Democracy Is Fragile

Lots of people have been linking to the “Goodbye to All That” essay by Mike Lofgren, which is definitely a must-read. Lofgren, a long-time Republican congressional staffer, explains how the current Republican Party is destroying “democratic process and America’s status as the world’s leading power.”

Now James Fallows provides follow-up comments from a former Democratic staffer. The anonymous staffer seconds what Lofgren wrote, and adds some more. A bit:

I don’t think people realize how fragile democracy really is. The 2012 campaign is currently looking to be the final nail in the coffin unless people start to understand what is going on.

One thing that especially resonated with me about Mike’s piece is the importance of “low information” voters. The mainstream media absolutely fails to understand how little attention average Americans really pay to what goes on in all forms of government. During our 2008 race, our pollster taught me (hard to believe it took me 24 years to learn this) that the average voter spends only 5 minutes thinking about for whom to vote for Congress. All the millions of dollars of TV ads, all the thousands of robo-calls and door-knocks, and it all comes down to having a message that will stick in the voters’ minds during the 5 minutes before they walk into the voting booth.

The media likes to call this group “independents,” which implies that they think so long and deeply about issues that they refuse to be constrained by the philosophy of either party. There may be a couple of people out there who fit that definition, but those are not the persuadable voters campaigns are trying to capture. Every campaign is trying to develop its candidate into an easy-to-remember slogan that makes him or her more appealing than the other guy. Actually, because negative campaigning is so effective, they are more often trying to portray the opponent as more objectionable (“I guess I’ll vote for the crook because at least he won’t slash my Medicare”).

Yeah, people are self-absorbed and lazy and take democracy for granted. But it’s also the case that you cannot rely on television or radio to get useful background on candidates and find out what’s really going on in Congress. Fox News aside, I doubt most of the bobbleheads appreciate how badly they serve viewers and listeners, and how little real information manages to trickle through the noise and hype and into the ears of most citizens.

The recent debt ceiling fiasco is a good example. I still doubt that a majority of Americans know what the “debt ceiling” is and what refusing to raise it actually would have meant, and I didn’t see news media explaining it to them.

And demagogues and dictators do love a vacuum.