American Democracy
At the crossroads
As a nonprofit in the US, PAN Works is studiously nonpartisan. We don’t participate in elections, lobby, or support individual candidates. At the same time, as an ethics think tank we are unavoidably concerned with policy and politics, “ethics writ large” to Aristotle’s mind.
Recent presidential and congressional elections, judicial decisions and social movements have injected a strong dose of authoritarianism into US society and governance. None more so than the federal election of November 2024. By all measures, American democracy is in deep trouble. The reasons for this are complex, and the implications for people, animals and nature are dire — rapacious inequality, spiraling wars, runaway climate change, catastrophic loss of biodiversity, and the further commodification and immiseration for the world’s animals (to name a few).
Rather than post one of our normal columns today, we thought we should memorialize this moment. What it portends requires our attention and imagination as we find our way through this thicket. More to come in the weeks and months that follow.
Bring ethics to life.
William Lynn is the founder of PAN Works.
Please visit PAN Works for more about our work on ethics and animal wellbeing.
