The World and Everything in It: October 30, 2024

PREROLL: Election integrity is a hot-button issue…what are the real concerns and are there any solutions? I’m Lynde Langdon. In a moment, WORLD’s Washington DC Bureau digs into these questions and others. Stay with us.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Good morning!

Yes, we will check in on two states to find out what they’re doing about election security.

SOT: DMV officials resent the fact that the National Voter Registration Act got them into the voter Registration business, okay?

NICK EICHER, HOST: Also today, our weekly international news round-up World Tour.

And crime statistics: They’re not as clear cut as some would have us believe.

MANGUAL: And one of the insights that we get from that is that most crime just isn't reported.

And WORLD Opinions commentator Daniel Darling on the importance of public trust in shoring up our democratic institutions.

MAST: It’s Wednesday, October 30th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Lindsay Mast.

EICHER: And I’m Nick Eicher. Good morning!

MAST: Up next, Kent Covington with today’s news.

SOUND: [APPLAUSE]

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Harris campaign » It is crunch time on the campaign trail.

HARRIS: Good evening America!

And Vice President Kamala Harris spoke from the nation’s capital last night, near the White House. She noted that most Americans have already made up their minds, and many have already voted.

HARRIS: But I know many others are still considering who to vote for, or whether you’ll vote at all. So tonight, I will speak to everyone about the choice and the stakes in this election.

Harris delivered what she called her “closing argument” to the American people.

The vice president promised to “put country above party and above self”  and she again framed her opponent, former President Donald Trump as a threat to liberty. Her campaign recently used the word “fascist” to describe Trump, looking to draw parallels between Trump and Nazi Germany.

Trump campaign » Trump, meantime, campaigned in Allentown, Pennsylvania. He opened with the same question with which he has started nearly every speech lately

TRUMP: Are you better off now than you were four years ago?

He framed the Biden-Harris administration as inept and incompetent and promised a turnaround.

TRUMP: We will end inflation. We will stop the invasion of criminals in our country, and we will bring back the American dream. We’re doing it together, Pennsylvania.

Trump told supporters that if he wins Pennsylvania, he’ll win the whole thing.

And on that point, many analysts agree. That’s one of the states that make up the so-called “blue wall, along with Wisconsin and Michigan. It is not impossible, but difficult, for a Democratic candidate to win the White House without carrying all three of those states.

Recent polls give Trump a narrow 1-point lead in Pennsylvania, while Michigan and Wisconsin are effectively tied.

Zelenskyy on Russia/North Korea » Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says war with Russia is being pushed  'beyond borders' as North Korea joins in. He told allies during a visit to Iceland

ZELENSKYY:  We must secure Ukraine's sovereignty and our territorial integrity, our people's safety, and our right to live freely, just like your nations.

Western leaders say Pyongyang has sent some 10,000 North Korean Troops to Russia, and that some have already been deployed to the frontlines of the war against Ukraine in Russia’s Kursk region.

President Biden was questioned about the situation by a reporter near Biden’s home in Delaware. 

REPORTER: Mr. President, are you worried about the North Korean troops in Kursk, in Russia?
BIDEN: I'm concerned about it, yes.

Biden says he believes Ukrainian forces should consider North Korean troops fair targets if they cross the border into Ukraine.

But the Pentagon says it’s concerned that those troops could be just as effective fighting from Russian soil, either in combat or in support of Russian infantry.

Hezbollah new leader » The Lebanon-based terror group Hezbollah has a new leader. WORLD’s Kristen Flavin has more.

KRISTEN FLAVIN: The Iran-backed group is promoting its longtime second in command … Sheikh Naim Kassem.

He replaces the terrorist leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike last month.

Hezbollah is vowing to continue with Nasrallah’s policies—quote—“until victory is achieved.”

Israel is still carrying out a ground and air operation in Lebanon … aimed at destroying Hezbollah infrastructure and permanently defeating the group.

For WORLD, I’m Kristen Flavin.

Israel UNRWA latest » The Biden administration is pressing Israel to reverse course after its parliament passed legislation cutting ties with the UN Palestinian relief agency, known as UNRWA.

Pentagon spokesman Pay Ryder said UNRWA provides critical aid in Gaza and beyond. 

RYDER: There are millions of Palestinians who rely on that aid. And so implementing this legislation would pose significant risks for those that are dependent on that aid. And so we will continue to urge the government of Israel to pause implementation of the legislation.

The Biden administration has signaled that if Israel does not allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza, then the U.S. may withhold some military support.

But Israeli officials are defending the decision to ban UNRWA, saying some of its employees were involved in the October 7th terror attacks by Hamas.

Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon:

DANON:  UNRWA Gaza has become a front for Hamas. How does kidnapping and killing civilians fit into an UNRWA employee's job description? Where in UNRWA's mandate is this justified?

The legislation passed on Monday also designates UNRWA as a terrorist organization.

Iran official on Israeli strike » Meanwhile in Iran, a new analysis of satellite imagery indicates that Israel’s recent airstrikes in Iran likely damaged a base that builds ballistic missiles and launches rockets as part of its own space program.

But at a news conference Tuesday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi downplayed the impact of the Israeli strikes. 

ARAGHCHI: [Speaking in Farsi]

He said that … "Due to preparedness and vigilance” of Iranian forces and the country’s air defenses the strikes caused—quote—“limited damage.” 

I'm Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: a report on election integrity on this week’s Washington Wednesday. Plus, why it’s so difficult to accurately measure crime.

This is The World and Everything in It.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: It’s Wednesday the 30th of October.

Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Lindsay Mast.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Time now for Washington Wednesday.

We are now just six days from Election Day. Already, though, more than 50 million votes are in. That’s according to data from the University of Florida. About half those votes are in-person early voting; the other half, votes by mail.

With so many ballots in play and the presidential election expected to be close, conversations on election integrity are going on everywhere.

MAST: Today we’ve got stories on issues related to voter registration in the swing states of Arizona and Pennsylvania. But first, an update on resources in WORLD’s election center.

LYNDE LANGDON: Good morning.

MAST: So Lynde, your team has been very busy. Can you bring us up to speed on what is now in the 2024 Election Center?

LANGDON: The Election Center is our online hub for everything related to this election and in all 50 states. We just finished publishing our election guide state by state and our audience can go to wng.org/election2024 and find a map where they can click on their state and see information on everything from election security and voting procedures to the ballot initiatives that are up for a vote in their state and the top competitive races. Those state guides are really designed to help WORLD readers and listeners familiarize themselves with the election and with the Biblical worldview issues that are at stake in their state before they go to the polls.

MAST: There's a lot there, but another resource I haven't seen before is this encyclopedia on election integrity. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

LANGDON: Yeah, I'm really excited about this effort. It really came out of feedback that we got from readers and listeners after the 2020 election. They told us that they wanted more information, not just on the "who" of elections, who's running and who's winning, but the "how," and how elections played out. Of course, you know that election security was a major concern after the election of 2020 and so we've identified seven key issues that are related to election integrity, and we've got explainers on each one, and also links to where people can find the latest news on anything that might be going on across the country or in their area with respect to securing the vote. I know that we've talked today about voter registration and rolls and making sure that those are accurate, and that's one of the issues that we cover. But we also look at get out the vote efforts by both parties, along with ballot harvesting. Where is it happening? Where is it legal? Where is it not and even down to how machine voting works and machine tabulation. So again, this is all available at wng.org/election2024, and I'm really excited that hopefully WORLD readers and listeners can use this as a way to help themselves get ready to vote and get ready to watch the results.

MAST: All right, wng.org/election2024, definitely a resource worth bookmarking between now and election night. Lynde Langdon is World's Executive Editor for News. Thank you so much for your time, Lynde.

LANGDON: Thank you.

EICHER: Well now for today’s stories. Up first, voter registration in Arizona. Here’s WORLD Washington Bureau reporter Leo Briceno.

LEO BRICENO: Is it possible for non-citizens to cast votes in U.S. elections? The question keeps coming up as Election Day approaches, especially among those concerned about the millions of unauthorized migrants who have entered the country in recent years. Those concerns have only been furthered by videos on social media…like this one.

OVERSIGHT PROJECT: “Soy… me vine ahorita entre con el permite de DACA…” [Fade under]

It’s hard to make out from the distorted audio, but two people are standing in a store, talking in Spanish. One says he’s a DACA recipient and asks if he can register to vote. The DACA program protects immigrants who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children from deportation and also provides work permits.

Because they’re non-citizens, DACA recipients can’t vote. But they are allowed to drive.

OVERSIGHT PROJECT: “Tienes licencia de manejar en Arizona?”
“Si.”
“Solo eso necesitarías eso y su residencia…”

There a second person says all that’s needed to register to vote is a driver's license. That video has been picked up by the Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project as one example of a larger problem.

This is exactly the kind of scenario Congressional Republicans have been worried about for much of the past year.

JOHNSON: We now have so many non-citizens in the country that if only one out of a hundred of those voted, they would cast hundreds of thousands of votes…

U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson articulating Republican concerns over the Motor Voter Registration Act of 1993. That law requires drivers’ license applications to double as federal voter registration. But if one application is going to do both, Republicans argue the bar needs to be set high: States should require documented proof of citizenship.

JOHNSON: If a nefarious actor wants to intervene in our elections all they have to do is check a box on a form and sign their name. That’s it; that's all that’s required.

Requirements for drivers’ licenses are different from state to state—and some states already do require proof of citizenship. Arizona, for instance, requires new drivers to show up to the DMV with a passport, birth certificate, or other documentation of citizenship.

But even that’s not foolproof.

ARIZONA DMV: [BACKGROUND] Thank you for holding. Your level 2 representative will be available shortly.

I called the Arizona DMV to learn a bit more about their process for how they separate out citizens and non-citizens on drivers’ license applications. An employee named Alexa filled me in:

ALEXA: So, they do have to visit the MVD office to apply for a license...

ARIZONA DMV: Once they come in, they will have to fill out their application and we will have them fill in their information and then they have to provide their documentation

That would include documents like passports and permanent residence cards. Alexa confirmed everyone fills out the same driver’s license paperwork, regardless of their citizenship status.

ARIZONA DMV: It’s all together.

The only difference between U.S. Citizens and DACA recipients is what proof of documentation they present. If applicants check the box saying they would like to register to vote, Arizona officials should be able to catch the mistake and keep them off the voter rolls.

But according to some experts who have studied the issue, that’s where things can break down.

SPAKOVSKY: DMV officials resent the fact that the National Voter Registration Act got them into the voter Registration business.

That’s Hans Von Spakovsky. Senior Legal Fellow for the Edwin Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at the Heritage Foundation. He says DMV officials tell him they are trained to take care of drivers licenses first and foremost.

SPAKOVSKY: They are not election officials. It is not their decision to make whether someone is eligible to vote… They just forward it on to election officials, the form, and their attitude that I ran into was ‘look, it’s up to election officials to then decide whether the person is registered or not.’

While I was on the phone with Spakovsky, another spokesperson for the Arizona Department of Motor Vehicles gave me her own answer to that question. Here’s what the spokesperson, identified as Laura T., sent me:

“The information is sent to the recorder’s office. It would then be up to them to determine voter eligibility. However, if the applicant does not have proper documents it would be up to the recorder's office to determine eligibility.”

I read the quote to Spakovsky. Here’s his reaction.

HANS VON SPAKOVSKY:They’re giving the person the ability to register to vote! So they’re sending to the recorder a registration statement and they’re saying it's up to the recorder to decide. No. What ought to happen is the DMV ought to tell its clerks ‘unless the person getting a drivers’ license presents proof to you they’re a U.S. citizen, you do not offer them the ability to register to vote.’”

The bottom line is that communication errors and structural inefficiencies could be allowing non-citizens to side-step rules that limit ballot access to citizens.

But how many non-citizens purposely—or accidentally—try to register to vote? How many of them evade notice and end up on voter rolls? Of that batch, how many actually end up voting? And are there enough to affect the outcome of an election?

Democrats and critics of these concerns say the cases are very sparse. Here’s Democratic Rep. Robert Garcia of California earlier this summer when Republicans made non-citizen voting a focus on Capitol Hill. Garcia believes the alarm about non-citizens voting is more prejudicial than it is substantive. 

REP. GARCIA: Non-citizens cannot vote in our election, that's the law of the land. I became a citizen in my early 20’s and clearly I began to vote when I was able to. So I think that’s really just bad messaging.

A recent report pulled by the Heritage Foundation found only 24 federal cases of noncitizen voting between 2003 and 2022 with 15 resulting in criminal convictions .

While Republican litigators have said they intend to take a good hard look at who ended up on the voter rolls in 2024—and how they got there—it won’t happen until after the election. There’s also the opposite: some attempts to play it safe and keep voters on the rolls until after the election. Spakovsky expects a number of those cases to eventually reach the Supreme Court sometime next year.

Here’s Spakovsky.

SPAKOVSKY: There’s litigation going on now in Alabama and Virginia where DOJ has sued the states for taking aliens off the voter rolls. Those cases may go all the way to the Supreme Court.”

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Leo Briceno.

MAST: Making sure voter registration rolls have the right voters in the right place and the right time  is a year-round struggle for election officials across the country. Just last week in Pennsylvania, county leaders announced they had uncovered a fraud scheme intended to put excess voters on the rolls.

EICHER: WORLD’s Carolina Lumetta has been following the story …

CAROLINA LUMETTA: Ballot canvassing can mean two things. One kind happens when a ballot is cast and election workers “canvass” by opening up ballots and preparing them for tabulation. Another type happens when campaign staff or volunteers walk around and ask people to register to vote. Officials in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania say they’ve stopped a widespread organized fraud effort involving registration canvassing...that second kind.

PARSON: As you've now heard, thanks to the great work of our board of election staff, we have identified the suspected voter registration fraud operation…

The Lancaster County Board of Elections held a news conference on Friday… reporting they stopped an organized fraud attempt to falsely register people to vote. According to the commissioners, election workers noticed several applications with the same handwriting. Other applications included incorrect information. The documents were part of a batch of 2,500 that were dropped off at the office shortly before the registration deadline last Monday. Election workers flagged them, and the district attorney and county detectives began investigating.

ADAMS: Indicators of fraud included inaccuracies with the addresses listed on the applications, false personal identification information, as well as false names.

Heather Adams is Lancaster County’s District Attorney.

ADAMS: …In some cases, applications contained correct personal identification information such as the correct address, correct phone number, date of birth, driver's license number, and social security number, but the individuals listed on the applications informed detectives that they did not request the form. They did not complete the form and verified that the signature on the form was not theirs.

Adams says they currently believe the fraudulent registrations are part of large scale canvassing operations that date back to June…but weren’t filed until recently. She mentions that at least two other Pennsylvania counties received similarly suspicious batches and are also being investigated. She did not comment on who they believe is behind the fraud but said canvassers were paid to collect voter registrations. She also did not say whether the forms signed voters up with any particular political party.

ADAMS: What we are concerned about is the fact that if there’s fraudulent voters, if there are voters on the books that shouldn't be, it increases the chance that we're gonna have, uh, voter fraud.

Activists are permitted to engage in political canvassing by knocking on doors or stopping people in public parking lots. Canvassers can carry applications to vote, stump for their particular candidate, and even file those applications themselves. Both political parties engage in the practice.

However, no canvasser is allowed to be paid for registering people to vote. They also may not intimidate potential voters or fill out the application on behalf of a voter. County commissioner Ray D’Agostino said that while canvassing is allowed, the actions they uncovered are not:

D’AGOSTINO: We don't want to say that you can't trust anybody quite frankly because, you know, voter registration is uh a personal matter and there are a lot of good people trying to help register people and that's, that's great and that's fine and we're happy to help, you know, get those people registered, but this is not right. It's illegal, it's immoral, and we found it and we're going to take care of it.

While it’s normal for elections offices to receive batches of applications from canvassing operations, a huge dump from one organization shortly before the deadline raised red flags in Lancaster County. In this case, officials saw the red flags in time. Here’s Adams again.

ADAMS: Thankfully we stopped part one. Right. That was getting a voter on the books that, that perhaps shouldn't have, have been. But part two is whether or not anyone intended to turn that application then into a fraudulent vote. And for all intents and purposes that's been stopped because of the good work of those in the elections office and the ongoing investigation.

More than 365,000 voters are registered in Lancaster County, a record number. They are some of the 9 million voters across Pennsylvania who could determine next week’s presidential election.

That’s it for this week’s Washington Wednesday. Reporting for WORLD, I’m Carolina Lumetta.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: World Tour with our reporter in Africa, Onize Oduah.

ONIZE ODUAH: We begin today in a Ugandan courtroom, where a mid-level commander in a notorious rebel group received a 40-year prison sentence on Friday.

In August, courts convicted Thomas Kwoyelo of war crimes, including murder, enslavement, rape, torture, and kidnap.

Here’s Ugandan Judge Michael Elubu.

MICHAEL ELUBU: For all these counts and offenses that he has been found guilty that he has now been sentenced on, it is deemed that the sentence of 40 years which was meted out to him on the charges of murder, properly reflects the overall criminality of Thomas Kwoyelo.

Friday’s sentencing marks the first domestic trial involving a senior member of the Lord’s Resistance Army, or LRA, rebel group.

The LRA first emerged in the late 1980s as an attempt to overthrow the government. But the group also launched violence on civilians, including abductions, killings, and assaults.

Kwoyelo’s lawyers have said he will appeal the ruling, a pledge that did not sit well with LRA survivors.

Here’s Alex Ogena.

ALEX OGENA: We thought he would accept, then after serving the sentence, he would go back home and then we perform the traditional rituals in terms of reconciliation.

The International Criminal Court still has a pending warrant for LRA leader Joseph Kony.

Over in the Philippines, residents are facing another severe weather warning just days after a storm killed more than 110 people.

Tropical Storm Trami arrived last week with severe flooding and landslides. Authorities said more than half a million people fled their homes.

Raynaldo Dejucos lost his wife and five children to a landslide in the northwest.

RAYNALDO DEJUCOS: [SPEAKING TAGALOG]

He says here that he was calling out their names when he spotted his wife in the rubble. He found his youngest child in her embrace before identifying his other children.

The Philippines national weather agency says that another storm system, Tropical Storm Kong-rey, has intensified into a typhoon, and will also bring strong winds and heavy rainfall.

NAT SOUND:[ PROTESTORS]

And in Peru, transport workers chanted and marched on the streets of the capital of Lima last week over rising safety concerns. Protesters said extortion and violent attacks have increased. Transportation workers have reported that about 20 bus drivers have been killed in recent months.

Some major markets also closed down in solidarity.

Elinda Armas joined the protest.

ARMAS: [SPEAKING SPANISH]

She says her son was killed for his cell phone three months ago and authorities have not made progress on his case.

Transport workers went on strike back in September to bring attention to the violence. The move prompted authorities to impose a 60-day state of emergency in parts of Lima.

But demonstrators say authorities are not doing enough. This month, a gunman pretending to deliver a document killed a teacher in front of his students.

SOUND: [PARADE ACTIVITY]

And finally, the sounds of horse hooves as we wrap up at a parade in Germany’s Bavarian town of Warngau on Sunday.

Farmers marched alongside their decorated horses and carriages to celebrate Leonard, a 6th-century man who many Roman Catholics consider to be the patron saint of farmers, horses, and livestock.

The tradition is common across Bavaria and Austria. Farmers walk in a procession with their horses, receive a blessing at church, and end the day with a celebration.

That’s it for this week’s World Tour. Reporting for WORLD, I’m Onize Oduah in Abuja, Nigeria.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Wednesday, October 30th.

Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Nick Eicher.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: And I’m Lindsay Mast.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: crime in America.

Is it going up or down? Seems straightforward enough.

But getting the right answer is not so simple.

EICHER: In the presidential debate last month, former president Donald Trump said crime was up. But he got “fact checked” by moderator David Muir.

TRUMP: Crime in this country is through the roof. And we have a new form of crime. It's called migrant crime. And it's happening at levels that nobody thought possible.

MUIR: President Trump, as you know, the FBI says overall violent crime is actually coming down in this country, but Vice President the...

TRUMP: Excuse me, the FBI -- they were defrauding statements. They didn't include the worst cities. They didn't include the cities with the worst crime. It was a fraud.

What the TV moderator said was true at the time. Because the F-B-I did say that its 20-22 stats had a decrease of 2.1 percent.

Problem is, Trump was also right that the F-B-I was wrong. As a few weeks later, the bureau would walk those stats back. It revised the numbers and now they show that violent crime had actually gone up by 4.5 percent, a swing of almost 7 percentage points.

MAST: Why is it so hard to get accurate, up-to-date crime statistics in America? WORLD senior writer Emma Freire finds out.

REGLER: [opening door] It’s nice to meet you.

EMMA FREIRE: Sandra Regler knows a lot about crime and how it gets reported. She’s a former police officer and she has a box full of badges and diplomas.

REGLER: This might be dusty. But these are all patches from all of the people who were in the class. All jurisdictions that were represented. This I think is my … no, this is my detective badge.

She served for 25 years in Howard County in Central Maryland before retiring in 2009. Howard County is a mixed bag in terms of crime, but it's one of the top 10 wealthiest counties in America, and citizens there were diligent about reporting crimes when they happened.

REGLER: In Howard County, my thought, my feeling overall, was the community always demanded a high level of service. They expected it. This is a wealthy county. It's a very educated county. We pay a lot of money in taxes. We want good police services.

Today, her experiences with crime are usually as a victim. She lives in Baltimore in a cozy red brick house.

Her husband bought this house as a bachelor and she moved in when they got married 37 years ago. But the city has deteriorated around them over time.

REGLER: They often break in our cars. They come up and down our front street all the time, pulling doors. If you have something, they'll smash the glass out. Most people in this neighborhood have learned you don't leave anything in the car. You just don't.

But she usually doesn’t bother to make a report to the Baltimore police department.

REGLER: Is it really going to serve a purpose in them deploying resources? No, no, they're not coming. They're not driving through our streets doing random patrol. They're not even doing traffic Stops for the most part.

And that means those crimes are not included in the FBI’s crime statistics. But that official count isn’t the only way the U.S. tracks crime rates.

The government also publishes the annual National Crime Victimization Survey, which asks Americans about their personal experiences. It can capture crimes that are not reported to police.

MANGUAL: One of the insights that we get from that, is that most crime just isn't reported.

That’s Rafael Mangual. He works at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research.

MANGUAL: And so what the FBI is reporting is just the crimes that are actually reported to police. There seems to be a growing gap between the National Crime Victimization Survey and the more recent outputs from the FBI.

The National Crime Victimization Survey indicates only about 45 percent of violent crimes and 30 percent of property crimes get reported to police. The survey makes it clear that, yes, crime in America is up - significantly.

Mangual thinks one reason crimes don’t get reported is the crisis of police recruitment and retention. It started around 2018 and has gotten much worse since 2020. This has led to sharp increases in police response times in some locations.

MANGUAL: That matters, because there is research that tells us that as response times go up, the likelihood of a successful report actually being made to police goes down.

Collecting statistics about crimes that are reported isn’t simple either. How crimes get categorized can be subjective. Moreover, America has over 18,000 local police departments and some of them are tiny, so they may struggle with record keeping.

MANGUAL: I think ultimately, this is going to require investment. You need to build out an infrastructure within departments to report accurately and categorize and communicate those data in a way that you know makes it easy for the FBI to make sense of them, and, you know, for it all to get reported. It is strange to me that in the richest country in the world, it takes: we have, it's like a nine month waiting period between the end of the year when the crime statistics for the prior year actually end up coming out.

However, policymakers don’t seem interested in making that investment. Mangual is troubled by the way crime statistics have become politicized.

MANGUAL: You have a significant portion of the country expressing concern about their own personal safety, and you have one political party telling them to be quiet and that this is not so bad.

For her part, Regler says she would be happy to move out of Baltimore but her husband isn’t ready to leave.

REGLER: He's very attached to this community and to the city because I think he remembers what it used to be like. It used to have a vibe. The street, I'd walk up half a block to my church. There was this generalized vibe and a sense of safety and a sense of community. After 37 years, that sense of safety and community is no longer here.

Reporting for WORLD I’m Emma Freire in Baltimore, Maryland.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Wednesday, October 30th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: And I’m Lindsay Mast. Up next: American democracy.

Our constitutional order may not be perfect, but WORLD Opinions contributor Daniel Darling says we should work hard to both respect and maintain its institutions, for the good of us all.

DANIEL DARLING: In the wake of the series of rulings handed down by the Supreme Court in recent years, Democrats and many in the media have renewed their push for so-called “court reform.” Decisions on religious liberty, affirmative action, abortion, presidential immunity, and student loans have all turned up the heat.

The language being deployed by many is that the originalist Supreme Court majority is somehow “illegitimate” or “stolen.” Media allies have buoyed this narrative, with one-sided reporting on the practices of justices such as Clarence Thomas. Now Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for president—and her running mate Minnesota Governor Tim Walz—endorse President Joe Biden’s radical court reform proposals and bench expansion.

This is in keeping with extremely dangerous rhetoric from Democrats for the last few years, including a not-so-veiled threat from Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. He once famously stood in front of the Supreme Court and declared, “You will pay.” Sadly, one deranged individual traveled to Washington, D.C., intending to carry this out with an attempt to assassinate Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

Being on the losing side of Supreme Court decisions can be dispiriting. Conservatives spent decades in the legal wilderness on a range of issues, content only to drown their sorrows in elegantly written dissents by the late Justice Antonin Scalia and to work hard to elect presidents who promise to appoint originalist justices. Conservatives worked within our democratic system to achieve these victories. Of course, it’s perfectly reasonable for liberals to disagree with a Supreme Court decision, but it erodes trust in our democracy and its institutions to continually attempt to delegitimize the court.

Our democracy is a fragile thing, creaking her way along toward 250 years of existence. Many on the left have been hysterical about how former President Donald Trump has stretched the limits of democracy. Some of the criticisms are hyperbolic—passing conservative legislation through normal means is a strength of our system—and some are genuine. The rhetoric about a stolen 2020 election, downplaying January 6th, not to mention Trump’s reaction to serious indictments against him…all examples of eroding faith in the system.

But it is cynical and counterproductive for the left to oppose Trump’s anti-democratic moves with anti-democratic moves of its own. The truth is, we all have a stake in ensuring our republic endures. Benjamin Franklin’s timeless words celebrating “a republic, if you can keep it” should be etched on our minds. It should shape our political discourse. America will not endure on autopilot; it will require investment by every generation to secure freedom and liberty.

The American experiment is rare in human history. The words from Ronald Reagan more than half a century ago still ring true today: “Freedom is a fragile thing and it’s never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by way of inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation, for it comes only once to a people. And those in world history who have known freedom and then lost it have never known it again.”

Christians should care about America’s flourishing, not because we believe this beautiful land is the new Jerusalem, but because we love our neighbors as Jesus commands. Our fervor for democracy is tempered by the reality that it’s a flawed system in a broken world. Our patriotism is guided by our ultimate allegiance to Christ and His kingdom. Still, while we live and enjoy the fruits of America’s freedom and prosperity, it is incumbent on us—all of us, Democrats, Republicans, and independents—to respect the institutions that ensure it. Even when they make rulings with which we disagree.

I’m Daniel Darling.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: cleanup and aid efforts continue across the southeast … but the consequences of the recent hurricanes are being widely felt. We’ll hear why.

And DoubleTake is coming back. We’ll have a preview with host and producer, Les Sillars. That and more tomorrow.

I’m Nick Eicher.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: And I’m Lindsay Mast.

The World and Everything in It comes to you from WORLD Radio. WORLD’s mission is Biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires.

The Bible says: “So then each of us will give an account of himself to God.” —Romans 14:12

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