CRISIS AND HOPE FOR AMERICAN DEMOCRACY Part 1
George Packer’s book, Last best hope: America in crisis and renewal, offers an analysis of how American democracy got to its current crisis and how it will, hopefully, renew itself and survive. He points out that American democracy has gone through similar crises in the past. He identifies key elements of a functioning democracy and four cultural narratives, moral identities, or “tribes” that have emerged in the U.S. They have fractured American politics and society.
(Vacation Note: Sorry for not posting the last two weeks. I was on vacation with grandkids in LA and friends from Salt Lake City.)
(Note: If you find my posts too long to read on occasion, please just skim the bolded portions. They present the key points I’m making. Thank you for reading my blog!)
George Packer’s book, Last best hope: America in crisis and renewal, offers an analysis of how American democracy got to its current crisis and how it will, hopefully, renew itself and survive. He points out that American democracy has gone through similar crises in the past and has successfully renewed itself and resumed its journey toward the visionary principles expressed in the Declaration of Independence.
He posits that a functioning democracy requires three elements:
1. The people view each other as fellow citizens of goodwill,
2. The people believe that their government hears and responds to them, and
3. The people believe that their government leaders will abide by democratic rules, including that votes will be accurately cast, counted, and respected.
Right now, the American people – or at least some of them – are questioning each of these. Destructive tribalism has shattered these foundations of democracy and the shared reality that is essential for self-government. The high and growing levels of inequality that our current economic system produces makes national solidarity impossible – especially in a country founded on the principle of equal opportunity. Concentrated economic and political power in the hands of a small number of wealthy capitalists and their political allies has denied many Americans control of their lives and futures, and has taken away their economic security.
In Packer’s analysis, America fractured in the 1970s from two relatively stable cultural narratives or moral identities aligned with the Democratic and Republican parties into four rival narratives. Democrats stood for workers, social solidarity, and ensuring fairness for all. Republicans stood for business, individual enterprise, and getting ahead. In the late 1960s, both parties were undemocratic, corrupt, and often bigoted. Some of the organized constituencies that had traditionally been aligned with each party began to question their affiliation. The post-World War II, middle-class-focused, bipartisan America was being transformed.
Packer names and describes four new, rival cultural narratives, moral identities, or “tribes” that emerged from this transformation. Here’s a brief summary of two of them. (The other two and more on Packer’s analysis will be presented in subsequent posts.)
Free America: Driven by consumer capitalism and libertarian ideas, members of the Free America tribe are focused on individual freedom unconstrained by government, society, or other people. They are skeptical of democracy and view the role of government as simply to secure individual rights. They embrace the mythical self-made man, pioneer, and cowboy. Their individualism and resultant self-isolation tend to breed distrust. They support deregulation without foreseeing the resultant emergence of concentrated wealth and economic power in the hands of a small number of huge corporations and wealthy capitalists. They are strongly nationalistic, believing in American exceptionalism, ideals, and military might. They tend to be radical rather than conservative. They break down institutions and oppose rules and traditions. The quality of the leadership of this tribe has steadily deteriorated from Ronald Reagan to Newt Gingrich to Donald Trump. Ultimately, the Free America that this tribe’s members advocate for has, for many of them, eroded their economic security, their ability to enjoy their freedom, and their identity as solid members of the middle class.
Smart America: Smart America is an embodiment of the new knowledge economy. Its members believe in expertise and credentials (e.g., college degrees). They embrace capitalism and meritocracy. They support government and private programs to ensure equal opportunity, such as affirmative action, diversity hiring, and perhaps reparations to promote racial justice. They support economic and educational justice too. They are, however, individualists. The American society they have built, based on education and merit, has created a new, often hereditary, professional, white collar social class. Politically, they align with and have shaped the new Democratic Party, with Bill and Hillary Clinton as quintessential members and leaders. They and this new Democratic Party have moved away from supporting unions and blue-collar workers. Instead, they support free trade, deregulation, and the resultant concentration of economic power in huge, international corporations. The winners in Smart America are on Wall Street and in Silicon Valley. Its families strive feverishly to get their children into elite universities. The country’s education system (from kindergarten through higher education), envisioned as the vehicle for equal opportunity, has now become the enforcer of ostensibly merit-based inequality. As the professionals of Smart America have succeeded, blue collar workers have seen their economic security and opportunities diminish. The loyalty of Smart Americans is to their families and less so to America. Their identity is less American and more that of global citizen.
My next post will summarize Packer’s other two rival cultural narratives, moral identities, or “tribes”: Real America and Just America. A subsequent post will discuss the interactions among the four American tribes and Packer’s analysis of where we go from here, including how we put America back together and back on track.