The Fulcrum Repairing America's Broken Democracy
Rachel Kaganoff Stern is CEO of Junior State of America. Rachel shares her thoughts on the mission and impact of Junior State of America in engaging young people in government and improving their communities.
The interview is part of a collaboration between Bridge Alliance and CityBiz entitled Repairing America's Broken Democracy.
A general view of Tehran with smoke visible in the distance after explosions were reported in the city on March 06, 2026 in Tehran, Iran.
Warfare is never decent or civilized. But since 1949, one hundred ninety-six nations, including the United States, Iran, and Israel, have subscribed to a set of principles designed to make it as decent and civilized as it can be.
That is when the Geneva Convention laid out a series of principles for the conduct of war. Central to that endeavor was the Convention’s effort to protect civilian non-combatants.
The Convention states that during wartime, “constant care must be taken to spare the civilian population, civilians and civilian objects. All feasible precautions must be taken to avoid, and in any event to minimize, incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, and damage to civilian objects.”
As the war in Iran goes on, the cost to civilians living there rises, and their suffering escalates. Americans owe it to them to be concerned about that suffering, not just because of our commitment to the Geneva Convention, but because the founding principles of this country are universal.
The Declaration of Independence is an invitation, borrowing from the philosopher Martha Nussbaum, “to put… right before country, and universal reason before the symbols of national belonging.”
Putting right and reason first and exercising “Constant care” and “all feasible precautions” hardly seem to describe what is now unfolding in Iran and other Middle Eastern nations. On July 31, the New York Times reported that the United States had dropped a two-thousand-pound bomb on the home of an Iranian family, killing the father, mother, and one of their children.
That same day, a Washington Post story described the broad array of targets now being hit by American bombs, including “at least six bridges and tunnels surrounding the port city of Bandar Abbas…Elsewhere in the south, strikes damaged communications lines, a rail station and a desalination plant… and a rail line in a province bordering Turkmenistan.”
The Trump Administration claims that all of these are so-called dual-use facilities serving both the military and civilians. But that seems to be little more than a pretense.
On July 22, President Trump made clear how little he cares about the dual-use issue or the Geneva Convention. “Any time the Islamic Republic of Iran shoots at a ship in the Strait of Hormuz, whether it be by missile, rocket, drone, or any other device or weapon,” he wrote on Truth Social, “the United States will bomb and destroy one bridge or power plant, including those located next to, or in, the Capital City of Tehran.”
Six days later, he threatened to take out Iranian bridges and power plants if the Iranians do not resume negotiations and crowed that he had destroyed most of the country. “I could take out most of their bridges in one hour and their power plants in one day. They know I am going to do that.”
Then, “We are going after destalinization plants.”
The president made even more blatant threats against Iran’s civilian population in April when he wrote, “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.”
At the time, Yale Law Professor Harold Hongju Koh said, “’International humanitarian law protects from attack objects indispensable to the survival of civilians, so if implemented, the attacks Trump threatens could constitute war crimes.’”
He was joined by one hundred experts in international law who published an open letter expressing their serious concerns “about strikes that have hit schools, health facilities, and homes.” Their letter noted that “The Iranian Red Crescent reports that ‘67,414 civilian sites have been struck, of which 498 are schools and 236 health facilities.’ A report by leading civil society organizations found that at least 1,443 Iranian civilians, including 217 children, were killed by U.S. and Israeli forces between February 28 and March 23. “
All of this was before the latest round of attacks.
And recall last February when Trump told the New York Times, “I don’t need international law.” In response to the question of whether he saw “any checks on your power on the world stage? Is there anything that could stop you if you wanted to?,” he responded, “Yeah, there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
His own morality is not stopping him from destroying civilian infrastructure and inflicting misery on the Iranian people. As the Post reports, “U.S. attacks triggered power outages, water and fuel shortages, and trade slowdowns. Without regular water and electricity and intact delivery networks, factory and farm output slackens, goods are slower and more costly to ship, and industries dwindle, mired in expensive uncertainty.”
“The expanded economic pain,” the Post observed, “could push millions more Iranians into poverty.”
That should be deeply troubling to all Americans. As Nussbaum explains, “If we really do believe that all human beings are created equal and endowed with certain inalienable rights, we are morally required to think about what that conception requires us to do with and for the rest of the world.”
That is why, when it comes to wars, constitutional democracies should fight differently, and why rheir citizens should care about the suffering of citizens living in distant places.
In 2022, the Defense Department acted on that premise and issued a “Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response Action Plan.” Signed by Secretary Lloyd Austin, it started this way: “The protection of civilians is a strategic priority as well as a moral imperative. Our efforts to mitigate and respond to civilian harm directly reflect our values and also directly contribute to achieving mission success.”
The document said that the American military would “integrat(e) civilian protection into our mission objectives from the start.” Secretary Austin committed to establishing a Civilian Protection Center of Excellence,” with the mission of expediting and institutionalizing the latest knowledge about protecting civilians throughout the armed forces.
He called that effort, “the right thing to do.
“The idea,” ProPublica explains, “was to embed prevention specialists within targeting teams and foster a culture that prioritizes civilian security in accordance with U.S. law and international rules of war,… expressing both a moral obligation to safeguard civilian life and a necessity to hit their intended targets.”
Give credit to Jim Mattis, Secretary of Defense in the first Trump Administration, who initiated the effort that eventuated in the 2022 civilian harm reduction plan.
But that was then. Now, neither Pete Hegseth, Trump’s current Defense Secretary, nor the president has any use for such niceties.
That’s why they still have not released a report on the February attack that killed dozens of children and teachers when a missile struck a school, and has gutted the civilian harm reduction effort, reducing by 90 percent the Civilian Harm Reduction mission.
Innocent Iranians are paying the cost. Americans should not look away or be so consumed by high gas prices and our own deteriorating standards of living that we do not notice the suffering being inflicted in our name, that we do not care about the much greater suffering people just like us are enduring in Iran.
Austin Sarat is the William Nelson Cromwell professor of jurisprudence and political science at Amherst College.
People vote in New York's primary elections at an armory and YMCA in Brooklyn on June 23, 2026, in New York City.
Something is happening in the Democratic Party that is making party leaders and media pundits take notice. It became impossible to ignore with Zohran Mamdani’s 2025 election as mayor of New York City. Now comes Angie Nixon’s stunning victory in Florida’s Democratic Senate primary, where she defeated an establishment opponent who outspent her by more than ten to one.
Candidates challenging capitalism are finding a receptive audience, especially among younger Democrats. They are no longer easily dismissed as isolated insurgents in liberal enclaves, though their victories do not mean socialists are taking over the party.
Republicans and much of the mainstream media portray this as evidence that the party is dominated by the extremist left. That misses the larger story. Democratic socialism’s rise tells us less about Americans’ enthusiasm for socialism than about their disgust with MAGA populism, capitalism run amok, and the Democratic establishment’s failure to offer a convincing alternative. Socialism is gaining strength not because it is a proven cure, but because it gives a name to what many voters believe is wrong.
Despite America’s free-market reputation, socialism has influenced its politics before. The Progressive Era arose partly in response to America’s first Gilded Age, when capitalists like John D. Rockefeller produced extraordinary wealth alongside dangerous workplaces, urban poverty, and enormous political power. Reformers proposed different remedies, but they agreed that unrestrained capitalism was trampling democracy.
Indiana’s Eugene Debs gave the socialist critique its most prominent national voice. He ran for president five times and received nearly 6 percent of the vote in 1912. Socialists also won state and local offices. Though they never came close to winning national elections, they put workplace protections, industrial unionism, and economic inequality on the political agenda.
Wisconsin’s Robert La Follette, though not a socialist, shared many of the movement’s concerns about monopoly and corporate power. His 1924 presidential campaign united progressives, labor unions, farmers, and socialists. Endorsed by the Socialist Party on Debs’s recommendation, he received almost 17 percent of the national vote.
Their Midwestern roots matter. The old left also drew strength from farmers, railroad workers, industrial laborers, and small-town reformers across the heartland.
While these movements failed to win national power, they forced the major parties to confront problems they preferred to ignore. Progressive taxation, antitrust enforcement, labor protections, and Social Security did not abolish capitalism. They strengthened it by placing democratic limits around it.
The Democratic Socialists of America, or DSA, was established in 1982, but its lineage reaches back to Debs’s Socialist Party. Founder Michael Harrington rejected Soviet-style communism and building marginal third party. He argued instead that socialists should work with labor unions, civil rights organizations, feminists, and liberal Democrats.
The DSA’s relationship with the Democratic Party is therefore nothing new. Democratic socialists run as Democrats because America’s two-party system leaves little room for a successful left-wing party. So, they maintain a separate organization and use Democratic primaries to challenge the party establishment.
This is the latest version of an old debate: Should the left build its own party or work within the two-party system? The DSA, from the start, has chosen the latter. Its recent victories raise a deeper question: Why is this decades-old strategy only now gaining traction, particularly among younger Democrats?
Younger Americans were promised that education and hard work would produce security. But as Noam Scheiber explores in Mutiny: The Rise and Revolt of the College-Educated Working Class, many instead encountered debt, precarious and unfulfilling work, and homeownership beyond reach. The gap between promise and reality has fueled political disaffection.
In a 2025 Gallup poll, 66 percent of Democrats viewed socialism positively, while only 42 percent viewed capitalism positively. Yet 81 percent of Americans still viewed free enterprise favorably. The apparent contradiction is revealing. Many voters are not rejecting markets, private property, or entrepreneurship. They are rejecting the concentrated wealth and corporate power they see embodied by Silicon Valley and Wall Street.
MAGA populism and democratic socialism offer rival responses to this loss of confidence. Both argue the system is rigged, elites have betrayed the public, and ordinary people are being cheated. But they identify very different villains. Trump directs anger toward immigrants, bureaucrats, universities, and cultural elites. Democratic socialists direct it toward billionaires, corporations, landlords, and the political establishment.
The movements are not morally equivalent, but they draw energy from the same institutional failure. Neither party’s establishment has convinced Americans that the current system can provide economic security or govern in the public interest. Socialism is gaining support less because voters have embraced collective ownership than because it offers a language for condemning an economy that no longer seems to work for them.
The insurgents on the left have correctly identified the economic system’s failures: extreme inequality, concentrated corporate power, weakened workers, and the rising cost of living. But identifying a disease is easier than curing it. Socialists sometimes underestimate what markets do well, what their programs would cost, and how difficult sweeping promises can be to carry out. Winning a Democratic primary is also not the same as winning the country.
Establishment Democrats make the opposite mistake when they treat socialist victories as radical one-offs rather than political warnings. Lecturing voters about socialism while defending an economic order that has failed to provide affordable housing, healthcare, and security will not restore confidence in the party.
We do not have to embrace socialism wholesale nor dismiss it entirely. Democrats, like the Progressive Era reformers and the New Deal, must curb capitalism’s abuses while preserving its capacity to create wealth and opportunity. Earlier reformers regulated monopolies, protected workers, and provided security markets could not reliably deliver. They made capitalism work better for more people.
If today’s Democrats cannot do the same, democratic socialism will continue to attract voters, not because it has proved that it can govern, but because the existing order has repeatedly demonstrated that it cannot.
Robert Cropf is a Professor of Political Science at Saint Louis University.
There are approximately 1.3 million eligible voters in Arizona, about 25% of the state's potential electorate, according to Equis Research.
Young Hispanic residents of Arizona are encouraging their peers to become more civically engaged by making their voices heard in upcoming elections and members of the advocacy group Poder Latinx said it is especially important now, amid an increasingly caustic and polarized political landscape.
About 41% of Hispanic Arizonans are registered to vote but make up less than 21% of all registered voters in the state.
Helen Romero, a Tucson member of the group, is encouraging people Romero knows to register, vote and become more civically engaged.
"Latina involvement is important because our communities deserve to be represented by the people who understand their experiences. When Latinos get involved, we bring diverse perspectives. Participation also inspires the next generation," Romero explained.
Poder Latinx has created an online guide for voters to help them register, find their polling place and study ballot information prior to an election.
Romero added she is helping the Hispanic community understand their voices are heard in elections, pushing back on a persistent historical narrative in the community their votes do not matter.
"Not only Latinas, I feel like the whole Latin community doesn't know that their voice is being heard. They try to shy away from politics because, I mean, we were taught that since we were little not to be involved in those things," Romero observed.
Nearly 15% of the Hispanic population reported they felt their vote would not matter in the 2016 general election, or they were uninterested in the outcome.
Arizona's Hispanic Youth Encourage Voter Participation was originally published by Public News Service and is republished with permission.
A retired Texas Supreme Court chief justice discusses threats to judicial independence, partisan judicial elections, and public trust in the courts.
Judicial independence was one of the core justifications for the American Revolution.
The Declaration of Independence assailed King George III, saying:
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
The framers, influenced by European political philosophers like Montesquieu and Harrington, thus gave judicial power to a separate and distinct branch of government, independent of both the legislative and executive branches.
After some fits and starts in a few places, by the mid-19th century the courts of every state had authority to decide the constitutionality of the other branches’ actions. And, despite imperfections and shortcomings, the independent American judiciary has an enviable record of protecting individual freedoms, minority interests, and property rights.
Our independent judiciary has been the feature of the American government most emulated by the world’s emerging democracies. Most countries have opted for a parliamentary form of government rather than separate legislative and executive branches, but the vast majority have created a judiciary that operates with at least some protection from governmental interference. As Chief Justice William Rehnquist was fond of saying, the judicial branch is a “crown jewel” of the American democratic experiment.
Why are retired state supreme court chief justices speaking out now, and what compels them to raise their voices?
It’s no secret that Americans, like citizens in many Western democracies, have in recent decades lost confidence in both their public and private institutions. That distrust and cynicism is particularly damaging to the courts, which depend entirely on public confidence for their practical as well as their moral authority. In recent years, public attention has focused on federal courts—as Congress has done less, and the Executive Branch has done more, than our framers intended. That imbalance has put extra pressure on the judiciary, resulting in frequent criticism from partisans of all persuasions. Most of this criticism merely exhibits a healthy exercise of free expression, but some of it has been malicious and misleading.
State courts have been subjected to their own assaults, some arising from purely local issues but others reflecting national initiatives. State courts have suffered the same loss of public trust as other institutions, but few national efforts have been dedicated to defending them. The nation’s former chief justices are uniquely situated to monitor these attacks and bring interstate resources to answer them when they are unjust or misguided.
How are state judiciaries uniquely suited to meet this moment, perhaps in ways the federal courts cannot?
Because over 90% of all lawsuits in America are handled by state rather than federal courts, most people’s direct experience with the judicial system will be with state judges. In these uncertain times, state judges have a heightened obligation to conduct themselves in a manner that gives no cause for just complaint.
Beyond that, since most state judges face some sort of popular election—partisan, nonpartisan, or retention—state judges have an obligation, not merely an opportunity, to explain and defend the judicial process to the public at large. And because state courts hear and resolve numerous federal law claims, and vice versa, the rule of law demands that both state and federal systems not only act, but also appear to act, in a fair, efficient, and principled manner.
What is the greatest threat facing the judiciary in each justice’s state?
The Texas Legislature traditionally micromanages the judicial branch more than most states—with laws or budget riders addressing jurisdiction, salary supplements, docket priorities, and work schedules in very discrete terms. Perhaps this is because Texas’s part-time, low-pay legislature attracts more lawyers than most states do.
The biggest challenge in Texas undoubtedly comes from the partisan judicial election by which all 2,000 Texas judges obtain or retain their offices. Every two years, many judges lose in their party primaries, often because of their perceived gender or ethnicity, not their performance on the bench. Even more, typically dozens, lose in the general election because the other party sweeps all the election contests in their district. Beyond that, voters and special interest groups have become far more insistent about knowing judges’ views on a wide array of issues since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down provisions of many states’ judicial conduct codes that forbade judicial candidates from answering such inquiries. If and when Texas becomes a “purple” state, its supreme court elections will inevitably become much noisier, nastier, and more expensive. As we have seen in Michigan, North Carolina, and Wisconsin, massive expenditures, most of it devoted to media blitzes by groups other than the candidates’ own campaigns, have further confused voters about the way courts actually consider and decide cases
What was the most impactful part of serving as chief justice?
Obviously, the Supreme Court of the nation’s second largest state decides many important cases, but much of the most satisfying work of a high court is administrative. During my tenure, the Court strengthened ethics rules for both lawyers and judges, reformed the attorney discipline system, expanded pro bono services for low-income Texans, implemented numerous technological innovations, and streamlined pretrial discovery and other court procedures. All these efforts have been substantially furthered by the Supreme Court since I left. And while Court initiatives are a collegial effort, chief justices enjoy more name recognition and a larger pulpit than that normally accorded to their colleagues.
What do they wish more citizens understood about the judicial process?
I wish more people understood that the “political” cases that make the news, while tremendously important, are a minuscule fraction of the matters our courts resolve. For the great mass of disputes, there is no Democratic or Republican answer, and no liberal or conservative outcomes. And in an era when the outcomes of more and more cases are governed by statutory provisions rather than judge-made common-law principles, the job of state courts is increasingly to apply the law as written to the facts presented to them.
Thus, the character, diligence, intelligence, and good judgment of a potential judge are far more important qualities than his or her political views. Voters in elective states like Texas have a herculean task in weighing these qualities among numerous candidates, sometimes dozens in any one county. But it is important that they do so.
Thomas R. Phillips, who practices law in Austin, is a former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Texas, where he served from 1988 to 2004. He is a member of Keep Our Republic's Alliance of Former Chief Justices, which advocates for the rule of law and judicial independence.
