In the United States, 2022 was a tense election year, characterised by surging right-wing backlashes.
There was the backlash against the public health protections implemented in the pandemic, such as mask and vaccination requirements. Against women’s rights. Against the teaching of ‘critical race theory’. Against the visibility of LGBTIQ people in schools, as well as LGBTIQ rights more broadly – particularly those of transgender people and their supportive family members.
Yet most Americans are opposed to this agenda of hate and fear pushed by some of the Republican Party and its activist base. And this year, despite a political system designed to keep us down, we pro-democracy Americans made ourselves heard in some powerful ways – including in both special and general elections, not least in protecting abortion rights in Kansas, even as the federal right to abortion was revoked by an increasingly distrusted Supreme Court.
