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Political tensions are growing. What is the state of American democracy?

Political tensions are growing. What is the state of American democracy?

Sep 20, 2022 3 mins, 31 secs

USA TODAY interviewed authorities on social media messaging, race in America, the presidency and bipartisanship about the volatility of the current landscape, how have we reached this point and what can be done to solve it.

Collins, lecturer with the Department of Critical Race, Gender and Culture Studies at American University; Jason Grumet, president of the Bipartisan Policy Center; Rebekah Tromble, director of the Institute for Data, Democracy at George Washington University; and Tevi Troy, director of the Presidential Leadership Initiative at the Bipartisan Policy Center.

TROMBLE: It's become really clear that American democracy is in jeopardy.

And that is more fundamentally that they're creating a great deal of distrust: distrust for our political institutions, distrust for our media institutions and systems, and distrust for one another, distrust for our fellow citizens. .

That is the place where, if you're worried, you should be paying attention and making sure that the public servants who lead our elections do not feel terrorized at home, making sure that we are not actually encouraging people to seek those offices who are fundamentally opposed to the premise of American democracy.

USA TODAY: Social media has shouldered some of the blame for amplifying conspiracies and division.

GRUMET: Social media makes it possible for (a few) people to have an outsized influence on America.

So the capacity for a small number of people to have an exaggerated impact on the national psyche, I think, is new and something that we're working through?

Internet dangers: FBI agents monitor social media.

TROMBLE: It's created a new space within this larger ecosystem, that those who seek to manipulate the democratic process, manipulate voters and citizens can use to bring the sort of traditional means of communication directly to the people.

So I think that social media amplifies many of these issues and makes some things look worse than they are.

Social media also allows certain groups to get together in ways that they couldn't previously, and some of these people might be hostile to democracy or make more noise than they should?

TROMBLE: We've been hearing a lot of questioning of democratic institutions really for decades now.

But the acceleration that we've seen in the last four to five years has been absolutely dramatic. And that's primarily because we've had people at the top of our democratic institutions holding the greatest positions of power who have been willing to – and actively working to – undermine those very institutions to create and accelerate the distrust that we've seen?

COLLINS: The truth of the matter is that we've lived in a country that has been restricting people's civil rights and human rights right from the beginning. And that creates a lot of tension when you have a democracy that on paper looks like it's free, but in reality, restricts so many people from enjoying the freedoms that certain groups, particularly elite white males, have.

GRUMET: There are a very motivated, small number of people who are attacking a very weak point (the election system) in our democracy.

It is a small number of people.

But if not confronted directly, you could see an oversized traumatic impact on American democracy because of the combination of the weakness of our election system, the ability of social media to inflame and organize, and a leader in President Trump who believes he benefits from that dynamic.

USA TODAY: The Constitution is often praised as a document sturdy enough to protect democracy for centuries?

USA TODAY: What can be done to strengthen democracy.

And if we want to rebuild trust in our institutions, in the political system, in the media system and amongst each other, people need to feel connected to their local communities and the information within their local communities

I think the second solution to this – and this is going to be hard for a lot of people to swallow – we need to see leadership all the way at the top of the Republican Party disavowing the disinformation and the fundamental undermining of democratic institutions that's been going on for the last few years

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