And Then What?
Polls and the results of the presidential primaries earlier this year show a generational divide within the Democratic Party. Gen Z and Millennials want to take the country further and faster than the majority are yet willing to go. They want a revolution. Fixing what is broken will require changing the power structure and rewriting the existing social and economic compacts.
In an op ed piece in the New York Times, a junior at Yale and opinion editor of the Yale Daily News, expressed doubt whether democracy is capable of doing what is necessary. “I think my generation’s deep desire for radical change springs from our ability to see, more clearly than anyone else, the broken path ahead. We doubt whether voting can really change the world, whether America’s political and economic systems will act quickly enough to create a society where I don’t have to worry ceaselessly about my parents’ health and start saving for retirement at 18 and wonder if it’s ethical to have children.”
Democracy has often been charged with inability to make decisions necessary to deal with major issues in a timely fashion. It is too cumbersome, too unwieldy, too slow, and too many people have to be brought into agreement.
But if not democracy, then what?
The usual answer has been some form of one-person rule.
For Plato, the best government was run by one person with virtue and knowledge. Edmund Burke, the eighteenth-century English politician and philosopher, echoed that sentiment. The elite (among whom he included himself) should rule because, “We are the expert artists, we are the skillful workmen, to shape their (the people’s) desires into perfect form … They are the sufferers, they tell the symptoms of the complaint … but we know how to apply the remedy.”
The implication of the op ed piece is that we need a process more effective than voting. Democracy doesn’t work. But, then what? Who will rule? How will they be chosen? What guarantees will there be that the “right” decisions are made? The history of relinquishing democracy to achieve some other goal has not been good.
In a democracy, each person’s vote is the unit of power. Millions of dollars are spent every election to influence that vote. Those who put up the millions understand how valuable each vote is. Yet a large minority never use that power.
Even though Gen Z and Millennials may “see, more clearly than anyone else, the broken path ahead,” it is the age group (from 18 to 39) that historically participates least in elections. Whatever the reasons, the connection is not made between voting today and the quality of their lives tomorrow. The large numbers of young voters Bernie Sanders expected would turn out to support his revolution never showed.
The op ed author writes, “We have become young adults who finally have the power to demand a radical alternative to the present course.” That power has not been used. And “demand” is the wrong approach. Power is never given. Power has to be taken. And taking power requires rounding up votes.
The task of the political organizer who wants to win against the odds is to talk with people, give them a vision of what they can accomplish, and show them the connection between voting and the rest of their lives. It is hard work, it takes time, and it requires faith in the intelligence and judgment of the average person. As the revolutionary Frantz Fanon wrote in Wretched of the Earth about the struggle against colonialism, “The masses understand perfectly the most complicated problems. ... Everything can be explained to the people, on the single condition that you really want them to understand.”
Change will be possible when those who see themselves as victims of the political process—and helpless to accomplish anything—begin to realize that they hold the ultimate power: their vote. They are not helpless. They are not victims. They own a vote.
Political organizers the world over who have gone up against the establishment have done so with confidence in the ability of people to change their thinking. Their common tools have been interacting personally, engaging in dialogue, talking genuinely, treating people with respect, and meeting listeners where they are and moving forward from there.
The path to success is relatively simple, but difficult. With 51 percent of the votes you can be the one making policy.
Douglas Kane is the author of "Our Politics: Reflections on Political Life" published in 2019 by Southern Illinois University Press
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