As Americans wake up this morning to news of not one, but two, mass shootings, we know several things will happen in their wake. There will be many sad posts and tweets offering thoughts and prayers about this “tragic event,” much to the disgust of the people who have been arguing for gun control and reinforced regulations for decades now. (I put the words “tragic event” in quotations only because it seems that a true tragedy has an element of unpredictability in it. But Americans have lost the right to call these shootings “unpredictable.” They are now the norm, rather than the exception, and if there’s anything that should terrify us into action, this is it.) There will be renewed hand-wringing and protests as well. Perhaps these things will have an effect, but I worry that they won’t–not until we revolutionize the way we think about our political responsibilities.
In other words, I am arguing that these shootings are the result of the failure of democracy. And by failure, I don’t mean that people aren’t getting out and voting–that’s just part of the problem, although a very big part of it. Obviously we need to get voters activated so that we stop electing people who are creatures of large PACs like the NRA, who do not get their marching orders from shadowy figures donating to campaign election committees who then lurk in the background, controlling the politicians they’ve bought. We need to stop these things from happening, but we will not be able to until we face a hard truth: that voting for a candidate, no matter how decent and credible, will not be enough to correct this problem. And if we do not correct this problem, if we do not clean up our political environment, we will destroy it, just as we are destroying our natural environment.
Yet I believe we can solve this problem. The solution will come, however, only if people get out of their comfortable chairs, off their well-padded behinds, and become politically active. They will have to act, and they will have to act now. It will be tremendously difficult, but without a revolutionary shift in our attitude and behavior, our way of life is toast, and we may as well utter a few thoughts and prayers for democracy itself.
I get it: politics are dirty. They’ve always been dirty. But if we simply accept this situation without fighting it, we will be compelled not only to endure it, but to add to it, to reinforce the dirtiness, the graft, the corruption that’s taking hold of our state and federal governments and choking the life out of them. I know what I’m talking about. When I ran for office in 2012, I saw the look on people’s faces when I knocked on doors to introduce myself. It amounted to a couple of sneering questions–“what’s in it for you? Why would you do this?” These people never had the guts to state their questions outright, and I was too inexperienced at politics then to say, “Nothing. Nothing is in this for me. In fact, it’s costing me a good bit of money, as well as time spent with my family. But I’m doing this because I believe in democracy, and because I believe that it’s important for every citizen to do what she can to make democracy work.” To be honest, my own mother was averse to me running for office. I think she was somewhat ashamed of me, in fact. I will put it this way: if I had gone on a weekend bender, gotten drunk, stripped off my clothes and jumped into the fountain at the center of town, I think she would have had something like the same attitude. “Lord knows why she’s doing this–maybe she’ll get it out of her system,” she would say, shrugging her shoulders. Now, as much as I love my mother, this attitude is what is killing our democracy. Sure, there are corrupt people in politics. But they’re there because we have a hands-off, holier-than-thou attitude; heaven forbid we should sully our own pure hands by digging in and confronting the dirt in our political system. After decades of shrugging our shoulders and turning our backs to the corruption, we have gotten what we deserve: a filthy mass of self-serving bureaucrats who are lining their pockets, amassing more and more power, and doing whatever is required to to protect their interests–and all at the expense of the citizens of this country.
When will it stop? The answer is simple. This outrage will stop only when enough people stand up and decide that they are tired of it. Protests are good, but they are not enough. Voting is good, too, but it’s not enough, either. The situation will change for the better only when enough good people run for office, when they enter the halls of government to find that things are surely not perfect, but that they are not inherently evil or corrupt, and that with hard work and serious effort–and by this I do not mean just sticking a sign in our lawns or donating money to a candidate, although those things are important, too–we can change the face of politics in this land. If we work hard, and if we work together, we can make it an honorable thing to run for election. We can make running for office every bit as worthy of respect as winning an election. So here’s my short answer to the problems we face today: we need more good people running for office, and to make this happen, we have to learn to respect those people who do run. After all, we thank armed service members all the time for doing the jobs they do. Yet without good people in government, what is there for them to defend? A flag? An economy? A culture that is so emptied of ethics and decency that all that matters to it is winning, at whatever cost?
I’ll sign off with one final thought. The next time a political aspirant calls you or appears at your door or in a televised debate, instead of sneering, instead of wondering what their “real” motivation is, take one small step: thank them for their time and their service. It’s a small step, but maybe, having taken it, you might just feel yourself motivated to take another one and do more to save our democracy.
Because, as I’ve said before, democracy was never meant to be a spectator sport.
The Tabard Inn 