“One of the most subtle yet profound shifts we see in our work…is the growing sense that democracy is no longer perceived as a system that serves everyone equally, but rather as an arena where power is concentrated and inaccessible to ordinary people.”

There is increased disaffection with democracy on both right and left. Pew Research found that 72% of Americans don't believe the US is a good example of democracy.

Research shows that declining support for democracy is especially prominent among younger voters, which is attributed not to a regular “life-cycle event” but to a generational attitude shift towards democratic institutions.

“Part of the challenge about democracy messaging is that it doesn't tend to move people emotively. Americans, however, overwhelmingly support the rule of law and free and fair elections. How do we make democracy communal?”

“Governance institutions are far too slow in adapting law and policy to technological change, improving their own capacity for implementation of policy, and improving citizen-facing government digital services, which adds to disillusionment and loss of institutional trust.”

“I worry very much that democratic government cannot survive the pressure of two distinct malevolent forces: social media that has no responsibility to share truth and no external mechanism of control, and individuals who have been allowed to aggregate so much wealth that they cannot be controlled by any system, government, or other entity. For the first time in humanity, we have individuals that are resourced beyond imagining but with no ability to police or control.”

“The biggest emerging [worldview] seems to be a whole variety of disparate worldviews that see the United States and its institutions as being in need of much deeper, more fundamental change than we have seen in our lifetimes (as millennials at least). This ranges from anti-democracy revolutionary ideologies that can probably be summed up under the umbrella of fascism, to anti-colonial Land Back work being done by Indigenous people, to various kinds of democratic or authoritarian socialist viewpoints.”

“On the other hand, many researchers and politicians who know there are deep problems in our existing institutions, such as the NIH, have been defending them in an entirely uncritical way because of the destructive character of the attacks. In short, I see much greater support within universities and federal agencies for Trump policies than I personally expected, while I am surprised by the way the former critics of these institutions have publicly allied with what they know are unsustainable or flawed programs and practices.”

“I think the emergence of ‘justice authoritarianism’ as an implicit ideology is worthy of study. In this worldview, the traditional liberal democracy sense that the means are just as important as the ends goes out the window, and any system that does not produce a specific kind of justice outcome is deemed inherently unjust itself…political institutions…are failing to fight fire with fire and are thus losing trust.”

“I was surprised at the near-universal support for Luigi Mangione. I was also surprised that no institutions seemed to be able to capture that energy or support. Obviously, institutions can't express support for Mangione's alleged crime, but the deep well of anger and frustration that the reaction to the events revealed unleashed a spontaneous outpouring of storytelling and solidarity that could have been harnessed.”