An Agenda of Democracy

Last night I was heartened to hear that The Washington Post had called for the abolition of the electoral college in an editorial. This is hardly a controversial view, certainly among Democrats. But I was glad to see it because I’ve been thinking in recent months of the critical importance of building in this country what for lack of a better phrase I’ll call a democracy agenda. This is critical first because what we’ve long considered the most basic assumptions of civic democracy are so clearly under threat but also because longstanding features of the apparatus of the American state, which had the potential to thwart the democratic will, have now begun actively to do so.