The Changing Face of American Politics

Executive Summary and Action Plan

Our system of government remains far more open to dedicated activists than most of them believe. The purpose of this chapter is to explain how our system has fallen into an abyss of polarization, dysfunction and mistrust; how our major institutions are failing, and what can be done about it. In section one I make the case that getting involved in politics is important not just in the short run sense of changing public policy, but in the larger sense of putting our democratic system back together. The most viable pathway to change is through electoral politics, and the most accessible vehicle is the Democratic Party.

Section two — the demise of the Democrats — and Section three — on professionalization — explain how the Party, despite a strong edge in public support, has done badly in recent elections. These are somewhat statistical arguments, trying to make sense of an academic literature that provides important counters to some over-simple explanations too often believed. The Democratic Party's slow decline is rooted partially in demographic patterns beyond control; and in part by deliberate gerrymanders and discriminatory election laws, the Electoral College, and a badly skewed system of campaign finance. Many of the Party's problems, however, are of its own making. Its fundamental economic and social justice orientations have been distorted less by substantive policies than through top-down, elitist, money-driven methods of running for office. Although its campaign professionals have developed increasingly sophisticated methods of targeting and delivering voters, the bloodless, impersonal nature of these techniques has robbed the party of authenticity. Only when it puts face-to-face interactions back into the equation can it overcame the electoral disadvantages built into the system.

The first step in putting people back in politics is to revive, replace or displace the many party organizations that have become empty shells. Activists must understand the importance of capturing the nominating process, the most crucial but least understood of aspect of American electoral politics. In most parts of the country, major party nominations can be won, and party organizations taken over with tiny fractions of the popular vote. Effective activism begins here.

In the concluding sections we return to a more academic analysis of how the current system is out of whack. Particularly important for those working in congressional campaigns — potential candidates in particular — many readers may prefer to skip to chapter two.

The 2018 elections provide the opportunity to begin the process of changing the increasingly dysfunctional Congress where the ideal of responsible parties has been distorted into a system of top down leadership that has frozen out, not just Democrats, but the Republican's own rank-and-file as well. Both parties need legislators with ties to their districts strong enough to counter the centralizing forces of party discipline and big money. The failure of Congress to encourage deliberation, specialization, expertise and oversight of the administration has badly distorted the balance of powers in which our constitutional system is grounded. The open deliberation of important issues is both a hallmark of democracy and the road to the restoration of trust in government. The first steps toward reform are those actively involving citizens in politics.

1. The Importance of Participation

One of the few things on which the supporters of the Tea Party, Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump and countless others readily agree is that the American political system is functioning badly. As party polarization has intensified, our sense of a civic culture and its related values of comity, courtesy and compromise have evaporated into a toxic atmosphere of alienation and mistrust. As with most swings in national mood, recent manifestations of dysfunction and discord are most vividly on display in Congress which — to give it its due– has rather faithfully recorded and amplified much of what is wrong with our politics. There is a viciouscircle here: "deepening public disillusionment ... has been both cause and effect of policy paralysis."

The waves of discontent that have roiled American waters have washed over other shores as well, bringing dark undercurrents of authoritarianism and intolerance. After years of touting the spread of democracy, the respected Journal of Democracy increasingly features gloomy tales of rising authoritarianism. "Even in some of the richest and most politically stable regions of the world," as one recent essay put it, "it seems as if democracy is in a serious state of disrepair." In both the United States and Europe there is a growing tendency for younger people in particular to describe "having a democratic political system" as a "bad" or "very bad" way to "run the country." An infectious, often prejudiced form of nationalistic xenophobia has re-emerged as a significant political force even in countries long thought to have put that sad story behind them. In most of the world's putative democracies, moreover, recent decades have seen a slow but widespread and continuous decline in citizen participation and trust in political institutions.

There is vicious a circle spinning here: the less people participate in their own governance the less they believe they can. Democratic governance is strongly correlated with participatory cultures: educational systems that encourage dialogue as opposed to rote learning, neighborhood associations that actually meet, businesses in which employers and employees work together, and even social organizations where people learn the skills of working together. From Alexis de Tocqueville's 1835 Democracy in America to Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone, the link between a...