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This is the first in a four-part series on liberal democracy, its current challenges and why we should proceed in a spirit of hope—not fear or pessimism.
The current political era seems to be one of continual crisis and fear. Not only do we live in a highly polarized country, with red and blue on opposite sides of a war, but it appears that each side believes we are at a crucial moment in our history. If their side does not win, they maintain, the American republic will falter and fail in a fundamental, possibly irreversible way. If the other side wins, the U.S. will change in ways that go against its most basic ideals.
Not surprisingly, the overwhelming public response to this possibility from those plugged into the political world is one of anguish and pessimism. I suppose that is to be expected: Certainly, the idea that the American system is standing on the precipice of collapse if we don’t vote the right way is a sobering thought.
To be sure, pessimists’ concerns seem very real. The vast majority of Americans worry [ [link removed] ] about the state of democracy in this country, and that crisis of confidence is obviously a major problem as we contemplate our future. The last few weeks of political upheaval—which saw an attempt on the life of one presidential candidate and the exit of another from the race—aren’t likely to assuage Americans’ concerns about the future of American democracy.
I wonder, however, if we are in danger of too easily giving in to despair. Indeed, I think that is a very real problem itself. As Daniel Rothschild recently wrote [ [link removed] ] at Discourse:
Widespread and systemic pessimism about our past, present and future strike at the core of who we are. A fatalistic America will cease to be, in any meaningful sense, the America we and our ancestors have known, up to this point. Pessimism creates vicious cycles; pessimistic communities have less social capital and lower levels of trust, pessimistic voters demand more from governments and are more attracted to demagogues, pessimistic people see the world as zero-sum.
I wholeheartedly agree. America at its best is optimistic, essentially so. And pessimism breeds more than just caution: It feeds on itself, playing into the darker angels of our nature, to speak Abraham Lincoln’s unstated fear [ [link removed] ].
I honestly believe that our republic is far healthier than many would have us believe. The U.S. has endured through serious crises before (in fact, more serious ones—the Civil War, for sure). We have come through before, and we have the resources—physical, intellectual and spiritual—to get through these times. I am, to put it succinctly, a cautious optimist about what is happening in America.
Optimism Is Imperative
In November 2016, in the immediate wake of Donald Trump’s presidential election, Talking Points Memo’s Josh Marshall wrote [ [link removed] ] that in the face of demoralizing times, it is imperative to be an optimist. Those looking to retreat from political involvement following Trump’s victory were taking the wrong lesson from the outcome—and a dangerous one. It’s easy to be optimistic when conditions are to our liking, but it’s when things aren’t as we like that optimism becomes necessary. “Optimism isn’t principally an analysis of present reality. It’s an ethic. It is not based on denial or rosy thinking. It is a moral posture toward the world we find ourselves in,” he wrote. “If everything seems great, there’s no need for optimism. The river of good news just carries you along.”
Marshall makes an important point here: Optimism (and, by implication, pessimism) is not merely a state of mind that reflects the conditions around us. We are not just reflections of the state of the world we see around us. We can foster a sense of optimism (or pessimism) about what is going on around us and—this is crucial—how we respond to those conditions.
Human beings, I believe, have agency—more than we sometimes think we do. We’re not solely buffeted by events; we are the authors of our fate. There are certain problems that may be beyond our control—if a quasar burst hits us, there’s really nothing we can do. But so many of our problems relate to policy, and how we respond to these conundrums—how we tax ourselves, for example, or how we regulate industry—is all within our power.
Even more challenging structural decisions—gerrymandering, whether the Electoral College is a good method of selecting the president, how we interpret the powers of Congress—are still fully within our control as human beings. We may think they are intractable because of divisions without our society—and to be sure, Americans often disagree about these things. But there is no law of nature that says we can’t change any of them. Politics may be subject to certain physical conditions such as the finite nature of resources, but it is a thing of our making. But even with these limitations, human ingenuity can shape how we respond to challenges. And therefore, we have the power to bring about a better, more just and prosperous United States, despite what we might believe about current conditions.
An Appreciation of Liberal Democracy
To get a sense of how to think like an optimist about America, the first step is to get a better appreciation of what it means to live in a liberal democracy. Many have lost faith in liberal democracy. This lack of faith has occurred both among intellectuals and with many common voters. The most prevalent writing against liberal democracy has come from the political right—Patrick Deneen’s “Regime Change [ [link removed] ],” Yoram Hazony’s “Conservatism: A Rediscovery [ [link removed] ]” and the subversively popular “Bronze Age Mindset [ [link removed] ]” all are sustained attacks on the liberal ideal. And, there has been, for decades, a disturbing robust attack on democracy from the far left. Right now, on both the left and the right, liberal democracy is under siege. Yet I believe it is our greatest resource and the pride of the nation.
Thomas Jefferson famously said that “the tree of liberty [ [link removed] ] must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” While this doesn’t exactly paint a pretty picture, it serves an important reminder that nothing lasts forever without a kind of replenishment. Similarly, the tree of democracy must be tended to as well. Periodically, a crisis can be a call to remind a citizen of his or her duties. To protect that democracy by, if not killing tyrants, at least warding off those that threaten democracy. It is this act of defending democracy that keeps democracy alive. From the Civil War to 9/11, we have been reminded that our democracy is not perfect and is not immune to serious threats.
Liberal democracy’s conception of participation and the role of the citizen is a particularly fascinating thing. Consider the view of the citizen in two alternative systems to liberal democracy. In more authoritarian systems, the role of the citizen is largely passive. Though ritualistic and public performances may be expected of them, they are not expected to have input into how policy is made or influence what leaders do. Nazis liked having large crowds at public events, but this was certainly not for the purposes of debate and discussion of what the government should do.
On the other end of the spectrum, forms of direct democracy expect citizens to be very politically active. There are often many committees to fill that create all sorts of policy. There are often large forums of public activity where lively debate takes place and some form of voting by the public formulates state policy. This is the world that was celebrated in ancient Athens and other city-states.
Liberal democracy represents a middle ground between these two extremes. Citizens are supposed to be important participants in political decision-making, but that participation is not required (or at least not too required). Although some liberal democracies—Australia and Brazil, to name two—require people to vote, most do not demand voting or penalize nonparticipation in the electoral process. That participation can be sporadic for a great many people, and citizens have some say over policy, at least via representatives.
However, much of citizens’ lives are devoted to nonpolitical things. Liberal democracy does not presume, as Aristotle did, that man is a political animal. Indeed, liberal democracy is predicated on freeing citizens from the burden of politics much of the time. But it does require of its citizens a level of commitment, and it fosters a sense that one is still expected to be political at points in one’s life. We are free of politics, most of the time. But we need to recognize even that freedom from politics might, in some generations, call for a reengagement with the political world. There is a sense, then, that FDR was right to say that some generations have a rendezvous with destiny.
The Problem of Passivity—and Reasons To Hope
Still, liberal democracies do create a problem. They can lead to passive citizens. At best, many citizens’ devotion to the country may atrophy. At worst, a citizen may feel alienated, even disenfranchised in practice, if not in theory. But if democracy is to survive, that belief that citizenship is still a role—an office, if you will—must always be present in the citizen. Or, since passivity is now upon us in a big way, that civic spirit must be reawakened.
There are sources of hope we can look to. Look at voter turnout. Donald Trump’s election to the presidency was a crisis situation to many, but rather than disengaging with politics, people went to the polls. In 2016, 59% of the voting-eligible population (VEP) cast a ballot. This was roughly commensurate with the previous three elections. But in the next presidential election year, 2020, 67% of the VEP voted. In the 2014 midterm elections, less than 37% of the VEP voted. But in 2018 and 2022, the numbers were 50% and 46%, respectively. Before 2018, the last time more than half of the VEP voted in a midterm was 1912. The last time midterm turnout even got close to 50% was in the 1960s.
I would be far more concerned about the state of America’s liberal democracy if participation were declining or stagnating. However, the very thing we want to happen is happening—people are engaging in politics. While many who hate and disapprove of Trump would like a legal solution—Trump being removed from politics via one or more of the four legal cases against him—this is not the way to get to a post-Trump period. The only long-term solution is via the ballot box. The health of a democracy must be built on the collective judgment of the citizenry.
Whereas liberal democracies encourage public engagement, authoritarian states want to induce passivity among people. Authoritarians want to break citizens’ spirits and wear them down. They want to inculcate people with the message that the ultimate victory of authoritarianism is inevitable, convincing them that action against the state is futile and they should not take any action against it. One Chilean who lived under years of Augusto Pinochet’s repressive rule put it [ [link removed] ] eloquently: “Dictatorships put people to sleep.”
But history is always about a sense of possibility. As the Atlantic’s Tom Nichols says, in the face of situations that sap our will to stay politically engaged, we must “resolve to speak clearly [ [link removed] ] and plainly in defense of our system of government and our democratic culture.” No matter how frustrated we may get about the state of our politics, in a liberal democracy, we always have the ability to change things.
Of course, not everyone agrees with me. Many on the political right have cast doubt that our system is fair at all. Despite a conspicuous lack of evidence, Trump and his many followers believe that the presidency was stolen from him in 2020. On the far left, some believe that liberal politics itself is fundamentally flawed—that our institutions are simply a reflection of an embedded capitalist, racist, misogynistic elite that has never truly believed in democracy. (There really is something to the horseshoe theory of politics—those on the far right and far left have more in common than we might initially think.) For both these groups, the sentiment is the same: Instead of continuing to play the political game, they’d rather take their ball and go home.
But instead of viewing Trump as inevitable or democracy as losing, we must view it as a time to fight—a time to defend our institutions and our liberal culture. Although aspects of modern politics may be highly dysfunctional, the basic beliefs and values of liberal, republican democracy are still vibrant, worthy of saving and a resource for how to make the world work better.
While there may be some threats from the outside (for example, some social media disinformation is tied to Russian and, lately, Chinese influence), most of these challenges to liberal democracy come from within. And that’s good news: All we have to do is simply vote, hold leaders accountable and exercise our freedoms. Our efforts need not be heroic; rather, we are called just to engage politically in ordinary ways.
Yale historian Timothy Snyder tweeted [ [link removed] ] recently, “A defeat of fascism is not a negation. It is an affirmation: of a future that can be more beautiful, more just, and more free.” While people may disagree on whether to define Donald Trump as a “fascist” threat to America, Snyder’s point can similarly apply to the way we think about any sort of threat to America’s liberal democracy. We should focus less on the negative connotations of defeating something and more on the positive victory the affirmation of our democracy will be. If we think of the fight for our future truly as a fight, then optimism is an important weapon in our arsenals—and we must think of ourselves as happy warriors.

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