A Strategy for a Greater Democracy of the People

By William Wood, Ph.D. & Jock Gill

The May 26 edition of the Boston Globe printed an AP story with some fascinating data on the 2004 election in the United States:

Turnout of blacks, whites said higher in '04 presidential vote
Rates seen unchanged for Hispanics, Asians

By Associated Press
May 26, 2005

WASHINGTON -- Whites and blacks voted in the 2004 presidential elections at higher rates than they did four years earlier, the Census Bureau reported yesterday.

That was not the case with Hispanics, one of the most heavily courted groups of voters by the political parties. The voting rates did not change for Hispanics or Asian-Americans.

For too long the Democratic party has fallen into the zero sum trap of gender and identity politics. For too long one group has feared that anything given to another group must come at their expense. The GOP has been very effective splitting us along our identity lines in using this against us. It is time for us to take steps to adopt an all inclusive, win-win, strategy based upon justice and civil liberties for all. This is a strategy of high values for escaping from the identity conflicts that have plagued us for years.

The data in the AP story above, as illustrated by the Boston Globe, reveals the close tracking, going back to the election of 1964, of white voter turn out with black voter turn out. This calls into question the validity of the old Democratic political strategy of banking on the Black vote to gain the winning majority. The 40 years of data show that this may be a strategy with no benefit in terms of total vote count advantage. Increasing the participation of all demographics is, without a doubt, essential and the morally correct thing to do. But, by focusing especially on a narrow range of demographics, have we been missing a significant source of votes we are not getting precisely from a lack of attention and general neglect? Do we need a new strategy?

Even more interesting than the tracking of voter behaviors is the data on why folks do NOT vote:

#1 reason for not voting: 19.9% report they are too busy = too many Walmart jobs in our Globalized economy? Is this agricultural slavery simply shifted to wage slavery?

#2 reason: 15.4% report illness or disability

Thus 35% of the not currently voting population is too busy, too sick or disabled to fully participate in our democracy. What, as Democrats, have we done for these people? How have we made their lives better? These are the votes of the people, not the money. These are the votes we must go after as the party of full civil rights and justice for all. These 35% of non voters are an important group of disenfranchised Americans we can recognize, support and help to organize to help us all in our cooperative drive to regain our logical majority status.

Two obvious strategies to attract the 35% who are too busy, sick or disabled to vote:

1] Make election days full national holidays -- make business, the money party, give back to society and the greater common good by giving back one day of paid wages to democracy and self government.

2] Make it our policy to insist on full civil rights and justice for all Americans of all demographics. We must demand, for example, full ADA access to every single voting place. We should refuse to enter non ADA complaint structures just as we refuse to cross picket lines. We have to walk the talk if we want to our professed values to be believed and trusted.

Here is a hint: read Victor Hugo an Herman Melville from the point of view of the disabled. Now, is the White Whale the majority society that drives the handicapped, amongst others, to madness? What is the message in making a hunchback the hero? Question: where are the disablility literature courses in our schools and universities? If none, why?

On a more delicate issue, for 1000s of years we have called "the other", and especially the handicapped, "dirty" and banned them from our various houses of worship. Is your church, for example, fully ADA compliant? We have 1,000s of years of antipathy towards "the other" and the disabled that we, as the party that stands for full civil rights and justice for all, need to overcome. If we do not, how can we regain our leadership position in our great national debate about values?

Posted by Jock Gill at May 26, 2005 10:57 AM | TrackBack