Democracy as Infrastructure

A Call to Action for Progressive Leaders

The following is a speech I gave on October 23, 2025 to participants in the Activists Mobilizing for Power (AMP) training conference sponsored by the Western States Center, an organization leading the fight against white nationalism in the West.

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Let me start with something we all know but rarely say out loud: We have every right to question why we should fight to save a democracy that has never fully embraced us.

You’ve been asked to join coalitions that want your bodies at rallies but not your voices in strategy sessions. They want your energy but not your analysis. Meanwhile, you’re already fighting the daily violence of economic inequality, environmental racism, and state-sanctioned brutality.

So you’re caught in a double bind: asked to join coalitions that don’t really want you, to defend a system that was never designed for you, against threats that feel abstract compared to the fights you’re already in.

I get it. I see you. And I’m not here to tell you those concerns are wrong.

But I want to share something striking from my work defending democracy. I spend a lot of time with business owners, entrepreneurs, tech workers—people probably to your political right. And here’s what’s fascinating: I don’t have to convince them democracy is in jeopardy. They get it immediately.

They see democracy as infrastructure - imperfect infrastructure that nevertheless makes their work possible. They understand that rule of law, even flawed rule of law, beats rule by personal whim. That regulatory predictability, even with imperfect regulations, beats arbitrary enforcement designed to reward friends and punish enemies.

They don’t need democracy as a beautiful ideal. They need it as a functional necessity.

And here’s the irony: The people who’ve benefited most from this flawed system are quickest to understand why it’s worth defending. Meanwhile, those most failed by the system - you, your communities, your movements - are most skeptical about defending it.

This isn’t criticism. This is strategic intelligence.

THE DEEPER ANALYSIS

Let’s be clear about what we’re facing. The threat to democracy isn’t just about election integrity, or whether or not Jimmy Kimmel gets to tell jokes about Donald Trump on late night TV. It’s about the probability of consolidation of authoritarianism across all of our institutions and states; a situation that will make every struggle you care about infinitely harder.

The super-authoritarian turn we’re in is an extension of the neoliberal policies many of you fought for decades - policies that deregulated business, privatized community care, and insulated elite markets from democratic accountability. Having achieved extreme wealth inequality, they now want to secure their power against an uncertain future of AI displacement, resource scarcity, and climate disasters. How? By destroying democracy itself because they see democracy as the ultimate check on concentrated power.

The forces threatening democracy aren’t separate enemies. They’re the same forces you’ve been fighting all along. Corporate power that sees accountability as an obstacle. White nationalist movements that view multiracial democracy as an existential threat. Patriarchal systems that understand democracy means the end of male dominance. Plutocrats who know genuine democracy would redistribute their wealth.

The fight against authoritarianism IS the fight for economic justice, racial equity, gender liberation, and environmental survival.

THE STRATEGIC REALITY

We’re not choosing between perfect democracy and imperfect democracy. We’re choosing between imperfect democracy and no democracy at all.

And democracy is not our destination - it’s our infrastructure.

Every organization in this room exists because of democratic infrastructure you might take for granted. Your right to organize. To protest. To file lawsuits. To run candidates. To hold this conference. To criticize government without disappearing in the night.

These aren’t abstract principles; they’re the practical tools that make your work possible. Under authoritarianism, these rights don’t get limited. They get criminalized.

Look around the world. In Hungary, civil society groups are labeled “foreign agents.” In Russia, environmental organizers are designated “extremists.” In China, labor leaders disappear. In Myanmar, democracy activists are shot in the streets.

Your organizations don’t just lose funding under authoritarianism - they become illegal. Your leaders don’t just face harassment - they face imprisonment. Your communities don’t just lose political voice - they lose the right to exist in public space.

THE LESSON OF HISTORY

This tension isn’t new. Every successful social justice movement has faced this choice: defend democratic space while fighting to expand it, or watch it collapse.

Labor organizers in the 1930s fought fascism abroad while fighting for workers’ rights at home, not because they loved capitalism, but because fascist victory would end labor organizing entirely. The CIO didn’t moderate their demands when joining anti-fascist coalitions. They used those coalitions to build power and win unprecedented gains.

Civil rights leaders in the 1960s could have said, “Why fight for a democracy that enslaved us, lynched us, excluded us?” Instead, they defended institutions while exposing their failures. Martin Luther King Jr. didn’t soften his critique when speaking against Vietnam, but he understood that flawed democracy with rights was better than losing those rights entirely.

Every movement faced critics saying they were legitimizing oppressive systems. Every one had to choose: defend imperfect democracy while building something better, or let it collapse and hope something better will emerge from ashes.

The ones who chose defense plus transformation gave us just about every freedom we have.

THE MATHEMATICS OF RESISTANCE

Here’s what research on democratic breakdowns tells us: When authoritarians consolidate power, institutional resistance alone has about a 7% success rate. Courts, legislators, bureaucrats, they matter but aren’t enough.

But when institutional resistance combines with sustained mass civil resistance - when millions engage in organized protest, strategic strikes, coordinated noncooperation - the success rate jumps to over 50%.

South Korea 2016-2017. Sudan 2019. Ukraine’s Orange Revolution. Each succeeded because electoral challenges and institutional resistance were backed by massive street mobilization.

This is why your organizing matters so much. Building mass movements for justice isn’t separate from defending democracy; it’s the foundation that makes democratic defense possible.

THE AUTHORITARIANS’ STRATEGY

Authoritarians understand something we sometimes forget: they’re counting on our hesitancy. They’ve studied every successful authoritarian takeover, and they know the key is dividing the opposition.

They want us divided between those defending imperfect democracy and those demanding perfect justice. They want us arguing about whether this system deserves protection while they dismantle the framework that makes organizing possible.

Steve Bannon talks explicitly about “flooding the zone with shit,” creating chaos so people give up on rational discourse. Viktor Orbán wrote the playbook on using democratic procedures to destroy democracy while keeping opposition movements fighting each other.

They know unified opposition is their greatest threat. That’s why they work so hard to keep us divided. Our unity around democracy as infrastructure is their greatest threat.

OUR MOMENT: RELUCTANT GUARDIANS

We didn’t choose to be the generation that has to save democracy. We wanted to be the generation that perfected it. We wanted to write new chapters of justice, not prevent the book from being burned.

But history has made us something more complex and perhaps more powerful: we are both the prophets of what democracy could become AND the mechanics keeping it running long enough to get there.

Prophetic vision without mechanical work leads to beautiful speeches over graves. Mechanical work without prophetic vision preserves systems that don’t deserve preservation.

We are called to be both. Reluctant guardians with radical visions. Emergency medics who are also surgeons preparing for democracy’s transformation.

THE STRATEGIC FRAMEWORK: TRIPLE POWER

What does this mean practically? We fight on three fronts simultaneously:

First, the defensive fight: Protecting voting rights. Defending civic organizations. Maintaining legal protections. Safeguarding press freedom. Preserving the right to protest. This isn’t about loving these institutions; it’s about preserving space where organizing can happen.

Second, the constructive fight: Building alternative infrastructure. Creating mutual aid networks. Developing independent media. Building cooperative economics. Establishing community land trusts. This work doesn’t wait for permission - it creates new institutions embodying our values.

Third, the offensive fight: Using democratic tools to build power and win victories. Running candidates who represent our values. Changing oppressive policies. Shifting public discourse. Building political organizations that can govern with our principles.

The beauty of this strategy is that each front reinforces the others. Mutual aid builds the base candidates need. Electoral victories create policy space for organizing. Defensive work protects space where constructive and offensive work happen.

All three fronts depend on democratic infrastructure.

ADDRESSING THE LEGITIMACY TRAP

Some say defending this democracy legitimizes its failures. That’s a false choice designed to paralyze us.

Letting democracy collapse doesn’t delegitimize its failures - it makes fixing them impossible. The concentration camps didn’t become less real when the fascists toppled democracy in Germany - they became more real, more widespread, and more systematic.

We’re not defending the status quo. We’re defending the battlefield where the real fight happens. We’re not saying this system is good enough. We’re saying it’s changeable, and that changeability is worth defending.

Civil rights organizers fighting for voting rights weren’t saying American democracy was perfect. They were saying democracy without them was incomplete, and democracy with them would be different.

The goal isn’t to preserve democracy as it is. The goal is to preserve democracy as a space where it can become what it should be.

THE PRACTICAL CALL TO ACTION

Here’s what I’m asking tonight:

Stop thinking of democracy as the system that failed you. Start thinking of it as the infrastructure that allows you to fight for something better.

Stop seeing democratic defense as separate from justice work. Start seeing it as the foundation that makes justice possible.

Stop letting perfect be the enemy of possible. Start using what’s possible as stepping stones to transformation.

Your organizations need you to be strategic. They need you to understand that we can’t build the world we want on the ashes of the only currently existing system that allows us to organize for that world.

But I’m also asking the broader pro-democracy movement: Stop treating progressives as dangerous allies who need managing. Start understanding that progressive analysis makes you stronger. Stop asking people to check their values at the door.

THE ORGANIZING IMPERATIVE

This is about organizing; building sustained, community-based power that can defend democracy today and transform it tomorrow.

Every doorknock for a defensive campaign is an opportunity for transformational politics. Every phone call to protect voting rights connects someone to ongoing organizing. Every rally to defend democracy builds relationships for justice work.

The most effective defense of democracy is organizing that builds lasting power for the communities authoritarianism targets first and hardest.

CLOSING: THE GENERATIONAL RESPONSIBILITY

The ancestors of our movements faced this choice before us. They chose defense plus transformation. They chose to be both guardians and revolutionaries.

Ida B. Wells fought for voting rights while founding the NAACP. Eugene Debs ran for president while organizing railroad workers. Dorothy Day provided mutual aid while protesting war. Cesar Chavez built farmworker power while registering voters.

They didn’t choose between tactics - they used each to strengthen the other. Because of their strategic thinking, you have organizations to belong to, rights to exercise, and power to build.

Now the choice is ours.

Future generations will ask: Did the progressives of 2025 choose strategic thinking over ideological purity? Did they defend democracy while transforming it? Did they understand that democracy as infrastructure was not a compromise of their values but the application of their values to this historical moment?

Did they choose to be heroes when history called?

The answer is in your hands. It starts with what you do when you leave this room today. It continues with how you organize, build coalitions, run campaigns tomorrow, next week, next month.

It continues with whether you can hold both the urgency of the defensive moment and the patience of the transformational visionary. Whether you can be both emergency responders and long-term builders.

Democracy as infrastructure. Justice as destination. Triple power as strategy. Coalition as necessity. Transformation as possibility.

This is our moment. This is our choice. This is our call.

The future is watching. The ancestors are counting on us. The communities we serve are depending on us.

And the work - the beautiful, necessary, transformational work of building the democracy we deserve - begins now.