American Democracy:

More Fragile Than We Think

Part Nine of a Nine-Part Series About the Evils of Gerrymandering
by David Brin, Ph.D.

Copyright © 2006, by David Brin.
All rights reserved. No duplication or resale without permission.

A final reprise:

We have been discussing a "modest proposal." One that probably has about as much chance of implementation as the one Swift offered, centuries ago. Certainly the politicians who guide our destiny will find it about as palatable.

If districts have been scornfully reworked in order to make the November general elections worthless, then everyone in a district should join the party of that district. Make the primary election the locus of real argument, real campaigning over issues, real voter participation. Real politics.

Oh, if this is ever tried on a big scale! If a movement like this really started to take off, you can well imagine how the desperate fanatics and old-style politicos will fight back.

They'll call it "cheating" -- with far more venom than they ever used against real fraud at the polls. Cross-registrants will be called "carpetbaggers" and reviled for cynically betraying their beliefs. Or they will be called "spoilers," who have crossed party lines in order to do harm, pull dirty tricks, or stack the majority party with bad candidates.

There may even be attempts to restrict party-switching. Will fanatics in each party try to stop it by requiring that party members pay dues and carry membership cards? Don't underestimate the "villains" in this play, who get to write and pass laws.

And then, every even-numbered year, the inevitable Quixotic, lesser party candidate will urge you all to "come on home...."

Which you are free to do, in November!

Remember this. Re-registering as a Democrat (or Republican), even though you were always a Republican (or Democrat) before, will not keep you from voting the old way come autumn.

What it will let you do is vote for the lesser of two evils in the primary, the true locus of decision making in your district.

You may be a conservative in a hippie-college town, fine. But just because a liberal will represent you, does that mean you cannot have a say when it's decided which liberal that will be?

Or if you are a progressive in a deep red county, okay, you are going to be represented by a conservative. Live with it. But maybe help support one who acts like a mensch, shows a smidgen of conscience, knows the meaning of compromise, won't take bribes, and might even make Barry Goldwater proud... instead of shrieking hysterically like Rush Limbaugh, while wallowing in K Street graft?

There's quite a range within the word "conservative." It may even be worth fighting over.

To moderates and modernists, whatever your official party or persuasion, there is one enemy here -- gerrymandered political radicalization.

That enemy has an ally, the insipid "team spirit" of identifying ourselves and our votes with the name, tokens and emblems of a simplistic political party system, even when registering with that party no longer makes any practical sense. Even when it serves no purpose other than robbing us of our franchise. Remember that our nation's founders distrusted political partisanship. It may be an inevitable and unavoidable vice. But we needn't let it turn into political cancer.

Stand up.

See labels for what they are, conveniences that can bind and enslave us, when we let them. If another label will let you do more with your citizenship, don't be shy. Take it!

Call this a Voters' Revolt Against the Calculated Manipulation Of the Electoral Process By Professional Politicians.

Call it a movement to transform the disenfranchised minority in every gerrymandered district into an important swing bloc.

Call it a way to help pick nicer conservatives instead of haters, in each red-county primary. And for decent conservatives in blue-urban America to hold accountable some lefty flakes.

If the politicians have arranged, manipulated, and effectively declared one party to be the party of your district, then join the official party of the district... and make it better!

It seems so logical, like an immune reaction by an inflamed body politic, responding against a cancer spread by self-interested politicos. Take back our constitution-given right to vote meaningfully for our legislatures.

Only now the rub. In this day and age, without help from billionaires or journalists or politicians, would something like this have even the chance of an arctic glacier in global warming?

As for me? I plan to fight however I can to help one of the parties prevail over the other, because (in my judgement) it has better policies overall and shows greater overall sanity. And because lately, things have started to get very scary for a civilization based on accountability and the Enlightenment.

Still, there is another level. One where I know that political parties are busy turning themselves into dinosaurs. The Age of Amateurs is coming, and with it, a rising age of the New Citizen: smarter, savvier, more agile and empowered by both education and technologies that gather information faster than the speed of thought. In this future, the tussle will not be between left vs right, democrat vs conservative. What appears to be looming, ahead of us, is irritability and conflict between citizens and a lazy professional political caste.

A caste that we cannot do without. Indeed, many of them are decent, skilled, dedicated. But they need a rap on the knuckles to punish laziness. They must be forced to recognize -- the citizens are back.

It won't be easy and the transition needs our help. We're going to have to innovate, act swiftly, take the initiative. Prove that citizens are worthy of respect.

Lift your head, now and then, from daily battles. Look at the horizon.

In a reversal of the "yellow dog" philosophy, I don't really care if it's a Democrat or a Republican, so long as it's reasonable, moderate, broadminded, forward-looking, honest, accountable... and human.