When the U.S. Agency for International Development began to crumble, democracy promotion was the first thing to fall apart.
Almost immediately, every program within the country’s global election monitoring system was canceled. The National Endowment for Democracy, which supports the core of U.S. democracy efforts, was blocked from all its funding. The U.S. Agency for Global Media, which promotes independent journalism across the world, was deemed “unnecessary.”
And the country’s most impactful pro-democracy organizations — including the International Republican Institute, a GOP-backed group once championed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio — have been left hanging by a thread.