Charles M. Reigeluth

5B. Societal Threats to the Existential Facet

In the Existential facet we emphasize factors that undermine the integrity of government and directly threaten the foundations of government itself.

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In the Societal column, the focus is on those factors that are rooted in the socioeconomic system or other societal forces. This includes organizations and ideologies that are literally anti-democratic in their nature, the efforts of domestic and foreign pressure groups to influence or undermine the government, demographic fears that lead to unrest, and a media environment that is detrimental to the functioning of democracy.

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5B1. Authoritarians Embrace the Republican Party

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As discussed at the beginning of this paper, authoritarianism as a political system was rarely viewed as a possible alternative to the American democratic system. Yet, in 2026 the government that is ruling the United States, the Trump administration, is hardly distinguishable from the authoritarian regimes of Erdoğan in Türkiye, Orbán in Hungary, and Modi in India. Indeed, the ruler upon whom President Trump has lavished the most adulation is Vladimir Putin of the Russian Federation. How has this happened?

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The answer includes all the vulnerabilities discussed in this paper, but perhaps the most insidious factor is…us, the people. As much as politicians are fond of celebrating the democratic character of the American people, there has always been a portion of the population with authoritarian personality traits. Just in the past decade, the stars have aligned to empower that group to elect a president who would come to power surrounded by sufficient enablers to impose his authoritarian will upon the institutions of government. What are those authoritarian personality traits and how did the people with those traits become the dominant force in the American electorate?

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We contend that the prevalence of the authoritarian personality type in the USA poses a threat to democracy in that its traits are incompatible with democratic values. We use the term authoritarian as it is used by John Dean in The Authoritarian Nightmare (Dean and Altemeyer 2020), to refer to the group of people who score high on either the RWA (right-wing authoritarian) Scale (Altemeyer 2006) or the SDO (social dominance orientation) Scale (Pratto, et al. 1994). The first set is those who Altemeyer refers to as authoritarian followers. People of this personality type exhibit a strong tendency toward submission to authority, aggressiveness, and conventionalism. They regard legitimate authority as people who see the world the way they do and support that authority, looking the other way at dishonesty or corruption. They are not necessarily aggressive in general but can easily be prompted to aggress when they feel that “right” and “might” are on their side—that is, if their worldview is threatened and they believe they have the stronger power. Concerning conventionalism, authoritarian followers want to “be normal” more than most people; clinging to orthodoxy is important to them (Altemeyer 2006).

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The second set, referred to as social dominators by Sidanius and Pratto (1999), exhibit a high tendency to support the existing social hierarchy and to make their “in-group” superior to the “out-groups.”  Many sources of group discord (e.g., racism, homophobia, ethnocentrism, sexism, regionalism) can be regarded as manifestations of the same basic human predisposition to form group-based identities and to protect the hierarchical rank of one’s own group. Social dominators do not believe in equality; they want those on top to stay on the top and everyone to “stay in their place.” They prejudge and dislike anyone who is not a member of their own in-group; their out-groups include Blacks, Latinos, Asians, Jews, Muslims, homosexuals…and women. 

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These two sets are separate personality types that differ in some regards and are complementary in others; for example, both types score high on any measure of “prejudice” (Altemeyer 2006, 161). A small percentage of respondents score high on both the RWA and SDO Scales. Dean and Altemeyer dub these “Double Highs” and consider them to have the worst tendencies of both personality types: “power-mad, raging, fearful, self-righteous, dominating, amoral, dogmatic discriminators” (2020, 195). Again, we are treating these groups as personality types. Other observers consider authoritarianism as more of an attitudinal set, an ideology, a disposition, or a syndrome. In any case, scholars of all fields find that authoritarianism has had significant impact on public opinion and political behavior.

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This authoritarian force has always been lurking in the shadows. What conditions enabled this force to wield decisive electoral power? The short answer is that two sub-groups—“forgottens” and “evangelicals”—coalesced and then joined together to form a majority within the Republican party. Forgottens is the term used by Dean and Altemeyer to represent the less-educated, marginalized White males who felt that they were at risk of sliding down the social ladder—the people whose plight JD Vance was dramatizing in Hillbilly Elegy. As Pettigrew points out, they were not necessarily unemployed or economically destitute, but rather were suffering from relative deprivation; that is, they felt they were not doing as well as they had expected and that other “less deserving” groups were getting ahead of them (Pettigrew 2017, 111). Neither political party had done enough to relieve their feelings of deprivation, so why not throw in their lot with a non-politician—Trump—who despised both parties.

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Evangelicals is the term used by Altemeyer in The Authoritarians (2006, 110) to refer to the early 20th century Protestant religious movement known as Fundamentalism, which took a militant position on biblical literalism and orthodox belief. This movement was embraced by many different sects, which later came to prefer the label Evangelical. This group of believers, originally completely non-political, moved toward consolidation in the Republican camp through a step-by-step process. In the 1970s, Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority connected believers to conservative social issues such as abortion, pornography, and homosexual rights; they succeeded in elevating Ronald Reagan to the Presidency. In the 1980s, Pat Robertson’s Christian Coalition attempted to bring conservative Catholics into alliance with evangelical Protestants to take over the Republican party. Through grassroots organizing within their churches, by the end of the 1990s they had taken control over many state-level Republican committees. In 2004, Karl Rove, George W. Bush’s campaign manager, gained the support of evangelicals with promises of influence in the new administration. By 2015, faith-based voters could dictate the winners of Republican primary elections. In the 2016 election, although evangelicals preferred candidate Ted Cruz, they quickly fell into line under Donald Trump when he focused his campaign on racial prejudice.

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During the 2016 presidential primaries Feldman (2020) found a significant positive relationship between authoritarianism and favorable evaluations of Trump among Republicans. None of the other candidates showed such a connection. Meanwhile, social dominators had found their strong leader and “the forgotten” had found a mouthpiece for their accumulated grievances: “He says what I’m thinking.” With their support and with evangelicals giving Trump 80 percent of their vote, it was enough to carry the majority in the Electoral College (Dean and Altemeyer 2020, 172-178).

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Guidelines for the conversion of a democratic state to authoritarianism, sometimes referred to as “the authoritarian playbook,” can be inferred from the experiences of Russia, Hungary, and Türkiye in recent times. The process begins with gradual reduction in democratic safeguards; it may continue gradually or succumb to a sudden “decapitation strike.” These procedures can be seen being replicated in the actions of the second Trump administration. Some of the gradual steps can be found explicitly spelled out in the doctrines of the Republican party; see, for example, the advocacy of Steve Bannon, chief strategist of Donald Trump, for “deconstruction of the administrative state,” and see also provisions of “Project 2025.” The authoritarian playbook entails a number of specific policy changes: a) dismantling the civil service, replacing career civil servants with political appointees whose mission is to undermine their agency; b) curtailing civil liberties, e.g. draconian immigration policies, a ban on “pornography,” restricting rights based on gender—"wokeism,” reproductive freedoms, etc.; and c) invoking a national emergency to implement a “decapitation strike,” a sudden imposition of authoritarian rule (Snyder 2017).

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5B2. Anti-Democratic Political Ideologies

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An ideology is an organized body of concepts, beliefs, and values that shapes how people perceive, interpret, and act within the world. It provides a comprehensive framework—covering politics, culture, and economics—that guides behavior, legitimizes social arrangements, and defines "correct" thinking. Some ideologies—such as fascism and communism—embrace beliefs and values that are simply incompatible with the functioning of a democratic system like the American democratic republic. Fascism and communism in particular gained considerable popularity during the Great Depression, when most Americans were struggling economically and were questioning whether their faith in the democratic system was merited. They could look abroad and see dramatic signs of revitalization in Italy, Germany, and the Soviet Union. Those ideologies did not survive the test of history and faded to the background in the United States.

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Two other political ideologies—competitive individualism and capitalism—have deep historic roots and still dominate the thinking of everyday Americans, and each has elements that challenge the ideals of a democratic system. Competitive individualism as a political ideology prioritizes realizing one's own goals and desires, and valuing independence and self-reliance above the interests of the group or the state. Phrased as “rugged individualism” since the time of Herbert Hoover (Hoover 1928), this ideology has taken root in the American mind, especially through the film and TV portrayals of cowboys and vigilantes as American ideals—portraying a world in which White men delivered justice without the interference of government. In 1959, eight of the top ten network TV shows were westerns. Later, the cowboy-hatted Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush played on this theme, evoking the cowboy as hero (Richardson 2026).

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Since it downplays “the common good” versus individual interests, competitive individualism supports such political stances as: anti-union, indifference toward public schools by childless people, disinterest in public support of mass transportation, acceptance of ‘tipping’ culture, and opposition to public health insurance. People who implicitly accept this view and who then lose their jobs, suffer shame and loss of self-esteem. They seek scapegoats to rationalize their perceived failure. They reject viewing the world as a “global community” and are suspicious of such bogeymen as “Globalism” and the “New World Order.” Finally, competitive individualism claims that achievement should be based solely on merit; thus, it provides the basis for opposing efforts at diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).

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Capitalism as a political ideology supports private ownership of production, competitive markets, and profit-driven activity. It advocates limited government intervention, focusing on individual liberty, property rights, and supply-demand price mechanisms. These ideas, newly emerging in 18th century British economic theories, were embraced by the American leaders who were facing the daunting task of creating rules for the governance of a continent, a place they conceived of as a New Jerusalem—“a city on a hill” as it was phrased by John Winthrop (Bercovitch 1975, xvii).

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The marriage of a new economic vision with an exalted spiritual purpose led to the belief that the United States is inherently unique and superior to other nations due to its history and foundational spiritual ideals—otherwise known as American exceptionalism. The notion of serving as a model for the rest of the world is simply reflexive in most political rhetoric. It actually has been a plank in the Republican platform since 2012. Unfortunately, it impels Americans to disregard other models or foreign concepts. At worst, it induces an arrogance, self-regard, and sense of moral infallibility in its “patriots.” It validates emotional commitment to “patriotic” actions, even violence.

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As capitalism has played out in the US since its founding, it has led to extreme wealth inequality, which has translated into unequal political influence, prioritizing profit over public needs and even over ecological balance (Blakeley 2024).

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5B3. Anti-Democratic Religious Organizations

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In addition to the “evangelicals” discussed above in the context of authoritarianism, the US has seen an upsurge of other religious organizations whose doctrines and political activities are antithetical to democratic norms. To begin with doctrine, we are talking about religious organizations that prescribe leadership by anointed elites and submission and obedience to those authorities—values that inherently conflict with democratic civic values. Rather, they serve as models for autocracy (O'Toole 2025). Further, certain religious groups, by taking strident sectarian positions, sow division between themselves and other faiths and with secular society. For example:

1. The Christian Identity movement is an interpretation of Christianity (not a specific sect) which proposes that only Celtic and Germanic peoples, or the "Aryan race," are the descendants of the ancient Israelites and are therefore God's "chosen people." It is labeled as racist, antisemitic, and white supremacist by the ADL and the SPLC.

2. The Christian Nationalism movement promotes belief in charismatic prophecy and spiritual warfare, which fuels aggressive political radicalization (Taylor 2024).

3. ‘New Apostolic Reform’ churches constitute a cult. Leaders are prophets who get messages from God, demand obedience of followers, and direct them to the brutish “cult of Trump” (Hassan 2020).

4. Certain cult-like Catholic groups, such as Opus Dei—a secretive ultra-conservative sect allegedly involved in bank fraud and human trafficking (Gore 2024)—and American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family, and Property (TFP) explicitly work toward replacing democracy with a Catholic monarchy. Members of President Trump’s inner circle have ties to these and other anti-democratic Catholic organizations. Vice-President Vance, a recent, zealous convert, aligns with the Catholic “postliberal movement” that combines social conservatism with a belief in using state power to promote their narrow brand of “Christian values.” And Trump advisor Steve Bannon worked with the conservative Catholic Dignitatis Humanae Institute to develop courses to train right-wing politicians (Rivera 2019).

5. Leonard Leo’s groups, including Marble Freedom Trust and Concord Fund, have funneled tens of millions of dollars into appointing conservative Catholics to the Supreme Court, in which six of the nine seats are occupied by Catholics, five of whom regularly support the most conservative opinions.

Social psychology research has revealed that religious ethnocentrism underlies a more general non-religious prejudice (Noll 1994, ix, 3). That is, “learning to dislike people on religious grounds seemingly has powerful consequences for how we react to people who are different in other ways” (Altemeyer 2006, 151). Coincidentally, fundamentalist Christian churches are losing members like other churches, so they have become more active politically to keep members engaged. Those who remain as members feel more beleaguered, hence have a more sectarian identity and a more militant attitude (Sanneh 2023).

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Thus, members of the sorts of religious communities discussed here can easily be brought to support “culture wars”—struggles against “out” groups such as gay, lesbian, and transgender individuals; immigrants; non-whites; and women who champion non-traditional roles. By supporting such “culture wars,” religious political activists exacerbate political wedges dividing the public into competing tribes. These attacks can be translated into public policy by judges motivated by the same ethnocentrism who support radical legal stances, overruling precedents and thereby establishing new policies that undermine democratic values.

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To sum up, a range of different strident religious sects, congregations, and cults serve as a model for autocracy. They attempt to project their authoritarian doctrines into the political sphere, attempting to impose their extremist doctrines on the general population. Religious zealots can inflame their followers into extreme, sometimes violent, actions in pursuit of their missions.

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5B4. Demographic Fears

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Fear acts as a foundational driver of political extremism, serving as both a strategy for extremists to gain influence and as an emotional state that motivates individuals to adopt radical views. It operates by amplifying perceptions of threat, fostering in-group loyalty, and driving the rejection of out-groups. Many American sub-groups are anxious about their demographic prospects.

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The US Census projects that the US will become 'minority White' by 2045. People generally want themselves and their “blood” to survive, thus groups centering their white identity are becoming more militant (Walter 2023) (Hochschild 2018). Poor White, often rural, people’s fear of slipping lower on the social ladder elevates their desperation, hence a propensity to resort to violence: “rural white rage” (Schaller and Waldman 2024). One specific event elevated this sense of foreboding—the election of Barack Obama in 2008. It kicked the rise of militant hate groups into high gear (Wilkerson 2020). As “white minority” status becomes more imminent, people whose “whiteness” is central to their identity become more desperate and more prone to extreme measures, including violence.

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This demographic fear is fanned by media imagery that leads them to compare their condition to that of the rich. In addition, they see themselves left out of government programs—such as Pell Grants, the Strengthening HBCU Program, the Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA), Office of Minority Health (OMH), and Racial and Ethnic Approaches to Community Health (REACH)—that benefit the racial and ethnic groups they perceive as their competitors. Those anxieties are further inflamed by regressive economic policies at the state and national level (e.g., tax breaks for the rich) that make their economic struggle harder. All this creates a reservoir of resentment that can be tapped by demagogues.

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Self-proclaimed populists encourage the disaffected people to blame “out groups”—women, minorities, immigrants, and “elites.”  By punishing the demonized “out groups,” the resentful ones gain the solace of knowing that others are suffering more. This punishment can take the form of withdrawal of financial benefits, limitations on voting rights, social restrictions, and even violence. Dollard and Miller’s frustration-aggression hypothesis (1939) asserts that aggression is commonly the product of frustration. Thus, the grievances of financially struggling rural white males and others who share their plight can be channeled into a political program of repression of the “out groups.” The punishment of “out groups” can rise—and often has risen—to violent actions (e.g. the January 6 Capitol attack). 

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Domestic migration from rural areas to metropolitan centers, often termed “rural flight,” is a long-term global phenomenon driven by economic and social factors. Historically, people migrate to metropolitan centers seeking upward mobility. Cities offer diverse job markets, higher wages, and industrial or service-sector employment not found in agriculture-dependent rural areas.

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The US Census showed that between 2010 and 2020, rural areas lost population, while cities and suburbs grew by 8% (Henderson 2021). This trend was reversed temporarily during the COVID pandemic years but resumed in the years afterward. This puts conservative rural counties at risk of losing dominance in their state—getting outvoted by metropolitan centers. As it happens, the rural flight phenomenon is most dramatic in traditionally conservative states (Henderson 2021). This means that those rural voters most accustomed to wielding power in their state are the ones becoming most at risk of losing that power. Hence, we see the struggle to maintain rural dominance leading to increasingly polarized and bitter partisan competition. This is playing out in 2025 and 2026 as Republican legislatures go to increasingly extreme lengths to redistrict Congressional districts to prevent loss of control of the US Congress. This loss of dominance has real consequences for the rural way of life, so we see real zealousness in their struggle. People who feel beleaguered and on the verge of losing hegemony can be driven to desperate, and even violent, means.

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Even those who are on the “winning” side in demographic change have well justified fears. Historically, the law enforcement and justice systems have disproportionately targeted and penalized racial minorities. This bias operates through systemic racial or caste biases, underrepresentation within police forces and the judiciary, and, generally, by serving to maintain the status quo of White privilege. Despite constitutional guarantees of equal protection, many minority groups experience higher rates of adverse interaction with, and lower levels of satisfaction with, legal authorities. This legal discrimination undercuts minorities’ trust in the justice system, weakening minorities’ support of government generally, while stoking animosity that periodically bursts out into violence.   

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5B5. Sectarianism Feeds Gridlock and Extremism

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There is no doubt that the two major political parties in the US have grown more polarized over the past four decades. This has been well documented by the Pew Research Center (2014). The median Democratic voter is now “consistently liberal” in their political opinions, and the median Republican voter is now “consistently conservative” in their opinions. Partisans now view each other with increasing mutual antipathy (Pew Research Center 2014, 11). It is not just disagreement, it is dislike. The gap is so wide and so emotional that it appears to transcend mere political issues. Therefore, we contend that what is commonly referred to as “political polarization” or “tribalism” may more accurately be viewed as sectarianism, the growing tendency for people to align their political commitments according to moralized identities, similar to how religious sects form (Finkel, et al. 2020). That is, political identity functions like a religious identity: people who disagree with us are not only wrong, but also evil.

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The animus is not political, but sectarian. Hence, we may examine polarization most accurately through the lens of sectarianism. That is, people evaluate political issues based on coherence with sectarian leanings rather than on consistency with a particular political ideology. Some consequences are:

1. Politicians promote divisive “wedge issues” because keeping their partisans inflamed increases voting support. Such clashes are often characterized as “culture wars” because they involve, not political issues, but issues that tug at the moral stances of conflicting sects.

2. Political compromise, which is the essence of democratic governance, is denounced as a moral transgression. This uncompromising reflex is particularly true of the far-right Freedom Caucus of the House of Representatives. The dysfunction of this stance is recognized even by the conservative Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, who “argued that the Freedom Caucus’s trademark refusal to compromise undermined the constitutional purpose of Congress” (Kirkpatrick 2024, 50).

3. Congressional members increasingly refuse to support any legislation supported by the opposition, including funding basic government operations, because it would give a “win” to the opposing sect.

The result is gridlock, a societally based gridlock to accompany the legally based gridlock discussed earlier. Nothing feeds the popular disdain of “Washington” more than the failure of politicians to “do your job!” But lawmakers hesitate to compromise because extremists in their party (or tribe) insist on sectarian purity, regarding compromise as surrender.

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Since sectarian identity is so central to one’s sense of self, it can evoke powerful emotional and even violent responses. When sectarianism sows divisions so deep that normal political processes do not function, this reinforces the notion that the government does not work, thus offering autocracy as a more efficient model.

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5B6. General Anti-Government Bias

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A general bias against “the government” is manifest throughout the history of the US. It began in colonial times as resentment against monarchical misrule. It was inflamed in Antebellum times by Southern resistance to imagined Northern dominance. Currently, it is stoked by the perception of government overreach. Many citizens have few personal interactions with government agencies, and those are usually negative (e.g., obtaining building permits, obtaining licenses, traffic citations). These life experiences produce a general attitude of aversion toward “government” at any level. Anti-government sentiment underlies many of the other specific threats to democracy discussed in this paper. It propels firearms purchases, motivates militia formation, supports politicizing religious institutions, and more.

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There is evidence that this general anti-government bias is growing more severe. Polls show that most American institutions currently suffer from an unprecedented decline in their approval—especially the Presidency, Congress, and Supreme Court (Chemerinsky 2022) (Jones 2022). People experience wealth inequality in their everyday lives: housing is unaffordable; food and fuel prices are rising; access to health care is precarious. People are frustrated with politics: “my vote doesn’t matter” due to gerrymandering; politicians are gridlocked; and political scandals abound. It all adds up to a diminished commitment to standing up to support legitimate democratic government interests.

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5B7. The New Media Environment Undermines Societal Integrity

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Americans live in a media environment that is radically different from that of previous generations. While the destruction of quasi-monopolies of sources of information and the new enabling of people to become creators of information are pluses for democracy, other aspects of this new environment pose major vulnerabilities for a democratic society.

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With the decline of newspapers, broadcast television, and news magazines, social media platforms and podcasts have largely replaced journalistic news media as most people’s sources for news. This makes the dissemination of dis- and mis-information faster and cheaper. For example, the Daily Wire operates podcasts, websites, a streaming service, social media, YouTube channels, and theatrical films, providing ‘content’ reaching 220 million users per month with divisive far-right propaganda. This ‘content’ includes unregulated “free speech,” which allows dissemination of hate speech as well as false, defamatory claims (e.g. about immigrants’ behavior).

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Social media platforms derive revenue from advertisers, who pay for clicks. Thus, algorithms intentionally support sensational and salacious claims because they generate more clicks. In addition, anonymity enables inflammatory language, which encourages more and more extreme reactions, exacerbating hatred and division. Further, advances in AI make “deepfakes” easier and more common, adding visual fuel to verbal deceptions; all currently unregulated. These inflammatory inputs (such as “conspiracy theories”) come not only from domestic sources, but also from foreign adversaries.

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Social media algorithms can create echo chambers, limiting exposure to diverse perspectives and undermining informed decision-making. Immersion in an information bubble facilitates the formation of an “alternative reality.” People can hold onto a different set of “facts,” which makes communication with outsiders impossible. “Truth” becomes whatever is believed within one’s own bubble, like two communities living in the same space but speaking different languages and each swearing allegiance to its own dominion, thus playing into the hands of foreign adversaries aiming to “divide and conquer.”

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While mediated relationships (e.g., social media, video chat) provide useful connectivity, substituting them for face-to-face interactions often leads to psychological and social challenges. Face-to-face interaction is a robust predictor of life satisfaction and positive affect, whereas computer-mediated communication (CMC) typically yields lower emotional rewards. While CMC is "better than nothing," it is a poor substitute for in-person meetings, which trigger more significant positive emotional responses. When social media use displaces face-to-face time, loneliness and depression often follow. CMC often lacks nonverbal cues like eye contact and body language, which are fundamental for building trust and deep interpersonal bonds. Over-reliance on digital messaging can deprive individuals, especially pre-teens, of the opportunity to develop and refine social skills, such as recognizing and understanding the feelings of others. Immersion in a virtual social media bubble is replacing engagement in face-to-face relationships with other people, not just personal friends and neighbors, but also organizations, such as church or civic service associations. The resulting lack of connections contributes to other social dangers, including young men looking to militant groups for meaning in their lives.

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As a result of a long-term trend based on easier and cheaper access to mediated (radio, streaming video, online games, sports, etc.) entertainment, entertainment increasingly dominates our media consumption, as opposed to news and public affairs. Radio and TV stations used to broadcast a good deal of news and public affairs programming, as this was an expectation of retaining their licenses. The Radio Act of 1927 stipulated that licensees had to operate in the “public interest, convenience and necessity.” This governmental requirement was relaxed over the years, especially as alternative media sources proliferated.

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As radio and television stations faced increasing competition, profits shrank, and programming became more and more focused on attracting eyes and ears. To hold the interest of viewers, news coverage increasingly focused on emotion and celebrity rather than public issues. The dangers of this trend were recognized as long ago as 1985 in Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. He argues that television has transformed public discourse, turning serious subjects like news, politics, and education into trivial entertainment (e.g., presidential debates are about gaffes and emotional zingers rather than about policy differences). Public discourse becomes less serious, less logical, less factual, and requiring less critical thinking, ultimately making citizens passive consumers rather than engaged participants in a democracy. 

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Consequently, as satellites and digital transmission multiplied the amount of entertainment available, Americans have devoted more and more time to consuming entertainment, including the rapidly proliferating access to video games. Video games now compete with movies, music, and television in terms of both popularity and revenue. American teenagers spend one to three hours daily playing video games and an average of about eight hours a day on all screen-based media.

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Legalized gambling, especially online, is also a growing competitor for time and attention. In the US, the floodgates for sports betting were opened following the 2017 Murphy v. NCAA Supreme Court decision to overturn a federal sports gambling ban. By 2025, 39 states had passed legislation legalizing sports betting. Sports gambling went from a $4.9 billion industry in 2017 to $121 billion in 2023, with the vast majority of wagers being placed online (Lamb 2026). Concerns about gambling addiction and sports fixing are growing. All these entertainments divert public attention away from real-world issues. Politics is now expected to be entertaining, and the leaders that emerge—who may already be media celebrities—are expected to be performers who evoke emotional responses. Overall, this thirst for entertainment reduces involvement in the real, hard work of democracy—reaching consensus based on informed, constructive discussion.

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5B8. Militant Extremist Groups Threaten Violence

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Organized political extremist groups are growing—groups espousing positions that depart from socially acceptable norms—according to the Anti-Defamation League (2021). Extremists may fall anywhere on the right-left spectrum or not on that spectrum at all. Common characteristics include:

1. rejection of compromise

2. unshakeable confidence in their position

3. intolerance of internal dissent

4. demonize opponents

5. advocate violence to achieve their ends.

Activities of these groups are trending upward. For example, antisemitic incidents rose by 5% year-over-year and almost 900% over the decade, according to the Anti-Defamation League (Audit of Antisemitic Incidents 2024). Propaganda efforts by white supremacist groups reached an all-time high in recent years. In 2023, there was a 12% increase in white supremacist propaganda incidents and a 63% increase in white supremacist events (White Supremacist Propaganda Incidents Soar to Record High in 2023).

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) monitors the activities of extremist groups across the US. In its 2024 report, it documented the existence of 1,371 hate and antigovernment extremist groups. They were involved in political activities, the production of hate speech, and online tactics to build strategies and training infrastructure to divide the country, demoralize people, and dismantle democracy. Some used physical violence and threats of violence to intimidate people. White supremacists’ proclaimed fear of “white genocide” made its way into broader swaths of the movement. Such organized extremist activities are all antithetical to the conduct of democratic political processes.

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Anti-government groups that take the form of paramilitary units have increased dramatically since the election of Barack Obama in 2008, although prohibited in all 50 states. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) identified 334 militia groups at a peak in 2011. Since then, numbers have gone up and down, hovering around 200 groups (SPLC 2016). These groups have been emboldened since Trump’s first election. Some recent examples of their activities include, first, neo-Nazis, Ku Klux Klan, and other white supremacist groups converged on Charlottesville in 2017 chanting racist slogans and using the Nazi salute. Second, the investigations arising from the January 6, 2021, insurrection exposed the key role played by paramilitary groups (notably the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers) in the attack on the U.S. Capitol. To indicate the seriousness of their violent intent, some paramilitary groups conduct constant training to prepare for armed intervention in support of a coup d’état. At a minimum, the threat of violence by paramilitary groups can chill participation in democratic processes by forcing individuals to consider their personal safety when making their voices heard.

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“Stochastic violence” refers to lone-wolf and semi-organized attacks, such as the 1960s racial riots and political assassinations. These attacks, although not planned within groups, may be inspired by loosely organized groups, including neo-fascist and anti-fascist groups, that provide training and rhetorical provocation to individual actors. These episodes of violence are often stoked by radical propaganda. The young men who are most often the perpetrators typically are more attracted to the “macho” values of the Right as opposed to the more “adult” values of progressive groups. Many, such as the members of the Proud Boys and other similar neo-fascist groups, are resentful, angry, and potentially explosive.

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5B9. Foreign Autocrats and their Domestic Accomplices

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Malevolent foreign autocrats, such as those in Russia and China, are constantly seeking ways to influence or undermine the US government and other social institutions. They funnel vast amounts of “dark money” into the enterprise (Applebaum 2024). For example, they hire American lobbyists (often former government officials) to whitewash the reputations of their heinous regimes. Those lobbyists also give political contributions to congressional campaigns or to political action committees (PACs) such as the National Rifle Association in exchange for access (ergo, the lobbyists serve as “cutoffs” for dirty money payments). They also subvert non-profits (e.g. Clinton Foundation) with major donations, betting on which non-profits will have influence in the next administration.

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Outside the political sphere, foreign autocrats cultivate universities through huge donations in an attempt to influence research directions and to curry favorable treatment by faculty (Applebaum 2024). They take advantage of the greediness of American banks and other financial institutions to build connections and draw them into their malicious web (Applebaum 2024). In other words, foreign potentates, who are supposed to be excluded from US governmental influence, hire front groups to represent their interests, often bending or breaking financial laws to magnify their influence over legislation and rulemaking.

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Autocratic and hard-right regimes also seek alliances with gullible American groups to help them achieve their goals of influence and subversion. Hard-right political parties have been making inroads against centrist and more democratic parties in Europe. Such groups are viewed as exemplars by similarly motivated American “alt-right” groups. For example, Hungary’s Orbán regime, which is classified as an electoral autocracy—a hybrid political system that injects authoritarian methods into supposedly democratic institutions and structures—is celebrated by MAGA Republicans. By 2024 a strong alliance had been forged between the two movements. In 2025, the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) was held in Budapest and featured addresses by Victor Orbán and Donald Trump. In 2026, autocratic parties in Hungary, Serbia, Romania, Poland, and Germany are openly allied with the American MAGA Republican party. Those authoritarian regimes are seen as a model for conversion of a democracy to an autocracy.

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5B10. Conservative Attack on Public Education

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Since the 1950s, American public schools have been the focus of enormous political attention by conservative forces. The struggle began with resistance to school desegregation after 1954. That struggle continues but is joined by a new struggle to convert the schooling function from the public sector to the private sector.

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The process began with the Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, finding that separate schools for Blacks and Whites were inherently unequal, and calling for racial integration in schools. Resistance to the new law sprang up quite quickly. Virginia Senator Harry F. Byrd’s 1956 "Southern Manifesto" (Declaration of Constitutional Principles) encouraged "massive resistance" to school desegregation. Byrd led the way, orchestrating state laws in Virginia to block integration, using tactics like cutting public school funds. The Manifesto condemned the Brown ruling as judicial overreach, arguing for states' rights, inciting "all lawful means" to resist. Southern politicians closed public school systems and shifted state support to private segregated schools (“segregation academies”).

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There is a clear throughline from those early efforts to contemporary developments in school segregation. First came “White flight”—Americans self-segregating by moving to locales that suit their socio-political preferences. This process engendered several other social changes. With White workers now commuting from suburbs into cities by car, support for public transit withered, reducing the opposition to pushing interstate highways through the hearts of inner cities. The interstates displaced over a million citizens, typically people of color who had been living in functioning neighborhoods. Big-city public schools became more homogeneous by socioeconomic status (SES), race, and caste as White families moved to the suburbs. Suburban public schools became more heterogeneous as minority families who could afford it, moved to the suburbs (Meckler and Rabinowitz 2019). And finally, these forces accelerated the transition of Southern voters to a more conservative party (Kruze 2007).

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The consequence of Massive Resistance has been to inflame racial friction and divide communities by race and social class, sowing disunion.

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Since the days of busing and “white flight,” conservative attention has shifted to the issue of converting public schools to private schools. Entrepreneurs want to replace public ownership of schools with private ownership to align with capitalistic ideology. They view schooling as a vast new profitable sector to exploit. This effort is manifested in many different ways. First, conservative politicians champion voucher and charter programs, enabling private—including religious—schools to siphon off public funds. They may resort to extremist rhetoric to inflame parents against public schools, for example, by claiming that their children are being “ideologically poisoned,” “groomed,” or even subjected to sex-change operations in school.

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For the public schools that remain, conservatives launch partisan efforts to politicize school board elections to pack them with members who will support the conservative agenda. Tactics include demonizing opponents so that citizens fear to run for or serve on school boards, or castigating board members for decisions made on justifiable educational grounds. They attack “progressive” curricula (e.g. the “Wit & Wisdom” reading program, social and emotional learning (SEL) programs, and the like) and “progressive” administrative practices, such as Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs.

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These attacks are sometimes motivated by extremist ideologies, which may be racially based (e.g., white supremacy and/or antisemitism). The Sovereign Citizen movement, for example, claims that the federal government is totally illegitimate; instead, individuals hold sovereignty and decide which laws to obey (Schaller and Waldman 2024).

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The Framers of the Constitution understood that a poorly informed electorate is detrimental to the maintenance of a democracy. Public schools have played a central role in strengthening US democracy for two centuries. That role is now in question.

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5B11. “Voting Against their own Interests”

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A common lament among progressive observers is that some voters seem to vote consistently against their own interests. This happens, typically, when the incumbent president or governor is a Democrat, and economic conditions are on the upswing. The observers expect that middle-class and working-class voters would vote to continue the “good times.” But the everyday lived experience of those people may not be good at all. They don’t own stocks or retirement accounts; they may be living paycheck to paycheck with queasy feelings about their job security. The fact is that public opinion is shaped by people’s own life experiences, not by the opinions or data told them by “experts.”

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Since 2009, public opinion polls have consistently shown that the majority of respondents felt the country was “headed in the wrong direction” and not doing well economically, despite many positive economic indicators (Direction of the United States 2026). There are many factors that go into creating this uneasy feeling. There has been a general inflationary trend, with rising costs for essential goods and services, including housing, healthcare, and education. Mass media and social media show displays of wealth and glamour; some “elites” appear to be thriving, while the middle class and working class are left in the lurch. Constant public conflict over issues such as abortion, immigration, and gun control contribute to a sense of social division and unrest.

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So, when those stressed-out voters cast their ballot, they may be simply hoping to shake things up. Their lives are not going well, and they are hoping that a change of leadership might help. Unfortunately, that “change” seldom reaps any rewards for them. They don’t see an improvement in their own lives. This leads to a fatalistic attitude about the prospects for improvement under democracy.

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