For my inaugural post, I present an essay I wrote to convince the cynical and uninformed voter that a new day is dawning in America, and that the vote is more meaningful now than ever before. Likewise, I hope to introduce the new political forces in play, their role, and the bipartisianship they embrace.
I know parts of this essay cover topics and events with which regular Kos readers will be quite familiar. Please keep in mind its intended audience, and please feel open to use it in whole or in part when discussing the new politics of the individual with a fellow citizen.
I look forward to your comments and suggestions.
Voting is an odd thing. In isolation, it gives us each a voice, a direct connection to the government we employ for our service. It is often said that it is the most basic and fundamental right we are given through citizenship, and it truly is the phoenix of the blood and misery of millions of ancestors and the flames of social failure.
Yet taken in mass, each vote is often seen as meaningless, a wishful penny in a waterfall of competing powers. It is a citizen's lone voice amidst a torrent of lobbying from every group with an axe to grind and the cash to spin the wheel.
How could this equation be changed? If it were to change, what would a single vote mean?
Surely, as has been noted elsewhere, the voting methods themselves are of concern. Plurality voting, the Electoral College, and disenfranchisement are topics of the day, but are certainly not the only concerns amongst voters wishing their voice to be heard amidst the din.
Realism tells us that there is no hope for curing any of society's ills without a government driven by populist concerns. This does not imply liberal or conservative, progressive or regressive, but rather a government by and for the people; our government.
In truth then, the first and boldest step to take is to increase the power of the vote, and the path to doing so is to supply an equal or greater share of what we all know to cry louder than our individual voices.
Money.
At first glance, this seems an extremely cynical view. Money is cold, soulless and its value is relative and without intrinsic meaning. On a macro-scale, this is true. But for the individual, it is something else entirely.
In some peculiar way, money is a measurement of our value. It represents our success in harnessing our capability, our investment in ourselves, our ethics. Each of us has a value in monetary terms that abstracts our self-realization. Surely there is great disparity in real valuation due to the ways in which money can be combined towards specific ends, but our assets do still represent the efforts we put in to realize our potential. Thus, it is an abstraction of the work we put in each day, and that abstraction can in turn be transformed into anything from basic needs to investment to political power. A small portion of each day we spend doing our job can be transformed into political power with very little effort, the typical barrier to entry being time. Viewed in this context, each and every contribution we make in dollar value to politics is an abstraction of the efforts we put in to provide for ourselves, and the relative value compared to our total income is a percentage of ourselves that we devote, through indirect means, to the politics of our future.
There has been a subtle but important shift in the nature of fundraising in recent years, much of it driven by a decentralization of the information infrastructure. Most of us have seen it through news and op-ed pieces on the Dean campaign and the efforts of MoveOn.org, and the growing prominence of independent meta-journalism and analysis via blogs. The effectiveness and potential of this shift has for the most part been downplayed, for many of the same reasons that the hype about the false valuation of the Internet lead to a devaluation of its potential in the public mind. What we have consistently seen in the past decade is that the Internet never fulfills expectations because its effect on society is more fundamental. The Internet isn't a thing which will change the world; the ways in which it is harnessed will.
Instinctively, we know this to be true. We've seen it in new businesses flourishing and failing, old businesses dying and synthesizing. We've seen it in previously buried information made easily available, and how we use that to check on everything from the weather report to our portfolio to what was said by a politician when they thought no one was listening. In each and every case where ideas have flourished through communication, the path to growth and success has been how people have communicated, and not what has been communicated.
To this end, there is arising a very real and powerful new force in politics which leverages communication to create entirely new communities of individuals dedicated to their collective future. The groupings are increasingly fluid; just as we each take part in congruent and disparate communities, so too do the politics of the populace yield co-mingling groups which share common ground and disagreements. The synthesis of these communities represents for each person the nature in which their nuanced ideas and beliefs are manifested in the ideas of other individuals.
Without wielding power, the growth of this new political sphere means nothing in how it affects real politics. What has evolved quickly and will forever change politics is that there is now no barrier between sharing and discussing of ideas and bringing those ideas to our representatives. Small donations through an array of groups gives an individual the power to influence politics to cover their broad positions. Small donations through a single source gives an individual the ability to concentrate their voice through a single forum. The effects can be realized quickly and with astounding efficiency.
A case in point is the Pennsylvania 8th district race for the House. In this suburb of Philadelphia, the incumbent Jim Greenword abruptly dropped his reelection campaign to retire. At the time, his rival Ginny Schrader of the Democratic party had approximately $7k in the bank and little organization. For the most part, she had been ignored by the party apparatus. Within hours, word had spread across the Internet and she had raised more than $30k within a few days. For a House seat, this is substantial money, and allows a full organization to develop and run.
What effect did this have? First, the Democratic party apparatus, who initially did not voice firm support for Mrs. Schrader's candidacy and considered supplanting her when Mr. Greenword resigned, was forced to support her as the one and only viable candidate. The top-down organization was marginalized and forced to submit to the collective voices of the donors. Second, Mrs. Schrader, if successful in her campaign, is now accountable to the entire country.
That secondary outcome is subtle, but the most powerful lesson to be learned from this experience. Accountability to those being represented is an unwavering trait of politicians. It is why corporate donors, wealthy individuals and PAC's are coddled by politicians across the country. To date, accountability has moved in one direction, centralizing to an ever smaller group which in turn derives its power from a larger pool of money. It is how "special interests" operate, and do so with great efficiency.
The new model changes that. The power derived from the new base is on par with or greater than that provided by actors in the old model, but the source is decentralized across the country (and potentially, across the globe). This yields a source of power far greater than one group or company could ever hope to bear, and the liquidity of the power assets is such that it can be wielded with a strength and efficiency unmatched by any top-down organization.
The end result is that vast sums of money flow up and spread across the political landscape, reorganizing the source of political power such that providing for the populace is the best and quickest way to secure power. The real beauty of this realignment is the liquidity; just as Candidate A may have won the election, the money raised by individuals for Candidate B implies that Mrs. A can secure her position and continue to win elections only through appealing to the power base that supported her win and the candidacy of Mr. B. If the source of power, money, is derived from a group outside the immediate consituancy of Mrs. A, then she is beholden to the interests of a broad and diverse people.
The sheer beauty of this model is the nature in which it secures and expands the Democratic Republic. Democracy is strengthened through a more direct bestowement of power from the individual to his government. Republicanism is strengthened by reaffirming the role of the representative as the figure to make educated decisions and compromises at the level of government needed to make decisive and wise action.
The key to this, the real power that surpasses any abstraction of power we apply, is the vote. Without the vote, without the continued pressure of wielding this lever of power, no politician will ever be held accountable. That, more than anything, is our input into the system. Money is the key to balancing the choices, the path to ensuring that no matter which candidate is chosen, the message is clear that the choice rests squarely on a candidate's ability to deliver to the individual.
Without the pull, it is little more than song and dance.