatory language was welcome, but it hardly set things right.
Whether it was his intent or not, Rubio had more success in offering a contrast with Vice President JD Vance, who used the Munich conference last year as a platform to insult allies and provide fan service to his followers on X. Rubio’s speech was the one Vance should have given, if the goal was to offer a serious argument about Trump’s “vision” for the Western alliance. I put “vision” in scare quotes because it’s unclear to me that Trump actually has one, but the broader MAGA crowd is desperate to construct a coherent theory of their case.
So what’s that case? That Western Civilization is a real thing, America is not only part of it but also its leader, and it will do the hard things required to fix it.
In Rubio’s story, America and Europe embraced policies in the 1990s that amounted to the “managed decline” of the West. European governments were free riders on America’s military might and allowed their defense capabilities to atrophy as they funded bloated welfare states and inefficient regulatory regimes. Free trade, mass migration and an infatuation with “the rules-based global order” eroded national sovereignty, undermined the “cohesion of our societies” and fueled the “de-industrialization” of our economies. The remedy for these things? Reversing course on those policies and embracing the hard reality that strength and power drive events on the global stage.
“The fundamental question we must answer at the outset is what exactly are we defending,” Rubio said, “because armies do not fight for abstractions. Armies fight for a people; armies fight for a nation. Armies fight for a way of life.”
I agree with some of this — to a point. And, honestly, given how refreshing it is to hear a grown-up argument from this administration, it feels churlish to quibble.
But, for starters, the simple fact is that Western Civilization is an abstraction, and so are nations and peoples. And that’s fine. Abstractions — like love, patriotism, moral principles, justice — are really important. Our “way of life” is largely defined and understood through abstractions: freedom, the American dream, democracy, etc. What is the “Great” in Make America Great Again, if not an abstraction?
This is important because the administration’s defenders ridicule or dismiss any principled objection critics raise as fastidious gitchy-goo eggheadery. Trump tramples the rule of law, pardons cronies, tries to steal an election and violates free market principles willy-nilly. And if you complain, it’s because you’re a goody-goody fool.
As White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller said not long ago, “we live in a world … that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world that have existed since the beginning of time.” Rubio said it better, but it’s the same idea.
There are other problems with Rubio’s story. At the start of the 1990s, the EU’s economy was 9% bigger than ours. In 2025 we were nearly twice as rich as Europe. If Europe was “ripping us off,” they have a funny way of showing it. America hasn’t “deindustrialized.” The manufacturing sector has grown during all of this decline, though not as much as the service sector, where we are a behemoth. We have shed manufacturing jobs, but that has more to do with automation than immigration. Moreover, the trends Rubio describes are not unique to America. Manufacturing tends to shrink as countries get richer.
That’s an important point because Rubio, like his boss, blames all of our economic problems on bad politicians and pretends that good politicians can fix them through sheer force of will.
I think Rubio is wrong, but I salute him for making his case seriously.
Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.