How Donald Trump Is Reviving American Democracy

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/03/how-donald-trump-is-reviving-our-democracy/518928/

by Eric Lu at the Atlantic

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There are two ways to look at the effect of Donald Trump’s presidency on American democracy. One is that he is a menace to the republic: that his attacks on journalists, federal judges, and constitutional norms undermine the rule of law. The other is that he is the greatest thing to happen to America’s civic and political ecosystem in decades.

These views are not mutually exclusive. In fact, they are causally related. The president’s attacks on established institutions have triggered a systemic immune response in the body politic, producing a surge in engagement among his opponents (and also his fans).

Since the early 1970s, the nation’s civic health—from membership in civic groups to attendance at public meetings to newspaper reading—has been in steady, severe decline. Economic inequality has fed political inequality in a viciously self-reinforcing loop of disenfranchisement and concentration of clout.

But now millions of people, once cynical bystanders, are participating earnestly. In mass marches and packed congressional town meetings, Americans have taken vocal stands for inclusion. At airports and campuses and street corners they have swarmed in defense of Muslim and undocumented neighbors. Membership in the ACLU and the League of Women Voters has swelled, as have subscriptions to leading newspapers.


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