When visitors to my salt marsh house look out during an astronomical high tide, they often can't stop themselves from asking if the house will flood. I usually reply, I have faith. Really though, I rely less on belief and more on a French drain and my sturdy basement.
Every structure relies on a solid foundation to keep it stable. Politics has a basement too. And the United States’ political system desperately needs foundational repair.
Our democracy is supported by a vigorous civil society. But new policies and candidates, and all that's damaged in our system, can't be fixed if the mechanism for change is itself not working. I see four areas in the foundation of our political system that deserve and need attention:
The first area is voting - the core method for a large number of people to make decisions together. Voter suppression abounds in our country. Suppression is accomplished using techniques to deter certain groups or categories of people from voting. An example is a modern poll tax disguised as voter ID laws, which are based on false or wildly exaggerated claims of fraud. Other voter suppression techniques include manipulating voter rolls, banning classes of people from voting (usually felons), and a whole list of dirty tricks such as publicizing incorrect information about voting times and places, even physical harassment and intimidation.
Aside from voter suppression, some groups of people have lower overall rates of voting participation, for example younger unmarried women and youth in general. Our democracy will work less well if we’re governed by a subset of people who are not representative by gender, social class, race, age and disability status.
Quite a few organizations specialize in increasing voter participation among specific groups of citizens and need our support. A much smaller number of agencies work on voter suppression, but so do many state attorneys general and especially secretaries of state.
Money in politics is the second area of great concern. Maine is one of about half a dozen states that provide a way for citizens to pay for politics - and not incidentally, to lessen the influence of non-humans on our civic life.
Non-humans?
I'm referring to the slow-rolling coup d’état by corporations. Because political campaigns have become extraordinarily costly, companies pay for elections of beholden representatives, and they either promote or squelch ballot initiatives.
The big companies manage to trump our civic participation by claims that they are really people and therefore enjoy civil rights, and that as people they can pay for political campaigns. The corporations change their tune, however, when other matters like liability and tax rates are concerned.
It seems incredible that people with brains and hearts are not in charge of our country, but are politically dominated by fabricated non-living entities - demonstrably without brains and regrettably, often without hearts.
In the last 40 years companies have purchased a controlling interest in the means of governance in the United States. While other countries have many difficulties in their political systems, I don't know of another country on earth with this degree of corporate-based political corruption.
The “Citizens United” decision of the US Supreme Court two years ago, unleashing unlimited corporate money into the last barbicans of our election system, is opposed by 75% of Americans - Democrats, Republicans and Independents. Specifically, 75% polled were in favor of an amendment to the Constitution barring the Super PACs that resulted from the Citizens United debacle.
It seems paramount that we remove the wildly disproportionate influence of corporate funds in our political system. An increasing number of organizations are working to pass laws or even a Constitutional amendment declaring that corporations are not people and do not enjoy the same civil rights as human beings.
The third area of our country’s civic basement is civil rights. Specifically, I'm hoping we'll support the organizations and movements - of whatever politics you prefer - that work to ensure equal protection under law and a classless judicial system. Our civil system still incorporates systematic discrimination, legalized hatred, and deeply corrupt policing and courts. If the legal structure of our democracy is a stacked deck, then even our efforts to reform voting will fail.
Civil rights work has been going on for a long time, but there's no less a powerful continuing need for attention to the skewed and manipulated rule of law.
Fourth - we have no hope of fixing any of this if we can't find out what's going on. The explosive growth of social networks and narrowcasting has masked the shattering of national institutions of objective investigation and reporting. Big companies that own the politicians also own the blow-dried news anchors and the fiber optic cables and modems and servers. It's great that people can use their cellphones to figure out when to get together for a protest. But effective protection of our democracy will come from genuine debate, widespread sharing of ideas, accurate information, and timely intelligence.
So fourth, we need investigative reporters. We need people and organizations that aren't bought out to help us decide what needs investigating, how to safely research what the rascals are up to, and how to create independent conduits that accurately disseminate what is learned. Because the means of communicating is developing and changing rapidly, and because of the long-predicted concentration of communication ownership, we’re faced with formidable challenges in maintaining and fostering the free flow of information necessary to support our public lives.
To recap, I think we can go a long way to shoring up our civil system if we support:
• Voting protection
• Corporate de-personalization
• Protection of civil rights
• Investigative reporting
If you're a crypto-anarchist or a registered Republican, your manifestation of these efforts will vary – diversity is auspicious in a real democracy. People can work towards these four ends via methods ranging from poetry to shooting clubs – there is lots of room to find which of these areas fits with your political views and personal interests. But if we disengage entirely from this foundational work, our other efforts to improve the world won’t stand a chance.
I feel unnerved that our country has sunk to such political degeneracy. But it's not too late and frankly, even if it is, there's no reason not to try. We have the need and the means to redeem our democracy. This election year is a perfect time to get started.
