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democracy
10 Groups Who Can and Must Do More to Fight Trumpism
All these groups have diminished themselves and their real potential to generate strong direct democratic pressures and arouse the citizenry.
Sep 06, 2025
This column is a plea to our readers to help get responses from groups whose duties and rhetoric should cause them to become much more active in countering the fascistic, dictatorial actions of Tyrant Trump.
All these groups have diminished themselves and their real potential to generate strong direct democratic pressures and arouse the citizenry.
We can guess the answer as to why these groups are so meek, but what is needed is for these groups to answer for themselves. (I recognize that there are a few luminous exceptions among them.)
1. Why aren’t the Democrats in Congress, just a few votes from a majority, much more aggressive vis-à-vis the controlling Republicans and President Donald Trump? Voters are vociferously demanding this at town meetings.
Lawmakers in the minority can hold many informal or “shadow” hearings in congressional committee rooms on the rising disasters of the Trump regime. They can invite knowledgeable witnesses and the media. They have done fewer than half a dozen of these events, which have received media coverage.
Moreover, they could do what the GOP does regarding Democratic presidents: Start laying the groundwork for impeaching Trump and several of his lawless, dangerous, out-of-control cabinet members.
2. Why has the media, for years, excluded coverage of what newsworthy, progressive, proven national citizen groups are doing to give the people the kind of effective voice on Capitol Hill and around the country that led in the 60s and the 70s to health, safety, and economic protections by congressional legislation?
3. Why do the most progressive members of Congress—e.g., Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), and lately even Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.)—refuse to return calls or answer letters urging them to adopt policies and conduct hearings back in their states, to build support for congressional action? Their disrespect is astonishing and unheard of between the GOP and, for example, the Heritage Foundation.
Are we too busy with our daily work and routines to carve out time to join this historic struggle to save our country?
They will not go on our radio or podcast to discuss their new books or causes. Most of the time, they don’t even bother to acknowledge these invitations with a polite refusal. It’s like calling into a congressional dark hole.
This posture is cutting deeply into their own influence in Congress and severing contacts with progressive groups’ millions of members around the country.
4. The medical societies and bar associations are not costing the Trumpsters any lost sleep as the latter deepen their illegal destruction of federal public health and safety programs. Their brazen violations of federal laws and provisions of the Constitution reflect their Big Bad Outlaw in the White House.
These doctors and lawyers may be sullen but are largely silent when they have considerable muscle to flex. After all, the American Medical Association single-handedly blocked in Congress during the 1940s and early 1950s President Harry Truman’s universal health insurance plan.
We have written twice to 50 state bar associations saying that they should be the first responders against the destruction of the rule of law by raw power. No reply from any of these influential groups. (See: Letter to Bar Associations)
5. Trump is destroying labor unions’ collective bargaining agreements inside the federal civil service. He is the most anti-labor president in modern times, reflecting his past, exploitive business record.
Yes, the major labor unions have filed numerous lawsuits and on Labor Day managed some vociferous demonstrations around the country, without announcing a Compact for American Workers (see my last week’s column: LONG OVERDUE DOMESTIC COMPACT FOR AMERICA).
They could do so much more to deploy organizers for action all over the country, reaching deep into Trump’s blue-collar supporters to ask them about anti-worker Trumpism: “Is this what you voted for? How about some big demos in DC around the White House and Congress? How about old-fashioned mass worker rallies, demanding the presence of lawmakers?
6. I and others have written about the silence of former presidents, except for a few mild public remarks. George W. Bush despises Trump, especially for Trump wiping out his administration’s anti-AIDS program in less developed countries. He is silent as he continues his painting. Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and Joe Biden, where are they? With their large constituency of voters, they could activate thousands to push Democrats in Congress. With their fundraising skills and lists, they could raise quick money to start “Trump, You’re Fired” groups all over the country, tying the Trump brand to the awful, cruel, and vicious cuts, closings, and firings of federal servants, protectors, and scientists. They know he is destroying America and our constitutional Republic. So why are they AWOL, basking in their comfort zones, instead of being patriotically on the impeachment ramparts?
7. What about the enlightened billionaires? They know the score and can see an ominous recession coming. Easily, they could fund new “civic strike organizations” working on Congress and the executive branch to give a sharp, continuing voice to the people increasingly harmed and deprived in both red and blue states (e.g., fast approaching loss of Medicaid and food programs and much more). (See the Economic Policy Institute report, “100 days, 100 ways Trump has hurt workers.” April 25, 2025)
8. Given how Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s genocidal Palestinian Holocaust is affecting our country’s violated laws, priorities, freedoms, safety, and tax dollars, why does the media adamantly refuse to more credibly report the vast death and serious injury undercount in tiny Gaza (the geographical size of Philadelphia)? Instead of showing probative evidence of over 500,000 deaths (leaving an improbable 3 of 4 Gazans still alive), they report the Hamas narrowly defined fatality figure of over 63,000.
Hamas does not count tens of thousands under the rubble or the far greater number killed due to “no food, water, medicine, healthcare, fuel, and electricity.” It only counts the immediately identified deaths of Israel’s daily bombardments. ( See, The Lancet piece “Counting the dead in Gaza: difficult but essential” July 5, 2024). Editors and reporters know this, but they still are misleading their readers, viewers, and listeners using the Hamas de minimis figures as if they were the total fatalities from this Israeli regime’s mass slaughter of Palestinian babies, children, mothers, and fathers.
9. Then there are the Trump voters who, with few exceptions, have yet to admit that they have been conned big time by the cruel and vicious, egomaniacal, vengeful Trump. With Elon Musk, his smashing of the social safety net includes Trump voters big time around the country. Millions will soon lose their Medicaid, some veteran services, serious labor protections, and care for their children, to mention a few of his betrayals.
Trump voters need to keep reminding themselves, every time Trump shafts them, “We didn’t vote for this.” They knew he was a chronic liar, an abuser of women, a cheater and serial law violator, a promiser breaker from his first term, and a world-class BS-er. But they forgave this unstable personality because his speeches persuaded them that the Democrats had abandoned them. Well, now they have to face the grim realities and speak out collectively about what he is doing to them, his faithful supporters.
10. Then there is “US,” the citizenry. Are we too busy with our daily work and routines to carve out time to join this historic struggle to save our country? We have not seen the worst of what Trump is going to do, by any means. Take him at his word when he says repeatedly, “This is only the beginning.”
A dangerously unstable personality, Trump has expressed global fatalistic attitudes in past conversations. “Watch out and Step Up.” (Read my new book Civic Self-Respect to encourage you to join the 1% already active in the resistance.)
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Fascism: A Word That Matters Here and Now
We call Trump a fascist because with each passing day, it rings increasingly true.
Sep 06, 2025
Words matter in life generally and politics particularly. They are the medium of thought, the means of sensemaking, the vehicle of communication and persuasion. They shape us collectively and individually.
Words, political scientist Francis Beer writes, are “the defining framework for political authority” and “a primary means of motivating political actors.” Our physical and verbal worlds are interconnected and “inseparable,” thus “the political importance of language”: political rhetoric carries and constructs meaning that shapes conduct.
Verbal action “operates parallel to” nonverbal action in multiple ways, Beer notes, formulating and conveying perception, memory, history, story, myth, and message, differentiating friend from foe, articulating preferences, describing trends, developing plans, policies, and strategies, expressing feelings, structuring motives, and constructing identities, interests, and hierarchical relations. In these ways, words matter for citizens, not just political leaders.
Language is structured and structuring, settled and dynamic. It enables us to stabilize and communicate meaning but also to reflect thoughtfully on the key terms of our discourse, to describe, critique, destabilize, revise, and apply them productively as circumstances warrant. As linguistics professor Sally McConnell-Ginet illustrates in Words Matter: Meaning and Power (Cornell University Press, 2020), words are politically potent means of domination but also cooperation, of oppression but also resistance, because their significance can be unsettled and reassigned. Thus, we might come to see their application in new and unexpected ways.
The celebrated achievement of America’s “greatest generation” was their military victory over fascism in defense of democracy. Fascism was perceived as un-American, a threat from abroad, an alien and malevolent enemy of freedom and self-government.
The word "fascism" is a case in point. A label we are not accustomed to associating with American governance, it is increasingly featured in critiques of the Trump administration’s authoritarianism as a way of both describing and rallying resistance to Trump’s escalating overreach and oppression.
A conventional definition of fascism, drawn from the Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (10th edition), is “a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition”; the same entry defines fascism succinctly as “a tendency toward or actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control.” (A Fascista refers to “a member of an Italian political organization under Mussolini governing Italy 1922–1943 according to the principles of fascism.”)
Benito Mussolini is the embodiment of fascism in our collective memory along with Adolph Hitler, Germany’s more brutal Nazi Führer, and to a lesser extent the Japanese militarists allied with Germany and Italy in World War II. The celebrated achievement of America’s “greatest generation” was their military victory over fascism in defense of democracy. Fascism was perceived as un-American, a threat from abroad, an alien and malevolent enemy of freedom and self-government.
Yet the seeds of fascism sprouted in US soil during the years leading up to World War II. One notorious example of American Nazi proclivity occurred on February 20, 1939, when over 20,000 people attended a Madison Square Garden rally sponsored by the pro-Hitler German American Bund, one of several pro-Nazi organizations in the US. Film footage of the event was compiled in 2017 by documentarian Marshall Curry “as a cautionary tale to Americans.”
The Bund, as Sarah Kate Kramer recounted in 2019 on NPR’s “All Things Considered,” was “one of several organizations in the United States that were openly supportive of Adolf Hitler and the rise of fascism in Europe. They had parades, bookstores and summer camps for youth. Their vision for America was a cocktail of white supremacy, fascist ideology, and American patriotism.”
At the Madison Square Garden rally, swastikas were on full display complete with a 30-foot tall portrait of George Washington (modeling him as America’s first fascist), US and Nazi flags, Nazi arm bands and salutes, martial drummers and music, the American national anthem, a German-accented pledge of allegiance, and a “vigilante police force dressed in the style of Hitler’s SS troops.” Speakers called for a return of the country to the rule of true American white gentiles. Fritz Kuhn, the Bund’s leader, opened his speech with the call to “Wake up! You, Aryan, Nordic and Christians, to demand that our government be returned to the people who founded it!”
New Yorkers, numbering 100,000, protested the event; the US government took steps to suppress the Bund after the rally; and the Bund met its demise with Germany’s declaration of war on the US. Yet, as Kramer concludes, “the white supremacist ideology they championed remains.” Indeed, the 1939 Bund rally has been cited as precedent for the violent August, 2017 “Unite the Right” white-nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. The Nazi outburst in pre-war Depression years grew out of a history of American authoritarianism. The Bund rally in Madison Square Garden is one of the country’s own fascistic precedents.
Trump was President in 2017 when the Charlottesville rally occurred, a rally that turned violent and that the Virginia state police declared unlawful. It consisted of neo-fascists, neo-Nazis, white nationalists, Klansmen, and far-right militias. Some carried weapons, some chanted racist and antisemitic slogans, some carried Confederate battle flags. Violence occurred when the protesting marchers engaged counter protesters. A white supremacist drove his car into a group of counter protesters, killing one woman and injuring 35 other people. Trump condemned “the display of hatred, bigotry, and violence on many sides” and subsequently said there were “very fine people on both sides” and “blame on both sides,” suggesting an equivalency between the two sides for which he was roundly criticized. (See “Unite the Right Rally” on Wikipedia for a detailed account of the rally.)
There has been no hedging by Trump since he took office for a second term on January 20, 2025. He stated during his campaign that he intended to be a dictator on Day 1, an intention that has extended in quick order from Day 1 forward. An onslaught of executive power overwhelming Constitutional checks and balances and assaulting democratic principles was immediately recognized by critics as the work of an authoritarian and increasingly is seen as fascistic.
The difference between authoritarianism and fascism is largely a matter of degree. An authoritarian expects blind submission and a concentration of power unhampered by responsibility to a people who are allowed only restricted political freedoms. A fascist is an extreme right-wing authoritarian with totalitarian propensities, pursuing total control over the state while propagandizing a racist brand of nationalism and viciously suppressing dissent. Acting as a right-wing populist, the fascist demagogue claims to “represent” the people and actively mobilizes their sometimes-violent support.
As Robert Longley recently put the matter of fascism:
The foundation of fascism is a combination of ultranationalism—an extreme devotion to one’s nation over all others—along with a widely held belief among the people that the nation must and will be somehow saved or “reborn.” Rather than working for concrete solutions to economic, political, and social problems, fascist rulers divert the people’s focus while winning public support by elevating the idea of a need for a national rebirth into a virtual religion. To this end, fascists encourage the growth of cults of national unity and racial purity.
Further, Longley and others report, fascist (or neo-fascist) dictators typically extol militarism and promote military readiness, assert dominance over other countries, undertake aggressive military actions, engage in territorial conquest and expansion, suppress domestic opposition (with police and military force, propaganda, and/or mass violence), attack universities, advance state-controlled corporate capitalism with protectionist policies such as tariffs, aim for national self-sufficiency, portray themselves as defenders of traditional Christian family values, manipulate elections to remain in power, and cultivate a cult of personality in which the dictator symbolically embodies the nation.
By this account, Trump—followed by his MAGA cult—is no less than an aspirational neo-fascist pursuing policies that closely resemble fascism. Some experts have maintained that he is better described as an authoritarian; other experts, including Yale University historian Timothy Snyder, have fled to Canada in the belief that the US is becoming a fascist dictatorship. Serena Dash, writing for the Fordham Political Review, concluded that “after the first month of Trump’s second term, no doubt should remain of whether or not the ‘fascist’ label applies.” It does.
The fascistic trajectory of Trump’s rule is manifested in his actions since Day 1. Some glaring examples include military occupation of cities governed by elected Democrats; deployment of masked ICE agents by the massively funded Immigration Enforcement and Customs agency and its growing prison system; defying court orders; attacking universities to undermine academic freedom, dictate curriculum, and bar student protests; aggressive gerrymandering and other election maneuvering to retain power; repressing news media for unfavorable news coverage, editorials, and programing; targeting critics for federal prosecution; imposing his will on key industries in the private sector, including keeping track of which corporations are loyal to him and therefore candidates for tax and regulatory benefits and exclusion from federal lawsuits; enriching himself at the public’s expense; and so on.
Fascism is no longer a word relevant only to other countries and applicable to a threat from abroad. As Serena Dash observes:
The discourse around Donald Trump being a fascist is not just an academic exercise; it is essential for recognizing and addressing the potential dangers he poses to democratic institutions and social equality and knowing how to combat it. The utility of using a term like “fascism” is that it has successfully been thwarted and fought before.Words matter. And right now, the words we use to describe Trump’s rule matter greatly. There is a reason why growing numbers of commentators, activists, and political leaders are calling Trump a fascist—because with each passing day, it rings increasingly true. The remnant of the country’s founding aspirations of liberty and self-governance “seems now to be shrinking day by day,” writes political scientist Jeffrey Isaac. “Whether it will survive the next few years [of Trump’s repression] is an open question.”
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Voting Still Matters, But Only If We Fix It
A 20-step blueprint for rebuilding the foundation of US democracy.
Sep 06, 2025
Recent voices insist that federal elections are meaningless, corrupted beyond repair, and no longer worth defending. Their evidence is grim: More than $5.5 billion was spent in the 2024 presidential race while Wisconsin’s legislature stayed locked by gerrymander regardless of the statewide vote. A Senate where about 588,000 in Wyoming cancel out 39.4 million in California. An Electoral College that twice in 25 years handed the White House to the loser of the popular vote. Voting restrictions crafted to suppress minorities. Federal courts that see partisan gerrymandering and refuse to act.
On the facts, they are right. On the conclusion, they are dangerously wrong.
To say elections no longer matter is to surrender the battlefield. It is to tell millions that nothing they do will change anything. That is exactly the message authoritarians want Americans to believe. If people stop fighting for elections, those elections will not be stolen. They will be abandoned.
At the signing of the Voting Rights Act, President Lyndon B. Johnson declared, “The vote is the most powerful instrument ever devised by man for breaking down injustice.” Months earlier, on the road from Selma, Martin Luther King Jr. had proclaimed, “Voting is the foundation stone for political action.” One spoke from authority, the other from struggle. Yet they spoke of one shared truth. The vote is the cornerstone of freedom.
Our democracy is under strain. Its foundation unsettled, its cornerstone cracked by distortion and distrust. Yet it stands. It can be repaired.
What We Can Agree On
The failures often described are undeniable. Gerrymandered maps keep parties in power regardless of popular will. The Senate’s imbalance gives a permanent veto to sparsely populated states. The Electoral College warps presidential contests. Voting restrictions disenfranchise millions. Campaign finance turns federal races into billion-dollar spectacles. Even when majorities vote for change, legislatures rewrite the rules after the fact to strip power from those elected.
The result is predictable. Citizens see futility everywhere. Why vote if the outcome is predetermined? Why care if Congress’ approval rating was 15% in 2023, when 95% of incumbents still won reelection the following year? These questions cannot be ignored. They demand an answer that is better than surrender.
Where the Conclusion Goes Wrong
History shows what happens when people believe elections are meaningless. They disengage. And when they disengage, minority rule hardens into permanent rule. This is not theory. It is the story of every society where cynicism took the place of resistance.
Americans are not exempt. We too have often waited until crisis forced our hand. As Winston Churchill allegedly observed, you can count on Americans to do the right thing, but only after they have tried everything else. That is a weakness, but also a pattern. Delay does not mean defeat. In the end we have always found a way to repair what was broken.
Concerned citizens are right that federal elections have become distorted. They are wrong to say they cannot be repaired. Consider Poland. In 1989, Solidarity forced elections that dismantled one-party rule. In 2023, Polish voters once again removed an illiberal government at the ballot box. Chile’s 1988 plebiscite ended Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship. Serbia’s 2000 election, defended in the streets, forced Slobodan Milošević to step down. South Korea’s generals conceded to constitutional change in 1987, opening the door to real elections. These are not anomalies. They are proof that entrenched systems get broken when ballots are defended.
Lessons from Abroad
Other democracies once faced problems strikingly similar to our own. Britain, Canada, and Australia abolished partisan gerrymandering through independent commissions. Germany rebuilt its democracy with proportional representation and strict constitutional limits. France capped campaign spending to prevent billion-dollar elections. Most advanced democracies automatically register citizens to vote. Many hold elections on weekends or declare them national holidays to ensure participation. Dozens of countries restrict donations and enforce transparency that makes dark money impossible.
These reforms are not utopian dreams. They are daily realities elsewhere. They show that systemic flaws get corrected when citizens demand reform and refuse to accept a rigged game as permanent.
The Blueprint for Reform
Democracy cannot be rebuilt with slogans. It requires structure: foundations that carry weight, pillars that resist pressure, walls that shield citizens from abuse.
King warned against waiting for a more convenient season for change. “We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. This is no time for apathy or complacency. This is a time for vigorous and positive action.”
Now is the time to plan and to lay the foundation for that change. What follows are 20 pillars of reform. Each is a proven step in healthy democracies.
Pillar 1: Universal Voter Registration
Millions of eligible citizens are kept off the rolls by bureaucratic hurdles. Automatic registration would eliminate these barriers. Congress could update the National Voter Registration Act to require enrollment at age 18 using Department of Motor Vehicles, Social Security, and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) data, with strong privacy protections. Oregon and Colorado already run this system successfully. Registration should be a feature of citizenship, not an obstacle course.
Pillar 2: Preregistration at 16 and Civics Integration
Young voters often begin adulthood unregistered and disengaged. Preregistration ensures that turning 18 means being ready to vote. States can collect data at 16, activate it at 18, and pair the process with high school civics classes that teach how voting works in practice. Hawaii and Colorado already do this. A culture of participation starts in the classroom.
Pillar 3: National Voting Access Standards
Access to voting differs wildly by state. Some citizens enjoy weeks of early voting, others face closed polls and endless lines. A federal baseline would guarantee two weeks of early voting, secure drop boxes, no-excuse absentee ballots, and Election Day as a paid holiday. Congress has the constitutional authority to set these standards. Democracy should not depend on a ZIP code.
Pillar 4: Restoring the Voting Rights Act
The US Supreme Court’s 2013 Shelby County decision gutted preclearance and unleashed a wave of suppression laws. Without federal oversight, discrimination spreads unchecked. The John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act would restore preclearance and force states to prove their laws are not discriminatory before enactment. History shows this works. Thousands of bad laws were blocked under the old system. We need that protection again.
Pillar 5: Independent Redistricting Commissions
Gerrymandering allows politicians to choose their voters instead of the other way around. Independent commissions dismantle this scheme. States like Arizona, Michigan, and California already use commissions that draw fair maps with transparency and citizen input. Congress could require them nationwide for House districts. Abroad, countries like Canada treat neutral commissions as the democratic norm. We should too.
Pillar 6: Ranked-Choice Voting
Plurality elections reward division and spoilers. Ranked-choice voting (RCV) ensures winners have majority support. Voters rank candidates, and if no one wins outright, the lowest is eliminated and votes reallocated until someone secures a majority. Maine, Alaska, and dozens of cities already use it. RCV rewards broad appeal, reduces negative campaigning, and gives voters real choice.
Pillar 7: Proportional Representation
Winner-take-all districts exaggerate partisan dominance and silence millions. Proportional representation matches seats to actual votes. Congress could repeal the 1967 single-member district law and allow multi-member districts using proportional systems. Germany and New Zealand use hybrids that balance local representation with fairness. This reform opens space for independents and new voices while reducing polarization.
Pillar 8: Expanding the House of Representatives
The US House has been capped at 435 seats since 1910, while the population has more than tripled. Districts now average about 761,000 people, based on the 2020 Census. Expansion would reduce district size, bring representatives closer to constituents, and reduce Electoral College bias. Congress could adopt formulas like the cube-root rule, which would expand the House to 600-700 seats. In the last hundred years, Canada grew its House by over 50%. Germany by about 60%. Italy by nearly 20%. The US House has not moved at all.
Pillar 9: Small-Donor Public Financing
Money tilts politics toward the wealthy. Matching small donations with public funds shifts power back to citizens. A $50 gift could be matched 6 to 1, turning it into $350. New York City’s program has proven this model. Candidates who opt in agree to limits on large contributions. Public financing amplifies everyday voices and reduces dependence on billionaires and PACs.
Pillar 10: Dark-Money Transparency
Secret spending corrodes trust. Voters deserve to know who is paying for influence. Congress could require disclosure of major donors behind election ads, the IRS could tighten rules for nonprofits, and the Securities and Exchange Commission could require corporations to disclose political spending. California already maintains an online ad library. Sunlight is not optional. It is the minimum.
Pillar 11: A Constitutional Amendment on Money in Politics
Supreme Court rulings like Citizens United equated money with speech and gave corporations free rein to spend. Without an amendment, reforms remain vulnerable to judicial veto. An amendment authorizing “reasonable limits” would secure lasting change. Amendments are difficult but not impossible. The 26th, lowering the voting age, passed quickly once demand surged. A similar movement would reset the rules of political finance.
Pillar 12: Electoral College Reform
Twice in 25 years, the loser of the popular vote won the presidency. This undermines legitimacy. The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact offers a realistic fix. States pledge to award their electors to the national popular-vote winner once the compact reaches 270 votes. The compact total is 209 electoral votes as of April 2024 (NCSL). Once enacted, every vote counts equally, and no state is ignored.
Pillar 13: Statehood for Washington, DC, and Puerto Rico
More than 4 million citizens in DC and Puerto Rico live under federal law without full representation. They pay taxes, serve in the military, and yet remain second-class. Congress could fix this with admission bills. For Puerto Rico, a binding referendum would confirm the people’s choice. Statehood is not a partisan gift. It is a recognition of citizenship.
Pillar 14: Senate Filibuster Reform
The filibuster allows 41 senators representing as little as 11% of the population to block laws supported by majorities. This is minority rule hiding behind procedure. At the start of a new Congress, the Senate could change its rules by simple majority. Carve outs for democracy and civil-rights laws, or a return to the “talking filibuster,” would restore accountability. Without reform, every other measure in this blueprint remains hostage.
Pillar 15: Restoring Voting Rights for Citizens with Felony Convictions
Roughly 4 million Americans could not vote due to felony convictions in 2024, disproportionately African Americans. This is the direct legacy of post-Reconstruction suppression. Congress could restore rights for federal elections upon release from prison, with states following suit. Maine and Vermont already allow incarcerated citizens to vote without disruption. Reenfranchisement strengthens reintegration and affirms that citizenship is not permanently stripped.
As King declared during the Selma march, “So long as I do not firmly and irrevocably possess the right to vote I do not possess myself. I cannot make up my mind, it is made up for me.”
Pillar 16: Professional, Nonpartisan Election Administration
Partisan control of elections erodes trust and invites abuse. States should establish independent boards with balanced membership and fixed terms. Congress could tie federal funds to adoption. Protecting election workers is equally critical, with legal penalties for harassment and security resources for threatened staff. Canada and India already run nonpartisan election commissions that command trust across divides. Administration must be neutral, or democracy will never be trusted.
Pillar 17: Paper Ballots and Risk-Limiting Audits
In an age of hacking and conspiracy, trust depends on evidence. Paper ballots provide a physical record that gets checked. Risk-limiting audits verify results before certification. Colorado already runs statewide audits successfully. Congress could require paper ballots nationwide and tie funds to compliance. This is not bureaucracy. It is proof. Without it, lies about stolen elections thrive.
Pillar 18: Anti-Subversion and Certification Safeguards
When local officials refuse to certify results, democracy hangs by a thread. The 2022 reform of the Electoral Count Reform Act helped at the federal level, but state rules remain vulnerable. States should set binding timelines, automatic court enforcement, and criminal penalties for willful refusal. Certification is a ministerial duty, not a political choice. This pillar locks the foundation against sabotage.
Pillar 19: Supreme Court and Ethics Reform
The court cannot remain above the law. Without binding ethics rules, recusal standards, and disclosure requirements, legitimacy collapses. Congress could pass a code of ethics and set staggered 18-year terms for justices. Expanding lower courts will reduce manipulation by partisan litigants. Other democracies enforce judicial standards. The United States must do no less. The court should protect democracy, not place it at risk.
Pillar 20: Strengthening Local News and Voter Information
Citizens need information. Yet local news is collapsing, leaving hundreds of counties in news deserts where disinformation thrives. States could fund independent civic-information consortia. Congress could provide tax credits for subscriptions and newsroom hiring. Nonprofits and libraries could publish voter guides. Switzerland and New Jersey already invest in public-interest media. Without informed citizens, no electoral system will function.
Critics’ Corner: Answering the Naysayers
And yes, there are alternative solutions. Every serious reform agenda will meet resistance. Some critics attack from cynicism, others from realism, and some from outright bad faith. Growth, discourse, and compromise are hallmarks of a strong democracy.
Bring them into the open and address them directly. Put them on the record and meet them with evidence.
“These are liberal fantasies.”
No. These reforms are not partisan dreams. They are basic democratic standards already working in red, purple, and blue states. Maine and Alaska use ranked-choice voting. Florida voters overwhelmingly approved rights restoration for people with felony convictions. Arizona voters created an independent redistricting commission. If these reforms were only “liberal,” they would never have passed in conservative states. They are about fairness, not ideology.
“You can’t reform until you’re in power, and you can’t get into power without reform.”
Yes, this is the chicken-and-egg problem. The answer is incremental and state-based change. Marriage equality, marijuana legalization, Medicaid expansion: Each began in a handful of states and spread until the national system had to adapt. Reform builds in layers, not in one stroke.
“We tried this before and it failed.”
It is true that campaign finance reform was gutted and the Voting Rights Act was weakened. But that is not proof that reform is futile. It is proof that stronger safeguards are needed. Failure is not a reason to give up. It is a reason to come back with better armor.
“The courts will strike it down anyway.”
Courts block progress, but courts are not immune to public legitimacy. When movements gain strength, courts bend rather than risk collapse. That is why judicial reform itself belongs in the blueprint: term limits, ethics codes, and lower-court expansion.
“America is unique. You can’t import foreign models.”
Yes, America is unique. But uniqueness is no excuse for dysfunction. Every advanced democracy has figured out how to prevent minority rule, gerrymandering, and billion-dollar elections. Ours will too.
“The people in power will never vote away their own power.”
They often do, when public pressure leaves them no choice. Incumbents in Maine fought ranked-choice voting, and they lost. Florida politicians resisted rights restoration, but 65% of voters demanded it. History is clear: Power yields when people force it to.
“Voters don’t care about this.”
Reform is not separate from people’s daily concerns. Gerrymandered legislatures block policies that majorities support, from wages to healthcare to climate action. Electoral reform is not abstract. It is the condition for getting anything else done.
“Too complicated. Ordinary people will never support it.”
The technical details are complex, but the principles are simple. Majority rule. One person, one vote. Transparency. Fairness. Citizens voted for ranked-choice ballots, independent commissions, and rights restoration because they understood the basic value, not because they mastered the math.
“This is too radical. It will never all pass.”
True. Not all at once. But reforms are cumulative. The civil rights movement did not win everything in a single bill. It won through steady pressure and incremental victories that reshaped the landscape. A blueprint is not a one-day project. It is a guide for decades.
“Polarization will remain even if reforms pass.”
Polarization is real, but bad rules intensify it. Gerrymandered districts reward extremism. Winner-take-all systems punish compromise. Fair rules do not erase division, but they blunt its sharpest edges.
“Liberals only want reform when they lose.”
False. Independent commissions, voting rights expansions, and redistricting reforms have passed with bipartisan coalitions and often in conservative states. The test is simple: If a party or movement opposes fair elections, it is admitting it cannot win in a fair fight.
“It is already too late.”
Authoritarians want nothing more than for you to believe that. History says otherwise. Franco ruled Spain for nearly four decades before democracy returned. South Korea’s generals held power for decades until protest cracked their hold. It is never too late unless people surrender.
The critics are not wrong about the difficulty. Reform will be hard. Entrenched interests will resist. Courts may obstruct. Cynicism will whisper that it is all impossible. But every democracy that has clawed its way back from authoritarian drift faced the same voices of defeat. And these are different, deadly, critical times that try men’s souls. And the prescription may need to be sweeping and comprehensive and great and radical.
The Real Choice
The design flaws are serious. In other countries similar strain has brought unrest and uncertainty. Here it calls for reinforcement, not retreat. The danger is not that elections no longer matter. The danger is believing they cannot. Despair cedes the field to those who want democracy to die quietly. History proves that elections topple dictatorships and open paths to reform. But only when people defend them and demand change.
Local elections matter, yes. They are vital. But abandoning federal reform is not an option. The presidency, the Senate, the House, and the Supreme Court shape the lives of every citizen. If we concede those arenas as theater, we concede the nation itself.
The Path Forward
The truth is stark. American democracy is rigged, tilted toward minority rule, and riddled with flaws that delegitimize outcomes. But stark is not hopeless. Other nations have faced crises as severe and rebuilt their democracies from the ground up. So will we.
The fight ahead is not about abandoning federal elections but transforming them. Automatic registration. Independent redistricting. Campaign finance reform. Proportional representation. Expanded access. Professional administration. Ethical courts. Informed citizens. These are not slogans. They are the pillars of a rebuilt democracy.
As Martin Luther King Jr. wrote in “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” “We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people.” Silence is not an option. Nor is delay. King called it “the fierce urgency of now.” He reminded us that “this is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy.”
That is the choice in front of us. To retreat into despair and let cynicism rot the foundation, or to rise and defend the ballot as the most powerful instrument of justice ever devised.
The question is no longer whether change is possible. The question is whether we will summon the will to fight for it. Whether we will defend the ballot or surrender it. Whether we will prove that democracy can be realized in this generation by acting, organizing, legislating, and refusing to give up.
Voting still matters. But only if we make it matter.
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