Building Democratic (“little d”) Power Means Building Bridges

I've been reflecting a lot over the last few weeks, from coffee meetings to Zoom strategy sessions, and of course, endless social media scrolling, and I keep coming back to this: we need to get comfortable in the uncomfortable.

What do I mean by that? I mean showing up in spaces, building relationships, and forming coalitions with people we never thought we’d be in the same room with. People who challenge us, who don’t share all our views, who may have been on the other side of past fights, but who now have a stake in defending democracy.

This has been especially clear in recent strategic planning conversations. Organizations are focused on reflecting, resetting, and moving forward, which is critical. But what’s missing in too many of these discussions? Partnerships, coalitions, and relationships. It still feels like an “every man for himself” approach, driven in part by funding structures and, in this uncertain time, a tightened spigot as funders wait for the pro-democracy movement to figure its sh*t out (but that’s a whole different conversation for another time). 

But here’s the thing: If democracy is going to survive this moment, we need to get serious about coalition-building, and that requires discomfort.

In my 15+ years in democracy work around the world, I’ve seen people come together whose families stood on opposite sides of a battlefield, who lost loved ones at each other’s hands, and yet, they chose to build relationships, coalitions, and a shared vision for the future. Not because they forgave or forgot, but because they understood that change is only possible when people are willing to work across divides.

Yet, in advocacy, politics, and movement-building, we often do the opposite – we resist working with imperfect allies, demanding ideological purity over impact. But if there’s one lesson I’ve learned, it’s that building power requires building bridges.

As David Frum recently wrote in The Atlantic, democracy won’t be defended by one faction alone. Unifying around a common threat is a strategy, not a compromise of values.

Coalitions don’t work if we’re waiting for the perfect partners. And progress doesn’t happen by holding the line – it happens by pulling more people into the fight.