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At the close of 2025, many progressive commentators were seizing on any glimmer of hope that America’s march toward authoritarianism might be slowing to a crawl. On Dec. 26, the New York Times’ Michelle Goldberg proclaimed that “Trump Is Getting Weaker, and the Resistance Is Getting Stronger.”

Goldberg quoted Leah Greenberg, a founder of the resistance group Indivisible, who said that while Donald Trump “has been able to do extraordinary damage that will have generational effects, he has not successfully consolidated power. That has been staved off, and it has been staved off not, frankly, due to the efforts of pretty much anyone in elite institutions or political leadership but due to the efforts of regular people declining to go along with fascism.”

Regardless of whether Goldberg and Greenberg are correct in their assessments, Americans need to recognize that as hard as resisting “fascism” is, rebuilding democracy will be even harder. That means that as progressives mobilize to resist Trump, they must invest in rebuilding the foundation of democracy at the same time. That will require work on many fronts, including addressing the problems of our political institutions, the wealth gap, and our polarized society.

Democracy’s problems were with us before Trump, and they will be with us after he leaves the scene.

Addressing them is the work of schools and civic organizations, for sure. But it is also work that citizens can and must do on their own.

Each of us needs to resolve to relearn how to think and act democratically.

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If 2025 taught us anything, it should have been that the architecture of democracy in the United States is in urgent need of repair. As the political scientist Eric Shickler explains, Trump has shown himself to be “willing to destroy essentially any element of the old order—leaving aside the bond market, evidently—to achieve dominance.”

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Schickler argues that “capitalizing on changes that go back several decades—the rise of nationalized polarization, the development of the unitary executive theory, and the growing sway........

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