The Tufts chapter of the Onero Institute, a student-led research organization focused on global affairs, held its inaugural panel on Friday. The panel, titled “The Democracy We Need,” focused on the state of U.S. democracy and the results of the 2024 election. Panelists included Consuelo Cruz, an associate professor of political science at Tufts; Malik Mufti, a professor of political science at Tufts; and Sheri Berman, a professor of political science at Barnard College.
Maggie McKinney, director of communications at the Onero Institute, said that the goal of the event is to help shed light on how strong democracies are formed.
“The past few years, America has started to become referred to by organizations here and there as a backsliding democracy, and we want to … see what a strong democracy looks like, what kind of institutions need to be in place,” McKinney told the Daily.
Each panelist brought a different regional area of expertise to their discussion of democracy. Cruz’s research focuses on Latin American politics, Berman concentrates on European politics and Mufti specializes in Middle Eastern affairs.
“Part of the idea with this panel is we wanted to give a comparative regional perspective-based on different regions of the world and looking at them in comparison to the U.S.,” junior Miles Gendebien, a co-founder of the Tufts chapter of the Onero Institute, said.
The first question for the panel asked what makes up democratic institutions and how they can be strengthened.
Berman listed the various aspects of a functioning democracy, stressing that elections are a “necessary but not sufficient” component of democratic government.
“Elections are not the only thing that make a democracy,” Berman said. “We need a free and active civil society. We need a free and active press. We need to have opposition parties. We need to have other kinds of checks and balances within the government. We need to have a military that is subordinated to civilian control.”
Professor Sheri Berman, of Harvard University, addresses students during the discussion.
Mufti pointed out that the distinction between functioning and nonfunctioning democracies is not always clear.
“[The] Electoral College: Does that in any way diminish the democratic character of this country? The fact that Montana has as many senators as New York … to what extent does that impact on our conception of how good this democracy is?” Mufti questioned.
The panelists were then asked about how democracy can survive in the face of a populace that wishes to undermine it, to which Berman argued that democratic regimes are designed to protect themselves.
“The stronger, more resilient your democracy is, the more checks and balances it has, the more stops it has to prevent that kind of thing from happening,” Berman said.
Despite these checks and balances, the panelists expressed worry about the recent election of President-elect Donald Trump and the threat that his administration could pose to U.S. democracy.
“This issue of threat to democracy here today is something that should unite conservatives and progressives. It should unite Republicans and Democrats, unite pro-Palestinians and pro-Israelis, Christians and non-Christians, whites and non-whites because it’s really a threat to the regime,” Mufti said.
Mufti argued that the threat to democracy is not necessarily Trump himself but rather the larger movement that he represents.
“The threat isn’t Donald Trump. … I don’t think he’s a fascist himself [because] I don’t think he’s that interested in politics to begin with — although, again, I might be proven wrong,” Mufti said. “The danger that this whole situation poses is that he’s legitimized. He’s created a space for real fascists. There is now an armed and increasingly organized fascist movement in this country.”
Tufts Professor Malik Mufti speaks during the panel.
The next question asked the panel to consider why Trump won the election. Each panelist brought up different explanations for Trump’s victory.
Berman argued that this year was a bad year for incumbents across the globe and that Trump benefited from people’s economic and social dissatisfaction.
“Where majorities of the population say ‘we think the country is going in the wrong direction,’ incumbent parties lose,” Berman said. “If you look at public opinion surveys in the United States, whether you think people are deluded or not, a lot of them — more than half of them — think the country is going in the wrong direction.”
Mufti reasoned that voters feel disillusioned with the current system and looked to Trump to remedy their economic and social woes.
“People feel that the neoliberal regime system has let them down in large numbers: Economically, in terms of the values that they hold dear that they feel are under assault by the liberal elites,” Mufti said.
Cruz shifted the conversation to a discussion of Latino voters, who supported Trump by 14 percentage points more than they supported him in 2020, according to exit polls. She explained that many Latino voters who immigrated to the United States to escape socialist, authoritarian governments see liberal politicians in the U.S. as espousing those same values.
“You should see the [messaging among] Latin American — now American — citizens that liberals are evil. No more gender ideology, no more open borders, no more lying press. … No more corrupt elections,” Cruz said. “This is what they’re saying to themselves … my people who have fled authoritarian regimes.”
Tufts sophomore Ella Harris Perin attended the panel to try to understand the election results and found it informative.
“I’m trying to find resources to understand what’s happening right now, postelection … I think it was very helpful to hear from people who have been studying this their whole lives,” they said. “It’s good to know that I should be worried, and also, it gives me hope that understanding [democracy] will help solve that in different ways.”
Professor Consuelo Cruz speaks during the panel.
