Political Renewal Is Possible
September 26, 2017
By Rob Stein
America’s disintegrating political cohesion will not, and cannot, be repaired by twentieth century political structures, systems and leaders.
(In a previous essay, “America’s Disintegrating Political Cohesion”, Medium, September 15, 2017, I described how American politics has become tragically dysfunctional — our parties are weakened, our many movements within both major political camps are fractured, and our electoral and legislative processes have been co-opted and corrupted. I emphasized that existing ideological, institutional and financial interests are deeply entrenched and probably incapable of self-correction and renewal. Left to their own devices, our parties likely will not miraculously become more relevant in the months and years ahead, if ever. Fracturing movements within both conservative and progressive camps will not magically find common purpose in the foreseeable future. There are no messiahs to lead us out of our political morass in 2020 or 2024. The dysfunctions that are undermining our electoral and legislative structures and systems are not reparable in the short or near terms.)
Twenty-first century political renewal requires new political alignments created by a new generation of leaders, facilitated by new political forums, and financed primarily by small dollar contributions. It will have to be advanced by enlightened Republicans, Democrats and Independents, conservatives, progressives and moderates. And, it must be grounded in a commitment to elevate the ideals of representative government, public service and problem solving beyond the confines of narrow ideological and financial interests.
As improbable as it may seem, the seeds of renewal are being scattered in this most dystopian of political moments. Ideas are bubbling. New thought leaders are self-identifying. Cross-pollination between existing and emerging political alliances has begun.
We, of course, do not know what cultural, economic and political dynamics will unfold in the third and fourth decades of this century that could further exacerbate our political disintegration, or alternatively, might inspire a political renaissance.
But we have no choice. The vitality of American democracy and the sustainability of representative government require that we act urgently to re-imagine and re-integrate American political cohesion. The following is neither a comprehensive strategy nor a definitive roadmap. Rather, it is an attempt to identify several basic pre-conditions for twenty-first century political renewal.
A New Political Vision
We are a raucous nation of over 320 million people with a myriad of political passions, sensibilities, opinions, biases and preferences. Roughly 240 million of us are citizens of voting age. Approximately 135 million adults aged 18 and older voted in the 2016 elections (the most ever), about 63 million of us voted for the Republican Presidential candidate, Donald Trump, 66 million for the Democrat, Hillary Clinton, and nearly 7 million for “independents” and candidates of other parties (e.g., Libertarian, Green, Socialist, and etc.). Just over 100 million eligible adult citizens did not vote in the last election.
A new, twenty-first century political vision requires acceptance of the possibility of new political alliances and arrangements.
Reforming existing, or creation of new, “parties” has a familiar logic for re-imagining the future of political engagement — e.g., a values-based Republican alliance comprised exclusively of libertarian, religious, tea party and alt-right adherents; or a Democratic alliance comprised of socialists and economic populists; or a new “center” or “moderate” coalition that includes some Republicans, Democrats and independents; or a women’s alliance; or a rainbow coalition; or a pro-business/neocon party.
However, it is plausible that the concept of “party” may be too limiting to define effective and sustainable twenty-first century political alliance. Political parties, as we have known them, may reconstitute themselves ot be replaced by non-profit alliances (as has begun to happen). Or, perhaps non-party, technology enhanced networks increasingly will attract people within a relatively narrow philosophical framework, or across a broad political spectrum, to listen, to learn, to collaborate, to resolve differences and to solve community or national problems.
The possibilities for political renewal are endless, but there are several immutable principles of human nature, political exigency and modernity that will influence the nature of twenty-first century political engagement and alliance.
1. Human beings are animated by differing political passions.
2. People generally seek political affinity among those whose views and experiences align with their own
3. Spirited political competition is a sine qua non of free people.
4. Twenty-first century political cohesion is dependent on a conscious commitment to new means of fostering constructive political relationships.
These principles, and the political realities that flow from them, will influence the nature of our political renaissance and the pace of its development. We cannot predict the future, but America’s political renewal is likely to be dependent on new leaders, new forums and new sources of financing.
New Leaders. The development of a healthy, vibrant and constructive twenty-first century politics is dependent on the emergence of a new generation of political leaders who owe their allegiance to a passion for service and productive problem solving. These leaders would not be beholden to narrow ideological dogma, rigid partisan interests or wealthy donors. Rather, they would be open to, and skilled in the use of, modern methods and technologies for constructive citizen and voter engagement.
This does not mean that special, narrow or rigid interests would have no continuing constructive role in the future of American politics. As free men and women, they will always organize themselves into parties and alliances to compete in the political marketplace of democracy. Although ideologues, partisans and the wealthiest among us are appropriate and necessary actors in American politics, they are not sufficient custodians of a healthy, sustainable political system.
America’s political renaissance requires a new generation of leaders with broader interests and more inclusive instincts whose core values are healthy communities and pragmatic problem solving. Such leaders are able to listen to a range of narrow interests and work constructively with many stakeholders across the political spectrum, but they are neither captured nor constrained by them.
Innovative community service-based leadership development is being tested among networks of people who have held responsible positions in organizations as disparate as the United States Military, Teach for America, the Peace Corps, Vista and other public service arenas. These nonpartisan programs — e.g., Leadership for Educational Equity, New Politics Academy, and etc. — select, train and support military veterans and alumni of public service networks to staff community organizations, promote public causes, run for local, state and federal elective office and become effective leaders focused on addressing human needs and solving community problems. Cross-partisan leadership development for young elected leaders also is being developed by Aspen Institute’s Rodel Fellowships in Public Leadership.
All of these programs train and facilitate networking among Republicans, Democrats and Independents, conservatives, moderates and progressives. Their focus is on development of talented young leaders whose primary allegiance is to public service and who view themselves as pragmatic problem solvers. Empowering the next generation of such leaders to serve on school boards and city councils, to become mayors, Secretaries of State, Attorneys General and Governors, U.S. Senators and members of Congress, and President is a condition precedent to fixing our broken politics.
These proven nonpartisan models must be aggressively and urgently expanded. If our goal is to transform American politics, we ultimately must train and support several million such leaders and prepare them to align with, and renew, the political alliances and networks of their choosing.
New Political Forums. Twenty-first century political leaders — men and women committed primarily to community, service and problem solving rather than motivated by blind allegiance to rigid ideology or the narrow interests of wealthy donors — will insist upon, and therefore will create, effective new forums or platforms for convening stakeholders, building political consensus around values, ideas and policies, and electing leaders committed to advancing those ideals and programs.
We do not, and cannot, yet know how and when such forums might develop, who will manage them, or what their key characteristics will be. They might be reconstituted political parties, or new political alliances with broadly based support and democratically elected facilitative leaders. In the alternative, they might be innovative social media networks that empower community-based centers of gravity that curate ideas, select leaders and promote candidacies. Or, perhaps, what is most likely, they may combine many of these forms and features in order to facilitate citizen engagement, broker problem solving processes, conduct elections and promote legislative processes.
What is knowable is that our increasingly diverse political passions and preferences are still predominantly organized into an ever-expanding number of twentieth century-type groups and sub-groups. This incessant splintering is fracturing both our two major political parties and our larger sense of the “conservative” and “progressive” movements. In the process of creating increasingly narrow issue, constituency and ideological camps, we have nullified our larger political energies, brands and narratives. It simply no longer is possible to attain political cohesion — among the various “wings” of our Parties, or among and between the many “movements” within the progressive, conservative and moderate “camps” — without effective new structures, systems and processes for networking and mediating differences and disagreements.
This is a difficult concept for many to understand. Historically, political parties provided the space for the disparate wings of a political community to negotiate their differences, craft narratives representing their political philosophy, select candidates, organize constituencies, raise money, conduct campaigns and mobilize voters. Political parties are subject to statutory requirements for governance, operational accountability and financial transparency.
In recent years, new types of conservative-right and progressive political platforms have emerged — state-based, non-profit management centers — that are competing with, and in some states actually replacing, party functions. While these non-party, party-like enterprises perform some of the traditional operational functions of parties, they are privately financed and operate in the shadows with no legal governance, operational accountability or financial disclosure requirements.
However, it probably no longer is possible or preferable for our twentieth century parties, or the emerging state-based, non-profit management models, as currently constituted, to facilitate the community service-based, problem solving intermediation necessary for constructive twenty-first century politics. These existing models for political organizing, on both the right and on the left, are exacerbating partisanship and limiting access to voices of civility, moderation and compromise. For these reasons, the next generation of political leaders likely will demand new structures with evolved networking and governing systems that reflect their political ideals, values and agendas.
Nascent, “alternative course” models for networking and consensus building across traditional political divides are emerging with greater frequency than ever before. They are the affirmative, creative response to the disintegration of twentieth century political cohesion. These alternative course initiatives are new, “non-partisan”, “bi-partisan”, “multi-partisan” and “trans-partisan” forums for political conversation and networking. These are not political “parties” and they are not performing electoral functions. Rather, they are experiments in the art and science of bridging political divides. They are building networks, identifying shared political values, seeking to define new, alternative ways to re-integrate American politics.
Examples of such projects include alternative course initiatives such as No Labels, Issue One, The New Center, The Bridge Alliance, Convergence, National Institute for Civic Discourse, and surely others on the drawing boards or just getting started. These nascent efforts are utilizing a variety of methods for bridging political differences to find common purpose on issues of public import.
“Alternative course” experiments such as these must be respected and scaled. They are the test beds for twenty-first century political cohesion. They are convening the citizens and leaders, and inventing the structures and systems, necessary to reform our parties and/or create new forums for political cohesion among and between political perspectives, institutions and actors who share common values.
Small Dollar Financed Politics. The corruption of American politics has been exacerbated and entrenched by the dominance of large campaign contributions, massive corporate lobbying expenditures and the transfer of political intermediation from parties to non-party political organizations financed and controlled primarily by billionaires and centi-millionaires. Wealth strategically deployed to influence politics assures the best data and analytics, the highest performing political operations, the greatest access to candidates and officeholders, the most influence over government decision-making, and ultimately, vast political power concentrated in the hands of a few.
Scholars, lawyers and legislators continuously debate the constitutional question of how to limit the influence of wealth on politics. This is a complicated legal and political quandary. In a nation that prides itself on civil and economic freedoms, it is difficult to arrive at constitutionally permissible laws that either establish with specificity what constitutes a political contribution or limit the size and frequency of such contributions.
Moreover, the trajectory of recent and pending Supreme Court decisions is to increase the allowance of unlimited contributions from individuals and corporations for the broadest possible interpretation of “political activity”. In spite of these current legal trends, many continue to focus their energies on strategies to control unlimited campaign spending, either through a constitutional amendment, reversal of the Citizens United decision, increase transparency of large contributors, and/or limitations on the amounts per donor contributed per cycle, per candidate or per organization (including to non-party groups).
Ultimately, one or more of these constraints may become law. But whatever the outcome of these incessant legal strategies, it is critical to focus on how best to accelerate and dramatically scale small contributions to American politics. This is the surest and most effective way in the foreseeable future to mitigate the dangers of wealth-dominated campaigns and legislative activism.
The noted political scholar, Mark Schmitt, made this point in his article “Small-Donor Empowerment” published by New America, April 29, 2014:
“The best hope for…..ensuring that the voices of ordinary citizens are heard, rests in (campaign finance) reforms that, instead of seeking to limit the channels by which concentrated wealth influences the electoral and legislative process, instead shift the incentives, reducing the influence of large donors by empowering small ones.”
There are reasons to believe that the empowerment of small contributions is both achievable and could fuel political renewal. The impact of small dollar support for political candidates has become more apparent in recent years as on-line fundraising techniques have blossomed. For example, the campaigns of Howard Dean, Barack Obama, Donald Trump and others over the past dozen years have innovated techniques that attracted millions of small donors (contributions averaging $20–30 dollars) to their campaigns.
Moreover, a number of cities and states are experimenting with incentivizing small donor contributions to candidates. Programs currently exist in such disparate places as New York City (“matching fund” model), Arizona, Maine and Connecticut’s (public financing, so called “clean elections”, models), and Minnesota (tax credits and refund model). “Vouchers” have been proposed, although are not yet operational in any jurisdiction. Finally, new election contribution websites (e.g., ActBlue) are making it far easier for small donors to contribute to candidates and political organizations.
Most existing small political donor models are focused on innovating ways to scale small contributions to support candidates. However, a broadened small dollar donor base is as vital to the health and sustainability of well functioning political organizations as it is to candidates and their campaign committees. It is just as vital that our political parties, alliances and networks be democratically governed, managed and financed as it is that our candidates not be beholden to the wealthiest contributors.
The numbers work. Today, roughly $7 billion is spent on influencing federal elections in a two-year Presidential election cycle through contributions to candidates, parties, independent expenditures and non-profit political activist groups. Much of that spending comes from large contributions of $2500 or more.
Imagine how differently American politics would function if thirty or fifty million people each contributed $100 per election cycle to our candidates and political organizations. This would broaden the donor and activist base of American politics and produce three to five billion dollars in small contributions every two years.
The health of twenty-first century democracy is dependent on the greatest possible inclusion of citizens as both voters and donors. While such a world would not be free of political skullduggery or undue influence, and large contributions would not disappear (in the absence of Congressional and/or Supreme Court action), the effect of great wealth on our politics at least would be mitigated to some very considerable extent.
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Renewal of American politics of course will require substantially more than is described herein. We need greater respect for difference and a new culture of political civility, not merely new political structures. We need broader consensus on meaningful new political priorities, not just recast narratives and messages. We need to assure voting rights and fix our broken campaign regulatory processes and finance laws. We must demand fairly drawn legislative and congressional districts in many more states.
Political renewal ultimately will require many changes and it will take time. But whether it takes a decade, or more or less, sufficient seed capital is necessary immediately to equip millions of new leaders, create new or evolved platforms to network and intermediate among and between communities of common interest, and inspire tens of millions of small contributors. These core capacities are conditions precedent to any constructive political renaissance. All are urgently needed. All are being tested. And all can be dramatically scaled.
