Challenges Posed by Bad-Faith Actors Who Who Are Trying to Profit by Undermining Collaboration and Power-with Democracy

3. Factors That Make Conflict Intractable

This introductory article was written by ChatGPT at the direction of Heidi Burgess, who reviewed, edited, and approved the final content.
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June 30, 2026

A key to successful democracy is its ability to discredit, and where necessary block, the actions of bad-faith actors — people and organizations that try to subvert democratic institutions and constructive conflict processes in order to advance selfish goals. Keep in mind, everyone who is angry, mistaken, partisan, or uncompromising is acting in bad faith. Democracy requires room for passionate disagreement and error. The problem arises when people deliberately inflame conflict, spread falsehoods, intimidate opponents, or weaken the rules that make fair competition possible. In “power-with” democracy, people try to use democratic institutions to solve common problems. Bad-faith actors prefer “power-over” politics, in which victory means domination and opponents are treated as enemies to be crushed.

Donald Trump is the most visible contemporary U.S. example for many Democrats and for many democracy scholars. That judgment rests on a long public record, including the effort to overturn the 2020 election described in the January 6th Committee report, repeated false claims about election fraud documented by the Associated Press, and statements such as his remark that he would be a dictator only on “day one,” reported by AP. Organizations such as Protect Democracy warn that authoritarian politics often follows recognizable patterns: attacking independent institutions, delegitimizing elections, intimidating opponents, and encouraging supporters to see normal checks and balances as illegitimate obstacles. Still, the bad-faith actor problem is not confined to one person or one party. Political figures from all parties, advocacy organizations, media outlets, online influencers, and wealthy donors can abd have all profitedfrom conflict, sometimes while claiming to defend democracy.

One especially damaging group is what Beyond Intractability calls conflict profiteers. These are people and organizations that gain money, attention, influence, or political power by keeping conflict hot. Some media and social media systems reward outrage because it attracts clicks, subscribers, donations, and advertising revenue. Research summarized by Brookings notes that divisive content often spreads widely online, especially when algorithms and human psychology both reward sensational material. A 2025 University of Kansas report on a social media study likewise found that profit incentives can push platforms toward targeting strategies that intensify bias and polarization. Traditional media can fall into similar patterns when it treats politics as permanent combat, rather than as a struggle over how best to govern.

Bad-faith actors undermine collaboration in several ways. They tell supporters that talking with opponents is betrayal. They use fear and hate to make compromise look dangerous. They attack intermediaries, fact-finders, election workers, judges, journalists, and civic leaders who try to maintain fair processes. They also exploit the asymmetry between good-faith and bad-faith behavior. People who care about accuracy, fairness, and restraint are often slower to respond than those willing to lie, threaten, or provoke. As Rachel Kleinfeld’s review of research on polarization, democracy, and political violence explains, the danger is not simply that people disagree. The danger is that political entrepreneurs can use grievance, identity, and fear to make ordinary democratic disagreement feel like an existential war.

Responding effectively requires more than denouncing bad behavior by the other side. People must be willing to expose and delegitimize bad-faith tactics, even when those tactics seem to benefit their own party or identity group. This includes insisting on truthful communication, supporting independent journalism, protecting election administration, enforcing anti-corruption rules, and refusing to reward leaders who profit from performative outrage. It also means strengthening the many good-faith actors who are trying to solve problems across lines of difference. The goal is not to suppress vigorous advocacy or legitimate protest. It is to protect the conditions under which collaboration, accountability, and democratic problem solving can survive attacks from those who would rather profit from division than help build a democracy that works for all.

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This page was created by ChatGPT in response to this prompt. It was then reviewed, edited, supplemented and approved by Heidi Burgess. More information about how and why we are using AI in this way, and about the growing number of ways in which Beyond Intractability is using ChatGPT, Claude and other AI systems to generate content and build out the BI system, is available on our BI/AI Overview Page.