Article updated January 28th, 2025
When one political party controls the legislative, executive, and judicial branches, it may be easy to lose all faith in our system, to believe that our checks and balances will become no more than a historical relic. The concentration of power of this House, Senate, and Presidential administration might seem like a direct invitation for overreach, for the erasure of dissent, and for the very rules of our government to be rewritten.
Yet even when the formal checks and balances falter, the spirit of democracy doesn’t die swiftly. It finds different vessels. It takes unexpected new forms. It finds a voice in forces that hide in plain sight: in the actions of individuals and the conscience of the public. In the cultural narratives that take hold.
Public opinion isn’t enshrined in any constitution. But it may as well be. The court of public sentiment can force accountability in ways even the founding fathers could scarcely have envisioned. Protests, social media posts, trends, and shifts in the political climate can each foment change — and at speeds that could hardly have been fathomed just a few generations ago.
When weaponized and distorted, information can indoctrinate. Enough falsehoods can inspire the masses to vote against their own interest. Much of America’s current predicament is in the anti-information culture that’s been given rein to flourish.
But when the right information makes the rounds, it can also be used to bring about change that betters all of us. It can result in tyrants being ousted and innocent civilians finding shelter in the resulting aftermath.
Information can shape perception faster than a filibuster or log-jammed Congress ever could. When spread efficiently enough and placed in front of enough of the right people, it can result in new bills. When the politicians in power realize their only hopes at remaining there are in stealing elections or passing laws that their constituents agree with, there are still those leaders left who will make the honest decision.
The civil rights movement, environmental activism, and more recently, the widespread protests against inequality, police brutality, and injustice have demonstrated how grassroots pressure can steer the national conversation and directly result in shifts to policy. The backlash that resulted from Trump’s Supreme Court appointees overturning Roe V. Wade was seen not only in discourse throughout the nation, but in the seismic turnout for the 2022 midterm elections thereafter.
In the most polarized times, the collective voice can serve as an integral barometer, sometimes even a counterweight. Leaders who ignore it outright tend to learn — often too late — that public approval is more than a luxury; it’s a lifeline.
The press and social media appear to function almost as additional branches of government. They play a critical role in our social ecosystem and they serve as essential intermediaries between the people and the leaders we elect. They help to shape narratives and color our broader beliefs. The media we consume, in all its varied forms, likely dictates the politicians voted into office even more than each of their performances.
Investigative journalists continue to shed light on abuses of power. They fulfill an obligation to the public that formal watchdogs frequently shirk. The peoples’ ability to amplify these stories through social media platforms has presented itself as another line of defense in recent years.
More than ever before, newscasters and TV personalities have begun to lean into their online presences. Late night comedy programs like Late Night With Seth Myers, The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, and The Daily Show have placed greater priority on platforms like YouTube, opting to let segments of the show go live online hours before they’ve aired.
From influencers on TikTok and Instagram to journalists on Medium and Substack, people have begun taking politics into their own hands in a way that was never possible in the past. In more and more cases, they reach wider audiences as a result.
Even if state media is under the full-fledged siege that many fear in the coming months, the right to speak our minds won’t disintegrate overnight. Eliminating dissent completely will be a gargantuan undertaking for Trump. It may not be possible. Even in a nation with a less developed social infrastructure, it’s not a mission that I expect he’ll be able to carry out.
I think that so much of what opened the door to Trump’s candidacy and leadership to begin with will be what spells his failings. He could tap into the national zeitgeist enough to win an election against the incumbent party during a time when the price of goods and inflation remained dominant concerns. But he still can’t direct the conversation enough to quell the pushback that his nearly every move in office will result in. He can’t prevent the read in the room from souring as people begin to recall just what his leadership looked like the first time. He can’t keep TikTok from turning against him as the young and pre-voting public freshly experiences his rule.
Money talks. Sometimes, it shouts relentlessly from the rooftops. Consumer boycotts, corporate accountability campaigns, and shareholder activism can pressure institutions in ways even legislation may not. Corporations increasingly find themselves at the mercy of social movements, kowtowing not to government mandates, but to the sensibilities of a socially conscious public. A political system can resist reform, but the market is a more temperamental creature.
If there’s one issue on which both sides of the aisle can agree, it’s that our money is irrevocably attached to our politics. Following the Citizens United case, we’ve allowed unlimited and undisclosed sums of money to pour into local, state, and national races from anonymous donors. The pandemonium we’ve seen in the years since was predicted and arguably inevitable.
When Trump came into power in 2017, it wasn’t the result of an overnight shift. We were so deeply at the mercy of our money and media that it suddenly became possible for the people to be enraptured by a politician to this disconcerting degree.
Yet he suffered at the hands of those same mechanisms that helped him gain power. Despite common fears that Trump’s term would result in the end of democracy and complete erosion of the separation between church and state, it wasn’t quite the apocalyptic scenario that many believed was unavoidable on Election Night in 2016.
In some regards, Trump’s first term actually marked a notable rise in progressive values. People saw where the 45th president’s regressive politics led and voted in Joe Biden after only four years.
In contrast, Biden has overseen an apparent rise in national conservatism, comparable to what we’ve witnessed across the globe, as democratic leaders struggle to address issues like the rising costs of goods and general inflation. The conversation in America has turned against Biden and Kamala Harris as progressive leadership has struggled to provide overnight solutions. Musk’s acquisition of Twitter also played a significant role in shifting discourse within the country.
Just as media has routinely been weaponized in recent years, art, film, music, and literature remain among our most powerful tools to fight back. When political systems appear impermeable, culture becomes the language of resistance. It’s difficult to quantify precisely how a film like Get Out or the MeToo movement altered the conversation within the country. But they shaped values, in both subtle and immediate ways.
Social checks and balances aren’t invulnerable. When people give up hope, even those can erode. They’re intangible and can sometimes be co-opted by the very people they aim to hold accountable. But they’re also resilient, ever-changing, and deeply ingrained in American culture.
When formal checks fail, it’s these informal checks that ensure power doesn’t go completely unchallenged.
In times of political imbalance, it’s tempting to despair. But democracy has always been more than its branches of government. It’s a network of accountability that extends beyond the man-made buildings of our nation’s Capital.
Even when one party dominates, the people have their tools of resistance. Even when this unwieldy vehicle we ride seems as though it’s nearing a collision, the worst thing we can do is take our hands off the wheel. To surrender in the face of tyranny or collapse. To brace for the grating halt of a million moving parts — of a centuries-long experiment too big for words.
America isn’t immune to the throes of Fascism. It nearly succumbed to it multiple times in the past. But it never buckled completely during even the worst of those bombardments. We harbor a robust variety of tools to combat what could come in the years ahead.
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