10-28-2025 10:57am

The Public Agenda: When Democracy Feels Tired: The Civic Cost Of A Nation On Edge By Dr Shellie Bowman

John L Williams Editor

Photo by Mirah Curzer on Unsplash

America is weary. You can feel it in the quiet faces at the grocery store, in the anxious scroll through daily headlines, and in the way conversations turn to worry before they ever reach hope. People are not only divided; they are exhausted. And when exhaustion becomes the national mood, democracy itself begins to falter.

Political scientists and psychologists have long warned that democracies depend not only on institutions, but on the emotional stamina of their citizens. Hannah Arendt (1958) described public life as a shared space that must be continually renewed through action and attention. When people withdraw out of fatigue or despair, that shared space shrinks, leaving room for manipulation and authoritarian impulse.

You can read the complete article at

https://open.substack.com/pub/drshellieb/p/the-unprotected-class-an-ame…

You can find all of Dr Shellie Bowman’s Articles at https://substack.com/@drshellie?r=va8ka&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=profi…

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