The warning signs are no longer subtle. In conversations at dinner tables, on news broadcasts, and across social media feeds, Americans are voicing a shared anxiety: that democracy in the United States may be unraveling. And this isn’t just political rhetoric or partisan noise—it’s a fear backed by overwhelming data.
Liam deClive-Lowe, co-founder and co-president of American Policy Ventures, sponsored the 2024 Georgetown Battleground Civility Poll, which revealed how Americans feel about the issue.
Liam deClive-Lowe:
“Eighty-one percent of respondents across the board feel that democracy is threatened and are very concerned about the level of division in the country. And at the same time, 66% of people—most of those who say they’re concerned—want more compromise. They want more working together. They want their leaders to reach across the aisle and try to solve issues and get things done, even if it means compromising on their values.”
Listen to the full episode on The Politics Guys: Republicans and Democrats Agree – Democracy is Under Threat
So what exactly is putting American democracy at risk?
Drawing from dozens of expert interviews across our podcasts at The Democracy Group, this article explores the core threats confronting U.S. democracy today:
But understanding the threats is only the first step. To defend democracy, we must learn to recognize the patterns—historic and present—that allow it to erode from within.
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Subscribe to our NewsletterPeter Coleman, a professor of psychology and education at Columbia University and director of the Morton Deutsch International Center for Cooperation and Conflict Resolution, describes the type of polarization currently unfolding in America—and how it's contributing to the erosion of democracy.
Then we’ll hear from Robert Lieberman, political scientist and author of Four Threats: The Recurring Crises of American Democracy, who expands on polarization’s persistent role throughout U.S. history.
Peter Coleman:
“Polarization, as you know, is really the drifting apart of different positions, ideas, or ideologies from one another.
In most political systems, it’s a good and necessary thing—particularly in a two-party system like we have in America. You need passionate, smart, well-intentioned, well-informed people who oppose each other in order to push us forward as a nation and help us think in new ways.
Toxic polarization, though, is a different phenomenon altogether. In our current situation, we’re in the midst of a 50- to 60-year trajectory of increasing enmity toward the other side—of vilifying the other side. We’re physically moving away from one another. We misperceive how extreme the other side really is. We've fallen into a fairly chronic state.
I compare toxic polarization to addiction because it’s a biopsychosocial, structural problem. Over time, it gets inside us—it affects our brains, our neurological structures. Outrage, the anticipation of retaliation, and even the pleasure that comes with that anticipation all trigger the same parts of the brain that heroin does.
We get addicted to outrage. And we live in a system—what I call the ‘outrage industrial complex’—where major social media platforms understand and exploit our addiction to negativity and outrage. A lot of cable and even network news outlets recognize that this is their business model: attracting and keeping our attention.
All of these factors have contributed to this 60-year pattern, which culminates in events like January 6th—something I believe is just a harbinger of what’s to come.”
Listen to the full episode on How Do We Fix It?: The Science of Polarization with Peter Coleman
Robert Lieberman:
“Polarization takes a number of forms. It’s not just about wide disagreement over policy or what the government should do—though that’s certainly part of it. It’s also a strategic phenomenon, especially when elections are closely contested. When there’s a real sense that either side could win a fair election, the temptation to close ranks becomes powerful. Each side starts to view politics as a team sport, where the priority shifts to winning—beating the other team—above all else.
That’s something we’ve seen repeatedly throughout American history. Take the 1790s, for example. The Founding Fathers—the framers of the Constitution—didn’t even believe in political parties. But once in government, they quickly developed very different ideas about policy, the direction of the country, and what the government should look like. And so, they began forming political teams.
These teams engaged in what was essentially partisan warfare, and it nearly brought the country down. We saw similar patterns again in the 1850s, in the 1890s, and we’re seeing them again today.
So, polarization can take the form of strategic partisanship. But there’s another layer to it as well—one that’s increasingly visible among ordinary citizens. Today, we sort ourselves by political affiliation: who we live near, who we work with, who we go to school with. More and more, we’re organizing our lives along political lines.
People are also increasingly driven by what political scientists call negative partisanship—the idea that voters are motivated as much, or even more, by their dislike of the opposing side as by their loyalty to their own.”
Listen to the full episode on Democracy Works: When four threats to democracy collide
But how does race shape who is accepted as a member of a community—and how does it intensify polarization? Robert Lieberman offers insight into how racial inequality and polarization intersect.
Robert Lieberman:
“Polarization doesn’t necessarily entail racial conflict, but there have been moments in history when we’ve seen what’s called conflict over membership in the community—disagreements about which groups are considered full members of society, entitled to full status and rights, and which groups are kept on the margins.
In the United States, this often expresses itself through conflicts over race or immigration. When political and partisan polarization coincide with conflict over race—as they did in the 1850s, the 1890s, and again today—that’s a particularly explosive combination.
So, racial conflict isn’t inherent to polarization itself. It’s the convergence of the two that becomes dangerous.”
Listen to the full episode on Democracy Works: When four threats to democracy collide
Of course, racial inequality is a deeper issue rooted in our country’s history—one that still shapes our present. Chris Lebron, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Johns Hopkins University, underscores the importance of acknowledging and addressing this legacy.
Chris LeBron:
“When people don’t know their history, they have no way of really understanding their present. And when you can’t make sense of your present, you also don’t have a clear path to your future.
I know all that sounds like a big cliché, but the seriousness of it is this: speaking of Black history in the space of American democracy allows us to understand not just what happened—it allows us to understand who and what we are, what kind of place we are. We’re faced with both our successes and our atrocities.
History gives us the ability to incisively and carefully take stock of the character of the nation, so that we can grow into greatness—so that we can try to achieve our promise. And this is where radical politics steps in to ask whether we even can.
It’s on the table that America might simply not be capable of achieving the promise it sets for itself—at least not on behalf of Black and brown people. And I think that’s where the terrain of both anxiety and hope coexist: in the plausible possibility that maybe we don’t ever get there.
Maybe we can’t. Hopefully we can—but it is possible that we can’t.
I think the greatest tragedy of America is how petty the cause of our failure is, and yet how massive its actual impact has been.
When I say that, I mean that America’s failures are all on account of a group of people who were too insecure in their own humanity—so much so that they found it necessary to absolutely subjugate another group.
When you ask me what is the basis of white supremacy and its aftermath, people can give all kinds of answers—economic interests, the sociology of power—and all of that is absolutely true.
But when we ask why people do the things they do, it often comes down to being able to tell themselves a certain kind of story afterward.
And when you think about the millions lost over the centuries, the current state of inner cities—all of it founded on the notion that one group was too insecure in their humanity to allow another group to stand as their equal—that’s both petty and deeply, deeply sad.
Think about the potential of America—all of it resting on the redemption of that group. And that redemption was sorely put to the test during the last presidential term.
We came out of it very, very shaky. I think that’s the tragedy of America right there.”
Listen to the full episode on Future Hindsight: History of Black Thought with Chris Lebron
Economic inequality can also place significant strain on our democracy. Zach Carter, author of The Price of Peace: Money, Democracy, and the Life of John Maynard Keynes, explains how the pandemic revealed weaknesses in the U.S. system—particularly in its ability to support all citizens.
Zach Carter:
“In the 1920s and 1930s, the idea that severe inequality could lead to destabilization, instability, or even revolution wasn’t just some kooky, far-left notion. This was something that people like Herbert Hoover—who worked on the Treaty of Versailles—were very much afraid of at the time.
I think for people in the United States today, none of us have really seen a world where the U.S. isn’t a dominant global power. The idea that the U.S. might not be able to meet the moment or take care of its people hasn’t seemed like a serious possibility.
That may be changing. I hope it’s not. But the pandemic has done a lot of damage to our society in ways I don’t think we’re fully grappling with yet.
There’s a very clear connection—not just in the United States, but around the world—between high levels of inequality and ineffective responses to the pandemic. Countries with severe inequality have a much harder time dealing with crises like this, and I think that’s a really important lesson.
It’s a lesson about crisis management: if you have a deeply unequal society, what you're really saying is that your society is, in some fundamental ways, coming apart. It’s being stretched too thin.
People aren't really living in the same political community in a meaningful sense anymore. And when that happens, your political community becomes incapable of healing itself when disaster strikes—whether that disaster takes the form of a political revolution, a war, an invasion, or even a virus that no one saw coming.”
Listen to the full episode on Future Hindsight: A Keynesian Future with Zach Carter
Concerns about the overreach of presidential power have grown in recent years. However, as political scientist Robert Lieberman points out, this phenomenon—known as executive aggrandizement—has recurred throughout American history. It is not new, but its consequences for democracy remain serious.
Robert Lieberman:
“This is very much a story of the 20th century, particularly the growth of the presidency and the expansion of presidential power. It begins before Franklin Roosevelt, but you’re right. We start the story with Roosevelt, who took power at a moment of crisis.
It was a deep, deep crisis for democracy. Democracies were crumbling in Europe, and it was the depths of the Great Depression in March of 1933. People were looking to him to be the savior of liberal democracy in the United States and in the West. Roosevelt began his presidency with an extraordinary act of presidential power.
This act became the template for later presidents, as the national security state developed throughout the mid-to-late 20th century. As intelligence services expanded, they provided presidents with an extraordinary toolkit, one that could be wielded for political purposes. This is exactly what Richard Nixon did during the Watergate scandal and the associated events in the 1970s.
Executive aggrandizement didn’t begin with Franklin Roosevelt, but he is certainly a key part of the story.”
Listen to the full episode on Democracy Works: When four threats to democracy collide
Elections are foundational to a functioning democracy. They not only determine political leadership but also signal a country’s commitment to democratic governance and rule of law. When elections are transparent, fair, and secure, they can strengthen a nation's democratic development and bolster its credibility at home and abroad. When they’re undermined, the damage can be lasting.
In recent years, democracy has come under attack from anti-democratic leaders who seek to manipulate electoral processes for personal or partisan gain. These efforts often fall into two categories:
Let’s begin with some context from Harvard professor Daniel Ziblatt on why this threat deserves our full attention.
Daniel Ziblatt:
“Voters are increasingly critical and skeptical of the idea that elections are actually fair and free. So if you think about these two pillars of democracy—a free press and free elections—if significant portions of the population no longer view them as legitimate, it becomes very difficult to imagine sustaining a viable democracy. That’s why this is so alarming.”
Listen to the full episode on Democracy Works: How Democracies Die author Daniel Ziblatt on the ‘grinding work’ of democracy
So how exactly do these attacks on elections work? What do they look like in practice? And most importantly, how do they affect democracy?
To answer these questions, we turn to Joanna Lydgate, Co-Founder and CEO of the States United Democracy Center, a nonpartisan organization dedicated to protecting free, fair, and secure elections.
Joanna Lydgate:
“We think about the anti-democracy playbook as a simple equation: If you change the rules and you change the refs, then you have the power to change the results.
That’s it. It’s as simple as it is dangerous.
Step one is to change the rules of elections. Step two is to change the referees—the people who oversee and defend elections. And if you do those two things, you can try to change the results, or the outcome, of an election.
Now, when I say ‘change the results,’ I don’t necessarily mean waiting until all the votes are counted and then throwing out the result. I’m talking about undermining the will of the voters. Because there are a lot of ways to control and change the results of an election. You can restrict access to the polls. You can make it a hassle for people to vote absentee or by mail. You can close polling locations. You can make sure there are long lines so people feel like giving up. You can harass and threaten election officials and try to force them out of their jobs. And boy, have we seen that over the last two years.
Then, after the election, you can turn on the fog machine and create confusion. You can order up sham audits—and I’m using air quotes there for a reason—without any professional standards. You can create delays. You can interfere with the certification process and the defense of legitimate results in court. That’s what we’re facing today.
Let me turn to the second step of the anti-democracy playbook, and that’s replacing the refs.
Again, if you change the rules of elections and you change the referees who oversee elections, you can control the outcome. And that brings us to what we call election deniers. As I said earlier, the forces opposed to democracy aren’t taking any chances this time. They’re using the midterm elections to try to install their own people in statewide jobs all over this country.
That includes three statewide positions with direct control over elections: governor, state attorney general, and secretary of state. Now, I’ll be honest—historically, these haven’t been the glamour jobs. They don’t get a lot of attention, especially AG and secretary of state. But these positions are mission-critical for our elections.
They are the guardians of our democracy. These are the officials who set voting rules, decide how much money goes to support elections in a state, plan the elections themselves, oversee the voting and the counting of ballots, handle certification of elections, and then defend the results—our votes—in court.
You can see where I’m going with this. These are not jobs we can take for granted anymore. And that’s because election deniers are trying to fill these roles all over the country.
What do I mean when I say election deniers? An election denier is anyone who has promoted lies about the 2020 election or worked in specific ways to undermine its results.
Some attended Stop the Steal rallies. A few were at the Capitol on January 6th and are now running for office. And many, many others have publicly pushed lies about 2020. That includes the so-called Big Lie—that Donald Trump actually won the election.
Election deniers are on the ballot in half the races for governor in this country in November, and in about a third of the races for secretary of state and state attorney general.
So what happens if these election deniers win?
Well, if even one election denier wins in one state, we’ve got a problem. That’s enough to throw our elections into chaos and put our democracy at risk.
So that’s the formula: Change the rules. Change the refs.”
Listen to the full episode on Penn State Talks: The Anti-Democracy Playbook with Joanna Lydgate
Listen to Robert Kagan, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, explain that as this consensus falls and political tension rises, the potential for violence among citizens becomes a real possibility. Then, Barbara F. Walter, also a political scientist, explains what a modern-day civil war in the U.S. could look like.
Robert Kagan:
“We are moving forward in full force, and one of the other things that has happened since then—because one of my concerns when I wrote the article was the possibility of violence, either on Election Day or in the period following it, in the next elections—is that the proclivity for violence, if anything, has only increased.
If there is an electoral challenge, which could lead, at the very least, to chaos—contested delegations in states, protests on both sides, and potentially violence on both sides—it’s really hard to imagine weeks and weeks of violence or potential violence in states where the electoral count has been contested.
I don’t find it hard to believe. We are a very well-armed country, and some of us are increasingly bringing heavy weapons to protests. So, I think that’s a real possibility.”
Listen to the full episode on Penn State Talks: The State of the Electoral System with Robert Kagan
Barbra Walter:
“I talked about how the model that our government uses has two factors predictive of civil wars.
The first is inocracy. The second is whether citizens in a country have organized themselves into political parties based on identity rather than ideology. So, rather than joining a political party because you're a conservative or a liberal, a communist or a capitalist, you're joining a political party because you're Black or White, Muslim or Christian, Serb or Croat.
If a country exhibits both of these features—if its government is an inocracy and it has very strong, racially, ethnically, or religiously based parties—the task force considers it at high risk of civil war or ethnic conflict and places it on a watch list.
Another important point is that we actually know who tends to start civil wars, and it’s not the groups most people think. It’s not the poorest or the weakest groups. In fact, it’s the groups that were once politically dominant but are now in decline.
Now, this provides some background for answering your question, which is about the demographic transition the United States is facing. The group that had been politically dominant in this country and is now in decline is predominantly white, male, and Christian.
From the nation’s inception, this demographic has been in power, and while their status was extremely high and privileged compared to others, they now perceive themselves as being in decline.
If you think back to January 6 and recall the videos from that day, you’ll remember the people who stormed the U.S. Capitol. They walked down the mall, not trying to hide. They weren’t wearing masks; they were filming themselves with their phones. They believed they were patriots, doing the right thing, and felt it was their duty to take back their country.
This is the perfect example of the kinds of groups that feel justified in turning to violence when they perceive themselves as losing power.”
Listen to the full episode on Democracy Works: Between democracy and autocracy
When the media and our sources of information become unreliable, it becomes difficult for us to make effective decisions about the direction of our country. Whitney Phillips, an assistant professor in communications and rhetoric at Syracuse University, helps us understand just how polluted our media environment has become.
Whitney Phillips:
“One of the most prominent sources of pollution is, of course, conspiracy theorizing, particularly around the election results. But it’s not just confined to the election results. The conspiracy theory that, you know, Joe Biden stole the election from Trump, that’s tangled up with COVID, intertwined with the sprawling narrative of QAnon and the deep state, and connected to everything that’s happened over the last few years. That’s a perfect example of the kind of pollution we’re dealing with.
That’s not one singular story. It’s not one piece of trash on a beach—it’s an entire polluted lake where certain pockets have tributaries pumping particularly intense pollution into the waterways. But, you know, in a lake, pollution doesn’t stay put. It travels all around. And so we’re dealing with these vast, deeply weird, often suffused belief systems that get all tangled up with each other, and end up showing up, not just online, but sometimes storming the Capitol.”
Listen to the full episode on Democracy in Danger: Digital Wasteland
The threats facing American democracy today are not isolated or abstract—they are deeply interconnected and unfolding in real time. From toxic polarization and racial injustice to economic inequality, executive overreach, attacks on free and fair elections, and the spread of disinformation, each threat chips away at the shared trust and institutional integrity that democracy requires to survive.
But if the warnings are clear, so too is the path forward. The same Georgetown poll that revealed widespread concern also showed a public hunger for compromise, collaboration, and reform. Americans still want a government that works—for everyone. That desire is a powerful reminder that democracy is not a static system, but a living practice—one that demands vigilance, humility, and constant participation.
Defending democracy begins with naming the danger, understanding its roots, and recognizing its patterns. But it doesn't end there. It requires courage—not just from our leaders, but from all of us. Courage to listen deeply, to engage across differences, to hold power accountable, and to rebuild the democratic norms we’ve allowed to erode.
In this urgent moment, we are all stewards of the democratic experiment. Its future depends on what we choose to do next.
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