This open letter is being published simultaneously by The New Republic and The Bulwark.
We are writers, academics, and political activists who have long disagreed about many things.
Some of us are Democrats and others Republicans. Some identify with the left, some with the right, and some with neither. We have disagreed in the past, and we hope to be able to disagree, productively, for years to come. Because we believe in the pluralism that is at the heart of democracy.
But right now we agree on a fundamental point: We need to join together to defend liberal democracy.
Because liberal democracy itself is in serious danger. Liberal democracy depends on free and fair elections, respect for the rights of others, the rule of law, a commitment to truth and tolerance in our public discourse. All of these are now in serious danger.
The primary source of this danger is one of our two major national parties, the Republican Party, which remains under the sway of Donald Trump and Trumpist authoritarianism. Unimpeded by Trump’s defeat in 2020, and unfazed by the January 6 insurrection, Trump and his supporters actively work to exploit anxieties and prejudices, to promote reckless hostility to the truth and to Americans who disagree with them, and to discredit the very practice of free and fair elections in which winners and losers respect the peaceful transfer of power.
So we, who have differed on so much in the past—and who continue to differ on much today—have come together to say:
We vigorously oppose ongoing Republican efforts to change state election laws to limit voter participation.
We vigorously oppose ongoing Republican efforts to empower state legislatures to override duly appointed election officials and interfere with the proper certification of election results, thereby substituting their own political preferences for those expressed by citizens at the polls.
We vigorously oppose the relentless and unending promotion of unprofessional and phony “election audits” that waste public money, jeopardize public electoral data and voting machines, and generate paranoia about the legitimacy of elections.
We urge the Democratic-controlled Congress to pass effective, national legislation to protect the vote and our elections, and if necessary to override the Senate filibuster rule.
And we urge all responsible citizens who care about democracy—public officials, journalists, educators, activists, ordinary citizens—to make the defense of democracy an urgent priority now.
Now is the time for leaders in all walks of life—for citizens of all political backgrounds and persuasions—to come to the aid of the Republic.
Todd Gitlin
Professor of journalism, sociology and communications, Columbia University
Jeffrey C. Isaac
James H. Rudy professor of political science, Indiana University, Bloomington
William Kristol
Editor at large, The Bulwark
Director, Defending Democracy Together
Cosigners
Affiliations listed for identification purposes only.
Sheri
Berman
Professor
of political science, Barnard
College
Max Boot
Senior fellow, Council on Foreign Relations
James
Carroll
Writer
Leo Casey
Assistant to the president, American Federation of Teachers
Mona Charen
Policy editor, The Bulwark
Noam Chomsky
Institute professor and professor of linguistics emeritus, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Jelani Cobb
Professor of journalism, Columbia University
Eliot A. Cohen
Robert E. Osgood professor, Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies
David Cole
National legal director, American Civil Liberties Union
Laura K. Field
Senior fellow, Niskanen Center
Carolyn Forché
University professor, Georgetown University
Francis Fukuyama
Olivier Nomellini senior fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University
William A. Galston
Senior fellow, the Brookings Institution
Jeffrey C. Goldfarb
Michael E. Gellert professor emeritus, New
School for Social Research
Hahrie
Hahn
Stavros Niarchos Foundation professor of political science, Johns Hopkins University
Director, SNF Agora Institute
Roya
Hakakian
Writer
John
Judis
Writer
Ira Katznelson
Ruggles professor of political science and history, Columbia University
Michael
Kazin
Professor
of history, Georgetown
University
Randall
Kennedy
Michael
R. Klein professor of law, Harvard
University
Steven R.
Levitsky
Professor
of government, Harvard
University
Robert Jay Lifton, M.D.
Psychiatrist and author
Susie
Linfield
Professor
of journalism, New York
University
Damon
Linker
Senior correspondent, The Week
Dahlia Lithwick
Senior editor, Slate
Jane Mansbridge
Charles F. Adams professor, emerita, Harvard Kennedy School
Win McCormack
Editor in chief, The New Republic
John McWhorter
Professor of linguistics, Columbia University
Deborah
Meier
Educator
James
Miller
Professor
of politics and liberal studies, New School
for Social Research
Susan Neiman
Director, Einstein Forum, Berlin
Nell Irvin Painter
Edwards professor of American history emerita, Princeton
University
Rick
Perlstein
Writer
Katha
Pollitt
Writer
Claire
Potter
Professor
of history, New School
for Social Research
Jedediah
Purdy
William S
Beinecke professor
of law, Columbia
University
Jonathan
Rauch
Senior fellow, the Brookings Institution
Adolph
Reed
Emeritus professor of political science, University
of Pennsylvania
Kim Lane Scheppele
Laurance S. Rockefeller professor of sociology and international affairs, Princeton University
Charles Sykes
Founder and editor at large, The Bulwark
George
Thomas
Burnet C. Wohlford professor of American political institutions, Claremont McKenna College
Michael Tomasky
Editor, The New Republic
Editor, Democracy: A Journal of Ideas
Jeffrey K. Tulis
Professor
of government and law, University
of Texas
Joan Walsh
Writer, The
Nation
Michael Walzer
Professor emeritus of social science, Institute for Advanced Study
Dorian T. Warren
President, Community Change
Sean Wilentz
George Henry Davis 1886 professor of American history, Princeton University
Benjamin Wittes
Senior fellow, the Brookings Institution
