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I won’t be
voting in our Pennsylvania primary on Tuesday. I’ve been promoting voter
registration for months now, inviting attention to the League of Women Voters’ Vote411,
which offers sample ballots and voter information, and posting winning videos
from our League of Women Voters 2016 video contest: Your Voice, Your Vote, Be Heard!
But I won’t be
voting myself, because I’m registered as unaffiliated, and PA’s primaries are
closed to unaffiliated voters.
In January,
Gallup reported that forty-two
percent of Americans identify as political independents. That percent is much
lower in PA, due to our closed primaries, but still more than 1.1 million
choose not to identify with one of the two major parties.
I consider our closed primaries a
form of taxation without representation.
Yes, I could
register with a party to exercise my right to vote in the primary Tuesday.
Except,
honestly, I can’t.
There are parts
of both parties’ platforms I agree with. (Here are both: Republican, Democrat)
There are major
parts in both I think are wrong-headed, counterproductive, unsustainable.
I could
compromise on those. Maybe.
But my concern
goes past platform and policy to practice and power.
I read an essay recently by
Os Guinness (an excerpt from his 2002 book, Time for Truth: Living Free in a World of Lies, Hype and Spin, published in the Veritas Forum's A Place for Truth):
If there's no truth and everything is only power, ours is a world of brutal manipulation in which the strong will win and the weak will always go to the wall – and that's a horrendous world.
I fear the horrendous world he describes is hurrying toward us.
And I fear our
political parties have lost sight of core values like truth, justice, the
common good, and instead depend on manipulation to maintain power and justify
control.
Not everyone:
there are good people in both parties. I've met some. I know of others.
But the parties
themselves, the power structures within them, the games they play: I am appalled by much I see and hear.
Listen to
the discussion surrounding primaries, delegates, conventions, dark money, donors: anything
approaching real democracy died a long time ago.
Yes, I know: anyone
attempting to accomplish anything at all faces the challenge of balancing the desire
to forward reasonable ends with the need to influence in appropriate ways.
This is true at
the most elemental level: caring for my favorite toddler, I want to move us
toward hands washed, lunch on the table, food delivered to open mouths.
There’s a point
where the end may justify a small application of both force and reward (picking
him up and setting him in his seat; withholding more juice until cheese and
fruit are eaten). But even in the smallest drama, there’s a dangerous desire to
have things go my way just because: because I’m in charge. Because I don’t like
aggravation. Because I said so. Because.
On the political
level, yes, it makes sense for parties to work toward agreed on goals, applying
appropriate influence in reasonable ways.
Unfortunately,
the more I see of our two major parties, the clearer it is that desire for
power long superseded any interest in reasonable goals or appropriate methods.
As I’ve
mentioned before, I’ve been working on redistricting reform. Every ten years,
the federal census paves the way for reapportionment of congressional seats:
states that grow get more seats in the House of Representatives; those that
lose population may have less. That necessitates changes in congressional
electoral districts, but most states also adjust state legislative districts at
the same time to keep districts relatively even in size.
Most democratic
countries do something similar, and in most, the redistricting process is
handled by independent redistricting commissions composed of impartial
demographers, mapmakers, retired judges or other citizens, with strict rules for how lines are to
be drawn and clear standards of evaluation.
In Pennsylvania,
as in most American states, the legislators draw and approve the maps that
determine their elections, an obvious conflict of interest.
The result has
been, since early in our democracy, lines drawn to favor the party in power.
Another word for it: gerrymandering.
I described this
in much more detail back in 2014.
But here’s what
I’ve learned since:
Our two major
parties have spent millions trying to capture legislatures in redistricting
years in order to control the redistricting process in order to control
Congress and state legislatures.
Yes, of course,
I get it: parties exist to help their candidates win elections, in hopes of
controlling the processes, in hopes of getting their own bills enacted.
What I’m describing
goes way beyond that. Essentially, it’s legal voter fraud. Manipulation of
processes to guarantee that voters’ voices are discounted.
In North Carolina, that meant corralling minority candidates into two strangely drawn
districts to restrict their influence across a wider area.
In Virginia, a
similar move is under Supreme Court review.
In Pennsylvania,
partisan redistricting divided post-industrial cities into surrounding suburbs
or farmland to ensure the voices of poor, urban communities have little
influence in policy or funding.
Both parties
play the game, but the Republicans have been more organized and better funded.
They’ve already announced plans for the 2020 redistricting process: RedMap 2020.
Manipulation of
maps is a cynical, insidious form of voter fraud. It deprives voters of choice,
pushes parties toward extremes, ensures legislative gridlock and undermines
voter engagement.
I put together a
simple graphic to help explain the dynamic I’m describing. I’ve been using it
to promote a petition in support of redistricting reform.
I hear people
complain about candidates who lie, stretch the truth, manipulate, take dark
money, promise things they can’t possibly provide.
It’s always the
other candidate: the one they don’t support.
And I hear
people explain their vote because any other vote would allow the opposition to
win. Or would put party control in jeopardy.
I go back to
that quote I’ve been carrying with me:
If there's no truth and everything is only power, ours is a world of brutal manipulation...
I posted last week about this time of unraveling we’re living in.
The idea of truth itself is
unraveling, has been unraveling, is now as thin as a gossamer strand of spider
web, floating on the unsettled air.
If truth no longer matters,
what we have left is manipulation.
And a brutal game of chess in
which we are all, only, pawns.
I have been praying about my
own role in this unfolding story.
For now, I feel called to
work on redistricting reform, to look for other ways to strengthen the voice of
those shut out of our political process. And I feel called to say, as clearly and often as I can, I believe
truth matters.
This post is my vote for real democracy. The vote I’m not able
to cast on Tuesday.
I admire others I know whose
callings lead them in other ways: living and working in tough urban
neighborhoods. Protesting and praying on capital steps in DC and Harrisburg. Writing,
teaching, volunteering. Working the polls. Walking with the poor. Running for
office. Writing policy.
Here’s my please:
Please don’t fall for
manipulation. Don’t look past the lies. Don’t excuse the game.
Don’t just pray that the best
person win.
Pray for your own role in
that. Your own vote. Your own voice.
Please don’t watch in silence
as the best manipulator wins.
