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Rachel Kleinfeld

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    Leveraging big ideas

    Pro-democracy forces need to go on offense

    Rachel Kleinfeld
    Suzette Brooks Masters
    December 16, 2022
    Optimism for America

    Imagine what America would be if we were hopeful and excited for our individual futures, and for our future together, as a nation.

    Zorica Nastasic/Getty Images

    Kleinfeld is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and author of “Five Strategies to Support U.S. Democracy.”Masters leads the Better Futures Project, based at the Democracy Funders Network, and is the author of “Imagining Better Futures for American Democracy.”

    Since 2016, scholars, pundits and activists have been trying to alert the American people to the dangers befalling our democracy. The November election does not mark an end to this peril – but it does suggest a need to change tactics. The pro-democracy community needs to use this moment of grace to help Americans imagine what our country could look like if all Americans had a hopeful, better future in front of us.

    Many pro-democracy organizations have spent immense energy and resources preventing dire outcomes. Our apocalyptic warnings of doom probably helped convince many voters to split their tickets or turn out for midterms to deny extreme candidates a chance at leadership.

    This negative politics, however, can just barely manage razor-thin margins in swing states. It actually loses to election deniers and extremists in redder states. And it’s hardly generative. Young voters are participating out of fear but are mostly uninspired by democracy, while long before the 2016 election large majorities of Americans told surveyors they felt the system was rigged against them.

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    democracy reform

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    Leadership

    Trump's march on Washington

    Rachel Kleinfeld
    July 06, 2022
    Capitol insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021

    Supporters of President Donald Trumps stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

    Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

    Kleinfeld is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a board member of the National Endowment for Democracy, Freedom House and States United for Democracy.

    What separates a democracy from a dictatorship? The ability for the will of voters to determine who governs them. The rule of law, a force that holds even the most powerful to a set of rules and institutions independent of the will of any one man. The peaceful transfer of power between parties.

    This month, Americans are learning how thin that line can be.

    As Cassidy Hutchinson described Donald Trump’s plan to march with his followers to the Capitol, I heard echoes of Benito Mussolini’s March on Rome – when conservative leaders handed the country to a dictator without a shot.

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