Ross D. Franklin/AP

Kari Lake, the defeated Republican candidate for governor in Arizona, is shown speaking to supporters on election night in Scottsdale, Nov. 8, 2022. Ms. Lake has refused to concede, citing problems in Maricopa County, where problems with tabulation machines led to long lines.

Is American democracy more resilient than we thought? Or has it just won a temporary reprieve? 

Three weeks after elections in which democracy itself seemed to be on the ballot, those questions still hang in the air.

Before the midterms, warnings of an impending democratic crackup were rife. Most centered on Trump-backed candidates running for offices that oversee elections who said they wouldn’t have certified President Joe Biden’s victory in 2020 – raising questions about whether they might do the same in 2024. Under this scenario, the peaceful transfer of power to the winner, a bedrock of democracy, seemed imperiled by the possible elevation of election deniers in states like Pennsylvania and Arizona.

In the end, however, voters mostly rejected these candidates. And having lost, many of them did what former President Donald Trump did not: They quickly conceded.

The midterms also defied predictions of administrative chaos. Elections ran smoothly in nearly every district. Partisan poll watchers didn’t disrupt voting or counting. Widespread unrest, fed by social media rumors and distrust in the system, never materialized.

This orderly process, together with the defeat of high-profile election deniers, has led some to suggest that all the dire warnings about democracy in peril were unduly alarmist. “It was exaggerated and somewhat ridiculous, but that’s politics,” says Rich Lowry, editor-in-chief of the conservative National Review, who nevertheless adds that he was glad to see candidates who spread falsehoods about the 2020 election go down in defeat.

Indeed, the alarms served a purpose, helping Democrats raise huge sums of money, including from some Republican donors. The televised hearings of the House panel on the Jan. 6 attack also put the threat to democracy front and center, reminding voters of what happened after Mr. Trump lost and how political violence was unleashed on the U.S. Capitol.

Carolyn Kaster/AP

Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano speaks to supporters at the Penn Harris Hotel in Camp Hill, Nov. 8, 2022. Mr. Mastriano, who was at the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, later conceded his defeat to Democrat Josh Shapiro, saying Mr. Shapiro "will be our next governor and I ask everyone to give him the opportunity."

“People were tired of lies about 2020. They were tired of hearing these conspiracy theories,” says Joanna Lydgate, CEO of the States United Democracy Center, a nonpartisan group that supports free and fair elections.

Still, some scholars say the need for vigilance in protecting democracy remains. It’s not just a question of who oversees elections in swing states. Other undemocratic practices, from gerrymandering to voting restrictions to dark money for campaigns, could still undermine America’s system of representative self-government. And many point to rising threats of political violence, including attacks on politicians and their families, as cause for concern.

“There is a certain path to stealing the election in 2024 that seems to be smaller, if not outright foreclosed – and that’s great,” says Zoe Marks, a lecturer in public policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School who studies authoritarian politics. “The broader question that I’m concerned with is whether or not there are other paths to stealing an election.”

Election deniers did win office in 10 Republican-run states, where they will oversee, certify, or defend future elections, according to the States United Democracy Center tracker. Many were incumbents and some faced no opponent. They include Chuck Gray, a Republican who ran unopposed to be secretary of state in Wyoming. 

And of the Trump-allied election deniers who lost competitive races, not all have conceded.

In Arizona’s closely watched gubernatorial race, Republican and former TV anchor Kari Lake is contesting her defeat to Democrat Katie Hobbs, citing delays caused by the failure of ballot tabulation machines in Maricopa County, the state’s largest county. The problems led to long lines at many polling places, with impacted voters told they could either go to other stations or drop their ballot in a secure box to be counted later. 

Marco Bello/Reuters

Mark Finchem of Arizona (left) and Jim Marchant of Nevada, both Republican candidates for secretary of state who claimed the 2020 election was fraudulent, attend an election integrity public hearing in West Palm Beach, Florida, Sept. 10, 2022. Both men lost their races.

Defeated secretary of state candidate Mark Finchem, a GOP state lawmaker who sought to decertify the results of the 2020 election in Arizona, also hasn’t conceded. A recount in the attorney general race, in which pro-Trump candidate Abe Hamadeh is trailing his Democratic opponent by about 500 votes, will be held Dec. 5.

Conceding after losing an election is a democratic norm that carries no legal weight, but provides “closure” to voters, says Tammy Patrick, a former federal elections official in Arizona. “I don’t think any of us really knew how important the concession part of politics is until candidates stopped conceding,” she says, referring to the 2020 presidential election.

The quick and even gracious concessions by many candidates who’d echoed Mr. Trump’s claim that the 2020 election was stolen – a claim that multiple federal courts, law enforcement agencies, and state-level audits found to be baseless – surprised some scholars of U.S. democracy. To some, it underscores the extent to which everything that happened in the wake of 2020, up to and including the storming of the Capitol, was the direct result of one man’s willingness to subvert democratic norms.

“It puts a highlight on what an extraordinary politician Donald Trump turned out to be. It takes a certain kind of malevolent chutzpah to stand in front of the cameras and tell lie after lie,” says Susan Stokes, a political scientist at the University of Chicago and faculty director of the Chicago Center on Democracy.

Going forward, much may hinge on how tight a hold Mr. Trump still has on the Republican Party. In 2020, GOP election officials in states like Georgia and Arizona resisted his efforts to overturn the results. Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, both Republicans, defeated Trump-endorsed primary challengers in May and went on to win reelection handily this month.

Akili-Casundria Ramsess/AP

Republican Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia delivers his acceptance speech after winning reelection handily, Nov. 8, 2022, in Atlanta. He resisted former President Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 results in his state and later faced a primary challenger endorsed by Mr. Trump.

In Wyoming, a deep-red state that Mr. Trump won by 43 points, Republican lawmakers are already pushing back against Mr. Gray, the newly elected secretary of state who claimed President Biden’s victory was illegitimate. The GOP-run Legislature is drafting a bill that would strip his office of the power to oversee elections in the state.

Mr. Gray, a Republican state lawmaker, said during his campaign that he would remove election officials who didn’t share his vision. After he won his primary, the state elections director announced he was looking for a new job.

Since 2020, election officials across the country have faced an unprecedented spike in threats and harassment, which led many to quit or retire, notes Ms. Patrick – another pressing challenge for democracy.  

But she takes comfort in the defeat of many 2020 election deniers. And she notes that even those who won will be part of a complex system with multiple checks and balances that limit the autonomy of individual officeholders. “To try to overthrow the whole apple cart is difficult. It would take a whole slate of people,” she says.

One additional check on any repeat of 2020’s chaotic transfer of power would be to amend the 1877 Electoral Count Act that Mr. Trump and his lawyers tried to exploit on Jan. 6. Congress is considering a bipartisan bill to clarify how electoral votes are counted.

Some analysts say democratic norms and practices have also been slowly eroding at the state level, specifically with the partisan redrawing of congressional maps and increased barriers to voting. 

Andrew Harnik/AP

Former President Donald Trump stands onstage after announcing a third run for president at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, Nov. 15, 2022.

Since the start of last year, 42 voting laws have passed in 21 states, says Charlotte Hill, director of the Democracy Policy Initiative at the University of California, Berkeley. In many cases, Republican lawmakers cited potential fraud to justify restrictions that Democrats say are intended to suppress Democratic-leaning voters. 

Republicans counter that electoral integrity is a bipartisan concern and point to high turnout in the midterms as evidence that criticism of state voting laws has been overblown. Ms. Hill notes, however, that many of the laws have yet to go into effect, so their full consequences won’t be known until the 2024 election.

The next major test for U.S. democracy may be Mr. Trump’s bid for the 2024 GOP nomination in the shadow of potential criminal indictments. While some party leaders have been unusually critical of the former president in the wake of the disappointing midterm results, previous such instances have all ended with Mr. Trump reasserting his hold on the party. It remains to be seen whether Mr. Trump will moderate his attacks on democratic institutions, from the Department of Justice and FBI to state and local election boards, or double down to galvanize his base.

“The effort to undermine our elections has certainly taken root over the last couple of years. I don’t think it’s going anywhere,” says Ms. Lydgate.

Farah Abdi Warsameh/AP

A day after a double car bomb attack at a busy junction, relatives wait for bodies to be removed from the destruction at the site, in Mogadishu, Somalia, Oct. 30, 2022.

When the explosions hit, Abdirahman Abdillahi Qassim, a street seller of gum, sweets, and cigarettes, was being assisted by his 11-year-old son, Ibrahim, near the Ministry of Education in Mogadishu.

The double suicide car bombing on Oct. 29, carried out by the jihadist Al Shabab, claimed more than 130 lives, so Mr. Abdirahman, pulled alive from the rubble, might be considered a fortunate man. Perhaps even more so because, remarkably, he also survived a massive truck bombing at the same Mogadishu market intersection in October 2017.

Yet that prior Al Shabab attack, which killed nearly 500 people, also took the lives of his wife, Faiza Ali Qassim, and their 14-year-old daughter, Amina. And it cost him a leg.

This second attack took still more, robbing Mr. Abdirahman of his remaining leg – and his son.

His brother, Mohamed Abdillahi Qassim, tends to his wounded sibling night and day in a Mogadishu hospital. Tears come to his eyes and his voice cracks when he explains that he has not yet brought himself to tell his brother that Ibrahim did not survive.

Even by the grim standard of Somalia, which has endured 15 years of a heavy-handed and often brutal Al Shabab presence over swaths of its territory – including numerous lethal attacks against civilians – the tragedy experienced by Mr. Abdirahman and his family stands out as an especially horrific example of the costs to those living under the prolonged threat of jihadist violence. It is a national and personal saga that has played out while the world has been distracted by other more visible and accessible crises.

Survival has required personal resilience, but the events this family has endured – alongside the legions of other Somalis whose lives have been violated by the jihadis – are testing that resilience.

Al Shabab on the defensive

Indeed, one of the few things this Somali family says bring them a measure of happiness anymore is news that Al Shabab – often considered Al Qaeda’s most effective local franchise – is facing increasing losses on the battlefield in central Somalia, as the government vows “total war” and presses a new offensive.

Al Shabab has lost more territory in the past four months than in the previous five years, by some estimates, grimly raising expectations of yet more revenge attacks in the capital. On Sunday, for example, Al Shabab gunmen armed with explosives stormed the Villa Rose hotel, prompting overnight gunbattles and a daylong standoff at the downtown hotel frequented by government officials.

Feisal Omar/Reuters/File

Police officers stand guard near Hayat Hotel, the scene of an Al Shabab attack, in Mogadishu, Somalia, Aug. 21, 2022.

“Anything can happen, at any time,” says Mr. Mohamed, a well-known Somali singer with his own Al Shabab tale to tell. “Al Shabab are everywhere. They can be sitting with you like a friend,” he says. “They can be inside your family.”

The latest attack added to the abhorrence Mr. Abdirahman’s family feels toward Al Shabab, which has compounded Somalia’s worst drought in 40 years by destroying water sources and crops in affected areas. The United Nations warns that Somalia is on the cusp of famine, with 1.5 million Somalis facing “acute malnutrition.”

Al Shabab claimed responsibility for the deadly bombing, saying the Education Ministry was at the center of a “war on minds” that taught Somali children with a Christian-based syllabus, Reuters reported.

Now Mr. Abdirahman spends every day in a hospital bed, weeping as he recovers, his leg stumps bandaged.

“He has nothing left,” Mr. Mohamed says. “When he lost his wife and daughter, he tried to live again – and has now lost his son. ... The worst thing is that we can’t do anything for our brother.”

Jihadis’ indiscriminate “tools”

In June, a senior Al Shabab leader, Mahad Karate, a former Somali intelligence officer, was asked by U.K. Channel Four’s Jamal Osman how the group justified killing Somali Muslims while claiming to fight for Islam.

“We are battling an enemy and killing each other,” he replied. “But due to the tools we are using to kill, there will be consequences not just for our targets, but for others, who are not our targets.”

The result on the ground is that more civilians have died in Al Shabab attacks so far this year than in any year since 2017, according to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project.

“Al Shabab are bad people who know nothing about humanity,” says Mr. Mohamed, adding that the family would leave Somalia “forever,” if the chance arose.

In fact, leaving the country for a time was a path already taken by the singer, who today wears a red “BOSS” baseball hat and a silver ring with a large green stone.

His own trouble with Al Shabab predates his brother’s losses from the 2017 bomb blast, when he started receiving telephone threats from the jihadis. They said his singing was against Islam.

Feisal Omar/Reuters

A deserted stretch along the Maka al-Mukarama street following an attack on the Villa Rose hotel by Al Shabab militants, in Mogadishu, Somalia, Nov. 28, 2022.

“They called me many times and told me, ‘It is haram [forbidden]. What are you doing? Stop,’” he recalls. “So every time I would go to work, I thought it was my last time.”

That was six years ago, and Mr. Mohamed fled to the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, where he stayed until early this year.

Al Shabab is watching

Then a song he made with his band about love and peace was posted on the internet, and it caught Al Shabab’s attention.

Four months ago, the singer got another call from Al Shabab.

“You came back,” the caller said. “We know your every move.”

“I’m very scared,” Mr. Mohamed acknowledges. He has reduced his singing engagements from five nights a week to just one. But he can’t leave Somalia because of his brother’s dire condition.

“I limit my work,” he says. “I stay in my house, because I fear for myself. I can’t afford bodyguards.”

Because of the threats, Mr. Mohamed did move his wife and children to a new town. His former neighbors, he says, appeared to sympathize with Al Shabab against his singing – and may have been spying for the group.

Breaking his own safety protocol, Mr. Mohamed gave several interviews on Somali television, saying it was a risk worth taking to get support or government action for his brother’s case. In those interviews, he stated clearly that Al Shabab was responsible for the intensity of his family’s grief – and for the suffering of so many Somali citizens.

No support came from officials, he says. But neither did the recent broadcasts result in any fresh threats from Al Shabab, now preoccupied with the government’s offensive.

“Now they are busy escaping to save themselves” on the battlefield, says Mr. Mohamed, who allows a flicker of a smile at the thought. “But they still have their eyes on you.”

As Hurricane Ian moved toward Florida’s west coast in late September, Amy Wicks drove around this rapidly growing community, trying to figure out what she hadn’t thought of yet. She checked for any debris that might be blocking water runoff paths; she took note of the restored wetlands; she hoped that no alligators had taken up residence in the drain pipes.

Eventually, she returned to her own home here, hunkered down with her husband and three children, and listened as freight train winds moved over Babcock Ranch, a 4-year-old planned community some 20 miles inland from Fort Myers. At that point, she says, she could only hope that the unique storm water system she had designed and monitored over the past decade would be up for the task.

“I had a theory that it would work,” says the civil engineer. “But it wasn’t like there was any case study.”

The storm sat overhead for nearly 10 hours, dumping more than a foot of rain on this swath of old Florida cattle ranches and newly built cul-de-sacs.

By the time it subsided, it was clear that something extraordinary had taken place in Babcock Ranch. Created as a sort of laboratory for green development in Florida, and intentionally designed to survive extreme weather, the town proved remarkably resilient in the face of a Category 4 hurricane.

Unlike surrounding areas, it did not flood, in large part because of Ms. Wicks’ years of planning and her unique stormwater management design that mimicked natural systems rather than fighting them. It did not lose power, thanks not only to its 700,000-panel solar grid and battery backup system, but also to the power line hardening developers undertook with their utility provider, Florida Power and Light. And because Babcock Ranch owns and operates its own water plant, which also survived the storm, it was the only town in Charlotte County that did not go under a boil-water alert.

Stephanie Hanes/The Christian Science Monitor

Amy Wicks, a civil engineer who is vice president at the engineering firm Kimley-Horn, designed a unique water system at Babcock Ranch that replicates natural systems to build resilience during storms. This area of native muhly grass is across the street from a human-made wetland that helps mitigate stormwater, Nov. 3, 2022.

But this resilience was not just important for Babcock Ranch itself.

Across the state, there is a small but growing effort to build more resilient communities in Florida – an effort to shift a yearslong pattern of rapid development that many here say exacerbates water shortages and other environmental risks. Now, academics, policymakers, advocates, and developers are pointing to how Babcock Ranch fared during the hurricane as proof that in one of the country’s fastest growing states, there are practical reasons to build with greater attention to the environment, climate change, and water management – and that doing so may well prove economically beneficial in the long run.

“I was super happy to see that they came through Hurricane Ian so well,” says Jennison Kipp, a resource economist with the University of Florida and the state coordinator for Sustainable Floridians, a program that works to put sustainability research into practice across the state. “So much [of the challenge] is having proof of concept and trying to sell it to developers.”

Bulldozer, bougainvillea efficiency

For years, building in Florida has followed a pattern. With a constant flow of new homebuyers – an average of nearly 1,000 people move to Florida each day, according to oft-repeated state statistics – developers have tried to acquire as much land as possible, and as quickly as possible. That often means buying up faded ranches or long-ignored swaths of swamps and forest – green-covered lands that must be flattened and cleared to make way for housing developments and roads and shopping centers.

Indeed, to meet building codes that require homes to be graded above street level, developers will typically bulldoze the landscape, dig storm ponds, and then use the fill from those holes to prep building sites, explains Timothee Sallin, co-CEO of Cherrylake, a landscape company working across the Southeast that has become a leader in sustainable design.

Traditionally, developers would replant that denuded landscape with the types of species that outsiders tend to think about when they imagine Florida – green St. Augustine grass, colorful azaleas, draping bougainvillea. The problem, Mr. Sallin says, is that these plants aren’t native to the state, so they require a lot of inputs to stay healthy, such as water, fertilizer, and pesticides. They also struggle to thrive in soil devoid of organic material and nutrients.

“The developers have to mass grade a site to build efficiently and economically,” he says. “The most efficient thing to do is to raze it and bring in fill. But that creates soils that are difficult to work with.”

Meanwhile, because the natural topography of the land has been erased, and the natural water collection systems of wetlands and marshes eliminated, the man-made drainage system becomes the only way to capture water. This can be a problem in some storms – particularly those with unusually heavy rains thanks to climate change.

All of this, says Ms. Kipp, creates a system without resilience, suffering from both too much and too little water.

“The landscapes are on life support,” she says. 

Stephanie Hanes/The Christian Science Monitor

New construction takes place in the Sunbridge community south of Orlando, Florida, on Nov. 4, 2022. The developer, Tavistock, is trying to shift toward a more sustainable, resilient construction process in Sunbridge that will transform what was ranch land into 27,000 acres of homes, roads, and retail.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the center of the state. The counties around Orlando are some of the fastest growing in the country, according to U.S. Census data, attracting not only the normal collection of sun-seekers from the North, but also what are known inside Florida as “climate refugees” – people from southern coastal cities who have decided to leave rising sea levels and hurricane risks to move north and inland.

That has meant even more rapid development – as well as more extreme water shortages. According to the state’s central water authority, the region will face a 235 million gallon a day shortfall by 2035 unless demand and usage patterns change.

This is one of the reasons why when 27,000 acres of ranch land came up for development just south of Orlando – part of a 300,000 acre swath owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints – executives at the development company Tavistock decided to approach the project differently.

“At the end of the day, Florida is at a pivotal point when it comes to development in the state,” says Clint Beaty, senior vice president of operations for Tavistock and the lead on the Sunbridge project, a community that will eventually have some 36,000 homes. “You have to look at development differently.”

To plan Sunbridge, which is about two-thirds the size of Washington, D.C., Mr. Beaty and others at Tavistock coordinated with representatives from the University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, the Sustainable Floridians, and other groups. They came up with a plan to use native landscaping – even eschewing the popular St. Augustine grass for the more drought and heat resilient (although occasionally browner) Bahia grass. They are saving and relocating some of the old live oak trees on the property. All of the new homes will be wired for solar panels and electric vehicle plug-ins, and one model house version boasts Tesla solar shingles and a battery backup system.

Meanwhile, to help move away from fertilizers, scientists have built a living laboratory along a walking path at the development’s community center, called Basecamp, where they are testing the viability of different species of native plants as well as different sorts of compost amendments to soil and the impact on pollinator species. Mr. Beaty is also working to figure out how to arrange for large scale composting and food-waste recycling for the community.

All of this, says Ms. Kipp, marks a substantial change from what usually happens in Florida developments.

She acknowledges that perhaps the best thing for the environment – and for the resilience of the land – would be to never build on those 27,000 acres, to never cull the trees or disturb the topsoil. But she and others involved in sustainable building initiatives here say that for better or worse, development in Florida is going to happen. And the new willingness of developers to balance their work with ecological efforts is a huge win, she says, one that she and others hope will snowball as it proves popular with new residents.

“It’s only been in the last year that we’ve been successful in convincing a large scale developer to adopt different practices,” she says. “We think that there’s a significant chunk of new home buyers who would pay more for a home and community that is walking the talk and offering more connection to nature. With a yard that looks different but it brings more pollinators, and it’s quieter and you don’t have to mow it.”

And when these communities withstand heavier storms and prove more resilient, then, she says, there could be even more consumer demand, and more of a change.

A focus on connection

This is what has happened in Babcock Ranch.

Stephanie Hanes/The Christian Science Monitor

Lisa Hall, spokesperson for Babcock Ranch, stands in front of the town's solar field on Nov. 3, 2022. With 700,000 panels and a battery backup system, the community is known as "America's first solar-powered town."

In the wake of the hurricane, interest in the community’s real estate has skyrocketed, with sales this October 49% higher than in October of last year, according to executives there.

Some of this, says Lisa Hall, spokesperson for the development, is because of the way the Babcock Ranch infrastructure survived the storm. But she suspects it is also because of what the community did after Ian, showing a different side of resilience.

Ms. Hall was out of town during the storm, but she was monitoring the community’s Facebook groups. Even in the lead-up to the hurricane, people were looking out for neighbors, and offering shelter to people who lived closer to the coast. When someone posted about a 92-year-old friend on Sanibel Island who needed a place to go, Ms. Hall offered up her own home, unlocking it and controlling the storm shutters from afar.

When the rain stopped, many residents say, the first emotion was relief.

“We had a Cat 4, 5 roll through and I didn’t lose power, I didn’t lose internet,” says Steve Stroup, who recently moved to Babcock Ranch from Southern California with his wife and 7-year-old daughter. “It was like nothing happened. But then you go across the street …”

He shakes his head.

All around Babcock Ranch was disaster. At the local school, staff and students who lived outside of the community lost their homes. The school’s executive director, Shannon Treece, mobilized parents and other instructors to help, setting up food deliveries and carpools. Residents came to the Babcock Ranch field house, which the state had turned into an emergency shelter, bringing bedding and food. And Pastor Matt Shapton, head of The Community Church in Babcock Ranch, a mission of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, helped organize and transport donations to neighborhoods only miles away, which were still covered with debris weeks later.

“Your heart broke for the people who had damage,” said Ms. Treece.

This sort of community focus, Ms. Hall says, is another aspect of Babcock Ranch’s resilience – one that can’t be separated from the environmental mission.

When developer Syd Kitson purchased the Babcock family’s 91,000 acre ranch in 2006, one of his first moves was to sell 73,000 back to the state for permanent preservation. His goal, Ms. Hall says, was to show that development, community care, and economic viability could all work together. For the next 10 years, the team worked to restore wetlands, create a new water drainage system, and start putting into place the sorts of community facilities – including a store, downtown, and walking paths – that would create a sense of connection.

“Other communities are saying, ‘how do we become that resilient?’” Ms. Hall says. “Syd’s message about this is, you just have to start.”

Groups of students huddle together during a break from class at the Institute of Higher Studies in Economics and Commerce in the chic 16th arrondissement in the west of Paris. The subject of politics comes up easily.

But when the conversation turns to Jordan Bardella, the young new leader of the far-right National Rally (RN) party, there are a few sidelong glances.

Despite the consistent rise of the RN in France – including here, just blocks from party headquarters and a growing bastion of far-right voters – it remains deeply unpopular to support the far right. And yet, students say, there is no denying that the appointment of 27-year-old Mr. Bardella this month at the RN congress could breathe new life into a party marked by controversy.

“Everyone is talking about him on social media,” says Yann, taking a break with friends, Bitou and Marie. Like other students interviewed, Yann agreed to give his political opinions on the condition of using his first name only. “He’s good-looking, dynamic, eloquent. I think he’s going to have a significant impact on the National Rally.”

“People have a lot of prejudices about the RN, but there’s no shame in voting for them,” says Eva, a fellow student who has never voted for the far right, but is open to learning more about its new leader. “It’s a legitimate party like any other.”

As he looks forward to the future, Mr. Bardella will be banking on wider acceptance of the RN. Since Marine Le Pen took the reins from her father, Jean-Marie, who founded the party originally known as the National Front in 1972, she has consistently worked to erase the party’s negative image. Its history of antisemitic, anti-Muslim, and anti-immigrant rhetoric has hindered the RN from gaining widespread acceptance for decades.

Mr. Bardella – the child of Italian immigrants who grew up in a rough Paris suburb and represents a new generation of far-right voters – has the potential not only to challenge how the general public sees the RN, but also to capture young people disillusioned by traditional politics. Young people have the highest levels of voter abstention, especially in disenfranchised city suburbs, but those who do vote are increasingly backing extreme parties.

Experts say that Mr. Bardella’s fresh face, ultimately, is an investment in the RN’s future, as it looks to continually renew its image, streamline its political offering, and appeal to a wider electorate.

Christian Hartmann/Reuters

Jordan Bardella poses during an interview in Paris, Oct. 26, 2022. Prior to becoming president of the RN this month, Mr. Bardella served as acting party leader beginning in September 2021, when Marine Le Pen launched her campaign for president of France.

“The younger people are, the further away they feel from politics, and a majority say they don’t see themselves in any candidate or political party,” says Olivier Galland, research director emeritus at the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) who specializes in the sociology of youth.

“But when they do vote, they tend to choose parties outside the mainstream, like the Green or far-left parties, and to a lesser extent the far right. It’s possible that the profile of Jordan Bardella – an extremely young leader – could attract more young people to far-right politics.”

Making a case to young French

The RN has seen a steady rise at the polls at both the national and local levels in the past decade, especially among young voters. In 2017, Ms. Le Pen snagged upwards of 40% of the vote from those ages 18-34 in the second round of the presidential elections, and in 2022, those figures climbed to 57%.

But within those statistics are nuances on which Mr. Bardella could potentially focus his efforts. Until now, the RN has had significantly more success with young people between ages 25 and 34 who have recently entered the workforce, versus 18-to-24-year-olds, who are more likely to be students or living with their parents. The latter tend to be preoccupied by societal issues like access to healthcare and saving the environment, and are drawn to far-left politics.

“Young people who are seduced by the RN are in a fragile position. They’re those who have seen a degradation of their situation: lower salaries or job loss,” says Erwan Lestrohan, research director at the Odoxa polling institute. “The RN discourse is attractive because it is one that seeks to protect their interests,” he says.

“Bardella’s RN is one that is in line with anti-globalization, anti-elite, and protectionism, more than anti-immigration or focusing on security issues, like [rival far-right politician] Eric Zemmour.”

Known as a smooth, confident orator, Mr. Bardella told supporters after his win that he promised to “continue to normalize the RN,” making no allusion to identity politics within the party. Mr. Bardella, a fierce euroskeptic, joined as a teenager and became interim head of the RN last year while Marine Le Pen ran for president. Addressing the party, he said he planned to unite those who wanted to get France back on “the right track.”

But outside party support, Mr. Bardella – like his fellow politicians across the spectrum – has work to do to shore up enthusiasm among young voters. Those ages 18-24 showed record levels of voter abstention of 41% in the last presidential elections, compared with 38% for those ages 25-34. Abstention levels shot up to 71% in the June legislative elections among the 18-24 age group.

Christophe Ena/AP

French far-right leader Marine Le Pen (center) and National Rally parliament members pose at the National Assembly, June 22, 2022, in Paris. Though Ms. Le Pen fell short of the presidency, the RN enjoyed its largest ever share of parliamentary seats in June elections, taking 89.

“Our studies show that young people are interested in a variety of topics, like domestic violence, the environment, gender equality. But that isn’t translated into traditional political participation,” says Mr. Galland, the CNRS researcher. “It’s more so shown through means of protest: participating in demonstrations or strikes, or expressing their opinions on social media. The fact that young people don’t vote doesn’t mean they aren’t engaged politically.”

A resistant demographic

As Mr. Bardella looks to tap into youth engagement, he will have to do more than rely on his upbringing and age to appeal to young voters who don’t traditionally vote for the far right. He remains little known outside his own party and has said he plans to continue the Le Pen legacy in the RN, which could discourage voters on the fence.

According to the most recent surveys by Odoxa, 40% of those polled rejected Mr. Bardella, putting him at the same level of popularity as Ms. Le Pen and far-left politician Adrien Quatennens, who stepped down from his political duties in September over domestic abuse allegations.

Primarily, Mr. Bardella will have to convince young voters in vulnerable suburbs, where rates of joblessness and poverty are high, that he has their interests at heart. In the presidential elections this past spring, voter abstention was at nearly 40% in Mr. Bardella’s hometown of Drancy, significantly higher than the national average of 28%.

Drancy and other working-class suburbs with large immigrant populations voted overwhelmingly for far-left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon in the last presidential elections, and many reject the RN’s historically anti-immigration stance.

Those facts are not lost on Mr. Bardella, who has aimed to appear more approachable to the French public. In February, he revealed some of the hardships of growing up in public housing to Gala magazine; in June, he told his Twitter followers that he had chosen his hometown as his last campaign stop before the legislative elections, writing, “never forget where you come from.”

But many young people in Drancy still say they feel left behind by politicians in general. At a local driving school just off the main drag, friends Kameron Magloire and Quentin Amaral say they’re surprised to learn that Mr. Bardella grew up like they did.

“Someone who grows up in les cités can never be the head of anything. It’s almost impossible to get out,” says Mr. Magloire, a livery driver who grew up in a public housing complex next door. “No one from this neighborhood is going to end up going to space.”

In terms of politics, “we still feel like we’re being told what to do and it’s always the same people who win,” says Mr. Amaral, who is currently unemployed and working to launch his own business. “We need someone who truly represents us.”

AP

Janusz Waluś testifies at South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 1997. He was convicted for the 1993 assassination of popular Communist Party leader Chris Hani.

It has become increasingly common for post-conflict societies to seek reconciliation through models of justice focused on truth-telling and mercy. The latest example is in Northern Ireland. A bill before the United Kingdom’s House of Lords would create a commission to investigate atrocities committed during “the Troubles” of the late 20th century and grant amnesty to perpetrators in exchange for honesty about their roles.

That essential trade-off has been tried in places from Rwanda to Colombia. It requires an often-uncomfortable balancing between forgiveness and accountability, between grace and retribution. Finding that balance can take generations. In South Africa, the expected release of an apartheid-era assassin from prison on Dec. 1 is compelling that country to recommit to its own model of justice enshrined during its transition to democracy nearly 30 years ago.

In 1993, during the tense final years of apartheid, a charismatic liberation movement leader named Chris Hani was shot dead in his driveway. His assailant, Janusz Waluś, had hoped to spark a civil war to preserve white rule. He was convicted and condemned to death. The sentence was commuted to life in prison after a post-apartheid South Africa abolished the death penalty. Mr. Waluś eventually apologized to Mr. Hani’s family and has been eligible for parole since 2005. Last week, the Constitutional Court ordered his release.

This isn’t the first time the release of an apartheid-era killer has forced a new reckoning over reconciliation. Mr. Hani’s family opposes the decision. Social media lit up in protest. In response, Chief Justice Raymond Zondo argued an uncomfortable truth about democracy. South Africa’s Bill of Rights, he said, “is there for all, even those who fought democracy and those who supported apartheid with all their hearts.”

South Africa’s difficult and unfinished pursuit of national reconciliation may offer a lesson in patience for Northern Ireland. In the nearly 25 years since the Good Friday Agreement ended political violence there, peace has held, but the province has made little progress toward reconciliation. Only 7% of children attend integrated schools for both Catholics and Protestants. Few of the more than 3,600 killings during the Troubles have been solved. 

Human rights organizations and families of the victims say the amnesty bill would let killers off the hook. Sponsors of the legislation hope it will open a needed healing pathway. “No government can legislate to reconcile people,” said Lord Jonathan Caine during debate last week, “though we can strive to promote it.” 

“At its core,” wrote Sisonke Msimang, a fellow at South Africa’s University of the Witwatersrand Institute for Social and Economic Research, in Foreign Policy, “reconciliation relies on truth as the basis for building a joint future. If the perpetrator can agree that they caused harm through their actions, and if they are prepared to be held accountable, then the victim may one day forgive them and society may redeem them.”

Tethering justice to mercy is a renewable choice. Northern Ireland may be poised to join other post-conflict societies willing to make it.