How Progressives win when democracy is on the line

https://feps-europe.eu/how-progressives-win-when-democracy-is-on-the-line/



12/11/2025

Across democracies, the threat to liberal institutions no longer comes from the margins. It sits at the centre of politics – in ruling parties that rewrite constitutions, normalise disinformation, and turn resentment into strategy. Yet the story of recent years is not only one of democratic decline. In several key countries, progressives have begun to find ways to fight back. Their experiences point to a common truth: when the left organises around broad coalitions, offers a credible vision of material security, and resists imitating the grievance-based populism it seeks to defeat, it can still win – and govern with purpose.

Poland’s 2023 parliamentary election offered one of the clearest examples of partial democratic recovery in recent memory. After eight years of rule by the Law and Justice party, the country’s democratic institutions had eroded to the brink: captured courts, state-controlled media, and a politicised public administration. Yet civil society persisted, and so did a fragmented opposition. When elections approached, three opposition parties – the centrist Civic Coalition, the Third Way and the progressive Left – directed their messaging against PiS in an effort to restore the rule of law.

That informal alliance, if implausible, broke the populist stronghold. Despite ideological differences, Poland’s opposition recognised that pluralism itself was at stake. The victory did not come from a single party but from the collective credibility of a pro-democracy camp willing to work together. The lesson is straightforward: when the threat is existential, various parties must set aside ideological divides and act as a united front in defence of democracy. Factional infighting cannot stand up to authoritarian discipline.

United States: reclaiming an affirmative vision

In the United States, the challenge has taken a different shape. President Donald Trump’s brand of authoritarian populism has proven durable because it channels real grievances – economic insecurity, social precarity and the sense that government no longer delivers. Progressives have learned that moral outrage alone cannot defeat that narrative. Voters respond to tangible improvements in their lives, not just appeals to democratic norms.

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