American democracy is under assault. It’s up to each of us to fight to save it | Opinion

In remarks to the nation recently, President Biden offered the sober assessment that American democracy is “under assault.” Republican pundits seized upon this warning as partisan posturing and pearl clutching.

I listened to the president, though, and heard a chilling truth.

I worked at the State Department for six years, advising the Secretary about human rights and democratization abroad. My job, in part, was to be on the lookout for red flags that democracies were in decline. Restrictions on press freedom in Hungary. The rise of religious nationalism in India. Crackdowns on peaceful protest in Russia.

In 2017, after Donald Trump took office, I started to see the same red flags here. Demonization of the press. Scapegoating minority groups. Maligning peaceful protesters. In isolation, each act could be explained away as aberrant. Collectively, they painted a frightening picture of American democracy on the brink.

Raised on a cocktail of American exceptionalism and pride, we are taught to believe that our country is different. But a long view over the arc of history shows that most democracies fail. As a group of historians explained to Biden just weeks ago, conditions today are not unlike those in America prior to the Civil War; or, in Europe, prior to the authoritarian regimes that gave rise to World War II; or in numerous other countries from Africa to the Middle East that saw the promise of democracy wilt under the heat of repression.

Warnings about democratic fragility have to be taken seriously, because the frightening rise in political violence, the scapegoating of minorities, curtailing of rights, and open talk of subverting elections means that everything is on the line.

My purpose, however, is not to alarm. It is to lay down a marker that the worst can be prevented, and that each of us can, and should, do everything in our power to ensure that it does not manifest.

We each have a choice to make right now: to engage or sit on the sidelines. To push back against forces pulling our country toward authoritarianism, or to stand by idly as we lose our rights and form of governance, first slowly, then all at once.

In high school, I took part in a program for Jewish teenagers and visited Nazi concentration camps in Poland. At Majdanek, on the outskirts of Lublin, we were told to peer out of the barbed wire fence at the apartment buildings that looked down on gas chambers, and contemplate the role of bystanders in letting mass atrocities happen. People bore witness, we were taught, and did nothing. Do not be that passive bystander.

Our choice today is not altogether different.

The demise of democracy does not begin with a gas chamber. It begins with book burning, the persecution of homosexuals and the purging of dissenters from the civil service — in the 1930s in Germany, but also in America today.

Our response cannot be private lamentations. There are simple steps each of us can take now to preserve democratic governance, and with it our fundamental rights and freedoms.

First, humanize those who are targeted. Tell the stories of teachers who fear being fired for talking about America’s history of slavery, of children who may be denied school lunches because of their sexual orientation and of women whose lives are risked by doctors who deny treatment for miscarriages out of fear of being persecuted for performing abortions. Make clear that those being demonized are not faceless others, but our sons and daughters, our mothers and fathers, our neighbors and friends.

Second, organize. Mobilize the communities that you are a part of — from your house of worship, to your school, to your sports league — and remind them what is on the line. The best person to organize your community isn’t someone sent from elsewhere: It’s you.

Third, donate. There are groups around the country already activating to defend our democracy. They are filing lawsuits, recruiting candidates, training organizers and registering voters. These groups need our support.

Finally, and most important, vote. Voting is a right, but it is also a civic duty. It is incumbent upon all of us who want to preserve our republic to make our voices heard. We should be compelled to the polls this November not just to weigh in on who we think will make the best policy, but to deliver a mandate for American democracy and the rights and freedoms it guarantees.

The American experiment is just that, an experiment. It does not have a preordained conclusion. Rather, it carries within it the potential to deliver expansive rights and freedoms or to collapse under the weight of those who wish to impose their will. This year, we each get to choose which outcome will come to be.

Lauren Baer is managing partner of Arena, the flagship organization for convening, training and supporting the next generation of Democratic candidates and campaign staff. From 2010-2016, she was a senior advisor to U.S. Secretaries of State Hillary Clinton and John Kerry; and to U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power.

This story was originally published October 3, 2022 at 4:56 PM.