That's Skye Perryman, pictured. Perryman is an American lawyer and nonprofit executive who has served as the president and CEO of Democracy Forward since 2021. On September 2, 2026, The New York Times ran an opinion column by Perryman that was headlined this way: "Our Democracy Is at Stake. Stop Waiting for a Savior." Click the link to read all about it.
Perryman's essay documents how our court system has, though not unfailingly, stood up for our system of democratic self-government. However, she is not sanguine about how much the courts can really do:
Many of the excesses of the Trump administration have been successfully challenged through our judicial system. My organization and others have leveraged the power of the courts to block destructive initiatives, from Mr. Trump’s proposed $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” slush fund to threats against the First Amendment to draconian — racist, in some cases — immigration policies. Our legal system has at times buckled, but it hasn’t broken, so it can be tempting to think that the long list of judicial rulings secured against the administration, combined with a midterm election wave, will get us past the crisis. It’s understandable to anticipate — to hope — that as we come out of the midterms and head into the next presidential election cycle, a savior, something or someone, will emerge to usher in a return to democratic norms and show would-be autocrats the door.
Here’s the problem: Waiting for a savior has led many of us not to exercise the greatest power we have — our own.
What does that mean? What "power" is Perryman talking about? I think this excerpt makes the point quite well (emphasis added):
Many of us confuse consuming political news, engaging on social media and participating in group chats with doing the things that we, as individuals, can do to help change our country’s trajectory. Instead of doomscrolling, we can organize our neighbors, work at local polling places or join community groups. We must not be satisfied with watching the decline of American democracy from our phones.
"Spectatorship," a word Perryman uses in her column, is the opposite of our personal engagement in politics and self-government, which can be practiced at the local, state, and national level. Here is the formula we need to follow:
- Find Some Friends
- Create A Group (Or Join An Existing One)
- Make Certain That Group Regularly Meets In Person
- Have The Group Decide What It Wants To Make Happen
- Figure Out A Strategy To Accomplish The Changes Desired
- Implement The Strategy Developed
- Modify As Needed; Rinse And Repeat
That set of instructions is how self-government is supposed to operate, at all levels - and what I have just outlined is the only way it does.
In somewhat different words, this is how our national government is supposed to work, according to our Constitution: (1) The president takes orders from, and works for the Congress, carrying out the president's one basic duty, making sure that "the laws are faithfully executed." (2) Members of Congress work for us. We, the people, in other words, are supposed to be "in charge." That is what a government "of the people, by the people, and for the people" requires. The citizen "groups" I have just described are supposed to make sure that our government, at all levels, does what we want it to. With respect to our national government, our task as citizens is to make sure that Congress does what we want it to do (one elected Congress Member at a time).
Is such a government, as just described, going to "perish from the earth," to use President Lincoln's language at Gettysburg? I think Perryman is suggesting that this is, in fact, exactly what seems to be happening.
Well, that is not any kind of inevitable outcome. The future of self-government is truly up to us. If you want to "watch," on your phones or otherwise, you have decided that you are willing to let someone else decide what happens. You don't have to do that!
If you're not willing to do that, if you are not willing to let someone else act like a king, and make self-serving decisions to enrich himself and his family, and to antagonize the entire world, and to wreck our economy, and destroy the environment, and to take all that is best in America (there is, and has always been, a lot that's wrong, but there have been some wonderful things, too), then not much work will be required of you. You can vote, but that is not going to solve the problem (as Perryman says).
If you are willing to let someone else be in charge, please feel free to bitch, as you watch (on your phone or otherwise) as our system of self-government sails down the drain.
If that is NOT something that you believe that you can tolerate, please revisit that list I have provided above. Find some friends! Start meeting with them. Take back control over the government that is ours to command - you can start local, too!
https://www.businessinsider.com/skye-perryman-democracy-forward-lawsuits-ceo-interview-2022-8
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