Here’s The Thing: It Doesn’t Have To GO That Way May 25, 2025 Marilyn Kunce: I’ve Seen This Playbook Before—And It Doesn’t End Well I grew up believing that American democracy, for all its flaws, was unshakable. I grew up in Mexico, where we watched American democracy like the north star: a place where institutions held firm, where presidents were figures to look up to, and where the rule of law meant something. Messy, yes, but solid. In Latin America, checks and balances and peaceful transitions of power were not realities we lived, but ideals we hoped to one day reach. I believed it when I worked in spaces where people still fight for the right to be heard. And I still believed in American Democracy during the chaos of the 2020 election, when institutions strained under pressure but—just barely—held. But I’ve also worked closely with partners in Latin America, and let me tell you something we didn’t want to admit, but are slowly realizing: what’s happening here in the U.S. isn’t new. It’s not even surprising. To Latin Americans, it’s familiar. Latin America has lived through the very crises we now flirt with in the United States. And it is a clear warning to us that our future risks looking like their past. . . . . . . the echoes are chilling . . . Here is the thing: it doesn’t have to go that way. History doesn’t just warn us, it gives us a way out. Democracy can be defended; it can even emerge stronger. But it won’t happen if people keep clinging to the idea that this country is too exceptional to fail. It’s not. If anything, the comfort of that idea—the sense that America is somehow beyond the reach of history—makes it more vulnerable. Join . . . Indivisible. Defend the rule of law.