We often talk about American democracy as if its greatest challenges were in the past—Philadelphia in 1787 or Selma in 1965. But the real test lies ahead. Within twenty years, no racial group will be a majority in the United States. Yet our governing structures, laws, and political incentives remain built for a very different country. The core problem of our time is that our democracy is still designed for the America we were, rather than the America we are becoming.

The original Constitution did not imagine a multiracial democracy. It subsidized race-based slavery, and left voting qualifications to states—nearly every one of which restricted or would eventually restrict voting to white males. The Constitution also left citizenship to Congress, which in 1790 limited naturalized citizenship to “free white persons.” Later Supreme Court decisions and immigration laws reinforced that racial order by denying birthright citizenship to Indigenous people and barring virtually all immigration from Asia. These immigration maneuvers constricted who was let into the country, effectively gerrymandering the nation’s racial composition to secure a white political majority that persists to this day.

In the 1960s, the United States took deliberate steps to dismantle this unfair foundation. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 outlawed discriminatory voting practices, and the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 prohibited racial discrimination in immigration and repealed racial quotas that favored Northern and Western Europe.

The results for multiracial democracy were transformative. In 1960, 75 percent of immigrants in the U.S. came from Europe; today, only about 10 percent do. People of color have grown from 15 percent of the population in 1960 to 41 percent today, and projections show that no single racial group will be a majority by 2045. Fewer than 3 percent of U.S. House members were people of color in 1960; now nearly 30 percent are.

This demographic transformation, however, has provoked a backlash that now defines our politics. Race is the most powerful demographic factor shaping political behavior—more predictive than income, gender, age, or religion. Political scientist Ashley Jardina has shown that 30 to 40 percent of white Americans now identify strongly with their racial group and are motivated to protect its collective status. Cultural anxiety has increasingly eroded support for democratic norms for many. As Jardina and Robert Mickey observe, some white Americans’ rejection of democratic principles “is rooted, at least in part, in a rejection of racial pluralism.”

This dynamic—an increasingly diverse nation colliding with an entrenchment-minded faction—is a defining challenge of American democracy in the twenty-first century.

Today, the central goal of the law and policy of democracy should be to facilitate a well-functioning, racially inclusive democracy—one that respects identity and individual autonomy, facilitates power sharing, and creates incentives for cross-group engagement and coalition-building. Such a system would reward leaders who embrace demographic change rather than those who cling to shrinking bases of support by stoking resentment or manipulating election rules.

That requires rethinking our basic electoral structures. For example, the winner-take-all, loser-gets-nothing electoral system we inherited from Britain allows politicians to manipulate district lines to entrench themselves and make some votes more powerful than others. Due to gerrymandered districts and low-turnout primaries, about 8 percent of eligible voters effectively choose approximately 83 percent of the U.S. House. These distortions will only deepen if the U.S. Supreme Court continues to weaken the Voting Rights Act. In contrast, proportional representation—in which a group’s share of votes equals its share of seats in the legislature—is used successfully in many democracies. If adopted in the United States, proportional representation would reduce the influence of gerrymandering and foster fairer representation and power sharing among diverse groups.

Similarly, artificial intelligence will profoundly shape democratic life. If governed well, AI could expand participation by improving language access, reducing administrative burdens, and helping communities organize. If governed poorly, it could entrench bias, homogenize discourse, and spread disinformation. The question is not whether we will use AI, but whether we will design and regulate it to serve pluralism rather than hegemony.

To be sure, racial and political polarization are real challenges, and they should not be ignored. But addressing polarization should not mean silencing difference under the banner of mandating assimilation or “colorblindness.” Suppressing culture and identity in the name of unity only perpetuates a tradition of conquest that has plagued the United States since its founding. Instead, we should aspire to what political theorist Danielle Allen calls “difference without domination”—a system that protects identity and pluralism while enabling cooperation on shared challenges. In a pluralistic society, democracy depends on building bridges—institutions and relationships that connect people across lines of race, ethnicity, culture, and religion—that help Americans see one another as partners rather than threats.

The American project was never static. The 1780s Framers built a republic for their time. The Reconstruction and Civil Rights generations redefined it for theirs. The question now is whether we can design one that works for ours—a multiracial democracy worthy of the nation we are becoming.