I recently had the opportunity to attend a screening of
“Patriocracy” at the Laniakea YWCA, a documentary-style film by Brian Malone
that seeks to tackle the problem of incivility and polarization in today’s
American democracy. While the film presented a good discussion of the role of
compromise and cordiality in Washington, I felt that some crucial aspects of
the fundamental character of democracy were overlooked.
First, the film itself is predicated on the notion that something
about American democracy has changed for the worse. There are vague mentions of
how things were “before” (Congressmen lived together and developed camaraderie,
compromise was the norm, etc.) – but before what? Before the Internet? Before globalization? These two phenomena have
been the driving forces behind the past three decades, which seem to be the
years in which the film claims this downward spiral of democracy occurred. It
is unfairly and illogically selective to criticize consequences of modernity
that one finds unattractive, while embracing the huge benefits this modernity
has brought. (For example, Internet access makes it possible for many senators
and representatives to live in their home states, forfeiting some camaraderie,
while also facilitating populist revolutions in the Middle East. It is a
logical fallacy to abhor the Internet for dividing Washington, while lauding it
for serving the people in Egypt.)
Second, in arguing that things in Washington are the worst
they have ever been with regard to political participation and compromise, the
film makes huge generalizations and glosses over really terrible past
inequalities in Congress. (A glaring one is the voting restrictions placed on
blacks in the South that resulted in a 72-year dry spell from 1901 to 1973 of
blacks in Congress representing Southern states.) Is this period a part of the
past spirit of compromise to which this film would have us return?
As a solution to this crisis of democracy, the film
emphasizes the need for an increase in democratic participation. But if we
delve into the real statistics of civilian participation in government, we can
see that there was never truly a time when a wholly engaged and informed
citizenry existed. Michael Schudson wrote a relevant essay,
arguing that while voter turnout may have been higher in the nation’s early
history, that higher turnout was facilitated by physical proximity to
government and, in fact, the illegality of non-participation. This is not an
endorsement for acting in a politically lackadaisical fashion, but rather a
reality check for those who would lament a bygone time of democratic action
that never existed in the first place.
There are many aspects of how democracy functions today that
must change in order to preserve rule by the people: the influence of
corporations on elections is far too high, and money controls much more in
government than it should. People need
to be involved, as the film suggests, but what I tend to see is people already getting involved to promote programs like
publicly-funded elections and a Constitutional Amendment to overturn the Citizens
United decision. There are many ways to
help democracy better reflect the people. What we ought to refrain from doing
is claiming that there is something fundamentally wrong with the people today
that makes us somehow worse than generations past.
We know that much has changed in Washington post-1970, but
we tend to forget that this is the main premise of a democracy. There is no
reason to fear this particular change,
prompted in part by the dawning of the digital age, when we consider that
democracy must change with its constituents. Democracy is fundamentally
unstable, because people are
unstable. While this is frightening, and it is shockingly easy to slip into a
pattern of treating the present as a degenerate of the past, we must learn to
embrace the new character of democracy, accepting it as a malleable human
creation, and doing our best to help it serve the interests of the people.
Disclaimer: I speak as an individual, NOT on behalf of Common Cause Hawaii. All opinions are my own.
No comments:
Post a Comment