A Letter to Fellow Citizens
Imagine it is Thanksgiving 2024, just a few weeks after the general election, and you are visiting with friends, colleagues, and family. Imagine those conversations are more pleasant, more unifying, more constructive, and more hopeful than they were following the 2020 general election, when the country was torn, angry, and divided. What must happen between now and the conclusion of the 2024 election for the mood and spirit of the country to be more positive and promising?
One approach to answering that question is to look at specific things that went wrong previously and propose rule-based changes to prevent or minimize repeat behaviors. While some things do need attention, such efforts are largely treating symptoms rather than fundamental problems. A “rules” approach will not bring about a more unified and hopeful mood. A different understanding and perspective are necessary.
Many of us complain that the federal government is dysfunctional, divided, and unable to govern the country. We are concerned that the government continues to run large deficits, which increases the national debt. We complain about federal agencies when they are corrupt or incompetent. We are concerned when presidents use executive power to bypass the legislature. In all of this, our perspective is “the government” or “they” or “that agency.” This, I suggest, is where our perspective could change beneficially.
Here is an uncomfortable truth. Everything we now observe in our society, whether good or bad, is the result of the votes of citizens, present and past. Some of those votes are political; they took place at the ballot box. We cast other votes daily in the social and economic arenas. Every person in the legislature is there because of the votes of citizens. Every agency was created and is sustained by the votes of those legislators. Every economic policy was created and sustained by those we elected and sent to Washington.
As citizens of a free country, we have the amazing privilege and responsibility of selecting those who will govern us. Our role is that of citizen-ruler. Thus, if “the government” is not functioning, it means that we as citizens-rulers must change how we vote. The quality of our government depends on citizens having proper understanding and casting votes accordingly.
Our privilege and responsibility extends to the social and economic realms as well. While our ballot box votes occur rarely, we vote multiple times per day in those other realms, and by those votes we shape the structure of our economy and the culture of our society. A peaceful and prosperous society, one in which each citizen has an opportunity to flourish, depends on the political, economic, and social voting of citizens who value freedom and possess a proper understanding to guide their many votes.
Many Americans are concerned with our current situation. Indeed, we face serious problems which are becoming more dangerous and urgent. So how can we improve as citizen-rulers? How can we gain a better understanding to guide our voting to bring about genuine improvement rather than more tension? I will offer a few ideas which I believe are most useful in our current environment.
Too many of us have abandoned essential principles of democracy, including discussion, persuasion, compromise, and self-interest properly understood. As a result, each group is in a race for power either to protect their values and interests or to impose their values and interests on others. This race for power creates fear and anxiety among other citizens.
Each side of the political spectrum holds groups with ideas and agendas which are extreme compared to more moderate elements. Those fringe groups use the broader race for power to force their agenda. The result is a Congress that finds it difficult to rule. In response to this vacuum, presidents have increasingly turned to executive power to bypass Congress in attempts to achieve the objectives of their particular constituency. Consequently, the presidency becomes so powerful that each side believes any means are acceptable to win. It is a race for power so that one group of citizens can control another.
Democracy cannot survive under these conditions. Freedom, peace, and prosperity are not natural; they will be lost without careful nurturing. It is therefore essential and urgent to break the loop described above. How might citizen-rulers do this? At times, it may appear that the loop is so tight and the feelings so intense it is not breakable. That is not true, it is breakable. But how? More specifically, what can we do to interrupt or weaken this loop in the brief time before the upcoming election?
Our first step, the one on which all other actions depend, is a change in our understanding of what it means to be a citizen-ruler. Our role is to elect people who are dedicated to work for the good of all citizens. While legislators have a particular responsibility to their district or state, they also have a responsibility for the good of the country as a whole. We cannot begin solving problems and improving society if we remain rigidly partisan. We need a majority of citizens from both parties to find common ground rather than being held hostage by fringe groups.
We will discover that it requires more time of us as individuals to fulfill our role as citizen-ruler. We must better understand more of the issues. We must require more of those who want to be elected to govern our country. Those who can offer only platitudes and empty promises should be passed over in favor of those who demonstrate the character and knowledge commensurate with a national leader. Making such assessments requires citizens to take the time to go beyond advertisements and sound bites from news channels.
What began in the last general election will be more influential in the upcoming one. Surrounding the last election, many Americans were concerned about the flow of communication: disinformation, censorship, intentional deception, and the involvement of foreign countries. For two reasons, I think communication issues will be a larger influence in this election. First, tensions remain high, and the power loop discussed above is in full play. I am concerned that too many citizens feel justified in a win-at-all-cost mindset. Second, technology in general, and artificial intelligence in particular, makes it easier and more effective to create deceptive or fake information and censor information. Video and audio technology make it possible to represent a person doing and saying things that never happened. That is, we may see a video that realistically depicts a candidate doing or saying something yet is fake. The same applies to audio and text.
For the first time in history, we will no longer be able to believe what we see or hear unless those things have been validated by a trusted, first-hand witness. Unfortunately, at the same time citizens need more high-quality information to fulfill their duties as citizen-rulers, it has become easier to create misleading information. I am hopeful that in the years ahead, we will develop means to deal with that reality, but, for this election, it may create a confusing and contentious environment. What we know for sure is that it is not beneficial to have the government or major media and news channels attempt to “protect” us. That approach would put tremendous power into the hands of a few individuals.
Having accepted our expanded role as citizen-rulers, the second step is to change our assessments and attitudes toward fellow citizens. Too many of us hold others in contempt. Contempt destroys any relationship, including those among citizens. When arrogance and fear accompany contempt, it produces what we observe today. Freedom of speech is restricted because one group cannot bear to hear dissenting views. Some groups want their intolerant behavior to be seen as tolerant. One group sees another as so dangerous, incompetent, or intolerant that coercion or violence is justified. Democracy cannot survive such behavior.
A clash of worldviews, especially of values, has been building for decades and has now become the fundamental issue in our society. We have not yet begun the essential work to figure out how to handle this clash. We must begin this critical task now. What we do know is that our current approach—the use of power for coercion and violence—is not working and will only make it more difficult to find a real solution.
Therefore, our second step is to create an environment in which a viable solution can be found. This can only come through the actions of citizen-rulers. It cannot be mandated from the top down. Each of us must properly understand freedom and tolerance and then be willing to defend them. We can speak against coercion of fellow citizens—no matter how much we disagree with them. We can arrest our own thinking when we want to vilify, punish, or dominate another person or group. Until we return to a civil environment, until we remove reasons for one group to fear that another group will try to force them to live against their values, we cannot find solutions. This cooling down of society is primarily done by our social voting, but we can signal our desires at the ballot box in the general election.
We are in a long game. There are no quick fixes for our challenges. Our problems and perspectives developed over decades; we will not “fix” them in a few years. Any prospective leader who claims they can do so if only we elect them and give them enough power is not only wrong, they are also dangerous. Improvement and reform must come from us as citizen-rulers rather than to us from “the government” or others who hold great power.