The big news in May was the Supreme Court’s Callais decision, effectively gutting the Voting Rights Act, and the massive mobilization and organizing that has been taking place in response throughout the South and around the country. Thomas Zimmer writes about the historic throughline of this moment in Multiracial Democracy is Young and Fragile. And the Brennan Center offers Six Solutions to Fix the Supreme Court.
Frameworks Institute has released excellent guidance on Framing Democracy in a Time of Authoritarianism; and you don’t want to miss this recent report on AI and Democracy: Perspectives from an Emerging Field. These new policy briefs, The Authoritarian Ecosystem, are helpful in examining the interconnected network of institutions, actors, and norms that sustain authoritarian rule — and what can be done to reverse it. The ten briefs cover authoritarian legislatures, judicial capture, the weaponization of corruption, international aid, regional cooperation between autocracies, cultural soft power, and opposition strategies.
We’d also like to uplift some of our close partners, such as Bryan Epps from Sojourners who recently wrote, Trump Defectors Are on the Rise. Do We Welcome Them?; Chris Purdy and Danny Miller who wrote about Project HALO in Veterans and Community Leaders Unite to Renew Trust in U.S. Elections; and Adrienne Evans who wrote about her work with United Visions for Idaho, Rebuilding the Relational Foundations of US Democracy. And check out the resources and inspiration at America The Beautiful, a nationwide movement for the country’s 250th birthday to imagine a future of civic joy, belonging, and shared growth.
From Horizons, we’re excited that the Big Tent has launched the No ICE in the Cup effort this month. You can find out more information about this cross-pillar effort and how to get involved on the website, and learn more about the commissioned artwork in each of the host cities, like this piece celebrating artist Angel Faz in Dallas.
Here’s what else we’re reading, watching, and listening to this month.
READING
What is Dialogic Systems Change?
by Russ Gaskin
“Anyone working on complex social challenges knows by now that complex adaptive systems are not machines with malfunctioning parts. What we don’t seem to fully grasp, however, is that they are not just complex adaptive systems. They are also human systems that reflect our desire for purpose, power, and meaning. They are not just networks of relationships, but webs of meaning, configurations of mutually reinforcing beliefs, narratives, relationships, and tacit agreements that make current arrangements feel normal, necessary, and legitimate to the people inside them.” Read more about the six principles that the author shares that define dialogic systems change.
“On a quiet day”: What cumulative grief is trying to tell our sector
by Esther Saehyun Lee
“Cumulative grief shows up in how organizations make decisions. It shows up as risk aversion with boards and executive directors making smaller, safer bets because they are exhausted and cannot afford to lose. It shows up as shrinking vision, as the slow erosion of the bold thinking that brought most of us into this work in the first place… The sector’s primary answer to cumulative grief has been individual: therapy stipends, mental health days, wellness programming, resilience workshops. These things are not worthless. But they are insufficient because they place the burden of recovery on the person rather than on the conditions causing the harm. They treat a collective wound as a personal failure to cope. You cannot wellness your way out of structural grief.”
The Democracy Industry Isn’t Working
Grand Bargain Project
“Too much of the pro-democracy world operates at the wrong level of the problem. It is built to defend norms, respond to threats, increase participation, improve messaging, protect election administration, strengthen civic culture, and push procedural reform. Some of that work is useful. Some of it has likely prevented further deterioration. But taken together, it remains largely defensive. It responds to breakdown without changing the incentive structure producing it. That is the trap. The field has positioned itself around the symptoms of democratic decline while largely avoiding the mechanisms that generate it. It is more comfortable talking about trust than about power, more comfortable talking about extremism than institutional design, and more comfortable talking about civic behaviour than the structures that make destructive behaviour rational.”
WATCHING
In the Making
PolicyLink
“This nation is still in the making. We the People? We’re in the making too.
In the Making is a new series from PolicyLink hosted by Baratunde Thurston, featuring kitchen table conversations with PolicyLink CEO Michael McAfee and President Ashleigh Gardere. Together, [they] explore how to redesign the nation so that it serves all people. When the Founding Fathers wrote “We the People,” they didn’t mean everybody. But for generations, everyday people — especially those excluded from that promise — have worked to make democracy more real. This series explores this unfinished work, and what it means to become the founders of the nation that has never existed but is ours to build.”
Democracy Under Siege
A film by Director Laura Nix
“Punctuated by the razor-sharp political commentary of Pulitzer-prize winning editorial cartoonist Ann Telnaes (formerly of The Washington Post), top political analysts lay bare the complex history and challenges of the world’s most influential political system, on the eve of the 2024 election. As the promise of American multiracial democracy faces a renewed backlash, can the nation preserve its democratic ideals, or will it fall prey to an authoritarian takeover? Featuring: Heather Cox Richardson, Rep. Jamie Raskin, Steven Levitsky, Melissa Murray and Elie Mystal.”
The Universal Expressions of Love, Part 1: Lovingkindness
Tara Brach
“Love is the most basic expression of who we are, and yet it is often obscured by the trance of separation and fear. This talk is the first of a four-part series on the Brahmaviharas – the four primary qualities of an awake, wise heart: lovingkindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity. In this talk, we explore the nature of lovingkindness — how it can be blocked by our habitual patterns, and how we can nurture and fully realize this innate capacity through mindful practices and understanding.”
LISTENING TO
Maria Stephan on Nonviolence, Political Violence, and the Fight for Democracy
The Jim Wallis Podcast
“On this episode, Jim Wallis speaks with Maria J. Stephan of the Horizons Project about the effectiveness of nonviolence in confronting political violence, repression, and authoritarianism. Horizons Project and partners have developed an entire training curriculum focused on political violence and how to make political violence and repression backfire. You can go to the Harnessing Our Power to Make Political Violence and Repression Backfire (HOPE) website to learn more and to request trainings…Stephan makes a sustained case that nonviolence is not only more ethical and religiously grounded, but also more effective than violence in building durable change, shifting power, and making repression backfire.”
Culture of Care with the Rad Ops Podcast
Solidarity Is This Podcast
“In this special episode, we share a Rad Ops Podcast from Convergence Magazine. Hosts Yashna Maya Padamsee and Sha Grogan-Brown join Building Movement Project’s Adaku Utah to discuss the culture of care. The Rad Ops Podcast is one component of a dialogue-based tool that supports organizations assessing and discussing the possibilities and limitations of putting liberatory values into practice. Each guest will share their Rad Ops lineages, their expertise on today’s pressing operations questions and leave listeners with resources and discussion questions to take back to your teams. Find resources from this episode and discussion questions for your team over at Convergence Magazine.”
Rethinking Resilience
TAI Full Disclosure Podcast
“In this episode, Eszter Filippinyi and Vanja Skoric bring together civil society leaders from Ukraine, Serbia, Kenya, Brazil…The conversation moves beyond simple ideas of “bouncing back” and instead presents resilience as something collective, contextual, and deeply connected to care, trust, and shared purpose…Rather than treating resilience as a matter of endurance alone, the episode explores how it can also mean adapting strategically, supporting one another, redistributing leadership, and rethinking what sustainability looks like in practice.”
FOR FUN
“Jump Up / Hello Goodbye” Paul McCartney, Elvis Costello, Jon Batiste, Louis Cato & Stephen Colbert
“The Late Show” signs off with two powerful musical performances back-to-back, beginning with the quartet of Stephen Colbert, Louis Cato, Jon Batiste and Elvis Costello performing Costello’s 1977 tune, “Jump Up.” As that song ends, the foursome are joined by Paul McCartney and The Great Big Joy Machine for a once-in-a-lifetime rendition of The Beatles’ “Hello Goodbye,” which ends with a giant singalong featuring the entire staff of “The Late Show.”
