The following is in the form of a letter to Brian Farenell, a good friend and passionate American citizen. I believe the letter provides the context clues for most to understand the original dialogue, but feel free to check out both Brian and my Facebook feeds, as they are typically lively in thinking about things related to the American democratic experiment.
Brian Farenell,
For a couple reasons, it’s taken a while to get back to you
on the article that you posted to my feed targeting me to comment on its
contents and eschewing my perceived acceptance of what you cite as conventional wisdom related
to voting practices by Americans (
http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2015/7/most-americans-dont-vote-in-elections-heres-why.html). That said, I owe you a response given your
opening and follow-on. The author (Sean
McElwee) makes a connection, not unfounded, that public policy can “facilitate
or deter citizen participation in politics” (citing examples of Social Security/Head
Start/GI Bill in the former category and Temporary Assistance to Needy Families
(TANF) in the latter). I wouldn’t go so
far as to say that McElwee's statement is fully true; the more factual case is that public
policy can encourage (something short of facilitation) or discourage (something less than deterring). This
may seem like semantics, but it fundamentally isn’t; in that, ultimately, if a
citizen wants to participate in political action in America, they can. The record shows they have taken
action/participate, even today,
albeit in ever decreasing numbers.
Because of that decline, questions remain. The questions we need to be asking about the
American people are: a) Do they know how
participate? b) Do they understand the
ramifications of participation in civic life and/or lack thereof? And finally, c) Do they care enough to engage
in the first place? There are certainly
many factors that go into answering these questions, but that there is the
right to vote, that voting determines who represents you, and that there is
much more to civic engagement than just voting, is still paramount in American
government.
Article Review
McElwee cites a number of statistical measures of American
dissatisfaction with our politics. He
then goes on to cite a direct relationship between income and seeing a
difference between the parties, discussion voter suppression by the
Republicans, and then advocates for Democrats to put forward progressive
policies (citing his earlier discussion of issues that would, theoretically,
bring people to the poles) as a way to counter this trend. He implies, but never outright states, that
why American’s don’t vote is a function of 1) not seeing a difference between
parties, 2) income differential, 3) voter suppression vis a vis registration
controls/hurdles, and 4) (in a last mention, not otherwise shown) lack of voter
choices of parties. To cure these ills,
he cites a litany of progressive policies that I personally believe may or may
not work, depending on the policy (Automatic Voter Registration (AVR) for instance
(and just for instance, as I have views on public finance and lobbying, and Citizens United): I am all for making voter registration easier
and found the SCOTUS decision on the Voting Rights Act off the mark, but we
need to have reasonable verification that the person voting is actually entitled
to vote (e.g. they are actually a citizen of that jurisdiction or otherwise
restricted from voting; I, for instance, am not for automatic restoration of
voting rights to felons upon completion of jail time), and they are who they
say they are as they present
themselves to vote), remembering that the government, in our system, is
restricted from tracking us and collecting intelligence on us (the Patriot Act,
now lapsed, notwithstanding; I also note that he allows that “It’s impossible
to know how much AVR would boost turnout …” in one of the linked posts.). In all of this, he never mentions civic
participation outside of voting, and when speaking about voting, he does so
only about voting on the federal level.
He concludes with this: “But
these steps aren’t enough. Voters must
also pressure the candidates to put forward a vision that benefits the middle
and lower class. People are far more
likely to participate in politics if they feel that government plays an
important and beneficial role in their lives.
Policies such as debt-free college, universal child-care and pre-K
education, a higher minimum wage and living wage job guarantees could increase
voter turnout and civic engagement.
American democracy is not for sale.
The voting booth is a potent force against the power of
plutocracy.” I find it ironic that at
the end of an essay that says the government has to do more to get people to
partake, that his plea is to voters (who by his own argument are apathetic) to
force the change. I concur, it’s on the
citizens to make this change.
History and Civic
Participation in America
The historical graph in the article (“More Americans believe that the government is
run by a few big interests than for the benefit of all people”; which he
doesn’t actually talk about, interestingly enough), is compelling to this very
point. If you look at that chart and
compare it to the levels of civic engagement (across the spectrum of what that
means), you will also note a similar pattern (
http://prospect.org/article/1996-civic-enigma
and
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/DETOC/assoc/strange.html;
note that the last sustained period that people felt that the government was
working for the “benefit of all” was in the 1960s). The resulting corollary is that the more
that Americans became disengaged from civic life, the more that Americans feel
that their government is in the control of “big interests”. My argument remains that we have failed, as a
nation, to maintain a broad understanding and culture of commitment to civic
engagement, duty and responsibility. We
may have increased the franchise, but we haven’t educated, haven’t supported,
haven’t honor bound, haven’t necessitated the
demos to take part in the democracy. This is a sweeping generalization, and there
are caveats, but in the final analysis, my larger thesis, just stated, is
supported in that the truth of the thesis is:
a) largely because of American’s taking for granted their institutions,
b) a result of strong desire for stability, c) enhanced by ignorance of how
democracy works and the responsibilities placed on a citizenry in that system,
and d) underwritten by apathy, writ large, with the American experiment.
Evidence in support
of the status of American civic dis-engagement
First, evidence of American’s taking for granted their
institutions, is palpable. The idea that
“things should work” is a given, and it comes to a specific head any time there
is a failure in any sector of society.
The question immediately asked is “how is that possible” when a drug has
a side effect that wasn’t caught by the FDA (the early 2000’s scare regarding
NSAIDs, specifically Celebrex), or a train derails (e.g. the Philadelphia
accident earlier this spring), or a plane goes missing (e.g. the Malaysian
Airlines missing plane). The assumption
is that “in this modern age” or “in America” x, y or z shouldn’t happen or that
there are such fail safe institutions in place that things simply should happen
apace. And to this is the pervasive
“they” should have done x, y or z, “they” are responsible, “the government”,
“them”, etc. etc. The idea that as a
citizen, that, aside from paying taxes, you should have any other requirements of
your time, skills, or abilities, is nearly foreign. We have grown a professional bureaucratic
class to take on an ever growing largess of government, not because American’s
“asked for it” but more because American’s aren’t taking on the necessary tasks
of maintaining the civic institutions that accomplish such tasks as are
necessary for them to operate (for instance:
I sat, as a technical expert on a panel (of about 20 persons) for an
effort in Fairfax County. The panel was
dominated by those that were paid professionals, and only had 3 citizen
members. Ironically, or sadly, the panel
and the effort were hailed for having “high citizen involvement”). This isn’t laziness, as you accused me of
believing that the American people are guilty of, rather it is simply not
appreciating the institutions for what they are, how much we depend on them,
and how much we have to be involved in them to work. Why this has occurred and how it came about
are entirely longer stories, but the evidence is clear this is the status quo
for how the vast majority of Americans see their world.
And to that later point, American’s crave to the point of
jealousy, stability in their economic and political lives (and to be candid,
this is true well beyond Americans, as people the world round have tolerated
totalitarian regimes that bring stability; the American case is particularly
prominent). The mere fact that an
economic downturn can upend the political system (the 1992 and 2008 elections
being specific examples of this case), is proof enough that rocking the boat of
a stable economic growth path is seen as anathema. To this point, I offer the following dialogue
that occurred on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos between George Will
and Robert Reich on January 6, 2013 (
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2013/01/06/george_will_consensus_is_we_want_a_welfare_state_without_paying_for_it.html):
“STEPHANOPOULOS [George
Stephanolpoulos, host of This Week]: And those House Republicans who are
worried about Speaker Boehner do -- did not vote for the deal, are doing
exactly what they -- they believe their constituents elected them to do.
WILL [George Will, Pulitzer Prize
winning twice-weekly columnist at the Washington Post]: They are dissenting
from the great American consensus. I,
again, think the journalistic narrative about Washington today is 180 degrees
wrong. The problem in the country is a consensus that is broad. Republicans
subscribe to it, too, which is that we should have a large, generous welfare
state and not pay for it. That's the point about extending all the Bush tax
rates for all except 0.5 percent of the country, is that we have now put
off-limits the source of money in this country, which is the middle class, so
we're not going to pay for the welfare state.
REICH [Robert Reich, former
Secretary of Labor under Bill Clinton and Chancellor’s Professor of Public
Policy at the University of California at Berkeley]: That narrative is
fundamentally wrong. I think what the public does not fully grasp is that it's
health care costs in the future combined with aging Baby Boomers that are
driving these out-year deficits. It is not Social Security. It is not Medicare
or Medicaid. It is the underlying dysfunctionality of our health care system.
And the Affordable Care Act did not do enough to control long-term health care
costs. That's what everybody in Washington ought to be focusing on right now.
WILL: But 10 years from now, 20
years from now, we're going to see two big changes in American life, much more
reliance on private savings and means-testing of entitlement programs. I don't
care who's president, I don't care who runs Congress. We're going to have both
of these.”
The emphasis is mine in the above, and in that emphasis I
completely concur with George Will that there is a widespread consensus that
focuses on enforced stability. While
there are issues that Americans debate soundly and passionately, there is a
strong consensus, in the main, that we do not want to upend our American
lifestyle and our American institutions to the point that we cannot enjoy the
stability and relative world affluence we enjoy.
Which brings me to the fact that there is widespread
ignorance of how democracy works generally and the responsibilities placed on a
citizenry in that system (and even more specifically in the American form of
that kind of political system). Many of
us can still recall episodes of the Tonight Show and its infamous “Jay Walking”
segments. The show’s host, Jay Leno,
would walk up to folks on the street in Burbank, California or elsewhere, and
show them a picture of a person, say George W. Bush or Ruth Ginsburg, and ask
them to identify them, with the resultant joke being the happenstance victim’s
sound mis-identifications. But the joke
is really on us, as this simply remains the tip of the iceberg. Last September the Washington Post reported that
only 36% of Americans can identify the three branches of the U.S. federal
government. The cited survey for this
article goes on to relay even more distressing news (
http://cdn.annenbergpublicpolicycenter.org/wp-content/uploads/Civics-survey-press-release-09-17-2014-for-PR-Newswire.pdf). What is even more depressing is how little
people can speak to how their State and local governments run. How many could name the executive power in
their County (or Parish in Louisiana)?
Who among us can speak to whether a case is heard in a federal or a
state court? How many understand the
principle of supremacy in relation to federal, state and local powers in the
place they live? How many understand how
to change a law at the county or municipal level? When it comes to infrastructure, who is
responsible for funding what parts of it, executing and overseeing what parts
of it, and providing periodic maintenance to what parts of it? How many can explain what commissions
do? What role do civic groups play in
government functioning? How many
understand how long and what efforts it takes to make change, enact
laws/ordinances, and the requirement to convince others to support you as a
part of our democratic process? If one
were to sum the quantities of Americans that could provide an answer to all
these questions, or the many others one could ask, one would find a shocking
limited number that could. Few know and even
fewer and fewer are learning or being taught these things. I offer this quote from a report of the
Educational Testing Services (
http://www.ets.org/s/fault_lines/18719_fault_lines_report_web.pdf): “Lack of civic knowledge represents a fault
line that may contribute to more limited civic involvement, less support for
democratic institutions and values, and lower levels of trust in government and
elected officials.” The numbers are in,
Americans simply do not know, they are massively ignorant, in large measures,
how to be citizens. Consequently, this
deeply effects the functioning of our republican form of democracy. And as I opened, this directly relates to how
people feel about government, and “who is in charge”.
And that brings me to the tiring fact that there is apathy,
writ large, with the American democratic experiment. Let me be clear what I mean by apathy, and
borrow from dictionary.com:
“Apathy: noun, plural
apathies. 1. absence or suppression of passion, emotion,
or excitement. 2. lack of interest in or concern for things
that others find moving or exciting.
3. Also, apatheia, apathia [ap-uh-thee-uh]. Stoicism. freedom from emotion of any
kind.” (see also Wikipedia and its
sources at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apathy). And with this, please note that apathy fully
covers those that have become disillusioned, as they have lost the passion to
fight for a different vision or, at the very least, fight against the illusion
they see, which in itself bespeaks a lack of passion for the American
democratic experiment. The bottom line
is that there is an ever increasing, ever growing, simple weariness with the
energy required to make American democracy go forward. And by this, I am not citing, exclusively,
voter turn-out as apathy. I am talking
about the energy, the passion, the drive of the reasons behind the American
Revolution in our hearts, minds and souls.
This takes many forms, some of which are passionately engaged upon, but
yet demonstrate “lack of interest” in the centrality of the revolutionary
spirit, the American cultural phenomenon that propelled us up through the
middle of the 20
th Century.
Part of this is because there is a valid and real critique as to the
nature of what that spirit is, was, and how it should be viewed today. But, that said, in the wide central swath of
the American population, the light is dimming.
To some extent this is simply a function of memory, heritage and
experience. One report on this well
established phenomenon put it this way (
https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/immigration/report/2014/06/12/91446/the-latino-electorate-by-immigrant-generation/): “Immigrants and their children are more
likely to vote than third-generation immigrants.” That said, McElwee rightly cites other
factors that increase participation in the booth later in life. But even that
fact can’t overcome the overwhelming evidence that Americans as a whole are
simply not as engaged in or with their government than have previous generations. I allow that there are certainly those that
do not vote out of principle, but as I reiterate, I am not measuring the apathy
of voting, exclusively, as what Americans are apathetic about. American civic apathy, in all of its forms, is
what I am speaking to; and it is real, it is palpable, and it is a large reason
why the ills we see in government exist.
Return to the key
questions
In reply to your post and in this effort, I have tried to
answer three questions related to citizenship:
a) Do Americans know how to be active/responsible citizens? b) Do they understand the ramifications of
participation in civic life and/or lack thereof? c) Do they care enough to engage in the first place? As I provide above, I think it is clear that,
in large measures, Americans simply do not understand how to be citizens in the
American republican government system we have inherited, and as it has
developed. To a large part, then, we, as
a body politic, are ignorant of what the ramifications are for their failure to
act as citizens and, further, what the ramifications are for those that do take
on the mantle of citizenship in its fullest sense. Because of that ignorance, wide swaths of
Americans, therefore, can easily be co-opted by forces in our society to the
will of those that are better informed and/or willing to use that knowledge to
their advantage, for good or for ill.
You further posted former President Carter’s interview and discussion of
how he sees that America has transformed into an oligarchy. Wil Harris, has on numerous occasions cited
this same critique, in that there is a strong indication that powerful
interests greatly control our government.
But the reality is this critique is only half true. Structurally, our government is still an
indirect democracy that requires elections to put people into office. If nothing else, the power of voting has been
shown, especially given its depressed nature, that it can upend what are
supposed to be “sure things”. For
example, thanks to the TEA Party, several “mainstream” republicans have been
“primaried” out of office (Eric Cantor in Virginia being a prime example);
which is no less true of liberal groups (Joe Lieberman’s failure to obtain the
democratic party nomination in Connecticut for his last term as Senator is an
example). So the truth in Carter’s
critique is not found in the structure, but in the forgoing statement that
ignorance and willingness to be co-opted have made the electorate what it
is. The moneyed interests have used the
courts (legal challenges to election results continue to be on the increase)
and legislatures (redistricting, lobbying) to game things to the degree they
can, within the system as a direct consequence.
We are not yet a formal oligarchy.
I have to allow, however, that Citizens United has made it harder to
ignore the growth of the power of commercial interests in the process of
elections. But what’s the fix? Principled non-voting? Further civic non-participation? I think not.
The final question,
do we care?
This gets me to the final question, which I think is at the core
of the future path, do we care enough to engage in the first place? Interestingly the current election cycle has
highlighted this very question. Donald
Trump, for all his bombast, has put on the table the question of whether the US
should be granting birthright citizenship, which was firmly enshrined in the
14th Amendment of the Constitution. At
its core, the energy he is harvesting in the worst way possible, is all about
the idea that there ought to be a worthiness test to being a citizen of this
country. And it would be easy to answer
my question by saying only those that have the "fire in their belly"
to be citizens, ought to be such, and so this would provide a solution to the
problems I have thus far laid bare. But
such is antithetical to the American nature of what citizenship is all about,
betrays the principles of the Revolution, and would reverse, in large measures,
the development of our democracy in ways that are abhorrent to think on (we
simply don't want a Starship Troopers world, and birthright citizenship is part
and parcel with the natural law foundation that brought forth such concepts as
inalienable rights). What I think does
bespeak an answer to this question of “if we care enough”, is what we recently
discussed on Facebook about the nature of neighborhood relationships in America
today (
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/09/the-value-of-neighbors/404338/). As this article states, our connected-ness to
one another and the value of those relationships is on steep decline and
follows all of these trends. If we
haven't the energy or drive to engage those geographically near us, is it no
wonder we lack the energy or drive to full embrace our roles as citizens?
We have to look at our society and where we have both come
from and are going to. One of the most
telling ways one can do this is look at the behaviors of up and coming
generations and compare them with their predecessors and even further back in
history. A group dedicated to this area
of study and engagement, Civic Youth, offers the following observation in a
recent report (
http://www.civicyouth.org/PopUps/ChangingTransition.pdf):
“Today’s young adults are less
engaged in civic and political activities than their predecessors were 30 years
ago. One reason, we argue, is that other aspects of young adulthood have also
changed dramatically. Traditionally, the “transition to adulthood” has been
defined on the basis of five key experiences—leaving home, completing school,
entering the workforce, getting married, and having children. All of these experiences
now happen later in life than they did in the 1970s. As a result, it is not
surprising that voting and other forms of engagement are also being delayed.
The delay is nevertheless harmful because young adults lose political and civic
influence and opportunities to develop skills and networks.”
The measure of a culture's influence is its promulgation and
reiteration generation after generation and from place to place. The revolutionary spirit (Spirit of 1776)
doesn't have the potency it once had, and absent a severe jolt of energy in and
among the demos, it may be lost in
the main. It will be used, and is
already being used in some quarters, much like Caesar used the vestiges of the
Roman republic to create the veneer of legality and as a tool of propaganda. Even as I bespeak doom and gloom, not all is
lost and people are still making a difference, thus we have several options on
how we can turn the boat around before we hit a fatal iceberg and are unable to
save the ship.
Potential Solutions
and Conclusion
I cannot subscribe to McElwee’s idea that putting in place
AVR will solve the problem (in some senses it will make it worse, as people
will know less about election rules because the registration process would be
all but eliminated; even if it does cure several hurdles that have crept into
the registration process), but I can agree that public policy needs to be a
part of the solution. And for me the fix
has to come from a long and sustained campaign of proper civic education
(teaching, modelling, and conscripting a full sense of what civics requires; Dictionary.com: "Civics:
noun, used with a singular verb.
1. The study or science of the
privileges and obligations of citizens."), withering engagement with the
government (never having an uncontested election, never having a
committee/task-force/commission absent strong citizen participation,
reinforcement and re-invigoration of civic associations), limited structural
changes (e.g. repeal of the 17th Amendment, enactment of an
amendment to mitigate gerrymandering of federal legislative offices,
modification to state and local governments in the various states, rewriting of
the Bill of Rights to include clarity on the self-defense provisions, what
speech entails, clarity on how corporations can act as persons and how they
cannot, etc.), and a serious reshuffling of non-structural parts of our political
system (e.g. additional national parties, recognition of the roles of other
civic groups in society, reservation of certain roles to non-government
entities, etc.). Public policy can aid
in the education realm and must be part and parcel to structural change, but
the rest really has to happen from and with the people. This has to be a movement, one that has
energy remains resolute even in the presence of being hijacked. It will need enlightened patrons, it must be
cross generational, it has to eschew placating to "bases" or the
fringe anywhere, and it has to be a movement that focuses on carrying itself
forward generation after generation. For
American democracy to function as it was and is designed, it requires the
opposite of inaction, the opposite of observation, the opposite of
"they'll take care of it".
So this movement will need to be one of action, civic
action, to re-instill a spirit of holistic civic engagement in America. But what will be the spark, what will break
the current inertia? Had wiser people
and statesmen/stateswomen focused on the patriotic needs of America been at the
helm on in the days, weeks, months and years following September 11th,
2001, perhaps that could have been the needed spark. And I think it will take, and may have to
take, an event of that magnitude to enable this transformation (not necessarily
one as tragic, but one that is equally galvanizing and seminal). There will certainly be prologue to said
event that will work to turn the tide with a strong cadre of supporters,
activists, etc. that provide the under-girding
philosophy and intellectual catalyst for the transformation, to whom much will
be owed. And there will remain those
that hold out against this change as much as there are those, even now, that
hold onto hope and are being models of civic engagement for us to follow. The starting place, while we wait for the
right moment, is to squarely look, ironic as it may seem, to the children of
those that have recently come to our shores.
We need to see in them that the strength of their convictions to adopt
America as their nation is something that those who have gained citizenship by
birthright, need to relearn. With these
second generation Americans, we see some of the strongest senses of civic engagement
and, if we have the wisdom to do it, can be mentors for and with their peers in
this regard. Rather than eschewing them
as “not native” we need to instead see them as not unlike the situation the
founding generation found themselves, in a new country that is full of promise
but requires continual and significant effort to build and maintain.
In conclusion, I continue to defend the notion that
Americans are apathetic about their civic duties for several reasons. I think that making structural changes or
making other changes to ease the burden of those responsibilities can actually
hurt us more than it helps, potentially.
I know that it will take an enormous effort to turn the tide, but it is
ultimately the only way to fix the problem.
While counter-intuitive, the more that the system seems to be failing
you, the more you have to be strident to be engaged. The demos
giving up only continues a downward spiral when citizens are the ones that have
the ultimate authority. Active civic
engagement can cure the ills we see and moderate other influences that would
otherwise hijack control of government and society, even now. But time is getting short, and I pray we are
sufficiently shocked into action soon so as to keep the American democratic
experiment alive.
Yours,
Erik Backus
Some other links and articles that relate:
