The Democracy Index
April 4, 2025
This week, the vision of our democracy that emerges is of one that is battered but still resilient. The wellsprings of resistance, of democracy itself, are continuing to bloom, in the middle of the serious damage this administration is trying to inflict on it. The Democracy Index takes stock of both forces.
Trump’s economically inexplicable moves on tariffs make sense when they are viewed as part of our throughline that watches Trump continue to seize power for himself. As Sen. Chris Murphy astutely explains, Trump’s tariffs — probably the biggest global development of the week, which has already caused calamity in the markets — made no sense as a matter of economics; rather, they are yet another “tool to collapse our democracy.” As with Trump’s efforts to make law firms, universities, government contractors, and others adopt his views, Tariffs give Trump the unilateral power to punish and reward businesses as he sees fit.
Murphy points out that these tariffs are a “means to compel loyalty from every business that will need to petition Trump for relief.” The tariffs, which are doing enormous damage to our economy and to Americans, are better understood in this manner, in fact, as Senator Murphy subsequently notes, “British kings used taxation to reward loyalty and punish dissent.” Now they begin to make sense. He concludes, “The tariffs are DESIGNED to create economic hardship. Why? So that Trump has a straight face rationale for releasing them, business by business or industry by industry. As he adjusts or grants relief, it’s a win-win: the economy improves and dissent disappears.”
By creating economic hardship, Trump creates a context in which businesses will be required to pledge loyalty to him in order to receive sanctions relief. Trump continues to follow the “playbook for democratically elected leaders who want to stay in power forever.” Viewed through the lens Senator Murphy offers, the tariffs make sense, in an obscene way, and offer further evidence Trump will stop at nothing to quell dissent and continue to force more and more sectors of our country to bend the knee.
As the tariffs create a significant new channel for amassing power, Trump’s appetite for dominance continues to drive the ongoing evisceration of the federal government and the essential services it provides. This week saw devastating cuts at all the national health agencies. They threaten public health and risk squandering the work of this generation of scientists, dismissing hard-won expertise and damaging the quality of healthcare and scientific research, while preventing young people from embarking on their careers. Some of these cuts include:
Loss of Title X funds affecting the work, services, and jobs of multiple nonprofits, including Planned Parenthood (leaving eight states without any federal funding for family planning)
Loss of funds that give millions of women worldwide access to reproductive health
An award-winning Parkinson’s researcher and doctor among the scientists purged from NIH
An Emory professor strikingly likened the cuts to trying to lose weight by slicing off an arm. Dr. Carlos del Rio, a professor at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health specializing in HIV, added: “You never know when a fire is going to happen. If a fire happens, you need to have a fire department.” To make matters worse, HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy, Jr., acknowledged Thursday that they are making mistakes, “At DOGE, we talked about this from the beginning...we're going to do 80 percent cuts, but 20 percent of those are going to have to be reinstalled, because we'll make mistakes." The uncertainty and the chaos are a feature, not a bug.
The foundational building blocks of our civic life are also under threat.
On Monday, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the main source of federal funding for public libraries, put its entire staff on leave. Libraries serve as the centers of communities. They foster education and a love of learning, they provide internet access to people who cannot otherwise have access, and they are hubs for community engagement. Great civilizations cherish libraries as centerpieces of their culture, going back to the great library of Alexandria—and history tells us that destruction of these houses of books marks the decline of civilizations. Every one of us on the Democracy Index team has a cherished memory of a library from our own lives, whether we went as a child or took our own children. We would love to hear what libraries have meant to you or your family and how you feel about dismantling this treasured part of American society.
Despite the last two months of brutal headwinds, Americans have shown they are not demoralized; rather, we have witnessed a rejuvenation of democratic spirit and righteous fight. The election results in the Wisconsin judicial race were staggering. The favored choice of Trump and Elon Musk, Brad Schimel, resoundingly lost to Susan Crawford, in an election that featured the highest turnout for any Wisconsin Supreme Court race in history. Ten counties that voted for Trump in 2024 voted for Crawford. While Schimel may have welcomed Musk’s millions, he certainly suffered from Musk’s presence. Indeed, the billionaire’s endorsement became the fulcrum of the race, as Musk has become an increasingly unpopular figure.
We also saw perseverance personified this week in Sen. Cory Booker’s historic filibuster. Starting Monday night and ending over 25 hours later on Tuesday, Booker broke the record for the longest filibuster in Senate history in fitting fashion, rising to raise “good trouble” and beat out the previous record-holder Strom Thurmond, the segregationist senator who filibustered the Civil Rights Act of 1957. It wasn’t just Booker’s endurance that impressed—after all, Sen. Ted Cruz previously led a 21-hour filibuster during which he started reading the Dr. Seuss book Green Eggs and Ham. Instead, Booker spent those 25 hours outlining the dangers Trump and his allies have wrought.
Amidst his soaring and inspiring rhetoric, perhaps the most important moment was a humble admission. “I confess that I have been imperfect,” Booker said. “I confess that I’ve been inadequate to the moment. I confess that the Democratic Party has made terrible mistakes that gave a lane to this demagogue. I confess we all must look in the mirror and say, ‘We will do better.’” That remarkable candor from a politician acknowledged how Americans have been feeling about their elected representatives, and reflected the seriousness of the moment: a profound threat to our democracy requires an equally potent response from its defenders.
And that response is what we are continuing to see—from the chambers of Congress, to the voting booths in Wisconsin, and, for some, joining nationwide marches this Saturday. “Public mobilization is working” and the “people still have the power,” Murphy reminds us. Indeed, Trump’s tariffs have already generated tremendous backlash, including among congressional Republicans. More than ever, our voices matter.
Until next week,
The Democracy Index team
 | A guest post by
|
As a voracious reader in my younger years, I often checked out books from public and school libraries. And learned how to research libraries for information. I obtained my Master's in Library Science and worked in various types of libraries for forty years. So much time helping people, educating people and just enjoying reading. I cannot imagine not having libaries.
What libraries mean to me? My elementary school library gave me lots of good choices of books to read. But the reason it stays in my memory many decades later, is that the librarian always gave me a wonderful smile when I went through the line at the end of our time there, smiling at me as if I were a real, normal human being, something no one else in my life did. I credit her genuine smile with saving my life when I was feeling suicidal in my early 20s. I don't spend time in libraries any more, but I will always consider them to be important places, especially when they have books that help people to accept who they are. Libraries can save lives.