In the next three weeks, as Democratic candidates for state or federal office enter the stretch run of the 2018 midterm elections, it will not matter what their names are. The Republicans will run against the same candidate they’ve been opposing for decades: “government”. The attack on government went politically mainstream in the 1980s under President Ronald Reagan. In his inaugural address, Reagan famously declared, “Government is not the solution to our problems, government is the problem.” He later joked, “The most terrifying words in the English language: I'm from the government and I'm here to help.”
The government remains the central target and daily punching bag for most Republicans. Steve Bannon said the goal of the Trump Administration was nothing less than the “deconstruction” of the administrative arms of government. In carrying out this mission through his massive deregulation strategy, Trump has declared, “We believe in God, not government.” Another long term peddler of the anti-government message is anti-tax advocate Grover Norquist, who quipped, “I'm not for abolishing government. I just want to shrink it down to the size where we can drown it in a bathtub.”
So for this election cycle and in 2020, vilifying and misrepresenting the role of government will be the well-funded, go-to tactic for regressive forces as it has been in the last 20 cycles. Republicans will keep working this tactic relentlessly against every Democratic candidate unless it can be effectively countered. Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer summed up the problem, “The [Republican] elites, with little rebuttal, have been able to make government the boogeyman. They have convinced too much of America that government is the explanation for their ills.” With no “rebuttal,” this message continues to resonate. In August 2018, Gallup polling found that the public’s dissatisfaction with government was the nation’s number one problem, ahead of immigration, and four times higher than health care, the economy, and unemployment.
The multi-decade, anti-government strategy has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Making “government” the scapegoat for what ails our country provides the rationale for stripping state and federal agencies of the human and financial resources they urgently need to adequately perform their tasks. This “starving the beast” tactic seriously undercuts government effectiveness, which, in turn, increases dissatisfaction with government and makes it progressively easier for its opponents to attack.
At core of the anti-government game plan are major corporations whose costs are increased when government forces them to care for their workforces or reduce the pollution and human health impacts of their businesses. They yearn for the lawlessness of a century ago when laissez faire policies gave the robber barons free reign to exploit workers, devastate our natural resources, and “buy” our democracy, transforming it into a corporate oligarchy. And with the Trump administration, they are well on their way. Corportions continue to pour billions into the political campaigns of most Republicans, and complicit Democrats, campaigns that then demonize government, promise to swell bottom lines, while turning a blind eye to corporate greed and negligence.
So the critical question for the midterm and 2020 elections is whether progressive candidates can deliver an effective counter message. That certainly did not happen in 2016, when the unbridled anti-government rhetoric once again carried Republicans to victory. Nor has it been successful whenever Democrats decide to be “Republican lite,” attacking government and only defending “popular” programs such as social security and Medicare. This was President Clinton’s strategy as he declared, “The era of Big Government is over.” This failure to effectively defend “government” cost the Democrats dearly in the 1994 midterm elections, when Republicans, utilizing frenzied anti-government rhetoric, seized control of both the House and the Senate. The inevitable result was major roll backs in protections for America’s most vulnerable.
So as of yet, despite the urgent need, there is no coherent campaign strategy to rehabilitate the public perception of government, effectively portraying it as a primary vehicle for providing critical services, ensuring equality, establishing justice, and promoting social welfare and the common good. Importantly, such a campaign must also return to the American populace what has been lost in this era of “selfish capitalism,” epitomized by Trump and his “billionaire club” cabinet. That means reigniting the belief in the redemptive power of society to take care of all its citizens and to see this country not as a “sink or swim” Darwinist dystopia but rather what Dr. Martin Luther King called “a beloved community” that includes a concern for the welfare of each and every citizen.
PUBLIC SERVICE
Given the non-stop disparagement and dishonoring of “government,” it will be necessary to find an effective alternative term with which to describe and defend it. At a minimum, this term must:
- be synonymous with “government,” but that avoids the misguided stigma conservatives strategically created around the word government;
- communicate what is best about government and those aspects of government that are generally related to essential care, services, and benefits which tens of millions of voters need on a daily basis; and
- put a human face, actually many millions of human faces, on people who are devoting themselves to caring for our society’s well-being rather than seeking ever more personal wealth.
The term that fits these criteria is public service. Public service is defined as “a service that government pays for.” This includes funding for education, fire service, health care, law enforcement, public office, military, postal service, environmental protection, public transportation, public libraries, public housing, social services, publicly supported medical and other scientific research, food safety inspection, waste management, and countless others. “Public service” is virtually synonymous with “government”; it is “government in action.”
From a communication standpoint, the term public service, because of the word “service,” brings up altruistic aspects of government action that people need and fully support. The term immediately brings to mind people devoting themselves to the larger community and who are ready to sacrifice pursuit of wealth, and even their lives, for the general public welfare. Accordingly, “public servant” is a far more accurate and sympathetic term than “government worker.” It is not surprising that most politicians, when they retire, speak of their many years in “public service,” not “government.”
And well they should. The public service sector is the foundation of American society. Our everyday lives would be impossible without it, no business could run without it and our country would be in chaos without it. As a reminder, there are the 3.2 million public school teachers who educate over 50 million of our children each year. The public service sector also includes more than 2 million policeman and firemen who risk their lives every day for our safety and welfare. These are just part of the 22 million Americans devoted to public service in local, state, and federal government, maintaining our transportation and communication infrastructure, guaranteeing a functioning legal system, overseeing our public hospitals and health centers, distributing our community investments such as school lunches and unemployment insurance, and earned investments such as social security and Medicare. There are 1.4 million Americans who serve in the military, again, many of them risking their lives on a daily basis.
The public service sector also contributes enormously to the economy. Public service is responsible for 38 percent of the nation’s GDP, the vast majority involving wages and production. This sector has, of course, a huge “multiplier” effect on the national economy as these workers and those receiving benefits buy their food, housing transportation, and other needs.
Once these millions of public servants are again honored and energized, instead of being shamed and vilified, they will make a strong constituency for any candidate. Candidates strongly supporting “public service” and surrounding themselves with the diverse community of public servants -- teachers, transportation workers, cancer researchers, firemen, social workers, policemen, Head Start volunteers, and National Guardsmen -- will be hard to attack.
Most importantly, using the term “public service” quickly shuts down the Republican tactic of scapegoating government. People appropriately associate public service with terms such as valor, duty, self-sacrifice, mentor, caregiver, diplomat, guardian, protector, rescuer, and provider. Few Republican candidates will be able to say that they are “against public service.” Nor are they likely to they say that the want to “drown” public servants. No future State of the Union speech by either party will proudly proclaim the “end of American’s public service.”
Once candidates help voters understand the actual role of public service in their lives, they will realize that, without it, there would be chaos; lawlessness; infrastructure collapse; poverty; far greater inequality; wanton destruction of the environment; and abandonment of the young, poor, and elderly. Given this reality, a possible tag line for candidates supporting all those working in public service would be: “If we do not take care of our public servants, they will not be there to take care of us.”
A RENEWED COMMON PURPOSE FOR AMERICANS
More than 50 years ago, Robert Kennedy said, “We will find neither national purpose nor personal satisfaction in a mere continuation of economic progress, in an endless amassing of worldly goods. We cannot measure national spirit by the Dow Jones average, nor national achievement through the Gross National Product.” Yet that is where much of American society is today, valorizing wealth above all and currently being led by a septuagenarian, philandering, mendacious billionaire and his wealthy clique who measure success by gaining ever more wealth by whatever means, including scamming the government out of taxes.
During this election cycle, progressives have often been accused of having no agenda except opposition to Trump. This is, of course, unfair and inaccurate. Nevertheless, it does seem that, in recent years, many Democrats, with their limited emphasis on middle-class white voters, have failed to provide a compelling, alternate common purpose for all Americans, one that embodies not our lowest instincts of endless acquisitiveness, but our higher calling to serve one another and the nation as best we can.
Peace Corps founder, Sargent Shriver who led the War on Poverty in the 1960s, which helped reduce poverty by 40 percent, stated, “Of all our ideals none surpasses the importance of public service.” He saw firsthand how those working for Head Start, the Job Corps, Legal Services for the poor, and in so many other roles changed lives every day and ultimately had a ripple effect of bringing down discrimination, inequality, and oppression throughout the country.
To defeat the corrosive anti-government message, Democrats should once again become the party representing all our public servants and the foundational role they play for every person and business in the country. Moreover, progressive politicians must reach out to the younger generations with a renewed call to public service at this critical time in our history. For if public service is not our shared national purpose, then what is?
Andrew Kimbrell is an author, attorney and psychologist. He has founded a number of non-profits and is a frequent contributor to the Huffington Post.