Pluralism in the Trump Era

A growing movement of "new pluralists" has made real headway. But now we have come to the hard part of the journey.

The start of the second Trump Administration might seem like an awkward time to reflect on the progress of pluralism in America. In many ways, the populist movement that President Trump leads is the antithesis of pluralism. He feeds off and accelerates polarization, which overrides our myriad differences and shunts us into two warring camps. Whether pluralism can persist in the Trump era will largely depend on the actions of funders and field builders in civil society. Hence the need to take stock.

The good news is that a growing coalition of these actors, in whose ranks I count myself, have dedicated themselves to renewing pluralism as the ordering principle for our civic culture and, ultimately, democracy in America. This post recaps why and how we have come this far and previews the rocky road that lies ahead. To traverse it, we will need to enlist a much wider array of allies and fellow travelers.

Pluralism vs. Populism and Polarization

Pluralism describes both a set of facts and a set of values. The facts of pluralism are the multiple and cross-cutting communities, groups, races, ethnicities, creeds, classes, regions, and associations in society. These various elements lead to different, competing, and often incommensurate convictions, agendas, and interests. The values of pluralism enable a diverse and quarrelsome people to prosper, or at least hang together, in the face of these facts. They include toleration, forbearance, persuasion, reciprocity, and the appreciation, if not celebration, of difference.

It’s no accident that President Trump neither acknowledged the facts nor extolled the values of pluralism in his second inaugural address. His populism presumes there is really just one group that matters in our society: the Americans who back him. As he tells his supporters, they have been led astray by a corrupt elite that is long overdue for a comeuppance, one that he has now returned even more determined to deliver.

Political scientist Jan-Werner Müller observes in his book What is Populism? that,

“In addition to being anti-elitist, populist are always antipluralist. Populists claim that they, and they alone, represent the people. Think, for instance, of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan declaring at a party congress in defiance of his numerous domestic critics, ‘We are the people. Who are you?’ Of course, he knew that his opponents were Turks too. The claim to exclusive representation is not an empirical one; it is always distinctly moral.” (Müller’s emphasis)

Beyond the MAGA populists, polarized ideologues on both the left and right also squelch pluralism. Unchastened by the election, many progressive partisans want to double down on identity politics and relaunch “The Resistance.” They condemn pluralists as appeasers and call for more polarization, not less. Meanwhile, on the right, even for those with reservations about Trump, the pull of polarization has kept virtually all Republicans on his side. They do not scruple their reliance on — and in any case cannot stand up to — the battering ram of Trump’s populism. Polarization thus reduces politics to the “systematic organization of hatreds” in Henry Adams’ phrase.

Perhaps the biggest difference between polarization and the populism it has given rise to, on the one hand, and pluralism, on the other, is their relative emphasis on politics. With polarization and populism, politics dominates and becomes all-encompassing. In pluralism, politics certainly has a role to play in the accommodation of differences, but it does not dominate civic culture and civil society; instead, they shape politics in constructive ways. Let’s review some promising initiatives seeking to build along these lines.

New pluralism five years in

In early 2020, I was part of a group of funders Einhorn Collaborative convened for a meeting in New York. Our goal was to explore whether and how we might join forces to support a burgeoning field of nonprofits working to bridge divides and promote social cohesion. That initial meeting (and many subsequent zoom calls!) led to the launch of New Pluralists in 2021. We introduced our agenda by noting that,

“New pluralism is an active commitment anchored in a recognition that our differences can tear us apart or they can be an asset we draw on to make progress — in our everyday lives and as a society. It’s up to us.”

A diverse mix of funders made this active commitment. It included, in addition to Einhorn Collaborative, Acton Family Giving, the Fetzer Institute, the Klarman Family Foundation, the Hewlett Foundation (where I was then director of US democracy grant making), the Lubetzky Family Foundation, Stand Together (the philanthropic network led by Charles Koch), the John Templeton Foundation, and the Tepper Foundation. Nearly a dozen other funders joined as affiliates. The dedicated team at the New Pluralists pooled fund began engaging the field and distributing the more than $33 million that participating funders have contributed thus far.

What really animated and inspired New Pluralists were the network partners serving as field builders — i.e., nonprofit leaders and teams already working on constructive efforts to realize our overarching purpose. The funders came alongside, learned from, and supported their work. There are too many stellar field builders to list them all here, but a representative sample of their breadth might include, e.g., Braver Angels, Citizen University, the Future Caucus, Generation Citizen, the Greater Good Science Center, Interfaith America, More In Common, New_Public, the One America Movement, the Othering and Belonging Institute, and the Trinity Forum.

Over the ensuing years, the field builders have benefitted from the visibility, funding, and collaboration that New Pluralists helped spur. They have also continued to make progress through their own ongoing social entrepreneurship and others’ efforts to clear the way for their work. Indeed, looking back, it is apparent that the renewal of pluralism is a goal shared by many more leaders and institutions in civil society.

Consider the April 2023 manifesto published in the Chronicle of Philanthropy entitled, “We Disagree on Many Things, but We Speak With One Voice in Support of Philanthropic Pluralism.” The six co-authors included the leaders of the Duke, Ford, and Templeton foundations, Stand Together, the Council on Foundations, and the Philanthropy Roundtable. The orientations and patterns of giving across the leaders’ institutions and membership networks thus spanned the ideological spectrum, from the progressive and liberal left to the libertarian and conservative right. In framing their argument, the co-authors noted that,

“Each of us represents foundations and individual donors with different — and strongly held — views on issues of fundamental importance to society. Yet together we recognize that philanthropy provides the greatest value when donors enable and encourage pluralism by supporting and investing in a wide and diverse range of values, missions, and interests.”

The manifesto disrupted the entrenched battle lines in the social sector and, as a result, drew intense fire from polarized critics on the left and right alike. This was predictable. After all, if the leaders of the Ford Foundation and Stand Together could join forces in defense of pluralism, even as they disagreed on most issues, what excuse did others on their respective “sides” have to remain in their ideological foxholes?

Another major milestone was the Council on Foundations dedicating its annual meeting in May 2024 to the theme of “Building Together: Leading Collaboratively Across Difference.” Participants heard from a diverse set of speakers working on bridging, belonging, depolarizing, interfaith, and pluralism initiatives. They also joined in a series of workshops and training sessions to learn more about and practice the perspectives and skills that this work requires.

Most recently, in the wake of the November election, the Obama Foundation focused its 2024 Democracy Forum on pluralism. The speakers included stellar field builders like Eboo Patel of Interfaith America, Layla Zaidane of the Future Caucus, and Mónica Guzmán of Braver Angels. President Obama opened his own extended remarks on pluralism with the premise that,

“In a democracy, we all have to find a way to live alongside individuals and groups who are different from us. So we commit to a system of rules and habits that help us peacefully resolve our disputes; we try to cultivate habits—those practices that encourage us not just to tolerate each other but also—every so often—join together in collective action.”

All to say, over the past five years, under the broad rubric of renewing pluralism, many promising developments have been unfolding via multiple leaders, institutions, and networks. Fittingly, this has happened in a loosely coordinated and generally mutually reinforcing way. No doubt there have been missteps, blind alleys, and lessons to learn, as is always the case with multifaceted movements like this. Still, the momentum is encouraging. How can we keep it going in the face of stiffening political headwinds?

Needed: more responsible pluralism

Looking ahead, breakthroughs to advance pluralism will have to come from beyond the funders and field builders now on the job. Advancing pluralism is not just the responsibility of New Pluralists. Others must step up, especially in philanthropy.

This is a central argument of “Taking Democracy for Granted: Philanthropy, Polarization, and the Need for Responsible Pluralism,” a white paper I published last year under the auspices of the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University. The paper contends that to reorient democracy in America from polarization and populism back to pluralism, a much broader set of philanthropists will need to shift their perspectives and practices, including…

“Those focused on underwriting policy and systems changes in the areas of climate change, criminal justice, education, immigration, political economy, racial equity, etc. Philanthropy flowing into these and other domains affects the health of democracy, too — and, increasingly, not for the better.

Across multiple issue areas, philanthropists on both ends of the ideological spectrum are contributing to a tragedy of the commons in our public life. They freely and rationally pursue their own interests and agendas while collectively undermining the health of the polity whose institutions and policies they seek to influence. In doing so, they deplete the capacity of our political system to produce the broad and enduring majorities needed to settle major policy questions in a republic of continental scale. The uncompromising, ideologically-driven advocates and activists underwritten by philanthropy keep the political parties tethered to the poles of our politics.”

Subsequently, in a post-election op-ed for the Chronicle of Philanthropy, “Funding the Resistance is Not a Winning Strategy. Here’s What Is,” I distilled the recommendations of the white paper for philanthropists stung by the outcome of the vote. I began by noting that, since 2015, they have spent billions funding the resistance to Trump and his agenda, only to have him come back stronger than ever. Confronting this brutal fact entails a change in tack, one in which “the emphasis should not be on protecting democracy from populism but on practicing and promoting responsible pluralism.”

I then laid out six practical steps philanthropists can take to practice responsible pluralism. Note that these steps do not require grant makers to change what causes they support. Rather, their opportunity and obligation is to support pluralism by changing how they make grants. These steps include:

• “Admitting polarization is a problem. Philanthropists need to assume their fair share of responsibility for the health of the democracy into which they have poured all that support for activism and advocacy. Put differently, they need to recognize that polarization is not someone else’s mess to clean up.

• Practicing pluralism from the inside out. Funders have made great strides in hiring more demographically diverse staff and advisers. But political and ideological diversity? Not so much — even though it is essential to understanding how to foster change in a country that is a thorough mix of red, blue, and purple.

• Building expansive and varied coalitions. By using a pluralistic approach to enlisting a range of partners, including grantees and other funders, philanthropists increase their odds of assembling the broad majorities needed for systemic change. This also reduces the risks of blind spots and dogmatism that bedevil homogeneous and static coalitions.

• Letting grantees take the lead. Grantees need unrestricted funding to pursue their strategies as they see fit. When funders micromanage their approach, it imposes a uniformity of thought and limits timely and creative responses to new developments.

• Thinking in decades, not years. Funders routinely overestimate how much impact they can have in one to two years and underestimate what’s possible to accomplish in one to two decades. Longer timelines allow for the assembly of broad coalitions and elevate goals beyond the cramped and polarized confines of an election cycle."

The sixth and final step — funding efforts to strengthen democracy and pluralism directly, e.g., via electoral reforms, bridge-building, or civic education — is helpful but optional. Not all funders have to take it. The first five steps are the key commitments.

To be sure, responsible pluralism requires the vigilant safeguarding of civic space against attempts to close it — whichever direction they come from. The same holds for ensuring elections are free and fair. But defending these critical ramparts can and often will coincide with heartbreaking losses on policy matters and electoral defeats.

The hard work of preserving and expanding the recent progress of pluralism will be essential for any future civic renewal we might bring about. The second Trump Administration will inevitably be marked by populism and polarization from the top down. We thus need to ensure, per a recent post here, that we are building pluralism from the bottom up, in our communities and civic culture.

Ultimately, democracy in America will flourish if the multidimensional pluralism intentionally built into the nation’s founding and more fully realized through its history is revitalized yet again. But if polarization and populism combine to grind that pluralism down, then all bets are off — for liberal democracy and philanthropy alike.