When democracy doesn’t work for you, you don’t defend democracy

Trump voters see a higher priority

Image by Chamtrumping

As our democracy bends under sustained assault, this Substack exists to defend it. Many fellow Americans agree. A 2024 Gallup survey found that 49% rated Democracy in the US as “extremely important” and 85% rated it “extremely or very important,” second only to the economy in priority. A Reuters/Ipsos poll found that political extremism and threats to democracy were the single most frequently named top national problem, ahead of the economy and immigration. A CBS/YouGov poll found voters split: 50% said a functioning democracy should be the higher national priority, while 50% said a strong economy should be.

At the other end of the spectrum, a significant group of authoritarian MAGA Americans simply don’t believe in democracy. For them, Americans who don’t fit their definition of American because of their race, gender, politics, or immigration status are unworthy of equal voices; they just are not “created equal.”

Today’s subject is a third group, Americans who have no particular antipathy toward democracy but believe that democracy has failed them. (We should note, before judging, that those of us defending democracy usually find democracy to work for us.)

Katy Osborn and Scott Warren interviewed some of these conservative Trump voters in Wyoming, Michigan, and South Carolina and published their findings in The Atlantic (The Voters Who Believe That Trump Defends Their Values, June 13, 2026). Here’s what they found:

• “[T[hese voters feel that government institutions have drifted from their founding values and priorities, which they classify as faith, or the belief that moral authority precedes political authority; family, the primary unit of social life and obligation; freedom, mainly from government overreach; and place, or the importance of local community over national abstraction. The people we spoke with explained that by forsaking these values, the country’s political institutions have lost touch with the moral ethos that they believe should guide public life, and that these institutions were designed to protect.”

• “We learned that the central question for the conservatives we met is not ‘Should America be a democracy?’ Instead it is: ‘Has American democracy remained faithful to what makes it legitimate?’ Democratic institutions are legitimate, in the view of conservatives, when they honor and protect the faith, freedom, families, and communities of their constituents. When institutions and the politicians who inhabit them fail to appreciate the centrality of these core values, they become illegitimate.”

• “As Thomas, a rural South Carolinian who comes from a family with a long history of military service and civic engagement, told us: ‘Democrats see government as their god, while conservatives see their god as God, and government as sort of secondary.’”

• “Which brings us to Trump. How can people with such a strong attachment to faith and family vote for someone who criticizes religious leaders and defies so many ethical standards? We learned that these voters evaluate Trump not as a model of their values, but as a defender of them. ‘I don’t like him as a person,’ Cindy, a 50-something nurse in South Carolina, told us. ‘But I like him as a president.’”

• “This view of Trump as a protector of the country’s core values and interests also helps explain how participants reconcile the president’s interventionist policies and growing executive power with their stated preferences for small, local governance. Many of the people with whom we spoke justified Trump’s aggressive use of federal power as a necessary response to hostile institutions that have violated their constitutional mandate. When the FBI investigates Trump, when government agencies mandate vaccines, and when the Department of Education influences local curricula, voters say these institutions have exceeded their legitimate authority. In cracking down on these institutional breaches, Trump is not breaking the rules but defending the foundation the rules were meant to protect. ‘Do I think Trump’s all the time, great? No. But I do think he’s fighting for everyone right now,’ Kyle, a 20-something delivery driver in rural Wyoming, told us.”

A logical response to this disenchantment with democracy would be to improve our democracy so it could better serve these Trump voters. But then I realized that the obvious corrections most needed now, like banning gerrymandering and voter suppression and restoring the rule of law, would only decrease these voters’ influence.

Another much needed democracy fix is overturning Citizens United, admittedly a longer run aspiration. But again, that offers Trump voters at best a mixed bag. Reducing the influence of corporate and billionaire money restores the influence of voters, including Trump voters, which would likely lead to improving their economic lives. But it would disrupt the unholy alliance between the billionaires and Trump voters. MAGA supplies the votes and billionaires supply the campaign funds for MAGA candidates who deliver culture war wins for MAGA and tax cuts, deregulation, and judges for the billionaires.

In the meantime, democracy’s defenders can work to deliver solutions to at least some of the problems on these voters’ minds, like prices, housing, and jobs. Democrats can also be less abrasive on cultural issues, like not permitting trans girls to unfairly compete in girls sports while still insisting that our trans neighbors are also God’s children and deserve to be treated that way.

Both parties could also shed extreme positions and compromise on bi-partisan solutions where broad consensus already exists, like comprehensive immigration reform, gun safety, and social media protections for young people.

We can also pursue more and better civics and history education. What the Founders wrought on this continent 250 years ago shook the world and we should do everything we can to keep it, including electing democracy defenders on November 3rd.