An organization created to raise contributions for the benefit of more than one candidate, political action committee or party committee .
Site Navigation
Search
Latest Stories
Join a growing community committed to civic renewal.
Subscribe to The Fulcrum and be part of the conversation.
Top Stories
Latest news
Read More
us a flag on white and red textile
Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash
America’s Corrosion From Within — When Leaders Stop Listening
Sep 21, 2026
In the classic film When a Stranger Calls, the babysitter learns the terrifying calls are coming from inside the house. That moment — realizing the danger is internal — is where America stands today. The threat to our democracy is not simply foreign adversaries. The danger is already inside our institutions, growing because the people entrusted to protect the Republic have stopped listening.
I felt that danger myself when I watched the president stand before a crowd and tell them they “did not mind paying high prices.” People behind him looked confused but remained respectful, unsure how to react. Millions watching across the country were infuriated. They do mind. They are struggling. And the president — a man who has amassed enormous wealth — showed how disconnected he is from the people he was elected to serve.
Recent reporting reinforces that disconnect. In New York, he told supporters they had “never complained” about high prices and “don’t mind paying more.” Days later, he urged Americans to accept high gas costs as a patriotic duty. A wealthy president telling a country struggling with the cost of living to simply tolerate it while money flows into vanity projects is not listening. It is dismissal disguised as leadership — and dismissal is the first crack in democratic corrosion.
We do not need to fear China or Russia when the danger is already inside our own government. Our adversaries benefit when American democracy falters because a weakened America strengthens their global position. The corrosion is domestic — and it accelerates when leaders refuse to listen, act, or uphold their oaths.
This corrosion grows under a president who performs strength instead of practicing leadership, and under congressional leaders who refuse to challenge him. For decades, Donald Trump built a public persona around performance — image over substance, illusion over truth, and self‑promotion over accountability. Those habits followed him into the White House, where performance replaced planning and ego replaced evidence.
Leadership requires listening, planning, evidence, sound judgment, and the willingness to seek counsel. When a president cannot accept information that contradicts his beliefs, institutions begin to malfunction. Agencies lose direction. Advisers become reluctant to speak honestly. Ego, not evidence, drives decisions. And the people — the heart of a participatory democracy — are shut out of their own government.
Leadership experts have warned about the consequences. Colin Powell emphasized that listening is essential to effective leadership. Epictetus reminded us that we have two ears and one mouth for a reason. Listening is not optional in a democracy. It is a leader’s responsibility — and when leaders abandon that responsibility, the Republic begins to erode from within.
Yet today, Americans are governed by a president who talks endlessly but appears unwilling to listen when facts, experts, or public concerns challenge his preferred narrative. And the problem does not end at the White House.
People around the president have a responsibility to tell him the truth, even when he does not want to hear it. Congress has an even greater responsibility. Members swear an oath to support and defend the Constitution — not a president, not a party, and not political power. When they forget that oath, corrosion spreads.
In April, I wrote to several leaders — including those outside my district — because their decisions and roll‑call votes directly affect me and millions of others. I asked a simple question: How are you upholding your oath when the president’s dangerous rhetoric threatens the country? Project 2025 — a sweeping blueprint drafted by conservative activists to reshape federal agencies and expand presidential control — is not law, yet elements of its agenda appear to be influencing decisions while Congress remains silent.
Senator Tim Scott replied by telling me to contact my own state’s senator — missing the point entirely. I asked how he was upholding his oath and what evidence he had to show. His silence in checking the president, and his roll‑call votes that support the president’s agenda, are not protecting the people he claims to serve — not even in South Carolina.
Institutional corrosion is no longer theoretical. It is visible. The president — an election denier — is working to restrict mail‑in voting while simultaneously voting by mail himself. He repeatedly stands on the world stage accusing American voters of cheating, undermining trust in the very system he is supposed to lead. Americans also see a president who calls opponents communists while praising dictators — behavior fundamentally at odds with stable democratic leadership. Agencies appear to be retaliating against critics. And while the country faces mounting security challenges, the secretary of defense is out campaigning instead of performing the duties of the office. These are not isolated missteps. They signal a government bending toward personal loyalty rather than constitutional responsibility.
That is why leadership requires RISE: Respond, Inquire, Support, and Empathize. Leaders who fail to respond to legitimate concerns, inquire about the realities people face, support their constituents, or empathize with their struggles are not demonstrating strength. They are demonstrating disconnection — and disconnection is the breeding ground for democratic decay.
History should inform leaders. Experience should deepen empathy. Public office should expand responsibility — not erase it.
Americans call out corruption. Reporters call it out. Communities call it out. Yet too often their voices are ignored when it comes to cruelty, abuse of power, and threats to democratic institutions. Institutions that should defend the public instead appear willing to shield those in power, even when power is used to punish anyone who challenges it.
But not every institution has surrendered. States are fighting back. Courts are blocking overreach. States are passing voting‑rights protections. Election officials are fortifying systems against interference. These actions demonstrate that while some federal institutions may be failing to meet their responsibilities, others still understand their constitutional duty to protect democracy.
So how did a nation once seen as a global model of democracy reach this point in its 250th year?
Poor leadership is eroding democracy — not just democracy in one state, but democracy as a whole.
Leadership is national, not local. And when leaders stop listening, stop acting, stop upholding their oaths, and stop defending the Constitution, the Republic begins to fail from within.
The Constitution provides guardrails, but guardrails only work when Americans use them. Democracy requires participation, vigilance, and courage. Leaders and citizens must read the Constitution and recommit themselves to it. Voters must use the ballot as their voice, especially when leaders refuse to listen. Silence from elected officials is not a reason to withdraw. It is a reason to engage.
Americans must expect leaders who honor the peaceful transfer of power. Courts must uphold constitutional guardrails against abuse of power. Members of Congress must remember that their oath is to the Constitution — not to a president or a party. Journalists must pursue the truth because a free press is one of democracy’s essential safeguards.
And Americans must demand accountability — the oxygen of democracy.
The corrosion is coming from within. But so is the solution. Listen. Act. Vote.
_____________________________________________________________________
Carolyn Goode is a retired educational leader and former principal who has spent her career advancing civic responsibility, equity, and public engagement. She writes about democracy, leadership, and the values that strengthen American communities.
Keep ReadingShow less
Recommended
Vote pins
Photo provided
Sharp Gender Divide Among Latino Voters
Sep 21, 2026
A new analysis from the UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Institute (LPPI) and the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies (IGS) reveals significant political differences between Latinas and Latino men in California — especially among younger voters and those without bachelor’s degrees. The findings, drawn from the May 2026 Berkeley IGS Poll of 1,912 Latino registered voters, challenge the notion that California’s Latino electorate behaves as a single political bloc.
California Latinas are more likely than Latino men to prioritize protecting immigrant communities, opposing the Trump administration’s agenda, and defending democracy and voting rights. According to the report, 69% of Latinas say protecting immigrant communities is “very important,” compared with 52% of Latino men. On “fighting the Trump agenda,” the gap is identical: 68% of Latinas versus 51% of Latino men. Democracy and voting rights receive the strongest support across both groups, with 87% of Latinas and 77% of Latino men rating the issue as very important.
“These findings show why California’s Latino registered voters cannot be understood as a single political constituency,” said G. Cristina Mora, professor of sociology and co-director of IGS at UC Berkeley. “Gender tells us part of the story, but the differences become much clearer when we also consider voters’ age and educational attainment. That more complete picture is essential to understanding the priorities of the Latino electorate.”
The gender divide is most pronounced among voters under 30. Among younger Latinas, 88% say protecting immigrant communities is very important, compared with 60% of Latino men — a 28‑point difference. On fighting the Trump agenda, the gap widens to 30 points: 82% of Latinas under 30 versus 52% of Latino men. And on defending democracy and voting rights, 92% of Latinas under 30 rate the issue as very important, compared with 74% of Latino men.
The report also finds substantial differences among voters without bachelor’s degrees. Seventy‑three percent of Latinas without a bachelor’s degree say protecting immigrant communities is very important, compared with 51% of similarly educated Latino men. On fighting the Trump agenda, the gap is 19 points (69% versus 50%). On democracy and voting rights, the difference is 12 points (88% versus 76%). By contrast, college‑educated Latinas and Latino men express more similar views, with gender gaps narrowing to between four and seven points depending on the issue.
These findings complicate broad narratives about the political attitudes of working‑class Latino voters. Even among voters with similar levels of education, Latinas and Latino men can place substantially different importance on the same issues.
“Although this survey represents California registered voters, the patterns it identifies deserve national attention,” said Nicholas Vargas, associate professor of Chicanx/Latinx Studies at UC Berkeley and co-author of the report. “As both parties compete for Latino voters in races that will determine control of Congress, they should not assume that Latinas and Latino men — or voters of the same age and educational background — are responding to the political environment in the same way.”
Language adds another layer of distinction. Among English‑dominant voters, Latinas are 20 points more likely than Latino men to prioritize both protecting immigrant communities and fighting the Trump agenda (68% compared with 48%). Among Spanish‑dominant voters, the gender difference shrinks to just two points on both measures.
The study identifies several possible explanations for these differences, including the types of workplaces, community institutions, and information sources that connect Latinas and Latino men to political issues.
Sharp Gender Divide Among Latino Voters was first published by California Latino News and is republished with permission.
Keep ReadingShow less
Brain science explains why voters reward charisma over results — and why the leaders who "fix" the most get credit for the least. A behavioral look at elections.
alvaro gonzalez/Getty Images
The Résumé Should Outvote the Smile
Sep 21, 2026
There's an old joke about a couple who finally solved years of arguing over decisions. "Since you're the man of the house," the wife said, "you handle the big things -- our stance on foreign wars, who we send to the Senate. I'll take care of the small stuff: groceries, the mortgage, where we live, what we eat." The husband agreed happily, certain he had won the better half of the deal. A few years later he realized the trade had gone entirely the other way. He held forth on geopolitics at dinner parties while his wife quietly ran every detail that actually touched his life: what he ate, where he lived, how his money was spent. What looked like ultimate authority was, in practice, near-total abdication over the things that shaped his days.
Voters make the same trade, and pay for it the same way. We keep hiring leaders for the qualities we would want in a spouse -- warmth, charm, a commanding voice, the sense that they see us -- instead of the qualities we would want in a mechanic: someone who can find what is broken and fix it before the whole system fails. We evaluate candidates the way we choose intimate partners, not the way we hire people to run complex, high-stakes systems.
A Brain Built for the Wrong Timescale
This is not just a cultural blind spot. It has a biological driver. Brain-imaging research over the past two decades has linked our response to an inspiring speaker with a fast release of dopamine and oxytocin, the same chemical reward system engaged by a great meal, a new romance, or a win at the slot machine. A charismatic leader delivers that hit in real time, on stage, in a two-minute clip that circulates for days. Studies of split-second judgment go further still: shown a candidate's face for less than a second, with no policy information at all, people guess election winners correctly roughly seven times out of ten, based purely on a snap read of competence and warmth.
Good policy does not work on that clock. A tax reform, an infrastructure project, or a shift in interest rates typically takes twelve to eighteen months before its effects show up in the data, and years longer before ordinary voters feel them in daily life. The Federal Reserve itself estimates that the full impact of a single interest-rate change can take up to two years to reach the broader economy. By the time results arrive, the brain has already moved its emotional credit to whoever gave the most recent good speech, whether or not that person had anything to do with the actual work. Slow, structural improvement carries no dopamine spike, so it goes uncredited. Fast, emotional performance carries a large one, so it gets over-credited. The mismatch is not a character flaw in any one voter. It is a design feature of a brain built for a much smaller, much slower world.
When the Audition Beats the Résumé
This mismatch explains why screen presence so often beats governing experience at the ballot box. In 2003, Arnold Schwarzenegger won the California recall election with under half the vote in a field of more than a hundred candidates, arriving with zero governing experience and a résumé built entirely in front of a camera. He left office seven years later with the state carrying a budget deficit in the tens of billions of dollars, a gap that outlasted his tenure and shaped California's finances for years afterward. Ronald Reagan followed a similar route into the same office in 1966, defeating the incumbent governor by nearly a million votes on the strength of his screen presence and radio-honed delivery, not his record in public administration, of which he had none. His later political career is remembered as substantively consequential, which complicates any tidy conclusion. Charisma and competence are not always opposed. They are simply poorly correlated at the exact moment people cast a ballot, which is precisely when it matters most.
The clearest case of all sits in Tamil Nadu, India. In 1977, film star M. G. Ramachandran, known across the state as MGR, was elected chief minister after three decades of building a screen persona as the untouchable defender of the poor. His fans did not distinguish the role from the man. When he died in December 1987 at age 70, roughly one million people flooded Chennai's streets for his funeral, some standing in line for over a day. By multiple contemporary press accounts, around 30 grieving fans took their own lives in the days after his death, unable to process the loss. That grief was never about tax policy or administrative competence. It was the sudden loss of a one-sided emotional attachment as real, to the people who felt it, as losing a parent.
Charisma Is a Luxury Good
The divide runs along economic lines too, and this is the part most commentary on charisma leaves out. Voters with enough material security to treat politics as a form of entertainment can afford to prioritize a leader's decorum, stage presence, and rhetorical polish. For the much larger share of any electorate whose week is defined by grocery prices, rent, fuel costs, and job security, charm is an expensive luxury they cannot afford to indulge. They need competent mechanics who can diagnose and repair broken systems, not a warm and reassuring presence who makes them feel better about a system that keeps failing them. When the roof is leaking, you do not hire the contractor with the best smile. You hire the one who actually stops the leak, even if he is short with you on the phone.
Evolution built us for small tribes of a few hundred people, where a warm, confident face reliably signaled a trustworthy ally worth following into danger, and where the entire consequence of a bad choice was visible within days. That heuristic misfires today, in a world of roughly 8.2 billion people governed by institutions too large, too specialized, and too interconnected for any one charismatic figure to run on instinct and stage presence alone. The scale has changed by many orders of magnitude. Our wiring has not.
What Breaks the Spell
None of this means charisma is worthless, or that voters are foolish for responding to it. Communication matters; a leader who cannot explain a plan cannot build support for it. The fix is not to prize dullness over eloquence. It is to separate the two judgments that charisma tends to fuse into one: does this person make me feel confident, and has this person actually delivered results before. Structured evaluation helps here in the same way it helps in hiring for any other high-stakes role: a specific record of past performance, checked against verifiable outcomes, weighs more than a stage presence, no matter how persuasive that presence feels in the room.
We keep choosing leaders for spouse-like qualities and then act surprised when we get senator-like failures. The bill for that confusion comes due in stalled reforms, wasted budgets, and a public that trusts government less with every cycle, in country after country. Fixing it does not require voters to stop feeling anything at the ballot box; feeling is not the enemy. It requires one honest substitution, repeated at every election: stop asking who you would most want to have dinner with, and start asking who you would trust to fix what is actually broken. Until we make that substitution a habit rather than an exception, we will keep overpaying for charisma and underinvesting in the competence that actually improves lives. The résumé should outvote the smile.
Meda Parameswara Reddy, Ph.D. is Director of the Reddy Center for Critical and Integrated Thinking. A former R&D executive holding 30 U.S. patents, he focuses on the analysis of human behavior, public health, and global affairs, drawing on an interdisciplinary background. He published in multiple RealClear platforms, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci., Fulcrum, The Humanist, AFRO American, South Asia Monitor (on editorial board, and host of a show), and others.
Keep ReadingShow less
A nonpartisan coalition of faith groups launches Faith in America, uniting prayer, video, and local events to promote respect and trust ahead of the 2026 midterms.
Maskot/Getty Images
Faith Leaders Join to Support Free, Fair and Safe 2026 Elections
Sep 21, 2026
As the 2026 midterms approach, America once again finds itself navigating a season thick with suspicion, disinformation, and the corrosive pull of “us versus them.” Yet across the country, something quieter and more hopeful is taking shape. A coalition of the nation’s leading faith‑based civic organizations has come together with a simple but profound conviction: that the wisdom, compassion, and moral conviction of America’s faith communities can help our country navigate this election cycle with integrity and mutual respect.
This effort, known as Faith in America, isn’t a political campaign. It’s a nonpartisan invitation to bring our shared values back to the center of our civic life. Faith communities have long been among the country’s most powerful forces for civic healing and play an important role when fear and division threaten to drown out our better angels. Faith in America is stepping forward with a message rooted in dignity, respect, and commitment to honoring the will of the people.
At the heart of Faith in America is a simple idea: every voice matters. The coalition’s partners, including Braver Angels, Interfaith America, faith250, Paths to Understanding, Living Room Conversations, Listen First Project, and the National Institute for Civil Discourse, share a belief that the right to vote is not merely a procedural step in democracy. It is a civic sacrament, a ritual through which Americans express their will and reaffirm the promise that all people are created equal and endowed with unalienable rights.
But that promise is under strain. Trust in elections has eroded. Disinformation spreads faster than truth. And the threat of political violence casts a long shadow. Faith in America emerged because these organizations recognized that silence in the face of these challenges is not an option. Instead, they are choosing to lift up a message of peace, respect, and shared responsibility.
Ways You Can Participate: The Faith in America program has three core pillars: national online prayer services, a social media campaign fueled by grassroots citizen videos, and local faith community gatherings.
●National Election Prayer Events: Our faith-based coalition is hosting two “Praying For America” events taking place on October 11th and November 1st. As prayer services, these events will embody values very different from those driving our divisive, zero-sum politics. They will be free from political speeches and partisan finger-pointing. Instead, we will focus on celebrating America’s core values as expressed through the right to vote. Register for one or both Praying for America events right now.
●Grassroots “I Have Faith in America” Video Program: We are inviting all Americans to submit short videos showing their commitment to free, fair, and safe elections. It is both easy and fun. We encourage you to make a personal video or do one with someone you differ with politically but share a deep commitment to respecting the will of the people. This link brings you to where you can make your video.
● Local Faith Community Involvement: We have a rich set of resources to help American faith communities pray for the country and incorporate themes related to free, fair, and safe elections into their services and discussions leading up to Election Day. Click here to explore these inspiring resources. Core themes include the importance of every voice, respect across differences, nonviolence, and the connection between elections and religious freedom.
We are inviting all Americans, whatever their beliefs or political affiliation, to participate in Faith in America. What binds it all together is a recognition that America’s democratic experiment has always depended on ordinary people choosing courage over fear and cynicism. While our nation has never fully lived up to its founding ideals, we have made real progress—progress worth protecting. We know that millions of Americans, across the political spectrum, are ready to take a stand. Faith in America is offering meaningful ways to do just that.
So what can you do right now? Register for our Praying for America online events. Take a couple of minutes to make a video or check out the inspiring videos other Americans have created. Host a local event in your own congregation or community and use our support resources to make it easy. Now is the time for every American committed to free, fair, and safe elections to step up and be heard.
Cheryl Graeve is Program Director & National Organizer, National Institute for Civil Discourse.
Rt. Rev. Mark Beckwith is the retired bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Newark (NJ) and co-chair of Braver Faith, a division of Braver Angels.
Brian Clancy is a board member of the Listen First Project.
Keep ReadingShow less
Load More