>"Democracy reform is the first step toward a sustainable future."

A Trump supporter wears a gas mask after storming the U.S. Capitol. Politicians in the United States have long had a single, instinctive response to crises both real and imagined: make new kinds of cops. After 9/11, the Bush administration created the Department of Homeland Security. Amid a ginned-up border crisis two years later, it created the Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Now, after last week’s raid on the Capitol, President-elect Joe Biden is being pushed to create a Cabinet-level appointee tasked with fighting domestic terrorism, bolstered by the bold new statutes criminalizing it that he’s promised. That’s despite the fact that there’s a much better way to defang the violent far right and countless other crises boiling in our teetering republic. The best way to contain the militant GOP, while helping the U.S. face global warming and more, is to expand democracy—not the national security state.