Making Democracy Great “Again”

Just as a fire requires oxygen, heat and fuel -a thriving democracy requires a well-educated populace, trusted information and citizen engagement.

A Well-educated Populace

Since the Reagan era in which the Bonzo co-star attempted to eliminate the Department of Education and continually attempted (and sometimes succeeded) in cutting the education budget -America’s education system has continued to erode.

Reagan’s first secretary of education, Terrel H Bell, appointed the National Commission on Excellence in Education. In 1983 the Commission produced a report titled “A Nation at Risk”, and warned that schools were “being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a nation and a people.” Bell quit in 1984, angered by the Reagan administration’s further attempts to cut federal spending on education. Today our schools are overcrowded and U.S. global standing continues to decline in critical areas of mathematics and science (https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2016-12-06/math-a-concern-for-us-teens-science-reading-flat-on-test).

While we talk about the integrity of the voting system -does it make a substantial difference if the masses cannot understand information? Concepts such as recognizing “trickle-down”, “Reaganomics” or “Trumpnomics” for what it actually is -as a fraud perpetrated by the obscenely wealthy upon the working class and impoverished, not a credible concept predicated upon real economics.

Trusted Information

A population that is educated has a greater likelihood of being able to readily discern propaganda and lies masquerading as news and information. So the erosion of the education system dramatically lowers our societal ability to categorize and dismiss information as garbage. (There is another important psychological principle at work -in which even the educated will assign greater value to news that supports their belief system -confirmation bias -https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/02/27/why-facts-dont-change-our-minds).

Therefore education and information have an important relationship with each other and are vital to a real democracy.

The distribution of propaganda played an important role in the 2016 election cycle. Understanding that people look for information that supports their perspective, diminished capability to discern fact from lies and a toxic, polarized political climate provided a near-perfect environment for billionaire financier Robert Mercer to leverage Cambridge Analytica, Facebook and Twitter to readily spread propaganda that caused many Americans to either vote against their self-interest or simply not vote.

(https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/nov/02/billionaire-trump-donor-robert-mercer-breitbart). While this was certainly not the only factor in the 2016 election -it played a crucial role -and future elections will continue to be monumental struggles between an alliance of oligarchs and fundamentalists versus the working class, impoverished and those of us who believe in democracy.

Citizen Engagement

Prior to the Reagan era -worker productivity and worker wages were largely moving in alignment. Executive wages and worker wages were increasing, the middle class (America’s real economic engine) was solid and growing and the women’s, civil rights, labor and peace movements were growing in political power and beginning to address many long-standing inequities in the American system. During and post-Reagan while worker productivity continued to increase -Reagan era economic policies (lower taxes for the wealthy, union-busting and moves toward privatization) were intended to shift wealth, power and control back to the obscenely wealthy and has been vastly successful in so doing.

Generations later many American workers earn poverty-level wages, maintain two or more jobs and have far less time to engage as parents, community leaders and activists. Many don’t even have time to reflect upon how we arrived in 2017 -worse off than prior generations, saddled with college debt, increasing rents, eroding schools and crumbling infrastructure. The transfer of wealth from the middle class to the wealthy via tax policy and in conjunction with the continuing attacks on social safety net programs, healthcare costs spiraling out of control and privatization creates a downward spiral for most Americans -as well as future generations. This exacerbates wealth inequality. In a post-”Citizens United” America where money has been elevated to speech by the U. S. Supreme Court the growing wealth inequality becomes completely antithetical to the principles of democracy.

The general lack of citizen engagement in 2016 (amplified through the erosion of education and the rise of propaganda) provided exactly the right environment for the birth of the Trump Presidency (despite the fact he gathered nearly 3 million less votes than Hillary Clinton).

How Democracy Wins

The education system has already been subjected to attacks by the unqualified Betsy DeVos. Such assaults will continue until we are able to elect an Administration (and Congress) that understands that we must make a substantial investment in education if we harbor any meaningful aspirations of a democracy. How many Albert Einsteins, Dr. Martin Luther Kings, Dr. Jonas Salk’s wind up in prison, in drug programs, in our streets or worse because our education system failed them -and higher education was unaffordable? Beyond democracy -if America is to successfully compete in a volatile, dynamic world with unprecedented challenges -our societal investment into education must provide a world-class, safe environment for future generations to thrive.

Trusted Information is vital -ratings and research services like Snopes, Politifact, Sunlight Foundation and The Trust Project (thank you Craig Newmark!) can help us understand the “chain of custody” of information, news and opinion -so we can make political and societal decisions that are predicated upon facts and trusted perspectives and models. I look forward to a future when any news story is accompanied with fundamental, well-researched non-partisan information about the source(s) and an ubiquitous rating system -that serves as an indicator -however not as an excuse to avoid doing your own research.

Citizen engagement is a pillar of a democratic society. Citizenship is more than expressing your pride in being born at a certain latitude and longitude (something you really had very little control over).

Being an engaged citizen means being involved with family, community and the political and economic world around us. It means voting in every election and even the mid-terms!

Citizenship also means donating time and money to campaigns -yet also helping to fund and donate to building the infrastructure for 21st century citizen engagement and participatory democracy. We are continuing to innovate the civ.works platform, while other noteworthy efforts such as PlaceSpeak and the Participatory Budgeting Project also evolve and grow.

We must not only take the time to evaluate candidates, ballot measures and political decisions -we must hold them to account. They should be representing our interests (not just obscenely wealthy benefactors) and we should be making sure the policy and legislation is progressing toward the outcomes we want. It’s also about making economic decisions -when I purchase a product or service -what kind of behavior am I perpetuating? Union-busting? Investment in oil pipelines? Militarization? A company lobbying against my interests and that of my community? Real, meaningful citizenship means that level of engagement.

Are we too busy for such? Have you stopped to think about why? It’s because as we get too busy for civics -we abdicate our responsibility to ourselves, families and communities to the Trump’s, the DeVos/Prince Family, the Koch brothers, the Mercer family and many more. And they envision a future in which we are all working for them obediently. Don’t think about climate change. Don’t think about nuclear weapons. Don’t think about the continuing attacks on education, labor unions, social security and Medicare. Just be good little obedient consumers. Because the last thing American oligarchs want is an educated, informed and engaged populace (that knows where they live and where they ski).

If we were truly based upon democratic principles -we’d all be working shorter hours, enjoying a better quality of life and would have elected leadership representing our interests in domestic and global matters -not just the interest of private wealth.

About the author: George is a political strategist and technologist with a background in socio-economics. He resigned from Oracle (infamously) at the end of 2016 and started civ.works -a non-profit, privacy-protected, ad-free social platform built for civic action.