As an undergraduate, a clever professor as soon as advised me that what occurs between elections issues simply as a lot because the elections themselves. It’s on the town halls, neighborhood associations, labor unions, PTA conferences and volunteer drives the place the habits of self-government are shaped — and the place a tradition of pluralism, empathy and shared accountability is cultivated. That tradition has been eroding for many years. Now, into the vacuum steps President Donald Trump.
Trump’s rise didn’t occur in a vacuum. His grievance-fueled politics discovered fertile floor in a rustic the place belief has collapsed, civic establishments have hollowed out, and too many People really feel unheard, unseen and unmoored. When folks cease exhibiting up for one another, somebody like Trump — providing identification with out accountability and loyalty with out civic responsibility — turns into not simply doable however inevitable.
What Putnam warned us about
In his 2000 ebook “Bowling Alone,” political scientist Robert Putnam warned that People have been disengaging from civic life. Church membership, union participation, membership involvement — all have been plummeting. We weren’t simply bowling alone; we have been dwelling alone, voting much less and pulling again from the establishments that after knit society collectively.
Putnam distinguished between two forms of social capital: bonding ties inside close-knit teams and bridging ties that join throughout traces of distinction. The previous builds solidarity. The latter sustains democracy. In current many years, we’ve preserved the previous — and misplaced an excessive amount of of the latter.
The numbers don’t lie
The civic infrastructure is in tatters. Since 2000:
● Belief in authorities has dropped from 60% to below 20% (Pew Research Center, 2023).
● Union membership has fallen under 10%, half of its early ’80s charge (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2024).
● Non secular attendance is at historic lows (Gallup, 2023).
● Over 2,500 native newspapers have closed (Northwestern College, 2023).
● Volunteerism and native election turnout proceed to say no (AmeriCorps, 2023).
The Washington Put up famously warned that “democracy dies in darkness” — but it surely additionally withers in neglect. As People retreat from shared civic life, we lose the areas the place we meet throughout variations, resolve battle and follow democracy on the bottom.
Enter social media: The digital arsonist
As civic areas dried up, they have been changed by dopamine machines — social media platforms constructed to not domesticate neighborhood however to monetize consideration. Fb and YouTube promised connection however delivered tribalism. Algorithms reward outrage, not deliberation. Hashtags simulate activism whereas draining it of any substance.
As a substitute of speaking politics with neighbors, we carry out for strangers. As a substitute of listening, we scroll. The end result isn’t neighborhood — it’s grievance, curated and affirmed in isolation. This dynamic impacts each the correct and the left. As Jamelle Bouie famous in The New York Instances, the MAGA proper thrives on zero-sum considering: if another person positive factors, I should be shedding.
When civic life breaks, identification politics rush in
Trump provided what conventional civic life now not may: a transparent sense of who’s in, who’s out and who’s guilty. He didn’t name residents to a shared goal. He promised to punish enemies. That wasn’t a glitch — it was the design.
Working-class voters didn’t essentially love Trump — they believed he was the one one talking to their issues. And people issues weren’t simply financial. Many felt elite establishments — universities, media, the tradition trade — had turned towards them. Trump tapped into that resentment with surgical precision. Democrats, in contrast, typically offered a sprawling to-do checklist with no story.
Trump projected “alpha power” — what U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin, D-N.Y., likens to coach-style management: blunt, emotional and tribal. In communities hollowed out by civic decline, the place folks felt ignored or dismissed, that mattered greater than coverage. Trump didn’t provide belonging within the conventional sense — he provided its echo, a efficiency of neighborhood rooted in exclusion.
Conclusion: The spectacle replaces the republic
That very same professor — Theodore Lowi, the legendary political scientist — as soon as advised our class that democracy isn’t only a system. It’s a behavior. It needs to be practiced. After we cease exhibiting up for one another — at PTA conferences, union halls, council boards — we grow to be simpler to divide. We develop extra suspicious of neighbors and extra accepting of the strongman who guarantees to repair every thing.
Trumpism didn’t hijack a wholesome democracy. It capitalized on one already hollowing out.
To be clear, efforts at civic renewal nonetheless exist — neighborhood organizing, mutual help networks and even a reinvigorated labor motion have pushed again towards this erosion. However they continue to be fragmented and too typically remoted from formal political energy. The bigger pattern is unmistakable: the regular collapse of the establishments that after anchored civic life.
If we wish to stop what comes subsequent, we want greater than marketing campaign wins. We have to rebuild the civic scaffolding that makes democracy resilient.
As a result of Trump didn’t rise in a rustic that cared an excessive amount of about civic life.
He rose in a rustic the place too many stopped caring — till they now not acknowledged what had been misplaced.
