Over the last six years, the U.S. has seen a mass wave of nativism that has shifted the “Overton Window” of acceptable politics, making once-marginal aspects of anti-immigrant ideology a part of the mainstream GOP. This has changed the nature of…
In the run-up to the 2020 election, Political Research Associates warned that Trump would never concede defeat and that his volatile mix of supporters would take to the streets to contest the results if he lost at the polls. We recognized the danger…
PRA Statement on the Election and Threats to Democracy
Early this morning, and without any legitimate basis, President Trump declared electoral victory and decried voter fraud. Political Research Associates, among other observers, had warned of such moves. So far, the president appears to be following…
Resisting Disaster Authoritarianism, Building Multiracial Feminist Democracy
The COVID-19 crisis has exposed the inadequacy of our public health and emergency response infrastructure, leaving the heaviest burdens of our distress to fall unevenly, but predictably, along fault lines of race, class, gender, and disability while…
I’m a pastor’s kid and I was raised to believe in Martin Luther King Jr.’s inspiring assertion that the arc of history may be long, but it bends towards justice. And, I was raised in a family that had to flee our country when Brazilian democracy…
If Macron is the bulwark against a looming authoritarian nightmare, why does his program look like an assault on the fundamental foundations of democracy in France?
The U.S. Christian Right's Endorsement of Authoritarian Leaders
On Friday, August 4, Paul Kagame celebrated a landslide victory in Rwanda’s presidential election, securing his third seven-year term as the small, East African country’s leader with nearly 99% of the vote. It was an unsurprising result, given that…
Right-wing populist movements target superficial or false symbols of elite power, reinforces systems of social privilege and oppression, and are built around a backlash against liberation movements, social reform, or revolution.
Engaging Trump, Defending Human Rights, and Preventing Authoritarianism
The bigotry and false solutions championed by President Donald Trump are not a new phenomenon in American politics. Indeed, the idea that one person’s dignity requires another’s subjugation has been a central contradiction in this country’s founding…
Broadly speaking, the consensus is that we’re in a time of great instability, revolt, and possibility. History teaches us that in times like these, we need to be both bold and vigilant. Authoritarian, chauvinistic, and bigoted movements assert…
To defeat the current upsurge in right-wing populism, progressives will need to disrupt, defuse, and – critically – compete for portions of its constituency.
