We the People’s Can’t-Do Spirit?

Whatever happened to that much-lauded can-do Americanism, that indomitable spirit which took down Italy, Germany and Japan in less than five years, put a man on the moon in less than ten, and disappeared a $10 trillion (adjusted) post-WWII debt in less than fifteen? It’s been replaced by a miasma of can’t do-ism. Democrats and Republicans alike proclaim that we can’t provide healthcare for all, can’t address climate change, can’t confront big oil or regulate big banks, can’t constrain Wall Street, can’t lead the world in alternative energy, can’t investigate Bush crimes, can’t leave Iraq or Afghanistan, can’t, can’t, can’t…

We the People, who once upon a time could do anything we set our national mind to, can now accomplish nothing, it seems. On television and radio, the voices of chronic failures shout the loudest. A nation of mediocritists, we elect leaders who prove as powerless and accepting of failure as ourselves, or worse, are agents of the very forces we should be confronting.

Adding insult to injury, even we Democrats and liberals, self-imagined model citizens, shush those boat-rockers who insist we can vote our conscience, can win elections by standing on progressive principles, and can take bold action before it’s too late.

Sounds pretty grim, for sure, but doesn’t every era have its crisis of confidence? Can’t we just hunker down and wait, comforted by the knowledge that when conditions are just right, the truth will rise up (in the form of true Democratic leaders), sweep political dysfunction aside and reveal the strong, vibrant America we remember?

Well, waiting for “just right” is what Democrats have been doing for decades, and it’s precisely how we got into this mess. Ralph Nader put his finger on the problem in an interview with journalist  Christopher Hedges:

“You have a tug of war with one side pulling. The corporate interests pull on the Democratic Party the way they pull on the Republican Party. If you are a ‘least-worst’ voter you don’t want to disturb Kerry on the war, so you call off the anti-war demonstrations. You don’t want to disturb Obama, because McCain is worse. And so every four years both parties get worse…

“What is the breaking point? The criminal war of aggression in Iraq? The escalation of  war in Afghanistan? Forty-five thousand people dying a year because they can’t afford health insurance? The hollowing out of communities, sending jobs to fascist and communist regimes overseas…? There is no breaking point. And when there is no breaking point you do not have a moral compass.”

What Happened?’

The truth is that we Democrats have long been urged to compromise our liberal values to ‘win’ (after which, the narrative goes, we’ll be able to effect desperately-needed changes). But we don’t win. Time after time we vote against our principles, focused on attaining or insuring political dominance–only to lose, anyway. Then we’re told the reason we’ve lost is we haven’t sold out enough.

With compromise, we leave another breaking point behind. With every vote for the ‘lesser of two evils’, we become more tolerant of evil. With every concession to the Right, we move further into political impotence. Then we retreat from the civic process altogether, ceding the moral high ground to… no one at all. Whatever, we grump, they’re all crooks anyway.

For most of the 20th century, we Democrats and liberals, not conservatives or the GOP, were the country’s moral compass. We cleaned up the Republican Great Depression, supported unions and created the middle class, won the vote for women and people of color, declared victory in the largest war of the 20th century, balanced budgets and regulated Wall Street, and much more. 

During Watergate, the tip of an iceberg of corruption, we began cleaning up our government, too. Finally, we celebrated, we have the bad guys on the run! But politicians on both sides of the aisle, fearful of exposure and prosecution, exhorted us to “look forward, not backward.” And because it was easier to do so, we did. Richard Nixon was pardoned unconditionally, and dozens of criminal investigations stopped virtually overnight. The totality of GOP crimes against the American people, many committed by the Bush crime family in the decades before Watergate, was swept under the rug.

“Look forward, not backward, for the good of the nation,” we were told. Thirty-plus years later, Nixon-era criminals, and the Bushes themselves, are still in power, committing the same crimes and obstructing liberal progress. And disillusioned Democratic voters are still being urged to “look forward, not backward.”

We The People

When Thomas Jefferson wrote about watering the Tree of Liberty with the blood of tyrants, he wasn’t speaking to toy revolutionaries on the Right or Left, but to you and me, the Americans we see in our bathroom mirrors every day. We the People are the owners and protectors of democracy. But we’ve been trading our birthright for cheap gas and blissful ignorance. Although we might feel guilty for not having done enough of our civic duty, the real problem is that most of us have been doing nothing at all. Democracy, even representative democracy like ours, is supposed to be participatory. As in, politics is a verb.

By spending more time watching reality television than staying politically current, by not holding lawmakers to the same laws that bind ourselves, we’ve created government in our own image–smiley face or human drama up front, corruption and unaccountability behind. Our government is broken, we broke it, and we’ll suffer until we fix it. But where to start? The sheer immensity of our national dysfunction is overwhelming at best, and we’re just regular people trying to survive tough times. How do we regain our moral compass, and plot a course back onto the Constitutional true North?

You’d be forgiven for assuming the answer is more complicated than the question, but it’s not. We begin rebuilding political power right where we are–by looking in the civic realm for something to do. Positive thinking and the voting booth every few years aren’t going to cut it in the rough days ahead; we’d better actually start demonstrating the Democratic principles we proclaim. 

We don’t all have to be Thomas Paine, nor shoulder the entire burden of the Republic. But we can learn a little about issues that affect us and our families. We can attend town meetings, and voice our opinions. We can examine candidates’ legislative records carefully before supporting them, and vote our informed consciences. We can visit local party offices to help out, maybe even volunteer for something regularly. We can call or write our representatives, and hold all them accountable for their representation of us. We can speak our convictions honestly and respectfully to family and friends, and reach out to help neighbors or local groups in distress. We can, we can, we can...

It’s time to stop hoping for better leadership and start modeling it; simple civic actions like these are sometimes as exhilarating and transformative as throwing rocks at a G8 summit. More importantly, getting involved on even the simplest level can generate enough confidence to shatter political paralysis. We act our way into good governance, one action at a time.  Eventually, our small personal progresses unite with the progress of others; then we can move mighty mountains of resistance.

By a large majority, Americans demanded bold change in 2008. We’re still waiting for that, and it’s possible we’ve been duped again. If that’s the case, though, all we’ve really lost is our illusions–and about damned time. The audacity of hope, upon which Obama campaigned, isn’t inherent in the hoping, but in the actions such hope triggers. We can get politically involved. We can change the direction of this country. We can hold politicians accountable, and force fascists to back down. We can fix the economy, break the stranglehold of Wall Street, and provide better healthcare for all Americans. We the People can do anything we want. All power resides in us, to be utilized or frittered away.

Can’t do, or can-do?

Next time: How Did We Get Into This Mess?