The Future of Democracy

Our essay contest winners show that we must not just prevent the worst; we must also focus on making possible what comes next.

We are living through a moment that has forced us to confront an old question with new urgency: Can American democracy survive?

This much is true: Our democracy will not be saved by strongly worded criticisms, viral videos, news clips, frustrated screeds from public figures, or even court decisions alone. It will thrive only when people decide, again and again, that our democracy belongs to us, our leaders are elected by us, and that we are responsible for building and defending it. That conviction runs through every work in this anthology.

In response to the question, “What will it take for democracy not only to survive but to thrive in the future?” the winners of Democracy Defenders Fund’s Future of Democracy Prize offer answers grounded in community, racial justice, imagination, and policy reform. They write with a clear-eyed understanding that democracy is built from the bottom up and that systems failing ordinary people must be challenged and changed. From their vantage point, democracy must be practiced, defended, and renewed everywhere: in neighborhoods and schools, public offices and places of worship, through art and organizing, and in the everyday acts of solidarity that bind communities together.

When we launched this prize, we placed only two requirements on entrants — age and U.S. citizenship. We spread the word through influencers, college newspapers, local libraries, social media, and in small towns and big cities, hoping to hear from people whose experiences and perspectives might not otherwise find their way into a national conversation about democracy. What we received was deeply encouraging. The winning works — nine essays, a short film, and a cross-stitch project — describe democracy as something people experience, shape, and build where they live. That gave me hope. Because their words are hopeful.

Before coming to Democracy Defenders Fund, I spent most of my career defending democracy in countries where people had learned not to expect institutions or their (mostly) authoritarian leaders to save them. In Ukraine, Russia, Central Asia, Turkey, Hungary, and Poland, I watched citizens fight back with whatever tools they had: independent newspapers, coalitions, protests, art and music, and community networks. They built power where they stood, with whatever space they had, and they refused to let authoritarianism go unchallenged. At times that came with great personal risk.

What makes the United States different — and what gives me genuine optimism — is our long history of building democracy and the hard won successes. We have checks and balances in America. Even now, we have institutions capable of withstanding enormous pressure. But history teaches us that those institutions do not hold on their own. They hold only when people act to defend them. When people respect the norms and values they represent.

Protecting the constitutional right to birthright citizenship, for example, required people to immediately speak out, organize, and challenge the Trump administration in the court of law. The Supreme Court ultimately provided the essential check, but it could do so only because people — supported by attorneys from the ACLU, Democracy Defenders Fund, and other organizations — were willing to bring the fight to the courts. And were willing to share their stories so that people understood what was at stake.

At Democracy Defenders Fund, we approach the business of defending our democracy through the courts, legislatures, other levers of public power, and in the court of public opinion.

The young people whose work appears in this anthology, too, approach democracy from the latter vantage point. They define democracy as a sense of whether people feel it belongs to them and whether they believe their own voices can make a difference. That perspective is precisely why we created this project.

Democracy is stronger when people feel that their voices matter between elections, not only on Election Day. People being civically engaged is what makes democracy work and sustains the entire democratic enterprise.

Democracy Defenders Fund will continue to fight in courtrooms to protect voting rights and elections, to counter corruption, and to uphold the rule of law. Our work ensures that now and in the future, the public can act, organize, dissent, imagine, build, and simply be. Every success for us or the broader pro-democracy movement creates the conditions in which new leaders, new movements, and new visions can take root and ultimately thrive.

We intend to ensure that when these young people take the reins of power — with all the passion and imagination they possess — they can do so in a country where the rules still permit them to build and work toward a democracy that will make their lives better.

That is what makes this project so important to me. The work in this anthology reminds us that defending democracy is not simply about preventing what is worst. It is also about making possible what comes next, what is better. The Civil Rights Movement made us better, but it did not make us perfect. Democracy is a journey not a destination. I hope you read these essays with the same humility, urgency, and hope they inspired in us, and with a renewed commitment to the work ahead in the courts, in our communities, in the streets, and everywhere democracy is being made.

Susan Corke is executive director of Democracy Defenders Fund.

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