For over a century, top foundations have worked to solve critical problems with an approach that centers knowledge and reason. Along the way, they’ve been deeply protective of their reputation as nonpartisan pragmatists who work at a remove from politics. Being trusted by all sides, they’ve believed, is a key to effectiveness in a well-functioning, pluralistic society.
Given this, it’s no surprise that so many foundations have failed to adapt to alarming shifts in U.S. society. Today, elite experts are often vilified, along with institutions more broadly. Facts matter less than the narrative, which can easily be shaped by misinformation. And — the biggest change of all — an illiberal movement has captured one of the nation’s two political parties and set about attacking democratic norms.
Philanthropy’s leaders have been quick to address certain features of this new world, such as the decline of trust and the problem of misinformation. But for the most part, they’ve been reluctant to call out the elephant in the room: the authoritarian turn of the Republican Party, a development that overshadows all others. Doing so would imply a lack of neutrality — tarnishing their high-road brand. (Fear of retribution is another, more recent concern.)
Some foundations haven’t just sidestepped the elephant in the room; they’ve obscured what’s actually happened in the United States by diagnosing the problem as polarization, with both sides to blame — an analysis that jives well with elite philanthropy’s impartial self image. You can see an example of this thinking in a recent essay by Dame Louise Richardson, the CEO of the Carnegie Corporation, which has made reducing polarization a major focus of its work. The Hewlett Foundation earlier spent tens of millions on a program along similar lines under Larry Kramer’s leadership.
I liked a lot of the specific things that Hewlett funded, and I also like what Carnegie is funding so far. But the public rationales for this work, along with that of the New Pluralists funder collaborative, have had a gaslighting quality.
Polarization is a real problem. Authoritarianism is a different, bigger problem
To be sure, the deep divisiveness of U.S. politics and society is a major problem, and toxic in-group vs. out-group dynamics exist on both sides of the ideological spectrum. But this trend first emerged in the 1990s, and nevertheless, our political system has managed to keep getting things done. While intense polarization is bad, bringing out the worst in everyone, it’s compatible with a functioning democracy as long as both parties keep playing by the rules and presidents keep obeying their oath to defend and protect the Constitution.
What’s changed — and I’d say this is the biggest political development of our lifetimes — is that one party decided to reject the rules.
Concerned watchers of state-level politics had been sounding the alarm about the GOP’s authoritarian turn well before President Donald Trump came along, ever since Republicans exploited their victories in the 2010 midterms to gerrymander themselves into near-permanent control of key states and enact antidemocratic measures, starting with voter suppression. In a twist on Justice Brandeis’ quote, the Ohio politician David Pepper has described many GOP-run states as “laboratories of autocracy.”
This problem fully metastasized on the national level with Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election. What at first seemed like a one-off episode morphed into something much larger when his party eventually came to rally behind him.
The authoritarian turn of the GOP is deeply entwined with polarization, but it is a separate phenomenon — and exponentially more dangerous.
Elite philanthropy has mounted a woefully ineffective response to this momentous shift in American life, which is not surprising. If you can’t name a problem or, worse, if you misdiagnose it, you’re not going to know how to solve it.
Why so much democracy funding falls short
Just look at how many foundations have approached democracy. Most have steered away from grantmaking to organize people and build civic power in favor of safer areas — like strengthening election systems and, as mentioned, reducing polarization.
These efforts are important. But both are limited in dealing with that elephant in the room, as events of the past two weeks have reminded us (yet again).
In a bid to rig the battle for Congress next year, Trump got Texas to embark upon a crash redistricting push to add more Republican seats to the U.S. House. To block that move, Democratic state legislators have fled the state. Meanwhile, states like California, New York and Illinois have pledged to respond with their own gerrymandering efforts — pledges that have led other Republican states to say they may gerrymander, too.
Consider the profoundly antidemocratic implications of these developments. If Trump and the GOP fail in rigging the midterms, the only reason will be that blue states have deprived even more of their voters of meaningful choices in House races — further polarizing a chamber where, as it is, only about 40 districts out of 435 are competitive.
Consider, too, how irrelevant top democracy grantmaking strategies are in the face of power grabs like this. A heavily gerrymandered state with one-party control can have a perfectly well-functioning voting system, where all citizens have secure access to the ballot — except for one small problem: their votes are meaningless because election results are preordained.
Trump’s redistricting ploy, which predictably ignited a partisan firestorm, also underscores the Sisyphean task of reducing polarization in the face of a MAGA-fied GOP. Philanthropy won’t get very far bankrolling firefighters if it ignores the arsonists.
New threats demand new strategies
So what’s the best way to strengthen democracy in America right now? While many steps could be helpful, progress on nearly all fronts hinges on succeeding at job number one: stopping the political movement that’s attacking our democracy.
As I’ve written elsewhere, this will require funders to execute major shifts in strategy and grantmaking to build countervailing power to the authoritarian right — elevating this priority over other programs, since all that work is ultimately contingent on who wins the larger battle for America’s future.
Funders have a lot of ways to fight within a 501c3 framework. Many grantmakers — often smaller foundations and individual donors — are already in the fight, and there are encouraging signs that some bigger ones are joining them. Let’s hope so.
