Democracy DemotionJuly/August 2019 19Pessimism about the state o Ameri-
can democracy has been compounded
by economic malaise. Americans were
shaken by the 2008 Ãnancial crisis, which
nearly plunged the world into a depres-
sion. Economic inequality, already worse
in the United States than in other
advanced democracies, is rising. And the
American dream has taken a huge hit:
only hal the children born in the 1980s
are earning more than their parents
did at their age, whereas when those born
in 1940 were around age 30, 92 percent
o them earned more than their par-
ents did at their age. Americans have
been losing conÃdence in their own
futures, their country’s future, and the
ability o their political leaders to do
anything about it.
A sense that the United States is
in decline pervades—and not just
among Americans. The United States’
global standing took a nosedive follow-
ing President Donald Trump’s inaugu-agreed that democracy promotion should
be a top foreign policy priority, according
to a poll by the Pew Research Center.
That number fell to 18 percent in 2013
and 17 percent in 2018. According to a
2018 survey by Freedom House, the
George W. Bush Institute, and the Penn
Biden Center, seven in ten Americans still
favored U.S. eorts to promote democ-
racy and human rights, but most Ameri-
cans also expressed wariness o foreign
interventions that might drain U.S.
resources, as those in Vietnam and Iraq did.
More important, Americans expressed
preoccupation with the sorry state o
their own democracy, which two-thirds
agreed was “getting weaker.” Those
surveyed conveyed worry about problems
in their society—with big money in
politics, racism, and gridlock topping the
list. In fact, hal o those surveyed
said they believed that the United States
was in “real danger oÊ becoming a
nondemocratic, authoritarian country.”HUSSEIN MALLA
/ AP
Mission accomplished: after voting in the Iraqi parliamentary elections in December 2005