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Why Americans aren’t Worked Up over Threats to Democracy [1]
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Date: 2022-11-02
A recent article in the New York Times carried the headline, “Voters See Democracy in Peril, but Saving It Isn’t a Priority.” With Republicans making a comeback in the polls, being marginally favored to take the Senate, with less than a week to go to the midterms, that message has never been clearer. Americans risk ignoring the threat to democracy.
While nearly everyone has heard of “black swans”, few have heard of what Michelle Wucker calls “gray rhinos”. Gray rhinos are highly-likely, high-impact events that get ignored. Warningsabound, and evidence manifests itself, and yet, little to nothing is done. Think climate change. The threats are long-term, which dulls our fight-or-flight senses, and the visible evidence we see is not always easy to connect with the decline of democracy.
The economy is a much more visceral threat than eroding democratic norms. It’s easy to see that inflation is higher, that interest rates are on the rise, and that a recession looms. It’s easier to see, and easier to feel threatened, to worry, to want to do something about it. Threats to democracy are like cold water that a frog swims in, while it gets hotter and hotter until it kills the frog.
Another reason why Americans seem to be so dulled by a threat that 71% of them perceive, is that the country is in an uncivil war with itself, torn apart by partisanship. Whether it’s assessing pandemic measures, or in how people identify themselves , Americans have never been more divided. That is also true in how we view threats to democracy. For instance, many Americans now support or tolerate political violence. In fact, of those people who fear the threat to democracy, many support the actions of the January 6 rioters. According to the Pew Research Center, 33% of Republicans support the actions of those people who stormed the Capitol in hopes of overturning the 2020 election.
Source: Navigator Research and Global Strategy Group
So, while Americans may be largely united in their belief that democracy is at stake, they are not united in seeing what that threat is.
Where does that leave us? With a threat that Americans agree about, but are split as to where it’s coming from, and which seems so vague that we can’t work up the righteous fury to do anything about.
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