The Atlantic: The Voters Who Believe That Trump Defends Their Values

June 15, 2026

In The Altantic, we publish new in-person ethnographic research exploring how Trump voters relate to democracy and institutions in 2026, and explaining why calls to ‘save democracy’ keep falling flat.

An op-ed by ReD partner Katy Osborn and Scott Warren, fellow at the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University, argues that most Trump supporters aren’t abandoning democracy, they’re evaluating its legitimacy through an entirely different lens. Without understanding this lens more deeply, prevailing pro-democracy strategy in the U.S. is using the wrong tactics, and needs to revisit some of its core principles.

“Our research suggests that activists seeking to protect American democracy from authoritarian influences are pursuing a failing strategy. They are defending largely abstract democratic processes, such as norms and rules, on the assumption that everyone agrees that they are legitimate and worth saving. But such arguments are unlikely to resonate with voters who have come to believe that many of these norms and processes have abandoned the country’s bedrock values.”

Read the full article on theatlantic.com or see the full report here.