When Kimberley Strassel, writing about the upcoming presidential election, said “some elections are transformative; some are way stations to a new era” earlier this year, she wasn’t saying anything controversial.
This way station election though, has the potential to re-align American politics away from federally focused governance to a renewed system of state and local led governance.
According to the Pew Research Center, Americans’ trust in the federal government is at its lowest measured over nearly seventy years. Likewise, the number of Americans who hold unfavorable views of both political parties has reached an all time high.
Americans’ distrust the corrupt political systems that fly their political operatives into targeted areas like Navy SEALs on a mission to get the right people out to vote, then flee before they run into hostile locals.
Political parties used to be the backbone of local communities, often providing essential welfare services, running local governments, and building ground-up coalitions of principally minded individuals.
The issue that pits Americans against their political parties lies in the conversion of our political machines into institutions of number-crunching, advertisement-making, buzz-word typing Twitter warriors, whose wins are measured by retweets.
When American political science became a ‘science’ around the turn of the 20th century, it removed the political parties as parts of the foundation of American communities. Ever since, we have been commanded to trust the science
The national Grand Old Party, which defeated slavery and Communists through patronage and closed-door dealings, has been relegated to an open air colosseum anyone can enter to fight against other candidates for the honor of having that little “(R)” next to one’s name on the ballot.
Patronage and closed-door dealings might not sound like they align with the democratic values of our country, and of course we as Americans wouldn’t stand for any sort of revolving door between federal medical, military, agricultural, agencies and private companies. Right?
Nor could we stomach the idea that there are people making decisions on our behalf that we have little to no control over.
As a matter of fact, Progressives sought to remove political parties from our political system at the turn of the 20th century as a precursor to the expansion of the federal government.
It is no surprise to see that the decline of the local and state political party machines correlates with the rise of Progressive government programs and agencies.
During the 2020 election, Donald Trump and Joe Biden spent over five and a half billion dollars, both running to remake the federal government in their image. Of course, this necessitates spending inordinate amounts of money on fancy hotels, door flyers, TV ads, and data analysis. Trust the science.
What if instead, we allowed local parties to run states and communities, allowing citizens to vote for delegates who can hash out disagreements behind closed doors and then come together on a national stage to announce, with unity and strength, what the party believes and who is running for office.
What if instead of perusing the data on people’s election habits and interests to carefully curate a sampling of useless door flyers that can blow off their door into the neighbor’s bushes, we actually learned what they want?
The American political scientist James Wilson coined the term “Amateur Democrat” in his examination of big city machines, as the man interested in politics for the sake of advancing the interests of his people. The opposite, which we have in the supposed golden age of professional political operatives, is interested in politics as a game of winning and losing elections.
But how can we learn what the people want when our parties have avoided the people like the plague?
Perhaps – and this might sound crazy – parties should invest actual money, time, and people into communities. Aid churches in feeding and clothing the homeless, support local sports organizations, bolster arts programs, help the elderly and the sick.
A few billion across a little over three thousand counties in the US could certainly do some good. A system where parties are invested in communities would re-centers American politics on the local and state communities that ought to be making most decisions. Where the money goes, there lies the power.
The money that could be put to use in these communities is not the reason why parties should earn votes, but a sign of commitment in the community, backed up by local politicians whose constituents look to them to solve problems, not the federal government.
Just as the decline of our political system was a slow march through their institutions, so too will be the re-building of our political machines.
The march back to true representative government is only accomplished by people taking action in their local community. There can be no more complaining without trying to affect change in the places we can.
2024 will be a way station, either en route to another few decades of pendulum swing federal politics, or to a future that returns power to the people.
