(00:00:01) In fact democracy is a word. That is very fashionable and probably has been fashionable for a long time. If you look around the governments of the world from the post-war period there's scarcely a one that did not refer to itself as a democracy. Even the gdr the East German government called (00:00:17) itself the German Democratic Republic and people's (00:00:23) democracies are scattered around the (00:00:25) world in some of the least democratic nations on Earth. It's a (00:00:30) word we all like a word we all appeal to the thing (00:00:35) unlike the word is a (00:00:36) little less fashionable. Maybe that's because (00:00:39) as Jean-Jacques Rousseau told us a long (00:00:41) time ago freedom is a (00:00:44) food easy to eat and hard to digest (00:00:49) In Eastern Europe, they're learning right (00:00:50) now. Just how hard it is to digest. It was real easy to eat last fall digesting. It's a little different we here in the United States have been (00:00:57) digesting it for 200 years and I can't say that we've yet quite learned how to digest it. What I want to talk about tonight is democracy here in the United States. It's an irony to a lot of Americans who despair of the state of our Democratic political system that elsewhere in the world people are looking to America as the model for democracy last year about a year ago in Tiananmen Square (00:01:24) group of young students built a Statue of Liberty, (00:01:27) which became a symbol for them of the kind of democracy. They were looking for (00:01:33) in China (00:01:34) and the question we have to ask ourselves is how Democratic are we really and how Democratic is the document the political system on which our nation is based how Democratic is the Constitution? I'd like to do tonight is talk first about the Constitution (00:01:54) and its relationship to our democracy (00:01:57) and then jump forward and look a little at the state of democracy currently and ask the question how Democratic are we just now and how might we learn to digest better (00:02:10) the freedom that's been sitting like an unfinished meal the top of our stomachs for 200 years. (00:02:19) Well, the first thing of course a lot of people will tell you among them a number of political sciences. We're not a democracy at all. This is a republic. You've all heard that argument. Don't tell me about a democracy. We don't live in a democracy. This is a republic and if you look back at the founding period in fact, there's a fair amount of evidence that those people are at least in part, right? Because the Constitution of the United States does not clearly establish a democracy. Although it very clearly establishes a republic (00:02:47) based on rights. (00:02:50) Now any argument about how Democratic or undemocratic or republican the Constitution is runs into problems and their the problems I won't stay with but I want to just mention the problems of interpreting the (00:03:00) Constitution (00:03:02) our courts do it all the time our (00:03:04) constitutional Scholars and political scientists try (00:03:06) to do it, but the document is as (00:03:08) elusive. As the experience (00:03:12) and in fact, it's true that when we look to try to understand what the Constitution represents it turns out. There are as many interpretations of its meanings as there are political ideologies around today and you can't really get anywhere by doing what the strict constructionist would like to do by going back to the intentions of the founders because the founders just like us were as divided and fractious and their understanding of what it was they were doing is we are today in interpreting their handiwork so that we go back to the founders we can in fact find Federalist and Anti-Federalist (00:03:45) Democrats and anti (00:03:46) Democrats man who trusted and look to a more democratic nation and Men Who deeply distrusted democracy (00:03:53) and conceived of this constitution as (00:03:55) one that would Place severe (00:03:57) limits (00:03:58) democracy. So the interpreters aren't going to get us too far because the document itself is such a slippery such an elusive document, but let's look for a minute at (00:04:09) the document itself. And what it represents (00:04:13) I think if we look at least initially at the rhetoric surrounding the Constitution, there's a fair amount of evidence that not too many of the founders were very interested in (00:04:22) democracy indeed the document produced (00:04:25) in 1787 was considerably less Democratic than a number of the state constitutions that they super that that document (00:04:33) superseded the Pennsylvania Constitution for example was a great deal more democratic in (00:04:39) Massachusetts slavery had already been abolished by the state constitution in a fashion that the Federal Constitution felt (00:04:47) unable to do. (00:04:51) Moreover once we look at the document itself. We find that though. It begins in an extraordinarily appealing fashion. And it's these words that are quoted around the world today. We the people of the United States (00:05:05) do ordain a (00:05:07) constitution We the People it starts with the notion that the people collectively through their expressed Sovereign will are conceiving a government based on that will to the Constitution does begin with the Preamble that gives us reason to think we are facing a democratic Constitution. But those who looked at the handiwork were less impressed. Patrick Henry said it's not we the people who gave this constitution was a handful of (00:05:40) men in Philadelphia who gave it. (00:05:44) And if we look at who in fact, we the people (00:05:47) was at the end of the 18th century of the four million people living here a great many were not in fact thought of as being part of we the people we know who they are. I won't belabor it American Indians didn't acquire citizenship until the 20th century women didn't acquire a voting (00:06:05) rights until the 20th century (00:06:07) African Americans who have been here for the most part longer than the British Colonials did not even require Freedom From Slavery from servitude until 75 or 80 years later when the real American Revolution took place the revolution that was the Civil War revolutions are always Civil Wars and Civil Wars are always revolutions and I've always believed that the Civil War was our Revolution not 70s 1776, which was just a matter of getting rid of our Colonial over overlords. So in (00:06:38) 1787, then we the people was a fairly (00:06:43) narrow constituency. Didn't include women it didn't include African Americans. It didn't include (00:06:50) American Indians and indeed. It did not necessarily even include white males who are not (00:06:55) propertied and the question of (00:06:58) whether unprepared need white males were to be admitted to citizenship. Although eventually in the Federal Constitution. The answer was yes, the state constitutions that didn't permit citizenship or voting for on properties males continued in the election of senators and the (00:07:14) president which was done indirectly to persist into the 19th (00:07:19) century. So the very locutions on We the People turned out to be something (00:07:24) less than Democratic in the sense that today when that phrase is used around the world. I think people have in their minds (00:07:33) moreover the Constitution proposed a series of Institutions and a form of government which in many ways was devoted not to empowering people but from closing them out from the From filtering their voice shunting them aside and from limiting the powers of government in a fashion that would make it difficult for a sovereign people (00:07:54) to do its best or as many Founders worried do its worst. (00:08:00) The House of Representatives was intended to be a fairly Democratic body (00:08:06) rapid turnover lots of Elections and fully represented representative of the (00:08:12) population. Although even even there as you know, the Three-Fifths Compromise, which did for black Americans better than what I've done for Indians who counted 40 African-American slaves (00:08:26) and free black Americans were to count as three-fifths of a person with respect both to Taxation and to representation. So even the House of Representatives (00:08:36) was limited but in a sense the House of Representatives and the amendment Clause the article on Amendment Article 5 Were the only two places where there was some direct expression (00:08:50) of what we would understand today as the Democratic Spirit (00:08:55) of our government and of course the amendment provision, although it defers it does obeisance to The Sovereign will of the American people in practice is (00:09:05) unwieldy difficult in almost 200 years. There have been excluding the Bill (00:09:11) of Rights. There have been only 16 or 17 amendments passed (00:09:16) that's not exactly a (00:09:17) record of free expression of the Americans people people's will and it may be a good thing. It may have insulated the government from the whims and passions of popular majorities, but it certainly can't be seen as an expression of the (00:09:33) democratic the Democratic spirit. For the rest our constitution in its (00:09:40) original conception and probably in its major intentions is devoted to limiting government and (00:09:47) limiting the participation of The Sovereign people in the political process. (00:09:54) A great number of the founders had profound suspicions (00:09:58) about majorities about public opinion (00:10:02) and about making public opinion the basis for government. Hamilton referred to the great (00:10:09) Beasts of the people (00:10:12) a popular slogan at the time of the constitutional convention was we're sick of Democrats ma back rats and all the other (00:10:19) rats and that became a Bellwether of political opinion in (00:10:25) that period the real Democrats. In fact for the most part. (00:10:29) Adams Jefferson pain weren't at the Constitutional Convention. They had been there in 1776. They weren't there in 1787. So their voice was relatively silent. (00:10:46) That suspicion that distrust of popular government found its way into a series (00:10:52) of Institutions that (00:10:54) probably better than almost any government on earth (00:10:57) have protected us unquestionably from the Passions. Of majority tyranny from a public run amok (00:11:07) and have created a safeguard for the rights of individuals (00:11:11) above all property rights, but other rights as well, which has been admirable in the world, (00:11:19) but at the same time it is to some degree for 200 years created (00:11:23) a government of paralysis a (00:11:24) government incapable of acting on behalf (00:11:27) of the people of this nation (00:11:30) with a series of institutional restraints that didn't simply slow down the (00:11:36) actions of the public will the paralyzed it. The separation of powers (00:11:42) federalism that amounts to a (00:11:43) vertical separation of powers (00:11:47) the representative Principle as a filter through which the voice of the people had to go and don't forget that for the first Decades of this constitution. Neither the president nor the Senate was a voted directly by the (00:12:00) American people. What was voted through State conventions that were chosen in (00:12:05) directly according to the various election laws of the various (00:12:09) states, which often narrowed the constituency of Voters even more than the Federal Constitution did judicial review which was in (00:12:22) part written into the Constitution and part of practice that (00:12:25) emerged in the early part of the 19th century which in (00:12:29) this Era, we tend to see as a great defender (00:12:34) of the public good and of (00:12:35) individual rights. Nonetheless was a device which systematically put the judicial (00:12:42) power over the legislative power (00:12:45) and indeed enabled us the convenience which we have used again and again and again of turning to our courts to deal with the unsavory business that we refuse in our (00:12:55) legislators to deal with starting 1954 with Brown versus Board of Education, which is in (00:13:02) part Eisenhower kicking punting to the (00:13:04) courts and issue to the legislature the executive simply refuse (00:13:09) to deal with and ending with what I think was finally in many ways despite. I think was necessary but was nonetheless the disaster (00:13:17) of forced busing which again was a policy administered (00:13:22) not by people through their legislators who had worked out a tough and hard decision, but rather a (00:13:28) decision imposed by courts on Reluctant and unyielding populace who felt their electoral rights innocence were being violated (00:13:39) courts that have indeed in the 20th century. Although it wasn't true in the 19th century. Don't forget the history of the Court as the defender of the rights of individuals is only a 20th century tradition. (00:13:48) Not a 19th century tradition. (00:13:50) The courts have become in some sense. The people's best friend, but only as a result of the observing of by the people of their own responsibilities for (00:14:00) government. So even the (00:14:03) court system the power of the Judiciary in our nation in a certain sense is act as a check on and even a paralyzing (00:14:10) institution with respect to popular to genuine popular government. The letter of the (00:14:20) Constitution than I think one must (00:14:23) acknowledge at least in the 18th and early 19th century (00:14:27) was at best (00:14:29) indifferent to democracy and at worst openly hostile to democracy. But we can't stop there those words. We the people. The Declaration of (00:14:43) Independence which belongs among our founding documents? No (00:14:46) less Then the Constitution the Bill of Rights which (00:14:51) belongs to those documents and in time the 13th (00:14:54) 14th and 15th amendments that become part of our practice are part of our (00:14:58) constitutional Heritage. There is also a (00:15:01) spirit to the American Constitution (00:15:03) and I do want to suggest that the spirit of the Constitution from the outset was a good deal more democratic sympathetic to (00:15:10) democracy than the letter of the Constitution and thank God for that because it's been the spirit of the Constitution what we might call the (00:15:20) promise of American life and bedded in our founding documents and our experience of America that have created the possibility and over time the reality (00:15:31) of a democratic Nation. The promise of American Life (00:15:41) the belief that America represented the best hope for people who in Europe had labored under centuries of Oppression, the heavy (00:15:50) baggage of persecution all churches of superstition of hatred of religious intolerance (00:15:59) that sense of America as a new land is not an image that we today have pressed back on our forefathers to romanticize our heritage. It was the language in which people in the 18th century characterize themselves. It was their language (00:16:15) not (00:16:15) ours and it was a language shared by (00:16:18) Europeans looking to (00:16:19) America as well as the new American (00:16:23) man. Hegel writes the beginning of the Hagel Friedrich Hegel the great metaphysician (00:16:32) rights America is there for the land of the future we're in the ages that lie before us the burden of the (00:16:38) world's history will reveal itself. And Thomas Paine to some degree mimicking John Locke (00:16:50) writes the case and circumstances of America present themselves as in the beginning (00:16:57) of the world. As in the beginning of the world. This was a place to start over again a new found land the place where people thought they (00:17:08) could Escape not merely the particular persecutions. (00:17:12) They came (00:17:12) from but Escape history itself the land in a sense outside of time (00:17:18) outside of History. (00:17:21) We know they wrought that miracle in part by blindness and obliviousness to the people who were here to speak of America's an empty land when (00:17:30) millions and millions of Indian tribes who had been here for thousands of years are overlooked is a is in a certain way a crime against (00:17:38) history, but nonetheless that oblivious this was part of the mythology that allowed Americans to think that they were genuinely (00:17:46) starting over that this was a second Eden (00:17:49) that the human race which even by the 18th century seem to have used up the chances it been offered by Providence was getting a second (00:17:57) chance. Come to America and start over (00:18:00) again. And we know how that even today that philosophy still works people still flee from town to City from City to City leaving one place and going to another thinking America is the one country in the world where people at 50 years old give up their jobs uproot move halfway across the country and say I'm starting (00:18:18) over again. I'm going to start a new life. You simply don't find that there's nowhere else in the world people do (00:18:25) that nowhere else in the world. So people are people so foolish as to think it might work. But because we're foolish enough to think it might work it sometimes does (00:18:36) work here (00:18:38) and that belief that (00:18:39) promise that sense that (00:18:42) the Empire of Reason which the French Enlightenment dreamed of as utopia could actually come to life in this country. (00:18:52) Had an extraordinary force in the 18th century Henry still commander in his wonderful book about the enlightenment in America calls it the Empire of Reason (00:19:02) something. He says that the Europeans can only conceive in their (00:19:04) minds but that we turned into a kind of practice. (00:19:10) The great metaphor of the Enlightenment was the idea of the human mind the human soul is a tabula rasa a blank (00:19:18) tablet on which experience could be could write its own history. (00:19:23) And that was a powerful radical notion in Europe because in Europe the human soul was not a blank tablet. It was a heavily inscribed tablet, that could not be (00:19:32) erased. (00:19:35) You were born (00:19:36) with characteristics and features that included if you are a Catholic sins that could not be (00:19:41) eradicated a history of people a language that could not be erased. That meant (00:19:47) as a born Frenchman or a born German or born Catholic you simply could not Escape your roots could not Escape your history (00:19:57) and could not escape the burdens of superstition and (00:20:00) persecution that that history brought with him what the (00:20:04) tabula rasa said is that you can wipe all that clean. But only if you leave Europe and start over this whole land was a kind of top Euler rasa blank tablet again, of course with the blinders that enable people not to see (00:20:17) the population that was here and we now always have to remember that. (00:20:21) But it seemed at empty tablet on which the human race could start over again. (00:20:27) Those of us who write know sometimes about halfway through a book you wish you could just (00:20:31) throw the whole thing over and you know, get a fresh piece of paper out and start over again, (00:20:36) but you can't do that (00:20:37) with our lives. How often we think if only I could just rip my life up until now and get a fresh piece of paper out and start over (00:20:44) again. And America was a place where that seems possible (00:20:49) and to this day people are doing it from Vietnam China and the Soviet Union and (00:20:53) South America. (00:20:55) They are in a sense ripping up their lives and starting over again and for better or worse than many of them are deluded and many of them find when they come here. It's nothing like what they thought but this is the only country in the world to which people go with that illusion in their minds. And that illusion in many ways it is an illusion is nonetheless a powerful feature (00:21:14) of our identity of our Democratic identity (00:21:18) because democratic government begins with self government and (00:21:21) self-government begins with the belief that you can create your own life from the inside out that your history your past who you are your race. Your (00:21:31) religion needn't be (00:21:33) determinants. That imprison you but that you can write your own history and individuals writing their own history and common becomes a democratic history. (00:21:45) That's what I mean. When I talk then (00:21:46) about the Democratic Spirit of the (00:21:49) Constitution the Democratic promise of the new nation and that exist side by (00:21:55) side with this rather aristocratic distrust of the people distrust of people writing their own lives that also characterized the American founding. (00:22:08) That gave rise in turn I think to to rather different radical (00:22:11) Democratic traditions in (00:22:13) America one has been quite successful. The other has been largely unsuccessful admirable as it might be One of the Traditions is an anti (00:22:23) constitutional tradition. (00:22:24) It has taken the letter of the law the letter of the Constitution at face value and said the enemy of Democracy in America is our constitution is our form of government is our republicanism is the limits (00:22:40) unpopular will on the popular voice (00:22:42) and that tradition has in effect made (00:22:44) war on the Constitution. It's a tradition defined by the progressives Progressive historians by populists by the progressives of the 1920s and 1930s. And by a number of radicals (00:22:57) who have said in effect, the Constitution itself lacks Justice and anybody who wants to create a just and Democratic manner I Mark is going to have to alter and (00:23:06) change the fundamental character of that Constitution. But there's been a second tradition a (00:23:13) tradition of democracy that has pretended. The illusion is true that has pretended the Democratic of the democratic (00:23:21) promise of America can be made good on (00:23:24) and it has fought its battles in the name of the (00:23:27) Constitution. It is fart its battles in the name of the promise of American life. (00:23:33) It has said we the people that means me too they meant to be they didn't say it, but they meant me and I want in I want my part of (00:23:41) it. and the movements of the 19th century that led to abolition the movements that led to female suffrage women's suffrage the movie movement (00:23:54) that led (00:23:54) eventually the 20th century to the Civil Rights Act (00:23:59) all were done in the name (00:24:01) of the promise of American Life the name of the Constitution (00:24:07) With a kind of mischievous deceit we embrace the history those of us who have been left out of America embrace the history as if it were our own and thereby make it (00:24:19) our own and politically speaking (00:24:22) that's been extraordinarily (00:24:23) successful. It's those (00:24:25) movements. In fact that have succeeded. Where's those who have made war on the American way of life what made war on the Constitution made war on the promise of American like have said with some accuracy with some Acuity with some insight have said this is not our constitution We the People doesn't mean (00:24:45) me. Have failed ultimately to make good on their own hopes for a more democratic Nation. The political lesson in that seems to be very powerful. We are in part what we believe we are and our constitution is in part what (00:25:12) we believe it is this is why again the (00:25:14) strict constructionist who insist it (00:25:15) must be a or b or c but can't be d e and f not only make a mistake interpretation. It's simply not true that we can identify. They make a profound political Mistake by saying (00:25:28) as Some of the current members of the Supreme Court say (00:25:33) it was a particular document that had particular intentions that we can read. That's its meaning it has no other meaning don't dare to think it may have a meaning that's consoling to (00:25:43) you. We shot a lot of people out. And certain kinds of people in the Progressive tradition (00:25:52) who say accurately The Men Who created the Constitution where property owners and bankers and the Bill of Rights was primarily a document devoted to the protection of property rights, (00:26:03) but no interests (00:26:04) and the rights of Americans generally that may to some degree be an accurate historical depiction of the sociological conditions under which the framers actually operated. It may be an accurate portrait of the motives of some of the founders. But it makes the mistake then of constructing the Constitution and rigid terms that make it (00:26:24) impossible for others for women. For non-whites for American Indians to say it can be our constitution to (00:26:35) it also speaks for us. We (00:26:37) are part of We the People in the 1960s (00:26:44) when like so many (00:26:46) people I was deeply engaged in the struggle is over whether the war in Vietnam was a legitimate War whether it violated the trust (00:26:54) of the American people or expressed the will of the American people. (00:27:01) One thing bothered me more than anything else and that was those people who (00:27:06) thought the best way to express their (00:27:08) abhorrence at the war in Vietnam was to make war on the American system to burn the flag and so forth. By the way, I think it should be constant. (00:27:18) There's no question. It's okay to burn the flag. We shouldn't have laws against it, but I was appalled (00:27:22) that people insisted (00:27:24) that that was the way to (00:27:25) express their distrust. (00:27:27) I wish those who oppose the wars and illegitimate War had wrap themselves in that flag and say we are Americans and As Americans we reject the (00:27:35) notion that this country has a right to be engaged in that war if that's how they felt. (00:27:42) The dissident the rebel (00:27:45) the radical the Democrat (00:27:46) even the Revolutionary has a (00:27:48) right. To be represented by that flag. That's what the flag stands for. That's why it's different than other flags precisely because it stands for (00:27:58) that and it can stand for what we want it to stand for. It can also stand for xenophobia narrowness intolerance imperialism. And if we want to make it a symbol of that and then burn (00:28:08) it we in effect wash our hands of our democracy. (00:28:13) wash our hands of (00:28:14) Hope because we make war in a sense on ourselves on our own passed on the things that might Define us (00:28:25) good political Wars are always over (00:28:27) symbols you argue about what is it real whose Constitution really is it? (00:28:33) Is it a constitution that belongs to the property (00:28:35) owners? (00:28:36) Yeah some senses it is certainly you can look back historically and see how it serves the (00:28:40) interests of white male Property Owners, (00:28:43) but it also is a (00:28:44) constitution that can belong to everybody (00:28:46) because enough there the in there enough in the (00:28:48) institutions, there's enough in the promise of American life that permit it to belong to Those who wish to claim it. So the question how Democratic is the Constitution can be in part (00:29:05) answered in a very a historical way. The (00:29:08) answer is as Democratic as we want it to be. (00:29:12) The counter question is how Democratic do you want the (00:29:15) Constitution to be (00:29:17) if you don't want it to be very Democratic there are plenty of institutional restraints. That filter and clothes (00:29:24) off. the voice of the American people if you want it to be Democratic, there are plenty of things that make it more so (00:29:35) In fact the real Iron and here I want to move from a discussion of the (00:29:38) Constitution to a discussion of democracy today. (00:29:41) The real irony. Is that that device by which we hoped we might preserve many of the virtues of democracy in a large-scale continental Republic whose scale indeed was far too large to institutionalize an Athenian policy. (00:29:59) Swiss Village (00:30:01) a town assembly as our form of government the very device we used to try to make that transition turned out in (00:30:08) some ways to be our undoing in terms of democracy today. The irony is in fact that the Constitution's primary device of democratic accountability representation and representative government. Had so devastating effect on popular participation popular engagements and the expression of popular dissent on governmental matters. (00:30:40) The founders had a very clear view of it. Yes, we want to hear the people, but we don't want to hear them directly. We need filters (00:30:48) on their voice and the (00:30:49) best filters are elected representatives. Don't let the people speak directly don't ask them directly what they think but let them choose representatives and and then asked the representatives what the people think (00:31:00) and that way you (00:31:01) filter their voice. You hear from the best of them who understand their needs, but don't necessarily (00:31:09) listen to their daily complaints. So the vox populi is run through kind of loudspeaker system, which the people don't speak directly they speak through the machine and the Machine is representative government. (00:31:28) Well, the founder said that way you would (00:31:30) filter the voice of the people. In fact, what has largely happened is that we have silenced the voice of the people with our filters with our representative institutions. (00:31:41) Most Americans today think government means electing those who govern us Jefferson had a word for that. (00:31:48) He called it elective aristocracy. Elective aristocracy is probably better than hereditary aristocracy to be (00:31:55) sure but not a whole lot better. We don't govern ourselves (00:32:00) today for the most part at best some of us choose the men and women who do governess (00:32:08) and most of us including those who do vote think that's more or less enough. Politics in America today has in fact largely become (00:32:18) a spectator sport. It's not something you do. It's something you watch Mostly on television. And as in sports, there are stars is Big Money associated with it. You got to buy television time for their a whole lot of similarities ruin Aldrich. (00:32:37) In fact, I used to be the sports director of ABC and now has become an effective political political director said a couple of years ago after what he regarded as the rather boring national conventions, which you may remember had been cut from 8 or 10 hours gavel-to-gavel coverage down to two or three hours coverage. He said if they don't make a more interesting, I'm going to eliminate them next time. These are by the way our public Airways. Remember the number that famous phrase the public Airwaves that we through our government least private corporations, and then they sell back to us at election (00:33:09) time for millions of dollars to put our politics Out Of Reach financially for us. (00:33:17) With politics a spectator sport with Americans content with the idea that democracy means voting for those who govern rather than in any way whatsoever (00:33:26) participating in (00:33:27) government. We have created a kind of (00:33:30) paralyzed Democratic Nation. (00:33:35) I can't get over the fact last year last fall while we were watching. bulgarians and East Germans and Chinese died (00:33:45) for the precious right to vote. (00:33:48) Over half this country was failing to utilize its vote on a regular basis even in presidential elections, and I (00:33:55) won't go over the statistics, you know them all (00:33:57) they fall to 25% 30% in Congressional elections that go down to 15 10% in primary elections often. And a lot of people think they do a lot if they vote we spend most of us 5 to 10 minutes a years (00:34:12) citizens. Because voting is the only thing we do and that's about what it takes to vote. You spend a lot more time. Tying your shoes. Then you do engage in active citizenship (00:34:22) and a whole lot of us don't vote at all and the young people in the audience know and you have some excuses here away (00:34:27) from home. They make it hard to register. It's (00:34:29) true, but nonetheless people 18 to 25 voted a rate of (00:34:34) about 16 17 % of the L of their eligibility. What's that one in six one and seven young people vote (00:34:43) and oddly not so oddly really (00:34:45) but it seems a little peculiar the people who most need the vote (00:34:49) whose voice most needs to be heard those who are voiceless in our society also vote the least (00:34:55) don't vote at all. In fact voting goes up with income voting goes up with age and the well-off white middle-class vote a fair amount. They will better than their 50% share and as you look at the rest of the country the profiles go down down and down. meanwhile, our leaders increasingly stay put don't move the incumbency rate of the House of Representatives as most of you know is (00:35:30) now approaching 100% It's almost impossible to be defeated for office most incumbents end up with more money left over from Pac funds than their opponents spends. (00:35:43) On the elections trying to unseat them. You have (00:35:47) to really work hard (00:35:49) to get defeated. (00:35:52) And yet this is clearly a House of Representatives without courage without boldness. They're constantly we don't dare do (00:35:58) that. He may get punished by our constituents. (00:36:01) The last time of constituents have punished anybody by unseating (00:36:05) them. Recedes into the remote memory and most people simply don't notice (00:36:12) money becomes more and more (00:36:14) important in elections. (00:36:17) Running for office is increasingly expensive in part because of Television time. There's some staggering figures. (00:36:23) I just looking at some figures in (00:36:26) 1962 President Kennedy spent about 13 million dollars winning the (00:36:31) presidency. (00:36:34) In 1980 the average (00:36:36) Senate race cost 13 million dollars. (00:36:41) Nowadays you have to (00:36:42) add but you better be rich if you want to run and you won't find people of average means running for office. You (00:36:49) can't do it and those of average means who do find. They spend 60 70 80 percent of their time raising money and very little time governing the minute you win office. The first thing you have to start doing is thinking about how you can be able to forward your next (00:37:01) campaign. Of course that makes you vulnerable. To the packs vulnerable to the special interest groups. It's the financially articulate who speak in this nation. Not the verbally articulate as he spends. So You Shall Serve? Primary results. In (00:37:24) fact do follow dollars not always it's not one-on-one and (00:37:27) sometimes somebody managed to defeat the big money but not often (00:37:32) and increasingly where you need a television market and you need the people who know how to Market you on television. You need the (00:37:37) handlers. You need to Spin Doctors need the public relations experts need the makeup men (00:37:43) increasingly what you believe who you are what you stand (00:37:46) for. Becomes less important than how your packaged how your merchandise who your handlers are and whether there are adequate sound bites in the long speech you wrote. (00:37:59) But all of these features which we tend to want to say, well we can do something about that. Let's get rid of the packs. Let's have campaign (00:38:05) Finance reform. Let's have free time for television campaigning by legitimate candidates. a lot of things you can do about this, (00:38:16) but I would suggest a lot of them arise out of the fact that we have placed all our eggs in the single basket of representative government and a lot of the abuses a lot of the defects of the system are simply the result of the fact that we worry so much about the representative system because it's all we've (00:38:33) got And so we end up. With a politics with the only activists are not (00:38:42) even the candidates but are their (00:38:43) handlers and speechwriters and where citizens. Are passive apathetic (00:38:50) manipulated reluctant alienated Spectators fought over by the elites who disdained them other than election years in order to extract that one ounce of Civic blood. They have left in (00:39:04) them namely their votes. And no wonder then that the public at large is alienated. No wonder that the one. Kind of political agreement you can now find in this country is discussed the political process discussed with the political system, (00:39:22) but that doesn't create better (00:39:24) citizens in some ways. It creates were citizens because it creates alienation despair anger apathy a kind of to hell with them. Lady at the exit poll who was asked who would you vote for him said I didn't vote for any of them and only encourage them. That's not really a healthy Civic. Attitude and yet I (00:39:52) would want to argue despite this rather dismal picture. I think it is a dismal picture and I wish the East Germans (00:39:59) and I wish the bulgarians and I wish the Russians who are looking for models would be (00:40:04) more aware of the dangers of the (00:40:06) model that they clearly want to (00:40:08) embrace. It happened just a footnote. It happened and it's already happening in East Germany. Most extraordinary things have happened (00:40:17) in East Germany within five or six months. (00:40:21) Just five or six months ago an organization of citizens at risk to their (00:40:27) lives based an organization called new Forum created a revolution (00:40:34) and brought a regime that most people thought was the most stalinist and well established in Eastern Europe to its (00:40:39) knees to the point of collapse. The people the plain citizens workers writers (00:40:48) who are in new for made that happen. They (00:40:51) pulled that Revolution off at risk to their lives. You wouldn't know it from reading the papers. But new form was one of the parties that ran in the election a couple weeks ago. (00:41:02) They made democracy possible. They were made up of citizens who cared (00:41:05) about bringing democracy to East Germany. You know the vote they got that election 3% Three percent of the popular vote the (00:41:16) group that six months earlier. (00:41:18) Everybody had celebrated as those who made the revolution How could they compete with West German political money? With money from the S payday that was coming the Social Democratic party in the Christian Democratic Union and television and all the professionals and the handlers coming in. Three new newspapers started last fall right after the party fell remarkable newspapers for the first time in 40 years free newspapers. All three have closed in the last month because again, they can't compete with a big heavily financed West German journals coming in (00:42:03) already. In other words East Germany is undergoing the professionalisation of puts Politics. The bureaucratize ation of its Politics the substitution of elective aristocracy for democracy (00:42:16) that characterizes our politics here in the West. (00:42:20) And of course the markets in the money are coming in and (00:42:23) they're followed by the real estate developers (00:42:26) 15 licenses were filed after the elections a couple (00:42:30) of weeks ago to open porno shops in East Berlin, one of the first Direct effects of The Democratic revolution in East Berlin and you know, that's okay. That's part of Freedom. That's part of having free markets. But when that becomes all that freedom means than one begins to ask is it freedom. Is it democracy that we are looking at? (00:42:54) So we have to be very (00:42:55) careful what we call (00:42:57) Democratic and we have to ask in America if what is going on currently in Washington can really be understood as democracy. There were some interesting figures. I read a couple of (00:43:07) weeks ago in a it was in The Washington (00:43:09) Post. Someone did a funny little (00:43:11) summary. Washington DC you (00:43:14) want to definition? There's (00:43:15) 50 think tanks. There's 500 political Consultants there 7 thousand lobbyists their 535 congressmen their 12,000 Congressional aides their 4647 journalists, the 364,000 federal workers, and there's one president. (00:43:38) Now in a sense, that's American (00:43:39) democracy. That's the Beltway. That's (00:43:42) what most Americans think about when you say why don't you vote what's going on? What's Happening our democracy its (00:43:47) that It represents our democracy and that is (00:43:52) part of the problem. I said at the beginning of my (00:43:55) talk this evening that democracy is what we want it to be and our nation is what we wanted to be. (00:44:00) I want to suggest you. There is actually another democracy out there extant working even flourishing in America that if we were willing to think about it as our (00:44:11) democracy would be the beginning of a (00:44:14) kind of Revival of how we think about democracy and a Revival of the citizenship. We so desperately (00:44:19) need That's the Democracy where we still do govern ourselves and it doesn't happen in Washington. It doesn't happen in state capitals. But it does happen on our school boards in our neighborhoods and our trade associations and our block associations in our neighborhood associations and our community organizations and our church associations. (00:44:44) It happens where it has always happens. It happens in the localities when Alexis de tocqueville came to America in the early 1830s and traveled around and said my God, there's a new spirit of foot in this nation a new Liberty. The first thing he noticed that he said it in Democracy in America said but in America, the spirit of Liberty is (00:45:05) local. That's where it starts and that's of course where democracy (00:45:09) starts locally it starts with what happens in the neighborhood the school the church the backyard is where we live most of our lives. And there I would argue that Democracy in America is live and well (00:45:25) and even flourishing. (00:45:28) And that if we would take that a little more seriously and use that as our model (00:45:32) also for democracy at the state and National levels, we perhaps could begin to make render some (00:45:38) changes at those levels as well. Because at the state and local level, we still do govern ourselves. We still make decisions ourselves. We still argue with our neighbors. We still (00:45:52) know our local Representatives who are members of the community and join us at talks like these and who most people in the room know and talk with So that a mayor is not a president or a governor a mayor is a neighbor who's doing a job for a while taking some responsibilities for while himself in a fashion that (00:46:15) you can't say (00:46:16) about Governor's or presidents for congressmen or senators? What is it then that we have to do at (00:46:26) this local level to make it work. We first of all and perhaps most importantly need to understand what it means to be a citizen and one of the saddest things in America and political scientists. Once again are responsible for one of the saddest things in America. Is that most people think citizen means (00:46:43) voter? Who is a citizen of voter (00:46:46) and most of my colleagues and political science don't write about citizenship read the American Political Science review. If you dare, I don't really (00:46:53) recommend it. It's pretty awful. (00:46:56) But if you read it, you will find when they're talking about American politics titles that again and again talk about the American voter (00:47:04) voting. (00:47:06) Electoral (00:47:07) Politics the (00:47:08) word citizenship is simply not in fashion. (00:47:11) We don't talk about citizens (00:47:13) because of course voting is only one of the things and it's rather a small thing and not by any means the most important thing that citizens do. Whereas if we Define the citizen as the voter, then the only thing they do is vote. And in voting they think they have (00:47:31) discharged the responsibilities of citizen. (00:47:37) And the point about the citizen is it's not just a word for an American who (00:47:41) votes. It's a word that describes a set of attitudes and approach to interest and engagement in a community a citizen (00:47:50) is clearly not a client of government is clearly not a consumer of government services. And that's again what we think we talked about government if we like government we say well, I like (00:48:01) government I consume some I'm a climb a client I get some things from it. The word (00:48:08) citizen has a sense of (00:48:09) activity of mobility of action to it citizens are actors their participants citizens. (00:48:16) Don't talk about them and it the government with a big the state they talk about us we To be an active citizen to say well, what are we going to do? Not or what? Are they not? What are they going to do to (00:48:30) us? But what are we going to do about this problem? How can we solve it? (00:48:36) And the we is a terribly important part of it what it means to be a citizen. We are encouraged Again by political science is a hold of the model of democracy is a pluralist pressure system to think of the appropriate role of the individuals expressing only your own (00:48:52) private interest your own private opinion, (00:48:57) but you don't ask citizens. What do you want? You ask the citizen? What do you think we need as a (00:49:01) community and they're two different question questions and (00:49:04) interestingly enough. Most people know the difference between the two if you ask Americans as most pollsters do what do you want? They'll tell you what you will I want lower taxes. That's what I want. I want more services for my neighborhood and I want lower taxes. That's that's fine. They're answering the question. You asked what I wanted. That's what I want. But if you ask American what is possible for us that will benefit all of us as a community and that you can live with then the citizen man, sir. Well, probably boy. I hate to think about it. We may need some more as a few more (00:49:39) taxes and we may need to give (00:49:41) us a few more services to a part of the city that I don't live in and that I'm not really interested in but the quality of the whole city in my life ultimately would be affected. I think that's probably what we have to do, but I sure don't want that. I don't want it. And then if you ask the person will who should we listen to you the private individual (00:49:59) or you the citizen they'll say well if you're asking a political question, you better listen to me the citizen because that's how I express myself as a citizen. (00:50:08) But we don't give ourselves the credit pollsters politicians journalists. (00:50:12) Don't give the American people credit for that. (00:50:15) They asked what do you want and when we answer in a selfish greedy narcissistic way they say see the American people are selfish narcissistic and greedy. (00:50:24) And they've never even been asked the right question. What do we as a community? And what do you think is possible? What are you (00:50:31) willing to do to make this happen for the whole Community for (00:50:34) which you to which you belong (00:50:38) and we're not talking here about altruism. Some people say, oh that's that's what you want. The citizen to be now truest the citizen is not an altruist. The citizen is somebody who understands that his or her own (00:50:49) interests. Are interdependent with the interest of their neighbors and people who aren't even their neighbors, but who live further away the citizen understands there is no such thing as a private interest the citizen understands that you can't have (00:51:03) clean air in your block and dirty are on the next block. Citizen understand that if you say no not my backyard don't put the methadone clinic in my backyard, even though I think it's a good idea. You're probably not going to get a methadone clinic at all. And you're going to have drug (00:51:16) addicts in your backyard instead. This isn't is no altruist. There's a clear element of (00:51:25) self-interest but it's the kind of enlightened self-interest that understands that we live in an (00:51:30) interdependent interconnected world where your interest in the interest of others are linked together. (00:51:39) In a way what happens to the citizens that they undergo a kind of (00:51:42) transformation in their sense of their own identity. (00:51:47) And we go through that process in our lives all the time. We start out as young men and women as relatively solitary selfish people who have our careers and our own goals, and then we can gradually as we grow. (00:52:00) And get married and have children move into neighborhoods. begin to see that Who We Are The definition of the limits of our identity grow and expand to (00:52:12) include others and it's not a matter of being an altruist. You don't cut deals with your children, (00:52:17) you know, you know bargain and (00:52:18) broker you see your children's interest. There's your (00:52:21) interests. (00:52:23) Of course what happens to them is what (00:52:24) happens to you (00:52:26) and in time if the neighbor's house at the end of the block burns down, it's not well that's his tough lock my house didn't burn down. It's that's a blight on the Block and that's that's something that's gonna affect all of us that affects me. Let's go help and put the house back up again. Not because I'm an altruist not because I'm going to be nice to my neighbor. But because I understand the neighborhood is my neighborhood to another man's house burning down affects my (00:52:48) neighborhood. It affects who I am. It affects the quality of life. (00:52:52) So we're not talking here about altruism. We're not talking about being good (00:52:56) Christians. We're talking about citizenship. We're talking rather about an (00:53:02) identity that is seen as being embedded in (00:53:07) a social context a larger world to which we belong in from which we derive our sustenance. (00:53:16) And in that sense, I think. What politics what democratic politics does at its best (00:53:24) is Inspire in us that part of ourselves that is imaginative. (00:53:29) I've always thought that Democratic (00:53:31) politics is really little more than the Art of Imagination (00:53:37) imagination allows us to see in others beings like ourselves to see the hidden connections between our own lives in the lives of others to understand that people are polluting Lake Baikal in Siberia are actually affecting the quality of Our Lives (00:53:54) to see as we used to say in the 60s. If you want to keep a man in a hole, you got to get down in the hole with him to keep him there to see all those invisible connections that takes imagination (00:54:05) a bigot (00:54:07) a racist is simply somebody without imagination (00:54:09) somebody to narrow in their conception to see behind the skin color to a human being who in fact is very much like (00:54:16) they are Bigotry is simply the absence of imagination and education of course is what allows us. What education is about is the cultivation of imagination (00:54:27) cultivating our capacity to appreciate see understand hidden connections see and understand others. The other great myth about citizenship in America. Number one. Myth I've mentioned is that citizens are voters and nothing more. The other myth is that we're kind of born citizens citizenship is hard work. It's an acquired art. It has to be learned. Nobody's a natural (00:54:51) citizen. The best citizens in America today are the politicians. I think they're professional citizens. That's what they do. They spend all their time being (00:55:00) citizens in a sense. You become mayor of a large city in Europe 25 hour day (00:55:04) citizen particular. Nobody else is being on, you know, you got to maybe work 30 hours a day to do it. But all you're doing is what (00:55:11) citizens are supposed to do you're taking responsibility for the whole town and you have to learn to do and every politician every representative. Every elected assemblyman will tell you that it takes time to acquire the (00:55:22) Arts the Civic Arts of citizenship and statesmanship. (00:55:26) They are learned art. We are doing currently nothing in this nation to help young people acquire. (00:55:33) The Arts of citizenship the imaginative skills that enable people to communicate with others and live decently with them. The key, in fact then I want to suggest to our democracy the key to making the (00:55:53) promise of American life, which is one way of doing the (00:55:55) Constitution. The Democratic (00:55:57) Constitution is the creation not of great leaders not a great (00:56:02) politicians, but of strong citizens (00:56:07) the focus in America today is the wrong place where the Democratic party is saying whom where's the John (00:56:11) Kennedy's Republicans are saying we're going to get our next Ronald Reagan from where are we going to get the leaders? (00:56:17) Who's going to save us who's going to step in and take us out of the darkness? But there's no answer there the 19th century Eugene (00:56:26) Debs. The great populist leader was asked by his people in a particularly dismal time for you know, (00:56:32) you got to save his take us out of this darkness (00:56:36) and Deb's said to (00:56:37) long have the workers of the world waited for some master some Moses to lead them out of (00:56:44) bondage. He will not come. He has not come. I would not lead you out if I could for if you could be let out you could be led back in again. Americans are waiting to be led into a more democratic country by their great leaders. They have to do it themselves. The clue to (00:57:12) making the promise of American life real is already there in our local (00:57:16) activity as Citizens. And it is in educating citizens in acquiring the Arts of civic responsibility that the real hope for democracy both in America and around the world relies (00:57:30) Jean-Jacques Rousseau. One of my favorite Democratic thinkers from the 18th century again said I quoted him at the (00:57:35) beginning. Freedom's of food easy to eat and hard to digest let me quote him on citizenship. (00:57:43) He says there can be no patriotism without Liberty. There can be no Liberty without (00:57:49) virtue. There could be no virtue without citizens (00:57:54) create citizens and you will have everything you need (00:57:58) without them. You will have nothing but (00:57:59) debased slaves from the rulers of the (00:58:02) state on downwards that was true and 1750 when he wrote it. It's probably far more (00:58:10) true today the way out of servitude political servitude political (00:58:14) Injustice to tell at arianism the (00:58:16) way out of apathy (00:58:17) complacency. Spectators sport politics of the kind we have lies on the road of citizenship. (00:58:27) We've already started down that road in (00:58:29) our local institutions. And if we take that as the model of a national politics (00:58:35) perhaps finally America will deserve. To stand as a (00:58:40) model. for struggling Democrats throughout the world Thank you.