“I believe the greatest threat to democracy is silence. In two ways, if you are silent, then your voice cannot be heard, and that is the purpose of democracy. We are supposed to have freedom of speech. And then, in another way, if we are silenced or we are allowed to be silenced, then once again, our voice will not be heard. That is the greatest threat. We are supposed to be able to speak out. That is freedom. In a democracy, we’re supposed to have equality and freedom and be able to vote and change things. If we are silent, that cannot happen.”
“The greatest threat to democracy right now is the administration that is currently in place. There are so many things that are changing that are impacting those that are not in the million-dollar bracket. And so when we talk about ice, healthcare, childcare, the ability to pay for rent, I feel like there are so many things that the government is impacting into the community and the families that it trickles down. We’re in a survival mode, and we shouldn’t be in survival mode, if that makes sense. I feel, however, I hope our people will understand this is a time to come together.”
“The biggest threat to our democracy, to me, is friendship. If people looked at each other the way they looked at their friends and operated that way, it would be much harder to go into wars. It would be much harder to pass laws that are not made for equality around all people. If friendship was the center of how we made decisions when it came to politicians, our president, all the way down to our citizens and how they vote, things would be very, very different here in the U.S.”
“I think the greatest threat to democracy is ignorance and a lack of empathy. Because we need to know a little bit more about one another in order to be able to make choices for each other, which is essentially what a democracy is. You can’t just go for yourself; you have to go for those around you. So a lack of education and a lack of feeling for one another.”
“The greatest threat to our democracy, I’m going to say, is the spread of misinformation, the lack of people being able to think for themselves. I feel like a lot of people are really good at piggybacking off of others without having a strong basis, hopping on trends or just saying things for the sake of saying things, just really not having a lot of proof or education or just sitting and being able to ponder, think for themselves, reflect and have productive conversations. Meaningful dialogue happening.”
“I don’t think that there is one singular thing that is a threat to democracy. It really all just depends on the moment and the state of the country at that time. Right now, I would say misinformation. Social media has amplified the speed and scale of misinformation, and it is honestly scary because at the same time AI is only evolving day by day.”
