Bringing Democracy Home

The column orgininally appeared in The Bradenton Times on April 30, 2025.

“All right! You know what that sound means!” Mitch Maley exclaimed, as he does every week to kick off The Bradenton Times podcast. This week, though, I was fortunate enough to be sitting around a table with him and Dawn Kitterman, headphones on, nervous and excited by the opportunity to speak on the urgent issues facing our nation. Over more than an hour and a half, we discussed the grave threats facing democracy, the role that social media and misinformation has played in buoying authoritarianism, and the foundational concept, expressed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, that “the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than the democratic State [is] fascism.”  

Even as we spoke, these dangers were playing out a couple of hundred miles away on the floor of the Florida Senate. Legislators were casting votes on a bill restricting local governments from adequately regulating development, enforcing impact fees, or preserving Agricultural Enclaves like Manatee County’s Future Development Area Boundary. The bill failed by one vote—with bipartisan opposition—but Senate Democratic Leader Jason Pizzo later flipped his position, keeping the bill alive and resigning from his leadership role the next day. The threat remains.

It was a stark reminder that we could talk all day about the history and ideas fueling authoritarianism, but what matters is the real-life consequences playing out around us. So today I want to present a follow-up to the podcast: how is democratic backsliding directly impacting our local community?

***

To answer that question, we must first answer another: how did we wind up with this mess? The present political quagmire is the result of decades of corruption. It began when Richard Nixon won the presidency through deception and “dirty tricks.” Nixon did much to entrench the Washington Swamp (and he paid dearly for it), but perhaps his single most important move was appointing Lewis Powell to the Supreme Court. Just prior to his nomination, Powell had written a memorandum outlining his dismay that corporate interests and elites often came second in politics to the good of everyday Americans. Under the heading, “What Can Be Done About the Public?” he lays out ideas for large-scale propaganda campaigns, “surveillance” of educational materials, efforts to influence politicians, and finally, a takeover of the judiciary to utilize “an activist-minded Supreme Court.” This memorandum, you may have guessed, was an inspiration for the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, which has served as a blueprint for President Trump’s second term.

Powell’s ideas sparked a multi-pronged effort to undermine the American system of “government of the people, by the people, for the people.” It finally succeeded in 2010 when the Supreme Court handed down the Citizens United Vs. FEC ruling, which declared corporations are people and money is speech. The decision, sometimes called “the legalization of bribery,” opened the floodgates of dark money and reshaped the American system into something far less democratic. Gerrymandering became so extreme that political nerds began playing “spot the animals” in district maps. Dark money attack ads drowned out the calm reason of grassroots leaders. Politicians suddenly had a lot more to fear from millionaires than from voters. Elections were for sale.

***

Ever since Citizens United, the Florida Legislature has had a soft spot for the industries filling their campaign coffers. Legislators hand out favors to developers like they were throwing beads at Gasparilla. And as democracy continues to erode, they’re entering overdrive. Politicians know that a developer-funded primary challenge is a much bigger threat than an upswelling of public opposition. That’s why you get bills like HB 1205 which promises to gut the citizen ballot initiative process in Florida for grassroots movements (amendments with corporate backing like last year’s marijuana amendment could still pay to play). Meanwhile, SB 832 would prevent phosphate companies from being held accountable for pollution. Yet another bill would make it absurdly difficult for local governments to keep impact fees up to date. Local governments fund expansion of services by collecting these fees from developers; without them, infrastructure projects will be cut or taxes on existing residents raised.

The fallout from these actions will be severe. The county commission we worked so hard to elect will find its hands tied by the state. Sustainable development and a safer environment will become out of reach. Agriculture and heritage will suffer while natural lands are paved over, and our water quality crisis becomes irreversible.

Threats are coming from the federal government as well. Florida just lost $300 million meant to protect communities from hurricanes because the funds were deemed “wasteful and politicized.” Trump’s economic instability imperils our local economy. The administration is attempting to allow oil drilling in our waters. As Mr. Maley described in a poignant column this week, it’s been 15 years since he began working at TBT—just as the Deepwater Horizon tragedy was unfolding. Have we already forgotten the lessons?

Climate action is particularly endangered as Trump, who last year asked fossil fuel giants to donate $1 billion each to his campaign, bulldozes renewable energy investments and accelerates fossil fuel production. Big Oil has been writing up executive orders to increase their profits, so Trump simply has to sign them. While corporate profits may increase, energy stability could decrease while costs rise, since renewables are the cheapest energy sources. We’ll also see increased health problems and climate disasters.

Trump’s disregard for climate action is far from unique. During last year’s presidential debate, when asked about climate change, Kamala Harris didn’t highlight how we can pursue renewable solutions that also create jobs, lower prices, and improve public health—she touted record oil production. This comes as communities like ours suffer devastating climate impacts like last year’s deadly hurricanes. We’re fed up with being ignored.

But what can we do? Well, here in Manatee County, we have a unique perspective on rebuilding democracy. In 2020, polluter and developer interests took over our county commission by employing familiar tactics—negative campaigning, a barrage of misinformation, and a focus on hot-button topics over real issues, all bankrolled by dark money PACs. The ensuing years were chillingly similar to what we now see from Tallahassee and the White House—county staff was slashed, the administrator fired, and promises of fiscal conservatism turned to constant waste and abuse. The public was ignored in decision-making, while the elite had easy access to leaders. Since real policy success didn’t happen, commissioners stirred up political drama and culture-war issues to distract the public.

Yet through it all, people maintained their resolve and built the infrastructure for a grassroots revolution. A key piece of the puzzle was the very publication I now have the honor of publishing in. Without the independent, rigorous reporting of The Bradenton Times, the voices shouting for better governance wouldn’t have been able to centralize and the community wouldn’t have been able to find reliable information on the issues. In addition to TBT, residents formed Facebook groups and wrote letters to other local papers, trying to cut through the deluge of propaganda.

As the 2024 election approached, as fury erupted over the infamous wetland buffer debacle, the grassroots movement built momentum and coalesced around several Republican challengers to the incumbents, as well as Commissioner George Kruse. These weren’t “the lesser of two evils” candidates; they were community members who promised the real change people desperately wanted. We’d experienced what bad governance looked like: the traffic nightmares, red tides killing marine life and fouling beaches, intense flooding in vast areas of the county. And we’d had enough.

In a stunning upset, the grassroots candidates—out-funded many times over—steamrolled developers’ choices in every race. The people spoke loud and clear: we want the government to represent us, not special interests. This win shines a light into the darkness our democracy is facing and illuminates a path forward for the nation. To overcome the rising U.S. oligarchy, we must employ the same strategies that worked in Manatee County: fighting misinformation, grassroots organizing, centralizing networks for a stronger opposition to the political machine, staying grounded in compassion and values, and most importantly, bipartisanship.

We are not facing a partisan moment. The actions of this movement aren’t conservative. They’re not liberal. They’re authoritarian and that’s something that Americans of all stripes proudly stand against. We stand against a president who wants to trample free speech, we stand against a state that wants to end home rule. As Senator Cory Booker said during his record 25-hour pro-democracy speech on the Senate floor, “This is a moral moment. It’s not right or left; it’s right or wrong.”

We rose to the “moral moment” in Manatee County. To preserve that historic win, we now face an even bigger task. Are we ready to take a stand for America?