In this edition of #ListenFirstFriday, we hear from John Noltner who shares stories of hope, healing and transformation in overcoming the differences that divide us as a nation.
The Fulcrum presents The Path Forward: Defining the Democracy Reform Movement. Scott Warren's interview series engages diverse thought leaders to elevate the conversation about building a thriving and healthy democratic republic that fulfills its potential as a national social and political game-changer. This initiative is the start of focused collaborations and dialogue led by The Bridge Alliance and The Fulcrum teams to help the movement find a path forward.
Karissa Raskin is the new CEO of the Listen First Project, a coalition of over 500 nationwide organizations dedicated to bridging differences. The coalition aims to increase social cohesion across American society and serves as a way for bridging organizations to compare notes, share resources, and collaborate broadly. Karissa, who is based in Jacksonville, served as the Director of Coalition Engagement for a number of years before assuming the CEO role this February.
I wanted to talk to Karissa as I feel that the bridging community within the democracy community has, perhaps paradoxically, become one of the more polarizing aspects of the field. Proponents of bridging make the case that American society is fundamentally polarized, and true change cannot happen without transforming political culture and building a vibrant, pluralistic society that can productively engage with and disagree with each other.
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But bridging has its fair share of detractors. Some argue that bridging work is fundamentally unscalable and caters to those already predisposed to engage in it rather than reaching those who are most polarized. Others argue that attempting to bridge with anti-democratic actors is not a useful tactic in the wake of the election, and so they are deprioritizing bridging within the broader democracy ecosystem.
I found Karissa to be deeply thoughtful about the moment for bridging, recognizing these critiques, but seeing the obligation to continue the work, albeit recognizing its need to transform in the moment. Her perspectives are critical to wrestle with for those who are advocates for and critics of the bridging movement.
So I think one of the biggest threats and challenges right now is...being swept away by the immediacy of the chaos, real or perceived, that has come into the pro-democracy space.”
Karissa also warned that, “If we are not careful, may become even further left leaning as a result of where we're at right now.”
To Karissa, this means not wading into the policy issues of the day, as tempting as that might be. To that end, bridge-building work can be seen as a vital foundational component of democracy, but it does not pretend to be a silver bullet solution in any way.
As she notes, “We aren't leaning in with curiosity. We aren't seeking to understand. There is a really important need to make sure that we are listening to and hearing from people who are happy with what's happening right now and truly get an understanding of why. I think you know one of the things that sometimes comes up that gives me pause is in pro democracy spaces-it's bridging to a point. But I really think that we need as bridge builders to be open to those conversations with everybody across the board.”
I appreciated Karissa’s honesty and real feedback on the bridging space. I think it’s necessary for all those advocating for pluralism and the entire field.
Scott Warren is a fellow at the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University. He is co-leading a trans-partisan effort to protect the basic parameters, rules, and institutions of the American republic. He is the co-founder of Generation Citizen, a national civics education organization.
The Confidence Collapse
Consumer confidence is plummeting—and that was before the latest Wall Street selloffs.
According to the Conference Board, the index has fallen for four straight months, hitting its lowest level since 2020—even dipping below where it stood during peak inflation in 2022. Americans’ outlook for income, business conditions, and jobs has plunged to a 12-year low, historically a red flag for a recession.
What’s striking is how broad-based the pessimism has become. While inflation has cooled and the job market remains strong, Americans no longer trust the good news will last. The sharpest decline in optimism came from older Americans—typically more financially stable but increasingly anxious about rising healthcare costs, housing insecurity, and the sustainability of retirement savings in a chaotic policy environment. For many, it’s no longer just about prices at the pump—it’s about whether they can count on Washington for economic stability. If Wall Street is any indication, the answer is increasingly no.
Small Business Alarm Bells
That unease isn’t limited to households and investors. Small businesses—the economy’s traditional bellwether—are growing more jittery by the day.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Small Business Index shows confidence dropped in Q1 2025 to levels not seen since early 2024, erasing the modest post-election bump in optimism. The usual culprits remain sticky inflation, labor shortages, and tight credit. But a deeper concern looms—uncertainty about the policy landscape itself.
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Unlike large firms with legal and financial departments, small businesses can’t easily navigate shifting tax codes or regulatory whiplash. The pending expiration of provisions in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, Trump’s escalating tariff threats, and Congress’s fiscal dysfunction have left many owners unsure how to plan. In this climate, standing still feels safer than trying to grow.
Many are postponing investments, freezing hiring, or shelving expansion plans altogether. Even healthy firms are opting for caution over ambition. Scaled up across the economy, those decisions will have consequences.
Financial Strain Beneath the Surface
The fallout from this uncertainty is showing up in harder numbers.
According to the New York Federal Reserve, credit card delinquencies over 90 days reached a 13-year high in late 2024. For many families, the financial runway is vanishing. Wages haven’t kept pace with years of elevated costs. Rent, insurance, and food prices remain stubbornly high. More households are leaning on credit—and increasingly falling behind.
These pressures ripple through the broader economy. Shrinking consumer spending hurts businesses, especially in retail and services. Just as damaging, financial stress dampens risk-taking. People delay home purchases. Entrepreneurs shelve new ventures. Mobility stalls.
The result isn’t just an economic drag—it’s a growing fear of stagflation: a toxic combination of high inflation, slow growth, and rising unemployment. Traditional tools become ineffective. Raise rates and you deepen job losses. Stimulate demand and you risk reigniting inflation. It’s a scenario the U.S. hasn’t seen since the 1970s—and one policymakers are desperate to avoid.
Signal or Noise?
So, is this a real turning point—or just more volatility in a noisy economy?
Fed Chair Jerome Powell recently noted: “There have been plenty of times where people say very downbeat things about the economy and then go out and buy a new car.” That paradox defined much of the Biden era—gloomy sentiment alongside strong spending. But today, the mood and the data may finally be aligning.
Confidence doesn’t just reflect reality—it helps shape it. When consumers pull back and businesses retreat, a slowdown becomes self-fulfilling. If left unchecked, this cycle could tip the country into stagflation.
Avoiding that outcome requires more than rosy headlines—it demands coordinated action.
First, Congress must reassert control over fiscal policy. Relying on stopgap measures, like continuing resolutions, weakens oversight and cedes power to the executive. A clear, coherent budget—with long-term tax guidance—would help restore predictability. Recent moves by some Republicans to challenge Trump’s tariff powers are a welcome sign—but may be too little, too late.
Second, the White House must turn down the volume. Erratic messaging on trade, taxes, and regulatory shifts only fuels anxiety. Predictability—not provocation—is what markets need. Unfortunately, unpredictability is what this president excels at.
Third, the Federal Reserve must stay vigilant—but flexible. It must curb inflation without ignoring signs of economic fatigue. Overcorrect, and the Fed could spark the very crisis it’s trying to avoid.
Restoring confidence doesn’t require a soaring stock market. It requires trust—trust that leaders understand the risks, have a plan, and won’t blink when things get tough. Right now, that trust is fragile. If it breaks, the gap between perception and reality may collapse into something far harder to manage.
Robert Cropf is a Professor of Political Science at Saint Louis University.
The current approaches to proactively counteracting authoritarianism and censorship fall into two main categories, which we call “fighting” and “Constitution-defending.” While Constitution-defending in particular has some value, this article advocates for a third major method: draining interest in authoritarianism and censorship.
“Draining” refers to sapping interest in these extreme possibilities of authoritarianism and censorship. In practical terms, it comes from reducing an overblown sense of threat of fellow Americans across the political spectrum. When there is less to fear about each other, there is less desire for authoritarianism or censorship.
We call this problem of an overblown sense of threat of each other “overthreat” (overblown + threat). Reducing the threat (dethreatening) is a core goal of our organization, More Like US.
By authoritarianism, we generally mean support for enhanced executive power, coupled with increasingly minimal checks and balances. Censorship can come in many flavors but in this article we are usually referring to increased support for limiting speech considered undesirable. Both authoritarianism and censorship are best thought of as continuums rather than binaries; toward their opposite poles are support for Constitutional principles like divided government and support for free expression, respectively.
Before exploring this argument more, it should be clear that this article focuses on strategies to proactively lead to a better future. The article does not take a position on the correct defensive strategies that institutions, such as law firms or higher education institutions, should take in response to requests / threats the Trump administration has made. In these cases, some kind of “fighting” rather than agreement / capitulation may be the best short-term defensive response. Instead, we are focused on longer-term proactive strategies that various non-profits and other entities can take with goals of long-term reductions in authoritarianism and/or censorship.
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The first current method against authoritarianism and censorship – fighting – involves aggressive rhetoric that “our” side will not capitulate and/or the other side is doing terrible things. Actions such as protests or acting forcefully at town halls can also count.
Much of the rhetoric about fighting authoritarianism comes from those who oppose President Trump. For instance, in speaking of the pause on all federal grants and loans (later reversed), the Representative and Senators from Vermont, all Democrats or caucusing with Democrats, issued a statement: “It represents a dangerous move toward authoritarianism. No president has the right to choose which laws to follow and which laws to ignore.” Additionally, never-Trump conservative Heath Mayo, Founder of Principles First, struck a defiant tone at the Principles First conference, repeatedly saying, "We will not bend the knee" to the Trump Administration. There are also actions such as the Hands Off! protests.
Meanwhile, those focused on fighting censorship are often conservatives referring to liberals. For example, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), Deputy Chair of the House Freedom Caucus, decried “cancel culture” as dangerous to free speech, saying, "Everyone has said things they wish they didn't say…So who's next? Who will the cancel culture attack next?"
We call the other main current approach “Constitution-defending.” Those concerned about authoritarianism focus on aspects of the Constitution, such as the separation of powers between the branches of government. Examples include Professor James Sample, a constitutional law expert at Hofstra University, who expressed his view that recent Trump actions in conflict with the judicial branch have put the U.S. on the precipice of a constitutional crisis, noting, “If the executive gets what it wants without a process, then not only the individuals lose, but all of us lose justice.” Those focused on censorship emphasize freedom of speech in the First Amendment. As the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) notes, the constitutional right to freedom of speech “represents the essence of personal freedom and individual liberty. It remains vitally important, because freedom of speech is inextricably intertwined with freedom of thought.”
As we will explain later, we have a somewhat more positive view of Constitution-defending than fighting, but we think both have a large blind spot: addressing underlying reasons for the potential attractiveness of authoritarianism and censorship.
Research on authoritarianism shows that some people do have genetic predispositions towards it. However, predispositions are usually only activated when there are perceived threats to one’s safety and security, especially from another group seen as threatening.
That research also covers censorship, unwillingness to see opposing viewpoints expressed. The research on censorship (sometimes described with other terms such as illiberalism) is not quite as robust but the researchers generally see it as associated with left-wing authoritarianism. It is also likely activated more when people feel threatened by another group, especially those with more right-wing perspectives.
Americans also overestimate the threat they are under from those of other political parties. Research makes it clear that Americans vastly overestimate the share of those in the other political party who support political violence, the extent to which political opponents are willing to break democratic norms, and the level of cross-partisan dehumanization, compared to actual levels of all these attitudes.
Combining the research above suggests a new approach to addressing authoritarianism and censorship: drain the desire for authoritarianism and censorship in the first place. Start by correcting the faulty, overblown threats people perceive from others across politics. Given that authoritarianism and censorship flourish when people perceive threats from each other, if the threat perceptions can be reduced and right-sized, the activation of authoritarianism and censorship should also decline. That desire for authoritarianism and censorship starts draining away.
Activation of authoritarianism drains away by reducing the threat many on the right perceive from those on the left, reducing the need to turn to authoritarianism for safety and a sense of protection.
Draining activation of censorship is somewhat more complicated but also relies on threat perceptions. A direct route involves those potentially open to censorship realizing that many on the right are less threatening than perceived, draining interest in restricting speech. Additionally, there is a potential for a virtuous cycle in which those on the political right see that those on the left are less hostile, so they reduce the intensity of conservative rhetoric, which in turn drains liberal interest in limiting speech.
It is, of course, an overgeneralization to say that all authoritarianism can be attributed to the right and all censorship can be attributed to the left. People on the left, historically, can be authoritarian (such as the USSR or modern-day Venezuela), and the right is fully capable of censorship (such as current efforts to limit government speech related to DEI). But, in the contemporary United States, the political right (until possibly this administration) has usually been louder in its critique of the censorship of the left with terms like “cancel culture.” Meanwhile, authoritarianism is more commonly a critique from the left of the right, currently focused on rhetoric and actions of President Trump that promote a very strong executive branch in ways that some on the left see as moving toward authoritarianism.
In comparison, the fighting approach if anything increases a sense of threat of each other. Fighting can thus have a counter-productive outcome of actually increasing the attractiveness of authoritarianism providing security from a threat or censorship that can seem to muzzle a threat. This said, these approaches do likely galvanize support – and at least temporarily increase morale – among one’s own followers and they can likely help to garner media attention and possibly more donations, even if they may increase risks to the country.
A Constitution-defending approach, meanwhile, can be useful in some ways by reinforcing norms in America’s system of government that are important, including separation of powers and freedom of speech. The independence of the judiciary should be defended just as speech that does not incite an immediate danger should be protected.
However, there are real limits to a Constitution-defending approach. As seen in Similarity Hub – a joint effort between AllSides and More Like US that aggregates hundreds of survey datapoints overlaps between Democrats and Republicans across >20 hot-button topics – support among the American public for aspects like rule of law and freedom of speech are thankfully already high. More than 90% of Americans think that it is at least somewhat important that the rule of law is applied fairly and equally, while more than 80% agree that free speech is essential to a functioning democracy and generally have a favorable opinion about the First Amendment to the Constitution, according to surveys conducted in the last few years. At these levels, it may be possible to marginally deepen or increase support among a slightly larger share of Americans but there are limits on just how much higher these values can go.
Relying on fighting will likely worsen authoritarianism and censorship, while Constitution-defending approaches run into practical limits on how effective they can be among a public that already largely believes in Constitutional principles. We propose a third way, draining support for authoritarianism and censorship.
Our organization More Like US corrects these overblown misperceptions of threat of each other. More Like US offers resources including alesson plan / presentation that shows Americans have deeply distorted views of those in the other political party in terms of threat (dehumanization, support for political violence, and breaking democratic norms). Our guidance for those in the Arts shows how to portray people across politics in a more accurate and less threatening light.
By correcting overblown threat perceptions of each other, More Like US – along with many other organizations and fellow Americans – can drain the activation, desire, and need for destructive approaches like authoritarianism and censorship. Fighting and Constitution-defending can then go back to their best uses in society, advocating for public policy changes in constitutional ways, and teaching future generations about constitutional principles. Draining an overblown sense of threat of each other will help America get there.
James Coan is the co-founder and executive director of More Like US. Coan can be contacted at James@morelikeus.org
Sara Weinstein is a current intern at More Like US.
New research from the Unite America Institute confirms a stark reality: Most ballots cast in American elections don’t matter in deciding the outcome. In 2024, just 14% of eligible voters cast a meaningful vote that actually influenced the outcome of a U.S. House race. For state house races, on average across all 50 states, just 13% cast meaningful votes.
“Too many Americans have no real say in their democracy,” said Unite America Executive Director Nick Troiano. “Every voter deserves a ballot that not only counts, but that truly matters. We should demand better than ‘elections in name only.’”
Unite America’s new meaningful vote metric combines election turnout and competition data to reveal not just how many votes were cast but how many votes actually mattered in determining election outcomes. For example, earlier this month, there was a special election in Florida’s First Congressional District (FL-01) to replace former Rep. Matt Gaetz. Because FL-01 is a “safe” Republican district, none of the more-than-170,000 votes cast in the special general election were meaningful. The only meaningful votes were the 51,297 cast in the January primary—which is just 8% of all eligible voters in FL-01.
As the FL-01 example illustrates, the main driver of the lack of meaningful votes is a lack of competition. Nearly 90% of U.S. House and state house races were uncompetitive in 2024, meaning one party’s primary—where turnout is dismally low—is the only election that mattered. It gets worse: In 64% of state house races, zero meaningful votes were cast because both the primary and general elections lacked competition.
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When elections are essentially predetermined, lawmakers are incentivized to serve a narrow, unrepresentative faction of voters rather than the broader public. This helps explain why voters feel unheard—and why politicians fear being “primaried” more than losing a general election.
While the meaningful vote findings present a grim picture of the state of American democracy today, it also presents a potential solution. States that have adopted open, all-candidate primaries see more than double the share of meaningful votes compared to those with traditional party primaries. After Alaska implemented its all-candidate primary in 2022, its share of meaningful votes surged by nearly 60%. Post-election, lawmakers formed a cross-partisan governing majority—making progress on issues like education and the budget.
Opening primaries to independent voters also increases the potential for meaningful votes. Last week, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed a law abolishing its closed primary system, giving more than 300,000 independent voters the right to vote in often-determinative primary elections. While the overall trend is toward states opening their primaries, 16 states still have fully closed primaries that bar 16.6 million independent voters from participating.
Ross Sherman is the Press Director for Unite America.
