Building the democracy of the future

Ronna Bolante / AFSC

Tomorrow millions of people in the United States will cast ballots in a tumultuous political environment. This election comes during a U.S.-backed genocide in Gaza, expanding militarism throughout the globe, escalating racism and xenophobia, and the existential dangers posed by climate change. Election integrity and the peaceful transfer of power are being threatened. Many are feeling fear and uncertainty about the future.

Still, at every turn we also see signs of hope. In AFSC's work in the U.S. and around the world, we are deeply inspired by the strength and vision of our communities. And no matter the outcome of this election - or any election - we will continue to protect and support one another and build movements for justice and peace.

These threats to democracy in the United States are dangerous, but they are not new. True democracy is a horizon this country has never reached.

When AFSC was founded in 1917, it was less than 50 years after Black men won the right to vote, and it would be almost another 50 years before the Supreme Court finally outlawed poll taxes designed to keep people from exercising that right. The women involved in AFSC's founding had to wait another three years before they were allowed to cast a ballot.

Even today the franchise is far from universal. Gerrymandering and other anti-democratic structures built into our political institutions mean some voters count more than others. Corporations have almost unlimited ability to fund and influence political campaigns. Four million people - disproportionately Black and Brown people - are denied the vote altogether due to criminal convictions. Millions of others can't vote because there is no way for them to adjust their immigration status.

Every time that democracy in the United States has expanded, it is because people who were oppressed and excluded came together to organize for what they were told was impossible. Today it is up to all of us to continue to build the democracy of the future, free from violence, inequality, and oppression.

As we chart a path forward in uncertain and difficult conditions, we are guided by these basic ideas:

As a Quaker organization, we hold as sacred the belief that every human being has an inner light, is capable of transformation, and deserves dignity and freedom on a livable planet. Force and coercion create cycles of violence; they are never a solution, but a failure of humanity. We reject systems and policies that devalue and destroy life. Bombs and militaries, prisons and militarized borders, are all mechanisms of destruction that will never lead us to safe and thriving communities. Instead we must build systems rooted in justice, equity, and freedom for all.

Our solidarity with one another is our greatest strength. Politicians use racist, sexist, anti-immigrant, and transphobic rhetoric and action to divide and manipulate us. We must confront oppression wherever we find it. We stand in solidarity with Black and Brown people, queer and trans people, immigrants, and poor and working-class people, and oppose all efforts to criminalize and persecute them.

We all deserve to participate in the decisions that impact our lives and communities. We must build a democracy where people have the freedom to participate regardless of where they were born or what happened in their past. As we work toward that goal, we also continue to demand that existing democratic institutions are not further degraded. That means making sure every vote is counted, and power is transferred peacefully.

We must protect civil liberties and civic space for all. Arrests and detention of protesters and activists, prosecution of whistleblowers, suppression of journalists, mass surveillance, deportation, and incarceration have increased under both Republican and Democratic administrations. Corporate interests and profits have outsized power to influence elections and public policy. The work of building and protecting democracy is inextricably linked to the rights and freedoms of the people.

In 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote: "I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly."

He wrote these words in a jail cell - imprisoned for participating in a nonviolent demonstration against segregation - after local faith leaders published a newspaper article accusing him of being an outside agitator. In response King asserted that the great stumbling block to freedom was "the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says, 'I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can't agree with your methods of direct action'…"

A draft of the letter was smuggled out of the jail on scraps of paper. It made its way to civil rights leader Andrew Young, who brought it to Barbara Moffett, a longtime AFSC staff member. AFSC went on to print and distribute 275,000 copies of the Letter from Birmingham City Jail.

King's "network of mutuality" describes our inherent interconnectedness, but it is also a map that can guide us. King's prophetic words did not emerge spontaneously into the consciousness of the public - it took courageous acts and networks of solidarity to bring them from the jailhouse to the printing press and from the printing press to the people.

In the days, weeks, and months to come, we must call on our own "inescapable networks of mutuality" to challenge injustice, safeguard democracy and integrity, and build a future that works for all of us.

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The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) promotes a world free of violence, inequality, and oppression. Guided by the Quaker belief in the divine light within each person, we nurture the seeds of change and the respect for human life to fundamentally transform our societies and institutions. We work with people and partners worldwide, of all faiths and backgrounds, to meet urgent community needs, challenge injustice, and build peace.