18 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY NOVEMBER 14-20, 2024 www.montereycountynow.com Civics Lesson The Democratic Party should reject its consultant class in favor of local leadership. By Pete Davis FORUM Everyone is offering post-election “if onlys.” Some are tactical: if only Harris had gone on Joe Rogan. Some are ideological: if only she had a more populist vision. Many are fatalistic: if only America were different. One area of inquiry not getting enough attention is the civic structure of the Democratic Party. In her 2003 book, Diminished Democracy: From Membership to Management in American Civic Life, Theda Skocpol reports that in the early 1900s, civic life was mostly based in mass-membership organizations— religious congregations, unions, fraternal organizations (like the Elks or Rotary clubs) and political groups (NAACP, League of Women Voters). They were made up of local chapters that hosted meetings. These chapters are organized (or “federated”) into state and national committees. But American civic life started changing in the latter half of the 20th century. Mass communication became easier. Federal politics became more complicated, and a class of expert activists started professionalizing in Washington, D.C. National groups began hiring “donor management” and “member relations” consultants. Soon enough, Skocpol writes, “membership” no longer meant meeting up with one’s neighbors; it meant being on a list of people who would send checks to national managers in centers of power in exchange for a bumper sticker. As this transition progressed, America’s civic ecosystem collapsed. Wealthy donors became more powerful. And millions of Americans stopped feeling like public life was something of which they were co-owners. The Democratic Party was swept up in the transition. Instead of funding itself primarily through membership dues, the party offers fancy events for the wealthy—and ceaseless texts for the rest of us. On Democrats.org, clicking “Take Action” does not direct you to a page with local meeting times. The call-to-action button is “DONATE,” not “JOIN.” Consider how the party handled whether President Joe Biden should withdraw his candidacy. Party leadership never asked the membership of the party—county chairs who plan monthly meetings, the super-volunteers who knock on hundreds of doors each election cycle—to deliberate locally and weigh in. Rather, the membership watched as George Clooney, Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and wealthy donors decided for them. Fostering a culture of local, civic membership is a long-haul project—more like the planting of acorns than the planting of sunflower seeds. But what can distinguish Democrats is a vision for a civic reforestation project—a vision for how civic life could be repopulated, for how social and institutional trust could be rebuilt. Democrats could lay out a vision for rejuvenating our party’s namesake: democracy. And not just the democracy of elections—the democracy of everyday life, where we routinely and communally participate in power. This vision will ring hollow until we embody it ourselves. Pete Davis is a cofounder of Democracy Policy Network. This story first appeared in The Nation. OPINION America’s civic ecosystem collapsed.
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