Issues: Political Awareness (Support Your local Local!)

The past several decades have seen a general decline in the number of eligible voters interested in participating in the American electoral process. Reasons for the seeming increase in citizen apathy are manifold: disenchantment with politics, nonchalance with (non-importance of) social concerns outside of one’s immediate environment, laziness promoted by an entertainment-centric culture. Political scientist Robert Putnam goes so far as to place the blame squarely on television, which drew citizens away from more socially-oriented activities, such as social clubs, craft and church groups, and sporting leagues. Americans retreated, physically and emotionally, into a pre-dispensed domestic lifestyle. The data does support his conjectures; from the period 1960 to 1990, as new media and cheap commodity production expanded at an alarming rate, national voter turnout dropped over 15%. However, theories, such as changes in the very nature of mass politics and the emphasis on attack-based campaigning, are also plausible alternative, or supplemental, explanations for contemporary voter discontent.

The overall decline of voter participation presents a serious threat to the proper administration of a representative government whose power is derived from the consent of the people. Without the checking powers of the majority, factions and special interests, such as modern day right wing fundamentalists, are able to disproportionately influence and control contemporary political discourse. Those who decline to vote are of little concern to the modern politician, whose eye is firmly fixed on the frontier: winning the next election. As such, a vicious cycle develops: politicians cater to those of political influence, who, in turn, condition the direction of a national agenda which overlooks the needs of the politically weak, who then refuse to turn out for the next election due to apathy, indifference, etc.

The dangers of voter non-participation, and its inherent reinforcement of a system which continuously excludes the uninformed and politically inactive, are magnified when one realizes, in general, who declines to vote: the undereducated and economically struggling (lower and middle classes), those social groups that need the most attention, support and legislation from our political institutions. These constituents must feel particularly distant, disaffected from a right-leaning national politics interested foremost in providing large-scale accommodations to the elite ownership through income and capital gains tax cuts, and from a government and political process which has, over time, shifted its attention from concerns over the socioeconomic well-being of all Americans, to allowing elite concerns (Bush’s base) to re-consolidate power financially and militarily. As Thomas E. Patterson, professor at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government states in his series, Where Have all the Voters Gone?:

The voting rate among those at the bottom of the income ladder is only half that of those at the top. During the era of the economic issue, working-class Americans were at the center of political debate and party conflict. They now occupy the periphery of a political world in which money and middle-class concerns are ascendant. In 2000, low-income respondents were roughly 30 percent more likely than those in the middle- or top-income groups to say the election’s outcome would have little or no impact on their lives.

In my opinion, the ascent of the media-recreation industry (fueled by cheap televisions and an increase in the quantity, though not quality, of programming), combined with the expansion of the affordable luxury-commodity market and the tight control of political and economic discourse, in general, the closing of the socio-cultural sphere in favor of an administered, immediate news and entertainment lifestyle (in a vein similar to Putnam’s argument), has resulted in “self-imposed,” (conditioned?) lower class disenfranchisement. Once a politically active force at the ballot box, working class individuals have been distracted by the illusion of widespread economic gains (manifested by greater access to luxury goods), increasingly drawn away from those traditional venues (activities, clubs) and values (working class solidarity) which encouraged political participation, made deliberate issue over inequality and forced critical discussion among ambitious politicians seeking their consolidated support. Greater access to a range of affordable comforts, and a misguided belief in social mobility propagated by pro-business contingent, have altered the political consciousness of the undereducated. Allegiance to the interests of one’s business/employer/administrator/economy has been, both overtly (advertising) and subtly (American education), promoted as being far more politically expedient (i.e. satisfying the range of manufactured desires, false needs) and, in some ways, decreed morally superior to the gains achievable through economic solidarity and electoral action (think of the hatred Americans have towards any mention of socialism, simply on ethical grounds) Why worry about politics which could affect ‘the other’ (that is, the person outside of the individual’s immediate interest) when Wal-Mart takes care of me with employment, service and entertainment at everyday low prices?

This trend of the undereducated individual kept ignorant, distracted, and distanced from both his genuine socio-economic peers and vehicles for political action, removed from the concerns of the decision-makers (and, by a combination of both, rendered politically impotent), will be a difficult one to reverse. Media and commodity-producing elites, those who benefit from the perpetuation of an immediate consumer-universe and the limitation of political discourse, can not be relied on to support those changes (i.e. use their mass-resources to provide an adequate venue for political dialogue rather than controlled partisan bickering) necessary to encourage the egress of social and political awareness. The impetus for change must germinate from the ground-up, from disillusioned citizens, animated by supportive legislating and progressive legislators, willing to re-socialize, to reclaim their political voice, to extract themselves from an entangled web of consumer-maya.

A practical solution to indirectly promote voter turnout, to reinvigorate social cohesion and politically-critical engagement, would be to encourage, from a legislative standpoint, the re-emergence of unions. Unions have played an important role in shaping the political and economic destiny of the United States, securing rights such as 8-hour workdays and minimum wage laws for the working class. Despite the concentrated efforts by business and pro-capital politicians to stifle and eradicate the union movement, there are many reasons to believe that a reinvigoration of the union institution, as a body in which workers directly participate and witness representative politics in action, could have a profound effect on stimulating the undereducated and lower classes to believe in, and express themselves through, the greater state and national election stages.

Several strong characteristics of the union model support its role as an institution which could potentially stimulate and reintegrate the non-voter into the vital political arena, to engender greater faith in the efficiency and reach of our national system. First and foremost, unions are essentially a micro-political system in and of themselves, an organized, small-scale introduction to the sometimes overwhelming, sometimes sublime institution of representative politics. Workers who participate, and witness, firsthand, those personal gains reaped through political efforts and voting, will have greater faith in the expression of their voice on the national stage.

Unions also encourage political awareness, consolidation and mobilization among the undereducated, turning a mass of laborers into a solid, vocal voting bloc impossible for an ambitious politician to ignore. Union meetings provide a venue for the politically distant to engage in serious political discussion outside the rigid, sometimes distracting, sometimes useless, scope of modern news media. Through mailings and member canvassing, through direct engagement with their socially equivalent non-union peers, union messages could be argued and disseminated into the greater community. Political awareness could spread like wildfire (for the personal, emotional and human aspect that comes through word-of-mouth information dissemination can not yet be replicated by the Internet).

The theoretical belief that unions could directly improve general (and undereducated) voter political awareness and participation rates is supported by the available academic evidence. In their study, Unions, Voter Turnout and Class Bias in the U.S. Electorate, Jan Leighley (University of Arizona) and Jonathan Nagler (NYU) concluded that:

Union members are significantly more likely than non-union members to vote in presidential and congressional elections, and that this membership effect remains when controlling for individual-level characteristics such as education, income and occupation…Individuals living in states with stronger unions are more likely to vote…These empirical findings show that unions indeed play, or have played, an important role in stimulating electoral participation in the U.S.

The same study also revealed that if the share of unionized workers in the labor force had been as high in 2000 as it was in 1964, an additional 10 percent of adults in the lower two-thirds of the income distribution would have voted. Don’t tell Al Gore.

There remain serious hurdles to overcome if unions are to be reintegrated into the American political consciousness. The first task would be to restore working class (and middle class) faith in collective institutions that many believe have become overly bureaucratic, corrupt, and disingenuously smeared with Red paint. It is the task of the new, progressive politicians to encourage skeptical, desperate individuals to look to their peers, and their communities, the real human resource departments, for the moral and cultural support required for a new and vocal solidarity among struggling and discontent citizens. Importantly, the middle class, whose expansion over the past fifty years has contributed to economic complacency and a downturn in union participation, must be included in a new type of union/community organization. There is little to no reason why white collar workers should not establish office unions as a hedge against excessive CEO pay, as an acceptable venue to discuss the economic and social policies of the workplace and beyond, and as a means of establishing greater unity, and perhaps enthusiasm and leadership, among the new laboring classes, regardless of work environment or social status.

Established forces will certainly militate against drives for unionization and worker-ownership, as has been demonstrated by the recent union-busting histories of major corporations such as Wal-Mart and the subsequent government legislation allowing such reprehensible practices to continue. And, to be sure, this essay is more concerned with the affect of unions on increasing voter engagement than the potential ability of unions to remap our economic and political landscape. As our voices develop, the idea and strategy of unions as a necessary socio-political force in the comprehensive progressive consciousness will, hopefully, clearly emerge.