In The Princess Bride, Vizzini, the quasi-wise but doomed Sicilian repeats “Inconceivable!” After several utterances, Inigo Montoya muses, “You keep using that word. I do not think that word means what you think it means.”
I’m starting to feel the same way about another word: Democracy.
Brittanica.com defines it as: Democracy is a system of government in which power resides with the people, who exercise that power directly or through elected representatives. The term originates from the Greek words dēmos (people) and kratos (rule), literally meaning "rule by the people."
But who are “the people?”
Are they citizens? Residents? Electors?
For whom do “the people” vote?
Are we discussing ‘direct democracy’ in which voters decide on issues of policy, such as in the Athens of antiquity?
Or do we mean a ‘representative democracy’ in which voters elect their fellow citizens to represent their interests in a local, state, or national political body as we do here in the United States.
That opens another door. Is America a democracy or a republic? Some would say the former, many conservative ideologues claim the latter. Still others say we’re a ‘democratic republic.’ Each of these labels could be applied, and for some the semantics matter.
Per the Network of Concerned Historians the following components are essential to a functioning democratic system:
The separation and balance of power
Independence of the Judiciary
A pluralist system of political parties and organizations
The rule of law
Accountability and transparency
Freedom of the media
Respect for political rights
Against our initial definition, and the above list, what does democracy mean in America circa 2025?
Last fall, when traveling the country on behalf of
we wore t-shirts emblazoned with “Democracy Defender” across the front. The reaction of the people at the door told us how they’d vote.If they saw our shirts and yelled at us, they were Donald Trump supporters. If they were friendly, they were either voting for Harris, undecided, or not interested in voting, no matter what.
Regardless of my anecdotal evidence, “democracy” as a message didn’t work in 2024.
Why? We were so convinced our fellow citizens would recognize and understand the threat posed by Trump and march to the polls to protect The Republic (there’s that word again.)
The Status Quo
A few weeks ago, I participated in a community Q+A with my friend, legendary Democratic strategist
. He made the most compelling case for why the ‘d word’ didn’t work last year:For too many Americans, ‘democracy’ has come to equal the status quo. Whatever they may think about Trump, they country is in a decidedly anti-establishment, anti-status quo mood.
Given that voter turnout dropped from 66.6% in 2020 to 63.9% in 2024, there were enough voters who didn’t believe the system works, or their vote didn’t matter to take a pass. The inability of pro-democracy candidates and advocates to convince these voters, and yes, it is on us, has consigned us to as an uncertain a future as we’ve seen since 1860.
There were enough Democratic voters to help Kamala Harris and the Democrats win. The American left, always fractious, is now fractured. Whether it is the continuing argument between ‘progressives’ and ‘moderates,’ the open wound that is Gaza, or too many people with narrow-bore interests, the ‘opposition’ party is not in much of a position to oppose anything.
What Happens When You Lose?
In 2020, Donald Trump and his supporters refused to believe he’d lost to Joe Biden. They were so adamant about this (despite ZERO evidence) that the Republican Party, as an institution, was willing to undertake a coup attempt. A key part of democracy means willing to accept when you’ve lost. We only have one party that remains committed to that idea.
But what about Democratic voters? If Donald Trump could win, does that mean democracy worked? Yes, people went to the polls, their votes were tallied, and the election was certified, but did the process work? Can you believe in democracy if the result it gave us was…him?
Out of the Cities and Into the Country
Mondale Robinson runs the Black Male Voter Project and is mayor of Enfield, North Carolina. Around this time last year (before President Joe Biden dropped out) he told me the president was in trouble, as was the Democratic Party.
I asked him about messaging and he stopped me cold:
“Don’t come to me with your democracy, because we’ve never seen it. Don’t come to me with your boogeymen, because that’s all we’ve ever known.”
Until the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Jim Crow ruled the southern elections. You could call the states of the old confederacy many things, but democratic wasn’t one of them. In recent years, the battle flag and the spirit of Lost Cause have been run back up the flag pole. The Supreme Court has gutted the VRA in the last decade.
Now, southern legislatures are making it more difficult to participate and it is entirely likely that many of the federal grants that states rely for election operations will be zeroed-out by the Republican Congress and the White House.
Is this democracy?
What Does It Mean to be “Pro-Democracy?”
There are myriad groups and dozens of outlets (many here on Substack) that carry the pro-democracy banner. But what does that mean? For some it may mean taking to the streets to express their anger at the Trump Administration’s stomping on norms. For others, it means daily videos or posts (like this one) that serve as fire hoses of outrage and collectors of clicks. For some intrepid lawyers, it means filing a flurry of lawsuits trying to stop [insert your example of illegality, inhumanity, flagrant corruption or incompetent governance here.]
What are we for, though? This is the question that plagues the pro-democracy movement. If 2024 taught us anything, it’s that simply being ‘anti-Trump’ wasn’t enough. Being for ‘the rule of law’ is important, but not compelling.
There are too many people I suspect who believe in the Carville Doctrine: Let Trump wreck the country and the people will come back to us. What are they coming back to? What’s on offer now that wasn’t before?
Author’s Note: If you say “abundance” you’re banned from The Home Front.
As
Quartz wrote in a recent piece:“Listening to voters is easy. Monetizing political grief is even easier. But building trust again? Reimagining systems of power? That’s slow work. Humbling work. The kind that doesn’t get you a media company or a Substack bonus.”
The work of democracy isn’t more podcasts or the moment-by-moment recitation of how the world is ending. The world as we knew it is over. Gone. Kaput. Eighty years of understanding, economic stability and world hegemony are all waiting for the history books.
What we must do is look to tomorrow. Not literally tomorrow. The tomorrow where our kids are adults. We’re counting Trump’s presidency day-by-day when we should be projecting where we’ll be when (if) he leaves office and the wreckage we’ll sift through to rebuild the world, not as we knew it, but as it could be and should be.
This isn’t about 2026 or 2028. It’s not about strategy, messaging, or the next unbelievable moment. Democracy means making your case to the voters, all the voters, and asking them to give your vision a chance. That’s it. Without beliefs, without ideas, without that willingness to look over the horizon, we’ll sink deeper into the sinkhole so many of us helped dig.
News and Notes:
Please check out my conversation with
from last week.
I think the key thing that Trump and Trump voters don't get is decentralization of power. Democracy "worked" in that we had an election, which, although there was as always serious voter suppression, was marginally fair.
What doesn't correspond to democracy is Trump and the GOP attacking other pluralistic elements of our democracy like the press, universities, etc. Not to mention of course their direct attacks on democratic institutions like the judicial branch and their failure to follow the Constitution in myriad ways.
Maybe there is at least a sliver of voters who tend to lean right who would have a traditional view which opposes the centralization of authority that Trump is attempting to realize?
As for the Democrats, I think they need to reimagine government and begin to talk to voters in a way that doesn't single out the various marginalized groups, but rather focuses on shared interests and empowering ordinary people rather than furthering the interests of elites. Bernie and AOC have the right message, but I'm not sure they are the right people to push it forward. Bernie is not and has never been.
For example, we constantly ignore young men, and specifically young white men, despite the fact that there is a lot of data that suggests that group is struggling. I guess that we do this because that has traditionally been the advantaged group. But there are and have always been plenty of young white men struggling with low education levels and few opportunities.
We push some of those groups away, and they don't believe Democrats will help them, and then they think that at least Trump and the Republicans will restore them to some mostly imaginary position in an ethnic/racial hierarchy.
At least that's the way I've come to look at it. Probably I'm missing many things.
The status quo. I was unsure why folks viewed the Harris campaign as "status quo". I didn't see it that way. Or hear it that way. But others obviously did. First, I and we need to listen more carefully to other people's views. Then, coming up with a vision that doesn't sound status quo and asking people to give it a chance is a dauting task. I will say this about the horizon. It is where earth and sky meet and just beyond it is another horizon. So, for me, the journey continues to a future where I and hope we see all people worthy of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Is this too status quo? Or is this a vision we can make into a reality? Let's try. Thanks, Reed and take care.