Facing reality with conviction and clarity

How we’re thinking about the next four years

Ben Raderstorf

If, over the past week, you’ve found yourself uncertain about the future, know this: You’re not alone.?

For the pro-democracy coalition, this moment demands reflection and regrouping. Yes, there are the political debates over what went wrong and how pro-democracy candidates can win future elections. But put those aside and there’s a set of deeper questions, all without easy or simple answers.?

How do we calibrate our response to threats to democracy that are both profound and all-too-easy to catastrophize? How to assess whether the already-chaotic circus acts (Attorney General Matt Gaetz, anyone?) are bluster and chaos, or the flashpoints that could determine whether our democracy endures? How do we incentivize other actors — Congress and the courts and government officials — to uphold their constitutional roles as checks on the executive??

Above all, how do we defend the core tenets and institutions of our democratic system in a moment when many of those institutions have already been captured by authoritarian-minded ideas and allies? Or what about the fact that the way they operate feels so unsatisfactory to so many voters??

Like I said, no simple or easy answers. We’re all likely going to settle on slightly different conclusions to each. They may (and probably should) change over time.?

Here’s how we at If you can keep it plan to cover the next four years of American self-government —?whatever they may bring.?

If in doubt, take a breath

You’ll notice that you got a lot more emails from us before Election Day than in the time since. We apologize if we left you hanging, but that’s not an accident.

In moments like this one, when the situation has changed significantly (and for the worse), our every instinct as humans is to leap into action. To refresh the page or doomscroll or post on social media or organize a letter or file a lawsuit or make a statement or write an op-ed or just do… something! Anything!?

That’s understandable — it will take swift action to uphold our democracy. But when it comes to our shared mission of defending our freedoms to vote, speak, organize, assemble, and live our lives protected by the rule of law, that instinct to leap fast can be at best counterproductive, and at worst a real risk.?

The forces shaping our democracy, and whether it survives, are hugely complex and difficult to predict. We don’t get to know how any of this ends, and seeing around the bend is often a lot harder than it seems. Put differently, it’s not that we don’t know the dangers that are coming (we do) or what we can all do about them (there are lots of things), it’s that responding to those dangers is going to require careful focus, clarity, cohesion, and deliberate learning and adaptation. We know a lot more now about the task we’re facing than we did two weeks ago; it’s okay to take the time to absorb and adjust.?

This is also, unfortunately, going to be a long four years. We all — all of us — have to do what we can to stay in it for that long-haul, as well as the years beyond when we can build toward a more perfect democracy.?

Practically, that means this newsletter is not going to become your go-to for breaking news or the outrage-of-the-day (it never has been). In exchange, we’ll endeavor to continue rising above the noise to provide clear analysis and context on the most significant developments for our democracy.

Keep an eye on the big picture

Similarly, we know from other countries — and, honestly, from our own — how autocrats weaponize information overload to distract, disorient, and eventually wear down their opposition. (As Steve Bannon put it: “flood the zone with s**t.”)

If everything is a five-alarm fire, nothing is.?

To identify priorities and red lines, we are focused on the tactics and strategies that have defined elected autocracies around the world. There are, according to experts, seven things that tend to separate authoritarianism from the normal, sometimes-ugly jockeying of politics.?

Some years ago, we wrote a guide for journalists about how to spot these seven tactics. In my view, this is a handy framework for anyone to figure out if the latest development is a potentially-democracy-ending-bad-thing or just a bad-thing-on-its-merits (or, maybe, not even a bad thing at all).?

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