This is why
we fight
There is a war raging from the hallways of our capital to the alleyways of Tehran, fought by student protesters in Hong Kong and reclusive billionaires in Texas. Sometimes it simmers — almost imperceptively — a background murmur of hatred and misinformation as innocuous as the evening news. At others, it erupts in spasms of violence - the mass internment of Muslims in China, the rape and slaughter of Ukrainians — but always it proceeds as the answer to a single question — will the future be controlled by the many, or the few?
Will democracy survive?
Modern liberal democracy has existed less than 250 years and its long-term survival remains in question. Globalization and social media have collided in a wave of right-wave nationalism, while new technology raises the specter of mass-surveillance at scale. We face the real possibility that authoritarian regimes will become — with the aid of AI and other technology — too entrenched to ever be dislodged. At best this would consign a large portion of humanity to oppression under autocracies and doom large scale global coordination to a gruding, nuclear-armed détente. At worst the existing democratic order will be eroded and eventually succumb to a authoritarian future.
America Wavers
Long the linchpin of the democratic order, the United States has fallen under the thrall of a would-be authoritarian. Donald Trump has all the hallmarks of a demagogue: a political outsider raging against elites, seeking to delegitimize the existing system, continually violating political norms until each new outrage provokes no more than a shrug.
As the Republican party aligns itself with authoritarian figures — inviting Viktor Orbán to CPAC, blocking aid to Ukraine (a country Trump was impeached for extorting) — we are left in an increasingly precarious position in which one of America’s main two political parties is no longer committed to democracy.
The Remedy
Trumpism must be defeated, as resoundingly as possible. There are no shortcuts or quick fixes outside the political process. The fever dream that has engulfed the Republican party can only be broken by sustained electoral defeat, and that will only happen with equally sustained mobilization, organization and activism.
The stakes of the 2024 election are clear - the only question is
How will you respond?
Learn more about how we work and join the fight to save democracy.