Things Seem Really Bad Right Now. But Let’s Put 2023 Into Perspective

It feels like an eternity since the year started with a palpable sense of optimism… A reflection on where democracy stands at the end of 2023 – and what lies ahead

Cover illustration: iStock / Credit: sharply_done

As 2023 comes to an end, I have a hard time imagining anyone feeling particularly great about where America is headed – well, certainly not anyone who prefers functioning egalitarian democracy over reactionary white Christian patriarchy. I admit there is a great deal of subjectivity in that assessment, and perhaps quite a bit of recency bias too; so, take it all with the usual grain of salt. But as things slow down a little a bit over the holidays, I realize how much American politics has worn me out.

In recent months, the discourse has often focused on Joe Biden’s bad polling numbers, his historically bad approval ratings, and how the majority of Americans describes the economic situation in very negative terms. Lest we forget, democrats won an actual election in early November. But whatever degree of predictive value you want to ascribe to polling and survey data, the overall picture doesn’t exactly inspire confidence. Meanwhile, Donald Trump is dominating the Republican field. His legal trouble (that’s a euphemism) hasn’t hurt him much, or at all, with the conservative base – all the factors that had him emerge victorious from the GOP primaries in 2016 are still in place: The base loves him, non-college-educated Republicans are uniting behind him to a degree that no other candidate can even remotely match with college-educated primary voters. Unless something drastic happens, Trump is going to be the nominee; and if you drown out all the noise around the 2024 election, the most important fact is that it will be very, very close. A Trump victory is absolutely not a forgone conclusion. But it is also very much not merely a remote possibility. Just a little over twelve months from now, Donald Trump might return to the White House. And a second Trump term would be nothing like the first. Trump has always been a vindictive figure with zero regard for democratic norms or values and strong authoritarian desires. But he was also wholly unprepared for the presidency in 2016. Next time would be different. If Trump’s openly fascistic, violent rhetoric isn’t warning enough, the concrete plans emanating from Trump’s orbit should be: A roadmap to end constitutional self-government and turn a weaponized state into an autocratic revenge machine that punishes the “enemy within” and serves the interests of a reactionary white Christian minority.

At the end of November, this situation sparked a flurry of pieces in leading mainstream outlets emphasizing the stark reality of what a Trump victory in the next presidential election might mean for the country: The end of democracy, authoritarian rule, Trump dictatorship. The backlash against these warnings came from two sides. On the one hand, bad-faith actors countered with bizarre pieces that described Trump as a moderate figure – pieces that had the sole intention to muddy the waters by laundering rightwing talking points and injecting them into the broader discourse as “legitimate” positions. Unfortunately, mainstream outlets were eagerly helping, in the name of “debate” and “neutrality.” On the other hand, people on the (center-)left warned of spreading fatalism. Their concerns were well founded and entirely reasonable: The last thing we need is a pro-democracy majority paralyzed and dejected by a combination of fear and cynicism. Trump is not inevitable, these pieces rightfully argued. But the fact that so many people felt compelled to write them was in and of itself a reflection of how dire the mood is at the end of 2023. 

As the year ends, even potentially great news doesn’t lead to lasting relief, but tends to generate reactions and debates that only deepen the persistent feeling of dread. Is the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision to disqualify Trump from holding office ever again, while certainly politically risky, not also a welcome sign that the system is finally gearing up to fight back against the immense threat of authoritarianism? Oh, no! If elite commentators from across the political spectrum are to be believed, it is actually the Colorado judges who are threatening democracy! Immediately upon the Court’s decision, elite opinion from the Center-Right all the way to the proper Left mobilized against it – from Ross Douthat on the Right to Damon Linker at the Center to Jonathan Chait among the anti-“woke” liberals to Samuel Moyn on the anti-liberalism Left: A remarkable coalition united in a kind of reflexive anti-anti-Trumpism that could very well help return, well, Trumpism to power. And underneath it all, it is very hard to shake the feeling that the Israel-Hamas war is tearing the pro-democracy popular front apart, that broad coalition from the Left to the Center and beyond, barely held together even at the best of times by a shared devotion to upholding constitutional government and liberal democracy. This coalition has always been fragile. Since October 7, is has been disintegrating rapidly. Whether and to what extent that actually translates in an election that has Donald Trump on the ballot remains to be seen; but it certainly isn’t helping. 

2022 was a good year for democracy! Or was it?

All of this is in stark contrast to the widespread feeling of democratic optimism at the end of 2022. A year ago, a consensus seemed to have emerged among commentators spanning a broad range of the political spectrum, from left-wing outlets like Jacobin to center-right outlets such as the Bulwark, that 2022 had generally been a good year for American democracy. Most year-end reviews that came out in prominent outlets, written by prominent observers and pundits, displayed a striking sense of confidence, albeit mixed with caution, regarding the state of democracy in America and the world. Some argued 2022 had been the year that democracy turned the corner, fought back, started winning; some wouldn’t go so far as to flat-out call it a win, but still maintained that democracy had done much, much better than expected; all basically agreed that the country was in a much better place than a year earlier. A prevailing sense of relief – and positive expectations for 2023 almost across the board. 

Of the many prominent observers who were reflecting on the year that had been, Susan B. Glasser in The New Yorker was probably most skeptical: “I’m not ready to go all in on optimism just yet,” she said, also noticing how that put her slightly at odds with the overall attitude in the mainstream commentariat. And yet, Glasser did agree that 2022 “could have been worse” – and ultimately ended up acknowledging “a glimmer of hope.” Glasser concluded her reflection determined to “save the pessimism for another day.”

For the Washington Post, E.J. Dionne wrote a piece titled “Democracy won 2022.” That’s probably not the author’s headline, but the piece itself also made the case that “in 2022, the evidence began accumulating” that democracy worked, could defeat those who sought to abolish it, that the task going forward would be to “build on the good news in 2023.”

Meanwhile, in Jacobin magazine over on the Left, Liza Featherstone diagnosed a “vibe shift” manifesting in the surprisingly bad result for the Republican Party in the 2022 midterms elections: “the Right has gotten too weird and scary even for America.” She acknowledged that Republicans would likely continue to radicalize, and remained reluctant to put her trust in the Democratic Party to defend democracy. And yet, “2022 offered plenty of cause for hope,” she maintained, as the year “showed that in fact, America is terrified of the weirdo right” while becoming increasingly comfortable with social and cultural change.

Probably the most hopeful take came from the Center-Right, from Never Trumper-in-Chief Bill Kristol. He opened his review of the year that had been in the Bulwark with a reminder of how “grim” things had looked on New Year’s Day 2022. But then, “things turned around” – or rather, as Kristol argued, “It was people—both extraordinary leaders and ordinary folk—who turned things around in 2022.” Not only had 2022 been better than expected, not only did we, according to Kristol, “enter 2023 in better shape than we could have reasonably hoped a year ago.” Kristol believed the tide had turned against the forces of autocracy. “In 2022,” he argued, “democracy and liberty didn’t just hold the line—they gained some ground.” So much so that he described the year that had just ended as a probable “inflection point”: After 2022, that seemd to be Kristol’s key message, we were supposed to be on our way to victory.

I am not singling out these authors because their arguments were particularly bad – in fact, they presented the best versions of a widespread, but deeply flawed assessment. They all offered specific evidence for their interpretations, strong evidence even. Some of them emphasized the global dimension of the struggle over democracy and, specifically, the fact that Ukraine was still standing strong against the Russian invasion, dealing a massive blow to the plans and ambitions of the authoritarian ruler in the Kremlin.

On the domestic front, the case for optimism rested mostly on three claims: First, that the Biden administration had proved more effective at governing than what many people feared, passing major legislation, including on infrastructure and climate change, despite having to work with a narrow majority in the House and a 50-50 Senate. Secondly, that the 2022 midterm elections had proved the existence of a relatively stable anti-MAGA coalition that could be counted on to come out and vote, to prevent the worst extremists from acquiring power. Thirdly, that the January 6 Committee’s decision to refer Trump to the Department of Justice for criminal prosecution indicated that the system was willing and able to defend democracy, that those who dared to assault the rule of law would have to pay a price and would ultimately be held accountable.

One year later, 2023 ends on a very different note. In a vacuum, it is possible that 2022 really was a good year for democracy, that we really were on a path towards defeating the authoritarian onslaught, only for the the past twelve months to completely change the trajectory once again. A much more plausible interpretation, however, is that the democratic optimism at the end of 2022 was misguided and misleading. The problem lay not so much in each individual argument commentators brought up, but in what they didn’t consider – and in the broader conclusion to which so many authors eagerly jumped on that basis: The tide has turned in democracy’s favor, the ship has been turned around… looking back, such grandiose proclamations seem rather premature and superficial.

Re-assessing the democratic optimism at the end of 2022

Where did these assessments go wrong? What is striking about 2022’s end-of-the-year optimism is how much it focused on short-term dramatic events with uncertain effects over persistent, more structural issues that shape American politics. Too many observers were willing to discard the bigger picture and the state of the underlying conflict – perhaps understandably so, as it offered relief and comfort after months of enormous tension, frustration, and outrage. But in terms of the defining medium-to long-term-threats, there was little reason to believe that anything had been solved or dramatically reversed.

Yes, an anti-MAGA coalition had come out to deal a significant blow to Trumpism – but mostly in blue and purple states. In red states, the situation was and remains very different: Abortion bans are very unpopular even there, yet many people who reject them still vote for Republicans. Not because they are delusional or uninformed, but because they have decided that their premier political interest is to preserve America as a land defined by white Christian patriarchy. They are simply not on board with a vision of egalitarian multiracial pluralism. And so, the country is rapidly falling apart, into a “blue” part that is pushing forward with the democratic project, and a “red” part ruled by forces that are vehemently opposed to it.

Yes, Trump himself, his political brand, came out of the 2022 midterms temporarily weakened. But those who expected a Republican soul-searching in response and predicted moderation were ignoring the central dynamics that have governed conservative politics for decades – and a permission structure that always allows for further escalation, but hardly ever for restraint. Mike Johnson’s rise is in many ways emblematic of these dynamics: From the chaos in the House emerged not a moderate Speaker, but a white Christian theocrat. Conservative elites may prefer a less outwardly outrageous figure than Trump and therefore started hyping Florida governor Ron DeSantis as an alternative to Trump after the midterms. But not only was the electoral case for DeSantis always quite weak, and smart observers immediately identified the idea that he would defeat Trump in a Republican primary as rather fanciful. More importantly, DeSantis’ temporary rise never signaled a return to “normalcy” and the democratic center: Under his leadership, Florida has been at the forefront of the authoritarian assault on democracy – DeSantis offers Trumpism without Trump.  

Yes, democracy did much better than had been feared or predicted in the 2022 midterms (and the November 2023 election as well!). But the fundamental reality of American politics remains unchanged: One of the two major parties is dominated by increasingly authoritarian forces that are rapidly radicalizing against democracy. Republicans are fully committed to a reactionary vision of society that is defined by discriminatory hierarchies of race, religion, gender, and wealth – and has demonstrated a tremendous willingness to entrench and impose those hierarchies on the country via authoritarian coercion and, if necessary, violent threat. There was no indication at the end of 2022, as there is none now, that the assault on civil rights and pluralism would abate. In the realms of women’s rights, lgbtq rights, and public education, specifically, it has continued to escalate.

Ideally, the Supreme Court would step in and stop the escalating attempts to roll back civil rights protections emanating from the state level. But the rightwing majority on the Court is actually doing the opposite, providing robust cover and actively pushing the reactionary counter-mobilization – something to which Democrats and the pro-democracy camp more broadly have not formulated any kind of effective response. What is needed in this situation is robust national legislation – which Republicans in Washington are (and more likely than not: will remain) in a position to block and sabotage. Remember, this is actually how the year 2022 started: With a failed attempt in the Senate to codify a minimum of democratic guarantees and voting rights.

And so, we keep spiraling towards authoritarianism. Without effective federal legislation to protect and reform democracy, the country will rapidly turn into a dysfunctional pseudo-democratic system at the national level – and on the state level will be divided into democracy in one half of the states, and authoritarian one-party rule in the other. This is how civil rights perish and democracy dies – in about half the country, at the very least.

Looking ahead to 2024

The optimistic tenor of 2022’s end-of-the-year reviews tells us something interesting about that specific moment twelve months ago. It was shaped by a post-midterms feeling of relief and a sense (more than a reality) of accountability after the January 6 Committee Report had been published. Without wanting to psychologize too much, the eagerness with which commentators latched onto the idea that democracy was inevitable going to go on the offensive certainly had something to do with how desperate the (small-d) democratic camp was for good news. The shock and outrage caused by the Supreme Court’s frontal assault on civil rights and pluralistic democracy in the summer of 2022 had been followed by predictions of a resounding Republican victory throughout the fall. When the “red wave” turned out to be a chimera and the January 6 Committee seemingly offered a concrete pathway to get rid of Trump, the visceral feeling of relief that followed may have overwhelmed all sense of proportion.

There is an acutely relevant lesson to be learned here for the future: Getting carried away by the latest events – even when they are high-stakes elections, high-drama Trump news, or high-profile polling data – can distort the picture in a way that is neither helpful politically nor analytically convincing. At the end of 2022, the pendulum swung too quickly all the way from despair to euphoria. Conversely, one year later (and I am very much talking about myself here), it may have swung too far back towards a miserable place of gloom and anguish. The challenge going forward is to separate our diagnosis as much as possible from the barometer of feels and mood swings, as those will inevitably keep coming. And it would be a particularly bad idea to calibrate the overall assessment of the state of American democracy by whatever is the latest development in the legal battles surrounding January 6, by whatever is the personal fate of Donald Trump.

We need to be relentless in reminding ourselves of the big picture instead: Identify the defining structural challenges and decisive threats and use them as meaningful indicators of where things are going: First, are there credible signs of resistance to Trumpism in the Republican Party? Not just to Trump himself – but significant evidence that the radicalizing anti-democratic forces that fueled Trump’s rise are being kept in check? Secondly, is the rightwing assault on civil rights, pluralism, public education, and the modern state actually being contained? Are the fundamental rights of those who are the core targets of the reactionary mobilization, the most vulnerable groups in America, actually being safeguarded? And finally, are we closer to properly democratizing the system? Have we found a way to counter the influence of the powerful anti-democratic distortions built into the system, like the Senate, reactionary institutions like the Supreme Court, and aggressively anti-democratic Republican initiatives on the state level? In other words, are we any closer to solving the massive legitimacy crisis destined to result from the fact that a shrinking minority of white conservatives is consistently being enabled to hold on to power against the will of the majority of voters?

A year ago, grand proclamations of democracy having turned the tide were misguided because the answer to all of these questions was a resounding No. It still is. But that’s not a reason to resort to cynicism or give in to paralyzing despair either.

We need to accept the nature of the political contest that will continue to define our era for many years, maybe decades to come. It is a struggle of world-historic significance, part of a much broader conflict that is playing out in democracies across the “West” and beyond. Is it possible to establish an egalitarian democracy under conditions of multiracial, multi-religious pluralism? Or will the reactionary mobilization against such a true democracy succeed in imposing its ethno-religious nationalism and entrench white Christian patriarchy as the “real America”?

An egalitarian multiracial, pluralistic democracy in which an individual’s status was not determined to a large degree by race, gender, religion, or wealth has never been achieved anywhere.Therein lies the challenge, the danger – but also the very real chance of making the leap to becoming the kind of country America has long promised to be, but never has been yet. In 2024 and beyond: Onward. Forward.