When democracy with a small “d” is discussed in corporate media, it usually has to do with democracy in another country. The media talks about democracy in Turkey or Asia or Africa, and the United States is portrayed as the hero that “brings” democracy. We may hear about how Islamophobia threatens democracy in Europe, but we won’t hear about how it threatens democracy here.
When it comes to America, democracy is one of the few words corporate media rarely mentions.
This week something different happened. Democracy broke through into the news with the Democracy Spring movement.
Here’s what happened, why this is so important, and why we should raise the topic of democracy every chance we get.
More than 400 people were arrested in a sit-in at the Capitol steps on Monday as part of the Democracy Spring protest.
The group wants our legislators and government to represent the people. They advocate for legislation limiting undisclosed and big donor money, restoring the Voting Rights Act, and ending gerrymandering that’s insulated and protected corrupt legislators.
This is hugely important because so many of the things we hear about in the news are really either important aspects of democracy, or they’re in the news because democracy is breaking down.
Here’s a few from just the past week:
The problem is that most of these issues are never discussed as breakdowns of democracy. Instead, they are all too often discussed as normal or the way things should be.
Businesses like TurboTax are just doing what businesses do by lobbying the government to keep taxes complex so they can sell more software—even when there’s really no reason the government couldn’t just mail you your completed taxes and ask you to sign off on them. After all, they already have most people’s information.
People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it
Simon Sinek explains the success of corporate special interest groups in one key sentence:
People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.
I’d recommend watching his whole TED talk:
How does what Sinek talks about relate to how to make change happen?
Corporate special interest groups have been successful because they start with the why and move toward the how and the what (they start with ideas and move toward policy). It looks like this:
We want you to be more free. To do this, we need to shrink government. The way to do this is to cut taxes and subsequently government programs.
In order to do this, they’ve had to redefine “freedom” as solely consumer choice and less government. I completely disagree with their definition of freedom. But they are going about it the right way. We are going about it the wrong way.
Here was our health care story:
Let’s look at which policy will work best for health care. What about single payer? Ok, we can’t pass that. What about the public option? Ok, we can’t pass that either, let’s pass the Affordable Care Act and mandate that everyone have insurance. Why? Why are we doing this? Well, the previous thing we were doing wasn’t working.
This, of course, is true. Unfortunately, the opposition was able to come up with and distribute a more compelling story about how Obama was taking away everyone’s “freedom.” Do you see now why health care reform might be unpopular?
We lost on the “why.” Their narrative about “why” was better marketed.
People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.
A better idea: Democracy
Ask most people in America how our country works and who it works for. Invariably, people will tell you that it doesn’t work for them.
I like to draw this picture:
I then ask them if this is about right: “This is what I hear you saying.” Most people agree. Then I lay out what democracy looks like. This isn’t rocket science. But it helps to have a conceptual picture so that people understand the “why>”
The “why” is that these things, both government and corporations, should benefit people.
In this vision of how things work, the vision of our founders, corporations were only chartered for the public good. In other words, they were chartered to serve people.
We placed strict rules on corporations for 100 years after the Revolutionary War because we fought the war as much against the British East India Company monopoly as we did the British. That tea that was dumped in the harbor, it wasn’t just any tea. It was monopoly tea.
Some of the limits we established in our fledgling representative democracy were:
Charters were granted for a limited time and would expire if not periodically renewed.
- Corporations could only engage in activities necessary to fulfill their charter.
- Corporations were often terminated if they exceeded their charter or caused public harm.
- Corporations could not make political or charitable contributions nor spend money to influence law-making.
- Owners and managers were responsible for criminal acts committed on the job.
This is how democracy is supposed to work. Within this context, all of the following and more make sense:
- Repealing Citizens United
- A fair and non-partisan election process
- Getting money out of politics
- The Fairness Doctrine
- Voting rights
- Public financing of elections
- Public education
- Corporate regulations
Within the context of democracy, almost everything on the big ideas site “makes sense.”
To illustrate how the logic of this frame works toward a more and more democratic society, here are some of the policy options for elections within the democracy frame:
What makes sense within this frame is more democracy, less corporate rule. In other words, once you start getting people thinking within the idea that our government and our corporations should benefit people, it makes sense to move toward greater democracy.
The democracy frame also makes the idea of smaller government look, well, silly.
Making government smaller or even getting rid of government doesn’t change the fundamental problem. The problem is that things in our country are no longer working for people.
Within a democracy, solutions need to satisfy the requirement that they benefit—you guessed it—people.
The problem is that government is corrupt. It is owned by corporate special interest groups. Who really cares how big or small it is if it’s not working for people?
Democracy needs a marketing plan
The idea of democracy isn’t new.
The problem is that corporate ideas like “small government” and “freedom™” have hundreds of millions of dollars of marketing muscle behind them. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce alone spends more than $100 million a year on promoting and marketing their version of government (one that works for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce) simply so they can pass legislation that benefits them and it won’t be seen as corrupt.
Corporate special interest groups have been teaching and promoting smaller government for 40 years because it makes all of the policy changes they want possible: Privatization, cheaper labor, tax handouts for the wealthy, cutting earned benefits, money in politics, etc.
We have to start with the better idea—democracy—and win on this idea in order to get better policies. Or, as Simon Sinek would say, we should start with the why and move outward to the how and the what.
If we had first won with a better story of democracy, health care reform wouldn’t have been so unpopular. This is why it’s so great to see Democracy Spring make the news.
Health care reform would have seemed like common sense.
If democracy makes sense, we could do things like eliminate tax preparation (and subsequent profits to all the tax preparation companies). Unions make sense within a democracy. If democracy takes hold again, we could bring back the Voting Rights Act, we could get money out of politics, and we could end tax havens for the rich.
What we can do to help is to talk about democracy and why it’s so important as much as possible. Democracy, democracy, democracy, democracy!
David Akadjian is the author of The Little Book of Revolution: A Distributive Strategy for Democracy (now available as an ebook).