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 crowd gathers to take in the September 11th memorial lights in Brooklyn Bridge Park, New York City, NY.
A college friend called me and desperately urged me to turn on my television. I was at home in my study writing a chapter on civic faith for a new book. As I tuned in to the news, I watched a second plane ram into the north tower of the World Trade Center, where my best friend from college, Frank Reisman, worked for Cantor Fitzgerald. Hours later, another call: Frank was gone.
Twenty-five years have passed, and I remember that dreadful day as if it was yesterday. Are we a better nation? Stronger? More vibrant? Kinder?
Since 2001, our nation has lived through a series of seemingly endless wars and a global pandemic. The internet has overwhelmed many of our senses, and AI now threatens to replace basic human interactions. People have lost faith in our leaders, institutions, news media, even in each other. I believe we face a crisis of belief.
Like you, I worry about where we are, and where we are headed.
Just last week it was reported that a 20-year-old Haitian immigrant who lived in Springfield, OH, and who had just started college, was so despondent and full of shame over having to wear an ankle monitor that he walked into the street amid oncoming cars and ended his life.
In America, we may hold different positions on issues involving deportation and immigration, but what exactly is our position on the dignity of each individual and the sacredness of their life? When do the actions of those in power become so malicious—indeed, heinous—that they violate basic human decency? Must we always go to extremes to make a point, win an argument, pursue a particular policy goal?
Our public lives are now enveloped in constant noise, confusion, and uncertainty; some days it’s just too much to take in. So many of us have adopted a kind of cynicism as a shield against further disappointment or despair. We sometimes tear things down to feel some semblance of power, or to exude superiority over others. Oftentimes we throw up our hands in frustration, only to retreat from public life.
Are we afraid to have hope? Is belief in one another and in our nation somehow beyond what we can now imagine, or are willing to risk? What are we willing to lose and at what cost? What are we willing to fight for and protect and cherish and grow?
There are times I sit in my study in the dark and in absolute silence and try to imagine the sheer panic Frank must have experienced when he realized a plane had hit the south tower. The fear, the sense of doom—and then the deadly impact of the second plane. My heart aches. I weep.
Reflecting on that horrific day and its lasting effects, and considering where our society has gone in the decades since, I am left wrestling with pressing questions. Shall I surrender to evil? Must I walk away in disgust? Is it time to give in or give up on trying to repair breaches in society?
My travels throughout our country over the past 40 years have led me to this conclusion: There is so much good and goodness in people and in our society. And yet, amid our current conditions, such good and goodness can be hard to see. It can be difficult to let in. Even risky.
I know you may be feeling weary. Frustrated. Angry. Disgusted. I hear you. But hear me out, please. We must restore our belief in one another and in our nation.
Indeed, I’ll be damned if I will idly sit by, wringing my hands, and allow the cynics and doomsdayers and fear mongers and bigots to win. We can do better and be better—as individuals, in our communities, and across this nation. We have work to do, building to undertake. This must be done together; it can only be done together. It happens brick by brick, neighborhood by neighborhood, community by community. This must be our collective ambition.
The World Trade Center buildings were reduced to rubble. But the spirit of those who were lost and injured lives on in our shared memory and in our hearts. We go on. We build together.
Let’s face it. We need each other. We are meant to go together. So, let us always remember the past and commit to building a future we can believe in. That’s my personal pledge to Frank.
Rich Harwood is the president and founder of The Harwood Institute.
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks briefly to the press as he arrives during the 81st United Nations General Assembly at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, on Sept. 22, 2026.
“To offend a strong man, tell him a lie. To offend a weak man, tell him the truth.”
That quote, often attributed to Marcus Aurelius, one of the great Stoics, perfectly encapsulates the very troubling and sad moment we’re in, and the very troubling and sad president we’re dealing with.
For all his bluster, Donald Trump is inarguably weak and small. His ego is easily bruised, his feelings are easily hurt. He’s been this way for a long time, and as Americans living in the Trump era, we’ve all come to see how deeply insecure, petty, and vengeful he can be.
His late-night social media rants lashing out at enemies both real and imagined; his impetuous and impolitic attacks on longtime allies who don’t roll over for him; his reckless primarying of his own party members who dare break from him, even if momentarily.
Hell, you could even say his very presidency is the result of an otherwise harmless roast by former President Barack Obama at the 2011 White House Correspondents Dinner that he took too personally.
But when things are going particularly badly for him, his skin is at its paper thinnest, and it shows.
Last week, Trump announced on social media that he was banning three news outlets — MS NOW, Politico, and CNN, where I work — from covering the White House. He hasn’t said why those particular outlets were targeted, giving the impression that this might not have been all that well thought out. Imagine that.
It does coincide, however, with Trump’s steadily sinking approval numbers, which just this week hit an abysmal record low, falling below 30% according to one poll.
Believe it or not, focusing on ballrooms and buildings, invading Greenland and Canada, suing political enemies and chasing crypto deals while we’re in an ill-advised war and most Americans are stretching to afford basic necessities, has not endeared him to voters.
It’s almost as if ignoring his key promises to voters — to lower inflation, to lower the cost of goods, to never get us into another war — has turned them off.
So, stuck in a bed of his own making with nowhere to go, he’s lashing out, this time at the press, simply for covering the bad decisions he’s made and their impact on voters.
But trying to punish or sideline the press will not change the fact that he and Republicans are in deep trouble. All it does is make him look brittle, desperate and weak.
It’s also a deeply disingenuous effort. Trump has justified his tantrum by saying the press is both “purposeful” and “fully coordinated” in reporting “fiction and lies.”
There’s a legal mechanism for the thing he’s talking about, and tellingly, he isn’t using it. Because, if true, what he’s describing is the textbook definition of actual malice, the legal bar used for defamation cases.
But he’s not suing the press, because this isn’t about the law, but rather his feelings. And it’s simply not our job to protect his feelings, or only publish news that makes him feel good. We’re not his parents or his kindergarten teachers.
He can throw all the fits he wants, and there’s no doubt his continual attacks on the press have had a chilling effect, but I know one thing: ultimately, the press will win this battle.
He may wish he were president of Russia or North Korea, where the free press doesn’t exist and state media tells only positive stories about Dear Leader, but here in America, the press is protected. Here, Americans want to live in a democracy, not a dictatorship. And here, we expect our political leaders to be able to take a metaphorical punch. Especially if the “punch” in question is simply the truth.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.
People wearing vests with "ICE" and "Police" on the back.
The Fulcrum is committed to nurturing the next generation of journalists.
We asked Abbey Osborn, a Fall Fulcrum Fellow, to share what democracy means to her and her view of its current health.
When I think of democracy, I picture the Statue of Liberty, her torch lit, arm outstretched, for those who seek the protections offered in the Constitution—of speech, religion, and the press. By respecting these freedoms, the government holds itself accountable to the people it governs. But a democracy is not merely a static set of rules; it is a living system. And immigrants—the “huddled masses” Emma Lazarus wrote of in “The New Colossus”—have always been essential to this living system. Their choice to pursue the freedoms promised by this country helps sustain it.
As an educator, my classroom is a microcosm of this country. My students come from all corners of the globe. Some are Rohingya refugees who fled villages where their family members were killed. Some traversed the Americas, crossing the Darien Gap to reach what they hoped would be safety. They have lived experiences of not being able to practice their religion or criticize their government openly.
Last year, under President Trump’s administration, I saw my students reckon with a government that opposed their presence. Students disappeared from the classroom, citing fears of ICE stopping them on their way to school. Though they had the right to an education, no matter their legal status, they were afraid to pursue it—worried that it could mean being detained or deported.
According to the Pew Research Center, immigrants made up 15.4% of the U.S. population as of June 2025, down from 15.8% in January. The decline aligns with increased federal immigration enforcement, including the Trump administration’s December 2025 launch of “Operation Metro Surge,” which targeted undocumented immigrants in Minnesota.
Undocumented immigrants are especially vulnerable to government overreach, due to their precarious legal status. Under an administration that has repeatedly used anti-immigrant rhetoric, Operation Metro Surge is an example of what happens when the government attempts to override a population’s constitutional rights. As Tara Watson, director of the Center for Economic Security and Opportunity at the Brookings Institution, warns, immigrants can become a “testing ground” for authoritarian power. A restriction of constitutional rights can spread to noncitizens and citizens alike, weakening democracy.
For instance, Mahamed Eydarus, 25, and his mother, both U.S. citizens, were stopped by ICE agents, during Operation Metro Surge, while shoveling snow out of a parking spot. In a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union against the Department of Homeland Security, Eydarus and other plaintiffs alleged that agents used racial profiling to detain people without reasonable suspicion of an immigration violation or probable cause for arrest. Although the U.S. District Judge Eric Tostrud declined to grant an injunction against the government's actions, he found that Eydarus and his mother were stopped and detained solely because of their race or ethnicity. Eydarus was targeted due to the color of his skin–despite being a citizen.
The Trump administration’s harsh actions toward immigrants have pushed the limits of power and control. In doing so, it has weakened the central promise underlying our democracy—that this country will respect the rights of all those within its borders. My students deserve to be able to pursue their education without fear. When they cannot, that promise has been broken.
Abbey Osborn is a student at CUNY Newmark Graduate School of Journalism. Abbey focuses on local democracy, public institutions, and youth civic engagement. She brings experience in community reporting and a commitment to amplifying voices often overlooked in political coverage.
Influencer and left-wing political commentator Hasan Piker is introduced during a campaign rally for Wisconsin Gubernatorial candidate Francesca Hong on Aug. 2, 2026, in Milwaukee.
No one likes to think they’re being hysterical. And nothing makes hysterical people angrier than being described as such. So, let me offer my apologies in advance for what follows.
Jeremy Musighi, an independent researcher, recently released a study analyzing 14.7 million news articles published across 65 languages over the last decade. He found that, in 2024, news outlets published “more than twice as many stories about Israel as about all 48 countries of sub-Saharan Africa combined.”
Given that many countries focus on Israel to distract from their own problems, that’s not that shocking. But Musighi also found that, “On American cable news, Israel was the most-mentioned country— ahead of Iran, Russia, Ukraine, China. On the BBC’s news channel, 1 in every 17 broadcast minutes mentioned Israel.”
One might argue that given Israel’s recent actions, it earned such coverage. But Israel gets wildly disproportionate coverage in peacetime too. In 2019, long before the war in Gaza, “1 of every 112 news articles on Earth — from all the world’s outlets minus Israel’s — was primarily about Israel. 1.8 million international articles mentioned it.”
Now, I have reservations about Musighi’s methodology, given how media outlets recycle and syndicate content. But rather than wade into the statistics, for argument’s sake let’s just cut all of his findings in half. That would still be hard to defend rationally.
Also, this says nothing of the quality of the reporting. If it was objective, the quantity wouldn’t matter much. But a sizable portion is objectively anti-Israel, often taking Hamas’ claims at face value. When Hamas shrieked that Gaza was on the brink of famine, the Western press breathlessly repeated the claim, which was utterly false.
In a recent interview on Taqarrab, an Arab-language podcast, acclaimed photo “journalist” Motaz Azaiza admitted that he refused to publish images of Hamas abuses — to protect the abusers. The New York Times’ Nick Kristoff launched weeks of coverage with the claim that Israelis train dogs to rape Palestinians. American media covered the controversy over Macklemore’s criticisms of Israel like a free speech martyr.
In fairness, a lot of coverage is driven by news, like when the United Nations condemns Israel, which it has done 187 times since 2015 — nearly six times more often than it has condemned Russia, and 17 times more often than Iran or North Korea.
Founded in 1948, modern Israel is middle-aged as countries go.
Look at a list of 195 countries in order of their founding date and Israel ranks somewhere between the 85th- and 90th-oldest (if we acknowledge biblical Israel, then it’s the fourth-oldest nation in the world). And yet many talk about Israel as if it’s a sort of recent mistake, easily remedied, like outgoing mail that hasn’t been picked up yet.
Israel is only slightly older than modern Tibet, which was, according to the Chinese government, “liberated” in 1951. Many Tibetans use the term “occupied.”
We don’t hear much about “occupied Tibet” from people fixated on the evils of occupation. Nor do we hear about China’s system of apartheid— another charge casually hurled at Israel. Nor do we hear about China’s genocidal policies toward the Muslim minority Uyghur population in Xinjiang. The charge of cultural genocide is irrefutable, but there’s also strong evidence of more literal genocide thanks to the regime’s violent and coercive reproduction policies, slashing birthrates in half.
Nor do we hear much about China’s policy of settler-colonialism in Tibet and Xinjiang, where Han Chinese are incentivized to migrate as part of the regime’s policy of “sinicization.” I think China’s pretty powerful, but criticizing Israel, according to the popular online streamer Hasan Piker (who will not condemn China), is “speaking truth to power.”
To that end, we hear a lot about Israel’s occupation, settler-colonization and genocide. We don’t have the space to contend with all of these charges, so for the sake of brevity and reasonableness let’s concede, for now, the first two. Besides, it’s the false genocide charge that fuels anti-Israel obsessions more than any other. The claim is more than 40 years old. And yet, since the founding of Israel, the Palestinian population has grown more than fivefold.
When you hear that Israeli genocide proves Israelis are the “new Nazis” keep in mind that the Holocaust killed 2 out of every 3 European Jews.
A new documentary, “Naza,” that purports to prove that Israel is committing genocide bases its claim on the fact that Israel goes to great lengths to track collateral damage. Never mind that there’s no such thing as collateral damage when you intend genocide.
It should take the average reader five minutes to read this column. When “Naza” debuted at the Venice Film Festival this month, the audience’s standing ovation lasted five times as long. That, I’m sorry to tell you, is a sign of hysteria.
Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.
