Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

I recently learned an important fact about youth particiation in electoral politics one that might seem like a very small thing on its face. It is a fact of electoral democracy -- at least here in my state, Massachusetts, that I had never heard before.  Well, OK, I learn things all the time I have never heard before. That's not why I am scandalized either.

But this fact to my mind, epitomizes why we are having a crisis of democracy in the United States. By crisis I mean that voter participation is shockingly low compared to other industrial democracies. I am not going to look up statistics, but I know that this is true.  Also true, is that about half of all registered voters in most places in the U.S. including Massachusettts (that supposedly bluest of the Blue states), are not enrolled in a political party. This decline in party affiliation, and political identity, has occurred at the same time as the rise of the power of money, political consultants and television in our most important election contests -- and the relative lack of interest in elections that are not driven by money, political consultants and television.

But there is one political movement in the U.S. that has outsmarted this dynamic, and become the best organized, and certainly one of the most powerful factions in American political life. We generically call this movement the Christian Right.

(Pardon me while I make what will seem like a further detour while I get around to the point of this essay.)

While we often make a great deal of the various theological and ideological streams within this movement, it is far from homogeneous, even as some people write and speak about it as if it was. Depending on who you are reading or listening to, you might think that the entire Christian Right is ready to be raptured into the clouds due to the imminent second coming of Jesus and that they don't care a whit about earthly matters. Others describe a Christian Right that is hell bent on a dominionist theocracy that is drawing inexorably nearer. Both of these are gross caricatures. As important as the theological camps of premillenial dispensationalsm and dominion theology are, religious and political reality is far more complicated. These are views that are highly variable in the extent to which people adhere to them and act on the political implications of each.

(An excellent primer on these matters and their political relevance is Chip Berlet's blog series on dominionism and theocracy.)

It is easy to become distracted by these things. Ideology is important, and it can be very alarming to learn about what some people think about the meaning of their lives in terms of theocracy or living in the end times.

But theology and ideology is only one piece of a much bigger puzzle in understanding the Christian Right social/political movement. I am not going to attempt to sort all these things out in this short space. (A lot of trees were cut and ink was spilled when I sought to do just that in Eternal Hostility:  The Struggle Between Theocracy and Democracy.

But drawing on what I do describe in Eternal Hostility, I recently wrote in The Public Eye, we can get a little desperate looking for explanations for the rise of the Christian Right.

...many Americans, regardless of their political orientation, seem genuinely baffled and obsessed about one or another factor in the rise to power of the Christian Right: they look to issues of funding, mass media, megachurches, dominionism, and so on. It is all of these and more. However, following the logic of Occam's Razor, that the best explanation is usually the simplest, I offer this: the Christian Right social movement, fueled by the growing influence of dominionist ideology, gained political influence because it was sufficiently well organized and willing to struggle for power. And now they are exercising it.

Indeed. And for the Christian Right, getting organized has meant getting organized politically, and most importantly electorally.  The Christian Right has become an effective and powerful force in electoral politics -- because that was their goal. The genius of the Christian Coalition was that it created a political culture and methdology of operating competantly across the election cycle, systematically building for power; learning about the rules and mechanics of electoral politics; Training and supporting candidates; Being smart about targeting key primaries and races. All this and more.

I will talk more about this in the coming weeks. And I will fess up to more of my own ignorance about how electoral democracy works in the U.S.

But here is what I learned that humbled me and caused me to write this piece:

In Massachusetts you can register to vote at age 17, as long as you will be 18 on or before the next town or city election.  

Well thinking to yourself, that's a pretty small thing. Is that really what Clarkson made me read this whole rambling essay to find out?  Why should anyone be humbled and scandalized by not knowing that?

Well, this is the thing. The Christian Right, a movement dedicated to ending constitutional democracy as we know it, is the best organized faction in American politics. They are successful because they take the time to learn how electoral democracy works and, well, their opponents are far less oriented to this.

I happen to know that this fact came as a big surprise to a lot of people who are very active in electoral life when it came up.

It seems to me, that being serious about defending and advancing constitutional democracy in our time, requires knowing how electoral politics works -- and becoming skilled practitioners. It means engaging young people in the values, the skill building -- and arguably the thrill -- of participation in electoral democracy. And to do that, it means that parents, schools, and proponents of constitutional democracy need to know enough about how our system works in order to be able to do that.

I am scandalized that I did not know about preregistration at age 17. I am scandalized that just about everyone I know in political life apparently did not know about this either. And my guess is that few if any of the readers of this essay know what the criteria are for voter registration for young people in their states.

I ask myself, how can I be effective in challenging the political power of the Christian Right if I do not know the basics of electoral democracy itself?

And I ask you -- how can you be effective in challenging the political power of the Christian Right if you do not know the basics of electoral democracy?

And I ask everyone, what can we do to better prepare young people for full participation in electoral democracy?