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Whats the Biggest Threat to American Democracy?
Democracys essence is dignityknowing that we count and have a real voice, in the voting booth, yes, but also in other dimensions of life, including the economic
by Frances Moore Lappé
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"Democracy cant be sliced up into parts because human beings cannot bethat is, we cannot trust that we have a real voice at the polls while feeling voiceless in our economic lives." Photo by Sam Morris/Getty Images)
We sure hear a lot today about external threats to our democracy, whether its Russias election meddling or North Koreas nuclear expansion. But a home-bred threat might run deeper still.
(This is both appalling and frightening--the ignorance displayed)
Consider this. More than a third of Americans polled by the finance company LendEdu say theyd forfeit the right to vote in exchange for a 10 percent raise. Whoa
I had long assumed that such a sad choice would be tempting only in the poorest societies.
Learning that so many Americans would trade their voice for bucks could help wake us up to one simple truth: Political democracy, i.e. elected government answering to the people, is always vulnerable when citizens feel economically powerless. Put another way, political democracy without citizens economic empowerment cant endure.
By economic empowerment I mean two things.
First, when casting a vote, we feel confident we can choose representatives who will pursue public policies protecting us, and that includes guarding us from exploitative wages as well as shady corporate practices, including those costing millions of us our jobs and savings in the 2008 Wall Street debacle.
Second, economic empowerment is what some of us experience first-hand in workplaces protected by a union, for example, or in the thousands of US cooperatives, such as Ace Hardware, or in the 2,500 firms American incorporated as B corporations whose charters commit a firm to considering workers well-being, among other social goods.
Yet on Election Day 2016 many voterslikely feeling neither form of economic empowermentsettled for a strongman who promised protection but, as we have now seen, lacked commitment to the rules and norms of democracy required to secure our interests.
If indeed many voted out of a sense of desperation, its easy to understand.
Workers wages have barely budged in almost half a century and poverty is so deep that half our newborns depend on public aid to eat. Meanwhile, CEO pay has soared sixteen-fold. So, while theres vast evidence that our money-driven politics along with voter manipulation help to explain the 2016 election, our rigged economy, denying most Americans a voice in their economic well-being, also helped give Trump an edge.
Bottom line: Political democracy is forever in danger absent an understanding of what democracy requires well beyond politics.
Democracy is a culture that lives or dies on whether its creating three conditions throughout our public lives that have proven to bring forth the best in our species and to keep the worst in check.
Democracy is a culture that lives or dies on whether its creating three conditions throughout our public lives that have proven to bring forth the best in our species and to keep the worst in check: One, the wide dispersion of power; two, transparency in public affairs; and, three, a culture of mutual accountability in contrast to the blame-the-other culture fomented today.
Yet America is rushing headlong in the opposite direction. Consider democracys first condition, widely distributed power. Its increasingly absent in both political and economic arenas. One-half of 1 percent of the population contributed about two-thirds of the $6.4 billion cost of the 2016 election. And now, just three Americans control more wealth than the bottom 50 percent of us do.
And, how did we arrive at such obvious affronts to democracy?
Long taught by market-fundamentalists of the Right that seeking the public good is risky because all we can count on is our selfish nature, many believe our only choice is to hand over our fate to a free market driven by self-interest. It, were told, will sort winners and losersfairly.
It tells that if we dont make it, its our fault; bringing on a culture of blame and shame: All thats needed to set us up to embrace a president telling us whom to blame.
But wait
in our extreme version of a market, one rule drives all: Do what brings highest return to existing wealth. So, wealth accrues to wealth accrues to wealth. Yet the myth of a free market hangs on. It tells that if we dont make it, its our fault; bringing on a culture of blame and shame: All thats needed to set us up to embrace a president telling us whom to blame.
So, whats the big lesson?
Democracys essence is dignityknowing that we count and have a real voice, in the voting booth, yes, but also in other dimensions of life, including the economic. Thus, the denial of dignity is arguably greatest threat to democracy.
And the good news?
A grassroots democracy movement focused on creating fair political rules is now becoming a movement of movements, uniting economic, political, racial justice, and environmental dimensions of our lives.
Take Democracy Initiative for example. In just five years, its already brought together nearly 70 organizations representing roughly 40 million Americans, from the AFL-CIO to NAACP to Sierra Club. Their diverse core passions, and those of so many more, are uniting to fight for democracy, as it touches all parts of our lives.
Or jump to a state
gutsy North Carolina. Building on earlier organizing, the Moral Mondays movement developed what it calls fusion politics, uniting 200 organizations representing two million citizens around a 14-point agendaincluding both voting rights and economic empowerment through, for example, livable wages. Now the approach is taking hold in a dozen other states and has gone national as the Poor Peoples Campaign.
And in cities, too, this weaving together of our lives is underway. Across the Bay from San Francisco, citizens of Richmond, CA, 80 percent of whom are people of color, had lived for more than century under the heel of Chevron Oil, notorious for denying citizens a real voice by stacking the city council.
Democracy cant be sliced up into parts because human beings cannot bethat is, we cannot trust that we have a real voice at the polls while feeling voiceless in our economic lives.
That is, until the Richmond Progressive Alliance drew together United Steel Workers with immigrant rights and environmental justice activists into a local movement of movements. By 2004 the Alliance was strong enough to win council seats. Ten years later, its city council slate with a few hundred thousand dollars defeated the three-million-dollar, Chevron-backed candidates.
With unity among diverse citizen interests, the Council has been able to lift Richmonds minimum wage to among the nations highest and to enact public financing for its seats.
Weaving together democratic political and economic advances, these three stories offer real hope that its possible to address the desperation showing up at the polls in 2016.
Thus, the lesson at the heart of our current crisis?
Democracy cant be sliced up into parts because human beings cannot bethat is, we cannot trust that we have a real voice at the polls while feeling voiceless in our economic lives. Dignity is dignity. From this commonsense premise, we can unite to address the biggest internal threat to democracy.
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https://www.commondreams.org/views/2018/07/12/whats-biggest-threat-american-democracy
duforsure
(11,885 posts)Trump and the Republican party.
niyad
(113,257 posts)ecstatic
(32,681 posts)That's a great point, but I think ignorance is an even greater threat. Too many Americans are gullible and don't know or understand history and civics. When you combine that with the denial of dignity, it's a perfect storm.
I'm certain that if we don't stop the repubs in November, the USA as we know it is finished. Amazing (nearly) bloodless victory for Putin.
CrispyQ
(36,457 posts)The biggest threat to our democracy is money in our electoral process. We need publicly funded elections now. This is not a representative government: