Foreign Affairs

03/31/2025

Democracy in the United States faces a serious threat, but the case is not hopeless. Its defenders have a wide array of levers they can pull to oppose Trump’s and his allies’ attempts to consolidate power.

This delay is costly. If American democracy is to prevail, pro-democracy forces must follow the handbook that has enabled oppositions to stop would-be autocrats in other countries. They should coordinate to defend and expand their institutional powers while they have them, wield them to obstruct Trump’s authoritarian agenda, strengthen grassroots resistance efforts, and protect the activists, officeholders, and other individuals exposed to retribution from the administration. The alternative may be that democracy slips away while they wait.

DON’T THROW AWAY YOUR SHOT
Because the erosion of democracy happens gradually, the opposition has ample opportunities to fight back. In the United States, opposition groups are not without resources. The Democratic Party holds a nontrivial number of seats in Congress and state legislatures and controls many gubernatorial and mayoral offices. Politicians and other pro-democracy forces have access to independent courts and oversight agencies at the national, state, and municipal levels, as well as independent media outlets, economic resources, and well-organized grassroots organizations. All of this provides leverage to counter Trump’s antidemocratic policies.

Pro-democracy actors in the United States are not the first to hesitate to use their leverage. Wherever backsliding happens, its slow pace can make it difficult to detect. Unsure about the level of threat the administration’s moves pose, some members of the Democratic Party, media outlets, and other institutions believe they can afford to wait. They assume the political situation will change with new elections and are choosing to deal with this government as they have dealt with previous adversarial presidents. Instead of leveraging their resources to make a stand and hamper (even if marginally) the administration’s power grabs, they have opted to accommodate it by helping confirm controversial nominees, collaborating to pass a funding bill without safeguards protecting Congress’s power of the purse or limits on the dismantling of the bureaucracy, and acquiescing to demands to support the government’s agenda when faced with financial threats.

Others are more alarmed and have pushed for a more aggressive response. Some Democratic governors and members of Congress have demanded a blanket obstruction of the Trump administration’s agenda, and civil rights groups have mobilized to get the courts to halt the administration’s orders, shine a spotlight on abuses with protests and boycotts, and exert pressure on elected officers in town halls. Yet compared with the first Trump administration, when the threat to American democracy was not as stark, the resistance today is limited and uncoordinated.