The Daily: Is America in Decline?

January 7, 2022

Welcome to the weekend. In today's newsletter, we look more closely at the state of American democracy, the subject of today's episode; examine the podcasting industry's role in spreading misinformation; and offer a behind-the-scenes look at how our three-part series on the Capitol riot came together.

The big idea: American decay

The Daily strives to reveal a new idea in every episode. Below, we go deeper on one of those from our show this week.

Al Drago for The New York Times

By Lauren Jackson

Associate Audience Editor, Audio

The idea that America is in decline isn't new.

For decades, academics have warned that partisan gridlock, politicized courts and unfettered lobbying were like dangerous substances — if taken in excess, America's democratic systems were at risk of collapse.

But what happens when that idea goes mainstream? When words like "died," "decline" and "dagger" sit near "America" on front pages across the country? When a majority of the American public rewrites the story they tell themselves about their country's standing in the world?

That's what some experts say is happening now — that the Capitol riot and its aftermath have normalized a sense among Americans that the country, its economic system and its standing in the world are in decline. New data supports this claim: 70 percent of Americans believe the U.S. is "in crisis and at risk of failing," according to a recent poll.

As you heard in today's episode, fortifying America's democracy is not just about ensuring the trustworthiness of elections, but also about safeguarding Americans' belief in the possibility of change. So we wanted to dive deeper on the latter and ask: What happens when that self-conception falters — when Americans begin to believe their country isn't winning, but instead is losing a long battle?

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A fractured collective narrative at home

"Jan. 6 and then the Republican reaction is a really important turning point in the perception of American decline," said Francis Fukuyama, a political scientist and author. Mr. Fukuyama noted said that while he had been writing about American political decay for years, the concept had assumed more systemic import after the Capitol riots — and wider acceptance.

Just a few years ago, a majority of Americans believed the U.S. was one of the greatest nations in the world. In a Pew Research survey from 2017, 85 percent of respondents said either that the U.S. "stands above all other countries in the world" or that it is "one of the greatest countries, along with some others." Additionally, 58 percent of those surveyed said the American democracy was working "somewhat" or "very well."

"Prior to the rise of all this populism," Mr. Fukuyama said, "there was a basic progressive narrative to American history. And that was based on a Declaration of Independence and a Constitution that were flexible enough to be modified over time to be made more inclusive."

"This American narrative that has held us together, it doesn't hold anymore," he said, adding that the riot, "more than anything that happened during the Trump presidency, I think does underline that."

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Now, nearly two-thirds of respondents in the NPR/Ipsos poll agreed that U.S. democracy is "more at risk" now than it was a year ago. Among Republicans, that number climbs to four in five. This narrative persists on both sides of the political spectrum — with each side pointing the finger at the other as a threat to the nation's well-being. It's also a narrative that has direct effects on American democracy — polarizing partisanship on national and local levels, affecting critical legislative functions like passing budgets and limiting social consensus-building in response to crises like Covid.

In light of these varied crises, "what is most striking is not what has changed but what has not," Peter Baker, The Times's chief White House correspondent, wrote on the anniversary of the Capitol Riots. "America has not come together to defend its democracy; it has only split further apart."

It is this growing chasm that some political theorists say will be most difficult to reconcile in the interest of shoring up America's democratic institutions.

"We have two Americas," James Morone, a professor of political science at Brown University, said, with Americans in urban centers experiencing the benefits of globalization while many in rural areas feel left behind as the American middle class shrinks. These two Americas also often inhabit opposing factual realities, allowing misinformation to persist and even fuel violence. "And here's the thing: Each is represented by a different party. That's one reason the two-party system is breaking down."

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Rippling effects abroad

This national self-doubt also has implications for the perception of American strength and supremacy globally, a challenge for President Biden's foreign policy as his administration struggles to win back the global repute thrown into question by four years of "America First."

In his address at the Capitol on Jan. 6, Mr. Biden said, "Both at home and abroad, we're engaged anew in a struggle between democracy and autocracy."

Donald J. Trump and his allies continue to push a false retelling of the 2020 election, in which Democrats stole the vote and the Jan. 6 riot to disrupt President Biden's certification was largely peaceful or was staged by Mr. Trump's opponents. This approach is part of a broader transformation of authoritarian tactics globally, as Max Fisher, the Interpreter columnist at The Times, points out.

"Dictators have shifted emphasis from blunt-force repression (although this still happens, too) to subtler methods like manipulating information or sowing division, aimed at preventing dissent over suppressing it," he wrote. Now, history is being rewritten in Russia, Hungary and China, where governments are repressing and sanitizing elements of national history in favor of contemporary politics — as is also happening in the United States.

This tactical similarity with foreign autocrats, some experts argue, throws American ideals into question internationally. "If crucial facts can be denied by a major American party and millions of American citizens, aren't all American claims to truth and rationality suspect?" said Robert Daly, director of the Kissinger Institute on China.

"For as long as I can remember, U.S. democracy, even with its flaws, was held up as the gold standard of democracy worldwide," said Cynthia Aronson, director of the Latin America program at the Wilson Center. Now, according to a Pew Research survey, a median of just 17 percent of respondents said democracy in the U.S. is a good example for others to follow.

America still benefits from some positive reputational assessments around the world, with a majority of respondents to the Pew survey expressing favorable opinions on America's technology, its military and its entertainment output. But some experts argue those sources of soft power are also under threat in conjunction with democratic backsliding.

"One of the side effects of losing the democracy is losing control over the markets," Rebecca Henderson, a professor at Harvard Business School, said, adding, "I think it's an incredibly dangerous moment. I think we absolutely could lose the democracy."

Contextualizing Jan. 6: American democratic backsliding is a concept that can seem totalizing. So to break it down, here's a playlist to help you understand how we got here.

Did podcasts help incite the mob?

In a new analysis, the podcast run by Stephen K. Bannon, President Donald J. Trump's former adviser, was flagged 115 times for misinformation in a designated time period.Justin T. Gellerson for The New York Times

By Stuart A. Thompson

Political podcasts played a major role in promoting lies and misinformation about the 2020 U.S. presidential election, which later fueled the deadly protests on Jan. 6, according to a study by the Brookings Institution that analyzed nearly 1,500 episodes from the 20 most popular political shows on Apple's podcast app.

None of the predictions of widespread voter fraud came true. But some podcasters frequently advanced the false belief that the election was illegitimate, first as a trickle before the election and then as a tsunami in the weeks leading up to the violent attack at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, according to new research.

The report is the first data-driven look at how political podcasts played a role in shaping theories of electoral fraud. You can read more here:

Election Falsehoods Surged on Podcasts Before Capitol Riots, Researchers Find

A new study analyzed nearly 1,500 episodes, showing the extent to which podcasts pushed misinformation about voter fraud.

By Stuart A. Thompson

From the Daily team: Bringing voice acting to our journalism

This week, we did something new: We cast voice actors to bring to life an F.B.I. interview with Robert Reeder, a single father and FedEx driver from suburban Maryland who was facing misdemeanor charges for his involvement in the Capitol mob.

"We were immediately interested in Reeder's story and his version of events, and we knew we wanted our listeners to hear it," Asthaa Chaturvedi, a producer, said after reading a condensed version of the interview. But there was one problem: We had no audio.

The F.B.I. had not released the tape of the original interview, so Austin Mitchell, a Daily producer who has previously worked as an actor, called a casting director he knew. Our team also tapped Michael Paulson, The Times's theater reporter, for help finding the right voice actors to bring the interview to life.

"We still weren't entirely sure the re-enactment would hold up on its own," Austin said.

But once our team heard it, we knew we had a show. "This was an experiment in many ways," Austin said. "But the actors were so good. We wanted to do something that broke form."