Preventing Threats and Intimidation

6. Civic Knowledge and Skills

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 27, 2026

Democracy depends on the freedom to speak, organize, vote, run for office, administer elections, and advocate for public policies without fear of personal harm. When threats and intimidation become common, people do not simply feel uncomfortable. They withdraw. Citizens stop attending meetings. Officials avoid controversial subjects. Election workers resign. And potential candidates decide that public service is too dangerous for themselves or their families. The Brennan Center for Justice has documented how abuse, harassment, threats, and physical attacks against public officials can distort representation by pushing officials away from constituent contact and away from difficult issues.

Threats are especially destructive because they replace democratic persuasion with coercion. In a healthy democracy, people try to win support by making arguments, presenting evidence, building coalitions, and competing for votes. Intimidation sends a different message: “Agree with us, stay silent, or suffer.” That message is incompatible with democracy because these pressures can damage democratic life at the community level, where many people first encounter government. It also tends to spread. Once one side uses threats successfully, opponents are tempted to respond in kind, and politics begins to resemble a struggle for physical dominance, rather than a process for making legitimate collective decisions. The Bridging Divides Initiative has been tracking threats and harassment against local officials and shows that it is a significant and widespread concern.

Preventing intimidation does not mean suppressing strong political speech. Democracies must protect harsh criticism, protest, satire, and passionate advocacy. But the law has long distinguished protected expression from “true threats” of violence. In Counterman v. Colorado, the U.S. Supreme Court reaffirmed that true threats of violence fall outside First Amendment protection, while also requiring care so that ordinary political speech is not criminalized. This distinction is important. People should be free to say that a policy is dangerous, a leader should be voted out, or an institution has failed. They should not be free to threaten murder, assault, stalking, or other violence in order to silence participation.

Limiting threats and intimidation requires both enforcement and civic leadership. Law enforcement agencies need clear reporting channels, trained personnel, and enough resources to investigate credible threats quickly. The U.S. Department of Justice Election Threats Task Force has emphasized the importance of reporting threats against election workers, and similar systems are needed for judges, legislators, school board members, journalists, and local officials. Public institutions also need practical safety plans, especially for public meetings and election operations. Online platforms should enforce rules against doxxing and targeted harassment, while still allowing vigorous debate about public questions.

Just as important, political and civic leaders need to make threats socially unacceptable within their own communities. It is not enough to condemn violence only when opponents are targeted. Parties, advocacy groups, media figures, religious leaders, and community organizations all need to reject intimidation by their own side, even when the victim is someone they strongly oppose. That kind of cross-cutting norm is one of democracy’s most important guardrails. It tells citizens that conflict is legitimate, but coercion is not. By protecting people’s ability to speak and participate without fear, societies preserve the basic conditions that make democracy possible.

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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.