In Pursuit of Democracy

This story looks at every time the word ‘democracy’ was said or written into the Congressional Record since 1880.

Each dot represents five speeches or remarks.

Bright dots are ones that argue American democracy is under threat.

Early on, the word “democracy” was typically used to describe the Democratic party. This would shift in the early-1900s to describe the concept of democracy.

Many American founding fathers believed only educated white men should hold political power. Yet they signed a Declaration of Independence that said “all men are created equal” and that the government derives its powers from our consent.

According to historian Sean Wilentz in The Rise of American Democracy, these words set the U.S. on a path to be more democratic than they expected. And ever since, Americans have debated what it means to strive for these ideals—especially when democracy is under threat.

Southern states actively worked to suppress the Black vote with literacy tests, poll taxes, and violence, eventually reducing Black turnout from 75% in 1872 to just 30% in 1904. The conservative party, Democrats, argued that these tactics were necessary to protect democracy, like in this speech from William Kitchin.

“Whenever it looked as if marginalized people might get an equal voice, designing political leaders told white men that their own rights were under attack. Soon, they warned, minorities and women would take over and push them aside,” writes historian Heather Cox Richardson in her book, Democracy Awakening.

During World War I, women’s rights activists argued that the U.S. was fighting a war to protect democracy abroad—but it failed to uphold those ideals at home by not allowing women to vote. Some congressmen, like Rep. Edward Gray, doubled-down on denying women political power.

In 1920, the U.S. passed an amendment giving women the right to vote.

The Great Depression highlighted the gap between the wealthy and everyone else. In this speech, Rep. John Rankin argues that the superrich have influenced politics to their own benefit, which threatens the ideals of democracy.

Some congressmen, like Sen. Harry Byrd, said the real threat to democracy were the freeloaders who took advantage of government benefits via President Roosevelt’s New Deal programs.

“In the 1930s, anti-New Deal businessmen determined to overthrow FDR’s presidency deliberately tried to tap into the passions of the nation’s traditional anti-immigrant, anti-Black, anti-union, and anti-Jewish brawlers,” Richardson writes.

World War II spurred a huge increase in speeches about the looming threats to American democracy. The U.S. entered the war in 1941 after Japan bombed a U.S. military base in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Many described this as an existential fight to protect democracy against fascism and communism.

In 1942, the U.S. rounded up and incarcerated more than 110,000 Japanese Americans in western states—without any due process—because government officials believed there may be foreign agents among them. In this speech, Rep. Samuel Dickstein worried that targeting Japanese Americans didn’t align with the ideals of democracy.

Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt in their book, How Democracies Die, write that internship was quite popular among Americans, though it would have been “unthinkable without the public fear generated by the Pearl Harbor attack.”

After the war, the U.S. continued to believe that foreign ideologies are threatening democracy. In this infamous speech, Sen. Joseph McCarthy argued that the government was not overreaching to root out communists. He later tied homosexuality to communism, causing thousands of people to be fired from government jobs.

McCarthy’s influence didn’t wane until 1954, when Army chief counsel Joseph Welch responded to McCarthy’s allegation during a live televised hearing: “Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?”

In 1954, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that public schools cannot be segregated by race—a landmark case that ensured people would be treated equal under the law. In this speech, Sen. James Eastland vowed to defy this court ruling.

In the 1960s, Congress deliberated on bills to ensure that everyone is equal before the law—specifically ensuring civil rights for Black Americans. By the end of the decade, Congress passed laws that outlawed housing discrimination, employment discrimination, racial segregation, and voter disenfranchisement.

Conservatives vehemently pushed back against civil rights legislation, and framed it as a defense of democracy. Rep. Thomas Abernethy argued in this speech that having barriers to voting is actually good for democracy.

The number of speeches have increased over time. To get a sense of how much each Congress mentions democracy, let’s visualize what percentage of speeches mention the word.

Keep scrolling

During the 1972 presidential campaign, people associated with President Richard Nixon reelection campaign broke into the Democratic National Committee headquarters to plant listening devices, in an effort to help Nixon win.

Later, Nixon attempted to cover up these revelations, leading to his resignation.

In the 1980s, the Reagan administration subverted laws passed by congress by secretly selling arms to Iran and using that money to fund a right-wing Nicaraguan rebel group called the Contras.

Eleven members of the Reagan administration were convicted. Six were pardoned by President George H.W. Bush, who previously served as Reagan’s vice president. Only one served jail time.

The 9/11 terrorist attacks killed 2,977 people. Virtually every congressmember immediately framed 9/11 as an attack on American democracy.

In a speech to Congress, President George W. Bush said, “They hate what we see right here in this chamber—a democratically elected government.”

In 2007, a conservative group called Citizens United argued that they should be able to spend unlimited money advocating against presidential candidate Hillary Clinton because it was covered under free speech. In 2010, the Supreme Court sided with Citizens United.

“The Court took the opportunity to entirely strike down century-old prohibitions on corporate ‘independent’ spending — money that doesn’t go directly to a candidate or party,” writes Daniel I. Weiner of the Brennan Center for Justice.

This allowed the super wealthy to influence elections by secretly donating to nonprofits called super PACs.

In this speech, Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell argued that allowing corporations to spend unlimited money in politics was the right decision to protect democracy and free speech.

An FBI investigation and a Senate report found that Russia interfered with the 2016 election in an effort to help Donald Trump win the election. Trump has constantly “denied or downplayed” Russian interference, even though it could undermine the will of the American people.

From here on out, let’s only highlight speeches that argue that the government or elected officials are a threat to American democracy.

In 2020, Trump lost his reelection bid to Joe Biden. The day Congress was scheduled to certify the election results, January 6, 2021, Trump held a rally to tell his supporters the election was stolen from him—and that he’d walk to the Capitol with them to “cheer on” Congress. The mob of supporters broke into the Capitol building, targeted members of Congress, and attempted to violently overturn the election results.

“After decades of feeding hungry voters ideas and images straight out of the nation’s white supremacist past, Republican politicians and pundits had created a mob determined to end American democracy,” Richardson writes.

In 2024, Trump won a second term. On his first day in office, he pardoned all of the January 6 insurrectionists who attempted to violently overturn the 2020 election results.

In January, Trump issued an executive order to strip citizenship from babies born in the U.S. to noncitizens—a violation of the 14th Amendment.

In response, Democrats warned that American democracy is under threat. Republicans, like Rep. Tom McClintock in this speech, argued that Democrats are simply crying wolf.

Trump has said immigration agents are targeting “violent criminals,” but federal data shows that they are mostly arresting people without criminal records. Recordings of these arrests show officers violently chasing people down at workplaces and homes.

During a June 2025 press conference, U.S. senator Alex Padilla attempted to ask questions of Trump’s Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem about these policies. Padilla was forcibly removed from the room and handcuffed by federal agents.

Thus far in 2025, Congress is more worried about government threats to democracy than ever before.

While researching this story, I read a paragraph in Heather Cox Richardson’s book that I can’t stop thinking about.

I grew up in an immigrant family, and I was constantly reminded of how powerful these values are. Sure, my family had some allegiance to their home country. Sure, we were constantly reminded of ways in which the country failed to live up to these ideals. However, I was told that we live in a country that is not united not by the color of our skin or the origins of our families, but rather a belief in how humans should live together.

Americans have always argued about what it means to strive toward these democratic ideals. This pursuit of democracy is who we are; it’s who we want to be.

If we stop now, who are we as a people?

Explore the data. Click a dot to see a curated speech from that year.