democratic communities
The first time we spoke, Ms. Gluesenkamp Perez brought up a term from motorcycling. Democrats, she said, had grown so obsessed with the threat of fascism that for them, it had become an “obstacle fixation” — an intense focus that causes you to end up running right into the thing you’re afraid of hitting. “You do not save democracy by running... See more
nytimes.com
The US Is a Civic Desert. To Survive, the Democratic Party Needs to Transform Itself.
Pete Davisthenation.com
It was not the lack of democracy that threatened society but the overproduction of direct democracy via the internet that threatened old institutions.
Andrey Mir • The Digital Reversal. Thread-saga of Media Evolution
... See moreRather than trying to restore an elusive consensus, I propose that we strengthen institutions of contestation. Our problem, in other words, is not that we have forgotten how much Americans have in common, but that we have undermined or abandoned structures and organizations that express and embody disagreement. Political parties, labor unions, and
But Lincoln also drew a clear distinction between the unjust real world and the ideal, between the descriptive and the prescriptive. He explained that, while the writers of the Declaration of Independence were not in a position to bestow equality on all people (“they could not confer such a boon”), the founders nevertheless defined “with tolerable
... See moreLaura K. Field • Furious Minds: The Making of the MAGA New Right
the importance of horizontal, rather than vertical structures; the need for initiatives to rise up from relatively small, self-organized, autonomous groups rather than being conveyed downwards through chains of command; the rejection of permanent, named leadership structures
Article
Anne Applebaum’s Twilight of Democracy is another deeply instructive study of the illiberal drift of so many democracies across the globe.3 However, like so many others, Applebaum’s view proceeds from a default assumption that democracy is a discrete system. But that assumption prevents us from understanding democracy as a constantly evolving
... See moreZac Gershberg • The Paradox of Democracy
democracies are defined by their cultures of communication. If a democracy consists of citizens deciding, collectively, what ought to be done, then the manner through which they persuade one another determines nearly everything else that follows. And that privileges media ecology as the master political science.