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Systemic Issues Rip the Living Guts out of Democracy |
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by Emanuel Pastreich
Email: epast (nospam) uiuc.edu (verified)
Phone: 217 359 0523 |
26 Jun 2004
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Paid Political Organizers are the source of the problem |
Emanuel Pastreich
Champaign, Illinois
June 26, 2004
Over and over one hears criticisms of candidates like John Kerry that,
although not necessarily incorrect, fail to mention the true problems of the
Democratic party. Those problems have nothing to do with issues or
personalities. The Democratic party has been crippled by the emergence of a
class of paid political consultants and organizers who are so great in
number that they form a class equivalent to doctors and lawyers. These paid
political organizers instinctively take every action they can to protect
their own territory, often without being aware of how they exclude the
talented volunteer. Because paid organizers do jobs that were once conducted
by volunteers and they instinctively see any attempt to organize an
empowered grassroots movement as a direct threat. In fact there is good
reason to believe that they would rather lose elections than concede power
to local organizers who work for free.
The result is not only an impenetrable wall around Democratic candidates
that makes it impossible for the inspired outsider to approach them, it is
also the predictable mailings (and e-mailings) that ask for money, but offer
no opportunity for involvement. Involvement, if it is demanded by the
citizen, consists of making phone calls begging others for money. It is
rarely, if ever, a substitutive role in the campaign. The results are
crippling, and in the case of John Kerry, who is himself a nice guy, the
negative impression he gives can be traced in part to this class of
political organizers. Equally significant, these paid political
professionals scratch off their lists all people who cannot give money.
Although those professionals may have the most progressive ideas in the
world, they have no interest in organizing people who lack college
educations or who cannot offer anything more than their vote. The strategy
of getting local people to build their own cross-class networks for action
and then to share actual authority is anathema.
This shift is part of a larger social shift in American culture that is
well-documented in Theda Skocpol's book "Diminished Democracy: From
Membership to Management in American Civic Life" (University of Oklahoma
Press, 2003):
"To the extent that nationally influential membership associations still
flourish, they are likely to be professional groups. Where once cross-class
voluntary federations held sway, national public life is now dominated by
professionally managed advocacy groups without chapters or members. And at
the state and local levels "voluntary groups" are, more often than not,
non-profit institutions through which paid employees deliver services and
coordinate occasional volunteer projects.
Another shift seems to have happened as well. No longer are supreme acts
of national citizenship understood as going hand in hand with active
participation in voluntary associations. And no longer do we highlight the
achievements of politically active, cross-class voluntary associations, like
the GAR and the Grange. For some years now, America's most visible and
loquacious politicians, academics, and pundits have proclaimed that
voluntary groups flourish best apart from active national government--and
disconnected from politics. The downplaying of the governmental and
political wellsprings of civic engagement is subtle among academics and
middle-of-the-road commentators, but quite blatant among conservative
pundits. (pp. 7-8).
Associations with Restricted Reach
Because today's advocacy groups are staff-heavy and focused on
lobbying, research, and media projects, they are managed from the top, even
when they claim to speak for ordinary people. Even advocacy groups that use
canvasses or mailings to recruit large numbers of supporters, tend to
gravitate toward upper-middle class constituencies. An excellent case in
point is Common Cause, the quintessential "public interest" advocacy group.
Heavily tilted toward liberal Democrats, Common Cause also attracts moderate
Republicans. Yet privilege rules across the partisan divide. A 1982 survey
showed that an astounding 42.6 percent of Common Cause adherents had
completed graduate or professional degrees; 14.5 percent had some graduate
or professional education short of degrees; and another 18.7 percept had
basic college degrees. In the same survey, the median Common Cause member
had a family income 85 percent above the national median at that time.
Common Cause has managed to do quite well, thank you, with several hundred
thousand of such relatively privileged and sophisticated supporters. The
organization really has little need to dig deeper for many times more
"members."
(pp. 244-45)
We see a painful cycle in politics, not only in the Kerry campaign, but also
in the Kucinich campaign. The only way to reach people, organizers think, is
through mailings and TV advertisements. Those require funding. Funding can
only be found in the upper middle-class, or foundations, or interest groups
with narrow agendas. So the campaign focuses on keeping those priceless
sources for funding happy. If you approached most campaigns as someone who
wants to get his friends involved, but he and his friends cannot offer any
money, there is no place for you. Of course you could volunteer calling
people to ask for money, but when it comes to the organization of groups
that will have real impact on the campaign and its message and strategy,
there is no room at the table. |
