Democracy finds itself not simply in a precarious state but on the verge of collapsing. Almost half the country now has laws in place that would effectively end safe access to abortion once the Supreme Court strikes down Roe v. Wade, as is expected. More than a dozen states are seeking to prohibit LGBTQ+ discussion in the classroom. And more than 250 bills from state legislatures across the country would place restrictions on voting access. As historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat, an expert on authoritarianism, said on the “iGen Politics” podcast I co-host, what is happening in Republican states is a real-time formation of “mini-autocracies.”
While the reality is grim, now is not the time for voters to give in to despair. Instead, with six months remaining until the midterm elections, there is no time like the present for voters to begin volunteering and organizing.
And there is something else that Democrats can do: Support young people running for office up and down the ballot. Young people have been part of U.S. governance from the beginning: Rep. John Steele served in the first Congress while in his 20s. But young people are not necessarily well represented today in the halls of government.
