The Vintage House hosted two great public education programs this last month which both shed light on the state of American democracy. Praxis Peace Institute sponsored a lecture entitled “Economy and Psychology: Real Depressions, Real Solutions” by noted economist Richard Wolff and his wife, psychotherapist Harriet Fraad. The last of an eight-week series entitled “Diminished Democracy,” taught by political science and public policy expert David Peritz, concluded February 25. The primary theme of the series was that the institutions of democratic governance are in decline, as reflected in the low rates of voter turnout and the paralysis of the political system in the face of mounting economic, social and environmental challenges.
We can see the evidence of diminished democracy right here in the Sonoma Valley. The center of political gravity in the Valley is the city of Sonoma, which only represents about 10,000 residents (mostly middle–class and affluent whites) out of a total population of about 35,000 who live in the region. Most of the population outside of the arbitrary boundaries of the city of Sonoma lives in The Springs and are majority low-income Latinos who work in agriculture, tourism, and food service.
Only the 1st District Supervisor addresses the problems and concerns of this large population outside the city of Sonoma. This has lead to a long-standing neglect of the infrastructure and social service needs of The Springs community. The democracy deficit is evident in the lack of opportunities for political leadership for Springs residents. All the action in local politics is centered on the competition between factions within the affluent Anglos who run for Sonoma City Council.
There are very few opportunities for the development of political leadership in the Latino community. You can’t run for ‘Mayor of The Springs.’ There are smart, well-connected community members who have the power to change this imbalanced and unsustainable political landscape. The issue is on the table.
The phenomenon of democratic decay is on full display in the presidential election contest in 2016. Where to start? The corporate media has cravenly abandoned any pretense of actually doing their job of public education to promote an informed electorate. The collapse of the U.S. media can be traced back to the Reagan Administration, which jettisoned the Fairness Doctrine, which had established a firewall between the news division and the business side of media companies. With that firewall erased, news departments were subordinated to the entertainment division. Political news now has to scrap for ratings, and the logic of the market has demolished the journalistic standards that they once professed.
This abject failure of mainstream media, the domination of the traditional party system by the plutocratic donor class in both parties, and the abolition of campaign finance regulation by the activist conservative judges on the Supreme Court are the primary causal links to the rise of an absurd and potentially dangerous figure like Donald Trump. He is winning the Republican primary by turning the primary process into a reality show. Every day brings a new low. The symbolic nadir of the Republican primary to date was Sarah Palin’s endorsement of Trump, which was memorably described as “train wreck endorses dumpster fire.” The debates on the Republican side have become like Jerry Springer episodes.
Trump has rewritten the playbook for Republican campaigns. His establishment Republican (read donor class) opponents came into the race thinking that they were getting into a boxing ring, and Trump turned it into a WWF wrestling match and started hitting them over the head with a chair. They can’t handle it. The vulgarity of the Republican debates is driving political deviance downwards, with no bottom in sight. The Democratic debates have been intense at times, but are a model of decorum compared to what’s going down on the other side. The Democratic primary contest is essentially a debate between an Eisenhower Republican and an FDR Democrat. That’s a legitimate discussion, with real policy substance. That’s what would be the norm if our politics were sane.
The mainstream media has lost its capacity to differentiate between political newsworthiness and the profit-driven imperative to run up ratings. The Citizen’s United ruling has opened the floodgates to vast amounts of dark money from unknowable sources, which is primarily being spent on TV, radio, and web ads. This bonanza for the media outlets, which are subsidiary units of mega-consortiums of large corporations, is a direct conflict of interest that is contributing to the devolution of American politics. No wonder you won’t see that story covered in the mainstream media. There’s too much money being made to call that cash cow into question. The political coverage consists of relentlessly shallow horse race analysis and TMZ style celebrity gawking. The narrow range of topics that are presented for our consumption by the network debate moderators rarely touch on the real issues facing the country.
There is almost no mention of the impending TPP trade agreement, the global climate crisis, the racialized prison-industrial complex, or the structural concentration of wealth that is hollowing out the middle class. If you hear those topics discussed, it is primarily because Senator Bernie Sanders is injecting it into the debate. The need for a political revolution, which will challenge the stale deadlock of the Washington Beltway conventional wisdom, becomes more apparent every day.
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