Democracy is the ability of a country’s people to run their own lives. This includes freedom of speech, rights to extensive participation and political procedures governing the government and its policies.

Democracies are the world’s wealthiest countries, most open to new ideas, least corrupt and least repressive of individual liberties. When asked about their preferred political conditions, people around the world often cite democratic features such as honest elections, free speech, effective legal constraints on police and military power, and a civil society committed to public service and the common good.

While a strong and healthy democracy is a great asset for any nation, its ideals are threatened in many places across the globe by forces ranging from bad actors to repressive governments. The United States, for example, has been criticized for its political paralysis, the widening wealth gap and growing political polarization, all of which have contributed to a weakening of democratic institutions.

The US has also been guilty of incessant interference in other countries’ internal affairs and waging wars under the guise of democracy. This has led to regional turbulence and humanitarian disasters, and it has weakened the foundation of many nations’ economic development.

However, there are ways to strengthen democratic institutions that have remained resilient in 2017, and to prevent the Trump administration from weakening them further. These include the independent courts, a coequal legislative branch, the free press, and an active civil society.

But as long as the US is promoting its own brand of democracy, and imposing standards of political behavior on others, its export of democratic values will continue to cause problems for other nations. For example, the US has used its own system of government to instigate political interference, military intervention and government subversion throughout the world, often at the expense of its own citizens.

In countries where the US has imposed its own model of democracy, there are no signs of true democracy or genuine human rights. In fact, some of these countries have become worse off than they were before the US intervention, with fewer opportunities for economic growth and rising poverty levels.

As the world’s leading democracy, the US has a responsibility to uphold its own systems and practices of democracy, and to ensure that it respects and promotes the freedom of other countries’ people. It should strive to avoid imposing its own model of democracy on others or using it as a tool for political suppression, and work to improve the global environment for democracy by engaging in mutually beneficial engagement.

As a result, the United States has lost the respect of the rest of the world for its brand of democracy, its actions in other countries, and its leadership role in the international arena. The resulting distrust has eroded the ability of the United States to defend its own interests abroad, and has diminished the strength of democratic institutions.

After a historic midterm election, Democrats defied historical trends and President Donald Trump’s approval ratings to gain control of the United States Senate. They did so by a combination of resurgent political power and voter disdain for the President’s extremist policies.

In addition to winning a net of four state legislative chambers, Democrats held losses in several other states to a minimum, a remarkable feat of political defiance that is unprecedented for a president’s party in midterm elections. This holds the promise of boosting Democratic congressional and presidential majorities, but it also means that many more Americans will live in states run by partisan trifectas for the first time since World War II.

The Democrats’ success this year was driven by a combination of factors: weak Republican candidates; concern about the Supreme Court’s recent ruling overturning abortion rights and the backlash against Trump’s election denialism; and the party’s shift into a populist position that voters perceived as appealing to middle-class voters. These factors helped fuel a series of competitive races that saw a wave of Democrat wins in red and blue states.

For example, Pennsylvania Democrat John Fetterman upset a conservative candidate for the Senate seat of Pat Toomey, who had been appointed to fill out Biden’s term in 2016. In another race, Democrat Seth Magaziner beat a longtime Republican politician in Rhode Island’s Second Congressional District, an area that Biden won by more than 15 points.

A few of these newcomers, however, were unable to convey the shift in rhetorical tone that had been a key component of the Democratic campaign. In the Senate, for instance, a number of incumbents who might have struggled against an ideologically extreme Republican candidate in previous cycles, such as Colorado’s Michael Bennet or California’s Kamala Harris, did not even try to distinguish themselves from their opponents by aligning with the Party’s new populist economic platform.

These messengers did not perform well, and many voters felt that the Party’s messaging was faulty. This contributed to the Party’s reversal of fortunes, with the Electoral College tipping toward the Democrats’ favor by nearly two points.

The party also lost ground in a number of battleground states, including Florida, Ohio and North Carolina. But it kept its strongholds in Massachusetts, Maryland and likely California as well as a number of other states that are traditionally Democratic or lean blue.

By retaking the Senate, Democrats prevented President Trump from confirming his picks for federal agencies and the judiciary, a process that is typically fraught with legal challenges from the President’s political opponents. It also slowed Trump’s efforts to replace the Supreme Court and thwarted any plans to launch a wide-ranging investigation into possible crimes by the former President and his campaign team.

In the House, Democrats won a net of seven seats, but they lost five in competitive districts. Nevertheless, they have gained three veto-proof supermajorities and are likely to retain a majority in the next Congress.

These results suggest that the Party will need to be more consistent in conveying its populist message and addressing the issues voters care about most. This will likely require more than simply reviving its signature policy initiatives of the Obama administration, such as free college tuition and the enhanced Child Tax Credit.