The Big Tent is Working

Julia Roig argues that a diverse “big tent” of civic groups can protect democracy by working together across sectors and ideologies. Horizons focuses on building relationships, shared goals, and flexible tactics (Block-Bridge-Build) rather than enforcing policy conformity. Relational infrastructure takes time, but cross-pillar collaboration is already showing practical, collective power.

the need for cross-ideological, future-oriented organizing.

At the Horizons Project, we often refer instead to a music festival of many tents to express the idea that there is not just one tent that will fit everyone.

the pro-democracy ecosystem includes many different approaches and a diversity of perspectives and constituencies that are coming together to achieve a shared goal.

We are not seeking alignment on specific policy goals, but are working towards a high-order democratic goal: agreement to work together on core issues such as free and fair elections, respect for due process and basic civil liberties, and constraints on executive abuses of power.

“the groups and institutions that maintain a social or political system. They are the avenues through which power flows up from the people to political leaders. We are all embedded in various pillars of support, from the businesses where we work to the faith communities where we worship. And that embeddedness gives every one of us influence over our larger political system.”

the groups that Horizons has been convening and facilitating, which we call “big tent,” represent national networks of key pillars: businesses, unions, professional associations, faith communities, veteran’s groups, arts & culture workers, and civic base-building organizations.

We carefully cultivate and naturally embed ideological diversity within each of these pillars. We do not necessarily define target constituencies only by who they voted for (or plan to), but rather by their often overlapping membership and influence within these various pillars.

the pro-democracy movement must move conversations from politics and acts of individual politicians to shared commitments and on-the-ground practices.

We believe that we need to integrate the efforts of people working to block the current threats to democracy (including those that deny equal rights and protection under the law), bridge amongst differences of many kinds, and imagine and build together the societal structures and new systems of governance that will make up a multi-racial, pluralistic, inclusive democracy.

Relational infrastructure takes time to grow—now is the time to continue encouraging one another to strengthen solidarity and cultivate courage across pillars, ideologies, and geographies.