Three hopeful signs for Democrats

If your faith in American progress needs a boost after the Supreme Court’s rash of 6-3 conservative decisions, here are some recent stories easily missed. They reflect how American voters’ decision in 2020 to elect Joe Biden has resulted in successful policies — and how Americans’ reaction to anti-democratic trends on the right are showing up as we head into 2024.

1. American manufacturing revival

Skeptics, take note: In 2020, candidate Biden ran on bipartisan solutions to big problems, even in an age of tribal politics. And what bigger problem has our economy faced throughout the 21st century than the loss of manufacturing to China?

Voters endorsed Biden’s approach, and guess what? Plant construction increased a jaw-dropping 76% in the last year. “Chalk it up to the CHIPS and Science Act and the Inflation Reduction Act,” the Wall Street Journal explained. The CHIPS Act took aim at China by seeking to bring more semiconductor companies to American shores. Bipartisan support in Congress got it past the finish line.

Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, with its green-energy subsidies, has just prompted a Norwegian company to move 500 jobs to Michigan. Brett Perlman, CEO of a Houston group focused on green hydrogen production, says the overseas company “is the first of many we are going to see.”

Here’s real “America First” 21st-century economic policy, not populist sloganeering. Biden’s legislative achievements help explain why the odds of an economic downturn are dropping faster than a submersible. As Politico wrote, “Consumer confidence has started to improve and spending on new construction has risen.” 

Bipartisan solutions are what voters voted for in 2020 and, while far from perfect, they are being delivered.

2. Ukraine policy succeeds

In 2020, American voters also chose Joe Biden’s foreign policy — whose centerpiece was “boosting NATO.” It contrasted with Donald Trump’s “browbeating NATO members” after complaining that the alliance was “obsolete.”

With Biden’s pro-NATO mandate, he began forging consensus for sanctioning Russia in late 2021 if, as anticipated, it invaded Ukraine. He similarly built consensus to provide Ukraine’s military with the arms needed to resist. The strategic aims were supporting democracy and deterring aggression by weakening Russia’s military.

Here’s what you might have missed. On Tuesday, British military leader Admiral Sir Tony Radakin confirmed success for the latter goal, stating that “[t]he Russian army has lost half of its combat effectiveness in Ukraine, including as many as 2,500 tanks” in advance of Ukraine’s unleashing its full counter-offensive.

Moreover, the success of Ukraine’s military and American policy has further diluted Russia’s capacity to wage war by decimating Putin’s economy. Conscription, casualties and “an exodus of talented Russians fearful of the war’s impact” has “left companies ‘screaming’ about the lack of young people available to fill roles,” in the words of Szu Ping Chan of the Telegraph.

Ukraine is Exhibit A in the case against Chinese President Xi Jinping’s argument that democratic governments cannot compete with autocracies. Russia, the autocracy that China supports, appears to be losing big in Ukraine’s fight, supported by the West, to keep itself an independent democracy.

3. Abortion rights keep motivating voters

Nationally, more than 3 in 5 voters disagree with the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade. Savvy politicians on both sides of the aisle recognize how powerful a motivator the issue is for voters.

Republicans fear the issue will prevent them from regaining Senate control next year despite a favorable map. Democrats are running on the issue in battleground Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Nevada.

As one Republican strategist put it, “Any state where Republicans have trouble with suburban voters because of the Trump brand, they had double trouble with suburban voters [in 2022] because of abortion politics.”

On Wednesday, Ohio activists filed an initiative petition to do what their neighbors in Kentucky and Michigan did last year: Enshrine abortion rights in the state’s constitution. They had nearly double the signatures necessary to qualify.

Initiative measures are democracy at work. Democracy is protecting abortion rights in states like Kansas and Kentucky. And now history may repeat in Ohio.

So while no one can say “all is well” with American democracy, voters using their voices to preserve it have produced sound results before. Citizens are working hard at it today. We can do it once more in 2024.

Dennis Aftergut is a former federal prosecutor, currently of counsel to Lawyers Defending American Democracy.