NEEDED: GRASSROOTS ORGANIZING TODAY
by Jay R. Mandle
In an important article in The Nation, Harvard Professor Lawrence Lessig provides a masterful diagnosis of what is wrong with America’s politics. The Congress, he writes, “has developed a pathological dependence on campaign cash.” As a result, the American government is dysfunctional: “This democracy no longer works. Its central player has been captured. Corrupted. Controlled by an economy of influence disconnected from the democracy.”
According to Lessig, unless integrity is restored to government, American democracy “will spin further out of control.” Achieving integrity where it is really needed requires major reforms in how election campaigns are funded. Lessig argues for ”citizen funded,” small-dollar publicly matching financing like that in states like Connecticut and Maine, cities like New York, Denver, and Portland, and counties like Montgomery and Prince Georges in Maryland. Only when elected officials are free from their thralldom to wealthy special interests can the public be weaned from its cynicism about government and politics – cynicism that cripples democracy.
The “Freedom to Vote Act” now before Congress includes campaign finance reform similar to what Lessig calls for – a matching system where qualified candidates would obtain public financing that matches small contributions they raise for their campaign. The Act also includes other important pro-democracy reforms, including many that significantly expand and protect voting rights, secure the integrity of elections by limiting partisan interference, and prohibit partisan gerrymandering.
But Lessig leaves unanswered the question of how to secure these and other critical reforms. He fails to develop a strategy strong enough to overcome our political maladies.
The simple fact of the matter is that progressives have not done sufficient grassroots organizing to ensure the legislation they want. They have not made members of Congress feel the continual intense local pressure needed to fix our broken democracy. Instead, the effective pressure felt in Washington emanates from a successful alliance of wealthy corporate-based, big donors, lobbyists and conservative activists. Sadly, a progressive political constituency large enough to push back against this alliance has yet to be mobilized.
It’s not at all that the political Right outnumbers the Left. It doesn’t. But the Right has worked hard to successfully evelop its grassroots base – including nurturing young activists – who can be relied upon to lobby, demonstrate, and generally keep the heat on politicians. With big money backing them, they are able to exert great leverage on office-seekers who need their support. The truth is that at the moment progressives do not match the Right in grassroots activism.
Responsibility for this debilitating state of affairs lies in many places. Building a grassroots movement is a long-term project, but with progressive foundations looking for more immediate outcomes they rarely fund such work. Typically neither do progressive individuals with deep pockets. The seduction of working within the Washington beltway convinces many progressives that they are doing what needs to be done by responding to on-line requests from the numerous professional advocacy organizations located in DC.
Unfoetunately, grassroots organizing for progressive change has, if anything, declined in recent years. It has been replaced by less effective e-mail mobilizations and other on-line short-cuts that are no substitute for face-to-face activism. The Harvard sociologist Theda Skocpol has warned that with the decline of civic activism, “America is becoming a country of managers and manipulated spectators” rather than of on-the-ground activists.” Since most of us lack the clout that derives from big political donations, it is only by building an effective grassroots movement that we can be effective.
Passing the transformational “Freedom To Vote Act“ that can begin to repair the shortfalls of our democracy will require much more than DC-based organizations or the good wishes of progressives. It will take a broad coalition of all of us organizing in towns, cities and states and using every tactic available – marches, demonstrations, door-to-door canvassing, letter writing, the internet, and more. Working together as activists, we can build the momentum to convince politicians to save our democracy.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jay Mandle is the Emerita W. Bradford Wiley Professor of Economics, Emeritus,at Colgate University. His many books include Change Elections to Change America: Democracy Matters Students In Action, and Creating Political Equality: Elections As a Public Good,. Mandle’s regular monthly editorials, Money On My Mind, appear on the Democracy Matters website where they explore the role of private money in politics and other critical social issues.
The views expressed in Money On My Mind are those of the author, (not necessarily those of Democracy Matters, and are meant to stimulate discussion