The United States is known for many things: McDonald’s, New York City, the stars and stripes and being the strongest military power in the world, to name a few. Additionally, for the last few years, it’s been known to have a strong democracy.
Recently, however, America’s destruction of civil liberties and support has caused our democracy to decline.
“To me personally, [democracy] means everybody having a voice in our government, and being able to participate in government, whether that is being an elected official or serving in the bureaucracy or even just voting,” says Ainsley Porter, a senior at Ida B. Wells and Associated Student Body (ASB) President.
Presently, the voice of the people seems diminished compared to the voice and power of the government, specifically the president. Our current president, Donald Trump, has signed more executive orders in his first 100 days in office than any other president in the entirety of U.S. history, and continues to do so.
Republicans have control of both the Senate and the House of Representatives. Trump has also appointed three Supreme Court Justices and an entirely new team of Cabinet leaders. Add this to his control over Congress and he has essentially eliminated a large portion of the checks and balances created to safeguard against tyranny.
Claims of Trump running for a third term and becoming an authoritarian leader are more worrisome when you consider his recent actions that are clearly unconstitutional; sending the National Guard to cities where there are no real threats is blatantly against the rules, yet he faces no consequences.
His actions, and the political climate altogether, are so divisive that it’s practically split America into two halves: Republicans and Democrats.
Each side heavily supports their party designation and denounces the opposite. Lately, there has been an increasing number of people blindly siding with their political party without doing any research on what that person is campaigning for.
“I think one of the reasons we have such polarization is that everything gets boiled down to Democrats and Republicans. And we definitely have more political beliefs than that, if we could find some way to represent them,” says Tim Loveless, who teaches AP Government at Ida B. Wells.
Republicans want to see a Republican in office, regardless of what that person stands for. The same goes for Democrats.
At this point, voting independent or third party is the same as throwing your vote away, reinforcing the fact that only two parties really matter.
“I think we’re in a pretty bad place right now. This is in the top five worst divisive environments in our history,” says Loveless. “We’re just such a winning-oriented society.” The pressure and focus our society has on winning is what fuels this blind loyalty to our political parties.
In fact, the majority of people who voted for Trump in the 2024 election regret their decision, and while there are even more who are confused or upset about the way things are going, they stand by their choice, because to them, loyalty to their party is the most important thing.
“We are so divided right now that the parties are really fighting against each other, not working together,” says Porter.
The consensus, though, is that what Trump has been doing in his first nine months is almost entirely different from what he campaigned for.
Destroying part of the White House to build a $300 ballroom? Not something that was on the ballot. Halting SNAP food stamps? Nope. Monitoring media outlets and removing things he disagrees with? All of these things and more were conveniently left out.
“In my experience, he is just a known liar, and so I feel like everything he says is a lie,” says Loveless.
Americans haven’t been silenced completely, though. On Oct. 18, almost seven million people from big cities and small towns across the United States, participated in the peaceful, “No Kings” protest. Organized by a coalition of progressive groups, including the nonprofit American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and politician Bernie Sanders, “No Kings” is both a slogan and a movement against Trump and his authoritarian actions.
“As somebody who participated in ‘No Kings’, it was inspiring to see that in the face of adversity and fascism and these discouraging actions, that young people will come together and fight for what is right, which is democracy,” said Porter.
“No Kings” on Oct. 18 was the second-largest single-day protest in American history.
However, the way Trump responded and perceived the protests felt like he saw them as nothing but a funny joke, fully discounting the message they were sending.
Instead of a polished speech or statement, let alone some form of recognition, he posted several Artificial Intelligence (AI) videos, one of which depicted him dumping massive amounts of feces on protesters in Times Square from his jet called “King Trump.”
Another video, posted by Vice President JD Vance, depicted Trump with a crown and cape, pulling out a sword over several prominent Democratic figures, including former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who knelt before him.
These videos are childish, inappropriate and offensive, and frankly, it’s embarrassing to be a U.S. citizen right now. How are we supposed to explain to people from other countries that our president, whom we elected freely, responded to mass protests with an AI video of him dumping poop on the protesters?
Unfortunately, tools like AI are changing the way that people engage with politics and democracy.
“I know that I put a lot less trust in the things that I used to,” says Loveless. “The old saying used to be ‘pics or it didn’t happen,’ and I don’t think you can say that anymore. I’m not sure how much I can trust videos and pictures.”
The United States has been classified as a “full democracy” since 1965, when the Voting Rights Act was passed. But in 2016, the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) demoted the country from a “full democracy” (“a system in which basic freedoms and liberties are respected, with few problems in how democracy is functioning”) to a “flawed democracy.”
With our president abusing power, using untrustworthy media and setting restrictions on free speech, it’s easy to see why EIU demoted America to a “flawed democracy,” a nation where elections are fair and free and basic civil liberties are honored but they may have issues, like media freedom infringement and suppression of political opposition.
This shift makes it clear that protecting democracy and following the Constitution are not the most important things to politicians anymore. In fact, it lends credit to many people’s claims that America is becoming an autocracy instead of a democracy.
Things need to change if Americans want to be heard again. It’s now a matter of how we change it and when.
“I would move to multi-member districts with proportional representation to give better representation to the wider beliefs that exist in the United States,” says Loveless.
For the sake of America and its people, it’d behoove us as a society to turn things around and restore the democracy that’s been torn apart by Trump and his surrounding “yes team” that he’s assembled. A team that’s widely ignored so many people that depend on and believe in the democracy he’s ignored.
