The BDN Opinion section operates independently and does not set news policies or contribute to reporting or editing articles elsewhere in the newspaper or on bangordailynews.com
Austin Reese is a master’s degree student in global policy and history at the University of Maine. The views expressed here do not represent the University of Maine or the University of Maine System.
Democracy was never meant to be a faith. Yet somewhere between chants of “save democracy” and headlines warning of its death, we’ve turned a living system of debate into a frozen creed.
In the United States today, democracy has become less a process and more a brand — something to defend, not discuss. The right often weaponizes the word to stoke fear of liberal overreach. The left often uses it as a shield against criticism of its own institutions. Both have forgotten that democracy is not an identity. It is a practice — and one that depends on disagreement.
Historically, democracy was about dialogue. In ancient Athens, citizens gathered in a circle to deliberate and make collective decisions. That system was small, personal, and imperfect, but it relied on conversation and accountability. When representative government emerged centuries later, especially during the French Revolution, it was meant to carry that spirit forward, allowing citizens to have a voice through elected officials.
But as societies grew larger and more complex, we began to confuse representation with substitution. Political participation narrowed into party loyalty. Citizens outsourced their voices to institutions that increasingly spoke in absolutes. The result is the brittle politics we see today: one where compromise is betrayal, dissent is heresy, and every debate feels like a war for the nation’s soul.
This dogmatism is killing the pluralism democracy needs to survive.
In theory, democracy thrives on a diversity of views. In practice, we’ve built a political culture where only two are allowed. Cable news, social media algorithms, and fundraising structures reward outrage and certainty. Candidates win attention not by persuading the middle but by energizing the extremes. The “either/or” mindset has become our default — pro or anti, red or blue, with us or against us.
Even those who reject the two-party system are trapped by it. Third-party voters are blamed for “spoiling” elections, while independents are often dismissed as naïve. The result is an electorate that feels both polarized and powerless.
Both major parties claim to be defending democracy. But defending democracy requires more than waving its flag. It means reforming it — and that’s something the political establishment, particularly the older liberal class, has been reluctant to do.
Traditional Democrats once prided themselves on progress and reform. But decades of technocratic centrism have turned liberalism into its own orthodoxy — cautious, market-driven, and allergic to risk. Figures like Bill and Hillary Clinton represented a version of liberalism rooted in the 1990s consensus: free trade, incremental reform, and global expansion of American markets. That may have made sense in its time, but to younger generations facing economic precarity, climate anxiety, and endless war, it sounds out of touch.
This generational divide explains much of today’s frustration. Older Democrats are often bewildered by younger activists’ global outlook — especially on issues like Palestine, climate justice, or decolonization. But younger voters grew up online, in a world where information flows across borders and empathy travels faster than policy. Social media, for all its flaws, has created a generation that sees democracy not as a national identity but as a global responsibility.
That’s uncomfortable for a political class still shaped by the Cold War and traditional alliances. But it’s also a reminder that democracy, if it is to survive, must evolve with its citizens.
When people say, “democracy is in crisis,” they usually point to rising authoritarianism or election denialism. Those are real threats. But the deeper crisis may be internal: our inability to imagine democracy as something fluid, adaptable, and self-critical.
A dogmatic democracy is no democracy at all. If we truly want to save it, we must stop treating democracy as an article of faith and start treating it as a process of learning — one that depends on a plurality of voices and a willingness to change. Democracy doesn’t die when people argue. It dies when people stop listening.
