VI. Resilience to Changing External Conditions

Thus far the democratic infrastructures described above—socioeconomic inclusion; political institutions for effective and accountable government; civic infrastructure—have largely been described in static terms. But a key challenge for democracy stems from the ways in which external macro trends place pressure on, and exacerbate weaknesses in, these infrastructures. A number of macro trends today generate such pressures on democratic institutions.

First, demographic change interacts in important ways with the limitations of current political institutions and the declining civic infrastructures described above. A growing body of scholarship has highlighted the “big sort,” as internal migration patterns concentrate Democratic voters in urban areas, and Republican voters in rural ones. At a micro level, Americans increasingly cluster in neighborhoods that are homogenous in terms of income, marital status, educational level, and even political beliefs—which helps magnify polarization and sharper partisan leans in many counties.¹

This in turn exacerbates other structural urban-rural divides. Economically, superstar geographies like San Francisco, San Jose, New York, Boston, and Los Angeles account for a much higher share of economic output.² The increasingly urbanized, and information-based modern economy concentrates economic opportunity in these cities, leading to a powerful migratory pull away from rural communities into urban spaces. These social and economic challenges have also shaped a common rural political consciousness that sees rural communities as ignored by decision-makers, neglected in the allocation of social and economic resources, and disrespected by mainstream culture.³ This in turn helps exacerbate polarization and disparities in the political lean of states and localities that can further contribute to the kinds of gridlock and gaps in Senate and Electoral College gaps described above. There is also a growing form of inequality within these cities. Housing prices have soared in the inner cores mega cities, leaving few who can afford to live in the city center. Richard Florida calls this the Patchwork Metropolis, where the city and the wider metropolis have an inner more privileged “creative class” with a working-class outer rim.⁴

Simultaneously to these urban-rural and intra-urban inequalities is a changing demographic trend across the United States are changing. The country is moving towards a nonwhite nation with an increasingly aging population which is less-religious. These demographic shifts also interact with partisan sorting: one party skews older, whiter, and more religious and conservative, while another skews younger, more nonwhite, more secular, liberal, and more immigrant- and LBGTQ-friendly.⁵ This in turn helps fuel racial anxieties that political leaders can tap into and foment polarization and weaponized racism as outlined in Part II and III.

Second, technological change can exacerbate the politics of identity and economic inequities described in Part II and III above, and the shifts to media infrastructure described in Part V. The rise of big data, automation, artificial intelligence, and algorithms are increasingly altering the dynamics of different economic sectors. Despite the substantial economic benefits automation is expected to bring, for many workers, automation presents an uncertain future and fewer opportunities.⁶ A McKinsey report found that 47 percent of today’s jobs can be automated using existing technologies, and that nearly 800 million jobs can become automated globally by 2030.⁷ As much as 14 percent of the global workforce (375 million workers) will have to change occupational categories by 2030. Work will increasingly favor skills that defy automation, putting pressure on workers to attain higher levels of education or develop social and emotional skills.⁸ Automation by itself is not necessarily a societal challenge, although it may up-end traditional notions of identity through work and concepts about human’s unique capabilities. Rather the democratic challenge arises from how automation concentrates and redistributes political and economic power. Automation enables new divisions of labor and new forms of labor control, which can further reduce worker voice, expand corporate profits, and exacerbate inequality.⁹