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Scores of dissidents from around the world, a Tony-winning Broadway actor, a TikTok superstar, a retired three-star general, a Hollywood executive, a Republican national security adviser, and two Democratic senators walk into a DC hotel.
This isn’t the setup to a bad joke. It’s the premise of the Renew Democracy Initiative’s Frontlines of Freedom Conference (FOFCON).
People flew into Washington, DC from as far as Europe and California for just three days to be a part of this event.
Why?
The answer is that many people are worried about the future of democracy, but they want to fight as part of a community. They love freedom, liberty, and the flourishing that comes with it, yet, as Garry told his fellow dissidents on Monday, “there are powerful incentives to stay quiet.”
We don’t begrudge anyone their concern, or even fear. Speaking up carries real consequences in many countries. The US was once a model for those who couldn’t speak freely in their home countries. Uriel’s mom would often recall how she left the USSR and ultimately came to America so that she could speak without having to look over her shoulder.
A few years ago, people started looking over their shoulders. First, it was for fear of social consequences—”cancellation.” In the last year, the threats to free speech have increasingly come directly from the US government.
Senator Mark Kelly—one of a growing number of Americans made the target of political retaliation—brought this point into sharp relief on the last day of the conference:
I want to make sure that no one in this country perceives that I am backing off one inch. Because if I do that, if they perceive that—they will know that if Trump can go after a senator, he can go after them next.
No one fights alone at RDI. We are building a coalition to fight for the universal values of freedom, liberty, and democracy, a team that cuts across every segment of society—even including people you wouldn’t traditionally find at a conference in the heart of the swamp.
There is strength in numbers and in unity of purpose.
That’s why, just this week, CNN’s Erin Burnett [ [link removed] ] called the Frontlines of Freedom Conference “the biggest gathering of the top political dissidents in the world.”
The battle between the forces of freedom and tyranny might make sense to Americans in the abstract. Yet bringing it home and really rousing people to action can be difficult.
Accordingly, the Frontlines of Freedom Conference places an emphasis on dissident voices. And this year, we focused on sharpening the stories of the people who have persevered under the world’s harshest dictatorships.
It’s one thing to hear yet another American talking head opine about this country’s political malaise, but, as Garry put it at the start of Tuesday’s session: “being shoved into the back of a Russian police van gives you a different perspective on freedom.”
Of course, even the most compelling story will not move the needle without an audience. But our stories are going viral. Major influencers joined us in DC. More than half a million people [ [link removed] ] have already seen FOFCON on social media, and our conference was covered on CNN and C-SPAN [ [link removed] ].
In the new year, we’ll be sharing more stories. Making our big tent even bigger.
We invite you to join us.
Bring a dissident to your campus, community, boardroom, or newsroom. RDI’s Frontline Fellows have already reached thousands, and we’ve placed them in dissident-in-residence positions at universities like Johns Hopkins, Georgetown, and Dartmouth.
If you know someone whose voice belongs on this platform, let’s connect. If they don’t resemble a conventional politico, all the better—they’re not unwelcome, just unexpected. If they come from a place most Americans rarely think about, that’s exactly why their story matters.
Freedom is the greatest generator of human prosperity the world has ever known. FOFCON was exhilarating, even inspiring—but let’s be honest: it’d be nice if we could just relax and enjoy the prosperity freedom has given us.
But freedom isn’t self-maintaining. It’s a muscle. Stop using it, and it weakens. Use it—especially when it’s hard—and it strengthens.
At the conference’s final session on Wednesday, Senator Peter Welch captured the moment perfectly. We couldn’t think of a better way to capture RDI’s call to action:
We don’t pick the times we’re in. We decide how to be in those times. We decide whether we’re going to stand up for our values because we believe in them.
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