When democracy becomes numb to the desires of its citizens and political campaigns become sporting events for television pundits, the ballot box becomes a sad (if necessary) expression of populist will.
That’s the argument put forth on Tuesday by one progressive candidate who challenged the political status quo this election season.
“If we don’t have a responsive democracy, all the debates [on progressive issues we care about] aren’t real debates. When elections are not democratic, even the most populist discussions become superficial, disconnected from real power; they are theatre.”
In Guardian op-ed on Tuesday, Zephyr Teachout, the Fordham Law School professor who this year took on New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in a primary challenge from the Left, says that amidst many other valid theories about the source of the “disgust and apathy” so many feel toward this year’s election, the simplest explanation may be this: “people don’t like being told falsely they have power when they don’t.”
What’s essential for Americans to recognize this Election Day—set to be the most expensive mid-term in U.S. history—says Teachout, is that confronting this reality of disempowerment is not something to avoid, but the key to achieving the real progressive change so many desperately desire.
“There is one issue that subsumes all other issues, upon which all other issues depend,” she writes, “and that is restoring democracy itself.”
“If we don’t have a responsive democracy, all the debates about charter schools, and fracking, and high-stakes testing, and the militarization of police forces – all of which are issues I care about – they aren’t real debates. When elections are not democratic, even the most populist discussions become superficial, disconnected from real power; they are theatre.”
The key reason for this disconnection and disempowerment, argues Teachout, is clear: the massive amounts of money flooding U.S. elections. “The key to fixing public financing is to free politics from big money,” she writes and offers state-level public financing schemes—as seen in Maine, Connecticut and elsewhere—as the most readily available solutions.
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