Preview of my members-only newsletter

Voting is simultaneously the most solitary act of civic participation and the most communal. Casting a ballot is both a solemn mark of citizenship and among the most joyous. While we insist that our ballot be cast in secret, we proudly proclaim that we have voted. In a healthy democracy, voting occupies a mystical, almost religious, place in a nation’s culture and identity.

Alas, the United States is not a healthy democracy. Our electoral system has been under constant attack for the last four years and remains so today. The assault on free and fair elections have not come from an outside power but from one of the country’s two major political parties.

You're reading my monthly State of Democracy newsletter, where I share my thoughts and insights on the trends and stories that will impact the election. I always include analysis that you won't find anywhere else!

The events of the 2020 election, its aftermath and the violent insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, are well known. What is less clear, less comprehensible, is why — in the wake of that violence — the Republican Party transformed itself into a subservient political movement willing to compromise its every principle in service of a failed one term president’s bruised ego.

Donald Trump’s insistence on lying about the election and his defeat makes him a deranged sore loser. The Republican Party’s efforts to put him back into power marks it as an institution worthy of our contempt.

Over the last four years, many of us have done our best to fight for democracy. Some have worked to strengthen civil society, others have exposed Trumpism for its dangerous malignancy. Many of them — like the witnesses before the Jan. 6 committee did so at great personal cost. Others, like former Congresswoman Liz Cheney, gave up promising political careers to serve a higher cause.

For my part, I have spent the last four years…

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