Stop Trying to ‘Save’ Democracy

Or Waiting on a Politician To Do It for You. Instead, Practice It—At Work, School, and Little League

Please don’t save democracy.

If you’re a politician—stop promising to save it.

Please! Stop even trying.

Because you can’t. Democracy isn’t something you save. The sooner we stop talking about saving democracy, the better off democracy will be.

Our mindless recitation of “saving democracy”—everyone from President Biden to Sacha Baron Cohen has pledged to come to its rescue—demonstrates how little we understand about the governing systems that organize our lives.

To start, the words “democracy” and “save” don’t fit together.

Democracy is not a penalty shot that can be saved by a goalkeeper. Democracy is not …

What Is 21st-Century Truth?

Propaganda Has Trapped Us in Plato’s Cave—the Shadows Aren’t Real but the Sun Is Blinding

Zócalo is celebrating its 20th birthday this year! As part of the festivities, we’re publishing reflections and responses that revisit and reimagine some of …

Will Indonesia’s Youth Install a Political Dynasty? | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

Will Indonesia’s Youth Install a Political Dynasty?

On TikTok, Gen Z Voters See the Candidates as Father Figures and Kindly Uncles. They Don’t Get the Whole Story

President Suharto’s New Order regime was a dictatorship in which he often liked to refer to the Indonesian nation as a “family” with himself at the helm—a patriarchal …

In Indonesia, an Election Without Artists | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

An Election Without Artists

The Outgoing Indonesian President’s Campaigns Inspired Songs, Paintings, and Poems. Creatives’ Silence in This Race Speaks Volumes

The absence of art in Indonesia’s presidential election has been noticeable.

Back in 2014, when Joko Widodo—known as Jokowi—campaigned to become the seventh president of this republic, …

Can a Third of My Neighbors Really Be Far-Right Extremists?

I Joined a United Germany When the Wall Fell. Now I Fear for Its Future

I grew up in East Germany, in the former German Democratic Republic, and I am still here today.

In the fall of 1989, we liberated ourselves from dictatorial conditions through a …