How is the Biden administration doing on the global democracy front? It makes a big deal about promoting democracy, but it also hobnobs with plenty of dictators in the standard U.S. foreign policy tradition. There’s no doubt the U.S. plays an influential role in helping to sustain democracy around the world. But it has to do a better job at home. The administration has made real inroads toward showing that its democratic political systems can and will deliver for people. The administration basically passed a series of landmark policies which offered Americans a once-in-a-generation opportunity to see the American economy remade in an equitable way. If implemented well, we then have a chance to redraw the country’s political economy to make future policy wins easier, whether it’s on climate or beyond. In your years in this field, what has surprised you the most? Thinking about democracy globally, it is this rise of social media, which has had a huge negative effect on democracies around the world. There were major issues around the Rohingya on Facebook, numerous other examples. Next year is a big year for elections globally. I remain concerned. These issues are personal to me, from my family history. I grew up in places that were basically swamped by political turmoil, when there was a war, martial law and racial strife, revolution. I felt like I thought we were dealing with a set of systems and structures. We have now to take on a set of technology issues that are not just technology issues – they are really our democracy issues. Is artificial intelligence a threat to democracy? It could be. We are looking at many potential concerns in this area and just beginning to understand the potential of generative AI tools. We can make strides [to protect democracy] already if we focus on two things. One is what I call dumb AI and another is basic privacy laws. Even as we track the debate and evidence on generative AI … we should and can do something about the kinds of tech tools that are already being used to deny opportunities, expand discrimination and really harm marginalized populations. I’m talking about tenant-screening algorithms that deny housing, facial recognition tools that misidentify people of color at far higher rates, worker management tools that invade privacy and incentivize employers to ignore safety in the name of higher profit. Is partisanship a threat to democracy? We look at it as being more about polarization. One of the things that happens in autocracies is there’s a success that extremists have in mainstreaming what are essentially sometimes working-class voters’ demands and their grievances even as they pass policies against their interests. Somebody like a Gov. DeSantis can be very successful partly because of a hollowed-out media landscape. What that does is people end up looking through this sort of a ‘team lens’ rather than a policy lens. We’re focused on the structural asymmetries that allow minoritarian power to completely trample majority will in this country. And those structural asymmetries include polarization caused by media, and polarization caused by the way Congress is structured. Examples of what follows include the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the Jan. 6 insurrection. When the right can’t change policy in the country, it changes the rules of the game. Gerrymandering, requiring supermajorities to pass policies, voter suppression, voter intimidation. If you look at Hungary or you look at the U.S., extremist forces have decided that democracy and frankly, truth, are less important than winning power at all costs. Thanks to editor Heidi Vogt and producer Andrew Howard. SUBSCRIBE to the POLITICO newsletter family: D.C. Playbook | Brussels Playbook | London Playbook | Paris Playbook | Ottawa Playbook | EU Confidential | Digital Bridge | China Watcher | Berlin Bulletin | D.C. Influence | EU Influence | London Influence | Paris Influence
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