A Case for Micro-Revolution

Americans, it seems, are unhappy with their political leaders. They have little confidence, the common story goes, that “Washington insiders” can and will reign in their appetites for money and power. Substantial wins this week for Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders — relative newcomers to the Republican and Democratic parties, respectively — are perhaps evidence of widespread dissatisfaction and distrust.

Trump promises reform of the sort at which corporate culture excels (if perhaps too well): inefficiency, ineptitude, and incompatibility will be, in a Trump presidency, punished, while those with birth-privilege will be rewarded with whatever benefits a well-connected, tough-negotiating, billionaire father-figure may bestow. Where Trump promises a thoroughly capitalist and authoritarian reform, Sanders talks about revolution.

Sanders envisions a United States in which the American people together decide to govern themselves by creating the conditions in which the overwhelming majority of people (whether they have a millionaire father or a hard-working & loving & poor mother; whether they have privileges of skin-color, sex, sexual- & gender-normativity, ability, etc. or the honor of testifying to the depth and breadth of systematic inequalities) have jobs that pay a living wage, in which everyone has healthcare, in which we can all proudly say that we’ve helped to make our earth a habitable place.

Sanders characterizes his movement as a revolution because it promises to overturn the rule of corporate and political greed and to replace it with the rule of human care and concern for one another — both for those who are born with the abilities & luck that portend financial success in a particular time and place, and those who are born with the abilities and luck that make clear how great the extent to which the financially successful are perhaps less capable than lucky.

The Trump and Sanders campaigns capitalize on the parts of government that clearly—at least to a large number of Americans—aren’t working. In the excitement (whether fear or hope) that accompanies their campaigns (and under the specter of the joke that much of American government has become), it is easy to forget that seven or eight times out of ten, the government we have works well enough (at least on a super-small scale).

Many of us (but not yet all!) have the sense that our physical integrity and property are protected. Many of us (but not yet all!) can walk about without fearing that we will be killed; we can buy and store basic provisions in our apartments or condos or houses with minimal fear that we will be robbed. Many (but not yet all!) of us have working water pipes, navigable roads, and trust that if someone were to do us wrong, we would have some legal recourse. Many (but not yet all!) of us can travel to other other countries, and enjoy the privileges and protections of the reputation of the United States. And when we are victimized or so enraged or in love or greedy or needy that we cannot see clearly, most (but not yet all!) of us can make our case before a judge who will help us to do right by others—or help others right their wrongs—in spite of our limitations.

Although we are more likely to trek through the rain or cold or the thick curtain of despair to the polls when we attend to what’s wrong with our government on an EPIC scale (and many Americans see the enormity of the difficulties we face), we are lucky (or blessed) enough to have a government that is almost good-enough on a super-small scale. Most of our roads are navigable, perhaps nine of ten lawsuits, custody, and criminal cases are decided by evidence and rule of law instead of private interests, and many (but not yet all) of us go to sleep at night without fear for our lives or our property.

But it is on this tiny scale — where two more families can rest easy; where ten more people have fairly-decided trials, custody hearings, or lawsuits; where 300 more people don’t have to buy new tires or pay higher bus fares until next year — that, oddly enough, your vote matters (for day-to-day, quickly resolvable problems) most. The relatively small (but in real life, huge!) inefficiencies in our day-to-day lives are easiest to reform; the most common injustices can be set right by the least disruptive revolutions.

While we ought heed (even shout) calls for large-scale reform and revolution, we must not neglect the power we have to make relatively small — but in our lives and the lives of our neighbors, immeasurably important — changes for the better.

For even these teeny-tiny changes — one more child whose living arrangements are decided by a thoughtful, not-classist, not-racist, not-moralistic judge; one more fracking case heard by a judge without ties to big oil; one more bankruptcy heard by a judge who knows the difficulty of choosing between rent and a hospital bill — are surely worth all the effort that voter registration and a trip to the polling booth demand.

The micro-revolutionaries, the small-scale reformers like Evan Stone may not be so entertaining as Trump or exciting as Sanders, but they matter. Because they make big differences in real lives, they deserve your time, attention, and cash contributions as much as candidates with larger-scale aspirations.