Tag Archives: Democracy

Worthwhile Reminders

I finally got around to reading “Healing the Heart of Democracy” by Parker Palmer yesterday, and was struck by his observation that it isn’t disagreement that makes our politics so contentious–it is demonization.

Back in the day, as they say, I remember Dick Lugar responding to challenges by saying “That’s an issue upon which people of good faith can differ.” By the time he was attacked by Tea Party purists, that simple recognition–that otherwise good people can differ in their analysis of a situation–had become heresy in some precincts.

When we de-humanize those who disagree with us, we make conversation–and conversion–impossible. I’ll grant that some folks are so rigid, so afraid to consider facts that might be contrary to their own worldview, that reasonable debate is not possible. (As a friend of mine used to say, you can’t reason someone out of a position they never reasoned themselves into.) But those tend to be folks on the fringe. When we write off everyone on the other side of an issue, we abandon any possibility of productive discourse.

Alexander Hamilton addressed this very human tendency in Federalist #1: “So numerous indeed and so powerful are the causes which serve to give a false bias to the judgment, that we see wise and good men on the wrong as well as on the right side of questions of the first magnitude to society. This circumstance, if duly attended to, would furnish a lesson of moderation to those who are ever so much persuaded of their being in the right in any controversy….In politics, as in religion, it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword. Heresies in either can rarely be cured by persecution.”

Later in that same essay, he points out that partisans are unlikely to sway others to their opinions or to increase the “number of their converts” by the “loudness of their declamations and the bitterness of their invective.”

As difficult as it may be in an era positively dominated by invective and loudness, those of us who care about the conduct of public affairs need to work on substituting vigorous but respectful disagreement for demonization. Otherwise, the public square will be entirely dominated by the “true believers” of all sorts who are so vested in labeling and attacking that they cannot participate in anything remotely resembling democratic discourse.

In an era where every ideologue claims fidelity to the Founders, maybe we should actually listen to one.

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Houston, We Have a Problem

Some of you lucky people can go about your everyday lives paying only occasional attention to the sideshow that is current American government. Some of us aren’t so lucky–by virtue of our jobs, we have to follow the various shenanigans and embarrassments that sometimes seem to dominate our efforts at self-government. If you fall into this latter category, as I do, it’s hard not to despair of the human condition–hard not to entertain the possibility that our technological talent will not be sufficient to overcome our fear of change and stubborn resistance to unwelcome facts.

These aren’t new themes for this blog, as regular readers know. What brought them to mind again was a brief item from Talking Points Memo identifying what have emerged as the top three priorities of Obama’s second term: guns, immigration, and climate change.

What caught my eye was this observation about climate change.  “The question is what Obama can do on the issue given that the House’s top ranking Science Committee members are still not sold on evolution, let alone climate change. This isn’t a new problem: Obama couldn’t even get a cap and trade bill to his desk when Democrats had big majorities in both chambers of Congress. Instead he focused on regulations that could bypass Congress — for example, improved fuel efficiency standards for cars and trucks.”

Think about that. These are people we have elected to Congress, to the most powerful legislative body we have–people who have been assigned to the freaking science committee–who do not believe in evolution. People who dismiss the reality of climate change in the face of overwhelming and mounting evidence. People who are unable to distinguish between science and religion, or to define the scientific method.

It’s one thing to look at a problem and disagree about the best way to solve it. It’s quite another to insist that the problem is imaginary and thus no solution is necessary.

Unfortunately, it isn’t only the reality-impaired who will bear the consequences of perverse and intentional ignorance. We all will.

There are times when I really don’t think the human animal is equipped to survive over the long term.

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A Lesson from David Frum

Since he left the Bush Administration, David Frum has consistently offered good sense to a political party increasingly disinclined to listen. Yesterday, I happened upon a column he wrote in the run-up to Tuesday’s election that should be heeded by every American–Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, Green…whatever. All of us who have navigated the partisan mine-field in order to cast a vote should embrace his message.

When the polls close in most other democracies, the results are known almost instantly. Ballots are usually counted accurately and rapidly, and nobody disputes the result. Complaints of voter fraud are rare; complaints of voter suppression are rarer still.

The kind of battle we are seeing in Florida — where Democrats and Republicans will go to court over whether early voting should span 14 days or eight — simply does not happen in Germany, Canada, Britain or France. The ballot uncertainty that convulsed the nation after Florida’s vote in 2000 could not happen in Mexico or Brazil.

Frum explains that in most other democratic countries, elections are run by independent, nonpartisan agencies. As a consequence,

Politicians of one party do not set voting schedules to favor their side and harm the other. Politicians do not move around voting places to gain advantages for themselves or to disadvantage their opponents. In fact, in almost no other country do politicians have any say in the administration of elections at all.

In those countries, ballots and voting machines are standardized nationally. Everyone votes the same way, meaning–among other things–that you don’t need to figure out a new system when you move to another state or even to an adjoining county.

The United States is an exceptional nation, but it is not always exceptional for good. The American voting system too is an exception: It is the most error-prone, the most susceptible to fraud, the most vulnerable to unfairness and one of the least technologically sophisticated on earth. After the 2000 fiasco, Americans resolved to do better. Isn’t it past time to make good on that resolution?

I couldn’t agree more.

Frum doesn’t mention it, but such an independent, nonpartisan agency should also be vested with redistricting, under strict rules about respecting geographic and community boundaries and drawing compact districts with equivalent numbers of voters.

There’s a substantial body of evidence to the effect that people are more willing to abide by the results of an election–or any contest–if they believe the fight was fair. Conspiracy theories take root when systems are or appear to be rigged. We know that partisans will engage in “dirty tricks” when operating in systems that offer the opportunity; when the playing field is not seen as level, even rational citizens become paranoid about campaigns and cynical about government.

In sports, we don’t allow the players to be their own referees and umpires; the integrity of the game requires impartial supervision.

Aren’t elections at least as important?

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Turnout and Citizenship

We had an interesting exchange in my Media and Policy class this past Thursday night. I team-teach that class with John Mutz, who–among his numerous other distinctions–served as Indiana’s Lt. Governor. Former Indiana Supreme Court Justice Ted Boehm and Common Cause policy director Julia Vaughn were guest speakers. So the discussion (about the impact of money in politics) was informed–and informative.

Julia noted that Indiana ranked next to last among the states in voter turnout, according to the recent Civic Health Index, and John challenged her statement that we should be embarrassed by that low level of participation, saying it didn’t bother him.

Should it bother us? This is one of those questions where the correct response is “it depends.”

If the folks who are blowing off the political process are low-information, low-interest voters, then I agree with John that it isn’t a problem. Why should the votes of the uninformed dilute the votes of those of us who take the process seriously? If you don’t know who you support and why, then you should stay home and let more thoughtful people participate.

On the other hand, if  low turnout is due to one or more of the following reasons, we have a different problem and we need to do something about it.

We should be embarrassed if

We’ve made voting too difficult. If we’ve restricted the number of polling places, and/or limited the hours those polls are open so that voting is inconvenient for people with jobs and family obligations and actual lives, shame on us. Ditto if we’re requiring all sorts of documentation that older, poorer folks are unlikely to have.

We’ve made politics too nasty. If all voters hear are 30-second attacks on the integrity, brains and general humanity of those running for office, research suggests those voters tend to turn it all off and stay home on election day. (Some candidates will actually engage in nasty campaigning in order to evoke the “pox on both your houses” response and thus suppress turnout, if they think a larger turnout would benefit their opponent.)

We’ve made the ballot too daunting and complicated. Remind me again why we are voting for coroner, treasurer, recorder and dog-catcher? Who beside the candidates really cares who serves on township advisory boards?

We’ve failed to “connect the dots” between government policies and the reality of our daily lives, allowing voters to believe that candidates are all fungible. (Hurricane Sandy is just one example of why policies matter: if disaster relief had been turned back to state and local governments, does anyone really believe the result would have been the same for those who desperately needed help? Instead of throwing mud at each other, candidates need to make the case that their preferred policies matter, and how.)

We’ve constructed a system in which many votes really don’t matter. This is the most depressing reason of all, because it’s true. Yes, my vote for state and local offices still matters, more or less, but increasingly–thanks to gerrymandering and winner-take-all allocation of Electoral College votes–my votes for President and many other offices really don’t. (In this year’s Presidential election, those Hoosiers who vote for Obama might just as well flush those votes down the nearest toilet; Romney will win the state and take all of Indiana’s electoral college votes–even if the win is only by a point or two. A couple of states allocate their electoral votes to reflect the breakdown of the state’s popular vote–the constitution permits that–but Indiana and most others don’t.)

So–should we be embarrassed by our low turnout? Yes. If we institute changes that make voting more convenient, the ballot less daunting, the process less negative and/or fruitless and turnout is still low, then we can shrug it off and accuse the nonvoters among us of of poor citizenship. But not before.

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We Are City

We are City is an effort focused on our urban fabric; they send out a daily newsletter with informative items and thought-provoking short essays.  Today’s “Think” piece comes from Brad Beaubien, an urban planner, and it is well worth sharing and contemplating.

The agora was a public space filled with government buildings, religious temples, and public markets. It’s where the great philosophers of western civilization developed their arguments. It’s where the priests, military commanders, and legislators ruled. But it’s also the place where you did your daily shopping. While I don’t want to overlook or diminish the fact that in Greek society women and slaves were prohibited from public life, the concept of the Agora is vitally important. It’s a place where citizens of all means had a part and a place. They all mingled. And that was a critical physical manifestation of democracy.

You see, people only know what they know. And they only know what they experience. The value of the agora was that the rich and the poor, the aristocrat and the laborer, and the philosopher and the priest, all co-mingled in one physical place. While they certainly did not agree with one another, that experience and exposure helped provide the grease that makes a democracy work—compromise.

Fast forward to today. We get into our cars, leave our garages, drive with our windows rolled up and music playing out of our subdivision where everyone looks just like us, down highways and streets designed to minimize disruption of our travel, into the parking lot reserved for our coworkers, and into our cubicles, where we promptly put in our earphones and get to work. The design of the modern city and its transport systems has virtually eliminated the necessity to experience anyone other than those just like you. The main street shopping districts where the beggar and the banker co-existed have been replaced with sanitized malls we visit if permitted. The streetcar the businessman and the immigrant youth both waited for has been replaced with a city built solely for the private car. Our grand public parks crumble while private HOA’s tax themselves to maintain members-only trails and swimming pools. Even our old stadiums, where some seats were better than others but all got wet when it rained and everyone ate the same hot dog, now have luxury box suites with climate control and a catered feast. We don’t have agoras anymore. We don’t experience one another anymore. And as a result, we don’t understand one another anymore. It’s easy to demonize the poor when your only experience with them is driving as fast as you can through their neighborhoods on the way home. It’s easy to demonize the 1% when your only experience with them is glancing up at their feast in the glassed-off skybox.

I’m in the design professions, and I see things through the eyes of a designer. I know there are other lenses. But when I look at the state of our democracy, the state of our legislatures, and the state of our public discourse, I see the consequence of the decline of the American agora. We can’t work together because we don’t understand one another because we don’t experience one another. It’s a vicious cycle.

Fixing our zoning code, our transportation network, and our natural systems are noble and necessary causes for a host of reasons. What I’m most encouraged by is their ability to again create places, neighborhoods, and cities where we again experience one another, again understand one another, and again are able to have a thriving democracy.

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