Friends,

In November 2020, when I was running the National Task Force on Election Crises with Protect Democracy, I remember the feeling of surrealness as we approached Election Day. We had run scenario exercises, conducted strategic analyses, drafted materials, and briefed everyone we could talk to from military leaders to Hollywood celebrities to prepare for this day and its aftermath; now, it was finally happening. 

Four years later, Democracy 2076 has allowed me to take the scenario and future planning muscles I began developing during the 2020 election and bring the tools of strategic foresight to understanding the possibilities for our democracy in the long-term. I am so thankful to all of you for engaging in the building of the future of our democracy. Even the most qualified experts can’t predict the future; we have to co-create the world we want together. If you or anyone in your network is interested in participating in our work in a deeper way, you can find more information here about jobs with Democracy 2076 team. 

The shift I have made to a more long-term focus has impacted my own perspective, so I wanted to share some of those insights as we head into this election:

First, the 2024 election begins a new political realignment. Political scientist Walter Dean Burnham theorized that seismic shifts in party identity, ideology, and issue positions occur in the U.S. every 30-40 years. The circumstances of the 1994 presidential election––Republicans winning on a wave of cultural backlash, the South becoming solidly Republican, and religious issues emerging as a new, central cleavage in American politics––marks one such shift, meaning we should expect another major party realignment in 2024. While indications of our current realignment began to appear as early as the 2008 presidential election (you can read Identity Crisis for more about the shifts in party identification triggered by the election of Barack Obama), we are now seeing more blatant evidence of these shifting coalitions, identities, and ideologies. For example, Republican House Speaker Johnson kept his speakership with the support of a coalition of centrist Republicans and Democrats, while a coalition from Dick Cheney to Taylor Swift to Bernie Sanders is supporting Harris. A new political axis is emerging, one that is not bifurcated along lines of conservatism and progressivism, but democracy vs. authoritarianism. Our challenge now is to ensure that all political parties over the next generation are committed to democracy. 

To meet that challenge, Democracy 2076 will be launching a set of work next year to better understand the scenarios for how we might realign over the next 30 years, including what constituencies and ideologies may shape the parties over the next generation. For this most recent realignment, we saw pundits and academics examine demographic data on party affiliation after 2016, which meant by the time the research was published and absorbed by the ecosystem, it was too late for any substantive intervention. We want to invest in resources now to help shape our next political realignment, while we still have time to make an impact.

Alongside our partners at Horizon 2045, we will be working to identify scenarios for our next political realignment and the pathways for how we might end up there. This research will serve as an early warning system if we find ourselves becoming more authoritarian and identify opportunities for how we strengthen our democracy. By beginning to build a community of practice of those working to prevent a slide towards authoritarian ideologies, we can learn from each other about what interventions are effective in preventing political extremism and what bolsters belief in pluralistic democracy for different communities. 

Are you working in or around communities that you see as susceptible to authoritarian sliding over the next 30 years? Have you learned something through your research or through programs you’ve run about what increases and decreases buy-in for democracy? If you or someone you know would be interested in participating in this program, please reply to this email and let us know!

Second, the events of next week’s presidential election take place in a larger global context that is increasingly oriented to and invested in our future. This September, the UN hosted the Summit of the Future during which the Declaration for Future Generations was signed onto by most countries around the world––including the United States. Additionally, the Secretary General of the UN announced that he will be appointing a UN Envoy for Future Generations to represent those interests in UN proceedings. This is a catalyzing moment for governments to think longer-term about how we deal with our challenges and an invitation to expand the use of strategic foresight which has been a core toolkit of our work at Democracy 2076. I was excited to speak at an event during the Summit of the Future with the School of International Futures and am looking forward to a gathering this week with government and civil society leaders to discuss the implementation of the Declaration for Future Generations in the United States. 

This is an important reminder that, regardless of the outcome of this election, the biggest challenges of our time are truly global challenges that we will be grappling with well beyond one election cycle––whether they are threats to democracy, climate change, demographic change, income inequality, or technological changes. While we absolutely cannot and should not think we have all the answers or perspectives in the U.S., our partners around the world look to us for leadership and as a signal for the global direction. 

Finally, it is more important than ever that we are able to hold the short-term urgency of this moment alongside the long-term consequences of our strategic decisions and priorities. In the aftermath of a presidential election––especially one that feels as critical and existential as this one––it is tempting to shift immediately towards supporting, influencing, or resisting the incoming administration’s governing priorities for the “first 100 days”. Pro-democracy forces will need to align on priorities to govern effectively or to resist an authoritarian presidency with fewer internal checks and voices willing to stand up than in the past. The fight for air time in our media, the floors of Congress, and throughout our body politic can quickly become a zero sum game where decisions and compromises will be made in the short term with only limited consideration for their impact in the long term. 

Last year, I wrote this article about how pro-democracy forces were aligned during the Trump presidency but fractured after Biden’s election in 2020. I wrote specifically about how in 2020, many organizations needed to decide affirmatively on whether they’d advocate for overturning the filibuster and whether they’d encourage Biden to use executive action. For organizations rooted in specific issue-areas, but often lacking clarity on what they mean by “liberal democracy,” these types of questions about democratic processes are rife with possibilities for internal conflict and confusion, particularly in regards to coalition partners. We have the opportunity to do things differently after this election.

It is important that in aligning our coalitions, we are thinking both about the challenges and very real threats to communities in the short-term, while also considering the long-term implications of our choices. To paraphrase the economist Thomas Sowell: often, today’s solutions become tomorrow’s problems.

But being able to approach these crucial political inflection moments with one eye on the future requires resources: time, training, funding, and capacity. Democracy 2076 is creating materials to support organizations and individuals from the grassroots to the boardroom in incorporating long-term democratic goals into their strategic decision-making. Our facilitation guide of our strategic foresight process (available here; password: Amend2076) has helped several organizations from folks in the Congressional reform community via Congress 2076 to organizers in Louisiana who have been combatting efforts at a state-wide constitutional conventions to get clear on an affirmative vision to ensure our democracy has the structures to meet future challenges. This approach is different from most long-term strategic planning and visioning frameworks, which rarely consider how our social relationships, technology, economy, environment, politics and values may change as we seek to accomplish our goals. 

Already, we are inspired by Philanthropy for Active Civic Engagement’s (PACE) work with democracy funders to learn the tools of strategic foresight to inform how they are thinking about their priorities. Democracy 2076 is honored to share our lessons from the last year and a half with that community. We’ve also been inspired by conversations with existing organizations and new founders who have reached out to ask how to incorporate these tools into their projects and how to get support for longer-term work. If our thought partnership can be helpful to you as you think about how to do strategic planning and your priorities for next year, feel free to schedule time with me here. 

As we head into next week, I am trying to remember that this election is just one step in a much longer journey in building a democracy that is representative, effective, and responsive to all of its citizens. I don’t feel the fear I felt in 2016, wondering if any of my fellow Americans will fight with me and for me; over the last 8 years I’ve seen that so many of us care tremendously and will show up for each other. Regardless of what the next week and months hold, I am so thankful that we are facing it together. 

In solidarity,

Aditi