The crisis of American democracy is a deeper, more chronic one arising from systemic racial and gender exclusion, entrenched economic inequality, and technological and ecological transformations that undermine dreams of collective action and inclusive shared self-governance.
In 2019, progressive organizations, funders, academics, artists, and more came together to strategize about what must be done to face and address the crises undermining our democracy.
The Disparate Impact standard is critical to continued and enhanced opportunity to access fair credit, housing, and homeownership. Demos strongly opposes efforts to undermine this longstanding enforcement tool.
Today’s Supreme Court decision that federal courts have no ability to check extreme partisan gerrymandering is a stunning blow to our democracy. This decision represents an abdication of judicial responsibility to protect against constitutional violations.
The counter to this neoliberal vision involves, then, a more thorough moral critique—and a more transformative policy agenda—that tackles the underlying forces of corporate power, market inequities, structural racism, and anti-democratic political institutions. That progressives are finally talking in these expansive terms represents a potentially transformative inflection point in American politics.
The Trump administration’s latest attack on immigrants, a proposed rule that would punish families for accessing public benefits, has rightfully come under fire for its potential to threaten children’s health and impose financial hardship on households and communities.
“For some 40 years now, the Supreme Court has been issuing decisions that make it difficult to regulate [money in politics],” Chiraag Bains, director of legal strategies at Demos, told WhoWhatWhy. “Citizens United is the crowning achievement of that effort.”