The Year the U.S. Democracy Debate Turned Global

At Foreign Policy, we leave most of the reporting on U.S. domestic politics to others. But 2022 once again made clear why foreign policy begins at home.

The November midterm elections were long expected to be a disaster for Democrats on Capitol Hill, with indirect effects on everything from aid to Ukraine to China policy to international trade. With Republicans performing much worse than early polling had suggested—and candidates beholden to former U.S. President Donald Trump doing especially badly—continuity in U.S. foreign policy now seems likely. Meanwhile, we can expect infighting among Republicans over who’s to blame and the future course of their party, including regarding foreign policy.

Domestic debates also shaped U.S. policy on Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine. With the exception of the Trumpist right and some far-left progressives, there has been strong bipartisan support for Washington’s military and economic aid to Kyiv. If one of the Kremlin’s strategies to bring Ukraine to its knees is Americans tiring of supporting Ukraine, polls aren’t showing it yet.

Other 2022 U.S. news we’ve been watching closely for its global implications include billionaire Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter—and the subsequent chaos at the social media platform, which shapes public debates around the world like no other. Given Musk’s pledges to ease Twitter’s content controls, there are now growing concerns that the site will be defenseless against disinformation, hate speech, and various government influence operations.

Here are our five top reads from 2022 on U.S. elections, politics, and democracy.

1. 10 Ideas to Fix Democracy

by FP Contributors, Jan. 7

For the cover story of our Winter 2022 print issue, Foreign Policy brought together 10 prominent thinkers to share their most important fixes to reform the workings of democracy, defend it against its enemies at home and abroad, and ensure it survives and thrives by better serving the people it governs. We asked the participants to be as prescriptive and radical as possible.

2. Kremlin Talking Points Are Back in the U.S. Debate

by Laura Thornton, Oct. 13

What do Fox News host Tucker Carlson, billionaire Elon Musk, and several Republican politicians have in common? In 2022, they were among the most vocal defenders of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ideas about Ukraine. It’s the most prominent reappearance of Kremlin talking points in U.S. political debates since Moscow’s interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Laura Thornton argues.

3. Why America’s Far Right and Far Left Have Aligned Against Helping Ukraine

by Jan Dutkiewicz and Dominik Stecuła, July 4

Anti-war protesters led by Code Pink demonstrate outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington on March 16.Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images

The debate in some Western countries over aid to Ukraine has made the horseshoe theory prominent again: the idea that the extreme left and right of the political spectrum bend together until their views almost touch. In the United States, prominent voices on the far right and progressive left have been astonishingly aligned in their pro-Russia, anti-Ukraine views, Jan Dutkiewicz and Dominik Stecuła write.

4. To Save Twitter, Elon Musk Should Fire Himself

by Bhaskar Chakravorti, Nov. 18

No internet platform shapes political debate in the United States (and the world) as much as Twitter. That makes Musk uniquely dangerous as the company’s new owner, Bhaskar Chakravorti argues. Among the problems: Two of Musk’s other businesses, Tesla and SpaceX, are crucially dependent on repressive governments, and he already has a clear record of pandering to them.

5. Biden’s Foreign-Policy Agenda Is Still Alive

by Michael Hirsh, Nov. 9

The Republicans’ disastrous showing in the U.S. midterm elections set the party up for a long bout of infighting, FP columnist Michael Hirsh writes. But while Republicans battle among themselves, U.S. President Joe Biden will likely have a freer and stronger hand to conduct foreign policy with than many people suspected before the election.