What's The Number One Problem In America?
Hint: It's not George W. Bush, but it has something to do with him.
So what is it? Voter apathy and ignorance. If we could fix the lack of citizen engagement in the democratic process, all the other problems - immoral wars, corrupt politicians, unfair taxation policies, corporate control of the government, etc. - would fix themselves.
There are two parts to the problem: apathy and ignorance. The first is a symptom of the second, so we'll start with ignorance.
Ignorance is a serious problem in American politics today. Many Americans believe themselves to be too busy to inform themselves on basic political issues, and in some cases that is true. Most Americans, however, could probably cut out an hour of sitcoms at night to read the paper and gain a basic understanding of what is going on in the world. An ignorant voter is, in fact, worse than an apathetic voter (or, more accurately, non-voter). Bush won both elections riding on a wave of ignorance that the mainstream television media helped to perpetuate. Gore was consistently misquoted, and the ignorant voter took such lines as "I invented the internet" and used them to form a picture of Gore as a boring, pretentious prick. Kerry was portrayed as a "Massachuesetts liberal" though, as The Political Compass does an excellent job of pointing out, he was in fact a conservative, albeit less so than Bush. Both these situations could have been rectified by a small amount of basic research by the voter. Gore, in reality, only mentioned that he voted to create the predecessor to the internet, and Kerry opposed liberal ideas from gay marriage to national healthcare.
Not only is how politicians viewed by citizens affected by ignorance, but so is how they view themselves. Gore repeatedly talked of how he would fund his programs by raising taxes on the wealthiest one percent of Americans. The problem is that, according to a recent survey, 20% of Americans believe they are in the top 1% of earners, and 78% believe if they are not there, they soon will be. This is a serious problem. A very worthy idea was defeated because Americans do not understand that the richest one percent are many times more wealthy than they ever can hope to be, and they most certainly do not belong to that group already.
Ignorance breeds apathy. When people feel they are not able to keep up with politics, they give up and disenfranchise themselves. Apathy, however, also causes ignorance. When someone doesn't care about something, they have little to no motiviation to learn about it - like me and math. This cycle means that the majority of the country is uninformed about what is going on in their government and what they can do about it.
What is needed is a on-going civics program in schools that teaches students from a young age that participation in the democratic process is essential to their well-being. What is needed is not the stuffy civics programs many schools offer today, which bored even me with useless facts about the Constitution that do not matter any longer. What is needed is to teach students about past events where a group of concerned citizens made a difference in government, and have them write letters to congressmen about issues that concern them. Have them participate in mock elections, and make sure they understand who they are voting for when they do so. Break down the common practice of voting along party lines, since many Democrats have less in common with Democratic voters than third party candidates do.
If citizens would be able to understand for themselves what is going on in government, and be positively engaged in the system, elections would become true "changings of the sheets" and not just the reaffirmation of an incumbent that they are now (97% of incumbents in Congress are re-elected). I don't care if someone votes for Bush because they agree with his tax policies or his stance on terrorism or whatever, as long as they know what they are voting for. What I do care about is someone who votes for Bush because he seems like a "good ol' country fella" and then has to spend the next eight years wondering why her children are always sick, never making the connection with Bush's lax environmental laws that allow the power plant in her backyard to release poisons into the neighborhood.
So what is it? Voter apathy and ignorance. If we could fix the lack of citizen engagement in the democratic process, all the other problems - immoral wars, corrupt politicians, unfair taxation policies, corporate control of the government, etc. - would fix themselves.
There are two parts to the problem: apathy and ignorance. The first is a symptom of the second, so we'll start with ignorance.
Ignorance is a serious problem in American politics today. Many Americans believe themselves to be too busy to inform themselves on basic political issues, and in some cases that is true. Most Americans, however, could probably cut out an hour of sitcoms at night to read the paper and gain a basic understanding of what is going on in the world. An ignorant voter is, in fact, worse than an apathetic voter (or, more accurately, non-voter). Bush won both elections riding on a wave of ignorance that the mainstream television media helped to perpetuate. Gore was consistently misquoted, and the ignorant voter took such lines as "I invented the internet" and used them to form a picture of Gore as a boring, pretentious prick. Kerry was portrayed as a "Massachuesetts liberal" though, as The Political Compass does an excellent job of pointing out, he was in fact a conservative, albeit less so than Bush. Both these situations could have been rectified by a small amount of basic research by the voter. Gore, in reality, only mentioned that he voted to create the predecessor to the internet, and Kerry opposed liberal ideas from gay marriage to national healthcare.
Not only is how politicians viewed by citizens affected by ignorance, but so is how they view themselves. Gore repeatedly talked of how he would fund his programs by raising taxes on the wealthiest one percent of Americans. The problem is that, according to a recent survey, 20% of Americans believe they are in the top 1% of earners, and 78% believe if they are not there, they soon will be. This is a serious problem. A very worthy idea was defeated because Americans do not understand that the richest one percent are many times more wealthy than they ever can hope to be, and they most certainly do not belong to that group already.
Ignorance breeds apathy. When people feel they are not able to keep up with politics, they give up and disenfranchise themselves. Apathy, however, also causes ignorance. When someone doesn't care about something, they have little to no motiviation to learn about it - like me and math. This cycle means that the majority of the country is uninformed about what is going on in their government and what they can do about it.
What is needed is a on-going civics program in schools that teaches students from a young age that participation in the democratic process is essential to their well-being. What is needed is not the stuffy civics programs many schools offer today, which bored even me with useless facts about the Constitution that do not matter any longer. What is needed is to teach students about past events where a group of concerned citizens made a difference in government, and have them write letters to congressmen about issues that concern them. Have them participate in mock elections, and make sure they understand who they are voting for when they do so. Break down the common practice of voting along party lines, since many Democrats have less in common with Democratic voters than third party candidates do.
If citizens would be able to understand for themselves what is going on in government, and be positively engaged in the system, elections would become true "changings of the sheets" and not just the reaffirmation of an incumbent that they are now (97% of incumbents in Congress are re-elected). I don't care if someone votes for Bush because they agree with his tax policies or his stance on terrorism or whatever, as long as they know what they are voting for. What I do care about is someone who votes for Bush because he seems like a "good ol' country fella" and then has to spend the next eight years wondering why her children are always sick, never making the connection with Bush's lax environmental laws that allow the power plant in her backyard to release poisons into the neighborhood.
posted by Jimmy at 3:40 PM
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