Twenty Twenty-Five turned out to be the year many of us had long been dreading. It was the year the people of the U.S. returned a professed oligarch or authoritarian ruler to the presidency. Donald Trump had promised to do all the things he has attempted to do, and for the most part, he has succeeded. The people who voted for him knew what they were voting for. The Republican Congress has rubberstamped everything he has done, and the Supreme Court has consistently delayed or overturned lower courts' objections to his actions. We have experienced a year of outright defiance of constitutional restraints on the power of the presidency and the supremacy of the rule of law in the United States of America.
I am not going to delve into the details of the past year in this post, but suggest reading historian Heather Cox Richardson’s summary of the political year at the link below.
I am most concerned that between 35% and 40% of all voters and 85% to 90% of Republicans approve of Trump’s performance as president during 2025. His declining popularity during 2025 has been due almost entirely to a loss of support among Independent voters. More than 95% of Democrats have consistently opposed him. With the Supreme Court’s approval of the rampant gerrymandering in Republican controlled states, Republicans might be able to maintain control of Congress in 2026 with as little as 40% of the vote. After four years of unrestrained authoritarian rule, there would be no free or fair elections in 2028. In 2026, democracy is in the balance.
I have been trying to understand why so many otherwise intelligent, thoughtful people who obviously care about the future of America are still willing to support Trump. The past year has proven that he intends to turn the U.S. government into an autocracy or monarchy, or at least an oligarchy controlled by himself and a few billionaire buddies. Thirty-five to forty percent of U.S. voters seem to be okay with that. A similar percentage of voters are admittedly opposed to Trump, but 10% to 20% don’t seem to feel very strongly, one way or the other. More than one-third of eligible voters didn’t even vote in the 2024 presidential election.
Since the 1970s, only about 25% of Americans have felt that the nation was headed in the right direction, regardless of the political party in power. The American people obviously want something different from the government of the past 40 to 50 years. As I have written on many occasions, including my book “A Revolution of the Middle,” the U.S. government has lost “the consent of the governed” and thus lost its “just power to govern.”
Trump's supporters apparently see him as filling the vacuum left by the government’s inability to govern. By defying the U.S. Constitution and rejecting the rule of law, Trump represents fundamental change. They are willing to wait and see how it turns out. Those who approve of his actions apparently have lost confidence in the ability of a constitutionally grounded, democratically elected government to govern.
After some thought, I realized that Americans born since the 1970s have never experienced a time when the government actually served the common interest of ordinary, working-class Americans. This includes roughly 75% of U.S. residents. The government has served the investing class very well, as the number of multi-millionaires and billionaires grew dramatically during the 1980s and 1990s and then exploded after the financial crisis of 2008-2009. The top 10% now receive about half of all income, and the top 1% claims more than 20%, or about twice as much as the bottom half. Median wages of U.S. workers have increased by less than 20% since 1985. Since most Americans are workers rather than investors, more than half of voters have never seen the government work “for them.”
My hope for 2026 is that the American people will begin to understand that “affordability” is inseparable from “democracy.” The erosion of democracy and a diminishing commitment of government to serve the common good is why millions of Americans can’t afford healthful food, decent housing, basic healthcare, higher education, competent childcare, dependable transportation, or other necessities for a life of dignity and respect. No president, autocratic or otherwise, can solve the problems of affordability. It will take the American people, working together, to restore democracy and force their government to ensure that the basic human needs of all are met.
The American democracy has worked for the common good of the people in the past and can work for the people again in the future, if we don’t give up on it. It worked for the people during the Civil War of the 1860s, it worked for the people during the trust-busting era of the early 1900s, it worked for the people during the New Deal era of the 1930s, it worked for the people through the Civil Rights and the Great Society programs of the 1960s, and it worked for the people through the Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act during the Environmental Movement of the 1970s.
Equally important, most Americans have never experienced or seen what an authoritarian government will do “to them.” Less than 1% of us are old enough to remember World War II and the rise of Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin to power in Europe. To most Americans, the alliance of the U.S. with Western Europe to win that war and then to oppose the rise of Stalinist Russia is ancient history rather than remembered reality. Democracies are the people’s defense against tyranny.
Democratic governments have worked when the people have forced them to work and worked to make the work. The U.S. had strong leadership during these times, but the people didn’t rely on an autocrat or dictator to solve their problems. They demanded that their presidents protect and defend the U.S. Constitution and respect the rule of law. They demanded that their elected representatives serve the common interest of ordinary people rather than cater to the economically and politically powerful. Democratic governments have only worked when the people expected them to work, were willing to work to make them work, and to work with them.
The Greek word “Demos” means “the common people” and is the root word of democracy. Democracy means government of the people, by the people, and for the people--the common people. Democracy has worked for the common people in the past and it can do so again in the future. And when it does, the U.S. government will regain the consent of the governed and will restore its just power to govern. My hope is that 2026 will bring a rejection of authoritarianism and a relentless demand by the people for a return to a democratic government, committed to serving the common good of the common people. Democracy in America is hanging in the balance.
John Ikerd
Heather Cox Richardson: 2025 https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/december-30-2025
https://news.gallup.com/.../presidential-approval-ratings...
https://www.law.georgetown.edu/.../2024/06/GT-GLPP240011.pdf
https://ourpublicservice.org/.../most-americans-think.../
https://www.amazon.com/Revolution-Middle.../dp/B00R1PUAL6