Whole Life Times: November 3rd and Beyond

November 2004 | November 3rd and Beyond

November 3rd and Beyond

By Andre Carothers

Thirty years ago, political theorist Hans Morgenthau wrote in The New Republic: “Democratic elections tend to resemble more and more charades, which at best result in adjustments in the status quo without even raising the fundamental issues of the distribution of economic and political power.”

Progressives relearn this disappointment, a century-old fact of American political life, every four years (or two, if they are paying closer attention).

The lesson is generally followed by an appeal to abandon politics altogether.

The temptation is understandable, but I would suggest, ill advised. Despairing to the point of immobility over the decay of democracy in America misreads both the delights of political engagement and the opportunities for real progress — if we work steadily, thoughtfully and collaboratively

The fight for justice and fairness will endure no matter who is in the White House. What is needed is an ambitious, beyond-the-voting booth civic rejuvenation crusade (with the kind of “to-do list” that you won’t see on the reform agenda of any mainstream party). Here are some of the challenges we must confront

The Lack of a Functioning Democracy

Among the world’s representative governments, the U.S. version of “democracy” gets very poor grades. It is not hard to see why: Winner-take-all elections, the influence of private money and a presidential (as opposed to parliamentary) government are all deal-breaking obstacles to real democracy.

For all its genius, the U.S. Constitution includes a breathtaking array of discouraging idiosyncrasies. Best known is the Electoral College, which has given a few states an inordinate amount of influence over the national agenda — and allowed George W. Bush (like Adams, Hayes and Harrison before him) to gain the White House after losing the popular vote.

The Founding Fathers’ pursuit of “a more perfect union” required bribing each state with two senate seats. This created one of the most unequal institutions in modern government. Today, a voter in South Dakota has about 20 times the impact in Washington as one in New York.

Meanwhile, representation in the House of Representatives has congealed thanks to gerrymandering, the practice of redrawing district lines to ensure the reelection of the ruling party, to the point where 99 percent of the incumbents are reelected. (As The Economist has noted, “North Korea might be proud” of such a record.)

The Decline of Democratic Media

Joe McGinnis’ insider’s account of the 1968 Nixon campaign, The Selling of the President, torpedoed the myth of “robust public debate.” The specter of admen (including the future Fox News CEO, Roger Ailes) rehearsing, coaching and airbrushing Dick Nixon caused a flurry of national soul-searching. But 30 years later, the media still froths with airy “political” observations about personal gaffs and “electability” questions that are wholly detached from actual issues, the candidates’ political histories or the specifics of their positions.

We have evolved past politics as horse race, and are now bottoming out at politics as Rorschach test. The media dances to a political conga line — pollsters polling the electorate to guide the candidate on what to say —while the real insiders are tackling such critical variables as pre-fab backdrops, word repetition and “visual persuaders” like flight suits and staged Thanksgiving turkey dinners.

The Rise of Corporate Power

In 1864, Abraham Lincoln famously warned that, “As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow.” Today’s front pages are replete with stories of corporate leaders who abused the system to bilk the public and enrich themselves.

While the lengthening “perp walk” of corporate criminals — from Tyco, Enron, Rite-Aid, Adelphia, Global Crossing, WorldCom, ImClone, Lucent, MicroStrategy, Qwest Communications and Arthur Andersen — is impressive, the sad fact is that the Democratic Party is only marginally less bent on appeasing capital than the Republicans. Ceding control of the public sector to corporations has been the goal of both parties for a generation.

Jerry Mander of the International Forum on Globalization astutely calls the current regime a “form of centralized economy” that will be harder to overthrow than any traditional government. As former ATT CEO Walter Wriston put it nearly two decades ago, “Money only goes where it is wanted and only stays where it is well-treated, and once you tie the world together with telecommunications and information, the ball game is over. For the first time in history, the politicians can’t stop it.”

The Economic Re-Segregation of America

The continued concentration of wealth in the hands of fewer and richer Americans has moved beyond swollen bank accounts to include the pocketing by the few of nearly everything society has to offer. We essentially live in a “winner-take-all” society, a racket that funnels all the necessaries of modern life — privatized health care, security and schools — to the rich and offers the choice of poorly paid work or jail to those unfortunate enough to be at the other end of the socio-economic spectrum.

It should be a source of deep shame that after 30 years of economic expansion, a time in which this country minted hundreds of new billionaires, children are now the poorest demographic group in the nation, with between 20-25 percent of U.S. kids officially growing up in poverty. Nearly a third of America’s 70 million families survive on less than $25,000 a year.

As a result, our society is moving physically apart — African-Americans and the poor retreating to enclaves of increasingly concentrated poverty and isolation, while the well off fortify themselves behind the fences of gated communities. This hyper-segregation, and the racism that fuels it, draws on the most deep-seated and self-reinforcing inclinations of human nature — the desire to join with those similar to us and to conspire, willingly or by our silence, to abandon the rest.

Doing It Our Way

Naked power grabbing requires a degree of manipulation and mendacity that is incompatible with the thoughtful and measured style of liberals and progressives. Progressives value substance over style and respect nuance over bombast.

Unfortunately, this willingness to engage complexities translates as a lack of “decisiveness” that is unappealing to the average swing-state voter. To oversimplify: The smart progressive holds his nose and enters politics like a city-boy mucking out his first horse stall. A conservative wades in like a professional wrestler.

Fortunately, the progressive tradition remains strongest where it is most needed — at the grassroots. Strengthening it enough to take on our civic to-do list will require a serious reappraisal — not of what we want, but of how we go about getting it.

We cannot afford to make the rookie mistake of assuming that good intentions are enough. We are not strong on movement building. The enthusiasm of liberals and progressives for parsing the fine points of policy and platform has always been a liability — we line up our firing squads in a circle, as the saying goes.

If the strange bedfellows of the “anyone but Bush” coalition cannot learn to explain, in simple moral terms, what it is for, it will not succeed. As George Lakoff says, “Language and meaning are the keys to pulling people toward you. Get the words right, and the heart will naturally follow.”

Gandhi said it best when he called for us to “be the change we want to see in the world.” This is the tallest order, because it means we must practice the skill of listening instead of speaking; of acknowledging and celebrating difference instead of recoiling from it; of putting ourselves, as squarely as we can, into the experience of others. Whatever ploys we developed as children to differentiate ourselves — to reinforce our sense of self at the expense of “others” — all that has got to go.

Learning the discipline of being in genuine and effective relationship with other people across the divides of background, gender, race, class — and, yes, even political views — is its own reward. Life quickly gets more interesting and more engaging. Being in service to others (particularly to communities different from yours) can be personally rewarding, emotionally sustaining, politically illuminating and deeply radicalizing. In other words, if you want to improve the quality of your life, and in the process change the world, go do something, and make sure to bring a friend.

The work we do together should be evaluated not on its success in winning power — the standard of the Right. It should be judged on how authentically it implements the values of love, respect, modesty and trust that we claim to value, but so easily lose track of in the rush to prevail over “them.”

It’s a 50-year project that will certainly outlast this administration and the next, but given the rewards — both personal and social — one has to ask: What else would you rather be doing with the rest of your life?

Andre Carothers is Executive Director of the Rockwood Leadership Program and a former editor of Greenpeace Magazine. To learn more, visit www.rockwoodleadership.org.

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