The work of reclaiming our civic life
From The Work Ahead published November 1, 2024:
Completely independent of partisanship or policy, a healthy, vibrant democratic culture — one animated by a deep commitment to self-determination, self-government, pluralism, and civic duty — would reject Trump as a candidate much less select him as its leader.
People's feelings of uncertainty and precarity are profound and real and need to be addressed in genuine, palpable ways. Modern life can feel alienating and isolating as healthy, familiar social connectivity is weakened. Our information systems promote extreme opposition and narrow our worldviews and perspectives, which gives us a comforting sense of certainty but also an inflamed sense of grievance while failing to provide deeper context for our realities or clues to our shared experiences. Combined with narratives that encourage a posture of threat, people can be drawn onto paths that feel responsive and tuned to their fears and needs but are incapable of delivering on their promises. This is how culture and systems that prioritize declaration over delivery become dangerous.
In a democracy, elections are just the mechanism by which we choose leadership and share power. The real work of serving each other, of ensuring justice, of working insolidarity to share our resources and ensure everyone thrives happens after election day. And in the case of the work we must do to reshape and strengthen our democracy, never has that been more true. We must breathe new life into the foundational democratic cultural principles instead of indulging in confirmation bias and declaration culture. We must recommit to and prioritize these damaged norms in our political processes over our need to win and our obsession with our opponents’ losing. We must redesign our institutions to focus on service and delivery over performative posturing and maintaining rather than using power in service of others. We must make our democracy democratic and joyous.
This work is the path toward a real, broad, vibrant, creative democracy capable of adaptive, future-oriented ideas and meeting the challenges and opportunities in front of us.