THIS is what democracy looks like??
Apparently so, for now, but not forever.
We’re in the midst of an exercise in endurance. Between large scale protests, legal rebukes, and congresscritters finding their spines, things are beginning to pick up. It’s the size, the scale, and the endlessness of what we’re doing that makes this a winnable fight.
Who here is surprised that the Trump regime is labeling migrants terrorists, criminals, or escapees from mental institutions? Anyone surprised the regime labels protesters “insurgents?” Get a look at one example of who they’re trying to make their followers hate and fear:
This dangerous, seditious insurgent is a 64-year old social worker named Emily Feiner who was forcibly removed from a townhall meeting with Rep. Mike Lawler (R - NY). There were several others, according to reports, that also were given a lift out of the town hall. What Ms. Feiner did to earn herself this little airlift was to ask Rep. Lawler when he was going to stand up to Donald Trump. It happened just the other day, right here in the land of the free and the home of the brave.
I can remember a time when even Republicans would have found this scenario unthinkable. Nowadays nothing is unthinkable, a fact that is starting dawn on elected officials and ordinary people alike.
I no longer see what we’re living through as unthinkable. I see it as inevitable.
The Biden administration tried very hard to simply put things back the way they were before Trump’s first term. They passed a number of legislative acts to change the model of the economy and replace programs and services that were lost. They worked frantically for four years and their efforts were working, right up to the moment they were jettisoned by the re-election of Donald Trump.
Awakening to the implications of political reality reminds me of a comedy routine that was hilarious because it was so apropos:
A horse cut loose in a hospital is no more improbable than Donald Trump being back in the White House. Is this what it takes to wake us all up and mobilize us to reform our democracy?
No going back
You already know my own theory of the case. In a nutshell, the inequity and inequality baked into our constitution assures that, eventually, our system would break down. I think we’ve ridden this constitution about as far as it can go without updates and resets. The updates I envision more closely resemble a new form of reconstruction than anything our duopoly of political parties have to offer.
Every day, I wander the corridors of the internet looking for a clue about how to start that ball rolling. The problem today is that people don’t trust the federal government, their elected officials, or the press as we once did. And, frankly, the distrust is well earned. In the beginning, I blamed all that on Trump and the Republicans, but I think it might be more complicated. Trump is the symptom, not the cause. In the Netflix documentary “Turning Point,” there is a pretty straight line from the Viet Nam war to Trump. The program reviews the events of that long war through this lens. It doesn’t mince words about the distinctly bipartisan lying done by officials beginning with the Kennedy administration. The Viet Nam war taught us that we can’t put blind faith in any governmental system or elected official.
This newsletter asks the question: what will it take to regain that trust?
The answer is not simply to elect leaders with a moral compass. We tried that with Barack Obama. To the degree that he made mistakes, it was due to his fierce intention to make changes our politics and government needed in order to work for everyone (for once). If any one person could accomplish this, Obama would have done it over a decade ago.
One plausible evolving new paradigm
In my never-ending quest to find answers, I enrolled in a Stanford course where I could hear what people way smarter than myself have to say. In the polarization module, Dr. Larry Diamond presented his research findings and suggested reforms in order for a more deliberative form of democracy to take hold, with citizen groups for deliberative dialogue on the issues at hand.
At this moment in time, our fractured country would not tolerate such an exercise, so the first steps toward a solution involve some key reforms. Dr. Diamond proposes reforms that:
Strengthen the impartiality and capacity of our electoral administration,
Increase voter participation,
Stop voter suppression. Restore the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
Adopt same-day or automatic registration.
Make voting easier via a national election holiday, easier ways to vote, etc.
Change the current incentive structure, e.g.,
Adopt ranked choice voting nationwide.
Make negative campaigning more difficult.
Reform campaign finance, e.g. the Citizens United decision.
Reform the Supreme Court.
Create terms of 18 years instead of lifetime appointments.
Stagger terms so that every president would nominate a new justice.
Revive civic education and commitment.
Defend democratic norms.
Defend the rule of law and the political independence of courts and prosecutors.
Separate two forms of opposition: 1) to policies, and, 2) to violations of the spirit of the rules of democracy. Teach people to recognize the difference.
Reform congress and end filibuster (or make it a talking filibuster).
Strengthen ethics laws and enforcement.
Make representation proportional to the population.
All of those actions merely set the stage for us to reinvent ourselves as a nation that is more thoughtful and temperate than we are now. Imagine a country in which it is standard procedure to hold deliberative dialogues before voters go to the polls. Imagine us all in randomly selected groups of diverse perspectives and talking for the purpose of deepening our understanding, rather than getting everyone to agree.
America needs a life hack
Whatever reforms we adopt need to serve as a workaround to human nature. It will probably involve more regulations, many of which existed once but were abolished. Deregulation, a central policy of both Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, profoundly reshaped the American economy and political landscape. While these presidents came from opposing parties, their deregulatory agendas contributed to rising economic inequality and the weakening of traditional political coalitions, both of which have fueled the political polarization seen today.
It is noteworthy that our current polarization is based less on policy differences than on emotion. MAGA’s demonization of targeted groups is rooted deeply in our DNA. In evolutionary terms, our ability to recognize and neutralize “the other” was central to our survivability.
Some of us may be evolving out of that faster than others. For people who live in rural areas, the instinct to demonize “the other” has some utility in that security and stability in rural America relies on question the intentions of outsiders and keeping traditions intact. For people in urban areas, it’s nearly the opposite. For these folks, living in a world that is larger, faster, and more multicultural, it is adaptiveness and flexibility that keep us secure and stable.
As I look at our map, I can see no way to divide this country in two — even though it very much feels like two separate countries right now. After all these years, what Benjamin Franklin said still holds: "We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately."
The future of America depends on us developing capacity to get along with people we don’t agree with, tolerance for differences, and empathy for the experience of people whose lives and attitudes we cannot imagine.
As far as our ability to manage without restraints, the evidence is in. If left without guardrails, we are bound to succumb to the worst instincts of our ancient nature. Our systems will always be vulnerable to being rigged in favor of whomever has the most money and/or power. Humans simply have not evolved to the point where our survival instincts aren’t triggered by ambiguity, difference, and unfamiliarity.
Paradoxically, the only way to rid ourselves of those tendencies is accept them. We can’t change something if we don’t recognize or understand it and if we don’t deal with it empathically.
A word about deliberative dialogue
I spent many years studying and working in the field of deliberative dialogue. I still look to it in times of massive trouble. Deliberative dialogue is a structured process whose intent is to broaden participants’ understanding, rather than come to agreement. To make this meaningful, careful attention must be paid so that people are heard, can clarify their positions, and understanding, rather than judgement, is elicited from participants. There’s nothing easy about it, but it can be transformative.
If we stick with democracy, we have to make it work as it should. It will always be messy and there will always be an element of risk. Over time, I hope people would appreciate the deliberation process at least as much as they appreciate the voting process. At some point, more peoples’ votes will be driven by a deeper understanding than our representatives’ need to control others or enrich themselves as political leaders.
Lusting for money and power is rooted in our nature. People succumb, not because they’re evil or stupid, but because they’re human. When our social compact is chipped away, sliver by sliver, we’re often surprised by the degree of depravity to which our leaders can sink. When we create conditions that help us co-exist, a couple of things can happen. For one thing, we buy ourselves time to evolve a little further. For another, we can make democracy work no matter what our demographics look like. As long as we know how to do that, our stability and security is assured.
Song of the Day
“Holy Hell” — Mountaintop Junkshop
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Keep on keepin’ on,
Cindy