Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Where democracy won in 2022

Where democracy won in 2022

There was plenty of hand wringing over the state of democracy at home and abroad in 2022. Extremists appeared poised to sabotage elections in the U.S., a leading index found half of democratic governments around the world in decline, and Russia’s war against Ukraine placed liberty under direct assault.

Yet 2022 was also the year “the good guys struck back,” as Michael Hirsh wrote in Foreign Policy. Ukrainian forces have thrown Russia on the defensive. Extremist candidates lost in Brazil, France, and in key U.S. midterm contests. In Kenya, the Philippines and elsewhere, elections ended not in chaos, as predicted, but in peaceful transfers of power. In China and Iran, average citizens are rising up.


In the U.S., the House select committee’s investigation of the January 6, 2021 assault on the Capitol elevated truth over disinformation, and helped trigger a fundamental shift away from extremism, and from the “big lie” that the 2020 election was stolen.

In August, an NBC News survey found that Americans ranked “threats to democracy” ahead of the economy as their top concern. And in November, the midterms unfolded smoothly and election deniers largely lost, in a contest widely hailed as a win for democracy.

None of this takes away from the substantial threats that still place democracy at risk, including rampant disinformation facilitated by social media and the decline of local newspapers. But those who wish to defend democracy must go beyond bemoaning its demise, as so many news outlets, commentators and authors incessantly do. The story of Democracy’s strengths, which were also on display in 2022, merits notice as well.

To succeed, the pro-democracy movement “needs to go beyond its present modus operandi, a mix of fatalism and despair and living in perpetual reaction to the right and policy wonkiness and praying for indictments,” argues author Anand Giridharadas. Democracy advocates “can out-compete the fascists and seize the age,” Giridharadas recently wrote in The New York Times, with a more expansive vision that replaces fatalism with hope.

Hope means appreciating that the nation’s partisan divisions are not as intractable as media pundits driven by ratings like to scream. A full 41 percent of Americans identify as Independents, compared with fewer than 30 percent identified with either party, and large majorities of Americans agree on key issues, from same-sex marriage to legalizing cannabis. Hope means celebrating the teens fighting for the right to read “banned books” with lawsuits and protests, and the young voters whose turnout reached its second-highest level in 30 years in the last election.

Hope also means investing in future generations, as Congress recently did with a $23 million appropriation for civic learning in the year-end omnibus spending bill, effectively tripling federal spending on history and civic learning. That bipartisan investment reflects continued support across party lines for civic education, which recent national polling found is supported by close to 80 percent of voters on both sides of the aisle. It was just one of many wins for democracy this year.

Eliza Newlin Carney is a longtime Washington writer, editor and columnist specializing in democracy issues. She is a columnist and former senior editor for The American Prospect, and previously held senior positions at CQ Roll Call and National Journal. She also is founder and president of The Civic Circle, which uses music and the arts to empower young students to understand and participate in democracy.

Read More

Why Doing Immigration the “White Way” Is Wrong

A close up of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement badge.

Getty Images, Tennessee Witney

Why Doing Immigration the “White Way” Is Wrong

The president is granting refugee status to white South Africans. Meanwhile, he is issuing travel bans, unsure about his duty to uphold due process, fighting birthright citizenship, and backing massive human rights breaches against people of color, including deporting citizens and people authorized to be here.

The administration’s escalating immigration enforcement—marked by “fast-track” deportations or disappearances without due process—signal a dangerous leveling-up of aggressive anti-immigration policies and authoritarian tactics. In the face of the immigration chaos that we are now in, we could—and should—turn our efforts toward making immigration policies less racist, more efficient, and more humane because America’s promise is built on freedom and democracy, not terror. As social scientists, we know that in America, thinking people can and should “just get documented” ignores the very real and large barriers embedded in our systems.

Keep ReadingShow less
Insider trading in Washington, DC

U.S. senators and representatives with access to non-public information are permitted to buy and sell individual stocks. It’s not just unethical; it sends the message that the game is rigged.

Getty Images, Greggory DiSalvo

Insider Trading: If CEOs Can’t Do It, Why Can Congress?

Ivan Boesky. Martha Stewart. Jeffrey Skilling.

Each became infamous for using privileged, non-public information to profit unfairly from the stock market. They were prosecuted. They served time. Because insider trading is a crime that threatens public trust and distorts free markets.

Keep ReadingShow less
Supreme Court Changes the Game on Federal Environmental Reviews

A pump jack seen in a southeast New Mexico oilfield.

Getty Images, Daniel A. Leifheit

Supreme Court Changes the Game on Federal Environmental Reviews

Getting federal approval for permits to build bridges, wind farms, highways and other major infrastructure projects has long been a complicated and time-consuming process. Despite growing calls from both parties for Congress and federal agencies to reform that process, there had been few significant revisions – until now.

In one fell swoop, the U.S. Supreme Court has changed a big part of the game.

Keep ReadingShow less